What's Happening in Venezuela?

By Staff Writer Caleb T. Maupin
From the latest issue of Maelstrom

If you listened to the TV news in this country, you would believe that all Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution have done in Venezuela is shut down newspapers and had their president call Bush “the devil,” but actually many interesting things that our media is not sharing with us are going on in Venezuela, many of them involve protecting the environment as well as human life.

1. Venezuela’s not-for-profit bank is giving $268 million dollars in loans to the developing world.

2. Venezuela has created a national committee of the homeless which is building new collective homes and eradicating homelessness.

3. Venezuela just invested $3 Billion into alternative energy products, even though their major export is oil.

4. Venezuela has reduced poverty by 40%.

5. Venezuela is currently giving free heating oil to poor citizens of the United States.

6. Venezuela is regulating food prices, to make sure all Venezuelans can afford to eat.

7. Venezuela is transitioning to a People’s Police Force, which is accountable to the people.

8. Since the transition to Socialism in Venezuela began, infant mortality rates in Venezuela have been reduced by 10%.

9. Venezuela is decentralizing the media, and funding community media projects, democratizing the airwaves.

10. Venezuela recently opened 200 factories which are collectively owned, not by the government, but by workers councils.

11. Venezuela is constructing “Socialist Universities” which are controlled by the communities in which they are located.

12. Venezuela is giving land titles back to indigenous communities.

13. Venezuela now has five “Socialist Cities” or communes in which production is carried out on a strictly socialist basis.

14. Venezuela has over 18,000 Communal Councils, which are playing an increasing role in running the government.

15. Venezuela has taken the phone companies into public hands, and reduced telephone costs by 20%.

16. Venezuela has raised their minimum wage by 20%.

17. Venezuela has passed massive laws protecting the rights of the disabled.

18. Venezuela built its first new rail-road in 70 years.

19. The Venezuelan Government is organizing a program to fund the arts and build a community of artists.

20. Venezuela is funding feminist edu-cation projects for young women.

21. The Venezuelan Government has created a “Mission Cienca” which fund scientific research for non-corporate interests.

22. Venezuela has carried out massive land redistribution in the countryside.

The source for all this information is www.venezuelanalysis.com, a website I rec-ommend. Yes, it seems not everything that Hugo Chavez has lead Venezuela in doing is negative.

REPRINTED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE MAELSTROM STAFF