Venezuela, now, like Puerto Rico, US colony?

Operation Condor, this time Condor 2.0 and in full flight?

Those continuing, mob-instigated violent confrontations in a Venezuela beset by a severe economic crisis have made a bad situation worse. Not only that, to confirm any lingering doubts comes an official US statement of intention to depose a democratically-elected sovereign government; and for impeccable timing that statement comes just a month or so after release of a report on the affair in Iran in 1953, and with a sundered and tragic Libya (strong language alert) still fresh in mind.

At the guarimbas, democracy blazes

Or where responsible journalism is again abandoned to promote an agenda, and where it becomes no more than full-throated propaganda to support ‘régime change’ – the overthrow of yet another ‘insubordinate’ sovereign nation-state, one with massive reserves of hydrocarbons.

26 July 1953

Those who remember the days of the Batista régime can still recall the sense of relief, elation at its overthrow, a totally corrupt, brutal régime that enjoyed total US support, with the Mafia of the US entrenched on the island, inflicting heaping doses of abuse and humiliation on its people.

Huffing, and puffing along tobacco road

As we journey we look for the wondrous benefits of sugar-sweetened beverages, junk food, and tobacco, and have as companion a question, ‘Why should they be allowed to, if it is…’ A country, still developing and lacking in resources and institutions, and with pressing social and economic issues to address. Worse, an impoverished country.