US Planning Fourth Attempt To Oust Hugo Chavez

ZNet | Venezuela

US Planning Fourth Attempt To Oust Hugo Chavez
by Stephen Lendman; April 18, 2006
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=10113§ionID=45

This essay has a dual purpose. I began it initially to explain how sophisticated and effective the dominant corporate media is in programming the public mind to believe whatever message they deliver regardless of whether it’s true which it rarely is. I chose the title Reeducation 101 - Defogging and Reversing the Corporate Media’s Programming of the Public Mind which I’m now using as the heading of my introductory section. Along with that discussion, I then planned a detailed case study example of how they’re doing it by demonizing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias with a building and resonating drumbeat of invective in advance of the US government’s fourth attempt to oust him. That discussion follows my introductory section.

REEDUCATION 101 - DEFOGGING AND REVERSING THE CORPORATE MEDIA’S PROGRAMMING OF THE PUBLIC MIND

Does any reader of online progressive web sites still watch, listen to or read anything from the corporate media? If so, how do you stand it without having a good supply of stomach soothers and strong headache relief handy. I thought most everyone with enough smarts and common sense understood that this collective institutional juggernaut’s mission is to sedate and seduce us - a sort of one, two punch. They mostly do it with diverting and distracting entertainment. Is that what it’s called? You ’coulda fooled me with what’s on all my 300 + cable channels I don’t watch except when I go to bed and need something mind numbing to make me sleepy. The only reason I have them all is I live in a building that subscribes to the cable service, and everyone gets them, like it or not.

Except for three classical music channels without talk or commercials I love, everything in their lineup is a vast wasteland, especially what passes for so-called "news and information" by the on-air names you know well and I needn’t list. They’re all an assault on our sensibilities in their all out effort to fog our minds with round the clock propaganda, lies, distortion and sanitizing. What they do isn’t journalism, it’s stenography. And what they don’t report is usually more important than what they do. They know, as does our government, that if all or enough of us understood what’s really happening, not the rot and mush they fill our heads with, there’d be a revolution in the streets. How could the public with full knowledge of what our government is up to ever go along since all of it only benefits the rich and powerful and does it at our expense.

The mind manipulation and thought control comes at us from all directions in print and on the airwaves. In the US (and really the world) the newspaper known as the "Gray Lady" and referred to as "the newspaper of record" leads the way - the New York Times. I call them a US "Pravda." They’re the closest thing we have in this country to an official ministry of information and propaganda. They’ve been going at it for over 150 years, and nobody does it better or with more influence. Remember Judith Miller and her daily WMD scare reports.....straight from the White House and Pentagon in final copy printable form. The Times calls this "all the news that’s fit to print." You don’t not want to hear what I call it, but this newspaper has clout around the world. Whatever lead stories they report get picked up and are spread almost everywhere. Especially here on TV where the state of our news, information and trumpeting punditry assault our nerve endings. Those who run it and report on it never met a piece ofstate propaganda they didn’t love and want to tell us about ad nauseam - in between frequent 5 minute long commercial breaks trying to sell us everything we don’t need and never knew we wanted until they told us.

A noted US media critic once said about them "they have everything to sell and nothing to tell." And I heard noted British journalist Robert Fisk say on air to an interviewer commenting on the dismal state of our corporate media that "you really have a problem in this country." He meant the dominant media is so corrupted and complicit with US policies hostile to the public interest and welfare here and abroad that we have a desperate need for an effective antidote to their poison. Amen.

There’s even a flood of material on TV called "video news releases" or VNRs. Now get this. These are all government agency produced propaganda releases or corporate commercials disguised as real news - but you’re not supposed to know it. What they all are is "fake news." There’s a ton of this stuff all over the airwaves. The TV networks and local stations love ’em because they all come pre-packaged and free of charge, saving all that production time and cost. Then combine that with all the rest of TV news, information and punditry and it’s enough to drive a teetotaler to drink or worse. You have to get away from this stuff, and I’ll tell you how. It’s not that hard - just turn off your TV and cancel your corporate owned newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Call a friend instead, visit a neighbor, talk to your wife or husband, spend time with your kids. You’ll discover a whole new world. You may even get to love it. Also, spend more time online in the right places, like the web site you’re now reding this on, and start to read a little - most important, the right things.

THE RIGHT PATH TO FOLLOW IS STRAIGHT AHEAD

My purpose in writing this column is to provide an antidote to those of you still victimized by and under the spell of the scourge of corporate media mind control (too many I know). You’re in their prison of your own mind. I’ve got the key, and if you want your freedom back, follow me into the light of day and fresh air with an unnamed case study example of one of the victims who wrote to the editor of another noted and superb web site I write commentaries for. The editor asked me to respond, and I did. What follows below is that response reworked to apply to all others with similar views to the letter writer.

For those of you who want to come along and happen to be ex-smokers like I am (for the last 31 years), remember how much sweeter life became once you kicked the habit and could go a whole day without coughing and wheezing. And you no longer got short of breath every time you walked up a flight of stairs either. For me it was like being reborn. For the many of you unafflicted by the poison of the media giants, read on just for the fun of it. I’ll respond to my case study victim and others like him and try to save them from themselves. I’ll also cover what he addressed in his letter response - what the US may be up to in the ongoing very real soap opera pitting this country against Hugo Chavez.

A CASE STUDY - I’LL CALL MY SUBJECT MR. X

This response is for Mr. X and all the others who think like him. This man wrote a critical letter about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to the web site editor I referred to above. In it he claimed he hadn’t run across any reports about Chavez and Venezuela for a long time, but then went on to label him with a string of vicious and baseless epithets. In my response to him, I asked where was he getting his information other than from those reports he said he hadn’t run across.

Of course, there’s been a steady drumbeat of anti-Chavez rhetoric in the corporate media that even includes language comparing him to Hitler. When you hear that and lots more, you know things have gotten very serious and likely to be followed by big time mischief against the person named. I’ve quoted lots of anti-Chavez invective in other articles I’ve written from various high officials like Donald Rumsfeld. Now there’s a credible source. Obviously Mr. X is getting this propaganda message and believes it. How else could he have become so opinionated about the man. But like all other victims of mind control he’s got it all disturbingly wrong. The truth based on the facts, not propaganda and lies, is just the opposite of what he believes and is spouting. I suggested he listen up, and that truth really would set him free and all others who think like him.

Mr. X then went on to say Venezuela is insignificant to the US. I responded just like Iraq wasn’t and Iran isn’t? What does he think they do there? Just produce coffee and cocoa, have carnivals and hold parades? I asked him if he couldn’t detect some common denominator among these three countries? Not that they’re all non-English-speaking, are located on different continents from the US, are defenseless against a large-scale US military assault, and pose no military threat whatever to us or anyone else. All that’s true I told him, and everyone with an unfogged mind knows it. I then asked if I really needed to spell out for him why they’re important to us - I mean the most obvious reason (not the more complex ones) I literally heard a 10 year old explain right before our illegal aggression against Iraq — IT’S THE CRUDE DUDE....O-I-L.....BLACK GOLD.....TEXAS "TEA".....THE VITAL OXYGEN THAT KEEPS THE COUNTRY AND WORLD RUNNING. Try driving to the market without it or taking the bus to work. Or growin all the food we eat either. These three countries are floating on an ocean of it, were and are governed by leaders who wouldn’t and won’t hand it all over to us so voila....... public enemies 1, 2 and 3.

I then explained that based on the best available estimates Venezuela ranks number one in the world in total oil reserves even ahead of Saudi Arabia if their extra-heavy reserves are added to their "light sweet" or conventional ones. The latter are easily refined while the former must be substantially upgraded before refining is possible. If both types are counted, the best estimates of total oil reserves in the world are: Venezuela - about 350 billion barrels (by some estimates it’s much higher than that), Saudi Arabia - 262 billion, Canada - 179 billion (mostly extra-heavy), Iran - 126 billion (all "light sweet") and Iraq - 115 billion (also all the good stuff). I asked Mr. X if the fog was beginning to lift and if he really thought the US would ever settle for less than total control of those combined reserves and those of every other key oil producing country as well. It’s called "resource wars", the stakes are very high, and we’re playing for keeps including waging war on the world to get it. It’ not about getting all the oil we need (as long as it lasts), it’s about controlling it all to decide who else gets it, how much and at what price. Along with rising world tension, a big reason the price is high today (nearing $70 a barrel as I write) is because we want it to be high to enrich our big oil mafia buddies - you know, the Exxon-Mobils of the world. Unless you understand "the way things really are" you’ll be victimized like Mr. X and believe everything you hear or read in the corporate media.

MR. X SWALLOWED THE PARTY LINE PROVING AGAIN YOU CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME

Mr. X claimed Hugo Chavez is a "fearless, gutless little wimp of a dictator." And paranoid too. I informed him this FGWD paranoid was elected and reelected democratically by significant majorities and did it in the face of considerable US funding and support for the opposition and the fiercest, most vicious and hostile unrelenting dominant corporate media assault against him both times, beforehand, in between and still ongoing now and growing in intensity. It’s so extreme in vitriol down there it makes our hostile corporate media almost look like pussy cats. It didn’t work. Venezuelans aren’t as uninformed as the somnambulant and mind-fogged US public. They support and voted for a man who promised them a better future and actually delivered it. Why would they ever want to give that up? Ever know a US politician who did that? A couple here or there who try, but NEVER one with any power or who could or did deliver.

There’s a presidential election coming up in Venezuela at the end of this year. Now get this. A new poll was just conducted and here’s how Chavez did against his potential or likely rivals. It was conducted by the Venezuelan Institute for Data Analysis (IVAD): the score was Chavez 82.7% and closest rival (at present) Julio Borges of the Primero Justicia (Justice First) party 8.9%. I used to do marketing research and some polling right out of graduate school 46 years ago as a newly minted MBA (before they got popular) and know something about it. Unless you do it properly, you can get some awfully unreliable results, so instead of the usual + or - 3 or 4% it could be two or three times that making the numbers worthless. But with these lopsided results, why bother with any poll. Anyone following what’s happening in the country knows the people love Chavez and will never democratically elect someone else if he’s running. Of course, the rich hate him because he’s making them pay their fair share and is sing the country’s oil wealth to help his people instead of handing it over to the big US oil mafia, other giant US transnationals and the Venezuelan elite. That’s why the US hates him too and feels that way even more so for a bigger reason. He represents the greatest of all threats we know - a good example that may spread like a heavenly virus liberating the oppressed people of other countries in the region and beyond whose leaders sold them out to the US and our giant corporations.

So with the opposition knowing they haven’t a chance in December, they’ve begun their latest anti-Chavez demonization campaign. They’re trying to blame him for the kidnappings and brutal murders of three children of a wealthy Venezuelan/Canadian family and other social disturbances being hyped in the corporate controlled media to stir up the public, scare them and try to make them want a change in government to protect them better. It’s just a new version of the same dirty business they’ve pulled before that failed. It won’t work this time either. Chavez supporters (Chavistas) at least must suspect the US is orchestrating this mischief and has no compunction about carrying out kidnappings and brutal murders themselves or finding lots of local takers at the right price to do it for them. This isolated violence on the Venezuelan streets is just a minuscule version of what’s going on now in Iraq under the US led and directed "Salvador death squad option" using Iraqi proxies to carry out car bombings, mosqe attacks and lots more to foment a civil war, try to divide the country and supposedly make it easier to rule. It won’t work there either where the situation is out of control, the war is lost and we know it, and in British journalist Robert Fisk’s words (who I quoted earlier above): the US "must leave, can’t leave and will leave." Sooner or later, likely the latter after many tens of thousands more innocent Iraqi deaths and lives and families destroyed and the devastating physical and psychological toll on many or most of our demoralized and defeated forces there. I’m writing more about that in another article I’m now working on.

US authorities and the go-along corporate media in both countries also claim Chavez is responsible for the recent pelting of US ambassador William Brownfield’s car with eggs and tomatoes. I wouldn’t have wasted a rotten one of either on him even though the ambassador was provokingly and literally cruising for a bruising in a poor neighborhood he had no business being in. He may or may not have gotten it from US stooges sent in to do it. The poor there certainly had every reason to do it. This is a man who recognizes the opposition and not the legitimate Venezuelan government. Chavez has threatened to expel him from the country and has every right to do it if he keeps pulling these stunts. The ambassador has said he will (meaning deliberate provocation), so look for more fireworks ahead as things heat up more between Washington and Caracas. Of course, this unambassadorial man deserves whatever he gets and more, especially in light of the growing anti-Chavez vitriol coming from high level US officials s well as the current "military exercise" provocation ongoing close by offshore as well. Things are clearly coming to a head with a showdown possible and even likely before the year end election.

Let me spell out what’s happening now as the US with 100% certainty is heading toward a fourth showdown confrontational attempt to oust Hugo Chavez and possibly try to assassinate him this time. For those of you, like Mr. X, who believe what they read in the (corporate) papers or see on the evening news, let me do a little defogging and lay the truth on you. I know the playbook very well. I should, I’ve seen it played out enough times before and watch it every day now in Iraq in its most extreme form. It’s not Hugo Chavez or his supporters creating social unrest on the streets. This is classic CIA, National Endowment of Democracy (NED), USAID and IRI (International Republican Institute) mischief likely carried out by their complicit anti-Chavez Venezuelan proxies. These are the ones with the most to gain if Chavez is no longer president and one of their own is. I’m talking about the rich and well off, the same ones who tried it before and failed.

US attorney and author Eva Golinger closely monitors Bush administration activities to subvert the Chavez government. She uncovered top secret CIA documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests revealing US involvement through CIA, NED and USAID complicity to overthrow Hugo Chavez in the two day aborted 2002 coup. In an interview published by Ultimas Noticias on April 10 she revealed she now has documents proving the US bankrolls the Venezuelan opposition and has tried to work with Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Austria and Spain to form an anti-Chavez alliance. Her information comes from a report published April 5 by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, an agency of the US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs. The report details US efforts to fund and build Venezuelan opposition political parties. Golinger noted different strategies being planned to oust Hugo Chavez including by possible US military invasion and mentioned the presence of US military baes in the region where 40,000 troops are now stationed. She also uncovered increased US financial support for "supposed NGOs" and communications with opposition politicians on subjects like assassination and torture. Finally, Golinger explained there’s a link between the FBI and police officials in the Caracas municipalities of Chacao and Baruta, both run by mayors opposed to Hugo Chavez.

In addition to Golinger’s reports, there’s credible evidence of Colombian paramilitaries elicitly entering Venezuela in provinces bordering the two countries to promote or commit violence and destabilize the Chavez government. All of this is serious and escalating mischief that’s likely to get worse as the US moves ahead in its fourth attempt to forcibly remove Hugo Chavez from office by whatever means planned. At this point, we don’t know if it will even get further off the ground, let alone succeed, because of Chavez’s strong support among the people, his government allies and the Venezuelan military. We do know the US orchestrated anti-Chavez demonization campaign will likely fail as have other past attempts against him. Why? Because the Venezuelan people overwhelmingly support and will fight to keep him as the president who gave them extraordinary social programs that have improved their lives and given them a direct say through participatory democracy in how the government is run. Why would they ver risk giving that up or not do all in their power to prevent anyone from taking them away. So when the anti-Chavez propaganda campaign fails again, look for the mischief-makers to go back to the drawing board and try "plan two."

It may be and there’s now talk the main opposition parties will pull out of the election in December and let Chavez run unchallenged - that is, if the fireworks haven’t culminated before then. If it happens, it will be a replay of the December, 2005 legislative elections when those same parties quit the race because they knew they’d be embarrassed by the heavy vote against them. If there’s a repeat performance this year, they’ll blame it on President Chavez as they did last time using whatever concocted reasons they can come up with. But just like last December, it will again be sore looser talk, a weak-kneed effort to demonize the victor and a line of baloney the Venezuelan people won’t buy. I’ll give them the real reason, but they’ll never use it. Chavez will win because the great majority love him and the wonderful social programs and participatory democracy he’s brought them. They won’t give them or him up and will fight to keep them and him to avoid returning to the past policies of everything fo the rich and powerful and nothing for the poor and desperate people. Hugo Chavez is their man, their savior, and they’ll keep him as long as he wants the top job.

HOW’D YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY WITH A LEADER AND GOVERNMENT WORKING FOR THE PEOPLE