Latin American Populism

Here is a brief overview of Latin American movements I wrote for a discussion group.

First off, Mexico. In the state of Chiapas, the Zapatista Movement has created a web of autonomous, direct democratically governed villages as well as coops and land reform. The State of Oaxaca has seen a similar movement among indigenous villages as well as the openly anarchist CIPO-RFM. (also a village federation) As I write there is a situation of dual power in Oaxaca with the different movements coming together to non-violently remove the corrupt PRI government. The CIPO-RFM and the Zapatistas have very close relations with the Spanish and French anarcho-syndicalists (more on them later)

In Costa Rica there is a very strong anti-globalist movement that has influenced one of the main parties, coming within a hair's breadth of being elected in the last election.

In Venezuela the democratically elected Chavez government has enacted land reform, built cooperatives, instituted a certain level of self-management and decentralization at the village and neighborhood level. Venezuela is working on a Bolivarian concept, by which the individual nations of Latin America ought to come together for mutual benefit.

In Argentina, while the neighborhood assembly movement has largely faded, due to the meddling of political parties, at least 10,000 workers remain in the worker-managed factories.

In Bolivia, the indigenous majority is, for the first time being empowered. They have rejected statist nationalization of the water, preferring a form of community control. The wealth of the natural resources, chiefly natural gas, will be used to improve the lives of the majority, instead of fattening the profits of some multinational.

In Chile, the social movements are reborn. Evidence of this was the massive (1million) student strike recently. Populism and indigenism are very strong in Peru and Ecuador, populist movements could take power there in the future.
In Columbia, in spite of heavy attacks and death squads the FARC guerrilla army remains undefeated and has at least 18,000 soldiers. It has adopted the concept of Bolivarian Revolution and thus has seemingly moved away from orthodox Marxist Leninism.

Left-wing governments are also found in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil. The Sandinistas are poised to return in Nicaragua. Anarchist groups are now found in most Latin American countries, the largest of which are in Brazil.
The general tendency is away from either the Fabian or Marxist Leninist concepts (heavy statism) and towards the populist emphasis upon empowerment of the people and cooperatives.

Defend Oaxaca!

The Mexican government seems poised to attack the Oaxacan movement which has occupied the city of Oaxaca in order to get rid of the corrupt state government. We must not let a massacre occur.

The below is from Nancy Davies, who is based in Oaxaca and writes frequently on the situation there for Narco News. (1)

While the threat of a mass attack has seemed to always be in the air, the situation in recent days has really escalated. Now an attack seems imminent.

APPEAL FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AID

The word I have now is that there are about 5,000 men wearing army uniforms who are not army, but police, culled from other states like Vercruz and Morelia, that is to say, this is a PRI operation, not the federal troops, altho I don’t know how our source explains the "naval" helicopters (maybe not?). The "police" are heavily armed, and the attack is supposed to happen around 10:00 PM Oaxaca time. The attack, code name cicloncinco, was revealed by the same person who informed our friend that there would be a drive-by shooting last night, which came true.

Our friend says there are already a lot of PRD people gathered in the zocalo, thousands have gathered, apparently including some foreigners including Univision and CNN.

Aid is asked for food, water, telephone lines. Only one radio station is still operating

Our friend told us to stay off the streets. Good friend. The one still operating radio station says, stay calm, not respond to acts of aggression which are provocations. Our friend says the city is "surrounded", not sure what that means.

Anybody who can email should do so, to any addresses you have, phone calls, faxes, etc. (cabascal@segob.gov.mx) the message is "no a la repression, si a la destitucion de Ulises Ruiz." La Jornada has a live feed running on their site. Please disseminate news however you can.There is still a chance that this is psychological warfare, very tiring. Doesn’t look good right now.

Here is a list of Mexican consulates in the US and Canada:http://elenemigocomun.net/128

Here are people to email or fax:

VICENTE FOX QUESADA PRESIDENTE CONSTITUCIONAL DE MÉXICO

FAX. + 55 52 77 23 76,

vicente.fox.quesada@presidencia.gob.mx

LIC. CARLOS ABASCAL CARRANZA SECRETARIO DE GOBERNACIÓN

FAX + 55 50 93 34 14,

cabascal@segob.gov.mx

DR. JOSÉ LUIS SOBERANES, PRESIDENTE DE LA COMISIÓN NACIONAL DE DERECHOS HUMANOS

FAX + 55 56 81 71 99,

correo@cndh.gob.mx

DANIEL CABEZA DE VACA, PROCURADOR GENERAL DE LA REPÚBLICA

FAX: +55 53460908,

ofproc@pgr.gob.mx

LIC. ULISES RUIZ ORTÍZ, GOBERNADOR DEL ESTADO DE OAXACA

Fax: + 951 5020530,

gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx

(1) http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2105.html

5 Things Feminism Has Done For Me

I just got nailed by Eugene,

http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/ for the feminist list I guess I was always a kind of proto-feminist. Being an “outsider”, I thought the way women were supposed to be in 1950's society as one more aspect of the general insanity. So when the Women's Liberation Movement developed in 1968, it seemed natural to me. I guess that is number one, boiled down to “It is an extension and development of my being.” Secondly, feminism has made me aware of the great riches that lie in women's writing, poetry, art and music. What an immense gift that is! Thirdly feminism has given me a broader understanding of the need for action when seeking human liberation. It is not enough for us to aim for economic democracy and political liberty. To be free we must struggle for social liberty as well, gender must not oppress and exploit gender and anyone who thinks they can be free in a misogynist world is living a sordid fantasy. Fourthly, feminist archeology and anthropology has given me a deeper understanding of the origins of authoritarianism and provides hope with the evidence that complex civilizations existed without brutal patriarchy. Fifthly, Feminist psychology and spirituality has given me a greater understanding of the authoritarian personality and how to deal with it, as well as bolstering my long-held view of the inter-connectedness and sacredness of all existence.

And Another Right-wing Pedo!

Just recently a list came out of US Republicans arrested for pedophilia and similar sex crimes. It was a long list. See

http://www.angelashelton.com/weblog/2006/09/26/our-elected-officials/

Well now here's another one to add to the list. This time a 36-year-old Christian conservative activist and lawyer with close ties to Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Scott Baugh, head of the Orange County Republican Party. See

http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/our-thing/25902/

Naming The Enemy

There has been some difficulty getting a correct handle on the right wing tendency that has become hegemonic over the last 25 to 30 years. Neoliberal is used frequently in Europe, but the problem is, nothing is liberal about them. New Right was a good term, but it seems to have gotten left behind in the Reagan days. Generally people in North America, have used the word “Neocon” to describe the new face of reaction. Neocon was once used in a narrow sense to describe the group that developed under Irving and William Kristol, Wolfowitz and Pearl. But how does one describe Chaney, Rumsfeld, Bush, B-liar etc? Furthermore, Neocons say the term is anti-semitic, since many of the original conmen were Zionists. And last but not least, other than 1950's social values, there is nothing the least conservative about neoconservatism. Better to have a new term. The way to come up with a new term is to zero in on the central aspects of a belief system. Fot this tendency this is its newness and its in-your-face authoritarianism. I suggest calling them the “New Authoritarian Tendency”. A mouthful, true, but the acronym could be NAT or NATcy. Either one has great polemical value. The first reminds you of a blood sucking insect pest and the second, well, you know who...

How To Lie Like A Politician

One thing I have noticed in my years of blogging and commenting in news groups is the inability of many people, especially on the authoritarian right, to argue rationally. The following is a lesson in logic and argumentation that I have written to help these unfortunate individuals. For anyone wishing to delve further into the logical fallacies used in argumentation see “Straight Thinking - Crooked Thinking” by Robert Thouless. An on line summary can be found at http://www.246.dk/38tricks.html

There are a number of tricks and logical fallacies that politicos and other scoundrels use to win arguments. They use these dishonest means since the truth would not further their cause. These tricks and fallacies have been used so often they have become the common currency of argument. People you could never accuse of lying use them out of ignorance, and think they are winning their point in debate. (Instead of making fools of themselves to anyone in the know.) Part of the problem rests with our wretched education system which waits until university to teach basic logic, and even then does not make it a required subject – the sorry results of which are all too obvious in many academic debates and publications. Anyway, here is a list of common tricks.

*The Straw Man. This is the classic, most common, and one of the crudest means of apparently winning an argument. One sets up a false, ridiculous, or exaggerated statement and claims that this is what their opponent believes. Set up thus, the straw man is easy to knock down and defeat. A typical example you see all the time is ‘anarchists are against organization’, when in fact we favor voluntary, non-authoritarian organization. The Straw Man gets much use in the media – in the 60’s peace marchers were straw-manned as being Communists, today they are “Saddam lovers”. Words and concepts have meaning. A liberal is not socialist, nor is a socialist a Marxist Leninist communist. And there are different varieties of liberals, socialists and communists. All of this is fudged over with the straw man attack. Another method of straw manning is to absolutize a statement. Suppose you come out in favor of local food production as an environmental measure. A dishonest anti-environmentalist might well scoff that you want to grow bananas and oranges in greenhouses sooner than import them, the reality being, of course, that you only want to grow locally those fruits and vegetables that make sense climate-wise. The propagandist is aided in his lies by the fact that sometimes a small minority of people do take an idea to ridiculous extremes or understand it poorly. Hence, it is possible to find irrational anarchists and apologists for terrorism, but the Big Lie is when you tar an entire group with these views.

*The Red Herring. The name probably came from the trick of dragging a fish across one’s path to deflect the tracking dogs. And that is basically it, the propagandist is faced with an uncomfortable truth and instead of dealing with it honestly, deflects the argument on to another terrain. Example - Suppose you tell a rightist that Pinochet was a tyrant. If dishonest (or ignorant of logic) he might well respond with, “Well, what about Castro?” This is a logical fallacy, Castro's dictatorial nature does not make Pinochet any less of a tyrant, and it is him we are talking about and no one else. At best, the Red Herring can show one to be a hypocrite, but this still does not negate the basic truth, that Pinochet was a dictator.

*Emotional Bullying, Invective And Ridicule. These related tricks are means to deflect arguments or to seeming counter-act arguments when one has little or no real ammunition. We are all familiar with the politician bellowing about how we must go fight a war in Afghanistan or the “terrists” will be at our back door. You can come up with hundreds of examples, but they all boil down to whipping up irrational emotions and bullying the opponent into silence. Ridicule and invective are used when one can’t attack someone any other way other than attempt to make them look venal, stupid or cruel. One’s opponent just doesn’t just have a different viewpoint, but is asinine, ignorant, a sell-out, a fool, or in a milder form, ‘confused’. Right-wingers like O'Reilly and Coulter specialize in bullying and invective.

* Hyperbole. Another common trick is to grossly inflate problems and dangers. This could also be called the Chicken Little Syndrome. Conservatives are always on about the immanent collapse of civilization any time their morality is challenged. Saddam's Iraq as a major military threat to the US is another example.

Sarcasm. Any 9 year old knows how to be sarcastic. This is the Bart Simpson school of politics. Check out Marx and Lenin’s writings. Their usual trick is to slather their opponents with sarcastic remarks. Eg. Marx’s continual reference to his opponent Max Stirner as ‘Saint Max’.

* Begging The Question is a form of faulty reasoning. What is supposed to be evidence is actually part of the conclusion. Also called circular reasoning. Eg. Nick is biased against Communism. The reason he is biased is because he is ignorant. Therefore Nick is not a reliable critic of Communism. Nick’s ignorance is given as a reason for his bias and his bias is given as a reason for his incompetence as a critic. Essentially, what is being said is that Nick is incompetent because he is incompetent. This does not mean that one's opponent might well be ignorant. But one has to show where he is lacking in knowledge rather than just writing him off as ignorant. The use of pejorative or emotionally laden language is also a form of question begging. Suppose in a public meeting someone denounces a proposal to cut taxes as ‘fascist’ or refers to a week-old fetus as a ‘baby’. The con-job here is to divert the listener’s sympathy toward the speaker’s opposition to tax cuts or abortion by using emotionally loaded language. Of course, terms such as ‘fascist’ and ‘baby’ used in such contexts have no bearing upon the truth or untruth of the arguments they are trying to defeat. Another example of question begging “That is a Marxist argument.” (implying I won't accept it.) Or “You sound like Hayek.” (implying therefore you are wrong.) The question that is begged for? Is everything that Marx or Hayek wrote wrong? The problem is not whether an argument is Marxian or Hayekian, but whether it is true or not.

Jack and Tommy

I am no great friend of the NDP or of Jack Layton, but the recent slanders against the leader of the NDP for his opposition to the Afghan adventure in sucking up to the US Empire have jogged my memory. Back in 1970, PM Trudeau imposed the War Measures Act against the dozen or so FLQ members who had kidnapped Cross and Laporte. Tommy Douglas stood up in Parliament and loudly criticized the imposition of the act and voted against it. For this he was castigated, and if memory serves me correctly, even some of his own party members did not vote with him. Well, 35 years later, all but the most died-in-th-wool Trudeau apologists see the use of the War Measures Act as a major error, something that did more to inflame nationalist passions and create lasting resentment among Quebec's intellectuals than anything since the Conscription Crisis of WW2. Tommy has been totally vindicated. I suspect 35 years from now, if we are still here, we will look at Jack in the same way. (Not to imply he is cut from the same cloth as Douglas, by the way.)