> By the way, contra Carrol and others who believe the guy is deftly
> accomplishing his actual goals, Obama's political behavior as president
> could be similarly explained. Xe Services and people like that can be
> scary. That said, I admit it is very hard to establish empirically the
> plausibility of explanations of this type. I'm not making any assertion,
> but we should consider these factors as well.
This exceeds my daily post quota, but I'll add that this is not something that affects politicians in the U.S. alone. This is kind of obvious, but it's clear that on April 14, 2002, when he had just been snatched by the presidential guard from the grip of the golpistas, without much information in his hands, Chavez was not as self assured as he appeared later on. Because he didn't know yet the extent of the betrayal among the armed forces, how fragile or robust his return to power would be, etc. That is how social power -- economic, political, military, etc. -- works. *Social* power being the ability of some people to make others do things for them; as opposed to productive power (or productive force, the ability of people to transform the rest of nature into wealth), which is the ultimate source of all power. Anyway, that is why we need to build alternative structures, organizations, etc. and conquer the power of the state.