About Us |
Subscribe | Contact & Submission info |
Volunteer

Published on Wednesday, May 01, 2019

by Common Dreams

Biden Sides With Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo in Backing Coup Effort in Venezuela

Democratic frontrunner characterizes effort to overthrow elected goverment of President Nicolas Maduro at gunpoint just another benign effort to "restore democracy" in Latin America

  by  Jon Queally, staff writer

Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden makes a stop at the The Cone Shoppe while campaigning on April 30, 2019 in Monticello, Iowa. Biden is on his first visit to the state since announcing that he was officially seeking the Democratic nomination for president. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Despite progressive critics and anti-war voices speaking forcefully against the Trump administration's overt backing of the attempted coup d'état by rightwing opposition forces in Venezuela on Tuesday, 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden aligned himself with the White House by throwing his support behind the overthrow effort.

"The violence in Venezuela today against peaceful protesters is criminal," Biden tweeted on Tuesday. "Maduro's regime is responsible for incredible suffering. The U.S. must stand with the National Assembly & Guaidó in their efforts to restore democracy through legitimate, internationally monitored elections."

But what Biden embraced as an effort to "restore democracy," many foreign policy experts—ones not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to people like national security advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and President Donald Trump—called something else entirely: a violent effort by Venezuela's rightwing elites, led by Juan Guaidó, to overthrow the elected government of President Nicols Maduro.

In subsequent comments during a campaign stop, Biden called for "calm" in Venezuela but also repeated the White House position that Maduro is not—despite his win in last year's contested elections which the opposition largely boycotted—the legitimate leader of Venezuela:

Biden wasn't alone among top Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others also expressed support for the military uprising launched by Guaidó.

For critics, however, one of the salient dynamics about Biden's announced support for the U.S.-backed coup in Venezuela in 2019 is what it suggests the former vice president has learned—or rather has not learned—about U.S. intervention (aka "meddling") in the affairs of foreign nations since his support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Interviewed by Democracy Now! early on Wednesday, economist and foreign policy expert Jeffrey Sachs, who directs the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and Professor Miguel Tinker Salas of Pomona College discussed what they both agree is the dangerous and counterproductive agenda that leaders like Trump, Bolten, Biden, and Pelosi are now pushing in Venezuela.

"What's so stupid about these American policies, these neocon policies," said Sachs, "is they do create disaster, but they don't achieve even the political goals of these nasty people like Bolton. It's not as if they're effective and nasty; they're completely ineffective and totally nasty at the same time."

While acknowledging that Maduro has certainly made mistakes and legitimate criticisms of his government exist, Tinker Salas said the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America—not to mention elsewhere in the world— shows overthrowing governments in this manner "doesn't produce the change that most people want. And what it does is it aggravates conditions for the majority of the population."

Sachs—who last week released a detailed study along with economist Mark Weisbrot on the devastating impact that U.S.-imposed sanctions have had on the Venezuelan economy—added that people backing Guaidó and the coup effort are really just embracing "normal U.S. right-wing foreign policy, nothing different."

"This is the same foreign policy that we saw throughout Latin America in the 20th century," Sachs added. "It's the same foreign policy that we saw catastrophically in the Middle East. This is Mr. Bolton. This is Mr. Bolton's idea of diplomacy. This is Trump's idea of diplomacy. You punch someone in the face. You crush your opponent. You try whatever way you can to get your way. It's very simpleminded. It's very crude."

"And," concluded Sachs, "it never works. It just leads to catastrophe."

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.


 

NEWS ANALYSIS

ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH

Federal Court’s “Disastrous” Affordable Care Act Ruling Only Bolsters Case for Medicare for All, Advocates Say

The audience waves signs as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during his event to introduce the Medicare for All Act of 2017 on September 13, 2017.

BY

A federal judge’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) violates the US Constitution alarmed healthcare advocates Friday, but left most unconcerned that the judge would succeed in taking away health coverage from 20 million Americans—and only served to bolster the argument for a Medicare for All system that would provide every American with the kind of free healthcare that’s available in other developed countries.

Handing down his ruling in a lawsuit filed this year by Republican governors and attorneys general, Federal District Court Judge Reed O’Connor said Friday night in Ft. Worth, Texas that the ACA’s individual mandate requiring all Americans to buy insurance is unconstitutional and cannot be considered a tax, invalidating the rest of the law.

Healthcare advocates, though admitting that the ruling will likely be repealed, quickly addressed the concern that the attack on the ACA could harm 133 million Americans who rely on the law’s rule banning insurance companies from refusing coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and the 20 million Americans who gained insurance because of the law.

But the ongoing court battles over the law are likely to proceed eventually to the Supreme Court, where President Donald Trump’s appointees, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, could rule against the law.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose Medicare for All bill now has 15 co-sponsors in the Senate, demanded that O’Connor’s ruling be overturned to protect the millions of people who rely on the ACA, and was among those who called for the country to “move forward” from battles over healthcare access—instead prioritizing the availability of government-sponsored healthcare for every American.

Uncompromised, uncompromising news

Get reliable, independent news and commentary delivered to your inbox every day. 

 

PUBLISHED

December 16, 2018

Breaking News: A federal judge struck down the Affordable Care Act, ruling that its mandate requiring people to buy health insurance was unconstitutional 


https://nyti.ms/2ExBbbg 

Public Citizen✔@Public_Citizen

Republicans should be careful what they wish for. If the Supreme Court ultimately strikes down the Affordable Care Act, it will speed the day when America finally moves to Medicare for All.

Public Citizen✔@Public_Citizen

New York magazine journalist David Freedlander portrayed the attack on the ACA as a sign that Republican courts would also likely immediately try to dismantle the bolder, more progressive Medicare for All law should it be passed.

“In light of yesterday’s ACA ruling, any 2020 candidate pushing Medicare for All needs to explain how they will get it past a Court willing to toss out a law passed ten years ago by large congressional majorities,” Freedlander wrote Saturday.

Washington Post columnist Dave Weigel quickly responded, however, that the comparatively straightforward Medicare for All plan, in which the broadly popular Medicare program would be expanded, would involve far fewer provisions for Republicans to quibble over.

The Republicans’ repeated attacks on the laws—including their repeal attempt which resulted in a nationwide outcry, with the disability rights group ADAPT leading hundreds of Americans in protests on Capitol Hill—may bring Democrats closer to an opportunity to push through a Medicare for All bill.

Dave Weigel✔@daveweigel

Most interesting political aspect of these ACA lawsuits IMO is the moral hazard it hands the Democrats. Their *compromise* health care bill gets calvinball'd through courts for a decade? Okay, next time they'll just use reconciliation to expand Medicare and Medicaid.

At Vox.com, Ezra Klein also called the ruling a “boon” to Medicare for All, whose support among Americans has skyrocketed in the last several years, with 70 percent of those surveyed in a recent Reuters poll reporting that they approved of the proposal.

Ezra Klein✔@ezraklein

I don't think this kind of nonsense is going to kill the Affordable Care Act. But the continued assault on Obamacare is very much why Democrats are going to pass some version of Medicare-for-All next time they hold power.

“Nearly a decade of constant and cynical assault on what was supposed to be a compromise bill has pushed the Democratic Party left on health care policy, and persuaded Democrats everywhere that trying to compromise or placate Republicans is foolish,” wrote Klein. “The legacy of the GOP’s Obamacare repeal strategy won’t be the Affordable Care Act’s destruction, but Medicare-for-all’s construction.

“This is doubly true if Republicans somehow succeed in this case. Imagine a world where Judge O’Connor’s ruling is upheld. In that world, a Republican judge cuts tens of millions of people off health insurance mere weeks after Republicans lost a midterm election for merely trying to cut those people off health insurance,” he continued. “The aftermath of that would be a political massacre for the GOP, and a straightforward mandate for Democrats to rebuild the health system along the lines they prefer.”

YES, I’LL CHIP IN

Hey, got a second?

Whether you read Truthout often or are new to our site, you probably share our repulsion with the Trump administration and want to see real change by 2020.

Too much is at stake to not do everything we can to help.

This is Truthout’s most important fundraising month and we urgently need to raise $200,000 to stay strong. If everyone reading this chipped in five bucks we'd be able to end our fundraiser today and have enough funds to expand our coverage and our team.

If you care about our work or just agree that we need a stronger press in the fight to reclaim our democracy, please take 30 seconds to help!

     

Navigation:

Navigation: FrontPage / Activism / Interactive Calendar / Donate / Flyer / YouTube / Poster / Subscribe / Place Ad / Ad Rates /
                  Online Ads / Advertising / Twitter / News! / Previous Issues /