Freedom Folks: I'm Sure This Is Our Fault?

Source: Breitbart

As he accelerates his push toward socialism, Chavez has decided that Venezuela’s oldest private TV station must go off the air for good when its broadcast license expires on May 28.

The bespectacled talk show host grimaces into the television camera, raises a finger and accuses President Hugo Chavez of using “tropical neo-fascism to trample Venezuelans’ rights.”

“Their days are numbered. Squeal, kick, whatever they do: the license of that fascist channel is gone,” Chavez said Saturday. “RCTV’s signal will be nationalized for Venezuelans.”

Emboldened by his sweeping re-election victory, Chavez now seems intent on transforming Venezuela’s broadcast media. An expanding web of state-run and state-financed radio and TV stations shapes his image. And almost every Sunday, he preaches socialist ideals on “Hello President,” his folksy talk-show program that runs for five hours or more.

RCTV, in contrast, has been a constant irritant to Chavez. Along with a cadre of other private TV channels and newspapers he accuses of spreading disinformation and conspiring against him, he says RCTV produces “poison” through “grotesque shows” that promote consumerism and violence.

The station’s supporters call Chavez’s threat to deny RCTV a new license an example of how freedom of speech will be sacrificed in the “socialist republic of Venezuela” that Chavez proclaimed as he began his third term. Nearly 100 horn-honking cars snaked through Caracas Sunday in one protest caravan, with “Don’t Mess With The Media!” scrawled in white shoe polish across their windows.

Chavez says he fully respects freedom of speech, and that turning over the channel’s frequency to a “community” station will help democratize the airwaves, providing “communication power to those who almost never have a voice.”

A reminder that there are people in this country infected with the same disease...