Two Quislings

 I know it's not really my business as an outsider to judge, but I really wish someone in Venezuelan politics would show some backbone for God's sake and finally stand up to those self-appointed hemispheric honchos Donald Trump and Little Rubio. 

The New York Times today features an article about recent political talks in Venezuela between the government and what passes for the domestic opposition (the most famous actual leader of the opposition, after all, remains de facto exiled from the country). 

The two sides of the talks had some sharp words for each other. But both were meanwhile bending over backward to appease an absent third party: the Trump administration, which has asserted a totally lawless and unrestricted "right of the stronger" to interfere in the country's politics. 

Delcy Rodriguez belongs to a party that made its whole reputation by proclaiming itself as a bulwark of supposed "Bolivarian" resistance against U.S. hegemony in South America. 

But now, she sits in awkward, strained silence as Trump boasts before world leaders that he is pillaging her country of its resources (saying "to the victor go the spoils"); and behind-the-scenes reports indicate she really is just a puppet who takes orders from Rubio—a quisling, in short. 

Meanwhile, the opposition is no better. They too try to appease and flatter Trump in the hope that he will support a new round of elections in which they might rise to the top. 

And so, they praise Rubio and his boss too as supposed friends to democracy, ignoring their unprovoked attack on the country, their extrajudicial killings of Venezuelan civilians in boat strikes, their revocation of TPS and their deportation of Venezuela asylum-seekers to a torture prison. 

Pressed about Trump claiming that he is taking "spoils" from Venezuela ("the last poor plunder from a bleeding land," as Lord Byron would call it)—the representative of the opposition reportedly said: "The president expresses himself colloquially, [...] But when I see his tangible policies in the process of investing in Venezuela in the oil sector, and alongside that, he’s in the process of democratization, I value what he has done more than his words."

Politics in Venezuela has apparently been reduced to a battle of the "pick-mes." 

I know that people in Venezuela face risks I cannot imagine. The U.S. military, with all its might, just invaded their country without cause or provocation or legal rationale, less than a year ago, and kidnapped their head of state. They have every right to be scared. 

But someone in Latin America is going to have to stand up to Trump eventually, unless they really are just going to troop back willingly into the era of brazen Yankee colonialism, domination, and piracy throughout the Western hemisphere. 

And why shouldn't that "someone" be the country that put itself forward as a model of "Chavista" resistance not so long ago? 

The spectacle of both sides of the country's supposed political divide trying to outdo each other to praise the self-appointed overlords who just invaded their country, violated its sovereignty, and illegally spirited away its leadership (however grave his misdeeds) is frankly revolting. 

My feelings at beholding it are the same ones Lord Byron expressed, when he saw the Irish bestow welcome, flattery, and applause on the English monarch, who was meanwhile busy strangling their freedom and imposing on their country the mailed boot of foreign despotism:

Could that long-wither’d spot but be ver­dant again,

And a new spring of noble affections arise

Then might freedom forgive thee this dance in thy chain,

And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies. [...]

Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! [...] how low

Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till

Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below

The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still! [...]

My voice, though but humble, was raised for thy right,

My vote, as a freeman’s, still voted thee free,

This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy fight,

And this heart, though outworn, had a throb still for thee!

But who knows, maybe the U.S. has already killed all the true Latin American patriots, and none is left to defend their independence and rights from Yankee marauding. 

Of course, the U.S. government says their new favorite right-wing puppets in South America are all good enough "patriots," and that anyone who opposes them is a potential insurgent or worse. The leader of the supposed "opposition" in Venezuela even reportedly echoed some of this same framing.

The Times piece quotes her: "There are still very, very small groups that resist and believe that by setting fires — or attempting to set the country on fire — and blocking streets, they can help Venezuela move forward." 

This was how she characterized the country's real dissenters, who dare to oppose the current regime for the unholy amalgam of the remnants of Maduro's thuggish authoritarianism with the new U.S. client state and collaborationist regime it is becoming. 

I would call these dissidents marching in the streets the real Venezuelan patriots. 

To quote Ernest Crosby's poem denouncing the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, "Rebels":

Go, prostitute your mother-tongue,

And give the "rebel" name

To those who to their country clung,

Preferring death to shame. [...]

And call him "loyal," him who brags

Of countrymen betrayed—

The patriot of the money-bags,

The loyalist of trade. 

That latter sort of "patriot" appears to be the only type the U.S. government is likely to install in the seat of power in Venezuela—regardless of which of the two parties in this latest round of talks ultimately wins the ongoing "pick-me" popularity contest for Trump's and Rubio's approval.