Bolivian President Isn’t Radical Enough for Corporate Media
Bolivian President Isn’t Radical Enough for Corporate Media
By Jordana Jarrett
Jul 09 2014
Vilifying left-leaning Latin American and Caribbean leaders is nothing new from the US media–from Chile's Salvador Allende to Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to Mauricio Funes of El Salvador. Bolivian President Evo Morales is no exception, as he caught the attention of the website Vox (6/26/14), a new outlet that sets out to "explain the news" with an emphasis on data analysis.
Vox took Morales' reversing the direction of a clock on the Congress building in La Paz as an opportunity to insult his presidential policies. The reversed clock represents a sundial, which turns clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere while counterclockwise in the Southern–symbolizing a shift away from Northern assumptions. The congressional president, Marcelo Elio, called Morales’ action "a clear expression of the decolonization of the people" (AP, 6/25/14).
However, Vox's Max Fisher said it was a "self-caricature" that fits with Morales' record of "radically leftist but ultimately inconsequential government policy." Fisher compared this gesture to a previous "stunt" by Morales:
Earlier this month, he called for the abolition of the United Nations Security Council, to help bring "the destruction of world hierarchies" and begin healing "mother Earth." He frequently defies and denounces Western governments, for example in July, when his plane was grounded in Austria and searched for NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
It is hard to see how the US grounding the Bolivian plane qualifies as an action by Morales, rather than as a dubiously legal exercise of force by a superpower. Fisher’s using this as an example of how Morales "defies…Western governments" suggests that countries like Bolivia should submit meekly to such abuses.
More:
http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/07/09/bolivian-president-isnt-radical-enough-for-corporate-media/
