The 2020 campaign for Bernie Sanders has an app for volunteers to use when contacting potential voters. It is aptly named BERN.

As a volunteer with access to this app, I’d like to use it to interview you about your opinions of the campaign so far. I’ll show you the forms the app gives me to demonstrate how easy it is to be interviewed.

As a user of the app, there are two modes.

One is for friend to friend contacts. It is really so minimal, that there is nothing at all to fear. One could even do the “interview” over the phone, through email, or private messaging. If you are willing to let me fill out a from for you as my friend (someone I know how to reach), you can let me know in an email – steve@ssgreenberg.name.

The other method is the community canvass. If I don’t know you well enough, I can use the community canvas form which is just a tad more involved. There you can give contact information to the campaign, if you want to. You can also select the issues that concern you.

Friend to Friend Form

Community Canvas From

Support Choices drop down menu

PC World has the article How Windows and Chrome quietly made 2019 the year of Linux on the desktop.

Both Windows 10 and Chrome OS are embracing the Linux kernel and the software that runs on it.

This might be enough to get me to finally switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Ironically, it was my failure to realize I had to delete my virtual Linux machine from Windows 7 before I went to Windows 10 and reinstalling Linux that made me switch back to Windows 7. However, knowing Microsoft, I might just keep my virtual machine around long enough to see how badly Microsoft mucks up its version of Linux.

When I worked at Digital Equipment Corporation we had our own version of MIT’s X-windows. I jokingly called it our value subtracted version.

Venezuela Analysis has the article Venezuela: Coup d’Etat or Constitutional Transition?

Was Maduro legitimately elected?

Constitutional exegesis aside, the crux of the opposition’s argument is that Nicolas Maduro’s May 20, 2018 reelection was mired in “fraud” and hence his swearing-in “illegitimate,” creating a power vacuum.

This contention has been taken up by the mainstream media as an article of faith and repeated ad nauseam.

For corporate journalists, it doesn’t appear to matter that Maduro was re-elected with 6.2 million votes, amounting to around 31 percent of eligible voters, which, as Joe Emersberger notes, is average among US presidents. For instance, Barack Obama received 31 percent in 2008 and 28 percent in 2012, while Trump was elected with just 26 percent in 2016, failing to win the popular vote.

Nor does the Western pundit class seem to care that Maduro won with exactly the same electoral system with which the opposition scored its landslide parliamentary victory in 2015, from which Juan Guaido purports to derive his legitimacy.

LAWFARE has the article Guaidó, Not Maduro, Is the De Jure President of Venezuela to make the opposite case.

The present Venezuelan crisis began on Jan. 10, when Maduro was sworn in for a second term scheduled to end in 2025. Nobody seems to dispute that his first term ended that day, in accordance with Articles 230 and 231 of the Venezuelan Constitution. The relevant question is whether Maduro was in fact reelected and legally president after Jan. 10.

Any plausible reading of the constitution shows that Maduro was not reelected and, indeed, that there has been no election at all for the term beginning Jan. 10. Article 293 governs the process for calling and organizing new presidential elections, delegating to the National Electoral Council control over the process. Members of that body are nominated through a complicated scheme that gives significant power to the National Assembly, the country’s unicameral legislature, under Article 296. To Maduro’s chagrin, however, the National Assembly has been under opposition control since 2015.

Are there any indisputable Venezuelan Constitutional scholars who can settle this? Is Mike Pompeo qualified?

The Grayzone has the post America in denial: Gabor Maté on the psychology of Russiagate (Interview transcript).

Physician, mental health expert, and best-selling author Dr. Gabor Maté sits down with The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté to analyze how Russiagate was able to take hold of U.S. society following Donald Trump’s election.

Brave New Europe has the article Dirk Ehnts – The Swabian Housewife and the Kingdom of Sweden – a Comparison.

Anyone who therefore thinks that the Kingdom of Sweden should behave like a Swabian housewife should not be surprised if the implementation of what are undoubtedly well-intentioned proposals for a private household in reality lead to catastrophic results in a national economy. While saving can be a virtue for one person, it is usually a vice for the state. The state’s fear of spending money is therefore not a virtue, but results in social problems, unemployment, and the neglect of the common good.

Is there anything in this explanation that is hard to understand? Why do people resist the obvious?

Venezuela Analysis has an article in two parts – Heterodox and Orthodox Economics in Venezuela: A Conversation with Luis Salas (Part I).

In part one of this two‐part interview with Venezuelanalysis, Salas analyzes the economic measures that the government has implemented since August 2018, describing how they morphed into an orthodox adjustment package.

Part II is Fueling the Venezuelan Economy: A Conversation with Luis Salas (Part II).

Part two of the interview, addresses the current tendency towards dollarization of the Venezuelan economy and the way out of the economic crisis.

See if you can use your knowledge of Modern Money Theory to try to untangle these two articles. I am not sure if this agrees with or disagrees with what MMT would prescribe.

The Real News Network has the video Left Media Coverage of Venezuela Questioned (1/7).

Prominent Venezuelan sociologist and intellectual Edgardo Lander says while it’s correct to oppose U.S. intervention and interference, Left media should not minimize the responsibility of the Maduro government for the economic crisis.

A very important discussion has been started here in the first part of the seven part episode. The application to Socialism in the USA is extremely pertinent. I don’t consider myself a socialist nor a capitalist. I call myself a “what worksist”. If we cannot look at various parts of our society to talk about what works and what doesn’t, then we are foregoing some of the opportunities to make the society work better for more people.

Some people might miss the point that some government sector capitalism is not the only alternative to private sector capitalism. Prof. Lander made clear what Venezuela and Cuba did well, and what did not work so well. Of course the USA interference made things much harder, but that is no excuse for refusing to look at what the Chavista movement could have done better even under the circumstances of USA interference. This is the first criticism from the left that I have heard that is specific about what Chavez and Maduro could have done better. I anxiously await the next 6 parts. People who favor some more democratic socialism in the USA should take to heart the lessons that Prof. Lander is trying to teach.

RT has the article ‘We saw this playbook in Iraq’: Ilhan Omar shoots back at VP Pence in socialism spat.

Freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has fired back at Vice President Mike Pence, after Pence accused her of “choosing socialism over freedom” by opposing regime change in Venezuela.

VP Pence is the one who deisn’t know what he is talking about. Are you enslaved by Social Security and Medicare? How does Socialism as practiced in the USA for several hundred years amount to a loss of freedom? Well there is an answer to that. Socialism means a loss of freedom for the oligarchs wanting to plunder our economy. This freedom to plunder is exactly what Pence wants. I don’t want it for the USA, and I think the people in Venezuela who reject it are right. Of course, what the people of Venezuela want is none of my business.

RT has the article Russia tops global gold buyers list as it turns away from US dollar.

Net gold purchases by central banks hit a six-year high in the first quarter of 2019, with Russia securing the leading position, as nations seek diversification of their assets and less dependence on the greenback.

This type of thing is an obvious attempt to dethrone the USA dollar as a world reserve currency. This dethroning is what Modern Money Theorists do not foresee in the near future as something that can happen to cause inflation in the USA. If Trump continues to weaponize the USA dollar with economic sanctions and tariffs, what MMT dismissed so easily before Trump could come to pass sooner than they could imagine.

It amazes me how many Progressives know that we should not be trying to change regimes in Venezuela, but even they are unaware of all the lies they have absorbed from the media about Venezuela.

One response said that before you can say the media is lying, you have to have solid evidence.

I provided a link to search this blog for posts about Venezuela. It struck me that more people need to see all the posts I have made about Venezuela.

Yesterday, I remarked about a Faux Noise interview Rep. Gabbard: Venezuela needs peaceful reconciliation, not military intervention.

This is a horribly weak response to Faux Noise. She never countered that the very steps we have taken to wage an economic war against Venezuela for over 20 years is exactly what has caused the suffering in Venezuela. She started off a sentence about if the USA really cared about the welfare of the people of Venezuela… She failed to finish that sentence with the demand that we lift all of the economic sanctions.

She could have mentioned that these sanctions of ours violate international laws.

She could have mentioned that the 50 countries that support our regime change attempts are either bullied by the USA or have economic interests in taking over Venezuelan oil or in competing with Venezuelan oil.

There are so many things she could have said to counter lie after lie told by the Faux Noise talking head. It is no wonder that people believe the Faux Noise lies, when even Tulsi Gabbard does not rebut them or give any indication that they are all lies.

Maybe she should have said, “I wish we had the time for me to rebut every false statement you have made in this interview.”

I have gone back to look at the Faux Noise interview to transcribe the comments of the interviewer so that I could make my own response.

Quoting our officials “This is not a coup, this is the will of the Venezuelan people. Let Guaido be in charge.”

Guaido was never elected to be in charge.

People in Venezuela have lost an average of 24 pounds. Hunger.

If those numbers are true, remember that it is our sanctions that are preventing Venezuela from importing food.

There are electricity issues to be clear.

The USA attacked their electric system and put it out of commission.

Millions of people have fled.

The USA has made life so difficult for the rich people in Venezuela, that many of them have fled to live with their relatives in the USA. They are urging the USA to get their riches back for them.

We have tried sanctions against the oil business.

Our sanctions have prevented Venezuela from receiving its main source of income. Any fallout from that is our doing.

None of that seems to be working to give the people of Venezuela what they democratically voted for.

The Venezuelan people democratically voted for Maduro, yet he is the one we are specifically trying to push out.

And the concern about this is that having this in our back yard you would have a foreign adversary have so much control from Russia that that is a threat to our security as well.

If we hadn’t been waging an economic war on Venezuela for over 20 years, there probably wouldn’t be any Russian or Chinese influence in Venezuela.

We hear from Secretary Pompeo and from the President that they are hoping for a peaceful resolution here, but you heard Secretary Lavrov say that our intervention is a grave violation of international law.

Waging an economic war is, by defintion, not an attempt to get a peaceful resolution. Lavrov is right that what we are doing is a grave violation of international law. Is he supposed to pretend that this isn’t happening so we can have a peaceful resolution? Contrary to Tulsi saying Venezuela needs internationally brokered and overseen elections, she seems to forget that Venezuela already had elections that were fairer than many elections in the USA. Since when does a sovereign country need international brokered and overseen elections in order to be deemed to be a democracy?

Do you believe Nicholas Meduro has been a horrific leader for his people and that he should go?

This sounds like a typical push poll question. Put an idea out there without providing any evidence that even you believe the statement is true.

The Venezuelan people have made that decision (that Maduro should go).

Another push poll type of question. In fact the majority of Venezuelan people have said that Maduro should stay.

Fifty countries that have backed Guaido, and say that he is the rightful democratic leader of that country.

Guaido was never elected by the Venezuelan people to lead the country. When he declared himself president, less than 20% of the Venezuelan people even knew who he was. In fact, the Venezuelan people elected Maduro as their leader. Of these 50 countries, all of them have either been bullied by the USA, or they want part of Venezuela’s oil riches, or they sell oil in competition with Venezuela. How many countries have either condemned what the USA is doing, or have been cowered into silence?

If you are a person who loves Venezuela and lives there looking to the United States and saying please help us, are you saying that you would turn your back on them even if they do need to military support and say sorry we are not doing it.

Another push poll type of question. Has Faux Noise taken any measure of how many people like this are living in Venezuela? Most Venezuelans on either side of the issue do not want USA interference. Many of the people who do want that interference want the USA to put back their rigged system that had most of the wealth flowing to the top, and very few crumbs left for the poor. We are fighting that battle in our own country, and cannot even get agreement on that fight.