Why Venezuela Suffers: In Depth Look at Hugo Chavez's Failures

Hugo Chavez Show Watching a Hugo Chavez Sunday "variety show" one can see a radically different kind of presentation by a head of state. The first impression an alert viewer in the United States gets watching a show by Chavez is that he is trying to appeal to the average Venezuelan voter as a down-to-earth person like the "man next door." It is pure propaganda but it obviously succeeded in keeping Chavez in power to do as he wished for several years.

His production: here he is with a hard hat talking about how he will grow the economy; there he is driving a tractor talking about agriculture; he is seen on board a helicopter claiming that Caracas will become the first socialist city; and he waves his arms and raises his voice assuring viewers that the slums will be transformed into productive communities in a few years if people will be patient. It is absolutely misleading and that is what propaganda is designed to do -- mislead and confuse.

But did people believe him? The Frontline program reported that many people did buy into his rhetoric, his stories, his singing, and his attacks on the U.S. And others like the president of Columbia. But it was clear in the video that consumers continued shopping in big malls notwithstanding his ranting against "capitalism" (the "capitalistic curse") and "consumerism," so not everyone bought into his rants. Clearly he wanted to be seen as a cowboy, among the most revered of Venezuelan iconic images.

That image he tried hard to capitalize on, according to the Frontline video. It shows him trying to use a certain iconic Venezuelan image to try and create his own image as an honest, hard-working "cowboy" leader who could be trusted. But of course it was pure pap, a pithy but powerful propaganda tool that dominated television on Sundays. The great majority of people in Caracas live in terrible poverty, according to the Frontline program, and those people listened to Chavez and believed him.

That was the irony as Chavez used oil money to bolster his power. How did he treat his subordinates? He rambles on for hours, according to the video and comments by Alberto Barrera, and his ministers and guests "have to put up with his rambling on for six hours…telling the same joke." He has his cabinet doing foolish things like investigating the death of Simon Bolivar -- wasting time and money -- on an assassination that happened 200 years ago.

He treats his cabinet like they were children, is the answer to that part of the question. When Nelson Mora, an activist paid by the government, told Chavez on television that most of the people in a barrio that were to be moved to a new "socialist city," and that Chavez had been deceived into believing the people did want to move. On live TV Chavez told Mora that he was an infiltrator, and put Mora down.

Freedom of expression is okay as long as it does not come from his supporters who may wish to criticize him. Does he allow others to criticize him?