This is a free preview of the episode "Venezuela Pt. 1: A Socialist Introduction w/ Vijay Prashad." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast

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In Part 1 of our new, ongoing series on Venezuela, Vijay Prashad joins us to discuss Venezuela’s history, politics, and its ongoing fight against US imperialism. Vijay Prashad is a journalist, political commentator, and Executive Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He’s the author of many books, including The Darker Nations, Washington Bullets: The History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations, and Red Star Over the Third World.

In this episode, we discuss Venezuela's political and economic conditions prior to the Bolivarian Revolution of 1999 when Hugo Chávez came to power. We discuss how oil colonialism kept Venezuela in a state of underdevelopment and poverty. Vijay tells us about the promise of the Bolivarian Revolution and how it was delivered, the obstacles that Venezuela continues to face in its fight against imperialism, the hybrid war of coup attempts, sanctions, and propaganda campaigns imposed by the US, what socialism in Venezuela actually looks like, the most recent escalation by the Trump administration, and much more.  

Further resources:

• Tricontinental's work on Venezuela
• Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations, by Vijay Prashad
• The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, by Seth Harp
• The Politics of Heroin:CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, by Alfred W. McCoy

Related episodes:

• The Fight for The Congo w/ Vijay Prashad
• China Pt. 3: Bourgeois Democracy vs Socialist Democracy w/ Vijay Prashad
• A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations w/ Vijay Prashad
• The Logical Case for Socialism (and Against Capitalism) w/ Scott Sehon

Artwork: Political Repression in Latin America Poster printed by La Raza Silkscreen, 1975.

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