It says something about the level of political discourse in the US that the writings of Ken Silverstein on Venezuela are treated as gospel. We laughed ourselves silly when Eva Bartlett went to Syria for a week & came back proclaiming “I’ve been to Syria & everything media tells you is a lie.” Now people who think themselves high-powered Marxists are posting a piece by Silverstein proclaiming “”I just got back from Venezuela &….everything you read or see about the country in the US media is a lie.” His reporting is utterly banal & superficial & although I politically detest Max Blumenthal & Ben Norton, Silverstein belittles the two schnooks personally rather than challenge them politically.
We’re getting a repeat in Venezuela of what we got in Syria to the extreme disadvantage of the Syrian & Venezuelan people. Too many reporters, as Silverstein once was, have become libertarians, utterly rudderless & unable to distinguish oppressive regimes from the just demands of oppressed working people. Silverstein joins an entire army of these guys, including Pilger, Fisk, Cockburn, who can’t even be trusted to report the news accurately because they’re too engaged with the regimes. Bartlett & Beeley, Blumenthal & Norton don’t count of course since they are propagandists, not journalists. But unfortunately that is what the reporters & Marxists have become.