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They know that opinion polls cannot be published within the country in the last few weeks before the election--a standard "best practices" election rule--and they tried to false poll ploy in 2006 and got caught, so, in order to influence the elections--to add yet more anti-Chavez propaganda to the river of garbage that flows from the corpo-fascist press--they do a "poll" in a different way. They GO LOOK FOR a few disgruntled poor people to fill in the blanks for this clever, pre-written headline. It's almost a haiku. 5 syllables--"Chavez's base, the poor...", 7 syllables, "...wobbles as election looms"--needs 5 more syllables for the third line. How about,
Chavez's base, the poor, wobbles, as election looms. We pay cash for poems.
The Associated Pukes have never done any unbiased reporting on the Chavez government's astonishing popularity over the last ten-plus years, so, for the Associated Pukes to now provide its readers with poetry about the poor's "disillusion" may earn them prizes in cheap, "you pay for your prize" contests, but it ain't journalism.
Chavez has won every election that he has ever run in, by big majorities, and has furthermore maintained big majorities in the National Assembly that support his policies. He has been one of the most popular politicians in the world. He has done this in honest, aboveboard, transparent, internationally monitored and certified elections--something else that the Associated Pukes have never conveyed to their readers. The rightwing opposition boycotted the last National Assembly elections (giving Chavez a 100% supportive legislature). They are bound to win some seats, now that they have deigned to participate in Venezuela's elections. Most polls predict they will win about 25% of the seats. The Associated Pukes are preparing the narrative that this is a "defeat" for Chavez, and they are trying their darndest to up that MINORITY vote to, say, 30%, so they can then say that Chavez is "finished."
Contemplate the contrivance of this Associated Pukes "reporter," in trying to make the poor fit the headline:
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Gregorio Mattey, a 33-year-old construction worker, said he has done well under Chavez.
"I consider myself a revolutionary," he said. "I'm living better now because I have my house, my work."
Yet he acknowledged inflation is squeezing him and he fears his 10-year-old son could get caught up in crime and drugs.
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What happened here is that the poor guy didn't give Fabiola what she was looking for--criticism of Chavez ("disillusion," "wobble")--so she FEEDS HIM questions. "What about 'inflation'?" "What about "crime in the streets'?" (--two out of three rightwing "talking points" in the CIA memo). And he says, 'well, yeah, Inflation is inflation" (she makes up the word "squeeze"--notice there are no quotes), and he muses, 'well, yeah, what parent is not worried that his kid could get caught up in crime and drugs?' (and she sticks in the word "fear," again with no quotes). The guy's doing very well. His kid is fine. He credits Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution. She, struggling to find ANYBODY in the barrio "wobbling" about Chavez, frames a Chavez supporter's statements with CIA "talking points."
The whole article is like this. She uses a Catholic university professor as her "expert." (The Catholic universities are notoriously anti-Chavez. That's where the USAID recruits and "trains" anti-Chavez protestors.) She uses ONE poll that has anti-Chavez results and IGNORES all the more recent polls that say that he and his socialist party are going to crush the rightwing opposition in the National Assembly elections. Well, not if the Associated Pukes can help it, in their campaign to force the poor to be "disillusioned."
Chavez cuts poverty IN HALF, and cuts extreme poverty by 70%, but, but, but, but, this maid who lives in the barrio gets shit pay from her rich employer and says she's "waiting" for the Chavez to help her. ("'Here I am, waiting,' she said.') Wobble, wobble.
But the following takes the cake:
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"High prices for oil, Venezuela's chief export, fed an economic boom between 2004 and 2008 and helped cut the share of Venezuelans living in poverty from about 60 percent to 33 percent during that period, according to the government's National Statistics Institute. It puts the present rate at about 30 percent, and says the number living in extreme poverty has also fallen sharply.
Chavez counts it as a triumph that the poverty rate has halved. Yet in the past two years, the recession and racing inflation have been eating away at those gains and breeding discontent.
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"Eating" and "breeding." Another haiku in the making? While the BUSHWHACK DEPRESSION is "eating" whole governments round the world, and deflation "shock and awe" darkens the sky with an ominous cloud, with just about the only exceptions being Venezuela and its closest allies (Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador), the poor in Venezuela are "breeding" with "discontent", like the barrio dweller who shouted from the window at the rightwing opposition candidates for whom AP staged this event, "Fascists! You will not return!"
"Eating and breeding." A reporter goes shopping. "Fascists! You will not return!"
"High prices for oil" did NOT help cut poverty in half in Venezuela. The CHAVEZ GOVERNMENT cut poverty in half in Venezuela, with the virtually unprecedented decision, in human history, to USE THE PROFITS FROM THE OIL TO BENEFIT THE POOR.
Haiku is a notoriously ambiguous form of writing. So is Associated Pukes "journalism." Learn to read between lines.
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