Intimidate 'em into submission

So Hugo Chavez is a freaking tyrant. A media owner is being targetted for his station being negative about and critical of Chavez. Seriously, this guy is getting bombarded with police raids on his home, probes into his businesses, etc. The Venezuelan government is seeking avenues to prosecute this poor speech-freedom fighter, albeit capitalist.

And Chavez refutes the claims that these government actions are targeting the man for political reasons of suppressing his station's critiques. It's so gross that a head of state can engage in such mafioso-like surreptitiousness. He takes such egregious and nefarious actions--under high public visibility, too--and thinks that just by denying it and acting as though he doesn't know what's going on, he is innocent. People are not stupid; but they are intimidated and I guess they pretend nothing's going on either. It feels like a gang neighborhood--except, like, it's a country!

Here's an interesting quote from the L.A. Times, from which I read this story:

Richard Feinberg, a Latin America national security adviser for President Clinton from 1993 to 1996, says, "There's no question that Chavez routinely uses the vast powers of the state -- including tax collections and various government agencies -- to pinpoint and harass political opponents. There's a very clear pattern of abuse of state powers for political purposes."

I found it enlightening because here, it is recognized that state is not politics--even though in our time, things are so clear-cut ideological and oppositional, and statesmen are so much more concerned about power than the good of the state, that politics and government seem inextricable. Which is sad, because the state is pure. Politics defiles it.

And throughout this text, I've referred to the subject as "the man" because his name I can't remember and I can't spell... Go ahead and look it up in here.