In 2009 there was initially hope that the newly elected Nobel Peace Prize President Barack Obama might change the Empire's aggressive foreign policy to one of accommodation. But while presidents come and go, the U.S. foreign policy objectives do not change. Obama turned out to be a willing neocon and neoliberal, and he went along with the deep state of the military-industrial complex, Wall Street bankers, big oil, big pharma, mainstream corporate media, oligarchs, spy agencies, political hacks, bureaucrats, and the 1% that really run the Empire.
In 2015 President Obama turned up the heat on Venezuela by imposing economic sanctions. To make the sanctions legal Obama had to declare that Venezuela is a national security threat to the U.S. Even Obama could not keep a straight face with that whopper. Embarrassed, Obama mumbled that the U.S. was not really worried about an invasion from Venezuela, admitting that it was all a hoax to follow the letter of U.S. law, even though it violated the spirit of the law.
Venezuela was already suffering economically from the collapse of oil prices. Imposing economic sanctions is like kicking a person when down. That was exactly the idea. When the Empire wants to engineer a regime change, a cruel way is to make the people suffer so that they take out their frustration on the established government.
After Hugo Chavez died in office in 2013, his vice president Nicolas Maduro was democratically elected president. Maduro's election was a squeaker with him getting just a small majority of 50.6% of the vote. Former President and international election observer Jimmy Charter certified Maduro's victory as fair, but that did not stop the opposition and the U.S. for screaming election fraud.
The U.S. thinks that its exceptionalism gives it the right to meddle in every other country's elections and undermine their democracies. If hurts too much to laugh at the hypocrisy of the Empire's faux outrage about Russia's Putin allegedly meddling in the U.S. 2016 election. Irony goes over the heads of the corporate Fake News.
For 17 years the groundwork has been laid for the U.S. public to believe that Venezuela is a dictatorship. The corporate Fake News shouts the propaganda that "dictator" Maduro has destroyed his country with socialism and mismanagement. With the government opposition rioting in the streets and murdering security personnel, pro-government demonstrators and standers by, Maduro is the one that gets accused of murdering peaceful protesters in the streets. The corporate Fake News has the U.S. public anxiety level unbearably high so that they will consent to the U.S. "we-must-do-something" to restore quiet in Venezuela, so that the public can go back to sleep---until the next phony crisis sure to follow.
All the U.S. public knows is what it is told, over and over again, by the corporate Fake News. Here is Bret Baier of Fox News breathlessly reading from his teleprompter a "Special Report" on Venezuela's fake referendum on Sunday:
"A 61 year old woman was killed, 4 people wounded by gunfire at a polling site at a Caracas Church in Venezuela---more than 7 million Venezuelans over the weekend---in their referendum on their president's plan to rewrite the constitution and consolidate dictatorial power---today opposition leaders are calling for more street protests, and a strike later this week---almost 100 people have died in demonstrations over the last 3 months---"
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