October 26, 2008

Not here, right?

While America ponders the implications of Obama's "spread the wealth" philosophy, a couple of thousand miles to the south we can see how another leader who is an ardent proponent of the same philosophy is dealing with opposition to that ideology.

Venezuela's Chavez wants to jail rival

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to imprison his main political rival, intensifying a campaign against a man he calls a crime boss just a month before he faces tough regional elections.

Opposition leader Manuel Rosales, who lost to Chavez in the 2006 presidential vote, is governor of the oil producing state of Zulia and is running for mayor of its capital Maracaibo.

"I am determined to put Manuel Rosales behind bars. A swine like that has to be in prison," Chavez said.

Chavez railed against Rosales at a gathering of businessmen in Zulia, urging the audience to vote against his rival for allegedly plotting to assassinate him, running crime gangs and illegally acquiring cattle ranches.

Chavez provided no specific evidence for the charges against the main leader of a fragmented opposition who has solid support in the oil-producing west of the OPEC nation.

Human rights groups say Chavez has increasingly exerted control over branches of power such as the judiciary and become intolerant of critics in almost a decade in power.

The former soldier typically takes to the offensive to stem a rise in support for potential rivals.

Chavez has been campaigning vigorously for his candidates in gubernatorial and mayoral races in the November 23 election but may lose some key posts as Venezuelans worry about crime, inflation and poor public services, pollsters say.

Chavez often makes dramatic threats in speeches without immediately carrying them out. Still, he does follow through on enough of them over time for his threats to concern the people he targets.

But of course, we have nothing to worry about here; this is, after all, America. It is not like Venezuela before Chavez was a free country with a democratic constitution that had built-in safeguards and checks and balances to ensure it would never fall into the dark abyss of a leftist totalitarian dictatorship.

Wait a second... oops, my bad. Venezuela was a free democracy. Nevermind.

Posted by Alberto de la Cruz at October 26, 2008 10:03 AM

Comments

I wonder how much opposition in the press there was to Chavez, or if they were all on his side, like in this country. Anybody know?

Posted by: Lazaro [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 26, 2008 01:19 PM

Lazaro, in the beginning Chavez did have a lot of opposition in the press, but he then began to systematically shut down the newspapers, radio stations, and television stations that criticized him and/or his policies. He claimed they were trying to subvert the democratically elected government of Venezuela and either shut them down, took them over, or just did not allow them to renew their broadcast license.

Unfortunately, you can see a similar trend with Obama here, where they are aggressively going after any media organization that dares to go against the Messiah. And you can rest assured that if Obama wins and the democrats get their super-majority, the so-called Fairness Doctrine will be come a reality, which will allow the government to in effect, stifle any contrary views from being disseminated.

Posted by: albertodelacruz [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 26, 2008 01:27 PM


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