Carlos Garrido: ''Nicolás Maduro's triumph is expected''

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Transcript

00:00Hello, Carlos.

00:07How are you?

00:08Hello.

00:09How are you doing?

00:10Thank you for having me on.

00:12How are you doing?

00:14So thank you for joining us on Venezuela Decides.

00:17And we wanted to ask you to begin this analysis.

00:21What is your read on the relevance of the election process that is going on in Venezuela

00:26right now?

00:27Well, it's extremely important.

00:31As I'm sure the audience knows, Venezuela is set to join BRICS fairly recently, which

00:37means having Venezuela be incorporated into this new emerging multipolar world led by

00:43Russia, China, Iran, and other key players saying no to American imperialist unipolarity.

00:52And with that joining of BRICS, what will come about in Venezuela is common prosperity,

00:58economic growth, and the general improvement of the Venezuelan population.

01:02Well, that is going to produce, of course, a full solidification of the Socialist Party

01:08of Maduro within the Venezuelan society.

01:12So the opposition understands very well that this is their last opportunity to regain power,

01:19their last opportunity to sell out their country, their homeland, their people, their

01:23resources to America and the American imperialist powers who are who the opposition actually

01:30represents.

01:31So this is why they are so dangerous.

01:34This is why we have seen the calls for violence and terror.

01:37They hope to breed fear into the Venezuelan people.

01:41But as someone who has been able to see about a dozen or so voting booths today, the Chavistas

01:47have been out all day, as Compañero Jorge Rodríguez was able to say not too long ago.

01:54It's a victory for Maduro, as expected.

01:58And I think what was on the line today was Venezuelan sovereignty.

02:03Is Venezuela going to be able to forge its own path, its own future autonomously, or

02:09is it going to sell out its interests, its land to the U.S. and become once again a neocolony?

02:17Carlos, as we continue analyzing in part what you were saying about the relevance of this

02:22election process, of course all of this process coming up to today, the election day, has

02:28been marked by an immense amount of media interference, what some have called a propaganda

02:36bombardment, and of course it comes to call once again the interference of major powers

02:42in Venezuelan internal affairs for what Venezuela represents in many aspects, and particularly

02:49U.S. interference in what is happening today in Venezuela.

02:54We were analyzing earlier today a tweet posted by Kamala Harris, Vice President of the U.S.

03:01What is your take on the position that the United States continues to carry towards Venezuela

03:07in this moment in time?

03:11It's important to understand that Venezuela is a very rich country, a country that's rich

03:16in people and that is rich in resources.

03:19It's got the second largest oil reserves in the world, and those are oil reserves that

03:25American imperial interests, private big monopoly entities, want to regain control of.

03:32And because they understand that there is full popularity of the Bolivarian revolution

03:37within the Venezuelan people, all they can do is go around and say fraud, electoral fraud.

03:43Well, the reality is that, as American President himself, Jimmy Carter, said, Venezuela has

03:49the most democratic system in the world.

03:52It's a system that I have been able to see here in my time in Caracas as an American,

03:57and I can confirm that what Jimmy Carter said is absolutely true.

04:00It is preposterous that the U.S., where only 19% of the American people think that their

04:07representatives represent them, has the audacity to sit here and talk about the absence of

04:12democracy in Venezuela, to sit here and describe Venezuela as an authoritarian hellhole led

04:17by a dictator named Maduro.

04:20It turns the world upside down, and that's all that they have.

04:23It is important to understand that the opposition is not even acting out of its own volition.

04:28They are not representing the Venezuelan people, and they never have.

04:33The opposition in Venezuela is essentially puppets of the American empire who want to

04:38go back to a condition where Venezuelan oil belonged to a small clique of Western multinational

04:43corporations that got rich off of stealing the resources of the Venezuelan people.

04:50And now, moving forward, we were talking about the interference and the reasons behind this

04:56interference.

04:58And of course, one of the things has to do with the wealth that has Venezuela as a country

05:06that has, for example, of course, the oil and oil production.

05:11And that has been the key element behind a lot of the so-called sanctions or unilateral

05:18coercive measures targeting the country.

05:22Now, what can we think about what is going to happen from tomorrow onwards in the climate

05:29of international interference that is going on?

05:32How do you read that movement, that political moment right now?

05:36Well, as you mentioned, Kamala Harris made a very ambiguous statement.

05:42She said that the U.S. is going to respect whatever the Venezuelan people democratically

05:48will.

05:49The problem with that, of course, is that the Venezuelan people have consistently, election

05:54after election, willed to continue the Bolivarian revolution.

05:59And the results are just completely tossed out, first by the opposition candidates within

06:03Venezuela who have been also proclaiming that their treacherous trader candidate was the

06:12one that actually won, and then, of course, by the U.S. itself that rejects unfoundedly,

06:18with absolutely no evidence, the results of the Venezuelan election.

06:22There's absolutely no evidence to any of the claims that the U.S. has previously made.

06:26So I think that there's little weight and way too much ambiguity in Kamala Harris's

06:30statement, and it opens the door so that as people are celebrating this great Chavista

06:36win, the far-right fascistic forces of the opposition come out and do what they've been

06:43promising for weeks, which is a bloodbath.

06:46They have been promising to terrorize the Venezuelan people, their own brothers and

06:51sisters.

06:52They have come out and sacrificed roosters, which are, of course, a symbol of the Venezuelan

06:57revolution.

06:58And this apology, the imagery couldn't be any more clear.

07:02They're seeking blood.

07:03They're seeking to dispose of President Maduro and top leadership.

07:08There's comments going around, semi-viral, in the far-right Venezuelan medias and social

07:14medias about attacking not just Chavistas, but anyone who has ever aligned themselves

07:20with Chavismo.

07:21So these are literal forces of terror that are backed up by the U.S., and if the U.S.

07:26finds it worthy to intervene, that ambiguous statement from Kamala Harris can be pressed

07:32such that if the opposition says they want, Kamala Harris can affirm that's what the will

07:37of the Venezuelan people is, and they could perfectly possibly send in forces to back

07:42up the opposition.

07:44Carlos, I also wanted to ask you about the importance of activism and also how the comrades

07:53in the U.S., for example, can take a stance in this context.

07:58We are talking about the country's interference, we're talking about state interests, but we

08:03know that activism in the U.S. has also been very important to also point out the hypocrisy,

08:12point out and demand from their governments a different stance on different international

08:17issues.

08:18Just this year, for example, all the mobilizations to stop the genocide in Gaza have been very

08:26important and very significant worldwide to at least turn the value on what is happening

08:33there.

08:34Do you see something like that being able to happen in regards to interference in Latin

08:41America, in different countries, and specifically in Venezuela at this moment?

08:47What are the different things that could be done from there to support the struggle here?

08:55The most important thing to remember is whether we are talking about the genocide in Palestine,

09:01the new Cold War against China, the proxy war against Russia, or the general wars that

09:08the U.S. wages against the actions of resistance, Iran and other countries, or the current discourse

09:16and attacks on Venezuela, which of course include 930 criminal sanctions, also known

09:22as unilateral coercive measures.

09:23What is important for Americans to understand is that we should support these struggles

09:29against American imperialism, not simply out of some middle class moralism and empathy.

09:36We have to support these struggles primarily because they are not two separate interests.

09:42The interest of the American people is the interest of Venezuelan sovereignty.

09:46It is the interest of Russian sovereignty, of Cuban sovereignty, of Chinese sovereignty.

09:51The enemy of the American people, the enemy that keeps us poor, that keeps us in debt,

09:56that keeps us desperate, is the same enemy that sends hundreds of billions of our tax

10:00dollars to Russia.

10:01It's the same enemy that questions unfounded elections in Venezuela, that insinuates violence

10:08in Venezuela.

10:09So what we have to understand, what my people in America have to understand is that we have

10:16to support the Chavista government and the Bolivarian revolution, not out of some lofty

10:21ideals or morality or empathy, but out of a concrete realization that the interest that

10:28we have, the people who we are fighting against, is the same as the Chavistas.

10:32If the Chavistas win, if the Venezuelan people can affirm their sovereignty and continue

10:37the Bolivarian revolution, we win.

10:40It's interconnected.

10:41The people who we're fighting against are part of the same class, the same people that

10:45put the 930 sanctions on Venezuela are the same ones that need individuals like myself

10:50to be in $100,000 of debt for doing something as crazy as wanting to get an education and

10:57that do the same thing to millions, tens of millions of Americans for daring to get

11:02an education, for daring to have a home to live in, or for getting sick and not having

11:07medical insurance.

11:08So the interest of the Venezuelan revolution and the interest of the American working class

11:12is one, and that's the most important thing I think we have to affirm and let the American

11:17people know.

11:19Now, of course, despite of what mainstream media and also propaganda have been trying

11:27to impose a narrative on what is happening now in Venezuela, today democratic elections

11:32took place.

11:33It was a democratic day.

11:35People were out in the street celebrating.

11:37All the reports from both inside and also international collaborators say that the day

11:43was lived with a lot of tranquility, and this is a very important day in Venezuela.

11:51And sometimes it seems that the discussion regarding what the propaganda has tried to

11:57install on Venezuela has not allowed us to understand this as an electoral dispute and

12:05to really understand what is this opposition that is running against the Chavez project,

12:13against the ruling party.

12:15What do they represent?

12:16What do they want?

12:17What type of country are they proposing as a model?

12:22How could you describe this opposition in Venezuela?

12:25Well, I would have to go to the apostle of my motherland, Jose Marti, who described these

12:33people in a very telling phrase.

12:37He called them gusano de corbata.

12:39He called them worms with bow ties.

12:40They're the sort of individuals that sell out their people, that sell out their homeland,

12:45in order to have their pockets lined up and fattened by the American imperialists.

12:53So that's the essential character of the opposition.

12:56And this is why what we have to affirm is that what's at stake is not just the continuation

13:01of the Bolivarian process, but it's Venezuela itself.

13:05Because Venezuela's existence as an autonomous sovereign entity is intimately tied to the

13:11Bolivarian process.

13:12If the Bolivarian process falls, which I can assure you it will not, I've been seeing thousands

13:18of Venezuelans in the streets, and the vast majority of them are not only with the revolution,

13:23but willing to sacrifice everything to protect it.

13:26But God forbid, if the Bolivarian revolution fell, it would mean the end of Venezuela as

13:32a free, autonomous, sovereign entity, and the return to a Venezuela that is a new colony

13:37of the U.S. and Western multinationals who only seek to mute the very rich resources

13:43of Venezuela to accumulate as much capital as possible in the hands of the very few,

13:48while the vast majority of Venezuelans struggle.

13:53So we were talking about different issues, and one of them, the most important, perhaps,

13:58to think about the last years impacting the Bolivarian revolution, has had to do with

14:04international interference, particularly the U.S., but also the U.N., different sanctions

14:09imposed on the country.

14:11And I wanted to ask you, what kind of strategies do you understand from a geopolitical stance

14:18that Venezuela has been taken and could continue to take to go over the sanctions and start

14:27in the path of overcoming these hardships that the last years appeared to show that

14:33it has already been set on that track?

14:36So in terms of cooperation in the region, you were mentioning the Caribbean region,

14:42but also alliances all over the world.

14:44How do you see Venezuela from a standpoint in its relations, geopolitical relations around

14:50the world?

14:51Well, the continual process of Venezuelan sovereignty and revolution, I think it's

14:58tied, as it is with Cuba, as it is with Nicaragua, as it is with Iran, to BRICS, because what

15:06BRICS represents is the skeleton, the basis, the foundation for a new world, a world where

15:12international relations have been revolutionized in terms of the logic that animates them,

15:18from unilateral imposition of America's role on other countries to what the Chinese like

15:25to call win-win relations.

15:27So I think it is evident, and this is why the opposition is so particularly dangerous

15:33this time around, that with Venezuela's inclusion into BRICS, we're only going to see an intensified

15:39version of what we've seen with its very close relationships with Iran, which is what has

15:45allowed Venezuela since 2019 to weather the storm, a storm where 99 percent of the earnings

15:52they were making were virtually removed because of the hardships of U.S. sanctions and hybrid

15:57warfare.

15:58This is not through sanctions.

15:59There's ships filled with oil that were coming from Iran that the U.S., like literal pirates,

16:05would kidnap and then give it to American oil companies.

16:09So it's a hybrid warfare that's been waged against not just Venezuela, but anyone who

16:13dares to exist outside of the sphere of influence of U.S. empire.

16:18And just like the relations with Iran have been the basis of Venezuela's economic improvement

16:23over the last five years, its inclusion within BRICS, its ability to engage with the Shanghai

16:29Cooperation Corporation, the Eurasian Economic Union, and all of these other international

16:35institutions founded on a belief in multicolality, a belief in bilateral relations that are mutually

16:44beneficial.

16:45Venezuela's incorporation into this new world that is developing is going to be the basis

16:50of its ability to defend itself from the attacks coming from the U.S. empire.

16:58What do you think is the relevance of today for the region?

17:03Well, it's a general victory, not just for those forces in the region which are actually

17:10sovereign.

17:11So the forces that are not controlled by puppets of the American government.

17:17But it's also a win for the up-and-coming, embryonic, but still very much developing

17:25multipolar world itself.

17:27It's a win that I'm sure will be celebrated in Iran.

17:30It's a win that I'm sure will be celebrated in Russia, in China.

17:34I got to speak with delegates from Russia and from China, and they are very much conscious

17:41of the importance of Venezuela in this up-and-coming multipolar world.

17:46So the victory of the Bolivarian Revolution today is something that has impacts well beyond

17:52just Venezuela, well beyond the Patria Grande, this region that Venezuela is incorporated

17:59in, in the Western Hemisphere, has influences for the whole world.

18:03It's a monumental victory for the forces of multipolarity and against the forces of imperialism,

18:10which are showing more and more their decrepit character.

18:18So you were talking about the reactions that are coming from other parts of the world.

18:22Of course, you were mentioning, for example, comrades in Russia following this election.

18:28How do you think that activism from all around the world are looking at what is happening

18:34in Venezuela, also looking at how different main international powers, such as the U.S.

18:43and the European Union, for example, are reacting to the democratic process in Venezuela, and

18:49what that can mean for other countries in the Global South, for example?

18:56Whatever happens to Venezuela, is that a call of attention for the rest of the world?

19:03It absolutely is.

19:04This victory in Venezuela is something that, as I mentioned, will be celebrated by all

19:09free people around the world.

19:11And look, we have to be honest with ourselves.

19:15The situation in Venezuela provides a lot of hope for a lot of people.

19:20And even I would so dare say that if we do our job correctly in the U.S., it will come

19:28a time where this is a victory that could be celebrated by the vast majority of the

19:33American people, because fundamentally, the interests that Venezuela is fighting against

19:37are the same interests that keep us miserable at home.

19:41And I would venture as far as to say, given the fact that recent polls show that only

19:4711 percent of the American people trust what the legacy media, what the mainstream media

19:54says, I would say that a whole lot of them are probably skeptical about how the U.S.

20:00media is describing this election, which of course is the same narrative that it always

20:06uses, because the opposition that they fund can't win, because they can't win the people

20:11on a platform of returning to being a neo-colony.

20:14They're forced to cry fraud months ahead of time on an electoral process that a president

20:20from the U.S. itself called the most democratic in the world.

20:24So the American people recognize that the media is there to lie to us.

20:30It's the media that lied to us about Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, that has lied to

20:37us about Russia and virtually everything.

20:40And that does it for a very specific reason.

20:42It doesn't do it just because the media are compulsive liars and somehow they always end

20:47up hiring really bad compulsive liar character types.

20:50They do it for a specific reason.

20:52They represent the interests that benefit from the overthrowing of these popular sovereign

20:58projects that are quite literally constructing a new world as it unfolds right before us.

21:08Now, in the face of what you were saying regarding a lot of disbelief of the media, for example,

21:15and also that would be a sign that, well, many people are more and more aware that these

21:21are actually like confronting narratives and there is a struggle going on there on how

21:26we tell our world and our struggles.

21:31What do you think is the role that alternative media, global south media, left media needs

21:38to play in this role, in this struggle?

21:43What does that media need to do to overcome that mainstream narrative?

21:49Well, it's essential.

21:52In order for the system of those who put the accumulation of capital as supreme, in order

21:58for that system to survive, it needs to reproduce itself at the level of ideas.

22:03It needs these ideological institutions like the media, education, et cetera, that can

22:08convince people who have a fundamentally adverse and antagonistic interest to the ruling order

22:14that they should accept the ruling order.

22:16The only way to challenge the lies that are systematically pumped out by these institutions

22:22is to create alternative people's institutions.

22:25Institutions like TeleSor, institutions like Midwest Remarks, which I work as a director

22:30for.

22:31I think to get to something quite concrete, if you look at American Twitter, what's been

22:38trending in American Twitter, Venezuela's been at the top, the Venezuelan elections.

22:44It's quite literally mixed in terms of opinion.

22:46You have people like Elon Musk, of course, who applauded the coup in 2019 in Bolivia

22:51and said, we'll coup who we want.

22:53I wonder if the lithium that is in Bolivia's ground had anything to do with it.

22:58But you had people like Elon Musk promoting a candidate like Bachano that literally asked

23:04for the Zionist entity, the entity carrying out a horrendous genocide against the Palestinian

23:08people, to invade Venezuela.

23:11Musk endorses her and says that the future of Venezuela is with her.

23:14A few other far-right forces are promoted, a lot of them through bot farms.

23:19This isn't a conspiracy theory.

23:21There's literal bot farms that are essential in getting things trending.

23:25And when they begin to trend, what you have is a changing of how things are seen.

23:31And the era that we live in, people come to pass judgments on the basis of how things

23:35are seen as being seen.

23:37If they go see a video and all the comments are negative, that's going to affect their

23:41perception of that video.

23:43It's a form of second-order observation.

23:45So you have on one side all of these people supporting the opposition, probably boosted

23:51quite a bit by bots, and then on the other side you have my colleague who's here with

23:56me in Caracas, Venezuela, Jackson Hinkle, who's a communist, anti-imperialist media

24:01personality and journalist, a member of our party, and who's been the most viral person

24:06on Twitter getting the message out.

24:08Our party, Twitter, the American Communist Party, has been able to also get messages

24:12out.

24:13And now it seems like there's really two or three creators that are getting the pro-Maduro

24:19narrative, which is the true narrative out, and then the vast majority of the other people

24:26like Musk and far-right wingers who are spreading lies.

24:31So that battle is essential.

24:33Excellent, Carlos.

24:36So before we finish, I wanted to ask, in the face of everything that you were saying, in

24:42the face of the media bombardment or the propaganda bombardment, as one of the analysts called

24:48it hours ago, in the face of all of this context, what would you tell anyone from the audience

24:57hearing, not from Venezuela, not from the Latin American region maybe, but from outside

25:04in other parts of the world, what would you tell them about Venezuela?

25:08What do we need to keep in mind to understand what is really happening today in the South

25:13American nation and what is at stake there?

25:17Two things.

25:19First, I've seen the voting process.

25:22I have participated in the end of campaign rally and was able to see millions of Venezuelans

25:31out in the streets of Caracas in tune with the words that Maduro was saying, singing

25:38Chavista songs, and there's this great clip that went viral of a young kid, 11, 12-year-old

25:46kid on the shoulders of his father in the rally that I attended, singing the national

25:51anthem of Venezuela.

25:53So what's clear to me, as someone who has been here for around a week now, is that the

26:00Venezuelan people are with the Bolivarian revolution.

26:05There should be no surprise that this has been an electoral victory for Maduro.

26:11The second thing I would say to our international viewers, to those outside of Venezuela, is

26:16to not think for one second that this is just a Venezuelan issue.

26:19As we've been trying to hammer out throughout this discussion, this affects everyone.

26:24If imperialism is able to win, if the U.S. is able to return Venezuela to a neo-colony,

26:32having the little compadre elements of the opposition at the helm but really being guided

26:38from the U.S., that's a big loss for the whole multi-polar world.

26:42It's a big loss for la patria grande, for our America, for the whole hemisphere.

26:48It's a big loss for American working people who, of course, face the same enemies.

26:52So do not think for one second that Venezuela's election is just an issue of Venezuela.

26:58It affects all of us.

26:59And Maduro's victory is something that we should all celebrate, because it's our victory

27:04too.

27:05And had there been a defeat, we should have also been saddened by that defeat, because

27:10it would have been our defeat as well.

27:12But thankfully, as anyone who has been able to experience the pulse of the Venezuelan

27:17people would have known, what we have seen is a staggering victory of more than 20 points

27:23over the treacherous and treacherous opposition.

27:28Excellent.

27:29Thank you, Carlos, for joining us in Venezuela, The Sites, tonight.

27:34Thank you for having me.

27:39That was Carlos Garrido, director of the Midwestern Mark Institute, philosophy professor and also

27:45educational secretary of the U.S. Communist Party.

27:49We'll go for a short break now.

27:50Don't go away.

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