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John Reimann says: 'Chris Slee adds to the confusion by writing "The main way in which socialists in the United States and its allies can influence events in Venezuela is by campaiging to end the economic blockade." But it's pretty clear that that has not has any significant degree of "influence" on events there either.' To have any effect on US policy would require a large scale campaign with hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. Building such a campaign is one of the tasks of the US left. This would require educating large numbers of people about the role of US imperialism in Latin America. This is part of the process of building "a mass, independent, radical working class movement" in the US. John says: 'Both Maduro and Chavez before him massively mishandled the oil industry by using all its profits to create the "misiones" for the workers and the poor in Venezuela. As a result, there was no reinvestment in maintaining and modernizing the oil industry.' This may well have been a mistake, but their desire to bring health, education and housing to the poor through the misiones was progressive. Hence I don't think John's analogy between the Chavez/Maduro government and the Assad regime is valid. Chris Slee ________________________________ From: Marxism <marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu> on behalf of John Reimann via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> Sent: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 9:42:46 AM To: Chris Slee Subject: Re: [Marxism] Grand alliance? threatens Venezuela (Green Left Weekly) ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. ***************************************************************** Louis Proyect writes: On 3/12/19 2:14 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote: > None of this means support for Guaido and for US intervention (of any > sort). But there is an alternative - that of the action of the Venezuelan > working class, acting as its own independent force through its own > independent organizations. Yes, John, we all know that. But even if you managed to convince every last Green Left supporter to agree with you, that would make zero impact on Venezuela politics. All of these things have been understood to one degree or another since the mid-20s but repeating them in ritual incantations has no effect unless you believe in magic. Just throwing names at something ("ritualistic incantations") doesn't make it so. Louis takes a couple of sentences from the entire email and makes it seem that this was the purpose of the email as a whole. I am not so delusional as to think that I can influence Maduro's policies. Neither can Green Left Weekly, nor even Louis Proyect. In fact, the only way that events can be influenced to any significant degree from here in the US is through a mass, independent, radical working class movement, and what is required for that is a change in objective conditions. The entire socialist movement combined cannot produce that. Chris Slee adds to the confusion by writing "The main way in which socialists in the United States and its allies can influence events in Venezuela is by campaiging to end the economic blockade." But it's pretty clear that that has not has any significant degree of "influence" on events there either. What we can do is try to clarify things in preparation for a future movement. That was exactly the point of what I wrote. Unfortunately, the way Louis attacks that attempt - by using phrases like "ritual incantations" does not help. Nor does whitewashing the Maduro regime as did the Green Left Weekly article. Incidentally, one point I forgot to mention in my previous letter is this: That article in effect says that the entire economic crisis in Venezuela is caused by the decline in the price of oil. That, of course, is a part of the cause, but only a part. Both Maduro and Chavez before him massively mishandled the oil industry by using all its profits to create the "misiones" for the workers and the poor in Venezuela. As a result, there was no reinvestment in maintaining and modernizing the oil industry. To add insult to injury, there has been massive corruption in the military-run oil industry as well as in the government as a whole. Nobody on this list (I think) would deny the massive confusion on the left in regard to Syria. There, all to much of the left only sees the (supposed) US hostility to Assad. All they can see is "regime change". They are blind to the role of and experiences of the working class. Leaving completely aside the fact that the US supports Assad, even if it didn't, I think we would all condemn that regime. But there is a similar blindness in regards to Venezuela. That's what socialists should be trying to clear up. John Reimann -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/chris_w_slee%40hotmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com