Venezuela's unrest plays out in crude choreography at barricades in posh Caracas district

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A squad of motorcycle-mounted police wheels into an intersection newly seized from student protesters in a barrage of tear gas in eastern Caracas' wealthy Chacao district, an important center of resistance to Venezuela's socialist-led government.

From a side street, a young man in a phosphorescent green hockey mask and a white T-shirt advances, his throwing hand sheathed in a fire-retardant glove for returning tear-gas canisters.

The young man struts and taunts the cops, accompanied by comrades behind a makeshift metal shield with "SOS" painted on it. Gunpowder charges explode near the police. The officers retreat. But the withdrawal is tactical. Seconds later, a different set of motorcycle police in body armor roars uphill into the intersection, giving chase. Startled parrots scatter from a tree.

The police screech to a halt. A metal chain blocks the side street, and the masked youth escapes, while an audience inside an upmarket clothing store stays glued to the plate-glass windows. Officers take down the chain, but as soon as they leave two middle-aged men run out of an office building and stretch it back across the street.

In a month of almost daily street protests, a certain crude choreography between the opposing forces has emerged in this neighborhood that is at ground zero for Venezuela's worst unrest in more than a decade. Several hundred hard-core young people gather, erect barricades and hurl rocks, bottles and fireworks at police. Officers advance firing tear gas and plastic shotgun pellets to disperse the youths, drawing catcalls from people in apartment high-rises.

Painted on a wall near Altamira Square, where the protesters gather, is a motto from jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez that they have embraced: "He who tires first, loses."

The government claims these are all spoiled rich kids. But an informal census suggests hard-core protesters are increasingly from lower-middle-class and poor neighborhoods and are as fed up as anybody with the country's chronic shortages of staple food items, 56 percent inflation, runaway violent crime and lousy job prospects.

"I can't go out and protest in my neighborhood," said Vi Dibrahim Torrealba, a 29-year-old medical student from Catia, a working-class district. Why? Armed pro-government motorcycle gangs won't allow it, he and others say.

"The shortages affect me more than the rich," said Any Salazar, a 20-year-old communications student from Petare, Latin America's biggest slum. Crime, too. "I've been robbed three times this year."

The protesters are mostly male but include young women. A few use gas masks but others sport alternatives. White dust masks, ski and swim googles are employed. So are homespun solutions for the sting of tear gas, which can penetrate clothes. One is Maalox and water, sprayed on the eyes. Some coat their faces in toothpaste or slather Vicks VapoRub on their nostrils. Masks are common to protect identities and prevent reprisal. The Venezuelan flag is a popular accessory.

There has been vandalism, though little of it wanton. Protesters break apart walls for rocks and raid construction sites for barricade material. On Sunday, some burned a bus kiosk.

President Nicolas Maduro blames the protesters for several deaths, including a motorcyclist who rode into a cable strung across a street and an elderly woman that officials say died en route to the hospital because of traffic snarled by barricades. The government says 21 people have died since the protest wave began Feb. 12.

Most marches are peaceful, such as one Monday in the capital by doctors upset over acute shortages of medicines and medical supplies, but extremists on both sides have exacerbated tensions.

The western city of San Cristobal has been especially restive. A student leader was killed there Monday night by a gunshot to the chest, Mayor Daniel Ceballos reported. National Guardsmen had battled protesters all day after attacking and dismantling barricades at key intersections. Ceballos said the city of about 600,000 people was "pretty well paralyzed."

Chacao's residents aren't experiencing anything like the mayhem of San Cristobal, But many are less than thrilled by the inconveniences of playing host to nightly street battles: blocked streets, upturned sewer grates, fetid plastic bags of burned garbage.

They nevertheless happily take up collections and provide food, Maalox, eye drops and protective masks to the protesters.

"Who wants water!" shouts Vivian, 26-year-old sporting a Mexican wrestler's leopard skin-patterned Lucha Libre mask and stylish sneakers. She jogs around handing out bottled water and cookies as tear gas canisters fall nearby.

Vivian won't give her last name for fear of reprisal. She's from money but says class doesn't matter in this struggle: "We are fighting because we are all living poorly."

___

Frank Bajak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak

http://www.neurope.eu/news/wire/venezuelas-unrest-plays-out-crude-choreography-barricades-posh-caracas-district

"class doesn't matter in this struggle", only a rich asshole could say that.

Darlin', it's all about class.

#PRAYFORVENEZUELA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qezrP37dkfc

Am I allowed a BWAHAHA?

How liberals see it:


http://image.slidesharecdn.com/rejectionsofliberalisminvenezuela-100611222553-phpapp02/95/slide-1-728.jpg?cb=1276313217

============================================================================================


snip

During his term he heavily mortgaged the state oil company to China under dubious terms, and he picked an ex-bus driver and personal friend to run as his replacement candidate, Nicolas Maduro. Although Maduro won the election against an outspoken critic of Chavez, Capriles, in a highly contested election, many feel that he lacks the capacity to lead the country and that the election was rigged. Since he assumed power, he has largely lost the faith and confidence of much of the upper and middle class, and many world allies. Venezuela has experienced rapid severe inflation and the government is faulted with severe financial mismanagement, the result of which is violent crime, shortages of basic necessities, and an economy in the toilet.

snip

At this point the best option is for the world community, especially South American nations, to pressure him to step down. Then a referendum vote can be held for a new president, monitored by the international community, forming a government that has the full legitimacy of the people.

http://stoptellingliesaboutliberals.com/tag/venezuela/



Cause if it ain't about 'economic freedom' and private property then liberals don't want anything to do with it.

an ex-bus driver

There is a killer for liberals, too - a bus driver! You can see the lip-curl when "bus driver" is said with derision. I don't think we need waste any seats in the re-education camps for any liberal (makes my skin crawl). "Stop telling lies about liberals"? Come and visit us here, we only speak the truth about liberals...

Venezuela: A Dictionary of Euphemisms of the Liberal Opposition
By James Petras - Dissident Voice, January 7th 2008

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible…Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness…Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

– George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” in Why I Write

Introduction

The Venezuelan political process in the post-referendum period (after December 2, 2007) has experienced a wide-ranging debate, in which both critics and supporters of the Venezuelan road to socialism have participated. The extreme right-wing and the US State Department have focused exclusively on what they call the popular reaction against President Chavez’ ‘authoritarianism’, ‘radical agenda’ and have sought to exploit the moment to discredit the President by sabotaging Chavez’ efforts (backed by France and most of Europe and Latin American regimes) to negotiate a prisoner exchange between the FARC-EP guerrillas and the Uribe regime in Colombia. Two weeks after the referendum, the Federal Government fabricated a case linking the Venezuelan government to an attempt to finance the Presidential elections in Argentina. The US and right-wing propaganda offensive has failed to ignite any response within Venezuela and has thoroughly backfired. All of the major US allies in Europe (except England) and in Latin America (except Mexico and Chile) have repudiated the US attacks on Chavez.

The anti-Chavez political discourse which has had some resonance in Venezuela and overseas, especially among liberals, politicians, progressive activists and social democratic academics, has been articulated by Venezuelan academics linked to NGO’s, financed by overseas foundations and posing as ‘center-left’.

A critical textual reading of the center-left writings reveals a narrative replete in political euphemisms, hedged in the language and rhetoric of the social movements but which when de-constructed reveals a basic hostility to class analysis and social transformation. As George Orwell once wrote, political intellectuals are the masters of euphemisms, using language that obscures the meaning of reactionary politics: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” (George Orwell, Why I Write)

The center-left academic ideologues in Venezuela have mastered an entire repertory of euphemism which they have trotted out for specific political goals: To unite technocrats and incrementalist liberals in the Chavez government with the liberal opposition to block any egalitarian social transformation of property relations and transition to socialism. As one of Cuba’s most illustrious intellectual statesmen and former Culture Minister, Armando Hart has stated: The battle of ideas is an integral part of the struggle for socialism.

A first step to demystifying the center-left rhetoric embodied in their counter-revolutionary narrative is to apply critical analysis to some of the key political euphemisms they use to attack the Chavez government and its policies. Euphemisms are abuses of language used by anti-Chavez professors to obscure ideological and class interests and loyalties.

For purposes of this essay, I have selected an essay by Edgardo Lander, a prominent Venezuelan sociologist and critic of the revolutionary tendencies in the Chavista government. His essay, “El Proceso político en Venezuela entra en un encrucijada crítica,” is an excellent example of the use of political language to obfuscate political realities, relying on euphemisms to give ‘an appearance of solidity to pure wind’.

In the post-election period, the center-left critics demanded a return to ‘pluralism’ as an antidote to ‘authoritarianism’. ‘Pluralism’ is a euphemism for a class society (multiple classes = plural), in which the capitalist class dominates the electoral system (‘plural parties’ = domination by capitalist financing). ‘Pluralism’ is a common euphemism used by bourgeois academics because it is a vague, abstract concept that obscures the issues of property ownership and concentration of the means of production and communication. In reality, there is nothing ‘plural’ about capitalist democracies, by any measure of power and wealth. The existence of multiple classes, politicians and parties tells us little or nothing about the social relations, concentration of power and inequalities of access to the state.

The academic critics of Chavez write of ‘the independence of the Central Bank’. This vague and abstract notion, begs the question of independence from whom and for what interests and purposes? Central Banks that are not accountable to elected officials, respond to the financial markets or more precisely to the international and local bankers and investors. This is obviously the case in almost all capitalist democracies where the selection of the heads of the Central Banks is based on their ties, histories and close favorable relations (‘confidence’) with international finance capital. In contrast, a Central Bank, subject to the control of elected officials, can be influenced by voters, public opinion and social movements pressuring for favorable monetary policies.

When liberals object to the increased access of the popular classes to the government and to the loss of middle class monopoly of government budgetary allocations, they resort to calls for ‘open politics’. This is namely the re-opening of the front doors of policy makers to liberal and social democratic academic advisers. ‘Open politics’ is a refrain frequently voiced by the US imperial state when their foundation-funded NGO’s and political networks pushing for ‘regime change’ find the going tough because of greater attention to thwarting their destabilization operations. The question avoided by the academic critics is ‘open’ for whom and ‘for what political interests’? In the case of Venezuela, the real ‘lack of openness’ is largely a function of the opposition’s monopoly control over 90% of the electronic and print media and the ideological predominance of opposition academics in the public and private universities and class-rooms (including the Central University of Venezuela). In contrast, the trade unions, business associations, civil society movements of all tendencies have flourished during the Chavez decade — in what is perhaps the most vibrant expression of ‘open politics’ in the Western Hemisphere.

In these conditions then what does the call for ‘open politics’ mean? It is simply a ‘defense of the indefensible’ — the maintenance of private monopoly control of the mass media against any attempts to expand and deepen popular access and control over the means of communication. The academic liberals cannot openly state: “Do not democratize the media; we uphold the right of big private conglomerates to control the media, including their right to incite and defend military coups.” Instead they resort to vacuous euphemisms like ‘open politics’ — in effect disarming the popular government and undermining its attempts to open access of the mass media to the popular classes and their interests.

On of the most insidious forms of US, European and ruling class efforts to undermine autonomous mass movements is the funding, training and proliferation of the misleadingly self-labeled ‘Non-Governmental Organizations’ (NGO). The liberal academic critics (LAC) of the democratically elected Chavez government echo and mimic the rhetoric of the NGOs — accusing Venezuela of lacking popular participation and discouraging ‘open and democratic debate.’

The LAC never consider the anomaly that the leaders of the NGOs are never elected, their proposals for overseas funding are never debated or voted on by their self-designated beneficiaries and that they shape their activities to induce foreign elite donors to fund their hard currency salaries and 4X4 vehicles, lap-top computers and their ‘staff secretaries’ etc.. The greatest enemies of democratic accountability are the NGOs who are never criticized or even mentioned in the polemical writing of the LAC in the Venezuelan ‘political process’. The pervasive influence and proliferation of NGOs is no minor factor in the ‘political process’ least of all in Venezuela. Worldwide there are over 100,000 NGOs receiving over $20 billion dollars/Euros from the imperial centers.

Unlike the self-appointed NGOs and their leaders and liberal academic advisers, President Chavez has consulted the electorate a dozen times in free and open elections. His programs are funded by Venezuelan taxpayers and subject to the approval or rejection of elected legislators. The liberal academics rather than openly expressing their objection to the increasingly radical organized mass support and debate concerning President Chavez’ socio-economic programs, resort to euphemisms about the ‘plebiscatory’ style of governance’ –- forgetting about the authoritarian dictated lectures in their class rooms fostered by administrators ‘elected’ by a ‘cabal of professors’ with lifetime tenure.

Several of the most favored euphemisms by the liberal academic critics are ‘anti-statism’, ‘civil society’ and ‘market economy’. ‘Statism’ evokes and is associated with an unresponsive powerful vertical structure which oppresses and impoverishes people, and is only answerable to arbitrary bureaucrats. While there is no doubt that several state agencies in Venezuela are inefficient and fail to carry out government programs (especially re-distributive policies), nevertheless public ownership and fiscal policies, especially energy policy has led to a vast increase in funding of public services (health, education and food distribution) for the 60% of lower income Venezuelans. Opposition to ‘statism’ brings together a strange amalgam of far right authoritarian liberals (Hayek, Friedman), social democratic neo-liberals (Blair, Giddens, Lula, Sarkozy and their Venezuelan followers) and libertarian anarchists. The main sources of financing of the think tanks, journals and research of the critics of ‘statism’ are the Ford Foundation, the Ebert Foundations and an alphabet soup of acronyms of other ruling class institutions.

The demonizing of the ‘state’ is what brings together the ideologues of the far right and the center-left. In the name of anti-statist ‘freedom’, the unrestrained, deregulated and voracious activity of private national capitalist monopolies and multinational banks and corporations can flourish. The state is the only institution potentially capable of countering, controlling and confronting the giant private corporations. The fundamental issue is not ‘anti-statism’ but the class nature of the state and its accountability to the majority of working people.

The most vacuous, deceptive concept manipulated by the ‘anti-statist’ liberal academic critics of President Chavez is ‘civil society’ as in ‘supporting civil society against the state’.

‘Civil society’ is a euphemism for class society; it is a concept that occults fundamental class divisions, conflicting class organizations and exploitative relations. Bastardized versions of Gramsci’s Prison Writings, where his fascist censors forced him to adopt an Aesopian language, has been adopted by liberal academics to write about a homogenous (class free) ‘civil society’ against the (oppressive) ‘state’.

In Venezuela, ‘civil society’ is far from homogenous, as is evident from its deep class divisions, political polarization and the chasm between the majority popular strata supporting the (Chavez-led) ‘state and the upper class. The opposition’s ‘civil society’ discourse is a rhetorical device used by the NGO bureaucrats and liberal academic elites to obfuscate their practice of class collaboration, their support for private capital against public ownership and to attract big grants from their imperial sponsors.

One of the most commonly expressed euphemisms is the reference by liberal and social democratic critics of Chavez policies to ‘market economics’. This is another effort ‘to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. Markets have existed for thousands of years throughout the world under a great variety of societies and economies — from tribal, feudal, slave, mercantile, competitive and monopoly capitalism. There are local markets based on small-scale producers and world markets dominated by less than a thousand multi-national corporations and financial institutions. The use of ‘market economy’ evokes false images of transactions by equal producers/nations recalling a past, which never existed. The real existing ‘market economy’ is dominated by competing and co-operating large-scale multi-billion dollar monopolies, which penetrate all unregulated economies. Their power and exploitation can only be countered by nationalist or socialist states accountable to organized class movements and central planning. Any honest and truthful discussion must pose the issue of economic strategies and the role of the state and market in its appropriate world-historical setting: imperial capital, national state, class-based social movements and institutions.

When questions of democracy and participation are seriously discussed, the focus should not be exclusively on the states but should also include influential associations in society. There is no discussion or mention by Venezuelan liberal democratic theorists of the plurality of authoritarian, non-participatory and elite-dominated business associations, civic organizations, private media conglomerates, traditional parties and trade unions. Their leaders are re-elected repeatedly (some for life) without dissent or competition nor even consultation with their constituents.

The liberal academics, apart from ignoring the profoundly authoritarian vertical structure of the dominant institutions in ‘civil society’, fail to even pose the question of how this plurality of dictatorial elite institution is compatible with democracy. The liberal academics’ analytical and moral blindness to the deep-rooted arbitrary rule over culture, economy and society by this anti-democratic elite is the other side of the coin to their one-sided preoccupation with the democratic deficit in elected public institutions and pro-Chavez parties, trade unions and neighborhood associations.

The profound lack of clarity by Chavez critics and the exponents of liberal ideology is intimately related to their foreknowledge that speaking clearly and precisely would unmask their defense of the capitalist markets; their opposition to ‘statism’ as opposition to public ownership; their support of authoritarian elite institutions is their defense of ‘civil society’; their opposition to the mass-based support for Chavez’ radical initiatives is presented as ‘popular autonomy’.

The methods of the liberal academic critics are as revealing of their reactionary politics as their ill-disguised ruling class loyalties. They use a microscope to detect flaws in the fabric of the pro-Chavez social movements, voters and policies of the Chavez government and a telescope to describe the large-scale, long-term blatant intervention and collaboration of the US imperial state and its Venezuelan allies.

The liberal demands are unilaterally directed at one side in the political process. Profound criticism is directed at the Chavez organizations, not to the students and academics who were bankrolled by the US state agencies. Apparently academics accepting finances from the National Endowment for Democracy shouldn’t be asked to ‘critically re-think‘ their collaboration with a foreign imperial power committed to destroying democratic institutions. Liberal academic critics rely on subjective gossipy anecdotes to feed their anti-Chavez animus, instead of open public facts. The speculate on ‘Presidential ambiguity’ regarding the referendum result, instead of listening and watching President Chavez immediate and forthright recognition of the referendum’s defeat.

The political language of euphemism is designed to make lies sound truthful, to make ruling class exploitation respectable, and to give liberal-democratic rhetoric the appearance of solidity. This brief inventory of euphemism is designed to unmask the ideologies of anti-Chavism ‘lite’ and to encourage the advance of Venezuelan socialism.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). His latest books are The Power of Israel in the United States (Clarity Press, 2006) and Rulers and Ruled (Bankers, Zionists and Militants (Clarity Press, 2007). He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3041

The Fear of Working Class Power - Liberal journalists and Venezuela

10/8/12 1:50 PM
Yet more counter-factual bile is spewing out of the traditional media, and especially the liberal media, on the occasion of Hugo Chavez' death. So I re-publish this article written at the time of the Venezuelan Presidential elections in October 2012:



Most journalists work for companies whose purpose is very well described in Patrick Chalmers' article News to Make the Rich Richer. Based on his 11 years' experience as a journalist for Reuters, this article introduces the broader themes of his excellent book Fraudcast News. Ownership, who pays, news sources, editorial ideology, and journalists' fear all contribute to the distorting lens.

The immediate aftermath of another election in Venezuela is a perfect opportunity to count the cost of corporate media mis-reporting. This article will analyse the reporting of some journalists of the supposedly liberal media in the UK. But following Patrick's lead, let's look first at Reuters.

Sure enough, in the lead-up to the Venezuelan Presidential election, which pitched socialist incumbent Hugo Chavez against candidate of the right-wing coalition Henrique Capriles, Reuters followed the meta-narrative of the vast majority of the corporate media. They constantly insisted that the election was closely fought, right up until election day, when Chavez actually won by a whopping 11%. This depiction of a tight race was despite most opinion polls showing Chavez with a double-digit lead. A cursory research would have told a half-decent journalist that the solitary polling organisation that showed Capriles to have a lead, Consultores 21, has an abysmal record in previous elections. In 2004, 2006, and 2009 this poll underestimated Chavez' vote by between 10 and 13 percentage points, well outside the acceptable margin of error. And again this time, Consultores 21 underestimated Chavez' vote by 10%. They are nothing if not consistent. Of course for US media organisations, that makes this poll "respected", "reputable" and "well-regarded" (in the words of the Wall Street Journal, ABC News, and the Washington Post respectively). But why are the reporters of Reuters not more sceptical? Patrick Chalmers answers this well. But I believe there is another factor.

In the almost universal disparaging of Bolivarian socialism in the media of the US and UK, one of the most interesting phenomena is the intense involvement of liberal newspapers and news outlets. The Guardian's Rory Carroll is notorious. For him, Venezuela is always on the point of infrastructural collapse, while Chavez is a waning force. His recent headlines included "A strongman's last stand" and "People's hero in final showdown". Chavez was described as "Banquo's ghost". Given the opinion polls cited above, was the apocalyptic tone justified? His reports are also peppered with the kind of factual errors which always chime with the opposition's narrative of an authoritarian populist demagogue. I felt roused to challenge Carroll, using the feeble means of twitter, over his claim that Chavez' election victories were "not always fair". Jimmy Carter, after his long experience of monitoring democratic elections, for which he won a Nobel Prize, said “the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world” and that Chavez has always won “fairly and squarely”. No response of course came from Carroll, so I ask again. What is it that you know, Rory, that Jimmy Carter doesn't? The overwhelming tone of all of Carroll's pieces is an obsession with the figure of Chavez himself, not the Revolution he has led into being. His post-election piece is headed "Hugo Chavez: a victory of enduring charisma and political mastery". Note how Chavez' voters, the Venezuelan poor, are, according to Carroll, voting for him because of his charm and Machiavellian skills, not because of their empowerment through communal councils, the free health clinics and universities, the new housing, or the massive reductions in poverty.

The Independent newspaper reporter Jim Armitage, however, makes Carroll look like a Chavista sympathiser. Here we have unsupported references to human rights abuses, defamation of oil workers, the casual, and again unsupported, claim of privations, and the cheap and gratuitous reference to Ken Livingstone. If you are astonished by the tone of the unfactual hack piece in the link, it's worth noting that the supposedly liberal Independent has a long history of this kind of coverage.

But one thing connects Carroll and Armitage. When I wrote that I would analyse their coverage, I meant it in an almost psychoanalytic way. Their patronising of and disregard for the poor majority seems to me to involve the same hysteria that Carroll ascribes to Chavez' voters. They both profess to support a mildly social democratic system of social welfare, as avowedly did Chavez' so soundly beaten rival Capriles. In other words, they think the elite should deign to alleviate the worst excesses of capitalism. What troubles them beyond their being able to deal with it rationally is the idea of the poor majority taking power. For this presumption on the part of the working class, and their vision of a society that goes beyond welfarism to socialist democracy, the poor deserve to be mocked or sidelined or ignored. Why do Carroll and Armitage not celebrate the Bolivarian revolution's reduction of poverty by half, instead of putting it in parenthesis, or treating it as an electoral bribe? What is the mixture of hatred and fear that motivates them to write such shoddy journalistic bile? The fact that the Guardian and Independent commission and print it shows us the dark, inhuman heart of liberalism.

By Richard Hering

http://richardhering.com/en/home/-/blogs/the-fear-of-working-class-power-liberal-journalists-and-venezuela

The methods of the liberal academic critics are as revealing of their reactionary politics as their ill-disguised ruling class loyalties. They use a microscope to detect flaws in the fabric of the pro-Chavez social movements, voters and policies of the Chavez government and a telescope to describe the large-scale, long-term blatant intervention and collaboration of the US imperial state and its Venezuelan allies.

This is exactly the same behavior you get from liberals (academics especially) when dealing with the Soviet Union, specifically, and communism, generally. They "swallow a camel and gag at a gnat", as the Bible says (bet you didn't expect a quotation from that, did you?); the commies are always "under a microscope" and the bourgeois are always shown "shiny side up".



This is always the way of it - everything "we" do (meaning the owners) is good; everything "they" do (meaning the evil commie/Chavezers/Muslims/Africans/who-have-you) is wrong/bad/evil. It really gets old and is a direct result of not having any kind of grasp of materialism, history, social consciousness, or generalized gumption...

Fight Fascism in the Street (Eng.; Esp.)

Caracas 10 March 2014 , Tribuna Popular

Political and social organizations that promote the Venezuelan revolutionary process , must fight the fascist squads and prevent their hijacking of the the street corners and streets of the people.

This was highlighted Carlos Aquino , Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV ) , confirming that the Venezuelan extreme Rright , with the support of U.S. imperialism, aims to create a fake situation of lawlessness .

The PCV said that mutinies and reactionary acts of violence are focused on a few municipalities run by right-wing mayors, but - with the support of the major private media , are intended to make it look like they are widespread.

" We agree that the government should create mechanisms for dialogue with political, social and economic sectors that do not support the revolutionary process , provided they are not linked to the fascist core " said Aquino .

In this sense, the PCV draws a distinction with any attempt at reconciliation with the sectors of the far right or commercial-import bourgeoisie, because they are the ones who finance and encourage criminal actions that have cost the lives of nearly two dozen Venezuelans .

Aquino confirmed that the CPV rejects attempts to demonize the People’s Collectives and equate them with the paramilitaries that the Right has been brought to our country.

"In Venezuela there are other paramilitary forces that they have have activated in Tachira and are ready to activate in other cities , but the pro -imperialist Right who brought them from Colombia , with active support of Uribe ," said Aquino .

For PCV , the role of social , popular and revolutionary organizations is not to stay in the houses while the fascist squads try burning cities, but to fight cohesively to isolate and defeat these destabilizing factions .

Aquino noted that on March 5, the 83th Anniversary of the founding of the PCV was commemorated in the conviction that it is an organization with a heroic history and a bright future. The Political- Ideological National Conference was launched that runs until August this year , with the completion of the 13th National Conference of the PCV , in honor of the centenary of Pedro Ortega Díaz .

The Communists and are raising the banner of the forging of a solid, peoples revolutionary bloc, which accumulates forces to change the current balance of forces, to ensure the defense and deepening of the Venezuelan revolutionary process .

____________________________________________________

PCV: “COMBATIR AL FASCISMO EN LA CALLE”


Caracas, 10 mar. 2014, Tribuna Popular - Las organizaciones políticas y sociales que impulsan el proceso revolucionario venezolano, deben combatir a los núcleos fascistas y evitar que secuestren las esquinas y las calles del pueblo.

Así lo resaltó Carlos Aquino, Miembro del Buró Político del Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV), ratificando que la extrema derecha venezolana, con apoyo del imperialismo norteamericano, pretende generar una ficticia situación de ingobernabilidad.

El PCV expresó que las güarimbas y los actos de violencia reaccionaria están focalizados en unos pocos municipios dirigidos por alcaldes de derecha, pero que –con apoyo de los grandes medios privados de comunicación– pretenden hacer ver como que son generalizados.

“Estamos de acuerdo en que el gobierno genere mecanismos de diálogo con sectores políticos, sociales y económicos que no respaldan el proceso revolucionario, siempre y cuando no estén vinculados con los núcleos fascistas”, puntualizó Aquino.

En este sentido, el PCV hace una diferenciación con cualquier intento de hacer conciliaciones con los sectores de la ultraderecha o de la burguesía comercial-importadora, porque son quienes financian y estimulan las acciones criminales que han costado la vida a cerca de una veintena de venezolanos.

Aquino confirmó que el Partido del Gallo Rojo rechaza los intentos de satanizar a los Colectivos populares y de equipararlos con los paramilitares que ha traído la derecha a nuestro país.

“En Venezuela sí hay fuerzas paramilitares, que han activado en el Táchira y que tienen listas para activar en otras ciudades, pero es la derecha pro-imperialista quien las ha traído desde Colombia, con activo respaldo del uribismo”, expresó Aquino.

Para el PCV, el papel de las organizaciones sociales, populares y revolucionarias, no es quedarse en las casas mientras los núcleos fascistas intentar incendiar las ciudades, sino luchar de manera cohesionada para aislar y derrotar a estos grupúsculos desestabilizadores.

Aquino resaltó que a partir del 5 de marzo, que se conmemoró el 83º Aniversario de la fundación del PCV, en la convicción de que es una organización con una heroica historia y un luminoso futuro, se dio inicio a una Jornada Nacional Político-Ideológica que se prolongará hasta agosto de este año, con la realización de la 13ª Conferencia Nacional del PCV, en homenaje al Centenario de Pedro Ortega Díaz.

Las y los comunistas están levantando la bandera de la constitución de un sólido bloque popular revolucionario, que acumule fuerzas para cambiar la actual correlación de fuerzas, para garantizar la defensa y profundización del proceso revolucionario venezolano.

http://mltoday.com/fight-fascism-in-the-street-eng-esp?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ml2day-recent+%28Welcome+to+MLToday.com+%7C+Recently+Added+Content+%7C+Please+Subscribe+to+Our+Feed%29

Don't Pray for Venezuela:
The Struggle Against Contemporary Fascism
by Chris Gilbert
The progressivist view of history often goes hand in hand with the faith that a new class -- sometimes the proletariat, at other times "the people" -- has a privileged perspective or consciousness. If scientific (as opposed to vulgar) Marxism debunks this idea on a theoretical level -- showing how commodity and money fetishism's inversions of reality affect all classes alike -- then fascism belies the progressivist faith on a practical level, showing that neither in the streets nor in the social networks do progress and reason have to reign.

The fascists who operate today in Venezuela -- to say nothing of those active in the Ukraine, Greece, or Colombia -- are by no means a historical aberration. Only if we take one of capitalism's key myths at face value must we imagine that our current society is the wondrous culmination of a teleological evolutionary process and cannot just as well contain a host of violent and irrational elements that, far from being "atavistic," are simply part and parcel with capitalist modernity. In fact, capitalism's historical tendency, if any such thing exists, is not toward growing enlightenment but rather toward increasing barbarism.

In the Bolivarian Republic, easygoing tropical culture notwithstanding, young people and students have recently taken to the streets, donning ski masks and white shirts to defy public order with the typical fascist combination of destructiveness and repudiation of intellect (fighting shortages by destroying stocks, solving educational bottlenecks by burning institutions of learning, and overcoming insecurity by attacking the police). The beleaguered government, which is clumsy and paternalistic but well-meaning, organizes a national Peace Conference that incorporates opposition politicians and businessmen. At this conference literally everybody is welcome, but the response of the students is (in practical terms): Viva la muerte!

During the course of the past century the left's response to an upsurge in fascism has generally taken one of two basic directions. The Popular Front tactic aims to group many non-fascist sectors into a large antifascist bloc. The alliance with the national bourgeoisie, so dear to the hearts of communist parties, comes into play here. All the progressist forces including center and liberal organizations are lumped together. They are heaped into the same messy but presumably powerful grab bag, the direction of which is left in some measure to "historical forces."

The second type of tactic calls for a different response. Fascism itself, it is argued, feeds on vagueness. Its voluntarist spirit captures working- and middle-class sectors to struggle for a social order that runs against their own interest (even in the medium term) precisely when they are denied the perspective of a project that actually serves them. Since that project is socialism, according to the proponents of this second tactic one must keep high the socialist flag in moments of political crisis. (By contrast, the Popular Front tactic claims that the socialist flag must be kept carefully out of sight so as to not scare away allies!)

The Venezuelan government has generally pursued the first tactic, not only in its calling for a broad-based Peace Conference and making difficult economic concessions there, but also in its very tolerant attitude toward the fascist street actions and barricades (repression would scare off the allies). In the same spirit, President Nicolás Maduro's project of seeking artist and actor supporters has its best explanation as a latter-day sort of Popular Cultural Front or Antifascist Alliance of the kind that existed in the 1930s. The Bolivarian government, with its characteristic bonhomie, proposes to give a coarse bear hug to all social sectors that are willing to support its legitimacy (even reaching out to the megacapitalist Lorenzo Mendoza).

Theoretical considerations aside, the central problem with this Popular Front tactic is that it does not seem to be yielding anything but a few precarious fruits. Last week's death toll includes a least three civilians and one National Guardsman, while the midweek saw an evident resurgence of the fascist student activity. Far from losing its ardor and mystique, the fascist right wing seems to be still strong, confident of its capacity to act in the present and the future. Among other elements now in this group's collective consciousness is a clear awareness of its ability to use violence to force concessions from its opponent.

Under such conditions the second line of response begins to gain more credibility. This option does not rely on mystical ("progressivist") forces of history, and the path it proposes is indeed steep and thorny. For while many may accept that socialism is the way out of fascist barbarism, there are a number of limiting factors and cautionary circumstances that must condition the left's action in the Venezuelan situation.

The first is that local fascism, like the fascism in Spain in the 1930s and onward and in South America's Southern Cone during the 1970s and 1980s, is not simply a question of the middle and working classes serving the project of capitalist groups with an important national base -- as was the case in Nazi Germany. On the contrary, Venezuelan fascism, as is evidenced in its not very deeply concealed wish for intervention from the U.S. and its funding from the same, has its center of gravity in that foreign country, the most powerful and ruthless military force of our time.

The second is that by no means have the masses generally come to accept the alternative between socialism and barbarism as defining our historical juncture. Despite Hugo Chávez's having said so much on many occasions, even directly citing Rosa Luxemburg, the late leader of the Bolivarian process also confused the issue by never really defining capitalism, by permitting confusion about the "productive sector," and by repeated vacillations over the tactical vs. strategic character of the agreements with local and foreign businessmen. The consequence of all this is that a large sector of the Venezuelan population today -- like the world population -- believes that civilization has more to do with Samsung phones and Direct TV than with any anti-capitalist project.

This is surely the reason the government feels that it is walking on eggs. Yet its exaggerated caution is probably unnecessary. Some historical lessons have not been lost on the global left and almost compel it to unity. Among these is the nonequivalence of reformism in its social democratic form with fascism; when the Nazi cat came out of the bag in the mid-1930s this leftist sectarian commonplace (social democracy as a form of "social fascism") was permanently dashed. Nor would anyone today lightly promote the idea that fascism and democracy are "simply alternative forms of bourgeois domination." In our time, it is more clear than ever before that capitalism is the sworn enemy of any substantial form of democracy.

For these reasons, the conjuncture in Venezuela seems to call on us to raise the socialist flag -- the banner of socialism-in-democracy (not the same as washed-up social democracy) -- as the alternative to today's fascism. It was once proposed that in capitalism's crisis the challenging political situation -- what today would be called the problem of governability -- is like a ball on top of a pyramid. It has to roll off one way or other, either to the left or to the right. Now that democracy itself can no longer be counted among the merits of the right-side option and in its place lie a string of holocausts from Auschwitz to Gaza and Fallujah, it seems not only possible but also necessary that we stand firmly by the left option which is socialism.

A final consideration here is theoretical: it is increasingly evident that the Popular Front conception tacitly rests on the assumption that things will fall in place on their own. Like the naive evolutionists' semi-religious belief that everything that rises must converge, this is merely dogma or wishful thinking about the positive forces of history. In fact, no such forces exist, and the historical drift could just as easily lead us to ecocide or genocide as to any promised land of communism.


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Chris Gilbert is professor of Political Science in the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2014/gilbert140314.html

This rebuke of the Popular Front thesis has the advantage of hindsight. It well explains the dithering of the Venezeulan government and the weakness of the Chavez approach, he was dynamic and well meaning but no Marxists. Parties who espouse the Popular Front indiscriminately should take note, it is a tool with specific tolerances.

This rebuke of the Popular Front thesis has the advantage of hindsight. It well explains the dithering of the Venezeulan government and the weakness of the Chavez approach, he was dynamic and well meaning but no Marxists. Parties who espouse the Popular Front indiscriminately should take note, it is a tool with specific tolerances.

Bull-fucking-shit. This guy needed a topical segue to launch into his rant. I do have to give him credit on one point -- he didn't drop a reference to "vulgar" Marxism until the second sentence.

BP, you and me are the vulgar Marxists he's condemning. Even more so because there aren't that many of us to pick fights with right now (he thinks he is attacking a different group, but his other fights are about jockeying to be Captain-for-a-Day of the Ship of Fools)

Bull-fucking-shit. This guy needed a topical segue to launch into his rant. I do have to give him credit on one point -- he didn't drop a reference to "vulgar" Marxism until the second sentence.

BP, you and me are the vulgar Marxists he's condemning. Even more so because there aren't that many of us to pick fights with right now (he thinks he is attacking a different group, but his other fights are about jockeying to be Captain-for-a-Day of the Ship of Fools)

Hey, don't forget me. I'm a vulgar Marxist. I say "fuck" and "shit" all the time...

Check this out from 2006 BP. Here is the same guy throwing a tantrum and resigning as curator of the Berkeley Art Museum:

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/05/23/18248081.php


Chris Gilbert - statement on resigning 5/21/06

I made the decision to resign as Matrix Curator on April 28, but my struggles with the Berkeley Art Musuem/Pacific Film Archives over the content and approach of the projects in the exhibition cycle "Now-Time Venezuela: Media Along the Path of the Bolivarian Process" go back quite a few months. In particular the museum administrators -- meaning the deputy directors and senior curator collaborating, of course, with the public relations and audience development staff -- have for some time been insisting that I take the idea of solidarity, revolutionary solidarity, out of the cycle. For some months, they have said they wanted "neutrality" and "balance" whereas I have always said that instead my approach is about commitment, support, and alignment -- in brief, taking sides with and promoting revolution.

I have always successfully resisted the museum's attempts to interfere with the projects (and you will see that the ideas of alignment, support, and revolutionary solidarity are written all over the "Now-Time" projects part 1 & part 2 -- they are present in all the texts I have generated and as a consequence in almost all of the reviews). In the museum's most recent attempt to alter things, the one that precipitated my resignation, they proposed to remove the offending concept from the Now-Time Part 2 introductory text panel (a panel which had already gone to the printer). Their plan was to replace the phrase "in solidarity" with revolutionary Venezuela with a phrase like "concerning" revolutionary Venezuela -- or another phrase describing a relation that would not be explicitly one of solidarity.

I threatened to resign and terminate the exhibition, since, first of all, revolutionary solidarity is what I believe in -- the essential concept in the "Now-Time" project cycle -- but secondly it is obviously unfair to invite participants such as Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler or groups such as Catia TVe to a project that has one character (revolutionary solidarity) and then change the rules of the game on them a few weeks before the show opens (so that they become mere objects of examination or investigation). At first, my threat to resign and terminate the show availed nothing. Then on April 28, I wrote a letter stating that I was in fact resigning and my last day of work would be two weeks from that day, which was May 12, two days before the "Now-Time Part 2: Revolutionary Television in Catia" opening. I assured them that the show could not go forward without me. In response to this decisive action -- and surely out of fear that the show which had already been published in the members magazine would not happen -- the institution restored my text panel to the way I had written it. Having won that battle, though at the price of losing my position, I decided to go forward with the show, my last one.

One thing that should make evident how extreme and erratic the museum's actions were is that the very same sentence that was found offensive ("a project in solidarity with the revolutionary process in contemporary Venezuela") is the exact sentence that is used for the first Now-Time Venezuela exhibition text panel that still hangs in the Matrix gallery upstairs. That show is on view for one more week as I write.

The details of all this are important though, of course, its general outlines, which play out the familiar patterns of class struggle, are of greater interest. The class interests represented by the museum, which are above all the interests of the bourgeoisie that funds it, have two (related) things to fear from a project like mine: (1) of course, revolutionary Venezuela is a symbolic threat to the US government and the capitalist class that benefits from that government's policies, just as Cuba is a symbolic threat, just as Nicaragua was, and just as is any country that tries to set its house in order in a way that is different from the ideas of Washington and London -- which is primarily to say Washington and London's insistence that there is no alternative to capitalism.

I must emphasize that the threat is only symbolic; in the eyes of the US government and the US bourgeoisie, it sets a "bad" and dangerous example of disobedience for other countries to follow, but of course the idea that such examples represent a military threat to the US (would that it were the case) is simply laughable; (2) the second threat, which is probably the more operational one in the museum context, is that much of the community is in favor of the "Now-Time" projects -- the response to the first exhibition is enormous and the interest in the second is also very high. That response and interest exposes the fact that the museum, the bourgeois values it promotes via the institution of contemporary art (contemporary art of the past 30 years is really in most respects simply the cultural arm of upper-class power) are not really those of any class but its own. Importantly the museum and the bourgeoisie will always deny the role of class interests in this: they will always maintain that the kinds of cultural production they promote are more difficult, smarter, more sophisticated -- hence the lack of response to most contemporary art is, according to them, about differences in education and sophistication rather than class interest. That this kind of claim is obscurantist and absurd is something the present exhibitions make very clear: the work of Catia TVe, which is created by people in the popular (working-class) neighborhoods of Caracas, is far more sophisticated than what comes out of the contemporary art of the Global North. The same could be said for the ideas discussed by the Venezuelan factory workers in the Ressler and Azzellini film that is shown Now-Time Part 1. (Of course, it is not because these works and the thoughts in them are more sophisticated that we should attend to them; what I am saying is simply that it is clearly an evasion and false to dismiss anti-bourgeois cultural production -- work that aligns with the interests of working class people -- on grounds of its being unsophisticated.)

To return to the museum: I believe that the enormous response to the "Now-Time" cycle -- there were 180 visitors to the March 26 panel discussion that opened "Now-Time" part 1 and if you google "Now-Time Venezuela" you get over 700 hits -- put the class interests that stand by and promote contemporary art in danger, exposed them a bit. I suppose some concern about this may have given a special edge to the museum's failed efforts to alter my projects.

I think it is important to be clear about the facts that precipitated my resignation: that is, the struggle over the wording of the text panel, which fit into months of struggle over the question of solidarity and alignment with a revolutionary political agenda. That issue is discussed above. However, it is also important to understand the context. Again, it is too weak to say that museums, like universities, are deeply corrupt. They are. (And in my view the key points to discuss regarding this corruption are (1) the museum's claim to represent the public's interests when in fact serving upper-class interests and parading a carefully constructed surrogate image of the public; (2) the presence of intra-institutional press and marketing departments that really operate to hold a political line through various control techniques, only one of which is censorship; finally (3) the presence of development departments that, in mostly hidden ways, favor and flatter rich funders, giving the lie to even the sham notion of public responsibility that the museum parades). However, to describe museums and other cultural institutions as simply if deeply corrupt is, as I said, too weak in that it both holds out the promise of their reform and it ignores the larger imperialist structures that make their corruption an inevitable upshot and reflection of the exploitive political and social system of which they form a part. Such institutions will go on reflecting imperialist capitalist values, will celebrate private property and deny social solidarity, and will maintain a strict silence about the control of populations at home and the destruction of populations abroad in the name of profit, until that imperialist system is dismantled. Importantly, it will not be dismantled by cultural efforts alone: a successful reform of a cultural institution here or there would at best result in "islands" of sanity that would most likely operate in a negative way -- as imaginary and misleading "proof" that conditions are not as bad as they are.

In fact, with conditions as they are, a different strategy is required: there should be disobedience at all levels; disruptions and explosions of the kind that I, together with a small group of allies inside the museum, have created are also useful on a symbolic level. However, the primary struggle and the only struggle that will result in a significant change would be one that works directly to transform the economic and political base. This would be a struggle aiming to bring down the US government and its imperialist system through highly organized efforts.

We live in the midst of a fascist imperialism -- there is no other way to describe the system that the US has created and that exercises such control through terror over populations both inside and outside. History has shown that to make "deals" or "compromises" with fascism avails nothing. Instead a radical and daily intransigence is required. Fascism operates to destroy life. It installs and operates on the logic of the camp on all levels, including culture. In the face of that logic, which holds life as nothing, compromises and deals at best buy time for the aggressor and symbolic capital for the aggressor. One should have no illusions: until capitalism and imperialism are brought down, cultural institutions will go on being, in their primary role, lapdogs of a system that spreads misery and death to people everywhere on the planet. The fight to abolish that system completely and build one based on socialism must remain our exclusive and constant focus.

Chris Gilbert

Notice the lingo hasn't changed..

Bull-fucking-shit. This guy needed a topical segue to launch into his rant. I do have to give him credit on one point -- he didn't drop a reference to "vulgar" Marxism until the second sentence.

BP, you and me are the vulgar Marxists he's condemning. Even more so because there aren't that many of us to pick fights with right now (he thinks he is attacking a different group, but his other fights are about jockeying to be Captain-for-a-Day of the Ship of Fools)

I do not understand your objection. That seemed a fair evaluation of the progress of things in Venezuela, retarded because of an unwillingness to take the bull by the horns, and that because of alliance with the 'nationalist bourgoise'. Is not abuse of Popular Front part of our problem here? I took the 'vulgar' reference to mean such accomodationism.

So where do you think I have misread this?

Check this out from 2006 BP. Here is the same guy throwing a tantrum and resigning as curator of the Berkeley Art Museum:

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/05/23/18248081.php


Notice the lingo hasn't changed..

Tedious and overwrought given the topic. The high dudgeon is the same. You know this guy?

I do not understand your objection. That seemed a fair evaluation of the progress of things in Venezuela, retarded because of an unwillingness to take the bull by the horns, and that because of alliance with the 'nationalist bourgoise'. Is not abuse of Popular Front part of our problem here? I took the 'vulgar' reference to mean such accomodationism.

So where do you think I have misread this?

There is not a Popular Front in Venezuela united around the fight against fascism, not even if we grant Gilbert's thesis that US imperialism IS fascism. The author is mixing and matching terms and metaphors as he sees fit. The leftist governments in Latin American are sometimes referred to as popular fronts in the more generic sense that they represent "broad coalitions" (which, of course, include sectors of the NATIONAL bourgeoisie). The author establishes the tenuous connection through the shared terminology and the recent "Peace Conference", a measure of the moment which is being taken in response to the hostile protest campaigns (I grant that perhaps it is indicative of deeper trends)

Thus, I don't think this is a good backdrop to discuss popular front tactics, fascism, US imperialism, or socialism in general (or, as the author obliquely puts it "socialism-in-democracy").

I don't think it is correct to rebuke Chavez for failing to be a Marxist because he was not going to be that . I don't think it is correct to cast dispersion on the movement in Venezuela on the basis that it is not socialism either -- each step along the way is still a step. But its much like anaerobic exercise -- the 10th repetition burns 100 times more than the first and the will to push forward begins to sap. And that is before you introduce all of the external factors and pressures that are also highly determinative.

Tedious and overwrought given the topic. The high dudgeon is the same. You know this guy?

not particularly, but I make it a point to check up on the MR crowd. And, as mentioned, in the last few paragraphs we see that the fascism thesis was already ensconced 8 years ago.

not particularly, but I make it a point to check up on the MR crowd. And, as mentioned, in the last few paragraphs we see that the fascism thesis was already ensconced 8 years ago.

Gotcha there, I agree with the abuse of the term fascism.

There is not a Popular Front in Venezuela united around the fight against fascism, not even if we grant Gilbert's thesis that US imperialism IS fascism. The author is mixing and matching terms and metaphors as he sees fit. The leftist governments in Latin American are sometimes referred to as popular fronts in the more generic sense that they represent "broad coalitions" (which, of course, include sectors of the NATIONAL bourgeoisie). The author establishes the tenuous connection through the shared terminology and the recent "Peace Conference", a measure of the moment which is being taken in response to the hostile protest campaigns (I grant that perhaps it is indicative of deeper trends)

Thus, I don't think this is a good backdrop to discuss popular front tactics, fascism, US imperialism, or socialism in general (or, as the author obliquely puts it "socialism-in-democracy").

I don't think it is correct to rebuke Chavez for failing to be a Marxist because he was not going to be that . I don't think it is correct to cast dispersion on the movement in Venezuela on the basis that it is not socialism either -- each step along the way is still a step. But its much like anaerobic exercise -- the 10th repetition burns 100 times more than the first and the will to push forward begins to sap. And that is before you introduce all of the external factors and pressures that are also highly determinative.

Ain't no rebuke, just a statement of fact. And of course I agree about movements, it's just where they are at the moment and that place is certainly better than where we are in terms of mass conciousness.

And you are right, it is abuse of the term Popular Front, broad coalition is more accurate. Still, I think the principles of alliance remain the same.

Hmm, seems like I agree with you on most of your criticism and was taken with the criticism of unwise alliance, which regardless of circumstance does fatally weaken us.