[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Debbie Weingarten Alexander Main Full Show @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin190111.mp3″]
This week on CounterSpin: Whether as a boondoggle, a cartoon or a mindless chant for the two-minute hate—”building a wall” at the US/Mexico border is an abstraction for many Americans, a political plot point. Among those for whom it is not that? People who live in the borderlands—and those who listen to those who do. We’ll talk with reporter Debbie Weingarten about the walls that already exist on the Southern border.
Transcript: ‘DC Has Been Consistently Out of Touch With the Reality of the Borderlands’
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Debbie Weingarten Interview @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin190111Weingarten.mp3″]
Also on the show: Speaking of cartoons, trying to get a sensible understanding of Venezuela from US news media is like studying the Vietnam War by watching Rambo. We’ll decipher coverage of the reelection of President Nicolas Maduro with Alexander Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Transcript: ‘US Administrations Have Been Intervening in Venezuela Since at Least the Early 2000s’
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Alexander Main Interview @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin190111Main.mp3″]
they weren’t making the needed investments already and have siphoned off 350 billion dollars in the last 20 years and have dismantled democratic bodies from their government.
Since 1998 the country has gone from 12000+ private companies to 2500 due to price controls and the latter statement.
I don’t know exactly what you mean by private companies. Those owned by the corporate and ruling elite before Chavez? When the wealth in Venezuela was going to the oligarchy? You suggest that in the last 20 years “they” have dismantled democratic bodies from their government. I have to think you’re referring to 2002 when Cormona and his cohort militarily deposed the duly elected Chavez government. Which dismissed the Supreme Court and the legislature over night. That George Bush and the National Endowment for Democracy (sic), the coup’s ally in the deed, recognized as fast. Real democratic. Whatever Venezuela’s lingering problems, during the years you indicate, in which Hugo Chavez was president, Venezuela made great strides for ordinary people there. And one might point out, Chavez had the prescience to go before the United Nations and call President Bush the burning pile of sulfur he is when Bush’s approval rating in the United States was about 90%.
They should give trump the money to build the wall these countries problem cant always spill into the us we need to focus more onthe problems of the us like high unemployment in the black community immigrants are flooding this countries taking all the jobs and are racist they have even giving them protected class rights how is this possible when they are not even citizens they have allowed for them to even get legal representation to keep them in this country that not right no diveristy black people were better when we had segregation. They are leaving us out for other ethnicities after we build this country and are being left out
The US ruling elite should support the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Central America and paramilitary death squads there like Reagan did in the 1980s. Or set up governments to US liking rather than the people who live there like the CIA did the elected President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala1954. You’re probably not a big history buff are you Linda Jones? That will stop those immigrants and their problems from spilling into our border. As for black people being better when we had segregation. Really? How would you know? You can’t even write a complete sentence or spell correctly. Anne Braden, the great civil rights icon used to say often, white on black prejudice and segregation were as harmful to whites as it was to blacks. Living in segregated Chicago today I can attest to that remaining true.
Why not invest in some transcription software?
Not everyone can hear, thus stories presented via pure audio exclude those individuals.
Transcripts are usually posted after a few days. Should be up soon.
Thank FAIR for covering these topics, especially Venezuela, in a fair, reasoned way.
Thanks Potshot for your responses. Chavez, not only helped his own citizens, but he sent heating oil to many poor Americans during those midwest and east coast winters. We could use some American politicians , and even a president , who would care as much about Americans as Chavez did.