The Moon of Alabama deals with some of these false claims. However the mainstream media also leaves out key background information necessary to understand what is going on in Venezuela. I will give just a few examples.
The Venezuelan Supreme Court dissolved the General Assembly
The General Assembly had been in contempt of the court for some time after the Assembly seated three members which the Supreme Court claimed had been involved in invalid elections. The Assembly ignored the ruling. In response the Supreme Court dissolved the Assembly and ruled that all its powers would be transferred to it. The CNN report at the time not surprisingly slants towards the opposition views of what happened.
Of course the Assembly and its supporters were up in arms calling the move a coup. The ruling did result in Maduro’s party ruling all three branches of the government. There are grounds to question the move no doubt, but the mainstream press does not even bring the matter up. This makes it impossible to understand the Maduro government position. Is that the idea?
Negotiations to solve the conflict
There have been at least three sets of negotiations designed to solve the conflict. One in the Dominican Republic last February supposedly reached an agreement as reported in this article: “The Venezuelan government claimed on Wednesday that it had reached a preliminary agreement with the country’s main opposition coalition during ongoing talks in the Dominican Republic, lauding the milestone as a triumph over US efforts to bring about regime change in the South American country.
“Today Donald Trump has been defeated… Today the opposition and government of Venezuela signed a pre-agreement,” stated Communications Minister and delegate to the talks, Jorge Rodriguez.” However the agreement was never ratified by the opposition and the talks broke down. Yet there is no talk of negotiations now as indicated in Pompeo’s address to the UN a portion of which is on the appended video. In most reports there are no mention of prior negotiations nor of negotiations being a solution even though they avoid violence and involve Venezuelans themselves solving the issues.
Maduro himself has continually requested negotiations. Last January the National Assembly controlled by the opposition also had called for the negotiations held in the Dominican Republic but the Assembly was divided on the issue.
The Constituent Assembly
Probably most people have never heard of the Constituent Assembly but without some knowledge of it and its role it is impossible to understand how the Maduro government functions. Of course many reject the Assembly as shown in this Wikipedia article on the Assembly. However, it has assumed the powers that originally resided in the National Assembly.
There is some criticism of the Constituent National Assembly from within as noted in this article by Julio Escalona a member of the constituent national assembly (ANC): “The problem, from my point of view, is that even though the ANC has approved open debates in the street, in the barrios, in rural areas, etc., that hasn’t happened. A void exists, and it has to be filled soon! The debate internally within the ANC cannot remain inside the four walls of the Assembly chambers. The leadership, the heads of commissions, the delegates… everybody must go out to debate in public squares, in the barrios.”
There are numerous other omissions that could be talked about some about the presidential election but perhaps what I have noted is enough to at least show how the mainstream press is guilty of sins of omission. While there is much to be legitimately debated with respect to all three issues, my point is that the mainstream media no longer bothers even to admit basic information necessary to understand the Maduro government position.
