• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Tens of thousands protest Chavez in Venezuela

Agnapostate said:
When it's not, it's typically associated with the more leftist capitalist countries of Western Europe, not more rightist capitalist countries like the U.S., which accounts for the traditional support for authoritarian political regimes by rightist administrations in this country. I think it's a matter of collusion between state and corporate power myself.
Click to expand...

There was a time the US was pretty isolationist. The true anti-interventionalists. :)
 
kaya'08 said:
There was a time the US was pretty isolationist. The true anti-interventionalists. :)
Click to expand...

There was, and that is why elsewhere I limited my discussion of US foreign policy to post WW2, because pre war they weren't so bad, minus a few occasions.
 
kaya'08 said:
There was a time the US was pretty isolationist. The true anti-interventionalists. :)
Click to expand...

Was there? That may have been at a point when a lack of industrial and technological development in general prevented U.S. military supremacy and aspirations of political hegemony from being as extensive as they are today, not necessarily the benevolence of the political regimes of the time.
 
Joe Castro said:
No more of a strawman than what you said. it's a case of like for like. When someone makes a logical argument, I return in kind with a logical argument. When one throws around blanket statements, I will throw around blanket statements. When it comes to dealing with me, you get exactly what you deserve.
Click to expand...

The point was, you are supporting regimes which have taken steps to restrain freedom of speech.

Your response consisted of telling him that if he didn't agree with you he was an evil yankee capitalist imperialist, while completely ignoring the above point.

I just thought I might point that out.
 
Dav said:
The point was, you are supporting regimes which have taken steps to restrain freedom of speech.
Click to expand...

Could you elaborate? I hope we're not going to hear about RCTV again; I'd hoped rightists had become a little more informed when it came to that one...
 
Dav said:
The point was, you are supporting regimes which have taken steps to restrain freedom of speech.

Your response consisted of telling him that if he didn't agree with you he was an evil yankee capitalist imperialist, while completely ignoring the above point.

I just thought I might point that out.
Click to expand...

That makes me wonder why the words bandits and terrorists were in bold, because that has nothing to do with anything he or you just said.
 
Agnapostate said:
Can you provide evidence of such, or are we simply to believe that a head of state elected by wide margins several times who continues to enjoy widespread popular support after more than ten years in office and seventeen years in the public eye will suddenly revert to tyranny?
Click to expand...

So was Stalin,Mao and Castor but nice try shall you try for Double jep were the question get harder.
 
Venezuelan minister: More radio closures coming
September 6, 2009

(CNN) -- The Venezuelan government initiated a new charge against a private television broadcaster and said that 29 additional radio stations would soon be closed, the latest move in what critics call a crackdown on freedom of expression. The Saturday announcement by Minister of Public Works and Housing Diosdado Cabello, who oversees the state telecommunications regulator, came at a counter-rally to marches protesting the hardline tactics of President Hugo Chavez.

Friday's marches against Chavez were in part to protest the government's closure of 32 radio stations and two television broadcasters last month. The government said the stations were shut down for violations relating to their broadcast licenses. Critics say the president was clamping down on critical press.
Click to expand...
Source: CNN.com

By my reckoning, that's 61 radio stations and 2 television stations shut down within 60 days by the government of Hugo Chavez. Very reminiscent of the USSR and its communist puppet regimes.
 
Let's delve a tad deeper:

Cabello also announced a new legal complaint against television broadcaster Globovision as a sanction for allegedly calling for a coup against Chavez during its coverage of Friday's rallies.

Globovision carried text messages from viewers on a ticker on the bottom of the screen during the anti-Chavez protests that called for an overthrow of the government, Cabello said.

"If you call for a coup, if you call for assassination, assume your responsibility," he said.
Click to expand...

Claims of suppression of media dissent are of course to be expected, and will come as they did when RCTV did not gain license renewal in 2007. However, the more accurate reality is one of media broadcasters not gaining license renewals due to their endorsement of illegal violence against a democratically elected government that was briefly destabilized and its head of state kidnapped during a short 2002 military coup. This was certainly the case with RCTV, which continued to operate as a network broadcaster for five years after the coup until their numerous violations of their license contract were finally used as a basis for denying them renewal and continued to operate as a cable broadcaster even beyond that. One must wonder whether journalists in the U.S. and other allegedly "progressive" Western countries would have avoided prison time or other serious punishment if they'd engaged in such improprieties, especially considering the enthusiasm that some apparently have for the assaultive use of tear gas canisters against nonviolent and non-provocative reporters if their political and ideological commentary is regarded as unacceptable.
 
Agnapostate said:
Let's delve a tad deeper: Claims of suppression of media dissent are of course to be expected, and will come as they did when RCTV did not gain license renewal in 2007. However, the more accurate reality is one of media broadcasters not gaining license renewals due to their endorsement of illegal violence against a democratically elected government that was briefly destabilized and its head of state kidnapped during a short 2002 military coup. This was certainly the case with RCTV, which continued to operate as a network broadcaster for five years after the coup until their numerous violations of their license contract were finally used as a basis for denying them renewal and continued to operate as a cable broadcaster even beyond that.
Click to expand...
:roll: Tens of thousands of brave Venezuelan protestors don't buy this hooey either. Venezuela had few problems with its media until the Chavez era. A remarkable coincidence no doubt.

Speaking of the protestors, I'm wondering at what point Chavez adopts the more persuasive tactics of his buddy... Ahmadinejad.
 
Tashah said:
:roll: Tens of thousands of brave Venezuelan protestors don't buy this hooey either. Venezuela had few problems with its media until the Chavez era. A remarkable coincidence no doubt.
Click to expand...

Nothing of the sort! The media elites have traditionally aligned themselves with ruling class pawns in an entirely non-coincidental manner. For example, during the 1992 coup attempt against the corrupt and deeply unpopular Carlos Andres Perez, his staff merely needed to contact available personnel at wealthy media mogul Gustavo Cisneros's Venevision network (which was later to be a meetingplace for anti-democratic military personnel during the 2002 coup) to arrange for him to issue a television address that disingenuously proclaimed that the turbulent situation was under control. Conversely, there existed substantial media bias against Chavez from the period immediately after his release from prison that intensified after his presidential election and inauguration, and was protested in the fall of 1999 by an organization called the Congress of Venezuelan Artists and Intellectuals through a sit-in at the Caracas Associated Press office. During the 2002 coup itself, several media outlets were responsible for the broadcast of disingenuous footage that falsely depicted Chavistas as responsible for several armed and unprovoked attacks on civilians...let's maintain our objections to allegedly disingenuous video footage, shall we? ;)

Regardless, the powerful and intense criticism that he continues to receive from Venezuelan media outlets and their often blatant sacrifice of journalistic ethics of neutrality in favor of overt bias against him accounts for the strong dislike of national media broadcasters among the Venezuelan lower class. Reference to "tens of thousands of protesters" obviously isn't intended to focus on the actual nature of popular support for the Chavez administration, which has always been and continues to be quite substantial.

Tashah said:
Speaking of the protestors, I'm wondering at what point Chavez adopts the more persuasive tactics of his buddy... Ahmadinejad.
Click to expand...

Aside from the fact that the depiction of governmental suppression of nonviolent protests is an exaggerated created by Western media outlets (this of course has lamentably occurred, though there is also suppression of violent outbursts and disruptions that is ignored as well as pro-Ahmadinejad rallies that are glossed over), a visit with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hardly establishes Chavez as somehow identical to him any more than his visit to Saddam Hussein did...I suspect that Ahmadinejad wouldn't have been eager to meet with Chavez if he was replicating Saddam Hussein's mannerisms.
 
Why closing so many Venezuelan media outlets?

Through her their promotion of an unacceptable ideological perspective, which is a plague that cries out for swift and vigilant repression. ;)
Click to expand...

I couldn't have said it any better :2razz:
 
Agnapostate said:
Let's delve a tad deeper:



Claims of suppression of media dissent are of course to be expected, and will come as they did when RCTV did not gain license renewal in 2007. However, the more accurate reality is one of media broadcasters not gaining license renewals due to their endorsement of illegal violence against a democratically elected government that was briefly destabilized and its head of state kidnapped during a short 2002 military coup. This was certainly the case with RCTV, which continued to operate as a network broadcaster for five years after the coup until their numerous violations of their license contract were finally used as a basis for denying them renewal and continued to operate as a cable broadcaster even beyond that. One must wonder whether journalists in the U.S. and other allegedly "progressive" Western countries would have avoided prison time or other serious punishment if they'd engaged in such improprieties, especially considering the enthusiasm that some apparently have for the assaultive use of tear gas canisters against nonviolent and non-provocative reporters if their political and ideological commentary is regarded as unacceptable.
Click to expand...
If it happened in the UK they would be spending the rest of their days in a jail cell. In the US theres every chance they would have been executed.
 
I'm a big fan of political assassinations personally.
 
No, imperialism is socialism that crosses national borders.

What I support is individual rights, including free trade, and naturally the right to defend your life, liberty, and property from thieves, oppressors, and murderers like Chavez.
 
Last edited:
Imperialism is related to "a social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community"? That's certainly news to me; what's not new to me is the standard abuse of political economic terminology that Internet rightists are prone to engage in, though. :2wave:
 
Agnapostate said:
I have somewhat mixed sentiments about Chavez, but claims of his authoritarianism and tyrannical dictatorship don't have much merit,
Click to expand...

Ya I know things like packing courts, state seizure of private media outlets, outlawing criticism of the government (desacato 'insults to authority' laws), ruling by decree, creating million manned armed militias answerable not to the Constitution (which he rewrote by the way) or to the people but only to oneself aren't classic hallmarks of a tyrant.
 
Joe Castro said:
If it happened in the UK they would be spending the rest of their days in a jail cell. In the US theres every chance they would have been executed.
Click to expand...

Can't speak for the UK, but you boys got any evidence for these wild claims about "what would happen" in the US? Especially the "execution" nonsense? Examples would be nice.
 
Agent Ferris said:
Ya I know things like packing courts, state seizure of private media outlets, outlawing criticism of the government (desacato 'insults to authority' laws), ruling by decree, creating million manned armed militias answerable not to the Constitution (which he rewrote by the way) or to the people but only to oneself aren't classic hallmarks of a tyrant.
Click to expand...

Of course, of course. Would you care to provide for...evidence of such, or will this be a claim to stand alongside:

Agent Ferris said:
Um CIA Agents are citizens of the U.S. as well and thus have a vested interest in the continuance of liberty.
Click to expand...

:2wave:
 
UtahBill said:
really depends on the military, will they be willing to fire on unarmed citizens if Chavez orders it?
Click to expand...

No the last time that Chavez ordered the military to fire on unarmed civilians they staged a coup which is why Chavez has created the Venezuelan version of the CDRs in the form of his personal million man armed militia. Chavez has his own little praetorian guard.
 
Harshaw said:
Can't speak for the UK, but you boys got any evidence for these wild claims about "what would happen" in the US? Especially the "execution" nonsense? Examples would be nice.
Click to expand...

I can't say if actual execution would occur, but endorsement of an anti-democratic coup that resulted in the kidnapping of the president and suspension of other democratic institutions would probably be grounds for treason charges in the U.S.
 
Agnapostate said:
Imperialism is related to "a social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community"? That's certainly news to me; what's not new to me is the standard abuse of political economic terminology that Internet rightists are prone to engage in, though. :2wave:
Click to expand...

"Collective ownership" is an oxymoron.

It seems that pretty much everything that is rational and based on empirical evidence is "new to you". I'm sorry, but the word for that is stupidity. You have a lot of reading to do if you expect to ever elevate yourself above your present level of self-servicing gibberish that is completely detached from objective reality.
 
Last edited:
Joe Castro said:
It's not anything to worry about, or cheer for if you are an imperialist. The crowds are tiny in comparison to what pro Chavez rallies attract, and certainly far less than vote for President Chavez and the revolution. We have learned from 2002 that if these bandits and terrorists try to seize power then they will fail, the people will revolt.

As for the point about the military, that is not going to happen. I have faith the military are not stupid, they saw in the coup what this "opposition" is, a violent, murderous beast. And Chavez is unlikely to order shots on unarmed people, if for nothing else, that is the tactic of the opposition, that is what they do, that is what the did in 2002 and Chavez is above their level.
Click to expand...

lol the reason why the coup occurred is precisely because the tyrant Chavez ordered the military to fire on unarmed civilians.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom