Big lie technique alive and well on CBC’s Power and Politics...or at least a lot of ignorance is.

Canada’s CBC talk show, Power and Politics, hosted by Vassy Kapelos, demonstrated yesterday (Friday, February 01, 2019) the usage of the big lie technique for disseminating news about Venezuela. At the same time, some of it could be simple ignorance, stating an supposed ‘fact’ when that simply is not the case. The Power and Politics panel are mostly frequent pundits on the show, but are not necessarily experts on anything but their own opinions,.

It started with comments rather interestingly concerning Canada’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, wanting to “legitimate an American stance”. This was combined with comments about an “emerging international” consensus against Maduro. Also included in the discussion were the usual comments about a “barely functioning democracy” and how the Chavistas have “driven this country into the ground.” Further it was noted that anyone against government change was not “on the side of democracy.”

All well and good except for a full lack of context and some outright lies, mainly by dissimulation. The missing context includes the several decades of U.S. interference in Venezuela’s affairs. An attempted and sort of successful coup against Chavez in 2002 was backed by the U.S. with its contacts with the right wing backers of the coup. Sanctions placed on Venezuela have restricted its ability to work through the U.S. dominated and controlled global financial network.

The U.S.’s main interest is not the people of Venezuela nor democracy. It is, as per John Bolton, access to Venezuela’s oil and other mineral riches currently denied to U.S.corporations. If the U.S. was truly interested in democracy, the Saudi tribal theocracy would have gone long ago - but in reference to oil, it is Saudi oil supporting the U.S. petrodollar so no need to worry about democracy.

Another big lie technique is the argument an “emerging international consensus” or as stated even more unequivocally by PM Trudeau last night, Maduro was illegitimate “in the eyes of the world.” Perhaps the ‘Five Eyes’, but not Italy, or Greece, or Turkey - all EU and NATO compatriots - nor in the eyes of China, Russia, India, Mexico, Uruguay (the latter being the most democratic South American country) and many others, comprising more than half the world’s population. But what’s a few billion people statistically speaking….

Later in the show, Kapelos hosted Eric Farnsworth, a former U.S. State Department employee, currently Vice President of the Council of the Americas. This council is comprised of ex-politicos and many business men and women from the financial, energy, mining, manufacturing, media, technology, and transportation corporations. Included among its notables is John D. Negroponte, the Honduran ambassador who ignored Honduras’ human rights abuses while targeting the Guatemalan government with the Contras.

To his credit, Farnsworth did not beat the drums by advocating military action, but did reiterate the “all options” mantra of the U.S. government, and then qualified that by saying he thought military action was “unlikely”. However, when questioned about U.S.history in the region - and as any well read person knows the CIA, covert operators, and militaries and paramilitaries trained at WHINSEC have attacked in different ways just about every country in Latin America - he acknowledged that yes “we do have a history” without specifying any of it. He then backtracked and said we “must separate from history” due to the nature of the problems in Venezuela.

Unfortunately that “history” gives full lie to the democracy arguments as indicated immediately above, all democratic governments in Latin America that have worked to have an independent foreign policy and to control their own resources, and to use them to benefit the people and not the corporations, have been overthrown by the U.S.

Greg Grandin’s “Empire’s Workshop - Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism” Metropolitan (Henry Holt & Co.), New York, 2006, is a good starter reference for this along with most material from the late William Blum, but especially “Killing Hope - U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.” Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 1995.

Farnsworth’s final comments concerned the Lima Group - a group of nations all having recently been turned over by U.S. actions of some sort, except Colombia which has been a long standing war base for U.S. operations in the region. Canada was lightly praised as it “plays an important role” in actions against Venezuela, which is to say it supports the U.S.empire in its quest to control the oil resources of the world (among other resources) in order to sustain the highly indebted U.S. petrodollar.

Thus the CBC continues its editorial policy of supporting the U.S. in its global desires. Every now and then it advertises itself, as in a recent spot saying, “when there are multiple sides to a story, we cover them all.” Only in Edwin Abbott’s “Flatland”.

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