"Media Painting Chávez as a 'would-be dictator'
"The Repeatedly Re-Elected Venezuelan Autocrat
"Saturday, Dec 16, 2006 - By: Steve Rendall - FAIR's Extra!
"Note: This is just one of a series of article examining news coverage of Venezuela in the U.S. Press that appeared in the November/December 2006 issue of Extra! For the full table of contents and purchasing information, please go to: Extra! (November/December 2006)
-----
"Hugo Chávez never had a chance with the U.S. press. Shortly after his first electoral victory in 1998, New York Times Latin America reporter Larry Rohter (12/20/98) summed up his victory thusly:
"All across Latin America, presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders. With his landslide victory in Venezuela’s presidential election on December 6, Hugo Chávez has revived an all-too-familiar specter that the region’s ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo.
"...it is fitting that the Times reporter sided with that elite. A few years later, in April 2002, following Chávez’s re-election by an even greater margin, Times editors cheered a coup against Chávez by Venezuelan elites (Extra! Update, 6/02), declaring in Orwellian fashion that thanks to the overthrow of the elected president, “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.”
(MORE--much more!) (--blistering expose of absurd anti-Chavez bias in major U.S. news media)
(snip) (note: Carville exposed...)
"Even putative liberal commentators have joined the media chorus. On the O’Reilly Factor (12/5/05), Fox News contributor and NPR reporter Juan Williams said of Venezuela, “What you’re seeing there is really communism.” In September, when Democratic operatives Paul Begala and James Carville appeared on New York City public radio station WNYC (9/25/06), Begala told host Brian Lehrer that Chávez was “an autocrat, not a democrat,” and said he had “a terrible human rights record.” Carville told Lehrer, “I’ve worked in Venezuela and I would be very reluctant to call Chávez a democrat.” What Carville didn’t say was that he worked in Venezuela as an advisor to Venezuelan opposition groups leading an economically devastating strike by managers of the national oil company in an effort to destabilize the government (Washington Post, 1/20/03).
"Is Venezuela undemocratic? And is Hugo Chávez an autocrat who has consolidated one-party rule? An examination of Venezuelan elections, governing institutions and public opinion indicates otherwise."
(MORE)
-----------------------
Following the above is an analysis of five U.S. media myths about Chavez: 1) that Venezuela is undemocratic (authoritarian, dictatorial), 2) that Chavez is a communist; 3) that Chavez has/exercises autocratic control over all branches of government, 4) that Chavez is "anti-U.S." (often described that way by U.S. press--are 70% of the American people anti-American cuz they don't like Bush?); 5) that Chavez suppresses freedom of the press/ freedom of speech.
Rendall and others take them apart, one by one. In most cases, whatever the U.S. corporate myth is, it's not just untrue, but the opposite is true. (For instance, Venezuelans are devoted to their democracy and have the most transparent and highly monitored elections in the world; and, the private economic sector has increased from 59.3% to 62.5% , under Chavez). The only reed Chavez critics have to stand on is a vague provision in the Venezuelan Constitution that appears to limit criticism of the government; however, criticism of the government is RAMPANT in Venezuela, in all the media. The provision has never been implemented. And (my addition) it was not written by Chavez--it was written by a constitutional assembly, with the involvement of thousands of citizens, and the constitution was passed by an overwhelming vote of the people (over 70%). It's a flaw in the constitution. So what? (We have a couple of those ourselves.)
In a note to the "Participatory Democracy" section of this analysis, the writer points out that, since 2002, the U.S./Bush government has spend nearly TWENTY-NINE MILLION DOLLARS of our tax money to "promote U.S. foreign policy objectives" in Venezuela, with over $2 million of it going into Chavez's political opposition.
And yet, the more money the Bushites pour in, for coup attempts, oil strikes, recall elections, and what-all, the more people vote for Chavez. And if that is not proof enough that Venezuela is a strong democracy--indeed, a pillar of the free world--there's this....
----------------------
I was startled to discover that Venezuela hand-counts FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of their ballots in elections, cuz they don't trust the electronic voting machines. Know how much we hand-count in the land of the brave, home of the free? 0% to 1%, depending how much of a stranglehold Diebold/ES&S has on state/local governments.
That's all I need to know, really, about Venezuela--after what-all has happened here with Bushite electronic voting corporations taking over our election system, with their "trade secret" programming code and their paperless or worthless-paper voting machines.
55%! Why didn't OUR electronic voting machines have that control on it, from the beginning? Hm?
Venezuelans are a whole lot smarter than we are, it seems, and, as a consequence, they have a government that the majority of the people actually voted for, and that, in turn, serves the interests of the majority of the people.
Strange goings on in South America. Democracy! Funny that our war profiteering corporate news monopolies don't recognize it, when they see it, and call it the opposite of what it is.
They have the same problem here, of flipping reality over. Who has the dictator--Venezuela or the U.S.A? Who is the "banana republic" now? Does Chavez torture people or detain them forever without trial? Does he add "signing statements" to bills passed by the National Assembly saying that the law doesn't apply to him? Is he pursuing an unjust, illegal, heinous war--ignoring the clear will of the people? Are he and his regime and his corporate buds pocketing billions of unaccounted for dollars, and passing multiple tax cuts for the super-rich, with a $10 trillion deficit?
Nope. Chavez is running a good government. Instead of conducting war on behalf of corporate resource predators, he's taxing the predators, fairly, to pay for schools and medical clinics and small business loans. And he is doing this--whoa! get this--he's doing it because that's what 62% of the voters WANT him to do.
And that's why he is loathed and reviled and totally slandered by the U.S. corporate press.
------------------
The 55% hand-count is cited in this article--which is a diary on what it was like to be in the barrios of Caracas this Dec. 3, 2006, during the election:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1901-----------------
This weird, wrong-end-of-the-telescope obsession of U.S. corporate media with Chavez is obscuring something that North Americans need to know--besides the fact that democracy is succeeding somewhere else on earth (indeed, it is sweeping the entire South American continent, and is even creeping bit by bit into Central America): that South America is fast heading toward an EU-type trade group, with a common currency, to throw off U.S. corporate domination and U.S. State Department interference. This is what Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution are all about. This is what Evo Morales in Bolivia is all about. This is what Rafael Correa in Ecuador is all about. This is what Nestor Kirchner in Argentina is all about. And Brazil. And Chile. And Uruguay. And Nicaragua. And the Oaxaca and other social movements in Mexico. Throwing the U.S. off their backs! The U.S. corporate news monopolies have thrown an "Iron Curtain" over any real news of this amazing revolution, which is grass roots based, often led by indigenous people. Their toxic anti-Chavez reporting is the cover story--the mislead, the disinformational sleight-of-hand. Cuz they don't want us to know about people throwing off the corporate rulers.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
