Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 21:36:51 +0800
From: Eddy Schmid eschmid@westnet.com.au
To: Editor@VHeadline.com
Subject: Ref; article in todays vheadline

I've been meaning to write to someone at VHeadline for some time now on this particular issue ... but for one reason or another, never got around to it.

Your comments today, seem to have struck a chord with me, and encouraged me to submit a comment.

The point is, why do people ... and, in particular, media representatives in Venezuela feel they have to answer every slight against them in US media?

As an interested and impartial bystander, it appears to me, whenever someone within the US makes and unflattering comment, untruthful, deceitful or whatever, the media in Venezuela seem to be at pains to prove to the World that such statements are rubbish.

In many cases, such action comes across as apologetic and defensive which only supports the allegations in the first place.

• Why do the people of Venezuela feel they constantly have to validate whatever their government does?
   
• Why do they constantly rush to defend every such article that's printed or voiced?

It's almost as if they BELIEVE the authors of these releases and feel obligated to refute them.

Should that be the case, then things in Venezuela are NOT as I've been led to believe they are.

It's not up to me, to tell it's citizens how they should respond to any such events. However, I do strongly suspect, ignoring many of these articles and capitalizing on positive issues and events within Venezuela, ensuring these are offered to the world media would be far more beneficial to Venezuela than the constant defensive posture being exhibited.

For what it's worth, MHO.

Eddy Schmid
eschmid@westnet.com.au

Editor's Note: Dear Eddy, while one will undoubtedly agree with the general theme of your comment, it should be pointed out that official Venezuelan reactions/protests to some of the lies and disinformation printed in the US media et.al. is insignificant when compared to the seawall of lies and deceptions about Venezuela that pollute the US media and elsewhere; given the veneer of 'The Truth' when spouted from the lips of supposedly Christian leaders such as Pat Robertson and other alleged purveyors of 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth' ... just one flagrant example being Fox News! 

While, admittedly, most printed newspapers and local/regional television & radio stations around the world are necessarily subjected to the inherent bias of their readers, viewers, listeners and pseudo-nationalistic strutting, the Internet has exposed the ordinary citizen to a wealth of 'information' from many different perspectives that may agree or disagree with what one has already been brainwashed to perceive as 'fair and balanced'! 

It is logical, therefore, that human beings and governments (which allegedly are made up of members of the human species) should react in some way to what is purported to be 'The Truth' when it is so obviously propagandistic lies with ulterior if not aggressive motives.

One can suspect that the Reverend (?) Pat Robertson is so abysmally uninformed, or that he accepts politically-motivated lies without genuine question, that he actually believes that President Hugo Chavez Frias should be assassinated, that President Chavez Frias is seeking nuclear bombs to blitz the hell out of the White House, that President Chavez Frias is purposefully hiding Osama Bin Laden in some cave drilled out of the Avila Mountain or that Venezuela actually Fedex-ed US$ zillions to Al Qaeda post 9/11!

Just ask yourself how would you yourself would react if your normally sane local preacher used his Sunday pulpit to maliciously tell your peace-loving neighbors the unsubstantiated 'TRUTH' that YOU are a mass-murdering booze-loving pedophilic parasite to humanity? 

Would you smile?  Would you add a few more greenbacks to the collection plate?

Roy S. Carson
Editor@VHeadline.com