{"product_id":"extraordinary-threat-the-us-empire-the-media-and-twenty-years-of-coup-attempts-in-venezuela-9781583679166","title":"Extraordinary Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe US foreign policy decisions behind six coup attempts against the Venezuelan government - and Venezuela's heightening precarity\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn March 2015, President Obama initiated sanctions against Venezuela, declaring a \"national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.\" Each year, the US administration has repeated this claim. But, as Joe Emersberger and Justin Podur argue in their timely book, \u003ci\u003eExtraordinary Threat, \u003c\/i\u003e the opposite is true: It is the US policy of regime change in Venezuela that constitutes an \"extraordinary threat\" to Venezuelans. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans continue to die because of these ever-tightening US sanctions, denying people daily food, medicine, and fuel. On top of this, Venezuela has, since 2002, been subjected to repeated coup attempts by US-backed forces. In \u003ci\u003eExtraordinary Threat, \u003c\/i\u003e Emersberger and Podur tell the story of six coup attempts against Venezuela. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis book deflates the myths propagated about the Venezuelan government's purported lack of electoral legitimacy, scant human rights, and disastrous economic development record. Contrary to accounts lobbed by the corporate media, the real target of sustained U.S. assault on Venezuela is not the country's claimed authoritarianism or its supposed corruption. It is Chavismo, the prospect that twenty-first century socialism could be brought about through electoral and constitutional means. This is what the US empire must not allow to succeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJustin Podur (Author) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eJustin Podur\u003c\/b\u003e is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. He is the author of Haiti's New Dictatorship, Siegebreakers, and America's Wars on Democracy in Rwanda and the DR Congo. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eJoe Emersberger (Author) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eJoe Emersberger\u003c\/b\u003e is an engineer, writer, and activist based in Canada. His writing, focused on the Western media's coverage of the Americas, can be found on FAIR.org, CounterPunch.org, TheCanary.co, Telesur English, and ZComm.org. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Monthly Review Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51890668470546,"sku":"9781583679166","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_e614ed63-f7e5-4b2c-95ef-8c4871578e26.jpg?v=1768314198","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/extraordinary-threat-the-us-empire-the-media-and-twenty-years-of-coup-attempts-in-venezuela-9781583679166","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}