Jon Lee Anderson (cc photo: Alejandro Ventura)
My hat is off to Keane Bhatt, NACLA blogger and occasional Extra! contributor, for his tireless efforts to prod one of the United States’ most prestigious media outlets to live up to its professed standards of accuracy. The outlet is the New Yorker, a magazine whose name is practically synonymous with factchecking. It’s a tradition there; they brag about how seriously they take checking the facts.
Which makes you wonder how Keane was able to find the glaring, major errors in the New Yorker‘s recent coverage of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, all perpetrated by longtime contributor Jon Lee Anderson.
First, in an online piece (10/7/12) previewing the 2012 Venezuelan presidential elections (originally titled “The End of Chávez?” but renamed “Chávez the Survivor” after Chávez won by a 10 percentage point margin), Anderson asserted that “Venezuela leads Latin America in homicides.” Actually, as can be easily ascertained, Venezuela has half the homicide rate of Honduras, and is below El Salvador as well.
Still, it is true that Venezuela has a high murder rate, even if it’s not the highest. And the online editors did post a correction when Keane brought the mistake to their attention (NACLA, 10/8/12). That is, more than a month after Keane brought it to their attention—and after Anderson admitted it needed to be corrected.
Then came Anderson’s massive 11,000-word piece in the print edition, “Slumlord: What Has Hugo Chávez Wrought in Venezuela” (1/28/13–subscription required), which claimed that Chávez was intent on “preventing a coup like the one that put him in office.”
No. Chávez had earlier led an attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government in 1992, in the wake of government massacres that had killed hundreds if not thousands of protesters. The coup failed and Chávez was imprisoned; he was released by a new government after the president he tried to overthrow was impeached. Chávez ended up coming into office in 1998 in the usual way, via an election, which he won with 56 percent of the vote.
Keane Bhatt
By asserting that Chávez took power through violence, Anderson seems to be trying to call into question the legitimacy of Chávez’s tenure in office. But what he’s really doing is casting doubt on the legitimacy of the New Yorker‘s reporting and factchecking process. How do you write 11,000 words on a political figure without knowing how they got to their position? It’s like writing a long profile on Gerald Ford that refers to that time when he was elected president.
And how does a libel like that get through the magazine’s vaunted factchecking process? One begins to suspect that, as with most of the corporate media, the New Yorker has a different standard when it comes to accusations against an official enemy.
The magazine did correct this mistake as well, again after Keane brought it to public attention. Here’s how Anderson acknowledged he was wrong (Twitter, 3/20/13): “U r right. Now being fixed. Thx x pting out. Not intentional, obv; fctcking errors. U may stop vilifying me now.” Charming.
But in the meantime, the magazine’s website (3/5/13) had published Anderson’s commentary after Chávez’s death, which asserted that in some ways Chávez left behind “the same Venezuela as ever: one of the world’s most oil-rich but socially unequal countries.”
This is wrong in two important ways: One, Venezuela is not particularly unequal in global terms, and is the least inegalitarian country in Latin America; and two, inequality decreased remarkably under Chávez.
This error the New Yorker has so far refused to correct. In correspondence with Keane, the magazine has maintained, improbably enough, that the passage should be construed as meaning that Venezuela is one of the world’s most oil-rich-but-socially-unequal countries; in other words, that it’s one of the most unequal oil-rich countries. I don’t think that’s how an English-language speaker would actually parse that phrase, but it doesn’t matter: Venezuela is not particularly unequal even if you look only at countries with a lot of oil.
For his part, Anderson defends himself by saying (Twitter, 3/21/13), “I do my own reporting, and form own impressions.” Really? Did the New Yorker‘s factcheckers accept that when you cited that as your source? Does factchecking at the New Yorker really consist of confirming that writers actually claim to have the “impressions” that they write about having? Hard to see why you’d need much of a factchecking staff to do that.
This is the exact opposite of a trivial error; inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. In the United States, over the past 30 years, the share of income going to the top 1 percent has soared, while the income share for the bottom 80 percent has fallen. The increasing concentration of wealth can be blamed for virtually every domestic problem we have, from economic stagnation to the debt crisis to unaffordable healthcare to educational disparities. And it’s not just a U.S. problem: As some recalled at the death of Margaret Thatcher, inequality has risen sharply in Britain as well.
Meanwhile, in Venezuela—and Latin America in general, particularly in countries that have followed Venezuela’s policy lead—inequality has decreased dramatically. Not according to Anderson’s “impressions,” but according to economists who make a serious study of these things. (This is, by the way, why Chávez was hated so much by upper-class Venezuelans—including the journalists and academics whose point of view dominates Anderson’s reporting: Few people enjoy seeing their standard of living decline, even relatively.)
How does the New Yorker deal with this remarkable fact? Through denial. By pretending that Chávez has not, in fact, done anything to alleviate inequality, and by pretending that is one of the reasons one should reject him. It’s a neat trick.
Venezuelans likely don’t read the New Yorker much, and in any case can form their own judgment of Chávez’s policies. In the United States, we have no comparable movement to reverse the devastating shift of wealth to the wealthiest—and we desperately need one. In other words, we need the New Yorker to get the facts right about Chávez—not for Chávez, but for us.
You can write to New Yorker editor David Remnick at David_Remnick@newyorker.com and ask him to prove that factchecking at his magazine is more than just branding by issuing a long-overdue correction.
Given the decline in readership in the magazine industry, it might be a cost saving measure.
It’s less expensive to make up the facts
Than to make sure of them.
Regarding the inequality issue, I would suggest this reading:
http://frrodriguez.web.wesleyan.edu/docs/working_papers/How_Not_to_Defend.pdf
And Mr. Naureckas, I’m curious. You are upset with Mr. Anderson imprecisions, but are you suggesting that the only ones posed against Chávez are the “upper classes”? Really?
Does that mean that the 6.591.304 Venezuelans that voted for Henrique Capriles Radonski in october 2012 are all upper class fellows?
Or the 7.298.491 that voted for that same choice last April 14th?
Are all those voters upper classes voters?
Having read the articles you criticize, I question whether you did. You’re especially mischaracterizing the Slumlord article, which gave a pretty accurate, detailed, and fair assessment of the current state of Caracas. Also, Chavez did rise to power through a coup – no one knew who he was until he attempted (and failed) to overthrow the government, and afterwards he was an important national political figure with influence and power.
Overall, the New Yorker’s coverage has presented a country where the government is corrupt, ineffective, and attempting to better the life of the poor, where the economy is stagnant, and millions live in slums and survive off welfare. Theirs is some of the best coverage of Venezuela in America (though it may be flawed); you are more guilty of oversimplification and misinformation than John Lee Anderson.
Generally I respect FAIR, but your articles about Mr. Anderson are simply and demonstrably unfair.
A technical point only, but inequality in Latin America isn’t decreasing because of “Venezuela’s policy lead” – in fact social and economic policy established in Brasil and Mexico (see: Bolsa Familia and Oportunidades) are responsible for this decrease in inequality and for similar policies that are expanding throughout the region. Effectively – Venezuela leads nothing in social policy and has the least influence in the region. The more progressive and economically stable areas are the southern cone and Mexico.
You’re making the same mistake as Bhatt by confusing income equality and social equality. They’re not the same thing. The World Bank’s leading expert on inequality makes this point clear even in Bhatt’s post. Apparently, that didn’t sink in for Bhatt and apparently you don’t know there’s a difference.
Mark Weisbrot rebutted the paper that Alfonso Guevara posted here
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2008_04.pdf
My assessment of the Jon Lee Anderson’s Slumlord article is here
http://www.zcommunications.org/on-john-lee-andersons-slumlord-article-on-venezuela-by-joe-emersberger
Perhaps the “Venezuela onlooker” can point us all to the data on “social equality” which would substantiate Anderson’s assertion.
Hi Mr. Naureckas,
Yes, Venezuela’s inequality was severely reduced, but because he wiped out most of the upper and middle class in Venezuela as I can attest from what’s left of my family in Venezuela. (Disclosure, I have been in the USA for more than 20 years, so I was spared the great equalization by chavez).
I looked at those numbers from the World Bank, but go to Caracas and the outback and you will see lots of poor people: people that cannot buy much, that they can’t afford much, that is what I call poverty.
Those numbers must be “adjusted” by the government with the “dollar fuerte” which is a joke for all purposes.
I am sorry but Anderson was right and you are mislead by severly fudged numbers.
Go visit the country.
Here’s the message I sent to David Remnick:
Dear Mr Remnick:
After reading The New Yorker for more than 50 years, and knowing how seriously factchecking is taken there, it is sad to discover that this seriousness is only ostensible. The unchecked errors in reporting about Hugo Chavez and Venezuela are most disappointing, as is the fact that some of the errors were acknowledged only weeks after publication. I always thought the facts were checked before the story goes public. At this time in our history, when so much of the media is performing so shoddily, or as mere mouthpieces for the establishment, I would hope that readers can continue to trust The New Yorker. Please do not disappoint us.
Sincerely,
Robert Lipton
Mr. Guevara:
According to the Rodriguez/Anderson/corporate media herd there basically are no “good things that Chavismo” as you put it. Capriles should have run on a platform of undoing everything Chavez gov did over past 14 years. He didn’t because he couldn’t – not if he wanted any chance at all of winning. That is a key point you simply evade. If the Rodriguez/Anderson/international press analysis is correct than Capirles not only wins with such a right wing platform, but wins handily.
You basically asked me a question I answer in my comment on the Anderson piece (to which I provided a link)- essentially why is Venezuela still a poor country despite its oil wealth and after 14 of Chavista government. Venezuela suffered a massive and prolonged economic collapse in the DECADES prior to Chavez – had one of the worst performing economies in a region that performed very poorly. That is a fact Anderson dishonestly obscured in his article. During the Chavista years the economy recovered from that collapse. Rejecting data that proves this – from the anti-Chavez IMF of all people – is extreme denial.
Yes Capriles presides over a very ideologically divided coalition – far more divided than the Chavistas. His based ranges for far right golpistas who always despised Chavez to former Chivastas who don’t trust Maduro. Hence the contradictory aspects of his platform. For example, Capriles vows to maintain the missions while denouncing “giveaways to Cuba”. At the same time he promises citizenship to tens of thousands Cuban doctors in Venezuela. There are now also thousands of Cuban trained doctors practicing in Venezuela. You might want to consider that Cuban has a lower child mortality rate than the USA before making facile and chauvinistic claims that Venezuelan doctors are “more competent”. At any rate it is far from clear how Capriles will satisfy such contradictory promises – trash relations with Cuba while maintaining and even expanding the missions for example. In a longer campaign , and especially in the event of a Capriles victory at some point, those contradictions would have to be dealt with one way or another. One part of his base or another will be bitterly disappointed.
You ask why I brought up the violence in the countryside which has claimed the lives of hundreds of Chavista peasants since 2001.
One reason is that it points to real failure under Chavez to reform the judiciary and police – and part of it has to do with corruption within Chavista ranks. If you read the interview I did with Edward Ellis (I gave you the link), you’ll see that he is quite blunt about that.
Another reason I mention it is that despite that fact that is the worst political violence (as opposed to common crime) that Venezuela has faced under Chavez the issue has been buried by the international press. Rory Carroll (who just came out with a book on Venezuela) and his editors at the UK Guardian simply refused to mention the issue for years while Carroll was based in Caracas. It took a petition (signed by Noam Chomsky and others) and other pressure to get them to allow Ellis to wrote an op-ed about the subject.
The issue illustrates some valid and harsh criticism of Chavismo, certainly, but it exposes a lot about segments of the opposition that press would rather ignore.
All of the folks above who are against Chavismo miss what is really going on. After 14 years in power, people get tired of the same old same old. Al you have to do is talk to the little old ladies who cheer on Capriles: they are coupon clippers.
Sorry, this is the correct link for the interview I did with Edward Ellis regarding the murders of hundreds of Chavista peasants since 2001
http://www.zcommunications.org/tierras-libres-a-documentary-about-the-struggle-for-land-reform-in-venezuela-by-joe-emersberger
Congratulations, FAIR — you’re clearly making an impact, so nutbars like Michael E are deemed insufficient to do battle with you. Obfuscators who can more or less stay on topic are swarming your battlements.
As for the New Yorker, it is indeed sad. Clearly Sy Hersh wouldn’t write the bilge they publish on Venezuela. Maybe there’s a lesson here about the limits of American media liberalism, as New York Times readers found out about Tom Friedman a few decades ago.
This report by Reuters will help people understand the importance of the Chavista “Misions” and why Capriles had to vow to maintain them or else be crushed at the polls:
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/04/12/no-matter-who-wins-in-venezuela-chavezs-legacy-is-secure/
Key excerpts:
“Eighty-eight percent of Venezuelans reported that they personally, someone in their family or someone else they know has benefited from at least one of these programs.”
“those few Venezuelans who had 10 or more “touch points” with the Mision system were almost five times more likely to approve of Chavez’s government than those who had never benefited from the system — 90 percent approval versus 23 percent.”
Good job, Joe. Keep Alfonso the Conquistador on his heels. Chavez never pretended to take over or control the whole economy. His only crime was putting a higher royalty tax on the oil wealth that western elites think third worlders deserve. He always compensated landowners for any taking, just like we do here. The thing folks like Alfonso hate is when the historically marginalized begin to actually control their own destinies, instead of playing like muted pawns on the chessboard of international corporatists. They’ve asserted their rights to a dignified life, and Alfonso and his ilk feel threatened, all the more since Alfonso’s type measure self-worth by the socioeconomic distance they can put between them and the restless downtrodden.
Mostly good reply, John Wolfe. But why did you say this? “[Chavez’s] only crime was putting a higher royalty tax on the oil wealth that western elites think third worlders deserve.”
It’s pretty clear that Western elites think they deserve resource wealth, wherever it is. It was Chavez and the Venezuelan people (‘third worlders’) who thought some of that wealth should stay in Venezuela.
Dear Mr. Remnick,
I objected to Mr. Anderson’s on-line and print articles as I read them, seeing them as the product of an obviously biased observer with a particular animus toward President Chavez. I didn’t bother to check the facts (because I have been following these events closely and am in possession of many already) though some were obviously missing, such as the remarkable improvement in poverty figures and inflation numbers during Chavez’s tenure. Anderson’s characterization of how Chavez came to power deserves a proper explanation, rather than the push toward the commonly accepted view perpetrated by most of the American press, that Chavez was just another tin-pot dictator of a banana republic, rather than a properly elected official, supported by a significant majority of the population throughout his presidency. It was widely reported that he had the unwavering support of over 80% of the poor, and since most Venezuelans are still poor, that alone accounted for a plurality.
Mr. Anderson also did not mention the American attempts at Chavez’s overthrow, and US attempts to support his political enemies—the oligarchs—who traitorously accepted American money to undermine and work against his administration. Imagine if that had happened in the US, with a foreign country making more or less open efforts to finance, encourage, and abet Chavez’s overthrow by violent means or political fraud and chicanery. This, too, goes unmentioned by Mr. Anderson.
Mr. Remnick, you owe your readers and subscribers better than this. Chavez was not without faults, but compared to the usual run of Latin American politicians, and American ones, too, he stood taller than any in recent memory, and never taller than when he called out the US for its misdeeds. It may also be recalled that he welcomed the prospect of an Obama presidency and offered to begin a new dialogue and cooperation between Venezuela and the US.
I do not believe that Mr. Anderson has been vilified by Mr. Bhatt; rather, he has been called to account for his errors, omissions, and obvious bias, and he has avoided any consequence for his lack of reportorial accuracy (I won’t say skill, for his was a well-practiced hit job) and clear—yes, I must say it again—bias. FAIR deserves notice and approbation for its dogged and thorough debunking of a reportorial snark job that fails to describe events and reality in Venezuela. Mr. Anderson deserves a job on one of Murdoch’s rags.
Damian I. Cano
Eric, we’re fine and are in agreement. My typo caused the misunderstanding; I typed “that” on line 3, where I should have typed the word “than” . Read it with “than” and you’ll see. Sorry.
John Wolfe:
You assume too much, way too much, for a person you don’t know (me) a social and political process (judging on your comments) you barely seem to understand, and a country (I can bet on this) you have never been in to begin with.
I would suggest you a little more of research regarding the issue of confiscations in Venezuela (land confiscation and property confiscation), as I can assure you, these confiscations don’t follow or respect due legal process (in Venezuela, you have to perform an appraisal and then compensate, then seize).
By the way, do you even know what a Conquistador was?
Try to keep the Ad-Hominem attacks to a low, and try to engage in some real debate. The Ad-Hominem card is (how can I tell this?) boring? Repetitive? Predictable?
Mr. Guevara:
You ask why it is contradictory of Capriles to trash relations with Cuba will vowing to maintain the missions.
I’ve explained the evidence of the importance to missions in the Reuters report I cited above. It should be clear to anyone why Capriles would not have stood a chance without vowing to maintain them. He could not have attracted any significant percentage of former Chavista votes without doing so. This is huge concession to Chavismo which illustrates how much the political terrain in Venezuela has shifted over the past 14 years.
There are 15,000 Cuban doctors working in Venezuela according most
recent figures from Reuters. By now, there are, on top of that, roughly 14,000 Cuban trained Venezuelan doctors working in Venezuela (or available for work) according to this article
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6601
According to WHO
http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=physicians&d=WHO&f=MEASURE_CODE%3aWHS6_125
as of 2001, Venezuela had 19 doctors per 10,000 people
The population was then about 25 million, so that translates to about
47,500 doctors in Venezuela as of 2001.
Even these dated figures show that the percentage of Cuban plus Cuban trained doctors in Venezuela must be a very significant percentage of the total. These figures alone show what nonsense the “giveaways to Cuba” rhetoric is.
Would Capriles honor the qualifications of the Cuban trained doctors?
Are there even enough unemployed Venezuelan doctors to replace only the
Cuban doctors (leave aside the Cuban trained ones)? Even if there were enough doctors to replace the Cubans, who much more would the government have to pay them in order to entice them into the missions? Venezuela’s medical establishment bitterly opposed the missions from the beginning.
The opposition has also claimed that Venezuelan hospitals are understaffed, so transferring doctors from hospitals to the missions is not an option Capriles could rationally propose. In fact, he should be asked how many additional doctors the public hospitals need. That should be added to the number he needs to follow through on his contradictory promises.
I’ve asked foreign correspondents in Venezuela these questions – people with access to both sides and even Capriles himself. Nobody has answers as of yet.
You said “By the way, I know that Noah Chomsky condemned the imprisonment of Judge Afiuni (one of the notorious abuses of Chavez, regarding the judiciary)”
Yes, I interviewed Chomsky about that. His criticism of Venezuela over the Afiuni case was dishonestly reported by Rory Carroll as I explained here. The flak over the Guardian received over Carroll’s article compelled the Guardian to change the headline and publish the full transcript of the interview. It is painfully clear how Carroll cherry picked and distorted what Chomsky said.
http://www.zcommunications.org/chomsky-says-uk-guardian-article-quite-deceptive-about-his-chavez-criticism-by-joe-emersberger
By the way, the fact that the Afiuni case is “notorious” while the assassination of hundreds of Chavista peasants is virtually unknown speaks volumes about the ugly bias of reporters like Carroll who appear to be a dime a dozen in Venezuela.
Alsonso, you know very little and can only shill for the corporations. Here are a few actual facts for you to chew on while you propagandize like a Yanqui operative Chavez paid Exxon a king’s ranson to buy that company out; they had a dispute and submiited to international arbitration. Castro, on the other hand, expropriated all foreign holdngs and paid no compensation. There are still class distinctions in Venezuela, and Chavez never tried to erase them. His tax rates on the highest income brackets are lower than what the US wealthy pay on similar incomes. Captial gains and dividends are taxed as ordinary income, with no special assessment. There is no wealth tax in Venezuela, as there is in many northern European countries, where rich citizens annually pay 2% of their net wealth over to the government. As a Chevron stockholder, I know for a fact that Chevron has an amicable arrangement with Venezuela whereby Chevron make a good return on its investment. So what if Chavez extracted a 20% royalty on his country’s oil? Folks in Alaska get direct compensation for the pipeline profits, just like the folks in Norway invest the profits from their huge offshore reserves. Why is it wrong for our brown brothers to the south to do what others have been doing all along? You probably need to call George Bush and his dictator friend from Equatorial Guinea. After a White House lunch, he walked away with millions in free US armaments, just after he lowered his country’s oil royalties to 7.5%. Yet, the poor people in hs country die like flies amidst others’ billions You should travel there and celebrate with this dictator.
It’s been my experience with guys like you, Alfonso (no last name?) that you’d simply rather have a guy who looks like Francisco Franco than Sitting Bull for you leader. You think you are better than the indigenous-looking folks, and yes, you are a latter day Conquistador. I’ll travel to any capital below the Rio Grande and debate this issue. Chavez was even generous with those who tried to overthrow him. I don’t know if Alfonso was part of Operation Condor, where Alfonso’s Generalissimos and the CIA killed thousands of dissidents, but Chavez basically went on with governing after the media and the business community had openly plotted his overthrow demise. He exacted no revenge, nor did he use the failed coup as a pretext for confiscating estates or hanging the military conspirators. I hope Alfonso is being paid well for his disinformation campaign, because he is certainly spreading a lot of it.
Again, I challenge you to debate in the Latin capital of your choice, but you must leave your henchmen and paymasters at home.
Mark Wiesbrot cannot be quoted seriously in discussions regarding Venezuela. He’s a propagandist, married to a Venezuelan Diplomat, whose biased views and ridiculous predictions have been wrong, time and time again.
To wit: his absurd assertion that the February devaluation would “benefit the poor”. He must think we’re complete idiots. It’s borderline insulting to make the poor bear the burden of the State’s reckless spending by devaluating and then try and convince us that you’re poorer “for your own good”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/03/venezuela-devaluation-doom-mongers
Weisbrot is a clown.
John Wolfe:
As much fun as it is to read you delusional and quite funny posts, there comes a point when a joke gets way too old. I would recommend, sincerely and seriously, a check on the concept of Strawman Fallacy, and Ad-Hominem fallacy. Try to not cheat debate by putting thoughts and ideas the other person have never said to begin with. Try to act like an adult, engaging in real debate, not like a child in a potty-mouth vitriolic tirade.
And by the way, if you’re that willing to debate (in a serious way) then buy a ticket to Caracas. I’ll be waiting for you.
Or, let’s meet in Google +, via Hangout.
Disclaimer: The previous invitations are solely for the purpose of a serious engaging debate, not for an Ad-Hominem/Strawman contest. If you are not willing to debate seriously, then forget these previous invitations as a whole. Thanks in advance.
Alfonso, you are the one who cannot refute my facts, especially what I have proved about Chavez’s non-confiscatory tax rates, Chevron’s profitability in your country, Chavez’s lenient treatment of traitors, the fact that the Venezuelan economy remains largely private, and the overwhelming truth that the right, with USAID/ CIA aid, outspent Chavez at the polls every single time, but has still lost every election. You’ve lost the argument already; you can spend your time talking about Chavez’s cronyism, as if such a thing doesn’t exist everywhere. It caused the 2008 financial meltdown here in the US and motivates billions in needless miltary contracts with companies that contribute to US politicians. You are the ad hominen guy; there may be some bluster and machismo in my writing, but the facts and statistics prove me correct. You can start your penance by outlining, right here in this forum, what has happened to those on the left who unsuccessfully sought to change any rightist Latin government by force. Go ahead. Make my day. Then, you can admit I’m right on the taxation and confiscation issues. Go to your priest and confess to him why you don’t think the poor should be allowed to work the idle lands of the rich. If you want peace, work for justice. You can be rich and fair at the same time. That guarantees the perpetuity of the system. Pick the forum in Caracas. You can buy me a meal with the USAID /CIA money you are doubtlessly receiving. You’ll lose the debate because you get sidetracked in minutiae. And, you won’t even admit that the healthcare and educational achievements of the average Venezuelan is astoundingly better than it was 1999. And, finally, ask your priest to pardon you for believing that white Alaskans and even whiter Norweigans have a right to profit from their oil resources while indigenous Venezuelans do not. Go in peace, and may God bless you. Yes, your absolution is possible yet!
Alsfonso, I have won by default. You are the ad hominem guy, just like I have said. You can say nothing to refute my facts about taxation and confiscation, and have nothing to say about the leniency shown the conspirators or Chevron’s vast and profitable holding right in the middle of Chavez-land. Oh, I did make one mistake; the 20% oil royalty applies only to oil that is hard to get; otherwise, it’s 30%, still a bargain because of the good quality and accessibility of Venezuelan oil. Just admit that you hate it when a disenfrachised group gets power, and that you feel threatened by the prospect of being equal with these former outcasts. Solution: Move to India, declare yourself a Brahmin, and gloat over your superiority to the untouchable caste.
Then, you maybe you can go Zen and can hear the sound of one hand clapping. Your own.
John Wolfe, winner by technical knockout! Like Roberto Durand, Alfonso says, “No mas!”
The referee just counted Alfonso out, since Alfonso had nothing to say about Venezuela’s booming stock market, low tax rates, and fair royalty rates for oil extraction Alfonso couldn’t recognize the basic conditions and tax rules of his own country! The commission said that anyone who saw red when they saw Hugo was delusional anyway, and should in no case be given a license to fight.