Just when they couldn't sink further. From the Miami Herald:
Venezuela introduces Cuba-like food card
Presented by President Hugo Chavez as an instrument to make shopping for groceries easier, the "Good Life Card" is making various segments of the population wary because they see it as a furtive attempt to introduce a rationing card similar to the one in Cuba.
The measure could easily become a mechanism to control the population, according to civil society groups.
"We see that in short-term this could become a rationing card probably similar to the one used in Cuba," Roberto Leon Parilli, president of the National Association of Users and Consumers, told El Nuevo Herald. "It would use more advanced technological means [than those used in Cuba], but when they tell you where to buy and what the limits of what you can buy are, they are conditioning your purchases."
Chavez said Tuesday that the card could be used to buy groceries at the government chain of markets and supplies.
A bit of history about Cuba:
Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said that Venezuela's current problems of scarce supplies are very similar to those Cuba faced when Fidel Castro introduced the rationing card.
"The card emerged when goods began to become scarce," Suchlicki said. "The government had seized many companies that did not work because the government managed them poorly. Then they decided to distribute groceries through those cards."
And although the cards were introduced as a mechanism to deal with scarcities, Suchlicki said, they later became an instrument of control.
"People depended on the government to eat, and nothing gives you more power than having people depend on you to get their food quota," he said.
And of course by not investing in Venezuela's physical infrastructure, the citizens will be in a world of hurt when Chavez finally does get booted out of office. Sad...
