Come Gather ‘Round People
It's funny, I read a post by Wretchard at the Belmont Club that invoked a line from one of Bob Dylan's songs earlier today that got me thinking. He titled it, The curse it is cast. He was writing about the move by (T)Hugo Chavez to shut down one of the few remaining voices in opposition to the new dictatorship that Chavez is trying to bring into being. Wretchard pointed out that the folks at RCTV may not be perfect - hell, who is? But he also pointed out that the silencing of different views is a bad thing - for everyone, left or right. (And that made me look up the lyrics to that old song.)
My own personal opinion is that anyone would have to be a fool or on the Left not to recognize an incipient tyrant in Hugo Chavez. That does not necessarily mean that his opponents, like the owners of RCTV are honest or upstanding men. They may very well be thugs. That doesn't change the fact that Hugo Chavez is a thug as well. But it seems clear to me that the Left's criteria for judging fascisms is entirely partisan. Although they use such words as "democratically elected" or "legitimate" to justify Chavez, none of these words are really operative, except as protective coloration. What matters is that he is "their guy". He is their thug. Principle, clearly on the Left and possibly among conservatives too, runs a far second to belief.
Even Jimmy Carter may now have come to believe that in Chavez, he may have gotten more than it bargained for. "The Carter Center, which has observed past elections here, said it is concerned that 'non-renewal of broadcast concessions for political reasons will have a chilling effect on free speech.' 'A plurality of opinions should be protected,' it said. 'The right of dissent must be fiercely defended by every democratic government.'" Poor Jimmy. It's always a shock to those who think they are driving events to realize that they are, as they say, the last to know.
But there are sure signs that all is not well in the socialist worker's paradise Chavez hath wrought: The people are fighting in the streets over the (T)Hugo's closure of RCTV.
Demonstrators made their way to the offices of the People's Defender, a government official in charge of monitoring human rights, and presented a document saying that Chavez is restricting freedom of expression by not renewing Radio Caracas Television's broadcast license.
"We are marching for a free country," said preschool teacher Cecilia de Becerra, as hundreds of police in riot gear stood outside the government building. "We have faith that things can change."
Hundreds of other protesters gathered outside the studios of Venevision to condemn the privately owned television channel for recently curbing its criticism of the government.
Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, was forced off the air May 27 after Chavez refused to renew its license, citing the channel's conduct during a failed coup in 2002 and alleged violations of broadcast laws.
RCTV's executives deny any wrongdoing. They accuse Chavez, who threatened on Saturday to yank the broadcast licenses of other private media outlets he accuses of sowing unrest, of trying to muzzle his most outspoken critics.
If what the left in this country says was true, that they are being silenced, this is what it would really look like. They would not have access to major media whenever they wanted to to spout about how they were being oppressed.
Try to get on the air in Venezuela to say you disagree with (T)Hugo right now. Think you'll be able to? Think this is a good thing? Better read the words again:
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
World news | Gaius Sunday, 3 June , 2007
By Douglas Keachie, Monday, 4 June , 2007 @ 9:23 am
It’s always been funny to me that the lyrics and rock music of the Sixties has been so widely adapted by the right of the current times. Savage’s theme song music was exactly what a great many rtwingers of the Sixties railed against, and of course we know where Dylan stood in their eyes. I rather like Kaiser’s use of Dylan’s song in their Thrive campaign. I hate seeing “Try and Catch the Wind,” from Donovan in the GE ad which I see as GE merely softening up the Baby Boomers into accepting nuclear power, on the pretense of doing serious business with wind power/other alternatives. We are currently generating 73,000 tons of low level radioactive waste which nobody wants as it is.
$500 billion worth of solar panels, conventional technology, would have seen the Arabs hang Osama for us, with what it would have done to drop the price of oil. Israel is developing electric cars, in Peace Valley, with Jordan, and expects to be oil free in 30 years. If they’re the Chosen Ones, how come no oil under their feet? God moves in mysterious ways……:)