[R-G] PBS Reports for Big Oil on Venezuela

[Anthony Fenton]

http://counterpunch.com/irelan11252008.html
Counterpunch, November 25, 2008
The Petroleum Broadcasting System
PBS Reports for Big Oil on Venezuela

By PATRICK IRELAN

On Tuesday evening, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) will carry a
90-minute review of the presidency of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. As the
show progresses, it quickly becomes apparent to the viewer why critics
often refer to PBS as the “Petroleum Broadcasting System.” Venezuela has
huge oil reserves. Big Oil provides much of the funding for PBS
programs.  And it would not be wise to offend this source of cash,
regardless of how greedy and despicable the oil barons might be.

Before we get on with show, let me remind you that state and municipal
elections were held in Venezuela on Sunday, with the pro-Chávez United
Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) winning gubernatorial seats in 17
states and the opposition winning in 5 states. No election was held in
the state of Amazonas, which is on a different election cycle. The
governor of that state is a Chavez supporter. The results of 328
municipal elections have not yet been announced.

After the results had been tallied, President Chávez commended
Venezuelans for their participation in the elections, in which 65
percent of registered voters cast their ballots. Chávez said, "I
recognize opposition victories; I hope they do the same." In 2002, they
did not recognize his victories and mounted a coup with the enthusiastic
support of the Bush administration. The coup failed, and Pedro Carmona,
the heroic 48-hour coup leader and president, ran away to Florida.

With these recent events in mind, viewers will be prepared for Tuesday
night’s broadcast of Frontline on PBS. This episode is called “The Hugo
Chávez Show.” It was written, directed, and produced by Ofra Bikel, the
winner of uncountable awards for documentaries.

In an interview that complements the show, Bikel drops hints about her
opinion of Chávez and his political style. Chávez, she says, is “so
outrageously rude and says insane things about President Bush, calling
him ‘donkey,’ ‘Mr. Danger,’ ‘the devil.’”

I would agree with Ms. Bikel that these statements are rude, but they’re
far from insane. I like “Mr. Danger” best of all, but others might
prefer “the devil.” It’s all a matter of taste.

Bikel is upset that she couldn’t interview President Chávez. “… you can
manage to do a lot of things as far as filming is concerned,” she says,
“because the situation is so chaotic, and no one pays attention to the
rules—until it has to do with Chávez. Not only is he incredibly
well-protected, but you can't film anything that has to do with him
unless it's a march or rally.”

This is an overstatement. It also reveals that Bikel is unaware that
because of repeated threats against his life, Chávez now takes special
precautions. Prior to the 2002 coup attempt, he moved about freely and
announced his itinerary in advance. Now he still goes out every day, but
the schedule is no longer released ahead of time.

Bikel believes she was denied access to the president because she was
viewed as “anti-Chávez.” How terribly the Venezuelan authorities have
treated her. And she has all those awards. What were they thinking?

So much for the interview. You can read the rest for yourself at the PBS
website. Let me give you a few samples from the documentary, which
consists almost entirely of interviews with objective journalists,
biased journalists, the president’s enemies, and various other
observers. It also includes many excerpts from Chávez’s Sunday TV
broadcasts, Aló Presidente.

Bikel, Big Oil, foreign and domestic enemies, et al. don’t like Aló
Presidente. Chávez doesn’t obey the normal rules for presidential
appearances. He answers questions phoned in by citizens. He sings. He
improvises. He talks a long time. He rides a tractor on a grain farm. He
rides a horse on a cattle farm. He walks down deserted Sunday streets in
Caracas with the mayor and other officials, discussing the problem of
street crime. Wouldn’t it be better if he walked up to a podium like
George Bush and said “nucular”?

After the walk, he appears with an audience and moves on to a discussion
of Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, who has ordered an invasion of
Ecuador to kill member of the FARC. He says Uribe is a criminal, a
mobster, a liar, a paramilitary thug, and a lackey of George Bush.
Regrettably, there is much evidence for all these charges. (See my
CounterPunch articles of 4/1/2008 and 7/8/2008.)

One of the show’s guests states that Chávez had once said that he wanted
to get out of the International Monetary Fund, but someone advised him
on that occasion that Venezuela lacked the money to get out, and Chávez
never talked about it again. Actually, Venezuela withdrew from both the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the second and third
quarters of 2007, paying off all debts to both of those grasping arms of
the Washington Consensus. (Ven-Global News, 9/30/2008)

The program inevitably starts crawling around inside the head of Hugo
Chávez. This is often a waste of time for psychiatrists and always a
failure for amateurs. While engaged in this nonsense, Bikel and Company
misses one of the most obvious things about the man, the color of his
skin. The president of Venezuela is a mestizo, unlike any other
president in the country’s history. The oligarchy that has ruled until
now is mostly as white as the sickly face of Pedro Carmona on the day
when he learned that his presidency would be the shortest in history.

The mass media in Venezuela is controlled by the rich white elite. Day
after day, it uses racist terms to describe Chávez and others like him.
Only one newspaper and the two state-owned TV stations carry the real
news of the Chávez government. One private station, RCTV, lost its
broadcast license because it stridently aired its support of the 2002
coup while that coup was actually taking place. RCTV is now available
only on cable. Frontline provides the sad story of RCTV, but fails to
mention its acts of treason.

The majority of the population in Venezuela is of either mestizo or
African descent, people who’ve never before had a president who looked
remotely like them. They don’t care if he sings, rides a tractor, or
talks for hours. They won’t follow him into a dictatorship, but he isn’t
headed in that direction. Frontline cleverly implies that he is.

The U.S. corporate media loves to tell us that Venezuela is about to
become another Cuba. The Washington Post suffers from delusions unheard
of since the yellow journalism of the Spanish-American War era. Chávez
admires Fidel Castro because he overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio
Batista and has now withstood U.S. interference for half a century. But
both men know that their respective revolutions are entirely different.

The members of the Bush administration say that Chávez is undemocratic.
What comedians they are. Has Venezuela invaded another country, bombed
its towns and cities, hanged its president, killed thousands of
civilians, and turned millions of others into refugees? Has Chávez
denied prisoners of war all rights, allowed them to be tortured, and
broken all the customary international agreements about the treatment of
POWs?

Chávez has done none of these things. He even pardoned the men who
plotted the coup, after which many of them immediately began verbally
attacking him again. I could cite many other falsehoods in Bikel’s
fairytale, but I’ve said all I can bear.

Chávez wants nothing more than a mixed economy in which the profits from
huge industries are used to benefit all citizens, not just the white
descendants of European conquerors. The Chávez government pays the
owners for any industries it nationalizes. And it has no interest in the
Mom and Pop café down the street. Frontline won’t tell you any of this.

But Chávez does want PDVSA, the national oil company, to serve the
interests of all Venezuelans, not merely those of the private club that
controlled it before the election of Chávez. After the members of that
club went on “strike,” Chavez fired them and hired new people. He wants
all citizens to join the club.

Is that really too much to ask?

Patrick Irelan is a retired high-school teacher. He is the author of A
Firefly in the Night (Ice Cube Press) and Central Standard: A Time, a
Place, a Family (University of Iowa Press). You can contact him at
pwirelan43 at yahoo.com.