SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
us imperialism
Venezuela and the Return of Empire
The global rallying cry of the Global South should, by now, be unmistakable. Down with imperialism: not as a slogan of nostalgia, but as a political necessity.
Jan 08, 2026
The seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the United States marks a dangerous moment in international politics. A sitting head of state was forcibly removed from his country, flown to the United States, and placed on trial under American law. Washington has described this as justice. Under international law, it is an abduction.
President Donald Trump openly justified the attack by invoking the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century policy that treats Latin America as the United States’ exclusive sphere of influence. Trump went further, saying the doctrine had been “updated” and renamed, declaring that the United States would “run” Venezuela until it approved a political transition. He also made clear that American oil companies would move in to control Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world.
This was not hidden. It was stated plainly.
What is happening in Venezuela is not new. It follows a long and well-documented pattern. Latin America has repeatedly been subjected to US-backed coups, regime change operations, and military interventions, all justified under shifting narratives of freedom, security, or democracy.
Without unified voices of resistance, the unshackled advance of empire will continue, reshaping borders, governments, and lives at will.
From the overthrow of Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 to the CIA-backed coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973, the region carries the weight of this history. The United States supported military dictatorships across Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala, governments responsible for mass killings, torture, and disappearances. It trained and funded armed groups like the Contras in Nicaragua, whose violence devastated civilian populations. The Monroe Doctrine has always meant one thing in practice: Latin America’s sovereignty is conditional.
Trump’s actions in Venezuela are simply a continuation of this logic.
As expected, Venezuela has now faced the full might of imperial power. Maduro sits in a US courtroom, while American oil companies prepare to rake in profits from the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. And the Global South remains divided and fragmented, offering no unequivocal, unified defense of Venezuelan sovereignty.
We have seen this paralysis before. We have been watching it unfold in Gaza for the past three years. There, too, a neocolonial imperialist order operates with impunity—bombing hospitals, leveling neighborhoods, killing thousands of children while invoking the rhetoric of security and self-defense. And there, too, the response has been fractured. Murmurs of resistance emerge, fragile and disconnected: a statement here, a protest there. Meanwhile, the so-called civilized West offers apathy at best. Even the peoples of the Global South, themselves shaped by histories of colonization and plunder, often look on in exhausted silence.
But is there anything truly new about Venezuela? Have we forgotten Iraq and Afghanistan—empire’s forever wars, launched on lies? Have we forgotten Libya, Syria, or the endless cycle of coups and regime-change operations that have defined Washington’s relationship with Latin America, its so-called backyard? The method remains the same: Violence exercised without consequence, legality bent to power, sovereignty treated as conditional.
What has changed is not the Empire but the resistance. There are no Che Guevaras, no Castros, no Chávezes today with the moral gravity to name imperialism for what it is, without apology or ambiguity. There are no leaders alive who dare to raise, unfiltered, the cry of resistance against empire. Instead, what we increasingly see are local elites who serve as intermediaries of domination, eager to trade sovereignty for approval, legitimacy, or personal gain. Nations are bartered away for access, status, and survival within an imperial order they dare not challenge.
Those who still speak out are swiftly disciplined. The Empire’s media brands them radicals, extremists, pariahs unfit for polite conversation, unworthy of seats at the tables of “civilization” and “progress.” They are sanctioned, silenced, or erased. And the rest? Hollowed out by petty self-interest and political cowardice.
In my own country, we carry a long and inglorious tradition of Napoleonic generals and compliant elites serving foreign empires—a tradition that has not ended, only adapted.
Today it is Gaza and Venezuela. Tomorrow it may be Iran. And one day, inevitably, it will be someone else—perhaps even us. This is how empire advances. Each violation normalizes the next. Each kidnapping, bombing, or occupation becomes the justification for another.
The global rallying cry of the Global South should, by now, be unmistakable. Down with imperialism: not as a slogan of nostalgia, but as a political necessity. Without unified voices of resistance, the unshackled advance of empire will continue, reshaping borders, governments, and lives at will.
The question is no longer whether the imperial order is collapsing. It is whether, in a fractured and conflict-ridden multipolar world, the victims of empire can overcome their divisions long enough to build something better.
And that question remains unanswered.
Keep ReadingShow Less
If We Can’t Stop Trump From Taking Over Greenland, I Will Cry
We cannot allow our nation to stomp all over our friends and neighbors just because our president and his minions get high by pushing weaker countries around.
Jan 08, 2026
We know one thing for sure: President Donald Trumps wants to be seen as the greatest president there ever was. But he’s not stupid. He sees that the American public doesn’t agree with him—yet. His net popularity rating is minus 12.
Sure, he can claim that all the polls lie but he knows better. He’s always been obsessed by ratings, and he wants them them up fast. And that, I believe, is one of the reasons for his overt imperialist adventure, arresting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and making a claim on Venezuelan oil. Maybe he also believes that taking the oil will drive down US energy prices so that “affordability” concerns will no longer turn consumers against him, though this is almost certainly wrong.
But there is no doubt he’s also worried that unless his popularity changes, the Democrats will gain control of not only the House but also the Senate, putting a major dent in his ability to do as he pleases. So, he appears to be betting the farm that military adventures in Latin America and sword rattling over ever-peaceful Greenland will rally the public behind him, sending his ratings to new heights and leading the Republicans to victory in 2026. It’s called wagging the dog.
Historically, he might not be wrong. Successful expansionist military adventures have led to rallying around the flag: The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) gave us the annexation of Texas and the territories of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The Spanish-American War of 1898 removed Spain from the Western Hemisphere and gave the US control of the Philippines. Teddy Roosevelt gained a great deal of positive press by leading his Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in Cuba. Quick and dirty wars against weaker adversaries are often good politics.
As ratings sag I truly worry that Trump, egged on by Steven Miller, who truly is off his rocker, will go after Greenland.
Are they this time around? We don’t know for sure yet, but early poll results are not promising for Trump. As expected, the Republicans overwhelmingly support the imperialist adventure, and the Democrats overwhelmingly do not. But the all-important independents vociferously oppose the ousting of Maduro, 43% to 26%.
Another easy way to increase public support is promoting the never-ending War on Drugs. I’m sure Trump believes that blowing up the drug-running boats has helped and will continue to help his ratings. But maybe not, especially when these extrajudicial murders aren’t argued for and supported by the public release of any evidence. Using military force to attack boats suspected of bringing drugs into the US is supported only by 53% to 47%, even though nearly everyone supports less narcotics in the US.
But isn’t stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the US a good, something that we all should support? Sure, it sounds good. Addictive life-threatening drugs are a social bad, but prohibition never, ever works. If we as a society want to get high, that demand will somehow be fulfilled, always. Increased enforcement provides a textbook example of how to raise the price of drugs while increasing employment in the drug-enforcement complex. Prohibition, from the 19th Amendment to the Sinaloa Cartel, usually drives up the profits of the traffickers as cuts in supply lead to price increases. Like everything else in America, poorer drug users will face an affordability crisis, while rich users won’t notice. But in no case will the drugs stop flowing. There is just too much money in it due to our very human desire to feel good.
What happens next? As ratings sag I truly worry that Trump, egged on by Steven Miller, who truly is off his rocker, will go after Greenland. They seem to believe that expanding the US to the north will be viewed with great pleasure by the American public, like the Louisiana Purchase from France and the buying of Alaska from Russia. Why? Because it shows we’re tough, and tough guys always are admired. Miller said it clearly to Jake Tapper on CNN:
“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
I try to stay positive about what we can achieve in this country. I’m calling for a new political organization of working people to promote progressive populism, especially in red America. Finding ways to empower working people in our political system is my lifelong mission. But that mission will be derailed if we allow our nation to stomp all over our friends and neighbors just because our president and his minions get high by pushing weaker countries around.
If we can’t stop our country from taking over Greenland, I will cry.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The US Is Acting Like a Rogue State in Venezuela
The chaos, suffering, and violence about to unfold will be a reminder of why coups are so destructive. Whoever celebrates this should own whatever is coming.
Jan 07, 2026
After a series of strikes in the last few days, and more than two decades of attempted coups (in 2002, 2019, and 2020), warfare, sanctions, and a “Maximum Pressure Campaign,” the United States has just toppled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro and his wife are standing trial for “narco-terrorism” charges, a cover to extend the War on Terror without congressional authorization, in New York, with members of his security team, along with several civilians, dead.
Far-right hardliner María Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition who has longstanding ties to the White House and even went on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast to justify a coup based on oil wealth, was expected to be put in power. She promised to implement a vision of deep privatization under “Popular Capitalism,” modeled on Augusto Pinochet, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan. However, President Donald Trump has said she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country,” with Vice President Delcy Rodriguez assuming the presidency, governing alongside the cabinet members remaining alive. With a CIA-imposed power vacuum and so many lingering questions, it is unclear who will govern in the near future.
In a sweeping slash, the coup took the air out of the revolutionary fervor that had carried the spirit of the Venezuelan free people since Simón Bolívar’s stunning victory against the Spanish in New Granada in 1811.
The US is now a mafia state, where oligarchs and extremists run foreign policy.
This coup is also a nod to the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, named after Reagan’s United Nations Ambassador and close foreign policy adviser, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who decreed that the US should support right-wing authoritarian or fascist regimes over democratically elected left-wing governments so long as they remain pro-capitalist and geopolitically aligned with Washington.
Meanwhile, Machado’s family were oligarchs, she helped briefly put an oligarch into power through a coup against Chávez in 2002, and she is still expected to govern following the edicts of the American oligarchical class.
The 48-hour 2002 coup, it is worth mentioning, produced the Carmona Decree, which dissolved the National Assembly, suspended the Constitution, purged democratic institutions, and appointed an oligarch-dictator, Pedro Carmona, openly revealing the anti-democratic nature of Venezuela’s far-right opposition when backed by Washington. It was never a fight for democracy and freedom, then or now.
The Trump administration just committed one of the greatest crimes in its history, in violation of democracy, sovereignty, and international laws, including Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter of the United Nations (which, by the way, was written primarily by the United States). This is a regime, not a democracy, led by a war president.
This is not about drugs; the US has created many of the very drug cartels it is fighting, while the president embraces and pardons drug traffickers like former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a US court of helping traffic more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, killing more Americans than on 9/11.
This coup, and the preceding drone strikes, were likely directed by the same CIA that, during the Cold War, worked directly with drug traffickers to advance US geopolitical goals, most infamously facilitating the flow of narcotics through Los Angeles, devastating Black communities with heroin and crack, while the proceeds were used to arm the Contras in Nicaragua, who committed atrocious war crimes.
It was also the same CIA that helped prop up the brutal far-right paramilitaries in Colombia, borne out of a war against left-wing guerrillas, paramilitaries which are now among the largest cocaine traffickers on Earth and committed various crimes against humanity including the False Positives Scandal.
There is no evidence for any of the claims the administration has been making on its drug strikes, and all evidence points to the dead being fishermen, blown up in international waters, another war crime. Even if they were traffickers, Trump has cajoled traffickers who kiss the ring and add to his family's billions.
It would have taken the small motorboats at least 10 refuelings to get to US shores; they were never going to the US. And should pharmaceutical company CEOs, or street-drug peddlers, get killed by missiles in Manhattan? This is ridiculous on its face.
This coup is also the death blow to the liberal order the US helped create with the Allies after the Second World War.
The administration is claiming that everyone is celebrating this coup, but support for this war is nil, both among Americans and Venezuelans. Western media coverage has overwhelmingly elevated Venezuelans who support the US-backed coup not because they are representative, but because they are disproportionately wealthy, urban, English-speaking, and geographically accessible to foreign journalists—often living in elite neighborhoods or abroad—while Chavismo’s base is concentrated in marginalized urban peripheries, rural zones, factories, and barrios that Western reporters rarely enter or even attempt to understand. Highlighting their support also helps manufacture support for the coup in the name of “balance,” while serving the corporate interests that fund most of Western media.
Moreover, following Covid-19, Venezuela'a economy, thanks to the relaxation of sanctions, had been faring better, while most of the population, though, yes, governed by a brutal dictatorship, were given public healthcare, education, literacy, roads, transportation, medicine, and food baskets, thanks to left-wing reforms (called Misiones).
The US is about to put in another brutal dictatorship, but one that cuts all these programs, selling the country away to American capitalists while obnoxiously screaming about freedom and democracy. When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was arguing that countries in “our hemisphere” can’t be governed by "hostile regimes" or trade with US adversaries (a line that has been repeated by others in the administration), he was revealing that this isn’t actually about self-government or democracy.
Washington is refusing to acknowledge that it helped produce Venezuela’s highly authoritarian “Apertura” (Opening) era, following Venezuela’s discoveries of vast oil reserves, where the overwhelming majority of the resulting wealth was given to the very rich and Western energy companies. Those protesting were brutally repressed, jailed, tortured, or killed. It is against the backdrop of this inequality and repression that Hugo Chávez was elected. Chávez was a reaction, and the US, through this coup, is ensuring a repeat of those very conditions.
Toppling Maduro is about natural resources, of which Venezuela has trillions of dollars worth, and geopolitical dominance, in a region where US “adversaries” are increasingly popular. There is a strong indication that Cuba might be next, something that Marco Rubio has wanted for a very long time. Trump has already threatened Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and others.
This kind of arm-flexing destroys any kind of rules or credibility around sovereignty and democracy. Now, when the Western democracies claim to oppose Israel, Russia, or China’s wars of civilizational rejuvenation, whether in Gaza, Ukraine, or Taiwan, their moral and legal complaints will be utterly and completely indefensible.
I'm sure the military-industrial complex is elated at its added power and wealth, which will, just like in Iraq, win out on trillions of dollars of contracts and stock valuation. The chaos, suffering, and violence about to unfold will be a reminder of why coups are so destructive. Whoever celebrates this should own whatever is coming.
The US is now a mafia state, where oligarchs and extremists run foreign policy, much like Russia and Iran. Companies and billionaires, not the people, determine US foreign policy interests.
This coup is also the death blow to the liberal order the US helped create with the Allies after the Second World War. The US is handing a victory over to the very forces it claims to topple; it is just too short-sighted to know it yet.
There are hundreds of thousands of dissenting troops, guerrillas, cartels, colectivos, and Chavistas, whose wealth and power depended on this government. Expect blowback soon, and then inhumane repression by occupying forces.
Also expect goalpost-moving; make them own it, and never let them move it. The media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Miami Herald, New York Post, and all the right-wing imperial propaganda mills parading as journalists, have attempted to manufacture consent for this war. They have repeated the Trump regime’s propaganda, unchallenged, conflating neutrality for objectivity.
CNN’s Erin Burnett, whose husband’s Citigroup stock is up almost 5% since the coup, said that Venezuela’s 30 million people were now “owned by the United States.” That’s the quality of supposedly critical media in the United States at the moment.
Meanwhile, CBS News’ Maggie Brennan even pressed Marco Rubio on whether the socialist regime was really gone, given that they only took out Maduro (making Rubio seem like the dove, in that scenario). On far-right media, including Fox News, pundits have casually floated more US interventions for natural resources, claimed that Latin America “belongs to the United States,” argued for the US to have “subordinate vassals,” and mentioned using Venezuela as a prison and labor colony.
These outlets ran multiple stories running cover for the Trump administration's crimes, or platformed "experts" backed by oil and defense companies, and elevated “dissidents”—many of whom come from the old oligarchical families, the same whose wealth was redistributed to the poor under Chavismo, indistinguishable from the Cuban dissidents from the Batista era who helped launder support for the Bay of Pigs invasion—repeatedly supporting crimes against humanity.
The same can be said of supposedly nonpartisan think tanks that, backed by money from energy companies and defense contractors, have run favorable “analyses” of US coups in Latin America and platformed corrupt Latin American leaders whitewashing US crimes. They are, now and forever, stenographers of power.
They will attempt to spin the motives, intentions, and consequences of this horrific coup and conveniently throw them onto scapegoats. We should not let them. Whenever anyone tries to spin this war, remember this context.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular