Socialism for the 21s century = Version 2.0 of State Capitalism = a return to managed capitalism and Keynesian policies which were overall ineffective - causing high unemployment and inflation.
So Chavez and his bloated state capitalists are now blaming anarchists for the instability in his country on true radicals?
After all of his empty, bombastic rhetoric - Chavez is nothing but a reformer of the state - a cadre class that will create an ugly bureaucratic nightmare rivaling that of the corporate oligarchy that he has been trying to replace and which has allowed him to be championed by the celebrities of the left.
Does all of this sound vaguely familiar? Haven't we been down this path before?
I guess he has recently read Lenin's - Left Wing Communism - An Infantile Disorder. When I read an article like this one below - I think of all of the betrayed Spanish brothers who fought against Franco and all of the Stalinist scum who have betrayed every great worker revolution in the world in the last 50+ years with their state unions. These people doing the protesting are for an overthrow of capitalism period - not its plastic surgery.
Moreover, I disagree with Chavez's cult of personality, machismo nationalist bourgeois movements like this one as I do statist Leninist "centralized" conceptions or anything resembling "managed capitalism" pushed on the masses by the likes of left wing recuperators like Kuttner and Klein.
Good critical review of THE SHOCK DOCTRINE..
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/kle1-f27.shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/kle2-f28.shtml
Read these articles to get a sense that Chavez's system is running on empty - the global elite class is figuring him out and the tune he plays is outdated as an alternative to capital.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301faessay87205/francisco-rodriguez/an-empty-revolution.html
Bush, Obama, Clinton, Sarkozy, Chavez and Castro, all these messiah's of representative democracy ad nauseam should all be fought against tooth and nail.
State Capitalism is anathema to the perpetuation of our human civilization - it has gone beyond its positive use for development and need in our time. It is the scourge of the world and the source of all of our problems.
- Paul
Eric <rayrena at realtime.net> wrote:
[The sound you here is Zizek moaning his approval.]
Chavez Says Activists May Trigger Backfire Against `Revolution'
By Matthew Walter
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized activists who occupied the archbishop's palace in Caracas and held protests in front of a private television network in the name of his Bolivarian revolution, saying the acts may lead to violence.
Chavez said social activist Lina Ron, who led a group of about 20 Chavez supporters in yesterday's occupation of the archbishop's palace, acted irresponsibly.
``Lina Ron, I adore her, but I have to criticize her, because this is a big display of a lack of discipline,'' Chavez said in comments broadcast by state television. ``What it leads you to believe is that these groups, which say they are revolutionary, have been infiltrated, so that through these actions they can erase the government's successes, and cause violent reactions.''
The ``anarchist'' groups that claim to be part of his political movement are overshadowing progress being made by the government in eliminating food shortages and improving healthcare, Chavez said.
Since voters rejected the president's proposal to rewrite the constitution in December, handing him his first electoral defeat in nine years, he has focused on fixing problems that affect his poor base of supporters.
The president said that last night's protest at Globovision was ``risky,'' saying it could cause the same kind of damage that the ``ultra-left'' in Chile did to President Salvador Allende in 1973, when he was overthrown in a bloody coup.
``Some of these so-called Bolivarian circles, nobody knows what their plan is,'' Chavez said. ``I've met with some of them, and I was very concerned. They seem more like anarchistic groups.'' ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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