Chavez demands action against owner of TV channel

[ChangoLoa]

Source: AP

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez stepped up his threats against Venezuela's only remaining opposition-aligned television channel on Saturday, calling its owner a fugitive criminal and accusing him of conspiring against his government.

Chavez demanded that authorities including the attorney general and the Supreme Court take action in a pending criminal case against Globovision owner Guillermo Zuloaga, who fled the country earlier this year after a court issued an arrest warrant.

"Something must be done," Chavez said on state television. If Zuloaga does not return to face justice, Chavez said, "something must be done in relation to this channel and the properties this man has here."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101120/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_anti_chavez_tv_2

[Ian David]

1. They canceled Arrested Development. n/t

[ChangoLoa]

2. It's not old news

"According to very reliable information that I have, they say they have $100 million to give to whoever kills me," Chavez said. "And he is one of them, and he's the owner of a channel that is broadcasting right now in Venezuela."

"something must be done in relation to this channel and the properties this man has here"

A 5th State TV?

[Ian David]

3. Wow. Sounds like Glenn Beck. n/t

[bemildred]

4. Sounds like elections in the US.

$100 million is chump change, just ask Meg Whitman.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Here's my vetting of this Associated Pukes article from the Latin American forum...

Oh, yes, the Associated Pukes are all in a dither about "freedom of speech."

Edited on Sun Nov-21-10 08:15 AM by Peace Patriot
Always look for the tiny "ap" in the url, if the poster doesn't identify the source. AP = Associated Pukes.

AP was the corpo-fascist 'news' source, which, about a half decade ago, began using tricks like describing Chavez as "the leftist president of Venezuela, friend of Fidel Castro." They of course NEVER desribed Bush Jr as "the rightwing president of the U.S., friend of Prince Bandar."

But the one that really got me watching their wording carefully was: "His critics say that he is increasingly authoritarian." No quote. No attribution. "His critics say...". So I went looking for the source, and, a half decade ago, the only source I could find--the only person who had said that Chavez is "increasingly authoritarian"--was a far rightwing Catholic cardinal in Venezuela, who had spent his entire career at the Vatican banking office, and was the only person ever fired from that office (in the Italian banking scandal in the 1980s). He was very old and had retired to Venezuela (he's now dead) and regularly fulminated against Chavez from the pulpit.

AP is egregiously biased against Chavez--and, by implication, against the honest, transparent election system that put him in office, and the voters who voted for him. AP much prefers our corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' code infested election system and its fascist results--and they totally love the idea of five rightwing billionaires monopolizing all media. They will never tell you a damn thing about either of these egregiously anti-democratic, fascist, oppressive conditions--multinational corporate control of the vote counting in the U.S. and multinational corporate control of the media virtually everywhere.

But let the Chavez government de-license a corporate predator like RCTV--whose owner was an active participant in the 2002 rightwing coup d'etat in Venezuela--or demand justice for another corrupt media mogul, who also supported the coup attempt, and, oh dear, Chavez "is suppressing free speech." The REAL condition of free speech in corporate hands, here or in Venezuela, is never revealed. The Chavez government's great expansion of public participation and public access in Venezuela is of course never mentioned.

Chavez is doing what OUR government SHOULD BE doing--busting abusers of the public airwaves like Faux News and Clear Channel, busting up corporate media monopolies--conglomerates that own TV/radio networks, newspapers, movie studios, book publishers, magazines, often with unrelated subsidiaries such as weapons manufacturing or pharmaceuticals that gravely compromise their news businesses--and opening up our public airwaves to a wider political and public information spectrum.

WE are the ones with a highly controlled and very narrowly pro-corporate, rightwing/fascist media. WE are the ones being deprived of freedom of speech. WE are the ones being deprived of information. WE are the ones being deprived of proper representation in government. And we are about to lose the last vestige of OUR "New Deal" because of it.

Corporations have NO RIGHT to use the public airwaves--not in any country in the world. They have to merit a license to broadcast--this is a privilege not a right--and the best countries REGULATE that license in the interest of the common good--whether to prevent media monopolies, or require public service broadcasting or BALANCED political coverage. We used to have regulation like that HERE. The airwaves belong to you and me and everybody. We have a collective, democratic right to regulate them in the public interest.

Don't confuse free speech with CORPORATE speech. Corporations are business entities. They are not individuals. They have no inherent rights--none! They only have the rights that "We the People," as the sovereign entity of a country, GIVE them. Faux News has NO RIGHT to broadcast. RCTV had NO RIGHT to broadcast. And this other criminal corpo in Venezuela has NO RIGHT to broadcast. That right has to be EARNED. And criminal activity is one way to lose it--in a country that asserts "common good," democratic regulation of the broadcast media.

The Chavez government has gone after a number of scofflaw corporations--and also tax scofflaws--and the rich just hate it, and the Associated Pukes and brethren actively support them in that. Venezuela was just designated THE MOST EQUAL COUNTRY IN LATIN AMERICA, on the rich vs. poor indexes. The rich hate this. And AP and brethren hate it and don't want you to know it. They will never publish THAT story--that the Chavez government has cut poverty in half, and cut extreme poverty by more than 70%--but they WILL color a story on proper government regulation of the PUBLIC airwaves in Venezuela as anti-free speech story.

Look for the tiny "ap" in the url. Look at how they legitimized Bush--an unelected, corporate/war profiteer pimp--and are still trying to de-legitimize Chavez, an honestly elected crusader against corporate rule. Look for the black holes in their so-called 'news' stories where objective information and context should be.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x44740

[clixtox]

7. Absolutely "spot on"! Thanks again "Peace Patriot" for a...

knowledgeable explanation in a sea of ignorant opinions masquerading as expertise.

[Starckers]

8. Well?

Chavez is a dictator.  Who wants to be like him?

[justinaforjustice]

12. An American Living in Venezuela Agrees 100%

It is appalling to read the U.S. news stories about President Chavez and Venezuela. They are reproductions and even amplification of the fraudulent stories published by ultra-right-wing oppositions here in Venezuela. And the right wing oppositionists own more than 90% of the many newspapers here.

The U.S. has effectively suppressed objective news reporting by allowing a handful of big corporations to own and control all the news published in the our country. Consolidation of media ownership, coupled with the demise of the rule requiring "equal time" for opposing viewpoints, has crushed our access to objective news.

Those who report on the supposed suppression of democracy and the private media in Venezuela neglect to report that the few wealthy owners who are under investigation were active supporters of the 2002 anti-democratic coup, who supported the abolition of the democratically elected National Assembly (the equivalent of our Congress) as well as the Venezuelan Supreme Court. One station broadcast a call for the assassination of President Chavez, while another called for violent rebellion if the opposition didn't win the 2008 referendum. The opposition continues to be financially funded by the U.S.State Department's USAID, all in the name of supporting "democracy". We desperately need some support for real democracy in the U.S.!

For the real news about events in Venezuela, go to www.venezuelanalysis.com

[Judi Lynn]

15. An American progressive living in Venezuela is as good as gold to us, justinaforjustice.

Was thinking of you when I saw this yet another right-winger blast. We get one almost every damned day. It's constantly in motion.

Sad, and pathetic. Has nothing to do with democracy whatsoever. What a shame things have devolved to this degree.

http://www.twprideaulakes.on.ca.nyud.net:8090/images/david-boyd-tc-bord.jpg

Daily town anti-Chavez spewer

[Ginto]

23. Don't take this the wrong way.

But anybody can say anything on the internet. I think there is an easy solution. Can you take a photo of your hand with DU written on it in front of something recognizable in Venezuela?

Forgive me if it sounds snarky.

[Fearless]

6. Who wants to go live there? ...I'm waiting... Where'd everyone go... n/t

[EFerrari]

9. When the oligarchs in a nation are supplanted by democracy

first they try to kill it and then they leave. We'd be much better off if ours left, too. Maybe we can have a bake sale and buy them some plane tickets.

[justinaforjustice]

13. I Am Living in Venezuela. Great Programs Here.

Prior to President Chavez first being elected in 1998, more than 80% of Venezuelans had virtually no access to health care because they couldn't afford doctors or lived too far from them. Few private doctors practiced in ghetto areas. Since the Constitution was amended in 1999 to make health care, nutrition and access to dignified housing a constitutional right, millions of Venezuelans now have free neighborhood health clinics, providing, medical, dental and optical services, they have access to government subsidized food markets and eating halls, as well as much more public housing and access to loans to build their own.

The labor laws have been improved to provided a constitutional right to unionization, as well as reduced working hours and a minimum of two weeks paid vacation, with an extra month's salary as a Christmas bonus. Millions of retired workers can now access social security, which also provides free health care to recipients.

A new law, the Organic Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free from Violence, not only guarantees police protection to victims of domestic abuse, but provides for extensive social services, such as psychological counseling, temporary housing and job training programs.

The new Constitution also recognizes the right to form local community councils, where 200 to 400 families can act to set local priorities for improvements, repairs and social activities. Their projects, developed with technical assistance provided by the government, are carried out with direct government funding. My local consejo comunal (community council) has replaced aging water pipes and lightening, as well as set up a soccer field for the kids, and is providing arts & crafts workshops as well as musical and theatrical events.

The activists in my local consejo comunal also provides individual assistance to those in need in the community, helping them to get in-home medical services and to connect up with the many other government social programs to which they are now entitled. They act as advocates for domestic abuse victims as well.

Chavez's vision of Christian, democratic socialism is working here, despite the problems created by hundreds of years of administrative bureaucracy which sometimes gets in the way. It's electoral procedures are fair and utterly transparent. They actually have real paper ballots, verified by each voter, to re-count here, and a certain percentage of all ballots are automatically recounted to audit the electronic machines.

As I see it, there are two major problems which remain to be solved -- the street crime and the government bureaucracy which dates from the period of Spanish colonialism. The Chavez government has recognized both problems and is actively working to solve them, but they have accomplished an enormous amount in the last 12 years. Venezuela is putting human needs and priorities before private profits, and should be supported by progressives everywhere.

Don't be fooled by the corporately-owned U.S. media! The corporatists are terrified that those in the U.S. might learn what life is really like in a democratic, socialist country like Venezuela and want it for themselves.

[Fearless]

16. Way to address the issue at hand... or not. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

19. Thank you, Justinaforjustice! We never, ever, ever hear about these things from our

corpo-fascist press! Never! Venezuela was just designated THE MOST EQUAL COUNTRY IN LATIN AMERIC, based on distribution of wealth. Neither this nor any other news about the Chavez government's many accomplishments--nor about the accomplishments of the Venezuelan people--is ever published here. It is a disgrace!

I just wanted to point one thing out about Venezuela's election system--something I looked into, in detail, because our own system is so bad. Here, all over the USA, we now have electronic voting run on 'TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled largely (80%) by ONE, private, far rightwing connected corporation--ES&S, which just bought out Diebold--with virtually no audit/recount controls. Half the states in the U.S. do NO AUDIT AT ALL. The other half do a miserably inadequate 1% audit. We, the People, are forbidden to review the 'TRADE SECRET' code--a bloody outrage in a supposed democracy--and this culture of corporate secrecy has invaded every aspect of our election system. Our election officials act like we are an invading force, if members of the public try to get information.

Venezuela uses electronic voting but it is an OPEN SOURCE code system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated. In addition, Venezuela does a whopping 55% audit (comparison of ballots to machine totals)--more than five times the minimum needed to detect fraud in an electronic system, according to experts whom I respect. Venezuela is thus able to elect a government that does the will of the People.

This is why the poor majority in Venezuela is receiving so much help and bootstrapping--education, health care, small business loans, community council funds, support for decent wages and pensions, housing and so on--and why we are struggling here to retain unemployment insurance benefits, in this Bushwhack Depression, and may see the last vestige of the "New Deal"--Social Security--looted and destroyed. Venezuelans have been able to vote themselves a "New Deal." We can't even hang on to the one we had.

Venezuela's election system PROVES that you can use electronics in vote counting TRANSPARENTLY. Our system doesn't have to be this way--corporate-run and non-transparent. The coup that made it so--during the 2002 to 2004 period--can be undone, peacefully. But it will take a lot of education and a locally focused national movement--a big one. And until "we the people" do that, we don't really have a democracy. Transparent vote counting is the bottom line of democracy and it is gone, in the U.S. We see the effects of this loss all around us. But we don't hear about the effects of transparent vote counting in Venezuela because the corpo-fascist media, and those whom they serve, don't want us to know. They want us to forget about the "New Deal" here and remain oblivious to the Venezuelans' achievement of a "New Deal" via honestly counted votes.

The Venezuelans have unleashed something very great--with their courageous defense of their democracy, in 2002 and to this day. They voted for more than a "New Deal" for themselves. They voted for a new day in Latin America, and they and their government have been very influential as to pulling the region together on new principles of social justice, sovereignty, cooperation, mutual aid and rejecting U.S. corporate/war profiteer and other exploitation. Elections have consequences. Yes, they do, when they are real, and not some manipulated, "Alice in Wonderland" joke. And the consequences of transparent elections in Venezuela is a marvelous example of what the real thing can do.

[Pavulon]

20. Any trouble with milk or hydroelectric

power generation? Has crime changed in the slums around caracas?

[jonathan_seer]

14. Hugo Chavez supports gay rights

you shouldn't be so quick to ridicule him, considering he considers gays one of the oppressed who deserve equality, vs a vs. the USA where we are which that is open to debate.

As far as living there, since when did condemning the extreme right wing press in Venezuela become the same as a desire to live there?

Your question has a very Republican point of view.

[Fearless]

17. And Mussolini ridded Italy of malaria. Yet false logic doesn't equate a valid statement.

[iandhr]

10. Chavez

calls twitter "tweets" against him terrorism. Chavez tries to silence opposition against him.

http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2010,1034.html

reporters with out borders rate Venezuela very low on press freedom 133 in the world

[Peace Patriot]

22. "Reporters Without Borders" DO have borders. They belong to a country called

Multinational-Corporation-Land. This is a free-floating, unattached, legal fiction of a country, nevertheless monstrous in its impacts, consisting of individual "states'--Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Monsanto, Bechtel, Dyncorp, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, et al--who have loyalty to NO ONE, and are ruled by NO sovereign people, and who, instead, buy and hijack governments and politicians and even entire national military forces, to do their bidding.

Corpo-fascist "reporters" are their servants. They live within the borders of this monstrous international corporate "country" and they are not free to challenge its dictates. This monstrous entity that hovers like a dark cloud over all the countries of the world has nothing but contempt for democracy and sovereign peoples, and is furthermore destroying our only home--Planet Earth itself--for profit. The so-called "reporters" from Multinational-Corporation-Land are dependent on its dictators for their daily bread. They do not venture outside of its borders. They are its scribes and propagandists.

They have usurped their name from "Doctors Without Borders" (a genuine, independent group) but they do NOT represent any kind of objective, independent analysis of the state of "freedom of speech." They are defenders of CORPORATE speech. If they were objective and independent, they would descry rightwing billionaires owning and controlling all the media. They would condemn media monopolies owning TV/radio networks, newspapers, book publishers, magazines, movies and controlling all news and entertainment. They would cry foul at media conglomerates owning weapons companies and pharmaceuticals. They would lament the whorishness of once great news organizations like the New York Slimes and the Associated Pukes. They would condemn the wars, the mass slaughter, the torture and the massive corporate theft and lawlessness that these 'news' organizations have perpetrated in the interest of the Corporate 'Fatherland.' They would condemn corporate-controlled 'news' as lethal to democracy and human life. They would defend the public's right to require political balance on the PUBLIC airwaves. They would demand that the "Fairness Doctrine" be restored in the U.S. and everywhere else. They are not free to do so. They are confined within very tight borders, indeed. And on the issue of Chavez and the corporate media in Venezuela, they are not only wrong, they are kissing Corporate Ruler butt!

Look into "Reporters Without Borders." That's all I ask. They are not who they pretend to be.

[COLGATE4]

11. Chavez uses pretexts to try and supress TV channel with anti-Chavez

leanings. This isn't about our cherished opionions on 'freedom of speech', or 'damned oligarchs' or 'neo-fascist corporate pigs', etc. What it is about is that in a nation which presumably still supports the rule of law, the Caudillo of the moment is able to move the state apparatus in order to choke slowly choke off communications companies that do not support him. You can try and dress it up however you please, but that's the bottom line.

[Fearless]

18. +1000

[unkachuck]

21. "Something must be done,""....

....zuloaga should tried and sentenced in absentia and the treasonous facts made public....

....no government, including our own, is going to grant a broadcast license for the broadcasting of treasonous content....

[COLGATE4]

24. Please give cites to: a) the supposedly 'treasonous facts made public" and b)

please give cite to section of the Venezuelan Criminal Code that makes this illegal.