Thank you for the excellent write up. This is a level of manipulation that is seen in more democratic countries than Venezuela. Democracy has become a word, like "patriotism" that can be used to put an air of benevolence on something sinister, and distract a general population from discerning more complicated measures at work. Even in a government with proper checks and balances in place, the incentive for power to seek to enrich and perpetrate itself will almost always embolden it to do such, and it will invariably succeed without a vigilant public.