🧵🗞Another Reuters piece on Venezuela means another dose of pure-grade, unadulterated imperialist propaganda. Here’s a little thread with highlights from Washington’s most reliable stenographers

https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1595675376537182208

#Opinion | Venezuelanalysis writer Andreína Chávez writes about the Bolivarian Revolution's cultural policies, their impact, and present-day versions:

“You are all readers now! Go read to learn about the past, to learn about the present, and to fight for the future.” With these words, President Hugo Chávez used to welcome hundreds of graduates from Venezuela’s literacy program Mission Robinson in the early 2000s. He would then send them off to the world with free books under their arms as soldiers ready for battle.

Chávez’s cultural revolution and its liberating impact on the people could only be described as centuries of progress condensed in a few years, with an entire country being pulled out of the darkness. It is no secret that prior to the Bolivarian Process oil wealth redistribution was skewed toward the elite and everything was privatized or unreachable, even the knowledge that came through education and books.

When Chávez came to power in 1998, he set up to reverse these social injustices. The first, and I would argue most important, step was democratizing education and fomenting love for reading to decolonize our minds, giving true power to the people.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15655

We are hopeful for 2023. Venezuela has heroically resisted the US blockade and kept the Bolivarian Process alive despite the suffering the people have gone through under an economic siege that has no expiration date. However, we have zero expectations when it comes to western media propaganda. These pro-imperialist outlets march in lockstep with Washington after all.

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https://venezuelanalysis.com/images/15656

#News | The Nicolás Maduro government and the US-backed rightwing opposition have signed a partial agreement focused on social issues following the resumption of the dialogue process.

After a year-long hiatus, the government delegation disclosed that the agreement had been “exhaustively discussed” in Caracas with Norway as a mediator. On Saturday, they traveled to Mexico City to present a new deal that relates to the management of US $3 billion in Venezuelan funds seized by Washington. The document established a joint commission to follow and verify the correct implementation of the agreement.

The statement added that the “rescued resources” will be primarily used to acquire medical equipment as well as vaccines, medicines, and other supplies; strengthen the electric system; repair school infrastructure; expand food programs and attend to the national emergency caused by torrential rains in recent months.

Following the newly signed government-opposition agreement, the US Treasury Department announced the approval of an expanded license to allow US corporation Chevron to resume pumping and commercializing Venezuelan crude from its four-joint ventures in the Caribbean country.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15657

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#Opinion | VA columnist Jessica Dos Santos reflects on a banking system that is very much tilted in favor of larger companies.

"It’s been a while since we heard of homebuying loans in Venezuela. Credit to buy cars, so ubiquitous at some point, are also a thing of the past.

Not just that, credit cards have also been long gone because the constant currency devaluations might have left the limits at the price of a candy bar. Banks did not have it easy either, because devaluation for a while was way higher than interest rates, meaning they never got their money back.

Though this is not a primary necessity issue, it affects a lot of people in Venezuela. Under Chávez, there was a massive drive to have people open bank accounts and eventually get credit cards or loans with relative ease. Wages were also rising all the time.

In my case, I managed to save enough for a downpayment and get a loan to buy a car shortly after graduating from university and working for a state company."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/tales-resistance/15658

🧵🗞Following the agreement signed by the Venezuelan government and the US-backed opposition last weekend, there’s been a lot of debate and speculation. Here’s Venezuelanalysis’ perfect blend of cold reasoning and hot takes (thread)

https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1597425211921829888

#Opinion | Chevron's six-month license to restart drilling and exporting Venezuelan crude after a nearly three-year US-imposed prohibition hardly amounts to relief from the sanctions program. The country’s oil industry continues under siege with financial sanctions and a full-fledged blockade imposed between 2017 and 2019. The US then threatened foreign companies into abandoning operations and only allowed Chevron to stay for maintenance work.

Before the first sanctions, Venezuela was pumping around 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) with Chevron’s four joint ventures producing some 200,000 bpd. By the end of 2020, output fell to historic lows, reaching 350,000 bpd. The starved income worsened an economic crisis and further drove a massive migration wave.

Admittedly, Chevron's renewed operations could represent a small (and future) boost to Venezuela’s oil output but the license goes very far to block any profit for the country. And Washington calls this “sanctions relief.”

The only way to alleviate the years-long suffering of the Venezuelan people would be lifting all US-led sanctions against the economy, returning foreign-based seized assets and frozen funds, and stopping the financing of violent coup attempts and self-proclaimed “presidents” who facilitate the aforementioned crimes.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15659

#Opinion | VA columnist Reinaldo Iturriza sets his gaze on an "army" of workers that sort through waste to complement poor wages:

"A human contingent walks the streets of working-class Caracas carrying bags or boxes full of plastic, glass, paper, or some other recyclable material. A few of them are pushing supermarket carts.

As I enjoy the masterpiece that is The Wire (2002-2008) by David Simon for a second time, I have also seen Bubbles in some faces in Caracas. Like Bubbles, our waste-sorting workers mimic the urban landscape. But if this circumstance can be considered an “advantage” for our fictional character (allowing him to go unnoticed, to slip away, etc.), in the second case it tells us the tale of the worker’s disadvantageous social situation. Of course, Bubbles doesn’t have it good: Lumpen, black, heroin-addicted, and often on the verge of death, he is almost the epitome of everything that can go wrong in US society. He is a man who has hit rock bottom. But he is also a person who has learned to move with ease in the underworld.

Our waste-sorting workers, on the other hand – or at least the vast majority –, are not lumpen (and I use the term without judgment). They are members of the sub-proletariat. That is, they are members of the working poor whose job does not provide them with sufficient means to ensure the reproduction of their labor force. Moreover, they have joined the sub-proletariat of recent date – and this is a datum of the most significant relevance. They are part of an enormous mass of workers impoverished by the collapse of the Venezuelan economy."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/politics-commons/15660

Don't take it from us, this is coming from Tariq Ali, who hasn't said anything irrelevant for some 40 years now!

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#News | Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro welcomed the Chevron license to restart oil operations as “a step in the right direction” but urged Washington to move forward with complete sanctions relief.

“The licenses, the public ones and the non-public ones, granted by the US government to Chevron are a step in the right direction, although they are not enough for what Venezuela demands, which is the complete lifting of all criminal sanctions on the oil industry,” said Maduro during a press conference at Miraflores Palace on Wednesday.

Nonetheless, Maduro celebrated that Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA will be signing new contracts with US corporation Chevron in the next few days. “This will be very positive and a win-win situation for Venezuela, Chevron, and even the world,” recalling that the Caribbean country has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

Read more 👇

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15662

#Interviews | We talked with Ernesto Villegas, Culture Minister, about cultural life in Venezuela and about the most recent FILVEN book fair.

"The blockade has limited the state’s ability to get its production, including oil, to market, and this has limited the state’s ability to finance policies, including cultural ones.

Even so, the Venezuelan state is stubbornly working to preserve the population’s cultural rights. Of course, we have had to adapt to changing circumstances but we continue to advance.

For instance, it would be very petty to not recognize that in the sphere of music, Venezuela remains a powerhouse: we have kept the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra and Choir System alive. Around the world, this initiative is understood to be a landmark project, opening doors to working-class youths and offering a beautiful path for international cooperation."

Read the full interview 👇

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15661

As w/ most things, Noam Chomsky is totally right about this one 😁. Our news, analysis and twitter threads counter what is left unsaid or distorted by the western media.

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#News | Venezuela’s bolívar (BsD) is going through a fast devaluation despite government efforts to halt it.

The national currency has seen the exchange rate against the US dollar increase by nearly 35 percent since November 1, going from 8.57 BsD per USD to 11.86. The decrease severely hits working-class wages and pensions.

The Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) has rushed to inject a reported US $190 million into so-called exchange tables run by public and private banks over the last week in an attempt to stop the depreciation cycle. However, it has not yielded effects, with more monetary interventions expected in the coming days.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15664

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#News | Dozens of Venezuelan corn and rice producers staged a protest in Caracas on Thursday to demand state-led responses to a number of issues.

Small and midsize campesinos have denounced practices from agroindustrial groups and a lack of government policies that endanger their ability to produce.

Organizers reported around 200 participants in the mobilization, mostly coming from the agricultural states of Barinas, Guárico and Portuguesa.

A commission of spokespeople met with officials from the Agriculture Ministry. However, the gathering did not produce an agreement, only a commitment to hold further assemblies and set up working groups with government, campesino and agroindustry representatives to discuss crop prices, fuel subsidies, credit instruments and other matters.

Venezuelan campesinos have repeatedly raised alarm bells in recent weeks and demanded more regulation. Protests have included the blocking of major highways and a symbolic dumping of corn outside the facilities of major food conglomerate Polar.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15665