Ben Norton on Venezuela’s history

Ben NortonThe following video is an excellent interview with Ben Norton, a fluent Spanish-speaker who has spent a lot of time in Venezuela, reporting and investigating economics and politics. He knows a lot of people there, and has many friends there. He says that the opposition in Venezuela, which on the tip of everyone’s tongue in the U.S., is negligible in Venezuela. They have no real presence, not even online. They are very marginal.

Those are the two parts of the narrative that are being pushed very hard: Maduro wasn’t even the president because their elections were a fraud, and also the opposition has just as much legitimacy to rule as the elected government. None of this is relevant, of course. Even if the opposition had no support among the people, the oligarchs of Venezuela, who co-own much of the media with the CIA, have outsized power relative to their numbers.

Why the U.S. Keeps Targeting Venezuela: Oil, Empire & China’s Influence | Ben Norton by India & Global Left (YouTube)

Norton, as is his wont, recounts the entire last 25 years of history of economic warfare and coups on Venezuela, and how it relates to other, similar actions throughout the world. Venezuela is not an isolated case.

He says that now, after 11 years of suffering under crippling sanctions—and from the worst inflation that he had ever personally experienced—Venezuela’s economy had become the second-fastest-growing economy in South America, mostly thanks to an influx of contracts with China and the Global South. The U.S. couldn’t abide that, of course, because they’d been trying to strangle it into giving up its oil.

Now, they’re hijacking oil tankers, they’ve kidnapped the president, but they’re still quite a ways away from having control over the oil. They do have control over Venezuela’s ability to refine their crude oil, though, as most of the refineries for the level of crude oil are in Texas. There is one in China and one in India but the majority of refining capacity for Venezuelan oil is in the U.S.

Norton discusses the economies of the other countries in South America as well, in particular the raw materials they have, and to whom they export them. He noted that Chile is still suffering from the years of Pinochet, with the highest level of inequality of any country in South America. The same oligarchs who looted the country then still own everything now. I was already thinking it, but then Norton also drew the parallel to how the Soviet Union was plundered after Perestroika.

He also provides a lot of detail about Argentina’s history, vis á vis China, swap lines, the IMF, over the last decades, and how these things relate to the various U.S. administrations. He also talked about the likelihood that the U.S. will continue working to shut down the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) with China. In fact, he predicts that Honduras will officially recognize Taiwan and all that that entails. Honduras is very much in the U.S. pocket. Argentina is more than 1000% of their quota at the IMF and so are very much in thrall to empire.

As a fellow bloviator, I appreciate and am very much in awe of the information Ben has organized into a coherent picture and that he has at his disposal—all without looking anything up. It bespeaks someone who has done the work.

Beware, though, his presentations should have a warning like those you sometimes see on Wikipedia, “This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience.”

Yes, but I can attest to the fact that this audience is very interested.