The story of regime-change brain Carlos Vecchio’s rise through elite US institutions and the oil industry captures the essence of Venezuela’s opposition.

[thegrayzone.com]

By Anya Parampil and Diego Sequera

{“When my turn to talk came, it got very difficult, but did the best I could,” Vecchio writes in his book, “and it turns out that I get the job, a job in New York after I finish my Masters [at Georgetown]! In 2000 I would be working in New York with a $110,000 a year salary, getting $10,000 after signing. I felt like a Major League Baseball player.”}

I would imagine when Chavez began his program of supplying very cheap fuel oil for heating in NY and other metropolitan areas around the US, Veccchio might have become nightmarish and outraged.

{By the time Vecchio moved back to Venezuela in September 2001, Chavez had been in charge for nearly three years. The country was in the midst of rapid change: in 1999, over three quarters of voters had approved a new constitution which widened political participation and advanced rights for women, workers, the rural poor and indigenous people. These reforms brought forward the prospect of a new set of laws which threatened the narrow interests of the country’s ruling class, as well as those of corporate America.}

{By late 2007, Venezuela’s economy was roaring, Chavez and his allies were proving unbeatable and progressives were scoring victories in countries across Latin America. The US was desperate for any measure to roll back the Pink Tide sweeping the continent. Into the breach stepped Generation 2007, a collection of US-trained youth operatives that provided the perfect vehicle for Vecchio and Lopez to radicalize the country’s opposition.}

Never give up! A government good for its people will not be tolerated!

{With his long list of shout outs, the former Exxon lawyer revealed the true forces behind the political movement he represented. In between Washington and Miami, among the Venezuelan diaspora and US political elite, Carlos Vecchio had found a constituency without winning a single vote.}

Puppet much?