Freedom Ends in Venezuela

The AP calls it major change. Call it what it is: Communism. The champion of the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the leftwing nitwits in the United States is ready to wreck his country. Farewell freedom.

Hugo Chavez has just about everything a president could want: popular support, a marginalized opposition, congress firmly on his side and a booming economy as he starts his new six-year term.

Now, he's about to become even more powerful — the all-Chavista National Assembly is poised to approve a "mother law" as early as Wednesday enabling him to remake society by presidential decree. In its latest draft, the law would allow Chavez to dictate measures for 18 months in 11 broad areas, from the "economic and social sphere" to the "transformation of state institutions."

Chavez calls it a new era of "maximum revolution," setting the tone for months of upheaval as he plans to nationalize companies, impose new taxes on the rich and reorient schools to teach socialist values. With near-religious fervor and plenty of oil wealth, Chavez is mobilizing millions of Venezuelans, intent on creating a more egalitarian society.

For now, the economy is flush with oil money and business is brisk at Caracas shopping malls. But among whistle-blowing anti-Chavez protesters, middle-class retiree Teresa Cifontes grimaces at what she sees coming: "Within one year, complete communism."

Cifontes, 65, is so dismayed at the changes that she can't tolerate Chavez's admirers — even within her own family. Her nine brothers and sisters all used to attend family get-togethers, but now three no longer come because their Chavismo sparks heated arguments.

"They're blind," she says bitterly. "What he's forming is a dictatorship."

The damage done to Venezuela will be irrevocable.