US Corporate Media Needs Democratic Intervention | Media Critiques |Axisoflogic.com

Photo: AFP

A Washington Post editorial on Venezuela is revealing in unintended ways. The hypocrisy and imperial arrogance of the editorial calling for “political intervention“ in Venezuela has already received some forceful responses, but it is worth highlighting the editorial’s claim that “as human rights groups have extensively documented, most of that bloodshed, including 43 deaths, was committed by the regime’s security forces” during violent protests in 2014.

The Post editors backed up this claim by linking to a Wall Street Journal article that vaguely says “human rights groups say the deaths were mostly caused by the state security forces.”

Human Rights Watch shares Washington Post's imperial assumptions and is very biased against Venezuela.

No human rights groups were named that make that claim, but to the Post editors this shows that something is “extensively documented”. Human Rights Watch, a group that totally shares the Post’s imperial assumptions and is very biased against Venezuela and other left governments in the region, was only willing to allege in a report that “security forces and armed pro-government gangs have been responsible for some of the killings.”

Reuters journalists on the ground in Venezuela did a very detailed investigation and made no conclusion about who caused most of the deaths. Reuters reported that “Eight of the dead appear to be reliably identified as opposition supporters, and five as pro-government. In the other cases, the victims' political affiliations are in dispute and hard to prove.” It added that “Eight members of the forces have been killed, all but one of whom were National Guard troops shot while taking down barriers, according to the government.”

Reuters confirmed that at least eight government troops were shot dead while taking down barricades.

Reuters also reported something that contrasts very markedly with what would have happened in the United States under similar circumstances: “Prosecutors have attributed five deaths to members of the security forces and 17 are under arrest for crimes including brutality, torture and murder.”

In fact, in 2015 a National Guardsman was sentenced to an eighteen year prison term for killing a fourteen year old during protests that took place a year after the ones in 2014.

In the United States, where police frequently kill unarmed people, including children, and don’t even get charged with a crime, do we need to guess what would happen if numerous police and bystanders were killed by a foreign funded movement openly calling for the ouster of the US government?

Setting aside the Post’s inability to name any, there may be “human rights groups” dishonest enough to say that the Venezuelan government caused most of the protest-related deaths in 2014, but when a corporate outlet like Reuters is unwilling to make such a claim, it should make people very skeptical about any “human rights groups” that would.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a Washington DC based group that takes no money from any government, published a detailed list of people who died during the 2014 protests and how they died. Only seven people on that list may be identified as anti–government protesters, an even that subset includes a few that could be disputed. CEPR found that “Over 10 individuals have reportedly been killed by crashing into barricades, from wires strung across streets by protesters and in some cases from having been shot trying to remove barricades.” Many of the victims were bystanders whose political affiliation was far from certain.

U.S. corporate media requires democratic intervention to stop it from normalizing poisonous, irrational and dishonest discourse.

Bill Moyers pointed out that in the six month period before the 2003 invasion of Iraq “The Washington Post would editorialize in favor of the war at least 27 times." Taking any care with facts, or just having a sense of decency, is simply not something to expect of the Post editors. It is something that generalizes to so much of corporate media in the United States.

It largely explains why the U.S. political class is now saddled with a major embarrassment like Donald Trump. Even if that raving, know nothing bigot falls short in his quest for the U.S. presidency, his campaign has dramatically exposed the utter lunacy of calls for U.S. intervention anywhere. The U.S. corporate media requires democratic intervention led by U.S. citizens to stop it from normalizing political discourse so poisonous , irrational and dishonest that one can’t help but fear a drift towards fascism.

Source URL