Hey Rocky...

[scooter]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18903331/

Seems to me that the government down there doesn't appreciate the opposition having a voice. So he shuts 'em down.
Your thoughts? He appears afraid of a free press...you know, the kind we have here in the "evil empire"...our current administration seems able to handle the heat, why can't Hugo take a little negative press? This is one of those enlightened and liberated countries you are so fond of, correct?

[reynoldbot]

well, our government is trying half-heartedly to kill public radio and television, which runs many programs critical of the bush regime.

[rocky]

This is news to me. I hadn't been reading about this. I googled around and found some stuff.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caracas_Televisi%C3%B3n
www.embavenez-us.org/RCTVFactSheetFinal_2007.pdf

I never said those leftist leaders were perfect but that doesn't mean that the US government hasn't been exploiting the third world.

Our press isn't exactly free either. I started a thread about that.
apollohoax.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=othertheories&action=display&thread=1170100055

Venezuela just had a coup a few years ago. They are in a semi state-of-emergency. During world war two the US government carried out some actions that seem fascist such as the internment of all Japanese citizens.

Eugene Debs was imprisoned for giving this speech.
www.thememoryhole.org/war/debs-speech.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs
(excerpt)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On June 16, 1918, Debs made an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I, and was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917. He was convicted, sentenced to serve ten years in prison and disenfranchised for life. While the photo pictured on the left of this page has for decades been reported to be of Debs giving his speech in Canton, it is actually a picture of Debs giving a speech to a large crowd in Chicago in 1912.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes if we'd left countries alone, they never would have ended up with the governments they have.

If we'd never meddled in Iran, they never would have ended up with Ayatola Khomeini.
www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l30iran.htm

I've spoken to Iranians who opposed both the Shah and the Ayatola.

I spoke to a Cuban in Miami who had fought with Castro to free Cuba from the US. He was anti-imperialist.
www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Century_Later_Cuba.html

Castro hadn't told them that he was going to go socialist so a lot of those same people who'd fought with him turned against him. He expelled the imperialists and took back control of Cuba's resources but then he expropriated small private businesses. If the US had never meddled in Cuba, Fidel would never have taken power--not that I think it's worse than some of those other Latin American governments; it's a lot better in a lot of ways.
I don't want to get into the debate of which system is the best. I'm just against the exploitation of other countries by the US.

You're playing down the fact that the US government has been exploiting the third world for a century by concentrating on the defects of some of the governments that have gotten their independence form the US. Yes, they have some defects but the US has been exploiting the third world--there's no getting around that.

Here's a collection of articles and videos that explain it.

www.thismodernworld.org/arc/1995/95-05-17-Guatemala.gif
www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/guatemal.htm
www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/2002/0413angola.htm
www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/42a/127.html
www.namebase.org/scott.html

www.truthout.org/docs_2005/WTI062405V.shtml
www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm
www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html
www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/KillingHope_page.html
michaelparenti.org/Imperialism101.html
www.chomsky.info/articles/19860409.htm
www.antipasministries.com/html/file0000133.htm
www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/chomskyin1282.html
www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html
www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zepezauer_Mark/Iran_Boomerang.html

www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-contents.html
www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/racket.html

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13622.htm

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3117338213439292490&pl=true
video.google.es/videoplay?docid=1130731388742388243
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11635.htm
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7333556703536657423
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8797525979024486145
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4827358238697503
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3453261789658676035&q=oil
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8085945499556832271
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8171.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAqG51uwzMI&mode=related&search=
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14295.htm
www.jonhs.net/911/911_american_empire.htm
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20061222&articleId=4245
www.ichblog.eu/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=375
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnYZVNVqBgU&mode=related&search=


These two are the same video--in case one of them goes off-line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13416.htm
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159


Reynoldbot made a good point too. What do you say to all of this?

[Grand Lunar]

This is what's so funny about you. Someone makes a joking statement, and you jump over it with videos and articles.

[Jason]

..watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

[gillianren]

reynoldbot said:

well, our government is trying half-heartedly to kill public radio and television, which runs many programs critical of the bush regime.

Also Sesame Street.

[LunarOrbit]

gillianren said:

Also Sesame Street.

Well, Bert (of Sesame Street, not our Bert) is a terrorist, after all. So I can see why the government would want to shut down Sesame Street.

[Jason]

Perhaps Public Radio & TV should drop news programing and political commentary and stick with popular children's programing instead.

[gillianren]

No, I don't think they should. I think we should have a source not sponsored by industries that might have a reason to keep certain stories out of the news. Some 2/3 of PBS's budget comes from Viewers Like You (not viewers like me; viewers who have an income higher than $349 a month, one presumes).

[lionking]

Chavez pics are raised by the opposition in Lebanon since he met with the Syrian president. it is no wonder that he contracted the disease of oppression of free press from him

[reynoldbot]

jason said:

Perhaps Public Radio & TV should drop news programing and political commentary and stick with popular children's programing instead.

I certainly hope you aren't being serious. Maybe all news should be strictly controlled and presented solely by the government. That would certainly make things easier, right? I always prefer complacency over controversy.

[Jason]

Actually, Public radio & TV is the only news outlet that nominally works for the U.S. Government. Having them no longer produce news pieces would reduce the amount of government money (and presumably control) going into U.S. news, not increase it.

Gillian is correct that a good amount of their funding comes from public donations, but they sure raise a stink whenever the government considers cutting its portion of their funding.

I find NPR in particular to be a very biased news source - heavily biased towards the liberal viewpoint, not towards the Bush administration. Does it say something about the nation that the most heavily liberal radio programming that survives in what is essentially a conservative areana - talk radio - is the one that relies in part on government funding?

[gillianren]

Yeah, in part. 2%, in fact.

Why do they still kick up a stink? Because PBS is having a hard time making it, and always is. Viewers Like You don't want to subscribe. They resent pledge breaks (though our local PBS doesn't bother with pledge breaks on those rare occasions when they've got enough subscribers already), but they want the programming. PBS shows you sides of issues you would never see otherwise. I'm not talking liberal vs. conservative, though I will note that it's well-documented that those who make decisions in the media are overwhelmingly conservative--those who own networks or papers, not those who report for them. I'm talking the point of view of individuals.

In fact, as I'm typing this, I'm watching a PBS documentary about a canteen in North Platte, Nebraska, during World War II. I'd never heard of them before; they're a small, relatively unimportant part of US history. The story, however, is fascinating--and no one but PBS would air it for me.

[Jason]

That sort of stuff is things I would like to see too.

[gillianren]

Try your local library, which gets a lot more of your tax money than PBS/NPR does. That's where I acquired the copy I just watched.