The charges raised against every one of the more than 40 countries sanctioned by the U.S. government are usually the same template. Venezuela is no exception.

The targeted government in countries facing U.S. sanctions attack is first declared guilty by U.S. corporate media, and the whole U.S. political establishment joins in demonizing the leadership as guilty of criminal, anti-democratic or corrupt actions. The claim, endlessly repeated, is that imposed sanctions are only targeting criminal individuals and enterprises. But this is a total fraud. The blockade is designed to throw the entire economy into shock.

The media line repeats endlessly that the economic dislocation, wild inflation, shortages of essential products are caused by leaders who are corrupt, inept and paid-off. Slanderous terms declaring elected leaders to be autocrats, dictators, are used repeatedly in each news article.

It takes intense new levels of mobilization of the entire people to resist an orchestrated U.S. take-down or régime change operation. It takes even more to build a force capable of mobilizing the population in the midst of scarcity. The need is to both survive and to thrive.

This is the challenge that [the Bolivarian Republic of] Venezuela has undertaken with great determination and revolutionary fervor.