Venezuela halts talks with U.S. over diplomat comment: minister

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Venezuela halts talks with U.S. over diplomat comment: minister
By Mario Naranjo | Reuters – 42 mins ago.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela has cut off an informal channel of communication with the United States because of comments by a State Department official about next month's presidential election, the foreign minister said on Wednesday. The OPEC nation established contact last year with Roberta Jacobson, the senior U.S. diplomat for Latin America, to improve bilateral ties after years of tensions.

But Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said that was now on hold after Jacobson's recent statements about the April 14 election to replace the late president, Hugo Chavez.

"With Jacobson's latest comments ... we have realized that it doesn't make sense to continue wasting our time," Jaua said during a ceremony to honor two Venezuelan diplomats expelled from Washington in a tit-for-tat dispute. "Any contact that had been established has been deferred," he said, adding that routine diplomatic contacts such as consular relations would continue.

Jacobson told Spain's El Pais newspaper last week that Venezuelans deserved a free and fair election, adding that this "includes a free press, which we haven't seen in recent years."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-halts-talks-u-over-diplomat-minister-191542787.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Hugo Chavez and the private media

Hugo Chavez and the private media
By Salim Lamrani
Monday, August 24, 2009

On August 2, 2009, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) issued a statement denouncing the closure of "thirty four broadcast media at the government's behest" in Venezuela. The Paris-based organization "vigorously condemns the massive closure of broadcast media" and asks: "Is it still possible to publicly express any criticism at all of President Hugo Chavez's ‘Bolivarian' government? This massive closure of mainly opposition media is dangerous for the future of democratic debate in Venezuela and is motivated by the government's desire to silence dissent. It will only exacerbate social divisions." (1)

RWB makes reference to the decision taken by the Venezuelan National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) on August 1, 2009 to withdraw the broadcast licenses of thirty-four radio and television stations. According to RWB, this decision is motivated only by the fact that these media outlets criticized the government of Hugo Chavez. In short, it was a political act intended to silence the opposition press. The vast majority of the Western media has repeated this interpretation. (2)

However this is not the situation and RWB and the media multinationals have carefully concealed the truth in order to mislead public opinion and present the most democratic government in Latin America (Hugo Chavez has faced 15 electoral processes since coming to power in 1998 and has emerged victorious in fourteen of these elections, all praised by the international community for their transparency) as a regime which seriously violates freedom of expression.

Indeed, in similar circumstances any country in the world would have made the same decision Conatel did. Several stations deliberately ignored a summons from the Commission designed to determine the status of their licenses and bring them up to date. After an investigation, Conatel discovered numerous irregularities, such as deceased licensees whose licenses were being used by third persons, non-renewal of the required administrative procedures, or simply the lack of authorization to broadcast. Venezuelan law, like that in the rest of the world, stipulates that a media outlet that fails to renew its concession within a specified time period or that broadcasts without authorization will lose its transmission frequency, which will then revert back to the public domain. Thus, thirty-four stations that were broadcasting illegally lost their licenses. (3)

In fact, the decision by Conatel, far from restricting freedom of expression, has put an end to an illegal situation and has initiated a policy of democratization of the Venezuelan radio spectrum with the goal of putting it at the disposition of the community. In reality, 80% of radio and television stations in Venezuela are privately owned, while only 9% of them are public and the rest belonging to associations or communities. Moreover, the majority of Venezuelan private media is concentrated in the hands of 32 families. (4)

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/hugo-chavez-and-the-private-media-by-salim-lamrani

[msanthrope]

7. You've used a lot of posts disputing human rights organizations like Reporters

Without Borders and Human Rights Watch. I find that having a reactionary stance and a defensive attitude tends to confirm that oppression is occurring.

A government that allows dissent doesn't have to prove it so vociferously.

[bitchkitty]

9. Oh, for Christ's sake. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

15. The vociferous part is from the resistance to the Latin American turn to the left,

after they suffered at the hands of fascists with the conspicuous guiding hand or boot from the U.S. throughout the decades of coups, military juntas, death flights, infinite torturing, savagery beyond human mind itself, straight from the bowels of right-wing hell.

The U.S. doesn't want to allow the democracy which IS going to continue in the Americas, and the delusional, power-mad by extension right-wing US citizens who suck up the propaganda and pass it on, bellow and attack everyone who supports it in the States.

Democracy is going to grow here, too, it's inevitable. The right can't keep the whole world down forever.

You know that. Might as well accept it during your lifetime.

[Judi Lynn]

17. We all know the history of these organizations, that is, everyone who bothers to learn about them:

August 1, 2006
International Republican Institute Grants Uncovered
Reporters Without Borders and Washington's Coups

By DIANA BARAHONA and JEB SPRAGUE

British press baron Lord Northcliff said, "News is something that someone, somewhere wants to keep secret, everything else is advertising." If this is true, then U.S. government funding of Reporters Without Borders must be news, because the organization and its friends in Washington have gone to extraordinary lengths to cover it up. In spite of 14 months of stonewalling by the National Endowment for Democracy over a Freedom of Information Act request and a flat denial from RSF executive director Lucie Morillon, the NED has revealed that Reporters Without Borders received grants over at least three years from the International Republican Institute.

The NED still refuses to provide the requested documents or even reveal the grant amounts, but they are identified by these numbers: IRI 2002-022/7270, IRI 2003-027/7470 and IRI 2004-035/7473. Investigative reporter Jeremy Bigwood asked Morillon on April 25 if her group was getting any money from the I.R.I., and she denied it, but the existence of the grants was confirmed by NED assistant to the president, Patrick Thomas.

The discovery of the grants reveals a major deception by the group, which for years denied it was getting any Washington dollars until some relatively small grants from the NED and the Center for a Free Cuba were revealed (see Counterpunch: "Reporters Without Borders Unmasked&quot . When asked to account for its large income RSF has claimed the money came from the sale of books of photographs. But researcher Salim Lamrani has pointed out the improbability of this claim. Even taking into account that the books are published for free, it would have had to sell 170 200 books in 2004 and 188 400 books in 2005 to earn the more than $2 million the organization claims to make each year ­ 516 books per day in 2005. The money clearly had to come from other sources, as it turns out it did.

The I.R.I., an arm of the Republican Party, specializes in meddling in elections in foreign countries, as a look at NED annual reports and the I.R.I. website shows. It is one of the four core grantees of the NED, the organization founded by Congress under the Reagan administration in 1983 to replace the CIA's civil society covert action programs, which had been devastated by exposure by the Church committee in the mid-1970s (Ignatius, 1991). The other three pillars of the NED are the National Democratic Institute (the Democratic Party), the Solidarity Center (AFL-CIO) and the Center for International Private Enterprise (U.S. Chamber of Commerce). But of all the groups the I.R.I. is closest to the Bush administration, according to a recent piece in The New York Times exposing its role in the overthrow of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide:

"President Bush picked its president, Lorne W. Craner, to run his administration's democracy-building efforts. The institute, which works in more than 60 countries, has seen its federal financing nearly triple in three years, from $26 million in 2003 to $75 million in 2005. Last spring, at an I.R.I. fund-raiser, Mr. Bush called democracy-building 'a growth industry.'" (Bogdanich and Nordberg, 2006)

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/barahona08012006.html

[center]~~~~~[/center]
Human Rights Watch:

~snip~

Despite doing valuable work, Human Rights Watch (HRW) serves wealth and power interests, especially in areas of foreign policy. George Soros and the US State Department were involved in its founding, and its funding is largely corporate, including from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Time Warner, and wealthy private donors.

Notably, HRW failed to denounce the Bush administration's failed 2002 anti-Chavez coup or the successful 2004 one ousting Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

It's unsurprising that on December 22, it headlined, "Venezuela: Legislative Assault on Free Speech, Civil Society," saying:

New Venezuelan laws "pose serious threats to free speech and the work of civil society." The new media law "introduce(s) sweeping restrictions on internet traffic, reinforce(s) existing restrictions on radio and television content, and allow(s) the government to terminate broadcasting licenses on arbitrary grounds."

Absolutely false. HRW knows it, and quotes passages from the new law refuting its own claim. More on the new law below.

More:
http://warisacrime.org/content/venezuelas-new-social-responsibility-law

[bemildred]

32. Reporters Without Borders is a ripoff of Doctors Without Borders, and is pretty useless.

Basically a propaganda outfit.

HRW is sometimes useful and tries to be conscientious, IMHO.

[ronnie624]

47. Is that all it takes to 'confirm' it?

That was easy.

[reorg]

61. speaking of "Reporters without Borders"

Last edited Thu Mar 21, 2013, 11:15 AM - Edit history (2)

I just happened to come across this interesting article:

Obsession with Chavez
By As'ad AbuKhalil - Mon, 2013-03-11 20:44- Angry Corner

(...)

One can’t accuse Western media of (or praise them for) standing up for principles of free speech. Western media succumbed unquestionably and uncritically to the intimidation and thought control imposed by Bush’s “war on terrorism.”

Take the obsession with Chavez and Mugabe. Of course, the rule of Chavez is quite different from the rule of Mugabe, but Western media are obsessed with those two. The plight of white farmers (and the plight of wild animals) seems to be the only object of concern for Western journalists.

Cartoons in the Economist and other serious Western media focus on enemies of the US as examples of tyranny and repression. But this is not warranted if measured by the amount of repression. Mugabe and Chavez are both far less intolerant and far less repressive that the clients of the West in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and UAE, among other places where tyranny is welcomed as long as the tyrant is submissive to Western political, military, and economic interests.

Mugabe, as repressive as he is, respected the results of an election that went against his interest, while America’s tyrants don’t allow elections and don’t even permit the existence of political opposition. Western media mocked Chavez because he compelled all media in Venezuela (including opposition media) to carry his speeches live, but in many of the pro-US dictatorships Western media are not even allowed to exist. We are talking about countries, like Kuwait, where a mere tweet can lead to imprisonment and a stiff sentence, while the organization Reporters without Borders honors the Kuwaiti royal family by granting it a most advanced status in its annual ranking of press freedom around the world. ...

http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/obsession-chavez

In fact, Kuwait ranks 77th whereas Venezuela takes place 117 in Reporters without Borders' PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2013

How come? On Venezuela, they seem indeed mostly concerned about the "cadenas" and that a TV station implicated in a violent overthrow of the government did not get its licence renewed, whereas on Kuwait, while acknowledging that 1 reporter is behind bars and that the press is not really free, they praise with enthusiasm that

Kuwait boasts a score of privately owned daily and weekly newspapers in Arabic and two English-language dailies. Kuwait’s written press has for decades played a major role in the political debate and reflects a tradition of diversity and outspokenness. It gives wide coverage to political debates during election campaigns.

Freedom of expression has been given a further boost by the liberalisation of the broadcast sector ...

There are effectively some “red lines” that the emirate’s journalists cannot cross. The person of the head of state and members of the royal family or people holding key posts all remain sensitive subjects that are not raised. The level of self-censorship among Kuwaiti journalists is still quite high.

Although Venezuela certainly boasts a greater number of privately owned daily and weekly newspapers, plus freely available broadcast media which still are in private hands for the most part, and even though these media have no trouble airing their concerns about the president of the country, not to mention propagandize in favour of oppositional political parties, which in Venezuela have a constitutional right to exist, in stark contrast to Kuwait, where political parties are not allowed ... in the view of RwB, the requirement to air presidential speeches is apparently much worse than no freedom of speech at all:

Kuwait court toughens tweeter’s jail term
Daily News Egypt / March 20, 2013

(AFP) - Kuwait’s appeals court on Wednesday toughened the jail term of an opposition tweeter to five years for calling for a coup and insulting the emir of the Gulf state.

Bader al-Rasheedi was jailed on November 28 after the lower court gave him a two-year term, but the appeals court decided to increase this to five years, director of the Kuwait Society for Human Rights Mohammad al-Humaidi told AFP. ...

In a clampdown on opposition social network users and activists, Kuwait has already sentenced to various prison terms around 10 tweeters and former MPs for insulting the emir, while dozens are still on trial on similar charges. ...

Criticising the emir is illegal in Kuwait and is considered to be an offence against state security.

http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/03/20/kuwait-court-toughens-tweeters-jail-term/

Kuwaiti man sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for ‘insulting’ tweets
7 June 2012

Kuwait’s authorities must guarantee freedom of expression, Amnesty International said after a court in the capital convicted a man for messages posted on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

Hamad al-Naqi, a member of the country’s Shi’a Muslim minority, was sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labour for messages on Twitter that criticized the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and other messages deemed “insulting” to Islam. ...

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/kuwait-faces-prison-sentence-over-blasphemous-tweet-2012-06-06

[Judi Lynn]

2. Buying Venezuela's Press With U.S. Tax Dollars

Buying Venezuela's Press With U.S. Tax Dollars
Posted: 07/19/10 02:28 PM ET

Originaly published in NACLA

The U.S. State Department is secretly funneling millions of dollars to Latin American journalists, according to documents obtained in June under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The 20 documents released to this author--including grant proposals, awards, and quarterly reports--show that between 2007 and 2009, the State Department's little-known Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor channeled at least $4 million to journalists in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela through the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), a Washington-based grant maker that has worked in Latin America since 1962. Thus far, only documents pertaining to Venezuela have been released. They reveal that the PADF, collaborating with Venezuelan NGOs associated with the country's political opposition, has been supplied with at least $700,000 to give out journalism grants and sponsor journalism education programs.

Until now, the State Department has hidden its role in funding the Venezuelan news media, one of the opposition's most powerful weapons against President Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian movement. The PADF, serving as an intermediary, effectively removed the government's fingerprints from the money. Yet, as noted in a State Department document titled "Bureau/Program Specific Requirements," the State Department's own policies require that "all publications" funded by the department "acknowledge the support." But the provision was simply waived for the PADF. "For the purposes of this award," the requirements document adds, " . . . the recipient is not required to publicly acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of State."

Before 2007, the largest funder of U.S. "democracy promotion" activities in Venezuela was not the State Department but the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), together with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). But in 2005, these organizations' underhanded funding was exposed by Venezuelan American attorney Eva Golinger in a series of articles, books, and lectures (disclosure: This author obtained many of the documents). After the USAID and NED covers were blown wide open--forcing USAID's main intermediary, Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), a Maryland-based contractor, to close its office in Caracas--the U.S. government apparently sought new funding channels, one of which the PADF appears to have provided.

Although the $700,000 allocated to the PADF, which is noted in the State Department's requirements document, may not seem like a lot of money, the funds have been strategically used to buy off the best of Venezuela's news media and recruit young journalists. This has been achieved by collaborating with opposition NGOs, many of which have a strong media focus. The requirements document is the only document that names any of these organizations--which was probably an oversight on the State Department's part, since the recipients' names and a lot of other information are excised in the rest of the documents. The requirements document names Espacio Publico and Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, two leading organizations linked to the Venezuelan opposition, as recipients of "subgrants."

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-bigwood/buying-venezuelas-press-w_b_650178.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. Media In Venezuela: Facts and Fiction PDF

Media In Venezuela: Facts and Fiction PDF

Written by Caitlin McNulty and Liz Migliorelli
Monday, 17 August 2009 09:36

~snip~
Media Sources in Venezuela

The preferred news source of most Venezuelans is television media. There are at least five nationally broadcasted television stations that dispatch via "free-over-the-air" and publicly allotted signals. These stations include Venevisión (controlled by Grupo Cisneros), Univision, Televisión de Venezuela (Televen) and previous to it's closing (which will be explained later in the article), Radio Caracas Television (RCTV).2

For several decades, commercial television in Venezuela has belonged to an oligopoly of two families, the Cisneros and the Bottome & Granier Group. The tremendous influence of these parties reaches beyond broadcast networks into advertising and public relations agencies that operate for the welfare of the stations, as well as record labels and other societal industries that produce material to be promoted on the stations. Not only does the Cisneros family own Venevisión, the largest station in Venezuela, they own over seventy media outlets in 39 countries, including DirecTV Latin America, AOL Latin America, Caracol Television (Colombia), the Univisión Network in the United States, Galavisión, Playboy Latin America as well as beverage and food distribution such as Coca Cola bottling, Regional Beer and Pizza Hut in Venezuela. They also own entities such as Los Leones baseball team of Caracas and the Miss Venezuela Pageant.3 The reach of the Cisneros power is massive; the media monopoly broadcasts to more than four million television screens in Venezuela, giving it tremendous power and influence.

Globovisión, a channel that is widely broadcast in major metropolitan centers such as Caracas, Carabobo and Zulia and is also available on satellite on DirecTV, and CNN en Español are both private stations that have a harsh anti-Chávez rhetoric. President of CNN en Español Christopher Cromwell has said that Chávez may not like the programming on his network, but this meant that CNN was doing its job correctly. Another station, Valores Educativos Televisión (Vale TV) is a major regional network that is neither state-run nor commercially aimed, run by the Asociación Civil, which is managed by the Catholic Church.4 These smaller, regional networks are never mentioned in reports of media in Venezuela. Five major private television networks control at least 90% of the market and smaller private stations control another 5%. This 95% of the broadcast market was quick to express its opposition to President Chávez's administration as early as 1999, soon after Chávez first took office.5 There are three public and state-controlled television channels that exist on the same national electromagnetic spectrum, including Venezolana de Televisión (VTV, established in 1964, a state-owned television network); Visión Venezuela (ViVe TV, established in 2003, a cultural network funded by the government that is not yet broadcasted nationally); and Televisora Venezolana Social (TVes, established in 2007 as RCTV's substitute).6 These channels cannot compete with the privately owned, commercial media that serve as the dominant source of television news media in Venezuela.

Print media in Venezuela is diverse, but it depicts a greater opposition presence than seen in television networks. Many publications are corporate-owned and extremely critical of the Chávez administration. In comparison to the United States, where New York, the largest city, has only four daily papers (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Daily News), two of which are markedly sympathetic to the Bush administration, Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, has twenty-one daily papers. Whereas the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Washington Post are the only nationally distributed daily papers in the United States, Venezuela circulates eight daily papers nationally. A Washington D.C. based think-tank Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) has described the print media situation in simple terms: "nine out of ten newspapers, including [the most prestigious daily] El Nacional and (the business oriented) El Universal, are staunchly anti-Chávez." 7

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2059/1/

[SamKnause]

4. Hugo Chavez

Thank you Judi Lynn.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thanks, Sam Knause.

Welcome to D.U.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Media Misperceptions Venezuela: The Spin vs. The Truth

Venezuela: The Spin vs. The Truth

~snip~

Spin: Chávez is clamping down on freedom of the press.

The Truth: Venezuela continues to have strong opposition broadcast and print media, as any casual visitor to Venezuela can plainly see. The supposed deterioration of freedom of the press under the Chávez government is a favorite theme of U.S. media coverage of Venezuela, and it is regarding this topic that the gap between reality and media claims is usually at its widest. Anyone who travels to Venezuela will easily find numerous front-page criticisms and broadcast denunciations of the Chávez government that go well beyond the sort of attacks on Obama that appear in the U.S. press. Yet that Chávez is attempting to “eliminate independent media”[1] by “muzzling the press”[2] are favorite themes for U.S. editorial pages, with news articles chiming in that “Chavez’s administration is moving to tighten its grip over Venezuela’s media industry.”[3] U.S. media coverage has often also distorted the facts regarding the Venezuelan government’s conflicts with opposition media outlets, some of which have openly supported undemocratic and extra-constitutional means to undermine or even overthrow the government.

Claims that Chávez is an enemy of press freedom reached a peak in 2007 when the Venezuelan government chose not to renew the broadcast license of opposition TV station RCTV. U.S. media and commentators claimed that RCTV was being “censored”[4] and “shut down”[5], but in reality, RCTV continued to broadcast via cable and Internet with large audience numbers, and maintaining its anti-Chávez line. While opponents of the government criticized the decision to allow RCTV’s license to expire, it is important to note that a TV station that had done even some of the things that RCTV had done would never obtain a broadcast license in the United States or any European democracy. Most importantly – as was admitted in news articles on the controversy,[6] RCTV openly supported the 2002 coup against Chávez by encouraging people to participate in opposition protests, by reporting the false information that Chávez had resigned,[7] and then, when Chávez returned to power, by airing Disney cartoons rather than report this news.[8] RCTV head Marcel Granier met with coup president Pedro Carmona during the coup, as Carmona enlisted the media’s help in attempting to ensure the coup’s success.[9] RCTV also actively promoted the oil strike (2002-2003) that attempted to topple the government, and other, legal political and electoral campaigns.

Even some observers who harshly criticized the government’s decision on RCTV admitted that the issue was much more complicated, and that RCTV was not automatically entitled to its license. “Broadcasting companies in any country in the world, especially in democratic countries, are not entitled to renewal of their licenses,” José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch explained. “The lack of renewal of the contract, per se, is not a free speech issue. Just per se.”[10]

In the years since the RCTV decision, instead of correcting its hyperbolic claims of Venezuelan censorship, U.S. media outlets have continued the theme. The new focus is on broadcaster Globovisión, routinely described as “Venezuela’s only remaining opposition TV television station on the open airwaves.”[11] This characterization is simply false, as numerous local TV stations in Venezuela have an opposition political line (and national broadcasters such as Televen continue to run programs with a strong opposition slant). The great majority of Venezuelan media continues to be privately owned, and the opposition dominates the newspaper industry as well. As Human Rights Watch – a frequent critic of freedom of the press in Venezuela – noted in a 2008 report, “the balance of forces in the print media has not changed significantly”, with the majority of Venezuelan newspapers continuing to be privately-owned and two of the three top newspapers maintaining an opposition political line (the third is neutral).[12]

More:
http://southoftheborderdoc.com/spin-vs-the-truth/

[Nye Bevan]

8. The truth hurts (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

18. The truth ultimately illuminates the liars, the propagandists.

It takes a lot of time before the truth is revealed, often, considering the assholes who earn full-time employment creating bogus "truth" to use against the very U.S. American taxpayers who finance their careers in the U.S. government.

Sometimes it only gets out many years later, and through the hard work of people submitting request after request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act before the U.S. public ever finally learns what the #### has been done in their names.

DU'ers are very well aware of this fact. The truth DOES eventually hurt the assholes who have worked against the human race.

As Mark Twain said, "A lie is half-way around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots."

[struggle4progress]

10. Venezuela cuts off communication with top U.S. diplomat

The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, Mar. 20, 2013 3:10PM EDT

... Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Wednesday that "any type of contact has been postponed" with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson, who had reportedly reached out to Venezuela's government before Chavez's death.

Jaua specified, however, that diplomatic and consular relations would remain between the two countries. The U.S. Embassy in Caracas had not responded to a request for comment as of Wednesday afternoon.

Venezuela's government expelled two military attaches this month for allegedly talking to members of the country's armed forces. Washington responded by ejecting two Venezuelan diplomats, who were honoured by Jaua Wednesday.

The two countries haven't had ambassadors posted in each other's capitals since 2010 ...

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/venezuela-cuts-off-communication-with-top-u-s-diplomat-1.1203744

[bemildred]

11. Heck of a job, Jacobson. Great diplomacy. nt

[geek tragedy]

13. Did she accuse the Venezuelan government

of giving a high ranking US official cancer?

[Bacchus4.0]

14. yep, the Ven administration doesn't have a grasp on honesty

Speaking the truth is something that just doesn't register, and, in fact, it offends them as this article proves.

[bemildred]

16. No she accused them of having corrupt elections.

Which is pretty funny actually.

[geek tragedy]

19. I thought it was that they have restrictions on freedom of expression.

In either case, rather mild compared to "you gave Hugo cancer" or "it will totally be Obama's fault if someone shoots my opponent in the elections."

Pretty obvious Maduro is looking for any excuse to engage in some gratuitous Yanqui bashing in advance of the elections. Running against Washington DC is popular in Venezuela as it is in the US.

Not that there's a lot for the diplomats to talk about--they can't afford to stop selling us oil and we can't help but buy it.

[bemildred]

20. Both actually.

But I don't care about the mutual insults, that is just the status quo, yawn; I'm just saying that's no way to "improve relations". If you want to improve relations, you have to give that trash-talking shit up.

Maduro is happy not to "improve relations", so whining at him about it is useless. But the US diplomats I would think would want to "improve relations", or at least put a good face on the appearance of wanting to "improve relations", and that is what I am criticizing. Of course it's possible she doesn't really want to "improve relations" too, and then it's just dumb.

[geek tragedy]

64. Takes two to tango. With Maduro unreceptive to improving

relations, why bother if you're the US?

[bemildred]

65. Maduro is expected to win, he is in the catbird seat, he does not have to do anything.

Sort of like Obama in the last election, it was his to lose, not Rmoney's to win.

If you want to unseat him, you are the one that has to do something. You don't like that, you don't want to do that, that's fine with me.

I bother because it's interesting to see how these things play out, to see who wins and who loses and why. You think I should watch TV instead?

Personally, I think the anti-Chavistas would do well to give it a rest. Their intransigent opposition merely keeps the Chavistas motivated, and does nothing to build their own base, again not unlike the situation with the Republicans here, who are all threats and yelling and then wonder why nobody is enthusiastic about them. Angry people are just not that magnetic.

[geek tragedy]

66. I don't think the Obama admin really cares who wins in VZ.

Maduro will sell us oil, regardless of whether he thinks we're using chemtrails or whatever. So would Capriles. Maduro is much more entertaining though.

[bemildred]

67. I rather doubt they do, although we do have plenty of foreign policy wonks

who do appear to care a great deal about the "threat" that Chavismo represents. But they have already lost that fight, they would do better to re-examine the situation and reconsider their strategies, as long as they keep clinging to the past, they will keep losing, and not just in Latin America.

[geek tragedy]

69. The chavistas aren't a threat to anyone outside VZ

except oil companies.

Eventually the chavistas will get voted out of office in Venezuela, so long as it remains a democracy. But the opposition will have to adopt a portion of the chavistas' historical platform to win.

[bemildred]

70. Si, claro. nt

[joshcryer]

40. No, she accurately said that the media isn't free.

I know it's hard for a lot of people to swallow but homophobic bigot Maduro is owning the airwaves with mandatory cadenas (chains; imagine the Emergency Broadcast System being used to bolivate daily, for hours, about whatever you wanted to).

Capriles, as usual, has to go to city on foot and that's the only way he can make significant inroads.

We talk about how Citizens United is bad because it allows unfettered spending by corporations to allow someone as much campaign exposure as possible. Here we have homophobic bigot Maduro, funded by the PDVSA corporation, having as much exposure as possible without even getting off his ass and attending rallies (I'm not saying he isn't attending rallies, I'm saying most of his campaigning is via the media).

Anyone making a similar observation of the MSM would be cheered here, but because it is one who feigns progressivism (the homophobic bigot Maduro), it's ignored.

Fans of the homophobic bigot Maduro need not worry, he'll win in a landslide.

[bemildred]

63. She accurately stated her opinion that the media isn't free.

I live in the USA, I find all talk about a free press amusing.

[geek tragedy]

12. Of course, Maduro's nutty ramblings about the US giving

Chavez cancer and plotting to assassinate Capriles is the height of diplomacy.

Gotta beat that "America is the Great Satan" drum for the elections.

Hopefully he'll behave like a grownup after the election.

[Judi Lynn]

21. Even if he lost bowel control in public he'd still be more mature than the U.S. right-wing. n/t

[geek tragedy]

26. True, but a fairly low bar. nt

[Judi Lynn]

23. You have anything beyond the propaganda gibberish the corporate media rehash daily? n/t

[geek tragedy]

25. I leave the rehashing of propaganda gibberish to you.

Of course, there's no such thing as pro-Maduro/Chavista propaganda.

[dipsydoodle]

22. She should maybe just stick to

picking her nose rather than poking her nose in.

[Judi Lynn]

24. That could be easier to say than to do! It'd be a full-time job. n/t

[DollarBillHines]

27. Ask Dan Rather, Phil Donohue or Gary Webb just how "free" our press is.

or Robert Parry...

or...

The Smothers Brothers

[Judi Lynn]

29. Free to be used to faithfully work as stenographers for gov't propaganda, which they relish

or they get thrown out, or worse.

Amazing when you see them disappear right in front of your eyes after NOT supporting the military/industrial complex. They disappear from the public eye after years of working, and they rarely ever get work again, if they don't just show up as suicides.

We know, too, Democratic Senator Frank Church's investigative committee in the 1960's uncovered the fact the CIA already had people working in all the wire services, the large newspapers, and the large news magazines.

So damned sad.

[Zorro]

28. Maduro and company appear to be very sensitive assholes

[arely staircase]

30. obama's latin american policy has been an an improvement, but i will concede, a disapointment.

I love the president but we really can do better with la policy generally and Venezuela specifically.

again let me stress, I would never trade Obama or any democrat for a republican, but we can do better.

[Peace Patriot]

31. The chavistas are FREEING the media, not suppressing it!

The U.S. State Department always gets it wrong, but then they serve transglobal corporate interests including monopolistic, transglobal media corporations.

And it's time we did it here--broke up all the big mediagolopolies and freed our public airwaves for competition and, above all, for REAL political discussion and news.

You know what the mediagolopolies in Venezuela did, during the 2002 coup attempt? In addition to actively supporting the kidnapping of the elected president and the suspension of the constitution, the courts, the national assembly and all civil rights, and fomenting riots and murder, they REFUSED TO LET MEMBERS OF THE CHAVEZ GOVERNMENT, or any Chavez supporters including MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY who opposed the coup, ON TELEVISION!

That's what the corporate media and the U.S. State Department means by "free speech" -free speech for THEMSELVES and for no one else, not even the legitimate government!

I'm so sick of this "free speech" bullshit. And that is what it is. It is a pile of crap. We don't have free speech in this country and you know it and I know it. ALL of our public TV/radio broadcast airwaves are MONOPOLIZED by a few media moguls who shove rightwing propaganda into our homes, 24/7, and control everything we see or hear on our own airwaves. There is no real competition. And there are severe limits on political opinion and news--all skewed toward fascism. There is no freedom here--no "free speech." It is ALL CORPORATE SPEECH.

It's time we brought back the Fairness Doctrine, like they are trying to do in Venezuela. You can have privately-run media but it MUST BE REGULATED in the PUBLIC INTEREST, required to present all sides of political discussion, and to provide public service broadcasting and community service, with monopolies of news venues or of types of media (TV, radio, magazines, books, movies, etc.) forbidden, as well as corporate empires with war profiteer and other public policy interests excluded from broadcast licensing.

The corporate media's presentation of the Iraq War as a video game ought to tell us all we need to know about them. They are the real tyrants--not the people trying to regulate them and bust them up in Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

[Judi Lynn]

33. Along the lines you discussed: "Misreporting Venezuela's economy"

Misreporting Venezuela's economy

If you want a perfect illustration of media toeing the official line, look no further than the forecasts of Venezuela's economic doom

Mark Weisbrot
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 11 September 2010 12.00 EDT

The bulk of the media often gets pulled along for the ride when the United States government has a serious political and public relations campaign around foreign policy. But almost nowhere is it so monolithic as with Venezuela. Even in the runup to the Iraq war, there were a significant number of reporters and editorial writers who didn't buy the official story. But on Venezuel, the media is more like a jury that has 12 people but only one brain.

Since the Venezuelan opposition decided to campaign for the September elections on the issue of Venezuela's high homicide rate, the international press has been flooded with stories on this theme – some of them highly exaggerated. This is actually quite an amazing public relations achievement for the Venezuelan opposition. Although most of the Venezuelan media, as measured by audience, is still owned by the political opposition there, the international press is not. Normally, it takes some kind of news hook, even if only a milestone such as the 10,000th murder, or a political statement from the White House, for a media campaign of this magnitude to take off. But in this case, all it took was a decision by the Venezuelan political opposition that homicide would be its main campaign issue, and the international press was all over it.

The "all bad news, all the time" theme was overwhelmingly dominant even during Venezuela's record economic expansion, from 2003 to 2008. The economy grew as never before, poverty was cut by more than half, and there were large gains in employment. Real social spending per person more than tripled, and free healthcare was expanded to millions of people. You will have to search very hard to find these basic facts presented in a mainstream media article, although the numbers are hardly in dispute among economists in international organisations that deal with statistics.

For example, in May, the UN Commission on Latin America (ECLAC) found that Venezuela had reduced inequality by more than any other country in Latin America from 2002 to 2008, ending up with the most equal income distribution in the region. This has yet to be mentioned by the major international press.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/10/venezuela-economics

[naaman fletcher]

34. Fairness doctrine

It's time we brought back the Fairness Doctrine,

A great idea. So, do you think that Venezuela should have something similar? Should any opposition channels be allowed on the new Venzeualan digital TV roll-out or should it be all pro-Chavez channels?

[joshcryer]

41. LOL, you won't get an answer.

Far be it for state TV to be compelled to show a Capriles rally.

[Judi Lynn]

43. Put your money where your mouth is and support putting the Fairness Doctrine back here.

Take time off from infesting message boards with anti-leftist spew, start working for for real democracy here.

[naaman fletcher]

44. So you are against debate and discussion on this site?

The issue was Venezuela media fairness. Peace Patriot brought up the fairness doctrine. I asked her if she thought that would also be a good concept for venezuela.

Then you came in with your worthless post that added nothing.

Are you drunk tonight or something? You have been posting useless and off topic things all night.

[joshcryer]

49. It's all preparation for when the homophobic bigot gets into office.

That way they can deflect from his insane policies.

Once Globovision is gone then Venezuela will have no legitimate critical outlet for the government.

[Judi Lynn]

51. You don't believe you are out of line implying I'm drunk? Is that your place?

I outgrew drinking many years ago, and have never really missed it.

Your implication I am posting "useless" and "off topic things" is only your opinion, it has no value to me. Clearly I believe my articles relate directly to this conversation.

You might want to back off to a normal distance when attempting to communicate with serious people here. Stop bullying, and you know exactly what I mean.

It doesn't wear well.

[naaman fletcher]

58. I notice you didn't answer

You were the one bullying on this thread and others. I posted a perfectly reasonable inquiry of PP and you came to bully, and you did it on another thread as well.

[Judi Lynn]

36. How free IS Venezuela's media? Venezuela's Media: Free or Footloose?

Venezuela's Media: Free or Footloose?
by Juan Pérez Cabral

APRIL 21, 2002. Imagine the owners of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN meeting at the home of Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. with the head of the Joints Chiefs of Staff and assorted military top brass to plot to bring down U.S. President John Doe, a blowhard populist who has been elected by a landslide.

~ snip ~
Evidence that Venezuela's media establishment was up to its collective ears in last week's failed coup within a coup to oust the democratically elected President Hugo Chávez and install a right-wing dictatorship has been trickling out of the country for the past few days, thanks to honest reporting from the ground by journalists such as David Adams and Phil Gunson, in The St. Petersburg Times.

Conspirators are said to have met many times during the past year at the home of Miguel Henrique Otero, publisher of El Nacional, one of Venezuela's two main dailies, and other newspapers. Among them was Alberto Ravell, CEO of Globovisión, a CNN affiliate which is the country's main all-news TV station, Marcel Granier, of RCTV, another leading station, and Gustavo Cisneros, Venezuela's wealthiest man and a friend and fishing partner of former President Bush. The Cisneros Group owns Venevisión, one of the country's main networks, and is part owner of the local Direct TV franchise, Caracol Television, and the U.S. Spanish-language network Univisión.

~snip~
Led by Cisneros, the media group, which also included Andrews Mata, owner of El Universal, Venezuela's other major daily, met with self-proclaimed interim President and big business mouthpiece Pedro Carmona on Saturday April 14, as demonstrators were pouring out on the streets of Caracas demanding Chávez' return. Flanked by one of the generals who had installed him in the presidential palace only a day earlier, Carmona asked the media bosses for help.

More:
http://www.thegully.com/essays/venezuela/020421_venezuel_media_coup.html

[Judi Lynn]

46. Interesting to learn prior to Chavez gov't censors blocked out material in newspapers.

Just noticed this fact in a previous article I stashed away for future reference:

Media, Propaganda and Venezuela
by Anup Shah
This Page Last Updated Saturday, September 02, 2006

~snip~
Media Reporting

But it would be hard to get this information from the mainstream media. At some media outlets the reporting has been partial to say the least. Even New York Times editorials for example, portrayed the coup as a resignation by Chavez, rather than as a military coup, as criticized by media watchdog, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR).

Reporting on the ongoing issues, such as the protests and Chavez’s economic policies in Venezuela have shown similar signs of one-sidedness, from both the mainstream media of western countries such as the U.S. and U.K., and from Venezuela’s own elite anti-Chavez media, which “controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and … played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chavez, in April 2002…. The media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president—if necessary by force.”

Charles Hardy, who lived in Venezuela for some 19 years and worked with the poor notes that “A great difference exists between what one reads in the U.S. newspapers and what one hears in the barrios and villages of Venezuela, places where the elite do not tread. Adults are entering literacy programs, senior citizens are at last receiving their pensions, and children are not charged registration to enter the public schools. Health care and housing have improved dramatically.” Reading mainstream versions, you would not get this picture. Hardy also notes a number of themes of the Venezuelan and U.S. elite that both do not like Chavez:

In 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected president with almost 60 percent of the votes, incredibly overthrowing the entrenched and well-financed elite that had controlled the country for decades. That elite has never forgiven him and today is doing everything possible to tumble him. Sadly, the U.S. government and mass media have joined in this very undemocratic effort.

Their accusations have some common themes. First, Chavez is a communist because of his close association with Cuba. Is George W. Bush a communist because the U.S. has close ties with China?
…

A second accusation is that Chavez is a dictator and will limit freedom of expression very shortly. This has been said since 1998 when he was just a candidate for the presidency. To date, there is not one deprecating word against Chavez that has not been printed or spoken.

But I have government-censored Venezuelan dailies, before the time of Chavez, with blank pages.

More:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/403/media-propaganda-and-venezuela#USInvolvementinVenezuelanCoup

[John2]

35. I realize she is

probably a career Diplomat but I see an R by her name as the senor Diplomat in the Western Hemisphere. Does the Democratic Partry normally put Republicans in such important Posts? Can they seperate themselves from the rightwing Republican Party on Foreign issues? Can the U.S. ever put someone from the Left in any important roles? I think U.S. Policy will be a lot better if the Liberal Left got a voice in this country. It is probably why our country's Foreign Policy is so far to the right. I hope someone more to the Left would challenge these Democrats, that act like Republicans. I don't care how popular Hillary Clinton or the vice President is. Somebody fresh needs to challenge them in the Democratic Primaries against these rightwing issues they take. Bernie Sanders should change his Party ID to Democrat, because I think there are a lot on the Left thirsting for someone to represent them. If Obama can knock out the established favorite, then somebodyelse can that represents our views more. Elizabeth Warren, Ellis, anybody, jump in the race.

[Judi Lynn]

38. It would be a miracle if a true Democrat could work as a Democrat in our government.

They compromise so much they may as well be Republicans at the State Department, etc.

It would be a true New World if human beings like Elizabeth Warren, and some of the other Congressional Democrats only had foreign policy influence. All we've had this far has been people like mega-racist Jesse Helms and his successors steering our major policy making.

We can dream. Sooner or later, this country is going to evolve. Hope we're still around.

[davidthegnome]

37. A free press, Jacobson?

You mean like ours? Yeah... everyone should have such wonderful sources for news... Fox... CNN.... I mean, our media is awesome, so awesome that almost no one really trusts it. So awesome that we now have to use various sources to fact check anything we see or hear on the news. It's not like corporate or government influence plays a part... no, of course not.

A free and fair election... you mean they ought to elect someone we pick out for them, or else. If the powers that be in America really gave a shit about free and fair elections, we wouldn't have super pacs, the supreme court would not have selected George W Bush to be our President. This is bull shit - and I really can't blame Venezuela for recognizing it as bull shit.

[Judi Lynn]

39. Just found a helpful article I had stashed away re: Venezuelan tv news:

13.12.10
Television in Venezuela:
Who Dominates the Media?
by Mark Weisbrot and Tara Ruttenberg
It is commonly reported in the international press, and widely believed, that the government of President Hugo Chávez controls the media in Venezuela. For example, writing about Venezuela's September elections for the National Assembly, the Washington Post's deputy editorial page editor and columnist, Jackson Diehl, referred to the Chávez "regime's domination of the media. . . ."1 In an interview on CNN, Lucy Morillon of Reporters Without Borders stated, "President Chávez controls most of the TV stations."2 And on PBS in November 2010, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega stated that the Venezuelan media is "virtually under the control of Chávez."3 Such statements are made regularly in the major media and almost never challenged.

Table 1 shows the evolution of Venezuelan television audience share from 2000-2010. There are three categories: private broadcast channels, which are privately owned and available on broadcast television without payment; the state channels, which are run by the government and also broadcast without payment4 by the viewer; and private paid TV, which includes cable and satellite, for which the subscriber must pay a fee; and other paid programming that is being watched during the time of the survey.

As can be seen from the table, as of September 2010, Venezuelan state TV channels had just a 5.4 percent audience share. Of the other 94.6 percent of the audience, 61.4 percent were watching privately owned television channels, and 33.1 percent were watching paid TV.

Since the private TV owners are mostly against the government, it is clear that more than 94 percent of the TV that is seen by Venezuelans is not pro-government. In fact, much of the private media is stridently anti-government, in ways that go beyond the boundaries of what is permitted in the United States, for example.5 There are no data that describe the breakdown of audience share of the various TV channels on the basis of political bias. However, it is clear from this data, based on household surveys over a 10-year period, that statements about the Venezuelan government "controlling" or "dominating" the media are not only exaggerated, but simply false.

More:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wr131210.html

[joshcryer]

42. This is a really simplistic measure.

Venevision, owned by billionaire Gustavo Cisneros, for example, does not show Capriles rallies. You won't be able to find one time where they showed a Capriles rally. They also hosted the 2002 coupsters in their studios. They were allowed to keep their license and continue operating because they changed their programming to suit Chavez' propaganda after Carter came down and went fishing with Cisneros.

Of course, Carter went down there to tell Cisneros to not be overly antagonistic to the government like RCTV so that Chavez would let them keep their license, but hey, once Cisneros realized that he could still turn a profit Venevision became, effectively, an outlet for the government itself. It doesn't cover Capriles campaign rallies or speeches. This is why Venevisions license wasn't revoked. Cisneros became just another boligarch "working for the revolution."

Meanwhile, the government itself is buying out Globovision, the only over-the-air TV station in Venezuela that covers Capriles rallies.

Weisbrot does not consider the existence of the boligarchs and how they have become obscenely rich being private outlets for the government. Simply looking at "private vs public" media does not tell you the story about what is displayed on the TV screen. And it completely ignores that cadenas can be used at any time by the government on all stations at whim and for any reason. Chavez used over a thousand hours of cadenas in the last elections.

Capriles got maybe a tenth of that in coverage on Globovision and had a one hour interview on VTV throughout the entire last elections. Fairness doctrine the Venezuelan government does not practice at all. Don't even get me started about any sort of concept of equal time provisions.

[Judi Lynn]

45. Really! Well, from the view from here says he later went fishing with George H W Bush

and then he changed it back to the way it was when he participated in plotting the coup against the elected President, and in maintaining a complete news blackout to keep the general population from learning their President had been kidnapped at gunpoint.

He owes the decent people of Venezuela a great, GREAT debt for attempting to lie to them about the President they elected, and steal him from his job, by force, while keeping them in the dark about it as if they never mattered.

[center][/center]

[joshcryer]

48. Bush and Carter are both his friend.

The key is that Carter visited him to broker an agreement to change Venvisions programming.

Deflecting from this fact is par for the course.

If a private channel is peddling the chavista line, then it is not as was argued by the "stats" free to do what it wants.

Just like it would be preposterous to say that FOX News was a private channel in an argument that Obama doesn't have control of the media in the US or something ridiculous like that. Private channels can have agendas. Venevision's agenda is supporting the chavistas and not showing the opposition.

[reorg]

50. are you just mindlessly repeating right-wing propaganda

or are you deliberately spreading disinformation? You said:

"Venevision, owned by billionaire Gustavo Cisneros, for example, does not show Capriles rallies"

which I found to be an amazing claim since I just watched a clip from a Capriles rally half an hour ago on teleSUR, so I checked out

http://www.noticierovenevision.net/

which is the site with information on Venevision's political programmes. Under three different rubrics (Inicio, Nacionales, Política), you will find on prominent display, among other clips with election propaganda from the opposition, this video:

[Judi Lynn]

52. Jeez, you are good! Thank you, so much, for this admirable post. Wow. n/t

[joshcryer]

53. Um, I mean obviously in full.

Snippets here and there do not constitute the entirety of an argument.

It's just like how FOX News will show a small snippet, then clip away when the narrative doesn't fit their argument.

Go ahead and believe that teleSUR and Venevision show entire Capriles rallies like they did for Chavez and do for Maduro.

Interesting tactic though.

[reorg]

54. where are entire Maduro rallies on Venevision

or full hour interviews such as the one with Capriles on 18.03.2013?

(You can find the clips yourself this time, I presume.)

[joshcryer]

55. I don't see them on YouTube.

But I know for a fact that Globovision was the only network to show Capriles in Monagas today (live, and showed his speech, like you would any Presidential candidate who had a rally with tens of thousands of people), and I have found that to be a regular occurrence. Maduro hasn't had a rally in a week as far as I can see, he keeps bolivating behind a big table on TV. He's had almost 5 hours of Cadena time since the race started (patently illegal of course since each candidate is limited to how much air time they can have).

And if Venevision did a split screen of a Capriles rally during a cadena (like they did in 2002 over Chavez and protesters) then that wouldn't go over very well at all.

(Note: Maduro would never subject himself to an "interview" on any of the stations as he believes he is anointed, so this is a rather transparent objection. Likewise he will not debate Capriles even though Capriles has asked for a debate on several occasions.)

[reorg]

56. Good

that you now can admit that your claim in post #53 was false, namely that Venevision shows entire rallies with Maduro while there is no extended coverage of the opposition.

It is exactly the other way round. While pro-government statements are mentioned - which supposedly constitutes a "toning down" of their anti-government stance - they still seem able to extensively cover opposition talking points while remaining the most watched channel on free-to air TV:

Venevision (private): 26.18%
Televen (private): 14.46%
VTV (state):6.27%
Globovision (private): 4.29%
TVes(state): 3.35%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19368807

[joshcryer]

57. Showing snippets isn't the same thing.

And you know it.

A simple breakdown of private vs state does not tell the full picture.

And you know it.

But whatever. It doesn't matter. The homophobic bigot Maduro has a lock on this.

I expect a cadena marathon as this thing comes to a close, there won't even be snippets in the end.

[reorg]

59. full hour interviews with the oppostion candidate are not snippets n/t

[joshcryer]

60. Maduro could easily get an hour interview.

If he felt he was interview worthy.

Instead he has nearly 5 hours of cadenas for which he can interview himself.

[reorg]

62. Your false claim was that nobody covers Capriles

which I have shown to be easily disproven.

Venevision apparently still favors the opposition in their political reporting. They are still the most watched TV channel in Venezuela. Even while providing more space now to the government's proclamations and views, they can extensively cover Capriles' views and apparently do.

[NuttyFluffers]

68. thanks as always Judi! :)

love how these topics continually flush out so much data to allow readers to inform themselves. reminds me of old DU, it does.

[Judi Lynn]

71. If only we had some of those earlier DU'ers right back here!

It's good to share info, if a poster has the time, which can be a problem, as a lot of us really don't have hours to blow looking through files, references, etc.

That's what the trolls count on, that no one of us really has time to spend getting the info. here so people can start seeing beyond the crap our corporate media spews on a daily basis to keep us all clueless. Once someone actually catches a gimpse of a contradiction between what he/she has been taught through popular media, and something quite different, and then looks into it more deeply, someone has been awakened, and will NEVER go back to sleep. Impossible. Can't be done. You can't unlearn a truth, you can only learn MORE about it.

It has been a tragedy seeing how we've really been played by our own politicians and the very publications we've been buying all these years. Damn!

Thanks, truly appreciate seeing your comments.