Doug wrote:
I interviewed Tariq Ali the other week for my radio show, and finally got to broadcast it last night; it'll be up on my web archive today. Tariq speaks with Chavez fairly often, and says that Chavez regularly says that we are not living in a revolutionary epoch, and all we can accomplish now is a left social democratic set of reforms. "We cannot leap" beyond history, he says - and Castro reportedly agrees. This is what Chavez means when he talks about 21st century socialism.
===================== Yes, they all start with an analysis of the nature of the period, and base their politics on that - even if it falls short of what they would like or think is necessary.
Describing oneself or someone as a "revolutionary" outside of a revolutionary period is utterly meaningless to me. There is no way of knowing how people - leaders and followers - will respond in crisis situations. History is full of examples of "revolutionaries" who balked and "reformist" leaders who moved left with their followers when they were tested. I know people who who describe themselves as "liberals" or "conservatives" whose strength of character and evident concern for others is such that I'm confident they'd make the right choices if those around them were in distress. .
