The underlying problem
In 2007, John Pilger made a documentary called War On Democracy covering several S. American nations but including Venezuela in particular. If you have 90 minutes to spare I thoroughly recommend it. As usual, he really gets to the heart of the matter. Throughout this piece, I will link to specific clips from the film so that you can access the relevant detail even if you don’t have 90 minutes to spare right now
As a quick introduction here is John Pilger. on US Empire building.
“President Bush has promised to rid the world of evil and to lead the great mission to build “Free societies” on every continent. To understand such an epic lie is to understand history, hidden history, and suppressed history. The History that explains why we in the west understand a lot about the crimes of others but almost nothing about our own. The missing word is Empire, the existence of an American Empire is rarely acknowledged, or it is smothered in displays of jingoism that celebrate war and an arrogance that says that no country has a right to go its own way UNLESS that way coincides with the interests of the United States.
Empires have nothing to do with freedom, they are vicious, they are about conquest and theft and control and secrets. Since 1945 the United States has attempted to overthrow 50 governments, many of them democracies. In the process, about 30 of them have been attacked and bombed causing the loss of countless lives.”
Background check.
I cannot count how many times people on social media have trotted out the mindless “Socialism is really great huh? just take a look at Venezuela” So yes lets just do that shall we, let’s take a meaningful look?
Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998 after the previous right-wing President had been jailed on corruption charges. This followed 30 years of “populist” (ie Popular with US Governments) leaders, who came and went and invariably left the Venezuelan economy deeper in debt than when they arrived, mainly because they were selling oil to the US at below production prices.. When Chavez took over in 1998 the Venezuelan GDP was the same as it had been in 1963 – That’s what you get with rampant corruption..35 years of bugger all benefit to the Nation as a whole but 35 years of loaded Gravy Train for the wealthy right-wing elites and their tame media bosses. It’s worth noting here that Chávez was first elected as president in 1998 and was re-elected in 2000, again in 2006 and finally in 2012. In answer to many accusations that Venezuelan Elections are rigged, I quote a former US President, “Jimmy Carter, hardly noted for his Left Wing sympathies, who said: “Of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”
- When Chavez took over in ’98, 21% of Venezuelans were malnourished, under his leadership that figure had fallen 5% in 2012.
- In 1990 Infant mortality had been logged at 25 deaths per 1000 in 1990 but was halved to 13/1000 with ever more people coming under the healthcare umbrella.
- There had only been 18 Doctors per 10,000 members of the population in 1998 and under Chavez that number rose to 58 per 10,000 by 2012.
- None of this took place in an atmosphere of so-called purges and killings of right-wingers, plenty of members of the elite still managed to flourish and enjoy themselves despite the democratic socialist process
So there you have it, Socialism is clearly unsuccessful for the fat cats but it has meant the first access ever to Education or Healthcare for millions of people. If that’s a failure give me some more. If you want to see who the real Snowflakes of this story are Mr. Pilger interviews 2 gentlemen at their homes in Caracas. Both stinking rich and both hating the very ground that Chavez walked on. Even enjoying a playboy lifestyle with weekly 1st Class trips to Miami doesn’t placate them. I very much doubt they have even bothered to find out what good work is being done in the hovels of the poor. One of the clowns, from the comfort of his million dollar mansion, even stated to the camera that he feared his current situation compared with the Bolshevik Revolution. If you consider that 95% of Venezuelan media is owned by the right wing it is pretty certain that we would have heard long and loud of any Bolshevik revolution and right wing blood flowing in the streets surely??? Like most of the Right wing press worldwide, that are happy to yell Blue Murder, Plundering and Pillage, they disappear in a cloud of smoke as soon as you demand to see the bodies or any other kind of evidence.
It is important to understand here that Chavez had enjoyed success using the profits from the sale of the nation’s oil. For much of his term of office Venezuela had benefited from fairly high oil prices world wide. This gave him the much-needed support he needed to deliver the Health and Education programs. Could this high oil price possibly be the reason why he was so much hated by the US and Western governments? Surely not, who would begrudge a country like Venezuela the pleasure of educating and caring for its citizens using its own “God Given” riches..surely not the nice “God Fearing” ladies and gentlemen of the White House and the Pentagon?
Chavez “died” in 2013 at the relatively young age of 58. During the entire time he was President of Venezuela, numerous threats and attempts were made on his life and he was portrayed in our media as a murderous extreme left-wing dictator.(The media never actually supported their claims with evidence though) He clearly put the US administrations nose out of joint, and its equally clear they were up to their necks in the dirty business of trying to remove him from office by any means possible. Would this have included his assassination? They wouldn’t have thought twice about it! Did the US spooks assassinate Chavez? Check this out and add it to your knowledge of US interference in other people politics and lives. You be the judge
REALITY CHECK – VENEZUELA 2019
The Smoke and Mirrors brigade have been hard at work this year and its only March 2019. Once again the West is regaled with stories of a “Foreign Dictator” exterminating his own people and trampling democracy underfoot by our great friends over there in Washington. I seem to have swallowed far too many doses of Fox News poison and become immune to the stuff they spout, but it’s really worth taking a look at their latest piece of skullduggery over Venezuela and recognising it for what it is…another lurch toward world domination by the American Empire. The Western media have been working overtime to present us with the phoniest yet, of a long line of “Made in the USA” puppet regime leaders in the form of Juan Guaido. As usual, the UK and large tracts of the European media are more than happy to trot out the usual US scripted bullshit, word for word because they are all clearly in on the deal.
Are we never going to learn? In this report I have tried to pull together the threads of what we really KNOW about the situation in Venezuela, as reported by some of the worlds best journalists, none of whom work for Rupert Murdoch…so if you are a big fan of his, thanks for the click and just log off quietly please.
COUP #1 Venezuela April 2002
The US has ‘previous convictions’ for regime change in Venezuela, (Not to mention many other Central/South American and Middle Eastern Nations). They instigated a coup against the Democratically elected Hugo Chavez in 2002, they kidnapped him and falsified a letter of resignation from him. They also got as far as installing a right-wing regime..which lasted for all of 48 hours. It took that long for the truth of the kidnapping and false resignation to reach down to the people who promptly surrounded the presidential palace with hundreds of thousands of people and demanded Chavez be returned. The Army was suddenly forced to realise they had backed the wrong horse and did a full speed U-Turn, miraculously becoming loyal Chavez supporters again. All of this is documented in Pilgers film from which its easy to understand the lengths to which the US Empire Machine will go to take over a nation. Right at the beginning we get G.W. Bush trotting out the usual pack of lies, this time about Nicaragua, but it soon becomes standard operating procedure for the US Administration in expanding the US Empire.
COUP #2 VENEZUELA 2019
In January 2019, according to the US, UK and much of the European MSM, “The world was rocked by the news that Venezuela had a new President”. Many of us had actually been expecting this for a few years now, we have seen it too many times before. The US administration had decided to recognise Juan Guaido as the official president of Venezuela, even though barely anybody inside Venezuela had ever heard of the man. In the same breath we were told that the democratically elected Nicolas Maduro was a rabid Dictator who must step down immediately or face “the Consequences”. The media storm lasted about 12 hours and gradually over the next few days the storm faded out of sight and the rest of the world went back to sleep or started to chew again on the UK’s Brexit Bone.
My first reaction to this news was a half-hearted laugh, I had been expecting something like this for some time, in fact ever since the Mobsters Friend, Jair Bolsenaro, was installed as President of Brazil last year, but I was not quite prepared for such a bare-faced full frontal assault. My laughter was short lived though, as one by one, the US owned and groomed Poodle-media in the UK and Europe meekly followed the Orange boss and announced that they were right behind Uncle Sam and Maduro must go, Guaido was the new Venezuelan president and we had better just get over it.
WHO IS THIS GUY GUAIDO?
Let’s take a closer look at some of the issues regarding Juan Guaido’s power grab/coup/Installation in January 2019, starting with who he is, and who he isn’t.
Guaido claims he is a member of the popular opposition and is head of a group calling themselves Popular Will. He professes to be a “Social-democrat” and Popular Will call themselves a party of the people, a Social Democrats party. They also claim to have the full support of “The Venezuelan People”. All of that is total bull.
Now given the fact that Donald Trump, Elliot Abrams, and John Bolton are the lead vocals in praise of of US Intervention, and all three are about as right wing as it gets, it surprises me that they would have selected a ‘Social Democrat’ to head up the operation. Normally if you even say “Socialism” or “Socialist” to a US Republican they will be reaching for the keys to their gun locker before you can say NRA.
Something we also need to know is that before “Popular Will” was in the picture, Guaido was attached to “Generation 2007” associated with some very wealthy and equally violent people.
This is just the beginning- you can get the full story of how Guaido was manufactured and groomed to become the shiny new unelected President of Venezuela right here.
So how can we process this weird friendship between the US Right wing Republican administration and Juan Guaido, our friendly Social Democrat? Well, it’s just possible that Trump, Bolton, and Abrams were just kidding around with us and they are actually lefty snowflakes acting tough, or maybe Donald really does have a head full of luxurious natural hair and really big hands. Meanwhile back on Planet Earth, Popular Will is just made up of right wingers calling themselves Progressives/ Social Democrats and Juan Guaido and his entire circus is a load of A-Holes made to look like nice guys. Mr. Smoke? meet Mr. Mirror!
Juan Guaido was groomed by the US for this hatchet job by the same backroom boys who have been driving US Foreign policy for the last 60+ years. They have been planning insurrection and the insertion of Guaido ever since their last coup attempt failed in 2002….this tidbit from 12 years ago tells you how long it has been on the drawing board:-
In 2007 Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas and moved to Washington DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington University under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Note how the term Neoliberal is used because Right Wing Extremist US Puppet might not have the same media sex appeal.
This is what a pack of lies looks like
- The reason Maduro is struggling financially right now is not Socialism its the work of the US government. The Bank of England always jumps through the hoops held by the US, and in this case, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo requested that $1.8 Billion of legitimate Venezuelan money was frozen in the BoE, (And the BoE very quickly complied – Where is your Sovereignty now Nigel?). None of these parties has any legal right to subject the people of Venezuela to this deprivation.
- The US has imposed stringent financial sanctions on the Maduro Government, claiming it is an undemocratic government. The sanctions are illegal under UN regulations and amount to a medieval siege mentality that is responsible for untold deaths. Ever willing to kiss Donald’s ring, the EU and the US have obediently fallen in line, because they don’t have a problem with illegal sanctions either if there is money to be made.
- According to the Poodlemedia in the UK and US- it was Maduros men that set fire to an aid convoy last month. The Guardian, once a paper that actually gave a shit about humanity but not any more, reported Guaido demanding on 24th February that “the Military should revolt against Maduro, the man who burns US aid convoys”. Inflammatory speech if ever I heard it but it is a complete lie. US Vice President Mike Pence wrote that “the tyrant in Caracas danced” as his henchmen “burned food & medicine.”…What an utterly evil bastard Pence is. ( My granny always used to say ‘Never trust a man whose eyes are close together’). A couple of weeks later we find out the truth about who set fire to the trucks. It turned to be caused by one of Guaido’s “Peaceful” henchmen accidentally dropping a Molotov Cocktail on one of the Aid trucks. Whoops, a daisy, anyone can make a mistake I suppose. I wonder who/what was the supposed real target for the Molotov Cocktail…if it wasn’t a US Aid Truck….probably full of empty boxes.
- Another story that hit the headlines was the “Humanitarian Aid” concert put on by billionaire Richard “Can’t get enough of that $tuff ” Branson at the request of his new friend Guaido, “to help combat the pain and suffering that Maduro was inflicting on his loyal people”. (Only it was Pompeo and Pence doing the inflicting) The concert came and went .. “Organizers said that more than 200,000 people attended the concert”, one source even claimed 317,000. A pity the propagandists cannot count or lie convincingly enough because the reality was it was likely less than 20,000 people attended here is a simple truth to establish. Hey its only a number, but its a bit close to the problem the US President seems to have with Crown numbers though isn’t it?
Why Venezuela? Why Not?
The US has been destabilising regimes all over the planet since WW2…any government that won’t allow US corporations and “US AID” inside its borders is considered Hostile. On the subject of Regime Change the US Government has consistently lied to the world about Iraq; Iran; Libya; Syria; Afghanistan; Ukraine; Yemen; Pakistan; Yugoslavia; Vietnam; Somalia; Haiti; Sudan; Panama and Lebanon, yet now we are supposed to believe they’re telling a different version of the truth over Venezuela?
The sad thing about what is happening today in Venezuela is that it has almost nothing to do with Venezuela. OK, yes it has the worlds biggest known deposits of Oil, but even without it they would still be getting the Axis of Evil treatment by Bolton and Co…the Oil just helps keep the wheels of the US Empire Machine burning and turning. It’s not totally about Oil either, most of the nations that the US has taken over were once upon a time entirely self-sufficient on food production. As an added bonus when you get yourself invaded by Uncle Sam these days you get a free gift, the US AgriBiz package comes as part of the takeover with all that shiny new Agri Machinery (and the Fuel Bills that go with it) as well as the US “Special Seed”, that can only be bought each year, and the superb package of chemicals that comes with growing GM crops. Before these nations know what hit them they are bound and gagged and growing millions of acres of GM Soy Bean to feed US Cattle, and have to rely on US Food Aid to feed their own populations. What could possibly go wrong?
As a quick aside, John Bolton, Donald Trumps “Security Adviser” and yet another in a long line of unelected US war hawks, has recently declared that Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua are a new “Axis of evil”. Bolton stands with a straight face to the camera and utters this garbage and not a single press man called him out. It is his intention to strangle the three nations with his warmongering rhetoric, economic sanctions and bullets if necessary, until they all fall in line with the US demands…which, as always, sums up to “Hand over the loot” or get yourself an uncivil war.. Bolton himself is a major part of the axis of evil and the fact that he falsely uses the term on others is proof that he knows exactly what he is doing. I am all ears if someone can explain to me how those 3 countries represent a Clear and Present Danger to the United States of America
As I wrap this up on the 18th March 2019 I have just seen an interview on Fox with another Clockwork Orange US Army Fruitcake ( A disgrace and an insult to any Military uniform) who just said on TV that if Maduro wouldn’t go it would be a bullet in the forehead for him..and the interviewer just pouted.
Truthful Links
On Venezuela
John Pilger – The War on Democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXAujmiLgwA
Noam Chomsky on History of US rule in S America https://youtu.be/NKwJI9axblQ
Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur An Ocean of Lies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii5MlQgGXyk
The Coup In Venzuela NOVARA Media https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STcepwXxwWA
Retd US General wants Maduro to get a bullet https://twitter.com/i/status/1107586259424329728
The Grooming of Juan Guaido by the US https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-grooming-of-juan-guaido-pawn-for-us-economic-interests-in-venezuela/256107/
On War in General and US in Particular
https://www.globalresearch.ca/inside-the-invisible-government-war-propaganda-clinton-and-trump/5553361…….by John Pilger
https://twitter.com/i/status/1111704728734523393
Another great site by the Dangerous Globe
