If you want to discuss this, then it needs to be placed in its context. This is not an abstract discussion occuring in a vacuum. it is occuring in the context of a hostile class controlling the overwhelming majority of the media and using it to destablise the country. It is in the context of an uneven, developing struggle to democratise the media.
Without mentioning the the second part, the actual *extenion* of freedom of speech to those who have never enjoyed it except as an abstract right, you cannot have any serious discussion about the pros and cons of the policy towards the media of the Venezuelan gvoernment. Like everyting else in Venezuela the interrelated (but not identical) struggle to break the media monopoly of a hostile class on one hand and democratise the media to the dispoosed classes on the other is shot through with the contradictions marking the process. That is, the class struggle exists within the revolution itself, between elements tied to the state bureaucracy and layers enriching themselves (or, possibly without ties but whose proposals coincide with those layers needs) and those pushing to make Chavez's propsals for a socialism of the 21st century based on revolutionary democracy a reality. Both these forces are in varying degrees of conflict with imperialism and with the hostile class forces in Venezuela entirely bound to imperialism. However, the more right-wing sections would be happier to replace the corporate media dictatorship with a tightly controlled bureacratically run from the top down state media, with perhaps a subordinated extension of community media. However there are also those pushing to go much further to democratise the media. Recent debates over the role of criticism within the revolution are also part of this, after state TV channel VTV hosted a live discussion with pro-revolution intellectuals that included a number of criticisms. This contradiction cuts into the government and national assembly. It is a living contradiction within a living process that is still pushing forwards, that still has at its heart the dynamic intervention into politics of hte oppressed, struggling to advance their itnerests, to increase their organisation. Chavez's role within this is still to encourage and push this while some o the forces around him undermine it. (The recent battles over workers' conhtrol is a perfect example of this.) The content of the battles around the media needs to be understood - the law exists in a context of a hostile media monopoly determined to destroy the process by whatever means necessary. The decision to hand the licences of a number of pro-coup corporate radio stations to community media indicates that the struggle against the corporate media is being pushed by and large hand in hand with the stuggle to democractise the media, to grant freedom of speech in reality to the oppressed. This is the class content of the media battles. Any law can be interpreted in different ways and used or abused according to varying interpretations. We could dissect written law till the cows come home and come up with a thousand different ways they might be used. It would a pointless exercise because the starting point has to be the actual context fo the laws and their relationship to a very intense, and growing more intense, class struggle. Stuart . ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
