Rant: can we practice solidarity without bullshit?

Neighbors and friends gathered on Friday night in the 'hood to protest U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Goodness knows, there's plenty to protest. The Trump administration has appointed Elliott Abrams, a tired old miscreant who was deep in Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra law breaking, to superintend its policy. Nobody should rest easy when a nationalist U.S. regime starts threatening to intervene in favor of "democracy" or "human rights" in a country south of the border. The record is long and brutal; see for example Before Venezuela, US had long involvement in Latin America.

But just because the U.S. is up to its old imperial tricks doesn't mean that leftists, anti-interventionists, and peace loving folks should blind themselves to realities on the ground in Venezuela. The testimony of the smarter investigative media and too many Venezuelans is loud and summed up well by Joshua Alvarez :

Nicolas Maduro’s reign of power in Venezuela is illegitimate. Not only was his latest election to the presidency stolen, he’s presiding over a failed state that is harming its own citizens and causing South America’s own gigantic refugee crisis.

Maduro claimed to have "won" the presidency in an election in May 2018 with

68 percent of the vote despite having an approval rating of just 21 percent.

I could see Trump emulating that one.

Deceased president Hugo Chavez legitimately won the support of many of of the poorest Venezuelans by sharing some the country's oil wealth with inmates of Caracas' slums. The U.S. and our oil companies hated him, but he was a smart left populist who knew how to play on nation pride. He may not have built a sustainable economy and polity, but a good-size section of the people believed he was trying against subversion from a bourgeoisie abetted by the Yankees. The opposition was split by its own rivalries and never convinced Venezuelans that it was out for the nation instead of the U.S. and its own class interests. Maduro, Chavez' designated successor, has been unable to either pick up his mantle or run the country effectively. Venezuelans are getting out if they can.

So what does all this mean for leftists in San Francisco? Friday's little rally should have been at the very least a defensible moral statement against U.S. imperial actions.

Instead, the speakers I heard (briefly) were simply idiotic. We can't allow ourselves to be trapped in a tired template that defaults to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." We wouldn't support ordinary Venezuelans by supporting Trump administration "diplomacy"; that's easy. But Maduro's rule is not something that decent progressives can applaud either. (And certainly we get nothing by using a rally against intervention in Venezuela to rail against the faults of the Obama administration or Democrats in general. Focus, folks!)

The collective efforts of Latin American countries, which are already bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis, offer the best hope for a less violent, more popular resolution for a people who've lived dashed hopes and gross impoverishment. There may be no good outcome in sight, but sure as ever it won't come because North Americans make fools of themselves about other peoples' struggles.