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

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Tony Black writes:

I seem to remember a directive of sorts coming from the moderators (ringing
in the New Year so to speak) to remember the virtues of tolerance and the
civil exchange of difference.

-----

An even more fundamental directive that has informed this list since its
inception is the proscription of sectarianism. Grok's pompous rant, in which
he presumes to speak for the nebulous entity known as "the workers" whilst
passing judgment on Hugo Chávez and the new government of Uruguay, whilst
completely ignoring the state of socialist struggle in North America, is
precisely that. Surely it is instructive that Néstor, who actually knows
something of the subject matter, should find Grok's admonitions to be deeply
offensive. The offence is borne from long experience of metropolitan
keyboard revolutionaries who presume to lecture those involved in real and
effective struggle in oppressed parts of the world whilst reclining in
regions where any hint of social democracy would be regarded as a major
advance for "the workers".

Tony continues:

As for why I decided to include the comments: I thought Grok's comments on
the historical failings of union and social democratic leadership in the
Americas to be generally true..and characteristically colourful.

-----

A far more serious failing of the union and social democratic leadership of
North America is the way in which it has been consistently sidetracked into
supporting the adventures of US imperialism abroad whilst surrendering
political territory at home. By any serious reckoning, this counts as a much
more significant failure than a presumed inability to identify the supposed
bourgeois leanings of Chávez et al. And if we take this to a methodological
level such errors occur because of a lack of basic historical materialist
analysis, in which close attention would be paid to the social forces at
work in the respective countries, rather than superficial evaluations of
their political leaders which are primarily intended to impress upon readers
the supposedly superior insight of their author.

Michael