“I wonder how he goes to work every day,” says a longtime aide to John Bolton, “because deep in his heart he believes the President is a moron.”
The joke is on Bolton. Having been handed a near impossible task in overthrowing the leftist regimes of Venezuela and Nicaragua, Bolton and his little neocon cabal have been set up for failure – and Trump doesn’t like failure. When it comes to neocon foreign policy, you can reverse the Trumpism that the President adorns his speeches with: Are you tired of losing yet?
And defeat looms large in the neocon effort to bring down Maduro.
Wednesday (May 1) was supposed to be the Day of Revolution in which the Yankee running dogs of imperialism were supposed to be defeated and run out of the country.
Instead, one person was killed, dozens were injured and the Revolution was aborted.
Maduro is no fool: he knows that the people are not interested in being ruled by foreign masters. The same nationalist sentiment that’s sweeping the world, from France to Grand Fenwick, resists foreign “liberation” – especially coming from the Americans. The Venezuelans are not about to surrender an inch of their sovereignty even if it means a permanent lack of toilet paper.
Maduro and his “socialist” party are about as socialist as any typical socialist democratic Party in the European Union. There are plenty of opposition parties, none of which are too popular. Their record consists chiefly of bombast, which has little if any difference from that of its rivals: we will take care of you, just don’t give us too much trouble. Like it’s twin, the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, it has a fanatically loyal military which it depends on in order to maintain power – which is why the comic-opera appeals by the rebels to come over to the opposition have the air of a child’s game.
There is nothing “Red” about Venezuela: it is “Bolivarian,” in other words it is nationalist. There is no threat, either ideological or military, emanating from Caracas.
There are no real American interests in this comical effort to conquer a country that has no material resources of any possible interest to Washington: Aside from oil, which is rapidly diminishing in value, it’s a purely ideological enterprise. The Cubans, the Russians, the Chinese, even the foot soldiers of Hezbollah, for chrissake, are all supposedly involved in this sinister plot to violate the Monroe Doctrine – the perfect neocon piñata! Except this one won’t pop.
Venezuela will never fall to the Yankees for the simple reason that Washington is far more hated than the little Lenins of Caracas. The history of our dogged efforts to dominate the country, the inability of the government to create an economy that should be able to maintain a moderately wealthy economy, the persistence of sharp class divisions – such a government that masks an overwhelming incompetence with the sobriquet of “socialist” deserves to be overthrown – but not by the political designs of John Bolton. As I’ve said in previous columns, this administration’s Venezuela’s project is more about American domestic politics than anything having to do with US foreign politics. The President has put the neocons, his longtime enemies, in an untenable position – setting them up for defeat.
Not a single US soldier will set foot on Venezuelan soil
“Radical” oppositionist Leopoldo Lopez – who has already taken refuge in the Spanish embassy – will soon get his six-figure National Endowment for Democracy grant.
Congress will rediscover its suzerainty over US foreign policy … nah, wait, that’s one prediction far too fantastical.
A PERSONAL NOTE TO MY READERS
I
have been gravely ill with fourth stage lung cancer for two years, fighting
to not only survive physically but as a voice for Antiwar.com. A good way to
bring myself down to earth is with an old Italian recipe and chat with the neighbors.
They don’t make make ’em like that any more. And I have brought plenty of that
principled nonintervention stuff to you, our readers.
My neighbors are so kind and open hearted. That’s how I think of my readers – like neighbors, old friends, many of whom I haven’t seen or talked to in a while. Well, I’m still, folks, still writing and hanging in there. Life goes on: I must write this fundraising pitch as the site continues to grow and reach more people. I may not be the best fundraiser, but I think you understand the spirit in which I write this note.
With Venezuela, Russia, the conflation of multiple "crises" breaking out, this letter is not a panic but a way to reconnect in a personal way with my readers, steadfast and loyal supporters.
You are the reason I must continue my personal and ideological fight.
Please help me win this fight.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.