"Wall Street Journal Gives Hugo Chavez A Mixed Review"- by Stephen Lendman

[1932]

In contrast to its one-sided stance on Hugo Chavez, the June 16 Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on US based activists in Boston, New York, San Diego, Miami, Cincinnati and other cities around the country forming Bolivarian Circles and other groups supporting the Chavez government. But it couldn't do it without taking its usual swipe at the Venezuelan leader beginning with the front page article's title: Move Over Che: Chavez Is New Icon of Radical Chic. That's WSJ language intending to demean in its headline rather than use a proper one to reflect what their story was about.

It then used its opening paragraph (which many readers never go beyond) to convey a flavor of invective before getting into the heart of a story worth telling but not without some slaps at Chavez interspersed along the way. It referred to the president's "fiery" rhetoric (never mentioning its honesty) saying it wins him few friends in Washington while never explaining the one place on earth Hugo Chavez will never have friends in high places is in the nation's capitol. It also accuses Chavez of becoming a "revolutionary hero nearly on a par with Che Guevara and Fidel Castro," that he uses his nation's oil riches to "prop up Mr. Castro's regime," and that "His dream is to spread the Venezuelan brand of socialism across Latin America."

Journal writers are masters of half-truths and distortion that goes along the the paper's policy of being hostile to any government not in line with the neoliberal Washington Consensus (wreaking havoc wherever it spreads) and not fully subservient to US wishes. Nothing in their article explains that the Bolivarian Revolution is a true participatory democracy where the people have a say in how the country is governed; that the lives of the majority poor have benefitted enormously by an impressive array of essential social programs and services unimaginable in the US; that Hugo Chavez aids his neighbors (Castro included who aids Venezuela in return) and doesn't threaten war or sanctions against them; has no secret prisons; no illegal political prisoners or illegal detentions; doesn't practice torture; doesn't ethnically cleanse neighborhoods to aid corporate developers; and never suspended the constitution even after a coup d'etat, mass street riots and a crippling US-instigated oil lockout and shutdown. It's even working to clean up and change a many decade-long legacy and systemic climate of corruption and inefficient state bureaucracy and is making slow progress against great odds that would challenge any leader.

When it comes to reporting even a good story about Hugo Chavez, the Journal has to ruin it by taking their usual jabs and getting their facts wrong in the process. It went on to claim a "darker side" in the Bolivarian circles within Venezuela stating they help the "government identify opponents, who are then denied remedial education and other government services." It reported this was what two US academics found in a study they conducted that may have been funded by the Bush administration to report results in line with its own policy and rhetoric. Bush officials also may have bought off some so-called "Human rights groups" which the Journal writer says claim Chavez is "dangerously centralizing (his) power, emasculating Venezuela's judiciary and threatening press freedom." It sounds more like those groups were misquoted and are talking instead about what's happening inside the US as the Bush administration consolidates its power, is systematically stripping away sacred constitutional freedoms and is moving the country dangerously closer to a full-blown police state. Hugo Chavez is doing just the opposite in Venezuela, but you won't learn that on the pages of the Wall Street Journal or from their so-called sources.

http://chiapas.mediosindependientes.org/display.php3?article_id=123748