by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Carrying on a tradition begun by Fidel Castro in 1960, Venezuelan leader Maduro came to Harlem, this week, for the opening of the UN General Assembly. When he spoke of U.S. terror in the world, the crowd cheered. But will they break with a Democratic Party and president that, along with the Republicans, are “the birthmothers of al Qaida and the midwives of the Islamic State?” Sometimes, solidarity is even less than skin deep.
Blacks Cheer Venezuelan Leader – But Still Support Democrat Terror
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Maduro is speaking of a socialism that bears no relationship to Bernie Sander’s stunted vision.”
“The African American movement is today one of the main sources of strength to the sovereignty movement of Latin America and the rest of the world,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told a crowd at the National Black Theater, in Harlem. “We have suffered with you since the events in Ferguson,” said Maduro, speaking before a panel assembled by the Institute for the Black World for its People of African Descent Leadership Summit. “It hurts us to know that this old structure of racism continues to haunt our populations like a ghost.”
Maduro was introduced by actor and Trans-Africa chairman Danny Glover, who was also on hand nine years ago when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited Harlem’s Mount Olive Baptist Church after denouncing “the devil” George W. Bush for stinking up the United Nations with his sulfurous smell. The tradition of trekking “uptown” during the opening of the UN General Assembly was begun by Fidel Castro, in 1960, when the Cuban revolutionary leader thumbed his nose at U.S. apartheid by checking in at Harlem’s Theresa Hotel, where he met with Malcolm X and poet Langston Hughes.
Today, the sulfurous odor emanates from a smooth-talking Black man who was supported for president by most of the people on the dais at the National Black Theater, including Institute for the Black World leader Ron Daniels. State Sen. Bill Perkins, who read a proclamation thanking Venezuela for continuing Chavez’s gift of free home heating oil for 75,000 low income New York households, is a loyal Obama Democrat who hopes to replace Congressman Charles Rangel. Co-host Estela Vasquez is executive vice president of 1199SEIU, a union that leans towards Hillary Clinton, the war hawk, and will certainly spend tens of millions backing whichever Democrat gets the presidential nomination. A Clinton super PAC tried to link rival Bernie Sanders to Hugo Chavez, prompting Sanders to disassociate himself from what he called “a dead communist dictator.”
The reality is: most Black and labor politicos are oblivious to U.S. crimes abroad when the president is a Democrat.
“Washington imposed military dictatorships in nearly every Latin American country during the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.”
The decades-long U.S. policy of funding jihadist proxies to unseat independent, secular governments in the Muslim world – the focus of attention at the United Nations – had its counterpart in Latin America, where Washington imposed military dictatorships in nearly every country during the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.
“If we review the 20th century in Latin America and the Caribbean, we see coup d’etat, invasion, wars, a world of war and destruction,” said Maduro. “However, we are still faithful, faithful to our future, faith in our victory.” The tall, former bus driver reminded his audience of “the First Holocaust,” the annihilation of the native Americans, who “were dismembered and burned alive in the 16th and 17th centuries.”
“Their legends remain until today,” said Maduro. “How come we still remember their names? They were the ‘terrorists’ of those times, but today they are still alive, because of the purity of their souls.”
Far more Africans were taken to Latin America and the Caribbean than to the North American mainland. “We have the case of our brothers and sisters who were kidnapped from Africa and brought here,” said Maduro. “We are the children of these Africans, and you can see the children of Africa in Venezuela.”
“Most Black and labor politicos are oblivious to U.S. crimes abroad when the president is a Democrat.”
Maduro had been busy over the weekend at the UN’s Sustainable Development Summit, where he declared:
“Only a deep transformation of the economic system, only an absolute and total change in the system imposed by neoliberal thought will give economic viability and sustainability to the objectives that we are proposing” to rid the world of extreme poverty by the year 2030.
In Harlem, he put it bluntly: “We need to build new economic models that favor the workers, not capital.”
Maduro remembered his commander Chavez’s admonition: “We need to ensure that Venezuela will have completed the final cycle of independence, no more extreme poverty.”
“This is a global project, it is no longer a national project, it is to build socialism. It is a universal challenge. Let’s hope that with the blessing of God we are still alive and we can say ‘mission accomplished,’ we have a better humanity.”
Clearly, Maduro is speaking of a socialism that bears no relationship to Bernie Sander’s stunted vision. As for Chavez “the dictator,” Maduro noted that: “We had 19 elections” over the years. “President Carter said he has taken part in many elections, and he considers the Venezuelan system the best he has seen in all these years he has been observing elections.”
“We need to build new economic models that favor the workers, not capital.”
The 20th round of elections since Chavez came to power is set for December 6. The right-wing (and overwhelmingly white) opposition parties are financed by the still-existing business oligarchy and subsidized by the United States. “Some of these parties do both elections and terror,” said Maduro. “I hope they will respect the outcome of this election.”
That will depend on President Obama, who controls the spigots of terror in Venezuela and elsewhere on the South American continent. Since the early Eighties, when the United States and Saudi Arabia, with the assistance of the military dictator of Pakistan, literally created the international jihadist network to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan, Washington has been Terror Central in the Muslim world. The U.S. and the Saudis are the birthmothers of al Qaida and the midwives of the Islamic State – the adolescent whose refusal to be constrained has led to the unraveling of Obama’s notion of “controlled chaos.” The U.S.-led “coalition” that purports to fight terrorism in Syria and Iraq is a fraud – a criminal network support group.
Maduro and the Russians, Iranians and others propose “a new anti-terrorist alliance to build true peace among the people whose countries have been destroyed.” Such an alliance would press for global action against those who finance and arm the jihadists in the Middle East and Africa, and who bankroll terror against nations such as Venezuela that strain to break the chains of domination by U.S. and European capital.
Barack Obama is at least as culpable a global terror-master as the sulfurous George W. Bush. So is Hillary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton, the former Secretary of Terror. And, so would be Bernie Sanders, the phony socialist who urges Saudi Arabia on to new atrocities in the region.
The assembled Democrats and labor officials and #BlackLivesMatter activists cheered Maduro, in Harlem. But can they break with a terror-soaked party?
If not, they are full of shit.
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