This week, Evo Morales nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas industry.

He didn’t do it as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez did, by a hundred kisses of law, order, and win-win “people’s” baloney, but in the old 1960S style: with guns and goons.

Like a pirate, he confiscated the assets of others and called them his own. Then he demanded that the rest of the world like it. This thug creates no value, produces no product. All he does is take from others. Brazil, Argentina, Spain and indirectly, Chile, were most affected. In that, he struck out at his best potential allies in order to take their stuff. Why did he do that? Because, in my opinion, he had the power to do it and naivo that he is, wanted to be just like his little friends, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

Morales and Chavez deny that they colluded of course, and it might even be true, because that was one hell of a crude takeover. It does not resemble Venezuela’s drip drip drip nationalization, (just ‘style’ as Chavez said), but something far more aggressive.

Chavez and Morales have dissociated themselves from one another is because a whole lot of people in Bolivia don’t like the looks of this.

There are seven notable essays in the media and the blogosphere about this, all of which shed light on what’s going on around this issue. Here is the brief roundup:

In a dazzling essay, Alvicho of Off Topic questions whether Morales really wins in this measure. He’s essentially swapping investment for a crude revenue stream that inevitably will fail him. It’s a don’t miss here.

Not to be outdone, Daniel at Venezuela News & Views reports, in a truly brilliant essay, that he’s skeptical of the idea that Chavez ordered Morales to do this. He says there were domestic reasons for it as well as international ones. But what’s truly notable he says, is that Chavez is losing the quest for dominance in the hemisphere. He’s going to be the big loser in this. It’s an incisive and penetrating analysis — one of his best — that can be read here.

Miguel Centellas at Ciao! has two excellent items that no one has so much as touched in the press, noting the extent to which YPFB, the Bolivian state oil company, has become a slush fund, and the phenomenon of Bolivia becoming a rentier state, instead of an authentic producer.

Miguel Octavio at Devil’s Excrement has another interesting essay, in it he provides more background on the disintegration of both the MercoSur and the Chavista ALBA trading blocs, something that will have big implications for the Free Trade of the Americas which is catching fire. Read it here.

In the media, Alvaro Vargas-Llosa at Tech Central has a BEAUTIFUL essay on the implications of nationalization for Bolivia, with a special emphasis on Morales’ growing alliance with Chavez and Castro. He points out that Morales has an unusual tendency to pick fights with neighbors and doing this is a sign of further trouble he will create in Bolivia.

Via Real Clear Politics, the Los Angeles Times has an editorial about the impact of nationalization on Morales itself. It’s got a killer lead and is well written. But I don’t agree with its premise, that Morales is only hurting himself by doing this. The fact is, and what makes this all so notable, is that he is hurting Brazil badly.

Lastly, Investor’s Business Daily has an editorial out saying that Morales’ squeeze on its socialist ally Brazil puts paid to rest any notion of socialist brotherhood in a socialist neighborhood. It’s just amazing that Morales should stick it to Brazil in his first 100 days in office. It also says that Brazil has got to get more assertive with Bolivia because Morales is a predator and tomorrow he will want more. Read it here.

UPDATE: Andres Oppenheimer of The Miami Herald says close to the same thing, but says that the supposed brotherhood of socialists is really just nations pursuing their national interests. He links it to Chavez’s spats with Peru and Uruguay’s effort to break free, too. It’s a very good essay here.