Lo que significa el nombramiento de Philip Goldberg como embajador a Colombia

El nombramiento del gobierno norteamericano de Philip Goldberg como embajador a Colombia señala dos desarrollos: el beso de la muerte de los acuerdos de paz con la guerrilla colombiana; y la continuación e intensificación de la campaña de hostigamiento contra Venezuela para fomentar la inestabilidad en ese país vecino. Evo Morales expulsó a Goldberg como embajador en 2008 por sus acciones en favor de la oposición violenta en ese país y previamente él desempeño un papel importante en la desintegración de Yugoslavia en los años 90. 
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=256173

The Pluses and Downsides of Latin America’s 21st Century Progressive Governments

My edited “Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings” analyzes the governing experiences of the nine major pro-leftist governments in Latin America. The contributors examine the Pink Tide policies and rhetoric that gained widespread approval and led to the long tenure of many of these governments: ambitious social programs, prioritizing the needs of the poor, nationalistic foreign policy, economic nationalism, and asserting control of strategic sectors of the economy. The book also takes a critical look at policies that have contributed to recent setbacks, acknowledging the inability of progressive governments to overcome embedded structures holding back economic development. The contributors look at the actions of a “disloyal opposition”—often supported by powerful foreign actors—pressuring the government into making concessions and carrying out policies that ultimately undermined economic and political stability.

VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION, HAVING CREATED SUCH FALSE EXPECTATIONS, HAS LOST ITS MOBILIZATION CAPACITY

Just a couple of hundred people participated on May 11 in the protest called for by Venezuela’s would-be president Juan Guaidó, in spite of the fact that the concentration was in a plaza in the wealthy district of Las Mercedes which is an opposition bastion. This is good news for the Chavistas but has its downside. Trump may say “if the Venezuelans can’t accept my wishes ‘por lo bueno’ then it will have to be ‘por lo malo.’ Those people leave me with no other alternative but to send in troops.”

www.eluniversal.com/politica/39812/critican-escasa-participacion-en-movilizaciones-opositoras-de-este-sabado

JUAN GUAIDO, THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND DAMAGE CONTROL

by Steve Ellner

Latin America Advisor (publication of the Inter-American Dialogue), May 10, 2019

The spin that the Venezuela opposition and Trump administration have put on the events of April 30 are designed to save face. Opposition leaders deny April 30 constituted a coup attempt and instead claim it was part of an ongoing process that achieved at least one objective: liberating Leopoldo López from house arrest. By alleging that Maduro was about to flee the country and that his Defense Minister Padrino López had virtually defected, the Trump administration appeared to be attempting to demonstrate that, far from being a half-baked scheme, the April 30 action almost succeeded. However, regime change efforts of this type, like the 4-month protests of 2014 and 2017, create great expectations among the anti-Maduro rank and file which then turn into a sense of resignation, while the opposition parties end up losing their mobilization capacity. Juan Guaidó’s call for the overthrow of Maduro on April 30 was the third of its kind in just over 3 months (the others having occurred on January 23 and February 23); in each case people were led to believe that Maduro was on the verge of being ousted. The end result is a loss of credibility. Shortly after April 30, Carlos Raúl Hernández – a veteran political analyst and activist associated with Acción Democrática – voiced the belief of many in the opposition when he told Le Figaro that Juan Guaidٕó may be charismatic but lacks political ability.

Guaidó’s failures may strengthen the hands of opposition parties that have been ambivalent about his schemes and are more open to negotiations with the government. While the demand for new elections represents a major hurdle in any negotiation process, proposals to overcome the pressing problems of hyperinflation, corruption and insecurity are not necessarily specific to any particular ideology. Surveys indicate that these problems, and not regime change, are foremost on the minds of most Venezuelans.



Steve Ellner is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives, retired professor from the Universidad de Oriente (Venezuela), and editor of Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).

What Donald Trump's 1.2 billion dollar loss between 1985-1994 really says

New York Times’s bombshell scoop on Trump’s tax returns from 1985-1994 raises various issues. The article shows that Trump was in the red for each of those ten years with an overall loss of 1.2 billion dollars, more than any other taxpayer in the country. What this revelation points to is the following:  

1. Such consistent loses show that the president was not a savvy businessman who made untold millions of honest dollars, as he purported to be during the presidential campaign. His “Art of the Deal” was the work of a snake oil salesman.

2. If Trump incurred such heavy losses, where was he getting all his money from. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who has written extensively on Trump over many years, told Amy Goodman that he is convinced that Trump was engaged in highly illicit business activity: https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/8/billion_dollar_loser_nyt_report_on

3. Trump tweeted 7:00 AM this morning that it is common that real estate businesspeople manipulate the depreciation of their holdings in order to minimize tax payment. Actually, Johnston confirmed this to be the case. So what does this say about our tax system? If this is such a well-known practice involving massive write-offs by real-estate moguls who are earning millions, then the U.S. tax system is structurally flawed. This is a scandal and it’s not just about Trump.

THE NARRATIVE COMING OUT OF WASHINGTON THAT VENEZUELA IS SOMETING LESS THAN DEMOCRATIC

We can’t use the same metric to judge a government that is under siege and has faced a “disloyal opposition” -- with powerful resources and domestic and external allies and which for nearly 2 decades has been planning and carrying out illegal actions -- as we do a government in a normal democratic setting. For instance, the calling of the Constituent Assembly (ANC) has to be contextualized. It came in response to four months of demonstrations in 2017 in which some of the protesters organized in paramilitary formations and the leaders, such a Henrique Capriles, were obviously aiming for a repetition of tactics employed on April 11, 2002 with a march to the center of Caracas. Furthermore, I believe that any analysis of the shortcomings of Venezuelan democracy has to point out that shortcomings of a similar nature exist here in the U.S. Nancy Pelosi, for instance, just pointed out that the Democrats need to win by a significant majority in 2020 because otherwise Trump will not recognize the results. In other words, there is a real fear of electoral fraud, which has been well documented at the state level. In Venezuela electoral fraud – as defined by votes not getting counted or voting not being secret – does not exist.