please tell me that this is some kind of sick joke.

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20130307-chavez-body-to-be-put-on-permanent-display.ece

[LOLseph Stalin]

I heard this too. Sounds familiar.

http://listverse.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/vladimir-lenin-body.jpg

[Q]

Oh boy, not this again.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I haven´t seen anything about this on other news sites yet. But in case this is true:

"We have decided to prepare the body of our `Comandante President,' to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong," Maduro said.


´the fuck is wrong with this guy?!:rolleyes:

[RedAnarchist]

Is this even something he wanted, or is this another Lenin incident?

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Is this even something he wanted, or is this another Lenin incident?
I´m guessing it´s the latter.

[xvzc]

I see no reason to hiss at these types of procedures. Chavez was a national leader who significantly transformed the lives of millions of poor and marginalized peoples through his rule, and symbolized everything that their movement (or "revolution") stood for.

You don't have to understand the symbolism that many national and/or revolutionary leaders carry, whether Lenin, Mao, Ho, the Kims, Che, etc, to respect it.

Most people do not come from this "no leaders, no masters" tradition that RevLeft members and people with academic backgrounds seem to religiously adhere to.

[l'Enfermé]

Fucking hell, more necrophilia?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I don't see the problem. This way, he can be preserved like Lenin for the masses to view and be inspired.

[Thirsty Crow]

I see no reason to hiss at these types of procedures.
Post-mortem finalization of the cult of personality, which itself is an expression of the lack of grassroots movement towards emancipation.

No of course, there's nothing wrong in secular sanctification of a populist leader.



Most people do not come from this "no leaders, no masters" tradition that RevLeft members and people with academic backgrounds seem to religiously adhere to.
Of course, the point being that it is perfectly reasonable to perpetuate both bourgeois politics, in the sense of subordination of workers' self-activity to bourgeois politicians, and substitutionism masquerading as communism.

And nice touch there with the religion bit.

[Astarte]

I seriously don't see the big deal either. Keeping him "ever among the living" will have at least the psychological affect of keeping people aware of the ways their lives got better under Chavez. Sometimes gravitas from beyond the grave is an appropriate tactic of bolstering the gains made when a movement of the oppressed loses its paramount leader - hand wringing at this type of thing is even more annoying than the thing in and of itself.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I don't see the problem. This way, he can be preserved like Lenin for the masses to view and be inspired.
yes, because visiting the Mausoleum to see Lenin´s earthly remains is such an inspiring experience today.:laugh:

[Thirsty Crow]

yes, because visiting the Mausoleum to see Lenin´s earthly remains is such an inspiring experience today.:laugh:
Isn't it obvious, the inert masses need a reminder of their historical interests from beyond.

[Paul Pott]

Lenin should have been buried like any other person, so should Chavez.

[Questionable]

Well when the US-backed neoliberal regime comes into power they'll take his body and drag it down the streets, so don't anybody worry.

[Thirsty Crow]

Well when the US-backed neoliberal regime comes into power they'll take his body and drag it down the streets, so don't anybody worry.
I know that it is hard both to understand and criticize the tendencies towards the cult of personality when you hold basically the same view, but this trick - that criticism equals reaction - is so old and so stupid that one would assume new and more imaginative ways of remaining stuck with your head in the sand would be devised.

[RadioRaheem84]

Good lord, ya'll are some judgmental cold ass folk. I don't agree with these types of personality cult displays but Chavez really did inspire the majority of working people to believe that change is possible for them. Where they will take that IDK, but I hope they take it to it's most radical conclusion.

It's no wonder we can't make strides with the average working person. We just mock their national heroes, call any and all praise of them cultish, and literally tell other leftists who dare to understand where the people are coming from as traitors to theory.

I think Chavez did some things that put all of us to shame while we sit around saying, "I would've been more leftist". I mean shit, I almost got a little elated when for the only milisecond I actually believed Obama would bring universal healthcare at the start of his first campaign. I only imagine if a Chavez ever reached that height in the US.

To see workers mobilize, to see them put the fear of god in the richer classes and to see those rich assholes retreat after a failed coup? All in a time where even being a soc dem is akin to being fascist liberty killer in this political climate? That counts for nothing for some of you? Chavez was not a revolutionary socialist by any means necessary but this punk rawk hating of the man and being so ridiculously judgmental of his base is just elitist. You guys might as well just start making fun of his base in a Colbert-style rant about how Venezuelan flag track suits and red berets are just so passe. At least that will be funnier than the shit spewing out in the Chavez RIP thread.

Literacy campaigns? HA! What's the point if they cannot even apply the theory, that they can now read, correctly! Those dumb Chavistas!

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

If anything I find it disrespectful to the man and his memory to put his body on permanent display. Finding it morbid and counter- productive does not equal calling his supporters dumb or whatever.

[RadioRaheem84]

If anything I find it disrespectful to the man and his memory to put his body on permanent display.

I don't disagree with you. I was just implying that there isn't any empathy for understanding Chavez's base on revleft by some. It's just open mocking at this point.

[Engels]

Good lord, ya'll are some judgmental cold ass folk. I don't agree with these types of personality cult displays but Chavez really did inspire the majority of working people to believe that change is possible for them. Where they will take that IDK, but I hope they take it to it's most radical conclusion.

It's no wonder we can't make strides with the average working person. We just mock their national heroes, call any and all praise of them cultish, and literally tell other leftists who dare to understand where the people are coming from as traitors to theory.

I think Chavez did some things that put all of us to shame while we sit around saying, "I would've been more leftist". I mean shit, I almost got a little elated when for the only milisecond I actually believed Obama would bring universal healthcare at the start of his first campaign. I only imagine if a Chavez ever reached that height in the US.

To see workers mobilize, to see them put the fear of god in the richer classes and to see those rich assholes retreat after a failed coup? All in a time where even being a soc dem is akin to being fascist liberty killer in this political climate? That counts for nothing for some of you? Chavez was not a revolutionary socialist by any means necessary but this punk rawk hating of the man and being so ridiculously judgmental of his base is just elitist. You guys might as well just start making fun of his base in a Colbert-style rant about how Venezuelan flag track suits and red berets are just so passe. At least that will be funnier than the shit spewing out in the Chavez RIP thread.

Literacy campaigns? HA! What's the point if they cannot even apply the theory, that they can now read, correctly! Those dumb Chavistas!

I do enjoy reading your rants. It’s like the previous century never happened. Do continue!

[RadioRaheem84]

I do enjoy reading your rants. It’s like the previous century never happened. Do continue!

You should subscribe to them perhaps then you will better understand the history of the past century's mistakes instead of thinking it was all a matter of theoretical purity. But then again what else could I expect from someone who would rather reply back with a sardonic quip? Yeah lets win
workers over by being the House M.D. of political opposition.

Get a clue.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Look, guys, I have no problem with having fond thoughts of one's heroes, or having respect for people, or even having some kind of memorial for a person or event (talking abstractly here, not specifically about Chavez). But preserving a corpse is just weird, and especially weird considering the fact that socialism or communism or what have you shouldn't be about the extreme glorification of one man, which is kind of what this smacks of: the achievements of 'commandante' were so great that we need to preserve his 'earthly vessel' into perpetuity. :rolleyes:

The fact that this seemed to have happened on a number of occassions in regimes claiming to be socialist makes it hard for me to argue against people who say that my ideology is full of shit, as evidenced by it's attempts at real-world application.

[RadioRaheem84]

Look, guys, I have no problem with having fond thoughts of one's heroes, or having respect for people, or even having some kind of memorial for a person or event (talking abstractly here, not specifically about Chavez). But preserving a corpse is just weird, and especially weird considering the fact that socialism or communism or what have you shouldn't be about the extreme glorification of one man, which is kind of what this smacks of: the achievements of 'commandante' were so great that we need to preserve his 'earthly vessel' into perpetuity. :rolleyes:

The fact that this seemed to have happened on a number of occassions in regimes claiming to be socialist makes it hard for me to argue against people who say that my ideology is full of shit, as evidenced by it's attempts at real-world application.

Of course it's weird but I find it odd how we could go through great lengths on this forum understanding ethnic minorities who commit horrific crimes in inner city ghettos and idolize criminal and mobsters. Yes, they are victims, I wouldn't deny that but any mention or repudation of their acts (along with the system that creates them) is seen as racist or reactionary.
Trying to explain the situation in Venezuela, understand the people's plight and admiraton for Chavez, supporting Chavez where he has done some good and critcizing him where he has been wrong. All that is akin to being a traitor of some sort, and there has been some real mockery of the gains workers have made there, as well as mocking of the workers themselves who support Chavez.

All of the analysis I've seen of anyone supportive of the Chavez government, most of it coming from the MR school, has been critical where it needed to be and cautiously supportive where support was needed against reactionaries. They always called on the revolution to take a radical progression than remain soc dem.

Why is there no balance when it comes to Chavez? Why is it all punk rawk politics?
I could understand the same skeptism toward the CCP, Obama progressives and the odious North Korean state but Chavez?

[Per Levy]

well, all leftists who have some popularity should probally make it clear that they dont want to become a quasi religious relic after they are dead.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I don't see the problem. This way, he can be preserved like Lenin for the masses to view and be inspired.

Apparently Putin wants to bury him. Lenin himself wanted to be buried but I guess Stalin and the others thought it would make useful propaganda to have him on display. Anyway, Putin wants to essentially erase Soviet history so his reasons for wanting to bury Lenin are the wrong ones.

[Brutus]

It's just sick. Do we know if Chavez asked to be embalmed or it was a propaganda ploy by Maduro?

[RadioRaheem84]

Apparently Putin wants to bury him. Lenin himself wanted to be buried but I guess Stalin and the others thought it would make useful propaganda to have him on display. Anyway, Putin wants to essentially erase Soviet history so his reasons for wanting to bury Lenin are the wrong ones.

It's a catch 22, obviously these types of displays are almost pharroh like but Eastern European nations like Poland seem to enjoy banning or outlawing communist or socialist relics of the past.

Idk about ya'll but I love it when rich bougies get all annoyed at the sight of communism coming back in their lives and always a constant menace.

[Pleb]

Morbid.

[Ocean Seal]

No reason to get so bent out of shape over this. When I die, I want a fucking mausoleum. Besides this is probably for the better. Chavez has been more emblematic than useful, so preserving his image isn't a bad thing. What they do with it, maybe good or bad. Regardless, for strictly historical purposes I don't see this as a bad thing.

[Per Levy]

Idk about ya'll but I love it when rich bougies get all annoyed at the sight of communism coming back in their lives and always a constant menace.

what mencae? commies arnt menacing at all. and hey rich bourgies can make money from "communism" or lets say from soviet nostalgia.

[Art Vandelay]

Just wait till Bob Avakian dies...

[RadioRaheem84]

what mencae? commies arnt menacing at all. and hey rich bourgies can make money from "communism" or lets say from soviet nostalgia.

Key word is annoyed. No matter how much they do not see it as a real viable threat, they look and get so annoyed at any left wing talk or movement that springs up when people reject their technocratic experts.

Ever seen Nial Ferguson in a debate with anyone remotely left wing? He just rolls his eyes, he gets pissed and just ends up calling the other guy a fool who doesn't understand basic economics and history!

I mean I just love it when they get annoyed, when people don't listen to their "experts" and when this new third way centrist technocratic neo-liberal establishment get so fumed when a "vulgar" person or movement challenges them.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

what mencae? commies arnt menacing at all. and hey rich bourgies can make money from "communism" or lets say from soviet nostalgia.
"We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us."
Behind the seemingly harmless phenomenon of soviet nostalgia there hides the haunting spectre of communism. ;)

[Rusty Shackleford]

my head hung low a bit when i heard this on the radio. but what i got form it was that chavez wanted to be enbalmed.

[Nakidana]

well, all leftists who have some popularity should probally make it clear that they dont want to become a quasi religious relic after they are dead.

Doesn't really seem to matter. Lenin made it clear, yet they still embalmed him. :glare:


When I die, I want a fucking mausoleum.

Sure you do, but what should we as a community do with your useless empty mausoleum afterwards? Some of us kinda liked going for a walk in the forest without looking at your butt ugly concrete building sticking out of the ground.


chavez wanted to be enbalmed.Oh okay, so it was his own wish?

[RadioRaheem84]

Doesn't make Chavez look if he wanted to be mumified. At least make some appeal to end the cult of personality surrounding you Chavez, for fucks sake! Even in death?

[Astarte]

Mummification and the desire to preserve life or the husk of it after death goes back a long time and really is not that strange of a thing - Plastered skulls in the Ancient Near East go as far back as 7,000 BC and the oldest mummy from the Atacama Desert has been dated to around the same time period. I think the only way this sentiment ever will be destroyed in humanity would be to conquer death itself - but until a highly advanced communist society achieves this, the appeal for such things will remain irresistible.

[Red Commissar]

The fact that this seemed to have happened on a number of occassions in regimes claiming to be socialist makes it hard for me to argue against people who say that my ideology is full of shit, as evidenced by it's attempts at real-world application.

Well to be fair while embalming was associated with self-professed socialist regimes it has happened in some other places. Two that come to mind was Peron embalming his wife and I think that corrupt nut Marcos in the Philippines was temporarily embalmed.

Not good company to keep but I guess the only saving grace is that they're putting Chavez in an already existing museum rather than building a new masoleum for him. Not sure why Maduro said they'd do this, surely they have a PR person to tell them how media reacts to this?

[Geiseric]

This is rediculous that people support this, you know that embalming bodies is somthing historically done for, say, Ramses or Tutenkhamen, do you think Lenin or Chavez should be put on a pedestal? This only serves a propaganda service for Chavez's heirs.

[Revy]

Mummification and the desire to preserve life or the husk of it after death goes back a long time and really is not that strange of a thing - Plastered skulls in the Ancient Near East go as far back as 7,000 BC and the oldest mummy from the Atacama Desert has been dated to around the same time period. I think the only way this sentiment ever will be destroyed in humanity would be to conquer death itself - but until a highly advanced communist society achieves this, the appeal for such things will remain irresistible.

Ancient Egyptians put their mummies in tombs, not in public buildings. It was a custom intended to preserve the body for the afterlife, not aid in public worship of a person's body.

[Questionable]

I know that it is hard both to understand and criticize the tendencies towards the cult of personality when you hold basically the same view, but this trick - that criticism equals reaction - is so old and so stupid that one would assume new and more imaginative ways of remaining stuck with your head in the sand would be devised.

Uhh, I actually disliked Chavez, and I'm personally completely apathetic towards both this and Lenin's mummification because who really cares, so if you're trying to accuse me of being in favor of this, fuck off. I was being serious when I said that his body would probably not remain on display for too long.

[Sasha]

Alexander the Great
Historians agree that Alexander the Great, a Macedonian king and an Aristotle-tutored commander famous for his undefeated record in battle, rests eternally somewhere in Alexandria, Egypt, but they’re still not sure where (http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/alexander/tomb.html). When Alexander died in 323 B.C. in Babylon at age 32, his body was moved to the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, where it remained for two decades until it was reburied in Alexandria, the city the young king had founded. At the end of the third century, it was moved back to Alexandria to another tomb, where it was visited by (http://www.amazon.com/Rest-Pieces-Curious-Famous-Corpses/dp/1451654987/) Julius Caesar, Caligula and Augustus, who accidentally knocked off Alexander’s nose when he bent down to kiss the corpse.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Top-Ten-Afterlife-Journeys-of-Notable-People-196036791.html

:laugh:

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Why do you all care so much.


He's dead. He doesn't give a shit.

[Astarte]

Ancient Egyptians put their mummies in tombs, not in public buildings. It was a custom intended to preserve the body for the afterlife, not aid in public worship of a person's body.

What is your point? Ever among the living is ever among the living.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Humankind needs its blood rituals, we Communists need to take the lead. :laugh:

[Engels]

You should subscribe to them perhaps then you will better understand the history of the past century's mistakes instead of thinking it was all a matter of theoretical purity. But then again what else could I expect from someone who would rather reply back with a sardonic quip? Yeah lets win
workers over by being the House M.D. of political opposition.

Get a clue.

It was all a matter of theoretical purity? What are you going on about now? Your ranting may be amusing but you need to brush up on your sophistry. Oh well, never mind, if engaging in collective mourning for a bourgeois nationalist is what makes you and the other leftists feel relevant – go ahead.

[Orange Juche]

I see no reason to hiss at these types of procedures. Chavez was a national leader who significantly transformed the lives of millions of poor and marginalized peoples through his rule, and symbolized everything that their movement (or "revolution") stood for.

You don't have to understand the symbolism that many national and/or revolutionary leaders carry, whether Lenin, Mao, Ho, the Kims, Che, etc, to respect it.

Most people do not come from this "no leaders, no masters" tradition that RevLeft members and people with academic backgrounds seem to religiously adhere to.

The thing is, you can't have these leaders without the masses that helped create them. There is such a thing as getting too caught up in leaders to the point where it's not about what the leader supposedly stands for, but the leader themselves - a problem that self-proclaimed socialist states recurrently have, and which fiercely diminishes any meaningful socialist democracy into something to parade for show.

In theory, the idea of reverence for leaders seems almost positive in the symbolism that they carry, but historically it does nothing but hurt socialism, and socialism's interests.

Not to mention, having a dead body on display like that comes of as some post-death deification. The whole showing off a dead body thing... it's just bizarre and kind of off-putting.

[The Cheshire Cat]

It was just on the news that the German and Russian experts who are supposed to prepare the body for eternal display, say there is a big chance it is simply impossible to prepare the body. The pre-preparation was done badly and possible that the venezuelan government waited to long with the actual preparation.

[Q]

It was just on the news that the German and Russian experts who are supposed to prepare the body for eternal display, say there is a big chance it is simply impossible to prepare the body. The pre-preparation was done badly and possible that the venezuelan government waited to long with the actual preparation.

Yeah, was about to post the same. So, while the body can be put on display "for a time", it has to be buried/cremated after a while.

[Brutus]

Even lenin looks like his kidneys have failed. He's yellow and leathery.