NACLA on RCTV

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Over the years I have called attention to NACLA's depressing drift to 
the right. The latest instance is a report from Venezuela on the RCTV 
controversy by Eric Biewener, a young man who graduated from Harvard 
University last year. His report can be found here:

http://news.nacla.org/2007/06/04/venezuela-propaganda-blurs-the-lines/

If you really want to understand his hostility to Chavez, it helps to 
understand his general hostility to radical measures, as indicated by 
his blog entry below. Frankly, my advice to NACLA is this. If you want 
to hire freelancers to write counter-revolutionary tripe, you might want 
to choose more carefully since this character couldn't get a job at New 
Republic.

----

So the entire time I’ve been in Venezuela (2 months now), I’ve been 
trying to figure out why the grocery stores I go to don’t always have 
chicken or beef. I thought at first that it had to do with the time of 
day that I went… then I thought that maybe I was going to a crappy 
grocery store (I was, I now use a better one… but still the same problem 
with the meat)… then I thought, well, maybe this is just how shit works 
in Venezuela.

Then, while reading an article about rural land redistribution, it hit 
me: this IS how shit works in Venezuela. See, the rural land 
redistribution works like this: some squatters go and burn down a big 
rancher’s crops, tell him that they own the land now, and then demand 
that Chávez let them keep the land, which he often does. As a result, 
lot’s of once productive land is now being used by people who either 
don’t really know what they’re doing, don’t have the capital to do it, 
or both. Also, once productive land owners are no longer investing in 
their land or animals because they fear that it will be a waste. Why 
grow sugar cane or raise a chicken when some squatter is just going to 
take it away from you with the blessing of the federal government?

http://theperiphery.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/wheres-the-beef/