Why is Venezuelan TV a problem for the US?
Media in this century is really a fascinating thing. I always assumed corporate run media was a sham, but never really examined the depths of it. When the Nepalese People’s War starting picking up international attention, then I began to notice one of the subtleties of “news.” I couldn’t find one article - not one! - that didn’t introduce the article with a body count of the People’s War, it would usually run something like this: “The People’s War has claimed xyz number lives as of (date).” Rarely ever indicating which side has killed more (The Royal forces, but that only says so much.) Even leftist news sources, which is really for the most part just interpreted capitalist news - followed in. Obviously the aim of this was to discredit the Nepali revolution, and make it appear as blood bath before the world.
So we switch attention to Venezuela. Google news produced two articles about Venezuela concerning the seizure of the Venezuelan t.v. station Radio Caracas Television by the Venezuelan government. VOA (Voice of America, essentially the mouthpiece of the U.S. Congress) reported:
Congressman Luis Fortuño (R- PR) assailed the Venezuelan government’s oppression of human rights in a live interview today at the Voice of America.
Rep. Luis Fortuño (R-PR)Congressman Fortuño and Carolina Jaimes from Radio Caracas in Venezuela discussed the Venezuelan government’s plans to shut down RCTV, one of that country’s oldest and most popular television stations.”It’s traditional and typical of an authoritarian government to want to control everything,” Fortuño said. “For me, it’s incredible that this is happening in the 21st century.”
(See Link)
The Australian news agency ABC reported: “This has exposed the abusive, arbitrary and autocratic nature of Chavez’s Government, a government that fears free thought, that fears opinion and fears criticism,” said Marcel Granier, chief of RCTV, the country’s oldest broadcaster.”
(See Link) and concludes with this quote: “Napoleon fell and Chavez will fall too.” (WTF?)
What I didn’t seem to find anywhere was a mention of this.” Supreme Court Allows RCTV Case to Proceed, but Station Must Go off Air” — or the fact that the station supported overthrowing the Venezuelan government.
If CNN supported overthrowing the U.S. government, how would the government respond differently?
The revolutionary Mumia Abu-Jamal remarked while discussing revolutionary journalism that he didn’t think there was such a thing as “objectivity”, that the very notion is bourgeois. I think he’s right.
Especially when you consider this:
Something I borrowed from this blog about the recent Rosie debate. Well, it looks like Mumia is right at least about capitalist media.
But back to the central question - why does the U.S. care? Lots of things happen in the world that the U.S. government ignores, or barely criticizes. But Venezuela is pissing the U.S. off. Now, that doesn’t mean Chavez socialist verbage has lived up to its promises yet, but it is an interesting experiment to watch. How far can you take social-democracy? The French tried. It didn’t take long for capitalism to snap them back into place. But Chavez has ventured further with his social-democratic vessel then I expected.
The most positive thing about Venezuela right now is that it is a POSITIVE thing right now to support against U.S. imperialism, instead of backing reactionary states like Iran.
Obviously Venezuela has created problems for the U.S. power base in Latin America and has rocked the boat for capitalism - but does that mean it can overturn the boat? We will see.
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