"What is dismissed as an "alliance" with Ahmedinejad which is not "something to celebrate" is instead the confluence of the national interests of Venezuela and Iran, two countries that are special targets of imperialism."
I thought this was an interesting comment by Joaquin. I would say there is an "alliance" (as Chavez himself has pointed to often enough) but it is based on a real "confluence" of national interests. It is a governmental alliance based on trade, science and a generally defined anti-American Imperialism. On the level of *actions* I don't have a problem with this. But part of this is a political abstensionism by Chavez, his government, the PSUV and others on actual motions on the ground, such as in Iran, of the class struggle and a movement for democracy. Chavez, at the level of rhetoric, often hyperbolic, like his comments about how "good" the Kaddafi speech was (maybe he was joking?), seems to have no audience whatsoever. Who is he speaking too? Certainly not anybody in the belly of the beast. I was jumped on three years ago when I thought Chavez was a complete fool to criticize Bush the way he did at the UN. Joaquin jumped in with a "how much I like that guy because of it" sort of comment. I thought Chavez's speech was buffoonery, because he came off like that and allowed the US media to personalize the politics as one between Chavez and Bush. That was Chavez's fault (because in fact, that's exactly what Chavez did with overdrawn metaphors), not the capitalist anti-socialist media in the US. He opened the door for all the crap thrown his way since, IMO. It's clear Joaquin must of been one of this advisers because Joaquin doesn't really care how much Chavez comes off HERE in the U.S., as if the population of the US, their opinions, their education on what is going on in Venezuela and the role Venezuela really plays, is of no importance to Chavez, or his advisers and speech writers, or to Venezuela. Chavez came off SO much better this time, not so much in his speech, but because he took the media seriously, with long extended interviews. You know how one knows this is true? Because it got almost NO mention generally except the notice that "Chavez spoke to Larry King" or this or that reporter. Virtually nothing he stated in the media here was replayed on commented on, except the Kaddafi nonsense. So it's our job, in a real way, to publicize those parts of Chavez's intervention at the UN to draw down the propaganda war against the Revolution there. A lot easier this time than last. But Chavez makes a lot of assumptions about his gov't support to various diplomatic initiatives and about his "friends". Clearly, if I were an Iranian revolutionary, I wouldn't count, couldn't count, on Venezuela for support, not even rhetorically because Chavez has wedded the Venezuelan revolution to the fate of the Iranian *government*...as opposed to Iranian national sovereignty alone, the real issue. To bad it's more the former than the latter. David ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
