In an interview Wednesday on the Progressive Radio Network’s program “This Can’t Be Happening!”, TCBH! colleagues Dave Lindorff and Alfredo Lopez talk about the recent coup plot broken up by Venezuelan police, consider President Obama’s outlandish and absurd claim that Venezuela, one of the leading suppliers or oil to the US, poses a “unique and extraordinary threat” to US national security, and also discuss Alfredo’s contention that the telecom industry has become a counterattack on the Federal Communications Commission’s recent decision in favor of net neutrality.
Lopez, a long-time Latino activist and founder of the progressive web hosting service MayFirst/PeopleLInk, reports on how for years, Venezuela has been essentially under attack by US funded right-wingers and oligarchs trying to oust the popular elected government, first of Hugo Chavez, and now his successor Nicolás Maduro. This has included a coup, recently broken up by Venezuelan police, which allegedly had the backing of the US, like the nearly successful one in 2002, when Chavez was actually captured and held hostage by coup leaders until freed by a mass mobilization of the country’s poor and its military enlisted ranks.
Lopez notes that the Bolivarian socialist experiment launched by the late President Chavez has been essentially working in a constant state of “impending coup,” a US funds and advice have poured into the country from outfits like USAID and the Congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) — subversive organizations that have funded violent protests and riots aimed at destabilizing the existing government, as was successfully done in Ukraine last year.
Lindorff and Lopez talk about what lies behind the absurd claim, made in an executive order Tuesday by President Obama, that Venezuela, a functioning Latin American democracy, poses a threat to US national security. Is this a prelude to military action, as feared by Venezuelan government officials, or just part of a longer-term plan to destabilize and ultimately unseat Venezuela’s socialist-minded central government.
Listen too, to the second half of the PRN program as Lopez explains how the telecom industry is organizing a counter-attack against the successful progressive campaign that lead to the last month’s surprise announcement by the FCC that it was endorsing reclassifying the Internet as a public utility, subject to equity rules that require it to provide equal services at equal costs to subscribers of all income levels.
“The pushback by the big media corporations against this FCC ruling has already begun,” warns Lopez, suggesting that this is a battle that the left can win — if people are paying attention.
Dave Lindorff and Alfredo Lopez discuss Venezuela's coup, US imperialism and the Internet on the Progressive Radio Network