Venezuela: Who wants a President-for-Life?

In the US, many of us on both sides of the aisle are skeptical of the consolidation of power and violations of civil rights that have persisted under the Bush administration. American Lefties have railed against GWB tactics, and been suspicious of him 'going after oil wealth' since day one of his reign. What's amazing, however, is that these Lefties and the US media are too shortsighted to criticize similar -- or far, far worse -- consolidation of power elsewhere.

Can you imagine the reaction of US media if GWB wrote a law allowing his Presidential term to continue for life? .... And then it passed the Congress and Senate unanimously?

This is exactly what just happened in Venezuela, and hardly a peep of worry from the mainstream media. If a national declaration of Mother's Day passes unanimously, we don't need to be suspicious. But when a supposedly 'free' legislative body votes *unanimously* to enthrone a President-For-Life, we have to wonder -- and ask poignantly -- whether real freedom is practiced under the regime.

What if GWB passed laws to dismiss congress and replace them with his own hand-picks, to annex our nation's largest corporations into the government, or to take complete control over the Federal Reserve (ie, the people who control the US dollar)?  All this is happening in Venezuela. The power abuses we observe in the US are incomparably mild when viewed alongside the attacks on freedom in Venezuela and other nations who rail against the US.

Dictators like Chavez, who constantly scream about "US imperialism" are misdirecting attention away from their own mistreatment, violence, and injustices against their people. Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Iran all love their rants against the US -- and their people all suffer worsening poverty and live in fear of violent theft or raids by their own government via hired thugs.

Comments

[Sumita Rachapud]

I guess the rest of the world needs to learn about the benefits of separation of power, and the positive grace the United States has experienced as it stemmed away from dictatorship and adopted a system of checks and balances. Citizens today can boycott acts like Colonization and Queen Mary's execution, something that English people would not have been able to do with the government that they had. Democracy is heaven!

[LaaL]

I appreciate what you're saying, but I can tell you that I am married to a Cuban. I have been to visit recently and seen how people live with my own eyes. My husband and I are not pro-Castro, but the people of Cuba do not live in fear of government raids, they suffer primarily because of a fifty year old failed policy called the embargo. Things there may not be perfect, but are things here any better when half of the people can't afford health care? Do you know health care is free in Cuba? Do you know that includes cosmetic surgery? For a country that the US claims to have committed so many human rights abuses, that's pretty good. Shouldn't access to health care be a right and not a privilege?
When you write an entry such as this, you sound as indoctrinated as those who you rail against. Go to Cuba...then get back to me. Oh, you can't legally? You have the American government to thank for that. I thought we lived in the land of the free...