Let Lenin’s Tomb introduce you to his probable successor.

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From 1820

German friend of 1820 Daniel Mittler from Greenpeace has leaked an internal document from the G8 negotiations. As he says; “The bluntness of the White House is sometimes truly inspiring.”

I was thinking “nauseating” would be a better description. Or maybe “junk science” and “fanaticism.”

The original is a MS Word document with track changes revealing edits by the Bush administration…

Does the current administration ever stop lying and distorting the truth? Answer: No.

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As evidence, [the Venezuelan Communications Minister] cited Globovision showing footage of an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981 accompanied by the song “This Does Not Stop Here,” sung by Ruben Blades.

“The conclusion of the specialists … is that (in this segment) they are inciting the assassination of the president of Venezuela,” Lara told reporters at the prosecutor’s office.

If ABC aired something like that here, the Secret Service might well investigate even if, to an outsider, the threat of the video seems a bit oblique.

The Venezuelan government, by their recent moves, is inviting right wing counter reaction. The question is, why these moves by the Venezuelan government now? Perhaps forces are in play we know nothing about. Turbulence ahead for Venezuela?

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Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing originally posted a rather anti-Chavez piece, then after getting the opposing view from readers, did a long piece with lots of comments from readers explaining the history and why they back what the Venezuelan government did. Thank you, Xeni.

Here’s some of the reader comments.

While normally a station losing a license would be a sad thing, this is a TV station that actively supported a coup against Chavez in 2002, and was partially responsible for the violence and deaths that took place at this time. These events, including the role of RCTV and others are well documented in the (award-winning) film “The Revolution will not be televised”.

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Firstly, it is not being shut down. Chavez is not renewing the license for the use of the public airwaves.

The can still broadcast over cable, internet, and satellite. Secondly, the poster failed to mention that RCTV openly supported and helped a coup of his government that was partially successful. Chavez did not shut it down immediately but allowed the contract to expire 5 years later.

He also allows other networks that are openly critical of him to continue, just not the ones that tell people to overthrow a democratically elected government.

It seems plausible that the US would do the same if ABC openly supported and helped enact a coup of the government.

Quoting Colin Burgon in The Guardian

Almost all Venezuelan newspapers remain in private hands. The press is free to report, and express opinions, without government interference. Most do so with considerable brio on a daily basis. No media outlet has encountered licensing problems for the expression of political views. No journalist has been imprisoned or punished for report or comment.

In the UK, if Channel 4 aided an attempted coup against the government that resulted in civil unrest and even death, would anyone be supporting the renewal of its licence? RCTV has lost its licence because its wealthy owners slanted news coverage to provide support to the April 2002 coup against Chávez and the elected government. This will not be news to those who gathered in parliament last week to view John Pilger’s excellent documentary The War on Democracy, which shows footage of RCTV involvement.

And in a letter to the Guardian Burgon said:

This is not a case of censorship. In Venezuela more than 90% of the media is privately owned and virulently opposed to the Chávez government.

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Not that it’s by any means any easy decision to come to.

Cindy Sheehan leaves Democratic Party

We do not condone our government’s violent meddling in sovereign countries and we condemn the continued murderous occupation of Iraq .

We gave you a chance, you betrayed us.

May the trend continue. More and more, people who genuinely believed the Democratic Party was opposed to the war now see what back-stabbing weaseldicks they are.

Both parties are equally complicit in the war(s) and the recent deliberate caving by the Democrats on war funding now makes that abundantly clear.

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Andrew Sullivan, a religious conservative, says the fathomless sadism of al Qaeda torture techniques are beyond comprehension but tortures done by the US (or its proxies) are also stomach-turning and hideous.

What al Qaeda and Saddam did was an extreme form of sadistic torture, the kind that psychopaths enjoy and inflict. But that does not make, say, freezing someone to near-death, reviving him, re-freezing him again any less torture. Yes, we did that, carefully monitored by Rumsfeld. It does not make the Khmer Rouge waterboarding technique any less torture. It does not make contorting a prisoner into an excruciating stress position and then smashing his head against the wall any less torture. We should not forget that there have been more than a hundred deaths in U.S.-run torture chambers under George W. Bush either.

Torture is not justifiable because others do it more brutally. It still destroys people, their lives, their minds. That this country is even having a debate about whether torture can be justifiable simply shows how debased things have become.

Is torture ever justifiable? The answer, quite simply, is “Never.”

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