Bush Repugs back to their evil efforts; clueless Dems dazed like baby seal smashed by a hunter's club...
Bush Repugs back to their evil efforts; clueless Dems dazed like a baby seal smashed by a hunter's club...
This past week, Democrats made a small attempt to SEIZE THE NEWS by coming together to formulate a plan for a TIMELINE for WITHDRAWING US combat troops from Iraq. The effort did, indeed, garner the Democrats IMMEDIATE national 'news' media attention. Most of it, of course, derogatory and dismissive. "Dems. CAN'T AGREE on a withdrawal plan!" read most media stories. "Dems want to CUT and RUN!" thundered Republicans on the floor of the House and Senate.
The Democrats sudden show of - gasp! - backbone was such a dire threat, that KARL ROVE sent the clownish Senator Rick Santorum or Pennsylvania to the floor of the senate to announce "SADDAM'S WMDs HAVE BEEN FOUND!" It turns out that 500 unexploded and rotting artillery shells and canisters were found, forgotten and half-buried in the desert from the 1991 Gulf War, but that was enough for Rove to hand Santorum his talking points and marching orders, which in turn was enough to give FOX 'news' the "WMDs FOUND IN IRAQ!" blaring headlines that they so desperately crave. Clownish SEAN HANNITY was Fox's assigned Clown for hyping the report. When the rest of the US media, all buzzing about the "new story!" zoomed in on the allegations, HANNITY took a day off and refused to report the next day (where he would have had to disown his comments from the previous day).
ALL to show a PERFECT illustration of the Repuglican STRANGLEHOLD on the US government and major media: Dick Cheney formulates a policy goal (bomb Iraq, steal their oil, loot US taxpayers to enrich his buddies in Halliburton; send anyone who disagrees or disapproves off to his nazi-esque torture gulag); Karl Rove gets his orders to put lipstick on a pig; they call up one of their peon serf senators or congressmen to give a speech or make an accusation supporting the Cheney policy or smearing a critic; FOX 'news' trumpets the story with blaring headlines, explosive-graphics, and that little American flag waving in the corner; and then the Cowardly Washington Post and Whore New York Times dutifully report the entire lying fabrication as "NEWS" to be assimilated, digested, and pondered over unto eternity, like a good little Ph.D. candidate researching his Ph.D. thesis to disprove Global Warming under a grant provided by Exxon-Mobile.
PRESTO! You have a Democrat Party cowed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly, who provide the "story" for the atrocious publishers and editors of the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and GE/nbc (etc.); to SPIN into the "mainstream media" or CW "conventional wisdom" narrative; and !PRESTO!, we no longer have a functioning democracy or opposition party or informed public.
BUT Mr. Cheney and his Gulag-Republicans are nothing if not persistent and RELENTLESS, so, rest assured, the Santorum "WMDs FOUND IN IRAQ!" story was not the alpha and omega of Cheney-Rove-Repug. PUSHBACK on the "Dems out of Iraq Phased withdrawal now" policy that actually got some US news coverage.
Oh no! Santorum is as expendable as they come.. he is going down to defeat in the '06 Senate race anyways. Although Dems. will not win a majority in either the House or the Senate in '06, Santorum will go the way of Al D'Amato and Bob "B-1 Bob" Dornan, so over the top as to be downright clownish, both D'Amato and Dornan rejected by their voters despite huge pork-barrel constituencies in their home districts... and Santorum will follow in their now-forgotten wake.
No, Cheney-Rove will NOT leave it up to "B1 Bob" Dornan, er, Rick Santorum, to DERAIL the Democrats sudden nerve to attempt to gain some media traction for their message (and, indirectly, get some media ATTENTION for the opinions of MILLIONS of us voters who voted for Democrats in the past 3 national elections).
NOPE! The Dems. getting PRESS COVERAGE and MEDIA ATTENTION... on an issue that THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICAN VOTERS agree with the Dems and DISAGREE with the administration - DEMANDS A FULL COURT PRESS "PUSHBACK" by Mr. Rove and Mr. Cheney and their entire CORRUPT Repuglican edifice.
And here it is, coming down the track like the most efficiently run train in the world:
#1. "Cheney OFFENDED by New York Times, LA Times Coverage of US 'spy on EVERYONE's FINANCES' coverage."
(HuffPo's headline reads, "Cheney Offended by NY Times and LA Times)
New York Times' headline reads:
"Cheney Assails Press on Report on Bank Data"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/washington/24swift.html?ex=1308801600&en=7ab995f0b77a7226&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Note how TAKING CRITICISM from THEIR MASTER is part of being a New York Times headline editor.
Without context or further reading, would ANYONE IN AMERICA know what the hell the headline "so-and-so ASSAILS PRESS REPORT ON BANK DATA" means?
HELL NO! THIS_IS_A_DELIBERATE_ATTEMPT by the New York Times headline editors TO_BE_CONFUSING.
They PRETEND to cover Cheney's "concern" about their coverage of YET_ANOTHER_GOVERNMENT_SPYING_ON_CITIZENS story, but they DUMB_DOWN the headlines (and reporting) SO MUCH that 90% of the average readers will go something like "Oh, bush & cheney are spying on our bank accounts, too. What the hell else is new? Well, there's nothing we can do about it..."
And, of course 70% of the American public will never read the story at in the first place, resigned either to ignorance, impotence, or (in case of righties), satisfaction that here is yet another example of the "LIBRUL!" New York Times trying to undercut our Dear Leaders and their faithful fight to rid America of unwashed scum and enemy "terrarists."
#2. Over at the WSJ, the WSJ editors and writers do THEIR PART, trumpeting the NEW, GODLESS, EVIL THREAT to America... why, it's that dastardly Hugo Chavez of Venezuela up to his old tricks, like UNDERCUTTING THE OIL ROBBER BARONS by giving away cheap oil to the poor and needy families of New England and New York (Chavez's cheap-oil for America's needy being expanded to Gulf Coast Katrina victimized states??); and doing other stuff that the majority of Venezuelan voters WANT FROM THEIR GOVERNMENT.
The Wall Street Journal Calls Hugo Chavez A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE -
by Stephen Lendman
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__060624_wall_street_journal_.htm
In this case, the WSJ "hit" piece on Chavez is, let's not quibble here, NEO-CON boilerplate propaganda.
As in "noe-con Wolfowitz at World Bank, sharpenning his knives for when the US FINALLY does oust Chavez (by murder this next time, their previous coup having failed to kill Chavez quickly enough), so to CARVE UP Venezuela's oil reserves for Wall St. and bushCo Big Biz robber-baron extortionists," to do to Venezuela what they have already done to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fortunately, this article does a superb job of documenting the abject, Hitleresque propaganda of portraying GUATEMALA as a font of "democracy" and "international peacekeeping" in the administration's/neo-con/WSJ efforts to justify another war and new round of coups/death squads.
And finally,
#3. rounding out today's Cheney-Rove PUSHBACK on timid Dem efforts to control the discussion of issues such as the Iraq war, we have this article from Alternet.org, "GOP KILLS BILL to POLICE Halliburton [Contract Fraud].
Or, we could report just as easily, "Dick Cheney assures that the Republican Party WILL HAVE TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AT ITS DISPOSAL for Campaign 2006," as simple as HALLIBURTON signing a few checks to a few Repub. insiders [for "contracts", of course], who then turn around and donate a few million to the GOP's 2006 campaign coffers when the going gets critical, as when THE WILEY BROTHERS funded the GOP phone-bank PUSH-POLL SMEARING of JOHN McCAIN in the 2000 Republican Primary (against Tex. Gov. George W. Bush) in South Carolina.
The Democrats finally get ONE LITTLE MEDIA DUSTUP going over their Iraq war resolutions, which merely forces Cheney and Rove to STEP UP THEIR attacks on other issues, using the Neo-Con Wall Street Journal in this instance, or Sen. Rick Santorum in that, or their BULLY POWER TO END DEBATE in House and Senate as the ultimate club.
So there you have it.
Until they can find SOME competence and a united voice, the Democrats ARE POWERLESS to stop the CONTINUED Cheney-Rove-GOP TWISTING of the media narrative to butress their evil, immoral, and illegal (not to overlook "murderous") goals.
In a masterpiece of evil Hitleresque propaganda, the Rove-Cheney Republicans WANT TO DO TO VENEZUELA what they have already done to IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN... and the Wall St. Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, LA TImes, not to mention FOX 'news and GE/nbc "news" all dutifully spin and regurgitate the talking points... "Venezuela would be BETTER OFF under neo-con death squads 'democracy!'" 'liberal-media-bias" talking points notwithstanding.
- "GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton"
By Bob Geiger, AlterNet. Posted June 20, 2006.
Republicans in Congress have made it clear they're willing to fight for military contractors' right to lie, cheat and defraud taxpayers.
http://alternet.org/story/37849/
====================
Wall Street Journal Calls Hugo Chavez A Threat to World Peace
by Stephen Lendman
http://alternet.org/story/37849/
The Wall Street Journal Calls Hugo Chavez A Threat to World Peace - by Stephen Lendman
You won't find commentary and language any more hostile to Hugo Chavez than on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Their June 23 piece by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the Americas column is a clear, jaw-dropping example. It's practically blood-curdling in its vitriol which calls Hugo Chavez a threat to world peace. The sad part of it is Journal readers believe this stuff and are likely to support any US government efforts to remove the "threat."
The O'Grady article is about the elections scheduled to take place in the fall for five non-permanent UN Security Council seats to be held in 2007. One of them will be for the Latin American seat now held by Argentina. The two countries vying to fill the opening are Guatemala and Venezuela, and the other countries in the region will vote on which one will get it. You won't have to think long to guess the one the US supports - its Guatemalan ally, of course. And why not. For over 50 years its succession of military and civilian governments have all followed the dictates of their dominant northern neighbor. In so doing, they all managed to achieve one of the world's worst human rights records that hasn't abated even after the 1996 Peace Accords were signed ending a brutal 36 year conflict. Although the country today is nominally a democratic republic, it continues to abuse its people according to documented reports by Amnesty International.
Amnesty is aware of sexual violence and extreme brutality against women including 665 murders in 2005 gotten from police records; 224 reported attacks on human rights activists and organizations in the same year with little or no progress made investigating them; forced evictions and destruction of homes of indigenous people in rural areas (echoes of Palestine); and no progress by the government and Constitutional Court in seeking justice for decades of genocidal crimes and crimes against humanity committed by paramilitary death squads and the Guatamalan military. The sum of these and other unending abuses led Amnesty to call Guatamala a "land of injustice."
That record of abuse hardly matters to the Bush administration nor did it bother any past ones either since the CIA fomented a coup in 1954 ousting the country's democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. That coup began a half century reign of terror against the country's indigenous Mayan majority. It was fully supported by a succession of US presidents who were quite willing to overlook it as long as Guatamalan governments maintained a policy of compliance with the US agenda. They all did, and in return received the support and blessing of the US and its corporate giants that continue to suck the life out of that oppressed country.
Guatamala fills the bill nicely for the Bush administration and would be expected to be a close ally in support of US positions that come up for votes in the UN Security Council. Venezuela, on the other hand, is a different story. Since he was first democratically elected in 1998, Hugo Chavez has done what few other leaders ever do. He's kept his promises to his people to serve their interests ahead of those of other nations, especially the US that's dominated and exploited Venezuela for decades. He's served them well, and in so doing engendered the wrath of his dominant northern neighbor that already has tried and failed three times to oust him and is now planning a fourth attempt to do it.
The idea of a Chavez-led government holding a seat on the Security Council does not go down well in Washington, and the Bush administration is leading a campaign to prevent it with aid and support of the kind of attack-dog journalism found in the Wall Street Journal. Honest observers know this newspaper of record for corporate America has a hard time dealing with facts it dislikes so it invents the ones it does to use in their place.
The June 23 editorial is a good example. It extolls the record of the Guatamalan government with its long-standing record of extreme abuse against its own people falsely claiming it's been "accumulating an impressive record of international cooperation on a variety of UN efforts." It claims one of its main qualifications is its "active role in international peacekeeping" and that the country is now home to a Central American regional peacekeeping school and training center. Oddly, it mentions that Guatamalan peacekeepers are now serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Haiti. What it fails to mention is that those so-called "peacekeepers," along with those from other countries serving with them, have in large part functioned as paramilitary enforcers, and in that capacity have committed gross human rights abuses against the local people rather than trying to protect them. The WSJ writer surely knows this but didn't choose to share that information with her readers. Instead she extolls the country's "democratic credentials." But readers with any knowledge of recent Guatamalan history surely know that country's true record is one of extreme violence and abuse against its own people and one no one would think of as a nation representing them democratically.
The WSJ's June 23 editorial is titled "A Vote for Venezuela Is a Vote for Iran." The commentary in it is one of the paper's most extreme diatribes against the Venezuelan leader which would seem to indicate the Bush administration and corporate America are stepping up their attack on Hugo Chavez in advance of when they plan to make their move to oust him. The Journal writer calls him a "strongman" in an "oil dictatorship" leading a government that values "tyranny and aggression" who'll use his seat and Council presidency when his nation assumes it to support "hostile states" like Iran, Cuba, Sudan and North Korea. Observers knowledgeable about Venezuela under Chavez would have a hard time containing themselves as the true Chavez record is totally opposite the one the Journal portrays. The Journal writer, of course, knows this, but would never report it in her column. Her employer and the interests it serves wouldn't be pleased if she did.
While claiming that a Guatamala seat on the Council is a "voice for the region, not its own national interests," it says Venezuela's "rests largely on oil 'diplomacy' and the capacity to push anti-American buttons around the UN." It goes on to state "It may seem strange Venezuela has any support in the region. Over the past seven years, its meddling in its neighbors' politics 'have' (even the grammar is wrong) earned it a reputation as a bully. Mr. Chavez is persona non grata in more than a few Latin nations. Many countries are worried about Venezuela's 'big spending' to acquire fighter jets and 100,000 kalisnikovs from Russia." Readers may need to pause to catch their breath.
What the Journal writer doesn't explain is far more important than what she does - but she's doing her job as a servant of the US empire. Chavez's so-called "oil diplomacy," in fact, is based on his Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas or ALBA. It's based on the principles of complementarity (not competition), solidarity (not domination), cooperation (not exploitation) and respect for other nations' sovereignty free from the control of dominant powers like the US and its large transnational corporations. It's the mirror opposite of US-style predatory capitalism and the one-sided trade agreements it uses to exploit other countries for its own gain.
The nations participating in ALBA-style agreements are able to operate outside the usual international banking and corporate trading system in their exchange of goods and services so that each country benefits and none loses - just the opposite of the one-sided way the US operates. Because Venezuela is rich in oil, it's been able to trade that vital commodity with its neighbors who need it, even sell it to them at below-market prices, and get back in return the products and services its trading partners can supply on an equally favorable basis. It's a true "win-win" arrangement for participating countries but one that angers the US because it cuts its corporations and big banks out of the process. The Chavez plan is to help his people, not serve the interests of the corporate giants or dominant US neighbor. The WSJ calls this "meddling" and Chavez a "bully." What glorious meddling it is, in the true spirit of the country's Bolivarian Revolution, and "bully" to Hugo Chavez for doing it.
As for Chavez's so-called "big spending" for weapons that has "many countries worried," one must wonder which countries the Journal writer means. She mentions none, which she surely would have and quoted their officials if, in fact, there were any. The truth, of course, is Hugo Chavez is acting no differently than most all other countries in the region or elsewhere, has expressed no hostility toward any of them, has never invaded a neighbor or threatened to, and is a model of a peace-promoting leader who's only taking sensible steps to upgrade his small military and protect his nation against a hostile US he has every reason to believe will attack him. But you'll never find that commentary on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal editorial ends in grand style. It demeans the poor countries of the region benefitting from below-market priced Venezuelan oil as likely supporting that country for the Latin American Council seat. It also attacks Argentina for being a "Venezuelan pawn," calling it "once a haven for Nazis" (the US was and still is), and stating "the country has been so incompetent about managing its 'resources' that it too needs charity from Mr. Chavez." Indeed, Argentina had big financial trouble at the end of the 1990s, but the Journal writer doesn't explain why. It was because the country became the "poster child" model for US-style neoliberal free market capitalism in the 1990s. It wrecked the economy causing it to collapse into bankruptcy it's still struggling to recover from.
The Journal writer also attacks Bolivia and Cuba for supporting Chavez but is particularly hostile to the Lula government in Brazil for its siding with the Venezuelan leader. She calls that support "surprising" and accused the Brazilian government of being "Bolivia's unofficial energy advisor (that) orchestrated the confiscation of Brazilian assets (in Bolivia) recently." Bolivian president Evo Morales nationalized his nation's energy resources which Bolivian law clearly states the nation owns. He confiscated nothing, which the Journal writer surely knows but failed to tell her readers. She also mentioned a so-called "eternal Brazilian struggle to prove that it can challenge US 'hegemony' in the region (that) trumps the need to regain dignity and protect its investments abroad." Left out of the commentary is any mention that Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Brazil are sovereign states with the right to support whatever policies and other countries they wish without needing US approval to do it.
About the only final comment the Journal writer can make is to claim Guatamala has the "solid backing of the 'more serious democracies' in the region - such as Colombia and Mexico." It's likely what the writer means by "serious" is those countries' elections are about as free and fair as ours - meaning, they only are for the power-elites controlling them who arrange the outcomes they want.
The June 23 Wall Street Journal editorial was a typical example of what this newspaper calls journalism and editorial commentary. This writer follows it to learn what the US empire likely is up to. In the case of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, it's no doubt up to no good. The continued hostile rhetoric is clearly to signal another attempt to oust the Venezuelan leader at whatever time and by whatever means the Bush administration has in mind. Stay tuned.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
http://www.sjlendman.blogspot.com
I am a 71 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
This past week, Democrats made a small attempt to SEIZE THE NEWS by coming together to formulate a plan for a TIMELINE for WITHDRAWING US combat troops from Iraq. The effort did, indeed, garner the Democrats IMMEDIATE national 'news' media attention. Most of it, of course, derogatory and dismissive. "Dems. CAN'T AGREE on a withdrawal plan!" read most media stories. "Dems want to CUT and RUN!" thundered Republicans on the floor of the House and Senate.
The Democrats sudden show of - gasp! - backbone was such a dire threat, that KARL ROVE sent the clownish Senator Rick Santorum or Pennsylvania to the floor of the senate to announce "SADDAM'S WMDs HAVE BEEN FOUND!" It turns out that 500 unexploded and rotting artillery shells and canisters were found, forgotten and half-buried in the desert from the 1991 Gulf War, but that was enough for Rove to hand Santorum his talking points and marching orders, which in turn was enough to give FOX 'news' the "WMDs FOUND IN IRAQ!" blaring headlines that they so desperately crave. Clownish SEAN HANNITY was Fox's assigned Clown for hyping the report. When the rest of the US media, all buzzing about the "new story!" zoomed in on the allegations, HANNITY took a day off and refused to report the next day (where he would have had to disown his comments from the previous day).
ALL to show a PERFECT illustration of the Repuglican STRANGLEHOLD on the US government and major media: Dick Cheney formulates a policy goal (bomb Iraq, steal their oil, loot US taxpayers to enrich his buddies in Halliburton; send anyone who disagrees or disapproves off to his nazi-esque torture gulag); Karl Rove gets his orders to put lipstick on a pig; they call up one of their peon serf senators or congressmen to give a speech or make an accusation supporting the Cheney policy or smearing a critic; FOX 'news' trumpets the story with blaring headlines, explosive-graphics, and that little American flag waving in the corner; and then the Cowardly Washington Post and Whore New York Times dutifully report the entire lying fabrication as "NEWS" to be assimilated, digested, and pondered over unto eternity, like a good little Ph.D. candidate researching his Ph.D. thesis to disprove Global Warming under a grant provided by Exxon-Mobile.
PRESTO! You have a Democrat Party cowed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly, who provide the "story" for the atrocious publishers and editors of the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and GE/nbc (etc.); to SPIN into the "mainstream media" or CW "conventional wisdom" narrative; and !PRESTO!, we no longer have a functioning democracy or opposition party or informed public.
BUT Mr. Cheney and his Gulag-Republicans are nothing if not persistent and RELENTLESS, so, rest assured, the Santorum "WMDs FOUND IN IRAQ!" story was not the alpha and omega of Cheney-Rove-Repug. PUSHBACK on the "Dems out of Iraq Phased withdrawal now" policy that actually got some US news coverage.
Oh no! Santorum is as expendable as they come.. he is going down to defeat in the '06 Senate race anyways. Although Dems. will not win a majority in either the House or the Senate in '06, Santorum will go the way of Al D'Amato and Bob "B-1 Bob" Dornan, so over the top as to be downright clownish, both D'Amato and Dornan rejected by their voters despite huge pork-barrel constituencies in their home districts... and Santorum will follow in their now-forgotten wake.
No, Cheney-Rove will NOT leave it up to "B1 Bob" Dornan, er, Rick Santorum, to DERAIL the Democrats sudden nerve to attempt to gain some media traction for their message (and, indirectly, get some media ATTENTION for the opinions of MILLIONS of us voters who voted for Democrats in the past 3 national elections).
NOPE! The Dems. getting PRESS COVERAGE and MEDIA ATTENTION... on an issue that THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICAN VOTERS agree with the Dems and DISAGREE with the administration - DEMANDS A FULL COURT PRESS "PUSHBACK" by Mr. Rove and Mr. Cheney and their entire CORRUPT Repuglican edifice.
And here it is, coming down the track like the most efficiently run train in the world:
#1. "Cheney OFFENDED by New York Times, LA Times Coverage of US 'spy on EVERYONE's FINANCES' coverage."
(HuffPo's headline reads, "Cheney Offended by NY Times and LA Times)
New York Times' headline reads:
"Cheney Assails Press on Report on Bank Data"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/24/washington/24swift.html?ex=1308801600&en=7ab995f0b77a7226&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Note how TAKING CRITICISM from THEIR MASTER is part of being a New York Times headline editor.
Without context or further reading, would ANYONE IN AMERICA know what the hell the headline "so-and-so ASSAILS PRESS REPORT ON BANK DATA" means?
HELL NO! THIS_IS_A_DELIBERATE_ATTEMPT by the New York Times headline editors TO_BE_CONFUSING.
They PRETEND to cover Cheney's "concern" about their coverage of YET_ANOTHER_GOVERNMENT_SPYING_ON_CITIZENS story, but they DUMB_DOWN the headlines (and reporting) SO MUCH that 90% of the average readers will go something like "Oh, bush & cheney are spying on our bank accounts, too. What the hell else is new? Well, there's nothing we can do about it..."
And, of course 70% of the American public will never read the story at in the first place, resigned either to ignorance, impotence, or (in case of righties), satisfaction that here is yet another example of the "LIBRUL!" New York Times trying to undercut our Dear Leaders and their faithful fight to rid America of unwashed scum and enemy "terrarists."
#2. Over at the WSJ, the WSJ editors and writers do THEIR PART, trumpeting the NEW, GODLESS, EVIL THREAT to America... why, it's that dastardly Hugo Chavez of Venezuela up to his old tricks, like UNDERCUTTING THE OIL ROBBER BARONS by giving away cheap oil to the poor and needy families of New England and New York (Chavez's cheap-oil for America's needy being expanded to Gulf Coast Katrina victimized states??); and doing other stuff that the majority of Venezuelan voters WANT FROM THEIR GOVERNMENT.
The Wall Street Journal Calls Hugo Chavez A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE -
by Stephen Lendman
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__060624_wall_street_journal_.htm
In this case, the WSJ "hit" piece on Chavez is, let's not quibble here, NEO-CON boilerplate propaganda.
As in "noe-con Wolfowitz at World Bank, sharpenning his knives for when the US FINALLY does oust Chavez (by murder this next time, their previous coup having failed to kill Chavez quickly enough), so to CARVE UP Venezuela's oil reserves for Wall St. and bushCo Big Biz robber-baron extortionists," to do to Venezuela what they have already done to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fortunately, this article does a superb job of documenting the abject, Hitleresque propaganda of portraying GUATEMALA as a font of "democracy" and "international peacekeeping" in the administration's/neo-con/WSJ efforts to justify another war and new round of coups/death squads.
And finally,
#3. rounding out today's Cheney-Rove PUSHBACK on timid Dem efforts to control the discussion of issues such as the Iraq war, we have this article from Alternet.org, "GOP KILLS BILL to POLICE Halliburton [Contract Fraud].
Or, we could report just as easily, "Dick Cheney assures that the Republican Party WILL HAVE TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AT ITS DISPOSAL for Campaign 2006," as simple as HALLIBURTON signing a few checks to a few Repub. insiders [for "contracts", of course], who then turn around and donate a few million to the GOP's 2006 campaign coffers when the going gets critical, as when THE WILEY BROTHERS funded the GOP phone-bank PUSH-POLL SMEARING of JOHN McCAIN in the 2000 Republican Primary (against Tex. Gov. George W. Bush) in South Carolina.
The Democrats finally get ONE LITTLE MEDIA DUSTUP going over their Iraq war resolutions, which merely forces Cheney and Rove to STEP UP THEIR attacks on other issues, using the Neo-Con Wall Street Journal in this instance, or Sen. Rick Santorum in that, or their BULLY POWER TO END DEBATE in House and Senate as the ultimate club.
So there you have it.
Until they can find SOME competence and a united voice, the Democrats ARE POWERLESS to stop the CONTINUED Cheney-Rove-GOP TWISTING of the media narrative to butress their evil, immoral, and illegal (not to overlook "murderous") goals.
In a masterpiece of evil Hitleresque propaganda, the Rove-Cheney Republicans WANT TO DO TO VENEZUELA what they have already done to IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN... and the Wall St. Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, LA TImes, not to mention FOX 'news and GE/nbc "news" all dutifully spin and regurgitate the talking points... "Venezuela would be BETTER OFF under neo-con death squads 'democracy!'" 'liberal-media-bias" talking points notwithstanding.
- "GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton"
By Bob Geiger, AlterNet. Posted June 20, 2006.
Republicans in Congress have made it clear they're willing to fight for military contractors' right to lie, cheat and defraud taxpayers.
http://alternet.org/story/37849/
====================
Wall Street Journal Calls Hugo Chavez A Threat to World Peace
by Stephen Lendman
http://alternet.org/story/37849/
The Wall Street Journal Calls Hugo Chavez A Threat to World Peace - by Stephen Lendman
You won't find commentary and language any more hostile to Hugo Chavez than on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Their June 23 piece by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the Americas column is a clear, jaw-dropping example. It's practically blood-curdling in its vitriol which calls Hugo Chavez a threat to world peace. The sad part of it is Journal readers believe this stuff and are likely to support any US government efforts to remove the "threat."
The O'Grady article is about the elections scheduled to take place in the fall for five non-permanent UN Security Council seats to be held in 2007. One of them will be for the Latin American seat now held by Argentina. The two countries vying to fill the opening are Guatemala and Venezuela, and the other countries in the region will vote on which one will get it. You won't have to think long to guess the one the US supports - its Guatemalan ally, of course. And why not. For over 50 years its succession of military and civilian governments have all followed the dictates of their dominant northern neighbor. In so doing, they all managed to achieve one of the world's worst human rights records that hasn't abated even after the 1996 Peace Accords were signed ending a brutal 36 year conflict. Although the country today is nominally a democratic republic, it continues to abuse its people according to documented reports by Amnesty International.
Amnesty is aware of sexual violence and extreme brutality against women including 665 murders in 2005 gotten from police records; 224 reported attacks on human rights activists and organizations in the same year with little or no progress made investigating them; forced evictions and destruction of homes of indigenous people in rural areas (echoes of Palestine); and no progress by the government and Constitutional Court in seeking justice for decades of genocidal crimes and crimes against humanity committed by paramilitary death squads and the Guatamalan military. The sum of these and other unending abuses led Amnesty to call Guatamala a "land of injustice."
That record of abuse hardly matters to the Bush administration nor did it bother any past ones either since the CIA fomented a coup in 1954 ousting the country's democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. That coup began a half century reign of terror against the country's indigenous Mayan majority. It was fully supported by a succession of US presidents who were quite willing to overlook it as long as Guatamalan governments maintained a policy of compliance with the US agenda. They all did, and in return received the support and blessing of the US and its corporate giants that continue to suck the life out of that oppressed country.
Guatamala fills the bill nicely for the Bush administration and would be expected to be a close ally in support of US positions that come up for votes in the UN Security Council. Venezuela, on the other hand, is a different story. Since he was first democratically elected in 1998, Hugo Chavez has done what few other leaders ever do. He's kept his promises to his people to serve their interests ahead of those of other nations, especially the US that's dominated and exploited Venezuela for decades. He's served them well, and in so doing engendered the wrath of his dominant northern neighbor that already has tried and failed three times to oust him and is now planning a fourth attempt to do it.
The idea of a Chavez-led government holding a seat on the Security Council does not go down well in Washington, and the Bush administration is leading a campaign to prevent it with aid and support of the kind of attack-dog journalism found in the Wall Street Journal. Honest observers know this newspaper of record for corporate America has a hard time dealing with facts it dislikes so it invents the ones it does to use in their place.
The June 23 editorial is a good example. It extolls the record of the Guatamalan government with its long-standing record of extreme abuse against its own people falsely claiming it's been "accumulating an impressive record of international cooperation on a variety of UN efforts." It claims one of its main qualifications is its "active role in international peacekeeping" and that the country is now home to a Central American regional peacekeeping school and training center. Oddly, it mentions that Guatamalan peacekeepers are now serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Haiti. What it fails to mention is that those so-called "peacekeepers," along with those from other countries serving with them, have in large part functioned as paramilitary enforcers, and in that capacity have committed gross human rights abuses against the local people rather than trying to protect them. The WSJ writer surely knows this but didn't choose to share that information with her readers. Instead she extolls the country's "democratic credentials." But readers with any knowledge of recent Guatamalan history surely know that country's true record is one of extreme violence and abuse against its own people and one no one would think of as a nation representing them democratically.
The WSJ's June 23 editorial is titled "A Vote for Venezuela Is a Vote for Iran." The commentary in it is one of the paper's most extreme diatribes against the Venezuelan leader which would seem to indicate the Bush administration and corporate America are stepping up their attack on Hugo Chavez in advance of when they plan to make their move to oust him. The Journal writer calls him a "strongman" in an "oil dictatorship" leading a government that values "tyranny and aggression" who'll use his seat and Council presidency when his nation assumes it to support "hostile states" like Iran, Cuba, Sudan and North Korea. Observers knowledgeable about Venezuela under Chavez would have a hard time containing themselves as the true Chavez record is totally opposite the one the Journal portrays. The Journal writer, of course, knows this, but would never report it in her column. Her employer and the interests it serves wouldn't be pleased if she did.
While claiming that a Guatamala seat on the Council is a "voice for the region, not its own national interests," it says Venezuela's "rests largely on oil 'diplomacy' and the capacity to push anti-American buttons around the UN." It goes on to state "It may seem strange Venezuela has any support in the region. Over the past seven years, its meddling in its neighbors' politics 'have' (even the grammar is wrong) earned it a reputation as a bully. Mr. Chavez is persona non grata in more than a few Latin nations. Many countries are worried about Venezuela's 'big spending' to acquire fighter jets and 100,000 kalisnikovs from Russia." Readers may need to pause to catch their breath.
What the Journal writer doesn't explain is far more important than what she does - but she's doing her job as a servant of the US empire. Chavez's so-called "oil diplomacy," in fact, is based on his Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas or ALBA. It's based on the principles of complementarity (not competition), solidarity (not domination), cooperation (not exploitation) and respect for other nations' sovereignty free from the control of dominant powers like the US and its large transnational corporations. It's the mirror opposite of US-style predatory capitalism and the one-sided trade agreements it uses to exploit other countries for its own gain.
The nations participating in ALBA-style agreements are able to operate outside the usual international banking and corporate trading system in their exchange of goods and services so that each country benefits and none loses - just the opposite of the one-sided way the US operates. Because Venezuela is rich in oil, it's been able to trade that vital commodity with its neighbors who need it, even sell it to them at below-market prices, and get back in return the products and services its trading partners can supply on an equally favorable basis. It's a true "win-win" arrangement for participating countries but one that angers the US because it cuts its corporations and big banks out of the process. The Chavez plan is to help his people, not serve the interests of the corporate giants or dominant US neighbor. The WSJ calls this "meddling" and Chavez a "bully." What glorious meddling it is, in the true spirit of the country's Bolivarian Revolution, and "bully" to Hugo Chavez for doing it.
As for Chavez's so-called "big spending" for weapons that has "many countries worried," one must wonder which countries the Journal writer means. She mentions none, which she surely would have and quoted their officials if, in fact, there were any. The truth, of course, is Hugo Chavez is acting no differently than most all other countries in the region or elsewhere, has expressed no hostility toward any of them, has never invaded a neighbor or threatened to, and is a model of a peace-promoting leader who's only taking sensible steps to upgrade his small military and protect his nation against a hostile US he has every reason to believe will attack him. But you'll never find that commentary on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal editorial ends in grand style. It demeans the poor countries of the region benefitting from below-market priced Venezuelan oil as likely supporting that country for the Latin American Council seat. It also attacks Argentina for being a "Venezuelan pawn," calling it "once a haven for Nazis" (the US was and still is), and stating "the country has been so incompetent about managing its 'resources' that it too needs charity from Mr. Chavez." Indeed, Argentina had big financial trouble at the end of the 1990s, but the Journal writer doesn't explain why. It was because the country became the "poster child" model for US-style neoliberal free market capitalism in the 1990s. It wrecked the economy causing it to collapse into bankruptcy it's still struggling to recover from.
The Journal writer also attacks Bolivia and Cuba for supporting Chavez but is particularly hostile to the Lula government in Brazil for its siding with the Venezuelan leader. She calls that support "surprising" and accused the Brazilian government of being "Bolivia's unofficial energy advisor (that) orchestrated the confiscation of Brazilian assets (in Bolivia) recently." Bolivian president Evo Morales nationalized his nation's energy resources which Bolivian law clearly states the nation owns. He confiscated nothing, which the Journal writer surely knows but failed to tell her readers. She also mentioned a so-called "eternal Brazilian struggle to prove that it can challenge US 'hegemony' in the region (that) trumps the need to regain dignity and protect its investments abroad." Left out of the commentary is any mention that Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Brazil are sovereign states with the right to support whatever policies and other countries they wish without needing US approval to do it.
About the only final comment the Journal writer can make is to claim Guatamala has the "solid backing of the 'more serious democracies' in the region - such as Colombia and Mexico." It's likely what the writer means by "serious" is those countries' elections are about as free and fair as ours - meaning, they only are for the power-elites controlling them who arrange the outcomes they want.
The June 23 Wall Street Journal editorial was a typical example of what this newspaper calls journalism and editorial commentary. This writer follows it to learn what the US empire likely is up to. In the case of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, it's no doubt up to no good. The continued hostile rhetoric is clearly to signal another attempt to oust the Venezuelan leader at whatever time and by whatever means the Bush administration has in mind. Stay tuned.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
http://www.sjlendman.blogspot.com
I am a 71 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
posted by verifi at 8:56 AM
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