Redstate

Now this is a protest I can get behind

By AcademicElephant Posted in Contra Tyrannum — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Yesterday, Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas to protest the government closing of opposition-aligned television station RCTV. That sentence might conjure up images of a group of subversives broadcasting political rants recorded in somebody's basement. RCTV is no such thing. The station has been critical of dictator Hugo Chavez, but such newscasts are just a fraction of its programming. RCTV has some of the most popular (and racy) of the Venezuelan soap operas; past classics include "Soltera y sin compromiso," which appears to translate roughly as "Single and without commitment." Okay, maybe the people of Venezuela can do without "Te tengo en salsa" ("I'll take you with sauce"). But, and this is a very big but, RCTV also has the local syndication rights to "24."

Hugo Chavez is banning Jack Bauer.

Now he has gone too far.

Read on...

Chavez' government justifies the decree not to renew RCTV's licence on the grounds of public morality. The station will be used now for "public service"--perhaps re-runs of the ever-popular "Alo Presidente?" But make no mistake about it. Chavez has no delicate moral scruples. He is shutting down RCTV because it annoys him, and because he can. And if the people of Venezuela are deprived of their weekly Jack Bauer fix? They'll be better off not watching such a character, beside which the caricature that is Hugo Chavez cuts a very poor figure. The loss of a TV station might seem a small issue in the grand scheme of things, but this sort of insidious censorship is just the beginning for Chavez. Today, RCTV. Tomorrow, the blogs. And after that, how many will be left to protest his actions?

The brave souls who risked their personal safety in to protest for the freedom of their press in Caracas make an interesting comparison with those who spent Saturday protesting the Iraq war in Washington. I wonder if the not-so-brave souls who attempted to re-kindle their glory days yesterday spared a thought to what it would be like for them in Chavez' Venezuela--and so what it means to fight to spread liberty? Would Chavez' morality police tolerate this? Or this? Certainly, no such protest against the "duly-elected" government would be tolerated, let alone widely broadcast on a station that does not dutifully parrot that government's message. Of course, one of the protest leaders is a great public supporter of Chavez--indeed, Danny Glover is a board member of the official Venezuelan government TV station so I can only assume that he supports this sort of action. It should not then surprise us that as Mr. Glover and his pals ignore the evisceration of Venezuela's democracy, they are attempting to strangle Iraq's in its crib.

It seems to me that in this critical moment not only for Venezuela and Iraq, but also for the United States, what we all need is a little less of this, and a whole lot more of this.