Thursday 13 December 2018

Jim Mora reverently praised Pope Francis, but snickered at the mere mention of Hugo Chávez. (Mar. 14, 2013)

14 March 2013 at 5:40 pm
Open Letter to Jim Mora:
You reverently praised Pope Francis, but snickered at the mere mention of Hugo Chávez. What gives?
“The Panel”, Radio New Zealand National, Thursday 14 March 2013
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who died last week, was famous for his choosing to favor the poor and dispossessed over the rich and powerful, and for his radical critique of social inequality. Anyone listening to Jim Mora’s show on Monday 11 March will have heard Mora snicker and giggle every time he used the words “Hugo Chávez”.
Therefore, listeners a few days later (14 March 2013) would no doubt have been astonished to hear Jim Mora adopt a serious and respectful tone when talking of the way that the new Pope prefers the poor and the dispossessed over the rich and powerful, and is a radical critic of social inequality. I flicked the following email to Mr Mora….
You reverently praised Pope Francis, but snickered at the mere mention of Hugo Chávez. What gives?
Dear Jim, 
So the new Pope identifies with the poor and is a critic of the structural injustices that have led to grinding poverty in South America and many other parts of the world. So did another South American, Hugo Chávez, and he was regarded as a hero by the poor of South America for that reason. 
On today’s show, during your words of praise for Pope Francis, you never sniggered once. By contrast, every time you even mentioned Hugo Chávez’s name on Monday, you sniggered.
Why the respect for the new Pope, but the attitude of levity and gross disrespect for Hugo Chávez?Was it because you had the right wing, trenchantly anti-Chávez Nevil Gibson in the studio with you, glowering at the mere mention of Chávez’s name?
I wonder how Lindsey Freer would have responded if you had snickered and giggled every time you mentioned the name of the new Pope.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
  • Paul17.1
    14 March 2013 at 9:14 pm
    I think he’s getting worse. Can barely listen to him now.
    Keeps on inviting ACT supporters and other Ayn Rand devotees – they get less than 1% of the vote, but Jim and his director give them far more air time.
    • Morrissey17.1.1
      14 March 2013 at 9:31 pm
      I think the people ultimately responsible for the selection of these extremely biased, right wing guests—or the “talent” as he likes to call them—are his producers.
      But I don’t think his producers told Mora to guffaw every time he said “Hugo Chávez”; he indulged in that epic display of puerile contempt because he was nervous of the glowering Nevil “Breivik” Gibson. The giggles indicate not so much that Mora is anti-Chávez, but that he has a quite pathetic desire to win the approval of the likes of Breivik-Gibson.
      • Paul17.1.1.1
        14 March 2013 at 9:42 pm
        Why do you think Mora is so in awe of these people? I note he also fawns over Bernard Hickey and is deseperate to get advice on mortgage rates, and other personal financial advice.
        • Morrissey17.1.1.1.1
          14 March 2013 at 10:11 pm
          For all his faults, at least Bernard Hickey has an obvious deep knowledge of his subject. The same cannot be said for Nevil “Breivik” Gibson, who on Monday demonstrated that he knew next to nothing about either Venezuela or Hugo Chávez.
          I don’t think Mora is in awe of most of his guests. I think he would (justly) rate his own intelligence above that of most of them. I think Mora’s behaviour, which I find to be increasingly frivolous and determinedly trivial-minded, is the result of both a pathological desire to please, which explains the nervous giggling, and a certain perversity: Mora doesn’t actually believe that Chávez has a “dubious legacy” (as he claimed on Monday) but he was quite prepared to say that if he figured it would win him favour, even with such a crazed and unpleasant ideologue as Nevil “Breivik” Gibson.
          • McFlock17.1.1.1.1.1
            14 March 2013 at 10:27 pm
            Did you just equate a tory editor and commentator with a psycho mass-murderer?
            Classy.
            • Morrissey…
              14 March 2013 at 11:02 pm
              The Breivik moniker comes not from me, but from another appalled reader of one of Gibson’s hare-brained NBR editorials, where he made the Breivik-style assertion that all terrorism in the world was carried out by Muslims.
              And anyone who has read or listened to his ranting for a reasonable amount of time will be aware that Nevil Gibson is far, far to the right of what any reasonable person would mean by “tory”.
              • McFlock…
                14 March 2013 at 11:19 pm
                So he pulled a Prosser. Big gap between that and killing almost a hundred people.
                And don’t blame other people for the imagery you use.
                • Bill…
                  14 March 2013 at 11:28 pm
                  Birds of a feather and all of that (whether higher or lower or simply near by). Thought you of all people would understand such pigeon holing McFlock.
                  • McFlock…
                    15 March 2013 at 2:19 pm
                    “near by” is the bit I’m not sure is at all valid, in this case. From an astronomical perspective, may it might be.
                    There are light years between merely being a third-rate tory propagandist, and looking dozens of people in the eye before shooting them.
              • D-D-D-Damn!…
                14 March 2013 at 11:28 pm
                Jim Mora’s emphasis on Papal concern for the poor in Latin America:
                Let’s remember that, as head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the 80s and 90s, the last Pope (Ratso Ratzinger) launched a fundamental attack on those South and Central American bishops and priests pursuing Liberation Theology. The poor were to put up with murderous Far Right dictators and concentrate instead on having a good afterlife.
at

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