There is one small cable station in the capital that reported the mass protests against Chevez.

ONE – and Chevez responded with threats to close them down.

So much for your 97.something per cent.

As for “others are privately owned”.

This would be in the same way that there are lots of “privately owned” broadcasters in Putin’s Russia.

“Private” accept that they have to be pro regime (although even this is not all – most of the “private” broadcasters in Russia are now owned by state owned companies like GasProm).

As for newspapers – “activists” will deal with them. And if the “activists” do not do the job, price controls will.

I say again that soon only friends of the government will be able to get newsprint (and other such) in the country.

Price controls (if maintained with a background of high inflation for a long period of time) mean the back door government control of all enterprises.

Of course they also mean an economic mess – but I doubt Chevez thinks about that.

It’s clear that not only did Hitler not gain power democratically, as a result of German voters putting him there, but that he was at serious risk of the majority of German voters putting him out of the game once and for all – had it not been for the intervention of cretins like Papen.

I’d be careful with this kind of argument. Popularity ebbs and flows. There’s nothing to say that Hitler wouldn’t have come back into fashion in a couple of years. Regardless, the NSDAP had the largest caucus by far in the Reichstag after the November 1932 elections – and the next-biggest party was the KPD. And then there was the DNVP, coalition with which enabled Hitler to form the government. All of which means that Alissa’s point is right: the majority of Germans in 1932 were definitely not voting for peace, human rights, the rule of law, and democracy, no matter how you slice it. They had a pretty clear preference for authoritarian government. The manipulations that put Hitler in position to seize power in 1933 were all quite normal for parliamentary democracy. In fact, as leader of the largest constituency in the Reichstag and with enough seats (in coalition with the DNVP) to form a government, he would have been Chancellor without a second thought if Hindenburg et al hadn’t been so dead-set against it. It was clearly a legal, reasonably normal democratic process that put him in position to seize power. Of course, the actual seizure of power was not democratic, and that’s what Perry means in calling it “ambiguous,” I guess.

But I don’t really see the point of arguing over this. The analogy with Chavez is quite apt, I think. Chavez only hasn’t seized power in the way Hitler did so far because he hasn’t had to. Let his popularity start to plummet, and we’ll see what happens then, shall we?

Is that before or after the government seizes their equipment, as has been threatened?

Not just threatened. The Venezuelan Supreme Court decreed it, and the military was on hand to ensure that it happened.

For me, this is what makes it brazen thuggery. It is unfortunate that Chavez has the power to suspend the license of any TV station that opposes him, but that is apparently within the rule of law. Forcing them to turn over their equipment so that he can use it to broadcast his equally biased opinions in their place is not civilized behavior.

It is amazing to me that anyone is defending this takeover. Chavez brazenly uses his government stations for pro-Chavista propaganda, has himself attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government of his country, currently has red-shirted brigades of thugs marching around the coutnry beating up his political opponents, and simply steals broadcast equipment from his opponents so that he can broadcast even more propaganda. It’s Allende all over again. People can make whatever arguments about the government’s market share of broadcast media they like – the point is surely that the message will have been sent that media that openly oppose the government will not last long. Anyone who thinks that RCTV’s cable operations will stay outside of government meddling for even another two years is kidding himself.

As for RCTV. It can still broadcast on cable and satellite, which is good going for a TV station that has supposedly been shut down.

Is that before or after the government seizes their equipment, as has been threatened?

I think that “creep” Alisa nails it. Hitler’s ultimate ascent to power may not have been democratic in whatever the strict definition of the word you insist on using but it was essentially engineered by the democratic process and it was essentially popular.

Without the democratic process Hitler would have remained a street-ranter that nobody apart from whichever unfortunates happened to be passing within spitting distance at the time would ever have noted. Oh, he might’ve been a footnote because of the Munich putsch of ’23 but that’s all. A footnote in the history of a great nation. A pathetic mono-testiculed wanker who mattered not a jot.

I’m not Schilling for Germany by calling it a great nation here. They are a great nation whether we like it or not. But, Mr Lud are you shilling for Nazism?

Because, quite frankly, your semantic nonsense is beginning to piss this member of the commentariat off, considerably.

Why hide behind words? Why sneak, when you could just Sieg Heil! and be done with it? You’re clearly either a Nazi or a tosser. Please inform.

I do not shill for the Samizdatistas (or their commentariat’s) “critical rationalism” but I hang here because we at least aspire towards those goals.

Actually, I’m tired of defending my viewpoint and those of my friends against a certified merchant-banker like yourself. I know well that they can defend themselves very well.

Edward Lud, really do go fuck yourself in the rectal passage with an aubergine. You can YouTube the results if you want but I am simply past caring…

Once again I seem to be having to defend myself from comments that I didn’t actually make. I never said 99% at all. For the record, I said this:

97.5% of TV stations and 100% of Venezuelan newspapers are privately owned

That was based on the following statistic:

81 TV stations (79 privately owned)
118 Newswpapers (118 privately owned)

That was in response to the claim that what was happening was:

the establishment of a state television monopoly in Venezuela

As for RCTV. It can still broadcast on cable and satellite, which is good going for a TV station that has supposedly been shut down.

Comfortable fantasy or awkward reality. It’s your choice.

To move beyond personal, and re semantics vs the real issue, that being, in my opinion, whether a large enough plurality of Germans in the 30ies actually identified with Hitler’s ideas. What do you think? “…what had seemed since 1930 to be an unstoppable movement”. Well, why was it so unstoppable? You may be correct that technically Hitler did not win democratically, but why is it so important, beyond semantics and technicalities? There are plenty of examples in history where various non-democratic governments, such as, for example, monarchies, supported ideas and executed policies that were perfectly consistent with the feelings of the majority of their populations. (Incidentally, often these were ideas and policies that had to do with foreigners/infidels being the source of all their problems). On the other hand, there are also plenty of examples where democratic governments supported ideas/executed policies that the majority did not support. So why is this insistence on discussing democracy vs non-democracy?

No doubt you will explain that away.

As for other anti Chevez stations – there is a small cable station. Which Chevez has also threatened to shut down.

So much for your 99% – why not just say 101%?

Chevez has established a de facto media monopoly. His friends in the activist “workers movement” will deal with any private newspapers. Besides which (with the price controls on just about everyting) soon the only way to get supplies (for newspapers or anything else) will be to be a friend of the government.

As for Rich Paul and “blowback”.

There has already been “blowback” Rich Paul – but not the way you would expect.

In 2002 there was coup against Chevez (no problem there he had lauched coups in the past himself – and he who lives by the sword…).

However, President George Walker Bush sent out demands that Chevez not be killed (this would be against democracy you see) so he came back to power.

One would have thought that the Americans would have learnt something from the coup against that other democrat and supporter of social justice – Norega in Panama (Norega even looked like Chevez).

In that coup as well the Americans said “do not kill him” and he came back to power (and killed the people who had spared him).

The blowback of saving Chevez has been lots of nationalization and price controls. There would have been a coup effort whatever the Americans did, the result of American intervention was to save the life of Chevez and (thereby) ensure that he would return to power.

First rule of a coup – kill the key members and supporters of the government you are overturning (as many as you can, as fast as you can – keep the enemy off balance and do not allow them time to think and organize a counter attack). It is this first rule that means that senible people always tell the Americans to bugger off after a coup has actually been launched (they can be upset about all the killing that has to be done to make a coup successful – even if they rather liked the idea of a coup in theory).

As for the last election. Well the social democrat candidate promised MORE welfare money than Chevez did (and he would have provided it – as he would not have spent the money on Chevez dreams of world influence).

But President Carter supported Chevez anyway (which tells me all I need to know about the mainstream Ameican left – for all Nancy Pelosi’s talk of Chevez being a thug). The B.B.C. also come out with disinformation – my favourate bit (that I heard on a recent Radio 4 show – I think it was a bit from “Our Own Correspondant”) was about Chevez beng the first Presdent to provide state education for the poor (President Blanco in the 19th century was the person who actually set up tax payer funded education for the poor).

Did Chevez really win the vote?

I do not know whether he has really ever won any vote – but, like Perry, I do not discount this.

I regard it as perfectly possible that many people could vote for an ex coup leader and someone who thinks that he can print as much money as he likes whilst prices remain the same.

Liberty and democracy are indeed very different things. Indeed many people vote to have the burden of liberty removed from them.

I know it is against the custom of the internet to refer to the National Socialists – but they are directly relevant.

In my childhood my family lived near some Germans (the father had been a prisoner of war and he set up a Turkey farm).

I knew the mother of the family fairly well, and she told me both how most Germans supported Hitler and how most Germans knew all about the killing of the Jews.

It was not quite that she and her husband had supported the gassing of the Jews (at least the lady did not tell me that – but with my family name that would not have been polite), but it was something that a fairly popular leader did.

Such is life (and death). If a majority support someone that is democracy – and if he is a pig like Chevez that is the end of liberty. Price controls mean the eventual backdoor nationalization of everything (and resistance means death, one way or another).

I understand that this violent style of politics (mass demonstrations, killings and so on) upsets some people (it upsets me – I am reserved, timid person). But Americans had better get used to it – after all the United States is becomming (for both good and ill) more of Latin American country every day.

You’re right. Time to disappear. So much for the critical rationalists.

And that’s ‘he would, too’.