**** Día del Trabajador 2009: Trabajadores del mundo, ¿Ser o no ser?
Por Franz J. T. Lee
**** Contribución teórica a los talleres de Lectura Revolucionaria de Venezuela. **** Súper Depresión: Ernst Bloch y la lucha de clases internacional de los trabajadores.
Por Franz J. T. Lee
**** NUESTRO URL HISTÓRICO:
La Crisis Energética Mundial: El Contexto Venezolano
Por: Franz J.T. Lee
Fecha de publicación: 18/09/04
( Articulo leido aproximadamente 12776 veces)
(ENGLISH VERSION:
Published: Sunday, September 12, 2004
"Franz J. T. Lee: World energy crisis ... the Venezuelan context")
**** New York Times y Yahoo reportaron pérdidas millonarias
**** Chávez designa a Roy Chaderton como nuevo Embajador en Washington

ENCLISH:

**** Labor Day 2009: What is the supreme question of global depression?
By Franz J. T. Lee.
**** Super Depression: Ernst Bloch and international workers class struggle
By Franz J. T. Lee.
**** The Declaration of Cumanáná
April 23rd 2009, by ALBA Member Countries
ALBA
**** Obama's Real Plan in Latin Americ
***** French and German Continental workers protest against plant closures
By our reporting team
**** Obama at the Americas summit: A bid to revive US hegemony
By Bill Van Auken
**** Obama dismisses criticism of Chavez handshake
04/19/2009 @ 4:09 pm
**** Irishman killed after 'plot to assassinate Bolivian president'

Contribución teórica a los talleres de Lectura Revolucionaria.
*****Venezuela. Súper Depresión: Ernst Bloch y la lucha de clases internacional de los trabajadores

Por Franz J. T. Lee

En esta época de emancipación y de la depresión mundial,
¡Trabajadores del mundo: Capten a este fugaz momento histórico y decisivo de las luchas globales de clase!

 A. Una cosmovisión anticipadora y filosófica

Para cambiar la costumbre, vamos a hablar de cosas más agradables, dejar de lado la asquerosa producción capitalista actual, la codicia voraz y los pantanos de Wall Street, las armas de destrucción masiva, las guerras mundiales genocidas, las mentiras, los engaños, las torturas, el terrorismo, las crisis financieras y económicas y ascender esperanzadamente a donde incluso los ángeles temen pisar, hacia los supuestamente inaccesibles riscos sublimes de la creación y la creatividad emancipatoria terrenal.

En cuanto a la conciencia histórica de clase y las luchas de clase emancipadoras de nuestra época, en la introducción de su obra filosófica, "Avicena y la izquierda aristotélica", negando las verdades absolutas osificadas, en otras palabras, mediante la eliminación de la ideología rancia, el filósofo marxista de la esperanza, Ernst Bloch, nos dio una excelente idea científica en la praxis constante y la teoría ágil, en la acción humana viviente y el pensamiento social vivo. Ningún verdadero acto o idea emancipadora jamás puede llegar a ser obsoleto.

Ernst Bloch, siendo él mismo una víctima de la gran depresión y del socialismo nacional alemán, elucidó que el pensar racional y el pensamiento riguroso son eternamente fluyentes. Se centran en el futuro, en el sentido de que hoy es el mañana de ayer. La praxis y la teoría sociales son siempre auténticas, siempre innovadoras. En su totalidad dialéctica estas relaciones y contradicciones humanas se aventuran siempre más allá de cualquier riesgo, son siempre nuevas y originales. Los verdaderos "anticipadores" y emancipadores, a través de su época, durante su preciosa y única existencia terrenal, siempre sueñan con los ojos abiertos hacia adelante con creatividad; existen en el horizonte de los esfuerzos humanos; en el amanecer crean el futuro concreto, oscilan entre la realidad revolucionaria y la posibilidad emancipatoria.

A través de los milenios, nuestro grito de guerra debe ser en las brillantes palabras de Anaximandro: el que no prevé lo imprevisto, nunca lo encontrará. Por esta misma razón, sigue existiendo una posibilidad infinitesimal, por medio de las luchas globales de clase de los trabajadores, para erradicar y aniquilar la monstruosidad capitalista. Según Bloch, en la titánica batalla contra el capitalismo, en la lucha de clases a nivel mundial muy poco se ha ganado, pero también, no todo está perdido todavía, el experimento mundo, el hombre, continúa.

En sus propias palabras, Bloch dijo que toda elegancia podría haber sido pensada siete veces ya; pero cuando se pensó de nuevo en otras épocas y lugares, ya no fue lo mismo. Mientras tanto, no sólo ha cambiado el pensador, sino sobre todo el objeto sobre el cual ha estado pensando. La sabiduría siempre se tiene que verificar de nuevo, y comprobarse como lo Nuevo.

En Venezuela y en América, lo anterior es relevante en nuestros escritos, discursos y debates acerca de un nuevo socialismo y el nuevo hombre del futuro. En este contexto, en la época de una peligrosa depresión, es pertinente refrescar nuestras acciones confusas y pensamientos aturdidos, para activar de nuevo nuestra memoria analítica y para ajustar nuestras reflexiones y acciones sociales hacia los verdaderos tiempos difíciles.

No es más el Día del Trabajador ... somos despedidos, nuestros hogares y nuestras mascotas se han ido ... ¡gritamos SOCORRO!

Sin embargo, como puede testimoniar una década de Revolución Bolivariana, toda nuestra trayectoria histórica la cubre una sana existencia humana y cósmica, los arduos caminos revolucionarios de nuestra génesis, epigenesis y síntesis, de donde venimos, en dónde estamos y hacia dónde vamos. Nuestro quo vadis está en peligro, en todas partes acechan los enemigos, por dentro y por fuera, y sin embargo, es la época del "éxodo" (Bloch), donde se trata de trascender el valle capitalista de lágrimas y dolores; se trata de la ‘exvolución’ ahora o nunca.

La importancia de estas reflexiones, especialmente en vísperas de nuevos ataques planeados, de nuevos rumores sobre posibles golpes de estado, es que la mayoría de los medios de comunicación internacionales, algunos de ellos al borde de la quiebra, minimizan el verdadero desastre y no advierten los trabajadores del mundo acerca de la magnitud apocalíptica del colapso del capitalismo mundial, de esta súper depresión, sus causas, su dinámica, su mortalidad. Tampoco los trabajadores de Venezuela están preparados para hacer frente a los venideros tsunamis de la economía norteamericana, en caso de que colapse el petro-dólar.

George H. W. Bush padre ha formulado el crimen imperialista, corporativo, cardinal y capital de la siguiente manera:

"Si el pueblo norteamericano supiera lo que hemos hecho, nos colgarían a todos en los postes de luz". 1)

Ya J. Edgar Hoover, ex director del FBI, muy conmovido confirmó lo anterior como sigue:

"El individuo se ve obstaculizado de enfrentarse cara a cara con una conspiración tan monstruosa que no puede creer que existe." 2)

Esto no se trata ni de una teoría de la conspiración, ni de la labor diabólica de un anti-Cristo, de figuras individuales o elites. Esto es la dialéctica imperialista mundial capitalista en plena acción, mostrando su peor lado, dejando su sangrienta estela de la muerte a través de las edades. Sólo las luchas globales de clase de los trabajadores todavía pueden aniquilar al Hermano Mayor, el actual Leviatán orweliano.

 
B. Ahora, vamos a resaltar las cosas menos agradables.

El "Nuevo Orden Mundial" dio paso a la actual súper depresión, a esta Gran Grieta, este Gran Colapso.

Medido por los últimos acontecimientos históricos, trabajadores del mundo, ¿qué otra cosa todavía hace falta saber, para convencernos, que el capitalismo como sistema mundial es pura barbarie, es terrorismo global? El horror de la depresión global acaba de empezar y se extenderá en todo el mundo en la próxima década. Todos los acérrimos amantes, creyentes y seguidores del "eterno" capitalismo están ideológicamente convencidos de que en la actualidad nos encontramos tan sólo en un mal temporal; y que pronto el Señor junto con nuestros "grandes líderes", en su próxima cumbre, como siempre volverán a arreglar todo de nuevo. Algunos de nosotros estamos convencidos de que realmente fueron las "ovejas negras", los banqueros imprudentes, que fueron Chávez, Fidel o Mugabe, los que han causado una "crisis financiera" global, la cual, mediante la impresión de más y más billones de dólares inútiles, vamos a superar pronto.

Los medios de comunicación masivos, como Yahoo o el New York Times, sufren millones de pérdidas, el primero está cerrando a su sitio web Geocities. Google videos practica la externalización de sus clientes, el Chicago Sun-Times se encuentra al borde de la quiebra. Y todavía nos “informan” que sólo estamos sufriendo algún tipo de ‘estreñimiento económico’, pronto ... tomando un Eno en lugar de un Evo ... todo estará bien de nuevo. En realidad, un conocimiento político-económico básico puede fácilmente revelar que el imperialismo corporativo sufre de una diarrea crónica sobre-productiva a nivel mundial, se realiza muy poco capital verdadero; la quiebra, los despidos y la caída de las tasas de ganancia nos indican que nos encontramos ante un enorme Krakatoa de revueltas globales, opresión, represión, hambre y miseria. Como modo de producción, el capitalismo se ha convertido abierta y encubiertamente en lo que siempre ha sido: en un modo de destrucción. Actualmente, dentro de tan sólo unos meses, está destruyendo casi la mitad de la riqueza planetaria. Dentro de pocos siglos el capitalismo ha destruido lo que la Madre Tierra ha evolucionado en seis mil millones de años, es decir, la vida en el planeta Tierra.

Durante la última década, aquí en Venezuela, muchos de nosotros comenzamos a entender que las ciencias naturales y la filosofía social, entendidas como práxis y teoría social, pueden cambiar el mundo de manera concreta, pueden iluminar el futuro, es decir, pueden descubrir lo Nuevo, al igual que pasó el 11 de abril de 2002, donde ocurrió algo nunca visto antes y que no se repetirá. Por lo tanto, una revisión de nuestras predicciones, errores y victorias pasadas siempre debe iluminar nuestro fuego revolucionario que brilla en el futuro, que es el futuro.

En este espíritu y en retrospectiva, ¿qué fue lo que pensamos, lo que hicimos y pensamos, y que sigue siendo nuestro quo vadis en la era de la decadencia del capitalismo global?

En este momento hay millones de desempleados sin hogar. Los bancos internacionales, los Tres de Detroit, GM, Ford y Chrysler, incluso Toyota, todos están en graves problemas económicos. Gran Bretaña ahora siente la recesión muy severamente, también el Japón. En los países metropolitanos millones están entrando en las filas del desempleo, la pobreza extrema y el hambre.

Temblores, terremotos, sequías, inundaciones, tsunamis, armas de destrucción masiva (en una palabra, HAARP) pavimentan el Vía Crucis del Tío Sam, acompañados por el Tío Tom, hacia el Gólgota globalizado.

Sí, ya nadie se siente bien, ni la Naturaleza, ni la Sociedad. Milenios de explotación económica, dominación política, discriminación social, genocidio y militarismo, y un holocausto mental, la alienación humana nos han llevado a este colapso global del capital y el trabajo.

¡El Día del Trabajador 2009 será el dramático y traumático 'Día del Socorro' de este siglo, de millones de trabajadores a nivel mundial! Nos guste o no, objetiva, subjetiva y ‘transjectivamente’ sólo hay una real y verdadera solución para la depresión crónica, para la recesión, para el colapso: la aniquilación total del capitalismo mundial mediante la lucha de clases.

C. ¡Ya nada está bien!

Digámoslo como es: ya nada está bien; si esta locura de explotación continua por más tiempo, entonces pronto en la Madre Tierra nunca más estaría bien algo.

Por último, ¿por qué todos estos temblores y terremotos diarios, por qué las erupciones volcánicas repentinas, el insalubre clima, las sequías, las epidemias, los dolores de cabeza, la fatiga y las voces extrañas en nuestros cráneos?

¿Los zombis, los clones, los robots, la tecnología, las máquinas y las computadoras practican el consumismo? ¿Acaso producen plusvalía, ganancias y capital? ¿Por qué estos temas no conforman los titulares del mundo? De las casi 200 "Naciones Unidas", cuántas (y quienes) estaban escuchando la excelente intervención del Presidente Evo Morales de Bolivia sobre la Madre Naturaleza el otro día? Sin embargo, este será un tema de nuestra próxima edición.

En esta época de emancipación y de la depresión mundial,
¡Trabajadores del mundo: Capten a este fugaz momento histórico y decisivo de las luchas globales de clase!

1) http://wikiprotest.com/blog/index.php/2007/06/30/if-the-

americanos-la gente-lo-que-sabía-que-tener-hacer-que-se -

cadena-de-nosotros-de-la-luz-puestos-george-bush-hw /

2) Ibíd.)

franz@franzlee.org.ve
http://www.franzlee.org.ve

**** Labor Day 2009: What is the supreme question of global depression?
By Franz J. T. Lee


"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?  ... "
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet.)

To try to answer the major question of our age, we need not summarize all the thousand fold major expressions of the big crash over the last few months, neither the current 'swine flu' nor the coming 'Spanish Flu'. What is not clear is that the workers of the world have an emancipatory duty to humanity to topple capitalism here and now at its most dangerous but weakest historical moment, at its objective, material collapse, to prevent a coming age of terrorist barbarism, of world fascism beyond imagination. Where should we begin? For America, for Venezuela, could the young Marx, so often cited by President Chavez, give us some revolutionary advice how to achieve a working class consciousness?

Let us look at some events and figures which confirm this inexorable historic tendency.

A while ago, in a commentary "Coming Workers’ Riots in the Metropolis", we described the deplorable situation of the autoworkers of Chrysler, General Motors and of other North American corporate giants. The workers are beginning to see that while they are being told to fasten their belts, to take more pay and job cuts, the billionaires are getting fat bailouts, taken mainly from their taxpayers' money. They learn to see the master-slave relation.

Consequently, they feel being cheated and betrayed by their opulent bosses, by their imposed trade unions which have consigned them to poverty wages. Also, now already they feel economically discriminated by the Obama administration itself. They also complain that fraternity is only valid for ruling class elites and privileged corporate members of the industrial military complex, and that the Democratic party has given them nothing. In this way the seeds of social discontent, mass upheavals, class consciousness and struggles are beginning to germinate, not only in the USA but across the globe. In this way proletarian internationalism and international proletarianism out of vital necessity appear on the horizon of workers' local, national and regional struggles. Due to common class interests and struggles, eventually the General Motors autoworkers of Detroit will meet their colleagues of Opel in Ruesselsheim, Germany.

Certainly, nowadays the divine mills of concentration, monopolization, competition, merging, centralization, outsourcing, corruption and bankruptcy are grinding at breath taking speed. The contemporary situation has become so perverse: financial titans like the Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America Corp. or  Citigroup Inc. are not fearing the specter of global communism or of proletarian class struggle, rather they shiver at just the idea of capitalist State nationalization. Now the capitalists not only favor 'fraternity' but also 'unity', as the Club of Rome suggest a while ago, that is, a unitary World State.

Hence, workers of the world, also unite! Jobless and homeless, now you really have nothing to lose anymore except your exploitative, dominating and discriminating chains. Not only your real chains, but also your mental, religious and ideological chains of illusion and delusion.

For example, just take notice who all are interested in constructing the very economic foundations of a global fascist, authoritarian and totalitarian Leviathan: some members of Congress, former U.S. Federal Reserve Board chief Alan Greenspan, Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman; and also former Fed vice-chairman Alan Blinder, a professor at Princeton University. De facto, economically the U.S. government is already the sole owner of many giant corporations.

All this will not help.

This is the first truly globalized depression; the previous limited one of 1929 already cost Europe and other places tens of millions of lives, decades of fascist horror and terror, including a brutal nuclear world war. This one in its destructive magnitude will be worse.

In how far this concerns the workers of the world? The world recession has already  ransacked our savings, is cutting our salaries, our social benefits for which we fought ever since the dawn of industrialization.

At this moment, all over 'tent cities' in the USA are sprouting up; Global Research reports:  "housing prices accelerated on the downside indicating bigger adjustments dead-ahead. Trend-lines are steeper now than ever before--nearly perpendicular. Housing prices are not falling, they're crashing and crashing hard. Now that the foreclosure moratorium has ended, Notices of Default (NOD) have spiked to an all-time high."
(See: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context
=va&aid=13283)

As mentioned, if this continues in the USA and elsewhere we will soon not only have jobless but also homeless working classes. President Obama can do nothing to stop this collapse of capitalism. This is not a one man job, only the emancipatory, creative efforts of billions can still save humanity in this dreadful era.

This Labor Day, this May Day 2009 ... which will only be celebrated in September in the USA ... is being ushered in under the following ominous 'writings on the wall of woe':

"Market analysts predict there will be 5 MILLION MORE FORECLOSURES BETWEEN NOW AND 2011. It's a disaster bigger than Katrina. Soaring unemployment and rising foreclosures ensure that hundreds of banks and financial institutions will be forced into bankruptcy. 40 percent of delinquent homeowners have already vacated their homes."
(Ibid.)

Yes, for the world proletariat it is 'to be or not to be', is 'to take arms against a sea of troubles'. 'It is the best of times, it is the worst of times', it is the dawn of global class struggles, is to convert capitalist collapse into socialist emancipation. Surely, the 'Age of Aquarius' is also dawning on the galactic horizon.

The historic essence of proletarian international class struggle is based on the scientific recognition that currently we are experiencing a "global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature". This was confirmed by the recent summit conference held in Cumana, Venezuela.

In the Declaration of Cumana, Venezuela, of April 23rd 2009, signed by ALBA Member Countries, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, inter alia, propose to hold a thorough debate on:

"Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong. The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times the real value of the assets and services produced and rendered in the world, this is not a 'system regulation failure', but a integrating part of the capitalist system that speculates with all assets and values with a view to obtain the maximum profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has generated over 100 million additional hungry persons and has slashed over 50 million jobs, and these figures show an upward trend."
( http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4390 )

Obviously, passing across the liberal competitive, the classical imperialist and the modern corporate stages of production and destruction, of hundreds of millions of human victims, now the capitalist Moloch ... following its ìnexorable systemic and structural dialectical tendential economic laws of development ... has completely globalized itself as world depression. Why more than ever workers' class struggle is imperative? What is its socialist philosophic quintessence?

What can we learn from the student, the young Marx? Dedicated to the workers of the world, who have forgotten their past theoretical grandeur and heritage, allow us to quote extensively from a short Marxist document, just as renowned as the famous "Manifesto of the Communist Party".

The young Marx, having just become a scientific socialist in 1843, explained to us the revolutionary genesis in his "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction". This is one of the most quoted writings of Marx, but also one most cited out of context.
Together with the 'Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach' it concerns oscillating proletarian natural scientific revolutionary praxis and social philosophic emancipatory theory; in a nut shell, the dialectical leap from utopian to scientific socialism, to the negation of capitalism, by means of proletarian class struggle.

Marx explained the revolutionary essence of his early writing, the starting point of all social critique and change, as follows:

" For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism." 
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/
critique-hpr/intro.htm)

The whole text, which we quote below, concerns the problem of the mental blockage of religion and ideology which impedes the acquisition of a proletarian class consciousness. From this vantage point the following famous Marx quotes become relevant for global class education and struggle. In this spirit he explains the basics of how to understanding the world out of itself:

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society."

Only as such the following quotations, not divorced from their socialist critique and context, can now be understood. For example, here is a philosophic jewel, a complete quote urgently to be studied and applied in its historical context:

" The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself.".

We suggest that our Bolivarian comrades study this creative Marxist document very carefully, in order to apply scientifically our Declaration of Cumana to American reality, and also to enrich our current 'Misión Lectura", to interpret and change the world into a better place to live in, for billions of human beings and existences.

Finally, as a Labor Day message, what should be the current proletarian task of world revolution in Venezuela, America and elsewhere?

"It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."

franzjutta@cantv.net
http://www.franzlee.org.ve
****

**** Día del Trabajador 2009: Trabajadores del mundo, ¿Ser o no ser?

Por Franz J. T. Lee

Camaradas trabajadores, ¡hay que ganar, tomar armas contra un mar de problemas!

“Ser o no ser: esa es la pregunta:
Si es más noble en la mente de sufrir
Las hondas y flechas de la atroz fortuna,
O tomar armas contra un mar de problemas,
Y ponerles fin oponiéndose? ... “
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet.)

No es necesario resumir las múltiples expresiones del gran colapso en los últimos meses. Lo que no está suficientemente claro es que los trabajadores del mundo tienen una tarea emancipatoria frente a la humanidad que es derrocar el capitalismo aquí y ahora, en su momento histórico más peligroso, pero más débil a la vez; en su colapso material objetivo, para evitar una nueva era de terrorismo bárbaro y de globo fascismo más allá de la imaginación.

Veamos algunos hechos y cifras que confirman esta tendencia histórica inexorable.

Hace un tiempo, en un comentario “Venideros Disturbios de los Trabajadores en las Metrópoli”, describimos el lamentable destino de los trabajadores automotrices de Chrysler, General Motors y otras corporaciones gigantes de América del Norte. Ya los trabajadores están empezando a ver que, mientras se les dice que abrochen el cinturón y que acepten más recortes salariales y de empleo, los multimillonarios están recibiendo inmensos rescates, tomados principalmente del dinero de los contribuyentes.

En consecuencia, se sienten engañados y traicionados por sus jefes opulentos y por sus sindicatos impuestos, que los han condenado a unos salarios de pobreza. Además, ya ahora se sienten discriminados económicamente por la propia administración de Obama. También se quejan de que la fraternidad sólo es válida para las elites de la clase dominante y los miembros corporativos privilegiados del complejo militar industrial, y que el Partido Demócrata no les ha dado nada. De esta manera las semillas del descontento social, las revueltas masivas, las luchas y la conciencia de clase están comenzando a germinar, no sólo en los EE.UU. sino en todo el mundo.

Así nacen el internacionalismo proletario y el proletarianismo internacional, la lucha de clases mundial.

Ciertamente, hoy en día los divinos molinos de la concentración, la monopolización, la competencia, la fusión, la centralización, la corrupción y la quiebra muelen a una velocidad vertiginosa. La situación contemporánea se ha vuelto tan perversa: titanes financieros como el Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America Corp. y Citigroup Inc. no temen el fantasma del comunismo mundial o de la lucha de clases proletaria, más bien tiemblan sólo con la idea de nacionalización del Estado capitalista. Ahora los capitalistas no sólo favorecen la “fraternidad”, sino también la “unidad”, como el Club de Roma sugirió hace un tiempo, es decir, un Estado unitario mundial.

Por lo tanto, ¡trabajadores del mundo, también únanse!

Sólo nótese quienes son los interesados en la construcción de los fundamentos económicos mundiales de un Leviatán globo fascista, autoritario y totalitario: algunos miembros del Congreso, el ex jefe de la Junta de la Reserva Federal de EE.UU. Alan Greenspan, los ganadores del Premio Nóbel, los economistas Joseph Stiglitz y Paul Krugman, y también el ex vicepresidente de la 'Fed' Alan Blinder, profesor de la Universidad de Princeton. De hecho, económicamente el gobierno de los EE.UU. ya es el único propietario de muchas corporaciones gigantes.

Todo esto no ayudará parar la lucha de clases histórica.

Esta es la primera depresión verdaderamente globalizada; aunque más limitada, la anterior de 1929 ya le costó a Europa y otros países decenas de millones de vidas, décadas de horror y terror fascista, incluida una brutal guerra mundial nuclear. La crisis actual será peor en su magnitud destructiva.

¿Hasta dónde esto afecta a los trabajadores del mundo? La recesión mundial ya ha saqueado nuestros ahorros, recorta nuestros salarios y nuestros beneficios sociales para los cuales hemos luchado desde los albores de la industrialización.

En este momento, en los EE.UU. brotan las “ciudades de carpas” en todos lados; Global Research nos informa: “Los precios de la vivienda se aceleraron hacia la baja indicando ajustes más fuertes a corto plazo. Las líneas de tendencia son ahora más empinadas que nunca - casi perpendiculares. Los precios de la vivienda no sólo están cayendo, sino están colapsando y golpeando duro. Ahora, cuando la moratoria de la ejecución de hipotecas ha culminado, los Avisos de Incumplimiento (NOD, por sus siglas en inglés), han alcanzado un máximo histórico”.
(Véase: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13283)

Si esto continúa en los EE.UU. y en otros lugares, pronto no sólo tendremos clases trabajadoras sin trabajo sino también sin hogar. El Presidente Obama no puede hacer nada para detener este colapso del capitalismo. Con todo honor, un gran hombre a solas no hace la historia.

Este Día del Trabajador, este día del socorro 2009 ... que en los EE.UU. sólo se celebra en septiembre ... se está anunciando con los siguientes ominosos “escritos en la pared de penas”:

“Los analistas del mercado predicen que habrán 5 millones de ejecuciones de hipotecas más entre ahora y 2011. Es un desastre mayor que el huracán Katrina. El aumento del desempleo y de las ejecuciones de hipotecas garantizan de que cientos de bancos e instituciones financieras se verán obligados a la quiebra. Un 40 por ciento de los propietarios de hogares delincuentes ya han anulado sus casas.”
(Ibíd.)

Sí, para el proletariado mundial es “ser o no ser”, se trata de “tomar las armas contra un mar de problemas”. “Es el mejor de los tiempos, es el peor de los tiempos”, es el amanecer de las luchas de clase a nivel mundial, y se trata de convertir el colapso capitalista en la emancipación socialista.

La esencia histórica de la lucha de clases del proletariado internacional se basa en el reconocimiento científico de que en la actualidad estamos experimentando una “crisis económica mundial de naturaleza sistémica y estructural”. Esto fue confirmado en la reciente cumbre celebrada en Cumaná, Venezuela.

Por último, en la Declaración de Cumaná, Venezuela, del 23 de abril de 2009, firmada por los países miembros del ALBA, los Jefes de Estado y de Gobierno de Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua y Venezuela, entre otras cosas, proponen a celebrar un debate a fondo:

“El capitalismo está llevando a la humanidad y al planeta a la extinción. Lo que estamos viviendo es una crisis económica mundial de naturaleza sistémica y estructural, y no otra crisis cíclica. Aquellos que piensan que con una inyección de dinero de los contribuyentes y con algunas medidas de regulación, esta crisis termine, están equivocados. El sistema financiero está en crisis debido a que están circulando bonos con seis veces el valor real de los bienes y servicios producidos y prestados en el mundo, no se trata de una “falla de regulación del sistema”, sino de una parte intrínseca del sistema capitalista que especula con todos los activos y valores con miras a obtener las máximas ganancias posibles. Hasta ahora, la crisis económica ha generado más de 100 millones de personas adicionales padeciendo de hambre y ha reducido más de 50 millones de puestos de trabajo, y estas cifras muestran una tendencia al alza”.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4390


Obviamente, atravesando las fases de producción y destrucción liberal-competitivas, imperialista-clásicas y corporativas modernas, pasando por cientos de millones de víctimas humanas, ya el Moloch capitalista ... siguiendo sus inexorables leyes tendenciales económicas del desarrollo dialécticas sistémicas y estructurales... se ha globalizado completamente como depresión mundial. ¿Por qué ahora más que nunca es imprescindible la lucha de clases de los trabajadores? ¿Cuál es su quintaesencia filosófica socialista?

¿Dónde hay que empezar? ¿Dónde comienza la revolución cultural? ¿Qué es lo que podemos aprender del joven estudiante Marx al respecto?

Nos permitimos citar extensamente de un documento marxista, dedicado a los trabajadores del mundo, tan conocido como el famoso “Manifiesto del Partido Comunista” (1848). El joven Marx, que acaba de convertirse en un socialista científico en 1843, en su “Contribución a la crítica de la filosofía del derecho de Hegel, Introducción”, nos ha explicado los asuntos centrales de la educación proletaria. Este es uno de los escritos de Marx más citados, aunque también muchas veces citado fuera del contexto.

Junto con la “Undécima Tesis sobre Feuerbach” se trata de la praxis proletaria revolucionaria científica natural oscilante y la teoría emancipatoria filosófica social; en pocas palabras, el salto dialéctico del socialismo utópico al socialismo científico. Marx explicó la esencia revolucionaria de este escrito, el punto de partida revolucionario de todo cambio y crítica personal y social, como sigue:

“En Alemania la crítica de la religión se halla fundamentalmente terminada. Ahora bien, la crítica de la religión es el presupuesto de toda crítica.”
(http://criticacomunista.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/
introduccion-critica-a-la-filosofia-del-derecho2.doc)
 
El texto completo se refiere al problema de la obstrucción mental de la religión y la ideología que impiden la adquisición de una conciencia de clase proletaria. Desde este punto de vista, las siguientes famosas citas de Marx son relevantes para la lucha global de clases. En este espíritu, Marx explica los fundamentos de la comprensión del mundo desde sí mismo y no a través de la religión:

“El fundamento de la crítica irreligiosa es: el hombre hace la religión, la religión no hace al hombre. Y ciertamente la religión es conciencia de sí y de la propia dignidad, como las puede tener el hombre que todavía no se ha ganado a sí mismo o bien ya se ha vuelto a perder. Pero el hombre no es un ser abstracto, agazapado fuera del mundo. El hombre es su propio mundo, Estado, sociedad.”

Ahora se pueden entender como tales, las siguientes citas, no separadas de su crítica socialista. Aquí hay una cita completa que debe estudiarse y aplicarse en su contexto cultural educativo histórico:

“Cierto, el arma de la crítica no puede sustituir la crítica por las armas; la violencia material no puede ser derrocada sino con violencia material. Pero también la teoría se convierte en violencia material una vez que prende en las masas. La teoría es capaz de prender en las masas, en cuanto demuestra ad hominem, y demuestra ad hominem en cuanto se radicaliza. Ser radical es tomar la cosa de raíz. Y para el hombre la raíz es el hombre mismo.”...

Esto es el contexto real de esta famosa oración fluyente:
"... la teoría (no la ideología) se convierte en violencia (Gewalt) material una vez que prende en las masas. ..."

Sugerimos que nuestros camaradas bolivarianos estudien este documento marxista creativo, junto con las obras de Frantz Omar Fanon, Maurice Merleau-Ponty y Georges Sorel, con mucha atención, con el fin de aplicar científicamente nuestra Declaración de Cumaná a la realidad de América, y también para enriquecer nuestra actual “Misión Literatura”, para interpretar y cambiar el mundo en un lugar mejor para vivir, para miles de millones de seres y existencias humanas.

Por último, ¿cuál debería ser la tarea proletaria actual de la revolución mundial en Venezuela, América y otros lugares?

Según Marx es lo siguiente:

“Tras la superación del más allá de la verdad, la tarea de la historia es establecer la verdad del más acá. Es a una filosofía al servicio de la historia a quien corresponde en primera línea la tarea de desenmascarar la enajenación de sí mismo en sus formas profanas, después que ha sido desenmascarada la figura santificada de la enajenación del hombre por sí mismo. La crítica del cielo se transforma así en crítica de la tierra, la crítica de la religión en crítica del derecho, la crítica de la teología en crítica de la política.” 








**** Super Depression: Ernst Bloch and international workers class struggle

By Franz J. T. Lee



A. An anticipatory, philosophic world outlook

For a change, let us talk about more pleasant things, leave aside the current capitalist productive slime, the ravenous greed and quagmires of Wall Street, arms of mass destruction, genocidal world wars, lies, hoaxes, torture, terror, financial and economic crises and ascend hopefully to where even angels fear to tread, to the seemingly inaccessible sublime cliffs of earthly emancipatory creativity and creation.
Concerning historic class consciousness and emancipatory class struggles of our epoch, in the introduction of his philosophic work, "Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left", by negating ossified, cossified absolute truths, in other words, by eliminating rancid ideology, the Marxist philosopher of hope, Ernst Bloch, gave us an excellent scientific insight into constant praxis and agile theory, into living human action and vivid social thought. No truly emancipatory act or idea can ever become obsolete.

Ernst Bloch, himself a victim of the great depression and of German national socialism elucidated that sound thinking and stringent thought are ever-flowing, over-flowing. They focus on the future, in the sense that today is yesterday's tomorrow. Social praxis and theory are always authentic, always innovative. In their dialectical totality these human relations and contradictions are always venturing far beyond, are always new and original. True "anticipators" and real emancipators across their epoch, in their precious, unique, earthly existence, are always daydreaming creatively forward, ahead; they exist on the horizon of human endeavors; at dawn  they are concretely creating the future, are oscillating between revolutionary reality and emancipatory possibility.

Across the millennia, in the brilliant words of Anaximander, our clarion call must read; who does not anticipate the unexpected will never find it. For this very reason there still exists the infinitesimal possibility, by means of global workers class struggles, to eradicate and annihilate the capitalist monstrosity. According to Bloch, in the titanic battle against capitalism, in global class struggle very little has been won, but also, not everything is lost as yet, The experiment world, man,  continues.

In his own words, Bloch stated that all smartness could have been thought seven times already; but when it was thought again in other epochs and places, it was not the same anymore. In the meantime, not only the thinker but especially that what he has been thinking about have changed. Wisdom always has to verify itself anew, and to prove itself as the New.

In Venezuela and in America, the above is pertinent in our writings, speeches and debates about a new socialism, the new man of the future. Within this context, in the epoch of a dangerous depression, it is pertinent to refresh our hazed deeds and dazed thoughts, to activate our analytic memory anew and to adjust our reflections and social actions towards our real trying times.

It is no more Labor Day ... we are laid off, our homes and our pets are gone ... it is May Day! May Day! S. O. S!

However, as a decade of Bolivarian Revolution can witness, sane human cosmic existence covers our whole historic trajectory, the arduous revolutionary paths of our genesis, epigenesis and synthesis, from where we came, to where we are and to whither we are going. Our quo vadis is in danger, all over within and without the enemies lurk, and yet it is the epoch of "exodus" (Bloch), is to transcend the capitalist vale of tears and sorrows; it is 'exvolution' now or never.

The significance of these reflections, especially at the advent of new planned attacks, of new rumors about possible coups, is that most of the international mass media, themselves in bankruptcy, are minimizing the real disaster and do not warn the workers of the world about the apocalyptic magnitude of the collapse of world capitalism, of this super depression, its causes, its dynamics, its mortality. Also the workers of Venezuela are not prepared to face the coming tsunami of the North American economy, should the petro-dollars collapse.

George H. W. Bush Sr. formulated the imperialist, corporate, cardinal and capital crime as follows:
"If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us all up on lamp posts". 1)

Already J. Edgar Hoover, ex-FBI director, very poignantly confirmed the above as follows:
“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” 2)

This is neither conspiracy theory nor the diabolical work of an anti-Christ, individuals or elites. This is imperialist global capitalist dialectical logic at work, at its worst, bulldozing its bloody trail of death across the ages. Only global workers class struggles can still annihilate Big Brother, the current Orwellian Leviathan.

B. Now, let us highlight less pleasant things.

The "New World Order" ushered in this current super depression, this Big Crack, this Big Collapse.

Measured by the latest historical events, workers of the world, what else do we still need to know, to convince ourselves, that capitalism as a world system is pure barbarism, global terrorism? The horror of global depression has just begun, it will spread worldwide within the next decade.  All the staunch lovers, believers and adherents of 'everlasting' capitalism are ideologically convinced that currently we are just on a bad trip; that soon the good old lord together with our 'great leaders', at the next summit meeting, as always will fix up everything again. Some of us are truly convinced that wicked 'black sheep', reckless bankers, Chavez, Fidel or Mugabe,  have caused a global 'financial crisis', which, by printing more and more trillions of useless greenbacks, we will overcome soon.

Mass media, like Yahoo or the New York Times, are making millions of losses, the former is closing down  Geocities. Google videos is outsourcing its clients, the Chicago Sun-Times files for bankruptcy. And still they 'inform' us that we are just suffering from a type of 'economic constipation'; soon ... by taking an Eno instead of an Evo ...  everything will be fine again. In reality, basic politico-economic knowledge can easily reveal that corporate imperialism suffers from a chronic global over productive diarrhea, very little real capital is being  realized; bankruptcy, layoffs, falling of profit rates indicate that we are facing a huge Krakatau of global revolts, oppression, suppression, hunger, famine and misery. As a mode of production overtly and covertly capitalism has converted itself into what it always has been: into a mode of destruction. Currently within months it is destroying nearly half of planetary wealth. Within a few centuries it could destroy what Mother Earth has evolved in six billion years, that is, life on planet earth.

Over the last decade, here in Venezuela, many of us began to understand that natural science and social philosophy, understood as social praxis and theory, can change concretely the world, can enlighten the future, namely, can unveil the New, like April 11, 2002, which never existed before, and which will not repeat itself again. Hence, a revision of our past predictions, errors and victories should always light up our revolutionary fire which shines future, is future.

In this spirit, in retrospect what did we think, what did we do and think, and what still is our quo vadis in the era of the decay of global capitalism?

At this moment millions are jobless, homeless. The international banks, the Detroit Three, GM, Ford and Chrysler, even Toyota, all are in serious economic trouble. Britain now seriously feels the recession, so does Japan.  In metropolitan countries millions are entering the queues of joblessness, abject poverty and starvation.

Tremors, earthquakes, droughts, floods, tsunamis, weapons of mass destruction (in a word, HAARP)  pave the Via Crucis of Uncle Sam, accompanied by Uncle Tom, towards globalized Golgotha.

Yes, nobody is fine anymore, not Nature, not Society. Millennia of economic exploitation, political domination, social discrimination, genocide and militarism, and a Mental Holocaust, Human Alienation have brought us to this global collapse of Capital and Labor.

Labor Day 2009 will be the dramatic, traumatic 'May Day' of the century, of millions of global workers! Whether we like it or not, objectively, subjectively and 'transjectively' there is only one real and true solution to chronic depression, recession, crack and crash: the total annihilation of capitalism by global class struggle.

C. Nothing is fine anymore!

Let us say it as it is: nothing is fine anymore; if this exploitative insanity should continue for long, then soon on Mother Earth never ever anything would be fine again.
Finally, why all these daily tremors and earthquakes, sudden volcanic eruptions, the unhealthy weather, the droughts, epidemics, headaches, fatigue and strange voices in our skulls?

Do zombies, clones, robots, technology, machines and computers consume, do they produce surplus value, profits and capital? Why do these issues not make world headlines? Of the nearly 200 "United Nations", how many (and who) were listening to the excellent speech of President Evo Morales of Bolivia on Mother Nature the other day? Nonetheless, this will be a topic of our next editorial.

In the meantime, in this epoch of emancipation, of Global Depression: Workers of the world capture this decisive historic fleeting moment of global class struggles!
***
1) http://wikiprotest.com/blog/index.php/2007/06/30/if-the-
american-people-knew-what-we-have-done-they-would-
string-us-up-from-the-lamp-posts-george-hw-bush/

2) ibid.)

**

** NUESTRO URL HISTÓRICO

***** La Crisis Energética Mundial: El Contexto Venezolano

Por: Franz J.T. Lee

Fecha de publicación: 18/09/04
( Articulo leido aproximadamente 12776 veces)

¿Tenemos realmente una “Crisis Energética Mundial? ¿Hay una conexión histórica
global entre esta “crisis” y los dramáticos eventos sociales en Venezuela? y
¿por qué América Latina es una bomba de tiempo revolucionaria?
< style="font-weight: bold;"> Ya en junio 12 del 2002, en un articulo titulado
"La Crisis Energética Innecesaria: Cómo Resolverla Rápidamente", Thomas E.
Bearden, (...) el director de la asociación de distinguidos científicos
(norte)americanos (ADAS) y miembro de la fundación Alpha del Instituto para
Estudios Avanzados (AIAS), explicó la quintaesencia energética de la recesión,
depresión y crisis mundial actual.

Al fin y al cabo, hay que ver los problemas actuales de Venezuela, las guerras
de Afganistán e Irak, las políticas imperialistas de Rusia frente a los pueblos
de los Balcanes, los roles contrarrevolucionarios de Israel en el Medio-Oriente
y de Sudáfrica en el continente africano, dentro del contexto de esta “crisis”.
 

Primeramente, un cuidadoso análisis histórico-político-económico de los procesos
revolucionarios de la acumulación de capital a escala mundial y de los
diferentes modos de producción en el planeta, revelaran que los bien conocidos
cambios dramáticos, dialécticos e intrasistémicos que han ocurrido, involucran
básicamente las transformaciones radicales de energía y de fuentes y recursos
tecnológicos.

Esto vale para todo proceso productivo, desde el hacha de piedra hasta la
computadora, desde el uso de la fuerza del hombre hasta la del caballo, hasta
los “extraterrestres” del Pentágono, hasta los “platillos voladores”
estadounidenses, saliendo de Los Alamos, propulsados por la energía y tecnología
de Tesla, ya conocidos y probablemente parcialmente empleados desde los fines
del siglo 19.

Históricamente, y como parte intrínseca del desarrollo igual, desigual y
combinado, el trabajo de esclavos chocó con el trabajo manual agrícola, el
último sobrevivió y luego – como resultado de la “Emancipación de los Esclavos”
y la “Revolución Industrial” – ambos fueron predominantemente reemplazados por
la producción industrial, por el trabajo moderno de fábrica.

La industria textilera británica necesitaba lana, así que las ovejas obligaban a
los campesinos a abandonar sus tierras ancestrales, la producción de alimentos
disminuyó y leyes para vagos y maleantes eliminaron a los siervos desempleados,
es decir, destruyeron progresivamente los obsoletos recursos energéticos
agrícolas.
Hoy en día, como resultado de una “Revolución Global”, 6 billones de
trabajadores manuales industriales y agrícolas ya obsoletos, como fuerzas
productivas, como fuerzas energéticas, continuamente son eliminados del mercado
global. El llamado “trabajo intelectual”, la “propiedad intelectual”, el
“capital humano” o los “recursos globales sociales y naturales de la humanidad”
– por ejemplo la Amazonía – no sólo introducen el actual estado fascista de un
modo de destrucción global, sino también de un modo pos-productivo de
creatividad y creación aún posible, y por eso alimentan también las fuentes y
los recursos energéticos alternativos ya existentes, que podrían generar
posibilidades trans-revolucionarias y realidades emancipatorias.

Esto es el fondo transhistórico en el cual hay que ubicar y ver la Revolución
Bolivariana, como parte de la punta del iceberg emancipatorio creativo – para
ella, es decir para los millones de pobres de América Latina, ser otra cosa,
ciertamente significaría regresión, estancamiento, vegetación, reforma y
auto-aniquilación.

Venezuela, como uno de los proveedores principales de los ya obsoletos recursos
energéticos a “largo plazo” que son el petróleo y el gas, se ve afectado
directamente por las “nuevas guerras” actuales, por el “modo mundial de
destrucción”; ahora, vamos a resumir lo que un experto en la materia, Thomas
Bearden advirtió, es decir, hasta dónde la “crisis energética” global afecta a
Venezuela y a América Latina, y el por qué de los permanentes ataques feroces,
globales y globalizados contra la Revolución Bolivariana.

Ya en el año 2000, ¿qué fue lo que Bearden nos dijo respecto a la actual “crisis
energética mundial”?

“La crisis energética mundial ahora está motivando las economías de las
naciones. Actualmente existe una demanda creciente a nivel mundial por energía
eléctrica y transporte, la cual depende mucho de los combustibles fósiles,
especialmente del petróleo o sus derivados. Se espera que la resultante demanda
para el petróleo incrementa año tras año. Recientes aumentos agudos en algunas
áreas metropolitanas estadounidenses ya incluyeron la gasolina a un precio de
$2.50 por galón. Al mismo tiempo parece, que la disponibilidad mundial de
petróleo quizás tenía un máximo al comienzo del 2000, si uno toma en
consideración la supuesta inflación de reservas petroleras árabes reportadas.
Desde ahora parece que la disponibilidad de petróleo caerá continuamente,
primero lentamente pero después a paso más rápido.”

En cuanto a las “aproximadamente 160 naciones”, principalmente de Sudamérica,
Africa y Asia, que existen fuera de los grandes países metropolitanos, explicaba
su futuro inmediato:

“El traslado de la fabricación y la producción a muchas de estas naciones es un
traslado a naciones que en esencia son naciones de “trabajo de esclavos”, donde
los trabajadores tienen pocos o ningunos beneficios sociales, donde reciben
sueldos extremadamente bajos, donde trabajan horas largas y no tienen sindicatos
o derechos laborales. Los políticos regionales suelen ser fácilmente
corrompibles así que tampoco hay controles eficaces por parte de los gobiernos.
Esto ha resultado en un regreso de facto al capitalismo feudalista de una era
anterior, cuando se podían exprimir enormes ganancias a espaldas de los
trabajadores empobrecidos y los cheques y balances de los gobiernos eran nulos.”
 

Bearden pronosticó minuciosamente el colapso actual de la economía global:

“Bruscamente, pronosticamos esos factores – y otros ( ) no mencionados – que
están convergiendo a un colapso catastrófico de la economía mundial dentro de
aproximadamente 8 años. Como se está acercando el colapso de las economías
occidentales, se puede esperar una presión catastrófica sobre las 160 naciones
en desarrollo en la medida que las naciones desarrolladas se verán obligadas de
reducir dramáticamente sus pedidos.”

Por lo tanto ¿Cómo se encajan en este cuadro repugnante acciones tan
desesperadas como la de volar a las “Torres Gemelas” y la declaración de las
“Nuevas Guerras” contra Afganistán e Irak, incluyendo el sabotaje petrolero en
Venezuela? y ¿Quienes más son más desesperados? Ciertamente no son Corea del
Norte o Irán, sino en primer lugar la Administración de los EE.UU., con su cara
fascista Bush-Kerry, América Corporativa, pero también la “oposición en
Venezuela”, Carter, Gaviria y Gustavo Cisneros.

“La historia comprueba que naciones desesperadas toman acciones desesperadas.
Antes del colapso económico final, la presión sobre las naciones habrá aumentado
la intensidad y la cantidad de sus conflictos hasta un punto donde los arsenales
de las armas de destrucción masivas, que unas 25 naciones actualmente poseen,
van a ser empleados casi con seguridad absoluta. Como ejemplo nos imaginamos una
Corea del Norte muerta de hambre ( ), lanzando armas nucleares sobre Japón y
Corea del Sur, incluyendo fuerzas militares estadounidenses estacionados allí,
en una respuesta espasmódica y suicida.”

Más adelante explicó las razones capitalistas, corporativas y energéticas de la
instalación del actual “Cuarto Imperio”, y por qué los asuntos en juego son tan
urgentes para la sobrevivencia del actual “orden mundial” y para la “paz
mundial”. En otras palabras, indicó, por qué Irak y Afganistán necesitan “cambio
de régimen”, por qué Irán y Venezuela son los próximos en la lista, y por qué la
“concepción de la democracia” del Presidente Chávez está “anticuada”.

“El gran Armageddon resultante destruirá la civilización como la conocemos, y
quizás una gran parte de la biosfera, por lo menos para muchas décadas. Mi
estimación personal es, que aproximadamente al comienzo de 2007, al curso
energético actual, vamos a haber alcanzado una probabilidad de 80% de este
escenario de la “destrucción final de la civilización misma” que puede ocurrir
en cualquier momento, lentamente aumentándose la probabilidad con el paso del
tiempo. Uno puede discutir sobre el tiempo exacto, mover las fechas por un año o
dos, pero la premisa básica y el marco general del tiempo quedan. No sólo
estamos enfrentando una crisis económica mundial sino también una crisis de
destrucción mundial.”

Bien, hemos pasado el año crítico de 2003 y nos espera lo siguiente:

“La fecha del (año) 2003 parece ser el “punto crítico del no regreso” para la
supervivencia de la civilización como la hemos conocido. Llegando a este punto,
digamos en el 2005, no resolverá la crisis a tiempo, y el colapso de la economía
mundial igual que la destrucción de la civilización y la biosfera aún ocurrirán
casi con seguridad, incluso con las soluciones en mano. ...Esta propia amenaza
se está tejiendo temerosamente en nuestro futuro cercano, en gran parte gracias
a las crecientes e insoportables presiones que los precios del petróleo
causaron. Entonces, dentro de aproximadamente 7 años desde ahora, entraremos al
periodo de la amenaza de un Armageddon Final, salvo si hacemos algo muy, muy
rápido ahora, para resolver la ‘crisis actual de la energía eléctrica
proveniente del petróleo’ de una vez por todas”.

Claro que Thomas Bearden no es un socialista, sólo quiere lo mejor para la
América Corporativa. Así que, según él, ¿qué se requiere para resolver el
problema? Venezuela, escuche cuidadosamente lo que dijo:

“Para evitar el inminente colapso de la economía mundial y/o la destrucción de
la civilización y de la biosfera, tenemos que sustituir suficiente de la
“energía eléctrica proveniente del petróleo”, principal causante de la crisis a
gran velocidad, y simultáneamente sustituir una parte significante del factor
“transporte a base de productos petroleros” también. ...En nombre de toda la
humanidad, ¡vamos a empezar! Si no, al finalizar esta primera década del nuevo
milenio no va a quedar mucho de la humanidad para ver la segunda.”

Otras soluciones propuestas por Bearden se pueden leer en el documento
mencionado antes, sin embargo, según él, ya es demasiado tarde. No se habían
tomado verdaderas medidas para evitar la catástrofe global.

De todos modos, la lutta continua, pero es importante de enfocar el verdadero
contexto histórico de la actual Revolución Bolivariana; ciertamente la solución
de los problemas no se encuentra ni en “fuera Chávez”, ni en “fuera la
oposición”.

Es precisamente esta situación global que ha producido la Revolución
Bolivariana, es su alma mater, su matriz emancipatoria. Tenemos que resolver
nuestros problemas inmediatos de corto plazo, pero hasta esos son dictados por
los procesos y desarrollos transhistóricos de largo plazo. Tenemos que armarnos
prácticamente, militarmente, teóricamente, filosóficamente y creativamente, es
decir, en total, tenemos que entrar en los horizontes de las esferas invisibles,
invencibles, invulnerables y emancipatorias.

Por ahora, definitivamente la Revolución Bolivariana es un excelente y notable
paradigma emancipatorio: ¡Hasta la Victoria Siempre! ¡A Paso de Vencedores!

Articulo leido aproximadamente 12776 veces 

http://www.aporrea.org/actualidad/a9816.html


ENGLISH VERSION:
Published: Sunday, September 12, 2004
Bylined to: Franz J. T. Lee

Franz J. T. Lee: World energy crisis ... the Venezuelan context

 University of Los Andes (ULA) professor Franz J. T. Lee writes: 

Do we really have a "World Energy Crisis"? Is there a global, historical connection between this "crisis" and the dramatic social events in Venezuela? And why is Latin America a revolutionary time-bomb?

Already on June 12, 2000, in an article: "The Unnecessary Energy Crisis: How to Solve It Quickly", T. E. Bearden, LTC, U.S. Army (Retired) CEO, CTEC Inc., the Director of the Association of Distinguished American Scientists (ADAS) and a Fellow Emeritus of the Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS), explained the energetic quintessence of the current world recession, depression and crisis.

In the last analysis, within this "crisis," the current problems of Venezuela, the war on Afghanistan and Iraq, the imperialist policies of Russia vis-a-vis the Balkan peoples, the counter-revolutionary roles of Israel in the Middle East and of South Africa on the African continent, have to be seen.

Firstly, a very careful historical politico-economic study of the revolutionary processes of the accumulation of world capital, of the various modes of production on the planet, will reveal that all the well-known, dramatic, dialectical, intra-systemic changes that have occurred, basically concern the radical transformations of energy and technological sources and resources.

    This applies to all productive processes, from the stone-axe to the computer, from the use of man-power to horse-power, to Pentagon "Aliens", to United States "Flying Saucers", leaving Los Alamos, driven on by Tesla energy and technology, already discovered and partially probably used since the end of the 19th Century.

Historically, as intrinsic part of the even, uneven and combined development, slave labor clashed with agricultural manual labor, the latter survived, then, later, as a result of the "Emancipation of the Slaves" and the "Industrial Revolution", both were superseded predominantly by industrial production, by modern factory labor.

The British textile industry necessitated wool, thus sheep drove the peasants off their ancestral lands, food production diminished, vagrant laws eliminated the unemployed serfs, that is, progressively destroyed the obsolete agricultural energetic resources.

Nowadays, as a result of a "Global Revolution," six billion already obsolete manual industrial and agricultural laborers, as forces of production, as energetic forces, are continually being eliminated from the global market. So-called "intellectual labor," "intellectual property," "human capital" or "global social and natural resources of mankind" ... for example, Amazonia ... not only usher in the current fascist stage of a mode of global destruction, but also of a still possible post-productive mode of creativity and creation, thus, also nurturing already existent, alternative, energetic sources and resources, that could give birth to trans-revolutionary possibilities and emancipatory realities.

This is the trans-historic background in which the current Bolivarian Revolution has to be placed, be seen, as part of the tip of the emancipatory, creative iceberg -- for it, for the impoverished millions of Latin America, to be anything else, surely would mean, regression, stagnation, vegetation, reform, self-annihilation.

Venezuela, as one of the main suppliers of the "long term" already obsolete energetic resources of oil and gas, is directly affected by current "new wars" by the EURO-US "world mode of destruction"; hence, let us summarize what an expert in this matter, Thomas Bearden warned about ... that is, in how far the global "energy crisis" affects Venezuela and Latin America, and why the permanent, ferocious, global, globalized attacks against the Bolivarian Revolution.

Already in 2000, what did Bearden tell us with reference to the current "world energy crisis"?

    "The world energy crisis is now driving the economies of the world nations. Presently there is an escalating worldwide demand for electrical power and transportation, much of which depends on fossil fuels and particularly oil or oil products. The resulting demand for oil is expected to increase year by year. Recent sharp rises in some U.S. metropolitan areas included gasoline at more than $2.50 per gallon already.

    *At the same time, it appears that world availability of oil may have peaked in early 2000, if one factors in the suspected Arab inflation of reported oil reserves. From now on it appears that oil availability will steadily decline, slowly at first but then at an increasing pace."

Concerning the "some 150 nations," mainly of South America, Africa and Asia, who live outside the big metropolitan countries, he explained their immediate future:

"The transfer of manufacturing and production to many of these nations is a transfer to essentially "slave labor" nations where workers have few if any benefits, are paid extremely low wages, work long hours, and have no unions or bargaining rights. The local politicians can usually be "bought" very cheaply so that there are also no effective government controls. This has set up a de facto return to the feudalistic capitalism of an earlier era when enormous profits could be and were extracted from the backs of impoverished workers, and government checks and balances were nil."

Very accurately he foresaw the current collapse of the global economy:

    "Bluntly, we foresee these factors ­ and others { } not covered ­ converging to a catastrophic collapse of the world economy in about eight years. As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders."

Thus, how do the desperate actions of blowing up "Twin Towers" and declaring "new wars" on Afghanistan and Iraq, including oil sabotage in Venezuela, fit into this gruesome picture?

And, who all are more desperate?

Surely, less North Korea or Iran, but in the first place, certainly, the United States Administration, with its fascist Janus-face, Bush-Kerry, Corporate America, but also the "opposition" in Venezuela, Carter, Gaviria and Gustavo Cisneros.

    "History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea { } launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including US forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response."

Below, he explained the capitalist, corporate, energetic reasons for the establishment of the current "Fourth Empire" and why the issues at stake are so urgent for the survival of the current "world order" for "world peace." In other words, he indicated why Iraq and Afghanistan need "regime change," why Iran and Venezuela are next on the list, and why President Chavez' "understanding of democracy" is "out-dated."

    "The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.

My personal estimate is that ... beginning about 2007 ... on our present energy course we will have reached an 80% probability of this 'final destruction of civilization itself' scenario occurring at any time, with the probability slowly increasing as time passes. One may argue about the timing, slide the dates a year or two, etc., but the basic premise and general time frame holds. We face not only a world economic crisis, but also a world destruction crisis."

Well, we have passed the critical year, 2003, the following await us:

    "The 2003 date appears to be the critical "point of no return" for the survival of civilization as we have known it. Reaching that point, say, in 2005 will not solve the crisis in time, and the collapse of the world economy as well as the destruction of civilization and the biosphere will still almost certainly occur, even with the solutions in hand. ... Eerily, this very threat now looms in our not too distant future, due in large part to the increasing and unbearable stresses that escalating oil prices will elicit. So about seven years or so from now, we will enter the period of the threat of the Final Armageddon, unless we do something very, very quickly now, to totally and permanently solve the present "electrical energy from oil crisis."

Of course, Thomas Bearden is not a socialist, he wants the best for Corporate America. Thus, according to him, what is required to solve the problem? Venezuela, listen very carefully to what he said.

    "To avoid the impending collapse of the world economy and/or the destruction of civilization and the biosphere, we must quickly replace much of the "electrical energy from oil" heart of the crisis at great speed, and simultaneously replace a significant part of the "transportation using oil products" factor also. ... In the name of all humanity, let us begin! Else by the time this first decade of the new millennium ends, much of humanity may not remain to see the second decade."

Other solutions that he has suggested, could be read in the document referred to above, however, according to him, it is now already too late. No real measure was taken to avoid a global catastrophe.

    In any event, la lutta continua, but it is important to see the real, true, historic context of the current Bolivarian Revolution; surely, the solution of problems is to be found neither in "away with Chávez" nor in "away with the Opposition."

Precisely this global situation has produced the Bolivarian Revolution, it is its alma mater, its emancipatory matrix. We have to solve our immediate short term problems, but even they are dictated by trans-historic long term processes and developments. We have to arm ourselves, practically, militarily, theoretically, philosophically, and creatively, that is, in toto, we have to enter the horizons of invisible, invincible, invulnerable, emancipatory spheres.

Till now, definitely, the Bolivarian revolution is an excellent, remarkable, emancipatory paradigm: Hasta la Victoria Siempre! A Paso de Vencedores!
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=22749





**** The Declaration of Cumanáná
April 23rd 2009, by ALBA Member Countries
ALBA

Cumaná, Venezuela
We, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the Draft Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons:

- The Declaration does not provide answers to the Global Economic Crisis, even though this crisis constitutes the greatest challenge faced by humanity in the last decades and is the most serious threat of the current times to the welfare of our peoples.

- The Declaration unfairly excludes Cuba, without mentioning the consensus in the region condemning the blockade and isolation to which the people and the government of Cuba have incessantly been exposed in a criminal manner.

For this reason, we, the member countries of ALBA believe that there is no consensus for the adoption of this draft declaration because of the reasons above stated, and accordingly, we propose to hold a thorough debate on the following topics:

1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong. The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times the real value of the assets and services produced and rendered in the world, this is not a “system regulation failure”, but a integrating part of the capitalist system that speculates with all assets and values with a view to obtain the maximum profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has generated over 100 million additional hungry persons and has slashed over 50 million jobs, and these figures show an upward trend.

2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market and profit. Each year we consume one third more of what the planet is able to regenerate. With this squandering binge of the capitalist system, we are going to need two planets Earth by the year 2030.

3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet. To avert this outcome, it is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on:

- solidarity and complementarity, not competition;
- a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources;
- a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries;
- a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars;
- in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise.

4. As a concrete expression of the new reality of the continent, we, Caribbean and Latin American countries, have commenced to build our own institutionalization, an institutionalization that is based on a common history dating back to our independence revolution and constitutes a concrete tool for deepening the social, economic and cultural transformation processes that will consolidate our full sovereignty. ALBA-TCP, Petrocaribe or UNASUR, mentioning merely the most recently created, are solidarity-based mechanisms of unity created in the midst of such transformations with the obvious intention of boosting the efforts of our peoples to attain their own freedom. To face the serious effects of the global economic crisis, we, the ALBA-TCP countries, have adopted innovative and transforming measures that seek real alternatives to the inadequate international economic order, not to boost their failed institutions. Thus, we have implemented a Regional Clearance Unitary System, the SUCRE, which includes a Common Unit of Account, a Clearance Chamber and a Single Reserve System. Similarly, we have encouraged the constitution of grand-national companies to satisfy the essential needs of our peoples and establish fair and complementary trade mechanisms that leave behind the absurd logic of unbridled competition.

5. We question the G20 for having tripled the resources of the International Monetary Fund when the real need is to establish a new world economic order that includes the full transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, entities that have contributed to this global economic crisis with their neoliberal policies.

6. The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order.

7. As for climate change, developed countries are in an environmental debt to the world because they are responsible for 70% of historical carbon emissions into the atmosphere since 1750. Developed countries should pay off their debt to humankind and the planet; they should provide significant resources to a fund so that developing countries can embark upon a growth model which does not repeat the serious impacts of the capitalist industrialization.

8. Solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises should be comprehensive and interdependent. We cannot solve a problem by creating new ones in fundamental areas for life. For instance, the widespread use of agricultural fuels has an adverse effect on food prices and the use of essential resources, such as water, land and forests.

9. We condemn the discrimination against migrants in any of its forms. Migration is a human right, not a crime. Therefore, we request the United States government an urgent reform of its migration policies in order to stop deportations and massive raids and allow for reunion of families. We further demand the removal of the wall that separates and divides us, instead of uniting us. In this regard, we petition for the abrogation of the Law of Cuban Adjustment and removal of the discriminatory, selective Dry Feet, Wet Feet policy that has claimed human losses. Bankers who stole the money and resources from our countries are the true responsible, not migrant workers. Human rights should come first, particularly human rights of the underprivileged, downtrodden sectors in our society, that is, migrants without identity papers. Free movement of people and human rights for everybody, regardless of their migration status, are a must for integration. Brain drain is a way of plundering skilled human resources exercised by rich countries.

10. Basic education, health, water, energy and telecommunications services should be declared human rights and cannot be subject to private deal or marketed by the World Trade Organization. These services are and should be essentially public utilities of universal access.

11. We wish a world where all, big and small, countries have the same rights and where there is no empire. We advocate non-intervention. There is the need to strengthen, as the only legitimate means for discussion and assessment of bilateral and multilateral agendas in the hemisphere, the foundations for mutual respect between states and governments, based on the principle of non-interference of a state in the internal affairs of another state, and inviolability of sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples. We request the new Government of the United States, the arrival of which has given rise to some expectations in the hemisphere and the world, to finish the longstanding and dire tradition of interventionism and aggression that has characterized the actions of the US governments throughout history, and particularly intensified during the Administration of President George W. Bush. By the same token, we request the new Government of the United States to abandon interventionist practices, such as cover-up operations, parallel diplomacy, media wars aimed at disturbing states and governments, and funding of destabilizing groups. Building on a world where varied economic, political, social and cultural approaches are acknowledged and respected is of the essence.

12. With regard to the US blockade against Cuba and the exclusion of the latter from the Summit of the Americas, we, the member states of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America, reassert the Declaration adopted by all Latin American and Caribbean countries last December 16, 2008, on the need to end the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the Government of the United States of America on Cuba, including the implementation of the so-called Helms-Burton Act. The declaration sets forth in its fundamental paragraphs the following:

“CONSIDERING the resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly on the need to finish the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba, and the statements on such blockade, which have been approved in numerous international meetings.

“WE AFFIRM that the application of unilateral, coercive measures affecting the wellbeing of peoples and hindering integration processes is unacceptable when defending free exchange and the transparent practice of international trade.

“WE STRONGLY REPEL the enforcement of laws and measures contrary to International Law, such as the Helms-Burton Act, and we urge the Government of the United States of America to finish such enforcement.

“WE REQUEST the Government of the United States of America to comply with the provisions set forth in 17 successive resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly and put an end to the economic, trade and financial blockade on Cuba.”

Additionally, we consider that the attempts at imposing the isolation of Cuba have failed, as nowadays Cuba forms an integral part of the Latin American and Caribbean region; it is a member of the Rio Group and other hemispheric organizations and mechanisms, which develops a policy of cooperation, in solidarity with the countries in the hemisphere; which promotes full integration of Latin American and Caribbean peoples. Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to justify its exclusion from the mechanism of the Summit of the Americas.

13. Developed countries have spent at least USD 8 billion to rescue a collapsing financial structure. They are the same that fail to allocate the small sums of money to attain the Millennium Goals or 0.7% of the GDP for the Official Development Assistance. Never before the hypocrisy of the wording of rich countries had been so apparent. Cooperation should be established without conditions and fit in the agendas of recipient countries by making arrangements easier; providing access to the resources, and prioritizing social inclusion issues.

14. The legitimate struggle against drug trafficking and organized crime, and any other form of the so-called “new threats” must not be used as an excuse to undertake actions of interference and intervention against our countries.

15. We are firmly convinced that the change, where everybody repose hope, can come only from organization, mobilization and unity of our peoples.

As the Liberator wisely said:

Unity of our peoples is not a mere illusion of men, but an inexorable decree of destiny. — Simón Bolívar
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4390



**** Obama's Real Plan in Latin America

April 22nd 2009, by Shamus Cooke
At first glance Obama seems to have softened U.S. policy toward Latin America, especially when compared to his predecessor.  There has been no shortage of editorials praising Obama’s conciliatory approach while comparing it to FDR’s ”Good Neighbor” Latin American policy.

It’s important to remember, however, that FDR’s vision of being neighborly meant that the U.S. would merely stop direct military interventions in Latin America, while reserving the right to create and prop up dictators, arm and train unpopular regional militaries, promote economic dominance through free trade and bank loans, conspire with right-wing groups, etc…

And although Obama’s policy towards Latin America has a similar subversive feeling to it, many of FDR’s methods of dominance are closed to him.  Decades of U.S. “good neighbor” policy in Latin America resulted in a continuous string of U.S. backed military coups, broken-debtor economies, and consequently, a hemisphere-wide revolt.

Many of the heads of states that Obama mingled with at the Summit of the Americas came to power because of social movements born out of opposition to U.S. foreign policy.  The utter hatred of U.S. dominance in the region is so intense that any attempt by Obama to reassert U.S. authority would result in a backlash, and Obama knows it.

Bush had to learn this the hard way, when his pathetic attempt to tame the region led to a humiliation at the 2005 Summit, where for the first time Latin American countries defeated yet another U.S. attempt to use the Organization of American States (O.A.S.), as a tool for U.S. foreign policy.

But while Obama humbly discussed hemispheric issues on an “equal footing” with his Latin American counterparts at the recent Summit of Americas, he has subtly signaled that U.S. foreign policy will be business as usual.

The least subtle sign that Obama is toeing the line of previous U.S. governments — both Republican and Democrat — is his stance on Cuba.   Obama has postured as being a progressive when it comes to Cuba by relaxing some travel and financial restrictions, while leaving the much more important issue, the economic embargo, firmly in place.

When it comes to the embargo, the U.S. is completely unpopular and isolated in the hemisphere.  The U.S. two-party system, however, just can’t let the matter go.

The purpose of the embargo is not to pressure Cuba into being more democratic: this lie can be easily refuted by the numerous dictators the U.S. has supported in the hemisphere, not to mention dictators the U.S. is currently propping up all over the Middle East and elsewhere. 

The real purpose behind the embargo is what Cuba represents.  To the entire hemisphere, Cuba remains a solid source of pride.  Defeating the U.S. Bay of Pigs invasion while remaining fiercely independent in a region dominated by U.S. corporations and past government interventions has made Cuba an inspiration to millions of Latin Americans.  This profound break from U.S. dominance — in its “own backyard” no less — is not so easily forgiven. 

There is also a deeper reason for not removing the embargo.  The foundation of the Cuban economy is arranged in such a way that it threatens the most basic philosophic principle shared by the two-party system: the market economy (capitalism).

And although the “fight against communism” may seem like a dusty relic from the cold war era, the current crisis of world capitalism is again posing the question:  is there another way to organize society?

Even with Cuba’s immense lack of resources and technology (further aggravated by the U.S. embargo), the achievements made in healthcare, education, and other fields are enough to convince many in the region that there are aspects of the Cuban economy — most notably the concept of producing to meet the needs of all Cubans and NOT for private profit — worth repeating.

Hugo Chavez has been the Latin American leader most inspired by the Cuban economy.  Chavez has made important steps toward breaking from the capitalist economic model and has insisted that socialism is “the way forward” — and much of the hemisphere agrees.

This is the sole reason that Obama continues the Bush-era hostility towards Chavez.  Obama, it is true, has been less blunt about his feelings towards Chavez, though he has publicly stated that Chavez “exports terrorism” and is an “obstacle to progress.”  Both accusations are, at best, petty lies.  Chavez drew the correct conclusion of the comments by saying:

“He [Obama] said I'm an obstacle for progress in Latin America; therefore, it must be removed, this obstacle, right?”

It’s important to point out that, while Obama was “listening and learning” at the Summit of Americas, the man he appointed to coordinate the summit, Jeffrey Davidow, was busily spewing anti-Venezuelan venom in the media.

This disinformation is necessary because of the “threat” that Chavez represents.  The threat here is against U.S. corporations in Venezuela, who feel, correctly, that they are in danger of being taken over by the Venezuelan government, to be used for social needs in the country instead of private profit.  Obama, like his predecessor, believes that such an act would be against “U.S. strategic interests,” thus linking the private profit of mega-corporations acting in a foreign country to the general interests of the United States.

In fact, this belief that the U.S. government must protect and promote U.S. corporations acting abroad is the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, not only in Latin America, but the world.

Prior to the revolutionary upsurges that shook off U.S. puppet governments in the region, Latin America was used exclusively by U.S. corporations to extract raw materials at rock bottom prices, using cheap labor to reap super profits, while the entire region was dominated by U.S. banks.

Things have since changed dramatically.  Latin American countries have taken over industries that were privatized by U.S. corporations, while both Chinese and European companies have been given the green light to invest to an extent that U.S. corporations are being pushed aside.

To Obama and the rest of the two-party system, this is unacceptable.  The need to reassert U.S. corporate control in the hemisphere is high on the list of Obama’s priorities, but he’s going about it in a strategic way, following the path paved by Bush.

After realizing that the U.S. was unable to control the region by more forceful methods (especially because of two losing wars in the Middle East), Bush wisely chose to fall back a distance and fortify his position.  The lone footholds available to Bush in Latin America were, unsurprisingly, the only two far-right governments in the region: Colombia and Mexico.

Bush sought to strengthen U.S. influence in both governments by implementing Plan Colombia first, and the Meridia Initiative second (also known as Plan Mexico).  Both programs allow for huge sums of U.S. taxpayer dollars to be funneled to these unpopular governments for the purpose of bolstering their military and police, organizations that in both countries have atrocious human rights records.

In effect, the diplomatic relationship with these strong U.S. “allies” — coupled with the financial and military aide, acts to prop up both governments, which possibly would have fallen otherwise (Bush was quick to recognize Mexico’s new President, Calderon, despite evidence of large-scale voter fraud).   Both relationships were legitimized by the typical rhetoric: the U.S. was helping Colombia and Mexico fight against “narco-terrorists.”

The full implication of these relationships was revealed when, on March 1st 2008, the Colombian military bombed a FARC base in Ecuador without warning (the U.S. and Colombia view the FARC as a terrorist organization).  The Latin American countries organized in the “Rio Group” denounced the raid, and the region became instantly destabilized (both Bush and Obama supported the bombing).

The conclusion that many in the region have drawn — most notably Chavez — is that the U.S. is using Colombia and Mexico as a counterbalance to the loss of influence in the region.  By building powerful armies in both countries, the potential to intervene in the affairs of other countries in the region is greatly enhanced.

Obama has been quick to put his political weight firmly behind Colombia and Mexico.  While singing the praises of Plan Colombia, Obama made a special trip to Mexico before the Summit of the Americas to strengthen his alliance with Felipe Calderon, promising more U.S. assistance in Mexico’s “drug war.”

What these actions make clear is that Obama is continuing the age old game of U.S. imperialism in Latin America, though less directly than previous administrations.  Obama’s attempt at “good neighbor” politics in the region will inevitably be restricted by the nagging demands of “U.S. strategic interests,” i.e., the demands of U.S. corporations to dominate the markets, cheap labor, and raw materials of Latin America.  And while it is one thing to smile for the camera and shake the hands of Latin American leaders at the Summit of the Americas, U.S. corporations will demand that Obama be pro-active in helping them reassert themselves in the region, requiring all the intrigue and maneuvering of the past.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4388



***** French and German Continental workers protest against plant closures
By our reporting team
25 April 2009

On April 23, German and French workers employed by the Continental tire company conducted a joint protest against plant closures and mass redundancies in the German city of Hannover. The jobs of around 3,000 employees are threatened by the company’s plan to close two of its factories - its German plant in Hanover-Stöcken and its Clairoix factory in northern France.

The demonstration and protest in Hanover was the first joint action to be taken by the two workforces in neighboring countries. German Conti workers cheerfully welcomed more than a thousand French colleagues who arrived early Thursday morning in Hanover in a specially chartered train from France.
Demonstration through HanoverDemonstration through Hanover

French workers had traveled to Germany to conduct a protest in front of the general meeting of shareholders of Continental and the Schaeffler family concern held in the Hanover congress center on Thursday. The meeting confirmed the intentions of the company to axe at least 1,900 jobs - 1,120 in Clairoix and 780 in Hanover-Stöcken. Continental chief executive Karl Thomas Neumann told the assembled shareholders that in the current month of April almost half of its German workforce was working short time.

Since the beginning of the year, Continental has axed the jobs of 7,000 of its total worldwide workforce of 133,000, and further jobs cuts and plant closures are being prepared. Neumann openly threatened at the meeting to enforce mass redundancies when he declared that in the near future in Germany it “would no longer be possible to proceed further on the basis of short-time working”.
Congress centerCongress center

In implementing its policy of massive cuts at a number of plants, the Continental management and its shareholders can rely on the close co-operation of trade union leaders. Evidently under pressure from the company’s workers, union representatives made some radical speeches at the rally on Thursday but gave no concrete commitments. The only assurance given to workers protesting in front of the congress center was the demand by building union leader Werner Bischoff (IG-BCE) that the company supervisory board, which includes union representatives, and not solely the management of the group should decide on the future fate of factories.

Bischoff, who is the deputy head of the Conti supervisory board, boasted that a few weeks ago he had worked together with the management in an “unbureaucratic and responsible” manner. “As the person responsible for contract policy I can list off completely the special condition clauses, i.e. contract concessions which all bear my signature” Bischoff conceded.

In fact no less than ten workers’ delegates sit on the Conti supervisory board in Germany, alongside Bischoff: Hartmut Meine, IG Metall district head in Lower Saxony and Saxonia-Anhalt; Jörg Köhlinger, trade union secretary for the IG Metall in Frankfurt; Hans Fischl, joint works council chairman - Automotive GmbH Regensburg; Michael Iglhaut, joint works council chairmen - Teves Frankfurt; Jörg Schönfelder, chairman of the shop stewards committee - ContiTech Korbach; etc. All of these representatives of the workforce receive handsome payment for their services, but none of them has conducted any serious struggle against the management’s closure plans.

The French trade union leaders also pursue a policy of class collaboration and carry out regular consultations with the French government.

“There have been so many concessions made from the employees’ side lately...we feel we are just being played around with,” one worker from Hanover-Stöcken told a reporting team from the World Socialist Web Site.

Like many other participants in Thursday’s protest, this worker thought it was “absolutely great” that so many colleagues had come from France. “I am struck by their determination to fight for jobs,” he said. “Now every worker must realize he is no longer just defending his own factory. All of Europe is affected,” he added.

Many of those taking part in the protest expressed interest in the WSWS articles in German and French, which were distributed by the members of the WSWS team.

German Continental workers had gathered at Hanover’s main rail station early Thursday morning to greet their French colleagues arriving in the chartered train from Clairoix.
Arrival of workers from ClairoixArrival of workers from Clairoix

The assembled German workers carried placards in two languages declaring: “Cher collègues de Clairoix, bienvenue à Hanovre” [Dear colleagues from Clairoix, welcome to Hanover], as well as: “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” When the French contingent finally arrived, German workers took up their slogan: “Tous ensemble, Continental - solidarité”.

Although the French workers had traveled through the night, they were in good spirits and very happy to talk to the WSWS team.

Jonathan and Ludovic are two young workers from Clairoix: “This is my second year working at the factory in Clairoix, my father, however, has already worked there for 25 years”, Jonathan told us. “This is my first international demonstration. Everything is changing now; many people are beginning to wake up. In France nearly everybody has taken to the streets.

“In Compiègne we organized a demonstration of 12,000 in a small town with 60,000 inhabitants. The turnout was impressive, including the whole factory and all their relatives and acquaintances. There everything was completely peaceful. Not like it was two days ago when workers reacted with fury because we felt we had been cheated.”
Ludovic (right) Jonathan (left)Ludovic (right) Jonathan (left)

The two young workers were alluding to events on Tuesday, when workers learned of the decision by the Tribunal de Sarreguemines, to uphold the dismissals in Clairoix. Earlier, Nicholas Sarkozy had stirred some hopes that the French government would intervene on behalf of workers; the court decision, however, sealed the closure of the factory and the dismissal of 1,120 workers. A number of workers reacted angrily and rampaged through the prefecture of Compiègne and a reception building of the factory.

René and Francis, two older workers, explained the background to this reaction: “We only learned from the press that our factory had been closed. We have been unemployed since yesterday. We lodged an appeal with the court, but on Tuesday the court decided against us. The anger was widespread; the government had cheated us completely.”

They also explained the prehistory of the dispute at their factory. In France the officially valid 35 hour week had been converted some months ago into a 40-hour week, although the workforce was opposed to the move. The trade unions had insisted on the measure in return for a promise to guarantee jobs until 2012.

Workers have now learned in a brutal fashion that this guarantee is worthless. “It is the employers who ruin everything!” René said. “Nobody wants it, but the way things are going a confrontation is inevitable.”

Eric and Jean Marie had also worked at the Clairoix factory until yesterday, Eric for eight years, and his friend for 27 years. “We were completely hoodwinked,” Jean Marie reported. “We had a firm job guarantee but its function was merely to throw sand into our eyes. It is the shareholders alone who determine what happens with the companies.” Eric added: “The shareholders are only interested in stuffing their pockets. It is clear that we do not agree with this.”
Eric and Jean MarieEric and Jean Marie

Wolfgang N. and Steffen L. work at Continental in Hanover-Stöcken.

“A whole factory is being destroyed,” Wolfgang declared, “and it is the workers who have to pay the price. Those at the top aren’t worried, they have put enough aside in their piggy banks. The capitalists shift the burden onto us; our wages are for them just expenses. But when we have no money, then who is going to buy their products?”
Wolfgang (left) Steffen (center)Wolfgang (left) Steffen (center)

Steffen was very pleased to see his French colleagues: “Something like this has not taken place so far, that colleagues come from France and we take to the streets together.” Steffen works as a machine-builder, but he emphasizes that “the social plan for the Conti workers also affects us. We will probably have to give up our jobs in favor of older colleagues from the truck tire manufacturing plant. We are already working short-time and spend half our time at home. A social plan - it sounds good but for us it was a big blow. The mood in the factory is at rock bottom and there is a lot of anger because the truck factory is making profits.”

Forelli and his Italian colleagues from the drive belt and traction plant in Hanover Vahrenwalderstraße have already been working short time for a number of weeks. “So far workers have only defended their interests on the basis of factory to factory, but it cannot go on like this,” Forelli declared. “Continental is playing us off one against the other and now we have to show our teeth - together.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/demo-a25.shtml




**** New York Times y Yahoo reportaron pérdidas millonarias  
La firma New York Times Co. reportó este martes una pérdida neta de 74,5 millones de dólares en el primer trimestre de 2009, mientras el ingreso por publicidad se hundió casi 30%.
Los ingresos de Times Co., que incluyen los resultados del Boston Globe y otros periódicos, bajó 18,6% a 609 millones de dólares de 747,9 millones en el mismo período de 2008.

Times, que registró una pérdida de 335.000 dólares en el primer trimestre del año pasado, señaló que el ingreso por publicidad en su publicación cayó 28,4% en el primer trimestre de 2009, incluyendo un descenso de 8% en la publicidad en línea en su News Media Group.
El New England Media Group, que incluye al Boston Globe y Boston.com, registró un repliegue de 31,4% en sus ingresos publicitarios.

BENEFICIO DE YAHOO SE HUNDE CASI 80% EN PRIMER TRIMESTRE DE 2009

.
http://economia.noticias24.com/noticia/3390/new-york-times
-y-yahoo-reportaron-perdidas-millonarias/



**** Obama dismisses criticism of Chavez handshake
04/19/2009 @ 4:09 pm

Filed by Agence France-Presse

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PORT OF SPAIN — President Barack Obama defended on Sunday his amicable first encounter with Venezuelan leader and anti-US firebrand Hugo Chavez, which critics back home assailed as naiive and "irresponsible".

"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interest of the United States," Obama told reporters at the close of a Summit of the Americas.

But, he stressed he still had concerns about Venezuela and Chavez's often heated rhetoric.

"I have great differences with Hugo Chavez on matters of economic policy and matters of foreign policy," Obama said.

"There have been instances in which we've seen Venezuela interfere with some of the countries that surround Venezuela in ways that I think are a source of concern," he added.

Obama and Chavez met here Friday at the opening of a 34-nation Americas summit and photos of the encounter showed the US leader smiling as he shook the Venezuelan's hand and patted him on the shoulder.

Chavez was said to have told Obama: "I shook hands with (former US president George W.) Bush with this hand eight years ago. I want to be your friend."

Obama responded by thanking Chavez, the official said.

US officials confirmed the encounter, but said Obama had simply presented himself to Chavez with a "How are you?" and left after shaking hands.

An opposition lawmaker on Sunday said Obama's handling of the meeting confirmed conservatives' concerns that the Democratic president would not be tough enough on the United States' adversaries.

"I think it was irresponsible for the president to be seen kind of laughing and joking with Hugo Chavez," said Republican Senator John Ensign on CNN Sunday.

"This is a person who is one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world," Ensign said, calling Chavez "a brutal dictator".

"When you're talking about the prestige of the United States and the presidency of the United States, you have to be careful who you're seeing joking around with," he said.

Obama said he'd heard such criticisms throughout his campaign for the US presidency and dismissed them as nonsense.

"The whole notion was that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness," he said.

"The American people didn't buy it. And there's a good reason the American people didn't buy it, it doesn't make sense."

Newspapers around the world ran the photo of the handshake with speculation that the long antagonism between Washington and Caracas might be overcome.

But Sunday Obama downplayed his interaction with Chavez as not particularly unique, noting conversations with other US critics, including Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Bolivia's Evo Morales.

"I had meetings with all the leaders involved, including Ortega, who was the chair person of the Central American meeting," he said.

"I had very cordial conversations with President Morales and I think it's just that President Chavez is better at positioning the cameras," he said. 
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.cedb
789c060f4b693e2a6e7ead4d1f96.601&show_article=1





**** Obama at the Americas summit: A bid to revive US hegemony
By Bill Van Auken
17 April 2009

With his trip to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago at the end of this week, President Barack Obama is attempting to put a new face on American imperialism’s pursuit of its strategic interests in Latin America, a region where the US once asserted unchallenged hegemony.

These summits were first launched in 1994 by the Clinton administration with a meeting in Miami. Their principal purpose over the next decade was to further Washington’s agenda of establishing a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) based on US domination and “free-market” capitalism. This meant the scrapping of all barriers to foreign capitalist investment, deregulation of financial markets and the wholesale privatization of public enterprises and basic services.

The Clinton administration had set a 2005 target date for the completion of such a treaty, while George W. Bush sought to move it up to 2003. Neither target was reached, and the last summit, held in the Argentine resort of Mar del Plata, was a debacle for Washington. Bush faced mass demonstrations in the streets and at the summit itself a rejection of the US agenda by the major South American powers joined in the Mercosur trading bloc. For the first time, the final communiqué of the summit included conflicting statements by governments for and against the FTAA.

That summit marked a low point in US influence in Latin America and effectively buried the prospects for a US-led hemisphere-wide free trade zone.

Obama’s task in Latin America—as it was in his recent trip to Europe—is to repair some of the damage done by the aggressively unilateralist policies of the Bush administration over the previous eight years.

Under the Bush administration, Washington’s Latin America policy was relegated to the back burner. On the one hand, it consisted of an attempt to foist a series of bilateral free trade agreements onto countries in Central America and the Caribbean. On the other, it sought to use the “war on terrorism” and the crackdown on drugs as a means to reassert US military dominance in the region, while maintaining an economic embargo against Cuba and seeking to destabilize left nationalist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

While adopting a different tone than that of the Bush administration—Obama’s aides have stressed that he is going to the summit to “listen”—it is not at all clear that he has any coherent new policy. Indeed, the chief State Department official in charge of Latin American policy, Under Secretary Thomas Shannon, is a holdover from the Bush administration.

The summit itself has little in the way of an agenda. A draft declaration entitled ‘Securing Our Citizens’ Future by Promoting Human Prosperity, Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability” is a largely meaningless document containing a laundry list of empty promises to fight against poverty, unemployment and social inequality, combined with declarations of firm support for the system of capitalist free trade and investment that has created these conditions.

The document also includes a lengthy section on “Promoting Energy Security”—a major concern for the US, which derives 30 percent of its oil imports from the region.

On this key issue, the declaration has the following to say: “Recognizing that the issues of the availability, cost and security of our energy supplies, our economic competitiveness and the sustainability of our environment are closely intertwined, we commit to the development of a coherent policy framework that takes into consideration our diverse situations, circumstances and opportunities and allows for the simultaneous strengthening and diversification of all our economies.”

The same type of long-winded platitudes prevails throughout the statement, masking the profound social and economic crisis confronting masses of working people in the region.

What makes the statement even more irrelevant is that it was drafted in September of last year, before Wall Street’s meltdown unleashed a global slide into depression.

While initially Latin American leaders affirmed that they would be little affected by the financial crisis in the US—Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva replied “Go ask Bush” when asked about the financial meltdown—the impact is now being widely felt in the form of mass layoffs and capital flight.

On the eve of the summit, the World Bank issued a report predicting that Latin America as a whole will suffer a 0.6 percent decline in its gross internal product over the course of 2009. The bank also warned that the flow of direct investment into the region will plunge by 89 percent.

No doubt, the world capitalist crisis will be the focus of the discussions in Trinidad, but Obama has little to offer on this score outside of pointing to the limited promises made at the G20 summit in London earlier this month.
Obama maneuvers on Cuba

While not on the agenda, the question of Cuba is expected to play a major role at the summit. Virtually all of the participating heads of state—save Obama—have stated their support for Cuba being admitted as a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) and asked for an end to the 47-year-old US economic embargo.

OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza joined this consensus, telling the Miami Herald: “I want Cuba back in the Inter-American system.” He added that the decision to expel the country in 1962 “was a bad idea in the first place.”

In the early 1960s, when the Castro regime still promoted the idea of guerrilla-led revolution, Cuba’s foreign minister dismissed the OAS as Washington’s “ministry of colonies.” Former Cuban president Fidel Castro in a column published this week echoed this conception, calling the institution “the incarnation of betrayal.”

In an attempt to deflect criticism of Washington’s policy, Obama on the eve of the summit announced a very limited easing of the economic sanctions that the US maintains against Cuba. Fulfilling a campaign promise, he repealed all restrictions on travel to Cuba and remittances sent by 1.5 million Americans with family members on the island. The restrictions had been tightened under the Bush administration, with trips to visit families limited to one every three years and remittances capped at $100 a month.

The changes also included the lifting of restrictions on telecommunications companies, allowing them to establish cell phone service in Cuba as well as satellite television and radio.

The economic impact of the changes will be limited, but an inflow of greater amounts of US dollar remittances will serve to widen the already growing social gap between Cubans with access to dollars and those without. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has made it clear that the US economic blockade will remain in place.

Another action that appeared to be a gesture aimed at deflating criticism of US policy toward Cuba was the indictment last week of the former CIA operative and longtime terrorist Luis Posada Carriles on charges of perjury and obstruction of a federal proceeding. Specifically, he was charged with lying to US authorities when he denied responsibility for a series of bombings aimed at Cuban tourist areas in 1997. It marked the first time that Posada, long harbored by Washington, has been accused by US federal prosecutors of an act of terror, even though he has only been indicted for lying about it, rather than the act itself.

In response to the indictment, Venezuela announced that it will renew its demand that the US extradite Posada to stand trial in that country for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.

While the US free trade agenda is effectively off the agenda of the Trinidad summit, Washington’s desire for a US-dominated system capable of warding off competition from Europe and Asia remains.

Washington’s drive to establish economic and political hegemony in its “own backyard” has been a bedrock principle of US policy since the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine more than a century and a half ago. It has been responsible for dozens of US military interventions and military coups and the subordination of the region’s people to the interests of US-based banks and corporations.

If Washington now confronts increasing difficulties in imposing its will in the region, it is in large part because of the protracted economic decline of American capitalism and the rise of powerful rivals in the region.

The extent of this challenge was spelled out by the New York Times Thursday in an article detailing the burgeoning economic influence of China, which has become Latin America’s second largest trading partner after the US.

“As Washington tries to rebuild its strained relationships in Latin America, China is stepping in vigorously, offering countries across the region large amounts of money,” the Times reported, citing tens of billions of dollars in loans and investments being made by China with the aim of “locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.”

In addition to securing access to commodities ranging from soy beans to iron ore, China is also using Latin America investments as “an alternative to investing in United States Treasury notes,” according to the article. It also points to a deal between Argentina and China to swap $10.2 billion worth of each other’s currencies in order to avoid using dollars in bilateral trade. Such deals, the Times notes, may “lead the way to China’s currency to eventually be used as an alternate reserve currency,” replacing the dollar.

Meanwhile, the European Union has emerged as the largest source of foreign direct investment in Latin America and has forged its own trade agreements with almost every country in the region.

US imperialism, which got its start in Latin America, cannot accept such challenges without a fight. Obama’s rhetoric about a “ne
w day” in US-Latin American relations notwithstanding, the logic of economic interests points to the region becoming the arena for an ever more ferocious struggle between the major powers.

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

**** Chávez designa a Roy Chaderton como nuevo Embajador en Washington

El presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, anunció este sábado que designó al actual representante del país ante la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), Roy Chaderton, como nuevo embajador en Washington y aseguró que sólo está esperando la autorización de Estados Unidos.
» ver artículo completo

**** Irishman killed after 'plot to assassinate Bolivian president'

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