Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The Corporate Media and Hugo Chavez
Wow, kinda weird to see myself quoted in an article published on the net… Cool!
This is a tricky topic but here’s a scenario:
If I had the chance to suspend our infallible constitution and expropriate all the property and money of anyone and any corporation worth more than a million dollars and redistribute it equally across the country, would that be a bad thing? Does the end ever justify the means?
Just so you know how I feel, if I had that opportunity, I’d do it quicker than you could blink an eye.Chau for now
Edson
Posted by Edson Castilho on from Halifax 01/24 at 08:17 AMGood morning Expendables,
Wow, the thought of being able to redistribute the wealth of Ontarians worth $1million or more is making me giddy. From one the people in one small town alone, an entire city of people would benefit so immensely.
You never know...stranger things have happened in our lifetimes.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 01/24 at 08:42 AMYeah Edson, fame at last! I would have chosen my words more carefully had I known this was going to happen (what would my dearly departed mother think?).
So Mum if you’re reading when I said “I’m wondering if it’s the BBC reporting a lot of shit again”, I was referring to instances like those highlighted here:
Medialens also have good pieces on Chavez being ridiculed in the western media too…
I’m still unsure if Venezuela is moving closer to a dictatorship, as the reports I’ve read have been positive. I need to read some more on the matter…
Posted by Paul M on from Scotland 01/24 at 09:07 AM¡VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN BOLIVARIANA! ¡VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN SOCIALISTA!
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 01/24 at 10:03 AMGreat Article Mickey! Love the Durden quote we have to do that!
If any expendable hasn’t seen “Who killed the Electric Car?” yet it’s a MUST see for enflaming your anger against those bastards who have made the world the bloody mess it is today right now against all common sense, decency, and the love of your fellow man. Batteries weren’t the issue, they had the car, it worked wonderfully, and they killed it, took it back by force from the public and shredded it. So let’s call a strike and redistribute the wealth! They don’t deserve 1 blood cent! Redistribute that Wealth! Let loose the Green Technologies! Drop that Oil Monkey and step away from the Profits!
Is it just me or does this whole Chavez thing sound a heck of a lot like that Rense article I threw up in the comments Sunday?
http://www.rense.com/general75/nextp.htm
Maybe there is a God.... In your face Dawkins! j/k ;)P&L Luna
Posted by Luna_C on from the Delta 01/24 at 11:28 AMHello Expendables. It’s a pleasant winter day here in NYC.
I hope you guys are cool with being quoted (I did ask and no one balked). The article is up on at least 10 sites so it’s getting some play. Perhaps some curious folks will stop by here today to add join the conversation.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 11:28 AMSorry, Luna...we were simultyping.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 11:29 AMWould you freaks PLEASE spend your time doing something worthwhile, like GOOD liberals? Go plant a tree or build a house for a poor family. You are all lucky that hardworking people do the work, thus pay the taxes, that you do not.
There would be no wealth to distribute without the people who create it - and no, it’s not labor that creaed Microsoft.
Watch what happens to “New Che” Chavez as oil remains below $60. His handout government collapses, then he’ll blame the USA.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
-Winston ChurchillPosted by Brendan on from 01/24 at 11:56 AMShould I be more insulted by “freak” or “liberal”? (I think we all know the answer to that one)
Brendan: You might wanna check out this book:
http://www.southendpress.org/2004/items/TROWPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 12:02 PMMorning all!
I had started to read a Thunder’s Mouth Press book on the venezuela revolution (called, oddly enough, venezuela revolution) and it looks like i should go back and finish it.
A friend in LA had an electric car, and he was so bitter when it was taken away. The people who had them loved them, and were begging to be allowed to buy them. I will ask a friend who always seems to have copies of these documentaries if he has a lendable copy. Thanks for the tip luna_c! And for the rense article, which I guess I didn’t read this weekend.
And mickey, you did ask before quoting us, and I had no problem with it at all, and yet it was a bit of a shock to see myself quoted all the same!
Posted by Deb on from NoVa 01/24 at 12:04 PM“Perhaps some curious folks will stop by here today to add join the conversation.”
Or we may get a lot of real smart guys like Brendan. Call me a freak any day...in fact I am a super freak, just don’t call me liberal.
Since Brendan likes quotes, here’s one:
“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class”
Al Capone.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 01/24 at 12:15 PMMickey: no objections here with being quoted in the article.
I remember you asking, but didn’t respond because I thought - surely he won’t quote my two insignificant comments, especially the one with ‘shit’ in it.
How wrong I was…
Posted by Paul M on from Scotland 01/24 at 12:23 PMI have a new quote on capitalism:
“Capitalism is the fastest, most
efficient way for humankind
destroy all life on this planet.”James O’Shea
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 01/24 at 12:26 PMMy apologies, comrades. You’re not freaks - you’re visionaries who want to introduce America to the wonderful world of European-style welfare states. Then we’ll have 14-week vacations that we can’t afford to take. We’ll have doctors with the sense of urgency of a DMV elpoyee (not to mention higher fatality % for every form of cancer). We’ll jack up capital-gains and dividend taxes (and that lack of investment will somehow not hurt job growth). And the granddaddy is we’ll tax the HELL out of the rich who don’t pay their fair share!! Granted, 40% of wage earners pay zero tax right now, and many pay negative tax thanks to the EIC - but who cares! We’ll make the rich pay 70cents on the dollar, it sure hasn’t hurt France - well except for the net outflow a millionare per day from that utopia.
Posted by Brendan on from 01/24 at 12:32 PMWow, Brendan is a genius! He has absorbed the capitalist state propaganda fully and completely and now spews the same crap that marketers and advertisers and corporations and those in power do every day. He even manages to dis the French (for their vacations, no less)! And as to a net outflow of a millionaire per day, what? Only 1??!? If it were 100 per day that’d be something to cheer, not so my fellow expendables?
Chau for now
Edson
PS Mickey, you can quote any nonsense I ever have to say anytime you like.
Posted by Edson Castilho on from Halifax 01/24 at 12:54 PMWell said, Edson.
My guess is Brendan is just another middle class guy like the rest of us, difference is he is mostly worried about making sure the rich aren’t treated unfairly, is a big fan of working all year round, thinks our healthcare system is just divine and has a lot of money in the stock market (hence the worry over capital gains and dividend taxes).
Unless you are one of the extremely wealthy you are getting fucked, Brendan...yet you are fighting for their rights...who’s the freak?
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 01/24 at 01:15 PMHey everyone,
Currently reading Churchill’s COINTELPRO Papers, required reading I think for those United Statesians who think they’re free.Brendan:
EU law (as applied in the UK at least) guarantees 4 weeks paid leave a year. I’m not sure where you got 14 weeks from, but if its from the same right-wing think-tanks you get your tax data from, I’d be upping my salt intake if I were you.
I’ll also go out on a limb and guess that you actually have access to one of the US’s urgent, cancer-curing doctors. Good for you. However, rather than trade US capitalism for the EU variety (universal healthcare and all), I suspect most Expendables would ultimately rather have a society/economy that didn’t spew out carcinogens in the first place. We’re just freaky like that.Incidentally, the CIA World Factbook contains this gem: “France is in the midst of transition from a well-to-do modern economy that has featured extensive government ownership and intervention to one that relies more on market mechanisms.”
Posted by Mew on from london 01/24 at 01:46 PMThe sad part for me is that most folks believe the American system is “capitalism” but it simply could not exist without massive public subsidies (taxes). There’s no “free market” in the U.S. and never was.
For a better appraisal of how capitalism (in a slightly purer form) works, check out the Third World nations that have had the “free market” imposed upon them via “structural adjustment programs,” etc.
The genius of our (sic) system is the propaganda wing. It makes us drooling drones, chanting: “Capitalism good. Socialism bad.”
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 02:14 PMright on, Mick.
Hey, I wonder what the EPA was doing looking over some of the posts I’ve got on my blog about 9/11 and the crime our government committed in saying the air was safe to breathe?:
Country: United States
Region: District Of Columbia
City: Washington
ISP: U.S. Environmental Protection Agencycaptcha is ‘hell’ as in they can go to.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 01/24 at 03:21 PMJOS: Could be a peon doing a Google search or...maybe not. I often get visitors here with .gov and .mil addresses. Someone from Customs in NJ spends an awful lot of time here.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 03:26 PMyes...I get a lot of .mil/.gov traffic as well. This one was searching for links to articles with EPA whistle blower Cate Jenkins.
I wonder what customs thinks you’re up to? Obviously, there are open-minded people in different jobs everywhere...or they could be planning a raid.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 01/24 at 03:41 PMBrainwashing and the social conditioning in our western societies is so full and complete that many individuals no longer recognize the difference between being a CITIZEN and being a CONSUMER.
Hence all the points which follow, that you, my fellow Expendables have made very well; the CONSUMER will defend the very system keeping him/her down (bend over and say ‘thank you’ - it’s faster) while CITIZENS have at the minimum some bent which would have them wondering how to make the system work FOR them (at the minimum, as I said).
Canada so very closely mimicks the policies of the US as to make us indistinguishable, particularly of late; but I can get an MRI for free if I need it, and if I develop a fatal illness I won’t have to choose between paying for treatment or buying the groceries. Canuckistan’s got it’s benefits (for a little while, anyway)
What’s Capitalism done for you lately, Brendan?Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 01/24 at 04:19 PMWith the full force of America’s terrorist secret police alphabet agencies persistently moving against that country from without and within what is happening there is regrettably understandable.
For a good perspective of recent history I highly recommend viewing (if you have not already)
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
DIRECTED AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY KIM BARTLEY AND DONNACHA O’BRIAIN IRELAND, 2003 74 MINUTES
(on Google Video)
http://tinyurl.com/353vdpPosted by Youngfox on from Neoconada 01/24 at 04:43 PMWow...what a great conversation going on here today and I almost missed it. I just got home from Albany. I think that it’s great that Brendan is here. A real, live Capitalist in our midst. It seems to me that if capitalism was as great as it’s cracked up to be, it wouldn’t need the most massive military in the history of the planet to support it. I remember when I was in the military, we actually were required to salute the water fountain that was in the day room. It was a General Electric. That is a true story.
The word “capitalism” says it all. It is the worship of capital. When I am asked what I am, I often answer that I am a “peopleist”. Brendan, please read “War is a Racket” by General Smedley Butler, who was the highest ranking member of the USMC. And just to set the record straight, everybody pays taxes. Every time you buy a pair of socks or pay your rent or phone bill you are paying taxes.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 01/24 at 04:49 PM‘The Corporate Media and Hugo Chavez’ - sigh, Mickey. Same down under where not only the corporate media seem to be following in our closest ally’s footsteps, wherever they may lead.
Hi, Edson Castilho, Amelopsis, Paul M, JOS, Luna_C, Brendan, Deb, Mew (welcome back!), Youngfox and last but of course by no means least, Rosemarie.
And now for something slightly different: interesting interview with Noam Chomsky on ‘failed states’ can be heard here:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2949One thing I know: Venezuela under Hugo Chavez is definitely not a ‘failed state’.
Auf Wiedersehen, Helga
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 01/24 at 05:01 PMMew #17:
“France is in the midst of transition from a well-to-do modern economy that has featured extensive government ownership and intervention to one that relies more on market mechanisms.”That really is a gem of a quote - thanks, Mew. I am quite a francophile incidentally.
All best to all you expendables and to the cool observer.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 01/24 at 05:24 PM... in general, the ‘left’ here is statist. Mr. Chavez is a statist and one with a fabulous pr apparatus both at home and abroad. for a more nuanced apprasial of his state, by anti-capitalists who LIVE there, check out (via google) El Lebertario and a seperate article ‘Socialism to the Highest Bidder’. too many folks here in the nssa follow ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’...
Posted by zek on from NationalSecurityStatesAmerica 01/24 at 07:22 PMI’d hardly consider myself “statist” but we do live in odd times. Even an anarchist can see that in the short term, the state is often the only feasible bulwark against rampant corporate power.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/24 at 07:48 PMHey people, to get back to the original thread--the original story about Chavez “ruling by decree” is pretty off base. I have a blog that discusses all of this: http://www.borev.net, but here are the primary points:
1. To date the Venezuelan Assembly has actually only opened up hearings on the proposed law.
2. If approved, the president would be limited in what it could “decree.” Basically overseeing the functions of executive branch agencies. Pretty much the rights that U.S. presidents have always had.
3. These powers are already granted by the Venezuelan constitution. And
4, This isnt’t the first time they’ve been exercised. In fact, the last president of Venezuela activated these powers too.
As with all matters relating to Venezuela, things are much more complicated than the press here makes it out to be. Ya’ll are invited to check it out (even you, Brendan).
-EW
Posted by ew01 on from USA 01/24 at 10:26 PMGreat comments and links today. Give Brendan some more time here and he may come around like I did. He sounds like I used to.
Posted by David on from Louisville KY 01/24 at 10:47 PMWelcome back, EW...and thanks, David. You’re right.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/25 at 05:20 AM... hey, MZ; ‘...only feasible bulwark against rampant corporate power’? OK, i guess you could say that CHAVEZ, Inc. would be better tha Exxon, Inc. but i have to ask (and i mean this in a friendly teasing way) how the hell do you reconcile your reading of Derrick Jensen with the ‘developmental’ schema proposed by Mr. Chavez?
Posted by zek on from NSSA 01/25 at 01:36 PMThere are many aspects of Jensen’s writing that resonate powerfully with me. As for Chavez, I don’t claim to know a whole lot about it. However, I do find it useful to discuss him as an example of how the corporat media demonizes official U.S. enemies.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/25 at 01:40 PM... hey, MZ; i wish it was only the corporate press. i’m old enough to remember when the left press (in these times, the guardian, and others) excoriated Ward Churchill for saying that the Miskito indians had a right to not be incorporated into the Sandinista state, calling him a ‘cia agent’, etc.
Posted by zek on from NSSA 01/25 at 03:28 PMI’ll grant you that but, in general, it’s the corporate media that gets the public to play along with the elite agenda.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/25 at 03:30 PM... hey, MZ; and i’ll grant you that right back. but uncritical cheerleading is just the flip side of uncritical demonizing, and most of the ‘news’ regarding Mr. Chavez (pro or con) is stamped on that coin. i thought ‘our’ side wanted to present a better example…
Posted by zek on from NSSA 01/25 at 04:10 PMOkay, I’ll see your grant and raise you one. “Uncritical cheerleading” is far too. common
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/25 at 05:26 PMWhat singer/songwriter David Rovics says about Chavez:
“Lots of people have problems with Chavez. He’s too free market for the communists. He’s too authoritarian for the anarchists. He’s too military for the pacifists. Whatever. He’s also arguably the most radical elected leader of a national government on the planet today.”
See “Song for Chavez”
http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/01/default.cfm?bandid=111310&songid=2281293&content=songWhat I say about the situation:
I support the Bolivarian revolution and the masses of Venezuelan people who are part of it. Has it been absolutely, utterly perfect? Of course not. Also, one can’t really believe the capitalist press on anything related to international issues, especially a situation that involves a popular assertion of self-determination where a president of an oil rich country situated within an imperial stronghold of a region is loudly declaring that his country intends to break free from capitalism and imperialism. I can also vouch for ew01’s blog. BoRev.net is a pretty good site.Posted by Tim on from California 01/26 at 03:16 AM
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