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Hope and US Aid at the Border: the title of a recent New York Times video deodorizes the US attempt to overthrow President Maduro of socialist Venezuela and replace him with a hand-picked member of the Venezuelan elite, capitalist class.
As the major media presents it, the US is altruistically rushing to feed a people in economic crisis. And, of course, our government knows what is best for the Venezuelan people (just as we did for Afghani, Iraqi and Vietnamese peoples). Yet, photos of mass rallies reveal that millions of darker-skinned - indigenous and mixed-race Venezuelans, of poorer classes support their elected president, while smaller number of white descendants of early Spanish colonizers back the US-selected and designated new president, a legislator named Juan Guaido. Our troops and aid anywhere near Venezuela smell like regime change.
Our troops and aid anywhere near Venezuela smell like regime change.
How to make sense of this?
First, let's acknowledge a major contradiction at the heart of our Trojan horse of "humanitarian aid" at the Venezuelan border. Trump has fixated on pulling the US out of UN treaties, UN agencies, maybe NATO, Syria and Afghanistan, with the mantra that we need to stop fixing the world. Why then stir up a new conflict in South America? If we want to give aid, give it through the Red Cross, already in Venezuela.
Second, what menace is Venezuela to us? None at all, but as with Cuba, the US government is struck apoplectic by socialism, as if it is a threat to our national security. Well maybe it is, if we consider national security in its truest sense of human well-being and security. Venezuela, like Cuba and the social democrat countries of Europe, dramatically lowered child poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy, and homelessness when compared to the wealthier US. Here youth poverty, infant mortality, incarceration, income inequality and obesity are highest of all the developed countries.
Why has our government compounded its crushing economic sanctions on Venezuela, while offering crumbs in humanitarian aid?
Further, if the Trump administration cares so about the looming economic crisis in Venezuela and the growing need for food and medications, why have they assisted Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen, which has generated the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Why have they left Puerto Rico to wither and waste away from the devastation of Hurricane Maria? Why have they callously separated migrant children fleeing violence in Central American from their parents? And why has our government compounded its crushing economic sanctions on Venezuela, while offering crumbs in humanitarian aid.
Finally, it's not possible to dissociate our intrusion into Venezuelan politics from oil, given that country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. National Security Advisor John Bolton couldn't have been clearer when he recently broadcast that we are there to take Venezuela's oil. Have we learned nothing from our war in Iraq and the CIA-induced overthrow in 1953 of the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, after he nationalized Iran's oil?
The arc of U.S. militarism across the 20th century and into the 21st is neither moral nor does it bend toward justice. At each end of this ongoing arc, the words of two military veterans of U.S. foreign wars distill and corroborate the US history of imperial reach. Brigadier General Smedley Butler, born in 1881, began his career as a teenage Marine combat soldier assigned to Cuba and Puerto Rico during the US invasion of those islands. He fought next in the US war in the Philippines, ostensibly against Spanish imperialism but ultimately against the Philippine revolution for independence. He gained the highest rank and a host of medals during subsequent US occupations and military interventions in Central America and the Caribbean, popularly known as the Banana Wars.
War is the oldest, most profitable racket, he wrote - one in which billions of dollars are made for millions of lives destroyed.
As Butler confessed in his iconoclastic book War Is a Racket, he was "a bully boy for American corporations," making countries safe for U.S. capitalism. More an isolationist than anti-war, he nonetheless nailed the war profiteers - racketeers, in his unsparing lexicon - for the blood on their hands. War is the oldest, most profitable racket, he wrote - one in which billions of dollars are made for millions of lives destroyed.
Making the world "safe for democracy" was, at its core, making the world safe for war profits. Of diplomacy Butler wrote, "The State Department...is always talking about peace but thinking about war." He proposed an "Amendment for Peace": In essence, keep military (Army, Navy, Air Force) on the continental U.S. for purpose of defense against military invasions here.
In the 21st century, Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan, proposes that the Department of Defense should be renamed the Department of Offense. His reasons: American troops are deployed in 70 percent of the world's countries; American pilots are currently bombing 7 countries; and the U.S., alone among nations, has divided the six inhabited continents into six military commands. Our military operations exceed U.S. national interests and are "unmoored" from reasoned strategy and our society's needs, he concludes.
The enlightenment of another Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, Kevin Tillman, pierces the benighted world of Washington. "As one of the soldiers who illegally invaded Iraq...I know an illegal coup/invasion when I see one...if Venezuelans believe [their president] Maduro has mismanaged the nation's most valuable asset [oil], it is their right to seek change, but this is not a right enjoyed by Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi or Elliot Abrams."
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Hope and US Aid at the Border: the title of a recent New York Times video deodorizes the US attempt to overthrow President Maduro of socialist Venezuela and replace him with a hand-picked member of the Venezuelan elite, capitalist class.
As the major media presents it, the US is altruistically rushing to feed a people in economic crisis. And, of course, our government knows what is best for the Venezuelan people (just as we did for Afghani, Iraqi and Vietnamese peoples). Yet, photos of mass rallies reveal that millions of darker-skinned - indigenous and mixed-race Venezuelans, of poorer classes support their elected president, while smaller number of white descendants of early Spanish colonizers back the US-selected and designated new president, a legislator named Juan Guaido. Our troops and aid anywhere near Venezuela smell like regime change.
Our troops and aid anywhere near Venezuela smell like regime change.
How to make sense of this?
First, let's acknowledge a major contradiction at the heart of our Trojan horse of "humanitarian aid" at the Venezuelan border. Trump has fixated on pulling the US out of UN treaties, UN agencies, maybe NATO, Syria and Afghanistan, with the mantra that we need to stop fixing the world. Why then stir up a new conflict in South America? If we want to give aid, give it through the Red Cross, already in Venezuela.
Second, what menace is Venezuela to us? None at all, but as with Cuba, the US government is struck apoplectic by socialism, as if it is a threat to our national security. Well maybe it is, if we consider national security in its truest sense of human well-being and security. Venezuela, like Cuba and the social democrat countries of Europe, dramatically lowered child poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy, and homelessness when compared to the wealthier US. Here youth poverty, infant mortality, incarceration, income inequality and obesity are highest of all the developed countries.
Why has our government compounded its crushing economic sanctions on Venezuela, while offering crumbs in humanitarian aid?
Further, if the Trump administration cares so about the looming economic crisis in Venezuela and the growing need for food and medications, why have they assisted Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen, which has generated the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Why have they left Puerto Rico to wither and waste away from the devastation of Hurricane Maria? Why have they callously separated migrant children fleeing violence in Central American from their parents? And why has our government compounded its crushing economic sanctions on Venezuela, while offering crumbs in humanitarian aid.
Finally, it's not possible to dissociate our intrusion into Venezuelan politics from oil, given that country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. National Security Advisor John Bolton couldn't have been clearer when he recently broadcast that we are there to take Venezuela's oil. Have we learned nothing from our war in Iraq and the CIA-induced overthrow in 1953 of the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, after he nationalized Iran's oil?
The arc of U.S. militarism across the 20th century and into the 21st is neither moral nor does it bend toward justice. At each end of this ongoing arc, the words of two military veterans of U.S. foreign wars distill and corroborate the US history of imperial reach. Brigadier General Smedley Butler, born in 1881, began his career as a teenage Marine combat soldier assigned to Cuba and Puerto Rico during the US invasion of those islands. He fought next in the US war in the Philippines, ostensibly against Spanish imperialism but ultimately against the Philippine revolution for independence. He gained the highest rank and a host of medals during subsequent US occupations and military interventions in Central America and the Caribbean, popularly known as the Banana Wars.
War is the oldest, most profitable racket, he wrote - one in which billions of dollars are made for millions of lives destroyed.
As Butler confessed in his iconoclastic book War Is a Racket, he was "a bully boy for American corporations," making countries safe for U.S. capitalism. More an isolationist than anti-war, he nonetheless nailed the war profiteers - racketeers, in his unsparing lexicon - for the blood on their hands. War is the oldest, most profitable racket, he wrote - one in which billions of dollars are made for millions of lives destroyed.
Making the world "safe for democracy" was, at its core, making the world safe for war profits. Of diplomacy Butler wrote, "The State Department...is always talking about peace but thinking about war." He proposed an "Amendment for Peace": In essence, keep military (Army, Navy, Air Force) on the continental U.S. for purpose of defense against military invasions here.
In the 21st century, Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan, proposes that the Department of Defense should be renamed the Department of Offense. His reasons: American troops are deployed in 70 percent of the world's countries; American pilots are currently bombing 7 countries; and the U.S., alone among nations, has divided the six inhabited continents into six military commands. Our military operations exceed U.S. national interests and are "unmoored" from reasoned strategy and our society's needs, he concludes.
The enlightenment of another Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, Kevin Tillman, pierces the benighted world of Washington. "As one of the soldiers who illegally invaded Iraq...I know an illegal coup/invasion when I see one...if Venezuelans believe [their president] Maduro has mismanaged the nation's most valuable asset [oil], it is their right to seek change, but this is not a right enjoyed by Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi or Elliot Abrams."
Hope and US Aid at the Border: the title of a recent New York Times video deodorizes the US attempt to overthrow President Maduro of socialist Venezuela and replace him with a hand-picked member of the Venezuelan elite, capitalist class.
As the major media presents it, the US is altruistically rushing to feed a people in economic crisis. And, of course, our government knows what is best for the Venezuelan people (just as we did for Afghani, Iraqi and Vietnamese peoples). Yet, photos of mass rallies reveal that millions of darker-skinned - indigenous and mixed-race Venezuelans, of poorer classes support their elected president, while smaller number of white descendants of early Spanish colonizers back the US-selected and designated new president, a legislator named Juan Guaido. Our troops and aid anywhere near Venezuela smell like regime change.
Our troops and aid anywhere near Venezuela smell like regime change.
How to make sense of this?
First, let's acknowledge a major contradiction at the heart of our Trojan horse of "humanitarian aid" at the Venezuelan border. Trump has fixated on pulling the US out of UN treaties, UN agencies, maybe NATO, Syria and Afghanistan, with the mantra that we need to stop fixing the world. Why then stir up a new conflict in South America? If we want to give aid, give it through the Red Cross, already in Venezuela.
Second, what menace is Venezuela to us? None at all, but as with Cuba, the US government is struck apoplectic by socialism, as if it is a threat to our national security. Well maybe it is, if we consider national security in its truest sense of human well-being and security. Venezuela, like Cuba and the social democrat countries of Europe, dramatically lowered child poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy, and homelessness when compared to the wealthier US. Here youth poverty, infant mortality, incarceration, income inequality and obesity are highest of all the developed countries.
Why has our government compounded its crushing economic sanctions on Venezuela, while offering crumbs in humanitarian aid?
Further, if the Trump administration cares so about the looming economic crisis in Venezuela and the growing need for food and medications, why have they assisted Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen, which has generated the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Why have they left Puerto Rico to wither and waste away from the devastation of Hurricane Maria? Why have they callously separated migrant children fleeing violence in Central American from their parents? And why has our government compounded its crushing economic sanctions on Venezuela, while offering crumbs in humanitarian aid.
Finally, it's not possible to dissociate our intrusion into Venezuelan politics from oil, given that country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. National Security Advisor John Bolton couldn't have been clearer when he recently broadcast that we are there to take Venezuela's oil. Have we learned nothing from our war in Iraq and the CIA-induced overthrow in 1953 of the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, after he nationalized Iran's oil?
The arc of U.S. militarism across the 20th century and into the 21st is neither moral nor does it bend toward justice. At each end of this ongoing arc, the words of two military veterans of U.S. foreign wars distill and corroborate the US history of imperial reach. Brigadier General Smedley Butler, born in 1881, began his career as a teenage Marine combat soldier assigned to Cuba and Puerto Rico during the US invasion of those islands. He fought next in the US war in the Philippines, ostensibly against Spanish imperialism but ultimately against the Philippine revolution for independence. He gained the highest rank and a host of medals during subsequent US occupations and military interventions in Central America and the Caribbean, popularly known as the Banana Wars.
War is the oldest, most profitable racket, he wrote - one in which billions of dollars are made for millions of lives destroyed.
As Butler confessed in his iconoclastic book War Is a Racket, he was "a bully boy for American corporations," making countries safe for U.S. capitalism. More an isolationist than anti-war, he nonetheless nailed the war profiteers - racketeers, in his unsparing lexicon - for the blood on their hands. War is the oldest, most profitable racket, he wrote - one in which billions of dollars are made for millions of lives destroyed.
Making the world "safe for democracy" was, at its core, making the world safe for war profits. Of diplomacy Butler wrote, "The State Department...is always talking about peace but thinking about war." He proposed an "Amendment for Peace": In essence, keep military (Army, Navy, Air Force) on the continental U.S. for purpose of defense against military invasions here.
In the 21st century, Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan, proposes that the Department of Defense should be renamed the Department of Offense. His reasons: American troops are deployed in 70 percent of the world's countries; American pilots are currently bombing 7 countries; and the U.S., alone among nations, has divided the six inhabited continents into six military commands. Our military operations exceed U.S. national interests and are "unmoored" from reasoned strategy and our society's needs, he concludes.
The enlightenment of another Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, Kevin Tillman, pierces the benighted world of Washington. "As one of the soldiers who illegally invaded Iraq...I know an illegal coup/invasion when I see one...if Venezuelans believe [their president] Maduro has mismanaged the nation's most valuable asset [oil], it is their right to seek change, but this is not a right enjoyed by Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi or Elliot Abrams."
"Even if it turns out to be structured to avoid antitrust law enforcement, it plainly will concentrate power in a small number of corporate hands," said Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday highlighted a new private-sector initiative to invest as much as $500 billion over four years into developing infrastructure to support artificial intelligence, starting with a raft of power-intensive data centers in Texas. The move drew swift criticism from one watchdog group on antitrust and environmental grounds.
The initiative, Stargate, is a joint venture of the tech firms OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. Trump hosted the leaders of those companies—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son—at the White House to announce the initiative just one day after he signed an executive order rolling back a Biden-era executive order implemented in 2023 that sought to put safeguards on AI.
"I think this will be the most important project of this era," said Altman, according to the Washington Post. "We wouldn't be able to do this without you, Mr. President," he added, though both the Post and and the Associated Press noted that the creation of the partnership predated Trump's return to the White House.
Biden's 2023 executive order on AI placed safety obligations on AI developers and called on federal agencies to examine the technology's risks. But Biden, too, was interested in boosting AI infrastructure development. Right before he departed, in early mid-January, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to identify government sites that could be leased to private companies for the construction of AI data centers.
Environmental groups and tech advocacy groups have long advocated for greater safeguards on AI, pointing to the technology's potential impact on the climate emergency.
The average query in the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT requires 10 times the amount of energy a Google search needs, and "in that difference lies a coming sea change in how the U.S., Europe, and the world at large will consume power—and how much that will cost," according to a 2024 analysis published by the investment firm Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs analysts believe that AI will represent about 19% of data center power demand by 2028.
AI infrastructure is also water intensive. Global AI demand is projected to require more water extraction in a year than the country of Denmark by 2027, according to one study.
"The alarming surge in these centers' energy demand is on track to extend the fossil fuel era... [and] it is already increasing costs for some consumers and threatens to bring about a larger affordability crisis, while lining the pockets of Big Tech billionaires," said Karen Orenstein, a director at the environmental group Friends of the Earth, following Biden's January executive order. "For the sake of our planet and its people, we need to rein in Big Tech and regulate AI," she said.
Meanwhile, the joint venture to build out AI infrastructure has also drawn scrutiny from one watchdog group over concerns of corporate concentration.
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman said Wednesday that "the new Stargate plan—at minimum—raises massive antitrust concerns. Even if it turns out to be structured to avoid antitrust law enforcement, it plainly will concentrate power in a small number of corporate hands."
"Absent a commitment to bring on new, renewable energy to power an even greater spike in AI power demand, the Stargate build out threatens to worsen the rush to climate catastrophe and to drive up consumer electric bills," he added.
Another observer, Jeffrey Westling of the American Action Forum, remarked on the timing of the announcement.
"Interesting to wait to announce this until the Trump Admin. Assuming its all private investment, maybe they were worried about FTC/DOJ antitrust scrutiny?" he wrote on X Tuesday.
"All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said during his address at an annual gathering of global elites on Wednesday that the world's addiction to fossil fuels has become an all-consuming "Frankenstein monster" imperiling hopes of a livable future.
"All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master. We just endured the hottest year and the hottest decade in history," Guterres said to the audience gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"A number of financial institutions and industries are backtracking on climate commitments," Guterres continued. "Here at Davos, I want to say loudly and clearly: It is short-sighted. And paradoxically, it is selfish and also self-defeating. You are on the wrong side of history. You are on the wrong side of science. And you are on the wrong side of consumers who are looking for more sustainability, not less. This warning certainly also applies to the fossil fuel industry and advertising, lobbying, and PR companies who are aiding, abetting, and greenwashing."
"Global heating is racing forward—we cannot afford to move backward," he added.
Guterres' remarks came as President Donald Trump, a fervent ally of the fossil fuel industry, took office in the U.S.—the largest historical emitter—and moved immediately to expand oil and gas production, which was already at record levels.
The U.S. is among a number of rich nations working to build out fossil fuel infrastructure and ramp up production in the face of runaway warming and worsening climate destruction across the globe.
Intensifying climate chaos—and global elites' disproportionate contributions to the planetary crisis—spurred several protests inside and near the Davos forum this week, with activists demanding higher taxes on the mega-rich and a rapid, just transition to renewable energy.
A climate protester calls for taxes on the rich during the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland on January 21, 2025. (Photo: Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images)
"It is more than obvious that the super-rich must pay their fair share," Clara Thompson, a Greenpeace spokesperson in Davos, said earlier this week. "Especially when they are among the largest contributors to the climate crisis."
"It shouldn't be the people, already struggling to make ends meet, who have to foot the bill and suffer the consequences of worsening climate impacts," Thompson added. "The scarcity narrative is simply not true—there is enough money to fund a just and green future for all but it is just in the wrong pockets."
"In the coming months and years, our job is not just to respond to every absurd statement that Donald Trump makes. Our job is to stay focused on the issues that are of importance to the working families of our country."
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump posed in a garbage truck and performed a staged shift at a McDonald's as he postured as a champion of the working class.
But Trump "ignored virtually every important issue facing the working families of this country" during his inaugural address, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted Tuesday in video remarks recorded after he attended the event, which was packed with prominent billionaires and corporate executives—some of whom the president has chosen to serve in his Cabinet.
"How crazy is that? Our healthcare system is dysfunctional and it's wildly expensive," said Sanders. "Not one word from Trump about how he is going to address the healthcare crisis. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs—sometimes 10 times more than the people in other countries, and one out of four Americans are unable to afford the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe. Not one word in his speech on the high cost of prescription drugs."
"We have 800,000 Americans who are homeless and millions and millions of people spending 50 or 60% of their limited income on housing. We have a major housing crisis in America, everybody knows it—and Trump in his inaugural address did not devote one word to it," Sanders continued. "Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had... but Trump had nothing to say, not one word, about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else."
Watch Sanders' full remarks:
Upon taking office, Trump immediately launched sweeping attacks on immigrant families, the environment, and the federal workforce, with more expected in the near future.
Trump also rolled back a Biden executive order aimed at lowering prescription drug prices.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Sanders said that "in the coming months and years, our job is not just to respond to every absurd statement that Donald Trump makes."
"Our job is to stay focused on the issues that are of importance to the working families of our country, and are in fact widely supported by the American people," said Sanders, pointing to broad backing for guaranteeing healthcare to all as a right, slashing drug prices, tackling the housing crisis, raising the long-stagnant federal minimum wage, and taking bold action against the climate emergency.
"No matter how many executive orders he signs and no matter how many absurd statements he makes, our goal remains the same," the senator added. "We have got to educate, we have got to organize, we have got to put pressure on Congress to do the right things."