Re: [OPE] Venezuela is the most democratic country in Latin America

There is a ‘liberal rationality’, Diego,  that you seem don’t understand. That was an OPINION article which did not prevented to El Pais (a Spanish paper Jerry), to feature the persecution of Chavez supporters during his brief absence.   During these terrifying days the Venezuelan media only featured trivialities: TV stations screening cartoons, and the most important newspapers discussing the allegedly **power vacuum**. Very few critical positions like that of Teodoro Petkoff, currently part of the democratic opposition to Chavez.   So, it is important to know what happened in Venezuela then, and the discourse behind the events. There were two main theses at stake. THESIS 1: coup d'état; THESIS 2: power vacuum. Those that wanted Chavez out of office sustained that there were not coup d'état at all, just the opposite: that Chavez resigned producing a power vacuum. On the contrary, THOSE OF US that condemned what happened and supported the back of Chavez, sustained that it was indeed a coup d'état.   So, this opinion article is very freaky since it plainly accepts that it was a coup d'état, but at the same time it seems to justify it, against the current international legality. Now it is clear why it didn’t appear under the heading of EDITORIAL. Not all the editors could support such an OPINION.   So yes, the ‘liberal rationality’ implies the possibility of adopting an Archimedic position even if you have a totally different personal position. Without this liberal principle it is impossible to build a democracy, which in itself has to be pluralistic. And this is the main reason why we can trust some bourgeois media. This is indeed a ‘progressive principle’ which I’m almost sure Marx admired, as he admired other liberal virtues contrary to the European absolute monarchies.   I’m going to write an e-mail to El Pais to ask about the authorship of the article. I’ll let you know if I receive an answer.   Regards,A. Agafonow ________________________________ De: Diego Guerrero <diego.guerrero1@telefonica.net> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu> Enviado: jueves, 5 de marzo, 2009 22:33:09 Asunto: Re: [OPE] Venezuela is the most democratic country in Latin America  [SORRY IF I HAVE REPEATED THIS EMAIL. BUT I AM NOT RECEIVING WHAT I SEND]   According to you, then, if someone totally backs a murderer, he can and must be believed as a NEUTRAL instance when he judges the murdered... just because he rightly called the fact a murder!!   Diego   ----- Original Message ----- From: Alejandro Agafonow To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 2:07 PM Subject: Re: [OPE] Venezuela is the most democratic country in Latin America Diego G: **I ask you again: Why to "giv[e] to El Pais the benefit of the doubt" if it backed the coup against Chavez (in 2002) that put in power the president of the employers?**   Because El País didn’t doubt to call that event a coup. Remember that in Venezuela the opposition that devised the coup plot denied that that were a coup. The strategy of the plotting opposition was that it was a *power vacuum*.   In El País you can find, for example, information about the persecution of the supporters of Chavez after the coup http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/ONG/denuncian/abusos/redadas/colaboradores/presidente/depuesto/elpepiint/20020414elpepiint_3/Tes   So, it does not really matter the personal OPINION of part of the editors, as far as the newspaper fulfills the difficult task of distinguishing between it and information. In addition, the fact that that opinion was not published under the heading EDITORIAL, leads me to think that not all the editors agreed on that opinion.  A. Agafonow

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Received on Fri Mar 6 02:48:55 2009