Local man returns from Venezuela with tales of Chavez's 'Bolivarian Revolution'

By Jim Phillips

If people in the United States think about Hugo Chavez, it's probably as a kind of Latin American Huey Long. The Venezuelan president is portrayed in U.S. media as a populist and potential communist dictator, buying off the masses with government handouts.

An Athens County man who spent four months last summer working for Chavez, however, tells a different story.

"If you go to Venezuela, you will not see any manifestations of communism," claimed Jason Tockman, a long-time environmental activist in the Athens area. "Private enterprise is very much alive and well in Venezuela. It is a capitalist country with deep-seated reform occurring."

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