Following the toppling of at least five statues of the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez, angry mobs startled the ruling regime by burning down Chávez's childhood home, set up as a shrine to his socialist revolution by his supporters. It surely takes the anger and bitterness in the streets to another level.  We no longer hear much in the way of restraining voices for nonviolence in that socialist hellhole.  The mob has taken over, and the monuments are beginning to topple. It's a sign of a growing civil war, in fact, and like most such events, it could be very bloody.  In the midst of the largely nonviolent Velvet Revolutions of Eastern Europe in 1989, the sorry end of the region's worst dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu, was the exception – dragged from his palace hideaway to some wall by angry rebel troops and summarily shot as crowds cheered. The other Nicholas, Nicolas Maduro, seems to be headed for the same...(Read Full Post)