Friday, November 28, 2014

Compare Corporate Media’s Reporting on Ferguson as Opposed to Venezuela


CORPORATE MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE FERGUSON, MISSOURI PROTESTS: Nothing like its reporting on the alleged violation of human rights in Venezuela in the face of rampant violence including the killing of ten security forces earlier this year.

 Take the tear-jerking article in today’s New York Times (Nov. 28) on a white cop being embraced by an African-American protester, titled “In Ferguson, Officer Defused Eruptions as Crowds Grew Tense.” The article reads:

“A teenage protester whose face had been hidden behind a ski mask lowered his headgear, approached a police commander and gave him a hug.
“Good to see you, man,” the commander, Lt. Jerry Lohr of the St. Louis County Police, said to the teenager, Joshua Williams. ‘How’ve you been? How’s your mom doing? I saw her out here earlier.’”

Nothing about the police repression that Amy Goodman who was present in Ferguson describes in her “Democracy Now” program. According to Goodman, on Monday night after the announcement of the Grand Jury acquittal verdict, police allowed demonstrates to engage in violence including the destruction of property in the African-American sector of Ferguson, while protecting the more affluent predominantly white area. That set the stage for a massive deployment of over 2000 national guardsmen in the St. Louis area on the following days. Nevertheless, as protests spread throughout the U.S., the corporate media on the third day (Thursday), began to play down the news item. Compare that with the continuous reporting of CNN and the rest of the corporate media throughout the three-months of violence in Venezuela beginning in February with the aim of overthrowing the government of Nicolas Maduro. That coverage attempted to demonstrate flagrant violation of human rights which was highly exaggerated, and in some cases concocted. Is this what the corporate media calls “balanced reporting”?

Sunday, November 23, 2014

THE LATEST ON WASHINGTON’S PROPOSED SANCTIONS AGAINST VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

SENATOR MARC RUBIO, WHO IS CALLING FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST 27 VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, HAS A CREDIBILITY PROBLEM

Florida Senator Marc Rubio seems to be succeeding in putting pressure on the ever vacillating Obama administration to reconsider its opposition to further sanctions on the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro. Rubio is proposing a freeze on the financial assets of 27 government officials including the highly regarded Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz. Now in order to cater to right-wing Rubio in order to get congressional approval for Obama’s appointment of Anthony Blinken as Deputy Secretary of State, Blinken indicated to Rubio that he would be receptive to the proposal of sanctions on Venezuelan government officials. Previously, President Maduro called the sanctions nothing less than “stupid.”

The same Marc Rubio was caught with his pants down after he indicated that his parents came to the United States persecuted by the dictatorial Communist government of Fidel Castro. But the Washington Post discovered that Rubio’s parents arrived in the United States no less than two and a half years before Castro came to power in 1959. The dictator that Rubio’s parents were fleeing was none other than Fulgencio Batista. Do liars like Rubio deserve to be taken seriously?

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

WHO CAN DENY THERE IS AN ‘ECONOMIC WAR’ BEING WAGED AGAINST VENEZUELA?

I just checked flight prices with Cheap Tickets for my sister who is thinking of traveling to Venezuela from San Francisco. The cheapest price came to $2149. Just for the heck of it, I tried San Francisco-Bogota-San Francisco on the same page and got prices at $990 and $1051. What rationale is there for charging more than double for the same distance? Less tourists = less dollars entering the Venezuelan economy = greater economic and political instability.  

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

BERNIE SANDERS NEEDS TO SPEAK OUT MORE ON FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES

In a recent excellent interview conducted by Bill Moyers on his “Moyers & Company” program, possible presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders did not say one word about foreign policy. Of course, that omission was due to the questions that were asked. The topic of the program was big money in politics, but certainly foreign policy needs to be brought into the picture.

The fact is that what distinguishes liberals (in the good sense of the word) like Sanders and positions further to the left is in the area of foreign policy. Liberals like Sanders have excellent positions on health, education and inequality. But, in the first place, they deemphasize foreign policy as a topic, when in fact foreign policy issues are as important (in my opinion even more so) than domestic ones. If you want to see what I’m talking about, check out liberal magazines such as “The Nation,” “In These Times” and the “Progressive” and you’ll see very little coverage on foreign issues and those pieces that are published are usually restricted to human rights concerns, but virtually nothing on U.S. intervention. In the second place, when issues such as U.S. intervention in third-world countries are dealt with, liberals (the good ones, that is) usually take wishy-washy stands. Moveon.org,’s discussion of the current Mid-East mess, for instance, stresses the demand that the Obama administration go to congress to request backing for any action it takes. Not one word about how U.S. unconditional support for Israel and its invasion of Gaza ends up stoking resentment and thus contributing to terrorism (which is not meant for one second as a justification of the barbaric actions of ISIS).

If Sanders is to run for president (and I hope he does) he needs to address seriously foreign policy issues and courageously adopt progressive critical positions, regardless of the flack he will undoubtedly get from the corporate media.