Re: [lbo-talk] NYT whacks Chávez

[Jerry Monaco]

On 9/17/06, Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> An Uncertain Threat in Venezuela
>
> By ROGER LOWENSTEIN
>
> LATIN AMERICA, as the late Venezuelan author Carlos Rangel once wrote, has
> always had a "love-hate relationship" with the United States. The love is
> expressed in its purest form: imitation. The hate, more akin to
> resentment,
> boils down to a frustrated desire to get the Yanquis' attention.
>
> Fidel Castro pulled it off in the 1960's, torturing the Kennedy brothers
> with his cigar and his Marxism, and now, in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez is
> giving
> us a rerun. At least, this is the refrain of Nikolas Kozloff, a
> British-educated American who has written "Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics, and
> the Emerging Challenge to the United States."

Condescending, through and through.  This is the kind of person who thinks
that a "good", even if dismissive, book review is simply a matter of tilting
the chin back and looking down one's nose.  And in fact if you read the
review there is not one fact mentioned about Venezuela or the book under
review that leads to a thoughtful discussion.  The review actually says
nothing and that is the major lesson we should carry away from this kind of
writing.  Indoctrination is contentless; untruthful propaganda elevates
style over substance.  Many readers of the NYT fall for this kind of stuff,
because their attitude is the same as the Times.  Condescension without
content.

Jerry Monaco
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <../attachments/20060917/034aca75/attachment.htm>