[ridenrain]

Looks like trouble in the socialist paradise of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, but you'd never know it if you watched the CBC. It's all bountiful harvests and cheap gas from them.
[web]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4801521.stm[/web]

[Johnny_Utah]

CKA Defenders of Hugo Chavez hurry defend you're Leader..

[Scrappy]

LOL Johnny; the Extreme Lefty hero may be going down. Who will they worship then, oh yea there is always Cuba wait isn't he dying.

[Hardy]

There's been political opposition in Venezuela for years, much of it funded by the US government. Nothing new about that, and it would be astonishing if there weren't extra efforts made by the US agencies involved, in response to Chavez' recent rant against Bush in the UN.

$1:

U.S. funds aid Chávez opposition

National Endowment for Democracy at center of dispute in Venezuela

By BART JONES
National Catholic Reporter
April 2, 2004

The United States is using a quasi-governmental organization created during the Reagan years and funded largely by Congress to pump about a million dollars a year into groups opposed to Venezuela President Hugo Chávez, according to officials in Venezuela and a Venezuelan-American attorney.

Some 2,000 pages of newly disclosed documents show that the little-known National Endowment for Democracy is financing a vast array of groups: campesinos, businessmen, former military officials, unions, lawyers, educators, even an organization leading a recall drive against Chávez. Some compare the agency, in certain of its activities, to the CIA of previous decades when the agency was regularly used to interfere in the affairs of Latin American countries.

“It certainly shows an incredible pattern of financing basically every single sector in Venezuelan society,” said Eva Golinger, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based attorney who helped obtain the documents through Freedom of Information Act requests. “That’s the most amazing part about it.”

One organization, Sumate, which received a $53,400 grant in September, is organizing the recall referendum against Chávez, Golinger said. The head of another group, Leonardo Carvajal of the Asociación Civil Asamblea de Educación, was named education minister by “dictator for a day” Pedro Carmona, a leading businessman who briefly took over Venezuela during an April 2002 coup against Chávez, she said. A leader of a third group assisted by the National Endowment for Democracy and its subsidiary organizations, Leopoldo Martínez of the right-wing Primero Justicia party, was named finance minister by Carmona, she said.

“How can they [the National Endowment for Democracy] say they are supporting democracy when they are funding groups that backed the coup?” asked Golinger, head of the pro-Chávez Venezuela Solidarity Committee in New York.

Chris Sabatini, the endowment’s senior program officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, acknowledged the organization is handing out $922,000 this year, largely to groups opposed to Chávez, and gave out $1,046,323 last year.

http://foi.missouri.edu/federalfoia/usfundsaid.html

[ridenrain]

No doubt this is an evil plan by that devil Bush, to destablize the country and steal the oil..or more likely the hardworking, honest folks of Ven. are fed up with his cronyism and corrupt management.
I guess it's back to Cuba and North Korea for the loony left.

[xerxes]

Actually, it's the hard working people who support Chavez while the richer people in the counry do not, though with all the nationalizing of sate industries, I can't imagine why....

[ridenrain]

I think you mean the usefull idiots who are seeing their infrastructure crmble as Hugo mis-manages their legacy. I suppose we'll see next free election, if there ever is another one.

[OPP]

Sweden is very much a socialist country and works perfectly fine. You might even say that we owe a great deal to Socialisme.

Understatement to say the least...
Infact we do owe a great deal to Socialisme.

[ridenrain]

You might but I don't think I'll be doing that.

But look:comrades. There's something new for you to watch:

$1:

Telesur is a new pan-Latin American TV channel based in Venezuela. It aims to rival CNN and the other Spanish-language news channels coming out of Miami and Atlanta.

Some have already dubbed it Al-Bolivar - a combination of the Arabic news channel, Al-Jazeera, and President Hugo Chavez's favourite independence hero.
...
He told the BBC that all the people working at Telesur are leftist.

"They're all in one political position, and that's the political position of our president that wants to be not only the president of Venezuela but the leader of Latin America."

Works for the CBC here so it must be great.
Just thing Hugo calling Bush the devil in Spanish, then switch over to the CBC and hear the same thing in EnglisH & French. If you hear it enough, it must be true, right?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4620411.stm

[TheGup]

It's true that the US funds opposition parties in Venezuala, but it is also true that the media is extremely biased towards Mr Chavez.

It is also true that at the rate of nationalisation they are going at, everyone who produces in that country will emigrate, and they will be left with nothing but oil, and no one to capitalise on it.

[OPP]

TheGup TheGup:

It's true that the US funds opposition parties in Venezuala, but it is also true that the media is extremely biased towards Mr Chavez.

It is also true that at the rate of nationalisation they are going at, everyone who produces in that country will emigrate, and they will be left with nothing but oil, and no one to capitalise on it.

The rightwing media in Venezuela spat out lies in an effort to discredit Chavez and encouraged violence as means of aiding the opposition. They crossed the line! They crossed it way over and some effort to regulate these scrupulous media had to be made.

[Stellar]

It's good to see that Chaves will still win the next election.
Viva Chavez!

[OPP]

Stellar Stellar:

It's good to see that Chaves will still win the next election.
Viva Chavez!

Viva!!!

[TheGup]

No! Media can never be censored. Ever. No one has any right to silence any voice in a democracy. If no one believes these newspapers, no one would buy them!

Clearly, these newspapers speak for the people, or they would not have high circulation. It's not as if they're forced to buy the papers/television shows.

[OPP]

TheGup TheGup:

No! Media can never be censored. Ever. No one has any right to silence any voice in a democracy. If no one believes these newspapers, no one would buy them!

Clearly, these newspapers speak for the people, or they would not have high circulation. It's not as if they're forced to buy the papers/television shows.

These Tv stations and newspapers had alot to loose if Chavez came to power and I'm not talking censorship. They were very clearly favouring the opposition to say the least! The Media is not suposed to spew out propaganda! What purpose does the media serve if it does not report events truthfully?
I don't think the people living under the rule of the Soviet Unione would share your opinion.