Carl,
I would amend your analysis by pointing out that the US chose to expand to the
south, rather than to the north, because all of the people who lived south of
it were brown skinned and, therefore, not entitled to live freely in their
homes and benefit from the fruits of their labor. Many of the Spanish actually
mixed with the native populations that they conquered. But the English, to the
north, did mot mix with the native population they found there. So to citizens
of our country, Canada was a respectable country, not to be messed with. But
all of those Indians and mixed breed folks to our south, were quite another
matter.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 9:22 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Trump's Tough New Sanctions Will Harm The People
Of Venezuela
As part of the Great Western Expansion, the American Empire came smack dab up
against the Pacific Ocean. What to do. Not spoiling for another pissing match
with Jolly Old England, the Empire shied away from grabbing chunks of Canada.
So the natural thing to do was to head South. After hacking off chunks of
Mexico...probably because those Mexicans were trying to get into the USA even
back then, we picked a fight with a down at the heels Spain. We came away with
Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines. And then we headed South to Central
America and on into South America. Even as the Empire plotted on how to grab
off exclusive trade rights with Japan and China, the American Empire plunged
headlong into exploiting all of Latin America.
Through their usual up front techniques of lies, deception, sneaky back
stabbing and pretense, the Empire managed to shove a whole lot of money into
their private accounts before any major protests arose.
It's a record of such horror and murder, that it would take far more time and
space than we share here. But if some of you recall a book back in the 50's
titled , The Ugly American, then you have a pretty good picture of how the
Proud Americans were seen in the eyes of not only Latin America, but by the
entire international community. Sure, it's true that being the Town Bully is
lonely, but it's worth a huge fortune.
And now we've put a real estate profiteer turned Emperor, darting and jabbing
and cursing anything that moves. These next 3 plus years are going to be one
wild ride.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/31/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Trump's Tough New Sanctions Will Harm The People Of Venezuela
C Getty Images
By Mark Weisbrot, www.thehill.com
August 29th, 2017
Abvoe Photo: C Getty Images
Note: The new US sanctions against Venezuela are part of a US campaign
for regime change since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1999. The
US-Venezuela Oligarchs undermining of the economy is a tool the US has
used in other regime change operations. The economy of Venezuela was
handling the US-oligarch attack until the tremendous drop in the price
of oil from $150 a barrel to under $50 a barrel. But, do not think
these sanctions are anything other than economic warfare with the goal
of changing the government of Venezuela to one that is friendly to the
United States and its corporate interests. KZ
The Trump administration announced new, unprecedented sanctionsagainst
Venezuela on Friday that are designed to cut off financing to Venezuela.
The
Trump team pretends that the sanctions are only directed at the government.
But as any economist knows, this is clearly false. By starving the
economy of foreign exchange, this action will harm the private sector,
most Venezuelans, the poor and the vulnerable.
These sanctions will deepen the severe depression that Venezuela's
economy has been in for more than three and a half years, which has
already shrunk income per person by more than a third. They will
worsen the shortages of food and essential medicines. They will
exacerbate the country's balance of payments crisis, and therefore
feed the spiral of inflation (600 percent over the past year) and
depreciation of the currency (on the black market) that has been accelerating
since late 2012.
And they will further polarize an already divided country. Opposition
leaders who support the sanctions, or are associated with them because
of their longstanding ties to the United States, will be seen as
treasonous - much as Republicans in the Trump administration,
including Trump himself, are portrayed by those who believe they
collaborated with the Russian government to win the 2016 election.
Trump's sanctions are also illegal under both U.S. and international law.
They violate the charter of the Organization of American States
(Chapter 4, Article 19) and other international treaties that the U.S.
has signed. To comply with U.S. law, the president also has to lie and
say that Americans are suffering from a "national emergency" due to an
"unusual and extraordinary threat to national security" posed by
Venezuela. This is obviously ridiculous.
The sanctions do their damage primarily by prohibiting Venezuela from
borrowing or selling assets in the U.S. financial system. They also
prohibit CITGO, the U.S.-based fuel industry company that is owned by
the Venezuelan government, from sending dividends or profits back to
Venezuela. In addition, if Venezuela wanted to do a debt
restructuring, so as to reduce debt service during the current crisis,
it would be unable to do this because it wouldn't be able to issue new
bonds.
Basically, Trump's executive order will cut off most sources of
potential financing, other than from Russia or China. This would cause
imports, which have already fallen by more than 75 percent over the
past five years, to fall further. This means more shortages and
further economic decline, since much of Venezuela's domestic
production is dependent on imports. The executive order carries an exemption
for oil imports from Venezuela.
Why would Trump do something that even his right-wing allies in Latin
America, and most of the Venezuelan opposition, did not support when
Trump threatened to do this last month? As with many apparently
irrational decisions by this president, it's not that easy to know for
sure. But it seems that the strategy is to further destroy the economy
to the point where people will rise up and overthrow the government,
or perhaps to provoke a military coup.
In the last few weeks, the violent street protests have died down.
Most of the opposition leaders have agreed to participate in the
long-delayed October regional elections. This is a positive
development for those who would like to see a peaceful resolution of
the conflict. But for regime-change extremists like Marco Rubio, whom
Trump seems to be listening to on Venezuela, peace is bad news,
especially for the media strategy of "if it bleeds, it leads." They
may see exacerbating the economic crisis and suffering to their
advantage, hoping to bring people back into the streets and away from
the negotiations that will be necessary to settle the conflict.
Finally, we cannot discount the possibility that Trump has also issued
this order as yet another distraction from his bad political fortunes at home.
Distraction has been his modus operandi since his presidential
campaign last year. In this case it is particularly dangerous because
he has also threatened military action against Venezuela, and U.S.
sanctions of this magnitude have often been followed by military
attacks.
As Trump's presidency continues to putrefy, the urge to rescue it with
war will certainly grow. Venezuela is not the best target for public
relations purposes because the "security threat" is a tough sell. But
Trump and his advisers may see it as less risky than some of the
alternatives, such as North Korea, Iran or Syria.