> You support grassroots struggles through
> solidarity and mutual aid and other
> methods.
In Venezuela, 90%+ of the times, supporting grassroots struggles entails supporting people who are convinced they *own* the Chávez government. They obviously felt that way prior to April 2002. That's why they risked their lives and saved Chávez's butt by reversing a coup backed by the U.S. After having accomplished that, their belief that they are the *owners* of Chávez's government has been reinforced.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144
They identify themselves with 90%+ of Chávez's policies -- the transfer of massive oil rents to basic education and health care for the poor, the encouragement of direct democracy in local governance, of co-management in state-owned companies, of cooperatives, etc. "Identify" as in identity.
I bet, if you were to offer them your support while saying "fuck Chávez, just another fucking dictator for life," these people -- who view themselves as *protagonists* (the term they use to refer to their new role in politics) -- would think you are with their enemy. Basically, you'd be repeating what all TV stations (but one) and most newspapers in Venezuela say every f-ing day.
You have a point in distrusting leadership and authority. But it's an abstract point, valid in general. It's like the point Michael Pugliese had whenever he raised the spectrum of the Soviet Gulag on this list. We need what Hegel called "the labor of the negative" to keep us honest, but the tricky question is how to remain vigilant of the dangers of betrayal, bureaucratization, corruption, and other trappings inherent to building socialism and most other things worth the effort without succumbing to political paralysis or occasional outbursts.
To my knowledge, there is no easy answer to that question. Anarchists don't have the answer either. If at all, we're going to learn it by trial and error. Just like the n-th heartbreak won't stop a passionate person with a healthy sense of self from trying again and again, the Gulag and atrocities of the kind on the debit side of *our* historical ledger are not going to stand in the way of new experiments to build a decent world. Hopefully we're learning.
A bit of support must be better than none. There are degrees of comfort. The future is uncertain. But where I stand, once a particular leader or government has proved him/itself beyond a reasonable doubt, you don't provide a half-hearted support because you distrust leaders and governments as a matter of principle. That's as wrongheaded as holding back from a friendship because, given circumstances, all humans can in theory stab the friend in the back. Once you decide someone is your friend, you don't pull back, you push forward... and re-negotiate your individual needs within the scope of the friendship and even try to reshape the relationship altogether. Revolutions like friendships are always works in progress. You may wind up disappointed and burned, but pulling back doesn't minimize that chance.
Is there a chance of a split between Chávez and his grassroots base of support? You bet. But as far as I can see, it's not very likely for the time being. I understand that the mere existence of the state and outside personalized authority entail that people do not have full control over their social life. But in Venezuela, for now, things are *moving* in the right direction, to a decisive extent thanks to an individual named Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. We still live in a world where the actions of individuals at the right time and place can have a large impact on the lives of many, for good (Chávez) or for ill (Bush).
Since I'm at it, let me add a thing about individuals. I imagine that you have in mind the inherent, structural types of behavior that arise from the very existence of state power. Psychology doesn't trump the "professional dangers of power," as Christian Rakovsky called them, but part of the dilemma in supporting a political process boils down to the personal level.
Social structures (the environment that gives rise to imperialist threats, increasing grassroots militancy, etc.) constrain or facilitate individual agency, but don't eliminate it. Unless you have a gun pressed against your head, you have choices. That applies to political leaders. So, do we trust in our guts this particular leader? Do we trust him as an individual capable of making the right hard choices in spite of brutal constraints?
I may be totally wrong on this, but it seems to me that there are traits in Chávez's temperament and persona (not to mention fashion style) that make some people somewhat uncomfortable. In the U.S., my sample is mostly people from the Northeastern states. But curiously, their sensibility is not that different from the sensibility of Mexicans (Chileans? Peruvians? Bolivians?) on this regard.
More specifically, there's some boisterous grandiloquence and exuberance in Chávez's style that turns off some people, here and in Mexico, rather instinctively. IMO, those traits in Chávez's style are totally cultural. It's something related to the Afro-Caribbean-Latino mix. In my experience, they don't indicate that a person is unreliable or insincere. Engaging people as individuals can be deadly to our prejudices. In any case, I don't expect Chávez to adjust his style to our cultural tastes.
Julio