Panicky Bush slinks away from Chavez

[RBHam]

by Mike Whitney

December 10, 2005
OpEdNews.com

The easiest way to understand the institutional bias of western media is to analyze reporting from the developing world. The economic summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the coverage and decide whether such partiality exists.

Although tens of thousands of working people came to protest George Bush and his suspiciously-named “free trade” economic policies; they were invariably smeared by the corporate media as “Leftists” or “radicals”; eliminating the possibility that they were simply concerned citizens participating in the democratic process. This is the familiar tactic of the media to marginalize ordinary people whose interests don’t correspond to those of the ruling elite.

“Latin America’s radical leftists took to the streets on Friday,” Jack Chang breathlessly reported for Knight Ridder, but all the other news outlets invoked the same disparaging language.

more...
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=WHI20051210&articleId=1435

[castiron]

1. Same tactic on display every day in this country.

With the invocation of "environmentalist" or "liberal" to describe normal people who care about shit.
First the elite smears a word for about 25 years, then use it indiscriminately to disparage anything from speaking out in city council against Wal-Mart (NIMBY! Elitist!) to joining a labor union (Socialist!) to activating for clean air and water (enviro-fascist bent on world domination!)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. And the tactic's been used for years

About 10 years ago, an environmental group in Newton County protested the letting of contracts to megacorporations to clearcut the forest. We wanted the local folks to get to do it, because they lived here and knew how to cut down trees with the minimal amount of damage. The newspaper reviled us, the mega corporations brought in shills that filled the local's head with the idea that we were "elitists" wanting to destroy their way of life. Signs (even those that said We Support the LOCAL Timber Industry)were burned, people were threatened in their homes (including my husband, who talked his way out of being shot by a drunk local), and one man was severely beaten and his house burned to the ground. I was followed to work-tailgated by trucks flashing lights, trying to run me off the road-had to have an escort on the way home (one look at the official emblem on the trailing vehicle and it didn't happen again).

You can guess what happened. The mega corporations came in, clear cut in a very destructive fashion, and made sure they didn't hire even one local to help with anything. Some local sawmills shut down afterwards, and the bozos in this county still think the mega corporations didn't have anything to do with the bad economy, thanks to the "guest speakers" and the local rag which kept up the propaganda until another group of people bought the paper.

[SoCalDem]

2. It always amazes me that whenever anyone espouses fair treatment

for poor people and working-class people, they are automatically "leftist radicals" , socialists or communists..

There IS a happy medium..We actually started to have it for a brief & shining moment..

It sickens me to hear generous people demeaned, and the greedy bastards at the other end, canonized.