Democracy Marxist-Style

Hero of the American Left, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will shut down a private Venezuelan television station and replace it with state approved channel.

Venezuelans protest opposition TV channel closure
By Christian Oliver
Reuters
May 19, 2007

CARACAS (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters on Saturday denounced President Hugo Chavez's plans to close an opposition television channel, accusing their leader of maiming Venezuelan democracy as he forges a socialist state.

Chavez says RCTV, the country's oldest private broadcaster, supported a bungled coup against him in 2002. He has had a long-running battle with opposition television stations, calling them "horsemen of the apocalypse."

"Let us defend democracy, let us defend freedom, let us defend free independent media such as RCTV," RCTV's managing director, Marcel Garnier, told demonstrators in Caracas.

"Or we will allow the president to topple the country over the precipice of totalitarianism where not even his own supporters can express their opinions," he said as the crowd waved flags, applauded and blew whistles.

Chavez has vowed not to renew RCTV's broadcast license when it expires on May 27. It will be replaced by a state channel showing programs that promote the values of Chavez's self-styled leftist revolution. He accuses RCTV's saucy soap operas of spreading immorality.

Analysts have identified a critical media as one of the principal safeguards against the president building a Cuban-style state in the OPEC nation.

In January I posted that Chavez had succeeded in enacting an "Enabling Law" allowing him to rule by dictatorial decree. It was this same law which enabled him to issue the decree to strip the opposition television station of it's license.


We also noted in March of 2006 the preponderance of American leftists visiting Venezuela to praise the efforts of Hugo Chavez. Every America hater from Noam Chomsky to Ed Asner, Jesse "Shakedown" Jackson and Cindy Sheehan.

How many times have we heard the left in this country complain because someone dared criticize their defeatist views regarding the war in Iraq? What would they think if:

• President Bush changed the constitution to allow him to stay in office for an indefinite term without facing re-election?
• What would they say if he passed a law that made it a crime to insult him?
• How would they react if he summarily fired workers who opposed his policies, wiretapped, then broadcast their phone calls on television, ordered troops to shoot protesters, closed down radio and television stations?
• What would their reaction be if President Bush refused to provide funds to state governments controlled by Democrats?

They would go absolutely bonking crazier than they are already! Yet, these same lovers of freedom embrace Hugo Chavez, the dictator of Venezuela, who has done all that and more:RealClearPolitics The Man Who Controls Venezuela By Peter Mork