Hugo Chavez is
stepping up his efforts to consolidate his power by nationalizing major industries and removing constitutional impediments to his continued re-election:
Invoking Jesus Christ, Karl Marx and
Fidel Castro, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has begun a new six-year
term in office by pushing his anti-U.S., socialist revolution into a
new era that critics say increasingly evokes Latin America's
authoritarian governments of the past.
This month alone, Chavez
has announced plans to nationalize Venezuela's electrical industry and
its largest telecommunications company and has refused to renew the
broadcast license of RCTV, the television station most critical of him.
He also has created a single leftist
party under his leadership and tweaked the Bush administration by
hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
His allies who control the Venezuelan National Assembly are also on the cusp of abrogating their authority and ceding vast powers to Chavez: The Chavez-dominated National Assembly
is expected to approve by midweek a resolution giving him the power to
rule by decree for 18 months. Chavez said he would use the authority to
advance a host of "revolutionary laws" in areas ranging from the
economy to defense, and he also is seeking to strip Venezuela's Central
Bank of its autonomy.
Even the Venezuelan Catholic Church is getting nervous. Based upon the history of the church in other socialist nations -- particularly Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union -- they have good reason to be:Most Venezuelans are Roman Catholic and the church wields tremendous
influence among parishioners, giving particular sting to the barbs
exchanged between Chavez and conservative priests as he begins a drive
to remake Venezuela into a socialist state.
Some Catholic leaders are worried the socialist transformation could
infringe on freedoms, and in the past week Monsignor Roberto Luckert,
one of Chavez's most outspoken critics, said he believes Venezuela is
headed for communism.
Chavez is very
blunt about his designs to have the state confiscate the wealth and property of Venezuelans:
"Oh, you have a yacht? Perfect, give it to me, buddy," Chavez said.
"You go around Caracas in a tremendous car. You have a house where you
live and another one by sea . . . You have some marvelous art
collections — come here, buddy."
The Chavez-dominated government is leading the people of Venezuela down a very dark and insidious path. With all the history available regarding what happens to nations that traverse that path, it's remarkable that Chavez would be embracing it with such self-righteousness and gusto. Obviously he is succumbing to that most despicable of human weaknesses in desiring to aggregate power to himself. I can't help but think, however, that for all his hawking of "sophisticated" tomes like Noam Chomsky's
Hegemony or Survival, the man is really nothing more than an uneducated rube. His coarse public statements about American "gringos" and comparisons between President Bush and the devil at a venue like the United Nations only confirm such an assessment.