by BJ Murphy
I’ve decided to make a quick article here to point out a certain issue I’ve been noticing lately for the past week. It’s not so much an attack on just the media, but also to those who blindly follow every word the media spouts.
Here lately, with massive amounts of both confirmed reports and unconfirmed rumors coming in from Libya, the mainstream media here in the US have been eating it all up. It didn’t matter whether or not the reports they were airing were confirmed, because they know, as I know, the people are going to blindly follow their every word like they’ve always been doing.
Though, this article isn’t on Libya. There’s plenty of other, much better articles on Libya. So I am of no need to write up one.
The reason of writing this article came about after reading a certain news article by Yahoo News, titled “Qaddafi’s Friends in Venezuela and Cuba“.
In this article of theirs, they end up trying to demonize Venezuela’s President Chavez with claims that he’s supporting Gaddafi against the protesters in Libya. Here it states, “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proclaimed his support for Qaddafi last night, claiming that “Qaddafi is to Libya as [Simon] Bolívar is to us.” For them, that last night would’ve been on the 21st of February this year.
Now, if we were to actually, I don’t know, do some real research, one could easily find out when Chavez actually made that comment. And trust me, it wasn’t made on the 21st of this year like Yahoo News seems to claim. In fact, this comment was made two years ago, when Gaddafi visited Venezuela:
“The Venezuelan leader has borrowed more than just ideas. In December, Mr. Chávez said he would give up Venezuela’s presidential palace to people displaced by heavy flooding to move into a large Bedouin tent left him by Mr. Gadhafi after a visit to Caracas two years ago.
“During that visit, Mr. Chávez also gave Mr. Gadhafi a jewel-encrusted replica of the sword of Simón Bolívar, Venezuela’s revered founding father. “Simón Bolívar is for us Venezuelans what Moammar Gadhafi is for Libyans,” he told Venezuelans at the time. “Viva Bolivar! Viva Gadhafi!””
So here we have Chavez thanking Gaddafi for their friendship over the years with presents and a nice symbolized quote. We’ve gotta realize that Gaddafi wasn’t always the neo-liberal dictator of Libya. From Libya’s rise to independence in 1969 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Libya had gone through a massive increase of worker rights and socio-economic rights to the Libyan people. He even used the oil supply profits to fund social programs that benefited his people. Once the USSR collapsed, so started Libya as well, through neo-liberal reforms and Gaddafi working with the very imperialists who once bombed his land.
But that memory of the once anti-imperialist Gaddafi still rests in the memory of his allies as well, this including President Chavez. So there’s nothing curious as to why Chavez had so much respect for Gaddafi. But, again, we must point out that this happened two years ago! Not five days ago!
Another attack against Chavez that I’ve noticed have come from those of the so-called “revolutionary left” itself! With claims that Chavez was supporting Gaddafi through his twitter feed. Al-Jazeera had made similar remarks as well in their Live Update blog on Libya at around 4:27am. They claimed that “Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has backed Muammar Gaddafi on Twitter.”
Well, let’s just look at what Chavez tweeted:
“Long Live the independence of Libya! Gaddafi is facing a civil war!!”
Okay. Alright. So….where did Chavez support Gaddafi again? Because all I see is Chavez supporting Libya’s independence away from Western imperialism. He also recognizes the fact that there’s a civil war taking place in Libya. If that constitutes showing support in Gaddafi, then Al-Jazeera are just as much supporting Gaddafi as Chavez is.
So, the overall point of this article is to not blindly follow every word the media prints. Be objective and actually do your own investigation. As I’ve shown above, if we are to not become objective analysts, then we are doomed of remaining gullible to mainstream media propaganda.
Red Love & Salutes!
The prison gates are open... 