WSJ Columnist Mary O’Grady: US Imperial Tool

Stephen Lendman

[S]he’s a Journal board member. A faux journalist. A Murdoch favorite. A neocon propagandist. She defends the indefensible. Her reinvented history doesn’t wash. It’s rubbish. It doesn’t pass the smell test. It fails to match bad fiction. Her job is proliferating Big Lies. Turning truth on its head. Supporting monied interests.

Spurning popular ones. Social democracies. Ones polar opposite US extremism.

An earlier article explained. Her background gives her away. Earlier she worked for Advest, Inc., Thomson McKinnon Securities and Merrill Lynch. She’s associated with the neocon Heritage Foundation.

She co-edits its so-called Index of Economic Freedom. It’s what most people worldwide deplore. She’s a right-wing Liberty Fund (LF) board member. It’s an extremist over-the-top organization. LF and likeminded groups promote radical right-wing views. They do so at the expense of popular ones.

O’Grady’s reinvented history makes yellow journalism look good by comparison. She’s over-the-top and then some. She supports some of the world’s worst despots. She vilifies social democrats. Venezuela is a favorite target. Its good example scares her.

She outragiously called Hugo Chavez “a dictator.” She favors eliminating Bolivarian fairness altogether.  She shamelessly accused President Nicolas Maduro of “unleash(ing) a wave of terror across the country.” She ignored Washington’s dirty hands manipulating street violence months earlier. In pre-selected areas. In well-to-do-ones. With hand-picked stooges on the ground. Committing killings and violence. Wrongfully blaming them on Maduro.

The vast majority of Venezuelans oppose what went on. They deplore it. They want Bolivarianism preserved. They won’t tolerate returning to Venezuela’s ugly past. Don’t expect O’Grady to explain.

Big Lies dot her commentaries. They repeat ad nauseam. On October 12, she headlined “A Test for Obama on Venezuela at the UN.”

On October 15, General Assembly Member States choose five new non-permanent members. They’ll replace current ones stepping down. For two-year terms beginning January 1.

Winning requires a two-thirds majority. Venezuela looks certain to have it. It has unanimous 33-nation Latin American/Caribbean region backing. It’s running unopposed for regional representation.

No nation is more deserving. None more warranting permanency. So voiceless interests are heard. Imperial ones opposed. Not according to O’Grady. Her commentaries turn truth on its head. They’re painful reading. It’s hard imagining more convoluted rubbish.

Legitimate editors wouldn’t touch it. Journal ones feature it. Cuban governance shames America’s. She ludicrously calls it a “military dictatorship.” She absurdly calls Venezuela its “pawn.” Bush bullying, pressure and threats blocked its 2006 SC bid. Obama demurs this time.

Perhaps because trying won’t work. At a time his approval rating is lowest in his presidency. And heading south. Increasingly he’s disliked at home and abroad. O’Grady wants him trying anyway. “…Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro answers to Havana,” she claims. “A Venezuelan seat would effectively be a seat for Cuba,” she added.

“This would be absurd on democracy and human-rights grounds alone. Venezuela hasn’t held free elections since the early 2000s…The government has jailed or driven into exile hundreds of students, political dissidents and entrepreneurs.”

“The State Department (claims its judiciary) intimidate(s) and selectively prosecute(s) political, union, business, and civil society leaders who were critical of government policies or actions. Its “government financially harasses the media and intimidates journalists,” said O’Grady.

The State Department claims “anti-Semitism in the official media; trafficking in persons; violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity; and restrictions on workers’ right of association.”

According to O’Grady, “assassins enjoy impunity while paramilitary government enforcers spy on and terrorize the barrios to keep a lid on dissent.”

“De facto control of Venezuela by Cuba ought to trouble all peaceable nations. Its “National Guard is a partner of Colombia’s drug-trafficking terrorists,” claims O’Grady.

“Numerous terrorism experts warn that Venezuela is working closely with both Iran and Hezbollah to make trouble in the West and that the country has become a transit point for Iranian agents seeking to gain a foothold in the Americas.”

Fact: Venezuelan social democracy is real.

Fact: The hemisphere’s best.

Fact: Perhaps the world’s best.

Fact: It shames America’s sham system.

Fact: Its democracy is pure fantasy.

Fact: None whatever exists.

Fact: Not earlier. For sure not now.

Fact: Monied interests run things.

Fact: People have no say.

Fact: Both parties reflect two sides of the same coin.

Fact: Not a dime’s worth of difference separates them on issues mattering most.

Fact: Venezuela is proudly independent.

Fact: It’s beholden to no other nation.

Fact: At the same time, it values cooperative relations with all countries fairly and equitably.

Fact: It respects other nations’ sovereignty. Inviolable rule of law principles.

Fact: Washington targets all independent countries it doesn’t control for regime change.

Fact: By assassinations, coups or naked aggression.

Fact: It trashes rule of law principles.

Fact: It rules by brute force.

Fact: State terror is official policy.

Fact: So is waging war on humanity.

Fact: Venezuela’s electoral process is the world’s best.

Fact: Jimmy Carter said so.

Fact: Independent observers agree.

Fact: It’s scrupulously open, free and fair.

Fact: Venezuela jails lawbreakers only.

Fact: No one is driven into exile.

Fact: Thousands of political prisoners languish in America’s gulag.

Fact: It’s the world’s largest.

Fact: One of the most repressive and unjust.

Fact: Including privatized prisons for profit needing cells filled for profit.

Fact: Guilt by accusation is policy.

Fact: America’s disadvantaged and unwanted are brutalized.

Fact: State Department claims about Venezuela are rubbish. Malicious falsehoods. Big Lies.

Fact: Venezuela’s media are the hemisphere’s most free and open.

Fact: Its Law of Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Digital Media prohibits censorship.

Fact: It promotes responsible programming on air and online.

Fact: Harassment and intimidation don’t exist.

Fact: US media are ethically and morally challenged.

Fact: They’re gatekeepers.

Fact: Virtual thought control police.

Fact: They support Washington’s worst crimes.

Fact: Managed news misinformation rubbish substitutes for what readers and viewers most need to know.

Fact: O’Grady is Exhibit A.

Fact: No Venezuelan “paramilitary government enforcers” exist.

Fact: No spying or terrorizing.

Fact: No silencing dissent.

Fact: In America, Big Brother watches everyone.

Fact: There’s no place to hide.

Fact: Police state lawlessness persists.

Fact: It’s pervasive. Repressive. Lawless.

Fact: Anyone anywhere can be arrested, imprisoned without charges indefinitely or murdered in cold blood by presidential diktat.

Fact: Venezuela wants drug-trafficking eliminated.

Fact: America thrives on it.

Fact: Major banks earn billions from it.

Fact: CIA budgeting includes huge amounts of illicit drug money.

Fact: Venezuela conspires with no other nations to make trouble for America.

Fact: So-called terrorist experts weren’t named. O’Grady likely invented them. It’s commonplace scoundrel media practice.

She claims China and Russia will gain “a reliable” Security Council ally if Venezuela joins it. All countries should welcome it.

It’s voice for the voiceless is needed. Its respect for fundamental freedoms, human and civil rights, rule of law principles and sovereign independence inviolability.

Its model social democracy needs replicating everywhere. Especially in America. Not according to O’Grady.

She calls “Venezuela’s modus operandi…polar opposite of what the UN is supposed to stand for…”

Her claims are “polar opposite” hard truths. Ones she disgracefully eschews.

It bears repeating. Responsible editors wouldn’t touch her rubbish. Journal editors embrace it. They feature it. Readers are systematically betrayed.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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