New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, as Andrea Widburg notes here, got a Pulitzer prize for lying about the massive crimes of communism in what was then the Ukraine. It’s supposedly an embarassment.
But not if you check out who got a Pulitzer this time:
Greg Grandin, Hugo Chavez’s biggest apologist. A guy who defends Hugo Chavez and all his crimes to his last breath. I’m not talking about a guy like Bernie Sanders who says ‘yes socialism in Venezuela is great but there are problems.’ Grandin is a real dyed-in-the-wool useful stooge who can’t stop praising the brutal communist dictator. There never were a lot of those around, but the shills that were there were loud. Given the embarassment of socialism now, there are even fewer. But Grandin is one of them.
Here’s Al Jazeera’s report on Grandin who tells us with a straight face what a great guy this thug of Caracas was:
Beyond relentless elections, Grandin cites “[t]he participatory democracy that took place in barrios, in workplaces and in the countryside” during the Chavez era and credits grassroots organisations and social movements for their “heroic work in democratising society, in giving citizens venues to survive the extremes of neoliberalism and to fight against further depredations”.
It is this landscape that prompts Grandin’s contention: “Venezuela might be the most democratic country in the Western Hemisphere.” Indeed, what drove the Venezuelan elite particularly mad about Chavez was the opening up of political space to the previously marginalised masses – overturning as it did the exclusivist system.
Had enough?
[So Much For Pulitzer Prizes]
