Francisco Toro, a former stringer for the NYT, is a prolific blogger and voice of the Venezuelan opposition. He was very recently given space in the NYT op-ed pages to ridicule the Maduro government and depict it as a paranoid police state. I guess the NYT editors were worried that recent editorials hysterically denouncing Maduro’s government (here, here and here) were not enough.
Toro is far from being the most extreme voice of the opposition, but in December of 2013 he wrote a lengthy blog post entitled “The Post 8D Agenda: Winning Ugly”. He wrote it just after the opposition suffered a humiliating defeat during municipal elections. He argued that a military coup in Venezuela was inevitable given its economic problems and that the opposition should be ready to kiss up to the people who perpetrate it: “The opposition needs to suit up, in other words. It needs to speak directly to the people with the real power: the guys with the guns…” and to show them that it has “a safe pair of hands” to run the economy and that it provides “an attractive camp to defect to”.
Toro also distinguished himself in 2014 by writing a blog post, which went viral, that accused the international media of ignoring a “tropical pogrom” in Venezuela – an allegation he later retracted in a post that received a fraction of the attention.
The NYT (and all other corporate outlets) justify parroting what Toro and even more extreme people say about Venezuela through the deception that they are giving voice to the voiceless. Interestingly, in February of 2014, under pressure from readers, the NYT conceded in a discrete correction to an article that Venezuela’s major TV networks “regularly feature government critics.” As I explained here, that is putting it way too mildly, but it was still a very important fact to concede.
Nevertheless, the NYT editorial board writes about Venezuela as if the correction had never been run, and it ignores its own highly embarrassing track record on Venezuela. The NYT editors endorsed the 2002 coup that briefly ousted Hugo Chavez with even more enthusiasm than the Bush Administration: “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator”. The NYT hasn’t learned a thing since 2002 and clearly doesn’t want to.
Toro’s latest NYT op-ed is focused primarily on economic arguments which I’ll address shortly, but he makes sure to tell readers that the “paranoid” Maduro government is “pouncing on even the mildest expressions of dissent.” It’s a shame more people outside Venezuela, especially those fluent in Spanish who live in the USA and Canada, don’t directly sample the Venezuelan TV and print media themselves. They’d quickly learn never to underestimate the dishonesty of the corporate media like the NYT and the sources they rely on, especially about states demonized by the U.S. government. Vitriolic criticism of the Maduro government appears regularly in outlets that the opposition insists have been turned into “government mouthpieces”. The protest movement the NYT editors heralded as “inspiring” killed several police officers and bystanders – another fact the NYT conceded in another correction the editorial board ignores. The protest leader, Leopoldo Lopez, the NYT portrays as a political prisoner participated in the kidnapping of a government minster during the 2002 coup – a crime which if attempted in the USA would have led, at the very least, to decades in jail if Chelsea Manning’s 35 year sentence (for merely embarrassing U.S. officials) is anything to go by.
I agree with Toro that Venezuela’s exchange rate system should essentially be scrapped and that it lies at the heat of the economic problems it has had since 2013. Comparison with Bolivia, another left wing government facing a U.S.-backed, coup-plotting opposition, shows that Venezuela has also been too conservative, not too reckless, with social spending. Unfortunately, the government faces ideological opposition to scrapping the exchange rate system from within its own ranks and an opposition that, in addition to plotting and endorsing coups, refuses to accept the business community’s role in aggravating economic problems. Anyone inclined to dismiss Maduro’s evidence that his opponents in the business community are deliberately aggravating problems through hoarding, smuggling and illegal currency speculation, should simply recall that head of Venezuela’s largest business federation anointed himself dictator during the 2002 coup. Opposition-led sabotage in 2002/2003 also caused the worst recession in Venezuela since at least 1980.
Venezuela’s economic problems are serious, but they should not be exaggerated. Its unemployment rate is the lowest in South America and it has continued to reduce extreme poverty despite the recession. Of course, exaggerating the problems is logical for those who fantasize about encouraging the “guys with the guns” to stage a coup and also to drive up borrowing costs.
It is really just sleazy of Toro to call Maduro’s government “paranoid” given that Toro himself has openly advocated “winning ugly” and appealing directly to the “the guys with the guns”.
In every national level vote since 1998, 50-63 percent of the electorate has voted Chavista. The relentless smears of the Venezuelan government over that period are an ugly attempt to throw those votes in the garbage.
The international press could help Venezuela develop an opposition – even right wing opposition – that at least rejects that the goal of seizing power violently. All it would have to do is quit pandering to people who are still bitter that they must now win debates at home – among the Venezuelans they ignored for decades – rather than in the USA.
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2 Comments
Thanks for your comment Michael. If you check out my Zblog you’ll see how Toro responded to this article on Twitter. Pretty wacky. I’ve had troubling placing links in the comments under my articles; otherwise I’d link to the blog post.
Indeed, the corporate media never seems to hit bottom with their Venezuela reporting – or indeed in reporting about any country the US government has placed in its crosshairs. A friend passed me a Wall Street Journal article where they claimed Venezuela is lowest spender on healthcare in Latin America. The editors didn’t notice that the number they claimed Venezuela spends – 1.6% GDP – would have made Venezuela the lowest spender on earth. As of 2012 the WHO said Venezuela was spending 4.7% GDP. The number the WSJ published should not have passed any competent reporter’s smell test.
Glad you challenged your student.
Reductio ad absurdum
Of course, Joe is right.
Criticisms of Venezuela and its government reach absurd heights, and have ever since Hugo Chavez was elected president. The fact that that the NYTimes participates grandly in this tells much about the so-called free press in the U.S.
People are certainly affected by this. Whenever the subject of Venezuela comes up with people I know, none yet have had a reasonable or really informed commentary. They parrot views like those of the NYTimes.
This is a simple but good example. I was teaching a class the other day and a student whose family comes from Puerto Rico commented how awful Venezuela was, “Why,” he said, “they don’t even have toilet paper in Venezuela!” Knowing this was not going to be a time of rational or detailed discourse, I simply responded, you could say the same about Argentina and Nicaragua, two countries where I have lived.” The student went silent.
In spite of his being by family heritage Puerto Rican, he knew nothing about Latin America, but, indeed, he was echoing what he had heard from others since he had spent his life in mainland U.S.
Okay, we can excuse a young person still in his teens, but he reflects what we adults struggle with, too. It takes extra work to know something of the reality of the world, without the internet or actually living elsewhere, it would be impossible. This student is something of a “canary in the mine,” showing the reach of media like the NYTimes.
By the way, the two countries I mentioned have toilet paper in stores, but when you leave home in the morning to go about daily activities, it’s a good idea to carry some in your purse or briefcase because there often is little in public places, schools, universities, etc. This seems like an absurd and trivial theme, perhaps, but the mainstream media is usually absurd when it comes to reporting on world events and denigrating those who depart from U.S. demands, as Venezuela has done.