Chavez gone, but Chavismo here to stay

Federico Fuentes writes that although Chavez gone, but Chavismo here to stay.

The explanation for this ongoing support is that Chavismo was never simply one man’s project based on one man — as important a figure as Chavez was. Rather, Chavez served as a catalyst for Venezuela’s excluded poor majority to directly intervene into politics.

Chavez’s election represented a spilling over of peoples’ social struggle into a political arena previously restricted to Venezuela’s elite.

The opposition has repeatedly tried to overthrow Chavez — via coups and economic sabotage as well as at the ballot box. But this political force, rooted in Venezuela’s poor majority, mobilised within the state and on the street to defend the Bolivarian revolution and advance its aims.

Chavez’s death in 2013 was a big blow to this project. It may very well suffer future setbacks as well, including the loss of governmental power.

However, there is little evidence to indicate that Venezuela’s poor majority is planning to retreat from the political arena or wind down their revolutionary struggle.

No matter what political force is in government, they will have to contend with a politicised and organised poor who do not want to go back to the Venezuela of yesteryear.

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The political consciousness of the Venezuelans is much higher than that of Australians. They have seen the benefits of Socialism and lived the horrors of Capitalism.

The Capitalists cannot conceive the people having a consciousness outside of following the leader.

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Drivers, Beware: The Costly, Deadly Dangers of Traffic Stops in the American Police State

Barry Ritholtz reposts Drivers, Beware: The Costly, Deadly Dangers of Traffic Stops in the American Police State from Washington's Blog.

In other words, in the American police state, “we the people” are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this mindset that any challenge to police authority is a threat that needs to be “neutralized” is a dangerous one that is part of a greater nationwide trend that sets the police beyond the reach of the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, when police officers are allowed to operate under the assumption that their word is law and that there is no room for any form of disagreement or even question, that serves to chill the First Amendment’s assurances of free speech, free assembly and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a casual “show your ID” request on a boardwalk, a stop-and-frisk search on a city street, or a traffic stop for speeding or just to check your insurance. If you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re under arrest from the moment a cop stops you.

Sad, isn’t it, how quickly we have gone from a nation of laws—where the least among us had just as much right to be treated with dignity and respect as the next person (in principle, at least)—to a nation of law enforcers (revenue collectors with weapons) who treat us all like suspects and criminals?

Clearly, the language of freedom is no longer the common tongue spoken by the citizenry and their government. With the government having shifted into a language of force, “we the people” have been reduced to suspects in a surveillance state, criminals in a police state, and enemy combatants in a military empire.

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This has always been the case for people of colour. Now that white people are getting the same treatment, they are complaining about it.

Whiteness is now being means-tested—if you cannot show the means of a rich bank account, you are no longer white.

The white privilege is being withdrawn from those at the bottom and middle of the socio-economic ladder.

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Is radical leftism a trap for minorities?

Noah Smith asks Is radical leftism a trap for minorities? .

But ultimately, hopping on the radical leftist boat will hurt minorities. And I suspect that leftists in the humanities are doing minorities no favors by trying to convince them that radical leftism is their only hope, when in fact it is a self-defeating strategy.

So what will work? If history is any guide, the only option is to increase tolerance. I don't pretend to know how to increase tolerance. For immigrant groups, it seems to naturally fade over time, especially if those groups 1) organize to fight discriminatory policy, and 2) make a bunch of money. For African-Americans, intolerance seems much more entrenched. I don't pretend to know how to get rid of it, but I am pretty sure that a militant overthrow of capitalism would make things much, much worse.

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Smith does not see Capitalism, in itself, as oppressive. It is merely intolerance that is the problem. He sees intolerance as something to be done away with while preserving Capitalism.

Indeed, he does not see class analysis as useful for analysing anything useful under Capitalism.

I think Smith understands Marx's critique of Capitalism, but does not see himself as involved in any form of class war. He is a disinterested observer of the political economy. For him, Socialism has proven to be a failure and is not an alternative to Capitalism.

He believes himself to be on the right side of history. Yet, history is being made daily in the streets of Athens, Caracas, Havana, Bogata, and Rojava. There the oppression of Capitalism is most keenly felt, and most vigorously resisted as alternatives are built.

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Michael Lebowitz on SYRIZA and us: Social democracy or revolutionary democracy

Michael Lebowitz on SYRIZA and us: Social democracy or revolutionary democracy.

Certainly, there is a lesson here for future governments (and perhaps even the current SYRIZA government) — the absolute necessity to learn to walk upon two legs. But there is also a lesson for us — those of us without the present luxury of government. A socialist party must also walk upon two legs. Of course, it must struggle to capture the existing state from capital so that state can serve the needs of the working class rather than capital. However, it also must “promote by all means possible new democratic institutions, new spaces in which people can develop their powers through their protagonism”. Through the development of communal councils and workers’ councils (essential cells of the new socialist state), the working class develops its capacities and the strength to challenge capital and the old state.

The lesson of SYRIZA should be to never forget the concept of revolutionary practice — the simultaneous changing of circumstances and human activity or self-change. It is never too late to remember and apply this… and never too soon.

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We must cease the reproduction of capitalist thinking and habits within ourselves, and struggle with the creation of socialist thinking and habits.

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Ten years of BDS in solidarity with Palestine

Lisa Gleeson reflects on Ten years of BDS in solidarity with Palestine.

The standard Israeli response — that even the mildest statement of support for the Palestinian people is by definition anti-Semitic — gets trotted out at every opportunity. However, accusations of extremism from Israel and its supporters begin to sound incredibly hollow when examined against what its own officials say about Palestinians.

Recently appointed Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is on record as calling for a genocide against the Palestinian people. Like many Israeli politicians she argues that all land in the West Bank and Gaza as well as pre-1967 Israel belongs to Israel and should never be ceded.

To the Western “referees” of the Oslo peace process this does not disqualify her as a negotiating partner in the process that allegedly has a “two state solution” as its goal. Instead, the Western arbiters, comically portraying themselves as “honest brokers”, demand that the Palestinian side prove to the Israelis that they are worthy partners in the peace process.

In this atmosphere there are few strategies left for Palestinians and their supporters, which makes BDS all the more important. A vigorous and dynamic BDS movement is needed now more than ever. The development of a global mass movement that puts irresistible pressure on Israel and its allies is a vital bulwark against ongoing attempts at destroying the entire Palestinian people.

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Now wonder Israeli settlers feel justified in burning alive children with such political support from their leaders.

The importance of the BDS campaign is to see the humanity of the outcasts in society, such as the Palestinians. That is the subjective aim of the campaign. The objective aim is to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people.

When we see the humanity of the outcasts, we can empathise with them and see others, like Aborigines and refugees, as human beings. Then, we can see their suffering as unjustified.

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Britain: Jeremy Corbyn campaign gives voice to austerity anger

Britain: Jeremy Corbyn campaign gives voice to austerity anger.

A hollowed-out Labour Party may prove unwilling to tolerate a figure like Corbyn, who will attract full hostility from political, economic and media elites. But the movement to get him elected as leader is clearly giving voice to deep-seated anger at the pro-rich policies of both Britain's major parties — and a desire for Labour to provide an alternative from the ruling Conservative Party.

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Even if Corbyn wins and survives a coup, this will detract from building a mass movement because such a win reinforces the lie that the right leader can things back on track.

Workers need to really understand that the whole system is rigged against them—it is not that the wrong people are running the system.

However, this requires a huge leap in the development of the working class consciousness.

Even in Greece after all that has happened, the great majority of people want to stay in the Capitalist system. They just want the system to be less brutal towards them.

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Progression of the Police State Spanish Style: €300 Euro Fine for Calling Police Officer "Mate"; Law of Simmering Social Pots

Mike Shedlock writes that there is a Progression of the Police State Spanish Style: €300 Euro Fine for Calling Police Officer "Mate"; Law of Simmering Social Pots.

The gag law may limit minor protests for a while, but it will also simmer increasing resentment over time.

The law of simmering social pots: Putting a tight lid on a simmering social pot will eventually cause a huge boil-over, and perhaps an explosion, at some point in the future.

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An explosion of this sort releases pent-up frustrations but does not change the underlying causes without a political awareness among the oppressed. This awareness allows the oppressed to understand the situation, and seek appropriate remedies.

In gardening terms, there is a huge difference between trampling everything and weeding. The latter requires knowledge of what is desirable and the willingness to do the hard labour required to remove the weeds.

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