In the battle of ideas against a corporate media that inundates the minds of people into thinking that any and all things the United States does in the world is peaceful and well intended, having voices that break through the deception to explain the truthful reality is a needed force if real change is to take hold.
One of these voices is progressive author and long time supporter of anti imperialist movements in Latin America, Dan Kovalik who is currently on a weeklong tour in California with his new book, “The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela”.
Stops on the tour have included a meeting in Berkeley organized by KPFA Pacifica Radio station, several events in Los Angeles, others in Oakland, San Francisco, San Mateo, and continuing in Sacramento and Corte Madera.
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At a well-attended event in San Francisco’s Mission District last night Kovalik spoke at length about the myth of US humanitarian interventionism when it comes to the crisis in Venezuela. “How can it be that the U.S. could have humanitarian answers for the problems that Venezuela is enduring when they are the originators of an economic blockade of life essentials that they keep tightening? I was just in Los Angeles and was shocked to see the level of homelessness in the middle of that city. If they can’t provide housing for the poor, health care for all or jobs with a living wage here, how could they possibly deliver a humanitarian intervention there, or anywhere else for that matter? What their plan is if they can’t bring down the Maduro government through well financed and violent coercion, then they are more than willing to strangle the entire country into complete economic collapse. It is either one or the other; that is exactly what they plan to do. Every time that the U.S. says that it is intervening in a country on humanitarian grounds the exact opposite result takes place.”
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Also speaking last night was David Paul, from the Embassy Protection Collective, and Alicia Jrapko from the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity who was recently in Venezuela to participate in the Sao Paulo Forum.
Dan Kovalik is a human rights, labor rights lawyer and peace activist. He currently teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and is a member of the advisory board of the US Chapter of the Network in Defense of Humanity.
