Hugo Chavez hates Wall Street, ground zero for “savage capitalism.” Daily he dreams of bear markets bringing the U.S. economy crashing down. He certainly likes the Occupy Wall Street movement. It is tailor-made for advancing Chavez-style “participatory democracy.” Little wonder he has dispatched his star propagandist to New York.
Eva Golinger, described as “a Venezuelan-American lawyer and editor of the English edition of the state newspaper Correo del Orinoco” (i.e., an arm of the Chavez regime). A well-funded apologist for Chavez, Golinger has apparently joined forces with the anti–Wall Street protest movement, gleefully reporting back to Venezuela news of growing disorder, imminent class struggle, and sinking capitalism in the U.S.
Golinger is also known for exposés of nefarious U.S. efforts to destabilize Venezuela by supporting endangered democratic groups. According to the Commentator:
[Golinger] is on Venezuelan government TV several times a week naming Venezuelan citizens who have dared to advocate for human rights or democracy in their country. Her main scapegoats, it would seem, are the National Endowment for Democracy and the United States Agency for International Development; two U.S. government organizations that provide support to civil society in monitoring Venezuela’s democratic collapse; a collapse in which Ms. Golinger is, of course, actively involved.
Ms. Golinger’s presence in New York is not illegal—although as an employee of the Government of Venezuela, technicalities could emerge regarding the Foreign Agent Registration Act.
Golinger’s newspaper makes no apparent effort at balanced reporting. For example, eye-catching in the latest issue was Chavez’s praise of communist China. Chavez predicted that China “is going to become the greatest power in the world and it’s important to note that this country didn’t need to invade anyone, nor convert itself in a murderous empire that steps on people like the yankee empire to become what it is.” (What about Chairman Mao, the Communist Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution?)
Long ago, tyrants learned that the first thing that goes in a revolution is objectivity.
Clearly, the safety and security of the U.S. does not depend on whether or not Golinger is free to move about and report from within the U.S. Her presence here, however, is a reminder of the consistent, well-financed efforts on the part of Chavez and company to stir the “anti-capitalist” pot abroad while isolating the domestic, democratic opposition in Venezuela behind walls of censorship, legal sanction, untruths, and vilification. This, too, is worth a protest.