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Sunday, July 03, 2005
Meanwhile, in Venezuela...
...another grassroots attempt to throw off Hugo Chavez is doomed to fail, I regret.
Why is it that so-called "right wing" Latin American dictators, like Pinochet, are the target of crusading international judicial activists, but left-wing Latin American dictators like Chavez and Castro aren't?
Posted by Ezra Levant on July 3, 2005 | Permalink
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The left is moneyed by the deep pockets of groups such as CAW, aka Buzz Hargrove's deep pockets. Here is CAW spending their member's union dues:
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With a star-studded team of certified, dyed-in-the-wool progressive nutbars of every flavor, including Medea Benjamin, Tony Benn, Helen Caldicott, Linda Foley (yes!), Janeane Garofalo, Naomi Klein, Gore Vidal, and Howard Zinn, Independent World Television is poised to capture the enormous, heretofore-untapped global market for demented leftist raving. (Hat tip: Chrenkoff.)
The network is raising a $7 million start-up budget from individual donors and foundations. The MacArthur, Ford and Phoebe Haas Trust foundations and the Canadian Auto Workers Union have contributed to a planning study. In its next phase, IWTnews will build the online community necessary for an international mass fundraising campaign launching in early 2006. The campaign will use concerts and media events headlined by socially-conscious celebrities to drive the internet fundraising. If half a million people in the entire world contribute just $50, IWTnews will secure the $25 million it needs to fund its first year of broadcasting, in 2007.
To be seen on satellite, digital TV and the web, IWTnews is also negotiating alliances with public and nonprofit channels to carry its programming. IWTnews will cover the big issues — war and peace, political campaigns, environment, global economy, civil rights, labor issues and social policy. IWTnews will hire journalists for their experience, political acumen and understanding of history. Complex issues will be addressed with energy, bite and wit. Citizen journalism will bring insight from people around the world. Informed by a commitment to social justice and respecting diversity of opinion, IWTnews will focus on news other media ignore or suppress, and on individuals and groups that are transforming the world...
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Transforming the world... oh, no! They will use concerts, too... oh, no.
Librano$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ will ante up too. Brother Jackal Layton will see to that.
Even ole Helen Caldicott is pitching in; Gore & his sycophants; Naomi (where's Avi? or is it Ari?); they will moonbat it for sure.
LGF
Posted by: maz2 | 2005-07-03 7:21:28 PM
I think because crusading international judicial activists are of a marxist bent. Too bad most activists are not more Libertarian. But their rallies would certainly be broken up by the police. "too dangerous to the rule of the leaders".
Posted by: Mallard | 2005-07-03 10:51:16 PM
Ezra,
I guess the main difference would be that Pinochet was a mass-murdering, American-supported thug who seized power through a bloody coup d'etat and went on to suspend the county's constitution, dissolve congress, suspend civil liberties, and imprison and torture dissenters.
By way of contrast, Hugo Chavez is a twice democratically-elected president who has guided his country through a series of constitutionally legitimate, voter-mandated political and social reforms that have wrested control of his country's natural resources back from American clutches.
Ezra, even for you the association of Chavez with Pinochet is a little out there. I mean, come on... the guy wants his country to self-determine without American meddling and all of a sudden he's a homicidal maniac? Quarrel with his economic and political views if you like, but at least be fair and honest about what the man has done. Tens of thousands of people haven't disappeared on his watch.
A comparison with Castro would have at least been partly defensible.
Ezra, when you make these kinds of logically inconsistent arguments you do a disservice to the conservative voice in Canada. How do you expect people to take us seriously when you say stuff like this?
Posted by: srisribillyg | 2005-07-04 1:27:50 AM
srisribillyg, you are obviously a nutbar and don't belong on this board. You can justify all you want. Pinochet fought a hard struggle against communism and hugo chavez is a nutbar who will drive his country into obscurity (if it wasn't for their oil)
Posted by: Mallard | 2005-07-04 1:40:29 AM
Pinochet was a bad man, but no mass-murderer. The usual total of 3000 dissidents who died under his rule is rather low by South American standards. His American support dried up when the regime targetted a dissident in the US, killing him and his American aide. After that, Britain was his biggest international supporter.
At the very least, Pinochet was no better or worse than Trudeau. Trudeau didn't kill anyone but he violated human rights on a regular basis: the 1970 invasion of Quebec, and the 1980 National Energy Policy.
Chavez is grandstanding, pure and simple. Leave him be, and the people of Venezuela will take care of him themselves.
Posted by: Scott | 2005-07-04 4:26:37 AM
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