15 Jun 2007

The war on democracy

Mrs Thatcher's Latin American friends

What is ecosocialism....'its socialism Jim but not as we know it...'

Anyway 'War on Democracy' opens today go and see it.

"The footage showing how RCTV manipulated media images during the 2002 coup to help a US backed attempt to remove Chavez is particularly interesting.

"This is pretty personal to me as well. I was taken to the infamous bridge in Caracas where coup supporters shot at pro-Chavez protesters. My friend Cesar Aponte told me how his father was shot at, but the right wing media in Caracas made it look as if the coup supporter had been attacked rather than the other way around. Pilger's film looks at this episode in some detail and shows how the manipulation was done.

"MP Chris Mullin's book 'A very British coup' looked at how the US might remove a progressive British government and there are some excellent films like the Machuca which cover the same ground as Pilger but this film is just too important to miss. (2)


More here

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If RCTV was so bad, why did so many workers choose to watch it?

Has your hero col. Chavez spent any time in jail, and if so, for what?

Derek Wall said...

I guess you have nostalgia for the dictators, latin america is voting for democracy now.

tim said...

Hey soundjat. Where's your outrage and accusations of dictatorship against all of these cases?:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/junio/vier8/licenses-for-tv.html

A few examples from the article:
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in July 1969, revoked the concession for WLBT-TV; in 1981 it did likewise for WLNS-T; in April 1999, it revoked the license of Trinity Broadcasting; and in April 1998, that of Daily Digest (Radio). From 1934 to 1987 in the United States, 141 broadcasters lost their licenses, including 102 for non-renewal. In 40 cases, their licenses were revoked before they were expired. During the ‘80s, there were 10 cases of non-renewal.

Anonymous said...

I'm hopefully seeing the film this weekend. Doesn't seem to be on many screens? Hopefully this'll increase over the next few weeks, although anything that isn't multiplex romcoms and superhero stuff tends to mostly do business on DVD and downloads.

On a slightly off-topic note, Chavez is now championing open-source 'Bolivarian Computers' which will be used inside, government "missions" and state companies and institutions but eventually are expected to be sold across Venezuela and Latin America.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2326

I always wonder why open-source isn't demanded for UK schools and other institutions. it can cope with 99% of the curriculum and would save a packet. Also as most computers in schools are used for typing and net use, we could make better use of perfectly good refurbished machines instead of labs stuffed with shining new Dells.

Anonymous said...

Has your hero col. Chavez spent any time in jail, and if so for what?

Cuba's not voting for democracy, at least not in the sense of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

You'll never get elected if you answer a fair question with abuse. But then, you're happy in your little ghetto.

Anonymous said...

You "pacifists" are so aggressive.

Anonymous said...

A brilliant eye-opener of a film.
John Pilger is simply wonderful - his conversation with the...bulky ex-CIA was particularly interesting, especially due to the latter's ignorance regarding the immense damage they too freely caused. Fantastic!

"If RCTV was so bad, why did so many workers choose to watch it?" - Perhaps they were unaware of all that manipulation?

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