Liberals Silent On Fascist Dictator
It's amazing at how silent the Liberals and the Mainstream Media are over the recent despotic actions of a Fascist Dictator. I am speaking of course of Hugo Chavez and his decision to close the only remaining TV station in Venezuala which offers any criticism of his policies. And not only that, but his action comes in direct opposition to the wishes of 70% of Venezualans. The results have been days of rioting in Caracas Venezuala which have gone largely unnoticed here in the United States.
How can this be? It is unfathomable! If George Bush had closed merely ONE TV station in the United States which criticized his policies (let alone the LAST & ONLY station), there would be outrage! There would be protests! There would be strikes! There would be non-stop news reports from ALL the remaining stations and print outlets! Conservatives would join with Liberals to raise "holy hell"!
So how is it that we hear almost nothing of such things as this particular ARTICLE at Channel 4 News (UK)...
RIOTING IN CARACAS OVER TV STATION CLOSURE
Police in the Venezuelan capital Caracas are braced for further trouble this evening after two nights of rioting sparked by the closure of a popular television station. The opposition is accusing the government of President Hugo Chavez of censorship over the decision to revoke RCTV's licence, as Guillermo Galdos reports from Caracas. Some 53 years of broadcasting came to an end in just a few seconds at the main offices of RCTV in Caracas. Journalists, producers, actors and technical staff gathered inside the station to give an emotional farewell to the viewers. Outside the channel, bullets were fired during clashes between supporters and opponents of the governments decision not to renew RCTVs license.
It was the end of a tense weekend in Caracas. One poll found that more than 70% of Venezuelans were against the governments move, which RCTV and human rights groups say limits freedom of expression in the country. But followers of Chavez believe his revolution needs defending on the streets and through the media...
Read more HERE.
This is a flagrant attack on the 'Freedom of Speech' and 'Freedom of the Press'. Even FoxNews noticed how silent such bastions of First Amendment Rights like the New York Times have been on this issue...
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO.
The answer is unfortunately all too obvious. The New York Times and other liberal media outlets refuse to play up the fascist, anti-democratic policies of dictators like Hugo Chavez, because Chavez is a "SOCIALIST" fascist. Hugo Chavez is a "SOCIALIST" dictator. Hugo Chavez is a "SOCIALIST" tyrant. Hugo Chavez is a "SOCIALIST" criminal. That gives him a pass with the Mainstream Media... that and the fact that he is an anti-Bush fanatic [just like them].
So, for the New York Times and the other silent media outlets, it must be OK to squash 'Freedom of the Press' and 'Freedom of Speech'... so long as it's a "SOCIALIST" that's doing it. It must be OK to squash 'Freedom of the Press' and 'Freedom of Speech'... so long as it's not happening in THIS country.
What hypocrites! What partisans! What frauds! What scum!
posted by Hawkeye® -- Tuesday, May 29, 2007
26 Comments
26 Comments:
S.S.D.D. Y'know?
Sad...
The silence was deafening in Indianapolis. They were too busy painting a "happy face" on Milko Duna's entry into the Indy 500 as the third female in the race this year.
Pay no attention to the FACT that her sponsor was Citgo-----owned by "none other than".
Again, nothing but complete partisan trash coming from you Hawkeye.
In case you have forgotten, liberals are not the ones carrying around the agenda of spreading democracy and freedom around the world. Why haven't the neo-cons, with their grand notion of bringing American-style freedom and democracy to the rest of planet earth, said anything about Chavez's shennenigans?
Where are Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, etc.. when you need them to speak up?
Oh wait, maybe it is because they have been bitch-slapped so badly by the Iraq experiment that they figured it might be wise to tone down the spreading democracy rhetoric.
WCL,
No response from the Bush administration?
The U.S. State Department Tuesday called on the Chávez government "to reverse policies that limit freedom of expression."
"Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey in a written statement. "It is an essential element of democracy anywhere in the world. And we certainly call on the government of Venezuela to abide by its commitments under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Inter-American Democratic Charter and to reverse these policies that they're pursuing to limit freedom of expression."
In case you have forgotten, liberals are not the ones carrying around the agenda of spreading democracy and freedom around the world...
Ohh, that's right. Liberals are the ones that carry around an agenda of diminishing democracy and freedom around the world! I get it now.
[Silly me]
he MSM's silence on this does not surprise me;it's expected. How about the famously critical Human Rights Watch? Have they anything to say or are they only critical of US policies?
hawkeye,
Please tell me you are kidding. I mean, come on, give me a break.
Ever heard of the saying "talk is cheap"? The Bush Administration offering a statement that "calls on" Venezuela to abide by certain rules will make as much of an impact as Bush's puppy taking a crap in the Rose Garden will in detering Al Qaeda from attacking the White House.
Cut out the horseshit. Any idiot knows that even if Chavez were to pee on the American flag everyday, there is NOTHING America can do to him.
America right now is like a wounded elephant lying flat on the ground with injuries in all 4 limbs. Any mouse can come up and bite the elephant in the ass and there is NOTHING the elephant can do to it.
If President Bush were a less moral person,he could drop a "big one" little on on that fat little rat and destroy the whold country of Venezuela,and there would be nothing anyone COULD or WOULD do. Oh the dems would get on there high horses and talk tough ,but they couldn't DO anything.
Hi Barb,
You might want to note that smoking too much pot is hazarous to your health.
Bush can't do SHIT to Venezuela with the exception of nuking it. The nuke option is too extreme an option for even the craziest right-wing nut jobs to contemplate, hence there really is nothing Bush or America can do.
You might want to face reality and wake up from your delusion that America is still some great superpower that can do whatever it wants. The US military can't even control the insurgents and militia in Iraq. Take out the entire country of Venezuela? Give me a break.
Nobody rioted in the streets when they took property away from big bad oil. That was okay. Didn't they see it coming. They just kept on giving him rights, and it was fine when it was those bad gringo corporations. Well, the chicken came home to roost.
Oh Hawkeye®, calm down old man! You’ve been watching too much Hannity again! RCTV was NOT the only opposition TV station, the others are still there, and Chavez did not close it down – he merely declined to renew its licence, and with good reason. It had broken the law – you believe in the rule of law don’t you? – and had actively participated in an unlawful coup against a legal and democratically elected government.
If NBC had done the same against Bush as RCTV did against Chavez, they would probably lose their licence too, and you would probably support that.
It’s their law, buddy, and RCTV broke it. If you really care about what is going on you might care to read these:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5792
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1941
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=413116
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0604/p09s01-coop.html?page=1
And when, oh when are you going to work out the difference between fascist and socialist? And elected leader and dictator? And what Fascism actually is? You're not stupid Hawkeye®, you ca read – please, you've got to get this bit straight!
And Barb, dropping atomic bombs on countries because you might disagree with its domestic media policies is not, on the whole, considered a particularly effective method of spreading Freedom and Democracy™. And it’s not Bush’s ‘morality’ that prevents him from pressing the button – it is the few saner heads that prevail in the Pentagon.
Cheers
Elroy
PS I can't believe you missed Hannity in Hawaii!
Beerme,
Yes, even Human Rights Watch condemned Chavez.
Mig,
Correctomundo!
Elroy,
You crack me up. You speak as if the Liberal Media in the U.S. has NOT been attempting a coup against the Bush administration for the last 5 or 6 years. What then would you call it? And don't tell me it's "reporting the facts". There are several studies which show how biased the media is against the present administration.
The use of disingenuous information and outright lies to perform political attacks is not limited to the media in Venezuela. If there's any difference between the U.S. and Venezuela, it is that the "coup" attempt here does not promote violence. Instead they promote 'regime change' through use of the ballot box, impeachment, or resignation. They still use the same methods to obtain the same results.
Adolf Hitler was an "elected leader" as well as a "National Socialist", yet he was clearly a dictator. I know a dictator when I see one.
Oh dear, Hawkeye®!
I really wonder about you guys sometimes! How many times must I say this! The media is NOT in the clutches of Godless liberals! I’ve spelled this out to you over and over again! I’ve quoted St. Limbaugh, St. Coulter and a few other of your crew on the subject who say the same thing! I’ve explained the power structures of modern media, yet you blithely ignore it all. Why? I can only assume that it would hurt, nay, wreck your agenda. If the ‘Lib’rul meeeja’ ain’t lying’, if it was telling the truth, then your playhouse would indeed be torn down.
For every ‘study’ that whines that the media is in the clutches of godless commies, there are more that prove it is not. You crack ME up! The media have not been attempting a ‘coup’ against the Bush administration – the simple fact is that the Bush administration is not up to the task and the media they have been reporting this. It’s pretty hard to miss the malfeasance of Bush and his crew, who as usual benefit from ’the soft bigotry of low expectations’ but personally, I think they have been soft on Bush; there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t make the front page that should.
You really need to hit the dictionary a little harder. What do we call a ‘coup’ carried out lawfully at the ballot box? An ‘election’!
What do we call an election carried out by a self-appointed
‘leader’ under arms who seizes power in a unilateral violent action? A ‘coup!’ So what is the US media advocating? An ‘election’! Very good!
You really ought to think your positions through a little harder. You whine that Chavez has stifled Freedom™ of speech by closing down a TV station that criticized him (he didn’t – he merely did not renew their terrestrial license – their cable and satellite operations go on as normal) but go ape when a TV station criticizes YOUR Dear Leader! (Oh and what was the first thing the coup leaders did? Shut down the pro-Chavez TV stations! Not much outrage from you then, was there?)
Don’t forget: some sections of the US media, but by no means all, may recommend that the Democrats be elected next year, but that is their right in a pluralist democracy. They are not agitating against Bush because Bush cannot run again (another gaping hole in your argument). Most importantly, they have not advocated, nor actively participated in, a violent coup action against the current administration.
You say that the media use ‘disingenuous information and outright lies’ to perform political attacks’. Would you care to give some examples? And whose administration is filling up the jails with liars and corrupt officials? Um, that would be…Bush’s!
You speak as if the Constitution means nothing to you. It allows for impeachment, and in many, many peoples opinion, Bush has committed some impeachable offences. If Republicans are happy to impeach Clinton for having sex with a consenting adult, then I don’t see that they have much of an argument if the Democrats want to impeach Bush for actually breaking the law, and no one but Bush can resign and no one can make him. Get a grip.
So look, the US corporate media use different methods to RCTV to obtain different results. Try reading those links I sent you, if you can bear to. They might hurt, however, because they contain information that might be contrary to your point of view, and we couldn’t have that clouded by truth now, could we?
And for the record, Hitler was NOT a socialist, and was NOT elected leader. The Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. John Howard, is the leader of the very conservative Liberal Party but is he a liberal in the sense that you recognize the term? No. And Hitler came to power by political wrangling inside the German democratic process but was never elected leader in a outright majority, unlike Chavez who has pulled this off three times.
You clearly do not know a dictator when you see one Hawkeye®, you only think you can see one when Sean Hannity shows you where he thinks one is. However, if you properly understood the true nature of Fascism you might recognize it closer to home. Do some more reading. Open your mind. Dare to be wrong.
Cheers
Elroy
Elroy of Elwood,
Nice try, but wrong again. Much (though not all) of the U.S. media is INDEED "in the clutches of Godless liberals". See here...
Wikipedia
UCLA
Media Research
Fight The Bias
Some notable quotes from the above...
Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist
almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co-author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.
Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.
ONLY Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.
The academic study cited most frequently by critics of a "liberal media bias" in American journalism is "The Media Elite", a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter. They surveyed journalists at national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the broadcast networks. The survey which found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters whose attitudes were well to the left of the general public on a variety of topics...
Many of the positions in the preceding study are supported by a 2002 study by Jim A. Kuypers: "Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues".
Kuypers found that the press injected opinion into its news coverage of other issues such as welfare reform, environmental protection, and gun control; in all cases favoring a liberal point of view.
According to Dan Sutter of the University of Oklahoma, a systematic liberal bias in the U.S. media could depend on the fact that owners and/or journalists typically lean to the left.
John Lott and Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute study the coverage of economic news by looking at a panel of 389 U.S. newspapers... For each release of official data about a set of economic indicators, the authors analyze how newspapers decide to report on them, as reflected by the tone of the related headlines... Controlling for the economic data being released, the authors find that there are between 9.6 and 14.7 percent fewer positive stories when the incumbent President is a Republican.
Riccardo Puglisi of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looks at the editorial choices of the New York Times from 1946 to 1997. He finds that the Times displays Democratic partisanship
OK, enough from the intelligensia at the universities. Now, concerning the definition of the word "coup", I will admit that you are perhaps correct (God help me). I was unaware that the term "coup" implies violence, or a sudden single stroke (as in "coup d'etat" or "coup de grace"). I have seen the word used by others (I assume incorrectly) in the context of 'regime change' through subterfuge, subversion, or sabotage (none of which would necessarily be considered a violent or sudden stroke. So... 'Touche', as they say.
Nevertheless ("Mr. Picky"), none of this contradicts my contention that the Liberal Media has been seeking 'regime change' since 2003. We were in Iraq less than a month and the media was calling it a 'quagmire'. Gimme a break! Call it a coup... call it an intrigue... call it subversion... call it sabotage... call it what you will. The majority of the media in this country despises George W. Bush (and no doubt you do too). They frame the news they way they want to. If it looks good for Bush, they downplay it or ignore it. If it looks bad for Bush, they highlight it and run it over and over again. I've seen good economic news headlined in such a way as to make the reader think we just entered the next Depression! I've seen positive news from Iraq "qualified" by follow-ups with a listing of every car bombing and soldier's death that occurred in the previous month. But RARELY have I seen a simple reporting of the unbiased facts.
And if you think Bush has committed impeachable offenses, then there is no use in any further communication because you my friend, must be way off the deep end... I draw the line at arguing with delusional schizophrenics.
And thank you for proving my point. You say that Adolf Hitler was NOT a socialist. Agreed. But he called himself a NAZI (i.e., short for the "National Socialist" party). My point being that you can call yourself a "socialist" while really being a "fascist". Hugo Chavez can call himself a "socialist" all he wants to, but that does not make it so. He acts like a fascist.
And yes, Adolf Hitler WAS elected. He and the NAZIs participated in 7 elections between 1924 and 1933, ultimately gaining 43.9% of the seats in the Reichtag. It was the single largest political party in Germany at the time. It is true that Hitler was appointed Chancellor by von Hindenburg. And it is true that Hitler "grabbed" power when von Hindenburg died. However, it must be remembered that he was approved as "Führer und Reichskanzler" through a national plebiscite by a majority of 84.6% of the electorate only days after taking power. (They could have voted "NO" if they wanted to.)
"Dare to be wrong"??? Take your own challenge, Doofus.
OK, now you’ve done the reading to feed your predujices, how about doing some reading to challenge them? Pick one or more from the list below:
What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock
The Problem of the Media: U. S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Robert W. McChesney
Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason
When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences by Eric Alterman
The Republican Noise Machine : Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy by David Brock
Breaking The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy by James Fallows
The Future Of Media: Resistance And Reform In The 21st Century by Robert W. McChesney
The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communication by Paul Starr
Media Control, Second Edition: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (Open Media Series) by Noam Chomsky
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media (Open Media Series) by John Nichols
Or go to:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/alterman2
http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/myths.html
Good luck! Have fun!
Thanks for admitting you were wrong on the definition of ‘coup’; see, that didn’t hurt, did it?
Now, you have to recognize that the notion of an unbiased media is fairly new. When the printing press was invented it was very expensive, and so published works very often reflected the views of the owners of the presses.
Newspapers during the America Civil War printed all manner of outrageous stuff on both sides and Abraham Lincoln closed plenty of them down; the Hearst presses pretty much started the American – Spanish War and so it goes.
The twentieth century saw the birth of the idea of objective reporting, where journalists sought to keep personal views out of it, but the Murdoch era has blown that apart. Murdoch has dragged the standards back to that of the 19th Century Hearst ‘yellow journalism’, where anything and everything goes.
This idea that media is hostage to a liberal agenda sounds to me like paranoia. The simple and inescapable fact is that, no matter what the reporter might think, it is the media’s corporate ownership that matters, and what liberal media does exist is so hounded by right-wing nutbags that they practice self-censorship.
However, the list of conservative hacks waiting in the wings to jump on the media’s liberal transgressions is pretty hefty; they have banished, or claim to have banished, Rosie O’Donnell from the airwaves for having the temerity to express her opinions and her 1st Amendment Rights.
The Right seem to spend an inordinate amount of time screeching and fretting over what the perceive to be a lefty bias yet they have plenty of hit-men everywhere, ready to spring into action whenever a breach of THEIR standards is thought to have occurred.
The irony that this discussion started because you were outraged that a news outlet got shut down because it dared to critisize a government seems to have escaped you – in your world it is not so much IF you critisize that WHO you critisize, so which is it to be, Hawkeye®; are you going to protect ALL media, or just the elements you agree with?
Another element is simple denial. Did it ever occur to you that bad news about the war, about the economy, about the Bush administration is published because the news is bad? I cannot for the life of me work out why the litany of disasters eminating daily from the WH does not worry you, or how you can think it is all made up. Hello? Maybe there is something not so good happening? Maybe you should consider that the truth has a
liberal bias, that the truth is just something you can’t handle.
You might prefer the media to merely regurgitate WH press releases, but I prefer to read and watch a wide amount of views, but then I do not suffer from delusional paranoia. But understand, truth is subjective; it is nearly impossible to have completely objective reporting and I don’t really think you would want it anyway – it would certainly mean the end of Sean Hannity.
We are grown adults and we should be able to read between the lines and judge what is merely partisan spin and what is possibly true; critical thought, Hawkeye® – they used to teach it in schools.
(If you want to see repression of press freedom in the USA in action, you might want to take a look at this: http://911blogger.com/node/9191 but you probably won’t)
In regard to impeachment, there are a lot of serious and qualified people that honestly think there are grounds for same. They are not schizophrenics (You really need to pop back to your dictionary), they are trained professionals. If I were you, I’d be worried; after all, the Republicans went after Bubba, at a time of war, for a whole lot less. (Just so you can keep an open mind on the subject, read this: http://www.impeachbush.org/site/News2
page=NewsArticle&id=5054&news_iv_ctrl=1061
And I did not prove your point on Hitler and Chavez. We agree that Hitler was not a Socialist and that he was a Fascist, but it does not neccarsarily follow that Chavez is a Fascist just because he is a Socialist. This would be a logical fallacy. If A is really B, it does not mean that all As are really Bs.
(For an elegant and insightful definition of Fascism, see: http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html )
With regards to Hitler’s election, it must be noted that the plebicite came after the Reichstag building was set on fire onFebruary 27, 1933, the German Communist Party and other groups were suppressed, Communist functionaries and deputies were arrested, put to flight, murdered, subjected to paramilitary violence, anti-Communist hysteria and the government's resources for propaganda, the Enabling Act was passed, which allowed for deviations from the constitution and vested the cabinet with legislative powers for a period of four years, the remaining political opposition was suppressed while all other political parties dissolved themselves, labour unions were merged with employers' federations into an organisation under Nazi control and the autonomy of German state governments was abolished, the Night of the Long Knives occurred where opponents unconnected with the SA were also murdered, notably Gregor Strasser and former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, Hitler's cabinet passed a law proclaiming the presidency dormant following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg 2 August 1934 which transferred the role and powers of the head of state to Hitler as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor) which made him supreme commander of the military.
Now, having used intimidation, murder and false flag operations to bypass the constitution and consolidate the power of the executive, the military and legislature into the office` of Furher, let us consider the reasons why he would, after seven failed attempts, managed to finally achieve an 84% victory.
1.The German people eventually realized that Hitler was indeed the best thing for them, did a John Howard style back-flip and voted for him in droves.
2. The German people were terrified.
3. The Nazis made it up.
Given the skullduggery he needed to get up to to reach the eighth election I’m going to rule out option 1 and use it to point toward option 2, however, option 3 is my favourite. The rigged election is a hallmark of Fascist regimes, and unlike Chavez, before you pull that trick, Hitler had no international observers to verify the result. Who would argue with him?
When Saddam Hussien claimed similar results you would have said he was lying yet you seem willing to believe Hitler? Yeah, that’s possibly not the best way to advance your argument.
As regards to RCTV, your silence is telling; does this mean you have discovered the truth of the matter and realized your hysterics may have been a little overdone?
Challenge accepted and completed!
Cheers
Elroy
Elroy,
so which is it to be, Hawkeye®; are you going to protect ALL media, or just the elements you agree with?...
ALL of it, naturally. I have no problem with the fact that some media outlets are liberal and some are conservative. When I point out that most lean left, you deny it.
Did it ever occur to you that bad news about the war, about the economy, about the Bush administration is published because the news is bad?...
Of course I do. Indeed, I have said that due to the leftist leanings of the media, and the fact that there is a conservative in the White House, the media seems to report ONLY the bad news. There is however, good news out there too. You are simply not aware of that fact because the media does not report it.
Maybe you should consider that the truth has a liberal bias...
How many times do I have to tell you? "Truth" is unbiased. "Truth" is a set of facts which are immutable. PEOPLE are biased. And ALL people have opinions, bias, and prejudices. Journalists are people. Reporters are people. News anchors are people. Newspaper publishers are people. Therefore, ALL media is biased... to claim otherwise is naive. It is simply a matter of degree. Some people try to be less biased. Some people make no bones about being biased. Let's just agree that ALL people are biased and all reporting is biased to a certain degree. Failure to report good news is a decision based on bias... even if the source of that bias is the notion that "bad news sells, but good news does not". That's a bias based on monetary considerations.
In regard to impeachment, there are a lot of serious and qualified people that honestly think there are grounds for same. They are not schizophrenics...
Perhaps. But since I do not include you in that group, I choose to think of YOU as a schizophrenic (i.e., seriously delusional).
We agree that Hitler was not a Socialist and that he was a Fascist, but it does not neccarsarily follow that Chavez is a Fascist just because he is a Socialist...
Of course not. That's not what I said. I said that Hitler labeled himself a Socialist but yet was a fascist and a dictator. I am saying that likewise because Chavez labels himself a Socialist does not make it so. Despite whatever jargon or rhetoric he may use (even if it is the socialist brand), he is acting like a dictator and a fascist. It's not the words that count, it's the deeds. "You shall know a tree by its fruits".
let us consider the reasons why (Hitler) would, after seven failed attempts, managed to finally achieve an 84% victory...
In reality, Hitler and the Nazis were successful in the seventh election. Out of a field of literally dozens of parties, the Nazis received 43% of the vote. They were in fact the single most successful party that ran. According to German law however, a party needed to have more than 50% of the vote to be an outright winner. Without a simple majority, a coalition between two or more parties was required to govern. And this is what in fact happened. Since the Nazis had such a large portion of the vote, they were able to dictate terms to any coalition partner.
Regarding your 3 options, you might consider a 4th... that is, that the German people really liked Hitler and the Nazis (perhaps as much as the Venezuelans "love" Chavez). If you suggest that the Nazis made it up, then I can likewise suggest that Chavez is making it up. Fair is fair. By the way, the plebiscite occurred only days after Hitler's power grab. It's not like there was a lot of time to do election rigging. And I'm sure you've seen the movies of Hitler in the stadium with tens of thousands of cheering fans. It was real admiration. I've spoken to people who were there.
As regards to RCTV, your silence is telling...
What is it telling you, oh Great Karnak? I read some of the stuff in your links, but since most of it appears to be written by left-leaners like yourself, I am forced to take it with a grain of salt. The New York Times has been subverting our War on Terror by exposing classified information about top secret programs which is akin to treason... but you don't see GWB shutting them down do you? (Not that I would mind, grant you.) But let's get real... Chavez didn't renew their license because they disagree with what he has to say, not some past coup attempt. The coup thing was just an excuse to cover his real intentions, gagging the opposition. Hitler did it. Putin is doing it. It's fascism plain and simple.
‘When I point out that most [media outlets] lean left, you deny it.’
Yes I do, because I don’t think it is true. I think that the news for conservatives is generally bad, from Iraq and Afghanistan through global warming to the multitude of WH scandals, cover-ups, corruptions and all point in between.
I understand that, as a conservative, you would not like this much so you seek to find another explanation for it i.e. ‘They’re all biased!' Indeed, if there really was a liberal bias I contend that the news would be a whole lot worse for BushCorp; as it is, y’all get off pretty lightly.
What is this good news you speak of? Some examples, please? Remember that what you consider good news I might think is bad, and in that way truth is relative. You are a religious man, no? You believe that there is a creator, that Jesus was his son and that this is the stone cold truth. But it is not the stone cold truth for me – I don’t believe it. Therefore, truth is relative.
It is also important to bear in mind the amount of
spin that comes with official ‘truths’ these days. The Jessica Lynch farrago and Pat Tillman subterfuge are but two examples of the WH trying to whitewash the real truth, so with them in mind it is incumbent on the citizenry to seek alternatives readings and investigations of what we are told.
And yes, all people are biased to a certain degree and therefore all media is biased to a certain degree, and have never denied this. But I see the ‘good news’ stories all the time so to say that they are never shown is an absurdity; indeed, due to the hysterics displayed by the foot soldiers of the Right I believe there are more than ever.
Or there are more diversionary stories that certain elements of the media glom onto so as to avoid reporting hard news, like the Anna Nicole Smith marathon, the Britney head-shave hoo-ha and the current Paris Hilton will-she-won’t-we free-for-
all; behold the sins of omissions.
Failure to report good news is a not necessarily a decision based on bias, more often it is based on what is important given that media real estate is limited and expensive. There is only a small amount of space available for news reporting, and if the question is between talking about a massacre in Tikrit or Barney having puppies I’d rather know about the massacre.
It’s not exactly news that bad news sells, but that’s the market, baby! Biases maybe made based on monetary considerations, but as I’ve said before it is not Harry Reid or George Soros making those decisions; it is a corporate business and the CEOs will decide based on profits for shareholders.
'Perhaps. But since I do not include you in that group, I choose to think of YOU as a schizophrenic (i.e., seriously delusional).’
Ad hominem alert! Just because I disagree with you doesn’t meant that I’m nuts! It just means I disagree! There’s your moral/truth absolutes for you again. But what if everyone the Right disagreed with was decreed insane? That way Fascism lies, my friend…
‘I am saying that…because Chavez labels himself a Socialist does not make it so…he is acting like a dictator and a fascist.'
Again, you plainly do not understand the nature of Fascism. Fascism is a very loaded and emotive term, yet is also vague and hard to pin down; it is not to be bandied about lightly and so I strongly recommend you read that Umberto Eco link I sent you, or try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_and_ideology#Fascism_and_the_United_States
There are many elements of Fascism which are lacking in Chavez’s administration, far less, I would argue, than are present in America today, but you’re not going to like that statement any. However, I trust that you can read the information I have provided with an open mind and make some reasonably objective comparisons.
‘In reality, Hitler and the Nazis were successful in the seventh election. Out of a field of literally dozens of parties, the Nazis received 43% of the vote…a party needed to have more than 50% of the vote to be an outright winner.’
So they didn’t win then. NEXT!
‘Regarding your 3 options, you might consider a
4th... that is, that the German people really liked Hitler and the Nazis’
Um, that’s what I said in option 1.
‘…perhaps as much as the Venezuelans "love" Chavez. And I'm sure you've seen the movies of Hitler in the stadium with tens of thousands of cheering fans. It was real admiration. I've spoken to people who were there.'
I have seen such footage; indeed, I have my own copy of Triumph Of The Will and it is fascinating, but remember that it was shot in September 1934, over a year after the August plebiscite. This was a very important year for Hitler as he went about convincing the middle classes that he was their guy; he blasted them with propaganda in way never before experienced, he borrowed buckets and more buckets money in a semi-fraudulent manner to rebuild the military, much to the joy of German industrialists and gave a lot of jobs to men still suffering from the ramifications of the Treaty of Versailles the Great Depression and the shame of losing WW1.
He put Germany back on its feet, albeit by merely borrowing billions under very suspect conditions, and was admired for it not only by Germans but the rest of the world, as was Mussolini, and it wasn’t until he annexed the Sudetenland the rest of the world realized that he might be something of a loose canon.
You might care to note that the Bush family fortune is in no small way based on profits made from banking for the Third Reich and no one, particularly in the USA, saw any problem in doing business with the Nazis who communicated to each other on ITT machines about the Jews, gypsies, intellectuals, gays and commies that were catalogued on IBM machines and transported to the gas chambers in lorries made by General Motors and Ford that ran on Standard Oil’s petroleum who also made sure that the Japanese could get on with strafing the US while the English got hammered by ITT bombers – and all that AFTER Pearl Harbor!
The point is, until Hitler went just too damn far no one much had a problem with him; the ‘will’ of the German people was seen as perfectly legitimate at the time, and had he not gone on to start WW2 he may have stayed in power for many years, like Franco, and so why cannot the will of the Venezuelan people be seen as equally legitimate? Who is anyone to say who they can or cannot elect?
But Chavez is the opposite of Hitler; he doesn’t try to appeal to the petty prejudices of the middle classes through creation myths and scapegoating while keeping the incredibly rich on side and the reckless borrowing of billions like Hitler did (and some others I could mention), he appeals to millions of landless and dirt poor peasants through land and income distribution, while annoying the incredibly rich who have spent the past however many years unevenly distributing the nation’s income amongst themselves, funded by the nation’s oil.
He may be an authoritarian but he’s not a Fascist, and the USA has spent the last 60 years propping up far worse than him right around the globe. The problem with Chavez is not that he’s bastard – he’s just not YOUR bastard, and that you cannot tolerate.
‘If you suggest that the Nazis made it up, then I can likewise suggest that Chavez is making it up. Fair is fair.’
No. Many independent bodies and agencies have certified that the Venezuelan elections reflected the will of the people, but not so with Hitler. As previously noted, he was pretty much in a position to say whatever he wanted.
‘By the way, the plebiscite occurred only days after Hitler's power grab. It's not like there was a lot of time to do election rigging.’
Do you really think he needed that much time? It’s not like Bush in 2000 and 2004, where people were looking and they had to hide it.
‘I read some of the stuff in your links [about RCTV] but since most of it appears to be written by left-leaners like yourself, I am forced to take it with a grain of salt.’
Yup, you didn’t read any of that in the mainstream media, did you? Thererore, QED, the media does not have a liberal bias. What is interesting, however, is that those, and many other accounts, were written by people who were there and they do all say the same thing. So, is this collusion, or do so many eye witnesses telling the same tale indicate that they might be telling the truth?
That depends on YOUR bias.
Are you capable of reading anything without judging it by the politics of its writer? I read those articles after watching Sean Hannity’s version of events, and what struck me was the amount of information that Hannity left out.
‘The New York Times has been subverting our War on Terror by exposing classified information about top secret programs which is akin to treason... but you don't see GWB shutting them down do you? (Not that I would mind, grant you.)’
What the NYT published was pretty much public knowledge anyway, and the publication may have actually done the WOT some good, but let’s get real; you would like to shut down a media outlet because you disagree with what it says, not some past leak – the leak thing is just an excuse to cover your real intentions, gagging the opposition.
Hitler did it. Putin is doing it. Bush would love to do it and still might. How did you put it? It’s Fascism pure and simple.
‘Chavez didn't renew their license because they disagree with what he has to say, not some past coup attempt. The coup thing was just an excuse to cover his real intentions, gagging the opposition.’
And as I’ve said before, RCTV is not the only anti-Chavez media outlet by any means and it was not just its blatant and outright support and active encouragement of an illegal coup it help plot that led to Chavez not renewing their license; they were in constant breach of their license conditions with 652 infractions while ignoring tax notices and fines.
Another question for you, Hannity and the defenders of Free Speech™, where were y’all when the Peruvian Government did not renew the broadcasting licenses of two TV stations and three radio stations for breaking their Radio and Television laws in April 2007?
And the laws that RCTV broke are not Chavez’s laws; they were on the books when he took office. So much for conservatives' love of the rule of law, huh?
Cheers
Elroy
PS Great Karnak?
Elroy,
I am tired. I have just come in from working in the yard and the thought of responding is even more tiresome. You are tiresome. I pray that some day you will break out with a case of happiness... that you will be filled with joy and inner peace... to the point where you will stop antagonizing old men like me.
As for the 'Great Karnak', I guess you are too young for that... Johnny Carson used do a comedy routine on the Tonight Show called the Great Karnak. In this bit Carson, resplendent in floppy turban, would be presented with a sealed envelope said to contain a question unknown to all. After a bit of deep thought he would tell the audience the answer. He would then open the envelope and read the question to the audience. In Carson's routine, part of the shtick seemed to be that the worse the match was between the answer and the revealed question, the better the audience loved it.
Click here for photo
Elroy,
Oh yes... as far as the good news out there, you can go to my other web site for a sampling...
Victory Against Terror
Well Hawkeye®, good on you for doing the gardening! Now, I apologize if you find me tiresome; I thought we were having a frank and thorough exchange of views. If you’re not up to putting me straight right now, that’s OK – I can wait a day or two until your strength is back up.
And fear not, I am a live in a permanent state of happiness – my continually sunny disposition drives my poor wife nuts at times, especially first thing in the morning, and I have both joy and inner peace – I fell into the cauldron of bliss when a baby. I am not the twisted snark of your imaginings.
But I will never stop discussing the issues, or ‘antagonizing’ if you prefer, old men like yourself – particularly you. You are my work in progress Hawkeye®; remember when you invited me to argue with you at Timmer’s Righting America? Well, be careful what you wish for.
I don’t do this merely to aggravate you and ruin your day – I genuinely disagree with you, and you with me, and so I genuinely think that great good can come of us attempting to understand each other.
Sometimes, quite often actually, when I read your posts, I think that you are selective with the facts, that you don’t tell the whole story. Your posts present a situation like Sean Hannity might, all tip and no iceberg, and so all I am doing is trying to make you aware of the other possible takes, angles, and missing truths. I can’t you wandering around the internets all half-informed now, can I?
For your part, you think I am some delusional, pinko, pro-jihad, Socialist-Fascist pond scum with no idea how the world works or any meaning relationship with reality in general, and that’s fine, but that also means I am honour bound to convince you otherwise. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is – learn to love me, Hawkeye®!
I missed the Johnny Carson reference not because of age difference but cultural difference. Back then, not everything brewed up by US TV turned up on our screens – most everything, but not absolutely everything. We even made a few programmes ourselves! Ah, those were the days! Now, of course, the cultural imperialist conquest is all but complete and we know more about America than a lot of Americans.
I gotta say though, the Great Karnak’s routine sounds less like me and more like Alberto Gonzales! Or Tony Snow! Or Scooter! Or Rove himself! The only difference is that they reveal their meaningless answers after the questions have been asked. And they don’t wear turbans.
But cheer up Hawkeye®, get some sleep, gird your loins and I’ll look forward to your rebuttal.
Cheers
Elroy
Hawkeye,
You never cease to amaze me. Even when Republicans in Congress no longer possess the gall to claim that America is "winning" the war in Iraq, you nevertheless persist in that delusion.
You're obiously not too busy at the moment, so just in case you missed this, I quote:
'The Bush regime and its global corporate predator allies will stop at nothing to destroy democracy in Venezuela and the Andes region, and to kill the notion that poor people should benefit from a country's resources. Venezuela is one of the main leaders of the opposition in South America to the ruinous policies of the World Bank/IMF, of "free trade" (global corporate piracy) and the murderous U.S. "war on drugs."
Robert Zoellick is George's new choice for head of the World Bank, but he is also a known operative of corporate predators. I would expect nothing less from him than lies, disinformation and conspiracy with the worst elements of South American society. Zoellick says 'Venezuela is not headed in "healthy" direction, but you have to laugh at his use of the word "healthy".
Let's see, is Venezuela refusing a broadcast license renewal to a TV station (RCTV) that actively participated in the U.S.-backed violent military coup attempt in 2002, and its replacement by a public-run station that is inviting independent producers to diversify that airwave, and is opening access to this formerly rightwing monopolized public airwave, to the viewpoints of the poor, of racial minorities, of the indigenous, of small business people and peasant farmers, and all other previously excluded groups, healthy or unhealthy, bearing in mind that ALL OTHER TV/radio stations in Venezuela are still completely dominated by rightwing views and canned corporate entertainment?
Seems pretty "healthy" to me--especially when you consider the danger to all living things of relentless, 24/7 rightwing corporate propaganda and fascist militarism. We could use some of that truly "healthy direction" here, with the dismantling of our corporate news monopolies, and giving the license to use our PUBLIC airwaves to small, independent, creative and competitive businesses, non-profits, worker coops and government funded broadcasting. That is "health." Corporate monopolies are the ones who are sick, and sickening.
His assertion that Venezuela is in economic trouble is also just plain wrong. All economic indicators are up, with the biggest growth in the private sector. The poor and the poorest of the poor (about 50% of the population) have made big gains in income and quality of life, including the long range social indicators that will foster future prosperity--the complete elimination of illiteracy (at 40% when Chavez was first elected), more schools and teachers and more kids and adults in school than ever before, and greatly increased citizen participation in government, which government programs encourage.
These improvements have not been at anyone's expense. The rich are still rich, and still have their big fancy houses and their jaguars. Land reform (to encourage peasant farmers to remain on the land producing food, discourage their migration to urban poverty, and help solve Venezuela's food self-sufficiency problems) is being carefully done to avoid confiscation without compensation. A plan by the mayor of Caracas to confiscate two urban country clubs/golf courses for low cost housing was nixed by the Chavez government, because of Constitutional protections for private property.
The country has the liveliest political culture in the western hemisphere, and the people are free--free to dissent without fear, free to engage in private business, free to vote without fear of bullying or stolen elections (highly monitored elections), and free to seek and achieve political leadership and public office, no matter their financial or social status.
There is, in fact, NO SIGN of "economic trouble" or trouble of any kind. The only trouble comes when people like Bush and Zoellick seek to destabilize and topple legitimate government, and impose rightwing dictatorships in the interest of global corporate predators. That's when there is oppression and suffering in Latin America. We would be seeing it now, in Venezuela, if the RCTV coup had succeeded. You think people would be free to dissent if that coup--which suspended the Constitution, shut down the National Assembly (Congress) and the courts, and kidnapped the elected President--had won the day? People would dead for daring to speak out against the coup. Torture and mass graves for union organizers, peasants and leftists--as is happening in Colombia. And all the progress that has been made toward social justice would be undone.
One reason for Zoellick's hostility to Chavez and Venezuela is that they have been quite innovative, for instance, in their creation of the Bank of the South (Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay), in finding ways to push the World Bank/IMF and its predatory practices out of the region.
World Bank financiers have been sucking the life out of Latin America's economies with big loans on onerous terms (for instance, de-funding social programs) incurred by corrupt governments; the rich rip off the money and the poor are left to pay the debt.
These dreadful practices are combined with "free trade" deals that open the country to resource exploitation, sweatshops and first world country agricultural dumping and other destruction of local businesses (not to mention GM crops, pesticide poisoning, and heavy duty logging and mining, and significant loss of sovereignty to regulate these impacts).
Argentina's economy went into meltdown due to these predatory practices, and was only saved by the uprising of its people, the new leftist government (headed by Nestor Kirchner) and Venezuela's easy term loan help (the seed of the Bank of the South). Argentina is now well on its way to recovery, no thanks to the World Bank!
Zoellick wants to bust this movement for independence and self-determination. That is the reason he and all big corporate players waste no opportunity to badmouth Chavez and Venezuela. They despise democracy!'
Cheers
Elroy
Elroy,
You have got to be kidding me, right? Give me a break. Any article that starts with...
"The Bush regime and its global corporate predator allies will stop at nothing to destroy democracy in Venezuela and the Andes region"
...cannot be taken seriously. I didn't bother to read any further.
Hawkeye, don’t be so intellectually lazy – the truth will set you free, if you let it, but if you refuse to read anything but what appeals to your prejudice and bias then you can not really even pretend to be across the issues you claim to be interested in.
This piece is no more extreme than your own on the subject, and I would argue that the introduction is a perfectly reasonable statement. If Chavez runs a regime then so does Bush, corporations are global, some are predatory and most, if not all, and the countries they are domiciled in, are allied to the USA. The Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Collary have been used as the basis with which to smash democracy in South and Central America for decades.
Venezuelans see their 21st Century Bolivarian revolution as less like Cuba and more like Sweden. What’s wrong with that? Could it be that you have swallowed too much of Sean Hannity’s snake oil? Read something you don’t like and THEN disagree if you will, but not before.
Cheers
Elroy
Victory to me on this one too, huh? Gee, what the score now?
Cheers
Elroy
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