INFRASTRUCTURE. An express highway, new bridges, metros, new highways, and the railways have been nationalized. INDUSTRY. Massive hydroelectric plants, petrochemical plants, cement, industrial zones..FARMING. There have been record rice and corn crops They have imported seminal bulls from Argentina and Uruguay to improve cattle and quality of the meat. The government has confiscated idle lands and turned them over to the peasants. There is a national plan to grow beans so that Venezuela does not need to import them. The aim is for agricultural self-sufficiency in all areas. THE ECONOMY. There have been 13 consecutive trimesters of steady growth.The tax on the debt has been eliminated. The public debt itself has been reduced 47.5 points in 2003 and 25 points in 2006. Venezuela freed itself from the claws of the IMF. , which had caused untold poverty in the Continent. Rather than having a single product, oil, the country has diversified its production so that it doesn't have to depend on one market that could collapse in the future. The Venezuelan rich have always avoided taxes, until Chávez. Now they have to fork over their share.. Minimum wage has risen to 238 dollars a month, the highest in Latin America. Inflation has been reduced from 30 to 9%. The national bank has been created, which is independent of the current world crisis, having its own reserves. The public debt has been reduced by 8.13%. The national reserves are at 38 billion dollars.

THE MISSIONS. Literacy, college entrance, land refrom, jobs, high qulaity food at rock bottom prices, new homes, retraining programs, free health care, indigenous problems.SELF ESTEEM. The Bolivarian revolution has made Venezuelans proud of their country. Venezuela has achieved better and fairer prices on the world market. Venezuela has acquired an enviable reputation among nations as a team player and on the side of justice. It is recognized as an important presence Latin America, as in the presidency of Latin American Parliament of Presidents. It has proposed a social program for Latin America that was approved by the OAS.ENERGY. Venezuelans now have oil sovereignty. Venezuelans have recovered their petroleum industry, with OPEC on their side to defend the standard in prices. It has recovered 26 billion dollars by virtue of being nationalized Many more citizens now have potable water and electricity than beforeTHE RULE OF LAW. Any conflict of interest is to be settled by Venezuelan courts, not foreign courts as before.DEMOCRACY. The presidency keeps the population constantly informed with state television programs. Venezuela has risen from the least democratic country to second, along with Uruguay, as the most democratic country in the OAS . The Venezuelan government today is the most democratic ever, with freedom of expression and no prosecution due to political ideas.CORRUPTION. Cronyism is being done away with. Functionaries can no longer cover for each other

I am a cuban-venezuelian and I have read "las venas abiertas... ".The main cause of the misery in Latin America is not foreign intervention but local caudillos and autocracy; exemplified by Castro and Chaves. It is the need to blame other and the trick of historicism (look in history for fact to prove our thesis while disregarding all episodes that contracit it) that made this book popular among the not too wel educated leftists.

We have the same kind of books here popular among right wing nuts..."we are good the others are bad etc.".

Human history is so long and complex that you can find, if you look hard enough, support for all kind of crazy ideas. By studing our (Latin merican) history from an uncompromising perspective we will find out that boyh Spain and US were beneficial influences in troubled times, and of course the british empire too was a civilzatory and a positive element in a violent and unjust world. Even The Russian influence with all its brutallity made countries like Azerbajan, Turmekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakistan better economicallt, politically and culturally than Afghanistan that was never coquered.

Latin America has to learn that we are part of the western civilization.

I can understand why there is serious interest in this book. However, be aware that
Galeano's book has been turned into the so-called adopted "bible" of the resentment born from the Spanish conquest genocide. The stories could very well be true, but they have been used by the most extreme backward leftist movement of the continent to justify rude and old-fashioned attitudes and insist in revenge against the colonial empires, and for extension the USA, as opposed to justice towards Latin American countries. We can therefore deduce that this is "the" book (which by the way I read in the eities in the original Spanish and loved then) of those who insist into looking at the past instead of those who look towards the future.

This attitude is typical of Chavez's favorite ideologues, focused on the past. They are stuck there, and on whose ideas he has built his twisted model of a society he wishes to impose.

"As ABC's Jake Tapper points out, Chavez's gift was perhaps not as gracious as it may seem, given that the book attacks the US for what it considers its exploitation of Latin America." This is your MSM at work. Any sixth grader should be aware of the history of "Gunboat Diplomacy" and American Imperialism in Latin America. What you won't read is that the CIA held Chavez captive during a U.S. sponsored coup attempt under G.W. Bush. The coup failed. Even stalwarts of the Left like Adrianna Huffington's good friend Bill Maher think Chavez is the bad guy and rarely misses a chance to ridicule him. This is a man that supplied free heating oil to the poor in our own country. Obama's overtures to Castro and Chavez are incredibly courageous but at the same time common sensical. This is change you can believe in.

Americans (not Obama) tend to look at the world only one way..their way. They don't want to know or understand how the other person feels. A wise man once said to me that the world is percieved from where one stands. President Obama believes deeply that one must put themselves in another's shoes to find out possible solutions to problems.
The history of explotiation around the world by this country and the Western block is worth a reading.
We can change our additudes and actions. For instances, we over threw the freely elected parliment
and government of Iran and installed our own choice. I wonder how we would feel if that had happened to us in this country. Hence Iran tends to be a bit paranoid towards us. And after all we have
invaded their neighbor and torn that country to pieces one bitter shell at a time.
History is a valuable teacher if one looks at ALL of the issues from many points of view, and you won't get this information on the History Channel.

I think it was a great gift. Most Americans have no idea or are in denial about the extent of USA's meddling in and undermining of Latin America and the Caribbean.

To me the gift was saying: before we can start a productive conversation we both have to be clear and honest about the history of our relationship.

It is good for the president to reach out to anyone, even a despot dictator, in an attempt to improve political relationships between two countries. It doesn't matter it Mr. Obama reads the book, or not. It's the gesture that matters. Why would we want any country (their leaders, not the ordinary people) be mad at us ? Mr. Chavez would have never given George Bush a book to read. It's not that he wouldn't read it. It's because he can't read it. Someone would have to read it for him then brief Mr. Bush on what it said. (sorry, I couldn't help it).

President Obama is such an inspiration. He even got me to start painting again.

You can see my painting of President Obama and an article of my passion for the US Commander in Chief here:

http://guardian.co.tt/news/life/2009/04/19/obama-itis-hits-artist

The President said he would talk to our enemies and reach out to them. And yes, that is exactly what he is doing and I like it! This President walk the walk!!

"Chavez's gift was perhaps not as gracious as it may seem, given that the book attacks the US for what it considers its exploitation of Latin America."

Well, what did you expect, we are talking about Hugo Chavez here...Did he give him the English version or does Chavez expect president Obama to learn Spanish first?

What is Hugo ALWAYS wearing those non-formal attire to some formal meetings ... ?

Hidiing a vest underneath ... ?

Galeano is very well known in Latin America, as jdreyfuss pointed out. Galeano remains a leading opinion-maker in the region and, regardless of whether others agree or disagree with him, just about anyone with a modicum of intellectual curiosity will be familiar with his works and recognize that he is a great writer.

For those who might not want to read "Open Veins", Galeano has written some great fiction that has been translated into English.

I think the ABC reporter not only has not read "Open Veins", but also jumped the gun in assessing the intentions of Hugo Chávez. The Venezuelan president is good at acting like a clown when he wants to, but he is not stupid.

Only Chávez himself knows his real intentions, but I would assume that he is taking Obama seriously and the book is simply intended to be a serious guidebook as to why many in Latin America are either indifferent or dislike the U.S.

Obama wants to move U.S. foreign policy in a new direction. And Hugo should be clever enough to know that the confrontational style he exploited during the Bush years will probably not work now.

Hugo is such a great guy we should throw him a ticker tape parade!

As a Brit I agree it would be great if we gave books; perhaps our best contributions to the world have been Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Darwin, Marx and Keynes.

I would also have liked to include Tom Paine in that list - but he was a citizen of the world, and not too popular with the establishment of the day in the UK.