{"id":127233,"date":"2019-02-04T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=127233"},"modified":"2019-02-11T11:23:29","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T11:23:29","slug":"the-venezuelan-people-are-whoever-agrees-with-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/02\/the-venezuelan-people-are-whoever-agrees-with-donald-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Venezuelan People\u2019 Are Whoever Agrees with Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

31 Jan 2019 – <\/em>The latest bizarre episode in the Trump presidency is currently playing out in Venezuela. Just weeks after President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s inauguration, Trump officially recognized Juan Guaid\u00f3, the 35-year-old head of the National Assembly\u2014a man who has never even run for president\u2014as the rightful head of state. A White House statement (1\/29\/19<\/a>) announced, \u201cPresident Trump stands with the people of Venezuela as they demand democracy, human rights and prosperity denied to them by Maduro,\u201d noting that the \u201cpeople\u201d had \u201ccourageously spoken out,\u201d and that the US would pursue increased sanctions on the country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Headline over a letter published in the New York Times (1\/24\/19)<\/p><\/div>\n

More alarmingly still, Trump has continually threatened a military intervention in Venezuela (New York Times<\/strong>, 8\/12\/17<\/a>), and his National Security Advisor John Bolton allowed himself to be filmed with a notepad that read, \u201c5,000 troops to Colombia\u201d (CNN<\/strong>, 1\/29\/19<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Before any troops are sent anywhere, we should ask ourselves, who exactly does Trump mean by \u201cthe people of Venezuela\u201d? A recent local poll shows<\/a> that 86 percent of Venezuelans oppose military intervention, while 81 percent already disagree with the current US sanctions.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it appears that the media have decided that \u201cthe people\u201d want regime change, after all. PBS NewsHour<\/strong> (1\/30\/19<\/a>) interviewed one Venezuelan resident of New York City who claimed he spoke for the entire population: \u201cI\u2014not only I\u2014but 30 million people support the US circumstance,\u201d meaning Washington\u2019s attempt to replace the government. The New York Times<\/strong> (1\/24\/19<\/a>) published a letter from someone in Boston using the phrase \u201cthe Venezuelan people\u201d and \u201cus\u201d interchangeably, claiming Guaid\u00f3 is \u201cwhat we need\u201d and that we are \u201cfeeling hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n

On MSNBC<\/strong> (1\/30\/19), reporter Mariana Atencio declared matter-of-factly: \u201cThis is a battle right now between legitimacy and power. Guaid\u00f3 has the legitimacy, but Maduro has the guns, meaning the power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy and Obama adviser Ben Rhodes (Washington Post, 1\/29\/19) praised Trump\u2019s \u201cstatement demanding democracy for the people of Venezuela and calling for the removal of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

A Washington Post<\/strong> op-ed (1\/29\/19<\/a>) declared that we should provide more support for \u201cthe Venezuelan people\u201d who are demonstrating in the streets by working with the UN Human Rights Council to \u201ctighten the sanctions\u201d on Maduro, presenting a picture of the US leading a unified world against a dictatorship oppressing its people.<\/p>\n

But in reality, the UN Human Rights Council has formally condemned<\/a> the sanctions, noting they \u201cdisproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable\u201d; it called on all member states to break them, and even began discussing reparations the US should pay to Venezuela. A UN rapporteur who visited the country described Trump\u2019s actions as possible \u201ccrimes against humanity\u201d (London Independent<\/strong>, 1\/27\/19<\/a>). This has not been reported by the New York Times<\/strong>, Washington Post<\/strong>, CNN <\/strong>or any other US national media outlet.<\/p>\n

Ignoring all this relevant information, the Post<\/strong> (1\/29\/19<\/a>) noted that the emergence of Guaid\u00f3 has brought hope to the \u201cVenezuelan people\u201d (or \u201clong-suffering Venezuelans\u201d) for the \u201crestoration of their democracy.\u201d This is despite the fact that more than 80 percent<\/a> of Venezuelans have never heard of Guaid\u00f3, and that the body he leads, the National Assembly, has an over 70 percent<\/a> disapproval rating (roughly the same<\/a> as the disapproval rating for Maduro).<\/p>\n

There has been a great deal of coverage (CNBC<\/strong>, 1\/23\/19<\/a>; New York Times<\/strong>, 1\/23\/19<\/a>; Fox News<\/strong>, 1\/23\/19<\/a>) of the \u201cVenezuelan people\u201d protesting for Guaid\u00f3, but very little of the counter-protests<\/a> in support of the government that complicate the picture. This continues a longstanding media policy of treating \u201cthe Venezuelan people\u201d as a term that exclusively means \u201canyone who agrees with US policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a study of over 500 articles over a 16-year period published this week (Race & Class<\/strong>, 1\/25\/19<\/a>), I found that terms like the \u201cVenezuelan people\u201d or \u201ccivil society\u201d were used exclusively to refer to opposition groups in alignment with (and funded by<\/a>) the US government. US intentions and actions in the country were consistently presented<\/a> as democratic, regardless of their nature.<\/p>\n

The US supported the opposition\u2019s 2002 coup attempt to remove Maduro\u2019s elected predecessor, President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer framed the events as \u201cthe Venezuelan people rising up to defend democracy\u201d (Washington Post<\/strong>, 4\/13\/02<\/a>) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that \u201cCh\u00e1vez\u2019s policies are not working for the Venezuelan people\u201d (New York Times<\/strong>, 4\/15\/02<\/a>). \u00a0Media followed the government\u2019s lead, with the London Times <\/strong>publishing an opinion piece (4\/13\/02) lauding \u201cthe people of Venezuela\u201d for \u201cmobilizing\u201d against the government, while the Miami Herald<\/strong> (4\/15\/02<\/a>) quoted an observer declaring that Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s restoration meant that \u201cthe Venezuelan people have been betrayed.\u201d<\/p>\n

When acknowledged to exist at all, government supporters were consistently dehumanized as \u201cthugs\u201d (Washington Post<\/strong>, 3\/29\/14<\/a>) or \u201cgangs\u201d (London Times<\/strong>, 4\/12\/14<\/a>). The New York Times<\/strong> referred to the working-class counter-protesters that saved democracy in 2002 as \u201carmed thugs\u201d (4\/15\/02<\/a>), \u201cDobermans\u201d (4\/12\/02<\/a>) or \u201cfurious mobs of Ch\u00e1vez supporters marching violently through the capital looting stores in poor areas\u201d (4\/16\/02<\/a>). (The latter article described the coup supporters as engaging in \u201ca week of peaceful marches.\u201d)<\/p>\n

During a 2014 US-supported opposition attempt to violently overthrow<\/a> the government, the Washington Post<\/strong> editorial board (3\/29\/14<\/a>) implied the country was calling for foreign intervention:<\/p>\n

Venezuelans despair at the lack of international interest in the political crisis that is rocking their country. Since anti-government protests began early last month, at least 34 people have been killed, most of them opposition supporters gunned down by security forces or government-backed gangs.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Referring to the same event, the Miami Herald <\/strong>(2\/26\/14) published an op-ed headlined \u201cThe Fight Is Between Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the Venezuelan People.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Maduro is unpopular, with approval ratings consistently below 30 per cent. Yet 31 per cent of the entire electorate voted for him in 2018, a higher percentage than Trump or Obama received in 2016 and 2012, respectively. (No one realistically maintains that Henri Falc\u00f3n\u2014the leading opposition candidate, who was hampered by widespread boycotting\u2014actually got more votes in the election than Maduro.)<\/p>\n

Venezuela certainly does need radical change, but erasing the voices and even existence of the people, as the media has done, will only hinder public understanding of the issue and hamper reconciliation.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod<\/a> is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. His latest book, <\/em>Bad News from Venezuela: 20 Years of Fake News and Misreporting, was published by Routledge in April.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

31 Jan 2019 – The latest bizarre episode in the Trump presidency is currently playing out in Venezuela. Just weeks after President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s inauguration, Trump officially recognized Juan Guaid\u00f3, the 35-year-old head of the National Assembly\u2014a man who has never even run for president\u2014as the rightful head of state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":127235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,53,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}