Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Here we go again...


Venezuelan protesters upset over Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez's decision to ''democratize'' the airwaves by shutting down a privately owned station that criticizes him and promoting instead the state television station that praises him. Tyranny is boring, isn't it? How bloody obvious it seems for an authoritarian strongman to try to stifle free speech. Not even remotely imaginative. And how totally pointless in the era of the Internet to shut down the nation's commercial television station. Power may well corrupt, but it seems to do so by shutting down neurons. Madame de Staël called her enemy Napoleon Bonaparte an ''ideophobe''- it would seem to apply here as well. Power is boring.

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