I think everybody has gotten used to the idea that Marc Cooper has pretty
much landed with both feet firmly planted in Hitchensville. Despite his
formal opposition to the war in Iraq, Cooper redbaits the actual movement
that has come together to bring the troops home in the pages of the
bourgeois press. And when he is not busy redbaiting the antiwar movement or
boosting the "sensible" Kennedy-McCain immigration bill (a new version of
the 'bracero' program of the 1940s, a form of indentured servitude), he
lashes out a Cuba for not allowing the National Endowment for Democracy to
have free rein. But perhaps his biggest gripe is with Hugo Chavez, who has
the temerity to stand up to American imperialism and use oil profits for
the benefit of Venezuela's poor.
In a May 7th entry on his blog titled "Hugo's Ploy," Cooper relies on an AP
dispatch that states that Chavez is seeking a 25-year term. It quotes
Chavez as saying, "I am going to ask you, all the people, if you agree with
Chavez being president until 2031." However, AP is forced to admit that "It
was not clear if Chavez was talking about holding a legally binding vote to
eliminate term limits or proposing a plebiscite."
Well, if Cooper were a serious journalist rather than a Matt Drudge
wannabe, he could have tracked down an item that was forwarded in the
comments section of his blog by one Brian Jones beforehand. It has a link
to a Yahoo Spanish News article that clearly states that Chavez was only
seeking an end to term limits:
>>La actual Constitución "bolivariana" de Venezuela, aprobada en 1999,
permite la reelección una sola vez. Un eventual referendo podría modificar
esta condición.<<
Full:
<http://espanol.news.yahoo.com/060506/52/1ameq.html>http://espanol.news.yahoo.com/060506/52/1ameq.html
This says, "The actual 'Bolivarian' Constitution of Venezuela, approved in
1999, permits reelection only once. An eventual referendum would modify
this condition."
How does being opposed to term limits get translated into a 25 year
presidency? The answer is obvious. The same way that Maurice Bishop's
Grenada got turned into a Russian military base or that Sandinista
Nicaragua became a totalitarian dungeon--despite having democratic
elections throughout the 1980s. There's a word for this: disinformation.
Using his by now 33 year old service as a translator for Salvador Allende
as left cover, Marc Cooper is performing the same role on his blog and in
the pages of the LA Times that people like Shirley Christian carried out in
the NY Times in the 1980s. It is not a pretty sight.
--
www.marxmail.org
