 The mainstream media obviously is, without a doubt, seeking to, you know, present this as cool as some kind of democratic transition and, you know, doing what, you know, imperialist media have done throughout the world, you know, which is lied consistently about the nature of the facts. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. We are at Caracas, where delegates from nearly 85 countries have gathered to express solidarity with Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution. Today, we are joined by Lucas Carna, a communicator working with the website Venezuelanalysis.com. Hello, Lucas. Lucas, could you first talk about the situation in which Venezuela analysis was created and what was its intent? Sure. Venezuela analysis was founded after the April 11, 2002 coup, which is important to note was a media coup in which, you know, the opposition, together with elements in the military, kidnapped Chavez for 47 hours, and all of the media in Venezuela claimed that he had resigned, which did not occur. And the international media at the New York Times echoed this line and supported the, in that moment, the self-proclaimed president of Venezuela, Pedro Carmona. And Venezuela analysis was founded as, you know, a niche to give an alternative vision to break this kind of media blockade that's always existed around Venezuela and give another vision, not only, you know, for the international public at large, but most importantly for popular and left-wing movements around the world that, you know, see the Bolivar experiment as, you know, as an opportunity to really build popular power and translate these lessons into our own context within our own struggles. And right now, we are in a very, almost a similar situation to when the organization was founded. We again have an international media war. So could you talk about a bit about your experiences right now while trying to counter the international media war and the kind of war that's actually happened? Well, the thing, we're uniquely placed in the sense that we have, all of our people are on the ground, you know, living the Venezuelan reality with all of its complexities of hyperinflation and difficulties of accessing water, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, we, you know, are rooted among Venezuelan popular movements. We have organic, you know, roots in these different organizations that are, you know, of course, within the left of the Bolivarian socialist movement. So as such, you know, there are certainly support, you know, the government against the imperialists on the slide, but at the same time have their own socialist horizon that goes beyond and criticizes the, you know, certain shortcomings, errors and deviations of the Madalora administration. And this respect, you know, we try to give a critique of, you know, the government, but also of the, you know, obviously resistance to imperialism that comes from the people who are fighting on the ground and the communes in all kinds of, you know, women, indigenous organizations, competition organizations, trying to build an alternative. And in that respect, we, you know, the mainstream media obviously is, without a doubt, seeking to, you know, present this at this coup as some kind of democratic transition and, you know, doing what, you know, imperialist media have done throughout the world, you know, which is lie consistently about the nature of the facts. And we have, you know, really saw particularly in the 2017 opposition violence, a document, you know, who is being killed, who are the actual casualties of this, you know, opposition violence, which is universally portrayed as, you know, government repression, but in fact it was much more complicated. You know, this is a violent anti-democratic opposition that we've sought to cover, you know, contrary to the hegemonic mainstream media line. And can you talk a bit about the media situation in Venezuela itself? What are the, how much support, for instance, does the opposition have and does it have its own media institutions and what is the kind of coverage of the issue that's happening inside the country? So you have to understand that in the, there's an image of Venezuela that, you know, you have a dictatorship here, that the, the Venezuelan, the government controls all media, that there's no space for dissent, there's no freedom of speech. But, you know, in fact, anyone who comes here, as you may have discovered, you go to any kiosk, any newspaper kiosk, and you know, 9 out of 10 of the newspapers are anti-government newspapers. The most watched networks, Benivision, which is going by Gustavo Cisneros, Global Vision, Televén, those are all private anti-government networks. The state network, VTV, is, you know, the fourth or third watched network in the country. So there really is a situation, the opposition party as many countries in Latin America has, obviously the media has played the role of the opposition party in Venezuela, like it has in many countries in Latin America, and you know, obviously in a very, you know, supported by the United States. And what would you say would be, say, let's see your message, maybe, to the left or organizations or communicators to the left who are actually trying to cover Venezuela, in the sense that what is the kind of coverage that you think can be aimed for? I think that it's really important to listen to what the grassroots are saying in Venezuela, like for example, the commune leader, Ángel Prado, from the El Maísal commune, and this is a commune that has, you know, suffered a lot as a result of bureaucracy, of corruption, that he himself was not able to take his mayoral post due to the, you know, certain very questionable practices on the part of the National Constitutional Assembly and the local Pesuv, etc. But nonetheless, you know, he said recently, you know, we are ready to lay down our lives to defend this process and defend President Maduro, notwithstanding all of our deep critiques of the government. And this is, this is the position of Venezuela's socialist Bolivarian movement, and you know, these kinds of critiques of authoritarianism towards Maduro, you know, that are coming out in some kind of center-left circles and academia and elsewhere, are really served as, you know, an ideological cover for this ongoing coup, because this is exactly what the United States does. It declares a government which is, you know, has no less democratic legitimacy than the Trump administration, than Theresa May or the government in India or Brazil or Argentina, etc. And it presents it as a dictatorship, and then it can justify all measures to overthrow it, including war, you know, economic war and military bombardment. Thank you, Lucas. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.