Chuck,
How do you support the people of Latin America in their efforts to resist U.S. imperialism? Where are you speaking up in opposition to Hugo Chavez? How are you doing it? I know the "why", though your reasons are not very well drawn as far as I can see, but I haven't read all your posts so I might be wrong on this last point.
The reasons for my questions is to get us to think about the effect of our actions and the consequences of our opposition.
So if you are only saying "fuck you and Hugo Chavez too" to the LBO list then I would say that the only consequences you expect from your speech is to thumb your nose at "leftists" who you think are fake leftists. This is the usual sectarian style of drawing the correct line. In other words your " Fuck Chavez" statement was merely meant to be provocative and perhaps a parody of infantile leftism... as if providing a parodic example of Leninist derogations against anarchists you might be able to exorcise them. If that is all you want - a simple little provocation - then I am right with you. Provocation can get the blood flowing when you are writing stupid things on minute details of Athenian law on a Saturday morning, as I was when your email passed before my eyes. And if I was going over a boring legal brief or editing a lousy leftist writer, like some people on this list, I would also welcome the parody of infantile leftism as a provocation. (Don't misuderstand me. I don't mean to be harsh or not to take you seriously. I am just taking you with a bit of humor. And trying to pose a couple of serious questions.)
But let us take a higher example. Suppose you go to your local city council and propose a resolution that Hugo Chavez be considered a dictator and that you and your city council should stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela against the tyranny of Hugo Chavez. Suppose you throw in Castro also. I don't think that you would do this, at least I hope you wouldn't. But the question is why wouldn't you do it? After all you believe that it is the truth. I think that any anarchist, or citizen of the U.S.A. who would do something like this would simply be helping the U.S. to subvert even more what small bit of independence the people in Latin America have gained from the U.S. empire. In other words in these actions a person would be aiding U.S. imperialism to some smal extent.
So my next question is, would you go out onto the court house steps and distribute leaflets against Chavez? Would you write letters to your local newspaper? I doubt you would write a letter to George Bush or your congressman or even your Mayor expressing your opinion about Hugo Chavez. But if you did so you would be supporting U.S. imperialsim and no matter if you considered yourself an anarchist or not I would not be on your side politically. To compain to the ruling class press that Chavez is a dictator is to only aid the rulers in their imperial project.
Do you have a solidarity program or contacts with anarchist or grassroot democratic organizations in Venezuela? Do you try to educate them about your views on Hugo Chavez? Do you tell them that Hugo Chavez is a dictator? Do you tell them that they should be supporting some other program or working in some other way?
I must tell you I never tell my friends in El Salvador, Nicragua, Guatemala or Brazil -- many of whom work in grassroot educational organizations, human rights organizations, unions, some of whom live in great danger everyday of their lives -- I never tell them how to vote or how to organize. I never arrogate to myself the need to command them not to support some local political party or presidential candidate. My Latin American "comrades" are of various political types. Some are merely religious and have chosen to work for the poor and against the powerful. I don't tell them what to believe or not to believe or even what position to take on the latest Pope who I am sure hopes to get them excommunicated. Those who work trying to form unions do not need my help to decide that if they vote for Lulu, they will have less of a chance to get their legs broken, even if they don't like Lulu. Those who work in cooperative medical clincs don't need my help to know that they have received more help from the dictator Castro than they have from the U.S. or from all the anarchists in North America. The peasants I met in El Salvador are generally more intelligent than most people I met in graduate school so they need no help from me on how to organize their coffee cooperative and how to get a little fuel from Hugo Chavez. Some of the people I know work in schools inspired by Paulo Freire... others are inspired by liberation theology, and still others by Marxism. Some I would even describe as "christian anarchists" though they would not describe themselves that way. If I knew some secular anarchists I would support them too I suppose. But if my Latin American friends saw that I was sitting here in New York telling them who to support and who to call a dictator and telling my United Statesian friends that Castro should be overthrown and that Lulu is a lousy reformist who props up capitalism, (no matter how often they have said these things to me) they would take a dim view of me and I think that they would correctly accuse me of being an arrogant gringo. The reason they would be correct is that the U.S. maintains political and ecnomic domination over Latin America and continuously threatens the Latin American people for getting out of line in everyway it finds possible. Opposing a Latin American dictator from the belly of the imperialist beast means opposing our own rulers.
Now if you are telling your views on Hugo Chavez only to your anarchist friends with occasional tweaks to other benighted leftists, such as myself, I don't think you are doing much harm if any. Especially if in your educational capacity you frame your rage against Hugo Chavez with a 99% proportion of educational rage against U.S. imperialism.
Jerry Monaco
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
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