dagblog - Comments for "Venezuela sends US diplomat 'saboteurs' packing"

Thanks for the reply Bruce,

Peter — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 06:33:22 +0000

In reply to I actually hear you pretty

Thanks for the reply Bruce, your exposure to people from south of the border can only help to broaden the normally narrow view we have of our neighbors to the south or as John Kerry calls it " our backyard". With your background and experiences I have trouble understanding how you can make a statement like " I think there is a tendency among the leadership in Venezuela to perpetuate hostilities with the US". Our government still has not recognized the free and verifiable election of President Maduro and continues to support financially the economic and social disruption of that country. We can debate human rights violations in Venezuela and in the US but as long as you depend on the US MSM for your facts there can be no real truth uncovered. You do realize that Venezuela doesn't need US assistance of any kind since it has its hands full dealing with US interference in its affairs. CITGO the US based Venezuelan oil company will be delivering millions of gallons of subsidized heating oil to needy Americans in the North East this winter so even though they may be hostile to the USG they are suppling the "right kind" of assistance to impoverished US citizens.

I actually hear you pretty

Bruce Levine — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 12:13:21 +0000

In reply to My problem with these

I actually hear you pretty well. You know, I met my wife through American and Chilean folks who first came together in response to the Pinochet coup in Chile, just about 40 years ago to the day. One of them is now a law partner of mine and she's one of my closest friends in the world. Another new lawyer in my office was just talking to me yesterday about Buenos Aires, where my son studied (before spending a year in Tuxtla Guttierez in Chiapas, Mexico) and where this lawyer spent time helping Argentines who were trying to turn bankrupt factories in Buenos Aires into workers' coops. We both agreed that we can learn quite a bit from our brothers and sisters down south.

Around these parts, while we might disagree about this or that issue and while folks like me sometimes blow a gasket or two over schmaltz, most of us are all too familiar with the very dark and ugly underbelly of American foreign policy. AA, for one, cut teeth back at the UW in the 1960s.

This article aside, I think there is a strong tendency among the leadership in Venezuela to perpetuate hostilities with the United States--and I'm not saying there's not a background that most Americans either don't know or couldn't care less about. Maduro has no simple task in trying to translate the good that comes from some of the centralized economic measures he and his predecessors are committed to, with quite a bit of the bad. I hate equivalence memes, because I think they're cop-outs too often, but sometimes they're apt. You can't ignore the propensity of Maduro, and Chavez before him, to trample civil liberties and then forget that Caracas has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

At some point it becomes the duty and responsibility of the Venezuelas of the world--in this case a country that truly is blessed with abundant natural resources--to take charge of their own destinies and move forward. I'm all for the right kind of American assistance in that respect--the right kind. And I kind of believe--perhaps naively so--that President Obama would agree with me.

I guess I agree with you that Americans are fairly ignorant about the role that our corporate leaders have played with the lives of our neighbors. But, you know, another partner of mine sends his daughter to Calhoun High School, right by where I live in the nerdy UWS of Manhattan, and their textbook is Zinn in their American History class. I kind of think that, nonetheless, those kids are going to turn out to be not very different than the kids in neighboring schools who read classic rah rah American history books. We'll see.

Peace.

Bruce

My problem with these

Peter — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 06:24:10 +0000

In reply to Thanks, In any event the CSM

My problem with these "reports" on Venezuela is that they generally regurgitate the US Corporate line and ignore the many advances made by the Bolivarian Revolution. This is a country that was being crushed into deep poverty by neoliberal austerity policies in the '90s and since Chaves was elected and rejected these policies they have advanced dramatically. Sure they have serious economic and social problems just as we have but they are attempting, with some success, to address those problems. They have reduced poverty by 50% and nearly doubled the caloric intake of their citizens, part of the reason for some food shortages. Using their natural resource wealth they are improving their peoples lives and rebuilding their infrastructure while we the richest nation in the world are sliding further into poverty and disfunction. All of this was accomplished while a strong opposition with US support waged economic warfare, a coup and lock-out by the oil industry. Venezuela is not alone in SA many countries there are rejecting US Corporate hegemony and moving forward to make a better life for their people.

Thanks, In any event the CSM

Bruce Levine — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 00:33:32 +0000

In reply to For the information of other

Thanks,

In any event the CSM article doesn't reject Maduro's allegations, nor does it support any notion that the U.S. hasn't in the past sabotaged governments all over the world, and purportedly even in Venezuela in 2002. It does do, I think, what an article should do, and that is it gives both sides--on the one hand Maduro's allegations (with reference to the evidence he was holding in his hand (sound familiar?:))), and on the other hand the tattered state of the economy of oil-rich Venezuela.

I guess spin really is in the eye of the beholder.

For the information of other

artappraiser — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 00:15:25 +0000

In reply to I expect this kind of spin

For the information of other readers, Gregory Wilpert is a long-time pro-Chavista spinner and venezuelanalysis.com is the website he set up to spin pro-Chavista arguments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelanalysis.com

http://www.globalpost.com/passport/newsmaker-interview/091124/gregory-wi...

And there is no NYTimes article posted above.

I expect this kind of spin

Peter — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 23:03:15 +0000

In reply to Venezuela sends US diplomat 'saboteurs' packing

I expect this kind of spin and propaganda from the NYT but was amused that the CSM also regurgitates this bile. Gregory Wilpert does a fine job of debunking the offering on this subject from the NYT at venezuelanalysis.com. We all know that the US has never used sabotage against another country, that didn't deserve it. It appears that President Maduro, who we don't recognize, got a bit more from his China trip than the $5 billion for the China/ Venezuela investment fund. He also got $14 billion for oil refining development, mining, help in building 4500 new homes and financing to build a new port. He also purchased 2000 new buses and signed an agreement to build new buses in Venezuela with Chinese help. It's interesting that while we have been shipping our jobs overseas Venezuela requires its oil customers to build factories in Venezuela to employ their people, this includes an auto factory, washing machine factory and an electronics factory among other investments.

Good question. It's: hey,

artappraiser — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 18:26:16 +0000

In reply to How are they gonna get home

Good question. It's: hey, Maduro, we ain't got no cash flow right now either.

How are they gonna get home

Bruce Levine — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 18:20:14 +0000

In reply to Expulsion of U.S. diplomats

How are they gonna get home now that the government shut down? How much does a coach ticket cost from Caracas these days????

Expulsion of U.S. diplomats

artappraiser — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 17:54:47 +0000

In reply to Venezuela sends US diplomat 'saboteurs' packing

Expulsion of U.S. diplomats underscores Venezuela's economic woes
By Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 1, 2013

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Nicolas Maduro’s expulsion Monday of three U.S. diplomats was another sign of the increasingly dire problems Venezuela’s government faces and the extreme measures he is taking to try to divert supporters’ attention from them, analysts said.

In a speech commemorating the 200th anniversary of a revolutionary battle in western Falcon state, Maduro said he was expelling acting charges d’affaires Kelly Keiderling, Elizabeth Hoffman and David Moo for allegedly meeting with opposition figures and “taking actions to sabotage the electricity system.”

Maduro had previously charged right-wing opponents with sabotage last month in connection with the outage of a high voltage transmission line in western Venezuela that caused blackouts across the country. Since then, power blackouts have become more frequent in Caracas and elsewhere in Venezuela.

Venezuelans go to the polls in December to elect mayors and city councils across Venezuela. Meanwhile consumers are increasingly frustrated by economic problems, including scarcities of basic foodstuffs and inflation exceeding 40%, the highest rate in South America.

The national currency, the bolivar, has steadily devalued on black market exchanges to the point it takes as much as 42 bolivars to buy a dollar, compared with the official rate of 6.3 bolivars. A scarcity of dollars caused partly by mounting debts means tourists and business travelers making foreign trips have no choice but to pay the devalued rate.

Last week, Maduro flew to China to negotiate a $5-billion loan to address what observers say is the government’s acute cash shortage and also to fund campaign activities ahead of the elections. The loan brought to $50 billion the amount Venezuela has borrowed from China in recent years.

Economist Angel Garcia Banchs said the loans, which represent a “forward purchase” of Venezuelan oil, are unconstitutional because they transfer ownership rights of a national resource to China.

“Chinese loans are an illegitimate debt,” Banchs said. “But from an economic point of view, the problem is not so much the loan per se, but how the government uses the funds, which is to finance the consumption of imported goods, and not to generate the capacity to produce and export.”

The central bank revealed last month that foreign reserves had hit a nine-year low. Last week the Colombian government revealed that Venezuela would pay for $600 million in food items not in cash but with dollar-denominated Venezuelan bonds [....]