[NYTr] Wall St Journal, NY Times Attack Journalism
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Venezuelanalysis - Apr 13, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2017
Wall Street Journal and New York Times Attack Journalism
By Stephen Lendman
This article addresses two of the writer's favorite corporate media targets
- the Wall Street Journal's far-right editorial page and New York Times on
every page. Both broadsheets were recently in attack mode taking on two
Latin American leaders deserving praise but never getting any other than
occasional backhanded kinds from papers devoted to one dual core mission -
supporting the power elite and their own bottoms lines. First, the
Journal.
Readers need a strong stomach and nerves of steel venturing onto the Wall
Street Journal's editorial page any time, but especially on days when
self-styled "Latin American expert" Mary Anastasia O'Grady's columns
appear. This writer has tangled with her a time or two before. In a
response last fall, it was suggested she one day risks a serious back
problem, the result of her permanent position of genuflection to the
far-right extremists she pledges allegiance to. Based on her latest
offering, nothing has changed, but readers be warned. Those accepting how
she views Latin America won't ever know the way it really is.
Her latest April 9 column titled "Sharp Left Turn in Ecuador" makes the
case. It demands another go at her at least to set the record straight she
never does except for those preferring her kind of vitriol and fiction to
fact. First off, a reminder of O'Grady's background to understand where
she's coming from. She earlier worked as an options strategist for Advest,
Inc., Thompson McKinnon Securities, and Merrill Lynch & Co. She was also
employed once at the far-right Heritage Foundation think tank that never
met a regressive corporate-friendly policy or US war of aggression it
didn't support or a populist progressive independent head of state it
didn't denounce as a threat to national security or worse.
O'Grady was also awarded the private media Inter-American Press
Association's (IAPA - for private media corporations) Daily Gleaner Award
for editorial commentary in 1997 and received an honorable mention in
IAPA's opinion award category for 1999. In addition, she won first prize
in the 2005 Annual Bastiat Prize for Journalism. The prize was established
and run by the International Policy Network (IPN - a UK based NGO) to
"encourage and reward writers whose published works promote the
institutions of a free society" according to how its patron saint, 19th
century French-born Frederic Bastiat, saw things. He had a deep distrust
of government in any form and thought regulation and control were
inefficient, economically destructive and morally wrong, or as IPN puts
it: It supports "limited government, rule of law brokered by an
independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free
speech, and sound science."
It sounds like apple pie and motherhood, but IPN doesn't explain those
things are in the eye of the beholder, and high-sounding language can
easily brush over policies of another kind. One nation's free markets
doesn't mean they're fair and private property rights have no right
infringing on the public commons. They're for everyone equally, not just
the elitist ones IPN refers to reflecting its membership encouraging what
it calls "better public understanding of the role of the institutions of
the free society in social and economic development."
O'Grady launches her attack with what she calls "the constitutional crisis
that Ecuador finds itself in today (facing a) modern day plunder frenzy
(pitting) President Raphael Correa, an outspoken admirer of Venezuelan Hugo
Chavez, against members of Congress who wish to preserve the country's
institutional balance of power. At stake is the future of democracy, with
13 million Ecuadoreans facing the prospect of life under a soft
dictatorship allied with the Venezuelan strongman."
It's enough to take your breath away, and a little translation is in order
to set the record straight O'Grady never does. Remember where she's coming
from, who she writes for, and above all whom she represents - the nation's
power elite, not the people of Ecuador who elected Correa last November in
a run-off presidential election. He decisively bested bible-toting,
billionaire oligarch and banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa 58% to 42% in a race
pitting progressive populism against more of the same meaning status quo in
a country long ruled for the interests of capital with no regard for the
public welfare.
Correa took office January 15 making impressive promises he's so far trying
to keep. That arouses O'Grady's ire so she oxymoronically refers to
"non-democratic Ecuador" while admitting, at the same time, Correa "was
elected fair and square." The people of Ecuador, 70% of whom live in
poverty, were crying for change as do most others in Latin America where
free elections are as rare as an early Chicago spring, and "demonstration"
fake ones are nearly all they get. They're stage-managed to look
democratic but usually turn out leaving power in the hands of the powerful,
never the people they rule with disdain and indifference. Today they're
run the same way in the US in the age of George Bush gifted his office
twice through "electoral engineering," winning it neither time fair and
square like Correa did in spite of great efforts to prevent it.
Early on, Correa campaigned like George Bush never did promising real
change including using the country's oil revenue (Ecuador is the
hemisphere's fifth largest producer) for critically needed social services
Ecuadoreans never got before from right wing governments unwilling to
provide them. He promised a "citizens' revolution" beginning by drafting a
new Constitution in a Constituent Assembly with a national referendum on it
scheduled for Sunday, April 15 following the same pattern his ally Hugo
Chavez chose in 1999 following his first election as Venezuela's president
in December, 1998. With popular support for it overwhelming (85% according
to government polls, likely very accurate), it's virtually certain to pass,
again arousing O'Grady's ire calling this democratic process a "power grab"
intended to "rewrite the highest law of the land, crush the opposition and
make himself (Correa) ruler for life (sparking a) constitutional crisis."
For the kleptocracy maybe, not for the long-exploited people.
O'Grady is right about one thing. Only the country's unicameral
legislature can call for a national constitutional referendum, but that's
precisely what it did by a vote of 54 - 1 with two abstentions after most
opposition Christian Democratic Union (UDC) deputies walked out facing
overwhelming popular sentiment for it and their likely defeat.
Here's O'Grady's account of things, all false and pure nonsense: "Mr.
Correa (got) the electoral court (Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Council -
TSE) to 'expel' 57 of his opponents (only 43 walked out) from the 100-seat
unicameral legislature (they left on their own) and enlist(ed) the police
to enforce the expulsions (false - there were none). He then called in his
'militias' (and) in recent days the streets of Quito (the capital) have
been flush with violent activists (mass public supporters) sending a
message in favor of the Correa plebiscite....Mr. Correa (with) an approval
rating of about 60% (around 70%, in fact) seems to believe he has carte
blanche to make the law wherever he decides it is." Ecuadoreans will
decide it, not Raphael Correa as O'Grady knows but won't say. Her job is
delivering red meat for the faithful and pure baloney to her readers for
the powerful interests she serves deferentially.
She goes on pathetically calling the people of Ecuador a "mobocracy" in a
country led by a "caudillo"
(strongman). Disingenuously she says Sunday's referendum is "outside the
law" referring to the democratic voice of the people as "lawful plunder."
She then improperly quotes her apparent patron saint Frederic Bastiat at
the end saying: "Woe to the nation....when the mass victims (the exploited
masses) of lawful plunder....in turn seize the power to make laws." In
fact, they seized nothing. They're democratically voting for it to get
what negates O'Grady's final comment that "The losers, of course, will be
the majority of Ecuadoreans." The people feel otherwise.
Here's why. Ecuadoreans look north and elected Raphael Correa to do for
them what Hugo Chavez continues doing for the Venezuelan people.
Venezuelans showed their admiration by reelecting Chavez in December by a
nearly two to one margin over his only serious Washington-backed and
financially supported opponent. Correa promised and appears set on
delivering the same kind of social democratic agenda Venezuelans now have
and embrace. At its core is a true democratic process and kinds of
progressive social programs Chavez gave his people. To move forward, he
first needs popular approval to rewrite the country's Constitution he
surely will get this Sunday.
With it, Ecuador should have a new Constitution later this year which will
likely again be put to a popular referendum to let the people decide on it,
not the politicians. If it's anything like the 1999 Constitucion de la
Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela, it will be a cornucopia of progressive
social policies written into law that may include state-delivered health
care, education and other benefits for all Ecuadoreans Correa promised to
serve. Correa already said he wants freedom from debt slavery under
IMF/World Bank Washington Consensus neoliberal rules by renegotiating the
country's debt to eliminate the odious part of it, the result of previous
governments' corrupt dealings at the expense of the people.
Correa is also negotiating bilateral and other economic deals with Hugo
Chavez and other Latin leaders based on Venezuela's Bolivarian Alternative
for the Americas or ALBA model. It's the mirror-opposite of
FTAA/NAFTA-type one-way pacts sucking wealth from developing states to
benefit Global North ones, mostly the US. ALBA is based on sound
principles of complementarity, solidarity and cooperation aimed at
comprehensive integration among Latin American nations to build their
social states in contrast to US-type deals wanting to destroy them for
profit. Correa also promised 100,000 low-cost homes, a raise in the
minimum wage, and doubling the small "poverty bonus" 1.2 million poor
Ecuadoreans get each month. Still more is likely to follow if Correa is
true to his word and has constitutional authority to act.
He won't need it to follow through on his promise to close the major US
military base at Manta when the ten year lease authorizing it expires in
2009. O'Grady didn't mention it, but it's got the Pentagon concerned as
it's the largest US base on South America's Pacific coast, expensive to
build, and one they want to hold onto but likely won't.
Pentagon issues aside, all else terrifies people like Mary O'Grady who feel
benefits for ordinary people mean less of them for the rich and powerful
ones she represents who give her Wall Street Journal editorial space for it
weekly. She knows the side her bread is buttered on, and for her lying is
just business as usual and part of the job serving the powerful.
The New York Times Weighs in on Venezuela's Oil Policy
Not about to let the Wall Street Journal one-up it, the New York Times
assaulted Hugo Chavez in its April 10 Simon Romero/Clifford Krauss article
titled "High Stakes: Chavez Plays the Oil Card." First a brief explanation
of the facts, and then the way the Times skews them.
Hugo Chavez made it clear to foreign investors the old way of doing
business in Venezuela is over based on corporate exploitation of the
country's resources at the expense of the Venezuelan people. The new rules
are fair ones, the same kinds foreign oil and other investors agree to in
deals with Global North countries but don't have to in relations with
developing ones. Henceforth, if Big Oil and other corporate giants want to
do business in Venezuela, they'll have to deal with Hugo Chavez the same
way they do with Tony Blair, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin - fairly.
On the matter of oil, Chavez wants a bigger share of joint-venture profits
Venezuela is entitled to from its own resources and majority state control
over Orinoco River basin lucrative oil projects believed to hold the
world's largest undeveloped oil reserves. It's where Big US and other oil
companies now operate including Chevron, BP Amoco, ConocoPhillips and Exxon
Mobil. In February, Chavez announced state oil company PDVSA will become
the majority shareholder on May 1 in four basin projects with minimum 60%
ownership with foreign joint-venture partners. Earlier, he raised taxes on
foreign oil companies and other outside investors requiring them henceforth
to pay a more equitable amount of their lucrative profit back to the people
of Venezuela.
So far, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are holding out for a better deal
they won't get while Chevron is more willing to go along understanding less
of a huge profit is better than none at all. In the end, the holdouts may
come around to that view as well. All this has the Times very upset, so
it's on the attack as de facto cheerleader for Big Oil.
Mentioning the looming May 1 deadline, it attacks Hugo Chavez with charged
language like negotiating with "revolutionary flourish" and his "ambitious"
plan (no different from Global North ones) to "wrest control of several
major oil projects from American and European companies (with a) showdown
(ahead) over access to some of the most coveted energy resources outside
the Middle East." If instead of dealing with Venezuela under Hugo Chavez,
negotiations were between Big Oil and Canada, Norway, the UK, or even
Russia, despite current strained relations between Putin and Bush, it's
unimaginable this article would have been written.
In it, the Times refers to empty Chavez threats to cut off oil exports to
the US because he wants to diversify into more markets by selling more to
countries like China and India. It also sees a problem where none exists
if Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA sells its US refineries quoting oil
analyst Pietro Pitts saying "Chavez is playing a game of chicken with the
largest oil companies in the world....And for the moment he is winning."
The article seems to imply Chavez wants to dismantle the refineries
preventing their use to supply US markets while ignoring it hardly matters
who owns them as long as they operate which they will under any owner as
long as they're profitable.
The article continues with scare-talk saying Chavez's "confrontation could
easily end up with everyone losing" meaning if Big Oil leaves and Venezuela
and other oil producers come in along with PDVSA, "Venezuela risks
undermining the engine behind Mr. Chavez's socialist-inspired revolution by
hampering its ability to transform the nation's newly valuable heavy oil
into riches for years to come."
Nonsense. If Big Oil leaves, which is very doubtful, it will be the loser
and Venezuelan oil production will continue under new joint-venture
partnerships. Because the country's potential is so huge, it's highly
likely Big Oil's current posture is just its way to hold out as long as
possible for the best deal its members can get and in the end take what
Hugo Chavez gives the ones agreeing to it. It's too sweet a deal to walk
away from, and most likely won't despite their wailing and moaning with
help from the New York Times acting as their mouthpiece. And if any do,
they'll be willing takers ready to sign deals to pick up where those
exiting left off.
Nonetheless, it gets still more heated quoting oil analyst Michael
Economides saying "We are on a collision course with Chavez over oil" in an
article he wrote comparing "Mr. Chavez's populist appeal in Latin America
with the pan-Arabism of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya two decades ago"
when he was persona non grata in the West, and Ronald Reagan bombed him in
1986 killing his adopted daughter. He continues saying "Chavez poses a
much bigger threat to America's energy security than Saddam Hussein ever
did" - language so hostile it's practically a declaration of war and 100%
nonsense.
But there's more. The Times accuses Chavez of allowing "politics and
ideology" to drive the confrontation and seek "to limit American influence
around the world, starting in Venezuela's oil fields." Unmentioned is that
the "oil fields" belong to Venezuela, not the US, and the Times writers
need to brush up on recent Middle East events where American influence is
already on life support because of Bush administration blundering. It's
made this country persona non grata in a part of the world most crucial by
far to US energy security having 60% or more of the world's proved
reserves, and with all Muslim nations combined the total is between
two-thirds to three-quarters of it.
The Times also dismisses out of hand Chavez's right to view the US as a
threat simply because Washington tried and failed deposing him three
times, not once as NYT claims. Instead it stresses the US remains
Venezuela's largest customer (supplying 10 - 12% of this country's energy
needs and isn't likely to cut off). So the scare tactics continue saying
if Big Oil pulls out, with it goes vitally needed expertise. Again,
nonsense, but it sounds good coming from two reporters who don't know what
they're talking about, nor do they understand Big Oil is likely to stay,
not leave, whatever deal its members are offered. And, again, if one
member does leave, Exxon Mobil being the most likely possibility, another
oil giant will come in to replace it to reap the big profits every oil
producer should be grateful to get and most are.
Some Conclusions Left Out of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times
Articles
The Wall Street Journal and New York Times attacked two Latin American
leaders unwilling to surrender their nations' sovereignty to ours with Hugo
Chavez being boldly vocal about it. Since elected in 1998, Chavez charted
his own independent course building a new mass social and political
revolutionary movement based on participatory democratic social equity and
justice. It began as his Bolivarian Revolution inspired by the vision of
18th century liberator Simon Bolivar to end what Bolivar called an imperial
curse "to plague Latin America with misery in the name of liberty." In
eight years in office, Chavez went a long way toward achieving it but knows
there's much more needed to move things to the next level toward a "new
socialism of the 21st century" based on humanistic democratic principles of
solidarity and respect for political, economic, social and cultural human
and civil rights built from the bottom up.
It's working socially, politically and economically as well with poverty
levels falling from a high in 2003 of 62% following the crippling 2002-03
"management lockout/oil strike" and destabilizing effects of the 2002
two-day aborted coup to levels near one-third today because of Venezuela's
booming economy. It's grown at least 10% three straight years, including
10 of the last 11 quarters lifting personal incomes, sparking overall
consumer demand, and raising corporate profits to high levels that were so
impressive for financial firms last year the Financial Times wrote bankers
were having a "party" in Venezuela because "rather than 'nationalise'
banks, the 'revolutionary' distribution of oil money has spawned wealthy
individuals who are increasingly making Caracas a magnet for Swiss and
other international bankers."
With comments like that, you'd think the Wall Street Journal and New York
Times would take note and praise Chavez instead of condemning him. They
don't because Washington diktats demand otherwise. They also ignore
Venezuela's impressive drop in unemployment from a high of 20% in early
2003 to 8.4% in December, 2006 and likely to keep falling as Venezuela's
economy continues strong.
And one other piece of good economic news just came out showing Venezuela's
March inflation rate was a negative - 0.7%, the lowest in 19 years, thanks
to government anti-inflation policies like reducing the value-added tax
(VAT) from 14% to 11%. Other constructive efforts included government
actions to curb speculation in scarce private sector goods and the sale of
government savings bonds. In February, the Chavez government, along with
Argentina, launched a second round of Bonds of the South amounting to $1.5
billion. Then in March, PDVSA sold $5.5 billion worth of bonds that along
with the government sale removed cash from the economy serving to reduce
inflationary pressures.
These positive developments are happening in a socially democratic state
where constitutional law and government policies require redistributing
much of the nation's wealth back to the people, and it's lifting all
boats. The result is mirror opposite of what happened throughout Latin
America when regional GDP from 1980 - 2000 grew 9% under Washington
Consensus neoliberal rules and 4% from 2000 - 2005, compared to 82% growth
from 1960 -1980 before they were imposed. They're not allowed in Venezuela
under Chavez, and the results speak for themselves.
Raphael Correa understands them as a former finance minister and trained
economist with a doctorate in economics earned in 2001 at the University of
Illinois. He's also a social democrat wanting to do for Ecuadoreans what
Hugo Chavez did for Venezuelans and is off to a good start to the chagrin
of the Wall Street Journal and Washington. It's editorial writer fears he
may succeed making her and her paper look more foolish than they already
do. What counts are Ecuadoreans' feelings, and they'll have a chance
Sunday to express them in the nation's first national referendum on whether
to draft a new Constitution sure to pass.
The same is true for the New York Times, savaging Hugo Chavez,
disingenuously calling him "divisive" and a "ruinous demogogue," and they
were just getting warmed up. The Times championed the aborted 2 day coup
toppling him briefly calling it a "resignation" and saying Venezuela was
"no longer threatened by a would-be dictator." Instead of calling the coup
what it was, the Times lied saying Chavez "stepped down (and was replaced
by a) respected business leader" (Pedro Carmona) never mentioning he was
hand-picked by Washington to do its bidding. He lasted two days, suspended
democratically elected members of the National Assembly, and temporarily
wrecked the Bolivarian Revolution quickly reconstituted when Chavez
returned to office as Carmona fled finding refuge in neighboring Colombia.
The Times is never deterred so its latest assault on Chavez's oil policy
shows the same mean spirit as all other broadsides it unleashed on the
Venezuelan leader from the start.
It's not working as the spirit of social democracy proves it can trump
Washington Consensus alternatives of economic ruin and vast human misery
from it. Venezuelans know it, and hopefully Ecuadoreans soon will as
well. But we'll never hear about it on the pages of the Wall Street
Journal and New York Times continuing their drumbeat support for failed
policies heading one day for the dustbin of history with room there to
spare for these papers sure eventually to follow.
[Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendman...@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen each Saturday to the Steve Lendman
News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com at noon US central time.]
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