Chávez Opponents Caught in Fraud (Again)

Excellent comments on the current state of affairs, unmasking the once again fraudulent signature repair process of the Venezuelan "opposition". However, this is not the main issue, it is just the window-dressing, a single appearance form, of a national and international conspiracy against the Chávez Government, that has a  five year  golpista tradition already.

The national and international previous puntofijista masters of Venezuela, who have usurped economic, political and social power in Venezuela, for more than 40 years already, will not, and cannot stop their "democratic, coordinated" opposition  against the Bolivarian Government. They have mighty, wealthy and powerful allies, whom they serve, and on whom their very existence depends.

They never took "democracy" serious, they never acted democratically. Their "democracy" is pure ideology to keep the millions of poor workers and peasants docile, peaceful and loyal. In any case, Democracy, a direct product of the bourgeois-capitalist French and Industrial Revolutions, was invented to serve only ruling class interests.
It is true, what Colin Powell has stated not long ago: the USA and Venezuela have two completely different concepts of democracy. This is the reason why, according to Kerry, democracy in Venezuela is "at risk". Democracy, with all the "of, by and for the people", never ever was meant to serve the lower classes, the exploited and dominated poor people.

When a Government truly is doing something for the poor, in a real democratic spirit, then this is declared "tyranny" and "dictatorship". The Venezuelan case exemplifies what has happened across the centuries, with regard to democracy, justice and peace. Togliatti said it categorically, the problem is the system, that is, the labour system; how, why and for what billions produce. If this is not annihilated, any revolution will end up like the very first colonial revolution, the North American Revolution: in barbarism and fascism.

Hence, let us see within the next weeks, what really is Plan B, that needed a recall referendum mask, to engender a possible "civil war" and foreign intervention, not to mention the planned assassination of public figures. Over and over the "opposition" has stated that they will not accept any referendum results, that allow Chávez to remain in power. The reactionary forces are sowing the wind, the Bolivarian Revolution signals the storm. Whatever may happen, the Bolivarian Revolution is more powerful than ever, prepared for any golpista eventuality.

Thanks for your sincere reflections concerning my comments on democracy  in Venezuela and elsewhere in our present epoch of  capitalism in transition.  We really were very happy to read your enrichment of our own views. Within the context that you explained current democracy, certainly, I agree with you both -- Surely, "Democracy Is More Ours than Theirs" (Al) and that "Democracy has deep roots" (Bill).

Here we cannot go into much detail commenting your interesting contributions, however, permit me to explain a little more what I meant by official "democracy" that serves "ruling class interests".

Obvious questions that come to my mind are the following: Is it really democracy that we want? The rule, "kratos", of the  people,  "demos"?  Is it government "of, by and for the people"? A "State", a Constitution, a Social Contract, Laws? Even more problematic is the issue: Who are the people(s)? Who do we consider to be composing the people? Is a class analysis necessary to define the people, to explain democracy?

Surely, in Africa, long before colonization, we had our "mpakati", our "bunga", our social institutions, that solved the problems and conflicts of the community. We were not natives, we were not tribes, we were not primitive. In fact, we were not even Africans; the colonizers invented a name for our continent. Till this very day, millions of us do not even know what the concept "democracy" means. This happened all over, across the so-called "Third World"; even centuries before Columbus set foot on this continent, there had been a human, humane and humanist intercourse between Africa and America.

However, all this had nothing to do with European "democracy" "rivoltura" or "rivoluzzione". Not with that what we find in all our contemporary constitutions and laws, in our thing- and money relations. To be more precise, they had nothing to do with exploited labour in a slave, feudalist and capitalist society, they did not reflect any accumulation of capital, with dominating and discriminating class relations of production.

Surely, the colonial resistance on our continents, the liberatory movements, the Marxist and socialist experiments, all were directed against what Europe understood by "democracy". Ab ovo, we just need to study the foreign relations and policies of the USA, ever since its bourgeois democratic revolution, North versus South, to see what their "democracy" was all about.
Also, the resistance in the USA and in Central America was against all forms of economic exploitation, political domination, social discrimination, military genocide and human alienation. If the opposite of all these, the negation of the capitalist economic system, of the bourgeois, corporate State, of racism, of militarism, of human destruction, is our Democracy, if these heroic battles are the deep historic roots of our Democracy, then truly, we will eventually reap victory, will enjoy Emancipation, the full natural creativity and the limitless social creation of the human species.

Keep up this true democratic spirit.

Franz.

By Franz J. T. Lee

Methodological Approach
One thing is the Bolivarian Revolution in process, another thing is to make and think the Bolivarian Revolution, to win, to globalize the Bolivarian Revolution.  Over the last centuries, the bourgeois, capitalist, democratic classes won their French Revolution, by globalizing it. We have to be victorious on a global scale, have to excel democracy per se, their mode of production. This is what is at stake currently in Venezuela and the rest of the world. The next months are decisive for the Venezuelan revolutionaries to prevent Corporate America and its local lackeys from "nipping the revolution in its bud". In the coming Referendum, Democracy itself, the very Constitution (Article 72), could become the very Achilles' Heel of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Hence, scientifically, that is, praxically, we have to identify, to affirm our object of investigation, for example, ideology, democracy or revolution. In formal logics, this implies the application of the main law of identification, "A equal to A", and to nothing else,  not even to its opposite, "Non-A". In metaphysics or theology, "good is good" and "evil is evil", there is nothing like an evil good or a good evil, a good devil or a devilish good. Identification gives the specific, special contents, the objective attributes to a thing, whether it is cosmic, ontic or transcendental. In language, this is the function of an adjective; it is simply unscientific to identify something as its opposite, as that, what it is not, as something completely different to itself. For example, it is unscientific to identify Reform as Revolution, a "rich man" as a "poor man", and thus coin such nonsensical, ideological, "concepts" like a "poor Croesus" or a "rich Lazarus", a bourgeois proletarian" or a "proletarian bourgeois", a "bourgeois democracy" or a "proletarian democracy". Surely, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky called themselves "Social Democrats", and the current "oppositionism" in Venezuela also calls itself "democratic". For this very reason, we warn that we should be precise and concise, and not prostitute our language and conceptual tools.

Generally, this is how 99% of the world population "think", how they have been manipulated. According to official world opinion, here in Venezuela, Chávez is a "tyrant", a "dictator", hence he can never ever be a "democrat". Worse even, according to metaphysical, ideological, dualist and formal "reasoning", ignoring dialectical logics, that is as old as mankind, there exists something like proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy. Surely, to be tautological, Light is that what illuminates, a Revolution is that what revolves, derived from the verb "revolvere"; and applied to the physical world, for example, denotes the revolution of the earth around its axis or the revolution of the propeller of a warplane. However, applied to society, revolution is something very specific; the bourgeois thinkers´ took centuries to evolve their specific concept of revolution, "rivoluzzione". Already way back then, in their theories of the coming bourgeois State, they betrayed their revolutionary associate, the proletariat, which got assigned an inferior, servile role in Democracy, in the tricolour of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" -- this happened in all bourgeois, democratic revolutions ever since. Ideologically, the proletariat was led to believe that it participated in a representative democracy, when in reality it only played a subservient role in a democracy that economically exploited it, dominated it via the State, discriminated it socially via virulent racism, assassinated it literally by means of military genocide, and finally dehumanized it by means of global, globalized alienation. The global modern slaves were not left even a crumb of bourgeois, capitalist democracy.

The democratic revolution within the global, bourgeois, capitalist system

Precisely because of the above, because the modern working classes were part and parcel of the revolutionary subject and object of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, in a dialectical sense, they form part and parcel of the internal, intensive, systemic changes within the status quo, of the revolutionary changes, that have converted themselves into reformist  face-lifting and window-dressing par excellence.

In other words, applying formal logics, in "A", in the capitalist mode of production, in its democratic world system, the revolutionary workers, movements, countries and continents, were condemned to survive as an excluded "Non-A"; as a result, they demand the completion of the French Revolution, the complete "revolvere",  the true participation in global democracy.  As history has verified over and over again,  this was never intended by the French Revolution, by the Industrial Revolution, by Democracy. The latest proof of eating this democratic pudding is precisely Venezuela. Chile, Cuba and other countries already had their turn. You just cannot poison, cannot annihilate the corporate serpent with its own democratic venom. This is a bitter lesson that we have to learn here in Venezuela.  Democratically, no ruling class in history ever stepped down peacefully from its Croesusean throne. Venezuela will not and cannot present the exception to this golden  global rule.

At present, after all the golpista wind that has been sown by the "democratic oppositionism", in reality, by its masters in Washington and elsewhere, the times stand on storm, on violent Fanonian Self-Defence. !!Jacta alea est!! However, there is still time to revise, revaluate our praxical and theoretical arms, to define scientifically our "revolution", our "democracy", our very "Constitution", to understand what is "justice" and "peace" in an Orwellian World that is threatening the whole Bolivarian Project, the expectations and daydreams of billions across the planet.

One thing is sure, no social revolution has ever occurred under a peaceful flag and avoiding the class conflict. Not even the very democratic French Revolution was just or peaceful. Many aristocratic and clerical heads were rolling on the public squares, there was no impunity. Furthermore, a social revolution is never on the order of the day, unless all its conditions for victory are present. If not, it is not a revolution. How many subjective, objective and transjective conditions do we still need to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards its global transcendental Exodus out of capitalism, imperialism, corporatism, world fascism?

Also, all social revolutions are class struggles on various levels, degrees and mensions, hence, we have to verify our language tools, like "the people", the "sovereign", the "opposition", the "escualidos", the "oficialismo", etc. If not, the final battle will be a total confusion, serving all ruling classes that want to sow pillage and rampage in Venezuela again. It is not a matter of winning another battle, what is now on the order of the day is to win the Global "Class War", the very Bolivarian Revolution itself. Now, the legitimate auto-defence of the Revolition has to be organized with all means necessary, should it be imperative, even with a total armed revolution.  Millions of Venezuelans have a whole world to lose!

Precisely because of the above, because the modern working classes were part and parcel of the revolutionary subject and object of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, in a dialectical sense, they form part and parcel of the internal, intensive, systemic changes within the status quo, of the revolutionary changes, that have converted themselves into reformist  face-lifting and window-dressing par excellence.

In other words, applying formal logics, in "A", in the capitalist mode of production, in its democratic world system, the revolutionary workers, movements, countries and continents, were condemned to survive as an excluded "Non-A"; as a result, they demand the completion of the French Revolution, the complete "revolvere",  the true participation in global democracy. As history has verified over and over again,  this was never intended by the French Revolution, by the Industrial Revolution, by Democracy. The latest proof of eating this democratic pudding is precisely Venezuela. Chile, Cuba and other countries already had their turn. You just cannot poison, cannot annihilate the corporate serpent with its own democratic venom. This is a bitter lesson that we have to learn here in Venezuela.  Democratically, no ruling class in history ever stepped down peacefully from its Croesusean throne. Venezuela will not and cannot present the exception to this golden  global rule.

At present, after all the golpista wind that has been sown by the "democratic oppositionism", in reality, by its masters in Washington and elsewhere, the times stand on storm, on violent Fanonian Self-Defence. !!Jacta alea est!! However, there is still time to revise, revaluate our praxical and theoretical arms, to define scientifically our "revolution", our "democracy", our very "Constitution", to understand what is "justice" and "peace" in an Orwellian World that is threatening the whole Bolivarian Project, the expectations and daydreams of billions across the planet.

One thing is sure, no social revolution has ever occurred under a peaceful flag and avoiding the class conflict. Not even the very democratic French Revolution was just or peaceful. Many aristocratic and clerical heads were rolling on the public squares, there was no impunity. Furthermore, a social revolution is never on the order of the day, unless all its conditions for victory are present. If not, it is not a revolution. How many subjective, objective and transjective conditions do we still need to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards its global transcendental Exodus out of capitalism, imperialism, corporatism, world fascism?

Also, all social revolutions are class struggles on various levels, degrees and mensions, hence, we have to verify our language tools, like "the people", the "sovereign", the "opposition", the "escualidos", the "oficialismo", etc. If not, the final battle will be a total confusion, serving all ruling classes that want to sow pillage and rampage in Venezuela again. It is not a matter of winning another battle, what is now on the order of the day is to win the Global "Class War", the very Bolivarian Revolution itself. Now, the legitimate auto-defence of the Revolition has to be organized with all means necessary, should it be imperative, even with a total armed revolution.  Millions of Venezuelans have a whole world to lose!  

Methodological Approach
One thing is the Bolivarian Revolution in process, another thing is to make and think the Bolivarian Revolution, to win, to globalize the Bolivarian Revolution.  Over the last centuries, the bourgeois, capitalist, democratic classes won their French Revolution, by globalizing it. We have to be victorious on a global scale, have to excel democracy per se, their mode of production. This is what is at stake currently in Venezuela and the rest of the world. The next months are decisive for the Venezuelan revolutionaries to prevent Corporate America and its local lackeys from "nipping the revolution in its bud". In the coming Referendum, Democracy itself, the very Constitution (Article 72), could become the very Achilles' Heel of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Hence, scientifically, that is, praxically, we have to identify, to affirm our object of investigation, for example, ideology, democracy or revolution. In formal logics, this implies the application of the main law of identification, "A equal to A", and to nothing else,  not even to its opposite, "Non-A". In metaphysics or theology, "good is good" and "evil is evil", there is nothing like an evil good or a good evil, a good devil or a devilish good. Identification gives the specific, special contents, the objective attributes to a thing, whether it is cosmic, ontic or transcendental. In language, this is the function of an adjective; it is simply unscientific to identify something as its opposite, as that, what it is not, as something completely different to itself. For example, it is unscientific to identify Reform as Revolution, a "rich man" as a "poor man", and thus coin such nonsensical, ideological, "concepts" like a "poor Croesus" or a "rich Lazarus", a bourgeois proletarian" or a "proletarian bourgeois", a "bourgeois democracy" or a "proletarian democracy". Surely, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky called themselves "Social Democrats", and the current "oppositionism" in Venezuela also calls itself "democratic". For this very reason, we warn that we should be precise and concise, and not prostitute our language and conceptual tools.

Generally, this is how 99% of the world population "think", how they have been manipulated. According to official world opinion, here in Venezuela, Chávez is a "tyrant", a "dictator", hence he can never ever be a "democrat". Worse even, according to metaphysical, ideological, dualist and formal "reasoning", ignoring dialectical logics, that is as old as mankind, there exists something like proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy. Surely, to be tautological, Light is that what illuminates, a Revolution is that what revolves, derived from the verb "revolvere"; and applied to the physical world, for example, denotes the revolution of the earth around its axis or the revolution of the propeller of a warplane. However, applied to society, revolution is something very specific; the bourgeois thinkers´ took centuries to evolve their specific concept of revolution, "rivoluzzione". Already way back then, in their theories of the coming bourgeois State, they betrayed their revolutionary associate, the proletariat, which got assigned an inferior, servile role in Democracy, in the tricolour of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" -- this happened in all bourgeois, democratic revolutions ever since. Ideologically, the proletariat was led to believe that it participated in a representative democracy, when in reality it only played a subservient role in a democracy that economically exploited it, dominated it via the State, discriminated it socially via virulent racism, assassinated it literally by means of military genocide, and finally dehumanized it by means of global, globalized alienation. The global modern slaves were not left even a crumb of bourgeois, capitalist democracy.

The democratic revolution within the global, bourgeois, capitalist system

Precisely because of the above, because the modern working classes were part and parcel of the revolutionary subject and object of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, in a dialectical sense, they form part and parcel of the internal, intensive, systemic changes within the status quo, of the revolutionary changes, that have converted themselves into reformist  face-lifting and window-dressing par excellence.

In other words, applying formal logics, in "A", in the capitalist mode of production, in its democratic world system, the revolutionary workers, movements, countries and continents, were condemned to survive as an excluded "Non-A"; as a result, they demand the completion of the French Revolution, the complete "revolvere",  the true participation in global democracy.  As history has verified over and over again,  this was never intended by the French Revolution, by the Industrial Revolution, by Democracy. The latest proof of eating this democratic pudding is precisely Venezuela. Chile, Cuba and other countries already had their turn. You just cannot poison, cannot annihilate the corporate serpent with its own democratic venom. This is a bitter lesson that we have to learn here in Venezuela.  Democratically, no ruling class in history ever stepped down peacefully from its Croesusean throne. Venezuela will not and cannot present the exception to this golden  global rule.

At present, after all the golpista wind that has been sown by the "democratic oppositionism", in reality, by its masters in Washington and elsewhere, the times stand on storm, on violent Fanonian Self-Defence. !!Jacta alea est!! However, there is still time to revise, revaluate our praxical and theoretical arms, to define scientifically our "revolution", our "democracy", our very "Constitution", to understand what is "justice" and "peace" in an Orwellian World that is threatening the whole Bolivarian Project, the expectations and daydreams of billions across the planet.

One thing is sure, no social revolution has ever occurred under a peaceful flag and avoiding the class conflict. Not even the very democratic French Revolution was just or peaceful. Many aristocratic and clerical heads were rolling on the public squares, there was no impunity. Furthermore, a social revolution is never on the order of the day, unless all its conditions for victory are present. If not, it is not a revolution. How many subjective, objective and transjective conditions do we still need to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards its global transcendental Exodus out of capitalism, imperialism, corporatism, world fascism?

Also, all social revolutions are class struggles on various levels, degrees and mensions, hence, we have to verify our language tools, like "the people", the "sovereign", the "opposition", the "escualidos", the "oficialismo", etc. If not, the final battle will be a total confusion, serving all ruling classes that want to sow pillage and rampage in Venezuela again. It is not a matter of winning another battle, what is now on the order of the day is to win the Global "Class War", the very Bolivarian Revolution itself. Now, the legitimate auto-defence of the Revolition has to be organized with all means necessary, should it be imperative, even with a total armed revolution.  Millions of Venezuelans have a whole world to lose!