Both the ongoing protests in Venezuela and the economic problems that the demonstrators are protesting against appear to have been orchestrated by the opposition in order to destabilize the country and bring down the government. Unable to gain power through the ballot box, the Venezuelan opposition has turned to unconstitutional means to oust President Nicolas Maduro. And with only limited support among Venezuelans, the opposition has been dependent on outside aid from the United States and Colombia, Washington’s closest ally in Latin America. According to a recently discovered strategy document, the current protests appear to represent the latest tactic in a destabilization campaign that Washington has been waging against Venezuela for more than a decade, initially to overthrow former president Hugo Chávez, and now to oust his successor Maduro. Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Distorting Poverty to Promote Capitalism
While attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week to discuss global development and poverty, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates claimed that foreign aid from wealthy nations and philanthropy were successfully alleviating global poverty and inequality. According to Gates, “The poor have in fact been doing quite well and people really should feel good about their generosity.” He went on to note, “This is very good news, it means equity in the world is closer than we think.” But is this in fact true? Are foreign aid and philanthropy proving to be as successful as Gates claims? Or are they helping to promote a narrative that seeks to gloss over the brutal realities of global capitalism? Continue reading
Let the Revolution Begin
What are we waiting for? How long are we going to sit idly by and watch the political warmongers deploy their drones, their warships, their stealth bombers, their missiles, our sons and daughters, and ultimately, their nuclear weapons against the most impoverished peoples of the world? How long are we going to ignore the corporate warmongers as they wield their magic profit wands that fill their wallets and bellies to overflowing while millions of children perish from hunger and preventable diseases? How long are we going to accept the unjust inequality of the 1% pocketing a grossly disproportionate amount of the wealth generated by the toil of the 99%? How long are we going to passively accept the suicidal insanity of raping and plundering our planet’s finite resources to the point that none of us will be able to survive? Let the Revolution begin!
FARC Rebel Group in Peace Talks: Is Colombia’s 50-Year War About to End?
It was dusk in the Amazon as the two female guerrillas stashed the canoe and camouflaged it with branches and leaves. There began an hour-long hike into the gloomy jungle, lit only by the beams from two small torches. As a camp became visible, a uniformed man toting an AK-47 appeared out of the darkness. Up ahead, a white light illuminated a man with a grey beard working on a laptop. It was Raúl Reyes, a member of the seven-person ruling secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, more commonly known by their Spanish acronym, FARC. According to many analysts, Reyes was the second-highest ranking member of FARC, a Marxist insurgent group that has been fighting in the mountains of Colombia for 50 years to overthrow the government Continue reading
The Message to Muslims: Accept Democracy But Do Not Elect An Islamic Party
The United States and other Western nations often claim to be engaged in “democracy promotion” around the world, but is this actually the case? After all, isn’t a core component of the democratic process accepting as legitimate the government that the people elect to govern them? It is becoming increasingly evident that the democratic model promoted by powerful Western nations includes an unspoken caveat that the only elected governments deemed legitimate and acceptable are those that represent Western liberal values. And if a government should actually advocate a different set of values, such as those rooted in the Islamic tradition, then it must be delegitimized as occurred recently in Egypt and previously in Algeria and Palestine. The inevitable consequence of such an approach for Muslims will be a growing disenchantment with democracy and an increasing acceptance of violence to resolve political differences.
Garry Leech 