Venezuela's Congress Grants Chavez Special Powers to Remake Country

Fox News ^ | January 31, 2007

[burzum]

CARACAS, Venezuela — A congress wholly loyal to President Hugo Chavez approved a law Wednesday granting the Venezuelan leader authority to enact sweeping measures by presidential decree.

Meeting at a downtown plaza in a session that resembled a political rally, lawmakers unanimously approved all four articles of the law by a show of hands.

"Long live the sovereign people! Long live President Hugo Chavez! Long live socialism!" said National Assembly President Cilia Flores as she proclaimed the law approved. "Fatherland, socialism or death! We will prevail!"

Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, says the legislation will be the start of a new era of "maximum revolution" during which he will consolidate Venezuela's transformation into a socialist society. His critics, however, are calling it a radical lurch toward authoritarianism by a leader with unchecked power.

Hundreds of Chavez supporters wearing red — the color of Venezuela's ruling party — gathered in the plaza, waving signs reading "Socialism is democracy" as lawmakers read out passages of the law giving Chavez special powers for 18 months to transform 11 broadly defined areas, including the economy, energy and defense.

[burzum]

Well now he is a dictator. He's been busy lately between getting absolute political power in Venezuela and consoling Fidel Castro on his artificial anus. I feel pity for Venezuela because it may be decades before they can back out of the damage that Chavez is going to cause.

[Tinman93]

I for one believe they deserve whatever they get.

[GoldCountryRedneck]

...new era of "maximum Marxist revolution"...

Fixed!

[ladtx]

...lawmakers read out passages of the law giving Chavez special powers for 18 months...

LOL! Yeah - riiiiiight.

[Jeff Head]

Modern day South American Hitler in our day...allying with an even larger Hitler figure in Iran, Pres. AhwannaMakeJihad, and with the largest long-term threat, the Red Chinese. Th entire geo-political situation i shaping up to be very dangerous IMHO, and we have a full court press by the party of appeasement to come into power...including far too many RINOs in the GOP.

[2banana]

This is the model Hitler used - and it will turn out about the same...

[brothers4thID]

"Fatherland, NATIONAL-socialism or death! We will prevail!"

There.. I fixed that quote for her.

[jim35]

Agreed. They get the dictator they deserve. It's his opponents whom I feel sorry for.

[marron]

This is actually the second time he has been granted decree powers. It hardly seems necessary, he appointed the Supreme Court himself, his cronies pack the Congress, he wrote the Constitution himself, and then had the Congress absolve him of having even to go to them, even though all they do is rubber-stamp his decision.

Of course, if the Supreme Court and Congress are just rubber stamps, why bother. So maybe this is just efficiency, bypassing what is only a formality in any case.

Corruption is flourishing, and expect it to explode. Corruption is how ordinary people carve out a bit of freedom in a top-down country. Corruption is how ordinary people obtain a bit of rationality in an irrational country. It is how you function in a disfunctional country.

We are accustomed to thinking that corruption is bad, and in a normal country it is. In a mis-ruled country, it is how you keep the whole thing from collapsing of its own weight.