You can read the “Clifnotes” version of the Human Rights Report on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela here. I’ve highlighted it and added colored type so you can skim through the document and still be home for dinner tonight. Those who lived through the terrible years of the 1980s when death squads terrorized Central America,…
I’m writing these reflections after publishing “Fascism: The Left Project that Keeps Giving at Caracas Chronicles. This is a longer post below, wherein I develop some ideas that I only touched on in the CCs piece. Someone asked me recently why I’m always attacking or criticizing leftists. They mentioned that there was plenty on the…
Since I wrote my piece on the situation of Maduro’s “hostages” for Caracas Chronicles (The Human Bargaining Chips of the Maduro Regime) National Assembly Deputy Gilber Caro has been released, likely in anticipation of the visit by Michelle Bachelet. But there are still hundreds being held in Venezuela’s overcrowded prisons (that being said, our own…
“President” Nicolás Maduro has never been good at taking responsibility for anything at all but he, like his US homologue, Donald Trump, is very good at deflecting blame and lying to cover up his irresponsibility, incompetence and crimes. And so as the blackout dragged into its third day in Venezuela Maduro claimed on Twitter that…
Photo of demonstration in solidarity with Venezuelans in Spain. I was deeply moved by the number of comments, tweets and emails I received in the wake of the publication of “The Bolivarian God that Failed.” My thanks goes out to Jamie Palmer there who did such a wonderful job of editing that this piece shines…
This is a letter I wrote to a left, social movement activist who wrote asking me for my perspective on what was happening in Venezuela. It’s been a long time since anyone on the left came looking for me and asked me for my reflections, so I gave them. For what it’s worth. I’m posting…
A couple of days before the Presidential elections in Venezuela Caracas Chronicles published my interview with Anatoly Kurmanaev. I’m happy with how the interview turned out, but found that fitting everything into a 1200-or-so-word article challenging. There’s so much more to say about implications for journalism and society of a liberal democracy that no longer…
Chatting with my friend Arturo a while back he mentioned that the bank ATMs were limiting people to 10,000 bolívares in withdrawals. This problem has multiple problems, as every problem in Venezuela does. So first, let’s look at that number. It seems like a lot, right? I remember back about ten years ago or so when…
We’re into the third month of the popular uprising in Venezuela and despite exhaustion on both sides (one can presume as much, and there are definite indications of it) this uprising isn’t going away. The opposition, which makes up some 70-90% of the country, depending on which polls you look at and how you…
This is May Day in Venezuela. “Happy” May Day. It’s time to celebrate the Venezuelan people who will no longer tolerate a dictator. They have my support… Witness how they “welcome” the dictator’s military: