How about fake headlines?

I still check the news from the UK Guardian, but I'm careful about what I'm reading.  The Guardian has been more slanted toward the right wing for the last several years.  They're not alone in printing very misleading headlines, but this one is way over the top:




News outlets know that a lot of people only read the headlines of stories.  This is not just a slant on the news, however.  It's completely false.  Nowhere in the article itself does it even say that.  I've been particularly watchful of what happens in Venezuela, because I went there in 2004 when Hugo Chávez was in office to participate in a week-long session of seminars and meetings with press, opposition leaders and various government officials.  I had great hopes for the country and a concern for the future of its government.  A strong leader can tend to dictatorship after some years in power, especially where there's a strong (and US backed) opposition.  Chávez was full of himself, and some of the National Assembly seemed to me to be turning to typical political power plays, but Chávez himself was a great force for the majority of Venezuelans, permitting all to benefit from the country's rich oil fields, establishing education and arts for those who had been shut out of privilege.

I've been concerned that Maduro is no Chávez and he might more easily tend to dictator type action, but it's almost impossible to get any fair news about Venezuela out of western news outlets.  I had let go of Venezuelan sources several years ago (and that may prove to be a mistake).  Amid all the reports of economic downturn and loss of support for Marduro in western reports,  I was not surprised, but rather saddened, to read this Guardian headline.  I wondered, however, how one bans rivals from elections.  Wouldn't that mean one banned elections?  So I read the article. And here's what it actually says:

Hundreds of supporters shouted “Go Home, Donald Trump” to interrupt Maduro at a rally late on Sunday in the colonial centre of Caracas, where he announced that pro-government candidates had won more than 300 of the 335 mayoral offices.

Sunday’s voting marked the last nationwide elections before next year’s presidential race, when Maduro is expected to seek another term despite his unpopularity.

  Guardian

Okay. I'm already feeling a bit skeptical. If he's unpopular, why are the pro-government candidates doing so overwhelmingly well?  The Guardian isn't claiming that voting is rigged.  Just acknowledging that pro-government candidates are winning elections in the lion's share of the country.

(I'm not a bit surprised at the crowd chants.  When I was there, they were saying "Go home, Bush."  They know full well what the US is doing in their country.)

“The imperialists have tried to set fire to Venezuela to take our riches,” Maduro told the crowd. “We’ve defeated the American imperialists with our votes, our ideas, truths, reason and popular will.”

No threat of a ban yet.

The elections played out as Venezuelans struggle with triple-digit inflation, shortages of food and medicine, and charges that Maduro’s government has undermined democracy by imprisoning dissidents and usurping the powers of the opposition-controlled national assembly.

Something I'd read before, and thought was sufficiently backed with evidence. But no threat of banning opposition there either.  They control the National Assembly, it says.

Three of the four biggest opposition parties refused to take part in Sunday’s contests, protesting against what they called an electoral system rigged by a “dictator”. The last time the opposition refused to compete in congressional elections in 2005 it strengthened the government’s hand for years.

So that seems to put the blame on the opposition - where it seems to belong, does it not? There's no ban. Just a voluntary refusal to participate.

After dropping his vote into the cardboard ballot box earlier in the day, Maduro responded to the boycott. “A party that has not participated today cannot participate any more,” he said. “They will disappear from the political map.”

There it is. That's it. Apparently, that's what makes the Guardian headline writer think that headline is justified. And this is a translation from Spanish, so we can't even be sure it's correct.   But let's assume it is.  He's just said that the opposition is destroying itself. That is very much NOT a ban.

The struggles have caused the president’s approval rating to plunge, although the opposition has been largely unable to capitalise on Maduro’s unpopularity.

[...]

The mayoral elections follow a crushing defeat of opposition candidates in October’s gubernatorial elections, where anti-Maduro candidates won only five of 23 races amid allegations of official vote-buying and other irregularities.

For the love of Pete. "Nobody likes the man, but the opposition can't win any votes." WTF?  If that's true, it's a dmaned poor opposition.

Given the opposition’s disarray, political analysts said they doubted Maduro’s opponents would be able to rally behind a single candidate in next year’s presidential election.

“These were absolutely predictable results,” local pollster Luis Vicente Leon said on Twitter. “It’s absurd to think that an abstaining political force can win the majority of mayorships.”

Maybe even more absurd than the headline for this article.

The Guardian used to be better than this. I'd check out my old Venezuelan news sources if I had any energy left after reading the shit we've got going on here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.