HEAVEN FORBID THAT BERNIE SANDERS SAID SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT CUBA

Sanders praised Cuba for its literacy campaign that taught 700,000 Cubans to read and write. True to form, the mainstream media quotes experts in Miami, such as Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala, who claim that Sanders is praising “a murderous tyrant like Fidel Castro.” I wonder what Shala and others would be saying if Sanders had referred to other important breakthroughs of the Cuban government such as in the area of health. And she’d probably go berserk if Sanders had pointed out that the 60-year embargo imposed by the U.S. has something to do with Cuba’s economic difficulties.

The Trump administration doubles down on sanctions on Venezuela

U.S. sanctions against Venezuela in the name of democracy is a cover for an economic war favoring U.S. corporate interests at the expense of everyone else, including allies. This is what I told Sputnik: https://www.urdupoint.com/en/business/analysis-us-sanctions-on-venezuela-oil-indu-843937.html

Last night's presidential debate: Not one word on military spending

The topic of military spending was the elephant in the room in last night’s presidential debate. So much talk about where the money is going to come from to pay for health, education and welfare proposals and not one word about Trump’s Space Force, the 800 U.S. military bases in 70 countries in the world, and Trump’s bloated military budget that many Democrats supported. It would seem that the military industrial complex is a more dangerous topic to raise than the call to eliminate the billionaire class. That’s why the word “socialism” is a more innocuous term than “imperialism” in U.S. political debate.

Vote counting delays in Bolivia and Iowa and the mainstream media

In Bolivia a delay in the vote counting served as the main justification for a soft coup against the government of Evo Morales, even though the final results were perfectly predictable on the basis of the vote count prior to the delay. The corporate media accepted the line of the coup leaders lock stock and barrel. In contrast, in Iowa there was also a lengthy delay in the voting process, yet nobody in the media has entertained the idea of fraud. Double standards, to say the least.

U.S. POLICY TOWARD VENEZUELAN OIL: THE EPITOME OF COLONIALISM

The Trump administration has given special permission to Chevron as well as oil service companies Haliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Weatherford to participate in the Venezuelan oil industry. All U.S. companies with the exception of Schlumberger which is French-U.S. At the same time, it is threatening Rosneft (of Russia), Repsol (Spain) and other foreign companies with secondary sanctions for their purchase of Venezuelan petroleum. A throwback to the colonial period when Spain prohibited other nations from engaging in any economic activity whatsoever in its colonies. Long live the Monroe Doctrine!

NEW YORK TIMES HAILS NICOLAS MADURO’S ECONOMIC PRAGMATISM

The New York Times on February 8 published an article titled “To Survive, Venezuela’s Leader Gives Up Decades of Control Over Oil.” This is the second article in two weeks to describe Nicolás Maduro’s pragmatic economic policies which includes privatization and an opening up to foreign capital in the oil industry. The articles attribute the recent modest pickup of the Venezuelan economy to these pragmatic policies and are quick to point out that they go counter to Hugo Chávez’s strategy of asserting greater state control of the economy in the name of achieving socialism by gradual means. Actually, the articles aren’t bad, if you compare them with the coverage of the rest of the commercial media (including the New York Times in general) on Venezuela. But the authors fail to connect the dots. They talk about how Washington’s secondary boycott has made it difficult for Venezuela’s PDVSA to enter into commercial relations with intermediaries (insurance companies, shipping companies, etc.) to export crude and then they wonder why Maduro is privatizing exports. They also talk about Trump’s special permission to Chevron and 4 oil service companies (Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Weatherfield) without pointing to the obvious favoritism toward U.S. capital in the name of fighting for democracy. In fact, it is a throwback to the inter-imperialist rivalry of the pre-World War I era given the fact that these are U.S. companies (Schlumberger is half U.S.) and that Washington is closing the doors on companies (such as the Spain’s Repsol) which are being threatened with a secondary boycott. 

There is opposition to Maduro’s pragmatism from within the pro-government Chavista movement (as opposed to those leftists such as Marea Socialista who make no distinction between Maduro and Juan Guaidó). This dissidence is heavily represented in the Chavista peasant movement that has opposed the privatization of state land (such as rice production) and has received backing from one of the top Chavista historical leaders, Elias Jaua. In this conflict between Maduro’s pragmatism and Madurista critics on the left, there may not be any “correct” answer as to who is correct. This conflict may be a manifestation of the “creative tensions” that Alvaro Garcia Linera alludes to in reference to the popular protests in Bolivia under Evo Morales or Mao’s “contradictions among the people.” A comparison may also be made with Lenin’s New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union in the 20s that gave rise to the Kulak class, which ended up resisting socialism. Thus a “correct” strategy at a given moment may lead to undesirable consequences. In any case, these developments have to be understood in the context of a crippling economic, political and cultural war on Venezuela led from Washington, which has limited the options for the Chavista government.

THE WASHINGTON POST IMPLIES THAT BERNIE SANDERS’ DENUNCIATIONS OF THE DIRTY TRICKS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MACHINE IS COMPARABLE TO THE PETTY AND UNFOUNDED ACCUSATIONS AGAINST HIM

Today’s Washington Post published an article titled “Top Democrats Turn on each other after Iowa, complicating the party’s chances against Trump.” The article makes it seem as if what it alleges is a tit-for-tat between Hillary Clinton-Democratic Party leadership and Bernie Sanders is lessoning the Democrats’ chances in November. If you believe the article, Clinton’s accusations against Sanders is of the same weight as Sanders’ accusations against the Democratic Party machine for trying to block his candidacy in 2016 and 2020. In fact, there’s no comparison. Hillary Clinton’s ongoing gripe against Sanders is that he didn’t throw full support behind her candidacy, what the article says not “sufficiently rallying his base” in 2016. Sanders is accusing the Democratic Party machine of playing dirty and violating party norms in order to favor Clinton in 2016 and now favoring the candidacy of Michael Bloomberg. Is there any basis of comparison? Firstly, Clinton’s complaint is of no consequence because Sanders did endorse Clinton once she was the official party candidate and indeed campaigned and campaigned fairly actively for her. The fact that some of his followers (myself included) couldn’t get themselves to vote for Clinton says nothing about Sanders, but rather talks to the poor quality of her own campaign. Sanders, on the other hand, is accusing the Democratic party of manipulation, if not illegal interference, in the campaign on the side of a specific candidate, thus violating its duty to maintain impartiality. Indeed, the reporting of the Washington Post and that of the mainstream press in general is just one more piece of evidence that the establishment is doing whatever is necessary to block Sanders’ bid for the nomination.