It turns out sociopathy is addictive. Our American empire knows no bounds to its nation-building (after nation-destroying).
There are three things I know for sure in this fanciful, sometimes inglorious experience we call life:
You will never have a safety pin when you need one, and you will have thousands when you dont need one. Wild animals are breathtakingly majestic until theyre crawling up your pant leg. A U.S. presidential administration will never admit that it invaded another country or backed a coup attempt in order to essentially steal the natural resources (oil) of said country.
This is why it was so very shocking last week when members of the Trump administration admitted they were backing a coup attempt in order to essentially steal the natural resources (oil) of another country.
That country is Venezuela. Ill get back to this in a moment.
Lets take a second to go over the big three. There are three things that seem to provoke the ornery United States into overthrowing or bringing down a foreign government, no matter how many innocent civilians may die in the process. (If enough die, the perpetrators often get nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.) If your country has one of these things, the U.S. might screw with you. If your country has two of these things, the U.S. will definitely screw with you. If your country has three of these things, then look behind you, because the U.S. is currently screwing you:
1. Being socialist.
Pretty self-explanatory. If you dont have the same economic system as we do, we treat it like you have candy and were not allowed to have any, so we slip razor blades in yours and tell everyone your candy kills people.
2. Dropping the U.S. dollar.
Iraq dropped the dollar. We invaded. Syria dropped the dollar. We invaded. Iran dropped the dollar. We want to invade. Libya dropped the dollar. We invaded.
Pakistan dropped the dollar in trade with China, and the following day the U.S. added them to the list of countries violating religious freedom. (I guess you could argue they did indeed violate our religion: The dollar.)
Basically, we do NOT take kindly to countries dropping the dollar.
In unrelated news, Venezuela dropped the dollar.
3. Having oil or other natural resources the U.S. needs.
In case you were curious, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the known world. (But we havent checked northern Wyoming yet, because its a long, cold drive with nary a 7-11.)
So these are the three ACTUAL reasons the U.S. has created an attempted coup in Venezuela over the past several weeks. And right now, you are falling into one of two categories. Either youre saying to yourself, Of course those are the reasons. Those are the only reasons the U.S. ever tries to bring down governments. OR you still have some strange, deep-rooted faith in our Pepsi-and-pharmaceutical-owned media outlets, and therefore youre thinking, Thats not true. The U.S. supports the opposition in Venezuela because we want to help those poor starving people. But if that were accurate, we would be tripping over ourselves to help starving and sick people around the world. Instead we (oddly) only seek to help them when they have oil under their feet. And in fact, data has proven this true. A study a few years ago from the Universities of Portsmouth, Warwick and Essex found that foreign intervention in civil conflicts is 100 times more likely if the country has a great deal of oil, versus none.
So who is feeding the average American the idea that our involvement in Venezuela is about helping people? Only EVERY mainstream media channel in Americafrom MSNBC to Fox News to NPR to Bill fuckin Maher. Its truly mind-numbing to watch so-called liberals march in lockstep with the likes of John Bolton, Elliot Abrams, Donald Trump and every neocon not currently in a coma.
These outlets froth at the mouth while presenting segments explaining that the Venezuelan people are starving, but they also purposefully avoid mentioning that a lot of Venezuelas hardships are due to U.S. sanctions. This isnt to say Venezuelas president, Nicolás Maduro, has done an awesome job. But whether he has or not, saying we must sanction them to help them is like if somebody fell through a plate glass window and you said, Lets help him! Lets start cutting the glass shards out of his skin with this rusty flathead screwdriver I found in an abandoned mine! Then well pour Mountain Dew and sewage water in the wounds to help them heal!
But thats what our sanctions are designed to do. Theyre devised from day one to hurt poor and average people the most, in order to make them angry enough to rebel. Over a year ago, when Rex Tillerson was secretary of state, he publicly said we could tell our sanctions on North Korea were working great because poor fishermen were washing up on the beaches starved to death. (One is perplexed by how difficult it is at times to tell the difference between helping other countries and mass murder.)
Sanctions are not smart bombs. They destroy everybody, except the richwho have enough money to weather the sanctions. Come to think of it, sanctions are kind of like smart bombs. Were told theyre only going to hit the bad guys, but in fact smart bombs kill all kinds of innocent civilians, just like sanctions do.
Furthermore, the U.S. humanitarian aid that we claim to be sending is not what it seems. Even NPR took a break from its traditional role as State Department stenographer-in-training to reveal that the humanitarian aid is actually meant to create regime change. And McClatchy last week uncoveredthat the North Carolina-based private freight company 21 Air LLC has made 40 secretive flights to Venezuela from the U.S. in the past month, and the Venezuelan government claimed the flights were filled to the brim with assault weapons and ammunition destined for opposition forces. (Apparently we thought the Venezuelans were going to cook up a fresh pot of bullet stew to ease their hunger pains.) To make matters worse, two executives at the company have ties to an air cargo company that helped the CIA rendition supposed terrorists to black sites for interrogation (read: torture).
The next piece of propaganda lovingly pedestalled by our mainstream media robot-heads is simply calling Juan Guaidó the interim president without mentioning that he was not elected to that position and only 30 out of 200 nations recognize him as such. He just declared himself president. Last I checked, thats not really how governments work. But if it isOK, I hereby declare myself governor of
lets say, Idaho. No one will really notice. Im pretty sure the current governor is a hedgehog in a bow tie.
There are many other things CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and all the rest dont want you to know about Juan Guaidó. For example, until he named himselfpresident, 81 percent of Venezuelans didnt even know who he was, according to a poll conducted by the Venezuela-based firm Hinterlaces. And he only won his own assembly seat with 26% of the vote. In order to win elections in any country, you often need more than 30 percent of the people to have heard of you. Pauly Shore has more name recognition among Venezuelans than Juan Guaidó.
On top of that, Guaidó went to George Washington University. As the Grayzone Project reported, [In 2007] He moved to Washington, D.C., to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund.
Guaidó went to GW, trained under Mr. IMF, and then we declared him president of Venezuela. Thats like studying at the WWE, training under Henry Kissinger, and then the U.S. declares you the King of Japan.
But it doesnt stop there, according to the Grayzone Project:
Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washingtons elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.
Furthermore, Juan Guaidó has already said he wants to sell Venezuelas oil to foreign companies and let the IMF back in, which will drown the country in debt.
So hes an American regime-change pawn who was groomed by the IMF to take over Venezuela and give away their natural resources. What a catch.
But if this is what the Venezuelan people really want, then we should respect their wishes. The corporate media tells us this is what the people want, right?
Except that its not.
According to a study conducted in early January 2019
86 percent of Venezuelans would disagree with international military intervention, Grayzones Ben Norton reported last month. And 81 percent oppose the US sanctions that have gravely hurt the nations economy.
So, based on the Hinterlaces poll, most Venezuelans didnt know Guaidó until recently. Most Venezuelans still support Maduro even if they believe corruption in the government has increased (whether you personally like Maduro or not doesnt matter), and most Venezuelans dont want military intervention or U.S. sanctions. Yet CNN and NPR and Fox News and the BBC and every other corporate outlet will have you thinking everyone is starving to death, on their knees begging for Americas democracy bombs to rain down like dollar bills at a strip club. Venezuela | Maduro
A doll of Hugo Chavez with a flyer of Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro stuffed in its shirt is held aloft during a pro-government protest in Caracas, Feb. 12, 2019. Rodrigo Abd | AP
But maybe Im wrong. Maybe those people really need our help, and U.S. intervention will work out greatexactly like it did in Syria, and Yemen, and Iraq, and Iran, and Afghanistan, and Chile, and Honduras, and Haiti, and Somalia, and Libya, and Guatemala, and Nicaragua, and Colombia, and Panama, and Fraggle Rock, and those tree forts where the EWOKS LIVED!
Now that we have a general understanding of the situation (and why Anderson Cooper is not keen to remind viewers what happened with Fraggle Rock in the early 90s), lets get back to the question of oil.
When I first started writing this, I didnt have proof the American government wanted Venezuelas oil; it was just a hunch. Kinda like if you put a balloon in a room with a porcupine, you have a hunch hell pop the balloon. But I didnt have a quote from a top Trump administration official saying, Wed like to take their oil.
Then national security adviser and Mustache of Doom John Bolton said, hold my beer. While on Fox News he stated clearly, It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.
Thats Beltway Speak for We want their oil.
For 20 years weve been trying to destroy Venezuela, and our government always gives the standard line: We want to help the people. We care about their democracy. They have a lot of inflation, and thats why we need to drop our freedom bombs on their heads. Theyve trotted out that bullshit brigade under Bush, Obama and now Trump. The officials never just say, Yeah, theres like, tons of oil there, and we want it.
Yet, here it is. The disguise of neoliberal world domination has come off. (Ironically, the fake mustache was yanked off to reveal a much larger mustache.)
Also, its amazing how monotone and matter-of-fact Bolton is as he speaks. A U.S.-backed coup often ends in terrible violence with tens of thousands of innocent people killed. Its truly heartbreaking, no matter which side you support. Sometimes it ends up with a brutal military junta taking control. Yet, here is John Bolton discussing it the same way he would analyze whether to have chocolate fudge ice cream or apple pie for dessert. (Hmmm, possible death of a hundred thousand people? That sounds goodIll have that.)
This is all the more horrifying because these policies are decided by unelected maniacs like Elliot Abrams, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. Trump just named Abrams special envoy to Venezuela despite the fact the guy has a resume that would make Josef Mengele blush. And whats even more jaw-dropping is watching the liberati like Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and nearly every Democrat in Congress get in line to support the talking points of right-wing warlords (the belligerati) like Bolton, Abrams, Pompeo, Trump, Hannity and nearly every Republican in Congress. The mountains of propaganda put forward make it hard to breathe (the air is thinner up here).
Worse yeteven the Wall Street Journal stated the U.S. push to oust Maduro is just the first shot in the oligarchys plan to reshape Latin America. It turns out sociopathy is addictive. Our American empire knows no bounds to its nation-building (after nation-destroying).
The Venezuelan people deserve self-determination, no matter how you feel about the current government. The absolute last thing they need is to be turned into a neocon / neoliberal parking lot in which America rips all their resources out from under them while calling it freedom. Luckily, there are already many signs this U.S.-created attempted coup is failing.
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This column is based on a monologue Lee Camp wrote and performed on his TV show, Redacted Tonight.
Top Photo | President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attend a rally to promote regime change in Venezuela at Florida International University on February 18, 2019 in Miami, Florida. Hoo-Me.com | MediaPunch | AP
Lee Camp is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and activist. Camp is the host of the weekly comedy news TV show Redacted Tonight With Lee Camp on RT America. He is a former comedy writer for the Onion and the Huffington Post and has been a touring stand-up comic for 20 years.