"...are destined to repeat it." I've heard this saying many times over the course of my life, and I believe it more and more as each day goes by. Seems to me that the same things keep happening in the world over and over again, and the only things that change are the faces and names of the people involved. It's like watching the same play over and over again with only the actors changing...you just know what's coming next.
So what prompts me to say this today? Simple: I just read an article on how Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the "nationalization" of an AMERICAN-owned and AMERICAN-based company that is operating in Venezuela. This company, Cargill, is a food-manufacturing company which manufactures, among other things, parboiled rice. Chavez's penny-ante dictatorship has ordered a tax on rice production a few years ago and has now ordered the nationalization of the company's operations in Venezuela because he seems to think that Cargill is manufacturing "specialized forms of rice in order to evade price controls."
Which is pure bullshit, of course.
When the leader of a country takes steps to nationalize a privately owned company which is owned and operated by another nation, to me this spells nothing but trouble. With Chavez, this is just one more act of a never-ending, ludicrous play in which the self-appointed "president for life" (free elections? please!) takes center stage. He seems to think that the whole world, specifically the United States, is out to get him and is doing everything he can to protect himself. He is doing this, of course, by taking absolute and total control of every single aspect of life in Venezuela. He's silenced ALL opposing newspapers by closing them, he's taken over - "nationalized," he called it - ALL of the opposing TV stations, and now he's moving to take over all of the manufacturing taking place in his country. He's already gained total control over the Venezuelan military and has the vast majority of the people on his side by telling them what they want - and need - to hear, and has them all believing that he's the Great Savior, the Messiah who will lead them to prosperity.
Does all of this sound vaguely familiar? To those members of "The Greatest Generation" who are still with us, it will sound VERY familiar.
The last person to do something like this was Adolf Hitler. Hugo Chavez is doing exactly the same thing.
Of the two most popular lunatic dictators we currently have in power worldwide, I don't know which one scares me the most - Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nutjob who is in charge of Iran.
Both of them bear very close watching, and I see a major smackdown coming in both of their futures.
I just hope our Fearful Leader in DC is paying attention.
IHC
1 comment:
Fearful leader is still wanting to enter meaningful dialog (spelled ass-kissing) with this maniac who managed to come to New York and spout insults to our leaders before the United Nations and left the country without his plane exploding in flight. How do we allow him to nationalize a U.S. owned company that is providing employment and wages to his citizens and then not even send out a wimper of protest? Do we need his oil that badly?
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