I was reminded of Dennis's view of the world last night when I was reading an interview with some members of El Libertario on Chavez and Chavismo:
We must understand that in Venezuela we are today living through a rerun of the old Cold War left schema based on confrontation between capitalism and the socialist countries. Thanks to its oil resources and the importance of oil to the world economy, the Chavez government today positions itself as one of the leading forces in this conflict. Much as this confrontation existed before the coming of Chavismo, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Eastern Bloc, the forms of imperialist domination are not the same. It is as if reality has changed but the Chavistas haven’t realised! The regime is trying to answer new problems with old schemas. Both the Chavistas and the opposition still have Cold War theoretical stances. To put it another way: given the lack of critical thinking and theorising, new practice or fresh reflection, they fall back on old ideas and old strategies.
So Chavez has created the ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean, a new institution intended to build new relationships between Latin American countries and become a counterweight to US hegemony. To achieve this it seeks alliance with the Russian Federation, Iran and China... countries which in our eyes are part of world capitalism. But there is all sorts of propaganda about Chavista Venezuela’s leading role in a so-called new movement for anti-imperialist “liberation”. As if this country is in the vanguard of some global upheaval! Always following the old model of the Cold War, bloc against bloc...