Paging Juan Galt

Chavez. That boy 'bout to get on my last damn nerve:

"On Friday, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Chavez's plans under the law 'have caused us some concern.'
Chavez rejected Casey's statement in his broadcast, saying: 'Go to hell, gringos! Go home!" (link added)

The reason for Casey's statement?

"The National Assembly, which is controlled by the president's political allies, is expected to give final approval this week to what it calls the "enabling law," which would give Chavez the authority to pass a series of laws by decree during an 18-month period.
Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin last month, has said he will enact sweeping reforms to remake Venezuela into a socialist state. Among his plans are nationalizing the main telecommunications company and the electricity and natural gas sectors."

Two words: Atlas Shrugged.

Two more words: Dictator wannabe.

Actually from what it seems it's not so much a "wannabe dictator thing" going on as a dictator in the early stages. I am neither a prophet nor a son of a prophet but I can see where Lord Acton's dictum may be applicable here.

I'm not cheery about his plans to nationalize more industries. Venezuela has a very big safety net called oil that will sustain them for some time, but eventually the socialization of industry will cause economic instability. That instability will attempt to be solved via the magic fluid. In other words I can see Venezuela trying to jack up the price of oil (as Chavez is alleged to have pushed for in his 1998 OPEC activities) to save its ass from the failure of state run internal industries. Nationalizing industries in Venezuela: It's not just bad for Venezuelans anymore. (No; it's not really our business how another country screws itself up. But it's still a bummer to see another country falling further to the dark side.)

I must also quote another influential & insightful commentator, Tam:

"Tam to Chavez: 'You know why your buddy Castro's been in power for so long? Cuba doesn't have oil. Sleep tight, Pugsley."

It would not take the u.S. military to take over Venezuela. It'd take a few thousand bored rednecks with a long weekend off & a few boats. If you don't think there are a lot of bored rednecks with long weekends who wouldn't mind making that "oil for blood" chant actually relevant cause they're sick of hearing it so much, then I have Arizona Ocean-front Realtors holding for you on line two. The Brooklyn Bridge sales company would also like to speak with you if you don't think that said bored rednecks will take offense to The OPEC Kid's remarks. Back home we'd refer to his behavior as someone who's writing checks with his mouth that his body can't cash. In Wikipedia's entry on Venezuela I scrolled down to the "See Also" section & found (under Miscellany) a page about its military. I'm thinking we'd have to get the few thousand rednecks good & drunk for it to be considered close to fair. Still, give me the bored under-employed rednecks from Virginia to Alabama & I'd put money on them knocking out Venezuela in a fortnight.

Chavez is trying to beef up his military. He has had some difficulty though (did he really think threatening to give F-16's to Cuba was gonna help his argument?). & Little Green Footballs opines that Chavez may have nuclear ambitions.

But Lord help him if those aforementioned rednecks are reminded that he just grabbed 100,000 AK-103's for $187 a friggin' piece! We ain't paying no $187 for them around here & don't think for a moment that price envy won't motivate a bored redneck to invade a Central American country. Since the AK deal included ammo & the AK-103 uses 7.62x39 who do you think is partly responsible for the price going up 100% in the last few years? That alone would be enough to get the du Toit's behind an invasion force. Hell - that'd be enough to make them lead the invasion force.

(It should be noted that neither I nor any other of the writers here at Publicola are advocating an armed invasion of a sovereign country because said country’s leader chose to run his mouth like a two-bit punk hiding behind his mamma’s skirt. I’m just sayin’ don’t start none won’t be none. That’s all. )

Posted by Publicola at January 23, 2007 07:45 AM | TrackBack