I wrote this photo essay from here in Venezuela, where hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Caracas to condemn the suffocating US embargo of their country, using the slogans #NoMoreTrump and #TrumpUnblockVenezuela
These photos are just from the rally at the end, after 5 hours of marching
@GrayzoneProject These Venezuelans are entirely ignored by the corporate media, which has repeatedly helped to sell the right-wing US coup attempts
The Trump administration is collectively suffocating the entire Venezuelan population with a criminal embargo that is devastating the economy and trying to starve them. And people know who their enemy is
"Trump sanciona a tu madre" = Trump sanction your mom!
Ex-CIA agent explains US regime-change strategy:
"The point is to put pressure on the targeted gov by ripping apart the social and economic fabric of the country… That means making the people suffer as much as you can until the country plunges into chaos" thegrayzone.com/2019/08/12/tru…
At the huge march against the US embargo here in Venezuela, protesters handed out this flyer:
“How terrorist attacks by Guaidó and US imperialism affect you:
1. They try to paralyze the strategic economic-productive apparatus of the country.
Far-right billionaire oligarch Peter Thiel, a CIA-linked FBI informant who has funded Donald Trump and his "MAGA" allies, also funded a spy company that hacked WhatsApp. forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…
Libertarianism nearly always turns into fascism, because libertarians and fascists value private property and capital above human life.
Libertarians eventually realize that, to save capitalism, democracy must be destroyed. Pinochet is the textbook example
All US presidents for decades (both Republicans & Democrats) have waged nonstop war, in Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc.
The US has killed MILLIONS. But I guess foreign lives don't matter.
"There is absolutely no place for political violence in oUr deMoCrAcy"
Every single US president is an imperialist sociopath with zero concern for lives outside of the US (and little for people in the US too). They are all guilty of war crimes, and have killed MILLIONS of people in recent decades.
Seeing them condemn "political violence" is surreal
In this important speech, the director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University notes:
-US-China "competition" is "ideological"
-The US wants to subordinate China
-"The socialist path led by the CPC is the unchangeable path for China" eastisread.com/p/yao-yang-on-…
This influential Chinese economist explains how the Reform and Opening Up started by Deng was pivotal to develop the productive forces, after a time of destructive ultra-leftism. But China went too far to the right by the 2000s, so it's shifting left again eastisread.com/p/yao-yang-on-…
"Excessive financialization hollows out real industries". China is countering this by using state-owned bank lending to "prioritize manufacturing and high-tech industries".
"The goal of [China's] new era is high-level socialism", better income distribution, and common prosperity
China's economy is bigger than official GDP statistics indicate, because it uses a measurement system based on manufacturing production, under-counting services.
US GDP data, meanwhile, is distorted by expensive "services" like imputed rent and legal fees asiatimes.com/2024/06/whats-…
"The affordability crisis in Western economies, the US in particular, is largely driven by inflation of necessary services – rent, healthcare, education, childcare – not by manufactured goods"
When those costs go up, US GDP goes up.
This is why "number go up" is not always good
This point is so crucial: Costs of healthcare, education, housing, and childcare have skyrocketed in the US, which makes GDP go up, but it also makes average people's standard of living worse, especially because real wages have not caught up.
This chart shows why it's nonsense to talk about "inter-imperialist rivalry" in the 21st century. Monopoly finance capital is concentrated to an unprecedented degree.
There is one imperialist system, centered in the USA. Its heart is Wall Street. Its blood is the US dollar.
Capitalists from all over the world store their wealth largely in US dollar-dominated assets. The US hosts 60.5% of the total value of global stock markets. 40+% is owned by foreign investors.
The US government is dedicated to protecting the wealth of the global capitalist class
Imperialism is a system, not a mere set of policies. The US created the global financial system, based on its currency, centered in its capital markets
The most important mission of the 21st century is to replace it with a New International Economic Order
Biden is banning TikTok (one of the most popular apps in the country), while Republican governors send state troopers to brutalize and arrest anti-genocide student protesters, saying they "belong in jail".
The US is an authoritarian regime. There is nothing democratic about it.