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Venezuelan troops used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful prostestors who'd gathered to oppose the Chavez regime's refusal to renew Radio Caracas Television's (RCTV's) broadcast license, earlier today (Monday, May 28, 2007).
University students blocked a major highway just hours after the Chavez government forced RCTV off the air, claiming it was "subversive" and claiming the station had backed a 2002 coup attempt against him.
RCTV was replaced with TVES a new public channel that launched its transmissions with various artists singing pro-Chavez music, followed by an exercise show. The socialist President claims he's "democratizing the airwaves" by turning over the station to public use
Founded in 1953, RCTV regularly topped viewer ratings in Venezuela, but Chavez accused the netowrk of "poisoning" Venezuelans with programming that promoted Capitalism.
Germany, which holds the European Union Presidency, expressed concern over Venezuela letting RCTV's license expire "without holding an open competition for the successor license." It also said the "EU expects Venezuela to uphold freedom of speech.
Protestors vowed to continue their protests in opposition to Chavez' tyrannical rule.
Hey, folks, it's the Hugo Chavez Show! Come on down! Wow, you might think there's some hope for Venezuela when protests break out on the streets of Caracas, even though they may be about nothing more than wanting to watch their favorite TV programs.
ReplyDeleteThere is much seething rage beneath the surface, however. Since Chavez came to power, Venezuela has laid claim to the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. All those happy citizens are killing each other off at a rate of more than 10,000 per year.
Poisoned by capitalism? Imagine what they could do if they could get their hands on those who actually deserve it.
Is it naivete, or is it something far, far worse, that draws so many ostensibly "good hearted" people toward socialism, Mick?
ReplyDeleteMy gut says it's a profound naivete, coupled with an incredible economic incompetence on the part of many true belivers....BUT, then I see so many "animal lovers," people who dress their pets, etc., who are out and out people haters.
So my head says that it's something much more disturbing than mere naivete.
What draws good people toward socialism?
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty simple, actually. The intellectual elites get to be heroes by saving the poor from the big, bad capitalists who use and abuse them, and the poor get to have their own personal paradise here on earth, without the bother of waiting to get to heaven.
The intellectual elites also get power; they need it to create this paradise by restructuring the state and instituting various forms of social engineering. In other words, they get to be gods, and the poor get to be the saved. Everybody wins. How can you beat a deal like that?
Of course, guys like you and me, lost in our own private delusions; unaware that we could be gods, not needing to be saved, content with the world as it is, satisfied with our place in the universe - we will never get to share in this paradise. How could we be so stupid? :-)
I think that's a big part of it Mick, helpers are always looking down toward those they seek to "help."
ReplyDeletePerhaps the same pathology that infects extreme "animal lovers," who in turn, almost always revile other humans, is the same pathology that infects the "helper" personality.
But there's more, becuase while that would explain the lure for those drawn by the poer of the "helper," it doesn't explain why so many successful businesspeople, once they achieve tremendous success, become more Collectivist.
I think that's a matter of people looking after their own. A statist economy is also a more static, less dynamic one and they tend to freeze "the game" in place, alleviating them from having to continue to stay sharp and continually fight off newer and hungrier competitors.
The subject of what motivates Communists has been debated on my blog for days. My observation is it falls somewhere in between theology and a mental pathology. The philiosophy fails in every application but the true faithful never examine the philosophy itself and blame a flawed implementation.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a nostalgia for a lost cause. The Confederacy and even Nazi Germany had those dolts who white washed bad ideas.
It certainly does seem that there is a sort of "secular religious" aspect to it, as well, Beakerkin. THat is a real good point.
ReplyDeleteNazism was indeed a form of socialism, and it added the exclusivity of what was really a non-existant "racial purity."
There's real irony in the fact that Hitler (as far from the Aryan ideal, as any European could get) represented a so-called Aryan-centric ideology.
As for the Confederacy, I think there was a different angle in play.
Some of the books that have defended the Confederacy, such as The South Was Right have noted that the orginal goal of the Confederacy was to preserve the original Constitution.
Of course, it would've been easier to defend had they followed Gen. Longstreet's admonition, "We should've freed the slaves and the n fired on Fort Sumpter."
People need to read about our (U.S.) history with Venezuela. Who is to say we are not up to our old tricks? Who is to say that the television station in question wasn't acting on behalf of American policy? We (you and I) know nothing of the facts regarding this...
ReplyDeleteIf I was Venezuelan I would not look favorably on the U.S... and with good reason.
The seven sisters do not have access to the vast Venezuelan resources so the chances are that there is some sort of U.S. subversion to the Chavez regime. To think otherwise is to dismiss history and play a fool.
It's sad how many idiots watch our filtered and approved "news" and feel they know what is really happening in the world.
We have indeed "meddle" in many Latin-American nations through the years, including with Allende's regime in Chile, and we were right to do that!
ReplyDeleteAllende's socialist regime was an economic basketcase and a threat to American business interests in that region.
Socialsim (a communalist economy) cannot work. That's been proven too many times to doubt that.
It's human nature that propels the competitive Capitalist economy to provide the most prosperity for the most people.
When the U.S. backed coup took over and put Augusto Pinochet in power in Chile, he brought in the late, great Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize Winner in economics and "all around great guy") and Friedman's policies brought Chile's economy FROM economic basketcase TO the "Jewel of South America," in less than a decade.
I don't know if the U.S. is meddling in VZ, for VZ's sake, I hope America IS meddling.
And yes, for America's too. After all Verizon, Exxon-Mobil and many other American industries have holdings down there that we can't afford to have stole/"nationalized."
I don't equate private business' interests on foreign soil as part of U.S. national security - yes a case can be made for it but a stronger one can be made against it. For one to think policy makers in bed with business is a good thing and call themselves conservative makes me cringe. Real conservatives are now few and far between while the vast majority, of both the "left" and "right", has let our nation and it's foreign (as well as it's domestic) policy be dictated by business.
ReplyDeletePrivate business interests all over the world are an AMERICAN interest, and NOT merely a "Conservative" one.
ReplyDeleteCoolidge put it succinctly and he put it weel when he said those immortal words, "The business of America is business."
And so it is!
Private property, including the private ownership of busineeses has created the prosperity that all Americans today take for granted.
I really like Pat Buchanan.
He was the last American to stand against the "American Empire," even wrote a book about that entit;ed A Republic, Not an Empire, but America IS an empire...for better, or for worse, that's precisely what we've become.
Better our very workable ideolgy and economy, than say, an unworkable socialist one that requires mass murder to even attempt to implement.
The esteemed Milton Friedman imposed our Capitalistic economy upon Chile and that nation's economy quickly became "the Jewel of South America."
It's really hard to argue with that track record.