Now do you understand why Hugo Chavez shut down a wingnut TV Station?

[vegetabletasty]

I don't expect to ever see a Democrat in the White House in my lifetime. And I'm only 30. Why? Because the plutocrat media--which does not give a damn about health care and the economy but fills its front pages with pictures of a reverend--is set to manufacture all kinds of phony arguments to dupe Americans into believing that our candidates are unfit to govern.

The media's plan was to destroy Hillary first, then Obama. Let's not be naive: Obama already won the nomination. His delegate lead is unsurmountable. Now that Obama will certainly be McCain's opponent, plan B has begun.

How does being Wright's disciple for 20 years affect Obama's ability to implement the necessary reforms needed in the health, educational, foreign, scentific departments? The answer is, in no way whatsoever.

Hugo Chavez didn't just stare into space as the media stripped Venezuelans of the only president who cares about the poor there. RCTV repeatedly supported the coup against Chavez in 2003 (or 2002?).
You might argue that what goes on in the US is nothing close to a coup. And I would reply, yes it is. The moment that the fairness doctrine was eliminated our Democracy suffered a big blow, tantamount to a coup d'etat. The result? See the 2000 and 2004 elections, when Gore was painted as a liar and Bush was given a pass for dodging the draft and going AWOL.

Now I know why Hugo did what he did.

We need a man who would do anything to get elected, in a good way.

[LoZoccolo]

1. You sound like you've already figured out that this has been a long-term contentious issue here. n/t

[apocalypsehow]

2. This is a dare, right?

[Peace Patriot]

3. RCTV actively particpated in the Bush-U.S. supported violent military against

the elected government of Hugo Chavez in 2002, which suspended the Constitution, the National Assembly, the courts and all civil rights, and kidnapped President Chavez and threatened his life. RCTV hosted the coup plotters at their station offices and on TV, broadcast lies and doctored video footage in support of the coup, and shut down news coverage during the coup (and played cartoons) to keep the Venezuelan people ignorant of the facts. This was the chief reason that the Chavez government denied RCTV renewal of their license to use the public airwaves, when it recently came up for renewal (after 20 years of broadcasting). There isn't a country in the world that would have tolerated RCTV's behavior, except countries like our own that are run by illegitimate, fascist governments, where the corporate news monopolies favor fascism. Our own corporate news monopolies actually participated in the fascist coup here in 2004, by doctoring their exit polls, which showed a Kerry-Edwards win, to force them to fit the results of Diebold and other fascist voting machine corporations' trade secret, proprietary programming code, which said that Bush-Cheney won. A Bush-dominated FCC would have no reason to object to that goddamned lie.

I have to laugh at our political establishment's demonization of Hugo Chavez as a "dictator" who opposes "free speech." Can you just imagine what those coup plotters would have done to "free speech" in Venezuela, had the Venezuelan people not turned back their coup? During their brief period of control, they suspended all civil rights! Dissenters would have been thrown out of airplanes, rounded up and 'disappeared,' arrested and tortured, chainsawed and their body parts tossed into mass graves, as they do in Bush-U.S. supported Colombia. Chavez, on the other hand, has run a scrupulously lawful, beneficial government for ten years. There is no more lively, open political culture in the world than in Venezuela.

Furthermore, Venezuela's elections put our own to shame for their transparency. Hugo Chavez really has been elected three times (including a Bush-U.S. supported, and U.S taxpayer-supported, recall) with increasing margins of victory (63% in the last presidential election in 2006), and enjoys a 65% to 70% approval rating, unlike the Bush Junta, which wasn't elected either time, and has an approval rating of 25% to 30% (a little better than our 'Democratic' war-supporting Congress, whose elections are also clouded by 'trade secret' vote counting).

The other corporate news monopolies continue to operate in Venezuela (and RCTV continues cable broadcasting), all of them daily spewing venomous criticism, ridicule and false news about the Chavez government. Chavez did not deny a license renewal to RCTV for its owner's political opinions. He denied the license renewal for their criminal assault on the legitimate government during the coup attempt (and for other violations of Venezuelan law). He would have been derelict in his duty to uphold Venezuela's Constitution had he not done so.

As in Venezuela--and in most countries of the world--the U.S. airwaves are PUBLIC property which are licensed to business corporations with conditions. Governments routinely deny licenses, pull licenses and/or fine broadcast businesses for violating those conditions. We, the sovereign people of the U.S., don't have to issue broadcast licenses to commercial broadcasters at all. We could give the licenses to non-profits, or to independent, not-for-profit entertainment and news entities like the BBC. We don't have to put up with the fascist/corporate crap we get on our public airwaves. We can require balance (as with the late, great "Fairness Doctrine," which required that, when TV/radio owners expressed political opinions, they were required to give equal time to opposing opinions). Or we can nationalize all the airwaves, and throw the corporations out. Or something in between--let them do their fascist/corporate thing, require equal time when they express an opinion, and reserve, say, six weeks of broadcast time before every major election, for wide open political discussion and broad-spectrum candidate access to the voters.

This is another reason that the Chavez government's decision about RCTV is so reviled here. It sets an example of the power of a sovereign people to establish and enforce the rules for broadcasting, and for all corporate activity. WE are the rulers of this land, in theory anyway. The demonization of Chavez, and now, of Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Cristina Fernandez of Argentina, as well--all leftist governments and strong allies of each other--is part of a larger global corporate predator plan to destabilize and topple these democratic, beneficial governments, and install fascist rulers who will hand over their oil and other resources, and suppress and enslave their people, for corporate profit. Our corporate news monopolies are lying about these governments, and are actively cooperating with Bush-U.S. psyops, disinformation and war schemes. Their propaganda doesn't work in South America any more. The uprising of the Venezuelan people against the military coup that RCTV fomented, and their peaceful defeat of that coup, was a seminal event in the western hemisphere.* It was the harbinger of a deep political and social change for the better. South America has now elected leftist governments in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua, and Paraguay (of all places! --elected last Sunday). Guatemala also now has its first progressive government, ever. The times they are a-changin'. And they will change here, too--after we do the hard work that the South Americans have done on transparent elections and other democratic institutions. They are showing us how it's done.

-----

*See "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," the Irish filmmakers' documentary on the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela. It's available at YouTube and at www.axisoflogic.com. Also recommended: www.venezuelanalysis.com, and www.BoRev.net.

[cali]

4. No. I didn't like that he did it. I wouldn't want to see it happen here

it would chill speech. No. Thank. You.

And I think you're in for a surprise in November. I believe the odds are still strong that we'll elect the dem nominee. Besides, you already have seen a dem elected President in your lifetime. Twice.

[Tesha]

5. Twice a "Dem"? That's a matter of some discussion of late, isn't it? (NT)