A Thought on the US Going To Venezuela To Negotiate (beg) For Oil

Someone asked for my thoughts on this trainwreck in the making. Picture this: for years, the US has been sponsoring the overthrow of the Venezuelan government, even going so far as to officiall recognize some con artist who is living outside of the country as the “legitimate” head of state even though he was never elected to any such post. And they “froze” (AKA stole) Venezuela’s gold (if you’re wondering where Ukraine’s is, same thing - in “The West” where I’m sure the NY and London bankers are keeping it all safe and cozy - sarc icon necessary now) so Maduro can’t access it (AKA the actual head of Venezuelan state).

And now (giggle), the US is going to ask Venezuela to supply it oil to replace Russia’s flow.

Hmm. Wonder what the response will be?

Of course, the US won’t negotiate in good faith. It will likely go in with a threat to nuke Venezuela or invade it if it doesn’t give the US exactly what it wants.

Were I Maduro, I would tell the US to pound sand and go work a deal with the “recognized” government of Venezuela hiding in London or wherever, and see how that fares in terms of breaking loose oil for the US. Perhaps that “government in exile” can make a pronouncement and agree to send all Venezuela’s oil to the US. Of course, that will be meaningless since nobody but the US listens to anything that puppet has to say. But before I did that, I would make the unfreezing of the country’s gold a prerequisite for commencing negotiations. No unfreezing, no discussion. Simple.

Then, after dragging things out for weeks, I would announce I was willing to sell oil in exchange for physical gold at whatever the paper oil price is - but will only accept physical gold in payment. That is exactly the same as telling the US to F off, because anyone with a brain understands that there isn’t nearly enough physical for the US to buy and use in trade at anything less than $20K USD per ounce, and that the physical price has been manipulated for years via paper (in violation of law) in order to keep the dollar’s appearance of value intact. Supposedly the US has 8000 tons of gold in Fort Knox, but hasn’t allowe an audit since 1953 - sounds legit to me, right? Everyone knows there is no gold there, or that it’s all been hypothecated to others to sell to keep the price manipulated, so the US would have to go into the real physical market and try to buy it, which would instantly drive the price to the moon. And then Russia would demand the same thing for its natural gas and oil, at which point the Saudis would do the same, and there goes the dollar with one flush - the equivalent of a nuke over wall street with a few words.

Simply put, the US dollar is based on fraud, lies, and the willingness to use the US military as a mercenary army to keep the privately owned Federal Reserve’s paper IOUs accepted by the world as its reserve currency. It has no intrinsic value, any more than the Zimbabwe dollar does, which the US and the Fed know - which is why the military is trotted out to support it whenever things get iffy (just ask Libya or Iraq or Syria).

But refuse to accept it for your goods of tangible worth, and the game’s over for the US.

Of course this will never happen with Venezuela, because the threat to nuke it would be real (the US for all its crocodile tears could care less about innocent citizens, just as it didn’t care about the American Indian, or the innocents in Vietnam, or in North Korea, or in Iraq or Afghanistan or Serbia or Yemen or Central America or Somalia or anywhere else it has engaged in mass murder), and one of the two negotiating parties really wouldn’t want to see its population slaughtered so the US can get its way.

This is the world we live in. Make no mistake, for all the “Evil Putin” propaganda (and he may well be), the US government is the largest mass murderer of the 21st Century, by far, with #2 not even in the same ballpark. That is fact. Which is why the hypocrisy over all the pearl clutching and hand wringing for the Ukrainians, who have been set up as the cannon fodder in this war by the US’ coup-installed puppet president, annoys me so. You have to be completely ignorant of history to take the stance that the US government has any right to chastise anyone over anything.

Which I suppose most of the country is.

Sigh.