Colombia: Pence out! The Trump/Pence regime must be stopped!

16 August 2017. A World to Win News Service. US President Donald Trump has threatened to unleash a "military option" against Venezuela, because "the people are suffering, they're dying." Seeking to round up support for imposing regime change out of what he called his concern for "democracy", he sent his vice president Mike Pence on a week-long tour to talk to the heads of some of Latin America's leading US-dependent regimes, starting in Colombia and then going on to Argentina (where the US provided large-scale financial support and arms for a 1976 military coup that "disappeared" about 30,000 people), Chile (where the CIA helped organize a 1973 coup against the elected government of Salvador Allende, killing thousands and driving a whole generation into exile) and Panama (whose president was directly overthrown by invading US troops in 1989).

The following was put out before Pence's visit by the Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia (Alborda Comunista, acgcr.org.) 

The U.S. Vice President, the ultra-conservative Mike Pence, will be in Colombia this 13-14 August as part of a tour that includes Argentina, Chile and Panama.

Officially, Pence will hold meetings with government leaders and businessmen to "deepen bilateral ties of trade and investment in the region" and to "continue support ... for cooperation in security, business involvement, agriculture, and infrastructure development."

What Pence really comes to do is to get his lackeys lined up in what the U.S. has contemptuously considered its "backyard", in the service of their imperialist interests (what they call "ties" and "support"), but especially around U.S. plans for "regime change" in Venezuela.

In advance, a few weeks ago CIA director Mike Pompeo visited the presidents of Mexico and Colombia "to help them to understand" the “transition” in Venezuela, as he put it at a recent forum in Aspen, Colorado.

This is no minor matter. The Christian fundamentalist Mike Pence and the rabid fascist Donald Trump, together with a whole team of white supremacists, xenophobes, fundamentalists and women-haters, command the most powerful machinery of domination in the world.

The Trump/Pence regime, in addition to being a grave danger to immigrants, Latinos and Muslims, Black people and women in the United States and beyond, also represents a grave danger to the entire planet and a grave danger to the truth and critical and scientific thinking everywhere. 

While Trump functions as the leader and frontman of a whole regime, Pence has been the mainstay and main agent behind the scenes. A Catholic converted to evangelism, he is "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order", in his own words. He makes no effort to hide his adherence to what he considers traditional family values nor his hostility toward abortion and same-sex marriage. He believes that homosexuality is a disease that can be "cured".

A total reactionary in everything. To put it bluntly, Pence is the Christian version of the Taliban in Afghanistan, imposing a fundamentalist religious order.

Pence was picked to get the Republican Party’s elite, the evangelicals and the ultraconservatives to swallow the bitter pill Trump represents. They distrusted Trump because in the past he supported Democrats and was open on issues like abortion, and is weighed down with too many scandals. Pence brings to Trump his conservative credentials and key political experience to rely on in Congress.

But what do the Yankee imperialists want to shore up in Colombia? 

In a large swath of the world, Yankee imperialism is tied down in wars for empire and locked in clashes with the historically outmoded forces of Islamist jihadism, even as the two mutually reinforce each other in a deadly and oppressive dynamic for hundreds of millions of people.
The United States also confronts challenges from China as a rising economic and military power, and inter-imperialist rivalry with Russia and Europe.

Although in Latin America the "pink tide" of so-called "twenty-first century socialism" has been receding with the return of the old patriarchs in Brazil and Argentina and the "course correction" in Ecuador, it is crucial for the Yankees to have their so-called "backyard" completely under their thumb. 

Consequently, the United States and the traditional ruling classes of the region are keen to finish off the Chavista regime in Venezuela. 

Today Venezuela is in a deep economic crisis. And the government is carrying out harsh repression. Among progressive people there is a lot of confusion about how to evaluate these events. Some are inclined to support the Venezuelan government.

But the "Bolivarian revolution" was NOT a real revolution. Despite improvements in the situation of sections of the people for some time, this current regime is not socialist nor does it represent a model for liberation. It represents bourgeois nationalist forces.

Despite this, neither the United States nor Colombia has any right to interfere in the affairs of Venezuela.

The Yankee imperialists must be stopped from getting their way in Venezuela as well as in the rest of the world, including in the United States. 

The future of the world is at stake. We must support the forces in the United States who are organizing to stop the Trump/Pence fascist regime, especially the revolutionary communists there.
It is true that the possibility of driving Trump/Pence out of power is very difficult, but there also exists a real material basis for stopping this fascist regime. There is no guarantee that this will happen, but there is a guarantee that without struggle this will not be achieved.

This is not something that matters only to the people in the United States. There needs to be global resistance to a global threat.

We are faced with a vital question: Which side do we take? Let's take sides for humanity and act accordingly!

The Trump/Pence FASCIST regime is a grave danger to humanity and must be stopped! YANKEES OUT! YANKEE GO HOME!