🧵Whenever we read a corporate media piece about Venezuela, the 1st instinct is to go crazy at all the disingenuous reporting and biased narratives. Not great for your health. But after we’ve gathered ourselves, it’s useful to break down the propaganda. Bear w/ us here! (thread)
The piece we’re tackling this time around is from the bourgeoisie mouthpiece that is Bloomberg (@business). It comes on the heels of supremely dishonest contenders from the @guardian and @Reuters (links at the end of the thread) bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Look at this headline! FFS! Venezuela doesn’t have “two presidents,” it has never had “two presidents”! It has one president (Maduro), who won a *presidential election*. And then there was this moron @jguaido who, on US orders, *proclaimed himself* “interim president”
We ought to underline this entire introductory paragraph… First off, notice how for Bloomberg going to Davos and being invited by Trump to the State of the Union somehow legitimizes someone as “president.” Politicians should stop running in elections and secure those invitations
But it gets worse. You’ll forgive us, but we’re not ready to proclaim an opposition politician as “president” because he organized large (not “giant”) opposition rallies in opposition strongholds. Also Maduro didn’t need to “douse” anything, it fizzled out within weeks
Again, there was nothing that could even remotely be described as a “stalemate.” Maduro just kept running his government, paying public sector wages, commanding the armed forces, etc. And this buffoon ran around playing “pretend president” w/ the US and loyal acolytes
The only thing that’s “bizarre” here is the disgusting corporate media coverage. “Fraud” allegations never need any evidence, and Washington declaring a puppet as president, w/ all its acolytes going along, is deemed normal by these loyal stenographers
Guaidó only had “60% support” in DC (or according to unreliable pro-opp pollsters). His “large crowds” never moved an inch out of the middle-class opposition strongholds, while Chavista marches also became a regular feature. Of course the media establishment will not report it
Count on the media to misrepresent Guaidó’s coup failure as “soldiers rebuffed calls to defect.” The cheap Obama lookalike tried an outright military putsch and even contracted mercenaries, only w/ troglodytical skills and underestimating the anti-imperialism of the Vzlan people
Wouldn’t be a description of the Venezuelan economy w/o a terrible misrepresentation of sanctions. These measures were levied on all economic sectors, not just oil. And they weren’t just on “oil exports”, they went from banning imports to secondary sanctions on intl companies
For a better understanding of US sanctions, their deadly consequences, and how the media establishment has gone out of its way to endorse them, watch the following video: venezuelanalysis.com/video/15519
We don’t really care if US surrogates get accurately depicted in the media or not but this is hilarious. The main opposition forces ousted Guaidó b/c he became a disastrous embarrassment, and the corporate media thinks it gets to decide who represents the “pro-democracy movement”
Normalizing mobster antics. Corporate journos don’t see anything wrong w/ the US using frozen, sorely needed funds to blackmail the Venezuelan govt into talking to its puppets. Nor do they see anything wrong w/ threats of more sanctions that kill 1000s of civilians #SanctionsKill
As promised, here’s a thread on that most liberal of rags, the @guardian
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🧵🗞️ Western media reporting on Venezuela is biased almost by definition. We know that going in. But every so often there’s a piece that ticks all the dishonesty boxes. The bad journalism equivalent of a perfect game. You might have guessed, this comes from the @guardian (thread)
It is brought to you by the Bill and Melinda @gatesfoundation. Because we all know no one cares more about honest reporting and “global development” than freaking billionaires
The piece is about a recent proposal from the National Assembly to regulate NGO activities. It’s off to an ominous start w/ this absurdity. How on Earth do NGOs (esp. foreign-funded ones) have anything to do with “democracy”? Corporate journos think western money equals democracy
"We have two enemies, imperialism and capitalism, and they are interlinked. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the commune, but our communes have a long way to go."
Besieged by imperialism, a remote commune projects a better future: bit.ly/3WCsTTi
🧵🗞️Following the agreement signed by the Venezuelan government and the US-backed opposition last weekend, there’s been a lot of debate and speculation. Here’s Venezuelanalysis’ perfect bland of cold reasoning and hot takes (thread)
Let’s start w/ the Chevron license, what it says and what it doesn’t (see images). In a nutshell, it’s an expanded sanctions waiver. Chevron is allowed to pump and export oil from its joint ventures in Vzla, as well as import inputs to get those companies back up and running
However, notice point (3) on the 2nd page. Chevron cannot ship the oil extracted in Venezuela to any destination except the US. What was that bit about the *free* market? Something to keep in mind whenever some suited hack has some spiel about “democracy”
News 🧵 The Venezuelan gov't and the US-backed opposition have signed an agreement to access some $3B US dollars in Venezuelan funds seized by Washington since 2017.
The resources will be used for social needs and public infrastructure repair work.
Following the resumption of the gov't-opposition talks in Mexico, the @USTreasury issued an expanded license for Chevron to restart its Venezuela operations.
Washington's sanctions had forced Chevron to reduce operations to just maintenance work in 2020: bit.ly/3VrfUUe
Venezuelan Vice President @delcyrodriguezv met with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to demand that the consequences of US-led sanctions in more than 30 countries be debated within the organization.
🧵🗞️Another @Reuters piece on Venezuela means another dose of pure-grade, unadulterated imperialist propaganda. Here’s a little thread with highlights from Washington’s most reliable stenographers
The article in question is about the US Treasury Department, after lots of lobbying, granting an expanded license to oil giant Chevron so it can revamp its operations in Venezuela. It’s quite literally the smallest sanctions opening conceivable reuters.com/business/energ…
This early part seems innocuous and one could just scroll through it. But it’s relevant to set the tone: a casual/subtle endorsement of US meddling in Vzlan affairs (via murderous blackmail, more on this below). Also, is “plums” a serious term to use? Venezuelans are not monkeys
Given Elon’s stupidity reaching new heights every day, one of these threads might be our last. So we need to take down the most obnoxiously dishonest of corporate outlets, full of self-righteous western exceptionalist b.s. You guessed it, we’re talking about the @guardian
This is the piece in question. It focuses on Maduro’s participation in the recent COP27 talk shop on climate change
The headline is effing outrageous. Whatever Maduro’s alleged environmental crimes (more on it in a bit) may be, they are minuscule compared to the destruction wreaked by capitalist powers over centuries. Even today it’s Global North consumption and greed that threatens the planet