While oil price has, as I previously stated, undeniably impacted Venezuela's income, how much impact is impossible to extricate from the excessive noise that obscures that specific signal. We can't know how much prior economic interference already had impacted Venezuela prior to price affects, nor if such interference abated after oil prices exerted their influence - which could practically eliminate the actual effect of oil price changes, if such intereference was severe enough.

Without actual data WE CAN'T KNOW. Assertions are therefore nothing more than opinions based on assumptions, and have no basis in provable data and relevant facts.

As to the assertions your friend is making absent actual data to separate signal from noise, they can only be just what I have indicated: assumptions, and since data to support them is not available, they cannot be anything more.

As an American, I do not dispute that I vehemently oppose my authority being usurped to murder people around the world, surveil Americans without lawful justification, or any number of crimes against humanity that are provably laid at the feet of the USG. I don't think that makes me un-American. Instead I note that the statements of the founders of this country, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence which they composed to institute it, and the inherent rights and sovereign authority of natural persons endowed by virtue of their actual existence with those rights, are the very essence of America, and those are things which I support unreservedly, not only for me, my family, friends, community and nation, but for all people everywhere, in all times, and under any circumstances.

Lastly, do your own research. The Guri dam was controlled via PLCs which aren't particularly sophisticated and are practically ubiquitous in such facilities. If your friend asserts that pre-1950s tech was used to build the dam and was never upgraded, I must seriously question his integrity.