While I am hardly an adherent to the "Hitler was a socialist" numbskullery that pretends there was never a right-wing dictatorship...or at least one you couldn't love, goings on in Venezuela are troubling - especially in how it is characterizing itself:

But this is an upheaval that would be carried out with the approval of the voters. While opinion polls in Venezuela are often tainted by partisanship, they suggest that the referendum could be Mr. Chávez’s closest electoral test since his presidency began in 1999, but one he may well win. "We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means," said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Mr. Chávez. "This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity."

Oil does funny things. It makes Albertans think their state-owned royalty-nationalized windfall wealth is somehow the result of a more purely libertarian society and a product of a greater work ethic. It makes certain adherents to radical Islam think that the oil that gives them wealth that gives them the means to power means that violent puritanical jihad is what God is looking for folks to do to each other. Heck, it made Danny Williams a man.

No, oil is funny stuff. It makes people say things like "The comandante should have more power because he is the force behind our revolution" even though that is the logical equivalent of "All praise Lord Blue Cheese for he brings us the cheese that is most blue." No good comes of that. Prison camps come of that.