My encounter with Venzuelan Americans

[mcar]

SO and I run a small non-profit organization in which we collect surplus medical supplies from area hospitals. We have a group of mostly student volunteers who sort, inventory, and box the supplies. We work with other charities and contacts to get the supplies overseas where they are desperately needed.

In June, SO got 3 tons of supplies to Poland, where some of our Ukrainian contacts drove over the border to pick it up. They sent us photos of soldiers on the front lines with boxes of our supplies.

One of our other focuses is Venezuela. Some members of a Venezuelan charity in Orlando own a pack and ship store near the airport. A few weeks ago we rented a truck and brought many boxes of supplies to them (they cover the shipping costs, which is huge for us).

It was a Saturday afternoon. The store was closing in about 30 minutes. It was packed with people carrying in bags and boxes of clothes, shoes, and other items to be shipped - on their dimes - to family in Venezuela. The small lobby was filled with boxes already prepared for shipping.

People in Venezuela have nothing. They only get what they can from hard-working family and friends in the US and groups like ours. The people that DeathSantis kidnapped for his cute little political stunt were legally seeking asylum from a failing state.

The Republicans don't give a crap about Communism. To them every migrant at the border is nothing more than a photo op. I am so grateful for the people of Martha's Vineyard for turning Ronnie's little trick against him.

[Thunderbeast]

1. Help the Martha's Vinyard community take care of the kidnap victims

https://www.gofundme.com/f/f5tae-help-marthas-vineyard-migrants

[underpants]

2. What a wonderful thing you do

Thank you

[brer cat]

3. Thank you so much for your work, mcar,

and for sharing this with us.

[UTUSN]

4. Immense appreciation for what you do. At the crass level of politics, what the 1st gen Cuban exiles

demonstrated was that wingnuts in their own countries will be wingnuts here. It's my vast generalization. That first gen of exiles were adherents of the Rightwing dictator BATISTA. They were anti-"Communist" - fine. And even if they found allies in the then anti-"Red" CIA supposedly in the name of "freedom" they turned against JFK for not sending planes and blew their JFK-hated into hatred of the Democratic party at large. Ironically, with CASTRO causing havoc for Dem presidents, they unwittingly became allied with him.

I barely know anything about Venezuelan politics, only that CHAVEZ was, MADURO is, as CASTRO was, not so much a "Communist" but just another a-hole dictator out for his own billions in hidden banks. My anecdotal non-evidence is one Maria Conchita ALONSO, the (starlet?), who appropriately voices her STRONG anti=CHAVEZ/MADURO sentiments, but adds on that extra layer of American wingnuttiness HERE: She's anti-vax and I think anti-Dem. I have zero idea how the Venezuelan refugees at large fit in the spectrum of politics here.

That said, years ago there were strong, IDEALISTIC (Progressive?) DU voices who strongly supported CHAVEZ. I detest blowhard dictators of whatever persuasion and posted some (not many, since I'm a shallow, surface type) attacks on CHAVEZ and for a time got pigeonholed as an anti-Progressive. Despite my repeated attempts to make distinctions of LOVING my IDEALISTIC fellow DUers separate from my detestation of CHAVEZ, it took the full reveals of who CHAVEZ really was before things simmered down.

I definitely agree that "The Republicans don't give a crap about Communism" - And hereby whip my wet blanket off of the wonderful work the OP does, thank you.