St. Louisans Reject Military Action in Venezuela
On Saturday, January 3rd, around 200 St. Louisans met at the Koplar Fountain on Kingshighway near Lindell to express their outrage at the Trump administration’s recent kidnapping of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores.
The march was primarily organized by the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL), but the composition of both attendees and speakers went well beyond that group’s membership. St. Louis City Democratic Central Committee member Maxi Glamour gave a particularly rousing speech. He railed against “an economy based on murder, an economy based on regime change, and an economy based on war,” continuing by adding that “American imperialist interests have annually invested more in the military than it would take to end world hunger, yet veterans, unhoused and unwell sleeping in the streets.”
Glamour ended their speech by saying, “It is our obligation to end war, our obligation to engage in anti-war rhetoric. At this point, our critique of empire must be so loud and consistent as a military industrial complex is loud and consistent. Now is not the time to be scared of being annoying, because there is nothing more annoying than bombing black and brown bodies around the world. Justice to Venezuela! Justice to Nigeria! Justice to Gaza, and above all, death to Empire!” Other speakers commented that the Trump administration’s statements about opposing drug smuggling and supporting democracy have nothing to do with the real reasons for the American attack on Venezuela. Rather, they pointed to Venezuela’s oil, the United States’ antagonism toward political forces in the hemisphere that oppose American hegemony, and the Trump administration’s desire to distract the public from domestic policy failures.
Carrying signs with sentiments such as “No Blood for Oil” and “Hands Off Venezuela,” the crowd marched down Kingshighway and around the Central West End. They were escorted by police, who followed and blocked traffic. There were no conflicts between protesters and the police or any other people during the duration of the rally and march.
