Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Government land theft in Venezuela starting to rankle business

AP via NY Times:

A Venezuelan governor ordered the seizure of a plant owned by the country's largest food company Monday, the latest move in the federal government's land reform program.

Hugo de los Reyes Chavez, father of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and governor of the southwestern Barinas state, said the expropriation was justified because the plant was no longer being used.

Seizure of the plant owned by Ramavenca, an affiliate of Venezuelan food giant Alimentos Polar, exacerbated already tense ties between the government and business groups.

...

With backing from a legislature packed with his political allies, Chavez approved a law in 2001 that allows the state to seize private property.

So far, the government has claimed 21 ranches across the country under a program that aims to turn over to poor farmers lands that officials say aren't being put to adequate use or that lack documents to prove ownership as far back as 1847.

Soldiers have been deployed recently to enforce the state's claims to properties, while opposition leaders have called for demonstrations to protest.

...

Opponents of Chavez argue the former army lieutenant colonel is steering this poverty-stricken South American nation of 26 million toward Cuba-style communism.

Chavez denies it, saying he has always supported democracy and is attempting to move Venezuela toward a socialist economy, but not copying Cuba's system.

I better case can be made that he is imitating the economic idiocy of Mugabe who has turned Zimbabwe from the breadbasket of Africa to a basket case. The people he is giving the land to are not poor becuase they do not have land. They will be poor with land given to them. They still do not have the capitol resouces to make the land productive, even if they had the knowledge, which they also lack. The US seems blessed by having enemies who make their people poorer and their countries weaker. All those wackos out there who had capitalism and the US keep on hating capitalism, because your hatrel will make you poor.