[lbo-talk] chavez, bush, the devil and jon stewart

[jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net]

> Mike P wrote:
> 
> >   "Insulting" Chavez in Venezuela carries a twenty month sentence, btw.
> 
> 40 months max, according to Wikipedia.
> 
> And it may be that the "live within capitalism" approach of Chavez is 
> not the ultimate answer, but I'd argue that the poorer (aka browner) 
> folk of Venezuela are doing better than right now than they were 
> before.   And as is the case in Cuba: how can a third world leftist 
> govt hope to survive on this planet without exercising the controls 
> they do on their media, etc?   Isn't it plain that the spontaneous 
> support of "the people" is not always enough to cut it, to "safeguard 
> the revolution"?
> 
> Maria 

According to the US State Dept. the crime of insulting Chavez carries a maximum 1 year sentence. The law of 
course stipulates that the insult be "in a very public manner" so the reality is it is limited to media criticism and 
not individual criticisms. I'm sure the Wikipedia is great and all but relying on it for information like this is a 
really bad idea.

Here in the good old USA land of freedom we have "Food Disparagement" laws. Of course we use civil courts 
instead of criminal courts to go after people who violate these laws the effect is still the same.

The Venezuelan system, however imperfect, is meant to reduce outside influence on the electoral process 
while the US version is meant to protect food manufacturers from suffering a loss of profits that might result 
from someone criticizing the crap. Which seems the more reasonable to you?

Mexico also has desacato laws but I haven't heard much complaining about them lately.

John Thornton