|
Let me cite just one example of it in this article. Bottom of the article, referring to criminal charges against these rightwingers:
"Under a law passed by the national legislature, dominated by Morales backers, public officials can be unseated based only on the filing of charges by a prosecutor. // Morales was re-elected last year with 64 percent of the vote. --Associated Pukes
RIGHTWING COLOMBIA HAS THE ***SAME LAW***! ANYONE SUFFICIENTLY TAINTED BY A JUSTICE SYSTEM INVESTIGATION CAN BE BANNED FROM PUBLIC OFFICE FOR 10-20 YEARS IN COLOMBIA, AND THIS HAS JUST HAPPENED TO SEVERAL COLOMBIAN POLITICIANS!
IT IS BY NO MEANS UNIQUE TO BOLIVIA. IT IS A MAINSTREAM LEGAL CONCEPT IN LATIN AMERICA!
The Associated Pukes OMITS this VITAL bit of CONTEXT, and just lets the rightwing rant on as if Evo Morales were inventing novel legal concepts to persecute his enemies. And they couch it in references to Morales' big majority to create the impression that Morales is abusing power. A legislature "dominated by" Morales backers--as if each and every one of those legislators had not ALSO been elected to do the Peoples' business. A president with a 64% mandate--gee, he must be a "dictator"; surely there is something underhanded here.
Common, mainstream law in Latin America.
The Associated Pukes pulled this same crap on the Chavez government in Venezuela with regard to "decree laws" (or "enabling laws"). They are COMMON in Latin America. There is nothing unusual about them. They are not some strange mechanism created by Leftists to tyrranize over the have's and the Exxon Mobil's of this world. They are a common practice for ELECTED legislatures to transfer time-limited, issue-limited powers to the executive to address particular situations--such as in Brazil, recently, and the danger to an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon (Lula da Silva used "decree powers" to protect a large swath of the Amazon for them), or the catastrophic rains and floods in Venezuela, which have left entire communities destroyed, crops and roads destroyed, about 5,000 homes destroyed and leaving 130,000 people homeless.
The nutball RIGHTWING in Venezuela--who are as bad as our own--are claiming ONCE AGAIN that Chavez is a "dictator" and this provides the "framing" for EVERY headline in the corpo-fascist press. And not a one of them mentions that "decree laws" are common. Some might still object. Some might think this is a bad law. Some might say Chavez is abusing this power--if they had any evidence of it. But NOBODY can have a reasonable discussion of the matter without this basic fact: "decree laws" are common in Latin America. This is different from our system--just as their frequent re-writes of their constitutions is different from our system. The banning from public office on serious taint of scandal or filing of charges is also different from our system but not unusual in Latin America.
We cannot evaluate these government actions that are so different from our own system without knowing more facts about how these concepts have been applied and are being applied in the current instant. That is why AP denies us the information that they are common in Latin America and need to be evaluated in that context. Chavez asking for and obtaining "decree powers" from the National Assembly DOES NOT MEAN that he is a "dictator." ONLY in the implementation can we determine if he is abusing this power--and ONLY in the specifics of the "decree powers" that are granted can we make a preliminary judgement as to Chavez's intention--but even then, the legislature may have written it sloppily, leaving loopholes that Chavez does not intend to exploit.
To jump to the conclusion that Chavez is a "dictator" just because he asked for and received "decree powers" is wrong, just as it is wrong, in Morales' case, to presume tyranny because notoriously corrupt rightwing politicians have been banned from public office.
Chavez and Morales--and also Correa in Ecuador--have been elected by big majorities FOR A REASON. Previous rightwing governments were extremely CORRUPT, malfeasant and even violently repressive. The corrupt vestiges of these greedy, anti-democratic operatives are still around, still trying to regain untoward power by sabotaging good governments, often with U.S. collusion and funding, particularly in these three countries. The big majorities WANTED these new leaders to take charge, like FDR did in the New Deal--to sweep corrupt "organized money" out of power and to regain control of the country in the People's interest. That's what they voted for. That is the mandate that was given to these new leaders. The People want presidents, legislators, judges and prosecutors to act in their interest rather than acting in their interest of the rich elite. And the rich elites are screaming bloody murder about it because they NO LONGER HAVE wrongful power.
When the Associated Pukes and brethren, and the U.S. government, aid and abet these whining and dangerous elites, by pushing their every "talking point" as if these people gave a crap about democracy, they themselves--the corporate press, our government--are ALSO guilty of malfeasance. They are ill-serving us. They are lying to us. They are telling us only one side of the story to serve their own profit and power interests.
And that is disgusting as well as dangerous. We NEED a truly free press. We NEED a government that supports social justice, that truly believes in democracy--here as well as elsewhere--and that plays a peaceful role in the world. Our own country will collapse of hypocrisy, and of "Alice in Wonderland" unreality, if we cannot get back on a democratic path. We will end up where Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia were, ten years ago--utterly broken by greed and misrule.
I get very upset when I see journalists deliberately omit facts that people need in order to make up their own minds about an event or policy. That is what occurred here--in all of the above instances. I see this and similar methods of distorting the news every day on Latin American issues and everywhere I look in the corporate press. This is not just bad journalism. It is profoundly corrupt journalism. And it is a symptom of our greater problem, that we are being heavily propagandized rather than informed, and regarded as peons--as slave labor and cannon fodder--rather than as citizens, taxpayers and voters, and sentient human beings, by those who allegedly represent us.
They are using cheap tricks like this, to misrepresent reality. And they KNOW that most of their readers--increasingly robbed, beset and squeezed by the same corporate powers that produce the 'news'--don't have the time to figure it out.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
