TRUMP SEIZES THE OIL: “WE’RE GOING TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY” — WHILE VENEZUELA’S CENTURY-OLD CURSE OF BLACK GOLD CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM
https://x.com/Trendtowar18751/status/2007524147115765809
TRUMP SEIZES THE OIL: “WE’RE GOING TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY” — WHILE VENEZUELA’S CENTURY-OLD CURSE OF BLACK GOLD CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM
On January 3, 2026, President Donald Trump stood before the nation and announced the capture of Nicolás Maduro, declaring that the United States would temporarily “run the country” during a transition.
He didn’t hide the motive: Venezuela had “stolen our oil” through nationalizations decades ago, American companies had built the industry, and now “we’re going to make a lot of money.”
U.S. oil giants, he promised, would flood in to rebuild infrastructure, extract profits, and reclaim what was “taken.”
Across X, Trump supporters erupted in celebration, framing the takeover as a triumph of liberty.
Posts flooded timelines: Venezuelans “celebrating in the streets,” shouting “¡Libertad!” and thanking Trump for ending “socialist ruin” and “narco-terrorism.”
Influencers like called it “giving Venezuela their freedom back,” while shared videos of jubilant crowds, declaring it would “drive the left crazy.”
Cuban-American voices wept on camera, proclaiming “No one deserves to live under communism,” and praising Trump for delivering justice after decades of oppression.
“Freedom advances!” echoed one viral clip, with thousands cheering the dawn of a “free Venezuela.”
But history screams the opposite: once oil was found in Venezuela, freedom was never the point.
For the Indigenous Añú and Wayuu peoples around Lake Maracaibo, the black seepage was sacred mene, skimmed gently to seal canoes and heal fevers.
Then, in 1914, the first commercial strike hit, and everything changed.
Foreign companies—Standard Oil, Shell, Gulf—poured in under concessions from dictator Juan Vicente Gómez.
The Indigenous paid first: spills poisoned fisheries, pipelines scarred ancestral waters, fires razed stilt villages. Displacement, disease, and exclusion followed as corporate enclaves barred locals from the wealth bubbling beneath their feet.
Lake Maracaibo, once a healer, became a toxic sacrifice zone.
For the rest of Venezuela’s people, farmers, workers, migrants, the boom created one of the most unequal societies on earth.
By the mid-20th century, the top 20% captured over half the income; the bottom 20% scraped by on crumbs.
A tiny elite, propped by Gómez’s brutal regime, pocketed bribes, controlled contracts, and built empires while the state served as cashier.
Rural poverty drove masses to oil camps, where foreigners lived in luxury and Venezuelans toiled in danger for pennies.
Agriculture collapsed; the economy addicted to volatile prices.
Inequality wasn’t a bug, it was the system.
The 1976 nationalization under Carlos Andrés Pérez was meant to break this: PDVSA formed, foreign firms compensated, revenues promised for the people.
Chávez’s 1998 election on redistributing that wealth represented a real attempt to shift power to the excluded, the poor, the dark-skinned, the barrio dwellers.
Flawed, corrupt in execution, yes, but a genuine push against the old plantation model.
Now, in one night, we’ve erased those gains.
U.S. forces dismantle defenses, install oversight, and hand the fields back to American majors.
The same interests that struck the match in 1914 are finishing the job, openly this time.
I’m enraged. Educated by history, incredulous that we’re watching a naked resource grab dressed as liberation, and so many cheering it on.
The Indigenous died first for this oil. Workers and farmers lived in chains of inequality for it.
Nationalization fought to change that. And today?
We’re bringing back the old order, profits flowing north, under the banner of “freedom.”
How many times must Latin America burn its fields before we stop blaming the harvest?
posted by Satish Sharma at
01:26
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home