Chavez Is Like Bush? NPR Whitewashes Venezeula’s Commie Dictator Problems
And then there are the so-called Chavez “foot soldiers” — loyalists who act as neighborhood enforcers, ferreting out dissent and punishing those who criticize the president and his policies.
By most standards there is freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Venezuela. But national mood is volatile. According to Chavez, you are either with the revolution or against it. In terms of rhetoric, at least, Chavez has much in common with his archnemesis, President Bush. Divorces have even been blamed on disagreements over Chavez.
Hope someone is cushioning Cindy Sheehan for this news lest her head explode.
On a somewhat related topic, note the total disconnect on what freedom of speech and expression means in the bolded section. In one breath this reporter, Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, tells us about Chavez’s foot soldiers punishing political dissenters and then in the very next paragraph tells us that by “most standards” Venezuela has free speech and free expression.
I’m sorry, but a place where speaking out on politics could get you a stomping from a Presidential “foot soldier” is not by any stretch of the imagination an oasis of freedom by any standard, let alone “most standards.”
Honestly, this would be funny if it weren’t so stupidly vile.
