[R-G] Political Pornography – New Dirty War in Venezuela

[Anthony Fenton]

Political Pornography – New Dirty War in Venezuela
Monday, 24 November 2008, 10:02 am
Column: Julie Webb-Pullman
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0811/S00314.htm
Political Pornography – The New Dirty War in Venezuela

It is not stretching a point to call the latest Venezuelan rightwing  
salvo political pornography. In a last-ditch attempt to resist the  
tsunami of support for PSUV candidates, a million copies of a video  
produced by an organisation called SYNERGIA began circulating  
throughout the country ten days ago, and broadcasting on rightwing  
television channel, Globovision.

SYNERGIA, the Venezuelan Association of Organizations of Civil  
Society, is composed of several organisations such as "Radar de los  
Barrios" ("Radar of the Neighbourhoods"), "Liderazgo y  
Visión" (Leadership and Vision"), and "Unión Vecinal para la  
Participación Ciudadana" (Local Union for Civil Participation").

Bush's dirty fingers in the pie
They openly admit to receiving funding from Banco Venezolano de  
Crédito, the Venezuelan Bank of Credit, but are more coy about their  
cosy relationship with big business, certain 'religious' groups, but  
especially their big foreign sponsors, USAID and Development  
Alternatives Inc. It is no secret that successive Bush administrations  
have been openly and increasingly funding the National Endowment for  
Democracy (NED) to channel millions of dollars through USAID to local  
"NGOs" to destabilise various Latin American governments under the  
guise of promoting "democracy." (see Eva Golinger´s books The Chavez  
Code, and Bush versus Chavez - Washington´s War on Venezuela)

SYNERGIA's claim that this latest series of videos and pamphlets are  
"a tool put in the hands of the citizenship to contribute information  
and to reflection on topics of significance to the effectiveness of  
our democratic values and the full exercise of our constitutional law"  
sits uncomfortably with a "Leadership and Vision" – commissioned  
impact evaluation report produced by Data C.A. earlier this year on  
the first phase of their destabilisation campaign, carried out prior  
to the Referendum vote in December 2007.

As Data C.A. were able to report, the key messages of Leadership and  
Vision's "ideological education" in that "social pedagogy campaign"  
were "clearly understood and remembered by the different audiences,  
being later integrated into their thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and  
behaviours."

The main components of this 'ideological education' were, also  
unsurprisingly, "simple easily understood and remembered messages  
repetitively expressed through cliches or colloquialisms, and which  
can therefore be later integrated without problems into daily language  
and values, taking root in the subconscious. They shouldhide the  
ideological message while taking advantage of fears and atavistic  
prejudices, particularly about socialism, property, and the family."

Dirty-tricks videos are much less messy than cleaning up all that  
blood, they don't require political prisons, and they avoid the pesky  
problem of refugees spilling the beans in other countries.

It worked in NAZI Germany, so why not in Venezuela?
Having succeeded in generating doubt and confusion for last year's  
referendum, contributing significantly to three million people  
abstaining from the vote, this year's campaign seeks to convince last  
year's abstainers to vote for the opposition this time round, stealing  
Obama's catchphrase "Time for a Change". Resorting to a communication  
style familiar in Nazi Germany, where commentary about Jews was  
accompanied by images of rats swarming across the screen, SYNERGIA's  
first offering shows a school with overflowing rubbish bins next to  
it, and surprise surprise, a rat features in the first sentence.  
Flaunting 50 years of slick marketing and psychological warfare  
techniques, this campaign cynically refines psycho-political  
manipulation by using the language of the Constitution, and sometimes  
of Chavez himself, to distort the message and manipulate the less- 
politically savvy.

Socialism the real target
Under the guise of providing information, the campaign attacks areas  
of demonstrable social progress such as health, education, housing,  
and public sanitation, dedicating a chapter in the video to each.  
Continually drawing distinctions between individualism (good) and  
collectivism (bad), the video minimises, ignores, or grossly  
misrepresents areas of enormous improvement since 1998. For example,  
given that before Chavez there was absolutely no rubbish collection at  
all, the chapter on public sanitation criticises the Government for  
lack of consultation because they put in rubbish bins without asking  
the people first! The chapter on health claims that the public  
hospitals have been run into the ground, when in fact a free four- 
level health care system is in development, with thousands of  
community clinics already opened and integrated diagnostic centres  
(CDIs) established, providing medical services to people who had never  
previously had ANY form of health service, and free medications.  
Existing hospitals are being upgraded and specialist hospitals built,  
to serve not just Venezuela but the entire of Latin America, the first  
of which, the Ochoa Rodriguez children's cardiology hospital, is  
already operational.

Interestingly, most doctors working in the public hospital system do  
so half time, and have private practices...which they resource by  
stealing equipment from the public system. A professor in the Faculty  
of Medicine told us that before Chavez, a patient would only be  
admitted to a public hospital if their doctor worked there and pulled  
strings – forget need, it was who you knew, and paid a kickback to.  
These doctors are hurting because the population is now getting free  
quality state-provided health care.

The education sector is criticised on the grounds that teachers have  
to strike for more wages – the reality check is that as in many Latin  
American countries, Venezuelan children only go to school either in  
the morning, or in the afternoon, so teachers collect two wages, one  
for the morning session and one for the afternoon. Chavez proposed  
that all children attend school all day – and teachers went on strike  
because they would lose their double-dip.

Distorting the Constitution to sideline national politics
The ideological offensive is not just restricted to social issues -  
because just about every Venezuelan has already personally benefitted  
and because current and proposed policies, programmes and initiatives  
will continue to improve their lot, and given the extraordinarily high  
popularity of Chavez himself, the campaign takes a new twist, and  
tells people that central government should have nothing to do with  
issues such as health, education, housing, public sanitation, that  
they should all be decided at the municipal level!

Subverting Chavez' initiatives in promoting development through the  
devolution of power and resources to local communities, in a bizarre  
sleight of hand the video distorts the encouragement of communities to  
form community councils to take some responsibility for improving  
local conditions, and the Constitutional requirement for municipal and  
regional governors to make a commitment to addressing problems of  
crime, health, education, housing. It morphs from being a requirement  
that municipal and regional governors commit to these issues, to  
stating that they are the ONLY ones permitted to address them! The  
function of community councils is similarly revised, ie to make  
demands of governors and mayors, rather than communities working  
together with their governors to improve their neighbourhoods.

Where is Mission Robinson when you need it?
They also have a go at participatory democracy, accusing central  
government of failing to consult the people, and of trying to smuggle  
in reforms. In a country which has had some seven elections or  
referendums since Chavez was elected in 1998, citing lack of  
consultation is laughable The facts speak for themselves:
1998 - Presidential election - Chavez gets 56% of the vote.
1999 - Referendum to enact the new Constitution - 72%,
2000 - Presidential election – Chavez gets 60%
2000 – Labour Union Reform Referendum – 62%
2004 – Recall Referendum - 59% favour Chavez
2006 – Presidential election – Chavez wins 63%
2007 – Constitutional Referendum – lost by 51% to 49%

It seems the members of SYNERGIA, USAID, NED, and the Bush  
administration could all benefit from learning to count...and to read,  
especially the defining characteristic of democracy - majority rule.

As to smuggling in reforms – how a public referendum that the  
opposition "won" could be deemed to be smuggling in reforms is a  
question best answered by Manuel Rosales, the opposition leader who  
stood against Chavez in the last presidential elections. His fleet of  
aircraft and arsenal of weapons seized recently on the Colombian  
border suggest he is the most qualified to speak on this topic, but  
unfortunately he is much too busy trying to smuggle himself out of the  
country to answer it – let alone to appear in court to answer the  
fraud charges against him.

Tomorrow will tell whether the second phase of SYNERGIA's US-backed  
psy-war against the Bolivarian Revolution bore fruit – or if was just  
the last rotten apple falling from a dying Bush.

Pics of Chavez´ Final election rally