Chomsky’s Words Will Not Stop The Revolution
by Rick Gunderman
“Speaking to the Observer last week, (MIT professor and noted political analyst Noam) Chomsky has accused the socialist leader (Hugo Chavez) of amassing too much power and of making an ‘assault’ on Venezuela’s democracy.” –The Guardian, UK
Accompanied by a photo of President Chavez riding a horse and pointing skyward, flanked by three llanero-looking individuals, the UK’s Guardian ran an article entitled “Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for ‘assault’ on democracy”.
Aside from being an exhaustingly typical example of editoralizing through photographs, the article proceeds to go in depth on how Noam Chomsky’s friendship with Hugo Chavez (“Hugo Chávez has long considered Noam Chomsky one of his best friends in the west”) has been compromised by the imprisonment of Venezuelan judge María Lourdes Afiuni, head of the 31st Control Court of Caracas.
The Guardian’s explanation of why Afiuni was jailed:
“Afiuni earned Chávez’s ire in December 2009 by freeing Eligio Cedeño, a prominent banker facing corruption charges. Cedeño promptly fled the country.”
Not a word more of detail, but conspicuously followed by:
“In a televised broadcast the president, who had taken a close interest in the case, called the judge a criminal and demanded she be jailed for 30 years. “That judge has to pay for what she has done.””
The casual reader could be forgiven for concluding that Afiuni’s detention was totally arbitrary and without cause.
Imagine if, in the Conrad Black case, or the Scooter Libby trial, a judge had not only allowed the accused to slip out of the back of the courthouse so they could escape to Mexico, but had personally summoned the accused for a hearing without notifying the prosecutor, all in order to allow the escape.
The judge would be arrested for assisting a fugitive, at the very least.
This is analogous to what happened in Venezuela. Eligio Cedeño, the prisoner illegally released by then-Judge Afiuni, was a Venezuelan banker arrested in 2007 for allegedly circumventing government currency rules to gain U.S. dollars. To the tune of $27 million USD. Cedeño is now living it up in Miami (no explanation necessary there).
According to Edward Ellis of Correo del Orinoco International (which, unlike the Carr Institute, actually operates in Venezuela):
“While it is true that Cedeño had indeed been held beyond the stipulated time for pre-trial detentions, it is also true that Afiuni’s rogue actions were made in violation of all judicial protocols and legal procedures. In fact, hundreds of trials in Venezuela fall victim to bureaucratic slow downs and judicial delays that prevent the timely delivery of justice in the country.”
And in fact, the judicial system managed to secure Afiuni’s arrest without any intervention from Chavez, although the Guardian would have it framed otherwise. Chavez went on television condemning corruption in the justice system, used Afiuni’s case as an example, and described how she would be punished, i.e. how the legal system works, which a president certainly ought to know. To the Guardian, this is proof of Chavez’s tyrannical ways.
Nor would Chomsky have us believe Venezuela’s judicial system is impartial:
“I’m sceptical that [Afiuni] could receive a fair trial. It’s striking that, as far as I understand, other judges have not come out in support of her … that suggests an atmosphere of intimidation.”
To Noam Chomsky, the lack of judges willing to speak out in favour of a corrupt public official who helped a known criminal escape justice must be a sign of the impending realization of Chavez’s totalitarian agenda. Implicitly, we should have expected this. All socialist countries destroy democracy and succumb to Stalinism sooner or later.
If one continues through the list of international human rights groups joining in the chorus of anti-Chavez voices that makes up the rest of the Guardian’s article, one arrives at the much-lauded Chomsky letter.
Helpfully enough, he sets off the Leninist reader’s radar in the second sentence by referring to the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University as the source of his alarm over Afiuni’s detention. The Canadian reader would be interested to know that the Carr Centre was headed from 2000-2005 by our very own Michael Ignatieff, former Liberal Party leader and open admirer of American imperialism.
Following this vain attempt to establish institutional credibility, Chomsky gets on his high horse and begins shedding crocodile tears for Afiuni’s situation. She has been in prison for a little over a year, and on top of having cancer was a single mother. Indeed, nobody doubts that this is a bad situation to be in. With poor health and young children to care for, one wonders why Afiuni would put herself in the business of assisting fugitives.
Chomsky and the Guardian fail to mention that even among the bureaucratic mess that is the judicial system the Attorney General managed to intervene to have her transferred first to isolation from the general population to ensure her safety (she was sharing a cell block with inmates she had sentenced) then to house arrest so she could receive cancer treatment. Some “cruelty”.
Nor is it evidently worth noting that neither Afiuni nor Cedeño were known to be supporters of the opposition, which compromises the claim that this is a case of political persecution.
Communists should not take lightly the influence that Noam Chomsky has on the petit-bourgeois left. His books are widely available at Chapters and Indigo (why capitalist publishers would print literature with true subversive potential, and why capitalist bookstores would sell them is a rather glaring contradiction), and every university has one political science professor who salivates at the mention of Chomsky’s name. That Chomsky is an arrogant, bourgeois critic-of-everything while having made seemingly few contributions to real activism and revolution is of little relevance – he speaks the truth.
It is this kind of mentality that we as communists must stand against. Not for our own benefit – we already can sniff opportunism from miles away – but because it is poisonous to our allies, the masses, and the entire movement. It is a liberal, petit-bourgeois attitude, no matter the actual class of the individual who holds it.
The mentality can be summed up as “it’s a war of information – we win the revolution through education!”
This is a noble slogan, with a perfect place as a maxim for our media and newsletter staff. Or for a socialist bookstore, or education centre. But it is useless as a slogan that is central, defining or paramount. It can be useful as a very specific slogan for a very specific group or campaign, but only for that.
This, the mentality of the liberal progressives who we often work alongside confines our roles and duties as activists to debates, demonstrations and maybe the occasional leaflet. Without real mobilization of large numbers of people, under the leadership and initiative of the most dedicated activists who can make real demands to the right people to get real victories achieved for the masses (i.e. free education, universal health care including dental and preventive care, changes in government labour policy, unionization of workplaces, etc.), it is a plain fact – nothing gets done.
The organization grows or shrinks, but in any case becomes irrelevant. The policies of government, education and business become more vicious, more reactionary, and more damaging to workers, youth, students, women, visible minorities, recent immigrants, children, First Nations peoples, etc.
That is the practical effect of the Noam Chomsky mentality, of the liberal progressives. Romanticized “political prisoners”, the likes of which they have made disgraced judge María Lourdes Afiuni out to be, seem to pale in comparison.
For we know that the 5.7 million members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela/Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), and their thousands of comrades in the Communist Party of Venezuela/Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV), will not put the brakes on the progress of their revolution just because an MIT professor, high in his ivory tower, shouts at them.
But here at home, where we’re in the embryo stages of getting things going, the liberals in our ranks keep stopping to ask directions from the enemy.
Honduras at Standstill; Arias Proposal of “San Jose Agreement” Rejected by Both Parties
by Eva Golinger
President Zelaya is giving a press conference right now, presumably from Nicaragua. About one hour ago, President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica presented a new proposal, called the “San Jose Agreement” of 12 points, adding and modifying his previous 7-point proposal that was rejected by the coup regime on Sunday. The 12 points, available in Spanish here, incorporated several of the requests of the coup regime into Arias’ original proposal.
Specifically, point number one was changed from calling for President Zelaya’s immediate return to power to become a call for a “government of unity and reconciliation” to be composed of members of the coup regime together with representatives from each political party. Zelaya would have been returned to the presidency, but with his hands completely tied. The proposal again called for amnesty for the coup regime, and, in an inference to the coup regime’s allegations against President Zelaya, also called for amnesty to be granted to him as well. This factor clearly legitimates the coup regime’s theories.
Another point incredibly called on the Zelaya government and supporters to refrain from convening a constitutional assembly, directly or indirectly, and in fact also ordered a refrain from even holding any kind of consultation, survey or opinion poll on any issue remotely related to constitutional reform. This is absolutely outrageous because no government has the right to usurp the people’s sovereign right to choose their form and model of government. This is not a right that can be transferred or taken away, it is inalienable.
Another point called for presidential elections to be held in October instead of November, and then again prohibited the people from protesting such elections, regardless of outcome or process, or engaging in any kind of civil disobedience, insurrection or any kind of manifestation of discontent regarding the political process in the country. That is also a completely outrageous and unacceptable usurpation of the people’s innate right to protest and manifest their will.
There were a series of other points which, once I translate (or someone else does 
) the “San Jose Agreement”, can be analyzed. For now, I just wanted to update on today’s situation.
Again, no meetings were held today, just the proposal set forth by Oscar Arias to “resolve” the situation. The Zelaya delegation immediately rejected the agreement, declaring the mediation as failed and called upon the United Nations Security Council, the Central American Integrated System (SICA) and the Organization of American States (OAS) to convene immediately – tonight if possible – and implement extreme measures of pressure against the coup regime in Honduras.
The coup regime’s delegation rejected Arias’ proposal as well, but still based on their original disagreement relating to the return of President Zelaya to power.
Today, the insane coup Foreign Minister called on Venezuela to recognize their regime, stating that it was “inconceivable” that neighbor nations would not recognize their government as legitimate. The coup regime is being recognized now by both the right wing governments in Panama and Colombia, as well as the United States, in its own, underhanded way.
By the way, the leading military figure in the coup, School of the Americas graduate General Romeo Vasquez, is in Miami today, invited to speak at some evangelical conference funded by the Cuban mafia. So, the State Department hasn’t revoked his visa, obviously, despite his clear role in kidnapping – at gun point – and forcing into exile the democratically elected president of Honduras. Yet another clear indication of Washington backing the coup.
Zelaya is calling for insurrection in Honduras. Personally, I think that is the only way to resolve this situation with dignity.
Will the Revolution be Repeated?
By Cliff Cawthon
Reaction is pushing against revolution in Latin America. In 2002 the citizens of Venezuela, over weeks of struggle, succeeded in reinstating their deposed president with help from Chavez loyalists in the military on the heels of a neoconservative coup. On June 28, 2009 in Honduras, this story—or the beginning of it at least—seems to be repeating itself. President Zelaya was ousted by the military on the grounds that a non-binding referendum would have supported his proposed constitutional reforms was judged to be illegal. The opinion of the administrations of the U.S., Venezuela, and the continental organizations ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas, a coalition of left leaders) UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), is that the left-populist president is the legal president and it is self-evident that he must be returned.
The military, congress, and the Supreme Court of Honduras have harshly resisted the proposed constitutional reforms to allow the president to run for re-election after his one-term limit. Similarly in the Venezuelan coup of 2002, the government organs of power turned against the president. The same day, the Congress of Honduras faux-legitimized the coup by voting Zelaya out and the Congressional President, Roberto Micheleti, in. The likeness between the two situations seems uncanny.
Yet there is something new: the U.S. administration has denounced the new Micheleti administration in Honduras, and according to the Wall Street Journal the administration may have even tried to avert the coup.The administration’s position is a remarkable departure from an unfortunate history of past U.S. administrations endorsing and sometimes actively engineering coup’s similar to the one of the present.
The U.S. relationship with Latin America can be summed up in one word: Imperialism. Most operations have involved supporting often violent nominal national regimes that enable U.S. companies to monopolize and control resources for their metropolitan masters. Since the rise of Chavez in Venezuela, Latin American leaders have been increasingly to the left and independent of the “imperial metropolis”; Zelaya was one of those left-populist leaders.
In Honduras, the constitutional reform would have enabled the President of Honduras to run for re-election beyond his one-year term, which started in 2005 as the victorious Liberal party candidate. His supporters are comprised of the disenfranchised majority within the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, so his biggest opposition has come from the middle- and business- classes, according to the New York Times. In the same piece they mention that his opponents fear that “he wants to introduce Mr. Chavez’s brand of socialist populism into the country”, which according to Al Jazeera is based upon the fact that his referendum also advocated more constitutional control and protection for the poor population that comprises 70% of the population.
President Zelaya’s popular base comes from his left-leaning economic and social programs which were praised by labor unions and civic organizations. This coup was not just carried out but influenced by graduates of the infamous School of the Americas/ WHINSEC. Therefore, given the soft and unusually supportive message from the U.S. administration it seems that reaction is not from the U.S. Empire; and moreover, the left represented by the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is firmly behind Zelaya.
This is a decisive opportunity for the north and the south. ALBA may be able to solidify its position as a significant continental force, due to its leader’s strong and relevant response. If President Obama takes a more substantive stance, U.S. policy may actively accept the self-determination of Latin American nations, which may finally neuter the SOA: the printing press of U.S. imperial policy in Latin America.
