The Atlantic (4/17/19) wonders “whether slow suffocation will prove a match for the myriad international actors that have shored up support for Maduro.”
“Trump’s Venezuela Policy: Slow Suffocation,” an Atlantic report (4/17/19) by Uri Friedman and Kathy Gilsinan, passed up a rich opportunity to expose the humanitarian pretexts for economic intervention, and instead exhibited the worst tendencies of corporate media coverage of US policy in Latin America.
The report focused on the Trump administration’s new sanctions on the countries National Security Adviser John Bolton branded as the “troika of tyranny” and “three stooges of socialism”: Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. The administration plans to activate provisions in the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act to allow US citizens to sue foreign companies “trafficking” in “stolen land.”
While the headline on its own could be read as accurately suggesting that the Trump administration’s policy was one of “slow suffocation” of the Venezuelan people, the subhead makes it clear that the Atlantic was really saying that the aim was “to tighten the noose on Nicolás Maduro”—described in the piece as Venezuela’s “authoritarian” leader. By primarily framing US sanctions against Venezuela as a “diplomatic” alternative to the “military solution,” and as a continuation of a new Cold War contest against Russia, the report continued the corporate media practice (FAIR.org, 2/6/19) of downplaying the real harm sanctions are already inflicting on Venezuelans.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (2/4/19) has pointed out how recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela effectively functions as an oil embargo on Venezuela. This is devastating, since Venezuela’s economy depends almost entirely on oil export revenues for essential imports like food, medicine and medical equipment (New York Times, 2/8/19). Newer US sanctions that have caused Venezuela’s crude oil production to plummet even further are expected to reduce revenues over the coming year by $2.5 billion, almost as much as the country spent last year ($2.6 billion) to import food and medicine (CEPR, 3/25/19).
CEPR (4/19) compared Venezuelan and Colombian oil production to show that while falling oil prices hurt Venezuela’s oil industry, US sanctions hurt far more.
Economists Mark Weisbrot of CEPR and Columbia’s Jeffrey Sachs (CEPR, 4/25/19) have estimated that the death toll from US sanctions is more than 40,000 in 2017–18 alone, based on the experience of other countries in similar situations. They note that sanctions produce lethal effects by increasing unemployment and restricting access to essential imports like food and medicine, as well as preventing easy fixes to problems like rampant hyperinflation (Real News, 1/18/19). This is why UN human rights experts denounce US sanctions as “economic warfare,” which could amount to “crimes against humanity,” and compare the way they kill Venezuelans to a medieval siege (Independent, 1/26/19; Grayzone, 4/7/19).
Although it’s hard to see how one measures the “success” of sanctions—except by their capacity to immiserate the target populations—apparently the only “open question” for the Atlantic is whether or not “gradual economic strangulation” will “prove a match” for the support for Maduro from “foreign patrons” like Russia, China and Cuba. By confining itself to questions of tactical efficacy, and whether sanctions will triumph over the American empire’s rivals, the report completely omits questions of whether or not the US possesses the moral prerogative, and legal authorization, to impose unilateral sanctions and embargoes for regime change purposes.
The authors use the word “diplomatic” to describe sanctions several times throughout the piece, but oddly don’t cite a single diplomatic body to discuss them. If they had asked the UN Human Rights Council, which has condemned “unilateral coercive measures” like US sanctions against Venezuela, they might have noted that they are “contrary to international law.” Or the UN General Assembly, which has declared illegal the US’s ongoing embargo against Cuba for the 27th consecutive year in a recent vote of 189 to 2—with only the US and Israel voting against the resolution. The UN Charter, which grants the UN Security Council alone the legal authority to authorize sanctions and military interventions, or that of the Organization of American States, which forbids economic coercion altogether, would also have been good places to check on unilateral sanctions’ alleged diplomacy.
When discussing the Libertad Act, the Atlantic falsely referred to the revolutionary Cuban government’s nationalization of foreign-owned assets—which had often been given out by the former US-backed Batista dictatorship (CounterPunch, 3/23/16)—as “stolen land.” Legal scholar Marjorie Cohn has pointed out that a sovereign’s nationalization of the property in its jurisdiction doesn’t violate international law (Truthout, 2/24/19), as former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk admitted in 1962:
Any sovereign national has the right to expropriate property, whether owned by foreigners or nationals. In the United States, we refer to this as the power of eminent domain. However, the owner should receive adequate and prompt compensation for his property.
The Atlantic piece also failed to mention that the Trump administration’s activation of Title III of the Libertad Act would also overturn longstanding legal precedent, as the US Supreme Court determined, in 1964’s Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, that US courts shouldn’t decide the legality of taking property in Cuban jurisdiction. The Court held that such questions would be best resolved in state-to-state negotiations—which the US government has refused to engage in, despite the Cuban government’s repeated offers to comply with international law by compensating the nearly 6,000 US parties with outstanding claims, as it successfully did with investors from other countries.
Most importantly, the Atlantic blindly peddled the humanitarian pretext offered by Trump administration officials, that they are merely opposing “tyranny” in Latin America officials. Instead of recalling the US’s history of using sanctions to undermine popular leftist governments to “make the economy scream,” installing reactionary dictatorships in countries like Chile, or supporting a failed 2002 Venezuelan coup to remove the popularly elected President Hugo Chávez (Extra!, 5–6/02), the authors leaned into corporate media tropes about Latin American leftists.
Mimicking Bolton’s red-baiting, the Atlantic characterized the other two nations targeted by him as “repressive socialist governments”: Cuba and Nicaragua, where revolutionaries overthrew the reviled US-backed Batista and Somoza dictatorships in their respective countries (New York Times, 3/16/86). The Atlantic erased Maduro’s numerous domestic supporters, and the pre-sanctions social gains of the Bolivarian revolution (FAIR.org, 2/20/19), by depicting him as an isolated “strongman” propped up by “foreign patrons.”
Darth Vader illustrating the impact of US sanctions on Venezuela.
The “humanitarian” motivation of sanctions and embargoes is also belied by US State Department memoranda that openly strategized to undermine the fledgling Castro government by intentionally driving the population to “hunger” and “desperation.” These half-century-old documents are echoed by recent remarks by Trump administration officials boasting that US sanctions resemble Darth Vader’s death grip, and claiming that Venezuela’s “total economic collapse” is evidence that regime change “is working.”
However, one shouldn’t expect corporate media to provide the kind of illuminating journalism that would expose and contradict official pretexts, because their support for sabotaging popular left-wing political agendas abroad is fully consistent with their practice of discrediting similar agendas at home (FAIR.org, 2/8/19).
You can send messages to The Atlantic here (or via Twitter: @TheAtlantic) . Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
Featured image: Screenshot from video of pro-government rally in Caracas, May 1, 2019.
This article gets so many things wrong. This is my first time reading a FAIR article, and it is amazing to read a non-stop parroting of corporate media that is at the same time pretending to be critical of corporate media. The author criticizes the Atlantic author for leaving out what he considers important details, then proceeds to leave out mountains of important/inconvenient details.
LMAO….you make a claim that the article gets things wrong, but then you fail to name a single one? Nice try….let me guess – you’re a Venezuelan 1%-er expat who lives in the EU or USA.
Get real. This FAIR article is not “fair” or impartial. The article is another propaganda ploy from the murderous Castro and Maduro dictatorships. The narco-trafficker Maduro and the Castro regime are solely responsible for the crisis in Venezuela and for any deaths. Anything the USA and its allies can do to topple those miserabe dictatorships that has murdered, maimed, looted, imprisoned and terrorized millions will be welcome. Inaction in the face of tyranny is unacceptable and immoral. Uphold human rights! Uphold the Helms-Burton Act and the rule of law!! And by all means, FAIR, stop propagating lies and misinformation while supporting Marxist-Leninist dictatorships. Freedom for Cuba and the Venezuelan people!!
I agree with everything you said. Maduro has a lot of blood on his hands, and is responsible for the deaths of many babies and Venezuelans for lack of proper medical care. As for Russia, China, Turkey and Iran, they are only focusing Maduro
and his paid loyalist are not experiencing any hardships. While many citizens are losing weight and starving, I see Maduro is not lacking any nourishment. He is not listening to the will of the majority of population for a desperate need of government leadership
So true and so sad. I speak to many Venezuelans that earn their living in video games. There is no opportunity there for them. Water, electricity, food, medicine. But Maduro is staying fat. People are literally starving there and Maduro burn trucks with food and medicine because “they’re not beggars”. The Venezuelan people want it. Hopefully some change will come soon.
You’re “all” 100% FOS and none of you – not a single one – can name a single thing that the article gets wrong? Not one out of the MANY mistakes you allege in the FAIR.org writeup?
Nice try….probably all the same person too, using different handles (since FAIR’s comment system is kind of crummy at eliminating that kind of thing).
Seriously though – name ONE THING that the article above gets wrong about US sanctions or the puff piece in The Atlantic…..we’re waiting.
How many of those people are STARVING and how much of that INFLATION is due to UNITED STATES ECONOMIC SANCTIONS? Duh! That’s the point of the article, dude. Is English your 2nd language? If so, here’s a fun little piece that’s really easy to read:
“I stand with the people of Venezuela” = I stand with some of the people in Venezuela, specifically the ones who support US government interests.
“Interim President” = Some guy most Venezuelans had never heard of until January of this year.
“Brutal dictator” = Elected leader who opposes US dictates.
“Usurper” = The guy calling the shots and leading the country.
“Opposition-led, military-backed challenge” = Coup.
“The people of Venezuela are starving” = Oil! Oil! Oil!
“All options are on the table” = One option is on the table.
“Popular uprising” = Unpopular uprising.
“Grassroots activists” = Let’s pretend the CIA’s not a thing.
“Freedom and democracy” = US control of Venezuela’s petroleum resources.
“Humanitarian aid” = Pretext for further escalations.
“Failed socialist policies” = Inability to overcome US economic warfare.
“Foreign interference” = An ally of Venezuela supporting its ally.
“We support the National Assembly” = Foreign interference.
“The Venezuelan Constitution” = Our convenient interpretation of the Venezuelan Constitution.
“We can’t just sit around and do nothing” = I have learned nothing since the Iraq War.
“54 countries recognize Guaido as president” = 141 countries don’t recognize Guaido as president.
“Troika of tyranny” = John Bolton’s second-favorite masturbatory fantasy.
“Special Envoy to Venezuela” = Convicted war criminal.
“The Monroe Doctrine” = I think all the countries on this side of the planet are my personal property.
“Operación Libertad” = Operación Libertad para el Petróleo de Venezuela.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” = Standard talking point from Venezuela coup narrative managers on social media.
“Talk to Venezuelans” = Talk to the wealthier, English-speaking Venezuelans with abundant free time and internet access who support a coup.
“You love Maduro” = I don’t have an argument for your opposition to US interventionism.
“You’re just a socialist who loves socialism” = I don’t have an argument.
“Go live in Venezuela if you love socialism so much” = I don’t have an argument.
“Maduro is killing his own people” = Yeah I’m just making shit up now.
“Maduro refuses to let in aid” = I just believe whatever the TV says.
“Trump is liberating the people of Venezuela” = I just believe whatever QAnon says.
“This US regime change intervention will be different” = I have replaced my brain with shaving cream.
More at: https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/venezuela-establishment-talking-points-translation-key-5c21c9c3d4e5
Venezuela’s Crisis started in 2016 (officially since Chavez already had destroyed the oil industry in the past years) The US sanctions started in 2019 (since 2017 only officials bank accounts linked to drug traffic were retained) so it is impossible to blame the crisis on US sanctions. The rest of your list is also wrong, but I’ll just focus on this specific point
You’re an idiot. You should read our Constitution. As many people voted just for the opposition candidates and a super majority of opposition in the congressional elections as the total of those that voted in the last presidential election. The reason? Our Democratic party was not allowed to run! No kidding. Maduro being president after the Venezuelan congress vacated the election, is like you supporting Trump after his congress and constitution remove him. The last two elections show pretty well what the people want. It’s pretty clear that when the main opposition party is allowed to run, 80% of the people turn out to vote and when the main opposition party is NOT allowed to run, it drops to 32% (45% after the CNE counted the dead people’s votes after releasing the 32% number). As a Venezuelan, I can tell you, the majority of Venezuelans want the opposition, but our Trump (Maduro) won’t let the opposition run. The last opposition candidate to run for president was a Maduro’s party governor! As for the wealthiest Venezuelans? That’s Maduro and the PSUV.
@Alejandro Do you even know how to use the internet? Go read some books and catch up… because if you think sanctions just hit in 2019, that means you only JUST started paying attention. Here is the State Dept. themselves prooving you to be FoS.
https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/venezuela/
You’ve said it all sir! Now just watch the imperialistic response…!
A few comments. On the tactical use of sanctions it is understood that sanctions rarely cause policy change. What they are useful is reducing the assets available for mischief. In the specific case of Venezuela the intent is to reduce the amount of loot such that there is not enough to pay off the generals. The generals will only support Maduro if they are paid.
At a higher level the author does not account for Friedrich Hayek’s observation of the transformation of idealistic socialist movements into totalitarian or dictatorial nightmares. Regardless if there was a popular movement that allowed for a socialist movement to gain power in a Cuba or a Venezuela and regardless if that movement was justified, Hayek’s observation is that the necessity of planning concentrated in the hands of a few attracted the most immoral and practical scoundrels since more sensible idealists would not do what is “necessary” This is why all popular movements all end up in poverty. They all end up run by tyrants be more socialist bent or nationalist like the Baathist movement that evolved into Assad and Sadaam Hussein.
Me I am happy to live in a corrupt empire that as a liberal democracy still has hope. Regardless of sanctions or not Venezuela is doomed because most of the remaining national wealth goes to keep the military happy. Anyone with ambition or skills will be gone and only the very poor and infirmed will remain.
So if I’m reading your well-written blather right, you’re criticizing the author for not condemning socialism as Hayek did. You are aware that this is not a place that is friendly towards Hayek and his acolytes, right? You might want to go somewhere else if you want to accept his every thought as axiomatic.
Sadly the U.S is using “unilateral coercive measures, ” to attempt to take down a sovereign nation,—-Venezuela, to own that nation’s oil. I also believe that the stolen gold of Venezuela is hiding somewhere in the UK. The United States is attacking a sovereign nation, whose apparent crime is that they want to profit from their OWN natural resource of oil—while corporate America and the military want to own it all. Read up on what happened in the 1950s to the sovereign nation of Iran when America oilers decided to own that too. Attacking Cuba followed the same scenario, and again, a sovereign nation was attacked by the United States. Remember the lies of WMD, and review America’s bandit past. Do not be surprised that more and more nations are turning against the bully tactics of the United States, whose WORD should be its Bond—-but whose word is meaning less and less in the world. TRUST is a tragic thing to lose for any country in the world community—–but when that is lost, so is the nation.
Neoliberal Jeffrey Sachs must be very, very pleased with self-identified progressives for helping him with his image. I’m not pleased with self-identified progressives’ efforts.
“Mirror, Mirror”
https://arrby.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/mirror-mirror/
Conclusion. The US should ease all sanctions for the small benefit of the Venezualan people and immense profit of their ruling kleptocracy. Exporting tons of cocaine to the US and welcoming multiple terrorist organizations plus giving them Venezualan passports are no reason to interfere in their affairs.
Can you idiots do anything but tell lie after lie after lie?
Show us proof that Venezuela is exporting TONS of cocaine to the US and allowing terrorist organizations.
Put up or shut up.
I am with KC on this — most of you are simply parroting and have not identified anything mistaken in the article.
Exporting tons of cocaine to the US… We all know how druged americans must be to elect their inept politicians, who reek havock all over the world. And don’t forget your corporate bums and their smelly noses!
I’m pleased and relieved to see the majority of the comments are critical of this lame article.
Saved me lots of typing and some I hadn’t thought of.
Did the author just tune in the minute US sanctions come into play and miss the 20 year slow-motion train wreck Chavez and Maduro (and Cuba) have engineered and implemented in Venezuela?
Hopefully Wondering Woman wonders a little less and reads a lot more on the situation.
Mr. or Ms Expat: I have an excellent reading source for you. It’s by a Marine , General Smedley Darlington Butler. He wrote an amazing and truthful article: available on line too. “WAR is A Racket.” Please read it and you will learn what America has been doing for years since the Monroe Doctrine and in all these years after. This tale gets even darker too, as some in America wanted to hire General Butler for a coup against FDR. Fortunately, General Butler declined, but thankfully he wrote all about this , and the taking down of a president was foiled. I do WONDER though, with all of the access to history, WHY you don’t know this easily available information.
Excellent article by Joshua Cho. Too bad many of the trolls here in the comments have little conception of the US’ militaristic interventions* which belie the idea that this is some kind of ‘humanitarian action’ by the US (and by Trump, of all people??) Also, IF things were as bad as they supposedly are represented by these supposed Venezuelans, why aren’t these right-wing coups successful? Answer: because the vast majority of the Venezuelan population are satisfied with Maduro, as has been shown in numerous articles here at FAIR and other similar websites (ie: ConsortiumNews, Counterpunch, etc).
*https://www.globalpolicy.org/us-westward-expansion/26024-us-interventions.html
Hey.
You.
I wrote that comment directed at you.
Keep talking.
Are you a Hasbara troll or a discombobulated Venezuela 1%-er expat who wants American boys and girls to put “boots on the ground” in order to wrest the democratically elected government’s power from the rightful hands and put it with corrupt, evil, wealthy autocrats like we did with Chile and Argentina?
Too bad…go enlist or kindly S T F U. Thanks in advance.
I agree. The trolls here seem to have contempt for FAIR’s readers. They seem to think that if they push professionally-authored lies assertively enough we’ll believe them. I’m no expert but even I know that Venezuela has been under US control for a full century, and that the Bolivarian governments have been under constant attack from the US since Chavez was first elected. Chavez and Maduro have made many mistakes, but to claim that they alone are responsible for the state Venezuela is in is pure hypocrisy.
So I assume FAIR and Mr. Cho has never met a murdering dictator they didn’t like. Please remind me, how many people did Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, and Mao kill to stay in power WITHOUT USA sanctions? How many people have starved to death in North Korea? I guess we should just ait around and wait until Maduro gets Russia to install nuclear weapons so he can starve his people to death and prevent us from helping? You are very short sited and naive. I suspect you are a young person who didn’t live through the events you mention. You didn’t see the suffering these dictators caused their own people. Freedom has a price and America has paid it many times; Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWIi, Korea, Bosnia, Vietnam, and many more to come. We fight for freedom of all people, not oil or riches as you so sneidly commented. Tell me, how much oil did we take from Iraq? How much of Europe and Japan do we occupy? Name one country that we have invaded and stolen their resources and their land? You can’t. Because that is not what we do. The Phillipines ask us to leave, and we did. Now they regret it, but we respected their wishes, despite the USA losing tens of thousand of thousands of men to free them from the Japanese Empire that enslaved them and raped their women. Why don’t you pick up a history book before you spout off your biased revisionist history. The American Military is the greatest power of freedom that has ever existed on the face of the planet and THE USA will not apologize for it. We aren’t perfect, but we fight for freedom for ALL people around the world and shame on you for implying otherwise. You obviously hate America and it’s power for good. I suspect you are sitting in some room in Moscow trying to divide Americans and aren’t a real journalist. I guess you are too young to remember the bread lines in the former Soviet Union. Dasvidaniya, comrade.
Look at the 1%er expat Venezuelan with nothing better to do with her time than write slanderous comments about the well-researched and well-cited FAIR.org article above – and using several different fake handles. Point out one flaw in the article and maybe we’ll listen to your nonsense. Also, learn to use paragraph breaks. Your wall-of-text prose is incredibly tiring to read.
Mr. Solano, First, Fair.org is not supporting Mr. Maduro, they are just calling out our corporate compliant media foghorn. I am a Vet and fought in the Nam. Only to find out afterwards that the whole war was just a Big Fat Lie, a lie that cost over 1 million Vietnamese and 50,000 American lives. But it did keep the military/industrial complex fed and fat, to the pleasure of their compliant politicians. Now we are again concocting up another nice tidy little PROFITABLE war, Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompous would be happy with Iran and/or Venezuela, as long as it got the tank, cannon, and warplane factories in high gear. My advice to Mr. Oligarch Trump is this: Mind Your Own Business! If the people of Iran and Venezuela want a different life they can stand up on their own two feet and fight for it, cause this is the rule: You can die on your feet, or live on your knees!
The neuter singular possessive personal pronoun is “its” and not “it’s.”
The state of professional propaganda in the Götterdammerung of Empire is truly shameful.
Aaaaaaaand right on cue “EDDIE S” some Cuban/Russia/Chinese/confused and regarded North American shows up and vomits bullshit about this “excellent article”. I dare you to keep writing you bullshit. Pretend to be a Maduro sympathizer from the US or from outside Venezuela. Or maybe you really are Chavista. Disappear you skid stain and flush yourself down the toilet.
Or if you are a confused AND learning disabled North American, head on over to Washington DC. Join CODEPINK in preventing Venezuelan citizens from receiving access to consular services at THEIR OWN EMBASSY by doing Cuba’s dirty work for Maduro, all they need is a couch to sleep on as payment
Brian you sound like an angry, out of touch, propagandized fool. Please seek help. I didn’t realize Code Pink had the power to prevent Venezuelan citizens and their government from accessing outside financial help or the like. You seem to think their power is on par with the US crony capitalist government and the PATENTLY ILLEGAL sanctions that it has put on the people of your country (because it’s obvious you’re not an American named Brian, but a bored Venezuelan expat who probably gets to spend all his time in the EU or USA because you really actually hate your country).
If you want to call yourselves Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, I’d suggest you stop using Mr. Weisbrot as a source. The material in this article is a great example of what’s wrong with his coverage of Venezuela.
First, although it’s true that economic decline causes deaths, a much better way to measure the deaths caused by Venezuela’s contracting economy would be to look at the GDP. While oil is important to Venezuela’s economy, simply looking at the GDP would be a much more direct way to measure the ability of Venezuela to import stuff. Of course, since Venezuela’s economy has seen double digit contractions since 2014, it’d be much harder to blame this on the sanctions that could have any broad impacts on Venezuela’s economy since they started in August 2017. Why Mr. Weisbrot picked oil production rather than GDP to calculate the deaths caused by Venezuela’s shrinking economy is beyond me, but it is a much less accurate way to calculate the impact sanctions had on average Venezuelans.
Second, the data used in the chart is simply wrong. The decline starting in 2016 is accurate, but the chart shows Venezuela’s oil production as being stable between 2013 and 2016, which isn’t the case. Venezuela’s oil production was about 2.9 million bpd in 2013 and had dropped to just over 2.4 million bpd in 2016, a 20% decline. Using accurate information would mean that the only time that the decline in Venezuela’s oil production mirrored that on Colombia’s is when oil prices were declining. Well, kind of, since oil prices started declining in January of 2015, not 2016.
Mr. Weisbrot’s track record on Venezuela has been abysmal, an article from April, 2017, a few months before the August sanctions that supposedly caused the economic decline Venezuela is seeing states:
Unsworth’s intention in writing about “America’s worst economist” was to emphasize the disastrous nature of Weisbrot’s “‘predictions’ about the wondrous future of Venezuelan Communism.” Not only did Weisbrot claim that the Maduro regime would never face a balance-of-payment crisis, but he also discarded the possibility of hyperinflation in Venezuela and ruled out the collapse of the country’s currency as well as the possibility of massive food shortages. Today, however, the Venezuelan regime faces serious difficulties paying its foreign debt while its citizens endure hyperinflation, a currency so devalued “it no longer fits in wallets“, and massive shortages of food and medicine. In other words, if economists could be sued for malpractice, as Unsworth writes, “there is surely no economist in America more deserving of such treatment than Mark Weisbrot.”
https://panampost.com/daniel-raisbeck/2017/04/03/our-apologies-to-the-worlds-worst-economist/?cn-reloaded=1
Sanctions on Venezuela started on January 2019. The crisis started in 2016. Explain how sanctions impacted the economy 3 years before? Seriously, you need better arguments than “US fucked Venezuela’s economy” because that’s a joke nobody believes anymore. There are factual proofs and a timeline of events that demonstrate how Chavez and ultimately Maduro sold Venezuela’s economy to Russia, China, Cuba and Narco-terrorist cartels. If you want more conspiracy theories I can recommend you to say that the blackouts we’re currently having in the entire country for more a than month now are caused by US drones or genetically enhanced Iguanas. Don’t worry if it sounds too stupid, Maduro’s officials already used those ones so you’ll be fine
Alejandro, good day to you. A few things about your comment. 1) Sanctions on the State of Venezuela (other than on individuals) started in August 2017 and not in January 2019 (when they were “upgraded”). Reference: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/13808.pdf. 2) I don’t think that the spirit and message of the article is about how Venezuelans have managed their economy before sanctions. The article is about how media misrepresents the situation and the US uses sanctions as a geopolitical tool that literally kills people, etc., etc. 3) I couldn’t find a single conspiracy theory in the article. Actually, US crimes against South America are super well documented and usually made public a few years / decades after they are committed. And that is for open crimes like coup d-etat, financing guerillas, etc. Sanctions (which are just as criminal and deadly as guerillas, if not more) are open and public info from the get go.
Why does socialism bring out ther most tribal tendencies in people? All the people on this site defending an author like they’re his brother being sent off to be executed by a firing squad. It’s a form of mental insanity and it’s unhealthy.
Sir… your comment refers, in no way, to the article at hand… the article is about mass media behavior and the criminality of US sanctions… if you want to change the subject and talk about socialism, below a few facts for you to consider:
a) Socialism is, by definition, the rule of the workers in each producing or economic enterprise. Following that definition, it is clear to see that Socialism has NEVER been implemented at a state or national level… some cooperatives (old kibutz are a good example) can be labeled socialist if they are ruled democratically by all its workers but nothing has been tried at a bigger level, ever
b) If you refer to Communism, that is simply a State based, fully centralized economic system, where economic and producing enterprises were managed not by workers but by technocrats defined by the State… it was far from perfect, but please remember that it turned a massive country under a feudal and slavery based economy (as was Russia in the 10’s) into the most industrialized country on the face of the earth and the first to put a man in space, in less than 40 years… and with the best public education, free health for all, and best international levels at sports and culture… if anybody wants to call that a failure, well, what can I say
For the benefit of brevity, will stop here
Americans are the most stupid and undereducated people on the planet.They vote for governments that spend 8 trillions dollars abroad in destroying entire countries.They think that some christian god or jahweh ordered that.Then they close their eyes for the depravation in their own country .Of course they were colonized by capitalism and brain-silenced before those satanic politicians stretched out their claws to the rest of the world.Well,by now the rest of the world is not interested anymore in what United States are saying .
Once again the Big Oil Oligarchy that runs the U.S. Gov’t has pipe dreams of usurping another countries oil, just like old G.W. Bush’s pipe dreams in Iraq, which failed to materialize after costing approx. 1 million Iraqis their lives, not to mention the American cannon fodder deaths and dismemberment’s. Just like always its the Oil, Stupid! By curtailing Venezuela’s oil output the US. can sell and ship out our current excess output. Meanwhile Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo are hard at work ginning up a nice little war with Iran, the military/industrial complex must continue to be fed with the American Sheep taxpayers dollars. As long as the sheep stay glued to their little ‘Happy Screens’ they will face almost zero backlash. (Fair.org excepted) I and others are still seeking the elusive cure for that Deadly and seemingly incurable disease; GREED and the LUST for POWER…..
Good for you FAIR folk, you sure stirred up a hornets nest here, you even got Ms. Caitlin Johnstone in on the fun. It is sure a good thing, (I think) not all of us think alike, nothing like good discourse to get one’s tiny mind spinning! Now if we could just get human beings to stop Stealing from each other, Its too late for the greed heads but maybe we could instill some honesty into our children, instead of brainwashing them from birth that this mess is just what has always been, and that’s that! Shut up and OBEY~~~~~
It’s sad to see FAIR under attack from so many pro propagandists. On the other hand, it means you must be doing your job well. Courage, FAIR, and keep up your brave work!
Wow, the comments here – since the word “Venezuela” is the topic – are about as predictable as those at ANY article that dares critique Israeli policies. The Venezuelan ex-pat oligarchy community is obviously here operating at full-throated hysterical volume, though it has nothing related to actual – “real world” – events to discuss. Just more CIA propaganda lines. Just an FYI folks – most who read the work of FAIR are well informed and are critical thinkers. You’d find a much more receptive audience for your imperialist regime-change war mongering for oligarchy at any number of MSM sites (too many to mention actually), so please do us all a favor and take your nonsense elsewhere.
Ummm. Sure got Maduro to the table pretty quickly.