Good protesters.
It’s fair to say that the complex anti-government protest movements in both Venezuela and Ukraine were boiled down by US corporate media to send a clear message to their domestic audience: These are the good guys.
In Ukraine, the takeaway was that there are two sides, and the people seeking to topple the government (successfully, as it turned out) wanted to be more like us. On NBC Nightly News (2/18/14), correspondent Richard Engel explained: “The Ukrainian government is backed by Moscow. The protesters want closer ties with Europe and the United States.”
ABC World News correspondent Terry Moran (2/19/14) framed it this way:
Not good.
Will this country of 46 million people turn West toward the US and Europe and democracy, or turn East to Vladimir Putin and Russia, which ruled here for centuries?”
And ABC anchor Diane Sawyer (2/20/14) called it
an unremitting duel between protesters who say they want Western freedom and police enforcing the alliance with Russia and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and all that he represents.
This casting of the conflict is obviously simplistic. There is a case to be made that now-deposed Yanukovych spurned an economic deal with the European Union—one that he seemed inclined to accept weeks earlier—because it was insufficient to deal with the scale of the country’s economic problems (Reuters, 12/19/13), which made Putin’s offer more attractive.
That is not to suggest that anti-government protesters do not have serious grievances with the state of their country. Likewise, it has to be said that, for all the portraits of a movement that wants US-style freedoms, a substantial minority of the protest movement is drawn from fascist and neo-Nazi factions (Guardian, 1/29/14; Slate, 2/20/14).
In Venezuela, meanwhile, demonstrators are similarly labeled. Here’s Mariana Atencio on ABC World News (2/23/14):
It’s been 12 straight days of violent clashes here in Venezuela. On one side, students and the middle class. On the other, police and pro-government groups, followers of the party of anti-American President Hugo Chavez.
So it’s students versus people who support the “anti-American” government—not difficult to figure out whose side you’re supposed to take. Nor did Newsweek (2/21/14) leave much doubt when it described protest leader Leopoldo Lopez this way:
With twinkling chocolate-colored eyes and high cheekbones, López seems to have it all: an attractive and supportive wife, two children who get along with each other and impossibly adorable Labrador puppies. He is charismatic, athletic and good-looking.
In the Washington Post (2/26/14), the Venezuelan protests were portrayed as a reaction to the country’s “hangover from 14 years of Chávez rule: a country with not enough milk or sugar in the supermarkets and far too many carjackings and murders in the streets.”
If that were the most important legacy of the past dozen years, you’d expect the entire country to be protesting—and it’d be hard to fathom how Chavez and current president Nicolas Maduro managed to win numerous elections. But in truth, by many indicators, life for poor Venezuelans sharply improved during the Chavez years (FAIR Media Advisory, 3/6/13), which explains their support for his party.
But the lesson is these are protest movements—despite adopting militant and in some cases quite violent tactics—that US media by and large were cheering.
In the midst of these conflicts, a new report from Amnesty International (2/27/14) on Israeli violence in the West Bank “documented the killings of 22 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank last year, at least 14 of which were in the context of protests.” The report received minimal coverage in the US press, though—and perhaps because—it raised profound questions about how a close US ally attacks protesters against military occupation.
Would the US press champion the cause of Palestinian demonstrators, or criticize harsh Israeli response to dissent? How about actually cheering on violent Palestinian resistance? It is simply unfathomable—Palestinians are the wrong kind of protester.
“Lopez seems to have it all … ”
While Newsweek is full of it.
I love this article. I wish you could have mentioned more instances of governments that the US supports with a record of killing protesters. I only say this because the Israel – Palestine conflict is already complex and controversial. It would be nice to have another example.
I also think it is interesting that the protests in North Carolina just a few months ago received no coverage.
Ukraine: John McCain presumably felt comfortable on a platform beside one of Ukraine’s leading neo-nazis.
Venezuela: The rich (including right-wing student groups, but not the tens of thousands who now can go to university because of Chavez’s movement) simply won’t accept that they’ve lost in a dozen elections and plebiscites.
Israel/Palestine: As you point out, Israel can do whatever it wants with impunity. Violence from ‘our’ side (as in Ukraine and Venezuela) is fine.
Isn’t it also somewhat misleading to use the term “anti-government” to refer to people who not only do not oppose government, but wish that they themselves were the government?
This article is fantastic.
Mr. Parkhurst,
I don’t know what you mean by “complex and controversial,” but it’s as crystal clear under international law, and a matter of overwhelming international consensus, as to who has rights to the West Bank and Gaza. And as to which countries are the greatest impediment to peace, there has been a scholarly consensus that has been Israel, enabled by the US. The evidence is overwhelming.
You wrote “If that were the most important legacy of the past dozen years, you’d expect the entire country to be protesting–and it’d be hard to fathom how Chavez and current president Nicolas Maduro managed to win numerous elections.”
indeed, and it also hard to fathom why Capreles would campigan as a “Lula like Leftist” who promised to stregthen key elements of Chavista policy like the Missions. Why not run as a far right “let’s erase the Chavez legacy” candidate? Answer is simple. He would have lost by a huge landslide unless he figured out a way to have only international coporate journalists vote in Venezuelan elections..
Nice article.
You did, however, omit to mention how the US, UK and Canadian governments (To name but three) have reported the Occupy and Anti-Fracking protests (Refused to report them or been outrightly hostile).
I’m concerned at the media bias on Venezuela’s ‘Protests’ and campaign site Care2’s petition “For human rights”. in Venezuela.
No details are given, just the request for decent people to show they support “The people’s Human Rights”.
Who’d be so churlish as NOT to sign?
As perspective – there’s no similarly successful domestic campaign for Human Rights of anti-fracking protestors in the UK, the US or anywhere else.
The petition doesn’t mention the ‘Protestors’ are the rich minority, demanding the return of their ‘Rightful property’ (The oil, the government) from the poor, the cancellation of “Socialist” health, housing and education policies.
The ‘Protests’ leader, Leopoldo López Mendoza was involved in the 2002 coup, is of a rich family, US educated, and (Tacitly) US backed. This does’t make him a CIA Stooge, but it doesn’t make him ‘A simple man of the people’ either.
Destabilisation of Venezuela has long been US Policy. With Chavez’s sudden death by cancer, this is the time.
After popular uprisings (tacitly supported by Western media) of the oil-rich ‘Arab Spring’ and Ukraine, it’s convenient the ‘Venezuela Story’ (Largely taken from media owned by the rich Opposition to the Government) should now feature in widespread media and a popular campaign.
Who started this campaign?
It’s unlikely this went viral due to the usual ‘Liberal’ campaigners. Why not people who wish for “A return of free Business Practices in Venezuela”?
What’s this petition ASK for?
An end to motorcycle gangs shooting beauty queens? An end to the gangster culture that opposes the government? For the government to return power to the rich?
No, It leaves the details blank.
It certainly doesn’t want us to frame it in terms of the widespread grab for fossil fuels.
It’s not quite the same as the ‘WMD’ excuse that worked so well in Iraq, but it’s not the first time an invasion’s been excused by ‘Liberation of an oppressed people’ based upon a dramatic incident.
Who’s it addressed to?
A ‘popular mandate’ for US involvement in “Liberating the people from Socialism”? Or to reinforce viewpoints so no-one would oppose the toppling of a democratic government for oil.
The terms are “Management of expectations”, “Framing the narrative” and “The engineering of consent”.
In the meantime:
Here’s some historical context by John Pilger:
To the very sharp point. Well done!
It occurs to me that this says a lot about the corporatists’ own assessment on it’s war on light. Whistleblowers are treated like terrorists and under attack. Here in Canada the war on science rages, with books being written about by people like (scientist) Shiva Chopra and author Chris Turner. Generally, Education, along with all other institutions, has been captured by powerful, special capitalist (of the neoliberal sort) interests and cranks out poorly educated ‘citizens’, specialized into stupidity and therefore of use to CEOs and the military. Chomsky has talked and written tons about the sophisticated propaganda system that elites in developed ‘democracies’ depend on to turn people into cattle and keep them that way. When thinkers like the late Walter Lippman writes about the bewildered herd, we can reasonably conclude that it’s wishful thinking. Noting that people – regular people and, to a lesser extent, well off people – have succumbed to propaganda isn’t the same as hating people and desiring that outcome. 99% of the 99% in some ways joins with the 1% in attacking the 1% of the 99%. Boy are we outgunned. Boy is this dawn before the sunrise dark! Boy are elites and their tools – who, clearly, are observing the same mass dimming as I am – loving it!
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I frequently complain that FAIR’s articles and an endless rehash of the same problem: every day, day after day, is another story about how the media lie to us to aid and abet the neocons/neofascists and keep the American people stupid and in the dark. Yes, yes, but we know this, Further reporting of it is not correcting anything. What I would like to see – by someone somewhere sometime, is the beginning of a concrete movement with a program of suggestions, to CHANGE this state of affairs. Maybe FAIR can open a “what to DO about it” division – dissociated as need be from FAIR proper.
I have called for: people to quit voting for anyone who makes or owns 10 times more than they make or own; never voting again for R or D until there is a VIABLE, PERMANENT third political party in the USA; all us us who are fed up with tweedle-D and tweedle-R to reregister as COMMUNISTS in 2015; and try to remind people that the 99.99% are STILL the 99.99%. But to my dismay talking to the coordinator of the US Socialist Party for the SF Bay Area, I find that in our metro area of some 4.3 million people, the Socialist Party has only – TWELVE MEMBERS. Guys and Gals: There’s something seriously wrong with this picture. Hint: the corporate media survive because we CONSUME them. I tuned out of all corporate/popular media in late 2009, because I could predict what they would be telling us – forever to come. Namely, no truth and never anything to empower Citizen Democracy. FAIR only confirms this with every issue. I suggest that unless you’re satisfied to hear this every week forever, we all should make it our central priority to resolve to do, and TO DO, something ABOUT the problem. Sad as it is to know, that effort can involve all os us for the rest of our lives – until we actually have Informed Citizen DEMOCRACY in the United States!
Anyone who’s read the History of Labor (see in particular Philip Foner’s 10-volume history of labor in the US) should BE A RED and all Americans should be (left-)radicals. Let’s work to make that so! See thankmefornotkillingyou.com for more polemics.
Let’s make Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine proud – so that FAIR ends up needing to complain only of bad grammar!
I GET TIRED OF LEFT OR RIGHT. WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS IN A COUNTRY, I CHECK THAT COUNTRY OUT ON SOURCES I TRUST. FWDED A VIDEO FROM HUMANS RIGHTS WATCH IN RUSSIA TO A BBC REPORTER. HE DIDN’T COVER IT. BECAUSE IT WOULD BE INCONVENIENT TO HEAR OR SAY NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT RUSSIA EUROPE NEEDS RUSSIAN GAS. A FEW MINOR ACTIONS. ANOTHER FAVORITE IS REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS. LOOK AT ANY COUNTRY TO SEE HOW FREE IT IS. BIG DEAL TO US AMERICANS WHO BELIEVE A FREE PRESS IS IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY. JUST COMMENTED ON THE NY TIMES THAT IN THE SIXTIES WE WERE PARANOID ON PRINCIPLE. I WANT TO GET MY FBI FILE, BUT WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT IF THERE WERE NOTHING THERE. NOT EVEN YPSL – YOUNG PEOPLE’S SOCIALIST LEAGUE -MEETINGS IN GREENWICH VILLAGE IN THE EARLY SIXTIES. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, ANTI VIETNAM, ANTI AFGHANISTAN AND ANTI IRAQ. MOST OF THE LAST TWO VIA CLICKTIVISM, A COP OUT WORD I INVENTED THAT MEANS YOU SIGN A PETITION OR BITCH ONLINE RATHER THAN HAULING ASS TO DC. NIXON DID NOTICE US IN FRONT OF THE WH. NOTHING ON TV NOW ABOUT PROTESTS. NOW ON PBS USED TO COVER THEM. DAVID BRANCACCIO WAS GREAT AT IT, BUT ALWAYS DEPRESSED. NOW HE DOES BIZ NEWS ON WNYC, AND SOUNDS CHIPPER. A PERSON CAN ONLY STAND SO MUCH BAD NEWS. BY THE WAY, AN ACADEMIC WOMAN ON THE DAILY SHOW SAID ONLY 58% OF CRIMEANS ARE RUSSIAN. AND TARTARS HATE AND FEAR RUSSIA. IF YOU SAW ALEXANDER NEVSKY, ONE OF EISENSTEIN’S MASTERPIECES, I SAW IN CHAPEL HILL, A SNIVELING SHIFTY TARTAR COMES UP TO BRAVE, BIG CHESTED BIG ARMED ALEXANDER NEVSKY TO ASK SOMETHING. CAN’T RECALL WHAT. NEVSKY SPITS ON THE GROUND AND CALLS HIM “ZABAKA”, I.E. “DOG”. BUT THE LEFT IS AS PREDICTABLE AS THE RIGHT. NO NUANCE ALLOWED.
Why is it that the US convinced itself that everything that happens in the world requires comments from the US government? The situation in the Ukraine is absolutely none of America’s business and neither is the situation in Venezuela. As for these weird protesters there wanting American “democracy,” they only think they do because the US never even was a democracy period unless one considers slavery, genocide, and apartheid (segregation) part of the democratic principle. “Freedom” in the US really means more people in prison that in any other country. Do those protesting dorks in the Ukraine and Venezuela really want that? I doubt it. Be careful what you ask for because you might accidentally get it is all I can tell those daffy protesters in the Ukraine and Venezuela.
So, your claim is that there’s a lack of critical context when evaluating the protest movements, but yet you add a ham-handed reference to the Palestinian movement? Talk about a lack of context!
It’s hilarious to me how the Venezuelan protests are dismissed out of hand simply because they are Chavez’s opposition. You boil the demonstrations down to one marginalized leader, Lopez, while all serious reporting has made it clear that the majority of those protesting do not align themselves with Lopez or others on the extreme. They have real concerns, but you wouldn’t know that by reading FAIR, Keane Bhatt and other media critics who have taken the Mark Weisbrot-Oliver Stone Kool Aid. Forget the fact that at least 20 people have been killed. Forget the inflation. Forget the lines for bread that can’t be bought. Forget the fact that violence runs amuck. Why? Because, the Gini coefficient, as measured by a corrupt government’s own numbers, has lowered! Yes, let’s boil Venezuela down to a couple statistics and ignore all else.
@Arthur- There already is such a movement. Check out popularresistance.org/aboutus/ and subscribe to their daily and/or weekly newsletters.
@Anne- Ukraine and Venezuela are absolutely “America’s business” (very apropos words), because it is the US (along with the EU) that have instigated these uprisings:
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/04/americas-staggering-hypocrisy/
http://www.popularresistance.org/wikileaks-exposed-us-efforts-to-destabilize-venezuela/
@David- the Venezuelan protests are “dismissed out of hand” because the people of Venezuela are not going to fall for another coup attempt on their president. They have wised up to Western fascist propaganda, and it’s high time the American people do the same. Oh, and those “20 people killed,” “inflation,” “bread lines,” and “violence?” Here’s the real story on those: http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10434
But if you don’t like that source, here’s another: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22121-venezuelas-deep-political-education-means-venezuelans-will-withstand-right-wing-protests
Yes my friends in the Ukraine tell a far different story.They see massive corruption on the left and right.And the same coming from Putin.Their opinion is they are surrounded by it, with no way up.As for Israel……Hey Peter Hart and FAIR,how about an article on Israel intercepting a ship loaded with missiles??????