"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

The Labor Film Series at Dryden Theatre will present "The Revolusion Will Not Be Televised", at the Dryden Theater of the George Eastman House this Friday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m The film is about the corparate media's attacks on popular leader Hugo Chavez and the portrayal of his 2002 kidnapping as a resignation and legitimate ousting.

In the speeches following Sept, 11, 2001 George Bush knew what the aims of the terrorists were: "to take away our freedoms." Since Sept. 11, 2001 Bush has beat the terrorists to the punch. The single greatest threat to freedom of speech around the world has not been Al-Queda but the Bush junta and their business partners overseas. The documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is testament to the tentacles of the Pentagon and yet another example of the character assassination of a popular leader by corporate media. #file_8#

In this case it is Hugo Chavez, the left-leaning Venezuelan President, who used the one state-run television channel to criticize Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq ventures. During broadcasts, Chavez would hold up photographs of the bloody, limb-less victims of US bombings. On April 11, 2002 that station was unplugged.

You will not be able to stay home, brother.

Venezuela is the 5th largest oil-exporter in the world and the #1 exporter outside of the Middle East. We should've started there.

Chavez, a former military officer and elected with overwhelming majorities in 1998 and 2000, spearheaded constitutional reforms that opposed oil and water privatization. Similar reforms in the late 1980's got Saddam in hot water with Washington as well.

The reforms also prioritized food autonomy, a controvercial move in a country that imported 65% of its food. This effectively reversed World Bank and IMF policies that often force Third World populations to depend on food imports.#file_6#

Chavez,trained the army to build homes and distribute food. Following the implementation of laws like the Land Act, which hands over idle land to small rural co-operatives, Chavez faced a coup by the elite backed by the US Administration.

Enter Venezuelan billionaire Gustavo Cisneros. Cisneros is the owner of AOL, Coca-Cola, DirecTV and Pizza Hut in Latin America, Univision in the US, and Venezuela’s biggest TV network Venevision.

Cisneros was the driving force behind the December 2002 nationwide lock-out and sabotage of the oil industry, which instead of ousting President Chávez from his elected office, drove the Venezuelan economy into the ground by causing a historical drop of 27% in the country’s GDP in the first trimester of 2003.

Cisneros has used his media power in relentless campaigns of lies, misinformation, distortion and racist insults against President Chavez and his supporters. On the day of the coup he even used his television station, Venevision, as the meeting place for top coup supporters, reportedly including the dictator illegally installed as President, Pedro Carmona.

The Cisneros Group has been implicated in the December 2003 illegal shipment of US$2.5 million in cash seized aboard an American Airlines flight from Miami Florida to Caracas, no doubt intended to help finance another attempted coup against the Venezuelan people.

Gustavo Cisneros personally spoke with the U.S. State Department's former Latin American Affairs Chief, Otto Reich and the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, Charles Shapiro on the day of the coup.

This past winter, January 24, 2004, Cisneros was honored by Inter-American Economic Council. Presenting the award was Henry Kissinger, who according to declassified documents headed the CIA operation to overthrow Chilean democratically-elected President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.

Kissinger justified the coup which led to the disappearances of thousands of people and the exile of hundreds of thousands with the infamous statement: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." Fittingly Kissinger was appointment by President Bush to head a commission investigating 9/11, September 11, 2001 that is.

Irish directors Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain just so happened to be in Venezuela shooting a documentary on Chavez when all hell broke loose. What unfolds in "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a startlingly up-close, inside account of the 3-day coup-de-tat the world might have never seen, less heard about - "the world's first media coup".

Other recent films related to Pentagon/Corporate control over international and indigenous media outlets see:

Control Room (2004)

A documentary on perception of the United States's war with Iraq, with an emphasis on Al Jazeera's coverage.

The Agronomist (2003)

The latest film from Academy-Award winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme, THE AGRONOMIST tells the story of Haitian national hero, journalist, and freedom fighter Jean L. Dominique. As owner and operator of his nation’s oldest and only free radio station, Dominique fought tirelessly against Haiti's overwhelming injustice, oppression, and poverty.

Sources:

www.thirdworldtraveler.com/

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1183