American leftists seem not to notice, but Hugo Chavez’s “21st Century Socialism” is not going as planned. I have written extensively on the horror Chavez is forcing his people through.

Here’s a sample of my writings:

Chavez has packed the courts with cronies, gotten rid of term limits, increased executive power and it is not enough for Chavez to use the state media as a propaganda arm and intimidate state employees into voting for his policies, the tyrant is now going after opponents so as to render them entirely impotent.

During his campaign to end term limits, Chavez youth supporters held up equally young opposition activists at gun point.

Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez - who first attempted to come to power through a failed coup attempt against a democratic government - recently went on a crusade accused all those who opposed him in Venezuela of treason. Ending the idea of a loyal opposition is one of the steps that F.A. Hayek outlines in “The Road to Serfdom.”

Chavez recently won a referendum that would end term limits thus allowing him - if he wins a third term - to say in office beyond January 2013; at which point he will have already marked 14 years in power. Venezuelans previously voted down the term limit ban as part of a referendum constitutional reform bundle in late 2007. But Chavez refused to accept the “No” vote, which he called “shit.”

So, Chavez step up another referendum. He learned his lesson. This time he outlined his anti-democratic measure in almost intelligible language, touted propaganda on T.V., radio, public building, and even on the metro; and forced all 3 million state employees to rally support for his referendum or else be fired.

Chavez is promising the people of Venezuela a new order. But we have heard this call before, from Castro, Stalin, Mao, ect... Every time some tyrant raises and promises his people a new utopia people end up suffering.

Venezuela’s would be wise to heed the words of the German philosopher Holderlin: “What has always made the state a hell on Earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.”

Whatever it is that the Venezuelan people thought they were voting for on Sunday, they will come to pay a great price for it as they march on the “road to serfdom.”

Now, The Economist reports on just how well his socialism is doing:

The government’s answer to years of persistent inflation has been price controls and Mercal, a state-owned and subsidised grocery chain that offers a limited selection of staples at discounts of up to 40%. But Mercal’s sales fell by more than 11% in the first five months of this year, partly because of store closures and distribution problems.

“Every day, things get a little tighter,” said Migdalia Pérez, a community activist in Catia, a working-class district of 500,000 people in western Caracas. “And it’s been a while since we’ve had a Mercal around here.” Near Propatria metro station, a dozen Mercal employees sit idle by the door of the local branch. They insist it is being “refurbished”. Locals say it opens only when an occasional shipment of imported chicken arrives. Smaller corner shops known as Mercalitos which devote some shelf-space to subsidised goods are also closing down. “It’s not profitable,” says José Cabrita, who owned one. “They don’t allow you any margin.” He adds that supplies were erratic.

The most popular of Mr Chávez’s social misiones is Barrio Adentro, which includes a network of primary-health centres initially staffed by thousands of Cuban doctors. But many of these have also closed. Poorer Venezuelans must rely on rundown public hospitals, which have been starved of funds under Mr Chávez. Mr López, the bricklayer, says that when he broke his wrist in an industrial accident, “it took three months to fix it, and I had to buy the metal pins myself.”

Poor Venezuelans, the people with misplaced idealism put Chavez in poor, are going without proper nutrition. People has established popular support through largess. But as his supporters go hungry, their empty stomachs will not be filled with speeches about the evil of “oligarchs”. But that doesn’t mean Chavez won’t try. As usually he seeks to distract the Venezuelan people by pretending that all the problems are due to so-called oligarchs and treats middle-class and wealthy Venezuelans as if they are intolerable. He recently called the rich “animals in human form” and “the boss of Caracas’s metro system announced a review of a new line already under construction, with the probable scrapping of two stations. He argued that since these were in middle-class areas they would “benefit the oligarchy” who all have cars anyway.” So the rich are now not worthy of public transport. All this vilification could bred dangerous action.

Why is this guy still not isolated by the rest of Latin America?