'Chavez-style civil war'? Is that like an Allende-style civil war? Or a Sandinista-style civil war?
>But there is another option, one his own Workers
>party has tried before, one that made Porto Alegre itself a beacon of a new
kind
>of politics: more democracy. He could simply refuse to play the messiah or
the lone
>ranger, and instead hand power back to the citizens who elected him, on key
issues
>from payment of the foreign debt, to land reform, to membership of the Free
Trade Area
>of the Americas. There are a host of mechanisms that he could use:
referendums,
>constituents' assemblies, networks of empowered local councils and
assemblies.
Gosh, a referendum. Bet they never thought of that in Brazil--like, I've got a crazy idea, why they don't run a National Plebiscite on the External Debt. They could ask people whether Brazil should maintain its agreements with the IMF at the expense of... Oh, wait, never mind.
>Choosing an alternative economic path would still spark fierce resistance,
but his
>opponents would not have the luxury of being against Lula, as they are
against Chavez,
>and would instead be forced to oppose the repeated and stated will of the
majority
>- to be against democracy itself.
This argument undermines itself. If there's one thing that's clear from what's going on in Venezuela, it's that you can have a significantly organized grassroots--in 'circles' no less-- and it can at least for a while hold back a well-funded reactionary tide. But it doesn't stop the president from getting attacked as a figurehead and as a symbol of undemocracy.
Klein's offensively underestimating the on-the-ground popular participation necessary to push forward what she snottily calls 'failed left political projects' in Latin America--quick quiz, those U.S.-backed death-squad dictatorships in Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay... were any of those by chance responding to grassroots participatory movements?
This is an insult to the memory of every victim of these regimes.
Jenny Brown