Venezuela to limit free speech?

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 7:40 pm

While reading through the headlines I see that Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has begun to curtail the press in Venezuela-specifically the television. It seems one station supported a failed coup attempt against Chavez, so he has removed them from the air, removing what seems like a significant opposition voice, and seemingly silencing dissent against his rule.

It seems even local opinion is against him, and many feel Venezuela is heading towards a dictatorship.

Funnily enough I see some people's reporting of the facts of this incident don't seem to match others. I specifically question the credibility of anyone who thinks this:

Hugo Chavez wrote:If the Venezuelan oligarchy ... does not accept this call to live together in peace that we are making, if it keeps on attacking using the things it still controls, it will keep losing those things one by one.

Makes for reasonable support of free speech. But I have seen that even locally there is some division as to how much freedom of speech people have.

I do think that this quote from the Carter Center is pretty on point, in all of this:

Healthy democracies require spaces for political dialogue and debate to allow divisions about the future direction of the country to be addressed in peaceful ways

Salvation122 · Post by **Salvation122** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 2:08 pm

Chavez ordered his supporters to shoot a bunch of people who were peacefully demonstrating against his policies. He already is a dictator.

Daki · Post by **Daki** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 3:43 pm

But has his party made the full jump into facism?

JongWK · Post by **JongWK** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:37 am

Daki wrote:But has his party made the full jump into facism?

If they haven't done so yet, they're certainly preparing themselves to do it.

Crazy Elf · Post by **Crazy Elf** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:15 am

Salvation122 wrote:Chavez ordered his supporters to shoot a bunch of people who were peacefully demonstrating against his policies. He already is a dictator.

You mean that coup that had US backing?

Look, Chavez is far more liberal when it comes to running the country than any opposition is. After that coup, most of the social reforms that Chavez put in place were overthrown, and then the people rose up against the usurpers. If he is a dictator, he's not one of the horrible oppressive ones. Fuck, he even offered to give cheap oil to the poor in the US, despite constant criticisms from the folks in charge.

I'm not pro-dictators at all, but Chavez seems to do a shitload more good than bad.