Now, you've likely heard in recent days that there's a profound economic, political and social crisis playing out in Venezuela, a country located in South America with a population of more than 30 million people and the world's largest known oil reserves. That's because on January 23rd, the United States recognized Juan Guaidó, the leader of the country's national legislature, as the country's rightful president, while they called on Nicolás Maduro, who won elections in 2013 and 2018, to step down. Yesterday, in solidarity with the Venezuelan people and out of respect for Venezuelan democracy, the United States proudly recognized National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela. The time for debate is done. The regime of former president Nicolás Maduro is illegitimate. His regime is morally bankrupt.  They were quickly followed by the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, a host of other countries across the Western Hemisphere in calling for profound change in Venezuela. The following day, the Europeans, particularly Britain, Spain, France and Germany, while not following the path laid out by Washington, said that they no longer recognized Maduro as the rightful president either. And that, should he not call fresh elections in the following eight days, they too would anoint Guaidó as the country's rightful head of state. The EU strongly calls for the urgent holding of free, transparent and credible presidential elections in accordance with internationally democratic standards and the Venezuelan constitutional order. In the absence of an announcement on the organization of fresh elections with the necessary guarantees over the next days, the EU will take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the country's leadership in line with article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution. Now, why is the situation in Venezuela so important? Why does it matter? Well, as I've already said, the country has the world's largest known oil reserves, making it a key point in terms of geopolitical and energy interests. Secondly, it's often used as a way of admonishing the left. Even if you're trying to lambast and undermine somebody simply asking for a living wage or remotely social democratic politics, the answer seems to be Venezuela. But I mean, my God, this is another story is a once wealthy country ruined by socialism takes a special kind of socialist incompetence to turn a country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world into one where 90 percent of the population live in poverty. The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. Now, that's the foundational myth that much of the right uses to admonish Venezuela and by extension the left. They say it was once a very wealthy country making the most of its profound and abundant natural resources and that economic mismanagement by socialist government has led it to a path of poverty and degradation. Except that's not quite true because when Hugo Chavez was elected as a result of democratic elections in 1998, the country he inherited was in a parlor situation. In fact, GDP per capita in the country in 1998 was at the same level it had been in 1963. And in fact, it had fallen by a third from the all time high of 1978, 20 years earlier. What's more, the purchasing power of the average salary was one third what it had been 20 years before, meaning that the situation he inherited was in many ways resembling the economy of Venezuela today. Thus, if we want to make sense of the rise of Hugo Chavez and the popularity of what's been called the Bolivarian Revolution, we have to understand the profound economic crisis into which he stepped. He did not assume the mantle of economic prosperity and success. Anything but what's more, the first 12 to 14 years of the Bolivarian Revolution named after Simon de Bolivar, one of the mythical political figures of Latin America in the 19th century was one of growth and economic expansion. GDP per capita grew by a factor of more than three between 1998 and 2014. The economic success of Venezuela over that period meant it pulled away from similar sized countries in the region, such as Colombia, Peru, and it even became wealthier than Argentina on a per head basis for the first time since 1989. So in short, the first decade plus of the Chavez administration was an economic success story for Venezuela, not the socialist failure we're so often told. More importantly, that economic growth redounded the benefit of ordinary people. And there was undoubted progress in terms of expanded welfare provision across the country over the first 15 years of the Chavez administration. By 2012, Venezuela had the lowest levels of inequality in the region, with poverty falling from 70.8% in 1996 to 21% in 2010. By the time of Chavez's death in 2013, more than 6% of GDP was spent on education, with citizens enjoying free daycare nurseries and university degrees. While 21% of the population experienced malnourishment in 1998, by 2012, that figure had fallen to just 5%. Elsewhere, infant mortality halved between 1990 and 2010, while the number of doctors relative to the population tripled between 1998 and 2012. Perhaps it's no surprise then, what with its rising prosperous economy and increasingly far-reaching social welfare programs that just six years ago, Venezuela was determined to be one of the happiest places to live on earth. So what changed? Well, the answer to the question can be explained in a single word. Oil. Oil remains the backbone of the Venezuelan economy, which should come as no surprise given it has, as I've already said, the largest known deposits anywhere in the world. 95% of Venezuelan exports are petroleum and the price of petrol, oil on the world market determines whether or not the Venezuelan economy goes up or down. That's why if we want to understand the perilous state of the economy that Chavez inherited in 1998, we only need to look at the historically low price a barrel of oil commanded in that period. What's more, Chavez was incredibly lucky. He came to power in 1998. And after 2000, the price of petrol on the world market increased pretty much year on year. So when prices started to go down after 2013, Venezuela had a problem on its hands. It had determined it would use the profound wealth created by its oil exports to create an ever larger social welfare state. And yet the very commodity allowing that thing to happen was now getting cheaper. Clearly changes had to be made. But it wasn't just the price of oil or rather it's fall that was the problem. Production of the commodity was also in decline. Falling prices and falling production means one thing and one thing only for the Venezuelan economy. Collapse. Now, many will point to the fact that oil production for the first 10 12 years of the Chavez administration stagnated. But that wasn't because money wasn't being invested into oil production. It was because the price was going up. Chavez in 2000 hosted the first meeting of OPEC, the oil producing countries in years. And he was very keen to emphasize that their collective power in setting the price of oil on the world market was one that shouldn't be understated. He even compared the price of a barrel of oil to that of wine. So that explains why oil production in the country more or less flat lined when the times were good. But clearly when you're commanding a lower price, you might need to sell more if you want to make ends meet. The point is Venezuela has not been able to do that. Why? As this table demonstrates, as recently as early 2017, Venezuela oil production followed the same pattern as that of Colombia. This clearly changed in August, however, when Trump's new sanctions came into force. As you can see, a decline in production was initially driven by the price of oil hitting its lowest point in about a decade at the start of 2016. But in August 2017, when Trump's sanctions made it illegal for the Venezuelan government to obtain financing from US institutions or individuals, it's clear and apparent that a major shift occurred. This had two major consequences. The first related to the fact that all the Venezuelan governments that standing foreign currency bonds was subject to New York State law. The second was that because one of the country's major assets, the state owned Citgo corporation, was based in Texas, it could no longer send profits and dividends back to Caracas. These had been averaging around $1 billion a year since 2015. So what's the cost of those sanctions been? Well, according to one study, they've cost Venezuela around $6 billion a year, primarily as a result of reduced oil production. $6 billion a year might not sound that much for an American or a Brit. After all, these are multi-trillion dollar economies. But in Venezuela, it's a lot of money. In fact, it's 5% of GDP. It covers the country's entire education or health care programs. Then there's hyperinflation, the country's presently experiencing. The rate of inflation in Venezuela last year was meant to have reached 80,000%. There's a major distinction between high inflation, something Venezuela's always suffered from, and hyperinflation. Generally, hyperinflation is anything beyond 50%. The primary cause of this, it appears, is a massive expansion in the country's money supply, which has been done to cover rising budget deficits, themselves a result of pronounced recession and falling government tax receipts. In essence, the government is printing money, although in the 21st century, this is more of a digital undertaking to finance its own spending, rendering the currency close to worthless. So there is an intimate relationship between the country's economic recession, massive deficits and hyperinflation, to a significant extent the depth of each has been profoundly deepened by US sanctions. This is no accident. Indeed, the intention behind them is to starve the country of important goods, and it's all important oil industry, accessing the necessary credit to even maintain present production. The United States has pursued a similar strategy with another major oil producer it cannot easily defeat through military means, Iran. While capacity there has held up better than Venezuela and the economy is more resilient after decades of sanctions, Trump walking away from the nuclear deal last year meant Iranian oil exports fell to a five year low in November. And while Iran is not experiencing hyperinflation, the country's currency, the Rial, experienced an 80% devaluation last year. Indeed, the strength of Washington's sanctions against Venezuela and Iran are reminiscent of those against Nicaragua in the 1980s. Then as now they had the desired effect as the Central American economy went into both recession and hyperinflation, falling GDP, widening budget deficits, declines and living standards. These aren't a side effect. These are a strategic objective for the United States. As President Richard Nixon put it in 1970, shortly before the US imposed sanctions on Chile, he said he wanted to make the country's economy screen. We're seeing that once more in Venezuela. So that's the economics of the situation in Venezuela and why I think socialism isn't to blame for its present plight. But what about politics? What about democracy? Because that's another means by which Maduro's critics can say the regime has no legitimacy. It is an undemocratic government. We are extremely concerned about the situation in Venezuela. It is clear that Nicholas Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela. The election on the 20th of May was deeply flawed. Ballot boxes were stuffed. They were counting irregularities, opposition parties banned. And this regime has done untold damage to the people of Venezuela. Okay, so a few things here. Firstly, note how Jeremy Hunt, the UK foreign secretary, only refers to Maduro and last year's elections being a legitimate. This will be important as we go on. Secondly, and this is really important, he says things which are categorically untrue. So he refers, for instance, to ballot box stuffing. There have been no ballot boxes in Venezuela for a decade, Jeremy. It's done electronically. He also says the major opposition party was banned. How are they banned when you're anointing Guaido, who's the leader of the country's legislature? He's obviously contested an election. In terms of presidential election last year, they weren't banned, they boycotted it. And that's part of more broadly a color revolution strategy with help and advice from the US State Department. We'll talk about that in a minute. I don't see how anyone can believe that Maduro should stay in his position after what he's done to his country. And the only basis that anyone says that he should be there is that he won an election. It was a rigged election. It was a fake election. The one Guido is from our sister socialist party. He won an election being recognized by Germany, by France, by Australia, by Canada, by the UK as well. And he should be given a chance to turn around his country. That's got to be in the interest of the people of Venezuela. Well, we've just had elections and it was the most overwhelming victory in elections, which all parties could stand. That's very different from the election of Maduro, where not all parties could stand. So one was an election where you had the range of political parties and the other one, the leader of the opposition party, was not even permitted to stand in those elections. So that was Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP who's not from the left of the party. Perhaps that's quite obvious. She repeated something which Jeremy Hunt said about that being an illegitimate election and the opposition being banned. But they weren't banned. Like I said, they boycotted it. And it is remarkable, isn't it, how the British political establishment and of course people in the US, other countries are saying that every single election in Venezuela is illegitimate, except this one election where this one guy was voted in and he's now, by the way, the president. And Rachel Reeves talks about how he is in a political party, which is in the international umbrella, the same one as the Labour Party. Well, he shouldn't be, because this guy is already making plans in terms of privatising the Venezuelan energy industry. Like I said, it's 50% of Venezuela's GDP, 95% of its exports. He's trying to personally take £1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan wealth from the Bank of England, rather than it going to the Venezuelan Treasury. I mean, isn't that remarkable? He personally wants to take £1.2 billion. How does the international, of which the UK Labour Party is a member feel about that? Is it policy that you start asking for the IMF to come in and ask for advice about how you'll privatise, you know, the world's largest known oil reserves? I'd really hope not. It's very important to be cautious in intervening in someone else's country, but Venezuela is a very, very bad problem. There are millions of refugees moving to neighbouring states. Any Venezuelan system is deeply disturbed. The region is deeply disturbed. We're not pinning this on the United States. This is other Latin American countries. This is countries like Canada. This is Germany. This is France. This is Spain. This is the EU. If Britain cannot ally with those people against Iran, Syria, then we're in really serious troubles. This is about a humanitarian move for free fair elections. That's all this is about. So that's where we stew at MP, the Minister for Prisons, he's a Conservative MP. He says that the only kinds of regime now favouring Maduro against the seemingly overwhelming mass of free democratic countries, the US, the UK, countries in the EU, he says it's really limited to places like Syria and Iran. Now most people listen to that, like Syria and Iran. Venezuela must be bad. But hold on a second, because that isn't correct. Yes, Syria and Iran recognise the legitimacy of the Maduro regime, as does China, as does Russia. Fine, we might not want to call those liberal democracies. How about India, the world's largest democracy, which says that Maduro should still be recognised as the country's president. How about South Africa, says the same thing. Apparently that's meant to be one of the most matured democracies in Africa. Post Mandela is meant to be a poster child for how national reconciliation works. They might know a thing about how these kinds of problems can be solved. How about Mexico, one of the world's 12 largest economies, the new president there, certainly does not favour regime change in Venezuela. Well the thing is, none of those countries are mentioned by Western media in terms of who says Maduro should stay. Even when you look at maps, wherever it is, could be on print or broadcast outlets showing who's for and against Maduro, who's for and against Guaido. They never show India, they never show South Africa, they rarely show Mexico. So what's going on here? Well it's fundamentally about priming you in terms of creating a confirmation bias. So you want to agree with him, you want to agree with a nice British politician and he's saying are the bad people in Syria and Iran. He's not going to say India and South Africa, you know why? Because that fundamentally undermines his argument. Now I get that, he's a politician, he's going to misrepresent things sometimes. But I find it absolutely despicable that the media in supposedly free and fair countries like Britain and the United States don't show the facts in terms of what countries support what politicians. And every right-thinking member of this house should unite in condemning the Maduro regime and calling for his removal. But what's that's happened? We will need significant support for Venezuela in organising free and fair elections. I know the minister has addressed the points earlier but will the UK take a lead in ensuring that all necessary global support is given to Venezuela because it will be one of the biggest challenges face by a country coming out of dictatorship for many, many years. Right Stephanie and the EU on this? Yeah I mean the fact that you see that all the major European countries are coming together and saying the same that Maduro actually has to go and also you have to have to do with it? Well we have to have in mind that actually the crisis in Venezuela started with Hugo Chavez much before. The first person speaking there is Angela Smith she's a Labour Party MP although as you can probably guess she's not from the left of the party. Now there's a subtle difference between what she's saying and what the likes of Rory Stewart, Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves previously said whereas they had solely disputed the integrity of last year's presidential elections she's saying by contrast that Venezuela has experienced unfreedom, an absence of democracy for many, many years. What's more the person who follows a German journalist who writes with DeVelt says something kind of similar. She says that the crisis didn't start with Maduro but with Chavez. What crisis? Because if it's a crisis of declining GDP as a result of falling oil prices and production that definitely doesn't start with Chavez. Chavez dies before oil prices start to fall 2013-2014. Does she mean a crisis of democratic legitimacy because one can only presume that is what she means? And as a result one has to ask where's the evidence of that? Because Hugo Chavez won four elections between 1998 and 2012 and not a single one was disputed by the US State Department, the Organization for American States or the Carter Center, an observatory set up by the former US President Jimmy Carter in assessing the integrity of elections around the world. Now Angela Smith and people like that may not be familiar with the facts they may just be ignorant about the political history of Venezuela. So here are the facts. Hugo Chavez won his first election in 1998. He defeated Enrico Salas Romero by a million votes. That was viewed as a free and fair election at the time and even Roma said quote I will not only accept the victory of my adversary but wish him luck, lots of luck because his luck will be that of Venezuela. Okay Angela Smith if you're watching 1998 Hugo Chavez wins a democratic election. As I've already said the economic conditions which precipitate that aren't that dissimilar to the present moment but importantly everybody recognized that he was the legitimate president of the Venezuelan Republic. Now Hugo Chavez had huge plans for Venezuela including changing the country's constitution and that was his right after all the mandate he received the previous year was one of national renewal. That happened through a series of referendum in 1999 he only wanted to change the country's constitution with the democratic authority of the electorate. Those changes were ratified they went through. They changed the relationship of power between various institutions and inserted new features which one doesn't traditionally consider in democratic constitutions. One is a right of recall which means that if the electorate gets a number of signatures together turned out to be 20 percent there could be a trigger ballot so to speak. I have to emphasize this. Hugo Chavez oversaw constitutional reforms which inserted a right of recall referendum in the presidency itself. That's not really the kind of behavior one would associate with a dictator. Now at this point and bear in mind this is before 9-11 the U.S. State Department doesn't really know what to make of Chavez. It's certainly not saying he's not the legitimate president. All the major observers are saying both the 1998 election and the subsequent year's referendum changing the constitution were entirely legitimate. That begins to change however in the following few years in 2000 because you have a changed constitution he goes back to the polls and says I want to be president again he doesn't view himself as being legitimate given there's been this profound constitutional transformation. He wins his second presidency with an increased majority this time winning 60 percent of the national vote defeating his nearest rival by more than 20 percent. At the time the Organization of American States noted the election campaign was conducted in an overall framework of freedom of expression pluralism and a high degree of public participation fostered by the diversity of candidates party backed independent and by the efforts of campaigners to mobilize the public at the national as well as the state and municipal levels. Now his problems with the United States really begin the following year in 2001 where he says in relation to a forthcoming intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan that you can't defeat terrorism with terrorism. He was talking of course about 9-11 and what he perceived to be a mistaken response by the United States. That alongside an increasingly close relationship between Venezuela and Cuba really got the backup of Washington and perhaps it was no surprise that despite him winning multiple times between 1998 and 2000 there was an attempted coup with US support against him in 2002. Despite that coup Chavez was returned to power within 48 hours. That was the result of overwhelming numbers of Venezuelans taking to the streets and demanding he be restored as the country's president. So he's won elections he's changed the constitution there's been a coup and yet he's come back. In between all of that he inserted as I've said that right to recall. Now this is important because two years later in 2004 more than two million signatures are gathered in the petition 2.4 million was necessary it was slightly more and there is a national referendum about whether or not Hugo Chavez should be recalled in which case there would be a new set of presidential elections. In that vote Hugo Chavez won by 4.9 million votes to 3.5 million more or less the same margin you see is the 2000 presidential elections. Again the results of that referendum as in 1998 as in 1999 and as in 2000 are disputed by next to nobody. 2006 and Hugo Chavez wins his third set of presidential elections this time he wins by a historic margin he wins by the largest margin of votes in Venezuelan history and he wins by the largest percentage since 1947. What's more turnout is massively up at 72 percent the result of a national program of registering poorer Venezuelans to vote. The Carter Center concluded that those elections were fair, transparent and without serious irregularities. Meanwhile Thomas Shannon Jr the United States Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere was quoted in the Spanish newspaper El País as saying the political battle that is unfolding within Venezuela is now conducted through democratic institutions. The following year in 2007 Chavez wants to change the constitution again he wants to do a bunch of things he wants to rename Caracas he wants to bring the voting age down to 16 and he wants to centralize more powers in the presidency. That goes to a popular ballot and he loses. He loses so not only does he insert the right to recall in the 1999 constitution he loses a referendum on changing the constitution once more in 2007. But I thought he was a tyrant who fixed elections. 2012 Hugo Chavez with cancer wins his fourth set of presidential elections he wins by a margin of more than 10 percent. Again no he disputes the integrity of those elections the Carter Center said they were the best in the world. So the reality is with regards to Hugo Chavez he was one of the most successful politicians in Latin American history. Lula in Brazil maybe tops it but given the conditions he faced as well as changing the constitution there was the right of recall there was the coup in 2002 his record is remarkable and between 1998 and 2012 nobody else in national politics could touch him. As we know however he died the following year 2013 which meant the country had to have a fresh set of elections. Now when a president in the United States dies as happened with John F. Kennedy for instance in the 1960s the vice president takes over there are not immediate elections in the UK if the prime minister resigns as was the case with David Cameron or Tony Blair. Again their successor doesn't necessarily have to be elected I have to say however the prime minister in Britain isn't the head of state but clearly they administer significant executive functions and yet in Venezuela a country which has a right to recall in its constitution which persists in changing the constitution only through national referenda you have to have new elections pretty much straight away it's almost like the democratic standards in Venezuela are if anything even higher than they are in Europe and North America so in the elections that follow Nicholas Maduro wins but by a small margin 1.5 percent perhaps that should come as no surprise incumbents tend not to do very well after 15 years in power just think of Gordon Brown in the 2010 general election yes he was his own man yes he was a fresh face but he was heavily associated with Tony Blair had been the prime minister between 1997 and 2007 a similar thing was going on here what's more Maduro for any redeeming qualities he might have as a politician was no Hugo Chavez what's more Maduro won now as I've already said all of the voting in Venezuela is done electronically and there is a way of auditing the vote and the 2013 election was audited 54 percent of the votes were checked and it confirmed the overall result of a narrow Maduro victory now the opposition parties said that that wasn't true it was a legitimate it was a fake election now guess what they say that pretty much every year after 2002 in the failed coup and it has to be mentioned that this opposition is funded to the tune of five million US dollars a year now that's not a conspiracy theory this can be found in the publicly available documents of the US State Department now what's really interesting is that foreign nationals or businesses organizations aren't allowed to fund politicians and political parties in the United States any politician that receives funding knowingly from such actors is actually engaging in criminal activity and yet these wonderful pro-democracy parties in Venezuela being funded to the tune of millions of dollars a year are doing precisely that and when you listen to US media these are supposed to be the beacons of democracy and legitimacy in Venezuelan politics well guess what I don't buy it moving forward to last year's elections when Nicolas Maduro won his second presidency and of course they are the most important elections in judging whether or not Venezuela has a legitimate democratic government the opposition weren't banned they boycotted those elections and as I've already said that represents the continuation of a color revolution strategy after 2013-14 oil prices were going down as I've said this was noted by Washington sanctions imposed from 2015 meant oil production simultaneously went down oil is 50% of Venezuela's GDP at the same time opposition parties as I've already said funded to the tune of 5 million dollars a year began to understand that they couldn't actually defeat the socialist party in free open democratic elections therefore the best strategy available to them was bring into question the entire legitimacy of the regime tell us about the outrage now sparked by this so-called election Shannon some horrible scenes on the street there in Caracas including perhaps the first improvised explosive device that wounded a number of police officers who were on motorcycles part of the outrage is a lot of people felt in Venezuela this wasn't an election at all you couldn't choose to vote no you could only choose from among candidates that the government had picked for you this with the sanctions it was hoped would mean a soft coup in Caracas the only problem with that strategy is that whatever you think of Maduro's popularity in Venezuela the popularity of the opposition parties is even lower if you question the political intelligence of people operating at the highest levels of the Venezuelan government and I don't well guess what the opposition are even worse which is why recent events with Guaido represent really a final throw of the dice we've even now got to the stage where the likes of John Bolton openly admit that the reasons for getting rid of the government in Caracas is about oil and it's about the interests of profit seeking American multinational companies is so if you think of a company like SICO which is owned by Patevesa which is the state-run oil company there in Venezuela we have a lot of those SICO assets right here in the U.S. is that something for example sir that you're looking at? Yeah look we're in conversation with major American companies now that are either in Venezuela or in the case of SICO here in the United States I think we're trying to get to the same end result here you know Venezuela is one of the three countries I call the troika of tyranny it'll make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela it'd be good for the people of Venezuela it'd be good for the people of the United States we both have a lot at stake here making this come out the right way now that's the U.S. they fund opposition parties John Bolton talks about you know American oil companies going in there but what about the Europeans? Now I have to admit this has surprised me more than anything perhaps in this whole sorry episode as you can see recent comments by the Prime Minister of Spain are quite clear in denigrating the Maduro government but one has to ask a question here who is the Spanish Prime Minister to question the democratic legitimacy of the Venezuelan government given events going on in Catalonia given the fact that you have a region which has voted in a referendum yes it wasn't nationally binding because the national government denied them that for independence there is then arrest warrants sent out for politicians now in exile you have hundreds of people being arrested and injured in protests for Catalan independence who the hell is Pedro Sanchez and the Spanish political establishment more generally to say that the Venezuelan government is illegitimate you can't even recognize the right to self-determination in one of your own regions maybe before telling other countries what they can and can't do in their democratic process guess what it's not the 16th century anymore and you aren't conquistadors you could solve problems in your own backyard because before talking to Venezuelans about them being denied democracy talk to Catalan's and then there's Emmanuel Macron the most unpopular president in modern French political history at the same time as he was flying over to Egypt to speak alongside President El Sisi who won 95 percent of the popular vote in the last elections in Egypt he said that goings on in Venezuela were problematic and that the Venezuelan people deserved free and fair elections here's the thing Macron doesn't have to endure a right of recall like the president of Venezuela does if he did, dare I say it there would be sufficient signatures for another set of elections in France he has the lowest popularity ratings ever 21 percent what's more the yellow jackets the gilet jaune have been subject to appalling police brutality and violence you've seen tear gas dropped from helicopters on French protesters people have lost eyes people have been really badly hurt incarcerated and these protests have got so bad it's now leading to falls in French GDP so what you're seeing in France is not that different to what you're seeing in Venezuela of course the only difference is they aren't being subject to sanctions by one of the world's largest economies if they were you can absolutely guarantee the economic and constitutional crisis in France would be far bigger than what it is in Venezuela now if this was 20 years ago I would have no doubt that regime change in Venezuela would be coming it already would have happened I don't think it will for several reasons firstly the countries of the global north are wracked by problems of their own these aren't just economic they're also political as I've said there are crises of political legitimacy across the world not just the global south which means these people can't behave like it's the 19th century anymore secondly the Maduro regime the Bolivarian revolution is much more sturdy in Venezuela than foreign observers estimate and if there was to be regime change it would I think inevitably descend into civil war my suspicion is there are enough intelligent people on both sides to ensure that doesn't happen but what you can do whether you're American, British, French, German is speak out and speak to your domestic political class you need to say to them it is not good enough in fact it's shameful for you to be getting behind warmongers like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump Nicolas Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela and there is no political solution to this which looks like CIA-backed regime change


Good there you go Good and now we're gonna see with your back foot. Yeah, stay stay on the line You keep the depth on that side Good. Can we find this plate? Can we find this plate? Good. Try to keep it to touch try to keep it to touch. Oh Good play play good say Kylie lovely good Play quick quick quick nice one minute one minute. Oh Good him there you go Lily good ends next time shift a little quicker so you don't have to over stretch Yeah, oh and give it to play Good Jason say the torch finish


Last week, we took a look at the origin of American Kempo Karate that included the summary of how senior Grandmaster Ed Parker took Chinese and Japanese influences, modified them heavily, and developed his own system of self-defense. So let's take a tour of some of the larger variations of the art and examine the evolution of American Kempo Karate. In the previous video, we took a look at the origin of American Kempo and how Ed Parker learned a system of self-defense and then modified it to address American street fighting. I encourage watching that episode first if you haven't already and there is a link in the description below. In this episode, we're going to build on that and take a look at this young system and how it evolved over the past 60 years. Now, as I've said in previous videos, American Kempo has a very fractured community. There is a great divide between different organizations which often result in some nasty politics. Many of those politics and disagreements stem from the changes in the system we're going to be going over today. Now with that being said, the intention of this video is not to take any sides, discuss those politics, or to point any fingers at who may or may not be doing Kempo correctly. Our goal today is to explore the system of American Kempo and the stages it developed over the life of Ed Parker and some of the directions it has branched off to today. To summarize, a man by the name of James Mitosi brought his family's customized style of Karate from Japan to Hawaii where one of his top students, William K. S. Chow, took it, blended it with his family's Chinese art background and created what he called Karahou Kempo. Hawaiian-born Edmund K. Parker trained hard under Chow and with his blessing took this system and over his lifetime modified it into a systematic art, emphasizing a scientific mindset and teaching it as a study of body mechanics. Mr. Parker was like a bigger-than-life person, his energy. I don't know if you've ever been in the same room as him, but when he walked into the room it was like just an energy that you can't describe. You knew that there was something special about him that you didn't want to test or try. I actually have felt him do some stuff on me and even as he got into his later 50s and close to his passing he was still moving pretty good. He still moves very fast, very powerful, very explosive. It was impressive to see. It was scary to be on the other end of it, hoping that he was going to have good control because things were coming at you fast and hard. American Kempo teaches its students an array of basics, which includes strikes and maneuvers as well as a whole curriculum of principles and laws of motion. These principles are then put into a series of example self-defense sequences. Katas, or forms, are also taught to teach a student a deeper study of those principles and how the mechanics of the system can flow together. These principles, along with extensive sparring and freestyle tactics, create an extremely robust self-defense system. But he had been in quite a few street altercations that he could kind of see what worked, what didn't work. So it was cool to know that it was a battle-tested art. It wasn't just something that was given to him and said, do this and this is why. Ed Parker also believed in allowing his students to adapt the art for themselves and encouraged open thinking and contributions to the system as long as they adhere to the underlying principles. What he wanted to tell people is, no matter how you look at things, you're going to find your strong points. I don't want to say it's complex, but it is sophisticated to the point where it's not an ordinary practice because Ed Parker knew that some of the components of what we taught were going to be situations against a skilled fighter, not just someone who's just throwing a punch kick or coming up on you. And he also wanted you to find solutions. This opened the door for Kempo to become an organic community art. As a fun side note, for those of you who are familiar with Adriano and Burato, he and his brother Joe were both top students under William Chow at the time Ed Parker began to train with them. Adriano would later go on to become one of the founders of Kajugenbo, a martial art with a mixture of karate, judo and jujitsu, Kempo, and boxing. Although it took a very different path than Ed Parker did, it's interesting to think of how many arts today stem from the same roots. Ed Parker began teaching at Brigham Young University and eventually opened up his first Kempo school in 1956 in Pasadena, California. The Kempo he taught at this time was to ride from the system he had learned from Chow. Chow had also taught him advanced motion and Ed Parker took this information and began to restructure the art. He modified techniques, made additions, and deleted anything he felt was obsolete. Students were encouraged to ask questions and he would modify the art based on his own experiences and that of a student. To Ed Parker, understanding why a technique was used was just as important as learning how to perform it. Based on the fact that we are allowed to question our instructor, and growing up when I was doing traditional karate and taekwondo, and I used to hear people say, you know, when my instructor used to say, jump, you say, how high? I said, that's a lie. I said, when my instructor said jump, I jump. If you wanted me to go higher, he'd say it higher. You never questioned your instructor. I said, one of the first things I learned in American Kempo was to ask questions. You know, you need to know the why. Why are you doing this? Why would we do that instead of this? And that to me is superior because understanding it makes it so much easier for you to relate to it. In 1960, he released a book called Kempo Karate, Law of the Fist and the Empty Hand. This book was a fantastic guide for those training in the art at the time. It is loaded with instruction on traditions and etiquette, conditioning drills both mental and physical, the study of human anatomy, basic strikes, and his entire curriculum of self-defense techniques. It is interesting to note that throughout this entire book, he refers to the system as Kempo Karate, not yet calling it American Kempo. As the system grew through the years, it was referred to by many names, such as Original Kempo, Traditional Kempo, Chinese Kempo, Ed Parkers Kempo, and eventually American Kempo. Some of the distinct features of this version of Kempo that differ from today are the belt ranks and the organization of self-defense techniques. In this curriculum, there were only three belt colors, white, brown, and black. White belts received brown stripes during promotion, brown belts received black stripes, and black belts received red stripes, which red often represents the color of mastery. Ed Parker also created the KKAA, or the Kempo Karate Association of America, as well as starting the Long Beach International Karate Championships in 1964. This event drew martial artists from all over the world and still exists today. The emblem for the IKC can be seen in full color, representing all the belt colors of Kempo Karate at that time. The self-defense portion was composed of 62 techniques grouped together based on the attacks, such as tackles, grabs, punches, weapon attacks, and so on. This would be the basis of what would become the Web of Knowledge, or the way techniques would be categorized based upon the way a person was attacked. Each technique was broken up into modular steps and were simply referred to as 32A, 32B, 32C, and so on. As Ed Parker's system of self-defense grew, he wanted to spread out and open more schools and introduce Kempo Karate to more of the American population. In doing so, however, he understood that the system would need to be modified and he wanted to put together on paper a standard curriculum that would be taught at each Kempo school, keeping dojos unified and the quality of teaching consistent. Now, here is where the first major split of American Kempo occurred and also the source of much of the bad blood and politics that still linger today. Two of Mr. Parker's senior students were Al and Jim Tracy. Much of what occurred between them is subject for debate with accusations on both sides and stemming to some of the ugliest Kempo politics that still remain. Regardless of what happened, the Tracy brothers did not want to go the same path as Ed Parker and they parted ways. Al Tracy led the family in their own Kempo schools based heavily on the art they learned from Ed Parker. They kept many of the traditions and structure of the system as they grew and opened a very successful chain of schools that can still be found across the country today. Ed Parker dropped the modular breakdown, eventually creating fuller and longer defense sequences while the Tracy's kept the shorter combinations. If I was teaching like five swords, I'd go, okay, this is called Technique One block drop. Technique Two, Technique Three. So you had A, B, C, D, all this alphabet breakdown which we went into base technique and then the extension. So there wasn't more techniques. They just broke down more and named them with letter attachment. The Tracy system of Kempo is one of the most widely known sister schools today with a successful competitive history and widespread reach across America. It is also generally accepted that the Tracy's took over the KKAA while Ed Parker created the International Kempo Karate Association during his effort to spread his art overseas. The two styles continued to diverge as Ed Parker continued to modify and change the system while the Tracy's embraced what they call original Kempo and claim a closer tradition to William Chow. In any case, despite any he-said-she-said sentiments, it is unfortunate that the animosity remains today. On October 31st, 2017, great-grandmaster Al Tracy passed away. Both families have lost a father and perhaps one day the anger can be put aside and new allegiance is formed. I think we have to praise them for really getting out out there in the beginning with the franchises. Ed Parker defined his system differently when he was starting a blueprint in the 50s, the 60s. And it was a fighting system, too, as a lot of it was on fighting. Mr. Tracy passed away recently, so we would only hope that his legacy has passed on through his people as we would with Mr. Parker and those people. As Ed Parker sought to spread his art across the country, he knew he needed a regimented, fully-documented system that could be given to each school to use as their curriculum. With the help of his senior students and his son, Ed Parker put together a series of American Kempo manuals that laid out all the basics, kattas, and techniques to be taught. This first manual was released in 1970 and it bore some major changes from what he taught in the 60s. First, the modular self-defense techniques were dropped in favor of new sequences that would demonstrate how basics and principles worked together. A new lexicon was developed in favor of the previous number system and the terminology and the technique name served as a memorization tool for the practitioner. For example, Talon meant wrist grab and Ram meant a tackle attempt. A technique named obscure wing meant delivering an elbow strike outside of your opponent's peripheral vision. Additionally, Ed Parker added four more belt colors to the rank and divided the 128 defense sequences among them. In order to promote to the next rank, students had to complete 32 self-defense techniques instead of basics and a kata. Once the techniques were completed at Green Belt, the student then had to learn extensions for the first 32 orange belt techniques. This rank was sometimes referred to as green-orange. Upon completion of the extensions, they were promoted to brown belt. And at this point, three katas, known as forms 4, 5 and 6, were required in order to achieve a black belt rank. This system is often referred to as the 32-tec manual, and such manuals are hard to come by today, existing only in the hands of those who received them originally. One of the challenges of the system is that many felt it was a lot of material for students to master at each belt level. This was fine for those who devoted themselves, but as Ed Parker wanted to appeal to a wider population, he noticed that many students were getting discouraged early in their training. He added the rank of yellow belt, which consisted of the first 10 techniques of orange. This allowed the student to get a good taste of the system and achieve their first rank earlier and give them a sense of accomplishment and motivation to go forward. In the early 1980s, Ed Parker released the second manual and the system exploded with new material. Most notably in this version is the distribution of techniques among belt levels. Many schools continued to express concern at the amount of material per belt level. Ed Parker considered dropping the required techniques for per belt from 32 to 16, but decided it was too drastic of a change and he settled on a 24-tec system. Brown belt was divided into three degrees that counted backward, keeping it in line with the Q ranking system of traditional arts. In this new 24-tec system, ranking worked as follows. 10 techniques were required for yellow belt, then 24 for orange, purple, blue, green, third brown, and second brown. As in the first manual, in order to progress from this point, students had to learn extensions of previous techniques. Orange belt extensions for the first degree brown belt, purple extensions for black belt, blue extensions for second degree black belt, and green extensions for third degree black belt. At this point, the student had learned the entire curriculum and further promotion was based on teaching and contribution back into the system. This was a lot of new material that was added to the system. As Ed Parker continued to craft the curriculum, many of his senior students created techniques and caddes and brought them to him, and upon approval, Mr. Parker added them into the system.  Hence why he had some do thesis. He wanted to see how you thought. Some of the things even Ed Parker did, they weren't his. The kicking set wasn't Ed Parker's, that was Mr. Kelly's, that was Seabock Tom Kelly's. The staff set was Mr. Chuck Sullivan's. So he allowed his students to help him for the best interests of all to flourish. You know the bottom line is you only have two hands and two feet. And it's going to be the same in 10 years, in 20 years. Two hands and two feet. What's really going to change or evolve is your thought process. Ed Parker's students all wore white geese, keeping with the traditional karate uniform. In this revision, Mr. Parker added the black key to be awarded to students who had reached their brown belt status. This was to distinguish the instructors from the beginning and intermediate levels. Today, this black key has become synonymously known with the American Kempo system. Some schools keep with the black and white tradition while others make black uniforms their standard throughout all ranks. Belt knot placement was also to be placed on the left for males and on the right for females. This was a nod to the Chinese idea of chi, being stronger on the left for men and stronger on the right for women. Only instructors were allowed to wear their belt knot in the center, representing a balance of energy. This version of American Kempo became deeply rooted and is probably the most common curriculum the system had. In the late 1980s, a third and final Kempo manual emerged of Ed Parker's American Kempo system. This third manual featured the 16 technique system that Mr. Parker had considered earlier. This new manual was very similar to the previous 24 system, with the main difference line in the distribution of techniques. In this curriculum, 10 techniques were required for yellow, then 16 for orange, purple, blue and green, and then 20 techniques with three levels of brown and first-degree black belt. This time, the previous required extensions were put into place for promotion to second, third, fourth and fifth-degree black belt, with further promotion coming with time and contribution into the system. Ed Parker passed away on December 15, 1990, right as his manual began distribution. Many schools adopted it, while others stuck with the previous manual. With Mr. Parker's passing, a major hole occurred in the American Kempo community. He had not appointed a successor and a power vacuum occurred with many senior belts stepping up to lead the system. It was kind of sad to me how when he passed away, the organization splintered off and created their own organizations, and everyone was kind of doing their own thing, and it really just created a void of any one person in leadership and created probably six or seven or eight different Kempo organizations that it's still kind of that way now. As Mr. Parker had continuously changed his system throughout his life, each generation of black belts were positioned in the others. Everyone feels like their way is the best way, and there's a lot of criticism of, you know, well, I'm with so-and-so, he does it this way. That's how it should be done, not this way. So there's a lot of that, a lot of, well, you're doing it wrong, unfortunately. So it's still very fractured and splintered, in my opinion. Other schools took a more extreme turn, and with their experience with Mr. Parker, they put their own spin on it to take Kempo into their own generation and revolution. One of the most offshoots is Kempo Sub-Level 4, created by Dr. Ron Chappelle. Dr. Chappelle took his training with Ed Parker and created a system that focuses on the fine details of human anatomy. The name refers to one of the principles Ed Parker taught, in that there are four ranges in hand-to-hand combat. Out of contact range, within contact range, contact penetration, and contact manipulation. This last range refers to being close enough to your opponent to manipulate their body, and the techniques, throws, takedowns, and control techniques are all done from this range. Dr. Chappelle felt that this fourth range had a sub-level to it. It analyzed the idea that utilizing precision strikes and nerve activations along with structural alignment created enhanced effectiveness, not just for Kempo, but for any close-range art. They're using the delayed sword as a meridian strike from here to here. He just went into the actual infrastructure of the pressure point stuff. And into those pressure points, they were just going into their research. And it's still under research. Jeff Spiekman is one of Mr. Parker's most notable students. He was an ambassador for American Kempo into the film media, and starred in well over a dozen films. There isn't a Kempo student alive who hasn't heard of Mr. Spiekman or his 1991 film, The Perfect Weapon. Jeff Spiekman was a very close student of Mr. Parker, and they were working together while the perfect weapon was in production. Mr.  He has remained a respectable name in Kempo and has continued to carry on the quality of Mr. Parker's teachings. What might be perhaps his most notable achievement, and definitely one that's become widely known in the martial arts world, is his Kempo 5.0 system. Kempo 5.0 is a radical modification to Ed Parker's Kempo. He drew inspiration for Mr. Parker in taking an art and modifying it in his works. There is no secret that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has become widely popular in America and that MMA has taken a firm hold in the sporting world. Explosive techniques, expert takedowns, and a highly effective system of ground fighting has made Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a formidable art. When Mr. Parker first began to craft American Kempo, boxing and judo were popular arts, and stand-up fighting was the norm. Now while ground fighting and wrestling has been around for centuries, it wasn't until recent years that the great season of other schools brought Jiu-Jitsu to the mainstream classes. Realizing this new trend, Jeff Spiekman sought to create a new version of Kempo that incorporated it. We came here to tell you about Kempo 5.0, a new system of martial arts that incorporates the last generation of Ed Parker's Kempo with mixed martial art fighting in theory. Now many people often ask me, what does the name Kempo 5.0 mean? Now we took a look at the three Kempo manuals that Mr. Parker put out. These manuals are referred to as American Kempo 32, 24, and 16 tech systems, or versions 1, 2, and 3. In the 24 tech manual, or version 2, there was a massive curriculum expansion with many new techniques developed by him and his students. Some of these techniques originated for movements and principles outlined in the katas and were extracted and implemented as self-defense techniques. Kempo katas, or forms, are sequences of techniques in the formation to categorize ideas and demonstrate the flow of movement. The act of creating new techniques from the forms created by one minor side effect. Students were learning forms that had techniques in them that weren't taught until later belt levels. I myself had questioned this in my early training. When learning the kata that had an unfamiliar technique, I was told I would learn that technique in the next belt level or two. In his teachings and continuation of American Kempo, Mr. Speakman created a new manual and restructured the organization of techniques so that they were learned at the same time as the forms. This new manual went out to all Speakman schools burying the words version 4.0 in order to be in a fourth manual. With Kempo 5.0, Mr. Speakman and his top students have crafted a completely modified version of the American Kempo system. The most notable change is the inclusion of ground fighting. Take downs, locks, submissions, chokes, and other Brazilian jujitsu techniques are featured in an effort to teach students how to utilize and defend against ground fighting. Additionally, techniques are now organized by what is called combat models, so that techniques that are based off a similar scenario are grouped together and teach variations of a situation. I like where he's going with the grappling. I like the grappling I myself do jujitsu. I'm a blue belt. So I think it was a good idea to incorporate grappling into Kempo. Which I applaud in that he has the courage to say we need to change and we need to do things a little bit differently moving into a more modern society that has this to deal with now. So I tip my hat to him in that way for creating something of his own with a little bit more practicality of learning, not necessarily saying that you want to go to the ground all the time. But God forbid you get taken to the ground it's better to know what you're doing what your opponent is trying to do and then to not have that knowledge. It's still Kempo. So he uses the Kempo upper body entry and then he goes into the grappling stuff. So God bless him. And anybody like Jeff or anyone who's out there keeping the torch burning and carrying on the flame to the generations to come, I applaud them. Mr. Speakman is also a firm believer that a student needs extensive sparring and fighting experience in order to make their self-defense effective. Part of Kempo 5.0 is a rigorous freestyle program called the 5.0 Fighter and has students spar in a complete fight from stand up all the way down to the ground and into chokes and submissions. With the heavy blend of traditional Ed Parker Kempo, ground fighting and freestyle sparring, Jeff Speakman's Kempo 5.0 is a very dynamic and not the only one making the change as many schools across America are now teaching their own blend of Kempo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I have had the fortune of being able to train in a variety of Kempo that includes Tracy Kempo, traditional Ed Parker Kempo, Jeff Speakman's Kempo 4.0 and 5.0 system, as well as a customized Kempo Brazilian Jiu Jitsu hybrid curriculum. They all have something wonderful to offer and have a rich history that continues to grow today. Hopefully one day the different Kempo organizations will take this slide and come together again to take Ed Parker's signs of motion to new and exciting levels. Again, one of the things that I'd like to see in the future would be a unified Kempo. You know, where we're all together working towards the same goals, regardless of how many people do things differently. So those are a few of the stages we've seen in the evolution of American Kempo. I've experienced a few of them firsthand. Interestingly enough, one observation stood out to me and helped me establish my own personal training path. Now, while the curriculums and the techniques wildly varied from school to school, most of the time the underlying principles and laws remained. This really helped me understand just how pliable Kempo really is and as long as you preserve the foundational ideas of the system, then you can have a thousand different versions of the art. So I would really like to hear from those of you who have experienced different versions of American Kempo or any Kempo for that matter. Now I hope you've enjoyed this video of how communities grow by subscribing and sharing with each other. Thank you so much for watching.