Good topic, Kojac and good to see some objective questioning about Hugo Chavez. I have followed Chavez for the last 5 years and quite honestly, seems to me that he's doing good things for Venezuela, trying to develop true democracy there and raise the standard of living for the people, which he's doing. He has wiped out illiteracy to the point of 0% illiteracy in Venezuela. He was democratically elected in all of his elections and that is proved by having a huge number of objective observers from agencies such as Jimmy Carter's human rights watch group. The U.S. staged a coup against him back in 2002 or so, threw him out of office, but the people loved him so much they rioted in the streets and brought him back into office. He has offered free eye care and oil for poor Americans. I've read countless articless where the author starts out disliking Chavez and ends up, after doing some research, respecting and admiring him.

-Forestlady

Chavez isn't stupid, he is using the idea of free health care and other public good deeds to help consolidate his own power base. Lets see if he will abide by their constituition and leave office at the end of his term or if he will have it rewritten to allow himself to stay in office as long as he wants.

As for the US invasion, he makes that claim dozens of times a year. He is just using that as an excuse to hold his power. Just as Bush uses fear factors, that is what Chavez is doing. It only takes a person with the ability to see through the BS to see what he is up too.