On 11/3/06, michael a. lebowitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
At 13:36 03/11/2006, Doug wrote:
>On Nov 3, 2006, at 12:25 PM, michael a. lebowitz wrote:
>
>>At 11:04 03/11/2006, 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.
>>>
>>>Doug
>>
>>Bunk.
>
>Could you elaborate? Tariq says he got this directly from Chavez.
>
>Doug
You could start by looking at 'The Revolution of Radical Needs:
Behind the Bolivarian Choice of a Socialist Path', the concluding
chapter of my 'Build it Now: Socialism for the 21st Century'. Suffice
it to say that Tariq wrote about the basic New Dealism of Chavez way
back (Venezuela being a wonderful Rorschach test in which the casual
visitor gets to see what he wants), and it is certainly possible that
Chavez has said something like that in a conversation with Tariq
(he's a very agreeable guy). But you need to know a bit more before
you say, 'This is what Chavez means when he talks about 21st Century
socialism.' Of course, for foreign consumption (especially before an
election), spreading the word that we're all just chickens here,
boss, can't hurt much.
I'm beginning to figure out where Tariq Ali, in Doug's report, is
coming from. It's not so much Chavez and his allies are actually
aiming only for left social democracy in Venezuela as Ali thinks
that's what they are and should be aiming for in Venezuela as well as
the rest of Latin America, the idea that he probably explains in
detail in his new book Pirates of the Caribbean.
<blockquote><http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/08/tariq_ali.html>
MotherJones.com / interview / 2006
Tariq Ali: Toward A New Radical Politics
A lion of the literary left on the war in Lebanon, U.S. imperialism,
and the prospects for reform in the Middle East.
Paige Austin
August 09 , 2006
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
When Hugo Chavez flies into an Arab country and is interviewed on Arab
television, you have a phenomenal response from the Arabs, saying why
can't we have an Arab Chavez? And the reason is that he explains what
he is doing in Venezuela, that they are using the oil money to build
schools, to build hospitals, to build universities, to help the poor,
who have never been helped, and from my point of view, this particular
model, which I would describe as a left-social democratic model, is
very important because it's the only thing that challenges the
neo-liberal strangle hold on the global economy.</blockquote>
If all Ali means by a "left-social democratic model" is a populist
challenges to the Washington Consensus that does not seek to
expropriate all the expropriators before the masses actually make a
democratic demand for such expropriation, he is not wrong (though I
have to wait till I read the book before making a firm judgment about
what Ali means by it). I would not call that a "left-social
democratic model" but labels matter little after all. But if that's
what Ali means, it's odd for him to hail Daniel Ortega as a beacon of
hope*, while getting despondent about the Middle East. IMHO,
Hizballah, the Ahmadinejad faction, etc. are more "left-social
democratic" than Ortega! But Ali is from the Islamic world, so the
religious grass must look to him greener on the other side of
Muslim-Christian divide. :->
*
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1942828,00.html>
A beacon of hope for the rebirth of Bolívar's dream
A shadow of his former self, Ortega's victory is still an expression
of the wider demand for change sweeping Latin America
Tariq Ali
Thursday November 9, 2006
The Guardian
Daniel Ortega, blessed by the church, flanked by a former Contra as
his vice-president and still loathed by the US ambassador, may be a
sickly shadow of his former self, but his victory undoubtedly reflects
the desire of Nicaraguans for change. Will Managua follow the
radically redistributive policies of anti-imperialist Caracas or
confine itself to rhetoric and remain a client of the International
Monetary Fund?
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
