Why are we so interested in Hugo Chavez's actions?

[0rganism]

Poll question: Why are we so interested in Hugo Chavez's actions?

Chavez gets a metric ton of (mostly negative) press in this country. Dozens of people on DU go out of their way to attack or defend him on a daily basis.

Yet he's only one of many Latin American leaders, with interesting history in his own right, but apparently he and his policies are more worthy of discussion than those of Uribe in Colombia, Calderon or Fox in Mexico, Lula in Brazil, Berger-Pedero in Guatemala, Zelaya in Honduras and so on. I don't recall the last thread devoted exclusively to the domestic policies of any one of these leaders, nor the last LBN article on such a topic, but we routinely have long, drawn out threads concerning Chavez and the direction of his "Bolivarian revolution" in Venezuela.

Without dwelling on whether you like Hugo Chavez or not, why is he more significant than the other leaders? Why do you even have an opinion about him, his policies, his electoral legitimacy, when you might very well not know anything (or much much less) about the others?

[eallen]

1. I think your premise is wrong: da Silva and Calderon get similar press coverage.

It's just that what Chavez does gets more notice because he does more radical things. Lula promised to rein in gang violence. Calderon promises to go after the drug gangs. Chavez pulls the license of a TV station whose broadcasts were politically inconvenient to him. If anyone scans the headlines for all three stories, which one pulls the attention? As a civil libertarian, I'm concerned about the greater police powers Lula is seeking. But I'm way past concerned about the steps Chavez is taking. If that surprises anyone, they should ask themselves how they would respond to the news that Bush shut down CNN?

[0rganism]

8. Obviously, I disagree

just on raw numbers, Chavez has both Lula and Calderon beat -- not just by a few %, either. I don't have a lexis nexus account, so I can't run an exhaustive search, but just trivial scan of google news shows

Articles on Lula da Silva Brazil: ~1300
Articles on Calderon Mexico: ~2500
Articles on Chavez Venezuela: ~5800

That's not "similar press coverage", that's a coverage blowout -- Chavez gets more than Lula and Calderon combined. But if you don't see the difference in profile, I don't know what to tell you. :shrug:

[ProudDad]

16. When CNN actively supports an attempt to violently overthrow

the bush administration, I'm sure * will shut them down...

[eallen]

17. If Bush were to shut down CNN, I'm sure he would make such an excuse.

Would you buy it?

[ProudDad]

18. The BBC did

among others;

"Many media outlets, including RCTV, supported a bungled coup in 2002 and a devastating general strike in 2003 that failed to unseat the president."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6215815.stm

"RCTV’s contentious relationship with Mr. Chávez worsened during the coup, when Andrés Izarra, the news operations manager for RCTV, resigned after he said his superiors suppressed coverage of developments about the coup."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/americas/01venez.html?ex=1325307600&en=514a9341d085c8fb&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

" A decision not to renew a broadcasting license to privately owned television network RCTV is fully legal under the Organic Law on Telecommunications, said the Minister of Communication and Information William Lara.

"Regulations are clear. Broadcasting licenses granted by the Venezuelan State are in force for 20 years, and such a term expires on May 27, 2007 for RCTV," Lara told state-run TV channel VTV, as reported by the official news agency ABN.

According to the official, any construction by RCTV CEO Marcel Granier of President Hugo Chávez' move not to renew RCTV broadcasting license is "a manipulation intended to distort the institutional and legal nature of this decision."

http://english.eluniversal.com/2006/12/29/en_pol_art_29A819711.shtml

"One would be that the workers of RCTV organize themselves into cooperatives and apply for a new license. Second, that the frequency is given to a semi-public, semi-private company, and, third, that it is given to the state, to launch an entertainment channel and that the current state channel 8 (known as VTV) becomes a 24-hour news channel. Lara stated that he has heard that RCTV plans to continue its operations even after its license expires, as a producer of soap operas and music programs, via its production company Coral Pictures. Currently RCTV exports many programs and could, in theory, continue to do so indefinitely. Also, said Lara, the station is free to continue broadcasting via cable."

http://truckdriver.blog-city.com/venezuelanalysiscom_1.htm

-------------------------------------

SO NOBODY IS putting them out of business, they just can't pollute the PEOPLE'S AIRWAVES with their coup-supporting bullshit.

-------------------------------------

Since when did so many folks at DU get such a fuckin' soft heart about a Venezuelan version of Rupert Murdoch anyway???

[jefferson_dem]

27. How about ..."Since when did DU get such a fuckin' soft heart about" rank consolidation of power...

expansion of unchecked executive authority, the undermining of judicial independence in favor of the installation of political cronies as jurists, and abject suppression of free speech and opposition voices in the press?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

28. Any administration would, not just the moron's. n/t

[Fridays Child]

2. Follow the money. eom

[BayCityProgressive]

5. Because there hasn't been

a successful socialist revolution since the 70's. This appears to be the big one.

[Lord Byron]

11. bingo

Well I don't know which one you're indicating is successful...but yes the fact that this is our generation's first major socialist revolution means something.

[unkachuck]

33. yes, yes, yes....

....it's like cats and dogs, oil and water....he's a Socialist and we are a country of rabid, fascist, war mongering corporatists and capitalists....(not everyone here on DU, of course)

....we just don't mix....as a matter of fact, if we liked Hugo, he would be bogus....

[arcos]

3. I care about all Latin American countries.

I'm Latin American so it's natural that if I care about politics in general I would care about politics in all of these countries.

However, here on DU it is clearly option #2. Chávez has lots of fans mostly because he despises Bush and is frequently critical of him. Sure, looking at his policies, lots of them are pretty progressive and helping Venezuela's poor people. But people here often like to overlook his authoritarian streak, something that I don't like at all and I think is dangerous.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. "Dozens of people go out of their way to attack or defend him."

I'd say dozens of people on DU go out of their way to attack him. And then some of us have a good laugh about it.

[stillcool]

6. any country with resources...

that is not open to U.S. business interests is susceptible to a whole lot of shit. They need to bend over and take it like a man.

[Eugene]

7. Hugo Chavez makes louder noises on the international stage than most.

His pro-Castro, anti-U.S. rhetoric makes him easy to demonize.
Chavez's efforts to buy influence with cheap oil earns him
prominence. His warm relations with the United States'
adversaries raise eyebrows too.

Today: Iran's anti-U.S. president heads to Venezuela - Reuters

If you act like the heir to Fidel Castro, you're going to get
lots of attention.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. "Anti-US?"

Donating heating oil to poor Americans is Anti-US, eh?

[rman]

21. you misspelled "anti US imperialism"

It's the imperialist media that call Chavez anti US.

[Say_What]

24. The NYTs headlines from the Allende years are the same as we're seeing now

it's the same old Tio Sam dirty tricks that the media did then and are doing today. Confirms that the propaganda machine is still effective and that US sheeple, although they think they're *informed*, are still as brainwashed as ever.

http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=&srchst=p&d=&o=&v=&c=&sort=closest&n=10&dp=0&daterange=period&year1=1970&mon1=01&day1=01&year2=1973&mon2=09&day2=12&hdlquery=allende&frow=0

[Lord Byron]

10. He's Venezuela's answer to Gamal Abdel Nasser

Except even further to the left.

[Lord Byron]

12. by the way, Venezuela is not "social democratic"

It's socialist. Chavez's rival in the last election was a social democrat.

[rman]

22. It's socialist and democratic

Unlike what you seem to be implying, it's not that Chavez/Venezuela is not democratic.

[Poll_Blind]

13. Options 2, 5 and Ahmadinejad. His relations with Ahmadinejad have...

...really concerned Jewish American voters. I wound up speaking to a person who regularly argues for Israel in the I/P forum because I was surprised to see them in the middle of a Chavez thread. After a few messages it came out that they were really just concerned about Chavez's relationship with Ahmadinejad and what that might imply, based on their perception of Ahmadinejad, for Chavez's view on Jews both in Venezuela and elsewhere.

  I think that Jewish American DUers aren't the only ones concerned by this. Ahmadinejad, Kim Jung-Il and Hugo Chavez all use the same, very agressive, rhetoric to criticize the United States but specifically what they say and why they say it, I believe, are unique to each country.

  However, it should be expected that those who do not have the ability or inclination to research these three countries to determine what their motivations in an adversarial stance with the current United States government are, are likely to conflate the motivations of one or more with another of them who may have friendlier relations with either or both of the other two.

PB

[BayCityProgressive]

14. The US

uses very heated rhetoric against these countries. Why are they not allowed to do the same in return??

[Poll_Blind]

15. I think that they should be able to criticize the U.S. government as...

...much as they want. Of course, they are allowed to do pretty much anything they want. However, the United States typically over-reacts to such criticism since we, historically, have tried our hand at the Empire business just as much as the British and don't like that fact being pointed out.

  I am a big Chavez supporter, myself. The question was "Why do we focus on Chavez so much", and those three reasons where the main reasons I feel he receives such (negative) attention in the MSM and on here by some.

PB

[Say_What]

25. Venezuela's Jews Defend Leftist President in Flap Over Remarks

Seems the Simon Wiesenthal Center spoke without consulting Venezuelan Jews first.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Venezuela's Jews Defend Leftist President in Flap Over Remarks

<clips>

The Venezuelan Jewish community leadership and several major American Jewish groups are accusing the Simon Wiesenthal Center of rushing to judgment by charging Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, with making antisemitic remarks.

Officials of the leading organization of Venezuelan Jewry were preparing a letter this week to the center, complaining that it had misinterpreted Chavez's words and had failed to consult with them before attacking the Venezuelan president.

"You have interfered in the political status, in the security, and in the well-being of our community. You have acted on your own, without consulting us, on issues that you don't know or understand," states a draft of the letter obtained by the Forward. Copies of the letter are also to be sent to the heads of the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee, among other Jewish groups.

"We believe the president was not talking about Jews and that the Jewish world must learn to work together," said Fred Pressner, president of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela. The confederation is known by its Spanish acronym, CAIV. He added that this was the third time in recent years that the Wiesenthal center had publicly criticized Chavez without first consulting the local community.

Last week the Wiesenthal Center wrote to Chavez, demanding that he apologize for what the center said was a negative reference to Jews during a Christmas Eve speech. The center also asked the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay to "freeze the process" of incorporating Venezuela into Mercosur, a regional trade bloc, unless the Venezuelan president publicly apologizes.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1864

[Poll_Blind]

30. Yeah, there have been more than a couple of attemptes to label...

...Hugo Chavez with the stigma of anti-Semitism. The last time this was tried, IIRC, the accusing organizations came under fire from Jews in Venezuela and dropped it. Not that it's going to stop them from trying the same thing in the future or pretend that the last round of charges was justified.

PB

[Say_What]

32. They've tried everything and anything... it's like throwing shit at a wall and hoping some sticks..

typical US dirty tricks. The other one they try every now and then is that terrorists are on one of the Venezuelan islands and that Chavez supports them. That never flies either. This week it's the free speech and consolidating power crap. Pathetic thing is that so-called *informed* DUers swallow it hook, line, and sinker. Propaganda works!!

:argh:

[Greyhound]

19. Several of your reasons apply, but in the end, it's all about $$ and oil. n/t

[1932]

20. I'm interested because every book and movie I've read and seen about him

is fascinationg.

Richard Gott has a great book about him. Aleida Guevara's book is outstanding. And The Revolution Will Not be Televised is the best political documentary I've ever seen.

[Say_What]

26. Link to "The Revolution Will Not be Televised"

Excellent documentary!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144&q=%22The+Revolution+Will+Not+be+Televised+%22&hl=en

[Zorra]

23. It appears that Chavez has the chance of setting up a genuine

social democracy that limits the power of wealthy private interests from controlling government.

There is a possibility that Venezuela could have a prosperous egalitarian society without government repression. Whether Chavez takes this route remains to be seen.

[Say_What]

29. Thus the reason for so much anti-Chavez propaganda

the headlines are very similar to the Allende years.

Anyone who remembers that time period or researches how the USSA pumped millions into discrediting Allende and distabilizing his government will recognize the same old tired CIA patterns. El Mercurio, the largest daily in Chile, was nothing but a USA propaganda machine for the coup and Pinochet's military government as proved in declassified docs.

This article, written by Peter Kornbluh in 2003, describes how the propaganda machine operated. Same methods, different democratically elected president. Anyone with half a brain will see the similarities.

<clips>

Secret Documents Shine New Light on How the CIA Used a Newspaper to Foment a Coup

El Mercurio served as a shill for the dictatorship, maximizing its economic success and minimizing its repression

September 11, a day of infamy in the U.S., is also a dark day in the history of Chile. This 9/11 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. Although former U.S. officials such as Henry Kissinger have insisted that Washington had no involvement in the military takeover, and was trying only to preserve democracy in Chile, CIA and White House records, analyzed here for the first time, show how the CIA used Chilean media to undermine the democratically elected government of Socialist Salvador Allende, an operation that "played a significant role in setting the stage for the military coup of 11 September 1973." From these documents emerges the story of the agency's main propaganda project — authorized at the highest level of the U.S. government — which relied upon Chile's leading newspaper, El Mercurio, and its well-connected owner, Agustín Edwards. In Chile, the aged Edwards remains an influential media power, and here in the U.S., covert action has again been unleashed and executive-branch secrecy is on the rise. The story behind 9/11/73 continues to echo.

...Building a Coup

How was this money used? "Assistance provided to El Mercurio has enabled that independent newspaper to survive as an effective spokesman for Chilean democracy and against the UP government," the CIA said in a Secret/Eyes Only memo to the 40 Committee. But leading the anti-Allende opposition was not the same as supporting the democratic process in Chile. Indeed, sustained by the covert funding, the Edwards media empire became one of the most prominent actors in the fall of Chilean democracy.

By 1972, the paper was "publishing almost daily editorials criticizing the Allende Government," and "had been guiding and acting as a rallying point for the opposition," the CIA reported in a summary of the El Mercurio Project. "El Mercurio continues to play a leadership role in molding Chilean public opinion," the CIA's Santiago station advised in a February 21, 1973, status report. "El Mercurio launched an extensive advertising effort to place the blame for Chile's economic ills at the doorstep of the Allende Government, placing ads wherever possible."



Allende and another casualty of the US-supported Chilean coup: General Pratts, assassinated in Argentina by DINA

[roody]

31. He caught my attention when I saw him on mainstream

tv speaking the truth about Bush in 2003, close to the start of the invasion of Iraq. I have appreciated him ever since.