"The Che Complex:" No Mo' Heroes, Por Favor!
Thanks to the Democratic Left list-serve I have come across a stunningly intelligent posting from a previously unknown (to me) and mysterious blogger. Oso Raro over at Slaves of Academe is one smart gal -- though that's all she let's us know about her.
But what a thrillingly intelligent (and wonderfully long) essay she has penned about the new Hero Worship around one, um, er, Hugo Chavez. Though, that's not really fair. Her take is much deeper than that and -- from a definite left-of-center position-- probes the psyche of First World Leftists who have an insatiable need to project their own frustrated dreams on some tin-pot character like Col. Chavez. It's what she calls The Che Complex:
...What differentiates the Che Complex from old-fashioned exoticism is its explicitly leftist political orientation, its romanticisation of Latin American socio-political upheavals, and an interest in revolutionary transformation that for many in the West seems impossible in their own national milieu. The Che Complex is at heart transference, a displacement of one’s own desires for political transformation onto others, and as such, also reveals the psychosocial dimensions of this transference for the Western mind.
This gesture is also one that is incredibly problematic, for it reproduces the historic and unequal colonial dynamic of centre and margin, just with a progressive political face. As the West has used the developing world “other†for centuries to define itself, as what it is not, so again this system exists in the Che Complex: while we, for whatever reasons, cannot effectively battle the forces of capitalism and corruption in the metropole, our brown brothers and sisters in the outré-mer can...
In the case of Chavez, says our dear Oso Raro (or "Rare Bear" in English), the Western Left has chosen to venerate just about everything it rightfully deplores in the Bush Administration:
...The current fetish of Hugo Chavez in the developed world strikes me as an aspect of the same phenomenon. I always think that a good test of politics is to measure it upon yourself: a self-test. For instance, what would American leftists feel if they found themselves at odds with a presidential administration, and exercised their democratic right to request a recall election. Then, after much hemming and hawing and protesting and pressure on the part of the government, the election took place, favourable to the administration but with dubious and unverifiable results (confirmed by international observers with their eyes more on the unstable price of oil than democratic irreugularities; in other words, brought to you by the same people who confirmed an Ohio win for Bush). And subsequent to “winning†the election, the administration then obtained a list of those voters who had signed the petition for recall, and distributed the list publicly, and began to bar these voters from civil services (such as the right to a passport or the ability to obtain foreign currency), discriminate against them in government and university employment, and began calling these voters by name on television and in the press traitors, oligarchs, coup plotters, squalid ones, and prosecuting them for treason in courts packed with judges selected for their loyal politics to the regime. Would that be OK?
Well, that is exactly what has happened in Venezuela. The veil of the Che Complex excuses these “excesses†from censure by Western leftists. “Venezuela is different!†we hear. How is Venezuela, or any developing world nation that different? People in Venezuela and other developing world countries aren't from Mars, after all. “They have critical poverty!†we are told. Well, there is a lot of critical poverty in the USA. “There is an extreme difference between the have and the have-nots, and an oligarchy that controls business and the press!†people say. How would one describe the USA any differently?
The depressing truth is that Chavez represents the flip side of the criminal administration we currently have here in the USA in its rapaciousness and ideological excesses, and the love affair the global Left has for him is symptomatic of its intellectual exhaustion more than anything else. Didn’t we get enough of this with Fidel? We need to wake from our Che Complex dreams, and dedicate ourselves to forthrightly and deliberately fixing our own world (as opposed to transferring our utopian fantasies onto others in a colonial modality), and rebuilding effective leftist strategies, effecting change here as well as there (for after all, Chavez does not emerge sui generis, he represents a true crisis in Venezuelan society, as Bush represents a true crisis in American democracy). What we need is more thinking, and less compulsory and knee-jerk hero-worship. For in the words of Tina Turner, we don’t need another hero.
Oh, damn, I'm in love with this Rare Bear. Please, pretty please, make sure you read the entire piece. This is an immediate blogroll addition.
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Is there an argument here? The flip side of Bush is so nice and neat that it must warm a ‘decent leftist”’s heart. Too bad there is zip content to the comparison. .Where’s the flip side of the declaration of a policy of preemtive strike? Where’s the flip side of ending social security – granting social security? Yeah, that’s a bad one. There’s no rampant cronyism — or if there is, Rare bear doesn’t show it with a single bothersome fact. The one fact she runs into isn’t even a fact, it is just a way of dismissing an election result she doesn’t like. I love this: “…favourable to the administration but with dubious and unverifiable results (confirmed by international observers with their eyes more on the unstable price of oil than democratic irreugularities; in other words, brought to you by the same people who confirmed an Ohio win for Bush).” I see, if an election result that you don’t like is confirmed by the usual international observers, it can’t be right because… you can compare it to the Ohio vote.
Talk about a knock down argument. And Marc seems to feel this is ace commentary. I don’t know why. It seems like absolute silliness to me.
Interestingly, the neighbor of Venezuela, Colombia, just had an election. Gee, you would think that, with all the interest in Chavez’ changing of his constitution, and the much reported low level of turnout in Venezuelan elections — just like Ohio! — there might be some interest in the inevitable rise of Uribe, a man who also changed the constitution, especially on a blog that was indignant about Castro’s dictatorship a couple of days ago. Well, it turns out that Uribe, gained Seventy percent of the vote – which was at 36 percent of the population. And it turns out that the paramilitaries, aka the rightwing cocaine growers, who America’s best friend in Latin America has granted a non-extradition treaty to, went the extra mile for him. Now, here’s where we can compare Latin American countries and their press coverage and the conformist left’s willingness to cast the blind eye, while piling on Venezuela, as if it were always a burning issue for the left, as if the looting of the country in the nineties was something we were all deeply concerned about. Were there a lot of murders of Chavez’s opponents? Was he supported by mafioso? Have Chavez’s supporters, for instance, been implicated in massacring peasants? Of course not. But when these facts come into play, we have to remember … Ohio.
For those who are interested in a true terror state growing like a little metastizing cell in a latin american country, I urge you to go to a place that actually lists a few facts and does a little reporting, which is a dangerous business in Colombia: http://www.colombiajournal.org/index.htm. But their contribution, it is true, pales when compared to the real struggle in Latin America: showing up some of those Berkeley coffeehouse lefties — one of the great causes of our time.
March 23rd, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Aside from some broad generalizations and lazy compartmentalizations, I found her story quite good for a political observer.
March 23rd, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Roger beat me to the punch, so let me just say that the piece is a doozer. ON the flip side daniel lazarre has a wonderful piece in the nation book reviews (adam shantz, a great writer on his own right has done a fabulous job there..its a keeper
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/22676.html
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Roger.. ur laughable my friend. We’re back to the either/or. Before you dare to say anything critical of Venezuela we must make sure and first slam Colombia. I wonder if you ever get tired of these moral equivalancy sort of arguments. Very boring ones I might add.
Ditto to you Ahmed. Indeed, this poor gal I linked to who writes her heart out is just a bummer doozer. Not with the program — poor thing. She might even be of that dreaded species that Roger abhors i.e. one of the ”decents.” Holy Chrissakes, wouldnt ever want to be one of THOSE.
I read Lazare’s job on Gitlin. I found it to be at best a missed oppty and at worse an ideological hack piece. One can disagree with Gitlin as much as you want, but his arguments deserved better treatement than the misleading and purposefully misconstrued screed by Lazare. Gitlin has opposed the war in Iraq from the first day but that aint good enough for Mr. Lazare…who quite incorrectly claims Gitlin “half supports” the war in Iraq. Utter bullshit.
But that’s what I love about Lefties like Lazare who vigourously patrol the ideological borders and locks the gates of of admission at the sight of a Todd Gitlin! Oh spare us such invasions of heresy.  By my calculations, Gitlin’s banishment from the ranks of the acceptable  would exlude about 99% of the American population from the privilege of being resonant with the “real” left. Laughable and sad. The radical left which, of course, speaks and acts in the name of the broad and all-suffering working class won’t have in its ranks some awful, social-democratic (or eegads! liberal) professor who is a solid opponent of the Republicans, believes in unions, national health care and democratic discourse… oh no way! Who knows what terrible ideological infection would could catch from such a germ-ridden, flag-waving, covert tool of Imperialism!
(Just read a revealing little interview with Lazare by the way with right-winger Michael Medved. In it Lazare says he has the “honor” of being one of the few leftists who supported the Soviet invasion of Afgahistan…. proof positive that he’s not to be confused with those sleazy “decents”).
And having been properly lambasted here, I now vot to redouble my own efforts to make sure I dont slip into any sort of decency myself. Who knows where that would lead? Probably into supporting Colombia death squads!
March 24th, 2006 at 12:12 am
I read about three paragraphs of the Lazare hit piece on Gitlin and decided to stop so I didn’t have to scrape the rest of it off of my shoes. It’s incredibly dishonest and where it’s not dishonest it’s wrongheaded. Laughable really. I read Gitlin’s Intellectuals and the Flag and it’s a worthwhile book. Actually I skimmed the rest of the review to see if he ever actually engaged the arguments or content of Gitlin’s book. He doesn’t. I realized Lazare is one of those flakes who think Ahrundati Roy is a cogent political thinker. I can’t read her crap because it’s so absurdly simplistic. Reminds me of the “political” thinking of that nitwit Alice Walker. What is pathetic about Lazare’s review is that one can read it and not even know what Gitlin’s book is actually about. No mention of David Reisman, Irving Howe or C.Wright Mills, who are central to the work in question. He reviews his own prejudices and ignores 75% of what Gitlin wrote about.\. One of the worst attempts at a book review I’ve ever seen. It’s disgraceful that the Nation would print such tendentious crap and pass it off as a book review. Ahmed, unless you’ve read Gitlin’s book, you really can’t comprehend the degree to which this is a canned hatchet job.
By the way, who the fuck is Daniel Lazare ? And why should I care ?
March 24th, 2006 at 12:35 am
Reg… for laughs.. here’s the interview with Lazare that I mentioned. Clearly I have no truck with either Horowitz or the Horrible Medved im this program, but Lazare is a bit scary here…”total solidarity” with the insurgents of Fallujah and support for the Russian invasion of Afghanistan???
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18633
March 24th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Marc…I can’t click on that link. It freezes my computer…or is it my eyeballs? I’ll take your word for it.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:19 am
The Chavistas fear criticism from the left the most (as you well know, Marc), so this article is probably going to get hit hard in the next few days as they ramp up their bloggers to attack.
Thanks for linking to it; it’s an interesting read.
March 24th, 2006 at 5:06 am
Yes boz, we are getting the communique right now. A little paranoid are we.
The Oso article says nothing new. It’s the same regurgitated Chavez-Bush analogy that you find on anti-chavez blogs any day of the week.
Honestly, does anyone here spend any amount of time in Venezuela? Marc, if you do not think Chavez won the recall election or has majority support in Venezuela you are simply fooling yourself. Contra the Oso piece, it is not Western university students that vote for and support Chavez it is the Venezuelan people.
March 24th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Speaking of either/or, according ot the anonymous writer of the above piece (which makes some good points, but is mostly garbage)- “followers of Stu
March 24th, 2006 at 7:00 am
(the submit button was clicked by accident) “followers of Stuart Hall” are guilty of this. Where does she get this wildly obscure point? Is this dropping names to make her seem reasonable? This is disrespectful to the late Stuart Hall.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:05 am
The reason – after rereading the piece of dreck – that I don’t trust it is not the critique – which is fair – but the stridency of it, and reliance on reactionary tsources. Further, the Venezuelan left, while split on direct support for Chavez (anarchists oppose him, as would I in their spirit, but oppose US intervention more) is not unrepresented by Chavez…the traditional Trot, Socialist and mainline Communist parties are part of his coalition.
March 24th, 2006 at 8:21 am
If anybody’s interested, starting next Monday TPMCafe will be hosting a discussion of Gitlin’s “Intellectuals and the Flag” for their weekly “bookclub”. This week it’s been Kevin Phillips’ “American Theocracy”. Gitlin’s book is thin and it’s really just a collection of essays, but his consideration of several seminal liberal and leftwing “public intellectuals”, the almost embarrassing comparison with the current crop of academic “leftists” who rule the roost in orgs like The Modern Language Association and can’t write a sentence that would be published outside of obscure professional journals, and the alienation and marginalization of a large swath of lefty activists from “actually existing America” is, in my view, incisive. Gitlin has also written well on the “identity politics” left. An even better book that takes on much of the same bankruptcy of “leftists” currently nested comfortably in universities who spend more time addressing each other than informing the public or attempting to impact the national discourse is Russell Jacoby’s “The Last Intellectuals”. These books are essential in attempting rethink strategies that can revive an aggressive liberal discourse in the wake of the success of the right in creating a “think tank” culture that has been remarkably effective in shaping public opinion over that last three decades. If solidarity with Hugo Chavez is your idea of a crucial issue facing “the left”, take a pass. Gitlin and Jacoby don’t live on your planet.
March 24th, 2006 at 8:38 am
“old-fashioned exoticism”
That’s about it. Any tin pot leader including Saddam Hussein and Assad are poster boys for good government since only the US can concoct a bad one. Either/or is the standard fare I’d say. It dominates every thread. I must admit I didn’t get Marc Cooper’s railing at the far left at first but I sure do now. Definitely the out to lunch bunch.
March 24th, 2006 at 8:47 am
“Daniel Lazare: Of course, absolutely. The insurgents in Fallujah are repelling a foreign invasion. They have every right to do it. Now, I’m not going to support every last action by every last fighter there, obviously, but certainly they have a right to repel a foreign invasion of their country.”
That sums it up. either/or. And a false premise on its face.
March 24th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Wow. Your whole piece is founded on a moral equivalency argument (Chavez=Bush) and then you criticize me for making a moral equivalency argument. That is chutzpah…
Back in the sixties, when the New Left was forming, they must have all skipped the logic classes – since the grizzled veterans are so poor at it. Still, you have to admire a guy who thinks context is moral equivalency and an analogy between Venezuela’s elections and Ohio’s is an argument to die for.
March 24th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Very interesting. Thanks, Marc.
My hat is off to those of you who’ve managed to dodge the main points or fabricate critiques based on her, “reliance on reactionary tsources.” If anybody has a substantive response, I’d love to hear it because her case is pretty compelling and so far all I’m hearing is whiny gripes.
March 24th, 2006 at 10:07 am
“Roger.. ur laughable my friend. ”
There is Marc Cooper going again giving us an ever shining example of ‘civil discourse’.
March 24th, 2006 at 10:11 am
“Gitlin has opposed the war in Iraq from the first day but that aint good enough for Mr. Lazare…who quite incorrectly claims Gitlin “half supports†the war in Iraq. Utter bullshit.”
Really Mr. Civil Discourse? I thought Lazare said that Gitlin was only critical of the way the war was carried out, not the war itself. He, no less than you, believed naively that if the US ‘got it right’, the war was justified. Odd though, given the obsession the US has, whether it’s the Repubs or Dems, with imposing its economic vision on Iraq–how was this possible?
And did Gitlin not support the illegal bombings of Iraq by Clinton, the sanctions, illegal flyovers, etc. It’s not at all unreasonable to claim that Gitlin was a war supporter. He just didn’t support Bush’s style. The ‘liberal’ ‘alternative’ indeed…
March 24th, 2006 at 10:22 am
One omission conveniently left out of the Chavez=Bush equivalency is that Chavez’s numbers are considerably higher than GWB’s. If it is a dictatorship it is much more benign than most. Is this moral relativism? Sure it is. But it’s much too easy for those of us observing from the comfort of the US to judge the purity of the Left in Venezuela. Let’s face it, we all know what the alternative to Hugo Chavez is. And I’m not going to ally myself to the very substantial forces pitted against him. Ideological purity in Latin America is something I’ll obsess on once the threat from the north has been tamed.
March 24th, 2006 at 10:38 am
This is great fun. Please keep the apologies and rationalizations for Chavez coming. Im going to collect them all together and when done present them to the “critically poor” of Venezuela. There’s anough fat in the fatuousness that these folks can probably boil the paper its all written on and eat it.
While doing so they can thank the Lord they dont live either in Colombia or Ohio for that matter!
Anyway, keep it all coming. Every posting does nothing except underline the point that Oso Raro is making… like the people of Venezuela really give two whits who, for example, Marc Davidson will “ally” himself with! Who you “ally” yourself with in Venezuela is a decision with about as much relevance as to whether you support the Dodgers or the Padres. It’s about you, not them.
Just for the record.. I couldnt care less about “the purity of the left” in Venezuela. I would turn your argument directly back on you and say from the comfort of your computer room you are awful quick to decide that demagogue like Chavez is good enough for the Venezuelans!
Anyway, I expect to get nowhere in this discussion… so please… at least some more entertainment… more comparisons please between Cleveland and Caracas!
March 24th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Interesting article, and I think the analysis is pretty spot on, although I’m not qualified to determine who has won the elections, and what Chavez’s level of support is. But that seems fairly irrelevant as his authoritarian streak and practice is not really in doubt. She is best when commenting on the idolatry of the hard left, which, if I may borrow from JCummings, is pretty manicheaen.
But before I even went to her site I knew she was an academic. She only has a mild case of it, but the academy does something very unfriendly to the writing styles of people who spend a lot of time there. Must be the modality in the water.
March 24th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I have to disagree with portions of this comment:
The Che Complex refers to the dismaying habit of the Western Left to aggrandize symbols of Latin American resistance with little or no understanding (or care) for the histories or tangible effects of these politics on the people living under these revolutionary regimes. Some good political examples of the Che Complex would be, aside from Che (natch): Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende, (at one time) The Sandinistas, (at election time) Lula, and most recently Bolivia’s Evo Morales.
Allende and Lula sought (and in Lula’s case continue to seek their goals through democratic means. She’s painting with a very broad brush and it diminishes her argument.
Also, the fact that I grew up in Miami and heard Cuban classics like Chan Chan in my neighborhood and still happen to like them makes me a victim of the “Che Complex?”
That’s just silly. It’s irresponsible to include Allende and Lula. There is much to admire in them, chiefly their democratic side. So when someone criticizes democratic leftists by lumping them in with totalitarian and authroitarian leftists, they just look silly.
March 24th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
It is always a puzzle when the blogger you are making comments to begins to jeer like a fifteen year old caught smoking in his bedroom. What to do? Assume the parental tone? Jeer back? Give up?
Give up is the best thing. Second best is the parental tone. Third best is a little irresistible (the idea of Cooper’s “collecting†comments from his blog and pasting them in his scrapbook is irresistibly Far Side-ish (I imagine him taking them out to show to people – no, you have got to see the great shots I got in on March 20, 2005! What do you mean, the babysitter’s waiting — you just got here! Now this one, listen to how I said he had a small peepee. Heh indeedy!))
The sober thing to do is to point out that the best reporting that takes an anti-Chavez slant, like Alma Guillermo-Prieto’s in the NYRB, show a man whose governing style is rather like Alberto Fujimori’s, which isn’t good — although the rampant corruption and the death squad tactics of Fujimori aren’t in evidence. On the other hand, even G-P’s report does not embed the regime in the history that counts – Venezuela’s – nor does it show how Chavez is taking the first, tentative steps beyond the Washington Consensus, which has been a disaster for Latin America, although she grants that the anti-poverty programs are impressive. Sure, he is still paying far too much on the debt accrued to emerging markets lenders whose loans could easily be disputed on the basis that they were facilitated by bribery, sustained the most fraudulent of ventures, and are enforced by thinly veiled WTO blackmail. But he is finally using the petroleum funding for something other than maintaining an elite whose main function was to effect capital flight from Venezuela, and his model is obviously inspiring others across the continent. There are some good things about the American disaster in Iraq: one is that it has so totally concentrated the administration’s energies that no time is left for dicking Latin America. The result is exactly what enraged conservatives under Carter – an increasingly left leaning continent. There’s a good chance that the reactionaries in Mexico, the Salinas-Casteneda-Fox crowd, will be defeated in the next elections too. All to the good. (note: just threw Casteneda in there to elicit another Far side blast. i cop, to use Cooperspeech. Although, it is true, Casteneda was a guest at the recent homecoming party for the former nanny-killer himself, good old Carlos. Former leftists are the scourge of Central and Latin American politics).
To the bad is Colombia, which far from being a “moral equivalent†of anything, is the one country in Latin America that American tax dollars flow to in abundance – whether you are a lefty or a righty American, that is where your money goes to. Of course, the silence on Colombia is symptomatic of the selective moral outrage that is vented by such as Cooper.
Now, as for the scrapbook title for this terribly interesting comment, what can I suggest. How about – other poop in the punchbowl? Or, r u laffin’ yet?
March 24th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
There’s a bigger picture here.
The U.S. mainstream media and much of the popular culture built on it are hooked on demonization of darker-skinned foreign leaders.
Pat Robertson may represent an extremist fringe, but he did have enough backing to make a run for president and does still get face time on mainstream news. He called for assassinating Chavez because he knows that playing the “evil brown dictator” card still works across a reasonably broad sector of America.
If liberals hasten to cut extra slack to Chavez, that may be the reason. They don’t want to contribute to the chauvanism-driven demonization that drives geopolitical policy in the U.S.
Unless and until we can stamp out this habit of mind in the U.S., we can expect on Iraq after another…
March 24th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
“…like the people of Venezuela really give two whits who, for example, Marc Davidson will “ally†himself with!”
I think it makes a significant difference to the people of Venezuela what the US policies are in Latin America in general and Venezuela in particular. To the extent that I can support US policies and leaders that are helpful to them, they care about what I think. If it weren’t for US public opinion, is there any doubt that the US would have backed down during the attempted coup? Is there any doubt that people like Pat Robertson would have had their way in getting rid of Chavez one way or another? I doubt it very strongly.
Marc, an appropriate analysis of the situation in Venezuela has to consider both internal politics as well as external ones. I just don’t think you’re giving enough consideration to the latter.
March 24th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Skin color is a complete red herring. It is the actions, not the pigmentation, that are being criticized here. Just because a dictator has brown or black skin, which is nothing more than an adaptive response to local environment in relation to the equator, doesn’t mean they are pure Noble Savages and opressed by western racists.
March 24th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
want to put in my opinion on chavez, and hope to get some reaction.
i do think chavez is a loud-mouthed pol with an authoritarian streak with ambitions to be the next castro, i.e. president forever.
but you got to admit, he has been a helluva a lot better for venezuela’s poor majority then any of the corrupt, disfunctional governments before him in that country. and you must also take into consideration that a big, big part of the opposition movement to chavismo is not just the shaky democratic practices his regime is fostering but, as much as or more than, its their loss of power and the end of privilege for the rich. simply put, they don’t run the show anymore and their bottom lines are being affected by chavismo’s revolution for the poor.
you also must admit, the crowd at the us state department, in particular, their ex-functionaires roger noriega and otto reich, both followers of the far right conservative pol jesse helms, profoundly screwed up us policy in latin america with their clandestine support of the anti-chavista movement as well a serious blackmark to democracy.
this is not to say that i am a chavez fan, i am not. i agree that he is making the same mistake that castro did, he’s fallen in love with power and has put his ego above the social ideals and progressive vision he professes to support.
but the man and his reign needs to be seen from all vantage points. and much of his opposition, while it has a strong case to make against him on democracy issues, in many cases their self-righteous stand masks their own pro-neoliberal economic warts. as such, could it be that, because his opposition, driven in part by its selfish, commercial interests, and backed by deranged bureaucrats at the us state department, helped drive chavez into his authoritarian ways? think about it. if you were president, and these people attempted a coup and destablization plot a la Allende era–what would be your reaction?
finally, while we all can agree chavez has crossed the line with his authoritarian moves, do we think its a good idea to practice foreign policy toward him the way the us is doing so now? trying to demonize him, branding him a threat to the region, which in my view is laughable. as michele bachelet, the new president of chile has said, the biggest threat to latin america is not chavez, nor castro, but poverty and social exclusion.
adios
March 24th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
What I meant by “reactionary sources” is that on the word “documentary” in regards to “The Revolution will not be televised,” she linked to a website that in no uncertain terms, justified the coup d’etat against Chavez in 2002. I’ve seen that list years ago and it has been debunked – and even if the nasty things said about Chavez were true, a fascist military coup would be a step backwards.
Further, I echo someone who is critical of her lumping Allende in with the others. Again, some good points were made, but not trustworthy – esp. since she won’t write under her own name. It could be disinformation.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
I thought Lazare said that Gitlin was only critical of the way the war was carried out, not the war itself. He, no less than you, believed naively that if the US ‘got it right’, the war was justified.
Yes, Lazare said that, but he was lying.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
“Yes, Lazare said that, but he was lying.”
And he couldn’t have not known he was lying…
Brian Jones – good pragmatic take on the Chavez vs. Noriega main event, “The Fracas in Caracas”.
March 24th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Was this article “really†written by Condoleezza Rice? It was a total put-down of the “American Leftâ€â€”
“This woman was remarkably successful at PU, primarily because she was so angry (she taught me the value of a line and an attitude), and anger was very “in†in the eighties. No one stopped to question exactly why this woman in particular would be angry. She came from a comfortable home, with professional parents, had gone to private school, was physically beautiful, intellectually talented, economically comfortable, and was now at PU. So unbothered by these complications were we that no one questioned her radical politics when she returned sophomore year with a $500 weave.
Her troublesome privilege could be ameliorated through “good ideological work†on behalf of poor, marginalised others. That this principle also seems at work in so much contemporary scholarship (i.e. Cultural Studies “radicalism”) only highlights its tenuousness as an organising concept for effective socio-cultural political action and change.
What differentiates the Che Complex from old-fashioned exoticism is its explicitly leftist political orientation, its romanticisation of Latin American socio-political upheavals, and an interest in revolutionary transformation that for many in the West seems impossible in their own national milieu.â€
No one could argue with the quality of Raro’s linguistic abilities, she can certainly string those sentences together—but they are strung with an acidic emotionalism directed towards the so-called “bourgeoisie left.â€
Unfortunately, the planet earth has not yet produced the perfect political system, evolution has also failed to produce the perfect human being—I guess we’ll all have to make due with “earthly†politics as is– in perpetual need of fine tuning. Please notify me, however, if someone locates utopia; I’m in desperate need of a vacation.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Thanks for the post & links to Oso Raro’s The Che Complex. I think she made some very compelling points about how a lot of first world lefties romanticize Che and follow knee-jerk into excusing way too many prime examples of Chavez’s thuggishness and love of his own power. This article reminded me a lot about an essay Paul Berman wrote about Che (critique of “Motorcycle Diaries”). In that essay, Berman, a bit stronger than Oso, urged lefties to take a serious look at what Che really was: a cold blooded killer. Che ruthlessly presided over several excutions of caputured Batista supporters and relished in it’s brutality. And in the end Che would “lead” a revolution in Bolivia that nobody wanted to follow. Cuts a fine pose for one’s t-shirt though.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
P.S. re-read a couple of the previous comments. Brian Jones, I think you’ve got a couple decent points about how Chavez may have gone overboard out of reaction to the coup attempt.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
From Oso Raro’s profile:
Favorite Music: Pet Shop Boys (natch)
Okay, we now know Oso Raro is really Andrew Sullivan.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Low blow…
I noticed that and decided to take a pass. It’s flatout impossible that anyone’s favorite music could really be the Pet Shop Boys. I think this must be a joke. If it’s not a joke, it still is.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Is that the same Andrew Sullivan who is HIV-positive, gay, conservative, practicing Roman Catholic, misogynistic and anti-abortion?
March 24th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
My two cents: eh. The only thing I concluded from the Oso article (yes, I read the whole thing, unsuccessfully stifling yawns) was that I was glad as hell I got out of the postmod-gagging humanities, so as never to come across phrases like “reproduces the historic and unequal colonial dynamic of centre and margin” ever a-freaking-gain. Roland Barthresian phrases like “centre and margin” are bad enough, but with the embarrassingly pretentious Queens English spelling? Puh-lease.
But more to the point, I also don’t miss the undergraduate-level, god-awful boring, purity arguments, and all the time-wasting lefty in-fighting it wallowed in. C’mon, Mr. Cooper, use those honed journalistic skills for something meatier. This shit’s boring.
March 25th, 2006 at 10:56 am
I stand by my assessment above – that the the Raro posting is good for what it is: sub intellectual, opinion- based observations on an amateur web blog.
Still – and this is going to be confusing to people who have not intellectualized beyond the next episode of “HARDBALL” or the Rush Limbaugh program – but can we get behind lumping everyone into a convenient label that in actuality has little to do with reality? Not all “leftists” in the west support(ed) Chavez and Guevera, and similarly not all supporters of these two Stalinists are “leftists.” But most of all, I take issue with Raro claiming that Che Guevera and Hugo Chavez are leftist icons.
She’s making a mountain out of a mole hill. I am a teacher at a relatively prestigious high school, and I see Che Guevera tees and baby dolls everywhere, but these are hardly the left, class conscience people whom Raro depicts as being Che’s fan club. These are the kids who drive their parents Hummers, do their homework at Starbucks, and live for weekend shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch. None of the kids who work on our school newspaper – and who have progressive tendencies – have anything to do with celebrating the memory of Che Guevera, and they have even less to do with those kids who do don his image. They are more into the retro thrift store garb, with cars like mine (nothing newer than 1994).
It is obvious that this Raro woman doesn’t understand much about pop culture if she asserts that it is the “left” that is behind this so-called “Che Complex.” In fact, she does, rather stupidly, assert this:
“but by his image on t-shirts, leaflets, posters, and other paraphernalia of resistance, however understood. And this is where the Che Complex lives, in the universe of symbolic representation. As the Western Left has turned the real Che into a paper tiger, a hero for easy consumption…”
Oh, really? It isn’t the corporations and American business who has turned him into a paper tiger? I don’t know of anyone with any decent street credentials donning anything -including verbal slogans – related to Ernesto Che Guevera.
Her blog is just another example of this attempt at political incorrectness ala Christopher Hitchens by libeling the so called “left” with allegations that are unresearched, biased, but always seem to thrill the dickens out of people like you, Marc, even though I respect you greatly for your years of valuable reporting and service to this nation.
Having said that, I again stick with my above opinion: Good work for a web log, the modern day journalistic equivalent of the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
I am waiting for her to lazily categorize conservatives as fascists who have a “Mussolini Complex,” however, I am not holding my breath, and I digress.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Personal story: A history teacher in my school whom I am friends with reports that when he passes kids with Che shirts, and he says, “Ah, you’re a Che Guevera fan?”, they don’t even know who he is/was. They think he’s, like, totally a fifth member of, like, the band Rage Against the Machine….since, um, he’s in all their videos, dude.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:09 am
My guess is, Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison, once he inks that first fat NBA contract in a few months, will become the punditoid right’s new Jane Fonda, since our young lad from the suburbs apparently has Che plastered all over his clothes and dorm room. Nothing like cheap and phony generalizations to give progressives a bloody nose. Imagine the outrage if George Bush was labeled “a hero to white supremacists” because anti-black groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens support him.
“Hypocrisy once revealed has little refuge but in audacity.”—the historian Tacitus
March 25th, 2006 at 11:58 am
BTW, I forgot to ask something: Can anyone name five (5) prominent (and I mean prominent) “left” (I will give you some leeway there, I suppose) intellectuals who, in the words of “Rare Bear,” absolutely “fetish” either Hugo Chavez or Che Guevera? Because I certainly can’t.
March 25th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Cummings asks about “left” intellectuals who support Chavez or Guevara. If you mean people who write for Dissent Magazine, I suppose there are none. But many of the people who speak at Left Forum gatherings in NYC do support them. I speak of people like David Harvey, John Bellamy Foster, Ellen Meiksins Wood, Tariq Ali et al. However, the support does not manifest itself by wearing t-shirts but by engaging with the material reality of Cuba and Venezuela’s pro-working class economic policies. As nearly everybody to the left of Harry’s Place and this blog recognize, these governments have prioritized development for the truly needy. Castro sends doctors to help Haiti and other desperate countries, while Venezuela contributes cheap oil to poor people in the USA. For some reason, these gestures make the “decent left” have a cow, as Bart Simpson would put it.
March 25th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Since i posted the damn thing let me rush towards lazarre’s defence. I think both Marc and reg are missing the crux of his argument. Admission: I havent read todds “Intellectuals and the Flag” book yet, but judging from his recent output I wont be picking it up any timne soon. I remember feeling midly ill after seeing his Mother Jones “Blame America First” rant. It was a truly reckless piece of writing, irresponsible and opportunist. I’ve read Edward Said for my enitire life yet i could not recognise the Said that Giltin was castigating. Edward, always a complex figure, wrote extensively about the many currets running though american society in fact a major beef he had with the arafat crew was his belief that the palestinian cause must be aimed towards the progressive contitienties in America-the civil rights communities, the unions, fiath organisations, civic groups. Edward described muich of the discourse floating around about the”east” and the “west”, particulalry after 9/11 as a clash of ignorance. Yet, todd chooses not to engage edward instead lumping him in a rag tag group of “blame america” first types. Lazarre is ultimately right, in those super heated times gitlin bascially accused much of the left of treason and effectively worked to shut down democratic discourse and dissent. Again thats the crux of the point, is it not? while we we’re on the topic if the “great patriotic one” i personally think that todds brilliiant book on the sixties should be required reading for anyone grappling with the cultural and political legacies of the time” Unfortunatley i cant say the same for the noxious and ultimately useless book proposing to be a critique of “ndentity politics” I wrote a lengthy review of it aw hile back but Martin duberman was much more eloquant
http://tinyurl.com/rs67x
March 25th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
“Grievances as ones held in common. Until the CIO came along in the ’30s, black workers were essentially barred from union membership, and are still not fully welcome in some industries like construction. Many working-class whites have long since chosen to identify with their skin color rather than with “alien others” (especially blacks) who share their class oppression; it has been more important to declare their superiority to blacks–and their primary bond with fellow whites of all classes–than to collaborate with “inferiors” in a protest movement based on class.â€
Ahmed,
Perhaps, the issues of “identity politics,’ are a manifestation of a much broader issue—CLASS. The racism; sexism homophobia; religious fanaticism could all be traced back to ways of ensuring social control. Sociological divisiveness through intra-group conflict is a useful tool in maintaining the status quo—if you manage to get your enemies to rip each other apart; they’ll be too busy and won’t think about attacking you.
Unfortunately, these sub-groups have become politically traumatized by this successful PSYOPS operation; which is most clearly exemplified in the recent aggressive propaganda used by Christian fundamentalists who successfully have been attracting both the white and African-American working-class; by simultaneously alienating and unifying—they arouse irrational emotions with discussions of irrelevant issues, i.e., same sex marriages, abortion, etc… in order to perpetuate anomie among political groups, which as expected, stay focused on identity concerns, rather than transcend this manipulation and win with UNITY.
March 25th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Goodman-
Harvey! Great guy. In his works as a geographer – probably one of the more preeminent in recent times – Harvey underscores class consciousness (One of his works that I would recommend is Consciousness and the Urban Experience). Therefore, he is definitely a Marxist – and as such (Marx, we note, foretold non-violent social revolution), it would be interesting to know how he would feel if asked about Che Guevera or Hugo Chavez, an armed revolutionist and anti-Democratic despot respectively? I would say “nix” to Harvey.
I would also venture to say that Foster is no fan of Che Guevera or Hugo Chavez, given Foster’s explicit Marxism (and also since Foster, as a vigorous environmental advocate, is no fan of big oil…which is Chavez’s bread and butter, since he in fact owns one of the five largest petroleum companies in the U.S.)
Wood’s only link to either men would be her connection to Monthly Review, but as the editors themselves say, they are “not aligned with any particular existing revolutionary movement.” They see Marxism instead – as I do – as a philosophy. I would say that Wood would have qualms about these two armed and repressive revolutionaries, so I think that we can all agree that Wood is probably not afflicted with a Che or Chavez “fetish” either.
In the case of Ali, although he is a Trotskyist (at least I think he used to be), he has repeatedly criticized American relations with other countries (notably Pakistan) because such relations tended to back military dictatorships over democracy. So, it is obvious that, if he were asked, he would probably not support anti-democrats like Guevera and Chavez.
Where are all of these prominent “leftists” (they have to be non-Stalinists) who have this so-called “Che Complex?” No one can even name five prominent people on the left who have this so-called fetish for Che Guevera and Hugo Chavez. Seems to me like Oso Raro’s unfootnoted post is quite innaccurate, to put it nicely. But, it is probably average work for the blogosphere.
Tom Morello and Diego Maradona don’t count.
March 25th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
It should be noted that while Monthly Review supported the Cuban revolution when it first happened, they quickly disavowed it (and all armed revolutions) once attrocities began occurring. It is in fact Che Guevera’s hideous activities as a torturerer of Batista loyalists (and their families, of whom our sex symbol Guevera apparently took part in buthchering) that helped them make up their minds about that.
March 25th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Mr. Cummings, you strike me rather something of anl ignoramus. John Bellamy Foster’s magazine, the Monthly Review, has been a vocal defender of Hugo Chavez. Foster himself actually wrote this:
hese social programs, which are revolutionary in nature, have given Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution a solid base among the disadvantaged. The fact that Chavez, who was elected president in 1998 and reelected under the new constitution in 2000, had the support of a majority of the Venezuelan population was never really in doubt. What was in doubt was whether the 75 percent of Venezuela’s population living below the poverty line (the result of the whole history of exploitation in Venezuela) could be mobilized sufficiently to defend his Bolivarian Revolution in the face of a recall referendum promoted by the Venezuelan rich and middle classes with the support of the United States. The entire private media system, controlled by the well-to-do, propagandized day after day that Chavez was a dictator and should be removed from power. In most instances media control of this kind, coupled with a lack of effective mobilization among the poor and U.S. financing of pro-imperialist parties, would have made it possible for the wealthy to control the mechanisms of formal democracy in order to create an undemocratic reality.
(http://www.monthlyreview.org/nfte1004.htm)
Do you go off half-cocked because Marc Cooper encourages it through his own example, or did you learn to shoot off your mouth on your own?
I won’t bother to track down the positive words that the others have said about the governments of Cuba and Venezuela since it is obvious that I am dealing with somebody too unschooled in Marxist thought to have a dialogue with.
Bye.
March 25th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
You know, David, you’re really kidding yourself. This is like the old joke from the 60’s: You say millions are starving in China? Oh, yeah? Name two of them….
Fact is that Che Guevara, much like Marcos and the Zapatistas are iconic figures on the Western and therefore American Left. I dont know how about fetishes… but I know plenty about full reticence among most lefties to take a critical, objective look at these heroes and many many more.
Your research need go no farther than this blog itself to see how defensive and aggressive so many lefty commenters become when Castro or Chavez are criticized.
As to the latter, this year’s World Social Forum was held in Caracas and tens of thousands Western leftists converged and gave Chavez repeated rock star treatment.
As to five “intellectuals on the left” Im not sure who fits that category. But let’s turn the optic around: have you seen any critical or even dispassionate analysis of Chavez and Castro from Chomsky? or Zinn? I would love to see it. Dont believe it exists anywhere. Wouldnt these two guys who coomand so much respect among lefty students be doing the latter a service by actually applying their analytical powers to these … um… state leaders?
In the major magazines of the American left we have seen only uncritical coverage of Chavez. Michael Albert from Z when to Caracas and came back babbling in awe, like a Lincoln Steffens who had just seen the future.
In The Nation, Christian Parenti, son of unabashed Cahavez amdirer Michael Parenti, wrote that mag’z only major piece on Chavez and I’d say it was a piece that bought right into the Chavez “line.”
So let’s turn this game around gently on you… can you show us some even-handed, thoughtful analysis from the Left on Chavez that doesnt idolize him and portray him as a modern David?
You know INSIDE Venezuela there is a vibrant anti-Chavez left — much of it clustered around Tal Cual magazine published by one of the country’s leading intellectuals and former guerrilla, Teodoro Petkoff. Also the largest leftist party in Venezuela, MAS, long ago went into opposition against Chavez. Have you seen any of their critiques or heard their voice carried by American leftists?
When Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover went down toCaracas recently, do you think they pulled Chavez aside and told him — even in private– that their friendship with him would be tested if he continuted to bully the press, pack the courts and hand over regional governments to cronies like his aged father? Or do you think they slapped him on the back and said Right On!
One thing you can say about Garcia Marquez and his unseemly sycophancy with Castro- at least when Gabo would travel to Havana he would use his friendship with Castro to spring this or that writer from jail.
More than we can say for the Venceremos Brigades.
March 25th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Well said Eleanore. Identity politics, and cultural issues in general, are the rightwing’s hammer.
For the last twenty five years the left has insisted on being pounded on the head. Maybe some day we will get up off the ground; dump the non-strategizing po-mo tactics-or as fedric Jamison claims, the politics of late capitalism- of identity and single isssue posturing and discover once again that class drives politics and behavior.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Cummings’ starry-eyed observations usually disregard anything he doesn’t want to acknowledge just like Woody. The kids just like the sillouette of Gueverra. Symbolic of blind rebellion. They know that much, but so do the icons. Bellafonte looked like he lost his mind over Bush.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
I interviewed a kid like that at CSUN for a hip-hop story for the Sundial. He looked like Che and of course wore the shirt so I wrote that he looked as if he was channeling Che Guevarra, and quoted him claiming to the held hostage at CSUN for six years. “Who hasn’t,” I said. The removed my description in editorial. I wasn’t surprised.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
I thought this was an interesting article it was posted on the “Socialist Worker Online”: “Readers of Socialist Worker will be aware of our longstanding critique of the Cuban regime. We believe that the Cuban Revolution was a genuine upheaval against U.S. imperialism, but that it never was a socialist society.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2003-1/453/453_05_Cuba.shtml
CUBA
What’s behind Cuba’s crackdown?
By Héctor Reyes | May 16, 2003 | Page 5
EVEN AS U.S. troops were killing civilians in Iraq, Washington condemned Cuba for last month’s crackdown on dissidents and the execution of three hijackers. The Cuban government handed out prison sentences ranging from seven to 28 years to 75 dissidents, essentially convicting them of treason for conspiring with U.S. agents to undermine the Cuban government.
In a separate action, the government quickly convicted and executed three men who had hijacked a ferry and held 40 people hostage in a desperate attempt to defect to the U.S. Soon after, an intense controversy developed when a number of prominent intellectuals and liberals outside Cuba criticized the Castro government. “[This is] very bad news–and very sad–for those of us who admired the valor of this tiny country, so capable of greatness, but who also believe that freedom and justice go together or not at all,” wrote Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano in The Progressive.
Two different open letters critical of Cuba are being circulated on the Internet. One, spearheaded by Leo Casey of the Democratic Socialists of America, criticizes Cuba’s attacks on basic freedoms, while virtually ignoring the long history of U.S. intervention and intimidation. For this reason, many prominent left-wing intellectuals refused to endorse it.
The second letter, initiated by the U.S.-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy, declares that “the imprisonment of people for attempting to exercise their rights of free expression is outrageous and unacceptable.” Endorsed by figures such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Cornel West, the statement also emphasizes opposition to the Bush administration’s war in Iraq and other imperialist policies–and flatly rejects any U.S. effort to undermine Cuba’s self-determination.
Nevertheless, traditional supporters of Cuba have responded vigorously, emphasizing that the Cuban Revolution has been under attack by the U.S. for 44 years and arguing that the Castro government can’t afford to allow internal divisions to be used by the U.S. to regain control over the island. These supporters say that any criticism of Cuba plays into U.S. hands.
The question here is whether one can defend the right of Cuba–or any other country, regardless of its government– to self-determination, and still be critical of it.
In recent years, U.S. corporations have been quietly pressuring the Clinton and Bush administrations to drop economic sanctions against Cuba, because they were being left behind by European and Canadian companies taking advantage of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s opening to foreign investment. However, after the September 11 attacks, the Bush Doctrine of regime change and pre-emptive war gave the U.S. right wing a pretext for a new confrontation with Cuba.
For many months, the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, James Cason, has been meeting with dissidents, providing them with funding and distributing their writings. Unfortunately, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy statement, while abstractly defending the right to dissent in Cuba, ignores the way that the U.S. engineered the current crisis. With the long history of bloody and greedy U.S. intervention in Cuba, it’s hard to imagine that these dissidents didn’t know who they were dealing with and what was at stake.
Readers of Socialist Worker will be aware of our longstanding critique of the Cuban regime. We believe that the Cuban Revolution was a genuine upheaval against U.S. imperialism, but that it never was a socialist society.
Only a small clique around Castro has the power to decide the most important decisions about Cuban society. Like anywhere else, people rejecting this inequality will look a political outlet. An unwillingness of the international left to acknowledge this leaves only one road open to those who want to resist–straight into the arms of the right-wing Cuban exiles in the U.S. and their handlers in Washington.
It’s up to Cuban workers to wrestle power away from the Castro clique–while continuing to fight to keep Uncle Sam out. That’s why we also believe that there is no such thing as the right to do the bidding of U.S. imperialism in the name of dissidence.
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March 25th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
“can you show us some even-handed, thoughtful analysis from the Left on Chavez that doesnt idolize him and portray him as a modern David?”
The New York Review of Books had a huge piece on Chavez in the pages of the copy that I hold in my hand here (”Don’t Cry for Me, Venezuela”, Alma Guillermopreito, October 6 2005) a few months ago that was most definitely even handed. His disdain for democracy, his repression, and his deliberate voting day rackets are pointed out in detail; and the writer pokes fun at him for obligating his country’s tv. viewers to watch his program. This is the best article I have read on Chavez. Hold on, I think I have a web link too.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18302
I also read an article three, maybe even four years ago in the Progressive Magazine, a cover story entitled something like, “Will Chavez Survive?” and it too was very balanced, critical. I would post more examples except that honestly those are about the only two sizable stories of Chavez that I have ever taken the time to read.
Morty Goodman says,
“Foster himself actually wrote this—[snip]”
Goodman, nothing that that you quote from that journal comes across to me as an endorsement of Chavez, or even as high praise of him.
Your own ridiculous post at 2:57pm, a stroke job piece of Castro and Chavez as apparently decent blokes who “have prioritized development for the truly needy” (with the needy, apparently, being their top priority, in your estimation) is so embarassingly obtuse that I won’t even engage your lame ass community college knowledge of that region (or our resident biologist/journalism student/journalist/author/hollywood actor/law school student, who has undoubtedly allowed some of his Grecian formula to soak into his brain…stop insulting me, big guy! Let’s debate if you disagree..come up with something instead of insults).
March 25th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
By the Marc, I won’t defend Noam Chomsky on everything that he says or does not say (By the way, since when should a person be criticized for what they DON’T say? Isn’t that rather Orwellian?), but in the case of Chomsky one might use the example of when James Cason became chief of US Interests sections in Havana, and he [supposedly] got involved in recruiting Cubans to overthrow Castro. Castro responded by beginning a wave of arresting, putting on trial, and imprisoning those mercenaries involved. Noam Chomsky criticized Castro for this, signed a petition to this effect, and insisted on said petition that these political activists receive no punishment at all.
As for Zinn – whom I got to see speak in Berkeley not too long back – I didn’t know that he really concerned himself with International Affairs. Everything that I have read by Zinn pertains to the U.S….because he’s, like, a professor of U.S. History…..(?)
March 25th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
David.. Im not get into a round robin with you on this. I just think you’re in a bit of denial about the level of accomodation between much of the Left and Castro/Chavez.
Im reminded by email tonite that both Zinn and Chomsky did sign a letter of protest when Castro locked up a load of people 3 years ago….so we’ll chalk that up.
Alma Guillermoprieta’s pieces in the NYRB are indeed excellent. But Alma is not “a leftist intellectual.” She’s a very professional reporter, an alum of the WashPost, Newsweek and The New Yorker.
March 25th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
And I don’t mind, Marc, that you turned it around on me, but what I would ask is this: why must everything HAVE a “flip side?” Instead of a) criticizing a corrupt tyrant or b) defending a corrupt tyrant, how about c) helping people to understand WHY those particular monsters are able to grab power in the first place? (Supposedly, Pat Tillman was a fan of Chomsky and reportedly said that it helped him know the enemy). Moreover, shouldn’t America’s own occasional (or not so occasional, depending on your viewpoint) be the priority of those people like Chomsky, Zinn, Albert, the folks at Zmag & the Nation, etc.? Is it really that eye opening to blast Chavez and Co. when Time, Newsweek, CBS, ABC, blah blah do that anyway?
March 25th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
David. My answer is an emphatic NO.
You’re going to draw national borders around political and ideological discussion? I dont think so!
March 25th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
occasional, or not so occasional guffaws.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Well, all I can say is that I am glad that the Progressive, Znet/Zmag, the Nation, In Our Times, do not waste their time adding the zillion and first voice to “How Castro’s anti-Americanism is Hurting us and the World.” In the period 1975-1999 – and I don’t think that I need to point this out to most of you – the U.S. military aid to the Timorese holocaust was a far more important story than Castro, in my opinion, for the simple reason that the East Timor slaughter could have been prevented with one little phone call to Jacarta (which Clinton apparently and finally did make in 99, under pressure). If it hadn’t been for Chomsky and Herman, I don’t know that I ever would have even known about it for several years, as I sure didn’t see anyone else talk about that.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
well, “hear” anyone talk about that.
March 26th, 2006 at 2:04 am
Hey eleanore and rjf here’s a piece and “identity politics” and class stuggle which really should be required reading for anyone who wants to seriously grapple with these topics.
http://tinyurl.com/eecws
March 26th, 2006 at 6:29 am
To have a decent left you would need an economically literate left.
I don’t see it.
Political justice requires economic justice. Economic justice means upholding the property rights of the poor as well as the rich.
Let me know when a significant portion of the left (apart from the marginalized Joe Lieberman in a party that would be considered rightist in most other countries) starts supporting property rights.
Property.
If the property rights of the rich are not respected they will not invest. If the property rights of the poor are not respected they will not be able to create wealth up to their full potential. It is hard enough to get capital and labor to cooperate without a theory that makes them class enemies.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:09 am
Cooper: “You know INSIDE Venezuela there is a vibrant anti-Chavez left — much of it clustered around Tal Cual magazine published by one of the country’s leading intellectuals and former guerrilla, Teodoro Petkoff. Also the largest leftist party in Venezuela, MAS, long ago went into opposition against Chavez. Have you seen any of their critiques or heard their voice carried by American leftists?”
Maybe Marc should accept the fact that his left is what is traditionally called social democracy and that the left he despises is rooted in the traditions of the Russian Revolution (Parenti) or anarchism (Chomsky).
I really don’t see the point of him obsessively attacking those to his left, since most of his postings have become boringly repetitious. We get it, Cooper. You hate Chavez, Castro, and Ramsey Clark. (Yawn)
Maybe it would be a better use of your time and energy to simply promote your social democratic vision of change in Latin America. One might actually learn something about the need for slow and tepid incremental change that will not invite a response from the National Endowment for Democracy or the CIA.
Instead of lambasting Hugo Chavez, maybe you can make the case for Costa Rica or Mitterand’s France? I am quite sure that these countries have never done anything to anger you.
With your finely honed journalistic skills, maybe we could see a transformation of the American campuses. Che Guevara’s image will be replaced by Oscar Arias’s on t-shirts. Young people will begin reading Irving Howe rather than Noam Chomsky.
Accentuate the positive, my friend.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:38 am
” (or our resident biologist/journalism student/journalist/author/hollywood actor/law school student, who has undoubtedly allowed some of his Grecian formula to soak into his brain…stop insulting me, big guy!”
Look Cummings you’re just a dumb punk. A blind uber liberal who lives in a protected world of imaginary sources and and false cause fallacies. You’re insulting radical and happily irrellevant.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Journalism “graduate,” with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sig on it.
http://www.geocities.com/mark_y1/BA.JPG
March 26th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Marc — underpinning the essay by Rare Bear is the hidden assumption of the Left:
“Start from Zero.”
Just like the Romantics and Rousseau, the Left (or a whacking great part of it anyway) wants to start from Zero to remake society in a new image. Plato’s Republic. This is an old, old danger of the Left dating back to the French Revolution. Along with it the worship of the absolute autocrat who gets things done (see: Walter Duranty and Stalin or TE Lawrence and Ibn Saud or Fisk and bin Laden).
At it’s best it produces things like the Anti-Slavery movement in the UK in the late 1700’s; the Abolitionists, Suffragettes, the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. The dark side is of course the Temperance Movement, the Eugenics obsession of people like Sanger, and ultimately Pol Pot. That’s the worst.
Yes Rare Bear is absolutely correct, Leftists in the US tend to project onto Fidel, Che, and Chavez (all pretty loathesome guys) the idea of total destruction of society and forming something “new and improved.” No matter how many people they have to kill, artists, writers, labor leaders, whoever that gets in the way of “Great Leader.”
Ironically this was the argument used by Tim McVeigh to “justify” his mass murder and his notion that “blowing up a building can change the world.” It’s why you have Weather Underground, Black Panthers, Red Brigades, Red Army Faction, various Leftist support for Islamic terrorists dating back to the Seventies. Anyone promising violence in the name of “start from Zero” appeals directly to the naive utopian impulse to rebuild society from nothing in the image of the builder. Very narcissistic as you point out. Some small racist component on the extreme right (McVeigh), but mostly on the Left.
[If you believe Tillman was a fan of Chomsky, Charlie Sheen has a 9/11 Conspiracy for you.]
Ironically the idea of the early Left (that change has to come) has largely been embraced by the Center-Right. The difference is that the Center-Right has embraced FDR’s reform agenda rather than the Romanticism of a “state of nature” total rebuilding of society from zero by an autocrat who (kewl!) kills people. I don’t see much freedom given to the Cuban or Venezuelan people. Here in this country Russ Feingold is able to propose Censure of the President (for which Rove undoubtedly thanks him) whereas gays and poets and librarians are imprisoned in Cuba and Venezuela is as Rare Bear describes. GWB will be gone in 08. Castro and his family will rule for perhaps another 40 years in hereditary despotism.
The Left would be far more effective if it dumped it’s related “Start from Zero” and autocrat worship for an alternative to reform on the Center-Left. Principally focusing on raising incomes of poor people through reform measures. I don’t see the narcissism allowing that to happen though.
March 26th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
“Castro sends doctors to help Haiti and other desperate countries, while Venezuela contributes cheap oil to poor people in the USA. For some reason, these gestures make the “decent left†have a cow, as Bart Simpson would put it.”
If one ever wanted an example of how willfully ignorant and/or stupid the left factions who defend “Guevarism” or some such apparently are, that sentence certainly stands out as one of the more blatant.
Ahmed – since you admit to not having read the book, I’m at a loss as to how to respond to your frettings over Gitlin other than to repeat what I said the first time. Lazare is really beneath contempt for that “review” – it’s not a critique of Gitlin’s book, it’s a canned rant. Anyone who actually read the book and read that review – whatever they though of Gitlin’s argument – would be left scratching their head. As for the “identity politics” thing – you’re digging yourself an even deeper hole IMHO. We’d never agree on this…but if you can’t see the maanifest problems with the “identity politics” left, I guess I’m, again, left scratching my head at the staggering disconnect from reality.
March 26th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
“[If you believe Tillman was a fan of Chomsky, Charlie Sheen has a 9/11 Conspiracy for you.]”
Clueless again, Rockford…unless you know more about Tillman than Tillman’s mother. You’re “Charlie Sheen” in this particular scenario.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Gosh darn it, why do people have to disagree with me! I post to this blog 500 times a week at least and if that is not enough to win everybody over to reg-thought, damn your eyes I say. It is getting to the point where I am ready to scream. Just the other day, after I posted my 50th comment on this blog, people still had the gumption to disagree with me. Do I have to post 1000 times a week to make my point clear? What a bunch of assholes you are.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Gosh darn it, I’m insulted by the low level of parody.
Next time aim higher…like for the ankles.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
I hear 36 is too many reg.
March 27th, 2006 at 6:40 am
“Morty Goodman” – “it is obvious that I am dealing with somebody too unschooled in Marxist thought to have a dialogue with.”
This guy is wonderful…is he real or is somebody making him up in order to slander “marxists” ?
March 29th, 2006 at 1:19 am
After being such a fan of Marc’s writings and stumbling across this blog today, I did not think after reading 72 comments I would be the first to actually be infected with this “Che complex.” A sickness I infer to mean having the gall to stand with the Venezuelan and Cuban masses in their historic battles.
The original article is an excercise in disinformation. The only substantive charges about the supposed “authoritarianism” is imaginary. I wish we had the right to recall our President – one Chavez gave his country. Chavez has simply done what Oso Raro advises for the poor everywhere – “getting its share of that transnational pie.” The charges relating to the (Tascon) “list” have been denounced by Chavez and It is illegal to use. The courts and CNE are as they were before Chavez – and much fairer than our own appointed election overseers in State capitals. The Sumate group leader (Machado) is in trouble because she took US money then signed a decree ending democracy during the coup. Chavez’s record # of election wins are not in serious dispute. Nor is the freedom of the press or anyone to vicously attack him daily. His “shaky” democracy has brought record numbers to the polls, brought them into more decision-making processes, and has resulted in not one political prisoner.
Meanwhile the economy has been the fastest growing for 2 years, poverty is down by nearly 25% despite the damaging employer lock-outs. Chavez has wiped out illiteracy, provided access to health care, higher education, affordable food and billions in loans and programs for the poor. He has also taken the lead in the region – providing cheap oil, defeating FTAA, buying up debt, launching Telesur, inspiring others to challenge neo-liberalism.
That so many of you on this blog seem to have bought hook line and sinker the Bush Admin’ and media line on Chavez is really quite sad to me…
March 29th, 2006 at 4:55 am
Bravo leftside
“I wish we had the right to recall our President – one Chavez gave his country.”
Exactly. The only reason they had a right to recall in the first place was because Chavez put it in the new constitution (ratified by public referendum). The US doesn’t have anything that democratic.
And the notion that the referendum, or any of Chavez’ electoral victories were rigged is absurd. Nobody has produced a scratch of evidence to that effect, but it doesn’t matter. Smoke and mirrors is apparently enough if you just blow the smoke on enough blogs.
It also doesn’t matter that even opposition-aligned polling agencies have been getting results of 70 and 80 percent approval ratings for Chavez. No, he still only “won” elections. He didn’t win them.
“The depressing truth is that Chavez represents the flip side of the criminal administration we currently have here in the USA in its rapaciousness and ideological excesses”
More like the “necessary lie is”. This moral equivalence argument misses that:
Chavez hasn’t declared a right to spy on the private conversations and activities of anyone he deems fit, without any judicial review. Chavez hasn’t declared a right to invade and conquer any country he decides might become a threat to Venezuela someday. Chavez hasn’t started a war killing tens of thousands of innocent people. Chavez hasn’t declared a right to seize anyone on the globe that he sees fit and hold them without charges, without due process of any kind, and theoretically forever. Chavez is not harboring terrorists and denying legitimate requests to extradite those terrorists for trial.
Chavez is not building or expanding nuclear weapons arsenals in violation of the NPT.
And that’s hardly an exhaustive list.
But Chavez’ supposedly horrendous crimes are certainly just the “flip side” of all the above. Afterall, he “bullies the press” (I suppose since he is as critical of the press that almost uniformly disparages him and his government every day, as it is of him).
Or he “pack the courts”, which is to say that he and his allies win elections, and therefore, devilishly, appoint people they want to the court, rather than people the opposition, who lost the elections, want on the court.
“and hand over regional governments to cronies like his aged father?”
Oh my goodness. How horrible.
So the government does some bad things in Venezuela. Which doesn’t? Venezuela’s are minor compared to most, but some people love to exaggerate them.
Can we condemn abuses or bad policies by the Venezuelan government? Certainly, but that’s not what people like Marc Cooper or Oso Raro appear to want.
They want another “democratic” coup d’etat like 2002 to reimpose neoliberalism and “freedom”, and they justify this by claiming the wildly popular elected leader is a “dictator” so they can impose a dictator, and by wildly exaggerating the failings of the Chavez government, underplaying or ignoring all the positives of the Chavez government, all of which are uniformly irrelevant to understanding the situation, and even mentioning them is “rationalizations”.
The proportion is also extremely out of whack. Compare Venezuela’s rights record to its neighbors and it is better than most, if not all. Compare it to the country most of us are sitting in and it is a choir boy.
And the “Che Complex” reminds me of the old Soviet tactic of claiming all the dissidents are insane. If someone doesn’t agree with you they must have some kind of psychological “complex”.
March 29th, 2006 at 5:49 am
“Instead of lambasting Hugo Chavez, maybe you can make the case for Costa Rica or Mitterand’s France? I am quite sure that these countries have never done anything to anger you.”
Au contraire Morty.
“(journalist) Parmenio Medina came to Costa Rica in 1968, fleeing violence in Colombia. Fellow journalists are not satisfied with the official inquiry into his death, but are reluctant to carry out their own inquiries, because under the Costa Rican penal code, they could be charged with defamation if they report anything considered to fall foul of the country’s “crimes against honour law”. **Under this law anyone who libels, slanders, defames, or reproduces offensive statements against anyone, even public officials can be fined or imprisoned. In a poll last year, 56% of the journalists interviewed said they had been threatened by public officials who took exception to their reporting. Seven had received physical threats and 37% said they had been threatened with charges of libel, slander and defamation.**(emphasis added)
Since Medina’s shooting there have been a number of arrests of common criminals suspected of being the actual triggermen. However, as the second anniversary of the crime approaches, Costa Rican organisations are again planning street protests, to express widespread concern that the investigation to determine who put out the contract on Medina’s life is going nowhere, reportedly because those involved are too powerful to touch.”
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR240012003?open&of=ENG-CRI
You see, Costa Rica’s strongmen are “bullying the press” with “legislation that seriously threatens press freedoms and freedom of expression.” With majorities of journalists feeling personally threatend by the authoritarian bullying.
Furthermore, there’s no room for any “mealy-mouthedness” or “rationalizations” for Costa Rica’s press laws, under which “anyone who libels, slanders, defames, or reproduces offensive statements” about the rulers there can be thrown in jail.
You see, for libel, slander and defamation laws to cover what’s said about state officials or government employees. State officials “have the guns” while the press only “has the cameras”, so therefore the press should be perfectly free to libel and slander any elected officials or persons who work for the government, and if any of the targets of these complain they are a “bully” attacking “freedom of expression” and engaging in political persecution.
Costa Rica is clearly run by a power-mad dictator out to squelch freedom of expression, and protect the impunity of those who are “too powerful to touch”.
Far from “making a case” for it, Mr. Cooper knows that “it takes more than voting to make a democracy”, and would denounce Costa Rica as the dictatorship it is, unless of course he comes down with some kind of “complex” and starts “worshipping” it due to the psychological syndrome.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:03 am
This comment thread has been interesting to me, as much for the dialogue as for the theorization over my motives for writing my entry. And thanks to Marc for his kind appreciation of my entry. I am coming to this thread a little late, but by way of explanation, not apologia, let me say just a couple of things.
Firstly, I am not an operative nor a minsinformant (or if I am, I certainly don’t know it, and wish I did, cause then I could at least get paid for it). I am an assistant professor struggling with all the things assistant professors struggle with in anti-intellectual societies such as our own: low wages, disinterested students, the rigours and banality of institutional life. I am in love with a Venezuelan, and from being involved in this relationship I have been pushed to learn most of what I know about Venezuela, which also stems from my own interest in Latin American politics as well as a concern for the patria of my partner and his family, who live in Venezuela. So, like all intellectual projects, this one has a certain resonance within the personal. That doesn’t make it invalid, mind you, but perhaps helps to locate it. Oh, and also, my partner could by no means be described as a “squalid one,” just in case you think he is a Venezuelan millionaire. He works for a wage, like I do. We work, we think. We’re hardly extraordinary, except perhaps for the fact that we have a tactile relationship with quotidian life in Venezuela, and therefore it’s harder for us to participate in the love-fest from afar that many in Europe and North America have for Chavez and his policies.
I am a US Latina/o and I am fully aware of the complications of the contemporary Left as well as the racial politics of US attitudes towards Latin America (and Latinas/os in the USA, which is not necessarily the same thing). I am also familiar with all sides of the Chavez debate. I consider myself a part of the Left, for what that’s worth, given the Left’s continued reliance on the concept of false consciousness to undermine its argumentative opponenets. To paraphrase Lora Romero, I may be wrong thinking, but I am not *unthinking*.
I wanted to spur some discussion on the *reception* of Chavez in the West, a certain criticism of the cartoonish politics of the representation of resistance on the Left and Right, triggered by an exhaustion with the refusal of the Left, in the face of its contemporary trauma here in the USA, to engage in *thinking* about Chavez as an epiphenomenon, and the piece seems to have done this. No blog entry can capture the immense complexity of such a topic, and my entry does not seek to do this. There is, in fact, a lot more to be said as regards Chavez, which is happening here and in other places and no doubt will continue to happen. Rather, I use my blog as a milieu for intellectual thinking that is separate from my formal academic work and distinctly colloquial, of which the piece on Chavez was only a part.
While I obviously don’t agree with everything that has been said here and in other places, of of the comments are engaged in debate, and I am glad to have sparked a discussion which, hopefully, has then triggered other modes of thinking, whether in resistance or agreement.
On a final note, the Pet Shop Boys are indeed my favourite band (in fact, their new album came out yesterday in the UK) and Stuart Hall, who is one of my intellectual heroes, is not dead. My reference to his works speaks not only to my own intellectual training, but the refusal to take his arguments seriously: in short, politics is hard work, and we must leave the house the simple binary if we wish to effectively counter the rise of the Right.
By way of continuing the conversation, I would urge you, as some have before, of looking at Alma Guillermoprieto’s writing on Venezuela, especially her two-part series in the New York Review of Books last October, which I found interesting:
“Don’t Cry For Me, Venezuela”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18302
“The Gambler”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18355
Best, Oso
March 29th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
David Cummings Said:
March 25th, 2006 at 11:58 am
“BTW, I forgot to ask something: Can anyone name five (5) prominent (and I mean prominent) “left†(I will give you some leeway there, I suppose) intellectuals who, in the words of “Rare Bear,†absolutely “fetish†either Hugo Chavez or Che Guevera? Because I certainly can’t.”
OK…The list (careful…Chavez loves lists):
1- Michael Hardt
2- Antonio Negri
3- Noam Chomsky
4- Howard Zinn
5- Is Michael Moore an intellectual?
March 31st, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Interesting conversation here. Marc’s coverage of Venezuela reminds me of Klarreich’s coverage of Haiti. Both provide a one sided narrative, a far cry from The Nation’s founding prospectus, which promised, “to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by, which, so much of the political writing of the day is marred.â€
One reader recently wrote to The Nation , “Like the U.S. government and corporate press, author Kathie Klarreich describes ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as ‘the most polarizing figure in Haiti’s recent political arena,’ with no indication of how small a number of wealthy U.S. and Haitian elites dominate the relentless hateful opposition to Aristide and his Lavalas Party.†Klarreich time-and-time again provides no mention of the embargo, the foreign funding of the elite opposition, or the elite backed paramilitaries who ran a low intensity conflict against the government for nearly three years – assassinating mayors, police, and civilians alike.
Another interesting similarity is the reliance on sources from politically tinged aid agencies such as the NED and USAID OTI. I see from Justin Delacour’s article “Marc Cooper’s Venezuela” that Marc Cooper’s coverage of Venezuela has provided little in the way of documented evidence, while relying on Alexander Boyd (!?!) for an impartial view.
I would argue that Klarreich and Cooper, for the most part, like numerous other U.S. journalists writing on the countries to our geographic south have fallen into a position of downplaying the human rights abuses of U.S. allies, while exaggerating the abuses of official enemies.
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