No, no, the article got it all wrong. America is the country sliding towards socialism!

I mean we have mandatory price caps right? Wait we don't? Ok then what is with this teabagger bullshit about socialism all about?

@1, I think the thing to take away from this article isn't so much the obvious stupidity of teabaggers, but that people who support Chavez and think he's doing right by "the people" are just as stupid as teabaggers.

The response may be a lot more severe, but is the rhetoric really that different from what many in politics and the media here use to describe increases in health insurance rates?
Oh, wait he is a "small" business owner. Nobody here hates small businesses. nm

Sadly, the election Chavez "faces" is likely to be rigged. Chavez is a tinpot Stalin who has turned a democracy-with-problems into a dictatorship-with-bigger-problems. Sad.

Venezuela's soccer team sucks.

@3

agreed. I'm so fucking sick of this guy. and I am so fucking sick of lefty Americans who think he's awesome.

Yeah, communism is SOOOO much more humanitarian than capitalism...

Too bad the failed Bush-backed coup managed to elevate Chavez' standing with working Venezuelans to virtual sainthood long enough for him to grant himself virtually unlimited executive power.

Back when the "legitimate opposition" was mostly a thinly-veiled astroturf movement backed by oil companies eager to de-nationalize the oil industry and U.S. intelligence interests seeking to re-assert hegemony people probably didn't object to Chavez' aggressive actions to limit his enemies' actions in the public sphere. Now ceding absolute power to their leader is starting to seem like a bad idea.

I'm sure there's a lesson in this but I can't for the life of me think what it is.