Editors’ Note: The following is an excerpt from "Last Western Empire. A History of the U.S. From Spring to Fall" by Anthony Gronowicz. This includes notes on the current situation. Published by McGraw-Hill in 2006, it provides valuable background to the current manufactured crisis in Venezuela.
CHAPTER 11: THE ROCKEFELLERS TARGET VENEZUELA AND BRAZIL
The Rockefeller dynasty ranged freely in Latin America. As soon as oil was discovered beneath the waters of Lake Maracaibo in 1922, the Rockefellers set their sights on Venezuela. Over 100 oil companies descended upon the lake, and by 1928, Venezuela was the world’s largest oil producer. The normal corporate cutthroat competition ensued, and by 1935, just three remained— British-owned Shell, Mellon-owned Gulf, and Creole Oil purchased by Standard Oil of New Jersey with the largest share at 49%.
His father placed the twenty-seven-year-old Republican Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller on Creole’s Board of Directors. Soon thereafter, Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) appointed young Nelson to be Director of the newly created Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA). Nelson served as Roosevelt’s cabinet minister without portfolio, propelled throughout Latin America by the sheer terror, awe, and money that the family name and history triggered. Nelson’s interest in its indigenous peoples “was expedient. He was primarily concerned with extracting the minerals and natural resources needed by the U.S. war machineâ€â€”despite twice owing his life to rescues by a trusting people who lived in harmony with their environment.[1] The coordinating committee that the Rockefeller interests appointed to run CIAA stood for monopoly capital. A State Department official demurred from this cutthroat policy, noting, “I have very definite ideas as to what our general policy should be and in general their ideas have been the most reactionary.†[2]
Glenn Greenwald - The Murderous History and Deceitful Function of the CIA
Written by Glenn Greenwald
Friday, 22 May 2020 07:40
On this week's episode of System Update, Glenn Greenwald talks to journalist Vincent Bevins about his newly launched book, The Jakarta Method. The book examines the series of mass murder programs engineered by the CIA with the purported goal of fighting communism during the Cold War, and how the consequences of these programs shape the global order -- and U.S. politics -- to this day.
Capitalism and Nature – A really inconvenient truth
Friday, 08 May 2020 07:58
Allen Todd -
Eight years before the first Earth Day in 1970, Rachel Carson was one of the earliest researchers and writers to warn about the growing threats to the natural world in the 20th. C–specifically, she focused on the dangers inherent in the use of organophosphate pesticides by large-scale agri-businesses. As a result of her studies, she concluded that:
"The balance of nature is not the same today as in Pleistocene times, but it is still there: a complex, precise, and highly integrated system of relationships between living things which cannot safely be ignored any more than the law of gravity can be defied with impunity by a [person] perched on the edge of a cliff. The balance of nature is not a status quo; it is fluid, ever shifting, in a constant state of adjustment. [Humans], too, [are] part of this balance."
Since she wrote her ground-breaking book in 1962, it has become frighteningly clear that the ‘ecological problem’ is now this century’s greatest problem, and that the world now faces an existential planetary crisis. In particular, it has become increasingly clear to many that capitalism is ecologically dysfunctional and inherently destructive of biodiversity. However, Rachel Carson was by no means the first to comment on the negative impacts on the natural world which accompanied the growth of industrial capitalism.
The Politics of the coronavirus conjuncture in Ireland
Thursday, 07 May 2020 11:30
John Reynolds -
The election in Ireland in early February, though inconclusive in terms of producing a parliamentary majority, marked a clear acceleration of the country’s ongoing left turn over recent years. The combined vote of the two bourgeois parties (Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) that have dominated Irish parliamentary politics for the lifetime of the state slumped to a historic low. From their left, Sinn Féin surged to an unprecedented position, commanding the largest share of the vote (though not the most seats). The socialist left was the primary beneficiary of Sinn Féin’s transfers on the back of a broadly successful “vote left, transfer left” sentiment. The vote was quite clearly defined along both class and generational lines. Fine Gael were the biggest losers on the back of nine years in government defined by grinding austerity and callous disregard for communities at the sharpest end of the country’s social crises–the working class, the young, the homeless, the racialised migrants. In the decisive realms of housing and health, Fine Gael suffered as the party of landlords and private investors, homelessness and hospital trolleys. Party leader Leo Varadkar said the message was clear: Fine Gael would retreat to opposition and leave the onus on Sinn Féin to try and form a coalition of the broad left, or Fianna Fáil to construct a centrist coalition.
Then came the virus. Italy had its first reported case of COVID-19 and declared a state of emergency at the end of January. For the duration of February as the outbreak unfolded across Europe, the caretaker Fine Gael government maintained a laissez-faire approach and focused its post-election energy on continuing its relentless and often ridiculous attacks on Sinn Féin.
VENEZUELA UNDER ATTACK: 7 NOTES ON ELECTRIC SHOCK (SPECIAL REPORT)
Written by Mision Verdad
Tuesday, 12 March 2019 01:24
Between the afternoon of March 8 and the early morning of March 10, Venezuela was the victim of a new sabotage attack, the biggest in its republican history, this time on the Guri hydroelectric plant, which left at least 80% of the population without electricity, with the aim of undermining any attempt by the Venezuelan government to stabilize the economy and curb the insurrectionary context the United States and its minions, like Juan Guaidó, are trying to bring to fruition in the country.
1. Preparing for shock. Prior to the sabotage that shook the entire National Electric System, leaving much of the country without electricity during the last two days, several moves and pronouncements announced that they would resort to such an action of brute force.
Guaidó's false epic return lasted less than expected on the front pages; with the arrival of the "interim president" there were no critical defections in the Armed Forces (FANB) that together with widespread social revolt would install him in Miraflores to get hold of power. That round of recovery (his glorious arrival in Maiquetía), after the defeat on February 23, the day on which he took for granted the entry of "humanitarian aid," had no effect beyond the temporary media frenzy. As a result, Guaidó returned to the uncomfortable starting point of two months ago. Worn out by the February 23 defeat and without concrete actions of presidential command that would catapult him domestically, the orchestration of the following operations would be entirely run by the United States.
The Rockefeller dynasty ranged freely in Latin America. As soon as oil was discovered beneath the waters of Lake Maracaibo in 1922, the Rockefellers set their sights on Venezuela. Over 100 oil companies descended upon the lake, and by 1928, Venezuela was the world’s largest oil producer. The normal corporate cutthroat competition ensued, and by 1935, just three remained— British-owned Shell, Mellon-owned Gulf, and Creole Oil purchased by Standard Oil of New Jersey with the largest share at 49%.
Eight years before the first Earth Day in 1970, Rachel Carson was one of the earliest researchers and writers to warn about the growing threats to the natural world in the 20th. C–specifically, she focused on the dangers inherent in the use of organophosphate pesticides by large-scale agri-businesses. As a result of her studies, she concluded that:
