Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has continued his campaign against free speech and the free press with a new call for regulation of the Internet. Chavez (like his mentor Fidel Castro) wants to control both the media and any public forums of information.
In his statement, Chavez warned “The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms.” Chavez appears to be motivated to censor the Internet after reading negative commentary on the Venezuelan political opinion and gossip website Noticierodigi tal.
For the full story, click here.
@John Puma I suspect if Chavez turned Venezuela’s oil over to Exxon-Mobil, et. al., while about the worst thing he could do to the Venezuelan people, all objections to his “dictatorial rule” would immediately and “mysteriously”cease.
Ezactly!!!
@Byron I also believe in individual rights and property rights.
Which means I belong to neither major party:
Are Libertarians liberal or conservative?
Libertarians are neither. Unlike liberals or conservatives, Libertarians advocate a high degree of both personal and economic liberty. For example, Libertarians advocate freedom in economic matters, so we’re in favor of lowering taxes, slashing bureaucratic regulation of business, and charitable — rather than government — welfare. But Libertarians are also socially tolerant. We won’t demand laws or restrictions on other people who we may not agree because of personal actions or lifestyles.
Think of us as a group of people with a “live and let live” mentality and a balanced checkbook.
In a sense, Libertarians “borrow” from both sides to come up with a logical and consistent whole — but without the exceptions and broken promises of Republican and Democratic politicians. That’s why we call ourselves the Party of Principle.
@Swarthmore mom “The democrats could not have stopped Cheney. They did not have the votes”
Didn’t matter. When congress passed anti-torture laws, with a veto proof majority, Bush just used “signing statements” to nullify them anyway.
Which then prompted congress to sue him! Which was lead by his OWN PARTY!!!
If you have your own party suing you, then you have to know this is as close to a dictator as America has come….so far.
Top News
Monday, July 24, 2006
Specter Prepping Bill to Sue Bush
IPS) — President Bush’s widespread use of so-called “signing statements” to unilaterally decide which parts of acts passed by Congress he will enforce came under sharp criticism from a blue-ribbon task force assembled by the nation’s premier legal organization.
A powerful member of the president’s own party also announced this week that he will soon introduce legislation authorizing Congress to sue Bush in federal court.
http://www.albionmonitor.com/0607a/copyright/signingstatements2.html
I was born at night, just not last night. The difference is like night and day.
Right, and I was born yesterday.
OK , I believe you.
To Bdaman:
You are cordially invited to produce any posts of mine that remotely suggest that the current administration’s continuation of the criminal war policies of the previous one’s should be treated differently, in any sense. You will neither find any defense of enablers of said policies, past or present, either party.
I’m talking about plain words, not, as here, an apparent, superficial focus on a (mistakenly) missing “s” from the end of the word “criminal” in my post, the presence of which would still have been purposefully misinterpreted as referring to several of the Bush admin and none of Obama’s.
I have said that Clinton’s only impeachable offense was his continuation of Bush I’s the deadly “economic” sanction on Iraq and that Ms. Pelosi clearly signaled how useless she was (or would be) when she said impeachment was off the table (for Bush/Cheney) prior to the 2006 mid-term elections.
Who needs facts when you have FOX News?
Due to the sensitivity of this issue, our source wishes to remain anonymous. However, we can now confirm that several members have come forward with allegations that the Bush administration is conducting illegal torture programs against prisoners in Guantanamo.
Who needs votes when you have the media.
The democrats could not have stopped Cheney. They did not have the votes.
Bdaman:
the thing about dictators is that you can always stop them in the beginning but no one ever seems to figure it out until it is too late.
Swarthmore Mom:
the democrats could have stopped him at any point, they chose to go along with it and so are as complicit as Cheney and Bush. There were a good many Germans that went along with Hitler as well and they could have stopped him in the beginning.
Journalists who call Hugo Chávez a dictator should be jailed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/sean-penn-hugo-chavez-venezuela
Byron, you and I are next.
No one could have stopped Cheney except Bush and the republican leadership and they did not care to.
They did not control the Supreme Court and barely held majorities in the house and senate.
Jane Harman could have blown the whistle as could have any number of dems and repubs and for that matter government employees.
It isn’t only Cheney that should be put up on a gallows. Who is more evil, the person that is evil or the ones that should know better and do nothing?
I am not sure the democrats could have done much of anything. The republicans were in control of the presidency, the house, and the senate. They also controlled the Supreme Court. Cheney is an evil villain.
Swarthmore Mom:
I beg to differ, there is a quote from a movie- Judgement at Nuremberg where Spencer Tracy is speaking to Burt Lancaster (a German Judge in the movie) and he tells Lancaster that the first time a judge let them (the Nazis) do something illegal they were complicit and part of the actions. By extension all of the democrats and republicans in the congress and at all levels of government who knew about torture and condoned it are guilty. If you want to hang Cheney, Pelosi, Clinton and others should be swinging right beside him.
He is not in a league of his own, he may have ordered it but the others could have stopped him at anytime by just saying no. They did not and so are just as guilty.