Reply #54: Looks like the best bet is the Miami Herald which is sadly, wildly right-wing, pandering, as it does

[Judi Lynn]

to Cuban right-wing reactionary "exiles" whom, as you must know, are completely off the wall!

Here's what the Herald says:

Food shortage sparks Cuba-style rationing

Earlier this year, the government created a distribution network known as Pdval -- financed by the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA -- to solve shortages of groceries like beef, eggs and milk that have sparked long lines in recent months.

According to Asdrubal Chávez, President Hugo Chávez's cousin and the coordinator for Pdval, the distribution centers will now keep a registry of families shopping at each center to ensure that no home receives a ''surplus'' of staple products.

Under the new rationing system, government distribution centers will open at 8 a.m. and each customer will be given a control number that will allow him to shop for food that day. The customer will also fill out a registry card with his name, ID number and the products and quantities to be purchased.
(snip)

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/430874.html

If you don't know about the Miami Herald, please look into the campaign the Cuban "exile" community, under the thumb of Jorge Mas Canosa implemented to intimidate the Herald into bowing to their interests, when they went wild, seeing articles coming out which didn't follow their ideology, and started making death threats to the publisher, David Lawrence, and Herald staff, and taking out huge signs on buses, saying "I don't believe the Herald," and smearing newspaper vending machines throughout the city with feces, then jamming them up with gum.

David Lawrence and his wife started having people check their cars every day for bombs before they would drive them. finally, Lawrence gave up, left, and the Herald, and the Nuevo Herald have ALWAYS done what the right-wingers want, even firing moderate Cubans on staff, like the highly esteemed columnist, Max Castro.

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Were you aware that these government subsidies and offerings at government markets are to HELP the poor in Venezuela? This is not their only way to get food.

The government makes food available to poor Venezuelans at deeply discounted prices, so they can afford more food on their meager incomes. If the government did NOT have these programs available, they would be in the condition they enjoyed all the time up until Hugo Chavez was inaugurated, February 2, 1999. This, even in the worst of times, is an IMPROVEMENT.

There is a war going on between the food retailers and their acceptance of sensible food prices. If you've been watching any of the news on Venezuela, you have to have read that at various times retail merchants arbitrarily have held back on various vital resources to drive up the prices. This has been in practise since LONG BEFORE CHAVEZ was elected. We had an article posted here recently in which the author said it's predictable, they do it every year before Christmas, and he provided background on it.

The government in Venezuela has been putting in new safeguards to help the poor, in a state of transition away from helplessness, hopelessness, to a state of adequate nutrition for everyone. It can only be done in stages. So far they've got programs, or "missions" like this:

VENEZUELA: Nutritious food a 'basic human right'

24 August 2005
Owen Richards

We’re crammed into a small kitchen, maybe three by four metres, with blue concrete walls. Lining the walls are shelves stocked with kitchen basics — string bags of potatoes, garlic cloves, carrots, pumpkins and melons. There’s a bucket of chopped onions. A giant stainless steel pot waits empty on the gas stove. Four women and a man, in matching red aprons, hand-roll fish cakes and banana balls. A tiny wall fan hums in the background.

It could be a kitchen anywhere, but it’s quite different. The members of the Caracas section of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Brigade are here in Guaicaipuro Casa de Alimentaciones on July 29, witnessing firsthand one of the social achievements of the Bolivarian revolution. It is here in this modest house that 150 people come daily to receive two free meals.

There are some 4000 of these kitchens now across Venezuela. They are only possible because of the revolutionary will of the Venezuelan people and the assistance provided by the government of President Hugo Chavez.

Established to guarantee access to nutritious food — particularly for pregnant women, children, the over-60s and the extreme poor — the casas are nonetheless open to all.

They will not accept any money for the food, not even a donation. In fact, they have been instructed by the government to feed everyone who visits, even if they be from rich First World countries. And that is how we came to be eating delicious fishcakes, banana balls and rice complimented by endless arepas and fruit juices. The point of feeding tourists and fact-finders, they tell us, is to show the world that their food is both tasty and nutritious.

While the casas are a grassroots phenomenon driven by the compassion and solidarity of their volunteer work force, they are assisted in every possible way by the Venezuelan government. According to one of the cooks, the government provided all of the kitchen equipment, including the fridge and the oven. The government also assists on an ongoing basis by donating 60,000 bolivars a month to help pay the bills. Recently Chavez granted the workers a small bonus in income support.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2005/639/33934

Mission Mercal, the government plan for discounted food for the poor:

"Mission Mercal (officially launched on April 24, 2003) is a Bolivarian Mission established in Venezuela under the government of Hugo Chávez. The government has set up subsidized grocery stores in a state-run company called Mercal. At present some 11.36 million Venezuelans benefit from Mercal food programs on a regular basis. At least 14,208 Mission Mercal food distribution sites are spread throughout Venezuela, and 4,543 metric tons of food are distributed each day. Mission Mercal stores and cooperatives are mostly located in impoverished areas and sell generic-branded foods at discounts as great as 50%. While the company is heavily funded by the government, the goal is to become self-sufficient by replacing food imports with products from local farmers, small businesses, and cooperatives (many of whom have received microcredits from Mercal). This endogenous development is central to Chávez's stated goal of non-capitalistic development from the bottom up." (From Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia).

http://www.lfsc.org/wsf/educ_package.htm

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If you take some time reading about this, and then THINKING it over, you will see the reality is far different from whatever it is some slower Americans automatically assume without benefit of actual information.