Hi, Nick here from Pods with Nick and James.
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james anyway back to the podcast Hi, welcome
to Pods with Nick and James. It's been a little
while since we've recorded, but yeah, welcome
back listeners. I'm James. Joining me tonight
is, as always, is Nick. Hi guys. And today I
got the choice of the subject and rather than
keep it light and airy, unfortunately, I just
felt the need to touch upon another area of ignorance
as I'd learnt. recently that President Nicolas
Maduro of Venezuela had been, well, kidnapped,
essentially, by an American strike force. And
although I wasn't surprised in the outrageousness
of it, we all know that America has... a somewhat
shady history when it comes to respecting other
countries borders um not that i hate america
but it's just they don't play by the rules that
other that they insist that others play by um
i was i was wondering why like i'd heard some
of my friends say about how unjustified it is
and on the surface of it uh i thought that that
might be true but events don't happen without
a cause. So I wanted to take a little look into
things. So today's episode will be about, will
be a very brief history of Venezuela. Nick, just
to kick us off, although I'm really worried it's
going to turn out you've done way more research.
Oh, I need to mention my sources. Today's episode.
Most of the information is taken from The History
of Venezuela, a fascinating guide to Venezuelan
history by David Robbins, narrated by Stephen
Barnett on Audible. It's also based, some of
the information and views are informed by the
podcast Trigonometry, specifically the... The
episode, Why Socialism Never Works, a warning
from Venezuela. And then additionally, the episode
a couple of weeks into the new year where they
talk about Maduro being taken directly. The reason
why I use these as a source is one of them is
a credible book. In the Trigonometry podcast,
one of the presenters, is Venezuelan. And when
they talked about socialism, they were speaking
to a Venezuelan national who has fled the country.
Just out of interest, Nick, can you, off the
top of your head, I know you may have done a
bit of research here. How many... How many...
born Venezuelans are currently living outside
of the country. I know they had, I don't know
the numbers, but I know they had huge levels
of migration out of Venezuela. Yep. So I don't
know the numbers, but I know there's a huge number
of Venezuelans that left the country. That's
absolutely right. Based on that news, would...
are you willing to pick a figure or shall i just
tell you i mean i wouldn't want to hazard a guess
on the figure not knowing the base population
of venezuela that's fair enough okay so there's
currently nine million venezuelans living outside
of venezuela and a huge number of those have
literally as you've said migrated in the last
couple of years um this is due to mostly due
to uh Medoro's and before him Chavez's I would
say tyrannical rule the more you look into it
like we to be fair I think we've both been somewhat
spoiled in this country through although there
is censorship in this country but it's not on
the same level as anything like we can say what
we will and we might get or we might get a...
We might be arrested. If we were talking on a
scale of Australia to Korea, where would you
put them? Oh. Because you didn't say anything
you wanted in Australia. You helped me completely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To the point where they mock
other countries. Yeah, absolutely. Like... literally,
actually, how easy is it for you to edit things
out of this? Yeah, pretty well. I can look at
timestamps. Okay. So like, all right. So like
literally the, yeah, the song you can't say in
Canada. Yeah, absolutely. It just literally says
it all. The fact that you, like they're literally
going to mock saying that, that you can't say
that during a music venue. Yeah. All right. Kevin
Wilson. That's it. That's exactly it. It literally
says it all right. But yeah. So between the scale
from Australia to Korea, where would you put
them? I'll put them right next to Korea. Yeah.
Like maybe, maybe, maybe one level up simply
because I don't know. I'm assuming you're talking
about North Korea. Yeah. Like, like just to,
just to be clear, like South Korea, no data goes
out, no data comes in, you know, that kind of
place. Yeah, okay, they've got some data coming
out, but not a lot. Yeah, they've got some problem
with, yeah, they've got, right, anyway, sorry,
I'll tell you what, we'll just do it. The reason
why the Americans have taken Maduro, they're
saying that it's a regime change and that by
doing it, they're saving. millions of pounds,
thousands of lives by not going to war. I don't
think they ever were going to go to war, even
though Venezuela is on the south side of the
Caribbean basin and is not a huge distance away
from America. It is going to mostly be about
the oil, but there are a number of... good reasons
why uh they have stepped stepped in um but we're
gonna go as as with palestine and israel um there
is always kind of a cause and there is always
a history to play so we're just gonna go back
um through some of that and then i'll have a
well i'll ask you some questions at the end nick
and we'll see see how how much of this has gone
in um right venezuela was first discovered quote
unquote by Christopher Columbus in 1498. It was
very quickly turned into a Spanish colony in
the 1500s. However, the land that is Venezuela
was actually ruled as five separate provinces
named after the five major cities in Venezuela,
the largest of which being Caracas. At the time,
cocoa was the main export, but they also exported
leather and a number of other goods, which actually
meant that they were mostly ignored by their
Spanish overlords as they weren't pulling out
loads of silver out the ground or gold out the
ground. So the Spanish kind of focused more on
their other colonies. The cocoa trade went through
Caracas, which literally increased the wealth
of that city, growing it. It is now the modern
-day capital. And as with, unfortunately, with
the cocoa trade in other countries, guess who
they got to do the planting? Go on. Well, unfortunately,
it's a repeat. The thing that was happening in
North America under the English government happened
in South America through the Spanish government.
What is often referred to in history as the triangular
trade of slaves from Africa being moved in. Not
even indigenous people, although there were two
major people groups in the area of Venezuela.
Weirdly enough, one of the people groups is derived
from where we get the name cannibal. And they
were the ones which were able to overtake the
slightly more peaceful tribe. Annoyingly, yeah,
the slave trade was big. and slaves were used
to plant the cocoa until the price of coffee
started to rise, at which point cocoa slowly,
well, the trade slowly turned from cocoa to coffee.
Venezuela first tried to claim independence,
or at least One of the provinces which now makes
up Venezuela first tried to claim independence
in 1798. However, it wasn't for 21 years that
the area didn't claim its independence entirely
from the Spanish crown. During this time, there
was a great amount of turmoil. Any history buffs
will know this is very shortly after the American
Revolution. And a number of people who battled
the Spanish for Venezuelan independence had rubbed
shoulders with people like Alexander Hamilton
and George Washington. Weirdly enough, so one
of the major... battles right before the last
battle that pushed the Spanish out. One of the
generals was so desperate to push the Spanish
out that he actually got his army to cross the
Andes in 18... 1819. And he lost half of his
army doing that, yet still was able to beat the
Spanish at the Battle of Bogota. on the 10th
of August. Weirdly enough, it wasn't originally
called Venezuela. It was part of the Republic
of Grand Colombia, which lasted for 10 years
but quickly fell through. The first 60 years
after the Republic of Colombia had... After the
first 10 years of... The Republic of Colombia,
it fell through and you had 60 years of corrupt
dictator after corrupt dictator after corrupt
dictator with absolute power, with the name president
as their title, but their powers very much more
absolute. Authoritarian. Yeah, this was weirdly
enough known as the strongman period in Venezuelan.
um history yeah so chavez actually tried to when
he got in didn't he try to um fix that like he
was from what i've read he was quite pro um the
poor person trying to make their lives better
he was originally he he really was originally
like um chavez um was voted in democratically,
was a political activist before he was voted
in to power, had protested previous governments
for their brutality and came in with a large
leftist ideology which resonated with uh a lot
of the venezuelan people um nationalization social
wealth welfare yeah that's it he also wanted
to rewrite the constitution didn't he he did
he did um with the this constitution that was
written in 1830 yeah i was originally ratified
um yeah Sorry, I interrupted your history lesson.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But you're absolutely
right. Like a lot of this stuff. So weirdly enough,
socialism is there in Venezuela, but it doesn't
really, really, really kind of show its head
until like after the Second World War. Yeah.
Before then, there's a lot of... There's a lot
of corruption and there's a lot of kind of a
divide between rich and poor. But that's... Yeah,
like, that's it. It's the people who have land
who can, like, farm cocoa or coffee. And then
later, after 1914, oil is found near Lake...
Maracaibo? Yeah. Okay, but annoyingly, they'd
switched almost all of their produce over from
cocoa to coffee in 1840, just in time for the
price of coffee to crash, throwing their economy
into turmoil. In 1870, a man called Goose Blanco
rewrote the constitution so the constitution
was originally written and then like 40 years
later one of their dictators rewrites it a lot
of people each of the I'll be honest with you
I'm not going to go through all the names of
all the different dictators like there are There's
a huge varied history here. And what I will say
is, none of them are perfect, but there are varying
degrees of grey here. Like, some of them did
genuinely put money into the infrastructure of
Venezuela. Some people allowed... Control of
the press seems to be a huge... reoccurring theme
in Venezuela. Like a number of them, like what
did surprise me is just how much power the Catholic
Church had over Venezuela during its original
formation. And although this ends in the mid
1800s, I think, it was surprising to learn that.
It was also surprising. It's not really surprising
when you think of the nation that colonized.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you are absolutely
right. I just I forget how much power that particular
institution had. Basically, it took one of the
dictators who wasn't kind of completely down
with it to kind of cut off all state funding
to the Catholic Church. Weirdly enough, to this
day, over 90 % of Venezuelans claim to be Roman
Catholic. Which, again, is somewhat of a surprise,
but still. Moving forwards, in 1914, oil was
found and their economy skyrocketed. Cutland
drops, yeah, cutland drops. Yeah, no, you're
absolutely right. In 14 years, from 1914, from
when it was first found, it takes them only 14
years to become the largest oil exporter in the
world. They've got the largest supply of oil
in the world. Yeah, you beat me to it. Absolutely
true. I tell you what, you know what? There is
some oil in China, but how much of China's oil
comes from Venezuela, do you think? Let's go
40%. Okay, okay. It's only 4%, but considering
how much oil China uses? Like, that's still a
huge... It's significant, yeah. Yeah. Okay. In
the 1950s, after loads and loads and loads of
corrupt presidents, political parties start to
actually take to the scene. And during the 1950s,
you start getting the Christian socialists. and
the social action parties and the democratic
parties who all kind of vie for power. It's interesting
that each of the parties comes into power with
always these pure ideals and then comes in with
their pure ideals, gives everybody... uh the
freedom to um gather or to um what's the word
to protest or gives people civil civil liberties
until the people start a couple of years down
the line point out that they haven't been able
to change things the way that they originally
said they would yeah at which point every single
time it's immediately oh we're going to give
you this civil civil liberty And then they take
it back. And just every single time it seems
to be person starts with a good ideal. Power
slowly starts to corrupt them. They start to
oppress the people that they've saved. New people
rise up to fight against them. The regime gets
harder and harder and gets harder to the point
where all the people then fight against them.
new person put in place and then the entire cycle
cycle exactly and it's just like it's unfortunate
that the revolutions going round and round kind
of like gimmick it seems to very much be played
out through Venezuelan history in a lot of their
interestingly the Venezuelan government around
in the late 1900s, I can't remember which decade,
started taking half of the profits from the sale
of their oil. So although Venezuela was at one
point the fourth richest GDPR, in the world it's
never as rich as it should be and every like
all i can say is it seems like the stealing the
money seems to be part of the norm with the regime
in venezuela throughout history just like it's
really sad man look yeah like i said before we
started the call like they should Like, given
their resources, they absolutely should be one
of the wealthiest countries in the world. Absolutely.
Like, Dubai does not have as much oil as them,
and yet Dubai, you look at the cities, like,
they literally, they're making fake islands.
It's just better run. There's better collaboration,
I suppose, out there. They do work towards making
their country the greatest it could be instead
of profiting themselves. But that also comes
down to a little bit of strategic manipulation
from the rest of the world, right? Oh, absolutely.
Like something that... Okay, so us British, as
always, don't have our hands entirely clean on
this. We did buy stuff from them, but I imagine
we probably did sell them slaves. I haven't researched
that point, but it's just like, you know, we
kind of carved up, I think, a little bit more
of Africa than a lot of other European nations.
to say the least. And it wouldn't surprise me
if they got some of the slaves from us. The British
colony Guyana has had numerous trade disputes,
but also border disputes. And whenever Venezuela
has often gone to the international stage, and
asked other countries to intervene and spoken
with other countries the solutions that have
been mediated have always been in our favor like
massively like the the Venezuelans have been
have been messed up time and time and time again
Venezuela has kept the governments in Cuba afloat
by giving them oil time and time and time again
like it's just It just doesn't... The money's
all gone, but if the money had stayed in their
country or hadn't been taken by individuals,
Venezuela could truly have been made into something
incredible. There have been natural disasters.
There was a big storm in... The late 90s, which
killed hundreds of thousands of people in mudslides,
which is just absolutely agonizingly horrible.
I can't even imagine that. Maybe it's because
our country is incredibly flat and the weather's
incredibly boring that I can't... If a dozen
people die in a storm... in this country like
you'd have a national day of mourning like hundreds
of thousands is obscene um however sorry each
of the parties came to power and then replaced
uh the hugo chavez was um voted in um in i think
1997 um he 98. He took power in 99. Oh, okay.
99. Okay. He took power. Eventually, he died
of stomach cancer in 2013. In that time, though,
in the time of Chavez's rule, when he first kind
of took power, a lot of people like Bernie Sanders,
the American politician, and a lot of... slightly
left -leaning politicians in our own country,
raised Chavez and said, you know, like, this
is a great day for socialism. This is going to
work. The prices of oil from the start of Chavez's
reign to the end of his reign went up by a factor
of times 10. And yet, although people got slightly
better off to begin with, just the fact that
that money never made its way to the Venezuelan
people. Into the infrastructure. Yeah, despite
the fact that they're literally getting half
the profits, the companies are going in, getting
the oil, and then giving half of that money directly
to the government. It's kind of beyond belief.
Yeah, but how much of that price hike was countries
like America imposing tariffs to make Venezuelan
oil too expensive to be a reasonable commodity
to buy? Well, the Americans use some of that
oil. It wouldn't surprise me that market manipulation,
uh definitely has definitely has played a part
but because chavez wouldn't wouldn't ever um
not through everything i read chavez was not
one to like bend over backwards to accommodate
the u .s oh no he he sold he openly um sold he
sold uh there was something called like the The
South American market, I'm misquoting here, but
he sold oil cheaper to every other country but
America and to other developing world nations.
He sold the oil cheaper. He always made the Americans
pay through the nose for it. I don't mean to
side with him, but they can afford it. Yeah,
well, that was very much his feeling. Although,
I don't know enough about the human rights violations.
I looked more at the history of Venezuela. But
I know that Chavez gave the Colombians and the
Cubans cheap oil. And from them, he learned how
to gain a stranglehold on the country to the
point where at one point he gets deposed only
to be brought back in. Yeah, I was going to say
that didn't work very long, but he was very charismatic,
wasn't he? He was. One reason why he stayed in
power for as long as he did is because he had
the charisma. When he spoke, people genuinely
believed what he was saying, what he was trying
to do good. Yeah, that's it. Maduro definitely
did this, but there are stories of Maduro and
Chavez walking around the streets of Caracas
and just... claiming businesses which you know
like it takes a certain charisma to do like even
if you've got a police guard with you like if
you've spent your life working up a business
and you've heard that the president is going
around and it's not privatizing what's it called
when the government takes something Oh, there's
a name, nationalizing it. Yeah. And you hear
that, like, people have gone on hunger strike
and died from their family farm being nationalized
because the president happened to be walking
past and just saying, cool, that's now the people's.
You shouldn't have that. I should have looked
more into, like, more into Maduro, more into
Chavez, but... It's not solely Maduro's and it's
not solely Chavez's fault that the countries
are in the state that they're in. No, but one
thing that I do know from the reading that I've
done is that Maduro lacked that charisma that
Chavez had. And when he managed to get into power,
he had to shift his hold. on the country to a
slightly different tact in order to impose the
same level of power that Chavez had. Where Chavez
could talk in order to get what he wanted from
the people, Maduro had to go about it a different
way. That wasn't going to work for him. So he
started using more, or should we say he started
using less. socially acceptable ways of controlling
the people absolutely back in 2016 under Maduro
Colombia opened its borders very very briefly
and Venezuelans in this brief moment when the
border was opened used this opportunity to run
over into the Colombian border to use their savings
to buy food, milk, and basic medical supplies.
At this point, this grabbed the attention. And
it's not just, you know, like 12 people. This
was hundreds of people all crossing the border
at the same time. bursting into neighboring towns
and villages just to get basic supplies. At this
point, the UN kind of spoke up and said that
there's a problem here. And Maduro has spent
all of this time up until recently saying that
there is not a problem, that there is none of
your business. controlling the press so that
the poverty in Venezuela isn't talked about isn't
kind of broadcast around the world and on top
of that refusing humanitarian aid from the UN
and unfortunately this narrative is the one that
the Americans can very easily latch onto as a
reason for disregarding another country's borders
and taking him. It's not the entire reason, though,
as Venezuela is, there's a word in Spanish, I
can't even remember it, it's basically, the drugs
aren't made. Venezuela is involved in the drug
trade, but the drugs aren't made in Venezuela.
Venezuela is literally known as the bridge. It's
where they go through in order to get into America,
in order to get into other countries, which shouldn't
be all that surprising as the Venezuelan ports
are on the Caribbean basin and makes transport
a lot, lot easier. Yeah, I know they've got a
lot of trade with Cuba. Yeah. It surprises me
to know that they've got a lot of trade with
Russia and with China as well. Well, but this
is the thing. Again, it's the fact that they
were a left -wing nation. So it's to do with
communism, to do with Marxism, like Hugo Chavez.
venerated the original founders of Venezuela,
but he also venerated Marxism and kind of made
up... He consolidated his beliefs into a certain
rhetoric, and it is called... I think people
who believe in it are called chavistas. I don't
know enough about the rhetoric, though, to say
if I agree or disagree. All I'll say is the results.
We've got chavs in the UK, but they're a bit
different. They are a little bit different. A
little bit stylish, mind, but a little bit different.
I don't know if you'd call socks, like trousers
tucked into their socks, stylish, but... That's
different. They're making a statement. Right.
I guess I'll... I know that apparently... When
they took Maduro, there were a couple of explosions.
The thing that first alerted people to the fact
that this was happening was the fact that at
Caracas, there's a no -fly zone over the city.
So people heard aircraft coming in. And the fact
that nobody... I mean, I'd like to think that
if a huge amount of blood had been spilt during
this taking, that someone would have reported
on it. I don't, I mean, I remember seeing the
news reports. I know I saw a missile strike.
Where that missile strike was targeting, I can't
confirm. But I also know that... Venezuela isn't
known for its military presence. Yeah, there
are gangs, there are secret police, but they
are not, I don't think their standing army is
massive. No. So I don't think it would have been
a big battle to go in and depose Maduro. I think
it's a good chance to really talk about that,
right? Like you've alluded to a number of times,
America, they'll use any opportunity to monopolize
if they can. And there is so much of what I was
reading that made me feel like this was one of
those occasions where they had used Almost, what's
that religious term about the devil or what's
the bloke that comes wearing, he looks like Jesus,
but he's not. The Antichrist. The Antichrist,
that's the one. That kind of an antichristic
image of like, we're going in, we're going to
do the good thing. We're going to go in and do
the good thing. No, what you're actually going
in to do. is to appoint your powers to manage
the oil deportation out of Venezuela and put
your own leader in place in Venezuela to run
the country how you want it to be run. But if
you genuinely wanted Venezuela to succeed and
thrive as a nation, if you felt the need to go
in and depose its leader, a leader that was,
or allow the nation to select a leader and then
put in, I don't know, maybe minders or something
like that to give them the stability and the
guidance they needed to run, like learn to run
their country in a way that was humanitarian.
And you wouldn't touch the bloody oil. You'd
say it's your resource. You need it to grow and
develop. We're going to help you become a humanitarian
country with good rights and good infrastructure,
but you're going to need that oil industry to
build an economy to sustain your country. You
wouldn't go in and put your own oil companies
in as a means to manage that oil supply. The
main thing that makes my blood boil is the fact
that the biggest threat to America at the moment
is this trade situation with China and Russia
and how they're losing economic power in the
world, mainly through bad choices. on their part,
but also because these understated but powerful
countries are getting more powerful and striking
up more deals around the world. Venezuela opened
trade deals with all of them, and they hated
that. Look at what Trump threatened. the Canadian
president with when the Canadian president entertained
a trade deal with China. I don't know how he
reacted. What did Trump say? He threatened them
with a 100 % tariff on all imports from Canada
to America. Wow. Admittedly, his Senate... did
slap him quite hard and say you can't do that
mate and he had to retract his statement but
the fact is their leader is very twitchy about
anybody striking up good trade deals with anyone
that isn't america and it just i think it's coincidental
and i don't like coincidences i don't believe
in them um It's coincidental that this comes
at a time when we're seeing the kind of behavior
from America that we're seeing at the moment.
And it's at this time that they decided to go
in and depose the leader of Venezuela. Under
this guise of humanitarianism and reducing the
risk of wars. And I won't go into Trump's recent
actions could be a whole nother podcast on Trump,
if I'm completely honest. But that's not where
I'm going with this. The point is, America has
always been you look at the war in Iraq and in
the Gulf. And that was predominantly around oil
trade and resource trade within the Middle East.
The Gulf War initially was. was conducted as
a means to impose their economic standing in
the Middle East. And when Saddam Hussein eventually
bent over and said, fine, I'll give you what
you want, they buggered off back to America and
we went back to the UK and we were happy with
that deal that we had and we got on with it.
And then 20, 30, 40 years later, Saddam Hussein
went, no, we're not doing this anymore. I'm going
to stand up for my country and fight for what
my country needs. And they went in and took him
down. That is essentially the long and the short
of it. They can put whatever face on it they
want. The fact is they didn't get out of Iraq
or Iran what they were looking for. So they punched
him in the face until they got what they needed.
And when he didn't back down, when they punched
him in the face even harder, they killed him
and put in their own leader. And it feels very
similar that they invaded and deposed Venezuela
in this kind of way. It feels very Gulf War -esque.
The only difference with Iran was that they trained
Saddam Hussein to be a very powerful leader.
And he used that training to protect his country.
And they weren't ready for that. So it ended
up with a war. Venezuela didn't have that level
of skill or the infrastructure to defend itself
in the same way. Maduro definitely did not have
the same level of training that Saddam Hussein
had. He wasn't equipped to protect his country.
Even if, like, I mean... And this is not like,
listeners, please don't think that I'm siding
with the leadership in Venezuela here. They needed
to be stopped. But there's a way to do it that
shows the intention behind your getting involved.
The way to do it is to show that you are not
wanting to profit. You want the humans within
that country to benefit from a change in leadership.
And how you do that is you go, I'm not taking
anything from you. We're just going to help you
get off on the right foot. That's definitely
not what's happening here. No, sadly, it's definitely
not. Venezuela's interim leader is a member.
of the Maduro government. It's the only one who
doesn't currently have an American bounty on
their head for millions upon millions of dollars.
The rest of the, yeah, the rest of the government.
Leaders do. They've literally. Said that this
person. Isn't forever. They don't have enough
power. So that they're going to be. What's the
right word. So. They're literally just using
them. As a. Stop gap. As a stop gap. And then
they're not going to. To touch. To touch them.
Apparently. According to someone, I can't remember
who said this in Trigonometry, but like one of
the people there was talking about the fact that
America had been in contact with Maduro and had
basically said, look, we don't like what you're
doing. If you leave the country now, we're not
going to do. anything to you but uh yeah we you
know we need what we need um we don't like what
you're doing if you stop now and leave then you
won't be touched if not we're going to take you
is apparently like a conversation has happened
at some point but again it's i think this is
conjecture no way i'm pretty sure that was conjecture
on the host part and it's just it's frustrating
because you remove one bad person from a terrible
regime and from a country which has been suffering
for like several decades very intensely but several
centuries just generally you know there's been
some good times in there but they've not been
you know the good times look like they've been
very few and far between for the Venezuelan people
it's not going to change anything you're absolutely
right you know like if you if you're going to
do this then you wouldn't touch the natural resources
at all you'd send in a small strike force but
you'd have boots on the ground stopping Bad things
from happening. As it stands at the moment. According
to a Venezuelan national. Who was on trigonometry.
And I need to find out. What their name was exactly.
But there are still. There is still a curfew.
In Caracas. There is still. The same people.
Are in charge. The same social situation. It's
still. all the same. And although it's going
to take time for things to change, ultimately
all that America's got is an interim leader who
has said, quite categorically, we will give America
whatever they want. That's all they've achieved.
It's a lot of reason why they've stopped punching
them in the face. Yeah. That's it. That's it.
What do you think will be the future for Venezuela?
Do you think things will ever get better? I think
it's going to go the same kind of way that Syria
did. I don't know if you know a little bit about
the history of Syria. Syria was quite a nationalist
country. For example, they were paying its citizens...
hefty grants to start farms build up their own
economy like they were like wanting to build
their own economy and and keep trade from the
inside to the outside instead of having to import
as much as they were having to at the time um
and then for some reason um There was political
unrest, civil uproar, and then deposition happened
and a new leader was put in place. The new leader
has since struck up hefty trade deals with America
and other countries that are part of that ilk,
us along with them, and are now importing a lot
more goods. they're buying more than they're
selling. And I can see the same kind of thing
happening to Venezuela. It's not about the economy
benefiting. It's about them feeding into this
cycle where the American or the Western economy
benefits. Yeah, I... It'd be nice if... The American
companies are already in control of the companies
that Venezuela had in place to manage their oil
distribution. They've handed that over to companies
like US Standard Oil. So they've already lost
that as a means of economic stability, economic
standing, shall we say. and any other resources
that they have, it will go the same way. And
it's sad because independence, a country that
is able to sustain itself and support itself,
will start to look... The more stable you are
in yourself, the more you start to look outward
and want to help other people. The more you're
instable, you keep your eyes focused on yourself
and you stop thinking about everybody else. And
if the world is to ever know a time of peace
where... borders are more of a grey area than
they are of a firm, stern, black line, people
are going to have to feel safe in themselves
in their own homes and not be so insecure that
they can't look outside their own windows. I
mean, yeah. Yeah. Listen, we could have gone
deeper, right? Because right now I have got a
lot to say about America and a lot to say about
the most recent World Forum and the happenings
there and the kind of big boy bully move that
America's trying to pull on the rest of the world
at the moment. And I'm glad we didn't because
it would have just turned into a passionate rant
about trades, deals, tariffs and agreements being
mutually exclusive and not angled towards any
one particular party. Sorry that this podcast
turned into a little bit of that, but I think
it was always going to, given the US's involvement.
But, yeah, it was a great history lesson. I think
it was really enlightening to know that hopefully
there can be some positive come of this, whereby
now that there is some... from more established
and... At the very least, I'm hoping at least
with some of the American influence in there,
the hydroelectric dam will be repaired. Let's
just hope the humanitarian elements of having
US involvement benefit the country yeah so like
without Maduro there to block humanitarian aid
like maybe in a month's time we'll actually you
know maybe like Oxfam we'll see an Oxfam advert
and actually have the chance to give towards
some basic you know medical or food supplies
for the people of Venezuela but yeah it's weird
that that's not been offered or talked about
at all but I realized not the world is in need
and you can't focus on everything but it would
yeah I'm surprised I haven't seen any advertisements
or heard of any charities like kind of being
able or immediately going in thank you very much
listeners sorry that I'm My scatterbrain way
of describing things isn't quite as good as it
should be, but hopefully now you understand a
little bit more about Venezuela, about the Spanish
influence over the country, about some of the
problems faced with its most recent leadership,
not necessarily being an exception, but unfortunately
more the norm within the country. Hope you all
have a good couple of weeks or months until we
next record. Speak to you soon. Bye.