monk222 | Venezuela: The Road to Serfdom

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CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday called the U.S. secretary of state "my little girl" and told Washington to "go to hell" after it questioned his plan to seek special powers to legislate by decree.

... "That is a sacrosanct legal authority of Venezuela. Go to hell, gringos! Go home! Go home!" Chavez said during his weekly Sunday broadcast. "We're free here, and every day we'll be more free."

-- Reuters

Well, Mr. Chavez may become more free everyday, but I do not like the prospects of ordinary Venezuelans. Stalinist Collectivization has just never proved a fruitful policy for the people. This does not exactly brighten the global political situation either, but seeing how matters in the Middle East are falling apart, this is more of a minor headache, for now.

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You can't really blame Chavez. The US has a government not even really that popular with its own people and then that govt. is trying to tell *him* what to do?

I dunno, part of his popularity, right, is that ordinary folk love him for the benefits they've seen as he makes the wealthy redistribute shares to common folk. Not such a horrible idea. It's not collectivization per se.

And, of course we're going to have issues with it, biased by capitalism and not seeing the faults of our own system while quick to break down attempts at experimenting with someone new and different that may make a difference elsewhere.

I'm not a Chavez fan, but I'm not really a harsh critic either. I say Venezuela is for Venezuelans and that Americans have our own troubles.

Chavez, a Cuba ally re-elected by a landslide in December, this month launched a campaign to consolidate power by nationalizing key industries,

That's from the article, and it sounds like collectivization per se to me. And it's an old experiment and a failure.

There is something to be said about their problems being their own, but the concern is that Chavez has been known to be cozying up to fellow anti-American types such as our jihadist friends. It could get to be a problem that we can not ignore.

I'll be the first to admit I don't know a lot about Venezuelan politics, but my interpretation of earlier news was not that this was collectivization but more on the model of--though more harsh--European nationalization. I think we're talking here simply about making private industry be owned by the public so as to create a trust and better care for said public. Though I think it is correct to say he has done it to grab more power. The more he is liked, the more power he has. And THAT could swell his head too far.