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for tips on how to "frame" leftist governments?
How about some facts?
"When Chavez nationalized industrial assets, you said that foreign companies had exploited the poor of Venezuela."
Are you saying that foreign companies have NOT exploited the poor of Venezuela? And how does it hurt Venezuelans to have giant foreign oil corporations--like the ones who hijacked our military for their corporate resource war in the Middle East--and giant telecoms--like the ones who are trying to destroy internet freedom, and are cooperating with the Bushites on domestic spying--evicted from their country? We could use some of that "hurt" here!
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"When Chavez demanded and received dictatorial powers, you claim that he got them legitimately -- after all, he's more 'popular than Jesus.'"
WHAT "dictatorial" powers? The ELECTED National Assembly VOTED to give him LIMITED economic powers--identical to those given PREVIOUS presidents of Venezuela, and very like the powers that Congress gave FDR during the Great Depression. How is that a "demand"? And how is that "dictatorial"--unless you agree with the robber barons of the Depression era that FDR was a "dictator"?
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"When they came for the television stations, people like yourself claimed that the broadcasters actually committed treason."
"They" didn't "come for the television stations." The Chavez government denied a license renewal to use the public airwaves to ONE giant corporation that, in fact, DID commit treason. RCTV DIRECTLY aided the violent military coup attempt in 2002. They held coup meetings at their station, broadcast lies and disinformation on behalf of the coup, and hosted the triumphant coup press conference that announced the suspension of the Constitution, the suspension of the National Assembly, the suspension of the court system and the resignation of President Chavez (which was not true--they kidnapped him, and he refused to resign). If Faux News participated in a fascist coup here, that shutdown Congress and kidnapped Nancy Pelosi, would you approve continuing their license to use our PUBLIC airwaves? And Chavez did not "come for them." He waited for their 20 year license to run out, and simply did not renew it, which he had every right to do, under the law, and is a perfect example how an advocate of the people can employ the law on behalf of the people, against the power of global corporate predators. That station is now open to independent producers and to everyone who was previously excluded from the public airwaves. Kicking this traitorous global corporation, RCTV, out, and opening the station to indy producers, ENHANCES free speech in Venezuela, where rightwing corporate monopolies previously controlled all TV/radio broadcasting, and now only control MOST of them.
And what are YOU saying? That corporate news monopolies = free speech? Give me a break. The fascists STILL control MOST of the media in Venezuela. ONE station, that participated in the coup, lost their license. We would be a lot of better off HERE, if every corporate news monopoly got busted, and their licenses pulled and their assets seized for the common good. NONE of them are serving the public interest any more. Corporate monopolies are anti-democratic.
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"Now that's it's being reported that he's going to shove his propaganda spiel into the classroom, you blame the source -- the BBC."
I did not blame the BBC. I have not read their article on this. The OP posts an ASSOCIATED PRESS article, and I DO blame AP--and have repeatedly blamed AP--for its hit pieces on Chavez. They, too, seem to be reading old CIA manuals.
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Bottom-line, Venezuela is a DEMOCRACY, with open, transparent, and highly vetted and monitored elections (unlike here). If the people of Venezuela don't like this policy, they have every right to oppose it, to organize against it, and to get it changed, and they ultimately have the right and power to throw Chavez out--a right and a power that we here in the U.S. don't have any more, now that Bush's buds at Diebold and ES&S are "counting" all the votes with "trade secret" programming code, by arrangement of BOTH parties. A democracy can make mistakes. If it is truly a democracy, with transparent elections and true free speech (not corporate speech), the people can CORRECT or mitigate the mistakes. That is one measure of how little democracy we have here--we have been unable to correct huge mistakes, and, indeed, the horrible crime of the Iraq War. I don't know enough about this education policy to approve or disapprove of it. The AP article in immensely uninformative, and we'll see if the BBC article is any better. (In the past, the BBC has been only slightly better than awful on the South American left--and I've heard at least one BBC radio broadcast that was unbelievably bad. British corps have a lot of money tied up in the World Bank and in resource exploitation in South America, and the BBC is not above shilling for British corps.)
You use broad strokes to condemn Chavez on all the Bush-purged CIA and rightwing/corporate "talking points." You have not presented any facts to back them up. And on this basis, you call me a "useful idiot" and you call the President of Venezuela an "asshat." Sticks and stones, bro. Sticks and stones.
I think it is very important to understand what is happening in Venezuela, and throughout South America, where democracy is succeeding, at long last, and where the vast poor population is finally coming into its rightful power. The South American socialist model is like night and day from Leninism and Stalinism, and also from Cuban communism. It is DEMOCRATIC, and provably so, on every basic tenet of democratic procedure. It is the ALTERNATIVE to violent revolution. And it is NOT particularly anti-capitalist. It is a mixed model of socialism and capitalism with a strong component of social justice. Hugo Chavez is actually a centrist, although you wouldn't know that from the corporate news monopolies. He is a moderate! And he is not alone. There are many leaders of this movement, including the elected presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina. The Bolivarians are creating a unique combination of socialism, capitalism, constitutional government, the rule of law (INCLUDING the protection of private property!), and inclusive, participatory democracy. And it behooves us to get informed about why it is so popular, and what it is accomplishing, before we start calling its leaders "asshats" and "dictators" in sync with George Bush!
And, who knows, we might learn something about restoring democracy here!
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