Lesh Unleashed

Matthew Lesh strikes again! Recall that Lesh, now ensconced at John Roskam's neoliberal think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), during his university years was the political director of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS).

But first let one of The Australian's most rabid attack dogs, Chris Kenny, set the scene for you:

"[I]n a lengthy online report complementing her television and radio reporting for the ABC from Venezuela this month, Zoe Daniel failed to mention socialism... In fact, she referred to Chavez not as a socialist leader but as a 'charismatic, populist President'. Daniel's powerful piece, focusing mainly on the trauma and starvation faced by the populace was picked up by War News Updates, a news aggregator covering conflict zones. But it felt obliged to note the ABC's oversight.

"'WNU Editor: The authors of the above report do not mention the word 'socialism' in their report, nor how the policies of nationalisation and government confiscation completely destroyed what was once (one of) Latin America's top economies. Instead the focus on why people are starving in Venezuala is on sanctions, corruption, etc... in short, the usual excuses while ignoring the real reason why everything has collapsed'." (Socialists overlooked in ABC's Venezuela, 24/6/19)

Enter Lesh, in Kenny's words:

"Elsewhere, the Institute of Public Affairs' self-styled 'free market jihadi', Matthew Lesh, jumped on Twitter pointing out the missing factor and decrying the piece as 'disgraceful' and 'biased' misreporting. Daniel snapped back that she had referenced Chavez as socialist in other pieces filed that week and suggested Lesh was overcome by his own bias. Interestingly, the ABC seems to have reacted to the criticism. Among almost 2500 words, it altered one sentence with the addition of a solitary but important word. The original article posted on June 12 said: 'Charismatic, populist President Hugo Chavez was adored by the poor for his community support programs, free health care and education and generally subsidised living.' It was 'updated' early the next morning (the day after Lesh's tweet) to the following:

'Charismatic, populist President Hugo Chavez was adored by the poor for his socialist policies: community support programs, free health care and education and generally subsidised living'. This fiddle served more as an admission of error than a worthwhile correction of the analysis. It was just the inclusion of the trigger word, socialist, to square off against criticism and insulate from more." (ibid)

Two observations on Kenny's piece are in order here.

While Kenny invokes the Matthew Lesh of the Institute of Public Affairs, he studiously omits Lesh's AUJS/ Zionist background, surely a "fiddle" of equal proportions.

Second, sadly, how typical of the ABC to allow themselves to be spooked by the The Australian, as though its Zionist crusading really mattered.

Update 25/6/19: It should be pointed out that Kenny is indulging in a half-truth when he asserts that Hugo Chavez was a socialist. In fact, Chavez did not declare for socialism until 2006. IOW, from the April 2002 coup against him, which soon collapsed, and led to his speedy return to power in Venezuela, he could not be called a socialist. (See Comandante: The Life & Legacy of Hugo Chavez, Rory Carroll, 2013, p 143.  Carroll was the Guardian's chief correspondent in Latin America.