I saw a bunch of people on telegram calling Delcy a puppet for this and I just couldn’t wrap my head around what these people were on.
Sure, Venezuela is probably framing this in a way that keeps the US and Trump happy, but honestly I see it as a good move to delegitimize the ICC. It’s condemnation of the zionist entity is more do due to the fact that Israel’s inherent genocidal tendencies are impossible to ignore. The only countries that have the power to actually affect Israeli policy are the ones bankrolling and arming their colonization of Palestine.
I swear I’m getting sick of the complete lack of material analysis when it comes to Venezuela. It really shows me that many Communists, even ones outside the west, are unable to properly assess the material conditions of a nation.
Perhaps my following of the Iran war has skewed my perspective on this issue, but I really don’t understand why the the combination of factors that Venezuela is burdened with doesn’t make this course of action seem kind of obvious.
I swear I’m getting sick of the complete lack of material analysis when it comes to Venezuela. It really shows me that many Communists, even ones outside the west, are unable to properly assess the material conditions of a nation.
Perhaps my following of the Iran war has skewed my perspective on this issue, but I really don’t understand why the the combination of factors that Venezuela is burdened with doesn’t make this course of action seem kind of obvious.
I saw a bunch of people on telegram calling Delcy a puppet for this and I just couldn’t wrap my head around what these people were on.
Maybe I’m projecting from instincts I have at times, not totally sure, but it seems to me that it goes back to the “scramble to condemn” that lefty types can get caught up in. Like if you don’t quickly condemn everybody who needs condemning, your True Lefty credentials may be in question and if you do, it helps prove how truly lefty you are. I suspect that’s some of the psychology of it. Because like, suppose that Delcy actually was a puppet, what would be the point of a bunch of people online jumping to that as fast as possible? Are they going to mobilize Venezuelans by posting really hard? That’s like the kinda shit color revolutions do, not organic revolutionary forces. So if there isn’t an immediate material benefit (for the cause of liberation) that justifies jumping to conclusions and being fast to condemn, what benefit remains? One can be personal benefit of seeming more with it, more truly lefty, someone who calls out the frauds.
In that sense, what it makes me think of is the view of Lenin that can overly focus on something like: “lol, Lenin really dunked on those frauds.” Like yeah, he criticized tendencies he thought were wrong, but he was also an organizer and doing it from the orientation of criticizing local tendencies who might overcome MLs in jockeying for control of an alternative to the status quo. For him, it was an immediate existential problem of gaining or losing control over the system as its contradictions became unsustainable.
Whereas it is questionable what’s being gained when people jump to “Venezuela compromised” or whatever. Geopolitics is rife with countries that deserve our support doing questionable things sometimes because of the horrifically abusive and repressive conditions that imperialism created–and which imperialism is currently trying to reassert even as it declines in fits and starts.
It’s very much a tendency of many leftists to be obsessed with the most “correct” position. It’s that idea of the Revolution needing to he perfect that Parenti ranted about.
I think part of it is a coordinated attack by some users (especially on reddit I’ve noticed) to turn MLs against the PSL. Mind you, I’m not exactly a die hard PSL supporter, but nearly every attack on them I’ve seen comes off as very… “perfectionist?” If I were to use a word.
It’s not like I’m convinced they’re the vanguard that’ll bring about revolution in the US, but I’m also not convinced that they’re on the same level of theoretical/organizational backwardness as the DSA (even them I don’t find myself 100% denouncing). Like, I guess from perspective, the bar is in hell, and I just want US leftists to lock in on trying to stop bombing my people’s region. I don’t exactly have allies here that’ll make sure I’m protected outside my community, so why go around d making unnecessary enemies is my view I guess.
The thing about Venezuela though, is that many global south Communists and analysts will also miss the broader situation. It floors me, because, like, does nobody remember the US just bombing fishermen with impunity and stealing oil vessels?!
What exactly was stopping the US from bombing the country into oblivion and then just moving on? Who the fuck was gonna stop them? Who gives a shit if the Bolivarian revolution continued after a sustained bombing campaign? The government in Venezuela doesn’t present any real isolated threat to the US, so regime change really only matters in so fat ad they can control their “backyard”.
But Iran, and the greater Axis of Resistance? They pose an exstistentional threat to the US Empire. A multipolor world connected through a paradigm of mutual development that comes about from the Belt and Road initiative is a threat the US will do anything to halt. Iran and the AoR are military threats to the overstretched US empire as well. Regime change, is a necessity for the US dominated global order to continue.
The US needed to make an example of Venezuela, but it needs to destroy Iran. We’ve seen what this current clique of capitalist in the US is willing to do, and how depraved they are. Does anyone really think that the world would stop the US from butchering thousands of Venezuelans?
Nothing would stop them if they wanted to. So I really struggle to see the choice Venezuela had in conceding to the US.
Maybe when the US is too focused on domestic instability, or if by some low chance a soc dem manages to get to power and chooses to dial back the militarism as a method of self preservation. Whatever it may be, the US needs to not be capable of terrorizing Venezuela for them to develop a sovereign national defense architecture.
Yeah, like if it came down to military confrontation, the US might have trouble occupying the country, but they could still do major damage. They eventually lost, in a sense, in Vietnam, but not before doing horrible damage to the people there, some of which is persisting damage from chemical weapons. Granted, the empire is not as powerful today as it was in Vietnam, relative to other militaries in the world. But it’s also more abstracted today, insofar as being able to do more with less boots on the ground, and has barbaric reasons to test that kind of technology on a target to refine AI and such.
Whether some of it was bluff, or fully real, the Maduro operation put Venezuelan leadership in a position where they were facing a threat of the leadership being annihilated vs. doing some dealing. I can’t remember the details offhand, but I remember an article about this, that IIRC the story is the other leaders were facing immediate threat of something happening to them too. Like the US basically had a gun to their head.
And considering what they managed to do in Iran, in spite of how capable Iran’s military is, I would not put it past them being able to do some precision assassination still, in a country that is positioned as much weaker militarily than Iran is. That would surely create blowback like it did in Iran, but Venezuela would have a much harder time turning that blowback into a military response that is capable of making the US hurt in return.
Either way, I’m not the one running a country with a gun to my head having to make that call and I have consciously tried to change my own mindset to sort of back off on matters like these when it comes to passing judgment on the peoples contending with them. In my case, there’s a layer to it where, being a “white” Yankee, I see it as part of unlearning the western superiority view; do I have experience running a country under the shadow of imperialism? No. Have I led to success, or taken over leadership on after it’s establishment, a people’s revolution? No. Have I even lived under the shadow of imperialism from the side of the most marginalized? No.
So I’d much rather be saying “I don’t know enough to pass judgment” than condemning some figure I know little about and never even bothered to learn the name of (Rodriguez) before the kidnapping of Maduro happened. I’m not gonna hold back to the point of making it a personality, where I don’t speak up on things I am informed on, but “no investigation, no right to speak” has something to it, I think. And investigation is more than reading a few headlines.
I saw a bunch of people on telegram calling Delcy a puppet for this and I just couldn’t wrap my head around what these people were on.
Sure, Venezuela is probably framing this in a way that keeps the US and Trump happy, but honestly I see it as a good move to delegitimize the ICC. It’s condemnation of the zionist entity is more do due to the fact that Israel’s inherent genocidal tendencies are impossible to ignore. The only countries that have the power to actually affect Israeli policy are the ones bankrolling and arming their colonization of Palestine.
I swear I’m getting sick of the complete lack of material analysis when it comes to Venezuela. It really shows me that many Communists, even ones outside the west, are unable to properly assess the material conditions of a nation.
Perhaps my following of the Iran war has skewed my perspective on this issue, but I really don’t understand why the the combination of factors that Venezuela is burdened with doesn’t make this course of action seem kind of obvious.
Same.
Maybe I’m projecting from instincts I have at times, not totally sure, but it seems to me that it goes back to the “scramble to condemn” that lefty types can get caught up in. Like if you don’t quickly condemn everybody who needs condemning, your True Lefty credentials may be in question and if you do, it helps prove how truly lefty you are. I suspect that’s some of the psychology of it. Because like, suppose that Delcy actually was a puppet, what would be the point of a bunch of people online jumping to that as fast as possible? Are they going to mobilize Venezuelans by posting really hard? That’s like the kinda shit color revolutions do, not organic revolutionary forces. So if there isn’t an immediate material benefit (for the cause of liberation) that justifies jumping to conclusions and being fast to condemn, what benefit remains? One can be personal benefit of seeming more with it, more truly lefty, someone who calls out the frauds.
In that sense, what it makes me think of is the view of Lenin that can overly focus on something like: “lol, Lenin really dunked on those frauds.” Like yeah, he criticized tendencies he thought were wrong, but he was also an organizer and doing it from the orientation of criticizing local tendencies who might overcome MLs in jockeying for control of an alternative to the status quo. For him, it was an immediate existential problem of gaining or losing control over the system as its contradictions became unsustainable.
Whereas it is questionable what’s being gained when people jump to “Venezuela compromised” or whatever. Geopolitics is rife with countries that deserve our support doing questionable things sometimes because of the horrifically abusive and repressive conditions that imperialism created–and which imperialism is currently trying to reassert even as it declines in fits and starts.
It’s very much a tendency of many leftists to be obsessed with the most “correct” position. It’s that idea of the Revolution needing to he perfect that Parenti ranted about.
I think part of it is a coordinated attack by some users (especially on reddit I’ve noticed) to turn MLs against the PSL. Mind you, I’m not exactly a die hard PSL supporter, but nearly every attack on them I’ve seen comes off as very… “perfectionist?” If I were to use a word.
It’s not like I’m convinced they’re the vanguard that’ll bring about revolution in the US, but I’m also not convinced that they’re on the same level of theoretical/organizational backwardness as the DSA (even them I don’t find myself 100% denouncing). Like, I guess from perspective, the bar is in hell, and I just want US leftists to lock in on trying to stop bombing my people’s region. I don’t exactly have allies here that’ll make sure I’m protected outside my community, so why go around d making unnecessary enemies is my view I guess.
The thing about Venezuela though, is that many global south Communists and analysts will also miss the broader situation. It floors me, because, like, does nobody remember the US just bombing fishermen with impunity and stealing oil vessels?!
What exactly was stopping the US from bombing the country into oblivion and then just moving on? Who the fuck was gonna stop them? Who gives a shit if the Bolivarian revolution continued after a sustained bombing campaign? The government in Venezuela doesn’t present any real isolated threat to the US, so regime change really only matters in so fat ad they can control their “backyard”.
But Iran, and the greater Axis of Resistance? They pose an exstistentional threat to the US Empire. A multipolor world connected through a paradigm of mutual development that comes about from the Belt and Road initiative is a threat the US will do anything to halt. Iran and the AoR are military threats to the overstretched US empire as well. Regime change, is a necessity for the US dominated global order to continue.
The US needed to make an example of Venezuela, but it needs to destroy Iran. We’ve seen what this current clique of capitalist in the US is willing to do, and how depraved they are. Does anyone really think that the world would stop the US from butchering thousands of Venezuelans?
Nothing would stop them if they wanted to. So I really struggle to see the choice Venezuela had in conceding to the US.
Maybe when the US is too focused on domestic instability, or if by some low chance a soc dem manages to get to power and chooses to dial back the militarism as a method of self preservation. Whatever it may be, the US needs to not be capable of terrorizing Venezuela for them to develop a sovereign national defense architecture.
Until then, they’re kinda forced to play it safe.
Yeah, like if it came down to military confrontation, the US might have trouble occupying the country, but they could still do major damage. They eventually lost, in a sense, in Vietnam, but not before doing horrible damage to the people there, some of which is persisting damage from chemical weapons. Granted, the empire is not as powerful today as it was in Vietnam, relative to other militaries in the world. But it’s also more abstracted today, insofar as being able to do more with less boots on the ground, and has barbaric reasons to test that kind of technology on a target to refine AI and such.
Whether some of it was bluff, or fully real, the Maduro operation put Venezuelan leadership in a position where they were facing a threat of the leadership being annihilated vs. doing some dealing. I can’t remember the details offhand, but I remember an article about this, that IIRC the story is the other leaders were facing immediate threat of something happening to them too. Like the US basically had a gun to their head.
And considering what they managed to do in Iran, in spite of how capable Iran’s military is, I would not put it past them being able to do some precision assassination still, in a country that is positioned as much weaker militarily than Iran is. That would surely create blowback like it did in Iran, but Venezuela would have a much harder time turning that blowback into a military response that is capable of making the US hurt in return.
Either way, I’m not the one running a country with a gun to my head having to make that call and I have consciously tried to change my own mindset to sort of back off on matters like these when it comes to passing judgment on the peoples contending with them. In my case, there’s a layer to it where, being a “white” Yankee, I see it as part of unlearning the western superiority view; do I have experience running a country under the shadow of imperialism? No. Have I led to success, or taken over leadership on after it’s establishment, a people’s revolution? No. Have I even lived under the shadow of imperialism from the side of the most marginalized? No.
So I’d much rather be saying “I don’t know enough to pass judgment” than condemning some figure I know little about and never even bothered to learn the name of (Rodriguez) before the kidnapping of Maduro happened. I’m not gonna hold back to the point of making it a personality, where I don’t speak up on things I am informed on, but “no investigation, no right to speak” has something to it, I think. And investigation is more than reading a few headlines.
Removed by mod