THE LEFTIES ARE NOW CERTIFIABLY NUTS:
commondreams.org
Buy oil from Venezuela....they hate Bush so they must be good.....no wonder why you guys cannot win an election!
Violence has marked each step along Chavez's road to power.
The former paratrooper first tried to seize control by a coup in 1992; he failed and instead spent two years in jail. He later tried democracy and was elected as an outsider by Venezuelans six years later.
Chavez's opponents admit he is popular, especially among the poor. But being popular, they say, does not give the president the right to do whatever he wants. The police, military and armed thugs have been tools used freely by Chavez to hang on to power during a coup attempt and a national strike in 2002.
Now, buoyed by electoral victories and high oil prices, Chavez appears to be doing everything he can to snuff out democracy before the eyes of a nation and a world that does not seem to be paying much attention.
"The danger that we are facing as Venezuelans is the possibility of waking up and not having any of our liberties," Lopez said.
Chavez has packed the Supreme Court and the army with his supporters, seized control of the country's wealth and introduced a penal code that criminalizes dissent. Anyone who opposes him faces violence or prison.
"I spent 20 days without looking at the sun, the air, the sky," said Capriles, the Baruta mayor who was once thrown into solitary confinement for opposing Chavez.
Pictures showing violence against anti-Chavez protestors no longer are allowed to be shown on public or private Venezuelan television; the government claims it's protecting children from scenes of violence.
"Our own journalists don't know whether they can show whatever it is they are trying to cover," said Ana Christina Nunez, legal counsel for Globovision, the country's only 24-hour news channel.
But Chavez's program, "Hello, President," sometimes runs for six hours. |
