I am a Venezuelan national and also now a US national. I have been in the US now for 17, years but have the privilege of going back to Venezuela where my family lives, and also see friends and fellow organizers. I have been organizing in San Francisco for 15 years around the right to education, racial justice, LGBT rights, criminalization, and police profiling.
It is a very scary time in Venezuela, a very anti-democratic time, and in fact quite dictatorial to have somebody who has not gone through an election call themselves a president — and in fact to do that in an organized, coordinated manner with the United States.
When you don’t go through an election and yet you call yourself a president it’s absurd. It doesn’t even deserve a conversation. I can’t believe that countries around the world are supporting this guy. Canada, Colombia, Brazil – Colombia and Brazil have very neo-liberal presidents.
Those countries are supporting Venezuala’s maddening new situation. Trump has for the past eight months said that a military option is on the table.
If you support war, innocent people getting killed on the street, then you can support what is happening in Venezuela. Otherwise, denounce it.