Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What is the focus of the roundtable discussion on U.S. drone strikes in the Caribbean?
And for the Prime Minister to deviate from that solidarity in such a blatant way, it's really quite sad. But it shouldn't come as a surprise because there have been efforts by the US to divide CARICOM in the past.
During his first term, Trump had pulled some CARICOM countries into the Lima Group, which was a US-promoted coalition of right-wing governments that was pushing for regime change in Venezuela. And he's now doing the same thing with trying to get some CARICOM governments to facilitate his actions toward Venezuela.
They approached Grenada recently to try and get Grenada's assistance in basing a satellite there on the island. And it's really ironic that they would approach Grenada, which is also quite close to Venezuela, because Grenada was famously one of the countries that the United States invaded in October of 1983.
Yeah, I think, I know I say this a lot, but if you've listened to the song Washington Bullets by The Clash and then you go to the border, you can kind of join up all the people from all the countries mentioned there and the outcome of US policy and what that does to migration over time. We should talk about the Venezuelan opposition a bit.
I guess, Michael, would you give... I've done a pretty in-depth discussion of Venezuela, a place where I have spent a decent amount of time. I wanted to see that revolution myself when I was 19 and I was studying political science. I wanted to see what this pink tide was about. And I have reported a lot on Venezuelan migrants, people who are new to the show.
I guess the series I did from the Darien camp would be where I would point you for my discussion of Venezuela and Venezuelan people. I still speak to people in Venezuela almost every day. But I think people could do, Michael, with like a high level overview of the Venezuelan opposition.
I guess we can talk about the Nobel Prize as well, which despite what Donald Trump is saying was not awarded to him this year. Yeah, so the big news is that Maria Corina Machado, who is the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, as we know today, was awarded the Nobel Prize, which was a bit of a surprise.
And from a very U.S.-centric analysis, one idea that has been floated is that the Nobel Committee didn't want to award
Trump the prize, but thought that maybe awarding it to an ally of Trump would be a way to mollify Trump, also possibly to encourage him to take a more peaceful approach at a time that the US is threatening armed intervention in some way in Venezuela, whether that is a counter-narcotics operation or more likely a regime change operation of some kind, even though it's very unclear how they would get to regime change from blowing up boats or even blowing up people.
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Chapter 3: How are the U.S. drone strikes affecting Trinidad and Tobago?
And of course, Panama is a tiny country and Venezuela is 20 times larger than Panama. Yeah, it's fast. So it's very odd. It's obviously they have deployed many more troops in a much larger fleet than is necessary for a counter-narcotics operation. Incidentally, it's the U.S. Coast Guard that carries out counter-narcotics interdictions and does it very effectively.
And incidentally, does it with the cooperation of other countries, which... coordinate intelligence or just simply surveillance of suspicious ships or boats or planes and tip off the U.S. Coast Guard. Even the Cuban government does that. In fact, it's the Coast Guard that is the U.S. agency that has the best relationships with Cuba.
It's oftentimes diplomacy kind of starts with the Coast Guard's ties with Cuba. But anyway, that aside... It doesn't make sense from a counter-narcotics standpoint because, look, if you actually wanted to break up a cartel, what do you do? I mean, if you are a prosecutor, investigator, right, you capture the smugglers, you seize the cargo, the contraband, which is evidence.
Then you try to flip them up for immunity or whoever your real targets are. Maybe your target is Maduro or someone else in the regime. But you can't do that when you kill everyone on the boat, right? And I think the fact that in, I think, the latest boat strike, they didn't manage to kill everyone. And a couple of them got away.
And then the U.S., rather than charge them with a crime, they just turned them back around. And you would think that if the U.S. is so certain that the people on those boats are... drug trafficking terrorists that they want to kill them, then you'd think they would have enough evidence to charge them, to prosecute them, but apparently not.
So this is all to say the idea that this is a counter-narcotics operation doesn't hold up. Clearly, it is meant to be more of a regime change operation. But again, I don't see how the one leads to the other. I believe that Trump thinks that if he just Sabre rattles a little bit and possibly tries some decapitation strikes the way that the U.S.
did on Soleimani in Iran, that somehow the regime is going to collapse. And that does not make any sense. Maduro has surrounded himself with security, a lot of it including Cuban advisers. He keeps his whereabouts very secret.
Even if somehow they were to drone strike him, it's not as if the regime as a whole would fall because it is an extremely militarized regime that is upheld by the armed forces who are not going to break with him because they have a hand in every lucrative business, both legal and illegal in Venezuela. They're not going to be paid off or not be swayed by a bounty regime.
That is currently, what, something like $50 million? I mean, there are people around Maduro that have made upwards of a billion dollars in oil rents. So it's not like you can pay off people to betray him either. Yeah, and it's not, nor is it like a cult of personality situation, like certainly not now. Chavez had something of a sort of charismatic leadership role, but Maduro is not that.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the U.S. strikes on Venezuelan organized crime?
So anyway, everyone basically admits at this point that he stole the election, but what are you going to do about it? The opposition, for its part, has taken different approaches to how to confront him and is famously very divided. The Venezuelan opposition has never really been on the same page. They've never really had an uncontested leader.
Maria Corina Machado is about the closest they have had. But she herself really represents more one wing of the opposition, the more you might say hardline wing. For a long time, there was a hardline wing personified by Lopez.
And there was a more, I don't know if you call it a soft line or liberal or just more willing to talk to the regime wing led by Capriles, who ran against Maduro in the first election. And it's even within those factions, there are competing personalities. A lot of it really is more personal than ideological. But Maria Cornelia Machado, she is on the right politically.
She styles herself after Margaret Thatcher. She is also, I will give her credit for this, a very good organizer. She has famously kind of gone into communities that have historically voted with the Chavista left and convinced many people to leave. that coalition. And also, to her credit, I would say she is a very brave person.
She has remained in the country at a time that many, most opposition leaders, including Edmundo Gonzalez, have fled the country. And she's been in hiding. She knows that the regime would arrest, if not kill her at its soonest opportunity, yet she still shows up unannounced at events, at rallies, and makes speeches. So she has achieved this kind of mythic figure.
And this is something that obviously is only going to grow with the Nobel Prize. So then the question is, what will this Nobel do? I think that one calculation is that it'll simply keep her alive. You know, it'll be much harder for the Maduro government to kill her if, you know, if they would be killing a Nobel laureate. So that may buy her a little bit more time.
I was trying to best them on the first one to kill a Nobel laureate, I guess. Right. Right. Yeah. But, you know, will it bring peace? I'm not so sure, because Mary Gordon Machado has also been very closely allied and supportive of the Trump administration.
And her side of the opposition has been encouraging the military strikes, backing sanctions, even though the sanctions both have done nothing to dislodge Maduro and also contribute to a great deal of suffering for the Venezuelan people. And I have to say, look, I'm not Venezuelan. I have no right to give the Venezuelan opposition advice.
I would say that if they have tried multiple elections, you know, at least two of which have been stolen, if they have tried, you know, I'd say more democratic means and nothing has happened, I can understand why many people would think that a more radical approach is the only option left on the table. However, that approach hasn't done anything good. either.
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Chapter 5: How has the political landscape in Colombia changed in response to U.S. actions?
Also, incidentally, El Pais in Spain, you know, colonos on the side, they do pretty good reporting.
Yeah.
And they've been doing pretty good reporting. And there's lots of blogs as well. And, you know, newsletters that you can check out. I will say, just maybe this, I'm biased because I focus a lot on crime.
The site Insight Crime is pretty good in terms of looking into specific criminal groups like Render Agua and calling a question if, you know, if this really is a, you know, it's something that is controlled by the puppet master from Miraflores, you know, like Maduro and some of these, some of these narratives that are justifying this. I'd also just as a recommendation, I would say,
Maybe we should be a little bit skeptical, too, about the timing and the purposes of these things. I did point out in a piece that I wrote for the Center for International Policy that the first boat strike happened on the same day the House Judiciary Committee was releasing a redacted number of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
And I think that there are many reasons why this administration would like to use this confrontation uh as a convenient distraction from uh from other things that uh they would rather not be talking about yeah bleak i think it's probably a reasonable conclusion given where we're at uh where can people find both of you on uh if they want to follow you online on uh on social media or uh
find more of your writing. We'll start with you, Andrew. Sure. Well, you can find me on my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash andrewism. Or you could just call my website for all my other links, andrewsage.org. How about you, Michael? I do have a website. You can look up my name and that should come up. I haven't updated it recently. I probably should.
I'm also on Twitter X, Blue Sky as my name, M-P-A-A-R-L-B-E-R-G. So you can look me up there. Great. Thank you very much, Matthew.
You know, we always say new year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking In on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth and everything you need to step into your next season whole and empowered.
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges of modern parenting in a world of political instability and climate change?
And you tend to see a lot more nuclear families or even just individuals going at it alone. You know, with less support and more isolation and So it makes it very difficult. And then there's the existential angst of it all. You know, I can't forget the fact that there are multiple wars raging around the world. You know, there's a lot of political instability in much of the world.
And of course, the biggest issue of all, climate change, which makes it, honestly, it makes it feel irresponsible to even think about bringing a child into this mess. So a declining fertility, a decline in population, it has the government's panicking. You know, China went from having decades of a one-child policy to now desperately trying to encourage people to have more babies.
They're offering cash bonuses and housing perks and extended parental leave. But it's not really working. You know, as populations are aging, there's a lot more elderly people to care for and fewer working age people to support them. So that is, you know, a recipe for pension crises and labor shortages and spiraling health care costs.
Chapter 7: How are governments responding to declining birth rates and aging populations?
So some governments are even trying to raise the retirement age. which, as France and their protests have shown, is not going to go over well with much of the population. Nobody wants to work an extra five years, an extra 10 years more when they've already put so much of their lives to these dead end, pointless and
mentally and physically draining tasks that really just line the pockets of their bosses. It is worth pointing out that last year there was a pretty massive raise in the retirement age for people in China that's being phased in a way where it's going to take Over the course of 15 years, it goes up gradually to sort of like spread out the anger over it.
But yeah, it is worth noting that China's is like significantly increased or is going to significantly increase over the course of the next 15 years. Hmm. Yeah. And then on the other side of things, there is in the retirement age now, but the young people who are working today are more than likely not going to get any kind of pension. Yeah. Yeah.
I'd rather the world of my sixties don't look like the world of my twenties. That would be my preference. So I would rather that we've reached a point as a society where pensions are not the necessary bandaid that they are right now. But until then, you know, it is quite the powder keg.
Chapter 8: What are the implications of pro-natalist policies on reproductive rights?
Yeah.
We also have in Eastern Europe, you know, you have countries rolling out pro-natalist policies that tie financial support directly to family size. I'm going to get a bit more into pro-natalism in the next episode. But there's also the darker side of that pro-natalist push.
terms of the policies meant to reverse the population decline some governments instead of making life better for potential parents are criminalizing They're turning to anti-choice policies. They're restricting abortion. They're limiting reproductive rights. They're demonizing child-free lifestyles. Russia actually recently criminalized what they called child-free propaganda, you know?
Yeah.
And then this is also part of a broader conversation about population where you have the immigration concerns as a political flashpoint. And because a lot of wealthy countries are because of their population decline, are starting to rely more on immigrants to keep their economies going.
But as a flip side, that tends to fuel backlash from the far-right groups who are able to frame it as a threat to national identity. And because the system of the state and capitalism is not interested in actually taking care of people, those immigrants become a very useful scapegoat.
You know, obviously I'm in support of people moving and living wherever they want to move and live as they please. I don't believe in borders, especially as the climate consequences are hitting those of us in the global south first. But I also am not a fan of the way that some progressives end up talking about immigration, where they act as if
you know, the Global South is like a population bank that wealthy countries could tap into and, you know, pull population from regardless of the consequences on the home countries of these people. You know, it's like, let immigrants come and I'm all for that. But then it's also like,
Your, your government is destabilizing their governments, your, your, your system, your economic system and the global economic system is making life in those countries unlivable.
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