New press regulation won't curtail liberal media deceit

Much proprietorial indignation and editorial concern has been expressed over new powers about to be granted to an 'independent' press regulator.

Yet while the post-Leveson deal struck by the three main parties and pressure group Hacked Off gives seeming protection against unreasonable or invasive reportage, it's a sideshow to the greater issue of liberal media distortion and the system-sustaining function of papers like the Guardian.

Indeed, it's darkly ironic of the liberal press's own sense of self-importance that, while welcoming the new regulator, it still considers any such scheme a worrying constraint on its own 'vanguard' role against powerful politicians and media owners. 

Typically, the Guardian's Polly Toynbee has been 'handing out' medals to Miliband for leading the charge against Cameron and the press barons, to Clegg for joining with him and to the Guardian, Independent and Financial Times for supporting their endeavours against the wrath of the Sun, Mail, Express and tabloid others.

Also commending Tory rebels and the campaigning Hugh Grant, Toynbee applauds this alliance for pushing Cameron, fearful of a Commons defeat on the issue, to drop his outright rejection of regulation.

Toynbee herself revels in the role of high liberal protector here, berating the hypocrisy of Sun editor Trevor Kavanagh and his associates who have been quoting lofty statements on the loss of core freedoms. In righteous denunciation, Toynbee asserts:

"They set a raucous rightwing news and opinion agenda that distorts the balance of public debate and warps the broadcasters' search for the centre ground."

Thus, we have Toynbee 'guiding us back' towards that 'balanced debate', a 'proper centre-grounded' discussion on press 'rights and responsibilities', proclaiming an outcome that all, Cameron included, can now say will protect the public from unwarranted intrusion.

So, who would reasonably deny that, championed by the likes of Toynbee, a victory of sorts has been realised for public protection from wilful hacking and other personal invasions?

Certainly, those for whom the price of such 'securities' come at the cost of serious free speech. And, as the shadow of state authoritarianism looms ever darker, this is a concern that can't be ignored. 

And yet, it's here we see crusading liberals not just chiding Kavanagh et al but pitching their own righteous roles as principled proponents of moderated freedoms.

While acknowledging the need for new press regulation after the hacking scandals, many liberal editorials have been asking readers if they really want a censored press, one that would, for example, have placed restrictions on reporting the Savile issue.

The Independent, thus, urged a week before the agreement:

"Britain needs a media watchdog that protects individuals and press freedoms alike. That means the industry building bridges and hammering out a compromise – and doing so in public."

And of the actual outcome:

"Given the behaviour of parts of the press over the past few years, and given the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint a judge to shine so unflinching a light on it, something akin to what was agreed yesterday was always the probable outcome. It is not perfect, from the press perspective. But it could have been worse. Now, all the press must put the posturing and face-saving behind it, accept the new system and move on. Most importantly, we must begin to rebuild public trust in journalism."

All seemingly noble, cathartic and cooperative words. Yet, like most of the liberal press, these are stunningly posturing reactions from an organ which has shown little interest in moral, accountable journalism.   

How many of these liberal papers have been seriously reporting the higher, hideous behaviour of this country's politicians and their darkest war crimes?  More particularly, how many are actually campaigning to have the perpetrators indicted? And, testing the real reach of a free and courageous press, how many journalists and editors are ready to discuss the media's complicity in these matters across their own 'freedom-serving' pages?

In a model discussion of Iraq and media servility, the latest Media Lens alert notes, in particular, how the Guardian, Independent and other liberal organs slavishly editorialised 10 years ago in favour or rationalisation of the war, and, even after all the deceit and carnage, still came to protect Blair and his circle.

While Murdoch covets freedom to print celebrity voyeurism, character stripping and other tittle-tattle, 'qualities' like the Guardian warn about the possible spiking of more critical news and comment. While the Guardian seem reconciled to the new regulatory arrangement, underpinned by Royal Charter rather than primary legislation, they maintain 'misgivings' over the potential curtailment of investigative journalism.

Again, all seemingly honourable. But consider that these warnings come from a paper that has launched every kind of personal slur against Julian Assange, that, through reporters like Rory Carroll, have demonised and caricatured Hugo Chavez  and, as noted, has used every opportunity to protect Blair and his coterie.

It's also the same newspaper's editor, Alan Rusbridger, who told how he had forewarned David Cameron about his involvement with Andy Coulson.

Is that the proper role of a 'vanguard, power-monitoring' newspaper? Or does it indicate the kind of political-media clubability that, like this new regulatory agreement, keeps the whole system of power smoothly functioning?

Good media, bad media? Good club, bad club? Good regulation, bad regulation?

The most subtle and effective propaganda is not that which proclaims the 'truth', but that which purports to set the 'choices'; to define the very terms of debate.

Thus, are we fed this narrative-setting 'dilemma' between personal privacy or press freedoms, a liberal tugging of 'morals' and 'rights' which, conveniently, never pulls towards any critical questioning of the corporate-driven media itself.  

Hence, we have Toynbee, in good-media persona, pitching the Miliband-Clegg-Guardian-Indy axis against that of Murdoch, the Mail and sleazy right wing others - a queasy, self-acclaiming posture we saw all throughout Leveson.    

And, in complementary form, Toynbee, Rusbridger, Miliband, Clegg and Hacked Off can all say that Leveson, a strangulated, gentlemanly 'inquiry', was ultimately successful in its remit, findings and recommendations. 

Thus, the liberal media 'debate' becomes a system-reinforcing exercise in itself: authenticating the 'consultative', 'reforming' capacities of token inquiries; praising the parliamentary class for navigating these 'difficult' negotiations; and back-slapping the liberal media for bringing all the 'essential' questions to public light.   

No more effective propaganda boost could the establishment wish for.

Free speech? How insulting

Here's an illuminating tale of state punishment creep from Bethan Tichborne who was convicted for saying that David Cameron "had blood on his hands".

Bethan, a teacher working with disabled children, was arrested, beaten by police and subsequently fined by District Judge Tim Pattinson after protesting the large number of people now dead as a result of the disability cuts enforced by Cameron and his government.

Judge Pattinson said her comments could "hardly be more insulting to anyone, whether a politician or not".

One can, of course, see the particular hurt, distress and career worry Mr Cameron must have felt over such insults. And how reassuring to have this judge's objective and impartial sentencing on such matters. To think of the whining ingratitude of people like Tichborne after all the cost-saving fatalities Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne (with the caring help of ATOS) have helped deliver for the country. Despite all those now dying through the loss of life-sustaining benefits, we just can't have these misguided protesters and other moaning malcontents going around besmirching the good name of our esteemed leaders.

It's rumoured that Tony Blair is greatly encouraged by the ruling and may now use it to sue the many millions who have caused him similar emotional upset and career embarrassment with their scandalous accusations that he's a liar, a money-making opportunist and a war criminal.

Pope Francis and Latin America - identities past and present

Whatever the wider reasoning of cardinals in Rome for the elevation of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to Pope Francis I, it's an appointment of vital significance for Latin America, the world's largest Catholic-populated region.

In particular, the conclave's selection of Bergoglio raises two key questions: one about his past 'pastoral' identity, and a second about how his political identity might now be felt across Latin America.

 

The first relates to his alleged involvement with the Argentinian junta during its 'dirty war' against leftist dissidents, most notably, for Bergoglio, his alleged complicity in the regime's 1976 abduction of two leftist Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, both, as noted at the Guardian:

"seized by navy troops in the slums of Buenos Aires and held and tortured for five months at the ESMA camp, a navy base in the capital where 5,000 people were murdered by the military junta."

The second issue concerns Bergoglio's populist conservatism and how his elevation may be read as an effort to stem the rise of leftist social movements, much of it closely linked to liberation theology, across Latin America. 

 

In a revealing interview, Horicio Verbitsky, the Argentinian journalist, head of human rights group Center for Legal and Social Studies and author of El Silencio - charting Bergoglio's associations with the junta between 1976-83 - has spoken to Democracy Now about both issues.

 

Before outlining the claims of the book, Verbitsky offers his primary view of the new pope: 

"The main thing to understand about Francis I is that he’s a conservative populist, in the same style that John Paul II was. He’s a man of strong conservative positions in doctrine questions, but with a touch for popular taste. He preaches in rail stations, in the streets. He goes to the quarters, the poor quarters of the city to pray. He doesn’t wait the people going into the church; he goes for them. But his message is absolutely conservative."

Verbitsky goes on to discuss the documents he found in the course of his research, incriminating Bergoglio in the surrendering of the two Jesuit priests to the military:

"The first document is a note in which Bergoglio asked the ministry to [renew] the passport of one of these two Jesuits that, after his releasing, was living in Germany, asking that the passport was renewed without necessity of this priest coming back to Argentina. The second document is a note from the officer that received the petition recommending to his superior, the minister, the refusal of the renewal of the passport. And the third document is a note from the same officer telling that these priests have links with subversion—that was the name that the military gave to all the people involved in opposition to the government, political or armed opposition to the military—and that he was jailed in the mechanics school of the navy, and saying that this information was provided to the officer by Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, provincial superior of the Jesuit company. This means, to my understanding, a double standard. He asked the passport given to the priest in a formal note with his signature, but under the table he said the opposite and repeated the accusations that produced the kidnapping of these priests."

Despite strong denials from Bergoglio and new dismissals by the Vatican, both priests,Verbitsky claims, confirmed their accounts of torture and collusion to him, Orlando Yorio, who died in 2000, adding that Bergoglio was party to his interrogation, and Francisco Jalics, still in a German monastery, now reconciled and reticent about pursuing any further case against Bergoglio. 

 

News of Bergoglio's election has sparked much recrimination from many of the families of those tortured and disappeared. Others rationalise Bergoglio's position during the period as 'pragmatic engagement' of the regime rather than outright collaboration. Yet they also concede that he made no courageous effort to defend the priests or voice strong opposition to dictator Jose Rafael Videla. It's a rancour that also affects Bergoglio's relations with Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner who has appeared keen to assist those still in pursuit of those linked to the junta.  

Whatever efforts made by the Vatican and general media to dismiss or excuse Bergoglia's guilt or involvement, such complicity is unlikely to be erased or forgotten, a shadow over his papacy which prompts further suggestions of his appointment as an establishment populist.  

 

Democracy Now presenter Juan Gonzalez goes on, in this regard, to ask Ernesto Seman, an academic historian and former reporter in Argentina, about contextual similarities between the elevation of John Paul II and Francis I:  

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about that, precisely, and the parallels, it seems to me, in terms of the cardinals selecting John Paul II, when he was elevated to pope, he coming out of Poland, where there was a Solidarity movement and in opposition to the previous government, that, in essence, his elevation helped to fortify that movement. I’m wondering whether there’s some parallel now with the changes in Latin America now to the elevation of a very conservative cardinal from that region, might help to bolster forces that are opposed to continuing this enormous change that’s occurring in Latin America.

ERNESTO SEMÁN: You might say so. The problem that you have there is to what extent that’s going to make the gap between the church and the Catholic followers even deeper. In the case of Argentina and some of the social issues that happened over the last decade, you see that in a country that 75 percent of people consider themselves Catholic, has been a strong support to some of the social decisions made by the Kirchner administration that Bergoglio opposed. The last and most important one was the same marriage law—that is, matrimonio igualitario in Argentina, egalitarian marriage.

Bergoglio's opposition to Kirchner on doctrinal issues is not, of course, atypical of wider feelings among the church's cardinals. Like most, he is rigidly opposed to same-sex marriage, abortion, contraception and homosexual relationships - though has, apparently, advocated greater tolerance for the latter.

But the cardinals' choice of Bergoglio also appears to favour the promotion of a politically-moderated social conservatism, particularly for Latin America, in opposition to liberation theology and its associate social movements. Internal to this is the Vatican's negation of Latin American priests working in the same brave, community spirit as Oscar Romero, Bishop of El Salvador, assassinated in 1980 by a CIA-backed death squad. 

 

In these regards, it's telling how much political and media praise Bergoglio has enjoyed in the days of his papal ascendancy compared with the widespread castigation of Hugo Chavez following his death. While Bergoglio approves a kind of 'spiritual' social justice tied to charitable awareness, Chavez championed revolutionary social justice underpinned by decisive economic transformation.

 

Reflecting popular celebration in Buenos Aires, Bergoglio's appointment would appear to confirm a continuity of his affable persona, the much-noted 'common man'. Yet, on both doctrinal and social positions, none of that appears to include any kind of radical agenda. And it's the latter which, in particular rejection of anything Bolivarian, is certain to endear him to Washington and the wider Western elite.  

 

His arrival, for Latin America, even the 'Catholic world' at large, may provide some soothing objections to the harshest neoliberalism while still holding to a conservative market-determinism. As with the Obamafication of politics and social hopes in the US, one might see this as a certain Francisification of social expectations in Latin America. Like 'brand Obama's' pacification of a poor, notably black, underclass, none of Bergoglio's pastoral pacifying of social discontent, again in contrast to that proclaimed by Chavez, will be unwelcome by Wall Street, the IMF or their corporate-vested associates.      

 

As Democracy Now further enquire of the pope's personality and political persuasions:

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Do you have any expectations that, now that he’s been elevated to pope, that he may have some change in his perspectives on some of these issues? Or do you expect him to maintain the same populist conservatism that you say have marked his rise through the church hierarchy?
 

HORACIO VERBITSKY: I do believe that he is a man—he is the man he is, and he will not change. His first days as a pope show perfectly this attitude of humility. He refused the limousine and took the bus. He asked the people to pray for him, instead of praying him for them. These kind of gestures would be common in his tenure as a pope. And it’s possible that he would be revered by the masses because of this different attitude that seems more democratic and less monarchical than that of the former Benedicto XVI.

But in doctrinary questions, he would be tied to conservative [ideas], and this is the thing that I wait. And I believe that he can play, concerning Latin America and the populist governments of the region, the same role that Pope John Paul played against East Europe during the first years of his tenure.
 

AMY GOODMAN: Horacio Verbitsky, do you think that Cardinal Bergoglio would have become Pope Francis if he hadn’t played the role he did during the dirty wars, if he had sided with these two Jesuit priests, who were speaking up for the poor at the time and who were great proponents of liberation theology?
 

HORACIO VERBITSKY: He was against liberation theology. He was a man, during his tenure in the Jesuit company—the publication of the Jesuit company are full of articles, of pieces, against liberation theology. Being among the poor doesn’t mean to be for the poor.

Assaulted by the vast issues of Vatican corruption, paedophilia and other sex scandals, the Catholic hierarchy may now be trusting in the new sweep and renewing force of this incoming pope.

And yet, despite all the celebratory theatre and promoted profile of the political 'outsider', Pope Francis also carries with him this dark, past baggage of insider complicity in regime terror.

It also remains to be seen whether Bergoglio's seeming humility and ease among the marginalised might translate into any more meaningful agenda for social reform.

Perhaps 'repentance', if not confession, of an identity past might be offered up in more evangelical opposition to the unholy junta of Washington and Wall Street.

Yet, for those across Latin America and elsewhere struggling to escape the ravages of neoliberalism and working in liberationist hope of a Chavez-style participatory democracy, there's still little to be inspired by in Bergoglio's words or actions.

Verbitsky's last line here is worth holding to: "Being among the poor doesn’t mean to be for the poor."

 

Iraq and the BBC - 'success or failure'?

Here's a seemingly instructive, compassionate and moving story from the BBC's Kevin Connolly on the suffering victims of Iraq.

Connolly takes us through the terrible pain and disfigurement of US bombing victim Marwa Shimari, her heroic struggle to make a life and the empathy he himself feels for her.

Marwa, just twelve on that fateful day in 2003, lost her right leg. Her sister, Adra, eight, was killed in the bombing.

Expressions of anger towards their Western attackers are noted in the words of an admirable German writer and former politician who gave generously in money and other support in helping Marwa to recover.

Connolly also couples Marwa's story with the near-death experience of US bomber pilot Captain Kim Campbell, still traumatised by her service in Iraq:

"She was brave and resourceful but war is an arbitrary and fickle business - if the ground fire that hit her aircraft had been just a few feet to the right or the left then all that courage and resourcefulness might have counted for nothing. The truth is that Kim Campbell was lucky. Marwa Shimari was not."

He might also have said, more explicitly, that Kim Campbell was part of a criminal bombing campaign, while Marwa Shimari was a direct victim of that crime.

Connolly's compassion for victims like Marwa may be genuine, an expression of basic humanity, but it's also superficial in its resistance to the actual truth of the West's invasion and mass murder.

Aside from the article's shameful evasions on the overall death toll in Iraq - likely to have been in excess of a million victims - Connolly also resorts to this kind of crude distortion:

"It is part of Iraq's tragedy that its oil wealth could easily have been spent on providing top-class hospitals as good as those of Switzerland or Germany or the US. But of course it wasn't. The ramshackle health system provided under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein couldn't cope with the flow of casualties."

As Media Lens asked of this remark:

"Do you think Connolly has any idea what the 1991 Gulf War and US-UK-led sanctions from 1990-2003 did to the Iraqi health service?" (ML message board, 12 March 2013.)

There's also classic understatement from Connolly on the depth of opposition to the West's invasion and killing:

"The Iraq war had always been controversial in Europe - even in Britain which was part of the coalition that sent troops to fight. That political scepticism - and a profound sense of shock at the devastation that modern warfare brings - quickly translated into an impulse to do something to help the people of Iraq." (Italics added.)

Remember, this was a war defiantly opposed by millions on the streets of Britain, Europe and across the world.

And with this vacuity of facts and absence of blame, Connolly's concluding words on the invasion underline his betrayal of Marwa and the suffering others of Iraq:

Ten years on from the invasion of Iraq, there is a huge temptation to try to judge whether the intervention was a success or a failure - a temptation to which we are certainly not immune.

And it is possible to make a couple of simple observations about how life is returning to the streets of Baghdad, where there are new restaurants and new car showrooms, and a new sense of normality in many places, much of the time.

But judging the outcome of military interventions like the allied invasion of 2003 will take many years. Certainly far more than 10.

A "success or a failure"? How many times have we heard that queasy, power-supporting question posed by liberal-leaning journalists, especially from the BBC?

The very premise behind such comments suggest that while reporters like Connolly may feel compassion for victims like Marwa, they are also deeply complicit in mystifying and disguising the true, premeditated nature of the West's "intervention" and the specific crimes of the perpetrators.

It needn't take ten minutes, never mind ten years or more, to work out the simple truth of an historic war crime. But Connolly hides behind a deceitful BBC 'etiquette' of 'impartial' reflection and supposed 'balance', never once, clearly and unequivocally, denouncing the guilty.

Compassion for victims like Marwa require more than human sympathy, empathy or elucidatioin of their suffering. It requires the courage, the journalistic integrity, to say on their behalf, and in a spirit of proactive care, that Blair, Bush and the rest of their murderous circle are directly responsible and should be on trial for high war crimes.

Ten years on, as the rest of its feeble, apologetic coverage has shown, the BBC is still in complicit denial of such basic truths.

The Western powers and their corporate clients didn't 'fail' in Iraq, they did precisely what they intended and got all the essential things they went after, including the murder and chaotic disintegration of a society.

As with Connolly's lame, liberal and ultimately mendacious pondering on the West's "success or failure" in Iraq, neither should this article on that country's suffering people be judged a "success or failure". It's actually a journalistic disgrace and a moral crime in itself.

BBC-speak and an antidote from Thomson

Another neat example of state and service media speaking as one voice on the selective denunciation of murder.

In reporting the execution of seven foreign construction workers in Nigeria, one British, at the hands of Jama'atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Bidalis Sudan (Ansaru), the BBC gave headline prominence to UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, announcing that:

Mr Hague condemned the killings as "an act of pure, cold-blooded murder".

And with that headline delivery, the BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner elaborated on the perpetrators, a splinter faction of "violent Islamist group Boko Haram", itself a franchise of Al-Qaeda.

Charting the escalation of its campaign in Nigeria, Gardner concluded:

"It's clear that Al-Qaeda's terror tactic of kidnapping for propaganda has spread south from the Sahara to take root in Nigeria."

What wasn't clear from the BBC's coverage or Gardner's 'analysis' was any key context for this upsurge: notably, the backlash against Western interventionist forces and the murderous conditions they have helped promote in states like Algeria, Mali and others in the region.

While the origins and 'motivations' of Ansaru were noted by Gardner, any headline message that their violence is largely in response to the West's own violent engagement across Africa was carefully elided, particularly in Gardner's 'specialist' summations on the main news bulletins.

Gardner's labelling of 'violent Islamic fanatics' may seem reasonably accurate to many viewers - how attuned we now seem to such banner media language. And who, in true humanity, could not share in simple sympathy for the victims or feel appalled by the killings?

Yet, imagine Gardner or any other mainstream correspondent speaking of Blair, Bush, Cameron or Obama as 'violent Western fanatics', or asking us to consider their executive orders as "[acts] of pure, cold-blooded murder".

Consider the possibility of Gardner offering background detail not just on the "violent Islamist group Boko Haram", but the 'violent expansionist force, Nato'.

The very idea of calling Nato something like 'the terrorist arm of Western governments' seems utterly unthinkable for most reporters - and, largely because of that, for most of the public.

So, it's heartening to come across a notable journalist saying almost these precise words.

In a short but commendable Channel 4 blog piece, chief correspondent Alex Thomson provides that very rarest of mainstream media offerings: serious criticism of selected, loaded and plainly biased media language.

In particular, Thomson asks, who gets to decide the difference between "murder" and "killing"?:

An old debate given new life this morning by a curious tweet from an experienced BBC Correspondent commenting on the latest killings in Afghanistan. Killings…note that word. 

Curious because he describes the deaths of children and civilians as “murder”.

It’s an odd word to choose and in the context of a war fought by some Afghans against foreign occupation, a loaded one. In the context of any war, a loaded one.

Murder is a crime. Killing is an act of war. You do not find the BBC calling NATO’s latest killing of women and children in Afghanistan “murder”.

Never.

So it underlines the need for careful and more objective terms when covering the brutal business of premeditated killing – aka warfare. The NATO drone operator in the Nevada desert is just a[s] much a premeditated killer as the insurgent suicide bomber pressing the button on Kabul’s ever-congested Jalalabad Road or wherever.

Again, remarkable comment, indeed, given the almost blanket absence of journalists able to even comprehend calling our state leaders and their operatives things like "premeditated killers".

Thomson goes on to question the selective application of that other media favourite, "militant":

Of course the debate goes further. “Militant” is routinely used in the mainstream media to describe people (usually Muslims at the moment) killed by the west.

But if the reporter sees these people as “militants” what does that say about the reporter’s position on the story? Well it says they have one for starters – and it’s broadly sympathetic to western extra-judicial killing.

The word implies some kind of justification for targeting; acceptance at face value of what’s being spun; and just a hint thereby that the target is slightly dehumanised in the word – a ‘militant’, not a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ and militant to whom?

And, with the standard synonym for "militant" being "terrorist", who, Thomson asks, should get to apply that designation:

It goes more widely. Are the founders of Israel “terrorists”? Or Nelson Mandela and the ANC? Or the French government blowing up Greenpeace’s ship in a New Zealand harbour? Or the British colluding with Loyalist killers? Or Mossad killing its enemies across the globe? Or the Americans in Iraq? Or…? Or…?

Of course, what's published at a Channel 4 blog piece, even by that outlet's chief correspondent, still lacks the mass exposure of BBC headlining and the staged 'gravitas' of 'security' correspondents like Gardner.

But, perhaps encouraged by such pieces and, inter alia, the maturing of an alternative, independent media that's forever speaking such rational truths, a few other journalists may now feel a little less inhibited in calling Western invasions, drone attacks and other such aggressions the murderous terror acts they really are.

Chavez and left-liberal media - not so independent journalism

The media vilification of Hugo Chavez goes relentlessly on, fuelled, in significant part, by damning liberal 'eulogies' at Channel 4 News, the Guardian and the Independent. 

Jonathan Rugman's Channel 4 News piece did everything possible to paint Chavez the "socialist firebrand" and his social achievements as somehow compromised by his associations with "despots and dictators". 

Martin Kettle's Guardian article, 'Chávez will continue to inspire – but not in Europe', pursued the same pernicious line, damning him with the very faintest of 'praise':

'By the same token, it is a mistake to concentrate on Chávez's strutting and narcissistic populism to the exclusion of all the other aspects of his presidency. And it is even wrong to judge him solely as an abuser of human rights, a hoarder of power, an intimidator of opponents and a rejecter of international covenants and critics.'

 There was also Kettle's 'sage' byline:

'If I had been Venezuelan, I would have voted for this charismatic figure. But a British equivalent wouldn't get my support'

So, it's radical indulgence for the Latin American masses, but, 'very sensibly', not for us. The poverty of liberal inspiration laid bare.

But it's the Independent Editorial: 'Hugo Chavez - an era of grand political illusion comes to an end' which, perhaps, takes top prize (at the moment) for most savage indictment from a 'left-liberal' newspaper:   'Mr Chavez was no run-of-the-mill dictator. His offences were far from the excesses of a Colonel Gaddafi, say. What he was, more than anything, was an illusionist – a showman who used his prodigious powers of persuasion to present a corrupt autocracy fuelled by petrodollars as a socialist utopia in the making. The show now over, he leaves a hollowed-out country crippled by poverty, violence and crime. So much for the revolution.' It's on these occasions, as with the case for 'liberal intervention', that organs like the Independent come into their vital own.  One might think that the need to defend people like Chavez could barely be possible without also focusing on the main medium of such charges: the media itself.  It would be akin to discussing the power of the Nazi system without mentioning its propaganda arm. So, why the seeming poverty of such pieces criticising media output on Chavez? Indeed, why the apparent absence of any such major debate at large on the constraints of liberal-left journalists within the liberal media?  Owen Jones is a regular leftist contributor to the pages of the Independent, and has also published a supportive piece on Chavez at its pages, including this reminder: "And then there is the matter of some of Chavez's unpleasant foreign associations. Although his closest allies were his fellow democratically elected left-of-centre governments in Latin America – nearly all of whom passionately defended Chavez from foreign criticism – he also supported brutal dictators in Iran, Libya and Syria. It has certainly sullied his reputation. Of course, we in the West can hardly single out Chavez for unsavoury alliances. We support and arm dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia; Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair is paid $13 million a year to work for Kazakhstan's dictatorship. But our own hypocrisy does not absolve Chavez of criticism." While extolling Chavez, Jones seems to think himself 'fairly honest' in confronting the president's engagement of "brutal dictators". In this vein, it's reasonable to think that the Independent's own attack on Chavez would be something equally exercising Jones's open sensibilities. In a vibrant Twitter exchange (selected comments noted), Owen Jones was initially asked by Media Lens what he thought of the Independent's editorial piece on Chavez: ML: Do you have any views on this Independent editorial? How about the final paragraph? OJ: My view on Hugo Chavez is abundantly clear from the two articles I've written for the Indy. Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman came to Jones's defence: MH: sorry in which world is it acceptable for employees to publicly attack or critique their employers? Do you guys not have bosses?? ML: No, we don't have bosses, owners, oligarchs, advertisers, or wealthy philanthropist donors. We're independent. How about you? MH: that's not fair! He didn't write it and he shouldn't have to slag off his own employers. Live in the real world pls. ML: We're pointing out that in 'the real world' 'free press' journalists are not free to criticise current or potential employers. And, amongst other contributors and exchanges, my own enquiry to Jones:

JH: Stay with question: what do you have to say about your paper publishing this editorial? 

OJ: I self-evidently disagree with its content as anyone reading my pieces would know 

JH: Any more on what's stopping you from saying so on Indy pages itself? This the key point

OJ: So as well as printing my views on Chavez I have to print attacks on Indy in the Indy?! 

JH: So rampant propaganda to be ignored? When will 'hosted journos' wake up to giant eleph[ant] 

OJ: I've combatted lies about Chavez. In the pages of the Indy. 

JH: Yes, but denouncing Indy and other media assaults on Chavez is also vital right now

There is much reasonable discussion to be had here on just how difficult it is to 'bite the hand that feeds' and the ways in which leftist writers, albeit worthy, provide 'fig-leaf' cover for the corporate/liberal media.

But there's one particular sentiment from Jones here worth noting, namely his apparent incredulity that he could even conceive of attacking the "Indy in the indy?!" Such are the well understood parameters not only of such media arrangements, but of much left radical engagement.

Taking the Independent on directly, writer and activist Joe Emersberger sent this fine letter:

RE: Editorial: Hugo Chavez - an era of grand political illusion comes
to an end

Dear Independent editors:

This editorial states

"Mr Chavez was no run-of-the-mill dictator. His offences were far from
the excesses of a Colonel Gaddafi, say. What he was, more than
anything, was an illusionist – a showman who used his prodigious powers
of persuasion to present a corrupt autocracy fuelled by petrodollars as
a socialist utopia in the making. The show now over, he leaves a
hollowed-out country crippled by poverty, violence and crime. So much
for the revolution. "

Chavez was not a dictator and Venezuela is not an autocracy. The very
editorial where this ludicrous claim is made also concedes that

"True, he retained considerable popular support, winning no fewer than
four elections, all with comfortable majorities..."

Does the Independent now have a new definition of "dictator" and
"autocracy" it is withholding from everyone else on earth?

If so please explain how your definition does not apply to Tony Blair
and the UK government whose crimes, by the way, EXCEEDED those that can
be credibly blamed on Gaddafi.

The Independent also called former Haitian president Jean Bertrand
Aristide a "dictator" the day after he was overthrown in a US led coup
on February 29, 2004.

Your newspaper has provided highly revealing lessons in how the
"liberal" media reinforces the lies and assumptions of the far right
Murdoch press.

I'm sure there are employees within the autocratic Independent who are
quite disgusted by this editorial. They will not publicly express such
a view which shows why the word "autocratic" does accurately describe
your newspaper.

Joe Emersberger  

If only many journalists, even those defending Chavez, could be as open and searching in their evaluations.

From climate destruction to interventionist warmongering, from the protection of Western war criminals to the demonisation of Western enemies, the liberal media are playing a key role in the promotion of the corporate-political consensus. Why isn't that up for serious, emergency discussion for writers like Jones? Why is that lumbering elephant in the room still being ignored?   

 

Chavez - media savaging in life and death

As in life, so in death. The sad passing of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez at 58 has been marked by another intensive wave of media distortion.

Chavez, so we've been variously told, was "divisive", "autocratic", a "demagogue" and a "tyrant", an "egotistical, bombastic and polarising" leader of Venezuela's "socialist state machine".   

One can but imagine the same kind of language being used for marking the passing of Tony Blair, George Bush and others who really did carry out mass crimes against humanity.

And where would we ever likely read in our media such overt or implied criticism of a Western country's "neoliberal state machine"?

Chavez's greatest 'transgression', it seems, was to try wresting his and associate countries away from that cruel orthodoxy, a truly heroic endeavour which corporate journalists can only, it appears, mock and savage.

Besides the standard denunciations of Chavez from right wing and corporate quarters, much more insidious comment has flowed from the 'balancing' side of the liberal media.

Channel 4 News, thus, spoke of grieving Venezuelans who "for the last 14 years, have been governed under his cult of personality."

On Twitter, Jon Snow also lamented that while Chavez had done much for the poor, he had alienated the middle classes, thus, rendering him a 'divisive' figure.

Rarely in such narratives do we hear of the legitimate task that Chavez, Venezuela's poor and the Bolivarian revolution at large has faced in countering that Western-promoted middle class, or of that section's attempts to hold the economy to ransom - as in the 2002 management strike to halt the country's oil nationalisation - or of the massive political and economic pressure brought to bear against Chavez by a hateful US and its international friends.

Repeating a more visceral disdain for Chavez the man, Guardian correspondent Rory Carroll  provides ready amplification of such seething middle class animosities in his piece, 'After Chávez's funeral, who gets Venezuela's poisoned chalice?'

Typically, from other liberal observers, we read that the Bolivarian revolution has 'failed', that, though massively diminished, poverty is still prevalent, that crime is still rampantly high and so on. Much of that may be true, for a variety of deep economic and social reasons. Yet, what really underlies this animus towards the revolution is not just a checklist on Chavez's alleged underachievements, but a deeper liberal unease over any kind of programme that deviates from basic capitalist rules, 'spooks' markets or upsets the Washington/Wall Street consensus.

This liberal power-serving view is classically evident in Simon Tisdall's Guardian piece, 'Death of Hugo Chávez brings chance of fresh start for US and Latin America', with its deceitful efforts to both caricature Chavez and sanitise Washington.

From the title, the reader is to presume that Latin America has languished in the political-economic doldrums because of 'awkward radicals' like Chavez. Tisdall, thus, speaks of:

"Latin American states whose relations with Washington were adversely affected by Chávez's politics of polarisation".

Tisdall also writes regretfully of:

 "...Obama, whose first term, after a promising start, ended up perpetuating Washington's historical neglect of Latin America..."

As Media Lens note (via Facebook):

"What a truly repugnant whitewash of decades - centuries - of invasion, exploitation, installing and propping up brutal rulers and dictators, complicity in mass human rights abuses. It almost beggars belief that a supposedly knowledgeable journalist would encapsulate all that with the odious phrase, 'historical neglect'. I'm pretty sure this is not the first time he's done that."

And so, for Tisdall, Venezuela and other Latin American states now have the chance to renounce this 'wayward' socialist experiment and come back into the safe protection of Obama and prevailing market rules.

Thus, the political and media attack on Chavez is not just poisonous headlining 'journalism', but part of a rearguard check on anything seen as economically radical or socially redistributive; in sum, anything that challenges neoliberal nostrums and corporate hegemony.

Beyond liberal and corporate media accounts, reliable, independent alternative sites are documenting Chavez's real achievements and the context of hostile forces aligned against the revolution. We're unlikely to hear in the mainstream media, for example, that Chavez helped turn Venezuela into the most equal country in Latin America.

We need not deify Hugo Chavez to recognise his key contributions to the onward making of such radical alternatives.  In the end, Chavez can be judged for the many things he did relentlessly stand up for: the poorest in the Venezuelan barrios, for a Latin American bulwark to crude neoliberalism, for occupied Palestinians and for the millions more threatened by Western 'interventions' and wars of aggression. 

RIP

Hugo

Chavez