Wednesday 20 March 2019

The Neoliberal Brain behind Juan Guaidó

While online audiences know YouTube comedian Joanna Hausmann from her videos making the case for regime change, her economist father has flown below the radar. His record holds the key to understanding what the U.S. wants in Venezuela.

By Anya Parampil

If you’ve followed Venezuela-related news on social media, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled across a video released by comedian Joanna Hausmann in which she promises to tell you, “What’s Happening in Venezuela: Just the Facts.” Despite a title designed to instill confidence in the uninformed viewer, upon closer examination the “facts” presented in Hausman’s video hardly stand the test of reality.

Hausmann, for example, attempted to pass off dubious assertions that Venezuelan opposition leader “Juan Guaidó is not right wing,” and that he “did not just declare himself president” of the country. She also claimed that President Nicolas Maduro “made up” the National Constituent Assembly, neglecting to mention that that governing body was clearly defined in the country’s 1999 Constitution, and was ratified by 71.8 percent of the country through a democratic vote.

Hausmann’s performance ended with a teary-eyed appeal for sympathy: “On a personal level… my father is exiled from going back home.” For a video dedicated to “just the facts,” Hausmann’s rant omitted an especially pertinent piece of information: her exiled father and the rest of her family are no ordinary Venezuelans, and are, in fact, key players in the bid to bring down the elected government.

Much of Hausmann’s script echoed talking points outlined by her father, Ricardo Hausmann, in a 2018 article ominously entitled “D-Day Venezuela.” The piece amounted to a plea for the U.S. to depose Maduro by force, with Hausman arguing that “military intervention by a coalition of regional forces may be the only way to end a man-made famine threatening millions of lives.”

But Ricardo Hausmann is much more than a prominent pundit. He is one of the West’s leading neoliberal economists, who played an unsavory role during the 1980s and ’90s in devising policies that enabled the looting of Venezuela’s economy by international capital and provoked devastating social turmoil.

Much, much more...

17 comments:

  1. ...because life in Maduro's sh*t-hole is worse than anything the capitalists ever did. He's even beginning to make Fidel look good.

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  2. Coming from someone who runs a dedicated anti-Chavez/Maduro blog (Speedyggggs) I'll take what you say about it with a big spoon of salt.

    You think it's a coincidence, this renewed leftist American interest in democratic socialism and talk of 'all options are on the table' by the Capitalist establishment?

    The truth of Venezuela is complex and most just project their own opinion on it.

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  3. Re. Shlomo Ben-Ami I quite like his views on Israel but this is just the same old 'you're wrong, we're right' stuff. Boring.

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    1. Even the USSR and Havana had Beryozka shops where purchases in foreign currency could be made. Nobody was using Bolivares in the shops in Chacao.

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    2. The tipoff to Blumenthal's scam comes at 3:30 in the video when Blumenthal states, "Acceptan effectivo? Dolares?" and the clerk shakes his head up and down.

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    3. Sid Blumenthal's son, the head of Hillary's private "secret service", isn't what I would call an "unbiased source" either. He's a propagandist of the neoliberal order.

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    4. "Sid Blumenthal's son, the head of Hillary's private "secret service", isn't what I would call an "unbiased source" either. He's a propagandist of the neoliberal order."

      Com'on man: Max is staunchly anti-neoliberal.

      Re 'unbiased', that doesn't even exist...

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    5. It would be the most sophisticated 'embed' in history: Max is also one of the highest profile anti-Zionists!

      That guy ain't no neoliberal.

      His Dad Sidney? Maybe: he's certainly very pally with the Clintooons...

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  5. When it comes to putting actual food on the table, being "right" matters. It isn't pure abstraction. And Maduro isn't getting it done.

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    1. That's why he sanctions capitist use of dollars. It's the only thing keeping food on the table of the elites. Oil money from the US.

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