Venezuela & ALBA Weekly 7.31.2020 New US Strategy against Venezuela; Cuba and Nicaragua Speeches; The Venezuela Economy and Class Relations

US War on Venezuela

Orinoco Tribune: After 23 Years of Media Warfare Against Venezuela, the US Says it Will Start a Media War The genocide perpetretor Elliott Abrams (mastermind of massacres and attacks in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua) was in charge of delivering this “news” more than two decades after this media war started. Journalistic reports say that “the United States is preparing a new strategy against Venezuela in which it will use the media as part of its pressure campaign against Maduro.” Washington plans the launch of media actions on radio, television and internet, in order to penetrate Venezuelan territory….After this quick walk through of more than two decades of the media turned into cannons and bombs from the right, one has to wonder what the serial genocide Abrams is thinking now when he talks about “starting” a media offensive. What are they going to do now, what can they try that they have not already tried? We will see soon enough.

US’ Elliot Abrams Decides Venezuela’s December Elections Already Fraudulent & Venezuela’s Response “The conditions for free and fair elections are actually much worse today than they were in May 2018, when Maduro held the presidential elections that democracies all over the world have said were fraudulent,” Abrams told reporters. Following these statements, Minister for Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza warned that the U.S. empire is plotting to sabotage the election of the National Assembly to be held on December 6 in the South American nation.

FAIR (Lucas Koerner): Media Cover for US Clients’ Covid Catastrophes in Peru, Ecuador and Chile, Yet Smear Venezuela’s Example Back in March, when coronavirus cases were beginning to surge in the US and in South American allies such as Brazil and Ecuador, Washington was busy raising the alarm about the “expansion of Covid-19 pandemic in the region, if not globally, if Venezuela… fails to address it.” Venezuela was reporting under 150 cases at the time. This scaremongering propaganda has been repeated ad nauseam by the Western media ever since. Alongside Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Chile currently lead South America in total Covid deaths per capita.

Speeches at 30th anniversary of the Sao Paulo Forum

Speech by Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega : “A New Consciousness is being generated on the Planet, that we have to change the model and install States that are truly full of Humanism, of Solidarity, of love for Justice, love for Freedom, respectful of international law” Thebattle that Venezuela is waging is unprecedented in Our America. What we remember is how the imperialists used to overthrow governments on Earth with merely a note. One note was enough and the ruler would give up and leave…To confront these viruses that have to do with the health of our peoples we have to eliminate the biggest virus of all, the biggest virus that denies use the conditions or the possibility of confronting these viruses that threaten health as well as we might, and that is Capitalism, that is the biggest virus, it is Neoliberalism, that is the biggest virus, the very essence of selfishness and evil.

Granma: Speech by  Cuban President Díaz-Canel: Anti-imperialist unity is the tactic and strategy of victory “The invincible example of Chavez now summons us to continue the struggle, with firmness and optimism, convinced that there are no obstacles, however difficult they may seem, that our peoples, united, cannot overcome, as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba demonstrate today.

The region of the Americas is today sadly the epicenter of the pandemic. The neoliberal policies of many governments, bent on placing the market above human lives, make it impossible to predict the moment when a definitive control of the disease will be possible. The spread of the virus is a fact, if we consider that the first million cases were confirmed over 96 days, but the latest million were counted within only 16.

The fraternal collaboration of the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and the Cuban Revolution, three revolutions with governments fully dedicated to saving lives and providing well-being to their respective peoples; three revolutions that, facing the brutal onslaught of the empire and its allies in the neoliberal right on the continent, have, with integration and firmness, defended themselves and preserved, under very difficult conditions, the independence, sovereignty and dignity of the homeland of Bolivar and Chavez, of Sandino and Carlos Fonseca, of Marti and Fidel.

History is made by the people, even if it is written by others.

For the life and independence of our peoples; for the legacy of our founders, who taught us that even in the most difficult conditions it was always possible, it is always possible and will always be possible; for the new generations giving continuity to the struggle, as Maduro explained; for anti-imperialist unity that is the tactic and strategy of victory: We will fight, we will live and we will triumph!

Pasqualina Curcio on Venezuela Economic Situation and Class Relations

1. Orinoco Tribune (Pasqualina Curcio):Imperialism’s Economic War Costs Venezuela Nearly $200 Billion Focusing on the economic dimension we have updated the calculations that we made in March 2019. At that point, losses caused by this war amounted to $125 billion; we have now calculated those for all of 2019, which total $68 billion. Therefore, the total economic losses between 2016 and 2019 are $194 billion. That is equivalent to approximately 16 months of national production. With that money, we could have paid the entire external debt of $110 billion. Or we would have enough resources to import food and medicine for 45 years. These losses break down thus: $25 billion corresponds to money and assets that have been looted from us, while the other $169 billion represents what we have stopped producing from 2016 to 2019 as a result of the attack against state-owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA ($64 billion) and the attack on the bolivar ($105 billion).

2. Orinoco Tribune (Pasqualina Curcio): The Economy: Numbers Impossible to Manipulate 

In 2014 the Venezuelan economy pie chart was large and was distributed as follows: 7 pieces went to the bourgeoisie, 7 to the salaried employees and 2 to the State, totaling 16 pieces. For 2017, it was 2 thirds the size of 2014, the economy fell 34% between 2014 and 2017. The bourgeoisie got 10 pieces instead of 7, the employees 5 instead of 7 and the State 1 and not 2. this uneven distribution of the cake has been worsening since 2018 due to the fact that from 2017 to June 2020 prices increased 716,308% as a consequence of the attack on the bolivar, while nominal wages increased by only 20,102%, and the purchasing power of public and private workers, plus the public, plummeted 97%.

Is it to go against the reason and the rule of the revolutionaries to propose that this cake be distributed more equally; that the bourgeoisie not continue to take more than half the cake; that it return what it alienated to the workers in the social process of work; that wages be adjusted in the same proportion and speed of prices until they reach decent levels?

3. Orinoco Tribune (Pasqualina Curcio): Salaries in Venezuela: Private Sector vs. Public Sector (II) All of us who work in public administration have also seen our salary drop by 97% since August 2018 as a consequence of induced hyperinflation. We are 3,555,155 people in addition to the 4,988,882 grandmothers and grandfathers who receive their pension and / or retirement. We are a lot of people.In 2013 from all the economy’s production 40% went to the accounts of the capitalist and in 2017 this percentage increased to 50%, that is, the bourgeoisie, by way of profit, is appropriating at least half of national production, to the detriment of wages that went from 32% to 18% of GDP during the same period. In revolution and under siege by imperialism (excuse the redundancy) it is not the working class that must tighten its belt while the bourgeois loosens it more and more.

PeoplesDispatch (Vijah Prashad):‘We will coup whoever we want. Deal with it.” Elon Musk and the overthrow of democracy  Elon Musk, of the 1%, is even more open about what the US rulers are about than Trump. Corporate power will unseat governments for their own profit. He condensed in his new tweet the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement.

Bolivarian Government of Venezuela: Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza: ‘Looting of Consulate in Bogotá is the consequence of attacks from Colombia against Venezuela’ (Video of the vandalized consulate) Once again, Venezuela has been attacked by action or omission (…) The Colombian state flagrantly violates the Vienna Convention,” bashed the head of Venezuelan diplomacy in a televised statement addressed to the international community. Arreaza said “it was not only an assault; they vandalized it all. They even broke windows and stole important documents and files of Venezuelans residing in Colombia.”

Webinar

Nicaragua Friends of the ATC Ben Linder Solidarity School online class starts August 1


August 12 Bolivia’s Fight to Restore Democracy – Canada’s Role – Guillaume Long, former Foreign Minister of Ecuador, analyst with Center for Economic and Policy Research, Matthew Green, MP for Hamilton Centre (NDP), Ollie Vargas, Bolivian Journalist for Radio Kawsachun Coca

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Instagram