[Marxism] Chavez's speech today

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

        Chavez spoke to a huge crowd in Caracas late this afternoon. It was
by a significant amount the hardest speech I've ever heard from him, mostly
to the effect of "Go ahead, make my day." (No, I'm not in Venezuela. I
listened to it -- most of it at any rate -- at work, where we have access to
the satellite signals of the government VTV and the opposition Globo
channel).

        Chavez has ordered the military to protect the oilfields and other
installations and warned that if there is any sabotage, any US-inspired
disturbances Sunday night, oil shipments to the U.S. will be cut off
immediately. He singled out the bourgeois media and said that any attempt to
violate the law --which forbids publishing polls in the week before the
election and (alleged) election results before polls close-- will lead to
their immediate shutdown. He warned international broadcasters --and CNN by
name, and repeatedly-- that this or any other sort of shenanigans will be
met with the expulsion of their staff from the country.

        He's also expressed very clearly the line he has taken especially
since coming back from abroad, that this referendum is an up-and-down,
yes-or-no vote on the revolution and his presidency. I'm sure the ultralefts
will go, "Aha! Bonapartist plebiscite!" But sometimes you've just got to
call things by their right name. That is what the fight is about -- not
whether the subordinate clause in article 53 is infelicitously worded.

        And he made very clear what being with the revolution means -- it
means going against the oligarchs, against Uribe, against the American
imperialists, against the King of Spain, against the European imperialists,
and being in solidarity with progressive and revolutionary forces throughout
the world in general and with Fidel in particular. 

        He read and commented on Fidel's latest column, which Walter I'm
sure has already forwarded to the list. 

        The rally was at the same place where the opposition held its event
yesterday, which CNN described as having been "hundreds of thousands."
Without having been there and knowing the area, it is hard to judge, but VTV
had no problem yesterday finding areas of this avenue with very few people,
even though the main area of the rally was full for what looked like several
blocks. VTV today made a point of scanning from what seemed to be the same
vantage point to show there were people much further back, and Chavez
highlighted it also. I did not see the opposition channel I have access to
try to show that the crowd thinned out after a few blocks; but I wasn't
monitoring them all the time. 

        Since Chavez came back from abroad and mounted what's been in
essence a ferocious counter-offensive against the opposition, it seems to
have wilted a fair deal. An adventurist attempt to disrupt major traffic
arteries a couple of days ago (they were going to leaflet motorists was the
claim ...) was dispersed with vigor, dispatch, and a good deal of tear gas.
Some of the students came with their own tear gas masks and tried to provoke
an escalation by pelting the police with rocks, but the police responded
only with more tear gas. "Strangely," an opposition TV mobile unit just
"happened" to be nearby and filmed the events, but it did not appear to have
evoked the hoped-for outrage when it was broadcast, perhaps because any
idiot could see it was the opposition forces that provoked the incident and
tried to escalate it (unsuccessfully).  

        So now it is a question of waiting for the next right wing
provocation. Chavez has promised a no-holds-barred response and seemed to go
way out of his way to make sure everyone understood there was no wiggle
room, he was consciously painting himself into a corner. The deployment of
army and other military units to guard oil fields and other strategic
installations has the added advantage of making a coup by some disloyal
officers much harder to carry out. 

        But the opposition has also painted itself into a corner. The
impression I get is that they've depicted this as the final, now or never,
effort to turn back the revolution, and it won't be easy to get their
hotheads to change course. Although Chavez and his supporters tend to
present this all as a conscious, coordinated plot, the truth is that there
is a law of social struggles that applies here to the opposition especially:
when you set controlled forces into motion, you also set uncontrolled forces
into motion. 

        The next couple of days will tell the tale.

Joaquín


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