Why students are protesting federal actions, and how they affect broader politics
By SAGE KAMOCSAY— skamocsay@ucdavis.edu
On Tuesday, Feb. 3, the Revolutionary Student Organization (RSO) led a protest on campus in response to the United States overstepping international law in Venezuela. Demonstrations like these are taking place all around the country after the Donald Trump administration abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and bombed Caracas, the country’s capital city.
White House officials are being forced by the people to answer for their crimes in Venezuela — and all they have are weak excuses.
“The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Other baseless claims from the Trump administration included a false statement that boats from Venezuela carry drugs that kill “on average, 25,000 people” in America and demanding that Venezuela return “to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” Trump fails to note that these resources were never ours.
But their shaky justifications don’t change the lives of the civilians the U.S. government hurt in the process. They don’t take away the fear of Caracas residents as they are forced by necessity to go about their days after their city was bombed. They don’t bring the 80 dead Venezuelans and Cubans back to life. They don’t erase the injury this operation has done to our crumbling world. Regardless of the blubbering mess the U.S. government has cobbled together to answer for their sins, they have caused irreparable damage to their own decaying empire.
All of this death and destruction was for more oil and more power. Trump has declared he will run Venezuela from his ivory tower with the tacit endorsement of Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez, and crush any opposition in the Venezuelan government. His administration plans to seize 30 to 50 million barrels of oil, and will stop at absolutely nothing to achieve it.
There are already plans to allow Chevron Corporation to continue to produce and export Venezuelan oil, despite heavy sanctions on the country. Oil is the lifeblood of the rich, after all. The slick, black liquid coursing through their veins is more important than the red and iron-tinged liberation that is spilled from the bodies of the people in the global south.
Unfortunately, as the protestors pointed out on Tuesday, Venezuela is just one example of a recurring and devastating pattern. Time after time, the U.S. has sought to extend its weakening power throughout the bloodied corpse of South America. Banana republics were a common tactic of the United States, as they utilized the power of corporate land-grabs and election meddling to bleed Guatemala and other South American countries dry of their resources, labor and global power.
When the people of Guatemala established their own anti-American president who attempted to fight for their land and independence, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) orchestrated a coup in 1954 that resulted in his assassination and decades of bloody political turmoil. The company that the CIA was protecting still sells its bananas today under the name Chiquita Brands International — better known as Chiquita Banana. In addition, there have been 14 more U.S.-orchestrated coups in countries like Cuba, Brazil, El Salvador and Bolivia — they were all implemented to expand American power, and many resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and devastating civil wars.
Throughout the world, the U.S. has participated in similarly harmful practices. Whether it was Vietnam, Iran, the Philippines, Cambodia, the Congo or countless other countries around the globe, our country has sought to destabilize developing nations and seize their labor and resources for themselves.
The U.S. is the global imperial core. Our government has made almost the entire world serve our rabid desires for material gain. Even nations that do not serve us ultimately define themselves in relation to our government by setting themselves up in direct opposition to our goals — a testament to just how ubiquitous our control is.
The protests against federal actions in Venezuela are really protests against American imperialism. While chants like “Yankee go home!” are specific to American domination in South America, the spirit of revolution exists within every country America has ravaged. Now, more than ever, the people must embody this spirit. The era of the American empire must end, and it is up to us to destroy it.
Written by: Sage Kamocsay— skamocsay@ucdavis.edu
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