1 September 2010

The Guardian's censorship

The Guardian's Comment is Free has published an article by fellow blogger Francisco Toro. One can get a flavour of the prevailing mentality of people commenting about it, with arguments such as "I am shocked that the Guardian has published such overt and obvious propaganda. Arent there any standards ?"

See, for Guardianistas, it is perfectly kosher to get a healthy dose of "news" about Hugo Chavez, be it from propaganda agent Mark Weisbrot, erstwhile KGB collaborator Richard Gott, or even Stalinist Calvin Tucker.

But when one gets to call them for what they are, the moderators of that "liberal" organisation immediately go on censorship mode. Case in point, Francisco Toro's article. I placed the following comment, only to see that a moderator removed it, without explanation or further ado:
Let European leftists enamoured of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez -and equally infatuated with dictator Fidel Castro, Colombian narcoterrorists, Hamas, Stalin, etc.- tell Venezuelans what's in their best interest, for they know better.
I won't hold my breadth for a proper explanation as to the reason why the comment breached commenting rules and was removed.

UPDATE 03/09/10 @ 12:24 GMT: not only The Guardian has failed to reply, both in the comment section and through email, it has deleted all evidence of first comment made (as noted above), and it has deleted contents of second comment, whereby I ask what rule did my original comment breached. Censorship is alive and well at The Guardian.

2 comments:

firepigette said...

In your comment that was erased you equate Chavez with a list of dictators and criminal elements.This fact is totally rejected by the left wing who hypocritically consider themselves to be democratic.

That's why it is so important for Chavez to cling to his false image of being honestly , and democratically elected as certified by Jimmy Carter, Weisbrot etc.

In this way these European left can still lend their full support and keep him on a pedestal.

AB said...

Let us be clear about one thing: neither Carter nor Weisbrot have credentials to certify whether or not a country is democratic. Then, what the looney left fails to mention is that all the recommendations made to the CNE by Carter, the OAS, and the EU, have been completely ignored. In addition, when was the last time that independent electoral observers were invited to Venezuelan elections?

What you call dictators and criminal elements are held as heroes by the Left, revered as icons, as models to follow. No wonder The Guardian, who claims it's a liberal organisation, employs the same kind of censorship Fidel uses in his prison island.