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despite the best efforts of a multi-million dollar, multi-year, multi-fronted "Big Lie" campaign, such as we have not seen since the WMDs that weren't in Iraq, to paint him as a murdering, thieving, drug dealing, weapons dealing, terrorist-loving, "opposition"-oppressing, incubator-unplugging tyrant, and that shows ya that he dictatorially buys votes by building schools and medical clinics.
Next from Simon Romero (the NYT's "Judith Miller" for South America): "How Chavez is turning little schoolchildren into FARC guerrillas by giving them hot lunches."
So it goes.
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It's quite difficult to talk about Chavez and our dreadful corporate-run media in sane terms. If Lewis Carroll were still alive, he could do it. Blithering jabberwocky. I've tried to do it myself, and have found myself, oh, feeling despair that reason can get us out of this and other rabbit holes. One of the swirls of unreality you go down--I've gone down--is to say that, if Fox News did here what RCTV did in Venezuela (actively participated in a rightwing coup against the elected government), they wouldn't just have their license to use the public airwaves pulled, they'd be in jail--because it's worse than misuse of a license; it is treason. But, you see, I believe that our corporate media--all of them, not just Fox News--already did this, twice, in 2000 and 2004. They used their broadcasting license to actively participate in two rightwing/corpo/war profiteer coups against the elected presidents of the U.S., Al Gore and John Kerry. And they are not in jail for it, nor, certainly, have they lost their broadcast licenses. How I really should put it is, in a Fantasy United States--a U.S. in which the illusion of democracy is used to prevent real democracy--a number of traitors would be in jail, including the CEO's of the fascist 'news' monopolies, and, in the conext this ideal of democracy that we, the people, blessedly maintain and that is used against us, to oppress us, what Chavez did to RCTV--pulled their license--was very mild, and perfectly understandable (as well as quite legal).
There are damn few capitalist democracies that are working very well these days. Ours is poised right over the fascist precipice (or worse, a nazi precipice)--especially given our heavily propagandistic media and the corporate-owned 'TRADE SECRET' code in all the voting machines, and what the Bushwhacks were able to get away with for eight years, with complete impunity. Criminy, we did fall over the cliff, and are only very slowly even realizing that "Humpty Dumpty" is wounded, let alone smashed to pieces. Our democracy has been gravely shattered. And one reason that Diebold & brethren permitted Obama to win in 2008 may have been that the Bushwhacks were exposing that reality (of a shattered democracy) beneath the surface of the carefully cultured illusion of democracy by which we have all been brainwashed and oppressed since Reagan, at least (probably since the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations). The Bushwhacks were too raw. The things that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did are mind-boggling--but here they are walking free. Our democracy is so wounded, it is nearly dead. And along comes a new, invigorated, truly egalitarian and people-supported democracy--Venezuela--and its government tries to do what we tried to do, in the 1950s and 1960s--regulate use of the public airwaves for political fairness--and some of us hardly recognize ourselves, our democratic ideals--our 'Fairness Doctrine,' our "equal time" provisions, our desire for wide spectrum political discussion and information, and our legitimate fear of media moguls. The Chavez government's fear of media moguls--based on known media mogul participation in overthrowing the government--is painted here as an attack on "free speech," when it is precisely the opposite of that. The Venezuelans are attempting to prevent fascist corporate media moguls from controlling all the airwaves, from brainwashing the public with corpo/fascist BS--lies, fearmongering and craziness of every kind--and from replacing democracy with fascist dictators. And that was the whole point of our creation of the FCC and broadcast licensing back when TV was invented.
The U.S. now has only the illusion of government regulation of the airwaves in the public interest. In practice, the corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies run wild here. So, to say that what the Chavez government is doing--trying to properly and rightfully regulate the airwaves in the public interest, to enhance democracy--is only what all democracies do, including our own, is not exact. The Chavez government is trying to create the reality--rather than the illusion--of free speech. And that is a major crime in our "Alice in Wonderland" corpo/fascist world--where "free speech" is for rightwing, billionaire media CEOs, not for you and me. We think we have it. But we really don't. We've forgotten that we have the right NOT to be lambasted 24/7--on virtually every TV and radio station--with fascist manipulations of the news and outright raving propaganda, such as we were subjected to in the leadup to the Iraq War.
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