So I spent about half an hour outside the US consulate on Monday night, while protestors decried the seizure of Maduro.
I had arrived late, so there were only a couple of dozen people on the street, waving flags, carrying signs -- not all of which mentioned Venezuela -- marching up and down the block. I have been told that at peak there were about 100 people present, but I had worked til six, and it took about 20 minutes to get there (walk to the Clark Skytrain, train to Commercial, transfer to a train to Burrard, walk).
I was still a bit shocked at how few people had turned out. Even 100 didn't seem right. Walking from the station, I had expected a mass pouring-out onto the streets, thousands of people still out there. The US invasion of Venezuela seemed like something that should trigger a strong public reaction!
Regardless of how anyone feels about the legitimacy of the Maduro government, the Trump administration, without the authorization of the United Nations, without Congressional approval, has acted in violation of international law and even its own legal standards, while more or less admitting the invasion was a resource-grab.
I was definitely still underwhelmed: where was everyone?
But my main question was, why hold a protest at 5pm?
The consulate (near the Burrard Skytrain, at 1075 Pender) closes at 4:30. Why time it so the consulate would be closed, while other people would be working? It seems curious, but maybe there is a rationale I'm missing... time it so the employees of the consulate actually have to walk by you as they go to their cars, or something...?
But it's a strange time in general. Now I'm awake at 7am, reading. I've seen video of people marching in the streets in Venezuela, in support of Maduro, but noted that the clip had a small blurb on it saying it was from Chinese state-supported media, so, uh...
Apparently China was one of several nations that recognized Maduro's presidency. The ideological divisions are pretty stark. Authoritarian/ Communist governments seem line up on one side (China, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan), western/ capitalist ones on the other.
Apparently these divisions are reflected in discussions at the United Nations about how to regard what the US has done.
It becomes another one of those times where you wonder where to get your news, where if you want to escape your own tunnels of confirmation bias, you have to hold your nose and dive into someone else's.
There are calls online (from an "anti-imperialist media collective" Anticonquista, for example -- their website hasn't been updated in awhile, it seems, but they are active on Facebook) to boycott western media altogether at this time. They posted on Facebook a call "to the Latin American diaspora, to all allies, [to] switch and block and delete all Western media outlets today. Turn to @telesurtv, @orinocotribune, @venanalysis for more serious and reliable information."
To pick one, Orinoco Tribune's website is here. The MediaBias/FactCheck website describes it as "extreme left biased and questionable." Has anyone done a media bias check on MediaBias, though?
I can only repeat what I've said online, that whatever I read, I weigh my personal experience and eyewitness testimony that I have directly encountered more heavily.
I spent several years teaching at a private college in Vancouver that had an agent in Venezuela, sending us students. This was during the Chavez regime. I had about a dozen Venezuelan students in my class over a period of several years. Not one of them supported Chavez, and most described him a corrupt, dangerous dictator. This was at a time, around the US invasion of Iraq, that the majority of my left-wing friends on Facebook were treating Chavez as a hero, so the contrast was interesting, as was their insistance that Chavez was heroic for standing up to the US. None of the ones I challenged had ever met a Venezuelan, and that seemed significant.
Anyhow, I'm more inclined to weigh the opinions of people I've actually met than a news report from Chinese state-controlled media, but that's not to say that those Venezuelans themselves were free of bias. People I have argued with on Facebook have said that if these students had had the money to travel to Vancouver to study, they were likely middle class, and of course the middle classes hated Chavez. But do we simply dismiss middle class perspectives, then? Is that what a good class warrior does? What if you yourself are from the middle class?
I'm not sure what rulebook applies, but I've never been a good class warrior. And neverminding those middleclass Venezuelan students: there was that belligerent bus drunk I encountered raging that "the monster is dead!" when he had heard early (actually incorrect) reports that Chavez had died. He was ranting about how leftists here knew nothing. I chatted with him a bit, but he was bitter, angry, reeking of alcohol, and only semi-coherent.
He sure wasn't middle-class, though.
In fact, in attempts to check my own pro-left biases, I've spoken to quite a few people who lived under Communist and socialist governments -- a friend who was investigated by the KGB and ended up fleeing Russia to keep her sons out of Afghanistan, for instance, or Polish filmmaker Ryszard Bugajski, who had a film rather famously suppressed by the authorities (see my Clearcut commentary track/ archival interview; he talks at some length about that). Maybe the company I've kept has in fact changed my biases in the other direction...?
Anyhow... interesting times...
