Submitted by Scott Baker, Nov 30, 2007 11:28

Venezuala is in a race to the bottom of the socio-economic heap, perhaps eventually even surpassing Zimbabwe as its octagenerean leader fades from the scene. Oil money notwithstanding, Venezuala is gutting its major industry - oil - which is responsible for over 90% of its income. Corruption, cronyism, Currency devaluation and Crime are the four Cs of the appocolypse that will lead Venezuala to ruin, and more quickly than people imagine. If America finally achieves some sort of energy independence, Venezuala will feel it first and most, since most of their oil is still shipped to the devil-country, us. His President-for-life referendum will probably pass, if only because crooked polling will make it pass, this Saturday. I predict protests, followed by government overreaction, followed by riots. Then, we will see Mr. Chavez's true dictatorial colors. Chavez is actually worse than Castro. At least Castro's power was borrowed from the Soviet Union. Without it, he is a marginally sucessful socialist leader - in that the bar must be lowered for all socialist leaders to begin with. I actually think President Bush has an opportunity here to reapproach Cuba, and he should do so before the Castro brothers leave the scene and chaos ensues. We should be shipping food to Cuba and starting to open up other trade and lefting the travel ban on relatives going in and out of Cuba. While we're at it, let's see if we can learn something about keeping our health care costs low from Cuba; in most measures for most people their health care is about equal to ours. This would not only work toward ending a 50 year embargo that hasn't really worked, it would undermine Chavez. We need to play the game according to our rules, not his.

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