by Stephen Lendman

Sanitizing news and suppressing what’s most important is bad enough. Imagine compounding it by producing infomercials for despots. CNN stands accused. More on that below.  It’s well known that Western major media represent wealth and power interests. Fox News is a Republican party house organ. It also reflects Rupert Murdoch’s worldview.

It features demagoguery, managed news, scandal, sleaze, and warmongering. It’s prototypical presstitute media. Famed journalist George Seldes (1890 – 1995) denounced it in books like “Lords of the Press.”  He called them “the most powerful force against the general welfare of the majority of the people.” He exposed their tactics long before Project Censored and Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

(FAIR) once called Fox News “the most biased name in news….with its extraordinary right-wing tilt.” Viewing it is like watching “a Harlem Globetrotters game (knowing) which side is supposed to win.”

It’s hard-right, pro-business, pro-war, pro-occupation, anti-populist, sleazy and biased. It combines the worst of yellow journalism with juiced-up infotainment and junk food news. It’s a mouthpiece piece for Republican extremism. It long ago stopped pretending it’s legitimate. It mocks real journalism. It’s not tolerated on air.

Britain owns and operates BBC. It scrupulously follows government marching orders. It backs its imperial and neoliberal agenda.

Media Lens is an antidote to misinformation. Last July, co-editor David Edwards headlined “Blocked By The BBC,” saying:

Its reports are notoriously pro-Israeli. Accuracy on Occupied Palestine is sorely lacking. Edwards asked Jon Williams, its World News Editor, to comment on Greg Philo/Mike Berry’s book “More Bad News From Israel.”

An updated edition analyzed BBC and ITV Cast Lead coverage. It was unconscionably biased. “The most striking feature of the news texts,” said Philo and Berry, “is the dominance of the Israeli perspective, in relation to the causes of the conflict.”

Truth and full disclosure got short shrift. One-sided Israeli support excludes accuracy of what happened and what’s ongoing daily. In classic understatement, said Edwards, both writers said it’s “difficult in the face of this to see how the BBC can sustain a claim to be offering balanced reporting.”

Edwards called these serious, well-substantiated charges. Williams didn’t respond. He blocked Media Lens from his Twitter page. He’s not the only one. BBC’s Middle East bureau chief, Paul Danahar, did the same thing. Millions globally follow BBC reports regularly. Most perhaps don’t know they get propaganda, not real news, commentary and opinion. Notoriously one-sided, imbalanced, and biased accounts are featured. It’s standard fare.

Anyone paying attention can spot it. Western interests alone are represented. Viewers and listeners get one side only. BBC does what it’s told. It’s government funded, operated and controlled. It’s Britain’s official voice. It pretends to be independent and impartial.

It denies Palestine is occupied. It claims Israel’s capital is Jerusalem. In 1947, the UN designated it an international city. It remains so to this day. American and UK embassies are in Tel Aviv. So are most others.

In profiling Palestinian territories, the word occupation is omitted. Nothing explains daily reality or how mass slaughter, destruction, and ethnic cleansing created Israel. BBC says its content informs. It doesn’t mislead. Claiming it is laughable on its face. Instead of condemning criminality, it defends it. Its justification is none at all. It reports spurious propaganda globally. Millions aren’t told they’re lied to. Misinformation and illusion substitute for reality. Viewers and listeners are betrayed.

What’s more important than war or peace? When Britain and America wage wars or plan them, BBC marches in lockstep. It’s no different from America’s scoundrel media.

NPR and PBS are called public to conceal their real agenda. Critics ridicule NPR as National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio for good reason. It’s true as well for PBS. Calling it Propaganda Public Broadcasting more accurately describes it.

The Nation magazine and publications like it fall far short of their mandates. Some get funding from corporate and other disreputable sources they should condemn.

George Soros is a stealth media mogul. Broadcast outlets and print publications he funds reach hundreds of millions globally. So-called progressive media like Democracy Now take tainted Soros and other corporate foundation money. It’s given to buy influence and gets plenty. Dirty money comes with strings.

Do as they say or lose it. Obeying means producing managed, not real, news and information. Cheerleading imperial lawlessness is demanded and gotten. It shows up in scandalous reporting.

Progressive media sources doing it are especially insidious. Viewers, listeners and readers think they’re getting legitimate information. Instead they’re being lied to. They support these groups monetarily. They’re throwing good money away on organizations betraying them.

Video News Releases (VNRs) are fake news. They masquerade as real. They’re corporate-sponsored propaganda. PR firms produce them to look legitimate.

Scoundrel broadcasters air them. They fill time slots. Viewers aren’t told they’re watching prepackaged garbage. They influence public opinion. They promote commercial products and services. They publicize issues and individuals. They constitute deception writ large.

TV stations fill air time without cost. Corporations get free advertising. VNR producers profit from lying. Everyone wins but viewers. They’re deceived and scammed.

Audio News Releases (ANRs) are also produced. Radio stations air them. Public airwaves are used fraudulently.

Government officials produce fake news. They’re broadcast the same way on television and radio. Issues are promoted like imperial wars and homeland neoliberal policies.

Journalists shill for power. They’re paid government employees. They support programs they should condemn. Viewers, listeners, and readers are none the wiser.  On-the-take journalism pays well. Tax dollars buy public deception. FCC officials turn a blind eye. They do nothing. AJ Liebling (1904 – 1963) said, “People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.” It’s the same on television and radio.

Manipulating public opinion is policy. Truth is suppressed. Misinformation infests airwaves and fills broadsheet space like crabgrass besets lawns.  Censorship is policy at CNN. So is producing infomercials for despots. Bahrain dirty money bought it. The Al Khalifa monarchy is one of the world’s most ruthless regimes. It’s a case study in despotism. It’s one of the worst. State terrorism is policy.

Since winter 2011, it waged war on its own people. They’ve braved security force attacks with tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets, live fire, arrests, torture, disappearances, and imprisonments. Nonviolent men, women, children, doctors, journalists, human rights activists, and foreign observers are targeted. Western governments turn a blind eye. They offer support, not condemnation.

Media scoundrels are no better. Ongoing state terror is suppressed. Practically nothing about Bahrain is reported. CNN’s the exception. Former reporter Amber Lyon exposed how it buys favorable content.

On October 6, Fars News Agency headlined “Ex-CNN Reporter: CNN Bribed by Dictators to Censor Realities,” saying:

Amber Lyon said “CNN gets paid by despotic regimes to produce and broadcast what she referred to as ‘infomercials for dictators,’ saying that the sponsored content of such pieces aired on CNN International ‘is actually being paid for by regimes and governments.’ ”

Bahrain’s monarch paid CNN blood money to suppress information on its brutal crackdowns. Lyon went public and told all.

On October 3, Russia Today (rt.com) headlined “Bahrain buys favorable CNN content,” saying:

Amber Lyon explained. RT interviewed her. She said she “created a lot of documentaries for CNN that didn’t air internationally.”

They should have, but CNN suppressed or sanitized them. She spent time in Bahrain. She witnessed state terrorism firsthand. She videotaped it. It wasn’t aired internationally. She learned “Bahrain was actually a paying customer for CNN.”

Favorable content was created. “Even though CNN says its content is editorially independent Bahrain can affect that – what we’ve seen with that documentary not airing and also with the constant struggle I had at CNN to get Bahrain coverage, accurate coverage of the human rights abuses on-air while I was there.”

“What CNN is doing is they are essentially creating what some people have termed ‘infomercials for dictators.’ And that’s the sponsored content that they are airing on CNN International that is actually being paid for by regimes and governments.”

“And this violates every principle of journalistic ethics, because we’re supposed to be watchdogs on these governments.”

“We are not supposed to allow them to be a paying customer as journalists. And that’s the issue here – that CNN is feeding, then, this propaganda to the public and not fairly disclosing to the public that this is sponsored content.”

It’s not just Bahrain. CNN does the same thing for Saakashvili’s Georgia and Kazakhstan. Instead of getting correspondents to report accurately, viewers are systematically lied to.

The self-styled “most trusted name in news” reports managed news misinformation and willful lies. Disturbing truths are suppressed. Regime friendly accounts substitute. What viewers most need to know isn’t broadcast.

Lyon took great risks in Bahrain. She dodged her minders. She went to villages and witnessed atrocities firsthand. She videotaped it. She saw injured patients run out of hospitals. Birdshot targeted them.

Ambulance drivers who helped them were beaten. Coming back, she and her producer were accosted. About 20 masked men with machine guns stopped them. They tried to erase videos they found.

She and her producer concealed some discs in their bras. They managed to get them out of the country.

“You can imagine Bahrain’s surprise when we got back to the US and this content was airing on CNN, and right after that is when the phone calls started coming into the network complaining about me and trying to get my coverage off the air.”

CNN and other scoundrel media vilify Syria and Iran unjustifiably. At the same time, they suppress horrific atrocities committed by US allies. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are two of the worst.

Viewers are systematically lied to. They’re denied real information. RT said Bahrain issued a statement. It denied Lyon’s accusations. It lied saying so. That’s how despots operate.

CNN International also lied. It calls its editorial and commercial operations “completely separate.” Lyon, of course, knows otherwise. So do RT viewers who followed their reports. They explained what everyone needs to know.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”  http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour   

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By Stephen Lendman

Mussolini called the 20th century a fascist one. It arrived in America. Huey Long once said it’ll show up “wrapped in an American flag.” In his book, “Friendly Fascism,” Bertram Gross called Ronald Reagan its prototype ruler.

Huey Long: Leftist populist, he was assassinated much too soon in his career but he left deep marks in the nation’s consciousness. He has been wrongly called a Fascist, to kill his legacy.

When is a debate not one? When it’s not intended to be. When theatrical blather substitutes. When demagoguery takes center stage. On October 11, it showed up prominently in Danville, KY. Centre College played host. ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz moderated 90 minutes of flim flam.

Unmentioned was her close Washington military/intelligence establishment ties. She supports America’s right to bomb, invade, ravage, occupy, colonize, and exploit one country after another. Her loyalty got her prominence Thursday night. Call it spoils sharing for services rendered.

Like all so-called political debates, Biden/Ryan was prescripted theater. Demagoguery best describes it. Democrat and Republican candidates represent wealth, power, privilege, and imperial lawlessness. They spurn public need, democratic values, and right over wrong. They represent the worst of a morally degenerate nation. They govern one not fit to live in.

The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. It threatens humanity. Whoever wins or loses in November, it hardly matters. On issues mattering most, both parties are in lockstep. Ordinary people aren’t served either way. Money power runs America. Gore Vidal understood. He explained  well. His comments are worth repeating.

He called America “a nation of ongoing hustlers from the prisons and disaster areas of old Europe.”

“I do not think that the America System in its present state of decadence is worth preserving.”
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party….and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”

He called democracy a system “where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates” no different from each other.

“By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.”

The same goes for vice presidential candidates. Some become presidents. It’s planned that way.

No matter who governs, he said, America is “rotting away at a funereal pace. We’ll have a military dictatorship pretty soon….”

He predicted the worst of all possible worlds. Bread and circuses can’t conceal it. Fascism best describes it.

Mussolini called the 20th century a fascist one. It arrived in America. Huey Long once said it’ll show up “wrapped in an American flag.” In his book, “Friendly Fascism,” Bertram Gross called Ronald Reagan its prototype ruler.

In his 1943 book, “Facts and Fascism,” George Seldes explained what he called “big money and big profits in fascism.”

In his 1935 novel, “It Can’t Happen Here,” Sinclair Lewis saw it coming in hard times. It’ll be led by a charismatic, self-styled reformer/populist champion, a con man exploiting human misery.

He recounted Merzelium “Buzz” Windrip’s rise to power. His promise to restore prosperity equitably hid his ties to corporatist interests and religious ideologues. He capitalized on hard times. He established militarism and unconstitutional governance. He convened military tribunals for civilians and called dissenters traitors. He institutionalized tyranny. He put political enemies in concentration camps. He created Minute Men paramilitaries to terrorize anyone opposing him.

He destroyed democracy, declared martial law, usurped dictatorial powers, circumvented Congress, and made himself supreme ruler.

It can happen anywhere, anytime. Political demagogues take full advantage. Obama/Biden/Romney/Ryan represent the worst of what’s coming. It’s already happening.

Pre-election theater camouflages it. It runs cover for dirty politics. It works as planned. Most people are fooled. It repeats each electoral cycle. Broken promises follow all important ones made.

Rhetoric and policies are worlds apart. Wealth and power priorities trample on popular needs. The worst is yet to come. It’s baked in the cake. Austerity is agreed on. Bipartisan schemes plan more of the same.

Huge social benefit cuts are coming. Mandated entitlements workers paid for will erode faster than ever. America’s needy will end up on their own out of luck. Let-em-eat-cake governance doesn’t give a damn. Non-believers will discover gulag hell firsthand.

Obama/Biden/Romney/Ryan are two sides of the same coin. Voters get to choose between death by hanging or firing squad. You’d never know it from post-debate commentaries. A New York Times editorial headlined “A Debate With Clarity and Fervor.”

It was “one of the best,” said The Times. Perhaps its editors were watching Three Stooges reruns instead of demagogic blather.

“….real differences on public policy (were) discussed with fervor, anger, laughter and real substance.”

Each candidate recited his lines. They were prearranged, prescripted well in advance.

“Martha Raddatz….was both entertaining and enlightening.” Perhaps The Times meant someone else by the same name unrelated to politics, America’s imperium, and media propaganda.

“Both candidates….demonstrated real engagement on issues that matter. It was a real change for voters starved for substance.”

They won’t find it anywhere on corporate-run television or in broadsheets like The Times. Managed news, opinion, and analysis substitute for the real thing.

Peggy Noonan is one of many Wall Street Journal right-wing ideologues. Headlining “Confusing Strength With Aggression,” she called the theatrics a “draw on substance, but the vice president loses on style.”

“For the second time in two weeks, the Democrat came out and defeated himself. In both cases, the Republican was strong and the Democrat somewhat disturbing.”

“Another way to say it is the old man tried to patronize the kid and the kid stood his ground. The old man pushed, and the kid pushed back.”

“And so the Romney-Ryan ticket emerged ahead. Its momentum was neither stopped nor slowed and likely was pushed forward.”

What else could be expected from one of Murdoch’s staff. He calls the shots and demands obedience.

Los Angeles Times contributor Doyle McManus headlined “Vice presidential debate: Biden’s mission accomplished.”

He said vice presidential debates don’t matter and called Thursday night “a draw.”

Reuters quoted University of Miami communications professor/debate coach David Steinberg saying:

“If you had to call a winner right now, I’d say it’s a draw. But a tie goes to the incumbent.”

“Ryan….turned in a solid performance,” said Reuters. At the same time, “Biden was the story….But it will be up to Obama to close the deal in the two debates to come….”

Reuters tried having it both ways and failed.

Nation magazine contributors represent America’s pseudo-left. They’re unabashed Democrat party apologists. They support the worst of Obama/Biden. It shows in one deplorable mischaracterization after another.

John Nichols’ post-debate analysis was typical. Headlined “Richard Milhous Ryan: No Specifics, Just a ‘Secret Plan,’ ” he compared Nixon’s Vietnam strategy to Ryan on taxes and balanced budgets.

No details. Just trust him. He’ll do the right thing. Of course, he won’t but neither will Obama. Nichols ignored that reality. Instead he compared tricky Paul to tricky Dick. Tricky Barack wasn’t mentioned.

Biden had the “upper hand.” His “skills” bested Ryan. At the same time, it wasn’t “Biden who made Ryan the Nixon of the night. It was Ryan.” On what he says matters most, he “had no details, no specifics, just a ‘secret plan.’ “

Nichols didn’t explain the common thread in all campaigns and so-called debates. Rhetoric and promises substitute for policies, specifics, and follow-through. Each side replicates the worst of the other.

Money power wins. Ordinary people lose. It happens every time. Too bad journalists with other priorities don’t explain. Too bad voters don’t say pox on America’s duopoly and vote independent.

Throwing out old bums for new ones never works. Expect nothing different in November no matter who wins or loses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour   

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By Joe Giambrone

Russia warns bloodthirsty western alliance against attacking Syria and Iran. Stakes could not be higher.

So much for Pax Americana. We’ve had endless war as long as memory serves and now the big one: Iran and possibly World War 3. With Vladimir Putin’s decisive victory in Russia, the west had best heed Putin’s dire warnings concerning further escalation of the imperial aggression on Russia’s southern borders. The Russians are not happy with the way US policy is unfolding, and it appears the roll-up in Iraq was simply to help prepare the US military for an assault on its neighbor Iran.

Washington has also provoked the Chinese into shoveling $100Bn into upgrading their military this year. The “peace laureate” could feasibly end life on earth if this Iran assault escalates and explodes out of control. The unrestrained belligerence coming out of Washington and Tel Aviv is something to behold. One can almost hear the echoes of Poppy Bush, and his four-word foreign policy: “What we say goes.”

Hypocrisy can’t shame these people. They wield numerous nuclear warheads. The US count was upwards of 10,000 during the cold war era, including 100 megaton fusion bombs that can incinerate large cities. The Israelis, we all know, have several hundred atomic warheads. And yet countries who don’t follow orders simply aren’t allowed to possess them. It would deter attacks by the empire, and so that in and of itself is reason to attack. It’s truly through the mirror. First Iraq was attacked for the crime of not having the weapons necessary to fight back. And now Iran.

The North Koreans took their defense seriously enough to get the bomb. No peace laureate blitzkrieg is planned for them. I wonder if there’s some kind of lesson here.

While Obama declared Iran’s acquiring a nuclear deterrent “unacceptable” Putin spoke up in similar language, regarding the United States itself:

“The Americans are obsessed with the idea of ensuring absolute invulnerability for themselves, which is utopian and unfeasible from both technological and geopolitical points of view… An absolute invulnerability for one means an absolute vulnerability for all the others. It’s impossible to accept such a prospect.”

In a tirade published a week before the Russian election, Putin warned Washington against interference in Russia’s ally Syria as well as in Russia’s ally Iran. These warnings come as Putin himself is in the cross hairs of Washington’s “soft power” NGO assault on his own legitimacy.

Militarily Putin speaks the truth. No “missile defense” can guard a nation as large as the USA from submarine-launched cruise missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. There is no shield fool-proof enough to protect the “homeland” from the retaliation of a capable enemy like the Russians or the Chinese. There is only the threat of further retaliation, the threat of Mutual Assured Destruction.

The Russian president looked with skepticism at the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings and the NATO bombing of Libya.

“That raises the thought that the tragic events to some extent had been driven not by concern about human rights, but a desire by some to redistribute markets.”

Both Russian and Chinese companies lost ground as a result of the Arab uprisings, which have been linked to US State Department sponsored NGOs, such as Freedom House, the International Republican Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy, among many others.

Both Russia and Iran have moved warships to Syria. If Syria falls, Iran is left with few allies in the region and nearly completely surrounded by hostile Arab states and US forward military bases. The Syria domino seems to be the last remaining piece before Iran is attacked.

Putin issued a warning against crossing that line:

“Russia is worried about the growing threat of a strike on Iran… If it happens, the consequences will be truly catastrophic. Their real scale is impossible to imagine.”

When a man who commands thousands of nuclear weapons uses words like truly catastrophic and a scale impossible to imagine, people should take note. Iran is not completely isolated and without support. It is not completely helpless, nor has it actually attacked any other nations, unlike the western aggressor nations who try to portray it as the boogeyman. This blood lust in the US and Israel is irrational and borderline psychotic. They are drunk on their own propaganda at this point.

Some think Obama doesn’t want to bomb Iran. They cite his delays as proof of his commitment to peace, despite his rhetoric and actions to the contrary. Although Obama doesn’t “bluff” when threatening illegal preemptive war on sovereign nations, and he is proud to be in “lockstep” with the loony Netanyahu hawks, some in the US pretend that Obama prefers peace to imperial aggression. Not so. It’s about the timing, and it’s about putting the assets in place for maximum “shock and awe.” Obama wants to capitalize politically if he decides to unleash hell on Iran.

Obama will have learned some lessons from presidencies past. Poppy Bush beat Iraq in six days and still managed to lose his second term to the philandering good ole boy Clinton. When Bush Jr. declared “Mission Accomplished” he found he was mired in an imperial occupation that could actually bite back, indefinitely. Neither scenario seems all that attractive to the peace laureate, who would prefer to win quickly, with no invasion, and to have the blood lust of the masses still riled up and on his side when that fateful day comes in November. So he tamps down the shrieks for war; after all there is no real hurry, as Iran has no actual nuclear weapons development program. Obama bides his time and he allows the propaganda complex to keep the public attuned to the idea of bombing Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program so that when that order comes it is accepted without question.

The Republicans are screaming for it. The Israelis are foaming at the bit. Obama’s neo-liberal base will swallow whatever the hallowed leader decides to do, even if that includes Armageddon, a ride down the Highway to Hell. Those pesky Mayans could be proved right yet; these people have it in their power to end human history.

We should be clear about the real reasons Washington goes to war and overthrows governments: because those governments aren’t taking orders from Washington. It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, biological or chemical weapons. It has nothing to do with terrorism. It has nothing to do with democracy (laughable). Nothing to do with “freedom” (more laughable). It has nothing to do with women’s rights, the children, the aspirations of the blah blah blah. No educated person could fall for that claptrap. It has everything to do with raw power projection and the securing of resources and the profits and the control of those resources.

Some have noticed that Iran is selling oil in currencies other than the dollar, thereby setting a bad example. A threat to dollar hegemony is a threat to a fundamental core principle, which the US will not tolerate. When Iraq began selling its oil in Euros it was swiftly attacked and overthrown. Libya similarly sought to empower other currencies and move away from the dollar. It was attacked by a NATO air assault and a foreign-sponsored and trained guerrilla army of Jihadis, now war criminals. The “responsibility to protect” was actually the protection of the dollar as reserve currency and had nothing to do with civilians on the ground in Libya. Tens of thousands have now perished.

I was in the street on February 15th 2003, the “focus group” to stop the illegal and immoral onslaught against Iraq. That war crime has since killed over 1 million human beings by several credible estimates and another million in the decade preceding it due to medieval-styled “sanctions,” all courtesy of Washington policy. And now I’ve signed the petition at Stop War on Iran (stopwaroniran.org), which I expect to have as much of an effect on foreign policy.

The public was whipped up into a war hysteria prior to the attack on Iraq, a hysteria that persisted for a couple of years although no weapons of mass destruction were found. The public was fed new rationales for the criminal aggression, and it took quite a while for the public to digest just how completely they had been suckered.

A recent study by a Cornell researcher concluded that most people are too uninformed for democracy to work. To that I say, “duh.” Where’s he been these last thirty years?

How do we get through to these yahoos? Maybe it’s time we started talking about Mutual Assured Destruction once again. It’s a MAD world, don’t you know? A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD world.

Submitters Website: http://joegiambrone.wordpress.com/

ABOUT JOE GIAMBRONE
Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits The Political Film Blog, which welcomes submissions. polfilmblog@gmail.

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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“It is… impossible for American media, which are mouthpieces for their corporate owners and take their day-to-day cues from the State Department and the White House, to understand that most Venezuelans agree with Chavez when he denounces the imperialists in Washington…”

Hugo Chavez has won six more years as president of Venezuela and a model for standing up to the United States. Chavez’s longevity in the face of implacable imperial hostility shows that the “Washington Consensus” is defunct. “Latin America is the corner of the world that has achieved the greatest success over the last 20 years in throwing off the dead weight of the North.”

“In the United States, his ten percent winning margin would be considered a landslide.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won a resounding victory in last weekend’s elections. If you’ve been following U.S. corporate media coverage of the campaign, that may have come as a surprise to you. Chavez is routinely referred to as a “strongman” and other variations on “dictator” by the U.S. media when, in fact, he remains one of the most popular persons in all of Latin America. In the United States, his ten percent winning margin would be considered a landslide, but all the American media can talk about after Chavez’s latest victory at the polls is how much his lead has shrunk since the 2006 election, when he won by 25 percent.

Every time Chavez and his Bolivarian socialists win at the polls, the corporate media have to eat crow. One would think all that heartburn would force the U.S. press to finally admit that Chavez is the leader of oil rich Venezuela because large majorities of its citizens want him in the presidential palace, and are enjoying the fruits of his wealth distribution policies.

It is also impossible for American media, which are mouthpieces for their corporate owners and take their day-to-day cues from the State Department and the White House, to understand that most Venezuelans agree with Chavez when he denounces the imperialists in Washington. They knew what Chavez meant when he called President Bush “the devil” and said that he stank of sulfur, back in 2006. Venezuelans remembered how Bush backed a coup that almost toppled Chavez in 2002 – a coup that was reversed by a counter-rebellion of the people and loyal soldiers. They remember that the coup leaders’ first act was to abolish the Constitution and start drawing up lists of people to be thrown into prison, or worse. They remember the dark days when nearly all of Latin America was placed under the rule of generals allied with Washington, and the hands of the torturers and the death squads could reach into every family with impunity. They know who was the author of that nightmare: the United States.

“Every time Chavez and his Bolivarian socialists win at the polls, the corporate media have to eat crow.”

That’s why Latin America is the corner of the world that has achieved the greatest success over the last 20 years in throwing off the dead weight of the North, by rejecting the so-called Washington Consensus. And that’s why, this time around, the Venezuelan opposition chose a candidate who pretended to be a leftist, himself. Challenger Henrique Capriles, a young state governor, styled himself as a protégé of former Brazilian president “Lula” da Silva, a more business-friendly type of leftwing politician.

But Venezuela’s poor know who the opposition really are: the affluent, mostly light-skinned people that live in swank neighborhoods and whose hearts dwell in Miami. The people who draw cartoons in opposition newspapers depicting Chavez as a monkey and openly sneer at his mixed race heritage – the heritage of most Venezuelans. They know what real democracy feels like, because they remember what living under the yoke of a rich white minority felt like. Democracy is having a government that’s not made up of those people whose hearts are in Miami. Democracy calls the top Yankee a devil, and the people cheer, and then the people vote.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.  BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [5]. http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20121010_gf_ChavezWins.mp3
[6]
ba radio commentary Hugo Chavez Venezuela
Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/chavez-beats-devil-again

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By Black Agenda Report (BAR) editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Stripped of a script Obama was laid bare before the world, an empty suit devoid of any conviction except the desire to stay in office…”

It is true that Barack Obama didn’t have his act together when he went up against Mitt Romney, last week. In fact, he seemed to drop his Democratic act entirely, showing his true political self: a corporate politician who is in general agreement with his corporate Republican challenger. “Obama was caught unprepared and unable to state plainly how he differs from his opponent, mostly because he doesn’t differ very much.”

“He forgot that his audience wasn’t made up of the Republicans he is so anxious to please.”

The first presidential debate [5] between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney proved a very simple fact about human nature. Most people will reveal their truest, most fundamental self when in the midst of a stressful situation. Both the president and his challenger did just that.

Mitt Romney is an ambitious businessman but not a very good politician. The so-called gaffes and misstatements that have characterized his campaign result from his lack of political acumen but aren’t an indication of lack of intelligence or capability. Romney’s greatest success in life was his tenure as CEO of the Bain Capital hedge fund, which is not the best experience to have when campaigning for voters whose lives have been ruined by the actions of corporate America.

Romney famously said that he liked to fire people. After all, what CEO doesn‘t? During the debate he told the moderator, Jim Lehrer, that if president, he would fire him and all of his colleagues at public broadcasting. He then made it clear that he planned to fire Barack Obama too. The aggressive Romney crammed for the test and found a sureness and confidence by behaving as the CEO in charge of the presidential campaign.

Unlike Romney, Obama is a very good politician. He excels at garnering support from voters by telling them what they want to hear while simultaneously doing things those same people wouldn’t want him to do. The public and pundits alike were surprised that the president’s performance veered between being lackadaisical and flat-footed or strangely discordant with boring anecdotes about his grandparents which didn‘t even answer the questions being asked. The president momentarily forgot the source of his popularity. He has spent so much time agreeing with Republicans in private that he forgot he was in public with more than 60 million viewers who were under the naive impression that the two parties are very different.

“The president momentarily forgot the source of his popularity.”

Obama is the king of trying to reconcile what cannot be reconciled. He calls this process consensus, but in stark political terms it is nothing but capitulation. Obama cannot even muster support for Democratic low-hanging fruit like Social Security. When the moderator asked the president if he saw a difference with his opponent on Social Security he happily replied, “You know, I suspect that on Social Security we’ve got a somewhat similar position.” Those words may have been shocking but they were true. It is Obama who appointed a deficit reduction commission [6] which called for cuts to entitlement programs. Only intransigence from Republicans prevented him from further double dealing with the people he is supposed to be working against.

The president floundered uncharacteristically because he forgot that his audience wasn’t made up of the Republicans he is so anxious to please, but voters who dared to think they were going to hear why he should remain in the Oval Office instead of Romney. As the Democrats have moved ever more to the right and become more dependent upon corporate largesse, Obama and other Democrats have gone along with their program even as they pretend to be an opposition. Obama was caught unprepared and unable to state plainly how he differs from his opponent, mostly because he doesn’t differ very much.

It was Romney who took the supposedly populist, progressive Obama to task for bailing out the banks, calling it the “biggest kiss to New York banks I’ve ever seen.” As with other Romney rejoinders the president was silenced, furiously scribbling notes as he tried to compose himself.

“The Obama who stood on stage is the real Obama.”

Unfortunately, most Democrats still refuse to admit what happened right before their eyes. While criticizing the president’s debate performance they were not willing to admit that the Obama who stood on stage is the real Obama. Stripped of a script he was laid bare before the world, an empty suit devoid of any conviction except the desire to stay in office.

The debate allowed the previously bumbling Romney to suddenly look capable and gave many people new reason to give him serious consideration. Obama needed only to look presidential in order to live up to expectations but is now facing a serious challenge because he isn’t as slick as he thought.

It is unlikely that Barack Obama will allow himself to be bested more than once. No one with a small ego becomes president of the United States. But the question isn’t really whether or not he will turn in a better performance. Instead it is whether Democrats will believe their eyes and ears and accept that the real Barack Obama is in fact the man they saw on stage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 
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Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-why-romney-beat-obama

Let’s keep this award-winning site going!

Yes, audiences applaud us. But do you?If yes, then buy us a beer. The wingnuts are falling over each other to make donations…to their causes. We, on the other hand, take our left media—the only media that speak for us— for granted. Don’t join that parade, and give today. Every dollar counts.
Use the DONATE button below or on the sidebar. And do the right thing. Even once a year.

Use PayPal via the button below.

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