Stop parroting the propaganda of Maduro's regime in Venezuela

[Oele]

By Francisco Toro February 4 at 5:04 PM

Desperate for control of Venezuela’s oil, the Trump administration is going all-out to install a far-right puppet regime in Caracas by backing a military coup.

If you’ve followed the Venezuelan crisis, you’ve read some variant of this line a dozen times this week. It’s important — crucial — that you understand it for what it is: Venezuelan regime propaganda, carefully designed to resonate with reasonable people around the globe, for the sole purpose of keeping a dictatorship in power.

It’s effective because it’s enticing.

To millions of Americans on the center and the left scarred by the memories of past U.S. overseas adventures gone wrong, the message resonates with deeply held political ideals. To many Latin Americans schooled on stories of a hundred years of U.S. imperial overreach in the region, it strikes a deep chord of injured national pride.

more @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/04/stop-parroting-propaganda-maduros-regime-venezuela/

[NYC Democrat]

1. I cannot deny the reaction to the Venezuela crisis among part of the left has left me shaken

All the conspiratorial nonsense, ignoring most of the democratic world is against Maduro including most of Latin America just because the US is so it must be some massive coup against him. Ignoring How Venezeula has been degrading year after year for almost this entire decade. Hell ignoring the testimonies of actual Venezulans and the refugee crisis stemming from the countries collapse. labeling Guadio who is part of a social democratic party as some kind of far right pawn. And just a ton of absolute nonsense. It's incredibly disheartening. We have to acknowledge authoritarians and despot's who profess to fly left wing banners, and treat them as what they are. Dictators, Dictators deserve condemnation regardless of what ideology they claim to follow, and honestly this can apply to anyone claiming they stand for democracy, liberty and such regardless of political leaning. If your defending dictators because they fit your ideology.. you look like a massive hypocrite, you harm your entire argument and most everyone with similar ideals.

[GatoGordo]

2. There are some on this very forum who continue to support Chavismo

They remain silent about the atrocities of these Marxist/Leninists in Caracas, yet when their is a glimmer of hope, a mere whiff of liberty and democracy, they suddenly can't say enough about vast "right-wing conspiracies" from the Venezuela opposition.

The REALITY is, the opposition in Venezuela is decidedly center-left to left. There isn't a single mainstream right-wing political party in Venezuela. Yet they go on and on and on about this horrible spectre that simply is not there.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Many of us know who Francisco Toro is, and learned when he was with the New York Times

right at the beginning of Hugo Chavez' Presidency until the Times saw all three of their Latin American "journalists" leave, and not a minute too soon.

No difference between them and Judith Miller, who "contributed" so much concerning the Iraq War of George W. Bush.

People who've been studying and researching every day since then had his number right from the first, and would never take a word he has written seriously. Never.

Same with the Washington Post's editorial opinion, as well as the Wall Street Journalists.

The right-wing poseurs who infested DU at that time, and bragged about their success at "conservative" message boards have run off so many people who just got tired of the gang-attacking from the right hiding in plain sight at this progressive board, that almost all the time they seem to have the run of the place concerning Latin American countries trying to go left, and live without the domination of the most powerful country on the planet.

That's O.K.

I remain, and I will always encourage people who are just trying to get the lay of the land to jump in and start reading the history of Latin America, and don't stop until you see the light. It will come, and you will know it when you have finally seen through the propaganda curtain.

Look for yourself, think for yourself, and don't stop until you know you've reached the truth.

It takes personal involvement to find the truth which so many people have worked so hard to bury.

Remember the old saying, "A lie is half-way around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots."

[GatoGordo]

4. "Look for yourself, think for yourself, and don't stop until you know you've reached the truth."

That's the problem. Most of us have dug EXTENSIVELY into the truth, and have discovered that the disaster that is Bolivarian Socialism cannot be excused by ANYONE who considers themselves a Democrat. We know the truth, because we are not blinded by extremist dogma.

Francisco Toro is very center-left, if not leftist. His disdain for Trump, Bush and the Republican cabal is well noted. What he is NOT is a Trotskyist, Marxist, Leninist, Maoist or Stalinist. If that makes him a "right-winger" in your book, I guess we know where the apologists for Chavismo are coming from on the political perspective spectrum.

Please, if you would be so kind, would you give us the name of a single MAINSTREAM "right-wing" political party in Venezuela, so we know who to be on the lookout for? Just one political party. Because those of us who are actually familiar with Venezuela know that before Chavez came to power in 1999, Venezuela was actually quite left. (Acción Democrática, Copei)

Though apparently not "left enough"?