From a reader:

There’s very little that’s ‘liberal’ about Chavez. Populist, socialist, and definitely fascist. It’s rather meritless to highlight the ways Chavez resembles the worst rulers of the 20th century. However, like Che, the American Left adores the man or at least refuse to speak out against him.
Today I saw a story that hearkened back to your book, LF, in that Chavez is now creating official powers for para-government groups.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/03/america/03venez.php
CARACAS, Venezuela: President Hugo Chávez has used his decree powers to carry out a major overhaul of this country’s intelligence agencies, provoking a fierce backlash here from human rights groups and legal scholars who say the measures will force citizens to inform on one another to avoid prison terms. Under the new intelligence law, which took effect last week, Venezuela’s two main intelligence services, the DISIP secret police and the DIM military intelligence agency, will be replaced with new agencies, the General Intelligence Office and General Counterintelligence Office, under the control of Chávez. The new law requires people in the country to comply with requests to assist the agencies, secret police or community activist groups loyal to Chávez. Refusal can result in prison terms of two to four years for most people and four to six years for government employees. “We are before a set of measures that are a threat to all of us,” said Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, a justice on Venezuela’s top court, in a rare public judicial dissent. “I have an obligation to say this, as a citizen and a judge. This is a step toward the creation of a society of informers.”
It causes me to wonder again, what kind of ‘community activist group’ did Obama organize?
The story goes on, paradoxically with Chavez claiming that critics of his domestic decrees are enemies and supporters of the USA Patriot Act here in the US. Then the reporter goes on to compare Venzuela’s new security apparatus to the Patriot Act, asserting they’re actually similar in purpose and function (thus making the US look bad and have it appear that Chavez is merely following in our footsteps) but in doing so contradicts Chavez’ assertion to the contrary.