One minor flaw in the "blame America" theories...
For starters, there hasn't been a lot of history of American interference in Venezuela over the past hundred years. In fact, both nations have on very good terms since Roosevelt (Teddy). Until Chavez came along, and even then a vast majority of his accusations were paranoid delusions.
The other flaw is that interference with South and Central American governments during the Cold War usually took place because these nations were heading into the Soviet communist sphere. If being left alone resulted in a communist nation, usually heavily supported by the Soviets, do you really think that would have been any better?
I've often wondered why people never crap on Spain for its history in this hemisphere.