Gabriel Hetland is the Assistant Professor of Latin American, Caribbean and US Latino Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY, and is a former Rochesterian. ROCLA is pleased to co-sponsor with NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America) a podcast that will be made available on the website for Latino Rebel. The podcast will be available on May 11th – May 12th. His talk will cover the following topics about Venezuela:
- Countering the dominant narrative that Venezuela’s Chavista experiment and “socialism” = disaster = death by A) pointing to the Covid-19 crisis as evidence of the manifest failings of free markets and ‘normal’ state management of capitalism and B) discussing how this critique also falls specifically with respect to Venezuela and the problems related to the current situation there.
- Discussing the positive lessons Venezuela’s Chavista period holds for the present crisis, relating to tackling poverty and inequality and fostering empowerment. This needs to be accompanied with an analysis of the shortcomings as well and not just related to the US attack upon it.
- Discussing the current situation there with the Covid-19 pandemic, the increased US assault on the country, in terms of truly genocidal sanctions, highly threatening military actions and more.
Join us tonight to listen to the podcast (first 30min of meeting). We will then have a Q&A period with Mr. Hetland via Zoom.
Zoom Meeting Link
Meeting ID: 815 6812 9307
Password: 555689
