Venezuela's Chavez To Limit Internet Freedom

terets1 writes "Reuters reports that Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez, issued a call on Saturday for 'internet controls' to prevent rumors and inaccurate reporting from spreading. He specifically cited a case in which a website incorrectly reported that a senior minister had been assassinated and kept the story up for two days. Many of Venezuela's opposition movements use social networking sites to communicate. It is not apparent at this time exactly what kind of controls Chavez has in mind or whether those controls will be similar to the controls in Iran that have been used to silence opposition movements. Chavez said, 'The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms.'"

Comments

Way to go

[betterunixthanunix]

I guess Chavez has decided to follow the same path that every other communist leader has followed? "We cannot allow openness if it means people will disagree with me."

Re:Way to go

[binarylarry]

You must be new... to Venezula.

They used to have private TV broadcasters you know...

Re:Way to go

[betterunixthanunix]

You must be new...to America. Private broadcasting does not mean openness or lack of censorship (*cough* drugs). Neither does public broadcasting imply censorship.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

You must be new... to Venezula.

They used to have private TV broadcasters you know...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Venezuelan_television_channels

"Used to", huh?

Re:Way to go

[Threni]

He should get on the phone to companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo if he wants to speak with people who have a proven track record in preventing people from expressing their opinions.

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[GreatBunzinni]

If you had read Reuter's report you would know that Chavez' complain was due to a website posting an completely made up and unfounded news report that a senior minister and close aidee to Chavez was assassinated. That website knowingly reported that news and kept the report on it's site for days, although it was blatantly false. This news report covers Chavez' reaction to that, in which he criticizes the spread of false, made up information. He doesn't criticize openness.

The thing is, I bet your country doesn't allow absolute freedom of speech. If you live in a civilized country then your legal system will certainly have laws which are intended to punish multiple forms of defamation. Oddly enough, if you happened to read Reuter's report you would know that that's exactly what Chavez is defending here. So exactly where do you base yourself to accuse Chavez of wanting to fight openness?

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

I'd like to note that the one tv station that was closed was one of two which openly expressed opposite opinions to the government. The other one is on the verge of not having its licence renewed. It's not a belief: It's a fact. THe rest of the tv stations are simply silent to Chavez abuse of power. Regardless of your opinion, the abuse of power is a fact, whether you think it's for a good or a bad thing. He also closed down several radio stations out of the weird justification that they were all part of a large network. The thing to learn in Venezuela is that you can't really be too successful.

Re:Way to go

[countertrolling]

Chavez censors his media. The Americans take a more direct approach.. in other peoples' countries no less. While back home they obsess over Janet's titties..

Re:Way to go

[causality]

I guess Chavez has decided to follow the same path that every other communist leader has followed? "We cannot allow openness if it means people will disagree with me."

While Communism encourages this behavior, it does not hold a monopoly on it. Plenty of non-Communists in businesses and governments everywhere are this way. Remember that corporations are essentially dictatorships and that the type of politician who "knows what's good for you" does not ask whether you agree. Even "because I said so" parents and teachers exhibit this behavior (and condition people to accept it from a young age).

The inability to handle dissent is just an essential feature of the authoritarian mentality. I think it's caused by both an inability to lead by example (i.e. hypocrisy) and a profound personal insecurity that makes the person feel they need to be "right" no matter what. That's why anyone who offers dissent, however well-founded, is seen as an enemy and must be shut down. Nowhere in this do you find an awareness of the person's fallibility or an ability to feel gratitude towards those who help them shed false ideas. Their overinflated egos won't allow that. That's why it never occurs to these people that truly sound policies and truly good actions have nothing to fear from scrutiny.

It's also more evidence that Frank Herbert was right when he said: "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

I'd like to note that the one tv station that was closed was one of two which openly expressed opposite opinions to the government.

Opposed only to the democratically elected government: When there was a coup, and Chavez was kidnapped, that station said he had resigned. When a million people took to the streets, waving copies of their constitution saying that the president can't be removed like that, that TV station said that the streets were quiet and the people were happy of the change of government.

So when it came time for their license to be renewed, years later, they were denied. They didn't close down, they're still on cable, and on youTube, and they had public viewings in parks on giant screens. But they didn't get their license renewed after openly supporting an unconstitutional coup.
And people say "OMG Chavez is a dictator that closed down all the private TV stations!!!!", because that's the way the propaganda in their country wants them to think. *sigh*

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

Wait, wait, were you here when the coup happened? Because I could speak at lenghts about all that happened there, including Chavez taking up on a national forced broadcast - which happens bassically every damn day - and when it ended, a bunch of people - including journalists - had been shot by snipers. RCTV has been denied all casting on Venezuela, this is a fact. Even when the earthquake on Chile, the national broadcast by the president was an *optional* lending of space by the private TV stations. Here, it's forced and a daily thing for as much as Chavez saying he's pissed off at the internet. RCTV decided they weren't going to take it, and they were denied of the licence. Now they are applying that to every TV station, including cable tv, which is an entirely new thing. Now he wants to do the same to the internet. Either you are with him, or, apparently, you have to remain silent. If it isn't something intrinsically linked to a dictatorship, well, something is wrong with the world.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

Wait, wait, were you here when the coup happened?

Nope, saw the documentary filmed by those who were there, and then went and read every bit of old news I could find on the subject. Then I read up on the recent history of Venezuela, read up amnesty international reports from before and after the Chavez era. You know, good ol' book learning, 21st century style.

Now, the rest of you comment was incoherent, care to try it again?

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

Well, I *was* there. There you go!

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[binarylarry]

I don't think you're going to be able to argument with this brainwashed nutjob.

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

Was that "Brainwashed nutjob" directed at me, or at Scrameustache? It's not clear.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

If you had done 10 seconds research you'd have noticed that this wasn't about a news story posted on the website.
It was some random users posting a rumour on the forums.
Not the website owners.

Essentially he wants to kill open online forums.

From google translate:

On the evening of Saturday, the President of the Republic Hugo Chávez has asked the Attorney General's Office and the Minister Diosdado Cabello take legal action against this site by false rumors posted two new forumers in one of our forums and concerned the alleged murder of two ombudsmen linked to the Government.

Chavez wants to silence anyone who doesn't agree with him.
Can we just accept that he's evil yet?
he's been making the effort to convince us all for a while but some people don't seem to want to listen.

Re:Way to go

[Securityemo]

The point being, did anyone listen? If I put up a page saying that the US VP died in a freak accident involving a pie-eating contest and a pair of suspenders, nobody but the most psychotically credulous would even think about taking it seriously. Even if I had established some reputation regarding accurate news. People cross-check their facts, even simple-minded people.

Re:Way to go

[haxor.dk]

>While Communism encourages this behavior, it does not hold a monopoly on it. Plenty of non-Communists in businesses and governments everywhere are this way. Remember that corporations are essentially dictatorships and that the type of politician who "knows what's good for you" does not ask whether you agree. Even "because I said so" parents and teachers exhibit this behavior (and condition people to accept it from a young age).

True, but a strawman. Corporations rarely hold the broad scope of powers that governments do. Parents ditto. (Consumers can choose to not buy from a corporation they dislike; children can typically run away from abusive parents and seek refuge with neighbours and family. Seekign refuge from government is another matter entirely as history will show you.). Also, both of the aforementioned rarely their their so-called dicatatorial powers to the excesses that governments do, especially government led by politically-religious folks ala Charvez.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

here is the difference:

In America I can post this:

"News just in! Obama caught fucking a goat!!!"

And nothing is going to happen.
If Obama could show some real financial harm from my claim he might be able to get some money out of me but the very fact that I'm powerless and not an authority protects me because my claims can be taken with a grain of salt.

on the other hand if I were in Venezuela and posted this:

"News just in!Chavez caught fucking a goat!!!"

then the owners of slashdot would have commited a crime for spreading false rumours.(probably false anyway)

because that's what this is all about:
Some forum users on that site posted a rumor and now chavez wants the Internet controlled so that people can't start rumours.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

no no.
If I put up a forum and some random forum user posted saying that the US VP died in a freak accident involving a pie-eating contest and a pair of suspenders nobody but the most psychotically credulous would even think about taking it seriously.

It was some forum user that posted it not the site owners.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

Was that "Brainwashed nutjob" directed at me, or at Scrameustache? It's not clear.

I'm the one questionning the propaganda, therefore I'm the brainwashed nutjob.

I countered "ZOMG CHAVEZ SHUT DOWN ALL PRIVATE TV" with facts to the contrary. Clear sign of brainwashing nutjobbery that, presenting facts.

Speaking of facts, so you were there, that doesn't make the rest of that previous post any less unintelligible. So, WHAT were you on about?

Re:Way to go

[causality]

Was that "Brainwashed nutjob" directed at me, or at Scrameustache? It's not clear.

You can resolve that by viewing his post and clicking "Parent".

Re:Way to go

[introspekt.i]

Exactly, it's not Communism at all, but Authoritarianism that's the broken feature here. That's not to say Communism does or doesn't work (though I'm inclined to think that any pure "isms" has its issues). I think Venezuela could use a healthy dose of libertarianism (little l), but then again, couldn't we all?

Now that I've mentioned so many "isms" I'm inclined to include this quote:

"A person shouldn't believe in isms, he should believe in himself." -- Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Re:Way to go

[GreatBunzinni]

You got to be kidding. The issue here, which I pointed out in the post to which you replied, is defamation. Chavez complained that a website posted completely unfounded and made up allegations of how a cabinet minister was assassinated. It's defamation, pure and simple. That's what Chavez is complaining about. How exactly do you jump from "defamation is a crime and must be punished" to "OMG he wants to kill online forums!" ?

Your accusation is amusing, to say the least. If you happen to live in a civilized society then your legal system will consider defamation to be a crime and will punish those who engage in spreading lies with the intention to inflict damage. We get routine news reports on how regular, common people like you and me use the legal system to defend themselves from other people who do just that on online forums and social networking sites. Do those people want to "kill online forums" ? Does that make them dictators? Obviously not.

Or just because it's Chavez who does that then it is suddenly evil and anti-democratic?

Re:Way to go

[causality]

>While Communism encourages this behavior, it does not hold a monopoly on it. Plenty of non-Communists in businesses and governments everywhere are this way. Remember that corporations are essentially dictatorships and that the type of politician who "knows what's good for you" does not ask whether you agree. Even "because I said so" parents and teachers exhibit this behavior (and condition people to accept it from a young age).

True, but a strawman. Corporations rarely hold the broad scope of powers that governments do. Parents ditto. (Consumers can choose to not buy from a corporation they dislike; children can typically run away from abusive parents and seek refuge with neighbours and family. Seekign refuge from government is another matter entirely as history will show you.). Also, both of the aforementioned rarely their their so-called dicatatorial powers to the excesses that governments do, especially government led by politically-religious folks ala Charvez.

How is that a strawman? The point was not the scope or extent of the power. The point was the arbitrary way that it is exercised and the fact that justification of its use is an afterthought if it is provided at all. It's the difference between "because I am in charge and I said so" versus "because I believe it's the most reasonable way to proceed, and here are my factual reasons explaining why I think so; please let me know if new evidence comes to light."

That distinction can be made whether the situation is "do we execute this possible terrorist?" or whether it's "how long should Junior be grounded?" So again, if your disproportionate concern for the scope of power has anything to do with the way authority is justified, or somehow makes my reasoning a strawman, you have not made your case.

Re:Way to go

[cortex]

Two shows: "The Daily Show" and the "The Colbert Report". This is a good litmus test. Would Chavez allow these shows, or their equivalent, to be broadcast? They are very popular in America, and attack the flaws in our politicians and political systems with "news" reports. Every free and open country should have shows like this.

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

The point is: Chavez is abusing his power to force TV and radio stations to broadcast his messages. If it wasn't everyday, it would be okay. However, it's every fucking day that he's spitting out crap about anything that pissed him off. I'm comparing him to Chile's government, who, in the face of a disaster, still asked the stations for permission to cast that message to the nation.

If it doesn't shows you how annoying and how much of an autocrat he can be - we can argue about numbers, but the ammount of people who turn off their TVs when he starts speaking is enormous -, well, compare him to other governments who don't feel the need to attack everything that's against them, and try to shove it down on everyone's throat. The recent discussion of the ban on violent video games is a big proof of it all. He doesn't likes it (and he said that on such broadcasts), the assembly ASAP goes against it. It's partly the fault of the opposition parties, but it's also inherently wrong.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Opposed only to the democratically elected government

That's the whole point of freedom of speech.
that you can voice opposition to your government even if it is democratically elected.
If I can't call for my government to be dissolved/overthrown/deposed and replaced by another form of government then I don't have freedom of speech.

Chavez does not like free speech.
He wants to restrict it to only things he agrees with.

If it's illegal to talk about rumours in public then anything that's bad for the government will be called a rumour.

Re:Way to go

[tkrotchko]

"It's defamation, pure and simple"

In free countries, it's recognized that you can't defame public officials.

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

Ah, thanks. I'm relatively new to slashdot.

Re:Way to go

[binarylarry]

Sorry, Scrameustache.

Re:Way to go

[hamburger lady]

well, then the GP *must* be wrong, because some guy on the internet says he was there. thus, all argument on the subject must stop.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

The point is: Chavez is abusing his power to force TV and radio stations to broadcast his messages.

If you say so. The guy does seem like he loves to hear himself talk.
I was sort of hoping you'd expand on that "sniper" talk, though.

but the ammount of people who turn off their TVs when he starts speaking is enormous

:)

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Scrameustache believes that it isn't censorship if Chavez only censors people who oppose him strongly.
If there are 10 people talking, 1 opposed, 8 neutral and 1 in favour and Chavez only has the 1 person who's opposed silenced then in Scrameustache's mind that means he isn't really censoring people much since 9 out of 10 weren't censored.

Re:Way to go

[roman_mir]

If you had didn't make up your opinions from what a dictator said his motives were, you'd see that this is not a source that one can trust.

Simple example: just yesterday a TV channel in Georgia (former USSR republic) has announced that the president (Saakashvilli) was killed, that Russian forces have entered the country, bombed cities, airfields, power plants, that they have taken over.

So this is a TV station, all of which are under complete control by the government. See anything suspicious?

My point is that you cannot trust a dictator, he maybe behind the very thing he is so violently protesting here. Just saying, wouldn't be the first for a government to create an artificial incident to justify their 'retailitory' actions.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

news just in:McCarthyism was a very very bad thing.
Are you really trying to say that Chavez suppressing dissent is fine because the US has some black spots?
if anything that's a reason why he needs to be stopped now before it gets worse.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

Scrameustache believes that it isn't censorship if

They still get to say what they want on cable, on the internet, and in public places. Which they did.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

Opposed only to the democratically elected government

That's the whole point of freedom of speech.
that you can voice opposition to your government even if it is democratically elected.

Which they still do.

Hey, how's your free speech zone? Chain link fence high enough? Far enough away from your government so that they'll never hear you? Good. Gotta keep those free speech zones! Very important zones, the free speech zones.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

wow.
just wow.
How blinkered can you be?

he isn't going after the people who posted the rumours.
(which were not defamation, they were rumours that some ministers had been assassinated.)
He is going after the owners of a site which had an online forum which someone posted rumours on.
It kills open online boards because if you can be prosecuted for whatever your users post then you cannot run an open online forum.

For reference if I posted "chavez was killed by an angry swarm of bees today" on slashdot then the owners of slashdot would be held responsible by Chavez for their malicious rumor spreading.

Or just because it's Chavez who does that then it is suddenly evil and anti-democratic?

If this was a coalition of Jesus, Buddha, and Santa doing this I'd be opposed.
You however seem to believe he can do no wrong.

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

That shows how much people want to hear his messages, if it wasn't clear enough. About the snipers, there is a lot on the net to be searched for regarding the events of april 11 2002. If the snipers aren't enough for you, there are gunners shooting at the manifestation - one of the being an active member of the government party -, and the attack on RCTV headquarters, led by the people at the assembly, including Iris Varela.

Something to be shown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mlcxcn86lg

The first clip shows the government channel reporting the events. The second, shows the opposition one. Which one you choose is up to you, but denying it was a terrible event shows a lack of ethic.The people shot down by the snipers are shown on that video. You probably won't understand a word of the reporters, but the images should be an important clue. There are more videos around.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

I happen to live in a country which has not started with that "free speech zones" crap.

Are you honestly saying that Chavez suppressing dissenting opinions is perfectly ok because some other countries abuse freedom of speech as well?

wow

Re:Way to go

[dskzero]

Check out the video I posted.

Re:Way to go

[jameskojiro]

In Castro's Venezuela, the government forks Anonymous Cowards...

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Don't worry, he's working on the internet.

so as long as you allow people to keep talking but very quietly where not very many people can hear then you're not censoring them.

Riiight.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

And we shouldn't dismiss it as perfectly ok just because lots of countries have suffered from oppressive governments in the past.
If anything we should learn from our own history and the mistakes made in our own past and oppose suppression of free speech from the get go.

Re:Way to go

[hedwards]

You mean democratically elected as opposed to former President Bush, right? Democracy in the US would have required that Bush lose to Gore as dictated in the 12th amendment.

Since the vote in Florida was never settled in terms of actual required recounts, Bush had no legal claim to any of the votes. Late on, further investigation indicated that had the recounts been completed that it would've almost certainly given Gore the necessary votes to win the election.

The point is that Bush's representatives cried foul every time a vote went against them during the process, whether or not there was cause to claim that it belonged to them. Yeah, I'll be modded down for this, but if you're going to make such silly comments somebody has to point it out. Chavez while in office has behaved largely the same way that Bush did, but to a much greater degree.

Re:Way to go

[TubeSteak]

In free countries, it's recognized that you can't defame public officials.

[Citation Needed]

My understanding is that the standards for proving defamation of public officials/figures is higher, but you're delusional if you think the standard is "you can't."

Re:Way to go

[tftp]

If I put up a forum and some random forum user posted saying that the US VP died in a freak accident involving a pie-eating contest and a pair of suspenders nobody but the most psychotically credulous would even think about taking it seriously.

Your example is exaggerated. However if you post that Senate Majority Leader *and* his family are killed in a car accident your information becomes believable. You will sow confusion, and it may give you (or your masters) some political advantage.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Are you seriously saying it would be ok for the government to prosecute the owners of slashdot because I as a user posted
"The Senate Majority Leader and his family were killed in a car accident this morning!"
on this site?

Re:Way to go

[causality]

I think Venezuela could use a healthy dose of libertarianism (little l), but then again, couldn't we all?

You can easily know that libertarianism is a good idea that deserves more influence. How? Because of the instantaneous, poorly thought-out, knee-jerk kind of opposition it sometimes receives, particularly by people who automatically assume that any mention of it must involve an extreme form of anarco-capitalism. Whenever such careless people offer this kind of thoughtless, automatic demonization of something they obviously don't know very much about, it's a good indication that there is something to it, that it's worth investigating.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Which assertion?
That their audience has been reduced and as such far fewer people can hear what they have to say?

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[Reservoir Penguin]

Ok, I dare it to post something like this non-anonymously. Now enjoy not ever being allowed to board an aircraft, or ever getting a security clearance.

Re:Way to go

[tftp]

Are you seriously saying it would be ok for the government to prosecute the owners of slashdot

I haven't said that at all. I only pointed out that your example is unrealistic.

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[Scrameustache]

denying it was a terrible event shows a lack of ethic.The people shot down by the snipers are shown on that video.

Who denied it was a terrible event?

What I want to know is how you decide who the shooters were.

Read this: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html

It's about government agitators trying to start trouble during a peaceful protest. This case is about rocks, not gunshots, but the point I want you to take from this is that there is such a thing as a false flag operation.

Ask yourself: The people who were ready to throw a coup, what's stopping them from shooting a few people to make the coup seem legitimate? Now, for extra irony, I'm giving you a link where the police got caught trying to start trouble by dressing up as anti-government protesters. Try to cope.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Ok in that case:

If I as a user posted
"The Senate Majority Leader and his family were killed in a car accident this morning!"
on this site would it be remotely reasonable to prosecute the owners of slashdot?

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

If I posted bomb threats sure but if everyone who ever called Bush an arsehole had been banned from boarding an aircraft the airline industry would be non-existent by now.

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[Punctuated_Equilibri]

Huge difference between a country and a corporation, country has use of force.

Corporations can spread money around and be persuasive, but at the end of the day the real power is with the guys with the guns.

When Chavez wanted Exxon's oil wells he just took them.

Whatever you believe about corporations, comparing them to dictatorships in their capacity to do evil is vastly disproportionate.

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[CapOblivious2010]

Fox may well be exactly as you say, but the alternative is worse.

Who, precisely, gets to decide when a news outlet has done "enough" actual investigation? Whichever party is in power at the moment? Do you seriously think that certain stories wouldn't get "inexplicably" tangled up in red tape until a more convenient time (or forever)? And of course you'd never hear about cases where this happened (except unverifiable ramblings on some website), because any news outlet who wanted to report on news being suppressed would of course be told that he needed to do more investigation before proceeding with such a shaky story.

Seriously, man - you scare me!

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[HungryHobo]

And you keep ignoring reality.

Censorship comes in many many forms.
You can burn all the books that say something you don't like.
You can kill people who express opposing opinions.
You can shut down media which disagree with you.
You can prevent people who oppose you from being able to express their opinions to anything but a minority of the population.

China knows very well that their firewall can be bypassed easily but the goal isn't to prevent 100% of the population from hearing things they don't like, 90% is good enough.

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[HungryHobo]

you mean Globovision?

Chávez demanded sanctions against Globovisión, calling station director Alberto Federico Ravell "a crazy man with a cannon".This action was criticized by two officials who monitor freedom of speech, Frank La Rue of the United Nations and Catalina Botero of the OAS.

don't worry.
Chavez wants rid of them too.

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[_Sprocket_]

The thing is, I bet your country doesn't allow absolute freedom of speech. If you live in a civilized country then your legal system will certainly have laws which are intended to punish multiple forms of defamation.

We tend to err on the side of openness. If you manage to visit the USA, I'd invite you to go to a supermarket checkout lane and look at the publications being offered. Pay close attention to examples like The Enquirer and Weekly World News. Occasionally these guys go so far over the line, or push the wrong people, that they get caught in the legal system. And rightfully so (in most cases).

The thing is, these publications are trash. But stopping them would stop harm legitimate press. If you look a little above this thread, you'll see some discussion over "Faux News" and "left-wing nutjob 'news' organizations" (to which I think that's referring to CNN and MSNBC). What you see are pretty strong opinions that differ on what constitutes the truth. Trying to crack down on political shenanigans would likely have a chilling effect on much-needed criticism.

We do occasionally have powerful political figures calling for the limitation of openness and freedoms that allow for these sorts of things. But we also tend to make a big deal about it - just like we're making a big deal out of Chavez's comments.

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[causality]

Ah, thanks. I'm relatively new to slashdot.

Then welcome aboard. I for one am grateful that you provide a perspective of someone who has experienced Chavez firsthand. I don't know much about Venezuela at all, so I do not feel qualified to comment. I will say, however, that I notice a distinct lack of factual content in the posts that try to contradict you.

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[tftp]

If I as a user posted "The Senate Majority Leader and his family were killed in a car accident this morning!" on this site would it be remotely reasonable to prosecute the owners of slashdot?

I'm not a lawyer, but from what I can gather, the probability of legal action depends on harm that the action did or is expected to do. For example, if the post is about HungryHobo being flattened by the bus, and as result your job interview is canceled, you may have a good cause to sue the poster because he harmed you.

In political world much more is allowed - public figures routinely have to suffer harassment and name-calling and all kinds of humiliation from their opponents. But there is a line too, somewhere. It is also easier, and more worthwhile, to go after a specific journalist than after an anonymous poster on a forum. If you post the news it probably won't be reprinted by AP and BBC and Reuters; you'd be lucky if Google can find it. On the other hand, if your voice is loud, your message may be seen as more damaging.

There is also that issue of intentional lying. Even a good newspaper is bound to publish something in error now and then. They have a procedure for corrections: once notified, they publish the correction promptly and at a similar spot. Refusal to correct a blatant untruth would be seen as intent to lie to the audience, and I'm sure media laws forbid that.

So to summarize: IMO if you, a random guy, post your message deep in the thread, nothing will happen. If you manage to post a whole article on Slashdot, with hundreds of people discussing the false news, then it may be not beyond belief that Slashdot will be asked by SS to provide your IP, and then you will be "interviewed." It rarely happens, if ever, that a public figure initiates a lawsuit against publisher of damaging, false news - probably because it won't help.

With regard to Venezuela, I'd leave it to a local person to tell if the false news had sufficient threat level to warrant prosecution. There is a video of the Chavez talking about it, but my Spanish skills are near zero. If CNN were to show a fake exploding White House during prime time news, I'm sure heads would roll in Atlanta. As you likely know, the government of Georgia ordered fake news just a couple of days ago, and there are now demonstrations and threats of all kinds of action, legal and political, over that incident.

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[Securityemo]

My point is, false information that concerns serious political matters (grave slander, etc...) will be quickly outed as such. Censorship, in this case, is counterproductive because the most efficient counter to false information is a steady flow of *more* information.

Re:Way to go

[PenisLands]

Hello binarylarry, I just wanted to let you know that you suck. You're a jerk. Heh heh.

Re:Way to go

[PenisLands]

I just wanted to add, I didn't mean any offense by that previous comment. I'm sorry if I offended you or anyone else.

Re:Way to go

[tftp]

false information that concerns serious political matters (grave slander, etc...) will be quickly outed as such.

Not quickly enough. Remember McCain's black baby? If they throw enough dirt at you, some will stick. That's the whole idea. Internet offers infinite supplies of dirt and of dirt-flinging machines.

Re:Way to go

[causality]

Whatever you believe about corporations, comparing them to dictatorships in their capacity to do evil is vastly disproportionate.

You have just highlighted why I never once said "capacity to do evil" or made any such comparison. Re-read my original post if you doubt me; you won't find those words anywhere. My comment was solely about organizational structure, hierarchy, and what you call it when a very few (or one) make decisions for the many who have little or no input and no ability to defy. It was also about the fact that examples of this model are everywhere, both governmental and non-governmental, and we are exposed to them from a very young age. The benevolence or maliciousness of those examples has absolutely nothing to do with the point I was making.

This site is growing tedious because it's hard to carry on a good conversation with people who feel free to put words in your mouth and refuse to notice that you were very careful not to make such comparisons. In spoken communication you can fail to correctly hear words that may or may not be repeated for you. But it's absurd that this happens so easily in this form of written communication, where posts cannot be edited once submitted, where you can read a post 20 times before responding if that's what it takes for you to have a good handle on what it does and does not say.

At any rate, now that such a comparison is being made (by you), I will respond to it.

Corporations can spread money around and be persuasive, but at the end of the day the real power is with the guys with the guns.

Apparently the corporations realize this. That must be why a great deal of their persuasive power is focused on people who make laws. Those laws, in turn, are enforced by the guys with the guns. Perhaps you believe there is a meaningful distinction between doing something directly and arranging it by proxy, but I don't share that belief. The only real difference is that doing it by proxy makes it easier to distance yourself from it and deny accountability, but I hardly consider that a bonus.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

I'd wonder why the SS would come out to inverview me even then.
If it wasn't a bomb threat I can't see it really happeneing.

Now here's the thing:

The claims TFA is about were not front page news, they were not headlines on the site.
They were rumors posted by a couple of forum users.

No weight.
No authority.

Now the site as a whole is generally opposed to chavez so they're being prosecuted because some of their users posted something false.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

No country democratic or not is going to let a major communication channel support sedition through blatant misinformation.

There is a difference between opposing a government with facts and opinions and opposing it by lying to people.

The continued existence of fox news says different.

Re:Way to go

[Kymermosst]

Nazis! Hitler!

There, that should stop it.

Re:Way to go

[shermo]

Like communism? Socialism?

I think it's more that most 'isms' are based on a sound principle when first devised, but rarely work when followed to their conclusion.

Re:Way to go

[modmans2ndcoming]

Only if you accept that any power structure (Government or corporate) are evil.

Only if you accept that the diminution of importance of democracy in the classification of the US is evil.

If you can agree with those two points, then I will agree that Hugo is evil.

Re:Way to go

[modmans2ndcoming]

closing down radio stations because one network owned them... sounds like something the US needs to do. Radio conglomerates have homogenized radio in this country. It is disgusting.

Re:Way to go

[phayes]

further investigation indicated that had the recounts been completed that it would've almost certainly given Gore the necessary votes to win the election.

No. Further investigation by a coalition of newspapers revealed that the only way Gore could have won would have been to cherry pick the districts to be recounted that were favorable to him while disallowing recounts in all the districts that weren't. The supreme court sniffed out the unfairness of this & rightly put a stop to it. This biased method of counting votes is no better than counting "Only whites" or "Only those with a communist party membership card".

Re:Way to go

[interkin3tic]

Chavez wants to silence anyone who doesn't agree with him.
Can we just accept that he's evil yet?

Sure, but that's true for almost all politicians. I think labels like "evil" have very little value in this context, as, well, they're politicians, not saints. Most of the ones we've elected recently in the US don't attempt to silence their critics and opponents because if they do it too overtly, they know they'll get slapped down for it. I'd like to believe some of their consciences are also in favor of it.

Think of it this way, whichever side you're on of the healthcare debate, if you care strongly enough one way or the other, if you could get away with it, you wouldn't be tempted to silence the other side? Not even a little? And that's even if you don't have skin directly in the game, your future plans don't depend on it. Hopefully most of us wouldn't do it, because that's a bad precedent, you silence your critics and there's a tradition of silencing your critics, you've destroyed freedom irrevocably, the next guy might disagree with you about you being executed as a traitor, etc...

Anyway, we can accept he's evil, but we should have already realized that most politicians fit that description.

Re:Way to go

[phayes]

The funny thing is that the National Enquirer is in the running for this year's Pulitzer having outed former democrat presidential candidate John Edwards as a hypocrite for talking about family values while sleeping with an aide & getting her pregnant.

By defending the right to publish of trash like the Enquirer the US assures that the truth will get out. By muzzling all opposition Chavez displays that he is no better than Pinochet.

Re:Way to go

[Hurricane78]

... and about every other government on the planet is trying right now. Including yours, mine, and... well, Italy deserves a special mention, since there, Berlusconi already has the laws written into the books. (Italians, in case you decide to kick his ass, we’re coming to help you!)

Re:Way to go

[causality]

Like communism? Socialism?

I think it's more that most 'isms' are based on a sound principle when first devised, but rarely work when followed to their conclusion.

You make a good point, though both Communism and Socialism are rather well-represented in media and politics. Most of the opposition to them is because of people who don't like them, not because of people who don't know the first thing about them. By contrast, most of the strong opposition to libertarian thought I have ever seen was obviously by people who have never studied it and don't appreciate how closely it approaches the views of the Founding Fathers. To hear them talk, you'd think that the first step to implementing libertarianism would be to dispose of the Constitution and replace it with a plutocracy even though this is patently false.

Unfortunately most people don't seem to desire a minimal government, or don't appreciate that "too small to effectively perform its legitimate functions" is less than minimal. What they seem to want is a huge, all-powerful government that implements policies they personally like. There is little understanding of why that doesn't work.

Re:Way to go

[CrimsonAvenger]

However if you post that Senate Majority Leader *and* his family are killed in a car accident your information becomes believable. You will sow confusion, and it may give you (or your masters) some political advantage.

No.

If you posted something like that on /., the most likely result will be that people would go to some other news site for confirmation, then make fun of the guy who posted the false information.

No, no political party or individual politician in the USA is going to gain political advantage from misinformation posted on the web. Anymore than anyone gains political advantage from all the Obama/Oprah articles in the Enquirer and WWN.

You also seem to believe that anyone much even cares who the Senate Majority Leader is, much less whether he's been in an auto accident. We don't, for the most part. If the current were to get killed in an auto accident, the next most senior Senator (whoever he is) would be the new Senate Majority Leader....

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

All of these are examples of bad situations which don't make another bad situation any better.

I'm against censorship in my own country.
I'm against censorship in China.
I'm against censorship in Venezuela.

naming examples of other things which I consider reprehensible does not make what chavez is doing any less reprehensible.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/292-freedom-expression/hugo-chavez-want-internet-filter-venezuela-63547/

Chavez does want a mandatory firewall or nationwide filter.
"The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done."

Re:Way to go

[betterunixthanunix]

I was actually referring to the behavior of the US government in the 90s, which was essentially to bully TV studios to include specific, targeted anti-drug messages in their shows. Thus, whenever one sees drug use on broadcast TV, it is always from a "loser" character, or a hopeless character, or a character who cannot manage their life. You never see any depiction of moderate, normal drug use -- just worst cases, portrayed in the worst possible way.

Frankly, I would prefer to see a law passed that forbids the government from suggesting or pressuring the content of any entertainment, and only allowing government money to be apportioned to studios and networks in a well-defined, content-insensitive manner. The government should not be using the media to push its policies, regardless of what those policies are; coercing the media, censorship, and propaganda are simply not compatible with free speech.

Re:Way to go

[glitch23]

The thing to learn in Venezuela is that you can't really be too successful.

Socialism has the same privileges: you can't really be too successful, unless you are part of the socialist government. Otherwise all the money you earn goes towards supporting the poor or the government thus flattening the class structure or filling the pockets of the ruling class, respectively. Success is punished if you are not part of the ruling class.

Re:Way to go

[glitch23]

Remember that corporations are essentially dictatorships and that the type of politician who "knows what's good for you" does not ask whether you agree.

Hmmm, definitely sounds like Obama. He knows what's good for us because we're just all stupid folk so we don't know nothing. He doesn't listen to what we want and will make us swallow whatever he thinks we should have. That makes for a great president, or at least one with a 40%-50% approval rating. You'd think he take the hint. Polls don't lie but I'm sure this will get modded troll anyway.

Re:Way to go

[Kyusaku Natsume]

One thing is to use your freedom of speech to oppose the government and another is to push for a coup, that is what those tv companies did. Even in the USA, if you publicly express your desire to kill the president you could end with a visit from the US Secret Service, and you could bet that if a TV station repeatedly called for the overthrow of Bush on his time or Obama now, they would end with their broadcasting license revoked by the FCC.

Now, before you think that I am a chavista tool, I will list what I think are Chávez shortcomings:

- He doesn't know when to keep is mouth shut.

- After 10 years, the security in Caracas hasn't improved noticeably

- His government has been weak in the fight against corruption

- Lack of provision in the design of the electrical grid of the country, that was under rolling blackouts.

- Inflation

Now, about his government successes:

- Increaced greatly the medical care coverture.

- A successful campaign against analfabetism.

- A big push toward education.

- The strengtening of the OPEP that helped to increase noticeably the governments income from the oil.

- The new metro line (or lines) in Caracas.

- The steady recovery of real wages under his government, despite the inflation.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

huh.
Interesting how the moderation system has gone here.
I provided a link that provided additional information not mentioned in TFA(although it didn't survive slashdots parser: here it is again:http://tinyurl.com/yjvbp6m) and somehow that makes me a troll...

It seems slashdots normal pro free speech theme falls apart when it comes to anything to do with Chavez.

Re:Way to go

[rmstar]

First of all, the "cadenas" (those national forced broadcasts) are not an invention of Chavez. They are old as the hills and a very old Venezuelan peculiarity.

Secondly, in many civilized countries (like, for example, Germany) the level of instigation of public unrest that was perpetuated by RCTV and Venevision during the Coup or during the Oil Stike would have landed the responsible parties in jail for years. No ifs or buts. In Venezuela? Nothing of the like. A few years later the do not renew their licences, that's all. Nothing else has happened to them!

Venezuela is the only country in the world where journalists write articles decrying the "facist dictatorship" imposed on them, year after year, all the time signing with their real name. And nothing happens to them. Strange, isn't it?

Look, Chavez is a disaster. But the opposition is so much worse that it beggars belief. They have painted themselves in a political corner where they will probably never recover, by being so obnoxiously stupid (including, like, handing Chavez a 99% victory by not participating in elections). I am sure things would be a *lot* worse if it where they who were in power.

Oh, and, civilized countries. Keep an eye on Germany and its upcoming censorship laws. Maybe Chavez is just being ahead of the game?

Re:Way to go

[SteveFoerster]

And the "communist" thing is just crap.

No it's not. Ever notice that Chavez always wears a red shirt? That's not just a fashion faux pas, that's a political statement.

Re:Way to go

[Artemis3]

Here is the source, and Chavez doesn't mention filters or firewalls, he says people should get prosecuted using the law and constitution:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xckilm_ch%E1vez-pide-actuar-contra-nd_news

He then quotes the German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying she said "Internet cannot be something free" (an opinion) and says there should be regulations and laws, which each country should make. He then goes on and talks about a guy arrested in Colombia for saying Uribe's son was in danger of being killed, and in the United States to people threatening President Obama (on internet).

"It is not apparent at this time exactly what kind of controls Chavez has in mind or whether those controls will be similar to the controls in Iran that have been used to silence opposition movements." This is Reuters doing, or their journalist view, it is not mentioned in the speech and its pure bias attempting to lead the reader opinion on the matter.

What he did say was that this particular site has been repeatedly infringing the law (Venezuelan) and calls the General Attorney for action against the administrator and participants of this forum (IMO this will mean nothing if the guys/site reside outside the country).

If you know Spanish, or know someone you trust that knows spanish, watch the video. This is yet another example of why corporate media is criticized by Chavez which in turn criticizes him in a never ending duel.

Re:Way to go

[msuarezalvarez]

One wonders if you'd find Castro's Venezuela in a map...

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Is there any transcript available?

It does seem to be a theme that any media outlet that opposed Chavez ends up exposed to a constant steam of audits and legal challenges.
Just doing a quick comparison between a few pro-chavez TV stations and ones which oppose him the opposition seem to have a lot more shit thrown at them or perhaps the pro Chavez stations just don't get so much attention in the media.

I guess there's one way to test if the law is fairly applied: make similar posts on Venezuelan forums referencing opposing parties and see if they get attacked in the same manner.

Re:Way to go

[roystgnr]

The point was not the scope or extent of the power. The point was the arbitrary way that it is exercised and the fact that justification of its use is an afterthought if it is provided at all.

By that weak definition, everyone is a "dictatorship", and so your definition is useless. For example, you have absolutely no power to change the color of my bathroom walls. I did nothing to justify their color to you, and any justification I gave you now would sound quite arbitrary. I'm in charge of my own property, and I said so.

There is a huge difference between a dictatorship that you can leave by abandoning your home along with much of your culture, family, friends, and possessions, vs. a "dictatorship" that you can leave by buying a different product or going home before you have to pee. Dictatorship isn't just about having control over something, it's about having control over someone else's life.

That applies to the original example, too. It's a shame when a corporation doesn't want to allow openness, but compared to a real dictatorship it's also pretty trivial. If GE doesn't want your ideas openly discussed on NBC, take them to Fox, or the Washington Post, or Digg, or Slashdot, or your blog. If China doesn't want your ideas openly discussed, then your ideas disappear, and if you put them on your blog then so do you. Chavez is talking about China-style control now, not just GE-style.

Re:Way to go

[Hognoxious]

They still get to say what they want on cable, on the internet, and in public places. Which they did.

Big fat fucking deal.

Rewrite the first amendment so it only applies in caves, toilet cubicles and on rowboats and it doesn't quite have the same weight, does it?

Re:Way to go

[that this is not und]

I was actually referring to the behavior of the US government in the 90s,

So you're talking about the behavior of the Clinton (Democratic) Administration.

Re:Way to go

[that this is not und]

Wait, wait, were you here when the coup happened?

He was busy trying to sell copies of the Daily World to his fellow faculty members. Don't be so harsh on the guy. Or do. It doesn't matter. He has tenure.

Re:Way to go

[Hognoxious]

I'd like to note that the one tv station that was closed was one of two which openly expressed opposite opinions to the government.

Yeah, if you only shut up 50% of dissidents it's still semi-free speech.

Re:Way to go

[DieByWire]

Opposed only to the democratically elected government

Hitler was elected, too. Don't confuse how one gains power with how one wields it.

Re:Way to go

[Hognoxious]

Secondly, in many civilized countries (like, for example, Germany) the level of instigation of public unrest that was perpetuated by RCTV and Venevision during the Coup or during the Oil Stike would have landed the responsible parties in jail for years.

No it wouldn't. It would have landed them in a courtroom, where a free and independent trial would occur.

Re:Way to go

[that this is not und]

One wonders if you'd find Castro's Venezuela in a map...

Castro doesn't wonder. Neither does Chavez...

Re:Way to go

[mabhatter654]

That's only half the story though. The "press" in that country is rich, and connected to other countries. They managed to stay "just out of reach" during the last coup attempt, but it's an open secret they planned, funded and used their TV and media to hide what was happening from the citizens. They are the ones that announced "success" of the coup and had the USA on speed dial to accept.

These guys are far more corrupt than Chavez is.... their control of media makes guys like Hurst and Murdoch look like absolute amateurs. They're all buddies and all in on what gets published and most of the courts are in their pocket too. (like if Cheney and is PNAC could ever get their way) If it came back that somebody like Google's founders directly manipulated an election by tanking searchs for candidates they didn't like or programming Google searches for only THEIR agenda there would be big trouble over here... although it's technically not illegal. Imagine if NBC/ABC/FOX got together on voting day and simply lied about the results...simply started saying at noon that their guy was "winning". Look at the chaos the 2000 Bush/Gore vote caused simply because they "reported" a winner before actually COUNTING the votes. These guys have the balls to pull that crap on purpose and enough judges and generals in their pockets not to go to prison/or worse.

Nationalized media was the "least" Chavez could do in response to flat out rebellion. If he had any aspirations as a real dictator and not a good leader he would have simply had the top 1% richest and all his generals put against the wall within the week....and broadcast THAT on their precious "free media". he DIDN'T do that and tried to let the people use their courts to handle things shows character.

Like his politics or not, he is the scariest leader in the western hemisphere because he really is trying to use proper government channels and trying to help his people, not just the upper class. The rich and connected didn't toss him aside when the USA said "jump", his people stuck up for him, that makes him untouchable now. There's no UN "grounds" to start a war against him like Iraq or Afghanistan.Messing with him at this point is an act of unprovoked war and I'd be certain he has the names of people in the US to back him up. He's out there, trying to groom his neighbors that are under threat of being deposed by drug loads and the CIA so they don't have to constantly be afraid either.

He's trying to abolish the Monroe Doctrine the US government has kept up the entire 1900's that Latin/South America is our "banana republic" to boss around.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

One thing is to use your freedom of speech to oppose the government and another is to push for a coup, that is what those tv companies did. Even in the USA, if you publicly express your desire to kill the president you could end with a visit from the US Secret Service, and you could bet that if a TV station repeatedly called for the overthrow of Bush on his time or Obama now, they would end with their broadcasting license revoked by the FCC.

Glenn Beck seems to still be ok and he calls for secession and rejects the governments authority.
Bachmann hasn't been arrested despite her belief that Washington is "enemy territory".

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200904140032

In any case the website in question did none of those things: some forum users posted a rumor that some ministers had been assassinated.
That isn't calling for the overthrow of the country or the murder of chavez.

Re:Way to go

[_Sprocket_]

Don't forget who was very good friends with Pinochet.

And let's not forget Pinochet seized power from Soviet-backed (via direct KGB ties and support) Allende. If you want to shed light on the dirty tricks the US pulled during the Cold War, you should probably allow the same light to be cast on the Soviet Union.

Re:Way to go

[alantus]

I don't know how you got modded Interesting with all this BS.

Opposed only to the democratically elected government: When there was a coup, and Chavez was kidnapped, that station said he had resigned.

The station didn't "say" he resigned, stations don't talk. It was General Lucas Rincón, the highest ranking military officer, who announced that Chavez resigned.

When a million people took to the streets, waving copies of their constitution saying that the president can't be removed like that, that TV station said that the streets were quiet and the people were happy of the change of government.

Really? And how would you know? Did you see that on TV? Was it by any chance a documentary sponsored by Chavez?
I was there when that happened, and from my window the streets were EMPTY. This may come as a surprise to you, but normal people don't go to the streets during a coup. The streets were completely silent, except for some fireworks going off every now and then.

Re:Way to go

[wakawakka]

You must have quite a selective memory to compare an elected democratic presidential regime like the one Allende was establishing with a bloody dictatorship that ruined the country.

Re:Way to go

[alantus]

Allow me to comment on some of your points:

- After 10 years, the security in Caracas hasn't improved noticeably

Hasn't improved? This is such a big understatement.
Every weekend there are between 50-70 violent deaths in Caracas.
People are so afraid to go be on the streets that after 6pm everybody is home.

- Inflation

Another understatement. The OFFICIAL inflation figures places Venezuela second in the world, only behind Congo. In Venezuela people are getting used to have 30% of annual inflation rate. We were very lucky last year, when it was only 25%. This also came with a 100% devaluation rate. Let me put it easy for you to understand: if last year you had 1000$ in the bank, this year you only have 500$, but you will only be able the equivalent of 350$ worth of anything. Food has the highest rate of inflation, so this affects the poor people more.

- The strengtening of the OPEP that helped to increase noticeably the governments income from the oil.

I'm thrilled to hear my country will have more income to limit my freedom.

- The steady recovery of real wages under his government, despite the inflation.

Seriously, this has to be a joke.

Re:Way to go

[_Sprocket_]

I'm not comparing Allende to Pinochet (both had flaws). I'm pointing out that US support for Pinochet wasn't based on his policies towards freedom. The elephant in the room that US critics like to ignore when cherry-picking history is often the Soviet Union.

Re:Way to go

[Espectr0]

Except they aren't on cable anymore. Chavez created a law to make channels on cable "chain" themselves to political announcements (called "cadenas" or "chains") which can last several hours sometimes. The channel chose not to adhere to this law, therefore chavez made all cable operators remove the channel from the grid or risk being fined and/or closed

Re:Way to go

[David Jao]

further investigation indicated that had the recounts been completed that it would've almost certainly given Gore the necessary votes to win the election.

No. Further investigation by a coalition of newspapers revealed that the only way Gore could have won would have been to cherry pick the districts to be recounted that were favorable to him while disallowing recounts in all the districts that weren't. The supreme court sniffed out the unfairness of this & rightly put a stop to it. This biased method of counting votes is no better than counting "Only whites" or "Only those with a communist party membership card".

Your main point is correct, but your details are wrong.

The only way Gore would have won is if the most liberal standards for ballot acceptance had been applied uniformly statewide. It has nothing to do with selective recounts of certain geographical areas at the expense of others. In fact, the selective recount that you proposed (recounting only districts favorable to Gore) was found in the media recounts to yield a Bush victory. The Wikipedia article has an extremely comprehensive and precise table of all the recount scenario outcomes.

The election was still incorrectly (albeit legally) stolen from Gore, because the butterfly ballot costed Gore several thousand votes in Palm Beach County which were mistakenly marked as votes for Buchanan.

Re:Way to go

[rmstar]

No it wouldn't. It would have landed them in a courtroom, where a free and independent trial would occur.

What are you trying to imply?

Well if you want: It would have landed them in a courtroom, where a free and independent trial would occur. And then they would have been sent to jail for years. That's what I meant. Better?

Re:Way to go

[Hognoxious]

Only if you decide in advance that they're guilty. Are you a Chavez supporter, by any chance?

Re:Way to go

[the_womble]

What did the TV stations do?

According to the story the website was calling for the VIOLENT overthrow of the government. That would be illegal in most countries.

As for holding forums responsible for postings, it sounds a lot like the recent Italian case against Google, or British libel law which makes web hosts responsible for the content of sites they host, or bookseller responsible for libelous content in books.

Funny how all this is terrible when Venezuela or Iran does it , but it is apparently fine for Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan to do much worse.

Re:Way to go

[R2.0]

"Can we just accept that he's evil yet?
he's been making the effort to convince us all for a while but some people don't seem to want to listen."

It's called cognitive dissonance (I think). Chavez acts like someone people shouldn't like. But he opposes the US, which makes many sympathetic to him - "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." So the same folks who like to trot out the "either for us or against us" mentality of the Bush administration wind up doing the same thing.

Chavez is a sonofabitch, but he's NOT "our sonafabitch". And for many, that makes him acceptable.

Re:Way to go

[Paua Fritter]

I was there when that happened, and from my window the streets were EMPTY. This may come as a surprise to you, but normal people don't go to the streets during a coup. The streets were completely silent, except for some fireworks going off every now and then.

Sure ... the streets were empty except for the large crowd of angry people beseiging the presidential palace and demanding the return of the president.

See it here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144# though no doubt the machiavellian Chavez somehow faked this documentary from his prison cell in Fort Tiuna.

Maybe the streets outside your window were empty. Maybe "normal" people don't protest military coups. In which case thank god Venezuela is blessed with so many "abnormal" people prepared to stand up for their democratic rights and freedoms.

Re:Way to go

[HungryHobo]

Part of the thing with the TV stations was that they refused to carry Chavez's vanity hour each week.(think like the queens speech only every single week with extra crazy)

According to the story the website was calling for the VIOLENT overthrow of the government.

Some users on the forum posted rumours that some ministers had been assassinated.
The website is generally opposed though. yes.
how many times a week do we see someone on slashdot saying something along the lines of "yar, we shouldn't stand for them imposing X on us!!! REBEL!!! etc"

Since when has it been ok for Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan to do much worse?

Re:Way to go

[alantus]

Sure ... the streets were empty except for the large crowd of angry people beseiging the presidential palace and demanding the return of the president.

That's a nice story that Chavez made up and supporters like to repeat.
Sure, on April 11 there were large crowds on the supporting and opposing sides of the government. Then Chavez started to broadcast on all channels, and magically, just in sync, snipers started shooting from buildings, and cameramen started falling one by one.
After 14 deaths, believe me, normal people run for their lives.
The next 2 days the streets were empty.
How did Chavez returned to power? That is a mystery to all except few people, and you can doubt anybody that claims to know, but the truth is nobody was on the streets demanding anything at that time.

See it here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144# though no doubt the machiavellian Chavez somehow faked this documentary from his prison cell in Fort Tiuna.

Yes, thanks for posting such a good example of one sided documentary.
Nobody claimed that Chavez faked a documentary, I just said he sponsors them: documentaries, newspapers, tv stations, radio stations, etc, you name it. By a strange coincidence, they always talk wonders about the revolution.

Re:Way to go

[Golddess]

That's not to say that we couldn't use more censorship here

It's not censorship we need, it's accountability. We need to hold people and corporations alike accountable for their actions.

I am free to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. However, I cannot hide behind the right to "Freedom of Speech" to avoid responsibility for my actions. Likewise, anyone passing lies as "news" should not be able to hide behind the right to "Freedom of the Press" as a way to avoid responsibility for their actions.

Re:Way to go

[haxor.dk]

>Really? which part of history is that, exactly? I can't remember any totalitarian regime that didn't have hordes of people inmigrating to neighboring countries.

Those that had the opportunity. Many millions did not (fx. the victims of the Ukraninian Holodomor or the killing fields of Cambodia), or died trying. The deaths at the berlin wall is a minor though notable illustration.

> Sure in the worst ones many people were caught, usually when they tried to hide in the same country instead of getting out, but children trying to find refuge from their abusive parents within their own home usually fare no better.

>As for corporations, I've only got four words for you: modern day United States

I'm unsure about what you are trying to say, but keep in mind that corporations that gain tyrannical powers invariably do so with the aid of government; in fact, corporations are creations of laws of government. In cases where you do not have the ability to not-choose products, "services" or bein in servitude of a corporation, it is by and large always due to, or with the blessing of, government.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

I don't know how you got modded Interesting with all this BS.

Opposed only to the democratically elected government: When there was a coup, and Chavez was kidnapped, that station said he had resigned.

The station didn't "say" he resigned, stations don't talk. It was General Lucas Rincón, the highest ranking military officer, who announced that Chavez resigned.

Stations don't talk? Oh, I bet fox news is fair and balanced in your little fictional world there.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

Opposed only to the democratically elected government

Hitler was elected, too. Don't confuse how one gains power with how one wields it.

Don't confuse a godwin with a good argument.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

They still get to say what they want on cable, on the internet, and in public places. Which they did.

Big fat fucking deal.

Rewrite the first amendment so it only applies in freespeech zones and it doesn't quite have the same weight, does it?

FTFY

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

Except they aren't on cable anymore. Chavez created a law to make channels on cable "chain" themselves to political announcements (called "cadenas" or "chains") which can last several hours sometimes. The channel chose not to adhere to this law, therefore chavez made all cable operators remove the channel from the grid or risk being fined and/or closed

What happened to their soaps? Do people still get their stories?

Re:Way to go

[haxor.dk]

>How is that a strawman?

Because of the massive dis-proportionality of the power being excerted in the cases you compare adn attempt to equivocate.

> The point was not the scope or extent of the power. The point was the arbitrary way that it is exercised and the fact that justification of its use is an afterthought if it is provided at all.

All humans are capable of such behavior, whether they are the parents of a child, sitting in a boardroom, or in government halls. On a side note, I usually see more such unjustified, either purely or by lies and coverups, behavior from politicians because of lack of accountability, also related to my earlier posts). But if this is your point, I must consider your argument largely irrelevant.

> It's the difference between "because I am in charge and I said so" versus "because I believe it's the most reasonable way to proceed, and here are my factual reasons explaining why I think so; please let me know if new evidence comes to light."

In the degree that morality and honesty matters, yes; in the degree that what matters are the consequences and harm from actions justified or not, the aforementioned dwindles.

>That distinction can be made whether the situation is "do we execute this possible terrorist?" or whether it's "how long should Junior be grounded?" So again, if your disproportionate concern for the scope of power has anything to do with the way authority is justified, or somehow makes my reasoning a strawman, you have not made your case.

Or you have missed it. Shortly explained, I'm pointing out differences in consequences of actions of the three examples, not the moral basis.

Re:Way to go

[msuarezalvarez]

I have no idea what you are trying to say. I'm sure they both know that there is no "Castro's Venezuela"!

Re:Way to go

[ravenshrike]

Yes, OPEP has increased the venezuelan government's income PER UNIT OF OIL. Of course, given Chubby Chavez's actions with regards to the oil producers, Venezuela is producing so much less oil that the increase in price isn't making up for the decrease in oil to export. But you go on believing the stupidity.

Re:Way to go

[Joey Vegetables]

"News just in! Obama caught *!&@($*&cking a goat!!!"

You could get sued by the goat.

Re:Way to go

[Joey Vegetables]

Communism is a very bad thing as well. McCarthy's methods were bad, but his concerns were very legitimate and in fact were vindicated over time.

Re:Way to go

[bstender]

Chavez wants to silence anyone who doesn't agree with him. Can we just accept that he's evil yet? he's been making the effort to convince us all for a while but some people don't seem to want to listen.
It's only the U$ Media that has been trying to convince us "he's evil" for a while now, so I read a few other sources just in case the U$ media isn't 100% fair and balanced and whatyaknow, not convinced he's evil yet. exactly the opposite in fact. (AM convinced the US media is monopolized by elite interests intent on swinging policy and perception in support of their Neocolonialist agenda)

Re:Way to go

[rmstar]

Only if you decide in advance that they're guilty.

well, they certainly engaged in instigation of public unrest on a large scale, etc. There is simply no doubt on that. If they end up in a court in a place where there are laws against that (that includes almost all of the world, btw) they will be convicted. That's as clear as the light of day. In Germany, they would have ended in jail for a lot less.

Are you a Chavez supporter, by any chance?

No. But neither am I in favour of that kind of blind opposition that simply can't accept facts, and thus always ends up loosing and embarrassing itself.

Re:Way to go

[AK Marc]

Oh, and I guess I forgot to add, the Slashdot Libertarians are worse than Scientologists. If I'm going to get modded troll for not liking spinless libertarians (as if there's any other kind), then I damn well ought to have deserved it.

Re:Way to go

[alantus]

Stations don't talk? Oh, I bet fox news is fair and balanced in your little fictional world there.

There was nothing fictional in my post, its a link to the public declaration given by Lucas Rincon to more than 8 stations check it out. Nobody can deny this happened.
Do you realize how off-topic was to bring up fox news into the discussion? We don't even get that channel here.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

Stations don't talk? Oh, I bet fox news is fair and balanced in your little fictional world there.

There was nothing fictional in my post, its a link to the public declaration given by Lucas Rincon to more than 8 stations check it out. Nobody can deny this happened.
Do you realize how off-topic was to bring up fox news into the discussion? We don't even get that channel here.

So they ran a prepared statement. Did they unquestioningly accept his wild claims, or did they question the veracity of what he said? Did they say "really? that guy resigned? That don't sound much like him..." or did they just serve as the propaganda arm of your local branch of the military-industrial-congress complex?

Stations talk. Stations have a voice: They have an editorial line. Fox News is on topic because it is well known example of a station that claims to be neutral yet is obviously very biased.

Re:Way to go

[alantus]

Stations don't talk? Oh, I bet fox news is fair and balanced in your little fictional world there.

There was nothing fictional in my post, its a link to the public declaration given by Lucas Rincón to more than 8 stations check it out. Nobody can deny this happened.
Do you realize how off-topic was to bring up fox news into the discussion? We don't even get that channel here.

So they ran a prepared statement. Did they unquestioningly accept his wild claims, or did they question the veracity of what he said? Did they say "really? that guy resigned? That don't sound much like him..." or did they just serve as the propaganda arm of your local branch of the military-industrial-congress complex?

Stations talk. Stations have a voice: They have an editorial line. Fox News is on topic because it is well known example of a station that claims to be neutral yet is obviously very biased.

This station, as well as the rest of the stations, was transmitting live video of the Defense Minister's statement at the time of the coup.
What is biased about that? And what about all the other stations that transmitted the same statement? Should they be closed and expropriated too?

By the way, Lucas Rincon was appointed by Chavez as Minister of Interior and Justice after the coup, and later on Ambassador to Portugal. So if Rincon's statement was a lie, how can you explain his current high ranking position in the government?

Re:Way to go

[phayes]

Thanks for the correction & the wiki URL. The only quibbles I have with your post are: - I never proposed anything -- the selective counting was taken from inaccurate reports i read at the time. - Labeling the election as "stolen" is biased interpretation. The Dems & Reps accepted the ballots going into the election yet once many Gore supporters feel that the only "fair" election results are those that gave the election to Gore. Because, of course only the votes cast for Gore were somehow purer or more valid than those cast for Bush. If the generally accepted method of disambiguating undervote doesn't give the "right" answer, lets try another. If that's not enough, choose another, etc. This attitude has the stink of the end justifies the means that has so often justified humanities worst horrors. The general bias of the optical undervotes to Gore is something that is new to me. Any idea if this was investigated further to see if any other correlations like "diebold machines which undercounted dems more often were used more in areas which predominantly voted X"?

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

And what about all the other stations that transmitted the same statement? Should they be closed and expropriated too?

You must be new... to Venezula. They used to have private TV broadcasters (Score:5, Informative)

If you'll look up this thread, you'll see I got into it by telling that guy about all the other stations that were not closed and expropriated. My information, which was correcting his disinformation, was modded down.

What about his claim that Chavez has already closed down and expropriated them?

I certainly don't think your government should be mowing down your country's telecom industry. You tell me he recently got his show to be on every channel, and I think he's a jerk for doing so, if he wants to go on ranting for hours, fine, but he should keep it to his channel. Saying that all your TV stations are government property is +5 "informative" in this thread, I got "troll" for telling someone about something you think you need to remind me of. Think about that.

By the way, Lucas Rincon was appointed by Chavez as Minister of Interior and Justice after the coup, and later on Ambassador to Portugal. So if Rincon's statement was a lie, how can you explain his current high ranking position in the government?

Didn't he change his mind in the middle of the coup and help Hugo in the end? Maybe he didn't care about the statement because he was very happy they kidnapped him instead of shooting him and saying a different lie.

But how can I explain that Hugo had him shipped out to another continent? Oh, I don't know, why do you think he'd want that guy to live comfortably far, far away? If I'd guess I would probably just think he owed him a favor, but he didn't trust him enough to have him around.

Re:Way to go

[alantus]

You must be new... to Venezula. They used to have private TV broadcasters (Score:5, Informative)

If you'll look up this thread, you'll see I got into it by telling that guy about all the other stations that were not closed and expropriated. My information, which was correcting his disinformation, was modded down.

What about his claim that Chavez has already closed down and expropriated them?

While it is true that Chavez only closed and expropriated one TV station, he also gained complete control of the rest (except one, but he is already working on that). At the same time he has launched countless TV, radio stations and newspapers for no other purpose than promoting his personal agenda.
Also note that "not renewing" a license is one thing, and expropriating equipment without proper compensation is a complete different one.

While looking up your thread, I found you posted:

So when it came time for their license to be renewed, years later, they were denied. They didn't close down, they're still on cable.

For your information, the channel went to cable, only to be closed again by Chavez.

By the way, Lucas Rincon was appointed by Chavez as Minister of Interior and Justice after the coup, and later on Ambassador to Portugal. So if Rincon's statement was a lie, how can you explain his current high ranking position in the government?

Didn't he change his mind in the middle of the coup and help Hugo in the end? Maybe he didn't care about the statement because he was very happy they kidnapped him instead of shooting him and saying a different lie.

But how can I explain that Hugo had him shipped out to another continent? Oh, I don't know, why do you think he'd want that guy to live comfortably far, far away? If I'd guess I would probably just think he owed him a favor, but he didn't trust him enough to have him around.

Who knows what was in Lucas Rincon's mind? Certainly not me let alone you.
Something you should know about Venezuela's politics is that the best positions are ambassadors. Its way better to live in any european country than in Venezuela, and besides its a fairly low profile job with high salary.

I don't know why you work so hard in defending a tyrant, but just FYI, I have lived all my life in Venezuela, am educated and read the news almost every day. I know what I'm talking about, and there are some things you will never understand about Venezuela unless you actually lived here before Chavez was in power.

Re:Way to go

[Scrameustache]

I don't know why you work so hard in defending a tyrant, but just FYI, I have lived all my life in Venezuela

Because I think you're calling him a tyrant for the same reason others call Obama a tyrant.

A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[WrongSizeGlass]

This isn't shocking. In fact, I'm surprised it took him this long. Maybe someone should give Mr Chavez China's number so he can get some first hand tips on how to handle this.

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[Scrameustache]

This isn't shocking. In fact, I'm surprised it took him this long.

Keep holding your breath: "but the socialist leader has not given any sign that he is planning such a move." -TFA

It's as though the headline was somehow giving an impression that something more sensational is happening... Shocking!

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[arielCo]

I'm surprised it took him this long.

This is precisely what happened to Venezuelan opposition. They cried wolf from at first signs of his intentions, and it didn't happen right away. That cost them a LOT of credibility, and the metaphorical frog did nothing as it felt the water warming up around it.

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[GreatBunzinni]

I don't get it. A website falsely claims that a government minister was assassinated and keeps posting it for days. So when Chavez complains that that particular website shouldn't be allowed to falsely claim that a minister was killed then Chavez is suddenly a dictator? Where exactly do you base that conclusion on?

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[ralx]

He didn't simply complain, he called to control what can be seen or written on internet. Actually Venezuelan government has been already working on a single point of access to Internet under a "better performance" false claim.

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[GreatBunzinni]

I don't get it. Chavez complained about defamation campaigns and even rally calls to execute yet another coup d'etat on Chavez. He complained that that sort of actions are illegal and therefore shouldn't be allowed to happen. Where exactly did you started reading and where exactly did you base yourself to claim that what he wants is "control" the media?

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[mysidia]

He can stifle the press as much as he wants. He can make things people say on the internet as illegal to say, and throw people in jail as much as he wants.

What the internet community should not tolerate is placing physical controls to determine technologically what can and cannot be said.

Basically, any country that tries to impose technical controls of what can be said on internet, needs to be blacklisted by all other communities on the internet, and disconnected.

Otherwise, they will never learn, and their tyrannical philosophies that are perfectly contrary to the openness of internet, are in danger of surviving and being adopted by others.

So on this matter, the community needs to be prepared to act swiftly and decisevly to counter Chavez' war on internet openness.

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Venezuela. Here, what Chavez says, it becomes law, sooner or later. It's just like that. Our congress exists ONLY to turn into law what HE and ONLY HE says. Research a little. Recently, a law that says that "violent" videogames aren't allowed in the country. Why was that? because HE thinks that those "nintendo thingies" are propaganda from the dreaded "US Empire". And the result? they begun to confiscate ALL games and consoles (Mario Bros, guitar hero, you name it). And that's just to name a recent law

Re:A Dictator Stifles The Press?

[HungryHobo]

the part where he brings legal sanctions against the owners of an online forum because a couple of users posted a rumour.

OMFG the commists again

[Anonymous Coward]

This one would be credible if the non-communist countries weren't doing it.
But they are: latest is New Zealand. So meh. Welcome to the club, I guess :-(

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming soon to Obamaland!

Americans seriously need to get over their "it can't happen here" mentality. That mentality only means it will happen more slowly, with smaller and more calculated steps instead of a few sudden movements like this one. We already have a government that can monitor everything you say, including non-public correspondence where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. You think outright censorship is very far away?

Prior art

[the_raptor]

This shows how intellectually bankrupt Chavez is ... stealing this idea from the Australian government. Next he will be stealing from America and giving billions in untraceable loans to mismanaged corporations.

Re:Prior art

[mcwop]

It is weird the U.S. is a lot of things, but we probably have some of the most open speech amongst many developed countries.

On those untraceable loans, we all know where those went - just follow the political contributions.

Re:Prior art

[ldconfig]

Open speech? Did we finally repeal the DMCA and the (un)Patroit Act?

Re:Prior art

[Kyusaku Natsume]

Sadly, Mexico has lost the monopoly in this stupid behavior too -.-

Re:Prior art

[the_womble]

Exactly what I thought. The Australian government wants to be able to block arbitrary websites at will without oversight, and their list of banned sites already includes political sites, the British government has a web censorship system that is unofficial, and therefore unaccountable. What is the difference,.

I just think it's really sad

[Anonymous Coward]

The first reaction to news like this -- rated up twice in a minute, mind you -- is to look at this issue through a hyperpartisan lens.

The desire to curtail freedom on the Internet comes not from the right or the left, but the powerful. Anybody with a computer can have a voice, and as with the copyright industries there is a wish to turn back the hands of time rather than to adjust to the new reality, progress be damned.

It's time to shed partisanship and take a very real look at the role the Internet should play in our society. To do otherwise is to let one "side" or the other continue to erode a unique and precious part of our lives forever; once lost, what we currently enjoy with the Internet will never be returned.

Re:I just think it's really sad

[binarylarry]

FYI I skipped your post because of the stupid megafont style.

Re:I just think it's really sad

[WrongSizeGlass]

At least it wasn't in all italics this time. Oy carumba. If the AC wants to heard so badly he/she can always sign in and put some backbone where his/her font size is.

Not according to Sean Penn

[ArchieBunker]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/sean-penn-hugo-chavez-venezuela

Wonder who is classified a dictator in his mind...

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[nodd]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/sean-penn-hugo-chavez-venezuela

Wonder who is classified a dictator in his mind...

I actually wonder the same thing about your mind. How is a person democratically elected... a dictator? Do you even know what a dictatorship is?

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

You really need to read more about Venezuela's recent history. We call it a dictatorship due to the fact that there is no imput from anyone's who's not allied with Chavez on ANY decision taken.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[ralx]

A dictatorship is a president (elected or not) that takes control of all public powers, change the constitution and laws to adapt them for his own plans and then kill every corner of freedom (slow or fast) to the point that there's no real opposition in the country, that massive media is cornered or adapted to please him and since he adapted laws for him to create the possibility of infinite reelections then he could stay on power for decades.... That's Hugo Chavez.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[hamburger lady]

not listening to input from people that aren't part of your circle of 'true believers' isn't dictatorship. hell, that describes the bush administration.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[nodd]

You do know that you cannot change the constitution just like that, right? If it has been changed so that he can be reelected infinitely, it's because the people of Venezuela voted for it.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

That I think is called autocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocracy). Dunno how to post links.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[nodd]

That's just not true. Chávez' party got 60% of the votes in the last parliamentary elections, meaning he has majority and hence can make the decisions he wants, as long as his party agrees with him. There are other parties, but it's not Chávez' problem if they only got 8% of the votes.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Scrameustache]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/sean-penn-hugo-chavez-venezuela

Wonder who is classified a dictator in his mind...

Since I don't think Chavez is a dictator, and I can't speak for Penn, let me show you an example of someone I think of as a dictator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Musharraf#Emergency_declared_in_Pakistan
Emergency declared in Pakistan
On 3 November 2007 Musharraf declared emergency rule across Pakistan. He suspended the Constitution, imposed State of Emergency, and fired the chief justice of the Supreme Court.[87] While addressing the nation on State Television, Musharraf declared that the state of emergency was imposed in the country. In Islamabad, troops entered the Supreme Court building, arrested the judges and kept them under detention in their homes. Troops were deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels went off air.

Bush More Emphatic In Backing Musharraf
President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."
Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[ralx]

Having already lost a referendum to change more than 20 articles, he issued a second one (many lawyers considered it illegal) only to modify the paragraph about presidential reelections and discarding all the others, so after two attempts he won that right... Not mentioning that every polling all resources of the country are used to favor government because there are no public institutions that oppose any of Chavez decisions... Even worse Presiden of the Supreme Court of Justice has recently stated that the state shouldn't have separations of powers because that weakens the government, so all powers should work like only one following president's decisions.....

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

*cough* many of the thing he asked on the referendum were anyway implemented by some sort of law to give him powers to issue new laws without even asking *cough* Search for "El Paquetazo de Chavez"

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

An election voted by around 20 or 30% of the total voters.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Entropius]

Which is slightly less, but not that much less, than turnout in the USA.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Runaway1956]

Many people confuse power and authority. I wonder if you haven't been confused as well.

With POWER, you can change the constitution of any country, overnight. Even if it's not your own country!

With AUTHORITY, you can change the constitution of your own country, if enough of the people with whom you SHARE authority agree, within a decade or so.

Does Chavez have the authority to change his constitution? I don't think so.
Does Chavez have the power to change his constitution? Yeah, probably.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

Now that's something interesting. In Venezuela, the lastest elections registered around 60% (a total record for the last 10 years) of total registered voters. Does that happen in the USA? That could certainly disarm one of the strongest arguments of the opposition.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[nodd]

Because the main opposition parties let down their voters and withdrew, loosing all their power. It wasn't Chávez the one who killed the opposition, it was the right-wing parties themselves. They were the ones who decided to give Chávez 60% of the seats in the parliament.
Venezuela's elections' turnout are always higher than U.S., for instance, yet I don't see anybody calling U.S. presidents "dictators".

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

That's because the CNE, the organization which controls the elections, is allied with Chavez. Nobody really has any faith on it. I agree it was a mistake back then, though. The opposition parties in Venezuela are a mess.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[nodd]

And so do dozens of presidents around the globe. Question is, has he?

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[nodd]

I'm really lost here, did they said it in public or something? Or were they just accusations from the opposition? I do know there were supposedly some issues regarding the secrecy of votes. But complete lack of faith towards the CNE? Alignment with a political party? What did I miss?

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Scrameustache]

A dictatorship is [...] Hugo Chavez.

Is Columbia's president, Uribe, a dictator?

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

To start, using the CNE to regulate the votes of the PSUV, the government party, to choose the candidates, that being a private voting, it's a clear sign. Also, the results are given, but no details are generally given until several weeks afterwards. And finally, the boxes which hold the physical votes are generally lost as well.

There are many rumours of military units burning those boxes, but they are just rumours. However, the public speeches of the CNE boss supporting Chavez is the final nail in the coffin. She's actually someone I do respect, since it takes a lot of strenght to be there, but when the CNE is supposed to be impartial, and the boss talks supporting someone, well, something is wrong.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Sociable Scientician]

I actually wonder the same thing about your mind. How is a person democratically elected... a dictator? Do you even know what a dictatorship is?

Are you kidding me? Do you know what a dictatorship is? Not to Godwin this thread, but you know that Hitler was democratically elected, right? The same for Mussolini. Can an election be fair and democratic if the voting public is starved of the relevant information they need to make their chice, through intimidation tactics and restrictions on the free press? The designation 'dictator' has nothing to with the way someone attains power, and everything to do with the way that he(ab)uses that power.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[wiredog]

President Bush yesterday

You do realize that Bush isn't the President of the US anymore, right? We booted him out over a year ago.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[arielCo]

A dictatorship is [...] Hugo Chavez.

Is Columbia's president, Uribe, a dictator?

And here I thought Texas would be the first to proclaim independence ...

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Scrameustache]

On 3 November 2007 Musharraf declared emergency rule across Pakistan.
[...]
Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule

President Bush yesterday

You do realize that Bush isn't the President of the US anymore, right?

Reading comprehension is hard.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[nodd]

Comparing Hitler and Mussolini to Chávez? Comparing Nazi Germany to Venezuela? Seriously?

dictatorship refers to an autocratic form of absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by law, constitutions, or other social and political factors within the state. [From wikipedia]

A dictator is one who has absolute power, not one who abuses power, that's a corrupt politician. If Chávez had absolute power, he wouldn't need a referendum in order to change the constitution, nor need the approval of the parliament. So no, I don't think he is a dictator.

In the next elections, people can vote for another person, and he'll have to leave office. Only if he doesn't, against the will of the people, can he be considered a dictator. Not before.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[GreatBunzinni]

That is a direct quote from a news report from 2007. That's when Bush was in office. That's why it says "yesterday".

We have some seriously desperate anti-Chavez mods around here in order for this post to get a +1 informative.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Attila Dimedici]

Perhaps people who didn't win elections repeatedly. Chavez is far less of a dictator than, say, Bush II.

I didn't realize that Bush II was still President. I was under the impression that when his term expired he turned over the office of President to Barack Obama, when did the coup that put Bush back in office occur?

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[dskzero]

I hate to beat on a dead horse, but the fact that people did it before, and will keep doing it does not make it right. And I think I said I consider him an autocrat, not so much as a dictator.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Caetel]

You didn't boot him out so much as he was prevented running for another term by the constitution.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[wiredog]

If it was a quote, you should have blockquoted it, or at least put quotation marks around it.

HTML markup is hard

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Scrameustache]

If it was a quote, you should have blockquoted it

Awww, you can't figure it out otherwise! You poor thing.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[oh2]

The difference being that very few people consider Pakistan to be a democracy, whereas Venezuela is a democracy teetering on the brink of a single party system.

Re:Not according to Sean Penn

[Scrameustache]

The difference being that very few people consider Pakistan to be a democracy, whereas Venezuela is a democracy teetering on the brink of a single party system.

No, the real difference is that Pakistan is a pawn of the US and Venezuela's Chavez is a thorn.

Why do you think I bothered to link and quote a US president saying that he approves of the democratic values displayed in sacking the supreme court and jailing opponents and journalists? I did it to show that whatever Chavez does that gets people to call him "dictator", you can do worse and be called a believer in democracy by "the leader of the free world", as long as you open up your airspace to NATO.

"Issued a call" vs. "Chavez to limit"

[dragisha]

But, of course, it's slashdot reporting here :).

In other news, once he decides to censor his citizens, friendly US companies will jump in with solutions... As they did for China and Iran.

Why democracies do not limit such kind of products being made and sold? Don't talk freedom here - chemical/biological agents are limited already and it's good they are.

Re:"Issued a call" vs. "Chavez to limit"

[ralx]

Issued a call in Chavez words means that every person in the government will dedicate all his hours of work on making it happen, and if you don't then you'll be fired and banished of the government because you're a traitor... 11 years having to see people "correcting" whatever comes from Venezuela, and even now that Chavez is more transparent on his intentions than ever it's sad to continue seeing people doing the same thing....... "correcting" news.....

Re:"Issued a call" vs. "Chavez to limit"

[selven]

But I will talk freedom. Censorship solutions are made up of software, and software, being information, is protected speech and should not be regulated. Instructions on making chem/bio weapons, also being information, should also not be banned because of freedom of speech. You can't defend your principles by abandoning them.

Re:"Issued a call" vs. "Chavez to limit"

[arielCo]

Chavez's "calls" and "requests" are pretty much orders to whom it main concern, usually the Supreme Court and/or Congress (the latter mostly sympathetic to him after the opposition boycotted the last elections, allegedly for concerns over "legitimating a fraud").

Permanent Intarweb Bolivarian Revolution!

[David Gerard]

Hugo Chavez has promised to speed up "the construction of true socialism" in Venezuela now that he can stand for re-election indefinitely. "We have exploded the barriers to a permanent socialist revolution."

Chavez has already taken control of the country's vast oil wealth, expropriated private landholdings and businesses and instituted a programme of deep social reforms. He has attacked the "distribution of wealth" problem by destroying as much of it as possible. After Chávez promised to nationalise the biggest power and phone companies, the Caracas Stock Exchange closed nearly 20% down, Electricidad de Caracas fell 25% and CA Nacional Telefonos was suspended from trading. The Venezuelan Bolivar has been replaced in common use with twigs and small rocks, which suddenly have much greater practical exchange value.

Chavez next wants to merge all his coalition partners into a single party, remove the opposition television channel, monitor the Internet "appropriately," nationalise key businesses and rule by decree for a year. However, construction of a one-hundred-metre tall gold statue of himself in the Caracas city square that turns to follow the sun will be delayed until next year, and renaming the days of the week and months of the year after himself and his mother can wait until the year after.

Chavez' good friend Fidel Castro expressed his confidence that Chavez was in no danger from the US. "This is the CIA we're talking about," said Castro. "They could fuck up a wet dream. Hey, maybe they'll try the exploding cigar trick again. That's a good one."

Re:Permanent Intarweb Bolivarian Revolution!

[hitmark]

have the stock exchange ever been a good indicator of wealth? About the only thing its good at is allowing people with more money or credit then brains to trade paper for paper in a endless circle jerk.

Re:Not insightful

[Montezumaa]

You think that just because you do not find what the first poster to be insightful, that it is not insightful? While I feel that Obama does not have the backbone to try and impose censorship on the United States, I am sure we will see some type of oppressive censorship in the relatively near future. Anyone that does not believe this probably is not paying attention to who is in control of the various governments within the United States.

Regardless, you do not speak for everyone that visits this site. Those who modded the post as "Insightful" probably read the post and marked it as such because they feel it is insightful.

Re:So what?

[WrongSizeGlass]

He's trying to silence his opposition. The truth is not a lie just because El Hefe says it is. And when he's in charge of everything, anything he doesn't like is a lie.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Scrameustache]

sudden movements like this one.

FTFA: "but the socialist leader has not given any sign that he is planning such a move."

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You think outright censorship is very far away?"

Actually, yes, it is. It's blatantly unconstitutional, and the First Amendment isn't going to go anywhere. You don't need to get over an "it can't happen here" mentality, you need to get over your baseless paranoia.

Chavez also suggest to take shower only 3 minutes.

[dvh.tosomja]

Chavez also suggest to take shower only 3 minutes to save water. I tried that, but I guess I smelled like a Chavez.

Responsible

[headkase]

Everyone must be "responsible" for their words. Responsibility begins with registering your nicknames along with your address for our thugs.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[DAldredge]

We don't know that the Sun is going to rise above the horizon tomorrow but history shows us there is a pretty good chance it is going to happen.

That's the plan

[Incubusxp]

In Venezuela the freedom of speech is the greatest in the world. In Television News anchors openly talk about killing the president, they make calls for a coup d'etat, all this goes for newspapers and radio stations. People can say and think whatever thay want. There has been 11 years of this. And they still say that there is no freedom of speech in Venezuela. I watch how the world sees Venezuela, they show a country in total war with mass killings, wich is total bullshit. Yes there was a time 2002-2003 where there was a fight and a coup d'etat, wich the people fought to get their president back and they won, the vast majority of Venezuelans won. This small faction of what we call "media terrorist" who own private TV stations, radio, and newspapers still attack their own country by lying to them. Im venezuelan, if you want to know the truth of whats happening here, come to Venezuela, to any part of it, and you will see peace, a beautiful country.

Re:That's the plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Slashdot "chavista' friend... Apart from the regional channel Globovision what other channel openly criticize the government? Venevision made a pact with the government and RCTV was taken down and supplanted by a pseudo-cuban channel... Now they want to control Internet using a unique point of access controlled by CANTV.

Re:That's the plan

[Anonymous Coward]

In Venezuela the freedom of speech is the greatest in the world. In Television News anchors openly talk about killing the president, they make calls for a coup d'etat, all this goes for newspapers and radio stations.

[citation needed]

People can say and think whatever thay want.

"Think", yes; there's no Thought Police in sight. "Say", yes too unless it's printed / broadcast in any major news outlet, and even then you only have to pack up in advance of the defamation "suit".

There has been 11 years of this. And they still say that there is no freedom of speech in Venezuela. I watch how the world sees Venezuela, they show a country in total war with mass killings, wich is total bullshit.

Again [citation needed]. Straw man anyone?

Yes there was a time 2002-2003 where there was a fight and a coup d'etat, wich the people fought to get their president back and they won, the vast majority of Venezuelans won. This small faction of what we call "media terrorist" who own private TV stations, radio, and newspapers still attack their own country by lying to them.

They attack their government, which is not the same. Shall I explain the difference to you?

Im venezuelan, if you want to know the truth of whats happening here, come to Venezuela, to any part of it, and you will see peace, a beautiful country.

Yeah, I guess 16,000 homicides last year in a 24MM people country make for a lot of peace on the streets. And 27% inflation brings rainbows and puppies all around.

Re:That's the plan

[fnj]

Sheesh. If compliant, hoodwinked people like you are a fair cross section of the voters, it's easy to see how this two-bit tyrant acquired and retains the power which he cannot bear to live without.

Re:That's the plan

[fnj]

MM is not million. M (mega) is million. MM is not even million in roman numerals, God help us. MM in roman numerals is 2000. I know this usage is common in business related writing, but it exasperates the literate.

Re:That's the plan

[Artemis3]

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=344086
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/601
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/07/something-fishy-in-venezuela/?feat=home_editorials

Dec 2002 to Mar 2003: Disrupting and attempting destruction of the oil industry, depriving everyone of fuel. Most of the saboteurs were fired and the government acquired more control of the industry.
Dec 2002 to Mac 2003: Owners lock-out attempting to force Chavez a resign, did nothing against the government, deprived people from food and basic consumables. It showed the dangers of leaving everything in private hands, the government started implementing state owned production, distribution, and now retail of goods. In short, backfired horribly to opposition interests.
Dec 2004: Opposition parties decide to retire all their candidates to the National Assembly, as a form of "protest", then proceed to cry the following years for not having any representation; get a little breath from former Chavez supporters turning sides (cheating their voters), but still almost non existent presence in the unicameral legislative branch.
2005 etc: Call to block streets near your home. Of course this works mostly in opposition zones, which makes them self isolated for a couple of days, rest of the country ignores them and lives normally.
2006+ attempts to try Ukraine style "orange" revolt (The Albert Einstein Institute method used in many countries) to use "pacific" methods to overthrown ("anti-us") governments. Unfortunately the Venezuelan "students" didn't get the "pacific" part too well, and ended igniting fires, destroying property and even using firearms, losing what little support from the civic society might have left in them.

I could go on, but you either get it or won't at this point. Opposition fails because of its own stupid mistakes, funny thing is they get openly funded by US Tax payers, in the form of National Endowment for Democracy (bi-partisan institution to fund "pro-american" groups in the world) USAID and such. http://www.venezuelafoia.info/english.html

If the USA used a fraction of the funds they waste all over the world funding parties and movements, and instead used it to solve their own social domestic issues, the effects of the economic crash would have been all gone by know, and wouldn't need people crashing planes against public buildings to show their discontent.

Context

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

This sort of thing will not be considered in Europe or North America, and us residents of those places will pat ourselves on the back for our love of liberty...

The difference between Venezuela and our countries is that in our countries, the ruling class own both the media and politicians. In Venezuela, they just own the media.

Chavez has some bad policies, and we're right to criticise those policies, but the context is important for forming an accurate opinion rather than a knee-jerk chauvinist one.

Re:Context

[hitmark]

hrmf, world politics are run on absolutes, while context leads to endless shades of gray. So in essence, context be damned...

Re:Context

[fnj]

To say the ruling class owns the politicians is a circular statement. I believe it is more descriptive to call the U.S. a self perpetuating corruptocracy composed of an unassailable alliance of convenience between the megacorporations and the politicians.

Re:Context

[fnj]

Neither the megacorporations nor the politicians are puppets. They are two conspirators skulking in the corner whispering to each other.

wild west

[McGiraf]

The wild west day of the internet are almost over.

The internet can now give power to individuals, corporations and governments (and the US corpovernment ) will not let this go on for long, unless ...

Re:wild west

[fnj]

As I write, parent is moderated a troll. Hopefully this will not hold. Parent is most definitely NOT a troll. Insightful is more like it. The wording is a bit hard to parse. I suggest you replace the comma by a period or semicolon to understand what he is saying. If one prefers a corruptocracy with megacorporations in an entrenched alliance with politicians; if one prefers that to some other form of tyranny, the matter is subject to discussion, but please don't label someone who sees exactly what is wrong with the U.S. a troll.

Re:wild west

[McGiraf]

You are right this was hard to parse.

Fixed:

The Internet can now give power to individuals. Corporations and governments (and the US corpovernment ) will not let this go on for long, unless ...

Re:Not insightful

[WrongSizeGlass]

I am sure we will see some type of oppressive censorship in the relatively near future. Anyone that does not believe this probably is not paying attention to who is in control of the various governments within the United States.

That's crap. The US government is the de facto definition of gridlock, ineffectiveness and partisan pettiness. They wouldn't even agree on a bill to give themselves the winning lottery numbers without bickering, squabbling and turning it into a pissing match. And then they'd anonymously block it, filibuster it and shit can it. If there's one thing the lot of them are missing these days is purpose.

"The internet should not be a free thing"

[arielCo]

The rumor was posted anonymously in well-known forum Noticiero Digital, which is intermittently moderated, if at all. Local TV news station Globovisión (strongly critical of Chávez's government, and a frequent target of regulatory action) quotes Chávez (in Spanish):

The internet cannot be a free thing, each country has its rules. Regulation and laws. All these pages have an administrator. We must act. We're going to request support from the Attorney General.

This is not acceptable, that they broadcast whatever they want, poisoning the minds of many people

Noticiero Digital (listen, this is very grave): "Breaking news; Diosdado Cabello murdered" [...] Someone has to be responsible here because these pages cannot be free for what you to want to say. There are laws here and they must be obeyed.

Link to original video: Dailymotion - Chávez pide actuar contra ND (in Spanish).

Re:"The internet should not be a free thing"

[MrSteveSD]

There's a big media machine in Venezuela which uses every opportunity to make Chavez look as bad as possible and the western media seem to go along with it without question. The BBC's reporting on Chavez is incredibly biased. When Chavez was talking about holding a referendum to remove term limits (presidents were limited to 2 terms) the BBC reported that...

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has confirmed that he will try to change the law to allow him to remain in power indefinitely."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6932605.stm

A completely ridiculous and childish distortion of the facts, but nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to BBC reports on Chavez. They also had a readers debate with the title "Why do some leaders want to go on for ever?" as well as numerous other scaremongering articles. Yet when the Colombian leader changed the law on term limits (without holding a referendum like Chavez), the BBC were not remotely interested. Every time you see an article implying that Chavez is a dictator, you really have to be very sceptical indeed.

Re:"The internet should not be a free thing"

[arielCo]

Yup, Venezuelans are quite aware of how some media uses wording to make news sound scarier, and they sort of compensate for that when they read the headlines; they will usually ask "but, what did 'the guy' actually say?".

Now, what does this have to do with the post above it?

Re:"The internet should not be a free thing"

[phantomfive]

There are laws here and they must be obeyed.

I don't often listen to Chavez, but I can't help but notice this is the exact same argument the Chinese government recently made to justify their censorship in the case of Google. It's like the different dictators learn from each other.

On the other hand, it's good to see that dictators/Strong Men need to justify their desire to censor these days. Fifty years ago they would have just done it, without anyone questioning them.

Re:"The internet should not be a free thing"

[arielCo]

I don't like "globo" much. Now, what does it have to do with what I posted or the OP? This is about a rumour (actually two) posted by some Anonymous Coward (yup, just like you) in a forum. The mods took their time to take it down and meanwhile some bozo printed it and gave it to Hugo, so he would have something more to gab about.

Misleading headline

[Little_Professor]

The headline states "Chavez to limit internet freedom" as if he has just instituted a Great Firewall of Venezuela. He has done nothing of the sort. All he has done is make a public call for more regulation of the internet to prevent false and defamatory information. Clueless politicians across the globe make similar calls all the time, even in the land of the free. Much more worrying is the planned Australian censorship of the internet.

Re:Misleading headline

[dskzero]

Actually, he has. CANTV, which is the main telephone provider in Venezuela, has been routinely blocking certain webpages. It's owned by the government. I could find sources, but they are all on spanish. Granted, it isn't a very effective block (hello proxies), which is probably why the full blown out block hasn't been implemented: They can't.

Re:Misleading headline

[dskzero]

A quick search led me to this one: http://marcel.zonalibre.org/archives/103360.html

A Wacky Communist Leader

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Chavez is more that just a communist leader. He's wacky as well. Sort of the Kim Il Jong of South America.

Fidel Castro was suppressive, but not really wacky.

Chavez called for a ban on video games, and that children should play with tradition toys, like yo-yo's.

Now, that is not just suppressive, that is just plain wacky.

A yo-yo? Yes, Mr. Chavez, it takes one to know one.

But I guess there are a more than a few North American politicians who have the same idea as well.

Re:A Wacky Communist Leader

[causality]

Fidel Castro was suppressive, but not really wacky.

Only because we generally fail to realize that truly sane individuals have no desire to control other people.

Re:Not insightful

[causality]

I am sure we will see some type of oppressive censorship in the relatively near future. Anyone that does not believe this probably is not paying attention to who is in control of the various governments within the United States.

That's crap. The US government is the de facto definition of gridlock, ineffectiveness and partisan pettiness. They wouldn't even agree on a bill to give themselves the winning lottery numbers without bickering, squabbling and turning it into a pissing match. And then they'd anonymously block it, filibuster it and shit can it. If there's one thing the lot of them are missing these days is purpose.

There's only one true political division in the United States: the old-money families and the powerful elite they represent (that represents them, actually, as the truly powerful don't like the limelight) and ordinary Americans. All other divisions are artificial creations of the media, by-products of the either-or way in which everything is presented. Left/right and Democrat/Republican are like this. The Democrats and the Republicans are two factions of a single party, the Statist Party.

There's one thing they all agree on: the government's size, power, and involvement in the daily life of citizens should be continuously expanded, with no regard for merit, necessity, or the reduction in quality of life that this will cause. Right now USA citizens enjoy relatively free access to the Internet. To the power-hungry, however, that just means this is a growth area for government. Unfortunately that's purpose enough for them. There is very much of a "because we can" mentality operating here that is not terribly concerned about immediate goals except that they make good excuses which are hard to politically oppose, such as "to stop terrorism" or "to protect the children".

So, there might be "partisan pettiness" concerning the question of what to do with an overwhelming ability to censor the Internet. But there will be no such pettiness when it comes to whether or not our politicians would like to have this ability.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[ldconfig]

Cameras on street corners - ISP's spying on customers for the MPAA/RIAA - Law enforcement backdoors - Games that won't play in single player mode without 'calling home' - Warrant less wire taps - Torture - Cell phone co. law enforcement websites that give instant access to GPS data - Government tracking cookies and malware - Forced to 'show your papers' to travel - Almost daily videos of police beatings - Sick people jailed for medical cannabis - Full body scanners - For profit jails (and judges) - DMCA - EULA's - DCI byte (broadcast flag) - Private for profit armies - IP enforcement disguised as cyber security - Drug tests - Rigged media ... I can go on lol Pot meet kettle

Re:Sure it is.

[ControversialMatt]

Chavez is a dictator[snip]

Don't let Sean Penn hear you say that!

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Runaway1956]

Anyone would be an utter moron, if he were to trust any single news source. An intelligent person will read as many different sources as he can find the time to read, and compare & evaluate what he reads.

Faux news exists for the convenience of the conservative utter morons.

Another anti-Chavez ill-informed kneejerk reaction

[GreatBunzinni]

This report provides a great opportunity to see how the anti-Chavez croud is prone to knee-jerk reactions while so poorly informed. The thing is, the report which this slashdot post is based on only mentions that Chavez complained about a specific website posting false information. More specifically, the offending website, which is ran by an anti-Chavez faction, made up a story about how one of Chavez' cabinet ministers was assassinated and kept the made up story on it's site for days, although it was repeatedly contacted and informed that the minister was, in fact, alive and well. Chavez' coment is nothing more than a complain that just because it's the internet you shouldn't be allowed to dedicate itself to defamation and intentionally spread false information. And suddenly he is labelled as a dictator hell-bent on destroying openness? What twisted train of thought leads you from a) you shouldn't spread lies to b) no freedom for you?

The thing is, this is yet another example on how hell-bent some people are on attacking Chavez. For example, imagine that a media company such as Fox/CNN/whatever decided to run stories on how Bush/Obama was assassinated. Imagine that that media company decided not only to post that information but also kept it up for days, although it was repeatedly contacted to be informed that no, Bush/Obama was still very much alive. If, after that, Bush/Obama complained that you shouldn't post false information to your heart's content, would that make Bush/Obama dictators who hate freedom and want to wage war on openness? Heck, what if it was your very death that the website announced? Would you enjoy having to go around contacting everyone you could informing that you were still very much alive? Wouldn't you want that site to stop spreading those lies? Wouldn't you want that sort of action to be illegal? Of course you would. But suddenly, if Chavez mentions it then he becomes an evil, anti-freedom dictator? Go figure.

There are a lot of irrational, ill-informed anti-Chavez militants around and they don't hate Chavez because of anything he actually did. In fact, they don't base their hatred on anything. Their hatred for Chavez is their starting point and they pick up from there, grasping at straws to try to justify they hatred. Those irrational, anti-Chavez militants make it a point to accuse him of being a dictator although he is holding a democratically appointed position to which he was elected time and again and although he has been the target of multiple coup attempts, all of which were reverted by none other than Venezuela's people. Is that what being a dictator is about?

Personally, I don't like Chavez. I believe he is a demagogue who, at best, is trying to revolutionize a society which can barely manage to function. Yet, I'm always left dumbfounded by the string of primal anti-Chavez sentiment which is based on nothing more than the ill-informed imagination of a hand-full of idiots who don't even know why they hate him. That is to be expected among the great unwashed masses but hell, this is supposed to be slashdot, a place where informed, educated people tend to read and post news. This sort of nonsense shouldn't take place here.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Burpmaster]

We don't know that the Sun is going to rise above the horizon tomorrow

Apparently you don't know about the laws of motion and conservation of angular momentum.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[causality]

"You think outright censorship is very far away?"

Actually, yes, it is. It's blatantly unconstitutional, and the First Amendment isn't going to go anywhere. You don't need to get over an "it can't happen here" mentality, you need to get over your baseless paranoia.

Three words for you: free speech zones. If you're not familiar with the logic behind them, please look it up. In a nutshell, the (bullshit) "logic" is that the FIrst Amendment guarantees free speech, but does not specify where that right may be exercised. Any reasonable person would conclude that the Constitution does not list specific locations because it applies everywhere in the USA, but that doesn't suit the authoritarian mentality. So now they can tell you that you may not practice free speech where any decision-makers are likely to hear you, right here in the USA.

The dangers of that path, of allowing such flimsy and easily-abused exceptions to what are supposed to be inalienable rights, are both extreme and seldom appreciated. It is not the right way; it is not a good path. It also sets a precedent.

So, they already get around that pesky Constitution when it comes to physical protests. The only real surprise will be if they don't find such clever ways to skirt the First Amendment when it comes to the Internet. That's the mentality you're dealing with here. It will because it can, and any excuse will do.

Calling it "baseless paranoia" suggests that it's impossible or extremely unlikely, that nothing like this has ever happened before, that there's no reason not to trust our federal government. It's neither "baseless" nor is it "paranoia" if you actually take a look at the direction in which this country has been heading. Of course, that will require that when you see a spade, you call it a spade. Some people have a much easier time with this than others. Obviously others prefer to bury their heads in the sand and label as "paranoid" anyone who makes that a little less comfortable.

Re:Another anti-Chavez ill-informed kneejerk react

[dskzero]

Wait, wait, the coup attempt in 1992 was directed by Chavez, not targeting him. He was elected in 1999.

Re:Sure it is.

[introspekt.i]

I wish I could mod you to +6 insightful.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[jcr]

It's blatantly unconstitutional, and the First Amendment isn't going to go anywhere.

How many examples would you like of people being imprisoned for what they've said or written, in blatant violation of the first amendment? Shall we go back to the Adams administration, or will the Wilson administration suffice?

you need to get over your baseless paranoia.

YOU need to get over your smug complacency.

-jcr

At the risk of pissing off Sean Penn

[Low Ranked Craig]

and risking jail time, what else do you expect form a dictator?

The government doesn't have to censor...

[copponex]

We already have a government that can monitor everything you say, including non-public correspondence where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. You think outright censorship is very far away?

The government does not need to censor the media. The media censors itself. This news item is a perfect example of the hysterical bias of corporate outlets. When Paul Bremer shut down the radical Iraqi newspaper Al Hawza for publishing false stories in Iraq, for the safety and security of Iraqis, there was no public outcry of dictatorship or communist ideals. They just said it was a bad decision.

Chavez came out with a statement saying, "The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms." He's basically pushing for public support of laws that require journalistic integrity. In effect, he's arguing for libel laws that already exist in much of the Western world to be applied to media outlets on the internet.

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy that has active internet censorship. Where are the news articles about that? How about Pakistan? How about Egypt?

The Press Law, Publications Law, and the penal code regulate and govern the press. According to these, criticism of the president can be punished by fines or imprisonment. Freedom House deems Egypt to have an unfree press, although mentions they have a diversity of sources. Reporters Without Borders 2006 report indicates continued harassment and, in three cases, imprisonment, of journalists. They place Egypt 143rd out of 167 nations on press freedoms. The two sources agree that promised reforms on the subject have been disappointingly slow or uneven in implementation. Freedomhouse had a slightly more positive assessment indicating that an increased freedom to discuss controversial issues has occurred. -WikiPedia

Chavez is a current propaganda tool for the West. He's no saint, but I get tired of news media who are either unwilling or unable to report balanced information.

Re:The government doesn't have to censor...

[causality]

Every country has to apply its own rules and norms." He's basically pushing for public support of laws that require journalistic integrity. In effect, he's arguing for libel laws that already exist in much of the Western world to be applied to media outlets on the internet.

One question: why is the transmission medium relevant? Libel laws should be equally applicable whether the false defamation is written in a book, newspaper, magazine, or Web site. Where does the special focus on the Internet come from, if not the fear of power-hungry politicians everywhere of a medium that is not easily censored or controlled, that makes it more difficult for them to get away with lying?

One of the biggest and most noticable differences between traditional media and the Internet, even in the USA, is that traditional media will report "government officials explain X" and stop there. In contrast, many online sources will report "government officials explain X" and then proceed to question the validity of that statement. This is usually done openly, in the sense that regular users like you and I can write posts offering dissent. It's not difficult to understand why corrupt politicians want this to go away.

Re:The government doesn't have to censor...

[Hognoxious]

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy that has active internet censorship. Where are the news articles about that? How about Pakistan? How about Egypt?

Ihey're islamic theocracies, so it's expected - it's not exactly news.

Re:Sure it is.

[Scrameustache]

Chavez is a dictator and obviously

[citation needed]

Bad move in this case Hugo, but

[presidenteloco]

anyone who opposes the US acting like it owns the world in general and the hemisphere in particular is alright by me.

Re:Bad move in this case Hugo, but

[lbbros]

So a dictatorship like Venezuela is fine (because it's a dictatorship) because it is against the US? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me (and I'm not living in the US nor a citizen of the US).

Nobel

[gmuslera]

Things like this shows why internet, in its pure, free (in all meanings), unfiltered and universally available way should get a nobel peace prize. And why all that claim to be free countries must push forward to make it keep going in that way, or face what they really are.

Wrong Lesson.

[oOkathyOo]

They've has picked the wrong point. The lesson to be learned from the unfounded news posting should not have been that the internet needs less freedom. It should be that you shouldn't trust unconfirmed website posts you read online.

People need to learn to not trust every rumor they read from stupid hoax chain mails and random web postings. And this goes for not just online, but for all aspects of life. You have to learn how to analyze what you hear and read, and decide for yourself what to trust and believe. Not that the government needs to filter all communication that may reach you, in order to ensure it is a "truth" that you should believe.

But of course, with a dictator like Chavez, what other reaction would you expect?

Re:Wrong Lesson.

[dskzero]

That would mean Chavez would ask his people to think.

fool

[unity100]

the means to u.s. censorship, acta was prepared, cooked and started in bush & co period.

Re:fool

[godefroi]

So this is "change", then, huh? Seriously, just because Bush started it (if he did, I haven't a clue) doesn't make it OK for Obama to support it (or any other president).

Why is he any different from ACTA

[unity100]

is there any difference in between directly censoring something because it is detrimental to your interests and indirectly making them subdue by legal claims of ownership and patents ?

in the former, at least everyone knows it is censorship. in the latter censorship is veiled with seemingly valid excuses. in the end both end up the same.

Re:Why is he any different from ACTA

[shutdown -p now]

The difference from ACTA is that the latter is censorship for the sake of defending the elites' economic interests, rather than political ones.

Coincidentally, this is also the main difference between censorship in (most of the) First World, and elsewhere, in general.

Re:Why is he any different from ACTA

[unity100]

the latter is much more dreadful and hard to combat in my opinion. because in the former, you at least know who is your enemy and who to go after.

Question ANYTHING you hear about Venezuela

[Opportunist]

Venezuela is sitting on one of the largest oil reservoirs outside the US and the middle east. To make matters worse, they kicked out foreign oil companies because they want to exploit them themselves.

So I can see a lot of interest to oust the current government. By domestic and international interests that would love to see Chavez gone. Please do note that I neither say it is so nor that it ain't so. I am not in Venezuela, I just watch the whole deal from afar with a keen interest because Venezuela and the thing going on in the country and around it are a prime example of a propaganda war happening.

Take EVERYTHING you hear about Venezuela with a grain of salt. Make that an ounce. Or more. Verify with as many sources as you can, and forget about "independent sources". If you can find one, please inform me, I couldn't. Take all the propaganda from ALL sides and draw your conclusions afterwards.

Re:Question ANYTHING you hear about Venezuela

[Attila Dimedici]

Venezuela is sitting on one of the largest oil reservoirs outside the US and the middle east. To make matters worse, they kicked out foreign oil companies because they want to exploit them themselves.

Actually, they want to make all the profit themselves with foreign oil companies providing the capital to further develop those reservoirs. You are not wrong that their oil does increase the interest of the world in how they manage their affairs. The thing to realize is that there are two things that concern the world. One, the fact that Venezuela (under Hugo Chavez) signed contracts with foreign companies to develop oil resources and then unilaterally modified what percentage of the profits went to those companies. Two, Venezuela's output of oil has been slowly, steadily declining since Chavez took control of the oil fields.

Re:Question ANYTHING you hear about Venezuela

[Opportunist]

Source?

The problem I have with Venezuela is simply that I learned pretty quickly that you can't trust anything you hear or read. NO information is accurate. At the very least, something critical has been omitted to make the story an argument for either side. At worst it's just simply completely made up. It's like it's cold war all over again and you're reading the Prawda.

Re:Question ANYTHING you hear about Venezuela

[Artemis3]

Hmm let's see, Venezuela kicked out foreign oil companies, except: Chevron Corporation, Repsol YPF, Mitsubishi Corporation, Inpex, Suelopetrol CA, Eni, PetroVietnam, Petronas, ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation, Oil India, CNPC, Rosneft), Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz. And that leaves us... Uh, Esson (which retired) out of the cake. Yeah right, thats the whole world he kicked.

Good thing you warned us about misinformation there. Giving examples eh?

Re:Question ANYTHING you hear about Venezuela

[Attila Dimedici]

If "NO information is accurate", how do you know that any particular information is not accurate?
As for my statements in the first, I am not going to go back and find the articles that talked about the several facts. However, when I read the story about Venezuela modifying the contracts that they had signed, the Chavez Administration did not challenge that reading, they merely gave a justification for unilaterally modifying the contracts. As to the output of Venezuela's oil fields, there are sources that do not care about the politics of the situation, they are merely concerned with how much oil is available in the world at any given time and where it came from (source gives an idea as to how complicated it is to refine it in to the most profitable products).

Re:Question ANYTHING you hear about Venezuela

[Opportunist]

Ah. Thanks for that piece of info. So yet another piece of spin?

Like I said, can't trust anything you hear from there. Not even the stuff told to you by people telling you to not believe anything you hear about there...

wtf?

[mysidia]

'The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done.

That's the definition of the internet. An open communications network where anything can be said and done.

If someone implements controls, then by definition it's no longer the internet, and we no longer really have any reason to connect our networks to Venezuela, if they start putting controls in place.

In other words, I say blacklist them, cut them off, blacklist them, if they start trying to make something the very opposite of the internet.

They are damage, cut them off, and route around them, before they manage to do any more serious damage, such as spreading their philosophy to other countries.

Re:wtf?

[maxwell demon]

'The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done.

That's the definition of the internet.
An open communications network where anything can be said and done.

Really? Wikipedia defines it as "a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide."

Re:wtf?

[hyades1]

"...before they manage to do any more serious damage, such as spreading their philosophy to other countries."

I suspect there's no damage to be done. Governments of every country in the world, including the democratic ones, would slow-roast kittens in an oven if doing so would let them get control of the internet. They're trying to do it right now through the back door with regulations to "protect" copyright or save us from all that child pornography that's supposedly ready to swamp our mailboxes.

Re:wtf?

[mysidia]

Really? Wikipedia defines it as "a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide."

Wikipedia is probably not a very reliable source for that kind of topic. The sentence is descriptive of Internet, but not a complete definition for Internet.

Also, it's just a fact that there are billions of users interconnected to Internet. "Serving billions of users worldwide" is not the definition of internet. It could be used by fewer than 100,000 people, and still be called Internet, the number of users on a network doesn't effect whether it's called Internet or not.

But for one thing... if your government implements 'technological controls over what you can say', then your systems are no longer properly interconnected. Interconnected implies connectivity, which is exactly what Venezuela plans to destroy by preventing some messages from being exchanged between hosts, even though both end hosts intend for the message to be exchanged.

The Internet is a global open communications inter-network.

The Internet could switch from TCP/IP to some other protocol, and it would still be called Internet.

The issue is the removal of the end-to-end complete interconnectivity of hosts.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[DAldredge]

And you are assuming that nothing will happen to the Sun.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[maxwell demon]

Sure. And nobody intended to build a wall ...

Re:THIS CANNOT BE TRUE!

[arielCo]

Most Venezuelans aren't too fond of Fox News either. Try Amnesty International (not much useful information - you have to dig a bit) and Reporters Without Borders instead. The part about compulsory broadcasting his half-day-long speeches is priceless.

Re:Another anti-Chavez ill-informed kneejerk react

[NeutronCowboy]

For example, imagine that a media company such as Fox/CNN/whatever decided to run stories on how Bush/Obama was assassinated. Imagine that that media company decided not only to post that information but also kept it up for days, although it was repeatedly contacted to be informed that no, Bush/Obama was still very much alive. If, after that, Bush/Obama complained that you shouldn't post false information to your heart's content, would that make Bush/Obama dictators who hate freedom and want to wage war on openness?

Let's take a real example: Fox News calling a number of Republican representatives and senators Democrats when they were caught with some sex scandal. What happened? Nothing. And quite frankly, nothing should have happened. Maybe the DNC could have sued for slander, but what happened was exactly what was supposed to have happened.

Contrast that with Chavez's posturing, who wants to control what gets posted to the Internet. There's no need to knee-jerk, because it is patently obvious what's happening: someone wants a method to shut people down when they become bothersome.

And for the record, that's exactly the outcry that comes up here in the US when a wannabe dictator tries to implement rules like that.

Re:Not insightful

[Montezumaa]

As an ex-law enforcement agent of our government, I can tell you that it will not take a bill to silence those the government does not want talking. Sure, you can sit there and "take a stand" or "speak truth to power", but there is little you can do to stop an organization as large as a government. The founders of the United States gave citizens the ability to fight the government, when it gets out of control, but no one ever utilizes that power. In the end, we only have ourselves to blame.

I will agree with you on your statements about politicians, but only to a certain point. When politicians want something passed, they will do whatever it takes. It does not matter what ideology a certain politicians believes in, they all want to stay in power. When someone or something threatens their ability to retain power, then they will fight it in any way they can.

You can attempt to seem righteous and say, "oh, but I would NEVER do THAT". I am here to tell you that you would do exactly what any other politician would do and probably even worse. It is not that you are not a decent person; it is just that any human that is in power wants to retain that power. Thousands of years of human history has shown us this again and again.

Re:Not insightful

[causality]

Or, some of the right wing crazies had a few mod points. Bashing Obama is today's most popular conservative sport.

So-called conservatives (I don't see them conserving or being thrifty with much of anything) said the same thing when Bush was in power. It's just a reality that if you want to have political power and make decisions that potentially affect millions of people, you will be subject to scrutiny. Some of that might include "bashing". I don't view this reality in terms of political persuasion.

Now, if someone were to make an "insightful" post regarding US politics and censorship, they would have to include a few observations about Bush's Un-patriotic act, and the fact that Bush was all in favor of the ACTA treaty. Unfortunately, Obama also seems to favor that idiotic treaty which will subject governments around the world to corporate dictates.

We haven't had a President who truly represented the interests of the people in quite a long time. Anyone who really loves freedom would have to be honest about the way most of our politicians don't represent them. It would be quite childish to pretend like party affiliation has anything to do with it, particularly when you're talking about the two major parties.

Criticism of a member of one political party does not constitute automatic support for the other political party. Since you recognize what was wrong with Bush, you should know that your insistence that it does is exactly like his "you're either with us or against us" ideology. On that basis you assume that the person criticising Obama, a leftist, must necessarily be a "right wing crazy", and you don't seem to understand what's wrong with that. If the original poster even mentioned a right-wing politician I could maybe understand it, but he didn't.

I'll say it again: criticism of a member of one political party does not constitute automatic support for the other political party. The political debate on this site would be much richer and far less redundant and predictable if we could all accept this self-evident fact.

How is this defamation?

[SuperKendall]

In free countries, it's recognized that you can't defame public officials.

A) Bullshit. Do you read ANY political writings online? Half the writing you see is defaming pubic officials in one form or another. Or do you not remember people calling Bush hitler, if that is not defamation then what is?

B) Is it even defamation to claim someone has been killed when they are still alive? That's wrong, but technically not defamation since it says nothing about the character of the person.

Re:How is this defamation?

[T Murphy]

He's making a distinction between "saying mean stuff" and defamation. Defamation, being a crime, doesn't apply often to criticism of public officials (hence being the case in free countries). I agree with other posters that it is simply much harder to reach the point of defamation.

Re:Not insightful

[Kymermosst]

Bashing Obama is today's most popular conservative sport.

Of course, you were right there defending [insert-president-from-other-side-of-the-aisle] when it was the other way around, right?

Somehow I doubt it.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Hognoxious]

... or the Earth.

Re:Sure it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

He was legitimately and overwhelmingly elected in a fair election, unlike George W Bush (for example).

You might want to let it go. Bush was legitimately and fairly elected by the system that exists. Just because it's not the way you like it doesn't make it illegitimate.

No you didn't

[SmallFurryCreature]

He served his maximum of two terms. How can you be booted if your maximum contract that cannot be renewed has ended?

Stop lying to yourself.

Re:Sure it is.

[interkin3tic]

Chavez is not a dictator. He was legitimately and overwhelmingly elected in a fair election, unlike George W Bush (for example).

Good point, he should have said "Chavez is a dictator who is very good at PR."

Venezuelan system of government

[presidenteloco]

Executive

The Venezuelan president is elected by a vote with direct and universal suffrage, and is both head of state and head of government. The term of office is six years, and (as of 15 February 2009) a president may be re-elected an unlimited number of times. The president appoints the vice-president and decides the size and composition of the Cabinet and makes appointments to it with the involvement of the legislature. The president can ask the legislature to reconsider portions of laws he finds objectionable, but a simple parliamentary majority can override these objections.

Legislative
The unicameral Venezuelan parliament is the Asamblea Nacional ("National Assembly"). Its 167 deputies, of which three are reserved for indigenous people, serve five-year terms and may be re-elected for a maximum of two additional terms. They are elected by popular vote through a combination of party lists and single member constituencies.

New York Times vs Sullivan [1964]

[westlake]

In free countries, it's recognized that you can't defame public officials.

The standard in the U.S. is based on malice. You were out to do damage.

You broadcast something you knew was a lie or demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth.

Free societies do not remain free when their elected representatives can be slandered into political oblivion.

Defamation and the First Amendment

Re:New York Times vs Sullivan [1964]

[the_womble]

The example he gives looks like malice to me.

On the other hand, malice is not needed in Britain. Even a reasonable belief and a public interest are not defences - you have to prove what you said.

Re:Sure it is.

[b4upoo]

By the very nature of the concept of government we will always have tension as no government will ever want to allow the total free flow of information. As an example some of our military and national security budgets are totally hidden. In one case even the top branch of government is kept from knowing the source of some military funding. I can understand that. But where it gets all messed up is in the public not being able to find out if the military has enough funding and therefore picking candidates for office is compromised. One candidate may call for a reduction in funding while his opponent wants to increase funding. That makes voting and even the notion of elections sort of a joke.
                      Apparently the CIA and perhaps other secret agencies set up private businesses which covertly send in funds from their profits. But there are no living officials who know where those funds come from and the cash simply arrives from anonymous senders. There isn't even a way to turn that flow of money off.

Re:Sure it is.

[SurlyJest]

Chavez is a dictator

Chavez is not a dictator. He was legitimately and overwhelmingly elected in a fair election, unlike George W Bush (for example).

Read more news (and history) then. Hitler and Mussolini were elected too, you know. Chavez has shut down opposition newspapers, thrown political opponents into jail, supported the leftist-cum-terrorist operations of FARC in Columbia, is best buds with the Castro brothers, etc. All of which adds up to me as dictator-like behavior. He first came to notice after a failed coup attempt in 1992 - and when he did come to power, became one of the leaders of the OPEC cartel, reducing production to boost oil prices.

See http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/presidentsofsouthamerica/p/09HChavez.htm - a generally sympathetic view of him as a leftist reformer, but his dictatorial aspirations are clear.

Plus, he's just a lying SOS and enemy of the US, just on general principles (or lack thereof). Most recently, he accused US of being responsible for the Haiti earthquake ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583588,00.html ) using some magical new weapon no one else has heard of. Evidence of the paranoid style and demonization of some "enemy" which is page one of the dictator's handbook.\p>

Re:Sure it is.

[jcr]

Chavez is not a dictator. He was legitimately and overwhelmingly elected in a fair election,

Oh, get serious. Chavez certainly isn't the first dictator who started out by getting elected.

-jcr

Re:Sure it is.

[interkin3tic]

You might want to let it go. Bush was legitimately and fairly elected by the system that exists.

Wait, it was fair because the system -exists- and we should forget about it? So I suppose you'd say that because the system of "Castro is the only one on the ballot" was in existence for Cuba's recent history, Castro was the fairly and legitimately elected democratic president of Cuba, and people should "let it go?"

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Attila Dimedici]

Three words for you: free speech zones.

You make a good point. Fortunately, on those occasions when University free speech zones (the setting in which they are most commonly applied) have been challenged in court, they have usually been ruled unconstitutional.
That being said, it is interesting that the people who implement these "free speech zones" are those who claim to be the strongest proponents of unfettered free speech. They are, also, from whom many of the members of the Obama Administration have been drawn.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[mandelbr0t]

I don't understand the "coming soon" part. American policies have been this way since 2001. Don't ever forget that the PATRIOT act was used to hold at least one American citizen without trial for at least a year. If that's not censorship, I don't know what is. And that's only the one we know about. Obama needs to lift the curtain on Gitmo, make some public anti-torture statements, and put this whole PATRIOT mess behind us.

parent is not a troll

[bussdriver]

Parent post is correct and is not a troll. Everybody who dares to refute any of the western propaganda against Chavez is labeled a troll. I don't give a rip about it other than how easily suckered and ignorant people are about their anti-Chavez positions. He is not a dictator; he is against the USA's empire and that is why there is a big movement against him and his attempt to spread the revolt to other nations. One can't even call the USA an empire without people getting irrational.

Re:parent is not a troll

[Scrameustache]

One can't even call the USA an empire without people getting irrational.

Well, empire means so many things. It's easy to find someone who only knows some of its meanings and is ignorant of the meaning that applies. You can use "hegemonic empire" to be more precise. That might cut down on the irrational reactions by a few percentage points. But on the whole, the manufacturing of consent proceeds with great efficacy. Keep fighting the good fight, though.

Re:parent is not a troll

[Joey Vegetables]

Opposition to Chavez and opposition to U.S. empire are orthogonal. I happen to oppose both, for similar reasons. Both Chavez and the U.S. empire are committed to a policy of forced collectivization, and to an apparent belief that today's problems resulted from free enterprise (in spite of that the fact that it hasn't existed in either place for a very long time), and can be solved through central planning.

The fact that Chavez has the wit and the cajones to tweak Washington's nose from time to time is among the few things I actually do respect and admire about him.

Nigeria is also a failing state

[Colin Smith]

Large oil reserves. There is a correlation between oil and domestic political problems. You might even think there are groups trying to sabotage each other.

 

Re:Nigeria is also a failing state

[Opportunist]

Comparing Nigeria to Venezuela on oil reserves and drawing a parallel to the point of saying "Nigeria is a failing state, Venezuela will be as well" is a wee bit ... odd. It's a bit like comparing the US to Myanmar on their Army budget spending and saying the US will be a military dictatorship soon, too, because of that.

Imagine a country wanting control over its own oil

[presidenteloco]

Scandalous!

It's almost like the people living there think they run
the place.

We'll soon sort them out.

Re:Imagine a country wanting control over its own

[Opportunist]

Yeah, what cheek! What's next, wanting to choose their government system and still wanting to participate in international trade?

Guess it's time...

[Uranium-238]

..for America to finally invade Venezuela aswell then, since they can handily use regime change as a reason for it.

General comment about dictators

[PinkyGigglebrain]

I think my sig says it very well.

For those not logged in:
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge,
For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."

Those in power, even in a "Free" country, fear the free flow of information, ideas, comments by the people.

And for those of you that catch it, yes, my sig a a paraphrase of Pravin Lal's bio from SMAC, which I'll also include because its worth reading.
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last loose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

Re:Sure it is.

[Lakitu]

Whatever the case may be, he certainly wasn't overwhelmingly elected. If anything that may make it more legitimate, but it also makes the post you're replying to accurate.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[shutdown -p now]

Do you? Specifically, how do you know that those laws are constant, and won't suddenly change tomorrow? Or, put another way, that there isn't some hidden variable there that didn't affect our empirical tests so far, but will start doing so tomorrow?

Typical tinpot dictator

[phlegmboy]

Chavez is just another tinpot dictator with a really small penis who doesn't like it when people don't bow down and kiss his ass. The sooner the people step up and bitchslap the little wanker the better.

Re:Sure it is.

[Pentagram]

Chavez certainly isn't the first dictator who started out by getting elected.

-jcr

Plenty of dictators started out by getting elected, but the stress is on the "started out". You can only reasonably call democratically-elected people dictators if and only if elections are subsequently abolished. Leaders who are still serving a term for which they were elected cannot be called dictators, unless you are seriously stretching the use of language.

The reason Chavez in called a dictator (mainly in the American media) is because it easier to call someone an emotive word than discuss the issues; compare the use of the word "terrorist".

Re:Another anti-Chavez ill-informed kneejerk react

[Artemis3]

How about you follow that link and learn about the one in April 11, 2002 against Chavez?

Re:The same kind of policies...

[roystgnr]

The only real surprise will be if they don't find such clever ways to skirt the First Amendment when it comes to the Internet.

Why is that phrased in the future tense? They just failed, by a 5-4 Supreme Court vote, an attempt to ban a political movie on the basis of an "it was funded by a (non-profit) corporation!" excuse. And they had two thirds of the internet cheering them on.

(Disclaimer: this comment is funded by Sprint and GeekNet, Inc., according to the banner ad above and the boilerplate below. Ironically, half of the idiots on the internet decrying that SC decision were in a similar situation.)

Re:Sure it is.

[Foobar of Borg]

Bush was legitimately and fairly elected by the system that exists.

No, he wasn't. If Florida had been properly counted, Gore would have won even under our electoral college system. When you have Karl Rove and his band of thugs descending on election counting places shouting "Stop the count! Stop the count!" and a Supreme Court ruling against a state's rights to determine its own electors, you do not have a legitimate election.

You might want to let it go.

Yes, because the only answer to tyranny is ignoring it or going along with it. Dumbass.

Re:YOU ARE GAY!

[spartacus_prime]

It's only defamation if the assertion is false. If he turns out to be a flaming homosexual, it's not defamation.

Re:Sure it is.

[Foobar of Borg]

Plus, he's just a lying SOS and enemy of the US, just on general principles (or lack thereof).

Ah yes, of course anyone who is opposed to the US *must* be a dictator. [rolls eyes]

Re:Not insightful

[spartacus_prime]

Based on the fact that we still have ongoing case law regarding illegal searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment, it doesn't appear to me that law enforcement as a whole has any idea what the Constitution actually says (I cannot speak for the armed forces), so I doubt that in the unlikely event something like this comes down from DC that law enforcement will be marching in the streets with the citizens and passing out firearms.

actually the nutjobs were right.

[WiiVault]

I was pretty fine with Hugo until his whole president for life thing. Now I know who he really is. For once the right wing nutjobs might have been right about something.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Burpmaster]

So you don't understand conservation of mass? That's even more basic than conservation of angular momentum.

Anyway, the point is that it's grossly inaccurate to equate the certainty of one of the most well-substantiated facts about the future with your belief in your own guess about what a human will choose to do in the future.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[DAldredge]

I do. I also happen to know that stars don't exist forever. See if the Sun explodes then we have a slight issue with it appearing to rise the next morning.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[WindBourne]

I always laugh at this kind of garbage. It was neo-con reagan that ran 8 long years of deficits and ran up the debt like there was no tomorrow. It continued for 3 years with Poppa Bush, and Clinton that dropped it to basically balanced. That was followed by W making reagan look like an amateur. And yet, Obama trying to bail out the nation from all this neo-con spending and suddenly Obama is running the nation into the ground. Heck, I still see ppl claiming that it was Clinton and Carter, both of whom ran decent budgets.

Likewise, it was W and the neo-cons that passed one of the absolutely worst intrusions into American lives since FDR. The Patriot act has been shown to have very little to do with terrorism and has been instead applied to drugs from Latin America and even common criminals. Yet, it is cowards like yourselves that scream that Obama will do this. A good neo-con to the end.

I wonder when the republicans will take back their party. I hope soon.

Re:Another anti-Chavez ill-informed kneejerk react

[esaulgd]

Those irrational, anti-Chavez militants make it a point to accuse him of being a dictator although he is holding a democratically appointed position to which he was elected time and again

All the elections held after 2004 were so biased and marred by irregularities that any first-world country would laugh at the idea of such frauds being considered valid in their own territory.
Even the staunchest Chavez supporters will admit that:
- Chavez's allies control the Electoral Board and have continuously changed the rules to whatever suits them.
- Chavez constantly abuses the state's resources (mostly the state's TV channel and enforced national broadcasts) to deliver blatant propaganda.
- Chavez openly engages in vote-buying operations before each election. The origin of the funds for such has never been clear.
This is without including many more claims brought forth by the opposition, which fall in deaf ears because Chavez openly controls all powers of the state.

and although he has been the target of multiple coup attempts, all of which were reverted by none other than Venezuela's people. Is that what being a dictator is about?

As another post said, the 1992 coup attempt was BY Chavez, not against Chavez. In the view of the government, supporters of the 1992 attempt are heroes and supporters of the 2002 attempt are criminals.
There is no possible way to label this fact as anything other than hypocrisy. And a government that uses its own hypocritical viewpoint to impose penalties on its citizens cannot be labeled anything other than a tyranny.

Re:Another anti-Chavez ill-informed kneejerk react

[alantus]

Wait, wait, the coup attempt in 1992 was directed by Chavez, not targeting him. He was elected in 1999.

Yet he seems to enjoy calling his opponents "golpistas" almost every day on media broadcasts (golpe = coup).
He really likes to incite hatred among Venezuelans.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Burpmaster]

"Appearing to" is the key phrase here. Regardless, we don't have to worry about the sun exploding for about five billion years.

To say that we don't really know for sure about such things isn't being skeptical. Quite the opposite. It's just an excuse to believe whatever you want by declaring everything uncertain and all uncertainties equal. Then no competing point of view can prove itself superior to yours.

If that's how you think, why not skydive without a parachute? You might survive or you might die. Just like any normal day and just like skydiving with a parachute. So no problem, right?

Re:Sure it is.

[cometman]

come now, the Florida election in 2000 was badly flawed by the use of voter purges. The NAACP won a civil suit about this issue. http://archive.democrats.com/view2.cfm?id=10360 The system that exists was systematically abused by the Republican party in 2000. Even worse abuses were alleged in 2004, especially in Ohio. http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Republican_IT_consultant_subpoenaed_in_case_0929.html however, the subpoena in question could not be carried out due to the death of the IT consultant in a plane crash.

He was elected, long live His Excellency etc

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

I find these stories quite funny. Let's not forget that Chavez was democratically elected, three times. He's a monkey, but a monkey voted for by his people. They have given him a mandate to fuck around to his stupid little heart's content.

Very much like that other little fucking monkey, Robert Mugabe. However, ol' Bob has had decades of time to monkey around and fuck things up.

What's my point? I have no fucking idea. They're all fucking monkeys fucking things up. Some are just more efficient monkeys than others. Maybe my point is to take it easy on ol' Hugo, give him time, he's just warming up. Please don't judge him on his looks - it's not his fault his face is a bit downsy.

By the time the stupid monkey electorate in Venezuela realize they've been fed their own shit in a recursive fashion, it'll be too late, as with ol' Bob and his monkey pals in Zimbabwe.

Time to go

[RHaddon]

It's very sad that such a popular leader (verified, clean elections extended his stay in power) can be so stupid... I used be on the side of Chavez, but in recent years the saying "absolute power, corrupts absolutely" is somewhat true, this together with his often crazy comments are discrediting the good he has done for the people. He should respect the founded democratic systems of the world and realise his time has come to step down.

His only personal interest is to remain in power

[dannns]

Hugo Chavez is a totalitarian with only the personal interest to remain in power. He is not even communist or socialist. Chavez does not worry about destroying his own country as long as he has the power. Over the past 11 years he has been wasting the money of what should have been a booming economy based on the high oil prices. Now an energy rich country even has power problems, and is proposing to have businesses close one day of the week to "save power". Chavez is just a total failure, and he wants to close any media or communication medium to avoid for the truth to be known.

Re:His only personal interest is to remain in powe

[bstender]

You must live in Rushlimbaughstan. I can only imagine the potential for the United States and the world if we had leaders who cared about their country and the people living in it as much as Chavez does. (instead of catering to the ultra-wealthy)

Re:Sure it is.

[jcr]

>You can only reasonably call democratically-elected people dictators if and only if elections are subsequently abolished.

Bullshit. Plenty of dictators go through the motions of holding "elections" from time to time.

-jcr

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Alpha Prime]

Actually, no one news source gives you complete coverage. I listen to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, PBS and others, plus read as much as possible, newspapers, magazines, and the web. It takes thought and effort to weed out the bull from the truth.

Re:Um... No

[bstender]

"If I said the same thing about Chavez, I would disappear. He's funny like that."

cite?

Re:Sure it is.

[Pentagram]

I was referring to fair elections. Obviously if elections are rigged then you could still have a situation where you had a dictator despite the presence of elections.

There are however no credible reports that Venezuela's elections were rigged. They had numerous international observers who declared themselves satisfied.

Even if you believe that Chavez is sufficiently corrupt to rig elections, there is no incentive for him to do so. He has massive popular support.

The class war is over.

[ormondotvos]

We lost. Deal with it.

Re:Because it's the truth

[AK Marc]

They have more opinion than news. From someone looking at them as a non-fan (not that I'm a fan of CNN or whatever else either), I've never actually seen a news program on. I've passed over them a few times (I don't watch "news" of any kind, I get more news faster and in more depth skimming a paper or a paper's website), and I've never seen a news program on. That they call themselves Fox News when they don't do news is the issue, not any particular story. And someone whining about "facts" while defending Fox is amusing. Thanks for the laugh, you should get a show of your own.

Re:Sure it is.

[SurlyJest]

That's not what I said. I was pointing out that he lies about US in a wild and paranoid style designed only to appeal to the prejudices of his base. Just like Hitler and the Jews.

The U.S. is no different

[gateur]

The U.S. government maintains a "secret" program in partnership with the telecom monopolies to monitor all Internet traffic for "illegal" activity. Under the program, anyone arrested is not permitted to speak about it, EVER! The U.S. government implements a level of IP laws and copyright (will Mickey Mouse ever reach the public domain?) that far exceed those of any other country. The U.S. government refuses to allow Internet gambling solely because it might interfere with the billions it takes in from it's own gambling operations. When the U.S. government meets the standards it sets for everyone else, THEN you Americans will have the right to whine. In the meantime, continue fueling your cars with Venezuelan oil, buying so much from China that your country is going bankrupt, and using your U.N. Security Council veto to prevent Israel from being held accountable for the war crimes it commits because the rest of us love to see you make fools of yourselves as your nation sinks into the abyss.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Aphoxema]

Clearly the Constitution is past its prime. Don't listen to grandpa when he tells you things, Jimmy, he's senile.

Re:The same kind of policies...

[Aphoxema]

Anyone would be an utter moron, if he were to trust any single news source. An intelligent person will read as many different sources as he can find the time to read, and compare & evaluate what he reads.

Faux news exists for the convenience of the conservative utter morons.

Adding up all the available "news" sources still sums to a negative value, typically.

Re:Sure it is.

[brycethorup]

What's funny is that under the definition given, there has never been a true dictator. There is always opposition.

Re:Sure it is.

[Scrameustache]

What's funny is that under the definition given, there has never been a true dictator. There is always opposition.

"Amnesty International fears that this assault on key institutions of accountability, combined with sweeping emergency powers, will exacerbate existing patterns of human rights abuse, including torture and other ill-treatment, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and use of excessive force to suppress peaceful dissent,"