In May I published my critique at Caracas Chronicles of the Weisbrot-Sachs’ paper on the US sanctions on Venezuela. I titled it, “Pandering to the Imperial Left.” Now a much better critique (I’m not ashamed to say) has come out with the Brookings Institute, a collaboration between four real economists. It’s available for downloading at…
Thanks to journalist Douglas Farah for his great report on the Bolivarian money-laundering empire, out now in Spanish. You should definitely take an hour and a half to listen to this panel at the CSIS website.
I did an interview with Danielle Smith for a Calgary radio station. My part starts at 1:09:00 (one hour nine minutes exactly into the show). Danielle refers in the beginning to my just-published post at Caracas Chronicles, Reruns in Norway, which you might want to read for background. I spent time talking about the possible…
The day after my interview on the far left KGNU show hosted by Joseph Richey, I went onto Fox Business News to do my three or so minutes there. Between the two, I’m not sure which one seemed more amenable to my views, actually. I find myself struggling to articulate my ideas between these two…
Thanks to Joseph Richey I was invited to be on his program Hemispheres on KCNU in Boulder, Colorado. It’s available here. Update: Richey evidently felt the show was a success, though I spent most of the time arguing with his other guest, an old-time leftist. Actually, I was surprised that anyone on the left would…
The new CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research) report, written by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs was little more than a desperate attempt to whitewash the crimes of the Venezuelan government and deflect blame for the humanitarian catastrophe. It failed. Even though the report, entitled “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela,”…
Consider this an intermission between parts one and two of “We have Met the Enemy”. In part two I’ll be looking at the multiple failures and bad moves that undermined Operation Libertad April 30th 2019. But that story is unfolding, mostly in Spanish language media, so I’m having to do a bit of translation to…
The recent blitz of lies and manipulation in the Left media during the April 30th uprising in Venezuela was overwhelming, making it nearly impossible to address in detail. From the center all the way over to the far left people decried a “coup” that some extremists went so far as to claim was “plotted so…
With oil production in freefall the failed government (mafia) of Nicolas Maduro has evidently decided to put more energy into the drug trade. No doubt he’s simply following the lead of the Cuban government which, according to a US intelligence report, has found the business to be a lucrative source of funds since the late…
This piece was published today at Caracas Chronicles. The U.S. State Department, even under such a venal executive as is currently in power, still manages to put out some very decent briefs, like this paper on Nicolás Maduro, released on April 15th, 2019. It’s an exceptionally detailed list of the crimes of what it calls “Venezuela’s…
Think “reactionary” only comes in a right wing flavor? Take a look at the Bolivarian solidarity movement and think again. Find the link to the article in my blog.
An incisive and urgently needed political critique that can only be ignored at great cost.
A great job! (Readers) will appreciate your critical insights and the story you’re telling.
Clifton Ross is the author, translator and/or editor of a dozen or so books of fiction, poetry, interviews, and political thought, particularly from Latin America, where he has traveled extensively. He has written and directed one feature-length film and a number of shorts. In 2005 Ross represented the U.S. in the World Poetry Festival of Venezuela. Four years later he publishedTranslations from Silence, which won the 2010 Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence from Oakland PEN. His most recent book is Home from the Dark Side of Utopia, a political memoir released in July 2016 by AK Press.
