[Milton]

<strong>Written By:</strong> Milton
<strong>Date:</strong> 2005-07-24 15:44:00
<a href="/article/154419676-welcome-telesur-notes-on-media-from-below">Article Link</a>

The catalyst for the current round of shrieking is the advent of the
regional TV network Telesur, funded by the governments of Venezuela,
Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba. Telesur began broadcasting at 12:15 p.m. today, the 222nd birthday of Simón Bolívar, The Great Liberator who dreamed of a united América. (“He is not dead,” Chávez said at a ceremony earlier today. “He has returned.”)

Not since the 1981 launch of MTV has a television network received so much attention before it hit the airwaves. What’s at stake is much bigger than one man (Chávez) or one TV station (Telesur). An authentic rebellion against the real center of power in this world (that is to say, against the Commercial Media) has finally gained traction. We, of the Authentic Journalism renaissance, may indeed look back at this moment someday as having brought a decisive, historic shift in the saga of how humans evolved around media, and vice versa. The Civil War of Journalism has arrived: media from below against media from above.

A photograph made of words is therefore in order, to explain the context and to set the stage. Lights! Camera! Action! Good morning, América. You’re on the air! Read about how this renaissance came to be from Chiapas to Caracas... and participate in the discussion on building authentic media from below...

<a href="http://www.narconews.com/">http://www.narconews.com/</a>

From somewhere in a country called América,

Al Giordano
Correspondent
The Narco News Bulletin
<a href="http://www.narconews.com">http://www.narconews.com</a>




[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on July 25, 2005]

[Vera Gottlieb]

Congratulations Telesur!!! Up to 90% of the media is dominated by North America and Europe. Nothing wrong with having their own news coverage, from their perspective, for their people. Too bad we North Americans are so brainwashed, we don't realize this.

---
Vera Gottlieb

[Patm]

Yes, glad to see there could be something resembling true democratic speech in South America finally. After decades of USA dictatorships, murder of tens of thousands, and torture of millions, South America is finally emerging into real democracy.

Now if only we could get the people of Canada to realize that our "media" is no different than the fascist media of Venezuela. They tell us what they want us to hear. Anything they don't want us to hear, we don't. If they think we might hear something, they spin it and pump it out incessently, hoping to drown out the truth.

A quote from another section of Narco News:
------------------
So, as everybody now knows, in April of 2002 the Commercial Media in Venezuela, including international media companies that “report” about Venezuela, participated openly in fomenting and supporting a violent coup d’etat.

Or maybe not everybody knows yet? In which case let’s take a brief stroll down amnesia lane and summarize our report when it happened: Three Days That Shook the Media, in which an elected president was kidnapped at gunpoint by rogue military officials as the Commercial Media – national and international – shouted in unison a big lie, that “Chávez resigned.” A new “president,” oilman Pedro Carmona, was installed. His first actions were to shut down the public television and radio stations, raid the Community TV and radio stations, dissolve Congress and the Courts, and launch a house-by-house search to round up members of Congress, political leaders, journalists, and others that were unlikely to recognize his legitimacy.

Media barons like the aforementioned Miguel Angel Martínez signed the decree supporting the Carmona “government.” The New York Times cheered the coup in an editorial. Its correspondent Juan Forero dispatched an immediate puff piece titled “Manager and Conciliator – Pedro Carmona Estanga.” The Inter-American Press Association, the trade group of the owners of commercial daily newspapers in América issued a statement cheering the coup: “President Robert J. Cox said today that political developments in Venezuela demonstrate to nations throughout the world that there can be no true democracy without free speech and press freedom.”

As Le Monde Diplomatique reported, the military vice admiral that led the coup went on national TV, on the Venevision network, and boasted, “We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you.”

And there they were, our deer in the headlights: the Commercial Media uncloaked, bearing its anti-democracy teeth, and the first grand battle of Journalism’s Civil War began.

---------------------------

Amazingly, once Chavez was led away (having given up only because the criminals threatened to lock everyone in and bomb the place - because Chavez said "Shoot me, because I'm not leaving here alive"), the media suddenly changed from their complete blackout of the coup to live TV showing the dictator and his cronies standing there and cheering that "Democracy had triumphed". Democracy, apparently, is when a cabbal of the rich takes control of government from a President that has been elected by a large majority TWICE...

Democracy according to America anyway.

[hoopoe]

Sounds good but I just hope they are careful to keep the actual content free of government control. I believe the CBC is a good example of this except for threats of cutting funding every now and again.

[Milton]

The funding of the CBC has been continuously cut for years now. The problem is that some of its shows are relevant and we can't have that because the public might learn something and then all that money spent dumbing us down would have been wasted.

[Patm]

Yes, glad to see there could be something resembling true democratic speech in South America finally. After decades of USA dictatorships, murder of tens of thousands, and torture of millions, South America is finally emerging into real democracy.

Now if only we could get the people of Canada to realize that our "media" is no different than the fascist media of Venezuela. They tell us what they want us to hear. Anything they don't want us to hear, we don't. If they think we might hear something, they spin it and pump it out incessently, hoping to drown out the truth.

A quote from another section of Narco News:
------------------
So, as everybody now knows, in April of 2002 the Commercial Media in Venezuela, including international media companies that “report” about Venezuela, participated openly in fomenting and supporting a violent coup d’etat.

Or maybe not everybody knows yet? In which case let’s take a brief stroll down amnesia lane and summarize our report when it happened: Three Days That Shook the Media, in which an elected president was kidnapped at gunpoint by rogue military officials as the Commercial Media – national and international – shouted in unison a big lie, that “Chávez resigned.” A new “president,” oilman Pedro Carmona, was installed. His first actions were to shut down the public television and radio stations, raid the Community TV and radio stations, dissolve Congress and the Courts, and launch a house-by-house search to round up members of Congress, political leaders, journalists, and others that were unlikely to recognize his legitimacy.

Media barons like the aforementioned Miguel Angel Martínez signed the decree supporting the Carmona “government.” The New York Times cheered the coup in an editorial. Its correspondent Juan Forero dispatched an immediate puff piece titled “Manager and Conciliator – Pedro Carmona Estanga.” The Inter-American Press Association, the trade group of the owners of commercial daily newspapers in América issued a statement cheering the coup: “President Robert J. Cox said today that political developments in Venezuela demonstrate to nations throughout the world that there can be no true democracy without free speech and press freedom.”

As Le Monde Diplomatique reported, the military vice admiral that led the coup went on national TV, on the Venevision network, and boasted, “We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you.”

And there they were, our deer in the headlights: the Commercial Media uncloaked, bearing its anti-democracy teeth, and the first grand battle of Journalism’s Civil War began.

---------------------------

Amazingly, once Chavez was led away (having given up only because the criminals threatened to lock everyone in and bomb the place - because Chavez said "Shoot me, because I'm not leaving here alive"), the media suddenly changed from their complete blackout of the coup to live TV showing the dictator and his cronies standing there and cheering that "Democracy had triumphed". Democracy, apparently, is when a cabbal of the rich takes control of government from a President that has been elected by a large majority TWICE...

Democracy according to America anyway.

[Patm]

While it is true that the CBC is lightyears ahead of other (so called) news and documentary sources, they too participate in the great game. One good example is the revisionist history of Iran, omitting details that are inconvenient to the official government stance.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iran/history2.html">http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iran/history2.html</a><br />
<br />
Read that, it says the generally accepted "official" history. Then read the Wikipedia entry here:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadeq">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadeq</a><br />
<br />
Iran was on the road to true democracy in the early 50s. Destabilization campaigns by the Police State of America and Great Britan and a CIA backed coup, orchistrated by Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy's Grandson) ended the threat that Mossadegh might "Declare Iran a Democratic Republic" as the CIA later admitted.<br />
<br />
So, don't count on the CBC for the truth either - just the "official" truth, without any of the inconvenient details...<br />

[Guest]

Actually Iran WAS a democracy when its goverment was overthrown by the CIA. I'll refer you to wikipedia, although this fact is verifiable from other sources.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax</a><br />
<br />
After overthrowing the democracy, the US reinstalled the Shah in power. The Shah cut a deal, getting power in exchange for allowing the US, Brits and some other country, to pump Iran's oil and retain the profits, for the next 75 years (I believe). And people wonder why there is some animosity in the region. Not only did the people lose their democracy, they also had their resources raped, economy murdered and suffered (to this day) at the hands of the Shah. Kinda a hard pill to swallow.<br />
<br />
But Iran is a typical scenario... overthrow the government and install a horrid dictator that supports US/Brit interests.<br />
<br />
Read about Guatemala and you'll find the same scenario. Guatemala decided to stop their resources from being exploited by foreign interests and nationalize them (natural gas and fruit). They offered to buy out the existing US companies, based on the value declared by the companies for tax purposes. The US corporations weren't happy since suddenly their companies were worth FAR more than declared. So, the US government stages the overthrow of the democracy (stating that the goverment has "communist" links). Then a horrendous dictator is installed.

[Guest]

Well, not exactly a democracy as we view it. Constitutional Monarchy is a better description. Similar to what Iran has now - there are elections but the monarch had the power to appoint remove electees to specific positions.

Still, it was better than what the western world installed - a direct despot. But then, our economic royalists never did like democracy, they prefer dictatorships. Guatemala was only one of the many countries in South America that the USA destroyed, installing terrorist governments that let american companies operate unfettered, murdering and torturing anyone that got in the way. If you weren't for rule by corporation, you were "communist",

[Guest]

True, perhaps not a 'typical' democracy, but a democracy none the less. People that know a heck of lot more on the subject than myself, label it as a democracy as well. I'm sure you are aware a Constitutional Monarchy (i.e. Canada, at least until the 80s) can still be a democracy.

>>"If you weren't for rule by corporation, you were "communist""

Wow, I'm not the only one to notice this ! Same thing as the labour movement to unionize. It was "communist" as well. People uniting to force corporations to pay labour (people) livable wages was labelled "communist" by the US and Canadian corporations....errr... I mean the 'goverments'... in order to stop the movement. (People forget the centuries long battle that labour fought to get a fair wage from commerce... notice I said "battle"... the war is still being fought (and currently being lost by labour i.e. 9/11 ).

Please note that now days the word "communist" has been largely replaced by "terrorist". It is necessary to have some vague 'enemy', in order to control the opinions of the general population, but I digress.

It is amusing and encouraging that the South America countries, currently having meetings to organize, have "declined" allowing US observer and US 'participation' in the meetings. They recognize that the US 'intimidates' the outcome of such meetings. Please note the US media has hence started its 'campaign' labelling South America as 'of concern to the US' with its 'anti-american sentiment'. (Soveriegn countries having closed meetings is "anti-american"!?) For the uninformed, most US 'negative media' is a precursor to war, be it diplomatic, economic or military. The US media starts early, to form the public's popular opinion.

BTW, I've been waiting for over two years for the US to make a 'political adjustment' to Venezuela. Venezuela is the 5th (4th?) largest oil provider to the US, so such an adjustment would be in their interest....errr.. I mean 'required to promote democracy'.

Hmmmm... how many simularities can one draw between this and Iraq?