Contradicciones: Video news reports on the Venezuela crisis

Friday, January 25, 2019

Video news reports on the Venezuela crisis

Here are some video reports on the US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela. This is a fast-developing story right now.

The Majority Report with Michael Brooks hosting, Brazil Under Bolsonaro & the State of Venezuela w/ Brian Mier & Eva Golinger - MR Live - 1/24/19, discusses the Venzuelan situation.

Brian Mier is a journalist who writes for Brazil Wire and he discusses both Brazil and Venezuela on this show.

Just after 48:30, Eva Golinger's portion of the program begins. She is the author of Confidante of 'Tyrants': The Story of the American Woman Trusted by the US's Biggest Enemies (2018) The Amazon description of her book as of this writing says:

When US lawyer Eva Golinger first spent some time in Venezuela uncovering her ancestral roots, she little realized how the country was going to change her life. Within a few years she had become an enthusiast for the Bolivarian Revolution and a close confidante of its charismatic leader, Hugo Chávez. She achieved worldwide notoriety by exposing and condemning US intervention in Venezuela and ended up travelling with Chávez all over the world, spending time with many other controversial leaders.

In this frank and disarming memoir, she tells the full story of her time in Chávez’s inner circle and reflects on what she has learned about revolutionary politics, about the dangers of authoritarian populism – and about herself.

This pinned tweet of hers links to an article of hers from three months ago, A Tale of Three Presidents New York Times 10/17/2018:

No president should ever rule unchecked. No person should ever be given free rein to disregard the basic tenets of society, law & order, freedom & respect. It is the people who must hold their leaders to account through active, conscientious participation. https://t.co/Qalj7woomp
— Eva Golinger (@evagolinger) October 18, 2018

Another of her tweets calls this NACLA article a "key read" on the crisis: Rebecca Hanson and Tim Gill, Venezuela at Another Crossroads 01/24/2019. They write:

Protests against Maduro and confrontations with police have been documented throughout many working-class neighborhoods, including Catia, which has been a Chavista stronghold for almost two decades, in addition to sectors like La Vega, El Valle, Petare, and San Agustín. Marches against Maduro have vastly outnumbered those in support of him. Some sources have even said that participants at Chavista events are prohibited from taking pictures and videos due to low turnout.

What’s more, President Maduro has encountered plummeting approval ratings. In a recent poll, for example, 63 percent of respondents said that they would support a negotiated settlement to remove Maduro from office. Maduro has also faced continual accusations that his elections have been marred by fraud. Though there is little evidence that ballot boxes have been explicitly stuffed, critics largely point to the unfair electoral conditions that have barred leading opposition candidates from running and have tilted the playing field in favor of Maduro. In response, the opposition bloc led a large-scale boycott of the most recent presidential election, and declined to support Henri Falcón, who was running against Maduro. Even so, the opposition won recent legislative elections in 2015 and maintain a majority within the internationally recognized, but domestically isolated, National Assembly.

And they write further about the dubious opposition tactic of boycotting elections:

Though they initially put forward candidates, the opposition eventually refused to participate in the most recent presidential elections. This is a mistake that the opposition has repeated over and over again. Though two of its top leaders, Leopoldo López and Henrique Capriles, were barred from running in the 2018 presidential elections, the opposition was crying foul as early as 2006, long before any outside accountability groups were calling elections into question. For some, their refusal to participate in an important democratic institution, albeit a flawed one, makes the opposition’s demand for democracy seem questionable at best, hypocritical at worst. [my emphasis]

This report by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian on the current crisis is really impressive and nuanced, The Crisis In Venezuela, Explained TYT 01/24/2019: