I have been meaning to write about Venezuela and the distorted coverage of its internal affairs that we have been receiving in this country for some time now. Well, I better do it now, before the US sends our troops to help complete the overthrow of another democratically elected, South American government, and the US press extolls the virtues of yet another one of our “humanitarian interventions.” (That was sarcasm, in case you missed it).
Western news coverage of Venezuelan politics, whether by print, radio or television, not only in the US but in Britain and Western Europe, offers a perfect example of how corporate media dishes out pure propaganda to its consumers.
This includes everyone. I have yet to find a single exception to this rule in the case of Venezuela, whether it’s Fox, ABC, NCB, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, you name it. They are all the same.
Everyone is touting the same line: Nicolas Maduro is a dictator. He has killed Venezuelan democracy. The people are oppressed. There is no freedom of speech or of the press. The entire nation is starving due to government mismanagement. And on and on…
Sound familiar?
Anyone who knows anything about the long, bloody history of American intervention in South American, however, will already be suspicious of such uniform, lock-step reporting. Especially when few if any of this “reports” are coming from (a) journalists who speak Spanish (b) doing investigative journalism (c) on the ground in Venezuela (d) by speaking to a broad spectrum of actual Venezuelans still living in Venezuela. (For information on US-sponsored coups in South America see this, this, this, this and this).
From what I can discover, the reality in Venezuela today is exactly the opposite of what our news media is telling us. They have democratic elections. In fact, Jimmy Carter’s election monitoring organization observed Venezuela’s national elections in 2012 and concluded that “The election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” (For further discussion, see this article on “Why the US Demonizes Venezuela’s Elections” by Mark Weisbrot, another guy I pay attention to. Another great source of information is Venezuelanalysis.com, where you can find “Facts About Venezuela’s Presidential Elections and the Voting Process”).
I mention all of this, not only to highlight another clear example of the way our government and corporate controlled media try to propagandize us all, but also because propaganda often paves the way for military intervention and war.
Remember that President Trump has already threatened using “the military option” on Venezuela if Maduro won reelection (also here).
So, why does the US government hate the Maduro government in Venezuela?
First, Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world and is a significant source for US imports.
Second, the Venezuelan people have chosen to elect a socialist government, which is a convenient way for the US to resurrect the Cold War bogie man of creeping communism sucking at American’s underbelly. There are several problems however:
- If America is the great defender of democracy around the world, what business is it of ours to interfere in country’s that democratically choose a socialist government?
- Venezuela has not threatened to invade any neighboring countries. The US is the only nation threatening to invade another in order to overthrow its (democratically elected) government.
Third, beginning with Hugo Chavez and continuing with Maduro (but not as aggressively) the Venezuelan government has worked at nationalizing its industries, including its oil production. This has been good news for the general population, but not such welcome news for the CEOs of the major oil companies operating in Venezuela.
Whenever more money flows into the pockets of the local people, ensuring that less money will flow out of the country and into the pockets of foreign oil conglomerates, the corporate executives always call Washington, D.C. and demand some of that ole’ time “regime change.”
Don’t forget that in 1953 the CIA and the British overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mosaddegh in Iran (and had him executed) after he decided to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, depriving British Petroleum of its windfall profits at Iranian expense. There IS a clear precedent for all this.
So, in preparation, the government propaganda machine has been rolling for some time now, preparing us for the possibility of another illegal military/CIA intervention overseas. If/when it happens it will be described as another chapter in the noble saga of America’s sacrificial “defense of freedom around the world.” (Wave flags and play patriotic music, with predictably mind-numbing effects, here).
In fact, it will be one more bloody intervention in another nation’s affairs where innocent human beings will be murdered by the thousands simply because US business interests are lusting after more and more money.
This government overthrow will then be followed by the imposition of a conservative, right-wing government, perhaps even a military dictatorship, as has happened so many times before. The multinational corporations with return. The resource extraction will be denationalized and reprivatized so that the majority of the benefits will go back overseas to Western companies, and the local people are once again deprived of what is rightfully theirs.
THIS IS WHY CHRISTIANS, and by this, I mean the entire Christian church in this country, NEED TO CARE ABOUT THE NEWS AND POLITICS!
Because we want to obey Jesus’ teaching that “we do to others as we would want them to do to us.”
Because we want to “love our neighbors as ourselves.”
The US military kills people all around the world in our name, using weapons created with our tax dollars, pursuing policies supposedly for our benefit, sacrificing the lives of our children and the children of many others, all in the name of “American values.”
I am firmly convinced that nobody who genuinely knows and loves Jesus Christ; no one who understands Jesus’ values and the manner of living he taught and modeled for his disciples, can possibly be at peace with our country’s interventionist policies around the world.
We must object, speak up, write letters, call our representatives and insist that we stop meddling in Venezuelan internal affairs.
No US military or CIA in Venezuela!
(This post originally included a section on finding reliable news sources for this type of information and discussion. I have decided to make that a separate post to follow shortly.)
