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The President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, has denounced that European MP and President of the Liberal International, Hans van Baalen, attempted to seduce Nicaraguan military officers into organizing a coup in the Central American country. However, according to Ortega, the reaction of the officers was patriotic and instead of joining such an anti-democratic plot, they reported the conspiration attempt.
Van Baalen, member of the Dutch VVD party, also managed to appoint recently Honduran coup leader, Roberto Micheletti, as one of the many vice-presidents of this global political bloc that sponsors Capitalism and supposedly also democracy and human rights, and that is mostly made up of small European parties.
Source: Tercera Información (found via Rebelión).
So, essentially, this "democrat" is trying to impose military regimes in Central America, surely acting as agent for other powers like the USA, and smash genuine democracy in the continent.
These maneouvers must be understood in the context of increased US-NATO intervention in Latin America, of which the occupation of Haití, the coup in Honduras and what has been called "the annexation of Colombia to the USA" (the new military treaty that gives full operative freedom to US troops and absolute impunity) are just the tip of the iceberg. There is increased tension in the continent and not just anymore between the USA and Venezuela: the interventionist attitude of the USA is also rising tensions with Brazil, which is naturally trying to counter the North American imperialism in its area of interests (for example supporting the legitimate Honduran President Manuel Zelaya).
Watch Latin America closely because I would not be surprised if the rumors of war could become true. However the Latin American peoples are pretty much tired of being treated as a colony and I doubt that these imperialist interventions will anymore have much effectivity.
And, on a side note, the brutal drought in Mexico can bring this crucial country one step further towards a revolution (it has been leaning to it for 15 years now) and shift the power balance in America still more against US hegemony.
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49 comments:
Maju, I don't know the details about Nicaragua and yet I see how you mention in one sentence on US imperialism from Nicaragua through Venezuela up to the fall of the Sumerian civilization (OK, you haven't said the Sumers succumb because of the US)
I'd rather not see US troops in South America. Now: what are they doing in colombia? Do you think they are preparing for an invasion of Venezuela?
Why doesn't Venezuela want to accept Brazilian troops to help in the border with colombia? Souvereinty? Rubbish. We don't have to be afraid of Brazil. In reality the Venezuelan government wants to keep the border on fire.
Now in general in L.A.: what do you think of making countries with no term limit for presidents become parliamentary systems like Norway or Germany?
What is it for the so-called "left" that it wants so dearly to have a "gran líder" who is a president AND for which there is no term limit?
Now: what are they doing in colombia? Do you think they are preparing for an invasion of Venezuela? -
I really don't know but it's a clear case of taking advanced positions for whatever may come (Venezuela, Ecuador or even Brazil). It's also a clear case of sovereignty cession on the part of Colombia that can only produce further internal conflict.
I would not be surprised if Venezuela goes next, sincerely. However it'd be a high risk operation: Venezuela is not Granada nor even Haití and the current government has high rates of approval.
Also the USA has way too many open fronts all around and reminds me somewhat of the megalomaniac designs of Charles V. And will also surely end up in a catastrophic bankruptcy.
Why doesn't Venezuela want to accept Brazilian troops to help in the border with colombia? Souvereinty? Rubbish. We don't have to be afraid of Brazil.
I did not know that but I guess that Venezuela and Brazil have right now certain "rivalry". Brazil is implicated in the occupation of Haiti and has kept a most moderate and liberal (capitalist) stand in most matters. Venezuela (Chávez) instead leads a more radical project. Also Brazil has not such a powerful army: it would hardly be any match for the US forces.
However Brazil is growing interested in keeping the USA at bay and is benefiting from the Venezuelan lead Bolivarian project, which counters a lot the US influence in the Caribbean. There were some frictions with Bolivia in the past but the change of tone of Brazil means that they are willing to cooperate with the Bolivarian bloc versus the return of USA to interference with Latin American sovereignty and democracy.
That is probably why Brazil, after all the natural leading power of Latin America, has intervened in favor of Zelaya (a very moderate Bolivarian) in the Honduran crisis.
However Brazil would stand no chances in an open war against the USA, which has overwhelming naval, aerial and satellite power, not to mention a huge nuclear arsenal. Hence Brazilian interest is to prevent conflicts while it builds up its power peacefully.
But the growing US meddling may be a serious threat for this peaceful approach and I would not be surprised if Brazil retakes the long forgotten plans to get the bomb. After all it's what really works, right?
Now in general in L.A.: what do you think of making countries with no term limit for presidents become parliamentary systems like Norway or Germany? -
I am against presidentialism but well, I'm an anarchist, so I'm against any form of state too...
Anyhow, this was one of the criticisms that a Venezuelan think tank made recently, and I agree with much of what they say (can't find the link now, sorry). There is too much personalism and old-socialism style in the Venezuelan "revolution" (a very shy revolution in any case).
But president or prime minister, the case is the same: someone leads the country and a in such difficult transitional circumstances as the Venezuelan "revolution", a lot of trust is placed on that person and is difficult to change faces without risking going backwards.
But, on the other hand, this is a vicious circle and has too many risks. Hard to say, seriously.
In the USA they can change president every 8 years because it doesn't really matter: the system (lobbies, corporations, the single-two-party system) controls all and the president can only change so much (see what happened to Kennedy when he stepped out of the line). The US system is not attempting to make any revolution but rather the opposite. European systems are the same: faces change but the system is unchangeable (like the infamous Spanish constitution).
A revolution requires different workings, even if one has to be very careful in also building for a future stable and participative system. Hard to say.
Btw, what do you think of the lack of time limit for Uribe, who has been president continuously since 2002? For Abbas?
On the other hand the time limit in Russia does not prevent Putin from controlling everything from the shadows and his Prime Minister office. A strongman is a strongman, with or without charge.
I think that the internal problem in Venezuela, as happened in other places with an ongoing "revolutionary" process, is that the opposition is counter-revolutionary.
Ideally, a revolutionary democratic system should have a revolutionary government and a revolutionary opposition, I guess. But that doesn't happen (and the rather forced unification in the PSUV did not help to build that constructive opposition either - I think this was a serious error of Chávez but also of his followers).
Instead Capitalist systems, which are not actually ruled by their administrations, do have such system, where all viable parties normally are counter-revolutionary (whatever their origins).
It's essentially easier to buy a "revolutionary" cadre into supporting capitalism than to persuade a capitalist owner to cede his/her wealth to the people.
Only with the global success of socialist revolutions can thing change but this will take some time.
I think Uribe is doing wrong.
I don't know the details about Abbas, but in principle I agree with Robin Williams: "Politicians are like diapers, you have to change them very fast and for the same reason".
Hombre, I thought you were better informed by now about Venezuela.
There is no revolution whatsoever in Venezuela. There is chavismo.
The only project there is right now in Venezuela is to steal faster than ever before while wearing red shirts and threatening "los capitalistas" (which is chavismo for what we say in Spanish "los otros").
The ones profiting the most are the richest. You will need to study a bit about the economics right now.
Huge fortunes are being made right now by those who have access to import companies, brokers, dollars.
The barrel of oil sells now for $70, against 10-20 in the decade prior to Hugo being president. And in spite of that the country is starting to go down the hill big time. Hugo has had to borrow some 11 billions from his friends in Beijing and elsewhere under extremely bad conditions for Venezuela for many years just to get some cash. Very soon they will run out of it and they will have to sell Venezuela's soul.
You would need to have followed the whole economics of this: we have had the biggest oil boom ever in a country that imports everything, everything.
Unlike in chile, the state did not save for anything, but squandered a lot and stole most. There was so much money they could give more crumbles than when the oil price was at 12.
All "socialist revolutions" in developing countries are bourgeois revolutions by another name. Lenin himself acknowledged that they could not bring socialism to Russia but that at least they had managed to create capitalism. China's rising star, of a very bourgeois nature nowadays, would not exist without Mao's revolution, Russia would be like Mexico, etc.
One thing I learned in 10th grade history course was that national capitals to prosper need some dose of "socialism" (state intervention). Only the very special cases of the 19th century Britain and 20th century USA could do without it (up to a point anyhow, I know now) because of their global hegemonic positions. So totally renouncing to "socialism" is the same as declaring your country a colony of the hegemon.
So, yes, I understand that what is happening in Latin America, Venezuela included, is particularly an attempt of reaffirmation of the national capitals as opposed to the US, European or Zionist neocolonialist exploitation.
However in this sense there are differences between, say, Brazil and the Bolivarian bloc. Their circumstances are different (Brazil has a better starting position just because its sheer size). So the smaller Bolivarian countries have to adopt a more aggressive stand and also an alternative, less abusive, way of doing commerce where possible (oil for physicians, for instance - what the ALBA is doing).
Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, etc. are much more exposed also to US and European imperialism. Maybe because they are smaller, maybe because they are closer to the USA and Panamá. They can't play as the BRIC do, using their natural size and regional importance as main leverage tool.
Don't know. It's difficult to judge from the distance but it's clear that what is going on in Venezuela and other Latin American nations is a nationalist revolution with some socialist discourse but, agreed, not so much praxis. However of all the ALBA countries, Venezuela seems still the more actively and successfully "socialist" for what I read.
One thing I know for sure: if the Gringos, the Zionists, Uribe, Aznar, Zapatero and Anasagasti are all against Chávez, he must be a valuable leader.
Also your president and I share Sun and Moon positions in the Astrological chart, so guess I can't but sympathize with him in a sense. However, on second thought, Milosevic and Polanski also do and I do not have much sympathy for either one.
And for trivial correlations, Lula is my namesake (and it's not such a common name). But he is Scorpio, and hence more cautious and secretive, less outspoken and direct.
Very soon they will run out of it and they will have to sell Venezuela's soul.
Don't know. There are many global problems that are well beyond the scope of Venezuela that will cause many many troubles the next years and decades. Deep unsolvable economic crisis (unsolvable in capitalist terms of permanent growth and democratic terms of citizen happiness), even deeper and more unsolvable ecological crisis (not at all unrelated), growing international tensions fueled happily by the Zionist conspiracy and their Gringo pet, people migrating everywhere in never seen numbers, a population that will soon be 10 times that of 1900, nuclear proliferation, failed states, famine, lab-made epidemics... and who knows what!
So guess that "tirar la casa por la ventana" is the thing to do. As Keynes said: the future will take care of its own business. The problem is that Keynes' future is now... and we have not the slightest idea of what to do. Well, not sure about myself, but global leaders like Obama, Hu or Putin, have not the foggiest idea at all.
They are totally trapped in the dynamics of imperialism. Would they be real statesmen, they would be building a planetary federation and facing the ecological and social problems (1 out of 5 suffers from hunger today) globally. But instead they are persecuting national hegemony.
It's pathetic.
Anyhow there seems that there is a lot of oil at the Orinoco basin for what I've read. And that seems precisely one of the reasons why the USA is considering (or maybe has already decided) to invade Venezuela.
But I agree with you that they should be reinvesting in the "productive" economy. But with a green perspective, because that is the perspective of future.
However nowadays a productive economy is either based on high level know-how (Germany style) or on very cheap labour (India style). The first needs a very long term investment and risks losing most intellectual capital to wealthier countries, as happens with most qualified people in Africa and elsewhere: they migrate to Europe or the USA, where they get much higher salaries. The second risks a popular uprising (as is the case of India, where the Maoists are every day stronger).
It's delicate, to say the least.
The US power is not based anymore on the productive sector but, as happened with Britain until recently, is based on the financial sector.
The USA is also a extreme importer. And ironically, imports add to the national GDP. A doll made in China for 3 dollars and sold in California for 10, adds 7 dollars to the US GDP (and to the pockets of the US traders). As pathetic as it sounds.
Not sure which is the recipe but I don't feel that Venezuela is going the wrong way for the most part. The big power player is Brazil, not Caracas, but Venezuela is leading the regeneration of Latin American and Caribbean dignity in a way that Brazil has not done so far. Removing countries from the US sphere of influence and allowing them a dignified option of growth and regeneration is something that nobody else was willing or able to do.
However it's playing with fire and I understand that some don't like the risk. But doesn't Venezuela benefit from the deal too? It does indeed. Venezuelans get healthcare and medical training for some oil that otherwise would have been robbed by some multinational corporation. I think it's good for your country.
Also by becoming a "hostile" power to US regional hegemony it gets technology and weapons from other powers like Russia. Yes, it's dangerous but it's also empowering.
Unlike in chile...
Chile is a criminal state. I don't want to hear about that country until the rights of the natives are restored and the Mapuche activists are released from prison. Not much has changed since Pinocchio.
" I know for sure: if the Gringos, the Zionists, Uribe, Aznar, Zapatero and Anasagasti are all against Chávez, he must be a valuable leader."
That sums it all up for you, the apparent enemy of thy enemy is thy friend...con tal que se vista de rojo, genial.
The only ones really benefiting are the members of the boliburguesia. The poor are getting the crumbles and at that Hugo is giving a much lower proportion than Pérez in Pérez's first term.
I thought that your having Spanish as mother tongue (I suppose it is, then Euskera, but if Euskera is, you also speak Spanish at the same level) would help you get a better picture of what is happening in Venezuela.
Funny you care about the mapuches. The guys even after the events that have been happening lately are lucky bastards compared to Venezuelan first Nations...only that the Venezuela government calls itself revolutionary
and their comandante wears red.
You have no idea about what is happening right now with the Pemon indians, with the Yukpa and with the Wayùu in Venezuela, among others.
Sure, the laws the government finally passed look nice in paper.
What else?
= The Pemones opposed the electricity grid that goes through their territory and chavismo forced it through, using massive military force and violence
= the pernitious New Tribes were expelled but then massive military presence came in La Esmeralda and surroundings and then more illegal mining than before, the same along the caroni river: it is now extremely full of poison
= the health institutions in native American territories are in even worse conditions than before (which is a lot)
= the Venezuelan government has not recognized the lands of the Pemones (in part that collides with the economic interests of the chacon clan), of the karinha, of the Yekwana, of all the rest, just some token lands for the Yukpa (although in reality the ones controlling most of that land now are the drug dealers, the Venezuelan military and the colombian guerrilla).
The US economy, the UK economy are in a very delicate position, but they are not in the mess Venezuela is. No sé si es que hablo tan mal en inglés. Venezuela no produce prácticamente NADA y produce menos que antes.
The US and the UK could go back to more local production given the economic conditions, Venezuela can't.
Russian weapons? The only ones profiting from that are the Russian weapon factories. We urgently need that money for hospitals, for schools. Those tanks will do NOTHING, NOTHING in the middle of the jungle, they would do nothing if there were really an invasion.
In Venezuela some military got very nice commissions, we are now 2.2 billion poorer this year.
Russian technology? What are you talking about?
Where in Venezuela? Show me where.
Now come and talk about the Iranian lorries in Venezuela, which are nothing but very ancient French technology for which we have even less property than for the ensambladoras gringas from the eighties and nineties.
Maju, you live in a dream world.
The only ones profiting from the economic situation of Venezuela right now are a lot of non-Venezuelans (the chinese on top) plus the guys with access to the dollars in Venezuela, to the import market, the very revolutionary chacón clan.
You leave me very much concerned about the situation of the natives in your country. I'd appreciate some links if possible.
You may be right about the Venezuelan "revolution" not being socialist enough and I am also concerned about that. However I don't think that the old regime neocolonialist cadres are a valid opposition. Chávez may need opposition by his left actually in order to be credible (not just to me but to Venezuelans, who can watch all those pro-USA corporative TV stations and still vote to Chávez).
"You may be right about the Venezuelan "revolution" not being socialist enough and I am also concerned about that".
Socialist my foot. I am more of a socialist than those guys.
"However I don't think that the old regime neocolonialist cadres are a valid opposition. Chávez may need opposition by his left actually in order to be credible"
Well, that is funny: the only valid opposition is the one you or chavistas like?
How do you like it?
"Oh, comandante, we oppose you because you are so great and we so low".
And don't get me wrong: I disliked and most disliked the parties we had before. Hugo will be calling any opposition "Old Oligarchy" in 100 years if he were to live that long.
"pro-USA corporative TV stations and still vote to Chávez"
Hah? I thought I had mentioned it earlier. Globovision is like FOX News, it is bad, very bad, criminal, I would say. It makes me puke. Still, it is a wee bit better than VTV. I won't go here into why, no time, but could another time. Just this:
Globovision can only be watched by less than 30% of the population: if you don't live in the capital, in Valencia or have cable (only a minority has) you can't see it, no hay cobertura.
Other than that there are channels where you see allo those stupid soap operas and that is all. The only ones having now complete national coverage are the guys of VTV and Telesur.
Globovision is their Potemkin village. It only benefits them.
For the links: no time now, but you can find some around "tendido electrico Gran Sabana protestas pemones".
I wrote this:
http://venezuela-europa.blogspot.com/search/label/Indians
I just wanted to focus on some issues and later on go to others.
I will write more about the fight between the Pemones and the criollos, among them the company of revolutionary billionaire Arne chacon, later.
Well, I said before that the same that a capitalist regime needs a capitalist opposition, a socialist regime would need a socialist opposition in order to work properly. I'm just extrapolating US (or British or Spanish) democratic systems to a supposedly socialist democratic regime. These systems do not allow in practice any truly dissident platforms to thrive, when they do, they just make a coup and restore the old regime one way or the other.
They are one-party systems with two cloned parties. It has some advantages because if even Tweedledee won't change much of Tweedledoo's policies upon "democratic" alternation, some reforms are indeed implemented trying to fit with the needs of the citizens and the system, there is some (limited) open debate and the worst abuses are normally denounced and sometimes tackled. A classical single-party system can't do that, no matter if it is capitalist or socialist in its ideological leaning and hence corruption and nepotism thrive... until the system collapses.
You can be revolutionary and be critical of Chávez and Chavismo. In fact I think it'd be a great thing to achieve in order to keep the counter-revolutionaries at bay and the reform process to advance self-critically. It's not anarchism... but it's as good as it can get within a state system.
Anyhow, even the USA had once a single-party system, between 1812 and 1824, when the Democratic-Republican party split into factons, eventually leading to the creation of the Whig and then the Republican party. However, as history tells, the formation of a third party or electoral bloc, opposing the single-dual-party system is practically impossible nowadays.
...
I read your posts on Venezuelan natives and I have the feeling that, unlike the Mapuches or Miskitos or even indigenous peoples in Bolivia or Ecuador, they are very much divided and at the expense of government's good will. However, while I agree that the government should be consequent and honor its compromises, I fail to see how their situation is "worse" than that of the Mapuches, which is a real tragedy of almost daily police repression.
My whole respose disappeared. There are clashes even if they are nothing new, I own up that. I did not write there the ones about the Pemon and the electricity companies, will do that perhaps later.
We hear much less about them because native Americans are many less in Venezuela, less than 5% at best and they are in more remote areas than elsewhere:
it is usually harder to get to the jungles of Sierra Parima or the islands of the Delta than to the South of chile
The fights of the Native Americans in Bolivia are often the same as the ones of half of Venezuela.
Most Bolivians (55%) are natives, "indios". It is the only Latin American countries where natives are still majority (and that's part of the issue behind the rise of Evo Morales). Perú (45%) and Guatemala (40%) are close anyhow... and that is a good deal of the identity and class conflict in those countries too. Next come Mexico (30%) and Ecuador (25%), AFAIK.
In Chile instead they are a minority (4.6%) like in Venezuela but they are homogeneous and organized since old (they resisted the Incas and to some extent the Spaniards too). However the Chilean creole government does not want to recognize them any kind of self-rule. So it's not just a natives' right conflict but a national issue like this here in the Basque Country. Araucanía was only annexed to Chile in 1882, so it's a recent invasion. The laws used against the Mapuche militants, who just defend what is theirs, are the "anti-terrorist" laws decreed by fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet and used for the advantage of multinational corporations. The Chilean government does not even want to talk with the Mapuches and represses them with all the power of the state.
So not sure if your comparisons are too valid.
It is difficult to compare anything.
Still: the fact the Indians there sticked together may have to do
with their relative homogenity.
In Venezuela we still have over 29 languages belonging to several language families, some isolate languages. When the cruel Basques and Spaniards arrived, the caribs were fighting the Arawaks, among other issues. Still, as there was not one kingdom that suddenly collapsed as in Peru or Mexico,
but many kinds of groups, the Iberians massacred or raped their way through. The effect was that the First Nations were pushed to the borders, to the jungles.
Now the major problems are narcoguerrilla, health, encroachment of squatters (not so much the landowners, which are stopped in Zulia) and the presence of miners and soldiers in their regions.
The Wayúu in Guajira have a lot of problem with the guerrilla, but Hugo is cooperating with it, so things get worse.
The health issue is really bad.
We could sell a Russian tank and buy many medicines for Amazonas.
There is also a bigger problem with accountability. A relative of mine is a doctor, works in the public sector and tells me about how the hospital director, the nurses, everyone steals. She denounces and denounces and nothing happens.
I have a contact with a priest, although a "modern" one. He says the Pemones try to stick together and - miracle - oppo and chavista Indians get together, but then the criollo chavistas and the others accuse them of being traitors.
It reminds me somewhat of how the Sandinista government ignored Miskitos, until these took up arms. Then they negotiated. However again Miskitos were able to organize themselves as nation and fight together.
Anyhow you have a too much Venezuela-centric vision. I don't know why but this localist vision seems typical of the right. It's like just shrugging off the global and regional contexts.
Yeah, and your vision is too Euskera-based, typical of Basque socialists.
I don't believe all the time in conspiracy theories and 'it is all a US imperialist crusade', including my stomac ache, even if I am fully aware of the very pernicious effects of US or European (and now chinese) policies in the Americas. I don't think everything is a complot. I have worked for many years for AI for cases regarding Guatemala Indians (as I speak Spanish), Russian/chechen issues
(as I speak Russian) and death penality in general (also USA).
Still: I also have a job to do and a normal life.
I try to focus on Venezuela because I know I can do more as I know lots of people there and every region well.
I am helping on free time in real programmes for education.
Still, I have my opinion on many issues (see my words on Palestine in my blog), even if I know I may have too little information to make a good picture of the situation there.
When I see how uninformed the European PSFs (pendejos sin fronteras) talk about my country, the kind of myths they spread, how simplistic they divide everything in "the rich white hacendado"
I only think: how can they be so uninformed?
Is it possible I can be as uninformed about some issue I am talking about? Need I double check with more sources?
The lefty burgeoisie (most of those West Europeans I know from the extreme left are rather that for me) tend to talk a lot but do little, but for going to some march.
My grandparents were landless iliterate farmers, theirs bankers or managers, but they speak as if they themselves built up with their own hands the factories in Bilbao or Berlin. I have heard too many things from European Euro-socialists (I mean European Euro-socialists) who moan how bad they have it and how evil the non-like them (aka "extreme right") are in Europe and in Latin America.
Another thing: right now Venezuela's murder rate is over 3 times what it was in 1998 and it is by far the highest in South America, the inflation is over 25%, state workers HAVE to march,
my last votes were not counted in the elections, the corruption allows a revolutionary like Arne chacon to become a billionaire out of plundering the state, the primary education is worse than ever, Venezuela got the worst results for schools in Latin America in 1998 (then the government took it out of all open evaluation programmes, but I know very well how the level now is) and the whole manufacturing sector in Venezuela is collapsing and we don't produce our own food.
I see priorities.
Hey, Kepler, relax.
I am no unconditional of Chávez but I'm unconditional of Humankind and communism (the real thing). If he's instrumental for these goals, welcome, if he's not too bad. But obviously there are many other governments that are not just useless for Humankind's emancipation but fiercely opposed to it.
Do you think your country will be better if the USA invades? It won't.
Do you think your country will be better if it embraces the same principles of the remaining neocolonies like Colombia? It won't. I'm sure that the murder rate in Colombia and nearly everything that is bad for the people is much higher than anywhere else in all America, even worse than Haití (except macroeconomic figures maybe but fueled by the massive US aid and the cocaine industry).
Iraq had problems with Saddam but it's now much worse (except probably for the Kurds who have bargained some improved status). And you must agree that Chávez is a great guy compared with Hussein.
You mention voting issues. I did realize back in its time that adopting the US system of computerized voting was a bad idea, as it robs from transparency and makes rigging a lot easier. But you want to be like the Gringos, don't you? Well, you got it in form of voting machines instead than transparent boxes, and in rigged elections like the two that got George W. Bush to the White House.
Anyhow even transparent boxes can be rigged, as happened in Spain in the last European elections.
We are going to disagree because when I think of Venezuela, I think in geopolitical terms rather than in internal affairs. I didn't like Chávez at the beginning nor liked Correa too much (I did find Evo Morales likeable instead). Chávez appeared at first to me a populist caudillo and to some extent I still keep that impression.
Correa also looks populist. But when I think what Ecuador got in the recent past, with El Loco and the rest, much better, I find Correa a great improvement.
As for Venezuela, I was once in the same class with a Venezuelan guy, Anibal something, and I remember well how he described conscription in your country back in the 80s: the army goes to the popular neighborhoods and rounds up whoever they find and never recruit the wealthy. Much like navy conscription was back in the 17th century, at least in Britain.
That was just an illustrative example he used to describe how was Venezuela, which was already an oil rich country but dumped in a nightmare of corrupt elitist governments and brutal external debt (debt that has been finally paid by Chávez' government if I'm correct).
So I don't know many details about your current government and surely I'd be outraged like you if I was living there. But I know it's not worse than anything you had since Bolívar himself probably. Surely much better in many aspects.
However I believe that some revolutionary (and not reactionary) opposition is much needed. Why not reactionary? Because it cannot offer an alternative that is any good for your country, as the all the previous governments and the neighboring ones like that of Colombia clearly illustrate.
Whatever the case, we are not going to solve here the problems of the Bolivarian Republic.
"Do you think your country will be better if the USA invades? It won't."
I don't think so. I do not want the US to invade Venezuela, but frankly: I think there are more chances right now that the Swiss guards invade Euskal Herria than the gringos invade Venezuela. It does not have to do with the fact I think the gringos are kosher or anything. It has to do with the fact they are too screwed elsewhere and Venezuelans are neither Panamanians not Arabs, with or without all the oil on Earth. It just won't sell in the US to invade Venezuelans.
"I'm sure that the murder rate in Colombia"
How are you sure? Because they don't wear red berets like your lot? The murder rate there is lower than in Venezuela. I haven't been lately there, but I have to Venezuela and I have plenty of friends and a couple of relatives who are going to and from there. Even with the civil war, there are less murders per 100 000 people. And the cities are much more secure than those of Venezuela. Please, click on the "crime" label in Venezuela Europe to have a "taste" of it.
As for education: Venezuela stopped taking part in open tests because it was doing too bad. I, together with a couple of other Venezuelans, asked several times the chavista government to take part in the PISA programme. They rejected it because they hate accountability. I have plenty of friends working in public schools, schools like the ones I studied in (not a posh area but one of the poorest in a village close to Valencia). They tell me: the levels, already very low, much lower than those of our neighbours (see label "education") are worse now.
"And you must agree that Chávez is a great guy compared with Hussein."
So what? Your complete attitude is the spitting image of Bush's Junior: either we choose this or that.
"You mention voting issues. I did realize back in its time that adopting the US system of computerized voting was a bad idea, as it robs from transparency and makes rigging a lot easier. But you want to be like the Gringos, don't you? "
Who told you we wanted the US voting system? Who told you I wanted the educational system they have? Most people don't. The opposition has anyway from day 1 rejected digital systems, to no avail.
"We are going to disagree because when I think of Venezuela, I think in geopolitical terms rather than in internal affairs. "
Do you? I think you think in ideological terms. I understand pretty well the ideologies you are coming in, as well as those of the Bible-hugging US fundamentalists, the Sociodemocrats', the European conservatives and so on, but I understand they all just want power not for the people but for themselves.
I am for promoting debates, but not those farces as in Russia in 1918 where the opponents were basically liquidated afterwards or silenced by the Bolshevik thugs, but where everyone has the right to say what he or she thinks and leave in peace.
I want pluralism for my country, not some people who belong to cult X (US Baptists, EU "anarchist socialists") telling us they know what is better, but always competing people debating time after time.
Neither the far right nor the far left want pluralism.
"in the 80s: the army goes to the popular neighborhoods and rounds up whoever they find and never recruit the wealthy. "
They still do that.
I have quite some stories on that.
"That was just an illustrative example he used to describe how was Venezuela, which was already an oil rich country but dumped in a nightmare of corrupt elitist governments and brutal external debt (debt that has been finally paid by Chávez' government if I'm correct)."
Well, not completely. We just got 11 billion dollars in debt, we have tied up a lot of oil exports at very low prices because the government mismanaged most and neede cash for its election and in the following months we are in for getting into much more debts if the government wants to survive without using their AKs and Russian tanks.
"But I know it's not worse than anything you had since Bolívar himself probably. Surely much better in many aspects."
Probably like Franco was the best Basques could ever have.
"However I believe that some revolutionary (and not reactionary) opposition is much needed. Why not reactionary? "
The simple fact you assume anything that comes from you is "revolutionary" and what comes from a so-called "right" or "centre" is reactionary is very telling about what your idea of revolutionary is.
The very same people who force employees to march for "the revolution" less they be sacked and order them to shout "patria, socialismo o muerte" while stealing money from the state faster than the AD thugs did in the seventies and eighties are the ones insulting everyone else of being "fascists", the same guys who justify the use of violence as "ira del pueblo" (Zorn des Volkes, as a certain Herr Goebbels used to say).
No, we won't solve the problems here, but I am trying to solve concrete issues about Venezuela
I am aware of many other issues in the world and I have my opinions on them, I have protested (usual anti-war marches), etc, but I know if I can do something happen in Venezuela for the better, I should focus on that as I know that better.
Others may declare themselves "the true internationalists" for all I care. If one or two of the non-political projects in education we are carrying out in Venezuela are not destroyed by the military "revolutionary", I am happy.
Ok, you seem to be right re. the murder rate. My data was obsolete, it seems.
In the 1998-2000 period, and even up to 2002, Colombia led the macabre statistics. Now it's Honduras but Venezuela seems to be close, as well as El Salvador. The statistics are anyhow not recent for many other countries, as you can imagine. Places like Afghanistan or Iraq don't have such stats, while for many other countries like Somalia they are totally obsolete.
However are murders in Venezuela normally of political origin like they are in Colombia (the worst country to be a trade unionist, clearly) or are they caused by other reasons?
Your complete attitude is the spitting image of Bush's Junior: either we choose this or that.
It's not me: it is what Venezuelan opposition is offering. That is why it fails to achieve anything: because the people looks at them and despairs. Which is the alternative to Chávez?
I do not want the US to invade Venezuela, but frankly: I think there are more chances right now that the Swiss guards invade Euskal Herria than the gringos invade Venezuela.
I am not sure what will happen but there is that saying: "cuando el río suena, agua lleva". So while I agree with you that I do not want either an invasion of Venezuela, I could bet a substantial amount for it to happen because my desires may have nothing to do with reality.
They still do that.
And do that people (the recruits, their relatives, their friends and neighbors) vote for Chávez even with that sort of "more of the same"?
Most murders in Venezuela are related simply to social injustice. I know there is a big problem with attacks against unionists nextdoors but I don't know what percentage it is. Do you?
I know Jesse chacón (the socialist brother of revolutionary billionaire Arné) stopped sending murder numbers to United Nations in 2002.
I do have the numbers for my region and I know it is average for a lot of other places in Venezuela. The numbers are taking from local police reports and morgues. I have double-checked them with the news on murder in Notitarde, where you can see the lists, with names and age and all.
"That is why it fails to achieve anything: because the people looks at them and despairs. Which is the alternative to Chávez?"
What do you know about the alternative? The people from Miranda state have been trying to do some work and the chavista thugs attack them time after time.
"I could bet a substantial amount for it to happen because my desires may have nothing to do with reality."
It is not that I wish this or that. I told you my position, I am against them meddling. Still, I firmly believe they won't send their troops or planes to us, simply too bad PR for them.
"And do that people (the recruits, their relatives, their friends and neighbors) vote for Chávez even with that sort of more of the same"?
We will see in 2012.
Maju, you don't get it: for decades we have felt very clearly when oil prices change +-5 dollars. Average in 1998: about 12. It kept going up and last year it was average over 91, top 140 or a bit higher. Now it is 70.
Still, things are not looking good.
I am sure the government will lose a lot next year even if they are preparing a lot of gerrymandering. Daniel Duquenal and others have written enough about the issue. We are about to have gerrymandering big time, the laws were modified recently just for that.
I imagine even a Stalinist would have to own up those laws only benefit chavismo.
The budget was also modified: the comandante gets now much more dosh for his security, he also gets more for the military and such stupid things as education, health and police get less. But the highest modification is a special budget to be used at the sole discretion of Hugo.
That is how he wants to optimize results next year in the Parliamentary elections.
I have read more than once that Colombia is the worst place in the world to be a tradeunionist and survive.
However I have some difficulties finding references right now.
WP-ICFTU mentions as of 2006:
"The report of violence in the Americas details a total of 80 deaths, more than half of the number reported worldwide. 70 of those deaths were in Colombia, while an additional 260 Colombian workers received death threats. In Ecuador 44 workers at the San Jose plantation were fired for forming a union. In Canada a collective agreement was imposed by law on members of the BCTF".
So essentially, one of every two tradeunionists killed in the World is Colombian. Or at least was in 2006.
I have no doubt there is a big problem with unionists being murdered there. I know it is something that needs to be addressed. And yet:
1) I wonder - this is nothing rethorical - what chances unionists have of being murdered vis-a-vis other groups in poor areas there (remember Bayes) and
2) Venezuela is the worst country in South America for being poor and surviving murder.
I personally have several relatives who have been shot and survived just by a miracle, two are permanently handicaped (one is a dear cousin). A couple of friends of relatives or other friends have been killed. All of my relatives have been robbed with a gun.
None is a rich landowner or the like but rather lower to low-middle class.
Half the police force is used for protection of the chavista officialdom.
I cannot stress how important oil prize hikes have always been in Venezuela.
For all effects, in spite of the world crisis, we, Venezuelans, are still going through one and yet the country is already into big recession, even if the government has got a huge amount of fast cash from the agreements with the chinese and Brazilians.
Lo que viene es muy feo a menos que el precio del petróleo se dispare a más de 200 muy pronto.
70 dollars is rather high. It used to be well under 30 not so long ago. However, the dollar is not anymore what it used to be, specially in relation to gold and euro (pound, yen, yuan... all have some kind of dollar parity).
But there is people who believe with good reason that oil can only go up in the next years and decades. The oil production peak has already been reached or will be in a few of years, the dollar is scheduled to fall for long and so far oil prices are set in dollars.
I don't think that anyhow oil prices should be more crucial than a good administration which invests in education and self-sufficiency in all aspects.
For Opec oil prices check out Opec oil basket
http://www.opec.org/Home/basket.aspx
I know about the Peak and I also think oil prices are bound to rise, this will lengthen our underdevelopment, as people just don't want to grasp the importance of "sembrar el petróleo", as Uslar Pietri was writing already in 1937.
Oil has been a curse for Venezuela for decades and never as as badly as now.
That is why one of the bloggers in English, Miguel, calls his blog "Devil's Excrement".
Venezuelans are addict to petrodollars and they need ever higher doses to get the same effect.
We haven't become less dependent, on the contrary.
Education standards have worsened further since Hugo is in power and they were very bad previously.
All that under "education" in my English blog.
Venezuela has an average age 22.6 years. You don't have to be Gunnar Heinsohn to think the murder rate will be high with such a population structure.
Opec’s greed will herald the end of the oil age."Yet by the time non-Opec oil supply has been boosted, something even more important will have occurred, if Opec continues to overplay its hand and support painfully high prices. In the 1970s, the rather quotable Saudi Oil Minister, Sheikh Zaki Yamani, had a nice saying: “The Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of stones. Nor will the oil age end because we have run out of oil.” "
“The Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of stones. Nor will the oil age end because we have run out of oil.”...
LOL. The Bronze Age did end because the Eastern Mediterraneans (who were the metropolitan area back then) run out of bronze... or more precisely of tin. Only when true bronze became unavailable began iron to be useful. And only when iron was valued and used the steel technology improved until steel was best for most applications (bronze is still better for some).
That sheikh is a jerk and an ignorant.
Similarly when oil becomes scarce and too expensive, new technologies will take its place naturally. In fact it's already happening but the rhythm of today is only anticipatory.
But oil centrality has more of a financial interest because it is what backs the dollar in fact, and with it all the imperial domination machine.
But oil centrality has more of a financial interest because it is what backs the dollar in fact, and with it all the imperial domination machine.
From reading Mearsheimer and Walt's 'The Israel Lobby' I don't think the US invades countries to control oil (Venezuela would have been a far more tempting target than Iraq asM&W point out), it's the protection of Israel that's the decisive factor. Oil companies do try and infuence evironmental and tax laws but they've little influence on foreign policy.
The French jumped the gun with a massive Nuclear program at the time of the Iran-Iraq war so the belief that oil is going to be very expensive might produce a huge advance in solar technology, A German expert has said solar is progressing so fast that the renting of space in the Sahara would be unnecessary.
Ken, you don't have to be even George W. Bush to understand there are more parameters at play there.
The murder rate in Venezuela has more than tripled since 1998.
No matter how you try to explain it all with the population structure, it simply does not square.
A greater amount of social injustice, lack of real jobs, complete desdain towards really good social projects, absolutely denying that the murder rate is now much worse than ever and the use of 50% of cops just as bodyguards for the socialist billionaires and socialist deputies who earn net more than German Bundestagsabgeordnet plus protection of the whole chavez clan really make things a tad worse in the Land of Grace, Venezuela.
Predicting oil prices is a bit too much for me. I know the Peak will see for wild hikes sometime and then, any time, a big shift.
I don't know how long it will take. I just know oil dependency is bad for Venezuela, not only but specially with a regime like the thuggish regime we have now.
One of the areas where I have relatives and friends, Miguel Pena (Southern Valencia), has over half a million inhabitants and not a single general hospital and the only "public library" is a little house with a tiny room and some books at the start of the parish (it is a parroquia, not a municipality).
Meanwhile both the Ancien Regime and the New Boliburguesia are profiting from the permuta and import/dollar reselling (see the Devil's Excrement for economic details).
South Korea had the death penalty for capital flight.
Ken:
I'm not saying that the US invades countries only for oil. Though, as you ask, it does for that reason too.
What I said is that the dollar's international monetary hegemony (crucial for US hegemony overall) is largely based on its role as standard oil-pricing currency.
What I said is that the dollar's international monetary hegemony (crucial for US hegemony overall) is largely based on its role as standard oil-pricing currency.
OK, I understand now. I still think you give the US too much credit for being able to subordinate the oil consumers and producers like China and Russia to the interests of US hegemony.
The demise of the dollar.
"Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years"
I thought you were talking about this explaination for the attack on Iraq. (same link)
"Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq"
Mearshimer and Walt point out that the 1973 oil crisis never produced a military response. I don't think the US is all that interested in Central and South America any more.
They will surely attack Iran,(though Obama might wait until after being re-elected).
Nice article, Ken.
Precisely it reinforces my understanding that the abnormally high purchasing power of the dollar is founded in neocolonial hegemony on raw resources, particularly oil. The BRIC powers are of course eager to weaken or even destroy such hegemony, particularly China but Brazil as well, it seems. They are supported by the oil producing countries who have seen their real income decrease in spite of rising prices because of chaotic monetary policies at the heart of the Empire (remember that the Fed's rate is zero right now: what kind of paper money can withstand the virtually infinite supply of itself?)
We are heading to a new global cold (or even hot) war on this matter of global hegemony. And I'd say that the weakest spots right now are Latin America (more or less lead by Brazil, where the USA is pushing hard again) and India (at a geostrategic crossroads, crushed between the US and Chinese hegemonic attempts). India at least has some nukes that could keep off an external war but Latin America is defenseless except for its people's strong desire of overcoming the neocolonial past.
This article by Mathias Chang is relevant to this last part of the discussion because it deals on how the dollar has ruled the global economy and US supremacy and how its position is at extreme risk now.
The likely result is state bankruptcy, just what happened to the Spanish Empire when it played the same game (just that silver had the role of oil) in the 16th century. However:
It would be naïve to think that the US would quietly allow itself to be foreclosed! When we reach that stage, war will be inevitable. It will be the US-UK-Israel Axis against the rest of the world.
We are heading to a new world conflict of some sort. Something probably very nasty. Would I be in charge of Brazil, I'd get serious nuclear capability ASAP.
Also, Kepler may find interesting this other article by Luis Alegre y Santiago Alba: "¿Revolución? ¿Qué revolución?" (in Spanish).
It's a criticism to a book by Marc Saint-Upéry, "Bolívar's dream. The challenge of the Latin American lefts". I haven't read the book but he apparently argues much like Kepler: there is no revolution but just mythology.
However the Spanish philosophers argue that there is indeed a revolution, with whatever shortcomings, because the people, the plebeians, have become citizens and are actively taking part, maybe for the first time ever, in their countries' policies. There is a revolution because the right and the Empire are trying to crush it, and, even if we can be naive and fall into mystification, the reactionaries are not: they are extremely pragmatic.
And you may also want to read this news item from Indymedia on the issue of Native rights and lands. Very much in your line but from a left-wing perspective (original source: http://venezuela-centro.axxs.org/).
It is no doubt a major error to attack the Natives in the name of the nation's development. An error that will cost dearly, as happened to the Sandinistas in the past.
Btw, what do you think of the presidencial candidacy of Marina Silva in Brazil? She was sidelined by Lula and has now been proposed by the Green Party and is likely to get the support of the important party P-SOL (mostly left-wing dissidents from the PT for what I know).
It would be naïve to think that the US would quietly allow itself to be foreclosed! When we reach that stage, war will be inevitable
It might be the other way about the wars are a cause rather than the result.
John Gray has more of a track record in predictions (see False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism)
John Gray, "Era of U.S. Dominance Is Over".
"The fate of empires is very often sealed by the interaction of war and debt. That was true of the British Empire, whose finances deteriorated from the First World War onwards, and of the Soviet Union. Defeat in Afghanistan and the economic burden of trying to respond to Reagan's technically flawed but politically extremely effective Star Wars programme were vital factors in triggering the Soviet collapse. Despite its insistent exceptionalism, America is no different. The Iraq War and the credit bubble have fatally undermined America's economic primacy. The US will continue to be the world's largest economy for a while longer, but it will be the new rising powers that, once the crisis is over, buy up what remains intact in the wreckage of America's financial system.
There has been a good deal of talk in recent weeks about imminent economic armageddon. In fact, this is far from being the end of capitalism. The frantic scrambling that is going on in Washington marks the passing of only one type of capitalism - the peculiar and highly unstable variety that has existed in America over the last 20 years. This experiment in financial laissez-faire has imploded.While the impact of the collapse will be felt everywhere, the market economies that resisted American-style deregulation will best weather the storm. Britain, which has turned itself into a gigantic hedge fund, but of a kind that lacks the ability to profit from a downturn, is likely to be especially badly hit."
Yes, wars are costly. But the US hegemony since WWII has been based on the military-industrial complex, which has been both the engine and the main beneficiary of the North American imperial hegemony.
The unique advantage of the US financial domination is that everything is denominated in dollars, specially US foreign debt. Hence they believe that sinking the dollar will remove the brutal debt the US has (particularly towards China). However it will also sink US purchasing power and US economic hegemony.
In the past these kind of inter-hegemonic tensions have been "solved" via war. I think it was Lenin who wrote more extensively on this subject of imperialism and inter-capitalist war being one single process. And that was another reason why he wanted socialism, because he hoped peace would came through it.
However nowadays every self-respecting country has nukes and that is a huge deterrent.
I had read about Marina in The Economist about the time she was sacked and once after that. I haven't kept up with the news. She seems to me a very courageous person and Lula a disgrace.
I hope she has chance to improve Brazil's record in the near future in whatever form, I don't know how she would be as a president.
I don't know about where those lefties stand and how such a partnership would work for her.
The stuff about the dollar is over my head.
Nobody could deny that the the US is a regional hegemon in the Americas, they'd not stand for a potential rival trying to supplant them in south. Only Brazil might have the potential to do that, but they have some way to go before reaching genuine contender status.
The stuff about the dollar is over my head.
In W Europe the US military presence stops any tendency for Germany's neighbours to feel insecure and start forming alliances that would make Germany react as of old, US troops are in Japan for the same reason.
Nuclear weapons are a deterrent against Nuclear war.
Nuclear weapons are a deterrent against Nuclear war.
They are a deterrent against conventional war too, you just need the ability to strike first, whose precedent was set by the USA. Of course this won't work if the enemy is the hands of a madman, but this is assumed not to be possible (a calculated risk, I guess).
However the star wars project challenged that a bit but AFAIK so far it's not viable to engage in a serious nuclear war and survive. Even if destroyed in the stratosphere (what is not likely) the radioactive winter would ensue anyhow signaling th end of humankind, at least as we know it.
What nuclear arsenals don't dissuade against are versus guerrilla wars nor versus well calculated localized conflicts (Grenada style invasions). In the latter case, the powers only guarantee with their weapons what is really crucial for them and a red line is clearly defined, just in case (you can invade Grenada but not Cuba, for instance). Guerrilla wars have their own local dynamics and are hence rather out of the open confrontation scenario.
Only Brazil might have the potential to do that, but they have some way to go before reaching genuine contender status.
Sure. At the moment Colombia has almost as many soldiers as Brazil and additionally counts with all the might of the US Southern Command, being also the third country in the US military aid list (the first one is Israel, not sure if the second is Egypt or Pakistan). Additionally Brazil's Navy is relatively small, conceived only for coastal defense (but they have one aircraft carrier, something that China does not ATM).
The key is whether Brazil can and wants to spend a good deal of its budget in military efforts or rather try to fence off the Empire diplomatically and spend it in development and welfare instead. So far it has chosen the second option but, faced with increased US confrontation (practical annexation of Colombia as protectorate, coup in Honduras, etc.), it may well decide that it's about time to reinforce its military capabilities.
On the other hand, Colombian military might may be futile because all that military power is not even able to reign on its own borders. But the USA may want to attack or otherwise de-stabilize other Brazilian allies like Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua...
Brazil is at a juncture. But time counts in its favor because the US power is receding slowly and, like in my example of Charles V, they can't reign on their supposed area of influence anymore as they used to do.
In Spanish it's said: "le han crecido los enanos" ("his dwarves have grown up", meaning that the show is over because of unruliness and growing power of the former subordinates). It's not essentially different from the cyclical and sometime chronic disintegration episodes that feudal power suffered in the Middle Ages, when the central power was weakened.
But of all the "grown dwarves", Brazil is the one that has a more difficult scenario because it rivals nothing else that the old superpower in its own self-attributed backyard. Hence Brazil would prefer to have a low profile for as long as possible. But from the US viewpoint the desired scenario may be the opposite instead: to secure the "backyard" as soon as possible.
However I'm quite sure they will fail in that enterprise and shake the internal solidarity of the Empire if they go too aggressive against friendly democratic countries of Western culture. In Europe the public opinion is going to be clearly against the USA in such circumstances, have no doubt. And in Latin America even more clearly so.
Also the US Empire will soon have to deal with a failed state and/or a revolutionary situation just south of Río Grande. Mexico is virtually bankrupt after the swine flu, the drought and all the unsolved problems carried over from the past.
A no win Charles V/Philip II situation: conflicts everywhere, brutal debt and growing opposition from all corners. The Empire can't be sustained for much longer.
PS- But one thing is for real: the USA will not invade Brazil because it's so huge that is a self-defeating project. But it can blackmail it in several ways.
Maju,
And do the €-socialists have any opinion about Iran's regime now?
I read the comments in El País about Mahmoud's visit to Hugo and a lot of them just use the opportunity for more gringo bashing.
It seems to me they prefer to ignore the situation in Iran because the "US is evil", the Shah was bad, the US helped Iraq and so on. Never mind countless real socialists were murdered not only by the Shah but by the religious regime that took over and let them down. Never mind now the situation of women, minorities etc is dismal (yes, yes, I know about Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Algeria and so on).
The lefties ask me my opinion about Madagaskar's political situation and about that of Slovenia or Bhutan, but it seems they don't have opinions of other things when they want to talk about their pet case, or their opinions are always mild towards those who are in some way not very friendly towards the US.
They very promptly go for an anti-West position in Kosovo, in the Georgian conflict and so on but remain quite when it comes to Russia's crimes in chechenia (never mind it is just Russia now and not the Soviet Union).
I want to see some Eurolefties marching through the streets and saying "oh, how we screwed it with Mugabe!"
It would be interesting to see how monolithic or not the opinions on a set of foreign affairs issues is for extreme right, extreme left, people from the centre, etc.
What can I say? I'm just one and can't say what others think.
Personally I think that the Iranian regime is a disgrace but not more than Saudia or Israel. So kind of I don't really care as long as there is no real revolution going on. The Muslim countries have been quite refractarious to secularism and socialism but a good deal of the responsability for that lays on US shoulders and those of their allies (Britain, Saudia, Israel, Pakistan). The Taliban and Al Qaida are US creations and I'm sure that to some extent they still work for the Empire, specially Al Qaida.
Whatever the case, I see no reason for the Western nuclear powers to demand Iran or any other country not to develop nuclear weapons. If they would have renounced to them and invaded Israel when it developed its nuclear arsenal, then they would have the moral high standing, but they don't and are doing it all just for power.
So it's power geopolitics what all this is about. And Iran is in this context: (a) a nationalist regime and (b) a serious rival to US/Zionist hegemony in Central and West Asia(and hence supported by China and Russia).
In a sense, being asked about Iran or Sudan sounds to me to a poor defensive tactic, where the issues of Israel and general absence of democracy and human rights in all the countries of the region, including those that are allied of the USA/NATO/Israel (which are most), are transfered to the two or three exceptional regimes, that while similarly totalitarian, are opposed to the Empire.
The crucial issues in all the Middle East are, first of all, the Zionist neocrusader colony, and, then, democracy, human rights, secularism and the sovereignty of all nations (caution: not the same as states). Without destroying Israel there is no future for the region, just like the destruction of Apartheid signaled a new era in all Southern Africa.
Poor defence? Solo os estoy pagando con la misma moneda. Every time we talk about Venezuela, the lefties start to use as topics to justify anything happening there the USA, Israel and so on. They also ask us what we think about Brazil's topic X and XI and about, as I said, Madagascar or Mongolia, Liechtenstein or the UAE. When we then wonder why they support someone who is obviously violating human rights in Iran, say, they say we are distracting from the issue being discussed and anyway: those human right violations are for you justified in the framework of your supposed "fight against imperialism" (which comes only from the US and the EU).
"Personally I think that the Iranian regime is a disgrace but not more than Saudia or Israel."
In spite of all the very grave defects in Israel, there is more freedom of expression there and the courts
are much more independent than anything you can dream of in Iran.
"I'm sure that to some extent they still work for the Empire, specially Al Qaida."
Yeah, ETA as well.
Actually, now that I think of it: ETA must be working for the US, it is by far the major problem Basques have to get more autonomy.
"So it's power geopolitics what all this is about. And Iran is in this context: (a) a nationalist regime and (b) a serious rival to US/Zionist hegemony in Central and West Asia(and hence supported by China and Russia)."
We say in Venezuela, perhaps also in Spain: "excusa de muchos es consuelo de bobos".
For me human right abuses don't even themselves out if they are caused also in a place you reject and is opposed to that regime you support. I marched against the invasion of Iraq, but I can and actually are very vocal about human rights carried out by people wearing "red", "blue" or other badges.
Well, Iranians are nationalists, like Israelis. It seems you just like those nationalists that are not Jewish.
For me every nationalism, every single one, is just an ailment.
Another thing is cultural identity and economic independence. Nationalism always ends up in chauvinism.
Kepler: I do not know you. But I am a subject of the American-Zionist Empire. I am not so concerned about what happens outside it. I want the Empire to become a socialist democracy of the peoples or to vanish.
Anyhow the Empire includes, one way or another, about most of the world and 100% of the developed world. This imperial developed world lives on what other peoples produce and pays our welfare with the blood of many innocent children worldwide. They promise democracy and deliver tyranny and corruption.
It is essentially Evil(TM). Are Iran, China, Russia, Sudan also Evil(TM)? Yes. That's why I side with Venezuela and not with Iran. But I don't oppose Iran either, as it's out of my direct scope and "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Venezuela may be a disaster but at the moment its not just archetypal Evil(TM). You the conservatives are Evil(TM) and it's the conservatives who rule in Iran, Russia and China too.
WTF, all I ask is for some non-evil Socialist activity and I'm willing to support it when happens, logically. I'm so desperate that I'm willing to sympathize with even the slightest sign of neutral allignment.
"ETA must be working for the US, it is by far the major problem Basques have to get more autonomy".
That's stupid and arrogant.
And insulting. We can't discuss these matters with all the clam an frankness they would deserve because expressing certain opinions in this fascist democracy can be considered a crime, carrying many years of prision, plus torture, isolation, etc.
What I can say is that the only problem the Basque country has to attain self-rule is foreign occupation. Once France and Spain pull back, we will have absolutely no problem ruling ourselves democratically as we have done since the depth of time.
That is the only problem: the foreign tyranny and occupation.
"Well, Iranians are nationalists, like Israelis. It seems you just like those nationalists that are not Jewish".
I mean nationalist in the sense of defending the people's and specially the local capitalist interests versus the Imperial Zionist monopoly speicfically. Israel is apparently nationalist but in fact it is the most Imperial of all states, because Israel can only exist in the context of the Zionist International, which is an imperialist force.
I use the concept "nationalism" in international politics as opposed to neocolonial vassal. I have not invented this term, it's in the literature since long ago. Within the Empire an underdeveloped state, and often even developed states, can't defend their national interests without stepping aside from the Imperial Colonial Oligopoly.
It is not too related to the usual concept of "nationalism" as adherence to one nation's rights or privileges. Nationalism in this other sense can be pro or anti-Imperial, depending of the role and autonomy your nation of chose has assigned (for example Spanish nationalists are pro-Imperial because the Empire guarantees the unity of the Spanish realm - but Basque nationalists need to be anti-Imperial or not to be).
The Empire will replace those leaders that try to get their countries out of their pre-assigned roles. These dissident "nationalist" leaders nevertheless do exist because there are real forces and objective interests behind them. This is particularly true for Latin America, where the choice of model is either colonial disaster (like Mexico or Colombia) or more or less outright confrontation with Washington and its vassals on who rules the nation's resources (natural, industrial, financial, intellectual and human) and what these are used for.
Nowadays the Class War is a conflict about command. Who commands production and what is production intended for. It is a crucial democratic issue: is production democratic or is oligarchic? Is it intended to benefit the people or is it meant to benefit just a bunch of stakeholders?
I have very clear where I stand in this matter.
Nationalism always ends up in chauvinism.
I disagree. Nationalism is a broad term. Mostly today nationalism is either a piece of the Imperial machinery (Spanish nationalism, US nationalism, Zionism...) and hence Internationalist in a Capitalist sense (globalizationist or whatever) or a engine of popular liberation (Third World nationalisms, some ethnic nationalisms like Basque or Palestinian ones) that is not detached from Internationalism in a Socialist sense but rather the opposite. There can be some other cases, I guess but it's not a matter of chauvinism when you just want your people to survive, control their own country and be free.
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