I have met Maduro, Delcy Rodriguez too. And before them Chavez. I have walked around the streets of Caracas. Through other locales in Venezuela as well. And some Communes too. All that was some time back. It is all totally irrelevant. What matters, then? That I am a citizen of the United States. And so I should work to stop my country’s latest infamy. And about the only means I have available is to write. 

U.S. malevolence is now directed at Venezuela. On the one hand, we steadily escalated violence in surrounding waters with extra judicial murders. It didn’t work. Then we imposed economic war in the form of a full blockade. Doing so targeted the population. It said to Venezuelans, overthrow your government to stop the punishment we impose. It didn’t work. So now we bombed Caracas and some other “targets.” Trump says, we will run the country. We will get back the oil under their ground that they stole. Our imperial violence will win. So why war? Why now? Put differently, war, what is it good for? Who is it good for?

These assaults have nothing to do with drugs. Trump doesn’t kidnap real drug runners. He pardons them. But if it’s not drugs, what is the motivation? 

To try to explain Trump’s behavior is fraught with difficulty even after the fact. Kurt Vonnegut might have said it is like trying to tell time using a cuckoo clock from hell. Nonetheless, I think the three best candidate explanations are grabbing oil power and wealth, exacting vengeance writ large, and perpetual distraction. 

Oil, because Trump doesn’t care a whit about the planet and its inhabitants. Instead, like others before him, he likes the idea of controlling as much of that productive but supremely deadly substance as possible. It is because oil conveys power. Because oil impacts prices. Because oil can enrich those who hold it. Trump doesn’t hide this motive. He flaunts it. And Venezuela has by far the largest oil reserves in the world. What a prize. Trump’s true base, his billionaire base, will benefit big from taking over Venezuela’s oil while they still can, before Trump is defanged and removed.

Vengeance, because Trump thinks, like most American President’s have thought, that the U.S. owns the world. We don’t invade anywhere because everywhere is ours. We can’t invade what we own. We don’t attack anyone because anything we do is by definition defense. More, when Venezuela nationalized its oil industry (in 1976 and later intensified under Chavez), Trump believes it stole our oil. After all, we own the world. Everything is ours and everything includes oil sitting under Venezuela. So sure, let’s punish the Venezuelan thieves. Let’s grab back what’s ours. Vengeance is obviously warranted. More, when Cubans overthrew Batista, Castro stole the country he resided in. Fancy that. It’s just imperial calculus. Controlling Venezuela will hurt Cuba.

But beyond immediate motivations, I fear that the Venezuela coup may be a prelude rather than a conclusion. Even a training exercise. Cuba? Mexico? Greenland? The whole damn Hemisphere? I’d have said this was too dangerous for elites to even contemplate, except the elites we are talking about are Trump and his toadies.

Distraction, because Trump’s popularity is being seriously eroded and a one-sided war is typically very effective for rallying nationalist fervor. It will turn peoples’ eyes away from ignores silly niceties like law and morality, won’t it? Will the stench of war and a cacophonous demand for patriotism align mainstream media with Trump’s wishes? If unchallenged it most likely will. Will it align the population with Trump’s wishes? Be patriotic, dammit. I think the odds of that alignment occurring are way less. But will the public not only dislike but also resist imperial war making? 

All Trump’s motives, pursued consistent with overarching imperial agendas, make U.S. actions illegal, immoral, and considering human survival, utterly irrational. 

Trump’s choice also, however, poses an interesting if rather obscene question. Some ask it this way. What can one now say if China invades Taiwan? Or what can one say if Russia kidnaps Zelensky? It turns out imperialism is okay and even excellent for us, but not for others. And certainly not for others arrayed against us. I want to ask a different question. It’s more general. It’s meant to highlight—egad—the morality of the situation.

Does one nation (the U.S.) have a right to kidnap the President and bomb the citizens of another nation (Venezuela) because the bombardier nation accuses the target nation of some sort of nefarious activity? Proof be damned. Or for that matter, even if proof of nefarious activities were to exist, would it make international violence okay? Bombs away.

How about if the bombardier nation can easily prove incontestable acts by the target nation that threaten the bombardier’s very existence? Would it be wrong for Venezuela, Iran, or for that matter any nation where people are endangered by global warming, U.S. trade policies, or the U.S. military to bomb the U.S. and kidnap Trump? If that would be immoral, then isn’t such behavior also immoral for us to enact?

So what now? Trump says we will run Venezuela. We will get the oil flowing faster than it ever has. Drill, baby drill and do it unlike ever before. With our corporations in charge. 

Does that mean we will put U.S. officials into Venezuela to conduct government affairs? Or we will find Quislings in Venezuela to do our bidding? So we can then claim we freed Venezuelans so they could rule themselves? And what happens if Venezuelans from Communes and communities across the country say no? What happens if they dare to refuse our orders? If they withhold labor in a mass strike? If they surround their occupied “White House,” (called Miraflores)? If they turn off its electricity and water until the U.S. officials leave? Boots on the ground? Bodies buried? 

And what about abroad and particularly in the U.S.? So far the international consensus seems to uphold international law. But who says to Trump, return Maduro? Who says to Trump, your motives are vile imperial greed and boundless power? And in the land of the free and home of the brave what if Americans decide to collectively surround wherever the kidnapped Maduro is held to demand his release? And what if support rallies and marches and sit-ins demand peace? What if they challenge mainstream media? They “Press the press.” What if they challenge oil companies? They demand ecological sanity. And of course, what if they challenge the government?

So we again encounter Trumpian worst times stuff. How about news of some offsetting best times stuff? I did not see Mamdani’s mayoral inauguration live on New Year’s Day. But I did see it on Youtube January 2nd. And speaking for myself, the various speakers were all predictably good—until Mamdani. He was more than predictably good. Indeed, to my eyes and ears he was what is sometimes called the real deal. 

Suppose you were being sworn in as Mayor of New York, What would be the best possible speech you might sensibly deliver in the economic capital of the Western world? The exploitative center of capitalist greed. Not the best conceivable words for posterity. No, the best words in the freezing cold outside Gracie Mansion in the current Trump-poisoned U.S.A.? What would be the best words that you could deliver to communicate constructively with a massive and incredibly diverse audience in the city and beyond? 

I thought about those questions, and about Mamdani’s effort, and I doubt many if any others could have communicated better than Mamdani did. Both in substance and in delivery. So I watched and I found myself tearing up joyfully over and over. I felt seriously hopeful. And I didn’t conjure the hope I felt from my own abstract beliefs, or from long-term carefully cultivated confidence. I felt rising hope and desire too despite the unbelievably corrupt, corrupting, violent, and debilitating world around us all because Mamdani exuded and produced hope plus desire and also, most important, resolve.

Watch the events yourself. Hear his aims which go way beyond immediate policies to embrace long term reconstruction. Listen to his attitude to delivering real action rather than testing where the wind is blowing and perpetually pronouncing “no, that’s impossible” about every significant suggestion. His message, instead was Another world is possible. Help win it.

So, what now? It’s simple enough. Oppose Trump. Go multi issue. Go multi tactic. Resist to stop Trump now and long march toward winning fundamental political, cultural, gender, economic, internationalist, and ecological change as soon as we can. Every day delayed is more pain and suffering, more death and destruction endured. 

Reports I have seen say that Maduro has been taken to New York City to be tried, to be found guilty, and to be punished. Trumpian law ascendant. Is NY as the destination a coincidence? Can you hear Trump: Take him to NYC, bellows Trump. Let’s see how Mamdani reacts to that, guffaws Trump. Watch how the aroused and eager for change people of New York react to that, Trump threatens.

Okay, how about if we react with resistance. We react with demonstrations that surround the courtroom where Maduro is held. How about if activists hold signs that read Free Maduro Back to Venezuela on one side, and Try Trump for Crimes Against Humanity on the other side? How about if the reaction is outraged, informed, non compliance? If the reaction is resistance?

Maduro is not a hero of mine. But Trump is evil incarnate. Trump needs to be removed from office. Trump needs to be sequestered away from living breathing humans. And then, that accomplished, how about if we hold a special election? What a thought. The public gets a say. Because Vance is most assuredly also unworthy.

That perhaps ought to be the end of this short essay, but I have another related thought tugging at my mind. Across the U.S. young people in high schools and especially colleges, are witnessing yet again a level of mendacity, hypocrisy, and violent thuggery that has got to capture their attention. They can’t be oblivious, can they? So what will they make of it? What will they do about it? I think for them this may prove to be a life-defining moment. Succumb or rebel? There is a poem by Langston Hughes that goes like this:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

What keeps running through my head regarding what’s going on, is a question. What will happen to a young person who sees Trump’s vile egomaniacal self unleash the dogs of war? If their reaction sags like a heavy load, I fear their humanity may be downsized for a long time. And if their reaction is instead to dream anew, to imagine better, and to explode, I think the world may change. 

Out of the schools and into the streets.The times certainly do need to change. 

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