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Crazy Uncle Hugo is Getting Worried

There’s an awful lot on the line in Venezuela tomorrow.

It amounts to a constitutional referendum , which, if passes, will give Crazy Uncle Hugo the unlimited power he seeks. if on the other hand, that referendum gets voted down, it would end up being the largest smack down of government in recent times.

Pajamas Media has a fairly decent right up on the subject I’ll commend to your reading,  from Daniel Duquenal. [1]

Chavez knows he’s in trouble, and has started making threats. CNN: [2]

CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) — President Hugo Chavez on Friday wrapped up his campaign to push through broad constitutional changes with a broadside attack against adversaries at home and abroad — including a threat to cut off oil exports to the United States.

Chavez told a crowd gathered in the center of Caracas that if the referendum was approved and the result was questioned — “if the ‘yes’ vote wins on Sunday and the Venezuelan oligarchy, playing the [U.S.] empire’s game, comes with their little stories of fraud” — then he would order oil shipments to the United States halted Monday.

Of course, since oil is a fungible commodity,  this thread is symbolic only.  It does, however, stand in rather stark contrast to the moves he made a year ago saying he would sell oil to American for that reduced prices.

He renewed his harsh criticisms of Juan Carlos and Uribe, with whom he has had recent high-profile disputes, and threatened to take independent Venezuela television network Globovision off the air if it broadcast partial results during the voting. He also threatened to take action against international networks, accusing CNN in particular of overstating the strength of the opposition’s numbers.

“If any international channel comes here to take part in an operation from the imperialist against Venezuela [3], your reporters will be thrown out of the country, they will not be able to work here,” Chavez said. “People at CNN, listen carefully: This is just a warning.”

It’s clear that crazy uncle Hugo doesn’t know who is friends are.  CNN, trust me, is going to be the last “news” organization to rise up against the communist dictator-thug.

The reason he’s getting louder, and more shrill now?   Have you ever seen a raccoon backed into a corner?

My guess is, that the vote is going to go against him.  The real one, that is.  The one that will be reported to the press, particularly based on his commentary as regards CNN, will be nearly unanimous in favor of Chavez.   It’s how such fraudulent regimes work.

Memeorandum has some good stuff up on this one… but pay particular attention to the New York Times article that they link, from Raul Isaias Baduel [4] who sounds remarkably like a man who has screwed up big time, and is just beginning to realize the depth of his  sin:

Hugo Chávez and I worked together for many years. I supported him through thick and thin, serving as his defense minister. But now, having recently retired, I find myself with the moral and ethical obligation as a citizen to express my opposition to the changes to the Constitution that President Chávez and the National Assembly have presented for approval by the voters tomorrow.

The proposal, which would abolish presidential term limits and expand presidential powers, is nothing less than an attempt to establish a socialist state in Venezuela. As our Catholic bishops have already made clear, a socialist state is contrary to the beliefs of Simón Bolívar, the South American liberation hero, and it is also contrary to human nature and the Christian view of society, because it grants the state absolute control over the people it governs.

The answer is that all Venezuelans, from every social stratum, are responsible for the institutional decay that we are witnessing. The elite never understood — and still fail to understand — the need to include, in every sense, the millions who have been kept at the margins of the decision-making process because of their poverty. At the same time, President Chávez led the poor to believe that they are finally being included in a governmental model that will reduce poverty and inequality. In reality, the very opposite is true.

The thing is, of course, but that is the relationship of every leftist movement in the world, to the poor and excluded. That this point has been proven so often, and so irrefutably, makes one wonder why the subject keeps coming up as a possible solution to the troubles of mankind.

The answer, of course, is that desperate people will believe anything they are told .  Even by a proven liar such as Hugo Chavez.  How far that misplaced trust goes, the world will witness tomorrow.

I suspect, that if the vote goes against Chavez and his “reforms” things will turn bloody down there very quickly.   At that point it becomes a question of what the rest of the world , particularly the non communist world, proposes to do about it.