Report from Venezuela on press freedom...

Opposition Media Compares Chavez to Hitler, Again

By JORGE MARTIN - HANDS OFF VENEZUELA, December 17th 2010

As it happens every so often, the Venezuelan right wing media and their international counterparts are once again raising a hue and cry over alleged threats to freedom of the media and freedom of expression in Venezuela.

So, as I walked down to the newspaper stand in Parque Central in Caracas I had visions of newspapers with blanked out front pages, as was usually the case during the IV Republic. However, what I found was very different. The front pages of most of the papers (El Universal, El Nacional, El Nuevo País, 2001, El Mundo, Reporte Diario de la Economía, La Razón, etc) were extremely critical of the decision of the national assembly to pass an Enabling Act giving Chavez emergency powers. In fact, "critical" is too soft a word to describe their reaction. Many of them were hysterically denouncing the move as dictatorial.

But, the one front page that really caught my attention was TalCual's. The daily opposition paper, edited by former leftist turned rabid reactionary Teodoro Petkoff, had a headline boldly proclaiming "Going towards a dictatorship" and a caricature of Chavez giving a Nazi-style salute.

(PHOTO of the frontpage with cartoon of Chavez giving Nazi salute)

In any democratic country such a provocation would probably lead to legal action against the editor. Not in Venezuela. The editorial, written by Petkoff himself, calls the democratically elected president "ignorant" and "ignoramus" and uses extremely derogatory nicknames of his own making to refer to him.

The concluding paragraph compares Chavez with Hitler: "This is what Adolf Hitler did. On March 24, 1933, the Reichstag, the German Parliament, gave him special powers for indefinite time and to legislate over any issue. The Reichstag never met again; from then on Hitler ruled in a dictatorial manner. With this violation of the constitution ..." The fact that granting the president enabling powers is within the constitution seems irrelevant to Petkoff.

One wonders how is he allowed to publish such libellous material. It is not even the first time he makes the allegation that Chavez is Hitler reincarnate. On Februray 1, 2007 Petkoff published a "Heil Hugo" front page with a picture of Chaplin as Hitler.

(PHOTO of "Heil Hugo!" front page)

The same newspaper, on September 26th, 2003, published a front page picture showing Hugo Chavez holding a 9 mm handgun at a public rally with a headline saying "At gun point". The small problem was that what Chavez was really holding at that public rally was ... a rose, and the picture was in fact a photo-montage.

(PHOTO of frontpage with altered photo of Chavez holding gun; next to the real photo of Chavez holding a rose)

Despite all the protests of Petkoff and the rest of the reactionary media, nationally and internationally, about the so-called dictatorial Chavez, elections and referenda are held very often in Venezuela, and the people have once and again given support to the Bolivarian revolution, in the ballot box and in the streets, defending it against the coup plots of the "democratic" opposition represented by Petkoff.

Teodoro Petkoff, who was once a leftist, joined the Caldera government in the 1990s, where he was in charge of the privatisation of most state owned companies, following the diktats of the IMF. He supported the April 2002 coup against president Chavez and published a famous editorial entitled "Chao Hugo" celebrating his undemocratic removal. He is one of the main leaders of the opposition and acted as the main advisor to the opposition presidential candidate Manuel Rosales in the December 2006 elections.

Petkoff concludes his editorial with this statement: "Chavez has started to walk, now for real, the path to a dictatorship. Will the country swallow it?" This sounds like a very ominous threat, particularly coming from someone who supported the coup in April 2002 and has played a role in every single undemocratic plot of the reactionary opposition to remove Chavez and put an end to the Bolivarian revolution.

After buying a copy of TalCual, which will come very handy next time someone raises the issue of the so-called of "freedom of expression" in Venezuela, I walked away with a feeling of anger and rage at the fact that most of those who organised and participated in the coup in 2002 are still free to attack the Venezuelan revolution in the media, through economic sabotage, by leading the opposition parties and in conspiracies and plots with US imperialism.

The problem in Venezuela, clearly, is not one of lack of freedom of expression, but one of incredible and dangerous leniency with the sworn enemies of the democratic will of the people.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5873
(Creative Commons License)
(Go to the url to see the photos)

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How come the New York Slimes doesn't cover this, hm? A fascist rag in Venezuela with front page images of Chavez as Hitler! How many people has Chavez killed? How many people has he shoved into ovens? And how many people has he and his government helped raise out of poverty? How many have they helped to give new dignity to and a voice--women, gays, African-Venezuelans, the Indigenous? Doesn't this call for a New York Slimes editorial on "the responsibilities of a free press"? Doesn't this rabid hatred of Chavez, calling him "Hitler," demean the horrible sufferings of Jews and others at Hitler's hands?

Total. Silence.

Us peons and cannon fodder are swallow the "Big Lie" that there is no free press in Venezuela.

The last one I remember was Oliver Stone in an interview with Tariq Ali on Amy's show.

How awkward, eh?

It would be different if they weren't used to a free wheeling internet.

creates anxiety in people who don't know how to fact check.

This is like the third or fourth sensational story in about a week. They will all turn out to be bullshit but most people will not check.

If Chavez was going to be Stalin, he wouldn't have waited ten years to be Stalin. lol

First, I don't think the majority of the people think Chavez is Stalin. Not even close. Also, if you understand the political process, you see how these things work, the takeover has to be gradual. For example, it's impossible to pass laws which may not pass the constitutionality smell test unless you have packed the Supreme Court with your followers. This has taken time, but it has been accomplished. Then, you have to make sure that, as you move more and more towards autocracy, then you have to have the security system on your side. This also takes time.

I have seen Latin American autocrats come and go. Some were terrible as human beings, such as Pinochet, or the Argentina Junta members. Others were corrupt and cut corners galore, but weren't that married to power, Fujimori is a good example. I don't know where historians will place Chavez, but it does look like he has been influenced by Castro, and they do have a tendency to be somewhat deaf to criticism.

Stalin, as we know, was a pretty nasty dude. I think it takes a lot of doing to get to his level. I don't think the Hitler cartoons about Chavez are fair, but politics has a tendency to get pretty nasty. I remember I used to call Bush a Hitler, but I knew he wasn't that bad.

Tell you what. You keep track of these stories for a week and come to your own conclusion.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x47268

Feds Seek Computer Firewall to Block WikiLeaks 'Pollution'



Et tu, Hugo?

as "cut corners galore." I'd like to see how glib you'd be if one of those cut corners was your daughter or son who was tortured and murdered for legally exercising their rights. Fujimori is a good example, all right, unless you were one of the people that was pulled off of the bus outside of Ayacucho and summarily executed by a government death squad. But, mistakes will happen, I guess. Or one of the mothers at El Mozote who had to watch as the Salvadoran soldier trained at Fort Benning take a US supplied rifle, impale her infant with it and tossed the child screaming down a well. Or working for justice in Nicaragua, or Haiti, or Honduras, or Guatemala.

Bush wasn't that bad: he's only responsible for starting two illegal unnecessary wars that have resulted in something like a million completely unnecessary deaths and untold torture sessions (so far) while Hitler started a war that killed 50 million people. It's a matter of scale, I guess. When you look at it that way, I guess Ted Bundy was really a pretty nice fellow.

Chavez hasn't tortured or murdered anyone.

Cuz, I saw this the other day.




How can I find out if this is true? :dunce:


Also, Hugo Chavez ran over a neighboring kid's toy truck when he was backing out of his driveway. He hasn't replaced it yet. :mad:

:hi:

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