What Chavez is doing is constitutional. He was given this power by the elected representatives of the people of Venezuela, under the provisions of their constitution. If he nationalizes whatever parts of the oil business aren't already owned by the state, that will be perfectly legal, too. Chavez is a Bolivarian, his long term goal is to unite all South America into a United States of South America, which would be a democracy modeled after the USA, and a world super power, by virtue of it's wealth, population and technology. Is that something we should fear?