Smearing chavez american lies!

[peapod]

Action Alert: FAIR condemns Parade Magazine's Smear: Chavez a terrorist funder?

The US media watch group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) has issued a report condemning an October 9 issue of the widely distributed Parade magazine -- a Sunday newspaper supplement with a circulation of 34.5 million -- which published an inaccurate smear against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The smear, which appeared in Walter Scott's Personality Parade Q&A column was a response to a letter writer who wanted to know "where Fidel Castro gets the dough to shore up his bankrupt regime."

Scott's full answer was: "In the wake of the collapse of the USSR, which bankrolled him to the tune of $4 billion a year, Castro has turned to Hugo Chavez, Marxist president of Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter. In addition to shoring up Castro, he's funding revolutionaries and terrorists throughout Latin America."

Scott's two-sentence response managed to misrepresent several issues.

Chavez is not a Marxist; asked about his politics by the left-wing publication CounterPunch (8/16/04), Chavez replied: "I don't believe in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don't accept that we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions... Are we aiming in Venezuela today for the abolition of private property or a classless society? I don't think so."

Chavez describes himself as a Bolivarian, a follower of the 19th Century Latin American independence leader Simon Bolivar.
And while Venezuela does provide discounted oil to Cuba, more than 20,000 Cuban doctors are sent to work in Venezuela in exchange; the relationship is mutually beneficial.

As for Scott's claim that Chavez is funding "revolutionaries and terrorists throughout Latin America," Parade should provide evidence for this charge or issue a retraction. The US State Department, hardly a pro-Chavez source, does not include Venezuela among the list of state sponsors of terrorism in its most recent "Country Reports on Terrorism" (4/05). The report's section on Venezuela only alleges that "it is unclear to what extent" Venezuela might support any of the principal combatants in Colombia's long-running civil war. The report goes on to mention, however, that the Colombia and Venezuela governments have cooperated on some terrorism-related cases, and that several Venezuelan National Guard officers were reportedly killed by FARC forces near the border between the two countries.

While some anti-Chavez partisans have claimed that Chavez supports various terrorist groups, they have failed to back up these allegations with evidence.

For example, Pat Robertson -- the right-wing televangelist who has called for Chavez' assassination (700 Club, 8/22/05) -- recently claimed on CNN (10/9/05) that Chavez "sent $1.2 million in cash to Osama bin Laden right after 9/11."

When asked for evidence, Robertson could only claim that "sources that came to me" told him of the transaction.

"Walter Scott" is the pseudonym of Edward Klein, the author of the "The Truth About Hillary," a biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton that is riddled with errors (Media Matters, 6/23/05). Klein's book relies overwhelmingly on anonymous sources to make a series of lurid claims and innuendos, asking peculiar questions like, "Were there any telltale signs on the presidential sheets that [Hillary and Bill Clinton] ever had sex with each other?" Klein's book also floats the suggestion that that Chelsea Clinton was conceived as a result of Bill Clinton raping Hillary while on vacation in Bermuda. Perhaps Parade should consider whether "Scott"'s journalism deserves closer scrutiny.

ACTION:

Please call on Parade Magazine to either provide evidence for its claim that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is "funding revolutionaries and terrorists throughout Latin America" or else issue a retraction of the unattributed charge.

CONTACT:

Personality Parade
personality@parade.com

Parade Magazine
Lee Kravitz, editor
editor@parade.com

Venezuelan president a terrorist funder?

FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.

 

[no1important]

RE: Smearing chavez ameri

The right wing and right wing media sure love to smear and spread hateful lies against Chavez.

 

[gopher]

Radical reich wingers continue to smear Chavez because his administration is a success:

Poverty and Unemployment Down significantly in Venezuela in 2005

Friday, Oct 14, 2005
By: Venezuelanalysis.com


Caracas, Venezuela, October 14, 2005—Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) says that poverty will drop by 8% points by the end of 2005, relative to the previous year. Similarly, unemployment dropped 0.6% points, from 12.1% in August, to 11.5% in September of this year.

INE director Elias Eljuri made the announcement yesterday, saying that Venezuela’s poverty rate is expected to drop to 35% by the end of the year, down from 47% for 2004. during the first half of 2005 poverty was calculated to be at 38.5%. Also, critical poverty, the level at which people cannot afford to cover their basic needs, dropped to 10.1% in the first half of 2005, down from 18% the previous year.

According to Eljuri, this means that poverty has now dropped to a level below what it was before Chavez came into office, in 1999, when the INE registered the poverty rate to be at 42%.

Unemployment also dropped significantly, reported the INE, from 14.5% in September 2004, to 11.5% in September 2005.

The drop in the unemployment and in the poverty rate are linked to the tremendous growth the Venezuelan economy has been experiencing for the past seven quarters. It expanded by 11.1% in the second quarter of 2005 and by 7.5% in the first quarter, relative to the same quarters a year earlier. Prior to that, in 2004, the economy grew by an unprecedented 17%, relative to 2003.

This seven-quarter period of uninterrupted growth follows a period of two years of economic decline, which most economists attribute to the political and economic chaos caused by the April 2002 coup attempt and the late 2002 to early 2003 shutdown of the country’s all-important oil industry. The economy declined by 8.9% in 2002 and by 7.7% in 2003, relative to the respective previous years.

 

[Reverend Blair]

The right wing and right wing media sure love to smear and spread hateful lies against Chavez.

That's because what he's doing is working. Look at the article that Gopher posted...things are getting better in Venezuela. That scares the hell out of the right wingers because they aren't in control.

 

[#juan]

I consider the following paragraphs

to be proof that American propaganda is wrong and obviously Chavez is doing something right. The Venezuelan economy was in terrible shape when Chavez took over. The growth has been phenomenal.

Venezuela's current setting is very favorable. The economy has sustained a remarkable growth rate in the last seven quarters. During 2004, Venezuela had the highest economic growth rate in the world, with a GDP growth of 17.8%. Following the same trend, gross fixed investment grew 43% in 2004. Unemployment rates have decreased steadily, up to June 2005.

In 2005 Venezuela's economy keeps showing signs of an extraordinary sustained growth. In the first two quarters of 2005, Venezuela's GDP grew 7.5% and 11.1% respectively, averaging a mid-year growth rate of 9.3%. It is worth noting that the non-oil sector is growing at higher rates in the same period, at 8.7% and 12.1% respectively. Thus, Venezuela's overall economy growth becomes the highest in the continent at mid-year 2005, followed by Argentina, and the second worldwide, just behind China.

 

[#juan]

Chavez is hardly the "ruinous demogogue'" that the U.S. have called him, indeed, the U.S. could take a few economic lessons from him.

While the U.S. piles up debt in record numbers, Venezuela registers record growth. All indications are that the country is well on the road to recovery from the mess the previous leaders left it in.

 

[peapod]

No kidding juan, funny innit?? instead of waiting to see if chavez's ideas will work, the neocons are so afraid that the supply of greenbacks that feeds their mental illness will come to end, and with fundie bible under their stentons, they employ the righteous tools of their trade. Lies, deciet, munipulation, theft, war and smear tatics.
Also funny innit..speaking to the hypocrites now...smearing chavez and, no doubt hatching murder plots and trying to figure out ways to over throw a democratic elected government in another country. Yet nar a wimper nor a peep about Uzbekistan...


America's Terrorist Ally
Uzbekistan's Dictator Makes Saddam Look Good

by Ted Rall
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0525-28.htm

Who is more brutal, Saddam Hussein or Islam Karimov? Reasonable victims disagree. Saddam's goons electrocuted his political dissidents. Karimov, on the other hand, loots so much of his country's oil wealth that his state torturers don't have an electrical grid to draw upon. So his police torturers are forced to resort to medieval methods. They boil their "terrorist extremists"--businessmen who refuse to pay bribes--to death.
There's no question about which tyrant is more reviled. Saddam stole millions from the Iraqi treasury, yet he also spread around enough loot to build both a second-world infrastructure and an economic base of power among the Sunnis who amount to about 40 percent of the population. Karimov, absolute ruler of Uzbekistan since the 1991 Soviet collapse, is a glutton whose personal motto echoes David Bowie's old promos for MTV: too much is never enough.

Uzbekistan, a major player in the Caspian Sea energy sweepstakes, is theoretically poised to become an economic success story. It is one of the world's largest producers of natural gas and possesses large untapped reserves of crude oil. As the republic with Central Asia's largest city--Tashkent has the region's only bonafide international airport and even its own subway system--its strategic importance extends beyond the fact that it has common borders with all of the other "stans." But, unlike Saddam's Iraq, every cent generated by Uzbekistan's vast resources goes straight into Islam Karimov's pocket. His parsimony extends even to his thuggish militsia (military police): rather than pay them a realistic salary, he grants them free reign to coerce, rob, jail and even murder at will. Not only do the militsia pay for themselves, their lawless behavior ensures loyalty. Every cop knows that his neighbors would kill him were Karimov to disappear.

Uzbekistan has a politically and ethnically diverse population comprising Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kazakhs and even Bukharan Jews. While it's common to see women wearing miniskirts on the streets of such secular urban centers as Khiva and Samarkand, the rural Ferghana Valley is home to a fundamentalist brand of Islamism reminiscent of the Taliban. But all Uzbekistanis have something in common. It doesn't matter whether you talk to a guerilla fighter for the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a prostitute playing the bar at the Tashkent Sheraton or a kid hawking sodas at a bazaar: everyone hates Karimov and everyone hates his militsia, a force whose presence is so intimidating that people plan their itineraries to avoid checkpoints and police stations where they'll be robbed or worse.

The full force of Uzbekistan's outlaw police fell upon anti-government rioters shouting "freedom" and demanding free elections and an end to official corruption in the Ferghana Valley city of Andizhan on May 13. Although Karimov now claims that police acted independently, the UK Independent reports, "He was in command of the situation having flown to Andizhan from the capital Tashkent and almost certainly personally authorized the use of...deadly force."

The paper wrote: "The crowds, it has been established, were mown down by powerful coaxial 7.62mm machine guns mounted on two Russian-built BTR-80 armored personnel carriers. Such cannons can unleash 2,000 rounds, barely pausing for breath before they need to be reloaded. A military helicopter was used for reconnaissance purposes and Uzbek troops armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles opened fire on the demonstrators creating a deadly field of fire with the BTR-80s from which there was no escape. The soldiers made sure they had done their work well. After the shooting had finished they went from body to body delivering 'control shots' to the back of people's heads and scoured the town's streets for survivors to finish off."

The bloodletting followed Karimov's observation that ex-president Askar Akayev's order not to fire on demonstrators was the fatal error that led to his ouster in Kyrgyzstan.

Karimov claims 32 Uzbek militsia and 137 civilians were killed in the disturbance, numbers belied by the local coroner's own numbering system. "In the end hundreds of bodies--including those of women and children--filled the square," said the Associated Press. Human rights groups say the real death count is between 500 and 1,000.

Bush Administration officials, so strident when promoting liberation through regime change in Iraq, Ukraine and, ironically, when Islamists overthrew the democratically-elected Kyrgyz president--have downplayed the Uzbek massacre. "After 9/11," explains Newsweek, "the Bush administration established a strategic partnership with Karimov, plunking down $500 million for a military base in southern Uzbekistan in preparation for operations in Afghanistan and paying $60 million or more a year in military aid and training."

The Bushies were aware of Karimov's horrific record back in 2001. That year's Human Rights Watch report on Uzbekistan put its "conservative estimate" of Uzbek political prisoners at 7,000. According to HRW: "Prison guards systematically beat prisoners with wooden and rubber truncheons and exacted particularly harsh punishment on those convicted on religious charges, subjecting them to additional beatings...Torture remained endemic in pretrial custody as well." George W. Bush didn't mind. He accorded Karimov all the honors of a full state visit to the White House shortly thereafter.

How can the United States claim to be fighting a war on terrorism when its biggest allies are terrorists themselves?

Good question eh??? how about answering that one nascar..can hardly wait to see how you rationalized this one :roll: :roll:

Oh I know...perhaps there will be a ton of oil or some other resource in Uzbekistan, down the road like...when they no longer need their new buddy. Than they go in and clean house and plant democracy...rah rah! hypocrites!

 

[#juan]

Good post peapod

I have a theory that if Chavez had been the despot that the U.S. wants to make him, and had he lined up his people by the hundreds every day and shot them, all would have been forgiven if he was seen to be pro-American. If he were pro-American, they would give him a ticker tape parade through New York. Besides, The U.S. has always preferred to deal with dictators.

 

[no1important]

RE: Smearing chavez ameri

Dictators are easier to bribe and as long as they do what US wants they are left alone, but god help them once they dis-obey their American masters though.....

 

[#juan]

You are right no1

It is so inconvenient went the leader you're dealing with has to consult his cabinet or his people for every damn thing.

 

[GL Schmitt]

. . . It is so inconvenient went the leader you're dealing with has to consult his cabinet or his people for every damn thing.

That's the core philosophy behind American foreign policy over the past fifty years,

 

[#juan]

The sad thing GL,

is that the people don't know it. I was born in Canada but both my parents were American. My mother, bless her soul, would never have believed the American government could knowingly do anything wrong. My dad was more of a realist.

When I go down to the states and talk to my relatives, they are the same as my mother. Maybe it's the swearing of allegiance in school every morning.

 

[Karlin]

This is great stuff.

We appear to have majority of opinion here!! Chavez is a hero, leading the way to a better nation for his people.

The world over, our enlightened minds are going to break free of the neo-cons and their fear-filled insanity, the dirty ugly world so full of suffering and strife.

Well, it is a start anyhow,
Karlin

 

[no1important]

RE: Smearing chavez ameri

I think down the road Chavez would be a good person to replace Kofi Annan.

 

[mrmom2]

Yea well i say Death to the neocons and everything they stand for NWO yes men is all they are and the biggest bunch of chickenshits this planet has ever seen :twisted:

 

[Ocean Breeze]

The world over, our enlightened minds are going to break free of the neo-cons and their fear-filled insanity, the dirty ugly world so full of suffering and strife.

.....and hopefully the neocon will soon be an extinct species. :wink: ......with the restoration of some semblance of sanity again.

 

[jimmoyer]

I'm continually amazed at how Americans and Canadians cartoonize each other and how little do we know each other.

Not only do Canadians react to the Amerika rightwinger extremists condemnation of Chavez but they overreact to the other extreme extolling Chavez as a hero.

Neither extreme is right.

If only the pendulum of popular opinion would not swing too far each way, we would all be the wiser for it.

Chavez is a savy individual who knows his audience better than his audience knows him. He plays his audience well.

Hero ?

Isn't it much too soon to tell?

Will his oil dollars do any better for his people in 20 years?

Will what he does ever accomplish helping more people than those already helped by entitlement programs in the US, Canada or Europe ?

Time will tell.

This whole thread is as guilty of overreacting as the neo-cons.

 

[neocon-hunter]

RE: Smearing chavez ameri

Yes time will tell. But Chavez is 100 times the more man bushie will ever be.

You neocons just run him down as he will not do as bushie says. You only dislike him because your government says so.

Open your eyes and see all the good he is doing. It takes time to rebuild a country and Chavez is doing just that. So why don't you give him some credit instead of bad mouthing him.

Why are you so concerned anyways? Afraid he might cut off the oil?

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Re: RE: Smearing chavez american lies!

I'm continually amazed at how Americans and Canadians cartoonize each other and how little do we know each other.

Not only do Canadians react to the Amerika rightwinger extremists condemnation of Chavez but they overreact to the other extreme extolling Chavez as a hero.

Neither extreme is right.

If only the pendulum of popular opinion would not swing too far each way, we would all be the wiser for it.

Chavez is a savy individual who knows his audience better than his audience knows him. He plays his audience well.

Hero ?

Isn't it much too soon to tell?

Will his oil dollars do any better for his people in 20 years?

Will what he does ever accomplish helping more people than those already helped by entitlement programs in the US, Canada or Europe ?

Time will tell.

This whole thread is as guilty of overreacting as the neo-cons.

Haven't the narrow minded shallow neo cons done ENOUGH destruction on this planet ??? To a neo con.......anyone that is an individual, an independant thinker , an idea person .......is a THREAT........so they have to meddle where they don't belong.....assuming if they bash ahead of the game......they will demoralize the object of their bashing. So called "weaken" them. (via character assassination and other ugly tactics) Chevez is proving you all wrong.......as he is a lot more confident in himself , a lot more intelligent and knows how to play the political field smarter than the bushregime could ever dream of.

 

[jimmoyer]

You are right about the neo-cons. You certainly do know what you oppose.

So there you go. Battle the neo-cons. Please do.
Rail away into the night. Carry on.

But, do not let this visceral feeling you have make you blind.

It is human nature to glorify the opposite.

But such overreaction is no more an accurate reading of the picture than the scarecrow you whack at daily.

It is too soon to tell whether Chavez is a hero.

It is too soon to glorify him.

What accuracy lies in that over-reaction ?