Overall good article.

But Mr. Jones fails to mention that RCTV actively participated in the coup, with planning meetings held in their corporte offices. Therefore, if it had happened in the US, the RCTV executives would also have been chargable with high treason under the US Constitution, detention with charge or legal council under the Military Comissions Act, and a death sentence under Clinton's Anti-Terrorism and effective Death Penalty Act. All of this carred out in secrecy, using torture, under the general ongoing US disregard of the US Constitution, Geneva Conventions and various UN conventions.

So, who is the "dictator"?

Sorry, but what's wrong with plotting to overthrow a government? Or better yet, succeeding in doing so?

Let's not swallow the BS that Mr. Chavez isn't an authoritarian just because his opponents are. He's no different from Pinochet -- save that he works from the left side of the aisle.

What is BS is comparing Chavez to Pinochet. Pinochet came to power in a bloody coup during which the democratically elected president was killed in his office. Pinochet then went on to capture, torture, and disappear thousands of his opponents in a well-documented, ruthless reign of terror.

Chavez, who was several times elected with huge majorities in internationally recognized free-elections, denied a TV station the use of public airwaves. Bart Jones describes pretty convincingly the reasons for doing so. Even if you disagree, to compare this event to thousands of murders? That is absurd.

What's in it for you "vinlander" to attempt to undermine a democracy in someone else's country, with such stupid lies and distortions? Please try to have some respect for facts and reality before you join in the discussion.

The truth trickles out.

RCTV was a seditious enterprise that should not have survived the failed coup attempt.

Bravo to Chavez in showing restraint and encouraging rule of law.

"Sorry, but what's wrong with plotting to overthrow a government? Or better yet, succeeding in doing so?"

OK, so that means you're fine with home-grown Communists, Islamic Terrorists, Illuminati, UN-worshipping liberals, and others who want to overthrow the US government? Or do you mean, its OK so long as its someone else's government? Or, most important of all, one we're in favor of overthrowing?

Chavez is no different than Pinochet? Boy you sure know your history! Ever spent any time in South America, know any people from there? Heck, try reading a book or using the Intertubes (like "teh Google"). What if Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are just playing you for a sucker? Just a thought.

BTW, only one country officially supported/recognized the military coup leaders (Carmona) during that 48 hours. Yep, the US (look it up; though we flip-flopped after the coup failed).

Every forum seems to have its trolls. Why should this one be any different? Ignorance is not only the province of folks that frequent the rightwing sites.

Here on the ground in Caracas there are probably more police--at least here in the center of the city--than there are protestors. Last night there was beating on pan bottoms for maybe 30 minutes down here, in an attempt to whip people up. This afternoon there are a few onlookers--along with the police, of course. The onlookers, the marchers and the police are in the majority probably in their 20s. Young cannon fodder for the interests of media owners.

Chavez made an excellent point about media manipulation--playing on the emotions of folks to make them FEEL that they have actually lost something very important to them and now have nothing. It's sad that folks are so easily manipulated over the loss of time wasted watching soap operas, but it's not something unique to Venezuela--it works like a charm in the US as well.

Much has been made of the number of students from private universities "spearheading" the protests against Chavez´ government. Several students from private universities told me this afternoon that professors are giving extra points to students who protest--and threatening to fail chavistas. I have no hard evidence of that being true, but considering I have 15 years of experience as an educator in Latin America, I would bet some money on it's being true.

As this is the first opportunity the opposition has had in quite some time to vent its spleen against Chavez, it is going to milk the RCTV NON-RENEWAL (not closure as it's being made out on CNN and here on Globovision) for as much as they can get out of it.

Although it's always dicey to generalize, what I have observed over the past 5 years or so is that Venezuela is very loud and fairly conflictive culture, and this stuff is a way of blowing off some steam.

Why aren't Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch out to destroy the World Bank, WTO, Nafta, etc, and applauding Chavez for daring to throw some of these organizations out of his country? The amount of coverage the loss of some stupid tv station is getting...shows that it is being used by people who want to attack Chavez for other reasons.

Other reasons is right--the largest petroleum reserves on the planet may be one of those "other reasons"....

Considering that much of our embedded media knowingly aided and abetted the neocon junta's illegal war plans, we should follow Chavez's example. The airwaves belong to the People!

This similarity would eventually be made... so I might as well be the one to make it.

What RCTV has failed to do in over-throwing a democratically elected leader and destorting the ideas and minds of the people, FOX News has succeeded in doing here. They ran a News corp in the red for over ten years always coming in last place behind ABC CBS and NBC. But they stuck with their bias reporting and helped make the false call for Bush in the Florida recount and have been doing their "RCTV" job ever since. They have successfully intimidated the other networks from being center and somewhat unbiased to what we now have where all the networks are heavily right leaning and pro-neocon.

I feel there may have been a coup here in the U.S. only that it was successful and the one in Venezuela failed. Chavez is a friend of his people and therefore an enemy of the rich Corporatists and Oligarchy or Plutocracy.

I wonder if CRTV is against Iraq war, which provided and still provided Chaves with modicum of freedom of action. In a sense war in Iraq fast becoming safety net for nations around the world that allow for little breathing space. Hail to Chavez.

With regard to moron who compared Chavez with Pinochet, he is but little step ahead of another moron who banded together home-grown Communists, Islamic Terrorists, Illuminati, UN-worshipping liberals, and others who want to overthrow the US government.

We can eliminate poverty in the world forever by simply taking all morons for food; for they grow effortlessly without fertilizers anywhere in any climes.

In defense of the second 'moron', I think he was mocking the first one. Nonetheless, morons are plentiful, but not on this forum thankfully.

Zsolt,
Do you remember morons comparing Hilary Clinton's book "It take a village to raise a child" with socialism? I just watched MCNBC's moron Tucker who compared the same Hilary Clinton's new slogan "Shared responsibility" with Soviet Union.

i love how that arrogant hypocrite grenier is trying to frame this as an issue of free speech and rile up all the brainwashed middle class anticommunists. whose freedom of speech is in question? grenier and other elites are the ones who've shaping everyone's uninformed opinion for them. did anyone see rctv's tawdry farewell broadcast? good riddance.

The fact is (whether you want to believe it or not) that "progressive" thought demands free speech. No speech should EVER be censored, nor should thought or ideas.

This is a basic tenet of true thinkers. If an idea is worthy, it will stand on its own merits. Shutting down the television station is not the road to "progressive" thought.

Whether or not you agree with Chavez or his policies, the fact that he assumed to control the media is a step backward for freedom everywhere.

If Bush assumed dictatorial powers and shut down a television station, especially for dissenting against the government, I would hope to meet some of you on the road to D.C.

As progressives, let's begin to embrace the notion that freedom is for everyone, even those we disagree with. Dictatorial control of media and academia are some tried and true methods of silencing dissenters. Is that something that you, as a progressive, want to embrace?

Chavez not only took away a media outlet, he effectively censored all of the media in Venezuela through the threat of government intervention.

It reminds me of something Lenny Bruce said. Something to the effect of "take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government'."

Hugo took away that right. Not something to be praised and defended, IMHO.

Much as I admire Chavez, it will always rub me the wrong way to see any sort of censorship exercised, even by such non-brutal mehods.

That said, I think the RCTV/Fox News comparison is an apt one.

Today I forced myself to listen a little bit of Neal Boortz's radio show. His right wing panties are in a wad over his certainty that when the Dems come to power in '09, they will reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and by so doing will destroy right wing talk radio--by forcing radio stations to present opposing viewpoints. Oh! The horror! Actually having to play fair! That is truly the only thing that right wing bullies like Boortz fear--a level playing field.

Chavez ought to have kept his mitts off of RCTV and instated something like a Fairness Doctrine for Venezuela radio and tv stations instead. That would at least have had some positive effect.

Thanks Bart for keeping us informed about Venezuela. Whatever happened into the investigation of the money trail from the U.S. gov. to those that were caught red-handed in the coup? Looks like Hugo got some very legal and justifiable satisfaction. In America we call those people (Granier and ilk) traitors and enemies of the state. In Texas he'd be hanged.

As always, erudite Americans discuss the terrible issues taking place in Latin America.

If anyone bothered to actually investigate the facts, (besides reading the very pro-Chavez Bart Jones), you'd learn that:

- The Venezuelan Supreme Court ruled that the events of April 11 were not a "coup," but a power vacuum. In fact, the head of our military said on TV that Chavez had resigned, and most of us believed it. (He later became a Minister in the re-instated Chavez government.) The government at that time promised to create a "Truth Commission" to determine exactly what happened on April 11-13, 2002, but this commission was never established to determine who and what contributed to the incidents of April 11 –13, including the role of the private media.

- Where is due process? To date, RCTV has never been allowed to defend itself in any court proceeding. Why was it allowed to operate five more years, if it plotted a coup?

- What about the other networks which didn't air the events of April 11-13th? If this is the reason that RCTV lost its license, then where are the proceedings against Venevision and the others? Oh yes. There are no proceedings because these networks have curiously become more pro-government. I don't think they'll face a punishment for their partipation in "the coup".

- I'm sorry - did Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, andthe Committee to Protect Journalists fail in their due diligence before writing reports criticizing the measure? Is Bart Jones the only reporter able to fish out the "truth" and unravel the "misinformation" campaign?

Please don't denigrate us by claiming that Venezuelans are just upset over lost soap operas and comedy shows. Americans may fry their brains with All My Children and SNL, but Venezuelans who didn't agree with this farce of a government actually depended on RCTV as one of the only two remaining sources of information which wasn't controlled by the government. I'd challenge Bart or the genius American professor who opined above to provide a list of networks left which broadcast any opposition material. Did anyone say ONE? Yes, there's one left. And this morning, Chavez threatened to close it down. You can imagine how you would feel if the government were threatening to take Amy Goodman off the air. It wouldn't feel pretty.

This perpetual spinning of the 11 April 2002 coup is getting pretty tiring. This happened some 5 years ago. If you look at the history of Venezuela, you will realize that the coup is just another political tool, same as elections. It happens regularly and Huguito himself failed one 10 years earlier. So, lets move on and wait for the next coup.

We don't have a free press in the US. Corporate media, which is the vast majority of it, never dissents from official public policy. The precious few Keith Olbermanns are permitted to make their brief remarks in order that people think we have a free press. But news as a whole here is wholly unquestioning toward the increasingly fascistic status quo. The difference between the US and other countries, including Venezuela, is that when a coup occurs here, as it did in 2000, it is prepertrated by the highest court in the land, acceded to by the multitudes, and supported unquestioningly by the corporate media.

Yes, it's too bad that Chavez is allowing less and less media dissent. But if you look at the history of US interference in the domestic affairs of Latin American countries, the training of death squads (El Salvador) the illegal wars, mining of harbors, etc. (Nicaragua), the gunboat diplomacy (Mexico,Central America), the CIA engineered coups (Chile), or the outrageous moblike expedition into Panama by Bush I to grab Noriega (killed 5,000 Panamanians),on and on, you might be able to see why Chavez is wary of the opposition. The US has considered all of Latin America to be its "back yard" and has acted brutally and imperialistically to stop any country there from nationalizing its resources or doing anything to stop US corporations in their continuous plunder of Latin American economies.

There are a number of people here going on and on about "free speech", and these faked fears always come out when a commited socialist who is using his country's wealth to uplift his poor people such as Chavez merely reassigns a propaganda outlet - RCTV - for fascists which advocates armed coups against him, a popularly elected leader. Thus now Chavez is a "brutal dictator". What is his erath-shaking "human rights" crime for all this angst from pseudo-progressives? his crime is that he has lower prioritized, not shut down mind you,a TV station catering to the rich "oligarchy" ( which simply means a collective of dictators)and hardly of any use to the vast numbers of barrio-poor. All these crocodile tears for progressives being duped by these brutal Latino "dictator" who won popular elections by landslidesmake me want to puke. Up North, we have a genuine fascist dictator who stole two elections, assumed extraordinary habeas corpus powers without allowing any dissent in the MSM, which is owned by his cronies, and is inflicting death and destruction on a people who never harmed anybody in his country is rarely excoriated by the neo-con trolls on this website.

Chavez, like Castro, is here to stay, and you better get used to it you neo-con pseudo-progressives. Cuba is now considered to be among the top 50 or so countries with the highest human development index, an expected life span of 80 years on average for the population, and a lower mortality rate for births than that in the US. All of this was achieved despite a 50 year vicious economic embargo on Cuba by the world's richest economy. So why should Chavez not try the Castro model, given that he has oil wealth coming out of his ears?

Talk logic, not sophistry. And by the way, if Castro had received $6 billion a year free of charge from a wealthy country for 50 years as Israel has been privileged to receive from the US, Cuba would by now be one of the most advanced industrial social democracies in the world, miles ahead of Israel.

Okay, you choose....Pinochet or Chavez?

If the author's facts are just that, facts, then I can continue to hold Hugo Chavez in high regard. His actions appear to be in the interest of the People. Remember us, the people?

And, to disgustedvenezuelan....the FCC/American government has tried many, many times to take Amy Goodman and Pacifica Radio off the air. Broadcasting freedom will always be in question and the question should always be, "whose interest does it serve?"

Since I posted above I tried to recall some of the details of this saga as it has unfolded. If memory serves me, within the last year a probe inside our government was close to revealing the details of dispersal of U.S. government funds to persons and organizations inside Venezuela involved in the very real coup refered to, and ongoing efforts to oust Chavez. Some of these groups are indigenous in name only and represent (in the Venezuelan government's justifiable view) foreign nationals actively engaged in efforts to destabilize their government.

If I'm not mistaken the evidence revealed in this probe has been put under lock and key so as not to "jeopardize the safety of our contacts" in Venezuela. And it would be very embarassing to have documented proof revealed of our ongoing efforts to destabilize and remove a democraticaly elected leader.

Yes Hugo is unpalatable for many different reasons, and he may have stepped on it (again) this time, but that may be the result of finding himself wrong-footed. What government would not take some sort of action against a media source that agitates for the overthrow of that government and the assassination of their highest leader?

Some here say it is about free speech. I continue to observe powerful moneyed interests, encouraged and supported by a hostile foreign government (ours) engaged in attempts to destabilize and overthrow a democraticaly elected government.

With the US hegemon bogged down in the Middle East and its military stretched and stressed to the breaking point, Latin America is finally getting a chance to come out from under the Yankee boot heel. Chavez, Evo Morales and others in Latin America are reinventing socialism in the interests of the long suffering people of their countries. Good for them. An alternative to the reign of greed and theft the US and its loan shark institutions, the IMF and the World Bank, have been foisting on the Global South for too damned long.

If Hugo is "unpalatable" then surely Bush, Blair and Sarkozy must be pure poison.

It is not right to give a courageous leader a backhanded compliment. This Hugo is uncorrupted so far, and he has brought literacy to 90% of his people, basic health care to the masses, and universal primary school education within just 4 years or so working with Castro using the Cuban development model. He barters oil with Castro for medical care from Cuba's vaunted medical system. In the meanwhile, 50 million Americans are without medical insurance. Did you know that during the Pakistan earthquake about a couple of years ago that rendered millions homeless and without medical care, Cuba had the largest medical contingent of any nation working day and night in that bitter cold weather?

Chavez is "unpalatable" partly becuase he is not a Latino white but a genuine product of the majority of the majority "indio et negro" (in his own words) people in his country. He is smarter than the hedonistic, white oligarchs and their spoilt kin who used to rule with an iron fist on the poor. He has the charisma to pull off his Bolivarian Revolution. That scares the living daylights out of the remaining white oligarchs in Latin America and their corporatist soul mates in the US. Because, as Chomsky points out, he is setting a "bad example" for the Latin American masses, and which may prove to be infectious. That the Empire cannot stomach (hence "unpalatable").

In Chile, you had a genuine white social democrat who came to power by fair election but which the white oligarchy there with Pinochet at its helm, and voluble support from the US and its cronies in Europe assasinated. They want the same to happen to Chavez, and all those who write "I like Chavez, but he does not brush his teeth, or he smiles too much, and so forth and so on" are part of that same group who wish to destroy a social experiment of uplifting the poor that is succeeding. The only difference between the yahoos such as Falwell and these soft spoken neo-liberals is the tone of the criticism, not the substance.

Leave Hugo alone, and concentrate on the Beast of Empire if you are genuinely humane.

If an idea is worthy, it will stand on its own merits.

Please join the real world!

"Ideas" are chosen based on their "merit" in serving the wealthy and powerful. Those get shouted with the power of many millions of watts. Truly meritorious ideas are ignored or left to be debated in ignored corners of the internet like here.

This whole issue raises some interesting questions about the role of the media in society. The genocide in Rwanda could have been prevented if somebody would have been able to discipline some of these radio stations there and show them the responsible role and public function that the media is supposed to play in a society. FOX news in the U.S. is also utterly irresponsible as a media institution, but how to discipline an institution like that ? If people WANT to buy all this hate speech and other crap, there is nothing to stop them.
It is a slippery slope, but I don't blame Chavez for trying to discipline some of these media institutions. Recent history, for example Rwanda and the U.S., has shown that media institutions are not necessarily 'beacons of light and democracy' and can be as tyrannical as your worst despot.

Anyone remember Howard Stern and the fight with the FCC.

"It reminds me of something Lenny Bruce said. Something to the effect of "take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government'."

The media in this country is controlled by a facist Gov. who are we to be critics.

vinlander, you have been watching to much FOX..
I recommend to you the documentary, "The revolution will not be Televised".This documentary, is about the April 11, 2002, coup attempt against Chavez..
Their were two independent filmmakers that were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when he was forcibly removed from office. They were also
present 48 hours later when, remarkably, he returned to power.
Whoops, how did the CIA boys miss that one!

Here is the link to the website for the film. http://www.chavezthefilm.com/html/film/home_film.htm

Just imagine if, say, ABC News consistently made up stories about Bush; not just the routine Fox Newsy distortions and dodges about Dems that we're used to, but full-bore Weekly Reader stuff like the president is plotting to kill millions of innocent citizens in their sleep? Furthermore, what if they regularly gave a forum to people who wanted the president assassinated and showed image-manipulated videos of the president's supporters supposedly killing his opposition. If that happened, how long to you think ABC News would still be broadcasting in this country?

I saw Medea Benjamin of Code Pink "interviewed" by that idiot Tucker Carlson the other day. I put interviewed in quotation marks because it was really just a set-up to make Benjamin look like some sort of frothing nut endorsing another Castro in the making. He used the time-tested right-wing ploy of asking a question requiring a detailed answer, and then interrupting her with outraged shouting after she began to speak with such crapola as "So you don't think Venezuelans deserve a free press?" or "How can you defend a dictator?"

In my view, Tuck's crock didn't work. Even with multiple interruptions by Mr. Nitwit, Benjamin held her own and managed to explain that the TV station in question had been airing outright lies to foment an overthrow of Chavez's populist and democratically-elected government. Their parting shot, what brought the people into the streets, was airing a doctored videotape that supposedly showed Chavez supporters killing his opponents. No such thing ever happened, but that didn't matter to Fryer Yuck — he still grilled her like she was Stalin's ghost.

It seems that Chavez has been a thorn in Bush's side long enough. Now that the disinformation campaign is in full roar, how long before Our Glorous Leader gives the order to start bombing the presidential palace in the interest of "bringing liberty" to the poor Venezuelans — and pilfering their nationalized oil, of course.

Chavez is by no means perfect, but you have to have a soft spot for any world leader who'd stand up before the UN assembly and deliver a combination devil/fart joke to the world, complaining of smelling Bush's 'sulfur' from The Decider's visit the previous day.

Well Said Vince Lawrence, Voltaire and aymon!

Thanks for the education and the defense of truth.

Hey Bart Jones...So, your point is that the EVIL RCTV was trying a unseat President Chavez. Did they have an army? Did they use guns?

I'm aware of the powerful message of a network, but you failed to mention that the Venezuelan goverment has a TV station called VTV, the one that professes the point of view the Bolivarian revolution is doing in Venezuela. VTV is a Venezuelan version of FOX Network

So RCTV was against the Venezuelan government. What's wrong with dissent?

I guess to you it is OK and justifiable the closure of Radio Caracas Television , because Venezuela is a brown third world country. You BART JONES might not be so understanding and defending if George Bush decided to close NBC (to name a network). Of course, that scenario would be unthinkable, because after all, it would violate the freedom of speech of Americans, but in your mind, third world people shouldn't have the luxury to make up their minds.

Venezuelan's are way more sophisticated than you are trying to portrait. We are very conscious of what's going on in our country; we live in a dichotomy of having the urbanization and education of a first world country and the living conditions of a third world.

To silence a media outlet is dangerous for a 'democracy'. Look at Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Russia... but, oh yeah, you are telling us the reality and true story!

Venezuelans should have the option of believing what VTV or RCTV say. They should have the power to decided to go to the streets to support or dissent the Government.

I, too, wish to salute Aymon and Voltaire for making unimpeachable cases for the TRUTH with respect to Chavez and dis-information campaigns, in general. Good arguments, gentlemen!

soyyo wrote,

"You BART JONES might not be so understanding and defending if George Bush decided to close NBC (to name a network)."

Your comparison is ludicrous. NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CNN, and with few exceptions, so-called "public" PBS are all supportive and unquestioning of Bush's policies so of course Bush wouldn't shut any of them down. But if a future president shut them all down for the perfectly legal reason of failing to serve the public interest, I would fully support it. But as far as Bush shutting down potential sources of criticism, he doesn't have to, there is a very powerful system in place to prevent the rise of any effectvive media that would be critical of Bush, Imperialism, Corporations, or Capitalism.

You attempt to portray some kind of symmetry between criticism from the left and criticism from the right is nonsense. The right-wing media has all the power of the wealthy and corporations behind it, any media on the left -if it existed at all, would have to rely on whatever meager contributions the workers could give it.

I refer you to the writings of Chomsky and Herman.

"Of course, that scenario would be unthinkable, because after all, it would violate the freedom of speech of Americans"

Beyond ineffective, ignored fora like this one, Americans don't have any freedom of speech. People overheard merely flippantly threatening Bush have recieved visits from the FBI. People wearing antiwar T-shirts in a shopping mall have been arrested.

"Venezuelans should have the option of believing what VTV or RCTV say"

Even with RCTV no longer broadcasting (but still on cable and atellite) the Venezuelan media is overwhelming anti-Chavez.

finally, you attempts to portray our opinions on this issue as racist is so preposterous it doesn't deserve an answer. Is it not true that RCTV commentators often made racist comments regarding the Mestizo ancestry of Chavez and the Venezuelan poor?

One thing I have noticed: on these internet forums--whether right wing or left wing--whenever Chavez is the topic the nuts come out in full force.

It doesn't matter whether they are discontented venezolanos or gringos who have never set a foot outside the borders of the US--something about Chavez' freewheeling style releases the rabies in their systems and spews it out HERE.

I do not expect any politician to be a saint--or either, as we say here in Latin America, a little gold coin that everybody likes. What I admire about Chavez is his persistence (yes, Richard Nixon was persistent too so it is not necessary a virtue) at maintaining and promoting a positive attitude about the future of our species on this planet.

He is a good example of Gramsci's famous maxim, Pessimism of the intelligence and Optimism of the will. I respect that, as it just isn't that easy to maintain.

Especially when most of our species is committed to genocide against all other species and racism leading to the same genocidal madness against much of our own.

The bottom line here, is that the folks who are discontented with the president of Venezuela are primarily so because they FEEL (this is not a rational issue that one debates) that non-whites should not have power either over their own lives or those of others. It's a question of privilege: whites in Latin America have always assumed everything for themselves and nothing for anyone with brown or black skin.

And that assumption has always been held hypocritically--stemming primarily from the Catholic Church's still huge influence here which was made obvious--and about which Chavez COMPLAINED two weeks ago--when Benedict XVI, the latest honcho of what Fernando Vallejo (colombiano, naturalized mexicano a month or so ago) calls La puta de Babilonia, had the AUDACITY to claim that the indigenous folks in this hemisphere had just been sitting around waiting to receive the Catholic religion through the barrel of a rifle (the invasion of Iraq to impose Christianity and democracy sounds so similar that it could have happened in the 16th century), and that no abuses were committed against them.

Chavez was right to demand an apology and the pope hemmed and hawed and did his usual dance saying that he had been misinterpreted--just like he did when he threatened to excommunicate the bureacrats and legislators in Mexico City a week before that because the Assembly passed a law permitting abortion.

None of this RCTV nonsense has anything to do with free speech. Again, it's about privilege--the committment of the criollo to the belief that only HE should have anything to say about his interests--and everybody else´s.

It's too bad that there are still so many folks here in Venezuela committing themselves to conflict as a lifestyle and stridency as a form of expression. It's the tragedy of Latin American societies--the most unequal on the planet--writ large.

Don't forget, before Chavez came to power, these oligarch medias were in bed with the right wing regimes, not unlike the 4th column here in the US in their coordinated propaganda campaign on pushing for the start of practically all wars. Those oligarch medias were just pissed off that their partner in cahoot were elected out of office, thereby continued their part of business as usual or running the country while at the same time trying to bring back a willing partner in the president's office.

Lets also not forget that the not renewing of RCTV's license is not some trick Chavez pulled out of his hat. It was the law that predates him and he was just following its process.

I do think that Chavez should not have shut down the station. He should have had put all the perpetrators of the coup on trail for treason, including all the stations and the people behind it that were involved.

Don't forget the genocide in Rwanda, where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not give amnesty to the private radio station operators such as Radio Machete that incited the Hutus to kill all the Tutsis. Hate journalists were still convicted of genocide and sent to jail.

Voltaire and Aymon miss the point.

Of COURSE Chavez is at this point preferable to the Bush administration. Of course The World Bank and Empire are more worthy objects of criticism than Venezuela.

But censorship and the stifling of journalistic free speech - even biased opposition free speech - ESPECIALLY opposition speech - is dangerous and problematic, especially when coming from a centralized government.

Chavez is still worthy of support, but he is sending up big red flags.

Chavez is not infallible. The progressive community should be wary about any powerful politician suppressing opposition speech.

Answer to PJD:

Well, PJD, I'm glad that though you considered my opinion at some point too "preposterous it doesn't deserve an answer", you still managed to dissect it.

That's the beauty of pluralism. I'm not anti Chavez, my friend. I am a Venezuelan as mestizo, as he is. I do not belong to the "oligarquia". I lived in UD3, Caricuao, Caracas. Not many people would admit that. I do.

My point is that regardless which side of the spectrum one is, plurality is what we have to agree on.

There's a lot of good stuff Chavez has brought to Venezuela. I and my family see that. Specially my sisters, who as single mothers have been able to gain more power as human being in the Venezuelan society.

Do I support RCTV? I didn't even watch it!
Do I support "la oligarquia imperialista"? Of course not!
Do I have the right as a human being decide what RCTV, Venevision, Globovision or VTV report is correct? OF Course!!!

My comment is not about embracing or repudiating Chavez. It's about plurality. Every country, every community needs to have a balance between support and discent.

And if you think that all those marching, protesting in Caracas, San Antonio, Charallave, Barquisimeto and other cities, are the manority from the priviledge "oligarquia"... Good for you!

Come to Venezuela and join the Bolivarian Revolution!!

"One thing I have noticed: on these internet forums–whether right wing or left wing–whenever Chavez is the topic the nuts come out in full force."

Actually what I notice, on left sites anyway, is that after a delay of several hours to a day, where there is general agreement with the article in discussion, the trolls then all come out of the woodwork. They seem to have some kind of alert network. In many cases I suspect they misrepresent themselves.

So, why don't we on the left have similar troll-action networks for right-wing sites? Well one problem is that right wing sites aggressively ban contrary views, no matter how (or particularly if they are) well-reasoned. Also, considering even the mainstream is pretty right-wing these days, we would be spending all our time on just the Wash. Post, NYT, or local TV station sites. Finally, the left seem to be prone to too much honesty and integrity to engage in such "dirty tricks". Maybe we have to gt over the latter.

radicaljesuslover:
You said it all. You have you dogmas such as FREESPEECH in one word. You have another dogma that FREEDOM is what YOU think freedom is. You have yet another dogma that centralized government is some elementary concept and the subject of further clarification.

You pay lip service that "The World Bank and Empire are more worthy objects of criticism than Venezuela" as if World Bank and even Empire may be judged in ABSOLUTE terms not depending on in whose interests they operate; world evil almost slipped to my keyboard.

I understand that this space does not allow for expansive tractates, but one can tell cliché when one see it.

Don't take it personally, you are not alone; and I would be the last one to blame you. Superficiality of last three generations of educators planted cliché based "civilization", which brought about its lethal fruits.

soyyo:
"It's about plurality." My knowledge of 2002 coup d'état is limited. However, in my frame of reference the immediate support to it given by otherwise inept Bush Administration and particularly by Condoleezza Rice, make it plausible that coup was supported if not inspired by the USA. In mathematics it is called prove by induction.
If that is the case then freedom of speech for RCTV is freedom to falsely cry FIRE in crowded theater.

By the way freedom of warmongering was punishable crime in former Soviet Union. Well, nothing came good out of 1917 Russian Revolution, as they say. But I don't think so. And I suspect neither do you.

I question the motives as to why anyone would dissent against Chavez. Why are there some Venezuelans who can't stand him? What is wrong with him? Tell me please? I want to learn where dissent against Chavez is coming from in Venezuela and why. Of course, I am hoping these dissenters will tell me the truth. Honestly, the ones who are against Chavez and his nationalistic policies are the ones who are screwed over the most financially since his election. After all, he stands for the poor and the working class and not rich people - who stop at nothing to make the majority in a society suffer I must note. Under Chavez "the rich," "the financially well off" do not have that luxury. Those who are against Chavez are the ones who are agaisnt altruism. That is my assumption and it is only an assumption. So tell me, every Venezuelan who is pro RCTV, why is what Chavez did morally wrong? Tell me upper class wealthy people? I wager that Chaveaz is making the point that millionaires and billionaires are scum of the Earth for all the BS they do to make poor people's lives even worse. It's payback time to me and I think Chavez symbolizes that.

Soyyo,

Thanks for the clarification. You should know that our views of the Venezuelan media are influenced by the situation in the USA where there is very little diversity of opinion. The mainstream media, both its' news and entertainment is uniformly pro-corporate oligarchy, pro-war, pro-imperialism, pro-Zionist, even (in the case of FOX) pro-torture. It it's programming and advertising, promotes the basest instincts of greed and selfishness over compassion and solidarity. And they have been wildly successful. As Cindy Sheehan implied in her resignation message, USAns are largely a passive, brainwashed, profoundly ignorant lot.

The space for dissent is almost nonexsistent - the Pacifica network - 5 radio stations over the entire continent - some programming on low-power college stations, and internet "samizat" like this site. That's it.

You may think what I just wrote is exaggeration or hyperbole; it is not.

In such an environment, the shutting down of network broadcasters transmitters could only promote freedom of expression. It would be is comparable to, say Soviet dissidents shutting down Isvesta; would anyone call that an affront to free expression?

Maybe we are mistaken, but we assume the same situation exists in Venezuela, except that the Bolivarian movement has somehow been able to bypass it and obtain power. We are quite envious of this; it would be impossible here.

So, we also assume that that with RCTV on-air broadcasts gone, there will still be plenty of right-wing news and opinion, but there will now be some space for non-corporate opinion besides Chavez Speeches and the government TV network.

Maybe we are wrong in these assumptions, and you can clarify the matter.

At least the truth made it into the back pages of the LA Times. While I hesitate at the thought of shutting down any private owned media, if Chavez had a case within the law he should have held the individuals responsible and had them executed for treason. This type of disinformation is what the US and EU are supporting though.

"Would a network that aided and abetted a coup against the government be allowed to operate in the United States? The U.S. government probably would have shut down RCTV within five minutes after a failed coup attempt — and thrown its owners in jail. Chavez's government allowed it to continue operating for five years, and then declined to renew its 20-year license to use the public airwaves. It can still broadcast on cable or via satellite dish."

Sadly we still have FoxNews.

Oops, my last post was a re-writing of the previous one after I thought it failed to post. I'll leave it be...

And neoconned, unlike the US, Venezuela is among the civilized majority of the world's countries which regard the death penalty as barbaric. They abolished the death penalty long ago.

Yep, there sure is a need for pluralism in Venezuela--where over 80% of the media are owned by the opposition to the government.

To this poster, pluralism would mean getting that number down to 50%--which did not happen with the RCTV non-renewal--and other channel owners were renewed. Including Globovision, which has picked up the space left by RCTV to propagandize for the opposition position (which is only being against Chavez, nothing more) and call for overthrowing the government and murdering the president. Don't tell me that I don't know what I am writing about as within 4 feet of me is a t.v. set with Globovision on it right now!

All cultures in Latin America are FEELING-dominant cultures (in Jungian terms)--which means that decision-making is made right up front on an emotional basis. Being part of a feeling culture is a good thing--it means there is a street life, there is music everywhere, people don't guard their personal space the way they do in THINKING-dominant cultures. It also means that folks can be manipulated at the feeling base--and that analysis and classical debate are simply not part of the decision-making process.

The US leaders have been doing as much as possible to change the dominance in the US to feeling as well--primarily by instilling FEAR. Given the complete lack of meaningful debate in the US now--even in the two houses of congress--the US government has been having some success.

Lots of good stuff happens here in Venezuela--but the opposition has consistently used the FEAR FACTOR to mobilize folks--with crap on the order of the chavistas being ready to go to the wealthy communities and kill the people that live there, that private property will be abrogated, that folks will lose their money.

Absolutely criminal! Venezuela' economy has been booming for more than 3 years now--the highest growth in the hemisphere, among the highest in the world (well more than 10% per year--hell, in Mexico folks would kill to see 2%--but the Internal Brute Product has been zero over the past 6 years--and since inflation has NOT been zero, that means the reality is red numbers)--and the highest sector of growth is not the PUBLIC sector, but the PRIVATE sector.

That means that these opposition oligarchs want to have their cake and complain they don't have it at the same time.

They are also gulible eough to believe that the Bushites are going to invade Venezuela and give THEM back the petroleum revenues they pocketed for years.

Fat chance!

Wow, this blog is the home of paranoia.

Among so many opinions, most of you ignore one of the few proven facts, Chavez did (failed) a coup.

If you dislike mdeia moguls, oligarchs, imperialsts, corporate america, leave this country and enjoy the paradise in Cuba, You must learn what happen when no media mogul, no corporate america own media, but the goverment in the name of "the people". No "common dream blogs", no open discussion of ideas.

There are still some ill minds talking about "false freedom of speech"

I cannot forgive you, just for talking about what you do not have a clue. True dictatorship is born out of such mindset, I hope they just keep a minoriy in this country. For the sake of the freedom

..and FYI, 3000 death people blamed to Pinochet is a piece of cake compared to what Fidel did in Cuba.

For the demential leftist killing is OK when the victim is a person who disagree.

As the leftist Icon Che Guevara once said in his "Message to the Tricontinental": "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine."

cheguevara,

The number of people killed in Latin American leftist struggles is absolutely NOTHING compared to the number of people killed by capitalists - by the systems normal workings in addition to the (south to north) Argentine Junta (tens of thousands) the Brazil Junta (thousands) Pinochet (thousands) Andres-Perez in Venezuela (thousands) US-sponsored Colombian death Squads (Tens of thousasnds) the US invasions of Panama most recently in 1989 (3-4000), Nicaragua under Somoza and later the CIA-trained contra thugs (tens of thousands) El Salvador under the CIA death squads (tens of thousands), Guatamala under Rios Montt (thousands). Most of all this stuff took place with generous assistance of the USA.

Now what bad things did Castro do? Closed a bunch of gangster's casinos and night clubs? Imprisoned and executed some people who with US help, had attempted to murder him?

And Chavez's coup attempt (against the hated Andres-Perez) is irrelevant since he was subsequently elected, but there is nothing wrong with staging a "coup" (also called a revolution) against a tyrant, as the Sandinistas did against Somoza and Castro did against Batista.

And, as far as Che quote, didn't US hero Gen. George Patton say about the same thing, and doesn't every Marine get indoctrinated to "hate the enemy" in boot camp?

The democratic capitalistic system that has enriched and freed Americans??
What about the indigous peoples of the Americas are they free? Spend some time on the res

independentmind, you must be talking about a WELL REGULATED capitolistic system because right now that is not what we have, and we're getting screwed. Our median income has dropped by over $2000/year in the last 5 years, and a study shows that the purchasing power of today's median income (just over $43,000) compared to that of 1970 is the equivalent of earning only just over $22.000. Capitolism run amok is ruining our lives. Back then, we had a large and vibrant middle class. Now a large percentage of that middle class has turned into the working poor. And God forbid they get sick or they will join the ranks of the homeless. And this doesn't include the costs of college, health care, our deteriorating infrastructure, the raiding of the Social Security Trust Fund to conceal the reality of the deficit. And I haven't even started on the condition of our public health care system, or that after the billions spent on 'Homeland Security" our first responders STILL can't even talk to each other. Capitolism? It needs to be on a leash.

And Voltaire, your comment back at the beginning of this discussion had it upside down. It's public policy that doesn't dissent from the media viewpoint.

I urge everyone to go to www.nationalinitiative.us and register to become citizen legislators and then we can make our country what it should be, with the citizens writing and voting on laws. Read about it and send it around.