Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: It's meet James and I'm very lucky to be joined
Speaker 3: by Marianne today. He's an outspoken member of the Venezuelan diaspora,
Speaker 3: a writer, photographer, and we're gonna talk today a little
Speaker 3: bit about our shared frustration with the left in this
Speaker 3: country talking about Venezuelan people, but not two Venezuelan people.
Speaker 2: So thanks for joining me.
Speaker 4: Tonight, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is something that we've been trying to put
Speaker 3: together for a while, and I'm really glad that we're
Speaker 3: finally doing it. So I guess if I can just
Speaker 3: frame this discussion. We've spoken about this extensively, so like
Speaker 3: I'm sure we won't need much much prompting. I do
Speaker 3: not understand how people arrive at a position of identifying
Speaker 3: as being leftists if they don't love and care about
Speaker 3: other people, And if you love and care about other people,
Speaker 3: then you should listen to them. And I am appalled
Speaker 3: at the discourse about Venezuela which is happening without Venezuelan voices.
Speaker 2: For the most.
Speaker 3: Part, where people will talk to Venezuelan's are all in
Speaker 3: the US press. It's far too often people in the
Speaker 3: diaspora who are talking to the right wing of media
Speaker 3: and highlighting like what are sometimes recent objections to madulas,
Speaker 3: sometimes which are completely insane, but it's it's a complete
Speaker 3: failing of us on the left to not talk to
Speaker 3: people from Venezuela. Maybe you could just share with us,
Speaker 3: like how it's been since January to see it offered
Speaker 3: it as a binary right. You can either exist on
Speaker 3: the maduro and people can live in poverty and suffer,
Speaker 3: or you can watch your country get bombed and choose
Speaker 3: like mcm like and none of this is happening.
Speaker 2: Was asking you what you would like, Can you like
Speaker 2: share how that's been.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's been. It's been a wild ride.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a lot of different emotions going on,
Speaker 5: which is one of the things that I think a
Speaker 5: lot of people don't understand that are not Venezuelan. But yeah,
Speaker 5: just a lot of emotions. I mean, I remember when
Speaker 5: it first happened, I immediately messaged my family back home, so
Speaker 5: my brother, my mom, my grandparents. My family is not
Speaker 5: from Karaka, so they were all right. They were just saying,
Speaker 5: you know, it's calm where where we are, it's fine.
Speaker 5: But yeah, the immediate thing was concerned. Then obviously I
Speaker 5: couldn't sleep that night because of everything that was going on.
Speaker 5: I live in Europe, so by that time, it was like,
Speaker 5: I don't know, it was like five in the morning
Speaker 5: or something, eight in the morning.
Speaker 4: I don't remember.
Speaker 5: It's all just a blur to me now, but I
Speaker 5: remember I was just like on my phone seeing the
Speaker 5: updates like every minute, trying to contact my friends who
Speaker 5: did live in Karakas, and they were just saying, yeah,
Speaker 5: like we hear bombs. We don't know what's going on.
Speaker 5: And then eventually, like some people started saying that they
Speaker 5: bombed liked some strategic military bases or like in Paracio
Speaker 5: Mira Flores, which is the presidential house, and so everyone
Speaker 5: was like all over the place, and then we got
Speaker 5: all this information that they took Maduro whatever. And then
Speaker 5: at that point it was just like Okay, concern, worry, confusion,
Speaker 5: and then joy because not because the place was bombed
Speaker 5: by Americans, but because this guy was like taken away
Speaker 5: who he deserves.
Speaker 4: Worse than prison, to be honest.
Speaker 5: But then concern again because what are the Americans going
Speaker 5: to do now? So it was just a lot of
Speaker 5: different things going on. Like I think a lot of people,
Speaker 5: including myself, were just like paralyzed by all these different emotions,
Speaker 5: like joy because again, this guy who has done horrible
Speaker 5: things to the Venezuelan people is now paying for his
Speaker 5: crime somewhere, but at the same time, fear because of
Speaker 5: what is going to happen next. I mean, we're not dumb,
Speaker 5: we know what the US is capable of. So it
Speaker 5: was a little bit of both of those feelings after
Speaker 5: we knew what had happened, and ever since then it
Speaker 5: has been just a struggle because of course there's a
Speaker 5: lot of misinformation going out there. It's been frustrating because
Speaker 5: I see many of my people's voices being silenced by
Speaker 5: people on the left. And then also you have a
Speaker 5: lot of people on the right like appropriating our narrative
Speaker 5: to like push their own pro American propaganda whatever. So
Speaker 5: it's kind of just like everyone's trying to like appropriate
Speaker 5: or steal their own narrative and suffering for their own gain,
Speaker 5: and the left and the right are doing both like equally. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So it has been kind of frustrating because I mean,
Speaker 5: every time I even just try to leave a comment
Speaker 5: on Instagram or say something I'm called fascist, like Trump supporters,
Speaker 5: Cia Masade agent whatever. And you know, it's frustrating to
Speaker 5: see so many people because most of the people I
Speaker 5: follow are like leftists, right, but I've unfollowed like seventy
Speaker 5: percent of the people I used to follow because they
Speaker 5: started posting like Promaduro stuff and talking about how he
Speaker 5: was so great whatever. And you know, it has been
Speaker 5: very defeating to feel like we don't have anywhere to
Speaker 5: go to nobody supporting us, because again, one side just
Speaker 5: wants to rob us from our resources and seal a
Speaker 5: narrative to like push their own agenda. But then the
Speaker 5: other side is like completely denying or calling us like
Speaker 5: all these horrible things to also steal our narrative. Right,
Speaker 5: So it has been really frustrating and scary and isolating. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it has been a lot, to the point where I think,
Speaker 5: I mean, do I even have a place in the
Speaker 5: world of nobody wants to hear my voice? So it
Speaker 5: has been very difficult, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, very disheartening.
Speaker 5: But then yeah, like that's why I told you about
Speaker 5: the baseball thing recently. It was kind of like a
Speaker 5: positive thing, like a because one of the good things
Speaker 5: about that game is that people were finally like getting
Speaker 5: to know us and how we're actually good people, and
Speaker 5: that was kind of like a pick me up after
Speaker 5: how horrible life has been since January third.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, yeah, like people obviously like undervalue spot
Speaker 3: I think they do. I wrote a book about sport
Speaker 3: and anti fact some kind of predispersed to this disposition.
Speaker 3: But like, these moments of joy are really important, and
Speaker 3: like the God knows the world tries to rob us
Speaker 3: of joy at the moment, so we should embrace them
Speaker 3: and enjoy them and not feel like we are like
Speaker 3: obliged to be sad because of all the sadness in
Speaker 3: our worlds. Yeah, I think something you said there, like
Speaker 3: struck home with me are two things I guess let's
Speaker 3: address the first one. It is fundamentally a colonial impulse
Speaker 3: to steal someone's narrative and assume that they're incapable of
Speaker 3: speaking for themselves, so you must speak for them, right Like.
Speaker 3: That is something that I have seen not just now,
Speaker 3: but for years about Venezuela. Right Like, it must have
Speaker 3: been really frustrating to see this kind of camp pissed
Speaker 3: tendency to to literally steal like the voice of Venezuelan
Speaker 3: people and speak on their behalf.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's nothing new though.
Speaker 5: I mean I remember when I was in college it
Speaker 5: was kind of the same, Like there were I think
Speaker 5: it was like twenty seventeen, there were some protests and
Speaker 5: people were saying all sorts of things, and I remember
Speaker 5: losing a lot of my friends in college because of that,
Speaker 5: because I was saying, like, you know, it's more complicated
Speaker 5: than that, like you know, actually people do dislike this
Speaker 5: person for this, this and this reason. And yeah, I
Speaker 5: remember losing a lot of friends because of that. Maybe
Speaker 5: not a mental breakdown, because it was just like a life, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I remember even at one point I went to like
Speaker 5: a cafe. It was one of these like calfes where
Speaker 5: people right on the walls and it said like fuck Venezuelans,
Speaker 5: and I was just like, what a fucking dystopia am
Speaker 5: I living in? And I also used to work at
Speaker 5: a front desk and this guy somehow found out that
Speaker 5: I was Venezuelan and he started saying like, oh, Madulu's
Speaker 5: the best, like whatever, and my boss had to come
Speaker 5: in and like take the guy away because he was
Speaker 5: just being really like rowdy.
Speaker 4: Right, So yeah, it's calm.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in fact of us, like when we introduce ourselves,
Speaker 5: like we don't say that we're Venezuelan immediately just because it.
Speaker 4: Can be dangerous at times.
Speaker 3: So yeah, especially now we have this combination of like
Speaker 3: we've discussed this, but like on the on the right,
Speaker 3: then it's when people are all perceived to be fucking
Speaker 3: members of trend Ragua now and then yeah it's that
Speaker 3: or you line up behind the regime. And even when
Speaker 3: those two things, like they're not as distinct as people
Speaker 3: you know sometimes in their imagination see them, or that
Speaker 3: they're also not as joint does other people in their
Speaker 3: imagination see them. Yeah, it doesn't give you a place
Speaker 3: to express your identity, right, you just have to fit
Speaker 3: into someone else's box. Yeah, something else you said really
Speaker 3: struck me, Like there seems to be and again it's
Speaker 3: like it's not distinct from the colonial impulse, right, I
Speaker 3: think about the uplift civilized and Christianized or the white
Speaker 3: man's burden, or these notions of people who were subject
Speaker 3: to colonial violence being lesser than or incapable of, and like,
Speaker 3: what are the things I see? It is like the
Speaker 3: idea that Venezuelan people are not aware of United States imperialism.
Speaker 3: I lived with Chilean's in Caracas in like the first
Speaker 3: decade of this century, right, Like, people were very extremely
Speaker 3: fucking aware. Like I lived with people who are being
Speaker 3: tortured because of because of United States imperialism. They've played
Speaker 3: me to have our records and then told me how
Speaker 3: they chopped his hands off.
Speaker 2: Right, Like, Yeah, you're a person on the left.
Speaker 3: You have an understanding of the world and world politics,
Speaker 3: and you've studied and traveled. But like there is a
Speaker 3: cultural understanding of this, right which does not require one
Speaker 3: to attend university. Can you explain how people because people
Speaker 3: are weighing on the one hand, we have this malordal
Speaker 3: regime which is killing people, which has imprisoning people, and
Speaker 3: which is acting as a fundamental constraint on our autonomy.
Speaker 3: And on the other hand, we have the Americans dropping bombs,
Speaker 3: so we know what the Americans have done, Yeah to
Speaker 3: this part of the world. If you could just talk
Speaker 3: on that a little bit, explain how people live with
Speaker 3: that balance.
Speaker 5: I think it's a combination of multiple things. So first,
Speaker 5: I mean, for many years, the government horribly mismanaged the
Speaker 5: country and then blamed the US for everything that went wrong.
Speaker 4: I mean, there were moments in.
Speaker 5: Which we knew and had proof that these problems were
Speaker 5: coming directly from the regime's actions, and yet so many
Speaker 5: times they simply lied about it and said that it
Speaker 5: was the US's fault, to the point where many of
Speaker 5: us were, you know, simply desensitized to the idea of
Speaker 5: US intervention. It's a case of the boy who cried
Speaker 5: a wolf, but in this case, it was the dictator
Speaker 5: who cried intervention.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Second of all, I mean, for many years now, every
Speaker 5: cent made from our country's resources have gone everywhere except
Speaker 5: to the people. Our resources have been going to other
Speaker 5: country let's say Russia and China, just to name a couple,
Speaker 5: and yet we, the Venezuelan people, have not seen a
Speaker 5: single scent of that. So at this point, we're used
Speaker 5: to being exploited and we're used to being cheated. So
Speaker 5: when people in the US say, hey, the US only
Speaker 5: wants to steal your oil, or hey, like they're going
Speaker 5: to exploit your country, it's ignoring the fact that we
Speaker 5: have already been living through that very same thing for decades,
Speaker 5: and many believe that our material reality won't be affected
Speaker 5: just because now it's someone else stealing our resources. If anything,
Speaker 5: people are willing to see if these new guys aka
Speaker 5: the US might do things differently now, whether that's right
Speaker 5: or not. What it really speaks to, I think is
Speaker 5: I guess my final point, which is that people are desperate.
Speaker 5: Every time a leftist says, oh, your life is about
Speaker 5: to get so much worse or so bad or whatever,
Speaker 5: they say that without knowing how bad things have already gotten.
Speaker 5: I mean, I remember going to school during like the
Speaker 5: worst parts of the famine and seeing like a skeletal
Speaker 5: dead body lying on the street. Like that's an image
Speaker 5: I still have nightmares with. And I mean for a time,
Speaker 5: I remember someone I knew dying or being killed every
Speaker 5: single week.
Speaker 4: The abuse and.
Speaker 5: The torture we've endured at the hands of this regime.
Speaker 5: I mean, anyone can google, like what's going on in
Speaker 5: places like Elllikoire or La Pumba or any of the
Speaker 5: other torture centers in the country. I mean, people experience
Speaker 5: mock in real executions, getting electrocuted like by their genitals, rape,
Speaker 5: being forced to eat feces, and a whole list of
Speaker 5: medieval sounding torture methods. And you know, people are truly
Speaker 5: desperate for a change, any change, And the fact is
Speaker 5: that the global campus left, or as me and my
Speaker 5: friends have begun calling them, the imperial left, has done
Speaker 5: nothing for us. They've given us no sustainable solution, and
Speaker 5: if anything, have completely sided with our pressors. So you know,
Speaker 5: if Trump comes and says I recognize this regime is
Speaker 5: bad and I'm going to do something about it, people
Speaker 5: are going to take that. And this is what is
Speaker 5: so frustrating to me is that many of these leftists
Speaker 5: will go ahead and then criticize Venezuelan's for siding with
Speaker 5: their enemies. But what they don't see is that they
Speaker 5: have sided with ours. And at the end, all that
Speaker 5: does is make life even harder for us. We've gone
Speaker 5: so desperate that we've run directly into the hands of
Speaker 5: vultures because they're the only hands that we've been given.
Speaker 5: I personally don't love what the US is doing to
Speaker 5: our country, but but I mean, I understand why many
Speaker 5: Venezuelans have reacted the way that they have, and this
Speaker 5: is how I can best explain it to those who
Speaker 5: don't understand it. It's sad, I know, it's very sad,
Speaker 5: and it's hard for people who haven't lived through this
Speaker 5: to wrap their heads around this level of despair. But
Speaker 5: it's the simple truth, and it's a hard truth that
Speaker 5: I think many leftists need to hear and understand. And
Speaker 5: I say that as someone who is also saddened by this,
Speaker 5: because I want to see a more left leaning future,
Speaker 5: especially for my country. But I don't think it can
Speaker 5: happen if people don't start accepting realities like these.
Speaker 3: The other thing that gets collapse Alte, I think is
Speaker 3: in Venezuelan opposition right. Like it is always amusing to see,
Speaker 3: like I myself communist, right and not a state communist anyway,
Speaker 3: And I've seen like the Venezuelan Communist Party and the
Speaker 3: Communist youth of Venezuela, Like they'll put out a thing
Speaker 3: being like we support opposition, and then you'll see people
Speaker 3: being like, oh no, we're communists, but like like American
Speaker 3: communists who don't speak Spanish, yeah, like like are engaging
Speaker 3: with them. It's it's very funny to see that like
Speaker 3: in their mind all opposition in Venezuela is of the
Speaker 3: right wing, like MTM, yeah, tendenty right. Like there are
Speaker 3: many very valid reasons where people on the left will
Speaker 3: be opposed to what's happening. Does it feel particularly isolating
Speaker 3: to be of the left and at the same time
Speaker 3: have this constant assumption that to be an opposition you
Speaker 3: have to be of the right.
Speaker 5: It feels isolating when it comes to dealing with non Venezuelans,
Speaker 5: But when it comes dealing with Venezuelans, not really. I
Speaker 5: mean pretty much all of my friends, I mean, as
Speaker 5: a queer artist, like, most of my friends are also
Speaker 5: like pretty left leaning. Yeah, you have different kinds of
Speaker 5: people on the left right, but but yeah, like when
Speaker 5: it comes to my Venezuelan friends, it is not isolating
Speaker 5: at all because precisely we already know what's going on.
Speaker 5: You know, we know that the that the opposition isn't
Speaker 5: just like a right wing thing. Yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 5: it doesn't feel isolating because we know the political diversity
Speaker 5: that exists, right, Yeah, and so you just kind of
Speaker 5: have to find your tribe and it exists. Again, We're
Speaker 5: a country where people have all different sorts of opinions,
Speaker 5: and so you know, between my Venezuelan and friends, it
Speaker 5: seems pretty what's the opposite of isolating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like inclusive, I guess.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when it's dealing with my non Venezuelan friends. That's
Speaker 5: when it gets isolating because there's just not an understanding,
Speaker 5: Like they just don't seem to understand, no matter how
Speaker 5: much I try to break it down to them or
Speaker 5: how much I try to explain to them. I have
Speaker 5: been successful and many of my good friends who are
Speaker 5: like leftists, most of them are anarchists. Yeah, but when
Speaker 5: I do try to explain it to them, they do
Speaker 5: seem to understand because they know who I am and
Speaker 5: they know that I'm not.
Speaker 4: Like, you know, bullshitting them. But yeah, but again that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean.
Speaker 5: Like I told you earlier, I have lost many, many
Speaker 5: friends and you know, have had to unfollow many people
Speaker 5: like I don't feel welcome in all like leftists or
Speaker 5: even queer spaces sometimes because of what I think, which is,
Speaker 5: you know, a free Venezuela isn't just free from imperialism
Speaker 5: but also free from dictatorship.
Speaker 4: It's free from both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right right. I shouldn't be controversial.
Speaker 5: But that is something that most of my Venezuelan friends like.
Speaker 5: They completely agree because it's similar to me. But my
Speaker 5: non Venezuelan friends or ex friends, as I should say,
Speaker 5: they just don't understand that at all.
Speaker 3: So it's always interesting, Like, you know, I spent a
Speaker 3: good deal of time with Venezuelan people coming to the
Speaker 3: United States or who have recently arrived in the United States,
Speaker 3: and it's funny to see how people represent their operation
Speaker 3: to Maduro, like because at first I'll be like, oh,
Speaker 3: this guy's an American, so they're like, oh, it'd be
Speaker 3: great the Americans came to liberate us, and like, you know,
Speaker 3: what a wonderful country. And then like once people begin
Speaker 3: to feel comfortable and safe with you and you talk more,
Speaker 3: everybody knows.
Speaker 2: We don't have it all figured out either.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows the history right like, and then people, yes,
Speaker 3: of course have a wide and varied range of things
Speaker 3: that they would love to see in Venezuela, but they
Speaker 3: are united behind seeing an end to dictatorship and yeah
Speaker 3: and stay violent.
Speaker 4: Yeah no.
Speaker 5: And I think that's honestly kind of like a beautiful
Speaker 5: thing where, you know, in spite of our differences, because
Speaker 5: I may have differences with other people who may be
Speaker 5: moderates or right wing or whatever, but we've all united
Speaker 5: a against this like bigger evil. And I think that's
Speaker 5: something that I wish actually the US could learn about
Speaker 5: right putting their differences aside to actually like tackle that
Speaker 5: bigger evil. I think that's something that US should learn
Speaker 5: about us. How we've been able to do that. How
Speaker 5: you know, we can all say, you know, we may
Speaker 5: not agree on how certain things are done, but we
Speaker 5: all agree on what needs to be done, which is,
Speaker 5: you know, like getting rid of this regime, right.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Mean it's it's actually pretty pretty cool. And although it's
Speaker 5: not always easy because again, like you have, like in
Speaker 5: any country, we have all sorts of different opinions going on,
Speaker 5: it is really nice to see everyone united for one
Speaker 5: thing and one reason, and that's really the important thing.
Speaker 5: So so you know, I wish other countries could maybe
Speaker 5: learn a little bit about that too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, left in this country could learn a lot from
Speaker 3: the way that, like a vast variety of left organizations
Speaker 3: in Venezuela have managed to unite with organizations that are
Speaker 3: more centrist or straight up on the right to achieve
Speaker 3: at least one goal, with the understanding that they still
Speaker 3: retain disagreements that are profound about other things.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 2: That's something we can learn a lot from.
Speaker 3: And like I'm always kind of in awe of the
Speaker 3: capacity for solidarity that I see, especially for Venezuelan people.
Speaker 3: And I think it comes from in part like decades
Speaker 3: of dictatorship and of hardship more generally, right, but like
Speaker 3: the continuous resolve that I've seen to get through it
Speaker 3: together rather than for each person to get their own
Speaker 3: and sort of leave the rest behind. Yeah, it's remarkable, genuinely,
Speaker 3: like seeing again, like a lot of my experience I
Speaker 3: have not been in Karrakas for probably fifteen years, maybe longer,
Speaker 3: is seeing people in the diaspora and migrants, but like
Speaker 3: people who have grown so used to this state ironically
Speaker 3: failing to provide the basic necessities of life that they've
Speaker 3: got used to just obtaining them and from each other. Like,
Speaker 3: even if those people are not anarchists, they're probably doing
Speaker 3: more mutual aid than people who spend a lot of
Speaker 3: their time being anarchists on the internet. Yeah, Like that's
Speaker 3: a beautiful thing that we should be in aura of
Speaker 3: rather than invalidating. It's so many people on the left
Speaker 3: ear and.
Speaker 5: I think that's something that really starts with our own crisis,
Speaker 5: because I remember at the height of the famine, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm speaking maybe like twenty thirteen fourteen around time,
Speaker 5: because by twenty seventeen when there was like another big
Speaker 5: like famine going on, I was not in Venezuela actually,
Speaker 5: but I remember when that was happening, like it was
Speaker 5: very common. Like, hey, so in my backyard we had
Speaker 5: plantings and our neighbor had avocados, so you we would
Speaker 5: like exchange things somebody needed anything, like if somebody's grandmother
Speaker 5: needed like this medication that can only be found in
Speaker 5: like this one place in Karakas, like, but then I
Speaker 5: didn't have gas, but maybe like my cousin had gas
Speaker 5: so that we could drive to Karakas, like. So that's
Speaker 5: kind of how it worked back there, Like we had
Speaker 5: that solidarity towards each other, and I think obviously if
Speaker 5: we go abroad, we're going to continue showing that same Yeah,
Speaker 5: I like that same attitude because it's just like part
Speaker 5: of who we are.
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, it just seems to be very much
Speaker 3: like part of the character of community. It's even like
Speaker 3: when I was there, you know, a decade before that,
Speaker 3: quite a decade maybe sometime before that. It's funny, I
Speaker 3: went to this place whereout having like a revolution, which
Speaker 3: was extremely grounded in state power and came out realizing
Speaker 3: that the state is not the vehicle for human liberation
Speaker 3: and the other people are just I just find this,
Speaker 3: this impulse on the left to invalidate and and like
Speaker 3: therefore refuse to learned from Venezuelan people so frustrating. It's
Speaker 3: like a mild phrase, but like what can people do?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Like, we're in a situation now where we have like
Speaker 3: Maduro without Maduro rail, but we have Delcea doing like
Speaker 3: tweeting how much he likes Donald Trump all the time.
Speaker 3: We are at the worst of all possible outcomes. Really, right,
Speaker 3: we still have this apparatus for repression. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, the US is basically engaged in a colonial
Speaker 3: relationship of extraction of resources and anything else it wants
Speaker 3: from Venezuela. Like, how can people better be in solidarity
Speaker 3: instead of like trying.
Speaker 2: To force you all into one box or another box?
Speaker 3: If we assume most of our audiences in Europe or
Speaker 3: the United States, right, and they there haven't been big
Speaker 3: Like we're in solidarity with the Venezuelan anarchists or even
Speaker 3: the Venezuelan socialist or communists who are opposed to Maduro
Speaker 3: to Delci.
Speaker 5: Now, for non Venezuelans, I think the key thing is
Speaker 5: to speak about the from a complete perspective, a whole perspective.
Speaker 4: Because what's the issue. And I can tell you personally.
Speaker 5: Sometimes I see, I don't know, like anti imperialists, you know,
Speaker 5: US get out of Venezuela protests, and I would love
Speaker 5: to join because I want the US out of my country.
Speaker 4: But then I see them with pro Maduro.
Speaker 5: Signs or just like free Maduro or you know, talking
Speaker 5: positively about the regime, and then I'm like, ugh, actually
Speaker 5: I'm not going to participate in that. Yeah, So you
Speaker 5: know you're actively excluding Venezuelan voices by doing these kinds
Speaker 5: of unilateral thing. And what do I mean by unilateral?
Speaker 5: So I understand that many let's say, Western non Venezuelans
Speaker 5: are speaking and looking at things from their own perspective,
Speaker 5: which is Trump is a bad guy.
Speaker 4: He's not going to do anything positive.
Speaker 5: We know the history of the US, and so they
Speaker 5: are from their own perspective, they see what their bad
Speaker 5: guy is doing, right right yea. From the Venezuelan perspective,
Speaker 5: we also see what our bad guy is doing. Like
Speaker 5: we're speaking up about this particular bad guy more than
Speaker 5: what we are about.
Speaker 4: Trump, the other bad guy.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of like we have two different perspectives here,
Speaker 5: and both are looking at their own right, And so
Speaker 5: the issue here is that those two perspectives are not combined, right.
Speaker 5: So I would say the first thing you need to
Speaker 5: understand is that you know, I understand why you're looking
Speaker 5: at things from your own perspective, but you also have
Speaker 5: to include Venezuelan perspectives in your activism in order for
Speaker 5: them to actually be productive towards the Venezuelan people, right,
Speaker 5: Because when you say, you know Fremaduro and you know
Speaker 5: us get out of Venezuela, you're still not addressing the
Speaker 5: necessities of the Venezuelan people, right, which is we need
Speaker 5: to get out of the regime.
Speaker 4: Sure, like one of those.
Speaker 5: Necessities is the US getting the fuck out of there,
Speaker 5: but you're not addressing the main issue that has plagued
Speaker 5: us for the past thirty.
Speaker 4: Years, right.
Speaker 5: So when you're not doing that, and that's a dangerous
Speaker 5: thing about you know, conversations like that of Venezuela or
Speaker 5: Cuba or even Iran as well, when you speak about
Speaker 5: things from one specific perspective. When you omit one side,
Speaker 5: you're making it seem like the other side is better,
Speaker 5: when it should be abundantly clear that both the US
Speaker 5: and Maduda need to be out in order for Venezuela
Speaker 5: to actually be free.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So I think it's key, it is very necessary that
Speaker 5: when we have these like free Venezuela protests, it's not
Speaker 5: just the US, but it's also protesting.
Speaker 4: The Madula regime, right because.
Speaker 5: Otherwise what you're going to do is you're going to
Speaker 5: exclude many people who also want the US to back
Speaker 5: off from your own protests, right. And if you know
Speaker 5: it's it gets even worse because I've seen Venezuelan activists
Speaker 5: actually getting you know, pushed out of conversations on Venezuela
Speaker 5: because they're talking about you know what I'm telling you
Speaker 5: right now, right, So they're talking about what the regime
Speaker 5: has done and maybe focusing on the regime well, also
Speaker 5: mentioning that the US should like, you know, they know
Speaker 5: US history, but they're focusing on the Venezuelan perspective because
Speaker 5: as a Venezuelan, that's what you want to bring into
Speaker 5: the conversation, right, Like non Venezuelans can go ahead and
Speaker 5: add of that, you know, anti peerless part of the
Speaker 5: conversation or you know, perspective to the conversation. But they
Speaker 5: do need to make space for the Venezuelans who also
Speaker 5: need to speak out of the regime, right, So it
Speaker 5: needs to be a combination of both, and in your
Speaker 5: advocacy you have to include both at the same time always,
Speaker 5: because again, if you don't speak about one, then you're
Speaker 5: sort of like portraying the other. One is like the
Speaker 5: good side, right, Yeah, And what that does is that
Speaker 5: continues to isolate Venezuelan's I mean, including myself, Like I said,
Speaker 5: I can't even go to a free Venezuela protest because
Speaker 5: I'm never gonna be, you know, next to somebody chanting
Speaker 5: Freema Duro.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So that's like the key thing that the leftist, like
Speaker 5: non Venezuelan leftists need to understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think a lot about how people on the left
Speaker 3: for some reason, and this is particularly odd with the
Speaker 3: fact that we have lived through a genocide in Gaza
Speaker 3: for two and a half years. The people seem to
Speaker 3: only be able to understand solidarity with states and not
Speaker 3: with people. And we have the Palestinians, right a stateless
Speaker 3: nation people seem to understand and that there to an
Speaker 3: extent right, albeit that for many people like Paalatsina's statehood
Speaker 3: is a solution to the problem, it just seems to
Speaker 3: be such a condemnation of the organizing or much of
Speaker 3: the left that people cannot This is my general frustration
Speaker 3: with the world, well one of them. They can't think
Speaker 3: outside of the state model. They cannot conceive of an
Speaker 3: alternative that does not already exist. Yeah, even though there
Speaker 3: are movements outside of the state right, like the Kurdish
Speaker 3: struggling in the North Assyria for example, it's one but
Speaker 3: like I don't know, like we should be able to
Speaker 3: dream of a better world or a beautiful life, and
Speaker 3: it seems like so many people have forgotten that that's
Speaker 3: what being on the left is about. And they identify
Speaker 3: as revolutionaries, but they're extremely reactionary in their politics and
Speaker 3: their goals. Like, Yeah, it must be so strange to
Speaker 3: come from. I don't know how old you were, when
Speaker 3: do you remember, like very early?
Speaker 4: I remember parts of it. It's like a memory.
Speaker 5: So I was born in ninety seven, So early Chevy
Speaker 5: Smoe was like a fever dream. I remember, you know,
Speaker 5: during like the and all that I would like go
Speaker 5: outside of like my apartments, like like go to my window.
Speaker 5: Like we used to live in a building and we
Speaker 5: would like take out pots in like cast roles and
Speaker 5: start basing and everyone. And then that was like my
Speaker 5: favorite part of the day because I as a kid,
Speaker 5: didn't really understand that it was a protest, but.
Speaker 4: I loved banging on things. So I remember that. I
Speaker 4: remember like my.
Speaker 5: Parents not being able to find certain things that maybe
Speaker 5: in the past they could find. I remember like at
Speaker 5: some points, like not being able to go to school
Speaker 5: because like there was something happening. It's like you're reallyving
Speaker 5: his own thing. But I remember thinking, I hope there's
Speaker 5: another cool so that I don't have to go to
Speaker 5: school tomorrow. Yeah, that's kind of like what I remember
Speaker 5: of early Chevysmo. I also remember as well, sort of
Speaker 5: seeing the division, and that to me is like the biggest,
Speaker 5: most impactful memory, right, the division that existed so on
Speaker 5: my family. I remember just for context, like part of
Speaker 5: my family, half of my family is like middle class
Speaker 5: and the other half of my family was working class,
Speaker 5: like you know, brown working class from the coasts, right,
Speaker 5: So shout out Tom so you know, it was like
Speaker 5: different realities, different necessities, and I remember both sides of
Speaker 5: the family arguing a lot, Like there was a lot
Speaker 5: of division, very similar to what's going on in the
Speaker 5: US right now in terms of division, right yeah, where
Speaker 5: there were like heated arguments, people did not speak to
Speaker 5: each other, people hated each other because of you know,
Speaker 5: like part of my family was Chevysta, the other part
Speaker 5: was opposition or whatever like it was. That was one
Speaker 5: of the biggest things that I remember, was like half
Speaker 5: of my family hating the other half of my family
Speaker 5: because they had different backgrounds and different political stances. So
Speaker 5: so yeah, that was a big thing, as well as
Speaker 5: the fanaticism, right that existed, especially rest does I mean
Speaker 5: remember my grandmother had like a poster of Chavis and
Speaker 5: like like a figurines and she dyed her hair red
Speaker 5: because she supported the regime whatever. So so that's one
Speaker 5: of the things I remember the most, is my family,
Speaker 5: both sides like hating each other because of this is
Speaker 5: and it's something that I'm seeing in the US right
Speaker 5: now a lot, and I think it's operating in a
Speaker 5: very similar fashion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does seem to be. And like did your
Speaker 3: family reconcile at some point. Oh, do you still have
Speaker 3: people who are like die hard?
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: So for example, Mike mother that I told you about, Yeah,
Speaker 5: she says that she's still Chevy stuff, but she's not Maluis.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had this done too. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just like, you know, she supports like what
Speaker 5: the revolution initially meant, but like she doesn't support Maduro, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Or for example, like her husband, my grandfather, he's just like,
Speaker 5: you know, this revolution was all bullshit. We thought that
Speaker 5: this was going to be good, but they ended up
Speaker 5: being absolute traders, like you know, they ended up not
Speaker 5: doing what they promised to do, right, So it was
Speaker 5: all just disappointment. And the other side of my family
Speaker 5: is just like chill, I don't know, like they were
Speaker 5: just never Chuvy stuff. So that's kind of you are
Speaker 5: like strong environmentalists, so that's why they kind of hated
Speaker 5: Chavis because they were also doing some crazy shit in
Speaker 5: the Amazons. So it's kind of like they do all
Speaker 5: get along much better, right, So that's good, Yeah, I
Speaker 5: guess because like once I realized that actually this guy
Speaker 5: was not that good, right, But that particular side of
Speaker 5: my family that was Chavista. That's how they think right now,
Speaker 5: or it's like either it was disappointment or that perspective
Speaker 5: of you know, I support Javis but not Maduo.
Speaker 3: I've heard that from a lot of people, right, like
Speaker 3: what Javis wanted to make Venezuela better for us, and
Speaker 3: like if we just look at the ship he said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I want people to have enough to eat. I want
Speaker 3: them to have education, I want them to be able
Speaker 3: to go to the hospital. I want them to have
Speaker 3: safe houses, Like I want all those things too. They
Speaker 3: didn't get those things. But like I've heard a lot
Speaker 3: of people say that, like, well, yeah, we wanted it too,
Speaker 3: so we supported it, but it wasn't We didn't get that.
Speaker 2: We got prisons and cops exactly. And like that.
Speaker 3: Stunce seems to be entirely absent in any discussion of Venezuela,
Speaker 3: which is it's so common, like you just don't hear
Speaker 3: the like it's not like a left critique from other
Speaker 3: left stances. It's a left critique from the same place
Speaker 3: the chav Is more claimed to come from, and it's
Speaker 3: completely absent in our discourse. And like I can't, well,
Speaker 3: it's because we don't talk to people from Venezuela. But
Speaker 3: there ye, yes, it's extremely frustrating, and I think like
Speaker 3: there's a lot that the United States can learn because
Speaker 3: we're already seeing large numbers of people being like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I've voted for Trump one, two, three times, and now
Speaker 3: something has alienated them, right, whether it's mass deportations, whether
Speaker 3: it's a war with a run, whether it's the economy
Speaker 3: being shit, whatever it is, Like, we need.
Speaker 2: To learn how to.
Speaker 3: Allow people to change their minds or.
Speaker 2: Like to get better.
Speaker 3: Like the Venezuelan opposition wouldn't be what it was if
Speaker 3: they said anybody who supported Chabas.
Speaker 2: At any point can fuck off, we don't want you, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it wouldn't work. I would function.
Speaker 3: And I think if we would listen to people, there's
Speaker 3: so much that we could learn from that, but we
Speaker 3: seemed so locked in on talking down to them instead.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean exactly, That's what I mean by like
Speaker 5: it reminds me of that like division.
Speaker 4: You know, it's almost like right, like people are foaming.
Speaker 5: At the mouth, Like that's kind of like the level
Speaker 5: of division that I remember growing up. And to be honest,
Speaker 5: a lot of what's going on in the US is
Speaker 5: eerily similar to what I grew up seeing. I think
Speaker 5: both Trump and Chivas are very similar kinds of people.
Speaker 4: And you know, I used to live in the US.
Speaker 4: Now I live in Europe.
Speaker 5: But that's one of the reasons I decided to leave,
Speaker 5: because I saw many similarities to what happened in my country.
Speaker 4: And I decided to.
Speaker 5: Just Skidadle as soon as like, because I sort of
Speaker 5: knew where it was all going.
Speaker 4: But I knew where it was all.
Speaker 5: Going because of what I already lived through. There was
Speaker 5: actually one more thing that I'm thinking about it that
Speaker 5: it didn't get a chance, But you mentioned Palestine. I
Speaker 5: think it's really interesting because the school that I went to, actually, Venezuela,
Speaker 5: has a really big population of Middle Eastern people, among
Speaker 5: them Palestinians. There was a Palestine club in my hometown,
Speaker 5: and I remember during was it like twenty twelve, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 5: Again this was years ago, but twenty twelve maybe twenty fourteen,
Speaker 5: at some point there were protests la Huadimbus if you
Speaker 5: know them, during Lazwadimbas, there were protests for Venezuela whatever.
Speaker 4: And I remember that I had.
Speaker 5: Many Palestinian like Palestinian Venezuelan classmates, and they were protesting both, right,
Speaker 5: So they had Palestinian flags and they had Venezuelan flags
Speaker 5: and they were pro testing for both peoples.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you know, that's like.
Speaker 5: An example whenever people say like try to divide and
Speaker 5: you know say like, oh, like the Maludu is like
Speaker 5: pro Palestine, whatever. I think of my friends in school
Speaker 5: where they were like, no, actually, we're Palestinian Venezuelans and
Speaker 5: we don't like what's going on in either place. So
Speaker 5: because we do have a very big Middle Eastern population, again,
Speaker 5: many Palestinians, many Lebanese people who are not unaware of
Speaker 5: what has been going on in the Middle East, right,
Speaker 5: So that's also something to be added to the conversation,
Speaker 5: is you know when we talk about these things like
Speaker 5: they're not isolated, and precisely because we're not isolated, that's
Speaker 5: why we should, like you said, like be more in
Speaker 5: support of the people rather than the states.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I want to bring up like.
Speaker 5: That little bit of like that little memory that I
Speaker 5: had because I just remember the image of it, of
Speaker 5: my friends doing that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's very similar, sense, I guessed, like I
Speaker 3: think a lot about how the Assad regime used Palestinian
Speaker 3: people right, Like it would constantly talk about fucking solidarity
Speaker 3: with Palestine, and it had all these tanks and all
Speaker 3: these guns and all these planes and bombs, and it
Speaker 3: turned them all on its own people. It didn't use
Speaker 3: its state power to liberate Palestine. It would have been
Speaker 3: destroyed by the idea that it did, I imagine. But
Speaker 3: it used it to state power to kill its own people.
Speaker 3: It is so frustrating that we saw that happen and
Speaker 3: the world still allows people to tokenize the Palestinian people
Speaker 3: right and to use them as a shield against the
Speaker 3: oppression of their own people. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people will be thinking or listening and being like, well,
Speaker 3: I haven't really heard from Venezuelan voices, or they might
Speaker 3: not know any people from Venezuela.
Speaker 2: Where can people.
Speaker 3: Do more to listen if they want to as they
Speaker 3: approach this issue in so much as people stead approaching
Speaker 3: it because half the US media has forgotten about, then
Speaker 3: Isulla already?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot going on, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but.
Speaker 5: I want to say, like this might be a little
Speaker 5: bit annoying, but learn Spanish, right if you're going to
Speaker 5: act it for a specific group of people. At least
Speaker 5: learn the language, you know, so that you actually know
Speaker 5: what people are talking about.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Not everybody speaks English. Not everybody's gonna speak your language.
Speaker 5: So if you're actually gonna take advocacy for Venezuelas seriously,
Speaker 5: then you should learn the language straight up so that
Speaker 5: you it's easier for you to get into these conversations.
Speaker 5: See what local activists are saying, see what the news
Speaker 5: are saying, like see even what our leaders are saying.
Speaker 4: Right. So, I think that's one of the first things.
Speaker 4: I think. Another thing, I mean, there are.
Speaker 5: Some like English language Instagram accounts or like posting things, Yeah,
Speaker 5: but I think the biggest thing is to be for
Speaker 5: the people.
Speaker 4: And what do I mean by that?
Speaker 5: Everyone wants to claim that they are for the people,
Speaker 5: but very few people actually are for the people.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So what happens is they might hear like, I don't know,
Speaker 5: a Venezuela in person saying, oh, thank you USA for
Speaker 5: taking out maluro, do whatever you want.
Speaker 4: Whatever. They might hear like the typical magrasolanos, you know,
Speaker 4: and you might hear all of these perspectives that are
Speaker 4: really coming from not a place of them being fascist
Speaker 4: or whatever, but coming from a trauma.
Speaker 5: So I think that if you want to inform yourself,
Speaker 5: you need to develop the ability to think critically about
Speaker 5: what's going on and be able to understand who are
Speaker 5: these people and why do they have this perspective? Right,
Speaker 5: So they have this perspective not because they were slave
Speaker 5: owners back in Venezuela, not because they're white, some of
Speaker 5: them are not white. It's not because they are like
Speaker 5: pro fascism or they necessarily love the US, right, but
Speaker 5: it's coming from a place of trauma.
Speaker 4: And why do they have that trauma?
Speaker 5: Well, they have that trauma because all of the abuses
Speaker 5: that were committed, like to the Venezuelan people, were on
Speaker 5: behalf of this quote unquote socialism, right, So yeah, they
Speaker 5: were committed in the name of the left whatever. So
Speaker 5: that's why all of a sudden they claim to be
Speaker 5: very right wing, although if you speak to them, you
Speaker 5: might ask them, well, what do you want to see
Speaker 5: in your country? And you're like, well, this doesn't sound
Speaker 5: very pro capitalism to me. But I guess the ability
Speaker 5: to understand these people instead of calling them like CIA agents, fascists,
Speaker 5: like they're stupid, they're idiots, don't listen to them. The
Speaker 5: diasporas just full of like massad agents whatever you want
Speaker 5: to call them. Right, Like I've seen every soul in
Speaker 5: the book, Like any excuse in the book, like to.
Speaker 4: Not listen to these people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think this is to listen to these
Speaker 5: people and try to understand and again think critically. Okay, well,
Speaker 5: I understand that maybe what they are saying is not
Speaker 5: necessarily great, because I also understand that the US, you know,
Speaker 5: has done this, this and this, and that they are
Speaker 5: coming from a place of trauma that perhaps they do
Speaker 5: know what the US is history. But again, they're just desperate.
Speaker 5: But let's get to the bottom of this. What is
Speaker 5: their root concern the crisis in Venezuela. Right, So why
Speaker 5: do they have all these like crazy ideas? Why are
Speaker 5: they so crazy? So because of everything that they've endured
Speaker 5: in Venezuela. So don't try to focus on like the
Speaker 5: shallow part of it all, like try to go to
Speaker 5: the deeper end and that way you will truly understand
Speaker 5: what is going on.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: Not to ignore these people or just like dismiss them
Speaker 5: as a b or C or like a CIA fascist whatever.
Speaker 4: They're not fascists. They're just people who are.
Speaker 5: Traumatized, and it's really important for you to understand their
Speaker 5: trauma in order to address the issues that actually concern
Speaker 5: them and actually have communication with these people and include
Speaker 5: them in your advocacy, and who knows, maybe you'll be
Speaker 5: able to convert some to your side to right, which
Speaker 5: I think that's been one of the most critical mistakes
Speaker 5: that many people on the left have made, is that
Speaker 5: you know, we have all these Venezuelans who again claim
Speaker 5: to be right wing.
Speaker 4: And I'll get to a second.
Speaker 5: Why say they claim to be but they claim to
Speaker 5: be right wing, And again it's not just because of
Speaker 5: them a maludula and Chavist regime. It's not just because
Speaker 5: all of the abuse is committed to them were in
Speaker 5: the name of socialism, but it is also because the
Speaker 5: international left has reacted so negatively towards our cause that
Speaker 5: you know, many Venezuelans decided to say, hey, you know what,
Speaker 5: I'm right wing or I'm a moderate, or you know what,
Speaker 5: I love the US now because all the people who
Speaker 5: are anti West are pro the regime that is killing
Speaker 5: my people, right right, So what's what that is doing
Speaker 5: is like actually pushing these people even further when you
Speaker 5: call you know, these like magasolaos, because when you call
Speaker 5: them like ashes or whatever or Cia, you're just pushing
Speaker 5: them even further. And at the end that sucks like
Speaker 5: for us, because then we're going to be the ones
Speaker 5: we're going to be politically confused, and God knows that's
Speaker 5: going to lead us to some crazy places, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I think the first thing is actually having empathy
Speaker 5: towards people and using your ability to think critically and
Speaker 5: hearing people out who maybe you were told not to
Speaker 5: listen to, and thinking, Okay, well I don't agree with
Speaker 5: what you're saying on the surface, but I understand what
Speaker 5: your roote concern is. Therefore, I think we should talk
Speaker 5: about this and I can understand that in order to
Speaker 5: inform myself what is truly happening to these people that
Speaker 5: are making them believe these crazy things like Trump is
Speaker 5: fave us, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's like really important to remember that you
Speaker 3: might come a question of it as well, and who
Speaker 3: might be advocating for oh, someone from Iran or someone
Speaker 3: from one of these other places who might be like
Speaker 3: advocating for intervention. Yeah, and like it's really important not
Speaker 3: to be like, Okay, this person goes in the Maga
Speaker 3: box for me, because like there are Venezuelan people who
Speaker 3: are going to go in that box, right, But like
Speaker 3: we have a good deal of people who like they're
Speaker 3: obviously not going to be opposed to migration, and they
Speaker 3: themselves and migrants exactly. That doesn't always apply. That's the
Speaker 3: famous video of the Turkish guy complaining about migrants as
Speaker 3: he enters the United States.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, yeah, I mean, of course, I get you're
Speaker 4: trying to say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like there are people whose views on like
Speaker 3: the world and the way it should be might not
Speaker 3: be that different from yours, and like we only find
Speaker 3: out by engaging with each other in good faith and
Speaker 3: like as people, not as tropes. Yeah, but which I
Speaker 3: think is in a huge part of the problem. I
Speaker 3: do think the language barrier is an issue. So many
Speaker 3: people on the left want to talk about places, not
Speaker 3: talk to the people, and can't. Yeah, then we only
Speaker 3: see a small subset of discourse translated into English.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's kind of what I mean by like,
Speaker 5: you know, everyone wants to be for the people, but
Speaker 5: very few people actually are because being for the people
Speaker 5: takes a lot of effort, because you need to learn languages,
Speaker 5: you need to visit places, you need to talk to
Speaker 5: people who you might on the surface disagree with. You
Speaker 5: might have to think about what they tell you in
Speaker 5: order to come to a conclusion yourself about what's actually
Speaker 5: going on and how you can actually support these people
Speaker 5: while not compromising your own beliefs and your own knowledge
Speaker 5: and experiences.
Speaker 4: Right, So that takes fun work.
Speaker 5: So that's what I meant by that, Like, very few
Speaker 5: for the people in that sense where they engage and
Speaker 5: actually go and try to talk to us. And I
Speaker 5: think that's the best way of being informed of any issue,
Speaker 5: is just talking to the people.
Speaker 4: But it takes a lot of work. It takes a
Speaker 4: lot of work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, But that's what solidarity is like, it's
Speaker 3: de putting in the work to take care of each
Speaker 3: other exactly. It's been a failure of the non piss
Speaker 3: left that we have not done more, we have not
Speaker 3: reached out to more people in Venezuela, that we've not
Speaker 3: like used our platforms, that we've not shared their voices,
Speaker 3: that we haven't done more to push back on this
Speaker 3: idea that like the only options for Venezuela are neoliberal
Speaker 3: on their imperialism, or maybe neoliberalism is what we're doing anymore,
Speaker 3: but American imperialism or like this anti imperialism of idiots.
Speaker 2: Is there anything you'd like to plug?
Speaker 3: Do you like people to find you on the internet
Speaker 3: or some other stuff you'd like to direct people to.
Speaker 3: Maybe they can call you a mossad or cia or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can find me on my Instagram account.
Speaker 5: It's et M dot a r I N Okay, so
Speaker 5: just like my name deconstructing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can
Speaker 5: send it to you later.
Speaker 4: Yeah, trying to think of like.
Speaker 5: What else to say, but I mean, yeah, like going
Speaker 5: back a little bit. Just wanted to clarify this because
Speaker 5: I brought up a few times. But what I was saying,
Speaker 5: you know, like looking at these Magasolanos and what I
Speaker 5: mean by like their quote unquote right, they're not actually
Speaker 5: right wing, like if you speak to them. And there's
Speaker 5: a really good video that this guy made but it's
Speaker 5: in Spanish talking about this. But what I mean is
Speaker 5: many people who are Magasolanos, You ask them what do
Speaker 5: you want to see in Venezuela, and what they want
Speaker 5: is affordable housing, affordable healthcare, clean water, proper environmental policies.
Speaker 5: They don't want any more abuses committed to the indigenous communities,
Speaker 5: particular those in the Araco Mineroinoco. So you ask these
Speaker 5: people what they want, and this is what they want.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So when they just say that their right wing, they
Speaker 5: say that their right wing simply because they are traumatized from,
Speaker 5: you know, this apparently socialist regime which was anything but
Speaker 5: people on the left sort of you know, just supporting
Speaker 5: that regime and isolating them and treating them like absolute crap.
Speaker 5: So they're traumatized by both of those things, and that's
Speaker 5: why they claim to be in this position. But if
Speaker 5: you actually talk to them, that is not the case.
Speaker 5: Keep that in mind, because it's funny to me when
Speaker 5: many people say, oh, you guys just believe propaganda. That's
Speaker 5: why you're pro Trump, and that's why your right wing
Speaker 5: because you consumed the CIA propaganda. You guys are blinded
Speaker 5: by propaganda, when in reality, what that doing is that
Speaker 5: is taking away the accountability that many on the left
Speaker 5: should maybe, you know, maybe think about, because it hasn't
Speaker 5: just been CIA propaganda, like it's also just leftists acting
Speaker 5: like assholes. Like that's something that has also pushed many
Speaker 5: Venezuelans away from the Left.
Speaker 4: It's not just the CIA spreading propaganda.
Speaker 5: It's also that the Left has acted horribly with Venezuelans,
Speaker 5: and that has also pushed people away. And I think
Speaker 5: if we're able to solve that issue, If I think
Speaker 5: if the Left is able to see Venezuelans as human
Speaker 5: beings and to have a different approach, such as you know,
Speaker 5: with you know what we've talked about earlier, I think
Speaker 5: we're going to be able to have a better conversation
Speaker 5: and have a better relationship between these two communities and
Speaker 5: actually get somewhere productive.
Speaker 4: But I just wanted to bring that up because I.
Speaker 5: Am so tired of seeing people saying it's all CIA
Speaker 5: propaganda and not really thinking, well, actually, we have also
Speaker 5: done some pretty bad things and that's why these people
Speaker 5: kind of have taken a dislike to us. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I think I think that's pretty much it. Like, in conclusion,
Speaker 5: just here hear us out. We're human and we're not
Speaker 5: the perfect victims. We we're not a monolith. We were human, Yes,
Speaker 5: so we should be spoken to his humans and thought
Speaker 5: about as humans, not as some chess piece in this
Speaker 5: political game. Just include us into the conversation. I think
Speaker 5: is the most important thing anyone listening to this should
Speaker 5: take away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a really good place. Dan, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for sharing some of that time with us.
Speaker 4: No, thank you so much for giving me the space
Speaker 4: to talk.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's very necessary, as you might imagine, for
Speaker 5: our voices to be heard and be put out there.
Speaker 5: Because I'm lucky enough to be multi lingual, I try
Speaker 5: to do my best and speak in other languages so
Speaker 5: other people understand what's going on in our minds and
Speaker 5: in our communities. So I am very grateful that you're
Speaker 5: able to have me here and to actually listen. It's
Speaker 5: not something many people do, so I really do valuate great.
Speaker 2: Thank you great.
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