[Peace-discuss] John Pilger: Venezuela's Struggle Against "a Common Enemy"

Sun Feb 22 22:31:30 EST 2015

John Pilger: Venezuela's Struggle Against "a Common Enemy" 

<http://truth-out.org/news/item/29218-venezuela-s-struggle-against-a-common-
enemy>
http://truth-out.org/news/item/29218-venezuela-s-struggle-against-a-common-e
nemy

Sunday, 22 February 2015 00:00 By
<http://truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/50625> Mike Albert, Truthout |
Interview 

With a "slow-motion coup" underway in Venezuela, John Pilger is interviewed
for Telesur, the Latin American TV network, by Mike Albert

.
Mike Albert: Why would the US want Venezuela's government overthrown?
John Pilger: There are straightforward principles and dynamics at work here.
Washington wants to get rid of the Venezuelan government because it is
independent of US designs for the region and because Venezuela has the
greatest proven oil reserves in the world and uses its oil revenue to
improve the quality of ordinary lives. Venezuela remains a source of
inspiration for social reform in a continent ravaged by an historically
rapacious US.
An Oxfam report once famously described the Sandinista revolution in
Nicaragua as "the threat of a good example." That has been true in Venezuela
since Hugo Chavez won his first election. The "threat" of Venezuela is
greater, of course, because it is not tiny and weak; it is rich and
influential and regarded as such by the likes of China. The remarkable
change in fortunes for millions of people in Latin America is at the heart
of US hostility.
The US has been the undeclared enemy of social progress in Latin America for
two centuries. It doesn't matter who has been in the White House: Barack
Obama or Teddy Roosevelt; the US will not tolerate countries with
governments and cultures that put the needs of their own people first and
refuse to promote or succumb to US demands and pressures. A reformist social
democracy with a capitalist base - such as Venezuela - is not excused by the
rulers of the world.
What is inexcusable is Venezuela's political independence; only complete
deference is acceptable. The "survival" of Chavista Venezuela is a testament
to the support of ordinary Venezuelans for their elected government - that
was clear to me when I was last there.  Venezuela's weakness is that the
political opposition - those I would call the "East Caracas Mob" - represent
powerful interests who have been allowed to retain critical economic power.
Only when that power is diminished will Venezuela shake off the constant
menace of foreign-backed, often-criminal subversion. No society should have
to deal with that, year in, year out.
What methods has the US already used and would you anticipate their using to
unseat the Bolivarians?
There are the usual crop of quislings and spies; they come and go with their
media theater of fake revelations, but the principal enemy is the media. You
may recall the Venezuelan admiral, who was one of the coup-plotters against
Chavez in 2002, boasting during his brief tenure in power, "Our secret
weapon was the media."
The Venezuelan media, especially television, were active participants in
that coup, lying that supporters of the government were firing into a crowd
of protestors from a bridge. False images and headlines went around the
world. The New York Times joined in, welcoming the overthrow of a democratic
"anti-American" government; it usually does.
Something similar happened in Caracas last year, when vicious right-wing
mobs were lauded as "peaceful protestors who were being repressed." This was
undoubtedly the start of a Washington-backed "color revolution," openly
backed by the likes of the National Endowment for Democracy - a
user-friendly CIA clone.
It was uncannily like the coup that Washington successfully staged in
Ukraine last year.  As in Kiev, in Venezuela, the "peaceful protestors" set
fire to government buildings and deployed snipers and were lauded by western
politicians and the western media. The strategy is almost certainly to push
the Maduro government to the right and so alienate its popular base.
Depicting the government as dictatorial and incompetent has long been an
article of bad faith among journalists and broadcasters in Venezuela and in
the US, the UK and Europe. One recent US "story" was that of a US scientist
jailed for trying to help Venezuela build bombs. The implication was that
Venezuela was harboring "nuclear terrorists." In fact, the disgruntled
nuclear physicist had no connection whatsoever with Venezuela.
All this is reminiscent of the unrelenting attacks on Chávez, each with that
peculiar malice reserved for dissenters from the West's "one true way." In
2006, Britain's Channel 4 News effectively accused the Venezuelan president
of plotting to make nuclear weapons with Iran, an absurd fantasy. The
Washington correspondent, Jonathan Rugman, sneered at policies to eradicate
poverty and presented Chávez as a sinister buffoon, while allowing Donald
Rumsfeld, a war criminal, to liken Chavez to Hitler, unchallenged.
The BBC is no different. Researchers at the University of the West of
England in the UK studied the BBC's systematic bias in reporting Venezuela
over a 10-year period. They looked at 304 BBC reports and found that only
three of these referred to any of the positive policies of the government.
For the BBC, Venezuela's democratic initiatives, human rights legislation,
food programs, healthcare initiatives and poverty reduction programmes did
not exist. Mission Robinson, the greatest literacy program in human history,
received barely a passing mention. This virulent censorship by omission
complements outright fabrications, such as accusations that the Venezuelan
government are a bunch of drug dealers.  None of this is new; look at the
way Cuba has been misrepresented - and assaulted - over the years. Reporters
Without Borders has just issued its worldwide ranking of nations based on
their claims to a free press. The US is ranked 49th, behind Malta, Niger,
Burkino Faso and El Salvador.
Why might now be a prime time, internationally, for pushing toward a coup?
If the primary problem is Venezuela being an example that could spread, is
the emergence of a receptive audience for that example in Europe adding to
the US response?
It's important to understand that Washington is ruled by true extremists,
once known inside the Beltway as "the crazies." This has been true since
before 9/11. A few are outright fascists. Asserting US dominance is their
undisguised game, and, as the events in Ukraine demonstrate, they are
prepared to risk a nuclear war with Russia. These people should be the
common enemy of all sane human beings.
In Venezuela, they want a coup so that they can roll back some of the
world's most important social reforms - such as in Bolivia and Ecuador.
They've already crushed the hopes of ordinary people in Honduras. The
current conspiracy between the US and Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil
is meant to achieve something more tragic and spectacular in Venezuela and
Russia.

What do you think the best approach might be to warding off US machinations
and those of domestic Venezuelan elites as well, for the Bolivarians?
The majority people of Venezuela, and their government, need to tell the
world the truth about the attacks on their country. There is a stirring
across the world, and many people are listening. They don't want perpetual
instability, perpetual poverty, perpetual war, perpetual rule by the few.
And they identify the principal enemy; look at the international polling
surveys that ask which country presents the greatest danger to humanity. The
majority of people overwhelmingly point to the US, and to its numerous
campaigns of terror and subversion.
What do you think is the immediate responsibility of leftists outside
Venezuela, and particularly in the US?
Who are these "leftists?" Are they the millions of liberal North Americans
seduced by the specious rise of Obama and silenced by his criminalizing of
freedom of information and dissent? Are they those who believe what they are
told by The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the BBC? It's
an important question. "Leftist" has never been a more disputed and
misappropriated term. My sense is that people who live on the edge and
struggle against US-backed forces in Latin America understood the true
meaning of the word, just as they identify a common enemy.  If we share
their principles, and a modicum of their courage, we should take direct
action in our own countries, starting, I would suggest, with the
propagandists in the media. Yes, it's our responsibility, and it has never
been more urgent. 
John Pilger is an Australian-born, London-based journalist, filmmaker and
author. For his foreign and war reporting, ranging from Vietnam and Cambodia
to the Middle East, he has twice won Britain's highest award for journalism.
For his documentary films, he won a British Academy Award and an American
Emmy. In 2009, he was awarded Australia's human rights prize, the Sydney
Peace Prize. John Pilger's films can be viewed on
<http://www.johnpilger.com/> his website.

 <http://truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/50625> Mike Albert

Mike Albert is an activist, economist, speaker and writer. He is coordinator
of ZNet, and coeditor and cofounder of Z Magazine. He also cofounded South
End Press and has written numerous books and articles. He developed, along
with Robin Hahnel, the economic vision called Participatory Economics or
Parecon.

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