From CNA

Caracas, Oct 26, 2007 / 10:41 am (CNA).- The vice president of the Bishops’ Conference of Venezuela, Archbishop Roberto Luckert, has called on the leader of the National Assembly, Cilia Flores, to clarify what the definition of the State and the government is according to Chavez’s proposed constitutional reform. If the two concepts are confused, the archbishop said, “then we are dealing with a Caribbean version of the French sun king (Louis XIV), in which the State was the king. Likewise, in this reform it would seem the State is Hugo Chavez.”

Archbishop Luckert said the Chavez reforms would make Venezuela a Socialist state, in contrast to the federal and democratic state established by the previous constitution. He warned that the model for this new state is Cuba, but he said Venezuelans would not allow themselves “to be trampled like Cuba was, because they came out of the Batista dictatorship only to fall into Fidel’s. We still have a little bit of freedom to discern, to choose a different Venezuela because we do want a different one, but one that is under democracy and not repression,” he said.

The archbishop said Venezuelans should learn from the example of Cuba, which he called “a failed island” which young people seek to escape from, “because they are not happy with that system and the repressive oppression of that nation.”

The Catholics in Venezuela have been increasingly targeted by Chavez’s regime with one archbishop warning that Chavez’s regime will cause a civil war in future as the people becoming increasingly oppressed:

Konigstein, Sep 4, 2007 / 10:49 am (CNA).- The Venezuelan government is increasingly interfering with Catholic education, leading to divisions across the country and possibly paving the road for a civil war.

A Catholic priest and headmaster of a Catholic school in Venezuela has expressed his fear that the government will confiscate Church schools and health facilities as part of its nationalization program of the education and health systems.

He also cited that his activity in the school is increasingly threatened. The state has increasingly been exerting influence on the subject matter of the teaching, he alleged, adding that the schools were now compelled to use state-approved teaching materials and indoctrination was constantly on the increase.

Just as prolific, are deliberate campaigns to denigrate the Catholic Church in the public mind. The government has continued to vilify and attack the Church in the person of her representatives, the bishops and priests, the priest told the international Catholic pastoral charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). The state was adopting an “increasingly aggressive tone,” he said, and there was a “dramatically deepening gulf between the Church and the government.”

According to him, the divisions in Venezuelan society between opponents and supporters of the policies of President Hugo Chavez have never been as profound as they are today. A division in society is never good, he said, but if such a situation were to grow worse, and people were to become too impatient, it could even degenerate into a civil war, he explained. But even without such an extreme outcome, he still believes that difficult times are coming to Venezuela and to the Catholic Church in this country.

The Church has been targeted because of their official position of opposing totalitarianism and Marxism. A brave position to take, but as Chavez’s neo-Communist economic policies take their inevitable toll the government will be looking for enemies to distract people from how quickly the tin pot dictator is running their country into the ground.

The Catholics don’t need more enemies, the Church in Iraq is under siege, Catholics and other Christians continue to be terrorized by Muslims in Gaza and Christians in Egypt have said their religious freedom is being withheld from them.

Some good news for my Catholic friends though, three Irish Anglican Churches have petitioned to join the Holy See. Seems they are fed up with the liberal politics passed off as theology in much of European protestantism.

If only they’d become Americans, we could really get excited.

Ecrisis is reporting a real life “wag the dog” operation by Communist dictator Hugo Chavez in concert with other members of the Bolivarian Axis aimed at destabilizing Columbia:

The Editors of ECRISIS privately expressed our revulsion of the latest abuse of integrity to try to launch a fake show of anti-USA and anti Colombian sentiments through paid caravans of reprehensibly, falsely described so called “refugees” from Colombia who were victims of a nation, Colombia, currently encouraging sustained tranquility, rising living standards, and economic liberties. Such victimhood has become the envy of Latin America to the point where Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa have taken to staging fake international incidents and massive propaganda activities to willfully mislead, cravenly debase principled actions, and slanderously lie about international issues.

To be sure, anyone who actually trusts Chavez and Correa have only themselves to blame these days inasmuch as both avatars of abusing public trust are now well known liars. But apparently, the United Nations fell for the big lie that victims of the Uribe war against narcoterrorists were earnestly fleeing Colombia costing the UN not only what little remains of their integrity but a whole lot of money. Read the tale here.

And this money should be refunded to the UN for expenses laid out for a fake crisis which only existed in the minds of the pro FARC, anti Uribe, anti USA activists littering Venezuela, Washington, D.C., and Ecuador these days. No one doubts the gullibility of UN and OAS officials and their proclivity to do anything they can to lend credence to anyone standing proudly with the UN for more confusion and more propaganda. But at some point, one must pause and revisit the Clinton era movie called Wag the Dog with Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffman. Of course this movie told the story of a U.S. president who staged a fake refugee crisis in a distant Serbian type nation to distract from news of his own private sexual romps. There are distinctions. While no one has ever videotaped any U.S. president in a bi sexual romp in a cheesey hotel north of Quito or videotaped any U.S. cabinet official planning bond market manipulations to cause harm to investors, we can notate that neither Correa nor Chavez are Bill Clinton, ostensibly the man in a self made mess of the moment in Wag the Dog. We also remind that Clinton was impeached but not removed. Ecuadoreans however cannot even get their facts on the table due to the hefty doses daily of propaganda and lawlessness, called lack of law enforcement, in Ecuador today by Correa’s hand. As matters have unfolded of late, we can only ponder who was hosting a film review of this ten year old movie for directorial tips to dictatorial twits.

In other words, Correa and Chavez staged a fake refugee crisis and now have no one to blame but themselves as their little lie has been exposed.

In fact, once again it took Alvaro Uribe to relay the facts that Chavez and Correa staged a very expensive, fake propaganda event and abused over 1600 Colombians. We can only insist that Ecuador and Venezuela refund Colombia for all the trouble and we hope that Uribe presents them with a bill for expenses. A slander and libel suit would not be a bad idea. An even better idea is to insure that all pro FARC actors have their tax free status ended for this latest fake crisis. We do not reward organizations for their success in lying. We are supposed to reward them for integrity of service to mankind: not duplicity as is the case.

It’s a bold move by the new axis, whose leader has purchased 1000 Dragnov sniper rifles along with millions of dollars worth of high end military equipment. A resurgent Communist bloc, this time right at America’s back door is bad enough, but the Bolivarian Axis is becoming more and more hostile and militaristic and if they remain on their present course will ignite a regional conflict that nobody in the Western Hemisphere wants.

Hat tip Western Hemisphere Policy Watch and Once Upon a Time in the West who are both keeping track of all things Bolivarian, they’re worth your time to read if your concerned about the new threat to our borders. Ecrisis, Vcrisis and Publis Pundit are required reading for keeping track of Latin America’s communist takeover.