Opinion Venezuela is sliding down the steady slope toward the dictatorial communist life of Cuba. With 26 recent decrees, Chavez is implementing state collectivism and control that was rejected by voters in the December, 2007 referendum. Society is being increasingly militarized. The private sector is being expropriated or confiscated. Most of the families in the country are increasingly regimented by state employment, subsidies, regulations or controls.

Bolivarian schools indoctrinate young minds. One political party dominates the land. One leader rules that party, plus the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the moral power, the prosecutors, the national oil company, the central bank, and most of the states, cities and organizations, most of the media and a good part of what used to be called the private sector. Even the Internet is coming under control of the authorities. To a large degree, work, income, housing, business, school, health, transportation and communication are controlled by central command as in Cuba.

The evolving communist government has new friends in Iran, Russia, China, and Syria, and new enemies in the US, Colombia, Peru and sometimes Mexico and the European Union. A branch of the critical Catholic Church has been founded that is loyal to the president. Modern weapons of war have been purchased in preparation for an invasion predicted for a decade that has never materialized. Up to 100 billion dollars has been spent outside Venezuela by the authorities. But poverty and inequality are either the same or worse than a decade ago. Inflation, homicides and corruption are reaching record epidemic levels.

The authorities insist that its iron-fisted rule reflects the will of the people. True, millions of Venezuelans appear to be going along with whatever the government demands out of fear, complacency or neglectfulness. The government appears to get most of its support by heavy spending or heavy pressure and not because people believe in what it's doing. Nevertheless, the time is coming near when the last gasp of freedom in the country may be snuffed out. In the emerging silence before power, freedom becomes only a fleeting memory.

michaelrowan22@gmail.com


 

Michael Rowan
EL UNIVERSAL