Dear Friend,
On Sunday, April 14 (just a few days away) the people of Venezuela will vote for a new president to succeed the late Hugo Chavez.
This election will be enormously significant, not just for Venezuela, but also for the entire Latin American and Caribbean region; indeed, in many respects, crucial to the destinies of many countries in the developing world.
There are reports circulating today that Washington is busy interfering in the election campaign with the objective of determining an outcome that will serve its imperial interests in the Americas.
I hope you can join me, and many others, in demanding that the State Department and the CIA stay out of the Venezuelan people’s internal affairs.
I also hope you can take a few minutes to watch a video interview that I conducted recently with Julio Rafael Escalona, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations. The video is entitled “The Legacy of Hugo Chavez Lives On” and in it the ambassador speaks movingly about what Chavez and the ‘Chavista Movement’ means to the peoples of Venezuela, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
He also addresses the future of Venezuela’s international initiatives such as PetroCaribe, CELAC, ALBA , the heating oil assistance program in US cities like New York, Boston and Detroit etc. in the post-Chavez period.
If you like the video, feel free to post it to your Wall and share it with your Facebook friends and with those in your other networks, and if you have a Web site or blog please consider posting it there, as well. Thanks.
In solidarity,
Don Rojas
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 430 new monthly donors in the next 7 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy