Red Square 2

Imperialism strikes back...

2011-11-17T02:52:00.000-08:00

THE CRACKDOWN ON OCCUPY, SYRIA, IRAN AND EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY

crackdown on occupy in new york

its all connected: the united states is moving towards a major military strike against the syria-iran axis with help from turkey and israel. suggestions about the danger of an israeli-turkish conflict in the eastern mediterranean were largely a smokescreen, an attempt at misdirection. the suspension of syria from the arab lague means to legitimise military action against damascus and discrediting the assad government. it is a substitute for a UN security council resolution, since china and russia vetoed that initiative. the so-called ''free syrian army'' is supplied and supervised by the turkish army. the impending strike on syria will be precursor to a massive assault on hizballah and iran sometime after the spring of 2012. already ''free syrian army'' rebels have staged an armed strike against loyalist government forces in syria; in the next few weeks it is likely that turkey, european states or a combination of both will provide them with air support, as was done against lybia. it is possible the turkish army will invade northern syria, under the pretext of creating a ''humanitarian corridor''. the NATO brand is being kept on ice for the main event, this to create the impression that ''syria is not another lybia''. the aim of the current anti-iranian propaganda blitz is to psychologically prepare western and global audiences for the strike against teheran. the united states, saudi arabia and israel will strike against iranian nuclear facilities. the crackdown on occupy in the USA is pre-emptive to prevent the rapid consolidation of an anti-war movement in light of geopolitical dynamics leading towards military conflict in the near east and south central asia; a conflict that will furthermore aggravate current conditions of economic crisis in the USA, the Eurozone and globally. the combination of anti-war sentiment and economic grievances are likely to create the basis for a the emergence of a major anti-government, pro-democracy, anti-war movement in the west in the summer of 2012, it will be centrered in the USA but will find expression in western europe as well. the imposition of ''technocratic'' administrations in italy and greece by the franco-german entente are aimed at securing direct political control of the EU's southern flank. it was in italy and greece that anti-capitalist protests found their most militant expression. the west cannot undertake the task of eliminating the syria-iran axis unless it quells social resistance to austerity in italy and greece. / N2

Dodgy Dossier 2.0

refs.

Video inedito de RT sobre las batallas por el parque Zuccotti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Gj6mvMzBeio
Guerra en Siria puede llevar a un conflicto de magnitudes catastróficas, según experto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GyQw2oGJ0cc
Banqueros en el gobierno: ¿golpe de Estado financiero en Europa?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wWcvufF80E&feature=player_detailpage
El FBI podría estar detrás de las brutales redadas contra Ocupa Wall Street
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuMencNhyiQ&feature=player_embedded
Policía gringa usa gas pimienta contra embarazada y una anciana de 84 años
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g970v_FV_dI&feature=player_embedded
Egyptians protest against current military rule
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNiZRx8tH40&feature=player_embedded
Iranian students' human chain for nuclear rights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbYeFo2345U&feature=player_embedded
Oil & blood feuds in liberated Libya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-6XfVMs1do&feature=player_embedded

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/pers-n17.shtml
The shutdown of Occupy Wall Street

http://socialistworker.org/2011/11/16/we-wont-be-silenced
We Won't Be Silenced
http://socialistworker.org/2011/11/16/occupy-resists-the-crackdown
Occupy Resists Crackdown
http://socialistworker.org/2011/11/16/struggle-continues-in-oakland
Struggle Continues in Oakland

***

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...the anonymous face of anticapitalism...

2011-10-04T03:02:00.000-07:00

OUR ANONYMOUS

(by Miguel Angel Torres)

"...our anonymous who art in youtube
hallowed be thy name
(despite twitter)
thy revolution come
(against facebook)
thy movements' will be done
(in oakland and new york)

on wall street
as it is ordained in heaven
let us fight back for our daily bread
let us tresspass on the turf of the bankers elite
for the people have the power and real democracy is its kingdom
AMEN..."

Anonymous: The Bankers Are The Problem.

Anonymous: Be Ready !

***
(CC) Material on this Weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [6] license, except for links to articles that are posted with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as credit is attributed to the author(s).

Con PDVSA.

2011-05-31T01:56:00.000-07:00

The Bolivarian Republic will NEVER YIELD to the Miami Gusanos and the Gringo Imperialists who sponsor them.

"No nos da la gana de ser colonia norteamericana...Si nos da la gana de ser potencia Latinoamericana !"

***

Translation of Communique issued by the Communist Party of Venezuela in reply to Imperialist aggression against PDVSA and the Bolivarian Republic:

"PCV llama a acelerar formación de Polo Patriótico para enfrentar agresión imperialista."

[The Communist Party of Venezuela calls on the acceleration of efforts to consolidate the formation of the Patriotic Front to confront Imperialist aggression]

"CARACAS, 30 MAY. 2011, TRIBUNA POPULAR TP.- El Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV) rechazó hoy la agresión imperialista contra el pueblo de Venezuela y llamó a acelerar la formación del Frente Nacional Patriótico Antiimperialista (Polo Patriótico) para enfrentar férreamente unidos al enemigo principal de la revolución bolivariana."

[The Communist Partry of Venezuela today rejected imperialist aggression against the people of Venezuela and called for the acceleration of efforts to consolidate the formation of the Patriotic National Front to confront in unity the main enemy of the Bolivarian Revolution.]

"Así lo expresó en rueda de prensa, Oswaldo Ramos, miembro del Comité Central del PCV, quién destacó que “está agresión no es exclusivamente en contra de Petróleo de Venezuela (PDVSA), sino que es en contra de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela y lo que representa el proceso revolucionario para el mundo".

[This statement was issued by Oswaldo Ramos, member of the Central Comite of the PCV, who emphasised that "this agreesion is not only aimed at Petroleos de Venezuela, but it is aimed at the Bolivarian Republic and what it represents to the international revolutionary process.]

"El Partido Comunista manifestó su rechazo a esta nueva agresión imperialista contra de Venezuela y hizo llamado a todo el pueblo a redoblar las políticas de defensa de la patria."

[The Communist Party expressed its repudiation of the lattest act of imperialist agression against Venezuela and called on the Venezuelan people to increase their efforts in defense of the common motherland.]

“Las respuestas que se han venido dando en todo el país, han sido respuestas contundentes a favor de la independencia y soberanía de nuestro país y rechazando la agresión”, señaló."

[''The responses from different parts of the country, have been clearly in favour of independence and soveregnity of our country and in rejection to agression.'', he said.]

"Oswaldo Ramos, quien es también Secretario Político del Comité Regional del estado Bolívar del PCV, recordó la justeza de la política del Partido de avanzar a la conformación del Frente Nacional Patriótico Antiimperialista, llamado Polo Patriótico."

[Oswaldo Ramos, who is also political secretary of the regional comite of the PCV for Bolivar State, commented on the correctness of party policy as it pertains fostering the advance of the Patriotic Anti-Imperialist National Front.]
*

“Se hace necesario –frente a esta agresión- una respuesta unitaria y contundente del pueblo venezolano, y es precisamente con la conformación del Polo Patriótico la herramienta para enfrentarla de manera firme”, enfatizó Ramos."

[It is necessary -in order to stand up against this agression - to give a united and forcible response of the Venezuelan people, and the tool necessary to accomplish this is the consolidation of a Patriotic Front, so that it can be confronted in a firm manner.]

"En otro orden, el dirigente comunista destacó el llamamiento hecho por el Presidente Chávez para avanzar en la discusión, debate y aprobación de la nueva Ley Orgánica del Trabajo, sosteniendo la necesidad de respetar los procesos que se han avanzado en la Comisión de Desarrollo Social de la Asamblea Nacional e incorpóralos a la nueva discusión."

[In another matter, the communist leader echoed the appeal made by President Chavez to advance in the discussion, debate and approval of the new comprehensive labour law (LOT), while maintainig the need to respect the processes that have been advanced in the Social Development Comitte of the National Assembly with an eye towards incorporating these into the discussion.]

“Esas propuestas que salieron de los portones de las empresa, que salieron de las universidades, sean tomado en cuenta y sumado a la nueva consulta que se va a iniciar en los días próximos”, precisó."
*

["These proposals which came from the worker picket lines and from the univerisites have been taken into account and have been added to the process of consultation that will be initiated in the comming period", he said.]

----

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Adios Gaddafi.

2011-03-06T06:14:00.000-08:00

[October 23rd, 2011] NATO backed NTC forces allege to have ''killed'' Mohamar Gaddafi in the town of Sirte. Western media immediately fanned the ''news''; some however, argue that the whole affair is a propaganda hoax orchestrated by Western media and NATO info-ops to facilitate the legitimation of the NATO backed NTC regime now in control of Tripoli. / ROT.

Muhammar Gaddafis Death is a Fake - An Interview with Stephen Lendman

(October 21, 2011)

***

Oposicion Libia dice NO a la intervencion imperialista
origen de fotografia: Socialist Worker USA

21 de Marzo, 2011

el imperialismo yanqui disfrazado de OTAN ha comenzado a bombardear Libia. el proposito de esta intromision imperialista occidental es claro: lograr el re-emplazo del regimen de Muamar Gaddafi, y el establecimiento paulatino de un gobierno titere que continue las politicas neo-liberales, continue la colaboracion con el imperialismo europeo en materia de control de migraciones en el mediterraneo , continue los contratos para la explotacion de petroleo y gas subscritos con intereses energeticos occidentales (en contexto de invalidar otros compromisos subscritos por el regimen de Gaddafi con empresas Chinas, Rusas y Venezolanas); y finalmente, que continue la colaboracion del servicio de inteligencia Libio con la mitica ''guerra contra el terrorismo'' occidental. indirectamente, la intervencion imperialista en Libia intenta enviar un mensaje claro a las masas arabes en rebelion en otros puntos de Africa del Norte y el Medio Oriente que occidente no va a tolerar alteraciones drasticas. Se trata de la Doctrina Obama: utilizar el pretexto de ''intervencion humanitaria'' para lanzar asaltos militares bajo el auspicio de la OTAN con el fin de proteger intereses geo-politicos y geo-energeticos de occidente. aqui no hay nadie que no tenga claro que la agenda principal del gobierno de Obama es lograr restablecer un dominio unipolar occidental bastante desgastado por el progreso de los emergentes bloques multipolares (ALBA, Mercosur, y BRIC). En muy recientes declaraciones por Venezolana de Television, el presidente Hugo Chavez denuncio correctamente que los gobiernos de Europa tambien tienen como agenda el robo de activos, hasta ahora congelados, por monto de casi doscientos mil millones de dolares. el eje Franco-Aleman ve en estos activos una oportunidad para financiar el entretejido de deuda publica de la cual padecen las economias ''motor'' de la eurozona. no se trata de un robo al regimen de Gaddafi, sino mas bien un robo a la clase trabajadora Libia. El comandante Chavez tiene razon al sugerir que fue un error por parte del regimen de Gaddafi el haber invertido tantos activos en las economias europeas; pero tambien hay que considerar que el precio impuesto sobre Gaddafi por las oligarquias europeas a cambio de acceso y normalizacion con occidente fueron en parte esas inversiones. / Miguel.

****

***

Re: Venezuela En Revolución [Gallo Rojo:] 'Kaddafi no es un anti-imperialista'

sean o no ''verdad'' las alegaciones de que hubo ataques aereos contra manifestantes. el caso contra Kaddafi ultimadamente se basa en la imposicion por el regimen de politicas neo-liberales que incrementaron la desigualdad social en libia. la oleada de protestas anti-gubernamentales en el medio orientre y el norte de africa estan primariamente dirigidas contra los efectos sociales de las politicas mencionadas. esto muy aparte de la colaboracion del regimen de Kaddafi con las politicas anti-immigrantes el imperialismo europeo y y las politicas neo-conservadoras asociadas con la narrativa de la "guerra contra el terorismo", que es en realidad una cortina de humo retorica diseñada para encubrir la agenda unipolarista y dominionista de occidente. / Miguel.

2011/3/4 Claudio escribio

Continúan ataques de aviones contra manifestantes en Trípoli

Publicado el Martes 22 de Febrero de 2011

"Roma, 22 de Febrero (Notimex).- Aviones libios volvieron a bombardear distintas zonas de Trípoli, donde hoy prosiguen las manifestaciones en demanda de la salida del líder Muamar Gadafi, las cuales han dejado cientos de muertos, así como unos mil 500 desaparecidos. Según la cadena de televisión qatarí Al Yazira, que cita a testigos, aviones de combates lanzaron un nuevo ataque aéreo en Trípoli y otras ciudades con el fin de intimidar a los manifestantes que continúan sus protestas pese a la represión de la que han sido objeto. En estas operaciones participan también mercenarios africanos que, según Al Yazira, se han sumado a las fuerzas militares y de seguridad de Libia para reprimir las protestas. Sin embargo, Saif al-Islam Gadafi, hijo del líder libio, aseguró que el bombardeo se centró en depósitos de armas y centros de control de la capital situados lejos de las zonas urbanas. En el marco de su campaña de terror contra la población civil, el régimen de Gadafi recurrió este martes a mercenarios fuertemente armados que patrullan las calles de Trípoli para dar caza a los opositores. La cifra de víctimas mortales por la violenta represión contra los manifestantes varía entre las distintas fuentes debido al bloqueo de las comunicaciones en Libia. El presidente de la Comunidad del Mundo Arabe en Italia (Comai), Foad Aodi, denunció este martes que los bombardeos aéreos a los manifestantes que protestan contra el régimen de Gadafi en Trípoli han causado más de mil muertos..."

El 4 de marzo de 2011 05:56, Miguel Angel escribió:

creo que hay que hacer una diferencia entre el Gaddafi de los 70 y 80, y el Gaddafi de los 90 y 2000. de este lado de los '90 Gaddafi es un ejemplo de la falsa izquierda ''ex-anti-imperialista''. no creo que sea posible separar al hijo del padre puesto que el hijo es ostentivamente el ''principe heredero'' del reino ''anti-imperialista'' de Libia. yo entiendo que el Comandante Chavez esta de parte de Gaddafi porque son amigos personales. y entiendo que el comandante Fidel es deferente a Gaddafi porque en su epoca anti-imperialista el gobierno de Gaddafi colaboro con Cuba en la guerra de Angola y Namibia (1976-88). El comandante Daniel Ortega defiende a Kaddafi porque entre 1977 y 1979 el FSLN recivio ayuda del gobierno Libio en la revolucion anti-Somozista. En el contexto de la "Izquierda Global"; aparte del los Comandantes Fidel , Ortaga y Chavez; el Partido Socialista de Liberacion (un grupo posmaoista norteamericano), el Partido Revolucionario Obrero (una formacion de la Ultra-Izquierda Trotskysta britanica) y los editores del periodico Pravda.ru (la version digital del antiguo periodico del PCUS restablecido en 1998) son LOS UNICOS que estan de parte de Gaddafi. La mayor parte de la ''Izquierda Global'' ha fijado consenso contra Gaddafi y contra la Intervencion Imperialista. Yo respeto el derecho de la minoria disidente a expresarse, aunque no comparto su punto de vista en cuanto al personaje que ocupa el palacio de gobierno en la ciudad de Tripoli. especificamente sobre el conflicto palestino: en 2005 Gaddafi ordeno la expulsion de los refugiados palestinos en libia; esto en contexto de dar un giro hacia a occidente. es por esto que muy recientemente el Frente Popular para la liberacion de Palestina difundio un comunicado por internet que se oponen tanto a Gaddafi como a la intervencion imperialista. es un hecho que Gaddafi puso el servicio de inteligencia libio al servicio de occidente en 2006-7. las bases de datos (listas de contactos) de la inteligencia libia pertinentes a la OLP, IRA y ETA fueron traspasadas a la CIA, el MI6 Britanico y a la policia secreta Española.

es un hecho que el gobierno de Gaddafi tambien colabora con los gobiernos de Italia, España y Francia en la interdiccion de las pateras de migrantes africanos en el mediterraneo; no solo es esto contrario a los principios del "anti-imperialismo'' (puesto que implica colaboracion con el imperialismo Europeo), esto es una violacion de los derechos humanos de los migrantes africanos, ya que muchos de estos estan tratando de escaparse de situaciones de guerra en el nor-este de Africa, Sudan, Darfur, etc. tambien es un hecho de que Gaddafi impuso politicas de ajuste neo-liberal y privatizaciones en los 90 y 2000 que resultaron en el incremento de la desigualdad social y el crecimiento de la corrupcion el Libia. la presente rebelion popular es un estallido social en contra de los efectos sociales estas politicas. es verdad que el imperialismo occidental esta tratando de tomar ventaja - en contexto de la crisis - para apoderarse de los recursos naturales de libia, asi como tambien es verdad que Obama autoriza en Afghanistan el uso rutinario de ataques aereos contra civiles (ultimadamente han muerto 36 personas en ese pais). mas civiles fueron asesinados por el ejercito del regimen zionista durante la operacion ''Cast Led'' en palestina en diciembre de 2009, que los que Gaddafi ha asesinado con su fuerza aerea en las ultimas dos semanas. tanto estados unidos como el regimen zionista que ocupa jerusalem son estados terroristas, pero eso no excusa las acciones viles del regimen en Tripoli. / Miguel.

2011/3/3 Francisco escribio

Amigo Miguel: Me disculpas en verdad camarada usted debe separar al hijo del padre ya que Gadafi siempre estuvo con el pueblo palestino y no como muchos de boca sino en primera persona nunca vendio a nuestras causas en el mundo sino que colaboro con todos hasta el asesinato de su hija en los ochenta cuando se le acuso por estados unidos la detonacion de una bomba en el corazon de una ciudad la cual no esploto.enarbolando la causa palestina y defendiendo la autodeterminacion de todos los pueblos libres. Por ese motivo usted no haga apologia cuando desconoce en verdad los contenido y trata de apoyar a la oligarquia internacional por esa matriz de opinion de laboratorio gringo verifique antes de hablar ya que por ese motivo en la embajada libia aparecieron cuatro en televisor haciendo que venezuela fuera encontrad de la revolucion por personas que ayudan al imperio para que nos jodan patria o muerte con Hugo Chavez y Gadafi...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 10:16:56 +0100
Subject: Venezuela En Revolución [Gallo Rojo:] 'Kaddafi no es un anti-imperialista'

[Tribuna Popular/PCV ] La rebelion popular libia, contra Kaddafi y contra la invasion extranjera

"Hoy Muammar Kaddafi es un dictador y no es un revolucionario. Ademas es un traidor que en un pasado enarbolo la bandera del pan arabismo, el socialismo, la democracia y la bandera anti-imperialista, pero en los años 90 se aparto para aliarse a los intereses imperiales. Después de la ejecucion de Saddam Hussein, Kaddafi se sintio amenazado, y como buen parasito del poder, se alio al imperio. La orden fue privatizar todo, entregarse a la plutocracia del nuevo orden mundial, masonica, pro-sionista. Su hijo Saif al Islam el sucesor (si sucesor), sostiene que la modernización de Libia pasa que a traves de la privatizacion de sus recursos. Privatizar para permanecer en el trono con ayuda del imperio. Tambien implico ser un aliado en la lucha anti-terrorista, (soplon, sapo), entregar la base de datos de los revolucionarios de la OLP, IRA, ETA etc y etc. Es vox populis, escuchar entre los activistas políticos palestinos y jordanos que fue Muammar Kaddafi quien informo del paradero del venezolano Carlos Illich Ramurez, hoy encarcelado en Francia. En mi imaginación veo al barrio rescatar la espada del Libertador para que Kaddafi en un gran abrazo no se la clave en la espalda a Chavez. Hay una rebelion popular en el mundo arabe ya que viven bajo dictaduras sanguinarias y reaccionarias protegidas por Estados Unidos, Europa y el sionismo. Esa guardia pretoriana de dictaduras arabes, a manera de metafora son, la Gran Israel. La muchedumbre arabe se levanta y esta avida de cambio y debemos adherirnos para que esa rebelion desemboque en cambios revolucionarios. Tiene un digno efecto domino que puede hacer caer todas las dictaduras arabes, llegar hasta el fin de la mas prostituta

dictadura arabe islamica de Arabia Saudita."

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EGYPT !

2011-02-20T03:45:00.000-08:00

Revolution in Egypt.
source: Socialist Worker (USA)

26th February

not only has the imperialist media worked to portray the global revolutionary upsurge. which BEGUN in north africa and the middle east, as relatively ''inconsequential''; they have also blacked out news about the upsurge finding expression outside north africa and the middle east in wisconsin, ohio, honduras and greece. anti-capitalist and anti-imperialists should be pointing out this link. EVENTS IN TUNIS AND CAIRO ARE CONNECTED TO EVENTS IN MADISON AND ATHENS. Western imperialist media is also trying to justify political moves to hijack the north african revolutions by legitimating the pro-Western military juntas that replaced Mubarak and Ben Ali. anti-capitalists and anti-imperialists should back efforts by the people of tunisia and egypt to REVERSE THE HIJACK; the fact that protests against the pro-Western military juntas have emerged is an encouraging sign. but ultimately none of these protests will result in the establishment of worker led governments with an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist agenda unless the working class takes THE LEAD in radicalising the protest movements (implying a break with conservative forms of political islam, western neo-liberal technocracy and anachronistic ''arab nationalism''). one thing is to have working class ''involvement'' and quite another to have working class LEADERSHIP. political success is measured by TANGIBLE OUTCOMES, not by adherence to the aesthetics of theoretical / procedural "purity". /Miguel.

refs.

New Wave of Protests Rock Tunisia
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/mide-f22.shtml

Egypt stands with Wisconsin
http://socialistworker.org/2011/02/22/egypt-stands-with-wisconsin

New mass protests against US-backed regimes in Egypt and Yemen
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/egye-f26.shtml

On 25 February 2011 22:44, grok wrote:

The bourgeois mass-media has worked furiously over the past period to convince couch potatoes everywhere that these revolutions sweeping the World don't amount to much more than a political hiccup in the larger scheme of things... but we all should know better. In spite of the almost complete lack of competent revolutionary leadership and cadre, workers everywhere in the arab World (today) are systematically, if somewhat empirically, wending their way thru the political minefield of revolution towards their steadfast goal: the complete transformation of the political-economic order in favor of a regime run in its entirety by the working-class and its allies.

And we'll be right behind them.

Long Live the World Socialist Revolution.

All Power to the Workers' and Farmers' Councils and Communes.

-- grok.

21st Century Internationalism

(photo from Socialist Worker USA)

20th February

the problem is that the egyptian, tunisian and other protest movements have not collectively made the qualitative leap into understanding that the real solution is to REFOUND THE STATE and on that premise reconstruct the political economy. the root of this problem is confinement of political counciousness within the paramenters of liberal minimalism. it requires a post-liberal dialectic understanding to drop the twin fallacies of liberal methodology: 1) the failure to differentiate between ''government'' and ''the state'' (a derivative of mechanistic 19th centrury classical liberal conceptions of ''constitutional law''.) 2) the failure to understand that politics is an outgrowth of economics and that war is an outcome of politics. YOU CANNOT SEPARATE ECONOMICS FROM POLITICS AND POLITICS FROM WAR. these revolts in north africa are not primarily about wikileaks, but about hunger. the wikileaks issue vis-a-vis tunisia is peripheral. this is where ''the left'' has a lot of homework to do raising the level of discussion and counciousness. but this requires putative ''leftists'' break with liberalism. /Miguel.

On 19 February 2011 21:10, grok wrote:

As long as "peaceful" -- i.e. purely symbolic, reformist -- protest remains the focus of these revolutions, and not the seizure of the strategic means of production and distribution in the wider society in mass general strikes, the imperialists and their local stooges and goons WILL be able to continue their repression -- and be able to regroup for their counter-offensives against the workers.

So BUILD THE GENERAL STRIKE THRUOUT THE ARAB WORLD. AND BEYOND.

Long Live the World Socialist Revolution.

All Power to the Workers' and Farmers' Councils and Communes.

-- grok.

***

A call from Egyptian socialists

SOURCE: http://socialistworker.org/2011/02/07/call-from-egyptian-socialists

Revolutionary socialists in Egypt issued this statement about the Egyptian uprising and the tasks that the movement faces as the struggle continues in the coming weeks.

February 7, 2011

Glory to the martyrs! Victory to the revolution!

What is happening today is the largest popular revolution in the history of our country and of the entire Arab world. The sacrifice of our martyrs has built our revolution and we have broken through all the barriers of fear. We will not back down until the criminal "leaders" and their criminal system is destroyed.

Mubarak's departure is the first step, not the last step of the revolution

The handover of power to a dictatorship under Omar Suleiman, Ahmed Shafiq and other cronies of Mubarak is the continuation of the same system. Omar Suleiman is a friend of Israel and America, spends most of his time between Washington and Tel Aviv, and is a servant who is faithful to their interests. Ahmed Shafik is a close friend of Mubarak and his colleague in the tyranny, oppression and plunder imposed on the Egyptian people.

The country's wealth belongs to the people and must return to it

Over the past three decades, this tyrannical regime corrupted the country's largest estates to a small handful of business leaders and foreign companies. One hundred families own more than 90 percent of the country's wealth. They monopolize the wealth of the Egyptian people through policies of privatization, looting of power and the alliance with capital. They have turned the majority of the Egyptian people to the poor, landless and unemployed.

Factories wrecked and sold dirt cheap must go back to the people

We want the nationalization of companies, land and property looted by this bunch. As long as our resources remain in their hands we will not be able to completely get rid of this system. Economic slavery is the other face of political tyranny. We will not be able to cope with unemployment and achieve a fair minimum wage for a decent living without restoring the wealth of the people from this gang.

We will not be guard dogs of America and Israel

This system does not stand alone. As a dictator, Mubarak was a servant and client directly acting for the sake of the interests of America and Israel. Egypt acted as a colony of America, participated directly in the siege of the Palestinian people, made the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace free zones for warships and fighter jets that destroyed and killed the Iraqi people, and sold gas to Israel dirt cheap while stifling the Egyptian people by soaring prices. Revolution must restore Egypt's independence, dignity and leadership in the region.

The revolution is a popular revolution

This is not a revolution of the elite, political parties or religious groups. Egypt's youth, students, workers and the poor are the owners of this revolution. In recent days, a lot of elites, parties and so-called symbols have begun trying to ride the wave of revolution and hijack it from their rightful owners. The only symbols are the martyrs of our revolution and our young people who have been steadfast in the field. We will not allow them to take control of our revolution and claim that they represent us. We will choose to represent ourselves and represent the martyrs who were killed, their blood paying the price for the salvation of the system.

A people's army is the army that protects the revolution

Everyone asks: "Is the army with the people or against them?" The army is not a single block. The interests of soldiers and junior officers are the same as the interests of the masses. But the senior officers are Mubarak's men, chosen carefully to protect his regime of corruption, wealth and tyranny. It is an integral part of the system.

This army is no longer the people's army. This army is not the one which defeated the Zionist enemy in October 1973. This army is closely associated with America and Israel. Its role is to protect Israel, not the people. Yes, we want to win the soldiers for the revolution. But we must not be fooled by slogans that "the army is on our side." The army will either suppress the demonstrations directly, or restructure the police to play this role.

Form revolutionary councils urgently

This revolution has surpassed our greatest expectations. Nobody expected to see these numbers. Nobody expected that Egyptians would be this brave in the face of the police. Nobody can say that we did not force the dictator to retreat. Nobody can say that a transformation did not happen in Tahrir Square.

What we need right now is to push for the socio-economic demands as part of our demands, so that the person sitting in his home knows that we are fighting for their rights. We need to organize ourselves into popular committees, which elect higher councils democratically, and from below. These councils must form a higher council, which includes delegates of all the tendencies. We must elect a higher council of people who represent us, and in whom we trust. We call for the formation of popular councils in Tahrir Square, and in all the cities of Egypt.

A call to Egyptian workers to join the ranks of the revolution

The demonstrations and protests have played a key role in igniting and continuing our revolution. Now we need the workers. They can seal the fate of the regime. Not only by participating in the demonstrations, but by organizing a general strike in all the vital industries and large corporations.

The regime can afford to wait out the sit-ins and demonstrations for days and weeks, but it cannot last beyond a few hours if workers use strikes as a weapon. Strike on the railways, on public transport, the airports and large industrial companies! Egyptian workers, on behalf of the rebellious youth and on behalf of the blood of our martyrs, join the ranks of the revolution, use your power and victory will be ours!

Glory to the martyrs!

Down with the system!

All power to the people!

Victory to the revolution!

***

Announcement of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel
[on the Pro-Democracy Movements in North Africa and the middle East]

http://www.maki.org.il/he/english-mainmenu-106

The mass protest by vast numbers of the unemployed, the impoverished, and seekers of democracy and freedom against the pro-American despotic leaders of Arab countries, which started in Tunis and has expanded to Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria as well as other states - is a crucial turning point in the development of the region as well as in the international arena. Despite the harsh measures taken to suppress the revolt, including the use of live ammunition, the protesters against misery and tyranny continue their demonstration and are demanding their right to live with dignity.

Demonstration in Nazareth in solidarity with the Egyptian people (photo: Al Ittihad

daily newspaper)

[source: http://www.maki.org.il/he/english-mainmenu-106]

After decades in which the rights of workers and of the unemployed were trampled upon, and critics and opponents were silenced, the Arab nations are learning to recognize their power to impact and change reality in the direction of progress. The spontaneous demonstrations, attended mostly by youths, are not centrally organized. We are witnessing a popular movement representing a cross-section of parties and political streams, who are formulating their messages in the midst of action.

CPI's political bureau believes that the claim advanced for many years by the world's reigning capitalist establishments, which holds that the Arab world is only suited for either tyranny and oppression or Islamic fundamentalism, has been discredited. The mass popular movement in the Arab countries, which draws its power from the rage of the masses against the rise in food prices and the deepening scarcity of job opportunities, as well as the lack of basic civil rights – is emerging as a concrete political alternative.

It is difficult to estimate at the present moment, where the popular protest movement in the Arab states will end. Will it lead in every instance to the ousting of the tyrants, as occurred in Tunis? Or will it also lead to substantive changes in the nature of the regime and its policies? What political forces will be able to draw new energies from the uprising? But even now it is possible to estimate that we are witnessing a new phase in the social and political development of the Middle East, leading to the weakening of pro-American dictatorial regimes, which lead a policy of privatization in the service of the multinational corporations and provided backing to U.S. aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Communist Party of Israel, as do all seekers of democracy and human rights in the world, stands in solidarity with the struggle of the Arab nations for a decent livelihood and freedom. The uprising of these peoples is a source of encouragement in our struggle to defend workers and democracy in Israel, and to combat racism, while demanding equal political and social rights for all.

January 31, 2011

-----

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''Analisis Marxista''

2010-12-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

Libertad para todos los luchadores anti-imperialistas prisioneros del imperio.

I.

Re: ASESINATO DE JOVENES POR EL EJERCITO COLOMBIANO

[carlos marx definio al estado capitalista como un grupo de hombres armados dedicados a defender la propiedad y capital privado; tambien definio al gobierno del estado burges como comite para la administracion de los intereses colectivos de la clase capitalista. en este sentido la clase politica hacen el papel de clientes de las clases dominantes. en el caso especifico de colombia; la clase dominante son los que controlan los carteles del narcotrafico con el apoyo logistico de la DEA (personajes tipo Uribe, cuyo padre fue uno de los capos del narcotrafico). la lucha armada de las FARC y el ELN fue retomada a finales de los 80 luego de que la izquierda trato de llegar al poder por la via electoral con el experimento de la Union Patriotica y fue traicionada en su buena fe por el gobierno. el asesinato sistematico en masa de los candidatos de la UP justifico el retorno a la lucha armada ya que se hiso evidente que el estado burges colombiano fue secuestrado a partir de ese punto por los carteles del narcotrafico. el temor de los intereses economicos detras de los carteles de la droga era que un gobierno de izquierda les arruinaria el negocio. en la decada de los 90; el gobierno del estado colombiano paso de ser un comite para la administracion de los intereses colectivos de la clase comprador-burgesa y los agentes comerciales del imperialismo; a re-conformarse como un comite para la administracion de los intereses colectivos de los carteles de la droga. en este contexto, el ejercito del narco-estado colombiano, los paramilitares y los organismos de inteligencia como las DAS existen para defender el narcotrafico como medio de autofinanciacion a fin de mantener a Colombia en condicion de neo-colonia al servicio del imperialismo estadounidense. en el contexto colombiano no hay posibilidad de avanze por la via electoral, lo unico que le queda a las masas campesinas y obreras es la lucha armada contra el narco-estado que somete a colombia al neo-colonialismo y le ha usurpado el poder al pueblo. en todo momento el ejercito, policia y servicios secretos (DAS) del estado colombiano (tanto en su etapa comprador-burgesa como en su presente etapa narco-politica), funcionaron como grupo de hombres armados dedicados a la defensa de los intereses economicos de la oligarquia dominante; la diferencia es que despues del secuestro del estado colombiano por los carteles de la droga tras el exterminio de la UP; este grupo de hombres armados en el ejercito y la policia del narco-estado le dan prioridad a los intereses de los grupos economicos y politicos que se beneficioan del trafico de droga y que son dependientes del imperialismo en cuanto a la defensa de sus privilegios de clase. la DEA en colombia funciona como administrador del feudo de la CIA que utiliza los ingresos del narcotrafico como herramienta de autofinanciacion. se persigue y se extradita solo a los narcotraficantes independientes. la diferencia entre el partido liberal y el partido conservador en colombia es que el primero representa los intereses del sector de oligarquia comprador-burgesa clasica mientras que el partido conservador representa los intereses del sector de la nueva oligarquia narcotraficante./ n2.0]

--- Carlos Garcia escribio:

Los ejercitos "institucionales" no son mas que brazos armados de los grupos politico-economicos en el poder. Llamese de derecha o de izquierda. Esta institucion armada no obedece mas que a dos fines: La preservacion del sistema liberal capitalista,o la dictuadura y la preservacion de sus privilegios como organos represores. No existe ninguna otra justificación de su existencia. Los pueblos y la sociedad por lo tanto proveen de los elementos que la componen. Solamente los generales y los dirigentes de las cupulas de partidos y organismos saben de que se trata: El pueblo en general solo sabe que se les paga por mantener el 'orden', lo que no sabe el pueblo, y si lo sabe lo acepta como tal, es que prevalezca el orden de mando de los grupos en el poder. No hay mas alternativa. Ciertamente, es terrible que en la mayoria de los casos, pero ojo, no siempre, los inocentes pagan el precio de este privilegio militar. Que hay que hacer....NADA. No hay que hacer mas que, evitar en lo mas posible que sigan manipulando la conciencia de la gente. Si eran o no guerrilleros, o delincuentes, o lo que sea no importa ya. Lo que cuenta es que nadie se llame a engaño.

II.

Re: ANALISIS MARXISTA / La questioni nazionale e coloniale e la rivoluzione proletaria

[dos comentarios:

1) sobre la tactica a seguir en paises sometidos al dominio neo-colonial; la internacional comunista de 1920 correctemente propuso (en relacion directa a la revolucion china) ''la saldatura della rivoluzione russo-europea coi moti nazionali e anticoloniali dei popoli di Oriente''; una posible "traduccion" a la situacion especifica del siglo 21 seria la fusion internacionalista de las luchas populares por la radicalizacion de los procesos de transicion revolucionario-democraticos en America Latina con las luchas obreras y estudiantiles en europa occidental contra las politicas de austeridad neo-liberales. cuando hablo de luchas populares por la radicalizacion en suramerica me refiero especificamente a las iniciativas de radicalizacion proveniente de corrientes de base en contra de la posibilidad de degeneracion gradualista y social democrata en el MAS (Bolivia), FSLN (Nicaragua) y el PSUV (Venezuela). cuando hablo de luchas obreras y estudiantiles en italia, españa y grecia me refiero especificamente a las bases organizadas independientemente de entes social democratas o reformistas; en referencia a lo que ustedes califican como "la strategia internazionalista in contrapposizione alla tattica democratica pacifista e nazionale dei partiti comunisti degenerati". creo que en este sentido tambien se debe montar una lucha contra el sectarismo tercer campista de la ultra izquierda que es tan peligroso para la revolucion como el reformismo y el gradualismo (que no son lo mismo).

2) sobre lo de la necesidad de la lucha armada. eso depende de las circumstancias especificas. en NICARAGUA el gobierno de la primera fase de la revolucion sandinista fue producto de la lucha armada contra la dictadura pro-imperialista de somoza que culmino con la victoria del FSLN en 1979. en un contexto de dictadura militar derechista como el que existio en la epoca de somoza la lucha armada fue necesaria puesto que no existio la posibilidad de que la izquierda proscrita se pudiese manifestar por la via electoral. ahora, la situacion de la revolucioin en 2006 fue muy distinta. la victoria electoral del FSLN fue producto de una largo proceso de luchas populares y patrioticas contra las politicas economicas y sociales de los gobiernos de la contra-revoluccion neo-liberal impuestas en la decada de los 90 por orden el imperialismo. todo ese fermento progresista y restaurador estallo como un volcan en 2006. la victoria del FSLN en Nicaragua en 2006 fue el "1848" de la revolucion latinoamericana. represento el comienzo de una nueva fase del proceso de la segunda independencia continental, que se basa en los logros concretos de la izquierda en venezuela, bolivia y ecuador. en COLOMBIA la lucha armada de las FARC y el ELN fue retomada a finales de los 80 luego de que la izquierda trato la via electoral con el experimento de la Union Patriotica y fue traicionada en su buena fe por el gobierno. el asesinato sistematico en masa de los candidatos de la UP justifico el retorno a la lucha armada ya que se hiso evidente de que el estado burges colombiano fue secuestrado a partir de ese punto por los carteles del narcotrafico. el gobierno del estado colombiano en ese entonces paso de ser un comite para la administracion de los intereses colectivos de la clase comprador-burgesa y los agentes comerciales del imperialismo; a re-conformarse como un comite para la administracion de los intereses colectivos de los carteles de la droga. algo similar con lo sucedido en ITALIA con el advenimiento de silvio berlusconi al poder, que significo el secuestro de facto del estado italiano por la cosa nostra. en el contexto colombiano no hay posibilidad de avanze por la via electoral, lo unico que le queda a las masas campesinas y obreras es la lucha armada contra el narco-estado que somete a colombia al neo-colonialismo y le ha usurpado el poder al pueblo. en todo momento el ejercito, policia y servicios secretos (DAS) del estado colombiano (tanto en su etapa comprador-burgesa como en su presente etapa narco-politica), funcionaron como grupo de hombres armados dedicados a la defensa de los intereses de la oligarquia dominante; la diferencia es que despues del secuestro del estado colombiano por los carteles de la droga tras el exterminio de la UP; este grupo de hombres armados en el ejercito y la policia del narco-estado sirven a los intereses de los carteles de la droga y el imperialismo. la DEA en colombia funciona como administrador del feudo de la CIA que utiliza el narcotrafico como herramienta de autofinanciacion. se persigue y se extradita solo a los narcotraficantes independientes. la diferencia entre el partido liberal y el partido conservador en colombia es que el primero representa los intereses del sector de oligarquia comprador-burgesa clasica mientras que el partido conservador representa los intereses del sector de la nueva oligarquia narcotraficante. en VENEZUELA, BOLIVIA y ECUADOR, los gobiernos revolucionarios tomaron el poder por la via electoral; pero inmediatemante refundaron el estado (esta es la diferencia crucial entre Salvador Allende y Hugo Chavez Frias). la constitucion bolivariana de 1999 y las constituciones plurinacionales de Bolivia y Ecuador del 2009 codifican y enmarcan en la ley el proceso de trancision revolucionario-democratico. la lucha armada en estos contextos se plantea como defensa de los logros de los gobiernos revolucionarios y avanzes en terminos de poder popular y obrero en base a la union civico-militar y el concepto de la guerra de todo el pueblo. el comandante chavez esta consciente que en cualquier momento el imperialismo va a movilizar su poderio militar contra la revolucion venezolana. es por esto que las FANB estan integradas con las milicias populares y realizan entrenamientos conjuntos. es por eso que se actualizo la fuerza arerea y las fuerzas mecanizadas con armamento ruso./n2.0]

III.

Re: ''La guerrilla en Venezuela'', un refran propagandistico refrito y cansoso

[Las alegaciones hechas por la derecha internacional de una supuesta ''presencia'' de ''campamentos de la guerrilla colombiana'' en territorio venezolano nunca han sido comprobadas contundentemente. este es un refran propagandistico refrito y cansoso. lo mismo ocurre con alegaciones que la ETA tiene un cuartel en el 23 de Enero, que Hizballah tiene una base en el estado falcon, que Chavez se trajo ''uranio enriquecido'' en las maletas cuando regreso de Iran, blah, blah, blah. El gobierno Bolivariano atendio las quejas del gobierno del asesino Uribe en este respecto en 2006 y movilizo a las FANB para investigar las coordenadas donde el gobierno del narco-estado colombiano habia dicho que habian ''campamentos guerrilleros'' y nunca se encontro nada. las fotos y videos que el gobierno del asesino Uribe pretendio presentar como ''evidencia'' de ''actividad guerrillera'' de las FARC en venezuela en verano de 2010 pudieron haber sido tomadas en cualquier lugar de colombia y editadas con fotoshop. El Universal no es una fuente de informacion creible e imparcial sobre este tema puesto que es una plataforma para la diseminacion de propaganda psicologica imperialista afin a la narrativa ideologica de la oposicion escualida que no tiene ningun tipo de objetividad. ya se sabe que tanto el universal, como el nacional y globovision reciven financiamiento de la NED estadounidense y los mismos voceros de la gusanera Miamense se expresaron durante su reciente cumbre en washington que dedicarian fondos para el financiamiento de propaganda mediatica en venezuela en colaboracion con la prensa y la television privada. el hecho de que han habido detenciones esporadicas de individuos supuestamente relacionados con la guerrilla colombiana no quiere decir que existan campamentos de las FARC en territorio venezolano. personalmente creo que fue un error tactico el deportar a los supuestos ''guerrilleros detenidos'' puesto que esto fue hecho solo para apaciguar al gobierno del narco-estado colombiano. una regla basica de todo gobierno civilizado es que no se hacen tratos con terroristas o narcotraficantes. desde la perspectiva ''marxista'' el gobierno del narco-estado colombiano es un comite para la administracion de los intereses colectivos de los carteles de la droga y el ejercito y policia del narco-estado colombiano son entidades netamente terroristas (como por ejemplo lo demuestra el caso de los falsos positivos). el gobierno Bolivariano ha condenado la infiltracion de los servicios de inteligencia del narco-estado colombiano porque se trata de una violacion de la soberania venezolana. el hecho de que personeros del gobierno asesino de colombia y funcionarios de inteligencia del mismo digan que se dedican a panetrar venezuela para ''perseguir guerrilleros'' no lo hace automaticamente verdad. si acaso penetran venezuela bajo la excusa de "perseguir guerrileros'' lo hacen con el proposito de apoyar a paramilitares infiltrados, o para facilitar el contrabando y el narcotrafico (que el DAS utiliza como forma de autofinanciacion clandestina) o para apoyar las actividades de la CIA o de la CIA-posando-como-DEA contra venezuela. es un hecho que durante la cuarta republica la DISIP y organos de prensa burgesa como el Universal concertaron sus actividades para encubrir actos de tortura y abuso de los derechos humanos contra militantes de izquierda y la poblacion civil. eso era parte integral de la guerra sucia contra la izquierda latinoamericana ordenada por washington en los años 70 y 80. la CIA envio al siniestro posada carriles a venezuela precisamente para supervisar este programa de exterminio, dada su larga experiencia como profesional del terrorismo y la tortura. /n2.0]

---

Anti-Gusano

2010-11-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

...cuba revolucionaria, vanguardia de la segunda independnecia latinoamericana...

...cuba revolucionaria, vanguardia de la segunda independencia latinoamericana...

***

[pues, esta muy claro que la gusanera miamense es ahora el sector lider de la contra-revolucion latinoamericana. es como una especie de "efecto espejo". a la medida que la revolucion cubana se encuadra como vanguardia de la segunda independencia latinoamericana en contra la condicion neo-colonial impuesta por Washington, la gusanera es propuesta como anti-vanguardia. toda una cloaca de terroristas, torturadores, agentes de la cia y senadores a la venta. pero por cada gusano miamense hay diez revolucionarios latinoamericanos no dispuestos a someterse a los dictados del imperio yanqui. la cuestion es movilizar a esa masa hasta ahora silenciosa, de guevaristas y anti-imperialistas en solidaridad contra la ofensiva del imperio. ultimadamente la revolucion latinoamericana es UNA. ya no existe eso de que si el '"modelo cubano" , "el camino chileno" o "la via venezolana". existe un solo camino latinoamericano hacia la independencia total con variables nacionales en nicaragua, venezuela, ecuador, bolivia y

cuba

. solidaridad con

cuba

es solidaridad con la revolucion anti-imperialista latinoamericana, porque el gobierno de la revolucion cubana es su vanguardia con fidel al frente. . LA GUSANERA MIAMENSE QUIERE TOMAR AMERICA LATINA, AMERICA LATINA SERA LA TUMBA DE LA GUSANERA MIAMENSE. NO PASARAN ! /n2]

ii.

[eva gollinger tiene la razon cuando manifiesta que seria necesario ponerle fin a eso de permitir que el gobierno estadounidense continue su politica de financiar grupos opositores (muchos de estos frentes falsos dedicados a la desestabilizacion); esta politica aplicada atraves de la NED es una forma de injerencia inaceptable. la gusanera miamense propuso en el encuentro que se active un canal de television dedicado a la propaganda anti-latinoamericana (supuestamente una version suramericana de Globovision o TV Marti); mientras que el mismo congreso atraves de la agencia reguladora de telecomunicaciones de los EEUU (la FTCC) se ha rehusado continuamente a extender permisos para la transmisicon en señal abierta a canales como TeleSur, RT, Press TV e inclusive a AlJazeera. en lo pertinente a venezuela: no seria suficiente tomar medidas legales, se necesitaria tambien una contra-ofensiva "negro-en-negro", un programa de contra-informacion y contra-inteligencia basado en las agencias de seguridad e informacion del estado bolivariano (por ejemplo el SEBIN o el Ministerio de Comunicaciones ); un programa dedicado al combate contra la guerra sucia clandestina y mediatica orquestrada por el gobierno estadounidense. el gobierno bolivariano deberia de manifestar una PROCLAMA DE GUERRA A MUERTE contra la desinformacion, el golpismo, el saboteo y la injerencia; y coordinar sus acciones con iniciativas similares provenientes de los gobiernos progresistas de bolivia, ecuador, nicaragua y cuba. en fin; conformar un frente operativo comun para la zona ALBA. la politica anti-venezolana propuesta por la gusanera miamense es una amenaza contra la institucionalidad socialista y democratica bolivariana en particular y el proceso de la segunda independencia lationoamericana en general. la respuesta venezolana tambien deberia ser enmarcada en el proceso de radicalizacion del tercer ciclo de la revolucion: MAS EXPROPRIACIONES. MAS CONTROL OBRERO. MAS RECURSOS PARA LAS COMUNAS. UNA LUCHA IMPLACABLE CONTRA LA CORRUPCION, EL BUROCRATISMO Y EL DIVISIONISMO SECTARISTA. /n2]

iii.

[Globovision owner Guillermo Zuloaga, in particular, is wanted for embezzlement, money laundering and fraud associated with the now expropriated Banco Federal. during his declarations before the congressional summit he suggested direct military intervention as a "solution" to the problem of "democratic retreat" in South America. He specifically mentioned Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. overall, the gusanos have now proclaimed that ALBA and 21st Century Socialism constitute a "threat" to US National Security. this is a cue to obama. i would not be surprised if Homeland Security Gestapo agents begin to penetrate south america alongside CIA-posing-as-DEA. the summiteers called for systematic destabilization, propaganda broadcasts, black ops and did not explicitly reject the option of armed intervention to facilitate "restoration of democracy" in "our backyard" (a concept of Latin America that obama shares). i rather agree with Eva Gollinger that the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and

Ecuador

should act to ban foreign funding of domestic political actors and organisations and also ban foreign broadcasts hostile to the progressive transition process. you cannot extend democratic rights to people who abuse those rights in context of seeking the overthrow of the democracy in question. i would add that the domestic intelligence agencies of the transition governments should take steps to coordinate a south america wide counter-intelligence and counter-information program to combat efforts at subversion and destabilization. all in context of continuing the third cycle radicalisation: MORE EXPROPRIATIONS. MORE WORKERS CONTROL. ENFORCE THE MEDIA LAW AGAINST GLOBOVISION. ACTIVE COUNTER-INTEL AND COUNTER-INFO. PLACE THE BOLIVARIAN MILITIAS, THE SEBIN, THE PNB and the FANB on ACTIVE ALERT. /n2]

iii.

Against self proclaimed ''trotskyist'' Social-Gusanos on the western/global north ''left'' who adopt the propaganda narratives of imperialism to slander and misrepresent those who are fighting to free themselves from a neo-colonial condition imposed by yankee imperialism (the main enemy of humanity):

[the adaptation of western social liberals, "liberal communists" (sic.) and self proclaimed "trotskyists" to the Cuba Hater narratives promoted by the State Department are subset of a greater process of ideological capitulation to liberal public opinion. it is an attempt to make "liberal socialist" politics "palatable" to a western political audience by emphasising "differentiation" with legitimate Revolutionary Democratic efforts. behind this capitulation is an internalised fear of socialism, product of exposure to intensive anti-socialist propaganda premised on liberal prejudices that are alien and anti-thetical to socialist values. there is also a strong dose of eurocentric arrogance and presumption involved, as well as an a-priori (and unstated) affirmation that the West represents and defines the nature of "democracy". in fact, the West is an ensemble of finance capitalist dictatorships that rely on police brutality, institutional racism, mass incarceration and imperialistic military violence abroad in order to ensure the preservation of private capital, steal natural resources and secure markets. the West defines ANTI-DEMOCRACY. this is why the fundamental task facing genuine leftists and socialists active in context of the western anti-war and socialist activist networks is to BREAK WITH LIBERALISM. there will be no hope of overthrowing the political-economic dictatorship of the financial oligarchy behind the Patriot Curtain unless this first step is taken. /n2]

[LATIN AMERICANS ARE NOT "BACKWARD PEOPLE" WHO REQUIRE "MARXIST" TUTELAGE FROM BRITISH SECTARIAN OPPORTUNISTS. WE HAVE OUR OWN LEADERS. OUR OWN CONCEPTIONS. OUR OWN PERSPECTIVES. GO BACK TO BRITAIN AND GET RID OF THE BRITISH MONARCHY BEFORE YOU PRETEND TO "EDUCATE" LATIN AMERICANS ABOUT HOW TO CONDUCT OUR REVOLUTIONS. THE MAIN ENEMY IS AT HOME - YOUR HOME IS BRITAIN. / n2]

[people whom claim to be the "true and only" marxists need to prove it by winning revolutions in their own countries. is ask again and hope to get a straight answer: HOW MANY SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTIONS HAVE SO-CALLED ''TROTSKYIST'' SECTARIAN OPPORTUNISTS LED IN THE WEST THAT THEY FEEL QUALIFIED TO PASS JUDGEMENT ON GLOBAL SOUTH ANTI-CAPITALIST EFFORTS ? AS ALL THE THEORIES OF BRITISH ''TROTSKYISM'' HAVE PROVEN TO BE A MISERABLE FAILURE. /n2]

[ALL YOUR THEORIES PROVED TO BE A MISERABLE FAILURE IN BRITAIN. none of you have ANY standing to criticise the revolutionary governments in latin america, because none of the British self proclaimed "trotskyist" sects have EVER succeded in leading a workers revolution in Britain. i ask again: HOW MANY SUCCESFUL REVOLUTIONS AGAINST MONARCHO-CAPITALISM HAVE BRITISH ''TROTSKYIST'' SECTS LED IN BRITAIN THAT THEY FEEL ENTITLED TO PROCLAIM YOURSELVES "APOSTLES OF TRUE MARXISM" ? If a particular Brit-Trot ''guru'' proclaims himself the ''New Lenin'' and ''messiah'' of the "true marxism", then surely he must base that claim on the basis of having led a sucessful workers revolution against British capitalism - in Britain. /n2]

iiii

[one thing that strikes me about opportunistic sectarians in the British self proclaimed "marxist" mileux and front groups sponsored by these in places like Miami; is that they never criticise imperialism. all they do is slander, misrepresent and lie about the revolutionary governments in the global south (and latin america) that fight against imperialism. real revolutionaries know who the real enemy is. another mistake that sectarians in the western self proclaimed "marxist" mileux constantly make is the mischaracterisation of the venezuelan revolutionary process as seeking a "venezuelan road to socialism". president hugo chavez (and also president evo morales of bolivia) have made it clear several times that there is no such thing as a "venezuelan road". that the different processes of transition towards revolutionary democracy in latin america today are only subsets of much greater process of nuestroamericanist second independence from USA imposed neo-colonial domination.

CUBA SOLIDARITY IS NUESTROAMERICAN SOLIDARITY BECAUSE CUBA IS THE VANGUARD OF THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST NUESTROAMERICANIST REVOLUTION AGAINST YANKEE IMPOSED NEO-COLONIALISM ! /n2]

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MANIFIESTO ANTIIMPERIALISTA EN DEFENSA DE LA PATRIA

Caracas, 23 de Noviembre del 2010

"Por fortuna se ha visto con frecuencia un puñado de hombres libres vencer a imperios poderosos"

Simón Bolívar (Carta a Juan Bautista Irvine, agente norteamericano, 1819)

Desde Caracas, capital de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, los hijos e hijas de esta tierra que fue cuna y recinto predilecto de nuestro Libertador Simón Bolívar; los representantes de los Poderes Constitucionales, del Poder Popular y de todo nuestro pueblo, declaramos en este manifiesto la siguiente posición en defensa de nuestra patria:

Planteamos al mundo la determinación de derrumbar las cadenas imperiales que nos han mantenido dominados hasta nuestros días. Sacar adelante el proyecto que está permitiendo liberar a los pueblos históricamente oprimidos de nuestra América es el objetivo estratégico. Quienes hemos tomado la decisión de construir nuestra propia historia, basada en los inalienables principios de autodeterminación y soberanía, hemos decidido continuar el tránsito en el sendero de la definitiva independencia de nuestras naciones, como continuación de los proyectos enmarcados en las gestas independentistas planteadas por nuestros libertadores hace doscientos años.

A quienes han pretendido mantenernos sometidos a los designios de los centros de poder, tanto en épocas coloniales como en estos tiempos de imperios, declaramos: con el ejemplo de Simón Bolívar, la valentía de nuestros hombres y mujeres que conformaron el Ejército Libertador, reafirmamos nuestro compromiso con el Proyecto Bolivariano, nuestra indoblegable entrega a la lucha por la liberación nacional y por la construcción de la patria.

Hoy, las fuerzas coloniales, enemigas de la independencia, son enormemente más poderosas que hace dos siglos. El imperio más grande y poderoso que haya existido en la historia de la humanidad no da tregua en su ambición infinita. Una vez más, somos testigos de las pretensiones opresoras que ya desde tiempos de la doctrina Monroe atentaban directamente contra el ideal bolivariano de la unión.

Pero en esta ocasión el pueblo de nuestra América está en pie de lucha, porque ha vuelto a levantarse, esta vez hecho millones. Ha vuelto a rebelarse para revindicar el martirio de millones de aborígenes masacrados en el mayor genocidio registrado en la historia de la humanidad, como lo fue la conquista y colonización de nuestro continente. Ha vuelto para liberar a los descendientes de los millones de hijos de la madre África que fueron arrancados a sangre y fuego de su vientre para vivir condenados a la esclavitud. Ha vuelto para recibir el legado de los hombres y mujeres que en la primera gesta de independencia dieron su sangre por construir un territorio de libertad, con sus luchas patrióticas en defensa de nuestra América libre y soberana.

EL INVENTARIO DE AGRAVIOS

Es por ello que la caja de los truenos volvió a ser abierta por quienes pretenden frenar el ímpetu libertario de ese pueblo. Tras una breve pausa de aparente voluntad de construir una coexistencia respetuosa entre el imperio y nuestros países, la farsa de la democracia estadounidense ha reeditado su viejo dictatum. Tras los resultados de las elecciones legislativas de Estados Unidos, resucita el pacto bipartidista que pretende imponerle al mundo la sumisión a los designios del imperio yanqui, tras la ilusoria fachada de su falsa democracia.

En una vergonzosa demostración de soberbia imperial, los nuevos factores hegemónicos del parlamento estadounidense comienzan a lanzar sus amenazas a nuestra región, demostrando con ello que el sistema capitalista no distingue diferencias partidistas ni figuras más o menos carismáticas, que su proyecto es uno solo, y que su supervivencia depende del sometimiento de nuestros pueblos y de la conculcación de nuestros derechos para poder llevar adelante el expolio de nuestros recursos naturales y la explotación inescrupulosa de nuestros hombres, mujeres y niños.

Las amenazas ya han sido proferidas, en alta voz y bajo el patrocinio del propio congreso estadounidense, desde cuya emblemática sede nuestros países han sido abiertamente amenazados por una ultra derecha embriagada en sus delirios de victoria electoral, escoltada por un aquelarre compuesto por señalados representantes de los sectores más reaccionarios, de las oligarquías más rancias, de las clases históricamente dominantes, de los apátridas del continente. Por ello, no podemos subestimar el poder que nos amenaza.

En el contexto del siglo XXI, cuando los pueblos de nuestra América han decidido tomar el control sobre su propio destino, se intenta desconocer la voluntad popular plasmada en los procesos constituyentes, descalificándolos como manipulaciones al sistema democrático, sólo porque no se pliegan a la pantomima de democracia burguesa al gusto estadounidense, diseñada para contener los excesos de las mayorías en contra los privilegios de las minorías, según el planteamiento de James Madison, uno de sus principales ideólogos.

Dentro de este esquema, resulta pasmoso el descaro y la tranquilidad con la que los conjurados admiten estar trabajando por la exclusión del sistema internacional de los países de la Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA), buscando provocar un aislamiento como el que han venido intentando contra la gloriosa Revolución Cubana desde hace más de 50 años.

En ese propósito, se pretende desconocer la voluntad popular, arrojando dudas sobre aquellos procesos electorales cuyos resultados no son favorables a sus aliados políticos locales, sus lacayos incondicionales. En este entretejido de patrañas, el imperio intenta convencer al mundo de que la libertad de prensa comienza y termina con la satisfacción de los intereses corporativos de unos cuantos propietarios de empresas capitalistas del tráfico de información, y pretende imponerse el secuestro de la verdad como doctrina.

También se intenta descalificar cualquier corriente del pensamiento que no haga reverencias al altar del neoliberalismo, que no se incline ante el tótem del mal llamado “libre mercado”, o que no sucumba ante el fetiche de una apertura comercial fraudulenta, pensada para facilitar y legitimar que las grandes economías del norte devoren a las del sur, modelo perverso que en los últimos treinta años ha sumergido a los pueblos del mundo en la inequidad y en la pobreza.

Se pretende satanizar a un gobierno como el de Venezuela, legítimamente instaurado por la voluntad popular, que se ha perfilado a lo largo de once años como catalizador del desarrollo y constructor del bienestar de su pueblo. En la misma línea, se acusa de dependencia y concentración de poder a la acción mancomunada de las instituciones del Estado, solamente porque comparten una visión y un proyecto de país, recogido en una Constitución refrendada popularmente.

Se desprecia el nacimiento de nuevos actores económicos, los cuales reducen las desigualdades sociales, mediante la democratización de las oportunidades y la redistribución de la riqueza, políticas que a su vez, no se conjugan con los intereses de las transnacionales y de las oligarquías, cuestión que quiebra la tradicional estructura económica basada en la conocida división internacional del trabajo, modelo generador de desigualdades entre el centro y la periferia del poder económico mundial.

Nuestra nueva independencia pasa por quebrar las lógicas supranacionales de dominación, generadoras de pobreza y demás problemas sociales. Se ha pretendido desconocer los avances en materia de reducción de la pobreza, puesto que nuestra meta, en ese sentido, no es apaciguar la miseria, sino acabar con los factores económicos que la originan.

La imposición del pensamiento liberal-burgués, manipula una y otra vez con el chantaje del supuesto desarrollo económico, que desde su lógica toma en cuenta únicamente los tamaños de las economías y la generación de supuesta riqueza, que no es más que la plusvalía de las grandes corporaciones, despreciando los avances de las sociedades en términos sociales, culturales o ambientales, y la evolución de otros indicadores integrales de aceptación internacional, como el Índice de Desarrollo Humano o el Coeficiente de Gini, son simplemente despreciados.

Con una audacia que raya en la temeridad, se desvirtúa con mentiras la realidad de lo que pasa en nuestros países, desconociendo los avances en educación, en inclusión social, en democratización del acceso a la información, a los alimentos, a las fuentes de trabajo, al uso de la tierra, a la salud, y en definitiva, en el aumento de la equidad social.

Los tecnócratas defensores del modelo de expoliación de nuestros países pretenden blindar para su disfrute exclusivo y excluyente sectores estratégicos de la economía como la banca, los servicios públicos, la extracción de materias primas o la explotación de la tierra, en virtud de lo cual alzan sus voces con indignación frente a la acción firme y decidida del Estado popular y patriótico en la regulación y control de estos sectores primordiales para el desarrollo nacional de nuestras sociedades.

Así, se desconoce la potestad de los Estados para ejercer su soberanía sobre los sectores sensibles de la economía, que tradicionalmente se han mantenido en manos de los grupos poderosos que han impedido el acceso del pueblo a los beneficios que por derecho propio tiene sobre éstos.

Por todo lo anterior, el proyecto redivivo de estos sectores retrógrados descalifican las figuras de líderes electos con masivo apoyo popular, y para ello no escatiman en manipular, a través de su potente aparato de difamación masiva, las realidades regionales, históricas o culturales, dejando en evidencia el carácter racista, supremacista, de su comportamiento, que remonta a los tiempos de la Alemania nazi y de la Italia fascista.

De esa misma materia es que está hecha la demonización de la cultura musulmana y en particular del digno pueblo persa, pretendiendo correr un velo de “maldad” como justificación para imponer a nuestros países con quién pueden y con quién no pueden vincularse, criminalizando las normales relaciones entre los miembros de la comunidad internacional.

Mientras tanto, quienes argumentaban que el imperialismo era un concepto pasado de moda, pueden ver en esta arremetida la más rampante y soez muestra de la prepotencia imperial estadounidense, que tanto terror y miseria ha sembrado en nuestros países a lo largo de la historia y que sólo es de necios o de cómplices tratar de ignorar.

Una vez más, resulta vergonzoso el papel servil de algunos felones al servicio de potencias extranjeras, que aún continúan viviendo de la explotación y sumisión de su propio pueblo, y que ponen el poder económico, político, cultural y mediático que aún detentan, al servicio de destruir la Revolución Bolivariana, no por los errores que ésta pueda haber cometido, sino por sus enormes aciertos: por haber puesto al servicio del pueblo las riquezas de la nación, por haber recuperado la soberanía, la dignidad y la esperanza del pueblo venezolano, y por haber sido artífice de la auténtica unidad con otros pueblos de nuestra América, que hoy logra sus mayores frutos en el ALBA.

Ante estas pretensiones, se reivindica el pensamiento y acción del Libertador Simón Bolívar y la idea de la unión, que elevan y defienden los pueblos del continente.

LLAMAMIENTO AL PUEBLO DE VENEZUELA

Frente a las absurdas pretensiones y amenazas de estas corrientes imperiales que vienen desde los Estados Unidos, nuestro llamado es a la unidad y movilización permanente en defensa de la patria, en defensa de la Constitución y en respaldo al Jefe de Estado, que son objeto de una conspiración y agresión permanente.

Por eso, respaldamos la necesidad de reaccionar como pueblo unido, dejando de lado nuestras diferencias menores, poniendo por delante la dignidad nacional, el patriotismo, el deseo de igualdad y justicia que hoy, como hace doscientos años, anida en el corazón de cada hombre y mujer de buena voluntad de nuestra tierra.

Es por esto que llamamos a los hombres y mujeres que aman a Venezuela, a manifestar su justa indignación contra la obscena amenaza a nuestra Nación, que se organiza desde la propia capital de los Estados Unidos, con la complicidad de la oligarquía apátrida, continental y nacional. Convocamos, pues, a la defensa irrestricta de la patria, con la movilización popular, porque está en juego el futuro de Venezuela.

En los campos, en los ríos, en la selva, en el monte, en los llanos, en los andes, en el mar, en cada hogar, en cada aula, en cada oficina, fábrica y taller, los patriotas deben conocer y denunciar el peligro que se cierne sobre nuestra patria, actuando con responsabilidad, con organización, con unidad y conciencia nacional.

No volveremos a ser colonia, pues por nuestras venas palpita la sangre de Guaicaipuro, de Simón Bolívar, de Ezequiel Zamora, de Manuela Sáenz y del Negro Primero, de todos los hombres y mujeres que a diario construyen la patria con amor, responsabilidad y sacrificio.

A LOS PUEBLOS DEL ALBA,

DE NUESTRA AMÉRICA Y DEL MUNDO

El golpe de Estado en Honduras, el acicate insurreccional en Bolivia, el intento de golpe y magnicidio en Ecuador, el intento por desconocer la soberanía de Nicaragua sobre su territorio, el acoso histórico contra Cuba y las amenazas directas a Venezuela, son el preámbulo del hostigamiento que la derecha del norte desatará contra nuestros países, y las recientes maniobras contra los países del ALBA en la OEA son testimonio irrefutable de la siniestra operación en marcha.

Frente a esta arremetida, nuestra estrategia seguirá siendo la unidad y el desarrollo de los proyectos grannacionales y de los demás acuerdos de integración entre los países de América Latina y del mundo, en abierta oposición al hegemonismo estadounidense. El pueblo de Venezuela, los pueblos del ALBA, los pueblos de nuestra América y del mundo, venceremos las pretensiones del imperialismo yanqui, que no intenta otra cosa que salir de sus crisis con más guerra y saqueo a los pueblos del mundo.

En estos tiempos del Bicentenario, ratificamos nuestro compromiso inclaudicable con la culminación de la preciada obra de la independencia, con la consolidación de la soberanía y con la construcción de la unidad entre nuestros pueblos, ante lo cual proclamamos que nuestra respuesta a la amenaza imperialista será: más unidad, más independencia y más integración.

¡Viva Venezuela libre y soberana!

¡Viva la patria de Simón Bolívar!

¡Viva el ALBA!

¡Vivan los pueblos del mundo!

Desde el Palacio Federal Legislativo de Caracas, sede de la soberana Asamblea Nacional de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela.

Dado, firmado y sellado a los veintitrés días del mes de noviembre de dos mil diez. Año 200º de la Independencia y 151º de la Federación.

Por el Poder Ejecutivo Nacional

HUGO CHÁVEZ

Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela

Por el Poder Legislativo Nacional

CILIA FLORES

Presidenta de la Asamblea Nacional

Por el Poder Judicial

LUISA ESTELLA MORALES

Presidenta del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia

Por el Poder Ciudadano

GABRIELA DEL MAR RAMÍREZ

Defensora del Pueblo

Por el Poder Electoral

TIBISAY LUCENA

Presidenta del Consejo Nacional Electoral

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(CC) Material on this Weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [6] license, except for links to articles that are posted with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed and credited to their author(s).

Tea Minus

2010-11-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

Re: [Working_Class_Study_and_Action] Re: Organising against the Tea Party

To: Working_Class_Study_and_Action@yahoogroups.com, working_class_news@yahoogroups.com, anticapdiscuss@yahoogroups.com

"...spoil the media's goal of splitting the protest by AGREEING with what the Tea Party is saying that AGREES with the truth: The exposure of the Fed, the bail out..."

The Tea Party is attempting to hijack the issue of bail out in order to prevent it from becoming a platform upon which a legitimate anti-establishment (anti-capitalist) popular movement could organise itself. as expressed by the WSWS in its analysis of the Tea Party:

"...Tea Party-backed candidates such as O’Donnell and Paladino make an appeal to very real social grievances among middle-class and even working class voters, exploiting the political vacuum left by the uniformly right-wing policies of the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress.They combine denunciations of the government bailout of Wall Street, Obama’s cost-cutting, pro-business health care “reform,” and other handouts to the corporate elite with a glorification of American militarism and reactionary attacks on immigrants, abortion rights, gays, etc...Their populist pretensions are entirely demagogic, and the solutions they propose—sweeping cuts and even the dismantling of basic social programs, sharper attacks on public sector workers—are even more brutal than the policies being carried out by Obama..."

[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s16.shtml]

As a concrete proposal; I cited the model ORANISING and CAMPAIGN models of the Venezuelan PSUV patrullas/ maquinaria roja of 2010 and the Zapatista "Otra Campaña" of 2006, specifically as they pertain basing campaign activity on existing social movements and existing social organisations ('las bases'); because these are successful examples of grassroots organising that do not operate on the premises of neoliberal individuation and marketisation of political activity and discourse. a political program is not a brand, and marketing does not define culture. "one man one vote" is not democracy, only the first step towards democracy. the organising model of the PSUV has delivered victory after victory to the Venezuelan transition government, while the Zapatista "otra campaña" (which was global) was a direct influence upon the victory of Lopez Obrador / PRD and the formation of the parallel APPO government in Oaxaca. The reason the United States Embassy in Mexico ordered the PAN government to rig the election in 2006 was precisely because of the success of the organising model of the ''Otra Campaña''. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Bolivian MAS also based their campaigns on this "Bolivarian-Zapatista model" in 2006 and 2009 respectively; the result was two major victories for the Segunda Independencia / Second Independence. In the Nicaraguan case the FSLN returned to power, in the Bolivian sense the Indigenista Plurinational Constitution was ratified in a referendum - the first indigenous peoples' constitution in the Americas -north, centre and south.

refs. (CREDIBLE socialist perspectives on the Tea Party)

The Tea Party primary election victories

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s16.shtml

The “Tea Party” movement in the US: A right-wing media creation

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/teap-f09.shtml

Media promotes right-wing “tea parties”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/teap-a17.shtml

From: Miguel Angel

Subject: Re: [Working_Class_Study_and_Action] Fwd: ] Re: campaign for a mass labor party

To:

Working_Class_Study_and_Action@yahoogroups.com, working_class_news@yahoogroups.com

Date: Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 8:09 PM

I have not stated that "the tea party equals nazi germany". I stated that the Tea Party is PROTO-fascist. if not confronted forcefully with an anti-thesis now it could very well become the basis for the growth of a real fascist movement. /n2

Jay Janson

To: Working_Class_Study_and_Action@yahoogroups.com

Miguel Angel

Is correct in all three of his paragraphs, however by quoting j janson at the top,

"...spoil the media's goal of splitting the protest by AGREEING with what the Tea Party is saying that AGREES with the truth: The exposure of the Fed, the bail out..."

Miguel appears to be answering janson's message with pointing to Tea Party backed candidates O’Donnell and Paladino denouncing the bail outs. Janson exhorts us only to agree with the truth as being felt by masses of Americans, NOT worrying that doing so will raise support for any candidates or capitalist political parties.

Miguel is right that the truth is being 'hijacked,' just as the German industrial bankers had Hitler steal the socialist's truth and even implement much of it after being supported into power. The tiny minority of politically knowledgeable is in similar quandry as a much larger politically sophisticated even socialist part of that German public end of the 1920s at the Nazi party's beginnings.

Miguel's excellent call to emullate the physically demonstrative Venezuelan left and Zapatistas would seem to be the only way non-capitalist to steal the mock thunder of the banker programed right. Capture the bail out issue by more attention and reaction causing behavior than the phony anti bail out leaders backed with weathy investor cash and investor media constantly highlighting the Tea Party and billowing up its actual present number of adherents to split the population and prevent non-capitalist sentiment.

***

[November 4th, 2010]

Re: Alleged "Republican Victory" usurped anti-Obama Protest Vote.

[this result is not surprising at all given that democrat party "triangulation" towards right wing politics created a political climate of legitimacy for the agenda of the proto-fascist Tea Party movement. the pre-emptive Homeland Security Gestapo and FBI assault upon the anti-war dissident and socialist activist communities also created an athmosphere of intimidation among the left wing of the anti-establishment; this dampened the possibility of manifesting opposition against democrat party candidates. the 2010 midtems where a referendum on the obama regime. the republican party and the tea party faction inside of it are only capitalising on a protest vote against the failed policies of the obama administration. I was, of course, a "protest vote" only insofar as far as the votes in question where accurately counted; as in reality the popular vote in the USA is of a consultative and not determinative nature./n2]

"The electoral debacle is a devastating indictment of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. Two years after an overwhelming victory in the presidential election, four years after the Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate, the right-wing policies of the Democrats have created the conditions for a massive comeback by the Republicans.The corporate-controlled media and the representatives of the two big business parties are already proclaiming that the outcome of the election demonstrates that the American people have shifted to the right, embracing the “free market” nostrums of the Republican Party and the right-wing Tea Party movement."

[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/elec-n03.shtml]

[the republican take over of the so-called "house of representatives" signals the obama regime to continue and intensify the agenda of domestic austerity and foreign militarism. this has implications for the usa working class and oppressed groups. there will be more foreclosures, more wage and benefit cutting in what remains of the industrial infrastructure, more repression directed against anti-war and socialist community dissidents, more attacks on immigrant and gay minorities. obama will now move to intensify efforts to destabilise Eurasia by increasing naval provocations against china and the DPRK on the pretext of "freedom of the seas", impose more sanctions against Iran; while expanding the war in AFPAK (nothwithstanding psychological propaganda about alleged "talks" between kharzai and "the taliban"). the only way to confront this is to organise a new opposition movement based on anti-war and economic democracy demands premised upon breaking with liberalism and the the democrat party. the 'tea party' has had its day, the billionares who funded it have accomplished their goals with it and now they are likely to dispense with its props. i am not sure i agree that it was a total flop as it did succeed in creating the conditions for the republican party to usurp the anti-obama protest vote that rightfully belonged to the left; as most of the dissapointment with The Hope That Failed comes from constituencies who understand that they where duped and betrayed by the democrat party. /n2]

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(CC) Material on this Weblog is licensed by Miguel Angel Torres, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [6] license, except for links to articles that are posted with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed and credited to their author(s), inclusive Miguel Angel Torres.

EN COLERE !

2010-10-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

source of photo: Agence France Press

"The revolutionary key to the situation in Europe and in the entire world is now above all in France!" - Leon Trotsky (1934)

two comments on the article by Jerome Metellus:

France: Battle over Pensions - Bring Economy to a Halt !
http://www.marxist.com/france-battle-over-pensionsbring-economy-to-a-halt.htm

J. Metellus wrote: "...After October 12, the movement against the attack on pensions has reached a critical threshold. The great days of action are no longer the centre of gravity, although they are still massive and increasingly militant, as shown by October 19. Now, the central axis of the struggle has shifted onto open-ended strikes and pickets blockading different sectors of the economy..."

[this shift is a tactical response of the movement against the deployment of police and security forces to suppress the social revolt, which is in fact a convergence of social forces against the racist and anti-worker neo-Gaullist regime. the movement started out as a workers movement in opposition to the neo-liberal pension "reform", but as it developed it was joined by the immigrant community and by students; social forces that have their own set of grievances against the Sarkozy regime. the strategy of coordinated labour power withdrawal and blockade of strategic sectors of the economy is hitting the financial oligarchy and the neo-liberal political class right where it hurts them. the development of this movement vindicates the analysis of Karl Marx and Rosa Luxembourg that it is the intensification of class struggle by the working class that serves as primary motor of social revolutionary convergence of social forces against capital. note that it was at the point that the industrial workers paralysed the energy industry, that the movement radicalised into a generalised social revolt against the Sarkozy regime.]

J. Metellus wrote: "The development of an indefinite general strike should be accompanied by democratic centralisation and coordination of the movement. Sectors on strike should coordinate at local and national level, on the basis of delegates elected by General Assemblies, and with the right of recall. A national inter-professional coordination of such delegates could centralise information, circulate it, discuss the movement from day to day and take the necessary initiatives to strengthen the strike. The national "Intersyndical" [trade union alliance], many of whom speak about quitting the movement after the Senate vote, cannot play this role."

[just as the movement has developed as a convergence of social forces, this movement must begin to develop convergent forms of organisation and a convergent program that makes political demands. this is the only way that the specific demands of the workers, the immigrants and the students will come to be implemented. this coordination of sectors on strike at the local and national level culminating in the development of general assemblies could become the basis for the refoundation of france and the emergence of a post-capitalist sixth republic. indeed. assuming the emergence of a post-capitalist sixth republic, as i wrote elsewhere: such a development would tear appart the core of the Franco-German Imperialist Entente and bring down the edifice of the so-called "European Union" (a political and economic front for the Franco-German financial oligarchy). a succesful overthrow of the neo-Gaullist regime by a convergence of worker led social forces would have a direct impact on Spain, Greece, and Iceland. it would paralyse on its tracks the effort to impose the anti-worker neo-liberal economic agenda, it would reverse the overall european trend towards anti-immigrant anti-Roma xenophobic racism, it would empower students accross the continent to revolt against efforts to destroy public education and school democracy through privatisations. i add: it would also be a direct hit upon the entire structure of atlantism in decline and have major geo-political consequneces in favour of multipolarism. France would withdraw its contingent form the AFPAK war and the process of integrating France into NATO (imposed by Sarkozy) would be reversed; meaning that a post-capitalist French Sixth Republic would join the multipolar bloc and ally itself to the Shanghai Pact and ALBA/UNASUR. a post-capitalist French Sixth Republic would also likely utilise its veto in the UN security council to thwart efforts by Anglo-British imperialism to impose Washingtons unipolar dominionist agenda. France is a major developed political-economy and a member of the G8, it also has its own nuclear arsenal. an alliance of a post-capitalist French Sixth Republic with the National Democracies of the West Eurasian Core (Ukraine, Belarus and Russia) would place the final nails in the coffin of the moribund and obsolete NATO imperialist infrastructure./n2]

photos source: World Socialist Website

refs.

The strike wave in Europe and the decay of bourgeois democracy

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o20.shtml

"...The growing struggles of the working class in Europe and internationally against mass unemployment and government austerity policies are exposing the reality behind the façade of bourgeois democracy. In every country, the government, whether conservative or nominally “left,” is cutting jobs and wages and slashing social programs in complete disregard for the overwhelming opposition of the population. Elections, parliamentary debates have no effect on policy. The state does the bidding of the financial aristocracy, tearing up the living standards of the masses in the interests of the bankers who are responsible for the economic crisis. The financiers and corporate executives are making more money than ever by exploiting mass unemployment and growing social distress to slash wages and increase the exploitation of the working class. Where the best efforts of the trade unions do not suffice to hold the workers in check and struggles break out that challenge the plans of the capitalists, most prominently in France and Greece, the state uses its powers of repression to smash strikes and protests. In France, the Sarkozy government has deployed riot police to break up workers’ blockades of oil depots and attack protesting students with tear gas and rubber bullets, arresting hundreds across the country..."

[the racist, anti-worker neo-Gaullist regime in France has unleashed the full power of its security forces to suppress the convergence of social forces aligned against the now discredited and desperate government: ]

French President Sarkozy moves to break strikes against austerity measures

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/fran-o21.shtml

"...President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to break strikes against his government’s pension cuts and social austerity policies yesterday, sending riot police and army civil service units to disperse picket lines and end oil depot occupations. Workers and students have mounted mass strikes for more than a week while debate in the Senate has continued over provisions of the pension “reform” bill. A final vote on the bill is expected by early next week..."

[Capitalism is political economy premised upon private ownership of the means of production and on the basis of private ownership of the said means, "the accumulation of (surplus) value by means of the exploitation of wage labor in the process of mass production of commodities". Rosa Luxembourg and the Venezuelan Communists would add that Capitalism also involves systematic police state repression in order to ensure private capital preservation and suppression of working class resistance. The actions of the Neo-Gaullist regime vindicate these analyses:]

How riot police broke the occupation of the Marseille oil depots

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/mars-o21.shtml

"...The French government gave the order Friday morning, October 15, to send in the CRS riot police to unblock the Fos oil depot occupied by workers near Marseille in southern France. The workers were blocking the site to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension cuts and the partial privatisation of the French ports. The CGT (General Confederation of Labour) called upon workers not to show any resistance to the police..."

Workers face a struggle for power in France

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o22.shtml

"...Police action to break strikes and blockades in the oil sector has not ended France’s fuel shortage or curtailed strikes and protests by workers and students against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s deeply unpopular pension cuts. The French strike wave is the most developed expression of growing working class resistance to the drive by European governments to impose austerity measures in the face of overwhelming popular opposition. The refusal of the unions to organize broader strikes or protests against the police attacks on oil blockades must be taken as a serious warning. These organizations will mount no struggle to defend workers from state violence. On the contrary, they are sending Sarkozy a signal that he can employ even greater police violence with their tacit support..."

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PATRIA GRANDE !

2010-10-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Evo, Rafa and Hugo - The Leadership of The Second Independence.

Grounding the fifth international on the existing process of Latin American Second Independence as a model would give the Fifth International an objective and concrete basis in an existing process of class struggles that project themselves geo-politically and geo-economically. From this basis, the development of a new anti-imperialist, anti-colonial internationalism could be premised upon intercontinental and interegional multipolar networks that incorporate autochthonous anti-capitalist struggles in north america, western europe, asia and africa. The convergence of the PSUV with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is a perfect foundation for the V International, a first step already taken. The Sandinista Revolution of 1979-1990 is the direct precursor to the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution, the Ecuadoran Revolucion Ciudadana and the Indigenista Revolution in Bolivia. The Nicaraguan Sandinistas where the first to base their operational model on the premise of a "civic-military alliance" that seeks to construct an ''armed democratic socialism'' in defiance to USA/Atlantist imperialism. The proliferation, in context of multipolarism, of national spaces of “armed democratic socialism” that seek simulatenously to (1) transition from neo-colonial dependence to revolutionary democracy as the precursor for the emergence of existing socialism, and that (2) foster regional integration on the model of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) and UNASUR; would progressively undermine the hegemony of North Atlantism over the globalisation process.

Multipolarism as the new Internationalist Anti-Imperialism:

According to El Economista de Cuba (The Cuban Economic Review):

“América Latina padece todos los males de la globalización y la postmodernidad y ninguna de las ventajas prometidas: el crecimiento económico sin empleo; la concentración del saber en el Norte, deja fuera a nuestros pueblos de las tecnologías de punta, de la creación y desarrollo de centros de investigación científica; la destrucción del medio ambiente —envenenamiento de las fuentes de agua potable, tala de los bosques—, etc.; el desarrollo del modelo de crecimiento basado en las exportaciones a todo trance, la privatización de las empresas estatales y servicios de correos, salud, educación, seguridad social, originando un crecimiento sustancial de la pobreza; la apertura de las fronteras para el flujo libre de capitales, de flujos financieros y de mercancías provenientes del Norte, arruinando de este modo las economías nacionales, y no así el flujo libre de personas del Sur para el Norte; reducción del salario real; dependencia alimentaria del exterior; incremento de la Deuda Externa; etc.”

[“Latin America is a showcase for all the evils of globalisation and postmodernity without any of its promised advantages: economic growth without employment growth, the concentrtation of knowledge in the north, it leaves our peoples outside the circuit of advanced technologies, it prevents the development of scientific research centres, it destroys the natural environment – poisoning aquifiers, clearcutting the forests – etc. ; the model of development and growth based on exports at all costs, the privatisation of state enterprises and of postal, healthcare, educational, social security have resulted in the substantial growth of poverty; the opening of borders for the unrestricted flow of capital and of financial transactions, and for branded products from the north has bankrupted national economies , but not the migration of people from the south to the north; the reduction of real wages, food dependence of foreign dources, the increase of external debt obligations…”]

The emergence of ALBA, MERCOSUR and UNASUR as forums independent from the OAS has created a “multipolarisation effect” in Latin America. The United States has lost control of South America. The emergence of the Argentino-Brasilian geo-economic entente and of UNASUR have broken the power and influence of the State Department controlled OAS. The SUCRE monetary system is making inroads into commercial spaces formerly dominated by transactions in USA Dollars. BOLIVARIANISM emerges as the most radicalised expression of the overall political and social movement for the Second Independence of Latin America from the status of neo-colonial domination imposed by USA/North Atlantist imperialism in the mid 19th century (when the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed). The Second Independence calls both for the development of a self referential and autonomous post-capitalist models of political-economy for sovereign Latin American nations, for PLURINATIONALISM and for the subsequent voluntary and democratic integration of sovereign peoples into the Latin American "patria grande" (greater fatherland). The Bolivarian Revolutionary government states that its goal in Venezuela is the construction of an "armed democratic socialism" (the Bolivarian concept of Revolutionary Democracy) based on participatory democracy, civic-military alliance, nationalisation of natural resources and planned infrastructural development; where poverty is to be eliminated by empowering the poor politically and economically - i.e organising the poor politically around communal councils and allocating economic resources and targeted social services to the politically organised poor in a decentral manner so that they can solve their own problems in situ.

Bolivarianism is one of the several new global south politics that have emerged in reaction to and against North Atlantist/Imperialist hegemony, the imposition of western political values and economic ideologies (such as neo-liberalism) which seek to rationalise the exploitation and looting of global south peoples and their natural resources to sustain an objectively, socially and ecologically, unsustainable hyper-consumeristic economic model in the nations that conform the North Atlantist Core (North America, Western Europe) . Bolivarianism calls for the creation of “a multipolar world where many worlds are possible, inclusive 21st century socialist ones".

The "Bolivarian-Zapatista" Organising Model as an effective form of social and class struggle:

Elsewhere, I have cited as a model for organising against the proto-fascist right, the ORANISING and CAMPAIGN models of the Venezuelan PSUV patrullas/ “Maquinaria Roja” of 2010 and the Zapatista "Otra Campaña" of 2006, specifically as they pertain basing campaign activity on existing social movements and existing social organisations ('las bases'); because these are successful examples of grassroots organising that do not operate on the premises of neo-liberal individuation and marketisation of political activity and discourse. a political program is not a brand, and marketing does not define culture. "one man one vote" is not democracy, only the first step towards democracy. the organising model of the PSUV has delivered victory after victory to the Venezuelan transition government, while the Zapatista "otra campaña" (which was global) was a direct influence upon the victory of Lopez Obrador / PRD and the formation of the parallel APPO government in Oaxaca. The reason the United States Embassy in Mexico ordered the PAN government to fix the election in 2006 was precisely because of the success of the organising model of the ''Otra Campaña''. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Bolivian MAS also based their campaigns on this "Bolivarian-Zapatista model" in 2006 and 2009 respectively; the result was two major victories for the Segunda Independencia / Second Independence. In the Nicaraguan case the FSLN returned to power, in the Bolivian sense the Indigenista Plurinational Constitution was ratified in a referendum - the first indigenous peoples' constitution in the Americas -north, centre and south. Bolivia became the first Indigenous People’s Republic in the Americas, a polity where indigenous majority rule was achieved on the basis of the political marginalisation of the hispano-criollo comprador bourgeoisie and its North American transnational patrons.

The humble origins of 21st century socialism where the “Caracazo” food riots in Venezuela against neo-liberal adjustment policies in February 1989 and the Zapatista uprising against NAFTA in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994. They chanted QUEREMOS COMER ! ( we want to eat) and YA BASTA ! (enough is enough). Their call was taken up by the anti-globalisation demonstrators who gathered in Seattle in December 1999, the PIQUETEROS in Argentina who deposed a corrupt neo-liberal regime in December 2002, and latter by those who participated in the massive global anti-war movilisations against the imperialist invasion of Iraq in February 2003. They chanted FREE TRADE IS WAR ! and FREEDOM FRIES WHILE BAGDAD BURNS ! The Fifth International must recapture this spirit, and develop it further; as it works to establish spaces of eco-social construction and democratic empowerment for marginalised social actors, in a multi-polar context free of imperialist entities and globalised transnational oligarchies dedicated to the pursuit of unipolarist domination agendas. It must impart new dynamism to the class based struggles of trade unionists in Western Europe fighting against the destructive social effects of the financial bailout; of peace activists in the United States facing repression at the hands of the FBI and Homeland Security Gestapo; and the struggle of migrant populations against systematic police repression, of the foreclosed and the homeless for housing and dignity, of the landless and those displaced by the wars of capitalism in Colombia and Afghanistan. The Fifth International must be an international of hope for those who find themselves in the losing end of global capitalism, not a talk shop for ideologues or a forum for the restatement of failed political theories from the past. /n2

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EL QUINTO !

2010-10-04T04:42:00.000-07:00

Hugo Chavez Frias

Re: [Working_Class_News] Hugo Chavez and the Fifth International

Miguel Angel 20 September 2010 14:08

To: Working_Class_News@yahoogroups.com

The PSUV is not a social democrat party in the modern sense, only in the classical 1889/democratic socialist sense. The PSUV is the largest democratic socialist party in Latin America and the Western Hemisphere. It is akin to the Vänsteparteit in Sweden or the Izquierda Unida in Spain. It has as a clear and manifest goal the achievement of an existing socialism in Venezuela.

The reason ...I support the PCV in Venezuela is precisely because I understand that a simple neo-classical revival of 1889 democratic socialist politics is not enough to achieve socialism. Democratic Socialists have no long term perspective of transition or dialectics. Unlike the PSUV, PCV theory clearly explains (from an objective foundation premised upon an analysis of concrete realities) that before there can emerge a Bolivarian Existing Socialism there needs to be a consolidation of Revolutionary Democracy, and that Existing Socialism must be based on the political collective leadership of the organised working class. This is why the PCV is calling for direct representation of PDVSA and Iron workers in the Asambleas, AS WORKERS.

Accion Democratica is the social democrat party in Venezuela, akin to the PSOE in Spain. This side of Tony Blair and Lula da Silva social democrats are explicit neoliberals, what defines 2nd international social democrats (after 1995 ) is their acceptance of "the market" and their manifest rejection of the goal of constructing socialism (The Abrogation of Clause IV). They also appeal to liberal identity politics (''new social movements'') while denying class struggle. After 2006 they have adopted sao paulo forum sponsored rethoric about"corporate social responsibility" and "green capitalism" as a means of polishing their "social progressive" image.

According to Wikipedia:

The original version of Clause IV, drafted by Sidney Webb in November 1917 and adopted by the party in 1918, read, in part 4:

“To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”

The PSUV explicitly rejects neoliberalism, imperialism and acknowledges class issues in context of seeking to construct a Bolivarian Socialism in Venezuela; this is definetly NOT social democrat. Chavez version of a Fifth international is one that seeks to revive the classical democratic socialism of Clause IV. This is why Lula da Silva is opposed to it. Via the misiones, the PSUV government has achieved the reduction of poverty and more equitable distirbution of wealth. It has established the foundations for common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exhange via the nationalisation of natural resources, sponsoring initiatives for workers control, the work of the misiones, infrastructure development, a progressive taxation regime and the abastos bicentenarios distribution chain.

A democratic socialist Fifth international would not be a bad idea right now, as it would at least reconstruct the theoretical horizon demolished in 1995 by Tony blair. It would give communists a leftist counter-argumentative point of reference that begins from the premise of positively seeking socialism, as opposed to negative rejection of neoliberalism.

The working class is not in control because Venezuela is not a socialist country. It is a state in transition from neocolonial dependency moving towards revolutionary democracy. Venezuela and Cuba cannot be judged by the standards of an ideal existing socialism or communism that does not exist anywhere in the world. Neither of these are examples of Existing Socialism. Cuba, at best, was proto-socialist in the 1970's.

A note on Iran, the Principalists acknowledge that Dr. Mossadeq was overthrown by the CIA and in his place was installed the Shah.

The Tudeh party made a mistake in 1979 of sponsoring atheism in a Muslim nation. Their atheist fundamentalism alienated them from the people. I do not agree that the Islamic Revolution was "reactionary" since it achieved liberation from neo-colonial status (imposed by the CIA after the overthrow of Dr. Mossadeq), the abolition of the monarchy, nationalisation of strategic industries, and banning of Western cultural influences. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 established the National Democracy in Iran, its precursor being the 1905 revolution that founded the parliament. The History of Iran after 1905 proves that it is possible for non-Western peoples to achieve their own self referential forms of national democracy without copying Western models based on the events of 1789 in France.

The Bolivarian Revolution identifies a process of transition from neocolonial status to revolutionary democray and Latin American integration that has impacted an entire continent and the world. Implicit are explicitly socialist inspired economic and political transformations in Venezuela that are structural and substantial (like the communal councils). This is revolutionary.

My "true goal" is to work for the achievement of spaces for political-economies of Existing Socialism in context of a global multipolar order where many worlds are possible. Existing Socialism must be constructed on the foundation of a revolutionary democracy where the ecologically sustainable extension of democracy beyond the political into the economic and social has been consolidated. Bolivarian Venezuela, Plurinational Bolivia and the Ecuador of the Citizens Revolution are clearly headed in that direction.

The Western Left needs to accept that non-Western peoples will define their own forms of struggle for national democracy or socialism in their own terms, appealing to their own values. What aplies to Shia Islam applies to Bolivar, and could apply to Daniel Shays. The missionary, evangelistic approach of the ''trotskyist'' section of the Western left is counterproductive to its stated goals.

ii.

the PSUV does operate a very well organised electoral machine. it is called the 'maquinaria roja' (red machinery). and yes its campaign command (''Bolivar 200'') utilise electioneering techniques developed by social democrat parties in europe (i believe they have hired consultants that have done work for the Spanish PSOE and the UK Labour Party). BUT the PSUV also operates a very active and well organised grassroots canvassing campaign based upon movilising the communal councils; this is where the PSUV is not social democrat in the post-1995 sense of the term. in movilising the communal coucils the PSUV campaign strenghtens the organs of nascent revolutionary democracy in Venezuela.

the PSUV is a Latin American post-Allendista / post-Carrillista "democratic socialist party" (in the classical Kautskyan/1889 sense of the term). it is post-Allendista and post-Carrillista because its leadership understood that it is not possible to carry out the "discontinous break with capitalism" (or the achievement of "basic liberal-democratic tasks" talked about in Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution) on the foundation of the political institutions of the comprador/ neo-colonial state (the cardinal mistake of Salvador Allende). this is why Chavez first refounded the state (the 1999 constitution) and then proceeded to engage in the transition process towards revolutionary democracy. the oligarchy was taken by surprise with this development and this is why in desperation it attempted the coup in April 2002. the PSUV also incorporated the Sandinista inspired concept of the "armed social revolution" and the Guevarista concept of "war of the whole people"; ergo: the civic military alliance as basis for an "armed democratic socialism". the same patrulleros that canvass the communal councils during elections can be organised into armed militias that alongside the FANB and Policia Bolivariana can defend the revolution with kalashnikovs and RPG's. none of this is of social democrat import, even by 1889 standards.

i used the example of Tony Blair in 1995 as point of reference because it was his action to abrogate clause IV in 1995 that established the definitve end of any progressive role for western social democracy, and the final end to all illusions that the western social democrat party machines (inclusive theirv trade unions) could be "taken back" by the workers. it was at that moment that western social democracy became an openly reactionary and counter-revolutionary factor. via the post-2006 sao paulo forum/world social forum cooption western social democracy is only trying to polish its ''progressive" credentials in a symbolic way in order to better fool the workers. you are right that the degeneration of the western social democrat parties begun in the 1980's. i make reference to the british labour party, because the british working class was the first to emerge in the historical scene as a definite social actor back in the mid 19th century. the british workers are the "classical workers" that served as point of reference to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels when they developed their political-economic theories.

the PCV is calling for "Popular Power as basis for the new socialist state"; in this context the PCV is calling for direct representation of Oil and Iron workers in the Asambleas as workers. There is also a call for the formation of Workers Councils (Consejos Obreros) - modeled on the Chilean ''Cordones" of the Allende era - to serve as points for the coordination of production, and for the formulation of policies relative to wages, working conditions and worplace democracy. The PSUV is not entirely in agreement with this as it posits the Bolivarian Trade Unions as the appropriate entities to deal with issues of wages and working conditions. in this sense the PSUV is positing a classical social democrat (in the 1889 sense ) objection to communist proposals. i do not agree with the PSUV objection and that is why I back the Gallos Rojos. /n2

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On 19 September 2010 18:19, grok wrote:

As the smoke cleared, Miguel Angel mounted the barricade and roared out:

"what exactly do you mean by a ''marxist'' fifth international ?"

I mean an international organized on the only possible basis that won't lead to complete betrayal and defeat of the working-class one more time. Therefore it would have to be an international which excluded social-democratic parties, for instance. Like the PSUV, actually...

Let's get something else clear here Miguel: the only reason I ever hung around the "Bolivarian" revolution was because of the potential for the workers and the masses of Venezuela actually taking charge of the social-revolutionary process. But this has manifestly not only NOT been the case in Venezuela. In fact, the counter-revolution is advancing rapidly against the personal and exclusive leadership of the "christian marxist nationalist", Hugo Chavez and his "boliburgues" clique there -- as in Cuba now -- because the working-class does NOT in fact control any part of these processes. And it is very clear that in both countries a section of the leadership fully intends to sell out to capitalism -- and get their chunk of the action, as happened in the stalinist countries.

"i agree that iran should not be included because iran is an islamic national democracy (the Iranian revolutions of 1905 and 1979 viewed as a dialectical progression established the Farsi equivalent to western liberal national democracy on an islamic basis, via the foundation of a parliament and the abolition of the monarchy respectively); and not a state undergoing transition from neocolonial status to revolutionary democracy, as a precursor to the emergence of a ''bolivarian existing socialism'', as is the case with Venezuela;´"

In fact, the *socialist* revolution in Iran was betrayed to Khomeini and his murderous reactionary nationalist crew, not only by the stalinist Tudeh Party -- operating as stalinists always do in these situations: conniving with the likes conservative 'labor' elements such as the trade union apparatus -- and even the islamists for a period(!!) -- to mislead and confuse the workers at the crucial moments -- but by the usual suspects as well: the CIA, etc. Tens of thousands of irani marxists and socialists fled the country. Many were assassinated overseas (I know many of these political refugees – from both before and after the Revolution. Before, they were being hunted by the Shah's 'Savak' secret police -- with the help of Western police apparatii). Tens of thousands more inside the country were slaughtered. In fact, Miguel, there was nothing inevitable -- in the stalinist sense -- about the reactionary islamists taking control: as usual it was a 'near thing' -- and yet another avoidable tragedy. The only thing that was really missing --as usual -- was clear-minded leadership which could have anticipated these typical political landmines -- which always exist in every major social upheaval.

"i agree that the sao paulo forum and the world social forum are a social democrat fraud that has been penetrated by corporate interests and the CIA/NED this side of 2006. in stating that the global emergence of 21st century socialism where the 1999 ''battle of seattle'' and the February 15th, 2003 global anti-war demonstrations (''the day the world said no to war''); i understand that >the international anti-globalisation and anti-war upsurge of 1999-2003 ended in 2004-2005 as a result of 1) the capitulation of the global anti-war left to the Kerry campaign in 2004 and 2) the ritualisation of anti-globalisation protest during the summer of 2005; around the time of the london tube bombings (which might or might not have been staged by the Blair regime in order to take debt cancellation off the headlines). /n2"

You pretty much say it here. But the albatross of bad -- i.e. de facto non-scientific-socialist leadership and cadre -- still hangs about the neck of the internationl working-class like a noose.

The first step in fixing this situation is clarify the situation and orienting ourselves towards our true goal. And a large part of that clarification *is calling things by their true names*. And many people on the Left today are supporting "revolutions" which are very much not revolutions -- to the extent that they are being strait-jacketed by the 'leadership' of petit-bourgeois elements. Including, in effect, stalinists.

-- grok.

On 18 September 2010 18:12, grok wrote:

Miguel:

This undertaking is so woolly-minded -- coming in large part from people, many of whom no doubt think that the 'World Social Fora' remain a viable revolutionary organizing center(?!) -- it has even been seriously proposed that "revolutionary" Iran be included in this "Fifth International"..(??!!) While I already expected little of this initiative, such a suggestion/intention was certainly the last straw for me on this little project. Hugo Chavez and the people around him -- if not outright bourgeois Thermidoreans -- are every bit as eclectic, syncretist and "inclusive" -- in the very worst sense of those words -- as the equally-woolly- minded petit-bourgeois Left "identity politix" crowd: who also still look fondly on the wholly co-opted and imperialist-controlled 'World Social Fora' process... So count me out -- until the REAL 'Fifth International' begins its organizing. And it *is* going to be on a wholly _marxist_ basis – or it WILL be shit. Like this thing.

grok.

As the smoke cleared, Miguel Angel mounted the barricade and roared out:

This is a great initiative ! the bolivarian revolutions in the ALBA state are the New Socialism of the 21st Century. All the movement developments this side of the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements of 1999 to 2003, the Bolivarian Revolutionary process in Venezuela, the Citizens Revolution in Equador and the Indigenista Revolution in Bolivia, the emergence of ALBA, the movements against the effects of the financial crisis in Europe (Greece), the current Mapuche civil rights movement in Chile... all these manifestations need a new point of convergence, a new context of movement of movements, a permanent global social forum COMMITTED TO 21st CENTURY SOCIALISM, an international for our century.

the new international however must make reference to contemporary experiences of struggle relative to the 21st century (this side of the battle of seattle in 1999). the ''trotskyist'' theory of permanent revolution is an useful reference to the ALBA state revolutionary processes, but Leon Trotsky was not the only ''marxist'' to realise that in order to achive socalism in a neocoloial nation it was necessary to break with and politically liquidate the local neocolonial comprador oligarchy whose power and economic status was dependent on its realtionship with imperialism.

The PCV arrived at the conclusion that the comprador oligarchy was an obstacle to both democracy and socialism by itself due to its own experience of struggle in Venezuela since the 1930's, first against the Gomez dictatorship, then against the Peres Jimenez dictatorship and finally against the Punto Fijo regime of the fourth republic.

The new international must also take into account ecological issues. socialism is impossible without ecological sustainability, as much as it is impossible without participatory democracy and human rights (not only political and civil, but also economic and social). The call for harmonization of strategies must include insights into media democratisation and electoral grass roots organising.

The convergence of the PSUV with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is a perfect foundation for the V International. The Sandinista Revolution of 1979-1990 is the direct precursor to the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution in the sense of these being based on the premise of a civic-military alliance that seeks to construct an ''armed democratic socialism'' in opposition to Atlantist imperialism. /n2

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(CC) Material on this Weblog is licensed by Miguel Angel Torres, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [6] license, except for links to articles that are posted with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed and credited to their author(s), inclusive Miguel Angel Torres.

GALLO ROJO !

2010-09-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

[PCV Campaign Closing Statement:]

http://www.tribuna-popular.org/index.php/pcv/7319-pcv-derrotemos-la-campana-anticomunista-votando-gallo-rojo

Video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xex4v1_pcv-derrotemos-la-campana-anticomun_news?start=4#from=embed

***

PCV: “Derrotemos la campaña anticomunista votando Gallo Rojo!

[Defeat the anti-communist campaign by voting for the Gallo Rojo]

LLAMAMIENTO A LAS Y LOS TRABAJADORES, AL PUEBLO VENEZOLANO

[Call to all workers - male and female, to the Venezuelan people]

Caracas, 22 sep. 2010, Tribuna Popular TP.- El Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV), en un llamamiento a las y los trabajadores y al pueblo venezolano, llamó hoy a derrotar la campaña anticomunista de la derecha fascista y el imperialismo, votando por los candidatos de la Alianza Revolucionaria en la Tarjeta del Gallo Rojo.

[The Communist Party of Venezuela, in a statement to all workers - male and female, and to the venezuelan people; called today to defeat the anti-communist campaign of the fascist right and of imperialism; by voting for the candidates of the Revolutionary Alliance in the Gallo Rojo ballot]

Así lo dio a conocer el secretario general del Partido, diputado Oscar Figuera, quien manifestó que la oposición fascista integrada en la MUD “Mesa de la Ultra Derecha”, ha retomado la vieja forma de hacer política imitando al dictador, Juan Vicente Gómez, quien a través del artículo 32, inciso 6º de la Constitución, prohibía las ideas marxistas.

[This is how secretary general of the party, deputy Oscar Figuera, expressed his intervention; and subsequently estated that the fascist opposition integrated around the MUD ('round table of the ultra-right') has revived outdated forms of political activity imitating former dictator Juan Vicente Gomez, who through article 32, section 6 of the constitution prohibited the expression of Marxist ideas.]

“Dentro de esa concepción retrograda, atrasada, cavernaria y cavernícola, con el respeto a los cavernícolas, sectores de la oposición han intentado instalar una matriz de opinión, queriendo contraponer democracia y comunismo”, recordó el dirigente.

[The secretary reminds us that, in context of this reactionary, backward, neanderthal conception - said in full respect to the neanderthals - sections of the opposition have tried to create a matrix of opinion, attempting to counterpose democracy to communism]

EL PCV reivindicó la sociedad comunista, aun no conocida por la humanidad, como proyecto profundamente humanista, “El comunismo es la democracia plena de los ciudadanos y ciudadanas, de los trabajadores y las trabajadoras. Es una sociedad de productores libres, asociados voluntariamente, sin explotados, ni explotadores”, señaló Figuera.

[The communist party has proposed the construction of a communist society, stilll not known by humanity, as a humanist project. 'Communism is the most complete form of democracy for all citizens and workers - male and female. It is a society of Free producers, voluntarily associated, without exploited and exploiters.']

Los comunistas venezolanos acusaron a los sectores de la oligarquía agrupados en la ultraderecha y al imperialismo, de tenerle terror a la sociedad comunista porque no les permitirá acumular riqueza sobre la base de la explotación del pueblo, “Porque es una sociedad donde no se necesitará patronos, explotadores. Donde el Estado no será un instrumento de dominación, sino que estará en control de los productores libres y organizados, desaparece la explotación del hombre por hombre”.

[The Venezuelan communists have acussed sectors of the oligarchy grouped around the ultra right and imperialism, of spreading undue fear about a communist society because such a society would negate them the opportunity to accumulate riches on the basis of the exploitation of the people. 'Because it is a society that would need no bosses, exploiters. Where the State will not be an instrument of domination, but will be under the control of free and organised producers, the exploitation of man by man will be eradicated.]

Figuera llamó al pueblo a analizar, que si son los enemigos nuestros los que se expresan así, es porque el comunismo es malo para ello, pero es bueno para el pueblo. “Los que nos han explotado históricamente, cuando nos dicen que algo es malo, es porque es malo para ellos, como explotadores, pero es bueno para el pueblo”, reiteró el dirigente comunista, candidato a la reelección por el Estado Guárico en la Lista de la Alianza Revolucionaria.

[Comrade Figuera called to the people to conclude, that if it is our enemies who express themselves in this manner, it is because communism is bad for them. ' Those who have exploited us historically, when they say that something is bad, is because it is bad for them as exploiters, but good for the people.' That statement was reiterated by the communist leader in his bid for re-election in Guarico State in the list of the Revolutionary Alliance ]

A continuación, trascribimos el Llamamiento a las y los Trabajadores, al Pueblo venezolano, leído a la prensa por el Secretario General del PCV.

[The following is a transcription of the call to all Workers - male and female, to the Venezuelan people, read to the press by the PCV General Secretary]

LLAMAMIENTO A LAS Y LOS TRABAJADORES, AL PUEBLO VENEZOLANO

[Call to the Workers - male and female, and to the People of Venezuela]

¡Derrotemos la campaña anti-comunista votando Gallo Rojo!

[We defeat the anti-communist campaign by voting for the Gallo Rojo]

El próximo domingo culmina proceso electoral en curso para la elección de diputadas y diputados tanto a la Asamblea Nacional como al Parlamento Latinoamericano. En varias oportunidades, el Comité Central y el Buró Político han trazado orientaciones de carácter político-electoral que se han dado a conocer a través de los medios de comunicación.

[Next Sunday concludes the electoral process for the selection of deputies - male and female, for the National Assembly and the Latin American Parliament. In many opportunities, the Central commite and the Politbureau have sketched orientation of a political-electoral character that has been disseminated via the public media.]

El actual proceso político venezolano, querámoslo o no, tiene su propia y contundente dinámica que incide en el ámbito nacional e internacional y contradice los designios imperialistas y de la contrarrevolución interna.

[The current Venezuelan political process, like it or not, has its own and clear dynamic that impacts the national and international context and contradicts the plans of imperialism and the internal counterevolution]

Sabido es que el PCV y la JCV, somos blanco principal de los ataques del enemigo de clase, a través de una intensa campaña anticomunista desplegada por la oligarquía, el imperialismo y sus lacayos políticos, quienes saben que jamás conciliaremos ni nos prestaremos a maniobras políticas que vayan en contra de la clase obrera, de los trabajadores, trabajadoras de la ciudad y del campo, de las clases y capas sociales aliadas con las que aspiramos a continuar profundizando y abriendo caminos a la democracia revolucionaria, la paz y el socialismo.

[It is well known that the PCV and JCV [Communist Youth] are the numner one target for attacks from the class enemy, through an intensive anti-communist media campaign promoted by the oligarchy, imperialism and its political flaks, who know that we will never surrender and that we will never collaborate with political manouvres that go against the interests of the working class, the urban and rural workers - male and female, the allied social forces with whom we aspire to continue to radicalise and open roads towards a revolutionary democracy, peace and communism.]

Por todo ello, hemos considerado oportuno en el PCV, hacer un llamado al pueblo venezolano a empeñarnos a fondo en estos días y especialmente el domingo venidero, para motivar y comprometer a todas y todos en las tareas prácticas de movilizar los votos, de llevar la mayor cantidad posible de electoras y electores a votar por el Gallo Rojo - PCV y así obtener la más alta votación histórica del PCV, como repuesta de todo el pueblo a la campaña anticomunista.

[Because of this, we consider it important for the PCV, to make a call to the Venezuelan people to intensify our effort these days and specially this comming Sunday to motivate concerted action in the practical task of movilising the vote, to elect the largest majority possible of deputies - male and female, to vote for the Gallo Rojo - PCV in order to obtain the highest historical proportion of votes for the PCV, as an answer of the people to the anti-communist campaign.]

La presencia comunista en el Parlamento continuará sirviendo para exponer, defender e impulsar nuestro programa y línea políticas, muy especialmente en el afán de impulsar nuestras reconocidas propuestas de una nueva Ley Orgánica del Trabajo y la Ley de Consejos socialistas de trabajadoras y trabajadores.

[The prescence of communists in the Parliament will serve to continue to expose, defend and promote our program and political line, specially as it pertains the promotion of our new Organic Labour Law and the Law for the Workers Councils.]

En varias oportunidades hemos denunciado los planes desestabilizadores, de sabotaje y terrorismo, que como parte de la contraofensiva reaccionaria de la oligarquía y el imperialismo estadounidense se viene ejecutando en el país. Por tanto nuevamente, alertamos sobre la necesidad de activar los planes de contingencia del movimiento popular revolucionario frente a cualquier intento de sabotaje del enemigo.

[In many opportunities we have denounced the destabilisation plans, sabotage and terrorism; that as part and subset of the reactionary counteroffensive of the oligarchy and imperialism in this country. So again, we warn about the need to activate contingency plans of the revolutionary popular movement against any attempt of sabotage that might be initiated by the enemy.]

---

Pa' The Asamblea !

2010-09-06T03:45:00.000-07:00

Is the Venezuelan National Assembly a Bourgeois Parliament ?

[Es la Asamblea Nacional Venezolana un Parlamento Burges ?]

I argue that it is not.

[yo argumento que no]

the congress of the fourth republic was a comprador bourgeois parliament; but not the national assembly that results from the 1999 bolivarian constitution of venezuela. a key point is to understand that the bolivarian process changed the structure of the political state in such a way that a legal foundation was created to allow for progressive structural transformation towards revolutionary democracy. a regular Bourgeois Parliament works to prevent social transformations away from capitalism. by no means do i argue that the AN is a "soviet" or anything like that either. i consider the AN a transitional legislative entity existing in context of a socio-political process of emergent revolutionary democracy.

[el congreso dela cuarta republica fue un parlamento de la burgesia compradora; pero no la Asamblea Nacional que resulta como producto de la constitucion venezolana de 1999. un punto clave es el entendimiento que el proceso bolivariano cambio la estructura del estado de derecho politico de manera que se creo una base legal que permite la transformacion progresiva estructural hacia la democracia revolucionaria. un parlamento burges comun y corriente trabaja para oponer transformaciones sociales contra el capitalismo. de ninguna manera tampoco argumento que la AN sea un "soviet". considero a la AN como una entidad legislativa transitoria que existe en un contexto socio-politico de democracia revolucionaria emergente.]

in order to arrive at the conclusion that the AN is not a bourgeois parliament; i begin by utilising categories of analysis developed by the Peoples Commissariat of Foreign affairs of the USSR during the 1964-1983 period (The Brezhnev Era):

[para llegar a esta conclusion empleo el "Esquema de Analisis geopolitico del Comisariado Popular para las Relaciones Exteriores de la CCCP entre 1964-1983" dentro del marco del Pacto de Varsovia y el COMECON]

Socialismo Existente/Existing Socialism (RDA/DDR)
Democracia Revolucionaria/Revolutionary Democracy (Cuba)

Democracia Nacional/National Democracy (Suecia en la decada de los 70/Sweden during the 1970's)

Estado Neocolonia/Neocolonial State (IV Republica en Venezuela/Fourth Republic in Venezuela)

Estado Imperialista/Imperialist State (EEUU/USA and its NATO cohorts)

Flag of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with eight Stars

[Bandera de la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela con ocho estrellas.]

from this schema i conclude the following definitions of the nature of the state as prelude to defining the nature of the AN as a legislative entity:

[desde este punto de partida esquematico concluyo las siguentes definiciones de las condiciones del estado como premisa a definir a la AN como entidad legislativa:]

The Fourth Republic: The form of neocolonialism applied to specific Venezuelan conditions between 1953 and 1999; an oil neocolony postrate to the north american imperialist state; governed by a decadent, parasitical and racist comprador bourgeoisie and administered by a gerontocratic political class; and which utilised systematic police repression as means of social control .

[La Cuarta Republica: La forma del neocolonialismo aplicado a las condiciones especificas de Venezuela entre 1953 y 1999; una neocolonia petrolera postrada ante el estado imperialista norteamericano gobernada por una burgesia compradora decadente, parasitica y racista; administrada por una clase politica gerontocratica, que opero un aparato de control policial sistematicamente represivo para mantener control social.]

The Fifth Republic: A State of transition between neocolonialism and revolutionary democracy that implies the construction of the elements of national democracy and the achievement of national emancipation. this achievement then serves as ante-chamber or foundation for the emergence of an existing socialism adapted to Venezulean conditions in the context of ALBA and economic integration with Cuba. The direct precursor of the 5th Venezuelan Republic: Sandinista Nicaragua between 1979-1990.

The progressive administration of this "state of transition between neocolonialism towards revolutionary democracy" is denominated "Bolivarian Revolution"; a proposal to consolidate revolutionary democracy and the development of an ecological and social mode of production that is DIVERSIFIED as necessary basis for the possible construction of an "existing socialism" for the 21st century.

[Quinta Republica Venezolana: Un estado de transicion del neocolonialismo a la democracia revolucionaria que implica la construccion de los elementos de una democracia nacional y el logro de la emancipacion nacional. Este logro sirve como antesala o fundacion para la emergencia de una version del socialismo existente adaptado a las condiciones Venezolanas; en el contexto Latinoamericano del ALBA y de un proceso de integracion economica con la democracia revolucionaria Cubana. El precursor directo a la V Republica Venezolana: Nicaragua Sandinista entre 1979-1990.]

[La administracion progresista de este "estado de transicion del neocolonialismo a la democracia revolucionaria" se denomina "Revolucion Bolivariana"; como propuesta para consolidar la democracia revolucionaria y el desarrollo de un modelo productivo eco-social y DIVERSIFICADO como base necesaria para la posible construccion de un 'socialismo existente'del siglo XXI.]

after defining the nature of the Fifth Republic and placing the AN in context of it as LEGISLATIVE instrument of popular will, the AN (National Assembly) can be defined as:

[luego de haber definido la naturaleza de la quinta república, y colocándo a la AN en el contexto de la misma como un instrumnto LEGISLATIVO de la voluntad popular, la AN (Asamblea Nacional) se puede definir como:]

NOT a Bourgeois Parliament because it does not exist to legislate upon the collective interest of the comprador bourgeoise at the service of Atlantist imperialism; but a transitional legislative entity existing in context of a specific socio-political process that legislates in the interest of constructing a basis for socialism in law. the AN could NOT be called a "soviet" because it is not an assembly of elected and re callable workplace representatives, and although it includes indigenous representation it does not incorporate social corporative representation per se of socially organised sectors such as youth, soldiers or women.

[NO un parlamento burgués, ya que no existe para legislar sobre el interés colectivo de la burguesía compradora al servicio del imperialismo atlantista, pero mas bien una entidad legislativa transitoria; vigente en el contexto de un proceso específico socio-político que legisla en el interés de construir una base por el socialismo en el derecho. la AN no puede llamarse un ''soviet" porque no es una asamblea de delegaciones obreras; y aunque incluye la representación indígena, no incorpora la representación social-corporativa sui generis de los sectores socialmente organizados, como los jóvenes, los militares o las mujeres.]

/n2

---

El Comercio Justo y La Revolucion Social

2010-08-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

ref2

EL COMERCIO JUSTO Y MICROEMPRESAS POR SI SOLAS NO SON SUFICIENTES PARA ERADICAR LA POBREZA EN UN MUNDO NEO-LIBERAL. SE NECESITA EXTENDER PODER POLITICO A LOS EXCLUIDOS ; ESTO IMPLICA EL DESARROLLO DE REDES DE PRODUCCION DE COMERCIO JUSTO, MICROEMPRESAS Y CREDITO COOPERATIVOS QUE INTEGREN A LOS EXCLUIDOS EN UN PROCESO POLITICO-PRODUCTIVO DE TRANSFORMACION, CONSTRUCCION Y LUCHA SOCIAL.

EL MERCADO LIBRE NO ES CAPITALISMO, EL MERCADO LIBRE ES EL COMERCIO JUSTO.

***

I.

Microempresas cooperativas dedicadas al comercio justo (produccion, distribucion, mercadeo, ventas, supervision, sello - cadena de provision / "supply chain") representan la implementacion concreta de la tesis socio-ecologica de convergencia de la justicia social y la conciencia ecologica. El proceso Bolivariano se propone a derrotar la pobreza atravez de el otorgamiento del poder politico a los historicamente excluidos.

Para desarrollar una perspectiva politico-social Bolivariana del comercio justo; seria necesario considerar como, en contexto de formulaciones teoreticas de "socialismo del siglo 21"; se podrian complementar la modalidad de construccion de formas y espacios de democracia participativa, con formas de economia eco-social alternativas. De crear ''redes Socio-productivas eco-sociales," que no solo se dediquen a la produccion eco-social (como negacion activa del neoliberalismo), sino que participen en el proceso de construccion la economia y sociedad democratica como entes conscientes.

La idea de basar la nueva economia revolucionaria en un cojunto interdependiente de empresas sociales y unidades de produccion cooperativas como fundacion del sistema productivo ecologicamente sostenible, es un aporte teoretico del ''eco-marxismo''; una formulacion posmarxista originaria en el 'bloque rojo' del movimiento anti-globalizacion Canadiense. El Eco-Marxismo define el proceso de construccion de la economia eco-socialista concretamente como la organizacion social de los productores (sindicatos industriales), y la organizacion tecnica/logistica de la producion autogestionada por los productores directamente, en forma democratica participativa, y tomando en cuenta factores ecologicos para garantizar que la produccion de lo "socialmente necesario" no sea ecologicamente toxica. En terminos de comercio justo, los entes de produccion cooperativos estan tambien sometidos a la supervision independiente de entidades certificadoras que se encargan de supervisar que los trabajadoes disfruten de salarios y beneficios ajustados a el costo de la vida real, que exista democracia participativa en el lugar de empleo y que el proceso de produccion sea no-toxico desde un punto de vista ecologico. Esto aparte de los procesos de supervision asociados con los requerimientos del Estado socialista.

ref 1

La economia eco-socialista tiene su punto de partida en la dimension local/cooperativa (en contraste a la vieja formula sovietica del GOSPLAN); primariamente se basa en redes de comercio justo locales; microempresas cooperativas y organisacion social del sector microempresarial cooperativo (organizacion de los productores cooperativos en sindicatos). Se trata de un conjunto de redes interdependientes y decentrales; en donde el Estado y los entes certificadores independientes tiene una funcion supervisoria, pero no comandante. La construccion de una perspectiva "Bolivariana" del comercio justo agregaria el factor ''poder popular'' a la perspectiva local/microempresarial-cooperativa y un espiritu "nacionalista" (en el sentido progresista del termino), de lucha por la plena soberania economica. En otras palabras, el desempeño productivo de los trabajadores cooperativos en las redes de produccion, distribucion y mercadeo de productos de comercio justo y hechos en el socialismo ocurre dentro de un proceso de construccion democratica y de lucha social. El trabajador cooperativo eco-social no solo es trabajador, sino es a la misma vez luchador social por la democracia participativa, y el "socialismo": definido en terminos eco-marxistas como la extension de la participacion democratica desde lo politico a lo economico y social; de manera eco-sostenible.

II.

Una perspectiva Bolivariana de comercio justo y construccion eco-social siempre toma en cuenta el contexto GEOPOLITICO; puesto que la perspectiva de soluciones ecologicas y sociales piensa en terminos globales aunque actua localmente. La desesperada lucha de un ''occidente'' economicamente quebrado y en declieve por mantener su hegemonia global frente a la innevitable emergencia de las potencias B.R.I.C. pone en peligro todo proceso que se manifieste como "recalcitrante" conta la concepcion Atlantista del concenso de Washington. La perspectiva eco-Marxista entiende por "occidente" no solo a E.E.U.U. sino tambien a sus sequaces en Canada, Europa Occidental, Australia y Nueva Zelandia.

Tras la quiebra economica de occidente, solo les queda utilizar su poderio militar como opcion para poder someter a el mundo.

La perspectiva geopolitica eco-Marxista explica, que para que puedan existir espacios nacionales que permitan la construccion socio-ecologica local/micro-empresarial cooperativa AJENA A LAS DOGMAS NEOLIBERALES se debe defender la soberania e independencia de los pueblos, ya que la ideologia neo-liberal de occidente rechaza toda perspectiva economica socio-ecologica como indeseable puesto que significa una amenaza a la rentabilidad de entes transnacionales y el modo de consumo insostenible promovido por estos.

Como precondicion para detener la emergencia de las potencias B.R.I.C. en miras a confrontarlas directamente y tomando en cuenta que ciertos recursos naturales necesarios para mantener el modelo de consumo insostenible comienzan a escacear: Occidente tiene que inmediatamente destruir entes nacionales que la ideologia geopolitica neo-conservadora califica como ''recalcitrantes''; osea paises que no se someten a la neo-colonizacion y que han manifestado ideologias de desarrollo economicas y sociales autoctonas, tales como: la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela, el Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, la Republica Islamica de Iran, o inclusive la Republica Popular Democratica de Korea.

El trabajador cooperativo eco-social, no solo produce consciente de su responsabilidad para con el Estado, sociedad y entes supervisores independientes; sino que lo hace consciente de que produce en un contexto de lucha en contra de entes internos y externos que asechan con la intencion de eliminarle y expropriar a la sociedad para repartir el botin entre personeros politicos y sociales de la burgesia ladrona.

***

Refs.
1.

http://www.mcti.gob.ve/Industrias/Hecho_en_Socialismo

"El Gobierno Bolivariano de Venezuela construye un nuevo tejido productivo al servicio de las necesidades del pueblo venezolano. La articulación de los trabajadores en la construcción del socialismo bolivariano es tangible en cada una de las empresas recuperadas por el Estado Venezolano. Los hechos nos darán la razón, y cada vez más podemos decir: Hecho en Socialismo."

2.

[Referencia: http://www.sellocomerciojusto.org/es/]

"El sistema Comercio Justo (FT, por Fair Trade) o Comercio Alternativo (AT, por Alternative Trade) es una iniciativa para crear canales comerciales innovadores, dentro de los cuales la relación entre las partes se orienta al logro del desarrollo sustentable y sostenible de la oferta. El FT se orienta hacia el desarrollo integral, con sustentabilidad económica, social y ambiental, respetando la idiosincrasia de los pueblos, sus culturas, sus tradiciones y los derechos humanos básicos. La filosofía del Comercio Justo es que la mejor ayuda de los países centrales a los países en vías de desarrollo es el establecimiento de relaciones comerciales éticas y respetuosas, con crecimiento sostenible de las naciones y de los individuos. El comercio justo ha sido relacionado también con la soberanía alimentaria. La activista y autora Esther Vivas considera que el comercio justo debe asumir las premisas y postulados de la soberanía alimentaria y que la aplicación de los principios de la soberanía alimentaria al comercio justo supone “hablar de un comercio justo de proximidad, exceptuando aquellos productos que no se elaboran en nuestro territorio; de un comercio justo respetuoso con el medioambiente y controlado por las comunidades; de un comercio justo que combate las políticas neoliberales y a las multinacionales."

Objetivos

• Garantizar para los trabajadores o trabajadoras un salario justo.

• Mejorar las condiciones de seguridad e higiene, y participacion democratica, del lugar de trabajo con fines de fomentar el cooperativismo microempresarial.

• Fomentar la igualdad de oportunidades para las mujeres.

• Proteger los derechos de los niños.

• Salvaguardar las minorías étnicas.

• Preservar el medio ambiente en el proceso de produccion.

"Como curiosidad histórica, aunque no debe entenderse como algo directamente relacionado con el movimiento actual, el anarcoindividualista y mutualista estadounidenese Josiah Warren, enunciador del «principio del costo» escribió un manifiesto en 1841 en el que se encuentra una reivindicación del comercio justo, con una filosofía no muy diferente a la del actual movimiento por el comercio justo. También durante la revolución española de 1936 los sindicatos anarquistas colocaban sellos a los productos elaborados en fábricas colectivizadas por sus propios trabajadores (principalmente a los de exportación, véase UCLEA) para que sus consumidores finales supieran que tal producto era elaborado en un empresa en que sus mismos productores eran los propietarios."

___

Kyrgyzstan !

2010-04-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

The Demise of the "Tulip Revolution"

in Kyrgyzstan.

(photo from Peoples Daily, China)

events in Kyrgyzstan point to a deterioration of western political and economic influence in former soviet eurasia, and follow up to the demise of the so-called "orange revolution" in the ukraine this year, and the military victory of russia over the georgian NATO proxy in august of 2008. the obama regime has proven incapable of containing the crisis. ATLANTISM IS IN RETREAT. the multipolar bloc is the main beneficiary of the demise of pro-western regimes in the region, as the position of the Shanghai Pact powers is strenghtened at the expense of the West. Russian and China MUST extend Shanghai Pact recognition to the Kyrgyzstan Provisional Government and even extend military protection to it if necessary on pro-democracy, civic order and humanitarian grounds.

like the so-called "orange revolution" in Ukraine in 2004; the 2005 "tulip revolution" in kyrgystan was a stage managed event hyped by the western media as a "pro-democracy" movement. it was nothing of the sort, rather it ushered in the stablishment of a brutal pro-western police state regime that imposed brutal austerity measures on the population. the pro-western political elite around the figure of Kurmanbek Bakiyev amassed vast wealth through corruption and graft while the people starved.

notable is that this anti-western counter-color revolution began as a peaceful civic protest against draconian austerity measures imposed by the pro-western regime at the behest of the USA controlled world bank and IMF. Similar to protests and strikes in Greece against austerity measures dictated by the Franco-German Entente via its "European" smokescreen; the civic movement in Biskek focused its attention on denouncing the doubling of the price of fuel and water, as well as the removal of price controls on a number of basic food commodities. the regime committed political suicide when it ordered its western trained anti-riot police to shoot on the peaceful protesters. 74 protesters where killed and 700 others injured. the use of anti-riot police to supress civic socio-economic protests is a hallmark of all Western and pro-western "market democratic" regimes; notable is the utilisation of this tactic in divese places such as Pittsburg, Reykjavík, Copenhaguen, Athens and now Biskek since the financial crisis began in autumn 2008. in the West and among its proxys "rule of law" really means rule of the politically connected and economically endowed PLUTOCRACY through systematic police violence and brutality.

all who advocate FREEDOM FROM THE UNIPOLAR DOMINION OF THE UNITED STATES and seek AN END TO THE WESTERN DICTATORSHIP OVER THE GLOBALISATION PROCESS should extend critical support to the Kyrgyzstan Provisional Government. - n2

*
refs:

Ukraine election marks declining US influence in region

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/ukra-j21.shtml

Struggle for power continues in Kyrgyzstan

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/kygr-a09.shtml

Russia recognizes new Kyrgyz leadership

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6944922.html

Russia sends extra troops to airbase in Kyrgyzstan

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6944786.html

__________________________________________________________________________________

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"Tension"

2010-01-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

French "Pluton" Nuke

Re: US-China rivalry intensifies

[we are beginning to identify the geo-political and geo-economic dynamics that are leading towards what in plain "marxist" was once called "interimperialist war". so far we are dealing only with the symbolic (diplomatic jujitsu and trade/monetary policies); but inevitably tensions will escalate to the point of a shooting war sometime this decade (i say well before 2015). alongside the south china sea/taiwan; other possible flashpoints could be the caucasus, the AfPak snakepit, and the korean penninsula (specifically the disputed yellow sea border zone)... these are the four geographical points where the political and economic interests of the three power blocs that emerged in the last decade intersect and clash. the Anglo-Saxon Powers (USA plus UK-CAN-AUS-NZ) have an interest in containing the growth of Shanghai Pact (China plus Russia) influence in natural resource wealthy regions of Central Asia ; while keeping the Franco-German Entente ("Europe") from challenging Anglo-Saxon leadership of The West. The Shanghai Pact has an interest in rolling back Atlantist influence over Eurasia and achieving the economic absorption of Japan into the Chinese dominated East Asian economic zone. the main project of the Franco-German Entente is to decouple "Europe" (a political and economic projection of German capital over the continent), from the tutelage of the United States. Germany also envisions the transformation of OSCE into its own "NATO". already the French and German armies have been integrated and their intelligence services run in sync. during the naughties, the Germans have succeeded in the peaceful restoration of Vichy France. Berlin does not need to develop a nuclear arsenal, because it de facto inherited a veto over 'la force de frappe' and its 300 pluton missiles... this fact is an open secret...- n2]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/pers-j09.shtml

"Last year, it was fashionable to talk of an emerging “G2”. The US, the world’s largest economy, and China, its rising rival, would come together to resolve global problems—in particular, the international economic crisis wracking capitalism. Those illusions have rapidly evaporated this year, as the Obama administration signals a far harder line toward China with a series of provocative moves, including the sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan and a planned meeting with the Dalai Lama. These significant symbolic steps follow the imposition of hefty US tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, from steel pipes and steel-grate to tyres...Washington is no doubt driven by a growing sense that its economic and strategic interests are being increasingly blocked by Beijing. Obama’s much-vaunted trip to China last November was widely regarded as a failure: his call for an appreciation of the yuan against the dollar was ignored and in return he received a lecture on the need for financial rectitude to ensure China’s continued purchase of US bonds. At the Copenhagen climate summit, the US was opposed by a bloc led by China that pointedly snubbed Obama when he arrived to pull together a deal."

Re: EU-China tensions on display at joint summit

[there is no agreement on the issue of chinese currency revaluation. the chinese refuse to unpeg the yuan from the US dollar. and they have a point. doing so would subject the chinese export driven economy to shrinkage. the Obama regime is allowing for dollar deflation precisely to make its enormous debt less burdensome at the expense of creditors in china, japan and europe. the chinese policy of keeping the dollar peg is to partially immunise its economy to the effects of the monetary policies of the Obama regime. by calling for the revaluation of the yuan; the financial oligarchies that rule the Franco-German entente want to put a break on Chinese growth, as China is set to overtake Japan as the wolds second largest economy this decade. Chinese growth has already surpassed Germany, relegating the Franco-German led "Eurozone" to third place in the geo-economic hierarchy. -n2]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/euch-d04.shtml

"The 12th European Union-China summit on November 30 in the Chinese city of Nanjing failed to produce any agreement on key issues, including, particularly from Europe’s standpoint, any revaluation of the Chinese currency...Both the EU and China are confronting mounting economic and political pressures as a result of the global financial crisis and economic downturn. EU trade has been hit by the weakening US dollar, which has undermined European exports. At the same time, because the yuan is tied to the dollar, the euro has continued to appreciate against the Chinese currency, further disadvantaging European exporters. Significantly, China overtook Germany as the world’s largest exporter in the first half of 2009..."

"Taliban"

2009-10-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

i posted the following message in the forum hosted by the newest afghan insurgency website:

(...i assume that NATO cyberwarfare operatives will hack it at some point, so i got my message in while i could...)

http://www.shahamat1.org/ [pashtun]

http://www.alemarah.info/english/ [english]

"I just want to take a minute to say that I fully support your effort to rid your country of Western invaders. I think that you have every right to your land and to live according to your beliefs and . I think it is wrong for Western countries to impose their political and religious ideas on you. I think you are fully justified in defending yourself by force of arms. The Americans are hypocrites. Your Jihad for Independence against the terroristic NATO invaders is not any different than the American independence war against the British in the 1770's. The Americans and the Europeans only want to conquer your land to steal your natural gas reserves and use your country to build oil and gas pipelines. I do not believe that you were responsible for 09-11 and I think that the invasion in 2001 was staged on this pretext only to rob you of what is rightfully yours. You beat the Soviets, and I am sure you will beat the Americans and NATO. Keep up the fight."

note that the afghan anti-NATO insurgency DOES NOT call itself "taliban"; rather they call themselves "the mujahedin of the islamic emirate". the designation "taliban" is a disinformation term applied by the western media in order to confuse. in fact there are three different insurgent fronts (two in afghanistan and one in pakistan) and none have anything to do with the mythical "al qaeda" organisation or with "osama bin laden". the three fronts of the insurgency are allied in jihad against the West and they are winning the war.

"WWIII"

2009-04-15T01:27:00.000-07:00

s37 design model

FEW: Russian FM calls for multipolar world mechanism

while they talk about "coordinating policies" (as in the case of the "somali pirates"), they prepare to go to war against each other. the russian and chinese states have nearly doubled their expenditure on armed forces modernisation with an emphasis on aerospace and missile technologies. WWIII will be a war fought by hi-tech fighter jets, drones and smart missiles; perhaps there might be a couple of tactical low yield nukes thrown around... minister Lavrov has to pander to the diplomatic rethoric of "coordination", but he knows perfectly well that all russia and china can do is to delay the comming war by playing diplomacy for as long as they can. this in order to buy as much time as possible to complete the modernisation of the SCO armed forces in such a manner as to guarantee the realistic possibility of effective multipolar enforcement when the time comes. on this one i would agree with the old adage from lenin that talk about peaceful cooperation among capitalist states only hides preparations for war. having said that, i still maintain that a multipolar victory in WWIII is the only chance there can possibly be for the emergence of ecologically sustainable forms of democratic socialism. the possibility of stablishing spaces for construction of "21st century socialisms" in diverse places requires a multipolar world where many worlds are possible. the dominion of neo-liberal ideology over globalisation and USA unipolarism are the two fundamental obstacles. My premise in crystal: FIRST get rid of neo-liberal unipolarism and enforce geo-political and geo-economic multipolarism, THEN work on progressively eradicating capitalism per se in context of a multipolar order. the only way to abolish neo-liberal unipolarism is through MILITARY VICTORY over the United States. i am confident that china, russia, venezuela and the dprk working together could accomplish this. the perception of United States "invincibility" is in many ways a function of public relations, perception management and western media propaganda. the United States military is a powerful force, but not "invincible". there is no way to reconcile unipolar and multipolar, one or the other has to prevail. this is why i think the WWIII is innevitable. -n2

[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/12/content_11170796.htm]

***

COMMENT:

I'd substantially agree with most of this -- but not all of it. One thingI see differently is that WWIII will not only be fought with hi-tekweaponry -- tho' this will be decisive in part. In fact: WWIII isunderway as we speak -- and involves all sorts of asymmetricalstrategies. And some of these will be downright WMD -- and horrific -- innature. - -- grok.

[posted at: working_class_news@yahoogroups.com]

REPLY:

i supposse then, that the cummulative effect of these asymmetrical strategies is to increase the level of tension. perhaps this conflict between state and non-state actors is the precursor or background to WWIII. the role of private actors, non-state networks and unidentified social movements in struggle against outdated nation state structures is noted. the current jujitsu between the NATO navies and the "somali pirates" is illustrative. my "perspective focus" is on the possible conflict between nation states (hidden behind the diplomatic facade of "international community collaboration"), because it is these who have by far the largest capability to inflict deadly harm and force projection. but you are correct that the role of non-state actors should not be discounted or understimated. in the 21st century "war" (in the classical sense of the term) is not only between nation states, but the outcome of fundamental geo-economic and geo-political conflicts of interest that can only be resolved by armed force. unipolar vs multipolar is a case in point. -n2

"blind historical forces"

2009-04-01T00:56:00.000-07:00

[p.s. not one week passed in march without headlines of massacre. i wonder if at some point some sort of irrational anarchic mass hysteria will take over and people will take to killing each other at random...a violent anti- social phenomenon (call it the "fritzl effect") is going on that cannot be "rationally" explained, and it is deadly. it appears that "blind historical forces" are in fact manifesting themselves socially in context of both neo-liberal regime and establishment western left political bankruptcy:]

American mayhem: Three horrible crimes over the weekend

"At least 17 people are dead after three violent episodes in the US over the weekend. On Sunday, in Carthage, North Carolina, sixty miles southwest of Raleigh, a 45-year-old man allegedly shot and killed seven elderly patients and a nurse. According to news reports, the individual's wife worked at the facility. Also on Sunday, in an upscale subdivision in Santa Clara, California—in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco—six people died in an apparent murder-suicide. The suspected gunman, whose identity has not been revealed, was believed to be among the dead who included three children. In Milton, Massachusetts, south of Boston, a 23-year-old killed two of his sisters, one by severing her head, in an act of rage on Saturday. He was shot dead by police. The young man had recently been released from prison and was apparently despondent about his job prospects. The three tragic incidents, which will leave countless individuals, families and entire towns traumatized, occurred within disparate communities and social layers. Their only links are their national setting and a brutalized atmosphere characterized by increasing social tension."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/murd-m31.shtml

also:

What lies behind the latest school shooting in Germany?
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/germ-m17.shtml

Homicidal rampage in Alabama kills 11
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/alab-m12.shtml

***

Re: [Working_Class_News] Saturday's ANSWER Coalition March in Washington

medium to long term, the western style "anti-war movement" (on the model of the 1960's) is doomed as a political phenomenon. because: (1) it can only exist if there is a socio-economic basis for it in the form of a middle class intelligentsia and youth influenced by social democrat and social-liberal values. the western middle class is fast on the way to pauperisation because of the financial crisis; meaning that their primary concern will soon be the value of their savings, and not "peace, love and understanding"... without the post-hippie social-liberal subjectivity there is no psychological glue for western pacifist activity. this post-hippie subjectivity can only exist in times when the political class and financial oligarchy can maintain the illusion of eternal mass consumption on credit. this is no longer going to be possible. (2) the leadership of these anti-war networks are for the most part obama liberals. the western left-social democrat and social-liberal intelligentsia are theoretically, politically and tactically bankrupt - i point to tariq ali, noam chomsky and howard zinn as examples; all three recently have commented and analysed the global crisis but have not offered any concrete way forward other than vague appeals for "reimagining socialism", "universal healthcare" or "reminding obama of the dream"... the iraq focused anti-war movement for the most part has folded its tents (long gone are the glory days of February 15th, 2003) and the current posture of criticism about the "afpak" surge is only symbolic. the marriage of western anti-war coalitions with fundamentalist islam is their last gasp. (3) the third reason that the western style anti-war movement is doomed as a political phenomenon is that the west is in the process of being debunked as the leader of globalisation by the Shanghai Pact multipolar powers and the geo-economic B.R.I.C. innevitably, and in context of the global financial crisis and the protectionism that is comming with it; this will bring REAL WAR (not pseudo-wars of neo-colonial conquest like iraq or afghanistan). there is no possible way to reconcile unipolarism with multipolarism. "peaceful coexistence" is not possible, because there can only be one model of global governance in place for globalisation to be truly global. when the REAL WAR comes all the western style anti-war coalitions will desintegrate. pacifist idealism will drown in a sea of despair as the tsunami of history finally reaches the shore... and the western left will be forced to make a choice: either support the multipolar future, or hold on to the unipolar past - and perish. - n2

[p.s. i see the collapse of the governments in belguim and the czech republic as indicative that the political class in europe is as bankrupt as the neoliberal economists they consult with. the events in germany and britain this past weekend point to growing expressions of social discontent - thousands demonstrated in london and frankfurt against the G20. the anti-globalisation movement came back to life out of nowhere. the coordinated black-out protest against climate change on saturday was also successful. the establishment media had no choice but to report on it. they keep repeating the mantra that there is "no credible alternative to the market economy", but in between the lines one can read how the editors and the elites they work for are afraid that having run out of solutions they might have lost the ability to shape the future of their system. the revived anti-globalisation movement is flawed (as was its predecessor) in that it makes no positive demands and has no clear leadership. in a situation where neither THE MAN nor THE MOVEMENT offer any way out, HISTORY will take charge on its own. fundamental contradicitons always resolve themselves radically. the question is WHAT shape will the blind historical future take ? - n2]

"EL SI Y EL NO"

2009-02-19T01:38:00.000-08:00

The Urban poor support Chavez

The opposition 'No' campaign; failed because it did not inspire confidence.

Re: "Project to Create Socialist Democracy in Venezuela"

why i think that the bolivarian process as it stands today will not deliver the so-called "socialist democracy":

1) in political terms, because the chavez government is a one man show. the PSUV is following the old (and failed) stalinist model of "one supreme chairman". decentralisation of the executive power has been carried out successfully in iran, china and russia; where in all three cases executive power is shared between a head of state and a head of government. then there is the issue that in a "socialist democracy" it is the organised workers who are the source of legislative power. there is nothing remotely like a "soviet" in venezuela (or cuba) today.

2) in economic terms; because chavez has yet to find a way to truly break dependency on oil exports as the basis for economic activity and foreign exchange. the bolivarian government has taken a few symbolic steps in the direction of diversification - but that is all. a secondary problem is the issue of inflation (it stands at 30%); there is simply too much money in circulation chasing fewer and fewer goods, and this money in circulation is of the fiat kind. because venezuela has to import most of its consumer goods, this situation will lead to endemic shortages once the global economy comes out of its current (third) phase of deflation (the fist phase of the crisis was demand destruction, the second was capital destruction). the deflation is happening because of raise in inventories - a consequence of the first phase - but given the consequence of the second phase - contraction in production -; venezuela will find it more and more expensive to import consumer goods as global stagflation (the fourth and next phase of the crisis) becomes the norm in the near future. at that point chavez will have to introduce rationing. despite the fact that the bolivarian government has taken a few steps in the direction of agricultural self sufficiency, likewise as it pertains industry; these steps have only been symbolic.

the introduction of the new "bolivares fuertes" (which are NOT linked to a standard of value) is a half baked attempt at monetary reform that will have no meaningful impact. the effort to enact monetary reform is undermined by; (a) the fact that chavez is replacing one fiat currency with another - the value of the "bolivares fuertes" is NOT LINKED to the value of a metallic/bi-metallic standard, natural resource reserve base (as is the case with the Australian dollar) or volume of industrial production (as it should be in a proper socialist polity); (b) the effects of the global financial crisis (sale of long term bond issues is impossible now) and; (c) the efforts of unipolar imperialism to artificially depress the oil price (as a means of undermining russia, venezuela and iran). unipolar imperialism artificially depresses the oil price through the agency of the New York Mercantile Exchange; it is the traders there who actually set the offical market price per barrel. it is not "conspiracy theory", but rather TRUTH, to assert the FACT that it is the NYME traders and not the market who sets the oil price. geo-political considerations associated with the interests of unipolar imperialism go into the formulation of prices (over and above the passive objections of the big oil conglomerates). -n2

[p.s.] as to the results of the symbolic effort at currency reform in venezuela; according to wikipedia: "The [venezuelan] government announced on 7 March 2007 that the bolívar would be revalued at a ratio of 1 to 1000 on 1 January 2008 and renamed the bolívar fuerte in an effort to facilitate the ease of transaction and accounting. The name "bolívar fuerte" is only used temporarily to distinguish it from the older currency that is being used along with the bolívar fuerte. This duality will last until 2009. The Central Bank of Venezuela is promoting the new currency with an ad campaign and the slogan: "Una economía fuerte, un bolivar fuerte, un país fuerte" (lit. "a strong economy, a strong bolívar, a strong country"). Despite such campaigns, as of February 2008, the black market value of the bolívar fuerte hovers at around 5.2 to the U.S. dollar, more than twice the fixed exchange rate of 2.15. It is illegal to publish this statistic in Venezuela."

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_bolivar]

SEE ALSO: Chávez Promises Continuation of Project to Create Socialist Democracy in Venezuela: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4217

***

PSUV ads for El Si (2009)

http://sonovela.net/video/XQj9ZkyktLY/Venezuela-dice-SI-a-la-Enmienda-SI-al-proyecto-Socialista-Venezolano-Chávez-se-Queda-15-02-09.html

Unidad Democratica ads Por El No (2009)

http://sonovela.net/video/2mYlBjpWXNo/Cuña-NO-en-Operación-Morrocoy-Hall-de-la-Fama.html

"Andean Mode"

2009-01-28T05:26:00.000-08:00

"AMP column"

forms of contemporary popular asian culture from a second generation perspective

http://www.haussite.net/

***

FEW: [Working_Class_News] Bolivia Gets a New Constitution 57% to 43%

a step in the right direction; at least in terms of achieving indigenous majority rule (i.e. “indigenismo”), as there is no objective difference between the status of indigenous people in bolivia and the status of black africans under south african apartheid. yet, the idea of "andean capitalism" is a chimera. the masista theorists and propagandists that came up with the idea are basing their proposal on a misinterpretation of the premises associated with the heretical marxist concept of an "andean mode of production" attributed to the incas. the inca political economy was neither primitive communist - because the incas where civilised (in the sense of having a city based society and economy) - nor was it slavery, since there where no slaves in the inca empire. the incas believed that the land belonged to the inca who was the incarnation of the sun. they worked the land collectively and shared the produce.

like the notion of an alleged "asiatic mode of production" attributed to imperial china and the Byzantines (i.e. “the bureaucratic administration of peasant labour exploitation to support a militarist ‘oriental despotism’...”), or the "bureaucratic collectivist" system in the ussr and eastern bloc; the "andean mode of production" was a historical dead end. i.e. progress towards industrial urban based socialism, in the sense that karl marx advocated, could not be achieved from that starting point. in all cases it was required that a political economy that could serve as developmental precondition for progress, in the sense described by karl marx, was introduced from the outside through conquest. specifically (and respectively): the spanish conquest introduced into the inca dominions the iberian form of european feudalism; the latin seizure of constantinople ( a precursor to the turkish conquest) introduced western feudalism to the byzantine dominion; the western penetration of china in the 19th century introduced western imperialist capitalism to east asia (the maoist revolution of 1949 replaced this mode of production with bureaucratic collectivism); British and French investment in the 19th century Russian empire attempted to introduce industrial capitalism into a society functioning on the basis of the Byzantine version of the Asiatic mode. the attempt failed, resulting in the revolution of 1905 which sought to replace the Tsar with a liberal republic (a form of the state better suited to enforce capital preservation). Subsequently - through the successful application of the theory of permanent revolution-; the revolution of 1917 replaced that initial attempt at “progress” with bureaucratic collectivism; the voluntary dissolution of the Soviet Union (the USSR never “fell”) in 1989-1991 (re-) introduced the experiment of industrial capitalism into Russia on a neo-liberal republican form. The current putin-medvedev government has modified the project of re-introduction of capitalism towards a national-corporatist basis - with Russian ethnicism (in context of multipolar enforcement) as ideology. In so far as the Russian Federation is the political-economic product of the dismantling of the bureaucratic system in favour of Industrial Capitalism, the Russian Federation is a historically progressive entity; as it is the national-corporatist RF - and not the bureaucratic collectivist USSR - which embodies the necessary Industrial Capitalist historical precursor to possible Industrial Socialism.

Etc…

so what is the likely fate of "andean capitalism" in bolivia ? at best it will become a lot like south africa after apartheid, with features of zimbabwe under mugabe. the hispanic political class and financial oligarchy in la paz will be replaced by an indigenous political class and financial oligarchy organised around the MAS; just like in south africa the afrikaner white dutch elite was replaced by a black african ruling elite organised around the ANC. - n2

ref: the orthodox "marxist" modes of production:

(heretical "marxist" modes of production -understood to be divergences- in parenthesis)

Industrial Communism
Industrial Socialism
(bureaucratic collectivism - the leninist ussr)* [Nordic mode of production? **]
Industrial Capitalism and Imperialism (with fascism as a form of capitalist government)
Mercantilist Capitalism
Feudalism
(asiatic mode - imperial china, byzantines)
Slavery
(andean mode - incas)
Primitive Communism

* p.s. those who deny "bureaucratic collectivism" fall into three cathegories: those who say the leninist ussr was "really existing socialism"; those who say it was a "bureaucratically deformed workers state"; and those who say it was "state capitalism".... – n2

[** p.s.s assuming the existence of a “nordic mode of production” in Scandinavia (perhaps, “the technocratic administration of mass consumption to facilitate capital preservation and bureaucratic despotism”); while understanding that by nature modes of production premised on bureaucratic administration are historical dead ends (as demonstrable by the fate of the asiatic mode and bureaucratic collectivist variables), and that necessary MUST be the introduction FROM THE OUTSIDE - through CONQUEST- of an alternate mode of production that could function historically as a developmental precondition for progress towards industrial socialism - in the sense karl marx advocated – I propose that a Russian Federation military conquest of Scandinavia would be historically progressive for the Scandinavian region, because it would dismantle the Nordic mode of production (a historical dead end) and would in its place establish in Scandinavia (through the annexation of Sweden and Norway into the Russian Federation) the Industrial Capitalist mode of production which would be THE necessary precondition for possible progress towards industrial socialism.]

***

Question posted at RevLeft History Discussion forum: [October 15th, 2010]

The Inca Empire representative of an "Andean Mode of Production"

[http://www.revleft.com/vb/inca-empire-representative-t143357/index.html]

The lattest development of "Andean Marxist Thought"; a historiographical tendency within the Bolivian MAS, is the development of a "Theory of the Andean Mode of Production" to describe the functioning of the Inca polity from a Historical Materialist perspective.

The Masista historiographers are basing their proposal on the premises associated with the "heretical marxist" concept of an alleged "Asiatic Mode of Production" attributed to the Han Chinese. According to the argument proposed; the Incan political economy was neither primitive communist - because the incas where ''civilised'' (in the sense of having a city based society and economy) - nor was it slavery, since there where no slaves in the Inca empire. The incas believed that the land belonged to the incanato who was the alleged incarnation of the Sun-God. they worked the land collectively in a cooperative fashion and shared the produce; which arguably does not make their political economy an example of Feudalism.

Like the notion of an alleged "Asiatic Mode of Production" attributed to Imperial China and the Byzantines (i.e. “the bureaucratic administration of peasant labour exploitation to support a militarist ‘oriental despotism’...”), or the "bureaucratic collectivist" system in the ussr and eastern bloc (the Bolivian M.A.S. official line on the "soviet question"); the "andean mode of production" is defined by the Masista historiographers as a historical dead end. i.e. progress towards industrial urban based socialism (via political liberalism and mercantilism), in the sense that karl marx advocated, could not be achieved from that starting point. In all cases it was required that a political economy that could serve as developmental precondition for progress, in the sense described by karl marx, was introduced from the outside through conquest. specifically (and respectively): the spanish conquest introduced into the inca dominions the iberian form of european feudalism; which was objectively ''more progressive'' since it could eventually lead to the emergence of capitalism and then socialism.

Is this sound historical materialist analysis ?, or a capitulation to internalised eurocentrism derived from five hundred years of cultural domination by Spanish colonialism and USA neo-colonialism, which dovetails with the formulation of a dangerous apologetics of Pizzaro's conquest of the Inca ?

Your thoughts ?

---

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"neo-brezhnevite"

2009-01-07T04:48:00.000-08:00

Re: brezhnev, trotsky, and soviet historiography

i agree that the chinese model of state capitalism with a neoliberal bias is not the way forward. i have argued before that the chinese cp should switch from state capitalism with a neoliberal bias to state capitalism with a social and ecological bias - i.e follow the "venezuelan road". this would indicate a step forward.

on the question of stalin, i look at his government as a specific instance in the history of the ussr with a before (V.I. Lenin) and a after (Leonid Brezhnev). i do not think it would be appropriate to label the subsequent government of Leonid Brezhnev as "stalinist". i think it is anti-historical for trotskyist historiographers to apply the label "stalinist" out of specific time-place context. Leonid Brezhnev was Leonid Brezhnev and Joseph Stalin was Joseph Stalin. two different leaders, two different governments, two different time periods. it would be equally incorrect to say that "obama is a reaganite" or that "obama is a lincolnite".

i agree that the foreign and military policy of Leonid Brezhnev was objectively progressive; but i also agree with a number of trotskyist ideas (such as the theory of permanent revolution or the proletarian military policy), and with some maoist ideas (the notion of "the cultural revolution" - in theory).

what led to the end of the soviet period (the ussr never "fell'") was (1) the impact of centrist errors that originated in the confusion after Lenins death and the establishment of the stalin government, (2) the negative impact of unchecked the liberal revisionism ( Khrushchev ) and (3) the betrayal of socialist values and soviet interests by Gorvachev (it was he who handed over the soviet government to the CIA in 1990-1991 and who ceded the DDR over to the west germans).

the pro-democracy zamisdat movement was positive as a model of socialist protest, if you read its earliest publications (circa the "Charter 77" era from 1977 to 1981) it identified itself with the western democratic socialist left. the same was true of the early Solidarnosc in poland in 1980. the pro-democracy movement in the eastern bloc was originally pro-socialist, it was the belated expression of the 1968 "new left" in context of the the "second world" of "actually existing socialism".

the movement was hijacked by the CIA in the mid 1980's and turned into an anti-socialist movement, this because after 1968 (praha spring) Brezhnev made the mistake of suppressing it instead of working with it. The inability of Brezhnev and other soviet conservatives, such as Mikhail Suslov, to deal effectively with the new left is what ultimately undermined Brezhnev's otherwise brilliant foreign and military policy.

i am not too sure that the process underway now in venezuela is "real socialism" yet, hugo chavez is still operating on keynesian premises and the state he presides over is a very much a capitalist state. at best his government is a form of state capitalism with a pro-socialist bias. Chavez's persuit of a multipolar foreign policy alongside the B.R.I.C plus 3 is objectively progressive.

taking steps towards, in context of aiming to construct, a form of "21st century socialism" does not make the polity in question "socialist" per se.

- n2

Naderista !

2008-11-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

FACT: barack obama is a neo-liberal imperialist. FACT: barack obama is an elite establishment politician who is committed to the task of capital preservation. FACT: obama is funded by the financial oligarchy that created the economic crisis in the first place (goldman sachs). to refuse to face these FACTS is to engage in self delusion at a time when principled pro-working class, anti-capitalist initiative is necessary.

barack obama will preside over the imposition of austerity measures at home that will force the pauperisation of the middle class and the lumpenisation of the working class. barack obama will consolidate the erection of financial state capitalism backed by police state 2.0 terror. barack obama is being selected to the office of president of the united states by the financial oligarchy that truly rules america precisely because their system is in need of a politically correct face-lift as a precondition to driving ordinary people into third world living standards.

TO ASK U.S.A WORKERS TO VOTE FOR OBAMA IS TO ASK THEM TO STAB THEMSELVES IN THE BACK.

that barack obama is african american does not make him objectively progressive in any sense. the continent of africa is full of pro-western dictators that preside over the mass immiseration of the african people and who rutinely subordinate their interests to the IMF/WB. obama's ethnic looks are NOT a basis to vote for him. to grant obama a vote because of his ethnicity is RACIST and IRRATIONAL. any "socialist" worth his salt should know this.

*

VOTE SOCIALIST where the Party of Socialism and Liberation is on the ballot: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, New Jersey,New York, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

*

>>>[http://www.pslweb.org/]<<< * Vote Nader where the Party of Socialism and Liberation is not on the ballot [http://www.votenader.org/].

*

...if neither is on the ballot then ABSTAIN.

*

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE IS IT JUSTIFIED FOR A SOCIALIST OR ANTI-CAPITALIST TO VOTE FOR LIBERAL IMPERIALIST BARACK OBAMA !

"Multipolar"

2008-08-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

Sukhoi 47 (37) of the Russian Federation Airforce.

An instrument of possible multipolarism and altern-progress.

***

a resistance where many resistances are possible, is possible

*
i see the new free world as a resistance or resistances, in the same manner that the first wave of the anti-globalisation movement was a movement of movements. a resistance where many resistances are possible projected into geo-political and geo-economic realities is a necessary precondition for a world where many worlds are possible (inclusive 21st century socialist ones).
*
my premise: a multipolar world order is indirectly progressive. ergo: critical support for russia, china, north korea, cuba, venezuela and iran as they resist western neo-conservative unipolar imperialism by military-political means.

further weakening the washington centric unipolar reality is necessary in order for there to concretise a multipolar geo-political and geo-economic order that would then more easily allow for the working classes to articulate an anti-capitalist narrative locally, and to succeed.

a multipolar order is possible - and now within grasp. in context of taking concrete steps to institutionalise multipolarism (the world is no longer as unipolar as it was in 2000, and the west has lost its monopoly over globalisation processes), the russian federation geo-political doctrine calls for weakening the unipolar hegemony of the washington consensus by: 1). placing medium range missiles in kaliningrad; 2). positioning TU-160 supersonic bombers in venezuela, cuba and argelia; 3). reopening the lourdes listening post in havana; 4). continue global flights of TU95MS strategic bombers indefinitely (the activity was resumed in august 2007). 5). sell Sukhoi 30 jets to venezuela and TOR-SAM batteries to iran; 6). continue development of manouverable re-entry ballistic missile technology and the "iskander" tactical defense systems; and 7). reorganise the RF Navy around six new aircraft carrier battle groups and an upgraded nuclear submarine fleet.

the geo-political/military premise for these tactical moves are outlined in the PUTIN-MEDVEDEV STRATEGIC DOCTRINE white paper (originally formulated in 2000, and updated in july 2007).

THE CONTEXT: the neoconservative/neoliberal unipolar project has suffered at last five major defeats in 2005-2008: #1 North Korea successfully tested and deployed a nuclear deterrant and delivery system (Nuclear Tipped Taepo Dong IIB) in 2005; #2 hezbollah defeated israel in the 2006 lebanon war; #3 Iran has successfully defended its nuclear rights by openly defying and breaking the sanctions blocade sponsored by washington, while arming itself with advanced TOR-SAM and other ballistic missile technologies incorporated into its Sh-II's (recently test fired) - which has sofar deterred israel form attacking iran and had half the pentagon defecting to the obama camp; #4 the russian federation victory in the caucasus war this month; #5 the collapse of the wto talks in geneva - a product of chinese, hindi and brasilian resistance.

add to this the ongoing impact of the quadruple climate, energy,credit and food crisis.

geo-politically and geo-economically THE WEST IS IN RETREAT.

my appeal: THINK GLOBAL by getting on board with the multipolar foreign policy current, while ACTING LOCALLY to organise against the effects of the inflation (promote petrol strikes) and for civil liberties (network against surveillance and security laws) at home.

think MULTIDIMENSIONAL CHESS.

______________________________________________________________

Re: Weekly Worker: Edition 734 [No to great power intrigue]

*
the editors of weekly worker write that russia has no possibility of becoming a rival to usa/western hegemony, even in coalition with other states such as china or iran . i disagree. i think that this position overestimates the global power of the united states and the european union (objectively a paper tiger), while underestimating that of russia and its multipolar allies.

this is not 1995. this is 2008.

the global economic, military and consequently political position of the united states has declined significantly in the past ten years or so. it is precisely because of this decline (or rather in order to compensate for it), that the united states has sought to rely on military force to achieve its geo-economic and geo-political objectives. the neo-conservative unipolarists have no other card to play, because there are no political or economic solutions on offer for them -in context of maintaining empire- other than to attempt to technically manage the damage done. the united states has lost control of at least one third of eurasia and most of south america. the nations of the emergent multipolar bloc (of which russia is the strongest component) are seeking to enforce multipolarism as a counter to the unipolar washington consensus - which is now in clear retreat. in general, the west is clearly entering a period of internal troubles due to the impact of the global quadruple climate, credit, fuel and food crisis. the domestic mirrior of their attempts to dominate eurasia - via the deployment of military force in the caspian basin, iraq and afghanistan - is the increasing reliance by the western regimes on police state tactics. we have witnessed the naked display of these brutal tactics in denver this past week [i.e site of the 2008 DNC]. the primary domestic task of the western political classes, at this point, is to maintain internal governability by force (while utilising their media as a tool of disinformation and distraction); implied is the abrogation of de-facto civil liberties and the curtailment of "representative democracy" - which was always a fraud.

the western regimes are facing the prospect of a pauperised ex-middle class and a lumpenised ex-working class becoming openly seditious en masse because of the worsening economic contraction. this contraction is very real- and the western political and financial oligarchies know it perfectly well. "demand destruction" undermines the illusion of credit based "prosperity".

the ultimate WHY for western military activities in eurasia and police state repression at home is the imperative of capital preservation (theirs). - neo.

***

[above comment in reply to:]

Weekly Worker: Paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain

The home page of the CPGB can be found at: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/

No to great power intrigue

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/734/notogreat.html

South Ossetia is a pawn, writes James Turley

The PDF version of this edition can be found at:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/734/734web.pdf

"Talking Red"

2008-07-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

i object that the only two legitimate alternatives to obama (a liberal imperialist) and mc cain (a conservative imperialist) - from the perspective of the PRO-SOCIALIST sector – could be ralph nader at minimum, and the campaign recently initiated by the party for socialism and liberation at best (where it might be on the ballot). when i state this i am proceeding from the perspective that THE POINT of these campaigns is not to get-out-the-vote for nader or the psl. pro-socialist and “marxist” persons should know better than anyone that the 2008 election is as fixed as where those in 2000 and 2004, and that given the reality of endemic voter fraud, through list purges and voting machine rigging, there is no guarantee the votes casted will be counted accurately. the aim is not either to seek to “pressure obama” or “keep him accountable” because obama is already bought and paid for by the business interests that fund him, and he has never been a part of “the left” to begin with.

pro-socialist persons seek to become ACTIVE with these alternative left campaigns between now and november 4th, to organise in favour of platform positions that aim to expose the electoral public to social and ecological perspectives and SOLUTIONS that are marginalised from public discourse in context of this false election process. i interject the term “false”, because i am clear, further, that the election constitutes a stage managed media event designed to refurbish the “democratic” credentials of united states imperialism at a time of domestic and global (food, energy and credit) crisis of neoliberal capitalism. by "legitimate" and "independent", i mean that the nader and psl campaigns are in no way connected (directly or indirectly) to the democrat party or receive funding from it or from pro-democrat foundations associated with it. as i wrote before: i take issue with the idea that dennis kucinich and cynthia mckinney represent a progressive agenda, the first is actually a [bait and switch] democrat party agent of disinformation whose task is to mislead the subjective left into dead ends; [mc kinney] is a democrat party operative who presides over the hijacking and transformation of the united states green party into a democrat party front group that backhandedly campaigns for obama by not challenging him. the proof is in that the green party is calling for votes for mckinney only in so called "safe states". a legitimate effort to present a left antinomian agenda must take as its starting point the premise that a TOTAL break with the democrat party is necessary in order to articulate and build an independent campaign.

as a concluding objection, I propose that the correct choice for pro-socialist persons in the united states should be to BECOME INVOLVED with the party of socialism and liberation in states where they appear on the ballot, and with the nader campaign in states where the psl is not on the ballot.

http://www.votepsl.org/

http://www.votenader.org/

– neo.

"Naderite 2.0"

2008-03-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

· Adopt a single payer, Canadian-style, health care system
· (HEALTHCARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT)
· Cut the bloated, wasteful military budget
· (ABOLISH THE U.S. MILITARY)
· Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax
· (DEMOLISH WALL STREET)
· Support solar energy not nuclear power
· (SCRAP THE NUKES)
· Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East
· (OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN )
· Impeach Bush/Cheney
· (…AND THROW THEM IN JAIL)
· Adopt a polluter carbon tax
· (RELY ON BUSES, TRAINS AND BIKES)
· Crack down on corporate crime and corporate welfare
· (FORECLOSE THE GANGSTER CAPITALISTS)
· Open up the Presidential debates
· (FOR REAL)
· Repeal the anti-union Taft-Hartley law
· (…AND THROW MANAGEMENT IN THE BROOM CLOSET)

The above is the Nader-Gonzalez platform for 2008.

The Obama cult does not convince me. Like it or not, he is a corporatist democrat. The return of "Kerry" style political branding. THE MAN with an African-American face. A sophisticated form of liberal deceit disguised with the veneer of identity politics. Neither Obama nor Hillary Has-Been represent "change" but only the illusion of it. Granted that THE SYSTEM would never allow Ralph to win and will do everything in its power to emasculate his candidacy- but principle is principle. My endorsement for Ralph Nader is directly related to the motto of this blog: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

Good principles are perennial.

- Neo.

"21st Century Socialism"

2008-01-27T04:23:00.001-08:00

The following commentary on the ongoing drama of the so-called "Venezuelan Road" was posted at >>>

*
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/redsquare2/message/4454

***
Re: Draft program of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela
*

thank you for this posting. i guess you could say this is as close aswe come to a manifesto for "21st century socialism" ?

>>"[Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez made his first public call for the creation a political instrument to unify the country'srevolutionary forces in December 15, 2006. Convened on January 12,2008, some 1676 congress delegates elected from almost 15,000socialist battalions -- local units of the PSUV -- will discuss and debate this draft program, as well as the proposed priniciples and statutes of the new party, over the next two months. In between congress sessions, delegates will return to their local regions and battalions to ensure the widest possible discussion of these documents among the ranks of the new party."

in principle this is a good move. the MVR and the coalition associated with it is much to disparate to be able to effectively handle a reinvigorated neoliberal opposition. the recent defeat of the constitutional rerform referendum was a warning that the war is not won yet for chavismo. i only hope that this political realignment leaves room for the independent movilisation of forces to the left of chavez. the neoliberal opposition has eclipsed the left opposition in venezuela.

>>"Taking as its starting point the championing and unconditional defence of the government of the Bolivarian revolution, led by President Hugo Chavez, and the will of the Venezuelan people to construct the socialism of the 21st century, the program of the PSUV is the instrument with which to set out the objectives, forms and methods of this revolutionary project, and express them at each moment through slogans that can facilitate the transition from the immediate reality to the end goal; slogans that, by definition, adapt themselves permanently to the immediate circumstances........."

this sounds like a step forward, but i am not comfortable with the equation of the personality of hugo chavez with the revolutionary process underway. the transformation of society - for it to genuinely evolve in a socialist direction - must be directly associated with independent efforts by the working class, farmers and the urban poor in venezuela. a flaw of the venezuelan road is the association of process with personality cults. this was a mistake in the ussr and remains a weakness in context of 21st century socialism.

>>"The program of the PSUV has as its objective making reality the slogan "in order to end poverty you have to give power to the poor", or better said: the people. That is to say, build a government based on Councils of Popular Power, where workers, campesinos, students and popular masses are direct protagonists in the exercising of political power."

the ostentible aim of socialism is to end the social condittion of poverty created by capitalism. my question would be: at one point do the councils replace chavez as focus of political power ? is the process thereby which chavez transfers power to these councils specified ? at what point does the process let go of political forms associated with capitalism - such as parliament ?

>>"The program of the PSUV proposes the socialising of political power, establishing the direct exercising of decision-making power by the masses in their organisations; their unrestricted right to scientific research and the free artistic creation, and the democratisation of access to all cultural policies."

a while back i was arguing in favour of the perspective that chavez should have delegated economic desicion making powers to the left sectors of the UNETE. i insist that the most advanced sectors of the liberated working class movement should be empowered as a first step towards socialising political power in venezuela.

more comments on this document will follow soon...

- neo.

Towards an anti-Liberal metaphysics (post-positivism)

2007-11-10T02:35:00.000-08:00

Post-positivist deconstruction is the cutting edge of ex-humanism...

Postmodern dystopian film: Terminator (1984), The Truman Show (1997), Gattacca (1998), The Matrix (1999), Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Island (2005). This genre has opened a new field for metaphysics. The classical metaphysics is mysticism (Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Sufism); the new metaphysics is an exploration of the nature, applications and implications of virtual reality as a man made metaphysical space, emergent in the post-fordist era. What is real ? "Real" is whatever we perceive "real" to be, but real has no verifiable intrinsic essence per se. "Real" is defined by language and symbols; dynamic narratives and images. "Real" can be constructed and de-constructed.

The postmodern understanding and internalization of the implications of relativity, perspective and perception (dubbed 'post-positivism') debunks the narrative of "cogito ergo sum". The contention that "I am" is only a thought. To state that "I am" because "I think" is self contradictory. "I am" has no objective existence because it is a thought (an idea) that has no material basis, as such it can not be considered evidence of existence. Ultimately, no one can know for certain if they exist or not. If "I" is a tought, then what is considered to be "THE SELF" has no objective existence. The idea of "The Self " is a subjective construct - not natural. Ergo: "Identity" is both meaningless and disposable. The element of psyche that hides behind the notion of "The Self" is an aggregate of, mostly contradictory, subjectivities. Perfect subjective consistency would be impossible for humans to attain because they will always lack total information awareness. "Personae" (how the group subject perceives the single subject), is an entirely disposable and projected subjectivity. Subjectivities are the product of the psychic interaction of the subject with dynamic narratives and symbols of a de-ontological and social nature. The dynamic narratives and sub-narratives that inform humans evolve as organisms evolve in relation to time and space, dynamic narratives are to humans what software applications are to machines.

Post-positivist deconstruction also has implications regarding the notion of Time-Space. "Past" and "Future" have no objective existence outside thought. The past is selective memory - memory that can be deleted or edited. The future is only projection - at best educated wishful thinking. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, for a valid reason. "History" is the selective narrative of selective memory - no historical or journalistic narrative can claim to represent "truth", as long as in context of constructing a given narrative of events the historian or journalist subjectively decides what information to present or omit. Because it is a subjective process, the decision to omit or present information in context of a narrative will always be influenced by biases of a social, cultural -or even political- nature. No existing historical or journalistic narrative is "truth" - there only exist competing narratives of "the past" or "current events". The notion of "the present", is problematic because it assumes that time-space is not dynamic, it is thus premised on a false view of static reality that denies ongoing organic transformation processes that, although not perceptible to humans, do take place - case in point the problem of quantum physics. The "laws of physics" as perceived by humans break down at the level of quanta... "the present" is constantly ceasing to be and becoming and there is no guarantee that what comes-to-be is "better" than what ceases-to-be. The notion of "better" (constitutive to "progress") is subjective. So back to the original questions: What is "Real" ? What is "Truth"? Is "Truth" the same as "Reality"? What is real is relative to perception and perceptions can be managed. What is truth is limited to available - always imperfect - information. Truth is not the same as reality, because the information that premises notions of truth is always imperfect. Perhaps the substitute for an answer that will never be discovered is to recall and accept the maxim of Socrates: "I do not know what I do not know".

***

post-script:

Yesterday I understood that in Sweden, the managed appearance of "humanitarianism" is only a mask for xenophobic dislike of foreigners. The Swedish political class is very clever; they know that for geographical and historical reasons, latent xenophobia is part of the collective psychology in this society - like a hidden narrative in the collective subconscious. They focus group, they triangulate, they craft language and they spin it; they appeal to this latent fear of "the other" with targeted messages and coded symbols in order to collect votes. In Sweden, populism has been synthesized with perception management as a practical means to administer a nativist herd morality. The Swedish political class really believe in the narrative of "Sweden". They believe that it exists. The premise of all psychosis is to believe that a perception, that in fact has no material substance or basis, has a material substance and basis. Note that this is not a commentary on metaphysical belief systems, but a commentary on a perception that is popularly considered to be "materially true". Sweden is only a narrative, ultimately just an idea, and not a material entity. What "actually exists" in "material reality" are eight million blond people living on half a forested peninsula. Now I understand what Noam Chomsky meant when he defined the populism of the 20th century fascists and Bolsheviks as a dynamic application of "organic entity theories". The nationalism of the political class that governs the Swedish State is definitely organic, almost pathological. No wonder I am having so much trouble with the police... The anti-identity, anti-national narrative that I subscribe to is the living anti-thesis to the dynamic narrative the Swedish State promotes as a means to facilitate the collective management and control of the society. In entering into a post-collision jujitsu with the Swedish State, I have come to experience in situ what Nietzsche meant by the antagonism of Man against the Herd. Maybe the police are correct after all, when they say they must keep me under surveillance in a secured building in order to protect their society. I am a potentially disruptive element. I am Yin and the police are Yang. The Syndicalists and assorted leftists who associate with them are all wrong; it is not the cheap alcohol or the steady flow of welfare checks that keep the people loyal to the political class, and it is not the policy of "repressive tolerance" that maintains social cohesion. I am afraid it is much worse than that:

Swedish nationalism is a State-managed dynamic narrative that results in collective psychosis.

-veremos.

Post-Political Commentaries

2007-10-01T09:10:00.001-07:00

The following is an "experimental journal" of my interactions with the alternative and corporate media zoo during the moth of October 2007 .... it reads like notes ...

***

October 1st, 2007

Quote from World Socialist Website on Burma Military vs Buddhist Monks:

"The pretense that the Bush administration's concerns lie with the aspirations of the people of Myanmar, who have taken to the streets inrecent days in mass demonstrations, is farcical. The US government has supported and directly installed countless military dictatorships from Indonesia to Chile, helping them to carry out far worse atrocities than the Burmese junta in suppressing their own people. Rather, under the mantle of "liberation" and "democracy," US imperialism is once again pursuing its own strategic interests, attempting to bring to power a pro-American government that would open up the country to exploitation by US capital. Given the Myanmar government's close economic and political relations with neighboring China, such an exercise in regime change would significantly advance Washington's attempts to challenge Beijing for supremacy in the region, while steadily working tomilitarily encircle China."

I would add repression directed against anti-capitalist dissidents, immigrants and Muslims inside Western countries. The torture at Abu Grahib, Guantanamo, the "Torture Jet", secret jails in Eastern Europe, surveillance and naked police repression in every major Western city, denial of civil liberties in the name of "security". The West has nothing on Burma. The only difference is that in Burma the military is up front about the repression while in the West it is disguised behind the veil of stage managed "participation" and rigged "democratic elections". In the West they prefer "rendition" to gunning protesters down in the streets. Although Iran is not exactly an utopia of freedom, The Iranian parliament was very correct to vote recently on a resolution declaring the CIA a terrorist organisation.

***

neo: Re: Israeli control of the Mass media and the 9-11 cover-up

"Who controls the "hidden hand" in the U.S. mass media that censorsand suppresses the crucial 9-11 evidence? What is the nexus connectingthe architects of 9-11 with the mass media moguls who are covering upthe truth?"

the hidden hand is money. the private sector corporate media exists to sell papers and not to communicate information. information is a commodity under capitalism. they calculate that they make more money from "war on terror" sensation than from peace. peace is boring.

[antisemitism in the left]

now a days forms of "subcouncious anti-semitism" are rampant in the left. somehow there is anidentification of "left" with "islamic", and this psychology among leftists is directly related to the the ideology associated with liberal identity politics. i propose the following formula as a solution: 1.) jewish does not equal Zionist. 2.) there is a working class in israel, and socialists must validate its interests and concerns 'per se' and aside from the context of the ongoing israeli-palestinian conflict. socialists should seek the unity of the israeli working class and the secular palestinian resistance against the zionist-capitalist and islamic-feudal elites respectively. 3.) there used to be a secular palestinian liberation movement in the 70's- associated with the p.f.l.p... perhaps socialists would be better served from researching the history of this movement. 4.) islam is worst than capitalism because islam is actually a feudalistic ideology expressed in religious terms... its Western analogue is catholicism. 5.) zionism is a form of fascism.

- neo.

***

October 5th, 2007

A few days ago on the BBC, they interviewed a Burmese dissident and a British diplomat about the brutal suppression of the pro-Democracy movement by the Military Junta in that country. Two points made my blood boil. First, it turns out that Russia, China, India, Chevron, Halliburton, Total-Fina-Elf and The State of Israel have longstanding business and military ties with the regime. This totally exposes the hypocrisy of the Western and Chinese governments and explains why no one did anything at the U.N. to stop the Junta from gunning down protesters and rounding up monks. Only the Dalai Lama and the Pope came in defense of the Burmese in an emphatic and clear cut manner. CNN showed smuggled video footage of the army in action. Demonstrators were tear-gased, shot, beaten, and hurled into trucks injured. Second, the British diplomat interviewed on the BBC laid it out up front when the journalist asked him if the solution was for the U.S. and France to force their corporations to disinvest. He replied that the matter was subject to "cost-benefit analysis" i.e. "How much is it worth it to Total-Fina-Elf and Chevron to take an ethical stance viv a vis the Junta". To me that comment illustrates the state of ethical degeneration that has come to prevail in the world in our postmodern times. What is the cost of Burmese blood ? How much of it has to be shed before it becomes "profitable" to withdraw ?...

- neo.

***

October 11th, 2007

A commentary on the rise of political religion

[a.k.a "The Revenge of God"]:

Re: American Armageddonites (antiwar.com)

*
"...what is most disturbing about these fundamentalist people is that they are true believers. politicised religion is back with a vengeance... the phenomenon is most prominent among the abrahamaic faiths, but all the major religions are affected: hinduism (bjp), judaism (zionist settlers), christianity ('dispensationalism'), islam (taliban / iran)... these are the dark ages of materialism. the liberal premise that action must be motivated by rational calculation to be legitimate is in disrepute. a number of world leaders who have the power to order deployment of weapons of mass destruction are under the influence of these ideologies in the us, india, pakistan , israel, etc... we are in the hands of madmen. rosa luxembourg was correct: in the abscence of socialism will rule barbarism...." - neo.

***

October 27th, 2007

Re: Why Putin is hostile (Miami Herald)

*
"Moscow is gravitating toward Cold War behavior"

the conflict between russia and the west predates the soviet union and today it is fundamentally about resources and market share not politics. one result of the fall of the USSR is that russian federation foreign policy has reverted to something similar to what existed under the tsars in the 19th century, it is a nationalist entity with imperial ambitions that competes with other national entities with imperial ambitions.

"the Russian leadership appear to be doing their best in ways large and small to marginalize and embarrass the United States and undercut U.S. foreign policy interests"

one cannot expect a strategic competitor to act in one's interest. this is as much a truism of politics and business in the postmodern as it was in the 19th century. the rules of capitalism projected to the geopolitical level are the same as those that operate on the floor of the stock exchange: sink or swim. from the perspective of russian nationalist state capitalism it must act counter to usa hegemonist interests in order to achieve its strategic goals. russia would not be persuing this course unless it knew that it could handle the usa response. this is why russia test fired the new topol-m missile in 2002. it's called in our era 'clash of civilisations', others call (ed) it 'inter-imperialist rivalry'.

"Putin implied that Russia may renounce the Reagan-Gorbachev INF treaty, which removed all U.S. and Soviet medium-range missiles fromEurope, and threatened to pull out of the Conventional Forces inEurope Treaty, whereby Russia moved its tanks and troops far fromthe borders of Eastern Europe."

putin is doing what he is suppossed to. the usa is proposing the installation of missiles in eastern europe that threaten russian security interests. as president of the russian federation putin has the responsibility to act on behalf of russian and not united states interests. i do not blame "the russians" for feeling threatened by the united states, specially when the united states has openly professed its goal of establising unipolar domination of the planet.

"On and on The Times indictment went. Russia was blocking new sanctions on Iran. Russia was selling anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Russia was selling weapons to Syria that found their way to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia and Iran were talking up an OPEC-style natural gas cartel. All this, said the Times, calls to mind ``Soviet-era behavior."

no problem. the west brought it on itself.

"Putin sending Bear bombers to the edge of U.S. airspace"

bush installing missiles in eastern europe near the russian border. - neo.

***

October 31st, 2007

*

Today I read about an interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa in the Emergent Village e-zine. The Emergent Church is the neo-Aristotelian, pantheistic, postmodern Christian conversation (I like to call it the revenge of the Quakers). Although I have fundamental disagreements with their theology, I often read their materials. This issue of the e-zine was specially thoughtful. The editorial blurb quipped about how 'post colonial' Africa is reconnecting with its 'communal heritage'. It referenced the exhaustion of individualist ideology in the 'The postmodern Western world' . Apparently there is a longing among Westerners to appeal to ' community values' as an antidote to perceived 'chronic loneliness and isolation'. In the interview, Mr. Tutu explained his understanding of the concept of "Ubuntu", it is allegedly a basic pillar of "African tribal" social ethics:

*

"Ubuntu is the essence of being human [...] we say a person is a person through other persons. You can't be a human in isolation. You are human only in relationships. [...] So we say that 'I need you to be all of who you are in order for me to be all that I am.' Because no human being is totally self-sufficient. In fact, a self-sufficient human being is subhuman." [...] If you want to be human, we are not going to be able to be human in isolation. It will be that we are human together..."

*

Indeed humans are social animals. This is another fact (among others), that conspires against the liberal ideology of "the individual". There is no such thing, least of all in a world where connectivity rules. The problem with tribal collectivism though, is that it emasculates the persons' allegedly "belonging" to the said tribal group in false and artificial "cultural" and "national" narratives. A tribe is a human invention, regardless of how old the traditions associated with it might be. The language of tribalism assumes that the "cultural" narrative associated with a particular tribe or nationality is an "essential trait" of the members, on the flimsy premise that they are born into it. The science genetics if often summoned by ethnicists to add a veneer of legitimacy to this line of argument. The approach deliberately confuses the fact that humans are social animals with the subjective notion that humans conform some sort of collective organic entity. Like all narratives, the "cultural" and "national" ones are not fixed, they evolve in relation to time and space. Nature selects failed variables for extinction and when a given narrative, inclusive a tribal one, becomes unsuccessful it will perish. The ethnicist approach implicit in the notion of "the tribal" is based on nativistic stereotype and generalizations; often crude definitions of "We" and "The Other" dressed in populist phraseology. The approach is clearly vulgar and simplistic, and this is the fundamental flaw of all ethnicism, nativism, tribalism, and nationalism.

*

The paradox is that the postmodern conceptualizations of so-called "ethnic identity" defended by liberals undermine the assumptions of liberal "individualism". The narratives of essential identity utilized by liberals in the West are a manufacture popularized by an identity politics that borrows its methodology from feminist theory. Feminist methodology is a subjective viewpoint. That a person is born into a tribe does not make that person complicit in the narrative of that tribe unless the person in question allows him or herself to be emasculated. Like the related concept of 'the Oriental', the concept of (tribal) 'Africanity' is a colonialist construct. A consistent post-colonialism in Africa would deny stereotypical "Africanity".

*

Desmond Tutu fails to understand this.

Viva Edward W. Said !

p.s. The concepts of "humanity" and of "humanism" are an invention of humans. Nature does not recognize "human rights". Indeed, from the perspective of a hypothetical rational non-human agent the concept of "humanism" could possibly seem "racist".

***

I conclude this journal with a quote:

"In der Beschränkung zeigt Fsich erst der Meister" - Goethe

*

FINIS

Social Democrat Liquidationist

2007-08-10T04:14:00.000-07:00

The liquidation of the Social Democrat structure is a political necessity. The liquidation of Liberalism is a historical task. The former must precede the latter for the FREE STATE to emerge. One cannot happen without the other. They are complementary for synthesis.

***

In the post-modern society of the fragmented “self”; in the fragmented “culture” that emerged in the wake of the post-structuralist shock-wave; having transcended the cultural impact of the the World Wide Web and wireless applications; having experienced the lived moment of anarchy in context of the anti-globalisation upsurge: I conclude that “left” and “right” are meaningless words, that politics in the third age of the open society revolve around issues of Ecology, Technology, Identity and Life.

***

The Free Market Is Not Capitalism.

Socialism Is Not the Welfare State.

Autonomy Is Not Liberty.

Individuality Is Not Individualism.

Cooperation Is Not Collectivism.

***

[“POST-QUEER”: Social Constructivist, Anti-Essentialist, Anti-Sexualist, Incidentalist.
The notion of “Queer Nation” is a manufactured pseudo-community premised on essentialist and sexualist ideologies. “Queer Nation” is an idealist narrative.]

[“POST-INTERNATIONALIST”: Supra-National, A-National, A-Nativist, Counter-Colonialist. The active denial of “nationality” narratives and “national” illusions.]

***

INFO/ECOTOPIA: The Third Way should become a Third Sector: Not Private and Not State. The Third Sector would formulate and implement solutions to valid social and ecological concerns. Social Services (Safety Net, Healthcare, Education-Culture, Transparency); Ecological Sustainability Systems (such as Stable State Recycling and Sustainable Energy); and both “infrastructure” (extensive) and “social” (intensive access) expansion of the Wireless Mobile Flat Earth Network (The Grid) would be administered by non-profit NGO’s. The NEW GLOBAL PUBLIC SECTOR would be financed by a Tax on Global Financial Transactions (Tobin Tax) and Flat Bioregion-local Ecological Taxes; Existing National income, estate and capital gains taxes would be abolished. Energy becomes the new currency with the PHOTOVOLTAIC-HYDROGEN economy: An economic system where natural wealth, energy, human labour and information are valued before they are processed. The Wireless Mobile Flat Earth Network evolves into a TAX FREE forum of information and services exchanges.

***

AN OPEN SOCIETY BASED ON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION.

“A World Where Many Worlds Are Possible”

THE SOLUTION IS DECENTRALISATION.

(THINKGLOBALACTLOCALTHINKGLOBAL)

The Bankruptcy of the Western Left.

2007-06-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

”La apariencia de administracion profesional es en realidad la administracion profesional de apariencias.” - El Libertario.

***

Anti-globalisation has died a quiet death in its sleep…

Total ideologies and total solutions are obsolete. They became obsolete in the mid 1990’s. The anti-globalisation ‘upsurge’ of 1999-2003 was the last hurrah of the 20th Century Western Left. It is “objectively true” that “another world is always possible” and that such a world COULD BE built on the basis of “social and ecological solutions”, but it is clear now that the so-called ‘movement of movements’ calling on these slogans failed. It simply evaporated. The demonstrations against global capital and war became ritualised. Social democrat careerists penetrated the organisational networks and degraded the programmatic horizon to the level of electoral work in favour of the social-liberal wing of capitalism. These finks were aided in the process by “Trotskyist” opportunists more interested in selling their propaganda and paraphernalia than in advancing the cause of anti-capitalism. Former members of the Black Bloc mutated into armchair activism pretending to be “anarchist”, “feminist”, or “green”; illustrating what Situationist social critic Guy Debord once denounced as “the spectacle”. The Western Left has retreated to the ‘safe’ confines of Academia and Media. I do not mean to say that it is not worth it to read the works of Noam Chomsky or to listen to Pacifica Radio, to browse the pages of World Socialist Website or surf the Indymedia domains. All this is necessary to get “The Truth”. Yet, in doing so one must remember that one is interacting with narratives and symbols that have no objective substance.

The war is coming and there will be no ‘general strike’ to stop it. There will be no second coming of Lenin, Trotsky, Mao or Che before the tactical nukes and white phosphorus begin to hit. ‘Shake and Bake’ with no Soviets. The coming war will decide if the neoliberal capitalist world of the 21st century is going to be unipolar or multipolar. It cannot be both. Looking at the recent historical pattern it is likely that the Real War is just around the corner. The 2001/2003 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2006 Israeli war against Hizbollah (and subsequent asymmetrical warfare continuums) are only a precursor for the horrors that are to come. In all cases: The 20th Century Left is DEAD. It tried to save itself in the 1999-2003 period of anti-neoliberal ‘upsurge’ by co-opting information technologies and by modifying its traditional “class warfare” narrative with language and concepts borrowed from Ecology and Feminism; and it did accomplish in this manner the brief flash of an anti-capitalist mood – but it did not stop the imposition of neo-liberal capitalism (so-called “market democracy” sic.) as the official ideology of globalisation. The ‘Multitude’ of Negri fizzled out into the mass of consumers.

The bankruptcy of the Western Left

It is clear that the Western Left has no theoretical solutions; save to appeal to recycled social democrat formulas. Tactically it has become suicidal. In the United States, the “Turtle-Teamster” project opted for exactly this course by following Kerry in 2004. With the possible exception of the few principled elements who bravely followed Ralph Nader, the bulk of the “1999 Movement” of “Battle of Seattle” lore died on November 2, 2004. Kerry destroyed the North American anti-globalisation and anti-war movements – with the help of the anti-globalisation and anti-war activists themselves. The Democrat party was able to – once more- perform its systemic and historical role as gravedigger of social movements. The same process of co-option happened again in lieu of the brief upsurges of social outrage in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster and with the recent Immigrant Rights movement. As long as North American anti-capitalists and progressives do not take the step to admit that there is no “lesser evil” they will never advance. The United States anti-capitalist progressive community is still under the influence of Liberalism: The belief in “constitutional rights” and related illusions. “We The People” really means “We the WEALTHY people”. The United States anti-capitalist intelligentsia and progressive media workers know this fact, but they continue to prefer to not draw appropriate conclusions.

In Western Europe the official death of the upsurge came in the summer of 2005 with the Glenn Eagles-7/7 fiasco in the UK. A mixture of ritualised demonstrations in context of police repression (cynically dubbed “post-anarchism” by some), “Make Poverty History” co-option (orchestrated by Bono, Madonna and the Labour Party), and well-timed ‘false flag’ terrorism did the job. And it was over. Fast forward to 2007: “Everyone is a Feminist” has become fashion in the West European “left” café scene. Lately the German and French “Greens” are working closely with their respective neo-Conservative parliamentary counterparts in Berlin and Paris. There is a widespread and blatant upsurge of anti-Arab (and anti-Russian) racism throughout Western Europe. The term ‘Islam fascism’ is making the rounds in the editorial pages of the mainstream news media. The European presidency is fast working to introduce “American conditions” into the Euro zone, meaning that a wave of continent wide mass lay offs with no or drastically reduced unemployment benefits will impact the working class. The truth is that a depressingly demoralising form of lifestyle ‘anti-capitalism’ has become the norm among former anti-war and anti-globalisation activists. The social-liberals have joined the political Right.

Meanwhile – on both sides of the Atlantic- the targets of neoliberal repression and austerity – immigrants and the unemployed – find themselves with no organised movement to appeal to for redress. No hope but a crude survivalism in context of overall post-social erosion and grotesque narratives of “national security” and “generational war” …

Unless socially and ecologically concerned people (re-)act.

Karl Marx and the anti-capitalist tradition of the West

2007-01-24T17:07:00.000-08:00

Karl Marx

Karl Marx was an interpreter of historical process. His intention in developing that theoretical narrative which neo-Trotskyists call ‘’marxism’’, was not the invention of a secular post-liberal religious dogma (like Trotskyism) but the survival of (1) the German idealist legacy as exemplified by social liberal interpreters of Hegel and (2) the political tradition of the Jacobin and left-Jacobin currents emanating from the French revolutionary period - at its most radical in 1792-3 during the mandate of Roberspierre’s Committee of Public Safety. It is NOT that Karl Marx ‘’combined’’ the above with British classical liberal political-economy and the result was ‘’marxism’’. What Karl Marx did accomplish was the creation of a theoretical anti-thesis for classical British economic liberal ideology. As British economic liberalism was an ideology that justified the objective interests of the ruling social elite, Marx logically based the analysis pertinent to his anti-thesis on the objective interests of the socially marginalised and exploited elements of society (i.e the proletariat). This theoretical anti-thesis of Marx was developed as industrialisation impacted the growing working class of his time (mid 1840s to mid 1860s) and radically transformed the technological basis and economic dynamic of British society.

Why did Marx choose to focus on the working class? Because he understood that the brutal process of industrialisation he was witnessing was going to create a large number of industrial workers that would want to revolt against it. What Marx proposed was to approach this potentially rebellious social element and convince them that socialism was the solution to their oppression. Marx understood that only the working class (i.e. the social aggregate of those who sold their labour to industrial employers), in motion and organised to act against capital would have a chance at overturning the capitalist class order and its horrors. He understood that the anti-thesis to Bourgeoisie dictatorship over the Proletariat (the political economy of capitalism) was Proletarian Dictatorship over the Bourgeoisie (the political economy of socialism). The anti-thesis to the irrationality of deregulated market fluctuations was economic law and order (rational planning). The anti-thesis to rule by an oligarchy of financiers and industrialists was to be the rule by the workers organised. The workers would only be free of the horror and misery of the mines and factories and slums that capitalist industrialisation created IF they collectively organised to seize the means of industrial production and create the foundations of a workers state – which would embody the institutions that would serve as instruments for the class rule of the proletariat. Karl Marx’s considered that (historically); the first actually existing example of the beginnings of social movement towards a workers state was the 1871 Paris Commune.

Re: ...''Hugo Chavez (and) real Anti-capitalism'' ...

2006-12-08T06:37:00.000-08:00

***A Bolivarian Reply to some unfair criticisms of Chavez: ***

Re: ''The incurable flaw of the Left seems to be its weakness forleadership cults. Apparently the global left has forgotten thehorrors of Stalinism and Maoism.''

Reply: The basic assumptions of this comment are innacurate. Hugo Chavez isnot ''like Stalin'' or ''Mao''. The Bolivarian Revolution has not established a dictatorship. There is absolute freedom of speech, movement and the press in Bolivarian Venezuela.

Re: ''It is no longer capable of differentiating between grassrootscontrol and bonapartism (i.e. rule by a strongman).''

Reply: The propaganda that Chavez is a ''stongman'' comes from the neo-liberal, pro-Bush opposition: The Escualidos. Chavez is a democratically elected president who presides over a socialist democracy in construction. The aim of the Bolivarian revolution is to achieve a situation where the people of Venezuela will be the rulers of their own destiny: personally and collectively.

Re: ''The global left fools itself, furthermore it contradicts itself by thinking that following nationalist strongmen is the way to bring about a global ecologically sustainable socialistdemocracy.''

Reply: Chavez is not a ''stongman''. He is the democratically elected leader of the people of Venezuela. The Nationalism of the Bolivarian revolution is a positive type of nationalism because it aims to empower Venezuela against United States imperialism.

Re: ''The leadership cults around Mao or Stalin in the past; Castroand Chavez today all have a common denominator: The suppression of critical thinking in favor of the BIG LIE – whatever it might be, nomatter how absurd.''

Reply: There is no ''supression of critical thinking'' in Venezuela. There is absolute freedom of the press and absolute freedom of speech, more so than in the United States or the European Union. In Bolivarian Venezuela the right to free expression is extended to the poor and those socially excluded under neo-liberal capitalism.

Re: ''Honest socialists and other progressive people are focusing so much on the apparently ''anti-capitalist'', ''anti-Yankee'' rhetoric emanating from Telesur and Chavez's various media performances...that they are not looking at Chavez critically.''

Reply: Denunciations of U.S. Imperialism and global neoliberalism are not just ''rethoric''. The Chavez government ACTS politically, economically and diplomatically on its words to serve as a counterpoint to U.S. domination over Latin America. The media performances come from the opposition media, whose style of journalism is yellow.

Re: ''The Multinationals still control the economy, the rich continue to become richer at the expense of the poor, the projects related to the so-called `'empowerment'' of the urban and rural poor are no more than localized experiments, there is corruption, there is rampant crime, street children. The `'Cogestion'' (i.e. workersco-management) projects are a scam. The workers never really manage anything. The `'workers management'' meetings are staged for the benefit of visitors and TV cameras.''

Reply: These are lies. Yes, there is a private sector but it is taxed and regulated. The State and NGO sectors have a proportional influence over the Venezuelan political-economy. There is no private sector dictatorship as in the United States. Poverty and unemployment have been reduced consistently since 2004 while economic growth per annum has been 5 to 8 %; these facts are recognised by the World Bank. There is a crime and corruption problem, but the Bolivarian government is in the process of implementing policies to counter these phenomena. No one has said that the Bolivarian Revolution is ''perfect''. There is plenty of crime in the United States and in the European Union. There are 'Misiones' (i.e Social Programs), in place to provide services to street children and the homeless. The Cogestion program is not ''stage managed'', the workers have direct imput into production in Alcasa and PDVSA. This situation did not exist under the previous neoliberal capitalist regime.

***

For Bolivarian perspectives on Venezuela visit: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/

Oaxaca and Managua : The Latin American 1848.

2006-11-16T09:19:00.000-08:00

Oaxaca in Flames

APPO (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca) is a legitimate social and political movement that has evolved into a parallel government on the model of the 1848 Revolutions; the classical call for national democracy with a social content. What is of particular interest to anti-capitalists, is that this movement is based entirely on the grassroots and governed by direct participation from the rank and file. Popular Democracy is barricaded in Oaxaca. APPO emerged from a general strike by teachers and students against privatisation and wage cuts, this fact is what encapsulates it anti-capitalist substance. That APPO exploded as an expression of popular will against capital inside the NAFTA zone is a direct challenge to the imperialist hyenas in the Bush regime. Insofar as APPO challenges U.S. economic, political and cultural domination of Mexico in its denunciations of the Fox regime and its acolytes in the Oaxaca governorship it is a anti-imperialist movement. As civil society, workers and students joined it became a mass pro-democracy movement with an anti-capitalist orientation. It is important to note that this movement takes place in context of the 'Gold Revolution': the movement against the electoral fraud (perpetrated by the PAN and PRI) that stole the presidency from PRD candidate Perez Obrador this past summer.

The brutal repression of APPO by the Federal Army and the Oaxaca police were not a surprise given the direction the social movement was taking. According to the Spanish language/Sweden based Left Socialist weekly “Liberacion” ( http://www.liberacion.press.se/ ) :

"En gran parte de Oaxaca el gobierno no despacha, los tribunales de justicia y la policia dejaron de funcionar los partidos majoritarios del senado decidieron no declarar la desaparicion de los poderes publicos en ese Estado y ratificaron el mandato del Governador Ruiz" – ibid.

In the absence of a functioning government and in a legal vacuum in Oaxaca (a product of mass civil disobedience), APPO was beggining to legislate social policy. It was in fact beginning to evolve into a proto-Soviet, similar to those that briefly emerged in Argentina in January of 2002 and before that in Paris during the 1968 Student and Worker uprising. This is what the Bush regime and Fox fear the most; that a proto-Soviet might evolve into the real thing. APPO should have declared Oaxacan independence from Mexico on an anti-capitalist basis. If only to radicalize the situation in such a manner as to negate and undermine the legal basis of Burgeoise rule in the Oaxaca region. What the APPO experience shows is that barricades, demonstrations and declarations are not enough, it is necessary to constitute an alternative system of governance and defense to protect the gains of the movement. An authentic (not symbolic) parallel government has to be constituted and it autonomy defended. This necessitates an armed militia and a political infrastructure to support it: That means REAL Soviets.

Managua Resurrected ?

'Reformed Sandinistas' supported by Hugo Chavez and the Carter Center, and headed by radical has-been Daniel Ortega Saavedra, won the first round of national elections in Nicaragua. The U.S Embassy refuses to recognise the result - but OAS, the EU and Carter Center observers ratified its transparency. The Ortega/FSLN (Sandinista Front) associated center-left won with 38,59%. The opportunist MRS (Sandinista Renovation) obtained 7,25%. Neither FSLN nor MRS represent a solution to the problems of the Nicaraguan poor and marginalised. The FSLN has long ago renounced its past “revolutionary” agenda in favor of a neo-liberal center-leftism similar in disposition to that of Lula da Silva in Brasil or the ‘Frente Amplio’ in Uruguay. The FSLN only manipulates its past “revolutionary” image to fool the Nicaraguan poor . Its platform is by no means anti-capitalist. While it calls for palliative measures to curve the worst excesses of neo-liberalism, it does not offer a clear anti-capitalist program for independent socialist development. The FSLN accepts Nicaraguan membership in CAFTA and has refused to include the renegotiation of free trade agreement terms in the language of it platform. On the other hand, the MRS is an opportunist formation. In the 1990’s it posed to the RIGHT of the FSLN associated Sandinistas, seeking alliances with ‘soft’ neo-liberals as a means both undermine the appeal of the real FSLN and white-wash the excesses of the neo-liberal regimes that dismantled all the social gains of the 1979-1990 period. Today the MRS poses to the “Left” of the FSLN vaguely appealing to Chavismo and the Zapatistas, but not offering any concrete proposals. The Sandinistas are NOT ''back''. What is back is an apology for Neo-liberalism dressed in the colors of the Sandinista flag. Keep in mind that the Sandinista leadership acted to “modernize” the lyrics of its anthem by removing the quatrains in it that (rightly) denounced the United States government as the ‘Enemy of Humanity’. The solution for Nicaragua is not going to be found in elections held in context of the Burgeoise state. The Solution for Nicaragua is a mass anti-capitalist pro-democracy movement that seeks to negate the neo-liberal capitalist state and its legality. That can only be accomplished from below and implies a clean break with the failed politics of the paleolithic Sandinista “left” ; by taking the streets, the schools, the workplaces, and the land; in open disrespect of Burgeoise “legality” and the wishes of the American Embassy. That is what Sandino stood for.

Semper Indomitus !

Anti-capitalist Critique of ''Social Democratic'' Party Politics

2006-09-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

What follows is an anti-capitalist critique of sections of the 2006 Swedish Social Democratic Party election platform that deals with migration control and social policy issues:

[The Social Democratic Party led government was ousted from power during the September 17th, 2006 general election in a neoliberal-conservative landslide that saw gains by racist far right parties in local areas and medium size towns. The Left and Green parties lost half their seats in the parliament. The new regime promises to institute massive cuts in social services in its first 100 days in government, possibly Sweden will join NATO.]

Platform: ‘’General Election day, September 17th, is when Sweden’s future is to be decided … should we further improve our welfare system, or should we downgrade it by taking one out of every five tax krona out of the public coffers? Should we continue developing the Swedish Welfare model or should we abandon it? ‘’

It is clear that the subtext for this statement is the politics of the ‘’lesser evil’’. Implicit is the attempt to identify ‘’Social Democratic Party’’ with ‘’Welfare Model’’; while in reality the Social Democrats have long ago abandoned their original commitment to the ‘’Peoples Home’’ democratic socialism they preached in the 1970’s. It was the Social Democratic Party that dismantled the core Welfare State policies in the 1980’s and 1990’s under the rubric of ‘modernisation’. The attempt to appeal to the myth of a largely non-existent ‘’Swedish Welfare Model’’ is an effort at election time deception by praying on the fears of working class voters who know perfectly well that the level of wages has been stagnant for the past ten years (despite increases in worker productivity), and that provision social benefits and services (both in relation to actual need and inflation), have been in drastically cut.

Platform: ‘’We Social Democrats want a Sweden built on diversity. The community must be founded on mutual respect for differences within the framework of accepted basic democratic values…Swedes of foreign origin still encounter prejudice and discrimination. People of foreign extraction are more likely to be unemployed. We cannot tolerate injustices of this sort.’’

If the Social Democratic Party were truly interested in Social Cohesion it would abandon the neo-liberal policies it has pursued for the last ten years. The unregulated market is premised on economic un-democracy; while the draconian and repressive migration control policies of the current Social Democratic Party government work to legitimise and embolden xenophobic and racist attitudes in the society.

Platform: ‘’ In Sweden we keep our ambitions high to ensure that everyone who receives a residence permit will quickly be able to learn Swedish and find a job. We strive above all to facilitate integration by paving the way for more jobs and developing public welfare…’’

FAT CHANCE ! The craven hypocrisy and deceitfulness of this statement flies in the face of facts. Only 22% of those who apply for a residence permit receive one (among the lowest approval rates in Europe), that means that MOST immigrants are subjected to the indignities of the abusive and repressive migration control system and the ‘fast track’ deportation policy.
The funding for Swedish as a second language programs as well as for housing and healthcare services for immigrants was drastically cut in 2004; and there are no quality well paying jobs for ANYONE, lest of all immigrants. The only ‘’jobs’’ on offer (aside from ‘casual’ and temporary work in the private sector), are slave labour ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ schemes where one works for roughly the equivalent of a welfare check with no benefits or legal protections. There is no link between wages from these schemes and cost of living inflation. It is hard to receive placement in the workfare schemes because the waiting list is years. I have already mentioned how Social Democratic Party governments acted to dismantle the core of the Social Welfare State during the 1990’s.

Platform: ‘’Social attitudes must change, and legislation is needed to combat all forms of discrimination…’’

The actual legislation on migration control is biased against immigrants and the official policies of the Social Democratic Party in power promote anti-immigrant sentiment by capitulating to it. Less than 20% of those who appeal migration board rulings get to stay legally and there is a punitive four-year limit on access to social services imposed on EU immigrants from Eastern Europe who have a LEGAL RIGHT to migrate to Sweden if they choose according to European laws. These policies are clearly contradictory to the stated intent of the Social Democratic Party and openly discriminatory.

In the measure that the Social Democratic Party adapts to neo-liberal and to market-oriented ideology it denotes an implicit tendency towards abandoning the (now mythical) ‘’Swedish Welfare Model’’. Reliance on the unregulated market undermines the possibility for long-term employment and for social security and cohesion. ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ slave labour schemes are NOT real work, and insofar as they undermine gains in matter of wages, conditions and benefits won by organised labour in context of collective bargaining they have anti-social effects. ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ policies denote tokenism: the social politics of minimalism and pointillism. The solution to unemployment is a public works program that guarantees wages indexed to productivity premised on the expansion of the public sector.

The Social Democratic Party advocates the contraction and privatisation of the public domain. Their proposals to ‘’combat economic crime and benefit fraud’’ and to ‘’halve absenteeism from work due to illness by 2008’’ point to their intention to implement repressive policies that would target the working class, poor immigrants and pensioners. The politics of neo-liberalism with a ‘’social’’ face that the Social Democratic Party implements undermine social security and social cohesion at the expense of workers who are forced to accept wage freezes and benefit cuts in order to maintain private sector profitability and competitiveness.
Workers wages remain stagnant despite yearly increases in productivity per worker and per industry in the period between 1995 and 2005. Wages must be indexed to productivity.

The fiscal policy of the Social Democratic Party is openly pro-business and pro-war. They are calling for 2.3 billion krona in subsidies for Swedish pharmaceutical, aerospace and defence concerns. The Swedish weapons manufacturing industry exports its wares to Zionist Israel and to the United States. Clearly the proposal to subsidise the weapons manufacturing industry amounts to a call for utilising taxpayer’s money to directly support the use of Swedish made weaponry against the Palestinians and the Iraqis.

The Social Democratic Party is calling for a 900 billion krona across the board tax cut for business; they have already abolished inheritance taxes and want to implement additional targeted (‘’special’’) tax cuts to benefit private sector initiatives to cost tax payers one billion krona; not to mention 2 billion krona for ‘’capital risk security’’ (i.e. a subsidy for the stock market to enable more speculation). In contrast the amount earmarked for social services, education, healthcare, and housing COMBINED is to stay frozen. The only increase (30%) will be for the ‘Workfare’ and ‘Practicum’ slave labour schemes and for police so that they can implement initiatives against ‘’benefit fraud’’. In view of this it should be clear that the Social Democratic Party is actively engaged in the deception of working class, immigrant and pensioner voters. A vote for the Social Democratic Party would be a vote for neo-liberalism.

How ''Progressive Reform'' Helps Preservation of Capital and Capitalism

2006-09-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

All Republics seem to become Empires after they achieve a certain amount of industrial and military strength; the threshold is the point at which the armed and state security forces become larger than the civilian authorities. Rome, The Dutch Republic, The United States. The French Republic became an Empire twice in the period after 1789. So much for ‘Liberte’, ‘Egalite’, ‘Fraternite’; so much for de jure fictions.

‘’Progressive Reform’’ -as understood by social-liberal and social democratic types- is the counterpart, in politics, to economic Keynesians. An economic theory as flawed as its ‘’bimetallist’’ precursor. What progressive reform does for the political system of capitalism, Keynesian economics does for its economic system. Both aim to save capitalism (as a political-economy), from itself. In this sense and in the specific case of the current Empire, ‘’progressive reforms’’ had the effect of protecting the United States political system; of maintaining the illusion de jure of the forms associated with the existence of a ‘’democratic republic’’. Reform Law thus became the basis for an elaborate exercise in perception management: If it looks and feels ‘’democratic’’ then it must be. The emphasis is placed on superficial imagery and not on substance.

The legal and electoral system of the United States only exists to grant legitimacy to a political economy premised on the private ownership of capital. To reinforce the illusion of ‘’democracy’’ superimposed on a highly un-democratic social reality. Hence the institution of juries and ‘’periodic elections’’ where fraud and stage management are the norm and from which legitimate opposition candidates are excluded. Discourse is limited to ideas and premises that accept private ownership of capital as immutable conditionality. The 20th Century ‘’reforms’’: Direct election of senators; Extending to Women the right to vote; Limits on presidential terms; State and local referenda; Anti-trust laws; The 8 hour day; The minimum wage; The fiction of ‘’Civil Rights’’ and ‘’Civil Liberties’’ constitute incremental steps in the process of de jure image construction, even if in most cases the reforms in question were forced upon the capitalist political class by popular movements.

‘’Progressive Reforms’’ have allowed the United States to maintain the de jure image of a ‘’democratic republic’’ while de facto it evolved, in parallel, into a highly centralised, militaristic, unilateralist, imperialist, and repressive entity that threatens humanity with nuclear extinction lest it not vow to the will of the ‘star and stripes’. The evolution of ‘Pax Americana’ begun in the 19th Century with the annexation of Florida, The Louisiana extortion, the invasion of Mexico, ‘’Indian Removal’’, the conquest of the Philippines; matured in the 20th Century with the 1947 passage of the ‘National Security Act’ creating a permanent war economy, Korea and Vietnam; and peaks in the 21st Century with the interventions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. These events where incremental and cumulative steps on the road to a global unipolar dominion that aims to wear the mask of ‘’Freedom’’.

The ‘’American Democracy’’ is only an illusion. The reality behind ‘Brand America’ is that the appearance of careful management is only the careful management of appearances. Who benefits? The 5% of the United States population that owns 80% of the wealth. The system of Empire exists for their benefit; the social heirs to the slave owning and mercantile interests that declared independence from Britain in 1776. This is why Marxists (correctly) define the capitalist political class as an executive committee for carrying out the collective will of the Bourgeoisie; and why they denounce ‘parliamentary cretinism’ for what it is.

Anticapitalism: What is to be done NEXT ?

2006-08-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

'THE MOVEMENT' AGAINST 'THE MAN'

"Every emancipation is a restoration of the human world and of human relationships to a man himself." - K. Marx

''There is no objective difference between 'Batman' and 'Hamlet' '' - M. Foucault

***

The ''Black Bloc'' is DEAD. Summit demonstrations and ''Social Forums'' are OUT. Electoral activity is POINTLESS. Anticapitalist activists must break with the routines of Left-Centrism and realise that the only hope for progress against capitalism is in the emergence and victory of social movements against capital. Only then will spaces be openned that could allow for the credible proposition of a democratically managed Libertarian Socialism as an alternative to the market dictatorship. Historically, all social progress in the direction of political and economic democracy have come from gains achieved by social struggle. It is when social movements deflate or retreat that capitalism is able to make advances. This iswhy today we are faced with a grim reality of social cuts, police repression, and proliferation of war; because no significant numbers of ordinary people are movilising against these effects of capitalism in general, and of capitalism - as their source - in particular.

ELECTIONS ARE RIGGED

It is pointless to vote in the era of voting machines, ''sanitised'' voter lists, ''provisional ballots'' and ''election challengers''. There is no guarantee that a vote deposited in favour of one candidate or another will be registered as intended by the voter or even counted. Those who count and tally the votes are likely to be partisan or biased (USA 2000 and 2004 ; Mexico in 2006). The activities of the vote counters are not transparent. Voting machines can be pre-programmed. The solution is to campaign for PROACTIVE BOYCOTT during electoral seasons. Anticapitalist activists should campaign against every election held under capitalism from this point on, on the premise that they are restricted, likely rigged and that ultimately voting only legitimises the political system of capitalism. The capitalist state is not neutral. It exists to facilitate the preservation and expansion of capital. In moving beyond constituional patriotism the anticapitalist movement can act in the electoral context to: (1) denounce the anti-democratic nature of the electoral system of capitalism; (2) to persuade ordinary people interested in social struggle that a more effective road to lasting social change is their organisation into social movements; (3) to expose the political class that administers the capitalist state, as an oligarchy at the service of corporate capitalist interests. The anticapitalist slogan should be: ''DO NOT VOTE - ORGANISE YOURSELF.''

EMBEDDED PROTESTS

An embedded protest occurs, when in order to split or coopt social movements against capital, the political class will stage manage a display of ''concern'' and then pretend to engage in ''dialogue'' with a preselected group of participants in the given social movement. The intent being the manufacture of a ''media moment'' for cable TV audiences and the press. This is the lattest twist in political perception management. Recent examples of this phenomenon are: the Live 8 ''Make Poverty History'' concert held during the 2005 G8 summit at Glenn Eagles, Scottland; the spectacle of Chilean president Michelle Bachelet engaging in a scripted-for-TV ''dialogue'', in the midsts of a national student strike agaist social cuts in education, with ''demonstrators'' belonging to the youth organisation of her own ''socialist'' (sic.) party; and not to impune the socially progressive intent of Hugo Chavez or of social forum event organisers, the corporate funded farse the has become the ''World Social Forum'' held in January of this year in Caracas, Venezuela. The solution to the problem of cooption is to avoid ritualisation. When summit demonstrations and social forum type events become serialised, ritualised and coopted they cease to be effective. In the era of protest pens and ''media event'' stage managementthe anticapitalist movement must engage in 'piquetero'-style civil resistance tactics such as road blocades and in-situ occupations. Whenever possible actions should be coordinated with popular resistance upsurges such as; strike actions initiated by working class communities fighting against layoffs, social cuts, and low pay; or student/immigrant youth uprisings such as those that occurred in France in 2005 and Chile in 2006.

Summit demonstrations are OUT. The new style must resemble the Bolivian ''bronca ciudadana'' model of Unidentified Popular Upsurges that emerge, manifest themselves, and are able to tactically disintegrate back into the social woodwork, when necessary, only to re-emerge again. Modern technologies such a mobile phones and the internet could serve to facilitate this style of civil resistance. We need a proacted, non-violent complement to the Iraqi Insurgency and the Civil Resistance Movements in Lebanon and Palestine that seeks to re-integrate the anti-war/disarmament agenda to that of movements for political and economic democracy. We need a return to 'Reclaim the Streets', but without advertising and beyond that: we need to reclaim the workplaces, the schools, the commons and the land.

EMBEDDED MEDIA

The private sector/corporate media propaganda system is ultimately connected to the modern market-state and serves the function of disseminating and legitimising the viewpoints, policies and ideologies of the economic and political elite. Neo-conservative (geopolitical); and neo-liberal (economic) premises are artificially objectified. This process of false objectification produces a situation where the discussion of issues is framed. There is no authentic freedom of speech or of the press and no meaninful scope for thought outside the parameters delineated by the ideology of the system. The solution to the problem of the corporate media 'echo chamber' is to rely on the independent anti-capitalist and other social-liberal/socialist/anarchist oriented dissident media. Not only to know the dymensions and full spectrum of ''truths'' that are hidden and omitted by corporate reporting; but also to know the status of current movement activism. To discern its rythm and pulse so as to allow the networks of dissent that do exist the ability to coordinate action. The best approach for anticapitalists is to IGNORE THE CORPORATE AND STATE MEDIA and seek to organise social movements.

Tune out Fox and tune into Pacifica (http://www.flashpoints.net); Indymedia (http://www.indymedia.org); or to the post-modern Afro-Marxist groove at the Slave Revolt Radio-Blog (http://slaverevoltradio.blogspot.com/).

Semper Indomitus !

Moving Beyond The Religion of Trotskyism

2006-08-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

''ALL I KNOW IS THAT I AM NOT A MARXIST'' - Karl Marx

'' Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. A proof of this is for example, that, because of aversion to any personality cult, I have never permitted the numerous expressions of appreciation from various countries with which I was pestered during the existence of the International to reach the realm of publicity, and have never answered them, except occasionally by a rebuke. When Engels and I first joined the secret Communist Society we made it a condition that everything tending to encourage superstitious belief in authority was to be removed from the statutes." - KARL MARX

("Against Personality Cults," from a November 10, 1877 letter to W. Blos)

***

1. As a precursor to the emergence of Libertarian/Democratic Socialism from below, I am interested in building and organising anti-capitalist SOCIAL MOVEMENTS; and NOT ''socialist parties'' or ''anarchist networks''. My focus and priority as an anti-capitalist who wants to destroy capitalism is in process dynamics and not institutional construction. ''The paper'' is to the neo-Trotskyist what the ikon is to the Orthodox Catholic. In the same manner that the ikon serves as imaginary intemediary between feligresi and ''creator'' (sic.); the neo-Trotskyist newspaper serves as intermediator between the cadre and ''the massess'' (sic.)

2. Trotskyism is a secular religion of the Left. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are famous for having considered that the criticism of religion is the precondition for all criticism as it concerns political-economy and social questions. In our days this critical approach must be applied to the various secular Leftist cults: The Cult of Trotsky, The Cult of Che, The Cult of Mao and the Cult of Joe Hill. The anti-capitalist movement must work to extirpate these cults from the movement in order to prevent them from derrailing it in its advance.

3. Because I choose out of free will to agree with the subjective premise that Libertarian/ Democratic Socialism would be the rule of virtue (assuming the neo-Platonic premise that Justice is the Rule of Virtue and subsequently that Socialism is that ''Virtue'' that equals ''Justice''); I am interested in promoting the ideal of Libertarian/Democratic Socialism as a positive solution and logical alternative to the system of applied injustice that is capitalism. I am not interested in the sale of partisan newspapers or of branded propaganda materials as raison d'etre. A consistent anti-capitalist cannot be a salesman; rather he or she should be, fundamentally, a persuader. As socialism should not be for sale: I do not wish to participate in the process of commercialisation of socialist ideas. I rather be one of those who gives away the paper and the buttons and the litterature. I am one of those who would encourage the interested to ''STEAL THIS BOOK''.

4. The true measurement of ''success'' for an anti-capitalist activist and proponent of Libertarian /Democratic Socialism (acting in context of actually existing social movements), is how effective they might be at persuading others to join the social movement in question and beyond that convincing them in context of the said movilisation that Libertarian/Democratic Socialism is the solution to the depredations of neo-liberal capitalism in our times. It is NOT about how effective they might be at selling''Anarchist'' or ''Socialist'' merchandise or related branded paraphernalia on the market. Monetarist accounting is not what makes a socialist. My priority focus as an anti-capitalist activist is (1) on the promotion of Libertarian/Democratic Socialist ideas as a solution and (2) on contributing to the organisation and growth of contrarian social movements. Always with a bias towards the economic and the political of course (because ''there'' is where the money and the power are concentrated); but never really dismissing the potential that might exist on the ''cultural'' aspects of the social. And yes, I am clear that ''the cultural'' is socially constructed.

5. As a whole, Trotskyism has failed in the historical field. There was never a ''political revolution'' in the Eastern Bloc. There never has been a ''permanent revolution'' in the neo-colonial world. The ''Transitional Program'' never broke the workers from the social democratic farse in the developed western countries. Keep in mind that Trotskyists have been reformulating THE SAME THEORIES over and over again since the 1930's with no tangible results.

6. There are no ''socialist parties'' or ''anarchist networks''; only very small groups (of committed people no doubt), who think to themselves and tell each other that they are. The only ''real socialists'' are those who practise socialism, and to be a ''real socialist'' one must first be an anti-capitalist. I am interested in the formulation of a new political syntesis, a new praxis. One that might involve the insights of Marx when applicable - and yes maybe even those of Trotsky, other dissident Marxists like Rosa Luxembourg and Andres Nin and the anarcho-syndicalists. But fundamentally, an anti-capitalist synthesis that proposes what is understood to be ''Libertarian/Democratic Socialism'' and that presents itself to a contemporary post-modern public with a brand new language and a psychology of conceptualisations rooted in current events, struggles and conditions. Not a recapitulation of outdated interpretations of Marx, not a cosmetically refinished representation of the postulates of Trotsky, Che or Anarco-Syndicalism. Rather, a brand new synthesis for our times.

Anyone who states that only they or their party or thir network is ''right'' is WRONG. Anyone who claims full knowledge of absolute truth is a LIAR. As I begun, I end with another important quote from Marx: ''Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Karl Marx ''Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right'' (1843) .

Semper Indomitus !

p.s. I do not know the whole truth - no one does. I do not claim to be ''right'' - I am willing to admit (along with Marx) that I might not be. Ask your favorite ''Trotskyist'' or ''Anarcho-Syndicalist'' ideologue to do the same... see where that gets you.

S.I.

( http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/26/18300693.php)

How Socialism will Liberate Lesbian Womyn

2006-07-18T06:32:00.000-07:00

According to socialist Friedrich Engel's, the function of the patriarchal nuclear family under capitalism is to ensure the reproduction of male property inheritors and to force women to provide those social services (such as childcare), that capitalism refuses to pay for. A socialist perspective on patriarchy and homophobia must proceed from a critique of the nuclear family as a capitalist institution. The homophobic ideology of ''family values'' that conservatives defend - a false consciousness - exists to legitimise the capitalist patriarchy. The Lesbian Woman is hated by the social conservative because She represents the living negation of the capitalist patriarchy. She refuses to reproduce and she refuses to be shackled by compulsory heterosexuality.

Socialism will not abolish the family per se, rather it will eliminate the socio-economic foundations of the capitalist patriarchy and the homophobia it requires to exist. Socialism will abolish the social conditions that engender homophobia by eliminating the social requirement to only engage in heterosexual relationships. In a socialist society all persons will be free to pursue the sexual and emotive relations of their choice with whom they prefer regardless of gender. In fact, codified gender roles will be transcended. Socialism will allow for the eradication of homophobia in schools, public services, and workplaces through educational campaigns; equal access; equal pay for equal work; and the strict enforcement of equality and non-discrimination rules.

Socialism will guarantee free abortion on demand to all women and provide free access to health care services specific to the needs of Lesbian Women and Transgendered persons. Childcare will be socialised, thereby freeing women to pursue educational opportunities of their choice (free of charge) and subsequently enter the workforce in any area of their choice. A democratically planned socialist economy, will remove economic need as a motive for entering emotive and sexual relations. The socio-economic basis for prostitution will be removed. No longer will working class women and boys be compelled to sell their sex to men as a commodity in the market. Under socialism human sexuality will be decommodified.

Semper Indomitus !

***

Upsurge of Struggle for LGBT Democratic Rights in Eastern Europe -by Miguel Amanda. July 24, 2006.

On Saturday July 22nd, the LGBT community in Riga, Latvia held a demonstration in favor of democratic rights in defiance of the city authorities. The government of the city of Riga had acted on July 19th to effectively ban a LGBT pride march scheduled for that day. The authorities cited “threats of terrorist attacks” as the reason for banning the march and further characterized the event as “the biggest security risk” faced by Latvia after winning independence from the Soviet Union. The request to stage the pride event had been made by Mozanka, the Latvian LGBT association. "We are shocked by the city council's decision, which we view as not only an unacceptable restriction of the freedom of assembly, but a major blow to democracy", said Mozanka board member Linda Freimane. The July 22nd demonstration was attended by activists and parliamentarians from Sweden, Germany and the UK. Although there was no overt repression on the part of the police, they where criticized for taking a passive stance while LGBT demonstrators where attacked by social-conservative and neo-Nazi counter demonstrators. One attending Swedish parliamentarian was injured in the altercations that took place. The ban and the negligence of the police were denounced by a number of international Human Rights NGOs; notably Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. This prompted Latvian president Vike-Freiberga to state that the refusal by the city of Riga to authorize the pride parade was “unacceptable in a democratic country”.

The attempt by the Riga authorities to undermine the democratic rights of LGBT communities in the city came after a series of advances made by the LGBT communities in Russia and Poland over the past few months.

On March 2 solidarity demonstrations where held in front of Russian embassies and consulates in West European capitals denouncing the ban of a planned Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender pride march in Moscow. The demonstrations where called by IDAHO (International Day against Homophobia), a Human Rights NGO based in Paris. This development points to an upsurge of awareness among those in the West concerned with the negative situation that GLBT peoples face in ’’post-soviet’’ Eastern Europe and Russia.

The support expressed by supporters of the LGBT community outside Russia inspired the Rainbow Community in Moscow to hold two spontaneous pride demonstrations in favor of democratic rights for free assembly and freedom of speech on May 27th. The demonstrations were met with repression from police and from groups of counter-demonstrators including neo-Nazi skinheads, Muslim clerics and faithful of the Orthodox Church. The Courts upheld the Moscow government ban on the gay pride demonstrations despite the fact that the Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and assembly; and despite the fact that a criminal complaint was filed by Moscow pride organisers against religious clerics ’’for inciting hatred towards a social group’’, which is prohibited by Article 282 of the Criminal Code of Russia. May 27th represents the national ’’comming out’’ of the LGBT community in Russia. Some have called it “the Russian Stonewall” .Gay Pride organisers in Moscow are planning to hold another march in the spring of 2007 despite the threat of a ban.

The movement for LGBT equality and human rights in Russia has inspired a similar upsurge of struggle in Poland. Despite a ban by the Warsaw city government; approximately 2,500 LGBT campaigners and supporters from Western Europe marched on the city in June.

The Warsaw Equality March was a success. Demonstrators carried placards reading: “The World is Watching” as representatives of the European media marched along to record the proceedings.

Although the police conducted a tight security operation there where no reports of violent incidents. Groups of skinheads associated with the youth wing of the “League for Polish Families” – a Roman Catholic political group – delivered verbal abuse upon the pride demonstrators but where prevented from engaging in physical violence by the police. It is a sign of cultural progress, in Roman Catholic dominated Poland, that the LGBT community can exercise its rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

According to Igor Yasin a member of Socialist Resistance (the CWI in the country); ’’Our task as socialists is to show that only by fighting capitalism and its state machine together with all the poisonous prejudices that come out of capitalism and by building a new society based on freedom and equality - a socialist society - can [the question of LGBT rights] be tackled once and for all.’’

There can be no socialism without LGBT freedom. There can be no LGBT freedom without socialism.

** An edited Swedish-language version of this article was published in July of 2006 in the Socialist newspaper ''Offensiv'' press organ of the Justice Socialist Party of Sweden; Swedish section of the Commite for a Workers International. The author is not a member of this organisation. The views expressed inthis blog are not necessarily those of CWI or the Justice Socialist Party of Sweden and vice-versa.

''Path to Citizenship'' into WHAT ???

2006-05-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

WE ARE NOT

An anarchist criticism of the politics of Nativo Lopez and the positions taken by the U.S. ''far left'' vis a vis the ongoing ''immigrant rights revolution'' :

The aim of the so-called ''immigrant rights revolution'' currently sweeping the United States is NOT to ''liberate'' the immigrants but to integrate them into the political economy of American capitalism. This is the ethos behing the ''path to citizenship'' rethoric emanating from the wing of the immigrant movement led by Nativo Lopez. Curiously enough, the International Socialists are backing this position, while the ''Anarchist'' NEFAC remains mute. The erstwhile ''far left'' once more capitulates principle in order to accomodate itself to the fashionable currents of social democratic movementism.

The ''immigrant rights revolution'', should push for the creation of COOPERATIVE SPACES outside the private sector economy and the State; so that the immigrants can then be free to engage in autonomic associations in the social experience of EMANCIPATION. In this way, the immigrants who are ''undocumented'' would not need to depend on the private sector for ''jobs'' (exploitation) and/or on the State for recognition. The movement should not look for legitimation outside of itself, it should legitimise itself by creating counter-institutions. IT SHOULD BE A MOVEMENT OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Breaking with the ''democrat'' party is an essential task. Reliance on the Law is a mistake. The law is not and can never be Justice. The language of ''legalization'' must be transcended.

The aim should be to ABOLISH the Migration Control System and The ''Homeland Security'' Gestapo. The immigrant movement in this sense could then merge with anti-war currents and movements seeking to defend Civil Liberties and Human Rights against the Patriot Act. The aim should be to break an unjust system and not seek to assimilate people into it. The Migration Control System and the Laws that institutionalize it must be broken. To legitimize migration control is to legitimize injustice.

I do not want a ''residence permit''. I want absolute freedom to come and go as I please whenever I please as I feel like it. To settle and unsettle myself wherever I please.
In fact, I already HAVE that freedom - it is only that the State acts to restrict it arbitrarely. The solution for Undocumented Immigrants in The United States, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan is NOT ''integration'' into the spectacle of Western neo-liberal capitalism and racism, but rather CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

Semper Indomitus !

Manifesto of a Migration Control Outlaw [3.0]

2006-03-23T03:50:00.000-08:00

’’Manifiesto of a Migration Control Outlaw’’ [3.0]

By Semper Indomitus !

WHO AM I

I am an undocumented person who has ’’dropped out’’ of the system in order to resist deportation and who is an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist "fellow traveller" surviving underground. I am a hermit, a H.O.B.O. , a traveller and an anarchist. All at once.

WHAT ARE MY AIMS

To Survive and to Resist. To defend freedom in clandestinity as an act of self preservation. In order to achieve this I will evade the security forces of the State, regardless of the migration control law, in order to preserve the right to freedom of movement and association. My ultimate aim is to negate - on a day to day basis- all efforts by the State to capture me; and thereby void their intent to deport me to a torture chamber.

In order to secure the means to subsistence I will engage in the FAIR TRADE of labour in exchange for food and shelter, on a mutual aid basis, with those who support my struggle against the State. I will not pay taxes. I aim to survive as much as possible without the use of money.

I am not interested in obtaining a ’’permit to stay’’; because I am going to stay anyways ! Wheter the State agrees to it or not is irrelevant to me. I do not recognise the validity of migration control laws premised on racist assumptions and xenophobic hysteria. I will colonise the Swedish section of Scandinavia as I please and where I please; because I claim for myself the right to live and die where I want– against the migration law if necessary. If only to spite the racist scum who voted for and enforce the anti-immigration laws .
I will network with other clandestine immigrants on the basis of voluntary association for the purpose of facilitating our collective and personal prerogative to maintain self preservation in freedom against racist and xenophobic migration control laws and to aid one another in the evasion of security forces inkeeping with the principle of voluntary association. I will participate in the creation of immigrant self defense networks in order to resist violent assault from neo-nazis, border police and other types of racist hooligan.

The act of evading capture to avoid deportation to a torture chamber is a political act, because the migration control laws are a political product. Ergo: I will defy the authority of the migration police by means of non-violent civil disobedience. I will break the migration control laws as far as I can and might need to do so; as long as doing so does not harm other human beings. As I survive, I will also resist by engaging in active propaganda work in favor of anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism and no borders. "Faith without works is dead", thus the act of non-violenct resistance and pro-active civil disobedience is what makes evasion and survival a political and spiritual ORTHOPRAXIS.

WHO ARE MY ENEMIES

1. The Swedish State and it security forces. Specifically those police agencies who work to enforce migration control laws. I do not recognise the alleged "soveregnity" of any state over land or persons.

2. All defenders of the police state, xenophobes, and assorted neo-nazi elements who gravitate around them.

WHO ARE MY ALLIES

The 12,000 or so clandestine immigrants surviving in Sweden in defiance of the migration control laws and who survive against persecution from the security forces. All who are forced to live in hiding and in clandestinity.

Those with whom in my personal and political struggle for survival against the State I feel identified with on a subjective basis and with whom I understand I share an objective commonality of interests.

- Semper Indomitus !

(v 1.0 - 2005/v 2.0 - 2009/v2.3 2010)