Marxist Revival in South America?

Fire of Liberty

Melana Zyla Vickers has a good piece over at Tech Central Station on Hugo Chavez and his efforts to re-establish a Marxist style revolution in the model of Castro throughout South America. While most people in the US and most of the West thought that this revolutionary spirit had been snuffed out with the fall of the Soviet Union, you only had to take a gander at the protestors as well as the rhetoric being bandied about by various Left-wing leaders during the most recent "Summit of the Americas" in Mar del Plata, Argentina to see otherwise. Though most folks have heard the various insults and complaints being hurled at the ideas of economic liberalism, free trade, free-markets as well as the US by these strutting Left-wing turkeys if they watched any news channel or read a newspaper this past weekend but I can assure you that most haven't heard or read what kind of actions that Hugo Chavez has been pursuing to spread his Marxist revolution throughout South America. Luckily, Vickers has brought all of El Hefe II's revolutionary activities and how he's becoming a real menace, just see for yourself:

Consider how his government takes advantage of Venezuela's oil wealth. When an American driver fills up at the local Citgo station, those gas dollars go from American wallets into Chavez's governing pockets -- after all, his government controls Citgo. From Venezuelan coffers, the money goes to fund leftist narco-insurgencies in Colombia, Ecuador, and other Latin American countries -- insurgencies the U.S. soldiers and U.S. taxpayers have expended great resources to tamp down.

Leftist guerrillas from eight Latin American countries have received training at Venezuelan military bases this year, according to an Ecuadorian intelligence report revealed in a Quito newspaper earlier this month. El Presidente Chavez of course denies the charges. But his recent vows to create a regional, anti-American leftist front, his alliance with Fidel Castro's Cuba, his rising military expenditures and persistent reports that weapons disappear from the Venezuelan military into the hands of regional leftist rebels, make the charges all the more believable.

The Ecuadorian newspaper, El Comercio, wrote that since 2001, a 200-man leftist "liberation army" has been operating in Ecuador and that some of the men received training in Venezuela. In a follow-up story this month, the Miami Herald wrote that the intelligence report says the Venezuelans provided a month-long training course for guerrillas from Peru, Bolivia, Chile Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez, a leader who has abused his original democratic election by rolling back civil rights and press freedom in the country, is fast asserting his place as a socialist imperialist of the Soviet model. Not only is he meddling in his neighbors' backyards, he has threatened to nationalize British petroleum interests and other foreign businesses in Venezuela. In the U.S., meanwhile, he has been trying the old Castro-ite techniques of wooing the American Left in Chicago's inner city and other blighted areas, offering free Venezuelan medical services. The supposed charity often comes with aggressive rhetoric opposing the U.S. government.

As we learned during the Cold War, it's necessary to focus on your cheif adversary but it's also wise to keep your eye on your backyard as well. I just hope the folks in the Pentagon and the White House who are supposed to be watching the southern hemisphere as well as Chavez are taking notes and coming up with some workable solutions. We don't need to let this come to a heavy boil much longer or it could blow up quickly and be a big ole mess. My best advice is for folks in the US to avoid all Citgo gas stations and keep money out of Chavez's pocket.