The Alleged News®

by Richard Balzano “Crackdown.” “Democratic backsliding.” “Authoritarian grip.” Journalists persecuted, opposition parties crushed—and now, according to the latest eruption from the Western press, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has abolished elections. The peripheral left offers another interpretation: Ortega is preventing U.S.-backed political organizations implicated in subversion from participating in elections, while Nicaragua has restricted media organizations with subversive ties to Washington amid ongoing U.S. hostility. Whether one approves is beside the point. Nicaragua is behaving as though the United States poses a threat to Nicaraguan sovereignty. How could they possibly have gotten that idea? First, the elections. During his July 19th address commemorating the Sandinista Revolution, …

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by Richard M. Balzano There is a certain dark comedy in watching Washington indict former Cuban president Raúl Castro for allegedly killing civilians over Caribbean waters after the United States bombed boats and killed civilians in Caribbean waters. Progressive commentators like Ryan Grim and Julia Conley at Common Dreams quickly noted the irony after Miami prosecutors indicted the 94-year-old on one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of aircraft destruction. The charges stemmed from a February 24, 1996 confrontation in which Cuban fighter jets destroyed two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft as they either approached or had …

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by Richard M. Balzano On January 3rd, “Operation Absolute Resolve” transformed years of coup attempts, subversion, and sanctions into outright abduction, as Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were kidnapped by U.S. forces and transported to New York. The White House framed Maduro as a narco-kingpin, head of the fictional “Cartel of the Suns,” dressing the regime-change operation in the language of law enforcement coated in uplifting rhetoric that oscillated between liberation-speak and outright resource imperialism. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, spent decades antagonizing Washington by committing the unforgivable crime of using Venezuela’s oil wealth to fund social programs instead of allowing multinational …

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by Richard M. Balzano What happens when a pariah state hosts a global spectacle? That question is more than academic as the United States hosts the FIFA World Cup while waging illegal interventions abroad and brown shirt dirty wars at home, complete with shady detainment facilities and on the cusp of Palantir-induced dystopia to boot. Governments have long understood the public-relations value of international sporting events, using them to project national greatness and rehabilitate tarnished reputations. Argentina’s military dictatorship hoped the 1978 World Cup would do exactly that. As Jorge Rafael Videla’s regime kidnapped, tortured, and murdered thousands of its own citizens in another Latin …

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by Richard M. Balzano This complicated nation celebrates its 250th birthday on July 4th. Despite, or perhaps because of, the tragic state of affairs at present, semiquincentennial celebrations will likely see a spike in a particular American brand—toxic nationalism cosplaying as patriotism, built on a profound and tactfully curated misunderstanding of both the present state of geopolitical affairs and historical events, in this case reducing the American Revolution to an anti-colonial common man’s war inspired by enlightened ideals. The American origin story, set in the context of the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolution™, could use a touch of decolonization, because these revolutions were not …

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