Under Lock & Key

On 1 April 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United $tates had doubled military forces engaged in combating drug trafficking in the Pacific Ocean between the United $tates and South America. The primary purpose was stated as being to protect Amerikan lives from dangerous drugs. The secondary purpose was to destabilize the Maduro administration in Venezueala that Trump claims is propped up by drug money. The Maduro administration responded by commending the United $tates for trying to fight drug trafficking for the first time in decades.(1)

While these actions are part of a long history of political warfare in the region, this announcement is also significant in that it is the first show of militarism to stave off the looming economic depression facing the imperialists and the global economy. Finance capital is in crisis.

As Lenin explained, the portion of capital that is finance capital only increases with time. This leads to a very top-heavy economy. One of the primary laws of capitalism is that all capital must circulate. Unlike industrial capital, finance capital is not involved in the actual production of material goods and value. As such it is not limited by humyn consumption, as long as there are profits to be made. The problem is that capitalism, unlike an economic system based on humyn need, cannot adapt to economic slowdowns such as the current one imposed by the health needs of humyns facing the COVID-19 pandemic.

If the economy is shrinking, while finance capital is always growing, then there are not enough places for that finance capital to circulate into to return a profit. This is reflected in the recent reduction of interest rates by the Federal Reserve to 0%. When profit rates are high, people will borrow at higher rates to invest and return a profit. When banks are struggling to loan money for free, that means there are no profits to be made by finance capital. Stock markets losing close to a third of their value in recent weeks also demonstrate the lack of outlets for finance capital.

The United $tates and other imperialist countries have passed stimulus plans to try to keep their consumer classes afloat. The consumption of luxury goods plays an important role in the circulation of capital, by increasing demands on production. As the skies of urban centers become clear of pollution, and animals take the opportunity to stretch their legs in areas normally dominated by humyns and pollution, finance capital becomes desperately confined when the consumer classes reduce their consumption to necessities. This is true even as Amerikans and Europeans continue to enjoy higher levels of consumption and comfort than the majority of the world.

A third factor limiting the circulation of capital, that is still accelerating, is the closure of borders and, with it, a shift in international trade. Imperialism is by definition an international system, and without massive global trade it cannot extract massive super-profits from the exploited nations of the world and distribute them amongst the imperialist country populations. The drug trade has long been an important part of international trade and finance capital. So this move announced by Trump can likely be seen as an exertion of force by the imperialists on the black market to meet some financial interests.

However, the more troubling driver to all this is imperialist militarism. It was global economic crises and trade wars that led to the first two inter-imperialist wars (with guns). This is because war destroys capital, while stimulating production and consumption in the process. War requires production for war, and production to rebuild after it. It is the final solution for the otherwise unresolvable contradictions of imperialism, specifically that of over-production. This move towards Venezuela is just the first in what we predict to be a coming escalation of militarism. And the most likely targets will be countries that have resisted the U.$. imperialists’ programs as Maduro, and Hugo Chavez before em, have done.

Today, the Maduro administration remains in power over a year after the United $tates attempted a military coup against it, without actually sending in an invading force. The United $tates continues to push Maduro to give up power to a “transitional government” under threat of continued sanctions and International Criminal Court charges co-signed by imperialist lackeys in the region. While rumors of further military action in this war on Venezuela have long been circulating, we predict that the economic downswing will be the push to make that happen. It is the duty of all who love freedom and justice to build an all-out resistance to a rising tide of militarism from the imperialist countries.

^{Note: 1. From the South, 1 April 2020, TeleSur.}

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
by John Perkins
Penguin Group, New York, 2004

I just read a very enlightening book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. It’s a memoir of a former manager of Economics and Planning at MAIN (Chas T. Main Inc.), a powerful corporation, where he worked with CIA agents and other economic hit men to impoverish and subjugate peoples and countries around the world. Plagued by a guilty conscience, he later founded Independent Power Systems and developed environmental friendly power plants. Yet he was still tempted by imperialism.

In his confessions, Mr. Perkins explains how the USA has seized power in Saudi Arabia, Panama, Ecuador and other countries. We try to avoid open warfare. Before we even send in the jackals (special forces, snipers and other assassins, etc.) we employ economic hit men to corrupt governments, destabilize local economies and destroy environments. A Bedouin hero likened the tactics we’re using against Islam to the tactics used to conquer the Native American nations. We cut down the trees and shot the buffalo. The foundations of indigenous culture collapsed, and we are now exploiting them, their farmland, their gold, and their oil.

“You see, it is the same here,” he said, “the desert is our environment. The Flowering Desert project threatens nothing less than the destruction of our entire fabric. How can we allow this to happen?” (p.130)

In order to defraud and blackmail and corrupt foreign governments, and prepare their countries for exploitation by American corporations, he traveled around the world, living in tents, jungle huts and five-star hotels. Some of the action took place in secret meetings here in the United States. I particularly enjoyed reading some of the conversations that took place in posh offices high up in skyscrapers near my home.

Economic hit men have been very successful in Saudi Arabia. When they fail, as they did in Ecuador, jackals are called in. They probably killed President Roldós of that country and President Torrijos of Panama.

If the jackals fail, as they did in Iraq, military intervention is undertaken directly by the USA government. The book sheds light upon our current aggression against Venezuela, although the author did not have a major role there.

In 1930, Venezuela was the world’s largest oil exporter. By 1973 (the time of the Arab oil embargo), Venezuela was wealthy and its people enjoyed excellent health care, education and low rates of unemployment. Within 30 years, American EHMs (Economic Hit Men) and the International Monetary Fund had changed that. The country’s per capita income was down 40% and the middle class was shrinking.

George Bush and the CIA orchestrated a coup, but their victory was short-lived. President Chavez returned to power and immediately initiated further democratic reforms. Bush began war preparations, but crushing resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan took priority and Venezuela got reprieve. Now, fifteen years after Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was published, Donald Trump is making moves to seize control of one of the world’s biggest oil reserves and other important natural resources, as well as cheap labor in a once prosperous country brought low by Amerikan imperialists.

Confessions is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how the USA invades, attacks, and oppresses people and starves children in the name of freedom; or why so many millions of people around the world hate us.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The writings of John Perkins are a useful exposé of the modern imperialist methods of subversion of other nations’ self-determination. United Snakes interventions stand in stark contrast to all the concerns over Russian influence in U.$. election outcomes.

Despite the obvious implications of the facts Perkins revealed, ey remains unabashedly embedded in the bourgeoisie. The solutions ey provides in this book include pressuring corporations to do good things, and joining organizations to get laws passed. Now it seems ey is promoting a series of trips to the Third World for rich people to engage in mysticism. Needless to say, we see much different solutions being called for by the stories in this book.

As Venezuela commemorates Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution of 20 years ago, bourgeois reactionary elements from within, with imperialism support, work to sabotage Venezuela’s self-determination. Another case of u.s. imperialist aggression, and on a continent most dominated by it: South America.

While the self-declared president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, has been receiving support from the united tates, actual elected President, Nicolas Maduro, has been the target of u.s. imperialism for some time now. Are we truly to believe that Venezuela’s recent issues are entirely the fault of the Maduro regime? It should not be overlooked that the problems in Venezuela, declared in the news as a humanitarian crisis, seem to have occurred around the same time economic/trade sanctions were imposed.

The United States and its South American followers, through the Organization of American States(OAS), an organization formed at the behest of the united states over 50 years ago in order to consolidate geo-political influence and quash revolutionary movements and too-far-left regimes that were spreading throughout Latin America at that time) have largely created Venezuela’s most pressing issues with their refusals to do fair business in the form of trade and diplomatic cooperation which has left Venezuelans lacking many necessities.

The United States and OAS have been making it very difficult for the Maduro administration to help the people to properly live, let alone develop. So outside looking in, to the unaware, it may seem as if Maduro is “the bad guy” and this Guaidó character is “the good guy” and that u.s. support for him looks righteous, even humanely necessary, to oust this “corrupt socialist dictator” and “rescue the Venezuelan people.” But understand that the Venezuelan situation is a product of u.s. imperialism. The same u.s. imperialism that caused the people of Cuba to suffer for over 50 years by the trade embargo and dictation that the OAS cronies turn their backs on Cuba as well or suffer the same fate. This all because Cuba fought to break the chains of neo-colonial dependency.

Helping to frame the narrative of Maduro being a “brutal dictator who refuses to treat the Venezuelan people humanely” is the reactionary propaganda machine: u.s. news media. Daily they broadcast images of shipments of supplies going into, and remaining at the border of, Colombia, where u.s. politicians and reporters give interviews in front of the supplies they call “aid” that “Maduro refuses to allow to enter into Venezuela.” Maduro said that he will not accept this “aid” because it is “tainted;” he understands that this “aid” is not aid, it is imperialist bribery of the Venezuelan people.

Now footage of deadly clashes with police at the border, along with reports of Venezuelan police and soldiers defecting, are being shown on a loop, further destroying Maduro’s legitimacy and portraying the united states as “the good guys just trying to help while Maduro continues to brutalize the people.” If you ruin peoples lives and then offer some handouts, that doesn’t make you a hero.

This type of economic imperialism being so effective is a consequence of the interdependency of economies (especially those of the undeveloped/developing nations battling with neo-colonialism) due to the globalization of capitalism and consolidation of a world market. Now an empire like the U.S. can destabilize an entire nation’s internal economy, causing mass chaos, without invading and plundering it. Mere trade imbalances (unequal exchange) and economic sanctions can have the imperialist-desired effect of social upheaval, causing the targeted nation to look at the leadership as the cause, and welcome foreign intervention to come and save them from a situation created by imperialist aggression.

We can’t know for certain what the reasons for this aggression are, but we can make informed speculation based off of historical analysis. Could it be that Maduro has instituted too many socialist-like policies, like nationalizing much of Venezuela’s oil production? Or because Venezuela does too much business with Russia, China, and Cuba? Does the united states want to own oil firms there and is upset that Maduro won’t allow that? Past u.s imperialist endeavors point to the latter as the primary motivation for its efforts toward regime change in Venezuela.

These efforts to destabilize and destroy a regime’s credibility and ultimately to overthrow it is nothing new, especially in this hemisphere. Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Chile, just to name a few of the more known and overt examples of u.s. imperialism in the Americas. If these actions prove to be successful then a puppet government of the united states, via Juan Guaidó, will most certainly be the outcome. But if these current actions don’t produce the desired effect of regime change, then, as per usual, a military invasion seems to be next.

It doesn’t help Venezuela’s cause that no one seems willing to come out against this aggression and show solidarity with the president elected by the people. It is these times when we most lament the fall of the Socialist Bloc and its global influence and support for oppressed peoples. Cuba, only 90 miles from the united states, was only able to withstand imperialist aggression and resist capitulation to demands because it had socialist solidarity coming from China and the Soviet Union. But who will support Venezuela??

It shouldn’t come down to a military invasion (as it did in Iraq and Vietnam) to raise people’s consciousness and get them to mobilize to demand an end to imperialist aggression. It should be called out and reacted against now. We must articulate to the people the real forces at play here, because they won’t learn it from the news. Support has to be mustered to oppose these types of actions from the united states. The unconsciousness of people in the world, and the united states in particular, that allows these things to go unchecked, is support for imperialism itself. As Fidel Castro put it: “to cease solidarity with the revolutionary movement does not mean to deny a pretext but actually to show solidarity with yankee imperialism and its policy of domination and enslavement of the world.”

Venezuela’s cause may not be a revolutionary one, but it is a victim of imperialism from an empire incessantly working to consolidate its influence and turn every nation that it can benefit from into a neo-colony, which requires us to raise this truth as a common cause worthy of the most support. Defend Venezuela’s self-determination!

Facts: Oil revenue is about 90% of Venezuela’s revenue. The United States is the #1 buyer of Venezuelan oil at over 400,000 barrels, per day.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Our recent article on Venezuela very much agrees with this writer’s analysis. While Venezuela was never a socialist country in the Marxist sense, Maduro implemented many reforms in the interests of the people, and is staunchly fighting neo-colonialism. This government represents the national bourgeoisie and continues to operate within the capitalist system. It is an ally of the oppressed in this fight against imperialism. The imperialists are the real murderers and destroyers of planet Earth that we must stand against. And we stand with the Venezuelan people and their elected government against the U.$. coup efforts.

The United $tates is attempting a coup in Venezuela, pushing Juan Guaidó, formerly a lawmaker in the Venezuelan government, to declare emself President. This subversion of democracy is par for the course for the imperialist United $tates. The United $tates will do whatever it takes to maintain access to cheap labor and resources in Latin America. In this latest round of intervention, the United $tates has rallied other imperialist powers and U.$. lackey governments to join the charade in recognizing the illegitimate government of Guaidó.

As of this writing, the coup is failing and the national bourgeois government led by Nicolás Maduro remains in power in Venezuela. President Trump has threatened military intervention and we can anticipate further subversion of democracy and covert and overt imperialist attacks on Venezuela in the months to come.

The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela

Venezuela was colonized by Europeans in 1522. The people won sovereignty in 1821 led by Simón Bolívar. After WWI oil was discovered in Venezuela, prompting an economic boom. But the collapse of oil prices in the 1980s devastated the Venezuelan economy. As the standard of living fell and the government implemented harsh economic reforms at the demand of the imperialist IMF, the people began to protest. In 1989 massive riots were met with violence by the government. This led to several coup attempts. While these coups failed, they indicated the ongoing unrest and instability in the country.

In 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected President with an overwhelming majority of the vote and a mandate for change. Formerly a military leader, Chavez had attempted a coup in the previous years of unrest. While not a communist by any stretch of the imagination, Chavez represented the national bourgeoisie in Venezuela. This class is a progressive ally of the anti-imperialist forces. Chavez launched a “Bolivarian revolution” which began with a 1999 Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Constitution of Venezuela. The people were mobilized to participate in this political process.

At the same time, Chavez implemented programs to help the vast majority of poor people in the country. By 2005 they had eliminated illiteracy. Between 1999 and 2012 infant mortality was cut from 19.1 to 10 per 1000, malnutrition was reduced from 21% to 3%, and poverty rates were more than halved. Venezuela also paid off all of its debts to the World Bank and IMF and then withdrew from these imperialist organizations which promote economic subservience in the Third World.

While implementing internal reforms, Chavez took up the anti-imperialist pole of leadership in Latin America, in alliance with Cuba. In 2011 ey helped launch the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), uniting 33 countries outside of imperialist control. In 2005, Venezuela launched a program to provide subsidized oil to 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Chavez was re-elected to two more terms as President, but died from cancer in 2013 before serving his third term. Nicolás Maduro has been the president of Venezuela since Chavez’s death. As Vice President, Maduro was appointed to fill the role, and then won the popular election. Maduro again won a recent presidential election, but under the pretense that this election was not democratic, Juan Guaidó swore himself in as “interim President” in late January at the urging of the United $tates. Not even a participant in the election, Guaidó was previously the head of the national assembly, a body that was declared null and void in 2017.

Why does the U.$. care about Venezuela?

Venezuela is one of the world’s leading exporters of oil, and is a founding member of OPEC. When Hugo Chavez took power, Venezuela was the third biggest supplier of oil to the United $tates and the United $tates continues to be the biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil. Chavez’s government nationalized hundreds of private businesses and foreign-owned assets, such as oil projects run by ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.(1)

We can look to the recent history of Venezuela to understand just how ridiculous is the U.$. claim to supporting “democracy” in that country. The United $tates backed the viciously repressive dictatorship of Marco Jiménez (1948-1958) because of eir support of transnational corporations. This government imprisoned, tortured and murdered thousands of innocent Venezuelans. For this service the United $tates awarded Jiménez the military Legion of Merit “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.”(2)

Obviously the United $tates’ economic interests in Venezuela are significant. But there is also the geopolitical stability of imperialist control in Latin America more broadly. Cuba, Bolivia, Uruguay and Mexico are all refusing to follow the Amerikan imperialist lead in recognizing this coup. And the Venezuelan government has been a thorn in the side of the imperialists for years. Led by bourgeois nationalists, Venezuela is a solid anti-imperialist holdout in the region. The success of the Chavez government in retaining power and popular support is an embarrassment for the imperialists and an example for the oppressed in the region.

The U.$. government has been plotting coups and working to undermine the government in Venezuela since Chavez took power. Back in April 2002 the Bu$h government backed a short-lived military coup, but Chavez quickly returned to leadership. The United $tates has a long history of CIA-backed coups in Latin America. When direct overthrow of the government doesn’t work, the U.$. government resorts to election meddling, murder of political leaders, and other underhanded strategies. All this is done in the name of “democracy.”

The road forward for Venezuela

Venezuela is not a socialist country. Hugo Chavez brought to power a government representing the national bourgeoisie, not the proletariat. Progressive reforms were made under Chavez that serve the interests of the Venezuelan people as a whole in opposition to those of the imperialist United $tates. But Venezuela continues to operate within the capitalist model, despite rhetoric about “socialism.” Oil accounts for 98% of export earnings and 50% of GDP in Venezuela.(1) As production falls, the economy has nothing to fall back on. This problem is just one example of the failures of social democracy as a solution to the plight of the Third World proletariat.

During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, the masses were mobilized around the question of putting the people’s interests first and not profits. This was the battle against the capitalist road. Venezuela has yet to part with this road. But it continues down the road of national sovereignty, refusing to be a neo-colony of the United $tates. As such, the national bourgeois government in Venezuela is on the side of the proletariat, while lacking solutions to all of its problems. We must stand firmly in support of the Bolivarian government in Venezuela as it remains a balwark against imperialist intervention and subversion.