Hugo Chavez Needs More Time

[Human]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-re...e/s_436529.html

Hugo's state

 

Sunday, March 26, 2006

 

 

Hundreds of Americans disillusioned by the Great Depression flocked to Josef Stalin's "workers' paradise." Disillusionment set in. And they did not hide it.

Many died in the gulag or were executed -- targeted as foreign subversives and obliterated on the pyre of Stalin's growing paranoia.

 

Today, American leftists are pilgrims to President Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Money from the sale of oil that energizes capitalist-inspired enterprises funds his "Bolivarian Revolution." The curious come as tourists; the committed stay.

 

In the former class was Harry Belafonte, who in a meeting with Mr. Chavez went bananas, proclaiming President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" and later shouted "Viva la revolucion."

 

Others who have passed through include Cindy Sheehan, the spectacularly grieving Gold Star Mother, and Cornel West, a professor of black studies who would rather agitate than teach.

 

Authentic revolutions should have a limited term after which success is apparent. This would attest to the competence of the revolutionaries.

 

In Russia, it was seven decades of revolution until the government collapsed. In Cuba, where Chavez's ally Fidel Castro presides, the revolution has lasted since the late 1950s. Add North Korea and China. What do we see in common? Police states.

 

Chavez has been at the top for only seven years or so. Maybe he'll need more time.