Washington accuses the Venezuelan leader of...spreading an anti-democratic

[rpannier]

message and backing anti-U.S. movements.
Anti-American probably. But, anti-Democratic??? Where and how?
Does anyone ever challenge these assertions?

I watched that moron John Bolton drone on about how Iran has said they want to build a nuclear bomb (source: Asia-Pacific TV). When did the President of Iran ever say the goal of Iran was to build a nuclear bomb?
I live in Asia and get TV from several different countries and I've never seen anything where he has said he wants to build a bomb.

I realize that the President of Iran is a flake and talks a really big line, but come on...this is a stretch...Nuclear Power hardly equates to a nuclear bomb. The enrichment process for a nuclear bomb is far more involved than it is for nuclear power (source CNN-International).

Back to my original point: Being friends with Castro, Kim and Mugabe hardly qualifies Chavez as having good taste in friends and allies. But that hardly makes Chavez anti-Democratic.
I mean, one could say the same about scubbies friends: The King of Saudi Arabia, Musharraf in Pakistan and Putin...I'm sorry..."My dear friend Alex." (Source: Pravda. During the 2004 election)

on edit. Forgot the link:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/04/26/bolivia.trade.reut/index.html

[Solon]

1. Actually, I would even dispute the Anti-American attribute...

At worst, I would consider Chavez to be anti-American dominance and/or imperialism and Pro-American people. As he said, he LOVES the people, hates the government(Bush), which is to be expected. Of course, he has actually DEMONSTRATED that he doesn't hold grudges against us, why else would he help the needy in this country?

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. Venezuela perhaps the most open and adversarial domestic media in the worl...

Hugo Chavez and freedom of speech

First of all according to Amnesty International there are NO political prisoners listed for Venezuela. That is something not even the U.S. can claim.

If anyone of us tried to practice the degree of freedom of expression that is openly expressed in Venezuela we would be in a lot of trouble very fast.

In spite of the fact that the local private elite-owned media is overwhelmingly hostile to the point of having supported force and violence against the popular democratically elected government. This is something that would never be allowed in the U.S. media or almost anywhere else for that matter

link:
http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela

snip: "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 Chavez, 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."

snip:

"After Chávez came to power in 1998, the five main privately owned channels - Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), Globovisión and CMT - and nine of the 10 major national newspapers, including El Universal, El Nacional, Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo País, and El Mundo, have taken over the role of the traditional political parties, which were damaged by the president’s electoral victories. Their monopoly on information has put them in a strong position. They give the opposition support, only rarely reporting government statements and never mentioning its large majority, despite that majority’s confirmation at the ballot box. They have always described the working class districts as a red zone inhabited by dangerous classes of ignorant people and delinquents. No doubt considering them un-photogenic, they ignore working class leaders and organizations."

snip: ""Take to the streets" thundered El Nacional on 10 April (in an unattributed editorial). "Ni un paso atrás! (not one step backwards)" responded the hoardings on Globovisión. Another TV company broadcast: "Venezuelans, take to the streets on Thursday 11 April at 10am. Bring your flags. For freedom and democracy. Venezuela will not surrender. No one will defeat us." The call to overthrow the head of state became so obvious that the government applied Article 192 of the telecommunications law. More than 30 times -for all television and radio channels - it requisitioned 15-20 minutes’ air time to broadcast its views. But the broadcasters divided the screen in two and continued to urge rebellion."
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I would be very suspicious of all this U.S. media concern about Chavez's human rights record which incidentally has improved dramatically since his government took office. And for the record Chavez's record with any credible, independent human rights groups is no worse and probably not as bad as the U.S. and many other western democracies and far worse than that of the leading recipients of U.S. Aid.
http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Venezuela.asp

"Reporting on the ongoing issues, such as the protests and Chavez’s economic policies in Venezuela have shown similar signs of one-sidedness, from both the mainstream media of western countries such as the U.S. and U.K., and from Venezuela’s own elite anti-Chavez media, which “controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and ... played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chavez, in April 2002.... The media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president — if necessary by force.”

And let's compare his record to the largest recipients of U.S. aid
Here are the three largest recipient of U.S. aid (after Iraq) in order. Feel free to compare them with Chavez's record which is not perfect but a lot better than any of these three.

link for Venezuela: http://hrw.org/doc/?t=americas&c=venezu

1. Israel - link:

http://hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=isrlpa

2. Egypt - link:

http://hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=egypt

3. Columbia - link:

http://hrw.org/doc?t=americas&c=colomb


and here is the report on the U.S.'s own human rights record:

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=usa
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Also the good people at FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) on their weekly radio program Counter Spin did a special program regarding Hugo Chavez and the media on 3 March 2006.

Here is the link for downloading or listening online:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2832