“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:
(Note: I’ve been away from my blog for a while for personal and creative reasons. In that time the Bolivarians have taken further steps toward an outright judicial dictatorship. They were forced to take one step back when the world reacted to the TSJ (Venezuelan Supreme Court) Ruling 156 in which the court “assumed functions” of…
How’s that for a jumbled headline of non sequiturs? Or, at least apparent non sequiturs. Let me explain myself. First of all, Margarita López Maya is coming to the San Francisco Bay Area in early March to present at Stanford and also at the World Affairs Council in Santa Rosa. AND ALSO at the Niebyl-Proctor…
(Note: A version of this piece was posted at www.libcom.org) The first victims of a riot are the rioters. That’s what the people of Bolivar City in Venezuela are learning right after the riots that took out 90% of its grocery stores in a matter of hours the weekend of December 16-18. Since 80% of…