Make no mistake about it, there's an all-out war going on out there!

• He had pledged to encourage the influence of civic organizations and neighborhood associations, to enhance grassroots democracy and to do away with the influence of business group lobbyists and to encourage organized labor.

The net result, however, has been to increase instability and roadblock the electorate's capacity to react to new domestic and international realities.  There's a plethora of political actors in the shadow of Chavez, none of them too strong to pose any significant challenge to his power.

• Chavez has now taken to the 4th Republic practice of centralizing access to the State resources.

What we see now is clear favoritism for Chavista Governors and Mayors, while opposition Governors and Mayors are cold-shouldered in their attempts to gain access to statutory funding ... and ... when they fail to respond to the electorate's demands, it's all too easy for the (Chavez) government inevitably to blame the shadows that it has itself engendered by its own failure to accept the democratic will of the people.

Meanwhile the subversive war of corruption, words and platitudes continues...

Roy S. Carson
editor@vheadline.com