@MaxBlumenthal
The NY Times puffs Maria Corina Machado, the de facto opposition candidate running to unseat Pres. Nicolas Maduro, as "the 'Iron Lady' of Venezuela.
I first encountered Machado on Feb 23, 2019 outside the Carlota Airbase in Caracas, where she was leading a mob of putchists as part of the US-sponsored military coup that failed to topple Maduro by force. As @anyaparampil explains in her new book, Corporate Coup, that regime change plot was not necessarily designed to remove Maduro, but to create the context for recognizing an alternative government that would place Venezuelan state assets like Citgo into the hands of Washington.
Machado's campaign represents the latest stage of the corporate coup, and indeed, her entire career has been propelled by the forces behind it. Her original party, Sumate, received massive grants from the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime change arm of the US government, around the time when George W. Bush welcomed her in the Oval Office. Machado has lobbied for devastating sanctions against her own country, fueling the migrant crisis on the US-Mexico border. She has even called for US military intervention in Venezuela to remove the elected Chavista government. Naturally, she would be eager to hand control over Venezuela's natural resources to US multinationals.
None of this background was mentioned by the NY Times, yet it perfectly explains why a putschist fanatic receives such positive coverage in US corporate media.
Source: https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1816695664270512544
