Venezuelans march against closure of TV station

[Herman Munster]

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2621739620070526?feedType=RSS&rpc=22

CARACAS (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Venezuelan protesters marched on Saturday to the Caracas headquarters of an anti-government television station, which is being forced off the air after President Hugo Chavez's administration refused to renew its broadcasting license.

Waving flags with the logo of RCTV, demonstrators packed the streets of the capital where news anchors and soap opera stars slammed the imminent closure of the opposition channel.

"What is happening here is simply the silencing of a television station," shouted soap opera actress Gledys Ibarra.

The government is not renewing RCTV's license after 53 years on the air because of accusations that the broadcaster participated in a bungled 2002 coup against Chavez, incited violent demonstrations and aired immoral programming.

[RB TexLa]

1. claims that they are all CIA or Halliburton agents in 5. 4. 3. 2. 1...

[ret5hd]

2. Claims that "if CNN advocated the killing of * ...

Their license would be revoked also" in 5.4.3...oh, right fuckin' now.

[billbuckhead]

3. Liberal stations and programs in America are shut down to hardly a bitch

But don't renew a traitorous Venezuelan rightwing stations license and people in America howl. Amazing.

[David__77]

4. Not agents, but lawbreakers.

They don't need to be agents to break laws concerning national security. They openly advocated treason and a fascist coup. This is a normal self-defense activity by a sovereign state. The Venezuelan government is even allowing them to continue their activities, just not on the people's airwaves - then can be satellite-broadcast if they wish.

[Solo_in_MD]

5. It doesn't matter how much lipstick to try to put on this pig, its still supression of the press

[1932]

10. They lost right to broadcast over the air. Cable, internet & satelite is still available to them

[Selatius]

13. It's also illegal to use the public airwaves to incite violent overthrow of the government.

If you tried to use public airwaves to do that, you lose your license. Go and do that on satellite or cable broadcasts, not public air broadcasts.

[1932]

9. Would you really be shocked if US/NED money paid for their posters?

[Onceuponalife]

6. Chavez shouldn't be shutting down news stations

no matter they encouraged the coup (no material support has been shown). Chavez has been doing a lot of great things in Venezuela but I think he is making a mistake here. This is a step towards totalitarianism and that's not a good way to win people's hearts and minds. Don't give your enemy any more amunition...

[Peace Patriot]

7. Here's the test: Say, Faux News called for kidnapping Nancy Pelosi and shutting down

Congress and the courts, and actively supported those who were doing these things, and hosted meetings of the coup leaders, and put out lies and disinformation to the public to further their purposes. And say they did it last week before our Democratic leaders' cave-in to Bush on war funding. (Just kidding--say that this happened in any circumstances....). Would you be for pulling Faux News' license to use our PUBLIC airwaves? And surely there would be a crowd of Freepers and Bushite Brownshirts out in the street defending Faux News even then. See any CS gas, rubber bullets or Darth Vader troops trying to stop this wrong-headed demo?

It is the RIGHT of a sovereign people to regulate the public airwaves, and to require that its airwaves be used in the public interest. Violent overthrow of a democratically elected government is, by definition, an assault on the public interest. The OTHER TV/radio stations--almost all owned by rightwing forces--were ALSO bad during the coup attempt, and are as bad as our war profiteering corporate news monopolies on most issues, but at least they didn't actively foment a coup! That is the difference. That is why the Venezuelan government is only denying a license to ONE of them: RCTV. Their behavior was indefensible.

And besides all this,if you think that the five rightwing billionaires who control all news and opinion in THIS country are giving us a "free press," you are very naive, indeed. Their monopolies need to be busted, and, in some cases, their licenses pulled and given to news organizations that are actually doing journalism, and that will provide the public with a REAL political spectrum, not this 24/7 fascist propaganda we are getting from most of them. Licensing is a legitimate way to achieve fairness and a broad and useful political discussion. It wouldn't bother me in the least if Venezuela denied a few more licenses and gave those airwaves to better news organizations--and I think that that very much needs to be done here.

For a documentary on what RCTV did--and what the attempted military coup was all about, and how the people of Venezuela defeated it--go to AxisOfLogic.com and get the DVD "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," made by Irish filmmakers who happened to be in the presidential palace in Caracas when the coup attempt occurred. It's a great documentary!

The Irish filmmakers were privileged to have witnessed, and to have documented, the turning point in South American politics--the moment when the people of South America realized that they didn't have to put with this US-back brutality any more--the moment when democracy started to win. The ripples from that event have been profound throughout Latin America, and let's hope that they ripple their way up here to the north. You don't have to put up with it! There are precedents and methods of restoring democracy, even in the most difficult circumstances--and ours are very difficult, indeed.

The three lessons that I have gleaned from studying the democracy movement in South America are these:

1. Long hard work on TRANSPARENT elections (!)
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.

[Onceuponalife]

8. First they came and shut down FOXNEWS

...but I didn't speak up because I don't like FOXNEWS...


Sound familiar?

[1932]

11. In the UK, Fox News was threatened with loss of license for playing, essentially, Wagner over Iraq

bombing footage...because that's essentially what the Nazis did to get people to support Hitler.

I happen to agree that you can't let the fascist media take things that far if they expect to use the public airwaves.

What these stations did in VZ was about 1000 times more dangerous for democracy than playing classical music over footage of violent imperialism on the news.

[Selatius]

12. Nope. RCTV helped to incite a violent overthrow of government. That is not protected speech.

That's not even protected speech here in the United States. If Al Gore won the presidency and FOX News called for his assassination, hosted coup plotters, and failed to report the opposition to Gore's overthrow, then FOX News would have its broadcast license revoked because the public airwaves are not to be used to benefit a small number at the expense of everybody.

[LBJDemocrat]

14. I agree

There'll always be an excuse to justify tyranny.

Freedom of press shouldn't be decided on a case-by-case basis.