Final Show of 2018 and Some Important Announcements for the Future

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You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU 93.3 FM.  I am Siegfried.  We’ve come to the final episode of the year I’m sorry to say.  Next week I’ll be leaving for China for the third time in my life, teaching English overseas again, and actually I can only stay at the studio until 10 instead of 11 today because I have to run and get things done.  It’ll be a major challenge going overseas, it always is, with a new environment and a completely new set of people in my life.  But that’s the name of the game when you teach ESL.  My destination this time will be the Ningbo Institute of Education, it’s a teacher’s college, where I’ll be teaching conversational English and pronunciation.  In other words, spoken word.  And seeing I’ve been into spoken word and performance poetry since 2010, the same year I started at CFRU actually, it’s only fitting I should be teaching spoken English when I do ESL I guess. 

Ningbo is a pretty interesting place.  It’s a major port city just south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, and it’s been a major port and trading center since the 7^th Century so there’s a lot of history there.  I was surprised to learn that the city is actually comparable in age to Suzhou, the ancient Chinese city I worked in during the 2016-2017 school year.  Just like Suzhou it has old temples, pagodas, old sections of the city wall and so on.  But, of course, I’m mostly interested in the people I’ll be working with.  Seeing it’s a teacher’s college, they should all be post-grads who more or less know what they want to get out of the class, unlike the high school kids I was teaching last time I was in China who were there only because they had to be. 

It's different every time.  The first time I went to China was in 2013 when I worked at the Inner Mongolia University for the Nationalities in Tongliao, which is located north of Beijing in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region where Mongolian is an official language alongside Mandarin Chinese.  That job was also teaching spoken English, except that it was to all kinds of different university students, some of whom preferred to sleep in class instead of listening to me.  China is a really huge country, a really diverse country, and even though this is the third time I’m going there, the third year I’ve spent living there, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

As for what happens to the show while I’m away, there’s been a concerted effort to keep it going in some form.  Clara Sorrenti, my comrade and the communist candidate in London Ontario during the provinicial election, wants to keep the show going as a podcast.  So it won’t be on CFRU, but it will be online.  The plan is to put out the first episode sometime in September, so hopefully all you out there won’t have to wait too long for new content.  Naturally I’ll be keeping you up to date on the show’s blog and hopefully there will be an announcement on CFRU’s website when the podcast starts up, so don’t worry, you’ll hear about it when it happens.  Who knows, I might be able to contribute some content to the podcast from China every now and then.  So stay tuned for that, it should be exciting.

Be that as it may, it still feels a bit surreal sitting in the studio here and doing the last show of the year.  Hopefully I’ll be back at some point, but who knows.  It’s time for an adventure I guess, and I really don’t know how it will all turn out, but it should be interesting.

Gang Starr - Above the Clouds 

Paul Robeson - Paul Robeson at the House Un-American Activities Committee

Paul Robeson - Going Home

Charlie Chaplin - Final Speech from The Great Dictator 

Willie Dunn - The Ballad of Crowfoot

Bambu - Monsters

Ferguson and Black Liberation

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Back in the USSR addresses the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, Missouri and the mass struggle against racism, police brutality and murder of black people that was galvanized by that uprising across North America.  Imperialism, brothers and sisters, is not simply about aerial bombing campaigns and military invasions of other countries; it is all around us in our daily lives in everyday social, political and economic interactions.  The Ferguson uprising and the American state's response to it confirms this reality with brutal clarity.

An Anti-Imperialist Remembrance Day

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Back in the USSR marks Remembrance Day by paying tribute to the victims of imperialist war: from 21st Century Syria to the Western Front 1914-1918.  Imperialism still consumes countless young lives each year, and it is this horrific fact combined with the memory of those who have struggled to change it and to create a future of peace and international solidarity that drives me to utterly condemn the militaristic agenda of the Canadian Government and its propaganda.

Syria vs Imperialism: Defeating the 21st Century Contras

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Back in the USSR compares the current US efforts to destabilize and destroy the sovereign nation of Syria with the murderous attempt by the Reagan Administration to overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s and how the so-called "moderate opposition" are in reality twenty-first century contras employing the same barbarous tactics in pursuit of regime change.

Settler Colonialism and the Peoples Social Forum

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In August 2014 I attended the Peoples Social Forum at the University of Ottawa and witnessed first hand the effects of settler colonialism and colonial genocide on the geography of Canada's capital city and how indigenous peoples are fighting back.

The Attempted Assassination of Nicolas Maduro and Washington’s Long War on Venezuela

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You’re listening to Back in the USSR.  Comrades, I’d like to draw your attention to a criminal act that, if it had happened under any context other than a country that has been targeted for regime change by the United States, would immediately be condemned as a terrorist act.  Last Saturday in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, a brazen attempt was made to blow up an elected president, Nicolas Maduro, using two drones packed with high explosives.  Maduro was in the midst of a speech, addressing soldiers preparing for a military parade celebrating the 81^st anniversary of the Venezuelan National Guard, when the attack began.  Fortunately neither of the drones hit their mark and no one was killed in the incident, although at least seven soldiers suffered injuries when one of the drones detonated in mid-air after being shot down at the last minute by army snipers close to the stage where Maduro had been standing, sending shrapnel flying in all directions.  Because the president’s speech at the military parade was being televised, the whole attempted assassination played out on live TV.

It was a close call.  A very close call.  In the aftermath, Maduro issued the following statement:

“They have tried to kill me today, and everything points towards the right-wing forces, the Venezuela ultra-right in alliance with the Colombian ultra-right, and the name of Juan Manuel Santos is behind this assassination attempt.”

Manuel Santos is the outgoing president of Colombia and a close US ally, probably the closest US ally of all, in Latin America, whose government has received billions and billions of dollars from Washington for the so-called “War on Drugs” and to wage war on leftist rebel groups opposing the country’s brutal and unrestrained capitalist state apparatus which has been responsible for the assassination of hundreds of social and indigenous leaders in the past year alone.  In spite of immediately denying Maduro’s allegation, Santos had made it clear just days before the assassination that he, like Donald Trump, wants regime change in Venezuela and is willing to pursue that objective using any means necessary.  In a public statement on July 30, the Colombian president said he hoped Maduro’s time in office would soon be coming to an end, “I hope it is tomorrow even.  Colombia would be willing and ready to help in any way possible.”

Maduro also pointed to US involvement in the assassination attempt, saying that all evidence pointed to it having been financed from Miami where many right-wing Venezuelan exiles are based.  Although the US denied it played a role, the Trump Administration has made no secret about its desire to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro and destroy the Bolivarian Revolution, subjecting Venezuela to crippling sanctions and threatening the use of military force while at the same time encouraging Colombia and the other right-wing governments in the region to assist in further isolating the country.  Not surprisingly, the US and Western governments failed to denounce the attempt on President Maduro’s life.  In fact the mainstream media has bent over backwards trying to downplay the whole thing and to sow doubt on the events, using words such as “apparent” or “alleged”, focusing instead on the government using this “alleged” event to step up repression. In the end, it is hard to tell apart the media coverage from the statements of John Bolton, one of the more hawkish advisers to the US president, as Ricardo Vaz stated in an article on venezuelanalysis.com.  He cites a recent article in the Guardian, whose opening paragraph states: “Venezuela’s opposition has warned that President Nicolas Maduro may launch a political crackdown after he accused adversaries of attempting to assassinate him with drones loaded with explosives on Saturday.” As Vaz points out, “Remarkably, it is the Venezuelan opposition takes precedence in an article describing an assassination attempt against Maduro. This would be akin to a report on 9/11 opening with “Al-Qaeda warns of increased US involvement in the Middle East.” Then there is the usual trick of encapsulating the events under “Maduro said”, so that all the previous work smearing Maduro can be used to discredit this version.”

Of course the mask quickly came off.  An anti-government group calling itself “Soldiers in T-Shirts,” (Soldados de Franelas) composed of “military and civilian patriots” and “rebels,” claimed responsibility for the attack, code named “Operation Fenix.” Factors of Power, a Miami-based private news network, presented the statement, which echoed demands being made by the right-wing politicians that include abiding by the rightist-packed National Assembly’s call for “true and free” elections. The group called on “everyone to take to the streets,” to “take power,” and install a “transition government.” The assailants claimed that the assassination attempt was intended to “restore the constitutional order.” They called on the military to launch a coup to overthrow Maduro, claiming he was guilty of “indoctrinating children with communism”.  They also threatened to make subsequent attacks: “More such attempts will follow.”

Patricia Poleo, a Miami-based journalist and outspoken critic of the Venezuelan government, read the public statement issued by the claimants of the attempt. Poleo is accused of being involved in the assassination of anti-corruption police investigator Danilo Anderson in 2004.  Of course this “Soldiers in T-Shirts” group were not the only ones to threaten the life of the elected president of Venezuela; one of the parties in the right-wing Frente Amplio, Primero Justicia, took to twitter and threatened Maduro with actions “like this one or worse”.

After the attack, several arrests were made, according to interior minister Nestor Reverol, one of those detained had been involved in the 2014 guarimbas anti-government opposition demonstrations, that involved violent barricades, shooting at bystanders, beheading motorcyclists, and a great deal more. He had been released by the government in a (clearly futile) gesture of goodwill. The second one was sought after an attack on the Paramacay army barracks last year during an even bloodier round of “guarimbas” which claimed over one hundred lives.

It is no surprise that militant US-backed reactionaries, who have proven themselves more than willing to use brutal violence to attain their political goals in Venezuela since their attempted coup against former president Hugo Chavez in 2002, would be involved in this incident.  However, writing in the Monthly Review on August 9, Farooque Chowdhury expresses his skepticism of this claim of responsibility by a hitherto unknown group of supposed ex-soldiers.  The attack was simply too sophisticated for that.  As one commentator pointed out, the attack required significant infrastructure and trained personnel. It was also similar to drone attack schemes practiced in Syria on Russian bases. Most importantly, “drones may be sold freely on the market, but they are not sold full of powerful explosives, which is why this attack cannot be linked to radical opponents.” In other words, the American Empire’s fingerprints are all over this attempted assassination, and this is hardly the first time.

Chowdhury points out the history of the United States and its Latin American proxies using coups, assassinations, death squads, and practically every repressive tactic in book – murdering tens of thousands of people whose only crime was to resist imperialism and push for economic and political self-determination.  People who wanted control over their own lands, their own resources, and who didn’t want to be subjected to the tyranny of the IMF and multi-national corporations, were effectively targeted for destruction, and that applies especially to the leaders of various social and political movements pushing for progressive or radical change. Just to name the most prominent in Latin America: Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero in El Salvador, and Salvador Allende in Chile.  Many leaders have been overthrown through in coup d’états. Assassination by being shot or killed in some mysterious accident (a few have been blown out in airplanes) has been the preferred method for most of imperial history. However, some newer methods now in vogue include either “forced exile”—most recently in the case of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti—or ousting by a “democracy movement,” the latter being nothing more than very well-funded marketing campaign.  This is what was attempted this year against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, a country that is certainly no stranger to US-funded destabilization and regime change efforts.

He goes on to say that in assassination attempts, imperialism has historically relied on its fabricated political movements—the local political lackeys. These allies range from political parties, disgruntled elements within the targeted government and business unions, to mainstream NGOs focused on various social services. It is a mobilization of social and political forces that—wittingly or not—is faithful to an external master.  And, as someone who has read ex-CIA agent Philip Agee’s book “Inside the Company” on how he helped set up such puppet movements in 1960s Ecuador and Uruguay, the current right-wing “democracy movement” in Venezuela that attacks maternity hospitals and burns black men to death in the streets, is only the latest installment in a long and very ugly history.

In Venezuela, after the defeat of their bloody campaign of violent demonstrations last year, US-backed rightists are finding it difficult to succeed with their political fight. They are failing miserably to mobilize other social forces, utilize existing pockets of discontent, or provide any sort of inspiration. The situation leads them to terrorist activity, and their increasingly violent tactics have been supported by U.S. and (most) international media without question. Given this context, it should come as no surprise that an assassination attempt has been made. It is an indication of the rightists’ failure in the political fight, as repeated losses fuel ever more desperate tactics.

I’ve talked about the Bolivarian Revolution on this show before.  I’ve talked about the public housing, the schools, the free health clinics, the public infrastructure development driven by the needs of local people expressed in directly elected assemblies, the efforts to increase democratic participation, the attempts to use the Venezuela’s oil wealth to benefit the nation’s people as opposed to it going to the profits of Chevron and the multi-national oil cartels, the efforts to empower women, campesinos, peasant farmers, Afro-Venezuelans, and indigenous people.  None of these things has been perfect.  Just as in every attempt to build an alternative system, in every attempt to build socialism, things get messy and you have to deal with things like sanctions, sabotage, corruption, fanatical right-wing opposition backed from abroad, terrorist attacks, assassination attempts, even outright invasion by imperialist forces.  It’s never easy.  It’s never simple.  But Venezuela, a country in struggle, is trying against all odds to build a better future for its people where the wealth of the nation will belong to the people and not to the capitalist multi-nationals and their local stooges and hatchet men who try to murder or silence anyone who threatens their profits.  Victory to Venezuela! Victory to the Bolivarian Revolution!