Chris Hedges's Blog, page 341

Everybody Wants ‘Medicare for All’—Except Our Leaders

The health care debate in the United States has shifted dramatically over the past ten years. When newly elected President Barack Obama came to power in 2009 he grappled with reforming the broken health care system, eventually adopting an approach that had been championed by conservatives to craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. During the debates over a law that eventually earned the moniker Obamacare, the closest that Congress and the president came to universal health care coverage was the “public option.” Ultimately, that too was compromised away as Republicans howled over so-called “death panels” and government intrusions into personal health decisions before Obamacare was passed into law. Then came the relentless attacks, both verbal and legal, on the resulting legislation, with Republicans continuously whittling away at the modest reforms.

Today, right-wing media outlets seem to have moved past denouncing Obamacare to their new obsession against “Medicare for all.” Most Americans know Medicare as a government-run health program for seniors. The name Medicare for all is therefore self-explanatory and quite attractive to anyone who has grappled with unaffordable co-pays and deductibles, rising premiums, narrowly defined coverage or no health insurance at all. So it shouldn’t surprise us that right-wing media wants to kill the conversation before it even starts.

The basic premise of the right-wing argument against Medicare for all is “How can we possibly afford it?” For example, Fox News saw fit in its coverage of Medicare for all to remark that, “Critics point to the soaring cost of implementing it—something numerous studies put well into the trillions.” Another right-wing media outlet, the Washington Examiner, published an op-ed titled “The real cost of ‘Medicare for all,’ “in which author Tiana Lowe painted a dystopian picture of how “moving to single-payer would kill people” with “Soviet-style shortages of providers” whose effects would “reverberate across the country.” To Lowe, our current system works just fine the way it is, and is in fact “[t]he most productive, innovative, and charitable healthcare system in the world.”

The Wall Street Journal lauded former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who in his recent announcement of a presidential bid said he opposed Medicare for all because, in his estimation, “That’s not correct. That’s not American.” The Journal agreed with Schultz, saying, “If it works in Scandinavia, it won’t work in the U.S. because Americans won’t pay the required taxes.”

Conservative columnist Lee Habeeb, writing in Newsweek, attempted (and failed) to make the bizarre argument that Medicare for all was “As Ridiculous As Nationalizing Potato Chips.” President Donald Trump made many of these same arguments in his USA Today op-ed on the subject last fall. Strangely, the fearmongering and hand-wringing about looming tax increases to pay for programs never seems to enter conservative logic when it comes to questions of paying for tax breaks for the wealthy or the latest F-15 fighter jet.

Setting aside the false affordability arguments against Medicare for all (which Paul Waldman of The Washington Post brilliantly debunked by demonstrating that Medicare for all will cost only $32 trillion over 10 years compared to the $50 trillion we now spend each decade), it ought to be considered a huge victory for proponents of Medicare for all that right-wing media and conservative figures are paying any attention to the issue.

Another heartening measure of the progress on Medicare for all is how the so-called liberal media is taking it seriously. Whether or not they get the story right, they are at least exposing Americans to the idea, especially as a litmus test for 2020 Democratic presidential contenders. The New York Times wrote how “Medicare for All Emerges as Early Policy Test for 2020 Democrats.” And while the paper did a poor job of accurately explaining how the program would cost less than what we’re currently paying for health care, it did showcase its popularity among presidential hopefuls and the public, paying particular attention to Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders, who is widely credited with making Medicare for all a mainstream issue through his 2016 presidential campaign, did not receive nearly as much serious attention then from publications like The New York Times as he does now.

To summarize, the right-wing media hates the idea of Medicare for all while liberal mainstream outlets at least acknowledge it is an issue worth discussing. Most importantly, the public really likes the idea, and a new poll showed voters are likely to back candidates who adopt a position in favor of Medicare for all. Even a majority of Republicans are in favor of it. What this means is that the time has finally come—although many decades late—for a serious legislative push to make the popular idea a reality.

But—and there is always a but—despite the political power they have gained over the past few months, Democrats can always be trusted to screw up a good thing—even when it falls into their laps. Already there are reports that some Democratic representatives who successfully managed to win seats held by Republicans last November are now reneging on their commitment to Medicare for all. Politico reported that Democrats have introduced at least eight different health care reform plans, most of which take incremental and inadequate steps toward Medicare for all. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, basking in the glow of praise for standing up to Trump during the recent government shutdown, has been found assuring health insurance executives not to worry about Medicare for all.

Sitting back and watching Democrats trade away all the political points they have earned from opposing President Trump’s agenda is exactly the wrong approach, because they will trade away our rights for cold, hard Wall Street campaign cash.

A newly formed insurance-industry lobby group called Protect Our Care has flooded the internet with progressive-sounding rhetoric on health care. The group effectively showcases the real hardships suffered by Americans on accessing affordable health care and then positions Obamacare as the best solution to the problem rather than Medicare for all. Its messaging is effective—there are few overt mentions of the Affordable Care Act. Instead, its discourse largely centers on protecting existing health coverage—a talking point most Americans would be hard-pressed to disagree with.

In the realm Protect Our Care occupies, the enemies of health care are Republicans who attack the deeply flawed existing coverage of those who have it, and the solution is preserving that deeply flawed existing coverage. In the real world, the enemies are manifold: Republicans seeking to end all government assistance, private insurance companies seeking to preserve the status quo (and their Obamacare subsidies), and Democrats backing those companies. The real-world solution is Medicare for all.

After all, if it is good enough for the nation’s seniors, and if the government manages to make it work for the nation’s elders without hand-wringing about affordability or the existential threat to private insurers, then why is it not good enough for the rest of us?

Big Banks Cut Jobs, Slash Lending After Billion-Dollar Tax Cut

Although big banks in the United States paid $21 billion less in taxes last year thanks to the Republican Party’s push in late 2017 to lower rates for corporations and wealthy Americans, the nation’s top financial institutions used those savings to benefit shareholders rather than workers and customers—just as critics of the #GOPTaxScam had warned they would.

After reviewing financial results and commentary from the 23 banks the Federal Reserve designates as most vital to the U.S. economy, Bloomberg reported Wednesday:

On average, the banks saw their effective tax rates fall below 19 percent from the roughly 28 percent they paid in 2016. And while the breaks set off a gusher of payouts to shareholders, firms cut thousands of jobs and saw their lending growth slow…

While banks vowed to use a portion of their savings to reward employees, help needy communities, and support small businesses, the magnitude of their break and how the money was divvied is likely to fuel debate over whether the law was an effective way to stoke the economy. The 23 firms boosted dividends and stock buybacks 23 percent, and they eliminated almost 4,300 jobs. A few have signaled plans to cut thousands more.

Four of the nation’s six biggest banks—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley—”paid less taxes than they projected in 2018.” And while employees did receive some bonuses and raises, they were marginal compared with the banks’ windfalls.

MORE: The banks vowed to use their tax savings to give back to employees, but the 23 biggest banks eliminated nearly 4,300 jobs #tictocnews pic.twitter.com/6cRX4anhjG

— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) February 6, 2019

Meanwhile, as the report detailed, “the biggest winners were shareholders. Tax savings contributed to a banner year for banks, with the six largest surpassing $120 billion in combined profits for the first time. Dividends and stock buybacks at the 23 lenders surged by an additional $28 billion from 2017—even more than their tax savings.”

MORE: The biggest winners of the tax cuts have been shareholders, though.

The 6 largest banks surpassed $120 billion in combined profits, while dividends and buybacks surged by $28 billion in 2017 #tictocnews pic.twitter.com/odomMJzBUL

— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) February 6, 2019

The analysis spurred outcry from consumer and worker advocates as well as critics of the GOP tax overhaul—about which President Donald Trump infamously bragged, “corporations are literally going wild,” when he signed the bill into law in December of 2017.

“This is the GOP tax cut in action: screwing over working families and handing out tax breaks to large banks and corporations,” the group Patriotic Millionaires said in response to the Bloomberg report.

https://t.co/j4m6RF03QN

This is the GOP tax cut in action: screwing over working families and handing out tax breaks to large banks and corporations.

— Patriotic Millionaires (@PatrioticMills) February 6, 2019

Freshman Democratic Rep. Katie Porter (Calif.)—often described as the protégé of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a longtime advocate for imposing stricter rules on the financial industry—also turned to Twitter to respond, calling the news “outrageous!”

Let’s get this straight – Wall Street banks got a $21 billion windfall from the #GOPTaxScam while many middle-class Orange County families will see their taxes go up this year? Outrageous! https://t.co/qArdDFZkU2

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) February 6, 2019

“It’s time for an economy that prioritizes Main Street Americans, not Wall Street’s biggest banks,” declared the nonprofit Better Markets.

It’s time for an economy that prioritizes Main Street Americans, not Wall Street’s biggest banks…https://t.co/j362X211jp

— Better Markets (@BetterMarkets) February 6, 2019

The report follows a New York Times op-ed, published Sunday, in which Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued for limiting corporate stock buybacks because the practice doesn’t serve the vast majority of Americans.

As they explained, “large stockholders tend to be wealthier,” and “when corporations direct resources to buy back shares on this scale, they restrain their capacity to reinvest profits more meaningfully in the company in terms of R&D, equipment, higher wages, paid medical leave, retirement benefits and worker retraining.”

Noting that “this practice of corporate self-indulgence is not new, but it’s grown enormously” since the Trump tax cuts, they vowed to introduce “bold legislation” to “prohibit a corporation from buying back its own stock unless it invests in workers and communities first, including things like paying all workers at least $15 an hour, providing seven days of paid sick leave, and offering decent pensions and more reliable health benefits.”

Donald Trump May End Two Wars Only to Start a Third

What follows is a conversation between journalist Trita Parsi and Ben Norton of the Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

BEN NORTON: It’s The Real News Network, and I’m Ben Norton.

Well, President Donald Trump is withdrawing from old wars. He is acting more and more aggressively against Iran. In the latest scandal, Trump has come under attack for disagreeing with and even criticizing his intelligence services. But what is interesting about the scandal is that some countries, like North Korea, Afghanistan, and Syria, Trump is being less hawkish than the intelligence agencies want him to be. But at the same time, on Iran Trump is being much more hawkish. It goes without saying that U.S. intelligence agencies have a long record of supporting military coups and wars abroad, and spreading lies such as the 2003 WMD myth that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. But many members of the self-declared liberal resistance are attacking Trump for ignoring U.S. Intelligence agencies.

On January 29, the U.S. Senate held a briefing on the supposed global threats faced by the United States. The two major intelligence chiefs testified: Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and CIA Director Gina Haspel. The intelligence chiefs challenged Trump’s attempt to seek peace with North Korea. Here’s a clip from CNN.

CNN: Coats also seemed to differ with the president on North Korea. Six months after Mr. Trump tweeted that there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea, Coats told Congress that’s not quite the case–that reality check coming just weeks before the president is set to meet once again with dictator Kim Jong un.

DAN COATS: We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.

BEN NORTON: But what’s interesting is at the same time, surprisingly, the U.S. intelligence chiefs were in fact much less hawkish on Iran. In fact, the director of the CIA acknowledged that despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, Iran is, in fact, not pursuing nuclear weapons, and Tehran has in fact been abiding by its side of the international nuclear agreement. Here’s a clip from PBS.

PBS: What is the intelligence community saying about Iran’s nuclear capacity?

The Trump administration has long said that Iran did not heed that 2014 nuclear deal, and always wanted a nuclear weapon. But Gina Haspel, the CIA director, was much more honest. She said that Iran was complying with the deal, but that it might start enrichment in the future. So here is her talking with Senator Angus King, who is an independent but caucuses with Democrats.

ANGUS KING: Since our departure from the deal they have abided by the terms. You’re saying they’re considering, but at the current moment they’re-

GINA HASPEL: Yes, they’re making some preparations that would increase their ability to take a step back if they make that decision. So at the moment, technically, they’re in compliance.

BEN NORTON: Donald Trump shot back at his intelligence chiefs on Twitter. He hyped this supposed threat that Iran poses and he wrote: “Be careful of Iran. Perhaps intelligence should go back to school.”

Well, joining us to discuss this contradiction, we are speaking with political analyst and author Trita Parsi. Trita is the author of several books, including most recently Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy, and he’s teaching at Georgetown University. Thanks for joining us, Trita.

TRITA PARSI: Thank you for having me.

BEN NORTON: So can you help unpack what’s going on here? It’s very interesting, the way this has been framed on both sides. So on one side we have, you know, kind of mainstream Democrats who are criticizing Trump for ignoring U.S. intelligence agencies–although, of course, there’s a good reason to not listen to them usually, given how they have a history of selling, you know, lies that led us into the Iraq war. But at the same time, Trump is actually ignoring them on North Korea and Syria, where the intelligence communities are pushing for a more hawkish approach. But on Iran Trump is once again ignoring them, and really exaggerating the supposed threat that Iran poses. Can you respond to this?

TRITA PARSI: So in some ways we shouldn’t be terribly surprised. This is a president that has no foreign policy experience, no understanding of international relations, and comes in with a few fixed ideas and a tremendous amount of just pure ignorance. Moreover, he’s a person who has never worked in a larger organization. He’s only been running his own family businesses. So the idea that what he says or what he thinks needs to be checked and corrected by others, or that it needs to be coordinated, is just simply foreign to his mindset. And as a result he is perfectly situated to constantly be in contradiction with all the elements of not only the U.S. government, but frankly, his own cabinet, at times.

Now, Trump–politically he may see this as a positive, in the sense that him going to war against the intelligence community fits his idea that he is selling to his supporters, that he is cleaning the swamp, draining the swamp; that he is opposed by the establishment. Because at the end of the day, the intelligence communities are obviously a core part of the establishment.

So he may not mind that this is taking place. In fact, he may be exaggerating and seeking to get electoral benefit from this, with his own base. When it comes to the substance of the issue, I think there it’s quite clear. He actually does seem to have some form of an instinct towards being less involved militarily in the Middle East. That instinct, however, is subjected to his impulses. His impulses constantly override his instincts. Moreover, the viewpoints of his core closest advisers, such as Bolton and Pompeo, is completely at odds with his instincts. Their worldview is, of course, much more about a need to be very, very strongly present in the Middle East. And an organizing principle for their entire worldview, frankly, seems to be Iran, in which they oppose Iraq on every front, and they are quite dramatically exaggerating the influence that Iran has in order to be able to justify more and more hawkish policies.

Now, on Iran, Trump has a weakness where he quickly departs from any idea of being less involved in the Middle East, which is his hatred for the Iran deal, which stems from his hatred for Barack Obama. So it’s interesting to see how oftentimes it appears as if his advisers have succeeded in convincing him to go along with hawkish policies that he otherwise probably not would agree with by using Iran as a justification for that. So for instance, Bolton was trying to convince Trump to stay in Syria in order not to just counter ISIS, but to counter Iran. That seemed not to have fully worked, but nevertheless it was an argument that was quite effective. Now we see that actually it’s the same argument that Trump now is parroting publicly in order to justify staying in Iraq, in which he says that he’s going to keep troops in Iraq in order to keep an eye on Iran, including on Iran’s nuclear program. So he has this very weak spot for any argument that has the word ‘Iran’ in it, and it appears as if Bolton and Pompeo have been quite astute at utilizing that in order to push him in a much more hawkish direction than he otherwise likely would have gone.

BEN NORTON: I was in fact going to ask you about that, Trita. While Trump is allegedly moving to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria–and we can talk about some of the response to that–at the same time, he recently divulged that he’s going to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, and in fact he might send some of the troops currently in Syria to Iraq. In an interview on CBS, Trump said this is in order to “watch Iran.”

DONALD TRUMP: Being in Iraq- it was a big mistake to go- one of the greatest mistakes going into the Middle East that our country has ever made. One of the greatest mistakes that we’ve ever made–

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you want to keep troops there now?

DONALD TRUMP: –but when it was chosen– well, we spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Whoa, that’s news. You’re keeping troops in Iraq because you want to be able to strike in Iran?

DONALD TRUMP: No, because I want to be able to watch Iran.

BEN NORTON: So, Trita, what do you make about this? I think there’s an interesting contradiction here, where it seems like one of two things could be happening. Trump is either trying to appeal to both the kind of isolationist right and the neoconservative right. He has surrounded himself with John Bolton and Pompeo. He also recently appointed the arch-neocon Elliott Abrams to be his special envoy in Venezuela. So it seems like part of his Iran strategy could potentially be to appease them, and appeal to both sides of the of the right wing spectrum. But at the same time some analysts have suggested that what Trump could be doing is actually withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan in order to potentially move toward a war with Iran in the future. So what do you make of this decision, and do you think one of these explanations fits?

TRITA PARSI: I think from Trump’s perspective he is just reacting. I don’t think there’s a strategy behind this. He is reacting, and he is being manipulated by these individuals in his cabinet that have a much, much stronger view of foreign policy, have an understanding of it. I tend to disagree with them about their recommendations. But compared to Trump, of course, they’re knowledgeable in a way that Trump simply is not. So he’s being manipulated by them in order to move him in a much more hawkish direction. Again, as I mentioned, the Iran argument is the one that Trump seems to constantly be falling for.

But it’s really fascinating to see how that statement came out. Again, it shows how uncoordinated policy is right now, because the Iraqis, of course, reacted very negatively to this, and the President there spoke out against this and said that, you know, the United States has not gotten Iraq’s permission to do this. Moreover, the idea that the United States would be able to keep an eye on the Iranian nuclear program from Iraq, of course, is laughable. It reminds me of how Sarah Palin said that she knew much about Russia because she could see it from her window.

We had a nuclear deal with Iran that actually had U.N. inspectors deep inside of the nuclear deal; 24/7 inspections, and monitoring from various instruments. To say that we now instead can watch the program from Iraq and that that is a superior policy option for the United States is, of course, beyond laughable.

BEN NORTON: And then finally, Trita, I want to talk more about Europe’s role in this. We have seen, of course, the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is popularly known as the nuclear deal, had many signatories. It was not just the U.S. and we’ve seen that the other signatories, including the EU, China, Russia, France, the UK, they have stayed abiding by their side of the agreement. Although we’ve seen some flipflopping. In the case of France, and Germany, and Britain, we have seen some companies say they will abide by the U.S. sanctions and refuse to do business with Iran out of fear of secondary sanctions. But we also have seen recent reports that Germany, the UK, and France have developed a system called INSTEX to avoid U.S. sanctions and to try to continue doing business with Iran, as was stipulated under the nuclear deal. So can you respond to the international community’s dealing with the Iran nuclear deal, even though Trump has withdrawn from it, and Europe’s potential strategy of trying to circumvent U.S. sanctions?

TRITA PARSI: Well, I don’t think the Europeans are circumventing sanctions, because at the end of the day the sanctions are illegal. The sanctions are in contradiction in violation of aU.N. Security Council resolution. The Europeans are protecting legitimate trade; trade that has been permitted by the UN Security Council as a result of the Iran deal, and the UN Security Council’s adoption of the resolution that endorsed Iran. The resolution that was passed 15 to 0.

So the Europeans and the Russians and the Chinese are trying to see what they can do to keep the deal alive. However–and of course, the INSTEX is a very important step forward in that, even though it does not appear in any way, shape, or form to have been sufficient to make Iranians content with the situation. They have been waiting quite some time now for the Europeans to provide this alternative payment system that would allow and enable this trade to continue and flourish. It is starting off very small, very careful. It’s going to be focusing on humanitarian trade at the outset. But it does have the potential of going into something that would be much much bigger than that. Not only will it allow for trade between the Europeans and Iran, but theoretically other countries. China, Russia may also be using this system in order to have their transactions with Iran protected. Bottom line is the United States is completely isolated in its opposition to the deal, and has even incentivized very close allies such as the Europeans to create alternative payment systems that are not only competing with those that are currently exist under the control of the U.S., but is actually undermining the U.S.’s influence over these international financial systems.

BEN NORTON: We’ll have to end our conversation there. We were joined by political analyst and author Trita Parsi, who is the author of several books, including most recently Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Trita teaches at Georgetown University. We’ll have him back soon, to follow this important story. Thanks a lot for joining us, Trita.

TRITA PARSI: Thank you for having me.

BEN NORTON: For The Real News Network, I’m Ben Norton.

The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that it should “be a larger part of our conversation” when it comes to funding the “Green New Deal.” According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs without worrying about deficits. MMT expert and Bernie Sanders adviser professor Stephanie Kelton says the government actually creates money when it spends. The real limit on spending is not an artificially imposed debt ceiling but a lack of labor and materials to do the work, leading to generalized price inflation. Only when that real ceiling is hit does the money need to be taxed back, but even then it’s not to fund government spending. Instead, it’s needed to shrink the money supply in an economy that has run out of resources to put the extra money to work.

Predictably, critics have been quick to rebut, calling the trend to endorse MMT “disturbing” and “a joke that’s not funny.” In a Feb. 1 post on the Daily Reckoning, Brian Maher darkly envisioned Bernie Sanders getting elected in 2020 and implementing “Quantitative Easing for the People” based on MMT theories. To debunk the notion that governments can just “print the money” to solve their economic problems, he raised the specter of Venezuela, where “money” is everywhere but bare essentials are out of reach for many, the storefronts are empty, unemployment is at 33 percent and inflation is predicted to hit 1 million percent by the end of the year.

Blogger Arnold Kling also pointed to the Venezuelan hyperinflation. He described MMT as “the doctrine that because the government prints money, it can spend whatever it wants . . . until it can’t.” He said:

To me, the hyperinflation in Venezuela exemplifies what happens when a country reaches the “it can’t” point. The country is not at full employment. But the government can’t seem to spend its way out of difficulty. Somebody should ask these MMT rock stars about the Venezuela example.

I’m not an MMT rock star and won’t try to expound on its subtleties. (I would submit that under existing regulations, the government cannot actually create money when it spends, but that it should be able to. In fact, MMTers have acknowledged that problem; but it’s a subject for another article.) What I want to address here is the hyperinflation issue, and why Venezuelan hyperinflation and “QE for the People” are completely different animals.

What Is Different About Venezuela

Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when the price of oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan bolivars and selling them for U.S. dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.

It was the same problem suffered by Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, the two classic examples of hyperinflation typically raised to silence proponents of government expansion of the money supply before Venezuela suffered the same fate. Professor Michael Hudson, an actual economic rock star who supports MMT principles, has studied the hyperinflation question extensively. He confirms that those disasters were not due to governments issuing money to stimulate the economy. Rather, he writes, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

Venezuela and other countries that are carrying massive debts in currencies that are not their own are not sovereign. Governments that are sovereign can and have engaged in issuing their own currencies for infrastructure and development quite successfully. I have discussed a number of contemporary and historical examples in my earlier articles, including in Japan, China, Australia and Canada.

Although Venezuela is not technically at war, it is suffering from foreign currency strains triggered by aggressive attacks by a foreign power. U.S. economic sanctions have been going on for years, causing the country at least $20 billion in losses. About $7 billion of its assets are now being held hostage by the U.S., which has waged an undeclared war against Venezuela ever since George W. Bush’s failed military coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002. Chávez boldly announced the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy as well as improved health and living conditions for millions of Venezuelans. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation’s economy, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela’s oligarchs.

Nicolás Maduro was elected president following Chávez’s death in 2013 and vowed to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Recently, as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi had done before him, he defiantly announced that Venezuela would not be trading oil in U.S. dollars following sanctions imposed by President Trump.

The notorious Elliott Abrams has now been appointed as special envoy to Venezuela. Considered a war criminal by many for covering up massacres committed by U.S.-backed death squads in Central America, Abrams was among the prominent neocons closely linked to Bush’s failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. National security adviser John Bolton is another key neocon architect advocating regime change in Venezuela. At press conference on Jan. 28, he held a yellow legal pad prominently displaying the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” a country that shares a border with Venezuela. Clearly, the neocon contingent feels it has unfinished business there.

Bolton does not even pretend that it’s all about restoring “democracy.” He blatantly said on Fox News, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” As President Nixon said of U.S. tactics against Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, the point of sanctions and military threats is to squeeze the country economically.

Killing the Public Banking Revolution in Venezuela

It may be about more than oil, which recently hit record lows in the market. The U.S. hardly needs to invade a country to replenish its supplies. As with Libya and Iraq, another motive may be to suppress the banking revolution initiated by Venezuela’s upstart leaders.

The banking crisis of 2009–10 exposed the corruption and systemic weakness of Venezuelan banks. Some banks were engaged in questionable business practices. Others were seriously undercapitalized. Others still were apparently lending top executives large sums of money. At least one financier could not prove where he got the money to buy the banks he owned.

Rather than bailing out the culprits, as was done in the U.S., in 2009 the government nationalized seven Venezuelan banks, accounting for around 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits. In 2010, more were taken over. Chávez’s government arrested at least 16 bankers and issued more than 40 corruption-related arrest warrants for others who had fled the country. By the end of March 2011, only 37 banks were left, down from 59 at the end of November 2009. State-owned institutions took a larger role, holding 35 percent of assets as of March 2011, while foreign institutions held just 13.2 percent of assets.

Over the howls of the media, in 2010 Chávez took the bold step of passing legislation defining the banking industry as one of “public service.” The legislation specified that 5 percent of the banks’ net profits must go toward funding community council projects, designed and implemented by communities for the benefit of communities. The Venezuelan government directed the allocation of bank credit to preferred sectors of the economy, and it increasingly became involved in private financial institutions’ operations. By law, nearly half the lending portfolios of Venezuelan banks had to be directed to particular mandated sectors of the economy, including small business and agriculture.

In a 2012 article titled “Venezuela Increases Banks’ Obligatory Social Contributions, U.S. and Europe Do Not,” Rachael Boothroyd said that the Venezuelan government was requiring the banks to give back. Housing was declared a constitutional right, and Venezuelan banks were obliged to contribute 15 percent of their yearly earnings to securing it. The government’s Great Housing Mission aimed to build 2.7 million free houses for low-income families before 2019. The goal was to create a social banking system that contributed to the development of society rather than simply siphoning off its wealth. Boothroyd wrote:

… Venezuelans are in the fortunate position of having a national government which prioritizes their life quality, wellbeing and development over the health of bankers’ and lobbyists’ pay checks. If the 2009 financial crisis demonstrated anything, it was that capitalism is quite simply incapable of regulating itself, and that is precisely where progressive governments and progressive government legislation needs to step in.

That is also where, in the U.S., the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is stepping in—and why Ocasio-Cortez’s proposals evoke howls in the media of the sort seen in Venezuela.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution gives Congress the power to create the nation’s money supply. Congress needs to exercise that power. The key to restoring our economic sovereignty is to reclaim the power to issue money from a commercial banking system that acknowledges no public responsibility beyond maximizing profits for its shareholders. Bank-created money is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, including federal deposit insurance, access to the Fed’s lending window, and government bailouts when things go wrong. If we the people are backing the currency, it should be issued by the people through their representative government.

Today’s government, however, does not adequately represent the people, which is why we first need to take our government back. Thankfully, that is exactly what Ocasio-Cortez and her congressional allies are attempting to do.

Charter Schools Are Pushing Public Education to the Brink

When striking Los Angeles teachers won their demand to call for a halt to charter school expansions in California, they set off a domino effect, and now teachers in other large urban districts are making the same demand.

Unchecked charter school growth is also bleeding into 2020 election campaigns. Recently, New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait berated Democratic Massachusetts Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren for having opposed a ballot initiative in her home state in 2016 that would have raised a cap on the number of charter schools. “There may be no state in America that can more clearly showcase the clear success of charter schools than [Massachusetts],” declared Chait.

But while Chait and other charter school fans claim Massachusetts as a charter school model, the deeper reality is that charters are driving Boston’s public education system to the financial brink.

As the Boston Globe recently reported, the city is experiencing an economic boom, but its schools resemble “an economically depressed industrial center.” The state’s unfair funding formula is part of the problem, but an ever-expanding charter school industry also imposes a huge financial drain.

Charter School Money Sucks

“Two decades ago, state educational aid covered almost a third of Boston’s school expenses,” writes Globe reporter James Vaznis. Today, “city officials anticipate that in just a few years every penny from the state will instead go toward charter-school costs of Boston students. Boston is slated to receive $220 million in state education aid; about $167 million will cover charter-school tuition for 10,000 students, leaving a little more than $50 million for the 55,000 students in the city school system.”

Boston is slated to receive $220 million in state education aid; about $167 million will cover charter-school tuition for 10,000 students, leaving a little more than $50 million for the 55,000 students in the city school system.”

As charter schools suck students and their per-pupil funding from the public system, the impact on Boston’s schools are glaring: “Decades-old buildings plagued by leaks. Drinking fountains shut because of lead pipe contamination. Persistent shortages of guidance counselors, nurses, psychologists, textbooks—even soap in the bathrooms. All the while, many Boston schools are under state pressure to increase their standardized test scores and graduation rates.”

As funds for Boston schools dwindle due to the drain from charter schools, the district’s alternatives are painful any way you look at it.

Closing schools is not a good alternative. First, it would have minimal impact on savings to the district. Also, school closures can significantly set back the academic achievement of students, particularly those students who transfer to new schools. The negative effects are most apt to be experienced in low-income communities and communities of color.

Attempts to raise local taxes for schools would likely be attacked by no-tax stalwarts and the business community as money-wastes for a “failing” school system.

So if Boston’s public schools are going broke because of charter schools, what does that say about Massachusetts as a model for charters?

‘A Matter of Priorities’

“Massachusetts’ funding approach for charter schools is not a model for other states to emulate,” writes University of Connecticut professor Preston Green in an email. Green is the author of numerous critical studies of charter school financials, including one in which he argues that financial abuse and fraud rife in the charter industry resembles the business practices of Enron, the mammoth energy corporation that collapsed under a weight of debt and scandal.

The first mistake Massachusetts makes, says Green, is to underfund the existing public school system. While Massachusetts is one of the biggest spenders on schools nationwide, it isn’t particularly fair about how it doles the money out. As in many states, Massachusetts  to its highest poverty schools than it does to its lowest poverty schools. With Boston having the highest percentage of students living in poverty in the state, the uneven funding is especially crippling to that city’s schools. But the unfairness is worsened by the increasing presence of charters, as state money is redirected to those schools instead.

“This is a matter of priorities,” says Green. “States should first provide sufficient funding to traditional public schools in urban areas. Once states have systems of traditional public schools that meet the educational needs of these students, then they can assess how much funding and resources to devote to charter schools.”

‘It’s Just Inefficient’

But blaming the state alone misses some crucial truths of charter school financials.

“It’s really not a matter of whether it’s ‘state’ money or ‘locally raised’ money that’s being transferred,” writes Rutgers University professor Bruce Baker in an email. “It’s about the fact that kids are shifting to charters, and money for district schools is declining at a pace whereby the district cannot possibly immediately, efficiently adjust its budget and use of space.”

Indeed, the ebb and flow of charter schools make it near impossible for school districts to precisely predict enrollment, staffing, transportation, and facilities needs. And because public schools must, by law, accommodate all students, public school administrators are in the awkward position of having to anticipate the greatest need without knowing for sure the students will show up. And should students who transferred to charters at the beginning of the year come back mid-year, the per-pupil funding doesn’t come back with them.

Baker also finds fault in the inefficient way charter schools are configured with their own separate governing boards, separate administrative and teaching staffs, separate facilities, and separate transportation (if they happen to offer it).

“It’s just inefficient,” Baker contends. “Running two systems in a common space is just less efficient and more expensive than running one.”

Baker warns these inefficiencies are not easily fixed and don’t right themselves as public school districts acclimate to the presence of charters. “The ongoing inefficiency of charters is baked into having uncontrollable mobility between two independent systems operating in a common space,” he says.

This is not to say Massachusetts might be doing a better job of managing the charter industry than any other state. Charters in Massachusetts are more regulated than they are in most other states, and their numbers are capped—the very thing Chait rails at. But “an important point,” according to Baker, is that the inherent inefficiencies of charters “arise even in a state that has reasonably regulated the expansion of charter schooling.”

What about in states where they haven’t?

‘Part of a Growing Trend’

“Boston’s experience with charter schools is part of a growing trend,” says Green. “Researchers have documented the financial strain charter schools have placed on urban schools in California, Michigan, and Chicago. If charter schools are allowed to expand in urban districts without consideration of their impact on their public schools, we will see more instances of urban school systems pressed to the breaking point.”

The financial stress caused by charter schools is expanding beyond big city schools.

Recently, in a rural county in eastern North Carolina, the local public school district had to close two elementary schools due to the growth of charter schools in the district and surrounding counties. While the number of students in the district has remained “fairly stable,” reports the local newspaper, enrollment has dropped by almost 13 percent while attendance at charters has “grown almost six-fold.”

Since state lawmakers lifted a cap on the number of charters allowed in the state, the number of students attending charters has grown by more than 200 percent, and the number of charters has nearly doubled, notes NC Policy Watch, a progressive news outlet funded by the North Carolina Justice Center. When so many students leave the public system, there are fewer dollars to educate those who remain, the article explains, “especially those students with profound disabilities and other special needs.”

A recent survey of school district administrators in Pennsylvania found that local public education systems across the state are experiencing greater financial stress. School officials point to three major causes of the stress: employee pensions, the rising costs of special education services, and charter schools.

What If Public Schools Were No Longer There?

The costs imposed by charter schools are not only financially burdensome to local public schools; they’re also potentially calamitous to schoolchildren and families.

When charters are closed by the state, as often happens, or when charter operators decide to close on their own, which they have the flexibility to do, the students and their families at least have a public system they can fall back on. This is not something to take for granted.

In 2012, the nation’s largest-ever closure of brick-and-mortar charters occurred in St. Louis, when Missouri state officials suddenly closed a chain of six charter schools managed by Imagine, a nationwide charter management company, for persistently low academic performance and financial improprieties. The district quickly had to absorb more than 3,800 returning students from the charters and reopen three closed schools, which cost millions to upgrade and outfit with new equipment.

What would have happened to those families if the public school system were no longer there?

In Baker’s recent study, “Exploring the Consequences of Charter School Expansion in U.S. Cities,” he writes that school systems experiencing large expansions of charter schools “have faced substantial annual deficits.”

So far, many of these districts have adapted by lowering overhead and closing and consolidating schools. But there are far more severe financial thresholds school districts may eventually be forced to cross.

Because of charter expansions, “public districts are being left with legacy debts associated with capital plants and employee retirement systems,” Baker finds, “while also accumulating higher risk and more costly debt in the form of charter school revenue bonds.”

Baker urges charter authorizers to collaborate with public school districts before deciding where and when to open new charters, and he calls on policymakers to weigh the potentially negative impacts charter expansions have on introducing inequities and financial instabilities into the system.

To learn more about school privatization, check out Who Controls Our Schools? The Privatization of American Public Education, a free ebook published by the Independent Media Institute.

Click here to read a selection of Who Controls Our Schools? published on AlterNet, or here to access the complete text.

This article was produced by Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Democrats Launch New Probe of Trump’s Finances, Russia Ties

WASHINGTON — The House intelligence committee will launch a broad new investigation looking at Russian interference in the 2016 election and President Donald Trump’s foreign financial interests, Chairman Adam Schiff announced Wednesday, moving ahead with the aggressive oversight that Democrats have promised now that they are in the majority.

Schiff said the investigation will include “the scope and scale” of Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, the “extent of any links and/or coordination” between Russians and Trump’s associates, whether foreign actors have sought to hold leverage over Trump or his family and associates, and whether anyone has sought to obstruct any of the relevant investigations.

The announcement came one day after Trump criticized “ridiculous partisan investigations” in his State of the Union speech. Schiff dismissed those comments Wednesday.

“We’re going to do our jobs and the president needs to do his,” Schiff said. “Our job involves making sure that the policy of the United States is being driven by the national interest, not by any financial entanglement, financial leverage or other form of compromise.”

The California Democrat also announced a delay in an upcoming closed-door interview with Trump’s former fixer and personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, “in the interests of the investigation.” The interview was originally scheduled for Friday. It will now be held on Feb. 28, Schiff said.

Schiff said he could not speak about the reason for the delay. Hours after the meeting was pushed back, a document was filed, and then deleted, under seal in the criminal case against Cohen brought by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office. The court’s docket did not contain any details about the nature of the document. A later notice said the document had been “incorrectly filed in this case.”

Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined comment, as did Lanny Davis, an attorney for Cohen.

The intelligence committee also voted Wednesday to send Mueller the transcripts from the panel’s earlier Russia investigation. Republicans ended that probe in March, concluding there was no evidence of conspiracy or collusion between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. Democrats strongly objected at the time, saying the move was premature.

Since then, both Cohen and Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone have been charged with lying to the panel. Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to the House and Senate intelligence committees about his role in a Trump business proposal in Moscow. He acknowledged that he misled lawmakers by saying he had abandoned the project in January 2016 when he actually continued pursuing it for months after that.

Stone pleaded not guilty to charges last month that he lied to the House panel about his discussions during the 2016 election about WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that released thousands of emails stolen from Democrats. Stone is also charged with obstructing the House probe by encouraging one of his associates, New York radio host Randy Credico, to refuse to testify before the House panel in an effort to conceal Stone’s false statements.

Schiff has said Mueller should consider whether additional perjury charges are warranted.

The committee had already voted to release most of the transcripts to the public, but they are still being reviewed by the intelligence community for classified information.

Mueller requested Stone’s interview transcript last year and the panel voted to release it in December. Schiff wouldn’t say whether Mueller had requested other transcripts, but noted that the committee had voted to withhold a small number of transcripts from the public and also that some witnesses had been interviewed since then. The transmission of the transcripts to Mueller, expected immediately, will give him full access to all of the committee’s interviews.

Among the transcripts are interviews with Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; his longtime spokeswoman, Hope Hicks; and his former bodyguard Keith Schiller. There are dozens of other transcripts of interviews with former Obama administration officials and Trump associates.

Democrats also opposed a Republican motion at the meeting Wednesday to subpoena several witnesses. Republicans said they were witnesses who Democrats had previously wanted to come before the panel.

A Republican aide said that witness list included FBI and Justice Department officials involved in the Russia investigation and others who could shed more light on research by former British spy Christopher Steele. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the committee’s business is confidential.

Steele’s research was funded by Democrats and later compiled into an anti-Trump dossier that became public.

Can Black Millennials Access the American Dream?

Millennials, a 2013 issue of Time magazine proclaimed, “are lazy, entitled narcissists, who still live with their parents.” Almost six years later, the media changed its tune: Millennials are not entitled, but exhausted, struggling under the weight of staggering student debt and what Michael Hobbes called in HuffPost the “scariest financial future of any generation since the Great Depression.”

Missing from both the accusations of entitlement and the backlash is an analysis of how race affects economic and social outcomes for millennials. As journalist and Eisner Fellow at The Nation, Reniqua Allen, writes in her new book, “It Was All a Dream: A New Generation Confronts the Broken Promise to Black America,” while “43 percent of all American millennials are non-White … discussion about millennials and their ideas of ‘success’ are often deeply rooted in the experiences of privileged White men and women.”

In other words, America may have had its first black president, but Barack Obama’s election didn’t eliminate student debt, the shrinking economy, limited opportunities for upward mobility or the added burden of racism.

Against this backdrop, what does success mean for black millennials? Is the American dream available to them? To answer that question, Allen traveled across the country, conducting interviews with 75 black millennials spanning class, gender and education levels. They include students, business executives, activists, sex workers, coal miners, parents and everything in between. She combined their stories with extensive research and observations from her own life experiences. Allen spoke to Truthdig shortly after the book’s release.

Full disclosure: The interviewer attended an after-school program with Allen in 1993, when they were preteens. This interview has been condensed and edited.

Ilana Novick: How do the experiences of black millennials differ from the general media narrative around millennials?

Reniqua Allen: I think that the media, particularly initially, largely got the story of the millennial generation wrong. They definitely portrayed the millennial generation as kind of these over-educated folks living in Brooklyn.

The experience of black millennials particularly is important, because we’re dealing with some of these generational issues. We’re dealing with student debt, and wages not increasing and lower rates of unionization.

At the same time, we’re also dealing with the same stresses and burdens that black people have always faced around discrimination. Predatory lending is big for this population. There are all these other issues around being black in America that have largely been the same that we still have to face. We’re doing so, I think, with the expectation from people, particularly white people, that things are equal [for everyone].

IN: Money: earning it, keeping it and passing it to new generations, is a recurring theme for many of the people you spoke to in the book. What are some of the financial challenges facing black millennials?

RA: Every indicator shows that when we’re looking at things economically—and young black millennials don’t have things like inheritance, they don’t have the wealth to fall back on—we’re also looking at other issues, like black people don’t get called back for jobs because of their names, they don’t have the network to rely on that many of their white peers do. We’re seeing a backlash in government and a resistance to programs like affirmative action. We saw the gutting of the Voting Rights Act a few years ago. We’re doing this with less protection than ever.

IN: Millennials of all races, but especially white millennials, like to think of ourselves as less racist than our parents. How accurate is that perception?

RA: Even if you look at studies by millennials about millennials, about white millennials on race, it shows that things aren’t necessarily equal. You look at, for example, white millennials—there’s a study by The Washington Post in 2015, which asked them if blacks are less intelligent or lazier [than whites], and their answers are largely the same as generations past. There are huge numbers who actually agree with those things.

There was an MTV study that shows that even though their parents taught them that everyone should be equal—a good thing, only something like 37 percent of millennials had talked about race with their families. I think there’s a lack of understanding about how race works.

IN: And why do you think non-black millennials hold on to the idea that they’re less racist than previous generations?

RA: We don’t realize how strong white supremacy is, and that’s not just among white people. I don’t want to just put white people to blame, because people of color also do that, particularly when you’re thinking about black people. We, I think, are on the bottom, always. That’s a frustrating place to be in.

IN: I want to ask about Troy, the young man who decided to sell drugs after he exhausted his legal options for earning money. You write, “His story is different and could only belong to a millennial.” Why do you think so?

RA: I think Troy is a really good representation of someone from this generation who feels entitled to a better life, who feels that he should be doing more but is not quite able to grasp it. He has a really—and I think that this is a great trait of the millennial generation—he does feel independent. He does have a real entrepreneurial streak.

He tried selling sneakers on Facebook. Young white boys his age who had access to more cash and could buy better sneakers started taking that venture from him, so he wasn’t able to do it then. He goes through all these kinds of legitimate things he failed at. At the same time, he was also trying to do … he was a golf caddy. He said those folks that he was caddying for didn’t even acknowledge his existence. He was still invisible, I should say.

That, I think, is unique—the fact that Troy still believed in the American dream. He still believed in hard work.

It was a really fascinating moment for me, to see him still going. Seeing things like media and social media, which was supposed to be an equalizer, seeing how something like Facebook still was prone to all the discrimination that is inherent in our society. He was still prone to that, even on Facebook. Facebook didn’t even out the playing field. At the end of the day, big cash, even though it’s coming from young white millennials or even their parents, still kind of ruled.

IN: The question of whether and how millennials can own a home is a struggle for multiple people interviewed in the book, including Patrick, who dreamed of owning a home until he worked in housing advocacy, and watched his parents go through foreclosure. Can you talk about why you think the idea of owning a home became so important to Americans?

RA: As much as we try to push back on tradition, I think the idea of homeownership is quintessential to the American experience. I want to be clear that most of the people I talk to are black Americans. That doesn’t discount our American-ness at all. We are still Americans. I think a fundamental part of making it, this idea of success in America, is owning a home.

I think that black people don’t necessarily diverge in that. This idea of 40 acres and a mule has always been a prominent part of, at least, my black experience. I think it’s human nature to want to be able to place roots somewhere. As black Americans, I think, more than anyone, we have seen the importance of that, of being able to own our own spaces.

Millennials, a lot of whom grew up during the 2008 recession, saw how homeownership could be a burden to their parents. A lot of the people I spoke with—Patrick one of them—experienced foreclosure. A couple others [in the book] experienced homelessness and had to deal with that. That still doesn’t mean that we don’t want a place that feels like ours. Patrick wanted a place where he could paint the walls of his own place, where people didn’t tell him what to say.

For me, that was part of what I saw as success. I wanted to own, and particularly own in a part of town where my mom was not allowed to own, where my grandparents weren’t allowed to own, in New Jersey. I wanted to prove or show that I could own in this place where we traditionally weren’t allowed. It felt like a win for me.

IN: How do past economic policies impact black millennials’ ability to own a home today?

RA: It goes back decades and decades and decades that homeownership is what—this is a quote—“would establish us potentially as a people, that would make us American.” I think this idea is a part of American culture, and millennials feed into it. I was shocked to find that these people are still benefiting from the Homestead Act from the 1800s. That just blew my mind. This is not like a couple [of] people. This is, like, millions of people [who] are still benefiting from wealth and homes that were passed down to them, generation to generation. That’s something that young black Americans, young black millennials, don’t have the ability to benefit from.

Banks do not like to take risks on black people, and that makes a difference. It’s shown over and over again. I shared my story of homeownership. I too got predatory-lended on the basis of race, which is kind of the interesting part for me.

I want people to understand that it’s not an even playing field. People, I think, don’t necessarily see that. They don’t see how privilege works in their lives. Owning a home, or inheriting a home, which also young black people don’t benefit from, is a huge boost, a huge boost.

IN: Troy’s lack of access to education made me think about another topic that comes up in multiple stories, which is the relationship between education and student debt. Michael, for example, is heavily in debt, but is still determined to finish his degree. Is education a path to mobility, or is it just a generally awful situation, because you can’t necessarily get a job if you don’t have the degree, but even if you have the degree, it’s not a guarantee that you will get the job?

RA: I think black people, when it comes to education, are in a really hard spot. Every indicator shows that you’re penalized more if you don’t have that education, but it’s coming at a very high cost. I think the payoff is diminishing at every moment.

I have a bachelor’s, a master’s degree; I’m working on a Ph.D. at the moment. I am a person who obviously believes in the importance of education. I also believe that everybody doesn’t need to spend years and years in college. You should be able to have a quality education and graduate high school and have a good job and be able to have health care and be able to send your kids to college and not be saddled with debt.

I think there’s some real problems in our system. I think it’s really hurting black people—young black millennials—in ways it doesn’t hurt other people. Part of that is we get paid less when we do get jobs. We have a harder time finding jobs. I mentioned earlier that we don’t always have those networks to tap into, with things like affirmative action actually going away more than ever—now more than ever, I think—and unions not being able to protect us. One big thing is that unions really do actually help young black people, and black people in general, I should say.

With these protections going away, it’s increasingly hard for me to be convinced that education or a college education is going to be the path to upward mobility in 20 years. I think, where we are right now, unfortunately, it still is. This feels all very systematic. It feels like a cycle that black millennials are trapped in. If they don’t get the degree then they don’t get the job as much.

IN: How is the situation different for white millennials?

RA: Young white people with far less education still do well. It’s actually because discrimination, I think, is so inherently built into the fabric of this country that it really reproduces itself in all these different places. We really need to understand that and reconcile it.

I think people, particularly the young black millennials that I talked to, were working harder than ever. People were trying to go to school, but couldn’t totally translate that into opportunity and upward mobility. But it’s not for lack of trying.

IN: During the 2016 election, and the post-mortems after Trump won, we heard so much about the white working class, but not stories of people like Jeremy, the black coal miner from West Virginia, whose story appears in the book. Where was the black working class? Why do you think their stories were left out?

RA: I do think Jeremy’s story is so important, and the people of West Virginia and Appalachia. Honestly, I didn’t know that there are tons of black people in Appalachia. I was surprised.

They had a distinct voice. This was kind of as Donald Trump was running for president. I think Jeremy was considering [voting for] Donald Trump.

I think people need to really understand, and people miss that just because they’re black, it doesn’t mean that our experiences are a monolith. Jeremy also had the experience of being Appalachian. I think that, again, this is a problem of media being so centered in New York City. I had to rent a car and drive to McDowell County, which is one of the—I think it’s still the poorest county in West Virginia. It’s not so easily accessible. I think that media does like to portray it as a decrepit and dying place, when the people there I saw were wonderful and hopeful. They had been largely left behind.

I think that the stories of—particularly of people of color—in Appalachia easily get overlooked, because we have this idea of what “Appalachians” are supposed to look like. That doesn’t often fit into the narrative, even though people of color have been in the mountains, they’ve been in the coal mines, for decades, and have their own unique experiences as well. I think there just needs to be more nuance in those conversations.

IN: The book is also about your search for a place that felt like home for you. It seems like at the beginning of the book, you were exploring the South, as opposed to New York or the West Coast or the Midwest? 

RA: Yeah. I think basically what America has shown me in particular is that there is no promised land anywhere in America.

I still find a lot of pain in the South. I just do. It’s a hard place for me to truly understand. I’m trying to be better about it because I think for so many people it is home. It is certainly the place where my ancestors came from and grew up and is beloved. I think that is something tremendously important and special.

I think there is still that idea of home that is comforting to many young blacks, particularly young black millennials. They’re moving to the South, not just because the city is Chicago and New York. It never turns out quite to be the promised land.

They’re moving for that economic reason, but there’s also like a cultural—and there may be even a spiritual—thing happening. It’s actually pulling people to the South. I’m sort of amazed.

IN: I’m curious why you’re amazed.

RA: Why am I amazed about it? The South is still very largely mysterious and painful to me. I’m starting to understand why people find comfort in it, but I hate walking around on plantations. I hate seeing that. I know that the North wasn’t any better. I know that there’s a slave burial ground right here in New York City, a couple of blocks from where I am now.

The way the South still hangs on to the Confederacy and its racial heritage, I think it’s a little different. Frankly, it may be a little more honest than New York, where I think things are really covered in elitism and properness. That’s frustrating in its own way. The South may be more real about it. It’s just [that] I’m uncomfortable because I’m used to dealing with my closeted liberal ways of dealing with race, which aren’t good either in New York.

IN: What do you hope readers take away from the stories in “It Was All a Dream”?

RA: I want them to understand that young black people have a unique position in America. I want them to understand our stories. I think a lot of people don’t understand things like why Black Lives Matter was relevant.

I think that things can very easily look like there’s an even playing field. We had a black president, so progress looks possible to people. But I want people to understand how hard that progress is actually to achieve if you’re young and you’re black in America. It’s something that I think we as a people are committed to. The burden of our lives impacts us every day, and having to fight our visibility and our humanity, it weighs on us in ways that it doesn’t [for] other people.

I think that we are hopeful and we are dedicated to surviving. It’s not just a sad story of victims, of people trying to find their way in a country that has basically shit on them at every juncture of their lives and their parents’ lives and has made clear that we don’t matter. But we are pushing back and saying that … we are important and that we are here and we are not going anywhere.

EU Chief Ponders ‘Special Place in Hell’ for Some Brexiteers

BRUSSELS — European Council President Donald Tusk took a swipe Wednesday at some Brexit-backers in Britain, wondering aloud what “special place in hell” might be reserved for those who had no idea how to deliver the country’s exit from the European Union.

With less than two months to go until Britain is due to leave the EU and concern mounting about a potentially chaotic departure, Tusk, who chairs meetings of EU leaders, also appeared to dash any British hopes that the bloc would reopen discussions over the Brexit deal that was overwhelmingly rejected by U.K. lawmakers last month.

“I have been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of plan how to carry it out safely,” Tusk told reporters after talks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.

As the men shook hands, Varadkar told Tusk “they will give you terrible trouble in the British press” over the comments — which, as predicted, drew outrage from British Brexiteers.

House of Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, a pro-Brexit Conservative, said Tusk’s remark was “pretty unacceptable and pretty disgraceful. … it totally demeans him.”

Sammy Wilson of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party tweeted that Tusk was a “devilish euro maniac … doing his best to keep the United Kingdom bound by the chains of EU bureaucracy and control.”

And former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage tweeted: “After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country. Sounds more like heaven to me.”

Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29 — the first time a country has ever done so. British Prime Minister Theresa May is due in Brussels on Thursday with what she says is a parliamentary mandate to re-open the withdrawal agreement, sealed between the EU and her Conservative government in November after 18 months of intense, highly technical negotiations.

It might be a fruitless visit.

“The EU 27 is not making any new offer,” Tusk said Wednesday. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed, saying the bloc “is not prepared to reopen the issue.”

Tusk and Varadkar said EU nations were intensifying their preparations for a ‘no-deal’ British exit — a possibly disastrous development that could inflict heavy economic and political damage in the U.K. and the EU alike.

“A sense of responsibility also tells us to prepare for a possible fiasco,” Tusk said.

May’s opponents, meanwhile, urged the government to delay Brexit, saying Britain is unprepared to leave on March 29. Labour Party foreign policy spokeswoman Emily Thornberry said such a postponement would allow “time to see whether the negotiations succeed or, if they do not, to pursue a different plan.”

“We have a government treading water in the Niagara River while the current is taking us over the falls,” she told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

Britain’s Parliament voted down May’s Brexit deal last month, largely because of concerns about a provision for the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. The mechanism, known as the backstop, is a safeguard that would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU to remove the need for checks along the Irish border until a permanent new trading relationship is in place.

The border area was a flashpoint during decades of conflict in Northern Ireland, and the free flow of people and goods across the frontier underpins the peace agreement of 1998.

But many pro-Brexit British lawmakers fear the backstop will trap Britain in regulatory lockstep with the EU, while May’s political allies in Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party say it imposes barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

In search of elusive unity, May met Wednesday with the DUP, which insists the backstop must be scrapped, and with other Northern Ireland parties who insist it must stay.

There was little sign that any compromises were in sight.

“The prime minister has come here empty-handed, with the same old rhetoric, with no plan, no credibility, frankly no honor,” said Mary Lou McDonald, president of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein.

McDonald said the backstop “is the bottom line” for keeping the border open.

The EU, which has long regarded the Irish border as the thorniest issue in Brexit talks, is also adamant that the backstop can’t be removed. Tusk’s appearance alongside Varadkar was the latest signal that the bloc will not abandon Ireland, which fears both the economic and political impact of a hard border.

“We will not gamble with peace or put a sell-by date on reconciliation, and this is why we insist on the backstop,” Tusk said. “Give us a believable guarantee for peace in Northern Ireland, and the U.K. will leave the EU as a trusted friend.”

Varadkar said Britain’s political instability “demonstrates exactly why we need a legal guarantee” about the border.

During a speech Tuesday in Belfast, May restated her “unshakeable” commitment to avoiding a hard border and said she was seeking changes to the backstop rather than its removal from the withdrawal agreement.

May’s government has been searching for a way to overcome lawmakers’ opposition to the backstop, by adding a time limit or an exit clause — both of which have been rejected by the EU — or a finding a way to replace border infrastructure with unspecified technology.

Tusk said he hoped May would bring to Brussels “a realistic suggestion on how to end the impasse.”

America Has Learned Nothing From Its Forever Wars

The news, however defined, always contains a fair amount of pap. Since Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency, however, the trivia quotient in the average American’s daily newsfeed has grown like so many toadstools in a compost heap, overshadowing or crowding out matters of real substance. We’re living in TrumpWorld, folks. Never in the history of journalism have so many reporters, editors, and pundits expended so much energy fixating on one particular target, while other larger prey frolic unmolested within sight.

As diversion or entertainment — or as a way to make a buck or win 15 seconds of fame — this development is not without value. Yet the overall impact on our democracy is problematic. It’s as if all the nation’s sportswriters obsessed 24/7 about beating New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick.

In TrumpWorld, journalistic importance now correlates with relevance to the ongoing saga of Donald J. Trump. To members of the mainstream media (Fox News, of course, excepted), that saga centers on efforts to oust the president from office before he destroys the Republic or blows up the planet.

Let me stipulate for the record: this cause is not entirely meritless. Yet to willingly embrace such a perspective is to forfeit situational awareness bigly. All that ends up mattering are the latest rumors, hints, signs, or sure-fire indicators that The Day of Reckoning approaches. Meanwhile, the president’s own tweets, ill-tempered remarks, and outlandish decisions each serve as a reminder that the moment when he becomes an ex-president can’t arrive too soon.

Hotels in Moscow, MAGA Caps, and a Nixon Tattoo

Ostensibly big stories erupt, command universal attention, and then evaporate like the dewfall on a summer morning, their place taken by the next equally big, no less ephemeral story. Call it the Michael Wolff syndrome. Just a year ago, Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House took the political world by storm, bits and pieces winging across the Internet while the book itself reportedly sold a cool million copies in the first four days of its release. Here was the unvarnished truth of TrumpWorld with a capital T. Yet as quickly as Fire and Fury appeared, it disappeared, leaving nary a trace.

Today, 99 cents will get you a copy of that same hardcover book. As a contribution to deciphering our times, the value of Wolff’s volume is about a dollar less than its current selling price. A mere year after its appearance, it’s hard to recall what all the fuss was about.

Smaller scale versions of the Wolff syndrome play themselves out almost daily. Remember the recent bombshell BuzzFeed report charging that Trump had ordered his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie about a proposed hotel project in Moscow? For a day or so, it was the all-encompassing, stop-the-presses-get-me-rewrite version of reality, the revelation — finally! — that would bring down the president. Then the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced that key aspects of the report were “not accurate” and the 24/7 buzz created by that scoop vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Immediately thereafter, Rudy Giuliani, once “America’s mayor,” now Trump’s Barney Fife-equivalent of a personal lawyer, announced on national television that he had never said “there was no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russian authorities in election 2016. Observers on the lookout for the proverbial smoking gun quickly interpreted that odd formulation as an admission that collusion must, in fact, have occurred.

The headlines were thunderous. Yet within hours, the gotcha-interpretation fell apart. Alternative explanations appeared, suggesting that Giuliani was suffering from dementia or that his drinking habit had gotten out of hand. With the ex-mayor wasting little time walking back his own comment, another smoking gun morphed into a cap pistol.

Fortunately for what little survives of his reputation, Giuliani’s latest gaffe was promptly eclipsed by video clips that seemed to show white students from an all-boys Catholic high school in Kentucky (Strike One!) who had just participated in the annual March for Life in Washington (Strike Two!) and were taunting an elderly Native American Vietnam War veteran using Tomahawk chops while sporting MAGA hats on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (Strike Three!).

The ensuing rush to judgment became a wind sprint. Here was the distilled essence of every terrible thing that Donald Trump had done to America. The pro-Trump baseball caps said it all. As a columnist in my hometown newspaper put it, “Like a white hood, that cap represents a provocation and a threat: ‘You know where we stand. You’ve been warned. And the president of the United States has our back.’ And, yes, I do equate MAGA gear with traditional Klan attire. The sartorial choices change, the racism remains the same.” For those too obtuse to grasp the underlying point, the title of the essay drove it home: “White America, come get your children.”

As luck would have it, however, the events that actually unfolded on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial turned out to be more complicated than was first reported. No matter: in TrumpWorld, all sides treat facts as malleable and striking the right moral posture counts for far more than balance or accuracy.

Anyway, soon after, with news that Trump confidant Roger Stone had been indicted on various charges, the boys from Covington could return to the obscurity from which they briefly emerged. To judge from the instantaneous media reaction, Stone’s first name might as well have been Rosetta. Here at last — for sure this time — was the key to getting the real dirt.

Rest assured, though, that by the time this essay appears, Stone and his Richard Nixon tattoo will have been superseded by yet another sensational Trump-related revelation (or two or three).

And so it goes, in an endlessly churning cycle: “breaking news” goes viral; commentators rush in to explain what-it-all-means; the president himself retaliates by lashing out on Twitter (“The Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country!”), much to the delight of his critics. This tit-for-tat exchange continues until the next fresh tidbit of “breaking news” gives the cycle another vigorous turn.

When Does a Hill of Beans Become a Mountain?

Do all of the words spoken or written result in citizens who are better informed and better able to reach sensible conclusions about the global situation in which our country finds itself? Not as far as I can tell. Granted, if I spent more time watching those gabbling heads on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, I might feel differently. But I doubt it.

Still, having been involuntarily shanghaied into TrumpWorld, I worry that my fellow citizens are losing their ability to distinguish between what truly matters and what doesn’t, between what’s vital and what’s merely interesting. True, Donald J. Trump has a particular knack for simplifying and thereby distorting almost any subject to which he gives even the slightest attention, ranging from border security to forest management. Yet almost everywhere in TrumpWorld, this very tendency has become endemic, with nuance and perspective sacrificed to the larger cause of cleansing the temple of the president’s offending presence. Nothing, it appears, comes close to the importance of this effort.

Not even wars.

I admit to a preoccupation with the nation’s seemingly never-ending armed conflicts. These days it’s not the conduct of our wars that interests me — they have become all but indecipherable — but their duration, aimlessness, and cumulative costs. Yet even more than all of these, what’s fascinating is the way that they continue more or less on autopilot.

I don’t wish to imply that political leaders and media outlets ignore our wars altogether. That would be unfair. Yet in TrumpWorld, while the president’s performance in office receives intensive and persistent coverage day in, day out, the attention given to America’s wars has been sparse and perfunctory, when not positively bizarre.

As a case in point, consider the op-ed that recently appeared in the New York Times (just as actual peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban seemed to be progressing), making the case for prolonging the U.S. war in Afghanistan, while chiding President Trump for considering a reduction in the number of U.S. troops currently stationed there. Any such move, warned Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, would be a “mistake” of the first order.

The ongoing Afghan War dates from a time when some of today’s recruits were still in diapers. Yet O’Hanlon counsels patience: a bit more time and things just might work out. This is more or less comparable to those who suggested back in the 1950s that African Americans might show a bit more patience in their struggle for equality: Hey, what’s the rush?

I don’t pretend to know what persuaded the editors of the Times that O’Hanlon’s call to make America’s longest war even longer qualifies as something readers of the nation’s most influential newspaper just now need to ponder. Yet I do know this: the dearth of critical attention to the costs and consequences of our various post-9/11 wars is nothing short of shameful, a charge to which politicians and journalists alike should plead equally guilty.

I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than a little merit. Even more striking than Trump’s critique is the fact that so few members of the national security establishment are willing to examine it seriously. As a consequence, the wars persist, devoid of purpose.

Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as a “mistake,” as O’Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted stalemate?

Disaster? Debacle? Catastrophe? Humiliation?

And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt characterization.

Yet the fault is not Trump’s. The fault belongs to those who have allowed their immersion in the dank precincts of TrumpWorld to preclude serious reexamination of misguided and reckless policies that predate the president by at least 15 years.

What Corporate Media Aren’t Telling You About Venezuela

The US media chorus supporting a US overthrow of the Venezuelan government has for years pointed to the country’s economic crisis as a justification for regime change, while whitewashing the ways in which the US has strangled the Venezuelan economy  (FAIR.org, 3/22/18).

Sister Eugenia Russian, president of Fundalatin, a Venezuelan human rights NGO that was established in 1978 and has special consultative status at the UN, told the Independent (1/26/19):

In contact with the popular communities, we consider that one of the fundamental causes of the economic crisis in the country is the effect [of] the unilateral coercive sanctions that are applied in the economy, especially by the government of the United States.

While internal errors also contributed to the nation’s problems, Russian said it’s likely that few countries in the world have ever suffered an “economic siege” like the one Venezuelans are living under.

While the New York Times and the Washington Post have lately professed profound (and definitely 100 percent sincere) concern for the welfare of Venezuelans, neither publication has ever referred to Fundalatin.

Alfred de Zayas, the first UN special rapporteur to visit Venezuela in 21 years, told the Independent (1/26/19) that US, Canadian and European Union “economic warfare” has killed Venezuelans, noting that the sanctions fall most heavily on the poorest people and demonstrably cause death through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at coercing economic change in a “sister democracy.”

De Zayas’ UN report noted that sanctions “hind[er] the imports necessary to produce generic medicines and seeds to increase agricultural production.” De Zayas also cited Venezuelan economist Pasqualina Curcio, who reports that “the most effective strategy to disrupt the Venezuelan economy” has been the manipulation of the exchange rate. The rapporteur went on to suggest that the International Criminal Court investigate economic sanctions against Venezuela as possible crimes against humanity.

Given that de Zayas is the first UN special rapporteur to report on Venezuela in more than two decades, one might expect the media to regard his findings as an important part of the Venezuela narrative, but his name does not appear in a single article ever published in the Post; the Times has mentioned him once, but not in relation to Venezuela.

The economist Francisco Rodríguez points out that the sanctions the Trump administration issued in August 2017 prohibited US banks from providing new financing to the Venezuelan government, a key part of the “toxification” of financial dealings with Venezuela. Rodríguez notes that, in August 2017, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network warned financial institutions that “all Venezuelan government agencies and bodies…appear vulnerable to public corruption and money laundering,” and recommended that some transactions originating from Venezuela be flagged as potentially criminal. Many financial institutions then closed Venezuelan accounts, concerned about the risk of being accused of participating in money laundering.

Rodríguez says that this handcuffed Venezuela’s oil industry, the sector most crucial to its economy, with lost access to credit preventing the country from obtaining financial resources that could have been devoted to investment or maintenance. And whereas previously the Venezuelan government would raise production by signing joint venture agreements with foreign partners who would finance investment, Trump’s sanctions “effectively put an end to these loans.”

Mark Weisbrot (The Nation, 9/7/17) , also an economist, raised a related issue:

If we step back and look at Venezuela from a bird’s-eye view, how does a country with 500 billion barrels of oil and hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of minerals in the ground go broke? The only way that can happen is if the country is cut off from the international financial system. Otherwise, Venezuela could sell or even collateralize some of its resources in order to get the necessary dollars. The $7.7 billion in gold held in Central Bank reserves could be quickly collateralized for a loan; in past years, the US Treasury department used its clout to make sure that banks who wanted to finance a swap, such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, did not do so.

Sanctions have kept the Venezuelan government from accessing financing and dealing with its debt while hamstringing its most important industry. Given that US media are writing for a principally US audience, the damage done by Washington and its partners’ sanctions should be front and center in their coverage. Exactly the opposite is the case.

Virginia Lopez-Glass of the New York Times (1/25/19) uses 920 words to describe the challenges facing Venezuelans, but “sanctions” isn’t one of them, even as she writes about matters to which, as I’ve shown above, sanctions are directly relevant: “Food and medicine shortages are widespread. Hundreds have died from malnutrition and illnesses that are easily curable with the appropriate treatment.”

Weaponizing hunger in Venezuela in this manner is dishonest and misleading. Christina M. Schiavoni, a doctoral researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, and Ana Felicien and Liccia Romero, both of whom are Venezuelan scholars, wrote in Monthly Review (6/1/18) on “overt US aggression toward Venezuela” in the form of

the intensifying economic sanctions imposed by the Obama and Trump administrations, as well as an all-out economic blockade that has made it extremely difficult for the government to make payments on food imports and manage its debt.

Bret Stephens’ column in the Times (1/28/19) only mentions the word “sanctions” to complain that the media supposedly isn’t blaming “socialism” for the crisis in Venezuela, alleging that

what you’re likelier to read is that the crisis is the product of corruption, cronyism, populism, authoritarianism, resource-dependency, US sanctions and trickery, even the residues of capitalism itself.

After dismissing the idea that the sanctions are a key part of the problems in Venezuela, Stephens went on to advocate using them to bring about regime change in the country, writing that the Trump administration

should enhance [Guaidó]’s political standing by providing access to funds that can help him establish an alternative government and entice wavering figures in the Maduro camp to switch sides. It can put Venezuela on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

These “funds” presumably refer the money that the US has seized from Venezuela, and adding the country to list of “state sponsors of terrorism” automatically entails hitting it with further sanctions.

The editorial board of the Washington Post (1/24/19) alleged that Venezuela’s government has “subject[ed] the country’s 32 million people to a humanitarian catastrophe,” without referring to what scholars whose research and writing focuses on Latin America—such as Laura Carlsen, Sujatha Fernandes, Greg Grandin, Francisco Dominguez, Noam Chomsky, Aviva Chomsky, Gabriel Hetland and Venezuelan-born historian Miguel Tinker Salas—describe (Common Dreams, 1/24/19) as sanctions

cut[ting] off the means by which the Venezuelan government could escape from its economic recession, while causing a dramatic falloff in oil production and worsening the economic crisis, and causing many people to die because they can’t get access to life-saving medicines.

Later, the editorial said that “a US boycott of Venezuelan oil could endanger ordinary Venezuelans already coping with critical shortages of food, power and medicine,” an absurd remark given that the sanctions they are occluding have had precisely these effects.

Henry Olsen in the Post (1/24/19) wrote as if sanctions are a benign tool that can be used to usher in a brighter future for Venezuelans, rather than a key reason that so many of them find themselves in such a grim condition:

Trump has many levers to pull short of military intervention to topple Maduro. He could use US pressure on the global financial system to cut off regime access to international banks, freezing access to any secret accounts that the regime — and, probably, its highest-ranking leaders — established offshore. He can, as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has suggested, work with American oil companies that purchase Venezuelan oil to provide the profits from those purchases to accounts controlled by Guaidó’s National Assembly. He can also pressure China, which has a far more valuable relationship with the United States than it does with Venezuela, to withdraw its support. Any or all of these measures would ratchet up pressure directly on the regime, decreasing its ability to finance itself and buy support from security and military figures….

Odds are that increasing financial pressure on the regime will finally bring about its collapse.

Even if one momentarily sets aside that the sanctions are illegal under international law and violate the charter of the Organization of American States, and that the US has no right whatsoever to decide who governs Venezuela, these measures don’t just “ratchet up pressure” on “the regime,” they also kill and immiserate ordinary Venezuelans.

The Post’s Charles Lane (1/28/19) wrote:

Apologists for the regime blame US sanctions and destabilization for Venezuela’s problems. The truth is that, with the exception of the George W. Bush administration’s brief, halfhearted support for a coup attempt in 2002, Washington—learning the lessons of ill-fated Cold War interventions—has shown restraint in dealing with the Caracas regime.

He went on to write that, until the Trump administration announced limitations on imports of Venezuelan oil that day, “the United States had traded with Venezuela and focused economic pressure on regime leaders and key institutions,” which suggests that the sanctions exclusively harm the “regime”—again, even if that were true, it would still be illegal—and amounts to a lie, given the evidence that the sanctions are crushing the Venezuelan masses.

Unlike Lane and the rest of the media’s regime change choir, the US government has acknowledged what it’s doing to Venezuela. Schiavoni, Felicien and Romero point to a telling remark that a senior State Department official made last year:

The financial sanctions we have placed on the Venezuelan Government has forced it to begin becoming in default, both on sovereign and PDVSA, its oil company’s debt. And what we are seeing because of the bad choices of the Maduro regime is a total economic collapse in Venezuela. So our policy is working, our strategy is working and we’re going to keep it on the Venezuelans.

Thus, the US government acknowledges that it is knowingly, consciously driving the Venezuelan economy into the ground, but US media make no such acknowledgment, which sends the message that the problems in Venezuela are entirely the fault of the government, and that the US is a neutral arbiter that wants to help Venezuelans.

Call this elision what it is: war propaganda.