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 April 02, 2008 9:48 PM



Man, I love that Zoot!!!


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pulling a ket April 01, 2008 8:51 PM

Interesting how Ket can call people names and no one can call her anything.
What is a Zionist?  What is a fascist?  What is an anti-semite?  All these are words used to categorise and to distract people from real issues by making them look at the label and not letting them be seen as independent thinkers.
Ket, you are an advocate of people speaking freely, yet all you do is categorise them and stop them from saying what they want to say. 
This process of double-speak and criticising is called "pulling a ket".  It involves criticising in such a way where the other speaker is branded and can no longer be heard for his opinions but rather judged by the category Ket and henric put on him.

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 March 02, 2008 4:39 AM

"I have no intention of replying to any more of  this groups hosts BS lies and smears."

I'm not a liar, I just lie? Sure, you forgot the ' so it could as well be "this group's host's" as "this group's hosts'" Do you really think it matters?

PERHAPS you have never CALLED me Zionist, Nazi or Fascist, but you imply that, agree with people who call me that and applaude them for "daring to tell the truth".
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I just found this: March 02, 2008 1:43 AM

I just found this:
http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=16285&pst=1188328

Right now I'm really hurt. Andreas at least had the gall to defend me in "Free Palestine" group against similar attacks on my reputation - you are just applauding people expressing their judgement on me, based on that all they know about the issue is what you tell them and what others have told them during the years in Care2. None of these people - obviously not you either - have understood what I mean with my words, and none of you bother to ask - all of you just put me in a neat little box and start kicking, because it is so damn comfortable to react and make scapegoats of people. You allow THAT and then apologize?

Do you know what your apology is worth? 

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 February 13, 2008 5:20 PM

I'm not Zionist, Fascist or Nazi. Anyone calling me one has no place in my group.

Please Ket, just stop.

 I didn't call you a 'Zionist, Fascist or Nazi', but the authors of the articles you posted. 'Lying ,scheming Zionists/Neocons' was the phrase (from memory, coulda been neocons/Zionists) I used in that respect.  Just to clarify for you.

 I'm assuming that this is an honest mistake on your part for the sake of peace and goodwill.

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 February 13, 2008 7:23 AM

Pete & Myke!

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Ket dearest February 13, 2008 3:58 AM

Please go over my posts and try to distinguish my words from the words of the articles I posted. Also, I don't think i called you a liar, but questioned your ability to tell fact from fiction.

As I said in my previous post, I apologise unconditionally for any offence my words have caused you and SoB, in the past up to the present, even if you have taken the wrong meaning from them. Any offence.

I will be continuing to discuss the issues I talked about, just not in HRN.

About my discussions in the 2 groups you mention, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised at the majority of the responses I received.

Again, & to you & SoB, and may you both  be happy, and enjoy peace in HRN now that I've departed.

Peacemaking is far better than arguing , don't you think?

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 February 13, 2008 3:17 AM

During the festivities a slight pang of idigestion was encountered by our glorious dictator as Zoot got up to play his solo on an interlude to a coup in B flat minor!



This post was modified from its original form on 13 Feb, 3:18  [ send green star]  [ accepted]

 
Venezuala February 13, 2008 1:34 AM

OOOooops Sorry--- did someone mention anti-sermonism?

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Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah February 13, 2008 1:29 AM

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Did anyone mention Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo Moo Moo Mo Moo  - End!  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
I have full understanding to your anger, Pete. February 13, 2008 1:12 AM


I don't have any understanding to calling people liars because they are human and believe propaganda. You can just as well call every anti-Israeli in Care2 liar too. "Muammar Gaddafi is not Muslim". "British and Turks invaded Palestina 1948 and gave it to Jews". "Hamas is a Socialist party".

I admit there are things I believe to be true that aren't - because everyone does. NATURALLY I don't know what these are and because I believe they are the truth, I'm not a liar because I present this as truth.
I also don't believe my truths to be lies just because you say so. Or because someone else says so - especially if the person has been presenting obvious untruths as truths.
I have full understanding that you don't take my word on things, because I have been presenting as truth something you know (or believe ) to be untrue, but you have no right, no justifyiable reason and no excuse to call me a liar for that. Liar is someone who lies intentionally, not someone who doesn't know she isn't telling the truth.

Zionist is someone who has no scruples in emptying the land area from Eufrat to Nile and from Jordan to Mediterranean from everyone else but certain chosen people. Zionist is someone who will use any means - legal and illegal - and make illegal means legal just to be able to make life impossible for the people he doesn't want to have in "his Zion". Zionists are Fascists, and I would go so far that I'd call them Nazis. (And I don't care if you want a Palestinian Zion or Jewish Zion.)
I'm not Zionist, Fascist or Nazi. Anyone calling me one has no place in my group. You can leave, I can't.

Now, if you don't have time or if you have better things to do, THEN DON'T START! Because there's plenty more to say on the matter, Pete.

But sure... Never mind that you just confessed I, my group, my co-hosts, my words, my attitudes, my opinions and God knows what is being - once again - discussed in TWO Care2 groups, and I am not informed... Knowing the vulture mentality of some people in Care2, I can guess what is being said, none of it nice and very little if any of it is true... But - let's not discuss that, you apologized, and closed the door.

Let's leave the argument about "Zionism, Israel or Neocons", but let's not discuss Venezuela, Hugo Chavez and Socialism either...

Let's not discuss why Socialists like Hugo Chavez and his government are so easily effected by Zionists, Israelis and Neocons, that they are ready to violate human rights just because they get annoyed... or something. But let's not discuss that...

Let's not discuss about the unjustice in harassing and discriminating Jews for what Israel and Zionists do and how it's "doing the Zionists' job for them"...

Let's not discuss Bill Weinberg's article at all.

Let's not discuss the fact that freedom of press, freedom of speech and freedom of expression includes freedom to produce and spread propaganda as well...

Let's not discuss how easy it is to form opinions... For example:

Ms. Charen pointed out that Chavez' "deputy Interior and Justice minister in charge of internal security" is Tarek al-Assaimi. (Which is BTW true - Ms. Charen doesn't lie all the time )
Now, she claims his father was "Saddam Hussein's envoy to Venezuela" and Mr. Sultan says his father was "the representative of Saddam Hussein's Baath party in Venezuela".
You say this is a lie, because Mr. al-Assaimi is "Lebanese-Venezuelan". You also say "You may have heard, but Saddam Hussein was the president of a wholly different Middle Eastern country."

(You also say: "But Then: Them A-rabs all look alike."
Yes, it's quite clear that's the reason why Ms. Charen finds it necessary to point out this fact. *rolling eyes* For Neo-Cons any connection with terrorism is good for their propaganda purposes. THAT'S SELF-EVIDENT, PETE.
But by saying that you are ignoring that I said: "It might "mean" nothing, but it might also "mean" something". I didn't pick it out from Ms. Charen's article because it's "important evidence against Mr. Chavez" - because it isn't. But it is a fact - a truth - in Ms. Charen's article.)

I say "that he's Lebanese-Venezuelan doesn't mean his father didn't represent Iraq."

(You see, I chose to believe you in that Mr. al-Assaimi is Lebanese-Venezuelan. I didn't point out that you didn't bring in your sources for that piece of information, you just expect people to believe you, because "you say so"; neither did I say "Lebanese, huh? You mean Hizbullah...". )

You probably think you have proven Ms. Charen lied about that too, but you haven't.

So you see, there's a lot to be discussed... But let's not. You apologized...   [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
SoB February 12, 2008 3:41 PM

To borrow your words with a slight adjustment-

If you had read EVERYTHING I have said about Israel you would know that I am not an anti semite, but am strongly opposed to the corrosive influence of (rw) Zionism/neocons on  most, if not all mainstream Jewish Organisations and Israels policies toward the Palestinians.

I'm gonna take a leaf out of Brian Haw & companys book, and forgive you for calling me an anti-semite,and all the angry exchanges between me, you and Ket, because it really doesn't matter.

Hate , bitterness, anger, recriminations. That's what causes all the problems the world suffers today, and unless someone stops the retaliation, whoever started it, it will go on & on & on & on ......

And to what end?

Till we have satisfied our desire for revenge?  Or until we have run out of hurtful things to say, or words to attempt to justify our own prejudices? 

Who comes out the winner of such an exchange?  The one who inflicts the most hurt, or the one who can absorb the most punishment?

The only feasible way forward for us as a race to survive is to change our behaviour, from greed, intolerance and vengeance to sharing , tolerance & respect.

It can only happen if we as individuals can change our behaviour accordingly.

Therefore I apologise unconditionally for anything I have said to you and Ket which may have caused you offence, in the past up to the present.

I cannot say with sincerity that I may not say things in the future that may cause you offence, but ask you to forgive my anger when it manifests itself in my posts, and understand why I feel that anger.

Ket & Sob-

The Future

Picture going on a journey to the future,

That which we find when we arrive will be that which we take with us,

If we take love, and the beauty and abundance of nature,

This is what we will find when we arrive.

If we take violence, oppression and hate,

We will not get past the airport security,

Thus never having a future.

'Ballin'  Parliament Square, Feb 08



This post was modified from its original form on 12 Feb, 15:43  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
anonymous  February 12, 2008 2:24 PM

"Any culture in which people are taught to hate, to murder and to wage war cannot be called innocent. Ok, I guess you wouldn't have any problem if someone posted this then- "We can no longer call the Israelis, except women and children, innocent civilians - that is no longer possible, because in one way or the other they either raised the soldiers (who commit the atrocities) or educated them." because a large proportion of Israelis are taught to hate and wage war against the Palestinians. I dont think either is acceptable, which is the difference between you and me."

You are A$$uming, Pete, based on what you think is my opinion. I actually agree with you - and have no objections to your statement about the Israelis.

If you had read EVERYTHING I have said about Israel you would know that I am very critical of the manner in which the current Israeli administration is treating the Palestinians. But you have chosen to make the same mistake Ted and Dave made - you make assumptions based on what you want to be true about me and my opinions, not what is actually accurate. I'll leave it up to others to determine if you are making those assumptions based on the fact that I am Jewish, like Ted and Dave did.

Right-Wing Jews and Christians “bonding”.
Parasha Ekev - “If…then…”
A Racist Jewish State:
And you shall live in terror?
Broken Peace - Parasha Pinchas
Zionism, A Security Problem
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anonymous  February 12, 2008 2:24 PM

"Any culture in which people are taught to hate, to murder and to wage war cannot be called innocent. Ok, I guess you wouldn't have any problem if someone posted this then- "We can no longer call the Israelis, except women and children, innocent civilians - that is no longer possible, because in one way or the other they either raised the soldiers (who commit the atrocities) or educated them." because a large proportion of Israelis are taught to hate and wage war against the Palestinians. I dont think either is acceptable, which is the difference between you and me."

You are A$$uming, Pete, based on what you think is my opinion. I actually agree with you - and have no objections to your statement about the Israelis.

If you had read EVERYTHING I have said about Israel you would know that I am very critical of the manner in which the current Israeli administration is treating the Palestinians. But you have chosen to make the same mistake Ted and Dave made - you make assumptions based on what you want to be true about me and my opinions, not what is actually accurate. I'll leave it up to others to determine if you are making those assumptions based on the fact that I am Jewish, like Ted and Dave did.

Right-Wing Jews and Christians “bonding”.
Parasha Ekev - “If…then…”
A Racist Jewish State:
And you shall live in terror?
Broken Peace - Parasha Pinchas
Zionism, A Security Problem
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 February 12, 2008 3:37 AM

Any culture in which people are taught to hate, to murder and to wage war cannot be called innocent.

Ok, I guess  you wouldn't have any problem if someone posted this then-

"We can no longer call the Israelis, except women and children, innocent civilians - that is no longer possible, because in one way or the other
they either raised the soldiers (who commit the atrocities) or educated them."

because a large proportion of Israelis are taught to hate and wage war against the Palestinians.

I dont think either is acceptable, which is the difference between you and me.

As to your denial of the ethnic cleansing carried out in '47-'48, may I respectfully suggest you read Ilan Pappe s 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' and then pass comment.  Also the article

Erskine Childers: The Other Exodus

Yours and Kets comments can be found in the Israel/palestine 1 thread, along with many other comments in the same vein.I have no intention of discussing this any further with you or Ket, and you obviously have little intent of discussing it with me seeing how you blocked me from returning to HRN so I can't post any reply I receive from Mr Chavez.   I'll ask Pete O to post any reply I receive.

Contrary to what you may think of me and what I said, I did have a certain respect for you and Ket for your tolerance of opposing views in HRN and re-instating me and Simon after our recent blockings by Sustainable.

 One day you will come to realise that those who oppose peace and preach hatred and war against the Palestinians/Iranians/Syrians/Venezuelans/Cubans are the true enemies of Israel , not the ones  who are calling  for an end to the obscenities carried out in her name.

Finally some words of wisdom passed on by a friend of Brian Haw on my recent visit to London

Who Am I?

My existence is dependent on the air I breathe,

The trees, the water I drink, the food I eat,

Which themselves are dependent on the rest of the natural cycle.

Without any of these my existence is compromised.

We are all a part of this natural cycle.

To love myself, I must love all of myself,

ie everyone & everything.

&



This post was modified from its original form on 12 Feb, 3:40  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
anonymous  February 12, 2008 3:11 AM

So the Jews (SWC) are the reason there is anti-semitism Venezuela. That is saying that it's the Jews fault that they being harassed. And THAT is Anti-semitism, Pete, whether you recognize it or not.

No SoB, you can only make that argument if you ignore the fact that the SWC is a Zionist organisation, which is whose interests they serve when they stir up trouble with their lies

Whether SWC is a "Zionist organization" is actually irrelevant, because it's primary purpose is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time."

So, SWC is primarily a JEWISH organization, which makes your blaming a Jewish organization for the harassment of the Jews in Venezuela anti-semitism. Their political motivation is irrelevant, Pete.
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anonymous Re the Badges debacle February 12, 2008 2:59 AM

"Meir Javdanfar, an Israeli expert on Iran and the Middle East who was born and raised in Tehran, said yesterday that he was unable to find any evidence that such a law had been passed. “None of my sources in Iran have heard of this,” he said. “I don’t know where this comes from.” Mr. Javdanfar said that not all clauses of the law had been passed through the parliament and said the requirement that Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians wear special insignia might be part of an older version of the Islamic dress law, which was first written two years ago. “In any case, there is no way that they could have forced Iranian Jews to wear this,” he added. “The Iranian people would never stand for it.” From WikiPedia

In all fairness, Pete, if you still know what that is, the information passed to SWC and others on that issue, might simply have been dated, rather that inaccurate. Fact remains, that SWC was mistaken in 2006, however, it appears that prior to 2004, there was indeed a Iranian dress law that required religious minorities to were special insignia.

SOB
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anonymous  February 12, 2008 2:34 AM

SoB-"It is a fact that the 'Expulsion' in 1948 never happened"

This is true, because it wasn't an expulsion, it was a voluntary "exodus" at the urgency and threats of the Arabs. This has been evidenced and confirmed time and time again - among others by Moammar Ghadaffi in his White Book, which I refer to in the context of the discussion Pete found that incomplete sentence in.

He doesn't have the decency and honor to provide a link to the discussion where he found it, so people can read the context. Wonder why that is? Could it be that if he provided a link and people read the context, what he quoted would lose it's value as propganda.

"We can no longer call the Palestinians, except women and children, innocent civilians - that is no longer possible, because in one way or the other they either raised the suicide bombers or educated them."

Any culture in which people are taught to hate, to murder and to wage war cannot be called innocent.

Any American who is not actively working against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has ceased to be an innocent civilian.

So, no, we cannot talk about "innocent civilians" in a culture where fathers, brothers, cousins, mullahs, imans and political leaders mislead, encourage, bribe and pressure people into becoming suicide bombers. And regardless of what you try and say - That has after all been the Palestinian culture for at least three generations (20 years per generation).

Now, a quizz: Who said this:

The sad thing is that they are both in the hands of 'governments' that seem determined to let the Fundamentalists rule their lives. Do I believe that the Jews have a right to the Land? Yes, I do. Do I believe that the Palestinians have a right to the Land? Yes, I do. So the only FAIR solution is co-existence or at least equal division. But for that to be possible both parties have to be willing to refrain from using undue force to achieve justice - i.e bulldozing Palestinian houses because the Palestinians have blown a bomb in a mall is not right, but neither is blowing that bomb. Yitzhak Rabin Understood this, so did Ehud Barak to some extent, and there will be other Israeli Leaders who do understand this. Yassir Arafat clearly didn't get this - will Mahmoud Abbas? And even more important - will he have the strength and POPULAR backing to enforce this also in relation to Hamas and other Fundamentalist Groups? After all, Ariel Sharon did go against his own and cleared out the Gazah strip. While Israel needs a new election, and a Prime Minister who dares to finish what Sharon started when he cleared out Gazah. The Palestinian People needs a Non Violent Revolution - a revolution that target the tyranny of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others, so that those who wish only more violence for the sake of violence, including those who silently sympathize with their methods and raise children to hate, can loose their 'grip' on the situation.

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 February 12, 2008 2:23 AM

So the Jews (SWC) are the reason there is anti-semitism Venezuela.

That is saying that it's the Jews fault that they being harassed. And THAT is Anti-semitism, Pete, whether you recognize it or not.

No SoB, you can only make that argument if you ignore the fact that the SWC is a Zionist organisation, which is whose interests they serve when they stir up trouble with their lies , such as  their 'Iranian Jews having to wear star of David armbands' debacle. 

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
anonymous  February 12, 2008 1:40 AM

Sob said-

"Claiming that a Jewish wedding was crashed by Venezuelan "lawenforcement" because SWC want to "help" Israel with its immigration stats, and not because there are clear and untainted Anti-Jewish sentiments in Hugo Chavez' Venesuela, is preposterous. Really."

Which is not what I said.

Yes it is, you just don't see it.

Ket asks:""why would Simon Wiesenthal Center's criticism of Chavez reflect in any way to the Venezuelan Jewish community's security and well-being?

You respond: Because the criticism was more than likely intended to stir up any ill-feeling between the Venezuelan Jewish community and Chavez.  SWC is a Zionist organisation after all, and can be counted on to do their masters bidding when required.

And why would Zionists wish to spread fear and insecurity amongst the Venezuelan Jewish community?"

The SWC criticism in your logic has no factual basis, it's just there to stir up ill-feeling between Venezuela's Jewish Comunity and Hugo Chavez so the Jews will emigrate to Israel. So the Jews (SWC) are the reason there is anti-semitism Venezuela.

That is saying that it's the Jews fault that they being harassed. And THAT is Anti-semitism, Pete, whether you recognize it or not.

SOB
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 February 11, 2008 3:46 PM

Correction- I just realised you said 'around HRN' not 'around Care2' 

'You even left HRN rather than stay and find out the truth...'

And what truth would that have been? And who would have provided it? You?

We've seen your idea of the truth in the samples I provided above.

Don't bother answering the questions, I'm not looking for an answer.


 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 February 11, 2008 5:55 AM

Sob said-

"Claiming that a Jewish wedding was crashed by Venezuelan "lawenforcement" because SWC want to "help" Israel with its immigration stats, and not because there are clear and untainted Anti-Jewish sentiments in Hugo Chavez' Venesuela, is preposterous. Really."

Which is not what I said.

Ket said-

I would have wanted you to reply to "this group's hosts'" justified concerns and facts. But, Pete, you fleeing the battle ground and avoiding uncomfortable questions also tell volumes. I don't give a damn if you try to avoid responsibility by personal attacks, but I have to say that I found out you are not the man I thought you were.

I have addressed these concerns in my email to Mr Chavez, as I said I would before I left the group. There is nothing more left to say on the matter.

 My 'spreading it all around Care2' consists of starting a thread in two groups (one closed,250 odd members, 1 open, 64 members) entitled  'Discuss;Am I a Racist?' with a link to the HRN discussion in question.

I see no point in continuing this discussion with you and SoB anywhere in Care 2. I'm not scared of discussing Zionism, Israel or Neocons with anyone, I just have a lot better things to do on Care2 than argue whether I'm an anti-semite with people whose own attitudes to Palestinians/arabs are questionable at best and who, it is clear from the thread , have no scruples about twisting the truth in order to smear their opponents.

Venezuela and Human Rights   (link to discussion in question)

 


 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 February 11, 2008 5:41 AM

SoB. Please keep your discredited opinions to yourself in the future. I'm really not interested what you think of me, and that is not because you're Jewish. I respect a lot of Jewish peoples opinions, just none of them are Zionists.

Opinions are like assh*les- everyone's got one, but some smell more than others.

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 February 11, 2008 5:40 AM

So much to answer, so little time...... Saturday, 5:38 PM


"So eager to do their job for them"...might be stupid of me, but I'm a moderate person who doesn't look at
people's political opinions, skin color, gender, nationality or what else, before I listen to them. Whether I BELIEVE them is a whole another issue...

Let's have a look at your past record of discerning fact from fiction-

"Creating the State of Israel was not done by force."

"The Palestinian land was not stolen, and if they claim that, they are lying... "

"Israel has never had problems with the idea of living side by side and sharing the land that is important to both of them. "

"David Ben-Gurion might have been a terrorist, but he didn't terrorise the Palestinians"

"As far as I know the only "chasing Palestinians away" happened during the 1948 war when the Israelis demolished a couple of villages because they
were harboring the Arab soldiers."

Guess you would believe that hogwash if you get your info from Zionist sources, as I said earlier-truth is not high on these peoples agendas.

SoB-"It is a fact that the 'Expulsion' in 1948 never happened"

"We can no longer call the Palestinians, except women and children,
innocent civilians - that is no longer possible, because in one way or the other they either raised the suicide bombers or educated them."

I guess that makes 'em all fair game in your eyes then? And you have the cheek to call me anti-semetic, for simply pointing out that it's in Zionists interests to exaggerate real or imagined threats in Venezuela and elsewhere in order to encourage immigration to Israel!

Ket-"Refusing to give a broadcasting permission to a very popular tv channel because "I don't like your opinion"... "

Yet more half truths. Watch 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' and you'll learn that it was a lot more than Chavez 'not liking their opinion' that cost them their license. But ,as we've seen above, learning the truth doesn't seem too high on your agenda either.

Ket"So far the only claim on this list: Pete, Tuesday, 5:28 AM, you have been able to refute is the first one ."

How about the second one-

"The article exists (in fact, here it is). Stupid title, but it’s actually about Israeli foreign policy, not about Jews in Venezuela.

You can see that there never was any Star of David/Swastika mashup graphic."

You're still trying to defend a proven liar.

When
I have time, I will compose an e-mail to Hugo Chavez , expressing my
concerns about his alleged treatment of the Venezuelan Jewish
population and asking for his comments, and will post it in this thread
, along with any reply I receive.

In the meantime, I will not pass judgment on him based on allegations hyped up by lying, scheming Neocons/Zionists.

You see- that's what happens when Zionists cry wolf so many times and falsely accuse anyone critical of Israel an anti-semite.

They (Neocons/Zionists) have only themselves to blame if people tend to ignore them if/when there is a real danger of anti-semitism rearing it's ugly head.

cont
 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 February 11, 2008 5:38 AM


Zabulon G.
StarsButterfliesGold Notes
 Saturday, 5:16 AM

"why would Simon Wiesenthal Center's criticism of Chavez reflect in any way to the Venezuelan Jewish community's security and well-being?

Because the criticism was more than likely intended to stir up any ill-feeling between the Venezuelan Jewish community and Chavez.  SWC is a Zionist organisation after all, and can be counted on to do their masters bidding when required.

And why would Zionists wish to spread fear and insecurity amongst the Venezuelan Jewish community?"

I hope the poster of the above realize that he is falling into the classical trap of blaming the victim. "It's the Jews own fault that they are being harrassed..."

I am sorry, Pete, but you just crossed the line and joined Ted and Dave Cougar in the Cadre of Anti-Semites in Care2.

SOB  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Now to the response you left in my group before leaving it February 11, 2008 4:46 AM


My "past record of discerning fact from fiction" has nothing to do with Venezuela. (But as you provided the words, your current record of discerning a person from his/her party/group is what was creating you problems in HRN, not your opinions.)

I wish you would have disgussed what you call "hogwash" WHEN IT WAS SAID, so that we could have disgussed it in the proper place and in the correct context.

Also, in the context of Venezuela, I don't recall anyone calling YOU antisemite.
I said: "It is only antisemites who punish the country's Jewish community, who speak ill of the country's Jewish community, who "dislikes" the country's Jewish community because of what Israel does."
"It is understandable that an antisemite will accuse the Jewish community of the country for the bad things Israel does."
Because an antisemite cannot discern a Jewish person from a Jewish state.
An antisemite cannot discern a Jewish person from a Zionist. (BTW, tell me why give a Jewish nationalist a specific name, but protest when Jew-hate gets a specific name? Everyone who would prefer "racist" instead of "antisemite", start talking about "Nationalist" instead of "Zionist"... is it because it would be hard to call yourself anti-Nationalist while supporting some Nationalists?)

How would you know the article is about Israel's foreign policy, because you can't read it?

You're wrong again, and accusing me with false pretenses... tsk tsk tsk... I'm not "defending a proven liar", I'm trying to find out the truth about Bill Weinberg's article, and you haven't proven him a liar.

You wouldn't pass judgement on Hugo Chavez even if it was proven the information against him was true. You'd just keep dismissing it as neo-con propaganda, and wouldn't touch it with a stick. You even left HRN rather than stay and find out the truth...

And what would you call "a real danger of antisemitism"? Holocaust? But it never happened, just listen to Ahmadinejad! So according to you and the rest of Anti-Israeli lefties there is never any real danger of antisemitism, except against Muslims and Arabs.

"I'm really not interested what you think of me..."
Why would anyone be interested of that?
YOU don't care if people are interested of what you think of them before spouting it all over the HRN? Considering that you think "Ad Hominem" is neo-con speech, you are the rightie of the thread by your own definition.

I respect a lot of people's opinions, some of them are even antisemites. I don't respect their antisemitic opinions, but people are much more than their political opinion and prejudices. I hope you'll find that out one day.

Hmm... now, Ted thinks Jewish persons and Jewish state are basically the same. You think Neo-Cons and Zionists are the same. I presume you all think there's way too many Jews who own way too much of the world's riches... (None of you object to the "m
So - the step to think that Chavez indeed was referring to Jews when speaking of "white oligarchy" isn't long at all... I wouldn't be the least surprised that Chavez - just like the majority of Socialists, and every person you acknowledge as leftie - thinks that even though some members of White Oligarchy aren't Jewish, all Jewish - except the "reformed" Jews - are members of White Oligarchy... In practice there's no difference.
But I am also sure that you wouldn't acknowledge the fact that Ted and Dave are antisemites. After all, there are some Jews they respect and admire. Like Naomi Klein and Norman Finkelstein.

I have never supported any raids against any family gatherings for any reason. I have never accepted any raids against any family gatherings for any reason. I have never excused any raids against any family gatherings for any reason. On the contrary. You don't raid weddings, funerals, birthday celebrations, celebrations of religious holidays or any other family gatherings for any reason. I condemn an Israeli police raiding a Palestinian wedding just as much as I condemn American army bombing an Iraqi wedding and Venezuelan secret police raiding a Jewish wedding. You don't. You would spout gall on the Israeli police and American army, but you will excuse, defend and apoloigize the Venezuelan secret police... Your bigotry is disgusting.

Interesting though... you said the raids against the Jewish center had nothing to do with Venezuelan government and Hugo Chavez... it was "just" a local judge with personal grievances or something... why would a local judge care about Mossad and Israel? I bet you left HRN because you are hanging yourself on your leash.

"I have no intention of replying to any more of this groups hosts BS lies and smears"
I would have wanted you to reply to "this group's hosts'" justified concerns and facts. But, Pete, you fleeing the battle ground and avoiding uncomfortable questions also tell volumes. I don't give a damn if you try to avoid responsibility by personal attacks, but I have to say that I found out you are not the man I thought you were.

Ket
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Pete, February 11, 2008 3:38 AM

it's rather inpolite to leave the group in the middle of discussion. Especially when you do it hurling accusations, personal attacks and what not around you before banging the door.

But here's some background information for those who don't dare or don't want to go to HRN to read anything:

Venezuela and Human Rights bu Carlos Sabino

The IMF, World Bank and WTO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc

review on Shock Doctrine

Venezuela under Chávez: Some Truths Are Not All That Complicated
Gregory Wilpert Replies to Leo Casey

Fighting the SOA and Public Amnesia
March on the RNC: End Plan Colombia.
A Critique of the Chicago School of Economics:
Venezuela and Human Rights
Latin America: Betting on Free Trade
Timeline of CIA Atrocities

Sherwood The Sequel?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHPPpL9z9GE

http://www.radiomundial.com.ve/yvke/noticia.php?988
http://www.radiomundial.com.ve/yvke/noticia.php?990

Rights group: Venezuela is basically democratic
Human Rights Watch World Report 2008 - Venezuela

Dictators installed by the US

will-venezuela-be-judenrein.html
Anti-Semitism in Venezuela —again?
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/Israel_LAmer_TrailTerror.html
VENEZUELA: US Neo-Cons Accuse Chavez of Anti-Semitism
http://www.borev.net/2008/01/mona_charens_own_private_gelnh.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2079565.stm
"Publication by the government's Culture Ministry: ‘The Jewish Question’"
http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/ceresole/caudillo.asp#cuestion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal_Center

The AFL-CIO and the NED

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-1797179074001054188

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 June 30, 2007 3:41 AM


You mean the Palestinian refugees who 'invaded' Lebanon?


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Tad and Simon, June 30, 2007 12:23 AM

care to debate in "Make Poverty History"?

Ted boasted about being able to "debate with the best" in there, but he's shining with his absense...and here he's shining with his... well... let's not say that.

What ever you think of it doesn't change the FACTS that Chavez is not perfect and radical Left is not an independent source of information.

BTW, Ted, weren't you suppose to be nice, kind, supportive and friendly to ALL? My post wasn't even long

Ket

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 June 29, 2007 10:16 PM

People can't accept it when someone is improving the world (for themselves mostly).  They want inequality (which is going to happen when some people work and others laze about thinking they are something)  because they are scared to (have a world ruled by this type)...  

>>>
By the way, if you want more evidence to support my claim that the corporate media and capitalist government media lie and deceive alot, then I recommend the documentaries
>>>

People pick and choose what they will believe, and without having "experienced" either case, it is just that, a belief system.



This post was modified from its original form on 29 Jun, 22:18  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Simon June 29, 2007 9:29 PM

People can't accept it when someone is improving the world.  They want inequality because they are scared to escape what is.

Thanks for the links.

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Radical left is not "independent" information source June 29, 2007 6:05 AM

I don't consider radical left and "militant" information sources to be "independent"

Nevertheless, it's good to have information from ALL sources and THEN make up one's mind.

If you use ONLY radical left sources, your opinion is just as colored as if you use ONLY reactionary right sources. Just to the other extreme...

Ket

P.S. I don't consider Human Rights Watch to be right wing watch dog, but you perhaps do.

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Simon June 29, 2007 5:20 AM

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 June 28, 2007 7:07 PM

Hola everyone

I have had a gut-full of capitalist anti-socialist propaganda my entire life. We get it everyday on the radio, on the TV and in the newspapers and magazines.

What the corporate news media says about socialist movements (such as the revolution in Venezuela) are generally anti-socialist lies and deception. We can expect mostly the same lies and deception from the government-controlled media in capitalist nations (such as the BBC of the U.K., and the ABC and SBS of Australia, where I live), because these governments are heavily influenced by the bourgeoisie of those nations (through political party donations, the power of the corporate media to influence voters through their news media, and the general economic power of corporations to economically blackmail a government by the threat of relocation, etc.).

We can only really get a true picture of the world (including the revolution in Venezuela) if we look elsewhere for information, away from information sources that have a corporate/capitalist/bourgeois agenda. I recommend the following alternative, independent information sources:

http://www.greenleft.org.au

http://mondediplo.com

http://www.countercurrents.org

http://www.counterpunch.org

http://www.motherjones.com

http://www.blackagendareport.com

http://www.wsws.org

http://www.themilitant.com

http://www.indymedia.org

and perhaps:

http://www.thenation.com

For a list of other alternative and independent media, please click here:

http://www.greenleft.org.au/links.php?topic_id=28

and for information specifically about Venezuela:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com

By the way, if you want more evidence to support my claim that the corporate media and capitalist government media lie and deceive alot, then I recommend the documentaries:

"Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media" and "the Corporation".

Plus alot of Michael Moore writing and film gives evidence about this (e.g. his TV series "The Awful Truth", which is available on DVD).

All power to the people!

Long live the socialist revolution in Latin America!

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 June 05, 2007 3:18 AM

I watched the box the other night and they had an article about Hugo and his operations. the tv group that was shut don according to the BBc did state firmly that they organised hugos previous coup. the article archie posted showing the tough measures used by the police was also mentioned as it described the protest was a very violent one. so the riot police were called in as the regular ones could not manage the situation.?

I also would like to post that there are still peacefull protests going on in Vz and these have been permitted without any interuption.

Gosh Bc you have expresed emotion lol Any way pete mant the funny hanshake crewe just happens they used all the old testament stuff in the funny to dos they dont know the bankers are the Elders If they did they would correct this as freemasonry should have nothing to do with politics and absolutly nothing to do with Zionism.

Tell Shadow also it wasnt levi who brought the protocals it was red sheild himself- as he was part of the sterling group of germany and Briton. I dont know if he funded Stalin ? probabally he was one of the elders along with the head boys of the other banking goups. they just put bogy man stuff on to scare us away...... But the despot rulers we do see now ...look at lebbanon doing filthy zionist work blowing up palastininans refugees so they cant return home. What b*stereds

It one thing Israel breaking every geneva code we expect that from a Appartite regime -But the US paying others to do so is lower than worm poo.

Long live the Jews but down with Neo ZZionism Get the Ukrainies and the Bo-ar out of israeli parlament they are not even Jewish. being misslead they are

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 June 03, 2007 7:58 PM



Pakistani media decry government limits


By PAUL ALEXANDER, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 3, 11:03 AM ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has touted Pakistan's independent media as a major accomplishment of his years in power, but journalists say recent restrictions on coverage of a political crisis are a sign that government tolerance has its limits.


Faced with live coverage of the rallies in support of the chief justice Musharraf suspended in March, the government claimed some television networks were undercutting national stability.

As Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry prepared for another speech, the government issued letters to TV channels Saturday urging them not to air programs that "encourage" violence, or promote an "anti-state attitude."

The channels were also asked not to air programs that contain "aspersions against the judiciary and the integrity of the armed forces of Pakistan" or malign or slander anyone in public life, said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Broadcasters say verbal messages they received privately were even more blunt: Stop live coverage of Chaudhry rallies.

The result was immediate. While Chaudhry's rally Saturday in the opposition stronghold of Abbotabad was the biggest yet, drawing 50,000-60,000 people, there was no live coverage. Instead, networks reported verbally on the progress of Chaudhry's procession from Islamabad to Abbotabad, but used file footage.

The Pakistan Broadcasters Association, a grouping of private TV operators, called the government restrictions an "attack on the fundamental, constitutional right of expression."

In a resolution, they praised the government for having granted "exemplary liberty to the media."

"However, at this critical juncture, the government's resolve is under severe test," the resolution said. "The government must show tolerance and should be able to absorb criticism in the larger national interest."

An international media watchdog urged Pakistani journalists to protest the government's moves.

"It is not by gagging them that ... Musharraf will solve the current political crisis," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. "This arbitrary decision is a new stage in the move back to the sinister times of state censorship."

An editorial Sunday in The News agreed and advised Musharraf that he needs to choose: be only army chief or seek re-election as a civilian president.

"Not only are the threats and warnings to the media that it must fall in line and keep the 'national interest' paramount going not to work in this day and age, they will be thoroughly counterproductive and only exacerbate an already tense situation," the newspaper said.

For the increasingly embattled president, it appeared the turning point was a May 26 seminar at the Supreme Court on independence of the judiciary. With Chaudhry in attendance, the event turned into a political rally with nonstop live TV coverage.

Amid shouts of "Go, Musharraf, go," a string of lawyers emphatically criticized Musharraf, saying he had no authority to unilaterally suspend Chaudhry, citing the principle of separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

Then on Friday, the local government in the capital, Islamabad, issued a two-month ban on gatherings of more than five people. At the same time, TV networks were told to curtail live coverage of Chaudhry.

The government denies censoring the media. Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said the government believes in a free press and that it had only requested media abide by their code of conduct.

___

Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan and Zarar Khan contributed to this report.





Link


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 June 01, 2007 7:06 AM



According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Chavez appealed directly to the general staff last March to support his reorganization of the state structure and his dissolution of the Congress. He failed to win the support of the commanders. The military appears as divided today as it was when the ex-lieutenant colonel attempted his coup seven years ago. A group of younger officers, mostly captains and majors, who backed the coup, continue to support the new president. But other commanders, who opposed Chavez in 1992, suppressing his uprising, remain cool toward the new government. Many of those who stood with then President Andres Perez in 1992 naturally won promotions and rose to the top positions within the military command. The concern among this senior layer is not only over Chavez's populist rhetoric, but more concretely that he will begin interfering with the military's system of promotions and rewards, elevating his own supporters at the expense of those who previously stood against him.

Even among Chavez's comrades-in-arms from the 1992 coup there are serious fissures. Many view with distaste the new president's alliance with Venezuela's petty-bourgeois left, including ex-guerrillas-turned-politicians, such as the leaders of the MAS, or Movement toward Socialism, whose secretary general, Leopoldo Puchi, served as Minister of Labor in the first months of the Chavez government.

Not unconscious of the disquiet within the officer corps, the leaders of the traditional parties made a direct call upon the armed forces to "defend the constitution" against the Chavez government. Cesar Perez Rivas, chief of the COPEI parliamentary faction, issued the statement in conjunction with Accion Democratica and the conservative Venezuelan Project party, protesting the intervention into the Congress by the Constituent Assembly.

Together with the opposition of the military, there are the statements from Washington expressing "growing concern" about the constitutional crisis in a country which is a leading supplier of petroleum to the United States. International capital has also expressed its reservations with a 40 percent decline in direct investments over the past year.

Meanwhile, the Chavez regime has also backed down somewhat from its initial vows to abolish the CTV, which comprises some 4,000 unions and more than 2 million members. Instead, the new government has halted the subsidies that the government has granted the union bureaucracy for the past four decades and is initiating an audit of the CTV's $24 million annual budget. As the CTV is known for its corruption, the inflated salaries of its leaders and its suppression of strikes, there is little danger that these actions will provoke resistance from the Venezuelan workers. Meanwhile, leaders of some of the left-nationalist parties have identified themselves with the government's "labor reform," seeing it as a vehicle for supplanting the old bureaucracy linked to Accion Democratica.

Many left-wing nationalists in Venezuela, and in Latin America generally, have hailed the ascendancy of Chavez as a revolutionary development. Eager leftist journalists from Buenos Aires, Mexico City and elsewhere have breathlessly reported their pilgrimages to Miraflores, the presidential palace in Caracas, for personal interviews with the paratrooper president.

These people represent a sociopolitical layer which is incapable of either forgetting or learning anything. The same tendencies hailed the "anti-imperialist" credentials of the likes of Gen. J.J. Torres in Bolivia, the "humanist revolution" of Velasco Alvarado in Peru, Panamanian General Omar Torrijos's "revolution for the dispossessed" and the "revolutionary nationalist" orientation of General Rodriguez Lara in Ecuador. Like Chavez, many of these military rulers adopted radical reformist rhetoric and evinced a friendly attitude toward Cuba.

In each case, however, these figures merely paved the way for more reactionary regimes, often military dictatorships, which quickly took away whatever meager reforms had been implemented and waged a merciless assault on the political rights and social conditions of the working masses of these countries. The support of petty-bourgeois leftists for the "revolutionary" officers served only to disorient the working class and leave it politically disarmed as the general staffs in these countries dispensed with nationalist-reformist pretenses and turned sharply to the right.

Indeed, Venezuela's own history provides the clearest example of this often-repeated political trajectory. In 1945 a group of young officers tied to Accion Democratica seized power, forming a civilian-military junta which sought to revise the constitution and initiated various reforms. Seeing their interests threatened, other sections of the military, backed by Washington, the petroleum companies and the right-wing opposition parties, launched their own coup, installing the police state regime of Perez Jimenez, which ruled the country for 10 years.

Chavez has attempted to draw a sharp distinction between his actions and those carried out by the Venezuelan officers in the mid-1940s. But the developments over the past few weeks reveal a growing threat of just such an outcome so long as the fighting capacity of the Venezuelan working class remains subordinated to the political maneuvers of the Chavez regime.





Link



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Coup warnings grow in Venezuela June 01, 2007 7:05 AM



The protracted constitutional crisis unleashed by the election of former military officer and coup leader Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has increased the danger that the Venezuelan military may be preparing to seize power in an attempt to squelch potential social unrest. The threat of military intervention looms nearer following the eruption of street battles outside the Venezuelan Congress August 27 between supporters of Chavez and the newly elected Constituent Assembly and backers of Venezuela's traditional ruling parties which still control the legislative body.

Militarized units of the National Guard joined with police in breaking up the warring mobs outside the parliament, while the country's Catholic Church hierarchy worked to broker a compromise between the Chavez regime and Venezuela's old ruling parties.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, staged an abortive coup attempt in 1992 against the government of Carlos Andres Perez and was jailed for his efforts. Six years later, he was elected president as head of the Patriotic Pole, an electoral front comprised of his own Fifth Republic Movement and various parties of the petty-bourgeois nationalist left.

The meteoric rise of "Comandante" Chavez is a measure of the putrefaction of the bourgeois forms of rule in Venezuela. The two parties that have monopolized political power for more than 40 years, regularly taking their turns in the presidential palace—Democratic Action (affiliated with the Social Democratic international) and COPEI (Christian Democratic)—are completely discredited political instruments of Venezuela's corrupt ruling elite.


One of the richest countries in Latin America by virtue of its immense petroleum reserves, Venezuela nonetheless has 80 percent of its population in poverty. Thirty percent are unemployed and 50 percent of those classified as economically active make their living off the so-called informal sector, working as street vendors, collecting scrap or doing odd jobs. The middle class has seen 70 percent of its buying power wiped out over the last 20 years, while the national debt, the fourth largest in Latin America, consumes fully 40 percent of the national budget. The entire political and economic life of a country of 23 million people has been subordinated for decades to the maintenance of the living standards of a tiny elite and meeting the interest payments on foreign debt controlled by Wall Street banks.


The repudiation of the parties identified with this oppressive setup found expression in Chavez's 56 percent majority in the February presidential race and even more overwhelmingly in the election of the Constituent Assembly, in which parties backing the new government took 92 percent of the vote, gaining 120 of its 131 seats. In the Congress, whose members were elected before Chavez's rise to power, parties supporting the new president hold only 33 percent of the seats.

While Chavez's populist demagogy and denunciations of the ruling elite have won him popular support, his policies are well within the guidelines set by the International Monetary Fund and Wall Street. Despite predictions of massive spending, salary increases and exchange controls, the new government has reduced public spending by 20 percent compared to last year. Public sector wages have been frozen, while a new natural gas investment law provides some of the most favorable conditions for foreign capital enacted anywhere in the hemisphere. The government has also floated proposals for the privatization of the aluminum and power sectors.

Chavez has used the Constituent Assembly to declare a "state of emergency" and to begin a project of uprooting the old political institutions of the Venezuelan state. The ostensible mission of the assembly was to draft a new constitution to replace the one adopted in 1961, in the wake of the 10-year US-backed military dictatorship of General Marcos Perez Jimenez. Soon after its formation, however, the assembly began to constitute itself as a battering ram against the existing legislative and judicial branches of the government as well as Venezuela's national trade union federation, the CTV, or Confederation of Venezuelan Workers.

The street brawl between Chavez supporters and backers of the traditional ruling party was provoked by a move on the part of the Constituent Assembly to close down the legislature and assume all of its powers. While the action prompted the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Henrique Capriles, to warn that Venezuela is "on the path to civil war," the confrontation was notable for its lack of any mass mobilization. Groups of a few hundred leftist backers of Chavez traded insults and punches with a similar number of political hacks from COPEI and Accion Democratica, prompting about 200 guardsmen to break up the confrontation with tear gas.

A political compromise negotiated by the Catholic Church and announced on September 9 provides for a brief period of political "cohabitation" between the Congress and the Constituent Assembly. The truce provides for Congress to continue its functions until mid-December, when the new constitution would be put to a national referendum and new elections would be called for the legislative body.

While emergency decrees remain in effect, the Chavez regime appears to have taken a more cautious approach to its intervention into the legislative and judicial branches of the government, to a large degree because of fears of opposition within the military command.



 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 June 01, 2007 6:55 AM


So what do you say about Chavez' 'illegal coups'?


 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 31, 2007 10:57 PM


I was feeling a bit punchy.

{Want to know what global warming means, try Georgia in the Summer...

It is on fire, you know.}


Snipers are able to hit all targets in the head at that range?

The range {or ammunition} might account for the apparent lack of injury- head wounds are particularly bloody, but can easily be serious.

However, that all victims shown had head wounds is suspicious with the range not being 'close'.

I don't know Spanish well so finding and understanding information is tougher.

But one must see the obvious danger that comes when the People come together and a leader is chosen. It is easy to go astray, and the separation will cause problems as well. This, and other factors, is why I am a conservative socialist, at best. Of course, like my spiritual views, I take my philosophical and political views from various sources.

I am also of the mind not the declare all or nothing type views, as in the socialism/imperialism polarity. I see neither being ultimately successful.

Condemning something for part is not a successful way to go. Championing something because a part is right, but another part may not be, is another unsuccessful way to go.

I suppose we will see if socialism is able to respond to input, just as we will see if the responses from 'imperialism', or rather the American system, are genuine.

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Hey Mike May 31, 2007 4:15 PM

This can keep you busy for a while http://www.wasteoftime.com ar  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 31, 2007 12:03 PM

>>>
The web of deceit will fall.
>>>

  Death to the WEB   oh !  How will I spend my time if the WWW goes down

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BlackCat May 31, 2007 2:28 AM

'The web of deceit will fall.'

I agree, the web being spun by the Bu$hco/Venezuelan opposition.

Everyone;

I've said all I have to say here on this issue, let's just agree to disagree.

 It's been entertaining and educational.

 + all.

for Arsy TV.


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 May 31, 2007 12:52 AM


What a joke.  Chavez will hang.

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 30, 2007 11:47 PM


I am so sick of the blah-blah-blah own all the media. BULLSHIT!

%#&!*% just start your own newspaper and shut the %#&!*% up!

I said it before and I will say it again: play a dangerous game and it just might not be the other that gets burned.

All the People are for me, but all the media are against us.

At some point one must realize they are full of %#&!*%, for if all the People were for the ideas espoused it wouldn't matter what the government, the media, etc etc say.

The Jews own the media yet the extensive network is for the Palestinians.

Its the liberal media, its the conservative media...

Every excuse but taking it on one's own self is what I see.

When college students are protesting against a socialist government, the time is nigh up.

Blame it on whomever one wants, it won't make a nat's difference.

The web of deceit will fall.



'Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according
to conscience,
above all liberties.'


Long live the revolution!  Death to tyrants! 

The wise, the kind, and the courageous!

Death to tyrants!  Long live the revolution!


 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 30, 2007 8:33 PM

>>>
But Arsy TV did more than simply criticize.....oh forget it 
>>>

had they used the tv as a teleportation device somehow ?  "Reach out, reach out and touch someone...." (telephone ad from a few years back)

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised May 30, 2007 5:07 PM

Get it on DVD!
http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org.uk/

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup) is a 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

A television crew from Ireland's Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they occurred. During their filming, the crew recorded images of the events that they say contradict explanations given by Chávez opposition, the private media, the US State Department, and then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The documentary says that the coup was the result of a conspiracy between various old guard and Anti-Chávez factions within Venezuela and the United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QTRlPKQWbI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkcq7WpoAmc

Venezuela’s press power

Never even in Latin American history has the media been so directly involved in a political coup. Venezuela’s ’hate media’ controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and it played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chávez, in April. Although tensions in the country could easily spill into civil war, the media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president - if necessary by force.

Le Monde

Reporters Without Borders, which has condemned the move concedes that:

'Along with other news media, it supported the April 2002 coup attempt against President Chávez.'

Friday, May 25, 2007

Venezuela's RCTV has Long Record of Law-breaking


A lot of organizations and politicians have criticized Venezuela for refusing to renew the broadcasting license of Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV.

In a press release today, the Washington-based Venezuela Information Office says the history of RCTV should be considered by Venezuela's critics:

RCTV's history of noncompliance with federal broadcasting guidelines that predate the Chavez administration. Since 1976, RCTV has been fined or temporarily closed six times, including for airing pornographic scenes, cigarette advertisements, sensationalist programming, and tendentious news coverage. Additionally, in 2002 RCTV aired programming calling on the public to take to the streets and overthrow the democratically elected president, a feat that would surely be punished by jail time and charges of treason if tried in the U.S. Yet, the station has been allowed to continue broadcasting to this day.

Venezuela's National Telecommunications Commission, which operates exactly like the US FCC, ruled that RCTV's long history of unlawful acts warranted the decision to refuse to renew the license. Venezuela's Supreme Court upheld the decision.

http://paeditorsblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/venezuelas-rc... 

In Venezuela, even color commentators are enlisted in the commercial media's open bid to oust the democratically elected government of Hugo Chávez. Andrés Izarra, a Venezuelan television journalist, says that the campaign has done so much violence to truthful information on the national airwaves that the four private TV stations have effectively forfeited their right to broadcast. "I think their licenses should be revoked," he says.

It's the sort of extreme pronouncement one has come to expect from Chávez, known for nicknaming the stations "the four horsemen of the apocalypse." Izarra, however, is harder to dismiss. A squeaky clean made-for-TV type, he worked as assignment editor in charge of Latin America at CNN en Español until he was hired as news production manager for Venezuela's highest-rated newscast, El Observador on RCTV.

On April 13, 2002, the day after business leader Pedro Carmona briefly seized power, Izarra quit that job under what he describes as "extreme emotional stress." Ever since, he has been sounding the alarm about the threat posed to democracy when the media decide to abandon journalism and pour all their persuasive powers into winning a war being waged over oil.

More:http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030303/klein 


 

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Ket May 30, 2007 4:31 PM

 but they say the license was not renewed because the channel criticises the president...

But Arsy TV did more than simply criticize.....oh forget it

SOB; To answer the question i posed some days back for you-

BTW. is Datanalisis, the poll you quoted the same company as mentioned below-?

In early February 2003, the anti-Chavez Venezuelan polling firms Datanalisis and Consultores 21 held a joint press conference in Caracas claiming to be "neutral parties"in the country's deeply polarized political conflict. Just over two weeks before the press conference, I reported that Datanalisis' President Jose Antonio Gil Yepes had told the Los Angeles Times in July 2002 that Chavez "has to be killed."I pointed out that a simple glance at Datanalisis' website revealed "the kind of blatant political partisanship that one normally does not associate with respectable polling operations"(as this report goes to print, Datanalisis' website has been running John Kerry's Chavez-bashing misstatement at the top of their "news"column for over a month).

Since I first reported on Datanalisis' blatant partisanship and biased polling, Gil Yepes has mysteriously disappeared as a public spokesperson for his company (although he occasionally pops up brandishing a letter from L.A. Times correspondent T. Christian Miller, who now supposedly claims that the pollster did not have criminal intent when he told Miller that Chavez "has to be killed").

With Gil Yepes' reputation in question, the job of restoring Datanalisis' mythic neutrality was left to company director Luis Vicente Leon. Never mind that Leon had also been making blatantly anti-Chavez statements to the press long before Gil Yepes blurted out his homicidal fantasies to the L.A. Times. In Venezuela, where Chavez-bashing journalists abound, "neutrality"means telling the business-controlled propaganda apparatus what it wants to hear.


http://www.counterpunch.org/delacour08072004.html

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 May 30, 2007 7:45 AM


I have nothing against 'state' owned television, either. I love PBS. It has fine programming.

I don't see it as hysterical when it is stated that the station was shut down because it opposed the government.

Especially as it is not an isolated event but part of a pattern. And also part of a bigger picture.

If the government cannot counter-act the arguments made against its policies with such a large amount of time designated to it to do so, and then must resort to simply, in effect, shutting the opposing ideas down, one wonders what sort of case it has.

This is the inherent danger in part of the conception of socialism/communism:

That we all have input at first but then must abide, with the supposed intention that it will be eventually revised. However, if opposing the government is reason to shut down opposing views, and the apparent review never occurs, one sees that it is a lie. It leaves democracy and becomes tyrannical oligarchy.

I understand there is danger in inciting people with false information, but that is not solved by limiting debate, it is solved by opening it up.

It is Chavez' position which is the hysterical one, not the stations', or the students' and others' protesting against the clamping down on opposing views.

It can only be considered 'hysterical' in the context of the creation of fear amongst the People.

Though, I would that legitimate concern, so that former appliction seems false.


 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
State ownership of airwaves May 30, 2007 1:30 AM

I have grown up in a society with only three channels - YLE1, YLE2 - state owned - and MTV (advertisement television - a private channel financed with ads. No ads in state-owned tv-channels). Now there's plenty more private channels, but most households still get only YLE1, YLE2 and MTV. I have never had any reason to believe I am being brainwashed or indoctrinated because of this But Finland is STILL #1 on the freedom of press list I suppose I'm spoiled

I have nothing against state owned channels. But I have everything against state ownership of PRIVATE channels... If it's state owned, it's not private...

And it's not the fact that the channel didn't got its license renewed. It's the fact how it's justified... As I said, if they had denied the license because the channel is crap and posting too much sex and violence (as they also say), then I don't think anyone had had anything to notice about this... but they say the license was not renewed because the channel criticises the president...

In my mind ANY head of state SHOULD be criticised. Just as much as Bush and Olmert are "free game", so should Chavez, Haniya, Ahmadinejad etc. etc. be.

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 29, 2007 6:35 AM

>>>>
Whichever path Chavez chooses to tread ,he must tread carefully- there are many snakes in the grass.
>>>>

 Of which he may become one himself, if he has not already crossed that line.  

"He that seeks power, will abuse it."

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 29, 2007 3:46 AM

I agree , he is far from perfect. Who in power is? 

  In the RCTV case tho, he acted within the law, passed in 1987 , and IMHO  justifiably chose not to renew RCTV's license.  If the owners of RCTV had shown themselves capable of abiding by any sort of ethical standards in their broadcasting, then they would not be in this position.

I agree that too much state ownership of the airwaves is not a good thing, but is 2 out of 21, with the vast majority of the remaining 19 rabidly opposed to him really such a big issue?  Ideally he should possibly have granted the license to someone with a more sympathetic voice to create some much needed media balance, than a state controlled channel, but I'm sure the criticism would have been just as hysterical if he had taken this course of action.

Whichever path Chavez chooses to tread ,he must tread carefully- there are many snakes in the grass.



This post was modified from its original form on 29 May, 3:48  [ send green star]  [ accepted]

 
 May 28, 2007 5:08 PM

He is very green with his bicycle project with Iran. But no he isnt perfect

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]

 
I hope your Dogma May 28, 2007 4:58 PM

watches out for my Carma...

A host of this group proposed Hugo Chavez as an example of Ethical Progressivism. His inability to tolerate a free press proves that he is neither.

Case closed....

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 28, 2007 4:54 PM


Dogma?  I enjoyed that movie. 

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
2000 word explanation ;-) May 28, 2007 4:18 PM

3) ANY ownership by the state of PRIVATE TV stations is suspect. State owned TV stations are not a threat to freedom. Why would the state need two stations? (By station I mean like BBC or SVT or YLE, not like BBC Prime, BBC News, BBC Food etc.)

5) It's more the consequences and circumstances than the "right to watch crap soaps".

7) I would say this without the conspiracy part.

Ket


This post was modified from its original form on 28 May, 16:18  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Sorry, Pete, I missed that one :-) May 28, 2007 4:01 PM

Questionnaire

1) Hugo Chavez is currently the subject of a massive Bu$hco/CIA propaganda offensive.

Agree

2) Having achieve a massive 65% support in the last election Hugo has a strong mandate for reform of his country's right wing dominated institutions.

Agree

3) The states ownership of 2 out of 21 private TV stations is a threat to freedom of speech in Venezuela.

Agree

4) Assisting in the military overthrow of a democratically elected government is protected free speech.

Agree

5) The right of Venezuelans to watch crap soaps is an  important human rights issue  worthy of our time and effort

Agree

6) Most 'Progressive Socialists' would spend their time and effort in exposing and attacking Bu$hcos' propaganda war on Chavez.

Agree

7) Monopolies or oligopolies in the ownership and control of communications media conspire against democracy by limiting the plurality and diversity which ensure the full exercise of people’s right to information.

Agree

8) If the US wasn't such a warmongering , oil hungry rogue state bent on the voilent overthrow of socialist regimes worldwide by any means possible, including genocide, Hugo Chavez and others just might be able to relax and be a little more progressive.

Agree

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
The murkier it gets, May 28, 2007 3:24 PM

the easier it is to cling to knee jerk dogma...

Clarity: Hugo Chavez-- an example of ethical progessivism ?

Is it Ethical or Progressive for a President to control the press?

No.

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 28, 2007 3:07 PM

What, easy ?  I can't possibly link the answers with questions/statements without reference points.  It is easier to read original Greek texts without spaces between the words than this.    [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 28, 2007 1:17 PM

1) Agree

2)Agree

3)Disagree We do it too

4)Disagree

5)Disagree

6)I dont know

7)All freeom of speach has a line

8)Yeah!!!!!!

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Ket May 28, 2007 11:52 AM

It's not difficult, you can reply like this-

1)Agree

2)Disagree

3)Agree

etc.

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]

 
So, Pete, you'd agree on this? May 28, 2007 11:26 AM

"Is it possible for any sound logical mind to hope with any success to guide crowds by the aid of reasonable counsels and arguments, when any objection or contradiction, senseless though it may be, can be made and when such objection may find more favour with the people, whose powers of reasoning are superficial? Men in masses and the men of the masses, being guided solely by petty passions, paltry beliefs, customs, traditions and sentimental theorism, fall a prey to party dissension, which hinders any kind of agreement even on the basis of a perfectly reasonable argument."

Would you say it's a rather accurate insight on the situation?

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 28, 2007 7:11 AM


Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.




Link



 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 28, 2007 7:09 AM


He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as w  [ send green star]  [ accepted]

 
 May 28, 2007 7:08 AM


The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.


 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 28, 2007 6:04 AM

>>>
He was doing such a good job, and now this... for what? Doesn't he trust in the people who has been saving his ass, life and job the last 8 years?
>>>

Ket:   or who knows, maybe his secret agenda is to "appear" to be something he is not.  In which case, his supporters will certainly be surprised.

 "I MUST question every single incidence of striving for any form of power..."
 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Questionnaire May 28, 2007 4:53 AM

Ket; Please answer the following questionnaire, answering simply 'agree' or 'disagree'. Save your 2000 word replies for a seperate post .

1) Hugo Chavez is currently the subject of a massive Bu$hco/CIA propaganda offensive.

Agree/Disagree

2)Having achieve a massive 65% support in the last election Hugo has a strong mandate for reform of his country's right wing dominated institutions.

Agree/Disagree

3)The states ownership of 2 out of 21 private TV stations is a threat to freedom of speech in Venezuela.

Agree/Disagree

4)Assisting in the military overthrow of a democratically elected government is protected free speech.

Agree/Disagree

5)The right of Venezuelans to watch crap soaps is an  important human rights issue  worthy of our time and effort

Agree/Disagree

6)Most 'Progressive Socialists' would spend their time and effort in exposing and attacking Bu$hcos' propaganda war on Chavez.

Agree/Disagree

7)Monopolies or oligopolies in the ownership and control of communications media conspire against democracy by limiting the plurality and diversity which ensure the full exercise of people’s right to information.

Agree/Disagree

8)If the US wasn't such a warmongering , oil hungry rogue state bent on the voilent overthrow of socialist regimes worldwide by any means possible, including genocide, Hugo Chavez and others just might be able to relax and be a little more progressive.

Agree/Disagree

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 27, 2007 8:05 PM

oops, rest of article 7:59 PM

The RCTV case is not about censorship of political opinion. It is about the government, through a flawed process, declining to renew a broadcast license to a company that would not get a license in other democracies, including the United States. In fact, it is frankly amazing that this company has been allowed to broadcast for 5 years after the coup, and that the Chávez government waited until its license expired to end its use of the public airwaves.

Once again, it seems, the warnings of a move from democracy to dictatorship in Venezuela have been loud but lacking in evidence.

Patrick McElwee is a policy analyst with Just Foreign Policy (www.justforeignpolicy.org). He can be reached at patrick@justforeignpolicy.org.
Blackcat; re your WaPo posts. With respect, I'll let you know a simple equation I use in regard to the US MSM;-
   US MSM/Hugo Chavez = Propaganda Bullsh*t.
Ket;
'If Chavez had said that the license is not renewed because the channel is lying and cheating, then I would not have any problems. But he says that the license is not renewed because the channel criticised him... Now, when people start protesting, they are told that it's a %#&!*% channel anyway, so it doesn't matter.'
er, read my posts, RCTV have done a lot more than simply criticise Chavez.
'The five private television networks control at least 90 percent of the market, with smaller private stations controlling another five percent. These media monopolies broadcast to more than four million television screens in Venezuela. As early as 1999, some 95 percent of the nation’s media was expressing its opposition to Chávez.'

 Now, with the non renewal of RCTV's license, which,incidentally, does not affect RCTV's cable, satellite and internet operations, that leaves 19 private channels and 2 government channels.

  SOB ,That really is worthy of invoking Hitler's name.  What crimes against humanity can we expect fom him next?

Considering the pollster, Analisis, admitted that the majority of those polled who objected to the closure were concerned more about their loss of favourite tv shows than any human rights issues, don't you think that the hysteria generated over said closure is a little OTT?

I'm all for freedom of the press, but in this case put the rabid dog down and good riddance.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/05/19/2638551.htm



This post was modified from its original form on 27 May, 20:06  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 27, 2007 7:34 PM

Hey Ketutar will you do me a wavy Venuzuellah flag please  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
good old Lao-Tzu :-) May 27, 2007 9:00 AM

Chavez is much better than the worst and even worse leaders. But he is  not infallible.

There was a question asked of the Swedish PM candidates during the election campaigns some years ago. The question was "which do you prefer, George W. Bush or Fidel Castro". The majority of the candidates didn't even need much time to consider the answer, I think it was only the very right party leaders who said "Bush". I didn't need much time either. I would take the "Communist dictator" any day over the "democratically elected president"
The same thing with Chavez. Perhaps that's the reason why this kind of things have such a great impact... He was doing such a good job, and now this... for what? Doesn't he trust in the people who has been saving his ass, life and job the last 8 years?

Ket

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 May 27, 2007 8:54 AM

"A free speech issue arises if the non-renewal is to punish a certain editorial line."
Indeed... and the editorial line in question? Criticism of the rulers...

If Chavez had said that the license is not renewed because the channel is lying and cheating, then I would not have any problems. But he says that the license is not renewed because the channel criticised him... Now, when people start protesting, they are told that it's a %#&!*% channel anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Never mind, you have made your mind up and cannot see anything wrong with what he is doing.

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 May 27, 2007 8:07 AM

Aw well, were not going to being seeing any invisable leaders, in this times Marc !   there no fianacle incentive there ....I think if we all leave Hugo alone he will get as good as Tsun whats his face !

Old Tsun there - didnt have George Bu$h calling him an ; Axis of evil  and legislating against him ! He was living the life of Adam  up in a cave somewhere .....  

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 May 27, 2007 7:55 AM

For Lauría, non-renewal itself is not the problem. His concern is the process by which the decision was reached. “I assume in the US there would be a process. The FCC would follow protocol. This is what hasn’t happened in Venezuela. We’re not arguing that the concession should be renewed, should be given to RCTV. We’re just saying that there’s no process to evaluate if it should be.”

Vivanco also complained about the process, saying that if the government argues there is a violation of the contract, “that would be settled normally in court. Second, if there’s some crimes committed, the individuals who were involved in those crimes should be prosecuted in a court of law.”

On process, they have a legitimate point. The government seems to have made the decision without any administrative or judicial hearings. Unfortunately, this is what the law, first enacted in 1987, long before Chávez entered the political scene, allows. It charges the executive branch with decisions about license renewal, but does not seem to require any administrative hearing. The law should be changed, but at the current moment when broadcast licenses are up for renewal, it is the prevailing law and thus lays out the framework in which decisions are made.

However, Vivanco’s critique goes beyond process to the government’s justification for non-renewal. “You have the president saying, forget it, the license is not going to be renewed, it’s a bunch of golpistas [coup-mongers] or fascists or whatever – which is clearly some sort of censorship. That sounds like an arbitrary decision made by the president on political grounds. And that is not acceptable.”

Lauría also told me that RCTV was “selectively chosen because of opposition views.”

But is support for the violent overthrow of an elected government really protected political speech? Vivanco acknowledges that RCTV “obviously probably sympathized with the coup.” But, he says, “it is a matter of free speech.”

Vivanco understates RCTV’s connection to the coup. RCTV encouraged viewers to attend a rally that was part of the coup strategy, invited coup leaders to address the country on their channel, and reported the false information that the president had resigned. After Pedro Carmona declared himself president and dissolved the National Assembly, Supreme Court, and other democratic institutions, the head of RCTV Marcel Granier met with him in the Presidential Palace. The following day, when mass protests and loyal army units brought back President Chávez, RCTV and other stations blacked out the news, showing movies and cartoons instead.

Such actions clearly go beyond protected free speech, at least in the United States. Imagine the consequences if NBC took such actions during a coup against Bush.

In fact, RCTV’s participation in the oil strike of 2002-2003, and even their joining in  legal political campaigns would be grounds for revoking their broadcast license in the United States.

Consider this episode in the US. Two weeks before the 2004 presidential election, it was reported that the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates the largest number of local TV stations in the United States, planned to order its affiliates to replace prime-time programming with a documentary critical of John Kerry.

Democrats were outraged. The Democratic National Committee filed a case with the FCC arguing that such “partisan propaganda” was inappropriate. And, yes, at least one powerful Democratic politician swore that if the documentary was aired, there would be no Sinclair Broadcast Group by the 2008 election. A Kerry spokesman said, “You don't expect your local TV station to be pushing a political agenda two weeks before an election. It's un-American.” Couldn’t it be un-Venezuelan too? (The political pressures above led Sinclair to cancel the anti-Kerry broadcast).

If RCTV were the only major source of opposition to the government, the loss of its voice would be troubling. It would also be disturbing if the RCTV case forced others to tone down legitimate opposition. But Greg Wilpert, a sociologist living in Venezuela, declares, “It is the height of absurdity to say that there’s a lack of freedom of press in Venezuela.”

Of the top four private TV stations, three air mostly entertainment and one, Globovisión, is a 24-hours news channel. On Globovisión, Wilpert says, “the opposition is very present. They pretty much dominate it. And in the others, they certainly are very present in the news segments.”

Regarding the print media, Wilpert told me, “There are three main newspapers. Of those three, two are definitely very opposition. The other one is pretty neutral. I would say, [the opposition] certainly dominates the print media by far. There’s no doubt about that.”

“I think some of the TV stations have slightly moderated [their opposition to the government] not because of intimidation, but because they were losing audience share. Over half of the population is supportive of Chávez . They’ve reduced the number of anti-Chávez programs that they used to have. But those that continue to exist are just as anti-Chávez as they were before.”

The RCTV case is not about censorship of political opin  [ send green star]  [ accepted]

 
 May 27, 2007 7:48 AM

Is Free Speech Really at Stake? Venezuela and RCTV

 

By: Patrick McElwee

Throughout this process of increasing voter and citizen participation and electoral democracy, the Venezuelan opposition and their allies in the U.S. press have told us that authoritarianism was just around the corner. They now say it has arrived. The immediate focus of their concern is the president’s decision not to renew the broadcast license of a major television network that is openly opposed to the Chávez government. Their free speech concerns have been echoed by Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. On the other hand, the vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Freedom Commission, ruling out a resolution on the issue, has said the non-renewal has nothing to do with human rights.

Here are the basic facts. Rádio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) is one of the biggest television networks in Venezuela. It airs news and entertainment programs. It is also openly opposed to the government, including by supporting a military coup that briefly ousted Chávez in 2002. (More information available on what Le Monde Diplomatique has called Venezuela’s “hate media” here and here.) During the oil strike of 2002-2003, the station repeatedly called upon its viewers to come out into the street and help topple the government. As part of its continuing political campaign against the government, the station has also used false allegations, sometimes with gruesome and violent imagery, to convince its viewers that the government was responsible for such crimes as murders where there was no evidence of government involvement.

According to a law enacted in 1987, the licenses given to RCTV and other stations to use the public airwaves expire on May 27. President Chávez has publicly declared that RCTV’s license will not be renewed, citing its involvement in the coup. Although it will not be able to continue to use the public broadcast frequencies, the station will still be able to send its signal out over cable, satellite, and the Internet.

The U.S. media, much of which has been unsuccessfully predicting dictatorship under Chávez for years, has used this case to make accusations of censorship and the end of press freedom in Venezuela.

To understand the issue better, I decided to talk to the human rights and press freedom groups who have criticized the action.

José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch clarified for me that “broadcasting companies in any country in the world, especially in democratic countries, are not entitled to renewal of their licenses. The lack of renewal of the contract, per se, is not a free speech issue. Just per se.” A free speech issue arises if the non-renewal is to punish a certain editorial line.

Still, Benoît Hervieu of Reporters Without Borders in Paris said that, while he could not be certain, he thought US and European governments would stop short of non-renewal despite RCTV’s “support for the coup.”

“I think that there would be pressure to make a replacement at the head of the channel. But I don’t think that they would not renew the concession. There is a risk in that story. There are 3000 employees at RCTV. So I don’t think that even in a country like [the United States or France], a government would risk putting 3000 people in the streets,” he said.

Could it be that governments like Venezuela have the theoretical right not to renew a broadcast license, but that no responsible government would ever do it? In the United States, this may seem plausible, since broadcast licenses here seem to be forever. (Who could imagine life without ABC, CBS, or NBC?) Still, the government sometimes takes actions in other parts of the economy that result in a company going out of business.

Actually, in other democratic countries, broadcast companies sometimes do not get their licenses renewed. For example, in Britain in 1992, in a process based in part on a subjective assessment of “quality of service,” Thames Television lost its license after 24 years of service. Several British commentators speculated that the Thatcher government had influenced the result.

So democracies do occasionally find reasons not to renew a license. So what about this case in particular: Would RCTV have had its license renewed in the United States or Europe?

While the two US-based human rights advocates I spoke with declined to answer that question directly, they acknowledged that non-renewal would not be out of the question here.

Vivanco said, “I don’t know. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could decide that they’re not going to renew, for instance, Fox News or MSNBC because they’re in violation of the contract, according to the conditions of the contract. Normally you settle those things in court.”

Carlos Lauría of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) spoke similarly: “I don’t think you can translate what’s going on there [in Venezuela] to the United States. That’s a very difficult question. I mean, if RCTV had violated the law, I assume they wouldn’t get the concession renewed.”

cont

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I think this thread wil go on and on. May 27, 2007 6:01 AM

Is Hugo Chavez an example of ethical progressivism?

I think he is better then the worst, but not an example of how it is done.

To lead people, walk beside them....
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
The next best, the people honor and praise.
The next, the people fear;
and the next, the people hate....
When the best leader's work is done the people say,
"We did it ourselves!"....Lao-tsu.



This post was modified from its original form on 27 May, 6:02  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 27, 2007 5:50 AM

Sorry it was suppose to read thats no evidence to deny Hugo, is not an example of ethical progressivsm ! but i was laughing thinking. aw they dont know yet !  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 27, 2007 5:45 AM

Thats no evidence to suggest Hugo to deny Hugo is evidence of ethical progressinism because they wont allow protest marches on the tv- they dont here in england. I ask the stations and they say they have their licences revoked if they did, advertise a protest. Interests of national security !

Maybe Hugo needs to write up some guidlines for broadcasting like we have - would it be legal then ?



This post was modified from its original form on 27 May, 5:48  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 27, 2007 3:36 AM


I believe, I have read this speech.  If one goes beyond the theatrics and rhetoric, he has some points to make.

Do I like him?

I don't know him.

Do I like attempts to squash any legitimate form of speech?

No.

Fox, CNN, MSNBC, they all have their good points and bad points.

Do I want any one of them to be 'banned'?

No.

I am not forced to watch them.  If I disagree with something, I make every effort to try to get my own points across. 

'Banning' some station will not help me do that.

I do not necessarily refrain from criticizing someone out of some sort of obligation.  There may be reasons to try more subtle approaches.  There may be reasons to 'keep the baby and throw out the dirty bath water'.

But just because something may co-incide with my views, I do not wish to endorse something that is wrong.  Perhaps, rhetorically, or under a hypothetical extreme situation.  Maybe to make a point.

If some positional group is doing something, looking at it from the point of view of another position may expose it for something other than desirable.

If speech is so powerful as that it can harm one's position, than one's position cannot be particularly strong.

If part of one's position is strong, that does not necessarily mean that another unrelated part is strong just by the association.

Helping children is a noble cause.  Killing other children to do so is not.

It doesn't matter how noble helping children is, it will not make killing children a noble cause.

There may a time when there is a 'Sophie's Choice', but didn't she pay dearly?

There isn't a good excuse not to try to do better, to be a better person.

There isn't.  There may be reasons surrounding a situation, extenuating circumstances, but a crutch is a crutch.

Don't think it is not.

Safety reduced for efficiency, or less cost, just for one.

It is shameful.  And anyone who commits such, putting a price on someone's head for material gain, should be ashamed. 

Shamed.

And when someone rises to the call, goes beyond the call, they should be noted, even rewarded.

The company that installed 'higher quality' steel, that most likely saved some lives, in the World Trade Centers, for instance.

And even if one is not overtly rewarded- and one can not really expect such- one should still strive to do such things.

That small difference can make all the world.








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Pete, it's not about "liking this chap". May 27, 2007 12:45 AM

It's about legitimate criticism.

Think about the opposite situation... a far right government that has made it illegal to criticise the government, that uses the opportunity to get the biggest and oldest far-left tv-channel out of the air, charged for treason, because it encourages people to strike, protest and demonstrate...
“Venezuelans, take to the streets on Thursday, April 11 at 10am. Bring your flags. For freedom and democracy. Venezuela will not surrender. No one will defeat us.”

Yesterday they showed "Last Days of Salvador Allende" on tv...
And think if "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo" was an illegal organization, because they criticise the government, even ACCUSE them of horrifying acts against human rights... without any evidence
Or if the demonstrations against the American wars were deemed treason... all the media that is used to rally people for that cause was shut down...

Pete, one doesn't need to dislike Hugo just because one finds some of his acts less than admirable.
I am not after replacing him, or recommending a right wing government to ANY South American country ( Pinochet ) or condemning everything he has ever done.

I'm pointing out the FACT that THIS IS NOT OK.

It is not ethical progressivism to stoop down on hero worship and idolization of the Great Beloved Leader.


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People have the right to be idiots... May 27, 2007 12:23 AM


"My apologies, maybe the right to watch crap soaps is an inviolable human right."
Yep, it is.

Also, it is human right to choose to get your information from a "far-right TVchannel-one famous for its yellow journalism, total absence of professional standards, and its venomous and grossly unprofessional criticism of the current regime". People watch FOX as well. It doesn't matter that the channel is a "crap channel".
You point out yourself, that people watch the channel mostly because of the soap operas. I know people who watch soaps. My grandmother just had to see Dallas, Granpa Simpson just has to see Matlock... there are people who have more life through people from "Neighbors" or what ever they are called, etc. than themselves. None of these people is very interested about "pro-strike advertisements" (BTW, the rights to strike, protest and demonstrate are in my mind an inviolable civil rights ), "anti-Chávez propaganda" or "yellow press journalism". (Well... they are interested of the Yellow press journalism as long as it's about the stars of their show )

The thing is that Chavez has made it illegitimate to criticize him and his government, and THAT is the sickness. Closing down RCTV is just a symptom.

Ket
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 May 26, 2007 8:38 PM

Coming from a totally different angle now ,,,,human ... Theres somthing up with ya, if you dont like this bloke ?  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
I call Chavez ! May 26, 2007 8:33 PM

Let us look at the man behind the myth

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anonymous  May 26, 2007 2:49 PM

You cannot currently send a star to Blackcat because you have done so within the last week.  [report anonymous abuse]  [ accepted]
 
 May 26, 2007 2:02 PM


'“The RCTV case is clearly a case of censorship and the most grave step back in the region since Fujimori,” said Jos? Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch, referring to widespread manipulation of the media by Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. “Chavez is not renewing the concession to punish a medium for its opposition to the government.”

Much to the bane of the government, it also features Miguel Angel Rodr?guez, whose three-year-old program, “The Interview,” makes mincemeat of Chavez’s government every weekday morning. Sitting before a giant screen where Chavez’s speeches are replayed, Rodriguez and his guests, usually staunch foes of Chavez, dissect the president’s statements and declare his government anti-democratic and incompetent.

“Could we say to Venezuelans that a person of this sort, Hugo Chavez, is rising up against the liberty of Venezuelans?” Rodriguez asked a guest on a recent morning. “Is this constitutional reform, the enabling law and this giant step to consolidate 21st-century socialism a method of finding a legal way to install totalitarianism?”


But what really angers the government is what happened before and after April 11, 2002, when an anti-government protest ended in violence and the ouster of Ch?vez. RCTV, like three other major private television stations, encouraged the protests and, once Ch?vez was ousted, celebrated his removal.


But he contends that RCTV tries to be fair, offering invitations to government officials that are usually ignored.

“What we have tried to do is preserve spaces for pluralism so that different opinions are heard,” he said.



Officials cite the station’s anti-government position as a motivation for the non-renewal of its license, set to expire at the end of May.



“The government’s decision not to renew the concession is a decision that lacks transparency,” said Carlos Lauria, an Argentine journalist who headed the committee’s delegation. “We are worried because this can have consequences for the exercise of free expression.”

Free expression is exercised in Venezuela. Another influential television station, Globovision, lambastes the government frequently, and Caracas boasts a range of newspapers, many of them with an anti-government bent.

But the government has steadily been pressuring the opposition media — prompting a once aggressive station, Venevision, to dramatically tone down its news reports. Journalists say access to information is routinely denied, and state advertising is withheld from some opposition media outlets. The government is now planning to close many press relations offices, funneling all information through the communications minister, according to a report in El Universal newspaper.

The state funds hundreds of community radio stations and numerous newspapers. State television channels run Chavez’s speeches and forums where moderators extol the virtues of the government. In 2005, the government founded Telesur, a network for Latin America that Chavez says is a leftist alternative to CNN En Espanol.

If the government follows through with its plans on RCTV, it will mark the end of an era for a station that produced the long-running humor program “Radio Rochela” and famous telenovelas such as “Through These Streets,” which dealt with social tensions...



In RCTV’s sprawling facility, which includes a network news center, studios for soaps, editing rooms and warehouses, workers are trying to stay optimistic.'




Link




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anonymous Well, whatever one wishes to call Hugo Chavez' "reign", it can May 26, 2007 1:48 PM

hardly be called "ethical progressivism"...

SB/Dov

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 May 26, 2007 1:46 PM


'April 5, 2006

Press in peril: The fourth of six editorials

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez and his leftist “Bolivarian Revolution” are throttling that oil-rich country's free press. Half a dozen Latin countries have turned moderately left in recent years but only Venezuela, so far, is moving to silence press criticism and stifle dissent.

Chávez, a crude populist and ex-army officer, sees his critics among Venezuela's newspapers and broadcast networks as bourgeois reactionaries out to sabotage his self-styled revolution. Much of the Venezuelan press sees itself as fighting a desperate battle to preserve the country's democratic institutions against a strong-armed president whose political hero is Fidel Castro.

At first, Chávez used demagoguery and denunciation against the press. Then he resorted to direct action, inciting street mobs to attack journalists and their press organizations. Chávez's incitement has prompted a series of assaults in which journalists have been beaten or threatened.

Now, Chávez and his government are moving systematically to undercut press freedoms and silence press criticism of his lurch leftward. A Venezuelan congress and judiciary effectively controlled by Chávez are enacting laws and regulations that criminalize dissent. “Social responsibility” laws are being used to impose de facto censorship on radio and television news and commentary. A tangle of new arbitrary laws, decrees, regulations and rules is being put in place to stifle press criticism and give Chávez and his revolution an ever freer ride in the media.

While Chávez's critics in the press are hounded and harassed, Chávez gets an average of 40 broadcast hours a week, unchallenged by critics, to harangue Venezuelans.

The new laws and regulations plus higher taxes and punitive fines amount to a neo-totalitarian infrastructure for muzzling Venezuela's once-vibrant press. In an ominous portent, the 100-year-old El Impulso newspaper of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, was arbitrarily closed and prevented from publishing by government tax collectors for a day last October.

Chávez's campaign to muzzle Venezuela's press is provoking strenuous protests from outraged Venezuelan journalists, publishers and broadcasters, plus an international who's who of press-freedom defenders: the Inter American Press Association, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, the Institute for Defense of Journalists and the International Association of Radio Broadcasters. In addition, the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has signaled its disapproval.

More must be done, by human rights groups and democratic nations in the Western Hemisphere especially, if Chávez is to be deterred from even worse transgressions against the rights of all Venezuelans to a free press. If press freedoms in Venezuela are completely extinguished, what's left of Venezuela's democracy won't be far behind.'



Link


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 May 26, 2007 1:38 PM


'President meets WAN delegation President Hugo Chavez meets a press freedom delegation from WAN

"It is imperative that the President of the country does not, in speeches and in numerous television addresses, use language that could incite violence against media professionals and media enterprises," Pedro Ramirez, Editor-in-Chief of the Spanish daily El Mundo and a member of the delegation, told Mr Chavez.

"There is widespread fear among media professionals in Venezuela that they cannot fulfil their professional activities in safety," he said. "The President must assure the media that they need not fear harassment and violence."

The President responded: "The attacks on journalists and newspapers are of course something to regret, but they are nothing compared to the attacks on Venezuela from the majority of the media." He contended that major media groups had played an active role in the failed coup that briefly ousted him from power in April.

"Most media in Venezuela are deliberately trying to undermine the President’s authority and do not show the necessary respect for the office, and for the Venezuelan people," he said.

Venezuelan journalists and media businesses have reported harassment, intimidation and threats, both before and after the coup, in an apparent government attempt to suppress critical journalism.

President Chavez has frequently spoken against journalists in inflammatory terms in political speeches and on radio and television but has spoken of reconciliation since the failed coup.

The meeting with the Paris-based WAN and the WEF was the first time Chavez has welcomed an international press freedom group since the failed coup.

"We hope that the President’s willingness to see us is confirmation of his willingness to seek reconciliation with the press in Venezuela," said Roger Parkinson, President of WAN.

Mr Parkinson said the meeting "was an opportunity to bring the concerns of Venezuelan media professionals and the concerns of the international media community to the attention of the President."

The delegation asked President Chavez:

- to fully investigate all attacks on journalists and media and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice. The delegation was particularly concerned with the murder of photographer Jorge Tortoza, who was killed by a sniper who was shooting from a government building during an anti-Chavez demonstration on 11 April.

- to ensure that journalists and media are allowed to work in conditions that guarantee freedom and independence and ensure that police protect media professionals and intervene when they are attacked;

- to cease his inflammatory comments about the press that have encouraged mob attacks and other violence against journalists and media;

- to include press representatives in reconciliation dialogues;

- to fully respect article 143 of the Constitution, which guarantees press access to all information of public interest and to guarantee government transparency. President Chavez was also asked to guarantee that he and government officials will stop their de facto boycott of the press and participate in interviews and debates;

- to publish the text of a proposed new information law, which has been sent to the National Assembly, to avoid suspicions that its objective is to limit freedom of expression in Venezuela;

- to stop abusing the President’s right to have his speeches broadcast in their entirety on all television channels. Some of his television addresses have extended for more than five hours;

- to eliminate any financial or moral support to the violent "Circulos Bolivarianos" groups that have been attacking journalists and media organisations.

Before the meeting with President Chavez, the WAN delegation held discussions with journalists, publishers and other media executives about the increasing threats to the country’s press.

In March, WAN and the WEF protested against the attacks on the press and asked the President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to help pressure Mr Chavez to stop violating press freedom in his country.


WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 71 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies and seven regional and world-wide press groups.'





Link


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 May 26, 2007 1:27 PM


Link

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 May 26, 2007 1:26 PM


'Chavez's Censorship Where 'Disrespect' Can Land You in Jail

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 28, 2005; Page A17

Venezuela's minister of communication and information, Andres Izarra, recently accused The Post and several other American media of being part of a campaign to defame Venezuela directed by the Bush administration and funded by the State Department. Apparently I drew Izarra's attention by writing several columns and editorials lamenting President Hugo Chavez's assault on press freedom and the independent judiciary and his support for anti-democratic movements elsewhere in Latin America.

One of the journalists libeled by Izarra pointed out that he had no evidence to back up his accusations. According to the newspaper El Universal, that inspired the following outburst, in Spanish, from the cabinet minister: "Mister gringo, be sure that we are going to come back to defeat you . . . because we work with the truth, we have spirit and above all something very special, a leader who unites and inspires us, the commandante Chavez!"


It's easy to laugh at such buffoonery if, like me, you have the privilege of working for an independent newspaper in a capital where demagogues such as Izarra aren't taken seriously. In Caracas, however, the minister's rantings -- and those of his master, Chavez -- are no longer funny. Beginning this month journalists or other independent activists accused by the government of the sort of offenses alleged by Izarra can be jailed without due process and sentenced to up to 30 years.

To be sure, much of the Venezuelan media has aggressively opposed Chavez's populist "Bolivarian revolution," though not without reason: The former coup-plotting colonel is well on his way to destroying what was once the most stable and prosperous democracy in Latin America. Some newspapers and television stations openly sided with attempts to oust the president via coup, strike or a national referendum. Having survived all three, a strengthened Chavez is moving to eliminate critical journalists and create in Venezuela the kind of state-controlled media environment in which a minister of information such as Izarra is all-powerful.

The first step was a new media content law, adopted by the Chavez-controlled legislature last December, that subjects broadcast media to heavy fines or the loss of their licenses for disseminating information deemed "contrary to national security." Its impact was soon felt: Two of the most prominent anti-government journalists lost their jobs as anchors on morning television shows, and Venezuelans quickly noticed the appearance of self-censorship among those who remained.

Ten days ago Chavez handed Izarra a still-bigger stick: a new penal code that criminalizes virtually any expression to which the government objects -- not only in public but also in private.

Start with Article 147: "Anyone who offends with his words or in writing or in any other way disrespects the President of the Republic or whomever is fulfilling his duties will be punished with prison of 6 to 30 months if the offense is serious and half of that if it is light." That sanction, the code implies, applies to those who "disrespect" the president or his functionaries in private; "the term will be increased by a third if the offense is made publicly."

There's more: Article 444 says that comments that "expose another person to contempt or public hatred" can bring a prison sentence of one to three years; Article 297a says that someone who "causes public panic or anxiety" with inaccurate reports can receive five years. Prosecutors are authorized to track down allegedly criminal inaccuracies not only in newspapers and electronic media, but also in e-mail and telephone communications.

The new code reserves the toughest sanctions for journalists or others who receive foreign funding, such as the election monitoring group Sumate, which has been funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy. Venezuelans or foreigners living in the country can be punished with a 10- to 15-year sentence for receiving foreign support that "can prejudice the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela . . . or destabilize the social order," whatever that means. Persons accused of conspiring against the government with a foreign country can get 20 to 30 years in prison. The new code specifies that anyone charged with these crimes will not be entitled to legal due process. In other words, should Izarra determine that my Caracas-based colleagues continue to collude with the State Department against Venezuela, they could be summarily jailed.

Chavez and his propaganda apparatus don't feel compelled to live by their own rules. The president has directed crude epithets at President Bush and even more vulgar sexual innuendo at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. His government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Americans in the United States who write articles and letters glorifying Chavez and attacking the Bush administration. Izarra himself could be charged under his own slander law for his false claims about American journalists. Lucky for him his adversaries here are a democratic government, and a columnist who merely thinks he's ridiculous.'



 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 26, 2007 1:17 PM

bye for now.

cue title music ,altogether now-

Neeeiiighbours, everybody needs good neeeiiighbours,

with a little understaaaaanding,

we could all become good frieeeends

neeeeiiighbours, should be there for one anoooother

Thats when good neeeiiighbours ,

become goooood frieeeends!

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 May 26, 2007 1:03 PM

Walking the Plank
In addition to Venevisión (the largest station in the country) the billionaire Cisneros family, dubbed the Rupert Murdoch of Latin America, owns over 70 other media outlets in 39 countries. These include DirecTV Latin America, AOL Latin America, Caracol Television (Colombia), the Univisión Network in the U.S., Galavisión, and Playboy Latin America.

In the absence of a credible and united political opposition, ideologically-driven Venezuelan media conglomerates rapidly expanded in the public arena with their own, often heated agendas, giving up all pretenses at objectivity. As almost all of these media facilities belong to a privileged economic elite, it was likely that their interests would not coincide with the attitudes of the general public, nor would they necessarily represent the attitudes and values of the nation’s poor majority. At the time of the 2002 coup, when Chávez was pawned off by an unprincipled media blitz, disbelief was growing in the golpista explanation of his willing resignation. As rumors of funding from the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy and State Department’s AID surfaced, the underrepresented but pro-Chávez lower class took to the streets to call for the coup-plotters to set their president free.

Does Chávez Overstep His Bounds?
A number of NGO’s, including Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders, have voiced often unwarranted or slanted criticism of Chávez’s alleged violation of freedom of speech and press. The Paris-based reporters’ group, whose initiatives uncannily often are found to be congruent with U.S. policy goals, called Chávez’s free speech record a “serious attack on editorial pluralism” and urged the Venezuelan government to “reconsider its stance and guarantee an independent system of concessions and renewal of licenses.” “Reporters” main problem, however, was that they had little evidence to document their case, which was colored more by their distinct ideology than the facts on the ground. The Secretary General of OAS, for his part, strained his mandate of office as well by warning that the possible closing of RCTV and other anti-government TV networks by authorities could palpably damage democracy in Venezuela.

However, Secretary General Insulza might have taken note of the Principles on Freedom of Expression compiled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which clearly states that monopolies or oligopolies in the ownership and control of communications media “…conspire against democracy by limiting the plurality and diversity which ensure the full exercise of people’s right to information.”

By not recognizing the danger that may arise when a powerful oligarchy controls most of the media, which is clearly the case in Venezuela, Insulza joins the braying voices of the press establishment that ignore the issue of the professional responsibilities of the mainstream media, which were as clearly violated by Venezuela’s owners as by Chávez.

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/leftturns/2007/01/hugo_chavez_jose_miguel_insulz.php#more

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Hugo Chávez, the Media and Everybody Else May 26, 2007 12:54 PM

Political Retribution
On December 28, 2006, during his annual “greeting” speech to the National Armed Forces (FAN), President Chávez boldly announced the government’s decision not to renew the broadcasting license of the privately-owned television station, Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) when the matter comes up next March. For the opposition, as well as the outside world, Chávez’s controversial delouse of initiatives attracted a good deal of criticism because it would end 53 years of broadcasting by the nation’s most far-right TVchannel-one famous for its yellow journalism, total absence of professional standards, and its venomous and grossly unprofessional criticism of the current regime.

Hunting down RCTV
After a series of warnings, Venezuelan officials reminded media organizations that state broadcasting licenses issued to privately owned media are subject to periodical revalidations, based upon, if need be, a popular survey conducted by the authorities. Marcel Granier, principal owner of RCTV, who for years had engaged in a host of deadly conspiracies against the government, argued that his channel’s employees should be allowed to continue working “without following the dictates of the regime’s propaganda.”

The temptation to strike down upon Granier proved irresistible for Chávez. His administration has insisted that its policy toward RCTV conforms to existing organic law, and its officials deny that they plan to “revoke or expropriate” the private channel. But decision to badger the unruly media facility has been widely seen by Venezuelan government’s detractors as a political sanction, as Chávez has accused RCTV of plotting against him.

Media Wars and Political Retaliation
Soon after his election in 1998, Chávez became the target of a fierce media barrage which eventually led to the staging of a short-lived coup against him on April 11, 2002. The failed coup attempt mainly involved anti-government protests in Caracas which left 13 dead and was followed by a military-enforced “resignation” of Chávez the next day. The nature of the media coverage during the coup attempt artfully created the impression that Chávez had willingly stepped down and that Pedro Carmona had been appointed interim leader, when in fact Chávez had been abducted and was acting under duress.

Immediately prior to the April coup, Venevisión, RCTV, Globovisión and Televen synchronized their responses by substituting their regular television programming with anti-Chávez speeches and propaganda calling for viewers to take to the streets in protest against his government. Some of the TV notices encouraged anti- Chávez protestors to prevent his return, with messages that proclaimed: “Venezuelans, take to the streets on Thursday, April 11 at 10am. Bring your flags. For freedom and democracy. Venezuela will not surrender. No one will defeat us.”

In addition to airing over 700 pro-strike advertisements, the independent TV networks aggressively backed the coup-plotters by replacing its news programming with cartoons in order to sedulously avoid any mention or running any footage depicting the later rising up of pro- Chávez forces, and the military’s subsequent decision to restore him to power. By revealing their arch political bias and deliberately refusing to air as well as restore objective programming after the coup had demonstrably failed, several TV stations, led by RCTV, grossly and purposely misrepresented the facts, thereby nullifying the public’s right to have access to uncensored coverage. As underlined by Venezuela specialist Eva Golinger, “the private media not only played an active role in promoting, justifying and later executing the coup, but also intentionally kept breaking news and critical information concealed from the Venezuelan viewing public.” This was hardly an example of “All The News That’s Fit To Print,” the operating credo of the New York Times.

Venezuelan Media: a Powerful Oligarchy
Diversity of sources and public access to news and information have long been recognized as fundamental necessities to a truly functioning democracy. However, Venezuela is characterized by an unbalanced situation where the media monopoly creates “information” and then selects its audiences and levels of distribution. The media outlets overwhelmingly are owned by a wealthy elite, which has displayed a rare eagerness to repeatedly burlesque the Chávez’s achievements while ever-ready to destabilize the country in order to weaken this government’s ability to effectively rule and for the economy to thrive.

The private Venezuelan media anti-Chávez line-up landscape consists of five privately owned major television channels – Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), Globovisión, Televen and CMT –and nine out of the ten major national newspapers available to the public. These include El Universal, El Nacional, Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo País and El Mundo. The five private television networks control at least 90 percent of the market, with smaller private stations controlling another five percent. These media monopolies broadcast to more than four million television screens in Venezuela. As early as 1999, some 95 percent of the nation’s media was expressing its opposition to Chávez.

cont

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 May 26, 2007 11:35 AM

DOV-BTW. is Datanalisis, the poll you quoted the same company as mentioned below-

Ket;'The horrifying soap operas are threatening the beloved president of Venezuela! My Goddess, close the damn channel for good! AND Execute the executives!'

er, i don't think it's me whose making the big deal about the right  to watch neighbours.

If you all so concerned , why don't you start a group or have a whip round so you can record neighbours and home and away and post the vids to those deprived individuals who cant live without them?

Ket;'P.S. The Venezuelan government’s politically motivated decision not to renew a television broadcasting license is a serious setback for freedom of expression in Venezuela, Human Rights Watch said today.'

My apologies, maybe the right to watch crap soaps is an inviolable human right.

 

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Huh? May 26, 2007 10:33 AM

Possibly... There's somekind of flu going on in Care2, messages just disappear without anyone knowing...  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 26, 2007 9:49 AM

Um, is it my senility, or did one of my posts just up and
evanesce ? (or did I break a rule I was not aware of )


This post was modified from its original form on 26 May, 9:50  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Criticism of Chavez illegitimate? May 26, 2007 9:47 AM

"Now if you want to start a vendetta against a democratically elected socialist who has done a great deal of good for the poor, not just locally but globally just because he plans to deprive people of their daily soap fix , that is up to you..."

Don't you think you are overreacting now?
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OMG! May 26, 2007 9:42 AM


The horrifying soap operas are threatening the beloved president of Venezuela! My Goddess, close the damn channel for good! AND Execute the executives!


Ket

P.S. The Venezuelan government’s politically motivated decision not to renew a television broadcasting license is a serious setback for freedom of expression in Venezuela, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Which option do you prefer? May 26, 2007 9:39 AM

"As a so called progressive, which option do you prefer?"

Neither. As a social liberalist I know there are more options, and each of them is more preferable than either far left or far right
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anonymous Pete, May 26, 2007 9:32 AM

Oh, I read the part you are pointing at, if i hadn't, I wouldn't have said that it's irrelevant to the issue.

I am not opposing the man's socialism, if that is what you believe - I am opposing his restricting his subjects right to whatever information they choose - even if it happens to be the daily Soap Opera. That's where it's a matter of dictatorship - Hitler was good for the German's too in many aspects - that doesn't justify the things in which he was not good for the German People, such as depriving them of Freedom of Speech - i.e the right to criticize their Government without reprisals.


Besides - I have absolutely no idea what Chavez's position is on Israel - really, honestly I don't and I couldn't care less, so all that part of your post comes down to is another prejudiced jab at me because you assume things about me that you either know nothing about or that are simply not true.

How about taking my words at face value and not read things into them?

SB/Dov

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SOB May 26, 2007 8:18 AM

The pollster said the majority opposed the measure because it would restrict their right to see favored television programs, rather than because of a free speech concern.

 Now if you want to start a vendetta against a democratically elected socialist who has done a great deal of good for the poor, not just locally but globally just because he plans to deprive people of their daily soap fix , that is up to you.    Personally I can think of far better causes to spend time and effort on.  Methinks your irrational hounding of the man has more to do with his comments about Israel during their invasion of Lebanon last year than any denial of his peoples rights to watch Neighbours.

BTW. is Datanalisis, the poll you quoted the same company as mentioned below-

'One of its contributors is José Antonio Gil of the Datanalysis Polling Firm, most often cited for US media analysis. The Los Angeles Times quoted Gil on what to do: “And he can see only one way out of the political crisis surrounding President Hugo Chávez. ‘He has to be killed,’ he said, using his finger to stab the table in his office far above this capital’s filthy streets. ‘He has to be killed.’" ? 

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06262004.html

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anonymous Pete, May 26, 2007 7:34 AM

claiming the polls were rigged, biased etc, has always been the prefered verbal weapons in debates - it doesn't therefore follow that is the truth.

"The poll of 2,000 people by Datanalisis found only 16 percent said they support Mr. Chavez's decision not to renew the license of RCTV. 14 percent declined to respond. The pollster said the majority opposed the measure because it would restrict their right to see favored television programs, rather than because of a free speech concern.

Venezuela's communication minister, William Lara, accused RCTV of having financed the poll, and he dismissed the results as opposition propaganda.

The pollster said its regular, private clients commissioned the survey. A survey by the same company in March indicated Chavez's approval rating was holding steady at 65 percent - unchanged from the time of his re-election in December."

So which "opposition propaganda" is lying and which is telling the truth? The reasons why the majority disagrees with Chavez on the matter of RCTV is actually irrelevant -
they are still democratically opposing him on this issue - the right to recieve whatever information they choose.

He is still restricting their rights to recieve whatever information they choose.

SB/Dov

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 May 26, 2007 7:24 AM


Another thing socialism is confused with is communism.


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 May 26, 2007 7:22 AM


Good thing Cindy lives in the US. 

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 May 26, 2007 7:15 AM

Venezuela Poll: 70 Percent Oppose Closure of TV Station
27 April 2007

A private poll in Venezuela has found nearly 70 percent of those surveyed say they oppose President Hugo Chavez's plan to close a television station aligned with the opposition.

The poll of 2,000 people by Datanalisis found only 16 percent said they support Mr. Chavez's decision not to renew the license of RCTV. 14 percent declined to respond. The pollster said the majority opposed the measure because it would restrict their right to see favored television programs, rather than because of a free speech concern.

Venezuela's communication minister, William Lara, accused RCTV of having financed the poll, and he dismissed the results as opposition propaganda.

The pollster said its regular, private clients commissioned the survey. A survey by the same company in March indicated Chavez's approval rating was holding steady at 65 percent - unchanged from the time of his re-election in December.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-04-27-voa16.cfm

Seems all this fuss is about peoples right to watch neighbours for fux sake! Is this an example of an inviolable Human Right- the right to watch crap soaps? What a load of B/S!!

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Ket May 26, 2007 6:44 AM

'If Cindy was living in a South American socialist country, 6:01 AM

she'd be in jail for doing what she does and accused for treason.

What was the "coup" about? Some Venezuelan people thought Chavez was abusing his powers and wanted to impeach him...'

If Cindy Sheehan was living in a US backed Latin American dictatorship in the 80s, she, her family, friends and associates would probably be horrendously tortured to death by right wing death squads armed by Israel as in Guatamala for instance.

As a so called progressive, which option do you prefer?

 

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 May 26, 2007 6:37 AM

And You Thought Fox News Was Nuts

Big media outlets are up in arms over the Venezuelan government’s decision not to renew the license for TV network Radio Television Caracas (RCTV). The reports have seriously watered down the charges against the station. The New York Times describes the situation as a political beef with the station’s “editorial policies,” while the Independent calls it retaliation against RCTV “for being critical” of Chavez. Sort of like Timothy McVeigh was “critical” of the U.S. government.

Here’s a rundown how the station spent its spring break a few years back:

> In April 2002, coup organizers plan an anti-government march in downtown Caracas, attracting thousands of demonstrators. RCTV and other private stations encourage Venezuelans to participate. At the last minute, the route of the march is redirected toward the presidential palace, and mercenaries begin firing on the crowd, killing 18.

> Amidst the bloody chaos, rebel military leaders kidnap President Chavez and transport him to a Caribbean island. RCTV and other private stations broadcast a statement that Chavez had…um… resigned.

> Interim President Pedro Carmona (Pedro the Brief) promptly suspends the Venezuelan Constitution, dissolves Congress and the Supreme Court, and basically appoints himself emperor. RCTV president Marcel Granier is there for the fun .

> Coup leaders appear on television and explain how it all went down. They single out RCTV, thanking the network for its assistance.

> RCTV calls on Venezuelans to rat out friends and neighbors who had been associated with the Chavez administration and turn them in for arrest.

> When word gets out to the public, via international reports, that this had been a coup, not a resignation, RCTV bans its reporters from covering the story.

> 24 hours later, after widespread popular protests surround the presidential palace and the military captures coup leaders, RCTV suspends its news programming in favor of an emergency cartoon marathon.

If this happened in the U.S., station officials would be in jail or at Guantanamo. Suspending their license seems like a sane, if merciful, step.

http://www.borev.net/top_venezuela_media_storylines/closing_media_outlets/

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please note May 26, 2007 6:23 AM

WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY

Wikipedia is an online open-content collaborative encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary association of individuals and groups working to develop a common resource of human knowledge. The structure of the project allows anyone with an Internet connection to alter its content. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.

That is not to say that you will not find valuable and accurate information in Wikipedia; much of the time you will. However, Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields.

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 May 26, 2007 6:18 AM

Now, all of “civil society,” the media, and the military are saying that Chavez has to go because he turned against his own people. Aside from the lie this is, what is conveniently forgotten are all of the achievements of the Chavez administration: a new democratic constitution which broke the power monopoly of the two hopelessly corrupt and discredited main parties and put Venezuela at the forefront in terms of progressive constitutions; introduced fundamental land reform; financed numerous progressive ecological community development projects; cracked-down on corruption; promoted educational reform which schooled over 1 million children for the first time and doubled investment in education; regulated the informal economy so as to reduce the insecurity of the poor; achieved a fairer price for oil through OPEC and which significantly increased government income; internationally campaigned tirelessly against neo-liberalism; reduced official unemployment from 18% to 13%; introduced a large-scale micro-credit program for the poor and for women; reformed the tax system which dramatically reduced tax evasion and increased government revenue; lowered infant mortality from 21% to 17%; tripled literacy courses; modernized the legal system, etc., etc.

Chavez’ opposition, which primarily consisted of Venezuela’s old guard in the media, the union federation, the business sector, the church, and the traditionally conservative military, never cared about any of these achievements. Instead, they took advantage of their media monopoly to turn public opinion against him and managed to turn his biggest liability, his autocratic and inflammatory style, against him. Progressive civil society had either been silenced or demonized as violent Chavez fanatics.

At this point, it is impossible to know what will happen to Chavez’ “Bolivarian Revolution”—whether it will be completely abandoned and whether things will return to Venezuela’s 40-year tradition of patronage, corruption, and rentierism for the rich. What one can say without a doubt, is that by abandoning constitutional democracy, no matter how unpopular and supposedly inept the elected president, Venezuela’s ruling class and its military show just how politically immature they are and deal a tremendous blow to political culture throughout Latin America, just as the coup against Salvador Allende did in 1973. This coup shows once again that democracy in Latin America is a matter of ruling class preference, not a matter of law.

If the United States and the democratic international community have the courage to practice what they preach, then they should not recognize this new government. Democrats around the world should pressure their governments to deny recognition to Venezuela’s new military junta or any president they happen to choose. According to the Charter of the Organization of American States (OA, this would mean expelling Venezuela from the OAS, as a U.S. state department official recently threatened to do. Please call the U.S. state department or your foreign ministry and tell them to withdraw their ambassadors from Venezuela.

Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology of development. He can be reached at: Wilpert@cantv.net

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0412-08.htm

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Coup in Venezuela: An Eyewitness Account May 26, 2007 6:15 AM

by Gregory Wilpert
 

The orchestration of the coup was impeccable and, in all likelihood, planned a long time ago. Hugo Chavez, the fascist communist dictator of Venezuela could not stand the truth and thus censored the media relentlessly. For his own personal gain and that of his henchmen (and henchwomen, since his cabinet had more women than any previous Venezuelan government’s), he drove the country to the brink of economic ruin. In the end he proceeded to murder those who opposed him. So as to reestablish democracy, liberty, justice, and prosperity in Venezuela and so as to avoid more bloodshed, the chamber of commerce, the union federation, the church, the media, and the management of Venezuela’s oil company, in short: civil society and the military decided that enough is enough—that Chavez had his chance and that his experiment of a “peaceful democratic Bolivarian revolution” had to come to an immediate end.

This is, of course, the version of events that the officials now in charge and thus also of the media, would like everyone to believe. So what really happened? Of course I don’t know, but I’ll try to represent the facts as I witnessed them.

First of all, the military is saying that the main reason for the coup is what happened today, April 11. “Civil society,” as the opposition here refers to itself, organized a massive demonstration of perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 people to march to the headquarters of Venezuela’s oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management. The day leading up to the march all private television stations broadcast advertisements for the demonstration, approximately once every ten minutes. It was a successful march, peaceful, and without government interference of any kind, even though the march illegally blocked the entire freeway, which is Caracas’ main artery of transportation, for several hours.

Supposedly at the spur of the moment, the organizers decided to re-route the march to Miraflores, the president’s office building, so as to confront the pro-government demonstration, which was called in the last minute. About 5,000 Chavez-supporters had gathered there by the time the anti-government demonstrators got there. In-between the two demonstrations were the city police, under the control of the oppositional mayor of Caracas, and the National Guard, under control of the president. All sides claim that they were there peacefully and did not want to provoke anyone. I got there just when the opposition demonstration and the National Guard began fighting each other. Who started the fight, which involved mostly stones and tear gas, is, as is so often the case in such situations, nearly impossible to tell. A little later, shots were fired into the crowds and I clearly saw that there were three parties involved in the shooting, the city police, Chavez supporters, and snipers from buildings above. Again, who shot first has become a moot and probably impossible to resolve question. At least ten people were killed and nearly 100 wounded in this gun battle—almost all of them demonstrators.

One of the Television stations managed to film one of the three sides in this battle and broadcast the footage over and over again, making it look like the only ones shooting were Chavez supporters from within the demonstration at people beyond the view of the camera. The media over and over again showed the footage of the Chavez supporters and implied that they were shooting at an unarmed crowd. As it turns out, and as will probably never be reported by the media, most of the dead are Chavez supporters. Also, as will probably never be told, the snipers were members of an extreme opposition party, known as Bandera Roja.

These last two facts, crucial as they are, will not be known because they do not fit with the new mythology, which is that Chavez armed and then ordered his supporters to shoot at the opposition demonstration. Perhaps my information is incorrect, but what is certain is that the local media here will never bother to investigate this information. And the international media will probably simply ape what the local media reports (which they are already doing).

Chavez’ biggest and perhaps only mistake of the day, which provided the last remaining proof his opposition needed for his anti-democratic credentials, was to order the black-out of the private television stations. They had been broadcasting the confrontations all afternoon and Chavez argued that these broadcasts were exacerbating the situation and should, in the name of public safety, be temporarily shut-down.

cont

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If Cindy was living in a South American socialist country, May 26, 2007 6:01 AM

she'd be in jail for doing what she does and accused for treason.

What was the "coup" about? Some Venezuelan people thought Chavez was abusing his powers and wanted to impeach him...

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The plain truth... May 26, 2007 5:54 AM

"The plain truth is that RCTV had been directly and openly involved in the coup..."
- Pete

"...Several times in the early afternoon, Chávez took to the airwaves in what is termed a cadena (from the Spanish verbal phrase, "estar en cadena"), or a commandeering of the collective public and private media airwaves to broadcast public announcements and addresses. Some of the broadcasts asked protesters to return to their homes, while others featured lengthy pre-recorded discourses led by the president. The last of these cadenas began just minutes after shots were fired at the crowds of protesters and continued throughout the massacre. The private television stations, defied the cadena by splitting the screen between the president's address and scenes of bloodshed. Chávez then ordered private outlets to be taken off the air in a forced blackout. The measure managed to block coverage of the crisis in Caracas only, as the private television stations continued to broadcast in the rest of the country and via satellite."
- Wikipedia, 2002 Venezuelan coup d'etat...

OMG, a tv channel politically opposing the "democratically elected" president is guilty of T-R-E-A-S-O-N by daring to have own opinions and broadcast them!
They should be happy not to be executed for high treason!

Chavez has done a lot of good things, but this is not one of them.

Reporters Without Borders hail European Parlament's resolution condemning the decision

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 May 26, 2007 5:34 AM

That title is not necessarily an honour by the way.  It can go to anyone who has had the most effect on the world that year for better or for worse.  I think Ahmadinutjob would fall under the "worse" category, for example. 

The choice of "you" was kind of stupid.  But it is the editors who choose POTY, not internet polls. 
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anonymous Pete, May 26, 2007 5:33 AM

Reasons

The government accuses the network of participating in the 2002 failed coup that briefly overthrew Hugo Chávez from his position. RCTV argues that no trial has been made that links the network to the coup attempt.

RCTV also disputes that the channel's license expires in 2022 and not in 2007. The government assures that a 1987 decree during Jaime Lusinchi's presidential term, gave RCTV a 20 year license, while the network claims that the failure of the National Telecommunications Commission to issue an administrative authorization by June 12, 2002, automatically granted the channel a 20-year license renewal. The government rejected this interpretation, stating that the turning of licenses into administrative authorizations did not mean a license renewal, just a census of broadcasters.

National reactions

According to poller Datanálisis, as of April 2007, only 13% of Venezuelans agree to deny the license to RCTV, while 70% reject the government's decision. Several rallies were made to oppose the government's decision, including one in Caracas on May 21, 2007 with "thousand of protesters." On May 25, 2007, university students from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, the Universidad Simón Bolívar and the Universidad Central de Venezuela protested against the government's intentions.

One can hardly overlook the overwhelming democratic indication that 70% of the Venezuelan People is disagreeing with the government on the issue of RCTV, and claim that the decision is not an expression of a dictatorship.

The leaders of the Soviet Union were also democratically elected, so were Sarkozy and Bush - being democratically elected is not an inocculation against using that election for setting one up as a dictator or abusing one's power.

SB/Dov

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 May 26, 2007 5:23 AM

Pete you cite that material as proof of high treason, yet it is clearly a pro-Chavez website.  So forgive me if I take such with a grain of salt.

Is this corroborated by sources that might not have a possible agenda? Treason is a very serious accusation and it is reckless and unseemly to throw it around lightly. 


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Hands off... May 26, 2007 5:07 AM

Er... "Who Should Be Person of the Year?"
35% Hugo Chavez
21% Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
12% Nancy Pelosi
11% The YouTube Guys
8% George W. Bush
8% Al Gore
5% Condoleezza Rice
2% Kim Jong Il

Being voted as the Person of the Year isn't necessarily anything good... It's just a some kind of indicator of whom the Americans are talking... and OF COURSE the American people are aware of Hugo Chavez. He said "no" to USA
But just look at the "company" he's in...



Edited... Oops... Didn't read your post, Andreas Well, brilliant minds think alike



This post was modified from its original form on 26 May, 5:09  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 26, 2007 4:55 AM

link to above post http://www.zompist.com/latam.html , there's plenty more but i think you get my drift.

 Andreas, if memory serves me correctly, the POTY is not necessarily about the BEST person , but the one who has had most impact on the world in that particular year. I'm not sure, but didn't Hitler get it one year for example?  Also, if you gonna hold an internet poll for POTY, surely you should stick by the results? If not, why hold the poll in the first place?

SOB. As far as I am aware , Cindy Sheehan has not taken part in a coup against Bu$hco. (again, correct me if I am wrong on this), unlike the owners of RCTV.-

It might be better to spell out what is meant when it is said that RCTV was an obstacle for the policies of the Bolivarian government. The plain truth is that RCTV had been directly and openly involved in the April 11, 2002 coup that attempted to oust the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. The participation of RCTV in the coup plot was so blatant that the Production Manager f RCTVat the time o, Andres Izarra, who opposed the coup, resigned hastily in order not to be a party to a crime. In an official testimony to the Venezuelan National Assembly, Izarra reported that he was instructed formally by Granier the same day of the coup and during the following days not to broadcast any information on Chavez, his personnel, the ministers or whoever could be related to him.

from Venezuela and freedom of speech – 4 lies, 4 answers 

T-R-E-A-S-O-N

http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/home/

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 May 26, 2007 4:25 AM

Socialism doesn't work. Friday, 7:56 PM

If Socialism doesn't work, then why has the US spent so much time and effort overthrowing democratically elected socialist governments in the last 50 yrs, with all the associated human rights abuses, including genocide, when all they had to do was let it run its course?   Death and suffering , by socialists? Lets look at some examples of 'death and suffering' in Latin America-

1960 Eisenhower authorizes covert actions to get rid of Castro. Among other things, the CIA tries assassinating him with exploding cigars and poisoned milkshakes. Other covert actions against Cuba include burning sugar fields, blowing up boats in Cuban harbors, and sabotaging industrial equipment.

  1960s U.S. Green Berets train Guatemalan army in counterinsurgency techniques. Guatemalan efforts against its insurgents include aerial bombing, scorched-earth assaults on towns suspected of aiding the rebels, and death squads, which killed 20,000 people between 1966 and 1976. U.S. Army Col. John Webber claims that it was at his instigation that "the technique of counter-terror had been implemented by the army."

"If it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetary in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so." --President Carlos Arana Osorio

1963 CIA-backed coup overthrows elected social democrat Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic.

  1963 A far-right-wing coup in Guatemala, apparently U.S.-supported, forestalls elections in which "extreme leftist" Juan José Arévalo was favored to win.

1964 João Goulart of Brazil proposes agrarian reform, nationalization of oil. Ousted by U.S.-supported military coup.  

1966 U.S. sends arms, advisors, and Green Berets to Guatemala to implement a counterinsurgency campaign.

"To eliminate a few hundred guerrillas, the government killed perhaps 10,000 Guatemalan peasants." --State Dept. report on the program
1967

A team of Green Berets is sent to Bolivia to help find and assassinate Che Guevara.

1968

Gen. José Alberto Medrano, who is on the payroll of the CIA, organizes the ORDEN paramilitary force, considered the precursor of El Salvador's death squads.

1970

Salvador Allende Gossens elected in Chile. Suspends foreign loans, nationalizes foreign companies. For the phone system, pays ITT the company's minimized valuation for tax purposes. The CIA provides covert financial support for Allende's opponents, both during and after his election.

1972

U.S. stands by as military suspends an election in El Salvador in which centrist José Napoleón Duarte was favored to win. (Compare with the emphasis placed on the 1982 elections.)

1973

U.S.-supported military coup kills Allende and brings Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to power. Pinochet imprisons well over a hundred thousand Chileans (torture and rape are the usual methods of interrogation), terminates civil liberties, abolishes unions, extends the work week to 48 hours, and reverses Allende's land reforms.

1973

Military takes power in Uruguay, supported by U.S. The subsequent repression reportedly features the world's highest percentage of the population imprisoned for political reasons.

1974

Office of Public Safety is abolished when it is revealed that police are being taught torture techniques.

1976

Election of Jimmy Carter leads to a new emphasis on human rights in Central America. Carter cuts off aid to the Guatemalan military (or tries to; some slips through) and reduces aid to El Salvador.

1980

A right-wing junta takes over in El Salvador. U.S. begins massively supporting El Salvador, assisting the military in its fight against FMLN guerrillas. Death squads proliferate; Archbishop Romero is assassinated by right-wing terrorists; 35,000 civilians are killed in 1978-81. The rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen results in the suspension of U.S. military aid for one month.
The U.S. demands that the junta undertake land reform. Within 3 years, however, the reform program is halted by the oligarchy.

"The Soviet Union underlies all the unrest that is going on." --Ronald Reagan

cont



This post was modified from its original form on 26 May, 4:27  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Pete May 26, 2007 4:20 AM

Was that poll for POTY in 2006 for real???

Let's take a look at who Chavez beat:
  1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (oh my, really? A truly decent man....NOT)
  2. Nancy Pelosi (got a full 9% LESS than the Iranian looney? What a poll!)
  3. da You Tube dudes (that's OK, actually)
  4. George, you-double nutty friar B. (Man of the year? He moved something alright...)
  5. Al Gore (behind Bush? AGAIN??? Who tricked these poll machines???)
  6. Condi (just about 3% better than.....
  7. .......KIM JONG ILLLL!!!! (Ha! perfect ranking for the both of them!)

Really, this poll is worth something, isn't it?

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anonymous Pete: Treason according to the on-line English Dictonary May 26, 2007 4:05 AM

  1. [n] an act of deliberate betrayal
  2. [n] a crime that undermines the offender's government
  3. [n] disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior
And the above is wrong because?

By this definition Cindy Sheehan would have been guilty of treason. And so would any revolutionary movement that has ever protested against the incumbent government.


SB/Dov

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How about a merger? May 26, 2007 1:20 AM

Socialism is a term with a negative connotation from history. Not much different then every other ism. What the people want is 'being social'.

Capitalism has perhaps even a worse rap in the world. What the people want is 'individual freedom'.

Both drives of the people are abused by politics of every sorts to set people up against each other.

In socialism it is one for all, while the individual is the slave of the centralised socialists who determine what is good for all.

In capitalism it is all for one, while only a few with the best market position qualify as the one.

It's not that different.

In capitalism people become slaves of the money system, while a few elites control the money leverages that control what is being done.

In socialism the people are also slaves to the elite centralised socialists who determine what is being done.

Who wants to choose between those two?

Can we not just agree that we want to 'be social' and respect each others 'individual freedom'?

No politician can make you do that, no matter how hard the pressure. So why do we keep expecting something like that from our politicians?



This post was modified from its original form on 26 May, 1:21  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 25, 2007 8:37 PM

Extremes are pretty much all dangerous

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 May 25, 2007 8:16 PM

Well said....  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 25, 2007 8:14 PM


One problem is that people confuse standards with socialism.

Another is thinking that an ever more restrictive appproach will be more beneficial over an enlightened self-acting thinking people.

The fact is that the world will never be completely safe, death will not cease to exist, and people who don't take responsibility to learn and act on their own will lead to them having to be coddled.

Only when self-interest is the same as the common good will they work together.

While I don't downgrade Man, I also understand that Man is not perfect.

The view that self-interest, left to itself, is the best way, will fail just as much as thinking that some collective can decide all matters.

Both extremes are very dangerous.


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 May 25, 2007 8:00 PM

There is an old addage that should be paraphrased here:   "most people will not see it until they believe it."  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Socialism doesn't work. May 25, 2007 7:56 PM

Most people figure that out before they get out of college.

It's just another way of enslaving people. It's anti-democratic by definition. It requires one party rule, which leads to corruption and repression.

They inevitably destroy their country's economy, execute or imprison their best and brightest, and fall apart leaving a legacy of death and suffering...

How many times do we have to see this scenario play itself out before some people "get it?"

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The Higher Oil Prices Get, The More The Press Is Stifled May 25, 2007 7:54 PM



MAY 25, 2007 03:12

The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, recently decided to get rid of a private broadcasting station and establish a state-controlled one. The Russian government recently revoked the license of approximately 100,000 journalists. The Iranian government recently shut down a series of daily newspaper companies and suppressed dissidents.

What is the motive behind all these government actions? An American journalist Thomas Friedman last year wrote an article for Foreign Policy magazine titled, ‘The First Principle of Petropolitics’ that said, “The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions in oil-rich petrolist states.” While the price of oil jumped from $30 per barrel in 2002 to more than $55 per barrel in 2006, the amount of freedom in oil producing nations diminished.

In its annual report on journalistc freedoms released by “Journalists Without Borders,” the group ranked Venezuela 115th down from 77th, Russia 147th from 121st, and Iran 162nd from 122nd compared to the year before. The American daily newspaper Christian Science Monitor said on May 24, “It`s because oil prices are so high [that] these oil-producing countries feel they can get away with a lot and take steps to silence the press.”

The Venezuelan government decided not to renew the broadcast license of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) which had the longest history in the country as an independent broadcasting company. In the daily morning show "The Interview," the Venezuelan leader was ridiculed as "that guy" who should be "thrown out" before he becomes a dictator. Many people knowing that the station will be closed on May 28 took to the streets on May 19 and 21, protesting against the government’s move.

The Russian government announced the eviction of its 100,000-member journalists` union from its offices to make way for a state-funded English cable news network. In Russia last week, local authorities took steps they apparently believed would limit the public relations damage to an EU-Russia summit in Samara: police arrested organizers of a protest by the opposition "Other Russia" movement, as well as journalists who had been trying to interview them. They also raided the Samara offices of the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, seizing computers and blocking publication of the paper`s Monday edition.

In Iran, recent crackdowns under conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since 2005 have focused on shutting down hundreds of newspapers. Last year alone, “Sharg,” which carried a satirist cartoon about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad going nuclear, along with three other newspapers, were closed.

Moisés Naím, the editor and publisher of Foreign Policy magazine, says that such press censorship “is not limited to oil producing countries,” and it has evolved from a "heavy hand of the state that directly takes over operations" to a more indirect form, he says, that often takes the shape of scrutiny by tax authorities or by economic boycotts.




Link




This post was modified from its original form on 25 May, 19:55  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
I still have to wonder.... May 25, 2007 7:42 PM

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — When he stresses the need for solidarity, Hugo Chavez often points to Salvador Allende, Chile's Marxist president who died in a military coup in 1973....Partly to avoid a similar fate, Chavez, who was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup that Washington cheered, wants the country's 24 parties in his coalition — everyone from lukewarm liberals to die-hard communists — to join the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The new party, the Venezuelan president says, would accelerate his drive to implant socialism...But instead of unity, the proposal has produced a rare bout of public wrangling between Chavez and the leaders of the three largest leftist parties who have supported him since he was elected eight years ago...http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4837455.html

"It's the only party in Venezuela in which membership is required," said opposition leader Manuel Rosales, who lost the presidential election to Chavez in December. "It's only premise is to idolize and offer homage to the party's overlord: Hugo Chavez."

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 May 25, 2007 11:55 AM

There's a word for what that tv station did during the 2002 coup- Treason. T-R-E-A-S-O-N. Look it up in the dictionary. 

Now , what are the penalties for treason in your home country?  A long prison sentence? Death? Torture of you and your family THEN death? Losing your license to continue broadcasting anti Chavez propaganda?    Sounds pretty lenient to me.  Liberal/progressive even,  which is what we progressive/liberals want to see more of in the world, isn't it?

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In case you missed it May 25, 2007 10:46 AM

Chávez has now won eight elections and referendums in eight years, each time increasing his majority, a world record. He is the most popular head of state in the western hemisphere, probably in the world. That is why he survived, amazingly, a Washington-backed coup in 2002. Mariella and Celedonia and Nora and hundreds of thousands of others came down from the barrios and demanded that the army remain loyal. "The people rescued me," Chávez told me. "They did it with all the media against me, preventing even the basic facts of what had happened. For popular democracy in heroic action, I suggest you need look no further."

Some dictatorship.

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 May 25, 2007 10:39 AM

That one dictatorship would do something wrong is no justification for another dictatorship doing the same or a lesser wrong.

Er, who you calling a dictator?  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 25, 2007 10:34 AM

"What do you think would have happened to the TV station owners if the boot was on the other foot and it was an attempted left wing coup against a US backed , right wing dictatorship?"



It really doesn't matter what would have happened, had the boot been on the other foot. That one dictatorship would do something wrong is no justification for another dictatorship doing the same or a lesser wrong.


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 May 25, 2007 10:06 AM

I think you'll find that there is more than one anti Chavez tv channel in Venezuela. This particular one took an active part in the US backed coup in 2002. What do you think would have happened to the TV station owners if the boot was on the other foot and it was an attempted left wing coup against a US backed , right wing dictatorship?  They'd have a lot more to worry about   than losing their license IMHO. 

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Everyone's freedom, Pete May 25, 2007 9:45 AM

Rich, poor, man, woman, white, black, blue and green, left, right, up, down, east, west, north and south... Everybody.

Yep, Hugo does a lot of good, as I already mentioned, but that doesn't justify the bad, and closing the tv-channel is bad. And it will be things like that that will cause his fall in the future.

It would be much better to keep the people who want to speak against Hugo on one channel where everyone knows who and where they are - now they will spread all over and create resistance groups, underground movements, and they will be heard because they ARE unfairly treated...

Ket

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 May 24, 2007 5:33 PM

I always have difficulty with "leaders" that do not "lead".  Most of them do not.   Lead, to go before, to do first, to accomplish as an example, to be the forerunner (for instance: if one is rich, and supposedly is "for the poor", they will not remain "rich" for long, etc.).  
    [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 24, 2007 12:20 PM

I guess you need to give Chavez some credit for opposing the globalised money masters.

I'm not saying that Chavez does everything right, but he has the potential to be a frontrunner in changing the global trade system where laws protect the rich to steal from the poor. Under such (international and domestic) pressure no one can fly a straight line. Every sense of logic, common sense and empathy in how you do things seems too radical to deal with for the crazy incorporated world.

The problem with these discussions is that most people participating in them have already formed an opinion about the issue and can dismiss everything the opposing party brings in as propaganda of 'the other side'.

Personally I like Morales more, but I do not know he could do what Chavez does.

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Did you know May 24, 2007 12:05 PM

Hugo Chavez was Times Person of the year 2006?  For some strange reason they decided to give it to us. Anyone got an explanation for this?

Chavez wins "Person of the Year" poll ... Time magazine ignores result www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2006/walkup/, where you can see the results for yourself. personaje_del_ao2006You don't have to be a believer in conspiracy theories to assume that clearly the Time Magazine editorial board was not happy with the choice of its readers! Surely the so-called "liberal" magazine did not like the result of its own poll and decided to pick its own candidate, you.

Interestingly, the present issue of Time carries another article called "Power to the People" (read it here), which starts by saying:

    "Meet 15 citizens-including a French rapper, a relentless reviewer and a real life lonely girl-of the new digital democracy"

In the whole magazine there are many lauding words for this "digital democracy" but ironically Time decided to ignore its own "digital democracy" and hide the fact that 35% voted for Hugo Chavez and 21% for the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is true that an online poll is not a very scientific tool but surely it would have been worth to at least point out who won the Time poll in the first place? If not, what is the point of organising one on your own website? Maybe because they did not want the winner to be a popular President of a country where "power to the people" is not just an empty phrase but is being implemented in practice in the real world, and who has been democratically elected time and time again?

http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/time_hugo_chavez_award_2.htm  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 24, 2007 11:36 AM

Chávez, a former army major, was anxious to prove he was not yet another military "strongman". He promised that his every move would be subject to the will of the people. In his first year as president in 1999, he held an unprecedented number of votes: a referendum on whether or not people wanted a new constituent assembly; elections for the assembly; a second referendum ratifying the new constitution - 71% of the people approved each of the 396 articles that gave Mavis and Celedonia and Ana Lucia, and their children and grandchildren, unheard-of freedoms, such as Article 123, which for the first time recognised the human rights of mixed-race and black people, of whom Chávez is one. "The indigenous peoples," it says, "have the right to maintain their own economic practices, based on reciprocity, solidarity and exchange ... and to define their priorities ... " The little red book of the Venezuelan constitution became a bestseller on the streets. Nora Hernandez, a community worker in Petare barrio, took me to her local state-run supermarket, which is funded entirely by oil revenue and where prices are up to half those in the commercial chains. Proudly, she showed me articles of the constitution written on the backs of soap-powder packets. "We can never go back," she said.

In La Vega barrio, I listened to a nurse, Mariella Machado, a big round black woman of 45 with a wonderfully wicked laugh, stand and speak at an urban land council on subjects ranging from homelessness to the Iraq war. That day, they were launching Mision Madres de Barrio, a programme aimed specifically at poverty among single mothers. Under the constitution, women have the right to be paid as carers, and can borrow from a special women's bank. From next month, the poorest housewives will get about £120 a month. It is not surprising that Chávez has now won eight elections and referendums in eight years, each time increasing his majority, a world record. He is the most popular head of state in the western hemisphere, probably in the world. That is why he survived, amazingly, a Washington-backed coup in 2002. Mariella and Celedonia and Nora and hundreds of thousands of others came down from the barrios and demanded that the army remain loyal. "The people rescued me," Chávez told me. "They did it with all the media against me, preventing even the basic facts of what had happened. For popular democracy in heroic action, I suggest you need look no further."

The venomous attacks on Chávez, who arrives in London tomorrow, have begun and resemble uncannily those of the privately owned Venezuelan television and press, which called for the elected government to be overthrown. Fact-deprived attacks on Chávez in the Times and the Financial Times this week, each with that peculiar malice reserved for true dissenters from Thatcher's and Blair's one true way, follow a travesty of journalism on Channel 4 News last month, which effectively accused the Venezuelan president of plotting to make nuclear weapons with Iran, an absurd fantasy. The reporter sneered at policies to eradicate poverty and presented Chávez as a sinister buffoon, while Donald Rumsfeld was allowed to liken him to Hitler, unchallenged. In contrast, Tony Blair, a patrician with no equivalent democratic record, having been elected by a fifth of those eligible to vote and having caused the violent death of tens of thousands of Iraqis, is allowed to continue spinning his truly absurd political survival tale.

Chávez is, of course, a threat, especially to the United States. Like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, who based their revolution on the English co-operative moment, and the moderate Allende in Chile, he offers the threat of an alternative way of developing a decent society: in other words, the threat of a good example in a continent where the majority of humanity has long suffered a Washington-designed peonage. In the US media in the 1980s, the "threat" of tiny Nicaragua was seriously debated until it was crushed. Venezuela is clearly being "softened up" for something similar. A US army publication, Doctrine for Asymmetric War against Venezuela, describes Chávez and the Bolivarian revolution as the "largest threat since the Soviet Union and Communism". When I said to Chávez that the US historically had had its way in Latin America, he replied: "Yes, and my assassination would come as no surprise. But the empire is in trouble, and the people of Venezuela will resist an attack. We ask only for the support of all true democrats."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1773908,00.html



This post was modified from its original form on 24 May, 11:38  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 24, 2007 11:32 AM

Chávez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent society

Venezuela's president is using oil revenues to liberate the poor - no wonder his enemies want to overthrow him

John Pilger
Saturday May 13, 2006
The Guardian


I have spent the past three weeks filming in the hillside barrios of Caracas, in streets and breeze-block houses that defy gravity and torrential rain and emerge at night like fireflies in the fog. Caracas is said to be one of the world's toughest cities, yet I have known no fear; the poorest have welcomed my colleagues and me with a warmth characteristic of ordinary Venezuelans but also with the unmistakable confidence of a people who know that change is possible and who, in their everyday lives, are reclaiming noble concepts long emptied of their meaning in the west: "reform", "popular democracy", "equity", "social justice" and, yes, "freedom".

The other night, in a room bare except for a single fluorescent tube, I heard these words spoken by the likes of Ana Lucia Fernandez, aged 86, Celedonia Oviedo, aged 74, and Mavis Mendez, aged 95. A mere 33-year-old, Sonia Alvarez, had come with her two young children. Until about a year ago, none of them could read and write; now they are studying mathematics. For the first time in its modern era, Venezuela has almost 100% literacy.

This achievement is due to a national programme, called Mision Robinson, designed for adults and teenagers previously denied an education because of poverty. Mision Ribas is giving everyone a secondary school education, called a bachillerato. (The names Robinson and Ribas refer to Venezuelan independence leaders from the 19th century.) Named, like much else here, after the great liberator Simon Bolivar, "Bolivarian", or people's, universities have opened, introducing, as one parent told me, "treasures of the mind, history and music and art, we barely knew existed". Under Hugo Chávez, Venezuela is the first major oil producer to use its oil revenue to liberate the poor.

Mavis Mendez has seen, in her 95 years, a parade of governments preside over the theft of tens of billions of dollars in oil spoils, much of it flown to Miami, together with the steepest descent into poverty ever known in Latin America; from 18% in 1980 to 65% in 1995, three years before Chávez was elected. "We didn't matter in a human sense," she said. "We lived and died without real education and running water, and food we couldn't afford. When we fell ill, the weakest died. In the east of the city, where the mansions are, we were invisible, or we were feared. Now I can read and write my name, and so much more; and whatever the rich and their media say, we have planted the seeds of true democracy, and I am full of joy that I have lived to witness it."

Latin American governments often give their regimes a new sense of legitimacy by holding a constituent assembly that drafts a new constitution. When he was elected in 1998, Chávez used this brilliantly to decentralise, to give the impoverished grassroots power they had never known and to begin to dismantle a corrupt political superstructure as a prerequisite to changing the direction of the economy. His setting-up of misions as a means of bypassing saboteurs in the old, corrupt bureaucracy was typical of the extraordinary political and social imagination that is changing Venezuela peacefully. This is his "Bolivarian revolution", which, at this stage, is not dissimilar to the post-war European social democracies.

cont

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 May 22, 2007 5:03 PM

>>>
Mike quotes the poor people who defend Chavez as not beiu=ing important. 
>>>

  It showed a lot of wishy washiness if nothing else.

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 May 22, 2007 4:40 PM

Silence the opposition

only if it to damning right !



This post was modified from its original form on 22 May, 16:41  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 22, 2007 2:04 PM

Ketutar whos freedom though the rich or poor ?

Che - I read what Mike presented as evidence

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And that's what Hugo is doing that is bad, Ted May 22, 2007 1:30 PM

And that's what Hugo is doing that is so bad.

It is interesting that you find limits in the freedom of speech disgusting, when it comes to the European hate legislation, but admirable, when it comes to socialist leaders silencing the opposition... So clearly it all depends on whether you agree with the "offender" or not...

Ket

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There's just a slight difference, Pete... May 22, 2007 1:29 PM


When I "elected" my husband, he got 100% of the votes.
When Venezuela elected her "husband", of the about 12 million registered voters about 4 million voted for him - the rest voted for someone else - or none. That's twice as many who wanted someone else to be the "husband".

Let's think that I was a single mom. In that case my future husband would need to be accepted by both me and my child(ren). I would definitely not tell my kids to shut up or leave the house because they didn't like my boyfriend. It would be more probable that I would tell my boyfriend to leave.

In this case the television channel was there before Chavez and the people whose voice the channel was are just as much part of the "marriage" as Chavez is.

The people has to be able to criticise the president, the government, the rulers - what ever they call themselves. That's why the freedom of speech was created. (By a Finn, BTW )

Hugs,
Ket
 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
????? May 21, 2007 10:44 PM

So waht exactly has Chavez done that is so bvad?  Let the elite bastards go on strike.  Mike quotes the poor people who defend Chavez as not beiu=ing important.  They are as important as anyone else.  Death to all capitalism.  Long live Fidel. Long live Che.  Long live Latin America's next hero, HUGO CHAVEZ>

How can you people look yourselves in the mirror and support injustice?  Being rich is an injustice.  I look at the recent influx of Venezuelans trying to stay in Canada and laugh when their visas run out.  poor them.

Fact is, get with the program or suffer the consequences.  This time, it is a just program that no on has a right to belittle.

And why shouldn't Chavez take over the oil industry?  It is his people who will profit, after all. 

DEATH TO IMPERIALIST FASCISM

 [ send green star]
 
 May 21, 2007 12:24 PM

Nice choice....

Only last July, the leftist leader's supporters were out celebrating his re-election in the streets of Caracas, but by April 2002 the whole country was embroiled in a general strike.

This admirer of Fidel Castro's Cuba and avowed anti-globalist was pushed from office on 12 April - as a result of his attempts to take control of the world's fifth-biggest oil industry.

But just two days later, after his supporters - mainly Venezuela's poor - took the streets, he was back in the presidential palace.

Eight months on, Mr Chavez is facing his fourth national strike this year (2002 ?) - one that is threatening to severely disrupt the country's economy...

 [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
 May 21, 2007 11:36 AM

Dear ketutar would you have a person in your house- telling you to divorse Dov or would you ask them to shut up - and if they continued would you ask them to leave - I think you would ask them to leave or more so Dov would.  

We in Briton, wouldnt have a TV channel on air if it was crying for a revolution or stimulating a coup that would cause more suffereing for the people 



This post was modified from its original form on 21 May, 11:38  [ send green star]  [ accepted]
 
Let's silence the opposition... May 21, 2007 10:49 AM


"Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has defended his decision to not renew the license on the grounds that the channel has conspired against him..."

Venezuela TV channel to go off air
Venezuelans march in support of opposition TV station set to go off the air
Venezuela court dismisses TV challenge

Yeah... sure he has done a lot of good, but this? tsk, tsk, tsk...

It's beginning to look a lot like Cuba... But I suppose it's ok by you, because it is for The Cause.

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Hugo Chavez---an example of ethical progressivism May 04, 2007 9:43 PM

Hugo Chavez has empowered the poor of venezuela by taking things away from the wealthy.  The wealthy, in their infinite greed, care more about not getting a salary increase than about their countrymen starving.  I actually know many Venezuelan refugees who take my classes here in Montreal.  they want to flee their homeland because they see it as becoming another Cuba.  I love hearing this, as i know Venezuela would be a bigger and better example than Cuba is.

It's also amazing how propagandists like to paint Chavez in an evil light.  He represents Americans better than their government does in that  he listens to heroes like Cindy sheehan.  He actually offers help to the Americans who need his help and their government doesn't accept thishumanitarian's help.  And finally, he is voted in democratically each and every time.

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