Comment from Caracas

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After reading all the negative comments about Mr. Weisbrot's article I feel obliged to throw in my own. I am a U.S. citizen who has lived in Venezuela for most of the past 25 years. I have experienced Venezuela B.C. (before Chávez) and after. As a Roman Catholic priest, I lived for eight years in a pressed-cardboard and tin shack?part of a B.C. government housing project built when oil money was pouring into the country.
Anyone who wants to come here with eyes wide open should be able to see the light-years? difference in what has happened here. We have never had more freedom of expression. A stroll past the newsstands in Caracas, a scan of the radio stations, or a look at the television being broadcast would quickly reveal to any unbiased observer that the owners of the mass media here say whatever they want to say about the current government.
Government housing, health and education programs are far better than they have ever been in my 25 years here. Is everything perfect? No. Is there still corruption? Yes, and maybe more than ever because there is more money here than ever. But the situation of the ordinary person in the street cannot in any way be compared with what existed in Venezuela?s B.C.
It would take pages to refute all the untruths that keep running through media, but just to mention one that appears in Batleymuslim?s e-mail: ?what would happen if Obama dictated to all the TV and radio stations in the US they had to carry his weekly broadcast, and those that didn't well they get closed down.? No station here has to carry his weekly broadcast. I only know of one that does?the government?s principal station. (Maybe there are a couple more government associated channels that carry it. I?ll check on that this Sunday. But there are about a hundred on regular cable that don?t. Besides that, the government channels are not strong enough to cover all areas of the country.) I don?t wish to belittle Batleymuslim in any way as a person entitled to express an opinion. However, I think it is a good example of the junk that the media serves every day and influences the attitude of people like Batleymuslim.