A MINUTE OF FACT-CHECKING DEBUNKS L.A. TIMES ARTICLE ON DIRECTV’S VENEZUELA EXIT

The Los Angeles Times, in an article titled “The U.S. wants AT&T to stand up to Venezuela’s government censors” claims that the cable channel Globovisión, transmitted by DirecTV (100% AT&T-owned), is a mouthpiece for the Maudro government. The entire article is full of phrases and statements that imply that the main information outlets in Venezuela block all points of view put forward by the Venezuelan opposition. In the article, journalist Joshua Goodman legitimizes the State Department’s pressure on AT&T to “pull the plug on Maduro’s propaganda machine” and cease transmission of Globovisión.   

Nothing could be farther from the truth. All Joshua Goodman would have had to do is to google Globovisión and open their web page to see that the channel in no way reflects the line coming from the Maduro government. Alternatively, he could have accessed Globovisión programs like that of Vladimir Villegas titled “Vladimir A La Una” to have seen that he interviews people of different political stripes and that he hardly expresses pro-government positions. Indeed he himself belongs to the Venezuelan opposition.

Goodman writes “The U.S. officials and opposition operators are concerned that DirecTV is being used to broadcast state TV programming by Maduro to attack his opponents, who have no way to respond.” Doesn’t Goodman have the journalistic responsibility to check the credibility of this statement and comment on its lack of veracity? Or alternatively, shouldn’t he quote a pro-government source to present the other side of the story? Nothing of the sort.  Indeed, it would be easy to refute the statement that Maduro’s opponents “have no way to respond.” All it would take is to go into most bookstores in Venezuela, even the ones in the nation’s major state-run airport outside of Caracas, and by reviewing the newspapers on the stand, he could see that the opposite is almost the case, it’s the government that has “no way to respond.” 

Furthermore, Goodman fails to critically examine a statement by Carlos Vecchio, Juan Guaidó’s envoy in Washington, who calls Globovisión “treasonous.” The question that comes to anyone’s mind is why is Globovisión being called “treasonous”? The Venezuelan opposition considers Globovisión and its owner Raúl Gorrín who purchased the channel in 2013 as “traitors.” Why? Goodman says that prior to 2013 Globovisión was “critical of the government” but this is an understatement. Globovisión was not so much “critical” of the government, it was rabidly critical. Fox’s coverage of a Bernie Sanders’ government would be mild in comparison to Globovisión’s reporting on the government of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez.

These deficiencies in Goodman’s article point to the need for the Los Angeles Times, and the entire U.S. corporate media for that matter, to do fact checking in its reporting on Venezuela. The Los Angeles Times and much of the U.S. media are highly skeptical of the statements made by Donald Trump. Why should their treatment of Juan Guaidó and his supporters, who are virtual surrogates of the Trump administration, be any different?

Will a Failed Plot in Venezuela Strengthen Maduro?

Published in Latin America Advisor of the Inter-American Dialogue

May 19, 2020

by Steve Ellner

Every aspect of the recent attempt to topple the Maduro government points to Juan Guaidó's lack of leadership capacity. The incident cuts into his support among both the radical opposition that supports the use of force and the majority of Venezuelans, who, according to polls, favor concrete proposals to solve pressing immediate problems over regime-change strategies. In the first place, Guaidó's signature on the contract with the Florida-based Silvercorp USA disregards the history of operations of this sort in which planners go to length to ensure the credibility of a Plan B consisting of denial of involvement in case of failure. In the second place, Guaidó s commitment of 213 million dollars to Silvercorp raises questions about the origins of such a large sum of money. In the third place, even those favoring a military solution are criticizing the use of foreign mercenaries. In the fourth place, the plan envisioned one of two scenarios, one naive and the other questionable on ethical grounds. The choice of Macuto, with a strong navy presence nearby, for landing implied that the Venezuelan armed forces would spontaneously turn against Maduro, contrary to its behavior throughout 2019. On the other hand, the contract implied a possible drawn-out bloody confrontation with specified human targets including those close to Maduro and Diosdado Cabello. 

The Los Angeles Times reported that the incident has “buoyed” Maduro. During his rule, Chávez counted on the backing of a sizable majority of voters. It is unlikely that most of them would support an opposition that incident after incident becomes branded "Made in the USA." Some of this sentiment gets translated into support for Maduro, even among Venezuelans who fervently oppose his policies.

Steve Ellner, who holds a Ph.D. in Latin American history, is author of over a dozen books on Latin American history and politics and is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives.

Trump: Intellectual Author of Failed Regime Change Attempt in Venezuela

Trump washes his hands of anything to do with the recent disastrous military incursion in Venezuela. But the testimony of Luke Denman, one of the captured U.S. participants, stated in no uncertain terms that the mission was to take control of the airport, seize President Nicolás Maduro and fly him out of the country to hand him over the U.S. authorities. The goal was to collect the 15 million-dollar bounty that Trump placed on the Venezuelan president’s capture. This alone would indicate that Trump was one of the intellectual authors of the failed attempt. Trump’s “don’t blame me” response is not surprising as he always does the same when his words lead to murderous actions.  

ON THE LATEST FAILED ATTEMPT TO TOPPLE NICOLAS MADURO

To understand the workings of this latest botched Venezuelan regime-change scheme by a 60-man sea-borne assault group from Colombia, it’s necessary to take into account the fragmentation among Venezuelan opposition extremists. What may be called the “radical opposition” –  those anti-Chavistas who favor overthrowing Maduro by any means possible and are skeptical of the electoral road to power - is divided. There are two radical opposition camps and considerable resentment, if not animosity, between them. The sector headed by Juan Guaidó, after having undertaken several abortive and embarrassing attempts to overthrow Maduro with the support of Washington in 2019, is now more cautious having learned something from those frustrating experiences. The other, which includes former Venezuelan military officer Clíver Alcalá who fled to Colombia, is bolder, if not adventurist. The most important political figure in this second camp is the well-known political leader who aspired to be the opposition's united presidential candidate in 2012, María Corina Machado. This more extreme fringe criticizes Guaidó for managing a huge amount of money as a result of generous funding from the Trump administration and elsewhere, and not using more of it to support direct action against the Maduro government. Machado, for instance, harshly criticized Guaidó for engaging in negotiations with the Maduro government that were sponsored by Norway on grounds that those talks discouraged street protests in Venezuela and created false expectations. 

According to the declarations of the scheme’s mastermind and ex-Green Beret, Jordan Goudreau, made in an interview with Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo, who also belongs to the most radical faction of the opposition, makes clear that Guaidó is not at all opposed to military means to power. According to Goudreau, Guaidó was at first on board with the plan but then grew wary of it, realizing it was doomed to failure. The Colombian government and Washington appear to have been equally wary of this half- baked scheme, after supporting some of the wild ones that were carried out in 2019. This may explain why both Bogotá and Washington have thwarted Alcalá’s actions. But wary does not mean that they were opposed to the venture per se.

The Guaidó camp of the radical opposition, which is openly and actively supported by the Trump and Duque administrations, does not discard military actions to overthrow Maduro. There is abundant evidence to back the claims of Venezuela's UN ambassador Samuel Moncada and other Maduro government spokespeople that the Colombian government knew of the plans spearheaded by Goudreau, as did Washington, and did nothing to block them. The New York Times conducted interviews that showed this to be the case, and also showed that Goudreau was greatly encouraged by the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration. Obviously Goudreau was confident that once the military incursion showed signs of viability, that the rebels could count on the solid backing of Washington and Bogotá. Furthermore, Mike Pompeo recognized that Washington knows of the origin of Goudreau’s funding, which undoubtedly came from financier’s in Miami. U.S. complicity cannot be denied, even though Trump has attempted to do just that. But given the privatization of the regime change strategy in which funds are channeled through private companies (remember Blackwater? in this case, Goudreau’s SilverCorp USA) denial of U.S. involvement is all the easier.

The following article on the incident by journalist Jeremy Kyrt for the Daily Beast provides good detail. https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-venezuela-trump-just-inspired-the-dumbest-coup-plot-in-latin-american-history-complete-with-a-qanon-crazy

THE ANTI-CHINA MANIA IS LEADING IN ONE DIRECTION: NON-PAYMENT OF THE CHINESE-HELD DEBT

The Trump administration is stoking anti-Chinese resentment, if not frenzy. The latest is Mike Pompeo’s statement, made without offering any evidence, that there is “enormous evidence” that the coronavirus originated from a Chinese lab. Already voices on the right are calling for the non-payment of the federal debt owed to the Chinese as a response to the trillions of dollars of damage that the pandemic has caused. Trump denies that this option is on the table. Saying otherwise would throw the stock market into a tailspin. But after preparing public opinion for some sort of reprisal against China, Washington will thrust the decision to default on the Chinese portion of the debt on the world, just like Nixon did in 1971 when he took the dollar off the gold standard. Actually, it’s a logical move. The U.S. Federal debt was around 20 trillion dollars at the end of 2019, 79.2 percent of the nation’s GNP, and with the stimulus bill and related payments, it will be increased by an estimated 3.8 trillion. The situation is unsustainable, as everyone knows. The Republicans themselves harped on this until Trump came to power. Defaulting on the Chinese portion of the debt would be a bold but desperate move, but one that may be required given the desperate circumstances that U.S. capitalism finds itself in. It’s not unthinkable. It happened in the 1930s in Europe in a crisis situation. What is occurring today is a crisis of equal or greater magnitude. In declaring partial default, Washington will be turning its back on the sacred principle of the rights of property, which as everyone knows is far from sacred. 

Defaulting on the Chinese debt would be far from a panacea for U.S. capitalism. And the fallout with regard to confidence in the global financial system would be great. But Washington has demonstrated, particularly under Trump, that it doesn’t care much about confidence in and admiration for the U.S. With the U.S.’s undisputed military strength, the attitude is they may hate us, but they respect us (ie, fear us). When Trump froze the assets of numerous foreign companies that had dealings with Venezuela and Iran, and turned over assets owned by the Venezuelan government (CITGO) and companies like Rosneft, they were obviously violating property “rights,” an action which may have undermined faith in the system. But they did it anyways. These actions are reflections of the desperateness of U.S. capitalism. They’re looking for a quick fix, which if successful boosts confidence as well as Wall Street stock shares. It works in the short run.    

TRUMP AND HIS “ACTIVIST JUDGES”

For years, right-wing talk show hosts and other right-wingers railed against Democrats for appointing ideologically committed judges, thus corrupting the nation’s judicial system and  gutting it of its professional qualifications. They called these judges “activist judges” because they favored legalized abortion, affirmative action, civil rights consideration for minority groups and other unethical positions. In 2002 Rush Limbaugh wrote a piece titled “Why Liberals will do Anything to Get Activist Judges.” But in the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump vowed to name conservative judges who would back conservative positions, and in doing to secured the financial backing of the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, etc. During his 3 years in office, this is exactly what he has done, unabashedly. That’s because the new right and the neo-cons are more upfront about their tactics and agenda than the traditional right. Now these Trump-appointed judges are claiming that they have the right to belong to the hardly politically neutral Federalist Society. Today’s New York Times reported that “all but eight of Mr. Trump’s 51 appointees to the appellate bench had ties to the organization, nearly twice as many as under President George W. Bush. All but six of Mr. Trump’s appellate appointees signed the letter” asserting the right to belong to the Federalist Society. “Do as I say not as I do” appears to be the motto of the U.S. right.

A NEW THRESHOLD FOR U.S. INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS AGAINST VENEZUELA

Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration’s special envoy for Venezuela, is pressuring the Mexican government to halt a barter arrangement in which the Mexican firm Libre Abordo supplies Venezuela with corn and water trucks in return for oil. The matter is also being investigated by the State Department and the Treasury Department. Until now, the secondary sanctions of the U.S. government have been underpinned by the fact that international transactions take place in dollars and they thus necessarily get channeled through U.S. financial institutions, which are subject to the U.S. government’s jurisdiction. But a barter arrangement does not involve dollars. So what right does Washington have to veto a transaction involving two sovereign nations? Never in non-wartime history has the United States played such an activist role in forcing other nations to comply with U.S. sanctions – doubly outrageous given the current pandemic crisis. The arrogance and cruelty of the Trump administration know no limits.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-usa-probe-venezuela/u-s-asks-mexico-for-help-to-investigate-oil-for-food-pact-with-venezuela-idUSKBN22B3I6

THE LEFT IS CALLING ON MSNBC TO FIRE CHRIS HAYES FOR RAISING THE ISSUE OF BIDEN’S SEXUAL MISCONDUCT. REALLY?

Is that what the left is doing? According to The Hill in today’s article titled “#FireChris Hayes Trends after MSNBC Host Covers Biden Sexual Assault Allegations,” it’s people on the left who oppose any discussion of the issue and are attacking Hayes for daring to raise it. Why does the establishment and the establishment media conflate the left and the center? Fox News and company began this deceptive manipulation in order to discredit centrists like the Clintons and Obama. In doing so, the right took full advantage of the demonization of the “left” by claiming that Democrats were in the leftist camp, thus discrediting the Clintons, Obama and other adversaries. So this was originally a ploy on the part of the right. But there is a second, more powerful reason why the “center” gets called the “left” (and sometimes the “far left”). The establishment, particularly the Democratic Party leadership, has always attempted to marginalize the left. Look what they did to Dennis Kucinich. That’s why Bill Clinton and Obama refused to campaign for Ned Lamont (at the time he was a true progressive) in Connecticut’s 2006 senatorial election, even though it meant throwing the race to a party renegade, Joe Lieberman. By calling centrists “leftists,” the left gets shunted aside completely. They’re off the charts. And yet can people who avidly support international sanctions against Venezuela, who supported U.S. military intervention in country after country in the Middle East and who said (as Obama did shortly after getting elected) that everything was on the table other than Single Payer, can these people really be considered “leftists”? One more example of corporate media deception.