Good Protesters—and the Bad Kind

Apr 01 2014

Good Protesters—and the Bad Kind

When Molotov cocktails are just a ‘boy’s adventure’

~snip~

In Venezuela, meanwhile, demonstrators are similarly labeled. Here’s Mariana Atencio on ABC World News (2/23/14):

It’s been 12 straight days of violent clashes here in Venezuela. On one side, students and the middle class. On the other, police and pro-government groups, followers of the party of anti-American President Hugo Chávez.

So it’s students versus people who support the “anti-American” government—not difficult to figure out whose side you’re supposed to take. Nor did Newsweek (2/21/14) leave much doubt when it described protest leader Leopoldo López this way:

With twinkling chocolate-colored eyes and high cheekbones, López seems to have it all: an attractive and supportive wife, two children who get along with each other and impossibly adorable Labrador puppies. He is charismatic, athletic and good-looking.

Even government opponents who embraced violent tactics received positive media spin. The New York Times (2/24/14) explained that one group in the opposition stronghold of San Cristóbal, one of whom was described as “casually guarding a beer crate full of firebombs,” were “not your ordinary urban guerrillas.”

The next day (2/25/14), the same correspondent, William Neumann, reported that oppositionists “have a variety of homemade weapons—mortars to lob small, noisy explosives, miniature firebombs, slingshots, clubs and nasty-looking things called Miguelitos made from hoses festooned with nails.”

When one such armed group prepared for an assault on a National Guard post, the Times reporter remarked that “at times the whole business has the naïve feel of a boy’s adventure tale”—though it’s hard to remember the Hardy Boys ever throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers.

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/good-protesters-and-the-bad-kind/