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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <7800797@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Nov-85 20:24:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800797
Posted: Thu Nov 28 20:24:00 1985
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 28 20:24:00 1985


[ Gil Neiger gil@cornell]
>>Inadequate as it (La Prensa) is, it  is
>>the  *only*  outlet  for  unofficial, non-servile information and
>>views.  The authorities don't kill it outright, probably, for the
>>same reason - it serves as a safety valve.

>Is this the reason that President Reagan allows what little oppposition
>there is to him in the U.S. press?  To serve as a safety valve?  It
>just might be the case that he believes in freedom of the press, as do
>the Sandinistas.  

He probably does, but that is not the *good* reason why he doesn't
clamp down on the press - not the reason acceptable to you
and me. You wouldn't like to be at the mercy of his whim, would
you ? The good reason is that he *can't*. Think of Presidents
Johnson and Nixon, driven from power they loved so much, by
hostile press. You may be sure they felt the press was unfair
and subversive. They were sorely tempted - if they only could !

*That* reason is absent in Nicaragua. Goodness of Sandinista
intentions is less important (road to hell and all that...).
You seem to believe in it; I don't. (1)They call themselves Leninist;
Lenin scorned press freedom as a bourgeois superstition; he finished
it off in the first days of his rule. (2)If I am not mistaken,
La Prensa censorship precedes any serious military pressure.
(3)Finally, the censorship is universal, not just military (*that*
could be justified *now*). So it looks like a combination of bad
intentions (less important) and absolute power.

True,  *safety valve* isn't the only reason. There is also the
*showcase* reason, for foreigners.

		Jan Wasilewsky