This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, February 24th, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown. Crackdowns in Venezuela are accelerating.

It's more dangerous now than ever to oppose the regime of

Nicholas Maduro. Average Venezuelans are also having a far more difficult time

procuring the most basic products of civilization. Ian Vasquez directs the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, he comments.

The situation in Venezuela has deteriorated so much in economic terms, political terms, social terms, that the regime is starting

to radicalize and crack down even more than in the past.

And let's not make any mistakes about it.

This is a dictatorship and it has been for several years.

It's a regime that controls the military. It controls the Congress. It controls.

It's shut down newspapers and television stations and radio stations for all intents and purposes.

It controls the media.

It controls the Central Bank, it controls the national oil monopoly.

It controls the electoral tribunal, which makes the rules and judges whether

politicians can run on elections it uses democracy or the trappings of

democracy as a way to legitimize its form of authoritarian

rule and this is what the the political opposition has to contend with and it's mostly been doing it through public displays of protest,

which culminated in massive marches during much of the year,

last year, where hundreds of thousands and millions of people came out in March

against the government,

for much of the year throughout the country, but the regime continues to crack down.

There were numerous people who got killed by government forces.

...