Middle class are 'vital' to Chavez

[Patchd]

Awww, isn't this cute. We knew it was going to happen some time, who expected it would be so soon? Once you start managing capital ...



The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, says he wants to open up his socialist political project to the middle classes and private sector.
Mr Chavez said his government had to convince Venezuela's middle classes they were needed.
Speaking by telephone on state television, he said he was entering a more reflective period of his life.
Mr Chavez recently underwent cancer treatment in Cuba, but plans to stand for re-election next year.
The Venezuelan leader made his comments a day after he celebrated his 57th birthday, when - appearing in yellow rather than his characteristic red shirt - he told a rally of cheering supporters that he was in no mood to leave office in the near future.
In Friday's telephone interview, Mr Chavez said the treatment to remove a tumour had led him to radically change his life towards a "more diverse, more reflective and multi-faceted" period.
He told his supporters to eliminate divisions and dogma, and end what he called the abuse of symbols such as the term "socialist".
"Why do we have to always have to wear a red shirt?" said Mr Chavez. "And the same goes for the word 'socialism'."
The president cited the example of a mayor in the governing party who inaugurated a "Socialist Avenue", which Mr Chavez described as "stupid".
"We need to reflect and introduce changes in our discourse and in our actions."


Cuban lessons

Mr Chavez, who came to power in 1999, said the private sector and the middle classes were "vital" to his political project.
He said it was a shame that attempts to be more inclusive of these groups in society had been criticised by some in official circles in Venezuela.
"Raul Castro is leading a process of self-criticism," said Mr Chavez, hinting that Venezuela could learn from the reforms being undertaken by the president of Cuba, who has made some concessions to the private sector since taking over from Fidel Castro in 2006.
Mr Chavez said his government needed to correct the perception that small businesses would be taken over by the state.
"We have to make sure no-one believes that," he said. "We have to convince them about our real project, that we need this sector and that we want to acknowledge their contribution."

EDIT: Source is from BBC news; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14351508

[CynicalIdealist]

Uh what. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

[Matty_UK]

Awww, isn't this cute. We knew it was going to happen some time, who expected it would be so soon? Once you start managing capital ...

Of course it may not be, but this smells a little like a hoax to me. What's the source for this story?

Edit - Oh fuck it's not a hoax. What the hell?!?!

[thefinalmarch]

Solidarity with Venezuela! :rolleyes:

Also, one can't help but notice that Chavez has made the decision to "open up" his "socialist political project" to the private sector so close to a presidential election next year. Now I'm not saying he's motivated purely by self-interest, but it could very well be a sign of his desperation to hold on to power.

[Patchd]

Of course it may not be, but this smells a little like a hoax to me. What's the source for this story?

Edit - Oh fuck it's not a hoax. What the hell?!?!
Sorry, BBC, I should have put it in.

[maskerade]

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6387



Celebrating his Birthday, Venezuela’s Chavez Calls for End to Sectarianism

Merida, July 29th 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – On Thursday Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez celebrated his 57th birthday by making a number of public announcements; reiterating his plans to stand in next year’s presidential elections, calling for an end to the sectarianism and dogmatism that could prevent “the construction of a new hegemony” in Venezuela, and setting a new date for the meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC), the regional organization to include all American states except the United States and Canada.

Calling to greet those gathered at a meeting between Venezuelan Executive Vice President Elias Jaua and representatives of Venezuela’s agricultural sector, Chavez told listeners and viewers that he has every intention of running for reelection in December 2012.

“I will run for reelection and, God willing and with my determination to live, I will be reelected by a large majority of the people. I invite you to join me,” he said.

Chavez, who spent the day with his family at the Miraflores Presidential Palace, told his supporters that winning next year’s presidential elections would require unity among different sectors of Venezuela’s left and an end to “sectarianism and dogmatism.”

“Our fellow countrymen and countrywomen, the cadre and grassroots leadership at all levels of the Socialist Revolution, members of the Party [PSUV], the parties [allied parties]; we all must demolish, struggle against, remove those ills known simply as sectarianism and dogmatism.”

“The consolidation of a new hegemony, as (Antonio) Gramsci once said, is achieved with ideas and not with bayonets,” said Chavez.

Celebrating his improved health after recent chemotherapy treatment in Cuba, Chavez said he felt like a “phoenix” and that while he had previously stated he might step back from political life after one more presidential term (2013-2019), “now, not at all. Perhaps I’ll leave (political life) in 2031, perhaps, who knows, when I’m 70,” he said.

Chavez also told supporters they should consider a modification of the commonly used slogan “Socialist Homeland or Death” or “Homeland, Socialism, or Death”, to “Independence and Socialist Homeland, We Will Live and We Will Win.”

“We can’t choose between winning and death. Winning is a necessity, so that the Bolivarian Republic lives on and so that the great, united, South American, Latin American and Caribbean homeland lives on,” affirmed Chavez.

Chavez went on to state that Latin America “has everything needed, from Mexico down to Argentina, with our (political) differences included, to be one of the great powers for centuries to come and to remove that decadent empire from off of our backs.”

Earlier this week the Venezuelan president announced the new date for the foundational meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC).

Originally scheduled for 5 July 2011, the date of massive bicentennial independence celebrations held across Venezuela, the CELAC conference was postponed to allow the Venezuelan president to recover from emergency surgery in Cuba. The meeting has been rescheduled for 8 December this year.

[el_chavista]

As Chávez takes the poor's supporting for granted he moves on the medium-level-income layer of the population, facing the 2012 presidential election, and this layer actually has got much to win with the Bolivarian government: against the sliding scale of home rising of prices that home buyers suffer in their procurement contracts, the very common scam on credit sales, eviction of home tenants, etc.

[Ligeia]

Translations I made of some news articles:

After recounting that in a village in Apure he ran into a former secretary general of Accion Democratica, today a chavista leader, dressed in red, the President said, "Those people who walk in t red underwear (...) could be suspect ".
"And if you would forgive me. (...) The same goes for the word socialism. Socialism must be built, it's not just" Arepera Socialista". "Over there was one of our majors who asked me to join him (...) to inaugurate Avenida Socialista. I said, don't do that, one of these days they will put Bar Socialista. And many even unconsciously, they could wash their hands and say, I am already a socialist mayor, I have served because I have my Avenida Socialista. No, a big lie, a big stupidity. This would be the perdition of our project., "he said.
The President said he has been "reviewing" his views on the subject of the middle class "and we have to revise them, starting with my leadership and the party leadership and the revolution. Because there are people who want to be sometimes, want to be more Catholic than the Pope, more Marxist than Marx, but we can not allow ourselves to let us give away, we can not give the middle class to the bourgeoisie. "
He revealed that there are sectors of Chavistas, "even opinion makers" who criticize the approach of Government to private sectors that makes calls into question the executive to join Fedeindustria or the Cattlemen's Association. "Then they start to criticize. One respects but calls for reflection. No, that is to reconcile bourgeois! This is no reconciliation (...) The Bolivarian socialist project has no plans for the expropriation of small industry, of the small business. ""If Cuba after 60 years of revolution is making these revisions, anyone going to say, Cuba is betraying socialism? Ah well, if you want to tell me that. But you have not even read Karl Marx,and much less Vladimir Lenin and all the role of this sector, the property, "he argued.
Link (http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/07/30/chavez-cuestiona-usar-todo-el-tiempo-camisa-roja.shtml)
At his birthday party, Chavez made ​​a wish: his followers should get the word death out of the battle cry of his socialist revolution. Thus, the slogan "socialist fatherland or death" with which he closed his speeches and was used on walls, banners and official statements, will be "socialist fatherland and victory. We will live and win."

"I ask that we think about that word, death (...) Here is no death, here is life," said a solemn Chavez.
Link (http://www.emol.com/noticias/internacional/2011/07/28/495086/chavez-festeja-cumpleanos-prometiendo-a-sus-adeptos-que-vencera-el-cancer.html)

Though you still can argue about his statements, the BBC article makes his statements look like he said he doesn't want to use the word socialism anymore when it's about stopping an inflationary use of this word since they are constructing socialism but aren't there yet and because it can be used complacently.

[RadioRaheem84]

So which is it? Is he headed down the reformist path, which he was already at, meaning he will slither back into the Anthony Gidden's Third Way position where he started at the onset of the Bolivarian Revolution OR is he really talking about laying off the "proletarian dogmaticism" to include the middle and upper classes (which is what he means by private sector)? Either way, it sounds like he is backtracking on the popular socialist base of the PSUV, firmly siding with the Soc Dem reformists at the head of the PSUV.

The BBC article makes him sound like he is trying to go the Lula of Brazil Path but the VA article makes him sound like he is not really fully retreating. I mean where the hell is the truth about this matter? I do not want to believe the BBC but then again I do not want to be fooled by pro-Venezuela State propaganda either.

[Susurrus]

Sadly, I think the BBC is probably more correct on this one. Another one bites the dust.:(

[RedSonRising]

So which is it? Is he headed down the reformist path, which he was already at, meaning he will slither back into the Anthony Gidden's Third Way position where he started at the onset of the Bolivarian Revolution OR is he really talking about laying off the "proletarian dogmaticism" to include the middle and upper classes (which is what he means by private sector)? Either way, it sounds like he is backtracking on the popular socialist base of the PSUV, firmly siding with the Soc Dem reformists at the head of the PSUV.

The BBC article makes him sound like he is trying to go the Lula of Brazil Path but the VA article makes him sound like he is not really fully retreating. I mean where the hell is the truth about this matter? I do not want to believe the BBC but then again I do not want to be fooled by pro-Venezuela State propaganda either.

It is strange that he is seemingly adopting "Third-Way" rhetoric, after having denounced it and claiming that managing the evils of capitalism were impossible. I'd say we wait a bit and see where this goes. He may be trying to lessen the obvious and potentially dangerous polarization within Venezuela and broaden his appeal, but openly working with the private sector will spell the end of any hopes we had for working class integration into the Venezuelan decision-making process. I like when he denounces the idiotic symbolism of socialism being flaunted every which way (like "Sovialist Avenue, wtf), but not at the expense of the party's working class supporters.

What confuses me is how things like this happen alongside his progressive moves towards communal land ownership and public healthcare patents. Strange confused man in a muddled social movement & political party.

[Sensible Socialist]

Yet another leader swayed more by the potential outcome of an election than the needs of the people. It's not surpising, considering Chavez had to make a decision of whether or not to seriously a socialist agenda. It seems he's going the way of Cuba, or any other country that had promise to become a bastion of anti-capitalist force. I'm left wondering if the cancer treatment had any signifigant effect, along the lines of him not wanting to spend the remaining years of his life outside of a political office (that is assuming a pessimistic view of his health). Either way, it seems Venezuela is becoming less and less of a dependable country to look towards for serious progress. I'm not doubting that reforms will be made that will assist the population, but it will fall squarely in line with his goals of being re-elected.

[North Star]

It's one thing to go after the middle class in the west especially as they become squeezed and are pushed into the poverty many of their parents experienced. In Venezuela, I think middle class is a far less broader term than it is in the US for example. So this is a rather disappointing development, especially since Chavez has demonstrated that he can win elections using socialist platforms. Since Chavez started off as a Third Way type it's not surprising this is happening. The rank and file of the PSUV and the broader movement must now work extra hard to pull him back to the left.

[RadioRaheem84]

The rank and file of the PSUV and the broader movement must now work extra hard to pull him back to the left.

Or show him out completely.

[piet11111]

If this is an appeal to the petit-bourgeois then i can agree that its important to win them over to the working class.

But with the praise of Cuba's reforms i fear the worst.

[Martin Blank]

I said it once and I'll say it again: This so-called "21st Century Socialism" looks an awful lot like 20th Century "Really-Existing Socialism".

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Neither Scandinavian social democracy nor "Zionist socialism" (here I'm referring to some "socialist" tendencies' ideal of dividing the economy into equal thirds between the state, cooperatives, and the private sector) were ever labelled as "really existing socialism."

[thefinalmarch]

^^^ Neither Scandinavian social democracy nor "Zionist socialism" (here I'm referring to some "socialist" tendencies' ideal of dividing the economy into equal thirds between the state, cooperatives, and the private sector) were ever labelled as "really existing socialism."
Where were Scandinavian social democracy and Zionist socialism even mentioned in this thread? It's pretty obvious Miles was talking about the multitude of self-proclaimed socialist states that existed in the twentieth century.

[RadioRaheem84]

Venezuela is no where near that either. The people in the former blocs for one were much better off economically.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Sadly, I think the BBC is probably more correct on this one. Another one bites the dust.:(

"Socialism" of the Chavez variety has always been a geopolitical project to counter the dominant economic powers (namely the USA) and in doing so boost it's own power/economic standing. I don't think people like Chavez are allies to the communist project in any way, shape or form. He's a holdover from 70's Bonapartism.

[Jose Gracchus]

Bolivarianism is nothing but capitalist slavery to the BRICS.

[Apoi_Viitor]

Does it follow from the historical role of Jacobinism, of democracy, and of fascism, that the petty bourgeoisie is condemned to remain a tool in the hands of capital to the end of its days? It things were so, then the dictatorship of the proletariat would be impossible in a number of countries in which the petty bourgeoisie constitutes the majority of the nation and, more than that, it would be rendered extremely difficult in other countries in which the petty bourgeoisie represents an important minority. Fortunately, things are not so. - Leon Trotsky

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Even if the petit-bourgeoisie weren't "condemned to remain a tool," the DOTP was/is still politically not feasible in countries where they constitute the demographic majority (unless the proletarian demographic minority ratchets things up by sheer terror).

[Gorra Negra]

And the news here are...?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

And the news here are...?

That' he's flaunting it publicly?

[Gorra Negra]

One things is Chavez's rethoric another are his deeds. He has never been a socialist. To say this publicly is proably the shocking part, the content is nothing new.

[Kadir Ateş]

Don't worry comrades, this is all part of a "transitional programme"--obviously you ultra-left types just don't get it.

[HEAD ICE]

dead @ people being shocked by this

dead @ anyone ever considering chavez a socialist

dead @ people whining at me for being "ultra-leftist" when i stated the obvious that chavez was not a socialist

dead @ me being right

dead @ the richest layers of venezuelan society growing their wealth during chavez' leadership

dead @ white leftists who are constantly looking for brown people to get behind to absolve their western guilt

dead @ chavez wanting to build an oil pipeline down south america while white western leftists called him an "anti-imperialist"

dead @ the absence of chavez bootlickers in this thread

[Jose Gracchus]

That's nothing: I knew a FRSOite kook who said (literally, I'm not joking) that Chavez was "constructing socialism faster than the Bolsheviks".

[Kadir Ateş]

That's nothing: I knew a FRSOite kook who said (literally, I'm not joking) that Chavez was "constructing socialism faster than the Bolsheviks".


Took them so long because they had to purge the living daylights out of the left SRs and anarchists. Obviously, Chavez has enjoyed a liberty the Bolsheviks were without.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Where were Scandinavian social democracy and Zionist socialism even mentioned in this thread? It's pretty obvious Miles was talking about the multitude of self-proclaimed socialist states that existed in the twentieth century.

If that's the case, then the comrade should have used another term instead of one the Soviets used specifically for themselves, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.

[Die Neue Zeit]

A socialist perspective published in an otherwise right-wing website: http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/07/30/economic-miracle-in-venezuela.shtml



By Heinz Dieterich

1. Miraflores: The economic Vatican

The Venezuelan government has just produced a legislative economic miracle. With 88 articles, Decree No. 8,331 is now ruling over something that does not exist: the fair price of the market economy. Hallucinations of the human mind are usually a matter of psychiatrists or theologians; however, the new "Law of Fair Costs and Prices" is a proof that in Venezuela, they are a matter of the government's economic team.

2. Lucifer and the "communal money"

Already in 2008, the Enabling Law for the Promotion of the People's Economy had warned that the Bolivarian Economic Theology School (BETS) had taken control of the Miraflores Palace. Aiming at putting an end to Capitalism, the law governed what classical economists call the "monetary veil" and Marx called the "monetary fetishism" (Geldfetischismus): the chimera that economic value lies in money and that exploitation depends on its existence. The mirages produced by Miraflores were the "communal money" and the "Communes;" two true monuments to economic dilettantism.

Like all illusions, reality rapidly buried the products of the monetary fetishism. Now, the government is doing a new tropical exorcism to finish with the bad capitalist reality: the fair price. The government turned Miraflores into the Vatican of the economic science, canonizing something that does not exist and promising the people an anti-inflationary miracle that only exists in their phantasmagorias. Meanwhile, the fallen angel of the anti-inflationary crusade is still missing from the public scene. God crucified "Lucifer" Samán, the "holder of the dawn," by the divine ruling class' request.

3. The iustum precium chimera

The idea of the fair price in mercantile relations has been subject of debate in all cultures and at all times, since the advent of chrematistics (the usury economy) five thousand years ago. For two reasons, none of these debates has solved the problem: a) a justum precium does not exist in mercantile economies; that is, the concept does not have an empiric correlate in the reality; it is a phantasmagoric projection, like God or the Holy Spirit; b) this issue can only be solved with the contemporary science methodology.

4. The logical nature of mercantile prices

Prices in market economy, which are composed of costs and profits, are always the result of power and economic, political, cultural, and military interests, which range from salaries, bank interest rates and home rent to the price of bread and stock exchange shares, of the involved economic agents. Describing these prices as high, low, fair or unfair results from the subjective perception and evaluation of each economic agent (workers, consumers, businessmen). The fair price is, therefore, a moral construct of the human mind, which has been stratified according to its objective conditions; however, it is not an objective measurement of a property of an actual phenomenon. It is not an objective data of the reality, like "weight" or distance, but a moral judgment or a subjective variable that is determined by people, groups (directors, shareholders, unions) and the State. These subjective judgments can be ordered according to aggregates and statistical measurements. Notwithstanding, they do not become objective data. Trying to find or define an objectively "fair" price in a market economy is, for this reason, a methodological impossibility. Striving to achieve this goal and, especially, legislate on this matter is a manifestation of scientific ignorance and economic stupidity.

5. Methodological requirements of a scientific solution

The problem of the economic justice and fair price can only be solved by means of a three-step sequence: a) leaving behind the "money illusion" (John M. Keynes) and its subjectivist expression, i.e. prices; b) objectively quantifying economic contributions of each human being, both those that are made directly in production, circulation and distribution, as well as the indirect ones (education); c) guaranteeing retribution and equivalent exchange.

6. The solution of the 21st century Socialism

The scientific and ethical solution of the problem of the economic justice is, therefore, the end of the class society; that is, the three-step process outlined before. This procedure is the methodological basis of the economy of the 21st century Socialism. Arno Peters, the founder of the paradigm of the economy of equivalence, took the decisive step in this respect, by combining the Political Economics' theory of value with the theory of equivalence.

The objective (or intersubjective) measurement unit that he used was the concept of value as time inputs. With this objective quantification of the economic activity, all human work became measurable. Based on this objective quantification, if the aim was having a fair retribution, it was necessary to find a justice measuring standard as objective as that of value. Peters found it in the theorem of the equivalence between heat and work (1st Law of Thermodynamics) of the German physicist Julius R. Mayer (1841).

Using this theorem in an interdisciplinary fashion, Peters postulated that workers' retribution was fair, when the goods and services basket (salary) workers received for their workday represented the same value (working hours) as the social work hours the worker had worked. There is not exploitation (injustice) in this relation: the value of work contributed to the society is equal (equivalent) to the value received in the remuneration (basket). There is no surplus, that is, profit or labor exploitation.

7. With science and peoples

This economic paradigm of the 21st century Socialism coincides with that of Marx, put forward in the Critique of the Gotha Program: workers should receive the full value of their workday, less the social funds democratically deducted by citizens. It also coincides with the Program for the Transition to the 21st Century Socialism of the European Union, which the Tricontinental of the 21st Century Socialism presented in Berlin last year, in which renowned scientists from Europe, Latin America and Asia were involved.

In the light of this scientific-ethical paradigm, it is clear that the "Law of Costs and Fair Prices" in Venezuela is nothing but a mock-battle against "excessive profits" of capital, just like the promise that Samán was going to come back in a "more relevant" revolutionary role.

The Revolution's true progressive transformation phase is over. Now, it is busy developing legal codes for ghosts and making promises that it knows it will not deliver.

[Kiev Communard]

I said it once and I'll say it again: This so-called "21st Century Socialism" looks an awful lot like 20th Century "Really-Existing Socialism".

I would say that it is much less radical (i.e. in the state-capitalist sense) than some of them were. For instance, I doubt that even the Titoists or the Hungarian "goulash socialist" CP would have allowed the majority ownership of private capitalist firms in the national economy.

[L.A.P.]

Well unfortunately this is what democratic socialism leads to, and we all (supporters and critics) knew that this would be the ultimate result. Chavez brought much promise and progress to alleviate the Venezuelan working class but democratic reforms can really only go so far. I will not hesitate to say that Chavez did make accomplishments and I support those accomplishments, but it's now time for the working class to move beyond populist politicians representing their interests and to take the power for themselves.

[jake williams]

I think it's really interesting that basically everyone in this thread are forgetting or ignoring the actual determinant factor in whether or not there will be a socialist revolution in Venezuela: the Venezuelan people, and most importantly, the most class conscious workers.

It's clear from Mr. Chavez's remarks, and it's interesting, that he sees his own base as being a force for socialism that he has to try to moderate, if not repress. Of course he didn't come into politics as a socialist, and unlike in Cuba, there's no way to make a case that he declared himself as such as an opportunist appeal to the Soviet Union (not that this applies to Cuba, but it definitely doesn't apply to Venezuela).

He's done the progressive things he's done because the people have forced him to. If they can continue forcing him to do them, or find someone else and force that person to do them, then they'll continue happening. It's certainly disappointing that he's coming out against his own base like this, but as already said, it's not altogether surprising.

[Comrade Jandar]

This is really disappointing to hear. I always admired Chavez to some extent for being a bulwark against modern imperialism in Latin America. God knows that the West has always been uncomfortable with him; they tried to overthrown him in 2002.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

From a perspective concerned with international policy, I think his commitment to revolutionary ideology has been far more spotty than in domestic policy.Chavez came out strongly on behalf of Gaddafi too. Not that anyone likes the NTC either, but he gave unconditional support to a bloody putschist dictator and the "international law" that protects said dictator. Not a very "Revolutionary" position at all.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6398


NATO’s Transition Council in Libya a “Pantomime” says Venezuela’s Chavez

http://venezuelanalysis.com/sites/venezuelanalysis.com/themes/zen/venezuelanalysis/images/icon_send.gif (http://venezuelanalysis.com/printmail/6398) http://venezuelanalysis.com/sites/venezuelanalysis.com/themes/zen/venezuelanalysis/images/icon_print.gif (http://venezuelanalysis.com/print/6398)
By Venezuelanalysis.com



Mérida, August 2nd 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Yesterday President Hugo Chavez said that his government “rejects the national transition council installed in Libya, approved of by [some] European countries and by other governments, because it violates the basics of international law.”
“We categorically reject this pantomime of a transition council and the hypocritical show by these European and other countries that have recognised a group of terrorists, who recognize them in the form of a transition council and give them legitimacy by doing so,” Chavez said.
The transition council represents a “very dangerous situation...and they can do this tomorrow...to any one of us. That is, if they [NATO] here [in Venezuela] recognise a transition council in Plaza Altamira [an opposition and wealthy person hotspot], that can’t be tolerated, so we reject the measure categorically, with all our revolutionary might,” he said.
He explained that the Venezuelan government wouldn’t recognise any transition council or other government of this nature, “because we’re a government that respects international law and the legitimacy recognised by nations and governments independent of their origin.”
“Long live Gaddafi who will overcome, we’re with you and with all of Libya,” Chavez concluded.
Venezuela’s foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, met with a representative of the Muammar Gaddafi government yesterday, Abdul Hafid Al Zleitni, who handed over a letter sent by Gaddafi to Chavez.
According to a statement later released by the foreign ministry, Maduro and Al Zleitni “analysed the scenarios set out by the illegal war of aggression that NATO is waging against the Libyan people.”
Maduro told Al Zleitni that Venezuela gives its “unconditional support to the legitimate cause of the Libyan people and their leader, Muammar Al Gaddafi, the only legally constituted authority and recognised by the international community.”
Chavez read the letter from Gaddafi on national television. It stated that the “Libyan people and I, personally, pray for your health and we ask god for your quick recovery in order to continue the march of the destiny of the Venezuelan people and the formation of the Union of States of Latin America and the Caribbean, following in the footsteps of the paradigmatic [liberation leader] Simon Bolivar”.
Gaddafi described his perception of the situation in Libya and the intentions of NATO, including “sabotaging the construction of a south-south space that brings together Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia”.
Specifically, he cited the intention to “impede the celebration of the III Summit of the States of South America and Africa in Tripoli [capital of Libya]”.
“I value highly your positions of support to the Libyan people, as well as the support expressed by leaders and revolutionaries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and we hope to count on this support continuing, as it has strengthened us,” the letter continued.
Gaddafi also mentioned the transitional council and his concern for Libya’s sovereignty, and expressed his “hope” that he could count on Chavez’s “opposition to such behaviour which constitutes a dangerous precedent in international relations”.
First Libya, Now Syria
Also yesterday, Maduro, commented on the situation in north Africa and the Middle East, arguing that, “They are applying a similar model of harassment and aggression in Syria to that imposed by the Western powers in Libya”, referring to the events leading up to the NATO attacks on Libya.
Maduro argued that “aggressor countries” in Syria were fomenting destabilisation there by “financing and arming paramilitary groups in order to try to make attempts by [Syrian] President Bashar Al Assad of a great dialogue among the whole nation fail”.
Maduro lamented the victims that have resulted from what he described as “confrontations between the police and illegally armed groups” in Syria.
Finally, he reminded people that the Venezuelan government was among the first to “warn about the plans of the Western powers to divide and intervene in Libya in order to appropriate its abundant natural resources and petroleum...and that’s the same scheme they are trying to apply in Syria”.
Basically, the bloody uprisings in Syria and Libya must have nothing to do with the conditions created by their shitty third-positionist dictatorships because those governments hate the Western Imperialists. Therefore any local resistance to said government must necessarily be some eeeevil Western conspiracy, and not an expression of legitimate local discontent at violent and repressive governments. If there is a lack of dialogue between the protesters and the government, it's not the fault of the government and military slaughtering hundreds or thousands of innocent people, it's the fault of the protesters of course for not having "dialogue" with the government. His position is no worse than Obama's utter hypocrisy over protests in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia ... Chavez has committed himself to taking the side of the powerful over the weak in this case.

Chavez and his party have done some good things within their borders, but it seems that confrontation with Imperialists is more important to Mr Chavez than actual revolutionary ideology. No, the liberation of Libyan and Syrian workers doesn't matter, only international law! I think there are many problems with Chavismo from a revolutionary perspective. This isn't to minimize the positive changes of the country of course, but I wonder how sustainable they will be with ideology which in some respects maintains elements of reactionary discourses.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's nothing: I knew a FRSOite kook who said (literally, I'm not joking) that Chavez was "constructing socialism faster than the Bolsheviks".

This response to your post is also an indirect comment on another rare but typically Guardianista article on the Paris Commune:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/01/paris-commune-1871

The Chavez regime, for all my criticisms and reservations above and in other threads, has indeed progressed further than the Paris Commune and has especially passed the durability test. For example:

Worker coops with state aid? Check.
"Worker control" movement and co-management policies (despite my criticisms of the terminology employed by both)? Check.
Proliferation of communal councils and communes? Big check.

[IIRC, comrade Miles stated that "average skilled workers wage" was just rhetoric not enacted by a Communal Council too busy with other things.]

[syndicat]

involving the "private sector" has been a part of Chavez's trajectory from the beginning. his Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 changed the rules in regard to petroleum in that it permits "mixed companies", that is, companies partly owned by private firms, which would operate in the oil and energy resource industry. this industry had been completely nationalized by the Accion Democratica party in 1976 but has undergone partial de-nationalization by Chavez. for example, Chevron has six operations now in Venezuela. their director for Latin America says, "Watch what Chavez does, not what he says."

[Die Neue Zeit]

involving the "private sector" has been a part of Chavez's trajectory from the beginning. his Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 changed the rules in regard to petroleum in that it permits "mixed companies", that is, companies partly owned by private firms, which would operate in the oil and energy resource industry. this industry had been completely nationalized by the Accion Democratica party in 1976 but has undergone partial de-nationalization by Chavez. for example, Chevron has six operations now in Venezuela. their director for Latin America says, "Watch what Chavez does, not what he says."

The 1976 "nationalization" wasn't total state monopoly like in Saudi Arabia. It was a partnership between PDVSA and various private Venezuelan firms. There's also a reason why news sources say Chavez re-nationalized PDVSA.

Anyways, the "mixed companies" tend to be partnerships with foreign state oil companies.