Informant38

Freedom of the press is dead in totalitarian Venezuela, but alive and well in the democratic United States.

except

...the opposition in Venezuela still broadcasts on more major TV channels than there are channels sympathetic to the government. In stark contrast, the alternative media in the US cannot be viewed on any major channel. Consequently the vast majority of Americans receive all their news from a mainstream media which never questions whether the US has any right to dominate other nations
[...]
The most dramatic increase in social spending was in the area of health care. In 1998 there were over 14,000 Venezuelans for each primary healthcare physician, and few physicians worked in rural or poor urban areas. By 2007 there was one primary healthcare physician for every 1,300 Venezuelans, and many of the new physicians were working in clinics in rural areas and poor barrios that had never had physicians before. There are also now 16,000 stores in poor areas throughout the country selling staples at a 30% discount on average.

Robin Hahnel/Monthly Review 30.Nov.07 > feral scholar