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What July 5th Taught Me That July 4th Never Did
The U.S. celebrates independence while denying it to others; Venezuela fights for sovereignty while being punished for it.
Jul 05, 2025
Growing up in Venezuela and now living in the United States, I’ve always felt caught between two independence days: July 4th and July 5th. Two celebrations. Two flags. Two very different ideas of what it means to be free.
In the U.S., the Fourth of July comes with fireworks, parades, and an almost unquestioned belief in the righteousness of the revolution it commemorates. But in Venezuela, July 5th conjures up different thoughts. It is not just a break from colonial rule but the beginning of a long, unfinished struggle to define freedom on our own terms. It’s not something we inherited. It’s something we’re still fighting for.
And now, from where I stand, I can’t help but see the contradictions. One country celebrates independence while denying it to others. The other fights for sovereignty while being punished for it.
Venezuela’s July 5th is not about fireworks. It’s about survival, resistance, and the ongoing struggle to build a future rooted in dignity.
The story of Venezuela’s independence is part of a much longer, bloodier history. The entire region of Latin America and the Caribbean erupted into revolutionary movements more than two centuries ago, not out of ambition, but as a response to some of the worst atrocities in human history. Colonization, slavery, forced conversions to Catholicism, cultural erasure, and resource extraction didn’t just leave economic scars, they tore at the heart of our collective humanity. As Eduardo Galeano wrote, “Our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others.” Independence wasn’t a beginning; it was resistance and a demand to reclaim everything stolen, silenced, and buried.
In Venezuela, the independence process was shaped by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the revolutions in France, the U.S., and Haiti. But Simón Bolívar, our “Liberator,” wanted something more than a flag or a change in rulers. He envisioned a republic built on justice, not just sovereignty. A society where slavery would be abolished, land would be redistributed, and governance would belong to the people. Speaking before the Congress of Angostura in 1819, Bolívar declared, “The most perfect system of government is that which produces the greatest possible amount of happiness, social security, and political stability.” This wasn’t about replacing a crown with a new president. It was about reimagining society itself, building a nation rooted in dignity, equality, and the well-being of all.
It was a vision far ahead of its time. And it came at a devastating cost. Venezuela lost half of its population during the wars of independence. But as Bolívar said, the other half would have given their lives, too, to make freedom real.
Venezuela became free from Spain, but not from exploitation.
After the discovery of oil beginning in the 1920s, the country became a new kind of colony, one shaped by foreign corporations and U.S. geopolitical interests. While oil profits filled the pockets of multinational companies and domestic elites, the majority of Venezuelans lived in poverty, with no access to healthcare, education, or housing.
That began to change in 1998, when Hugo Chávez, invoking the legacy of Bolívar, won the presidency and launched what became known as the Bolivarian Revolution. He called on the people to reclaim democracy, not just through elections, but through participatory structures, economic justice, and sovereignty. For many who had long been shut out of the system, it was the first time they saw themselves reflected in their own government.
It was transformative. And it was deeply threatening to the powers that had always treated Venezuela as a resource, not a republic.
The Bolivarian Revolution was seen as a threat to U.S. imperial interests from the very beginning. From the moment Hugo Chávez took office in 1999 and began redirecting Venezuela’s oil wealth toward social programs, land reform, and regional integration, the backlash began. He refused to follow the neoliberal script written in Washington, and for that, he was targeted.
In 2002, the U.S. backed a coup attempt against Chávez, which briefly removed him from power before a massive popular uprising brought him back. But the attacks didn’t stop. Economic sabotage, disinformation campaigns, and diplomatic isolation escalated over the years.
After his death in 2013, the campaign intensified. Under Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela was hit with the full-spectrum of economic warfare: hundreds of unilateral coercive measures, the freezing of billions in international assets, restrictions on food and medicine imports, and open support for regime change. A war without bombs.
This is daily life for Venezuelans. And yet, we’re told these policies are meant to help us. You don’t help people by starving them. You don’t “defend democracy” by trying to force another country to its knees.
Here in the U.S., it’s easy to treat independence as something that was achieved once and for all in 1776. But if that were true, why is our country still trying to control the fate of others? Why do we claim to stand for freedom while undermining it abroad through sanctions, coups, and endless wars? And even more urgently: why are so many people in the U.S. still struggling just to survive?
Empire comes at a cost, not only to the people we target, but to the people right here at home. While the U.S. government spends trillions on foreign wars and military bases, our communities are told there’s “not enough” for universal healthcare, housing, or public education. The same officials who lecture the world about freedom are the ones who lined up to vote for the “Big Beautiful Bill,” a package that bankrolls war and delivers massive tax breaks to billionaires while dismantling the programs that keep people housed, fed, and alive
We’re told to celebrate freedom while immigrants are deported, unhoused people are criminalized, and Palestinian solidarity is silenced. We’re told we live in the greatest country on Earth, even as life expectancy drops and student debt skyrockets.
So when I hear U.S. leaders talk about spreading democracy, I can’t help but ask: Whose democracy? Whose freedom?
You can’t claim to support democracy and starve a population at the same time. You can’t celebrate independence while trying to overthrow other governments. And you can’t speak of justice if your policies enforce inequality on a global scale.
As a Venezuelan-American, I’m proud of the history that Venezuela has fought for. And I want to be proud of the United States, the country I also call home. But that will only be possible when the U.S. chooses respect over domination, when it ends the sanctions, when it stops weaponizing aid, democracy, and freedom to serve its own economic interests.
Venezuela’s July 5th is not about fireworks. It’s about survival, resistance, and the ongoing struggle to build a future rooted in dignity.
So while the U.S. celebrates its independence this week, I hope more people take a moment to ask: What are we really celebrating? And at what cost?
True independence isn’t about flags or anthems. It’s about the right to choose your own path without being punished for it. If we’re serious about “liberty and justice for all,” then we have to mean it. Not just here, but everywhere.
Real freedom doesn’t come wrapped in patriotic speeches or military parades, it comes through struggle, sacrifice, and the refusal to bow to empire, no matter what form it takes. Whether in Venezuela or the United States, the fight for dignity continues. Eduardo Blanco captured this truth in Venezuela Heroica, when he wrote: “To restrain the passions of people when they’ve been pushed beyond reason is harder than stopping the sea itself.”
And that’s exactly what we’re witnessing in every mobilization, every boycott, every refusal to accept injustice as normal.
The tides of liberation can’t be contained by borders, bullets, or decrees. Not in Venezuela. Not in Gaza. Not in the United States. Not anywhere.
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Panic, Paranoia, and Hypocrisy During China-Focused Congressional Hearings
As the hearing drew on, the claims grew more and more unhinged.
Jul 14, 2024
On June 26th, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability sat down for a Congressional Hearing titled, “Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare.” This was one of many Congressional hearings aimed at tackling the “China threat.”
As a general premise, I didn’t have a lot of hope for the hearing. Language is crucial, and the title says it all: any action by the US is merely “defense” against acts of political warfare committed by China. And still, I was disappointed. Not only was it filled with racist, paranoid rhetoric, but it was supremely unjust, lacking any level of self-awareness, and almost certainly operated solely as an agenda-pushing cover for whatever act of warfare our government sought to commit next.
Three witnesses took to the stands. The first was Erik Bethel, a finance professional selected to represent the US at the World Bank. He was followed by Mary Kissel, Former Senior Advisor to the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Third was James E. Fanell, the Former Director of Intelligence and Information Operations for the US Pacific Fleet and current Government Fellow.
Big people with big titles. That is the usual order of things: a few “experts” are selected to “teach” members of Congress about complex subjects they may lack background in. The Committee of Oversight and Accountability certainly lacks China expertise. Representative Lisa McClain spent ten years working for American Express before she was elected to represent the state of Michigan. Chairman James Comer was a Kentucky farmer. Representative Paul Gosar was a dentist in Arizona. Marjorie Taylor Green was a part-time CrossFit gym coach. Many of them have never traveled to China, let alone held a productive conversation with a member of China’s government.
Tucked securely in their offices, our politicians will sign bill after bill funding proxy conflicts around the world, but they will never know the many hideous faces of war. They’ll point fingers and make accusations, but they will never turn the mirror around to acknowledge their own hypocrisies.
Their lack of expertise didn’t stop them from sounding their opinions. I listened carefully, hoping to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was a fruitless endeavor.
Representative McClain spoke about her district: “In Michigan, we have the Gotion plant… We have a Chinese-owned company and the only spot they can figure out that is feasible for them to build is next to a university and next to a military base. Anybody think that’s a coincidence?”
In the audience, the new summer Hillterns listened with rapt attention.
“I’m not much for coincidences,” McClain continued. “We talk about, well it's gonna create jobs. Jobs for who? I’m very concerned, and I’m not much for coincidences.”
She was talking about the plans to build a new plant in Michigan for electric vehicle components under the company Gotion, which has headquarters in Shanghai. The plan is speculated to bring thousands of jobs to the area, with wages about 150% of the current average. McClain, having no substance on which to defend her opposition to the plant, instead decided to speculate on its geographic location, implying the company is purposefully building near a university and military installation. Clearly, the plant is a spy base for the Chinese government, as surely as any 18 to 26-year-old Chinese immigrant is an undercover Chinese soldier sent to wreak havoc upon our country– all baseless, unfounded claims that promote Asian American hate and shift public perception to support anti-China policies.
The military base she’s talking about is Camp Grayling, which is actually over 100 miles away from Big Rapids, where the EV plant will be built. As for the proximity to Ferris State University, the relevance of that statement is questionable. There are around 77 colleges and universities in the entire state– 198 if you include community colleges and trade schools. It would be difficult not to build near one. But that’s beside the point. This is merely one example of the outlandish and absurd claims made in the hearing, backed by anecdotal and unreliable “evidence” based on feelings and a strange paranoia that anything with links to China has malicious intentions.
In response to McClain’s statements, Mary Kissel said, “Let’s not give them too much credit as long-term thinkers. Let’s remember they almost destroyed their country several times over.” The words were spoken derisively, reaffirming my suspicion that Ms. Kissel boasts severe negative prejudices towards China and Chinese people. She continued to cite the Cultural Revolution, the debt crisis, and “etcetera.” In truth, the US is a mere baby in comparison to China’s 5,000 years of history. As for Ms. Kissel’s claims, to say Chinese people nearly destroyed their country is misleading and tinged with a disturbing colonialistic self-superiority that the West does everything better.
Ms. Kissel also stated her opinion of how China operates: “China is a party state. The function of China is not to better the interests of the Chinese people– it is to promote, strengthen, and expand the power and influence, and reach of the Chinese Communist Party.”
I challenge this claim, not just for its wrongful absolutism, but because China has repeatedly shown immense interest in improving the everyday lives of its citizens. China is unparalleled in its developmental growth aimed at providing infrastructure and opportunities to the people. Housing, public transportation, health care, and education are all convenient and affordable. The average retirement age is 54 years old. Over the past few decades, the government has been working ceaselessly to eradicate extreme poverty with tremendous success. Over 800 million people have been taken out of poverty and afforded a better quality of life. Not only that, but China continues to emphasize the importance of green energy in building a sustainable future. Shenzhen, one of the country’s biggest high-tech cities, has even switched over all public transportation to electric vehicles. This isn’t pro-China propaganda, it’s simply fact.
Along with forged criticism of China’s internal dynamics and history, the hearing also challenged China’s position when it comes to the US.
The overall goal of China, Ms. Kissel proclaimed, is to “upend our way of life and to dominate and change our way of life.” They are “committed to destroy(ing) us.”
At first glance, it sounds absurd that an individual so ostensibly high up on the policy advisory hierarchy would make such a condemnatory and extreme claim. But considering that Ms. Kissel served under Mike Pompeo during Donald Trump’s presidential term, it is not so surprising. It was not an administration known for its truth-telling.
First and foremost, China has no plans to destroy the United States. We can easily cipher this through both statement and action. To claim otherwise is false and promotes a dangerous narrative that guides our policy-makers down a one-way path to war.
Erik Bethel’s claim that “China is encircling us” is also highly deceptive. Adversely, it is the US that has encircled China with over 300 military bases and countless troops. China has no military bases in the entire Western hemisphere. There is no “encircling” occurring.
Former US Representative Tom Malinowski criticized China for trying to make the US “look bad to the rest of the world.” This is, at best, overwhelmingly hypocritical. Just recently it was uncovered that the US launched a secret anti-vax operation in the Philippines during the deadliest months of the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine China’s influence in the region. According to a senior US military official, “We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective. We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”
As the hearing drew on, the claims grew more and more unhinged.
“They’re teaming up with the Mexican drug cartels and they’re killing Americans,” Congressman Fallon told everyone, backing his claim that China is killing nearly as many Americans per day as died during WW2.
“They know how many paperclips you all are using in the Longworth building,” Representative Tim Burchett said, reminiscing on a Mike Pompeo quote.
“What if they were to develop some kind of biological entity that can, say, wipe out females of child-bearing ages or something?” Burchett queried.
“If you’re using this app (Tiktok), they can listen to you,” Another added.
“We should do the opposite of what China wants us to do,” Malinowski put forth as a general solution.
“We need to construct not just a defensive strategy, but an offensive strategy,” Ms. Kissel spoke decisively. Twice it was mentioned that her last name rhymes with missile– nominative determinism perhaps.
It was as if the hearing took lines straight out of an SNL skit. It’s unfathomable that these are the people sitting in our Congressional hearing rooms, talking about war. These are the people voting on legislation that could propel us into a conflict with China that would bring death and destruction to millions, and most likely end in nuclear catastrophe or total destruction of the planet.
Our politicians, although ignorant and lacking expertise, are willing cogs in the war machine. They bring the most anti-China and pro-military witnesses to the stands to reaffirm their own paranoid delusions about an all-knowing, all-hateful “other” across the sea that seeks to destroy everything bright and beautiful about the world. This is happening on a weekly basis.
The truth is that it is not China gearing up for war, but our very own government. Our politicians are pumping billions of dollars into hyper-militarizing the Asia Pacific and writing it off as “deterrence.” They’re spouting lies and fear-inducing narratives at Congressional hearings in a bid to garner support for anti-China legislation. These stories are trickling down through the media and infecting the minds of the general public, priming the US military for its next conquest. Why? Because the US is self-interested and directed solely by its desire to maintain global hegemony, even at the expense of all others. China is not a threat because it’s threatening our security–China is a threat because it’s successful.
Tucked securely in their offices, our politicians will sign bill after bill funding proxy conflicts around the world, but they will never know the many hideous faces of war. They’ll point fingers and make accusations, but they will never turn the mirror around to acknowledge their own hypocrisies. They’ll stand there saluting when bodies come home in boxes and claim it was for the greater good, but they will never face the consequences of their actions– they will never be forced to die for another’s deceptions.
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The NATO Declaration and the Deadly Strategy of Neoconservatism
For the sake of America's security and world peace, the U.S. should immediately abandon the neocon quest for hegemony in favor of diplomacy and peaceful co-existence.
Jul 13, 2024
In 1992, U.S. foreign-policy exceptionalism went into overdrive. The U.S. has always viewed itself as an exceptional nation destined for leadership, and the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991 convinced a group of committed ideologues—who came to be known as neoconservatives—that the U.S. should now rule the world as the unchallenged sole superpower. Despite countless foreign policy disasters at neocon hands, the 2024 NATO Declaration continues to push the neocon agenda, driving the world closer to nuclear war.
The neoconservatives were originally led by Richard Cheney, the Defense Secretary in 1992. Every President since then—Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden—has pursued the neocon agenda of U.S. hegemony, leading theU.S. into perpetual wars of choice, including Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine, as well as relentless eastward expansion of NATO, despite a clear U.S. and German promise in 1990 to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch eastward.
The core neocon idea is that the U.S. should have military, financial, economic, and political dominance over any potential rival in any part of the world. It is targeted especially at rival powers such as China and Russia, and therefore brings the U.S. into direct confrontation with them. The American hubris is stunning: most of the world does not want to be led by the U.S., much less led by a U.S. state clearly driven by militarism, elitism and greed.
The neocon plan for U.S. military dominance was spelled out in the Project for a New American Century. The plan includes relentless NATO expansion eastward, and the transformation of NATO from a defensive alliance against a now-defunct Soviet Union to an offensive alliance used to promote U.S. hegemony. The U.S. arms industry is the major financial and political backer of the neocons. The arms industry spearheaded the lobbying for NATO's eastward enlargement starting in the 1990s. Joe Biden has been a staunch neocon from the start, first as Senator, then as Vice President, and now as President.
To achieve hegemony, the neocon plans rely on CIA regime-change operations; U.S.-led wars of choice; U.S. overseas military bases (now numbering around 750 overseas bases in at least 80 countries); the militarization of advanced technologies (biowarfare, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, etc.); and relentless use of information warfare.
The quest for U.S. hegemony has pushed the world to open warfare in Ukraine between the world’s two leading nuclear powers, Russia and the United States. The war in Ukraine was provoked by the relentless determination of the U.S. to expand NATO to Ukraine despite Russia’s fervent opposition, as well as the U.S. participation in the violent Maidan coup (February 2014) that overthrew a neutral government, and the U.S. undermining of the Minsk II agreement that called for autonomy for the ethnically Russian regions of eastern Ukraine.
The NATO Declaration calls NATO a defensive alliance, but the facts say otherwise. NATO repeatedly engages in offensive operations, including regime-change operations. NATO led the bombing of Serbia in order to break that nation in two parts, with NATO placing a major military base in the breakaway region of Kosovo. NATO has played a major role in many U.S. wars of choice. NATO bombing of Libya was used to overthrow the government of Moammar Qaddafi.
The U.S. quest for hegemony, which was arrogant and unwise in 1992, is absolutely delusional today, since the U.S. clearly faces formidable rivals that are able to compete with the U.S. on the battlefield, in nuclear arms deployments, and in the production and deployment of advanced technologies. China’s GDP is now around 30% larger than the U.S. when measured at international prices, and China is the world’s low-cost producer and supplier of many critical green technologies, including EVs, 5G, photovoltaics, wind power, modular nuclear power, and others. China’s productivity is now so great that the U.S. complains of China’s “over-capacity.”
Sadly, and alarmingly, the NATO declaration repeats the neoconservative delusions.
The Declaration falsely declares that “Russia bears sole responsibility for its war of aggression against Ukraine,” despite the U.S. provocations that led to the outbreak of the war in 2014.
The NATO Declaration reaffirms Article 10 of the NATO Washington Treaty, according to which NATO’s eastward expansion is none of Russia’s business. Yet the U.S. would never accept Russia or China establishing a military base on the US border (say in Mexico), as the U.S. first declared in the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 and has reaffirmed ever since.
The NATO Declaration reaffirms NATO’s commitment to biodefense technologies, despite growing evidence that U.S. biodefense spending by NIH financed the laboratory creation of the virus that may have caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
The NATO Declaration proclaims NATO’s intention to continue to deploy anti-ballistic Aegis missiles (as it has already done in Poland, Romania, and Turkey), despite the fact that the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and placement of Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania has profoundly destabilized the nuclear arms control architecture.
The NATO Declaration expresses no interest whatsoever in a negotiated peace for Ukraine.
The NATO Declaration doubles-down on Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.” Yet Russia will never accept Ukraine’s NATO membership, so the “irreversible” commitment is an irreversible commitment to war.
The Washington Post reports that in the lead-up to the NATO summit, Biden had serious qualms about pledging an “irreversible path” to Ukraine’s NATO membership, yet Biden’s advisors brushed aside these concerns.
The neoconservatives have created countless disasters for the U.S. and the world, including several failed wars, a massive buildup of U.S. public debt driven by trillions of dollars of wasteful war-driven military outlays, and the increasingly dangerous confrontation of the U.S. with China, Russia, Iran, and others. The neocons have brought the Doomsday Clock to just 90 seconds to midnight (nuclear war), compared with 17 minutes in 1992.
For the sake of America's security and world peace, the U.S. should immediately abandon the neocon quest for hegemony in favor of diplomacy and peaceful co-existence.
Alas, NATO has just done the opposite.
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