Venezuelan Barking Toad of Southern Caracas
Venezuelan martinet Hugo Chavez rules the nation and its media with a petro-gloved fist, and those of us with Venezuelan relatives know this to be the lamentable reality. The warty, corpulent narcissist who plagues our southern neighbor is a despot of the first order.
Yet many throughout the world -- observing from the safely insulated perspective of distance -- dismiss his public antics and maladjusted governance as either progressive and thus laudable, merely comical, or at worst a witless tool to be wielded against Western democracy. Some of his most ardent proponents are found in Hollywood, Western Europe, and even the Democrat Party.
But Venezuela's plight is no laughing matter. It is a crying shame.
Venezuela's demented demagogue, via ever-increasing spurts of unscrupulous political and economic machinations, has been working diligently to eradicate that nation's fledgling democratic processes by an authoritarian transmutation of constitutional rule of law into a top-down, dysfunctional society he ironically calls "Bolivarian Socialism."
Chavez has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dystopian fantasy.
Power mandates
The planned decay of democratic governance in Venezuela, coupled with an escalating concentration of power in the hands of Chavez is strangling the nation. Liberty is withering away to dust under his collectivist grasp.
Venezuelan political writer Alek Boyd noted that since the new millennium, Hugo Chavez has been the darling of the Left. Today, he serves as the poster boy for a small fringe of fundamentalists, terrorists, and radicals. Boyd further documents that Chavez's links with narcoterrorist organizations (e.g., FARC) have been properly exposed and corroborated by INTERPOL.
Boyd and courageous bloggers such as Caracas Chronicles and The Devil's Excrement have provided the world with realistic glimpses of Venezuela since Chavez either appropriated control"All of Venezuela's well-documented woes are direct consequences of Chavez's Quixotic quest for grandeur through despotic fiat." of or shut down most of the nation's electronic and print media outlets. These Internet mavens will be targeted next, as Chavez recently imported Cuba's hard-line, 77-year-old Minister of Information Technology Ramiro Valdes Menendez to "fix the electrical crisis."
It must be understood that the ancient but blood-stained Valdes knows as much about energy grids and rolling blackouts as does Oprah or Obama. His real forte is suppression of the Cuban people and has arrived in Venezuela to assist Chavez in a nationwide crackdown on Internet dissent. In this capacity he is a force majeure.
All of Venezuela's well-documented woes are direct consequences of Chavez's Quixotic quest for grandeur through despotic fiat. His vision of himself as a modern-day hidalgo, El Lider Supremo of a vast, Marxist collective in Latin American is as boundless as it is absurd.
Strong-armed socialist descent
But the only thing Chavez has provided in boundless supply is misery. In a once-democratic nation swimming in oil and petro dollars, there should be no statewide water shortages, statewide electrical blackouts, massive debt accrual, currency devaluations, bank and brokerage"Chavez has ... ceded the sovereignty of key national agencies ... to visiting commissars of the bloody Marxist dictatorship in Cuba." crises, illegal farm and business seizures, illegal imprisonment of dissenters, roving civilian gangs of armed and empowered Chavismo thugs, or the ongoing murder of protesting students.
Chavez has verified his ineptitude by willingly ceding the sovereignty of key national agencies and services such as the health, medical, energy, and security sectors of Venezuela to visiting commissars of the bloody Marxist dictatorship in Cuba. It is as though he takes pleasure in tormenting the Venezuelan people by rubbing their noses in his own moral and ethical bankruptcy.
In addition to actively supporting communist terrorist groups such as FARC, ELN, and the Sendero Luminoso throughout Latin America, there is aggressive military posturing which Chavez is employing in an attempt to destabilize neighboring Columbia. He is wasting billions of dollars on propping up the failed Cuban regime and purchasing unneeded, unwarranted military weapons from Russia and China.
Chavez has usurped the authority of Venezuela's major municipal police agencies and now directs them from the Palacio de Miraflores. Systematic violations of civil, political, and human rights under Hugo Chavez's rule have been amply documented by reputable, non-government human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Exporting chaos
Not satisfied with the social and economic implosion within his own country, Chavez has been actively fomenting instability in regional nations such as Honduras, Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. He is orchestrating an agenda of anti-American extremism throughout South America and has supplanted anemic Cuba in directing hostility toward the United States. Even Iran's unhinged tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now has no better or more loyal ally than El Presidente.
When it comes to neighboring Columbia, Chavez's hatred knows no bounds. He portrays President Uribe's successful and pro-U.S. government as an enemy. Chavez considers Columbia a dangerous obstacle to expanding his class-based repression. He routinely vilifies Colombia's elected president, denouncing him as a "gangster" and pawn of the U.S.
Latin rules for radicals
Ten years in office have permitted Chavez to amass unchecked power. With no free legislature, court system, independent regulatory agency, or free media to rein in or question the actions of El Caudillo, Chavez has successfully morphed Venezuela into an undemocratic, authoritarian state guided by nothing but his own delusions.
Prior regimes in Venezuela, despite abundant oil resources, worried more about amassing personal wealth than the welfare of the republic or its citizens."In contrast to his mastery of social and political agitation, Chavez still cannot grasp economic issues." As a result, many felt left out and disillusioned -- and thus opened the door for Hugo Chavez in 1998. Nevertheless, despite initial national support, the Chavez regime showed its true colors by incrementally turning totalitarian.
In contrast to his mastery of social and political agitation, Chavez still cannot grasp economic issues; He does not know how to manage or control them. As a result and despite promoting class warfare to his great advantage, he must resort to blaming his predecessors for all of his failures. Chavez learned early on that you can lie, exaggerate, and conjure up enemies, but Venezuela's economic meltdown may yet prove his undoing.
For the sake of the Venezuelan people, that day cannot come too soon.
Hype and Chains.
background:
Caricature by Nelson Santos
Cult of the Presidency Goes South
Enter Ramirito
WSJ weights in: The Chavez Meltdown