Venezuela continues its attack on freedom.

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has denounced what he called fresh plots to destabilise his government, after he closed an opposition TV channel.

He urged supporters to be on alert for a coup attempt and threatened a second TV network, Globovision.

Thousands of people across the country protested for a second day after Mr Chavez's decision not to renew Radio Caracas TV's (RCTV's) licence.

Police, government supporters and protesters clashed violently on Monday.

'Enemies of the homeland'

In a national address shown by all TV stations, Mr Chavez defended his decision to close RCTV as a public service, denouncing the 53-year-old station - Venezuela's most popular - as a "permanent attack on public morals".

He also called news network Globovision an enemy of the state, attacking its coverage of the protests against RCTV's closure.

"Enemies of the homeland, particularly those behind the scenes, I will give you a name: Globovision. Greetings, gentlemen of Globovision, you should watch where you are going," Mr Chavez said.

"I recommend you take a tranquiliser and get into gear, because if not, I am going to do what is necessary."

On Monday, Venezuela's government announced it was suing Globovision for allegedly broadcasting material to incite a possible assassination of Mr Chavez. It also accused US news network CNN of linking him to al-Qaeda. Globovision and CNN have both denied the claims.

In his broadcast Mr Chavez also accused protesters and opposition media of stirring unrest.

"Sound the alarm in the hills, neighbourhoods and towns to defend our revolution from this new fascist attack," he said.

Opposition TV channels openly supported a coup against him in April 2002 and refused to air massive pro-Chavez demonstrations at the time.

Mr Chavez lauded the new state-sponsored broadcaster, TVES, which launched after RCTV's closure, praising an "anti-capitalist" Pinocchio cartoon and a movie about South American independence hero Simon Bolivar it aired.

Rival protests

The decision to close RCTV has received international condemnation, including from the EU, press freedom groups, Chile and the US, which urged Mr Chavez to reverse the closure.

"Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. "It's an essential element of democracy anywhere in the world."

RCTV's general manager Marcel Granier has described the closure as "abusive" and "arbitrary". The network will still be available on cable, but losing its public broadcast frequency will deprive it of most of its audience.

Meanwhile thousands of people from both sides of the debate staged separate marches in the capital, Caracas, on Tuesday.

Opponents attacked Mr Chavez's rule as a "dictatorship" while Chavez supporters accused the opposition of trying to destabilise the government.

wow, just wow.

If you changed all the time it said "Chavez" to "Bush" and change it to 'no body rioted in the streets" then you would have pretty much the Fox network, eh?


Merle



_________________________________
"Be a sinner and sin boldly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ."
--Martin Luther

I don't see how the situation is analogous at all. Hugo Chavez runs his country with effectively a rubber stamp legislature without opposition parties, this is not the case in the United States. In the US there are numerous television stations owned by different major corporations, as well as a partially government funded public broadcaster with multiple stations as well (that isn't known for towing the Republican party line). Fox News is one cable broadcast station among many although admittedly it is the most watched news station on cable. I openly admit, BTW, that radio skews rightward (although I think this is due to the market).

The administration, and the FCC (which contains I think 4/5 Republicans and 3/4 Democrats) have not attempted to pull licenses of left leaning stations and despite what many conservatives feel is bias, but also arguably legally questionable behavior (such as the releasing of classified material on ongoing operations).

This is not to say I am a fan of the FCC, largely to do there on the fly decisions of what can and cannot be aired on the public airwaves (I do think that as I constitution matter those airwaves can be regulated for content since they are owned by the public, but I think the current way they are doing it is absurd).

nowhere near. bush is not closing down stations that present opposing viewpoints. you don't see cbs being shut down by the government for dan rather's botch in misreporting bush's military history. you don't see cnn or msnbc being shut down for publishing stories that are mostly opposing the war in iraq and more focusing on casualties and the negatives of the war.


your statement is simply an exaggeration. there is a very divisive climate in the US right now...but such opinions as your own with this does not help to fix the divisiveness in our society.

It is likely that Venezuela will be invaded over oil. Serious threats to stability are what drives the US, more often than not, to intervene. I am neutral to Chavez's policies, what he has done has benefitted the Venezuelan poor, yet stolen from the rich. However, the way in which the private companies were seized was illegal and wrong, in my opinion. Governments should buy out such things if they see potential use in them and not capture them unless it is a matter of war, national security, or illegal operations by the company. A reformed tax and public services system would have been a much better way to sort out whatever problems there were in Venezuela. Chavez could instead cooperate with and not take over Venezuelan companies.

here's what someone on another board wrote about a friend of theirs who is in venezuela right now...

I dont agree with sezing them, but slowly downsizing them by shiponing off their resources seems okay. Limiting their power is the way to go.

This would have no almost zero popular support in the United States, and would have the opposition of all of congress. Such action for such reasons (most especially without a congressional vote) would almost certainly result in the President's (any those involved) impeachment, and removal from office.

Of course, logically, if the issue was oil then the United States would never have invaded Iraq at all but rather invaded the closer country of Valenzuela or rather Canada, which has a massive stockpile of oil and no serious military to speak of; and this just a step across the border!



The United States is more likely to engage in itself militarily if it's own affairs are effected just like any other country. However, as you said, this is not exclusively true. There was either no interest or extremely limited interest in removing dictators Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, or Charles Taylor of Liberia. In both cases American forces and/or diplomacy helped bring out the end to a period of tyranny and the United States did not impose it's own law but instead stood aside.

While the United States does not presently make up a large body of the UN peacekeeping troops, they do provide more then a quarter of the funding. hey also provide much of logistical support and funding for peacekeeping operations by African troops in the Southern Sudan (a treaty that the Bush administration got put into action).

(here is some reference for Bush administration policy on UN peacekeeping, it's a .PDF file)

Of course, logically, if the issue was oil then the United States would never have invaded Iraq at all but rather invaded the closer country of Valenzuela or rather Canada, which has a massive stockpile of oil and no serious military to speak of; and this just a step across the border!



There are not just two categories of people, the extreme rich and the extreme poor. Yes, Lieutenant Colonel Chavez has seized assets and, in a bid to boost his own popularity, spread them widely. However, he has done little to actually encourage actually economic growth, and accordingly Valenzuela is already seeing the signs of a sharp economic downturn.

CORRECTION: You didn't state there were just two specific categories of people. I, incorrectly, implied you did. It would have been better to make my further point without my incorrect supposition.



We find some agreement.

ADDENDUM=

There is no way to siphon off Hugo Chavez's resources short of invasion or inciting civil war. Venezuela's primary resource is a huge amount of domestic oil production. This isn't enough to save him from badly mismanaging his economy, and causing enough misery that he will fall from power (as used to happen often enough). He has already scared off socialist moderates such as Brazilian President Luna Da Silva.

Last edited by jimservo on 30 May 2007, 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Uhm sorry, but if the US invaded canada it would be a shitstorm of bad relations world wide. Invading Iraq is nothing because it's a middle eastern country, but invading a pro-capitalist american friendly country like canada would do enormous damage. Canada doesn't have a large military because of its small population (less then ~ 32 million), not only that the US doesn't need to invade canada because its so small its easy to imperalistically countrol its resource industries indirectly through buying out politicians and economic sanctions since Canada's economy is largely intertwined with the United states.

They don't have to american's are thoroughly indoctrinated in capitalism. Capitalists outnumber leftists in america like 10 to 1. Only the intellectuals and high IQ types are left leaning and they are in the minority. A good portion of the population is christian and pro-capitalist, through massive propaganda programs. So there is *no civilian threat* to the establishment, if people actually cared and they would threaten economic system and social stability you can bet that similar things would occur, but since information simply has no effect on those trapped in the economic system by being wage-dependent upon employers, like the are going to rebel. It takes a strong willed population who is willing to forgoe their own impulses and animal pleasantries to actually have cause for concern about information "getting out", or left 'bias', etc.

If you go to read "Intelligent design" advocates political views, they are heavily pro capitalist and christian. The are basically enforcing the status quo and indirectly attempting to fulfill biblical prophecy (in their distorted view of the world, i.e. christ said: "The poor will always be with us... etc, etc.".).

Last edited by Mordy on 30 May 2007, 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why is hugo attacking freedom? what freedom? the freedom to be a greedy pig as*hole?

the freedom to say the government sucks.

Hugo is cracking down on a TV station unfriendly to him, one of the ideas is that it is a measure simply to get more power. The argument here has little to do with economic systems so much as Chavez's damage to the political structures.

oh that one....Okay thats one true freedom they trampled on. Name another,

Why? We are dealing with this current issue. If you want to start a thread "tell me why Hugo Chavez sucks" then we can go through this matter. Really though, I am not sure what kind of distinction you make to call one form of freedom true and another false. I would assert freedom to be derived from self-ownership and thus say that the freedoms derived from that axiom are the true ones and the others false.