GREG PALAST, VENEZUELA, REFERENDUM

JUTTA SCHMITT COMMENTS
Oligárcas temblad; ¡Viva la Libertad! ....

Friends,

at 3.47 am this morning, the National Electoral Council announced the preliminary results of the presidential recall referendum, when a 94 percent of the electronic data had been counted. The "No" to the recall obtained 4 million 991.483 (58,95%) and the "Yes" to the recall obtained 3 million 576.517 (41,74%). There are still votes that have to be counted, but the tendency that ratifies Chávez and his government has clearly imposed itself.

.... Unfortunately, we were far too tired to stay awake and monitor the private media; first thing we saw this morning on one of the private TV Channels here (RCTV) were talks about how good or bad were the chances of an insurrection of the armed forces against Chávez. Frankly, I think these people have no remedy.

I very much deplore not having been able to see, live on CNN en Español, the face of the ineffable Patricia Janiot, when Chávez´ ratification officially broke the news.

In it´s electronic edition, the headline of CNN en Español today reads "Chávez proclaims himself winner in Venezuela´s Referendum". (http://www.cnnenespanol.com/). So much for freedom of manipulation. I strongly favour the continent-wide counter-offensive in the form of an alternative, veracious news and analysis telecomunication network as proposed by president Chávez and his Argentinian colleague, Nestor Kirchner, that could actually be taking off soon in the form of a joint telecommunication platform of Venezuela´s Channel 8 and Argentina´s Channel 7.

Oligárcas temblad; ¡Viva la Libertad! ....

Saludos,
JUTTA.

******************************************************************

Latin America: Venezuela: Now the corporate fox is guarding our electoral democratic chickens
Contributed by juttafranz on Sunday, August 15 @ 18:29:49 AST
By Franz J. T. Lee
Trinicenter.Com/VHeadline.Com/cmaq.net/Bolivarianos,cl.

Today, in Venezuela, as emancipatory paradigm for the world, we are all celebrating internationalism and international proletarianism, the revolutionary praxis-theory of the working classes of the world, of the Bolivarian Revolution on a global scale, especially in Latin America.

However, now, more than ever: "La Lutta Continua!" We have to know what is Revolution, our Revolution!

Ever since the American and French Revolutions, and the British Industrial Revolution, numerous scholars have made serious scientific attempts to explain these momentous historical social changes which took place in Europe and North America during the 18th and 19th centuries ... and in Asia, Africa and Latin America in the 20th century.

* In other writings, we tried to explain the concept "Revolution" in general, and the "Bolivarian Revolution" in Venezuela and Latin America in particular.

The Concept "Revolution"
For the emancipatory tasks, after the electoral Bolivarian victory today, it is imperative to know what is to be done in the immediate future, what to understood by modern social revolution, international proletarianism and workers' emancipation. Hence, here is just a brief summary of the historic origin of revolution. We will underline the pertinent historical ideas and events , under whose ideological influence and guidance Bolivar, Miranda, Rodriguez and Zamora were fighting to launch the revolution, liberation, in Latin America.

Augustin Thierry (1795 - 1856), the French historian and romanticist writer, saw national development as a struggle between two major "races", the invaders and the invaded; Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787 - 1874) another French historian, who, between 1829 and 1832, wrote the 6-volumed work, General History of Civilization in Modern Europe, like Thierry, interpreted the European social revolutions as struggles of social classes. Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797 - 1877), Premier of France between 1836 and 1840, and President of the Third French Republic, 1871 - 1873, a prominent European historian of his time, like Thierry and Guizot, were among the respected scholars who had inspired Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to develop their theory of class struggle in the mid-19th century.

From the "Reflection on the French Revolution" of Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) to the contemporary authors of the "systems theory," "modernization theory" or "dependence theory" there is a direct historic connection of scholars who had attempted to explain the essence and developmental laws of "social change" or "social revolution."

Obviously, we have to study this "process of world revolution," have to understand the historic metropolitan roots of the Bolivarian Revolution. Otherwise, we become nailed to the immediate, to the carpe diem of ideology and reaction, for example, we forget that Jimmy Carter was a president of the USA, that he participated in all kinds of conspiracies and sabotage of possible revolutions in Haiti, Nicaragua, etc.

Now the corporate fox is guarding our electoral democratic chickens.

The various authors, mentioned above, irrespective of their specific political ideology, tried to catch the manifold causes, pre-conditions, strategies, tactics and consequences of "social change" within a sophisticated network of theoretical concepts and categories of the discipline "Social Sciences".

Especially since the failure of the Paris Commune of 1871, numerous radical revolutionary-theoretical works appeared on a global scale. The failure of the First Russian Revolution of 1905 and the success of the Second Russian Revolution of 1917, and later the collapse of all "real existing socialist countries", had elevated the problematic of revolution to a central place within the field of political sociology. The various colonial revolutions of the 1960s had magnified this problem and numerous "theories of social change" were formulated by non-Marxist scholars.

Well-known is the "theory of revolution" of Chalmers Johnson (Revolutionary Change, 1966) which became the prototype of the revolutionary model for the "systems" theory. Contemporary Marxist scholars like the late Ernest Mandel have criticized these "bourgeois" models, which, in the final analysis, intend to maintain the capitalist status quo on a world scale.

Nevertheless, contemporary "official" social science is just as helpless to explain the current social changes or Revolution in Venezuela, as it is hopeless to analyze Bush's "new wars," "terrorism" and the "Twin Towers" event. Yet both forces, revolutions and wars, belong to the major historic phenomena of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Currently, as we can witness in Afghanistan, Iraq and Venezuela, wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions are shaking the contemporary world and yet they are not yet definite subjects of a specific discipline, like Political Science at our universities. Hence, it is urgent that the discipline "Social Revolutions in the 21st Century" must be included in the curriculum of all the Bolivarian Universities in Venezuela and Latin America.

Currently, these are dealt with as sub-ordinates of various "important" subjects like "International Relations," "History of Political Thought" or "Contemporary Political Systems." Very often, studies in this direction, for example, a course in "Revolutionary Praxis-Theory" will be discouraged at most national universities, in the same manner as Theology declared Natural Sciences taboo during the Middle Ages in Europe.

However, concepts like "ideology", "practice", "revolution" or "counter-revolution" are very difficult to determine scientifically, especially when one uses the method of formal logics, which has dominated the world since Aristotle. These phenomena have the essential characteristic of being incomplete, processual and anticipatory -- traits which are not compatible with the norm of generally fixing concepts, giving them absolute meanings: A = A, a machine is a machine forever, no matter which changes will occur. At our institutions of higher learning, here in Venezuela, we have to develop new methods, a New Logic to understand our New Bolivarian Revolution, a Science and Philosophy that transcend Formal and Dialectical Logics.

When true scientific theory tries to explain world processes like revolutions, it again and again verifies the acute shortcomings of the idealist and religious views of history and human life in general. Yet, although already at the beginning of the 19th century, over 150 years ago, the German objective idealist philosopher, Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831), had discovered the dialectical method of reasoning logically, the majority of modern social science scholars, still today, separate scientific praxis and philosophic theory, in the same way as Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) formal-logically did it.

The Bolivarian Revolution does not necessitate obsolete ideologies and practices; in the post-Santa Ines Battle, it has to generate its own Science and Philosophy, its own Praxis and Theory, its own Acts and Thoughts. Much has been done in this direction already, but there is still so much to do, so little done.

The genesis of the concept "revolution"

Thus, in Venezuela, and elsewhere, there exist sufficient social reasons to re-consider, re-evaluate and re-define the concept of re-volution. This is not an easy scientific endeavor. Revolution is the central topic of phenomena which became known to us as "socialism", "communism" or "Marxism-Leninism," and these things are not very much loved in the Western capitalist world. They have been painted as Draculas and Frankensteins. The bourgeois scholars of the mid-18th century, Rousseau, Voltaire or Montesquieu, were very well acquainted with feudalism and Roman Catholicism, the then arch-enemies of capitalism in its political and ideological power struggle. This is the reason why the bourgeois class was revolutionary and could be successful historically.

The two so-called "classical" revolutions, the French Revolution of 1789 and the October Revolution of 1917, both which have introduced the beginning stages of new intra-systemic antagonist modes of production, capitalism and socialism respectively, today can only restrictively explain the root causes, social dynamics, historical latencies and tendencies of current world social revolution, whose vanguard is formed in Latin America, by Cuba and Venezuela, and by the heroic workers' struggles in Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, etc.

The concepts and categories won from critical analyses of modern highly developed industrialized societies cannot be applied directly to "developing" countries; similarly, classical Marxist concepts concerning exploitation, classes or imperialism, willy-nilly cannot be used to explain "Third World" realities efficiently.

This was at best demonstrated in the conflict between the Latin American "dependencia" Marxist authors and the "Neo-Marxist" scholars in the 1960s and 1970s. Also, the application of guerrilla warfare tactics and strategies won in China, Vietnam or Cuba to metropolitan revolutionary conditions by the "Red Army Brigades" in Western Europe, this had resulted in disastrous emancipatory situations.

Ever since the 1960's there is a passionate international discussion, especially introduced by Herbert Marcuse, concerning the locality of the present revolutionary subject in the world emancipatory struggle. The problem is all the more serious, because, at least, over the last decades, the proletariat of highly industrialized countries, such as Germany or the United States of America, had not fulfilled its historic revolutionary task, as originally anticipated and hopefully specified by Marxian revolutionary theory -- it has more to lose "than its chains", at least, this it "believes."

Here in Venezuela, the Bolivarians have everything to lose, if global fascism would intervene in Venezuela, and succeed to introduce here the belligerent quagmire of Afghanistan or Iraq.

* "Revolution" like "Democracy" is a bourgeois capitalist invention and a global arm of mass destruction

Now, let us investigate the genesis of the word "revolution" itself. In the late Middle Ages, the word "revolution" appeared in Europe. It was the formation of the noun from the Latin verb, revolvere, meaning to "roll back," for example, to explain the rotation of the moon in a circular orbit. St. Augustine used it in the sense of "reincarnation", in his religious battle against the heathens who believed that the soul repeatedly "rolls" through various "bodies" until it is purified. For Dante, "revolutio" is the changing movement of the sun, stars and planets. Thus, as late as the 15th century, the concept "revolutio" was essentially still a pre-political astronomic concept.

Then came the bourgeois capitalist discoveries of the natural scientists, Copernicus (1473-1543), Galilei Galileo (1564-1642) and Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), which gave the concept a physico-political connotation. The astrologists of the 17th century believed that by means of the positions of the heavenly bodices, by the horoscope, they could prophesy the fate of the feudal princes, who asked them for advice before going to war, This pre-scientific method is still today used in our national and international mass media, in horoscopes, to determine the behavior patterns of wage workers in modern capitalism.

Nevertheless, since the 17th century, people believed that political events were dependent on physical phenomena. They thought that political actions were caught within the magnetic field of the powers of nature. This was clearly a revolutionary step, away from the idealist, religious notion that Providence determines human behavior.

Galileo even believed that the rotations of the earth cause accidents and chances in human life. Ever since, the prefix "re-" did not mean only a simple repetition, but also contained the idea of destruction. Currently, the USA show us what is "revolutionary mass destruction." Revolution now included a new element, which was beyond the reach of human arbitrariness, calculation and planning.

The word "revolution" received its political connotation in the genesis of capitalism itself. It originated in the city-states of northern Italy, were capitalism was developing in embryonic form. Words such as "rivoltura", "rivoluzione" were used to describe serious social revolts or popular unrest. What these words exactly designated, can he compared with the present political understanding of "social turmoil" or "turbulent events" in domestic or foreign affairs. Of course, the current political coup attempts, the economic sabotage and the constitutional conspiracy in Venezuela concern global counter-revolution.

Marxian Revolutionary Theory

Let us very briefly expound the essence of the Marxian workers' revolutionary theory, in order to understand why the Bolivarian Revolution is neither Marxist nor Anti-Marxist.

Marx evolved his theory of revolution in the years 1840-1844, and it was intended to be a program for the bourgeois-democratic revolution, then overdue in Germany. Germany's historical time-lag as compared with her Western-bourgeois neighbors (England and France), offered the German social revolution a unique historical chance, not only to make up for the "political emancipation" that had been brought about by the Jacobinian revolution in France, but even to surpass it in a "human emancipation", which would go so far as to overcome the contradiction between citoyen and bourgeois.

In clarifying the question of the subject of such a revolution, Marx not only crossed the line from radical bourgeois-ideologist to proletarian-theoretician of the socialist revolution, but also from utopian to scientific socialism, which alone is susceptible of crossing the bridge of praxis that must of necessity link the criticism of the present with the concrete utopia of the future, and of actuating the "alliance of thinking and suffering men", that will liberate human society from the shackles of the bourgeois mode of production and hence, from the class system on a world scale.

Two parties are bound to find themselves in a temporary alliance prompted by the revolution, although they differ in their basic political attitude towards that revolution: "a petty-bourgeois one that aims at getting it done and over with, and a proletarian one that keeps pushing it forward until all more or less properties classes have been squeezed out of authority, executive power has been wrested from them by the proletariat, and the associations of proletarians not only in one country but in all leading countries of the world would be so far advanced (....) that at least the decisive forces of production would be concentrated in the hands of the proletariat". (See: Marx and Engels, "Address of the Central Authority to the League", March 1850.)

This postulation of permanency for the proletarian revolution (an idea which was later further developed by Leon Trotsky in his "theory of the permanent revolution"), was at the time the common political platform of the "League of Communists" and the "Blanquists." Relevant here is, that the Bolivarian Revolution historically is continuing this tradition of Permanent World Revolution.

The "Communist Manifesto," Marx and Engels

In the "Communist Manifesto", Marx and Engels addressed the "proletariat" in the "third person", hence at a little distance. Also, when they addressed the "communists" themselves, they used the appellate of the conclusion of the "manifesto": "Workers of the world, unite!" The Manifesto of Marx and Engels of 1848 directly did not address the proletarians on a world scale, it was formulated for the European proletariat.

For them, revolution had nothing to do with conspiracy, blind activism or Blanquism. It was for them an epoch-making social transformation, which has become world historically necessary, and whose task it was to eradicate the economically based exploitative relations of the bourgeois classes. The possibility of a social revolution has first theoretically to be derived from the objective conditions of the law of accumulation of capital, then scientifically tested, only then could ideas concerning the organization of revolution, be formulated correctly. This means that first a revolutionary theory has to be developed out of the specific conditions, then it must be tested scientifically in revolutionary praxis, by active organization of the working classes. Certainly, we, the Bolivarians, have to study the above lesson very carefully.

The Five Major Postulates of the Marxian Revolutionary Theory.

Social revolutions are only possible, when a historic subject exists, whose concrete needs are so clearly articulated that revolutionary theory appears as the most adequate expression of these needs. Social revolutions are "real" and "total" and they must have an international character.

As far as the German social revolution of the mid-19th century was concerned, it would only be successful, if the "bourgeoisie", in alliance with the State, would accomplish the political revolution; this would, on the one hand, enable the continuation of the concentration of capital, and, on the other hand, the pauperization of the developing proletariat; thus the central conflict between the German forces of production and relations of production will eventually reach an acute, critical stage, creating the real historic conditions for the German proletarian social revolution.

Social revolutions can only take place in the face of a universal economic crisis, in which the antagonistic structure of bourgeois class society becomes crystal-clear to every conscious worker. In such a situation the two major classes of capitalist society confront each other openly. The world crisis of 1847 was for Marx and Engels the real economic base of the European "February" and "March" revolutions of 1848; also the period of relative economic prosperity of 1849-50 was the economic basis of the European political reaction at the beginning of the 1850's.

A pre-condition for social revolutions is a highly developed level of the industrial revolution. This creates a highly organized, experienced proletariat, which can revolt in a united and disciplined manner, as a "class for itself" which is able to overcome capitalist class society.

In conclusion, this Marxist concept of revolution only has validity in highly developed capitalist industrialized societies. A prerequisite is a comprehensive theory of social development. This concept maintains that the social proletarian revolution is inevitable on a world historical scale, and how, when or where social revolutions occur cannot be determined abstractly, but on the basis of specific historical, economic, political, social and cultural conditions.

Surely, we, as Bolivarian revolutionaries, should enjoy the above emancipatory food for thought and action. Definitely, Marx was the first scholar who described the essence of fundamental social changes, as the result of the contradiction between the developing forces of production and obsolete relations of production. At a certain stage of development the material social forces of production contradict the existing relations of production, that is, the relations of property, within which they had developed until then. Originally developmental forms of the forces for production, these production relations now become chains of the same. The result is that an epoch of social revolution sets in.

Marx explained that a mode of production never disappears, before all its forces of production are developed. New and higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of existence, necessary for their coming into being, are not yet already present in embryonic form in the old mode of production. This surely places the ALBA and Mercosur in contemporary global perspective.

Revolution is characterized as a process, as an epoch. Generally, emancipatory violence is necessary to crack the old egg shell, in order to give birth to the new relations of production. But violence is not necessarily a sine qua non for social revolution. Correctly, the Bolivarians speak about the revolutionary "process" in Venezuela.

The concept of revolution as process is confronted with the concept action, with the political revolution. This political act, in the past, has practically not occurred exactly at the point, where the concentration of the new forces of production came into contradiction with the egg shell of the obsolete relations of production. In this sense, the October Revolution was premature and the revolution in the United States is long overdue. In Venezuela, the political revolution has to capture its economic revolution, its material base, PDVSA.

Marx and Engels were of the opinion that the socialist revolution will take place simultaneously in all highly industrialized, "civilized" countries, at least in England, the United States of America, France and Germany. The "uncivilized" world will automatically be forced to accept the socialist mode of production. However, the World Revolution, which began in October 1917, which collapsed with the "Fall of the Berlin Wall," has not taken the course which Marx and Engels had predicted.

* It becomes clear that within the Marxian "theory of revolution" there cannot be a generally valid, paradigmatic model of revolution. Also, "classical" revolutions do not exist.

A common factor of all revolutions is that the exploitative social conditions have become so unbearable for the masses of working people, that the majority of them are prepared to place their lives at stake, in revolt against the rulers, who are not capable anymore to solve the burning social problems. Precisely this happened in Venezuela: the workers' battle against Puntofijismo and "neo-liberalism," that is, against World Fascism.

The only factor which is clear, is that with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the epoch of social revolution between capitalism and socialism has set in, in other words, the process of the world revolution began, and that now it continues with the Bolivarian Revolution.

This world revolution, which is reflected in the current severe international crises of corporate capitalism on a global scale, has as important elements the scientific technological revolution, the rapid development of the means of production and the forces of production, and the emancipatory struggle of nations on a global scale, who have become socially conscious of the imminent dangers of capitalism to their very existence, and the survival of mankind.

The relevance of the above for the Bolivarian Revolution within the context of World Revolution, Lenin already had underlined when he stated: without revolutionary theory, there is no social revolution. And he did not say: ideology, in spite of the earlier confusion about "socialist" or "proletarian" ideology. The corruption of the best, is always the worst corruption, thus precision of Marxian scientific concepts and our own world outlook in our time becomes very necessary. The same applies to everyday concepts like "socialism", "democracy" and "revolution".

However, there is a major contradiction, which is often forgotten within the political heat and revolutionary dust of the class struggle, the contradiction between Nature and Society. Already the "young" Marx stressed the necessity of the true naturalization of Man and the humanization of Nature. If we do not achieve this, which must be one of the main objectives of the Bolivarian Revolution, then we will never make the dialectical jump, the qualitative transcendence, from the "reign of necessity" to the "reign of freedom", in which homo sapiens sapiens can become himself again, that is, the god in reality, who had for so many thousands of years been projected into the heavens, as a mere sacred human fantasy and utopian daydream.

After August 15, 2004, in Venezuela, Revolution will mean Praxis-Theory, will mean: "La Lutta continua!"

http://www.trinicenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article
&sid=752&mode=thread&order=1&thold=5

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=22437
*********************************

Dick Cheney, Hugo Chavez and Bill Clinton's Band

Monday, August 16, 2004

E-Mail Article
Printer Friendly Version

Why Venezuela has Voted Again for Their 'Negro e Indio' President

There's so much BS and baloney thrown around about Venezuela that I may be violating some rule of US journalism by providing some facts. Let's begin with this: 77% of Venezuela's farmland is owned by 3% of the population, the 'hacendados.'

I met one of these farmlords in Caracas at an anti-Chavez protest march. Oddest demonstration I've ever seen: frosted blondes in high heels clutching designer bags, screeching, "Chavez - dic-ta-dor!" The plantation owner griped about the "socialismo" of Chavez, then jumped into his Jaguar convertible.

That week, Chavez himself handed me a copy of the "socialist" manifesto that so rattled the man in the Jag. It was a new law passed by Venezuela's Congress which gave land to the landless. The Chavez law transferred only fields from the giant haciendas which had been left unused and abandoned.

This land reform, by the way, was promoted to Venezuela in the 1960s by that Lefty radical, John F. Kennedy. Venezuela's dictator of the time agreed to hand out land, but forgot to give peasants title to their property.

But Chavez won't forget, because the mirror reminds him. What the affable president sees in his reflection, beyond the ribbons of office, is a "negro e indio" -- a "Black and Indian" man, dark as a cola nut, same as the landless and, until now, the hopeless. For the first time in Venezuela's history, the 80% Black-Indian population elected a man with skin darker than the man in the Jaguar.

So why, with a huge majority of the electorate behind him, twice in elections and today with a nearly two-to-one landslide victory in a recall referendum, is Hugo Chavez in hot water with our democracy-promoting White House?

Maybe it's the oil. Lots of it. Chavez sits atop a reserve of crude that rivals Iraq's. And it's not his presidency of Venezuela that drives the White House bananas, it was his presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. While in control of the OPEC secretariat, Chavez cut a deal with our maximum leader of the time, Bill Clinton, on the price of oil. It was a 'Goldilocks' plan. The price would not be too low, not too high; just right, kept between $20 and $30 a barrel.

But Dick Cheney does not like Clinton nor Chavez nor their band. To him, the oil industry's (and Saudi Arabia's) freedom to set oil prices is as sacred as freedom of speech is to the ACLU. I got this info, by the way, from three top oil industry lobbyists.

Why should Chavez worry about what Dick thinks? Because, said one of the oil men, the Veep in his Bunker, not the pretzel-chewer in the White House, "runs energy policy in the United States."

And what seems to have gotten our Veep's knickers in a twist is not the price of oil, but who keeps the loot from the current band-busting spurt in prices. Chavez had his Congress pass another oil law, the "Law of Hydrocarbons," which changes the split. Right now, the oil majors - like PhillipsConoco - keep 84% of the proceeds of the sale of Venezuela oil; the nation gets only 16%.

Chavez wanted to double his Treasury's take to 30%. And for good reason. Landless, hungry peasants have, over decades, drifted into Caracas and other cities, building million-person ghettos of cardboard shacks and open sewers. Chavez promised to do something about that.

And he did. "Chavez gives them bread and bricks," one Venezuelan TV reporter told me. The blonde TV newscaster, in the middle of a publicity shoot, said the words "pan y ladrillos" with disdain, making it clear that she never touched bricks and certainly never waited in a bread line.

But to feed and house the darker folk in those bread and brick lines, Chavez would need funds, and the 16% slice of the oil pie wouldn't do it. So the President of Venezuela demanded 30%, leaving Big Oil only 70%. Suddenly, Bill Clinton's ally in Caracas became Mr. Cheney's -- and therefore, Mr. Bush's -- enemy.

So began the Bush-Cheney campaign to "Floridate" the will of the Venezuela electorate. It didn't matter that Chavez had twice won election. Winning most of the votes, said a White House spokesman, did not make Chavez' government "legitimate." Hmmm. Secret contracts were awarded by our Homeland Security spooks to steal official Venezuela voter lists. Cash passed discreetly from the US taxpayer, via the so-called 'Endowment for Democracy,' to the Chavez-haters running today's "recall" election.

A brilliant campaign of placing stories about Chavez' supposed unpopularity and "dictatorial" manner seized US news and op-ed pages, ranging from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times.

But some facts just can't be smothered in propaganda ink. While George Bush can appoint the government of Iraq and call it "sovereign," the government of Venezuela is appointed by its people. And the fact is that most people in this slum-choked land don't drive Jaguars or have their hair tinted in Miami. Most look in the mirror and see someone "negro e indio," as dark as their President Hugo.

The official CIA handbook on Venezuela says that half the nation's farmers own only 1% of the land. They are the lucky ones, as more peasants owned nothing. That is, until their man Chavez took office. Even under Chavez, land redistribution remains more a promise than an accomplishment. But today, the landless and homeless voted their hopes, knowing that their man may not, against the armed axis of local oligarchs and Dick Cheney, succeed for them. But they are convinced he would never forget them.

And that's a fact.

Greg Palast's reports from Venezuela for BBC Television's Newsnight and the Guardian papers of Britain earned a California State University Journalism School "Project Censored" award for 2002. View photos and Palast's reports on Venezuela at www.GregPalast.com.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=361&row=0
*****************************************************************

La Quintaesencia Emancipatoria de la Revolución Bolivariana

Por Franz J T Lee

¿Qué realmente está en juego el 15 de agosto de 2004 en Venezuela y en el mundo? ¿Cual es la quintaesencia de la Revolución Bolivariana? Definitivamente esta está determinada por la realidad transhistórica de su complemento, es decir por el fascismo global, actualmente liderizado por los EE.UU.

En un sentido normativo, el concepto de “revolución” está determinado por la clase o las clases sociales que realizan esta revolución. Está compuesta de una Afirmación y una Negación. Revolución y contra-revolución. Si la revolución resulta “positiva” o “negativa” para el futuro de la humanidad depende de las clases sociales antagonistas participando en ella a nivel global. Por ejemplo, en cuanto a la Revolución Francesa, tanto el idealista objetivo Hegel como el materialista dialéctico Marx, estaban fascinados con los cambios momentáneos; sin embargo, aquellos que perdieron sus cabezas bajo la guillotina tenían una opinión completamente diferente. También, desde esta revolución capitalista burgués democrática, “revolución” no es la prerrogativa exclusiva de la clase obrera contra sus amos.

En Venezuela, para el fascismo global, para la administración Bush y los oligarcas corruptos, la Revolución Bolivariana significa la “tiranía antidemocrática” y la “dictadura terrorista”, por lo tanto tiene que ser eliminada y sustituida por una “dictadura democrática” durante 10 o 20 años. Para ellos (Venezuela) es parte del “eje del mal”. Según el Presidente Chávez, la Revolución Bolivariana no es Marxista ni es anti-Marxista, bueno, es Bolivariana, como la determinan los compatriotas Bolivarianos actuales.

Desde una perspectiva transhistórica, científica y filosófica, “revolución” es un cierto estado dialéctico acelerado de la acumulación de capital, de la producción, del Proceso de Trabajo. Ya en el “Manifiesto Comunista” y en “El Capital”, Marx y Engels explicaron la revolución contemporánea en su totalidad. La única “Revolución”, la Revolución Francesa-Inglesa-Norteamericana industrial capitalista, que comenzó como un proceso mundial dominante a finales del siglo XVIII, globalizándose continuamente como imperialismo, tiene su contradicción de clases interna: el Capital y el Trabajo, Capitalistas contra Obreros. Ambas partes forman los dos lados dialécticos de la misma revolución, su Afirmación y su Negación respectivamente. Por eso, es indispensable conocer el sistema en el cual efectuamos una revolución, donde queremos cambios desde adentro, dentro de la misma Revolución mundial capitalista. La revolución nació dentro del capitalismo, y terminará con el fin del capitalismo; más allá del capitalismo no hace falta ninguna revolución.

Esto es el contexto transhistórico de la Revolución Bolivariana. Primero, en sus orígenes, comenzando con Bolívar, Miranda, Rodríguez y Zamora, era afirmativa, tenía en mente la realización de la revolución burgués democrático capitalista, la misma que tenían en mente los EE.UU., sólo con objetivos sociales distintos, con otros intereses de clase.

De acuerdo con la constelación global del siglo XIX y la correlación de las fuerzas revolucionarias, los EE.UU. tenían éxito, se convirtieron en la Afirmación Global, y América Latina junto con otras partes de África, Asia, el Caribe, Oceanía etc., se convirtieron en la Negación revolucionaria dentro del sistema mundial. Todas las demás posibilidades fuera del marco global capitalista fueron bloqueadas, no fue permitido ningún éxodo emancipatorio verdadero. De hecho, a través del tiempo, nadie más se podía imaginar otra cosa que trabajar, trabajar como esclavos, comprar, vender, consumir y poseer.

A través del siglo XX, acontecieron al rededor del globo las revoluciones sociales, las negaciones capitalistas internas, en Rusia, China, Yugoslavia, Argelia, Vietnam, Chile, Cuba, etc. Con excepción del último, todos terminaron en un desastre revolucionario completo. La pregunta es ¿por qué?

Hoy, en vísperas del siglo XXI, estamos presenciando un fenómeno revolucionario: la existencia revolucionaria continua de Cuba durante más de 40 años y el surgimiento de la Revolución Bolivariana y la unidad revolucionaria de ambas. ¿Qué es lo que niega? Y como Negación, ¿qué es lo que produce?

Otra vez, para determinar lo que está ocurriendo aquí en Venezuela y en América Latina, tenemos que aplicar la ciencia del movimiento, de las contradicciones, la lógica de la Dialéctica, como la expusieron Kant, Hegel, Marx, Fanon, el Ché y otros sabios y revolucionarios eruditos.

La Negación, la Contradicción, el NO

Primeramente, aquí en Venezuela, el “NO” popular expresa la Negación dialéctica intrasistémica del desarrollo histórico global igual, desigual y combinado, el cual amenaza la existencia de la propia especie humana, niega el llamado “neo-liberalismo”, la globalización, la hegemonía fascista mundial estadounidense-europea. ¿Es este “NO” intra o extra sistémico? ¿Es revolucionario o es revolucionario y emancipatorio?

Dialécticamente, el sistema mundial capitalista corporativo, a través del proceso de trabajo, produce permanentemente su propia negación, los “Marxistas”, los “terroristas”, los “Árabes”, los “Castro-Comunistas” etc., y ahora los “Chavistas”. Se desarrolla a través de su Negación y esto es el secreto de la quintaesencia revolucionaria de la Revolución Bolivariana a nivel global. Aquí está la llave para la práxis-teoría emancipatoria.

Por lo tanto, estudiar la Revolución Bolivariana sólo como un evento histórico aislado, ya es un fracaso. Es parte intrínseca del proceso revolucionario negando globalmente dentro del capitalismo e imperialismo global. Hay que identificar a su práxis concreta y a su teoría social dentro de este contexto histórico. Actualmente, junto a Cuba, forma la punta del iceberg de la Negación global, diciendo “NO” al fascismo mundial.

En este sentido la Revolución Bolivariana es parte intrínseca de la Revolución Mundial, es un producto transhistórico del Capitalismo mismo. Esto es la razón de por qué algunos de los objetivos sociales inmediatos de los proyectos Bolivarianos, en sintonía con otros desarrollos iguales, desiguales y combinados, corresponden con precisión a las principales tareas históricas de la Revolución Francesa e Industrial, que son la industrialización, la Ley de Tierras, la soberanía nacional, la redistribución equitativa del ingreso nacional, etc. Pero también engendra nuevos elementos como por ejemplo un pueblo politizado nunca visto antes en el mundo, no importa el nivel de conciencia social e histórica. La vanguardia de este pueblo en acción ya ha producido “milagros” políticos, superando a golpes militares, sabotajes petroleros, manipulaciones masivas severas y cosas similares las cuales ningún gobierno normalmente hubiese sobrevivido jamás.

Revolución y Emancipación

Ahora, ¿por qué los actuales ataques severos imperialistas corporativos contra Venezuela, contra la OPEP, el ALBA - que es la alternativa al ALCA fabricado por los EE.UU. - contra MERCOSUR, contra la unidad y solidaridad latinoamericana, de hecho contra la solidaridad “tercer mundista”?

El sistema capitalista mismo se encuentra en agonía dialéctica, esto es lo que significan la globalización, la monopolización, la concentración y el fascismo. Esto es el último modo de producción y se expresa en su “crisis energética” - de hecho, una crisis artificialmente creada, porque en realidad hay suficiente energía disponible aquí mismo en la tierra, para ser distribuida como “energía libre” entre todos, hasta entre las hormigas y las ratas.

Esto es, la energía electromagnética, de la “física oculta”, del vacuo, descubierta por científicos como Tesla, Reich, Titarenko, etc. Sin embargo, si se emplease esta energía libre a nivel global en un modo de producción explotador, entonces detonaría la propia esencia dominadora del capitalismo, abriendo espacios para la creatividad, la creación y la emancipación. Por lo tanto, cualquier alternativa como el ALBA, tiene que ser extrasistémica, tiene que ser un éxodo de la producción alienadora actual.

A pesar de esta posibilidad transcendente, científicos como Thomas Bearden y William “Bill” Lyne ya advirtieron que estamos pasando el punto de no regreso, y que el capitalismo y el imperialismo mundial como los conocemos hoy, empleando principalmente el trabajo físico manual obsoleto, desvanecerán en el olvido. La crisis energética capitalista es la crisis vital del sistema, es su senilidad.

Ahora, ¿qué tiene que ver la Revolución Bolivariana Venezolana con esto? A corto plazo, antes del inexorable colapso económico mundial total, la conquista brutal de las restantes reservas de petróleo, gas, agua, oxígeno y biodiversidad es una alta prioridad para el bienestar de la super potencia, EE.UU.; esto también tiene relevancia para sus posibles competidores en cuanto a la hegemonía mundial, Europa, China, India, etc. Además, los oligarcas cleptocráticos de América Latina nunca aceptarán ninguna redistribución equitativa del ingreso nacional a favor de las masas empobrecidas, ni siquiera la “Alianza para el Progreso” de Kennedy los convenció.

Obviamente, esta crisis económica mundial amenaza a Venezuela, a América Latina. Además se está efectuando una transformación del trabajo en el mercado mundial, hacia el llamado “trabajo intelectual” y la “propiedad intelectual”, hacia el “patrimonio de la humanidad”. De hecho, los productos principales del actual mercado mundial provienen de este sector y progresivamente se están botando a billones de trabajadores manuales obsoletos fuera del proceso de trabajo, se están exterminando a través de las “nuevas guerras” de Bush. También el planeta tierra ya está tan contaminado por la sobre-producción, la basura y la destrucción capitalista, que pronto la vida misma podría desaparecer del planeta.

Todo esto afecta a la Revolución Bolivariana, globaliza sus esfuerzos revolucionarios, la convierte en un paradigma emancipatorio para el mundo. Su práxis se convierte en la totalidad de la resistencia obrera, su teoría es la revolución permanente, es dirigida hacia la emancipación, ahora o nunca.

Esto se puede verificar a través de sus proyectos educativos, políticos, económicos y sociales, se puede ver a través de los ataques feroces de los medios masivos globales, a través de las conspiraciones y las operaciones de la CIA, a través del peligro de una intervención violenta estadounidense. Sin embargo, el fascismo global tendrá que aniquilar el iceberg entero, que por demás en cada segundo está incrementándose, para detener su “NO” el 15 de agosto de 2004, y todo lo que vendrá después: la todavía posible Emancipación de la Humanidad. Sin embargo, el espacio y el tiempo se van consumiendo, por lo tanto, la Revolución Bolivariana tiene que globalizarse con más velocidad que la de la luz.

Venezuelan Professor Decries U.S. Expendable Energy Imperialism - "There is sufficient energy available, right here on Earth, to distribute 'free energy' to all, even to the ants and rats. That is, the electro-magnetic energy, of 'occult physics,' from the vacuum, discovered by scientists like Tesla, Reich, Titarenko, etc. ...Applying this free energy globally would ... [open] avenues for creativity, creation and emancipation." (Franz J. T. Lee; VHeadline; Aug. 8)
DaimlerChrysler aims for mass-market, hydrogen-fueled cars in 10 years - Since 1994, DaimlerChrysler has invested US$1 billion in the technology. (Environmental News Network; July 20)
http://greaterthings.com/News/FreeEnergy/Directory/Trends/

**********************************************

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1250

Chavez wins Venezuela's Chavez Triumphant: History
Making Democracy in Latin America

Monday, Aug 16, 2004		Print format
		Send by email

By: Sharmini Peries

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, first elected in 1998 made democratic history today in a triumphant defeat of the recall referendum on his Presidency.

The very Constitution that he championed in 1999, that re-elected him in 2000, allows for a mid-term recall referendum for the President’s term in office. After six years in office, in this recall referendum held on Sunday, August 15th, Chavez lead with a 58% majority. Voters clearly exercised their constitutional right to confirm the President in a historic referenda process, never practiced in the history of this hemisphere.

Under the watchful eyes of over six hundred international observers and media scattered throughout the country, a majority of Venezuelan’s prevented their president from being ousted by a coalition opposition led by Accion Democratica (AD) and the Christian Democrats (COPEI), both parties representing the moderate and ultra right. Renowned international election observer delegations from the Carter Center, Organization of American States (OAS), and European Parliamentarians hailed the referendum process as free and fair.

With this referendum President Chavez’s government has been reaffirmed in a total of eight elections, referendums and plebiscites in six years. Apart from the democratic processes at work, Chavez and his government have withstood the coup d’etat of April 2002, a general lockout orchestrated by the oil-igarchy management and union leadership (CTV) that stalled the country’s oil economy. They have resisted the aggressive private media (press and television alike) that has been carrying out a flagrantly racist character assassination of the Mestizo (Indigenous, Black and White) politically left President.

Chavez escaped an opposition hired Colombian paramilitary’s attempt to assassinate him in May 2004. He has remained popular while a segment of the Catholic church leadership who enjoyed the benefits of aligning themselves with the wealthy tried to diminish his commitment to the Church and the poor. He has jarred the political opposition that is backed by the private media and corporations, not to mention the international private media that continues to frame Chavez as a militant red beret military commander and Chief, in spite of his repeated landslide democratic electoral victories. It has kept the tide out from the oil guzzling empire just north of Caribbean sea, who earned tax free investment and free market opportunities here for 80 years and backed the failed coup d’etat against Chavez in April 2002.

Regardless of this pressure, Chavez remains the only elected leader of a nation that has relentless guts to give continuing volume to his peoples opposition to U.S-led neo-liberalism in the region and economic, political and military aggression the world over. If the social movements who captured the world’s imagination with the slogan "another world is possible" could choose a political leader it should be President Hugo Chavez. Such resistance runs in the veins of Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution provoking left and middle ground political leaders.

In Latin America Chavez received the un-stinted support of progressive political parties such as Lula’s Workers Party (PT) in Brazil that sent a delegation of support this week. The Argentinean government sent two former Presidents: Eduardo Duhalde and Fernando de La Rua of the Peronist party. He receives standing ovations from Latin American Indigenous Rights Movements, Landless Movement of Peasant (MST), and Via Campesinas (Peasants Movement-- 60 million strong world wide).

Chavez enjoys credibility among leftist academics, writers, and artists, who signed a manifesto of support. It included such leading thinkers as Eduardo Galeano (Uruguay), Ahíjaz Ahmad (India), Tariq Ali (Pakistan-England), Manu Chao (Spain-France), Eric Hobsbawm (England), Naomi Klein (Canada), and Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London (England). The letter stated: " we wish to denounce the disinformation campaign that is being orchestrated by the major media and that attempts to characterize Chavez as a tyrant, a President who has consistently respected the rule of law and the country’s Constitution".

Endorsement of the President is now trickling in from the United States. Jesse Jackson dissenting from his own Democratic Party position articulated by the US presidential candidate John Kerry has signed a Chavez campaign letter. A few dozen US citizens including US congressman and Hollywood star Danny Glover are here in Caracas adding their voice to the never ending chants of "Uh ah Chavez no se va" (Uh ah Chavez will not go) that is echoing in the streets.

With yet another massive win under his belt, the real question is will the United States stay out of the internal politics of this country and let President Chavez carry out the democratic mandate of his people, or will they be continuing their overt and covert operations in Venezuela, as they did thirty years ago in Allende’s Chile?

*************************************************