Venezuelan conditions

This is an article from the NY Times about some of the socio-political conditions in Venezuela:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-venezuela-chavez.html


I've noticed that newspapers outside of Venezuela like to present an "objective" view of things. They give Chavez and his underlings the benefit of the doubt in the realm of honesty -- assuming their claims to be factual and genuine, when -- as one learns after familiarity with their actions -- the statements are often nothing more than a subterfuge designed to portray speakers in a wholesome way to the outside world or please uneducated supporters .

The last two sentences in this article are instructive in this regard:
The president seems chagrined (all of a sudden?) and puzzled about bad road conditions -- even acknowledging the apparent incongruity between the state of things and his nation's record oil profits. What he doesn't acknowledge is that billions of dollars in government funds are spent every year on 'development' projects in other countries (normally those with incipient left-wing governments). From another perspective, these projects can been seen as a means for Chavez to spread his own influence -- it all depends on how much of his rhetoric you buy.