Reply #19: Just cuz so many other

[Truth2Tell]

alleged democracies do the same thing doesn't necessarily make it right. After all, it's in times of emergency that human rights and civil liberties are most at risk and most require protection.

I really like a lot of what Chavez is doing in VZ, especially keeping the filthy, exploitive claws of the international vultures out of the country's oil business and central bank. But I worry that the authoritarianism - however understandable and overblown - will backfire and damage the prospects for successful reform. This doesn't make Chavez "bad" in my view, just complicated - like most revolutionaries.