Western journalists stand aghast at the violence of the excluded and exploited in Chile and Ecuador, while rationalizing that spearheaded by Washington-backed opposition elites in Venezuela.

A recent AP piece on Ecuador's protests was a good example of how elites push for austerity.

"There are people in the region who are fighting for their freedom, and we should hear those voices and look to those voices."

"It essentially is a David vs. Goliath story of an all-volunteer group of activists that went toe-to-toe with well-funded banking lobbyists to push this bill through the California state legislature."

World events can be confusing, but they're made much more so by media coverage that insists, against all evidence, that righteousness is what guides US foreign policy.

"When you go out to the picket lines, you see people from all kinds of different unions out on those picket lines. And in the process, people are being radicalized, people are being changed, and people are given a new sense of hope."

"This FCC so clearly ignored the evidence; they so clearly ignored the public will. They just simply, clearly ignored the way the internet works, in order to favor the biggest phone and cable companies."

To describe the intervention—the strike—as the cause of all attendant harms suggests that the status quo (to which the strike is a response) is blameless.

"It really becomes all about trying to focus on the messenger and not the message, to discredit, to deflect attention. It also, certainly, creates a chilling effect on others who might think about speaking, supporting the whistleblowers’ disclosures,

We're in uncharted water with Trump and impeachment; part of what's exceptional are Trump's open threats to the whistleblower who brought forth the evidence of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.