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    Interesting to compare Jon Snow on the coup in Chile with the current coup attempt in Venezuela Archived Message

    Posted by Garry on February 5, 2019, 12:34 pm, in reply to "Chris Williamson Labour Mp smacks down JoSno & C4 news over Venezuela"


    Here he is, all knowing, in that old interview with David Edwards of Medialens in 2001. I've copied in the bit relating to Chile:

    ...

    DE: "Well, I'll tell you what I would like to do is Pinochet. Greg Palast wrote in the Observer: 'The October 1970 plot against Chile's President-elect Salvador Allende, using CIA "sub-machine guns and ammo", was the direct result of a plea for action a month earlier by Donald Kendall, chairman of PepsiCo, in two telephone calls to the company's former lawyer, President Richard Nixon.' I saw that in the Observer, but I didn't see it discussed anywhere else. Did you see that discussed anywhere else?"

    JS: "Well, I haven't seen that particular story discussed anywhere else, but we all +know+ that the Pinochet coup was a corporate American coup, and it's been detailed to bloody oblivion! If I read another story about ITT..."

    DE: "Did you cover it?"

    JS: "I was +involved+! I +went+! I +reported+ it!"

    DE: "I didn't see it in the mainstream press, apart from..."

    JS: "But it happened in +1970+... When was the coup in Chile? I can't even remember, it was so long ago!"

    DE: "But Pinochet was under house arrest for 18 months; I was amazed that I didn't see it discussed during that period."

    JS: "But it was discussed very extensively at the time of the coup."

    DE: "But not when he was under house arrest."

    JS: "Well what difference would that make?"

    DE: "Well isn't it incredibly important that Palast – he wrote this article basically saying that corporate America was behind it..."

    JS: "Well who is he?"
    DE: "He's a columnist with the Observer."

    JS: "But why should I be following up something he's written?"

    DE: "But as you say, it's widely known but not discussed."

    JS: "But it +is+ discussed. There's nobody who discusses Chile who doesn't know it's a corporate conspiracy. If there is, introduce me! ITT led the coup – that's a fact!"

    DE: "Did you discuss that much on Channel 4?"

    JS: "Endlessly! But there isn't anybody who's discussed Chile and not mentioned the corporate American involvement!"

    DE: "Have you heard of the British historian Mark Curtis?"

    JS: "I don't know."

    DE: "He argues that there's a pattern to post-1945 British and US interventions, basically defending profits and installing people like the Shah in Iran..."

    JS: "Oh this is bollocks! Total bollocks!"

    DE: "Do you think so?"

    JS: "Utter bollocks!"

    DE: "Really."

    JS: "I wish it was true, it would make life so much easier."

    DE: "Why do you think it's bollocks?"

    JS: "Because, I'm afraid there are many, many other factors. Do you know the role Winston Churchill played in disposing of... of the brilliant, democratically elected prime minister, 1952 – what the #### was his name? – the greatest Iranian politician of all time?"

    DE: "Mussadiq."

    JS: "Mussadiq, wonderful man – assassinated by Britain. Do you hear people discussing that? There's a conspiracy not to tell the truth about Iran!"

    DE: "Really?"

    JS: "Yes. I just don't travel with +any+ of this crap! What I travel with is lazy journalism."

    DE: "But isn't there a pattern to the lazy journalism?"

    JS: "No, unfortunately there is +not+! You mean, white, middle-class, middle-aged men, sitting around desks hatching plots which have nothing to do with the main interests of women and ethnic minorities? Well there is a bit of that, yes!"

    DE: "Can I talk about global warming briefly?"

    JS: "Global warming you can. I think you're +bananas+!"

    DE: "Do you?"

    JS: "You're completely off the clock!" (laughs)

    DE: "Oh really (laughs). Well that's fair enough, yeah."

    JS: "You should attend some of the editorial meetings in the mornings. You'd hear all this stuff flying."

    DE: "Obviously there was the failure of the Hague convention, and very little coverage of that in the States. Now..."

    JS: "I must say, this newspaper or news programme that you have in mind will be fantastically dull watching. So far it's going to be a few letters to a man from Pepsi-cola. It's going to be a discussion of a coup that occurred over 30 years ago. It's going to be a discussion of the murder of a politician in Iran in 1952. What about living in the present?"
    -------------

    Well yes, what about the present in Venezuela!

    CONTINUES AT THE LINK

    Medialens

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