Since decades, even centuries, as downtrodden peoples and revolutionaries of Africa, Asia, South America, Oceania, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, we are used to the distortions, lies, half-truths, character assassination, racism, discrimination, plots; to the body, mind and thought control mechanisms, to the inculcation of a master-slave mentality, of inferiority complexes, to our wonderful "education" and "socialization", to the "freedom of thought", to the "freedom of expression", to the magnificent "freedom of the press", to the "family" of Venevision, Globovision; of the fantastic "news" of "El Nacional", "El Universal", of the "Voice of Russia", the "Voice of America", UPI, Reuters, ARD, ZDF, CNN, BBC, dpa, New York Times, FAZ, Der Spiegel, BILD, etc., etc. (Now, we may also add the "Toronto Star!")

In fact, we are used to the cruel, racist fairy tales, nursery rhymes, legends,myths, etc., etc. We read, heard and swallowed hook, bait, sinker and shark, all about the dangerous, uncivilized, bloodthirsty "communists", "terrorists", "niggers", "coolies", "kaffirs", "latinos" "slit eyes", "camel drivers", "blacks", "natives", "indigenas", "aborigines", etc., etc.

Infowarfare, the mental holocaust, mass media terror, psychological manipulationand indoctrination did not begin yesterday; today they all are just more technologically refined, more perverse, more sadistic. We all, across our lives, have received a full dose of this cultural, traditional and ideological strychnine, disseminated by the ruling classes across their mass media, newspapers, radio, TV, books, stories, novelas, poems, songs, proverbs, psalms, credos, prayers, morals, lies.

In fact, the other day, pondering over this issue, I came to the conclusion that since yore, the "absolute" majority of mankind already lived and are still living in a world of virtual reality. What are coming now are the Platonic Virtual Ideas of the Virtual Idea, of Big Brother, of Global Fascism. Orwellian Virtual Reality!

Most of us do not have the foggiest idea what really is happening around us on earth. Surely, if most of the reporters of the international press agencies should be our only sources about world events, then, long ago already, we have been taken for a long ride. If we would only depend on our newspapers, TV, radio, opera, films and shows for "information", well, then any donkey could become an excellent teacher, a superb university professor." (December 18, 2002)

Not only the local mass media in Venezuela, (excluding the only channel controlled by the state, VTV) Globovision, Venevision, RCTV, Televen, and the local ones like TAM, CMT, OMC, including the corresponding radio stations (excluding Radio Nacional), also the majority of the corresponding Newspeak global mass media, deliberately spread formal-logical, one-sided, incomplete, biased, unilateral, blurred, false "information" , downright blatant lies, in other words, global corporate, ideological "news" about Venezuela, and about all world events that do not fit in their closed, universal system of "globalization", of "infinite justice" (Bush), against "absolute evil" (Chirac), thus defending their "right to assassinate" (Rumsfeld) all "terrorists" and "dictators" like Bin Laden and Chávez.

Now, among others, the "Toronto Star" follows in this Goebbels-Speak, this Nazi Newspeak. Hitler said it at the eve of his Nazi victory over Democracy: "If you want to control a people, control its education."

This is the quintessence of current, ruling "freedom of expression", of "freedom of thought", of "freedom of the press", of Globospeak!

See the quoted article below, and draw your own logical, rational conclusions!


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TORONTO STAR
19/12/2002.

Editorial: Venezuela drifts toward anarchy

Hugo Chávez may be Venezuela's freely elected president, but he is fast losing his people's confidence. A million took to the streets this week demanding his resignation and fresh elections. Two million have signed a petition to that effect. For every Venezuelan who compares him to a saviour, there's another who calls him a dictator. The former paratrooper is an abrasive, autocratic, populist reformer who reviles Venezuela's business and landowner classes as a "rancid oligarchy" as he tries to channel more of the state's $40 billion oil wealth to the poor majority. He has rewritten the constitution, making it more democratic and egalitarian. And in a system where 1 per cent of the people own nearly half the land, he has tried to speed redistribution to the poor. He has also brought Venezuela into line with Mideast oil cartel pricing, driving up costs for the United States which gets 10 per cent of its oil from Venezuela. He gives Fidel Castro cheap fuel. And he has criticized George Bush's peremptory "you're with us or against us" philosophy. Predictably, Chávez has infuriated Venezuela's upper- and middle-class elite, who had long run the country of 23 million, as well as oil industry executives, trade unions and the media. Some of these forces tried to topple Chávez in a bloody April coup, and they're at it again. Since Dec. 2 they have shut down Venezuela's $180 billion economy, the world's fifth largest oil source.

Protests flare daily, businesses are shut, the oil industry has been crippled, and food and gas are scarce. People fear anarchy. Army chief Gen. Julio Garcia Montoya has denounced this "sabotage." Put simply, Venezuela's elite is having a hard time accepting the most basic tenet of democracy: Whoever wins an election has the right to govern for a full term. The rebellion has dark implications for all of Latin America's fragile democracies. Canada and the other Organization of American States countries should insist on a peaceful, lawful resolution to this crisis. Chávez may be autocratic, but is no tyrant. He was freely elected in 1998 and easily again in 2000. His term ends in 2007. If a vote were held today, he may even be re-elected. Under the constitution, there can be no binding referendum on new elections before next Aug. 23. Chávez would be smart to recognize that he needs to re-establish his legitimacy, and agree to early elections.But if he does not, Venezuela's putsch-friendly elite should wait until August, before demanding a vote. Whatever damage they fear Chávez may do to their interests between now and then will be nothing compared to the damage they will do to democracy and civil order, if they oust him lawlessly. "


Dr. Franz J. T. Lee
Professor,
Seminario de Psicologia Politica,
Escuela de Ciencias Politicas,
UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES,
Merida, Venezuela.