{"id":130330,"date":"2019-04-01T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=130330"},"modified":"2019-04-08T11:45:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T10:45:59","slug":"truth-v-fiction-in-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/04\/truth-v-fiction-in-venezuela\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth v. Fiction in Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

25 Mar 2019 – <\/em>Followers of independent alternative media know Venezuela is the hemisphere\u2019s leading social democracy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a \u201cdictatorship\u201d as falsely claimed by US hardliners and establishment media, reporting the official narrative exclusively, suppressing reality on the ground.<\/p>\n

The NYT<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cVenezuela\u2019s government has overseen the destruction of its democracy and its economy\u2026Today, it is nearly a failed state.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPublic order is collapsing and crime rising\u2026The government is aggressively consolidating power and undermining democratic institutions\u2026Maduro won re-election in May in a vote that has been widely criticized within Venezuela and abroad as rigged.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHugo Chavez waged war on Venezuelan institutions and civil society, hollowing out his country\u2019s democracy\u2026Maduro\u2026rel[ies] on handouts\u201d to preserve his power.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGangs\u2026control\u2026city streets.\u201d Maduro follows \u201cChavez\u2019s anti-establishment, strongman tendencies\u2026 [His rule] led to democracy\u2019s implosion in the country.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cVenezuela exhibits the worst-case outcome of populist governance, in which institutions have been so crippled that crime is rampant, corruption is nearly universal and the quality of life has collapsed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHunger has gripped the nation for years. Now, it\u2019s killing children\u2026 [R]ecord numbers [suffer from] severe malnutrition. Hundreds have died.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cParents\u2026go days without eating, shriveling to the weight of children\u2026Crowds of adults storm dumpsters after restaurants close. Babies die because it is hard to find or afford infant formula, even in emergency rooms.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The above rubbish was taken from several Times reports, similar ones from other establishment media\u2014a scenario of bald-faced Big Lies and distortion.<\/p>\n

A previous article discussed what UK photojournalist Alan Gignoux and Venezuelan journalist-filmmaker Carolina Gratero observed firsthand in the Bolivarian Republic.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody is dying from hunger or malnutrition,\u201d they said. \u201cEveryone is receiving help from the government.\u201d The spirit of sharing pervades the country.<\/p>\n

Reality is polar opposite the falsified Trump regime narrative, repeated ad nauseam by establishment media, drowning out hard truths.<\/p>\n

Writer John McEvoy visited Venezuela. He arrived in Caracas on March 15 after living in neighboring Colombia for the previous six months, a nation greatly affected by serious humanitarian issues, he said\u2014along with state-sponsored repression by narco-fascist ruling authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve found most striking [in Venezuela] is the absence of evidence [of a Western reported] crisis,\u201d said McEvoy, adding, \u201cKey signs of any \u2018humanitarian crisis\u2019\u2014including homelessness and violence\u2014actually seem to be less visible here than in some major European cities.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c[E]veryday life in Caracas wouldn\u2019t look out of place in any Latin American capital: people play football in public parks; weekends see street parties and dancing; children play in public spaces. This has been true of both central areas of the city and its poorer outskirts.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThough there is no visible shortage of food here [a manager of a private supermarket stopped me filming its abundance of food], much of it is unaffordable for those earning the minimum monthly wage.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLocal Provisioning and Production Committees (CLAPs) supply over half of the Venezuelan population with packages of government-subsidized food and basic necessities, and many people engage in the informal economy to supplement their salary.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed hardships exist because of the Trump regime\u2019s sanctions war over 80% of Venezuelans oppose.<\/p>\n

A street vendor told McEvoy the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing what we can. Everyone\u2019s doing what they can. But look around here. Nobody\u2019s starving. It\u2019s not like what they\u2019re saying in your country [the US, other Western ones, and anti-Maduro regional states].\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Venezuelans \u201care largely coping.\u201d Bolivarian governance is democratic, not dictatorial as falsely portrayed in the West.<\/p>\n

\u201c[N]ormalcy of daily Venezuelan life sits in starker and starker contrast with the extreme representations of the corporate media in the West. If London\u2019s homeless people could see these streets, they\u2019d be appalled that they\u2019re being so shamefully ignored,\u201d McEvoy explained.<\/p>\n

Reality on the ground in Venezuela is a world apart from the fabricated Western narrative\u2014all propaganda all the time, supporting the Trump regime\u2019s coup plot.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Stephen Lendman<\/em> lives in Chicago. His new book as editor and contributor is titled <\/em>Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III<\/a>. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net<\/a>.Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

25 Mar 2019 – Followers of independent alternative media know Venezuela is the hemisphere\u2019s leading social democracy. It\u2019s not a \u201cdictatorship\u201d as falsely claimed by US hardliners and establishment media. Reality on the ground in Venezuela is a world apart from the fabricated Western narrative\u2014all propaganda all the time, supporting the Trump regime\u2019s coup plot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":122800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130330","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=130330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}