I have no intention of turning this weblog into a Ron Paul advocacy platform, all recent evidence to the contrary. But I found this video from YouTube very moving, and I urge you to take the next couple of minutes to watch it from start to finish.

My discussion of Ron Paul’s ideas are relevant to a weblog that discusses Capitalism and Culture, because his ideas represent a very deeply rooted and growing sense of disenchantment within the zeitgeist by the present state and direction of our government. I’ll be talking about that a lot more in future posts, but, for now, just watch.

Recently shut down by President Hugo Chavez, RCTV has found a way to continue broadcasting without a license by posting three daily programs to YouTube. According to CNN.com:

In addition, RCTV’s Colombia-based affiliate, Caracol, has agreed to transmit the evening installment of “El Observador” over its international signal. The program, which will run at midnight, could reach about 800,000 people in Venezuela.

Although this is drastically reduced from RCTV’s previous audience, its continued presence is a sign of hope for the staff.

“We’re just doing our job as journalists,” said an employee of RCTV. “As long as somebody is seeing us, we consider what we are doing to be valid.”

Thousands of people, most of them from area universities, took to the streets of Caracas in protest this week after Chavez refused to renew RCTV’s broadcasting license, which expired last Sunday. (I-Report: Watch marchers fill street to protest station’s closing Video)

Chavez accused RCTV of violating broadcast laws and supporting a botched coup against him in 2002. He replaced RCTV on Monday with a state-run broadcast station.

Glad to hear it! The Internet has been a phenomenally effective tool for the spread of pro-liberty ideals since its inception, and this is just one more perfect example of technology’s ability to allow us to reach beyond borders and outside governmental restraint. Now, we only have to hope that Google doesn’t decide to kowtow to Venezuela the way it and other search engines have to China in complying with certain censorship requirements in that country.

Thanks to Kairosnews for bringing this cool video from Professor Michael Wesch to my attention. It’s an awesome illustration of the changing face of the web– and the culture it inspires.