Daniel Margrain — Venezuela: History repeating itself?

The corporate media is deliberately giving readers the false impression that Venezuela is ‘flirting with dictatorship’. In reality, these claims couldn’t be further from the truth. But majority support for a Constituents Assembly, and the fact that the Governing United Socialist Party won 17 out of 23 governor races is irrelevant to Washington’s nefarious objectives. US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson is threatening to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is he doesn’t leave of his own accord.” The country is being “softened up” through the press as a precursor to its subsequent destruction.…

The politics of Chavez were founded on two very simple tenets:

1) People ought not to be starving in dreadful slums in the world’s most oil rich state.

2) The CIA ought not to control Venezuela....

Renegade Inc.
Venezuela: History repeating itself?
Daniel Margrain

The Battle for Venezuela and Its Oil — Jeremy Scahill interviews Eva Golinger

Backgrounder.

EG: Because while there is a state reaction taking place, there is repression with tear gas and rubber bullets, you’re not seeing the other side of it, which is that those are not exactly peaceful democratic protests. There are smaller factions. I mean, there are parts of the opposition in Venezuela that act within a democratic framework, but there is a very violent faction that’s gotten out of control. It’s anarchical. I mean, they where they’re using Molotov cocktails, homemade bombs and weapons, and they’re using them against the state security forces.

So I mean, I always think about it is, if this were happening in Washington D.C. or even here in the in the streets of New York where I am, I mean, it wouldn’t last more than an hour....

The Intercept

The Battle for Venezuela and Its Oil

Jeremy Scahill interviews Eva Golinger

See also

Ironically, Trump has been hammering his generals on losing in Afghanistan and suggested an interest in a total pullout. Yet, he then said that he was considering an intervention in Venezuela — a move that could unite the country behind Maduro and hand him the very victory that has eluded him.

Maduro can now take that statement to Venezuela’s new Constituent Assembly as he demands unchecked powers.

Jonathan Turley
Trump Declares That Military Options Are Being Considered in Venezuela
Jonathan Turley | Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University

Matias Vernengo — On Venezuela, Democracy, Violence and Neoliberalism

The question then is how much of the push to limits to the power of the legislative assembly dominated by the opposition, and how much of the political repression (including the treatment of opposition leaders, but also the police violence) results from the very violent and anti-democratic push from the opposition itself, that has tried to bring down the government since the very beginning (including a failed coup attempt in 2002). And this is also a valid concern that many (almost all the mainstream media) on the left seem to forget. I can’t honestly respond. But I can provide a perspective, based on my understanding of the Argentine and Brazilian cases that are closer to my experience.

Naked Keynesianism
On Venezuela, Democracy, Violence and Neoliberalism

Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

See also

Prof. George Ciccariello-Maher of Drexel University analyzes the latest developments in Venezuela, including a new UN human rights report, US sanctions, and the begrudging admission by President Maduro's foes that he still has popular support

TRNN
UN Human Rights Report on Venezuela Ignores Opposition Violence

Matias Vernengo — A brief note on Venezuela and the turn to the right in Latin America

Matias explains the situation in Venezuela in more detail. The problem is endemic and not directly the result of the Chavez-Maduro governments. A right-wing neoliberal government won't be able to fix it either, although they would likely get assistance from the IMF and US, at a price that will be borne by the people rather than the elite, who will be boosted by it, in particular as compradors.

Naked Keynesianism
A brief note on Venezuela and the turn to the right in Latin America
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

Lee Brown — Hugo Chavez Helped Overturn Neoliberalism in Latin America

Puncturing the myths about neoliberalism (Pinochet) and Bolivarianism (Chavez).

telesur
Hugo Chavez Helped Overturn Neoliberalism in Latin America

Lee Brown

telesur— Two Years of US-Backed Destabilization Against President Maduro

History lesson.

telesur
Two Years of US-Backed Destabilization Against President Maduro
Lee Brown

George Ciccariello-Maher — What You Need to Know about Venezuela

There’s a lot of confusion about what’s going on in Venezuela. Following the death of President Hugo Chavez in 2013, the left-wing government of Nicolas Maduro has dealt with goods shortages, growing inflation, and civil unrest. Here’s George Ciccariello-Maher with some key points about the situation in the country and recent provocations from the United States.

Good overview. The reporting at Telesur is more in depth, but may be difficult to appreciate without some background, especially for those heavily exposed to neoliberal propaganda.

Jacobin Online
What You Need to Know about Venezuela
George Ciccariello-Maher | Assistant Professor of Political Science at Drexel University, Philadelphia

Telesur — US Labels Venezuela a Threat While Backing Human Rights Abusers

Barack Obama has upped the ante in his aggressions against Venezuela. The U.S. president claimed Monday that the democratically-elected Venezuelan government poses a “threat to national security,” due to a full compliment of alleged human-rights abuses..

Yet this preoccupation with human rights becomes perplexing when one considers that many of the chief recipients of U.S. aid — a combination of military and economic assistance — or support employ highly-questionable practices to prop up their regimes. 

Israel and Egypt, who receive some of the highest military financing from the US, have both been in the spotlight for a whole host of human-rights abuses in the past months, while Saudi Arabia, who Obama sycophantly labelled as the U.S.'s “greatest ally,” has a long history of violent state repression. Colombia, the tenth overall highest recipient, and the highest in Latin America, has jails crammed with political prisoners.... 

In spite of all these blatant and well-publicized human rights abuses, these countries continue to receive large sums and support from the U.S. Venezuela, on the other hand, which in 2012 was elected the United Nations Human Rights Council for the first time with 154 votes, is deemed a threat. 

The hypocrisy of the U.S. in funding actions abroad, while having the highest prison population in the world at 2,228,424, and whose police force is continually criticized for murdering innocent black and Latino people, appears to know no bounds.

Ouch.

Telesur
US Labels Venezuela a Threat While Backing Human Rights Abusers

Follow the money

The United States government has a long history of declaring certain countries to be a “national security threat.” The policy of declaring a particular country, no matter how small, a threat to the U.S. — the economically-and-militarily-largest country in the world — has its roots in the “Trading with the Enemy Act” of 1917. 

Since then, the legal framework for declaring another country to be a national security threat has changed several times. The current legal framework is governed by International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977. 

Once a U.S. president has declared a country to represent a national security threat, under the provisions of the IEEPA, the president is authorized to block transactions and freeze assets of any government entity or government official of that country. 

If there is an actual armed conflict, then the president has the authority to confiscate the property of any government official or entity of that country. In the case of Venezuela, which owns the major multi-billion dollar oil company CITGO in the U.S., this would be a significant blow to the country....

Currently the following governments have been declared to be national security threats under the IEEPA:

Cuba (since 1977)

Iran (since 1979)

Myanmar (1997)

Sudan (1997)

Zimbabwe (2003)

Syria (2004)

Belarus (2006)

North Korea (2008)

Russia (2014) 

The U.S. government has consistently worsened relations with Venezuela ever since Obama became president. As early as 2010, the newly-appointed U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, Larry Palmer, issued uncharacteristically-undiplomatic declarations against the government against Venezuela during his appointment hearing in the U.S. Senate.
When his remarks became public then-President Hugo Chavez rejected Palmer's nomination, at which point the Obama administration expelled Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S..... 

Declaring a Country a 'National Security Threat'

Also

The BRICS Post
US-Venezuela ties worsen amid new sanctions

Al Jazeera — Obama declares Venezuela a national security threat

"These emergency resolutions are used by the North American empire every time they are going to attack a country. They say they feel threatened. What weapons do we possibly have to threaten the United States?" [head of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello] said.. 

Enquiring minds would like to know.

"These types of measures only help to galvanise us. All they do is give the Veneuzlean people an increased consciousness. These are only threats from an empire that has power, but that lacks scruples," [Cabello] added.

The president goes off the rails? Or maybe the question is when dd the president went off the rails. Or was he off the rails from the get-go? (Bruce Bartlett, Obama Is a, American Conservative, Oct. 21, 2014)

Al Jazeera
Obama declares Venezuela a national security threat

Also

nsnbc international
Obama Brands Venezuela a “Security Threat,” Implements New Sanctions
Venezuelanalysis

Venezuela vs. a “Common Enemy” — Michael Albert interviews John Pilger for Telesur

Albert: Why would the U.S. want venezuela’s government overthrown? 

Pilger: There are straightforward principles and dynamics at work here. Washington wants to get rid of the Venezuelan government because it is independent of US designs for the region and because Venezuela has the greatest proven oil reserves in the world and uses its oil revenue to improve the quality of ordinary lives. Venezuela remains a source of inspiration for social reform in a continent ravaged by an historically rapacious US. An Oxfam report once famously described the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as ‘the threat of a good example’. That has been true in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez won his first election. The ‘threat’ of Venezuela is greater, of course, because it is not tiny and weak; it is rich and influential and regarded as such by China. The remarkable change in fortunes for millions of people in Latin America is at the heart of US hostility. The US has been the undeclared enemy of social progress in Latin America for two centuries. It doesn’t matter who has been in the White House: Barack Obama or Teddy Roosevelt; the US will not tolerate countries with governments and cultures that put the needs of their own people first and refuse to promote or succumb to US demands and pressures. A reformist social democracy with a capitalist base – such as Venezuela – is not excused by the rulers of the world. What is inexcusable is Venezuela’s political independence; only complete deference is acceptable. The ‘survival’ of Chavista Venezuela is a testament to the support of ordinary Venezuelans for their elected government – that was clear to me when I was last there. Venezuela’s weakness is that the political ‘opposition’ — those I would call the ‘East Caracas Mob’ – represent powerful interests who have been allowed to retain critical economic power. Only when that power is diminished will Venezuela shake off the constant menace of foreign-backed, often criminal subversion. No society should have to deal with that, year in, year out.…

It’s important to understand that Washington is ruled by true extremists, once known inside the Beltway as ‘the crazies’. This has been true since before 9/11. A few are outright fascists. Asserting US dominance is their undisguised game and, as the events in Ukraine demonstrate, they are prepared to risk a nuclear war with Russia. These people should be the common enemy of all sane human beings. In Venezuela, they want a coup so that they can roll-back of some of the world’s most important social reforms – such as in Bolivia and Ecuador. They’ve already crushed the hopes of ordinary people in Honduras.…

Counterpunch

Venezuela vs. a “Common Enemy”

Michael Albert interviews John Pilger for Telesur 

Max Blumenthal — Meet Venezuela's Opposition Leader: Front Man for the Oligarchs Sidelined by Hugo Chavez

Not all is as it seems, or is made to seem.

AlterNet
Meet Venezuela's Opposition Leader: Front Man for the Oligarchs Sidelined by Hugo Chavez
Max Blumenthal

Greg Palast — Did Chavez’ Pick Steal the Election in Venezuela?

US engineered Venezuelan coup in the works? Lots more in Palast's account than Venezuela.

Greg Palast Journalism and Film
Did Chavez’ Pick Steal 
the Election in Venezuela?

Greg Palast | Investigative Reporter

Greg Palast — Hugo Chavez vs "The Network"

Third World nations are not supposed to keep the dollars paid to suck out their oil and mineral blood. For every dollar US consumers pay the Saudis for their oil, about $1.24 is given back as Saudis return the funds by purchasing US Treasury debt or hunks of US banks, CitiCorp for one.

In 2005, the US spent $227 billion in Latin America, sapping its properties and resources. But the money turned right around and, added to the funds sent to Miami by Latin America's elite, immediately became a $379 million loan to the US Treasury and financiers.

Argentina leant the US at 4 percent interest, then had to borrow its own money back at 16 percent – the whirring wheel, this grinder, left school teachers in Buenos Aires hunting in garbage cans for food. Riots followed and – in Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and elsewhere – this led to tanks in the street, currency collapse, crisis and the “rescue” by the IMF. Rescue meant forcing the mass sell-off of state industries, from oil to water systems, to the crushing of labour unions and to swallowing the whole bottle of poisons kept by the elite of the Northern Hemisphere for just such occasions.

And that was the plan. Literally. I've held the proof in my hands, about five thousand pages of financial agreements, all labelled “confidential” and “not to be distributed except by authorized persons”, which bore benign titles like “World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategy, Argentina.”

Why would the IMF, World Bank and the bankers not want to make their wonderful plans for reducing poverty public? It was for the same reason the finance ministers who signed the documents didn't even tell their own presidents: they were in fact “reduce-to-poverty” plans, complete resource surrender.

Greg Palast
Hugo Chavez vs "The Network"

Neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and neo-imperialism at work.

Dada Maheshvarananda — Evaluating the Legacy of President Hugo Chávez Using the Progressive Utilization Theory (Prout)

A post-capitalistic view of Hugo Chavez and his accomplishments.

PROUT — Dada Maheshvarananda's Blog concerning PROUT, the Progressive Utilisation Theory
Evaluating the Legacy of President Hugo Chávez Using the Progressive Utilization Theory (Prout)
Dada Maheshvarananda

Greg Palast dishes on the plot against Hugo Chavez

Venezuelan President Chavez once asked me why the US elite wanted to kill him. My dear Hugo: It's the oil. And it's the Koch Brothers – and it's the ketchup.

Greg Palast
Vaya con Dios, Hugo Chàvez, mi Amigo

Chavez himself told me he was stunned by Bush's attacks: Chavez had been quite chummy with Bush Senior and with Bill Clinton 

So what made Chavez suddenly "a dangerous enemy"? Here's the answer you won't find in The New York Times 

Just after Bush's inauguration in 2001, Chavez' congress voted in a new "Law of Hydrocarbons." Henceforth, Exxon, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and Chevron would get to keep 70% of the sales revenues from the crude they sucked out of Venezuela. Not bad, considering the price of oil was rising toward $100 a barrel. 

But to the oil companies, which had bitch-slapped Venezeula's prior government into giving them 84% of the sales price, a cut to 70% was "no bueno." Worse, Venezuela had been charging a joke of a royalty – just one percent – on "heavy" crude from the Orinoco Basin. Chavez told Exxon and friends they'd now have to pay 16.6% 

Clearly, Chavez had to be taught a lesson about the etiquette of dealings with Big Oil.

On April 11, 2002, President Chavez was kidnapped at gunpoint and flown to an island prison in the Caribbean Sea. On April 12, Pedro Carmona, a business partner of the US oil companies and president of the nation's Chamber of Commerce, declared himself President of Venezuela – giving a whole new meaning to the term, "corporate takeover. 

U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro immediately rushed down from his hilltop embassy to have his picture taken grinning with the self-proclaimed "President" and the leaders of the coup d'état. 

Bush's White House spokesman admitted that Chavez was, "democratically elected," but, he added, "Legitimacy is something that is conferred not by just the majority of voters." I see.

With an armed and angry citizenry marching on the Presidential Palace in Caracas ready to string up the coup plotters, Carmona, the Pretend President from Exxon returned his captive Chavez back to his desk within 48 hours....

See also Al Jazeera, Are these men Venezuela's next rulers? —
National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello and vice president Nicolas Maduro both have claims to the interim leadership, Elizabeth Melimopoulos 

Greg Palast, The Koch Brothers, Hugo Chavez and the XL Pipeline

Why in the world would America pistol-whip Mother Nature to bring oil to Texas? I mean, it’s just plain weird to suck heavy tar oil out of Canada, drag it across the entire middle of the USA to import it into the oil-exporting Lone Star State.

Here’s where a little lesson in oil chemistry comes in. You can’t just throw any old crude oil into an oil refinery. These giant filth factories are actually quite sensitive. The refineries of the Texas Gulf Coast are optimized for heavy crude.

It would cost billions of dollars to rebuild the giant Flint Hills Corpus Christi Refinery, owned by Koch Industries, to use the less-polluting Texas oil drilled nearby.

The Kochs need heavy crude. But the Brothers Koch have a problem. Heavy crude is controlled by a heavy dude – President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

In case you haven’t heard, the US Department of Energy now says Venezuela, not Saudi Arabia, has the world’s largest petroleum reserve--including the overwhelming majority of the planet’s heavy crude.

And Chavez is not giving it away. “We are no longer an oil colony, Mr. Palast,” Chavez told me in one of our meet-ups in Caracas.

GregPalast.com
The Koch Brothers, Hugo Chavez 
and the XL Pipeline
Greg Palast