__________ Holding up a pair of pliers, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says"we have discovered a conspiracy to destabilize the country, and we are going to tighten the screws."REUTERS/HO/Miraflores Palace
Posted on 12/16/2001 1:56:44 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to nationalize banks that fail to observe legislation requiring them to lend at least 15 percent of their loan portfolio to small farmers.
``We can nationalize any bank that does not observe the law,'' Chavez said in a speech in Venezuela's National Assembly. ``Not only can we nationalize any bank, any banker that does not abide by the law could go to jail.''
Last month, Chavez' government used ``fast-track'' legislative powers to decree 49 laws affecting industries from oil to agriculture.
Under the new legislation, banks must lend at least 15 percent, rather than the previous 8 percent, of their portfolios to poor farmers in need of credit.
Another contentious law opens the way for the expropriation of ``idle'' farmlands and the distribution of small plots to farmers.
Chavez made the statements during a ceremony to commemorate the second anniversary of the approval of the new constitution.
To protest the laws, Fedecameras, the country's leading association of businesses, brought Venezuela to a virtual halt with a one-day nationwide strike earlier this week. It is also challenging the laws in Venezuela's highest court and pushing for amendments in the legislature.
Business groups fear the Land Law violates the right to private property and will scare off investors. Some bankers have said they would rather pay a fine for disregarding the new laws than provide more loans.
It was not immediately clear how much banks could be fined for ignoring the laws.
Chavez, a leftist former paratrooper, claims the package of laws will consolidate his so-called ``revolution'' aimed at bringing social justice to Venezuela's poor majority.
__________ Holding up a pair of pliers, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez saysI won't by Citgo gas any more.
Hugo Chavez, their new landlord, will have them working the fields real good, just like Castro.
….Snip…..
In the 1930s, Nazis used "The Third Way" to characterize their own brand of national socialism as a equidistant between the "internationalist" socialism of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of the West. Trotskyists used "The Third Way" as a term to distinguish their own Marxism from Stalinism and capitalism. In the 1960s, New Leftists used "The Third Way" to define their politics as an independent socialism between the Soviet gulag and America's democracy.
But as the history of Nazism, Trotskyism and the New Left have shown, there is no "Third Way." There is the capitalist, democratic way based on private property and individual rights-a way that leads to liberty and universal opportunity. And there is the socialist way of group identities, group rights, a relentless expansion of the political state, restricted liberty and diminished opportunity. The Third Way is not a path to the future. It is just the suspension between these two destinations. It is a bad faith attempt on the part of people who are incapable of giving up their socialist schemes to escape the taint of their discredited past.
….Snip….Their cynicism flows from the very perception they have of right and wrong. They do it for higher ends. They do it for the progressive faith. They do it because they see themselves as having the power to redeem the world from evil. It is that terrifyingly exalted ambition that fuels their spiritual arrogance and justifies their sordid and, if necessary, criminal means." --Excerpted from "Hillary Clinton and the Radical Left: Hillary Clinton and the "Third Way"
Sounds like parts of our good old U.S.A., doesn't it?
Carolyn
He's also set up block watch committees fashioned after Castro's to report any infractions to him. He's kissed up to every anti-American sentiment and leader and brought in Cuban trainers and teachers to help him out with all he must do. Now he's freely decreeing laws to the business and private sector. It goes on and on.
I'm afraid you're right. He was certainly unfazed by last week's strike. Too little, too late.
He took advantage of the fact that, whatever its problems, Venezuela had a large population of orderly and law-abiding folk who did not relish the thought of taking to the streets. One by one, their civil institutions (Parliament, courts of law) were stripped away or taken over by Chavez, and they kept hoping that each power grab would be the last. And of course, Chavez would then appear to make conciliatory noises, which they desperately wanted to believe - until the next time.
You can't appease a would-be dictator by tossing him a few institutions; it just whets his appetite and lets him know he can get away with it. And it eliminates any power or individual who might be able to lead some kind of resistance. Opposition Venezuelans now find themselves leaderless and powerless. And this is complicated by the fact that the U.S., thanks to Democrat stalling of Bush's appointees, is unable to provide much encouragement.
More on that here: WHILE CARACUS BURNS Sen. Dodd's petulance threatens national security -- Yet while Caracas burns, the top U.S. policy maker for the region can't assume his post for reasons of petty ideological revenge. Otto Reich--President Bush's nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere--still can't get a hearing in Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's subcommittee. Mr. Dodd's petulance has gone beyond the usual Beltway payback and is now creating a leadership vacuum damaging to U.S. national security.
He may get there yet.
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