[News] How Western Left Media Helped Legitimate US Regime Change in Venezuel
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Jan 23 12:27:39 EST 2020
https://fair.org/home/how-western-left-media-helped-legitimate-us-regime-change-in-venezuela/
How Western Left Media Helped Legitimate US Regime Change in Venezuela
Lucas Koerner - January 22, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s been a year since Juan Guaidó began his US-anointed mandate as
“interim president” of Venezuela.
Following the opposition leader’s failure to secure
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14755> reelection as National
Assembly president this month, Washington and its corporate media
stenographers have hysterically decried a “coup” (*FAIR.org*, 1/10/20
<https://fair.org/home/for-western-press-the-only-coup-in-venezuela-is-against-guaido/>)
against the coup leader, moving absurdly to recognize a new parallel
parliament <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14759> that he can still
be in charge of.
However, the January 23 anniversary of Guaidó’s farcical
self-proclamation <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14244> has a darker
legacy largely ignored by the corporate media: the almost unprecedented
US decision to recognize a leader with no effective state control has
unleashed a level of economic warfare unseen outside of Cuba, Iran or
North Korea.
The recognition was a not-so-subtle signal to transnational economic
actors to terminate their business with Caracas, and was followed by a
crippling oil embargo <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14268>, later
upgraded to a blanket ban <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14615> on
all dealings with Venezuela’s state. Last year alone, illegal US
sanctions are estimated
<https://zcomm.org/zblogs/francisco-rodriguez-answers-some-questions-i-asked-him-about-venezuela/>
to have destroyed one quarter of Venezuela’s economy, which had already
shrunk by half since 2013, in part due to longstanding US economic siege.
Why is it that Trump is able to get away with what is effectively a
policy of mass murder in Venezuela, similar to simultaneous US economic
warfare
<https://www.thenation.com/article/sanctions-iraq-economic-warfare/>
against Iran?
The Western media has certainly played a crucial role in delegitimizing
the democratically elected Maduro government (e.g. *FAIR.org*, 5/20/19
<https://fair.org/home/theres-far-more-diversity-in-venezuelas-muzzled-media-than-in-us-corporate-press/>,
5/23/18
<https://fair.org/home/media-delegitimize-venezuelan-elections-amid-complete-unanimity-of-outlook/>,
5/16/18
<https://fair.org/home/writing-off-democracy-in-venezuela-us-press-and-politicians-dream-of-a-coup/>),
while systematically concealing the deadly impact of sanctions
(*FAIR.org*, 6/26/19
<https://fair.org/home/so-who-is-reporting-that-trump-sanctions-have-killed-thousands-of-venezuelans/>,
6/14/19
<https://fair.org/home/study-linking-us-sanctions-to-venezuelan-deaths-buried-by-reuters-for-over-a-month/>).
However, despite nominally opposing Washington’s Venezuela policy and
its corporate media gendarmerie, global North progressive media have,
like during the recent coup in Bolivia (*FAIR.org*, 12/10/19
<https://fair.org/home/how-the-global-norths-left-media-helped-pave-the-way-for-bolivias-right-wing-coup/>),
tended to repeat imperial ideological tropes, casting the Maduro
government as authoritarian, corrupt and/or guilty of much worse human
rights violations than the US and its allies.
While invariably couched in the language of “left” analysis, this
coverage weakens domestic opposition to the US and other Western states’
murderous onslaught on the Venezuelan people.
*The 2019 Coup*
Western progressive outlets have a peculiar habit of rolling out their
“critiques” of leftist or otherwise independent governments in the
global South right at the moment when these states are under imperial
assault, echoing the corporate media’s unanimous regime-change chorus
(*FAIR.org*, 4/30/19
<https://fair.org/home/zero-percent-of-elite-commentators-oppose-regime-change-in-venezuela/>).
In the days and weeks following the January 23, 2019, start of the
US-backed opposition’s sixth coup effort of the past 20 years, Northern
leftist publications posted a number of articles featuring scathing
attacks on the Maduro administration.
NACLA: Venezuela and the Left
/…and in *NACLA* (2/5/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/05/venezuela-and-left>), the “left”
position is that “Maduro was not democratically elected”—mainly because
people who had tried to overthrow the government were not allowed to run
for president./
*NACLA *(2/5/19 <https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/05/venezuela-and-left>)
and *Jacobin *(2/5/19
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/venezuela-noninterventionism-self-determination-solidarity>)
led the charge, simultaneously publishing a piece by sociologist Gabriel
Hetland denying that Maduro was democratically elected and accusing him
of “increasing authoritarianism.” On top of numerous factually
problematic
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/global-left-danger-dirty-war-venezuela/255501/>attacks
on the Venezuelan government, Hetland went as far as to outline
hypothetical conditions that “potentially warranted” foreign
intervention—namely a “humanitarian catastrophe”—but declining to say
that they apply to Venezuela, despite the existence of what he termed a
“humanitarian crisis.” The Trump administration repeatedly cites
“humanitarian catastrophe” as a justification for its coup and illegal
sanctions, a charge that has been echoed by corporate media and the
Western human rights industrial complex.
Also in *NACLA *(2/13/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/26/venezuela%E2%80%99s-popular-sectors-and-future-country>),
Rebeca Hanson and Francisco Sanchez professed their agnosticism
regarding whether Guaidó’s US-backed self-proclamation constituted a
coup, stating that “depending on how the constitution is interpreted,
one of the two men has a rightful claim to assume executive power.”
They went on to anecdotally note a “general sentiment in many popular
sectors…that neither [the government nor opposition] ‘side’ can be
trusted,” conveniently ignoring the fact that around 31% of the
Venezuelan electorate voted to reelect Maduro in May 2018 and a similar
percent of the population told Pew
<https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/25/venezuelans-have-little-trust-in-national-government-say-economy-is-in-poor-shape/>
they trusted the government a few months later. A smaller percentage of
the electorate routinely wins elections in the US. That is, around 6
million people—overwhelmingly from Venezuela’s working-class and poor
sectors—still support Maduro.
Despite the authors’ pretension of ethnographic “nuance,” the mask drops
when they editorially decry Maduro’s “cronyism, corruption and
exploitation”—claims they make no effort to factually justify. They also
falsely accuse state security forces of having “killed 21,752 people” in
2016, when the very report they link to places the figure at 4,667,
which is still quite high but must be properly contextualized
(*Venezuelanalysis.com*, 7/12/19
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14583>).
Vanessa Baird hit on similar themes a few days prior in the *New
Internationalist *(1/24/19
<https://newint.org/features/2019/01/24/whatever-you-think-maduro-regime-change-venezuelans-not-us>),
lampooning Maduro as “hardly a model leader or democrat.” Indeed, the
author appeared to be unaware that Maduro was ever elected at all,
stating that his “lamentable rule…started when Hugo Chavez died in 2013.”
A month later, as the US prepared to force “humanitarian aid” into
Venezuela and fears of war loomed large, Baird (*New Internationalist*,
2/12/19
<https://newint.org/features/2019/02/12/beware-americans-bearing-gifts>)
mused about “the desirability of Maduro stepping down.” She then
produced a laundry list of misrepresentations about Maduro, which
appeared to have been partly lifted, albeit with even less nuance, from
Hetland’s article for *NACLA* (2/5/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/05/venezuela-and-left>) and *Jacobin
*(2/5/19
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/venezuela-noninterventionism-self-determination-solidarity>).
“Technically, Maduro was the winner of the May 2018 elections—but only
after banning leading opposition parties and candidates from running,”
she claims:
This—along with cancelling a recall referendum in 2016, dissolving
the opposition-led National Assembly in 2017, and “stealing” the
October 2017 governor elections—has seriously dented his democratic
credentials.
In this last assertion, she goes well beyond what even anti-Maduro
analysts like Francisco Rodriguez and Dorothy Kronick
<https://venezuelablog.org/15o-fraud-fatigue/>have claimed.
Nation: Venezuela’s Deadly Blackout Highlights the Need for a Negotiated
Resolution of the Crisis
/*The Nation* (3/13/19
<https://www.thenation.com/article/venezuela-blackout-us-sanctions-maduro/>)
for a “negotiated resolution” in Venezuela—i.e., regime change./
Following the devastating March blackouts, *The Nation* (3/13/19
<https://www.thenation.com/article/venezuela-blackout-us-sanctions-maduro/>)
likewise posted a piece by Hetland, lambasting Maduro as “corrupt and
increasingly repressive” and claiming that his “authoritarian”
government “bears primary responsibility for the country’s dire
situation,” though conceding that “US sanctions and violence by the
US-supported opposition have contributed to Venezuelans’ suffering.”
The article contained wild factual inaccuracies
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14392>, including the claim that
Caracas residents were collecting water from the extremely polluted
Guaire River, as well as misleading death statistics from the blackouts.
Hetland also cites pro-opposition pollster Datanalisis to assert that an
“estimated 15% of the population” supports Chavismo, a dramatic
underestimation refuted by the fact that Maduro won 6.2 million votes in
2018—or 31% of the total electorate—which is firmly in line with
Chavista turnout levels since 2013. Datanalisis also badly
overestimated what opposition turnout would be in both the 2017 regional
elections
<http://www.2001.com.ve/en-la-agenda/171868/luis-vicente-leon--participacion-en-las-regionales-podria-ubicarse-entre-50--y-60----video-.html>
and the 2018 presidential elections
<https://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article208285434.html>,
undermining its credibility.
Around the same time, *NACLA *(3/26/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/04/04/untangling-gordian-knot-negotiating-shared-power-venezuela>)
published an article with the claim that
Maduro’s record includes suffocating democratic institutions and
procedures, colossal economic mismanagement, vast corruption,
repression, human rights violations and a humanitarian crisis.
The author, Dimitris Pantoulas, offers no evidence to support his
accusations and, more incredibly, makes no mention of illegal US
sanctions, which have severely exacerbated Venezuela’s crisis, blocking
political and economic solutions. Pantoulas goes on to blame the US-led
coup on democratically re-elected Maduro, whose “resistance to
democratic solutions made his opponents…concentrate their efforts on
ousting him by any means necessary.”
Just one day after the failed US-backed April 30 military putsch,
*Dissent* (5/1/19
<https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-venezuelan-crisis>)
published an article with the sensational claim that “Venezuela today is
simply not a democracy.” The author, Jared Abbott, fired off a series of
deceptive claims, including repeating US propaganda that illegal
sanctions “were supposed to target” only government officials, rather
than intentionally destroy what was left of Venezuela’s economy. Not
content to delegitimize the 2018 elections with the canard
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/global-left-danger-dirty-war-venezuela/255501/>
that an opposition victory “was close to impossible,” Abbott recited US
State Department talking points impugning “past elections under
Chavismo” as “hardly models of fairness” on the grounds of unequal
access to state resources, ignoring the US government’s massive support
<https://www.thenation.com/article/venezuela-washington-funded-counterrevolution/>
for the opposition over the course of its six coup attempts since 2002.
The author also rehashes Hetland’s dubious Dananalisis-sourced claims
about Maduro’s support, lamenting the “insidious pathologies” and
“authoritarianism” of a global South political movement under murderous
imperial siege.
A few weeks later, *Jacobin *(5/23/19
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/05/venezuela-maduro-juan-guaido-intervention-sanctions>)
published another article by Hetland. The university professor
backpedaled on some of his previous claims, but nevertheless made a
point of excoriating “government repression of peaceful protest and
dissent amid a broader turn away from political democracy and towards
authoritarian rule.” Hetland appeared to be entirely unaware that the
opposition attempted a coup d’etat scarcely three weeks before, and that
top opposition figures were permitted to lead sizeable anti-government
street rallies literally the day after.
Likewise writing in *Jacobin *(9/30/19
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/09/bernie-sanders-venezuela-intervention-latin-america>),
just weeks after the Trump administration escalated its sanctions regime
to a sweeping embargo, Michael Brooks and Ben Burgis rightly blamed
imperial violence for blocking the sovereign development of global South
countries like Venezuela. But the authors also felt compelled to echo
Washington in “acknowledg[ing] the reality of the Venezuelan
government’s authoritarianism.” They went on to state that
the premise that [presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’] brand
of democratic socialism would involve anything like the kind of
repressive crackdowns that have happened recently in Venezuela is
absurd.
It’s hard to know whether to judge such an incredible statement as
condescendingly Eurocentric or just plain naive, given that a Sanders
administration would likely face some kind of establishment coup effort
if it tried to implement its radical agenda, and its legitimate attempts
to defend itself would inevitably be deemed “repressive” by elites.
*The 2017 Insurrection *
This pattern of progressive “critiques” of Chavismo and the Maduro
government just at the moment when the country is under heightened
imperial onslaught is not new.
From April through late July 2017, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition
launched a violent street insurrection aimed at ousting the president,
similar to the leadup to Bolivia’s November 2019 coup d’etat. Over 125
people were killed, including protesters, bystanders and government
supporters.
NACLA: Why is Venezuela Spiraling Out of Control?
/*NACLA* (4/28/17
<https://nacla.org/news/2018/05/18/why-venezuela-spiraling-out-control>)
faults both its own government for trying to overthrow Venezuela’s, but
also blames Venezuela’s government for the way it responds to attempts
to overthrow it./
*NACLA *(4/28/17
<https://nacla.org/news/2018/05/18/why-venezuela-spiraling-out-control>)
and *Jacobin *(republished 5/14/17
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/venezuela-crisis-maduro-opposition-violence-elections-economy>)
fired the opening shots on that occasion as well, posting yet another
article by Hetland declaring that “opposition violence and the
government’s increasing authoritarianism are both to blame” for the
bloodshed. As in his more recent *NACLA *(2/5/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/05/venezuela-and-left>)/*Jacobin
*(2/5/19
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/venezuela-noninterventionism-self-determination-solidarity>)
piece, the academic cited a laundry list of “authoritarian” abuses
riddled with factual errors and outright misrepresentations
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13136>. Hetland urged leftists to
“reject any and all calls for imperialist interventions,” yet declined
to acknowledge his own government’s illegal sanctions targeting
Venezuela, which, according to economist Mark Weisbrot (*The New York
Times*, 6/30/16
<https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/06/28/how-to-save-venezuela/the-us-bears-blame-for-the-crisis-in-venezuela-and-it-should-stop-intervening-there>),
“helped convince major financial institutions not to make otherwise
low-risk loans, collateralized by gold, to the Venezuelan government.”
As the deadly anti-government protests continued to escalate, *Jacobin
*(5/19/17 <https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/the-south-is-our-north>)
went after Caracas-based Latin American television network *teleSUR*.
The author, Patrick Iber, quoted several academics describing the state
channel as “a totally useless source of information” and a “lapdog” for
the government. Readers may find it painfully obvious that *teleSUR*,
like every other state outlet on the planet, has an editorial line
largely shaped by its state’s geopolitical interests. Nevertheless, Iber
and his editors decided to prejudicially exceptionalize *teleSUR* in
this regard, while amazingly ignoring the fact that Venezuela was under
assault by their own imperial state at that very moment.
With the danger of civil war looming larger and larger, *Jacobin*
(7/8/17
<https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/venezuela-maduro-helicopter-attack-psuv-extractivism-oil>)
went on to publish a particularly unhinged “think” piece by Mike
Gonzalez, which went as far as to suggest that a helicopter terrorist
attack against government installations perpetrated by a rogue police
officer was a false flag operation. The article was so scandalous that
the editors allowed the publication of a contrasting perspective by
George Ciccariello-Maher (*Jacobin*, 7/29/19
<https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/venezuela-elections-chavez-maduro-bolivarianism/>)
debunking Gonzalez’s falsehoods.
The deck was, however, already stacked in favor of those voices
assailing the Venezuelan government as “authoritarian” or
“anti-democratic,” which one might resonably conclude to be the
editorial line of the magazine. It would appear that dissent from this
orthodoxy is the exception, not the rule, for *Jacobin*’s editors, who
have all but refused to publish contrarian opinions, including this
author’s critiques of Gabriel Hetland (*Venezuelanalysis.com*, 5/19/17
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13136>; *Mint Press News*,
2/25/19
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/global-left-danger-dirty-war-venezuela/255501/>)
submitted to the leftist journal.
This editorial line also appears to be well-entrenched at *Dissent *and
the *New Internationalist*, which have both declined to provide their
readers with dissenting viewpoints.
It’s worth noting that *NACLA* has displayed more balance in its
Venezuela coverage, publishing a broader spectrum of perspectives on
both the Maduro government and the position of the international left
(e.g., 5/11/17
<https://nacla.org/news/2017/05/11/critiquing-maduro-left>, 7/21/17
<https://nacla.org/news/2017/10/04/state-left-latin-america-disillusioned-revolution-venezuela>,
7/26/17
<https://nacla.org/news/2017/07/27/what%E2%80%99s-left-bolivarian-revolution>,
10/4/17
<https://nacla.org/news/2017/10/14/socialism-not-statism-lessons-bolivarian-venezuela>,
5/18/18
<https://nacla.org/news/2018/05/21/high-stakes-venezuela%E2%80%99s-presidential-elections>,
5/25/18
<https://nacla.org/news/2018/05/29/after-elections-intransigence-venezuela>).
In 2019, the journal likewise published alternative viewpoints
critiquing US regime change and the right-wing Venezuelan opposition
(2/8/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/10/regime-change-%E2%80%9Cmade-usa%E2%80%9D>,
5/23/19;
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/05/28/spectacle-internationalization-and-elephant-room-venezuela%E2%80%99s-crisis>5/31/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/06/01/washington-doubles-down-its-military-intervention-script-venezuela>,
8/14/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/08/15/washington-intensifies-its-collective-punishment-venezuelans>),
though none addressed the controversial issue of international left
solidarity with the Maduro government. Nevertheless, the number of
articles repeating US imperial discourse portraying the Venezuelan
government as “authoritarian,” “corrupt,” “repressive” or otherwise
illegitimate (e.g., 2/5/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/05/venezuela-and-left>, 2/13/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/26/venezuela%E2%80%99s-popular-sectors-and-future-country>,
3/26/19
<https://nacla.org/news/2019/04/04/untangling-gordian-knot-negotiating-shared-power-venezuela>)
notably increased relative to 2017. For its part, *The Nation* has been
more consistent in publishing a more expansive range of perspectives on
Venezuela (e.g., 5/1/17
<https://www.thenation.com/article/what-is-to-be-done-in-venezuela/>,
5/26/17 <https://www.thenation.com/article/burning-man-venezuela/>,
1/25/19
<https://www.thenation.com/article/venezuela-coup-guaido-maduro/>,
5/2/19 <https://www.thenation.com/article/venezuela-coup-media-guaido/>).
*Uncritical criticism *
As I explained in my previous article on Bolivia (*FAIR.org*, 12/10/19
<https://fair.org/home/how-the-global-norths-left-media-helped-pave-the-way-for-bolivias-right-wing-coup/>),
the purpose is not to censor leftist debate on Venezuela and the
Bolivarian process. The problem is that the progressive media overage we
have reviewed above largely amounts to what Lenin termed “uncritical
criticism.”
Despite rightly repudiating US sanctions and threats of military
intervention, Western leftist critics accept the very imperial
ideological premises justifying the murderous onslaught.
By employing the thoroughly Orientalist discourse of “authoritarianism”
and “human rights,” these critics wittingly or unwittingly delegitimize
a government which is arguably more legitimate
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/when-is-a-democracy-not-a-democracy-when-its-venezuela-and-the-us-is-pushing-regime-change/254321/> than
any number of regional governments that face no credible external threat
at all.
Angel Prado (photo: Saber y Poder)
/Angel Prado: “We take a firm position supporting our government as long
as it maintains an unwavering stance against imperialism.” (photo: Saber
y Poder)/
In critiquing the Maduro administration, Northern leftists would be wise
to heed the words of real revolutionaries on the ground in Venezuela,
such as El Maizal Socialist Commune spokesperson Angel Prado, who told
this author:
We have indeed been very critical of some policies of our
government. Honestly we don’t support some of the pacts made with
reformist sectors, with certain economic sectors. But we take a firm
position supporting our government as long as it maintains an
unwavering stance against imperialism….
We are working very hard in our popular movement—the political base
for this process—and one day we are going to have enough strength
not only to combat US imperialism, but also those [internal] sectors
that have been unfortunately harming our process, enriching
themselves in a context of war….
But above all, we as a people have preserved our unity, despite the
difficult situation of the last six years, and we have refused to
allow US imperialism to put its boots here. I think it’s a very
important victory on the part of the Venezuelan people, and the
world should know it.
With total clarity, Prado identifies the national confrontation with US
imperialism as primary, while recognizing that final victory depends on
defeating bureaucratic elites intent on using the crisis to entrench
their class power.
If revolutionaries like the El Maizal communards are unequivocal in
backing their government against imperialism—despite being on the
receiving end of state repression
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13584>—then Western progressives
ought to show similar integrity in uncompromisingly opposing their own
states’ rapacious violence abroad.
--
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