by Egoli
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke’s words were as apt in the 1700s as they are today. As someone who witnessed weeks- long protests outside the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC, I might add, far less eloquently: “Sometimes, the triumph of evil requires bad men to cheer it on.”
After the U.S. government, along with many other western democracies and most of Latin America, recognized Juan Guaido as the acting president of Venezuela, the troubled nation’s diplomatic staff left and Guaido’s replacements were to have occupied the embassy in the staid Georgetown suburb of Washington, DC. Taking over diplomatic services, however, became much more complicated after leftist activists occupied the embassy, refusing to let Guaido’s diplomats in. Not only did the activists refuse entry to the embassy’s rightful occupants, they used the building to mount a defense of Nicolas Maduro’s disastrous regime. In response, pro-democracy Venezuelans mounted a counter protest, demanding their embassy back.
I work in an office building directly opposite the embassy and after the leftist activists, led by the anti-war group Code Pink, occupied the embassy, I had to endure several weeks of non-stop protests. To be clear, the annoyance of having my work day disturbed by loud hailers, chants, and occasional sirens is nothing compared to the ongoing suffering and misery of the Venezuelan people. However, the disturbance provided an interesting glimpse into the mind of the radical leftist.
Most of the leftist protesters appeared to be gray haired aging socialists, perhaps wanting to relive their erstwhile protest days of the 1960s. “No Coup” they chanted as they held up signs saying, among other things, “U.S. Hands Off Venezuela” and “No War For Oil.”
First, it was Venezuela’s legislature that named Guaido interim president as required by the country’s Constitution, not outside forces. Second, Guaido is a social democrat and hardly a stooge for President Trump. Third, and this may be news to the leftists, the United States has become the world’s largest producer of fossil fuels thanks to innovative fracking and a dynamic private sector. The U.S. does not need to start a war to get its hands on a commodity that it already produces in vast quantities and that is traded on international markets.
Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro promised a better life for Venezuela’s poor. The reality under the country’s socialist policies has been a dramatic, but predictable, decline in quality of life. The economy has gone into a tailspin, shrinking by around 17 percent in 2017 alone. The availability of food, medicines, toilet paper, and even electricity, have become scarce. Perhaps the most reliable measure of the economic and social disaster in the country is captured in the fact that, according to the United Nations, 3.4 million Venezuelans have fled the country and are mostly living as refugees in neighboring Columbia, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. Aside from the hardships ordinary people face due to the economic collapse, they have to deal with violent repression, imprisonment, and even murder at the hands of the state.
All of this has been widely covered in the media. Given the miserable lot of the Venezuelan people, one would think that leftist protesters, who supposedly care about the world’s poor, would be offer sympathy and even support for an end to the Maduro regime. You would be wrong, however. As I witnessed, many times the American Code Pink activists and others arguing with and talking down to the Venezuelans counter-protesters.
I spoke to one Venezuelan who described how his father had recently died of a heart attack because he was not able to get low dose aspirin that would have saved his life. He had been sending money to his father, but hard currency was useless when the most basic medicines were simply nowhere to be found. For this man to be berated for not supporting the socialist Maduro regime by American leftists living in the wealthiest country on earth, at the moment of greatest prosperity in human history is beyond bizarre.
The spectacle of aging socialists defending the brutal Maduro regime confirmed for me the aphorism that “there is no fool like an old fool.”
Throughout the protest, Code Pink was constantly tweeting and seeking wider support for its campaign. The group went further, however, in photographing some of Venezuelan counter-protesters, and sharing their faces and names on Twitter. For this reason, I have requested anonymity in this op-ed, not wanting Code Pink protesters, who have evidently lost their moral compass, doxing me or banging on my office door.
Towards the end of the weeks-long protest, Code Pink was joined by a mostly African American group wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “Poor People’s Army” and some with “Black Lives Matter” signs. There was much excitement when celebrity activist and one-time presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson Sr. arrived to hand deliver food to the activists illegally occupying the embassy.
After far too long the Secret Service managed to evict the squatters from inside the embassy and the protesters outside drifted away.
Why, I wondered, would these disparate groups gather to protest Juan Guaido and defend the barbarism of the Maduro regime? I think it is safe to conclude that Code Pink and its allies don’t actually care at all about Venezuela or its people. These radical leftists are consumed by a hatred of America and all it stands for.
The United States is far from perfect and while it has not always lived up to its founding principles, it has always strived to do so. The United States has been and remains a force for good in the world and one of the only countries on earth where anyone can pursue happiness, and find it. The pro-Maduro leftist activists are free to leave whenever they want and I’m sure the Maduro regime would welcome them. Interestingly they choose to remain, secured by the protections of the greatest Constitution on earth, while defending one of the world’s worst human rights abusers.
Perhaps my addendum to Burke’s wise words should read: “Sometimes, the triumph of evil requires the truly pathetic to cheer it on.”
The writer lives and works in Washington, DC
