Gregory Wilpert has written to let me, and my readers, know that he has not misrepresented himself. His ‘clarification’ follows:
Just to let you and your readers know: To say that I work for Brooklyn College is not a misrepresentation. The Graduate Center for Worker Education is a part of Brooklyn College. My department chair is Sally Bermazohn, of BC’s department of Political Science. The people you spoke to merely clarified that the physical location where I teach is not in the Brooklyn College campus, but I am still am employee of CUNY’s Brooklyn College. The only reason I do not provide the full name of where I teach is that it’s awfully long: Brooklyn College’s Graduate Center for Worker Education.
Frankly, I don’t know where to begin. Since becoming involved with Venezuela in or around 2002-2003:
Gregory Wilpert is yet to admit that he is married to a chavista official (Carol Delgado de Wilpert, Hugo Chavez’s Consul in NY);
Gregory Wilpert is yet to admit that he edits a website created by a chavista official (Martin Sanchez, Hugo Chavez Consul in San Francisco, formerly in Chicago).
Gregory Wilpert is yet to admit that said website is funded with Venezuelan public money.
Gregory Wilpert is yet to admit that he acts as a propaganda agent for Hugo Chavez in US soil.
Gregory Wilpert is yet to admit that every single one of his opinions, with regards to Venezuela, is compromised by his marital and professional relations.
However, Gregory Wilpert wants us to believe that he is not misleading, and that is not misrepresenting himself. Gregory Wilpert wrote to me once saying he was doing what he did «because he believed in it». At my repeated questioning of his true motives, he is a German-American after all, he kept mum about his personal and professional relations with the Chavez regime. That to me is indicative of utter intellectual dishonesty. Besides, I still fail to understand why is it so difficult for these bloody advocates of Chavez to admit their relations to their paymaster, lest of course to maintain a pretence of independence and individuality in order to lend credibility to their propaganda. Were HRW to receive a letter from a bunch of people that, having no official relation to Chavez, are protesting a report that exposes the gross human rights violations that take place in Venezuela, it would surely address it on its merits, as it has done. But that wasn’t a letter written out of genuine concern, it was a concerted effort led by propaganda agents, such as Gregory Wilpert, similar to the many instances whereby «upset readers» would write letters to editors of media outlets to criticise coverage, when in fact it was a response to emails sent from the Venezuela Information Office to its «rapid action» team, instructing to do so.
These people are very vocal in their support, but they will deny to the death, unless evidence pops up, that they are in any manner related to Hugo Chavez’s regime. This has been the case with Eva Golinger, Michael Shellenberger and his sidekick Ted Norhaus, Roy Carson, Eric Wingerter and all of the propagandists of the now defunct Venezuela Information Office, Ken Livingstone (until evidence emerged that he was working as a consultant for Hugo Chavez), Calvin Tucker, Mark Weisbrot, Joe Kennedy, Sean Penn (until he admitted that he traveled around in PDVSA planes), mind you, all of them deny having anything to do with Chavez, yet the evidence shows that they have all, in one way or another, benefitted from Venezuelan taxpayers money, be it plane rides, salaries, expenses-paid trips, hospitality, funds, donations, energy deals, publishing, publicity, etc.
Is it fear to demonstrate friendship, admiration, and support to a man that calls terrorist Carlos The Jackal a national hero? Is it fear to the maxim «guilty by association» or «tell me who your friends are…»? Do these people dread the conclusions that any rational individual would arrive at, upon discovering their fanaticism about a warmongering, militaristic dictator that supports and befriends terrorists and rogues, has run Venezuela to the ground, and takes his cues from one of the world’s most brutal dictators?
Tomado de Gregory Wilpert ‘clarifies’ position