As I said, Venezuela is getting loans left and right, emitting debt like crazy, and getting in business with Chevron Texaco. Despite record oil revenue. Even the IMF has sent money to Venezuela after we supposedly quit.
Source: http://www.imf.org/external/np/tre/sdr/proposal/2009/0709.htm
Again, please inform yourself and find what really happened, not what they said that happened.
The US MSM has a ridiculous and awful history of not just distorted,
but outright false reporting on nations that aren’t firmly within our
economic control.
This is not about the US. It’s about Venezuela. Really. Stop making the US the center of everything.
Snowden didn’t sacrifice his cushy job in Hawaii to find a better place to live. He did it to save democracy in his own country,
Yet here is yet another article grasping at straws to smear Snowden. And not any articles asking why we are spending trillions of dollars and giving up our privacy rights to combat a problem that “kills fewer people than bathtub falls” to quote Snowden.
Where are the aricles comparing what this NSA insanity costs compared to what we spend on fighting these crazy fires, where is a fleet of 100 water dropping planes? How about comparing the cost to what we spend on the ridiculously overburdened Child Protective services, or rebuilding all the bridges, damns and levees which are falling apart?
Look at the world and all the protests against imposed austerity. Look at Obama signing NDAA indefinite detention with no due process. Look at the ever expanding list of what the Obama Justice Department considers a “terrorist” (anti-fracking groups, monetary reform advocates, etc). Why isn’t anyone writing stories about PRISM in that context? Where is the journalist to find us a Deep Throat to tell us why Obama would sign NDAA, say it’s a bad un-American law, then fight to use it in Federal Court.
Chavez had an approval rating in the high 60%, Obama’s is in the dumper. This reporter isn’t seeking sanctuary in the US (that probably paid him to participate in the corporate media calls for a violent coup against Chavez). And we still have a higher percentage of citizens in prison, with a shameful surplus of minorities, than any country in history, including Mao and Stalin. But… we’re Number One, We’re Number One! Right Boing Boing and the WP?
Do they ever mention the word “context” in journalism these days?
A man is forced to drink gasoline, by the army, he died.
A confrontation with the army in a jail causes more than 50 dead inmates.
The army, in a “confusion”, kills a mother and two of her daughters, the third was wounded, as they shot 50 times at their car, because they were confused with a different car they were pursuing.
The sources are deliberately in Spanish. Read them or translate them with translation services you trust. If you want local, independent sources, go there.
You want more independent sources?
Even Chomsky doesn’t like some of the stuff going on in Venezuela:
I wrote that in 2009, things haven’t changed that much since then. Some have changed for the worse (we have 21000 deaths/year because of crime these days!). Nobody paid me a penny to write that. I am not a journalist, my income does not depend of political positions and I am not a member of any political party. I am just a very pissed off citizen, sad at the lost opportunities, furious with the stupidity, mediocrity and corruption, concerned with the fate of my family and friends.
You don’t have to defend a govt of thugs and murderers to attack the US.
Why is that so funny? The information I have handy says he’s on trial for “trumped-up charges,” with “grave” consequences. Do all smart people know he’s actually guilty of heinous acts? Or do they all know that prison is nice, in Venezuela?
In March 2003, George W. Bush had an approval rating of 71%. I guess the Iraq war was fine and dandy, then.
Look at the world and all the protests against imposed austerity. Look
at Obama signing NDAA indefinite detention with no due process. Look
at the ever expanding list of what the Obama Justice Department
considers a “terrorist” (anti-fracking groups, monetary reform
advocates, etc).
Almost every day we read stories here on BoingBoing about those subjects.
This reporter isn’t seeking sanctuary in the US (that probably paid him to participate in the corporate media calls for a violent coup against Chavez).
Citation needed. That’s an extremely serious accusation, so I ask you to please produce it or stop tarnishing Bocaranda. There are many reasons to oppose to the govt of my country, so please stop the navel gazing assumption that everything is about the US.
And we still have a higher percentage of citizens in prison, with a
shameful surplus of minorities, than any country in history, including
Mao and Stalin. But… we’re Number One, We’re Number One! Right Boing
Boing and the WP?
I have been a reader of BoingBoing for a number of years, precisely, because it lacks the crude Americanism that you accuse them. They have a sensible perspective, they try to be global, and in those times, it was much less common. As far as I know, that you describe has never been a position of this blog, that I love and treasure. But of course, it is much easier to discuss with straw men than to accept reality.
This is maybe the most repeated phrase in opposing press on Argentina, you made up a story on the best selling newspaper, next day you report the non-answer from the govt, then it’s true (?)
And, he was right. All the time govt supporters burn tires and protest. But that time they went further. I come from Mérida, and while some opposition backing groups can be as destructive and violent, tupamaros and other supporters of Maduro often stage violent demonstrations that are not curbed by the police.
In the past, journalists have gone to jail because of petty reasons:
One of them was assaulted by a govt person, live on TV. The person, Iris Varela, is now our Penitentiary Minister, she was in charge when the raid on the Uribana jail cause 50 dead inmates. She has not been removed of her position. She has made crude rape jokes to the opposition via Twitter (get some Vaseline, we’re going to fuck you with a stick tomorrow (election day)) http://www.25segundos.com/?id=33607&ids=1&accion=deta
Venezuela is not a dictatorship, but it’s not a democracy either… If we were a democracy, we would have a proper separation of powers, and sadly we don’t. We would have that thing that others call “rule of law”, but that doesn’t exist here either…
Do you have the footage? I was kinda interested in watching that but none of your links say much except her crude twitter comment. Btw, about her comment, did you know that “the body has ways to shut that whole thing down”?
No one is unbiased. There is no such thing as objectivity (the mythic El Dorado that everyone seem to pursue, but the one no one actually reaches) and although Chomsky is a moderate in respect of his writings, he is not unbiased when it comes to Venezuela, or the Latin American left…
Everybody has a position. And everybody lies (as the great philosopher of our times, Gregory House, once said). The only variable is “about what?”. Mainstream media lies and cheats? You bet. But so does the “underground” or “alternative” media, when it suits them.
And by the way, the story about Bocaranda? Is as they are telling it here. The Venezuelan government is still angry on account of Bocaranda’s disclosures about Chávez health, back in late 2012 and early 2013…
Venezuela nationalized its oil industry, Argentina defaulted on its foreign debt, Ecuador has become a socialist nation, bucking a hundred years of US dollar diplomacy, ditto Nicaragua. Taking some loans in order to stabilize its oil industry doesn’t mean Venezuela is back under US control. All you need to know to understand how these nations have broken the grip of the western financial cartel is to read the US mainstream media: it consistently criticizes and belittles the governments of these nations. If they were still under the thumb of the US they would receive much better press. The fact that these nations have broken free from US oppression is no secret. Here is one piece that analyzes these changes: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15464.htm.
To say that “everybody lies” is simply not true. Some writers explore issues in depth without leaving out important information, while others clearly omit important facts in service to an agenda. We can certainly say that no one is totally free from bias, no one is completely objective. But that is not the same as saying everyone lies.
