Hugo Chávez and the U.S. Media

[Billy Burnett]

I felt like posting this in partial response to the PBS's version of Mr. Chavez.

Hugo Chávez and the U.S. Media
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19685

In May 2008, Barack Obama gave a speech in Miami where he argued that President Bush's flawed foreign policy in the Middle East had swerved our eyes off the Latin American prize, rendering the U.S. "incapable of advancing our interests in the region."

He went on to say, "No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum. His predictable yet perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and checkbook diplomacy offers the same false promise as the tried and failed ideologies of the past."-i-

A few months later at the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney railed from the rostrum that Republicans, "will strengthen our economy and keep us from being held hostage by -Vladimir- Putin, -Hugo- Chavez and -Mahmoud- Ahmadinejad. And we will never allow America to retreat in the face of evil extremism!"-ii-

Such harsh assessments of Hugo Chavez—as a demagogue with a high dictator quotient, someone whose oil wealth allows him to interfere in the region and who's mentioned in the same breath as supposed proponents of "evil extremism"—have become a common feature of U.S. political banter. Bashing Hugo Chavez, it seems, has become as bi-partisan as grandiloquent campaign promises to reform Washington.

But politicians will be politicians. The bigger-impact question is whether the mainstream press in the U.S. has adopted the same contemptuous mentality. As arbiters of reality, the media set the social goalposts for how we view the world and prioritize particular social issues over others. The way the media present news veers us toward perceiving certain issues as problems, certain activists as troublemakers, certain personalities as scalawags.

Mass-media scholars identify "frames," or, persistent patterns of selection and emphasis that structure not only what becomes news, but also prime us for how to think about that news. By selecting particular features of the undulating political complex and deeming these features important, the media play a critical function in the ebb and flow of socio-political power.

Venezuela mavens have long suspected Chávez has been given the short end of the U.S. media stick. For instance, Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) wrote that the U.S. government has actively attempted "to demonize Chavez and de-legitimize the democratic government of Venezuela" and that "the U.S. and international media have enthusiastically embraced this agenda."-iii- In a scholarly article I wrote—"Devil or Democrat?: Hugo Chávez and the U.S. Prestige Press"— that's forthcoming in the peer-review journal New Political Science (March 2009), I systematically test Weisbrot's hunch. In this analysis I found that the U.S. prestige press—meaning the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post—adopted four dominant frames when reporting on Chávez: the Dictator Frame, the Castro Disciple Frame, the Declining Economy Frame, and the Meddler-in-the-Region Frame. This study analyzed 979 articles that appeared in these publications during the ten-year time period between 1998, the year he was first elected president, and December 2007.


"Mr. Chávez's jackboots"

Hugo Chávez has won three presidential elections (in 1998, 2000, 2006) and propelled a new constitution into being with the help of a Constituent Assembly (in 1999). Nevertheless, the U.S. press frequently portrayed him as a dictator or a demagogue with "authoritarian tendencies."-iv- The Dictator Frame was the most predominant frame in both hard news and opinion pieces, with 53.4% of all articles framing Chávez as a dictator or demagogue. The Washington Post employed the frame the most, in almost three of every five articles it printed (59.8%) followed by the Wall Street Journal (52.4%) and the New York Times (50.5%).

Even before Chávez was elected president, the U.S. press was laying the groundwork for the Dictator Frame, allowing Chávez's detractors to define him. In a Washington Post story from the campaign trail, the Chávez opposition was given space to trashtalk: "Branded by his detractors as a reckless dictator-in-waiting with leftist leanings, Chavez, 44, has created a sense of uneasiness with both his proposals and his defiant, high-voltage campaign style." Such "high-voltage" campaigning was actually a vow to prevent voting corruption by securing election monitors who could ensure the integrity of the vote-counting.-v-Often journalists relied entirely on the claims of unidentified disgruntled members of the opposition. This "he said" construction (often without the "she said" in support of Chávez's policies) frequently put unsubstantiated oppositional claims center stage.

After Chávez's ascendance to the presidency, the media kicked its use of the Dictator Frame into high gear. For instance, in article titled, "In Latin America, the Strongman Stirs in His Grave," the New York Times wrote, "All across Latin America, presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders. With his landslide victory in Venezuela's presidential election on Dec. 6, Hugo Chavez has revived an all-too-familiar specter that the region's ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo."-vi- In the years that followed, Chávez was frequently dubbed a "strongman," a label usually reserved for unelected dictators.

The opinion pages also rippled with the Dictator Frame, which was often established though a guilt-by-association logic. Mirroring Mitt Romney's comments above, a Wall Street Journal editorial wrote, "Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is an ally of the Iranian mullahs, a supporter of North Korea, a close friend of Fidel Castro and a good customer for Vladimir Putin's weapon factories."-vii- Mary Anastasia O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal penned numerous diatribes that dubbed Chávez a dictator, alleging gross "human-rights violations carried out by the Venezuelan military" and that "One is left to ponder why so many human-rights groups that have long monitored Latin American military abuses are now so passive toward Mr. Chavez's jackboots."-viii- She later pointed to Chávez's "totalitarian aspirations" and argued his administration was "draining the last bit of freedom out of Venezuelan society."-ix-

The New York Times followed suit in a 2005 editorial that highlighted the "dangerous concentration of power" under Chávez, "a quasi dictator" who is engaging in "petulant idiocy." It concluded, "The United States should not further feed Mr. Chavez's ego and give him more excuses for demagogy by treating him as clumsily as it has treated his hero and role model, Fidel Castro, for the past four and a half decades."-x-


The Castro Connection

A second frame prestige-press journalists employed was the Castro Frame: linking Chávez to the iconic head of Cuba and to Cuba in general. Chávez was repeatedly depicted as Castro's disciple, acolyte, apprentice, or protégé. On one hand, this is true—Chávez does have an amiable relationship with the Cuban leader. But the media frequently invoked Castro even when he had nothing to do with the topic of the article. To put this in comparative perspective, how often do the media introduce the president of the United States based on that president's closest allies (say, Pervez Musharraf) when they're discussing domestic issues (say, abortion)? This only happens when that international ally is relevant to the story. Highlighting this relationship with Castro also taps into long-lasting American prejudices, given that Castro has—since the early 1960s—been the bête noire of the U.S. government. In public opinion polls has long been viewed as "unfavorable," as with a 2006 USA Today/Gallup poll that found 82% of those polled had an "unfavorable" opinion of the Cuban president.-xi- So, connecting Chávez to Castro and Cuba means slapping the "unfavorable" label on the Venezuelan president via guilt by association.

The Castro Disciple frame appeared in 31.4% of all articles, with the Washington Post using the frame most (40.6% of articles), followed by the Wall Street Journal (35.6%) and the New York Times (23.3%). Both hard-news articles and opinion pieces regularly portrayed Chávez and Castro as chummier than chummy.

For instance, covering Chávez's inauguration, the New York Times reported, "President Castro took copious notes throughout Mr. Chavez's speech. Afterward, the Cuban leader embraced Mr. Chavez in a bearhug at a street ceremony and directed a smart salute to the Venezuelan military high command, some of whom fought guerrillas financed and trained by Cuba 35 years ago."-xii- The content of the speech wasn't even discussed. Instead the Times opted to focus on the Castro connection. The "flirtation with Fidel Castro," as the Times put it in an article called "Venezuela's New Leader: Democrat or Dictator?," picked up steam steam as the years went by.-xiii-

Even when Castro was irrelevant to the story, the media regularly referred to Chávez's supposed desire to impose a "Cuban-style government" in Venezuela.-xiv- This accusation often emerged from anonymous opposition members without affording Chávez supporters the chance to comment on such claims. A front-page Wall Street Journal article called Chávez a "Fidel Castro wannabe," asserting his "worst sin, some critics contend, is his close relationship with communist Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro."-xv-.

In an op-ed Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post concurred: "In his ever-closer bonding with Havana's security and intelligence apparatus, his aggressive encouragement of the insurgencies in Bolivia and elsewhere, and his constant stoking of Latin anti-Americanism, the elected but increasingly authoritarian Venezuelan is emerging as the natural successor to a fading Fidel Castro - only Chavez is neither broke nor bound to an outdated Soviet ideology."-xvi-


"Economists blame Mr. Chávez": The Declining Economy Frame

When Chávez took the presidential helm in 1999, the Venezuelan economy was distressed. The oil industry had recently been de-nationalized in neoliberal fashion, and by the end of 1998, the poverty rate had risen above 50%, with more than one in five Venezuelans living in extreme poverty.-xvii- Along with privatization, the Venezuelan government had internationalized the tentacles of the state oil company—Petroleo de Venezuela, or PDVSA—acquiring oil refineries in Europe and the United States. This shifted hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign subsidiaries. In Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, Gregory Wilpert argues this resulted in "tremendous PDVSA costs that were incurred outside Venezuela" and "‘imported' to the national branch of PDVSA, thus lowering the overall profits and transfers to the government."-xviii- The fact that Venezuela's state-run oil company was relatively inefficient didn't help matters. In combination, these problems decreased the government's ability to offer its population social services and educational benefits.

After Chávez took office, Venezuela was burdened by political instability—including the coup in April 2002 and a devastating oil strike from December 2002 to February 2003—that translated into an economic nightmare. By the end of 2002, poverty rates had climbed to more than 55% while extreme poverty had reached 25% of the population.-xix- But after enduring the oil strike, Chávez has overseen a steadily improving economy, boosted in part by a sharp boost in oil prices. According to Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval of CEPR, "Since the first quarter of 2003, the economy has grown by a remarkable 87.3 percent."-xx- At the same time, the Chávez government has jumpstarted social spending on education and literacy programs as well as health care, housing, and food subsidies for the poor, from 8.2% of GDP in 1998 to 13.6% in 2006.-xxi-

Yet, this economic progress is virtually ignored by the U.S. prestige press, which often alleges that Venezuela's economy is sharply decline because of the policies and personality of Chávez. The Declining Economy Frame appeared in nearly a third of all articles (32.0%). The Wall Street Journal used the frame at the highest rate (43.8%), which shouldn't come as a surprise since the Journal's central focus is the economy. The New York Times employed the frame 28.5% of the time followed by the Washington Post at 24.1%. As time went by, use of the frame tapered off after oil strike was resolved in early 2003 and oil production resumed full-bore. The skyrocketing price of oil also contributed to the gradually diminishing use of this frame.

A Declining Economy Frame shouldn't be surprising since, at least through the oil strike and its aftershocks, the economy was hurting. Yet, too often the newspapers flattened the complex situation into a blame-game where Chávez was the sole cause of the economic malaise. To do this, the prestige press often made use of anonymous economists. For instance, during the oil strike, the Wall Street Journal reported, "Economists blame Mr. Chavez—who has a penchant for heated revolutionary rhetoric and revels in his friendships with Fidel Castro and Moammar Gadhafi—for the political turmoil that has engulfed the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and brought the economy to a near halt. Economists say Venezuela's economic situation will continue to worsen as long as Mr. Chavez rejects demands by a large chunk of Venezuelan society for a recall vote on his leadership, either through a referendum or an early election."-xxii-

Another common theme that emerged was the media's propensity to discipline Chávez for not following lockstep with the principles and practices of neoliberal capitalism. Even in the run-up to the 1998 presidential election, reporters were questioning his economics. The New York Times reported, "To business leaders and international investors, Mr. Chavez is the red menace resurrected." The Times also reported that the possibility of non-neoliberal economic plans—in combinbation with his "vitriolic oratory and his support for Cuba"— has "terrified upper-class Venezuelans, who have been sending their money and other assets out of the country for fear of a Chavez victory." The Times then turned to unsourced critics who "also fear that he will raise protectionist barriers and - in the worst case - institute exchange and price controls."-xxiii- Once Chávez moved into Miraflores Palace (the president's official residence), and began to institute his economic program, which did not take privatization as a given, real questions began to emerge about his leadership. In the wake of a devastating natural disaster in 2000, the Washington Post reported, "Troubling signs...are emerging about the long-term viability of Chavez's agenda." The article referred to Jose Errada, a church official, who gandered, "It is possible that all Chavez is going to do is create communities where people will go from poor to poorer over time."-xxiv- Soon enough, the Wall Street Journal was regularly referring to his "constant government meddling in the economy"-xxv-

As watchdogs of the neoliberalism, the Journal experienced cognitive dissonance when Chávez's swerved from "free-market" doctrines. In an op-ed Mary Anastasia O'Grady railed, "Statist economic policies have a sorry productivity record and in this case that record is highly unlikely to be improved. The big trouble is that Chavez has put Venezuela on a centrally planned economic path not much different from the failed experiments of the 20th century."-xxvi- This tendency was magnified in January 2005 when Chávez announced plans for what he called "21st century socialism." The prestige press pounced, using "mainstream economists"—i.e. proponents of neoliberal capitalism—to attack his economic programs and policies. The New York Times reported, "political analysts and mainstream economists warn of recession and dourly note that foreign investment is about a third of what it was five years ago. They say that Venezuela's vast oil profits give the illusion of prosperity—the economy's growth rate is 9.3 percent—but that if prices fall, or Venezuela's growing spending catches up, the economy could founder."

Accuracy was also sacrificed in numerous articles that alleged poverty was increasing in Venezuela, which is flat-out incorrect. O'Grady was guilty of this inaccuracy more than once, writing in November 2005 that "Venezuelan poverty -is- growing"-xxvii- and in January 2006 that "After six years of Chavez, Venezuelans, once ecstatic about their Bolivarian Revolution, are sinking deeper into poverty."-xxviii- The Wall Street Journal's hard-news accounts also asserted "Venezuela has seen little progress on issues such as reducing poverty"-xxix- when in fact it had reduced its poverty rate from 62% in 2003 to 33% in 2007.-xxx-


There's a Meddler in the Region...

The fourth and final frame the media used to cover Chávez was the Meddler-in-the-Region Frame. This took three main forms: (1) Chávez as economic counterweight to supra-national organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, (2) Chávez as meddler in internal Colombian affairs through support of leftist guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and (3) Chávez as noncompliant in the "War on Drugs." Instead of depicting Chávez's efforts to integrate Latin America—e.g. through the Bank of the South—as a plan resembling European integration along the lines of the European Union, the prestige press tended to criticize, either explicitly or tacitly, his attempts. Combining all three newspapers, almost one in three articles (31.3%) featured a variation of this Meddler-in-the-Region Frame, with the Washington Post using it most often (35.3%), followed by the Wall Street Journal (30.5%) and the New York Times (29.5%). The frame was much more prevalent between 2003 and 2007.

In the summer of 2005, the New York Times wrote, "The Venezuelan government's commitment to stopping drugs has appeared to flag."-xxxi- Why is it that when a Latin American country publicly challenges the United States they are, in a diplomatic tit-for-tat dubbed uncooperative in the "War on Drugs"?

Chávez's efforts to foment a counterweight to the power of the U.S. was depicted as cunning, conniving calculation and that none of his foreign assistance—whether it be reduced oil prices or loans—came out of other, more altruistic, concerns. This is odd since Chávez has emphasized he's trying to carry out a Bolivarian project—named after South American leader Simón Bolívar—that improves the economic integration and geopolitical friendliness of Latin America. Chávez even went as far as moving to change the name of the country in its 1999 Constitution, from the Republic of Venezuela to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He created numerous initiatives that eschewed the standard-issue profit-maximization impulse in favor of promoting Latin American solidarity, preferring cooperation rather than competition.

Nevertheless, Chávez's Bolivarian agenda was often disparaged in the prestige press. In the New York Times, Juan Forero described Chávez's internationalism as "spending billions of dollars of his country's oil windfall on pet projects abroad."-xxxii-The Wall Street Journal interpreted Chávez's cooperative efforts as cagey attempts to buy himself geopolitical buddies: "Mr. Chavez is using his oil billions to buy friends and influence nations, from the Caribbean basin to Patagonia. In the past year, Venezuela has emerged as a tropical version of the International Monetary Fund, offering cut-rate oil-supply deals and buying hundreds of millions of dollars of bonds from financially distressed countries such as Argentina and Ecuador.-xxxiii-

The opinion pages flaunted the frame more directly. Writing in the New York Times, Moises Naim, a former Venezuelan trade minister and current Chávez critic wrote, "Venezuela is no longer boring. It has become a nightmare for its people and a threat not just to its neighbors but to the United States and even Europe."-xxxiv- The Washington Post editorial board wrote that Chávez was "meddling in the affairs of his neighbors and spawning anti-democratic movements."-xxxv-

Undoubtedly one of those "anti-democratic movements" the Post was referring to wasthe about-to-be-democratically-elected president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, who ended up winning the December 2005 election. The prestige press was highly critical of Morales's rise to power and this had a lot to do with his high-profile connections to Chávez. For instance, in early 2006, the Wall Street Journal wrote, "Since Evo Morales took office as president here in January, the coca grower turned socialist politician has aligned his country so closely with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez that it is sometimes difficult to tell where one government begins and the other ends."-xxxvi-


The Next Demon du Jour?

In a 2005 Washington Post op-ed Jackson Diehl packed a powerful, four-frame punch: "In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has responded to his victory in a controversial recall referendum by aggressively moving to eliminate the independence of the media and judiciary, criminalize opposition, and establish state control over the economy. He is also using his country's surging oil revenue to prop up the once-beleaguered Cuban dictatorship of Fidel Castro, sponsor anti-democratic movements in other Latin countries and buy influence around the region. Last week he literally declared war against privately owned farms, sending troops to occupy one of the country's largest cattle ranches."-xxxvii- Such media framing is anything but anomalous. And when news doesn't conform to the four dominant frames, journalists either revert to their go-to frames or simply ignore the information.

All this negative coverage of Chávez is reflected in public opinion polling in the United States. In 2007, the Pew Research Center released its 47-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, which found that 55% of those polled in the U.S. have little (17%) or no confidence (38%) in Chávez as a leader. Meanwhile only 18% reported having either some or a lot of confidence in him and 27% said they didn't know.-xxxviii- After a close look at U.S. media coverage of the Venezuelan president, these numbers should come as no surprise.

One-sided coverage that sandblasts away the edges of geopolitical complexity does not serve readers well. It leaves us vulnerable to dubious claims about the next demon du jour whose supposedly threatening actions "necessitate" U.S. military invasion in order to keep the world "safe for democracy."

-i- http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/renewing_us_leadership_in_the.html
-ii- http://portal.gopconvention2008.com/speech/details.aspx?id=51
-iii- Mark Weisbrot, "Progressive Change in Venezuela and Latin America," The Nation online, 6 December 2007, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/weisbrot
-iv- Marc Lifsher, "Venezuela Wants Trading Company To Sell Oil in U.S. --- Deal Involving Jack Kemp And the Strategic Reserve Worries Some in Industry," Wall Street Journal, 2 June 2003, A13.

-v-Serge F. Kovaleski, "Former Coup Leader Leads Race for President of Venezuela," Washington Post, 20 September 1998, A27.
-vi- Larry Rohter, "In Latin America, the Strongman Stirs in His Grave," New York Times, 20 December 1998, p.4.
-vii- "Dial Joe-4-Chavez," Wall Street Journal, 28 November 2006, p.A14.
-viii-Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Chavez's Law: The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves," Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2003, p.A13.
-ix- Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Read the Fine Print on the Chavez Charm Offensive," Wall Street Journal, 23 May 2003, p.A11.
-x- "Hugo Chavez and His Helpers," New York Times, 10 December 2005, p.A14.
-xi- These polls are available at PollingReport.com, http://www.pollingreport.com/cuba.htm.
-xii- Clifford Krauss, "New Chief to Battle Venezuela's ‘Cancer'," New York Times, 3 February 1999, p.A8.
-xiii- Larry Rohter, "Venezuela's New Leader: Democrat or Dictator?" New York Times, 10 April 1999, p.A3.
-xiv- See Ginger Thompson, "Gunfire Kills 2 in Venezuela as March Turns Into Street Fight," New York Times, 4 January 2003, p.A3.
-xv-Marc Lifsher, "As Nation Wobbles, Venezuelan Leader Tightens His Grip - Hugo Chavez Rules by Decree, Liberal Use of Television," Wall Street Journal, 12 June 2003, p.A1.
-xvi-Jackson Diehl, "The Façade of Latin American Democracy," Washington Post, 6 June 2005, p.A19.
-xvii- Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval, "Update: the Venezuelan Economy in the Chavez Years," Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 2008, http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_update_2008_02.pdf, p.13.
-xviii- Wilpert, Changing Venezuela By Taking Power, p.91.
-xix- Weisbrot and Sandoval, "Update," p.13.
-xx- Weisbrot and Sandoval, "Update," p.5.
-xxi- Weisbrot and Sandoval, "Update," p.12.
-xxii-Jose de Cordoba and Alexei Barrionuevo, "Venezuela Puts a Halt to Currency Trading - Capital Controls Will Follow The Five-Day Suspension; Court Rejects Feb. 2 Vote," Wall Street Journal, 23 January 2003, p.A12.
-xxiii- Diana Jean Schemo, "Renegade Officer Favored in Venezuelan Election Today," New York Times, 6 December 1998, p.3.
-xxiv- Serge F. Kovaleski, "After the Storm, Venezuelans Turn Inland," Washington Post, 24 February 2000, p.A13.
-xxv- Raul Gallegos, "Chavez's Agenda Takes Shape; ‘Co-Management' Helps to Advance Socialism in Venezuela,"Wall Street Journal, 27 December 2005, p.A12.
-xxvi-Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Oil Wells Refuse to Obey Chavez Commands," Wall Street Journal, 20 May 2005, p.A15.
-xxvii- Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Why Fox's Outrage? Chavez's Meddling in Mexico," p.A17.
-xxviii- Mary Anastasia, O'Grady, "Axis of Evo," Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p.A9.
-xxix- David Luhnow, Bill Spindle, and Guy Chazan,"Could Weak Oil Cost Venezuela, Iran Clout?," Wall Street Journal,29 January 2007, p.A2.
-xxx- Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval, "Update," p.13.
-xxxi-Juan Forero, "U.S. Revokes Visas for 3 Top-Ranking Venezuelan Officers Suspected of Drug Trafficking," New York Times, 13 August 2005, p.A6.
-xxxii- Juan Forero, "Chavez Uses Aid To Win Support In the Americas," New York Times, 4 April 2006, p.A1.
-xxxiii-David Luhnow and Jose de Cordoba, "With Oil, Chavez Plays It Safe; Venezuela's President Pushes Foreign Companies Only So Far," Wall Street Journal, 29 August 2005, p.A7.
-xxxiv- Naim, "Hugo Chavez and the Limits of Democracy," p.A23.
-xxxv- "Pat Robertson's Gift," Washington Post, 25 August 2005, p.A18.
-xxxvi- Jose de Cordoba and David Luhnow, "Left Face: New President Has Bolivia Marching To Chavez's Beat; Venezuelan Populist Pushes Anti-U.S. Latin Alliance; Has He Gone Too Far?; Cuban Doctors in the House," Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2006, p.A1.
-xxxvii- Jackson Diehl, "Trouble In Our Back Yard: In Latin America, Democracy Is Faltering," Washington Post 17 January 2005, p.A17.
-xxxviii-http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/256.pdf pp. 65

[EFerrari]

1. Did it already air? Here, it will be on Tuesday, iirc.

Maybe that's on our local PBS channel.

[Billy Burnett]

2. I watched it online. (Link)

Miami's local PBS station hasn't shown it yet either.

You can watch it, plus additional material, at your leisure here ...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hugochavez/

[EFerrari]

3. Thank you, Billy.

:hi:

[magbana]

4. Thanks for posting this article. It is very good. Here is an entry to my blog

that I wrote in August 2007 about Obama's regurgitating US propaganda about Cuba spoonfed by his Clintonesque advisors.


http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/cuba-obama/

August 21, 2007...9:53 pm
CUBA: Sen. Obama, Please Do Your Homework

I wish Senator Obama had never written the op-ed about his Cuba policy (see below), but it seems to be a pre-requisite for his upcoming campaign stop in Miami. From a content standpoint, there is precious little: Fidel bashing, “democracy” pushing, “freedom” delivering, and a faint possibility of easing travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans wishing to visit their families in Cuba. As for tone, it is chock full of the usual propaganda about Fidel and Cuba and is just as predictable, unsophisticated, and unfounded.

Most people are all a twitter about Obama’s consideration of easing restrictions regarding Cuba and see it as a beginning of the two countries’ de-frost where lounging on a beach while sipping Mojitos seems within reach. Then, there are others who swallow their disgust at Obama’s bargaining chip – democracy – but think there is a glimmer of hope. And, then there is me and maybe a few others, who see no improvement in US-Cuba relations based on Obama’s plan and abhor all the lies he repeats in his op-ed about Cuba and its people. It is the repetition of these kinds of lies that has maintained the US embargo against Cuba for nearly 50 years.

I think Obama would be wise to study up on Cuba’s history and politics and especially Fidel Castro’s role. He is certain to get questions, more from the left than the right, over the coming months about his “policy” and I am not sure he has the answers.


Obama should be pressed on his op-ed. If I had a chance to pose questions to him, here is what I would ask:

-Other than having it pounded into your head as a little boy, like most of us, what is it about Fidel Castro that makes him a dictator? Please be specific.

-Based on your knowledge of the Cuban electoral system, what part of it is undemocratic? Please be specific.

-You state that you want to spread the message of freedom in Cuba. In what form will this freedom come? Will it include free health care and education, as Cubans have now, or will you advocate privatization of these services?

-You raise the issue of “the Castro regime’s deplorable March 2003 jailing of 75 of Cuba’s most prominent and courageous dissidents . . .” Are you aware that more than adequate proof was presented at their trials that they took money from the US government (through the US Interests Section in Havana) in order to de-stabilize their own government? These are treasonous acts that, had they been committed by US citizens against the US government, would have resulted in very long jail sentences.

- You state in your op-ed, “We all know the power of the freedom and opportunity that America at its best has both embodied and advanced. If deployed wisely, those ideals will have as transformative effect on Cubans today as they did on my father more than 50 years ago.” Would this be anything like the transformative effect the US government has had on El Salvador, Haiti and Iraq?

And, if I had any time left, I would share some history with Senator Obama:

Do you have any idea what the Cuban revolution did for black people? Do you realize how many black people learned to read in the first two years of the revolution and how many received health care for the first time in their lives? Do you know how many black doctors, scientists, and engineers Cuba has produced whose parents had little more than the clothes on their back?

As the son of an African, you should brush up on African liberation struggles to understand what Cuba and Fidel Castro mean to the peoples of the world and to realize how uninformed and unfortunate your characterizations are.

Cuba played a significant role in the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique. Yet, it was in Angola where Cuba had the greatest impact. In 1975, Fidel sent the Cuban army to aid the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the South African army. The Cubans trounced South Africa signaling the denouement for apartheid in South Africa.


Finally, it is Amilcar Cabral, a freedom fighter in Guinea-Bissau, who summed it up best: “Cuban fighters are ready to lay down their lives for the liberation of our countries, and in exchange for this aid to our freedom and the progress of our people, all they take from us are their comrades who fell fighting for freedom.”

Senator Obama, I don’t think the Cubans need us to liberate them, rather we need to liberate ourselves from thinking we have the corner on freedom and democracy. The Cubans could teach us a lot. It is from this standpoint that you should be thinking.

Miami Herald

Posted on Tue, Aug. 21, 2007

Our main goal: Freedom in Cuba

By BARACK OBAMA

When my father was a young man living in Kenya, the freedom and opportunity
of the United States exerted such a powerful draw that he moved halfway
around the world to pursue his dreams here. My father’s story is not unique.
The same has been true for tens of millions of people, from every continent
– including for the many Cubans who have come and made their lives here
since the start of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship almost 50 years ago.

It is a tragedy that, just 90 miles from our shores, there exists a society
where such freedom and opportunity are kept out of reach by a government
that clings to discredited ideology and authoritarian control. A democratic
opening in Cuba is, and should be, the foremost objective of our policy. We
need a clear strategy to achieve it — one that takes some limited steps now
to spread the message of freedom on the island, but preserves our ability to
bargain on behalf of democracy with a post-Fidel government.

The primary means we have of encouraging positive change in Cuba today is to
help the Cuban people become less dependent on the Castro regime in
fundamental ways. U.S. policy must be built around empowering the Cuban
people, who ultimately hold the destiny of Cuba in their hands. The United
States has a critical interest in seeing Cuba join the roster of stable and
economically vibrant democracies in the Western Hemisphere. Such a
development would bring us important security and economic benefits, and it
would allow for new cooperation on migration, counter-narcotics and other
issues.

Advance political reform

These interests, and our support for the aspirations of the Cuban people,
are ill served by the further entrenchment of the Castro regime, which is
why we need to advance peaceful political and economic reform on the island.
Castro’s ill health and the potentially tumultuous changes looming ahead
make the matter all the more urgent.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has made grand gestures to that end
while strategically blundering when it comes to actually advancing the cause
of freedom and democracy in Cuba. This is particularly true of the
administration’s decision to restrict the ability of Cuban Americans to
visit and send money to their relatives in Cuba. This is both a humanitarian
and a strategic issue. That decision has not only had a profoundly negative
impact on the welfare of the Cuban people. It has also made them more
dependent on the Castro regime and isolated them from the transformative
message carried there by Cuban Americans.

In the ”Cuban spring” of the late 1990s and early years of this decade,
dissidents and human-rights activists had more political space than at any
time since the beginning of Castro’s rule, and Cuban society experienced a
small opening in advancing the cause of freedom for the Cuban people.

U.S. policies — especially the fact that Cuban Americans were allowed to
maintain and deepen ties with family on the island — were a key cause of
that ”Cuban spring.” Although cut off by the Castro regime’s deplorable
March 2003 jailing of 75 of Cuba’s most prominent and courageous dissidents,
the opening underscored what is possible with a sensible strategic approach.

We in the United States should do what we can to bring about another such
opening, taking certain steps now-and pledging to take additional steps as
temporary openings are solidified into lasting change.

Cuban-American connections to family in Cuba are not only a basic right in
humanitarian terms, but also our best tool for helping to foster the
beginnings of grass-roots democracy on the island. Accordingly, I will grant
Cuban Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to
the island.

But as we reach out in some ways now, it makes strategic sense to hold on to
important inducements we can use in dealing with a post-Fidel government,
for it is an unfortunate fact that his departure by no means guarantees the
arrival of freedom on the island.

Bilateral talks

Accordingly, I will use aggressive and principled diplomacy to send an
important message: If a post-Fidel government begins opening Cuba to
democratic change, the United States (the president working with Congress)
is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that
has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades. That
message coming from my administration in bilateral talks would be the best
means of promoting Cuban freedom. To refuse to do so would substitute
posturing for serious policy — and we have seen too much of that in other
areas over the past six years.

We must not lose sight of our fundamental goal: freedom in Cuba. At the same
time, we should be pragmatic in our approach and clear-sighted about the
effects of our policies. We all know the power of the freedom and
opportunity that America at its best has both embodied and advanced. If
deployed wisely, those ideals will have as transformative effect on Cubans
today as they did on my father more than 50 years ago.

Sen. Barack Obama is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

� 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

[EFerrari]

5. My rant re Obama when Mr. Castro stepped down:

Mr. Castro, Senator Obama and the Case of Don Siegelman

By Elizabeth Ferrari

Mr. Castro, Senator Obama, and the Case of Don Siegelman

Fidel Castro has now officially stepped down in Cuba, and the candidates seeking their party’s presidential nomination have weighed in on this event.

For those of us who follow events in Cuba, it’s surprising to hear Senator Obama echoing George Bush, and sort of ham-fistedly calling for the release of political prisoners in Cuba. That the United States leads the world in caging its citizens doesn’t seem to have made an impression on the Senator. Senator, we hold the most political prisoners of any nation in the world. Imagine that. Better yet, change that.

What is this American impulse to dictate policy to Latin American countries while turning a blind eye to the same (or worse) situation here at home?

Mr. Bush has already shown himself to be impervious to human rights or to social justice, building as fast as he can his legacy as our Torture President. His delusional call for democracy in Cuba is just par for the course. Senator Obama, on the other hand, may simply not know that there are more abuses in Chicago than there are in Havana. Chicago, where black male drivers are stopped by the police more often by a factor of eight than white males. Where the mentally ill sit on forgotten floors in Cook County jails without advocates, let alone justice. Obama may just need a better domestic policy advisor. If that’s the case, he needs one now, before he is again guided to overlook the beam in our eye for the mote in Cuba’s. What competent advisor would have him calling for the release of political prisoners in Cuba when the world has witnessed the human rights abuses at Guantanamo, in Iraq, in Afghanistan? When the world has heard whispers of CIA black ops sites and has watched as this Republican administration used our Department of Justice against their political opponents?

Senator Obama, let me introduce you to Don Siegelman.

Under the Bush Administration, Democrats were targeted by the Department of Justice. We all know that -- despite disgraced Attorney General Alberto “Torquemada” Gonzalez’s inability to recall even his shoe size while testifying before Congress. Of those political prosecutions, the one against Don Siegelman has been the more egregious. Not only is it likely that Don Siegelman’s re-election was tanked by election fraud enabled by the Alabama State Attorney General, but there is a long trail of evidence that the Bush DOJ decided to take him out. Because they could and because their mission is to destroy as many of their political opponents as they can while they can.

The stalking of Don Siegelman began in Jack Abramoff’s heyday. He and Scanlon spent a lot of money to defeat him. Since the voters of Alabama decided to elect him, the Republican machine had to resort to election theft. Then, the first Republican case against him was tossed for lack of evidence. But the right hanging judge was found. And the result is a marred process that wound up with Governor Siegelmen being led out of court in leg irons, an unprecedented and flagrant act of abuse.

Siegelman’s supporters have been very unlucky. Their houses tend to burn down and somehow their cars are run off the road. His detractors, on the other hand, tend to be promoted up the state Republican Party ladder and wind up with good jobs like Federal judicial appointments. Under the Bush administration, the Justice Department has become a sewer whose stench is no longer possible to ignore. We cannot allow Don Siegelman to be falsely imprisoned in that sewer if we are to retain our self respect.

During this campaign season, our Democratic front runners are asked to be all things to all people. However, it would be a relief for once to see the front runner reflect on the state of justice in America before reflexively assuming that we occupy some moral high ground from which heights we may judge Cuba when it comes to political detentions. We don’t.

There can be no credible call for the release of political prisoners abroad until the obscenity that is Gitmo has been rectified. Until we’ve honestly dealt with the abuses of the Bush Department of Justice. Until Don Siegelman is free.

The American electorate can handle its candidates’ learning curve as long as it’s clear they are on one. Repeating the same old stale, inaccurate chants about Mr. Castro and Cuba will yield nothing for the repeater but to be filtered out as noise. Castro is mentor to the wave of democracy that is washing over Latin America. When you call upon Cuba to release political prisoners and ignore those the United States is holding, you not only damage yourselves with the electorate. You signal to the international community that they should expect more of the same self serving American myopia. And there is also a signal sent to the struggling democracies in Latin America under Mr. Castro’s wing: the Americans are at it again.

That is not change.

There is no need to go as far as Cuba to find political abuses to decry. Look into the Siegelman case and get this innocent man out of prison. Look into Rove’s involvement, look into the dirty prosecutors, look into the crooked judge. A good start might be taking in the 60 Minutes segment set to air this evening. The millions spent on this year’s campaigns amount to nothing but self indulgent theater if the same old hypocrisy is the result. We want justice for a change. And there could be no better start on that project than to get Don Siegelman’s case back in line with the mainstream of the American judicial process we once could take pride in.

Who will stand up for Don Siegelman? Because that would be real change.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_elizabet_080224_mr__castro_2c_senator_.htm

[Billy Burnett]

8. Wow.

Connecting the right dots, sfexpat. Fantastic!


I am honored to be hanging around the same spaces where such great writers and researchers are.

:applause: :applause: :applause:

[Billy Burnett]

7. Nice.

Intense, and right on point, magbana. Excellent!

:bounce:

[Peace Patriot]

6. We need to ask what this psyops campaign against Chavez is FOR.

It bears a haunting resemblance to the NYT, WSJ, WaPo campaign on Iraq WMDs. And, funny thing, Venezuela ALSO has big oil reserves, very close to home, right on the Caribbean in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, where a fascist secessionist movement--much like the one that just perpetrated full scale rioting, and mass murder, in Bolivia, backed by the U.S. ambassador--has been brewing for some time, and could come to a head this weekend with the by-elections in Venezuela.

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, threw the U.S. ambassador out of his country in the midst of the attempted secessionist coup, in September, and received the unanimous backing of South American governments at the emergency meeting of UNASUR--the South American "Common Market." This may have been a test run for even bigger fish--Venezuela, Ecuador (big oil reserves, members of OPEC, leftist governments). Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, says there is a three-country fascist secessionist strategy--in Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador.

And this may be what Donald Rumsfeld was referring to, in his 12/1/07 op-ed in WaPo, entitled "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants like Chavez." He first of all proposes economic warfare against Venezuela and others, via the Colombia "free trade" deal. Then he urges "swift action" by the U.S. in support of "friends and allies" in South America. Whatever does he mean? Swift action. My guess: The fascists in Zulia don't like the outcome of the by-elections this weekend, declare Zulia as an independent state, and ask for help from the newly reconstituted U.S. 4th Fleet (in the Caribbean, harrying Venezuel's oil coast), from U.S. troops and mercenaries across the border in Colombia, and from the Colombian military (fat with $6 BILLION from the Bushwhacks) and its eager rightwing death squads.

A lot of thought and energy has gone into demonizing Hugo Chavez across the board in all corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies, in lockstep with the Bush State Department and CIA. As this author lays out, it is sysmtematic, pervasive and relentless--and the "talking points" appear to be coordinated.

Could this be the Bushwhacks final 'gift' to us--Oil War II: South America? It will not be confined to Venezuela, if it happens. Brazil's president has said that the U.S. 4th Fleet threatens Brazil's oil reserves on the Atlantic coast as well. He is a strong ally of Chavez. In fact, MOST South American leaders are strong allies of Chavez--the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and possibly Chile, will not sit still while the U.S. tries to rip off Venezuela's oil. We could have a continent-wide war.

And what will Obama do? His first appointees are alarming, in this respect. Three of them--Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and Gregory Craig--have close ties to the fascist thugs and drug traffickers running Colombia (Clinton, Holder), or to the former rightwing president of Bolivia (guilty of a massacre of peaceful protestors) (Craig), and thus to all the worst elements in South American society. I am very worried about this situation--whether it's to be hot war, or more economic warfare against the poor people of South America.

They don't demonize leaders like Chavez for no reason!

---------------

In addition to the shameful state of U.S. justice and human rights, compared to Venezuela--where no such injustice is occurring--Venezuela's election system puts our own to shame for its transparency. It is the envy of the world. Thousands of election monitors are right now swarming over Venezuela, for the by-elections, partly because they want to learn how to do it right! Venezuela arguably has a far better democracy than our own, in many respects.

Thus, the demonization of Chavez stands out all the more--as the most insane, Alice-in-Wonderlandish reversal of our era of corpo/fascist 'news.' It is 100% wrong. So, what is it FOR?

[EFerrari]

9. And Brennan, in line to be head of CIA, publicly defended torture.

I wonder what he did in private. :scared:

While Obama sent some very good signals about closing Guantanamo and ending torture on 60 Minutes, a closer look shows that all is not well. In an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun last Friday, "Change in intelligence?", former CIA and State Department analyst Mel Goodman discussed two stupendously bad top transition figures in the intelligence realm: Goodman praised Obama for his willingness to replace two top figures, but went on to question who Obama has on his team:

"President-elect Barack Obama is sending conflicting signals on whether he intends to change the bankrupt culture of Washington's intelligence community and to introduce genuine reform to the Central Intelligence Agency.

He appears to be ready to remove the top two intelligence officials, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden - both retired general officers - which suggests Mr. Obama recognizes the need to change the military culture of the intelligence community. But he also has placed the intelligence transition process in the hands of two senior cronies of former CIA Director George J. Tenet: John O. Brennan and Jami A. Miscik, who were actively engaged in implementing and defending the CIA's corrupt activities during the Bush presidency."


http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9989

[Billy Burnett]

10. It's really nothing new at all.

I have this link that I came across during research for the Elian debates on the CNN message boards (pre DU, where Judi Lynn, some other DUers, and I used to face the Cubaphobes).

Textbook Repression: US Training Manuals Declassified.
http://mediafilter.org/caq/caq61/CAQ61manual.html

OVER DECADES, THE CIA AND THE US MILITARY HAVE CREATED AND DISSEMINATED MANUALS TO TEACH THE ARMIES OF MANY COUNTRIES HOW TO INFILTRATE AND SPY ON CIVILIAN GROUPS, FORCIBLY EXTRACT INFORMATION, SUBVERT DEMOCRACY, AND TARGET NOT ONLY INSURGENCY BUT ALSO LEGAL AND PEACEFUL LABOR UNIONS, STUDENT GROUPS, AND RELIGIOUS AND CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS. THE PAPER TRAIL--WHICH BEGINS WITH THE MYSTERIOUS PROJECT X IN THE 1960S AND LEADS THROUGH THE CLASSROOMS OF THE US ARMY SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS IN THE 1980S--REVEALS A CONSISTENT POLICY IN WHICH THE END JUSTIFIES ANY MEANS.

It's all here. Bushco did nothing new but expand it and used the public dissemination of news of the abuses as a further means of terrorizing.

[EFerrari]

11. Bush mainstreamed torture. That's right, it's not new at all. n/t

[EFerrari]

16. Jim Jones was on the board at Chevron and Boeing.

This is not looking good at all.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Kicking! Thank you, Billy Burnett.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[EFerrari]

13. I just saw the Bikel piece.

And my question is, who paid for this? :shrug:

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Heck, they even do it to their own. In the UK, now that he's no longer a threat,

Wedgewood Benn is now treated by the media as wise if eccentric elder statesman, but he was absolutely demonised throughout his political career by our ever crypto-fascist press, and at least marginalised by TV. Of course, former Lord Mayor of London, Ken Livingtone, has had his fill, as well.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Short video: The media and the Venezuelan elections

November 28, 2008

The media and the Venezuelan elections
US media covers Chavez victory and calls it a defeat

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2872&updaterx=2008-11-28+17%3A42%3A59

[EFerrari]

17. The more I review this article, the more valuable it seems to me.

Those four frames + Human Rights Enemy are the ones that are trotted out. In fact, come to think of it, it was in recognizing the repetition of these frames that made me become interested enough to check them out. The i]pounding of the message was just too obviously forced to be believable.

[Judi Lynn]

18. It looks unbelievable when you see a grouping of only some of these slurs, dirty spins all recalled

in one article, but think of the slimy effect they have created dropped regularly into mainstream media as if they were actually true. Shallow, indifferent people, not inclined to do any of their own thinking just gulp it all down, without taking a moment to really THINK about it, to question, to reflect, to compare against what has already been learned, or, heaven forbid, to look for MORE information to either confirm or to challenge it.

We were taught from the first, beyond our ability to perceive, of course, that the right people were in charge of us and our world, and we should fear everyone they don't like, and never question our politicians, or at least the politicians of our political party.

Can you ever remember a time in your life the general population hasn't been pushed and prodded to suspect, to hate Democrats, or non-Republicans? It's been all I've ever known, from childhood on up.

Eisenhower finally, as an older man, realized things were getting out of hand when he cautioned people to not allow this military-industrial thing take over the world, blot out the sun, as it would, if left unchecked.

We see he was right in his final official shared remarks with the American people. He saw it far too late to have been able to do something about it in his own administration, unfortunately, as the shadow government was well underway, taking over the entire Western Hemisphere, and points beyond.

Maybe there is finally enough consciousness raised to pull us out of this hell, maybe things are going to start meshing more quickly than we expected. I don't want to find out, one more time, that "Yes, it actually can get worse than this!"