Rust appearing on Chavez's Revolution

Fire of Liberty

It seems that all of the bluster and bombastic rhetoric coming out of Hugo Chavez's mouth about the US planning to invade Venezuela or his continued threats to cut off oil to the US has a lot to do with the fact that his workers paradise or what he deems the "Bolivar Revolution" is turning out to be a for worse for the poor than what Chavez has promised. Though he has further consolidated his power by ceasing private property, removing generals to prevent coups, taking away press freedoms, packing the courts and efforts to amend the constitution to expand his tenure until 2013 (One can imagine that he'll crown himself "Leader for Life" pretty soon but claim its legit and under the "duly elected" mantle.) the folks that this left-of-center populist (who has billions of petro-dollars at his disposal) has failed to help or improve their lot these past eight years. I fact the Christian Science Monitor has a story out today that notes that there is a considerable amount of anger running through Chavez's base and they're speaking out. Let's hope the secret police and the supposed "20,000 doctors" from Cuba don't track down these folks and cause them to vanish. One thing I have learned from dictatorships and totalitarian states like Iran and Venezuela is that when their leaders start their saber rattling, they have some serious problems in the hinterland and want to divert the eyes of their people to avert disaster. Here's hoping the folks under Chavez's steel boot know more about what's going on in their nation and push El Jefe II out of his roost real soon. For the meantime, read the piece.