http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...5/wvenez05.xml

Exerpt:
Venezuela's once-thriving middle class is packing its bags and fleeing the country, afraid for the future as the socialist president, Hugo Chávez, calls on the slum-dwelling masses to rise up and seize wealth from those better off than themselves.


Vestey gives up ranches in 'land grab'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai...8/cnvest18.xml

Exerpt:
A 32,000-acre cattle ranch owned by Britain's Vestey Group is to be confiscated without compensation, Venezuelan authorities have announced.

Chavez grabs oil field to fund anti-US campaign

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../wchavez04.xml

Exerpt:
Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez yesterday seized control of a French-run oil field, strengthening his control of the country's vast oil wealth, the lifeblood of his "Bolivarian Revolution".

A Country dies and another slum is born.

Hopefully things will work out. It seems odd to me that the "president" of a country is calling for what is essentially a civil war. Maybe they should rise up and start with him.

Reminds me of my homeland, Iran, where milions flee from the rule of the dictatorship of the mullahs

Some body gotta stop that comrade Chavez now or all of us will regret it later

I think he has graduated to full dictator status. His utopia will look like South Africa very soon.

Maybe it's me, but does it not surprise anyone in the slightest that Chavez is starting to move into an eerily more communistic direction for Venezuela? Think about it: Pat Robertson lets his mouth slip ahead of his mind and gets the missionaries there thrown out, and now this...

Do pardon me if I seem abrasive in saying this, but why is it that the pages of history seem to be, be it in one fashion or another, repeating themselves again?

What's next Mr. Chavez, "the Bolivarian Liberational Front"?

Uh isn't it kind of illegal and very economically bad if a country just takes over a foreign investment on their land? So, now that he is destroying the social structure of Venezuela, he's also taking the economy with it?

Originally Posted by ASTRALdragon

Uh isn't it kind of illegal and very economically bad if a country just takes over a foreign investment on their land? So, now that he is destroying the social structure of Venezuela, he's also taking the economy with it?

He's trying to use the Venezuelan government as a means to annex (i.e., control) the economy, and he's using the slum-dwellers to do it because he knew of the general feelings they have in these matters. Thus, with a group of people gone who could potentially oppose and even overthow him gone or scrambling to leave for fear of their safety, Chavez has potentially assured that the remaining Venezuelans would blindly rally around him and leave his 'revolution" almost fully unopposed and unchecked on the national scope. Thus, he has successfully managed to shift himself out from under the Venezualan population's microscope either due to the "revolutionary" mentality of the slum-dweller or the innate panic amongst the midlle class and other groups in Venezuela's social structure.

That seems plausible in a way. Idiotic action to take, but plausible.

Another communist dicatorship is born.

Just like Cuba in the early 60s.

What a shame that others must go through what I have.

My doctor here is Venezuelan, great guy, we have lots of long talks about Chavez. The world is only know finding out about him but according to the doc the people in Venezuela have known this guy is a wit for about 15 years+. The infrastructure of Venezuela is already in complete disarray.

"China is in better shape." His words, not mine.