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I'm sorry to have offended Dennis Brasky by my one-line comment about Cliff Ross's Counterpunchepiphany. I apologise because I assume he was genuinely seeking information. My time would have been better spent by saying nothing but my instant reaction to reading the Counterpunch article was to register my view that it was idiotic crap. Original sin, though: I now must offer a long footnote. No one on the left would pay any attention to Ross's piece were it not approved for publication by the editors of Counterpunch--- and rightly so. Much of the information transmitted by Ross comes directly from Damian Prat, an opposition gossip columnist from Guayana who back in 2009 called workers control of the state basic industries under the Socialist Plan for Guayana a 'trick' and, more recently, complained that the removal of his radio programme from Union Radio [the key opposition radio station] was due to the 'totalitarian' government. A good example of the kind of information that Ross took from Prat is his statement that 'Meanwhile, the government has doubled the workforce of the Basic Industries, "packing the units" in an attempt to wrest control from independent unions." That so-called 'packing the units', he added, occurred at a time when most of the state companies were operating at half capacity. Now,anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge of struggles in the region would recall that one of the demands of workers was to end contracting out in the state industries and to incorporate what had been second-class workers with substantially lower pay into the regular workforce. 'Packing the units' did not imply increasing the number of workers employed (although it certainly might bother corrupt bureaucrats and labour aristocrats), and layoffs are prevented under government policy. There are many examples in the article of specious points, dubious sources and uncomprehended realities. Drawing upon these, Ross announced that he no longer believes that 'on balance the Bolivarian Process has done more good than bad'. Now that we know how bad things are, should we lie? Or, should we tell the truth and 'admit that the process in Venezuela is going the wrong direction'? We need, he concludes, to build 'a critical left solidarity movement' (the title of the Counterpunch article), uniting with unionists in Guayana (presumably those who have opposed worker management), journalists like Damian Prat and the tiny group of anti-government anarchists. This is what Counterpunch accepted--- ignoring that writers like Frederico Fuentes, Dario Azzellini, George Ciccariello Maher (and myself)--- supporters of the process all--- have always been critical of problems in Venezuela (the corruption, the clientalism, the top-down party and state, the attack on worker management, etc) and have allied directly with Venezuelan forces from below struggling to build a socialism for the 21st Century. Certainly, there are many problems in the bolivarian process, and more important than anything Ross talks about re 'whither the Bolivarian Revolution' is what is being done now post-Chavez. Some of the more encouraging signs introduced under Maduro include using the army to challenge crime in the barrios (one of the greatest complaints for years), overseeing the arrest of government officials for corruption, fostering the parliament of the streets where ministers and officials have been visiting communities and listening to what people are thinking, appointing as Minister of Communes a supporter of communes from below (Iturriza) thus marking a dramatic departure from the top-down orientation of the previous ministers, bringing back into the government the radical and popular Eduardo Saman (who was removed as Minister of Trade several years ago under pressure from capital--- as wikileaks revealed), and removing the long-standing Minister of the Economy, Jorge Giordani who was responsible for the disastrous policies which produced many of the problems which plague the Venezuelan economy today. Where will these lead? As I have argued repeatedly, what will happen in Venezuela will be determined by class struggle. Anyone who has read Cliff Ross before will not be surprised by the shallowness of his work. The surprise, though, is that Counterpunch has valorised it. Are there no fact-checkers or editors there anymore?
            michael

On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 4:52 PM, michael a. lebowitz <mlebo...@sfu.ca>wrote:

>
>
> /From/: Dennis Brasky <dmozart1...@gmail.com <mailto:dmozart1756%40gmail.*
> *com <dmozart1756%2540gmail.com>>> asked:
>
> 'for comrades who closely follow the Venezuelan political situation - are
> things really this bad?'
>
> No, but Cliff Ross is.
>

--
---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Home:   Phone 604-689-9510
Cell: 604-789-4803


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