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Comment by joejohnson | Hacker News Reader

Here’s a good interview with Morales from last month talking about the coup, the election, and the multinationals that tried to suppress MAS in Bolivia: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/evo-morales-interview-bol...

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Wow. Seems like a super messy situation. Morales wins in the first election, but because of irregularities he resigns under pressure and his own party votes to annul the old election results and bans him from running again?

Of course. Although his run was upheld by the supreme court (which is biased towards his party), there was a referendum held the year before which basically asked 'should Evo be allowed to run again, although it's currently unconstitutional?' and the people decided against him. Him running again was literally unconstitutional and he running again puts his presidency's (and thus, his parties) legitimacy in question

Morales giving an interview to Jacobin Magazine isn’t exactly a neutral source.

The parent comment does not claim that it is "neutral", and a politician's opinions are not normally assumed to be "neutral", so I'm not sure why you even raise that as an issue.

Non-neutral sources don't tend to be well received around here. What makes this one deserving of a pass?

The issues that interview covers have been widely discussed. Surely there's someone with an agenda other than "give this guy batting practice pitches right over the plate" that has asked him his opinion. This guy is a politician, being in the media, answering questions and talking about his opinion is part of his job. He's certainly done more interviews than just this one.

Furthermore, a friendly interview is much less informative than a neutral or hostile interview. Anyone can hit batting practice pitches. Anyone can answer questions from a friendly interviewer. A politician's answer to tough questions or to having their answers questioned is far more informative. Jacobin interviewing a leftist/socialist is like Tucker Carlson interviewing some ardent "muh religion and family values" type right winger. It's just a forum for the interviewee to pontificate mostly unchallenged.

There is no neutrality in reporting, so you might as well have something that wears their bias on their sleeve.

There's no solution to the halting problem, so you might as well stop writing garbage collectors. How does the argument "people are biased, therefore anything goes" appeal to anybody is beyond me.

I'm not saying, "people are biased, therefore anything goes." I'm saying: chasing neutrality is akin to chasing a unicorn.

It isn't though. You can never be truly neutral, but that's not an excuse not to try.

> You can never be truly neutral, but that's not an excuse not to try.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe a magazine doesn't want to be neutral? Maybe that's their competitive edge, maybe that's what their customers are after.

You're just imposing your own values on a business entity.

Yes, I absolutely am. They are free to do as they please. I am free to criticize them because that doesn't align to my values. Freedom works both ways.

Maybe there isn’t but you can usually do better at neutrality than a magazine that names itself after a bunch of violent revolutionaries who helped usher in the Reign of Terror, and which since then has become a byword for hard left extremism.

That's not actually who it is named after.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Jacobins

But you'd have to read to figure that out.

But those Black Jacobins are named after French Jacobins.

It funny cause I have heard the name being criticized for being related to a liberal, bourgeois revolution. And thus being too rightist.

This is an oversimplified description of Jacobinism. Between the dogma, the history/ (French revolution, England), the evolution through time and the use of it by different political groups it is difficult to summarize it by Jacobin = "hard left extremism". In fact this reference can by use all over the political spectrum. For example, the idea of a strong centralized state power speak to communists (left) as well as nationalists (right). As well, the idea of equality of every citizen of jacobinism can be closer to centrist than extremist.

Fun remark : only the English Wikipedia article emphasis so much on a link Jacobin-left (for the languages i can read). On the other hand, the french article is much more careful and emphasis more on the difficulty and evolution of interpretation.

The US manufacture of consent machinery is not interested on giving voices to enemies of Washington Consensus foreign policy

I'd say it's almost impossible to make an interview neutral, be it Jacobin Magazine or National Geographic.

You are asking someone to give their opinion on matters, there is no attempt to hide the bias.

Where do you imagine left-wing interviews should take place then? The corporate media doesn't seem that interested.

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