is hell right now.

Now invite you to think about how we got there. In addition to Chavez's failures (making the Bolivarian project a more sustainable one being cheif among them, though some of the things you referenced had been in the works before his death, most of them fell apart. And he died before the oil crash btw), and Maduro's ineptitude (among plenty of other things), there's at once the issue of the United States directly funding political groups who were against Chavez (and are now against Maduro). Directly funding them. For years. There's also as posted above the role of Venezuela's economic elite in trying to destablize the government and economy in order to produce regime change. And I invite you to read the following from Democracy Now today.

"The sanction that prohibits Citgo from remitting profits to Venezuela is a very important measure. It means that the Venezuelan government is being deprived of approximately $1 billion a year. But in addition to that, the sanctions also stipulate that Venezuela practically cannot refinance its foreign debt, which is something logical that any country facing a difficult economic situation would do. The sanctions prohibit U.S. financial institutions from having any transaction, any interaction with the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA.

But, Juan, in addition to that, there is a major impact in terms of discouraging commercial and financial interests throughout the world from any kind of transaction with Venezuela. There is a list of 70—approximately 70 Venezuelan officials who are being sanctioned. And that translates into a situation in which the U.S. government, and specifically Steven Mnuchin, the secretary of the treasury, has undertaken different investigations, workshops with representatives of Japan, Europe, Latin America, in order to find out where the shell companies are. In other words, he has created a situation in which commercial interests throughout the world are afraid to have anything to do with Venezuela. That amounts to virtually a block—an economic blockade."

The US has made it impossible for Venezuela to refinance it's debt, and has prevented it from working with other commercial interests (including countries) from working with the nation to solve it's problems. Let's think about those things together.

Actually you should read or watch the entire interview from Democracy Now today. Here are all 4 parts.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/25/how_washingtons_devastating_economic_blockade_of

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/25/venezuelan_foreign_minister_the_us_interferes

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/25/historian_venezuela_is_staging_ground_for

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/25/codepinks_medea_benjamin_disrupts_pompeo_speech