Re: [A-List] Venezuela and the Latin American "New Left"

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is "the masses" who have taken this National Front in anything but 
its name to power in Uruguay.

Could this Mr. Grok comment us what were the great realizations of 
the "Left" in his own country, what reason but sheer imperialist 
petulance is giving him any right to disparage a government where 
there are many of the Tupamaro fighters who were kept as hostages by 
the military and spent long years in isolated reclussion in dry wells 
deep into the ground.

I wonder if anyone who has ever been kept in a closet for some 
personal -not political- reason has ever reached the government of 
Mr. Grok's country.

Of course, Uruguay will not reach "socialism" alone.  "Socialism in a 
single country" is not exactly what one should expect.  But what 
about trying socialism at Mr. Grok's country, first and foremost.

Clean up your mouth, Mr. Grok, before you mention the name of Uruguay 
ever again.  This is the only country in the whole world that knew to 
stop all the attempts at privatization of the public services.  But, 
of course, they are not "socialist".

Scum.

Respuesta a: [A-List] Venezuela and the Latin Am
Remitido por: tony black
Fecha: Miércoles 9 de Marzo de 2005 
Hora: 23:43
*****

> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "grok" <grok@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <llo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; <labor-l@xxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:26 PM
> Subject: Venezuela and the Latin American "New Left"
> 
> 
> 
> > <screed>
> > The below article is limited by its fixation on political
> > elites only -- most glaring when this error is committed by
> > analysts on the "respectable" Left. And one of the many ways
> > bourgeois hegemony makes its way into Left thinking is by a
> > usually unspoken assumption that _leaderships_ and
> > "representative government" are the only things that really
> > count in politix. That "the masses" are only there to
> > provide a backdrop, and legitimacy and support (I guess
> > this is just 'being practical'; and people like me are just
> > 'not with the program' I guess...)
> >
> > Frankly, I have little faith in the new Uruguayan "social-
> > democrat" government -- or any of these pseudo-socialist
> > governments -- dealing with the pressing issues of the day.
> > They're simply social-democrat groups who've taken advantage
> > of the growing socialist demands of the people of América
> > Latina -- and intend never to stray far from the main
> > capitalist line, while talking a BIG "Left" line to the
> > rank-and-file whenever required. Sound familiar..? Like a
> > Labor Day picnic maybe?
> > Where this Frente Amplio actually stands was made pretty
> > clear even a year or two ago, when they could be seen to be
> > furiously backpedalling politically, Ã la Lula. And I've
> > seen for myself for that matter how the north american Left
> > has also been largely taken-in by the "Lula Show" -- right
> > up to this moment; so I know I don't want to be seeing a
> > repeat performance of any of that foolishness!
> > >:<
> > North american Leftists still put too much of their hopes in
> > the "Left" leadership in América Latina -- without
> > understanding that if these people _can_ be called "Left" at
> > all, it is mostly because they are being PUSHED Left "from
> > below" ("from below", for that matter, is a term & concept
> > widely overused in North America as ideological cover for
> > the petit-bourgeois Left...)
> >
> > Bottom line: support *the workers*. Essentially JUST the
> > workers (and farmers and poor, etc.)! Don't necessarily
> > trust the leaderships: they must EARN our trust first. And
> > often. That it's so hard to work directly with our fellow
> > komrad workers in other countries IS "the issue of the day"
> > for us. As for "leaders": what have they done for us lately,
> > huh..??
> > Chávez is _earning_ his stripes at this moment. Quite a bit
> > at that. *Lula isn't*. And I'm not holding my breath
> > concerning Vázquez & crew.
> > - -- grok.
> > </screed>
> >
>  <www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1391>
> >
> > VENEZUELA AND THE LATIN AMERICAN NEW LEFT
> >
> > Tuesday, Mar 08, 2005
> > By: Seth R. DeLong - COHA
> >
> >
> > The inauguration of Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay shows that
> > Latin America's democratic march to the left continues, and
> > could be a forerunner to Mexico's 2006 presidential
> > election.
> >
> > The Bush administration, already uncomfortable with Latin
> > America's new left, would become apoplectic if this movement
> > reached the U.S.-Mexican border. A López Obrador victory in
> > the Mexican election would signal the ultimate domino
> > falling.
> >
> > Bush's Latin America team fails to understand that the model
> > of the new left in Latin America today is less Che Guevara
> > than FDR and Tony Blair's British Labor Party.
> >
> > The growing center-left ideological tilt among Latin
> > American states is symptomatic of a growing movement towards
> > a continental alliance and a political stance markedly
> > different from that being fielded by the U.S.
> >
> > On March 1, Uruguayans inaugurated their first ever
> > left-of-center president. This event shattered the
> > power-sharing arrangement that had existed for the last 170
> > years between the moderate Colorado and Blanco parties. This
> > arrangement, which in many ways mirrored the near half
> > century reign of the similar power-sharing Punto Fijo pact
> > in Venezuela between the Christian Democrats (COPEI) and
> > Democratic Action (AD), ended last October when Uruguayans
> > elected Dr. Tabaré Vázquez, an oncologist, who ran on an
> > anti-neoliberal platform. Vázquez was not the standard
> > bearer of any well entrenched political party but the leader
> > of a medley of relatively small movements that joined
> > together under his Broad Front (Frente Amplio) coalition.
> > The major issue Washington will be watching in the months
> > ahead is not whether Vázquez will chart a leftist course,
> > but just how left-of-center that course will be. Will he
> > adopt a concertación style of government as seen in Chile, a
> > balancing act between populist demands and IMF mandates as
> > in Brazil, or a frontal assault on Washington -- at least
> > rhetorically -- like Venezuela under Hugo Chávez?
> >
> >
> > Nothing too Radical
> >
> > It is difficult to divine how Uruguay's new president will
> > deal with the threefold challenge posed by his country's
> > crippling debt, widespread poverty and high unemployment
> > rate, all of which were exacerbated by Argentina's 2001
> > crash. Those in the coalition's far left-wing will want him
> > to challenge the IMF's prescriptions at every turn; but,
> > unlike Argentina under Nestor Kirchner, Vázquez has given no
> > indication that he will default on his country's foreign
> > loans. To the contrary, his choice for economy and finance
> > minister, Danilo Astori, is viewed by observers as cautious
> > and conservative. Astori, as reported in the Economist,
> > believes that "Brazil played a central role to prove that a
> > leftist government can be compatible with rigorous fiscal
> > behavior." Given that Vázquez's likely economic model will
> > be similar to the Keynesian model to which other new left
> > governments in the region have turned, what does the
> > Uruguayan leader's victory mean for the future of the
> > continent's resurgent left-leaning movement?
> >
> >
> > Will the Region's New Left Movement March North?
> >
> > In an interview with COHA, Professor Peter H. Smith of the
> > Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies at the
> > University of California in San Diego said "The greatest
> > significance for Latin America is whether Vázquez's victory
> > is part of a trend that culminates in a win for López
> > Obrador in the upcoming Mexican elections." In the event of
> > a López Obrador victory, Smith continued, "Washington would
> > really start to worry. That would mean a major tilt in the
> > [ideological] balance of the hemisphere."
> >
> > So far, Latin America's leftward shift has been relegated to
> > the southern continent. However, a López Obrador victory
> > could precipitate a tectonic shift for the Bush
> > administration's ill-reputed Latin America team from
> > grudging acceptance of South America's left-of-center
> > governments to the use of Cold War-style tactics against
> > them. Even though López Obrador, as the candidate of
> > Mexico's left-leaning PRD party, appears to be moderate, the
> > prospect of another new left administration -- this time
> > right on the U.S. border -- would be all but intolerable to
> > the administration's nostalgic cold war ideologues. A López
> > Obrador victory particularly would upset Eliot Abrams, that
> > self-confessed perjurer and booster for Central America's
> > death squads in the 1980s who now serves as Bush's Deputy
> > National Security Advisor and Roger Noriega, the assistant
> > secretary for the State Department's Bureau of Western
> > Hemisphere Affairs. Both men see regional policy exclusively
> > through an anti-Havana prism and hardly can be comfortable
> > with Latin America lurching in the direction of everything
> > they loath.
> >
> > One would think the Bush administration would not get so
> > flustered by Latin America's new left regimes, as they are
> > all democratic, practice at least a "soft" neoliberalism and
> > are only in the earliest stages of coalescing into a
> > regional EU-like bloc. While most other administrations
> > would likely brush off the continent's new left tilt as a
> > natural consequence of the region's disenchantment with the
> > unfulfilled promises of free trade and free markets as the
> > guarantors of social justice, the current White House will
> > see it as a frontal challenge. This is because Bush's Latin
> > America team, led by Noriega and Abrams, make no distinction
> > between Fidel Castro and anyone who sports a red beret or
> > spouts anti-Yanqui rhetoric.
> >
> >
> > A New Left Oil Bloc?
> >
> > While the U.S. is forced to barely tolerate Chávez so long
> > as he keeps the oil flowing, a López Obrador victory in
> > Mexico next year would likely scorch Washington
> > policymakers, especially if he reverses Vicente Fox's policy
> > and reaches out to Castro as have Chávez, Lula, Kirchner and
> > Vázquez. If he wins, the administration will then be faced
> > with four left-of-center hemispheric powerhouses: Venezuela,
> > Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. The nightmare scenario for the
> > Bush team would then be Chávez inviting López Obrador and
> > Mexico's state owned oil company, Pemex, into a cooperative
> > arrangement with the Venezuelan leader's oil trading bloc,
> > "Petrosur," which already includes Argentina and, as of
> > March 2, Uruguay. Given that Mexico and Venezuela are two of
> > the U.S.' top four sources of foreign oil imports (behind
> > Saudi Arabia and Canada), a combined Obrador-Chávez alliance
> > would account for upwards of a quarter of all U.S. petroleum
> > imports. One can pretty easily anticipate how the Bush
> > administration would react to such a petro bloc emerging,
> > recalling Henry Kissinger's old adage that any threat to
> > Saudi oil exports to the U.S. would be a casus belli.
> >
> >
> > Regime change -- Cold War style
> >
> > The archetypal models for Washington-orchestrated regime
> > change in Latin America against left-leaning democracies
> > were Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973. In the latter
> > instance, Salvador Allende -- a man as devoted to
> > constitutional democracy as to his socialist ideals and who
> > didn't jail even one political prisoner in his three years
> > in office -- was toppled by a coup with the Nixon
> > administration's blessing and support. In Kissinger's
> > infamous words, "I don't see why we need to stand by and
> > watch a country go Communist because of the irresponsibility
> > of its own people.'
> >
> > The theoretical justification for this view can be found in
> > the work of another Reagan era cold war zealot, former U.S.
> > ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick. In her book,
> > Democracy and Double Standards, Kirkpatrick wrote that,
> > 'rightist authoritarian regimes can be transformed
> > peacefully into democracies, but totalitarian Marxist ones
> > cannot. They can be changed only by aiding armed opponents
> > of communism. In the final analysis these enemies of freedom
> > can only be deterred from greater aggression . . . by the
> > military capacities of the United States." Translation:
> > better dead than red. It was precisely this jesuitic
> > justification for supporting any tin-horn dictator or death
> > squads that simply claimed to be anti-communist that lead to
> > U.S. complicity in the hundreds of thousands of deaths in
> > Central America's "dirty wars" of the 80s.
> >
> > Though the current administration has so far not done
> > anything as brazen in Latin America as Nixon and Kissinger
> > routinely did in terms of destroying democracy in order to
> > save it, when confronted with a choice between backing
> > authoritarian regimes friendly to U.S. interests or
> > free-wheeling democracies, it has unfailingly opted for the
> > former. In 2002, the Bush administration, after having
> > channeled funds to the Venezuelan opposition, openly
> > endorsed the coup against Chávez before hastily retracting
> > that position once the coup failed. As usual in
> > interventions of this kind, U.S. support of the minority
> > opposition resulted directly into swelling the majority of
> > the population's support for Washington's self-denominated
> > foe.
> >
> > In February of last year, the administration arranged the de
> > facto ouster of Haiti's first democratically elected leader,
> > Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Since then, it has failed to
> > publicly condemn human rights violations under interim Prime
> > Minister Gerard Latortue's bankrupt regime, nor has it tried
> > to ensure that the island's majority party, Fanmi Lavalas,
> > can participate safely in next fall's scheduled elections.
> > These examples demonstrate that contrary to President Bush's
> > words in his last inaugural address that "America will not
> > impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our
> > goal, instead, is to help others find their own voice,
> > attain their own freedom, and make their own way," his
> > administration is quite firmly prepared to sabotage Latin
> > America's "own way" to democracy if it differs from
> > Washington's.
> >
> >
> > But Just How Left-wing Are They?
> >
> > In contrast to right-wing jitters over Latin America's
> > "rising red tide," a sober look at these governments --
> > certainly Brazil, Argentina and even Venezuela -- reveals a
> > significant gap between their anti-neoliberal rhetoric and
> > their actual economic policies. While bashing the IMF and
> > the World Bank has become the region's polemical norm, no
> > leader -- not even Chávez -- is seriously contemplating a
> > wholesale rejection of the basic principles of Keynesian
> > economics even if some, like Kirchner, challenge IMF
> > mandates. What this means is that Latin America's new left
> > governments will favor mixed markets modeled on the post
> > World War II monetarist policies of social democratic
> > European states, like Clement Atlee's Britain. Befitting
> > this pattern, as Latin America's new left-of-center states
> > go about creating safety nets for the poor, they continue to
> > court foreign investment and encourage capitalist ventures
> > to help pay for them. As the Economist rightly notes, "While
> > Mr. Castro makes it spitefully difficult to set up even the
> > smallest of micro-enterprises as a private business, his
> > Venezuelan counterpart is cheerfully ploughing funds into
> > the creation of as many small entrepreneurs as possible."
> >
> >
> > Latin America's New Deal
> >
> > On the gap between the theory and practice of the new left
> > in Latin America, as can be seen in Chávez's government, Dr.
> > James Petras of the University of New York at Binghamton has
> > written that, "The euphoria of the left prevents them from
> > observing the pendulum shifts in Chávez's discourse and the
> > heterodox social welfare and neoliberal economic politics he
> > has consistently practiced." Confirming Chávez's progressive
> > bona fides while at the same time calling attention to his
> > standard Keynesian economic policy, Professor Petras writes
> > that the Venezuelan leader's "policy has always followed a
> > careful balancing act between rejecting vassalage to the
> > U.S. and local oligarchic rentiers on the one hand and
> > trying to harness a coalition of foreign national investors
> > . . . He is closer to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal than
> > Castro's Socialist revolution."
> >
> > None of the above is meant to suggest that the region's
> > leaders have not made significant strides towards
> > alleviating poverty and hunger. To the contrary, Lula and
> > Chávez have enacted some of South America's bolder
> > initiatives in order to reduce the region's draconian levels
> > of inequality. The important point is that while the new
> > left-of-center governments are launching many New Deal-style
> > reformist initiatives, the core free market structures
> > remain intact. Accordingly, if Vázquez follows Latin
> > America's other neo New Dealers, we can expect the following
> > from his Broad Front administration: first, a neoliberal
> > economic policy coupled with a politically left agenda;
> > second, interest in revivifying the Pan-American ideal,
> > currently modeled on Chávez's Bolivarian dream of South
> > America as a regional economic hegemon; third, a gradual
> > turning away from Washington politically, if not
> > economically. An amalgam of these three creedal beliefs --
> > Keynesian economics hitched to left-of-center politics,
> > intra rather than interhemispheric integration and a gradual
> > shift towards Europe and Asia is probably the most apt
> > description of the new variant of leftism being displayed in
> > Latin America today. If Vázquez ends up fitting this mold,
> > then we can expect him to be far more like Lula and even
> > Chávez than Fox and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia.
> >
> >
> > The Drive Toward Intrahemispheric Trade
> >
> > Though efforts to strengthen MERCOSUR, the South American
> > Common Market, have been somewhat disappointing, Brazil and
> > Venezuela have retarded and maybe even shut down
> > Washington's push for the Free Trade Area of the Americas
> > (FTAA). This integrationist approach is likely to advance at
> > least as long as Washington continues its duplicitous
> > subsidization of U.S. agriculture while preaching the
> > virtues of free trade to its southern neighbors. As part of
> > the region's Pan-American drive for Latin unity, we will see
> > further moves toward solidifying a South American trade
> > bloc, such as Chávez's proposal for ALBA, the Bolivarian
> > Alternative for America. Eduardo Duhalde, former president
> > of Argentina, already has declared that "our mirror will be
> > the European Union, with all its institutions." Following
> > this trend, on March 2, Vázquez signed the "Declaration of
> > Montevideo" with Chávez. The significance of this agreement,
> > which brings Uruguay into Venezuela-sponsored Petrosur, is
> > that it is one more step, albeit a small one, in the
> > direction of intrahemispheric trade and cooperation and away
> > from Washington's preferred plans for multilateral,
> > interhemispheric trade.
> >
> >
> > What to Look for in the Future
> >
> > Could the next step be a single South American currency
> > modeled after the euro? If López Obrador wins, that
> > possibility could be on the docket and certainly Chávez --
> > notwithstanding Washington's fear of another debilitating
> > blow against the dollar, as happened with the advent of the
> > euro -- will continue pushing for it. Meanwhile, the danger
> > Latin America's New Dealers face is that Bush's cabal of
> > neoconservatives does not seem to realize that having an
> > occasional dinner with Castro does not make one a Che
> > Guevara. In Professor Smith's words, "Vázquez needs to court
> > Castro because if he can't deliver to his base materially
> > then he can at least deliver symbolically. But politically,
> > he will throw his lot in with Kirchner and Lula."
> > Unfortunately, if the past is to be our guide, there is no
> > indication that Washington has the patience or wisdom to
> > interpret such courting as merely symbolic.
> >
> >
> > This analysis was authored by COHA Senior Research Fellow,
> > Seth R. DeLong, Ph.D.
> >
> > March 8, 2005
> >
> > The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an
> > independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research
> > and information organization. It has been described on the
> > Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected
> > bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information,
> > please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our
> > Washington offices by phone (202) 223-4975, fax (202)
> > 223-4979, or email coha@xxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Original source / relevant link:
> > Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA)
> >
> >
> > www.handsoffvenezuela.org
> >
> >
> >
> > - -- 
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> >
> 
> 
> 



Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de 
Buenos Aires, 1822
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