The Venezuelan sky is not falling the Western Hemisphere will survive. It is funny how so many people are gullible into buying into the corporate media’s yellow journalism. Yes, it is true that Venezuela’s National Assembly passed a law that would allow President Hugo Chávez to issue executive orders over some key areas of public policy.

What the media would want you to believe is that Chávez has become a dictator. Here are the recent headlines:
The Times of London’s headline bellowed ‘Mother law’ puts Chavez in complete control as they write

Fresh from a visit to Cuba and Fidel Castro, his closest ally and mentor, President Hugo Chávez today assumed near dictatorial power in Venezuela.

The unreliable Miami Herald’s headline states “Chavez Granted Power to Rule by Decree,” the Washington Post reported that thousands of Venezuelans, “seeking papers permitting them to abandon Venezuela for new lives in Spain” because of “Chávez’s growing power.”

There is more:

• Salon (via AP) - Chavez Gains Free Rein in Venezuela
• Investor’s Business Daily - A Dictatorship Rises
• San Francisco Chronicle (via The Houston Chronicle) - Chavez given carte blanche to spur Venezuelan socialism
• Kansas City Star (via AP) - Venezuela moves toward dictatorship

Venezuela’s opposition daily Tal Cual went even further by comparing the National Assembly’s move to the German Reichstag’s decision in 1933 to grant Adolf Hitler extraordinary powers in their editorial. The newspaper’s headline said: “Heil Hugo!”

And people say Hugo Chávez censors the press. Yet, in our democracy, the American free press has been eroding right before our very own eyes and it soon to become nothing more but a myth. Although our laws protects us from against libel suits, especially by government officials and the advocacy of dangerous, potentially divisive ideas, but ask yourself, when was the last time you ever saw our corporate media run a headline like Tal Cual on any US President. Or even dare try without facing the consequences for the public. Ever since we entered the never-ending “war: on terrorism, the government has curtailed the Constitutional liberties granted to press by claiming the government’s right to do so under wartime clause.

When it comes to critical information regarding Venezuela, the corporate media has grossly misrepresented the facts, thereby nullifying the public’s right to have access to uncensored coverage. The media outlets have eagerly displayed an eagerness to downplay many of Chávez’s achievements with the attempt to weaken his government’s ability to effectively rule and for the economy to thrive.

What was not reported was this is not the first time Chávez has received such authorization. In fact, this is his third time he was granted such authorization and he is the fifth Venezuelan president to take advantage of this power. Article 203 of Venezuela’s 1999 constitution allows Chávez to pass decrees in ten different areas. The ten areas in which Chavez will be allowed to legislate are:

• 1. Transformation of the institutions of the state. Chavez would be allowed to change state institutions so that these become more efficient, include greater citizen participation, and are more transparent.
• 2. Popular participation. Here the President would be allowed to develop norms that enable citizen participation in public oversight. Also part of this is the “enabling of the direct exercise of popular sovereignty.” Exactly what is meant by this has so far not been explained.
• 3. Establishing norms for the eradication of corruption. This would also involve changing the civil service system.
• 4. The creation of norms for adopting existing legislation to the construction of a new social and economic model, in order to achieve equality and equitable distribution of wealth, under “the ideals of social justice and economic independence.”
• 5. Finances and tax collection. The development of norms to modernize monetary, banking, insurance, and tax sectors.
• 6. Citizen and judiciary security. The development of norms for updating the systems of public health, citizen security, prisons, identification, migration, and judiciary.
• 7. Science and technology. Norms for the development of science and technology to satisfy the needs of education, health, environment, biodiversity, industrialization, quality of life, and defense.
• 8. Territorial order. Norms that establish a new territorial organization on the sub-national level, so as to optimize state action.
• 9. Security and defense. Norms for enabling the co-responsibility of state and organized communities by establishing a new functioning of the institutions of security and defense of the nation.
• 10. Infrastructure, transport, and services. Norms that support the use of the human and industrial potential and the existing infrastructure to improve transport systems, public services, home construction, and telecommunications, among others.

To sum it all up, the only thing the Venezuelan assembly did was pass a law that would give the executive branch greater leeway to establish norms on a certain range of issues. So why all the Chicken Little shrills of crying ‘Dictatorship!’?

It is interesting is how many of the corporate and former journalist love to question the whether bloggers real journalists, when in fact, corporate media is threatened by the reality the institution may no longer have hegemony as gatekeepers of the news.

It is funny how there corporate media has set many double standards when it comes to Chávez. It was an offense for him, but not for Tony Blair. Last February, Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth reported how Tony Blair tried to circumvent the British Parliament into generously giving his administration the power to “alter any law passed by Parliament.”

The boring title of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill hides an astonishing proposal. It gives ministers power to alter any law passed by Parliament. The only limitations are that new crimes cannot be created if the penalty is greater than two years in prison and that it cannot increase taxation. But any other law can be changed, no matter how important. All ministers will have to do is propose an order, wait a few weeks and, voilà, the law is changed.

For ministers the advantages are obvious: no more tedious debates in which they have to answer awkward questions. Instead of a full day’s debate on the principle of the proposal, detailed line-by-line examination in committee, a second chance at specific amendment in the Commons and a final debate and vote, ministers will have to face at most a short debate in a committee and a one-and-a-half hour debate on the floor. Frequently the Government will face less than that. No amendments will be allowed. The legislative process will be reduced to a game of take-it-or-leave-it.

Yet nobody here in the US said a damn thing. Where was the discussion on how Blair is undermining British democracy or wrecking the region? But once again hypocrisy reared it’s ugly head, when Chávez is Constitutionally provided greater leeway to establish standards for his government, the US pounce on the man.

Shouldn’t we be concerned about more significant events that are currently taking place next to us? Such as the recent, protest in Mexico against the rising price of tortillas; a protest that involved ten of thousands of people marching through Mexico City protesting the rising prices of tortillas. If there is a dictator we should be worried about, it is the one next door to us.

Technorati Tags: Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, corporate media, Mexico

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