Re: Venezuela's "student movement"

["michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit@xxxxxx>]

At 13:07 09/06/2007, Louis wrote:

> http://www.counterpunch.com/maher06092007.html

Definitely an excellent piece! It should answer 
many questions that people have about what's 
happening. Here's an especially interesting part 
in George Ciccariello-Maher's account of the students at the National Assembly:

'As the opposition students were making defiant press
declarations before being hustled out the Assembly's back door to avoid
the masses of pro-Chavista students gathered out front (who were, at the
time, shouting "Cowards! Cowards!" and "Victory, victory, victory of the
people!") they failed to notice that they had forgotten something.

Speeches by the scheduled Chavista students continued, with each laying
out substantive arguments about the nature the Bolivarian Revolution and
its relationship to traditional notions of press freedom. When it came to
be his turn to speak, Chavista student leader Héctor Rodríguez of the UCV
stepped up to the podium with a sheet of paper that he promptly held up in
front of the gathered deputies. It was the last page of the opposition's
scripted performance in the Assembly, which laid-out the text of the
speech and the exact moment at which Barrios was to remove his red shirt.
And the script was signed by ARS Publicity, a company owned by none other
than the Globovisión media empire. Together with Globovisión (as well as
all other private media outlets), ARS was directly implicated in the
planning and execution of the 2002 media coup against the constitutional
order.

Let's go over this again, slowly: the students' withdrawal from the
National Assembly was scripted. This isn't all that surprising. But that
it was scripted by an organization owned by the opposition press is quite
revealing. It makes transparent not merely the political nature of the
opposition students and the fact that they don't represent the totality of
Venezuelan students, but more importantly it reveals the fact that the
opposition media has played an active role in planning and structuring
this wave of student protests that they themselves have painted as a
"spontaneous" rebellion.'


Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6

Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
http//:centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
mlebowit@xxxxxx