By Andrew L. Jaffee

President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to take over any private schools refusing to submit to the oversight of his socialist government, a move some Venezuelans fear will impose leftist ideology in the classroom. …

- Associated Press

First of all, there’s nothing “socialist” about Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan government. Marx and Engels wanted to create a utopian “state in which the working class and poor peasantry exercised direct control on management of industry and society through democratically elected soviets or councils.” Chavez is concentrating all power in his own hands. He’s clamping down on the free press and is paling around with the very anti-Semitic Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Chavez has taken direct control of Venezuela’s oil wealth, as well as the country’s electrical and telecommunications companies. The money will certainly go into his own pockets. Most recently, Chavez has moved to take direct control of Venezuela’s central bank and military, and is busy editing the constitution to make himself president for life.

There is nothing “socialist” going on in Venezuela, just the exploits of another cheap thug following in the Castro/Mugabe/Milosevic tradition: absolute power forever. Will Venezuelan students be able to differentiate between Chavez’s megalomania and Marx and Engels’ teachings?