I'm telling you I love FR, the things I learn on here are amazing...make all those Poli Sci classes pale in comparison.
and why is it, when I finally have time to catch up, everyone else has to dinner and what not, and then when I have time in the evening, it's only the rebel rousers left?
We get a large portion of our oil from Venezula and they don't appear to like us much. :( :(
Hugo Chávez, the current "president" [Marxist dictator] was born in 1954.
Educated at the Military Academy of Venezuela (grad. 1975), for two decades he was a career army officer, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1992, Chávez led an unsuccessful coup attempt against President Carlos Andrés Pérez and was imprisoned until 1994.
A charismatic populist [read Marxist], he became the leader of the leftist Patriotic Pole alliance. Promising a peaceful social revolution, Chávez was elected president in a 1999 landslide. However, in office he and his supporters tossed out the nation's constitution and wrote a new one giving him virtual dictatorial powers. He ended the privatization of Venezuela's state holdings, put himself in control of economic matters, and cut oil production to raise oil prices. The new "constitution" gives him a longer possible term of office [probably for life, like his hero, Castro], and weakened the legislature and judiciary.
Chávez's popularity with the country's poor increased as he took measures against rampant corruption, criticized the traditional oligarchy, and made more funds available for social programs. He also attacked his critics in business and the media, and expanded the role of the military. Closer ties were established with Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and with Cuba. In 2000, Chávez "won" office under the new constitution. Despite his populist rhetoric, many expressed fears that he was exhibiting the distinctively dictatorial signs of the classic Latin American military strongman, the caudillo. Although he retains strong support among the lower classes, opposition to his rule increased, and strikes and demonstrations sparked by his attempts to assert control over the state oil company led to a short-lived coup attempt in April 2002, and a prolonged strike by oil workers later that year. An attempt by the [much weakened] opposition to recall him through a referendum (August 2004) resulted in a solid vote for Chávez. [Naturally, isn't that always the way with Marxist dictators. They always manage drum up a "solid" vote.]
BTW, if I recall correctly Jimmy Carter went down there to observe the vote and pronounced it fair and legitimate. Enough said!