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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/06/trumps-imaginary-world-maduros-real-world/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/06/trumps-imaginary-world-maduros-real-world/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Trump’s Imaginary World, Maduro’s Real
World<br>
</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/pu3tatre/"
rel="nofollow">Maria Paez Victor</a> - February 6, 2020</span></div>
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<p>Trump gave his State of the Union to his Congress this
week. He is the president behind the curtain. But he is
not the benevolent, comical, trickster, wanna-be Wizard
of the famous story, but a malevolent and armed ogre
that threatens his country and the world.</p>
<p>He spreads lies like magic dust into his people’s eyes
conjuring up for them an imaginary USA where all who are
sick are sheltered; an America First policy that needs
no allies; an imaginary planet that does not need
climate accords or anti-nuclear accords; imaginary enemy
aliens with the face of Muslims and Latin American
migrants; an imaginary Venezuela where a vicious,
corrupt gangster of his choosing is supposedly
president.</p>
<p>How low has the USA State fallen! Republicans clapped
like tamed seals a mendacious president who conjures up
false and/or misleading facts about the state of their
people and the world.</p>
<p>Trump never mentioned:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>+ 50 million US citizens with no medical coverage</p>
<p>+ 46% of bankruptcies are due to medical costs</p>
<p>+ 40 million in poverty and 18 million in extreme
poverty</p>
<p>+ 25% of Indigenous people live in poverty</p>
<p>+ Average income of white families is 7 times higher
than that of the average black family</p>
<p>+ 987 people in the USA were killed by police in 2017
and 23% were black</p>
<p>+ 69,550 migrant children were separated from parents
–perhaps forever- and held in cages (2019)
constituting a crime against humanity</p>
<p>+ The unprecedented decline over the past 3 years in
life expectancy in the USA.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While Republicans gave Trump one standing ovation after
another, Democrats sat silently keeping their hands to
themselves. But when Trump had the effrontery to
recognise in the audience the self-proclaimed Juan
Guaidó, the fake president of Venezuela and threated the
real government of Venezuela, Democrats rose to their
feet to join the Republicans in applauding a known thief
and scoundrel.</p>
<p>Trump admitted publicly there and then that the US
wants to overthrow the legitimate government of
Venezuela. He ridiculously lauded a known thief, buddy
of a notorious criminal narco-traffic gang, and a
political failure, Guaidó, pretending that he is the
president of Venezuela.</p>
<p>The USA – supposedly defender of capitalism, and
corporate property – robbed Venezuela of its oil
corporation CITGO and robbed all Venezuelan assets in
USA banks. This is the biggest looting of a country
outside of active war that has ever occurred. Trump
allowed the Venezuelan embassy in Washington to be
raided and taken over by hoodlums against the Geneva
Convention. He imposed illegal economic sanctions,
against the UN Charter, that have prevented Venezuela
from selling oil and buying medicines and food in the
international market. The losses to Venezuela exceed
$130 billion. These are all instruments of war. These
are all violations of international law, the foundation
of world peace.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Venezuela, on the same day, President
Nicolás Maduro was presiding over a march of many
thousands of Venezuelans commemorating the day in 1992
when Hugo Chávez rebelled against the neoliberal
government of the day that had long looted and oppressed
his nation. Nicolás Maduro is the duly elected president
of Venezuela, according to the Constitution, in orderly
elections, witnessed by international observers, and he
is fully recognized as the legitimate president by the
United Nations and over 100 diplomatic missions in the
country. But most importantly, he is recognized,
supported by, indeed endeared to Venezuelans who see him
as their hero, as the man who is defending the country
against the vicious sanctions that have killed at least
40,000 people (2017-18) and have caused them such
economic harm and hardship.</p>
<p>Guaidó is, quite rightly, reviled as the one who has
petitioned powerful governments for these sanctions.
Unbelievable but true, Guaidó has asked for military
intervention with no care of what such violence means
for his own countrymen. The Venezuelan people will never
forget such treason. Guaidó has absolutely no political
future in Venezuela, except in jail.</p>
<p>Despite what Trump may imagine, Guaidó is scorned in
Venezuela not just by government supporters, but by his
once followers. He has lost all support from the
opposition itself and is hounded by them with cries of
“Thief! Thief!” wherever he shows his face. Do the US
Congressmen and women not have aides who would tell them
what the Latin American press, newsreels and videos are
showing, what the situation really is? Their wilfulness
to go along with the Liar-in-Chief is astounding and
disturbing.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Nicolás Maduro’s real world, Venezuela
has resisted the onslaught of illegal economic
sanctions, five coup attempts, and a drone assassination
attempt on his life. In Venezuela:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>+ 48,090 community councils, 3,173 communes and
15,000 cooperatives are producing, harvesting,
feeding, clothing Venezuelans</p>
<p>+ A 3.3 million strong civilian militia stands in
defense of the nation alongside the armed forces</p>
<p>+ Food distribution reaches more than 6 million
families each month</p>
<p>+ The Government has signed 500 bilateral trade
agreements with China</p>
<p>+ Russia has provided military and economic support</p>
<p>+ Iran has provided medicine, food, energy and health
care support</p>
<p>+ More than 3 million housing units have been built
for more than 10 million people</p>
<p>+ Economists note that the economy is expanding and
that the country is a “paradox of stability”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is social peace in Venezuela, interrupted only by
the incursions of the Colombian paramilitary gangs sent
by that lackey government to harass the frontier. There
is scarcity of many goods that cannot be imported and
the private sector shows no scruples in elevating prices
to suit their capitalistic appetites. But the public
sphere, the communal sphere, the bonds of solidarity and
nationalistic pride in withstanding the most powerful
nation in the world, is very strong. There is a feeling
of unity, of no exclusions for Black, Indigenous, the
handicapped, poor, youth, women, rural workers, urban
workers.</p>
<p>And even those who may be critics of the government’s
policies stand united with Nicolás Maduro in defending
the country from the madman in Washington.</p>
<p>Trump does not decide who is the president of
Venezuela. Only the Venezuelan people decide.</p>
<p><strong>Sources</strong></p>
<p><a
href="http://lapupilainsomne.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/derechos-humanos-y-democracia-en-estados-unidos-por-ministerio-de-relaciones-exteriores-de-cuba/">http://lapupilainsomne.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/derechos-humanos-y-democracia-en-estados-unidos-por-ministerio-de-relaciones-exteriores-de-cuba/</a></p>
<p>K. Zeese, M Flowers, Popular Resistance,<a
href="https://popularresistance.org/guaidos-failed-foreign-tour-ends/">
https://popularresistance.org/guaidos-failed-foreign-tour-ends/</a></p>
<p>National Health Institute</p>
<p>US Census Bureau, 2014</p>
<p>OECD</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/held-record-69550-migrant-children-custody-2019-report-191112132803440.html">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/held-record-69550-migrant-children-custody-2019-report-191112132803440.html</a></p>
<p>Resumen Latinoamericano, 21 May 2019</p>
<p>Orinocotribune.com, 22 Oct. 2019</p>
<p>Mision Verdad, <a href="http://misionverdad.com/">http://misionverdad.com</a>,
26 April 2019</p>
<p>CEPR, Washington DC, 25 April 2019</p>
</div>
<p> <em><strong>María Páez Victor</strong>, Ph.D. is a
Venezuelan born sociologist living in Canada. </em> </p>
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