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Canadian Deja Vu for Venezuelan Elections
By Macdonald Stainsby, August 9, 2024,
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/08/09/canadian-deja-vu-for-venezuelan-elections/
The deja vu was actually useful in explicating the difference in eras I was experiencing.
Back in the late 90’s, when I knew everything about the way the world worked in the most cut and dried manner, there was a brief moment where liberal wings of imperialism flirted with the idea of arresting Augusto Pinochet and putting him on trial for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Chileans during and after the coup launched on September 11, 1973.
The Soviet Union had been defeated only a few years prior, the notion that the world would move “more” towards a “rules based order” (as the modern parlance for it is now) was thick in the air of liberal discourse.
US imperialism, triumphal over their near total reach globally at this point, were not about to allow their own best assassins to be put on trial. Besides, Pinochet was more than a useful S.O.B., he was close friends personally with Margaret Thatcher.
You remember her, right? That “Iron Lady” whose attacks on unions, Argentina, and even the concept of a society itself made her infamous among even left-liberal forces, never mind working class resisters.
But she’s not the hard-right wing lady I was thinking of over the last few days.
Publishing and normalizing a murderous regime
My deja vu experience came in the form of Barbara Amiel – extreme right and super fascistic back when fascist was still deemed a bad thing. She also counted Pinochet (and Maggie) as a friend, and decided to write a full-blown column in Canada’s secondary daily, the National Post (then owned by her husband, Conrad Black).
Her article could roughly be summed up as “Yes, he [Pinochet] killed tens of thousands, tortured and murdered everyone from all social sectors who would resist the imposition of a far right, murderous dictatorship in Chile – but we have to remember he was mostly killing communists and unionists, and preventing socialism from taking hold in Chile, which makes it okay, and even praiseworthy!”
That article blew my mind. We didn’t yet live in a media landscape where things like that were “just another article” for another generation. The idea that rounding up, forcing people who had values like myself and others I cared about (starting from but not limited to, my family), into soccer stadiums to be shot, have their toenails pulled out, tortured in manners no one could possibly imagine without experiencing it? That this was something to celebrate and defend, so long as it was done to people democratically advancing socialism?
That kind of ideological fascism was not mainstream in western press at this time. It has become so in the time since.
That this was given a prominent place in Canadian media with little to no fanfare or push back was a lesson I scarcely admitted at the time. See, I was raised by a mother who was a child during WWII, and the basic consciousness of a Canadian was, roughly, non-communist but anti-fascist. Few people in Canada would have opted for an eastern European-style vanguard led state, but socialism was not “evil”, and fascism – as the Allied powers had died in their tens of millions to stop – was not only evil, but beyond the pale and unworthy of polite discourse.
Fascist dehumanizing descriptions of Palestinians, daily
Today, Anthony Blinken, the entire US administration and almost the entire media landscape engage in fascist, dehumanizing descriptions of the Palestinian people daily.
Whereas, when KKK members burned crosses, the goal was to let people know that they were “legitimate” future targets, civilians didn’t riot in favour of the KKK’s right to lynch, rape, kill and walk around without punishment.
Today, in Gaza, the very worst of humanity – I will say easily the worst I have seen things happen in a manner and time period where it would be extraordinarily simple to end it (a phone call from the White House could do it) – is happening.
Every time we think that the very worst has happened and it can’t sink lower, we get images like the ones of the last week. What are the images? Israeli civilians rioting to prevent taking admitted gang rapists to trial.
Kristallnacht was a pre-planned explosion of racist hate unleashed by the Nazis to ramp up the plans of the Shoah. It both created violence in the streets and in the hearts of many non-Jews living under the Third Reich – but there was no distinct demand for the right to gang rape (to death, now) people who were non-German.
But when a unit was publicly (beyond just Israel) known to have raped Palestinian men, in front of the women in their lives, with such violence that their insides collapsed? A few – not enough to save a sick, completely irredeemable society that must be dissolved as soon as possible – a few pushed back and demanded some form of inquiry.
Sweeping rape under fascist genocidal rug
See, the rape we now are watching be swept under the fascist genocidal rug is only the tip of the iceberg. This form of treatment of Palestinians – even those known to the Israelis for committing no crimes at all – is standard fare. The people who are pushing to hold these soldiers and their commanders accountable are hoping to be the thin wedge that allows this type of crime to be both known globally, and stopped inside Israel.
Hanoch Milwidsky, a well-known Israeli member of the Likud Party, made the following statements in the Knesset in the last few days:
“I’m not going to vote on anything anymore until this story and this whining from those in the State Prosecutor’s Office who think it is possible to go and arrest soldiers for things they do to terrorists, is over.”
“Is putting a stick in a person’s rectum legitimate?” asked leader of the Ta’al Party, Ahmad Tibi.
“Yes!” replied Milwidsky (pointing menacingly at Tibi). “With these people everything is acceptable. Everything!”
We could go into the fact that nearly every house in Gaza is no longer habitable, that the territory has been deliberately given polio and far worse, that the main water treatment facility for Rafah was blown up to celebratory tiktok videos mere days ago, that soldiers who are asked about this have made comments on Twitter:
“We left Gaza after two months of being in reserve. The heat was unbearable, and the feeling is that we could have done more. The destruction that exists in Gaza gives me a good feeling. Gaza is in a state of destruction. Lots of buildings that no longer exist in the landscape. The machine of destruction must continue to work so that it is clear that they have nowhere to return. Despair as a work plan.”
This tweet is still up. It was published on July 30, and has been repeated and retweeted multiple times. No one in Israel is stopping them – not from doing this, but even admitting it.
Fascists and genocidaires generally don’t admit their crimes
Fascists and genocidaires generally don’t admit their crimes. What Israel has become is, in many disgusting ways, an entirely new revelation of human evil.
It is this level of human evil that, in many ways, broke me. I would not have said so at the time, but back when Pinochet was almost arrested, I still believed that the narrative of World War Two was at least mostly true; At a certain level, when fascism, the clamour for genocide, torture and rape as protected state policy and more – when these things arose on a level nowhere close to as far gone as Israel today, back then I believed that the “non-communist, but totally anti-fascist” worldview would reassert itself.
Maybe I just wanted to believe that there was a “good” nature to human beings that would maintain those same lessons of history that were taught in my family.
When Amiel wrote her disgusting bilge demanding impunity for torturing and killing people like me, I felt she was the outlier.
Today, with Israel gunning for World War Three completely, and with morality at a new level of all time low, the same people who have been covering for Israel, refusing to call it a genocide, who arm and aid them, who arrest Holocaust survivors that speak out against Zionist crimes, who bomb Yemen’s resistance fighters while providing shelter to settlers and torturers, while refusing to try and even slow down the regional war sought?
Today’s normal: this level of human evil
I have lost that belief that something better inside human beings will win out. I have watched the lessons of history tossed aside, and attacks on knowledge, truth, elders and the vulnerable, all of these things – they are “normal” now. Maybe losing the feeling there was a “redline” in the soul was good. It forces us to take responsibility to stop Zionism and the entire US Empire ourselves.
There is no coming back for either Israel, or their defenders. This is beyond anything that almost any of us could even begin to imagine in terms of pure death, destruction and more.
To block any attempt to use International Law to stop a genocide? These acts have destroyed international law and the entire post WWII international order. The UN has been sacrificed in order to protect a genocide. To make certain it happens.
Israel simply cannot possibly re-enter the “family of nations,” they are completely done. But this is where things are now the most dangerous, because they are very aware that they will never again exist in peace. The expansion to WWIII is a calculated tactic, to fulfill a strategy of doing everything they believe they “need” to in the region, now and without mercy.
The people who tell you that Palestinians are to be raped without it being called rape, who tell you that assassinating children with sniper bullets to the head is allowed and isn’t a war crime, and who tell you that you cannot see what you can indeed see? Those are the mouthpieces of the dying Empire.
The same countries and people attacking now the Venezuela government
And now, after almost a year of non-stop total lies in the service of a modern-day white supremacist genocide in not-just Gaza, we are supposed to believe the west and the American spokespersons, about the legitimacy of government in Venezuela?
The exact same people? Are you kidding me? I know the medical use of psychedelics is an important new tool in the fight for mental health, but this is beyond a bad trip.
See, only a few short years after the calls for the arrest of Pinochet were made, the first attempted coup [in Venezuela] to overthrow perhaps the best democracy on earth took place. It was supported and led by, among others, Colin Powell and Eliot Abrams, on behalf of the Bush II administration. It ultimately failed (a watershed moment of joy in my young life at the time), but while Pedro Carmona was in power for those less than 48 hours, he had supporters sign a decree that abolished the Supreme Court, the Electoral Council, all municipal governments, all state governments, the central bank and every other single institution.
Who was one of the first signatories to this document? Maria Corina Machado.
Machado has been at the forefront of attempting to overthrow Venezuela’s Bolivarian Government a very long time. She previously had one on one meetings with Bush making a request that the US invade her own country. She has demanded sanctions, and more recently in the last few years she has openly embraced the world’s number one war criminal: Benjamin Netanyahu.
Along with then Argentine leader Mauricio Macri, she requested military and other assistance in attacking the elected government in Caracas.
It gets better. The Likud Party entered into a formal signed agreement with Machado and her “movement” in 2020. They state the plan to work together, ultimately to build an “operational partnership.”
In Venezuela, this individual [Maria Corina Machado] is a known, spent force. While there are many who have severe dislike of Maduro or the PSUV, Chávismo is far, far more sophisticated that any of the similar variants in the imperial core countries.
From Guiado to MariCori
Knowing that Maduro personally was unpopular, I must admit I was genuinely relieved (and very surprised) when I discovered that the forever extremist Opposition had nominated MariCori [Maria Corina Machado] as their flagship. She couldn’t get 70% of the vote if she ran unopposed.
She has been a part of every single murderous coup attempt for the last 23 years, and she is absolutely nothing without her American and Zionist allies.
They have propped her up no less than Guaido, and now this puppet of the US is also a puppet master of Edmundo Gonzalez, a relatively unknown diplomat who is seemingly as tired as Joe Biden.
Just as with Israel, for the Opposition, every accusation is actually a confession. They have used murderous violence on random citizens while trying to overthrow elected governments. They make up tallies and then demand that “we” believe them.
Let us be clear: People who are familiar with both MariCori the individual and the Opposition (the right wing fanatical movement tied to the US) are used to this relentlessly repeated script.
However, so we are told, “This time it is different.” The first reason we are told it is different has to do with the Oppositions’ supposed “exit polls.” So, who did [the exit poll]? A US Government funded, CIA associated “firm.” The company is Edison Research, to quote from the excellent exposé written July 29 by Ben Norton:
“Although Edison Research’s exit poll has been widely cited by the US media to cast doubt upon Venezuela’s electoral results, it is by no means an impartial observer. In fact, Edison’s top clients include CIA-linked US government propaganda outlets Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, all of which are operated by the US Agency for Global Media, a Washington-based organ that is used to spread disinformation against US adversaries.”
That was the first shot fired, demanding a complete, full and transparent accounting about 23 seconds after the polls closed, which doesn’t conform to any country’s legislative rules. It was days before such numbers were reported in the last US presidential election, and these tallies are required under the Bolivarian Constitution – in 30 days maximum, and such has never been violated in the 24 years of the constitution’s existence.
Their much-ballyhooed “website” of tallies is filled with unverifiable inconsistencies and disqualifying fabrications. To whit:
“There is no way to independently verify the validity of these alleged “tally sheets” (actas, in Spanish) that have been released by the opposition; belief in their authenticity is entirely based on faith. In fact, some of the alleged “tallies” released by the opposition lack the obligatory name of a witness, which is needed to prove they are legitimate. Furthermore, many of the “signatures” on these “tallies” consist of illegible scribbles or mere initials of unknown people.
Some of the alleged “members” of the electoral table listed on the tally sheets don’t have their full name. Others don’t have their full ID (cédula, in Spanish), rather just a few numbers, making it impossible to confirm if they even exist at all.”
One can also see this mess here, with images from the website the Opposition set up as “proof”.
So, given the forces going into the election (where Venezuela had seen rebounding economic figures for much of the last year), when the US became obviously in massive need of foreign supplies of oil to continue their campaigns in Ukraine and Gaza/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen, suddenly there was an about face.
No longer would America be intransigent, and they would stop with the harassment of Venezuela’s elected leaders after this upcoming election. Maduro’s government (perhaps naively) accepted this framework.
As even reported by the Miami Herald:
“The Qatar document shows the Biden administration struck a deal with Maduro to lift sanctions on the country’s oil, banking and gold sectors if he committed to elections and allow the opposition to compete. And it added a significant incentive to Maduro: the lifting of most sanctions after the winner took office.
“At that point, the U.S. government would restore full diplomatic relations and dismantle the sanctions regime against the country, the document says. This would include unblocking all Venezuelan government assets in the United States and lifting sanctions, including individual ones imposed under an executive order.”
The events since the election held on July 28th have given me to utter speculation: The tweet Kamala Harris put out before the election showed the US both expected a Maduro win, and that they were going to accept it. This is not because the Empire became more moral, it became more desperate for oil.
My completely unproven speculation: The Biden/Harris administration wants to “cool it” with Venezuela for the chance to get at their oil reserves, while the architects of this starvation sanctions regime cannot accept defeat (after defeat after defeat…). Thus, the intelligence network of unelected CIA and other agents decided to go ahead with the failing coup script.
There seems likely now to be yet another series of sanctions that will harm the vulnerable in Venezuela, while steeling the resolve of Chávistas in all 23 states.
All of these images on TV, and all of the scripts, are simply lifted from Venezuelan history and CIA/Zionist failures of the past.
The exact machinations we are seeing now were as predictable as heat in August. It may come in varied forms, but it’s coming. And the fact is, it is already petering out. The “Opposition” may get lauded by gringos, few others buy it.
Still, though: Really? Demanding a completely tabulated, riding by riding result mere minutes after the polls closed? These details are described as needed by the Constitution of Bolivarian Venezuela. They have 30 days to post them, and have always met this in the past.
The totals we are fed on the votes are deliberately insanely out of sync with reality. For the far right, they certainly remember the teachings of their heroes well: Hitler and Goebbels explained that if you are going to lie, make it a big one, repeat it and voila! It’s easier to get people to hold onto.
If they stated 52-44 or something similar, it would be more believable – but it would be far, far less vibrant as a plot angle to an international media show. Remember: Venezuelans know this game, and they know their local gangsters.
The story is for us, for our consumption, and not Venezuela’s. They only do the bleeding.
The basic agreement that the US and the PSUV led Venezuelan government made a month ago has been published in Venezuela: Hold an election and we will move to normalization. Once that was understood as the real ballot question? The likelihood of a Maduro victory skyrocketed.
And while the Empire won’t ever admit mistakes (they still say that Vietnam was lost due to not killing them hard enough), reading between the lines one can see that even the farthest nutjobs are accepting reality and are moving on, at least for now.
“But even if Maduro and his cohorts (regime leaders) leave Venezuela, the Chávista criminal system remains and will, no doubt, try to subvert and manipulate the transition process,” he [Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.] added, pointing to Bolivia as a nation where a leader resigned but returned because the country couldn’t dismantle the power structure he established.
Humire [Joseph Humire, Center for a Secure Free Society] suggested that Machado and Gonzalez continue working to “delegitimize the Chavista regime,” referring to Hugo Chavez and the government structure he established in Venezuela and Maduro inherited after taking office in 2013. He cautioned that the opposition may have “adaptive agents” within it that remain sympathetic to Maduro’s party.
“The opposition has always been filled with what the Venezuelans call “enchufados,” which is a Spanish term for those who are “plugged into” the regime,” Humire said. “These are fake opposition members that have back-door business and political deals with the Maduro regime.”
Translated: First off, the analogy of the Bolivian coup is elucidating, and shows the fascistic trajectory if there were still any doubt. But primarily, given that as I type this it is only a week since the election itself, we are being treated to theatre. Theatre where Venezuelans are being murdered by forces bent on providing extreme levels of violence to attempt to provoke a crisis – but only theatre in the end.
Venezuelans have seen this movie, they have memorized the script and it still ends with sovereignty and independence.
President Maduro voting: “Free Palestine”
The stories needed to be told as to why there is still not a pliant, far right-wing state in Venezuela, where killers get impunity and send oil to Israel? The fact excuses are already covering the American right-wing press tells you everything. Just as when Maduro placed his ballot in the box for the cameras, he looked up and said “Free Palestine.”
See, if we are in World War III, then many of us need to start feeling and acting as soldiers for the anti-fascist, anti-colonial cause. This war is going to come down to one basic conflict: Do we allow colonialism, white supremacist domination of world affairs, genocide, and the deliberate destruction of the atmosphere and biosphere? Or do we start with self determination, liberation, a healthy planet, water, trees and air?
When we see the World War that Israel and the US have lined up for us, we also see who are our true allies. We also see who is desperately retrograde in their current opinions.
When Barbara Amiel wrote the “Pinochet is cool for killing commies” piece, it shook me. It was a kind of world just re-emerging on the pages of newsprint. That world is fully exposed now, but the National Post does still have a thing for far-right women married to powerful right-wing men of political power in Canada. Pierre Poilievre’s wife Anaida, an expat Venezuelan who - shock! - supports the far-right coup leaders like Machado.
Filled with the false narratives written by the Opposition, and about the 12,548th article I’ve read proclaiming “this time, we’re really taking over. We swear,” Amiel’s ghost appears briefly. Machado is lauded as “Venezuela’s Iron Lady,” itself a reference to the proclaimed favourite PM of Conrad Black and Amiel back in the day, the most notorious anti-communist butcher and a person for whom I have familial contempt (though Canadian, my familial roots are in the Welsh coal valleys).
Margaret Thatcher is dead. Her career of attacking even left-wing shadows is long over. The desire to rehabilitate Pinochet through actions, however? It does indeed live on, in MariCori and the entire failed Opposition.
However, in Caracas, it achieves only pain, confusion and more. Beating back the Empire in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Cuba and elsewhere today starts with defending the Bolivarian Revolution, and giving absolutely no credibility to those who continue to defend the very worst that humanity has to offer.
When Poilievre writes: “The fight is on, and this time, it’s until the end,” she has no idea just how right she is. We are taking down the Empire this time, and that stretches to every continent.
Macdonald Stainsby is an anti-tar sands and social justice activist, freelance writer and professional hitchhiker, looking for a ride to the better world, currently based in Vancouver, Canada.
He can be reached at [email protected]
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