It Could Happen Here - Talking to Venezuelans about Venezuela

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

James talks to Marian about how the left discourse about the US kidnapping of Maduro has silenced Venezuelan leftists and how the anti Maduro Venezuelan left is navigating the US intervention. https://www.instagram.com/e.m.arian See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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a little bit about our shared frustration with the left in this country talking about Venezuelan people, but not two Venezuelan people. So thanks for joining me tonight. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is something that we've been trying to put together for a while, and I'm really glad that we're finally doing it. So I guess if I can just frame this discussion, we've spoken about this extensively, so I'm sure we won't need much prompting. I do not understand how people arrive at a position of identifying as being leftists if they don't love and care about other people. And if you love and care about other people, then you should listen to them. And I am appalled at the

discourse about Venezuela, which is happening without Venezuelan voices for the most part. Where people will talk to Venezuelans at all in the US press, it's far too often people in the diaspora who are talking to the right wing of media and highlighting like, what are sometimes recent objections to Maduro, sometimes which are completely insane. But it's a complete failing of us on the left to not talk to people from Venezuela. Maybe you could just share with us

how it's been since January to see it offers it as a binary, right? You can either exist under Maduro and people can live in poverty and suffer or you can watch your country get bombed and choose like MCM, I guess. And none of this is happening What's asking you what you would like

Can you like share how that's been? Oh my God, it's been It's been a wild ride I mean there's a lot of different emotions Going on Which is one of the things that I think A lot of people don't understand That are not Venezuelan

But yeah, just a lot of emotions I mean I remember when it first happened I immediately messaged My family back home So my brother, my mom, my grandparents, my family is not from Caracas. So they were all right. They were just saying, you know, it's calm wherever we are. It's fine.

But yeah, the immediate thing was concerned. Then obviously I couldn't sleep that night because of everything that was going on. I live in Europe. So by that time, it was like, I don't know. It was like five in the morning or something, eight in the morning. I don't remember. It was, it's all just a blur to me. now. But I remember I was just like on my phone seeing the updates like every minute trying to

contact my friends who did live in Caracas and they were just saying, yeah, like we hear bombs. We don't know what's going on. And then eventually like some people started saying that they bombed like some strategic military bases or like El Palacio de Mira Flores, which is the presidential house. And so everyone was like all over the place And then we got all this information That they took Maduro whatever And then at that point it was just like Okay concern worry

Confusion And then joy because Not because the place was bombed by Americans But because this guy was like taken away Who he deserves worse than prison to be honest But then concern again because what are the Americans going to do now? So it was just a lot of different things going on.

Like, I think a lot of people, including myself, were just, like, paralyzed by all these different emotions. Like, joy, because, again, this guy who has done horrible things to the Venezuelan people is now paying for his crime somewhere, but at the same time, fear because of what is going to happen next. I mean, we're not dumb. We know what the U.S. is capable of. So it was a little bit of both of those feelings after we knew what had happened.

And ever since then, it has been just a struggle because, of course, there's a lot of misinformation going out there. It's been frustrating because I see many of my people's voices being silenced by people on the left. And then also you have a lot of people on the right like appropriating our narrative to like push their own pro-American propaganda, whatever. So it's kind of just like everyone's trying to like appropriate or steal our own narrative and suffering for their own gain. And the left and the right are doing both like equally. So it has been kind of frustrating because I mean every time I even just try to leave a comment on Instagram or say something. I'm called a fascist,

like Trump supporters, CIA Mossad agent, whatever. And, you know, it's frustrating to see so many people because most of the people I follow are like leftists, right? But I've unfollowed like 70% of the people I used to follow because they started posting like pro Maduro stuff

and talking about how he was so great, whatever. And, you know, it has been very defeating to feel like we don't have anywhere to go to. Nobody is supporting us. Because, again, one side just wants to rob us from our resources and seal a narrative to, like, push their own agenda. But then the other side is like completely denying or calling us like all these horrible things to also steal our narrative, right? So it has been really frustrating and scary and isolating. Yeah, it has been a lot.

to the point where I think, I mean, do I even have a place in the world of nobody wants to hear my voice? So it has been very difficult, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very disheartening.

But then, yeah, like, that's why I told you about the baseball thing recently. It was kind of like a positive thing, like a, uh, because one of the good things about that game is that people were finally, like, getting to know us and how we're, actually good people. And that was kind of like a pick me up after how horrible life has been since January 3rd. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like people obviously like undervalue sport. I think they do,

I wrote a book about sport and anti-fascism, so I'm kind of predisposed to this disposition. But like these moments of joy are really important. And like God knows the world tries to rob us of joy at the moment, so we should embrace them and enjoy them and not feel like we're like obliged to be sad because of all the sadness in our worlds. Yeah. I think something you said there, like struck home with me, two things. I guess let's address the first one. It is fundamentally a colonial impulse to steal someone's narrative and assume that they're incapable of speaking for themselves, so you must speak for them, right? Like that, is something that I have seen, not just now, but for years about Venezuela, right?

Like, it must have been really frustrating to see this kind of campus tendency to literally steal, like, the voice of Venezuelan people that speak on their behalf. Yeah. That's nothing new, though. I mean, I remember when I was in college, it was kind of the same. Like, there were, I think it was like 2017. there were some protests and people were saying all sorts of things

and I remember losing a lot of my friends in college because of that because I was saying like it's more complicated than that like you know actually people do dislike this person for this this and this reason and yeah I remember losing a lot of friends because of that

maybe not a mental breakdown because it was just like a lot right yeah I remember even at one point I went to like a cafe was one of these like cafes where people write on the walls and it said like fuck Venezuela and I was just like what a fucking

dystopia am I living in and I also used to work at a front desk and this guy somehow found out that I was Venezuelan and he started saying like oh Maduro's the best like whatever and my boss had to come in and like take the guy away

because he was just being really like rowdy right so yeah it's complex yeah in fact of us like when we introduce ourselves like we don't say that we're Venezuelan immediately just because

it can be dangerous at times so yeah especially now we have this combination of like when we've discussed this but like on the on the right Venezuelan people are all perceived to be fucking members of Trendyaragua now

and then yeah it's that or you line up behind the regime and even when those two things like they're not as distinct as people you know sometimes in their imagination see them or that they're also not as joined as other people in their imagination see them yeah it doesn't give you a place to express your identity right you just have to fit into someone else's box yeah something else you said really struck me like there seems to be and again it's like it's not distinct from the colonial impulse right i think about the uplift civilized and christian eyes or the white man's burden or these like notions of of um

people who were subject to colonial violence being lesser than or incapable of. And, like, one of the things I see is, like, the idea that Venezuelan people are not aware of the United States imperialism, like, I lived with Chileans in Caracas in, like, the first decade of this century, right? Like, people were very, extremely fucking aware. Like, I lived with people who have been tortured because of United States imperialism. They played me Victor Hara records and then told me how they chopped his heart. hands off, right? Like, you're a person on the left, you have an understanding of the world and world

politics and you've studied and traveled. But like, there is a cultural understanding of this, right, which does not require one to attend university. Can you explain how people, because people are weighing, on the one hand, we have this Maduro regime, which is killing people, which is imprisoning people, and which is acting as a fundamental constraint on our autonomy. And on the other hand, we have the Americans dropping bombs, and we know what the Americans have done to this part of the world. If you could just talk and that little bit, explain how people live with that balance. I think it's a combination of multiple things. So first, I mean, for many years, the government horribly mismanaged the country and then blamed the U.S. for everything that went wrong.

I mean, there were moments in which we knew and had proof that these problems were coming directly from the regime's actions, and yet so many times they simply lied about it and said that it was the U.S.'s fault to the point where many of us were, you know, simply desensitized to the idea of U.S. intervention. It's a case of the boy who cried wolf, but in this case it was the dictator who cried intervention. Yeah. Second of all, I mean, for many years now, every cent made from our country's resources have gone everywhere except to the people. Our resources have gone everywhere, have been going to other country, let's say Russia and China, just to name a couple. And yet we, the Venezuelan people, have not seen a single sense of that.

So at this point, we're used to being exploited and we're used to being cheated. So when people in the U.S. say, hey, the U.S. only wants to steal your oil, or, hey, like, they're going to exploit your country, it's ignoring the fact that we have already been living through that very same thing for decades. And many believe that our material reality won't be affected just because now it's someone else stealing our resources. If anything, people are willing to see if these new guys, aka the U.S., might do things differently.

Now, whether that's right or not, what it really speaks to, I think, is, I guess my final point, which is that people are desperate. every time a leftist says, oh, your life is about to get so much worse or so bad or whatever, they say that without knowing how bad things have already gotten. I mean, I remember going to school during like the worst parts of the famine and seeing like a skeletal dead body lying on the street. Like that's an image I still have nightmares with. And I mean, for a time I remember someone I knew dying or being killed.

every single week. The abuse and the torture we've endured at the hands of this regime, I mean, anyone can Google like what's going on in places like Elicoide or La Tumba or any of the other torture centers in the country. I mean, people experience mock in real executions, getting electrocuted like by their genitals, rape, being forced to eat feces, and a whole list of medieval-sounding tortures. methods. And, you know, people are truly desperate for a change, any change. And the fact is that the global campus left, or as me and my friends have begun calling them, the imperial left, has done

nothing for us. They've given us no sustainable solution. And if anything, have completely sided with our oppressors. So, you know, if Trump comes and says, I recognize this regime is bad, and I'm going to do something about it, people are going to take that. And, this is what is so frustrating to me is that many of these leftists will go ahead and then criticize Venezuelans for siding with their enemies. But what they don't see is that

they have sided with ours and at the end, all that does is make life even harder for us. We've gotten so desperate that we've run directly into the hands of vultures because they're the only hands that we've been given. I personally don't love what the U.S. is doing to our country, but I mean, I understand why many Venezuelans have reacted the way that they have. And this is how I can best explain it to those who

don't understand it. It's sad. I know. It's very sad. And it's hard for people who haven't lived through this to wrap their heads around this level of despair. But it's the simple truth. and it's a hard truth that I think many leftists need to hear and understand. And I say that as someone who is also saddened by this because I want to see a more left-leaning future, especially for my country. But I don't think it can happen if people don't start accepting realities like these. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them.

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Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. The other thing that gets collapsed a lot, I think, is in Venezuela opposition, right? Like, it is always amusing to see, like, I myself, I'm not a communist, right? I'm not a state communist anyway. And I've seen, like, the Venezuelan Communist Party

and the communist youth of Venezuela, like, they'll put out a thing being like, we support opposition, and then you'll see people being like, oh, no, we're communists, but like American communists who don't speak Spanish and, like, are engaging with them. It's very funny to see that, like,

In their mind, all opposition in Venezuela is of the right wing, like MCM tendency, right? There are many very valid reasons where people on the left would be opposed to what's happening. Does it feel particularly isolating to be of the left and at the same time have this constant assumption that to be in opposition you have to be of the right? It feels isolating when it comes to dealing with non-Venezuelans, but when it comes to dealing with Venezuelans, not really. I mean, pretty much all of my friends, I mean, as a queer artist, like, most of my friends are also, like, pretty left-leaning. Yeah. You have different kinds of people on the left, right?

But, yeah, like, when it comes to my Venezuelan friends, it is not isolating at all. Right. Because precisely, we already know what's going on. You know, we know that the, that the opposition isn't just like a right-wing thing. Yeah, I don't know. it doesn't feel isolating because we know the political diversity that exists, right? Yeah. And so you just kind of have to find your tribe.

And it exists. Again, we're a country where people have all different sorts of opinions. And so, you know, between my Venezuelan friends, it seems pretty, what's the opposite of isolating? Yeah, like inclusive, I guess. Yeah. But when it comes dealing with my non-Venezuelan friends, that's when it gets isolating because there's just not an understanding.

They just don't seem to understand no matter how much I try to break it down to them or how much I try to explain to them. I have been successful. And many of my good friends who are like leftists, most of them are anarchists. But when I do try to explain it to them, they do seem to understand

because they know who I am and they know that I'm not like, you know, bullshitting them. But yeah, but again, that doesn't mean like I told you earlier. I have lost many, many friends and, you know, have had to unfollow many people. Like, I don't feel welcome in all like leftists or even queer spaces sometimes because of what I think, which is, you know, a free Venezuela isn't just free from imperialism, but also free from dictatorship. It's free from both. Yeah, yeah, right. It shouldn't be controversial. But that is something. something that most of my Venezuelan friends, like, they completely agree because

similar to me, but my non-Venezuelan friends, or ex-friends, as I should say, they just don't understand that at all. So it's always interesting. Like, you know, I spend a good deal of time with Venezuelan people coming to the United States or who have recently arrived in the United States. And it's funny to see how people represent their operation to Maduro, like, Because at first, it'll be like, oh, this guy's an American. So they're like, oh, it would be great. The Americans came to liberate us and, like, what a wonderful country. And then, like, once people begin to feel comfortable and safe with you and you talk more,

everybody knows we don't have it all figured out either. Everybody knows the history, right? And then people, yes, of course, have a wide and varied range of things that they would love to see in Venezuela. But they are united behind seeing an end to dictatorship and state violence. Yeah, no. And I think that's honestly kind of like a beautiful thing where, you know, in spite of our differences, because I may have differences with other people who may be moderates or right way or whatever, but we've all united against this like bigger evil. And I think that's something that I wish actually the U.S. could learn about, right? Putting their differences aside to actually like tackle that bigger evil.

I think that's something the U.S. should learn about us, how we've been able to do that, how, you know, we can all say, you know, we may not agree on how certain things are done, but we all agree on what needs to be done, which is, you know, like getting rid of this regime, right? So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's actually pretty, pretty cool. And although it's not always easy, because again, like, you have, like in any country, we have all sorts of different opinions going on. It is really, nice to see everyone united for one thing and one reason. And that's really the important thing. So, you know, I wish other countries could maybe learn a little bit about that too. Yeah, like the left in this country could learn a lot from the way that like, yeah, a vast variety of left organizations in Venezuela have managed to unite with organizations that are more centrist or straight up on the right. to achieve at least one goal

with the understanding that they still retain disagreement sort of profound about other things. Exactly. That's something we can learn a lot from. And like, I'm always kind of in awe of the capacity for solidarity that I see, especially for Venezuelan people. And I think it comes from, in part, like, decades of dictatorship and of hardship more generally, right?

But like, the continuous resolve that I've seen to get through it together rather than for each person to get their own and sort of leave the rest behind. Yeah. It's remarkable. Genuinely, like seeing, again, like a lot of my experience, I have not been in Caracas for probably 15 years, maybe longer, is seeing people in the diaspora and migrants. But like people who have grown so used to the state, ironically failing to provide the basic necessity. of life that they've got used to just obtaining them for and from each other. Like, even if those people are not anarchists, they're probably doing more mutual aid than people who spend a lot of their time being anarchists on the internet.

Yeah. Like, that's a beautiful thing that we should be in awe of rather than invalidating as so many people on the left are. And I think that's something that really starts with our own crisis, because I remember at the height of the famine, right? I mean, I'm speaking maybe like 2013, 14 around the time. Because by 2017, when there was like another big like famine going on, I was not in Venezuela, actually. But I remember when that was happening, like it was very common like, hey, so in my backyard,

we had plantain and our neighbor had avocados. So we would like exchange things. If somebody needed anything, like if somebody needed anything, like if somebody, you, if somebody was his grandmother needed like this medication that can only be found in like this one place in Caracas, like, but then I didn't have gas, but maybe like my cousin had gas so that we could drive to Caracas. So that's kind of how it worked back there. Like, we had that solidarity towards each other. And I think obviously if we go abroad, we're going to continue showing that same, yeah, like that same attitude because it's just like part of who we are, I guess. Yeah, it does seem to be

very much, like, part of the character of community. It's even, like, when I was there, you know, a decade before that, not quite a decade, maybe, sometime before that. It's funny, I went to this place where they're having, like, a revolution, which was extremely grounded in state power and came out realizing that the state is not the vehicle for human liberation and the other people are. I just find this impulse on the left to invalidate and, like, therefore, refuse to learn from Venezuela and people so frustrating.

is like a mild phrase. But like, what can people do, right? Like, we're in a situation now where we have, like, Maduro without Maduro, right? We have Delci doing, like, tweeting how much he likes Donald Trump all the time. We are at the worst of all possible outcomes, really, right? We still have this apparatus for repression. But at the same time, the US is basically engaged in a colonial relationship of extraction of resources and anything else it wants from Venezuela.

Like, how can people better be interested? solidarity instead of like trying to force you all into one box or another box. Yeah. If we assume most of our audiences in Europe or the United States, right? And they, uh, yeah, they haven't been big like, we're in solidarity with the Venezuelan anarchists or even the Venezuelan socialist or communists who are opposed to Maduro or to Delci now. For non-Venezuelans, I think the key thing is to speak about this from a complete perspective.

a whole perspective, because what's the issue? And I can tell you personally, sometimes I see, I don't know, like anti-imperialist, you know, U.S. get out of Venezuela protests. And I would love to join because I want the U.S. out of my country. But then I see them with pro-Maduro signs or just like free Maduro or, you know, talking positively about the regime. And then I'm like, actually, I'm not going to participate in that. Yeah.

you're actively excluding Venezuelan voices by doing these kinds of unilateral thing. And what do I mean by unilateral? So I understand that many, let's say, Western non-Venezuelans are speaking and looking at things from their own perspective, which is Trump is a bad guy. He's not going to do anything positive. We know the history of the U.S. And so they are, from their own perspective, they see, what their bad guy is doing, right? Right. Yeah. From the Venezuelan perspective, we also see what our bad guy is doing.

Yeah. That's why we're speaking up about this particular bad guy more than what we are about Trump, the other bad guy. Yeah. So it's kind of like, we have two different perspectives here and both are looking at their own, right? And so the issue here is that those two. perspectives are not combined, right? So I would say the first thing you need to understand is that, you know, I understand why you're looking at things from your own perspective, but you also have to

include Venezuelan perspectives in your activism in order for them to actually be productive towards the Venezuelan people, right? Because when you say, you know, free Maduro and, you know, U.S. get out of Venezuela, you're still not addressing the necessities of the Venezuelan people, right? Which is we need to get out of the regime. Sure. Like, one of those necessities is the U.S.

getting the fuck out of there, but you're not addressing the main issue that has plagued us for the past 30 years, right? Right. So when you're not doing that, and that's a dangerous thing about you know, conversations like that of Venezuela or Cuba,

or even Iran as well, When you speak about things from one specific perspective, when you omit one side, you're making it seem like the other side is better. When it should be abundantly clear that both the U.S. and Maduro need to be out in order for Venezuela to actually be free, right? So I think it's key.

It is very necessary that when we have these, like, free Venezuela protests, it's not just about the U.S., but it's also protesting the Maduro regime. Right. Because otherwise, what you're going to do is you're going to exclude many people who also want the U.S. to back off

from your own protest, right? And if, you know, it gets even worse because I've seen Venezuelan activists actually getting, you know, pushed out of conversations on Venezuela because they're talking about, you know, what I'm telling you right now. Right? So they're talking about what the regime has done and maybe focusing on the regime.

Well, also mentioning that the U.S. should like, you know, they know U.S. history, but they're focusing on the Venezuelan perspective. Because as a Venezuelan, that's what you want to bring into the conversation. Yeah. Right? Like, non-Venezuelans can go ahead and out of that, you know, anti-imperialist part of the conversation or, you know, effective to the conversation. But they do need to make space for the Venezuelans who also need to speak out of the regime, right? So it needs to be a combination of both. And in your advocacy, you have to include both at the same time always.

Because again, if you don't speak about one, then you're sort of like portraying the other one is like the good side, right? Yeah. And what that does is that that continues to isolate Venezuela. I mean, including myself. Like I said, I can't even go to a free Venezuela protest because I'm never going to be, you know, next to somebody chanting free Maduro. Yeah.

So that's like the key thing. The leftists, like non-Venezuelan leftists need to understand. Yeah. I think a lot about how people on the left for some reason, and this is particularly odd with the fact that we have lived through a genocide in Gaza for two and a half years, that people seem to only be able to understand solidarity with states and not with people. And we have the Palestinians, right, a state. nation, people seem to understand that there, to an extent, right, albeit for many people,

like Palestinian statehood is a solution to the problem. It just seems to be such a condemnation of the organizing on much of the left that people cannot, and this is my general frustration with the world, well, one of them, they can't think outside of the state model. They cannot conceive of an alternative that does not already exist. Yeah. Even though there are movements outside of the state, right? Like the Kurdish struggle in the northeast Syria, for example, it's one. But like, I don't know, like we should be able to dream of a better world or a beautiful life.

And it seems like so many people have forgotten that that's what being on the left is about. And they identify as revolutionaries, but they're extremely reactionary in their politics and their goals. Like, yeah. It must be so strange to come from, I don't know how old you were when, do you remember, like, very early Chavismo? I remember parts of it is like a memory. So I was born in 97. So early Chavismo was like a fever dream. I remember, you know, during like the paro Petrolero and all that.

Yeah. I would like go outside of like my apartments, like or like go to my window. Like we still live in a building. and we would like take out pots and like casseroles and start banging on. And then everyone. And that was like my favorite part of the day because I as a kid didn't really understand that it was a protest. But I loved banging on things. So I remember that.

I remember like my parents not being able to find certain things that maybe in the past they could find. I remember like at some points like not being able to go to school because like there was something happening. It's like you're really Venezuel. thing, but I remember thinking, I hope there's another coup so that I don't have to go to school tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kids here with snow days, but that's kind of like what I remember of early Chavis Mo. I also remember as well sort of seeing the division.

And that to me is like the biggest most impactful memory, right? The division that existed. So on my family, I remember just for context, like part of my family, half of my family. half of my family is like middle class, and the other half of my family was working class, like, you know, brown working class from the coast, right? So shout out all Kumare. So, you know, it was like different realities, different necessities.

I remember both sides of the family arguing a lot. Like, there was a lot of division. Okay. Very similar to what's going on in the U.S. right now in terms of division, right? Yeah, yeah. where there were like heated arguments, people did not speak to each other, people hated each other because of, you know, like part of my family was chavista, the other part was opposition, whatever. Like, it was, that was one of the biggest things that I remember was like half of my family

hating the other half of my family because they had different backgrounds and different political stances. So, so yeah, that was a big thing as well as the fanaticism, right, that existed especially, especially Yeah. I mean, I remember my grandmother had like a poster of Chavez

and like a figurines and she dyed her hair red because she supported the regime, whatever. So that's one of the things I remember the most is my family,

both sides like hating each other because of their faces. And it's something that I'm seeing in the US right now a lot and I think it's operating in a very similar fashion. Yeah. It does seem to be, like, did your family reconcile at some point?

Or do you still have people who are, like, die hard? No. So, for example, my grandmother that I told you about, she says that she's still chavista, but she's not madurista. Yeah, yeah, I've heard this dance too. Yeah, yeah. Which is like, you know, she supports, like, what the revolution initially meant, but, like, she doesn't support Maduro, right?

Yeah. Or, for example, like, her husband, my grandfather, he's just like, you know, this revolution was all bullshit. We thought that this was going to be good, but they ended up being absolute traitors. Like, you know, they ended up not doing what they promised to do, right? So it was all just disappointment. And the other side of my family is just like, chill. I don't know. Like, they were just never chavista.

So that's kind of. But they are like strong environmentalists. So that's why they kind of hated Chavez because they were also doing some crazy shit in the Amazon's. So it's kind of like they do all get along much better, right? So that's good. Yeah. I guess because like once I'd realized, oh, actually this guy was not that good, right? But that particular side of my family that was Chavista, that's how they think right now.

Or it's like either it was disappointment or that perspective of, you know, I support Chavez but not Maduro. I've heard that from a lot of people, right? Like, Hugo Chavez wanted to make Venezuela better for us. And, like, if we just look at the shit, he said, yeah, I want people to have enough to eat. I want them to have education. I want them to be able to go to the hospital. I want them to have safe houses. Like, I want all those things, too.

They didn't get those things. But, like, I've heard a lot of people say that, like, well, yeah, we wanted it too. So we supported it, but it wasn't, we didn't get that. We got prisons and cops. Exactly. And like, that stance seems to be entirely absent in any discussion of Venezuela, which is, it's so common. Like, you just don't hear the, like, it's not like a left critique from other left stances. It's a left critique from the same place that Javismo claimed to come from.

And it's completely absent in our discourse. And, like, I can't, well, it's because we don't talk to people from Venezuela, but yeah, yes, it's extremely. frustrating. And I think like there's a lot that the United States can learn because we're already seeing large numbers of people being like, oh yeah, I voted for Trump one, two, three times. And now something has alienated them, right? Whether it's mass deportations, whether it's a war with Iran, whether it's the economy being shit, whatever it is. Like, we need to learn how to allow people to change their minds or to get better. The Venezuelan opposition wouldn't be what it was

if they said anybody who supported Chavez at any point can fuck off. We don't want you, right? Like, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't function. And I think if we would listen to people, there's so much that we could learn from that. But we seem so locked in on talking down to them instead. that yeah i mean exactly that's what i mean by like it reminds me of that like division you know it's

almost like raven right like people are foaming at the mouth um like that's kind of like the level of division that i remember growing up in and and to be honest a lot of what's going on in the u.s is eerily similar to what i grew up seeing i think both trump and chavez are very similar kinds of people and you know i used to live in the u.s now i live in europe but that's one of the reason since I decided to leave because I saw many similarities to what happened in my country, and I decided to just skiddle as soon as like, because I sort of knew where it was all going, but I knew where it was all going because of what I already lived through. Canadian women are looking for more.

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You look at the top four number one seeds. What do you think UCLA is going to do? Break down that for me, my friend. Obviously, Yukon is the overwhelming favorite in this tournament, but I'll be honest, I think people are kind of sleeping on Texas. Experts are suggesting that UCLA is the number one challenger to Yukon and that right after that would be Texas. S&C is so deep and so thick and just about everything. It really is annoying. So it's UCLA, Texas, South Carolina, LSU, only ones that could possibly upset Yukon. On Flagrant and Funny, we're giving our unfiltered takes on the biggest moments, the conversations everyone's having.

So whether your bracket is busted or you just want the latest on the tournament, we got you. Listen to Flakron and Funny with Carrie Champion and Jemail on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist. And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur, anyone can build an app, and it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future, and we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this.

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Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. There was actually one more thing that I'm thinking about it, that you didn't get a chance, but you mentioned Palestine. I think it's really interesting because the school that I went to, actually Venezuela has a really big population of Middle Eastern people, among them Palestinians. There was a Palestinian club in my hometown.

And I remember during, was it like 2012, 2014, again, this was years ago, but 2012, maybe 2014. At some point, there was. protests. La Guarimbas, if you know them. Yeah. During las Guarimbas, there were protests for Venezuela, whatever. And I remember that I had many Palestinian, like Palestinian-Venezuan classmates,

and they were protesting both, right? Yeah. So they had Palestinian flags and they had Venezuelan flags. And they were protesting for both peoples. So, you know, that's like an example. Whenever people say, like, try to divide and, you know, say, like, oh, like the, Maduro is like pro-Palestine, whatever I think of my friends in school where they were like, no, actually, we're Palestinian Venezuelans and we don't like what's going on in either place. So because we do have a very big Middle Eastern population.

Again, many Palestinians, many Lebanese people who are not unaware of what has been going on in the Middle East, right? So that's also something to be added to the conversation is, you know, when we talk about these things, like they're not isolated. And precisely because we're not isolated, that's why we should, like you said, be more in support of the people rather than the states. Right, yeah. So I wanted to bring up like that little bit of like that little memory that I had

because I just remember the image of it of my friends doing that. Yeah, it's very similar in a sense, I guess, to like I think a lot about how the Assad regime used Palestinian people, right? Like it would constantly talk about fucking solidarity with Palestine. and it had all these tanks and all these guns and all these planes and bombs, and it turned them all on its own people. It didn't use its state power to liberate Palestine. It would have been destroyed by the IDF if it did, I imagine,

but it used its state power to kill its own people. It is so frustrating that we saw that happen, and the world still allows people to tokenize the Palestinian people, right, and to use them as a shield. against the oppression of their own people. I think a lot of people will be thinking or listening and being like, well, I haven't really heard from Venezuelan voices or they might not know any people from Venezuela.

Where can people do more to listen if they want to as they approach this issue in so much as people are still approaching it because half the US media is forgotten about Venezuela already? Yeah, yeah. There's a lot going on for sure. Yeah. But I want to say, like, this might be a little bit annoying, but learn Spanish, right? If you're going to advocate for a specific group of people, at least learn the language, you know, so that you actually know what people are talking about, right?

Not everybody speaks English. Not everybody's going to speak your language. So if you're actually going to take advocacy for Venezuela seriously, then you should learn the language straight up. So that you, it's easier for you to get into these conversations, see what local applications. activists are saying, see what the news are saying, like see even what our leaders are saying, right? So I think that's one of the first things. I think another thing, I mean, there are some like English language, Instagram accounts

or like posting things. But I think the biggest thing is to be for the people. And what do I mean by that? Everyone wants to claim that they are for the people, but very few people actually are for the people. Right? So what happens is they might hear like, I don't know, a Venezuelan person saying, oh, thank you USA for taking out Maduro, do whatever you want, whatever.

They might hear like the typical Magasolanos, you know? Yeah. And you might hear all of these like perspectives that are really coming from not a place of them being fascist or whatever, but coming from a trauma. So I think that if you want to inform yourself, you need to develop the objective. the ability to think critically about what's going on and be able to understand who are these people and why do they have this perspective, right? So they have this perspective, not because they were slave owners back in Venezuela,

not because they're white, some of them are not white, it's not because they are like pro-fascism or they necessarily love the U.S., right? But it's coming from a place of trauma. And why do they have that trauma? Well, they have that trauma because all of the abuses that were committed to the Venezuelan people were on behalf of this quote unquote socialism, right? So they were committed in the name of the left, whatever. So that's why all of a sudden they claim to be very right wing, although if you speak to them, you might ask them, well, what do you want to see in your country? And you're like, well, this doesn't sound very pro-capitalism to me.

but I guess the ability to understand these people, instead of calling them like CIA agents, fascists, like they're stupid, they're idiots, don't listen to them. The diaspora is just full of like Assad agents, whatever you want to call them, right? Like, I've seen every single in the book, like any excuse in the book, like to not listen to these people. Yeah.

But I think the solution is to listen to these people and try to understand, and again, think critically, okay, well, I understand that maybe, what they are saying is not necessarily great, because I also understand that the U.S. has done this, this, and this, and that they are coming from a place of trauma, that perhaps they do know what the U.S. is history,

but again, they're just desperate. But let's get to the bottom of this. What is their root concern? The crisis in Venezuela, right? So why do they have all these, like, crazy ideas? Why are they so crazy? So because of everything that they've endured in Venezuela, So don't try to focus on like the shallow part of it all.

Like try to go to the deeper end. And that way you will truly understand what is going on, right? Not to ignore these people or just like dismiss them as A, B or C, like CIA, fascist, whatever. They're not fascists. They're just people who are traumatized. And it's really important for you to understand their trauma in order to address the issues that actually concern them and to actually have communication with these people and include them in your advocacy. And who knows, maybe you'll be able to convert some to your side to, right?

Which I think that's been one of the most critical mistakes that many people on the left have made is that, you know, we have all these Venezuelans who, again, claim to be right-wing. And I'll get to a second why I say they claim to be. Yeah. But they claim to be right-wing. And again, it's not just because of the Maduro-Maduro and Chavez regime. It's not just because all of the abuses committed to them were in the name of socialism, but it is also because the international left has reacted so negatively towards our cause

that many Venezuelans decided to say, hey, you know what, I'm right wing, or I'm a moderate, or, you know what, I love the U.S. now because all of the people who are anti-West are pro the regime that is killing my people. Right. Right. So what that is doing is like actually pushing these people even further when you call, you know, these, like, Magasolanos, because they are Magasinos, when you call them, like, fascist or whatever, or CIA, you're just pushing them even further.

And at the end, that sucks, like, for us, because then we're going to be the ones we're going to be politically confused. And God knows that's going to lead us to some crazy places, right? Yeah. So I think the first thing is actually having empathy towards people and using your ability to think critically and hearing people out who maybe you were told not to listen to and thinking, okay, well, I don't agree with what you're saying on the surface, but I understand what your root concern is. Therefore, I think we should talk about this. And I can understand that in order

to inform myself, what is truly happening to these people that are making them believe these crazy things like Trump is famous, right? Yeah, I think that's like really important. remember that you might come across some of Venezuela who might be advocating for or someone from Iran or someone from one of these other places you might be like advocating for intervention. Yeah. And like it's really important not

to be like, okay, this person goes in the mag box for me. Because like there are Venezuelan people who are going going to go in that box, right? But like we have a good deal of people who like they're obviously not going to be opposed to migration invade themselves and migrants. Exactly. That doesn't always apply

for, that's a famous video of the Turkish guy complaining about migrants as he enters the United States. Oh, yeah. I mean, of course. I guess you're trying to say. Yeah, yeah. Like, there are people whose views on, like, the world and the way it should be might not be that different from yours.

And, like, we only find out by engaging with each other in good faith and, like, as people, not as tropes, which I think is a huge part of the problem. I do think the language barrier is an issue. So many people on the left want to talk about places. is what not talk to the people and can't. Yeah. And then we only see a small subset of discourse translated into English. Yeah.

I mean, that's kind of what I mean by like, you know, everyone wants to be for the people, but very few people actually are because being for the people takes a lot of effort. Because you need to learn languages. You need to visit places. You need to talk to people who you might on the surface disagree with. You might have to think about what they tell you in order to come to a conclusion yourself about what's actually going on

and how you can actually support these people while not compromising your own beliefs and your own knowledge and experiences, right? So that takes part of work. So that's what I meant by that. Like very few people for the people in that sense where they engage and actually go and try to talk to us. And I think that's the best way of being informed of any issue

is just talking to the people. But it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But that's what solidarity is. It's putting in the work to take care of each other. Exactly.

It's been a failure of the non-campus left that we have not done more, that we have not reached out to more people in Venezuela, that we've not used our platforms, that we've not shared their voices, that we haven't done more to push back on this idea, that like the only options for Venezuela and neoliberal neoliberalism or maybe neoliberalism what we're doing anymore.

But American imperialism or like this, anti-imperialism of idiots. Is there anything you'd like to plug? Do you like people to find you on the internet or some other stuff you'd like to direct people to? Maybe they can call you a Mossad or CIA or whatever? Yeah. You can find me on my Instagram account.

It's e.m. Dot A-R-I-N. So just like my name deconstructed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can send it to you later. Yeah, yeah. Trying to think of like what else to say, but I mean, yeah, like going back a little bit, I just wanted to clarify this because I brought up a few times.

But what I was saying, you know, like looking at these Magasolanos and what I mean by like they are quote unquote right, they're not actually right wing. Like if you speak to them and there's a really good video that this guy made, but it's in Spanish talking about this. But what I mean is many people. who are Magasolanos, you ask them, what do you want to see in Venezuela? And what they want is affordable housing, affordable health care, clean water, proper environmental policies.

They don't want any more abuses committed to the indigenous communities, particularly those in the Arco Minero del Orinoco. So you ask these people what they want, and this is what they want. Right. So when they just say that they're right wing, they say that they're right wing simply because they are traumatized from, you know, this apparently socialist regime, which was anything but, and people on the left sort of, you know, just supporting that regime and isolating them and treating them like absolute crap.

So they're traumatized by both of those things. And that's why they claim to be in this position. But if you actually talk to them, that is not the case. Keep that in mind. Because it's funny to me when many people say, oh, you guys just believe propaganda. That's why you're pro-Trump and that's why you're right-wing because you consumed the CIA propaganda.

You guys are blinded by propaganda. When in reality what that's doing is that is taking away the accountability that many on the left should maybe, you know, maybe think about because it hasn't just been CIA propaganda. Like it's also just leftist acting like assholes. Like that's something that has also pushed many Venezuelans away. from the left. Yeah, 100%. It's not just the CIA spreading propaganda.

It's also that the left has acted horribly with Venezuelans. And that has also pushed people away. And I think if we're able to solve that issue, if I think of the left is able to see Venezuela as human beings and to have a different approach, such as, you know, with, you know, what we've talked about earlier, I think we're going to be able to have a better conversation

and have a better relationship between these two communities. and actually get somewhere productive. But I just wanted to bring that up because I am so tired of seeing people saying it's all CIA propaganda and not really thinking, well, actually, we have also done some pretty bad things. And that's why these people kind of have taken a dislike to us. So, yeah, I think, I think that's pretty much it. Like, in conclusion, just hear us out. We're human and we're not the perfect victims. We're not a monolith.

We're human. So we should be spoken to as humans and thought about as humans, not as some chess piece in this political game. Just include us into the conversation. I think is the most important thing anyone listening to this should take away. Yeah. I think that's a really good place to end. Thank you so much for sharing some of that time with us. No, thank you so much for.

giving me the space to talk. I mean, it's very necessary, as you might imagine, for our voices to be heard and be put out there because I'm lucky enough to be multilingual. I try to do my best and speak in other languages so other people understand what's going on in our minds and in our community. So I am very grateful that you're able to have me here and to actually listen. It's not something many people do, so I really do value it. Great. Thank you, Beth. Great. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. You know, Roald Dahl. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Rolled Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories?

It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, because I was a spy. Listen to The Secret World of Roll Doll on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're trying to keep up with everything happening on and off the court, we've got you covered on the podcast, Plagrant and Funny. You want to start with the first pleasure for the Big Ten coach of the year? Oh, whatever.

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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian.

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