Left press review

On a slow Saturday night I decided to do what I have stopped doing long, long ago, to examine the misinforming to plain idiotic articles supporting the bolivarian farce. But two upset readers sent me these pieces and by sheer courtesy I read them and went ahead to comment below.

The first one is from CounterPunch. Since I do not read such pages I cannot evaluate how far left these people are. Nor I care for, taking the piece for itself as objectively as I could. It did not go far... All started well enough, pointing out the wish for the revolutionaries to fight back while acknowledging a major electoral setback. But then by the 4th large paragraph we were back in 2002... Really? It is OK that here, in Venezuela, they use that argument because they have no other one left, but overseas? Can't they afford to be a tad more creative in defending the revolutionary farce? Here the paragraph in full:

In April 2002, the U.S.-backed opposition in Venezuela staged a coup against then President Chavez in a desperate attempt to reassert their control over the country and extinguish the Bolivarian Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets of Caracas, with millions more in other parts of the country, calling for Chavez to be restored tohis rightful office, and for the coup leaders to be arrested. There was really no doubt that the U.S. was responsible for this attempt at forced regime change, with many mainstream news outlets reporting within days that high-ranking officials in the Bush administration were intimately involved in orchestrating the coup.

The US had sympathies but it was NEVER proved that the Bush administration gave a "go ahead". Apparently for the left it is absolutely impossible to conceive that actually there would be a strong popular movement against a leftist regime, a movement that does not need to be stoked on by the CIA. Sigh...  The good savage theory from the North Atlantic do-gooders....

As for the hundred of thousand in Caracas and the millions across the country, pictures please. Amazing how some urban legends that started with a small crowds of looters on Friday 12 and some protest gatherings in the name of Chavez AFTER it was becoming clear that the army may be returning Chavez to office ended up becoming throngs of freedom seeking folks who did all the work. Apparently the author was in Caracas and I wasn't.

You can gather by yourself that the rest of the piece read like an open propaganda pamphlet. No need to comment further, just to point out that the piece appeared first in Telesur. 'nuf said!

The other piece graced Huff Post, where you can find about everything if you are patient enough to set through it (I do not). It is written by Dan Kovalic who presents himself as an adjunct professor. And has his twitter avatar posing next to Chavez tombstone. So there goes academic objectivity.

At least, in a way, he is more honest: you do not need to wait for the 4th paragraph, you get it right in the face from the start.

Of course, given the fact that the opposition was able to win such an election, and that President Maduro and the PSUV are going to honor that election, is a true testament to what many of us have been saying for years -- that, despite the claims of the U.S. government and its compliant media (collectively, the U.S.), Venezuela under Chavez/Maduro governance is authentically democratic. Indeed, one of the great achievements of the Chavista revolution has been democratic reforms.

So right there you have it, before Chavez there was no democracy (how did he get elected, to begin with?). And poor Mr. Kovalic: he should have waited a few days before writing on the Huff: Maduro et al. are not "honoring" the result.

For the rest Mr. Kovalic reveals his true colors: the bolivarian farce is good and worth defending no matter what because, well, it is anti US.  Mr. Kovalic does in very broad strokes. Not for him to have read the 18 pages letter from OAS secretary exquisitely detailing all the electoral treachery BEFORE the first vote was cast. Nor for him either to take a calculator and verify that the minimum wage today in Venezuela is not even 20 USD a month and as such ALL social advances of Chavez, whatever those may be, are now voided, leaving people worse off than what they were in 1998. The rest of the note is thus quite predictable. As is predictable that both notes do not expand much on the reasons why people voted against the regime: years of waiting on line under the sun for food and medicine and sanitary items. Conditions that neither one would tolerate for a minute in the cozy countries where they live and from where it is so easy to decide what is best for Venezuela (even if it is OK to sacrifice it on the anti US altar).

The problem with people like these two authors is that debate with them is useless, It is not that they believe in what they write about, it is that they desperately want to believe. And against that, history, logic and facts are impotent.

May the dear readers do as they wish with this blog entry.

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A slow fuse major embarrassment at Foreign Policy

There is an unwritten rule when dealing about information on Venezuela and chavismo: when you try to be objective you always end up with egg on your face. Respected magazine Foreign Policy is feeling the pinch and risks much discredit for its poor managing of a situation coming from a hatchet job text pretending to set the record straight on Leopoldo Lopez.


The offending article was written by Roberto Lovato for Foreign policy: "the making of Leopoldo Lopez". I am not going much into the details of that article nor for the reasons on Foreign Policy reasons to commission such an article from someone that was found to be, after the fact, a collaborator of Telesur. This network is the propaganda vehicle of chavismo. Not that there is anything wrong to pay for a propaganda network, so is FOX in the US. But the point here is that you do not commission an "objective" article from someone working with a network which has for mission to criticize in any possible way, true or false, the Venezuelan opposition to the regime. Might as well trust FoxNews for a fair article on, say, Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders for that matter).

The first mistake of Foreign Policy was to actually dare to have an objective piece on a political prisoner. As if this were possible in Venezuela or elsewhere. A political prisoner by nature is a victim and one cannot be neutral or objective on a victim.

The second mistake, was not to dig a little bit more on Lovato's background, the kind of mistake that the former editor, Moises Naim, would not have done. Moises Naim, a Chavez opponent before this one was elected first, has never been criticized on its seriousness and use of true facts when arguing his criticism of the bolivarian farce.  The surprising demonizing of Lopez was promptly noted for its deep inaccuracies and twisting of "facts", never mind the use of hearsay on Lopez. We can already observe that Foreign Policy has sensed the problem by appending 7 "updates", something which I am willing to bet is unheard of for other pieces, or is at least a rare phenomenon.

But that was not enough. The evidence of the hatchet job piece by Lovato has forced Foreign Policy to publish a rebuttal article from Leopoldo Lopez lawyer: "The other side of Leopolodo Lopez". I am not going to enter on the details of that piece either. The reader can read both and make up his or her mind on that matter. However I cannot fail to observe that Lovato was granted a reply in that article, a luxury that has not been accorded to critics of the Lovato piece.

On this reply by Lovato I will comment. He is not forthcoming on his partisanship and writes disingenuously that "My story is about López’s political history, particularly as it relates to events surrounding Venezuela’s 2002 coup attempt.". Reading that piece you will see that it is about much more than that and aims at casting a shadow on Lopez with more than just 2002. He also has the gall to call my estimated colleague Juan Nagel to his defense as if he were praising the article when this one is quite clear that it is a necessary read to understand how the chavista mind sees Lopez. He even writes "it is not a hack job" which in my book, is far from justifying the use of the word "hailed" by Lovato.

All in all this does not damage Mr. Lovato credit in pro Chavez groups where his article has been widely used for propaganda. It is an unnecessary attack on what is a political prisoner whose history of victimization by the regime has reached as far as vindication from International Human rights courts and organizations. In the end it is a discredit on the editors of Foreign Policy and a new proof that objectivity when dealing with rogue regime is a doomed farce.

Update: Mr. Lovato also seems to have worked for outright Chavez propaganda outlets.

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