Chavez spent several hours with us, a small group of New York labor-union and political activists. After brief introductions by two SEIU leaders, Chavez spoke for over an hour. In response to the thank-yous for-keeping-the-socialist-flame-lit-in-the-21st-century expressed by those who preceded him, Chavez replied that he viewed himself and other regional leaders (Morales, Correa, etc.) as effects rather than causes -- specks just trying to navigate a hurricane, the rise of the peoples of Latin America. He then tried to place the struggles today in the broader scope of the secular struggle of the Latin American peoples against colonialism and imperialism.
On the Soviet Union, he argued that it never represented a threat to the national security of the U.S. That the threat was made up by the strategists of the empire. He referred to the plebeian revolutionary thrust of October, and praised the effort. He said he had recently visited factories in places that were previously part of the Soviet Union, illustrating this with an anecdote about workers in a truck manufacturing plant in Kiev. He then noted that by the time the Soviet Union disintegrated, none of these workers raise up, which showed that regretfully the socialist content had by then been emptied out of the Soviet Union shell.
Regarding Obama, he said he often had the impression that there were two of them, one giving great speeches and another one implementing policies that contradicted his speeches. He referred Obama's speech at the UN general assembly in which the U.S. president said the U.S. was interested in promoting peace and disarmament, yet he was installing military bases in Colombia. He said it was telling that Obama in his speech made no reference whatever to Honduras. He said that Obama could play a tremendously positive role in the U.S. and the world, but that he needed to be "enlightened by the gods," which -- in concrete terms -- translated into working people in the U.S. and the world raising up to challenge him and pressure him to deliver on his promises. Chavez referred to the anger Obama's mild attempts of reform was eliciting among right-wingers.
Chavez said he, as a representative of the Venezuelan people, wanted a good relationship with Obama. He wanted to be able to talk with him, and encourage him to cooperate to address the issues he said the U.S. wanted to promote. But that there were some surrounding Obama who didn't want that kind of direct relationship to happen. So, he needed our help, the help of regular U.S. working people to get around the obstacles. He repeated that Venezuela posed no threat to the U.S., which he deemed a great country.
In the Q&A segment, he took five questions from the audience, most of them union activists and leaders. He devoted over an hour to answering these questions, even though he was hard pressed to go see next a movie with Evo Morales and Oliver Stone, and then use some of his night to prepare his U.N. speech this afternoon. (Not that he had to start from scratch crafting his speech, which he never reads, because I'm under the impression that he used us to test some of the lines he'll deliver this afternoon at the UN podium.) Most of the questions were about exploring avenues of cooperation between Venezuela and working people in the U.S. (e.g. whether CITGO could buy Stella D'Oro and allow a coop of workers to run it), Iraq, etc. Chavez made the point that the government-to-government agreements that constituted the ALBA (Boliviarian Alternative for the Americas) were meant to be the spearhead, but that the shell had to be filled with people cooperating horizontally. He said there was a social-movement council in ALBA that could incorporate U.S. working organizations, just as it included Indian movements and other grassroots organizations in Latin America. He just said that we had to be careful, since it was always possible for the powers that be to present any cooperation with Venezuela as "Chavez setting up cells of Hizbollah in New York City." (All quotes are from my admittedly deficient memory.)
One question gave him the opportunity to reflect on the changes that have happened in the region and the world in the last ten years plus, since he became president of Venezuela. He didn't really take credit from them, since -- he said -- all one individual can do is "try and navigate the hurricane." He concluded by referring to Marx and Engels and their ever-more-valid Manifesto call for the workers of the world to unite. His reflections on the changes that have taken place in these last decade or so made me think of Victor Hugo's words: