Venezuela’s left-wing populist president Hugo Chávez died on Tuesday, March 5, after a two-year battle with cancer. If world leaders were judged by the sheer volume of corporate media vitriol and misinformation about their policies, Chávez would be in a class of his own.
Shortly after Chávez won his first election in 1998, the U.S. government deemed him a threat to U.S. interests–an image U.S. media eagerly played up. When a coup engineered by Venezuelan business and media elites removed Chávez from power, many leading U.S outlets praised the move (Extra!, 6/02). The New York Times (4/13/02), calling it a “resignation,” declared that “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.” The Chicago Tribune (4/14/02) cheered the removal of a leader who had been “praising Osama bin Laden”–an absurdly false charge.
But that kind of reckless rhetoric was evidently permissible in media discussions about Chávez. Seven years later, CNN (1/15/09) hosted a discussion of Chávez with Democratic strategist Doug Schoen, where he and host John Roberts discussed whether or not Chávez was worse than Osama bin Laden. As Schoen put it, “He’s given Al-Qaeda and Hamas an open invitation to come to Caracas.”
There were almost no limits to overheated media rhetoric about Chávez. In a single news article, Newsweek (11/2/09) managed to compare him to Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. (Chávez had built a movie studio, which is the sort of thing dictators apparently do.) ABC (World News, 10/7/12) called him a “fierce enemy of the United States,” the Washington Post (10/16/06) an “autocratic demagogue.” Fox News (12/5/05) said that his government was “really Communism”–despite the fact he was repeatedly returned to office in internationally certified elections (Extra!, 11-12/06) that Jimmy Carter deemed “the best in the world” (Guardian, 10/3/12).
Apart from the overheated claims about terrorism and his growing military threat to the region (FAIR Blog, 4/1/07), media often tried to make a simpler case: Chávez wasn’t good for Venezuelans. The supposed economic ruin in Venezuela was a staple of the coverage. The Washington Post editorial page (1/5/13) complained of “the economic pain caused by Mr. Chávez,” the man who has “wrecked their once-prosperous country.” And a recent New York Times piece (12/13/12) tallied some of the hassles of daily life, declaring that such
frustrations are typical in Venezuela, for rich and poor alike, and yet President Hugo Chávez has managed to stay in office for nearly 14 years, winning over a significant majority of the public with his outsize personality, his free-spending of state resources and his ability to convince Venezuelans that the Socialist revolution he envisions will make their lives better.
Of course, Venezuelans might feel that Chávez already had improved their lives (FAIR Blog, 12/13/12), with poverty cut in half, increased availability of food and healthcare, expanded educational opportunities and a real effort to build grassroots democratic institutions. (For more of this, read Greg Grandin’s piece in the Nation—3/5/13.)
Those facts of Venezuelan life were not entirely unacknowledged by U.S. media. But these policies, reflecting new national priorities about who should benefit from the country’s oil wealth, were treated as an unscrupulous ploy of Chávez’s to curry favor with the poor. As the Washington Post (2/24/13) sneered, Chávez won “unconditional support from the poverty-stricken masses” by “doling out jobs to supporters and showering the poor with gifts.” NPR‘s All Things Considered (3/5/13) told listeners that “millions of Venezuelans loved him because he showered the poor with social programs.”
Buying the support of your own citizens is one thing; harboring negative feelings about the United States is something else entirely. As CBS Evening News (1/8/13) recently put it, “Chávez has made a career out of bashing the United States.” But one wonders how friendly any U.S. political leaders would be toward a government that had supported their overthrow.
Though this is often treated as another Chávez conspiracy theory–“A central ideological pillar of Chávez’s rule over 14 years has been to oppose Republican and Democratic administrations in Washington, which he accuses of trying to destabilize his government,” the Washington Post (1/10/13) reported–the record of U.S. support for the coup leaders is clear.
As a State Department report (FAIR Blog, 1/11/13) acknowledged, various U.S. agencies had “provided training, institution building and other support to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of the Chávez government.” The Bush administration declared its support for the short-lived coup regime, saying Chávez was “responsible for his fate” (Guardian, 4/21/09).
Of course, as with any country, there are aspects of Chávez’s government that could be criticized. U.S. media attention to Venezuela’s flaws, however, was obviously in service to an official agenda–as documented by FAIR’s study (Extra!, 2/09) of editorials on human rights, which showed Venezuela getting much harsher criticism than the violent repression of the opposition in U.S.-allied Colombia.
Time.com’s home page
In reporting Chávez’s death, little had changed. “Venezuela Bully Chávez Is Dead,” read the New York Post‘s front page (3/6/13); “Death of a Demogogue” was on Time‘s home page (3/6/13). CNN host Anderson Cooper (3/5/13) declared it was “the death of a world leader who made America see red, as in Fidel Castro red, Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chávez.”
“The words ‘Venezuelan strongman’ so often preceded his name, and for good reason,” declared NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams (3/5/13); on ABC World News (3/5/13), viewers were told that “many Americans viewed him as a dictator.” That would be especially true if those Americans consumed corporate media.
The fact that U.S. elite interests are an overarching concern is not exactly hidden. Many reports on Chávez’s passing were quick to note the country’s oil wealth. NBC‘s Williams asserted, “All this matters a lot to the U.S., since Venezuela sits on top of a lot of oil and that’s how this now gets interesting for the United States.” MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow (3/5/13) concurred: “I mean, Venezuela is a serious country in the world stage. It is sitting on the world’s largest proven oil reserves.”
And CNN‘s Barbara Starr (3/5/13) reported: “You’re going to see a lot of U.S. businesses keep a very close eye on this transition in Venezuela. They’re going to want to know that their investments are secure and that this is a stable country to invest in.” Those U.S. businesses would seem to include its media corporations.
I think Hugo Chavez was a real human being, for a guy who grew up in a house with a dirt floor, he did OK for himself and he did his sincere best by his country and people. Anyone who makes fun of that, scorns that, or belittles that is just not worth paying attention to … and that is why the US must change. When a a super-power’s reality is so backwards it loses its legitimacy just as all of us were taught about the USSR after WWII and the Cold War. That we could even have had a hand in Hugo’s death, or that the idea itself has weight is a real shame. Imagine what the people of Venezuela and the US could have accomplished if we had a government and top level hierarchy that cared about the people?
The lies and distortions in the U.S. corporate media about a hero of the people like Chavez at the time of his death is shameful and embarrassing. I hope people from Venezuela and other places around the world realize that not all Americans are that pin headed, rude, ignorant and insensitive.
Calling Chávez “dictator” is not accurate. More like autocrat, aspiring to become a full time dictator. As a military person, he didn’t like very much anyone who contradicted or adverse his opinion. As a politician, he was the typical master of puppets, master of manipulation. He was a divisive person, typically blaming one part of the country (e.g. Venezuelan middle class) for the problems and ills of the other (the poor and the disenfranchised in Venezuela)
He was soooo democratic, that once he even allowed the harassing and persecution of people that had signed his recall request:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=abASlsAyXgoE
Now regarding this gem:
“…with poverty cut in half, increased availability of food and healthcare, expanded educational opportunities and a real effort to build grassroots democratic institutions…”
Utter BS, pardon my french. If anything, we have food shortages of products we used to export (like coffee, for example). We have shortages on milk, cooking oil, flour, soap, even toilet paper for God sake! And you keep telling to the world that Chávez has left us in an abundance? Give me a break.
People in the provinces can’t even have the basic things. Besides having to endure frequent blackouts, they can’t even get soap or maize flour, of any kind (this was the case of Puerto La Cruz, this week)
By the way Brux, I’m Alfonso Guevara, the Venezuelan that was debating with you in the “Hugo Chavez Keeps Showering the Poor” post. Yes, the one you refuse to believe its existence…
The problem critics of Hugo Chavez never seem to acknowledge or deal with is that they seem to think their criticism of Hugo Chavez proves that Hugo’s opposition would somehow be better. “Better” in some unqualified way … like it would make the market freer, or yada-yada … their comments are usually just selfish justifications to going back to exploiting or ignoring the people in their own country so they can amass a lot of money. They fail to really acknowledge what they do support because they thing that calling Hugo names is just good enough.
“…The problem critics of Hugo Chavez never seem to acknowledge or deal with is that they seem to think their criticism of Hugo Chavez proves that Hugo’s opposition would somehow be better…”
Strawman fallacy all the way. I do believe that my criticism, as a Venezuelan and critic of Chávez, tries to make one single point: That Hugo Chávez was neither a democratic nor an effective ruler. Also, he wasn’t that much of a revolutionary either: Just an autocrat with self-grandiose dreams of becoming the second coming of Simón Bolívar. An autocrat dressed in Nino Cerruti suits, that rented whole floors of five star hotels while traveling with an entourage of sycophants and adulators. So much for his austerity.
“…their comments are usually just selfish justifications to going back to exploiting or ignoring the people in their own country so they can amass a lot of money…”
Again, strawman fallacy. How can you possibly know what are the solutions proposed by (for example) me, if I haven’t even proposed? Are a psychic, of something like it, to read my mind?
What do I support? Democracy, and the rule of law. Respect to private property, and ownership, something that unfortunately can’t be taking for granted in Venezuela nowadays. Venezuela’s current rulers prefer the way of illegal confiscations, and right out thievery.
What do I want? Accountability. Something that doesn’t exist in Venezuela to begin with, where hundreds of millions of dollars are spent and vanished without any proper accounting. FONDEN is one of such blackholes, used at discretion by Chavez, without any kind of responsability, or accountability…
What do I wish? A better future for my country. A future without the hate spewed by the chavista speech about treason…
Since FAIR refuses to publish my post with links, I will publish the non-link version (or link-not-so-friendly version) then:
“…that is, find an argument that is “plausible” that does not give away the unreasonable starting point of the right wing fascist propagandists…”
Again, you’re entrenched in a straw-man fallacy argument. And Ad hominem? Yes Ad-Hominem. You can barely contain your despise about a person you don’t even know.
Sad. Really sad.
“…You right wing nuts have tried everything else and now you have the money so – sure, call in the consultants and triangulate…”
This one is not only straw-man fallacy, but also something about the false dilemma fallacy as well. So, since I’m opposed to Chavez, that makes me automatically a “right wing nuts”?
Boy, you have quite a binary way of seeing things fella…
By the way, how is this way of thinking different of what George Bush said back in the days of his so called “War on Terror”, when he said “you are either against us, or against the terrorists”
So, I either support Chávez, or, I am a “right wing nut-job?”
Why don’t you take a look at this video? I guess it would be helpful for you:
youtube(dot)com(slash)watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4
“…It does not matter if your argument was valid anyway…”
Really? And that is according to who? You?
“…Your whole argument stinks, it’s not an argument so much as a banner lie for other right wingers to attest to to make it seem like there is agreement…”
Boy, what is actually this? An creative way to use an Ad-hominem attack? My arguments are not valid because I am (to quote your words) “a right wing nuts”?
And isn’t “right wing nut-job” the correct way to write this?
“…Most of the working people of Venezuela and the poor can’t waste their days responding on the Internet and making up silly stories, they just need justice and opportunity, something that without Chavez is
more difficult…”
And you know this for a fact?
Do you even know what is the number of Internet users in Venezuela?
One of the things Chavez government took pride of (and you as a Chavez fan-boy should know about) is that he increased the number of Venezuelans with access to Internet in Venezuela.
venezuelanalysis(dot)com(slash)news(slash)7169
Why don’t you get your facts straight?
“…and nothing you suggest is going to make it easier. You are just the apologist of the industrial capitalists, who are fine and would be better if they just accepted some individual and social responsibility instead of always having to grind people down…”
Yes, got it, you won’t respond to any reasonable argument, because according to you I am a “right wing nuts”, and any argument from me would be therefore rendered “invalid”…
“…You are the analog to the TEA Party in America, you are probably funded by the Libertarians who talk all about freedom from regulation and low taxes but really just mean freedom for them to do whatever they want to whoever and not have to answer for it or pay for it.Pathetic…”
Yes man, didn’t you know? I receive paychecks from the CIA, MI6, Mossad and also the Human Fund (Money for people)
What I actually find pathetic is: A person abroad, not even in Venezuela, trying to lecture a Venezuelan how it is supposed to be his reality, because in his deluded opinion, he thinks he knows more about Venezuela than an actual Venezuelan.
You know what? Perhaps I should give you my Google + user, so we can hangout (chat) and you can tell me in my face, how much of the reality of my own country I’m actually missing…
Las cosas que hay que leer, sinceramente…