"What happens when one side so completely dominates resources that elections are more like a rubber stamp?"

I think it's an interesting question, and deserving of responses more direct than the one I'm writing.

I think there is another danger to democracy: that of complacency and reliance on the status quo, to the point that supposedly opposite political ideals become functionally the same as each other, so that no matter who we vote for, we are doomed to more of the same. In the US, we have a constitution which no one ever reads, and many believe is outdated and irrelevant anyway. We might as well burn the thing. The outright (seeming) irrelevance of the constitution is potentially a large part of the burden we now find ourselves strapped with.

Chavez has manipulated his small corner of the planet into accepting/bulwarking his megalomaniacial fantasy. I hope he enjoys the ride, at least, until the abyss opens up beneath him. Someone once wrote that tyrants rarely perish from tyranny, but that they do perish as a result of building castles that the Earth will not support. Whoever it was said it better than I.

Herring405