Tax Financed Terrorism

As I am preparing to debate between socialism and capitalism, the Chavez government has made one more of their interminable abuses.

for those who don't know, and how could you if no Venezuelan media can report this sort of acts, the car of Noticiero Digital's Chief Editor, Roger Santodomingo, exploded sometime this week. Even though the cause of the explosion is unclear, the threat letter received by his eight year old son (yes, an eight year old boy received a death threat in Venezuela) in which Roger was told to shut up or to be prepared to spare his son's life, kind of point towards the car not exploding by mere coincidence but somehow resembles a Mafia hit of those seen on TV, or a terrorist attacks like the ones we here happen every day in Iraq.

As is this story wasn't bad enough, we need to add the fact that our taxes and oil money, financed in a direct or indirect way this hit against a fellow Venezuelan. Thanks to the work of Mario Silva an his tv show: La hojilla (The razor blade), which fuels chavista followers with hate toward opposition figures with unfunded accusations and defamation, has been able to create this terrorist mindset on the mind of some individuals who decided Roger should be shut.

For more information on the story: http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200707060459

Again, another example of who freedom of expression works in Venezuela: You are free to think as I tell you, or else we will kill you...or threat your son.

The new classes

I believe is human nature to divide ourselves into groups. Apart from the physical appearances, we also create groups in several different traits like education, money, religion, political views, sports teams, etc.

This separations or distinctions are generally, or shouldn't be, harmful except when taken to extremes. I mean, I love telling Magallanes followers that their team sucks as much as I like telling Caraquistas that so does theirs (I've long been a Tiburones de la Guaira fan myself even though I don't follow Venezuelan Baseball that much anymore). It's also fun during World Cups how people side to any team even though our own is not playing. They paint their faces, where their flags and chant their songs as if they truly were their team. Of course this rivalries raised from sports sometime result in violence when mixed with alcohol or simple anger.

Then we have distinctions that fall on the vault of racism: the color of our skin, our religion, our heritage, our language, our political views, our education, our social status, etc. People tend to think that we should eradicate this distinctions and although I agree that we should have the same education and the opportunity for the same social status, things like religion, color, heritage etc, can't simply be changed and should just be respected and embraced as the elements that makes us different and simply more entertaining. Wouldn't life be pretty dull if we all looked or thinked the same?

The funny thing in Venezuela is that this distinctions are slowly fading away and a new clear distinctions is arising. this has to be with color; but not with the color of our skin our eyes or hair. It simply has to do with the color that you wear. Yes, as simply as that can sound, it is the only thing that is truly differentiating one group of venezuelans with the other.

If you wear red, or as the government say, you are Rojo, rojito, you are a free person. You are a free thinker liberated from the imperialist lies bestowed on us from centuries. If you wear red you are a patriot. You have the ability to receive government grants and help for education. You gain the ability to bid on government projects, as well as you become eligible for work in government jobs. On the other hand, if you decide to wear any other color you are suddenly a traitor. An imperialist pawn controlled by the US government. You loose absolutely all possible chance of bidding on any government project, working any government job or even enjoying the so called absolute gracious programs the government has set forth to better health and education.

This governemnt has done nothing except dividing Venezuela into the new classes: The Roja, Rojita and the, well, blue, yellow, green, black, brown, pink, etc etc that simply dares to think different.

Oh my

I've failed miserably at keeping up with this blog but the truth is that the main reason I started it, the RCTV story, is not as fresh as before anymore. I mean, even though the illegal closing of the station is still causing tremor and unrest, trying to disproof the lies of the government and it's followers is not as entertaining anymore, mainly because they have absolutely no valuable argument.

They repeat as parrots the same ideas: RCTV participated on a coup and if that had happened in the US the station would be close immediately and their owners sent to a firing squad or what not and that the government was nice and didn't send the station or owners to trial but waited for their license to expire to not renew it without any due process. We must remind our readers that by law, in Venezuela, if a station meets the requirements, it's license shall be automatically renewed. We have yet to see what requirements RCTV didn't meet and of course proof of guilt in their involvement on the coup.

I plan to keep this blog alive but I'm thinking I will swift it's content to try to understand why chavistas think that socialism will make their life betters. Ok, I mean people not tied with the government cause we all know who the new Oligarchy in Venezuela is, don't we?

I am not an economist not I'm an expert on either one of these socio-political systems. But as a person who tries to rationalize things, I will do my best in pointing the flaws or goods of each one of them in hope to start a debate with socialist and capitalists alike to see if indeed, this 21st century socialist is the solution of all of the Venezuelan's problems.

A week and no posts?

Yes, I've been busy and honestly I didn't want to write about the RCTV since it was getting pretty repetitive. Besides, Alex post below pretty much "debunks" the whole thing and sums it up pretty well.

I've been reading some news and gathering some more info and will be posting some more of my rantings pretty soon. So stay tuned.

Another Link

http://alexbeech.blogspot.com/2007/06/they-keep-coming.html

Wraps it up pretty good.

Venezuela Analysis has some proof now?

I don't think so, or they failed to show it.

The Link: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2070

The source article was also featured on: http://redpepper.blogs.com/venezuela/2007/06/chavez_and_rctv.html & the actual source: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php

The article dwells on the same issue: Is it ok for Chavez t to close down a TV statin that is not in line with his socialist message?

I am not going to comment on all of it since I've already done enough postings on the matter. But I will comment about a couple of paragraphs that just jumped out of the page.

"Likewise, it is a simple fact, not a claim, that RCTV was deeply complicit in the 2002 military coup - and the views of the West's Venezuelan bete noire should be placed front and centre only if we are content for media demonisation to undermine this truth." I guess they have proof or maybe they recorded the trial..oh wait, there was never a trial to prove RCTV's involvement. So how come it is a simple fact and not a claim? I have yet to understand.

"In a rare example of media honesty, the Los Angeles Times reported last month that RCTV had initially been focused on providing entertainment: "But after Chavez was elected president in 1998, RCTV shifted to another endeavour: ousting a democratically elected leader from office." (Bart Jones, 'Hugo Chavez versus RCTV - Venezuela's oldest private TV network played a major role in a failed 2002 coup,' Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2007." Oh....oh...they are using Bart as their source and calling him honest. Bart, the man that wrote a book about Chavez and it's completley biased towards him, did an honest reporting, sure.

The best part of the paragraph, and maybe the whole article is the: "In a rare example of media honesty.." Media Honesty? By Bart Jones? Someone who is clearly biased for Chavez? Who is Media Lens or Red Pepper or whoever to say this is fair reporting and the other is not. People please, if you really want to defend Chavez on the grounds that RCTV allegedly participated on the coup, you still have to show proof of this participation since the Venezuelan Government, Chavez etc never showed this proof and never sent RCTV or it's owners to a trial.

Is it really "honest, fair reporting" to print things like: "On the same day, RCTV allowed leading coup plotter Carlos Ortega..." coup plotter??? I mean you can call him coup plotter if you want but you should at least be "FAIR" & "HONEST" and explain to people that he was also the head of the CTV (Confederacion de Trabajadores de Venezuela) or the main Venezuelan Workers Union or Association which basically represented all workers in Venezuela. Also, RCTV "allowed (Carlos Ortega)  to call for demonstrators to march on the presidential palace." RCTV allowed him to call for demonstrators making them part of the coup? Weren't they reporting the events and transmitting an interview of one of the main persons in the events that were happening in Venezuela? Didn't Carlos Ortega have the right to call for demonstrators? I believed we had the right to protests but I guess I'm wrong.

Of course the article cites Izarra, who at the time was news director for RCTV and after condemning RCTV he was last seen as Information Minister (I need to find the correct word seriously) and head of Telesur, a sure sign of honest and fair reporting. 

You know, I need to finish the articles before I start writing. I was wrong when I said before that the best part of the article was the rare example of Media honesty. I mean, it was really good but not as good as: "In fact it turned out that the US had conspired with the coup plotters to overthrow the government. Likewise, Chavez supporters had been +defending+ themselves against sniper attack. The Venezuelan media had misrepresented film footage to present the required version of events." I really wish I could sit down with this people so they can show me all this coup plotting proof they have. Although since I'm being paid by the CIA to write imperialist ideas it might not be of their interest. Anyways the US alleged particpiation is not as good as "Chavez supporters defending themselves against snipers." WTF? Do I really need to remind this people that almost all the people that dies were protesting against Chavez? And that of all the ones that were shot & killed by snipers, all of them were protesting against Chavez? Are they really saying that the Puente Llaguno images (I believe this is the " misinterpreted film footage" they claim) were distorted since the Chavistas were shooting at the snipers? I'm sorry but I thought snipers where up on buildings and this people looked as if they were looking down. And well there is also the problem with the shadow and the film was cropped, etc.

I'm just going to leave this post here as it is clear that Pro Chavez news, blogs, etc will always use the exact same argument: RCTV participated on a coup so they got shut down. And they will always fail to fill in the blanks: When where they found guilty of this participation? I might have missed it... I don't know, after all I am just a paid CIA employee hooked up to an imperialist, idea feeding machine.

Fair as long as it's not against me

Yesterday I was reading a "Chavista" blog and in there Okrim, the author, has a post about a hacked blog from a fellow Chavista blogger (Lubrio) which got erased by however hacked it.

http://okrimopina.blogspot.com/2007/06/respalden-sus-blogs-respaldemos-los-de.html (Link in Spanish)

He condemned the action calling it an intolerable upsetting to the point of almost making him curse. He also said: "La acción de atacar la página donde un individuo se expresa de manera libre es un atentado contra toda la comunidad bloguera: sea un blog revolucionario o no..." which can be translate as: The action of attacking the page where an individual expresses himself freely is an attack against all the blogging community. He then continues: "no defenderé NUNCA sea el atacante o el atacado de la ideología que sea. Si yo tuviera acceso y la posibilidad de eliminar blogs cuyas posiciones no comparto, como los de, por ejemplo, Kareta o Luis, jamás se me pasaría por la mente llevar a cabo ese acto tan mezquino, cobarde y despreciable, que deja bien en claro la catadura moral de quien lo perpetró..." which can be translated to: "I will NEVER defend such action whatever the ideology of the attacked or attacker may be. If I had access to eliminate blogs with positions that I don't share, like for example Kareta's or Luis', it will never cross my mind the moral "catadura" of who did this (referring to the person that erased Lubrio's blog).

I must say the Okrim is right. I too will not applaud such an action since I am a believer of freedom of speech and expression.

But, the point that I want to make is that Okrim condemns this action but on the other hand he's completley fine with the one taken against RCTV. I pointed this out as a comment in his blog to which he replied that he knew that someone would make such point and he proceeded to explain me the difference that would explain why RCTV's shutting down is ok and Lubrio's blog is not. His reasons were simple:

1. The radio electric space is limited, the blogging one is not.
2. RCTV's work was not erased as in Lubrio's case.
3. The State didn't took over RCTV's broadcasting equipment while a hacker took over Lubrio's blog.
4. Chavez closed RCTV abiding by the law while this hacker sort of broke it by forging Lubrio's identity.
   

These three points are completley valid, but they fail in several ways. For example, we can agree the the radio electric space is limited while the Internet space is not. So, how many TV stations does the Opposition has now? Globovision? which is a station that's not visible throughout the whole country? What about Chavez? Well, he has VTV, Telesur, Vive and now TVES which occupies the space that belonged to RCTV. shouldn't this limited space be distributed somewhat equally amongst the venezuelan audience?

As for the second point, is true that RCTV's work was not deleted and since Lubrio didn't have a backup, his work got lost. This is completely true but it is still doesn't make one right and the other one wrong.

The third point bother me a little since the government ordered the seizure of RCTV's broadcasting equipment, which I'm not sure if was followed through, but the order was there.

And last but not least, Chavez abiding by the law. It is true that the State has the right to revoke or not renew a broadcasting license, there is no discussion there. What we need to discuss is the government reasons to do such thing. Their main one is that RCTV participated on a coup, to which it was never tried and actually proven that it did, and the other one is that it was a terrorist, fascist tv station because government adepts felt like it.

What Okrim failed to realized is that even when they are conceptual differences, we are looking at the same crime. Chavez closed down, law abiding, a TV station that had a different message than what he wanted to convey. He closed down a TV station which he called terrorist, fascist and what not because he felt that if their message wasn't in line with his, they shouldn't be allowed to broadcast. On the other hand, Lubrio was the victim of the same crime. He too was silenced by someone that felt that his message shouldn't be heard (read in this case).

We are free and as free people we have the right to disagree and to have different opinions. "chavistas" should take a closer look at their slogan: Patria Socialismo o Muerte. Venceremos, translation: Country, Socialism or Death. We will win. In this slogan there is no space for a different opinion. Either you are a socialist or you'll die fighting us. This slogan leaves no room for discussion which explains exactly why it's perfectly fine to close a non socialist TV station while it's a completely treacherous thing to shut down a socialist blog.

You are free to think what you want, as long as your thoughts are in line with Chavez's. Not too much freedom there, right?