Tag Archives: Coups

The Empire Is Showing More And More Of Its True Face

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By Caitlin Johnstone

Source: CaitlinJohnstone.com

Genocide walrus John Bolton outright admitted to planning foreign coups with the US government in conversation with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday. That’s coups, plural.

While arguing that the Capitol riot on January 6th of last year was not an attempted coup but rather just Trump stumbling around trying to look after his own interests, Bolton hastened to pull authority on the matter when Tapper suggested that he might not be correct about how coups work.

“I disagree with that,” Bolton said. “As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat — not here, but, you know, other places — it takes a lot of work, and that’s not what [Trump] did.”

Places. Plural.

Tapper just let Bolton’s remark slide like he didn’t just admit to something extraordinarily fiendish, but did eventually follow up with a request that the former National Security Advisor elaborate.

“I do want to ask a follow up,” Tapper said. “When we were talking about what is capable, or what you need to do to be able to plan a coup, and you cited your expertise having planned coups.”

“I’m not going to get into the specifics,” replied Bolton with a chuckle.

“Successful coups?” Tapper asked.

“Well, I wrote about Venezuela in the book,” Bolton answered. “And it turned out not to be successful – not that we had all that much to do with it, but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president, and they failed. The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable.”

“I feel like there’s other stuff you’re not telling me, though,” Tapper responded.

“I’m sure there is,” Bolton said, grinning like he just finished boiling a puppy.

Tapper pursued the matter no further, because he is a propagandist first and a journalist second, and he would be acutely aware that Bolton was saying things that you are not supposed to admit to on television.

Bolton’s sole admission to coup plotting runs counter to his comments about the US government’s failed attempt to oust President Nicolas Maduro while he was facilitating that bizarre operation under the Trump administration, telling reporters in 2019 that the empire’s Venezuela shenanigans were “clearly not a coup.”

In other examples of the US empire just rearing its ugly head right out in broad daylight, an excellent new report by Alan MacLeod with Mintpress News shows that Facebook/Instagram parent company Meta has been hiring dozens of people who previously worked in the US intelligence cartel to help regulate what content gets seen on the social media giant’s platforms. Some were hired from straight out of the CIA or had (officially) left the agency very recently.

The CIA used to infiltrate the media. Now the CIA is the media. This trend of openly hiring US intelligence veterans to help teach the public what thoughts to think about the world began a few years ago in the legacy media, and now we’re seeing it in the new media as well.

This is part of a broader trend in which many of the ugly things the US empire used to do in secret it now does openly with the aid of propaganda spin. In addition to attempting coups right out in the open as we saw in Venezuela and just giving intelligence insiders positions of influence within both new and old media institutions, you’ve got things like the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which according to its own founding officials was set up to do overtly what the CIA used to do covertly.

We see NED’s fingerprints all over pretty much any situation where the western power alliance needs to manage public perception about a CIA-targeted government, from Ukraine to Russia to Hong Kong to Xinjiang, to the imperial propaganda firm known as Bellingcat. Rather than manipulate world narratives and foment discontent from behind the veil of hidden identities and cutouts as in CIA tactics of old, NED just manipulates them openly by pouring funds into narrative management operations which benefit the empire while framing it as promoting democracy and human rights.

Then you’ve got things like American officials telling the press that the US government has been circulating disinformation about Russia and Ukraine, Biden administration officials saying the proxy war in Ukraine is being used to “weaken” Russia and that they are fine with US brinkmanship with Russia causing global recession and hunger, and western officials telling the press that Ukraine is crawling with CIA personnel.

What the empire has found is that you don’t need to hide as much from public visibility as long as you can manipulate what people think they’re seeing. If the public is sufficiently propagandized and consent has been adequately manufactured, you can get away with just proclaiming some random guy the president of a foreign country and seeing if you can manipulate the rest of the world into playing along with you.

If your narrative control is strong enough, you can even keep the empire running smoothly when information gets out into the open that you’d rather stay hidden. Very often these days major stories about imperial malfeasance will come out that simply have no impact, either because the mainstream news media unite to ignore them or because they spin those revelations as coming from someone bad or not containing important information.

People tend to overrate the power of the US war machine and underrate the power of the US propaganda machine. While the US military finds itself losing a war to the Taliban, the awesome power of its propaganda engine has people marching in perfect alignment with the will of the oligarchic empire.

When I was in an abusive relationship, the more ground down and submitted I became the more my abuser would flaunt his abusiveness in the plain light of day. Toward the end he was just outright admitting he was a sociopath and a manipulator and openly telling me he was going to do monstrous things to me before he did them, because he was that confident that he had me wrapped around his finger.

Luckily, he was wrong. And hopefully the empire is wrong as it makes this same calculation with all of us.

It’s back to the future with Venezuelan ‘Contras,’ the neocons, and the CIA

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By Wayne Madsen

Source: Intrepid Report

Donald Trump displayed his full neocon colors on February 18 during a speech at Florida International University in Miami. With convicted Iran-contra felon Elliott Abrams now acting as his “special envoy” in charge of overthrowing the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro, Trump urged Venezuelan military officers to rise up in a coup d’état and oust Maduro, who Trump called a “Cuban puppet.”

Trump’s call for a coup in Venezuela is ironic when his most loyal supporter in the U.S. Senate, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), claimed that senior Justice Department officials who were discussing legally invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office in early 2017 were trying to stage a “coup” against Trump. Coups are unconstitutional in any form, while the removal of a president under the 25th Amendment is following the U.S. Constitution to the letter.

As protesters, who carried signs with “No U.S. Coup in Venezuela” and “Hands Off Venezuela,” staged a demonstration on campus and Trump rattled sabers against Venezuela in his speech on the Modesto A. Maidique Campus, covert U.S. operators were busy at Florida airports shipping arms to Venezuelan paramilitary units in Colombia.

At the same time as Trump was threatening Venezuela with a coup, the Haitian government of President Jovenel Moise and Prime Minister Jean-Henry Céant—one of a half dozen remaining allies of the Maduro government in the Western Hemisphere—was faced with an attempted U.S.-led insurrection in his impoverished nation. It is no coincidence that Moise, who was financially buoyed with $2 billion in fuel subsidies and other financial assistance from Venezuela’s state-run PetroCaribe Fund, has faced protests in his country that appear to have been prompted by U.S. “regime change” operatives. Planted in the Haitian media were reports that the Venezuelan fuel assistance funds had been pocketed by Moise and members of his government. That prompted violent protests on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Cap Haïtien, Jeremie, Gonaïves, and Jacmel that have been raging since February 7. More suspicious is that the U.S. State Department ordered all non-essential personnel out of the country following the outbreak of the protests.

On February 17, Haitian police arrested a group of eight heavily-armed men traveling in two cars in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Among the group were five Americans and a Russian, Serbian, and Haitian. The Russian and Serbian may hold permanent residency status in the United States. The Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported that police discovered in the foreigners’ cars automatic rifles, 45-caliber and Glock pistols, a large amount of ammunition, drones, and satellite phones. Also found in the vehicles were a telescope, backpacks, bullet-proof vests, and various documents, including a list of names of Haitian citizens. The vehicles bore no license plates and the suspects’ passports had no Haitian visa entry stamps. The passports did show extensive travel to other countries prior to being in Haiti. Five Haitian license plates were found in the vehicles.

When arrested by police, the eight men refused to provide identification, insisting that they were on some sort of “government mission.” They did not identify the “government” for whom they were working but insisted that they did not have to talk to the police. One of the arresting police officers said one of those arrested told him, “Our boss would call your boss.” After the eight men were arrested, another vehicle pulled up with a man, who spoke French to the police. He was also arrested. There are unconfirmed reports that the eight men arrested had earlier masqueraded as Haitian National Police officers.

The U.S. corporate media has largely refrained from identifying the arrested Americans and the others. WMR is not bound by protocols with the U.S.

Intelligence Community. The men arrested in Port-au-Prince are:

  • Kent Leland KROEKER, born February 14, 1967, USA partner and chief operating officer of Kroeker Partners, a private security firm. Kroeker is a Marine Corps officer veteran who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan
  • Christopher Mark McKINLEY, born September 26, 1969, USA
  • Danilo BAJAVIC, Serbian national, born Belgrade, born May 19, 1982, visa stamp for Karasovici, Croatia, dated July 21, 2017
  • Vlade JANKOVIC, Russian national, born October 9, 1978, Russia
  • Talon R. BURTON, U.S. national, born April 9, 1967, USA
  • Christopher M. OSMAN, U.S. national
  • Dustin Daniel PORTE, U.S. national, born February 12, 1976, USA
  • Michael ESTERA, Haitian national, born October 28, 1980, Haiti

In addition to Kroeker, all of the arrested Americans have U.S. military backgrounds. Estera may be a foreign national employee of the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince. It is also noteworthy that Blackwater founder Erik Prince, under investigation for conspiring with Russian, Saudi, and Emirati officials on behalf of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, employs Serbian and Russian ex-military members in his Reflex Responses (R2) mercenary firm, based in Abu Dhabi. Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is education secretary in the Trump administration.

Haitian police chief Michel-Ange Gedeon told reporters that the men would be charged with violation of weapons laws and criminal conspiracy. The U.S. State Department had no comment on whether the arrested Americans had received U.S. consular assistance, to which they are entitled. The Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) is in charge of the investigation of the foreigners.

The 1980s Contra wars of the Ronald Reagan administration were known for the heavy involvement of U.S. mercenaries, who operated in Central America with a “wink and a nod” from the Central Intelligence Agency and a covert coordination team in the basement of the White House, as well as the Pentagon, and State Department. The mercenaries received their orders from National Security Adviser John Poindexter, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, and Elliott Abrams, now Trump’s regime change coordinator for Venezuela. As the Reagan team attempted to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, they were also waging a brutal death squad campaign against leftists in El Salvador and Guatemala. In a repetition of history, the Trump administration has authorized a covert campaign to destabilize the government of Nicaragua, while assisting right-wing governments in Guatemala and Honduras to assassinate leftist journalists, activists, and indigenous leaders. Just as during the 1980s, El Salvador is due to become a staging post for a pro-U.S. rightist government under president-elect Nayib Bukele. Bukele replaces the administration led by the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which was targeted by the Reagan administration during the 1980s with death squads and paramilitary teams.

At the same time the U.S. mercenaries were arrested in Haiti, Venezuelan authorities seized a Boeing 767 jet, operated by 21Air LLC, said to have been carrying arms to U.S.-backed rebels in Venezuela. The Boeing 767 took off on February 3 from Miami, the same city where Trump, championed by right-wing Cuban-Americans and exiled oligarchs from Venezuela, vowed to overthrow Maduro and “socialism” throughout the hemisphere.

The Boeing’s cargo was seized by Venezuelan authorities at Valencia airport. Included in the secret cargo manifest were 9 assault weapons, including AR-15 rifles, a Micro Draco semi-automatic pistol, and a Colt 7.62 rifle with telescopic sights, in addition to 118 ammunition cartridges and military radio antennas. 21Air LLC’s chairman is Adolfo Moreno, who, according to McClatchy News, is linked to Gemini Air Cargo, an airline involved with the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program during the George W. Bush administration and identified as such in a report made by the Council of Europe. The Boeing seized by Venezuela has been busy the last few months, making runs from Miami International Airport to Valencia and Caracas, Venezuela, and Bogota and Medellin, Colombia. 21Air claimed to McClatchy that the Boeing 767 had been chartered by another firm called GPS-Air. 21Air operates a sister firm, 21Cargo, formerly called Solar Cargo C.A.

Moreno is listed in Florida corporation records as also owning South Eastern Aviation LLC of Doral, Florida, Conaire LLC of Miramar, Florida, JW Aviation LLC of Doral; Apple Aviation LLC of Doral; Reliable Transport Logistics LLC of Hialeah, Florida; Freighter 23801 LLC of Hialeah, Freighter 23803 of Doral; Direct Warehouse LLC of Doral; Dynamic Travel LLC of Doral; Enduring Ventures LLC of Miami; and Florida Franchise Development LLC of Miramar. Florida Franchise Development was incorporated by Moreno in 2001 as a subsidiary of Gemini Air Cargo. That firm, along with Airline Management Group, incorporated in 1987, and Gemini Cargo Logistics Inc., the latter a subsidiary of Gemini Air Cargo, all had the same business address of 1750 NW 66th Ave., Miami. According to McClatchy, that address is currently used by Avianca, the Colombian national air carrier. When Trump called for the overthrow of the Venezuelan government, he did so in the midst of dozens of CIA front companies that specialize in carrying out coups, murder, and mayhem.

21Air LLC was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Greensboro, North Carolina, but operates out of Miami International Airport. North Carolina was the location of other CIA proprietary airline front companies involved in the agency’s kidnapping program. These included Air Serv International; Aero Contractors Limited, operating out of Johnston County Regional Airport and the Kinston Regional Jetport; Assembly Pointe Aviation, Inc.; and Water Above Mountain Holdings, LLC of Burlington, North Carolina.

Prior to January, when Maduro was sworn in for a second presidential term, the Boeing 767 had been traveling between Miami, Philadelphia, and other continental U.S. cities.

The smuggling of U.S. weapons to Venezuelan rebels has evoked memories of Elliott Abrams’s antics during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. CIA contract airlines, including Southern Air Transport, were busy illegally flying U.S. weapons to Honduras and, via air drop, over Nicaragua, for use by the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas. One thing about neocons like Abrams and Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton is that they rarely divert from their standard playbooks. Neocons, not being very bright to begin with, find it difficult to “think outside the box,” therefore they repeat the same failed policies and maneuvering over and over again. And that is the clinical diagnosis of insanity.

 

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

US plotting coups in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua?

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By Stephen Lendman

Source: Intrepid Report

The US wants all nations worldwide colonized, their resources looted, their people exploited as serfs, including ordinary Americans.

Sovereign independent governments everywhere are targeted for regime change—by coups d’état or wars.

That’s what imperialism is all about, a diabolical plot for unchallenged global dominance by whatever it takes for the US to achieve its aims, Republicans and undemocratic Dems allied for the same geopolitical objectives.

Humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect, and democracy building are code words by both right wings of America’s war party for wanting fascist tyranny replacing governance of, by, and for everyone equitably everywhere—legitimate governments replaced by US-controlled puppet ones.

Post-9/11 alone, the US orchestrated coups in Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil, Ukraine, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The so-called Arab spring was made in the USA. Uprisings were orchestrated. Nothing was spontaneous. CIA dirty hands were involved in replacing unpopular regimes with despotic ones considered more reliable.

Spring never bloomed, just the illusion of change for the better. It was pure deception. Everything changed in targeted countries but stayed the same.

In Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere things worsened, notably in Occupied Palestine. No spring bloomed there or anywhere else in the Middle East.

Plan Colombia was and remains all about Washington’s aim to control Latin America, eliminating opposition to regimes it controls, plotting coups against ruling authorities unwilling to bend to its will, along with pursuing anti-Sino/Russian regional policies.

Since Soviet Russia’s dissolution, the US escalated wars on humanity, using NATO as a killing machine. Republicans and Dems colluded to thirdworldize America, banana republicanize it, wrecking the economy, handing its wealth to Wall Street, war-profiteers and other corporate predators.

Both right wings of duopoly governance mock democratic values and rule of law principles they abhor, governing under a police state apparatus, hardened over time, risking global war to achieve its aims.

Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia are the remaining sovereign independent Latin and Central American nations.

Trump regime hardliners want fascist tyranny replacing their legitimate governments. In early January, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino turned truth on its head, saying the US “support[s] the people of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in restoring democratic governance and their human rights”—notions Washington abhors.

Venezuelan Bolivarian social democracy is the Trump regime’s top Latin American target for regime change. Pompeo made US intentions clear.

He turned truth on its head, saying President Nicolas Maduro is “illegitimate and the United States will continue . . . to work diligently to restore a real democracy to that country,” adding, “We are very hopeful that we can be a force for good to allow the region to come together to deliver that.”

Fact: Last May, Maduro was overwhelmingly re-elected by a two-thirds majority.

Fact: Scores of international observers from 30 countries monitored the election, judging it open, free and fair.

Fact: Venezuela’s political process is the world’s best.

Fact: It’s polar opposite America’s money-controlled system, one-party rule with two right wings, ordinary people having no say over how they’re governed.

Fact: US democracy is pure fantasy. Venezuelans have the real thing, why Republicans and Dems want its government toppled, their eyes on the prize—the world’s largest oil reserves they want handed to Big Oil.

On January 10, Maduro was inaugurated for a second six-year term, saying he’s committed to continue “fight[ing] for social and economic prosperity and to build 21st century socialism”—despite relentless US political, economic, financial, and propaganda war against the country’s social democracy.

Despite the Trump regime’s all-out efforts to mobilize international opposition to his legitimate rule, delegations from over 90 countries attended the inaugural ceremonies—including from Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Mexico, El Salvador, Iran, Turkey, and Ireland’s Sinn Fein.

Representatives from US colonized EU nations were absent, a spokeswoman for foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini lied saying that “the presidential elections were not free nor fair”—a falsified statement, serving US imperial interests.

Representatives from the African Union, CARICOM, the Arab League, the ALBA Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas, OPEC, and the UN also attended.

In his inaugural address, Maduro said, “I tell the people. This presidential sash is yours. This power is yours. It does not belong to the oligarchy or to imperialism. It belongs to the sovereign people of Venezuela.”

He denounced the diabolical aims of “the most powerful empire in history,” urging dialogue to serve Venezuelan interests, including UN support for “peace, mutual recognition, harmony, (and) coexistence of different political visions,” adding: “I would like to sit down with the opposition, stop the sterile, useless, unnecessary conflict, talk about economic issues; with the experience of the UN we can achieve it.”

Trump regime hardliners falsely call genuine democracies dictatorships, how neocon John Bolton reacted to Maduro’s inauguration, saying the US “will not recognize” his legitimacy to rule.

The US-controlled Organization of American States (OAS), headquartered in Washington, reacted the same way. Most of its member states support longstanding US plans for regime change.

The US-controlled 13-nation Lima Group issued a statement, refusing to recognize Maduro’s legitimacy.

Caracas slammed what it called a “humiliating subordination” to US imperial interests—applying to all nations allied with Washington against Venezuela’s social democracy and sovereign independence.

On January 12, State Department deputy spokesman Palladino openly called for regime change, saying, “It is time to begin the orderly transition to a new government.”

Previous US orchestrated coup attempts failed—against Hugo Chavez and Maduro. Will the Trump regime try again in the new year?

If unable to succeed by coup d’etat, will an attempt be made to assassinate Maduro? If economic, financial, political, and other tactics fail, will military intervention be the Trump regime’s fallback option?

Will Iran be targeted the same way in the new year? Imperialism isn’t pretty.

Endless US belligerence and state-sponsored terrorism is virtually certain ahead, the way hardliners in Washington always operate—hostile to peace, stability, equity and justice at home and abroad.

Oligarchs, Bankers, and Swindlers

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Washington’s “New Managers” in Latin America

By James Petras

Source: Dissident Voice

Amid raging corruption, social pathologies and outright political thuggery, a new gang of vassal regimes has taken-over Latin America. The new rulers are strictly recruited as the protégé’s of US financial and banking institutions. Hence the financial press refers to them as the “new managers” – of Wall Street.

The US financial media has once again provided a political cover for the vilest crimes committed by the ‘new managers’ as they launch their offensive against labor and in favor of the foreign and domestic financiers.

To understand the dynamics of the empire’s new vassal managers we will proceed by identifying (1) the illicit power grab (2) the neo-liberal policies they have pursued (3) the impact of their program on the class structure (4) their economic performance and future socio-political perspectives.

Vassals as Managers of Empire

Latin America’s current vassalage elite is of longer and shorter duration.

The regimes of longer duration with a historical legacy of submission, corruption and criminality include Mexico and Colombia where oligarchs , government officials and death squads cohabitate in close association with the US military, business and banking elites.

Over the past decades 100,000 citizens were murdered in Mexico and over 4 million peasants were dispossessed in Colombia. In both regimes over ten million acres of farmland and mining terrain were transferred to US and EU multinationals.

Hundreds of billions of illicit narco earnings were laundered by the Colombian and Mexican oligarchy to their US accounts via private banks.

The current political managers, Peña in Mexico and Santos in Colombia are rapidly de-nationalizing strategic oil and energy sectors, while savaging dynamic social movements – hundreds of students and teachers in Mexico and thousands of peasants and human rights activists in Colombia have been murdered.

The new wave of imperial vassals has seized power throughout most of Latin America with the direct and indirect intervention of the US. In 2009, Honduras President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a military coup backed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Zelaya’s program of agrarian reform, regional integration (with Venezuela) and constitutional elections was abolished. Zelaya was replaced by a US vassal, Roberto Micheletti who proceeded to murder several hundred landless rural workers and indigenous activists.

Washington moved to organize a constitutional cover by promoting a highly malleable landowner, Porfirio Lobo Sosa to the presidency.

The State Department next ousted Paraguyan President Francisco Lugo who governed between 2008-2012. Lugo promoted a moderate agrarian reform and a centrist regional integration agenda.

With the backing of Secretary of State Clinton, the Paraguayan oligarchy in Congress seized power, fabricated an impeachment decree and ousted President Lugo. He was briefly replaced by Vice President Federico Franco (2012-2013).

In 2013, Washington backed the capital Asuncion’s, notorious crime boss for President, one Horacio Castes – convicted for currency fraud in 1989, drug running in 1990, and most recently (2010) money laundering.

The Honduras and Paraguayan coups established (in miniature) the precedent for a new wave of ‘big country’ political vassals. The State Department moved toward the acceleration of banking takeovers in Brazil, Argentina and Peru.

In rapid succession, between December 2015 and April 2016 vassal managers seized power in Argentina and Brazil. In Argentina millionaire Mauricio Macri ruled by decree, by-passing constitutional legality. Macri fired scores of thousands of public service workers, closed social agencies and appointed judges and prosecutors without Congressional vote. He arbitrarily arrested social movement leaders – violating democratic procedures.

Macri’s Economic and Finance Ministers gained millions of dollars by ‘buying into’ multinational oil companies just prior to handing over private options on public enterprises.

The all-encompassing swindles and fraud carried out by the ‘new managers’ were covered up by the US media,who praised Macri’s professional team.

Moreover, Macri’s economic performance was a disaster. Exorbitant user fees on utilities and transport for consumers and business enterprises, increased three to ten-fold, forcing bankruptcy rates to soar and households to suffer light and gas closures.

Wall Street vulture funds received seven billion dollar payment from Macri’s managers, for defaulted loans purchased for pennies over a dollar, twenty-fold greater then the original lenders.

Data based on standard economic indicators,highlights the worst economic performance in a decade and a half.

Price inflation exceeds 40%; public debt increased by twenty percent in six months. Living standards and employment sharply declined. Growth and investment data was negative. Mismanagement, official corruption, and arbitrary governance did not induce confidence among local small and medium size businesses.

The respectable media, led by the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post falsified every aspect of Macri’s regime. Failed economic policies implemented by bankers turned cabinet ministers were dubbed long-term successes; crude ideologically driven policies promoting foreign investor profiteering were re-invented as business incentives.

Political thugs dismantled and replaced civil service agencies were labelled ‘a new management team’ by the vulgar propaganda scribes of the financial press.

In Brazil, a phony political power grab by Congressional opportunists ousted elected President Dilma Rousseff. She was replaced by a Washinton approved serial swindler and notorious bribe taker, Michel Temer.

The new economic managers were predictably controlled by Wall Street, World Bank and IMF bankers. They rushed measures to slash wages, pensions and other social expenditures, to lower business taxes and privatize the most lucrative public enterprises in transport, infrastructure, landholdings, oil and scores of other activities.

Even as the prostitute press lauded Brazil’s new managers’, prosecutors and judges arrested three newly appointed cabinet ministers for fraud and money laundering. ‘President’ Temer is next in line for prosecution for his role in the mega Petrobras oil contracts scandal for bribes and payola.

The economic agenda by the new managers are not designed to attract new productive investments. Most inflows are short-term speculative ventures. Markets, especially in commodities, show no upward growth, much to the chagrin of the free market technocrats. Industry and commerce are depressed as a result of the decline in consumer credit, employment, and public spending induced by ‘the managers’ austerity policies.

Even as the US and Europe embrace free market austerity, it evokes a continent wide revolt. Nevertheless, Latin America’s wave of vassal regimes remain deeply embedded in decimating the welfare state and pillaging public treasuries led by a narrow elite of bankers and serial swindlers.

Conclusion

As Washington and the prostitute press hail their ‘new managers’ in Latin America, the celebration is abruptly given way to mass rage over corruption and demands for a shift to the political left.

In Brazil, “President” Temer rushes to implement big business measures, as his time in office is limited to weeks not months. His time out of jail is nearing a deadline. His cabinet of ‘technocrats’ prepare their luggage to follow.

Maurico Macri may survive a wave of strikes and protests and finish the year in office. But the plunging economy and pillage of the treasury is leading business to bankruptcy, the middle class to empty bank accounts and the dispossessed to spontaneous mass upheavals.

Washington’s new managers in Latin America cannot cope with an unruly citizenry and a failing free market economy.

Coups have been tried and work for grabbing power but do not establish effective rulership. Political shift to the right are gyrating out of Washington’s orbit and find no new counter-balance in the break-up of the European Union.

Vassal capitalist takeovers in Latin America generated publicist anesthesia and Wall Street euphoria; only to be rudely shocked to reality by economic pathologies.

Washington and Wall Street and their Latin America managers sought a false reality of unrestrained profits and pillaged wealth. The reality principle now forces them to recognize that their failures are inducing rage today and uprisings tomorrow.

 

James Petras is author of The End of the Republic and the Delusion of Empire, Extractive Imperialism in the Americas: Capitalism’s New Frontier (with Henry Veltmeyer), and The Politics of Empire: The US, Israel and the Middle East. Read other articles by James, or visit James’s website.