Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - [TEASER] Venezuela Pt. 4: The Empire vs. Venezuela w/ Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza and Saheli Chowdhury

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

This is a free preview of the episode "Venezuela Pt. 4: The Empire vs. Venezuela w/ Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza and Saheli Chowdhury." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. In Part 4 of our ongoing series on Venezuela, Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza and Saheli Chowdhury of Orinoco Tribune join us to discuss the US empire’s attacks on Venezuela—both historically and into the present. Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza is an expert in international relations, Venezuelan politics, and communications and is the founding editor of Orinoco Tribune. Saheli Chowdhury is from West Bengal, India. She’s studying physics as a profession and has interests in history and global movements. Saheli is a co-editor of Orinoco Tribune, an independent media outlet that provides news and analysis from Venezuela, Latin America, and the Global South.  Our conversation begins with an update on the latest escalations of aggression by the United States before presenting a brief history of US aggression against Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution more broadly. We then discuss the grassroots and institutional response in Venezuela, including the role that the communes play in resisting US empire. We talk about María Corina Machado and the Venezuelan far right more broadly and the role they play in advancing the interests of the United States and transnational corporations. We talk about the geopolitical context of all of this, the war on drugs, and much more.  Further resources: Orinoco Tribune Support Orinoco Tribune's progressive, anti-imperialist news analysis The Empire vs. Venezuela: “War on Drugs” Chapter (Critical Theory Workshop) Related episodes: Listen to our ongoing series on Venezuela Listen to our ongoing series on China Migration as Economic Imperialism w/ Immanuel Ness Iran Pt. 1: A Socialist Introduction w/ Séamus Malekafzali Our ongoing series on China Our ongoing series on the Alliance of Sahel States Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

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We hope you enjoyed this conversation. So with land reform, the oligards lost land to the people. So they are resentful in this regard that our property were taken away, which was never there to begin with. It should be of the people. The commons should be of the people. the people, but that's not their fission, their fission is capitalism. So it should be in the hands of the few, and most of Venezuelans should live in absolute poverty. That was the vision, which was the situation in the 70s, 80s, if you go through it, Venezuela was

called the Saudi Venezuela, and in many ways it was like that, you know, as a few people extremely rich, the 70% of the population in extreme poverty, so they want to go back to that. They want to go back to that. That is their vision. If it means that there needs to be a foreign military invasion of the country, there needs to be bombs dropped on the country, they are disposed towards it. They have no issue with it. They would love it, actually.

You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan.

As the U.S. war machine barrels down on Venezuela, a war machine whose wheels have been greased by desperation, the very desperation of a dying empire lashing out at anything within arm's reach. We thought it would be worthwhile to take a deeper look at the history of U.S. intervention in Venezuela and to give some geopolitical context to what we're seeing take place, just to help make sense of a situation that can only be understood dialectically. In this episode, part four of our ongoing series on Venezuela, we're joined by Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza and Saheli Chauturi

to discuss all of this and more. Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza is an expert in international relations, Venezuelan politics, and communications, and he is the founding editor of Orinoco Tribune. Saheli Chowteri is from West Bengal, India. She's studying physics as a profession and has interests in history and global movements. Saheli is a co-editor of Orinoco Tribune,

an independent media outlet that provides news and analysis from Venezuela, Latin America, and the global South. And now, here's my conversation with Jesus, Rodriguez-Espinoza and Saheli Chowder. Jesus and Saheli, it is wonderful to have you both on the show. Thank you for the invitation, definitely. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. And I'd love to start with a quick introduction.

If you could both introduce yourselves and maybe tell us a little bit about Orinoco Tribune. Okay, so I am one of the co-editors of Orinoco Tribune. He's who's been the editor and the other editor, still is not here. He's doing his work, is of course. So Orinoco Tribune is, as we did find ourselves, it is an anti-peralist media with reporting on Venezuela, Latin America and the world from a chavista perspective. And we try to report every day on what is happening in Venezuela, in the region, around Venezuela, as well as important to political events around the world. Yes, and my name is Jesus Rodriguez-Spinoza. editor and founded of Orinoco Tribune.

I'm an expert in international relations. I'm graduated in international relations, and I worked for several years as the Consul General of Venezuela in Chicago. And in 2018, a year after I came back from the US to Venezuela, I decided to launch this project. And thankfully, it has received a lot of good attention from compass from around the world. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you both so much for that. And let's jump right in, Jesus. Maybe we can

start with an update on where we're at in terms of the most recent events and the general climate of the intensification and escalation of the U.S.'s aggression against Venezuela. So maybe just tell us, like, what do things look like on the ground right now? And what do you think that the U.S. has planned? Yes. At the beginning, of this whole latest development, many people, including me, saw that this was going to be one of many U.S., you know, sigh-up operation trying to scare or shake or create some sort of disruption within Venezuela. But while the day passed, we realized that the scene was moving. way beyond what the U.S. has accustomed as in recent years.

So, right now we're talking about 10,000 troops according to what U.S. media says, and the U.S. media is the closest to the U.S. military apparatus. So they might have a good insight about those numbers. So we're talking about 10,000 troops. We are talking about the latest figure that I saw. was 10 warships in the region, one nuclear submarine, at least 10 F-35 that were sent to Puerto Rico a few weeks ago. And yesterday, the White House announced the Department of War announced the deployment of this biggest, the newest U.S. aircraft carrier to the Caribbean.

And so things are not looking promising, if you're asking, in terms of peace, you know. So this is what is happening, you know, in front of our cause. If you ask me about what is the situation inside Venezuela, I can tell you that we have been living our regular lives as usual. Of course, there's this, I don't know how to say, I don't know the right word, but preoccupation, we say, in Spanish, this concern about, you know, any crazy U.S. military actions on Venezuela. And that is obvious. I mean, no one can be happy about having that amount of military equipment and troops in front of their coast.

So the concern is there. I wouldn't say scare. I wouldn't use the word scared. Despite some people might be you're victims of this, especially the one from disinformation and panic, social media campaign of panicking people, not only in Venezuela, but even in neighboring countries. So, of course, there might be some people really scared, but if you ask me, the majority of the Venezuelans are just, most of them, just concerned about what might happen. A lot of analysts says that all in U.S. operation against Venezuela is not at least under the current circumstances, not very advisable because, for example, when they invaded Panama a few decades ago, they needed around 30,000 troops. So they right now have only one third of that number, and Venezuela is way bigger than Panama. and more complex and more committed, you know, revolutionary talking in terms of anti-imperialism.

You know, we have been living for almost, we are going to be 30 decades in a few years of Bolivarian revolution, of Chavismo. And within this decades, we have been building a very high anti-imperialist and I don't know how to say it, culture. Something that was already there, but it has been improved. has been polished by the Bolivarian Revolution, along with ideology and ideas of socialism and social justice that are the main values of the Boluarian Revolution and Chiavismo. So it's not going to be easy. I mean, I'm just trying to compare the situation of Venezuela with Panama in the 80s.

So it's not going to be easy. Many analysts talk about not all-in, you know, military operation, but a decapitation strike against, you know, the leadership of the Valiwarian Revolution. I mean, I'm President Maduro, the Minister of Defense Padino, the Minister of Interior Cabello. And whenever someone asked me from abroad about that,

I tell them, listen, they might try to do that. The gringoes are capable of doing anything. I mean, the limits of morality or logic or they already surpass those limits years ago. So they are capable of doing something like that, but what I tell to the compass abroad is that that's not going to stop chavism. A decapitation strike is not a solution

for the U.S. problems with Venezuela because chavism is going to remain. So that's basically, you know, the general outlook, of course, from my perspective, as a good chavista, of course. Maybe if you interview a right, Venezuelan right winger, they will tell you like a crazy, weird story. But I try, even though I'm a very hardcore chavista, I try to be balanced, you know? I don't think we're going to invite on a right wing person, but we'll see.

Thank you for that. Yeah, that's a good insight. And a lot of what you're saying really resonates and makes a lot of sense. And I think that we've really been in this series looking at the anti-imperialism of the Bolivarian Revolution and underscoring that. So it's a really good place to start, I think. Sehele, how did we get here? Can you provide us with just maybe a brief history of U.S. aggression against Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution more broadly? Okay, so what the U.S. calls regime change effort in Venezuela began with the beginning, I would say began with the start of the Bolivarian Revolution, which put as 1999 with the late President Hugo Chapis taking office.

And I would just talk about what I would go to describe. I would always say that it is a non-exhaustive list of all the core. attempts, the invention attempts the U.S. is trying to carry out against Venezuela. Though the biggest ones, let's just go through them quickly, the first one that comes to mind is the April 2002 coup against Rochavis, which removed him from power for 48 hours, and he was brought back by the people. So after that coup failed, and one of the persons who was involved in the coup was Maria Corina Machado, who is now the Nobel Peace Prize winner, you can imagine. Then after that started the, like towards the end of 2002 began what is called

the oil strike that tried to decapaceted the main industry, the main engine of Venezuela economy that is the oil industry. Then there were the, in 2004 we have the violent far-right protests, street protests in which people were killed. Those things are called Guarimas. I mean, all the street protests are street protests in Venezuela, these violent protests are called Guarimbas. then we have a repeat of it in 2007, then another in 2013 after the presidential election. Then there were 2014, which they called La Salida, the exit. You know, they thought of an exit of the Bolivarian Revolution, putting an end to it and bringing back the right-wingers in power.

Then comes the groundwork for the current aggression was created, I would say, in 2015, by the then president of the U.S. Barack Obama's executive order that declared Venezuela as an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security. And that marked the beginning of the illegal U.S. sanctions of the unilateral coercive measures, which is the correct name. So thereafter, I mean, from 2016, we have the oil sanctions that is the entire Venezuelan oil industry was cut off from the international market and the U.S. can do it because it has the, you know, it controls.

financial trade and monetary systems, global ones. Thereafter, in 2018, in August 2018, I believe, there was an assassination attempt with drones against President Maduro at a public event. And after that, we have, from February 2019, there is the Project Guido, in which Juan Wai Doe, a parliamentarian, declared himself the interim president of Venezuela, although the president, the vice president, the interior minister, like the parliamentarian. line of succession was there, but still he declared himself and was recognized by the United States and 50 other countries, maybe 60, and that started the broad sanctions against Venezuela.

Then in February 2019 itself, there was the attempted passage, like the forced passage of humanitarian aid, which was weapons, actually, from the Colombian side of the border. There were people killed, and there were a lot of people insured in that. thereafter, in 2019 itself, in the middle of 2019, there was another coup attempt like Guido and Leopold-Lopez, another far-right figure who is currently hiding in Spain. So he fled. Actually, at that time, he was under a house arrest for a former coup attempt, and he fled to Spain. So that was it.

And then in 2020, May 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, we had what is called the Operation Gétheon, in which a mercenary organization called Silver Corp, headed by former special forces, officials of the U.S. Army tried to invade Venezuela. They failed, of course. They were to Guaira in the coast. They were caught by fissures. And then, of course, they were in prison Venezuela, but were later released in a prisoner exchange. And then the most recent one was in July, 29, 30 July, 24, after the presidential elections, there were attempted violence. However, those were put down, so all the 27 people were killed in that. And if I stop at July 24, it does not mean that it ends there.

There were other attempts. Like at the end of the year, the beginning of 2025, there was another attack that was thwarted. Every day you will hear of some plot being tortured, some weapons being seized, some people being arrested for trying to start some sort of terrorist plot somewhere. in Venezuela. So it has been an ongoing, I mean, attempt at overthrowing the Venezuelan government and the Bolivarian Revolution since the beginning for 27 years now. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that brief outline. That's really helpful to kind of bring us up to the present. I want to ask you, Jesus. So you talked a little bit about how personally and also your general sentiments of how

people are feeling sort of in the streets to this. You said people aren't scared, but it definitely sounds like people are aware and vigilant and stuff. What has been like the more formal sort of like institutional response? I know that there has been mobilizations of all sorts. So maybe if you could just give us a sense of how the Venezuelan people and the Venezuelan state is responding to the most recent aggression by the United States as it escalates. Yes. I would have to what Sahelis playing very in detail that the U.S. has always been behind all those different sabotage coup and regime chain operations because the far-right Venezuelan opposition is just an appendix of the U.S. imperialism.

It's very important to highlight that. And in terms of the Venezuelan response to, you know, the current events, I believe that is, I admire the way the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan institutions has been responded to the aggression. At the beginning, it was just a deployment, a military deployment in the border with Colombia, but then when the government realized that the threat was real, President Maduro asked Venezuelans to enlist in the militia. we call it the Bolivarian militia and it's important to highlight that it's not like those

militias that you found in Minnesota or Indiana you know those crazy militia guys that hate the federal government in the U.S. or something like that we are talking about the Bolivarian militia which is a branch of the army you know and it's a structure within the state and that Bolivarian militia had already five million and listed Venezuelans there. And that's a number that always has been taken very carefully by the warmongers in the USA. But after that call that President Maduro made, the Bolivarian militia numbers passed from five millions to eight million.

So that indicates you how the Venezuelan people is committed to defend their country. And it's a number that you can know. you know, play around with a very easy. There are not too many people in the world that have a militia that big. So that's the first step. Then after that, the government launched a military drill and it has been launching military drills all over the country by sections, you know, of the country. And that has improved the military preparedness in levels that we never imagine some people might think that this is bad for venezuela but it actually is important to have an army in any country that have really prepared to defend their country and you know to have that

military preparedness that for military people is extremely important so whenever whenever you are in front of a possible you know military aggression and you are forced to work harder in this current events have pushed the Venezuelan army to improve, to do better with these, you know, military drills. But at the same time, this connection between the military and the militia has been improved because the military has been providing additional training for the new recruits and for the ore recruits. And at the same time, the military, the militia, has been connected with the communes,

which are the backbone of the Bolivarian Revolution, if you ask me. And they have been having these joint military drills with the military, the commune, and the militia. And that is something amazing in terms of the concept of, you know, the main values of the Bolivarian Revolution, because that connects everything, you know, that puts everything together and matching perfectly to strengthen the Bolivarian Revolution, but at the same time to strengthen the defensive capabilities of the country. So at the beginning, the first exercises in trainings were from, I mean, the military asked the militia and the people from the communes to go to the quartel,

as we call them to the military, you know, facilities to train. But then in a second phase, it happened in the opposite. The military went to the communes to practice in the terrain and to do training in the terrain in the barrios of Venezuela to practice and train for defensive exercises, you know. So it's amazing if you ask me, I mean, we have been achieving in week something that might have been done in years. on their regular circumstances, and that's a positive size of this situation that is not very positive.

But anyway, I'm just trying to highlight the things that are happening and that are important, you know, for people abroad to know. Yeah, that's incredible. I don't know if I answered the question. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly actually what I was asking about. I wanted to know specifically, so I'm glad you brought it up about the communes because we have spoken with a number of guests already in this series, Chris Gilbert and Sierra Pascal Marquina about the communes. And it's really, really interesting now to see like the communes enter into the equation

as part of like actual military defense of the country. And I really loved how you, you described it and analyzed it in terms of this is, it's like a, it's dialectically reinforcing the democratic nature of the country, right? And through these communes, while also building up defense, not something that you want to necessarily have to put your resources towards. There's, I'm sure, many other things that the communes could be doing. But unfortunately, we live under global capitalism headed by the United States. So this is something that unfortunately has been brought to the forefront for you guys over there. I'm wondering if you've mentioned the right a lot, right wing when you talked about these coups. I know that there is like recently in headlines you

also mentioned Maria Karina Machado. I'm wondering if you could give us a sense of the far right in Venezuela, which the United States has sort of partnered with in terms of maybe partner is not the right way to describe the relationship, but in terms of like destroying the Bolivarian revolution. So can you talk about the far right? And like what? is their vision for Venezuela and how do they collaborate with the imperialists? So just before going to the vision of the far, right, I just say that as for the commutes, they're also doing their other work. For example, you know, for every three months, there is this thing called the National Popular Consultation in which the communes themselves

select, like each commutes a project that they consider priority. And the state allocates resources towards it. And this is a sort of election, I mean, it is carried out by the electoral system. And this is going on. I mean, the war has not stopped it. So the next popular consultation has also been declared. So it's not like the communes are not doing their work that they should be doing. It's just that they have been forced to do this also, which we think is also important because the Venezuelan military doctrine is the war of all the people. And which is the doctrine, which was the doctrine of Mao in China and the other Chinese resistance against the Japanese imperialism and occupation, which is also the doctrine of Vietnam in its war of

resistance against US imperialism, which is also the doctrine of Cuba. So in a way, it's reinforcing the doctrine. So like Jesus said, it's a positive side of this situation that's extremely negative. Now, as far right, it is one of the extremely negative sides. is there in the country. So there is an opposition. I mean, there has been, I mean, in every democratic system, there is an opposition. However, this opposition, which we call the far-right opposition, whenever someone asks me, I tell people that there is no right, there is no right-wing or center-right in any part in Latin America. There is none. All right-wing in Latin America are far-right, of course, not just because they are fascist, they have the white supremacist

ideas although they are themselves not white but they consider themselves or i mean white supremacy can be can be internalized by anyone irrespective of the color of their skin so yes they start from there their vision is you know being that the relationship is not partnership it's a subordination so that is their vision that subordinating venezuela to the u.s opening up like maria corina machado has declared so many times that if she comes to power or if her side comes to power, the U.S. companies would make a lot of money in Venezuela. That's what she says. No, not the Venezuelan people who make a lot of money or they would have their quality of life would improve or anything, but foreign companies would make a lot of money.

She has talked about, not just her, but the entire far right has talked about advancement by privatization of the natural resources which had been nationalized by the Bolivarian revolution over years. So the oil sector privatized, mining would be privatized, think of anything heavy industries, all those things that were nationalized would be privatized. So they want to go back. It's a returation in terms of everything.

But we'll start with human rights, something that is so much associated with the spokespeople of the far right in Venezuela, that they are the defenders of human rights. they are the defenders of democracy. And in this regard to question, what is human right? Like, what does human right mean? So in the vision of the Polyhorian Revolution

or any sort of socialist system, the idea is that it should be the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. And in case of Venezuela, you have. Until the blockade was there, until the blockade started, and Venezuela lost all of its foreign revenue, et cetera. all of the money that the state earned through oil revenues and others,

it would be put towards social welfare programs, education, healthcare, children with chronic diseases, including cancer, would receive treatment not just within the country, but also outside, if they needed specialized treatment, those would be paid towards by the state using the money that it earned through oil, through other trade, foreign trade. Similarly, you know, in education, I said, healthcare and state, other things, agriculture, industry, all these things are geared towards the improvement or the betterment of the quality of life of the people. And in this way, you would also have like technical, technological improvement, scientific development, etc.

On the other hand, if you imagine, if, you know, your resources are plundered, if the foreign companies take away all the revenues and everything and nothing remains there except the crumbs that remain, they remain in the hands of a handful, like the oligarchs to which Maria Corina Machado belongs, and Maria Corina and others, Leopoldo, López, etc., that really belong to the oligarchy. Like, their families were families that owned land and the industries for centuries. Like Maria Corina Machado's family owned the steel industry. So, in a way, she lost, like steel, land, no?

So with land reform, they lost, the oligards lost land to the people. So they are resentful in this regard that our property were taken away, which was never there to begin with. It should be of the people. The commons should be of the people, but that's not their vision. Their vision is capitalism. So it should be in the hands of the few, and most of Venezuelans should live in absolute poverty. That was the vision, which was the situation in the 70s, 80s, if you go through it, like Venezuela, was called Saudi Venezuela.

And in many ways it was like that, you know, as a few people, extremely. reach, the 70% of the population in extreme poverty. So they want to go back to that. They want to go back to that. That is their vision. And if it means that, there needs to be a foreign military invasion of the country, there needs to be bombs dropped on the country, they are disposed towards it.

They have no issue with it. They would love it, actually. Was there anything you wanted to add to that, Jesus? No, no, no. I really said perfectly. It's a Comprador far right opposition that we have there. I mean, they are like the capatases, we say in Spanish, for the gringoes. You know, like the guy in the ranch that worked for the owner

and, you know, and subjugate everyone that works in the ranch, in the plantation. So that's the role. We could say that they are the vanguard of Paris, I mean, Venezuela. They are their food soldiers. Yeah, that's the role of our position. I mean, to be like the guardians of the U.S. interest and the country. country. That's what they love to be. Can you tell us a little bit more about like why you believe Maria Karina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize?

I mean, it's, you know, Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, quote unquote, peace prize. So it's not exactly like an award that has a lot of respect among, you know, anti-imperialists or most people that care about peace. but what does this symbolize? Like, how is this part of manufacturing the consent for war? This was a clip from our Patreon episode with Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza and Saheli Shout Hurry. You can listen to the full episode by becoming a Patreon subscriber. Through Patreon, you'll have access to biweekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes,

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