Shutdown

Today Sandalista fave Hugo Chávez closed down opposition channel RCTV, replacing it with a state channel, which started broadcasting twenty minutes after RCTV was pulled off air. First transmission was the national anthem conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, the 26-year-old Venezuelan who was appointed as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Sandalistas like Chávez for some good reasons. Using oil money to rebuild villages buried by landslides ain't half that bad. Mostly old school lefties applaud him for taunting Bush. Whenever he's clamping down Caudillo style it seems to be a surprise though. Maybe his cozying up to Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could've been a hint. Or all those members of the Cuban secret police helping the Venezuelans to put in place some serious surveillance apparatus. Not that the CIA backed oil oligarchy opposition is comprised of heros of the working class. But it wasn't exactly the beginning of Chávez campaign against critical media.