[Peace-discuss] anti-neoconservative notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

I wrote:
> Some notes to spur discussion on AWARE on the Air.

Here's one more note on Venezuela:

Venezuela: Sanctions are harming many people, corporate media is 
pro-US/pro-invasion propaganda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ7S2sXWWps -- Jimmy Dore interviews 
independent journalist Eva Bartlett who is on the ground in Venezuela 
reporting about her flight delay (American Airlines delayed Barlett's 
flight because American Airlines claimed told her was "no electricity" at 
Caracas airport), the social media responses she's received challenging her 
for her posting about what she saw and heard from Venezuelan citizens of 
the barrios she visited, and discussing the other effects of the US 
sanctions on the Venezuelan people: harming and possibly killing people 
through stopping medicine deliveries for chronic illnesses like insulin for 
Type 1 diabetes and medicines to treat heart ailments older people are more 
likely to experience.

Here's what Bartlett had to say about the American Airlines claim at 1m38s:

> Eva Bartlett: So I arrived on March 10th. I would have arrived a day
> earlier but American Airlines cancelled my flight after delaying it a
> few times. And I had to scramble to get a ticket last-minute on Copa
> Airlines. And it's worth mentioning that American Airlines' excuse for
> cancelling the flight was that there was no electricity in Caracas
> airport. When they first delayed the flight I contacted people I knew in
> Caracas and said 'Hey, is this true?' and they said 'Well there's enough
> electricity for planes to land; planes are landing and taking off.'.
> Nonetheless, American Airlines went on to cancel another flight the
> following day of two people that were also coming to Caracas. I actually
> came here as part of a US Peace Council delegation. There were, I think
> it was, 13 people and we've been visiting a number of areas around
> Caracas including this barrio -- a really poor area called Catia --
> which is doing amazing things in the community.
Later on in the program around 21m24s she concluded:

> Eva Bartlett: I did tell you at the start that I came with a US Peace
> Council. I did also mention that American Airlines made it difficult for
> many of us to get here, and difficult to leave since they cancelled
> flights. But I want to make just one point about that: Number one, I
> absolutely don't think that them cancelling flights on the way here was
> about concerns about electricity. I think that they were just trying to
> prevent people from coming here to actually honestly witness. And number
> two, I don't think the US travel advisory is based on concern for human
> rights or concern for safety, I should say, and American Airlines going
> along with that [...] I think it's part of this whole manufacturing
> public opinion that there's a crisis in Venezuela. I think that's what
> this is about. But what I want to say is they're cancelling my flight --
> I should have flown [hard to distinguish] I think -- I was going to
> continue on from Toronto to Kiev and I was going to attend a Supreme
> Court meeting of the imprisoned Ukranian Russian journalist Kushinsky
> who has been imprisoned by the Kiev authorities since May 2018 without a
> trial, he's been held in pre-trial detention. And I was going to go to
> his Supreme Court hearing, potentially have the chance to speak to him,
> but because of American Airlines stranding me here [in Venezuela] I'm
> not able to go there. I've missed my flights; if I try to leave now it's
> too late, I've missed my connecting flights. So I just want to make that
> point. And the other point I'll make is that because of their little
> antic I'm staying in Venezuela. And I'm going to leave Caracas and move
> around to some of these plots that corporate media is insisting is a
> humanitarian crisis.
Sanctions are war against the people. Starving the people of Venezuela 
stands in stark opposition to the language the US government and its 
corporate-friendly media coverage give when speaking about the plight of 
the poor Venezuelans.

Eva Bartlett spoke about the effect of US sanctions against Venezuela 
(around 10m22s):

> Eva Bartlett: We met with, and I don't remember his title, and he was
> with the health ministry. He was talking of the impact of sanctions on
> heath and basically according to him, 80% of essential medicines are out
> of stock because they cannot buy them. Now if you think about this, this
> means that people that have chronic diseases or diseases that come with
> age -- heart-related diseases, diabetes -- they aren't getting the
> medicines they need. And this is exactly similiar to the situation in
> Gaza where Israel prevents the entry of most vitally-needed goods. And
> [...] also the US sanctions, they're designed to cripple. And Syria is
> facing the same situation. So many countries are facing this very very
> immoral policy of sanctioning the people. They say it's about
> sanctioning "the evil leaders" of the country in question, but it's
> about sanctioning the people: making their lives so hellish that they
> then turn against their leadership. That's the ultimate goal. And the
> irony is that these same leaders that are putting sanctions on these
> countries at the same time cry for human rights and a humanitarian
> crisis.
One point Jimmy Dore makes is worth making clear: there are more poor 
people in the US than there are people in Venezuela. In 2016 Venezuela's 
population was estimated to be 31.6 million people. The Economic Populist 
blog[1] lists the US Census "supplemental poverty measure" as a proper 
count of poverty in the US: 49.1 million people.

[1] 
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/how-many-people-are-poor-united-states

It makes sense that citizens expect their own government to take care of 
their needs before sending so-called "aid" abroad. Hence, Americans expect 
the American government to tend to Americans' needs before tending to the 
alleged "aid" sent to Venezuela. The so-called "foreign aid packages" sent 
to Venezuela are either a vast misprioritization of resources (for those 
who believe what the corporate media tells them) or simply not aid but 
something else masquerading as aid (for those who understand recent US 
history and believe the evidence coming from the alternative news media). 
Either way, it's not hard to understand why the US AID packages sent to 
Venezuela and claims of caring for the Venezuelan poor are gross 
misrepresentations of what is actually seen on the ground from reporters 
showing us the evidence for their case (a case that strongly contradicts 
what corporate-friendly news tells us).

-J