On 3/2/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I don't think that Whitford's totally unnecessary and unjustified reference to the "awful human rights record" of Cuba should distract people from the broader comparison between Castro and Chávez.
There is a trade off, to be sure. If the Venezuelans had chosen a traditional socialist revolutionary path, Washington might have focused its imperial arsenal on their country rather than Iraq and Iran. Even if Washington's focus had remained the same, there would surely have been more capital flight, more brain drain, more coup attempts, economic sanctions, and so on. On 3/2/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Whitford is saying that Chávez isn't really revolutionizing Venezuela (etc.) Is that (and etc.) right?
That depends on what we mean by revolution. There certainly is revolution in political participation (the norm under capitalist democracy is for the poor to be socially excluded and politically disengaged) going on in Venezuela. In terms of ownership and control of means of production, however, Venezuela has been going only step by step, taking an evolutionary rather than revolutionary path, more a war of position than a war of maneuver. While the economic lot of the poor has improved, inequality has also grown under high oil prices and rapid economic growth after the opposition's sabotage, the problem that Chavez and his comrades have never glossed over. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
