Redacted Tonight (Season 3, Episode #230): exposing media propaganda on Venezuela’s political crisis

“Redacted Tonight (Season 3, Episode #230)” (RT America, 1 February 2019)

Lee Camp is a stand-up comedian, writer and activist who hosts weekly TV comedy current affairs show “Redacted Tonight” on the RT America channel. Unlike most TV comedy news shows which satirise politics and other contemporary issues, “Redacted Tonight” presents news stories of actual events and issues that are rarely or never mentioned on mainstream news media outlets including print and online outlets in a style that mocks the powerful and their lackeys. The episodes follow a format that focuses first on a current world issue for the first ten minutes or so, and then on a series of ongoing problems (say, about two or three) particular to the United States for the rest of their half-hour running time.

Amid applause from a live audience, Camp launches straight into an attack on the slanted propagandist mainstream news reporting on the political crisis in Venezuela. News media outlets such as CNN portray the legitimate government under President Nicolas Maduro as inept and corrupt economic managers while omitting to mention the harsh and distorting effect of US economic sanctions on the country’s economy and the living conditions of Venezuelans. Also conveniently left out is the effect of Saudi Arabia’s crashing of global oil prices by ramping up oil production and flooding the global market in 2014, in an effort to wreck the economies of its political rival Iran and Russia as well, both nations presumed to be heavily dependent on oil exports for foreign exchange: this had an adverse effect on Venezuela’s economy which has always been overly dependent on oil exports and oil production thanks to previous governments (before the Bolivarian governments of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro) that treated Venezuela as a petrol pump to be exploited.

By carefully parsing CNN reports on the apparent refugee problem and the poverty in Venezuela, Camp shows how sloppy the channel is in failing to match up its reports with the images it presents, and calls attention to the effect of US sanctions on the country which impoverish most people but help enrich the wealthy by legitimising smuggling-in of sanctioned goods by companies or individuals who then sell the goods at inflated prices. Camp even compares sanctions to so-called “smart” bombs which supposedly target terrorists but actually indiscriminately kill everyone else unfortunate enough to be close to the targeted terrorists. He notes that CNN portrayed Juan Guaido’s self-declaration as President in Caracas as having been witnessed by thousands of people, when in fact 81% of Venezuelans had never heard of him. Camp goes on to fill in aspects of Guaido’s background as a protege of US Deep State neoconservative regime-change forces, Guaido having attended George Washington University in Washington DC under the tutelage of Venezuelan neoliberal economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund. (Camp could have quoted Grayzone again and noted that Guaido could have trained in insurrectionist regime-change methods in Belgrade under OTPOR, a US-funded regime-change organisation that organised the protests that overthrew Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 1998.)

The segment ends with Camp stating that Venezuelans deserve self-determination, the freedom to work out what government is best qualified to deal with the nation’s problems and end mass poverty without interference from foreign countries.

The rest of the program ranges from covering a climate change protest in Rockefeller Plaza in New York City and how it was superficially reported by mainstream news outlets; to the record of US Federal senator Kamala Harris, currently being groomed by the Democratic Party as a future Presidential candidate, who has been funded by Wall Street banks and pro-Israel lobby organisation AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee); to Camp’s hilarious discussion with John F O’Donnell on the food industry, global agriculture and the benefits of giving up eating meat and going vegetarian or vegan; to an investigation by reporter Natalie McGill on the Internal Revenue Service’s budget and staff cuts, rendering the organisation lacking the experience and knowledge in going after corporations for evading their taxation obligations. At the same time the IRS shakes down poor individuals for money (received from welfare services) through audits conducted by private debt collectors who then charge exorbitant fees for their services!

Camp’s shouty style can be irritating for some viewers so it’s probably just as well the program lasts just under 30 minutes and features other presenters like McGill and O’Donnell so Camp’s larynx can get some rest. The discussion with O’Donnell on the commercial food industry and its exploitation of animals and the human end-consumer alike can go right over some viewers’ heads and barely touches how the industry’s pursuit of profit endangers people’s health and wrecks the environment. On the other hand, the comedy format allows Camp and his fellow presenters the capacity to probe issues fairly deeply and seriously in a way that does not alienate or bore their audience, and to expose mainstream news media as complicit in disseminating propaganda and fake news.