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Venezuela ... the Achilles' Heel of the Bolivarian Revolutionfranzlee, Viernes, Octubre 27, 2006 - 16:30
Franz J. T. Lee
By: Franz J. T. Lee Generally, during the months prior to elections in December, here in Venezuela it has become customary ... and nearly traditional ... that dozens of rumors about a possible military coup were being mounted vertiginously, and, at the same time, heavy rains and floods were terrorizing the millions of loyal voters. Some of these latest Cassandra warnings were real, most of them were just fakes. In the past, the fact itself that a seriously predicted threat did not materialize had various reasons ... for example, either it was discovered in time to be neutralized successfully or the vandals were forced to alter their CIA manuals, plans or tactics. * One thing is certain; every day subversive recipes are being coined to topple the progressive, legitimate, democratic government of Venezuelan President Chavez. Many threats, guarimbas and plots will come within the next weeks, among them will be a possible, planned, military coup. As magnicide, it will be aimed at the head of the Bolivarian Revolution ... at its Achilles' Heel. However, related to the above, an ancient wise man, Heraclites, had warned us that "everything flows." Another philosopher of the Enlightenment, Kant, has reminded us that space and time as we perceive them do not exist in objective reality, that they are just labor fabrications of the human mind and that things not only flow, they gradually also "transform themselves into full recognizability" by a healthy and sane human and social mind. Furthermore, a master dialectician, Hegel, has taught us that "what comes into life merits to pass away into oblivion." With such scientific precision and theoretical incision we have to study and follow the current political events in Venezuela, in their relations to other international concomitant processes, for example, within the context of the war in Iraq, with its 655 000 innocent victims, because of oil and energetic reasons, mercilessly slaughtered by United States fascist imperialism. All these transversal realities and transhistoric processes, especially their politico-belligerent dangers are valid for Bush and global fascism, but also for the economic, political, social and military figures on the current world stage of the Bolivarian Revolution. We should note that the masses that stormed Miraflores and Fuerte Tiuna, putting their very lives at stake, to save the democratic revolution nearly half a decade ago are today not the same social reality any more. These victorious masses have changed. They expressed their democratic sovereignty in a series of elections. If their human hopes and daydreams ever would be frustrated, and if they should become socially aware of such a betrayal of their human sacrifice, then the revolutionary consequence would be more devastating than any military invasion into Venezuela. Confronted by the millions of workers of Venezuela the "opposition," including its Northern paymasters, has become more megalomaniac, racist, arrogant and desperate; the "gente de petroleo" who were sacked (although some succeeded to return) surreptitiously became managers in the telephone and electricity boards, from where they currently are preparing the next military coup. A new political middle class came into existence, whose economic base has broadened, and which as "Chavistas without Chavez" is already affecting revolutionary integrity, neutralizing citizen power and is defrauding participative democracy. In general, reflected by the radio and TV stations of the "opposition," racism has become more open, more virulent in the current political arena. For example, in a TV interview with the anti-Chavez "gusanos" (worms) in Miami, the pejoratively called "tin-collectors" of Venezuela and the Caribbean by the haut monde of yesteryear are now being called "parasites" of the government of Caracas by the current racist presidential candidate Manuel Rosales. To this pandemic level race hatred of the poor by the "chosen few" in Venezuela has advanced. Although this racist attitude towards the poor of Venezuela is recorded and has been played again and again in the La Hojilla program of the state-owned Venezuelan TV channel 8, yet bare-faced liar Rosales denies that he ever said anything of the like; on the contrary, he confirms that he simply "loves" the Bolivarians, that he would like a friendly debate with President Chavez and that he aspires to be the future president of the Venezuelan Great Family. We can only suggest that Rosales and his boss should urgently apply to assist classes in Mision Robinson I, to become at least instrumentally alphabetized in modern reality. Definitely, the golpistas and Quislings of Bush know no limits, they really think that political life is a bingo game, that the sky is the limit for lies and arrogance. Ever since April 2002, much has changed within the country, within the masses, in Miraflores and the Armed Forces. We have now new Russian rifles, soon we will have factories to produce modern sophisticated weapons. Who knows, following the wishes of Bush and Putin, soon together with Brazil we will have our own atomic reactors, producing peaceful electricity. Oh, Yes! We have a magnificent new train full of happy workers in Caracas and a troubled "opposition" green with envy, dreaming about blowing up this popular joy, this victory of the Bolivarian Revolution at the earliest convenience. Furthermore, business is business, we have signed fat contracts with huge, corporate oil giants ... that are already plundering the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia, and whose share holders and bosses make billions of US dollars of lucrative profits per week ... to exploit and extract oil and gas in the Orinoco Delta. Over the last three years economic growth increased by 12%, the highest in Latin America, and above global average. In many sectors, as a result of the oil bonanza, of efficient economic programs of the government, in building and construction, in big business and assembly plants of expensive foreign cars, the economy is flourishing. Large queues in front of the car factories are awaiting the golden opportunity to buy the next new car. In tourist Merida, the whole infrastructure is collapsing under the weight of the car avalanche; new residence complexes grow overnight everywhere, the traffic jams extend across the whole day, driving in Merida is becoming a nightmare, the air is polluted, the noise has become unbearable. Everybody, except the bus and taxi drivers, is awaiting the launching of the "trolley-bus" in the city of "eternal Spring," but it will probably just accelerate the real problems in the "city of the gentlemen," in Merida. * Not only on a world scale, also in Merida and Venezuela, many things are getting out of hand, we are losing the reins of revolutionary conduct and control. What we have not studied, what we do not tell our workers, is that without exception in all the banks, companies, factories and businesses of Venezuela our workers are being exploited mercilessly by capitalism itself. If this is not uprooted, any discourse about socialism becomes empty politickery. Capitalism, ... sacredly guaranteed in our Constitution as private property of the means of production, that progressively and inexorably is converting millions of Venezuelan employed and sub-employed workers into cheap (and globally even already obsolete) wares, into physical and intellectual labor power for the unequal master-slave exchange globalized market ... is rife everywhere in Venezuela, is flourishing in leaps and bounds. Who thinks that we could resolve our fundamental problems within the capitalist system is in reality just night dreaming, is enjoying macabre nightmares. If we do not urgently change the current state of affairs, then soon we will lose our international working class revolutionary solidarity, worse even, our national proletarian. working and peasant class base. In other words, if we are not careful, responsible and alert, we may lose the very Bolivarian Revolution itself. What is our "missing link," our weakest point? The political image of President Chavez, as specter goes around the globe, in Germany, Christoph Twickel has just published the first biography of Chavez in the German language. In parallel institutions, Chavez urgently is trying to protect the class interests of the poor, to promote a just distribution of national income to all social classes, to construct a variety of Christian and indigenous socialism of the 21st century. Precisely this is causing the huge class contradictions, the ferocious class struggle in Venezuela, is creating the current explosive situation before the presidential elections of December 3. In the last analysis, on a world scale, this dilemma partially explains why we only have the alternative: Fascist Savagery or Scientific Socialism. Like in the current United Nations stalemate in the electoral fiasco to find a Latin American not permanent representative in the Security Council, in reality, the battle is personified by Chavez and Bush, by Socialism versus Fascism. With all the critique that we may have, with all the errors that Chavez may commit, for the time being, wholeheartedly, but critically, with all our might we have to defend the Bolivarian Revolution against World Fascism. Everywhere the CIA, paramilitary forces, saboteurs in the public administration and snipers masked as buhoneros are infiltrating all walks of life. They are organizing destabilization campaigns everywhere, attacking the computers of the revolutionary vanguard with a galaxy of dangerous viruses, organizing systematic black-outs, interference in Internet services and communication, assassination of peasant leaders, and launching magnicide projects. On the other hand, as far as possible, David is already taking the minimum, necessary precautions to arm and defend the people's democratic revolution against Goliath's fascist arsenal of arms of mass destruction. We can do this only within the bounds of our reality, more we cannot do, less we should not. However, one man, one idea and one god can not make a social, less a world revolution; the very transnational corporate counter-revolution in Latin America proves this golden rule. Putting all our golden eggs in one basket will be fatal in the final United States military onslaught against Venezuelan democracy and sovereignty. Yes, the times are changing, continentally and internationally many things occurred over the last years which have changed fundamentally the range and direction of the political panorama of the Bolivarian Revolution. On the one hand it was radicalized towards "socialism," on the other hand, counter-revolutionaries infiltrated into strategic posts and positions, and are trying to deviate the revolution towards imperialist reformism. However, as exception, till today all efforts to formulate a revolutionary theory based on Bolivarian praxis have not yet reproduced the necessary scientific and philosophical fruits ... we are still struggling with religious cobwebs and ideological relics of the feudal and bourgeois, democratic yesterday. Overseas more than ever, the diabolical odor of sulphur is suffocating the United Nations; the reformist alliance of labor and capital in Brazil is neutralizing Lula; currently Evo is tasting the bitter tonic of the April 11 CIA destabilization maneuvers in Venezuela. Mexico is awakening, strongly directing revolutionary hurricanes towards the coming North American apartheid wall of human woe. Within this global, globalized boiling crucible we have to see the coming events in Venezuela. The comrades that won the Bolivarian elections nearly eight years ago are not the same leading figures anymore. The masses that stormed Miraflores and Fuerte Tiuna to rescue their beloved president have changed, they still fight for President Chavez, but not necessarily for the Bolivarian Revolution, or for its logical continuation should anything drastic happen to their Comandante. * To be a radical, popular revolution en masse millions have to know the truth, have to know what is capitalism, what is its opposite, socialism, and how to transcend both scientifically and philosophically. This is not yet the main topic in revolutionary Venezuela at this moment. In fact, in 1789, this was the central theme across Europe, and in the Revolutions of 1848, it was topic No. 1, as expressed in the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels. Who thinks that this topic is obsolete has simply missed the transgalactic emancipation express. With due respect to all our heroic efforts, this revolutionary sine qua non, that is, the construction of a real revolutionary workers party, not concentrated on one man alone, a true collective, rotating, revolutionary vanguard, could not and did not materialize itself as yet over the last eight years. Surely, the "opposition" has nobody that could match with the revolutionary stature and charisma of Chavez. According to Mario Silva in "La Hojilla," his current contender Manuel Rosales has a miserable "twenty-two" percent probability, and even this inflated estimate is far-fetched. However, on the side of the government it is worse. Who would have any chance to replace President Chavez and to direct the Bolivarian Revolution to continental and global dimensions should one of all the diabolical acts of magnicide that are being planned meticulously against him by pure accident ever would be successful? Bolivarian praxis, making the revolution, and socialist theory, thinking our emancipation, cannot be performed only by Chavez. Very few of us really are developing scientifically and philosophically the logic, the course, the quo vadis of our world revolution. After eight years of possibilities, this is now the Achilles' Heel of the Bolivarian Revolution. Where is the revolutionary vanguard? * Its very absence puts Chavez' life in great danger. Where is the international program of emancipatory transition, of the "transvolution" and "exvolution" from capitalist production to socialist creation? We know that one great god, one great idea, and one great man, all alone do not and can not make any history whatsoever, and definitely not a "new socialism of the 21st century." This is a social issue, the task of the workers of the world in its totality. However, ideological and religious mind control has internalized such fallacies and millions; precisely because they have been kept in unscientific and religious obscurantism for generations, they still believe in messianic hocus-pocus and fairy tales about godmother "International Monetary Fund" and the padrino "United Nations." All over in the hundreds of cathedrals built by colonialism and feudalism across Latin America, they ... the poor, sighing oppressed creatures, the hearts of a heartless world (Marx) ... are lighting up candles pleading for divine help to preserve and save the lives of their beloved earthly leaders. This is their main weapon of mass defense. This is the transhistoric political victory of Christianization, of the Vatican and of other divine earthly institutions. Until now, these beliefs backfired in defending mainly ruling class interests, they brought us precisely to where we are now, that is, facing corporate, imperialist self-destruction of the human species. Over the last two decades, no religion, no burning candle, no prayer, no god stopped the genocide of a million innocent Arabs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, they will not save a single Venezuelan or Iranian should the Bush administration ever decide to raze Venezuela or Iran to the ground, to convert them like Hiroshima and Nagasaki into radio-active ashes. The truth is so obvious, so clear to see, with our eyes and minds. Surely, in the philosophic sense of Ernst Bloch, we honor and respect all our comrades, all our ministers, all true religious feelings, emotions and sentiments which motivate real human acts and which form the true anti-capitalist quintessence of real utopian, emancipatory daydreams. However, the ruling classes, especially the church hierarchy and oligarchy, by and large, overtly and covertly, without any compassion, and by dictatorial confession and devilish exorcism, have converted our sacred humanistic values into an educational and cultural weapon to keep us at bay, to destroy all our revolutionary actions, to nip in the bud any efforts of class consciousness, to reproduce master-slave authoritarian and totalitarian relations and to decapitate any real popular working class movements, class struggles, parties or popular leaderships. The advent of a cultural revolution we can already see in the Wednesday evening program of Radio Nacional of Vladimir Acosta. In one of his programs he explained religious alienation and manipulation in a most revolutionary way, as intrinsic part of a cultural revolution within the Bolivarian Revolution. A week ago the Prensa Latina published an urgent alert that President Hugo Chavez Frias made public in his political presidential campaign in Valencia in the state of Carabobo, about advanced subversive conspiracies on Venezuelan territory, about definite plans to assassinate him. He stated that, from overseas, and from within Venezuela herself, serious warnings came over the last couple of days about "plans to eliminate him physically." The Bush administration, its CIA, paramilitary forces, lackeys and snipers have already tried to topple President Chavez for seven years, but all was in vain. Legally and democratically, because of a huge mass support ... over 60% of the Venezuelans voters would surely support him in the next December 3, 2006 elections .. without fraudulent tricks, his nearest contender Manuel Rosales would not even reach 20% ... there is no way to get rid of the "dictator" and "tyrant" Chavez. Many times he has escaped assassination attempts already; a few weeks ago in the state of Zulia some paramilitary forces tried to kill him ... they failed and escaped to Colombia. Desperately, the United States government and the internal and external "opposition" have to get rid of Chavez, it is a matter of now or never. This is a social order, manslaughter by the social order of capitalism ... it does not even permit basic simple democracy any more. Simple reforms are already a threat to world capitalism. What do they fear most in the metropoles? Chavez said it in Valencia ... he asked the people of Venezuela to resist fascism for the next five thousand years, should the Bush government and its Quislings in the next weeks succeed to eliminate him ... but above all ... he asked hem to realize socialism on a world scale. Capitalism needs its negation to exploit, but it also fears its real opposite, its dialectical doom ... that is, socialism ... and hence, it is trying by hook and by crook to stop the logical post-capitalist transition towards non-productive, creative Human Emancipation. Meanwhile, very rare things are happening all over Venezuela ... rumors and more rumors brew everywhere. Feverishly, in some states, the poor are already buying candles, matches, batteries and tinned sardines. In the evening, like flickering Christmas fairy lights, the electric lights in Merida go on and off, the telephone lines become like spaghetti and Internet connections are playing hide and go seek. Heavy torrential rains are visiting the country; like in the days of previous December elections ... all these remind us of the mortal floods in Vargas (December 1999). Is HAARP at work again? Strange mobilizations, searches at checkpoints, assassinations of Bolivarian peasant leaders in Zulia, earthquakes near Trinidad, explosive gadgets near the American embassy, accompanied by fake Arab threats ... too many coincidences, too many maneuvers ... who is doing his CIA home-work, his golpista exercises? Are we approximating the next "April 2002" fiasco? In Venezuela, Sunday evenings at midnight, seem to be favorite times to attempt military coups, hence, comrades, beware of October 29 (an ominous birthday gift for me?), November 13, etc. In any event, as we indicated so often already, we live in dangerous times, in the epoch of world fascism. Here, with Caracas on the tip of the emancipatory iceberg, we are in immediate danger, hence, friends and comrades, be very careful in the next weeks, humanity needs us. fra...@vheadline.com --- Franz J. T. Lee, born in South Africa, is a world renowned freedom fighter against Apartheid and all forms of racist fascism; he is the author of many books in English, German and Spanish, is a commentarist of VHeadline and a professor of philosophy and political science at the University of The Andes, Mérida, Venezuela. Above all, he is a constant supporter of the Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America and elsewhere. His address, home page and Venezuela News Bulletin: adm...@franzlee.org http://www.franz-lee.org/venezuela00001.html.
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