The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: The 2002 Coup in Venezuela

by Andrew Hamilton

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003) (1 hr. 15 mins.) is an Irish documentary about the April 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez, the populist Mestizo President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. Chavez was of mixed Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan, and Spanish ancestry. In 2013 he died of cancer at age 58 while still in office.

Though not discussed in the film, Chavez’s path to power paralleled Adolf Hitler’s: an unsuccessful putsch, imprisonment, and ultimate victory through electoral politics.

As a Lieutenant Colonel in the Venezuelan army Chavez formed a secret revolutionary group with two other officers in December 1982 called MBR-200. Surprisingly, there is a very good, concise article about this on Wikipedia at the moment that is well worth reading. (I can’t vouch for subsequent edits or revisions.)

Chavez dubbed his political philosophy “Bolivarianism” after Venezuelan-born liberator Simon Bolivar, who led the country’s (and much of South America’s) revolt against Spain in the 1820s. Bolivar is Chavism’s inspiration, hero, and ideological reference point.¹

In February 1992 Chavez led an unsuccessful military coup against the government and was imprisoned for two years. After his release he recast his revolutionary group as a legitimate political party, the Fifth Republic Movement (later the United Socialist Party of Venezuela). Fortunately he was a Leftist, so his party was not immediately banned the way right-wing or White political parties are. Contemporary electoral politics is exclusively the domain of the racist Left.

Chavez was elected President in 1998 with 56% of the vote. Through an open process he replaced the country’s 1961 constitution with its twenty-sixth and current “Bolivarian Constitution.” Unlike the admirably succinct American Constitution, Venezuela’s is one of the world’s longest.²

Why did the globalist elite hate Chavez so much? After all, like themselves he was a Leftist.

Antagonism to Chavism appears to be two-fold.

Venezuela is a major oil-producing country and OPEC member. Oil and natural gas dominate the economy, accounting for one-third of GDP; oil wealth is the primary source of government revenue. As of 2017 half of Venezuela’s oil exports are to the United States. External economic control of oil appears to be a factor.

Secondly, Chavism is a type of Leftism not currently in favor among global elites, who adhere to an anti-White, anti-Western form of neo-Trotskyism known as neoliberalism or neoconservatism—“neoliberal” when it represents the Leftist side of the dime (Democrats, Labour, Socialists), “neoconservative” when it represents the “conservative” side (Republicans, Tories).

Chavez was a strong opponent of America’s Left-wing “neoliberal” globalism. In 2006, speaking at the United Nations a day after President George W. Bush, he memorably declared, “The devil came here yesterday, and it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of. Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the President of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world.”

Jews accused Chavez of anti-Semitism, though he denied it: “Anti-liberal I am, anti-imperialist even more so, but anti-Semitic, never, that’s a lie.” Indeed, he made his United Nations statement while displaying and recommending a book written by anti-White Jewish Leftist Noam Chomsky.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was funded by Ireland’s film board (BSÉ), Netherlands public television, and German state television (ZDF). The European Broadcasting Union, an intergovernmental organization, served as a clearinghouse to raise funding.

An abbreviated 52-minute version of the film entitled Chávez: Inside the Coup was subsequently broadcast on Irish state television (RTÉ), British state television (BBC), and comparable stations in Canada, Japan, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark. It has also been shown numerous times on Venezuelan state television. No broadcaster in the United States would carry it.

In full-length theatrical form it was shown at American arthouse film festivals and distributed in a limited theatrical run in the U.S. by Vitagraph Films, the distribution arm of American Cinematheque, a Jewish-Establishment outfit in Hollywood. The movie earned the approval of American and European critics and reviewers, and won several awards.

Thus we see that despite the controversy it generated, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised had significant Establishment support. The documentary implies that the CIA played a role in the coup. This bit of candor was probably due to the fact that Republican George W. Bush rather than Obama or Clinton was President of the United States at the time.

Although the U.S. government later denied participation, claiming it warned Chavez repeatedly about a possible coup, it actually was involved with the plotters—e.g., through the government-funded, Democrat/Republican-helmed National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Department of Defense, and Bush Administration officials.

The original idea was to shoot a pro-Chavez documentary as the Irish filmmakers traveled with and interviewed the Venezuelan leader, who granted them intimate access. During filming, however, Chavez was suddenly ousted in a coup. When that happened, the entire focus of the project changed as the filmmakers unexpectedly found themselves recording chaotic scenes of violence in the streets of Caracas, the nation’s capital, and turmoil inside the presidential palace itself.

This accident of history is why the film provides a unique window into a contemporary revolution while it is actually happening.

The first part of the movie follows the script as originally planned, showing the populist President traveling, meeting, and speaking to crowds of people. Citizens would hand Chavez and his lieutenants handwritten notes and send the President mounds of letters with personal requests, most of them along the lines of “I need . . .” or “I want . . .” All were apparently read by Chavez’s staff. Chavez is also shown hosting a weekly program, Aló Presidente, on state-run television and radio, where citizens phoned in and asked him questions directly.

This approach kept Chavez in close touch with the mood of the populace rather than aloof and at a remote distance with mediation occurring exclusively through the controlled media, Jewish organizations, lobbyists, polls, upper-class fundraisers, think tanks, professional politicians, the bureaucracy, entertainers, consultants, and advisers—in other words, a small, unrepresentative clique.

One is struck by the motley racial makeup of Venezuela. The White population of the country must be negligible. This isn’t the kind of squalid, mixed-race future we should aspire to or have forced upon us.

As long ago as 1933 Madison Grant observed in his excellent book The Conquest of a Continent that Venezuela was “largely hybrid with extensive Negro infiltrations. As in many other Latin American countries, the number of Whites is officially put down as about 10 per cent, but as in most such instances it is doubtful whether one resident in fifty [2%] can properly be called a white man.”

The Irish filmmakers perceived virtue in the fact that Chavez was “non-White,” though they do not actually catch him engaging in anti-White grandstanding the way American and European politicians invariably do. They do show some of his opponents, whom they depict as a privileged class, greedy and unentitled to what they have.

The opponents do not look particularly White—again, the country is a racial amalgam—but after the film was released it came under intense scrutiny and attack from various angles, most of them specious. One of the charges made was that Chavez’s supporters are depicted as poor and brown-skinned, and his opponents as “rich, white, racist, and violent,” even though the opposition, too, was in reality multiracial. Ironically, the filmmakers did not dispute the charge, but quoted commentators who upheld their claim that Chavez’s supporters “were broadly poor and dark-skinned and the opposition broadly white and middle class.”

This is like the American media violently assailing Mestizo George Zimmerman, the killer (in self-defense) of Negro Trayvon Martin, as “White.” Racial hatred now runs so deep that it loses touch with reason.

The film provides a textbook example of mass media manipulation in modern society. Chavez, despite his popularity, had difficulty communicating with the electorate. He was fortunate to have a state-run television and radio station at his disposal, but this single broadcast outlet was overwhelmed by five privately-owned TV stations that were more popular and possessed a larger audience.

Daily, these intensely hostile networks, which Chavez did not (could not?) censor, maintained an incessant campaign of anti-Chavez lies and propaganda prior to the coup—a mirror image of today’s treatment of Donald Trump by CNN and Jewish-owned NBC and CBS.

It is clear that any successful revolution or fundamental social change must have as a top priority seizing control of the broadcast networks and other mass media outlets. At the very least the enemy’s ability to control the population through such instruments must be completely terminated. Far better that TV broadcasts, Facebook, and Google go dark than for the present state of affairs to continue.

The long, intense media campaign against Chavez was coordinated with violent street demonstrations and hostile elements in the military. The coup itself was executed under cover of a massive march on the presidential palace in Caracas. Pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez mobs exchanged gunfire, killing a number of people on both sides.

Meanwhile, Chavez and his supporters were cut off from the world as TV stations broadcast insistent demands that he resign. Even the government TV channel was shut down, isolating him completely.

The military high command arrived and occupied the palace. Chavez finally agreed to be taken into custody to avoid bloodshed but refused to sign a letter of resignation as ordered. The television networks, which were part of the operation, falsely reported that he had resigned, as did the New York Times in the United States.

Chavez requested asylum in Communist Cuba (which wanted to grant it), but was turned down by his captors and whisked by helicopter to an unnamed island. A new President, businessman Pedro Carmona, took his place in the palace and appeared on television. Chavez was to be tried before a Venezuelan court.

The filmmakers were not in Chavez’s immediate presence while all this occurred, but were in the presidential palace with his cabinet ministers and top officials. The film perfectly captures the extreme tension, emotion, confusion, and lack of information in the midst of a revolution.

The Carmona regime lasted two days before large crowds of Chavez supporters gathered in the streets and marched on the Presidential palace. When that happened, members of Chavez’s palace guard seized the initiative and arrested Carmona and other officials of the new regime. You can see in the film how much courage this took, because events were extremely fluid and uncertain and information upon which to base reliable decisions was scarce to nonexistent. A small, disciplined group of men willing to gamble decisively with their lives and freedom at the right moment was critical in restoring Chavez to power.

Another factor, probably not recognized by the filmmakers themselves, was the rallying effect certain abstract beliefs and ideas have, not just for the masses, but for government elites as well.

One recurring theme expressed by officials as events unfolded was the concept of sovereignty and legitimacy flowing ultimately from the people—an Enlightenment idea.

Another was the centrality of the constitution, surprising in the Venezuelan context. But, as the filmmakers earlier made clear, Chavez had publicized his new constitution and distributed copies of it widely to his followers in book form. They were urged to study it.

Loyal officials in the palace likewise referred to the constitution frequently; among other things it determined for them who should serve as acting President before Chavez’s return.

The power of two such abstract concepts to crystallize, coordinate, and direct thought and behavior among elites who needed to work together as a group under conditions of extreme social chaos, psychological and emotional stress, and loss of conventional moorings was instructive to behold.

After two hectic, confusing, highly emotional days the Chavez forces triumphed and he was restored to office. He remained President until his death in 2013.

After his reinstatement Chavez said, “This coup d’etat would not have been possible without the help of the news media, especially television.” Over the ensuing years he imposed censorship over radio, television, and the Internet identical (in its effect) to that exercised by Jews, the Left, and governments in the “West,” and Communists in China.

The campaign against Hugo Chavez in 2002 has not yet ended, illustrating the long time horizon globalists have. They persecute and undermine ceaselessly until they get their way, no matter how long it takes or how many temporary setbacks they experience. Thanks to their control of the mass media, exhaustive censorship of alternative views, and long time horizon, most people do not perceive what’s happening.

Now their target is Chavez’s successor Nicolas Maduro, a member of Chavez’s United Socialist Party. Maduro was formerly Vice President of Venezuela and before that Foreign Minister under Chavez.

An intense media campaign, international sanctions, and enormous street demonstrations are being orchestrated now just as in 2002.

Maduro calls himself a Mestizo of Amerindian and Negro heritage, adding in a 2013 interview that he is also half-Jewish: “My grandparents were Jewish, from a [Sephardic] Moorish background, and converted to Catholicism in Venezuela.”

Not surprisingly, the swarthy neoliberal he narrowly defeated for the Presidency in 2013, Henrique Capriles, is the grandson of “Holocaust survivors” who moved to Venezuela and also converted to Catholicism. According to the Associated Press, Capriles is the “scion of one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families.”

Unlike Hugo Chavez, Maduros is not charismatic, and the correlation of forces, and therefore the odds, appear to be against him.

* * *

Source: Author

Notes