RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/

In the past couple of weeks, the New York Times has had two big articles about Venezuela, describing the horrific conditions that now exist there, and analyzing what went wrong. On May 14, it was “How Venezuela Stumbled to the Brink of Collapse”; and on May 17 it was “Venezuela’s Collapse Is the Worst Outside of War in Decades, Economists Say.”

It will not surprise you that the word “socialism” does not appear in either article. But the stupidity here goes far beyond just not mentioning the subject of “socialism.” The affirmative effort in these articles is to somehow shift the blame for Venezuela’s economic collapse to something other than socialism, whether it be “poor governance,” corruption, or general incompetence. The May 17 piece does have a reference to “misguided policies,” but they never say what those “misguided policies” may be. Widespread nationalizations of industry? Massive public housing schemes? Heavily subsidized food and household products? “Free” healthcare? None of these are mentioned.

But of course they do mention — multiple times — the Trump administration’s sanctions, just imposed in the past couple of months, as if those have something meaningful to do with a 60-80% collapse of GDP that has taken place over a decade or more.

From a summary in the May 17 piece:

Venezuela, at one point Latin America’s wealthiest country, has not been shattered by armed conflict. Instead, economists say, the poor governance, corruption and misguided policies of President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have fueled runaway inflation, shuttered businesses and brought the country to its knees. And in recent months, the Trump administration has imposed stiff sanctions to try to cripple it further.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14264/new-york-times-trump-peace

No one ever lost money betting against peace between Israelis and Palestinians…. It would be far better if The New York Times waited until the plan was released and then commented on its specific provisions rather than stacking the deck against it by quoting only its most strident critics.

There are those who will criticize any plan, no matter how positive it may be, if it emanates from the Trump administration. When President Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, many Democrats who would have favored such moves if they had been done by Barack Obama, opposed them only because these same moves were done by President Trump. These Democrats do not want to see Trump succeed at anything, even if his success would be good for America, for Israel and for peace.

If the editors of The New York Times refuse to separate opinion and analysis from hard reporting, every reader has an obligation to make that separation for herself or himself. Bear this in mind when you read The New York Times.

The New York Times seems determined to kill the proposed Trump Middle East peace plan before it is even made public. In a recent article, it quoted only nay-sayers and critics, who without having even seen the plan have declared its demise. In the guise of news, the Times provided “analysis” in the news section, which was, in reality, an editorial. This has become more and more common on the news pages of The New York Times. The separation of news from opinion is in the highest tradition of journalism, but The New York Times seems determined to knock down that wall of separation, especially when it comes to subjects on which its editors and publishers have strong opinions. Among these subjects are both Israel, which can do no right, and Donald Trump, who is always wrong. When these two subjects come together, as they do with regard to the Trump peace plan, readers must be wary of accepting news reports as objective.

Every single expert quoted in the article predicted that it would not succeed. Many of these experts have been involved in past unsuccessful efforts to bring about a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not surprising that these experts would not want to see others succeed where they have failed, especially if those others were members of the Trump administration. Then one expert went so far as to say: “The only way to protect the long-term viability of the best aspects of the Kushner plan,” he wrote, “is to kill the plan.”