Please note that this is an opinion piece.
When I built my home 17 years ago in a rural area outside Sanare in the western state of Lara, my neighbors were barely eking out a subsistence, digging for potatoes and herding goats and sheep. The only school in town was elementary level, and teachers showed up only two days per week on average. There were no modern modes of transport. If you got sick, you had to walk eight miles to town and get in line at 3 a.m. to be seen by a doctor the next day at the nearest hospital.
Today, that same community has an elementary and secondary school, and a free university that functions on the weekends. Every evening, the university offers adult classes. My neighbors are now doctors, lawyers and teachers. Their younger siblings face few barriers to pursuing their dreams. There are 18 new homes — double the amount before, with approximately the same population — built by the local community council in my enclave. Many of my neighbors have replaced horse sheds with driveways for their vehicles. There is also a free medical clinic, staffed by Cuban doctors and Venezuelan medical students from my community, half a mile down the road.
“For every year of the revolution, I think that everyone has gained a kilo,” said a surprised American visitor, commenting on my neighbor’s plumper physique.
These same stories could be told a thousand times over. If only journalists would actually come to Venezuela and leave their five-star hotels, maybe they would figure out why the country has repeatedly re-elected Chavismo in more than a dozen elections for the last 14 years, in what former U.S. President and democracy observer Jimmy Carter calls “the best electoral system in the world.”
Source: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/3/venezuela-protestsmaduromediapropaganda.html
Most of the news coverage of Venezuela before the elections and the civil insurrection never focused on the positive changes Chavez and Maduro made to the country 15 years since the revolution. Great advancements made in food, medical services, education, economics. The same village that has been destitute and poor, are now rising up to the working-class standards. Living standards for working-class has basically shot through the roof, allowing them more disposable income to contribute to the economy. Even in the National Conference for Peace, held by Maduro, the president of the Polar Group of Companies stated that he actually benefited from the revolution as he gained more customers who can now buy his goods and participate in the economy.
The country, despite rising inflation, insecurity, and shortages of basic goods (all connected to the economic war that has been ongoing since 2004 and state governors aligned with the opposition who has refused to fold their police forces into the Venezuelan National Police Corps) is still actually in the initial stages of socialist democracy. When we mean a socialist democracy, we mean a active economic and political democracy than the passive democracy of most Western States. It is essential that the United States, deal with it's own problems than to interfere with another countries sovereign affairs. Besides the United States has much problems dealing with economic and social inequality in it's own borders.
