by Zach Bigalke

Created on: November 30, 2007

Americans are quick to jump at any opportunity to label foreign leaders whose policies do nothing to help the United States as dictators. These blessed individuals, living in a land where citizens seemingly have to do nothing to keep their government afloat, are of the misguided belief that any yahoo who shows strong leadership and overwhelming popular support must be coercing his citizenry into such blind fealty. With overbearing apathy and abject skepticism sweeping through the American populace as it pertains to politics, it seems absurd to these teeming masses that any political leader could be anything but a crook and a dictator.

Merriam-Webster intones that a dictator is "one holding complete autocratic control" over his charges. In a dictatorial society, there is no room for the voice of anyone other than the totalitarian leader. Any society where rulers and referenda are placed before the citizenry for a popular vote, by definition, does not place complete autocratic control in the hands of one man, woman or ruling class. Despite the obvious, Americans are quick to deride rulers whose rule they perceive as dictatorial... often as American rulers themselves become more autocratic.

In Venezuela, there is one particular leader who has scared the bejeezus out of Americans - Hugo Chavez. Chavez started on the road toward the presidency as a soldier in the Venezuelan military. In 1992, a planned coup attempt on Caracas failed, sending Chavez to prison for the next two years. After his 1994 pardon, Chavez turned toward political action as a more effective means of spreading his message to the populace than proved his coup plans. His personal policy renovations paid off handsomely on 06 December 1998 when he was elected the new president of Venezuela with 56 percent of the 6.5 million votes cast.

His policies since entering the presidential office have been geared toward putting power back in the hands of individual citizens, scaling back the overbearing powers and privileges granted to corporate interests by previous administrations. He implemented policies which placed control of oil and other money-generating sectors back into the hands of the federal government, scaling back privatization set into action by the previous president. He worked to improve literacy rates and education among high-school dropouts and never-educated adults. Yet, at the same time, he certainly did attempt to consolidate power into the executive branch of the government. But the difference

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