Alexander Dugin, standing, at the National Bolshevik Bunker in 1996. On his left, is Eduard Limonov.
“Negri and Hardt call the global capitalistic system ‘Empire’ and identify it with globalism and American world government. In their opinion, globalism creates the conditions for a universal, planetary revolution of the masses, who, using the common character of globalism and its possibilities for communication and the wide, open spread of knowledge, create a network of world sabotage, for the shift from humanity (standing out as the subject and object of oppression, hierarchical relations, exploitation and disciplinarian strategies) to post-humanity (mutants, cyborgs, clones, and virtuality), and the free selection of gender, appearance and individual rationality according to one’s arbitrary rule and for any space of time. Negri and Hardt think that this will lead to the freeing up of the creative potential of the masses and at the same time to the destruction of the global power of ‘Empire’…
“The anti-globalisation movement in whole is oriented precisely to such a project of the future. And such actions as ‘the Conference in São Paulo’, where anti-globalists first tried to aim at a common strategy, attest that the New Leftist project is discovering forms of concrete political realisation. Many concrete actions — gay parades, anti-globalisation protests, Occupy Wall Street, the disturbances in immigrant suburbs of European cities, the rebellions of ‘autonomous ones’ in defence of squatters’ rights, broad social protests of new labour unions (all reminding one of a carnival), the movement for the legalisation of drugs, ecological actions and protests and so on — are included in this orientation.”
“…every trend has, as the postmodernists say, trend-setters: those who establish a determinate trend for a specific goal.”
Several years ago Occupy Wall Street and Russia Today darling Chris Hedges – who is now an author at TruthDig – wrote the book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. After seeing a quote of his in my feed from one of the sock-puppet operated groups I follow, I decided to give it a look into.
I found a free copy available online, downloaded it, read it and uuuf!
I admit to not being versed with his work as a whole, but after having read this I have a better understanding of why a lot of mainstream outlets no longer publish him, thus leaving him to taken up helping WSWS engage in fundraising fraud.
Based on Chris Hedges’ co-sign of what defines fascism, it’s appearent that Chris Hedges think Nicolas Maduro and the PSUV are a fascist political organization that ought to be stopped, by violence if necessary. What follows below is a graphic organizer which demonstrates how Nicolas Maduro and the PSUV fit the definition of a fascist organization, and then commentary.
Nicolas Maduro is a Fascist
Feature of Fascism
Example from PSUV
The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
The Fascism of Nicolas Maduro and Orwellian Irony
Meeting of the first ever “Antifa International” in Caracas, Venezuela
While I’m not now sure of the connections between of the Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation in Portland, whose members recently displayed Antifa flags at a soccer game, to the numerous new Antifa-themed soccer clubs in Latin America – but it does seem to indicate some sort of working relationship between the groups.
This is one of a number of Antifa football groups that have recently announced their existence in Latin America . Worth noting is that these are all in locations that do not historically have fascist movements there.
Given the hundreds of millions of dollars that the government of Hugo Chavez Frias provided to anyone and everyone outside of his country that he thought he could influence and the large number of Venezuelans that have migrated out of the country – it’s no logical leap to suspect a connection given the timing.
On this point it’s also worth noting that some of the main defenders of Antifa activity in the United States are the Socialist and Communist parties whose members frequently visit and defend Cuba, Venezuela and the FARC in their press organs.
Nicholas Maduro: The Would-Be Hitler of Latin America?
Left: Maduro, yet again, claims that President Donald Trump ia a Nazi. Right: According to Aporrea, this is Nicolas Maduro’s favorite book on rhetoric. (JK)
While the above graphic organizer makes abundantly evident that the PSUV is a fascist organization – according to the categories created by Umberto Eco and then repeated by Chris Hedges – these are not the only examples of it.
There’s also his project of colonization, which is couched in an appeal to create a “greater Latin America” via a constitutent political body, which of course, would be lead by Cuba and Venezuela and achieved via force, corruption and blackmail.
Any serious comparison between Nicolas Maduro and Adolph Hitler is, of course, absurd. But given the PSUV’s control over the population via CLAP, the extent of pro-government corruption and the millions of people that have emigrated out of the country since the rise of the PSUV – we could say that they have engaged in a sort of politically-based genocide (genocide being understood as forced migration, UNHRC), or political cleansing. This interpretation is furthered when one considers the massive government-sponsored influx of the Cubans to work in the military and in health centers.
To understand where Maduro’s fascism comes from, one need only look to his biography…
Nicolas Maduro, Graduate of Fidel Castro’s School of Political Education
Here Nicolas Maduro is shown taking the “bus” to the School of Political Education in Havana, Cuba that was founded by Fidel Castro.
It’s well documented that Nicolas Maduro “graduated” from Fidel Castro’s School of Political Education. I read in one online forum that he was also a counselor-in-training at an Sleepaway Indoctrination Camp a few miles outside of Cienfuegos, but I believe that was just a joke.
What’s not a joke is the clear committment that Nicolas Maduro has to sell out Venezuela’s potential to be a prosperous, democratic country in order to fulfil the future-dreams of a now-dead dictator.
While marketing himself as a humble unionist and bus-driver to his people in Venezuela, by looking at a wider, comparative picture it’s clear that he’s just an autocrat that aspires to be a world-historical figure.
* : Chris Hedges has never actually said what is in the title of this post, I merely use the conceptual framework he provides in his books American Fascist to show that he should.
United States Social Forum
June, 30 2007
Is Youth Activism Still Alive?
SUNY Binghamton
Philosophy and Interpretation of Cultures Conference
April 25, 2008
Syndicalism, Pedagogy and the Renewal of the Sublime: Reclaiming a Role for non-party Leftist Politics
University of Bristol
Philosophy and Film Conference
July 4, 2008
The Conquest of Film: Anarchism, Propaganda and Transvaluative Film
Florida Atlantic University
Comparative Studies Conference
October 25th, 2008
When Green Anarchism Turns Red: Violence, Communism and the Homeland Security Advisory System
SUNY Binghamton
Comparative Literature Conference
November 7, 2008
Self-Mutilation vs. Social Transformation: Alienation, Action and Reaction in Progressive Era America
Modern Language Association
40th Anniversary Conference
February 27, 2009
Wrongthink: Recoordinating Aesthetics of Teenage Rebellion from Politically Aloof Hedonism into Genuine Radicalism
University of Gainesville
Marxist Reading Group Conference
March 26, 2009
Crisis and Convergence: The Brief Life of American Socialist Parties in The Context of the Age of Obama
International Conference of Education Research and Innovation
November 14th, 2011
Incorporating Attention Dynamics Phenomenology into Classroom Lesson Planning
UMass Amherst
Rethinking Marxism Conference
September, 22 2013
In the Shadow of Chavez: Collectivo Protagonists and El Proceso of 21st Century Socialism
Florida Atlantic University
Latin American Studies Conference
March 21st, 2014
Socialismo Maduro o Socialismo Inmaduro: Venezuela en la Cruce
University of Gainesville
Marxist Reading Group Conference March 22, 2019
Kultural Marxism: Reflections on Venezuela’s Gramscian Fantasy of Exporting Revolution via a Long March
The production of original research articles, and the number of citations they generate in international indices, have become the ordinary indicators to measure the contribution of each researcher to the scientific work.
Miguel Ángel Pérez Angón Senior Researcher in the Department of Physics at Cinvestav, he was the founding editor of the Atlas of Mexican Science and the Latin American Catalog of Programs and Human Resources in Physics.
1. Scientometrics
In the last five years the Mexican government apparatus has been consistent in applying the maxim that the social contribution of science and technology is not so clear and much less direct. As a result, federal support for scientific activities has declined significantly. Consistent with this attitude, government delicacy to quantify the impact of its science and technology programs is increasingly evident. In this context, most national institutions have consolidated the culture of evaluation and monitoring of research carried out by their groups of researchers. In particular, the production of original research articles, and the number of citations they generate in international indexes, have become the ordinary indicators to measure the contribution of each researcher at the scientific task.
In this state of affairs, we have become accustomed to using two terms almost as synonyms but it is convenient to define more precisely: bibliometry and Scientometrics. Bibliometry is restricted to the study of research products published in scientific literature, mainly articles in journals, and the citations generated in journals included in the Science Citation Index (SCI), the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). Instead, Scientometrics aims to cover a much broader field than bibliometry and includes the analysis of other factors that may be determining factors for the development of scientific activity: number of researchers, their geographical or specialty distribution, sources of financing, productivity. and repercussion, etc. It is in this last sense that we will use this term in this article.
2. Uses
The use of Scientometric Indicators is increasingly common in developed countries to define their policies to support scientific and technological activities. For us, the analyzes carried out in countries such as Brazil, Spain, China or India are of greater interest (1). In all these cases, the constant increase in the scientific production of its researchers and the interest in reaching the levels of researchers in developed countries stand out. For example, in the case of Spanish science, they were interested in knowing in which areas and specialties their production and impact indicators are comparable or superior to those of the rest of the countries of the European Union.
In our country, CONACyT has systematically published several indicators on scientific activity in Mexico and in some other countries (2). However, the data published by CONACyT are global and are not broken down by area or specialty and even less by institution. With the idea of covering this deficiency, the Mexican Academy of Sciences created in 2002 the Atlas of Mexican Science (ACM). The goal of this project was to integrate statistical databases on all areas of science that are cultivated in our country and make them accessible to all users of scientific activity. This program only had two years of activity but in that period it was possible to generate ample and detailed statistical information on ten areas of Mexican science: biological, physical, chemical, land sciences, agricultural sciences and biotechnology, medicine and health sciences, mathematics, geosciences, social sciences and humanities (3).
The information generated by the ACM is very complete and reliable thanks to the feedback that was received from the scientific community and from the institutions of higher education and research. In particular, there are data on the academic plant (institutional affiliation, academic seniority, productivity and impact, composition by gender, level of studies, nationality and specialty), and on the degree and postgraduate study programs (enrollment, new entry , egress, terminal efficiency), but in the latter case only for some of the ten areas covered by the ACM.
To give an idea of the possible uses of the indicators generated by the ACM, I will mention some of those obtained in the case of physical sciences – one of the areas best covered by this program. Figure 1 includes the evolution of the scientific production (articles in the international indexes) of the ten areas studied in the period 1980-1999. Among them, the increase in production in physical sciences stands out by a factor of six in this period (from 200 to 1200 articles). This increase corresponds to the constant growth of researchers with a doctorate in this area of knowledge (in 1987 only 337 were registered and by 2003 they were 12363). The data collected by the ACM also suggests a possible explanation of why Mexican physicists became the most productive scientific guild in the country in such a short period: it is the most homogeneous group in academic training (there is a minimum of researchers who have only finished his master’s or bachelor’s degree studies) and that he has been subject to a stimulating process of geographical de-concentration: in 1987, 70% of the PhD researchers were assigned to the institutions located in Mexico City, and by 2003 this number already It had been reduced to 35%. It should be noted that this process occurred within the broad growth of the academic plant at the national level and not due to a simple decrease of researchers in the institutions of the metropolitan area of Mexico City. For example, in 1987, UNAM had 51% of doctoral researchers (169, and at that time all were concentrated in CU), but by 2003 they were only 36.5% (451) and those located in CU corresponded to 27.8% (343). Another factor that stands out from the data generated in the ACM is the level of international collaboration that Mexican physicists have achieved and that has allowed them to achieve levels of visibility in the international environment that only biomedical researchers had achieved before: the number of articles published In the decade of the nineties that have generated more than one hundred citations is greater than those generated at this level by the biomedical community. Many of these articles were produced from international collaborations in the large laboratories of particle accelerators and astronomical observation centers (4). A similar situation occurs in the area of geosciences, where some of the most cited articles were published based on the participation of Mexican scientists in international groups that have explored the Chicxulub crater in Yucatan or have conducted studies through perception techniques remotely operated with terrestrial satellites.
There is another very interesting fact that arises from the data included in Figure 1: from the creation of the National System of Researchers (SNI) in 1984, practically all areas initiate a consolidation process and its annual production of scientific articles It increases steadily. This effect has already been detected in other Scientometric analyzes (5) and is a transparent example of the positive uses of Scientometrics.
3. Abuses
We already mentioned some of the uses and applications of the data generated in Scientometrics, all of them located in the macro sphere of science and technology. Scientometric abuses appear precisely when some macro-type results are applied at the micro level, that is, to the evaluation of researchers individually. There is a large literature on the disadvantages of this procedure (6), I will only mention a few of them below:
• The international productivity or citation averages cover very general areas and in most cases do not correspond to the lines of work of individual researchers. These averages vary over time and this possibility is not contemplated in the institutional regulations used to promote or hire researchers.
• The impact factors determined for the journals included in the international indexes vary year by year, and consequently the list of “the best journals in the specialty” is also variable (7).
• There are good quality journals that are not included in the international indexes, particularly in areas such as mathematics, social sciences and humanities. For this type of magazine there is no information on its impact factors, immediacy indexes, etc.
Perhaps the main abuse of Scientometric Indicators occurs in institutions where they are taken strictly in the promotion and contracting processes. In most high-level institutions, academic evaluations are determined by specialists who know the specific topics of interest of the researchers evaluated (the famous peer evaluation) and the data generated by the scientometric analyzes are considered only as support material in the evaluation process. But due to the intensity and frequency with which the evaluation of academic work is carried out in Mexico, the majority of the opinion committees are not familiar with all the issues addressed by the researchers to be evaluated, and then the scientometric indicators become the norm that all researchers who want to be promoted or hired must meet. This, in turn, has generated new evaluation procedures to analyze the appeals of researchers who disagree with the results of their own evaluation. There is also an aberrant use of bibliometric indicators when they are used for exclusively administrative purposes, but I prefer not to dwell on it.
4. The INEGI of science
Like many other developing countries, Mexico does not have clear policies to encourage the systematic compilation of statistical databases on national science. The case of Mexican science is really pathetic and we can illustrate it with two recently published editorials in international circulation magazines that have referred to the state of science in our country. In the first case, published in the American Scientist (8) magazine, Mexican science is well argued because despite how modest our contribution is to the total number of articles
From research published worldwide, it turns out that among the 348 foreign members of the US National Academy of Sciences, seven are Mexican, a much larger number than researchers from Brazil, China or India. In contrast, in the second case, the editorial published in the journal Nature Medicine of September 5 (9) criticizes the performance of Mexican scientists. According to the editors of this magazine, although support for Mexican science is sufficient for the number of Mexican researchers and according to US standards, per capita production and the impact of Mexican science are much lower than those of American science. However, this editorial or the number of Nature Medicine corresponding to that date does not include data that support such a drastic conclusion. Unfortunately, there is no source of statistical information in our country that could refute the argument published in this magazine.
As I conclude this article, I hope to have presented enough arguments about the need to create, and preserve, the INEGI (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics) of Mexican science, or some instance that would allow us to have updated statistical data on the state that keeps Mexican science at all times. These data could be used by science administrators to carry out real planning exercises of our scientific activity, by researchers interested in studying the dynamics of our scientific activity, or by the higher education and research institutions themselves to provide feedback on their academic evaluation processes. Simply put, to encourage the correct use of Scientometrics.
[References]
1 I. Castro-Moreira, Science 301, 141 (2003); D.A. King, Nature 430, 311 (2004); M. Sánchez-Ayuso, reporte del CSIC, http://www.csic.es/hispano/preside/preside4/infor4.htm; J. Mervis, J. Kinoshita, Science 270, 1131 (1995).
2 CONACyT, Indicadores de actividades científicas y tecnológicas,
http://www.conacyt.mx/indicadores.htm.
3 Atlas de la Ciencia Mexicana, http://www.amc.unam.mx/atlas.htm.
4 F. Collazo-Reyes, M.E. Luna-Morales, J.M. Russell, Scientometrics 60, 131
(2004).
5 C. González-Brambila, F. Veloso, reporte de la U. Carnegie Mellon
(2005).
6 Véase, por ejemplo, P.O. Seglen, BMJ 314, 497 (1997); J.W. Grossman,
Notices AMS, 52, 35 (2005); A.F.J. Van Raan, Scientiometrics 62, 133 (2005); N.C. Lin, Y. Cheng, L. Lin, Scientiometrics 64, 101 (2005); J.A. Tallin, Basic Clinical Pharmacol. Toxicol. 97, 261 (2005); D. Adam, Avance y Perspectiva 21, 181 (2002).
7 M.H. Magri, A. Solari, Scientometrics 37, 35 (1996). 8 F.J. Ayala, Am. Scientist 93, 2 (2005).
9 Nature Medicine 11, 907 (2005).
I’ve decided to made public this selection of videos related to my research on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’s efforts to influence politics in the United States.
It’s not comprehensive, I don’t include a number of videos related to the project for operational reasons, but does provide a base for others to view.
Grandin’s primary subject is the political coalition in the United States from the New Deal of FDR to the New Right of Regan and their relation to the foreign policy apparatus and political and economic unrest then occurring in Central America. Covering the transition from “soft power” of the Good Neighbor Policy to the overt support of anti-communist military rulers in Latin American Grandin holds that Central America in the 1980s became “…the crucible that brought together missionary Christianity, free-market capitalism, and American hard power (155).” Though his focus is on this particular period of history, the whole work itself is framed as a contribution to the claim that the strategy described by him to mobilize popular American sentiment in the support of war was employed in the build-up to the Iraq War via those participating in the Project for a New American Century.
The Protestant Ethic, Liberation Theology and Communism
At a time when global supply chains were fully recovered from the second world war, Latin America found itself in a precarious position and a battle of ideas began to take shape. A post-World War II reality gap between Latin American’s expectations and their current conditions of relative deprivation was a powerful driver for revolutionary subjectivity – especially in as land increasingly became consolidated amongst fewer hands.
Predominantly an exporter from the extractive industries and non-value-added primary goods, Latin America simply was not producing the kind of advanced engineering and technologically breakthroughs leading to large increases in productivity and quality that were occurring in the US, Europe and Japan.
In the manufacturing sectors – the growth of the number of tariffs, subsidies, capital controls, labor legislation and social welfare provisions to protect domestic workers from the pressures of foreign capital multiplied and created a downward spiral of state-control of the economy and inhibited competitiveness and innovation. While these protections ensured for a time a buffer from the economic effects of these outside market development, it was a drag on the capacity for domestic capitalists to adapt. Communists and Liberation Theologists rested their laurels on such programs, ironically enough, were seen as red flags by those within the IMF. State-owned industries were correctly identified as being oriented along political rather than economic lines, meaning massive duplications of effort and inefficiencies. Even Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrinedescribes these as, basically, massive public jobs programs that for the present helped with employment but in the long term inhibited GDP growth. One example of this effects of such behavior is found in contemporary Venezuela, who has seen the number of oil workers employed by PDVSA rise at the same time that it’s production has fallen.
This collectivist approach to politics by the Hard Left and the Catholic Left was viewed by those involved with determining what to invest in as bad business. Liberation Theologists who, as a class, were totally ignorant of principles of capital management or the rules and pressures of the international marketplace denounced the North as Evil and frequently allied themselves with Communists. Theologians connected with the American Enterprise Institute and the Insitute on Religion and Democracy elaborated a number of explanations as to how Latin America’s inheritance of cultural factors such as indigenous values and legal codes that originated from the Spanish Crown’s 17thcentury counterreformation made adoption to the new international dynamics a point of friction.
While Grandin’s subsequent quotation of a number of these commentators is clearly designed to make this Protestant line of thought to seem vile – having listened to numerous engineers and high-level business-people in Latin America, they all agree with such criticisms. Which brings me to a quick side note related to this point based on discussions that I’ve had since attending a Catholic University…
While many American free-market radicals frequently point to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead as fundamental to the evolution of their thought, they ought to familiarize themselves with Christian depictions of free enterprise – such as Knut Hamsun’s The Growth of the Soil or Confucian depictions of free enterprise – such as Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth. According to numerous Catholic’s that I’ve spoken with in Medellin, people that are wealthy are further from God. While there are certainly instances where this seems to me to be the case – primitive accumulation of capital by dispossession or narco-trafficking being two such examples – such a generalized cultural taboo inhibits the cultural changes required to get out of the poverty mindset and take greater accountability for one’s economic situation.
Adversary Culture, Media Politics and Public Relations Strategy
In chapter four, titled Bringing it All Back Home, Grandin recounts the media strategy of the Regan administration to influence the domestic press to ensure positive coverage of the ongoing U.S. military actions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. With the memory of the domestic unrest that the Vietnam war had within American still fresh in the minds of many culture leaders, universities, churches, newspaper were at first adversarial to the notion of another “war against communism”.
Grandin describes this as a “psychological operation” which was being pushed on three fronts.
1) A centralized public-diplomacy that directly confronts the press through sophisticated techniques drawn from the intelligence community and the PR world
2) The loosening of restrictions regarding surveillance operations against political dissidents
3) The construction of a “countervailing grassroots support to counter what seemed a permanently entrenched anti-imperialist opposition, mobilizing militants and evangelicals on behalf of a hard-line foreign policy,”
While Grandin views this all as a maliciously designed means of duping the population, I think it’s more appropriate to view it as a creative solution to the problem of data governance and distribution in a society with numerous media and culture outlets.
Recognizing the myriad limits of journalistic investigation, the government became proactive in responding to and anticipating the claims of political activists connected to informational networks such as CISPES – whose narratives and political activities sought to degrade and otherwise demoralize the population such that they would actively oppose military conflict. Though the FBI wasn’t never able to prove a direct agency relationship between the organization and El Salvador or of any monetary aid – it’s clear that this sort of activity was a reaction to such intelligence operations rather than an effort at misinforming the public.
The Return of Latin America’s Left and Closing Thoughts
The Latin American New Left has used the World Social Forum as a means for spreading their ideology.
Towards the end of Empire’s Workshop Grandin briefly takes as his subject the Global Justice Movement and their claim that since the Capitalist Revolutionaries failed to bring Peace or Prosperity through their exchange of wealth and management that this means that they have no right to continue to try to influence or direct them anymore. Given the numerous breaches of contracts and agreements that were precursors to such loans and assistance programs – in the opening chapter of the book Grandin describes Brazilian farmers not following the directives given by their American management team, thus leading to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars – such claims are often connected to half told tales.
Indeed, Andres Oppenheimer sees the narratives typical of the New Latin American Left as part of the reason that Latin America has not been able to grow at the same rate as other developing countries. Rather than focusing on the domestic economy’s connection to capital flows, politicians seek take on the economic agency of those that they represent and – in a way – manage them. The problem with this, as it evident is that generations of wealth accumulated within a family unit can be undone in a few years – or indeed a few days – by a dissolute or corrupt member and new competitors can quickly emerge and take over the market of a leader that has stopped trying to maximize added value and innovation.
Empire’s Workshop is part of a series of published by Metropolitan Books called The American Empire Project, which features other authors praised by Hugo Chavez such as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. While the only other book that I’ve read in the series is Hegemony or Survival, if they are like at all akin to these two then thematically they have a number of the same problems in how they present their historical accounts.
Omission or minimalization of endogenous factors informing the conflicts under discussion.
When providing an overview of USAID and DEA policy in Bolivia in the late 1990s, for instance, – as if those populations didn’t actually want assistance in the prevention of their government from becoming a state dominated by the narcotics production and trafficking sector.
Another iteration of this is removing agency from those currently engaged in illegal behavior on prior events only tangentially related. Using an example outside of Grandin’s work – to show this theme – is the placing of full or partial blame for the rise of MS-13 at the feet of the United States government. The United States government does not condone or assist with their drug-trafficking, kidnapping, extortion or any other of these illegal activities.
Absolute cynicism on the part of the author towards foreign actors.
A typical trope of the counter- and alter- globalization movement that I’ve noticed is to frame all efforts at economic development as secret debt traps – a charge that has been recently leveled against China and those countries accepting aid it’s aid. A similar trend is evident in Grandin’s writings – all intentions on the part of foreigners involved in economic development – be it those in the IMF-technicians or U.S. diplomats – are depicted as malign and deceptive. Non-liberation theology priests are all propagandists, economic advisors are vultures setting up traps, government assistance to fight narco-trafficking is just a pretext for neo-colonial domination. Thus, though Grandin presents a number of related facts that do fit together, because of his ideological bent he presents a Manichean world. This probably why Hugo Chavez loved the book.
Avoidance of or selective analysis of international law and legal cases.
The international and domestic legal order by which nations operate provides a set of guidelines that form the framework within which allows for internal and international cooperation and development to occur.
All history writing will have elements of subjectivity within it based upon the author’s choices of evidence and mobilization of it – but even though I’m not a subject area specialist I’ve read enough of Latin American political science to know a warped narrative when I see one.
For example, whereas Grandin points to the FBI’s loosening of regulations on surveillance of domestic actors as evidence of the United States being an Evil Empire, he doesn’t at all engage with the fact that spy and espionage networks are real.
This is not to say that there is no cause for reflection on what occurred in the past, just that any sort of commentary should include the full legal context.
Authorial pretense of having all available data
While FOIA requests, reviews of the Congressional records and interviews with known participants certainly create a simulacrum of reality – there is always a gap.
Two major reasons for this are that the U.S. military has a commitment to protecting individuals, ongoing operations, tradecraft and national security.
Another is that those which identify with the FMLN, Bolivarian, Guevarist, Marxist, etc. movements are committed militants who abide by their own version of military doctrine – which includes deceiving those that aren’t on the inside.
I say this not to make the argument that authentic history can only be written and read by those that are a member of such organizations – but to highlight the need for unreliability to be a component of authorship. Sandinistas, for example, claimed that their activities were completely of their own, however later revelations showed they were assisted by the Cubans – who have their own geopolitical goals.
Ex-President Rafael Correa in the center with FARC leadership on either side.
This is an English translation of this article from the PanAm Post.
A former FARC guerrilla fighter that’s now a witness protected by Justice in Colombia said that the former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa was financed by the FARC to help win the presidency of that country.
Alexander Duque, known as Chorizo on the 48th front, said on the program The Informants of the Caracol that the FARC guerrillas voted in Ecuador to support Correa’s presidential campaign. In addition to obtaining agreements for permanent permits for members of the FARC to have access to Raúl Reyes’ camp, which was located in Ecuadorian territory, he also said that the withdrawal of the US military base in Manta was part of the agreement in exchange for financial support for his campaign.
“That money to finance Rafael Correa’s campaign was delivered directly to my house, one bag of USD $200,000 and USD $300,000. All under the guidance of Raúl Reyes.”
He affirmed that he even worked on one of Rafael Correa’s campaigns: “It was my task to assist the campaign, doing publicity, incentivizing Colombians who had Ecuadorian documents allowing them to vote as well as Ecuadorians who were from the FARC or associated militias, to vote for Rafael Correa” .
On the pact to withdraw the military base from Manta, “Chorizo” said that once Correa came to the presidency “he immediately asked for that base to be removed from there because they were fulfilling the contract, he did not want to renew for FARC requirement”.
After ten years of operations, in 2009 the bilateral cooperation agreement was terminated and US military stopped operations at the Manta base and departed.
Lenín Moreno and the Investigation of Correa
The president of Ecuador, Lenín Moreno, announced in April that this country would not continue to be the guarantor of the peace talks between the Colombian Government and the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN). Renglón often maintained that he had also withdrawn Quito as the headquarters of the negotiations.
In the same statement, Moreno ordered to investigate the veracity of a video that involved Correa with the alleged financing of his political campaign by the FARC guerrillas.
“I just saw a video (…) in which a protected witness shows that the FARC gave money to the campaigns of former President Correa. I asked that its truth be checked, ”he said.
Rumors of the possible relationship between the former Ecuadorian president and the FARC, known as Farcpolitica, intensified after the FARC dissent of the Oliver Sinisterra Front, led by alias “Guacho”, murdered three Ecuadorian journalists of the newspaper El Comercio, and the subsequent kidnapping of an Ecuadorian couple at the border of the two countries.
Correa and the FARC advance on the Border
For years Hugo Chavez denied the status of terrorist organization to the FARC. Simultaneously, Correa did the same in Ecuador, refusing to say they were terrorists and did not allowing the government to give them official status as belligerents. In an interview, the Ecuadorian ex-president indicated that the FARC has always been: “Irregular groups. No country in Latin America calls them terrorists, not even the Colombian government before Uribe.” he explained.
In “Operation Phoenix”, in which Raúl Reyes was discharged, a series of documents were found that established the relationship of the Ecuadorian ex-president and the FARC. Especially an email in which the guerrilla group congratulated Correa on his electoral victory in 2007.
“We visited Ecuador’s Minister of Security, Gustavo Larrea, hereinafter ‘Juan’ who on behalf of President Correa brought greetings to Comrade Manuel and the Secretariat. (…) and expressed interest of the president to formalize relations with the FARC leadership through ‘Juan,’ a willingness to coordinate social activities to help the residents of the border. Exchange of information and control of paramilitary crime in its territory,” read the letter of Raúl Reyes to members of the secretariat, on January 18, 2008.
At the time this military action triggered a diplomatic crisis between Colombia and Ecuador, as Correa accused President Uribe of having stepped on Ecuadorian territory and thus violated the sovereignty of that country and international treaties in order to terminate Reyes.
In 2008, Correa denied having links with the FARC and asked to carry out the necessary investigations in this regard, ensuring that if it were proven otherwise he would resign – a fact that never happened. And yet that year the Angostura Report which detailed the case of the death of Raúl Reyes revealed that Ecuadorian soil was being used as a bridge for drug trafficking.
In an interview for the PanAm Post, Johnny Estupiñán Echeverría, Vice Admiral of the Naval Force of Ecuador in passive service since 2008, said the Correa Government was complicit in the FARC.
“Obviously they were allies and accomplices. All the actions of the previous government favored drug trafficking, fueled by aggressive and widespread corruption.”
Now that the current government wants to fight against all inherited illegalities, it is logical to think that the outgoing government’s link with narcoterrorists, even indirectly, is generating terrorist actions to destabilize the current government, ”he said.
While exchanging messages with someone about my frustration regarding unprofessional and unethical practices by so many within the “alternative news” media, this link, where Andrew Breitbart confronts Max Blumenthal of The Grayzon, was shared with me.
In the confrontation, Andrew says of Max:
“You are a joke. You are a despicable human being. You are the lowest life form I’ve ever seen. You’re entire job is to destroy people with Alinsky tactics.”
I admit to being largely in the dark of their both of their bodies of work – but given that I recently knocked his and Ben Norton’s abysmally sophistic commentary and almost went blind rolling my eyes while watching Max do press for, I mean interview, Nicholas Maduro – I thought this was funny.
Disinformation, Bolivarian Propaganda, Cold War Media Studies, PSUV, Communist Infiltration, Social Media and Democracy
Abstract:
This article reviews the historical practices used by the intelligence services of Russia described in the New York Times and then links this to examples of disinformation campaigns that are operated by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
On the Science of Disinformation with Russian and Venezuelan Case Studies
Operation InfeKtion is a 47-minute long documentary produced by the New York Times which uses archival footage and interviews. Hosted on YouTube, it presents examples of the information warfare military strategies used by the Soviet Union’s KGB in operations against the United States.
Read any book published over the last several years in the digital marketing field – such as Growther Hacker Marketing, Content Inc., or Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator – and you’ll learn how economic pressures cause by changes caused by the growth of the internet that have lead to the decline professional and ethical standards in publishing and the general public’s increasing.
As disinformation campaigns seeks to mobilize the emotions of their audience by distorting reality for political ends, this means that it’s now easier than ever for false information to be inserted into public discourse.
Because the Constitution and the U.S. legal system so highly values freedom of expression, there is no singular Federal Law nor widely-adopted industry-standards for honesty or integrity in journalism and publishing, nor is there any enforcement organization in the United States outside of the courts.
This lack of accountability is why technology companies that host or link to news content have recently been targeted for regulation by the government.
Rule #1: Find the Cracks
Finding the crack isn’t merely about coming up with controversial content, it’s about finding an audience and tailoring their consumption in such a way that it (Rule #7) fits long term goals.
There’s a lot of ways to manipulate people into believing disinformation, and disinformation campaigns make knowing as much as possible about their target audience a key component of any good information warfare project.
Intersectional chart depicting social hierarchies able to be exploited by foreign-state sponsored propandandists.
Audiences that have witnessed or experienced trauma, that identify with groups whose identities relate in some way to a sense of collective trauma, or that are neurologically divergent are especially vulnerable to disinformation. Lack of subject area knowledge, deference to alternative-authority figures and interpersonal social pressures to conform makes youths particularly vulnerable to this sort of messaging as well.
Rule #2: The Big Lie
While once big lies – such as the claim that the United States invented AIDs to depopulate undesireable demographics – were the main focus of disinformation campaigns, in the contemporary attention economy a large number of smaller false claims. Here are some examples.
A young black child has a plastic bag put over his head following his arrest, leading to headlines that “many people are outraged“. However if you watch the actual video you’ll see that this was because he was repeatedly spitting on police officers, that he was at no risk of suffocating and, most importantly, the child seemed to be encouraged to engage in this behavior by the person filming it in order to create this “outgrageous” scene.
Another recent example which featured President Donald Trump is found in coverage of a joke he made (linked here to C-Span as the HuffPost’s version has edited out of their linked-to video the larger context of the comment ). Some media outlets – such as CNN – covered this as him implying that he was the Messiah, while others did not mention it at all. What’s clear from the full context of the speech act is that Trump is comparing himself to other politicians that would not be as firm with China in economic negotiations and making a joke – as recognized by Fox News.
Rule #3: A Kernel of Truth
It’s this small kernal of truth that makes the big lie possible. By relying on the audience to not fact check, it’s creates the conditions for misleading headlines and outrage.
The article is written by “Matt Agorist”, the pen name of the director of the Free Thought Project whose government name is unknown. Interesting to note is that others have seen fit to investigate him and when confronted with the fact that so much of the content associated with his writings and website are classified as misinformation and disinformation, he’s used the Alex Jones Defense – claiming he wants to “inspire conversation and a free flow of alternative views.”
Like the example of Donald Trump provided above, the article’s headline and content are vastly at odds with reality.
Reviewing the primary material from which the article is based on – it’s clear that the Chief Rabbi in question was answering a question which contrasts the norms described in certain Biblical passages to that which are now abided by by the IDF.
In other words, nothing in the headline is true – even though the article provides the evidence which shows that it isn’t true!
Rule #4: Conceal Your Hand
Disinformation does not always emerge from an official party outlet, such as Pravda, RT or TeleSUR English.
In fact, because of that direct connection to the government it can be far more effective for it to emerge from other sources.
Other outlets – in Venezuela’s case The Real News Network and Venezuela Analysis (both are operated by ex-Bolivarian Republic of Venezuelan Officials, and likely funded in part with their assistance as well), Orinocco Tribune, Ghion Journal, or a number of pan-Africanist “news services” – can equally serve that State’s interest.
This is accomplished by creating distance between the actors involved in a disinformation campaign. Furthermore it provides for a powerful “victim narrative” if their are any ramifications.
Being called out for poor reporting, bad fact-checking or unreported interests in coverage – as Max Blumenthal, Rania Khalek and Anna Parampul have in relation to their coverage of the war in Syria – can be spun into a “vast conspiracy” to keep the truth from being told and whatever professional ramifications that come from this can lead one to becoming a cause celebre.
Once the uncertainty of conflicting narratives is cemented, there will always be come people that are gullibile enough to believe it.
Rule #5: The Useful Idiot
“Useful idiots” is a derogatory term for people perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by the cause’s leaders. During the research for my Master’s Thesis at NYU I read a lot about useful idiots. It’s interesting to note that often times it’s not until the collapse of a government, as happened with the Soviet Union, that the full extent of these networks becomes apparent.
One of my favorite TV series, The Americans, depicts a variety of useful idiots – from those that have been cultivated so as to engage in espionage, treason, sedition, incitement and other illegal activities. Useful idiots typically work in media, education, political activism, public relations. Opertion InfeKtion depicts scientists that publish and defend fake findings as well as political commentators that grossly misrepresent history.
Following the opening of the Soviet Archives extensive troves of evidence was found detailing how US Communists Aided the USSR. Amongst the many examples of the Soviet Union’s success in infilration was helping manage the publication of Rampage – a radical left journal. Given what some commentators have called the “rapid rise” of socialism it seems sensible to investigate the relation of the oil rich nation on our border identifying as socialist, no?
As there is no centralized authority responible for judging questionable content and it’s origins, there are some simple ways to avoid accountability when questioned.
Deny existance of topic at hand.
Deflect to another topic.
Defend claims made as being part of performance art.
Defend claims made as being the product of a mental imbalance.
Refuse to respond to any and all professional and ethical related questions.
Because honesty and integrity in the public sphere falls open those with a sense of civic duty, private companies that wish to monetize their research or contests related to Fake News.
I’ve asked a lot of people at TeleSUR questions related to the Social Media and Democracy project – and almost all have refused to respond and blocked me. This link goes to an updated list of executives in charge of various aspects of operations that have done this.
Rule #7: The Long Game
As Operation InfeKtion illustrates, it sometimes takes years for the fruits of counterintelligence work to be born.
The Long Game also means orienting the development of information related towards those already engaged in intergenerational struggles.
People’s political orientations can become increasingly radicalized through encuentros, a tactic frequently used by individuals and organizations connected in some way to the PSUV. Because these interactions and economic, cultural, political or other types of exchanges are often not recorded for public consumption – and as they can quickly be deleted from servers if they are exposed – they make for the best type of recruitment for irregular warfare disinformation campaigns.
Operation InfeKtion is an excellent documentary, however it unfortunately does not cover Russia’s connection to Venezuela’s state media apparatus.
Technology Transfer: From Russia to Venezuela
Nicholas Maduro, President of the the PSUV, and Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB Agent
“Although a lack of transparency makes precise accounting nearly impossible, in recent years Venezuela’s government has purchased Russia’s state-of-the-art S-300 anti-aircraft missiles; imported hundreds of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition; and acquired 5,000 Igla-S MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems). And this is just what has been on public display in Venezuela’s military parades or outlined in leaked military contracts. There are no doubt many more small arms and equipment in the Venezuelan military’s possession.”
Given the above comments, italics added by me, we see an example of military technology transfer occuring. While irregular warfare isn’t mentioned therein, it’s been an interest of Hugo Chavez Frias and Nicolas Maduro Moros since the founding of TeleSUR.
One such personality that has perfectly illustrates my speculation as to Russian-Venezuelan information warfare technology transfer is Abby Martin – who stated at RT and then, like many other of their employees, transferred to TeleSUR. More about her in a minute.
Thus with Russian know how; the religious and political solidarity networks already developed by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and the race-based outreach made possible by PSUV cultural ministers and militants – we can come to recognize Venezuela as an organizing and supporting force of a complex state intelligence appratus designed to cultivate, coordinate and control small political groups that have the capacity to converge for large, violent political events. This not only allows for the depleting of local, state, government and federal budgets and an unofficial political tax on private enterprises near those areas – it also allows for the fodder of disinformation narratives.
Gillars v. United States [182 F.2d 962 (D.C. Cir. 1950)] sealed the fate of Sally Gillars, aka Axis Sally, as a traitor. She hasn’t been the only one in American history. Foreign state-sponsored propagandist Robert Henry Best was also tried and convicted of Treason for his speech acts.
They were tried because the First United States Congress, in 1790, provided this statute:
“…if any person or persons, owing allegiance to the United States of America, shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, and shall be thereof convicted, on confession in open court, or on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act of the treason whereof he or they shall stand indicted, such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, .” 1 Stat. 112 (1790).
Another words disinformation produced in coordination with a foreign government during wartime equals Treason.
Venezuela’s Media Workers: The Future Target of Law Enforcement?
This previous case history rasises some intersting questions given the current political relations between the United States and Venezuela.
While bullets were not now flying between armed military combatants – any honest review of the language, iconography and policies presided over by Nicholas Maduro’s reveals pronouncements which frequently express the sentiment that he and the whole country is under seige, meaning categorically that one is engaged in a protracted war. Also worth noting is that according to the words of TeleSUR’s founders and their executives their state media apparatus was explicitly founded for ideological combat. Does this and the fact thatVenezuela has long been considered an irregular threat to the United States – mean that those who are or have been contracted by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela could be tried for treason?
Given Nicolas Maduro’s role as executive director of TeleSUR and the thrust of their “news” coverage and related activities, it seems like this may be so.
Hands off Venezuela, one of the myriad political action cells that the PSUV sponsors internationally.
But then again, I’m not a lawyer.
Still – to me it does raise several interesting questions, such as:
How does the definition of treason change in periods of irregular warfare?
How do the principles underlying the foundations of prior judgements relate to the evidence at hand?
If Abby Martin is ever prosecuted and found guilty of Treason for the misinformation she has produced while employed by the Russian and Venezuelan Intelligence Services – what’s the best nickname that can be given her – #AnybodyAgainstAmericaAbby, #MultipolarMartin or, my personal favorite, #BocamierdaMartin?
Also, what of the platforms and accounts that spread and host such content?
In a situation such as Venezuela is now facing, I’ve emailed the Venezuela Affairs Office and shared some of my own research as well as my belief that they should seek to exproprirate TeleSUR’s accounts and websites.
Disinformation, Democracy, and Social Media
Fake News is really real and is really dangerous, especially so when there are intelligence
Its purveyors prey on traumas, ignorance, bias and aspirations in hopes that it will lead to political gain. While clearly distinct from terrorist violence, the overlapping goals between the two are readily appearant.
While professional organizations, private companies and state laws used to be sufficient to counteract the rapid spread of such social contagion – the capabilities created by new information and communication technologies over the past two decades has outstripped their capacities.
As the federal system of the United States differs vastly from that of the United States, we have yet to address the new capabilities wrought by technology in law. It’s likely that in the near future, there will complex work done to address this.
Abstract: This article offers an overview of the structure of those political parties and international organizations most relevant to the current goings-on in northern South America and the Caribbean. It highlights a network of revolutionary-left parties and concludes with a working hypothesis regarding the network’s conspiratorial prospects.
Keywords: 21st Century Socialism, Sao Paolo Forum, Transnational Criminal Organizations, Political Science
Party Affiliation in Latin America and Connection to Political Movements
The author argues that one needs to become familiar with the ideological signaling and collaborative habits of an armful of militant-left organizations in order to understand the Bolivarian Movement that has lead to the economic crisis and deterioration of democracy in Venezuela.
As a multi-national movement predicated on the idea that pan-Latin American revolution should be accimplished “by any means necessary,” Bolivarianism is defined by it’s soaring rhetoric and criminal behavior.
First Tier:
The Cuban Communist Party (PCC)
The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)
The Brazilian Workers Party (PT)
Second Tier:
The Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN) in Nicaragua.
Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo or MAS) in Bolivia.
Dominican Liberation Party (Partido de Liberación Dominicana or PLD) in the Dominican Republic.
These organizations wield enhanced influence within the above described composite in that they control their respective country-level governments.
Associated Groups:
FARC-EP
ELN
Umbrella Organizations
The Forum of São Paulo (Foro de São Paulo or FSP)
The Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (Conferencia Permanente de Partidos Políticos de América Latina y el Caribe or COPPPAL).
The Sao Paolo Forum’s Origins
Lula da Silva’s Worker’s Party was the organizing force behind the first Sao Paolo conference. Foreshadowing the corruption that was to later shown via Operation Car Wash, the first conference later lead to corruption charges being brought against the organizers for misappropriation of public sector funds.
A number of the FSP associated parties run the offices of the chief executive of their respective countries. This includes Ecuador’s PAIS Alliance (Patria Altiva y Soberana Alianza), El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional or FMLN), Uruguay’s Broad Front (Frente Amplio or FA), and Mexico’s National Regeneration Movement (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional or MORENA).
This does not mean that only one party per country is given credentials to attend.
While none of these following Colombian political parties have much electoral support, all are members of the Foro de Sao Paulo.
(1) Patriotic March (Marcha Patriótica)
(2) Progressive Movement (Movimiento Progresista)
(3) Green Alliance Party (Partido Alianza Verde)
(4) Colombian Communist Party (Partido
(5) Alternative Democratic Pole (Polo Democrático Alternativo)
(6) Here for Socialism (Presentes por el Socialismo)
(7) Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica)
(8) Citizen Power Movement (Movimiento Poder Ciudadano)
Given that some of the above mentioned groups are designated terrorist organizations and that there is an increasing suspiscion as to the motivations and goals of the actors involved Sao Paolo Forum – other organizations act as front groups for their interests. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA) “advances PCC and PSUV positions on a complete range of international issues.”
The author closes his article with the statement that until these extraregional entites and their coercive associates are weakened, that democratization in Venezuela will be more difficult – an assessment made evident by the fact that the Cuban military now occupies a significant role in the functioning of the government of the PSUV.
While Venezuela in Light of Anti-American Parties and Affiliations in Latin America only takes Venezuela as it’s subject, it’s also worth mentioning in this review that the Forum’s influence is not limited to Latin America. Thus this ends the literature review. Below continues with an extension of the author’s thesis – which relates to my own movement of movements thesis.
The PSUV and the FARC-EP
One of the recurring tropes used by the PSUV and their political accomplices is that everyone that seeks to maintain a global political order based on laws is a Nazi.
Given the effectiveness that these organizations have had in helping leftist parties win office in Latin America – one would expect them to try to export the process. And indeed they have!
U.S. Social Forum: The North American Iteration of the Sao Paolo Forum
The United States Social Forum, like the New Horizons Conference in Iran, presents an opportunity for the assessment and recruitment of political activists by foreign intelligence services.
This, however, is not the extent of influence that can be charted. Indeed, a number of American political activists connected to the United States Social Forum have travelled to the Sao Paulo Forum.
Americans at the Sao Paulo Forum
American organizations associated with the Sao Paolo Forum include political parties – such as the Communist Party USA and the Green Party, as well as movements such as Code Pink, Black Lives Matters, CISPES.
As is evident from the above flyer, there are several U.S. organizations whose political activities, rhetoric and goals align with that of the Anti-American Parties which normally attend the Forum.
Indeed Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors were present at the first United States Social Forum while Opal Tometti has recieved an award from her activism from Nicolas Maduro.
The United Socialist Party of America
Conceptual Map of the United Socialist Party of America. Important to note is that this excludes other NGOs and movements that fit into their activities.
Given all this I believe it’s worth reconceiving how Socialist Parties within the United States are viewed.
In Venezuela the PSUV brought sundry Socialist political activists together due to the charisma and policies of Hugo Chavez.
It seems reasonable to state that a similar political alignment, which I call the United Socialist Party of America, has also formed. But rather than love of a leaders, it’s around hatred manufactured against President Donald Trump.
Carlos Ron, the Counselor of Political Affairs at the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the larger, bald man two seats away from the 1st Annual People’s Congress of Resistance Convention.
This development isn’t some organic happenstance, but something that has been manufactured in large part by a variety of Venezuelan political officials – like Carlos Ron, pictured above. Carlos along with Jesus “Chucho” Garcia, Jorge Arreaza and other diplomats have frequently attended socialist events in the United States – be it at Party of Socialism and Liberation meetings or at events held at the People’s Forum in New York – an obvious nod to the Social Forum. What the extent of their influence has been – be it funding, access to goods and services, etc. – is something for another article.
