The Vultures of Caracas 804


We are frequently told that people in Venezuela have no food, clothing or toilet paper, and that popular discontent with the left wing government is driven by real hunger. There are elements of truth in this story, though the causes of economic dislocation are far more complex than the media would have us believe.

But I ask you to look at this photo of supporters of CIA poster-boy, the West’s puppet unelected “President” Juan Guaido, taken at a Guaido rally in Caracas two days ago and published yesterday in security services house journal The Guardian. Please take a really close look at the photo. Blow it up as big as you can. Scan individual people in the crowd, one by one.

These are not the poor and most certainly not the starving. As it chances I have a great deal of life experience working amongst seriously deprived, hungry and despairing people. I know the gaunt face of want and the desperate glance of need. Look at these Guaido supporters, one by one by one. This designer spectacled, well-coiffed, elegantly dressed, sleekly jowled group does not know hunger. This group does not know want. This is a proper right wing gathering, a gathering of the nicely off section of society. This is a group of those who have corruptly been siphoning Venezuela’s great wealth for decades and who want to make sure the gravy train flows properly in their direction again. It is, in short, a group of exactly the kind of people you would expect to support a CIA coup.

Those manicured hands raised in the air will never throw rocks, or get involved in violence unless against a peasant strapped to a chair for them. It is not this crowd which will suffer as public disorder is manipulated and directed by the CIA. These wealthy ones are immune, just as Davos serves as nothing but an annual reminder of how very poorly God aims avalanches.

There is real suffering in Venezuela. The CIA is working hard to stoke violence, and the genuine poor will soon start to die, both in those egged on to riot and in the security services. But do not get taken in by the complete nonsense that this is a popular, democratic revolution. It is not. It is yet another barefaced CIA regime change coup.

UPDATE Such wisdom as this blog finds is often crowd-source, and with thanks to a commenter below here is some useful information from Jill Stein.

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804 thoughts on “The Vultures of Caracas

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  • Paul Barbara

    A well-balanced article on Venezuela, albeit not acknowledging the full force of US intervention, or the very important Weather Warfare aspect (whilst I have no proof of that, it is ridiculous to believe it is not being used, given the US’s attaxck upon it’s own in California):
    ‘Venezuela’s collapse is a window into how the Oil Age will unravel’:
    https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/venezuelas-collapse-is-a-window-into-how-the-oil-age-will-unravel-f80aadff7786?fbclid=IwAR0AHhXXCgxt_ghF6lENjJ0f9rEJNKILPD4bUnacmF5i4SJPK6cXA2T_CjM

    • Ken Kenn

      Thanks for that info.

      Thought provoking and a warning to the smug people who think that the earths resources can last forever.

      A tale of what used to be easy ( and cheap ) to do becoming harder and dearer.

      It does make me wonder if the amount of money spent on ‘extracting ‘ oil by force had been invested in solar power and Nuclear Fusion
      whether we would be in the situation we are in.

      Maybe I’m being naive and the Oiligarchy mean well?

      No they don’t and the interests of the Military Industrial Complex and the Oiligarchy are bound together in short term gain, hence the current world situation.

      It’s a dance of death.

      Not theirs – ours – then eventually theirs.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader’:
    https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/
    ‘…While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.
    “Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told The Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying….”
    ‘…The Stratfor and CANVAS trainers of this cell identified Guaidó’s ally – a libertarian political organizer named Yon Goicoechea – as a “key factor” in defeating the constitutional referendum. The following year, Goicochea was rewarded for his efforts with the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with a $500,000 prize, which he promptly invested into his political network….’.
    CANVAS (previously OTPOR) was heavily involved in Serbia, Egypt, Ukraine, and other countries, as well as Venezuela.

  • MaryPau!

    Just a quick question, assuming no deal, what will happen to all the EU produce which pours into the UK daily: cheese, wine,cold meat, tomatoes,olive oil, fruit etc , will the producers just dump it in Europe?

    • Isa

      I believe food product demand is rather inelastic for some products like olive oil and fruit and relatively elastic for produce you can manufacture locally such as cheese or butter .

      what will happen to European exports is diversification of markets not to be over reliant on exports to U.K. but most trade of inelastic demand type of goods will continue under new import tariffs .

  • Iain Stewart

    Kraft durch Freude, I suppose, which makes me wonder what’s the formula for Loony’s favourite American “banned in the EU” parmesan.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Iain Stewart February 2, 2019 at 21:40
      Best to avoid any US food:
      https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/28/gmo-questions/1658225/
      ‘…Although it’s frequently stated that 40% to 75% of the food in a typical (US) supermarket contains genetically engineered ingredients, the actual percentage of genetically engineered material in those products is usually quite small.’
      (I’ve read even higher figures, like 85%)
      ‘Q: Does the FDA test these foods before they’re allowed on the market?
      A: No. Instead there is a voluntary consultation process. Genetically engineered foods are overseen by the FDA, but there is no approval process. Foods are presumed to be safe unless the FDA has evidence to the contrary, Jaffe says. The FDA “has to show that there may be a problem with the food, as opposed to the company needing to prove it’s safe to FDA’s satisfaction before it can get on the market,” he says.’
      (So given that manufacturers are hardly likely to ‘prove’ their products are unsafe, and as they have lobbyists with pots of money to bribe Congressmen, Senators and Federal Agencies, hardly confidence-inspiring).
      Apart from which, I am in favour of extending BDS to the main backers of the ‘Unmentionable Ones’.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Canada vs. Venezuela: The Background Gets Even Murkier’: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51032.htm
    ‘…So the question arises: is there some connection between these two international political situations – Canada’s role in Venezuela and Canada’s role in the China imbroglio? As it turns out, the answer is yes, and the International Crisis Group (ICG) is an important player in that connection.

    What Is the ICG (International Crisis Group)?

    The Brussels-based International Crisis Group touts itself as a think tank and NGO dedicated to its slogan: “Preventing War, Shaping Peace.” Its analysts study political crises and make recommendations for so-called conflict-resolution through a series of reports, articles, seminars, and private meetings with its governmental, foundation, and corporate donors.
    Given that ICG had advised on unifying Venezuelan opposition parties, I asked Raul Burbano, Program Director for the Canadian NGO Common Frontiers for comment. During the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election, members of the Common Frontiers delegations had observer status. With regard to the International Crisis Group, Burbano answered by email,
    “They are a conservative right-wing think tank that masks itself as progressive. Any organization that proports to support peace and has Juan Manuel Santos as one of their trustees is out to lunch and can’t be trusted.”
    Santos is the “former hawkish right president of Colombia,” Burbano explained.
    Former Colombian President Santos is not the only controversial trustee of the International Crisis Group. The ICG website lists several other trustees, including Wesley Clark (former NATO Supreme Allied Commander); Lawrence H. Summers (former U.S. Secretary of Treasury); George Soros (founder of Open Societies Foundation); and Frank Giustra (President and CEO of Fiore Financial Corporation).

    As F. William Engdahl recently wrote
    “The International Crisis Group is an NGO with a knack for being involved in key conflict zones such as Myanmar. The magazine Third World Quarterly in a peer-reviewed article in 2014 accused the ICG of ‘manufacturing’ crises. It was founded by Trump nemesis and Hillary Clinton supporter, George Soros.”…..’

    Soros, Santos, Wesley Clark…fine ‘Trustees’ of a ‘Peace-making’ group – they forgot Kissinger!

    • michael norton

      Venezuela has the S-300 system,
      this is essentially the same system fitted to the guided missile cruiser Москва,
      which was on station off Syria in the early days of Russian involvement in the Syrian War,
      to deter NATO from getting to close to the coast of Syria.
      After the shoot down of the Russian Il-20 ELINT ,
      the S-300 system was installed in Syria, mainly to counter Israel.
      So Venezuela should be able to counter attack from aircraft.

    • Garth Carthy

      “Soros, Santos, Wesley Clark…fine ‘Trustees’ of a ‘Peace-making’ group – they forgot Kissinger!”

      However, Wesley Clark did uncover the Neo-con plan to invade seven countries in the mid-East.

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Garth Carthy February 3, 2019 at 10:26
        I know about that, and frequently use it as proof US planned to overthrow Assad way before any 2011 ‘Incident’.
        But he was also Supreme Allied Commander Europe when NATO attacked Serbia on a claimed ‘Humanitarian’ basis.
        He didn’t speak up about ‘7 governments in 5 years’ out of any underlying change of heart from US lies and military interventionism, but far more likely to fuel his political ambitions.
        His place on the ‘Regime Change’ ICG shows he has had no ‘Damascene’ conversion.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Mary Pau! February 3, 2019 at 11:30
      Most if not all countries employ bribery, and in the UK and US it is widely practised in government-sponsored arms deals.
      By the way, why do you keep altering the spelling of your name?
      There is a tick-box uner the comment box ‘Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.’.
      And ‘!’ is a long way from ‘l’: a possible slip once or twice, but not again and again.

      • michael norton

        All sorts of people are now shouting their backing for the bloke the CIA want but nobody else has heard of.

      • Mary Pau!

        My name started out as Paul. I did save it but it got lost somehow and I reinput Pau! by mistake. Which I liked and kept. I don’t know about your keyboard but on mine, l is one line up and one space to the right of ! So an easy mistake to make. Mary Pau! is me wearing my political comments hat. (I have others. ) Sometimes I update one of my input platforms and it picks up the earlier Paul. Basically if the sender is wearing my big hat, it is me.

      • Mary Pau!

        In the UK the government does indeed back arms sales. But I would hope if Labour gets into power, we do not see John MacDonnell up in court a few years down the line pleading guilty to £1bn in bribes and surrendering to the court among other things, a string of 60 race horses. The Chavez government was a poster boy for the UK left.

    • michael norton

      I still can not see, why the people of Venezuela do not grow their own food, surely growing food is normal in Latin America?

      • Paul Barbara

        @ michael norton February 3, 2019 at 18:47
        Many do, but there is the problem of rich landowners not utilising their land, and resisting it being expropriated (but paid for).
        Also, much of that land needs much work to get it back into production, even after it has been expropriated.
        And many peasants don’t have the skills needed, but the situation is ongoing..
        The following article explains some of the problems, and successes:
        ‘Venezuela’s Hidden Rural Revolution’:
        https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13420

        • michael norton

          I can understand that if in Venezuela, inflation runs over one million percent, it is unlikely any estates/large farms will continue to grow food, as food takes many months to come to fruition and they might incur losses.
          However, if you are a “peasant” you grow your own grub, subsistence-style or die.

  • Bill

    Thanks Craig for your insight, your experience shows and I hope keeps many uninformed people from believing the lies and propaganda we are witnessing today. This is not what our elected officials were elected to do, it is neither affecting our national security nor our economy. If we can’t have fair and honest elections here & a govt. that is able to do the job, we should stay out of other countries affairs and democratic process instead of blindly following the U.S. into yet another regime change folly in the name of greed.

  • Brian Brown

    Amazing what our modern day Lord Haw Haw can tell from a picture. I cant see anybody’s nails. Have you ever been there? If you really doubt how bad things are in Venezuela please go there. The ‘genuine poor’ have already started to die and in fact have been dying there for some years. There is a very good chance you wont come back due to the high levels of crime which would be one compensation.

    No it isn’t just about democracy and human rights, its about the destabilization of other countries in South America by the flood of refugees, many of whom are dirt poor and have lost everything. It isn’t just the middle class leaving who by the way aren’t the white Spanish colonialists they are made out to be. Not so many years ago many of the menial jobs in Venezuela were carried out by guest workers form other South American countries rather like the Oil rich Gulf States use guest workers.

    Venezuela is the end game in socialism. Nationalize everything until you have no tax base left.

    The US has only just sanctioned the buying of oil in the last few weeks. Any US sanctions prior to that were only against regime members on personal basis and had no effect on the economy.

    Juan Guaido has more balls than any of you armchair warriors most of whom have no conception what it is like to live under a regime like that. He could well end up dead or in jail.

    • Dennis Revell

      :

      Well, I sincerely, even fervently hope that the treasonous wretch quisling Guiado does end up dead.

      It’s a great pity that Maduro apparently doesn’t feel that his position is strong enough to do the right thing and hang the traitor by the neck until in a far more satisfactory condition – hardly needs a trial: he’s self-declared guilty by self-proclamation as president with no election, or didn’t you notice that, you anti-democratic idiot?

      BTW, socialism left to its own devices – without incessent sabotage – would be outstandingly successful – nothing else explains the equivalent in today’s money of countless trilllions of stolen taxpayer’s money being spent to defeat it – by any and all methods from direct or proxy aggression – almost always having the United States of World Horror behind it, to what must be admitted to be a much better propaganda job (though made easier by monetising of the media) than the socialists seemed able to muster. Deliberate & unrelenting sabotage, utmost unrestrained brutality and bullshit-baffles-brains propaganda – the best that the taxpayers’ money could buy – for decade after decade adding up to north of a century now. Indeed, if, as those of your ilk almost always contend, that socialism contains within itself the seeds of its own inevitable failure, then THERE WOULD BE NO REASON WHATEVER for the (minority!) vested interests in the West to have gone to SO MUCH TROUBLE AND EXPENSE to destroy it.

      So please do be so good as to sod-off back to your “free”republic or similar dismal haunts, where I’m sure you’ll receive more appreciation; or if this is a full time troll job for you, tell your masters – CIA, NSA, GCHQ, MI6, whichever Western Terrorist outfit – that you are urinating the wrong way against the isobars on this blog, and the taxpayers’ money would be better misapplied elsewhere.

      .

      “Nothing will avail to offset this virus which is poisoning the whole world. America is the very incarnation of doom. She will drag the whole world down to the bottomless pit.”

      Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

      .

      Signature:
      …………………………………………………..
      The creation of the United States of America has turned out to be the worst man-made catastrophe ever inflicted on human-kind; and, for that matter, most of the rest of animal-kind.

      Those at Echelon, GCHQ, MI6, NSA, CIA and similar fascists reading this post and ‘signature’, are referred to the profanity used by the sadly seemingly immortal lying manipulative War-Criminal, Mass-Murderer and Traitor Dick Cheney to some Democratic Party non-entity (as pretty much all the Democrats are).
      …………………………………………………..

      .

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