I have been amazed recently at the reporting on Venezuela by the American press. Instead of getting the story right, and reporting the truth about what is happening in that country, both broadcast and print media is doing nothing more than repeating government propaganda. And sadly, the Obama administration is no better than the Bush administration was when it comes to spreading lies about Venezuela.The press should be digging deeper, but they have shown by this shallow support of anti-Venezuela propaganda that they no longer seem to be interested in real reporting. The corporate-controlled media is more interested these days in profit, so they report fluff pieces and political press releases -- because real reporting costs money, and could cut into the corporate profits. This is dangerous because a democracy like ours requires a well-informed public, and that can only be accomplished by a media willing to dig deep and report the truth.
Two members of the Green Party Shadow Cabinet, Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, have written an excellent article on Venezuela and the failure of the American press for Truth-Out.org. It's a great article and I recommend reading all of it. Here is some of it:
Americans might be fooled by mass media misinformation, but Venezuelans know what is really happening in their country.
The misinformation in most of the media about the protests in Venezuela is astounding. Often the opposite of reality is repeated as if it were true. Americans who rely on the corporate mass media, politicians and corrupted nonprofits might fall for these tales, but Venezuelans know what is really happening.
Venezuelans have gone through 14 years of abuse and lies, including a coup attempt. They know what is really occurring in their economy and political system and are aware that their government is in a battle with the power of money both internally as well as with the US empire. In every election since 2002, Venezuelans have shown that their deep political education, participatory democracy and experience will overcome the falsehoods of the opposition. The violent actions of the opposition and intentional undermining of the economy are signs of an oligarch class that has lost power and is desperate. It must work outside of democracy to try to retake control of the government. . .
Below are responses to four falsehoods followed by one truth you will not hear in the US media.
Falsehood 1: The Maduro Government Is a Dictatorship. Venezuela is one of the most democratic nations on Earth. Here are some facts about democracy in Venezuela:
"Regarding the supposed 'democratic deficit of the Venezuelan regime,' the facts speak for themselves. Since 1998 there have been four national plebiscites, four presidential elections, and eleven parliamentary, regional, and municipal elections. Venezuela is the Latin American country with the highest number of elections and it also has an automatic electoral system (much more modern than Chile's), described by Jimmy Carter, who has observed 92 elections in all continents, as 'the best system in the world.' "The real "democratic deficit" has been shown by the United States and the opposition. In particular, Secretary of State John Kerry has flown his anti-democracy flag repeatedly when it comes to Venezuela. As Mark Weisbrot recently wrote "when Maduro was elected president and opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles claimed that the election was stolen, Kerry refused to recognize the election results. Kerry's aggressive, anti-democratic posture brought such a strong rebuke from South American governments that he was forced to reverse course and tacitly recognize the Maduro government. (For those who did not follow these events, there was no doubt about the election results.)" In December 2013, the Maduro government showed even greater strength in municipal elections. It won 58 percent of the country's municipalities. Maduro and his allies gained more than 49 percent of the total vote share, versus 43 percent for the opposition. This means that the right-wing opposition coalition had now lost four national elections in the past 14 months then lost the most recent municipal elections. . . Falsehood 2: Maduro and Chavez Have Destroyed the Economy. Markets Do Not Have Essentials and Inflation Is Out of Control It is important to understand that the oligarchs, in league with the United States, have been at war with the Chavez-Maduro governments since Chavez was first elected in 1999. One of the consistent strategies they have used has been to undermine the economy. This is a common strategy used by the United States in efforts to foment regime change throughout the world, as it has been doing since the 1950s. In fact, documents released by attorney and journalist Eva Golinger in November 2013 show a plan by the United States, Colombia and the oligarchs in Venezuela to undermine the economy to remove Maduro. The document, "Strategic Venezuelan Plan," was prepared by people from Colombia, the United States and the oligarchs in Venezuela. According to Golinger, the plan was developed during a meeting with leaders of the Venezuelan opposition; J.J. Rendon, an expert in psychological operations; and Mark Feierstein, director of the US Agency for International Development for Latin America. The plan includes a variety of steps to undermine the Venezuelan economy. They put forward strategies "to maintain and increase the sabotages that affect public services, particularly the electrical system that will enable responsibility to be placed on the government for supposed inefficiencies and negligence." Regarding the scarcity of goods, Golinger writes:
"Throughout the year, Venezuela has experienced problems with the supply of basic products, such as toilet paper, sugar, milk, oil, butter, flour and other food staples. Venezuelan authorities have confiscated tons of these products illegally held inside warehouses belonging to opposition businesses. They have also captured large quantities of these items on the border with Colombia, where they are sold as contraband."Maria Paez Victor confirms this writing:
"A double blow of outrageous overpricing of goods plus artificial food scarcity started just as people were beginning their Christmas shopping. Wealthy merchants proceeded to hoard essential goods: corn flour, sugar, salt, cooking oil, toilet paper, etc. placing them in hidden warehouses or spirited off to Colombia through a well-planned smuggling operation. The military discovered an illegal bridge built for motorcycles that carried the smuggled goods. Thousands of bags of foodstuffs were discovered simply left rotting on Colombian byways: this was not smuggling for economic reasons, but for political reasons."The purpose of the shortages is to create chaos, social unrest and lack of confidence in the government. In the leaked "Strategic Venezuela Plan," it describes their goal as "generating emotion with short messages that reach the largest quantity of people and emphasize social problems, provoking social discontent. Increase problems with supply of basic consumer products.". . . Falsehood 3: The Maduro Government Controls All of the Media, so the Opposition Has No Freedom of Speech Another argument that is being constantly repeated is the supposed lack of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Venezuela. Once again the numbers speak for themselves:
"80% of the media is private. The three national newspapers (El Universal, El Nacional and Ultimos Noticias) are opposed to the government, especially the first two, and they bring together 90% of the readership. Of the four television channels with national coverage, three of them (Venevision, Globovision, and Televen) are opposition, and likewise bring together 90% of the audience, according to information provided by the company AGB."Mark Weisbrot did an analysis of Venezuelan television coverage to test whether statements by the The New York Times (and others like it) are accurate. The Times begins its news report on Friday from Venezuela with "The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government was sold last year and the new owners have softened its news coverage." Weisbrot found the statement to be completely false. He provided links to major private TV coverage of recent events that were all supportive of the opposition and critical of the government. The interviews included all of the leaders of the opposition. . . Falsehood 4: The Maduro Government Is Reacting With Violence Against Nonviolent Protesters As part of the plan described in the leaked "Strategic Venezuelan Plan" the opposition seeks to: "Create situations of crisis in the streets that will facilitate US intervention, as well as NATO forces, with the support of the Colombian government. Whenever possible, the violence should result in deaths or injuries." What is being seen on the streets of Venezuela is consistent with that strategy. After the last presidential election, won narrowly by Maduro, Eva Golinger reports that his opponent called for violence: "Capriles refused to accept the results and called his supporters to take to the streets in protest, to 'get all their rage out.' During the two days after the elections, 11 government supporters were killed by Capriles' followers." Professor Steve Ellner of the Universidad de Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, argues that the cause of the violence is the opposition, not the government. He points out the opposition has been caught killing Venezuelans in the past, describing the juxtaposing of images during the 2002 coup against Chavez. The opposition tried to make it look like Chavez was killing Venezuelans, and the US media, including CNN, reported these false images. Later, the full images showed it was actually the opposition murdering Venezuelans. Ellner points to violence used by the opposition in the current upheaval - including attacking grocery stores, banks, buses and government buildings. Other commentators also have described specific incidents of violence by the opposition, including killing people. Maduro ordered the arrest of a retired general who tweeted how to use wire to decapitate people (in fact people have been killed and injured by such tactics) on motorcycles and how to attack armored vehicles with Molotov cocktails. Others in the opposition have tweeted about how to use blockades and to pour oil to cause vehicles to crash and catch on fire. . . Truth: The United States Has Been Supporting the Overthrow of the Venezuelan Government Since Chavez Was Elected Bhatt: "WikiLeaks actually produced a document, a 2006 cable, which ... was signed by the US ambassador and described a number of positions, which included 'Penetrating Chavez' Political Base,' 'Dividing Chavismo,' protecting US vital interests and 'Isolating Chavez Internationally.' " US diplomatic cables demonstrate that the United States has been using tactics to try to undermine Chavez-Maduro for a long time. Golinger reports that the United States has been a consistent funder of the opposition in Venezuela. She writes:
"Over the ten year period, from 2000-2010, US agencies, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI), set up in Caracas in 2002, channeled more than $100 million ... to opposition groups in Venezuela. The overall objective was regime change."During this time Chavez-Maduro has gotten stronger in Venezuelan elections, and the opposition has failed to make progress. Golinger reports that the United States has more recently focused on building a youth-protest movement in Venezuela, writing:
"Over one third of US funding, nearly $15 million annually by 2007, was directed towards youth and student groups, including training in the use of social networks to mobilize political activism. Student leaders were sent to the US for workshops and conferences on Internet activism and media networking. They were formed in tactics to promote regime change via street riots and strategic use of media to portray the government as repressive"Leopoldo Lopez has taken on a leadership role in the current protests. He recently was arrested for inciting violence and calling for the removal of Maduro. Lopez has a long history with the United States and comes from one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela. Lopez was involved in the US-backed 2002 coup and received start-up money from the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its offshoots, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). But Lopez's ties to the United States go back to his time as an undergraduate at Kenyon College in Ohio. Kenyon is known as a training ground for CIA assets; it even has a CIA scholarship program. Kenyon has CIA-friendly professors, and the Kenyon Review was even funded by the CIA. Lopez spent five years at Kenyon and went on to get a master's degree at the JFK School for Government at Harvard. With this history, it not surprising to see him involved in the 2002 coup and in the leadership of the current unrest, while the United States is funding his political party and opposition organizing. The other major leader of the opposition is Marína Corina Machado, the president of SUMATE, another opposition party. SUMATE also received an NED grant from the United States of tens of thousands of dollars after the 2002 coup. Wikileaks exposed the connection between the United States and opposition forces in trying to undermine the government. The documents came from the Stratfor leaks, quoting the CEO of Stratfor saying the US government is maneuvering to remove Chavez and how the State Department provides information to what he calls "a clueless US media." . . . The United States knows that Venezuela is the key to regaining control of Latin America, which has broken from US domination. Venezuela is also a leader in challenging the economic policies of the United States that empower private corporations and weaken the power of government to provide services to meet the needs of the people. Putting in place a US-friendly government is a top priority for the United States in Latin America. Americans need to be very skeptical about what they hear about Venezuela.
