Hugo Chavez -- Robbing Hood

Mr. Chavez, who reminds me of a less sane Gaddafi (Ghadaffi, Ghaddafi, Gadaffi -- your choice), is engaged in a curiously hypocritical game inside Venezuela. This lunatic -- for he is a lunatic, and not crazy as a fox -- has been stripping the Venezuelan national petroleum industry (PDVSA) to pay for his "social programs." These programs are, at least according to his propaganda, designed to raise the living standard of the average working class Venezuelan. Chavez, you see, casts himself as a modern day Robin Hood. The oil is the gold and King John is the U.S. and its oil companies.... So far, so good. Everyone knows that this particular combination is not known for their benevolent attitudes towards indigenous peoples.

The reality is that he is paying for the votes of the people to cement himself further into control of Venezuela. And he does not care how badly he damages the "goose the lays the golden eggs" to do it. Chavez wants to abolish term limits for the Presidency of Venezuela ... so that he can selflessly continue to serve the people of Venezuela. "A vote against this is a vote for treason...." Friends, he seriously means that if you vote against me, you will be killed. Maybe not now, but we will know and we will remember. This starts to look like the classic dictatorship in the making. Sounds like Stalin. Sounds like Hitler. And Castro must be wetting his pants.

Chavez fired all the oil engineers and workers that went out on strike causing his first presidency to fail. They have been blacklisted and cannot find any meaningful employment in that country. The went out on strike as a union ... wait, isn't that the sort of people that Chavez was meant to be protecting from the evil capitalists in the first place? Isn't depriving people of an income a tool used by the evil ruling classes? Hmmm, that seems to be lost on Chavez and his supporters who continue to label those workers as "traitors." If I were any of them, I'd get the hell out of Dodge. And soon, as the writing is on the walls."

With all the qualified personnel unemployed and party cronies and leftist peasants running the oil industry, it should come as now surprise that the whole infrastructure is on the verge of collapse. No maintenance is being done. No reinvestment for the future. To bail himself out, Chavez will have to bring in outside help, maybe the Chinese and Iranians -- for a price. And that price might turn out to be too high for the United States to tolerate. Think about that one for a while. And if Venezuela signs some mutual protection treaties with Russia or China, what exactly would we do about that? What could we do? What should we do? Wait for chaos to descend and then ....

Chavez, might have signed his own death warrant.