Fight the gas prices

[kandrathe]

To be fair... Chavez is a socialist. I am still on the fence about slapping him with a fascist tag. He's also done some good things, still maintains a rather good working democratic process for local issues that people can solve for themselves, and he was voted into power by his own people.

I am not a fan of his however. But I do admire some of his work.

I've decided. Here is what his Ex-mistress, Herma Marksman, is saying here or here.

Here are a few things to ponder. He was swept into power within a democratic process on the heals of a very unpopular regime appealing to peoples passion rather than reason, similar to that other infamous fascist dictator. After he won election he took steps to pack the court with his appointees, consolidate the party system to a single party state, and has outlawed opposition parties, as well as removing the term limit for his own office. And it worked, in the last election, the opposition boycotted the election and the Carter Institute providing international oversight shamefully branded it fair and open.

He consolidated and is investing heavily in military power citing a "great enemy" and national pride attempting to build a 2 million man army, 2nd only to China in size. He is nationalizing industry and is seizing property without regard to laws or justice for the people who owned it in the name of redistribution of wealth (similar to Mugabe in Zimbabwe). Internationally he has been seeking to form an anti-western coalition with other dictators like Castro, and Kim Jong-il, and enemies of the west like Ahmadi-Nejad. Now he is suppressing opposition in the media and freedom of speech.

The world is funneling oil revenue directly into his coffers, which for now he is using to try to create the Saudi style socialist utopia but given the trends I'm seeing might easily be redirected into a more hostile direction. And, like Saudi Arabia, if the price of a barrel of oil now falls below $50 now they reduce production to hold the price higher. This type of oil held hostage is what hurt us in the 1970's and what urged us to reduce our reliance on foreign oil supplied by OPEC. We are much more dependent on foreign oil now than we were in the 1970's. Less on the middle eastern sources, but more dependent on Mexico and Venezuela.