While touring the Middle East, including election-free Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called for the Venezuelan opposition and armed forces to overthrow the current government under its president Nicolas Maduro. According to Pompeo, a coup is necessary to “restore democracy” after elections failed to produce the desired US outcome. On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
Maduro is no Hugo but compared to Trump he’s f**king Gandhi with a mustache. Compared to Pompeo he’s Jesus goddamn Christ.
No, he’s pretty much what it would look like if Trump and Pompeo got together and made a baby.
You can’t give that ridiculous statement any substance
Well, it’s true that Trump hasn’t caught up with Maduro on economics (e.g. massive increases in hunger, poverty and inflation) yet.
And it’s true that Cuba’s Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella (Maduro’s alma mater) is less prestigious than Pompeo’s West Point, but they do share a spook background.
But for the most part, authoritarian asshats seem to look a lot like each other.
You tried
And failed
Much of Maduro and Venezuela’s problem seems to be their reluctance to privatize their resources.
Same problem Iraq and Libya had before we brought them “freedom.”
Venezuela’s current problem is state socialism and the Maduro dictatorship.
That’s not to say that the imposition of a US-approved client regime would be any better. It’s shit sandwich versus deep-fried shit kabobs.
It’s a constitutional government with a President that was democratically elected.
Calling it state socialism is meaningless sloganeering. They have private ownership of virtually the entire economy. The state controls much of the oil resources, just like Libya and Iraq, who happened to have the highest standard of living in their areas…
Until we turned them into rubble.
Venezuela’s problems stem from Washington’s commitment to overthrow their government.
“It’s a constitutional government with a President that was democratically elected.”
Oh, I see — I thought we were talking about Venezuela, not some alternate universe version of the same where Maduro didn’t unconstitutionally replace the entire Supreme Court, then unconstitutionally have that Supreme Court nullify the legislature when unconstitutionally suspending his opponents in it wasn’t enough to get his way, then unconstitutionally replacing that legislature with new “constituent assembly,” then barring his opponents from running against him in the presidential election.
There are three stages to state socialism (and Venezuela is run by the United Socialist Party and the Communist Party):
1) “It’s gonna be FANTASTIC.”
2) A few years later: “It’s not FANTASTIC because those OTHER PEOPLE aren’t letting it work.”
3) And a few years later, pulling tarps over pyramids of skulls: “Socialism? Oh, no, that wasn’t REAL socialism!”
Game, set, and match.
Yeah, we’re talking about a country that survived a CIA supported coup and has been the object of American regime change efforts sincere Hugo Chavez became the leader.
Being under the pressure of American sanctions so that we can turn it into a “free market” paradise like Pinochet’s Chile comes with a price.
When Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush illegally funded the Contras in retaliation for the Sandinistas efforts to create a more socially responsible government they murdered tens of thousands of peasants.
Spare me your stages of state socialism claptrap. There are millions of skulls scattered around the world while we freed various exploited peoples of their resources, labor and lives.
I agree that the US-proffered alternative to Maduro’s dictatorship is likely no better, and none of the US’s business.
That doesn’t mean I have to pretend that a despot you like isn’t a despot.
I’ll accept the reporting of John Pilger or Abby Martin over anything you parrot back from the corporate media.
Especially after your pathetically thoughtless recitation of socialism.
In order to parrot the corporate media, I’d have to listen to the corporate media in the first place.
Maduro overthrew the elected assembly of Venezuela, replaced it with a hand-picked rubber stamp (first the Supreme Court, then the “constituent assembly,” and outlawed his substantial opponents from running against him. Those are simple facts of reality. So is the fact that he’s a spook trained at Cuba’s equivalent of the School of the Americas.
He’s just the flip side of Pinochet. Same clown, different costume.
You don’t have to listen to the corporate media anymore you’ve already internalized their message.
I’m not going to go back a parse the previous elections. There are two sides to that story.
Maduro won the popular election and neither he nor Chavez committed the tortures and murders that Pinochet or the other American client state Columbia has done.
Show me a citation of where Cuba has an equivalent of the School of the Americas. You’re hyperbole is boring.
You got nothing.
It’s called El Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella.
Sorry your religion doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
So, a State thug becomes a benevolent leader as long as his rhetoric doesn’t include the word “freedom” but does include “for the people?”
He was elected
We have been trying to overthrow the elected government in Venezuela for twenty years
Well, the elected legislature just invoked the Venezuelan Constitution to declare the presidency vacant and replace Maduro.
The US regime is backing that play.
I strongly suspect we’re about to see an invasion.
And no, I don’t support that. I don’t have to pretend Maduro is something other than the vile authoritarian he is to oppose the US meddling in Venezuelan affairs.
We’re about to see another coup.
To put in place a right wing kleptocracy
Whatever the government is, it is a product of American meddling
Just as it is in every state in the Western Hemisphere
Maduro may be the best Venezuela can get under the circumstances
Yes, the situation in Venezuela is largely a product of American (and other) international meddling.
For the last century and change, Latin America has pretty much been an ongoing duel between “left-wing” and “right-wing” kleptocrats (not all of them start out as kleptocrats, but they all become kleptocrats as soon as they find themselves in a position to steal at will).
It would be interesting to see what would happen if they were left to sort out their own affairs.
Chiapas and Amish country are REAL socialism. Maduro is to socialism what Lew Rockwell is to libertarianism. Every political system has it’s black sheep and state-anything typically ends in pyramids of skulls, which is an awesome death metal band name.
The US typically uses tactics to push socialist experiments to become as statist as possible in order to guarantee its failure. It takes two to tango.
I wonder why he had to do that ? Covert operations perhaps ?
He didn’t have to do that. He decided to do that.
So US sanctions and denial of credit have nothing to do with it ? LOL !
Covert regime change operations and the fact the US has long made South America our plantation for profit also have nothing to do with it !!
Don’t let facts get in the way or anything Thomas.
I said no such things. Are you arguing with yourself, or with an imaginary voice in your head?
Exactly!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE-OPPVmUyI
Another country that the US “free market” has turned into a plantation for the bankster elite.
‘the US “free market”‘
Exactly what US has a free market? The US is no more than 10% free market, and 45% socialist, 45% fascist.