Our left-wing media's somber, mourning coverage of Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez once again demonstrates the double standard journalists reserve for dictators.
Seven years ago, the left's greatest South American hate object, Augusto Pinochet, passed away. Never mind how he used free-market reforms to modernize Chile. Never mind that after 15 years of rule, he allowed a national plebiscite to vote against him, and he stepped down peacefully. The left-wing outrage pulsed on the front pages.
The Washington Post headline for Pinochet in 2006 was "A Dictator's Dark Legacy." Reporters Monte Reel and J.Y. Smith stated his government "murdered and tortured thousands during his repressive 17-year rule ... leaving a legacy of abuse that took successive governments years to catalogue." His death left "incomplete numerous court cases that had sought to bring him to justice." In other words, he was a right-wing dictator.
But for Chavez, about as committed a leftist dictator as you'll find in South America, the Post's headline was neutral: "Anti-U.S. leader had promised revolution: Venezuela's leftist president sought change across region." Reporter Juan Forero said Chavez "went from a young conspiratorial soldier who dreamed of revolution to the fiery anti-U.S. leader of one of the world's great oil powers." Forero also noted right upfront that Chavez had held power since 1999, "longer than any democratically elected leader in the Americas."
Deep inside the paper, in a second story about the "outpouring of grief from the poor masses," Forero added niggling details of that "democracy" in action. "He was able to take control of the courts, the congress, and all other institutions, while forcing some of his toughest opponents into exile." Helluva democracy, that.
In 2006, The New York Times headline screamed Pinochet was a "Dictator Who Ruled By Terror in Chile." Jonathan Kandell of the Times began the article by describing him as "the brutal dictator who repressed and reshaped Chile for nearly two decades and became a notorious symbol of human rights abuse and corruption." He was "never brought to trial." Both the Post and the Times used post-Pinochet government estimates that more than 3,000 people were executed or disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. But for Chavez, the headline was "Chavez Dies at 58 With Venezuela In Deep Turmoil." Then came this subhead: "Crowds Mass in Capitol, Mourning Populist Who Defied U.S." The first three words of the story were "President Hugo Chavez." He wasn't called a "dictator," although Venezuela was "a country he dominated for 14 years," and his death "casts into doubt the future of his socialist revolution."
The Times treated readers to Chavez's vice president Nicolas Maduro, "close to tears and his voice cracking," breaking "the hardest and most tragic news we could transmit to our people." The Times not only quoted him, but crying retiree Andres Mejia proclaimed, "He's the best president in history.
... Look at how emotional I am — I'm crying. I cannot accept the president's death. But the revolution will continue with Maduro."
Reporter William Neuman credited the left-wing dictator for having "changed Venezuela in fundamental ways, empowering and energizing millions of poor people who had felt marginalized and excluded."
Here's another contrast from PBS. In 2006, the NewsHour turned to John Irvine, a correspondent for Britain's ITV: "In Santiago, none of the flags are at half-mast, because officialdom here has no interest in marking the passing of Augusto Pinochet. But these on the other hand are die-hard supporters, waiting in the hot sun to file past their hero and thank him for their affluence. For the most part, they are well-off well-wishers for whom Pinochet could do no wrong. But in truth, Pinochet was a polarizer, and these demonstrators are from the other [leftist] end of the spectrum. ... At times, they clashed with the police, for while they are delighted he's gone, they're also frustrated he cheated the hangman over his many human rights violations."
For Chavez, the same show turned again to a British network, ITN, for a very different spin from Matt Frei, with no mention of Chavez opponents: "This feels less like a funeral and more like a celebration of immortality. And every time the camera passes, the exhausted faithful, who have been waiting on their feet for 24 hours, play their part, all this despite the soaring heat. ... Immortality is the rarest of compliments, and for this crowd, Chavez has joined the top three. What they are saying is that the three most important people in their lives, all dead, are Jesus Christ, Simon Bolivar and now Hugo Chavez."
PBS broadcasts that Pinochet "cheated the hangman" and that Chavez resembles Jesus Christ. There's your American tax dollars at work, hailing a man who despised and smeared America on a daily basis.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM
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Sir;...Now you reveal your fear of democracy, the terror that the poor may assert some control in their own lives and take back what is theirs from those who take it from them...There is a real danger in democracy... When the Greeks took back power from the Oligarchs so many centuries ago it was with an agreement that there would be no reprisals, no blood feuds, and Socrates who had given the Oligarchs such moral support was one of its few victims, mostly because he did not have the sense to keep his mouth shut...I will not say that Philosophy's martyr died for me... I understand his aversion to a democracy that left so much to chance, but on the other hand, their democracy had checks and balances as ours does not, and a ratio in its supreme body of 250 to 1 and we cannot afford that level of democracy in our age, and so pay a far greater price in failed government...
Can you imagine trying your highest body as if so many criminals at the end of their terms... We judge them first without penalty, and they judged them later with penalty...Our powerlessness as a people in regard to our government is exactly the reason our rich and our officials try so hard to export our form of government... Where ever our rich may decide to set up shop they want to do so with impunity such as our substantive due process gives to them here...
I would never allow such due process to business...I would allow them no human rights... Every corporation would have to act with open books... Why should the people allow any organization besides their government to exist that does not profess and practice a pure public purpose of good??? If you tell me that you want to form an organization that benefits off the public, out of their weakness, their needs, or misused desires; then you belong in prison... Government should protect people from other people who would combine against them, and not support those who combine against them...
There was a time when we allowed property rights in human suffering... What choice had we??? To have a defective unity we had to allow immorality, and when North and South had gathered their strength sufficiently we settled an issue that would have once, and nearly did tear us to pieces...Yet, we did not settle it completely, and left the contest with property privilages even stronger and more entrenched, with government less able against the rich to find justice for the citizen...Democracy denied, as we have it, is not democracy...
The democracy of Chavez will not last unless some charismatic figure like himself can carry it forward... What the man stood for we would as soon stamp out... If you hate him, you must hate all who voted for him, a majority of the people... How hard can that be for one who who brags on the fact of family having resisted the Mexican revolution... As bad as things are there, no one can say they are as bad as when revolution became necessary...When you see the pitiful way that people struggle against injustice, and the forces arrayed against justice with force of arms and superior technology, it is some kind of wonder that any one anywhere should have the experience of revolution... True democracy is so hated because it is revolution in action; because it makes change so possible, and make all redress of grievance possible without violence that all good people abhore...
Our government was never democracy, but the sabotage of democracy...
It was the vastness of this land and our plentiful resources, as well as the ability of people to affect government through their representatives that has kept this society ticking in spite of manifold injustices... Now that it is clear that government is not the cure, but an impediment to justice, and now that clearly we are being fed upon by people who have made themselves our masters, we have no choice but democracy whether you hate it or not...
I would really like to believe that it is possible for people to achieve democracy without the help of charismatic leaders, and that sort of democracy would be more enduring... Many have looked forward to the death of Chavez with a hope bordering on mania... If those people in that land know what they are about, they will teach their rich that the people are better than they, and that even the poorest among us has a right to the commonwealth, and more than that, has each of us the will and the sense to decide for ourselves what future we will vote for...
If those people ever go back to the old ways, they are foolish indeed... If they do not lower the rich, and teach the rich the lessons of humility and honor that poverty teaches the willing, they are undone... If they leave the rich their fortunes and leave them fretting and pouting about their lost crowns, they are only asking for trouble, because intrigue will be their sole entertainment until they have once again become masters...
We can see in our own revolution how fragile it was, and how essential we once felt it -to export revolution in order to have it's defense general... We can see how our rich sabotaged our aims during Englands war with Napoleon, and how the rich traded with Britain during our war or 1812 that was a resounding defeat for democracy denied... Dollars have no loyalty, and profit has no patriotism...Where ever revolution has raised its head we have built a wall around it, and starved it out, and we will try to do this more and more now that Chavez is gone... The only problem for our rich is that having exported capitalism and American-nondemocracy to the world, we are broken by the defense of it against those people injured by it, by what is essentially colonialsim...We can attack Venezuala, and may even defeat them; but we cannot defeat the failure of democracy here, for the wide spread poverty so much a symptom of failed democracy...
The people with the least reason at this point to hate the government are beginning to resist the government, and they are forcing their representatives into postures of nullification... Further; many among the middle class, seeing their economic position slipping are ready to take up arms against the government that will not help them... They may still blame the poor, but they also hold the situation as the fault of government... They are not a force for democracy; but in demanding the power to resist injustice as they see it, they clearly are democratically minded; and those are the people the government should crush before crushing Venezuala...The idea of our government going to war one more time when that only means greater poverty for the people, and going against popular democracy as well, will be hard for any one with any sense to take...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:19 AM
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