Here. Combined with his remarks re: Gaddafi, this is a real whopper. The contradictions within the Venezuelan revolutionary process are on full display here. To be sure, we should steer clear of a moralistic foreign policy in which the demands of international realpolitik are ignored. But this isn't mere realpolitik- this is the self-anointed leader of the Latin American Left more or less shitting on a rebellion from below. This is the "anti-imperialism" of fools. Now, predictably this will be manipulated by the bourgeois press to "prove" that Chavez is a "tyrant", "dictator", etc. because he's supporting the Syrian ruling elite (as though Obama doesn't support similarly repressive, and authoritarian regimes!). But this facile conclusion hardly follows. This doesn't "speak volumes" about the ALBA Left in Latin America. This isn't going to equip us with some "deep" insight as to the "true motivations" of the Left movements challenging U.S. imperialism in Latin America. But it does show those on the Left some of the drawbacks and difficulties facing the Chavista path to socialism. As always, the Venezuelan Left (as with the Left writ large) needs an increase in struggle from below -precisely of the sort exemplified in the (ongoing) struggles in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Another Chavez Middle East Blunder
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, September 20, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Venezuela's Process of Struggle
Read the excellent article (via SW.org) here. The analysis is right on target: hopeful and supportive of the emancipatory developments in Venezuela, but sober about the challenges facing the possibility of revolutionary transformation. The article nicely walks the line of "critical support"; avoiding uncritical cheer-leading on the one hand, and eschewing the ultra-leftist anti-Chavez line on the other. I like especially that the article is framed from a left-wing point of view, no time is wasted wading through the right-wing bullshit pedaled by the consensus media in the U.S. (which, of course, includes the NYTimes and their resident-hack Simon Romero).
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Nice Tony Wood takedown of Michael Reid's neoliberal take on Latin America
Michael Reid's book has been a hugely lauded success in mainstream Anglo-American outlets and, among the Jeffrey Sachs's, and in the Washington foreign policy establishment. And why not -it is a lengthy articulation of a point of view they all share: that what's wrong in Latin America is a 'radical populist' movement that has swept through the region over the last decade, and the medicine is more structural adjustment, more 'friendly business climates', regimes more subservient to global Capital and Washington.
As Tony Wood points out in his deft critical review of the book, it received rave reviews in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, Wapo, the Weekly Standard, the NYTimes, Foreign Affairs, and others.
Wood's review is refreshingly radical and analytically sharp. Its hard to find this kind of stuff. I mean, you can read any of the above mentioned publications regularly and begin to think that Reid's neoliberal mantra is more or less uncontroversial or unchallengeable. In my experience, I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say that one should prima facie doubt anything whatsoever that the NYTimes has to say about the political situation in Venezuela.
As Reid argues at one point:
"Reid’s case against the Venezuelan ‘populist’ alternative is the weakest element in his overall argument, since it does not even rest on selective deployment of facts, but rather on occlusion of the Chávez government’s actual record (though here at least Reid, unlike many others, has enough integrity not to actively distort the figures). In the social sphere, this has been indisputably positive: poverty, which had reached an astronomical 65 per cent after the implementation of the imf’s ‘Agenda Venezuela’ in 1996, has been cut by almost half since Chávez took office, from 55 per cent to 31 per cent. According to Mark Weisbrot at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, government social spending has increased significantly, from 8.2 per cent of gdp in 1998 to 13.6 per cent in 2006, a figure which does not include programmes directly administered through pdvsa or the Fondo de Desarrollo Nacional, which total another 7.3 per cent of gdp. This considerable outlay has permitted a twelvefold increase in the number of primary care physicians, and a cut in the infant mortality rate from 21 per 1,000 in 1998 to 16 in 2005. Unemployment too has dropped in Chávez’s decade in power, from 11 per cent to 7.8 per cent—a development facilitated by growth rates averaging 13.5 per cent since 2003."It's much harder to maintain the position on Latin America cultivated by the NYTimes, et. al when one actually juxtaposes to them some real figures and facts about the social/political situation there. Why think critically about a narrative that is so common as to be banal in virtually all of our media? If a modestly 'informed' person reads in 4 different 'respected' papers that Chavez is a noxious authoritarian monster, why should they bother to stop and think twice about it?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
NYTimes: Fucking unbelievable.
Check this bullshit out.
Most important, Mexico is a young democracy that eliminated an essentially one-party political system, controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, that lasted more than 70 years. And with all its defects, the domination of the party, known as the P.R.I., never even approached the same level of virtually absolute dictatorship as that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, or even of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.Say WHA? Unbelievable. Perhaps I'm naive to be surprised (given the NYTimes's ugly track record of taking a strict anti-democratic, right-wing line on Latin American politics). But "absolute dictator"? Comparing Chavez to Mugabe? What the FUCK!? Chavez has been elected by overwhelming majorities in elections with high turnout that have been certified by countless independent international bodies, including Jimmy Carter's organization. These Right-wing slanderers, we should take note, NEVER actually challenge the popular mandate Chavez has in Venezuela because they would have literally no grounds on which to challenge it. He has the staunch support of more than 60% of the electorate, which should come as little surprise since the majority of the country is quite poor and had been previously disempowered and disenfranchised for decades.
What the Right-wing slanderers DO say is that Chavez is stepping on "private enterprise", he's taking freedoms away from the minority (middle class and wealthy business elites) opposition, etc. "Absolute dictator" is completely ridiculous slander.
And this "young fledling democracy" bullshit that the author offers us about Mexico? Its about as credible as his claim that Chavez is an "absolute dictator". He says literally nothing about the 2006 Mexican presidential elections where Felipe Calderón of the right-wing PAN stole the election in a highly suspect and last-minute attempt to stop populist Left candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador from winning. (Obrador had consistently led in all major polls for months leading up to the election and was backed by large social movements). When Calderón "won" the election in a haze of controversy and sabotage, George Bush was the first to step up and "recognize" his "victory" and attempt to give credibility to the contested result. Millions of people took to the streets to protest the result, but ultimately nothing came of it.
Venezuela, on the other hand, has a more robust democracy than most countries in the world. Turnout in Venezuelan elections routinely blows US elections out of the water. Morever, Chavez has diffused some forms of power through local councils ("Bolivarian circles") which involves the participation of hitherto ignored groups of Venezuelans at the local-level. But it should come as no surprise that the Right doesn't like Venezuelan democracy, since the electoral mechanism there has consistently (with the exception of Chavez's referendum loss last year) resulted in majorities of Venezuelan's emphatically opposing the neoliberal march of the Right. This is why the US-backed opposition/business elite attempted a coup to overthrow Chavez by force in 2002; because they knew that they couldn't stop the forward momentum of him or the movement behind him by challenging it at the ballot box.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Well -- Chavez for life?
You've probably heard elsewhere that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has won his bid to override a two-term presidential limit and let him continue running for reelection for the rest of his life. I've expressed my dislike for this path in the past.
Here's some of what the internet is saying about this:
William Mora at Hands off Venezuela calls it triumph for democracy and a step toward long-term revolution.
Ian Williams at the Guardian says these unlimited terms allow Chavez to continue lazy economic policies and to continue wasting his time with political games to be reelected continuously instead of cleaning up economic messes.
Steve Rendell and Isabelle Macdonald at Venezuelanalysis point out the double standard in U.S. coverage (shocking, I know) of the referendum and coverage of Columbia similar referendum in 2005.
They are right to point out that most major news sources here probably aren't actually concerned about Latin American democracy, and are more about being a "propaganda arm" of U.S. foreign policy. But I don't think that means sincere concerns about this as a threat to Latin American democracy aren't valid concerns...
Now I know there are really complex arguments to be had here about revolution and democracy and sustained progress, but what if all I can really muster at the end of the day is something like, "This isn't what I imagine a long-term revolution should look like..." Call it a vulgar analysis, but it just doesn't feel right.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Can Chavez Serve Unlimited Terms?
Via CNN.com, Hugo Chavez has the legislature's okay to run for a third term as Venezuelan president, pending a February popular vote to approve the constitutional amendment.
Obviously, the matter is up for vote, so we'll wait and see what the people decide on the issue. But I have to say, even if approved, I think this move by Chavez is very short sighted. Aside from what any political scientist would tell you about the inherent dangers of a life-long leader becoming increasingly absolutist, I really think this is a bad move for the revolution. If progress and effectiveness over there really can't go on without having his personality at the helm, the design of the revolution is flawed, and that is the matter that should be fixed, not term limits. A revolution should not live and die with one charismatic leader. If Chavez is seeking a third term out of concern for his nation, and not out of narcissism, he should put his resources into creating a stable government and a clear direction that government can take with or without him at the helm.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
Really amazing documentary. The footage is unbelievable.
Just re-watched it here.
It makes me pretty sick to see what went on in Venezuela in 2002. But it's far worse to stomach the omission of these concrete facts about the coup-attempt in so many mainstream accounts of Venezuelan politics. Particularly all of the crap about RCTV and the 'suppression of free speech' that one so frequently hears about... nothing is said about this disgusting attempt to overthrow a popular government by force. Nothing is said about the fact that the coup plotters revealed on private television the day after the coup, how they had carried out their plan and how grateful they were to private media, RCTV in particular, for their crucial help in accomplishing the task. RCTV, it's also worth mentioning, blacked-out all of the events that led to the failure of the coup and suppressed the reemergence of Chavez's ministers in order to deceive the public into believing the lie that Chavez had resigned (he had not) and that the Opposition had total control of the Presidential Palace.
Watching this and thinking about the PBS documentary's treatment of the 2002 coup the whole time was eye-opening. Try watching "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and reading the NY Times's infamous pro-Coup editorial afterwords.
Purchase the DVD here.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Responding to the "The Hugo Chavez Show"
In case you haven't seen it, take a look at PBS's Frontline TV-documentary on Hugo Chavez. There is a lot of good footage, information and some of the interviews are interesting.
That said, I think the documentary is a case-study in what is typically wrong with characterizations of Venezuela (indeed, with almost all of the Left governments and movements in Latin America) in our domestic Media (one might as well include Britain also).
Let me preface all of this by directing your attention to the infamous NYTimes editorial that, in complicity with the lies of the opposition military coup plotters, praised the (actually false) 'departure' of Chavez and the installment of a neoliberal military regime by force in which all of the democratically-elected officials and representatives of Chavez's party would be removed from office.
The title of the PBS show is instructive: "The Hugo Chavez Show". The mistake that the documentary makes over and over is to slip into conflations of large-scale economic and political forces with Chavez the person. Frequently, supporters of the government or of the PSUV or the "Revolution" are characterized as people with nothing more than intense emotional investment in Chavez qua person. There is a lot of focus on Chavez's show "Alo Presidente", his antics, his speeches, etc. There seems to me to be no problem with this necessarily, however, its insidious precisely insofar as these looks at him (qua person, public figure) are used as arguments against the policies of his government and the anti-capitalist project. I'll say more on this in a bit.
The interviewees end up making up more or less a chorus. There is 'center-left' neoliberal Teodoro Petkoff who is supposedly given legitimacy as a 'left critic' of Chavez since he used to be a Communist earlier in the 70s. No further context is given for how to situate him in relation to the Bolivarian Revolution. We also hear from "Journalists and Venezuelans who know Chavez well". Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker is interviewed, as is biographer Alberto Barrera, Phil Gunson of the Economist, and former VP Jimenez who has since broken with Chavez.... (one was left dissapointed that arch-hack Simon Romero and reps from the Financial Times and WSJ weren't present as well). We also hear from an opposition goon who was a former finance minister in the early 90s who, every single time he's put before the camera, insinuates with a wry smile that the US should stop purchasing Venezuelan oil since that would topple Chavez "in a matter of weeks". (hint, hint! americans!) He extols the virtues of PDVSA before Chavez and repeats the familiar capitalist dogma that removing elites is tantamount to removing the 'experts' who are the only ones who know how to run things. We can smell his hatred of participatory democracy a mile away: let the indigent masses do the drudge-work, they aren't capable of doing much else without the expertise of capitalists and managers.
What we don't hear in the documentary, is the voice of one single intellectual who actually believes that what is happening on the ground in Venezuela is worth defending. Nothing. We could have heard from Tariq Ali, Eva Golinger, Greg Wilpert, Forrest Hylton, or any number of prominent Left intellectuals and journalists who would dare to defend the project unapollogetically (yet, not therefore uncritically). The tone of the entire piece is one of suspicion and one in which we are encouraged to presuppose that everything about what's going on there is misguided. Therefore, when things are pointed out about the situation that aren't all bad, they can be safely let out in the open without having to worry about sounding, *gasp* fair or worse, sympathetic. The point I'm making about the tone is that it seems crafted to always leave a large amount of outs whenever it presents something that looks appealing about Venezuela. This usually takes the form of presenting 'good' elements of the Revolution as ones with good intentions, but practically useless or failing.
There are no broad strokes to contextualize the movement, facile imperialist buzzwords like 'anti-American' are thrown around copiously without qualification, and everything about the Revolution is characterized in terms of a top-down decree from Chavez to 'subsidize' something. We are told that he 'subsidizes anti-American governments' like Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba, which reeks of Heritage-Foundation-esque propaganda. Moreover, the presentation of Chavez's relation to Castro is played up and used to hint at his authoritarian fantasies that have yet to fully manifest themselves. We shouldn't forget that the opposition has used this line as a talking point for quite some time: "Chavez wants Venezuela to be exactly like Cuba!" PBS seems to have cribbed it right from the headlines of opposition outlets.
One thing I found disturbing was that the documentary rarely mentioned figures about turnout, margins of victory, or democratic mandate for the Revolution. During talk of Chavez's loss during the push for Constitutional reform in 2007, we hear almost nothing about the statistical dynamics of the result. The "por ahora" slogan is spun as a "threat" that the government will "punish democratic decision-makers who buck their will", rather than an injunction to continue fighting for the reforms and social transformation for which the government stands. We heard nothing of the turnout figures which clearly showed that the opposition picked up virtually no more votes in absolute terms than they garnered in 2006, but merely benefited from lower turnout.
The entire discussion of is one-sided. The bullshit about it being a 'free speech issue' is gobbled up, since it so neatly fits in with what we are encouraged to think prior to hearing any facts about Venezuela: in the words of our media, Venezuela is ruled by "a thug", "paranoiac", "dictatorial", a "ruinous and radical leftist demagogue", who is "autocratic." The Economist probably has the rights to this smash-hit tune among the Anglo-American business press.
We hear nothing about RCTV's direct involvement with the 2002 coup.
And on the topic of the coup, the most critical thing that the documentary offers us is a quote by a Chavista official that the US Government might, potentially, have given the coup its blessing, or possibly even helped. That insinuation was left at that. This isn't being 'objective', this is deception. There is absolutely no way to maintain that the US govt did not give the coup its 'blessing'... look at its public statements before and after. They were unambiguously anti-Chavez and pro-opposition and they immediately recognized the illegitimate government the second it went on private television and proclaimed that it had taken power. Moreover, US involvement with the opposition in terms of giving aid and support to the coup-plotters is well documented. This isn't some crazy, out-of-the-blue anomaly to US foreign policy in Latin America, but a continuation of a time honored tradition wherein the US participates in violent overthrows of democratically elected Left governments. A little historical context might have been helpful here, but none was in the offering. The US foreign policy aparatus, let us not forget, is a shinging beacon of freedom that inspires the whole world. And we betray this Absolute Truth only at our own peril, and on pain of succumbing to 'anti-Americanism'. (For a far more extensive and sober documentary look at the 2002 coup, check this video out).
After the coverage of the coup in the documentary, one is left puzzled how Chavez came back to power. They don't really give you enough information to understand the dynamics that forced the coup to fail, other than insinuating that the slum-dwellers from the shacks of Caracas came down from their perch to protest. This is atrocious coverage of the event. Nothing is said about the rank-and-file loyalty of soldiers in the military who refused to go along with the plot. Nothing is said about the conduct of the opposition leaders during the coup, the RCTV involvement with the coup, etc. There is no moralistic condemnation of the coup in the way that there is throughout the entire documentary about how Chavez silences dissent, etc. This is bullshit.
The only ardent pro-Chavez interviewees are slum-dwellers who are made to look as though they are nothing more than uneducated adorers of a man whose policies they cannot comprehend. Leave the commentary to the learned light-skinned men who know better.
The last quarter of the documentary is devoted to showing the failure of all of Chavez's policies. We are given various examples, all very specific. We are given no wider economic/political backdrop against which to judge these developments, but nonetheless encouraged to draw broad conclusions from these examples. We are given no data about how much social spending has increased, how the programs have fared in terms of what existed before them, what the shortcoming might be attributed to, how they might be addressed, etc. We get none of that. But we get insinuations that bottom-up cooperatives are a bad idea because workers cannot self-govern themselves (silly socialists... you're supposed to leave that to the experts, the capitalists and managers!), we get insinuations that the uneducated poor are the only ones propping up a 'failed government' because they 'fear things could be worse'. We also get a spiel about "law and order" in which the problems of crime in Venezuela are really bad (dare I say we are encouraged to draw conclusions between Chavez's urban poor constituents and the 'law and order' hoopla?). No explanations, no comparative figures, no context... just the insinuation that rising crime has something to do with the Chavez regime. It doesn't really matter if they intended for this line of argument to coalesce with the racist and conservative opposition's rhetoric, to be purveyors of this sort of narrative in ignorance of what is frequently said and insinuated is already to be give a nod to the reactionaries.
Amid all of these complaints, not one example of how programs have worked is given. Not one figure about increased social spending, education programs, etc. Not one example of a program that has worked, against the expectations and wishes of the editorial boards of the NYTimes and the Economist and the Western capitalist press. Nothing.
Even the documentary's assessment of the most recent election results, which in many ways represented a small victory for the US-backed opposition, was billed as a case of increasing authoritarianism. We are told, ominously without any further backing that opposition leaders were 'banned' from running for election (the elections were observed by hundreds of international bodies and they all deemed them fair and free). Then we are told that 17 of 22 PSUV governors won, as though this was a bogus victory given the collusion mentioned in the previous sentence. Yet despite the opposition victories, the procedural fairness of the election, the high turnout, etc. The folks at PBS thought nothing of mentioning the US-government's involvement with the opposition and the recent elections. Pathetic, uncritical analysis. I just read, according to Eva Gollinger, that the U.S. Agency for International Development poured $4.7 million into opposition groups for the electoral campaign. This is hardly surprising. Washington is backing the reactionary oligarchic opposition leaders in Bolivia as well. Why would we expect anything less? PBS says nothing about US invovlement or where their sympathies lie with respect to Latin American political and social movements on the Left.
Concerning Chavez's government, there's plenty to be critical of, especially from the perspective of the Left. But regarding this documentary, the entire conclusion you seem encouraged to arrive at is that Chavez is everything the mainstream Anglophone media says about him (he's dictatorial, a caudillo, a strongman, a demagogue, etc.). The viewer is almost led to assume that what the country perhaps needs instead, is a return of the rule of 'educated', light-skinned, enlightened elites who have the know-how, expertise and faith in neoliberal capitalism to make things run right. The film includes a few moralizing moments where the inequality and squalor that many Venezolanos live in is mentioned, yet we are given no evidence that there is a political solution to this social injustice. We get nothing critical of neoliberalism, of the previous regime's policies, or any mention of North American imperialism in Latin America and its long history. We aren't offered any explanations about how this unequal state of affairs in Venezuela came about.
I found this documentary disappointing.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Immortal Technique on Venezuela
Immortal Technique is a radical rapper my brother introduced me to last year, and whom we both admire a lot. Here's an interview with him, via Hands Off Venezuela. As usual I think he's incredibly sharp and good natured:
As a person in the States, with no concrete links to Venezuelans or Latin Americans to give me first-hand accounts, I find it really difficult to navigate news about Venezuela and Bolivia. Immortal's critique of the Venezuelan media and the U.S. media as being driven by bourgeois interests makes sense and sounds really plausible to me. But there's something in the back of my head that makes me say, "hey, no, what if this is propaganda and Chavez is actually Stalin incarnate?!" Ok, maybe not that extreme, but I do have a hard time knowing what to believe, when I'm getting everything through sources with vested interests. And it's not that I think Immortal would deliberately deceive me either, it's that I'm afraid he's fooling himself because he wants it to be a good thing and he wants Chavez to be a good guy. Is that just what the capitalists want me to think? Or am I right/smart to be a constant skeptic about both sides?
Anyway, check out some of his music when you get a chance. Not exactly a toe tapping good time, but it does what he said he hopes. It really gets you pumped up about revolution.
