CARACAS, VENEZUELA – As New Year's Eve fireworks blossomed in the darkness over every neighborhood of this city, I was sharing whiskey with a disillusioned Socialist named Ernesto.

Ernesto is a slim, graying, middle-aged web site artist with an indecent sense of humor and a decent command of English left over from his years working in London two decades ago. He was explaining why he helped vote Hugo Chavez into the Venezuelan presidency in 1999 and has lived to regret it.

"I was hoping for a Swedish kind of socialism where everyone gets rich," Ernesto said. "Instead, we are getting a Cuban kind of socialism where everyone will be poor."

Ernesto and I had just met at a party hosted by mutual friends who live in a house perched on a hill overlooking the city. Like so many homes of the middle class in Caracas, this one stands behind a fence topped with razor wire in a neighborhood that can only be accessed through a guarded gate. Increasingly, the people living in this and the many other gated communities of Venezuela's capital feel like prisoners behind their walls.

On the surface, Caracas is a modern city that would not look out of place in Southern California. There are supermarkets, shopping malls, high-rise office buildings, freeways choked with traffic, sleek restaurants and attractive neighborhoods of white stucco houses with red tile roofs, barbecues on the porches and American cars in the driveways. But, throughout the city, bumping up against these pleasant neighborhoods are vast barrios of the poor. Like decrepit, rust-colored Lego blocks, they rise in chaotic piles up the steep hillsides, a home to millions. For too many of these urban poor, crime is their vocation and the people in the nice neighborhoods next door are their prey.

A U.S. State Department travel advisory lists Caracas as one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It doesn't feel that way. Yet, over and over, I heard tales of people being robbed at gunpoint on the street or as they sat in cars stopped in traffic. Nights are perpetually balmy, but people now avoid evening strolls and outdoor restaurants. Jewelry, watches and cameras are left at home. Even during a daylight trek in the national park on the mountainside above the city, hikers glance warily over their shoulders to see who is coming up behind.

With oil money, gorgeous Caribbean beaches and fun-loving people, life should be good here, but, instead, it is going haywire. It is the fault of Hugo Chavez -- at least that is what many of the people in the nice houses say. He has done nothing to defend them against the criminals from the barrios, they believe, because the barrios are his political base. In fact, they allege, Chavez has brought the mindset of the barrios to the government: Steal from the rich and keep it for yourself.

A bank scandal that erupted in December and cost the science and technology minister his job simply confirmed to critics of Chavez that his government is becoming increasingly corrupt, just like the right wing governments of the past.

Corruption is not the most worrisome problem, though. A far bigger concern here is that freedom is being stolen. In August, the Chavez government forced 34 radio stations off the air and 200 more were under threat of closure. A new law has been proposed that would imprison journalists for publishing material that is deemed harmful to the government. And, over the course of his tenure as president, Chavez has relentlessly pushed to extend his powers and change the constitution so that he can stay in office indefinitely.

While seeking the spotlight on the world stage by confronting U.S. presidents and bonding with other bombastic renegades like Cuba's Fidel Castro and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chavez maintains his base of support at home by stoking the fires of class hatred and war fever. In November, he urged the nation to prepare to defend the homeland against an imaginary attack from Colombia and the USA.

Chavez is fast becoming another Latin American caudillo – a posturing autocrat intent on perpetuating his one-man rule. And yet, there are still many good people in Caracas who remain supportive of his cause.

I had dinner at the home of two such Chavistas – a husband and wife, both doctors, who entertained me graciously. While not unaware of their president's flaws, they continue to cling to the ideals that compelled so many to support him. After long centuries in which the privileged few amassed fortunes on the backs of the impoverished many, the rise of Chavez seemed to offer, at last, an opportunity to bring education, medical care and opportunity to the country's vast underclass. My hosts, along with many others, are not ready to relinquish that opportunity.

The most interesting conversation I had that evening was with Larissa, the 25-year-old daughter of the doctors. She works for one of five municipalities that run the civic affairs of Caracas. In her municipality of Chacao, the crime problem has been significantly abated through education, community development and professional policing, Larissa told me.

It is a success story that, one would think, the Chavez government would be eager to emulate, but Chacao is run by the opposition party, as are three of the other four municipalities. Instead of acknowledging the success, Chavez has opted to protect his power base in the one municipality his party runs by creating an extra-constitutional post from which a lackey can overrule the opposition party mayor of Caracas.

Respectfully at odds with her parents' political sentiments, Larissa has chosen to keep working for the betterment of her city and country. In this, she seems at odds with many of her peers.
I spoke to a number of other young Venezuelans who expressed hopelessness about the future. They are college-educated, English-speaking sons and daughters of the middle class. Every one of them talked of leaving for Canada, Europe, the United States or other countries in South America.

Disembarking with me from my flight into Caracas, a young Venezuelan man pointed at the ubiquitous government propaganda posters in the airport, the giant photos of Chavez and a map of Venezuela printed in bold, socialist red. Despairing at what his country is becoming, the young man said if he didn't have his mother to care for, he'd pack up his wife and daughters and follow his sister to Houston.

An hour after midnight on January 1st, the fireworks still were bursting like bombs over Caracas. Ernesto watched the explosions of light with melancholy eyes. Alluding to his time in London, he recalled observing that, after a millennium of religious strife, ideological conflict and too many charismatic, ruthless men with big ideas, Europeans had finally learned from all their suffering.

"Venezuela is still a young country," Ernesto said. "Maybe we haven't suffered enough."

In the first uncertain days of a new year, many middle class Venezuelans fear suffering is on the horizon