The pundits complaining that the "US is not supposed to look like this" and comparing it to the targets of imperial aggression aren't WRONG - in their world-order, other countries look like Texas does now so the US can enjoy its prime position as world-hegemon.

They are expressing the truth of US empire. Texas ISN'T supposed to have empty shelves and no infrastructure. That's supposed to happen to colonies and semi-colonies. They are outraged because the failures of imperialism are finally coming home.

It follows, of course, that the deep-seated liberal disease is to call everything they don't like communism and lay at the doorsteps of those trying to construct socialism their own real errors: so when Ian Bremmer says "this is just like Venezuela" he both means that 1) the

empire was supposed to reduce Venezuela to this so Texas was kept safe, and 2) he cannot conceive of the failures of capitalism, so every failure must actually be "like" a country that is being choked by an imperial blockade.

In fact, however, in a country undergoing socialist

construction, the shortages are the result of capitalist interference. In a capitalist country, the shortages are STILL the result of capitalist management and the anarchy of production, etc. Thus, both kinds of shortage stem from the same source: capitalist-imperialists.