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The US-led economic war is tearing Venezuela apart, not socialism

Caleb T. Maupin
MintPress News
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
Chavez shirt
© AP
Pro-government supporter with Chavez shirt awaits results of congressional elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec. 6, 2015.
Americans have been trained by decades of Cold War propaganda to look for any confirmation that 'socialism means poverty.' But in the case of Venezuela and other states not governed by the free market, this cliche simply doesn't ring true. The political and economic crisis facing Venezuela is being endlessly pointed to as proof of the superiority of the free market.

Images and portrayals of Venezuelans rioting in the streets over high food costs, empty grocery stores, medicine shortages, and overflowing garbage bins are the headlines, and the reporting points to socialism as the cause.

The Chicago Tribune published a Commentary piece titled: "A socialist revolution can ruin almost any country." A headline on Reason's Hit and Run blog proclaims: "Venezuelan socialism still a complete disaster." The Week's U.S. edition says: "Authoritarian socialism caused Venezuela's collapse."

Indeed, corporate-owned, mainstream media advises Americans to look at the inflation and food lines in Venezuela, and then repeat to themselves clichés they heard in elementary school about how "Communism just doesn't work."

In reality, millions of Venezuelans have seen their living conditions vastly improved through the Bolivarian process. The problems plaguing the Venezuelan economy are not due to some inherent fault in socialism, but to artificially low oil prices and sabotage by forces hostile to the revolution.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

Iran: By placing sanctions on Khamenei and Zarif, US 'closes path of diplomacy'


RT
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 07:28 UTC
Zarif/Khamenei
© azertac/AP
Iran FM Mohammad Javad Zarif • Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
The US has destroyed the glimmering chance for negotiations and undermined "world peace and security" by targeting the Iranian leadership with a new wave of sanctions, Tehran has said.

By slapping "useless sanctions" on Iran's top officials, Washington has precipitated "the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy," the spokesperson for the Islamic Republic's Foreign Ministry, Seyyed Abbas Mousavi, said on Tuesday. "Trump's desperate administration is destroying the established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security."

His words were echoed by Iran's envoy to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, who said "there is no way that Iran and the US can start a dialogue" while Washington is applying economic pressure and sanctions against the country.

On Monday, the US announced plans to blacklist Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. President Trump explained that the new sanctions are a response to Iran shooting down a US drone last week, among other things. He also said that he had considered striking several targets on Iranian soil, but called off the attack.

Comment: Reactions to these latest developments:
From RT:
US National Security Advisor John Bolton:
"As we speak, American diplomatic representatives are surging across the Middle East, seeking a path to peace. In response, Iran's silence has been deafening." Washington "has held the door open for real negotiations," and all Iran needs to do is to "walk through that open door."

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani:
The new sanctions are a sign of Washington's "desperation" and "the White House actions show it is mentally retarded." "You [the Americans] call for negotiations. If you are telling the truth, why are you simultaneously seeking to sanction our foreign minister, too?" The promise to enact new sanctions shows that the US is "lying" in the offer of talks with Tehran.

[Russian] senior security official Nikolai Patrushev:
The restrictions "negate all of the repeatedly-sent signals that Washington is open and ready to engage in dialogue."

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov:
"You can't have dialogue at gunpoint, literally and figuratively speaking."

From RT:
Foreign minister Zarif:
"You were really worried about 150 people? How many people were killed by nuclear weapons? How many generations did you destroy with these weapons?" Zarif added it was Iran that led the global fight against weapons of mass destruction, "and we will never pursue nuclear weapons according to our religious views."

From RT:
US President Donald Trump:
Arguing that Iran understands only "strength and power," US President Donald Trump threatened to show them just that, tweeting that any Iranian attack on America would be met with "overwhelming force" and "obliteration."

From FRN:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani:
The head of the Iranian government (the posts of president and prime minister in Iran are combined) called the new sanctions "outrageous and idiotic", and the White House and its current owner, according to Rouhani, "suffer from mental retardation." Rouhani said that personal sanctions by the United States against Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei were "useless" because he had no financial assets abroad.

"When you call for negotiations, are you trying to punish the foreign minister? Obviously you are lying. The actions of Americans flout human rights and put pressure on all the people of Iran. Today we feel that disappointment and confusion reign in the White House and the ruling circles of the United States. They thought that our country would fall apart within two to three months, but they saw that we only became stronger. "

Iranian foreign ministry Abbas Mousavi:
"The imposition of useless sanctions on the supreme leader of Iran is the final closure of the path to diplomacy."

According to Trump:
"New harsh sanctions" will deprive Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei and other senior representatives of the Islamic Republic of access to financial instruments.

From Sputnik:
Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi:
"We are not in the business to succumbing to pressure. The US has been applying pressure against Iran, and today, we witnessed that they have added more sanctions. As long as the strategy is there, there is no way that Iran and US can start a dialogue. The US decision today to impose more sanctions against Iran is yet another indication of continued US hostility against the Iranian people and their leaders. The US has no respect for international law and order. In order to de-escalate, the US should take steps [and] put aside their Armada from our region and also move away from the economic war against our people."
See also:
Goad, threaten, backtrack: Trump & Bolton's Iran policy is confusing, dangerous & achieves NOTHING

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Stock Down

Morgan Stanley: Three reasons why the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting is 'a set-up to sell risk'

Michael Zezas
Zero Hedge
Sun, 23 Jun 2019 19:10 UTC
TrumpXi
© sisajournal-e.com
Presidents Xi and Trump
It's now confirmed that Presidents Trump and Xi are set to meet at the G20 later this week. And while US administration officials have said we shouldn't expect a deal but rather a path forward for negotiations, this is still welcome news to anyone looking for relief from the tit-for-tat tariff escalation between the US and China. Communication may not be sufficient to break the escalatory cycle, but it's a necessary condition. And it's timely, too, as the US authorization to levy tariffs on a further ~US$300 billion of imports from China takes effect in early July. So as we enter this week, there seems good reason to expect that the G20 will result in a tariff 'pause', affording both sides a defined period of time to get negotiations back on track before resorting to further tariff escalation.

But investors beware: while a pause is better than escalation, it won't refresh the economy enough to forestall a challenging path for risk assets. A pause, particularly one that comes without preconditions and follows a period of heated rhetoric, would be positive, signaling that both sides want to avoid further economic damage. If it coincides with Fed dovishness, a pause could boost investor sentiment and risk asset prices in the short term. However, we'd view this more as a set-up to sell risk than a catalyst to turn more bullish. Consider the following:
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Snakes in Suits

Russia, US, Israel meet for security talks as Middle East tensions escalate against Iran


RT
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 00:39 UTC
Patrushev/Neti
© Reuters
Russian National Security Chief Nikolai Patrushev • Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Blaming Iran for all the problems of the Middle East is just bad policy, Moscow has said as the national security advisers from Russia, Israel and the US meet in Jerusalem to discuss escalating tensions in the region.

"Just like us, Iran is legitimately present on Syrian territory to help fight terrorists, invited by the legitimate Syrian government," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow on Monday, after a meeting with his Egyptian colleague Sameh Shoukry. Much of their press conference was dedicated to another meeting, however, as Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev was in Jerusalem for talks with his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat and US national security advisor John Bolton.

Further meetings between Patrushev, Bolton and Ben-Shabbat are scheduled for Tuesday, and the three are supposed to produce a joint statement.

Bolton was dispatched to Israel while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, after US President Donald Trump decided not to launch an attack on Iran last week. Pompeo's officially published agenda includes discussions of "dangers posed by Iranian destabilizing activity."

This focus on Iran to the exclusion of everything else was "counterproductive," Lavrov said. "Israel and the Americans are above all concerned with Iran, not just when it comes to Syria but also this region in general, and maybe even in a much wider geographical area."

"We consider it very, very dangerous how the situation is developing in [the Persian Gulf] as well as in Syria," the top Russian diplomat added. "There are attempts to turn the territory of Syria into a battlefield between Israel and Iran, between Sunnis and Shia. This is bad and only aggravates the crisis."

Comment: See also: Iran: By placing sanctions on Khamenei and Zarif, US 'closes path of diplomacy'

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Radar

Patrushev: According to Russian military info, the downed US drone violated Iranian airspace


Sputnik
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 12:42 UTC
1USAF RQ-4 Global Hawk
© CC0/Staff Sgt. Andy M. Kin
USAF RQ-4 Global Hawk
Tensions between Iran and the US have intensified since Tehran downed an American drone, which as Iran said, had violated the country's borders. Washington, meanwhile, has accused Tehran of allegedly attacking oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, something that the Islamic Republic denies doing.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stated in negotiations with US National Security Adviser John Bolton and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Russian military has information that the US drone, destroyed in an incident on 20 June, was shot down in Iranian airspace thus confirming the information earlier provided by Tehran. The US, for its part, insists that the UAV was flying above neutral waters when it was destroyed.
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Brain

Amnesia? Hypocrisy? Biden slams Trump for immigration policies he and Obama championed


RT
Mon, 24 Jun 2019 19:27 UTC
HandoutJoe
© Florida Politics
Joe Biden
Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden has penned a scathing op-ed attacking President Donald Trump's "morally bankrupt" border policies, but he has spent much of his career enabling the 'deportation state' he now decries.

The former vice president took to the pages of the Miami Herald on Monday to lay out his approach to immigration, positioning himself as the antidote to a toxic president who "is only interested in using his policies to assault the dignity of the Hispanic community and scare voters to turn out on Election Day." Those policies have created a "horrifying" situation at the border, Biden wrote, and have taken "a wrecking ball" to US relations in Latin America.

Ever eager to wield his credentials as vice president under the Barack Obama administration, Biden boasts that he was involved in crafting the prior government's policies toward Latin America, but Obama's legacy on immigration reflects dismally on a candidate running on a pro-migrant platform.

Throughout President Obama's two terms, more people were deported than under any previous administration, according to government data, earning him the unfortunate title of 'Deporter in Chief.' During Obama's first four years in office, nearly 400,000 people were deported per year, topping out in 2012 at over 409,000.

Despite Trump's reputation as a superhawk on the border, his presidency has seen fewer deportations per year than his predecessor, with around 250,000 in 2017 and 2018, and just over 280,000 so far this year.
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Clipboard

Trump meetings with Putin, Modi, Xi confirmed for the G20 Economic Summit


RT
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 01:01 UTC
Trump
© Reuters/Carsten Rehder
President Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 8, 2017
US President Donald Trump will meet individually with the leaders of Russia, India, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Germany at this weekend's G20 economic summit in Osaka, Japan, senior White House officials have confirmed.

Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin will likely include discussion of Iran, Ukraine, Syria, and issues of arms control, a senior White House official confirmed to Reuters. It's an encounter certain to send the president's detractors into a frenzy. They are still attempting to track down the notes of his interpreter from a previous meeting between the two leaders.

"The president is quite comfortable with any outcome" to his meeting with China's President Xi Jinping, the official said, adding that the meeting is an opportunity for Trump to assess his Chinese counterpart's position on the ongoing trade war. Trump has not met with Xi since the last G20 in Buenos Aires, and has promised to make a decision on whether or not to apply $300 billion in additional tariffs to Chinese goods following the meeting.

Trump will also meet with the recently-reelected Indian PM Narendra Modi, both one-on-one and in a trilateral meeting with Japan's Shinzo Abe to discuss a "free and open Indo-Pacific concept," the White House confirmed last month.
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Arrow Up

Galloway: The unstoppable rise of Boris Johnson

George Galloway
RT
Wed, 19 Jun 2019 13:16 UTC
BJohnson
© Getty Images
Boris Johnson
The first time I ever spoke to Boris Johnson, almost certainly Britain's next prime minister, was when my phone rang in London's Soho back in 2002 and a now familiar voice boomed "I want to interview Saddam Hussein."

At the time I was the only British politician still traveling to sanctions-stricken Iraq and the only one who met regularly with the Iraqi leadership in the run-up to the war. As a sweetener, Boris, for it was he, threw in that he didn't "believe all that stuff" about weapons of mass destruction. Not that such disbelief was ever enunciated publicly of course. I passed on his request but the Iraqis, never having heard of him, turned down the request.

His call and its follow-up pressure taught me several things about the future foreign secretary and soon-to-be prime minister.
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Arrow Up

PACE votes for Russia's immediate return after three years under sanctioned absence


RFE/RL
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 00:31 UTC
PACE
© stortinget.no
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has voted to make it possible for Russia to return to the chamber following a three-year hiatus. The vote took place early on June 25 following debate during PACE's opening summer session in Strasbourg.

The decision marked the first time that a major sanction imposed on Moscow since its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014 has been reversed.

With 47 member states, the Council of Europe is the continent's main human rights body.

A total of 118 parliamentarians agreed to welcome Russia back into PACE immediately and to blunt the assembly's ability to impose sanctions similar to those on Russia in the future. Sixty-two members of the parliamentary assembly voted against the move and 10 abstained.

In a resolution, PACE decided that its members' "rights to vote, to speak, and to be represented in the Assembly and its bodies shall not be suspended or withdrawn in the context of a challenge to or reconsideration of credentials." The assembly said this clarification of its rules was to "ensure that member States' right and obligation to be represented and to participate in both statutory bodies of the Council of Europe is respected."
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Arrow Down

More collective punishment: Israel cuts off fuel supply to Gaza - because 'arson balloons'


Sputnik
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 19:40 UTC
gazans
© AP Photo / Adel Hana
Israel suspended its supply of fuel to the Gaza Strip on 25 June as a countermeasure to several explosive-laden balloons launched from the Palestinian territory, a spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces said.

"Due to the incendiary balloons launched from the Gaza Strip against the Israeli territories with an aim to cause fire in [Israeli] regions surrounding Gaza, it was decided that fuel supplies to a power station in the Gaza Strip through a border crossing would be suspended from today and until further notice", Avichay Adraee, a member of the IDF Arab media division, said on his Twitter.

The statement comes after fire balloons from Gaza caused at least 13 fires in southern Israel on 24 June, with two of them lasting well into the night of 25 June.

Israel imposed a maritime blockade on Gaza on 12 June after several of these balloons caused eight fires in the country's south. The blockade was eased a week later.

Comment: See also:

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