Racism And The Fight Over Venezuela
The U.S. coup attempt in Venezuela is not only about oil and general U.S. imperialism. It is attempt to bring a specific type of people back into power. The same type of people that rule in Washington DC.
The Nation describes how the U.S. has long funded and manipulated the opposition in Venezuela. The Random Guy™ Juan Guaidó, who claims the presidency, was created through this process:
How Washington Funded the Counterrevolution in Venezuela
Self-declared president Juan Guaidó comes from the right-wing, US-backed student movement that tried to subvert Hugo Chávez’s government.
The piece includes this revealing sentence:
A former USAID/OTI member who helped devise US efforts in Venezuela said the “objective was that you had thousands of youth, high school, and college kids that were horrified of this Indian-looking guy in power. They were idealistic.
Being "horrified" that the "Indian-looking" Hugo Chávez was in power does not seem "idealistic". One might call it racist though. A number of those white, well off, U.S. trained college kids joint politics in right wing parties. They wanted to take power. But to sell one of theirs as a leader of a country where the majority is mestizo was a problem.
To solve that problem the Random Guy, despite being known only by 20% of Venezuelans, was selected to lead the U.S. coup attempt:
A figure named Juan Andrés Mejía would have been next in line but for reasons that are only now clear, Juan Guaido was selected.“There is a class reasoning that explains Guaidó’s rise,” Sequera, the Venezuelan analyst, observed. “Mejía is high class, studied at one of the most expensive private universities in Venezuela, and could not be easily marketed to the public the way Guaidó could. For one, Guaidó has common mestizo features like most Venezuelans do, and seems like more like a man of the people.
Guaido is a stand in. He was selected because he somewhat looked like the majority of the people of the country.
The two pictures below further demonstrate the role race plays in the conflict in Venezuela.
Venezuela currently has two assemblies that claim the right to legislate. In 2015 the opposition won a majority in the National Assembly, the original parliament of Venezuela:
However, the Venezuelan Supreme Court barred four lawmakers from taking their seats while it probed allegations of electoral fraud. As a result, only 163 of the 167 lawmakers were sworn in on January 5. The next day, three opposition deputies were sworn in over protests by members from the legislature’s minority who announced their intention to challenge the move.
The Supreme Court of Venezuela then held that the National Assembly was in contempt of the court. The move created a political stalemate. To solve it the president called for the election of a Constitutional Assembly. Its main task is to consider constitutional changes. But it can also overrule legislation that the National Assembly makes. The Supreme Court accepted the solution. The National Assembly, the rotational presidency of which Random Guy took at the beginning of this year, is since only a secondary parliament.
There is a visual difference between the two assemblies:
Via VOA - bigger
Via BBC - bigger
The rich in Venezuela are overwhelming white people. They long ruled the country. The mestizo majority are the poor. Hugo Chavez brought them to power. The white people want the power back.
This obvious racist aspect of the conflict is missing from the general reporting of the issue. It only comes to light in the published visuals.
The race conflict is of course not unique to Venezuela. In the U.S., especially under Trump, racism is also prevalent. It is, I believe, the subliminal reason why the U.S. ruling class is joint in the effort to regime change Venezuela.
Posted by b on February 9, 2019 at 19:59 UTC | Permalink
The Monthly Review piece several of us praised in the previous threads talked about this gilded youth vermin.
The racial motivations of these attacks associated with violent street protests, known as guarimbas, are apparent, and speak to what has been described as a “class/race fusion” with “deep roots in the country’s history.” The protesters are mostly the grandchildren of the middle class that emerged in the period of modernization and “whitening,” with important links to the country’s elite, forming a middle class-elite alliance known as sifrinaje. The international media has largely ignored these nuances, but a rare and telling exception is a 2017 article in Bloomberg Businessweek on nightlife among young protesters, whose gathering spots include upscale rooftop shisha bars, with one protester quoted as saying “You protest in the morning, but that doesn’t mean you stop living.”
Here's their murderous racism, specifically targeting people to burn them alive based on color.
Also among the targets, tragically, were people, specifically those seen as typical chavistas—i.e., poor and brown-skinned. The most visible of these was the attack on Orlando Figuera, a young Afro-Venezuelan supermarket worker, whose gruesome burning alive, as countless onlookers did nothing to intervene, was captured on video. While Figuera did not survive his attack, another victim from a similar background, Carlos Ramirez, did, albeit with severe burns covering his body. Ramirez later recalled pleading for his life, shouting “Don’t kill me! I’m not chavista! Please don’t kill me!” as street protesters brutally beat him and set him ablaze.
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/06/01/the-politics-of-food-in-venezuela/
How telling that the Democrat party and the US liberal media, normally so interested in flashpoint racism, care nothing about this openly murderous racism on the part of Venezuela's "opposition".
"The rich in Venezuela are overwhelming white people."<=
? what percentage of the overwhelming white group members are also dual citizens ? educated in a foreign country? own the businesses or are children of those who own the businesses and farms?
especially as compared to the non white dominate group?"
Robbing the people of a foreign nation of their right to self determination is frequently supported by Zionist controlled nation state invasion, regime change, and war. Zionism, a system of economics which tolerates no competition from an economic interest, a political system or a social stratification.
Zionism is about developing monopoly power and establishing competition free markets, controllable political environments, and selecting for its adherents funding, educational and vocational opportunities that keep the Zionist always ahead and always in control. I am not so sure it cares much about race? During WWI and WWII Zionism weaponized the Jewish Race in order to accomplish its object to take the oil from the Arabs..
Posted by: snake | Feb 9 2019 21:08 utc | 3
Chavez/Maduro have always been reflexively described as “authoritarian” or a “dictator” by the press and politicians in USA-Canada, no matter the actual record of democratic practice in Venezuela. The source of the animosity has always been the left-wing politics and the development of an economic system not in keeping with the neo-liberal model espoused by the North Americans. I’m not sure racism plays a large role, or at least is not the ultimate motivator of the animosity. There is definitely, in recent statements of Canadian officials, a veneer of paternalism, and it has become clear that Canada has been running its own version of America’s NED in the name of an activist foreign policy couched in the rhetoric of human rights. (Canadian mining companies working internationally have a terrible human rights record, rarely discussed or acknowledged domestically). The project to install political leaders who will revert Venezuela back to neoliberal principles while fooling everyone that it is actually a “return to democracy” has been a pet Foreign Affairs Canada scheme since 2014.
(see this 2017 profile of former Canadian ambassador to Venezuela Ben Rowswell for more on that:
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ben-rowswell)
Posted by: jayc | Feb 9 2019 21:15 utc | 4
Hi everyone,
Strategic Culture ran an article by Eric Z. on Canada/Christia Freeland-Venezuela-Ukraine. Quite interesting.
Thanks B!
Posted by: Roza Shanina | Feb 9 2019 22:34 utc | 5
Trump is about to be backed into a corner by an FBI investigation and outmaneuvered by Nancy Pelosi on funding his Wall.
A well-timed war in Central America can help him on both accounts.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Feb 9 2019 22:38 utc | 6
Trump's urgent need for that wall of his is becoming increasingly clear.
Posted by: frances | Feb 9 2019 23:10 utc | 7
I'm "whiter" or rather "pinker" than anyone in any of the pictures and I'm not at all keen on socialism or communism or any other -ism (all lies, untold roads leading to "fascism"/totalitarianism by any name or "brand") but (or rather thus) the USG can go fuck itself and leave Venezuela and everyone else alone. In this context I don't even care much if the top echelons in places like Venezuela and Cuba are as thoroughly corrupt and blood-soaked as the ones in "the west" are (such allegations or proof thereof is the proverbial weak sauce). I used to care and such but not any longer, because if that's all there is at the various "tops" (and this seems to be the case most of the time) then at least I don't want it all controlled by a single consolidated group of "synergetic" evil as is the case in "the west"; instead I want various "elites" divided according to sovereign countries so that the rest of everyone everywhere has a fighting chance at something better, somewhere, at some time, some solution which doesn't rely on "saviors" and other criminals hiding behind lies and empty promises of any kind or the futility of inviting one devil in to try to kick another devil out.
That's utopian for sure but even so the US is never coming off my shit list until they've had a revolution or two, maybe not then either, nor the EU, and it's much more likely they'll both destroy themselves first before anything like that happens.
By the way this is what I consider being right wing, but names don't matter, they will only be abused. For the sake of a joke let's call it "far out" right wing and see how long it take the various morons in charge to subvert it as they did with "alternative" :D
Aztec women ftw!
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Feb 9 2019 23:14 utc | 8
Further to #1. A subsequent Papal Bull, Sublimus Deus, promulgated by Pope Paul III in June, 1537 effectively revoked the racist Intercetera, finding that indeed the Indians were human with souls and hence could not be unilaterally dispossessed of their lands by European sovereigns. However, as with most 'international law' might makes right instead.
Posted by: John Gilberts | Feb 9 2019 23:18 utc | 9
Reading Guaido's recent remarks, one wonders if this coup project is not stalling out. Threatening Venezuela's military officers with war crimes charges - "crimes against humanity" - based on the humanitarian aid caravans seems more a flailing about for a pretext rather than the unrolling of a solid plan.
https://www.france24.com/en/20190209-venezuelas-guaido-wont-rule-out-authorizing-us-intervention
I wonder if this whole plot was predicated on the misguided assumption that the military would in fact switch sides. Perhaps an intelligence source fed bad intelligence, or perhaps bad intelligence was stove piped into the system.
Posted by: jayc | Feb 9 2019 23:27 utc | 10
I sincerely hope we are witnessing yet another massive FAIL in the making..
Posted by: Lozion | Feb 9 2019 23:35 utc | 11
The topic was also recently discussed at Black Agenda Report:
https://www.blackagendareport.com/racist-imperialist-war-venezuela
Posted by: John Anthony La Pietra | Feb 10 2019 0:06 utc | 13
An historical overview of the venezuelan predicament from Michel Chossudovsky who was on the ground working with reformists in Venezuela since the 1970's. His study commissioned by the government concluded that close to 70% of the population was without reliable access to sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food. The masses of metiszos, africans and indios will not go back to pre-bolivarian years. If they must, most will fight the latest ''european'' coalition for their know what awaits them, if the compradors come back to power. http://gunsandbutter.org/blog/2019/02/06/venezuela-from-oil-proxy-to-the-bolivarian-movement-and-sabotage
Posted by: Augustin L | Feb 10 2019 0:07 utc | 14
Thanks for the posting b
Another cancer represented by the philosophy of those religions that think their way is the only way and all other are lost sheep.
The science says we are all mongrels in ways that make the bias of these folks that believe they are better than others the vileness it represents.
And as I continue to beat on my MoA comment drum, global private finance is the base religion of the West that provides underlying support for the "better than others" belief that b is depicting here as racism.
Everyone in the West is currently a member of the God of Mammon religion whether you want to or not. The social narratives that private finance creates, requires and supports are "all" bad for everyone but the elite that own finance, property, government puppets, etc.
If society makes all of global finance public utilities, in one fell swoop the "better than others" belief is eliminated.
I challenge others to posit a better way forward for humanity. I "believe" that China/Russia are forcing this existential debate of humanity and for that I thank them.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 10 2019 0:10 utc | 15
But this is pretty obvious.
For people here who isn't from the Americas: this continent always had, for specific historical reasons, built its class relations (relations of production) on race.
The story is too long to tell, but I highly recommend reading Nancy Isenberg's White Trash. Isenberg is a historian who demonstrates, by overwhelming evidence, that behind race discourse in the USA, there is class. The analogy also serves for the rest of the Americas.
Indeed, the direct relation between race and class is so obvious to the average inhabitant of the Americas, that it doesn't even need to be said: it is implicit; part of the landscape, so ubiquitous that nobody consciously notices anymore. This even get to the point where there are some modern leftists (often, from the many black movements) that state race preceeds class!
Venezuela also has the particularity that much of its elite is also Jewish (Henrique Capriles is the example that is nearest to us), so Mossad and Israel has a big presence there.
Although grabbing real resources to cover the hyper-speculative totally rigged Western “free” markets of all kinds is by far the main reason for “spreading democracy” there is a small secondary reason. It is to distract us all from how blood soaked, rottenly corrupt, increasingly totalitarian the Western regimes are. As a few other commentators said - there is nothing leftwing or rightwing here, it is not even neo-colonialism, it is not even about race, nor about history; this is the old fashioned robbery and murder, that is the practice of getting rich or richer. Republicans - Democrats tout le temps la meme chose - the single gang of criminals. Exactly the same for sickly decadent Europeans (where I come from). The human stratum of robbers, rapists and murders, well educated, well spoken, dressed in nice white collars, driving expensive cars, that is the “respectable successful people”.
@ snake 3, you forgot to add Anglo to your Zionists, to define who the leaders of the robbers & murderers are, but otherwise I agree. Whether robbing & murdering is packaged as a communist revolution or a democratic revolution or ....., its strings are always pulled by the same “elite” and for ultimately these same nefarious reasons. The rest is a narrative for the stupid credulous.
Posted by: Kiza | Feb 10 2019 0:40 utc | 17
Funny but unz has an article up on the whiteness of the Cuban revolutionary leaders and current government
Is it racism? Or do racial differences play a part that allow whites to be disproportionately represented much like jews are disprortionately represented in certain segments of white society (science, legal, financial). Speaking of which Spain had a significant Marrano poulation following the Inquisition so presumably a number of those who immigrated to Latin America were Marrano, either from Spain or other European colonial power since Spains Blood Statues to provide written documentation of Old Christian lineage in order to travel to the New World may have limited some.
Probably some or all of the above.
Posted by: Pft | Feb 10 2019 0:40 utc | 18
Race is for sure a widely overlooked relevant aspect. His enemies used to call Hugo Chavez 'mono', a monkey. And I agree with vk (16) that in the Americas class and race often are de facto synonymous.
Posted by: Pnyx | Feb 10 2019 0:51 utc | 19
Well at least one Dem has a voice. Ro Khanna seems to support brown Venezuelans.
"Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Saturday warned Venezuelan opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaidó against any attempt to authorize U.S. military force to strengthen his claim to power.
“Mr. Guaido, you can proclaim yourself leader of Venezuela but you don’t get to authorize US military interventions. Only the US Congress can do that. We will not,” Khanna tweeted."
Posted by: dh | Feb 10 2019 1:12 utc | 20
As a dark skinned Afro-mestizo hispanic that has had too many encounters with Venezuelans these past years as they have massively abandoned their homeland, I can relay that YES the white rich upper middle class Venezuelans are racist arrogants pieces of shit.
I worked at a nightclub as a bouncer and I told the sexy Venezolana bartender that I drove a Dominican BMW, I said it as a joke since what I actually drive is an old beat up Corrolla. The car is so common in DR that it's almost synonymous with Dominicans.
So she asked me to take her home. I was chuckling inside just waiting for her snooty nosed sexy self to discover what her chariot really was going to be.
It just so happened there WAS a BMW parked behind my car. I still roll laughing on the floor recalling her face, standing next to the actual BMW while I unlocked the door to my TOYO. The look of horror in her eyes was priceless.
She asked me if that was REALLY my car?
I smiled from ear to ear and said YES, this is a DOMINICAN BMW, par excellance.
I asked her if she was gonna get in?
She looked back at the club and then at me, her response was that she forgot something and that it was, OK.
I told her I would wait, she got mad, but faked a smile and said it was ok. BWHAHAHAA
Yes the rich white elite is shit, they are stinking arrogant bastards that give you looks of contempt and talk to you as would a plantation owner to a slave in those movies of the South.
I always hated them, yes, I hate them. I was glad that Chavez came to power to CRUSH them.
They came to Miami as God's gift to the world, buying up real estate, driving fancy cars and throwing their weight around.
Their white faces and snooty laughs were everywhere but many of them after awhile hit hard times and they ended up poor.
This didn't happen to all of them but it did to a few of them, then the poorer darker mestizo Venezuelans began to arrive and these guys were cool. I enjoyed interacting and working with these down to earth people, engineers, business owners and lawyers, really nice normal individuals much unlike the first group that nobody could stand.
More of them are still arriving and I feel for them, however I don't want the USA to invade like in Libya, I don't want that.
I'd prefer the army carrying out a coup.
However bad Trump might seem to be to many I still prefer him over Hilary.
I think he's freaking awesome!!
MAGA!!!
Posted by: Fernando Martinez | Feb 10 2019 1:17 utc | 21
US capitalists don't care about race, except to use it as a divide-and-conquer tactic. They were perfectly happy to have Obama in the White House for 8 years, and the heads of many corporations are people of color. They destroyed Yugoslavia and Ukraine, even though the residents of those countries are melanin-challenged. They are preparing for war with Russia.
Venezuela has oil and the US wants it. There is no racial motivation.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Feb 10 2019 1:19 utc | 22
@19
Oddly I just finished up White Trash a few months and definetely recommend it. My impression from her book is that white lower class have a lot in common with African Americans in terms of brutal treatment from upper class strata, but tend to be in denial about it and view themselves as above blacks. She included Lyndon Johnson's infamous quote of "if you tell the lowest white person that he is above the greatest black man, he won't notice that you're picking his pocket all day,and he'll empty his pocket for you" - this is a Cliff Notes version of the book.
Posted by: Schmoe | Feb 10 2019 1:40 utc | 23
While race is a factor in Venezuela, a more predominant long term strategy employed by the US is to bring in youth from foreign countries for education and indoctrination especially in Ivy League schools. These youth become loyal to US interests via ego building and perks and are educated in the ways of neoliberal economics. A stable of these folks is on hand when needed during interventions and coups. I saw this first hand in 2001 when the US brought 3000 Sudanese young men over to the US (the Lost Boys) Even though most were not inducted into Ivy League schools, the more talented and intellectual ones have become loyal US citizens and now are returning to Sudan in positions in the Finance Ministry and other important roles. Eventually this will aid the US corporate owners in Controlling the oil wealth as well as the rich farmlands and other treasures in South Sudan. Of course this same long term strategy has been in play with Latin American youth for decades.
Posted by: Linda Amick | Feb 10 2019 2:08 utc | 24
John Anthony La Pietra@13
Thank you for that link, great article. My jaw dropped when I saw that depiction of Chavez. Wow.
Posted by: mourning dove | Feb 10 2019 2:39 utc | 26
most white folks are antisemites that is why many black folks trust jewish leaders we always look out for are brothers.
a shared history of violence victimhood and bondage mealds the black man and jewish leaders togerher
Posted by: minora | Feb 10 2019 2:39 utc | 27
"Debate about the origins of syphilis has continued for nearly 500 years, ever since early sixteenth-century Europeans blamed each other, referring to it variously as the Venetian, Naples, or French disease. One hypothesis assumes a New World origin, and holds that sailors who accompanied Columbus and other explorers brought the disease back to Europe. Another explanation is that syphilis was always present in the Old World but was not identified as a separate disease from leprosy before about A.D. 1500. A third possibility is that syphilis developed in both hemispheres from the related diseases bejel and yaws. New studies by paleopathologists Bruce and Christine Rothschild favor a New World origin." (from Anthropology Magazine)
The New World source was not, as it turns out, the Native Americans who transmitted syphilis to the Spaniards, the disease was found in Llamas of the New World not the people.
Posted by: Babyl-on | Feb 10 2019 2:40 utc | 28
What be wrote in this piece is true, I have no issue with it. But it is like a red rag to the bull-cretins of the left, all the anti-white racists, the frustrated social climbers, the sexually frustrated dick thinkers (just read above, they self-identify).
As a child I was given a history lesson how Spartacus’ rebellion against slave owners failed because Spartacus’ slaves only wanted to reverse the roles of the slaves and the slave holders, not to change the system. I realise now how relevant that historical lesson is, regardless of whether it really applied to Spartacus’ slave rebellion. Most of those who identify their oppressor by the color of the skin (instead of what is in the brain and in the heart), just want to quickly transfer themselves from the Dominican BMWs into the German ones.
This selfish stupidity (of the left) is exactly why the misery of the human condition is so persistent.
Posted by: Kiza | Feb 10 2019 2:43 utc | 29
@ 22 said;US capitalists don't care about race, except to use it as a divide-and-conquer tactic."
" Venezuela has oil and the US wants it. There is no racial motivation."
These two points are absolutely true, and from the same old playbook..
The uber capitalists use the first to attain the second...
Posted by: ben | Feb 10 2019 2:49 utc | 30
thanks b and to russ @2 for bringing KC's link forward again... this is worth highlighting for what it says about these freaks...
speaking of freaks, my wife brought the globe and mail home today - something she rarely does.. it is canada's national paper.. the cover article is a hit, or hate piece on russia taking crimea - no surprise there... and further into the opinion section doug saunders interviews browder and why browder is unhappy canada isn't doing more with the magnitsky act.. here's where i am going with this...
freeland has been actively involved in the hate russia mems, just like she has spearheaded the lima group and regime change agenda for venezuala.. if there was one canuck who i would really like to see powerless, it is her... she was the one to get this magnitsky act passed in canada.. in fact, stephane dion stepped down, as he had too much integrity to allow for something like to be passed as foreign affairs minister previous to freeland..
Posted by: james | Feb 10 2019 2:50 utc | 31
@kiza - that is just the regular house troll that always posts under a different name.. most regulars at moa see that for what it is..
Posted by: james | Feb 10 2019 2:53 utc | 32
I don't think racism has much to do with Trump's Venezuela policies.
If there is any racism involved it's green. Funny how racism has cropped up as the answer to many problems in the last 20 years when it's the same today as it has always been,,, Greed, Power and Control. Most of the major wars in the past were White's vs White's. JMO
Posted by: ken | Feb 10 2019 3:01 utc | 33
@ minora 27
Your comment is typical in exhibiting complete lack of understanding of history. In the briefest, the Jewish masters have a tradition of using the radicalised and the extremists to achieve the situation they want, but they never share the costs or the power with the cannon fodder of their revolutions. For example, did they sacrifice any Israelis to help the Syrian terrorists they supported?
Exactly the same will happen between US Blacks and the Jewish “leaders”, as you so appropriately called them. The rest is the usual “revolutionary” narrative of the revolutions for profit. Naturally, there are many powerless Jews who are lumped into the White Opressors, White Trash etc etc, just the same as most other hard-working struggling Whites.
Posted by: Kiza | Feb 10 2019 3:11 utc | 34
"... and seems like more like a man of the people."
Similar to the Obama strategy in operation. Look and sound the hoped-for "Change We ..." (fill in the blanks) role but in reality create a political space for the business-as-usual agenda and then sit back a do little while channeling inner frustration on Tuesday morning Drone killing lists.
Malcolm X had the description right. They live in the House and work for the Master.
Posted by: imo | Feb 10 2019 3:14 utc | 35
@35 imo - check out the link @13 John Anthony La Pietra..
Posted by: james | Feb 10 2019 3:28 utc | 36
My final comment here. Not being an Italian, I am truly proud of the Italians for preventing EU from the Bannana Community’s adoption of Guaido as El Presidente of a sovereign country Venezuela (what the hell does it matter to them who rules the faraway Venezuela, and who gives a sh** who the EU declares President? I hereby declare my friend’s pat rat to be the President of EU). Secondly, for confronting the French sleazebags after their involvement in Libyan and Syrian AngloZionist “revolutions”, which resulted in hundreds of thousands killed and millions of refugees. Not everybody in Europe is rotten and decadent like the Chorus of the Slaves of Hebrews (my favourite satirical meme from Aida for the plentiful white slaves of their Jewish masters).
Posted by: Kiza | Feb 10 2019 3:43 utc | 37
You're welcome, and thanks back, to mourning dove @26 & James @36 [as of this writing].
Posted by: John Anthony La Pietra | Feb 10 2019 3:48 utc | 38
Another possibly useful link:
https://www.gregpalast.com/in-venezuela-white-supremacy-is-a-key-to-trump-coup/
Posted by: John Anthony La Pietra | Feb 10 2019 3:56 utc | 39
Re: race in the US
It only takes a cursory examination of statistical data regarding race in the US to realize that it is much more than a divide and conquer strategy. Not only poverty and incarceration rates, but also longevity and health outcomes by race. Even access to healthy food and clean air are disproportionate. Food deserts and pollution are much more prevalent in areas which are predominantly non-white. The list goes on and on. Acknowledging the white supremacist nature of the Empire is the first step towards true solidarity with those who have been most victimized by it.
Posted by: mourning dove | Feb 10 2019 3:59 utc | 40
Thanks, b. I appreciate your making this point.
Racism is inherent in imperialism and colonialism - this aggression doesn't work without racism. Imperialists and colonists couldn't sleep at night, untroubled by conscience, without racism. Wars don't work without racism. Racism is one of the best tools developed to pit one body of humans against another. It hasn't gone away. It's part of the way that wealth is stolen from one class of people and transferred to another class, and part of the way that these systems of theft are maintained.
Just as all the struggles are part of the one class struggle - between the rich, who steal wealth from those whom they consequently impoverish, and the poor, who struggle to be liberated from this criminal rape - in the same way, racism is a handmaiden of the ruling class.
Thus, the cause of racism is more economic than we might think. No surprise then that the solution lies in socialist principles that strive for equality between all members of a society and solidarity with other societies.
Another good commentary from Black Agenda Report is this one that illustrates the many great successes of socialism today to raise the lot of the oppressed and the hungry: Can the “Wretched” Rule? On Socialism, the State, and the Future of Humanity
It speaks of revolutionary socialism and the imperialist enemy:
The biggest problem standing in the way of revolutionary socialism, let alone European social democracy masquerading as socialism, is the U.S. imperialist system and its relentless attack on any efforts of the oppressed to break their chains wholly and completely. And it is precisely for this reason that it is merely a fantasy to believe that the struggle to bring socialism in the United States will not involve a revolutionary struggle against the state, especially given that the U.S. state apparatus is not only organized to destroy the lives of Black Americans and other oppressed peoples within its own borders but also to wage global war to the point of annihilation to ensure that Bezos, Buffet, and rest of the billionaire class maintain the stolen wealth of the planet’s working people.
Imagine, if we could see racism as the class struggle that it is, and unite as one subject class to end the plunder of the one ruling class.
Posted by: Grieved | Feb 10 2019 4:04 utc | 41
Enrico Malatesta @1
This process begins with the sudden issuance, by North Americans, of an ultimatum, obviously impossible for any government to accept, demanding that Venezuela hold Presidential elections within Eight days !
It put me in mind of one of those famous conquistador events in which an uncomprehending gathering of south americans would listen, puzzled and apprehensive, while a Spanish Priest, surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, raced through a pronouncement explaining-in Latin I believe- that the Pope had ordered that they immediately signify their acceptance of Christianity and the Emperor Charles V, their allotted ruler, or they would lose any rights they might have.
Once that formula had been muttered the Spanish considered themselves at liberty to to do anything they chose, in the line of murder, rape, enslavement and expropriation.
Nothing has changed except that now the pronouncements come from the media and the political caste and the empty religion they claim to be practising they call democracy.
Posted by: bevin | Feb 10 2019 4:08 utc | 42
Grieved @41
Hell yeah!!!
I haven't read the article yet but I'm just about to. Thank you.
Posted by: mourning dove | Feb 10 2019 4:14 utc | 44
JayC
Note that Rowswell went to the same hallowed halls of learning (aka CIA U) as Guiado
"he was educated in Washington, D.C., where he attended Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service from 1989 to 1993, and was one of only a handful of Canadians enrolled there...the Inter-American Development Bank headquartered in Washington..paid for Rowswell’s schooling."
Posted by: bevin | Feb 10 2019 4:16 utc | 45
Educating a bunch of rich white, or at least lighter, college kids to go home and overthrow a progressive government which is serving the needs of the poorer, darker citizens is exactly what is happening to Nicaragua. Now "progressives" are swallowing the hook, line and sinker that Ortega is a dictator and is robbing Nicaragua. Progressive singer recently asserted that the government had wrongly shut down a women's health clinic and banned its director. I wrote my friend Dorothy Granada who has been providing women's health care in Nicaragua for several decades and she wrote back that the clinic in question was serving as a conduit for funding these students who are blocking roads, keeping farm women from markets and attacking people. The director in question was in fact sent back to her home country, appropriately in my opinion.
So while we defend Venezuela, please add a focus on Nicaragua. AND Haiti where citizens are resisting fraudulent elections and are being heavily attacked. See haitisolidarity.net
Posted by: Carolyn Scarr | Feb 10 2019 4:18 utc | 46
First paragraph of a piece by Decameron at SST
"It's a sad fact that the full and unconditional pardon given by President George H.W. Bush to Elliott Abrams (a member of the second generation neo-conservative royalty by way of marriage to the daughter of neo-con co-creator, Midge Decter), protected him from disbarment and possible prison. Abrams, who pled guilty to the crime of lying to Congress in the investigation of the Iran-Contra, embraced the plea option reportedly in order to avoid heavier charges from the office of then independent counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, prosecutor in the Iran-Contra cases. Bush is gone, Walsh is gone, but Mr. Bush’s Attorney General William Barr is – surprise – now Attorney General of the United States."
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/02/decameron-déjà-vu-all-over-again.html
I believe this has a direct relation to future actions by the Trump regime regards Venezuela and Iran. Venezuela and Iran will need their nut protectors and somebody to watch their back as this will be an exceptionally dirty fight.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 10 2019 4:32 utc | 47
@36...
Indeed a grim picture and racism existed (and exists) across the spectrum.
However, correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
The point about Obama is the cynical scripting and central casting efforts to manufacture consent etc. Fundamentally it is a criminal thing and a rot at the core of the soul. I blame the current round (my late boomer gen) on Bill Clinton and possibly even more so, UK's Tony Blair who scuttled up through the Labour (Workers) party to gut it out and silence the voices from below. A right sellout for some silver pieces that war criminal stooge. Once the tone at the top is set then the rest mostly follows through momentum.
The real cunning recent colonial systems happened to have mostly white faces but that is only skin deep tribal issues (note Japan in Asia and China). The real criminal class has all colors and is fundamentally the same. It's not by the people for the people etc, but rather an elite (and usually a comprador role).
Here (below) is one example which the current US hegemony is simply replicating. And I have little doubt the British learned it from some earlier empire. And I have little hope that emerging empires in Indo-Asia will not also embrace the methods in due course as necessity bites.
https://www.checkpointasia.net/how-britain-plundered-45-trillion-from-india/
Posted by: imo | Feb 10 2019 4:35 utc | 48
As a side note. When I started to learn more about the current nation of China, it was impossible not to consider China's history of the past 500 years, a history of increasing contact with western imperialism, culminating as we know in the 110 years of deliberately introduced opium addiction, the "century of humiliation" that debilitated China while the western imperialists stripped its vast wealth. And the racism that has been practiced against Chinese people and especially workers in the west is as appalling as any.
But it was all to do with money. First comes the material superiority (or the greed), and then comes the racist judgment of inferiority. Racism is a kind of extreme snobbery.
I've had money in my life, and I noticed how easily one could develop a lack of caring for those who don't have it. Something in the mind draws comfort from blaming others for their lack of the same privilege you have. I do believe that racism is almost entirely grown out of this sense of material privilege over others.
We may not be racist at the moment, but we can always become racist, given the right prompts. Politicians know this, and Bob Dylan's song from the early sixties, Only a Pawn in Their Game, is still perhaps the best illustration of how it all works.
Actually the Buddhist teachings show that the fabricated construct called the ego spends all its energy, not simply trying to prove to itself that it exists (which cannot be proven by the way), but additionally that it is better than others. It is the best.
This is the struggle within our own minds. Using others as the reference in our struggle to prove to ourselves that we exist and have substance.
So out of this human condition, the rich develop their own elitism, naturally. It's then only natural for them to pass that along as racism among the classes to be ruled.
~~
Just some musings, make of them what you will.
Posted by: Grieved | Feb 10 2019 4:39 utc | 49
I agree with Kiza and especially on Italy :)
Many good comments from a lot of people as is often the case.
This is unlikely to be at the same high level since it's about a Russian reporter in Venezuela figuratively doing what must be the monetary equivalent of "crazy Ivan"'s :P with dollars and generally seeing a broader picture as far as anecdote/personal experience allows ie. it could be wildly misleading because it depends on who he meets by chance (but at least he tries to meet a lot of different people).
There's the translation in English and the original in Russian:
http://thesaker.is/reporters-diary-from-venezuela/
http://www.aif.ru/politics/world/dollary_ne_menyaem_valyuta_agressora_reportazh_aif_iz_venesuely
It's a mixed bag :)
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Feb 10 2019 4:43 utc | 50
I’m confused. Some who hold race does not exist are most insistent one race (whites) is against all the other races. Besides being reverse racism it also smacks of cognitive dissonance.
My contention is that racism today is engineered much like antisemitism was and is engineered by groups serving to benefit. For the elites its pretty much a divide and rule tool, and for others its a means to get benefits for their group. This does not mean racism does not exist, there will always be individuals who dont like those who are different (both black and white), and this is not limited to race.
The bell curve shows the main differences between races is simply in the proportion of individuals of each race who are cognitively elite or cognitively deficient. You may substitute congnitively with physical as you wish. Most of each race is remarkably similar. Perhaps race is a poor word, call it human variance resulting from different paths of evolution of people of a certain geographical and cultural region that has taken thousands of years and would take just as long to reverse after their migration. To deny this would be to deny evolution.
Today the global elite make up members of all races. In fact I have reason to believe the cognitively elite believe they are evolving beyond homo sapien 1.0 . Some call it transhumanism. Those who will be left behind are most of humanity and will likely suffer the same fate as the neanderthal, although like the neanderthal and homosapiens some degree of cross breeding is taking place between human 1.0 and elites making up human 2.0.
Dont take your eye off the ball and fall into the white is the boogeyman trap. Thats what they want. There is no reason all races should not join together and oppose these elite driven tactics to assume total control over everbody
Posted by: Pft | Feb 10 2019 4:46 utc | 51
Grieved "while the western imperialists stripped its vast wealth."
Not only western. Japan - what were the numbers, off memory which is not always good, something like 20 million dead. China did not have a WWII. It had the Japanese occupation which started far earlier.
Not dismissing the western imperialism, rather China has been hit from all angles.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 10 2019 5:09 utc | 52
The Anglo American Empire has been more than happy to work with African leaders to loot many African countries and that continues to this day. This has gone on elegantly for them in other parts of the world for decades. It would naturally be difficult for under served classes to take out the old money classes. Embracing Marxism certainly is not going to help them achieve their goals except in the eyes of a few Marxists. It has never worked anywhere.
They are not in a position to beat the empire. Aligning with Russia and China may give them some chance at freedom. It will never come at the hands of the Anglo Americans. Moving closer to those two powers only further enrages the Anglo's. Things are shaping up to become even worse for them. I could not imagine that even being possible but it is coming soon.
Posted by: dltravers | Feb 10 2019 5:09 utc | 53
@ PS 15
I wonder if you are familiar with the idea of the commons described by Elinor Ostrom.
There is a huge amount written on how to structure society to reorganise to return fair value for all.
This is the basis of the Bolivarian revolution, (and probably the deep political reason for the attack on Venezuela and the rest of LA).
links here
Posted by: Dadda | Feb 10 2019 5:13 utc | 54
Carolyn Scarr @46
Thank you for that perspective and for mentioning the website. Lots of good reading there. Thank you.
Posted by: mourning dove | Feb 10 2019 5:14 utc | 55
@48 imo.. that link with overview on the british rape of india, parallels @49 grieved comments on what happened in china..
and yes - the usa does want to replicate all this, but it is harder for anyone who has some historical context to frame it with to accept one iota of any of it..
@51 pft.. i agree with you, especially your last sentence..
@53 dltravers.. not that i disagree with you, but i am curious what then, do you recommend for venezuala at this point?
Posted by: james | Feb 10 2019 5:57 utc | 56
dltravers 53
The old throw away line ' it has never worked anywhere ' speaking of Marxism in its ' scientific socialist 'form .
Speak to a dozen or so women from the GDR ( East GERMANY ) and they on balance far preferred the socialist system to the rapacious western capitalism with its obsession on nationalism and super materialist , competitive performance .
Clearly this unbalanced dynamic at the heart of Europe spelled the end of the E U , at least partly through a united Germany's inability to use her economic power for the common good . The same holds for U S behaviour in the America's
Posted by: ashley albanese | Feb 10 2019 6:30 utc | 57
Shout-out to Fernando Martinez | Feb 9, 2019 8:17:37 PM | 21, well said dude! Dominican BMW!
"Dominican BMW" -- here where I live there's a phrase "Newton tuxedo". Newton is a traditionally poor, working class, far suburb, kinda like the South Bronx or South Side of Chicago. You don't want to be from there.
A Newton tuxedo is actually the traditional Canadian Mac (or Mackinaw) jacket, the standard tartan wool coat made famous by Neil Young and then later by the grunge movement in music, Nirvana etc.
As for race in Central America, I was traveling in Mexico, Belize and then Guatemala in the early 1980s. The upland border between Belize (English-speaking black folks, British colony) and Guatamala (Spanish speaking American colony) was heavily dug in with troops on both sides.
My friends and I crossed on foot and made our way into Guatemala via the lovely island city of Flores towards the famous Mayan excavation of Tikal. I could talk about the park, the airport and the museum there, all closed because the US shut Guatemala down for American tourists, it was "unsafe".
I met a wonderful fellow who invited me to visit his family's house, it was a simple concrete building of a few rooms. As I recall they served me a simple dinner which we ate together in the kitchen. He was happy that I was Canadian and had nothing good to say about America.
In the same town I got a ride from another young man, a medical student who studied at university. He was full of praise for the US, the ones who funded his education.
This is an example of the same divide between privileged and underprivileged that we see in Venezuala and the rest of the world.
Remarkable to me is how well-educated in the power structure of the world the "uneducated" actually are.
Posted by: jonku | Feb 10 2019 6:35 utc | 58
The Supreme Court of Venezuela then held that the National Assembly was in contempt of the court. The move created a political stalemate. To solve it the president called for the election of a Constitutional Assembly. Its main task is to consider constitutional changes. But it can also overrule legislation that the National Assembly makes. The Supreme Court accepted the solution. The National Assembly, the rotational presidency of which Random Guy took at the beginning of this year, is since only a secondary parliament.
The more I read about Venezuela's institutions the less I understand, especially about relations between the Suprem Court , the National Assembly and the Constitutional Assembly. What's legal, which assembly/court got the last word (so power), what's not democratic, where are Maduros'/Guaido's clan manipulations, one day I read Maduro's opposition was not allowed to take part into the presidential elections, and the day after I read Maduro's opposition prefered to boycott them.
(and thanks for the html tags at the bottom of the page)
Posted by: Paul | Feb 10 2019 6:37 utc | 59
"The sanctions gave U.S. oil companies working in Venezuela, including Chevron and oil service firms Halliburton Co, General Electric Co’s Baker Hughes and Schlumberger NV, a deadline to halt all operations in the South American country."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-pdvsa-banks-exclus/exclusive-venezuela-shifts-oil-ventures-accounts-to-russian-bank-document-sources-idUSKCN1PY0N3
The Maduro government now need to turn this to its advantage, as Putin and the Russian leadership did with the sanctions on Russia.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Feb 10 2019 7:37 utc | 60
I think this is just the uptick in wobble of the NWO machine, this event is just going to lead a sorry parade of musty smelly regime change socks.
Get the Hip Waders out, i foresee some other noise becoming an important requirement to keep this rapidly decaying world government, world religion boil festering.
Posted by: Masher1 | Feb 10 2019 7:46 utc | 61
@22 wagelaborer; I have to assume you're white, as only a white person can deny that the US Empire and capitalism in general are not fundamentally and constitutively racist. It is of course true the US Empire wants Venezuela's oil and that capitalism oppresses whites as well as people of color, but the last 500 years of Western capitalist imperialism have always first and most devastatingly exploited the Global South.
Posted by: George Lane | Feb 10 2019 7:50 utc | 62
I think, with Bolton, the appointment of Abrams, the obvious propaganda stunts, the Pelosi and Biden grandstanding....
With school play audition for President Gauido calling for a US attack on "his" country...
With MSDNC comparing Green New Deal to Nazi holocaust...
With a Fail on Sunday "dossier" on Corbyn that reads like a parody of the smear campaign written by children....
With a "new centrist party" backed by Rachel Riley and JK Rowing (it seems the only consistent here is getting the most discredited figures possible)....
With attacks on the Yellow Vests in France becoming reminiscent of Mussolini behaviour...
That the elites are panicking and have no idea what to do, so they've devolved 100% into full-scale hysteria, the only thing momentarily hiding it is the media, which will fail to convince
Posted by: Blooming Barricade | Feb 10 2019 7:59 utc | 63
@51
Race is a social construct, not a biological construct. Homo sapiens sapiens does not have races.
Posted by: Blue | Feb 10 2019 8:08 utc | 64
Firstly, great to see the interrelatedness of race and class highlighted in this thread (@vk 16, @Schmoe 23, @Pft 51). Secondly, not great to see most people slithering away from the consequences of race and class 'social constructs'. The focus on race is to get you to ignore class. Before arriving in the UK in the 70s, my impression was that class determined your life's path (for the Brits). Racism was irrelevant since people of colour had no class. An elderly woman remarked casually, "He was quite friendly, for a darkie' when a delivery man moved his packages out of her way. Slaves don't get to worry about class. And therein lies the rub. The US, the UK and the Arab world thrived on human trafficking, and to hide that we now hear a froth on race.
Posted by: kula | Feb 10 2019 9:31 utc | 65
Yikes. More "muh racism". Except it seems racism is ok if practiced by nonwhites but not ok if by whites.
Make your choice..........you can't have both. Either it is ok or it is not ok. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Either that or it's not racism it's class. You stupid lefties like to cherry pick so much.
Posted by: Freemon Sandlewould | Feb 10 2019 10:06 utc | 67
Yes ! 900 million or so 'lefties' living their lives in begnited fooly in China !
Posted by: ashley albanese | Feb 10 2019 10:28 utc | 68
Civil wars are easier to start than finish. In 1936 Franco's Nationalists thought that their coup and subsequent toppling of the Republican govt would be all over in five minutes...and Spain firmly and quickly guided back into "safe" hands. One suspects there are those in DC who think similarly about Venezuela. Many a slip twixt cup and lip.
Posted by: Guy Thornton | Feb 10 2019 12:06 utc | 69
Babyl-on @28
Syphilis has been found in a young man from 6th century Anglo-Saxon England.
https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.21371
Posted by: Entropy Wins | Feb 10 2019 13:44 utc | 70
Looks like B is famous, again!... this time in an article by PCR
Venezuela Is An Opportunity For Russia And China To Change The World
"Moon of Alabama’s explanation of Washington’s attack on Venezuela gives you a truer picture that differs completely from the lies voiced by the American and European politicians and presstitute media, a collection of whores who are devoid of all integrity and all morality and lie for their living"
Well done B! Apologies if this has already made the rounds here...
Posted by: xLemming | Feb 10 2019 13:53 utc | 71
Grieved says:
I do believe that racism is almost entirely grown out of this sense of material privilege over others
it's far more depraved and pathological than that.
industrial hemp was an indispensable and profitable crop in early America, not to mention its myriad contributions to eastern civilizations from time immemorial…
but in the earlier 1900s when darkies from south of the border started showing up reeking of reefer, whence it found its way into the speakeasies, jazz clubs, and the general lexicon of negro culture, the American psyche went bonkers, and mandingo-phobia was born. industrial hemp was banned and marijuana criminalized.
all American wars are nourished by fear and hatred.
Posted by: john | Feb 10 2019 14:34 utc | 72
Putting a dark face in the presidential palace as a way of diffusing the grievances of the mestizo/mulato majority, while quietly shoring up the power of the (largely white) ruling class, is an old trick in Latin American politics that goes back at least as far as the Porfirio Diaz presidency (1876-1911) in Mexico. Washington is only now catching up with Latin America on this tactic, having used the Obama presidency (2009-17) to do roughly the same thing in the US.
BTW, has anyone here noticed how much Guaidó actually resembles Obama physically? Uncanny!
Posted by: Seamus Padraig | Feb 10 2019 14:44 utc | 73
Just an FYI, probably goes without saying, but it is a fact -
Advanced Middle School students are being fed the lies about Venezuela propagated by US media.
Especially, that the Venezuelan people are protesting their government en mass.
I had to straighten out my kid on this and he doubted that which I told him.
US education brainwashes children. I suppose it always did.
Posted by: fast freddy | Feb 10 2019 14:47 utc | 74
@ Posted by: Kiza | Feb 9, 2019 9:43:58 PM | 29
If that's what your school taught you, then they taught you wrong: there are absolutely no documentation on Spartacus' rebellion from the point of view of Spartacus. They left no written documentation. We are absolutely on the dark on this one.
The only thing we know from Spartacus' led rebellion is his name and of some of his allies and, implicitly, that he was probably a Thracian warrior. That, and, obviously, the main battles he waged against the Roman Republic -- which are preserved on accounts from the Republican point of view.
Besides, you cannot compare those times with nowadays. History may rhyme, but it never repeats itself. Each historical time is different.
It's occurred to me that the world is currently (though temporarily) awash in oil due mostly to the global financial bubble financing US "fracking" production. OPEC is arguing for limitations on production to raise prices. In line with temporarily lowering production (to raise prices)it makes logical sense that taking out the production of countries like Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, would tend to aid global oil companies in the short-medium run. The oil will still be in the ground. In the case of Venezuela, it seems to make sense that throwing the country into chaos would temporarily take its oil production off the global market. It follows to me that US would want to disrupt Venezuela, sooner rather than later, and before the uneconomic "fracking" supply dries up. Unfortunately, this seems like a particularly opportune time for US to do what it has always done, only with a slightly different wrinkle. Further, if Venezuela is thrown into chaos, it's clear that a lot more folks will want to migrate - thus Trump's "wall" might make even more sense?
Posted by: Jaime | Feb 10 2019 15:52 utc | 76
Has anyone here noticed how much Guaidó actually resembles Obama physically? Uncanny!
Yes. and this character: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deval_Patrick talks exactly like Obama. Weird.
What's even weirder is the resemblance of Guidó to Crassus the unsuccessful general
who was given liquid gold to drink, when the battlefield results went against him at Carrae.
George Lane @62, I can only assume that you are a white person fully indoctrinated in the neoliberal identity politics that our ruling class teaches to confuse the citizens about issues of class.
You speak of 500 years of rapacious capitalism focused on darker peoples of the world. To do this, you have to ignore the Irish, Eastern Europe, and both world wars, etc. I have noticed that this denial, and/or ignorance, of history comes easily to the True Believers of the race theory of imperialism.
As Linda @24 points out "While race is a factor in Venezuela, a more predominant long term strategy employed by the US is to bring in youth from foreign countries for education and indoctrination especially in Ivy League schools. These youth become loyal to US interests via ego building and perks and are educated in the ways of neoliberal economics. A stable of these folks is on hand when needed during interventions and coups."
That, of course, is exactly how Obama, Sr. got to Hawaii, back in the 60s, and how step-daddy Sotero also made it to Hawaii.
But, go ahead and believe that the US is attacking Venezuela because of the deep racism in our overlords. To do this you have to believe that they have overcome their entrenched racism to put the guy with mestizo features in charge, instead of the guy that looks more like them. But why would people driven by racism do such a thing? Isn't that contradictory? You say that they are overthrowing a country because they are racist, but they chose a mestizo to lead it because....??
Posted by: wagelaborer | Feb 10 2019 17:41 utc | 78
Homo sapiens sapiens does not have races.
Sure. And dogs don't have breeds either.
Posted by: Seamus Padraig | Feb 10 2019 18:13 utc | 79
@ Seamus Padraig | Feb 10, 2019 9:44:12 AM | 73
"BTW, has anyone here noticed how much Guaidó actually resembles Obama physically? Uncanny!"
_________________________________________
[raises wildly-waving hand] I did! I did!
I noticed "a certain (phony) lean-faced earnestness" right away, and so did a few commenters on various sites. But I'm surprised that it isn't more widely remarked upon.
_________________________________________
@ the general discussion
There seems to be confusion about, for lack of a better term, the "objective", scientific existence of race versus the pervasive perception of and "belief in" race as it manifests in human culture, society, and government.
There's no logical or rational inconsistency with recognizing that traditional views of race have proven to be unscientific, ergo there is no basis for objectively dividing humanity into descrete racial categories, and recognizing that "racism", founded on spurious views of "race", is a social and cultural pathology integral to political power, sociopolitical authoritarianism, and the construction and maintenance of perpetual racial conflict that masks deeper and more authentic class distinctions.
If nothing else, I'm glad I got that run-on sentence off my chest! ;)
Posted by: Ort | Feb 10 2019 18:39 utc | 80
Ort 80
Exactly, and that inability to distinguish between realities and political/cultural ideology based on perception of reality is rampant everywhere. Just in the last few days I've encountered it here regarding climate change and vaccination. (In both cases, the difference between the physical reality and/or scientific verity, and the way the corporate state uses the idea of the reality.) Like you I noticed it in this thread regarding race as well.
I also noticed that Guano seems like a Venezuelan Obama. Looks like Venezuelans aren't as stupid as Americans where it comes to that scam.
Perhaps the people of Venezuela have benefited from experiencing the trick of the Obama from afar and having received an unvarnished, more truthful appraisal of him, locally. The horrible warmongering, drone bmobing and sucking up to the one percent and shitting all over the commons with that big phony smile. Wall street creep that he is, he provides a model for the future if they should accept Guano.
In fairness, Americans never saw a pigmented presidential candidate before AND they were war weary and bankrupt from Dubya Cheney and the Republican screwing they got. There was hope for change, anybody could have beaten any Republican candidate. Voters self-identified as Republican was at an historic nadir.
Now Obama did the same thing as Dubya, which is to say that Obama inflicted great damage upon his Party.
Posted by: fast freddy | Feb 10 2019 21:57 utc | 82
@82 And don't be surprised if it happens again ...this time with AOC or somebody like her. Young, female green....what's not to like? She will appeal to the same people who elected Obama.
Posted by: dh | Feb 10 2019 22:21 utc | 83
Seamus Padraig @ 73, Ort @ 80:
Not only did Guaidó roll off the same assembly line in the same batch as Obama in that far-off factory in the boonie regions of China or wherever, even his campaign slogan came from the same box as Obama's did.
'¡Sí se puede!' shouts rapturous crowd at Juan Guaidó rally
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/31/si-se-puede-shouts-rapturous-crowd-at-juan-guaido-rally
And then Guaidó wonders why the Venezuelan public and the armed forces don't rush over to his side, wide-eyed and adoring, when he declares himself President.
Posted by: Jen | Feb 10 2019 22:36 utc | 84
DH @ 83:
You spoke truer than you know.
"Kamala Harris officially enters 2020 US presidential race"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/21/kamala-harris-2020-president-election-run-democrat-senator-california-news
Posted by: Jen | Feb 10 2019 22:43 utc | 85
@85 It's pretty obvious how the future is shaping up. Diversity and gender versus 'old white men'.
Posted by: dh | Feb 10 2019 23:10 utc | 87
Racism is a neoliberal construct. Nobody with class consciousness is racist.
Posted by: William Gruff | Feb 11 2019 0:47 utc | 88
Ort @ 80:
For your interest (and others' interest as well): Wikipedia articles on Honorary whites and Honorary Aryans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_Aryan
In 1972, Australian tennis player Evonne Goolagong (of the Wiradjuri nation) was given "honorary white" status by the South African government when she agreed to participate in a tennis tournament in that country.
http://sports.jrank.org/pages/1677/Goolagong-Evonne-Goolagong-Impact.html
So racial categories are really very elastic when it suits The Powers That (Should Not) Be.
Posted by: Jen | Feb 11 2019 0:54 utc | 89
Posted by: Jen | Feb 10, 2019 7:54:37 PM | 89
(Evonne Goolagong's "honorary white" status)
Well, whilst we're tripping down Memory Lane, Cathy Freeman didn't bother seeking Whitey's permission to assert and celebrate her racial identity at the Commonwealth Games...
A lot of Toffs & Tossers made fools of themselves that day.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 11 2019 5:39 utc | 90
Does anyone else remember Cherie Blair (Mrs Tony Bliar) expressing sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian People in front of an assembled crowd of Brit Establishment VIPs - who were unable to conceal their Horror and Indignation at Cherie's complete and utter lack of decorum?
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 11 2019 5:58 utc | 91
@ Psychohistorian 15
(Apologies for misdirecting this earlier)
I wonder if you are familiar with the idea of the Commons described by Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom.
There is a huge amount written on how to structure society to reorganise to return fair value for all.
This is the basis of the Bolivarian revolution, explicitly implemented in Ecuador(and probably a deep political reason for the attack on Venezuela and the rest of LA).
links here
Posted by: Dadda | Feb 11 2019 7:03 utc | 92
Years ago I read a piece about Fox:
STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All
I remembered that when I saw this headline at the RT site.
‘Germs aren’t real’: Fox host says he hasn’t washed hands in 10 yrs
Around here it's standard practice to have a huge TV monitor running in the waiting room at the car repair place. It's almost always tuned to Fox. Ditto for fast food joints - Fox. Even within some filling station bathrooms - Fox.
Small wonder about the levels of ignorance I see around me in this Hoosier state.
Posted by: Zachary Smith | Feb 11 2019 18:06 utc | 93
I agree with Kiza: | Feb 9, 2019 9:43:58 PM
The majority of the low class darkest do not want equality. Is there equality among themselves? LOL, don't make me laugh.
Who gets the short end of the stick in Hispanic/Latin countries and always has? Surprise! Surprise! It's the Indians as per usual.
Well, the ones who are left anyhow..
The poor will always be with us and so will the envious, jealous, lusty, greedy, of every class/caste.
They minute they get the power they'll become the new brutes, the new ruthless oppressors. The same as those they've replaced.
They don't want equality, that's a pipe dream. They want power and revenge. Well they better pack a lunch, eh.
Hardly a rallying cry for the righteous.
"And the poor white remains,
on the caboose of the train,
but it ain't him to blame,
he's only a pawn in theirm game."
(Bob Dylan)
But blame him they will. Take out their revenge on him they will.
Posted by: L Garou | Feb 11 2019 23:22 utc | 94
Jen 89
One wonders how genuine all the racist clap-trap from the Nazis really was
? A friend's father went to Himmler ( he had once lived with him ) and said ' you have the right to decide who is a Jew or not - he replied 'that is so !' Point being that the Jew's were a very convenient , identifiable out group whose money and property could be pirated and distributed bounty to Hitler's mafia like backers .
?
'
Posted by: ashley albanese | Feb 11 2019 23:30 utc | 95
Not going to read all these posts so may be repeating someone else.
This guy the U.S. wants to use as a puppet has also been groomed as a freemason, probably the most important reason for choosing him.
Posted by: Tony B. | Feb 12 2019 1:27 utc | 96
I would note that "race" and "class" are not clearly separated in South and Central America.
Yes, every Latin American nation has 100 or 200 families which control a large share, if not outright majority, of economic and political power. Let's call these the 1% or 0.1%.
Yes, these families are almost exclusively criollo - i.e. almost fully Caucasian, primarily of Spanish or Portuguese descent (but not all).
However, it isn't clear to me that these controlling families are the leaders of the 10% or so of the population in Latin America which is 90%+ Caucasian, much less the 30% or so which is "mixed".
Or put another way: the oligarchs in the US are not 100% Caucasian. The ruling class, however, doesn't care if you're white so much as you cleave to their prerogatives.
My outsider's suspicion is that the same dynamic exists in Latin America, only more so since these societies have had much less mixing than in the US and are older in many respects.
Posted by: c1ue | Feb 12 2019 18:07 utc | 97
As a Latin American I can confirm the role ethnic origin and race play in regional politics and society. Is a simple rule: the whiter you are, the wealthier you are. Of course there are exceptions like Mexico, but that is the reason why guaido was selected by bolton and pompeo, he looks like a common mestizo or mulato from Caracas, and that is the reason why the American-wanna-be middle class and rich folks established in Florida, Los Angeles or NYC are often called in Latin America "Gusanos de Miami" -in this context trump lackey marco rubio is a good example. People with Southern European heritage are called in Mexico "güeros" (blondes) and they consider themselves superior to mestizos, native and black people ... the funny thing happens when US or Northern European citizens discriminate them thinking they are Arabs, Turks or Indians.
Posted by: Guy Moyssen | Feb 13 2019 0:06 utc | 98
Racism? Irrational nonsense. I suppose Elliot Abrams is a racist? All this time I just thought he was a neocon Israeli Firster, but I guess now in the silly left's world,he is a racist.
I couldn't give two hoots about racism but I am not so deranged as to think people that do care, are racist.
Posted by: WJ | Feb 13 2019 3:57 utc | 99
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"The Papal Bull "Inter Caetera," issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World."
"The Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be "discovered," claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that "the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself." This "Doctrine of Discovery" became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion."
It's worked so well in the Western Hemisphere for 500 years, why should the descendants of Europe stop now?
Posted by: Enrico Malatesta | Feb 9 2019 20:29 utc | 1