In the first part of this article, I tried to explain the pitiful situation in which Venezuela now finds herself under El Presidente Chávez, some ten years after he came to power. There, I could do little more than scratch the surface; things are very bad and are getting worse daily. The power of the Venezuelan Government resides, for all practical purposes, in the hands of El Presidente. It is obvious to me that El Presidente has one goal: to solidify his power totally, and to extend it until he dies. It is conceivable that a revolution may be in the offing.
It behooves us to become familiar with the works accomplished by such heads of state as El Presidente, and to ensure that the United States does not emulate countries like Venezuela, intentionally or inadvertently.
President Obama has been in office for only a few months. Nevertheless, in his short time in the Oval Office, President Obama is arguably showing the way to a "socialist paradise" to no lesser extent than did El Presidente Chávez during his first few, relatively calm, months in office. Big things take time to accomplish.
It is not surprising that El Presidente Chávez spoke warmly with President Obama and presented him with a book about the rape of Latin America as a token of his affection at their recent meeting in Trinidad. It is somewhat surprising that President Obama later remarked that
The 2008 presidential campaign proved that American voters want the president to engage with his counterparts, whether or not they are avowed friends of the U.S.He said it "was a nice gesture to give me a book. I'm a reader." The president added that the election was a referendum of sorts on the argument that U.S. solicitude toward foreign leaders could be seen as "weakness."
This is surprising in light of President Obama's subsequent observation that
Democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion — those are not simply principles of the West to be hoisted on these countries, but rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity.
These "universal principles" are now completely foreign to Venezuela under El Presidente.
On a different occasion, El Presidente also
invited President Barack Obama of the United Status to join Venezuela's "socialist revolution," claiming that this was the only way to get through the world economic crisis.In a speech in which he defended his revolutionary approach and a string of recent state takeovers or "interventions" of food industry and other companies, Chávez exclaimed: "Come on, Obama, align yourself with us on the way to socialism! Come on, it’s the only way!"
It would be unseemly for the United States, or any other free country, to detract from the glories of Venezuela by emulating her. However, some contend that the U.S. has already begun the process. The new Pravda says that the United States is already well along the path. El Presidente Chávez appears to be highly pleased
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday [2 June 2009] that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than U.S. President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
Interesting article and brings up too many points to stuff into a comment box. However, I will say this:
1. Such huge reversals such as what happened in Venezuela (and elsewhere) started with small chips that snowballed into a larger movement.
2. The dissenters should speak up more loudly. Because...
3. The majority of people are misinformed, uninformed and/or apathetic.
I've spent six weeks ignoring my world and now that I've emerged, all I can say is scary.
These are scary times.
2 - Doug Hunter
I'm not sure what was behind dropping the charges against the black panthers offshoot that is classified as a hate group by the SPLC and ADL. They have them on tape holding a weapon, they have them on tape telling white people 'you are about to be ruled by a black man', and they have witness statements from even civil rights lawyers that say they heard them call white people crackers in the midst of the intimidation.
If this were KKK in uniform with weapons calling people niggers there'd be hell to pay. Unfortunately, leftist propaganda has built republicans and whites up to be so evil that any action against them is justified. That's how you lose freedoms.
3 - Dan(Miller)
Joanne,
When Chávez was first elected, I kinda maybe thought he might possibly do some good for the country, particularly by diminishing the then endemic corruption. He did not do that, and corruption is, if possible, much worse now than it was in 1999. So is just about everything else in Venezuela.
Recently, Panama had her presidential elections, with two major candidates. One (from the party of the current President, who seemed a pretty good guy to me) was from the "left wing" of her party; she was pretty high on both Chávez and Castro, and had also been good buddies with Manuel Noriega when he was in power. She had me worried. Fortunately, she lost overwhelmingly to the other major candidate, who collected more than sixty percent of the vote; just over seventy percent of those eligible to do so voted. The winning candidate is a very successful businessman, and many of those who supported his candidacy felt that his election would be good for the economy. I hope, and think, that he will do quite well. The best news for me is that, at least in Panama, for now, we don't have to worry too much about many of the things going on in countries under the influence of el Presidente Chávez.
Dan(Miller)
4 - Dan(Miller)
Here is an interesting take, from a Venezuelan perspective, on the elections in Iran.
Dan(Miller)
5 - Dan(Miller)
I wonder whether Venezuela has inspectors general and, if so, how she deals with them. This might provide some helpful guidance.
Dan(Miller)