Nathan Newman wrote:
>To repeat, and repeat-- I don't like the CTV pushing for the ouster of
>Chavez, but you seem to think that this means the government has the right
>to jail CTV's leaders and oust them.
-Wait a minute. A legally elected government doesn't have the right to -jail people conspiring to overthrow it?
Not really, especially when their actions are such things as general strikes and calling for a legal referendum. The Workers World Party openly calls for overthrowing the US system and the left here has lots of slogans like "regime change begins at home." Does this mean the US government is within its rights to jail all WWP members and all those who have associated with them in rallies?
As far as coups and such, the power of the state basically means that, for me, those caught actually attempting to overthrow a regime by force can be jailed then, as happened last April, but those merely associated with such coup leaders or those calling for such in the future have the free speech right to advocate overthrow of their regimes.
By yours and Yoshie's logic, most of Cointelpro was completely justified and probably too few Panthers were jailed, since from every account I have from friends of the era, a lot of folks fully intended to support overthrow of the Nixon and capitalist regime.
-- Nathan Newman