By John Catalinotto 
January 28, 2019

Jan. 27 — The ultra-right media and the mainstream corporate media took a break this week from some months of vicious baiting of each other. They instead joined hands to slander Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

This latest assault on sovereign Bolivarian Venezuela exposes the united criminality of the imperialist ruling class. This includes the corporate media, both major U.S. political parties and Washington’s allies, which are trying to resurrect their colonial empires.

Here are two of many media examples: the first from the pro-Trump, ultra-right Fox News; the second from the corporate mainstream, anti-Trump New York Times. Both media’s goals are to defame the Maduro government and justify U.S. intervention.

A Jan. 26 Fox News opinion piece: “The Trump administration’s announcement Wednesday to recognize Venezuelan National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela amid the current popular uprising against the anti-democratic socialist Maduro regime was an act of brilliant statecraft.”

A Jan. 24 New York Times editorial: “That Mr. Maduro must go has been obvious for some time. Since he succeeded the leftist strongman Hugo Chávez in 2013, his mismanagement, cronyism and corruption, exacerbated by the drop in the price of oil, Venezuela’s dominant source of revenue, have brought the country to ruin. … The Trump administration is right to support Mr. Guaidó.”

Both parties join the slime

Likewise, the two imperialist political parties, Republican and Democratic, which have been battling over the budget and the government shutdown, united against the Venezuelan people and its elected government.

The Trump gang have been agitating for intervention, and of course, they blame Maduro for everything and call him incompetent, brutal and corrupt.

With a handful of exceptions, Democratic Party leaders have taken a position like that of Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin. He blamed Maduro for a “sham election” and praised Trump for having “appropriately recognized National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as the constitutionally appropriate leader of Venezuela.” (Miami Herald, Jan. 25) Even the handful of left Democrats criticized Maduro.

In reality, in elections held with international observers who approved them, Maduro won 68 percent of the votes cast and 32 percent of the eligible voters. Trump only won 46 percent of votes cast and 27 percent of eligible voters — fewer than his opponent.

Guaidó won 0 percent on both counts; he represents nothing. Except the factthat Vice President Mike Pence called Guaidó and pledged him U.S. support the night before he named himself interim president. (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 25)

World imperialism’s united opinion

The U.S. imperialist allies — which are also rivals — have joined the festival of slander aimed at Maduro. Canada and Britain bent to the U.S. as usual. Spain, former genocidal conqueror of Latin America; France, former colonial overlord of large swaths of the world; and Germany, which opened two world wars to try to get its share of plunder; all did too. Though theyadded a little twist.

The three insisted Maduro set new elections “within eight days” or they would recognize Guaidó. Maduro accused them of kneeling before Washington and said no one can give Venezuela ultimatums.

With the British government unable to carry out a Brexit (itself based on anti-immigrant backwardness), the Spanish rulers buried in corruption from the royal family down, the French cops shooting rubber bullets at Yellow Vests, and the German government an unhealthy coalition facing racist opposition gangs, it’s a wonder these regimes don’t choke on their hypocrisy.

As in the period building up to the Vietnam War, to the 1991 war against Iraq, to the bombing and destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999, etc., the media and the governments’ near unanimity give the population the false impression that all right-thinking people want “regime change” in Venezuela.

The truth, however, is that this manufactured public opinion is based on the imperialist oppressors’ joint hatred for any nation or people that challenges their rule. If that nation happens to also be sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves, the imperialists will repeat any lie and commit any crime to grab it.

Anyone who believes sovereign peoples have a right to their resources will unite to reject these media lies and the ruling class that orders and buysthem.