On 19/12/2010 06:49 a.m., Publius Maximus wrote: > http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1729156220101217 > > - - - > CARACAS, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Venezuela's parliament gave President Hugo > Chavez decree powers for 18 months on Friday, outraging opposition > parties that accused him of turning South America's biggest oil > producer into a dictatorship. > > The move consolidated the firebrand socialist leader's hold on power > after nearly 12 years in office, and raised the prospect of a fresh > wave of nationalizations as the former paratrooper seeks to entrench > his self-styled "revolution." > > Chavez had asked for the fast-track powers for one year, saying he > needed them to deal with a national emergency caused by floods that > drove nearly 140,000 people from their homes. > > But the Assembly, which is dominated by loyalists from his Socialist > Party, decided to extend them for a year and a half. > - - - > > Ah, Democracy! > > The outgoing Congress has cleverly concealed many subtle and > not-so-subtle power-grabbing instruments in Baby Raila's executive > toolbox in the tens of thousands of unread pages of legislation they > rammed through in the last 2 years, the climax of which would have > been the Omnibus Budget bill that, by the grace of God, went down in > flames. > > But Barry knows it's now unlikely that he can outright declare himself > dictator a la Chavez, which is why he's so glum and decided to just > enjoy the perks of the office and let everyone else do the heavy > lifting for him (letting Bubba enjoy another 15 minutes of > megalomaniacal fame with the White House Press Corps last week so he > could go to a party was a surreal but nonetheless case-in-point > example of this).
It's funny how you cheer for the application of the law, be it the immigration laws, property laws, etc. But at the same time whenever the laws go against your views/convenience you immediately vote to subvert them. You can't have it both ways, either you submit to the law or you submit to the law of the claw. Choose! As for Chavez, even though I don't like him a bit, he is the ELECTED president of Venezuela. And if you'd read the article you'd noticed that PARLIAMENT gave him those decree powers. So it is within the law. And Chavez, like it or not, has played by the rules, he even stepped back when a plebiscite went against his plans. He respected the will of the people, are you willing to be less than him? OTOH I always ask myself what have the previous govts done so bad that the Venezuelan people chose Chavez and gave him parliamentary majority over them. They must have angered the Venezuelan people a lot to loose in such a way. _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
