Venezuela, US Imperialism and the Bolivarian Revolution
September 16, 2018 - Critical Thought Critique
To understand the forces operating in Venezuela and why they operate in the manner they do, there has to be context and historical background. The United States has enacted its same playbook in Venezuela much as it has in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Chile. Why change what works?
The U.S. media has consistently done a great job in covering the situation in Venezuela from the viewpoint of the ruling classes both in Venezuela and the United States. This is not sarcasm. It is the truth. The emergence of Venezuelan private media ownership in the 1980s, Venevision, RCTV, Globovision, and Televen provided the population with a consistent, broad, right-wing populace message for two decades and then broadcasted around the clock anti-Chavez propaganda during the attempted coup in 2002. During the time of the coup, only one station that was publicly owned, VTV Channel 8, aired an opposing view (Capetillo-Ponce, 2007). The point of this mirrors the point of Fox News in the United States—to create a ruling class friendly narrative that generates support from a politically naïve working-class base. In the case of Venezuela, it did not work.
The prime example that comes to mind is the way Chile was destabilized and a fascist dictator was installed. In November 1970, Salvador Allende, a socialist, was democratically-elected as the new president of Chile. The economic reforms he began threatened US business interests, most famously the ITT Corporation. As part of his reforms, he focused on nationalization of industries, primarily copper mining and banking. Similar to his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, Allende nationalized the petrochemical industry to finance a literacy campaign, agrarian reform, healthcare expansion, and free education (La Tercera Icarito, 2018). With the increased social spending and nationalization efforts, US capital reacted with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency. Using their contacts in the Chilean military, plans were made for a coup. The first steps in that direction included making “the economy scream” as Henry Kissinger apparently advised then President Richard Nixon. Right-wing trade unions, such as truckers, went on strike, small business people, and reactionary students joined protests. The truckers’ strike was funded by the CIA (Franklin, 1999). With the grocery stores still in the hands of small business owners, they began withholding food supplies and creating manufactured crises to hurt the very people who elected and supported Allende. Media outlets in Chile, still reporting the views of the deposed ruling class, framed their stories in way that lay all the blame at the feet of the socialist government. This is the process the US has used again and again to destabilize a nation’s economy, weaken democratic support for elected governments, and lay the groundwork for a coup.
Enter Milton Friedman. Friedman was an economist who championed the free market, widespread deregulation, and privatization. Friedman’s ideas and his compatriots at the University of Chicago, enacted their ideas in the Chilean laboratory once Augusto Pinochet was installed. In short, once Allende was murdered on September 11, 1973, the CIA-backed economists were given free range to enact some of the most cold-blooded economic restructuring for the re-installed Chilean ruling class while Pinochet carried out naked terror on working people who supported Allende or attempted to resist. Friedman and his “Chicago Boys” got to play with the lives of Chilean workers without any threat of reprisal or resistance.
This is the plan for Venezuela.
From the beginning of Chavez’s presidency until now, these same tactics have been at play. The use of privately controlled media to lay blame for food shortages, strikes, and plummeting economic conditions at the hands of the Bolivarian Revolution. The ongoing and sometimes violent uprisings by the same sectors of society as those in Chile in 1973 that include small business owners, right-wing trade unions, and students from wealthy families have played out again and again. And, most recently, the forces on the right escalated to the naked terror of an outright assassination attempt on President Maduro.
Why does the US care? Again, the US is motivated by one thing and one thing only. Profit. Venezuela has oil. As in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and potentially soon, Iran, the US ruling class seeks to gain access and control of the world’s energy resources. Just as the ruling class takes no interest in clean drinking water in Flint, Michigan, so to does it disregard the welfare and humanity of Venezuelans. The poison idea of US Exceptionalism is a propaganda tool to justify the most horrific acts of American capital.
Why is the Bolivarian Revolution important? Because workers only have power in their numbers. The US working class cannot improve its future without also fighting alongside workers in all countries. The victory of Chavez in Venezuela is not just a victory for Venezuelans, it is a victory for working people in the United States. It stands as an example of hope that working people can take control of their lives; they can have a say in their government, and they can have a say in their workplace.
2007, Capetillo-Ponce, Jorge; Venezuela in the Time of Chavez: A Study on Media, Charisma, and Social Polarization, University of Massachusetts Boston.
“La Unidad Popular” (in Spanish). icarito.latercera.cl. Archived from the original on 14 September 2018., archived 14 September 2018 on the Internet Archive
Jonathan Franklin, Files show Chilean blood on US hands, The Guardian, 11 October 1999.
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