Once again, Hugo Chavez continues to choke the voice of the people.
Riot police used tear gas Wednesday to block hundreds of Venezuelans protesting the latest moves by President Hugo Chavez to concentrate his power. The demonstrators said a blacklist of opposition candidates and a series of socialist decrees are destroying what's left of their democracy.
Though the protest of about 1,000 people chanting "freedom!" was small compared to past marches, there is a growing public outcry over the sidelining of key government opponents ahead of state and local elections in November.
Chavez opponents also are outraged by 26 laws the president just decreed, some of them mirroring the socialist measures voters rejected in a December referendum.
"We said in the referendum that we didn't want that, and now he's put it in the decrees," said protester Josefina Bravo, a 59-year-old who wore a sticker reading "No means no" on her baseball cap. "That's the problem we have: All the powers are concentrated in the president."
This is what I said last November in response to Chavez's troops gunning down student protesters.
Back in May I said,
Chavez is predictably carrying out what America's left habitually accuses Republicans of doing, silencing the opposition with an iron fist. Socialism always ends up having to clamp down on it's critics in order to stay in power, just ask the Cubans.
The clampdown continues, and I promise you it will get worse before it gets better.
I'm really getting tired of being right about Chavez, but such is socialism.
