JOHN PILGER: The War on Venezuela is Built on Lies

[Judi Lynn]

February 22, 2019

The reporter as clown — for whom the truth is too difficult to report —may be the final stage of much of mainstream journalism’s degeneration, writes John Pilger for Consortium News.

By John Pilger
Special to Consortium News

Travelling with Hugo Chavez, I soon understood the threat of Venezuela. At a farming co-operative in Lara state, people waited patiently and with good humor in the heat. Jugs of water and melon juice were passed around. A guitar was played; a woman, Katarina, stood and sang with a husky contralto.

“What did her words say?” I asked.

“That we are proud,” was the reply.

The applause for her merged with the arrival of Chavez. Under one arm he carried a satchel bursting with books. He wore his big red shirt and greeted people by name, stopping to listen.

What struck me was his capacity to listen.

But now he read. For almost two hours he read into the microphone from the stack of books beside him: Orwell, Dickens, Tolstoy, Zola, Hemingway, Chomsky, Neruda: a page here, a line or two there. People clapped and whistled as he moved from author to author. Then farmers took the microphone and told him what they knew, and what they needed; one ancient face, carved it seemed from a nearby banyan, made a long, critical speech on the subject of irrigation; Chavez took notes.

More:
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/02/22/john-pilger-the-war-on-venezuela-is-built-on-lies/

Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016227128z