Media Hate Fest for Venezuela Keeps on Keepin’ On

[Judi Lynn]

Media Hate Fest for Venezuela Keeps on Keepin’ On
Mark Weisbrot
Al Jazeera English, January 29, 2013

Last week there was a real media hate-fest for Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, with some of the more influential publications on both sides of the Atlantic really hating on the guy. Even by the hate-filled standards to which we have become accustomed, it was impressive.

It’s interesting, since this is one of the only countries in the world where the reporting of the more liberal media – NPR or even the New Yorker – is hardly different from that of Fox News or other right-wing media (more on that below).

~snip~

The New York Times, for its part, ran yet another hate piece on its op-ed page. Dog bites man. Nothing new here, they have doing this for almost 14 years – most recently just three months ago. This one was remarkably unoriginal, comparing the Chávez government to a Latin American magical realist novel. It contained very little information – but being fact-free allowed the authors to claim that the country had “dwindling productivity” and “an enormous foreign debt load.” Productivity has not “dwindled” under Chávez; in fact real GDP per capita, which is mostly driven by productivity growth, expanded by 24 percent since 2004. (For an explanation of why 2004 is a reasonable starting point, see here.) In the 20 years prior to Chávez, real GDP per person actually fell. As for the “enormous foreign debt load,” Venezuela’s foreign public debt is about 28 percent of GDP, and the interest on it is about 2 percent of GDP. If this is enormous – well, let’s just say these people don’t have a good sense of quantity.

The authors were probably just following a general rule, which is that you can say almost anything you want about Venezuela, so long as it is bad – and it usually goes unquestioned. Statistics and data count for very little when the media is presenting its ugly picture.

More:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/media-hate-fest-for-venezuela-keeps-on-keepin-on?utm_source=CEPR+feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cepr+(CEPR)

[Peace Patriot]

1. The hatred of Chavez by the press is overwhelming, endemic and truly mind-boggling.

There are no exceptions. NPR. The BBC. The Christian Science Monitor. Even the Guardian.

And, of course, the New York Slimes, the Associated Pukes, Rotters, the alphabet soup of TV/radio, and every corporate 'news' outlet.

They lie. They twist. They pile on. They have huge black holes in their so-called 'news' stories where information should be. They spit. They hiss. They wet their pants. They are in a petulant RAGE at the voters of Venezuela who have ignored them, time and again, and they take it out on poor, ill Hugo Chavez, who has had the nerve not only to significantly improve the lives of millions of Venezuelans but also to get re-elected, in an honest transparent election system--a system that Jimmy Carter recently said is "the best in the world."

This is the secret of this universal corporate 'news' hatred of Chavez: It is really hatred of democracy. The people of Venezuela know very well what Chavez's policies are and how well those policies are working--and they not only re-elected Chavez, they also just gave Chavez's party a smashing victory in the gubernatorial elections.

HE takes the slime thrown at Venezuela. But the real target is the Venezuelan people, who don't give a crap for the dictates of the New York Slimes or anybody else. They just keep following their own common sense and voting for their own "New Deal" in an election system that THEY set up as honest and transparent. That is intolerable to the arrogant shits of the corporate press.

We haven't seen anything like this since the New York Slimes lied through their teeth about Iraq for George W. Bush--and got rewarded with the slaughter of a million innocent people.

Lest we forget.

The New York Slimes LED THE PACK of corporate 'news' warmongers, propagandists and LIARS.

This hate-Chavez media campaign is quite amazing in its breadth, quite disgusting--and it is also very worrisome. Probably they just want to kick Chavez while he's down, in the hope of benefiting from his illness and overthrowing him or his successor, to pave the way for the plundering of Venezuela. But this media campaign is so intense and so pervasive that it is difficult not to think of war propaganda. It seems unthinkable, but so was Iraq. And believe me, it has not been lost on our corporate rulers and war profiteers that Venezuela possesses THE biggest oil reserves on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's, according to the USGS).

Half of Venezuela's oil profits are now going to the poor--for education, medical care, decent pensions for the elderly, building schools and housing, helps to small businesses and co-ops, and other social projects. Venezuela has become "THE most equal country in Latin America" (according to the UN Economic Commission on Latin American and the Caribbean). And it is THAT equality, and those social programs, and those honest and transparent elections--that is, democracy itself--that are the targets. The people of Venezuela are the targets. And whether the plan is to kill them or overturn their democracy and plunder them, it is THEY who are loathed, with a terrible loathing, not so much Chavez, a mere president and leader. They of course hate him for doing the will of the people. But it is the people they want to subjugate and rob, and the people who will suffer if they succeed.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. nothing on the prison massacre from Weisbrot? what a surprise? n/t

s

[reteachinwi]

3. The 2003 failed coup attempt

left me wondering just how incompetent Bush/Cheney were. Perhaps that is the source of some of the venom. Chavez pointed out the emperor's lack of clothing. Western oil companies attempted something like a boycott of developing Venezuelan oil fields believing that as the oil infrastructure failed so would the Chavistas. They have been ahead of the Capital emperors on that count as well.

MOSCOW – Rosneft chief Igor Sechin said Wednesday that Russian investment in Venezuela remained safe even as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is battling cancer.

Russia is betting billions of dollars on doing business in the oil-rich country, but the potential demise of an ally has raised questions about the future of warm ties between the governments.

"We have no doubts that our investment is protected," Sechin said in Caracas. "We are convinced that our projects will carry on over the long term and be unaffected by outside circumstances."
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=36903