Media, manipulation and imperial strategy Randy Alonso Falcón digital@juventudrebelde.cu February 8, 2014 A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann. Venezuela is being besieged and attacked by right-wing coup-plotters. Brewing in the middle of an orchestrated state of unrest and brazenly fabricated pictures is a coup d’état spearheaded by oligarchic and transnational media acting as shock troops, while the social networks are used to add fuel to the fire. It’s hardly a new episode in Bolívar’s homeland. Similar scenarios developed there during the attempted coup against Chávez in 2002, the Oil Strike, or the most recent post-election events of April 2013. Nothing but a carbon copy of the Empire’s new strategy to interfere in, and get rid of, governments they abhor: instigated demonstrations, multiple smear campaigns, trite calls to respect the human rights of the violent aggressors, and appeals for international condemnation and, “if need be”, military intervention. Embarrassing, the role played by the media, in the best style of William Randolph Hearst: “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war”. In Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and now Venezuela, the media have distorted, twisted and crucified just as they have pleased, setting themselves up as the vanguard of demolition to demoralize the adversary, criminalize the Government and roll out the red carpet for the victorious attackers and the Empire. These days we have seen no end of both antagonistic and fault-finding headlines on and dramatic photographs of Venezuela, be it in domestic dailies like El Nacional and Tal Cual or foreign ones like El Mercurio, ABC, El País, Clarín and other mouthpieces of the Latin American right. Images of chaotic scenes, victimization of violent protesters and insults at the Bolivarian Government fill the screens of CNNe, NTN24 and other TV stations at the service of the worst causes. Throw in a well-funded and finagled campaigned launched through the social networks in order to inflame people’s feelings, stir things up, and concoct lies. One after the other, tweets have been put into circulation carrying photographs originally taken from recent demonstrations and clashes in Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt or Chile and then doctored to make people believe they were about the situation in Venezuela. At the same time, tens of pages of public services are being hacked and identities supplanted and posted in those social networks. Meanness, manipulation and deception are rampant without reserve. All is fair to try and topple a government disfavored by the Yankees and the oligarchy. Like the political scientist Juan Carlos Monedero said, “That Venezuela is in the news has nothing to do with violence. It has to do with the fact that it has oil and it disregards the orders from the North”. The Empire’s counteroffensive in Latin America is up and running, and the media involved in it as its ideological goalkeepers are playing hard ball. Our response must be immeasurable, well-defined and pioneered by the media at the service of the peoples. |
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Medios, manipulación y estrategia imperial
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