For 37 days, from April 10 to May 16, activists calling themselves the Embassy Protection Collective stayed at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC 24/7 to prevent the United States from perpetuating its coup attempt and violating the Vienna Convention by turning the embassy over to the US-supported coup leader, Juan Guaido. The activists, including the show hosts, were there with the permission and support of the elected government of Venezuela. The United States government used everything it could to force the activists out, including cutting off access to food, electricity and water and surrounding the embassy with violent fascists. Adrienne Pine, a professor of anthropology who has studied the coup in Honduras and who was an Embassy Protector until the end, joins us to discuss what happened, what it was like and what comes next.
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Guest:
Adrienne Pine is a militant medical anthropologist who has worked in Honduras, Mexico, Korea, the United States, Egypt, and Cuba. In her book, Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras, she argues that the symbolic violence resulting from Hondurans’ embodied obsession with certain forms of ‘real’ violence is a necessary condition for the acceptance of violent forms of modernity and capitalism. Dr. Pine has worked both outside and inside the academy to effect a more just world. Prior to and following the June 2009 military coup in Honduras, she has collaborated with numerous organizations and individuals to bring international attention to the Honduran struggle to halt U.S. government-supported state violence (in its multiple forms). She has also conducted extensive research on the impact of corporate healthcare and healthcare technologies on labor practices in the United States. Her current research focuses on the intersections of nursing and democracy in Honduras, Cuba, and the United States.
