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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Sandinistas and Human Rights
Message-ID: <445@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Apr-85 11:58:52 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.445
Posted: Thu Apr  4 11:58:52 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Apr-85 02:25:58 EST
References: <680@ihopb.UUCP> <489@harvard.ARPA> <528@whuxl.UUCP> <4512@ucla-cs.ARPA> <562@whuxl.UUCP> <4625@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 30
Summary: 

In article <4625@ucla-cs.ARPA> ekrell@ucla-cs.UUCP (Eduardo Krell) writes:
>   The big difference is that in Nicaragua, the government OWNS the media.
> The TV station does whatever the government tells them to do. Do you imagine
> what would it be like if the US government owned ALL the TV and radio stations?.

Oh my goodness!  We would be like England!  How horrible!

Government ownership of media is not automatically terrible: it just presents
an opportunity for positive feedback that could allow the government to
become more dictatorial.

I would guess that the government owned and/or controlled the media in
Nicaragua before the revolution.

> How can you expect the people to be well informed when all the places they
> go to get information (TV, radio, newspapers) are all owned by the government
> (except for "La Prensa", the only remaining opposition newspaper which is
> heavily censored)?.
>   All dictatorships, left wing and right wing alike, rely on a censored press
> and media. That's the only way of keeping the truth from reaching its people.

Not a few other forms of government also rely on censored press and media.

I agree that censorship and government monopoly of the media should be
eliminated wherever possible, including Nicaragua.  I just want to make
sure that people don't conclude that their presence is a sound
reason to work to overthrow the present regime.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh