19 março 2003

ECO-TERROR
Anybody Using This First Amendment?
Q: I want to ask about two more topics: Venezuela and then...
A: Now, you're not supposed to ask about Venezuela. You've already made a mistake. With the USA Patriot Act, you're not supposed to look at anything but Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, which is the Weapon of Mass Distraction. And while you're supposed to be hypnotized by Iraq, don't watch that man behind the screen, Otto Reich in the White House, who is doing his level best to overthrow the elected government in Venezuela. So, I'm trying to write this story, but you can't get the true reports out for nothing. The New York Times runs a front-page picture of thousands of Venezuelans marching against Hugo Chavez. The same day, I'm photographing it myself, more people are marching for Chavez, but they don't show the others. It's more devastating than fabrication, because a picture makes you think, "That must be real." It's terribly sad, because the story of Venezuela is about oil. It is about crushing a dissenter to the new globalization order.
It's hard to tell the real stories because it requires investigation. It requires work. And it requires being able to say that official sources like the State Department are full of shit, that they are fabricating this stuff out whole cloth for the purpose of scrambling your brain, and that our media outlets buy it.
I can't tell you to how many reporters I've said, "Where do you get this stuff?" And they say, "Well, it was in a State Department press release," as if that's an acceptable source.