Tim Gill is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee. He is the author of the forthcoming book Encountering US Empire in Socialist Venezuela: The Legacy of Race, Neocolonialism, and Democracy Promotion.
A former World Wrestling Entertainment employee just filed a lawsuit against WWE cofounder Vince McMahon. The details of the suit, which charges the billionaire wrestling mogul with sexual assault and sex trafficking, are hard to stomach.
The WWE wrestlers who put their bodies through the ringer on a near-nightly basis lack basic control over their work and lives. Many know they need a union — but the barriers to forming one are steep.
In 1977, 31-year-old Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich took a stand against the sale of his city’s publicly owned electric utility. And he almost paid for it with his life.
Longtime CIA operative Ric Prado just published a memoir. From training murderous right-wing paramilitaries to complaining about “hellholes” the world over, it’s shockingly candid — but the content is hardly surprising to anyone familiar with US foreign policy.
Outrage over alleged Russian intervention in US elections has been widespread. But documents obtained by Jacobin reveal that the US has intervened in Venezuelan elections by training opposition forces to use Facebook against President Nicolás Maduro’s party.
The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center has a long history of working hand in glove with the US government in undermining democracy and left labor movements throughout the world. The center emphasizes it has shifted away from these Cold War tactics in recent years. But newly obtained documents show that the Solidarity Center has worked closely with the US to undermine the Venezuelan government in the recent past.
Recently obtained documents show that in 2011, the US funded rock bands in Venezuela — through a group sympathetic to right-wing forces that later attempted a coup. Giving money to young musicians seems innocuous, but it’s part of a long history of US meddling in the democratic processes of countries to advance American interests.
The Venezuelan opposition has repeatedly failed to depose Nicolás Maduro. So now they’re launching a last-ditch effort to get Donald Trump to intervene — by tying Maduro to Iran and Hezbollah.
You don’t have to travel back to the Cold War to find evidence of US meddling in elections abroad.