From WaPo:

The Miami trial of a Venezuelan entrepreneur who grew rich doing business with President Hugo Chávez’s populist administration has exposed how some top government officials have profited from a corrosive web of corruption in the oil-rich country.

Kickbacks, bribes and secret payoffs have become a feature in the socialist administration, which had claimed a break from the past but instead has seen several officials implicated in multimillion-dollar corruption schemes, according to testimony and conversations taped by the FBI. The trial has also revealed the Chávez government’s determination to funnel state funds to its allies in Latin America and the lengths it will go to to keep the aid secret…

…Transcripts of the taped conversations reveal intricate details of the collaboration between Venezuelan businessmen and government officials during Venezuela’s recent oil boom as they pilfered public funds through no-bid contracts, kickbacks and secret commissions.

“It’s basically a bunch of guys in their late 30s, all of whom saw an opportunity when Chávez went into power,” said Kenneth Rijock, financial crime consultant for World-Check, a London-based firm that provides risk analysis for banks and other institutions. “They’ve been riding his coattails since, benefiting from sweetheart deals, kickbacks and other corrupt practices.”

Read the whole article. And consider, we’re about to elect a Socialist president who’s former principal financial supporter is in prison for pilfering state funds.

We noted recently two members of Congress calling for the nationalization/socialization of portions of the American oil industry. There’s clearly a real yearning for a communist-style command and control economy in this country.

Popular liberal columnist Ted Rall makes the case more explicitly:

THE CURE FOR HIGH GAS AND FOOD PRICES

Vital Businesses Need Nationalization…

…Did you know that Venezuelans pay a mere 19 cents per gallon? It’s 38 cents in Nigeria. Turkmenistanis might not have electoral democracy, but they only shell out $4.50 to fill a 15-gallon tank. Before we replaced Saddam Hussein with…with whatever they have in Iraq now, Iraqis paid less than a dime for a gallon of gas.

One of the things that these countries have in common, of course, is that they’re oil-producing states. Countries that export oil and gas have trouble explaining to their citizens why they should pay for their own natural resources–and most are smart enough not to try. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Burma, Malaysia, Kuwait, China and South Korea are just a few of the countries that keep fuel prices low in order to stimulate economic growth….

….Unlike corporations, governments don’t care about turning a profit. They care about remaining in power. Their reliance on political support (or, if you’re cynical, pandering) allows them to do things our much-vaunted free market system can’t, such as make sure that people can afford to eat and buy enough gas to get to work….

…Like the rest of the world, Venezuelan consumers have been squeezed by rising prices, and even shortages, of groceries. In 2007 Venezuela’s socialist-leaning government decided to do something about it. First they imposed price controls on staple items. When suppliers began to hoard supplies to drive up prices, President Hugo Chavez threatened to nationalize them. “If they remain committed to violating the interests of the people, the constitution, the laws, I’m going to take the food storage units, corner stores, supermarkets and nationalize them,” he said. Food profiteers grumbled. Then they straightened up…

…The problem isn’t the weak dollar or the non-existent housing market. It’s capitalism. A sane government doesn’t leave essential goods and services–food, fuel, housing, healthcare, transportation, education–to the vicissitudes of “magic” markets. Non-discretionary economic sectors should be strictly controlled by–indeed, owned by–the government….

Food, fuel, housing, healthcare, transportation, education…what’s left? I wish more would listen to what these people are saying, and think hard about the implications of putting them in charge.

We’ve written before about how the Dems are pulling out all stops to isolate Colombia, an island of free market democracy in a sea of militant, maxist dictatorships (here, here, here, here, and here).

Now House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is changing House rules and seriously undermining the credibility of US diplomacy to avoid an inevitable House vote that will support Colombia. Maybe she likes favors militant, marxist dictatorships over legitimate democracies. Or maybe she really doesn’t care, and just does whatever her union leash-holders tell her to do.

Its really hard to believe how Pelosi can justify this to herself. She must be assuming her own constituency (CA 8th district - ie San Francisco) is too spaced out to question her actions. Unfortunately for the rest of us, she’s probably right.

Lifted entirely from PWB:

This morning, Nancy Pelosi announced that the House Democrats will change their rules so as to be able to table the pending trade agreement with Colombia rather than bring it up for a vote within 90 days, as is currently required:

Today, I discussed with my caucus the prospect of a rule change that we will bring to the floor tomorrow.It’s not really a rule change; it’s sort of in keeping with the rules of the House. And that rule will say that we will remove the timetable from the consideration of the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Pelosi also said that if the agreement were voted on now, it would lose, a claim that I think is highly doubtful. In fact, Pelosi wants to protect Democrats from having to vote on an agreement that is pretty obviously in America’s interest, but has been vociferously denounced by her party’s Presidential candidates.

This morning, White House press secretary Dana Perino was asked about Pelosi’s announcement:

QUESTION: And on another subject, do you want to talk about Speaker Pelosi’s decision to put off a vote on the Colombia trade bill?PERINO: Sure. I’m happy to have a chance to respond to that. Speaker Pelosi today did something unprecedented in the history of negotiating trade deals in announcing that Democrats would change the rules in the middle of the game. ***

Today’s announcement shows that any sense of good faith in our process of negotiating trade has evaporated.

We think this is an awful precedent. We think it’s a terrible thing for this administration, but it’s also terrible for all future administrations, both Republicans and Democrats, because countries will not be able to have faith in our word when we’re negotiating trade deals.

We worked tirelessly to work with members of Congress on this trade bill, and we did it according to the rules. We achieved a bipartisan agreement with Speaker Pelosi last May — May 10th, 2007 — to reopen trade agreements to address labor and environment standards that she was concerned about. Those concerns were addressed by us.

We held over 400 consultations with members of Congress. We provided draft implementing legislation in advance. We even shuttled members of Congress to see for themselves the progress in Colombia.

We went over and beyond the requirements of trade promotion authority to try to get this done.

Trade promotion authority also has requirements for Congress, and that is that at the end of a 90-day period — 90 legislative days — that there be a vote.

It is clear that there are many in the Democratic Party who would like to kill this deal. And they want to do so without having to have their fingerprints on it. And they want to do it in a way where they don’t have to take a vote.

Perino went on to say, in answer to a follow-up question:

They also don’t make the case that it would be bad for our workers. Because, right now, almost all of the products coming into our country from Colombia come in without tariffs. But that is not true for our products that we’re trying to sell to Colombia. And that’s all we’re trying to do with this Colombia free trade agreement.

I liked this exchange, too:

QUESTION: You sound a little angry. Is the White House…

PERINO: I think we’re pretty fired up about it. Look, I just — it is the right thing to do. The free trade agreement with Colombia is the right thing to do, and they know it. And that’s why they don’t want to have to take a vote on it because their special interests are pressuring them not to let this deal go through.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

PERINO: The unions. The unions.

As usual, the Democrats have put politics ahead of sound public policy.

Also, don’t miss the WSJ Review and Outlook on the same subject.

Update 4/10/08

Another nice WSJ piece on the topic.

From Reuters:

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and fierce U.S. critic, warned on Tuesday that relations with Washington could worsen if Republican candidate John McCain wins this year’s presidential election.

Meanwhile, as Chavez masses troops on his border with Colombia, presses his claim to 62% of neighboring Guyana, and transmits hundreds of million$ to FARC terrorists, Peru now claims he’s supporting insurgents there.

From AP:

Hugo Chavez has been accused of using Venezuela’s oil riches to meddle in Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Now, Peru’s president says the Venezuelan leader may be doing it here by funding militants and anti-poverty centers that preach populist revolution.

Its not as bad as when Osama endorsed Kerry, but I suspect many Leftists may welcome Chavez’s endorsement. From CS Monitor:

Leftwing activists flock to Venezuela to soak up the socialist ‘revolution’
Like Havana, Cuba, and Chiapas, Mexico, before it, Caracas draws liberals from around the world who want to experience Hugo Chavez’s experiment in socialism…

…Caracas in the early 2000s has become what Petrograd was under Lenin in the early 1900s. It’s what Havana was in the early days of the Cuban revolution. It’s what Chiapas, Mexico, became for a time in the 1990s when “Subcomandante Marcos” launched an armed struggle to help the indigenous people there – a magnet for socialists and students, radicals and revolutionaries, leftists and a few Hollywood luminaries.

Until recently, they didn’t have anywhere to go. Socialism was in retreat, “revolutions” scarce. Then along came Mr. Chávez and his gambit to forge a “21st century socialism.” Suddenly, Caracas is the new leftwing petri dish. “This is the most interesting social experiment in the world taking place today,” says Fred Fuentes, an Australian who moved to Caracas last July, as he sips from a mug with the government motto “Rumbo al Socialismo” (On the way to Socialism). “Venezuela is the key place to be observing.”…

Gran Colombia was a South American country from 1819-1831. Previously the Viceroyalty of New Granada, Gran Colombia won independence from Spain in a revolution led by Simon Bolivar. The country included all of present day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama, and portions of Costa Rica, Guyana, Peru, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

Bolivar’s vision of a single Latin American state was thwarted by local nationalists, most notably in Ecuador and Venezuela. But Bolivar remains a powerful symbol in the region. His face graces currency and coin in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez has adopted Bolivar as a symbol of nationalism and regional unity. In 1999 he oversaw the drafting of a new Venezuelan constitution, which he called  a “Bolivarian Constitution”. That year he changed the name of the country from República de Venezuela to República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Chavez calls his political ideology Bovarian Socialism (a little like an American communist calling themselves a Jeffersonian Socialist - as a Basque aristocrat Bolivar likely would have had little use for Chavez’s statist populism).

In 1999 Chavez also revived a 170 year old border dispute with neighboring Guyana, claiming sovereignty over 62% of that country’s territory. Chavez’s claim is based on the historic north western border of Gran Colombia.

Just in case anyone thought Chavez was kidding about Guyana, in 2006 he changed the Venezuelan flag, adding a star for the ”lost province.” (He also changed the direction of the charging horse on the National Crest - it now runs to the left, of course.)

This provocation was accompanied by a significant buildup in the Venezuelan military. While his country’s economy was collapsing, in 2005 Chavez spent $2.2B on Su-27 fighters and 900,000 new assault rifles. In 2006 he spent $5B on 24 Su-30s and 58 attack helocopters.

In 2007 he initiated the National Simon Bolivar Project of 2007-2021, basically a complete conversion of Venezuela, which still enjoys some private property, freedom of the press, and other civil liberties, into a socialist dictatorship.

Chavez has a friend in the newly elected president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa (the vice president happens to be named Lenin). Correa identifies himself as a ”cristiano de izquierda, al socialismo del siglo XXI“(chrisitan of the left, a 21st century socialist). When Chavez compared Bush to Satan in his 2006 UN speech, Correa said that was unfair to the devil.

Chavez also has friends in neighboring Colombia - the terrorist group FARC, which was established as the militant wing of the Colombian Communist Party in the 1960s. FARC has diversified into the drug trade, but its 8000 man army still claims Marxist-Leninism as its inspiration. The Colombian government recently claimed Chavez gave FARC $300MM last year.

Last week Correa and Chavez used Colombia’s killing of a FARC leader as a justification to begin massing troops on Colombia’s borders. Today we learn that Nicaragua (governed by a coalition of socialist parties) is withdrawing its ambassador to Colombia and sending its own troops to join Venezuela’s buildup. Writing approvingly of the Marxist mobilization against Colombia, Fidel Castro exclaimed, “Bolivar awakens every 100 years!”

Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is extremely popular at home. In 2006 he won nearly 3x as many votes as the next closest candidate, and presently has a domestic approval rating >80%. His popularity comes from from his aggressive efforts against FARC and free market policies that have given Colombia one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

The same things obviously make Uribe unpopular among Marxist dictators and terrorists in the region. It may also explain why the American Democrats controlling Congress regularly go out of their way to undermine him.

Fortunately, Uribe can count on American support so long as there is a Republican in the White House. But if Obama or Clinton wins in November our most important South American ally likely will be left to fend for itself.

Marxist dictatorship, industry nationalizations, populist land reform, anti-colonial race war - this county has all the hallmarks of a leftist paradise.

Alas, the fun cannot last forever. From yesterday’s Telegraph:

The economy of Zimbabwe is facing total collapse within four months, leaving the country facing a slide into Congo-style anarchy, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.

Western officials fear the business, farming and financial sectors may be crippled by Christmas, triggering a collapse of government control that could leave the country prey to warlords and ignite long-suppressed tribal tensions…

And the LA Times:

A drive across Zimbabwe today reveals a desolate portrait of decline: Aimless mobs of people wait along the rural roads, each with a silent pleading gesture for a lift at every passing vehicle. With fuel almost dried up, unemployment at 80% and transport too expensive for most, movement is almost frozen.

Along the highways, brown grass stands high between the thorny acacias in a stunning vista of what Africa must have looked like before mechanized agriculture made farming Zimbabwe’s main export business. Now, most farms lie dormant.

Meat disappeared after the government shut down private abattoirs, transferring all slaughtering to a quasi-governmental organization that cannot meet demand. Fuel supplies dried up after the National Oil Co. of Zimbabwe was made the sole authorized distributor.

In towns, straggling queues form at any rumor of sugar, maize or bread. Most supermarket shelves are empty of basic staples: no meat, no sugar, no maize, no bread, no pasta, no rice, no milk.

Authorities have focused on one sector after another, accusing them of collaborating with the opposition, supporting regime change or engaging in economic sabotage…

Its worth remembering how we got here, how one of the most vibrant economies in Africa, a net food exporter, was converted into a starving dictatorship with >10,000% inflation. How a fragile post-colonial, democratically elected government was overthrown by Marxist thugs.

Unfortunately, the US deserves much of the blame. From The Weekly Standard (June 2007):

In April 1979, 64 percent of the black citizens of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) lined up at the polls to vote in the first democratic election in the history of that southern African nation. Two-thirds of them supported Abel Muzorewa, a bishop in the United Methodist Church. He was the first black prime minister of a country only 4 percent white. Muzorewa’s victory put an end to the 14-year political odyssey of outgoing prime minister Ian Smith, the stubborn World War II veteran who had infamously announced in 1976, “I do not believe in black majority rule–not in a thousand years.” Fortunately for the country’s blacks, majority rule came sooner than Smith had in mind.

Less than a year after Muzorewa’s victory, however, in February 1980, another election was held in Zimbabwe. This time, Robert Mugabe, the Marxist who had fought a seven-year guerrilla war against Rhodesia’s white-led government, won 64 percent of the vote, after a campaign marked by widespread intimidation, outright violence, and Mugabe’s threat to continue the civil war if he lost. Mugabe became prime minister and was toasted by the international community and media as a new sort of African leader. “I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible,” Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to the United Nations, had gushed to the Times of London in 1978. The rest, as they say, is history.

The article further recounts how the Carter administration systematically undermined Muzorewa’s popularly elected government, notably leaving in-place sanctions that had been designed to force the previous non-democratic government controlled by minority whites to accept popular rule. Carter insisted that militant Marxists be allowed to first share power, then take control in a ridiculously compromised do-over election.

A generation later Carter is still scouring the world in search of rag-tag Marxists groups attempting to seize power through violence. We wrote in June about his efforts to get the US to “establish some communications” with a tiny but vicious group of Marxists attempting to overthrow the democratic government in Nepal.

And, of course, there’s his affection for Venezuelan Marxist Hugo Chavez. The Carter Center has been one of few international observers to regularly endorse Venezuela’s recent tainted elections. They’ve been notably silent on Chavez’s recent president-for-life declaration.

Chavez actions since taking power - land reform, hyper-inflation, nationalization, price controls - bear striking resemblance to Mugabe’s own play-book. Unfortunately for the people of Venezuela (and maybe the people of Guyana who’s Chavez now claims 62% of) Chavez’s thuggocracy may be more enduring.

As Daniel Yergin has argued, the Soviet Union’s inevitable economic collapse was forestalled by perhaps 20 years by their enormous wealth in natural resources. The entire economy was otherwise in free-fall, but, particularly after the Arab-Israeli wars in the 1960s and 70s, and thanks to economically thriving and therefore energy hungry Western democracies, a few marginally operated oil fields were able to keep their entire, fatally flawed economy afloat into the 90s.

Chavez’s emergent dictatorship enjoys such a cat seat today. And with the help of a few leftist politicians, idiot celebrities, trustifarians, and American useful idiots in general, the left’s newest darling dictator may survive to oppress the citizens of his own country longer than even Mugabe has.

From the WSJ:

Vicente Lecuna jabs a wall map of his Santa Isabel ranch so angrily that the map crashes to the floor. “I used to produce 10,000 tons of sugar cane a year,” says the 67-year-old Venezuelan cattleman. “Now it’s zero! Zero!” he shouts.

Two years ago, squatters seized about half of Mr. Lecuna’s 3,000-acre ranch, setting up a cooperative named “Re-Founding the Fatherland.” Far from being evicted, the squatters got loans and tractors from the government of President Hugo Chávez. They then uprooted the sugar cane and decided to try their hand at growing plantains.

“We are building socialism and fighting capitalism!” says co-op leader Juan Nava, standing amid wooden shacks on what used to be Mr. Lecuna’s land…

…Since coming to power, the Chávez government has handed over 8.8 million acres, an area bigger than Maryland, for use by the poor…

…The government bills land reform as a way to make Venezuela self-sufficient in food. But so far, the effect has been to undercut production of beef, sugar and other foods, as productive land is handed to city dwellers with no knowledge of farming. Established farmers and ranchers, fearing their land may be seized next, are cutting investment in their operations to a minimum…

…Scandals have dogged almost every agency involved with Venezuela’s new agricultural development. Fondafa, which is supposed to fund the new co-ops, has the worst reputation. Reinaldo Barrios, a Chávez supporter and municipal official in the town of Zaraza in the main corn-producing region, estimates that $100 million of money intended for farmers was stolen or lost in the last two years.

“Impunity, inefficiency and corruption are destroying the economic and political bases of the country,” he charges. Venezuela’s Congress is doing an investigation. But some high-ranking Chavistas have labeled Mr. Barrios a “counterrevolutionary,” suggesting the inquiry may not go very deep.

This is an almost perfect repeat of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe Land Reform. Land is taken away from the people with the knowledge and resources to manage it and given to the urban poor. In the ensuing frenzy equipment and farm buildings are destroyed. Valuable equipment is scrapped by mobs and sold for a small fraction of its prior economic value. Production collapses.

In the early 1990s Zimbabwe was the largest exporter of agricultural products in Africa. Today the country is dependent on foreign food aid and 45% of the population is malnourished. Life expectancy for women is 34, the lowest in the world.

This month Zimbabwe’s annualized inflation reached 3714%. Last week the country was elected to head the UN’s Commission on Sustainable Development. The UN evidently defines “sustainable development” the same way leftists in the US do - a set of policies designed to starve millions of poor people while kleptocrats make off with any remaining wealth.

Fortunately for Chavez (and unfortunately for his people) the rising value of his oil wealth will temporarily paper-over the unfolding agricultural disaster he has instigated. And never mind about any domestic criticism - he’s also shutting down all domestic free media. From JLWorld:

For years defenders of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have harped on what they described as the domination of the country’s independent media by his opponents — proof, it was said, that Chavez was no dictator. That argument soon will lose all credibility. Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, Venezuela’s most popular television network, almost certainly will go off the air — on Chavez’s personal order.

A lot has been happening in Venezuela the past few months. Having obtained the power to rule by decree from a rubber-stamp congress, Chavez has nationalized telecommunications and electricity companies, taken over oil fields developed by multinationals, and formed a single pro-regime political party. For Venezuelans, however, the loss of RCTV will be the greatest shock. For 53 years the television network has been a national institution, counted on for its wildly popular soap operas and variety shows as well as for its news coverage. It was on RCTV that Venezuelans saw Neil Armstrong step onto the moon in 1969, the first live-from-satellite broadcast in the country’s history.

Much has been written about the convergence of ideals and rhetoric between Radical Islam and the left. This convergence is treated as something of a curiosity - that the ostensibly liberal and secular left would align with a reactionary religious movement seems counterintuitive.

This piece in today’s WSJ is typical:

There were plenty of leftish people in the 20th century who excused communism, but they could at least say that communism was a left-wing idea. Now overwhelmingly and everywhere you find people who scream their heads off about the smallest sexist or racist remark, yet refuse to confront ultra-reactionary movements that explicitly reject every principle they profess to hold.

The author attempts to explain the apparent contradiction in the alliance between what should be diametrically opposed ideologies. He identifies specific factors that may have influenced the left’s attitude toward Radical Islam: multiculturalism; pervasive belief that Iraq is a disaster; rising antipathy towards the US’ growing cultural and economic influence; visceral hatred of George Bush.

The article is well reasoned, but its completely off the mark. There is no contradiction in the convergence of the left and Radical Islam. Their respective core beliefs are identical -both represent the negation of classical liberalism.

On every important point the left stands in opposition to liberalism:

• Group rights vs individual liberty
• Central planning vs free enterprise
• Race laws vs race blind institutions
• Speech codes vs free expression
• Obscurantism vs open inquiry
• Influence vs merit
• Majority absolutism vs individual rights

These are the core beliefs of the modern left, and on every point they align with Radical Islam.

Orwell wrote near the end of WWII:

…there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmited motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism.

Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of western countries…

…All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty.

What Orwell wrote of pacifists then applies equally well to the left today.

Observers in the 1930s were similarly perplexed with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the formal alliance between Soviet Bolshevism and German National Socialism in 1939. There should have been no mystery at all. The two systems were in direct competition but shared the same ultimate goal: annihilation of individual liberty. It is rarely recalled how fascinated some prominent American leftists were with Hitler and his confiscatory economic programs in the 1930s.

Hayek wrote in 1944:

The Nazi and the Communists are cut from the same cloth. Both ideologies lead to the same end: Totalitarianism.

In 2002 Margaret Thatcher wrote a piece in the Guardian titled Islamism is the New Bolshevism. From that article:

Islamic extremism today, like bolshevism in the past, is an armed doctrine. It is an aggressive ideology promoted by fanatical, well-armed devotees. And, like communism, it requires an all-embracing long-term strategy to defeat it.

And just as Bolshevism won accolades from the left in its day, so Radical Islam finds sympathizers on the left now.

The left today applauds coercive regimes in Cuba and Venezuela, and sees liberal democracies like the US and UK as the real source of evil in the world. The only two countries where large numbers of Arab Muslims can vote in authentic elections, Iraq and Israel, are the states the left most wants reformed or destroyed.

The definition of the term “liberal” has been so perverted in the US that it now used in place of the opposite of its formal definition. Occasionally someone from abroad comes to remind us of the true meaning of liberalism. From a recent Hirsi Ali interview:

I consider myself nonpartisan, but I’m a liberal—not in the American sense, because Americans seem to refer to communists as liberals.

50 years ago this champion of women’s rights and confessional freedom might have been welcomed by self identified liberals in America. Today she finds her home among their foils.

Marxist thug and hero of the American Left Hugo Chavez may be less popular at home  than some believe. From today’s NY Sun:

Astonishing as it may seem to Americans who believe the contention by Mr. Chavez that he won both elections by a landslide — 58% to 42% in the recall and 61% to 39% in the presidential election — the studies show that since 2003, Mr. Chavez has added 4.4 million favorable names to the voter list and “migrated” 2.6 million unfavorable voters to places where it was difficult or impossible for them to vote.

None of these additions or migrations to the voter-register has been independently audited in Venezuela. Instead, the votes have been electronically counted by Chavez cronies. So when Mr. Chavez announces a landslide, there has been no way to prove otherwise, even though exit polls and other data have consistently shown that half the voters of Venezuela or more oppose Mr. Chavez.

The article goes on to note Jimmy’s Carter Center regularly endorses Venezuelan elections without any serious audit and despite credible protests from opposition and other international observers.

The American Left feigns conniptions whenever an election here doesn’t go their way, claiming all manner of ballot-box stuffing, voter intimidation and the like. Yet they’re conspicuously silent when one of their model regimes abroad undertakes the most overt election fraud. Perhaps they doth protest too much, actually admiring strongmen like Chavez who take power by force while feeling only contempt for genuinely elected leaders.

Even the NYT is picking up the storyline of the collapsing Venezuelan economy. We’ve written on it recently here and here. From the 2/17/07 NYT.

Entering a supermarket here is a bizarre experience. Shelves are fully stocked with Scotch whiskey, Argentine wines and imported cheeses like brie and Camembert, but basic staples like black beans and desirable cuts of beef like sirloin are often absent. Customers, even those in the government’s own Mercal chain of subsidized grocery stores, are left with choices like pork neck bones, rabbit and unusual cuts of lamb.

On 2/16/07 dirckthenoorman.com compared Venezuela’s land reform program to that of Zimbabwe. This NYT source agrees:

“It is surreal that we’ve arrived at a point where we are in danger of squandering a major oil boom,” said José Guerra, a former chief of economic research at Venezuela’s central bank, who left Mr. Chavez’s government in 2004. “If the government insists on sticking to policies that are clearly failing, we may be headed down the road of Zimbabwe.”

Back to that price fixing.

Those in the food industry argue that the price controls prevented them from making a profit after inflation rose and the value of Venezuela’s currency plunged in black market trading in recent weeks. The bolívar, the country’s currency, fell more than 30 percent to about 4,400 to the dollar in unofficial trading following Mr. Chávez’s nationalization of Venezuela’s main telephone company, CANTV, and its largest electric utility, Electricidad de Caracas.

And ruining your currency is not all just about the fun of destroying all personal savings and thrusting everyone into government dependence. It also impacts your ability to do commerce with the outside world.

Regardless of efforts to stop illicit currency trading, the weaker bolívar has made imported food, fertilizers and agricultural equipment more expensive. Venezuela, despite boasting some of South America’s most fertile farmland, still imports more than half its food, largely from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and the United States.

I’d like to know which “economists” the NYT is sourcing for the this passage.

Mr. Chávez also said he would raise subsidies for state-owned grocery stores. Economists say such subsidies, together with hefty loans to farmers, have allowed the price controls to function relatively well until recent weeks.

Somehow the collectivists at the NYT still cannot grasp what is underway in Venezuela. They have been late to cover the painfully obvious signs of economic collapse, and even now they look for the silver lining.

For now, Venezuela remains far from any nightmarish economic meltdown. The country, which has the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East, is still enjoying a revenue windfall from historically high oil prices, resulting in a surge in consumer spending and lavish government financing for an array of social welfare and infrastructure programs. Dollar reserves at the central bank total more than $35 billion.

Riiiight. The currency is losing all value, private property is being seized, “Committees of Social Control” are stalking the countryside for price control violators, but still things aren’t all that bad. At least “lavish government financing for an array of social welfare” programs is intact.

The NYT doesn’t mention that Chavez has been a darling of the American Left for sometime, with characters like Senator Dodd, Jimmy Carter, and Joe Kennedy III tripping over each other to offer praise for Venezuela’s enlightened leftist policies.