Portside

The evidence is overwhelming, the rich and powerful of Venezuela have followed a continuous, constantly morphing plan to de-stabilize the country and take over the government by any means necessary and the United States government knows about that plan, supports it and, as much as it can, is assisting in it. Is there a coup planned in Venezuela? All the time. Venezuela has lived under relentless political and physical sabotage as a result of its successes.

Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma was arrested February 19th for his role in the failed coup attempt against the elected government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Ledezma, who has a long history of right-wing extremist activity in Venezuela, was one of three opposition leaders to have signed a "National Transition Agreement," calling for, among other things, the removal of President Maduro a day before the coup was to have taken place.

Allowing legislators stuck in a Cold War mentality to steer U.S. Venezuela policy is dangerous and risks wrecking the good will that the administration's Cuba detente is generating throughout the region. In the words of President Obama, it's time to fully "cut loose the [policy] shackles of the past." Not just with regard to Cuba, but on policy toward Venezuela and other left-leaning Latin American governments as well.

Rightwing parties in Latin America give themselves populist names, keep the manifesto rhetoric modest and talk of appealing to the street. But they aren’t winning many votes. Meanwhile business is learning to work with governments of the left.

Reader Comments - Cecily McMillan; Prison Labor; William Worthy; Syria; Timothy Geithner and Wall Street's Bailout; College Debt; U.S. Subversion in Latin America; Venezuela; Announcements - This Weekend - Left Forum (May 30 - June 1) - Reform and/or Revolution: Imagining a World with Transformative Justice; Raising America's Pay - Launches June 4; Meet UnionWiki; Call for Papers - Fighting Inequality: Class, Race, and Power

Mark Weisbrot shows the daily protests are anything but peaceful. In fact, about half of the daily death toll from Venezuela that we see in the media - now at 41 -- are actually civilians and security forces apparently killed by protesters. Dario Azzellini argues the protests in Venezuela represent a vicious attack on the country's social progress under Hugo Chávez, spurred on by anti-Chavista politicians in affluent regions.

Reader Comments - U.S. Military Policy, Foreign Policy and Aggression; Public Education and New York's Segregated Schools; Obamacare; Bernie Sanders for President - exchange on electoral politics and tactics; Trade Policy; Venezuela; Congress and the 1%; Pope Francis; poverty; Announcement - Call for Tributes and Reflections: The Life and Work of Rod Bush - San Francisco - Aug. 18, 2014

The Obama administration seems surrealistically unaware that this is a very different hemisphere than it was 15 years ago. Governments representing the majority of Latin America are now from the left. These governments emphatically reject Washington’s depiction of the recent events in Venezuela as a government trying to “repress peaceful protesters."

John Kerry’s rhetoric is divorced from the reality on the ground, where life goes on – even at the barricades