AN ATTEMPTED COUP IN VENEZUELA

Thousands take to the streets of Caracas in support of the Maduro government.

The United States is seeking nothing less than the destruction of socialist Venezuela.

THE UNITED STATES has always regarded Central America as part of its own backyard. It has given itself the right to interfere in affairs of Central America whenever it feels its interests are threatened.

It began with the invasion of Guatemala in 1954. This invasion/coup involved all the usual suspects - the US government (featuring Vice President Richard Nixon), the CIA, American corporate interests and various other exponents of destabilisation. They swiftly toppled Guatemala's left wing government.

In the late 1970s hopeless liberal Democrats joined Ronald Reagan and his neocon cronies in a campaign of destabilisation against the left wing government of Nicaragua.

According to the Reaganites, the Sandinista government had betrayed the Nicaraguan revolution. The term 'revolution betrayed' has a noble history, originating in Leon Trotsky's brilliant dissection of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union. But it was used by the Reaganites to manufacture a false consensus.

According to Reagan and his followers the United States had not been opposed to the overthrow of the despotic Somoza regime but it did oppose a Sandinista government that it claimed was also authoritarian and corrupt.

In truth, the United States had always supported the Somoza regime even when it was bombing its own capital in a desperate attempt to stay in power.

Barely a year after the fall of Somoza, Republican policy declared:

'We deplore the Marxist Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua and the Marxist attempt to destabilise El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. We do not support United States assistance to any Marxist government in the hemisphere..'

In 1981 the Reagan administration began imposing economic sanctions against Nicaragua while, at the same time, heavily funding the opposition Contras - which included military training from officers of the Argentine junta.

There are comparisons to be drawn with what is happening in Venezuela today. The United States implies it did not oppose the socialist revolution of Hugo Chavez but it opposes the 'despotism' and 'corruption' of the Maduro government. Among the Democrats it has only been the more principled and progressive Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders who have not swallowed this garbage.

Said Sanders: 'The United States has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American countries. We must not go down that road again.'

In truth, the United States has always opposed the efforts to build a more just society in Venezuela. Under the pretence of restoring 'democracy' the United States seeks nothing less than the destruction of Bolivarian socialism and the installation of a puppet government overseeing the imposition of a corporate-controlled neoliberal economy. While there is much to find fault about the Maduro government, this still doesn't justify a coup that will, in the end, only benefit the Venezuelan elite and its American backers.