Tuesday, May 29, 2007

This Doesn’t End Here


RCTV indeed went off the air, replaced, literally, by songs of praise to Hugo Chavez. He is now going after Globovision for showing footage of the 1981 assassination attempt on the pope accompanied by the Ruben Blades song “Have Faith, This Doesn’t End Here.” Obviously, that incites assassination against Chavez (well, not that obvious: the Communications Ministry hired some “experts” to tell them that was the message being sent). Also, he’s accusing CNN of hostile intent, demonstrated by the order in which it showed several stories, so that a picture of Chavez was followed by one of an Al Qaida leader and one of demonstrations in China, in order to “associate the image of Chavez with that of violence and death.” Legal action will be taken against CNN and Globovision.

By the way, not renewing a license is one thing, but the government also seized RCTV equipment, transmitters and such, for the use by the state-run replacement station. I’m not sure how that’s legal.

Bush made a speech about Darfur this morning. “For too long,” he said, “the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder, and rape of innocent civilians.” Too long? What would the optimal time have been? “My administration has called these actions by their rightful name: genocide.” They had to convince GeeDubya that “genocide” didn’t have anything to do with I Dream of Jeannie, but I think we can all applaud the difficult achievement of getting Chimpy to call anything by its rightful name. “The world,” he says, “has a responsibility to help put an end to it.” So he will totally, um, bar some Sudanese individuals and companies from the US financial system. Problem solved.



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