Free speech alive and well in Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Free speech alive and well in Venezuela
By Greg Grandin
MinutemanMedia.org
Published Friday, June 15, 2007

The government of Venezuela has decided not to renew a broadcast license for RCTV, one of the oldest and largest opposition-controlled TV stations in the country. The U.S. media, in keeping with its reporting on Venezuela for the past eight years, has seized upon this opportunity to portray this as an assault on "freedom of the press."

It's not clear why a TV station that would never get a broadcast license in the United States or any other democratic country should receive one in Venezuela. But this is the one question that doesn't seem to come up in any of the news reports or editorials here.

RCTV actively participated in the U.S.-backed coup that briefly overthrew Venezuela's democratically elected President Hugo Chavez in 2002. The station promoted the coup government and reported only the pro-coup version of events. It censored and suppressed the news as the coup fell apart.

Even ignoring RCTV's role in the coup, its broadcast license would have been revoked years ago in the U.S., Europe, or any country that regulates the public airwaves. During the oil strike of 2002-2003, the station repeatedly called on people to join in and help topple the government. The station has also fabricated accusations of murder by the government, using graphic and violent images to promote its hate-filled views.
(snip)

It is not surprising that a monopolized media here would defend the "right" of right-wing media moguls to control the airwaves in Venezuela. Still it would be nice if we could get both sides of the story here — like Venezuelans do from their major media, which is right now saturated with broadcasts and articles against (as well as for) the government's decision. Then Americans could make up their own minds about whether this is really a "free speech" issue. Is that really too much to ask from our own "free press?"
(snip/...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greg Grandin is Professor of History at New York University and served on the United Nations Truth Commission for Guatemala. He wrote this for the Center for Economic and Policy Research — www.cepr.net

http://cjonline.com/stories/061507/opi_177295209.shtml
(by free subscription only, I believe)

[BlackHawk706867]

1. Thanks for posting this, and I was pretty damn sure that this was the

case in Venezuela! I don't know why I have had the feeling that Hugo is one with his people, but I do and think that he is a very honorable man.

ww

[denverbill]

2. Any news org in the US that advocated a violent coup against Shrub would be shut down immediately.

And the publishers jailed for treason.

[Warpy]

3. It still makes a lot of us ACLU fanatics a little queasy

to see any of the press shut down. I suppose it's because of the chill on the web knowing that anyone who fantasizes about ridiculously creative ways to do our own government in will generate visits from men in bad suits with hostile questions.

You can bet a leftist equivalent would be shut down and everyone with anything to do with it jailed in this country, while all Chavez did was refuse to renew a license.

Still, it's making us all watch him a little more cautiously.

[Daveparts]

4. The Little Revolution that Couldn’t

Howard Stern the self-proclaimed king of all media, all tasteless media that is, has inked a deal worth over $500 million dollars to do his fart joke shtick for Sirius satellite radio. Over the course of his career his previous employers paid out close to three million dollars in fines to the FCC. The government chose to view Stern’s antics as criminally obscene rather than criminally childish.

Republican politicians pandering to their conservative base who probably had never heard Stern in their lives approved, after all obscene is bad. A government chooses to control things they don’t like with legislation and the sharp rise in fines for fart joke comedy is a perfect case in point. You will hear dirtier jokes around the office and can see far dirtier acts at your local jiggle joint but Stern made himself a lightening rod of controversy by standing up for himself.

The Japanese have a saying, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” Stern’s refusal to bow down and say so sorry has placed him under scrutiny and made him a target. Millions of your tax dollars are at work to protect the precious ears of America from fart jokes and as silly as it sounds these people are serious. Stern’s departure from broadcast to the realm of satellite must be at least due in part to government pressure.

But you don’t get off that easy, if the government wants you they’re going to get you, Sirius radio finds it’s plans to merge bogged down by the securities and exchange commission. But Stern is harmless, literally the goofy kid next door. Why the vendetta for nothing more than fart jokes it’s not like he advocated overthrowing the lawfully elected government.

Hugo Chavez in Venezuela shut down RCTV (Radio Caracas Televisión) but actually he didn’t shut them down he just declined to renew their license to broadcast. Like our own FCC the government took offense to RCTV’s blatant support of the coup plotters over the lawfully elected government. In the United States active support of an armed insurrection is considered treason and is punishable by the death penalty.

In Venezuela you lose your broadcast license and point blank it doesn’t matter what Chavez does the western media has it in for him no matter what. I watch with amusement the media coverage of this so-called uprising, photo’s taken from inside the crowd to make it impossible to determine its actual size. Numerous photo’s of armed riot police not battling with protesters but standing at attention. The protestors most young all well dressed well fed and well supplied gives it the look of an important story on Faux news or the 700 club.

The western media including the so-called liberal New York Times are calling it an attempt by Chavez to silence his critics. Ignoring the fact that it was a media attempting to silence the lawful government so Stern gets fined three million dollars for fart jokes so what would the fine be for attempting to assist in the over throw of a sovereign government?
American tax dollars are at work through out the petro South American states. Five billion a year in Columbia alone with oil company’s still smarting over renegotiated oil contracts, men who have long memories and short fuses. Why the very nerve of a South American country standing up to a sovereign oil company.

So did Chavez close down all media that was critical of his administration? Why didn’t he close them down three years ago when the coup first happened? Because he was trying to negotiate a settlement, Chavez has been public and above board with RCTV towards trying to work out a settlement and just like Howard Stern if you thumb your nose at power you will get hammered down.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to take Chavez’s side if America’s behavior in South and Central America hadn’t been so heinous. Chavez for all his faults and failings is genuinely trying to help his people, the poor the indigenous the sick and elderly. Maybe that’s what makes him less than popular with the well-dressed well-fed University student protestors but these decisions are to be made at the ballot box not at the television box.

Is Chavez perfect? No, I don’t think so. He is fighting an entrenched establishment of a ruling oligarchy who view this battle as a life or death struggle. If they win they can continue as the ruling elite if they lose they lose everything, privilege, power and wealth. Like kings and princes dethroned they will be forced to walk the streets with the commoners. Is Chavez paranoid? I don’t know, is it paranoid when you have already been deposed once and have US Special Forces on your border?

None of the US media articles chose to fathom a guess at the number of protestors, I wonder why?A reporter from the Financial Times was giving a color report on C-spin when a caller then asked him a financial question he then backed down and blushingly admitted he was a free lance journalist who though he had sold pieces to the Financial Times worked mainly for the rabidly right wing Miami Herald. I wonder why C-spin had Financial Times correspondent listed under his name.

And so it goes the battle to stop this crazy lawfully elected dictator, a madman that brings in 20,000 doctors in to the country to treat the poor. A tyrant that gives land to indigenous farmers and makes oil conglomerates pay fair market value for Venezuelan crude. A Castro who buys the debt of his neighbors from the World Bank and refinances it at lower interest rates. A leader who calls for fair trade not free trade in the continent is it any wonder the globalist want him gone? And will try again and again to remove him with more tin pot conspiracies like RCTV.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Wonderful post. What are the chances one would ever have learned the stringer

actually worked mainly for the hard-pandering Miami Herald, toiling night and day to please the hard-right extremist Batista-supporting Cuban expatriots, and their new neighbors, the Venezuelan ultra-wealthy expatriots, newly arrived and ensconsed in South Florida?

Simply amazing.

Yes, according to all these people, Chavez must be stopped at all costs, while there are still so many poor to exploit, to befuddle, to use like tissues and throw away after lifetimes of struggle.

This can only happen if they can be kept ignorant, uninformed, and easily managed by a class which controls ALL the information, just the way it was before February 2, 1999, when Hugo Chavez was inaugurated.

[Vidar]

6. Great post.

[struggle4progress]

7. Thanks for posting this.