I'm not sure that's a very strong argument, to be quite honest. So far all
the arguments here I've seen for Chavez' suppression of RCTV consist of
"they were undermining the government" or "advocating antigovernment
policies". Well, guess what a vast majority of people would say about
socialists and socialist news sources? What if President Bush decided
tomorrow to suppress Air America or even just The Militant because they
"advocate antigovernment policies", or "undermine the government"? Or
Blair does the same with the Weekly Worker, which after all explicitly
states it supports revolution against the existing monarchy? I think we
wouldn't hear as much support here.
Now I don't think this is really a free speech issue (rather détournement
de pouvoir if anything), but this argument can backfire really badly.
Matthijs Krul
This is not a helpful analogy. Let's say a significant section of the
American army began to read the Militant (I know this sounds ridiculous,
but I can't get Vincent Bugliosi's new book "proving" that Lee Harvey
Oswald was a socialist because he read the Militant out of my mind). And
then they seized the White House in a coup that was coordinated with the
Militant, nobody would question the right of the state to close down the
Militant and to jail the rebels. In fact, that is what happened to
Chavez (and Castro). By contrast, the RCTV went unpunished. And now they
have lost their access to the airwaves, although they can still use
cable. This is not exactly what I would call repression.
