Bananas Part 16
Apropos of the previous post, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is now branding a second national TV network as “enemies of the homeland.”
“You should watch where you are going,” he ominously warned the owners of Globovision in a televised rant. For good measure, he also branded students and others protesting his weekend shutdown of RCTV network a “fascist attack.”
Now those sound like the words of a decent, level-headed, tolerant democrat unafraid of public dissent, no?
If you have nothing else to do (like you’re done for the night sticking needles in your eyes) take a read through the comments section of my previous post. There you will find various writhing hissies feverishly supporting Chavez’ rather obvious squelching of opposition. Some of these stalwart revolutionaries just can’t believe that someone like me, someone who was the translator of Chilean President Salvador Allende, would be siding with the pro-imperialist, elitist, oligarchic private media against the will of Chavez (who, we are told, personally embodies the interests of the Venezuelan masses).
All I have to say to that crap is: I knew Salvador Allende. And he was a heroic and principled man who didn’t flinch from sacrificing his life in defense, precisely, of democracy. His legacy is defiled by those who claim the lesson to be derived from his sacrifice is to compromise on the most profound of democratic principles.
Meanwhile, there’s a growing fear even among Chavez’ own supporters inside Venezuela that he’s intent mostly on consolidating his personal power. Here’s an excellent piece.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
I was waiting for you to say “I knew Salvador Allende, I worked for Salvador Allende, Salvador Allende was a friend of mine. And Hugo Chavez, you’re no Salvador Allende!”
May 29th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
The wait is over. Im sorry if my personal experience makes me so predictable.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Yes, one lesson from Allende is defense of democratic principles FROM right-wing pigs and media barons who plot UN-DEMOCRATIC COUPS.
I mean, do you think Dr. Allende would have sided with Chavez or Carmona & company in 2002?? Do you think Allende might have saw some similarities in the CIA-backed propaganda of El Mercurio and the outright involvement of RCTV in the attempted coup of Chavez? Is there a parallel between El Mercurio and RCTV in the way they distort the news, even lie, to further the de-stabilization of a democratically-elected government? Is there similarities between Chavez creating enemies with his move for greater state control of oil and Chile’s move to nationalize copper (ask Henry Kissinger that one)?
May 29th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Did u think up all those questions on ur own or did someone help you?
May 29th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Why don’t you answer the questions, and be truly more forthcoming about this issue. As I’ve said I think these moves are politically stupid, if somewhat understandable -they certainly don’t strike me as any worse (and not even half as bad) as the corporate and self-induced repression of the US media that continues to this day…
But you seem to completely dismiss these issues, as if the questions that were raised aren’t worth answering. If you genuinely feel there’s a difference, tell us why…,and in particular – beyond any disagreement aboiut what Allende did or didn’t do about El Mercurio, or that you (like me) find Allende personally more to your liking than Chavez – why is it that in a situation such as this, you won’t even bother to explain this position of yours. Weasel words about Chavez’s easy target rhetoric aside, not to mention imagined “third alternatives”, why is it OK for the CIA to destabilize countries now, btu not then?
May 29th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Regarding Allende supposedly closing El Mercurio. Here’s an excerpt from “The Lawless State: The crimes of the U.S. Inteligence Agencies” by Morton Halperin, Jerry Berman, Robert Borosage, Christine Marwick (Penguin Books, 1976), p. 25:
“… The CIA concentrated its efforts in four key areas: Adding to its previous subsidies, the CIA spent another $1.5 million in support of El Mercurio. Under the agency’s guidance, the paper was transformed from a publication resembling the Wall Street Journal to one in the style of the New York Daily News, complete with screaming headlines and pictures of Soviet tanks on the front page. The CIA justified this heavy expenditure on El Mercurio to the 40 Committee on the grounds that the Allende government was trying to close the paper and, in general, threatening the free press in Chile. On the contrary, according to the Senate report, ‘the press remained free,’ and even the CIA’s own intelligence estimates stated that El Mercurio had been able to maintain its independence. The supposed threat to the press was the most important theme the CIA used in an international propaganda campaign aimed against Allende. With the fabricated charge, the CIA was able to convince newspapers around the world-including most of the American media-that Allende posed such a threat. Additionally the CIA circulated its propaganda throughout Chile by means of a complex assortment of captive newspapers, magazines, and radio and television outlets.”
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/NSA/CIA_Allende_LS.html
So apparently Allende didn’t try to close El Mercurio after all.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Cummings: come now, man. Ive repeatedly put forward my arguments for months on end about this on my blog. Mr. Ironic doesnt pay me enough to write personal essays for him.
And let’s get real: do you really think for a moment that given my personal background I havent posed those rather elementary and stunningly obvious questions to myself? Please.
There are elements of the Chile and Venezuela situations that converge and others that radically depart. I would have opposed closure of El Mercurio in 1972 and I oppose RCTV’s closure in 2007.
In 1972 I opposed the authoritarian, anti-democratic bluster and orientation of the Chilean CP and other Stalinoid factions and in 2007 I oppose the gangster-like rhetoric of Chavez, his labelling of all opposition as fascists, and his straight-up obvious drive to consolidate personal power at the expense of civil society.
Anything beyond that from me will cost you $3 a word. Thanks.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
And thanks, Jason for that historical footnote. Just another note. During Allende’s period, the right wing ran the most powerful TV network, and the other on air network was state run and pro-Allende. A third, weaker outlet was run by the left out of the University of Chile (Canal 9) and was under constant legal attack by right-wingers who claimed they were the real owners. For two years Canal 9 was under threat of closure by the courts against the will of Allende and his supporters. Which is one more reason why the Left was smart enough not to run around clamoring for the shutdown of press freedom as they would be the first victims.
A handful of weeks before the coup, the Chilean police acting on court orders raided Canal 9 and interrupted its transmission. Im not about to switch positions and now argue that the same gagging should be imposed on those with whom I disagree.
May 29th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
What a cowardly twit you are.
Ducking the questions by insulting my intelligence for asking the questions you conveniently don’t want to answer. The politician two-step. Change the topic, or insult the questioner, but never answer.
No, I don’t think Allende is like Chavez, not by a long shot. But the circumstances and context has many parallels in both countries, and if you have posed these “obvious” questions to yourself you apparently flunked with your responses.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
“In June 1973, as social tensions rose dramatically and rumors of coup plotting circulated through Santiago, El Mercurio ran an editorial essentially calling for insurrection. Allende has ceased to be the constitutional president, the paper declared. On June 21, Allende invoked a libel law, passed under a previous administration, and ordered the newspaper closed for six days, but after only one day an appeals court ruled that the government had no standing to suspend the paper, and El Mercurio renewed its drumbeat of opposition and agitation.”
– “El Mercurio File,” Peter Kornbluh, Columbia Journalism Review
http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2003/5/chile-kornbluh.asp
May 29th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
That simply doesn’t cut it. You haven’t specifically explained your reasons not for dislikign Chavez and Castro, but for backing Imperialist efforts against them. I am beign compeltely serious. Does the type of action underatken by the US government against Allende become ok when you dislike their target?
May 29th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Let me rephrase that…its not that it doesn’t cut it. I think perhaps that you may have made an interesting, if disturbingly cryptic point. I’ll add that you may have disliked the Stalinoids of whom you speak, but you were under the same umbrella, and closed ranks against empire. Why is empire now the lesser evil?
May 29th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Cummings: Im going to try to contain myself, be polite, and not just tell you to piss off. But I ought to. I dont support any “imperialist” actions against Venezuela. So cut out the B.S. Your notion that one is either/or is beneath you intellectually — I would hope.
Here’s what I wrote at the time of the 2002 coup.
Pro-imperialist? Go piss off.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020506/marccooper
May 30th, 2007 at 7:23 am
I’ve had this back and forth with you before. Imperialist shouldn’t be put in quotations, and I read the piece at the time you wrote it.
I’m not going so far as to say either/or. I ‘m saying that it is one thing to hate stalinoids or Chavistas, etc. Its another to not recognize US destabilization for what it is. Its you, who by taking the coup/cia crowd’s talking points who’s taking an either/or perspective. I’m simply opposign American imperialism in Latin America, a continental agenda in which actions against Chavez are also against Lula, etc.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:39 am
So, Allende did try to shut down El Mercurio.
Where were you when he did that Marc?
May 30th, 2007 at 7:43 am
So, Allende did try to shut down El Mercurio.
Where were you when he did that Marc?
===
Apparently out surf-fishing or shooting craps with the CIA.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Just read your 2002 Nation story. You did the reasonable thing then and denounced a coup but then you closed your story with a mis-characterization of Chavez.
First, its proven that the snipers firing on protestors before the coup were not Chavez thugs but supporters of the opposition.
Second, in 2002, I admit it was still questionable whether Chavez was really producing reforms and alleviating poverty, but in 2007 its pretty clear his government has installed deep reform (for good or ill) and poverty is declining.
Popularity? The Chavez landslide in the presidential election last December has pretty much answered that.
In any case, your article was from five years ago, my current questions still stand. If you do understand and acknowledge the similarities between the opposition to Allende and the opposition to Chavez, then where does that inform your analysis of present day Chavez? I don’t see it.
And, yes, Allende did try to shut down El Mercurio as I showed in an earlier comment above.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:36 am
>…First, its proven that the snipers firing on protestors before the coup were not Chavez thugs but supporters of the opposition.
Nope.
http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2004/3/gunson-docu.asp
DOCUMENTARY
Director’s Cut
Did an acclaimed documentary about the 2002 coup in Venezuela tell the whole story?
In September 2001, two young Irish filmmakers, Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain, arrived in Venezuela with plans to make a low-budget, fly-on-the-wall documentary about the country’s flamboyant president, Hugo Chávez. A former army officer, Chávez had attempted a coup d’état in 1992, spent a couple of years in jail, and was elected to the presidency in 1998. His followers revere him as a revolutionary, struggling to bring justice to the poor in the face of savage attacks from a local oligarchy backed by Washington. His adversaries call him a dangerous demagogue who has ruined the economy, polarized the nation, and is steadily dismantling a forty-five-year-old democracy. Bartley and O’Briain belong unabashedly in the former camp.
In today’s Venezuela, it is hard, if not impossible, to find an impartial observer. Most of the country’s private news media have openly joined the opposition. State radio and TV are crude cheerleaders for the government. Bartley and O’Briain, however, while rightly criticizing the former, ignore the sins of the latter.
Seven months into their project, persistence and good fortune brought a scoop: they were inside the presidential palace when Chávez was ousted by a military-civilian uprising. The resulting documentary — underwritten by the BBC, Ireland’s RTE, and other European broadcasters — is as thrilling a piece of political drama as you’re likely to see and has won armfuls of prizes, including Britain’s top documentary award, the Grierson. It has aired repeatedly all around the world, has been shown in movie theaters and at film festivals, arguably becoming the prevailing interpretation of the continuing Venezuelan political crisis. The Chávez government, which had 20,000 copies made in Cuba, has been a tireless promoter and distributor of the film.
“It is probably one of the best documentaries I have ever seen on television, and undoubtedly one of the finest pieces of journalism within living memory,†gushed Declan Lynch, a television critic for Ireland’s Sunday Independent, in a fairly typical review of Chávez: Inside the Coup. “The plot was classically simple: Chávez gets democratically elected, to the chagrin of the evil oil-barons and their good buddies in the Bush administration, who express ‘extreme concern’ that Chávez ‘doesn’t have America’s interest at heart.’ Chávez gets ousted by these malign forces, spirited away amid scenes of chaos orchestrated by them. But Santa MarÃa! his palace guards remain loyal, and amid scenes of total consternation, Chávez is brought back, the coup is declared null and void by the good guys on state television, and the evil oil-barons flee to Miami, having duly emptied the safe in the palace.â€
That engaging narrative is, unfortunately, somewhat at odds with the complex, messy reality of April 2002, when a mass march on the presidential palace in Caracas ended in a massacre and a short-lived change of government. Bartley and O’Briain are entitled to their views, but a close analysis of the film reveals something worse than political naiveté. Constructing a false picture of a classic military coup devised by an allegedly corrupt and racist oligarchy, they omit key facts, invent others, twist the sequence of events to support their case, and replace inconvenient images with others dredged from archives. (A version of the film in Spanish is called La Revolucion No Sera Transmitida: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.)
By the time of the coup, Venezuela had been embroiled for almost six months in a severe political crisis. The lid blew off when Chávez moved to rid the state oil corporation, Petróleos de Venezuela, of its top managers and directors, whom he perceived as inimical to his self-styled “revolution.†Chávez recently admitted that he deliberately provoked the showdown: the result was that oil managers, business leaders, and large segments of organized labor called a work stoppage, backed by millions of Venezuelans, particularly the country’s increasingly impoverished middle class. Disaffected military officers, angry at Chávez’s drive to place the armed forces at the service of his political project, were also involved.
On the morning of April 11, an estimated 500,000 people conducted an opposition march. The government called on its supporters to form a human shield around the presidential palace and attempted to activate a military defense plan. When the marchers, who had deviated from their original route, approached the palace, shooting broke out on all sides. A score of civilians died and more than 150 suffered gunshot wounds. The military high command called for Chávez to resign, and at 3:20 the next morning they announced he had agreed to do so. The presidency was assumed by a business leader, Pedro Carmona, but his government collapsed in less than forty-eight hours and Chávez returned to power.
In Bartley and O’Briain’s film, the chavistas (as the president’s supporters are known) are invariably poor, brown-skinned, and cheerful. The opposition, on the other hand, is rich, white, racist, and violent. Unseen are the armed bands of chavista thugs who for years have made the center of Caracas a no-go area, beating up or shooting opposition marchers or TV crews who dare to approach. Invisible, too, are the massive — and multiracial — peaceful opposition rallies, whose huge numbers belie the government’s claim to represent the masses.
In June, two months after the violence, Bartley and O’Briain filmed a group of condominium residents discussing how to defend themselves against possible chavista attacks. But the film — whose narrative purports to follow a strict chronology — inserted the interviews before the march. When I challenged Bartley on that in an exchange of e-mails, she dismissed the criticism, saying the producers felt that “the views expressed at this meeting illustrated the collective mind of the opposition long before the coup ever took place.â€
Important to her argument are images of peaceful chavistas facing a violent opposition march. She inserts a sequence ostensibly filmed outside the presidential palace on the morning of April 11 in which Caracas’s mayor, Freddy Bernal — a leading chavista radical — sings and plays the maracas for a crowd of smiling government supporters. The backdrop to the platform, however, reveals that the sequence does not belong to that day, when a differently dressed Bernal was organizing an armed defense of the palace.
Until coming under fire, the opposition march was entirely peaceful. But in the documentary, images of the march’s violent finale, along with one shot taken two days earlier, are inserted near the start of the demonstration. “The opposition march was fast approaching,†the commentary declares, “and some in the vanguard looked ready for a fight.â€
Before the march neared the palace, a number of people were shot, and several killed there. The film suggests that they were shot by “the coup plotters.†The fact is — as Bartley and O’Briain later admitted — we don’t know who was shooting. Nevertheless, a Venevisión reporter named Luis Alfonso Fernández was hustled off a rooftop for filming chavista gunmen apparently firing at the opposition march.
That film, repeated incessantly on the opposition TV channels, became the most contentious image of the entire day. Bartley accepts a government argument that “the opposition march had never taken that route†and that the gunmen were merely returning fire from snipers and the opposition-controlled police. She fails to mention that several people on the opposition march were shot dead, and many more wounded, less than two blocks from the gunmen. An image she uses showing an empty street below the Llaguno Bridge on which the gunmen were standing was filmed much earlier than the Fernández sequence, according to an analysis of the shadows by Wolfgang Schalk, a Venezuelan TV producer.
While the shooting was going on, Chávez commandeered all radio and TV frequencies for a speech that lasted almost two hours. He had used this prerogative up to seventeen times during the previous day. When private TV channels split the screen during his speeches to show the accompanying violence, the president ordered the National Guard to shut them down. None of this is featured in the film, which wrongly claims that state TV (VTV) was “the only channel to which he had access.†Later that evening, VTV went off the air after its staff deserted. The film implies that it was taken over by coup-plotters, and even fabricates a sequence in which the TV screen goes blank during a government legislator’s interview.
As the documentary proceeds, the atmosphere inside the palace is — not unnaturally — becoming pretty tense. “We could see on TV that the palace had been surrounded by tanks,†says the film’s narrator. The “tanks†(actually armored cars) had been ordered there by the president, not the opposition.
More serious is the deliberate blurring of responsibility for the coup. The high command that announced Chávez’s resignation — then quickly dissolved, leaving a total power vacuum — never in reality abandoned the president’s cause. Its senior figure, General-in-chief Lucas Rincón, is currently the interior minister. With one exception — the army commander, General EfraÃn Vásquez — they took no part in the Carmona government. Vásquez himself withdrew support from Carmona in less than two days, bringing down his short-lived regime. A group of senior officers, who released a videotaped statement withdrawing their support from Chávez, is presented in the film as if they were the high command. Their leader, Vice-Admiral Héctor RamÃrez Pérez, is identified as the head of the navy. He was not. With one solitary exception, these generals and admirals had not “fled abroad†after the Carmona government collapsed, as the film claims.
In constructing their alternative reality, the directors omit all mention of an announcement by General Rincón that Chávez had resigned, later calling it “supplementary to the main, key fact of the story†(i.e., their contention that he did not). They declined to respond to my argument that scenes in the documentary were fabricated, or placed out of sequence to alter the chain of cause-and-effect, saying they were “tired of having our film subjected to frame-by-frame analysis in an attempt to discredit it for political reasons.â€
The opposition media, as the film rightly points out, behaved disgracefully during the April events. They systematically excluded the chavista viewpoint from print, radio, and TV in the period April 11-13. But how ironic that a film purporting to set the record straight should itself turn out to be an exercise in propaganda.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:39 am
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED lies
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3378761249364089950&hl=en
May 30th, 2007 at 8:53 am
I see I am not the only one who reads CJR. Here is the rejoinder to the above.
Director’s Cut
Who’s Right? The Filmmakers Respond
BY KIM BARTLEY AND DONNACHA O’BRIAIN
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Filmed and Directed by Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain
Phil Gunson admits it is hard to find anyone in Venezuela today who is balanced about the events of April 2002. He should include himself. The key points he raises are themselves issues of dispute in Venezuela and they continue to divide opinion. His criticisms are conveniently identical to those outlined in a politically motivated petition against our film, led by elements in the Venezuelan opposition, seemingly determined to have the documentary discredited.
Gunson accuses us of propaganda and suggests that we failed to understand the complexity of the Venezuelan situation. We spent nearly a year in Venezuela researching and filming this documentary, and were eyewitnesses to the coup.
Gunson may obsess about de-contextualized details. He fails, however, to ask the key questions any journalist would ask:
Did elements in the military threaten force in the effort to make Chávez resign? They did. Did Chávez resign? No. Were the people who illegally seized power representative of some of the most retrograde political tendencies in Venezuelan society? Yes they were. The first action of the Carmona regime was to abolish the democratic institutions, including parliament. These facts are simply glossed over, or worse, omitted by Gunson. Some further points:
The fact that not all the military were involved — as is the case with most coups — is irrelevant. By late on the night of April 11, the coup plotters did threaten to unleash an attack on the palace. The infamous Vice Admiral RamÃrez Pérez even stated that night, on privately owned TV, that “Either he [Chávez] takes this opportunity, or we’ll launch a military operation.†Were they bluffing? Who knows? Did those who remained inside the palace fear an attack? Yes.
The idea that Chávez supporters in 2002 were broadly poor and dark-skinned and the opposition broadly white and middle class may seem simplistic but it’s one we share with a number of commentators including the Guardian newspaper (December 10, 2002), Professor Dan Hellinger of Webster University in Missouri, and indeed Gunson himself. (See The Christian Science Monitor, April 16, 2002.)
On one of the most crucial events — the shootings of April 11 — Gunson is guilty of omission and inaccuracy. Nowhere in the film did we say that only chavistas were shot on April 11. Nobody can say with certainty who orchestrated the shootings that day. Our focus, rather, was on the way the private media rushed to judgment, without any corroboration, stating as fact that the chavistas who were filmed on the Llaguno Bridge were shooting at the opposition march. These alleged shooters subsequently were tried in a court of law and absolved of all charges; indeed the court established that they had been firing in self-defense at snipers and police. This fact, important to any understanding of these events, is conveniently omitted from Gunson’s article. That the opposition march did not pass below the bridge is attested to by many eyewitnesses, including the deputy editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, who was on the bridge that day. The documentary Anatomy of a Coup, broadcast on Australian TV (SBS) in October 2002, came to conclusions similar to our own. Again these key testimonies are omitted from Gunson’s own constructed narrative.
He tells us nothing of the evidence, commonly known and presented in the same SBS documentary, which suggests that the violence that day was provoked and choreographed. That documentary quotes a CNN correspondent describing how on the evening of April 10 he was invited to film a press conference at which Vice Admiral RamÃrez Pérez denounced Chávez for the deaths — this before the shootings had even taken place. (See also The Battle of Venezuela, published by the Latin American Bureau)
As for Wolfgang Schalk’s so-called “shadow analysisâ€: it is surely not insignificant that Schalk has led the well-resourced campaign, linked to the Venezuelan opposition, to discredit and suppress our film. His claim that the high shot of the empty street was filmed before the march ever neared the palace is untrue. The footage is contemporaneous with the exchange of fire between chavistas on the bridge and snipers and police.
Gunson goes to great length to suggest that we twist reality to fit a pre-ordained theory. We reject this outright. Yes, a limited number of recent archive images were used in the documentary to set the scene at the pro- and anti-Chávez gatherings on the morning of April 11, before the core narrative of the coup takes off. We could not be everywhere filming at all times. But Gunson’s claim that we used archive shots to deliberately mislead the audience is false and grotesque. It is easy to cite a few isolated images out of context in an effort to discredit the documentary as a whole, but in fact we present the reality as witnessed by us and others and as supported by the facts.
That private, non-state-owned TV stations in Venezuela are unanimously anti-Chávez is fact. On the night of the coup we were in the palace and witnessed how Chávez’s ministers were prevented from broadcasting to the nation because the government TV signal was taken off air. Opposition-led forces did in fact take control of the station, a fact corroborated by such bodies as the International Federation of Journalists.
We do not claim that our film is the definitive or only narrative of what happened during the coup. It could not be. To suggest that it is propaganda, however, tells us more, perhaps, about Gunson’s own ideological prejudices than it does about what happened in Venezuela in April 2002.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Whatever the case may be, I don’t usually paste and cut entire essays in to blog comment sections, but the obnoxious move by Pugliese deserved a response in kind.
Do you have anything to say?
May 30th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Pugliese: from what rock did you crawl from under? Is Pugliese one of Cooper’s attack dogs? Made a mistake, next topic.
Where were we?
May 30th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Assuming Kornbluh is right, there’s a difference between trying to close a paper for six days and trying to close it permanently, yes?
May 30th, 2007 at 9:21 am
When is Chavez going to order the people to wear their underwear on the outside?
May 30th, 2007 at 10:04 am
To provide some balance to Marc’s piece, I invite your perusal of Bart Jones’ piece (LA Times 5/30) on Media in Venezuela. Bart is a respected AP reporter who was in Venezuela 8 years on assignment and is a Chavez biographer.
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez’s refusal to renew the license of Radio Caracas Television might seem to justify fears that Chavez is crushing free speech and eliminating any voices critical of him.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and members of the European Parliament, the U.S. Senate and even Chile’s Congress have denounced the closure of RCTV, Venezuela’s oldest private television network. Chavez’s detractors got more ammunition Tuesday when the president included another opposition network, Globovision, among the “enemies of the homeland.”
But the case of RCTV — like most things involving Chavez — has been caught up in a web of misinformation. While one side of the story is getting headlines around the world, the other is barely heard.
The demise of RCTV is indeed a sad event in some ways for Venezuelans. Founded in 1953, it was an institution in the country, having produced the long-running political satire program “Radio Rochela” and the blisteringly realistic nighttime soap opera “Por Estas Calles.” It was RCTV that broadcast the first live-from-satellite images in Venezuela when it showed Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969.
But after Chavez was elected president in 1998, RCTV shifted to another endeavor: ousting a democratically elected leader from office. Controlled by members of the country’s fabulously wealthy oligarchy including RCTV chief Marcel Granier, it saw Chavez and his “Bolivarian Revolution” on behalf of Venezuela’s majority poor as a threat.
RCTV’s most infamous effort to topple Chavez came during the April 11, 2002, coup attempt against him. For two days before the putsch, RCTV preempted regular programming and ran wall-to-wall coverage of a general strike aimed at ousting Chavez. A stream of commentators spewed nonstop vitriolic attacks against him — while permitting no response from the government.
Then RCTV ran nonstop ads encouraging people to attend a march on April 11 aimed at toppling Chavez and broadcast blanket coverage of the event. When the march ended in violence, RCTV and Globovision ran manipulated video blaming Chavez supporters for scores of deaths and injuries.
After military rebels overthrew Chavez and he disappeared from public view for two days, RCTV’s biased coverage edged fully into sedition. Thousands of Chavez supporters took to the streets to demand his return, but none of that appeared on RCTV or other television stations. RCTV News Director Andres Izarra later testified at National Assembly hearings on the coup attempt that he received an order from superiors at the station: “Zero pro-Chavez, nothing related to Chavez or his supporters…. The idea was to create a climate of transition and to start to promote the dawn of a new country.” While the streets of Caracas burned with rage, RCTV ran cartoons, soap operas and old movies such as “Pretty Woman.” On April 13, 2002, Granier and other media moguls met in the Miraflores palace to pledge support to the country’s coup-installed dictator, Pedro Carmona, who had eliminated the Supreme Court, the National Assembly and the Constitution.
Would a network that aided and abetted a coup against the government be allowed to operate in the United States? The U.S. government probably would have shut down RCTV within five minutes after a failed coup attempt — and thrown its owners in jail. Chavez’s government allowed it to continue operating for five years, and then declined to renew its 20-year license to use the public airwaves. It can still broadcast on cable or via satellite dish.
Granier and others should not be seen as free-speech martyrs. Radio, TV and newspapers remain uncensored, unfettered and unthreatened by the government. Most Venezuelan media are still controlled by the old oligarchy and are staunchly anti-Chavez.
If Granier had not decided to try to oust the country’s president, Venezuelans might still be able to look forward to more broadcasts of “Radio Rochela.”
May 30th, 2007 at 10:06 am
“Assuming Kornbluh is right, there’s a difference between trying to close a paper for six days and trying to close it permanently, yes?”
Not as far as the class enemy is concerned. You are supposed to be some kind of socialist, Jason, so I assume you know what the class enemy is.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Jason..this is like arguing with priests and bishops. The fact that I lived in Chile at the time apparently means nothing. If some want to believe, and believe is the proper word, that Allende was trying to close El Mercurio, so be it. No amount of rational argument is going to change their minds.
Eppur’ si muove, as was said to the court of inquisition.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Mr. Ironic: keep a civil tongue in that gaping mouth of yours or I will give you the RCTV treatment. One difference between Michael Pugliese and you is that he uses his real name. He’s not ashamed of identifying himself. Oh, Im sorry… you’re probably not ashamed. In your case it must be rather a security measure… to protect you from the imperialist state. My bad.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Jason: Chavez has not closed RCTV, they will soon be on cable with their cartoon coup programming. Allende’s closure attempt IS tantamount.
Marc: your selective memory does nothng to help you as a journalist.
I would love to see a response on this from Peter Kornbluh. He is an internationally acknowledged expert on the Allende-Pinochet era in Chile, this man has read far more pertinent documents on the topics in question than Cooper, see:
http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/peter_kornbluh
Civil? Where was I being un-civil on this “civil” blog? RCTV treatment? It does not surprise me to see you are just as much a hypocrite with your personal behaviour.
Respond with reasoned arguments not threats and insults.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:08 am
As for the April 11th shootings, it is self-evident that they had to take place in order to set the coup in motion. It was well known in US intelligence circles that the coup was forthcoming when it did. It was all pre-planned. Five days before the coup, the CIA wrote: To provoke military action the plotters may try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month…
Most of those shot were Chavez supporters. There are many eyewitnesses that contradict everything Gunson (and RCTV) said about the events near the bridge. RCTV showed a video of a Chavista soldier sniping over and over for days, claiming he was firing at opposition, in order to justify the coup. Trouble is, everyone there saw the soldier actually looking for the mystery snipers, who were terrorizing the pro-Chavez crowd. He was taking direction from the crowd below, scanning rooflines and windows. The video and RCTV’s constant statements that the Government was “firing on unarmed peaceful protesters” made a mockery of journalism. It was another example of RCTV’s unique role in coup.
On the larger point, I think we can infer all we need to about Cooper’s tortured reasonings by his claim that, even in hindsight, he would not have supported the closure of El Mercurio. Of course, he has to make this argument to appear credible. But can it be true? Does he really put the sacredness of a CIA funded press organ over democracy and the promise of Allende’s socialism? Is he really so naive to believe that tolerance for CIA plots and acting like a “professor” are the lessons to be learned from those years? The CIA used Allende’s ‘civilness’ against him at every turn, alienating him from the masses. Chavez is in many ways a reaction against those mistakes. Allende certainly died bravely as a democrat, but his choices did nothing for Chilean democracy or the Chilean people.
Let us not forget that Bush set up a top-shelf CIA unit last year to focus solely on Venezuela and Cuba (on the same level as the Iranian and Korean desk). These folks are not just pushing paper in Washington, when US oil prices are at stake. Chavez has won a half dozen elections and referendums, each by a greater percentage. The opposition (and CIA) know they can not unseat Chavez through democratic channels, so they are using their old tricks of domestic subversion through financial support of the opposition. Our government admits as much, as do the records of USAID, NED and IRI.
Strikes were a strong CIA weapon in Chile. We have seen (employer led) destabilizing strikes in Venezuela and will likely see more. Media provocations are also in the toolbox. How else can one explain Globovision’s incitement utilizing the attempted assassination of the Pope as inspiration? Everyone knows Chavez has a big mouth and is prone to exaggeration. But does anyone expect a President to stay silent when a major TV station essentially calls for his assassination on a day when people are fighting police in the streets?
All I am trying to say Marc, is that democracy and freedom involve responsibility. This is elemental. Your core commitment to democracy apparently does not apply to the press, only politicians. RCTV and many opposition leaders have clearly abdicated their responsibilities in favor of regime change at any cost. Certainly, the use of the national public airwaves implies a higher standard than an online journal or community radio. When a national public broadcaster becomes a blatant agent of anti-democratic political forces, they are no longer serving the higher public interest or even trying to perform their most role as a truthful transmitter of news and information. They have lost their right to the public airwaves. They can continue to make false news, and air it on other channels, satellite, cable or internet – but not on the public’s dime. The media has no role to make political news, as any 2nd year journalist student or US media executive will be quick to tell you.
Put simply, it is not in the interest of “democracy” to allow a public institution (by being on the public airwaves) to very directly subverting democracy. Taking secret cash from an enemy’s foreign intelligence service and participating in a coup certainly fall under the category of subverting democracy.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Now,boys, play nice.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:53 am
As my other post awaits moderation, I forgot to mention something else. Cooper writes that Chavez labeled the student and opposition (violent) protests a “fascist attack.” Actually, if you care to read the quote and context, he was warning the population to be on the lookout for a possible coup attempt during this period. Any coup attempt would, by definition, be a fascist attack. But I can see how Chavez calling students fascists is much better propoganda.
Perhaps Cooper would also like to explain how Chavez setting up an unprecedented experiment with community councils, given real money and power, is actually “consolidating personal power?” Many of the Councils are taking power away from the Chavista City Hall’s and giving them to opposition activists. They are slated to receive $4 billion of an overall state budget of $53 billion this year. As someone who studied these much more modest experiements in other places like Brazil, the potential for true participatory democracy in Venezuela is breathaking. Does Cooper really think it is easier for Chavez to control thousands of locally elected community council leaders than his partisan Mayors across the country?
May 30th, 2007 at 11:55 am
This is funny–I’m a longtime reader of this website, and it’s been a while since we’ve seen the “Michael Pugliese” entire article quotations. I think the from-under-a-rock-crawling metaphor is an apt one, as my memory serves.
Anyway, this issue is a hot one, and while I agree with the conclusion that Chavez is making some alarmingly anti-democratic moves here, I also think the black & white thinking on Chavez is inaccurate and somewhat shallow. As odd as it is for me to agree with jcummings, I think he’s right in pointing out a failure of Marc (and others here) of properly addressing the anti-democratic power wielded by both RCTV and the interests it directly represents. Like most Latin American nations, democratic institutions are either completely non-existent or extremely unstable, and if you think it’s a simple matter of patting yourself on the back and supporting “absolute” free speech then you have a fatal misunderstanding of the risks and struggles involved in building democracy in a country where corruption is a given and oligarchy resists change at all costs.
In other words, there’s more to the story, and I was hoping to find it here so I could develop a better understanding of what’s happening. Mostly I’m finding that special combination of snark and “free speech or nothing!” sloganeering, but it’s encouraging to read occasional attempts to think things through, such as from folks like Mr. Cummings. Kudos, sir.
May 30th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Any coup attempt would, by definition, be a fascist attack.
So when Chavez attempted his coup in 1992, it was a fascist attack. Why, then, do you support a fascist?
May 30th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
RP, I know you are smarter than to ask a question like that. You know very well fascism is not a tactic, or a method to take power. It is an ideology, albeit one harder to recognize in modern life. Besides his military uniform, Chavez represents the antithesis of prominent tendencies of what we know as fascism. His opponents in the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, who led the coup attempt, represent quite a few – most predominately their anti-Communism and their belief in the primacy of the Catholic Church, corporations and the light-skinned elite.
But indeed, maybe I did not qualify my statement enough. Any coup attempt on the Bolivarian Revolution from the right would be a fascist attack.
Chavez’s unsuccessful 1992 coup, on the other hand, was a direct assault on the corporatist neo-liberal policies of Andres Perez, which had led to the impoverishment of millions and slaughter of hundreds (maybe thousands) on the streets of Caracas in 1989 (the Caracazo). Chavez was merely the public face of a massive public uprising against these policies of the right. To call Chavez a fascist is absurd on its face and you know it.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
So when your side commits a coup it’s alright, but when the other side commits a coup, it’s an act of fascism.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
[Hit post too soon]
Actually I oppose military coups regardless of who is committing them. The role for the military in Latin America is to protect civil society, not to replace elected officials.
Indeed it is my belief that anyone who is involved in a coup should forfeit their right permanently to serve publicly. My inspiration for that, by the way, is Efrain Rios Montt
There is a solution for getting rid of the likes of CAP: they’re called elections. I condemn the coup attempt against Chavez with as much vigor as I condemn his attempted coup. I’m not the one here making hypocritical, morally relative arguments for a coup while condemning another.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
The challenge for Chavez and Allende and, for that matter, Barack Obama, is how to survive and be a leader in a world in which the major communication media are owned by the very wealthy and powerful. I don’t think it matters whether the press is funded by the CIA or Rupert Murdoch or anyone else.
But as the Supreme Court has said, the remedy for bad speech is more speech. The left is never going to win in an environment in which it is deemed OK to shut down the presses or pull the plugs on the transmitters because it doesn’t approve of the content being published. That is why the right so despises the ACLU, even though it quite often has supported the rights of radical conservatives to speak out. They know that in the long run, the freer the speech, the more the people are going to determine the direction of politics and the culture. That is true in Venezuela or Cuba or Saudi Arabia, and it is true here.
IMHO, when the revolutionaries begin closing down opposition presses, no matter who is funding them, they are signalling that they no longer trust people to make up their own minds. And when cummings said that the US press’s self-repression is worse than armed suppression by the government, he is nuts. I’m pretty sure that if Dick Cheney ordered NYT and CNN closed and off the air tomorrow, cummings might raise a bit more of a ruckus even than he is now
May 30th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I’m pretty sure that if Dick Cheney ordered NYT and CNN closed and off the air tomorrow, cummings might raise a bit more of a ruckus even than he is now
And to continue the simplistic U.S./Venezuela comparisons, I’m sure that if the NYT and CNN fomented a coup against George Bush tomorrow, we’d have a bit more of a ruckus blah blah blah…
Indeed, analogies are fun and easy to make, like instant brownies. Unfortunately, that doesn’t guarantee their relevance or usefulness.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I am not in apporval of Chavez’s decision. I don’t like it at all. I simply think it should be taken in context of who and what RCTV happen to be. I don’t liek glib easy answers that either postulate taht Chavez can do no wrong (as a supporter of his, I feel the Bolivarians deserve more than that) or that they can do no right.
I think that if one compares how hysterical and unaware the broad mass of Americans happen to be with how aware and savvy Venezuelans of all stripes happen to be, one sees my point in spades. No legislation is needed when the propagandists themselves are propagandized. The Times would be better off shut down then manufacturing so much consent.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Samuel, I have often tried to ask questions on these issues that might take us past the knee jerk…. i.e. “HOW does Castro maintain the sufficant popularity to continue power wielding seemingly in such violation of the spirit of his revolution?”
That’s when you REALLY get insulted ! =)
May 30th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Samuel: Read my post on 5/30 10:04am for a balanced view.
May 30th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
RP, I know it is not fashionable to say so, but there are indeed good coups and bad. The world’s foreign ministries recognize this, even if they won’t admit it (see Pakistan, Thailand, etc.). Likewise, I am a realist – and a revolutionary – and therefore have no qualms in stating this. Indeed, if Chavez would have succeeded in 1992, tens of thousands of lives in Venezuela and abroad would have been saved due to health, disease and desparation that was allowed to fester.
As for more US comparisions, anyone remember the hay over Sinclair Broadcasting before the 04 elections, when senior democrats were saying “there would be no Sinclair” if they aired the anti-Kerry documentary?? Maybe folks older than me remember Thatcher taking Thames TV off the air in 92? Or anyone care that Peru dropped several TV and radio stations last month, or that Honduras claimed 2 hours for blatant Govt. propoganda on EVERY station a few days ago??
Crosby gets near the essential point, which is that any radical redistributive project will get met with stiff resistance by the powers that be. It sounds nice and ACLU-ey to say this can be countered by “more talk.” Unfortunately reality is not so nice, as the history of nearly any Latin American country can tell us. Guns and money have a way of trumping honest reporting. In Venezuela, during the critical moments, the Govt. media was taken out of commission and the private played along. There was no ability for more talk…
May 30th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Randy Paul—-This United States of American was founded after COUP and seditious violence according to the laws of the regnant authority. A good coup is nothing but accelerated reform. Mandela led a coup. Zapata led a coup. You can’t simply be against a tactic which is by definition meaning-neutral.
Most democracies owe their first out-of-the-womb breath to coups! If fact, I’m coup-coup for coups.
May 30th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
“I’m not dinging the Times” -MARC COOPER
YOU GET $3.00 A WORD! THAT EXPLAINS TWO THINGS: A) CORPORATE SOLIDARITY AND B) YOUR GIFT FOR PROLIXITY. BON CHANCE
May 30th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
This type of story from may help people understand the Venezuelan media. (From the excellent blog Oil Wars):
A Brigadier General from the (Ven.) National Guard was briefing the media, showing them a lampost with bullet hits comming from the general direction of the opposition (at yesterday’s ‘student protest’/riot). The media then stated that they heard no gunshots. To which the General astonishingly asked if they were deaf. The camera then proceded to pan the bullet hits which it zoomed and it was painfully obvious to both the camera and the viewer that it was what he claimed. But then near the end they claimed again that they saw nothing.
May 30th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Say Marc, over at the WAYNE MADSEN REPORT I read of “liberal” blogs being duped by neo-con propoganda and psy-ops about people like Chavez. Want to fess up?
May 30th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Mandela did not lead a coup. He lead a peaceful transition to a truly plural democracy.
Likewise, I am a realist – and a revolutionary – and therefore have no qualms in stating this.
¡Ooohh que macho! Coming from a guy pseudonymously posting from the front lines of his keyboard.
There are coups committed by those you like (to which I might add, you risk absolutely nothing and face no danger whatsoever) and coups committed by those you dislike. Thanks, but I’ll stick to elections.
Hank Quevedo,
So your argument is that what happened 200 years ago in the US and about a century ago in Mexico should determine what takes place today.
Go acquaint yourself with the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It’s what we grown ups support.
May 30th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
RANDY PAUL- THE POINT WAS AS G.B.S. SAID:
“NO GENERALIZATION IS WORTH A DAMN, INCLUDING THIS ONE”
A “REVOLTIONARY” WHO ONLY BELIEVES IN PEACEFUL TRANSITIONS IS LIKE A VEGETARIAN LION…A NATURAL REACTIONARY.
I’LL HAPPILY COMPARE REVOLUTIONARY EXPERIENCES WITH YOU JUST AS SOON AS YOU CAN DOCUMENT YOUR FIRST, EMBRA.
I USE ANONYMITY BECAUSE IT TENDS TO REDUCE AD HOMINEM ARGUMENTS, AT LEAST FROM SURFACE-DWELLERS.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Hank,
That part of my argument was not directed at you: I quoted from leftside, not you. Do you not even remember what you wrote?
Gandhi and Martin Luther King might take issue with that.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
So your argument is that what happened 200 years ago in the US and about a century ago in Mexico should determine what takes place today.
Spoken like a true bourgeois defender of status quo inequality. Even Fukuyama no logner believes our current political arrangement is the end of history. You think we’re just gonna keep peacefully transferring our arrangements foreverandever? I hope so but I doubt it.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Some of you folks really ought to consider taking your show on th road! What a bunch of bloviating wankers.
I believe it was Ernesto Guevara who said the duty of a revolutionary is to make the revolution. So I suppose every key stroke is a mortal blow against U.S. imperialism. ROFL
It also seems that the lessons of this last century have hardly been appreciated. Fukuyama not withstanding: yes, we have seen that capitalist free markets fail to provide for the common welfare. But we should also be able to figure out by now that the grand schemes of societal makeover in the name of humanity and equality have revealed themselves to be at worst totalitarian, and at best dismal failures.
In regard to Venezuela, I suppose the acid test here is what one thinks of the outcome produced in Cuba. If you think Cuba is a success then, yes, you ought to be very optimistic about Chavez. If, on the other hand, you recognize that the lofty goals of the Cuban revolution have been stunted by anti-democratic one-party dictatorship, the degradation of personal freedom and a rampant disregard for civil liberties (and thefore for basic human dignity) then there’s plenty to be worried about.
That’s enough on this topic. All I can say is how relieved I am that all these revolutionaries are preoccupied typing. I wonder how many personal risks they have taken or are willing to take in real life. I also wonder if, while dreaming of the eventual liberation of millions, they are in the meantime taking the time to help out and improve the lives of, say, two or three real individuals.
But I already know the answer to those questions.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Cummings,
Oh bullshit. Given the history of the military in Latin America, I have every reason to be skeptical of coups. I never said that I expect nations to make peaceful transitions indefinitely, but I certainly hope it will happen. Using Zapata’s revolution and the American revolution as a framework for governmental transition is a piss poor model IMHO. That doesn’t make me “true bourgeois defender of status quo inequality” any more than saying you’re a revolutionary makes one a revolutionary.
Next time I’m at mass I’ll say a prayer that you can be both contrarian and cogent. What a change that would be!
May 30th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Randy: Here’s Cummings’ problem. It’s actually a syndrome — and one I have been exposed to most of my life. He likes to put things in dialectical terms when in fact a psychological frame would be more apt.
Like many (most) Northamerican lefties his politics have (unfortunately) no real organic link to the broader politics around him i.e. to be a revolutionary in the U.S. or Canada is hardly a political reality. It is, instead, a posture and even more importantly an INDENTITY.
So what’s tough for a guy like Cummings, or for a lesser light like Leftside, is that they cannot BEAR the thought that anyone, or anything actually exists to their left. That would in turn mean they were “to the right” of something or somebody and poof! there goes their personal identity.
I expect them to heatedly deny this observation. But Im too old and have seen it too many times not to know Im basically right — so to speak.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
“It also seems that the lessons of this last century have hardly been appreciated. Fukuyama not withstanding: yes, we have seen that capitalist free markets fail to provide for the common welfare. But we should also be able to figure out by now that the grand schemes of societal makeover in the name of humanity and equality have revealed themselves to be at worst totalitarian, and at best dismal failures.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
My point is made by the above comment… If one dissents, one MUST be to the right — a bourgeois flunky liberal. Only such a cold war fool as Schlesinger would venture that the Communist experiment has failed.
Wow.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I think that being serious about one’s politics is a far better “identity” frame in our type of society than anything else. I plead quite guilty, and take no offense at such a “put down.” I’m not trying to make a revolution right now at least…a little premature. I am a political thinker, a writer who hasn’t done much pubnlic work in a while, but am engaged in academic political life. So yeah, it is my identity to a large degree.
I won’t get into my political actions these days except to say that being a revolutionary in Canada is more than an identity…and I very much do have links with the broader politics around me, something I don’t care to expound upon. It is wll known what other countreis certain forces that were resistant to RNC convention crowds happen to squirrel around.
I actually agree to a large degree with the fourth paragraph of Marc’s post at 7:45 pst but the sentence before that particular paragraph is truly disturbing…One can think of plenty of examples of why this si wrong but I won’t go ther.e . “Schlesinger” is right on here. I’ll also say that I think there are plenty of people to my left, and I offer them solidarity with some differences. I’m not too into direct action (anymore?)
May 30th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
I’m serious about my politics, too. I’m also practical about it and try not to be holier than thou.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
“In regard to Venezuela, I suppose the acid test here is what one thinks of the outcome produced in Cuba.”
Spoken like a true right-wing freako of the Latin elite. But you are not a right-winger, are you Marc? You are truly out of touch with today’s Latin America. I am not defending Chavez, who I mostly agree is increasingly abusing his power in some ways, but his government is still far from a Cuba repeat at this stage. You conveniently overlook elections, the opposition press (Venezuelan media, RCTV notwithstanding, is still easily dominated by the opposition), and the vast civil liberties THAT ARE still enjoyed in Venezuela. Why don’t you take a trip to Caracas one of these days to see with your own eyes what it is you hate so much.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING A LEFTIST AND A MYSTIC SIMULTANEOULY IS THAT YOU CAN PREDICT THAT CHAVEZ WILL BECOME CASTRO. ALMOST ALL SERIOUS REVOLUTIONS HAVE ERODED INTO AUTOCRACIES OR ECONOMIC FAILURES BECAUSE TRUE REVOLUTIONARIES ARE PISS POOR ADMINISTRATORS AND THE MISSION IS REPLACED BY SELF-PERPETUATION. EMILIANO WAS THE IDEAL REVOLUTIONARY BECAUSE HE STARTED THE OVERTHROW AND THE GOT THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY. BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS CONTAIN THE SEEDS OF THEIR DESTRUCTION BUT THEY DO CLAIM SUCCESS IN PURGING THE BODY POLITIC SO THAT ANOTHER IDEALISTIC APPETITE CAN BE FED AND WE ARE ALL ENOBLED BY THAT MELANCHOLY INEVITABILITY.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
“I’m not too into direct action..”
You’re not into any direct action….,ie, work, a job, producing something, earning something, contributing something help support your welfare state.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:18 am
Marc, RP – I was wondering when we were gonna get personal and resort to pompous mockery… If it makes a difference, my fiance makes me hide my name because we’ve been threatened by loco (US) Cubans. As for the revolutionary (or charity) pissing contest, I’ll demur. To believe either has a chance of promoting real change in America in the near future, is absurd. But the pen is not yet impotent and the left (in Los Angeles and Latin America) is very vibrant. The psycho-babble is crap. Far from being threatened by those to my left (many of whom criticize Chavez for his pragmatism), I think they are misguided and often a bit sad.
The core wisdom imparted seems to be that it is better not to try any “societal transformation” that is too big. Best to remain cautious, which in Latin America means don’t piss of the bond dealers or US Embassy. Caution has gotten the region where it is today – two steps backwards from when they were able to (sorta) plan their economy.
While not all big changes have succeeded as intended, socialist revolutions – and ideas later incorporated by traditional parties – have often produced profoundly important results. Will anyone really argue that, in the US, more incremenatilism will beat radical change (in health care, education, housing, planning, justice system, politics, sports, arts…?).
Still Chavez, rhetoric aside, is hardly a radical if you have any concept of history. All he’s nationalized are vacant properties and those the state controlled 20 years ago. The private sector and overall economy have boomed under ‘socialism of the 21st century,’ except for the strike. He’s redistributed billions of oil money to the poor, not in handouts, but in real ways… that is not debateable any more.
Since it always goes to Cuba, I’ll note they’ve achieved the 2nd highest UN “human development index” in the world, according to their GDP/capita. Most of those on that list are quasi-socialist (or ex-Communist) states. Cuba is also the only “sustainable” country on the planet, according to the WWF. The fastest growing economies (and those where poverty is disappearing fastest) are those that retain a socialist bent. Russia has just barely gotten to the point where it’s economic health is where the USSR was at… but the social health has been an unqualified disaster. Most of the country agrees with Putin (and Castro), that the demise of the USSR was a great disaster for mankind…
Finally, Mandela’s transition was far from “peaceful.” He, like most liberation heroes, was branded a terrorist by all but the “irresponsible” left when he most needed solidarity… Elections are fine but in America, they represent the pinnacle of a cruel joke that is called the finest democracy ever.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:23 am
“In regard to Venezuela, I suppose the acid test here is what one thinks of the outcome produced in Cuba. If you think Cuba is a success then, yes, you ought to be very optimistic about Chavez.”
This kind of binary thinking gets us nowhere and, really, is the instinctive rhetorical mode of low-brow chauvanists. You’re either against us, or for us. Chavez is either Allende or Castro. Good or evil. Black or white.
The reality is much more complex and open ended. The real questions, as far as Americans are concerned, have to do with policy options. Simply labeling Chavez a “thug” or whatever and assuming that by doing so, we’ve done something constructive or, even, brave or insightful, is silly and reeks of the worst kind of geopolitical condescension.
Let the Venezuelans decide whether Chavez is a thug.
As Americans, let’s work on steering our own government away from the reflexive insecurity that looks on the Chavez’s of the world–and there are many–as opportunities for domestic political gain via military intervention or “aid” and no-bid private security contracts down the road.
Marc adopts an authoritative tone in dismissing calls for circumspection, but I wonder: does he have any thoughts at all abotu U.S. policy in Venezuela and the region.
When he says the question of Chavez is the question of whether we want another Cuba, is he even thinking at all about the role of U.S. policy? Or, is he simply assuming that the accurate selection and labeling of good and bad guys will prevent another Cuba?
May 31st, 2007 at 8:23 am
Can I get my 2 posts out of moderation please?
May 31st, 2007 at 9:28 am
Hey Arthur when you see him please Give Charles Beard my best!
May 31st, 2007 at 9:34 am
I just checked Barricada’s website, which used to be (not sure about now) the Sandinista newspaper. My limited Spanish let me figure out the paper is wholeheartedly in support of RCTV and critical of Chavez. It’s tragic the Nicaraquan revolution was cut short by Reagan and his goons. It was maybe the first and last socialist revolution that made sense and might have served as a model for Latin America. Instead we get the Fidel wannabe. I guess Cuban style gulags are next in Venezuela.
May 31st, 2007 at 9:36 am
“The reality is much more complex and open ended.” Ah, yes, ye olde “Don’t you see that reality is ‘complicated’?” argument from the anointed. Followed, as it must be, by the simple statement “let’s work on steering our own government away from the reflexive insecurity that looks on the Chavez’s of the world–and there are many–as opportunities for domestic political gain via military intervention or “aid†and no-bid private security contracts down the road….”
Really? Does it? Given that the most complicated subject in the world is American Foreign Policy, isn’t that a bit simplistic?
May 31st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
“Meanwhile, there’s a growing fear even among Chavez’ own supporters inside Venezuela that he’s intent mostly on consolidating his personal power.”
Wow. You think?
May 31st, 2007 at 12:32 pm
One more thing. Does anyone under the age of 50 use the term “dialectical” in relation to politics? In a serious, non-ironic way, I mean? Cause when I hear terms like “dialectical” tossed around in political argument, I immediately think “Oh. Old hippies.” And then I began to drift off.
Granted, I’m not young – I’m 43, born one month after JFK died – I seem to be right on the cut off point between Boomer politics and non-Boomer politics – between people who remember the 1970s as a time of the Vietnam war, imperialism, revolution, etc., and those (like me) who remember bad clothes, bad hair and bad interior design. I’m just a bit too young to really remember the Vietnam war, and it has no personal meaning for me at all. Neither do mentions of Pinochet and Allende, although I know who they were and what they did.
I guess that’s why the whole “you’re an imperialist tool”, “No, you’ve betrayed the Revolution” thing seems as modern and relevant as 8 track tapes to me.
The fact that some people in these threads would actually support a government shut down of Fox News because it does not reflect reality as they see it is, to me, proof of the old “all politics is circular” idea – that is, if you move far enough to the left you will meet up with the right, and vice versa. Old right wing Latin American dictators shut down newspapers who supported communist overthrow of the government. New left wing Latin American dictators shut down TV stations who support capitalist (oligarchic, whatever) overthrow of the government. Their US apologists, on either side, will defend them because they are acting in the interests of “the people.” I have nothing but contempt for either view.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I guess that’s why the whole “you’re an imperialist toolâ€, “No, you’ve betrayed the Revolution†thing seems as modern and relevant as 8 track tapes to me.
===
Hmmm, you sound like the character Michael J. Fox played in “Family Ties”.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Booby: No I don’t. I haven’t said anything particularly right wing or Republican (saying that 60s political rhetoric is old and tired is not a right wing position, believe me).
Alex, as I recall, was basically pro-money, pro-personal grooming. I have no arguments with that.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Gary:
Barricada was indeed the official organ of the Frente Sandinista. It has since become an independent left of center paper critical of the Right and of Ortega. I find it quite significant that it supports RCTV.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Freedom to participate in, foster and incite a violent rebellon and coup d’etat, let’s see, where does that fit in the U.S. constitution.
I sure hope I don’t get tunnel vision when I become an old fokie like some of you here. I think the best guage of freedoms is whether or not the use of one freedom is impinging on another freedom. Or, to say it another way, have all the freedoms you want as long as you don’t take it away from someone else.
Freedoms have limits in order to protect the overall public good. If Chavez is right and RCTV took part in the most undemocratic act of all, the overthrow of a democratically-elected government, taking away their public broadcasting liscense is like a slap on the wrist considering the offense. Cooper and Company crying censorship is a farce: again, RCTV has not been shut down and will continue to vomit its point of view for Venezuela on cable and elsewhere.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:21 pm
And by the way, I’m Mr. Ironic. The use of the “ironic” tag is not to protect me from 8-track tape morons trying to extend “imperialism,” as the soon-to-be retirees here utter, but to somehow try to drive some sense into Cooper. That is an impossible task, I now understand.
This is not to imply I’m a Chavez devotee, I am not. But whether I like the man’s speaking style, governing agenda, whatever, to bash the man by sympathizing with the same type forces that ended the Allende presidency is grotesque.
May 31st, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Wow. Ordinary Nicaraguans used to say: “Si no eres chicha ni limonada, te pondremas de barricada.”
Now if my Spanish were better, I could flip that around into something about what happened to the newspaper.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:43 pm
You mean my eight-tracks are no good anymore? Next you’ll be telling me my lava lamp is out of date!
May 31st, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Yeah but kvetching that the 60s/70s are passe is sooo 1980s…
May 31st, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Get a grip, momo. You ain’t much of a trend setter.
June 1st, 2007 at 7:29 am
Bullet holes mentioned above on a post were shown by TV cameras to have existed before the demonstration turned violent, so they were there before!
June 1st, 2007 at 11:16 am
this is interesting -
RCTV is being “accused” of being involved in the same actions (a coup) that Chavez involved himself in as well…
The defence of this outrage against liberty of the media is proof, is any more is needed, that the left’s is about power, and nothing about professed love for freedom and equality…
thanks
September 30th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
old newspaper headlines…
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October 30th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Bille Joe Armstrong…
I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….
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