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People power rules in S. America***South Americans are both emboldened and disenchanted with democracy, analysts say. On one hand, the region's democracies have been unable to meet public expectations, with many leaders switching to austerity measures from the free-spending rhetoric of the campaign trail. On the flip side, mass demonstrations against government policies were unheard of during decades of strongman rule. Democracies, however flawed and fragile, allow people to express their discontent. But, some analysts warn, the pendulum may have swung too far in the other direction.

"In some ways these protests represent the voice of the people, who are mobilizing against unpopular measures," says Luis Nunes, Peru director for the US-based National Democratic Institute. "But they are a dangerous interpretation of democracy. In South America we cannot have revolving-door presidencies. This isn't what democracy means."***

Castro's fine hand is behind many of the current events in Latin American countries which had, until now, seemed as if they were going to try to abandon socialism and actually become modern, functioning capitalist democracies.

For one thing, Cuba serves as a very active training center for leftist "activists" who then go out to the rest of Latin America; for another, Castro gets a free pass from the Dems for anything he does. I think part of the reason that the turn to the left occurred when it did - starting right at the end of Clinton's tenure in office - was that the US appeared to be regarding Castro's Cuba as not such a bad deal after all. Everything from the admiring comments of Carter and others to the handing over of Elian left our allies in Latin America very confused and feeling, I think, without support.

And in my opinion, Bush's one big foreign policy blunder will prove to be not having aggressively supported the Venezuelans when they got Chavez out for that brief moment a couple of years ago. He made a personal statement and then immediately backed down on it, and since then the US has done nothing to support the Venezuelan opposition.

Chavez is Castro, but younger and with 30 more years of mischief ahead of him, and worse still, on the mainland where he is busy infecting every country around him.