Glenn Greenwald: President Obama sanctions Venezuela, embraces Saudi Arabia.

[geek tragedy]

26. of course the US looks the other way on the Saudis because they play ball.

I do not see historical evidence for the claim that the US tries to cripple the economy of every country that doesn't bow in servitude to Washington. I don't even see much evidence for it in the case of Venezuela. We don't like their government, but the current 'sanctions' are pretty much symbolic and only a minor escalation from sending home their deputy assistant attaché from the consulate.

We certainly weren't doing anything to try to hurt Russia until they started invading their neighbors. Russia's economy was actually doing okay up until the Ukraine fiasco.

The reason VZ and RU are really hurting right now is that they run gas station economies where the operative assumption is that money is something that comes out of the ground rather than something people work for or build stuff for. If Russia and Venezuela actually made stuff people wanted, they'd be doing a lot better.

They've been monoline petrostates under both leftwing and rightwing governments. Until they diversify their economies, they're going to be very vulnerable to the whims of a single commodity's market price.