The New Yorker has a new piece on Chavez

[subsuelo]

I wonder what some of you Latin America observers might think:

Fidel's Heir: The rising influence of Hugo Chávez. by Jon Lee Anderson

One recent Sunday, I flew with Chávez to La Faja del Orinoco, an oil-rich belt of land in eastern Venezuela. In May, 2007, Chávez ordered the nationalization of pumping and refining facilities in La Faja owned by foreign oil companies. The move was one of a series of measures that Chávez had taken to increase Venezuela’s share of oil revenues, including increases in royalty payments from 16.6 per cent to 33.3 per cent, and its ownership stake from around forty to at least sixty per cent. (As recently as 2004, these companies were paying royalties of one per cent of the oil’s value.) Most of the oil companies, including Chevron and B.P., agreed to the terms; ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil did not, and pulled out.

Chávez began our conversation by asking, “Tell us, why didn’t Saddam put up more of a fight when the Yankees invaded?” Before I could reply, General Rangel said that the Americans had successfully degraded Iraq’s air-defense system in the run-up to the war. Chávez looked at me for confirmation, and when I agreed he smiled, and said that, just in case the Americans were thinking of doing anything similar to Venezuela, he had bought an air-defense system from Belarus. (In the past four years, Venezuela has spent four billion dollars on foreign arms purchases, mostly from Russia.) The Belarusian system probably wasn’t the most sophisticated in the world, Chávez said, but it was what Venezuela could get: “We do what we can to defend ourselves.”

Chávez campaigned for the Presidency, in 1998, with promises to bring radical change, but, for a time after he won, it was unclear whether he could deliver much more than symbolism and oratory. When he took office, oil was at a mere ten dollars a barrel, and his first government budget was seven billion dollars; last year, as oil approached a hundred dollars a barrel (by last week, it was a hundred and thirty-six dollars), the budget rose to fifty-four billion. The oil money has allowed Chávez to triple spending on social programs. Even though many of these “missions,” as they’re known, have foundered or have proved inadequate, the volume of revenues has meant an improvement in living standards for the country’s poorest citizens, who are, unsurprisingly, Chávez’s strongest supporters. It has also given him the means to buy influence with his neighbors, usually at the expense of the United States.

Those are a few paragraphs taken from page 1 (of 9) but it doesn't do justice to the entire article. I found the article problematic in that Chavez is treated with too much suspicion. Most of the article seems to me about the questions surrounding him that corporate fascist media has been drumming up over the years. None is dedicated to the actual good Chavez has been doing, although there is mention of his widespread support amongst Venezuela's poor. I did not come away feeling I had read a balanced view. Disappointing.

[subsuelo]

1. Borev has an opinion on it

Borev.net (italicized borev's comments)

>>> “Chávez began our conversation by asking, ‘Tell us, why didn’t Saddam put up more of a fight when the Yankees invaded?’” An amusing quote! Yet spiced with a whiff of timeliness and, dare I say, danger. Almost like a New Yorker cartoon itself!

>>> “Chávez’s relationship with the United States, which was strained from the start, became openly hostile after a short-lived military coup, in 2002, that seemed to have the blessing of the Bush Administration.” Yes, it “seemed to,” didn’t it? Especially the part where the coup leaders were funded and trained by the U.S.! Droll, New Yorker, very droll.

>>> “Despite the harsh language, unofficial U.S. policy in the past few years has generally been to ignore Chávez, in order to avoid being drawn into a confrontation.” Remember the time Rumsfeld compared him to Hitler?

>>> “Venezuela has a complex and volatile economy, with rampant corruption and high rates of unemployment and oil-fuelled inflation. A prominent Venezuelan economist, Orlando Ochoa, blamed Chávez’s policies and the inefficiency of his government for many of these problems.” Ok, this isn’t one long New Yorker article. It’s like fourteen short, dumb AP stories spliced together…

Yep that's the best way of putting it: 14 of AP's dumbest Chavez stories stringed together. Spot on, BoRev, as usual. And New Yorker is for the American intellectual class, right? Is this the best that America's intellectual magazine could come up with for an article on Hugo Chavez? That is shocking to me. I don't know why.

[magbana]

2. This Jon Lee Anderson Story Sucks

Jon Lee Anderson is well known for being the king of insinuation and unbelievable fascination with people's physical characteristics. As you might imagine he is very disparaging concerning others' appearance.

When Jon Lee Anderson's autobiograhpy of Che Guevara came out, liberals were ga-ga about it. In actuality, it was a pretty snipey
shot at both Che and Fidel.

The Cubans have caught on to Anderson and I'm sorry they didn't tip off Chavez .

A friend and I are working on an article to respond to Anderson's hack job on Chavez. I'll forward it to the list wwhen done.

Thanks for posting this to list so that it gets broad exposure.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Read it, couldn't think of anything to say about it, or at least, not in front of the trolls.

Simply would not consider setting aside a couple of days to tussle over every one of the pathetic, blatant lies and slurs in it. I have NEVER seen such a piece of crap in my life.

That guy is sick. He's truly dirty, ####ed up. Totally dishonest, and he thinks he gets free reign to write any crap he wants by scattering so much BS around it would take forever to point out the deception in each obnoxious lie.

A whole lot of unnamed sources quoted, of course. Every one seems to agree with him, too! Imagine that.

Jezus H. Christ.

Here's his Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lee_Anderson

http://farm3.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/2235/1640569735_caf2a86e29.jpg

Entertaining some spell-bound listeners.

http://www.infovictory.com.nyud.net:8090/PicWithJon%20Lee%20Anderson.jpg

[Zorro]

4. Seems like a pretty fair article

Anderson obviously had very close contact with Chavez to make the observations he writes about.

It certainly reveals Chavez to be the troublemaking Fidel pimp that many recognize him to be.

[subsuelo]

5. And we don't want no trouble down south do we

[Zorro]

6. Here's something that captures the essence of the little Bolivaran revolutionary

http://dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Hugo_Chavez

[subsuelo]

7. Yeah what a dick! How dare he challenge the imperial slave-masters

Causing such a stir and defending the rights of the poor. I mean, Venezuelan oil wealth belongs to Exxon, not Venezuelans! Every dipshit knows that.

Truly, we better do something about that little Bolivaran dick.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability" - Pat Robertson

Sound like a plan?

[Texano78704]

8. Pretty much

That is pretty much what BushCo did with Saddam. He did spend quite bit of time marketing the idea, but it sold nonetheless. The clock is running out for BushCo and their eyes is set on Iran these days.

[sinsonte]

9. Fidel’s Heir: The influence of Hugo Chávez.

Absolutely appalling Jon Lee Anderson’s accusatory, dishonest, poor excuse for a truly informative expose of such colorful historical figure as Hugo Chavez in The New Yorker magazine of June 23, 2008.

Going through this article felt as if I was reading any old rag, touching on all the talking points, often found in the cheap propaganda commonly associated with other sources of American-democracy style media. An embarrassment. But what would you expect in the days of Freedom Cages and the like? It's mistrusting, degrading, tone-- a perfect example of poor journalism-- reflects the level of hatred created by such disinformation outlets. I couldn't believe The New Yorker actually published such insensitive kind of writing. Only these days of mass delusion (complete denial) and cognitive dissonance one has to put up with such tabloid passing for intelligent, thoughtful, writing.

I wondered why Chavez lend himself to this kind of chicanery. I guess there’s not such a thing as bad publicity.

One should have known that Anderson’s line of argument leaved a lot to be desired when he chose to begin his piece by questioning the leader of one of the richest, fastest-growing, economies in the world for purchasing a new Airbus. I presume Chavez should attend the international business of Venezuela by burro according to Mr. Anderson’s cosmology.

However, I found it particularly interesting how Mr. Anderson managed to repeatedly harp on the notion that Chavez’s measures are being implemented “at the expense of the United States.” This argument follows in lockstep with the kind of nonsense one would hear any day in hate talk radio that makes it seem as if Chavez has taken away the 401-Ks of average Americans. Go buy oil from Indonesia and stop counting your chicks before the eggs hatch.

[Judi Lynn]

10. It's a completely screwed piece, isn't it? Unfathomable that so many pointless people are simply

sitting in their mothers' basements waiting for the lastest news from Venezuela, isn't it?

Clearly there's a disinformation program going on. One only has to take a good long look at all the headlines each week to get the picture. The slant is ALWAYS the same for the wire service stories and the stories done by the few U.S. papers which still do their own international news.

Deeper digging to get to the truth shows it's in no way similar to what we're getting in our own corporate "news." (It would be real "news" if it only had some actual news in it, rather than hand-scribbled propaganda!)

Here's a better choice for Hugo Chavez to take to the next meeting outside Venezuela, so that that dear, sweet genius, Mr. Anderson won't feel so demoralized:
http://inlinethumb01.webshots.com.nyud.net:8090/7744/2571112220103329676S600x600Q85.jpg

Welcome to D.U., sinsonte. We NEED intelligent people around here with reading comprehension skills, you'd better believe it! :hi:



Going to vote, December, 2006.