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Eli Stephens | 1 Jan 02:20
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Hugo Chavez: 2 book reviews


This is NOT my post; I've stolen it from Daily Kos where it was posted by 
someone named "Cassiodorus" who for all I know is a subscriber to this list. 
With that said...

Two biographies of Hugo Chávez
by Cassiodorus
Mon Dec 31, 2007 at 05:08:01 PM PST

This is a short review of two biographies of Hugo Chávez, current President of 
Venezuela.

Mostly I am interested in comparing and contrasting the two biographical styles. 
  Marcano and Tyszka are much like journalists, whereas Jones has a somewhat 
pro-Chávez axe to grind.  In the end I find Jones more straightforward.  I am 
also interested in depicting Chávez against the background of Venezuelan 
political economy, in which a rich few garner all of the profits from 
Venezuela's enormous oil reserves while the poor majority have in the past found 
themselves shut out of the benefits in times when the price of crude oil has 
been high.

Book reviews:

     Marcano, Cristina, and Alberto Barrera Tyszka.  Hugo
     Chávez.  New York: Random House, 2007.

     Jones, Bart.  ¡Hugo!  The Hugo Chávez Story from Mud Hut to
     Perpetual Revolution.  Hanover NH: Steerforth, 2007.

When reading the biography of a prominent individual, I always feel like I’m
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Eli Stephens | 1 Jan 04:16
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Chavez pardons 2002 coup plotters


 From Press TV:

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez pardons people accused of involving in a 
failed 2002 coup that removed him from power temporarily.

Chavez said he would also pardon others accused in suspected attempts to 
overthrow the government or assassinate him.

"It's a matter of turning the page," Chavez said in a telephone call to state 
television on New Year's Eve. "We would like a country that moves toward peace."

The Venezuelan leader read aloud the law, which grants amnesty to those who 
signed a decree recognizing the interim government that briefly took power 
during the 2002 coup.

Dissident military officers expelled Chavez, but within two days he was returned 
to the presidency following mass protests by his supporters in the streets.

He reiterated that regardless of the law, no one in Venezuela is jailed 'for his 
political ideas'.

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David McDonald | 1 Jan 04:33
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Re: "demo-green" paranoia and slander: in response to xxx

Mark Lause:

So, too, the coherent, monolithic Demo-Green leadership is a 
hallucination.  If you break down the term to figure out what it means, 
it has so many different (and contradictory) trends that it would be 
misleading ourselves to see a common, coherent strategy.

David McDonald replies:

I believe Mark is correct in this assessment. There was tremendous 
confusion about this during 2004, and we are now 4 years down the road 
and into new territory.

I can say from immediate personal experience that one of the people 
excoriated by John Murphy in his Counterpunch screed was instrumental in 
getting Cynthia McKinney up to Seattle for her speech on the Jena 6 at 
New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, so much so that without her help the 
meeting would never have happened and we would not be about to launch a 
Washington State Power to the People Campaign (I'm keeping my fingers 
crossed) that will be very different in racial composition from the 
Green Party as it now stands. So go figure. I am not going to dignify 
Murphy's further assertion that McKinney is a stooge of the demogreen 
faction with a response, except to note that had McKinney the slightest 
inclination to be anyone's stooge she could still be sitting pretty in a 
lifetime congressional seat in Georgia as a real Democrat.

I am for McKinney not because I think her political positions are so 
much better than Ralph Nader's. I have no reason to think that they are. 
I actually think that almost all of us have agreement on the 
fundamentals of the formal politics -- no war, social justice, save the
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Joaquin Bustelo | 1 Jan 04:55
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Re: Elaine Brown Speaks For Me

"Ruthless Critic" writes, about my objection to a four-year-old ABB post
attacking Nader: <<White supremacy as a system certainly exists. The point
here, however,  is that (it seems to me) it cannot be easily framed as a
"'class' dispute", although (of course) it may be a *product* of capitalist
relations.>>

No, the point was vote Democrat. And part of making that point is to frame
racism as a matter of individual attitudes, especially on the part of white
trash, i.e., working people. 

Probably no one on this list has written as much or as frequently or as
emphatically about national questions not being reducible to class. But when
someone shows up like this blogger accusing Nader of workerism for
highlighting in his popular agitation as a presidential candidate the
commonality of interests of all working people with Black people, and using
that as an argument to justify pimping for the likes of John Kerry, the
question involved is not the most precise, scientific or revolutionary
understanding of the national question, but the rather simpler point that
you shouldn't vote for Hitler even if you don't want Vlad the Impaler as
president.

So, yeah, I NAILED our "Ruthless Critic" for trying to smuggle pro-Democrat
propaganda onto the list. Enjoyed it, too.

Joaquin

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Dbachmozart | 1 Jan 05:28
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BHUTTO ASSASSINATION & BUSH'S "SPECTACULAR" FAILURE


<http://www.war-times.org/pdf/WT%20MiR-Dec07.pdf>

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Dbachmozart | 1 Jan 05:47
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Boris Kagarlitsky | A Draw for Ford, but a Victory for All


In The Moscow Times, Boris Kagarlitsky says, "The conflict at the Ford  
factory took on significance far beyond the organization itself and even beyond  
the auto manufacturing industry in Russia. The media from all over the country  
covered the story extensively. This was the country's first open-ended strike  
since the new Labor Code came into force several years ago. It was also the  
first strike that the authorities did not squash and in which its participants 
 obtained a guarantee that they would not be subjected to reprisals."

<_http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/123107LB.shtml_ 
(http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/123107LB.shtml) >

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Dbachmozart | 1 Jan 06:28
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Article from Global Research - The Destabilization of Pakistan


<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7705>

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Joaquin Bustelo | 1 Jan 06:32
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Re: Chavez pardons 2002 coup plotters

An important detail: the amnesty applies only to those who turned themselves
in or have been brought to justice. It does not cover fugitives, including
those abroad.

Joaquín 

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Joaquin Bustelo | 1 Jan 07:42
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Re: "demo-green" paranoia and slander: in response to xxx

Mark Lause:

<<So, too, the coherent, monolithic Demo-Green leadership is a
hallucination.  If you break down the term to figure out what it means, it
has so many different (and contradictory) trends that it would be misleading
ourselves to see a common, coherent strategy.>> 

I don't know this to be true of my own experience since there is pretty much
no Green Party in the Atlanta area to relate to, but it makes sense. 

People might remember that among the pieces the people on Camejo's side of
the dispute put out in 2004 was a polemic I wrote called something like,
"the sound of one hand clapping." (I forget if that was my working title or
the title it finally had -- I no longer have a copy to check). 

It was, to be frank, a four-age philippic, as hard as I could make it, to
make the case that David Cobb was running on behalf of essentially an ABB
"safe states" strategy. But WHY did it take such a polemic to make the case?
Because, quite simply, it was anything but clear. 

EARLY ON the pro-Cobb folks were open about this, but after Peter Camejo
launched his "Avocado Declaration" challenge, they started equivocating,
bobbing and weaving, and Cobb's stance was that his campaign was about a
candidate who would be solely and singly focused on helping to build the
Green Party, meaning mostly locally, and implicitly --but not in so many big
words-- criticizing tilting at windmills and alienating potential
allies/supporters at least at the local level by focusing too much on the
national race.

The pro-Cobb vote was not all a "demogreen" vote driven by an ABB agenda.
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Max Lane | 1 Jan 09:18
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Re: Party as permanent faction

Responding to Tom O'Lincoln's insightful comments on Socialist Alliance and
Australian politics, Joaquin. writes:

"But to me, it raises the obvious question: what material basis is there for
the DSP? Or the ISO? Or Socialist Alternative? Or similar groups in the
United States?"

Tom had outlined how there were not the forces (leaders and layers of
activists) with the considerable energy needed to get Socialist Alliance off
the ground. Tom concluded, I think correctly, with an assessment that there
was a:

"lack of a material basis for the whole project"

Any mistakes we in the DSP have made have flowed from refusing to
acknowledge that fact.

But what about Joaquin's question: is there a material basis for the DSP in
Australia? First, we need to be clear about what we are asking/. What do we
mean by the "DSP"? If all that we mean is a narrow propaganda sect, then the
answer is yes. You don't need much of a material basis to sustain a narrow
propaganda sect. At least a few such sects exist in many countries in the
world. But what if we mean something more than that, as I would.

For example, is there a material basis for a small cadre force, who through
a range of flexible tactical interventions, can combine making useful
contributions to movements that developed in opposition to different aspects
of capitalism while also winning small numbers of new people to a full
commitment to Marxism and to sustain an organisational continuity of
radical, activist and theoretical Marxist life, through the current period
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