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I want to welcome everyone back to the Peaking Yonas show.
This isn't two hundred years together, but it is. Doctor
Matthew Refael Johnson. How are you doing today, Doctor Johnson.
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay. We had our round table on regular
Albion yesterday with Savana Longshanks. For the first time, he's
totally free of all you know, probation and everything else.
He's a totally free man. It kind of invigorated me.
It was a great, a great time. And now he's back.
The site's going to be revamped, and he was mostly
talking about, you know, his time in prison and and
what happened afterwards, and it's definitely worth a listen. It's
probably up now. I haven't checked, but I have to
say I'm doing very very well.
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome. Well today we're going to talk about Venezuela,
and you know, you may take this in a direction
people might expect you to, considering, did you see the
meltdown that Ben Shapiro had about Venezuela recently?
Speaker 2: I did not, But you say meltdown Shapiro, it kind
of just it kind of just makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Apparently, Tucker Tucker Carlson said, you know, Venezuela seems
to be a pretty right wing conservative kind of country,
the kind of place that that Ben Shapiro would uh like,
what is that fun that it's communist, it's communist, it's communist.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you. He is a He is an ignoramus.
He pedals cliches in such a way that it makes
him sound knowledgeable. It's one of those things where if
you use enough enough labels and you have a certain
way of speaking, you can fool people into thinking that
you're you're intelligent. You know, it's like, uh, Peterson, you know,
the dumb person's view of what a smart person would
be like. And so, yeah, it is no such thing.
It has been since the Javes Revolution national socialist or
social nationalist state in one form or another. The worst
part is that, at least under Chavez it was very
very successful. That was overturned by by American sanctions unfortunately,
and sanction can actually work when you're that close to
the US.
Speaker 1: But everybody there is eating dogs. Yeah that's what Ben Shapiro.
That's what Ben Shapiro told me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he says that he's the arbiter of what's
right wing. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about Venezuela. Start wherever you want, you know,
because it looks like they want regime change there now,
and all the usual suspects are calling for it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's so much to do. I've been
writing on this topic since Chavez first was elected. But
even during Trump's first term, the US came close to
invading Venezuela, which today would be a very bad idea.
You know what, you know, twenty five years roughly at
this point, the country has been in the crosshairs. Venezuela
is the best armed country in Latin America, the best
air defense. And the reasoning Trump's Donald Trump's the naval
build up there, I don't know. Donald Trump's rationale is
so hilarious and ignorant. There's so many layers of ignorance
and layers of mythology there it would take a book
to unpack. But as we all know, late August of
this year, the very overstretched and struggling US navy approach
the Venezuelan coast has done nothing except destroy a couple
of boats that claims are without any evidence, never has
given any evidence. We're moving drugs, and it's gone gone
no further than that, Venezuela under Maduro in a very
smart move of course, went to Russia and China for
assistance Iran as well. I think there's about ten thousand
military personnel. I think we're mostly marines stationed in Puerto Rico.
So far, I think there have been five attacks on
these on these boats. So, you know, Donald Trump back
in early on revoked all of the oil concessions like
Chevron everything else, and I wasn't sure that he had
any control over that. So these reporters, you know, he
reversed the license given a Chevron to operating in Venezuela,
and I wasn't sure. I had never heard that the
president has a power over that. But at the very least,
Donald Trump has been adamant about taking control of the
oil and the rarest minerals there since he was first elected.
I guess it comes down to the oil Transaction Agreement
from twenty two So the maximum pressure, the sanctions. As
I've said, sanctions can actually work when a country is
that close. They're breaking the dependence on the US. But
Latin America is so connected to the US that you
know it can actually hurt, and it is the case there.
Now we should talk about Juan Guido, who has been
proclaimed the legitimate president one hundred times. New guy now,
and you know you have people like John Bolton who
somehow believe he has the right to decide whether an
election is legitimate or not. There were no American observers
for any of these elections. Russia has stood by Venezuela
arming into the teeth, and I think the reason that
there has been no attack on Venezuela is because some
of the advanced weapons systems that the Russians have sent
to it. Now, in July, Venezuela held its presidential election.
Maduro won again. Now it makes sense that he would win.
The US has typically condemned it before it happened. And
a telling fact is that the opposition called for a boycott.
The only reason you would call a boycott is that
you know you're going to lose. The US tried to
disrupt it in many ways. Someone who I cite all
the time, Druggled Bosnic who he interviewed a Serbian member
of Parliament, Torbitscha, who is an election observer. In Caracas.
They had election observers from all over the world there. Yes,
they were under tremendous pressure to elect Washington's candidate, but
they did not. They kept going with this mythology lack
of freedom and democracy in all of this. But the
you know, back prior to the election of Trump, former
Secretary of State Blincoln declared that Mundo Gonzalez to actively
won the presidential election, provided zero evidence here. In fact,
he said that Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on July twenty
eighth and made Gonzalez a president elect. This coming from
the Biden administration. Member of the Biden administration. By the way, EU, NATO,
all the other vassals rejected the result to the election.
They had no observers there. In fact, he didn't say
that he won. He won by an insurmountable margin and
the only authority he had was the Carter Center in Atlanta,
who had no one there beyond that. This NGO, he
claimed it was independent, but it receives money from many
federal agencies, including the State Department. Not called Rubio. I
think we all know he supported the overthrow Elliot Abrams.
In fact, Rubio has called on the Venezuela military to
overthrow Menduro. Now you know, in the beginning of the
Iraq War, One of the reasons Saddam didn't do well,
although he did better than what was said to us
in the nineties, was that the US and these reality
were able to bribe the top brass to abandon Saddam
Hussein with large sums of money. There was an attempt
to do that here and it failed. Venezuela has three things.
The largest oil reserves over which the US doesn't have
any control of course, an alliance with Russia China iron Opek,
and a firmly social nationalist social project. It isn't communists,
it is it is national socialists. They respect private property
and it's been incredibly successful in terms of you know,
not not just you know, the equality of workers and
land going to the tillers. But as all this is
going on, he was done everything to carry out regime
change and install a public government, sanctions, diplomatic warfare, coup attempts,
manipulating elections, secret operations. It was recently, I can't believe
I had to read this three times. The former commander
of the US Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, she directed
US military operation in the Caribbean around Venezuela, and she said, well,
there are you know. I'm sure she's a bt of
jokes around the top brass in Venezuela and other militaries too.
She said, this is really about controlling natural resources, oil, lithium, gold,
rare earths. It's an extremely strategic country. She came out
directly and pointed to these resource reserves. It's the main
reason behind the decades long attempt for regime change and
economic sanctions and people like Shavez and they're well aware
of this. The elections were observed and in general were
free of distortion except by the US. The Supreme Court
did a lengthy review of the July twenty eighth elections,
you know, and declared it with but there were a
few minor errors, of course, but declared a clear We
certified in an uninjectionable way. The examine the electoral evidence
to confirms the results proclaimed by the National Electoral Council.
He won fifty compared to forty three percent, and Mundo
Gonzales and third parties, you know, took care of the
of the rest. Gonzales, of course, educated American University in Washington.
Speaker 1: D C.
Speaker 2: You know, but you know, his his victory also is
proved by local elections. The Social nationalist parties dominated those
two and that's that's really your your proof, you all
kinds of the great patriotic poll. I don't know that
poll meaning I don't know. I'm sure it sounds better.
In Spanish dominated municipal elections, you know, all pro government
parties did extremely well at all levels, and the opposition,
the liberal opposition, lost more than half they had one.
In twenty twenty one, the pro American forces, led by
the American educated Maria Karina Machado, reiterated calls for boycott
and the only place they really won were wealthy you know,
East Caracas areas pro government uh at state capitals twenty
three out of twenty four. Now, I did dig and
find out exactly how they vote, and I think it's
much better than how the Americans do it. It's it's
electoral horseshoe. Then call them. The first station a voter
goes to, they run their fingerprints through about you know,
ID machine. Once cleared, they moved to the second step,
which is where they vote and touchstone touchscreen machine. Uh.
Then that machine prints a paper backup confirming the choice,
and that's deposited in the ballot box. And then voters
sign and stamp their fingerprints on the electoral record. So
there's numerous safeguards here, especially the biometric IU I D.
You know, the the many countries that observed that they
had people from Brazil and Colombia there saying that this
was perfectly acceptable. Many of them went to like random
polling stations and checked everything, and everything seemed fine. There
were some long wait times, but that was you know
the worst thing. They had one touch screen for for
you know, eight every eight hundred voters, which caused delay.
So that was that was it. That was the worst
part of it. Now Gonzales is allited with Machada. Will
get to her in a second. She's not in the
ballot because of her She had been politically disqualified, which
normally is what happens when you attempt to overthrow your
own government over and over again. That was upheld by
the Supreme Court, I guess in January. And she's supported attacks,
she wants invasion, you know, the misery of her own people.
This is what happens when you're more American than than Venezuelan.
She supported American.
Speaker 1: Judaized American.
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, of course
she was educated at Yale. What a shy All these
they're all the same all. She supported all the sanctions.
She knows the misery it causes, you know, And her
agenda is there is a ninety page book with her plans,
her electoral plan that you know, most people are not
going to read. By the way, Machado's father was a
wealthy steel tycoon who had her steel plant, his steel
plant nationalized by Chavez. So there's a little bit of
a personal issue here as well. And the whole thing
is what you might expect, Slashing social spending, abolish free healthcare,
do you regulate the labor market, reduce worker protections, but
basically austerity. I don't know who would vote for this.
It's like Javier Malay in Argentina. Here's something back in
you know I've been doing I've been following this for
a long time. I want to quote myself here, back
in twenty nineteen. Here's what I said. The MUD, which
is a CIA directored Democratic Unity Roundtable, is hardly a
popular force. Suspiciously, most of its parties are tiny and
recently founded. Justice First is the only major party with
thirty three seats in the Assembly. It was founded only
in two thousand. National Convergence is minuscule and founded in
ninety three. It has zero seats. Something called the Fearless
People's Alliance is based around one person, Antonio Lesima, who
won an award by the way the National Endowment for
Democracy in twenty fifteen. He has no seats. The Ecological
Movement in Venezuela has a handful of members with founded
in twenty ten, and the Movement for a Responsible, Sustainable
and Entrepreneurial Venezuela, apart from having the longest name among
political parties, its website doesn't exist. It might not exist
at all. So these parties are created to make it
seem like there's a coalition here. The US has some
control over the press down there. They have some control
over polling data down there. Now, it's true that Donald
Trump has moved away from the electoral issue, which was
a big thing years ago, to the so called to
the so called drug issue, which we'll get to also
in a moment, But the US provides direct cash support
one Guido, any of these people. Guido was able to
take three billion in Venezuela and state funds, which he
is effectively pocketed, which is why you don't hear much
about him anymore. The CIA conducted to something called Operation Pincer,
drafted by the US embassy official Michael Steere. Uh, and
he you know, wrote about this. The opposition forces that
attacked the Electoral Commission building, Supreme Court, Presidential Palace. Uh.
There was an arsonal attacked on the School of Social
Work at the Central University of Venezuela for some reason.
Well I think the reason is they were opposition meant
trapped in there and they burnt the building down.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: There they've been. They've they've given support to, you know,
back in not that long ago, those attempts to infiltrate
the border from Colombia, even though Columbia is an allied state,
six individuals trying to get to the electrical grid. Sanctions,
I mean, you know, sanctions are a pillar of American
foreign policy, deliberately designed to interfere with Venezuelan and sovereigns.
They result in economic harnship. And the point is they
think that if the economy it goes down because of
these sanctions, they'll blame Maduro and they do not because
he won the elections. Again, they have now been increased
and you know, in the Biden administration was the same way,
and the sanctions have a lot to do with problems
in the in the economy. Now, the electoral issue is
one thing, that's what it used to be a few
years ago. The drug issue now is where Trumps has
changed it to. I don't know when it was, it
was probably late summer. The Trump administration, through Pambondi, put
a fifty million dollar reward on information leading to the
arrest of Maduro, and it's to make Maduro seem like
a cartel leader despite the fact that there are no
cartels in Venezuela. They've invented one, the Cartel of the Sons.
And then in her speech, Bondie accused Madurero of heading
up one of the most notorious drug trafficking operations that's
a threatning the American national security. He utilizes foreign terrorists
and criminal organizations, the Mexican Cineloa cartel. Now, this is
funny that they even bring that up. First of all,
they're allied with the UNS and they're in Mexico. There
are no native cortels, at least not anymore in Venezuela.
There's maybe some debate over that, but even if they are,
they're very tiny, that military is dedicated to fighting drugs.
They say the same thing in Afghanistan under the talibums,
the same thing in Burma. They say the same thing here.
So suddenly Trump starts talking about cocaine again. They try
to link various Venezuelan officials with trafficking. There was a
federal indictment filed in New York as he rose through
the rank to the cartel of his sons. That was
in actually that was in the Miami Herald, and his
point was to flood the US with cocaine to inflict
harm and damage on the country. No offered, No evidence
was ever offered. The Human Rights report for Venezuela. You know,
I've read this and it condemns it. You know, your
typical list of abuses. It's strange. It doesn't look real.
I downloaded the official copy. It's not an official letterhead,
it uses no standards format. It was very rushed. It
looks like someone who was written by someone who's never
seen a report before. There's no footnotes or references of
any kind. So it's just a list of assertions. So
you indict Venezuela for arbitrary and unlawful killings with no footnote.
Years ago, those reports normally ran about nine thousand words,
but this one is just maybe fifteen hundred, and they're
written about a high school level. This is very odd.
They also they're also accused. They're also accused of failing
to protect refugees and asylum seekers. I guess they have
plenty of people coming to Venezuela to escape tyranny. Now,
institutions like the UN, they're Special Report for Human Rights.
The sanctions have accused. These sanctions the US the sanctions
of one hundred thousand excess deaths of the last ten years.
Sanctions are completely different in Latin America than they would
be in Russia or China. In fact, they even Trump
administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight.
So yeah. The point is, because Venezuela has no cartels
of any note, the regime had to had to invent them.
The Cartel of the Sons made me laugh. I had
I it's a mashup of themes from movies, the series Narcos,
which I love, by the way, and cartels from all
over Latin America. It started off as some kind of
a rumor. It was picked up by the Wall Street journale,
the Washington Post. They decided each other anyway, and it
was repeated as if it was true because it came
from these, you know, global and prestigious outlets. Jackson Deal,
who wrote for the Washington Post, was one of the
worst accused him, and again no evidence is offered. It
reminds me a little bit of what's his face in
Pakistan to Pakistan in Panama Noriega. Now, whether Noryega how
deep he was in this, I don't really know, but
I'm telling you there was no reason or purpose for
there to be any cartels in Venezuela or for the
system to be profiting from it. He claims that, you know,
and Venezuela's not really suited for producing cocaine directly. It's
mostly Ecuador and of course Colombia. That the cartels fly
hundreds of tons Colombian cocaine from Venezuelan airfields to Central
America and the Caribbean for eventual distribution in the US
and Europe. I thought that was odd. He doesn't explain
why Colombia or Peruvian drugs needed to use a third
country to deliver a product but he says the only
reason they can survive sanctions is because they're they're they're
selling drug. He offers no evidence for any of it.
Peter Bolton, which I'm sure has no relation to the
other one. This is back in twenty nineteen. These allegations
have been going on for a long time. He says this.
Four years since the launch of this probe, this investigation
into this guy, the E A. D o J, they've
yet to convict anyone. The mainstream, mainstream media reports these
allegations that there will be on question. They talked about
the cartel of the sons, even though no one's ever
witnessed it before. Insight Crime, who I've actually cited before,
who's actually a good, good organization on some things. They
claim to have files on all of this, but they're
report on the matter doesn't have a citation on it. Rather,
they cite an anonymous Justice Department official as a sources.
It's not a drug exporting country, but it's necessary, the
myth is necessary to justify an attack. If anything, if Venezuela,
it may be a single digits may have at one
point gone through Venezuela and territory, you know. But but
Donald Trump gives these speeches where he talks about fentanyl.
He talks about even you know, fentanyl is a synthetic opiate,
actual opiates. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, who
did an inspection, says Venezuela is free of both drug
crop cultivation, drug lamps. You know, there's there's no, there's
no it's not like there's it's not like North Korea.
They can go wherever they want in the country. Now,
the opposition is led by as we've already mentioned, Maria Machado.
She is an oligarch. As I've mentioned, she was named
Time Magazines uh in one of the one hundred most
influential women in the world. She testified in front of
Congress that Venezuela that Venezuela was the world's fourth largest
producer of cocaine. Which it's a cosmic scale line, but
that's justus fed into the into the mythology. As I mentioned,
she was educated at Yale. I think she lives in
North Carolina at least some of the time. She shows
up the DeVos forums on occasion, but she's the one
consistent figure within the oligarchy supporting these American supported candidates
that ninety page program that I mentioned before her agenda.
I'm not so sure. I mean, she's an educated woman,
but I think it was written by an American PR firm.
But the fact that she would support sanctions against her
own country, knowing the misery it causes, even a foreign invasion,
you start getting suspicious here, who would want this? Now
you realize just how judaic American she is. When she
starts talking about same sex marriage, like that's a big
priority down there, There's probably zero support for that in Venezuela.
She even claims on occasion to be homosexual. Sometimes all
the trendy issues, legalization of medical cannabis, she wants legal abortion.
These are American priorities, not Venezuelan. But when she starts
talking about her gratitude for the harsh measures against her country,
which there are thousands have suffered, this is just, this
is just, this is outrageous. Her full night would be
a Marina Karina Machado. I have not verified. I said
back in twenty nineteen that she lived in North Carolina.
I haven't verified it though, And the government very rightly
accuses her of approaching the military defoement the coup, and
she has and she acts outraged now right on her website,
which is mostly in English, she has an appeal to
the army among its few published published essays. I do
think she has a stunted and tell us this is
what happens when you grow up in a life of
indulgence in luxury. Given what her how wealthier father was
appeal to the army, of course it was a call
for a coup. Now. I don't know the percentage of
Venezuelans that speak English, but most of her stuff is
in English. But Venezuela is caught in what we used
to call a hybrid war, strangling the economy, making wild accusations,
sponsoring its opponents, threatening armed intervention. This these ridiculous accusations
of you know, the human rights industry and everything else.
But from a military point of view, Venezuela has been
dug in for some time. It has a national militia
civilian volunteers, which has a huge support basis. I think
as of right now, there are three Guida mill destroyers there.
Since Donald Trump said that cartels are foreign terrorist organizations
and their imaginary cartels are in Venezuela, this is what
justifies this in his mind, although I don't know what
even I think the number now is ten thousand marines
in Puerto Rico. I don't know what they're going to do.
That's certainly woefully insufficient. But people think that Venezuela. You
know that. You know, Donald Trump has a terrible vice
of believing in the invincibility of the American military, and
we all know it's not true, and it is a
paper tiger. As I said, Venezuelan airspace is the best
defended in South America. Back in two thousand and five,
I wrote on this years ago. They have a long
range three D survellness radars that got from China. They
bought fifty one military helicopters from Russia. All of these
have been delivered, the advanced models to one hundred thousand
and AK or the AK one O three actually delivered
in two thousand and six or seven. In fact, he
even has a license to make Kalishnikovs in Venezuela himself.
Twenty four SU thirty fighters. They showed up in two
thousand and eight their missile array. Remember what happened to
the British Task Force in nineteen eighty two in the Falcons.
I have a whole paper on that. It was almost
completely wiped out. There's a whole set of reasons why,
non military reasons why Argentina surrendered, and I go into
that at length in the paper. But Argentina won that
war by a massive margin, and it was because of these.
At the time, the EXO set the advanced missiles from France.
Now even years ago, I'm sure there's been more since then.
The KB five hundred Lasier guided bombs, the A Cage
twenty nine surface to air missiles, and then they fifty
K thirty one, which are the anti ship missiles, which
are very important. Now. The one mple I think is
is how you pronounce it. He is he is on
to the teeth here. He has the Russian SAM systems,
the T seventy two tanks, military cargo aircraft, you know.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: And then Russia has been financing all of this. It's
given given Venezuela credit to purchase all of these things.
The US is, you know I this is why I
don't think anything's gonna happen. I don't think the US
wants to expose itself to even a marginally competent military,
and the Venezuelan military has had ten years, at least
ten fifteen years to familiarize itself with these weapons. And
of course there has been Russian personnel there and Chinese
personnel to assist them. I don't know if anyone in
the US military even would bring up the Falcons case,
but they suffered ridiculous amounts of damage because of the
advanced missiles from France and elsewhere. Now, even if in
regardless of what they send with the US sends to
the Caribbean, what percentage of them are combat ready? They
could send a ship. That's a whole separate I got
a books worth of papers on that very question. I
would say about half of the assets are combat ready,
but with advanced Chinese and Russian missiles, they're extremely vulnerable.
And in August of twenty twenty five, the Chinese Foreign
Ministry came out and said, we object to this completely.
We oppose the threat or use of force. We hope
the US will come to its senses, you know, and
diplomatic speak, this is almost availed threat. And you know,
Trump came Trump came into office condemning the Color revolutions,
condemning the nonsense regime change policies, and he's been involved
in one after or another. And I don't know if
I mentioned this already because it's so outrageous, but Machada
won the Nobel Peace Prize. I got yeah this year,
which shows you exactly what the Nobel Peace Prize really is.
Speaker 1: But I've heard, I've heard that by winning that it
shows that you're really high IQ and like the smartest
people in the world.
Speaker 2: I don't even know. I don't know. I mean, of
course I expected it. But the Nobel Peace Prize for
a woman who's calling for an invasion of her own
country from her mansion in North Carolina or wherever she's living,
and sanctions on her own allegedly her own country, I
mean she, you know, her claims to Venezuela and ethnic
status are pretty minimal.
Speaker 1: Look, the United States and this judaized government sided with
Stalin over their own, you know, over their own people,
and decided with against a national a national socialist government.
I mean, this is just history repeating itself.
Speaker 2: So you know, yeah, and I think that's something that
that spun Hitler's head around, how really And there were
of course well aware of what they were doing in
the USSR, and of course that had to be projected
onto the Germans. Later on. You know, I spoke a
bit about the victory over drugs and crime in El
Salvador and the only reason that the US now not
so with Trump administrations have been pretty good on that
by deministration condemned it to this guys. But even so
cold like the National Review condemned El Salvador because El
Salvador has a relationship with Venezuela. So I'm not sure
off the top of my head if if Trump soured
on on L Salvador. It's too tiny. But let me
go into the record. At least you know, before all
these sanctions, this is how I got into this in
the first place. Here you have a clear example of
social nationalism put into action. Starting roughly in nineteen ninety nine,
the poverty rate went down from forty four percent to
twenty six percent, extreme poverty from seventeen percent to seven percent.
In twenty eleven, American sanctions have ruined a lot of this.
The Genie coefficient. The Genie coefficient is a number it's
actually decimal that measures wealth inequality. One means one person
in the country controls all the wealth. Zero is totally equality,
and it used to be zero point four to six
in ninety nine. It went to zero point thirty nine
in twenty eleven. Well under an oligarchy that would of
course go through the root. Venezuela has the lowest recorded
ge coefficient in Latin America. And it's a pleasant memory today,
and that's a good thing. This is because farmers were
given title to land. A communist government doesn't accept private property.
This moron, this little midget talking about it. It's I mean,
you know, these are just labels in his head. There's
no such thing as private property in a Marxist state,
but there's actual ownership of land there. Land reform continued farmers.
I've since the landlords were gone, three million hectors hector
I think is like but roughly three acres. And ninety nine,
Venezuela was making maybe half its own food, seventy percent
in twenty eleven. I've said these so many times. Food
consumption increased eighty one percent since nineteen ninety nine, and
not like you know McDonald I mean their food Calorican
take one up fifty percent with some subsidies. There was
malnutrition before twenty one percent actually, and it's three less
than three percent in twenty twelve according to the FAO.
But you know, so you hear, you have his policies,
you know, national nationalization, but respect for private property and
for their for the small guy, for the small farmer,
small businessman, worked within a patriotic context. The worst thing
I think he nationalized the oil company and to have
the main oil company that alone, ps v VSA, PDVSA
whatever it was. And then Steele, as I mentioned later on,
was owned largely by foreigners. He nationalized it and that
a lot that created national sovereigns. So he created Petro Caribbe.
I think it's how you say it Soavez did. This
allowed eighteen countries in Latin Americas for a secure energy
supply and oil subsidies just locally, but also to their neighbors.
Remember when when Chabez was in office, when gas prices
went through the roof Venezuela did a very good pr thing.
It offered assistance to poorer people by providing fuel at
subsidized rates. Then he nationalized the electrical and telecommunications sectors.
He created fifty thousand cooperatives. Unemployment went down to almost nothing,
huge increase in the minimum wage, the highest in Latin
America actually in twenty eleven, twenty twelve. I think when
was it when he first started this, like sixty five percent,
we're actually making a wage, like sixty five or seventy percent,
we're making that minimum wage. But thirteen years later it
was only twenty one percent. He reduced working hours of
six hours a day thirty six hours a week without
any loss of pay. Public debt fell entirely. Venezuela withdrew
from the IMF and the World Bank. They paid their
long term debts early, as the Russians had done. I mean,
you know, that's their record. Now Meduro has struggled, as
we all know. But because it's the nature of sanctions,
typical you know, social nationalism, you know, a socially conscious nationalism.
The nationalism has to be socially conscious. We're one people.
So nationalism is almost inherently socialist, and not in a
Marxist way, but in a Chestertonian kind of a way,
in a distributors kind of a way, in an idealist
kind of a way. And it worked. Same thing occurred
in South Korea. I've been through this so many times.
But you know what, well, we only have ten minutes left.
I wanted to tell the story of the twenty twenty coup.
It's kind of funny. Do I have time?
Speaker 1: Oh, take all the time you need. God okay.
Speaker 2: I hated Operation Gideon again, blasphemy against the Old Testament. Judge.
It was hilarious. A handful. This is the Bay of Piglets.
It was called for a while. There was a private
security firm, guy named Jordan Gaudreau, Silver corp Us. They're
going to infiltrate Venezuela by sea and remove Madurero from power.
It was set for May of twenty twenty. Now there
were a handful of former military personnel living in Colombia
that were supposed to enter the country by boat at Makuto,
take control of an airfield, then capture Maduro the next
spelling from the country. I think just some steps missing there,
but so he didn't. I don't know how many people?
Are you a break breaking bed or a no? Are
you a better call? Sauw fan?
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 2: The attempt to the mercenaries that broke into Lalo's compound, Yeah,
how many were there? Six?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Could you what? Of course they were not going to
do it. You would need you would need a thousand
guys to do something like that with their support an
unknown compound with very well armed they sent in six guys. Well,
this is kind of like that, and he honestly believed
that could actually work, even went so far. You know,
he's a nut. Silver Corp actually was going to stay
to maintain humanitarian monetarian aid distribution. You know. He what
he said in an interview to AP reporter when he
was in Florida was that this handful of guys we're
going to lead to a catalyst. He said, sixty guys
can come in top of the regime, or at a minimum,
sixty guys can go in and inspire everyone else to
top of the regime. He had a drug drug trafficker
with him too, named Elkin Javier Lopez. This came from Columbia,
columb He was not in on it. Two boats launched
towards the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, maybe sixty dissidents, two
American former Green Berets. They were employed by Silver Court.
Of course, within you know, thirty seconds, they were intercepted
before they reached land. There was a shootout. Six Venezuelan
dissidents were killed. All but four were captured. Their interrogations
were broadcast on state television. Funny Goodro never quite made
it to Venezuela. He was on He was tweeting statements
as this was all going on, suggesting that he was
winning Venezuelan agencies. You know, it is so poorly done
that they knew this was coming. He didn't. He didn't
know how to cover his tracks. But Maduro did, you know?
He called them terrorists they wanted was going to kill him,
created by the US. The opposition then went into damage control,
saying it's a false flag that Maduro were orchestrated. So
I guess they do believe in false flags. After all,
Goudreos is unbalanced. I don't know what his war record
really is, but he called himself this little band freedom
fighters seeking to restore democracy. He was a sergeant first class.
He was Special Forces Medical Sergeant indirect fire infantrymen from
twenty and one twenty sixteen. Now he claimed that Juan
Guado and two of his political advisors signed a contract
with him for two hundred and thirteen million dollars in
October twenty nineteen. Two Americans were Luke Denman and Rian Barry,
both Special forces operatives. Of course, they everyone denied everything.
Five years you know, even even these people have been arrested.
Its coverage tracks. The US even arrested Gudrow. He claimed
he was wet weapons trafficking. It was almost like to
cover the failure. Still five years, la, whatever how long
it's been, there's still no trial. Goodreau is the source
of the rumors that Venezuela is the source of fentanyl
in the US. Goodrea filed suit. Could you believe this
against all of these people for not paying them for
something he got arrested for. CIA was behind him all
the way. Violation of contract, you know, I can't imagine
it went anywhere. There was one Clever Acala, former Venezuela
in general who went to Colombian twenty eighteen. He's one
dissident who wanted to coup against something happened with him.
The Colombians arrested a handful of Columbians that were their contribution.
One Guido. Of course, whether he gets suit or not,
then I didn't any connection to it, even though his
signature appears on a lead copy and I have the
image that I could click on, and when I published
this thing on a contract, the Washington Post, believe it
or not, found documentation connecting Guido to this operation, which
means the CIA was more than aware of it. Can
you imagine something so stupid? But it's a plan and
so stupid. It's consistent with the projections and constructions of
the American intelligence community concerning its enemies, right because they
view Venezuela as a country dying to get out from
under the boot of this tyrant. So even a handful
of guys will allow democratic forces to take action and
get rid of them. There'll be a spontaneous revolt they
enter the capitol's heroes. It almost has certain similarities to
the Cursk incursion in the Rusto Ukrainian War, even the
bare pigs. At a minimum, it was the test of
the Venezuelan defenses aslong a its coast. But anyone, you know,
this was the most absurd. It's a little bit like
the coup attempt in the Satchelles. I don't know when
that was, nineteen seventy, whenever, it was what these guys
were thinking, that this could ever possibly work, And it
was all over, you know, Venezuela and TV and as
his member being arrested and killed Gudrou, who was never
part of it, never part of the the group that
actually was going there, tweeting that, oh my god, it
started already, there's going to be a massive uprising against
the government, So you know that. I mean, it's it's
not funny in the sense that people were killed, but
I think it is consistent with how the US views
it's its enemy. How anyone, any military man could ever
believe that would succeed. But this is a level. This
is the US will do anything, including a proved something
like this, to get rid of to get rid of
that man. Once you're in the cross heres, it becomes
a fanatical, absolute fanatical obsession. But the fact that he
then went brought these people to court here's he's sitting
in I don't know. I don't know if he went
to jail or what. I don't think anything came of
his arrest. I think it was just to cover their
their their tracks. I can't find any record of any
trial anywhere with this guy. And this was in twenty twenty.
He and weapons trafficking, and then he sues everyone, including
one way to himself for not paying the two hundred
and thirteen millions. So God knows how much money he
was out personally, but you know this, it was. It
was their version of the Bay of Pigs, the Bay
of piglets. And and then yeah, and you have to
make it's a little funny, just like the attack on
Laalo's compound with six guys who had no idea where
they were going or where anything was. They think they're
going to be successful. And I had to laugh when
I saw that. You don't have to be a military
man to know that is absolutely going to fail. I
don't care if Lallo did unlock the gate. So this
was just a It was almost entertainment at the time,
and I think that once Maduro kind of calmed down
he thought it was much larger than it was. He
did treat it as entertainment. But the US was involved,
Clia was involved, and the so called opposition was involved.
We have his signature to prove it, and that's the level.
And again it's consistent with how the Americans view their enemies.
They thought this might work, or at least we want
to see how they react. And on that note, we
got to say Venezuela is armed to the teeth with
a loyal, substantial military force, it's well trained in the
use of these advanced weapons systems. The US is is
treading on dangerous ground. I'll bring up the Falklands example again,
the British were destroyed by those extra set missiles. Same
thing is going on here, and but I think that
it's there for show. I don't know what's going to
come of it. But the cartelvis the Cartel of the suns. Yes,
it's mostly from a few movies, but that's how bad
it is. And the newspapers will report Cartel of the Suns,
so it's like it's a real it's a real thing.
And that's that's the grounds for these chips being there
right now.
Speaker 1: Is it still just the the oil?
Speaker 2: How much?
Speaker 1: How much of this has to do with the oil,
because it just it just seems like that's the excuse
they always use. But you know, I mean, this is
oil that's like real sludgy. There's very few refineries in
the United States that can refine it. So I would
assume those who own that refine those refineries would uh
be be excited to get a hold of that oil.
But it just seems like that's too much, it's too
easy an excuse, and it was used during all throughout
the two thousands for for every war, and it just
seemed like that was the the like the NIT with
the low the low information excuse for these precisely.
Speaker 2: It's I think sit Goo was there gas station in America.
I haven't seen a Citgo in years.
Speaker 1: Remember, I remember they were big up north.
Speaker 2: Right with the red triangle. But yeah, that's lazy journalism.
You know, in the Middle East, the left was saying
that back then to avoid mentioning Israel, despite the fact
that the US got zero oil from that part of the world.
The US is completely self sufficient and oil you know,
if it wanted to be completely you know, the environmentalists had,
you know, shut it down. I have heard, I've not
don't know confirmed, but I have heard that is not
the highest quality of oil in the world. But that's
such an easy thing, lazy journalism, and it gets repeated,
so that must be true. Now, this is this is
how politics is done, you know, political scientist who was
supposed to know better. Well, there cores plenty of other issues.
There's gold there, there's some rare earth minerals there, not
in Ukraine, but some of them lithium in particular, lithium
is a big deal, and not just for batteries, for
a lot of things like that, to the telecommunications industry,
and that done has a lot to do with it.
The American economy is de industrialized, so it's totally dependent
on its it's capitalists for profit industries invested everywhere from
Vietnam to the Philippines to Mexico to you know, wherever
they can get away with it, including its military production. Yeah,
the oil is not something Your refineries are not going
to work with something that low quality. You may have,
some can be very expensive, take a long time, you know.
Russian Middle Eastern oil is not like that. Lithium is
a big deal. It wasn't a big deal, you know
when it first started, but it is now. But beyond that,
there is this ideological side to this. You have a
firmly nationalist government, conservative socially. I don't know why the
left is claiming that it's theirs. This pisces me off.
I was reading someone with a Hispanic name claiming that
he was a leftist. He was saying why it was
far right? No, Now, this this was a by any measure,
something like a national socialist government, very conservative when it
comes to social issues and the family and private property,
but socialist when it came to you know, things like
a steel industry firm, sovereignty over its currency, its big industries.
Because if you're an all producing country and a steel
producing country, if those are controlled by foreigners, you now
have zero independent So and don't forget Shavez throughout the
I m F, the World Bank and prospered as a result.
These countries that have done that, from Lukashenko to Putin,
to uh Putin many years ago, to chungk Hey Park
to even Cheghai Shek and military government in Taiwan, they're
they're they're standing embarrassments. I have a whole paper where
the US tilted to North Korea when chunk Hei Park
was in office, and it's true they did, including the
Pueblo thing, which the US permitted to happen. Long story,
but uh In in this case to have the so
called Washington consensus, the DeVos consensus, the regime get kicked out,
and then they prosper that you can that can't be
allowed to stand. So things like sanctions and all this stuff, threats,
all the sabotage, and all the same things that they're
doing to destroy the ECAH. You see, that's what that's
what national socials really causes. And so that's don't underestimate that.
That's a that's a big part of it. You know,
the regime can't have its polar opposites doing well. And
we know that we know that the route to prosperity
for a country, and it's that it's worked so many
times and in so many different places around the world,
third world, first world. Doesn't matter that we know the
basic structure of national socialism economically works and it brings prosperity.
Venezuela was in terrible shape in two thousand and eight,
two thousand and seven, she wasn't after ten years of
Chevez and then the thanction started and it wasn't as
if the government was going to not sell its oil
to the US, you know, but that was never an issue.
I remember when I was in early college, when I
was eighteen, I remember the journalists talking about, well, if
Saddam Hussein takes over, takes over Saudi Arabia, he's gonna
put him an embargo on the American purchases of oil. Well,
number one, US doesn't get any oil from there, and
number two, oh, the EU did, and number two, I
would it do that? Why would it deliberately lose money
that way? And there's sort of some of that left
here that you know. And you have a lot of
very powerful people steel and oil industry, including the so
called opposition later herself who lost out. And there's still millionaires.
It's not like they're eating dirt today. She's not eating
cat food. But having her father stealed in plants nationalized
is part of the reason why she's the way she is.
And plus her a whole lifestyle of indulgence that changes you.
That changes because she hasn't heard the word no before
until you know, to get kicked out of the country.
And none of this, you know, none of this is
mentioned in these articles about her. I couldn't see. I
can't watch the Nobel Prize thing about her. I don't
know what kind of speech if she was even there.
I can't I can't even imagine the garbage, the nonsense.
She's an oligarch. No one's going to vote for that program.
No one's going to vote for austerity. They if people
are old enough to live through Chavez, no one's going
to vote for what she has planned. This is a
woman who thinks an invasion is wonderful, that they're great
despite how many you know, the UN one hundred thousand
XS deaths, the misery it has caused. Who's going to
vote for that? So you have to lie about it?
I think probably that's why it's ninety pages. So and
of course you know there's an English version which I've read.
I bet you the English English version came first, was
not written by her, but maybe it was approved by her.
It's very p r ish. So yeah, the oil is
a piece of it. But but that's not that's not
the question. I don't remember. Did Cheves did say an
shoves anything about the Jews? I think he did.
Speaker 1: I'd have to go looking for quotes. I'm not really sure.
Speaker 2: I can't say for sure. I thought he did, but
I'm not. Off the top of my head, I don't know.
So so that's my that's my pitch here. Everything you've heard,
just like everything else. But then is situation is utter nonsense.
And Donald Trump is is even further now weakening his base.
The US isn't going to do anything there. It's not
going to risk getting in the way of those missiles
where there were They're very motivated and enemy that's been
dug in and waiting for this. This is why we
know Aroan won the so called Twelve day War. They
were they were waiting for it. They knew it was
gonna happen. They've been digging in for years, decades. Actually.
I love how the assumption with these wars that they
just leave everything out in the open. You know. Uh,
that's that's the assumption. That's that's how. You know, everything
has been brought underground, removed whatever it is to protect it,
and plans have been put in place that have been
there for decades. And what the hell's five thousand marine
is going to do? Anyway?
Speaker 1: I found some Hugo Chaves quotes. He was vocal critic
of Israel's military actions, particularly during conflicts in Gouza and Lebanon,
which he described as genocide and a new Holocaust. His
government severed diplomatic sides with Israel in two thousand and nine.
He often used the words Jewish and Zionist interchangeably at
practice critics. They blurred the line between political criticism of
Israel and anti Semitism, because Zionism has nothing to do
with Judaism.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: On nothing at all he's had. They say he had
classic anti Semitic themes, like saying they're the descendants of
the ones that crucified Christ and that they can controlled
global wealth. He also used to phrase wandering Jews to
revert refer to the opposition, although his supporters claim that's
just a common metaphor that's used. But uh, well, apparently
there's a there's a Jewish community down there that he
was he actually was kind of friendly with in insofar
as like like the leftist the leftist Jews, like the
Union Jews.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean there's a Jewish community in Iran too. Yeah,
there as far as they're loyal, No one going to
both of them.
Speaker 1: There's a Jewish community in Russia, and I've been I've
been told that because there's a Jewish community in Russia,
that means that Putin is controlled by Jews. And Putin
went to the wall, the whaling wall, and kissed the
wall and everything.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and then he took a picture with members
of Chabad one time, and that picture is an argument,
you know, you know, it's it's true. This is and
oh and the Iranian leadership is all Jewish too, by
the way, I have to deal with this. I have
to deal with this though, you know, I chose to
do this stuff full time. You know, there's there's a
there's a point which I just can't But yeah, I
knew that he was like that, and that reminds me. Actually,
what's her name, the opposition figure, Mahadow Machado actually went
to Nannah before the war of course started, uh, seeking
military assistance to overthrow the government. That was on a
global research site. I haven't put that in the paper.
I just I just discovered that recently. So, uh, you know,
she is heavily Judaized obviously, Corina is her is her well?
Speaker 1: Douglas Colonel Douglas McGregor said in an interview with Chucker
Carlson that she said that her the first thing she
would do if she took over as leader of the
country was move the move the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had forgotten about that in my
in my lengthy discussion here. But yeah, so you know,
now we're getting to the to the deeper reasons for
the antipathy for the country. You know, powerful Jews, you know,
run much of the economy, run you know, they're they're
the majority of both parties donors. I mean, we have
to take that seriously. That matters. Yeah, I knew, I
knew he was saying. I couldn't remember the top of
my head, but I knew I had a feeling he
had said he had said things against the Jews in
one way or another. Javez did well.
Speaker 1: I mean it's he's a Latin American leader who hasn't
in Latin America.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but this adds to the thing. This is
a national socialist government that took a poverty stricken country
to on its way to development. Today without American interference,
of course, it would be a first World nation. Uh.
And poor Saves died so young? What was it? A
pancre pancreatic? Where did he die of?
Speaker 1: I don't remember.
Speaker 2: I thought he got of cancer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's say.
Speaker 2: Uh. But so he was fairly.
Speaker 1: Battling tough illness for nearly two years. Say, died of
a massive heart attack and his cancer. He had cancer
in the pelvic region, which had advanced when he died.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I knew cancer was in there somewhere. How
old was he? I don't remember. He was fairly young.
I think he was well up.
Speaker 1: Ye jeez. Yeah. He was born in nineteen fifty four
or so. Yeah, he died at uh he was fifty eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's you know, that's very young. He was
an extremely popular figure. His successors would be two. Of course,
no one's as charismatics as well. You can't expect that
from Maduro or anyone else, any other member of the party.
Speaker 1: He just was.
Speaker 2: He was a character. He was funny. Then he was
a beloved figure and a military man. Uh so he
was a parachutist, he was airborne. So yeah, the US,
the US is is really it's messing it's messing with
with uh it's it's playing with fire as a slogan
goes as far as but it hasn't done other than
you know, killing these people. I don't know. I don't
know if they were all Venezuela and citizens. I have
no idea. They're not saying anything. We have no evidence
from it. They just claim that they're They did the
same thing in Afghanistan. They blow up a building and
they'd say that was a Taliban heroin you know, distribution
plays I'm supposed to take there, despite the fact that
they had banned it, and there's a fat wall against it.
I'm supposed to take their word for but that happens
all the time. The New York Times says it.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get out of here. I will put
all the same links I always put in for the
two hundred Years episodes and encourage you to go to
the show notes and the description to donate to doctor
Johnson's work, and we'll be back in a couple of
days to do episode eighty eight of two hundred Years together.
All right, all right, doctor john said, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: All Right, my friends talk to you then, bye bye.