tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28305181355892505952024-03-18T11:39:31.873-07:00Steve Ellner's Blog on Venezuela, Latin America and BeyondThe centralization of ownership of the private media in the United States and elsewhere has become increasingly pronounced, at the same time that its reporting has become increasingly one-sided and monolithic. My blog seeks to expose this lack of objectivity and present alternative ideas that point in the direction of much-needed fundamental change.Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.comBlogger421125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-44405912500915153742024-03-18T11:31:00.000-07:002024-03-18T11:38:59.669-07:00Las Elecciones Presidenciales Venezolanas Pautadas para el 28 de julio<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh14CwFTqERBvCD7GYw102_3pR3BnMDI2Y353COWRdmn1oA0gKInU_YReShAapb6i-qpjmq41p67YyQZp4vBtAPH_dXQoIRXdyfDhW7-55TpzmDBUrk48DMSw1gHynsXZFASmppqRvgsaf44YNYrWvkJkvbtU_9NY5LUIlW96kwimJZHjrOaGcrGqNt8Lw/s1000/Maduro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="786" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh14CwFTqERBvCD7GYw102_3pR3BnMDI2Y353COWRdmn1oA0gKInU_YReShAapb6i-qpjmq41p67YyQZp4vBtAPH_dXQoIRXdyfDhW7-55TpzmDBUrk48DMSw1gHynsXZFASmppqRvgsaf44YNYrWvkJkvbtU_9NY5LUIlW96kwimJZHjrOaGcrGqNt8Lw/w315-h400/Maduro.jpg" width="315" /></a></div><br /> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nadie puede negar que
Maduro es políticamente astuto. En caso contrario no hubiera sobrevivido la
campaña sin cuartel contra su gobierno - ni por un mes. </span><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Elecciones en
Venezuela: Maduro y Machado van con todo<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Por Steve Ellner<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Publicado en <i>NACLA:
Report on the Americas</i>, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Edición de la primavera
de 2024<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">No es un secreto que
Washington está tan enamorado de la candidata presidencial María Corina
Machado, como ella está de Washington. Como ejemplo, el día después que el
gobierno de Biden parcialmente levantó las sanciones contra Venezuela el pasado
octubre, el Secretario de Estado Antony Blinken advirtió que la medida sería
revocada si para el 30 de noviembre el Presidente Nicolás Maduro no habilitaba
a Machado para participar en las elecciones presidenciales. La amenaza no se
cumplió por el anuncio de que Machado podría apelar a la medida de prohibición ante
el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ). Machado rechazó la oferta de ir al TSJ,
pero subsecuentemente cambió de parecer. Después de que el TSJ confirmó la
inhabilitación en enero, EEUU empezó a reimponer las sanciones. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Las elecciones
presidenciales están programadas para el 28 de julio y Maduro indudablemente va
a lanzarse como candidato. Machado, quien llama a Maduro un “narco dictador” y
dice que </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://elpitazo.net/politica/maria-corina-machado-a-maduro-te-quiero-vivo-para-que-enfrentes-a-la-justicia/"><span lang="ES">lo quiere vivo</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> para poder enviarlo a la cárcel, fue elegida en
elecciones internas de la oposición para ser la candidata de los principales partidos
de la oposición. En las primarias realizadas en octubre, ella supuestamente
sacó 92.5% del voto, aunque la validez de esa cifra fue cuestionada por el
candidato que llegó en segundo lugar, Carlos Prosperi. La candidatura de
Machado, conjuntamente con el anuncio que confirma su inhabilitación, presagia graves
problemas para un país que ha sido castigado por la violencia política durante
las últimas dos décadas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Los medios
corporativos y los analistas pro-sistema limitan sus pronósticos electorales a
dos escenarios: O Maduro pierde o hay fraude electoral. Para algunos,
independientemente de los resultados, se espera la tracalería electoral. Geoff
Ramsey del Atlantic Council comentó al New York Times: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/americas/venezuela-presidential-election-vote.html"><span lang="ES">No creo</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> que la comunidad internacional tenga ilusiones de que
esas elecciones van a ser libres”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Estas predicciones pasan
por alto varios factores que ponen a la oposición en desventaja. El partido
gobernante, el Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), es un partido bien
organizado y disciplinado, a diferencia del partido de Machado, “Vente
Venezuela”, que carece de una estructura sólida. Más importante que eso, las
divisiones y animosidades mutuas dentro de la oposición y la desconfianza de
los venezolanos hacia los políticos en general pueden traducirse en abstención
masiva en julio. Finalmente, los seguidores de Machado y los venezolanos en
general se oponen mucho a lo que ella representa, particularmente su apoyo tenaz
al neoliberalismo estilo radical. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Luis Vicente León, el
encuestador más prominente de la oposición, reportó inmediatamente después de
las primarias que cerca de </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuYoIx1iEo0"><span lang="ES">70%</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> de los que votaron para Machado se oponen a su posición
de rechazar negociaciones con el gobierno y su apoyo a las sanciones
internacionales contra Venezuela. En las palabras de León, el apoyo a Machado
es básicamente “emotivo.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Machado, el
“Outsider” <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">En diciembre de 2021,
el partido Vente Venezuela rompió con Juan Guaidó. “Es tiempo [para la
oposición] de constituir una nueva dirección.” Machado alegó que al gobierno
paralelo de Guaidó, “le faltaba transparencia” y estaba desconectado del pueblo
y de Estados Unidos, y generó “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/agencias/2021/12/27/el-partido-de-maria-corina-machado-cree-que-la-ruta-de-guaido-se-agoto/"><span lang="ES">indignación</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Con esas palabras
duras, los seguidores de Machado y algunos analistas empezaron a pintarla como
una especie de lobo solitario. <i>El País</i> la llamó “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-01/maria-corina-machado-the-venezuelan-margaret-thatcher.html"><span lang="ES">una política aislada</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">” y agregó que ella está “férreamente en contra del
sector moderado de la oposición, a quien ella durante mucho tiempo acusó de
hacer el juego al gobierno”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Sin embargo, Machado
está muy lejos de ser un outsider. Desde el referendo revocatorio de 2004
cuando gritó fraude electoral contra Hugo Chávez, Machado ha apoyado firmemente
todos los esfuerzos para lograr el “cambio del régimen”, que en cada caso ha
terminado en un fiasco rotundo. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">En un encuentro poco
probable para un “outsider”, Machado, en representación de la ONG Súmate, financiada
por el National Endowment for Democracy – un brazo del gobierno estadounidense
– se reunió con el Presidente George W. Bush en la Casa Blanca en 2005. En
2014, Machado estaba </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Llamado-asambleas-de-calle-019.jpg"><span lang="ES">en la tarima</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> al lado del exaltado líder Leopoldo López cuando inició
las protestas de 4 meses con fines insurreccionales, conocidas como “la
guarimba”. Lo más significativo fue el respaldo que Machado recibió solamente
10 días antes de las primarias de octubre de parte de Voluntad Popular, partido
de López, el cual al mismo tiempo retiró su propio candidato de esas
contiendas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Machado está lejos de
ser una “política aislada”. Ella está en el mismo campo ultra-derechista de Voluntad
Popular, que también es el partido de Guaidó, quien ahora en Venezuela no es nada
menos que un paria.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El cambio de marca de
Machado con el fin de llegar a ser una política anti-política tiene sentido. La
encuestadora Datincorp reportó que </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.bancaynegocios.com/datincorp-63-de-los-venezolanos-considera-que-el-presidente-ideal-no-debe-ser-chavista-ni-opositor/"><span lang="ES">63% de los encuestados</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> creen que el candidato ideal para 2024 sería un
independiente – tanto del Chavismo como la oposición. En sentido similar, el
encuestador Oscar Schemel señaló que “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANrBTU8Sjn0"><span lang="ES">el peligro más</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> grande para el Chavismo viene de un outsider”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La candidatura
derechista de Machado forma parte de una tendencia en la región. En los años
90, los candidatos neoliberales como Alberto Fujimori, a sabiendas que el
neoliberalismo no ganaría las elecciones, escondió sus intenciones y siguió una
estrategia de “cebo y cambio”. Pero durante la última década, con la
polarización intensiva en la política latinoamericana, los líderes derechistas
pro-norteamericanos han sobrepasado a los centristas para enfrentar a los
gobiernos progresistas. Ejemplos incluyen Jair Bolsonaro y Javier Milei. Ahora
los candidatos derechistas están más abiertos acerca de sus planes para un
sacudón radical del estado de bienestar. Sin embargo, muchos ultra-derechistas
apoyan algunas propuestas populistas con el fin de desviar atención de las
medidas impopulares que ellos abogan. Rafael Uzcátegui, coordinador general de la
ONG PROVEA, apuntó a una estrategia de ese tipo al decir a <i>El Tiempo</i> de
Venezuela que el papel de Machado como una candidata de consenso requiere un
proceso de “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://eltiempove.com/liderazgo-de-maria-corina-machado-abrio-la-puerta-a-un-cambio-politico-cuyas-consecuencias-aun-estan-por-determinarse-advierten-analistas/"><span lang="ES">invención</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> y construcción”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Sin embargo, Machado
es una extremista en muchos aspectos. Ella y sus asesores ven a la
privatización masiva </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ZLBcU6F2rug"><span lang="ES">como un vehículo</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> para la recuperación económica. Su propuesta de crear
una Agencia de Energía y Petróleo representa un retroceso a los años iniciales
de la industria petrolera venezolana de los años 20. Su sistema de vales
escolares y la eliminación de la igualdad para el sistema de seguro social
forman parte de lo que ella llama “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/maria-corina-machado-candidata-venezuela-125403413/106147.html"><span lang="ES">el capitalismo popular</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">”, un término usado por Margaret Thatcher y Augusto
Pinochet. Su asesor principal en el campo de educación promete que va a
garantizar que todos los venezolanos sean bilingües en inglés. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Aún más extrema es la
estrategia de Machado de llegar al poder a través del enfrentamiento. La
historia de 25 años del gobierno chavista está llena de llamados en favor a la
desobediencia civil con el fin de lograr el “cambio del régimen”, resultando en
choques callejeros y violencia. La insistencia de Machado de que las
movilizaciones populares combinadas con la presión proveniente de los poderes
extranjeros van a convencer a Maduro a echarse atrás y habilitarla, parece un
récipe para la violencia. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">En un ejemplo notorio
de ese tipo de maniobra, el líder de Vente Venezuela y ex-alcalde de Caracas
Antonio Ledezma declaró el año pasado que la única manera de inscribir a
Machado como candidata es a través de la “desobediencia civil”. También se pronunció
en favor de hablar con los militares, a lo que él alegó era perfectamente
“normal” en una democracia y no representaba ninguna conspiración contra el
gobierno. Ledezma invocó el Artículo 350 de la constitución, que en otras
ocasiones había sido interpretado por los líderes de las guarimbas para
justificar el derecho de rebelión. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Henry Ramos Allup,
secretario general de Acción Democrática, que es el partido históricamente más
grande en Venezuela, calificó esas afirmaciones como “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://noticialdia.com/al-dia/ramos-allup-cuestiono-declaraciones-de-ledezma-si-es-verdad-que-estas-conspirando-con-militares-como-lo-vas-a-decir/"><span lang="ES">ridículas</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La estrategia de
llegar al poder a través de la confrontación y desórdenes crea las condiciones
para la represión, que muchas veces acompaña la implementación de las fórmulas
radicales de neoliberalismo que Machado apoya (recuerda Pinochet). La misma
dinámica se observó en el golpe de estado contra Chávez en abril de 2002, como
el editor de NACLA en ese entonces, el recién fallecido Fred Rosen, y yo
notamos poco después. Escribimos que el líder del golpe Pedro Carmona y sus
aliados trataron de lograr un “rompimiento completo con el pasado populista…
Ellos se alzaron no en favor de la democracia – como podría haber alegado, con quizás
cierta credibilidad, algunos de los populistas anti-Chavistas – sino en favor
de los intereses de clases” representados por Carmona. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El lado político de
la estrategia de Maduro<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Los resultados de las
elecciones presidenciales tendrán mucho que ver con las adversidades económicas
venezolanas, pero también van a tener que ver con la debilidad de la oposición,
que Maduro ha hecho mucho para profundizar. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La oposición ha
tratado de remover a Maduro por diversas maneras, como hizo con Chávez en sus
primeros años como presidente. Con cada esfuerzo – como en 2015 cuando la
oposición ganó control de la Asamblea Nacional – los líderes anunciaron la
inminente salida de Maduro. Ahora Machado, Guaidó y otros líderes
anti-Chavistas reconocen su propia “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://actualidad.rt.com/opinion/ociel-ali-lopez/480085-corina-machado-experimento-estilo-guaido"><span lang="ES">ingenuidad</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">” (palabra de Guaidó) y el poder de permanencia del
presidente. Ellos atribuyen la supervivencia política de Maduro a su
comportamiento despiadado y anti-democrático. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">En contraste, algunos
izquierdistas alaban la habilidad de Maduro de aguantar y responder efectivamente
a todas las maquinaciones de desestabilizaciones. El veterano de la izquierda
Eligio Damas, autor de más de 3,000 artículos en Aporrea.org, me dijo: “Los
críticos izquierdistas de Maduro no toman en cuenta que Chávez por la mayor
parte de su presidencia no tenía desafíos tan apremiantes como tiene Maduro,
tanto en el frente político como económico. Maduro es políticamente astuto; en
caso contrario no hubiera durado tanto tiempo en el poder.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">No cabe duda de que
Maduro ha demostrado ser un estratega formidable. Ha tomado varias decisiones
importantes que desataron controversias, pero terminaron como golpes maestros.
En 2017, Maduro convocó a elecciones para una asamblea constituyente, que según
la oposición tenía que ser ratificada primero en un referéndum nacional. Maduro
negó proceder en esa forma, pero su llamada a elecciones fue un éxito rotundo.
Puso fin abruptamente a los 4 meses de guarimba cuya única meta era sacar a
Maduro del poder. La Asamblea inmediatamente programó elecciones
gubernamentales y los partidos de la oposición optaron por participar en vez de
seguir con las guarimbas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Había argumentos
legales sólidos en favor y en contra de la llamada de Maduro para la Asamblea
Constituyente. Sin embargo, una segunda maniobra del chavismo fue menos
convincente desde el punto de vista constitucional, pero fue igualmente
efectiva en combatir los esfuerzos de una oposición insurgente en lograr el
“cambio del régimen” por cualquier medio posible. En 2020 el Tribunal Supremo
de Justicia (TSJ) reconoció un grupo de disidentes de Acción Democrática,
Primero Justicia y Voluntad Popular como los representantes legítimos de sus respetivos
partidos. Con el apoyo de los diputados chavistas, que se abstuvieron en exigir
posiciones principales, la nueva dirigencia de esos partidos obtuvo los 84
votos necesarios para reemplazar a Guaidó como presidente de la Asamblea
Nacional. Luego los seguidores de Guaidó formaron lo que llegó a ser una
asamblea nacional paralela virtual, pero su insistencia de que él era el
presidente provisional de Venezuela – que restaba en su condición de ser
presidente de la Asamblea Nacional – perdió toda credibilidad. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Innegablemente, la
decisión del TSJ careció de argumentos convincentes constitucionales. La
Academia de Ciencias Políticas denunció la “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.acienpol.org.ve/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Estudios-sobre-la-ilegitimidad-e-inconstitucionalidad-de-las-elecciones-parlamentarias-2020.pdf"><span lang="ES">ilegalización</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> e intervención de los partidos principales de la
oposición” por ser un atropello a los derechos legales de los partidos
políticos. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Una tercera jugada,
igualmente polémica, que desde el comienzo dividió a la oposición, fue la
decisión tomada por el Contralor Nacional chavista, Elvis Amoroso, en junio del
año pasado. Amoroso inhabilitó a Machado, en base, entre otros motivos, a su
apoyo a las sanciones contra Venezuela. Amoroso me dijo: “El apoyo de Machado a
una invasión norteamericana la hace culpable de traición a la patria, pero la
contraloría es un cuerpo administrativo que podría referirse a eso solamente
indirectamente”. Agregó que el cargo de traición va a los tribunales. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Los dos partidos más
grandes de la oposición, AD y Primero Justicia, entre otros, reaccionaron a la
decisión de la contraloría proponiendo una estrategia de adherirse a las reglas
del juego definidas por el gobierno, y evitar posiciones divisivas, una
política que fue un éxito rotundo en las elecciones para la Asamblea Nacional
en 2015. Por el contrario, Machado se negó a renunciar a sus aspiraciones
presidenciales y otras posiciones polémicas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El reconocimiento por
parte del Estado a los partidos AD, Primero Justicia y Voluntad Popular
dirigidos por los disidentes también intensificó las divisiones en la
oposición. Los dirigentes anti-chavistas de la línea dura llamaron a los
disidentes “alacranes”, un término chocante que sigue agriando las relaciones
entre los dos bloques e impidiendo el entendimiento. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Luis Parra, un
disidente de Primero Justicia que llegó a ser presidente de la Asamblea
Nacional por un año en 2020, afirmó tres años después: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.globovision.com/nacional/2687/luis-parra-nosotros-asumimos-el-reto-de-pensar-primero-en-venezuela"><span lang="ES">El tiempo</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> ha demostrado que teníamos la razón”. Durante ese lapso
de tiempo, la mayoría de los líderes de la oposición terminaron cambiando su
postura, abandonando las posiciones que los disidentes habían criticado, en particular
el llamado a la abstención electoral y la imposición de sanciones
internacionales a Venezuela.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Las posiciones de los
disidentes están más alejadas de las políticas de Machado, que de las políticas
de Maduro, tanto así que llegan a calificar al partido de Machado de
“ultraderecha”. El partido AD de los disidentes, dirigido por el veterano
dirigente José Bernabé Gutiérrez y con candidato presidencial propio, alega que
la mayoría de los líderes de la derecha radical “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.globovision.com/nacional/10494/bernabe-gutierrez-pidio-estar-ojo-pelao-ante-las-intenciones-de-la-ultraderecha-de-crear-caos-y"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">está operando</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #212529; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> desde la comodidad de un
autoexilio dorado”. Acusa a Machado y los otros miembros de la derecha radical de
promover el abstencionismo, conducir al “caos total”, y proporcionar una “excusa
perfecta para el fracasado gobierno de Nicolás Maduro". En 2020,
Washington incluyó a Gutiérrez y a otros disidentes en la lista de sancionados
por haber “debilitado a la democracia venezolana”.</span><b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #212529; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #212529; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El frente económico<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #212529; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Las reformas económicas de Maduro que favorecen al sector privado están
alineadas con su estrategia de neutralizar y dividir a los sectores de la
oposición. Francisco Rodríguez, asesor económico del principal contrincante
contra Maduro en las elecciones presidenciales de 2018, me dijo en Washington
que después de esas elecciones “Maduro empezó a abandonar su anterior enfoque
antagónico hacia los empresarios, un cambio que ayudó a atraer algunos
dirigentes de la oposición a la idea del diálogo”. </span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El asesor económico y
diputado nacional Jesús Faría ofreció un argumento de peso para abandonar la
política de aumento salarial constante, siempre devorado por la inflación.
Faría advirtió que “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.ghm.com.ve/farias-para-incrementar-salarios-hay-que-fortalecer-la-produccion/"><span lang="ES">para incrementar</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> salarios hay que fortalecer la producción”. El
levantamiento de las sanciones impuestas por EEUU contra el petróleo venezolano
jugaría un papel importante en este sentido. El Partido Comunista de Venezuela
(PCV) – del cual el padre de Faría fue un líder histórico y también un
dirigente sindical – ha denunciado “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://primicia.com.ve/politica/pcv-se-reunio-con-obreros/"><span lang="ES">la pulverización</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> de sueldos y salarios” en el país. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Como parte de su
estrategia económica, el gobierno de Maduro ha abierto al país al capital
extranjero, particularmente en las “Zonas Económicas Especiales” (ZEEs), donde se
suavizan los requerimientos legales con el fin de atraer las inversiones. Mientras
que el PCV y otros grupos de la izquierda alegan que el gobierno ha abrazado el
neoliberalismo, Maduro y sus asesores afirman que la mayor parte del capital
privado procederá de China y otros países miembros del BRICS </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://redangostura.org.ve/archivos/14461"><span lang="ES">en lugar de EEUU</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Para Machado, la idea
de las ZEEs se origina del “modelo totalitario chino”. Por su parte, el
entonces líder de Vente Venezuela y diputado nacional, Luis Barragán, dijo a la
agencia noticiosa EFE que las ZEEs representan “una herramienta rudimentaria utilizada
por los criminales mafiosos para la explotación de los recursos
estratégicos”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Durante su viaje a
China en septiembre del año pasado, Maduro visitó una de las ZEEs más conocidas
y firmó un acuerdo para establecer vínculos entre las ZEEs de ambos países. Al
mismo tiempo, pidió al gobierno chino que apoyara la solicitud de Venezuela de
ingresar en el BRICS, alabando la alianza por acelerar “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.france24.com/es/minuto-a-minuto/20230910-maduro-busca-apoyo-de-china-para-el-acceso-de-venezuela-a-los-brics"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">la desdolarización</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> del mundo”. Durante la
visita, Venezuela recibió la exclusiva distinción de “Asociación Estratégica a
Toda Prueba y Todo Tiempo” – un honor nunca antes concedido a un país
latinoamericano. Maduro elogió las reformas post-Mao de China que algunos de la
izquierda consideran como un retroceso para el socialismo, al decir: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://rpp.pe/mundo/actualidad/modelo-chino-en-venezuela-chavismo-anuncia-creacion-de-zonas-especiales-para-la-atraccion-de-inversiones-noticia-1419609"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Las experiencias</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> de China durante 40 años…
nos han servido de inspiración”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Maduro no es el único de su círculo que encuentra inspiración en el modelo
económico chino. De hecho, antes de ingresar al campo chavista en los años 90,
Maduro perteneció a la Liga Socialista pro-China. A pesar de su disolución tras
la llegada de Chávez al poder, muchos de sus dirigentes ocuparon un número
desproporcionado de puestos dentro del movimiento chavista. El último
secretario general de la Liga el ex–guerrillero Fernando </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/603342181/ESCRITOS-DE-AYER-Y-HOY-FERNANDO-SOTO-ROJAS-pdf"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Soto Rojas</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> (quien Maduro ve con
mucha reverencia) ve con buenos ojos a Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, y Xi Jinping,
a pesar de las diferencias patentes entre ellos. Soto Rojas niega que China
pueda ser clasificada como un país capitalista. Quizás la expresión máxima del
modelo chino es el uso del término “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DYCTRePl6g"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">burguesía revolucionaria</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">” (un concepto usado por
Lenin, Stalin y Mao) por parte del Ministro de Agricultura Wilmar Castro
Soteldo, quien participó en la intentona de Chávez de 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Al fomentar relaciones amistosas con el sector privado, los antiguos
adversarios se han neutralizado. FEDECAMARAS</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">, l<span style="background: white; color: #32383d;">a
organización empresarial principal en el país </span>que dirigió dos intentos
fallidos de derrocar a Chávez en 2002-2003, <span style="background: white; color: #32383d;">se opone ahora firmemente a las sanciones norteamericanas,
cuyo impacto ha afectado a los empresarios – según FEDECAMARAS – en un </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/fedecamaras-vuelve-reconocer-el-impacto-negativo-del-bloqueo"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">17.5%</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">. El ex–presidente de
FEDECAMARAS Ricardo Cusanno ha lamentado que los empresarios enfrentan
dificultades hasta con abrir una cuenta bancaria en el extranjero por el simple
hecho de ser venezolano.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #32383d; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El lado negativo<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La estrategia de
Maduro de otorgar concesiones al sector privado, con la intención de lograr la
estabilidad y debilitar la oposición “desleal”, ha tenido resultados mixtos. Aunque
la hiperinflación de 2,300% en 2020 ha remitido, todavía se registraron tasas
de inflación del 234% y 190% en 2022 y 2023 respectivamente. Por otro lado, ya
no se producen las interminables colas en los supermercados ni escasez de
productos de primera necesidad. Además, la ONG el Observatorio Venezolano de
Violencia ha constatado un descenso significativo en la tasa de muertes
violentas en 2023, el más bajo en dos décadas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La campaña
anti-corrupción también ha tenido resultados mixtos. En 2023 el Fiscal General
chavista Tarek William Saab lanzó una campaña contra la corrupción centrada en
la industria petrolera que resultó en órdenes de arresto de 61 supervisores,
empresarios y funcionarios estatales y en la confiscación de activos. Las
cabecillas principales eran Rafael Ramírez y Tareck El Aissami. Ramírez,
conocido como el “Zar de PDVSA”, consolidó su control de la compañía y lo microgestionó
al aliarse con ex–miembros de los partidos conservadores AD y COPEI. Ramírez
perteneció al círculo cerrado de Chávez y El Aissami al círculo de Maduro;
ambos militaron en la izquierda durante muchos años y nacieron de familias
izquierdistas. Por eso, el problema de la corrupción no podría ser atribuido a
una quinta columna al servicio de la oposición. Estos episodios requieren
discusión a fondo y autocrítica.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La raíz del problema
de PDVSA, como es el caso en la administración p</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU-ExtB;">ú</span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">blica en general, es la ausencia de controles institucionales.
Un ejemplo de esta falla es el hecho de que, durante 10 años, Ramírez ocupaba
la presidencia de PDVSA y a la vez la posición de Ministro de Petróleo, cuya
función es vigilar la empresa. El actual presidente de PDVSA Pedro Rafael
Tellechea también ejerce como Ministro de Petróleo. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El gobierno de Maduro
se enfrenta a críticas por utilizar una táctica que empleó anteriormente para dividir
la oposición, esta vez contra el PCV, el partido más antiguo en Venezuela conocido
por su sacrificio y heroísmo. El año pasado el TSJ reconoció siete aliados del
gobierno como líderes máximos del PCV, pero solamente dos de ellos eran miembros
de ese partido. El gobierno justificó la medida alegando que el PCV no había
convocado elecciones internas para renovar su dirigencia.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Luigino Bracci, quien
apoya críticamente a Maduro, se refirió a la decisión del TSJ al decir al <i>Orinoco
Tribune</i> que los líderes chavistas no quieren que “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/luigino-bracci-sometimes-you-wonder-if-some-psuv-members-are-playing-for-the-same-team-as-chavismo-interview/"><span lang="ES">los votos</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> izquierdistas se fragmenten o que sean dispersados entre
varios partidos pequeños en las próximas elecciones”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Otro punto negativo
para el gobierno que pueda tener repercusiones negativas para los Chavistas en
las elecciones en julio es la erosión de las conquistas históricas laborales
como las prestaciones sociales y la negociación colectiva. Rodolfo Magallanes,
profesor de ciencias políticas en la Universidad Central de Venezuela, me dijo:
“Una vez que estos beneficios sean eliminados, será difícil reinstalarlos”. La
dolarización de la economía es otra preocupación. En la actualidad los precios
de las mercancías están identificados en dólares, una práctica que ahora es
completamente legal. Aunque esa medida ayudó a combatir la hiperinflación, también
ha erosionado la aceptación general del bolívar.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La intervención
norteamericana en nombre de la democracia<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Independientemente de
cómo lo veas, el intervencionismo norteamericano ha minado la democracia
venezolana. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El gobernador del
estado Anzoátegui, Luis Marcano, me dijo que no hay manera de que las
elecciones presidenciales de 2024 sean democráticas. “El votante va a sentir
que hay una pistola apuntada a su cabeza. Vota por Maduro y mantienen las
sanciones.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La política hace
Venezuela implementada por Washington contradice de muchas maneras sus
objetivos declarados. Desde los primeros años de Chávez, Washington ha
favorecido, no tanto a la oposición como tal, sino a su ala derechista. El
favorito de EEUU ha ido de López a Guaidó y ahora a Machado. Los dos primeros
están desacreditados. Machado según todas las encuestas, goza de considerable
popularidad entre las bases de la oposición, pero su programa para Venezuela,
su estrategia de enfrentamiento y su discurso abiertamente pro-norteamericano
no son populares. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Según el encuestador
Luis Vicente León la oferta de EEUU de una recompensa de 15 millones de dólares
por la captura de Maduro y la retórica de Machado que “si Maduro pierde, él, su
esposa, su hijo y todos a su alrededor van presos” hacen poco probable que él renuncié
del poder fácilmente. Bajo esas circunstancias “¿</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuYoIx1iEo0"><span lang="ES">se metería usted</span></a></span><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> en el ring?” León agrega que la única manera de resolver
este predicamento es a través de las negociaciones, una vía que Machado
tajantemente rechaza. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">En general, las
elecciones suelen proporcionar una solución pacífica a los conflictos, aunque
sea de manera temporal. Parece poco probable que las elecciones de julio en
Venezuela legren ese objetivo.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="ES" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Traducido con la
ayuda de Carmen Sánchez de Ellner y Michelle Ellner<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Steve Ellner es
profesor jubilado de la Universidad de Oriente en Venezuela y actualmente es Editor
Asociado de la revista </span></strong><em><b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Latin American Perspectives</span></b></em><strong><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">. Es autor de </span></strong><em><b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El fenómeno Chávez: sus orígenes y su impacto</span></b></em><strong><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> (2014). </span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sus
últimos libros son </span></strong><em><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Latin American Extractivism:
Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective (</span></b></em><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">editado, </span></strong><em><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2021);</span></b></em><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> y </span></strong><em><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Latin
American Social Movements and Progressive Governments: Creative Tensions
between Resistance and Convergence </span></b></em><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(co-editado,
2022).</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><a href="https://rebelion.org/elecciones-en-venezuela-maduro-y-machado-van-con-todo/">https://rebelion.org/elecciones-en-venezuela-maduro-y-machado-van-con-todo/</a><br /></span></strong></p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span><p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-19051757979438950652024-02-21T15:50:00.000-08:002024-02-21T15:50:29.050-08:00True to Form, the Corporate Media Smears Tucker Carlson’s Interview with Putin<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS-aCQbZFFtD6p0jJKzdHLIlUN4rdn1_HTviYGek8hjEJH0hB290ECw_eWdyf2tZHVJHT6ORxvDdqy3DsUHYrvHZfo0A2qZaslBjiElbDAXPRlmhz1BmmTGB5gHYgDu9KPmPMOwqRELM1Sd_47xFuF6VaBMssHZZ2LrZcJKpK7segIe7mL1uYpo8hVld0/s1576/Putin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1062" data-original-width="1576" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS-aCQbZFFtD6p0jJKzdHLIlUN4rdn1_HTviYGek8hjEJH0hB290ECw_eWdyf2tZHVJHT6ORxvDdqy3DsUHYrvHZfo0A2qZaslBjiElbDAXPRlmhz1BmmTGB5gHYgDu9KPmPMOwqRELM1Sd_47xFuF6VaBMssHZZ2LrZcJKpK7segIe7mL1uYpo8hVld0/w400-h270/Putin.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The reaction of
the corporate media and pundits to Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin is predictable.
They all bash Carlson – in Europe they are threatening Carlson with judicial
hearings – and claim that Putin seized the opportunity to deceive and threaten
the West. One simply asks the question, don’t we have the right to hear the
other side of the story? I listened to the interview the other night (I
accessed it by chance) and was impressed by the seriousness of Putin’s
arguments and his thorough command of the subject matter regarding Ukraine,
Russian history and foreign policy in general. You don’t have to be an admirer
of Putin (I’m not) to recognize that he towers way over Biden, Trump, Pence and
Kamala Harris. The corporate media can’t let people listen to the interview
with an open mind because many will end up questioning the media’s demonization
of Putin, as well as their objectivity, not to say professional ethics.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> </div><p><br /> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-82548352598804594442024-02-13T06:42:00.000-08:002024-02-13T06:43:52.458-08:00 TRUMP’S STATEMENT THAT HE WOULD ENCOURAGE RUSSIA TO ATTACK ANY NATO NATION THAT DOESN’T PAY ITS DUES WAS NOT AS DUMB AS PEOPLE THINK<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2A9Z8zaNgy9-Pg59D5Mo4ag4yBYTwTkcJzzGsWBdtGKDWpyA3oriiyRkELOgIa7_33pVkbbif4uWhLlgw9HpaHVbfhDW-mYhnI_-rvpmJzotH4w7evDh4ze5SwxkfEkIEIJLApcgGSSdJ50jiQHbc0_ihoWq00G_ZcZrCVDPKLZWNh3Tq_Ayvu8PJSZA/s241/Trump%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="223" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2A9Z8zaNgy9-Pg59D5Mo4ag4yBYTwTkcJzzGsWBdtGKDWpyA3oriiyRkELOgIa7_33pVkbbif4uWhLlgw9HpaHVbfhDW-mYhnI_-rvpmJzotH4w7evDh4ze5SwxkfEkIEIJLApcgGSSdJ50jiQHbc0_ihoWq00G_ZcZrCVDPKLZWNh3Tq_Ayvu8PJSZA/s1600/Trump%202.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This was a
well-calculated statement not a gaffe. Trump is attempting to attract votes of
the majority of people in the U.S. who are opposed to endless wars. People know
full well that a good part of their financial problems are due to Ukraine,
Israel, Yemen and the list goes on and on. Trump opposes those wars but for the
wrong reasons. The left has to contest Trump’s occupation of this anti-war
political space. For a starter it needs to run one presidential candidate not
three. Two of the following candidates should resign and support the one who
doesn’t: Cornel West, Jill Stein and Claudia de la Cruz. And second, of equal
or more importance, the candidate, whoever he/she is, needs to prioritize U.S.
interventionism throughout the world. And it needs to do this without claiming
that Russia and China are equally to blame. You may condemn the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, but Russia doesn’t have 750 military bases throughout the
world. The narrative that places all three nations in the same sac is, in
effect, letting the U.S. off the hook. The narrative that places Israel and Hamas
in the same sac is, in effect, letting Israel off the hook. Leave that up to
the corporate media to do.</span>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-31129781515596919362024-02-07T15:57:00.000-08:002024-02-07T15:57:32.447-08:00The American Dream is Dead on Arrival for Many (if not most) College Graduates. That’s the message of the movie The Assistant. <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgX53bpUE_bOAR9PcShXhk_bodN6PPDrBNUXfnxll1H3kUS1q-qo5dvY0Z4MQB3cxOJkszpCcZ4MBAzUfAKrOBjUg3V5cQeZwUNrvh9U6mzcidAg8aYJiuuiv4IA7wSKVTeOaSAtkfWdFXjbX5Y4MyvevvIsUrzPV2lytJ7wYYfRB4uf902AXdgMt6m2g/s2048/The%20assistant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1153" data-original-width="2048" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgX53bpUE_bOAR9PcShXhk_bodN6PPDrBNUXfnxll1H3kUS1q-qo5dvY0Z4MQB3cxOJkszpCcZ4MBAzUfAKrOBjUg3V5cQeZwUNrvh9U6mzcidAg8aYJiuuiv4IA7wSKVTeOaSAtkfWdFXjbX5Y4MyvevvIsUrzPV2lytJ7wYYfRB4uf902AXdgMt6m2g/s320/The%20assistant.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The movie
(which can be streamed on MAX), albeit boring, is about a recent graduate of
Northwestern (Julia Garner) who lands a job as a receptionist of sorts who ends
up doing everything from tidying up the office of her boss to holding in her
arms the baby of someone who comes into the office. When she goes to denounce
what she considers to be an ethical breach by her boss, her case is handled in
the most paternalistic manner by the head of the company’s grievance department
who suddenly insults her in the most demeaning way. But the clinch of it all is
the last scene in which she calls up her father who says how proud he and the
mother are of the fact that she has gotten such a promising job. When she tells
her father it’s a lot of hard work and stress, he says it’s always that way at
first but as time goes on it’ll get better. FAT CHANCE. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What the
movie leaves out is that the cost of college education since the 1980s taking
into consideration inflation has gone up 129% and that the average student
graduates college with a debt of $37,000. Combine that with the dead-end jobs
which await many professionals and that more doctors are corporate employees than
in the past and most university
professors have non-tenure track positions, and one can easily reach the
conclusion that the American Dream has become an unqualified myth. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p><br /></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-8396233343944786602024-02-01T19:04:00.000-08:002024-02-04T11:33:45.287-08:00Time for a new Good Neighbor Policy - U.S. policy toward Latin America has always favored corporate interests. And now – though not for the first time – it is closely aligned with the far-right.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCoe69ycDlpGyaMnK8BLQdji_a0fDhJx5QDti13cef6AlRdjiTjMjwAdseZvx5yeCQBVu_WYPiLKJp96aNqqU7USQxvtmgLNCRIuog9sr7sVO6Y7unwY2mT320lAcJJnEhIlXgCxKeJ0fbQrJiyYBAWiZJwMTLpKXCLSm0iOVWZYsP45D1b4TgnDss4o/s233/New%20neighbor%20policy%20photo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="216" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCoe69ycDlpGyaMnK8BLQdji_a0fDhJx5QDti13cef6AlRdjiTjMjwAdseZvx5yeCQBVu_WYPiLKJp96aNqqU7USQxvtmgLNCRIuog9sr7sVO6Y7unwY2mT320lAcJJnEhIlXgCxKeJ0fbQrJiyYBAWiZJwMTLpKXCLSm0iOVWZYsP45D1b4TgnDss4o/w371-h400/New%20neighbor%20policy%20photo.jpg" width="371" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><h1 style="margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 23pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/01/redefining-us-latin-american-relations/"><span style="color: #dd0000;">Redefining US-Latin American Relations</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></h1><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: start;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="postauthorintro"><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="font-size: 14.5pt; text-transform: uppercase;">BY</span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Source Serif Pro", serif; font-size: 12.5pt;"> </span><span class="postauthor"><span style="font-family: "Source Serif Pro", serif; font-size: 14.5pt;"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/medea-benjamin-steve-ellner/" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; display: inline-block; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span face=""Source Sans Pro",sans-serif" style="color: #1e1e1e; font-size: 13.5pt; text-transform: uppercase;">MEDEA BENJAMIN - STEVE ELLNER</span></span></a></span></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="postauthor">CounterPunch</span></p>
<p style="line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in;"><em><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "SSit",serif; font-size: 14pt;">An all-encompassing expression of
goodwill in the form of a New Good Neighbor Policy will meet resistance from
vested economic and military interests, as well as those persuaded by racist
arguments.</span></em><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Trump administration
dusted off the 19th century Monroe Doctrine that subjugates the nations of the
region to U.S. interests. The Biden administration, instead of reversing
course, followed suit, with disastrous results for the region and a migration
crisis that threatens Biden’s re-election.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">It has left most of Trump’s
sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba intact and has tightened those against
Nicaragua.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">U.S. policy towards
Venezuela has been a fiasco. Try as it might, both Trump and Biden were unable
to depose President Maduro and found themselves stuck with a self-proclaimed
president, Juan Guaidó. U.S. support for Guaidó backfired as he was held responsibile for massive corruption involving Venezuelan assets abroad that were turned over
to him. Now Washington is openly siding with presidential hopeful María Corina
Machado, who has a long history of engagement in violent disruptions and has
called on the U.S. to invade her country. The Venezuelan people have paid a
heavy price for the debacle, which has included crippling economic sanctions
and coup attempts. The U.S. has also paid a price in terms of its prestige
internationally.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is only one example of
a string of disastrous policies toward Latin America.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Instead of continuing down
this imperial path of endless confrontation, U.S. policymakers need to stop,
recalibrate, and design an entirely new approach to inter-American relations.
This is particularly urgent as the continent is in the throes of an economic
recession that is compounded by low commodity prices, a belly-up tourist
industry and the drying up of remittances from outside.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">A good reference point for
a policy makeover is Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Neighbor_policy" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">Good
Neighbor Policy</span></a>” in the 1930s, which represented an abrupt break
with the interventionism of that time. FDR abandoned “gunboat diplomacy” in
which Marines were sent throughout the region to impose U.S. will. Though his
policies were criticized for not going far enough, he did bring back U.S.
Marines from Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and scrapped the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platt_Amendment" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">Platt
Amendment</span></a> that allowed the U.S. to intervene unilaterally in
Cuban affairs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">So what would a Good
Neighbor Policy for the 21st Century look like? Here are some key planks:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">An end to military
intervention. The illegal use of military force has been a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">hallmark</span></a> of
U.S. policy in the region, as we see from the deployment of Marines in the
Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989; involvement in
military actions leading to the Guatemalan coup in 1954 and destabilization in
Nicaragua in the 1980s; support for coups in Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973 and
elsewhere. A Good Neighbor Policy would not only renounce the use of military
force, but even the threat of such force (as in “all options are on the
table”), particularly because such threats are illegal under international law.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">U.S. military intimidation
also comes in the form of <a href="https://mronline.org/2018/08/23/u-s-military-presence-in-latin-america-the-caribbean/" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">U.S.
bases</span></a> that dot the continent from Cuba to Colombia to further
south. These installations are often resisted by local communities, as was the
case of the <a href="https://en.mercopress.com/2009/09/19/last-us-forces-abandon-manta-military-base-in-ecuador" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">Manta
Base</span></a> in Ecuador that was shut down in 2008 and the ongoing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">opposition</span></a> against
the Guantanamo Base in Cuba. U.S. bases in Latin America are a violation of
local sovereignty and should be closed, with the lands cleaned up and returned
to their rightful owners.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Another form of military
intervention is the financing and training of local military and police forces.
Most of the U.S. assistance sent to Latin America, particularly Central
America, goes towards funding security forces, resulting in the militarization
of police and borders, and leading to greater police brutality, extrajudicial
killings and repression of migrants. The training school in Ft. Benning,
Georgia, formerly called the “<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/11/shut-down-school-of-the-americas-whinsec-ice-border-patrol" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">School
of the Americas</span></a>,” graduated some of the continent’s worst human
rights abusers. Even today, U.S.-trained forces are involved in egregious
abuses, including the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/berta-caceres-honduras-military-intelligence-us-trained-special-forces" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">assassination</span></a> of
activists like Berta Cáceres in Honduras. U.S. programs to confront drugs, from
the <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/50749/rethink-merida-initiative-function-national-security/" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">Merida
Initiative</span></a> in Mexico to <a href="https://www.lawg.org/wp-content/uploads/storage/documents/Human_Rights_Costs_during_Plan_Colombia.pdf" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">Plan
Colombia</span></a>, have not stopped the flow of drugs but have poured massive
amounts of weapons into the region and led to more killings, torture and gang
violence. Latin American governments need to clean up their own national police
forces and link them to communities, a more effective way to combat drug
trafficking than the militarization that Washington has promoted. The greatest
contribution the U.S. can make to putting an end to the narcotics scourge in
Latin America is to control the U.S. market for those drugs through responsible
reforms and to prevent the sale of U.S.-made weapons to drug cartels.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">No more political meddling.
While the U.S. public has been shocked by charges of Russian interference in
its elections, this kind of meddling is par for the course in Latin America.
USAID and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">National
Endowment for Democracy</span></a> (NED), created in 1983 as a neutral
sounding alternative to the CIA, spend millions of tax-payer dollars to
undermine progressive movements. Following the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998,
for instance, <a href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US-Pumped-4.2M-in-2015-to-Destabilize-Venezuelan-Government-20170408-0006.html" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">NED
ramped</span></a> up its assistance to conservative groups in Venezuela
(which became the foundation’s number one Latin American recipient) as a leadup
to regime change attempts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">An end to the use of
economic blackmail. The U.S. government uses economic pressure to impose its
will. The Trump administration <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/10/18177058/trump-mexico-wall-pay-shutdown-mcallen" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">threatened </span></a>to
halt remittances to Mexico to extract concessions from the government of Andrés
Manuel López Obrador on immigration issues. A similar threat persuaded many <a href="https://time.com/4678380/donald-trump-deportation-el-salvador/" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">voters
in El Salvador</span></a>’s 2004 presidential elections to refrain from voting
for the candidate of the left-leaning Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
(FMLN).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">The U.S. also uses economic
coercion. For the past 60 years, U.S. administrations have sanctioned Cuba—a
policy that has not successfully led to regime change but has made living
conditions harder for the Cuban people. The same is true in Venezuela, where
one study says that in just 2017-2018, over <a href="https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">40,000</span></a> Venezuelans
died as a result of sanctions. With coronavirus, these sanctions have become
even more deadly. A Good Neighbor Policy would lift the economic sanctions
against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and help them recover economically.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Support trade policies that
lift people out of poverty and protect the environment. U.S. free trade
agreements with Latin America have been good for the elites and U.S.
corporations, but have increased economic inequality, eroded labor rights,
destroyed the livelihoods of small farmers, furthered the privatization of
public services, and compromised national sovereignty. When indebted nations
seek loans from international financial institutions, the loans have been
conditioned on the imposition of neoliberal policies that exacerbate all
ofthese trends.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">In terms of the
environment, too often the U.S. government has sided with global oil and mining
interests when local communities in Latin America and the Caribbean have
challenged resource-extracting projects that threaten their environment and
endanger public health. We must launch a new era of energy and natural resource
cooperation that prioritizes renewable sources of energy, green jobs, and good
environmental stewardship.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Massive protests against
neoliberal policies erupted throughout Latin America shortly prior to the
pandemic and will return with a vengeance unless countries are free to explore
alternatives to neoliberal policies. A New Good Neighbor Policy would cease imposing
economic conditions on Latin American governments and would call on the
International Monetary Fund to do the same. An example of international
cooperation is China’s “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">Belt
and Road Initiative</span></a>,” which, even with some downsides, has generated
goodwill in the Global South by prioritizing investments in much-needed
infrastructure projects without conditioning its funding on any aspect of
government policy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Humane immigration policy.
Throughout history, U.S. administrations have refused to take responsibility
for the ways the U.S. has spurred mass migration north, including unfair trade
agreements, support for dictators, climate change, drug consumption and the
export of gangs. Instead, immigrants have been used and abused as a source of
cheap labor, and vilified according to the political winds. President Obama was
the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">deporter-in-chief</span></a>;
President Trump has been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p06bfvpc/44518942" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">caging
children</span></a>, building walls, and shutting off avenues for people to
seek asylum; President Biden is better than his predecessor when it comes to
rhetoric, but not so much action-wise. A Good Neighbor policy would dismantle
ICE and the cruel deportation centers; it would provide the 11 million
undocumented immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship; and it
would respect the international right of people to seek asylum.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Recognition of Latin
America’s cultural contributions. President Trump’s blatant disrespect towards
Latin Americans and immigrants, including his call for building a wall “paid
for by Mexico,” intensified racist attitudes among his base which has continued
ever since. A new Latin America policy would not only counter racism but would
uplift the region’s exceptional cultural richness. The <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/american-dirt-book-controversy-explained.html" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #333333;">controversy</span></a> surrounding
the extensive commercial promotion of the novel “American Dirt,” written by a
U.S. author about the Mexican immigration experience, is an example of the
underestimation of talent south of the border. The contributions of the
continent’s indigenous population should also be appreciated and justly
compensated, such as the centuries-old medicinal cures that are often exploited
by U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Source Serif Pro",serif; font-size: 14pt;">An all-encompassing
expression of goodwill in the form of a New Good Neighbor Policy will meet
resistance from vested economic and military interests, as well as those
persuaded by racist arguments. But the vast majority of people in the United
States have nothing to lose by it and, in fact, have much to gain. Universal
threats, such as coronavirus and the climate crisis, have taught us the limits
of borders and should act as incentives to construct a Good Neighbor Policy for
the 21st Century based on those principles of non-intervention and mutual
respect.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="authordescription" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "SSit",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></strong></p><p class="authordescription" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "SSit",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Medea Benjamin</span></strong><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "SSit",serif; font-size: 14pt;"> is
cofounder of <a href="https://www.codepink.org/" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #dd0000;">CODEPINK
for Peace</span></a> and the human rights group Global Exchange. She is
the author of 10 books, including five books on Latin America. <strong style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Steve
Ellner</strong> is an Associate Managing Editor of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lap" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #dd0000;">Latin
American Perspectives</span></a>. His edited Latin American Extractivism:
Dependency, Resource Nationalism and Resistance in Broad Perspective (Rowman
and Littlefield) will be released later this year.</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="authordescription" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "SSit",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/01/redefining-us-latin-american-relations/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/01/redefining-us-latin-american-relations/</a><br /></span></p></span></div><p><br /> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-70346906489236921262024-01-30T13:49:00.000-08:002024-01-30T13:51:50.944-08:00The U.S. Media Unsurprisingly Fails to Present the Venezuelan Government’s Version of why Maria Corina Machado has been Barred from Running for President <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Va6SCD5Qs3sChulYNrdWQFlTowD-GBOLdv59e7rZ1ObtS4YEtPkISSc-wG000w9TonipxtVgGeD2JVLiIMAQT_htJCU8e5A8ty6kVaU_L4fUOaL96_aZ1pENqj2NdqiTvzz72VrfZUrpKUJOglycgz1pncDYoeY3GdI-bjTKgTl856m8yRfhJrnNTe8/s300/Machado.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Va6SCD5Qs3sChulYNrdWQFlTowD-GBOLdv59e7rZ1ObtS4YEtPkISSc-wG000w9TonipxtVgGeD2JVLiIMAQT_htJCU8e5A8ty6kVaU_L4fUOaL96_aZ1pENqj2NdqiTvzz72VrfZUrpKUJOglycgz1pncDYoeY3GdI-bjTKgTl856m8yRfhJrnNTe8/w400-h224/Machado.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Today the U.S. government announced the
re-implementation of economic sanctions against Venezuela in response to the
decision of the Venezuela supreme court to bar María Corina Machado from participating
in the upcoming presidential elections. On more than one occasion, Machado
called for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. The country that is trying
to extradite Julian Assange for “treason,” certainly knows what that word
means. In the following video, Machado calls for the “use of international force”
as the only means to restore democracy in Venezuela. When asked whether she was
calling for a military invasion, Machado refrained from denying that this was
her intention. Obviously, it was. And on countless occasions she also called
for the tightening of U.S. imposed sanctions on Venezuela. Few countries in the
world, if any, would tolerate this from a leading politician. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/yvangil/status/1751310020459868195?s=52&t=Kqn97sRo-SKblVjFuSGfhw">https://twitter.com/yvangil/status/1751310020459868195?s=52&t=Kqn97sRo-SKblVjFuSGfhw</a> </span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p></div>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-22717508536384865422024-01-29T09:33:00.000-08:002024-01-29T09:36:49.852-08:00WHAT’S WORSE, THAT THE U.S. BASE WHERE 3 SERVICEMEN WERE KILLED BY A DRONE ATTACK IS LOCATED IN JORDAN, WHERE WE ARE UNWANTED, OR IN SYRIA, WHERE WE ARE UNWANTED?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrTEh4PXLQTo_jzCffkH3WKnzb5DHtuTz7N_UXmxkoFw4vQYPwoc4Yaee3iaRtSO-MPHT70Cqidmrd9NW8Ii-tXER46dRx4zHqKpumqplu1q7JuneoBaN13Yc2V467N09ubyEh4SPNfkp06Y8NFFvSdlh9CoAkM5oCpYS5FQZJMoF4Qjor6Up9VGar6AY/s3114/Jordan%20base%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1993" data-original-width="3114" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrTEh4PXLQTo_jzCffkH3WKnzb5DHtuTz7N_UXmxkoFw4vQYPwoc4Yaee3iaRtSO-MPHT70Cqidmrd9NW8Ii-tXER46dRx4zHqKpumqplu1q7JuneoBaN13Yc2V467N09ubyEh4SPNfkp06Y8NFFvSdlh9CoAkM5oCpYS5FQZJMoF4Qjor6Up9VGar6AY/w400-h256/Jordan%20base%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The government
of Jordan denies that the base is located in its territory, knowing full well
how unpopular that would sit among the people of the country and of the region,
especially in light of U.S. military support for Israel in its assault on Gaza.
Washington denies that the base is in Syria and that it understands why Jordan
refuses to recognize the existence of a U.S. base in their nation. So if the
U.S. understands why the Jordanian government has made this denial because it’s
against the will of its people, what justification is there for having the base
there in the first place? And if the claim of the Jordanian government is
correct, what right does the U.S. have to maintain a base in Syria against the
will of the government of that nation? The U.S. has 3,000 military personnel in
Jordan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Another
question: Why doesn’t’ any U.S. media outlet raise the issue of national sovereignty
and the will of the people of the regions where we intervene? The entire focus
of U.S journalism is on whether the U.S. will strike Iran, or what other hostile
options are open to Washington, in spite of the fact that Iran firmly denies
that it ordered the attack. U.S. journalism holds much of the blame for the
perpetual war that the U.S. is engaged in (for which taxpayers foot the bill). <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-42409749863382412062024-01-26T13:51:00.000-08:002024-01-27T10:04:41.050-08:00US CAPITALISM IS CRONY CAPITALISM. TRUMP JUST PROVED IT<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PkUlKZFcZQJ28CTVSeoDuv91J4F0il0c6EdAcRDoGFISM59EdEdtfUDBJFVkFoqPIxg4Nw60qZWbWy3IUlQOdowioIAROUMJew779S-anW8uEZyU5HJ3dq-8Bol1c5iIjnSEARqVcDsizueJx4lsXmi9I_1cdDZlyUDF5bczZG1TxTkX4EJ3JFqW5TA/s640/trump-2171739_640.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PkUlKZFcZQJ28CTVSeoDuv91J4F0il0c6EdAcRDoGFISM59EdEdtfUDBJFVkFoqPIxg4Nw60qZWbWy3IUlQOdowioIAROUMJew779S-anW8uEZyU5HJ3dq-8Bol1c5iIjnSEARqVcDsizueJx4lsXmi9I_1cdDZlyUDF5bczZG1TxTkX4EJ3JFqW5TA/w400-h266/trump-2171739_640.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">He
threatened Nikki Haley's donors with permanently excluding them from the MAGA movement if
they continue to support her. He will not accept donations from
them if they don’t withdraw support for her? Just read between the lines! He’s
not going to turn down money from anyone. What he’s saying is that corporate
donors will forfeit the possibility of getting a piece of the Republican pie
once Trump is elected president. Capitalism always worked this way, but it was
never quite this blatant. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-70405780631587706082024-01-25T09:01:00.000-08:002024-01-25T09:01:42.780-08:00School Children Speak to the staffers of U.S. Senators about Israel’s Decimation of Gaza<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpX0dCJth6HnVsFKb88ryvfIysxEXhnUqx5pkirlZ7P_xB_wljRaVkuvGCUES1H2C4O-k1y2BEV9mY-2MAIz_Ov2KrhTJlG5XRGUFF1DnrWPnjy1wHiy4Zg3WiRH7o11StrgvvlfQ0ljkKDRKdFjjHkpVCAsPrfFeArnBuzY12hhpIFZYrZVPHlZfldk/s4032/senators%20building%20Washington%20Jan.%2024,%202024%206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2753" data-original-width="4032" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpX0dCJth6HnVsFKb88ryvfIysxEXhnUqx5pkirlZ7P_xB_wljRaVkuvGCUES1H2C4O-k1y2BEV9mY-2MAIz_Ov2KrhTJlG5XRGUFF1DnrWPnjy1wHiy4Zg3WiRH7o11StrgvvlfQ0ljkKDRKdFjjHkpVCAsPrfFeArnBuzY12hhpIFZYrZVPHlZfldk/w400-h272/senators%20building%20Washington%20Jan.%2024,%202024%206.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Over 20 children of about 7 to 11 years
met at the Dirksen and Hart Senate Office Buildings in Washington DC to speak
to the staffers of different senators. I accompanied one group and the
reception we received was friendly with the exception of the office of Senator Debbie
Stabenow of Michigan with facial expressions of “we could care less.” I was
pleasantly amazed at how these primary school kids were so articulate. I was
especially impressed at how the kids refuted with cogent arguments the
statement of the head of staff of Minnesota senator Tina Smith, who basically
justified Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Nevertheless, Stabenow’s two staffers were
pleasant, as were those of the offices (with the exception of Stabenow) of senator
Dick Durbin (Illinois) and especially the two staffers of senator Chris Van
Hollen (of my state of Maryland). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I asked the chief of staff of Senator Stabenow
if, even though the senator’s principal concern is the opinions and interests
of her constituents of her state, and those of the U.S. in general, does she
consider world public opinion which is overwhelmingly opposed to Israel’s
attack on Gaza. He responded by affirming that she is, as is the government in
Washington and just as is Israel. I responded by saying “I would like to
correct you on this, the government in Washington may be concerned about world
public opinion but Israel is not, as has been shown time and time again.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
</p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-45803680335737065392024-01-13T20:46:00.000-08:002024-01-13T20:51:00.007-08:00Biden and Netanyahu were the Main Targets at Today's Massive Free Palestine Protest in Washington DC<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirdo-x_2vBSS4uzWP_JUt59gmyobax0VGv3EUgwGZIA7bkX6IczEOUsPVRY_KHHk9y5bgTw-SpgY-voxhmAI2sbfV0NJO8K7lNhmXFfgkBC2PmxqD6ZsRF7El9W48jfurwyXSt2kh3uZUXayouZq9Oi6p4uM0xEYvAVhawIWf6g-OJ9uDPH8rm_qzUeE/s3217/DC%20protest%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3217" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirdo-x_2vBSS4uzWP_JUt59gmyobax0VGv3EUgwGZIA7bkX6IczEOUsPVRY_KHHk9y5bgTw-SpgY-voxhmAI2sbfV0NJO8K7lNhmXFfgkBC2PmxqD6ZsRF7El9W48jfurwyXSt2kh3uZUXayouZq9Oi6p4uM0xEYvAVhawIWf6g-OJ9uDPH8rm_qzUeE/w376-h400/DC%20protest%202.jpg" width="376" /></a></div><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Today’s Free Palestine protest of tens of thousands (the corporate media, true to form, put it at “thousands”) was as animated as the one I went to several months ago. Both of them congregated at Freedom Plaza (named in honor of MLK) and marched to Lafayette Square in front of the White House. Much more than the previous protest, the target was Biden (and Blinken). Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin said: “the moniker “Genocide Joe” will stick with Biden for a certain segment of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">community.” Indeed, it’s hard to believe that any of the protesters will vote for Biden. Speakers called on people to vote for only candidates that oppose Israel’s attack. That means that third party candidates will have an open field. Two presidential candidates, Green Party Jill Stein and Cornel West, spoke, with the latter getting a big applause. Hopefully the left will get its act together and unite around one candidate. </span></p><p></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Today’s protest is a demonstration (as if one is needed) of the bogus nature of the accusation of anti-Semitism against those who oppose Zionism. I saw scores and scores of banners, and heard an equal number of slogans and speeches. None of it was even subtly anti-Semitic. Everything to the contrary. Speakers remarked positively on the participation of so many Jews in opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza. There was a procession (just like at the last DC protest, but bigger) of Hassidic Jews with sidelocks, long dark coats, etc. carrying signs in solidarity with the Palestinians.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Demographics: 95% of the protesters were Z generation or Millennials and perhaps 50% or more were U.S. of Arab descent. Simultaneous protests were held in major European cities.</div></div><p> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-87675292862105175852023-10-03T06:40:00.004-07:002023-10-03T06:41:30.662-07:00Mao’s Contradictions Among the People Apply to the Current State of the Left<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ZXvc3CB0mWBFr-Trn4bAlAN4E3UPYQpfucyqKdMQfTk5NslXVEE_eS1OvMTOU3tV_eRQIJXJONDgOrIelrUIRVyEc5fk04RtaTCmwl8ouNCb6LkD59CP4eiLSv20Aar7GZvz2OfQBsD0xcqThLTA_5zwFfvUMi-f3Khn4DzK_yy7XfWJsyZNxAzouUo/s873/US%20left%20photo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="873" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ZXvc3CB0mWBFr-Trn4bAlAN4E3UPYQpfucyqKdMQfTk5NslXVEE_eS1OvMTOU3tV_eRQIJXJONDgOrIelrUIRVyEc5fk04RtaTCmwl8ouNCb6LkD59CP4eiLSv20Aar7GZvz2OfQBsD0xcqThLTA_5zwFfvUMi-f3Khn4DzK_yy7XfWJsyZNxAzouUo/w400-h300/US%20left%20photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #050505;">The basic
differences that exist on the U.S. left are understandable and are here to
stay. They’re a reflection of the complexities, fragmentations and
contradictions produced by the capitalist system. As I say in my interview with
the Orinoco Tribune, the organized left is basically divided in three general
categories or tendencies: the left that prioritizes the struggle against
imperialism, the left that is centered on what some people call identity
politics having to do </span><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">with gender and race, and the left that focuses on the working class and domestic economic issues .The three issues intersect in many ways but also manifest differences<span style="color: #404040;"><span style="background-color: white;"> w</span></span></span><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">ith regard to emphasis, discourse and priorities.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #050505;"><o:p><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/us-academic-steve-ellner-venezuela-needs-more-checks-and-balances-to-fight-corruption-and-abuse-of-power/?fbclid=IwAR1QlAecCbk4CwYBqXKwJdFcvGCKD02kxYHIw3Cw6utcvtDxBSQYpqjwK3k">https://orinocotribune.com/us-academic-steve-ellner-venezuela-needs-more-checks-and-balances-to-fight-corruption-and-abuse-of-power/?fbclid=IwAR1QlAecCbk4CwYBqXKwJdFcvGCKD02kxYHIw3Cw6utcvtDxBSQYpqjwK3k</a></o:p></span></p></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-33700167218066067682023-09-02T21:29:00.003-07:002023-09-02T21:32:09.961-07:00The Prioritization of Anti-Imperialism in Venezuela and Mao’s “Contradictions among the People”<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4xrj2Iy4gGHk2ZUifKqzcyFV4CfnxRnWkIPRBA1dLZpeXPmGbGw6Zf1UQwCx_YANp4n874Xprv9I_2Kxo6n4oWMRO2Jb4IiL9gDLOrFRc7wRCsr0D6X5rTgHDfwh90LZ8ICx51SxG1dqH2vcazg7xvylaD_7qztm85jkMYTXEOzE4xSk-GpoouusvbE/s748/sanctions%20photo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="748" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4xrj2Iy4gGHk2ZUifKqzcyFV4CfnxRnWkIPRBA1dLZpeXPmGbGw6Zf1UQwCx_YANp4n874Xprv9I_2Kxo6n4oWMRO2Jb4IiL9gDLOrFRc7wRCsr0D6X5rTgHDfwh90LZ8ICx51SxG1dqH2vcazg7xvylaD_7qztm85jkMYTXEOzE4xSk-GpoouusvbE/w400-h266/sanctions%20photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0in;">Steve Ellner<o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;">Science and Society<o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;">July 2023 issue <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><br /></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="color: black;">In a surprising move, the
Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) and several smaller leftist parties broke
with the government of Nicolás Maduro in July 2020 after twenty years of
supporting him and his predecessor Hugo Chávez. In effect, the PCV rejected Maduro’s
“defensive strategy” consisting of rollbacks designed to attract private
capital in the face of adverse circumstances largely caused by US–imposed
sanctions. The PCV accused the Maduro government of embracing a neoliberal
approach, abandoning the working class, and violating democratic norms.
Actually, the PCV was always critical of Chávez and Maduro, but the party’s
anti-imperialism had previously overshadowed criticism of the government
(Vázquez, 2021). Curiously, the PCV and its allies broke with the Chavista (pro
Chávez) government when Washington, supported by several dozen conservative and
right-wing governments, was ratcheting up pressure on Venezuela through
interventionist policies to achieve regime change. While some analysts on the
left attributed Maduro’s concessions to the need to attract capital and
influence Washington policy makers, the PCV blamed the rollbacks on “the
government’s dominant liberal bourgeoisie tendency” (Ellner, 2021; PCV, 2021b). </span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="color: black;">The analysis of subjective conditions (the consciousness and resoluteness of
the revolutionary subject) and objective conditions by Marx and Lenin in their
formulation of non-offensive or defensive strategies helps frame the issue of
the Maduro government-PCV split.[1] Just as Marx and Lenin aimed to identify
stages based on objective-subjective conditions that, in turn, determined
strategy, the intensification of imperialist aggression against Venezuela
beginning in 2015 represented a new stage which, according to the Chavistas,
required a new political and economic approach. The year 2015 not only marked a
new threshold for what could be called Washington’s “war on Venezuela,” but was
also the beginning of the rise to power of right-wing movements in Latin
America (first with the election of Mauricio Macri in Argentina). Indeed,
Maduro called attention to the unfavorable objective conditions by calling his
most important business-friendly legislation in 2021 the “Anti-Blockade Law”
and, in doing so, justified his defensive strategy as a necessary response to
the harsh measures imposed by imperialist powers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">This article argues that in the
Venezuelan case, there are tools, albeit imprecise ones, to determine whether
the type of retreat engineered by Maduro was congruent with
objective–subjective conditions stemming largely from imperialist aggression.
The article contends that a viable leftist “defensive strategy” retains some of
the programs and struggles the left embraced until then, as popular frontism in
the 1930s was designed to do and as the Maduro government claimed it was doing.
In addition, the article argues that although objective and subjective
conditions in Venezuela justified a defensive strategy on economic policy, an
analysis from a leftist perspective needs to critically look at other
government policies and actions that may have represented an overreaction by
Maduro to unfavorable objective conditions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The article’s basic argument is
that the intensification of the Washington-directed campaign against Venezuela
after 2015, particularly under the Trump administration, represented a
qualitative change in objective conditions. The PCV largely passed over the
issue of how to respond to changing objective conditions stemming from
imperialism in its decision to withdraw support from and condemn the Maduro
government. The paper will examine other shades of leftist positions on the
government to shed light on alternative critiques of Maduro informed by
anti-imperialist analysis. Specifically, it will look at positions of “critical
support” for Maduro and “loyal opposition” to his government by political
actors on the left who shared many of the PCV’s criticisms but rejected its
definitive break with the Chavista leadership. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The analysis of
objective-subjective conditions is essential in the formulation of any
political strategy, but there are potential perils that this article will
discuss. Objective conditions are largely quantifiable, but subjective ones are
not. This factor may tilt analysis toward objective factors at the expense of
giving proper weight to revolutionary subjects that appear dormant. Indeed,
unfavorable objective conditions are sometimes opportunistically invoked to
justify strategies that overlook undemocratic practices, corruption, and the
failure to take risks to make revolutionary advances. A corollary of Lenin’s
dictum on democratic centralism — that Communist Parties need to be as
internally democratic as it can given existing circumstances — may be formulated
for leftist governments like that of Maduro facing external threats: despite
unfavorable objective conditions, a leftist government cannot place on the back
burner all policies and goals that point in the direction of a socialist
future. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Similarly, the left’s
implementation of defensive strategies has historically had mixed outcomes. The
last hundred years are replete with examples of leftist governments that
succumb to pressure from powerful groups on the right and definitively abandon the
struggle for structural transformation. Thus, a distinction must be made
between a temporary pragmatically driven retreat in the form of a “defensive
strategy,” which nevertheless continues struggles on some fronts, and a
permanent surrender. The article will examine conflicting currents within the
Maduro leadership and movement in order to contrast these approaches and their
long-term implications. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Defensive strategies and the appraisal of
objective–subjective conditions<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">In breaking with Maduro despite the
escalation of imperialist aggression, PCV leaders overlooked the Communist
movement’s history of centering analysis on the reading of objective
conditions. A brief review of the writings of Marx and Lenin is in order for
the purpose of demonstrating the centrality of objective and subjective
conditions in Marxist analysis and to suggest that the PCV’s decision to
completely break with Maduro, while based on plausible arguments, was
ill-considered. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The analysis by Marx and Lenin of
objective and subjective conditions served to identify pre-revolutionary
situations, or to refute the claim that the country was in a pre-revolutionary
situation, or to argue that a new stage had set in requiring a defensive
strategy. Thus, for example, Lenin pointed to objective and subjective
conditions in his April Theses, which declared that Russia was approaching a
pre revolutionary situation, and then in his activist support for events in
October.[2] Shortly after that, in the throes of civil war, Lenin analyzed
objective and subjective conditions and advocated a defensive strategy on
various national and international fronts, as did the international Communist
movement at several junctures throughout the twentieth century. These
experiences point to a pattern in which factions on the left, invigorated by
the momentum and advances of previous years, criticized the defensive strategy
as signifying the doom of the revolutionary process. This was the case with
Louis Auguste Blanqui’s followers and allies following the revolutions of 1848
and, to a certain extent, with some Bolshevik leaders after 1917 (as discussed
below). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">It was also the case in Venezuela,
where virtually the entire left in the nation avidly supported the charismatic
Chávez. Thus, many considered any rollback to be a betrayal of his legacy. Some
Maduro critics like the PCV called for defending the gains made under Chávez
and then embarking on a renewed offensive by “returning to the path of national
liberation” and eventually socialism once subjective conditions improved in the
form of a favorable “change in the correlation of forces” (PCV-Comisión Nacional
de Ideología, 2021, 7). The Corriente Marxista Internacional (affiliated with
the Trotskyist International Marxist Tendency), which joined the PCV-initiated
anti-Maduro alliance, was even less hesitant to allow the imperialist offensive
to put the brakes on revolutionary transformation, as Maduro had done. Claiming
that “weakness always invites aggression,” the Corriente called for deepening
the revolutionary process as the only way to counter imperialist aggression
(Corriente Marxista Lucha de Clases, 2020, 6; see also Gilbert, 2020,
15). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">There are parallels between the
debate on the left over Maduro’s defensive strategy and the polemics over
positions assumed by Marx and Lenin in different contexts. For Marx and Engels,
the analysis of objective conditions was fundamental to dialectical materialism.
If quantitative change leads to qualitative change — a basic precept of
dialectical materialism — then only a reading of constantly changing
objective-subjective conditions can provide a rough idea of how far a nation is
at a given moment from achieving revolution and the correct strategy to
follow. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">What is striking about the span of
the political careers of Marx and Lenin is their support for widely different
strategies depending on existing objective and subjective conditions. Thus, for
instance, on the eve of the revolutions of 1848, Marx and Engels were
particularly optimistic about Germany, which they viewed as in a
pre-revolutionary situation due to its “more advanced conditions” including “a
much more advanced proletariat” than existed elsewhere in Europe (Marx and
Engels, 1998, 57). Beginning in mid-1850, however, in the context of a
conservative backlash, Marx polemicized against an insurrectionist line within
the Communist League (which included the Blanquists) by pointing to such
objective conditions as the economic prosperity that had set in throughout
Europe, in contrast to the situation in 1848. On this basis, he called for a
long-term strategy of building a mass based workers’ movement before initiating
a revolutionary offensive. Engels later noted that Marx’s “cool estimation of
the situation . . . was regarded as heresy” by the League’s radical faction
(Engels, 2010, 328; Johnstone, 1983, 302, 306). Marx’s realistic assessment of
developments in France in late 1870 also led him to advocate caution, in
contrast to the radical faction on the left headed by Blanqui. The arming of
the popular sectors in Paris, however, was a game changer for Marx, who
proclaimed, “Paris armed was the revolution armed,” at the same time that he
became a wholehearted supporter of the Paris Commune (though not without
criticisms) (Marx, 1933). Lenin also pointed to changing objective and
subjective conditions in his formulation of defensive (or non-offensive)
strategies in the early 1920s, sometimes in contrast to the views of prominent
leaders of the Soviet Communist Party and the Comintern. In addition, he made
clear that strategies were temporary and pegged to existing conditions. In
anticipation of possible disillusionment among socialists, Lenin insisted that
the NEP was a “strategic retreat” and that, just like in warfare, the enemy and
the main objectives remained the same (Lenin, 1973, 63–65). The NEP was made
necessary by the “very severe defeat on the economic front” during the period
of “war communism,” but also the economic expansion of capitalist Europe in the
1920s as well as soil impoverishment in Russia, the result of prolonged war (<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">ibid.</em>, 63). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Similarly, on the international
front, Lenin’s position did not coincide with that of Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai
Bukharin, and other Communist leaders who failed to reflect strategically on
the bloody setbacks in Hungary in 1919 and Germany in 1919 and 1921 and who
assumed that the momentum of the 1917 Soviet revolution would continue unabated
(Jacobson, 1994, 46–47). At the Comintern’s Second Congress in 1920, Lenin
differed with M. N. Roy on his rosy assessment of the revolutionary prospects
of his native India and his negative views of the national liberation movement
represented by Gandhi. The assessment of objective and subjective conditions
was key as Roy greatly exaggerated favorable conditions, including the
numerical strength and ideological commitment of the nation’s proletariat. In <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder</em>,
Lenin criticized ultra-left leaders in Germany for overlooking
objective–subjective conditions, including the “dormant” state of the masses
and for failing to produce “even a shred of proof” to back their claims that
parliamentary participation was “politically obsolete” (Lenin, 1966, 57). In
what could have been cited by Maduro as an argument for his defensive strategy,
Lenin wrote: “The entire history of Bolshevism . . . is full of instances of
changes of tack, conciliatory tactics and compromises with other parties,
including bourgeois parties!” (<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">ibid.</em>,
70). Shortly before his death, Lenin opted for a defensive or non-offensive
diplomatic strategy of buying time, or in his words, “holding out,” in order to
weather unfavorable conditions. His aim was to “prevent the West European
counter-revolutionary states from crushing us” until conditions allowed for
Communists to retake the offensive (Jacobson, 1994, 43). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The Communist movement’s analysis
of subjective conditions is also relevant to Maduro’s defensive strategy and
the leftist opposition in Venezuela. In <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">What
Is to Be Done</em>, for instance, Lenin underlined the importance of subjective
conditions in their relationship to objective conditions. In it, he argued that
the party (subjective condition) was the guarantee that worker struggles would
go beyond the economistic aspirations inherent in the mentality of the working
class as a whole. In another situation in which the assessment of subjective
conditions entered into play, the Soviet government (contrary to the position
of Beijing) observed in the 1960s that in important Middle East and African
countries, the working class and Communist Parties lacked the numbers and
strength to play a lead role in the transformation of their respective
countries and ended up viewing non-Communist, nationalistic governments in
those regions as politically advanced and as critical allies. Those leftists
throughout history who have argued for an offensive strategy with far-reaching
objectives, like the Chinese during the 1960s, are usually optimistic regarding
subjective conditions and raise the possibility of “revolutionary leaps”
occurring in the not-distant future (Gau, 1967, 182, 240, 282; Campbell, 1970,
248–253; Harrison, 2022).[3]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Parties and leaders on the far left
of the political spectrum also frequently argue that objective conditions are
ripe for revolutionary change but that subjective conditions, namely the left’s
revisionist leadership, hold back the process. In other contexts, this line of
thinking warns against giving too much weight to objective conditions and using
it as an excuse for inaction while ignoring the role of the vanguard
(subjective condition) in accelerating change. Furthermore, as a corrective to
the determinism resulting from the overemphasis on objective conditions, it is
necessary to grasp that there is a dialectical relationship between objective
and subjective conditions and that the former is never static. Those on the
left who favor giving greater weight to subjective conditions also lash out at
the “determinists” — social democrats and mechanical Marxists among them — who
ignore that “conditions are never just right” (Harrison, 2022). Had the
determinist thinking of Lev Kamenev prevailed in 1917, for instance, the
October Revolution would never have occurred, an observation made by those who
justified the precipitous decision to engage in guerrilla warfare in Latin
America in the 1960s (Muñoz, 1970, 115). In Venezuela, the same line of
thinking characterizes parties to the left of the PCV that call for an
offensive strategy as a response to the imperialist offensive (to be discussed
below). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">In summary, both Marx and Lenin
pointed to specific objective and subjective conditions to define whether
nations were in a pre-revolutionary situation (as in 1848, France in 1871, and
Russia in 1917) or whether non-offensive or defensive strategies were called
for (as in Europe in the 1850s and the Soviet Union in the early 1920s).
Especially relevant for the Venezuelan case was the external political
environment (in Latin America and Europe), which, for Marx and Lenin, was also
a key factor in determining strategy. Also relevant is that the realistic
analysis of Marx and Lenin that led them in certain situations to advocate
caution was questioned, and in some cases vigorously opposed, by important
figures in the Communist movement (and other leftists, such as the Left
Socialist Revolutionaries who opposed the signing of the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk) and not just the Blanquists, anarchists and (in the 1930s)
Trotsky, as is well known. Advocates of an offensive strategy included August
Willich and Karl Schapper of the Communist League in the 1850s and Zinoviev and
Bukharin in the 1920s with regard to foreign policy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Maduro’s defensive strategy as a response
to the imperialist offensive (objective conditions)<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">No leftist government has been
spared the disruptive activity promoted by foreign powers in conjunction with
local elites. Nevertheless, differences in the intensity of this hostility have
to be taken into account by the left in evaluating objective conditions and
formulating strategy. The Chavista governments, almost from the outset, were
subject to the legal, semi-legal, and illegal regime-change efforts engineered
by both sets of actors, more so than in the case of other progressive (or “Pink
Tide”) governments in twenty-first century Latin America. A second comparison,
namely Venezuela before and after 2015, is also relevant to the discussion of
Maduro’s defensive strategy. In 2015 Washington-promoted interventionism in
Venezuela reached a new threshold, first with Obama’s executive order declaring
Venezuela a threat to US national security and then the international sanctions
imposed by the Trump administration. Comparisons between the “war on Venezuela”
and Washington’s hostile actions against other “Pink Tide” governments, and
between Venezuela before and after 2015, help contextualize Maduro’s defensive
strategy and shed light on objective conditions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Several factors demonstrate that
Washington singled out Venezuela for special treatment and that actions
designed to undermine stability were especially intense and ongoing compared to
those faced by neighboring pro-leftist governments (Emersberger and Podur,
2020, 22). More than any other Pink Tide head of state, Chávez was a
charismatic leader with a worldwide following. Washington viewed him as
especially threatening because, from the outset, he questioned unipolarity,
which was a euphemism for US hegemony and imperialism, and at the same time
engaged in an activist foreign policy. The effectiveness of his leadership was
demonstrated in his second year in office when, discarding warnings, he
traveled to all OPEC countries to pave the way for the organization’s second
summit in Caracas, where he gained acceptance for his plan to stabilize oil
prices at upper levels. The following actions carried out by external and
internal adversaries, even before 2015 when the anti-Maduro campaign reached a
new threshold, put in evidence the greater intensity of the destabilization
efforts against Venezuela. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The magnitude of destabilization in
Venezuela prior to 2015 compared to other pink tide countries<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<ol start="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ongoing
destabilization and regime change actions. </strong>The recurrence of
disruptions largely designed to achieve regime change had no equivalent
among other Pink Tide nations. Mobilizations of this nature included: the
coup attempt of April 2002; the two-month general strike (which was, in
fact, a lockout) of 2002–3; the “foquista” tactics of street violence in
2003 by those who argued that Chávez would soon assume dictatorial power;
the Daktari Ranch incident in 2004 when the arrest of 54 Colombians
thwarted an imminent military action to overthrow the government; the
street violence in early 2007 to protest the closing of an opposition TV
channel that had supported the 2002 coup; random violence in April 2013
following presidential elections which was triggered by an inflammatory
statement by defeated candidate Henrique Capriles alleging fraud,
resulting in the death of ten Chavistas; the four-month paralysis of
strategic urban areas in 2014 (known as the “guarimba”) with the stated
aim of achieving regime change, resulting in the death of eight National
Guardsmen and policemen (in addition to several dozen civilians). This
record of ongoing insurgency and violence had no equivalent in other Pink
Tide countries. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
US’ Office of Transition Initiative (OTI)</strong>. Shortly after the
abortive coup of April 2002, the US installed in its Caracas embassy an
Office of Transition, which, as its name implies, financed efforts to
bring about regime change and functioned until 2009. The OTI operated
under greater secrecy than USAID and National Endowment for Democracy
(NED) programs. Nowhere else in South America did Washington set up OTIs,
which were largely confined to countries perceived to be failed states or
were characterized by extreme poverty typical of the Fourth World. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Refusal
to recognize the legitimacy of elections</strong>. Both the Venezuelan
opposition and the US government refused to accept the official results of
the 2004 recall elections (which were certified by the Carter Center) and
the 2013 presidential elections. The major opposition parties refrained
from participating in the 2005 congressional elections, a decision Chávez
attributed to pressure from Washington. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">“Democracy
promotion” programs that financed the Venezuelan opposition</strong>.
After Chávez’s election in 1998, Venezuela went from the tenth-largest
recipient of NED funding to the first (Clemente, 2005, 66) in amounts that
continued to increase sharply in subsequent years (Huertas, 2012, 23). The
“Cablegate” documents released by Wikileaks reveal that the
Venezuelan-based NGOs funded by NED and USAID engaged in a diversity of
activities to a certain extent unmatched in other countries, including
human rights, agrarian issues, electoral observation, conflict resolution,
civilian-military relations, economic reform, law enforcement, education,
decentralization, communications media, and the judiciary. Following
Chávez’s re-election in 2006, democracy promotion funding targeted the
student movement (the “generation of 2007”) from which Juan Guaidó and
other radical opposition leaders during the Trump years emerged. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">US
diplomatic efforts to undermine Venezuelan foreign policy initiatives</strong>.
The “Cablegate” documents also shed light on the ongoing covert attempts
by US diplomats to block Venezuelan initiatives abroad. While Cablegate
documents on other countries in the region demonstrate the role of
diplomatic personnel in promoting US corporate interests and specific
Washington concerns such as security, in the case of Venezuela,
interventionism was clearly directed against the Chávez government per se.
Examples include the continuous efforts of the US ambassador in Haiti to
convince that nation’s president not to join the Venezuelan-sponsored
PetroCaribe (Coughlin and Ives, 2011), pressure on Lula to take the lead
in isolating Venezuela, and a request that Brazil engage in espionage
against Chávez; and pressure on the Russian government to refrain from
selling arms to Venezuela. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
Colombian border and violence</strong>. Another largely unique situation
is Venezuela’s extensive, easily passable border with Colombia, whose
governments for most of the period were hostile to Caracas. The Venezuelan
government accused Colombian president Alvaro Uribe of failing to combat contraband
and the paramilitary units that crossed the border, as documented by
Cablegate (Huertas, 2012, 23). <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
role of the top leadership of the Church, business organizations, the
labor movement, and the corporate media in attempts at regime change</strong>.
The cohesiveness of these established institutions in their support for
the two regime change attempts in 2002–3 made the Venezuelan case somewhat
unique. The Church hierarchy aggressively attacked Chávez during his first
year in office. Then it applauded the April 2002 coup, while prominent
corporate media representatives took credit for the coup the day after it
took place. The alliance between traditional labor leaders and the
nation’s main business organization (FEDECAMARAS) that spearheaded both the
coup and the general strike was uncommon for such major events. Carlos
Ortega, president of the Workers Confederation of Venezuela (CTV), along
with a number of opposition political leaders, met with US political
leaders and government officials on the eve of the April coup undoubtedly
to get the green light for the impending action. <o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The intensification of destabilization
after 2015<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">By 2005, following Chávez’s
consolidation of power and several regime change fiascos, inner-circle
policymakers in Washington put off all-out efforts to topple the government
until more favorable circumstances set in.[4] That time came following Chávez’s
death in March 2013 due to several factors. First, Maduro lacked the charisma
and popularity of his predecessor and was elected president in April by a mere
margin of 1.5 percent of the vote. Second, in the context of a near power
vacuum prior to Chávez’s death, the exchange control system spun out of
control, setting off rampant inflation that became difficult to control. Third,
beginning in mid-2015, international oil prices plummeted. And fourth,
beginning in 2015, conservative and right-wing presidents came to power in
nearly every South American nation while the Venezuelan opposition gained
control of the National Assembly. In this context of vulnerability,
Washington’s hostility to the Venezuelan government reached unprecedented
levels. The diversity of fronts in which aggressive actions were taken to
achieve regime change had no equivalent elsewhere in the region during these
years. The following actions demonstrate the qualitative change that occurred
beginning in 2015. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<ol start="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
Obama executive order of 2015 declaring Venezuela an “extraordinary
threat” to US national security. </strong>Washington spokespeople
failed to provide evidence for this claim. The order followed a pattern in
which similar accusations against Syria, Iran, and other countries were
preludes to implementing economic sanctions. It is in the context of
Washington’s increasing hostility toward Venezuela that the decision of US
companies to close plants and leave the nation has to be seen. However,
the announced reason for their decision was deteriorating economic
conditions. Both factors were undoubtedly at play. Among the companies to
leave were Kimberly Clark, Clorox, Pirelli, General Motors, and Kellogg’s.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
2. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Regime change actions
supported by the US </strong>The reoccurrence of regime change
attempts through different methods set Venezuela off from the rest of the
Pink Tide. These included the four-month “guarimba” of 2017; a helicopter
attack on the supreme court in June 2017; the attempted assassination of
Maduro by two drones during a public event in August 2018; Juan Guaidó’s
self-proclamation as president on January 23, 2019; the attempt on
February 23, 2019, to supply “humanitarian aid” via the Colombian border
which was designed to induce Venezuela’s military to turn on Maduro, as
partly corroborated by a USAID audit (Reuters, 2021; Emersberger and
Podur, 2021, 43–46); a failed military coup attempt on April 30, 2021,
organized by Guaidó’s Voluntad Popular party; a paramilitary invasion by
sea originating from Colombia organized by a Florida-based firm with links
to Trump and financially supported by Guaidó with the participation of two
US green berets in May 2020. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Crippling
sanctions. </strong>The well-publicized activism of US cabinet
members in tracing Venezuelan trade patterns and money flows, and threats
against foreign companies, was designed to ensure the effectiveness of
economic sanctions and encourage “overcompliance.” The net effect of this
campaign was to intimidate foreign companies, even those of Russia and
China, into halting all commercial activity with Venezuela, even in the
case of food, medicine, and other products not included in the sanctions
(overcompliance). The active promotion of overcompliance and the use of
US-dominated financial institutions for enforcement purposes took the
system of sanctions as embodied in the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 against
Cuba to new levels. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
US government’s encouragement of Maduro’s kidnapping and
assassination. </strong>No other Pink Tide head of state faced overt
threats of this nature. The above-mentioned paramilitary invasion of May
2020 had as an objective the kidnapping of Maduro to collect the 15
million dollar bounty the Trump administration placed on him. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Efforts
to isolate the Maduro government</i>. </strong>The above-discussed
strategy to isolate the Chavista government before 2015 reached new
heights under the Trump administration, reinforced by the rise to power of
conservative and right-wing governments in Europe and Latin America. The
creation of the Lima Group in 2017 by twelve hemispheric nations, which
rejected the legitimacy of the Maduro government and called for stringent
measures against it, clearly demonstrated that the offensive against
Venezuela was unmatched by actions against other Pink Tide governments. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington’s
unwavering support for Venezuelan opposition leaders. </strong>Not
only did the US insist on international recognition of the parallel
government of Juan Guaidó, but it threatened the Venezuelan government
with reprisals if he were to be imprisoned. In an unprecedented move, the
Citgo Petroleum Corporation and other assets of the Venezuelan state were
turned over to the Guaidó makeshift administration. <o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
freezing of the Venezuelan state’s deposits in financial
institutions. </strong>In another act of aggression that no other
government in the region faced, an estimated 5.5 billion dollars of the
Venezuelan government’s reserves were frozen in banks that feared
reprisals from the US government and the European Union (La Iguana, 2021).
The use of international financial markets to enforce the sanctions
represented an escalation of the “soft coup” tactics employed by the U. S.
government during the Cold War. <o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The above points attempt to
demonstrate that the “war on Venezuela” was more intense than the hostile
actions carried out by powerful domestic and foreign actors against other Pink
Tide countries and that the aggression took a qualitative leap in 2015. The
purpose of the discussion is to contextualize the defensive strategy adopted by
Maduro. It also addresses the argument that all leftist governments face
similar types of hostility, and thus Maduro should have been better prepared.
While the argument is certainly valid,[5] the severity of the hostility
relative to other Pink Tide countries needs to enter into the analysis as well
as the historical precedent of defensive and non-offensive strategies dating
back to Marx. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">In addition to the objective
factors that influenced Maduro’s decision to embark on a defensive strategy,
subjective conditions were also at play. Specifically, disillusionment among
Chavistas, which stood in sharp contrast with their passionate support for
Chávez, accounted for the low voter turnout for the governing United Socialist
Party (PSUV) and its resounding defeat in the 2015 elections for the National
Assembly. In those elections, the united opposition received approximately the
same number of votes as in the previous presidential election of April 2013,
while the PSUV saw a loss of nearly two million votes, representing a decline
from 51 to 41 percent of the national vote. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Maduro’s post-2015 policies: capitulation
or masterstroke?<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Like Lenin’s NEP, Maduro’s
defensive strategy contained economic and political dimensions. The NEP was
designed to facilitate economic recovery in the aftermath of the Civil War and
neutralize, if not appease, the kulak class with their organized resistance
(including revolts) to Communist rule (political objective). Maduro, for his
part, adopted a multidimensional strategy consisting of pro-business economic
policies to attract much-needed investments, but it also had a political side.
Concessions to the private sector were designed to divide the opposition by
neutralizing a “moderate” sector that supported the measures and to influence
Washington to lift the sanctions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The political dimension of Maduro’s
defensive strategy rested on the premise that regime change was not
Washington’s sole objective. The US government used the sanctions as “leverage”
(a term increasingly used in Washington) to extract concessions in favor of US
business interests. It also insisted that Venezuelan opposition leaders
(especially its surrogates) be given ample political opportunities. Indeed,
Maduro’s pro-business policies were a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">sine
qua non </em>for reaching agreements and maintaining cordial relations
with Venezuelan opposition moderates. In short, Maduro’s defensive strategy was
directed at different actors, specifically Washington, the moderate opposition,
and domestic and global business interests (Ron, 2020). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Maduro’s harshest critics on the
left interpreted his government’s pro-business measures as evidence that it had
embarked on a path of capitalist development by allying itself with what
various Chavistas called a “revolutionary bourgeoisie.” In contrast, according
to Maduro, concessions to the private sector were temporary measures designed
to encourage private investments. Thus Maduro prefaced his unveiling of the
Anti-Blockade Law to the National Assembly with a 3,500-word exposition on the
devastating impact of the economic war on Venezuela. In addition, measures that
eliminated the state’s absolute control of mixed companies in the oil industry
were designed to get around the US sanctions that prohibited commercial and
financial dealings with the state oil company PDVSA (Argus, 2021).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Maduro, however, refrained from
discussing two other targets of his defensive strategy, namely the winning over
of Washington and the Venezuelan “moderates” to recognition of his government’s
legitimacy. Had he explicitly stated this, he would have reinforced the
accusations of his leftist critics that he was appeasing foreign and domestic
adversaries by granting them concessions in violation of national sovereignty.
Nevertheless, the Maduro government entered into back-channel negotiations with
representatives of US business interests close to the Trump administration. It
even proposed an oil industry deal with one of them in an attempt to influence
policymakers to lift the sanctions (Confessore, Kurmanaev, and Vogel, 2020,
A-1). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Maduro’s policy of reaching out to
the “moderates” had long been advocated by sectors within the Chavista
movement. From the beginning of Chávez’s presidency, the Venezuelan opposition
was divided, as demonstrated during the 2002 coup when the “moderates” favored
achieving regime change institutionally through the National Assembly rather
than the self-proclamation of businessman Pedro Carmona as president. Within
the Chavista movement, a minority current headed by the vice-president and
long-time leftist José Vicente Rangel favored overtures to the “moderates” and
rhetoric that differentiated them from the opposition radicals (Valero, 2011).
The failure to adopt Rangel’s strategy undoubtedly contributed to the unity of
the opposition, as encouraged by Washington, which paved the way for its
overwhelming victory in the 2015 National Assembly elections. Subsequently,
pressure from the Trump administration assured that the moderate leaders would
acquiesce to the radicals’ regime change strategy, even though they were not
even informed about Guaidó’s intentions to proclaim himself president in
2019. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Maduro’s pro-business policies and
political concessions (such as increasing the opposition’s representation on
the five-member National Electoral Council from one to two) influenced
moderates, many formerly ardent anti-Chavistas, to tone down their rhetoric.
The defensive strategy thus helped drive a wedge between the moderates and the
radicals. In less than two years, the opposition went from a united bloc
supporting Guaidó’s self-proclamation as president to total fragmentation as
nearly all the major parties split in two over whether to participate in the
National Assembly elections held in December 2020. Various issues separated the
opposition moderates and pro-Guaidó radicals. In addition to the debate over
electoral participation, the moderates, unlike the radicals, opposed the
US-imposed sanctions and generally supported the Anti-Blockade Law (<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">El Universal</em>, 2021). In some instances, the
Chavistas and moderates acted in unison against the pro-Guaidó radicals. Thus
in 2020, while opposition moderate and Chavista deputies to the National
Assembly allied to nominate its president and vice presidents, the radical
deputies split off to form a parallel body. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">By 2020 it became clear that the
regime change strategy against Venezuela had failed, as was acknowledged by the
influential US Senator Chris Murphy. At that point, some business operatives
close to Trump and members of his administration favored using the sanctions,
not as a means to overthrow Maduro but as “leverage” to pressure him into
making concessions, a position that became dominant under Biden. Back–channel
negotiators indicated to Bloomberg that they were “waiting to see concrete
steps from Maduro” in order to “protect the interest of US bondholders and
high-stakes American companies on the ground, such as Chevron” (Laya, Vasquez,
and Jacobs, 2021). One of the economic measures required for normalizing
relations with Venezuela was the repeal of Chávez’s <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ley
Orgánica de Hidrocarburos</em> of 2001, which established state majority
ownership of mixed companies in the oil industry. The implementation of the
“leverage” approach made clear what was the case all along, namely that
Washington’s policy toward Venezuela was not about strengthening democracy but
rather US strategic economic and political objectives. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">In summary, Maduro’s supporters
maintain that the government’s defensive strategy did not represent a permanent
surrender to the logic of capital. Instead, like Lenin’s NEP, it was a response
to highly unfavorable objective and subjective conditions. The plausibility of
the Chavista leadership’s argument rested on its assessment of the intensity of
the US-driven war on Venezuela, particularly after 2015, as well as the
increasing support in Washington for the use of sanctions not for regime change
purposes, but to extract economic concessions from Maduro. Even within the
logic of this pro-government argument, however, Maduro was open to criticism
for failing to initiate overtures that may have won over or neutralized
dissidents and critical sectors on the left, such as the PCV. Indeed, some on
the left accused Maduro of sectarianism (Marea Socialista, 2015). Had the
Maduro government viewed its differences with the PCV prior to the 2020 split
as, in the words of Mao Zedong, a “secondary contradiction” (Mao, 2007, 88–89)
meriting internal discussion and debate, then the infighting on the left may
have been contained, as will be discussed below. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Left positions on Maduro’s defensive
strategy<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">By the December 2020 elections, the
Venezuelan left appeared to be highly polarized between the Madurista PSUV and
the anti-Maduro coalition led by the PCV, with little or no gradations between
the two poles.[6] The atmosphere of polarization, however, belied the diversity
among Venezuelan leftists with regard to positions on the Maduro government,
its defensive strategy, and the war on Venezuela. The PCV’s break with the
government in the lead-up to the 2020 elections partly contributed to
polarization because of the party’s widely recognized prestige. Not only is the
PCV Venezuela’s oldest political party, but it suffered from brutal repression
in the 1950s and 1960s and was one of the few Latin American Communist parties
to fully participate in the guerrilla struggle a few years after the Cuban
revolution, a decision that went against Moscow’s line. The PCV’s withdrawal of
support for Maduro encouraged others on the left to follow suit and assume a
position of hardened opposition. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The Chavista leadership appeared to
view its leftist critics through the same lens as it did its critics on the
right. A major reason why the PCV broke with Maduro in 2020 was the lack of
space within the governing alliance (known as the Gran Polo Patriótico) to
discuss policy and the failure to provide the party with a just share of
positions on electoral slates (PCV, 2019, 5). Furthermore, before the December
2020 elections, the PSUV-controlled Supreme Justice Tribunal denied official
recognition to two PCV allies (the Tupamaro and Patria para Todos — PPT).
Instead, it granted it to pro-government split-offs from both parties. By
carrying out these actions and assuming a “you’re with us or against us”
attitude, the PSUV undermined leftist unity, which Chávez had successfully
promoted. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Mao Zedong’s “On the Correct
Handling of Contradictions Among the People” (1957) has a direct bearing on the
dilemma faced by Maduro as to whether to view the PCV as an enemy or a
potential ally. Mao begins the work by underlining the importance of unity
which he claimed China had achieved to a degree without precedent in the
nation’s history. However, unity is not without contradictions. According to
Mao, the dynamic of dialectics before 1945 pitted the “people,” who opposed
Japanese aggression, against the Japanese and their Chinese collaborators. Even
among the “people,” dialectics often plays out in the form of secondary
contradictions as opposed to “antagonistic contradictions” involving enemies,
specifically the imperialists and feudal lords. With regard to secondary
contradictions, Mao points out that the law of the “unity of opposites” cannot
be ignored, as those who view socialism as conflict-free do, since it is
precisely these contradictions that “are the very forces that move our society
forward” (Mao, 1980, 21–22) In short, the secondary contradictions, if
correctly handled, contribute to the revolutionary process. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">These reflections, which
distinguish contradictions among the people from “antagonistic contradictions”
involving the imperialists, apply to Maduro and the PCV. In the first place,
the PCV was unequivocally opposed to the “imperialist enemy,” that is US imperialism.
In none of its declarations did the party minimize the severe consequences of
the sanctions. This position contrasted with groups on the far left, such as
Marea Socialista and Corriente Marxista Internacional, that claimed Maduro’s
mistaken economic policies, not the sanctions, caused the nation’s economic
crisis, which allegedly preceded Trump’s implementation of measures against
Venezuela (Corriente Marxista Lucha de Clases, 2020, 6). In this sense, the
PCV–Maduro clash could be viewed as “contradictions among the people.” In the
second place, the Polo Patriótico was the ideal venue for (in Mao’s words)
“discussion, criticism, and reasoning” and “persuasion and education” (Mao,
1980, 16, 53), but the PSUV converted that body into an electoral vehicle
(unlike Chávez who had called it a “historic bloc”). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The following discussion identifies
different shades of positions on the Maduro government, imperialism, and the
defensive strategy. The analysis is intended to demonstrate that the appearance
of extreme polarization on the left misrepresented the more diverse
configuration of opinions that existed. Given this diversity, leftist political
actors in 2020 — Maduro and the PCV in particular — had options other than the
all-or-nothing approach rejected by Mao.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The radical opposition on the left<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The PCV criticized a wide range of
economic measures taken by the Maduro government, including devaluation,
legalization of the use of the dollar in commercial transactions, tax
exoneration as incentives for investment, elimination of price controls, privatization,
labor flexibilization and alternatives to the system of collective bargaining.
Furthermore, in mid-2021, the Communist-led United Central of Workers of
Venezuela (CUTV) threatened to carry out an international campaign to denounce
criminal charges brought against Venezuelan trade unionists. At the same time,
the PCV deplored the failure to bring justice to assassinated peasant leaders,
including Luis Fajardo, a member of the party’s Central Committee (PCV, 2020b,
4). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The PCV recognized the harm that
sanctions produced but failed to emphasize the issue. Thus, for instance, the
party’s <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna Popular </em>published
84 articles on current Venezuelan politics in the newspaper’s nine editions
between July 2020 (when the PCV broke with Maduro) and January 2022, and none
of them focused on the international sanctions and other actions carried out by
Washington against Venezuela.[7] This lack of emphasis on imperialist
aggression would suggest that the PCV leadership failed to contextualize the
government policies that it criticized or to view them as understandable
overreactions to the war on Venezuela — as opposed to opportunism. The PCV’s
failure to consider external factors may be partly explained by the pressure
exerted on the party’s leadership by the rank and file, driven by the
precipitous decline in purchasing power and living conditions in general
(Vázquez Heredia, 2021).[8]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Before and after the 2020 split,
the Maduro government showed little tolerance for dissent on the left. During
the campaign for the 2020 elections, state media outlets provided opposition
candidates on the right promotional time in accordance with agreed-upon
electoral rules. However, they failed to do the same for the candidates of the
PCV, which denounced the “media censorship” (PCV, 2021a, 3). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Subsequently, Maduro insinuated
that the PCV formed part of the “long arm of United States imperialism” (PCV,
2021c, 6). Even though both sides appeared to be far apart, certain positions
assumed by the PCV suggested that reconciliation would have been feasible at a
future date. Most important, PCV secretary general Oscar Figuera did not
discard the possibility of a future agreement, in contrast to some of the
party’s allies to its left, which explicitly rejected the idea (Morales, 2020;
Corriente Marxista Lucha de Clases, 2020, 4; Uzcátegui, 2021). Indeed, the PCV
called the decision to leave the governing coalition a “tactical adjustment”
rather than a definitive break (PCV, 2020a, 8). In addition, at the time that
it broke with Maduro, the PCV defended the legitimacy of his government, unlike
other groups and analysts on the left (PCV, 2020c, 3; Hetland, 2019) and
supported his foreign policy. At least at the theoretical level, the PCV
recognized that imperialism represented the “principal enemy of our people”
(PCV, 2020a, 8). This position implied prioritization of resistance to US
interventionism (rather than to the Venezuelan capitalist class). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Subsequently, unlike some of its
electoral allies, the PCV along with the Maduro government sided with Russia in
the war with Ukraine. The PCV’s increasingly antagonistic stance toward the
government appeared to be at odds with the party’s praise of Moscow and Beijing
for its resistance to US imperialism, a position that coincided with that of
Maduro. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Although a reconciliation based on
a mutual acceptance of pluralism on the left was feasible at the outset of the
split in 2020, reciprocal hostility only increased in time. In the months
following the break, PCV leaders characterized the PSUV as “petty bourgeois,”
but in 2022 they claimed that Maduro’s economic policies were dictated by
members of the “national bourgeoisie” within the government in alliance with
the traditional bourgeoisie (Pino, 2022, 3). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The allies of the PCV to its left
advocated “revolutionary measures” to face US imperialism, particularly the
expansion of the communes (self-governing communities), as Chávez had called
for in one of his last speeches (Martín, 2019). As is the case elsewhere, the
basic assumption of those on the Venezuelan left who prioritize subjective
conditions is that bold, radical actions generate a “qualitative leap” in the
consciousness and revolutionary fervor of the popular sectors. According to the
same logic, Maduro’s alleged concessions and capitulation to capital dampened
the spirit of the non-privileged sectors and explained their unwillingness to
support the government. The statements by these groups would indicate that they
failed to consider seriously any relationship between the offensive political
strategy they championed and the intensity of imperialist aggression. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The gravity of the PCV’s
accusations against the Maduro government has to be weighed against the
harshness of the war on Venezuela and its economic impact. Obviously,
governments cannot be judged by the same criteria in wartime situations as in
times of peace. One question that defies easy answers is whether a more leftist
strategy on the part of the government consisting of an opening up to the
opposition on the left and a harder line toward the private sector (as
advocated by the PCV) would have led to greater instability in the face of the
nation’s severe economic conditions and erosion of support for the Chavistas.
In other words, could the Maduro government have achieved its objective of
dividing the opposition and resisting the “war on Venezuela” and low
international oil prices while pursuing a less conciliatory strategy toward
conservative and business interests? Such an approach would have enhanced the
possibility of reigning in the PCV and its allies on the left. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Critical supporters<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Elías Jaua, who had belonged to
Chávez’s inner circle and occupied top ministerial positions, and economist
Pasqualina Curcio were among the most prominent Chavistas to formulate
far-reaching criticisms of government policy while maintaining support for Maduro.
Both attributed the nation’s problems, including democratic shortcomings, to
the war on Venezuela. Jaua called for a renewal of the Chavista leadership, and
greater democratization of the party and the labor movement, and opposed both
the Anti-Blockade Law and disguised privatization, particularly of the oil
industry in the form of mixed companies. He refused, however, to publicly
debate the issue in accordance with PSUV party discipline (Jaua, 2020; Ellner,
2020a, 185). Curcio discretely framed the issue of the causes of Venezuela’s
economic crisis in a way that was favorable to Maduro. At the same time, she
pointed to deficiencies in his economic policies (Curcio, 2020, 104). Rather
than opposing the Anti-Blockade Law <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">per
se</em>, she called for an open discussion on proposals such as creating
mechanisms to prevent profits from leaving the country and increasing the
purchasing power of workers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Under Maduro, Jaua and Curcio were
marginalized within the Chavista movement and largely excluded from government
media outlets. Jaua aspired to be the Chavista candidate for governor of the
populous state of Miranda for the 2021 elections. However, the PSUV’s
leadership prevented him from participating in party primaries for that
position, a decision he accepted even while hinting that it was politically
motivated. Both Jaua and Curcio were highly popular among the party’s rank and
file and the Chavista movement at large. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The loyal opposition on the Left<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The war on Venezuela had the effect
of rallying some non-PSUV leftists behind the government despite their sharp
criticisms of Maduro. Like Maduro’s critics within the PSUV, these leftists
pointed to the gravity of the war on Venezuela as the reason for their
restraint, even though the PSUV thwarted their political ambitions due to their
independent positions. Their support for the government stemmed from the
distinction they made between the dominant faction of the PSUV leadership
headed by Maduro and the social-democratic or right-wing faction (discussed
below), along with state bureaucrats allied with the class enemy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Thus, for example, Angel Prado,
leader of the nation’s iconic commune El Maizal in the state of Lara, warned
that it was necessary to ensure that “our government isn’t taken over by
right-wingers disguised in red” and, on this basis, supported Maduro’s re-election
in 2018 (Prado, 2018; 2020, 49). In 2017 Prado had run for mayor in the
municipality of Simón Planas in Lara against the PSUV’s candidate and received
57 percent of the vote. However, the results were invalidated by the
PSUV-dominated electoral commission on technical grounds. Similarly, former
Commerce Minister Eduardo Samán, as a member of the PSUV’s leftist current,
aspired to represent the party in the 2017 mayoral elections in Caracas (and
again in 2021) but was vetoed by the party’s leadership. He then left the PSUV
to join the PPT, on whose ticket he unsuccessfully ran for mayor. Despite being
snubbed by the party, Samán criticized another former top minister of the
Chávez government, Jorge Giordani, who belonged to the intransigent opposition
on the left. Samán stated: “I also have criticisms, but am not going public. At
this moment, we have to prioritize unity because the whole [revolutionary]
process is on the line” (Ellner, 2020a, 185). The cases of Prado and Samán,
like those of “critical supporters” like Jaua, are clear examples of the PSUV’s
sectarian practices that marginalized important leaders and activists and, in
the process, ran the risk of converting “contradictions among the people” into
“antagonistic contradictions.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The chavista social democratic current<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Agriculture Minister Wilmar Castro
Soteldo (and participant in the Chávez-led 1992 coup) was the foremost
representative of the PSUV’s social democratic current. Castro Soteldo rejected
an anti capitalist path and called for “the construction of a revolutionary and
transformational bourgeoisie” that would be a force for “national liberation.”
The statement was interpreted as a justification for privatization and the
dismantling of the agricultural communes (Uzcátegui, 2021; Velásquez Atehortúa,
2021, 169–170). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The differences among Venezuelan
leftists regarding the influence of social democratic thinking on the Maduro
government sheds light on the applicability of Mao’s concept of “contradictions
among the people.” Those on the left end of the PCV-led alliance made no
distinction between the PSUV’s social democrats and Maduro, whom they
considered fully committed to strengthening the capitalist system (Corriente
Marxista Lucha de Clases, 2020, 3–6). In contrast, other critics did make a
distinction, and thus their criticisms of the president could be characterized
as “contradictions among the people.” The PCV, for its part, harshly criticized
Maduro’s concessions to business interests, but, at least at first, pointed to
currents within the PSUV and the government as representing the real threat,
namely the possible reversal of the advances achieved under Chávez. PCV
secretary general Oscar Figuera, for instance, pointed to factions within the
Chavista movement that sought to “construct “a new bipartisanship of elites”
(Figuera, 2020; PCV, 2020a, 9). For his part, Maduro did not publicly embrace
the “revolutionary bourgeoisie” thesis put forward by Castro Soteldo (Arreaza,
2016).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">This article has pointed to the
centrality of objective conditions in formulating leftist political strategy
dating back to Marx and Lenin and currently in the debate between the
Venezuelan government and the PCV. Widely acceptable criteria, of course, do
not exist for determining the relative weight of objective conditions to arrive
at the correct strategy. However, this article suggests that some tools are
applicable in given situations. In the Venezuelan case, comparisons between
Venezuela and nations in the region and between different periods over the
recent past are useful for evaluating the defensive strategy pursued by the
Maduro government. The article also compares the initial willingness of PCV
leaders to reconsider their break with Maduro with the more intransigent
positions of parties to their left. It concludes that the PCV–government
confrontation needed not be, in the words of Mao, an “antagonistic
contradiction” and that the rupture of the governing alliance was far from
inevitable. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The Venezuelan controversy has to
be seen against the backdrop of the defense of national sovereignty against
imperialist aggression, which arguably is the left’s most important banner in
today’s global South. However, it has been downplayed in the age of
globalization (Xu, 2020, 2–3). The issue is at the heart of the Maduro–PCV
confrontation. Nevertheless, there are reasons, however, to reject a mechanical
view that subordinates all revolutionary goals and objectives to the challenges
posed by imperialism. Fidel Castro’s reflection that all Cuba’s problems cannot
be attributed solely to imperialist aggression pointed in this direction.
Freddy Bernal, a prominent PSUV leader, made a similar statement with regard to
Venezuela (Ellner, 2020b, 52–53). A defensive strategy such as that implemented
by Maduro cannot be the sole response of a government committed to
revolutionary change, regardless of the circumstances. Without continuing
certain policies of the past, a defensive strategy will lay the groundwork for
a permanent retreat and abandonment of revolutionary goals. Furthermore, the
leftist government’s ability to maintain popular support and mobilize followers
will be undermined. The Maduro government did, for instance, maintain Chávez’s
progressive foreign policy in favor of a multi-polar world. It also claimed
that it was promoting the “communal state” initiated by Chávez based on
self-governing and economically productive communities and clusters of
communities. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Undeniably, the government provided
the communes with resources, but the extent of its commitment has been the
source of debate on the left (Gilbert, 2020, 21). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Several factors undermined the
possibility that the differences between Maduro and the PCV and some of its
allies could have been dealt with as “contradictions among the people.” For its
unity to have been achieved, Maduro would have had to convert the Polo
Patriótico into a space for intra-left debate and policy recommendations and to
have modified some of his pro-business policies. For part, the PCV would have
had to take into account the imperialist war on Venezuela in the formulation of
strategy and, in doing so, give greater consideration to the rationale behind
Maduro’s defensive strategy. The reformulation of strategy along these lines
implied a non-dogmatic approach to inter-left relations, in contrast to the
PSUV’s sectarianism toward the currents on the left analyzed in this article,
specifically the “loyal opposition on the left” and the “critical
supporters.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The war on Venezuela, along with
other unfavorable conditions, lent itself to Maduro’s defensive strategy.
However, that approach was not without a major risk: the possibility that the
defensive policies would initiate a permanent retreat — contrary to the stated
intentions of Maduro (as well as Lenin in the 1920s) and in line with the model
advocated by the PSUV’s social democratic current associated with Castro
Soteldo. The best guarantee against backsliding would have been a cordial and
conciliatory stance toward allies and potential allies on the left. Indeed, a
principle was at stake. A leftist government needs to bend over backwards so
that “contradictions among the people” do not become “antagonistic
contradictions” — as they have in Venezuela — and, in the process, undermine
the goal of a united front on the left against common enemies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: black;">Notes</span></strong><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[1] The term “defensive strategy”
in this article refers to concessions and compromises by leftist governments
and parties that are adopted during unfavorable periods with the intention of
advancing toward revolutionary goals once objective conditions improve. The
strategy finds expression in Lenin’s phrase with reference to the NEP “one step
backward to take two steps forward.” As will be discussed, the PCV appeared to
defend what this article calls a “non-offensive strategy,” which refers to a
pause in demands and initiatives of a progressive nature in order to achieve
consolidation during unfavorable periods, but short of concessions. While the
distinction between “defensive strategy” and “non-offensive” strategy may
sometimes be blurry, the difference between Maduro’s strategy and that defended
by the PCV could not have been sharper.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[2] A major objective condition was
the Bolsheviks’ gaining control of a majority of soviets in the latter half of
the year, an achievement that could also be labeled a “subjective condition” in
that it implied heightened consciousness among key sectors of the population.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[3] Bob Avakian, long-time head of
the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), frequently posits the importance of
revolutionary “leaps” in both objective and subjective conditions (Avakian,
2016, 45, 51, 181, 408–409).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[4] Confidential interview,
Washington DC, October 22, 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[5] Elsewhere I have argued that
Chávez and especially Maduro failed to take full advantage of favorable
situations partly because they failed to anticipate the formidable challenges
they would face once their adversaries went on the offensive (Ellner, 2020a,
180–184).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[6] The PCV was the most important
member of the Alternativa Popular Revolucionaria alliance, which took in
diverse political parties on the left and social movements. They included two
Trotskyist parties, the barrio-based Tupamaro and the Patria Para Todos party
(which dated its origins to the Communist guerrilla movement of the 1960s).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[7] Only two articles focused on
the “war on Venezuela.” One deals with a decision of the International Court of
Justice that favored Guyana in its border dispute with Venezuela and the other
is a short piece on the accusations against Venezuela lodged by the UN’s Human
Rights Council (Tribuna Popular, July 9, 2020; October 6, 2020)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">[8] I observed this dynamic in the
interaction between PCVistas in the audience and party leaders at a meeting
held in commemoration of the bicentennial of Marx’s birth at the PCV’s national
headquarters on May 5, 2018.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: black;">References</span></strong><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Argus. 2021. “PdV’s New Upstream
Deals Hinge on Oil Law Reform.” May 27.
https://www.argusmedia.com/news/2219374-pdvs-new-upstream-deals-hinge-on-oil-law
-reform<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Arreaza, Jorge. 2016. Interview
with Venezuela’s current Minister of Communes and Social Movements. Barcelona,
Venezuela. January 25. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Avakian, Bob. 2016. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The New Communism: The Science, the Strategy,
the Leadership for an Actual Revolution, and a Radically New Society on the
Road to Real Emancipation</em>. Chicago, Illinois: Insight. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Campbell, John C. 1970. “The Soviet
Union and the Middle East: ‘In the General Direction of the Persian Gulf” Part
II. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Russian Review</em>, 29:3,
247–261. Clemente, Christopher I. 2005. “Confronting Hugo Chávez: United States
‘Democracy Promotion’ in Latin America.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Latin
American Perspectives</em>, 32:3, 60–78. Confessore, Nicholas, Anatoly
Kurmanaev and Kenneth P. Vogel. 2020. “Trump, Venezuela and the Tug-of-war over
a Strongman.” </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">New York Times</span></em><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">, November 2, A-1. Corriente
Marxista Lucha de Clases. 2020. “El debate electoral y la necesidad de una
alternativa revolucionaria.” </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: black;">Lucha de Clases</span></em><span style="color: black;">,
10:24 (July), 2–7. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Coughlin, Dan and Kim Ives. 2011.
“Wikileaks Haiti: The PetroCaribe Files.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
Nation</em>, June 1. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/wikileaks-haiti
petrocaribe-files <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Curcio,
Pasqualina. 2020. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">El Comando Sur y la
vergonzosa Asamblea Nacional, 2016–2020: Arremetida Imperial</em>. Caracas:
Editorial El Perro y la Rana. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El Universal</span></em><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">. 2021. “Luis Eduardo Martínez:
Respaldamos la Ley Antibloqueo para recuperar el salario y las prestaciones
sociales.” </span><span style="color: black;">May 13.
https://www.eluniversal.com/politica/97048/luis-eduardo-martinez-respaldamos-la-ley-antibloqueo-para-recuperar-el-salario-y-las-prestaciones <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Ellner, Steve. 2020a. “Class
Strategies in Chavista Venezuela: Pragmatic and Populist Policies in a Broad
Context.” Pp. 163–191 in Ellner, ed., <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Latin
America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings</em>. Lanham, Maryland:
Rowman and Littlefield. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">———. 2020b. “Has the Pink Tide
Cycle Come to an End? Will it have a Long-Lasting Impact?” Pp. 39–58 in Ellner,
ed., <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Latin America’s Pink Tide:
Breakthroughs and Shortcomings</em>. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and
Littlefield. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">———. 2021. “Venezuela: United
States Continues Meddling with Election.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Links:
International Journal of Socialist Renewal</em>, November 6.
http://links.org.au/venezuela-united-states-continues-meddling-election <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Emersberger, Joe and Justin Podur.
2020. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Extraordinary Threat: The U. S.
Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela</em>. New
York: Monthly Review. Engels, Frederick. 2010. “On the History of the Communist
League.” Pp. 312–30 in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Marx and Engels:
Collected Works</em>, Vol. 26. London: Lawrence and Wishart. </span><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Figuera, Oscar. 2020. “Oscar
Figuera: En Venezuela hay democracia pero con una tendencia hacia el
autoritarismo.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Cronica Uno</em>,
September 27. https://cronica
.uno/oscar-figuera-en-venezuela-hay-democracia-pero-con-una-tendencia-hacia
-el-autoritarismo <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Gau, Claude Constant. 1967.
“Communist Wars of National Liberation and the Sino Soviet Dispute.” Ph. D.
Dissertation, Georgetown University. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Gilbert, Chris. 2020.
“Introduction: Venezuela’s Revolutionary Process from the Inside.” Pp. 13–28 in
Cira Pascual Marquina and Gilbert, eds., <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Venezuela:
The Present as Struggle – Voices from the Bolivarian Revolution</em>. New York:
Monthly Review. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Harrison, Scott. 2022. “The Mass
Line and the American Revolutionary Movement.” Unpublished manuscript.<a href="http://www.massline.info/mlms/mlch20.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ef6f07;"> http://www.massline.info/mlms/mlch20.htm</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Hetland, Gabriel. 2019. “Venezuela
and the Left.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Jacobin</em>, February
5. https://www
.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/venezuela-noninterventionism-self-determination
-solidarity <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Huertas, Carlos Eduardo. 2012.
“Wikileaks Colombia: Gossip and Counterinsurgency.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The
Nation </em>(August 13–20): 22–23. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Jacobson, Jon. 1994. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics</em>.
</span><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Berkeley,
California: University of California. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Jaua,
Elías. 2020. “Entrevista al exministro chavista Elías Jaua.” </span><span style="color: black;">BBC News (Guillermo D. Olmo, interviewer), December 17.
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias -america-latina-55342348 <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Johnstone, Monty. 1983. “Marx,
Blanqui and Majority Rule.” </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Socialist Register</span></em><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">, 7. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">La Iguana</em>. 2020. “‘Vuelta a la legalidad’:
Venezuela pide a EE UU una relación de respeto mútuo.”
https://www.laiguana.tv/articulos/934545-venezuela-eeuu
-relacion-respeto-mutuo <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Laya, Patricia, Alex Vasquez, and
Jennifer Jacobs. 2021. “Maduro and Washington Send Signals of Tentative
Détente.” Bloomberg, May 11. https://www.bloomberg
.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/maduro-and-washington-are-sending-signals
-of-tentative-detente <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Lenin. V. I. 1966 (1920).
“‘Left-Wing’ Communism — An Infantile Disorder.” Pp. 17–118 in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lenin: Collected Works</em>, Vol 31
(April–December 1920). Moscow: Progress Publishers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">———. 1973 (1921). “The New Economic
Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments.” Pp. 60–79 in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lenin: Collected Works</em>, Vol 33 (August
1921– March 1923). Moscow: Progress Publishers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Mao Tse-Tung. 1980 (1957). <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among
the People</em>. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">———. 2007 (1937). <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">On Practice and Contradiction</em>. London:
Verso. </span><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Marea
Socialista. 2015. “Venezuela: grupo descontento se escinde del PSUV.” DW, March
5. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Martín,
Jorge. 2019. “Jorge Martín explica porque hay que oponerse al golpe de estado
imperialista en curso en Venezuela.” In Defense of Marxism, January 25.
https://www.marxist.com/jorge-martin-explica-porque-hay-que-oponerse
-al-golpe-de-estado-imperialista-en-curso-en-venezuela.htm <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Marx, Karl. 1933 (1871). <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Civil War in France</em>. New York:
International Publishers. ———, and Frederick Engels. </span><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">1998 (1848). <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Communist Manifesto</em>. London: Elec
Book. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Morales,
Maru. 2020. “Oscar Figuera: En Venezuela hay democracia pero con una tendencia
hacia el autoritarismo.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Crónica Uno</em>,
September 27. https://cronica
.uno/oscar-figuera-en-venezuela-hay-democracia-pero-con-una-tendencia-hacia
-el-autoritarismo <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Muñoz,
Freddy. 1970. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Revolución sin dogma</em>.
Caracas: Ediciones Alcinoo. PCV. 2019. “Unidad de acción y nueva concepción de
gobierno.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna Popular</em>, 3006
(June), 5. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">———.
2020a “Acumular fuerzas para una salida revolucionaria a la crisis del
capitalismo dependiente y rentista venezolana.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna
Popular</em>, 3019 (September), 7–9.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">———.
2020b “Contra la criminalización de las luchas populares” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna Popular</em>, 3018 (July), 4. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">———.
2020c “Solidaridad con el PCV y el pueblo de Venezuela.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna Popular</em>, 3020 (October), 3. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">———.
2021a “Declaración política XIX Pleno del Comité Central del PCV.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna Popular</em>, 3021 (February),
3–5. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">———.
2021b “El gobierno continúa con la política de destrucción del salario.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna Popular</em>, 3023 (May), 1. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">———.
2021c “Las calumnias y amenazas contra el PCV con inaceptables.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna Popular</em>, 3022 (March), 6. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">PCV-Comisión
Nacional de Ideología. 2021. “Estrategia electoral: clasismo y reagrupación de
fuerzas alternativas — I.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tribuna
Popular</em>, 3020 (October), 7. Pino, Orianny. 2022. “Resistir la ofensive
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<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Prado, Angel. 2018. “Angel Prado:
Grapes of Wrath in Rural Venezuela.” Venezuelanalysis, June 15.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13857 <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">———. 2020. “Grapes of Wrath in
Rural Venezuela: A Conversation with Angel Prado.” Pp. 48–55 in Cira Pascual
Marquina and Chris Gilbert, eds., <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Venezuela:
The Present as Struggle </em>— <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Voices
from the Bolivarian Revolution</em>. New York: Monthly Review. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Reuters. 2021. “U. S. Aid to
Venezuela Was Not Aligned with Humanitarian Principles, Audit Finds.” August
30. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-aid-effort
-venezuela-was-not-aligned-with-humanitarian-principles-audit-finds-2021-04-30 <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Ron, Carlos. 2020. Telephone
interview with Venezuela’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Relations for North
America. October 6. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Tribuna Popular</span></em><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">. 2020. “Contra la
criminalización de las luchas populares.” 3018 (July), 4. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Uzcátegui,
Rafael. 2021. “Rafael Uzcátegui: Maduro creó su burguesía con unos ricos
pichirres.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Aporrea</em>, July 28.
https://www.aporrea.org/amp/ideologia/n366519 .html <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Valero, Jorge. 2011. Author
interview with Venezuelan UN ambassador. </span><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">New York. April 28. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="ES" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Vázquez
Heredia, Omar. 2021. “Por qué el Partido Comunista de Venezuela se aleja de
Maduro?” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Nueva Sociedad </em>(March).
https://nuso.org/articulo/el-partido
-comunista-de-venezuela-nicolas-maduro <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Velásquez Atehortúa, Juan. 2021.
“The Fear for Another Revolution/Communism: The Evolution of the Monroe
Doctrine as an Instrument of Racist Domination and Hegemony in the Caribbean.”
Pp. 157–173 in Fayyaz Baqir and Sanni Yaya, eds., <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Beyond
Free Market: Social Inclusion and Globalization</em>. London: Routledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 1rem; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Xu, Zhun. 2021. “The Return of the
Geopolitics of the Second International.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Monthly
Review </em>72:10, 1–20.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-55107343366988771282023-07-29T18:56:00.002-07:002023-07-29T18:56:44.352-07:00Left Government Strategies toward Business Groups and the Outcomes: The Mexican and Venezuelan Cases<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2kD11fB2cpKpYaQwBO1GCt0oU7mIO3EUc7zTtPA7cZttjXAQ5498Fm1SdCqnU_ut2SKRNXF-Oh30yQoQdMgFM5chcuZrHJI_O74NTDGMqcN7PkkTpxIV24O0lyo5MbWrnHwBiN5_A-lAifYLc11ZuNBWGUCPUmdRzE9OFzZuFGH8LyL_cBueYMM6z04/s636/amlo%20photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="636" data-original-width="515" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2kD11fB2cpKpYaQwBO1GCt0oU7mIO3EUc7zTtPA7cZttjXAQ5498Fm1SdCqnU_ut2SKRNXF-Oh30yQoQdMgFM5chcuZrHJI_O74NTDGMqcN7PkkTpxIV24O0lyo5MbWrnHwBiN5_A-lAifYLc11ZuNBWGUCPUmdRzE9OFzZuFGH8LyL_cBueYMM6z04/w324-h400/amlo%20photo.jpg" width="324" /></a></div><br /><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 3.25in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Left
Government Strategies toward Business Groups and the Outcomes: The Mexican and
Venezuelan Cases<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 3.25in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">by Steve
Ellner</span><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b>published in <i>Latin American
Perspectives</i>, March 2023 (Vol. 50, no. 1): pp 130-150<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><b>ABSTRACT<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The progressive governments of
Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico and Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in
Venezuela followed a strategy of selective treatment to win over some
businesspeople and neutralize others in order to weaken the opposition of a hostile
business class. This approach had advantages and downsides. It succeeded in
gaining support from business representatives for government initiatives in
moments of difficulty and crisis and reducing the firepower of the commercial
media. It was also, however, conducive to corruption. Many non-hostile
businesspeople proved to be unreliable allies as they ended up withdrawing
their support for the government. The non-hostile capitalists were a far cry
from the progressive “national bourgeoisie” which Communists and other leftists
attempted to form alliances with in the twentieth century. Nevertheless,
pro-establishment actors attacked many of them including such leading
capitalists as Gustavo Cisneros in Venezuela and Ricardo Salinas in Mexico, who
in some cases were considered “traitors.” In Mexico, major businesspeople
before and after the left’s advent to power played a more overtly political
role than for the most part in Venezuela. Chávez attempted to define the
behavior of progressive businesspeople, which included limits on profits, and
also promoted the formation of politically progressive business organizations. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Key words: “national bourgeoisie,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Hugo
Chávez, FEDECAMARAS, Carlos Slim, Gustavo Cisneros <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">All governments that are committed
to revolutionary transformation but rule out a forceful seizure of state power,
or an accelerated radicalization quickly leading to socialism, are confronted
with a fundamental issue: given the predominance of the capitalist system, what
relations, if any, should the left in power pursue toward the capitalists. The
progressive governments that came to power in Latin America in the twenty-first
century, known as the “Pink Tide,”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> faced this predicament,
though the strategy they followed toward capitalist groups was never openly
discussed or debated. This failure was especially striking because Pink Tide
governments recognized that socialism was not an immediate prospect and thus
the capitalists would be around for some time. Hugo Chávez cautioned that it
would take at least two decades to achieve while Bolivia’s vice-president
Alvaro García Linera predicted that what he called “Andean-Amazonian capitalism”
would last a century. The debate that took place within and outside of leftist
parties centered on economic policy, while skirting the crucial issue of how to
divide the business class by winning over or neutralizing some of its members and
isolating the most intransigent ones. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">In Pink Tide countries, prominent businesspeople
occupied one of three groups, as defined by their political behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hostile business sector (hereafter HBS)
was aggressively opposed to the leftists in power and sometimes formed part of
the disloyal opposition which questioned the government’s legitimacy. Businesspeople
in the friendly business sector (hereafter FBS) provided the government with
political support, endorsed some of its policies and in a few cases held
government posts and belonged to the governing party. A third category
represented a middle ground (MG) between these two poles.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">This article will examine the
strategy toward businesspeople followed by the Pink Tide governments of Mexico
under Andrés Manuel López Obrador (hereafter AMLO) and Venezuela under Chávez
and Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela, as the most radical Pink Tide country and
Mexico, a moderate one, were chosen in order to explore contrasts and
similarities. In both cases intense polarization and the existence of a
powerful HBS, which included some of the nation’s leading capitalists, convinced
the leftists in power that preferential treatment toward a select group of businesspeople
was necessary and justifiable. The aim was to isolate and reduce the influence
of intransigent members of the HBS. The main approach of the AMLO government
was to increase the size of the MG by drawing some of the intransigents into
that category. In Venezuela, Chávez made greater efforts than AMLO to nurture
the FBS by formulating specific norms for “responsible” business practices, at
the same time that pro-Chavista business organizations were created (Ellner, 2020a:
167-169)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The examination of the relations between Pink Tide
governments and business groups sheds light on various issues and lessons and
raises questions which the article will explore. </span>One issue is
whether the terms “progressive bourgeoisie” and “national bourgeoisie” – both
used by Communists and other leftists in the twentieth century – are fitting to
describe FBS and MG businesspeople in the age of globalization. A second is
whether to consider the tacit agreements with businesspeople in the FBS and MS
“strategic alliances” or “tactical alliances.” A third issue is the tendency of
the policy of preferential treatment toward businesspeople based on political
criteria to lead to corruption. A final question is what has the Pink Tide
experience shown with regard to the reliability and resilience of the alliances
with FBS and MG businesspeople in situations of crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The first section of the article
will briefly explore the positions of the international Communist movement historically
and will show that its analysis of the national bourgeoisie in the South was
frequently modified in tandem with changes not only in Soviet foreign policy but
also the left’s political strategy. In the second section, the article will
explore the nature of the business sectors which AMLO and Chávez attempted to
win over or neutralize, as well as the differences in strategies employed by both
governments. The concluding section will discuss the larger implications of the
Pink Tide’s strategy toward business groups. Specifically, the resultant
alliances with FBS and MG business groups demonstrate the shortcomings of those
analyses of Pink Tide governments that classify them as populist in the
pejorative sense of the term. These writings define populism as the “politics
of antagonism” and stress the tendency of populist leaders to polarize, a
thesis which is at odds with the efforts of Pink Tide leaders to neutralize
sectors of a business class that was openly hostile to the government. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><b>LEFTIST
DEBATE OVER THE “NATIONAL BOURGEOISIE” SINCE 1917<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">A brief discussion of the
longstanding debate over the role of the “national bourgeoisie”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> provides an historical
context to understand the relations between Pink Tide leaders and national
business interests. At one extreme, some twentieth-century leftists supported
alliances with the national bourgeoisie that were designed to fulfill
far-reaching goals corresponding to a stage of national development based on
industrialization, democracy and land reform. At the other extreme, certain leftist
currents denied the existence of a progressive national bourgeoisie, or else
viewed it as highly unreliable, and in practice ruled out a strategy of
convergences and agreements with it. A majority of leftists stood between the
two positions, though in the age of globalization beginning in the 1980s most
ceased to view the local bourgeoisie as “progressive.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The Communist movement throughout
the twentieth century modified its position several times, demonstrating a
correlation between hostility toward the national bourgeoisie and swings to the
left in general. The two theses presented by Lenin and the Indian Communist
M.N. Roy at the Second Congress of the Third International (the Comintern) in
1920 manifested a nuanced contrast in positions on the issue. Lenin defended
alliances with the national bourgeoisie throughout the South, although he made
clear that Communists rejected the submissive stance toward that class advocated
by the Second International (1889-1916). Roy was more skeptical of the
reliability of the national bourgeoisie in certain nations, especially his
native India, and (unlike Lenin) viewed Mahatma Gandhi as belonging to the
religious right. The relationship between aversion to alliances with the national
bourgeoisie and what some pejoratively call “ultra-leftism” is demonstrated by
Roy’s insistence that the proletariat in India was numerically strong (unlike
Lenin’s assessment) and that “‘peasant and workers Soviets’” should be
organized “‘as soon as possible’” (<em><span style="color: black;">Haithcox,
2019). </span></em><i><o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Subsequent changes in the position
of the international communist movement demonstrated the relationship between the
refusal by leftists to ally with the national bourgeoisie and their movement in
a leftist direction. <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">This tendency
became evident at the Comintern's Sixth Congress in 1928 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which claimed that while the Second Congress’s
call for alliances with the national bourgeoisie was correct for that period, the
nations of the South had for the most part entered a new period in which the “</span><span style="color: black;">intermediate position of the national bourgeoisie between
the revolutionary and imperialist camps is no longer to be observed</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">" as for the most part that class
had “</span><span style="color: black;">passed over finally into the camp of
counterrevolution” (Comintern, 1928)</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;">. </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The Sixth Congress signaled the beginning of the so- called
"third period" of international communism in which Communists
preached "</span>class versus class<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">," a strategy generally labelled sectarian and "ultra-leftist."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The succeeding Comintern congress held in 1935 reversed the
Sixth Congress’ claim that the national bourgeoisie had betrayed the
anti-imperialist cause. The new Communist position was that the national
bourgeoisie played an important role in the struggles for national liberation
which furthered the anti-fascist and anti-war efforts embodied in popular
fronts. This line of thinking continued throughout the World War II years when Latin
American Communists assumed an even more moderate position, broadened the base
of the anti-fascist front, and backed diverse non-leftist governments that supported
the Allied cause. A new reversal occurred with the outbreak of the Cold War
when Latin American Communists abandoned the broad-based strategy and, in some
cases, censured the party’s World War II leaders for their “rightist
deviations” (Ellner, 1981: 62-66). This position was again modified at the Twenty-First
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1959 which signaled the
initiation of a strategy designed to establish close ties with governments that
represented the national bourgeoisie and formed part of the emerging bloc of
non-aligned nations. Nikita Khrushchev called these governments with “anti-imperialist”
tendencies "revolutionary democrats," and claimed they were embarking
on a “non-capitalist path” that was not plainly socialist, even while some were
not particularly progressive on the domestic front. In an indication of Moscow’s
commitment to the national bourgeoisie, by 1960 Soviet-guaranteed loans to
these non-socialist nations were reported to have overtaken those granted to
socialist bloc nations (Friedman, 2015: 30-38). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The period of
globalization beginning in the early 1980s represented a definitive change in much
of the left’s position on the national bourgeoisie. In recent decades a near
consensus has prevailed among leftist analysts that in the age of
globalization, the local bourgeoisie no longer has the potential – even if it
once had – to play an active role in the struggle for national liberation
(Desai, 2004: 182-184). </span>Nevertheless, while Communists had minimized or
denied the progressive potential of the local bourgeoisie in periods in which
they moved further to the left (specifically in 1928 and at the outset of the
Cold War), that same position on the bourgeoisie since the 1980s did not imply
a shift in a leftist direction. More accurately, it signified a recognition on
the part of the left of the impact of global capitalism on local economies. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In spite of this near consensus on the left, some shades of difference
exist. Some analysts on the left postulate that the national bourgeoisie has
“exhausted its historical role” (Amin, 2006: 180) in favor of national
liberation, while others recognize a relationship of “antagonistic cooperation”
(Katz, 2015: 15) between local and global capital. At one extreme, Samir Amin
pointed to the failure of nationalist movements in power, such as Nasserism, to
retain its commitment to a politics of non-alignment and Third Worldism (as
shown, for instance, by Anwar el-Sadat’s conciliatory foreign policy and move
to the right). For Amin, these developments demonstrated that the national
bourgeoisie no long represents a force for change (Amin, 2006: 170-171; 2019: 90-94).
William I. Robinson is nearly as pessimistic regarding the potential of local
capitalists to defy hegemonic global capitalism since they “must increasingly
link to transnational capital” and “</span>into the emergent globalized system
of production, finance, and services”<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> (Robinson, 2017a: 177; 2016: 8; 2020; 26-27). In contrast, Claudio Katz
argues that the "increasing transnationalization" of the dominant
sectors of national capitalism of the South have "not destroyed their
local roots" as they "remain... in competition with the corporations
based outside the region," even though they now target exports instead of
the domestic market. Far from promoting thoroughgoing change, however, the
national bourgeoisie plays a key role in propping Pink Tide governments by pushing
them in an "increasingly conservative direction" (Katz, 2005). Only
small fringes on the left some associated with Maoism continue to uphold the
notion of a national progressive bourgeoisie (an example being the </span>Movimiento
Obrero Independiente y Revolucionario<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- MOIR - in Colombia [Mosquera
Sánchez, 2009: 13-15: Robledo, 2009: 105-112]). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Given these theoretical revisions by analysts committed to
the leftist cause, one may have expected that progressive twenty-first century
governments have ceased to view the local bourgeoisie, or fractions of that
class, as potential allies. Indeed, there were few references by those on the
left to businesspeople as “anti-imperialist” or even progressive. Furthermore,
unlike twentieth-century leftists, Pink Tide strategists did not openly debate
the role of the national bourgeoisie in the struggle for far-reaching change. Nevertheless,
Pink Tide governments, even the radical ones such as that of Chávez and Evo
Morales, followed strategies toward business groups. In addition, in spite of
the absence of ideological debate regarding the national bourgeoisie, the
concessions that were made to that class split the government parties between
hard-line and soft-line currents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><b>BUSINESS
SECTOR ALLIANCES: THE MEXICAN AND VENEZUELAN EXPERIENCES<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Major controversies including
corruption scandals surrounding Pink Tide alliances with the private sector <a name="_Hlk58235501">point to the need for taking a close look at leftist
government strategies toward businesspeople. One example is President Lula da
Silva’s close relationship with the construction company Odebrecht, which
received numerous contracts for megaprojects both in Brazil and Venezuela.
Chávez also considered Odebrecht an “ally,” and expressed gratitude for the
company’s willingness to ship Venezuela needed material during the 2002-2003
opposition-led general strike (EFE News Service, 2008). </a>Nevertheless, after
being sentenced to over 19 years in prison on charges of corruption, the
company’s owner Marcelo Odebrecht reached an agreement with the state in which
he confessed to supposed illicit dealings with Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) and
government and accused Lula of receiving money in cash. In 2022, a significant
number of other former PT supporters among the elite and middle classes ended
up backing rightist presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro against Lula who (in
the words of <i>Forbes</i> magazine) they “despised,” even though “many of them
made their way out of poverty during his mandate” (Fontevecchia, 2022).<span style="color: #333333;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">A second example of controversy
arising from strategies toward the business sector is the role of two wealthy
businesspeople who have belonged to the Sandinista movement and government in
Nicaragua: banker and former Contra member Jaime Morales Carazo, who served as
vice-president in Daniel Ortega’s term of 2007-2012; and anti-Somoza commander
Bayardo Arce who managed Sandinista financial assets in the early 1990s and
went on to become a wealthy businessman and serve as a liaison between the
Sandinistas and the business sector, in the process helping to neutralize the
peak business organization, the <span style="background: white; color: black;">Consejo
Superior de la Empresa Privada (COSEP). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
analysts suggest that these “alliances may have gone too far, steering the
party off its ideological path for the sake of maintaining elite support and
holding on to power” (Cruz-Feliciano, 2020, 281).</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">A third example of a controversial relationship between the
left and the business sector is President Evo Morales’ reconciliation with the
main business organization Cámara de Industria y Comercio (CAINCO) of Santa Cruz
beginning in 2009. For some actors and analysts, with the “shift from
confrontation to accommodation and collaboration… the MAS government has
essentially given up on its transformation agenda” (Wolff, 2019: 115). For
others it was a master stroke in that it divided the enemy consisting of CAINCO
and the Comité Cívico de Santa Cruz, both of which for several years had been
united in defying the central government and promoting acts of violence. The
Comité Cívico denounced CAINCO’s turnaround and called its president a
“traitor” (Notimérica, 2009). In addition to appearing to be politically sound,
the pact promoted economic development but at the same time, as Morales'
critics on the left note, it set off deforestation with devastating
environmental effects (Farthing, 2020: 198-199). The alliance proved fragile.
At the first sign of instability following the controversial presidential
election of October 2019, CAINCO issued a public letter to Morales demanding his
resignation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In Venezuela and Mexico, Pink Tide presidents aspired to
promote the rise of a new business class (the FBS) that would embrace goals of national
development and greater social equality. Their strategies built on the thesis that
the traditional bourgeoisie in the age of globalization was holding back
progress and was shrouded in corruption. In Venezuela, the critique came from
both sides of the political spectrum and dated back decades. In the words of
one leading business analyst, the traditional business class consisted of “rich
clowns” who were ill-suited to face the challenges of globalization and, in
contrast to their counterparts in Colombia, Chile and elsewhere, lacked the boldness
to enter politics and put forward viable plans for change. As a result of overreliance
on easy oil money and “lack of competitive zeal, creativity, money coming from
sweat and effort,” the Boultons, Mendoza Goiticoas and other traditional
families were unable to meet challenges such as the nation’s financial crisis
of 1993-1994 and ended up losing most of their fortune (Zapata, 1995: 10; see
also, Naím: 1993: 86-87). AMLO, for his part, characterized large Mexican
capitalists as the “mafia del poder” (mafia of power) and claimed that if true
capitalism were able to function without the monopolies, the purchasing power
of Mexicans would increase by 10 to 15 per cent (<i>Expansión</i>, 2011). The
strategies in both countries were predicated on the realization that regardless
of possible socialist goals, capitalism would be around for a long time, thus
the desirability of capitalist structural transformation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">A second strategy employed in Venezuela and Mexico was pragmatic.
Both Pink Tide governments provided a select group of businesspeople with certain
benefits in order to neutralize them and in the process isolate the more
intransigent members of the business class. Many businesspeople and groups in
the MG had previously been prominent members of the anti-government camp and as
a result of their switch were labeled traitors, corrupt and government
collaborators by opposition hard-liners. One of the main accomplishments of the
government’s pragmatic strategy in both nations was in toning down to varying
degrees the coverage of communication media outlets, which had previously been
aggressively anti-government and clearly identified with the opposition. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Venezuela business groups: HBS, MG and FBS <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Years before Chávez reached power in 1998, the Chavista
movement established ties with members of the private sector through the
efforts of Luis Miquilena, a former leftist trade unionist turned businessman,
who was to become Chávez’s right-hand man. Miquilena obtained support for
Chávez’s presidential candidacy from various leading Venezuelan businesspeople including
multibillionaire Gustavo Cisneros. In contrast, the peak business organization
FEDECAMARAS opposed Chávez’s candidacy. Issues of corruption, the almost
inevitable consequence of privileging select business groups, manifested itself
shortly after Chávez’s election with accusations against Miquilena’s ally Tobías
Carrero, who had served as a conduit for large business contributions to the
Chavista movement. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">With the Chavista government’s radicalization in 2001
along with resistance to it from Miquilena, Chávez personally intervened in
putting into practice a strategy designed to win over some businesspeople and
isolate others. Chávez unsuccessfully supported the government-friendly
businessman Alberto Cudemus against future coup leader Pedro Carmona in the
election for president of FEDECAMARAS in July 2001, and limited official
contact with that organization. At the time of the first general strike in
December 2001, which led into the coup of April 2002, Chávez through his
Defense Minister José Vicente Rangel met with a select group of businesspeople
in an attempt to (in the words of Carmona) “intimidate and commit them to
opposing the work stoppage” (Carmona, 2005: 38). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Following the FEDECAMARAS-led April 2002 coup and general strike
of 2002-2003, Chávez implemented exchange controls which excluded
businesspeople who openly supported the regime-change attempts. The system, in
which the state sold dollars for priority transactions at artificially low
rates, made sense at the time of its implementation in February 2003 as a check
on capital flight. In time, however, the system became unwieldy as the
disparity between official and unofficial exchange rates significantly widened.
Some analysts on the left, such as William Robinson (2017b), argue that the state’s
sale of cheap or “preferential” dollars “reflects an alliance between the
revolutionary bloc” and FBS businesspeople, who use unethical means to obtain
them. Various Venezuelan Chavista analysts such as economist Pasqualina Curcio (2019)
attempt to show that the lion’s share of the preferential dollars has filled
the pockets of non-FBS businesspeople, transactions which may have softened
their opposition to the government (Ellner, 2020a: 172). Many of these
financial operations were in association with foreign capital (Guillaudat, 2019),
and were made more profitable as a result of the manipulation of the unofficial
exchange rate, which, according to Curcio (2020a), was engineered from abroad by
currency exchange companies such as DolarToday, headquartered in Miami (Dachevsky
and Kornblihtt, 2017: 89-90).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 364.5pt; text-autospace: none;">Indeed, in addition to encouraging and favoring FBS
and MG businesspeople, the Chavista governments especially in moments of crisis
have attempted to mitigate the opposition of the business class as a whole and
FEDECAMARAS in particular. FEDECAMARAS’s two vice-presidents under Carmona, Carlos
Fernández (who played the lead role in the general strike of 2002-2003) and then
Albis Muñoz, succeeded him as president of the organization and maintained its relentlessly
hostile stand toward the government. However, all three candidates including
Cudemus who ran to succeed Muñoz as FEDECAMARAS president in 2005 pledged to
maintain a more harmonious relationship with the government. Subsequently, FEDECAMARAS
president Jorge Roig broke with the Venezuelan political opposition by boldly opposing
the four-month long street protests of early 2014 designed to achieve regime
change. Roig recognized that FEDECAMARAS had committed errors and claimed that
the differences with the government were not irreconcilable, at the same time
that he accepted President Maduro’s invitation to engage in dialogue in the
presidential palace, itself a novelty for the Chavista governments. In another
situation of crisis, Maduro passed the Anti-Blockade Law in October 2020 which
allowed the executive to enter secret arrangements with the private sector, a
law which drew heavy criticism from sectors on the left, both in and out of the
governing Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV). Maduro’s intention was
not only to stimulate much-needed private investments but also to distance <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">moderate political and business leaders from
those of the radical opposition </span>(Ron, 2020).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 6.0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Chávez's strategy toward the FBS
reflected the more radical leftist nature of the Pink Tide phenomenon in
Venezuela in comparison to that of Mexico. By passing legislation and
implementing policies that privileged "responsible" capitalists, the
Chávez government was, in effect, promoting a new model of capitalism to
replace the old one based on super-exploitation and super-profits.</span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> Legislation designed to create
“socially conscious” businesspeople went beyond mere rhetoric and included the
obligation of banks to finance projects of national priority, the social
obligations of the recipients of public contracts, and checks on excessive profits.
Thus, for instance, the chapter titled “Social Responsibility Commitment” of
the Regulation of the Public Contracts Law of 2009 ordered government
monitoring of social programs which contractors were obliged to undertake prior
to completion of their contract and which were to cost between one and five
percent of the value of the project. FEDECAMARAS especially objected to the cap
on profits at 30 percent established by Maduro in January 2014, and attempted
to annul the measure in court. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 364.5pt; text-autospace: none;">Another indication of the more radical thrust of the
Pink Tide in Venezuela is that unlike in Mexico (as in the case of Alfonso Romo
[Gonzalez, 2019: 140]) no FBS businessperson belonged to the president’s inner
circle, and few held official positions in the governing party or the federal government.
The most politically prominent FBS businessman was Miguel Perez Abad who as a
member of the PSUV aspired to be governor of the state of Anzoátegui and then
held two ministerial positions in 2017-2018, after which he was appointed
president of the state Banco Bicentenario and in December 2020 was elected
deputy to the National Assembly on the Chavista ticket. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">The vitriolic attacks on MG businesspeople by members of
the Venezuelan opposition reflected the intensity of the polarization in that
nation and the precarity of staking out a middle position. Much of the
opposition’s fire was directed at communication media personalities and owners
who were called “traitors,” a label that had much to do with the fact that
nearly all news outlets had unequivocally supported the regime change attempts
of 2002-2003. Subsequently, various major media firms toned down their attacks
on the government and maintained a more balanced coverage of the news. Representatives
of the opposition attributed these reversals (and those of others in the
private sector) to payoffs from the Chavista government and labelled businesspeople
with cordial government relations members of the “boliburguesía,” a term
tantamount to corrupt business operatives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">The about-faces of TV channel Venevisión owner Gustavo
Cisneros lent themselves to accusations of this sort. Shortly after Chávez’s
election in 1998, some FEDECAMARAS businesspeople denied that, given his
support for the president-elect, Cisneros could be considered a “serious”
businessman (Bottome, 1998). Following his allegedly active role in the April
2002 coup, these same businesspeople lauded Cisneros (Bottome, 2003?). This
view, however, changed again. Shortly before the presidential recall election
of August 2004, Cisneros met with Chávez in a meeting brokered by Jimmy Carter
after which Venevisión strove to maintain a fairly balanced coverage. Chavista
hard-liner Lina Ron warned against the Chávez-Cisneros meeting, while
soft-liner vice-president José Vicente Rangel encouraged it. Cisneros’ detractors
claimed that his alleged pact with Chávez was designed to eliminate competition
from the rival TV channel “Radio Caracas” (which the government forced out of
Venezuela) and to, along with his allies, create one big monopoly in the
nation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Similar accusations of belonging to the “boliburguesía”
and of unethical dealings were lodged against other MG businesspeople,
including media magnate Raúl Gorrín and bankers Juan Carlos Escotet and Víctor Vargas.
However, in the case of Escotet, Cudemus and others, tension between the Maduro
government and MG businesspeople intensified and led to a falling out. Gorrín,
for his part, served as an intermediary between the Maduro government and
Washington operatives in addition to attempting to further his own interests. Gorrín
in 2013 purchased the TV channel Globovisión, which up until then was an unrelenting
critic of the Chavista governments, and made changes to balance the channel’s
news coverages. Not surprisingly, Gorrín, who according to the <i>New York
Times</i>, “worked to broker U.S. investments in his country… while building
close ties to both Mr. Maduro and the opposition,” was considered untrustworthy
by hard-line Chavistas (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/nicholas-confessore"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Confessore</span></a>,
Kurmanaev and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/kenneth-p-vogel"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Vogel</span></a>,
2020: A-1; Ellner, 2020b).<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Escotet’s Banesco bank was the result of a merger with
Banco Unión, which had previously been associated with the hard-line opposition,
thus partly explaining the opposition’s resentment toward him. Escotet (like
Mexican MG businessman Ricardo Salinas) benefited from Chávez’s social programs
which were channeled through Banesco. While his relations with the government
had highs and lows, Escotet ended up breaking with Maduro and from Spain
supporting the opposition. Vargas, owner of the Banco Occidental de Descuento,
was called “Chávez’s favorite banker,” but his relations with Maduro were also inconsistent.
This volatility in relations with non-HBS businesspeople followed a pattern
dating back to the financial crisis of 2009 when the Chávez government arrested
two leading FBS businessmen, Ricardo Fernández Barrueco (considered the richest
Chavista businessman) and Arné Chacón (brother of a member of Chávez’s inner
circle). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">In all these cases, leading businesspeople who
collaborated with the government and had fairly harmonious relations with it
could hardly be considered a national “progressive” bourgeoisie as envisioned
by the twentieth-century Communist movement. Nevertheless (as discussed below),
the government benefited from cases, such as that of the communications media, in
which business groups went from supporting regime change to the MG position. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">The analysis of the “boliburguesía” by opposition members and
their accusations against it, in effect, pass over the distinction between the MG
and FBS. The former was hardly in the Chavista camp, as the opposition claims,
and its political and economic influence in the nation far outweighed that of
the FBS. In short,<b> </b>in spite of Maduro’s increasingly pro-business
policies, the thesis embraced by much of the opposition that the so-called “boliburguesia”
represents a “governing caste” fails to take into consideration the unstable
and stormy relations that leading members of the MG have had with both Chavista
governments (Ellner, 2020a: 174).<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Mexican business groups: HBS, MG and FBS<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">One major difference between the Mexican and Venezuelan cases
relates to the degree to which individual capitalists were publicly identified
with positions on partisan issues and openly supported political candidates.
Since the founding of FEDECAMARAS in 1944, Venezuelan businesspeople were
generally reluctant to assume heavily charged political positions, at least publicly,
a tradition which was momentarily broken in 2002-2003 with the two attempts at
regime change. In subsequent years, Lorenzo Mendoza, owner of the nation's largest
privately held company who was occasional mentioned as a possible presidential
candidate for the united opposition, always made clear that he lacked political
ambitions and interests. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In contrast, leading Mexican businesspeople played prominent
roles in attempting to block AMLO's presidential bid in 2006, 2012 and 2018. In
the latter election, businesspeople of powerful economic groups including Germán
Larrea (Mexico Group), Alberto Bailléres (Bal Group), José Antonio Fernández
Carbajal (FEMSA) and Andrés Conesa (Aeroméxico) issued statements to their
employees calling on them to avoid electing a "populist” president, an
obvious reference to AMLO. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Over the years, AMLO reciprocated by repeatedly denouncing the
unethical dealings of the nation's most powerful capitalists who he claimed
formed part of what he called the "mafia of power." In doing so, he
went beyond generalizations. In 2012, AMLO presented his book “The Mafia that
Took Possession of Mexico” (<i>La mafia que se adueñó de México…y el 2012</i>)
in which he claimed that the nefarious grouping consisted of 30 individuals, of
which 16 were businessmen, 11 politicians and 3 technocrats. Among the
businesspeople were Larrea, </span>Bailléres,<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> Carlos Slim, Emilio Azcárraga and Ricardo Salinas (who
allegedly headed the business mafia group), </span>all of them among the
nation’s largest capitalists. Slim was by far Mexico’s wealthiest capitalist
while Salinas and Azcárraga owned Mexico’s two oligopolistic television
channels, TV Azteca and Televisa, respectively. AMLO blamed the “mafia of
power” businesspeople for helping rig the 2006 elections which allegedly
deprived him of the presidency.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 12.0pt;">AMLO, long known
for combining pragmatism with vehement denunciations of specific acts of
corruption, carried out a skillful strategy during the 2018 campaign of neutralizing
and reining in former adversaries including some “mafia of power”
businesspeople. Since the 2012 elections, AMLO counted on the active backing of
Alfonso Romo, who as one of Mexico’s wealthiest businessmen had previously supported
conservative presidential candidates. Belonging to the FBS, Romo served as an
intermediary between AMLO in 2018 and the private sector by arranging
well-publicized meetings with representatives of business groups including
those of Salinas, Azcárraga <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slim, and
Carlos Hank González (top executive of one of Mexico’s largest banks, Banorte),
all of whom indicated their openness to his candidacy. At the same time, the
peak business organization the <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Consejo
Coordinador Empresarial</span> maintained an officially neutral position,
unlike in the past (Vega, 2020: 613). Once AMLO was elected president, Romo
occupied the top position of Chief of the Office of the Presidency and created
the Business Advisor Council (Consejo Asesor Emprearial), integrated by
Salinas, Hank González and a representative of Televisa, among other leading
businesspeople.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 12.0pt;">AMLO extended preferential
treatment to businesspeople members of the Consejo Asesor Empresarial, among
others. The special relationship went counter to his previous call for the
separation of political and economic power (Dresser, 2020). Thus Televisa and TV
Azteca (along with two other channels), in the words of <i>Mexico Forbes</i>
(2020a), “closed ranks” with the government in reaching an agreement (worth over
20 million dollars) to provide remote education to public school students, in
the process excluding smaller channels. AMLO also condoned tax debts for the TV
and radio media, a measure which mainly benefited Televisa and TV Azteca, which
held 282 and 182 concessions respectively<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. </span>In 2019 shortly after assuming the presidency and at a
difficult moment due to President Trump’s threats of imposing tariffs on
Mexico, AMLO appeared publicly with Slim and Salinas where they announced their
intention to collaborate with the government on major infrastructure projects
(Beck, Bravo Regidor and Iber, 2020: 114). Subsequently, <i>Mexico</i> <i>Forbes</i>
(2020b) reported that Salinas and Slim were among those who “most stand out in
the contracts received from the government,” while the magazine <i>Proceso</i>
indicated that Slim was the government’s “principal contractor” (Tourliere,
2020). Slim’s contracts included megaprojects such as oil pipeline construction
and the “Mayan Train” in southern Mexico. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 12.0pt;">At first glance,
it appeared that AMLO had made his peace with private capital. The case of Salinas
was especially striking because he went from supposedly being at the helm of
the businessmen’s “mafia” to AMLO’s closest MG businessman. Nevertheless, the
members of the Consejo Asesor Empresarial were hardly in the FBS category as
differences and tension occasionally came to the fore between them and the
government. AMLO’s intention was to isolate the more intransigent HBS
businesspeople and thus he could hardly be accused of having “sold out.” Slim,
for instance, unsuccessfully attempted to convince AMLO in private against
suspending the construction of a new national airport outside Mexico City (in Texcoco)
for which the entrepreneur had contracts, after which relations between the two
temporarily soured.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Salinas, for his part, used offensive language against, and resisted, the
efforts of Labor Secretary Luisa María Alcalde to suspend non-essential
commercial services in the face of the coronavirus epidemic (<i>El Universal</i>,
2020). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 12.0pt;">AMLO’s supporters
rejected the charge that the president was unjustifiably kowtowing to big
capital (Ackerman, 2020). They argued, for instance, that AMLO’s friendly
relations with Salinas and Azcárraga were designed to isolate such aggressive
government critics as journalist-media heads Enrique Krauze and Héctor Aguilar
Camín, who he claimed had received payoffs from previous governments to support
their neoliberal policies (Mendoza, 2020). AMLO followers also justified the
government’s use of Salina’s Banco Azteca to distribute social stipends on
grounds that most of the bank’s clientele belonged to the popular sectors and that
the system eliminated middlemen and in doing so curbed corrupt practices and
clientelism (Mex Albornoz, 2020).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">AMLO’s special relationship with
Salinas was clearly on display in late 2022 when he reached an agreement with
the government in which he paid the back taxes that he allegedly owed. On
calling on Salinas to pay the taxes, AMLO showed discreteness and moderation,
indicating that the government needed to take into account Salinas’s claim that
he had been discriminated against by past governments. The agreement surprised
the nation because until then Salinas had adamantly refused to pay the taxes
and threatened to take the case to international tribunals. The announcement
was a victory for AMLO especially because it set a precedent for his
government’s efforts to collect back taxes from 20-30 large Mexican and
multinational corporations. Some journalists, however, were skeptical about the
agreement, claiming that “juicy government contracts” would more than
compensate for the payment (Ortuño, 2022), a claim that many of AMLO’s
supporters did not consider far-fetched. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">AMLO’s strategy of “divide and
rule” appeared logical given the participation of businesspeople belonging to powerful
economic groups in the attempt to remove the president from office. Nevertheless,
the opposition and the HBS in particular stopped short of the insurgency
carried out by counterparts in Venezuela. In 2020, the <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE) </span>hardened its
opposition to the government due to its failure to devise a stimulus bill in
response to the COVID pandemic and to honor past contracts, such as those for
the construction of the Texcoco airport. The CCE made plans to step into a
vacuum created by the discredit of the nation’s traditional parties and to
support candidates without a previous political record, while also lending
support for a presidential recall in 2022. Some prominent CCE members floated
the idea of not paying taxes for the duration of the pandemic. Business leader
Gustavo de Hoyos who headed the business organization Confederación Patronal de
la República Mexicana was also determined to use the resources of the
private sector to unify the opposition around the objective of unseating AMLO.<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">A more strident and disloyal opposition was led by
businesspeople grouped in the </span><span style="color: #242424;">Frente
Nacional Anti-AMLO (FRENAAA) led by Pedro Luis Martín Bringas, of the family
that owns the Soriana supermarket chain, and firebrand Gilberto Lozano, part
owner and former top executive of FEMSA, a major Mexican business group. For
various months in mid-2020, FRENAAA occupied Mexico City’s central plaza
demanding AMLO’s resignation and </span>ominously predicted that he would no
longer be president by the end of the year<span style="color: #242424;">. </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In short, the hostility and organized
efforts of influential actors in the private sector convinced the MORENA
leadership of the necessity of pursuing a selective approach toward businesspeople
even though that strategy ran counter to AMLO's previous harsh-sounding
rhetoric regarding the “mafia of power.”</span><span style="color: #242424;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 12.0pt;">As in Venezuela,
businesspeople who went from the HBS to the MG were strongly attacked for
having abandoned their previous positions. The harsh reaction of
pro-establishment figures against those who migrated to the MG evidenced the
high degree of political polarization that existed in the country. The fact
that the flagship companies of Slim and Salinas (Telmex and TV Azteca
respectively) originated not from their own entrepreneurial efforts but from privatization
carried out in the early 1990s contributed to the resentment. Salinas was
especially singled out for allying himself with whoever was in power and under
AMLO becoming the second or third richest man in the country, even increasing his
wealth during the COVID pandemic in 2020. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><a name="_Hlk88234954">The
following are key issues related to the left’s relations with business groups in
both countries.</a> <b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The Political and Economic Advantages of
the Government’s Business Strategies</span></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In both countries the government succeeded in moderating to greater
or lesser degrees the coverage of a media that had previously been unrelenting in
their attacks on the Chavistas and AMLO before he reached power. In Venezuela
the change of ownership of several media outlets (Globovisión and the
historically conservative newspapers <i>Ultimas Noticias</i> and <i>El
Universal</i>) fed into the Chavista’s MG strategy and at least in the case of <i>El
Universal</i> may have been facilitated by the government (Ellner, 2020a: 171).
Indeed, the <i>New York Times</i> reported that Maduro claimed to have good
relations with Globovisión’s Gorrín </span>(<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/nicholas-confessore"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Confessore</span></a>,
Kurmanaev and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/kenneth-p-vogel"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Vogel</span></a>,
2020: A-1)<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. In the case of Mexico,
AMLO, in a sharp departure from previous </span>comments, stated “I have to be
thankful for, and recognize, that [TV Azteca] has never engaged in a dirty war”
(Linares and Rodríguez, 2019). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In addition to achieving less
hostile media coverage, the governments’ MG strategy paid dividends in diverse ways.
MG and FBS businesspeople were especially helpful in moments of political
uncertainty and crisis. During the FEDECAMARAS-called general strike in
2002-2003, they provided transportation services that were essential for the government’s
survival. At the time of the four months of regime-change protests in Venezuela
in 2014, they responded energetically to Maduro’s call for dialogue as a means
to achieve stability. In Mexico, Carlos Slim denied that AMLO’s scheme to
raffle the presidential airplane was designed to divert attention from pressing
problems facing the nation at the same time that he (and Azcárraga) committed
himself to buying raffle tickets. MG businesspeople also posed a united front
with AMLO in the face of Trump’s tariff threats, and subsequently accompanied
the Mexican president in his trip to Washington for a White House meeting in
July 2020. Finally, MG businessman Alberto Vollmer (from one of Venezuela’s
traditional oligarchic families) injected life into the ailing Caracas Stock Exchange
by issuing stock in January 2020, its first public share offering in eleven
years. Coming at a politically precarious moment, Vollmer predicted that the
move represented a transition in socialist Venezuela comparable to the
reopening of the Shanghai Stock Exchange thirty years earlier that helped
revise China’s economy. </span><span style="color: #313132; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Strategic Versus Tactical Alliances<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #222222;">Many
social scientists have observed how capitalist groups adapt to a potentially
hostile environment such as under leftist rule (see, for instance,
Tinker-Salas, 2009: 192-193). I<span style="background: white;">n these cases,
business leaders make statements like "we are businesspeople not
politicians." This was basically the attitude assumed by MG businesspeople
in both countries. Nevertheless, the environment proved to be extremely
unstable, especially in Venezuela, due to the contradictions between the
inherent workings of the capitalist system with its drive to maximize profit
and a government committed to far-reaching transformation. One of the striking
characteristics of MG businesspeople in both countries was the large number of
them (as well as some in the FBS) who had previously been tied to conservative
political parties, thus placing in doubt their reliability as allies. Their
relations with the left in power contrasted with the strategic alliances with the
national bourgeoisie envisioned by Communists and other Third-World leftists in
the twentieth century that rested two postulates: a common denominator between
the left and this sector of the bourgeoisie in support of paramount goals; and
an alliance based on the struggle against common adversaries (imperialism and
fascism) and in favor of a new stage (national liberation). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Both Chávez and Maduro referred to government relations with
certain business groups as a </span><span style="color: #222222;">“strategic
alliance” (a term also used in Mexico), an assertion that failed to prepare
followers for the economic difficulties and turbulence that lay ahead. Chávez’s
rational for calling for a strategic alliance was the prospect that Latin
American integration would be a win-win situation for the government and the
private sector, but the proposal failed to prosper. In effect, what was at play
were “tactical alliances,” as reflected by the phrase “productive
businesspeople” used by the Chavista governments (and “patriotic”
businesspeople used by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua), a far cry from the term
“anti-imperialist” or “progressive” bourgeoisie coined by the twentieth-century
left.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Corruption<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The strategy of preferential
treatment for MG and FBS businesspeople is conducive to corruption. The reason
is simple. The decision to exclude those businesspeople who support regime
change and isolate them and their allies means making exceptions to the rule of
equality and transparency. Furthermore, those businesspeople who turn their
backs on peak business organizations, and (as in the case of Cisneros [Bottome,
2003?]) break family ties by drawing close to a leftist government, run the
risk of being vilified in pro-establishment circles, thus raising the stakes
and making preferential treatment more costly. The first major scandal in
Venezuela resulting from that strategy was the banking crisis of 2009 in which
Chávez acted forcefully against corrupt FBS businesspeople, although he stopped
short of nationalizing the banking system as advocated by some in his movement
(</span>Guillaudat, 2019<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">). The second case broke out in 2014 involving an estimated
20 billion dollars assigned under the system of preferential dollars. Maduro
committed himself to a full-fledged investigation into the fraud but failed to
take action. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The Venezuelan experience demonstrates that the left in power
upon implementing a business strategy of differentiation in its treatment of business
groups needs to prepare for the virtually inevitable side effects, namely
corrupt dealings even from within its ranks. The 2009 banking crisis with the
jailing of Arné Chacón (a participant in the November 1992 Chavista-promoted
coup attempt) was especially telling because it showed that even trusted, original
members of the movement – and not just "fifth columnists" as some
leftists call the “boliburguesía” (Colussi, 2008) – are susceptible to engaging
in unethical activity (as was allegedly the case with Bayardo Arce in
Nicaragua).<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Both Chávez and AMLO in their road to power highlighted the
fight against corruption and called it their number one priority. In doing so,
they disparaged existing anti-corruption mechanisms as completely ineffective.
The Chavistas rejected the separation of powers, including the autonomy of the
Central Bank, which they considered a feature of "liberal democracy"
and allegedly at odds with the participatory democracy they advocated. In its
place, they promoted the system of “social controllership” (<i>contraloría
social</i>) in which society in the form of, for example, community councils
monitor state activity. Along similar lines, AMLO (2018: 30-33) claimed that
the system of bidding for undertaking government projects was frequently rigged
and as a corrective favored the publication of the terms of contracts that were
signed. One international observer reported that more than three of every four
public contracts under AMLO were awarded “in a ‘no-bid process” (O’Neil, 2020),
and these included three major megaprojects: the construction of the Dos Bocas
refinery, the airport Santa Lucia and the Mayan Train (Vega, 2019: 615). The
lessons, especially in the Venezuelan case (where corruption became a major
problem), are clear: The left in power needs to rely on existing institutional
checks (at least for the time being) and/or develop new viable ones in order to
combat the corrupt dealings that should be anticipated as a result of the policy
of favoring some business groups at the expense of others.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="color: #222222;">Divisions
within the Pink Tide<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Well-defined, ideologically
based factions did not emerge within the governing parties in Mexico and
Venezuela, unlike, for instance, in the governing Socialist Party of Chile
under Salvador Allende. Nevertheless, a leftist tendency within MORENA and the
PSUV occasionally expressed reservations about the government’s strategy of
preferential treatment toward MG and FBS businesspeople. This critical outlook
manifested itself in different circumstances. Thus, for instance, in Venezuela
many rank-and-file Chavistas applauded Pasqualina Curcio (2020b) for her critical
observations regarding the Anti-Blockade Law, which was designed to cultivate
relations and open opportunities for U.S. business interests that favored
reversing Trump’s policy of sanctions against Venezuela (</span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/nicholas-confessore"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Confessore</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Kurmanaev</span> and </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/kenneth-p-vogel"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Vogel</span></a></span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">, 2020; A-1).<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: .25pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; padding: 0in;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In Mexico, ever since AMLO's emergence as the leading
presidential candidate in 2018, many in MORENA’s rank and file adamantly objected
to the party’s strategy of attracting non-leftist party members (pejoratively
referred to as <i>chapulines</i> – “grasshoppers”) to its camp by privileging
them with positions on its slates. The same resentment manifested itself with
regard to Romo, Salinas and other FBS and MG businesspeople who were previously
identified with conservative parties and candidates. </span>These MORENA members,
for instance, commended Labor Secretary Luisa María Alcalde for her firm stand
in opposition to Salinas’ failure to abide by anti-COVID-19 regulations that mandated
the closing of commercial establishments like his chain of department stores
Elektra <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">(Mex Albornoz, 2020)</span>.
In the opposite camp, <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">MORENA moderates
were open to business alliances and claimed that the party was split between “a
democratic left” and a “radical authoritarian minority” which viewed
“businesspeople as enemies of the people” (Sotelo, 2020).<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> In
spite of these differences, the more critical, left-leaning MORENA militants expressed
faith in AMLO’s political acumen and assumed that he acted wisely in pursuing a
policy of preferential treatment toward individual business groups (Mex
Albornoz, 2020). <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">CONCLUSION<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Pink Tide government efforts to neutralize hostile business
groups through what could be called “tactical alliances” bore little
resemblance to Lenin’s strategy of promoting strategic alliances with the
national bourgeoisie based on common political goals. Twentieth-century
Communists envisioned a stage that would favor the interests of both the
national bourgeoisie and the working class. In contrast, the Pink Tide strategy
was short-term in that the governments sought to survive a politically
precarious situation engendered by a disloyal opposition. The FBS, as defined
by Chávez involving social responsibilities and a limit on profits, did
represent a “progressive” bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the strategy towards
business groups pursued by the Mexican and Venezuelan governments, while helping
give rise to a robust MG sector, was not at all successful in creating a viable
FBS. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Certain institutional and non-institutional mechanisms are
essential for serving as checks on the corrupt practices that any government
policy of differential treatment toward business groups runs the risk of
encouraging. Most important, excessive concentration of power in the executive branch
of government (known as “hyper-presidentialism) deprived the nation of
necessary institutional checks. Furthermore, the Pink Tide movements in both
countries went overboard in denouncing the institutional deficiencies of the
past. Thus AMLO curtailed the practice of bidding for public contracts and the
Chavistas disparaged the system of balance of power which they viewed as a
vestige of the failed liberal democracy of previous decades. In both MORENA and
the PSUV a lack of political and ideological education for members meant that
the preferential treatment toward certain business groups was not debated, nor
understood as a necessary evil which required measures to guard against resulting
abuses. Finally, the use of the term “strategic alliance” was deceptive and contributed
to the failure to understand the downsides and limits of the government’s
differential treatment toward business groups. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The strategy of privileging MG businesspeople goes a long way
in countering the thesis that the salient characteristic of the AMLO and
Chavista governments has been its tendency to polarize whereby extremes on the
left and right eclipse centristists and moderates. As far back as AMLO's term
as Federal District mayor from 2000-2005, his detractors viewed him as a
populist in the pejorative sense of the term, which highlights polarization and
the politics of antagonism (Bruhn, 2008: 217-218). Other writers have analyzed the
governments of Chávez and Maduro through the same lens (Hawkins, 2011: 5). One
recent development that illustrates the misleading nature of this viewpoint is
the efforts of President Maduro to isolate the extreme opposition headed by
Juan Guaidó by allying with, and making concessions to, opposition moderates
who favored electoral participation in 2018 and 2020 (Ellner, 2020c). The strategy
of privileging MG businesspeople to weaken and isolate those in the private
sector who support regime change leads to the same conclusion regarding the oversimplification
of analyses that attribute polarization to the populism of Pink-Tide
governments. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">This study has attempted to demonstrate what many Pink Tide supporters
and others across the political spectrum tend to ignore: the practice of
privileging MG and FBS business groups was the result of a strategy with
advantages but also downsides and potential dangers. Indeed, both the PSUV and
MORENA have failed to grapple with the very real possibility that the pragmatic
strategy of concessions to business interests, with the aim of neutralizing
sectors on the right, gets institutionalized and puts the government on a path
that reverses hard fought-for progressive gains.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p align="center" class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: center;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">NOTES<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The common denominators of the Pink Tide governments
consisted of their rejection of policies of their neoliberal predecessors
and their independent foreign policy. The group was ideologically heterogeneous
in that it took in leftists such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, on the one
hand, and on the other Lula Silva, whose government, like that of </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Andrés Manuel López Obrador</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, was center-leftist.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><sup><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></sup><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The term is defined as local businesspeople who are
not inextricably tied, and completely subservient, to foreign capital.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="tab-stops: 1.5in;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The investigative Chavista blog <i>La Tabla</i>
(2013) ran several stories placing in doubt Gorrín’s reliability (Majano,
2018).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="tab-stops: 1.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> For an opposing view on the boliburguesía from a
pro-leftist political analyst, see Guillaudat, 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> At this point, Salinas replaced Slim as AMLO’s
closest MG businessman (Córdaba, 2020: A-9). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> The left-leaning first government of Carlos Andrés
Pérez (1974-1979) attempted to promote an emerging dynamic bourgeoisie,
elements of which also turned out to be notoriously corrupt (Duno, 1975).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> Chávez’s selection of ministers, governors and
legislators – as opposed to social movement leaders – to fill the position of
vice-presidencies of the PSUV, which he was president of, deprived the party of
the opportunity to serve as a much-needed independent institutional check on
the state.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> <span style="background: white; color: #050505;">The
sizeable number of favorable articles on Curcio in the leftist website
Aporrea.org attest to her popularity among critical Chavistas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/LAP%20Pink%20Tide%20and%20bourgeoisie/Mexico-Venezuela%20ms%20third%20draft%20for%20blog.docx#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> In opposition to the moderates, MORENA’s secretary
general Citlalli Hernández was considered <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">a “hard-liner among the hard-liners” (<i>Infobae</i>, 2020).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 22.5pt; tab-stops: 45.0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><b>REFERENCES<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Ackerman,
John Mill<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020 Email interview with a leading
MORENA intellectual. (November 25). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Amin,
Samir<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2006 <i>A Life Looking Forward: Memoirs
of an Independent Marxist</i>. London: Zed Books.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2019 <i>The Long Revolution of the
Global South: Toward a New Anti-Imperialist International</i>. New York:
Monthly Review Press. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Beck,
Humberto, Carlos Bravo Regidor and Patrick Iber<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020 “Year one of AMLO’s Mexico.” <i>Dissent</i>
67 (1): 109-118.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Bottome
[Jr.], Robert<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1998 Interview with owner and editor of <i>VenEconomía</i>
(December 12). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2003? “Grupo Cisneros: Un caso (íngrimo) de éxito venezolano.”
VenEconomía </span><a href="https://silo.tips/download/grupo-cisneros-un-caso-ingrimo-de-exito-venezolano"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">https://silo.tips/download/grupo-cisneros-un-caso-ingrimo-de-exito-venezolano</span></a><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Bruhn,
Kathleen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2008 “The evolution of the Mexican
left,” pp. 213-230 in Jorge G. Castañeda and Marco A. Morales (eds.), <i>Leftovers:
Tales of the Latin American Left</i>. <span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;">New York: Routledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Carmona, Pedro<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2005
<i>Mi testimonio ante la historia</i> (2nd edition). Np. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Colussi, Marcelo<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2008
“PSUV: Posible instrumento para avanzar en la revolución…o para frenarla.” </span><i>Rebelión.org</i>
(April 7). <a href="https://rebelion.org/psuv-posible-instrumento-para-avanzar-en-la-revolucion-o-para-frenarla/">https://rebelion.org/psuv-posible-instrumento-para-avanzar-en-la-revolucion-o-para-frenarla/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Comintern</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">1928 “Theses on the revolutionary
movement in the colonies and semi-colonies.”</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/ColNatQ6.htm">https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/ColNatQ6.htm</a></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/nicholas-confessore"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Confessore</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, Nicholas, Anatoly<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> Kurmanaev</span> and Kenneth P. </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/kenneth-p-vogel"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Vogel</span></a></span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020 “<span style="color: #121212; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Trump, Venezuela and
the tug-of-war over a strongman.” <i>New York Times</i>, p. A-1 (November 2).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Curcio, Pasqualina<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2019
“Pasqualina Curcio: Hay que pasar a la ofensiva.” <i>Ultimas Noticias</i>
(August 13). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 22.5pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><a href="https://ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/politica/pasqualina-curcio-hay-que-pasar-a-la-ofensiva/"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">https://ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/politica/pasqualina-curcio-hay-que-pasar-a-la-ofensiva/</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 22.5pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2020a
<i>El Comando Sur y la vergonzosa Asamblea Nacional 2016-2020: arremetida
imperial</i>. Caracas: El Perro y la Rana.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 22.5pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2020b
“Mis dudas sobre la Ley Anti-Bloqueo.” <i>Abre Brecha</i> (October 7). </span><a href="https://pasqualinacurcio.wixsite.com/pasqualinacurcio/single-post/mis-dudas-sobre-la-ley-anti-bloqueo"><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;">https://pasqualinacurcio.wixsite.com/pasqualinacurcio/single-post/mis-dudas-sobre-la-ley-anti-bloqueo</span></a><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Dachevsky, Fernando and Juan Kornblihtt<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">2017 “The reproduction and crisis of capitalism in
Venezuela under Chavismo.” <i>Latin American Perspectives</i> 44, (1): 78-93.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">De Córdaba, José <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020
“Mexico tries to teach classes on TV.” <i>Wall Street Journal</i> (August 27),
p. A-9.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Desai, Radhika<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">2004 “From national bourgeoisie to rogues, failures
and bullies: 21st century imperialism and the unravelling of the Third World.” <a name="_Hlk58238375"><i>Third World Quarterly</i> 25 (1): 169-185. <o:p></o:p></a></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk58238375;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">Dresser, Denise<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">2020 “Mi mafia en el poder.” <i>Proceso</i> (January
27). <a href="https://www.proceso.com.mx/opinion/2019/1/27/mi-mafia-en-el-poder-219238.html">https://www.proceso.com.mx/opinion/2019/1/27/mi-mafia-en-el-poder-219238.html</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;">Duno, Pedro<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">1975
<i>Los doce apóstoles: proceso a la degradación política</i>. Valencia
(Venezuela): Vadell Hermanos.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">El
Universal<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2020
“<span style="color: black; letter-spacing: -.25pt;">Ricardo Salinas Pliego,
magnate, tuitero y positivo a Covid-19, (Perfil).” </span></span>(November 14).
<a href="https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/cartera/ricardo-salinas-pliego-magnate-tuitero-y-positivo-covid-19-perfil">https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/cartera/ricardo-salinas-pliego-magnate-tuitero-y-positivo-covid-19-perfil</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Ellner,
Steve<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1981 “Factionalism in the Venezuelan
Communist movement, 1937-1948.” <i>Science and Society</i> 45 (1): 52-70.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020a “Class strategies in Chavista
Venezuela: pragmatic and populist policies in a broader context,” pp. 163-215
in Steve Ellner (ed.), <i>Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and
Shortcomings</i>. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">2020b <span style="color: #333333;">“DirecTV’s
Exit and the Complexities of Venezuelan Politics.” <i>Consortium News</i> (May
28).</span> <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/28/directvs-exit-and-the-complexities-of-venezuelan-politics/">https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/28/directvs-exit-and-the-complexities-of-venezuelan-politics/</a><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020c “US sanctions on Venezuela are
deadly-and facing mass resistance.” <i>Jacobin</i>. (October 26). <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/sanctions-venezuela-maduro-guaido-trump">https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/sanctions-venezuela-maduro-guaido-trump</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">EFE
News Service<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2008 “Brasil y Ecuador dicen hay nuevos elementos para analizar el caso
Odebrecht: Ecuador-Electricidad-Brasil.” (October 1). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Expansión</span></i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"> [Mexico]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 22.5pt 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2011
“La ‘mafia del poder,’ según AMLO.” </span>(November 7). <a href="https://expansion.mx/economia/2011/11/04/la-mafia-del-poder-segun-amlo">https://expansion.mx/economia/2011/11/04/la-mafia-del-poder-segun-amlo</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Farthing,
Linda<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020 “An opportunity squandered? elites,
social movements, and the Bolivian government of Evo Morales,” pp. 193-215 in
Steve Ellner (ed.), <i>Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and
Shortcomings</i>. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Feliciano-Cruz,
Héctor M.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020 “The rise and fall of Sandinista
alliances as a means of sociopolitical change in Nicaragua,” pp. 275-294 in
Steve Ellner (ed.), <i>Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and
Shortcomings</i>. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h1 style="background: #FCFCFC; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;"><a name="_Hlk118292842"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%;">Fontevecchia</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%;">,
Agustino <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2022 “<span style="color: #333333;">Brazilian
Election: Lula Vs. Bolsonaro, Who Will Take It?” <i>Forbes</i> (October 22). </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2022/10/30/brazilian-election-lula-vs-bolsonaro-who-will-take-it/?sh=39e949fb7fd4">https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2022/10/30/brazilian-election-lula-vs-bolsonaro-who-will-take-it/?sh=39e949fb7fd4</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Friedman,
Jeremy<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2015 <i>Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet
Competition for the Third World Book</i>. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Gonzalez,
Mike<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2019 <i>The Ebb of the Pink Tide: The
Decline of the Left in Latin America</i>. <span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">London: Pluto Press. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Guillaudat, Patrick<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2019
“¿Quién dirige Venezuela? ¿casta o boliburguesía?” <i>Viento Sur</i>. </span><a href="https://vientosur.info/quien-dirige-venezuela-casta-o-boliburguesia/"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">https://vientosur.info/quien-dirige-venezuela-casta-o-boliburguesia/</span></a><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><em><span style="color: black;">Haithcox, John P.</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><em><span style="color: black;">2019 “</span></em><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">The Roy-Lenin debate on colonial policy” <i>Daily Star</i> [London]
(May 3).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><a href="https://www.thedailystar.net/star-weekend/news/the-roy-lenin-debate-coloniThe%20Roy-Lenin%20debate%20on%20colonial%20policyal-policy-1737643">https://www.thedailystar.net/star-weekend/news/the-roy-lenin-debate-coloniThe%20Roy-Lenin%20debate%20on%20colonial%20policyal-policy-1737643</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Hawkins,
Kirk<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2011 <i>Venezuela’s Chavismo and
Populism in Comparative Perspective</i>. <span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Cambridge: UK: Cambridge University Press.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Infobae<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020
“Radicales contra moderados: las pugnas por quedarse con la presidencia de
Morena”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>(September
9). <a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/09/09/radicales-contra-moderados-las-pugnas-por-quedarse-con-la-presidencia-de-morena/">https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/09/09/radicales-contra-moderados-las-pugnas-por-quedarse-con-la-presidencia-de-morena/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Katz,
Claudio<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2005 “Latin America’s new ‘left’
governments.” <i>International Socialism. A Quarterly Review of Socialist
Theory</i> 107 (Summer). <a href="http://isj.org.uk/latin-america-new-left-governments/">http://isj.org.uk/latin-america-new-left-governments/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2015 “Dualities of Latin America.” <i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Latin American Perspectives</span></i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"> 42 (4): 10-42. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">La Tabla<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2013
“Ese Gorrín.” </span>(May 27). <a href="http://la-tabla.blogspot.com/2013/05/ese-gorrin.html">http://la-tabla.blogspot.com/2013/05/ese-gorrin.html</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Linares, José Raúl and Arturo Rodríguez
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2019
“El insaciable empresario consentido de<span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.75pt;"> AMLO.” <i>Proceso</i> (February 23). </span></span><a href="https://www.proceso.com.mx/nacional/2019/2/23/el-insaciable-empresario-consentido-de-amlo-220749.html"><span lang="ES" style="letter-spacing: -.75pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;">https://www.proceso.com.mx/nacional/2019/2/23/el-insaciable-empresario-consentido-de-amlo-220749.html</span></a><span lang="ES" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.75pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt 155.25pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">López Obrador, Andrés Manuel<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt 155.25pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>2018
<i>A New Hope for Mexico: Saying No to Corruption, Violence, and Trump’s Wall</i>.
London: OR Books. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt 155.25pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Majano,
Victor Hugo<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2018 Author interview with editor of <i>La
Tabla</i>. <span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Caracas (May 6).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 8.1pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in 99.0pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Mendoza, Gardenia<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 8.1pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in 99.0pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2020 “AMLO y TVAZTECA son equipo frente al
coronavirus.” <i>La Prensa</i> (New York) (April 26).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 8.1pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in 99.0pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Mex Albornoz, Mario<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 8.1pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 22.5pt;">2020 Author interview
with the president of MORENA of the state of Yucatán (June 10), Mérida, Mexico.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 8.1pt; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 22.5pt;"><i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Mexico Forbes<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020a
“<span style="color: black;">De Azcárraga a Salinas: concesionarios de TV cierran
filas con AMLO para clases a distancia.” </span></span><span style="color: black;">(August
3). </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com.mx/negocios-azcarraga-salinas-vazquez-aldir-y-gonzalez-cierran-filas-con-amlo-para-clases-a-distancia/">https://www.forbes.com.mx/negocios-azcarraga-salinas-vazquez-aldir-y-gonzalez-cierran-filas-con-amlo-para-clases-a-distancia/</a><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="ES-PE" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2020b “</span><span lang="ES-PE" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Segundo
informe: los empresarios más allegados a AMLO a casi dos años de gobierno.” </span><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt;">(September 1). </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com.mx/negocios-estos-los-empresarios-mas-allegados-a-amlo-en-sus-dos-anos-de-gobierno/"><span style="letter-spacing: -.1pt;">https://www.forbes.com.mx/negocios-estos-los-empresarios-mas-allegados-a-amlo-en-sus-dos-anos-de-gobierno/</span></a><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Mosquera
Sánchez, Francisco<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="ES-PE" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">2009 <i>Unidad
y combate</i> (2<sup>nd</sup> edition). Bogotá: Tribuna Roja Editores.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Naím,
Moisés<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt;">1993 <i>Paper Tigers and Minotaurs: The Politics of
Venezuela’s Economic Reforms</i>. </span><span lang="ES-PE" style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Washington: Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Notimérica <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2009
“Invitación a Morales desata conflicto en Bolivia” [Reuters] (September 16).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 31.5pt .5in 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><a href="https://www.notimerica.com/economia/noticia-invitacion-morales-desata-conflicto-bolivia-20090916192742.html"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">https://www.notimerica.com/economia/noticia-invitacion-morales-desata-conflicto-bolivia-20090916192742.html</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt;">O’Neil, Shannon K.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; letter-spacing: -.1pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020
“</span><span style="color: black;">Mexico’s López Obrador Is stoking corruption,
not fighting it.” Bloomberg (February 4). </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-04/mexico-s-lopez-obrador-is-stoking-corruption-not-fighting-it">https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-04/mexico-s-lopez-obrador-is-stoking-corruption-not-fighting-it</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;">Ortoño, Antonio<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020
“Salinas Pliego, el ‘tuitazo” como arma de negociación.” <i>El País</i> (Mexico
Edition) (October 24).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Robinson,
William I.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2016 “Global capitalism and the
restructuring of education: the transnational capitalist class’ quest to
suppress critical thinking.” <i>Social Justice</i> 43 (3): 1-24. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2017a “Debate on the new global
capitalism: transnational capitalist class, transnational state apparatuses,
and global crisis.” <i>International Critical Thought</i> 7 (2): 171-189.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2017b “Interview-William I. Robinson.” <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2017/09/16/interview-william-i-robinson/">https://www.e-ir.info/2017/09/16/interview-william-i-robinson/</a>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020 “Latin America’s Pink Tide: The
straitjacket of global capitalism,” pp. 25-37 in Steve Ellner (ed.), <i>Latin
America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings</i>. <span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;">Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Robledo, Jorge Enrique<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2009
<i>La verdadera hecatombe: el debate del TLC permanece</i>. Bogotá: Leo
Producciones Editoriales.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Ron, Carlos<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>2020
Telephone interview with Venezuela’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Relations for
North America. <span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">(October 6).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Sotelo, Rossi<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020
“‘MORENA es un bulto, una carga para AMLO’: Alejandro Rojas Diaz.” <i>El
Universal</i> (September 13). </span><a href="https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/morena-es-un-bulto-una-carga-para-amlo-alejandro-rojas-diaz-duran"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/morena-es-un-bulto-una-carga-para-amlo-alejandro-rojas-diaz-duran</span></a><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Tinker
Salas, Miguel<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2009 <i>The Enduring Legacy: Oil,
Culture, and Society in Venezuela</i>. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Tourliere,
Mathieu <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020 “Carlos Slim: el contratista
favorito de la 4T.” <i>Proceso</i> (May 14). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><a href="https://www.proceso.com.mx/reportajes/2020/5/14/carlos-slim-el-contratista-favorito-de-la-4t-242927.html">https://www.proceso.com.mx/reportajes/2020/5/14/carlos-slim-el-contratista-favorito-de-la-4t-242927.html</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Vega,
Carlos Alba<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2019
“The political economy of Bolivia’s post-neoliberalism: policies, elites and
the MAS government.” <i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">European
Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios
Latinoamericanos y del Caribe</span></i><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"> 108 (July-December): 109-129. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 22.5pt 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2020
“<span style="color: #111111;">Los empresarios mexicanos durante el gobierno de
Peña Nieto.” <i>Foro Internacional</i> 60 (2): 537-627.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 22.5pt 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;">Zapata, Juan Carlos<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 22.5pt 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1995 <i>Los ricos bobos</i>. Caracas: Alfa.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 22.5pt 31.5pt .5in 45.0pt 49.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="ES-PE" style="mso-ansi-language: ES-PE;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div><br /><p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-15077557834226010502023-07-27T18:04:00.002-07:002023-07-27T18:04:27.299-07:00THE VENEZUELAN OPPOSITIONI IS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizuJyopKWz19uUJ_Ou4SkigObOAwhdYe5FafltwQiUDZmjmxCsVDvnIISr8Si1Lq34dNHs9C9Vt9D34SICOKbIHnrDc36PGUn5-nlg2zVUcEP_puCH3EErDHSaXYbk8iTnc28YM1DORfwSUJqiLKzREKSs_Mi-cEKdXnC75B3vBw1IlMvyrUYZqWuNDhY/s300/Rubio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizuJyopKWz19uUJ_Ou4SkigObOAwhdYe5FafltwQiUDZmjmxCsVDvnIISr8Si1Lq34dNHs9C9Vt9D34SICOKbIHnrDc36PGUn5-nlg2zVUcEP_puCH3EErDHSaXYbk8iTnc28YM1DORfwSUJqiLKzREKSs_Mi-cEKdXnC75B3vBw1IlMvyrUYZqWuNDhY/w400-h224/Rubio.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Presidential Elections of 2024 in Venezuela will not be Fair. The Marco
Rubio-Rick Scott sponsored “Venezuelan Democracy Act” will make sure of that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course they
won’t be fair. Venezuelan voters will have a gun pointed at their head. If
Maduro wins, the deadly U.S.-imposed sanctions will continue. If the opposition
wins, the next day the sanctions will be lifted and IMF and World Bank money
will immediately start flowing in (just as it was announced on April 12, 2002
during the Pedro Carmona 48-hour stint as president). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is the
same strategy that was used against the Sandinistas and it worked in 1990 with
the election of Violeta Chamorro. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Venezuelan
Democracy Act introduced in Congress in March, authorizes the Secretary of the
Treasury of the United States to withhold loans approved by an international
financial institution such as the International Monetary Fund. Furthermore, the
U.S. government shall encourage other governments to restrict commercial and
credit transactions with Venezuela and stipulates that coercive measures will
be imposed on foreign governments that offers aid to the Venezuelan government.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-797561578975898092023-06-22T12:35:00.002-07:002023-06-22T12:37:18.805-07:00VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION'S PRIMARIES FOR 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZXGX2JXZqezCrBND-RIRELHQpqFIjLWkemyjvOCKXwoH72jdot79Gk69Ol-0EY9bKTwSex-xWPgmIuPw7h9tbsm--mc8QdI-_ZOODMR8OZ2xED57Cm2oOIwgWYfB3b9C6OpwNUmw_WWDKBqeZeK85xI-GYQ84Cse56Br3aI_RCs_rGyZ5tlM_sQaoe0/s300/primaries%20opposition.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZXGX2JXZqezCrBND-RIRELHQpqFIjLWkemyjvOCKXwoH72jdot79Gk69Ol-0EY9bKTwSex-xWPgmIuPw7h9tbsm--mc8QdI-_ZOODMR8OZ2xED57Cm2oOIwgWYfB3b9C6OpwNUmw_WWDKBqeZeK85xI-GYQ84Cse56Br3aI_RCs_rGyZ5tlM_sQaoe0/w400-h224/primaries%20opposition.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The Inter-American Dialogue published several responses to their question on the upcoming Venezuelan opposition’s primaries for the 2024 presidential elections. Implicit in all the responses, other than mine, is that the only way Maduro can win in 2024 is through fraud. I argue that a Maduro election in fair elections is feasible given the degree of disillusionment among opposition voters and the acute divisions <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>within the opposition.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Steve Ellner on Venezuelan Opposition’s October Primaries</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Latin America Advisor, publication of the Inter-American Dialogue</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">June 22, 2023 </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Latin America Advisor Question: Venezuelan opposition candidates on June 6 officially began entering the race in hopes of unseating President Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled the country for a decade. So far, about 10 candidates have expressed intentions to run in the opposition’s Oct. 22 primary, the Associated Press reported. Who are the most important opposition candidates to watch? How much of a chance do opposition candidates have against Maduro, who was last elected in 2018 in a vote internationally derided as fraudulent? </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Ellner: Since the 2018 presidential elections, Venezuelan politics - like the voting population as a whole - has been characterized by three fairly well-defined blocs: the Chavistas; the hardline opposition consisting of the “G4” and other parties that until recently recognized Juan Guaidó as president; and emerging opposition groups that have rejected the strategy of electoral boycotts. Until now, nearly all the candidates for the October primaries belong to the second category, including María Corina Machado, Henrique Capriles, Andrés Velásquez, and Manuel Rosales. But a survey by Datincorp shows that 70% of Venezuelans are disillusioned with politicians, while 47% prefer an independent candidate and 30% a candidate of one of the new parties. Given this trifurcation, the 2024 elections may well follow the pattern of those of 1963, 1968 and 1993 when presidents won with less than 33% of the vote. Hence, it is virtually impossible to predict the outcome of the 2024 presidential elections. The division within the opposition goes way beyond personality disputes and personal ambition. Third category leaders, unlike the “hardliners,” roundly condemn the U.S.-imposed sanctions on Venezuela and lash out at the corruption scandal involving the Guaidó-administered Colombian-based Monómeros company and the mishandling of CITGO, which is on the verge of being seized by creditors. Some opposition leaders, such as Bernabé Gutiérrez of Acción Democrática’s split-off faction and a coalition that includes Timoteo Zambrano, will participate in the presidential elections but not the October primaries, while Fuerza Vecinal is internally divided over the matter. In short, it is unlikely that the opposition’s unity that ensured its triumph in the 2015 General Assembly elections will be achieved in 2024. The outcome of those contests is anyone’s guess.</div></div></div><p><br /> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-90882068774591920542023-04-25T16:41:00.002-07:002023-04-25T16:45:50.210-07:00“Burying 200 Years of the U.S. Monroe Doctrine” <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqtdSGHmpe7w8cnqBytduPHc2Rcvgd0CXkWWoUe3_hNL720H9WjSfJ1oZxBJpanOUkZNfwqGtShGBlBnNWtIiUXnrnT31aBem6uv2BVFtzZi8DjwJZKjr24XLoMrUyzR_A9IFSf7yX8KnpH0P3ofBTylE2RiT-DpEYUOLWAcjjW-oE9ZoxqqVjHe02/s281/Monroe%20doctrine%20photo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="281" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqtdSGHmpe7w8cnqBytduPHc2Rcvgd0CXkWWoUe3_hNL720H9WjSfJ1oZxBJpanOUkZNfwqGtShGBlBnNWtIiUXnrnT31aBem6uv2BVFtzZi8DjwJZKjr24XLoMrUyzR_A9IFSf7yX8KnpH0P3ofBTylE2RiT-DpEYUOLWAcjjW-oE9ZoxqqVjHe02/w400-h256/Monroe%20doctrine%20photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two centuries after the issuing of the Monroe
Doctrine, Washington sometimes affirms, and other times denies, that it is
still official policy. The neocons in no uncertain terms say it is, but
hypocritically attack Russia for embracing the same notion. In contrast,
Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013, declared the Monroe Doctrine to be over.
Nevertheless, facts are facts. The sanctions imposed on Cuba, Venezuela and
Nicaragua, which are among the harshest implemented anywhere, are a clear demonstration
that the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well. Among the people of Latin America
there is an absolute consensus, not shared by some of their leaders, that the
Monroe Doctrine is and always has been a disgrace.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #050505;">The April
28-29 Forum “Burying 200 Years of the U.S. Monroe Doctrine” includes an “Advocacy
Day” on Friday consisting of a Congressional Teach-In and meetings with members
of Congress. The forum itself is at the American University in Washington with
Democracy Now’s Juan Gonzalez as the keynote speaker. Individual panels include
“Opposing Sanctions and Unilateral Intervention,” “Forging an Independent
Model” and “The Root Causes of Immigration” among others. Code Pink’s Medea </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Benjamin, Claudia de la Cruz of the People’s Forum and Filipina Land Protector Judy Talaugon will deliver the closing remarks.</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://popularresistance.org/forum-burying-200-years-of-the-us-monroe-doctrine/?fbclid=IwAR3xo7nkvDm_0_Za9PqozyEEQMXkj7h0q14Zfc3h7_pp8KbqCqrJa47JBZg">https://popularresistance.org/forum-burying-200-years-of-the-us-monroe-doctrine/?fbclid=IwAR3xo7nkvDm_0_Za9PqozyEEQMXkj7h0q14Zfc3h7_pp8KbqCqrJa47JBZg</a><br /></span></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-13147710429430024122023-04-07T09:24:00.001-07:002023-04-07T09:24:09.529-07:00La Priorización del imperialismo norteamericano y la Marea Rosada<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Z7f8QRSQdEBnN_zSsh4wF7TPq7eDqN4XkLt1sKuFbiFv_E1MwshTZvx51LMjLKi0syM3CgXqo_RCamHpTp9q_vrYSuxscBYJBR_bxbK1pv_2gAdK4yt2LP9vxJ3rUHnpDKwMC3z05tehLfxbzTyGIpr3zleLH2q8pDAjaXD6SeOszvJ0rnHKK2gu/s678/white-house-south-portico-17-copyright-havecamerawilltravel-com-678x452.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="678" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Z7f8QRSQdEBnN_zSsh4wF7TPq7eDqN4XkLt1sKuFbiFv_E1MwshTZvx51LMjLKi0syM3CgXqo_RCamHpTp9q_vrYSuxscBYJBR_bxbK1pv_2gAdK4yt2LP9vxJ3rUHnpDKwMC3z05tehLfxbzTyGIpr3zleLH2q8pDAjaXD6SeOszvJ0rnHKK2gu/w400-h266/white-house-south-portico-17-copyright-havecamerawilltravel-com-678x452.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt;"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">Por Steve
Ellner <o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">Publicado
en <i>Monthly Review</i> (marzo de 2023)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk89333063"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">Dos posiciones izquierdistas contrastantes sobre la
ola de gobiernos progresistas en América Latina conocida como la “Marea Rosada”
han llegado a ser bien definidas durante las últimas dos décadas. Una posición
es favorable, mientras que la otra es altamente crítica, al extremo que los
presidentes de la Marea Rosada – incluyendo </span></a><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">a Nicolás
Maduro, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, y Lula— a veces son colocados en el mismo
saco con los líderes conservadores y de la derecha. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">En el
fondo, las diferencias se reducen a diferentes perspectivas sobre el
imperialismo. La pregunta clave que emerge del debate tiene implicaciones primordiales:
¿Es la lucha contra el imperialismo estadounidense la principal prioridad a
nivel mundial, independientemente de la posición asumida sobre la guerra ucraniana?
Si la respuesta es afirmativa, entonces el apoyo a los gobiernos de la Marea
Rosada, que han sido sujetos al intervencionismo norteamericano sin cuartel, es
particularmente convincente. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">En
caso contrario, se puede decir que quizás la globalización ha conducido a otras
contradicciones que tienen que ser priorizadas, ya que el blanco principal
tiene que ser el capital global, y no las maquinaciones políticas de Washington.
Además, el medio ambiente, los derechos de los Indígenas, la igualdad de
género, y la democracia participativa – banderas de lo que algunos llaman “el
movimiento antiglobalización” – tienen que estar en el centro de la formulación
de las estrategias y las metas de la izquierda en el siglo 21.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
El desempeño de la Marea Rosada en estos frentes ha estado lejos de ser
ejemplar, y así se explica el razonamiento de los izquierdistas altamente críticos
a esos gobiernos. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk95547838"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">Los escritores anti-Marea Rosada a menudo niegan que
los problemas y errores de esos gobiernos estén relacionados al imperialismo
norteamericano. El prominente teórico izquierdista uruguayo Raúl Zibechi, por
ejemplo, escribió que el derrocamiento de Evo Morales en 2019 no puede ser
atribuido al intervencionismo norteamericano, como tampoco se puede culpar a
Cuba, Venezuela o Rusia por las protestas antineoliberales masivas que
estremecieron la región en el mismo año. De acuerdo con Zibechi, acusaciones de
esa naturaleza contribuyen a “una pervivencia de la guerra fría, en la que toda
acción popular es atribuida a una de las superpotencias” </span></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;"> Sin
embargo, la campaña desestabilizadora en Bolivia promovida por los EE.UU., que data
del comienzo del gobierno de Morales en 2006, ha sido bien documentada, así como
el papel de la Organización de Estados Americanos en el derrocamiento de
Morales. <a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-VE" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-VE;">La
tesis de la existencia de muchos imperialismos que son igualmente nefastos,
defendida por los escritores anti-Marea Rosada, va en contra de la premisa
básica de los escritores pro-Marea Rosada, quienes alegan que actualmente el
imperialismo estadounidense representa la mayor contradicción en el mundo. Los
escritores anti-Marea Rosada prestan poca atención a la diferencia entre los
efectos destructivos del imperialismo norteamericano y el supuesto imperialismo
de Rusia y China. Los países de la Marea Rosada, que están en la primera línea
en la lucha contra el imperialismo norteamericano, a veces son vistos como si simplemente
están cambiando un imperio por otro. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-VE">Aquellos izquierdistas que niegan
que los gobiernos progresistas latinoamericanos tengan algunas cualidades redentoras
no están limitados a la llamada “ultraizquierda”. Hay escritores anti-Marea
Rosada ubicados en todas las posiciones del lado izquierdo del espectro
político. También incluye a académicos de todas las disciplinas, como también a
los activistas de los movimientos ambientales, feministas y de los derechos indígenas.
</span><span lang="es-419">El común denominador
es, en primer lugar, su negación de que haya algo significativamente
progresista acerca de los gobiernos de la Marea Rosada, y segundo, la poca
importancia que le da a la agresión imperialista como explicación a los
problemas que enfrentan esos países. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Hay
que reconocer que la distinción entre las posiciones pro y anti-Marea Rosada no
es siempre blanco y negro. No hay duda de que muchos de los de la primera
categoría apoyen críticamente a los gobiernos de la Marea Rosada. Al mismo
tiempo, los de la segunda categoría reconocen los efectos devastadores de la
intervención norteamericana, pero no la incorporan en su análisis de los problemas
que enfrentan esos gobiernos. Además, la Marea Rosada está lejos de ser un
grupo monolítico. Algunos analistas de la izquierda, por ejemplo, consideran a
Correa como un entreguista, mientras elogian a Morales; otros hacen un
contraste similar entre los Sandinistas y el gobierno venezolano; y otros
atacan a Morales mientras que alaban a Chávez.</span><a name="_Hlk95039010"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Sin embargo, la distinción entre las
dos categorías es importante. En primer lugar, porque la posición anti-Marea
Rosada minimiza la efectividad del movimiento internacional de solidaridad. En
segundo lugar, porque el análisis de las diferencias entre las dos arroja luz
sobre un asunto que los marxistas, casi por definición, consideran de
importancia primordial: la identificación de la contradicción principal – entre
las muchas que existen – y las luchas de mayor importancia en el mundo en un
momento determinado.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">A primera vista, da la
impresión de que, dada la polémica acerca de la guerra en Ucrania, este no es
un momento ideal para escribir un artículo que propone la priorización de la
lucha contra el imperialismo estadounidense. Mi opinión es todo lo contrario.
La guerra ucraniana, por horrífica que es, distrae la atención sobre lo que
está pasando a nivel global. Los izquierdistas que son críticos tanto de la
ofensiva rusa como de Washington, por promover la expansión de la OTAN, están
divididos acerca de cuál de los dos lados es más culpable. Sin embargo, trato
de demostrar en este artículo que el asunto de la intervención rusa en el
conflicto ucraniano está básicamente aparte del debate sobre la priorización
del imperialismo norteamericano. En otras palabras, Rusia puede ser severamente
condenada por sus acciones en Ucrania al mismo tiempo que el imperialismo
norteamericano es identificado como la amenaza de mayor peso a la paz mundial y
el cambio progresista. Por esa razón, la izquierda y progresistas en general no
pueden esperar hasta cuando el conflicto en Ucrania esté resuelto (presumiendo
que eso vaya a pasar) para luego jerarquizar la importancia de la lucha contra el
imperialismo norteamericano. Un examen del fenómeno de la Marea Rosada y sus
relaciones con Rusia, China y los EE.UU. abre una ventana de oportunidad para
determinar si la tesis de la hegemonía del imperialismo norteamericano niega la
validez de la tesis de los “muchos imperialismos” o si las dos son compatibles.
<a name="_Hlk112874012"><o:p></o:p></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk90929092"><b><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Atilio Borón</span></b></a><b><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> sobre el
imperialismo norteamericano</span></b><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">El
prominente politólogo argentino Atilio Borón prioriza la importancia del imperialismo
al mismo tiempo que apoya rotundamente a los presidentes de la Marea Rosada – como
Maduro, Daniel Ortega y Rafael Correa – quienes han sido duramente criticados por
los analistas izquierdistas anti-Marea Rosada. Una mirada a los escritos y comentarios
orales de Borón arroja luz sobre la estrecha relación entre la priorización del
antiimperialismo y el apoyo a la Marea Rosada, como está percibida por un destacado
representante de la izquierda latinoamericana antiimperialista. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk96327688"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Borón plantea que aunque los EEUU está en declive – demostrado
por el auge de la Marea Rosada en su propio “patio trasero” – lo pernicioso del
imperialismo norteamericano es más evidente que nunca. Por muchos años, dice
Borón, después de la caída de la Unión Soviética, “cuando alguien hablaba del
imperialismo, la gente lo miraba de reojo y decía “‘está viviendo en los 60s’”.
Borón agrega que “la gente diría que la globalización ha acabado con todo eso”.
Por cierto, este comentario de Borón se presta al punto de vista que las
teorías de la izquierda sobre la globalización a menudo restan fuerza del
movimiento antiimperialista, con efectos devastadores (como Zhun Xu ha
planteado). </span></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span lang="es-419"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Borón también señala que en el siglo veintiuno “la realidad del imperialismo
se ha puesto en evidencia, a tal extremo que los estrategas de Washington ahora
hablan del ‘imperio’”. No solamente es
el imperialismo más evidente que en las décadas previas, sino que en muchos
aspectos es más brutal. “Lo que pasó cuando Allende era presidente en Chile fue
duro, pero era un juego de niños en comparación con Venezuela” </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Como otros escritores pro-Marea
Rosada, Borón subraya la importancia de la geopolítica como también los éxitos
de los países de la Marea Rosada en desafiar el dominio del imperialismo
norteamericano. Para él, la importancia de la Marea Rosada y el
antiimperialismo en la región solamente puede ser comprendido y apreciado al
tomar en cuenta la importancia fundamental que Washington asigna a América
Latina desde el punto de vista estratégico – a pesar de que pocas veces lo
admite en público. Borón cita a <span style="background: white; color: #202124;">Zbigniew
Brzezinski, que dijo más o menos que “EEUU estableció su primacía como ningún
otro imperio <a name="_Hlk95039635">en la historia porque esas naciones fueron
todas amenazadas por tierra, o por lo menos por poca distancia”. Borón luego
señala que los estrategas de Washington refieren al hemisferio occidental como
“una gran isla”, con los EEUU “a la cabeza”: “La seguridad de los EEUU depende
de la solidez de las diferentes partes de la isla”. En una referencia indirecta
a la Marea Rosada, Borón dice “si los países [del hemisferio] abren una grieta,
si el anti-norteamericanismo florece, o si unas partes no están dispuestas defender
la política extranjera de los EE.UU, entonces la seguridad norteamericana se
pone en peligro”. </a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk95039709"><span lang="es-419">Borón,
como otros analistas pro-Marea Rosada, subordina sus críticas a los gobiernos
progresistas al reconocimiento de la importancia de enfrentar al imperialismo.
Su lógica es lo siguiente: <o:p></o:p></span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 67.5pt 8pt 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white;">A los EE. UU. no le gusta Daniel Ortega. Cuando al
imperio no le gusta alguien, tiene que ser que él o ella está haciendo algo
bueno, con todos los defectos que pueda tener. Cuando hay confusión ideológica,
como Cristina [Fernández de Kirchner] recomienda, mira hacia el Norte. Si
EE.UU. se está moviendo en una dirección, entonces tenemos que ir en la
dirección contraria. Eso es porque el imperio nunca improvisa. </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Ciertamente, el enemigo de mi
enemigo no es necesariamente mi amigo, como los escritores anti-Marea Rosada
señalan con frecuencia. Pero durante toda su carrera, Borón ha tenido la razón
en apuntar a la importancia primordial del antiimperialismo y refutar los alegatos
que el reflujo de esas luchas significa “el fin del ciclo antiimperialista” o
“el fin de la Marea Rosada”. </span><a name="_Hlk95593596"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <span lang="es-419">Los escritores de ambos lados del espectro político hicieron estos
planteamientos después de la derrota de los Sandinistas en 1990 y de nuevo con
de los reveses de la Marea Rosada a partir de la derrota electoral de los
peronistas en Argentina en 2015. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="es-419"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="es-419">El imperialismo versus la globalización<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Como Borón señala, la globalización tanto en la teoría como en la práctica
tiende a oscurecer las acciones imperialistas de los EEUU. Por cierto, el
capital transnacional, al trascender el Estado-nación, parece ser incompatible
con el concepto del imperialismo, por lo menos la definición basada en el
ámbito territorial propuesta por Lenin. Algunos teóricos izquierdistas de la
globalización han predicho que como el capital transnacional vis-à-vis el
capital nacional ahora es dominante, que el emergente Estado transnacional (que
consiste en organizaciones como el G7, la Organización Mundial de Comercio,
etc.) está en el proceso de desplazar el Estado-nación, que era el epicentro
del imperialismo. J.Z. Garrod, por ejemplo, pregunta si el capital
transnacional “puede ser entendido teóricamente utilizando los conceptos del
imperialismo, dado el grado en el cual esas concepciones permanecen vinculadas
a la noción del espacio basado en las estructuras nacionales geopolíticas”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn11" name="_ednref11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span lang="es-419"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Los teóricos de la globalización
quienes enfatizan la fortaleza creciente del “Estado transnacional” pueden
haberse precipitado. Hace poco, ellos vieron el Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
como evidencia que el Estado transnacional estaba no muy lejos de ser
hegemónico, de la misma manera en que el capital transnacional había llegado a
ser hegemónico.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn12" name="_ednref12" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <span lang="es-419">Pero la propuesta del TPP vino y se fue. Aunque el capital
transnacional pudo haber llegado a ser hegemónico, el Estado-nación no está
necesariamente pasando por el mismo proceso, por lo menos a corto o mediano
plazo. Un retraso extendido puede separar el supuesto ascenso de las empresas
transnacionales y el de un Estado transnacional dominante que responde a sus
intereses. Un fenómeno parecido del retraso caracterizó la transición de siglos
del feudalismo al capitalismo. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">David Harvey presenta otro
argumento sobre la globalización que pone en duda la aplicabilidad del concepto
del imperialismo en el siglo 21. Según él, la movilidad del capital en la cual
la producción se ha reubicado en el Sur a una escala masiva (particularmente en
Asia Oriental) ha producido un fenómeno de “cambiadas hegemonías dentro del
sistema mundial”. Consecuentemente, el flujo de capital asociado con el
imperialismo, como fue analizado por Lenin, ahora es “más complicado y está constantemente
cambiando direcciones”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn13" name="_ednref13" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: black;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white;"> <span lang="es-419">En conferencias que Harvey ha dado
durante los últimos años, él ha declarado que la noción del imperialismo es una
camisa de fuerza que impide la teorización de la globalización en el siglo 21.</span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn14" name="_ednref14" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span lang="es-419"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Demasiada discusión sobre el imperialismo
del siglo 21 se basa en predicciones acerca del futuro en vez de las realidades
del presente. Por ejemplo, la tesis del “muchos imperialismos” anticipa que,
con la supuesta restauración del capitalismo en China, ese país llegará a ser una
potencia agresiva, imperialista. Similarmente, algunos teóricos de la
globalización plantean que, con la hegemonía del capital transnacional, el
Estado transnacional va inevitablemente a reemplazar el Estado-nación. Ambas
predicciones son posibilidades del futuro, pero la izquierda tiene que formular
estrategias basadas en el presente, no en escenarios hipotéticos. En este
momento, Washington ejerce un poder extraordinario, y en muchos casos actúa en
favor de sus propios intereses con un enfoque territorial, como, por ejemplo, para
salvaguardar la supremacía del dólar. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Además, la globalización no ha eclipsado el
divisorio entre el Norte y el Sur como sugiere Harvey. Solamente porque Carlos
Slim de México ha llegado a ser una de las personas más ricas en el mundo, no
significa que México haya reducido las brechas con los EE.UU. desde el punto de
vista económico, social o militar. Este es el caso de otros países del Sur, con
la excepción de China. La inmigración masiva hacia los EE.UU. y Europa, por
ejemplo, es una demostración clara de las continuas enormes disparidades de
ingreso entre la clase obrera del Norte y del Sur. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">“Los
muchos imperialismos” y la Marea Rosada <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">El
reconocimiento de que el imperialismo norteamericano es la contradicción de
mayor importancia a nivel mundial tiene implicaciones para la estrategia de la
izquierda – y dos en particular. Primero, en el área de política exterior, aquellos
partidos políticos y gobiernos (Rusia, por ejemplo) que enfrentan a Washington,
pero no representan una fuerza en favor del socialismo, y además llevan a cabo
ciertas acciones condenables desde el punto de vista ético y político, no
necesariamente se colocan en la misma categoría de los EE.UU. y sus aliados. La
izquierda tiene que subrayar la distinción entre la política exterior de esas
naciones y la de los EE.UU. Y segundo, las críticas a los gobiernos
progresistas (como la Marea Rosada) tienen que estar contextualizadas tomando
en cuenta la hostilidad imperialista, y el papel positivo de esos gobiernos en
la lucha antiimperialista debe ser enfatizado. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Los
izquierdistas anti-Marea Rosada que ven a Moscú y Beijing como igual a
Washington no se subscriben a este punto de vista. El académico marxista
británico Mike Gonzalez, por ejemplo, escribe “no solamente a los EE.UU. sino
también China, Rusia” y otros países capitalistas “están esperando para
apoderarse de la enorme riqueza [venezolana] de petróleo, gas y minerales bajo
el ojo complacido del gobierno neoliberal,” o sea, el gobierno de Maduro.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn15" name="_ednref15" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #191919;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #191919; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> <span lang="es-419">Gonzalez también acusa a Daniel </span></span><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Ortega de
entregar su “país a las manos de las multinacionales chinas”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn16" name="_ednref16" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Aunque
Gonzalez y otros escritores izquierdistas anti-Marea Rosada no absuelven a
Washington por sus acciones imperialistas, tampoco acreditan a Maduro, Morales,
Correa, Ortega, y otros líderes de la Marea Rosada de enfrentar al imperialismo
estadounidense ya que, de todos modos, ellos simplemente están cambiando un
imperialismo por otro. Gonzalez acusa a algunos izquierdistas, incluyendo a mi
propia persona, de ignorar las inversiones a América Latina provenientes de
China – “ahora el inversionista número dos en la región” – y la supuesta
corrupción que está asociada con el capital chino en Venezuela.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn17" name="_ednref17" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk95039788"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Maristella
Svampa es una académica sobresaliente de simpatía izquierdista que ve los lazos
con China como nada mejor que la dependencia de los EE.UU. Los argumentos
principales de Svampa, quien está muy lejos de ser una apologista de
Washington, hace evidente que el punto de vista anti-Marea Rosada no está
limitado a una corriente de la izquierda en particular. De acuerdo con Svampa,
la esperanza original de “un mundo multipolar” fue rota por “la acentuación de
cambio desigual” entre China y América Latina</span></a><span lang="es-419">.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn18" name="_ednref18" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <span lang="es-419">Ella denuncia la dependencia creciente de todos los países
latinoamericanos, tanto de la izquierda como la derecha, de las exportaciones
de “commodities” no procesados, que es parcialmente el resultado de la
necesidad insaciable de China de adquirir materias primas. Para Svampa, los
gobiernos de la Marea Rosada en algunos aspectos son peores que los
neoliberales que los precedieron, y son virtualmente sin cualidades redentoras.
Como muchos otros escritores izquierdistas anti-Marea Rosada, Svampa dice poco
acerca del trato hostil de Washington y sus aliados hacia los gobiernos de la
Marea Rosada. En su último libro, que es altamente crítico hacia los gobiernos
de la Marea Rosada, no dice nada sobre el asunto.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn19" name="_ednref19" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">¿Es
la nueva Guerra Fría una repetición de la Primera Guerra Mundial? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">El
punto de referencia principal para los marxistas anti-Marea Rosada y anti-China
es el análisis económico de Lenin de las potencias imperialistas europeas pre-1914,
aunque los estudios empíricos como los de Minqi Li en el <i>Monthly Review</i> apuntan
a diferencias fundamentales entre la economía de esos países y la de China en
la actualidad. La discusión básica gira alrededor de lo económico, como la
búsqueda sin límites de las superganancias (que Li señala como la
característica fundamental del imperialismo de acuerdo con Lenin, y la fuerza motriz
que no aplica a China).</span><a name="_Hlk95040516"></a><a name="_Hlk95040465"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn20" name="_ednref20" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> </span><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Sin embargo, las dimensiones
políticas y militares del imperialismo generalmente no forman parte de la
discusión ni por analistas de la derecha ni de la izquierda. Estas dimensiones
– las políticas y las militares – en el caso de los gobiernos de la Marea
Rosada demuestran la falacia de la tesis de los “muchos imperialismos”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">No hay necesidad de convencer a los
lectores de Rebelión.org de lo destructivo de los aspectos políticos y
militares del imperialismo norteamericano, que consisten en acciones y
políticas que no tienen mucho equivalente en el caso de Rusia y China. Por
cierto, los desplazamientos militares chinos y rusos que están clasificados por
los políticos y analistas de Washington como ejemplos de la agresión
imperialista están limitados en gran parte a sus fronteras, como en el caso de
Ucrania y Taiwán. Esto contrasta con el intervencionismo militar norteamericano
que va más allá de su “patio trasero”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Solamente
se necesita algunos hechos para demostrar que los EE.UU. no tiene equivalente a
nivel mundial, y la razón por la cual la izquierda tiene que priorizar el
antiimperialismo norteamericano: 750 bases militares en 80 países y colonias en
el mundo entero fuera de sus fronteras; apoyo sustantivo a numerosos golpes de Estado
derechistas contra gobiernos considerados adversos a los intereses
norteamericanos (muchos de los cuales son progresistas); el régimen de
sanciones contra países considerados adversarios que en efecto representan un
bloqueo; un presupuesto militar astronómico que desata un efecto dominó en el
mundo entero; el apoyo económico y militar extensivo a Israel (que contribuye extremadamente
a la desestabilización del Medio Oriente, sin referirse a las atrocidades
cometidas contra los palestinos), por mencionar solamente algunos hechos. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Un
argumento de los escritores anti-China tanto de la derecha como la izquierda es
que el imperialismo chino posiblemente no es la actualidad tan agresivo como el
de los EE.UU, pero solamente porque está en una etapa incipiente. Una posición
proveniente de la izquierda, por ejemplo, ve a China como un caso de
“imperialismo en construcción”. </span><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">El analista izquierdista Esteban
Mercatante dice: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0.75in 8pt 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">A pesar de que a
China le falta la fuerza global policial de los EE.UU…. ese país puede ser
caracterizado como un imperialismo en construcción lo cual significa que el desarrollo
de varias dimensiones que le permite proyectar una capacidad de intervención
equivale a la de otros países imperialistas como Gran Bretaña y Japón.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn21" name="_ednref21" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: .25pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 107%;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Un análisis de China aún menos favorable proviene del
editor del <i>Guardian</i> </span><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Simon Tisdall</span><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> en un artículo publicado en 2021 titulado “La nueva
etapa del imperialismo de China”. Tisdall alega que China está “transformándose
a un imperio de la segunda etapa” en la cual, una vez dominante, va a tener un
componente militar poderoso y es “potencialmente más peligroso” que los imperios
del pasado.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn22" name="_ednref22" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[22]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> <span lang="es-419">Este argumento ignora la ley de desarrollo desigual, que
históricamente ha significado que países como Alemania y Japón en el siglo 19,
en su empeño de alcanzar a los países más desarrollados, fueron más agresivos
que sus rivales imperialistas. Si China (y Rusia) simplemente estuvieran tratando
de alcanzar y superar a los EE.UU. dentro del sistema de la rivalidad
inter-imperialista, entonces se pensaría que sería más bélico a nivel global,
no menos. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">La
posición de defensa a la soberanía nacional de la Marea Rosada por parte de
Rusia y China y su apoyo al mundo multipolar no tiene equivalente en el periodo
pre-Primera Guerra Mundial de la rivalidad inter-imperialista. Mientras que
Washington acusa a China de apoyar a regímenes autoritarios y corruptos en África
(como si fuera que los EE.UU. no tuviera una historia sórdida de hacer lo
mismo), en América Latina hay implicaciones ideológicas a la presencia rusa y
china que son favorables a la izquierda. Esta dimensión está muy lejos de la
supuesta política china y rusa de “hacer el mundo seguro para las dictaduras”
al promover una “alianza de autocracias” como alegan el <i>New York Times</i> y
<i>Washington Post</i>.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn23" name="_ednref23" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[23]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222;">En contraste, otros académicos han
señalado que China “tiene relaciones más amigables con un mayor grado de cooperación
con gobiernos de la izquierda y centro-izquierda… como Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador,
Nicaragua y Venezuela, y relaciones menos amigables, pero respetuosas, con
países… de gobiernos más conservadores y pro-EE.UU.</span><span lang="es-419">” </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn24" name="_ednref24" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[24]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span lang="es-419">Sin embargo, los gobiernos conservadores no siempre respondieron
con el mismo grado de respeto. Este fue el caso de Jair Bolsonaro y los miembros
de su círculo más cercano que acusaron a China de tratar de lograr el dominio
mundial e insinuaron que ese país era responsable por la pandemia COVID-19. </span><span lang="es-419"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 13.5pt 12pt 0in; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419">Un ejemplo del apoyo para principios progresistas en el área de política
exterior es los foros realizados entre China y la Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos
y Caribeños (CELAC), que es una organización apoyada por los presidentes de la
Marea Rosada y que propone una estrategia progresista de la integración
latinoamericana. Un ejemplo del compromiso de Rusia y China para la defensa de
la soberanía nacional en la región es su apoyo financiero para el gobierno
altamente endeudado de Maduro en un momento en que su supervivencia política estaba
en duda como resultado de la campaña desestabilizadora de la administración de
Trump, y cuando los líderes de la oposición, por lo menos inicialmente,
indicaron que al llegar al poder iban a romper los contratos con ambos países.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn25" name="_ednref25" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[25]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <span lang="es-419">Esas iniciativas rusas y chinas ponen en duda la
validez de la tesis de los “muchos imperialismos”. Definitivamente, no hay
equivalente en la política exterior de los países imperialistas europeos
pre-1914. <a name="_Hlk112856017"><o:p></o:p></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 13.5pt 12pt 0in; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk95116864"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Los
expertos en Washington alegan que los rusos y los chinos apoyan a la Marea
Rosada, no por una creencia en algunos principios grandiosos, sino como
resultado de los cálculos geopolíticos. Su apoyo a los gobiernos progresistas
es visto como oportunista, sobre todo porque Rusia trata de ser, en las
palabras de un director del </span></a><span lang="es-419">Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, “el amigo de todo el mundo que se opone al dominio global norteamericano”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn26" name="_ednref26" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[26]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> <span lang="es-419">Esta tesis referente a los motivos
de Rusia no compagina con lo que realmente está pasando. Las aparentes buenas
relaciones entre Moscú y los derechistas como Trump, Fox News y Marine Le Pen tampoco
dicen todo acerca de lo que está ocurriendo. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">En el ambiente altamente polarizado
en América Latina, las líneas divisorias están claras. Los Rusos y los Chinos –
desde cuando Xi Jinping llegó a ser presidente en 2013 – han sido alineados con
los gobiernos progresistas en América Latina. En contraste, los gobiernos
conservadores y de la derecha han sido aliados cercanos de los EE.UU. (y así
obedientemente siguieron las órdenes de Washington, por ejemplo, de promover el
“cambio del régimen” en Venezuela) y, en algunos casos, han mostrado hostilidad
hacia los adversarios de Washington, específicamente Rusia y China. Por eso, a
pesar de las inconsistencias de Moscú y la posición aparentemente apolítica de
China en su política exterior, hay un principio por medio que claramente
distingue a Rusia y China de los EE.UU.: su abogacía conjunta en favor del principio
de multipolarismo, ejemplificado en su llamado por la “democratización de las relaciones
internacionales”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn27" name="_ednref27" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[27]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Con el continuo declive de los EE.UU.
en todos los frentes (excepto el militar), las posiciones rusas y chinas a
nivel mundial pueden cambiar. Por cierto, Li no descarta la posibilidad –
aunque según él remota – de que China pase a ser de una nación “semi-periférica
a una nación imperialista. Sin embargo, la izquierda de los EE.UU. y otros
países no puede analizar los acontecimientos mundiales en base de las hipótesis
referentes a lo que los amigos y los aliados puedan llegar a ser en un futuro
distante, o inclusive a mediano plazo. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">La bandera de la soberanía y el mundo
multipolar defendida por Beijing y Moscú crea oportunidades para los gobiernos
de la izquierda, como los de la Marea Rosada, y facilita su navegación en un
mundo hostil sin gobiernos poderosos comprometidos con la transformación
revolucionaria. Sin embargo, los gobiernos de la Marea Rosada no tienen
pretensiones de emular el modelo económico asociado con China o Rusia (a
diferencia del caso del movimiento comunista en el periodo post-1917). </span><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="es-419" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">¿Como se traduce en la práctica la
posición anti-Marea Rosada de la izquierda? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">La polémica sobre el antiimperialismo
norteamericano no está restringida al debate académico o a los artículos en los
medios de comunicación; se ha manifestado en los conflictos sociales y
políticos en toda la región. En varios países, la posición izquierdista anti-Marea
Rosada que rechaza la priorización de la lucha contra el imperialismo
norteamericano contribuyó a los retrocesos a partir de 2015. Los izquierdistas
que defendieron el punto de vista anti-Marea Rosada fueron más allá de las
críticas puntuales por fallas específicas, ya que condenaron esos gobiernos en
términos absolutos sin reconocer sus cualidades progresistas (como, por
ejemplo, sus políticas antineoliberales) y en algunos casos fortalecieron las
manos de la derecha radical. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Un ejemplo fue la decisión de
una corriente principal del movimiento indígena antineoliberal encabezada por
el autoproclamado “izquierdista ecológico” Yaku Pérez en Ecuador de no apoyar
la candidatura de Andrés Arauz del partido de Rafael Correa en la segunda
vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales de 2021. Esa decisión selló la victoria
del banquero conservador Guillermo Lasso. Pérez declaró en una referencia a
Correa, “un banquero es preferible a una dictadura”. Su razón principal de no
tomar lados en la elección fue que como presidente, Correa abrió el Parque
Nacional Yasuní, habitado en gran parte por Indígenas, a la perforación
petrolera y reprimió protestas en contra del proyecto. Pero al asumir esta
posición, Pérez ignoró las credenciales antiimperialistas de Correa. Mientras
que Pérez trató de desacreditar las políticas de Correa en el campo doméstico,
hubiera sido más difícil criticar, desde un punto de vista de la izquierda, las
iniciativas antiimperialistas del ex-presidente. En 2009, ordenó a los EE.UU.
abandonar la base militar de Manta y al mismo tiempo Ecuador ingresó en la </span><span lang="ES-CL">Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos
de Nuestra América (ALBA), que representa una versión progresista de la integración
latinoamericana. Como candidato en las elecciones presidenciales de 2021,
Pérez, quien algunos analistas alegaron estaba ubicado a la izquierda de
Correa, abogó por acuerdos comerciales con los EE.UU. y al mismo tiempo
denunció las “políticas agresivas de China alrededor del extractivismo y los derechos
humanos”</span><span lang="es-419" style="background: rgb(248, 249, 250);">.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn28" name="_ednref28" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[28]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Analistas
y activistas anti-Marea Rosada de la izquierda también tuvieron un impacto funesto
en el caso del derrocamiento de Evo Morales en 2019. Mientras que muchos de sus
adversarios en los movimientos sociales y la izquierda ingresaron en la
resistencia al régimen semi-fascista que sucedió a Morales, otros negaron a reconocer
que lo que aconteció fue un “golpe”. Ese fue el caso de Pablo Solón, ex-embajador
de Morales en las Naciones Unidas, quien rompió con él por los planes
desarrollista para el bosque lluvioso Tipnis. Las críticas ecológicas de Solón
– que incluyeron los temas de los </span><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #202124; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">organismos modificados
genéticamente (GMO), los biocombustibles y las mega represas – eclipsaron
el asunto del imperialismo norteamericano y el neofascismo, ambos de los cuales
estaban en juego en el golpe de Estado. Salón aplaudió las protestas callejeras
que estallaron en contra de la reelección de Morales en octubre de 2019 y que
condujeron al golpe, y alegó que Morales era “adicto al poder”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn29" name="_ednref29" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[29]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"> <span lang="es-419">Después del golpe, Solón, quien se identificó como izquierdista, se
opuso al otorgamiento de permiso a Morales para regresar a Bolivia e ingenua y
equivocadamente predijo que la presidente de facto, la derechista </span></span><span lang="es-419">Jeanine </span><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #191f24; letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-ansi-language: #580A;">Á</span><span lang="es-419">ñez, iba a aceptar los símbolos culturales indígenas, al
aseverar que “el gobierno y la sociedad quieren la paz”.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn30" name="_ednref30" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #191f24; letter-spacing: -.15pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; line-height: 107%;">[30]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="es-419" style="background: white; color: #191f24; letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-ansi-language: #580A;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">La
posición anti-Marea Rosada también incide sobre el desempeño del movimiento de
solidaridad internacional. A pesar de que muchos de los críticos tenaces de la
Marea Rosada denuncian al imperialismo norteamericano en forma contundente,
ellos no forman parte del movimiento de solidaridad en números significativos.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn31" name="_ednref31" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[31]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> <span lang="ES-CL">Aunque los gobiernos cubanos y venezolanos innegablemente prefieren
trabajar con líderes del movimiento anti-sanciones quienes son políticamente
alineados con sus posiciones, esto no aplica a la base de esos movimientos.
William Camacaro, un activista durante muchos años con el movimiento venezolano
de solidaridad, me dijo: “Aquellos izquierdistas que arremeten contra los
gobiernos progresistas opacan el entusiasmo de personas dispuestas a trabajar en
oposición a las sanciones”. Agregó “al hacer una mirada a la altamente dividida
izquierda norteamericana, los miembros de grupos que ven con buenos ojos al
gobierno de Maduro son los más activos en el movimiento anti-sanciones aquí en
los EE.UU.”. </span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn32" name="_ednref32" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[32]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Esto
no quiere decir que las críticas a los gobiernos de la Marea Rosada deben estar
apartadas, o que la Marea Rosada siempre
ha defendido a las políticas progresistas. Así que, las credenciales
antiimperialistas de Correa no deben eclipsar sus errores, como, por ejemplo, su
sobrerreacción a las protestas de grupos indígenas en contra de los megaproyectos
con efectos posiblemente devastadores. Por cierto, los pros y los contras de la
Marea Rosada no pueden ser colocados en una balanza cuando los contras incluyen
cuestiones de principios referente a la violación de derechos básicos. Además,
como Fidel Castro advirtió poco antes de su fallecimiento, no se puede culpar
al imperialismo por todos los problemas del país o para tapar los errores.
Finalmente, las críticas a las acciones de un gobierno que se enfrenta a
Washington no siempre impiden el trabajo de solidaridad en oposición a la
intervención norteamericana, como, por ejemplo, en el caso del conflicto
ucraniano. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a name="_Hlk101274547"><b><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">La posición precaria y única de América Latina<o:p></o:p></span></b></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">La serie de
triunfos electorales de progresistas en el transcurso del último año y medio en
Honduras, Chile, Colombia y Brasil confirman la validez de un argumento de este
artículo: América Latina se destaca como la única región del mundo donde numerosos
gobiernos progresistas comprometidos con el anti-neoliberalismo desafían la
hegemonía norteamericana en el siglo 21. Algunos sectores de la izquierda
atacan duramente a estos gobiernos, a veces con argumentos válidos referente a sus
fallas y limitaciones. Estas críticas, sin embargo, son más convincentes en el
área de políticas domésticas – especialmente los pocos resultados de los
esfuerzos de promover el desarrollo económico – que en el área de política exterior.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">En ninguna parte
fue tan evidente lo erróneo de la tesis anti-Marea Rosada como en el caso de la
elección de Lula, cuyo papel a nivel internacional es la fuente de mucha
preocupación en Washington. Cuando fue elegido por primera vez en 2002, Lula
inmediatamente calmó los temores de las bolsas de valores al reanudar todos los
acuerdos con el FMI, pero su reconocimiento a Palestina en base de las
fronteras de 1967, y su apoyo para una moneda internacional como rival al
dólar, alarmó al Presidente Obama, y enojó mucho a otros en Washington. Con su
influencia internacional ahora en declive, Washington tiene aún más razón en temer
las posiciones avanzadas de Lula sobre estos asuntos y su llamado a un mundo
multipolar.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn33" name="_ednref33" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[33]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> <span lang="ES-CL">Brasil, conjuntamente con otros
gobiernos de la Marea Rosada, desafió a Washington al reestablecer relaciones
con Caracas y así detener las políticas que Washington había logrado imponer en
la región en favor del “cambio de régimen” en Venezuela. El presidente
colombiano Gustavo Petro, después de desairar al Secretario de Estado Antony
Blinken, durante su visita oficial a Bogotá en octubre de 2022, al criticar la
política de Washington hacia Cuba, luego viajó a Venezuela dos veces para
reunirse con Maduro. Las acciones de Petro fueron humillantes para Washington,
aunque ningún portavoz de la administración de Biden lo admitió públicamente.
Los escritores izquierdistas anti-Marea Rosada ignoran la importancia del
cambio total en la posición de América Latina en política internacional, como
también la ignoran los que escriben las declaraciones oficiales esperanzadoras
de la administración de Biden. Pero se trata de un cambio trascendental que
tiene que ser incorporado y enfatizado en cualquier análisis crítico acerca de
los gobiernos progresistas en la región. Las ofensivas recientes de la derecha
– incluyendo el golpe blando contra el presidente peruano Pedro Castillo en
diciembre del año pasado y luego los disturbios en Brasilia, que en algunos
aspectos fueron más peligrosos que el ataque contra el capitolio en Washington
por los seguidores de Trump el 6 de enero de 2021 – claramente demuestran la importancia
para la izquierda de identificar a los enemigos y distinguir entre amigo y
enemigo en la etapa actual. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Conclusión<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">La
gran mayoría de los politólogos expertos en el campo de relaciones internacionales
rechazan la noción (que data de Immanuel Kant) de que los países democráticos
son más pacíficos en sus relaciones internacionales que los no democráticos. Pero
hay un postulado parecido que sirve como piedra angular del pensamiento
neo-conservador y que guía a la política exterior de los EE.UU. en general: que
las democracias son más pacíficas en sus relaciones con otros países
democráticos, pero están obligados a emular el comportamiento agresivo de los
no democráticos (supuestamente Rusia y China).</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn34" name="_ednref34" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[34]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> <span lang="ES-CL">Nada más y nada menos que el ex-presidente Jimmy Carter críticamente
llamó a esta estrategia “luchar fuego con fuego”.</span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn35" name="_ednref35" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[35]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> El
caso de la Marea Rosada es particularmente revelador ya que tan obviamente
demuestra lo equivocado de esa línea de razonamiento. De hecho, el contraste no
podría ser más evidente. EE.UU. desestabiliza los gobiernos progresistas en
América Latina en el nombre de la “responsabilidad de proteger” y la
“intervención humanitaria”. Rusia y China defienden los mismos gobiernos en
nombre del principio de la soberanía nacional. Esto está muy lejos de ser un
caso de emular a los malos (supuestamente Rusia y China) por razones pragmáticas.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Similarmente,
los escritores anti-Marea Rosada de la izquierda no distinguen entre las
acciones de los EE.UU. y las de Rusia y China, al mismo tiempo que minimizan
las diferencias entre los gobiernos latinoamericanos progresistas y
conservadores. Ellos ponen en duda que la Marea Rosada sea progresista al
enfocar sus políticas económicas y sociales, pero es difícil negar la
naturaleza progresista de la política exterior de esos gobiernos. Además, desde
una perspectiva izquierdista, la tesis de los “muchos imperialismos” aplicada a
la política exterior de la Marea Rosada no es nada convincente, por dos
razones. Primero, la defensa de la soberanía nacional y el derecho de la autodeterminación
frente al intervencionismo del Norte fue una causa proclamada por Lenin (y
Marx) que, en la época de la globalización, es especialmente relevante.
Segundo, en América Latina, Rusia y (aunque quizás a un grado menor) China se
han alineado con gobiernos progresistas mientras que Washington está
estrechamente alineado con gobiernos de la derecha (como fue el caso de
Colombia) en el contexto de la polarización política extrema que ha caracterizado
la región en el siglo veintiuno. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">La
priorización al antiimperialismo, analizada en este artículo, tiene otra
implicación para la estrategia de la izquierda, especialmente como está
aplicada a Venezuela bajo Maduro (y también Cuba). La izquierda tiene que resaltar
la importancia del éxito de Maduro de formular una estrategia para sobrevivir
la campaña brutal de Washington de intimidar el país con el fin de imponer sus
intereses. Este reconocimiento no significa que Maduro está exento de críticas,
pero sí representa una crítica de los escritores y políticos de la izquierda
anti-Marea Rosada quienes minimizan o completamente ignoran sus aspectos
positivos.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_edn36" name="_ednref36" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[36]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> <span lang="ES-CL">Por cierto, este éxito en resistir la agresión imperialista y el intervencionismo
caracteriza a la Marea Rosada en general, que ha demostrado un poder de permanencia
que, para un bloque de países, no tiene precedente en el continente. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><!--[if !supportEndnotes]-->
<hr size="1" style="text-align: left;" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""></a><b><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Notas<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[1]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> <span lang="ES-CL">De hecho, la prioridad número uno en el mundo del siglo 21 es el
desafío climático. Pero se puede aseverar que todo progreso verdadero en frenar
el cambio climático depende del respeto a la soberanía nacional y a los recortes
de los gastos militares, los cuales son metas fundamentales del
antiimperialismo. </span></span><span lang="ES-CL"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[2]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span lang="ES"> Raúl Zibechi, “Un siquiatra para los
geopolíticos,” <i>La Jornada</i>, 8 de noviembre de 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[3]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a>
Linda Farthing y Thomas Becker, <i>Coup: A Story of Violence and Resistance in Bolivia</i>
(Chicago: Haymarket, 2021), pp. 54–59, 166–67.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[4]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><sub>
</sub>Jeffery R. Webber, <i>The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of
the Same: The Politics and Economics of the New Latin American Left</i> (Chicago:
Haymarket, 2017), pp. 157–272.<sub><o:p></o:p></sub></p>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[5]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES-CL">La dialéctica marxista<b> </b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">reconoce la cambiante preeminencia de contradicciones en el marco de la
totalidad. </span></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Ver, Bertell
Ollman, “The Eight Steps in Marx’s Dialectical Method,” <i>The Oxford Handbook
of Karl <a name="_Hlk127311593">Marx. </a></i>(New
York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 99–105.)</span><b><sub><o:p></o:p></sub></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[6]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Zhun Xu, “</span><span style="color: #222222;">The Ideology of Late Imperialism: </span>The Return of
the Geopolitics of the Second International,” <i>Monthly Review</i> 72, número
10 (March 2021): p. 18. <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2021/03/01/the-ideology-of-late-imperialism/"><span lang="ES">https://monthlyreview.org/2021/03/01/the-ideology-of-late-imperialism/</span></a><b><span lang="ES"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn7">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[7]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio Borón, “América Latina en el
contexto del imperialismo,” YouTube video, 1:19:17, 22 de junio de 2017, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVwTwwTjzlo"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">youtube.com/watch?v=GVwTwwTjzlo</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">.</span></span><b><span lang="ES"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn8">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[8]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio Borón, “América Latina en el
contexto del imperialismo,”</span><b><span lang="ES"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn9">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[9]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> </span></b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio Borón, “América Latina en el contexto del
imperialismo.”</span><span lang="ES" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn10">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[10]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> </span></b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio Borón, “América Latina en el contexto del
imperialismo.”</span><b><span lang="ES" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn11">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref11" name="_edn11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[11]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><sub>
</sub>J. Z. Garrod, “A Critique of Panitch and Gindin’s Theory of American Empire,”
<i>Science and Society</i> 79, número 1 (2015): p. 49.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn12">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref12" name="_edn12" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[12]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> William I. Robinson, “Debate on the
New Global Capitalism: Transnational Capitalist Class, Transnational State Apparatuses,
and Global Crisis,” <i>International Critical Thought</i> 7, número 2 (2017): p.
172.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn13">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref13" name="_edn13" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[13]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> David <span style="background: white;">Harvey, </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">“A
Commentary on <i>A Theory of Imperialism</i>,” </span><i>A Theory of
Imperialism</i>, <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">by </span>Utsa
Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik (New York: Columbia University <span style="background: white; color: #555555;">Press, </span><span style="background: white;">2017), p. 169.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn14">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref14" name="_edn14" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[14]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Salar Mohandesi, “</span><span style="background: white;">The Specificity of Imperialism,” </span><i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Viewpoint Magazine</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, 1 de febrero de 2018. </span></span><a href="https://viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/the-specificity-of-imperialism/"><span style="background: white; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">https://viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/the-specificity-of-imperialism/</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">; </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">John Bellamy Foster, “<span style="color: #222222;">Late Imperialism: </span><span style="color: #555555;">Fifty
Years After Harry Magdoff's <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The Age of Imperialism</span></i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">,” </span></span><i>Monthly Review</i> 71, número 3 (julio-agosto
de 2019): pp. 8–9. </span><a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2019/07/01/late-imperialism/"><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">https://monthlyreview.org/2019/07/01/late-imperialism/</span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn15">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 13.5pt 12pt 0in; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref15" name="_edn15" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[15]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Mike Gonzalez, “</span><span lang="ES-CL" style="color: #191919; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Being Honest About Venezuela,” </span><i><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Jacobin</span></i><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">, 8
de julio de 2017. </span><a href="https://jacobin.com/2017/07/Venezuela-maduro-helicopter-attack-psuv-extractivism-oil"><span style="background: white;">https://jacobin.com/2017/07/Venezuela-maduro-helicopter-attack-psuv-extractivism-oil</span></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn16">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref16" name="_edn16" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[16]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> Mike Gonzalez, <i>The Ebb of the Pink Tide:
The Decline of the Left in Latin America</i> (London: Pluto, 2019), p. 2.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn17">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref17" name="_edn17" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[17]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gonzalez, <i>The Ebb of the Pink Tide</i>, p. <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">111–12.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn18">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 13.5pt 12pt 0in; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref18" name="_edn18" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[18]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Maristella Svampa, <i>Neo-Extractivism
in Latin America: Socio-environmental Conflicts, the Territorial Turn, and New Political
Narratives</i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), p. 18.</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn19">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref19" name="_edn19" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[19]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Svampa, <i>Neo-Extractivism in Latin America</i>.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn20">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref20" name="_edn20" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[20]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white;">Minqi
Li, “</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">China:
Imperialism or Semi-Periphery?” </span><i><span style="background: white;">Monthly Review</span></i><span style="background: white;"> 73, número 3 (julio-agosto de 2021):
50–58. </span><a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2021/07/01/china-imperialism-or-semi-periphery/"><span style="background: white;">https://monthlyreview.org/2021/07/01/china-imperialism-or-semi-periphery/</span></a><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn21">
<p style="background: white; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref21" name="_edn21" title=""><b><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[21]</span></b><!--[endif]--></span></b></a><b> </b><a name="_Hlk116408412"><span lang="ES">Esteban Mercatante</span></a><span lang="ES">, “El lugar
de China en el orden mundial,” YouTube video, 1:11:33, 1 de noviembre de 2020, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRgmTEP9VyA"><span lang="ES">youtube.com/watch?v=VRgmTEP9VyA</span></a><span lang="ES">.</span><b><span lang="ES"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn22">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref22" name="_edn22" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[22]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Simon <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Tisdall, </span><span style="color: #121212;">“In China’s new
age of imperialism, Xi Jinping gives thumbs down to democracy.” </span></span><i><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Guardian</span></i><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">, 12 de diciembre de 2021. </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/12/xi-jinping-china-beijing-new-age-of-imperialism"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/12/xi-jinping-china-beijing-new-age-of-imperialism</span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn23">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref23" name="_edn23" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[23]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Steven Lee Myers, “</span>An
Alliance of Autocracies? China Wants to Lead a New World Order.” <i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">New York Times</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, 29 de marzo de 2021. </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/world/asia/china-us-russia.html"><span style="background: white;">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/world/asia/china-us-russia.html</span></a><a name="_Hlk120982611"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">; <i>Washington
Post</i>, “Russia and China Announce a
Bid to Make the World Safe for Dictatorship,” [editorial]. </span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">February 7, 2022. </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/07/putin-xi-the-dictators-meet-at-olympics/"><span style="background: white;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/07/putin-xi-the-dictators-meet-at-olympics/</span></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn24">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref24" name="_edn24" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[24]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Richard L. Harris y </span>Armando
A. Arias, “China’s South-South Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean,”
<i>Journal of Developing Societies</i> 32, número 4 (2016): p. 522<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn25">
<p class="Pa7" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref25" name="_edn25" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; vertical-align: baseline;">[25]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Douglas Farah y Kathryn Babineau,
“Extra-regional Actors in Latin America: The United States is not the Only Game
in Town,” <i>Prism</i> 8, número 1 (2019): p. 106.</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn26">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref26" name="_edn26" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[26]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Dmitri Trenin, citado por </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Angela Stent, <i>Putin’s World
against the West and with the Rest</i>. Nueva York, 2019. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn27">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref27" name="_edn27" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[27]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> “Joint Statement of the Russian
Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations
Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development,” 4 de febrero de
2022.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn28">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref28" name="_edn28" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[28]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b>Bre<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">ndan O’Boyle, “</span><span style="color: #222222;">Yaku Pérez: The New Face of Ecuador’s Left?” <i>Americas
Quarterly</i>, February 1, 2021. </span><a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/yaku-perez-the-new-face-of-ecuadors-left/">https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/yaku-perez-the-new-face-of-ecuadors-left/</a><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn29">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref29" name="_edn29" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[29]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Juan Karita, “<span style="color: #333333;">Evo Morales
Returns Triumphantly to Bolivia After Exile.” <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, 9 de
noviembre de 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn30">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref30" name="_edn30" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[30]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><a name="_Hlk120983034">Democracy Now, “<span style="color: #191f24;">After
Evo: As Right-Wing Senator Declares Herself President, What’s Next for
Bolivia?” </span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="color: #191f24; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">13 de noviembre de
2019.</span><span lang="ES-CL"> </span><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/13/bolivia_evo_morales_coup_debate_pt2"><span lang="ES-CL">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/13/bolivia_evo_morales_coup_debate_pt2</span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="color: #191f24; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn31">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref31" name="_edn31" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[31]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white;">Llego a esta
conclusión parcialmente en base de mi experiencia en el movimiento de
solidaridad venezolana, y específicamente mi interacción con más de una
veintena de grupos de solidaridad en los EE.UU. y Canadá en 2018. </span><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn32">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref32" name="_edn32" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[32]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> <span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222;">William Camacaro, entrevista,
19 de febrero de 2022.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn33">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref33" name="_edn33" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[33]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">
Steve Ellner, “Lo que más teme Washington del Presidente Lula da Silva”, <i>Rebelión.org</i>,
7 de noviembre de 2022. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="https://rebelion.org/lo-que-mas-teme-washington-del-presidente-lula-da-silva/"><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">https://rebelion.org/lo-que-mas-teme-washington-del-presidente-lula-da-silva/</span></a><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn34">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref34" name="_edn34" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[34]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Esta tesis se llama “la teoría de la paz
democrática”. </span><b><span lang="ES-CL"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn35">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 58.5pt; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref35" name="_edn35" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[35]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Joshua Muravchik, “‘Scoop’
Jackson at One Hundred: The Conscience of a Neoconservative Giant,” <i>Commentary</i>
134, número 1 (2021): p. 27. </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn36">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/translations/Monthly%20Review%202023%20translation/Monthly%20Review%20para%20Rebelion.org.docx#_ednref36" name="_edn36" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[36]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> </span></b><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">En 2020, el Partido
Comunista de Venezuela (PCV) rompió con el gobierno de Maduro y lo colocó
básicamente en la misma categoría de la oposición venezolana. En su análisis
del gobierno, el PCV minimiza la importancia del imperialismo, como planteo en
mi artículo titulado “Objective Conditions in Venezuela, Maduro’s Defensive
Strategy and Contradictions among the People”, para ser publicado en <i>Science
and Society</i>.</span><span lang="ES-CL" style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Traducido con la ayuda de Carmen Sánchez de Ellner y
Michelle María Ellner</span><span lang="ES-CL" style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><b><span lang="ES-CL" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><strong><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Steve Ellner es profesor jubilado
de la Universidad de Oriente en Venezuela y actualmente es editor asociado de
la revista </span></strong><em><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">Latin
American Perspectives</span></em><strong><span lang="ES-CL" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL;">. Es autor de <i>El fenómeno Chávez: sus orígenes y su
impacto</i> (2014). </span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">Sus últimos
libros son </span></strong><em><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Latin American Extractivism: Dependency,
Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective (</span></em><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">editado, </span></strong><em><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2021);</span></em><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"> y </span></strong><em><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Latin American Social
Movements and Progressive Governments: Creative Tensions between Resistance and
Convergence </span></em><strong><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">(co-editado, 2022).</span></strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
</div></div><p><br /> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-35202124275175467022023-03-30T19:02:00.003-07:002023-03-30T19:08:10.874-07:00Prioritizing U.S. Imperialism, Evaluating Latin America’s Pink Tide<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdcB8EJ-0N9gm2iZgBE32Vu7HjywB0P96qLa4IZh2NV5WOMbe-gLtPuW_G-CYRQsjjYv283-7PCjFHpPMK9PJGmefCLsECkj_rTPegR22iXJNvXTSQTU6VgR1NzoCXk4cFuPj6D5TfoQ4yRV40wd7DaRTHWQJkUrr6LoTEvVjW71tVnDQEblag5z8G/s720/imperialism%20photo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="720" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdcB8EJ-0N9gm2iZgBE32Vu7HjywB0P96qLa4IZh2NV5WOMbe-gLtPuW_G-CYRQsjjYv283-7PCjFHpPMK9PJGmefCLsECkj_rTPegR22iXJNvXTSQTU6VgR1NzoCXk4cFuPj6D5TfoQ4yRV40wd7DaRTHWQJkUrr6LoTEvVjW71tVnDQEblag5z8G/w400-h200/imperialism%20photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Steve Ellner <o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Published in <i>Monthly Review</i>,
March 2023<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk89333063"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Two conflicting
leftist positions on Latin America’s wave of progressive governments known as
the Pink Tide have become increasingly well-defined over the last two decades</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. One position is favorable, while the
other highly critical, to the extent that Pink Tide presidents—including Venezuela’s
Nicolás Maduro, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, and Brazil’s Lula—are
sometimes put in the same category as conservative and right-wing leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">At the heart of these differences is the
issue of imperialism. The key question that emerges from the debate has
paramount implications: Is the struggle against U.S. imperialism the left’s foremost
priority worldwide, no matter what view is taken on the Ukraine war? If the answer
is yes, then steadfast support for Pink Tide governments, which have been
subjected to and resisted U.S. interventionism, is particularly compelling.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Or has globalization set in motion other
contradictions that need to be prioritized since the principal target must be global
capital, and not Washington’s political machinations? Furthermore, </span>the
environment, Indigenous rights, gender equality, and participatory democracy—all
banners of what some call the “anti-globalization movement”—<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">have to be foremost in the formulation
of leftist strategies and goals in the twenty-first century.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The
Pink Tide’s performance on these fronts has been far from exemplary, thus
explaining the line of reasoning of those on the left staunchly critical of
those governments.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk95547838"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Anti-Pink Tide
writers often deny that the problems (and errors) of Pink Tide governments are
related in any way to U.S. imperialism. </span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The prominent anti-Pink Tide Uruguayan leftist Raúl Zibechi,
for instance, wrote that the overthrow of Evo Morales in 2019 cannot be blamed
on U.S. interventionism any more than the mass anti-neoliberal protests
throughout the region in the same year can be blamed on Cuba, Venezuela, or
Russia. Such accusations, according to Zibechi, contribute to the “perpetuation
of the Cold War in which all actions are attributed to one of the superpowers.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> In
fact, U.S.-promoted destabilization in Bolivia dating back to the early days of
the Morales government in 2006 has been well documented, as has been the role
of the U.S.-backed Organization of American States in Morales’s ouster.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The thesis on the existence of many,
equally nefarious imperialisms, adhered to by anti-Pink Tide writers, runs
counter to the basic premise of pro-Pink Tide writers, namely, that U.S.
imperialism represents the major contradiction in the world today. Anti-Pink
Tide writers make little or no distinction between the destructive and
detrimental effect of U.S. imperialism and that of the alleged imperialisms of
Russia and China. Pink Tide nations, which are on the front lines of the
struggle against U.S. imperialism, are thus viewed as simply changing one
domination for another.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">Those on the
left who deny that progressive Latin American governments have any redeeming
qualities are hardly confined to the so-called ultra-left. <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Indeed, the anti-Pink Tide writers cut
across the entire left side of the political spectrum. They also include
scholars of all disciplines as well as activists in the environmental,
Indigenous rights, and feminist movements. Their common denominators are first their
denial that there is anything significantly progressive about Pink Tide
governments, and second, their failure to judge Pink Tide leaders against the
backdrop of imperialist aggression.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">That said, the distinction between the pro-Pink
Tide<i> </i>and anti-Pink Tide leftist positions is not always clear cut.
Certainly many, possibly most, of those in the first category are critically
supportive of Pink Tide governments. Meanwhile, those in the second category
recognize the devastating effect of U.S. intervention, but do not incorporate it
in their analysis of those governments. Furthermore, the Pink Tide is hardly a
cohesive group. Some anti-Pink Tide analysts on the left, for instance, consider
Correa of Ecuador a sell-out while lavishing praise on Morales; others make a
similar contrast between the Sandinistas and the Venezuelan government<a name="_Hlk95039010">; still others have harshly attacked Morales while praising
Chávez.</a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">However, the distinction between the two
categories is very much worth making. First, because the anti-Pink Tide
position has undermined the effectiveness of the international solidarity
movement in opposition to U.S. interventionism. And second, because exploring
the differences between the two brings to the fore the issue that Marxists,
almost by definition, consider of paramount importance, namely the major
contradiction – among the many that exist –and the most important struggles in
the world today.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">It would appear at first glance that, given
the polemics about the war in Ukraine, this is not an ideal moment to write an
article calling for prioritizing the struggle against U.S. imperialism. I
maintain just the opposite. The war in Ukraine, as horrific as it is, distracts
from the larger picture, which is U.S. imperialism at the global level. Even leftists
who are critical of both the Russian offensive and Washington for
promoting the expansion of NATO are divided, however, over which of the
two sides bear the brunt of the blame.<a name="_Hlk112874012"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Nevertheless, as I argue below, the issue
of Russian intervention in the Ukrainian conflict is basically independent of
the issue of the prioritization of U.S. imperialism. </span>That is to say, Russia might be severely
condemned for its actions in Ukraine at the same time that U.S. imperialism is
singled out as the greatest threat to world peace and progressive change.<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> For this reason, the left, and
progressives in general, cannot wait until the Ukrainian conflict is resolved (even
assuming that it will be) before they clearly confront the broader implications
of U.S. imperialism. </span><a name="_Hlk113003062">An examination of the Pink
Tide and its relations with Russia, China, and the United States opens a window
of opportunity to determine whether the hegemonic status of U.S. imperialism
negates the validity of the “many imperialisms” thesis, or is compatible with
it.</a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk90929092"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Atilio
Borón</span></b></a><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> on U.S.
Imperialism</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The prominent Argentine political
scientist Atilio Borón prioritizes the issue of imperialism while at the same
time staunchly supporting Pink Tide presidents—from Venezuela’s Maduro to
Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and Ecuador’s Correa, all of whom are highly
questioned by anti-Pink Tide leftists. A look at Borón’s speeches and writings sheds
light on the tight connection between the prioritization of anti-imperialism
and support for the Pink Tide, as perceived by a leading representative of the
anti-imperialist Latin American left.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk96327688"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Borón argues
that even while the United States is on the decline—as shown by the rise
of the Pink Tide in its own backyard—the perniciousness of U.S. imperialism is
more evident than ever. For years, Borón says, following the fall of the Soviet
Union, “when someone spoke of imperialism they were looked at derisively and
told you’re living in the 60s.” He adds that “people would say globalization has
done away with all that.” </span>Indeed, this statement by Borón lends itself
to the view that leftist theorizing on globalization largely holds the left back
from devising an anti-imperialist analysis, with devastating effects (as Zhun
Xu has persuasively argued).</a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">Borón goes on to point out that, in the
twenty-first century, “the reality of imperialism has set in, to the extent
that Washington strategists now talk of ‘empire.’” <span style="background: white;">Not only is imperialism more evident
than in previous decades, but it is also, in many ways, more brutal. “What
happened in Chile under Allende was tough, but was a child’s game compared to
Venezuela,” Borón says.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">Like other pro-Pink
Tide writers, Borón highlights the importance of geopolitics as well as the successes
of Pink Tide nations in challenging U.S. imperialist dominance. <a name="_Hlk95039635">For him, the importance of the Pink Tide and anti-imperialism
in the region can only be understood by taking into account the overriding importance
that Washington policymakers attach to Latin America from a strategic viewpoint—though
they seldom publicly admit it. Borón paraphrases <span style="background: white; color: #202124;">Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said something to the effect that
“the United States </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">established
its primacy like no other empire in history because those nations were all
threatenable by land, or at least short distances.” Borón then points out that
Washington strategists refer to the Western hemisphere as an “island,” with the
United States “at the head”: “The security of the United States depends on the
solidity of the different parts of the island.” In an obvious reference to the
Pink Tide, Borón says “if countries [in the hemisphere] open any crack, if anti-Americanism
flourishes or if the parts are not willing to embrace U.S. foreign policy, then
U.S. security is greatly endangered.”</span></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">Like many other
staunch defenders of Pink Tide governments, <a name="_Hlk95039709">Borón
subordinates criticisms of Pink Tide governments to the need to confront
imperialism. His logic is as follows:<o:p></o:p></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 13.5pt 8pt 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white;">With all the
defects Daniel Ortega may have, the United States doesn’t like him.… When the
empire doesn’t like someone he [or she] must be doing something good. When
there is ideological confusion, as Cristina [Fernández de Kirchner] recommends,
look to the North. If the United States is moving in this direction, then we
have to go in the opposite one. That’s because the empire never improvises.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">Certainly, the
enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, as the anti-Pink Tide writers
are quick to point out. <a name="_Hlk95593596">But throughout his career, Borón
has been correct in pointing to the ongoing overriding importance of
anti-imperialism and refuting the claims that the ebbs in those struggles signified
“the end of the anti-imperialist cycle” or the “end of the Pink Tide.”</a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn11" name="_ednref11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Writers on both sides of the political
spectrum made such a claim following the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in
1990 and again following the Pink Tide setbacks beginning with the defeat of
the Peronists at the polls in Argentina in 2015.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><b>Imperialism versus Globalization<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">As
Borón notes, globalization both in theory and practice tends to cloud the imperialist
actions of the United States. Indeed, transnational capital, by transcending
the nation-state, appears to be incongruent with the concept of imperialism, at
least by Vladimir Lenin’s definition, which is territorially based. Some
globalization theorists on the left have predicted that since transnational
capital has become dominant <i>vis-à-vis</i> national capital, the emerging
transnational state (comprised of organizations such as the G7, World Trade Organization,
and so on) is in the process of replacing the nation-state, which is the
epicenter of imperialism. J. Z. <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Garrod,
for instance, asks whether transnational capital “can </span>be theorized through
concepts of imperialism, given the extent to which these conceptions remain
tied to a notion of space rooted in national geopolitical structures.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn12" name="_ednref12" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">Globalization
theorists who emphasize the emergence of a “transnational state” may have
jumped the gun. They once viewed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as
evidence that the transnational state was well on its way to becoming
hegemonic, just as transnational capital had become.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn13" name="_ednref13" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> But the TPP proposal came and went. Although
transnational capital may have become hegemonic, the nation-state is not
necessarily on its way out. An extended time lag could separate transnational
capital’s alleged rise to dominance and a dominant transnational state that
responds mainly to its interests. Such a class-state lag characterized the
centuries-long transition from feudalism to capitalism.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">David Harvey presents another argument on
globalization that places in doubt the applicability of the concept of imperialism
in the twenty-first century<span style="background: white;">. He contends
that capital mobility, which has caused </span>production on a massive scale to
be relocated to the Global South (particularly East Asia), has produced “<span style="background: white;">shifting hegemonies within the world
system,” <em><span style="font-style: normal;">and that the flows associated with
imperialism outlined by Lenin are now</span> “</em>more complicated and
constantly changing direction.”</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn14" name="_ednref14" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: black;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white;"> In
public conferences over the last several years, Harvey </span>declared that the
notion of imperialism is a “straightjacket” in that it impedes the theorization
of globalization in the twenty-first century.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn15" name="_ednref15" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">Too
much of the discussion of twenty-first century imperialism revolves around
projections into the future rather than realities of the present. Thus the
“many imperialisms” thesis anticipates that, with the alleged restoration of
capitalism in China, that nation will become an aggressive imperialist power.
Similarly, some globalization theorists argue that, with the hegemony of
transnational capital, the transnational state will inevitably replace the
nation-state. Both these predictions are future possibilities, but the left
needs to devise strategies based on the present, not hypothetical scenarios. At
the moment, Washington wields extraordinary power, and all too often acts to
promote its own territorially based interests, for instance, safeguarding the
supremacy of the dollar.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">Furthermore,
globalization has hardly eradicated the North-South divide along the lines that
Harvey and Giovanni <span style="background: white;">Arrighi suggest.</span>
Just because Mexico’s Carlos Slim has become one of the richest people in the
world does not mean that Mexico has reduced its gaps with the United States
from an economic, social, or military viewpoint. This is also the case with
other nations of the Global South, with the exception of China.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">“Many Imperialisms” and the Pink Tide <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The recognition of U.S. imperialism as
the world’s major contradiction has fundamental implications for leftist
strategy—two, in particular. First, in the realm of foreign policy, those political
parties and governments (Russia, for example) that confront Washington but do
not represent a force in favor of socialism, and furthermore carry out certain ethically
and politically questionable actions, do not necessarily get thrown in the same
category with the United States and its allies. The left needs to highlight the
distinctions between the foreign policy of these nations and that of the United
States. Second, the criticism of progressive governments (the Pink Tide
governments, for example) has to be contextualized in the face of imperialist
hostility, and their positive role in the anti-imperialist struggle needs to be
emphasized.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The anti-Pink Tide leftists, who see
Moscow and Beijing as no better than Washington, do not subscribe to this line
of thinking. The British Marxist scholar Mike Gonzalez, for instance, writes
that “</span><span style="background: white; color: #191919;">not just the United
States but also China, Russia,” and other capitalist nations “are waiting to
seize [Venezuela’s] enormous oil, gas, and mineral wealth under the complacent
eye of an openly neoliberal government,”</span><span style="background: white; color: #191919; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #191919;">that is, the Maduro government.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn16" name="_ednref16" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #191919; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Gonzalez
also accuses </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Nicaragua’s
Ortega of delivering “the country into the hands of Chinese multinationals.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn17" name="_ednref17" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Though Gonzalez and other anti-Pink Tide
writers on the left do not let Washington off the hook for its imperialist
actions, neither do they credit Maduro, Morales, Correa, Ortega, and other Pink
Tide leaders for confronting U.S. imperialism since, after all, they are merely
exchanging one imperialism for another. Gonzalez accuses some leftists, myself
included, of ignoring the investments coming into Pink Tide countries from
China—“now the region’s second largest investor”—and the alleged corruption
associated with Chinese capital in Venezuela.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn18" name="_ednref18" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk95039788"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Maristella Svampa is a leading non-Marxist,
left-leaning scholar who also views ties with China as no better than
dependency on the United States. The arguments put forward by Svampa, who is far
from being a Washington apologist, make evident that the anti-Pink Tide viewpoint
</span>is not confined to any particular political stripe on the left<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. According to Svampa, the original hope
for a “multi-polar world” was shattered by </span><span style="background: white; color: #444444;">“</span>the accentuation of unequal exchange” between China
and Latin America.</a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn19" name="_ednref19" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> She <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">denounces the increased dependence of all Latin American countries, left
and right alike, on non-processed commodity exports, which is partly a result
of China’s insatiable need for raw materials. For Svampa, Pink Tide governments
are in some ways worse than the neoliberal ones that preceded them, and
virtually without redeeming qualities. Like many other anti-Pink Tide writers
on the left, Svampa says little of the hostile treatment afforded Pink Tide
governments by Washington and its allies. In her latest book, which is highly
critical of Pink Tide governments, she says nothing of it at all.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn20" name="_ednref20" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Is the New Cold War A Re-run of the
First World War? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The main point of reference for anti-Pink
Tide, anti-China Marxists is Lenin’s economic analysis of the pre-1914 European
imperialist powers, though empirical studies such as that of Minqi Li in <i>Monthly
Review</i> point to fundamental differences between the economy of those
nations and that of China today. Basic discussion revolves around economics,
such as the unrestrained drive for super profits (<a name="_Hlk95040465">which
Li claims is the defining characteristic of imperialism according to Lenin, and
is a driving force that does not apply to China).</a><a name="_Hlk95040516"></a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn21" name="_ednref21" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The
political and military dimensions of imperialism, however, are largely left out
of the debate by those on both the right and the left. These dimensions—the
political and military ones—as applied to Latin America’s Pink Tide demonstrate
the fallacy of the “many imperialisms” thesis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">There is no need to convince <i>Monthly Review</i>
readers of the destructiveness of the political and military aspects of U.S.
imperialism, consisting of actions and policies that are hardly matched by those
of Russia and China</span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #222222;">. </span><a name="_Hlk113171182"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Indeed, the Russian and Chinese military
deployments that are classified by Washington politicians and pundits as
examples of imperialist aggression are largely confined to their borders, as in
the case of Ukraine</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> and
Taiwan. This stands in sharp contrast with U.S. military interventionism which
goes far beyond its “backyard.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Just a few facts regarding the political
and military dimensions of U.S. imperialism are needed to show that the United
States is in a class by itself, and why the left needs to prioritize
anti-imperialism: its maintenance of 750 military bases in 80 countries and
colonies throughout the world outside of its borders; substantive support for
numerous right-wing military coups against governments considered hostile to
U.S. interests (many of which are progressive); sanctions against countries
considered adversaries that amount to veritable blockades; an astronomical
military budget with a ripple effect throughout the world; and extensive political,
economic and military support for Israel (which contributes in a major way to
the destabilization of the Middle East, not to mention the atrocities committed
against Palestinians), to name only a few.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">A central argument of the anti-China
writers across the political spectrum is that Chinese imperialism may not be as
aggressive as that of the United States, but only because it is at an incipient
stage. </span>One position on the left, for instance, views China as a case of “imperialism
under construction.” Leftist analyst<b> </b>Esteban Mercatante states,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 13.5pt 8pt 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Even though China lacks the global police power of the
United States…it can be characterized as an imperialism under construction
which means the development of many dimensions that permit it to project an
interventionist capacity equivalent to that of other imperialist nations such
as Great Britain and Japan.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn22" name="_ednref22" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; line-height: 107%;">[22]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">A more damming
characterization of China comes from the</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> “just wait and see” argument put forward by <i>Guardian</i>
editor Simon Tisdall, in his 2021 article, “In China’s New Age of Imperialism.”
Tisdall claims that China is “shifting to empire phase two” which, once
dominant, will have a powerful military component and is “</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 249, 245); color: #121212;">potentially more dangerous” than
previous empires</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. This
argument ignores the law of uneven development, which has historically meant
that countries like Germany and Japan, in their drive to “catch up,” were more
aggressive than their imperialist rivals. If China (and Russia) is attempting
to catch up to and surpass the United States, then one would expect it to be
more bellicose at the global level, not less.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn23" name="_ednref23" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[23]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The defense of Pink Tide countries’ national
sovereignty by Russia and China and their explicit support for a multipolar
world have no equivalent in the pre-First World War period of inter-imperialist
rivalry. While Washington accuses China of coming to the aid of authoritarian
and corrupt regimes in Africa (as if the United States does not have a long,
sordid history of doing the same), in Latin America, there are ideological
implications to the Russian and Chinese presence that are favorable to the left.
This dimension is a far cry from Russia’s and China’s alleged </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">“bid to make the world safe for
dictatorship” by promoting an “alliance of autocracies,” as the <i>New York
Times</i> and <i>Washington Post</i> claim.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn24" name="_ednref24" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[24]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222;">Other scholars have pointed out that </span>China “has friendlier and more cooperative relations
with the countries that have leftist and center-left regimes…such as Bolivia,
Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and somewhat less friendly but still
respectful cooperative relations with countries…led by more conservative,
pro-US regimes.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn25" name="_ednref25" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[25]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
However, these conservative regimes did not always reciprocate with an equal
degree of “respectfulness.” This was the case of Jair Bolsonaro and those in
his inner circle who accused China of desiring world domination and insinuated
that they were responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">One example of
support for progressive principles in the area of foreign policy is the forums
held between China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States
(CELAC), the latter being an organization championed by Pink Tide presidents and
based on a progressive approach to Latin American integration. An example of Russian
and Chinese commitment to the defense of national sovereignty came in the form
of financial support for the heavily indebted Maduro government at a time when
its survival was placed in doubt by the Trump administration’s destabilization
campaign, and when Venezuelan opposition leaders, at least initially, vowed to
tear up the nation’s contracts with both Russia and China.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn26" name="_ednref26" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[26]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Initiatives like these place
into doubt the validity of the “many imperialisms” thesis. <a name="_Hlk112856017">Certainly, no equivalent to international relations conducted
along these lines can be found in the foreign policy of the pre-1914
imperialist powers of Europe.<o:p></o:p></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk95116864"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Washington
pundits claim that Russian and Chinese policymakers support the Pink Tide not
out of a belief in any lofty principle, but as a result of geopolitical
calculations. These nations’ backing of progressive governments is seen as self-serving,
particularly as </span>Russia strives to become, in the words of a Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace director, “the go-to country for all those unhappy
with U.S. global dominance.”</a><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn27" name="_ednref27" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[27]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">
</span>This claim regarding Russian motives belies what is really taking place.
<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">So does the appearance of rapport
between Moscow and the right-wing ilk of Donald Trump, Fox News, and Marine Le
Pen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In
Latin America’s highly polarized political setting, the lines are clearly
drawn. The Chinese and Russians—since Xi Jinping became president in 2013—have
been aligned with progressive governments in Latin America. In contrast, conservative
and right-wing governments in the region have been close allies of the United
States (dutifully following Washington’s orders, for instance, to promote
regime change in Venezuela) and, in some cases, have expressed hostility toward
U.S. adversaries, particularly Russia and China. Thus, despite Moscow’s
inconsistencies and China’s apparently apolitical approach to foreign policy, there
is a principle at stake that clearly distinguishes Russia and China from the United
States: espousal of multipolarism as illustrated, for example, by their joint
support for the “democratization of international relations.”</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn28" name="_ednref28" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[28]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">With
the continued decline of the United States on all fronts (other than the military
one), Russia’s and China’s positions in the world may change. Li, for example,
does not discard the possibility—albeit remote—that China goes from being a
“semi-peripheral” nation to an imperialist one.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn29" name="_ednref29" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[29]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">
The left in the United States and elsewhere, however, cannot analyze world
events on the basis of hypotheses regarding what friends and allies in the
present may look like in the distant, or even medium-term, future</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The banners of national sovereignty and a
multipolar world raised by Beijing and Moscow create opportunities for leftist
governments such as those of the Pink Tide and facilitate their navigation in a
hostile world that lacks powerful governments committed to revolutionary
transformation. That said, Pink Tide governments have no pretense of emulating
the domestic policies or economic model associated with either China or Russia
(unlike the case of the pro-Moscow world communist movement in the post-1917
period).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #222222;">The
Anti-Pink Tide Position on the Left: What It Means in Practice<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The issue of the prioritization of anti-imperialism is not
confined to academic debate or the media; it has played out in conflicts
throughout the region. In several countries, the anti-Pink Tide position—the
one that leaves U.S. imperialism out of the analysis—was used to great effect
during the right-wing pushback that began in 2015. Leftists who adhered to this
line of thinking went beyond criticizing Pink Tide governments for any specific
shortcoming and staunchly condemned them without recognizing their progressive
qualities (such as their anti-neoliberal policies), strengthening the hand of the
radical right in the process.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">One example was the refusal of a major faction of the
anti-neoliberal Indigenous movement headed by self-proclaimed “ecological leftist”
Yaku Pérez in Ecuador to support Correa’s party in the second round of
presidential elections in 2021, which sealed the victory of neoliberal banker Guillermo
Lasso. At one point, Pérez declared, in an off-the-mark reference to Correa’s
movement, “a banker is preferable to a dictatorship.” Pérez’s reason for not
taking sides in the election was that, as president, Correa had <a name="_Hlk95462172">opened the heavily Indigenous Yasuní National Park to oil
drilling and had suppressed protests against the project. </a>But in doing so,
Pérez ignored Correa’s anti-imperialist credentials. While Pérez’s supporters attempted
to discredit Correa’s populist domestic policies, it would have been more
difficult for them to have found fault with his anti-imperialist initiatives. In
2009 he ordered the United States to leave the Manta military base around the
same time that Ecuador joined the </span><span style="background: white; color: #202122;">Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), which
represents a radical brand of Latin American integration. </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">As a candidate in the 2021 elections, Pérez,
who some pundits claimed was to the left of Correa, called for trade deals with
the United States while denouncing China’s “aggressive policies around
extractivism and human rights.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn30" name="_ednref30" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[30]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The anti-Pink Tide analysis coming from
the left also had a devastating effect in the case of the 2019 overthrow of
Morales. While most leftist and social movement adversaries of the Morales
government joined the resistance to the semi-fascist regime that succeeded it,
others refused to recognize that what took place was a coup. This was the case
with Pablo Solón, Morales’s former ambassador to the United Nations who broke
with him over his developmentalist plans for the Indigenous Tipnis rainforest.
Solón’s ecological critique—which included opposition to GMOs, biofuels, and mega-dams—eclipsed
the issue of U.S. imperialism as well as neofascism, both of which played a key
role in the coup. Solón hailed the street protests that broke out against
Morales’s re-election in October 2019 that led to the coup, claiming that Morales
was “addicted to power.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn31" name="_ednref31" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[31]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> </span>Following the coup, Solón, who identified himself as a
leftist, opposed allowing Morales to return to Bolivia and naively and
erroneously predicted that the right-wing de facto president Jeanine <span style="background: white; color: #191f24; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Á</span>ñez would accept Indigenous cultural symbols, claiming “<span style="background: white; color: #191f24; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">the government and
the entire </span>society wants peace<span style="background: white; color: #191f24; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn32" name="_ednref32" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #191f24; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; line-height: 107%;">[32]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The pro- versus anti-Pink Tide positions
have also impacted the international solidarity movement. Even while many harsh
critics of the Pink Tide denounce U.S. imperialism in no uncertain terms, they
do not populate the anti-sanctions solidarity movement in significant numbers.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn33" name="_ednref33" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[33]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> It
may be argued that the Cuban and Venezuelan governments prefer working with anti-sanctions
movement leaders who are politically aligned with them, but this does not apply
to the rank-and-file of those movements. William Camacaro, a long-time
Venezuelan solidarity activist, told me: “Relentlessly attacking progressive
governments dampens the spirit of anyone inclined to work to oppose the sanctions.”
He added, “if you look at the highly divided U.S. left, it’s the groups that
are sympathetic to the Maduro government whose members are most active in the
anti-sanction movement here in the U.S.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn34" name="_ednref34" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[34]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">This is not to say that criticism of
Pink Tide governments should be off the table or that the Pink Tide has always
adhered to progressive policies. For instance, Correa’s anti-imperialist
credentials do not let him off the hook for overreacting to the protests of
Indigenous groups against ecologically damaging mega-projects. Indeed, the Pink
Tide’s pros and cons cannot be placed on a balancing scale when the cons include
issues of principle regarding violations of basic rights. <a name="_Hlk101274547">In addition, as Fidel Castro warned shortly prior to his
death, imperialism cannot be blamed for all of a nation’s problems or used to
cover up its errors. </a></span>Finally,
the condemnation of a government pitted against Washington does not always preclude
effective solidarity work in opposition to U.S. interventionism, such as in the
case of the Ukrainian conflict.<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Most political scientists now reject the
notion (dating back to Immanuel Kant) that </span><span style="background: white; color: #202122;">democratic nations are more peaceful in their international
relations than undemocratic ones</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. But a related postulate serves as the bedrock of neoconservative
thinking and guides U.S. foreign policy in general: that democracies are
peaceful in their relations with other democratic nations, but are forced to
emulate the aggressive behavior of non-democratic ones (allegedly, Russia and
China).<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn35" name="_ednref35" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[35]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> No
one other than Jimmy Carter disapprovingly called this strategy “fighting fire
with fire.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn36" name="_ednref36" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[36]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The case of the Pink Tide
is particularly telling in that it so obviously puts the lie to this line of
reasoning. In fact, the contrast could not be starker. The United States
destabilizes progressive governments in Latin America in the name of the “responsibility
to protect” and “humanitarian intervention.” Russia and China come to the defense
of these same governments in the name of the principle of national sovereignty.
This is hardly a case of Washington emulating the wicked.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk113467672"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Similarly, anti-Pink
Tide writers fail to distinguish between U.S. actions and those of Russia and China,
and at the same time minimize the differences between progressive and conservative
Latin American governments. </span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">These writers question the progressiveness of the Pink Tide by focusing
on its social and economic policies, but the nationalistic nature of its foreign
policy is hard to debate. Moreover, from a leftist viewpoint, the “many
imperialisms” thesis as applied to foreign policy falls flat for two reasons.
First, the defense of national sovereignty and self-determination in the face
of interventionism from the North was a cause proclaimed by Lenin (and Marx), which,
in the era of globalization, is especially relevant. Second, in Latin America,
Russia and China (though perhaps to a lesser extent) have aligned themselves
with progressive governments while Washington is closely allied with rightist
ones in the context of the extreme political polarization that has
characterized the region in the twenty-first century.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The prioritization of anti-imperialism
as discussed in this article has another implication for leftist strategy that especially
applies to Venezuela under Maduro (as well as Cuba). The left needs to
highlight the importance of Maduro’s success in crafting a strategy to survive
the brutal campaign engineered from Washington to starve and intimidate the
country into submission. Such recognition does not exempt Maduro from
criticism, but it does represent a critique of those anti-Pink Tide writers and
political leaders on the left who minimize or completely ignore the Pink Tide’s
positive features.<a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_edn37" name="_ednref37" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[37]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Indeed,
this success in resisting imperialist aggression and interventionism
characterizes the Pink Tide in general, which has displayed a staying power that,
for a bloc of nations, is without precedent on the continent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><!--[if !supportEndnotes]-->
<hr size="1" style="text-align: justify;" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""></a><b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Notes<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[1]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> In fact, the number one priority in the
world today is of an ecological nature. It may be argued, however, that real
progress in halting climate change is contingent on respect for national sovereignty
and slashing military spending, fundamental goals of anti-imperialism.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[2]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a> <span lang="ES">Raúl Zibechi, “Un siquiatra para
los geopolíticos,” <i>La Jornada</i>, November 8, 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[3]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a>
Linda Farthing and Thomas Becker, <i>Coup: A Story of Violence and Resistance
in Bolivia</i> (Chicago: Haymarket, 2021), 54–59, 166–67.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[4]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><sub>
</sub>Jeffery R. Webber, <i>The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of
the Same: The Politics and Economics of the New Latin American Left</i> (Chicago:
Haymarket, 2017), 157–272.<sub><o:p></o:p></sub></p>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[5]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Marxist dialectics recognizes
the ever-changing preeminence of a given contradiction in the framework of
totality, in accordance with the “law of motion.” (Bertell Ollman, “The Eight
Steps in Marx’s Dialectical Method,” <i>The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx </i>[New
York: Oxford University Press, 2019], 99–105.)</span><b><sub><o:p></o:p></sub></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[6]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> I have argued elsewhere (as have
others) that Vladimir Putin had multiple motives for intervening in Ukraine,
but the most important was national security considerations. See Steve Ellner, </span>“The
debate on the left over whether to raise the issue of NATO expansionism in the
context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” <i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, March 12, 2022. </span><a href="http://links.org.au/debate-left-over-whether-raise-issue-nato-expansionism-context-russian-invasion-ukraine"><span style="background: white;">http://links.org.au/debate-left-over-whether-raise-issue-nato-expansionism-context-russian-invasion-ukraine</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn7">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[7]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Zhun Xu, “</span><span style="color: #222222;">The Ideology of Late Imperialism: </span>The Return of
the Geopolitics of the Second International,” <i>Monthly Review</i> 72, no. 10
(March 2021): 18. <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2021/03/01/the-ideology-of-late-imperialism/"><span lang="ES-CL">https://monthlyreview.org/2021/03/01/the-ideology-of-late-imperialism/</span></a><b><span lang="ES-CL"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn8">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[8]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio Borón, “América Latina en el
contexto del imperialismo,” YouTube video, 1:19:17, posted June 22, 2017, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVwTwwTjzlo"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">youtube.com/watch?v=GVwTwwTjzlo</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">.</span></span><b><span lang="ES"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn9">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[9]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b> </b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio Borón, “América Latina en el
contexto del imperialismo,”</span><b><span lang="ES"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn10">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[10]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> </span></b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio
Borón, “América Latina en el contexto del imperialismo.”</span><span lang="ES" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn11">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref11" name="_edn11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[11]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> </span></b><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Atilio
Borón, “América Latina en el contexto del imperialismo.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="ES" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn12">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref12" name="_edn12" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[12]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><sub>
</sub>J. Z. Garrod, “A Critique of Panitch and Gindin’s Theory of American Empire,”
<i>Science and Society</i> 79. no. 1 (2015): 49.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn13">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref13" name="_edn13" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[13]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> William I. Robinson, “Debate on the
New Global Capitalism: Transnational Capitalist Class, Transnational State Apparatuses,
and Global Crisis,” <i>International Critical Thought</i> 7, no. 2 (2017): 172.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn14">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref14" name="_edn14" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[14]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> David <span style="background: white;">Harvey, </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">“A
Commentary on <i>A Theory of Imperialism</i>,” </span><i>A Theory of
Imperialism</i>, <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">by </span>Utsa
Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik (New York: Columbia University <span style="background: white; color: #555555;">Press, </span><span style="background: white;">2017), 169.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn15">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref15" name="_edn15" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[15]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Salar Mohandesi, “</span><span style="background: white;">The Specificity of Imperialism,” </span><i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Viewpoint Magazine</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, February 1, 2018. </span></span><a href="https://viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/the-specificity-of-imperialism/"><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">https://viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/the-specificity-of-imperialism/</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">; </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John Bellamy Foster, “<span style="color: #222222;">Late Imperialism: </span><span style="color: #555555;">Fifty
Years After Harry Magdoff's <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The Age of Imperialism</span></i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">,” </span></span><i>Monthly Review</i> 71, no. 3 (July–August 2019):
8–9. </span><a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2019/07/01/late-imperialism/"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">https://monthlyreview.org/2019/07/01/late-imperialism/</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn16">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 13.5pt 12pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref16" name="_edn16" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[16]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Mike Gonzalez, “</span><span style="color: #191919; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Being Honest About Venezuela,” </span><i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Jacobin</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, July 8, 2017. </span><a href="https://jacobin.com/2017/07/Venezuela-maduro-helicopter-attack-psuv-extractivism-oil"><span style="background: white;">https://jacobin.com/2017/07/Venezuela-maduro-helicopter-attack-psuv-extractivism-oil</span></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn17">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref17" name="_edn17" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[17]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> Mike Gonzalez, <i>The Ebb of the Pink Tide:
The Decline of the Left in Latin America</i> (London: Pluto, 2019), 2.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn18">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref18" name="_edn18" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[18]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Gonzalez, <i>The
Ebb of the Pink Tide</i>, <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">111–12.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn19">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref19" name="_edn19" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[19]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Maristella Svampa, <i>Neo-Extractivism
in Latin America: Socio-environmental Conflicts, the Territorial Turn, and New
Political Narratives</i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 18.</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn20">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref20" name="_edn20" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[20]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Svampa, <i>Neo-Extractivism
in Latin America</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn21">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref21" name="_edn21" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[21]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white;">Minqi
Li, “</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">China:
Imperialism or Semi-Periphery?” </span><i><span style="background: white;">Monthly Review</span></i><span style="background: white;"> 73, no. 3 (July–August 2021): 50–58.
</span><a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2021/07/01/china-imperialism-or-semi-periphery/"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">https://monthlyreview.org/2021/07/01/china-imperialism-or-semi-periphery/</span></a><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn22">
<p style="background: white; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref22" name="_edn22" title=""><b><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">[22]</span></b><!--[endif]--></span></b></a><b> </b><a name="_Hlk116408412"><span lang="ES">Esteban Mercatante</span></a><span lang="ES">, “El lugar
de China en el orden mundial,” YouTube video, 1:11:33, posted November 12,
2020, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRgmTEP9VyA"><span lang="ES">youtube.com/watch?v=VRgmTEP9VyA</span></a><span lang="ES">.</span><b><span lang="ES"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn23">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref23" name="_edn23" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[23]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Simon <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Tisdall, </span><span style="color: #121212;">“In China’s new
age of imperialism, Xi Jinping gives thumbs down to democracy.” </span><i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Guardian</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, December 12, 2021. </span></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/12/xi-jinping-china-beijing-new-age-of-imperialism"><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/12/xi-jinping-china-beijing-new-age-of-imperialism</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn24">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref24" name="_edn24" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[24]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Steven Lee Myers, “</span>An
Alliance of Autocracies? China Wants to Lead a New World Order.” <i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">New York Times</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, March 29, 2021. </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/world/asia/china-us-russia.html"><span style="background: white;">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/world/asia/china-us-russia.html</span></a><a name="_Hlk120982611"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">; “ Russia
and China Announce a Bid to Make the World Safe for Dictatorship,” [editorial].
<i>Washington Post</i></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">,
February 7, 2022. </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/07/putin-xi-the-dictators-meet-at-olympics/"><span style="background: white;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/07/putin-xi-the-dictators-meet-at-olympics/</span></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn25">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref25" name="_edn25" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[25]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Richard L. Harris and </span>Armando
A. Arias, “China’s South-South Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean,”
<i>Journal of Developing Societies</i> 32, no. 4 (2016): 522<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">. </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn26">
<p class="Pa7" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref26" name="_edn26" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[26]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Douglas Farah
and Kathryn Babineau, “Extra-regional Actors in Latin America: The United
States is not the Only Game in Town,” <i>Prism</i> 8, no. 1 (2019): 106.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn27">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref27" name="_edn27" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[27]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Dmitri
Trenin, as quoted in </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Angela Stent, “Putin’s
World,” <i>The Crisis with Russia</i>, ed. Nicholas Burns and Jonathon Price (Washington:
Aspen Institute, 2014), 56.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn28">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref28" name="_edn28" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[28]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the
People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and
the Global Sustainable Development,” February 4, 2022.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn29">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref29" name="_edn29" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[29]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt;">Li, </span><span style="background: white;">“</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">China: Imperialism or Semi-Periphery?</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">”</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt;"> 73–74.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn30">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref30" name="_edn30" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[30]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b>Bre<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">ndan O’Boyle, “</span><span style="color: #222222;">Yaku Pérez: The New Face of Ecuador’s Left?” <i>Americas
Quarterly</i>, February 1, 2021. </span><a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/yaku-perez-the-new-face-of-ecuadors-left/">https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/yaku-perez-the-new-face-of-ecuadors-left/</a><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn31">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref31" name="_edn31" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[31]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Juan
Karita, “<span style="color: #333333;">Evo Morales Returns Triumphantly to
Bolivia After Exile.” <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, November 9, 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn32">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref32" name="_edn32" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[32]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><a name="_Hlk120983034">Democracy Now, “<span style="color: #191f24;">After
Evo: As Right-Wing Senator Declares Herself President, What’s Next for Bolivia?”
</span></a><span style="color: #191f24;">November 13, 2019.</span> <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/13/bolivia_evo_morales_coup_debate_pt2">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/13/bolivia_evo_morales_coup_debate_pt2</a><span style="color: #191f24;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #191f24;"> </span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn33">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref33" name="_edn33" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[33]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white;">I make
this statement partly on the basis of my experience in the Venezuelan
solidarity movement, and specifically my interaction with over a score of
solidarity groups throughout the United States and Canada in the latter half of
2018.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn34">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref34" name="_edn34" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[34]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">William
Camacaro, interview by author, February 19, 2022</span></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="edn35">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref35" name="_edn35" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[35]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">These formulations are known
as “democratic peace theory.” </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn36">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 58.5pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref36" name="_edn36" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[36]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><b>
</b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Joshua Muravchik, “‘Scoop’
Jackson at One Hundred: The Conscience of a Neoconservative Giant,” <i>Commentary</i>
134, no. 1 (2021): 27. </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></p>
</div>
<div id="edn37">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/miche/Documents/post%20Feb.%208,%202023%20documents/2023%20-%20Jan/Publications%202018-2023/Articles%20-%202019/Monthly%20Review%202022/Ellner%209%20-%20Latin%20America's%20Pink%20Tide%20.docx#_ednref37" name="_edn37" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; vertical-align: baseline;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; vertical-align: baseline;">[37]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In
2020, </span><span style="color: #191f24; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">t</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">he Venezuelan Communist Party broke with the Maduro
government and largely placed it in the same category as the neoliberal
opposition. In doing so, the party downplayed the issue of anti-imperialism, as
I discuss in a forthcoming article for <i>Science and Society</i> titled, “Objective
Conditions in Venezuela, Maduro’s Defensive Strategy and Contradictions among
the People."</span></p><br />
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-right: 58.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Steve Ellner is a retired professor from
the Universidad de Oriente where he taught from 1977 to 2003 and is currently
an Associate Managing Editor of <i>Latin American Perspectives</i>. He is the
editor of <i>Latin American Extractivism: Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and
Resistance in Broad Perspectives</i> (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and
co-editor of <i>Latin American Social Movements and Progressive Governments: ‘Creative
Tensions’ between Resistance and Convergence</i> (Rowman & Littlefield,
2023).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: left;"><b>Monthly Review post</b></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2023/03/01/prioritizing-u-s-imperialism-in-evaluating-latin-americas-pink-tide/">https://monthlyreview.org/2023/03/01/prioritizing-u-s-imperialism-in-evaluating-latin-americas-pink-tide/</a></b></p>
</div>
</div></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-51597389271262010672023-02-20T12:20:00.015-08:002023-02-21T06:54:21.872-08:00“Rage Against the War Machine” Rally: Pros and Cons<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpKIExAwZzq7EYftVePfplBRsGHmYajmfzRnJfS6k8f4fAZMW8Y5MMOAFm_jOya7GaILC7uWUXuEcABgrXYJ10jLfUrVLD3ueyWOURQb3h0DxcJyTCi1B5auR4M8cpZ4S78aB43g_aApj9E8Fm8AEiqjq20MiTf5P3hDBFunNHYzYwXB5g5DojA3E/s2575/Washington%20anti-war%20rally%20Feb.%2019,%202023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1716" data-original-width="2575" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpKIExAwZzq7EYftVePfplBRsGHmYajmfzRnJfS6k8f4fAZMW8Y5MMOAFm_jOya7GaILC7uWUXuEcABgrXYJ10jLfUrVLD3ueyWOURQb3h0DxcJyTCi1B5auR4M8cpZ4S78aB43g_aApj9E8Fm8AEiqjq20MiTf5P3hDBFunNHYzYwXB5g5DojA3E/s320/Washington%20anti-war%20rally%20Feb.%2019,%202023.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yesterday’s Rage Against the War Machine rally
in front of the Lincoln Memoria in DC was spirited, with the vast majority of
people and speakers supporting progressive positions on war, NATO, free
Assange, etc. The rally was controversial due to the fact that it counted among
its sponsors the Libertarian Party, and its right-wing faction known as the
Mises Caucus. The progressive organizers of the rally supported the idea of
uniting the left and the right on grounds that the urgency of the anti-war
cause necessitates unity above ideological and other differences. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My feeling is that working with a party like
the Libertarian Party would only be justified if the blatantly racist remarks
of the far-right faction of the big tent Libertarian Party as well as those who
make those remarks not be present at the rally. I arrived a little after the
first speakers spoke and stayed throughout, and saw no overt evidence of
racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. Nearly all the speakers were progressives
identified with progressive positions. Ron Paul, Tulsi Gabbard (both of whom
delivered the closing speeches) and Scott Horton were exceptions. But you would
never know what Gabbard’s positions are on domestic issues and indeed in my
opinion delivered one of the best addresses. The same could be said for Horton.
Paul did call for getting rid of the Fed, but as a speaker he was amusing more
than effective. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Indeed, I had no intention yesterday of
staying long or even joining the rally, but I ended up doing just the opposite.
To my pleasant surprise, the speakers and the mood of the crowd were
invigorating. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have mixed opinions about the rally and its
organizers. The organizers of the rally located on the left side of the
political spectrum should have been more careful to draw a line in the sand.
Those associated with the Lyndon LaRouche movement (including LaRouche’s wife)
and several others should have been excluded from the roster of speakers. The issue
in my mind is not whether or not to plan events with the Libertarian Party. The
issue is that of excluding anyone associated with hateful ideas from the list
of speakers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In addition, I criticize some of the rally
promoters for employing a discourse that lashes out against rivals on the left as
much as against Trump and others on the right. Jimmy Dore is an example of
this. He attacks AOC and Bernie Sanders as if they were the enemy. They’re
obviously not. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On the other hand, the strategy of
incorporating those on the right end of the political spectrum into the
anti-war movement leadership is a potentially productive strategy, though not
without its downsides. Strangely, the only congresspeople who have voted
against military spending in Ukraine are Republicans; other rightists like Fox
News also sometimes question the war effort. What does that mean? That Republicans
and Fox News are the good guys? Obviously not. They’re the bad guys. But their occasionally
critical opinions reflect tremendous discontent among their followers over the
war machine and the permanent war that the U.S. is engaged in around the world.
Those are the people the anti-war movement needs to try to reach out to. Allowing
some of their leaders (the non-racist ones, of course) to speak at rallies is a
means to achieving that ends. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I believe the arguments of both those who
organized the rally and leaders of groups that refused to participate are
compelling. Although that sounds contradictory it should not be surprising.
Society, and particularly that of the U.S. over the last half a century, is
imbedded with deep contradictions. Politics of all stripes, as any political
scientist or politician will tell you, is about uniting disparate groups
(Ernesto Laclau with his concept of populism and empty signifiers would say the
same). So we need to grow accustomed to the ideas that different groups on the
left with different constituencies will assume different positions. Mao called
it “contradictions among the people.” And as Althusser pointed out, the
so-called “proletariat” position is not tantamount to an absolute truth. It’s
only the reflection of one class, which doesn’t even represent a majority of
the population.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Those who opposed participation, for instance,
presented a particularly cogent argument: How will we be able to go back to
those who we purport to represent when we are holding hands with those who denigrate
those sectors of the population? I get it. They have a perfect right to say, no
we won’t participate because we don’t want to undermine the very work that we
are carrying out. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My position is not one of wholehearted support
for one of the two sides in this dispute, but rather to show that neither
position is preposterous. Thus, I criticize arguments that overstate positions
and in doing so question the sincerity and commitment of those on the other
side. Example: the term “Red-Brown alliance.” Ron Paul, the most prominent member
of the Libertarian movement is hardly a fascist. Compare that with the “browns”
of Germany. Hitler was the undisputed head of the Nazi party almost from its
beginning. The more popular elements within the party like the Strasser
brothers who made common cause with the Communists in the 20s (on the
confiscation of royal property) were hardly dominant figures (and one was
jailed and killed by Hitler upon reaching power while the other – Otto –
escaped). The Nazi’s could hardly be characterized as a big tent party, unlike
the Libertarians.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">More than taking sides on this knotty issue, I wanted to make
a point that is almost more philosophical or sociological than political.
Diversity has a material base and that includes diversity on the left. There
are no easy answers to the controversy raised by the February 19 rally, but
while we grapple with these issues, there has to be a sense that other currents
on the left hold the positions they do because they represent in some way
(through condensation, to use a Poulantzas concept) real sectors of the
population whose values and opinions can’t be ruled out. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I firmly criticize leaders on both sides of
the divide on this issue who lashed out against those on the other side.
Denouncing and even mocking groups like Code Pink, Veterans for Peace and
Answer for refusing to participate is nothing short of sectarian. I am equally
critical of those who labeled the organizers of the rally unprincipled. The
left in this country can’t afford to go at each other’s throat. </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are many issues on the
left which in my mind are fairly black and white, but this is not one of them.
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><br /><p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-47667167645500535622022-11-22T09:15:00.002-08:002022-11-22T09:17:02.897-08:00The U.S. media plays down anything that may favor Russia, even the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that could spell total disaster<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQdj1MdqesVba41skUyfL_hpVcSOYbKvnrhn2Z9jejmSo6TU76aOL7s7ae0jQkF4wZpp0QUcpSJcqeHiYs3ForGEu88UMAleLwz1LTG2sEJmIOso-YR_0iyz3Z-Mwmwh0hyx61iobkD6XjI46CJzWELevF0DpOgzp2v3qt8NJufdj-2-qcUM0KQ66/s300/ukraine%20power%20plant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQdj1MdqesVba41skUyfL_hpVcSOYbKvnrhn2Z9jejmSo6TU76aOL7s7ae0jQkF4wZpp0QUcpSJcqeHiYs3ForGEu88UMAleLwz1LTG2sEJmIOso-YR_0iyz3Z-Mwmwh0hyx61iobkD6XjI46CJzWELevF0DpOgzp2v3qt8NJufdj-2-qcUM0KQ66/w400-h224/ukraine%20power%20plant.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Why
aren’t we hearing more about Ukraine’s shelling of the <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Zaporizhzhia </span>nuclear power plant? Common sense tells
you that Ukraine is doing the shelling not Russia (which is what Zelensky claims).
Why would Russia shell the very plant that they occupy? There are two reasons
why these incidents are being played down, and why both sides of the story are being
presented, even though one side is preposterous and a blatant lie. First, the
Biden administration doesn’t want too many people to be focused and worried
about a possible nuclear meltdown of Europe’s largest nuclear plant, and its
catastrophic effects on the entire world, lest people start to question the U.S.
role of aiding and abetting Ukraine rather than pressuring for peace. And
second the moment that people realize that Zelensky lies and is placing the
lives of his own people as well as the rest of the world in danger, his heroic image
as depicted by the corporate media will be shattered. Furthermore, people will wonder
about the veracity of other assertions made by Zelensky which the media
uncritically reports on, sometimes in the form of banner headlines. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.press/zelenskis-nuclear-provocation-they-shell-the-nuclear-plant-occupied-by-russians-and-claim-russians-are-bombing-themselves/">http://www.defenddemocracy.press/zelenskis-nuclear-provocation-they-shell-the-nuclear-plant-occupied-by-russians-and-claim-russians-are-bombing-themselves/</a><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br /> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-24888517259702835872022-11-19T17:27:00.005-08:002022-11-19T17:30:03.974-08:00The book "Extraordinary Threat" tears to shreds the justification for U.S.-imposed sanctions on Venezuela<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAXoOqj6RHT3ETqE_nihb7o2T_k4IqEBFAt4icxL3CqbAsrvXKS-_ukNv1tw6d1wV-4jc3of5Xy4T8Q8HqG4T6hUZL4g6BKO_pYDIxTCOk2ilytlQfltYIr0iVOo4XZaad7p6xNTDZFXtrbMjfVNRltVXAymM4jejAH9h-stE4G_4PLC62siIyRqY/s499/emersberger%20cover.jpg%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="330" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAXoOqj6RHT3ETqE_nihb7o2T_k4IqEBFAt4icxL3CqbAsrvXKS-_ukNv1tw6d1wV-4jc3of5Xy4T8Q8HqG4T6hUZL4g6BKO_pYDIxTCOk2ilytlQfltYIr0iVOo4XZaad7p6xNTDZFXtrbMjfVNRltVXAymM4jejAH9h-stE4G_4PLC62siIyRqY/w265-h400/emersberger%20cover.jpg%202.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">Now that the Biden administration
has granted immunity to crown prince <span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who the CIA has
accused of ordering the murder of a U.S. Washington Post journalist, is there
even a speck of justification for maintaining the international sanctions against
Venezuela for the Maduro government’s alleged violation of democratic
principles? Even before the Biden administration’s doublespeak in the case of Mohammed
bin Salman, researchers </span><span style="color: #333333;">Joe
Emersberger and Justin Podur wrote and published <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">“<span class="italic"><i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Extraordinary Threat: The U.S.
Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela</span>”</i></span></span>
with abundant evidence and cogent arguments that tear to pieces the U.S. rationale
for maintaining the sanctions. The following is my review of the book published
in the journal “Latin American Politics and Society.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">Joe Emersberger and Justin Podur, <i>Extraordinary
Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in
Venezuela</i>. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2021. Figures, tables, chronology,
index, 237 pp.; hardcover $89, paperback $16.
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Latin American
Politics and Society<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Fall issue, 2022 </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">This well-documented book, which
contains 744 endnotes, attempts to demonstrate that U.S. policy toward
Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro has been guided by geopolitical
considerations, at the same time that it displays little respect for democratic
norms and national sovereignty. The book’s title is somewhat of a mockery of
President Obama’s 2015 executive order declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary
threat” to United States national security. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">Part One of the book’s three parts
is titled “Extraordinary Myths (Advanced Versions),” and deals with recent developments
involving the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration and its recognition
of Juan Guaidó as the nation’s legitimate president. <a name="_Hlk93682257">Emersberger
and Podur </a>argue that <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">the justification
for the recognition of Guaidó lost all meaning when in 2020 he could no longer
claim to being president of the National Assembly (AN), which had previously placed
him in line for the nation’s presidency, since his five-year term as AN deputy
expired. </span>The book’s lengthiest Part is the second which consists of
individual chapters on five regime change schemes engineered by the opposition
with support from Washington, beginning with the April 2002 abortive coup. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">Part
Two’s title “Extraordinary Sedition (and Chavismo’s Tolerance of it),” lends
itself to the authors’ argument that both Chávez and Maduro were overly lenient
toward major coup plotters, as demonstrated by the “wide ranging amnesty” (p.
149) granted in 2007 to those implicated in the April 2002 coup. Emersberger
and Podur partly blame the Chavista leadership for the impunity enjoyed by many
of the perpetrators of anti-government violence. The authors add, however, that
the main culprit was the judicial system dominated by non-leftists including long-standing
Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Díaz, whose actions largely explain “why grave
crimes against government supporters, and the government itself, went unpunished”
(p. 164) and why “the criminal justice system overall… remained stacked against
poor people” (p. 217). The authors point out that this assessment of the
nation’s judicial system contradicts the narrative of the mainstream media and
many NGOs, which alleged that the courts were “under Chávez’s thumb” (p. 165). Part Three is titled “Extraordinary Deceit (an
Analysis)” and includes chapters on the reporting of <i>Guardian </i>journalist
Rory Carroll on Venezuela and the declarations of Human Rights Watch which,
according to the authors, are characterized by systematic deceptiveness. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">Surprisingly, most of the book’s
accusations are not directed at staunch anti-Communists like Marco Rubio or at the
Trump administration, which implemented the harshest sanctions against
Venezuela, but rather at liberals, moderates and centrists. These include
Bernie Sanders and Michelle Bachelet, the <i>New York Times</i>, the <i>Guardian</i>
and the <i>New Yorker</i>, and NGO’s, specifically Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch, and the Carter Center. Even when those in this camp did not
present overtly false information, they were guilty of “lying by omission” (p.
35). One example is the media’s repeated references to Washington’s assertion that
Guaidó was Venezuela’s legitimate president while omitting that “there was
never any reasonable grounds for taking seriously” (p. 35) such a claim. Another
“huge lie of omission” are journalistic articles that make “no mention of U.S.
economic sanctions” (p. 44) or, in the case of Bachelet, say “nothing about
repeated U.S. military threats” (p. 51). Along similar lines, the authors fault
Sanders for criticizing Maduro’s alleged refusal to accept humanitarian aid –
an accusation which according to the authors is without substance – and then
being “silent as Trump openly sought to block fuel from reaching Venezuela” (p.
57). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">The authors also frequently compare
reporting on Venezuela with that on pro-U.S. governments with flagrant
violation of human rights. <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Those
articles not only present a relatively balanced view of repressive Washington-aligned
regimes by pointing to their allegedly positive features, but downplay the
gravity of their anti-democratic behavior</span>. Saudi Arabia, for instance,
is “often referred to by the romanticized term ‘kingdom’” (p. 222), while Maduro
is sometimes branded a dictator. In another example, t<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">he authors compare statements by Human Rights Watch (HRW) calling
for strengthening the hand of the police force under the repressive Haitian government
of Gérard Latortue with HRW’s thorough condemnation of the harsh tactics of the
National Police under Maduro. </span>Emersberger and Podur <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">are critical of the “mano dura" (p.
216) of Maduro’s police (which they contrast unfavorably with Chávez’s more
lenient approach to crime). They point out, however, that Venezuelan police
abuse in low-income communities that was criticized by HRW did not target
government adversaries, unlike in the case of Haiti under Latortue. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">Emersberger and Podur reject <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">the thesis that Washington’s regime
change efforts are dictated by Venezuela s importance as an oil producer and
instead ascribe U.S. interventionism to geopolitical imperatives. The authors
argue that “a direct economic incentive is insufficient” to explain
Washington’s actions since the Chavista governments “never denied the United
States access to its country’s oil” (p 21). The authors add that Haiti lacks strategic
natural resources but “has been repeatedly crushed by U.S. intervention” (p.
22). The book’s alternative explanation is Washington’s fear that the example
posed by the Chavista government of an alternative model “could inspire others”
(p. 22). The authors’ thesis that minimizes the importance of petroleum as an explanatory
factor runs counter to the discourse of Chávez and Maduro as well as most
Chavistas, who highlight Venezuela’s status as an oil producer and influential OPEC
member as the main explanation for U.S. hostility.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222;">The authors are occasionally critical of
the Chavista government, but in these cases they contextualize the issues and
in doing so hold Washington responsible for the underlying problems. </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In addition, the
authors argue that the term "dictatorship" is incongruent with the gravity
of the cases of the possible violation of democratic norms that they point
to. Thus, for example, the authors suggest that </span>“reasonable arguments” can be made that Maduro should
have called an “initiating referendum” for the National Constituent Assembly
given the “sweeping powers” (p. 175) that were conferred on it in 2017. In
addition, the authors do not take a pro-<span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Maduro position in their discussion of the
"institutional standoff" between the national executive and the opposition-controlled
National Assembly after 2015. Nevertheless, these cases were “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222;">not enough to warrant [the Venezuelan
government] being called a dictatorship or even particularly ‘authoritarian</span>’” (p. 156). An additional
criticism is Maduro’s handling of the system of exchange controls which after
he assumed power triggered hyperinflation. The authors, however, contextualize
the error: Due to opposition-promoted destabilization attempts “Maduro was
inhibited from making changes that could alienate his activist support base”
(p. 142). In a criticism of Chávez (that could also apply to Maduro), the
authors state “he could have placed less emphasis on political loyalty and more
on technical competence when appointing people to key posts.” This error is also
contextualized by making reference to “an insurrectionist opposition staunchly
backed by a super-power” (p. 202). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">U.S. policy toward Venezuela in the twenty-first century has
been a failure from all viewpoints. Fundamental questions, such as the
motivation behind Washington’s actions as well as the positions assumed by
important actors including the media, NGOs, think tanks and politicians of all
persuasions, are open to debate. This book, which despite various criticisms of
Maduro is clearly pro-Chavista, presents cohesive empirically based arguments
and in doing so contributes to a much-needed debate on U.S. foreign policy. More
studies like this one anchored in relevant facts are needed to examine
long-held assumptions and help clarify issues without easy answers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Steve Ellner<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Universidad de Oriente (Venezuela)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="ES" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: ES; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br /> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-18894171303909717312022-11-18T08:13:00.001-08:002022-11-18T08:13:14.555-08:00How strange that Washington was so quick to absolve Russia of responsibility for Polish rocket attack<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWxhOr38uvi5qbvowL5iOCz7r4EbP4LhHZ4wk9CCI6MUL56we2H359sfijvrLGkwn31xGXH6KydJct6G4M_iIxeJoXpf43_h1dy2Y0jrbNDTt4bTF-28Lh12IgtDq7X92rLbq6HLkWbSMco1vPycfwxmXgJ4Ufa9H0ZHpQiOwM7DasSeIlSKnHrfQs/s1200/Poland%20rockets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWxhOr38uvi5qbvowL5iOCz7r4EbP4LhHZ4wk9CCI6MUL56we2H359sfijvrLGkwn31xGXH6KydJct6G4M_iIxeJoXpf43_h1dy2Y0jrbNDTt4bTF-28Lh12IgtDq7X92rLbq6HLkWbSMco1vPycfwxmXgJ4Ufa9H0ZHpQiOwM7DasSeIlSKnHrfQs/w400-h266/Poland%20rockets.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">How strange that Biden, NATO, the
Polish government and the mainstream media, all of which are hostile to Russia
and demonize Putin, rushed to clarify that the recent missile strike on Poland
was not launched from Russia and was most likely unintentionally fired by Ukraine,
and that in any case it was not an intentional act of aggression. Or is it that
strange? Official Washington discourse harps on the fact that there is no
danger of a military confrontation over Ukraine, lest people in the U.S. start
getting worried and begin to oppose the proxy war that is taking place. The
last thing Washington wants is the emergence of an anti-war movement of the likes
of the anti-Vietnam movement of the 1960s. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br /> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-40972142745927296132022-11-16T16:31:00.004-08:002022-11-16T16:33:35.951-08:00Lo que más teme Washington del Presidente Lula da Silva<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifu_U-Z79Q0bqJ4U3imolnzzOIF83ZC6s_l43CLSSKeGHt6niRrQWMcYro4rdKEr8OnmgsmLUo-j1NgjPicg4LRudIYMTbm2ZjI8nZW26N1aNg6RXeAXLmCgowlkw6B-3_4sQd4eVQoIRLHAs5K3sgHhNhd4_3CBwTwxMeYhS3fH_Cs2eLAc8LnzXG/s612/lula%20Spanish.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="612" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifu_U-Z79Q0bqJ4U3imolnzzOIF83ZC6s_l43CLSSKeGHt6niRrQWMcYro4rdKEr8OnmgsmLUo-j1NgjPicg4LRudIYMTbm2ZjI8nZW26N1aNg6RXeAXLmCgowlkw6B-3_4sQd4eVQoIRLHAs5K3sgHhNhd4_3CBwTwxMeYhS3fH_Cs2eLAc8LnzXG/w400-h265/lula%20Spanish.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">by Steve Ellner<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><i>Consortium News<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><i>Rebelion.org<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">El Presidente Biden mantuvo su palabra al felicitar a Lula da Silva inmediatamente
después de que los resultados presidenciales electorales fueron anunciados el
30 de octubre. Catalogar las elecciones brasileñas “</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/biden-congratulates-lula-winning-free-fair-brazil-election-2022-10-30/"><span lang="ES">libres</span></a><span lang="ES">, justas y creíbles” oportunamente, como hizo
Biden, redujo la posibilidad de que a Jair Bolsonaro se le ocurriera cantar fraude
y negarse a aceptar su derrota. Los analistas han interpretado las palabras del
gobierno de Biden sobre las elecciones brasileñas como una demostración de que Washington
estaba parcializado en favor de Lula y en contra de su contrincante, quien ha
sido llamado el “</span><a href="https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2022/10/31/opinion-brasil-trump-tropico-bolsonaro-trabajo-duro-trax/"><span lang="ES">Trump</span></a><span lang="ES"> del Trópico”. Este razonamiento es engañoso, por
no decir completamente equivocado. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Lo que más preocupa a Washington es la reemergencia de un movimiento fuerte
de los países no-alineados y la posibilidad de que sea dirigido por un progresista
como Lula. Durante sus dos períodos presidenciales previos, Lula se perfiló como
un portavoz del Sur. Desde entonces, el panorama político mundial ha cambiado.
Hay un número creciente de gobiernos ideológicamente heterogéneos que estaban subordinados
a los EE.UU. y que ahora están desafiando los dictámenes de Washington y en el
proceso, creando un terreno fértil para un bloque de países no-alineados. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">La total inhabilidad de las superpotencias, específicamente los EE.UU. y
los países de Europa Occidental, de forjar un acuerdo para terminar el
conflicto en Ucrania, abre un espacio para un líder como Lula quien a través de
su carrera se ha destacado en negociar con políticos de distintas orientaciones
políticas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="ES">La Política Exterior a la Cabeza<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">El triunfo electoral de Lula se produjo
con apenas un 50.9 por ciento del voto. Similar a sus periodos presidenciales anteriores
(2003-2011), el centro y la derecha, incluyendo los partidos aliados de
Bolsonaro, van a controlar el congreso. Esa balanza del poder desfavorable
probablemente va a presionar a Lula a hacer concesiones a nivel interno, como el
posible ablandamiento de su promesa electoral de obligar a los ricos a pagar
más impuestos. Pero indudablemente la presión va a ser menor en el área de
política exterior, así que Lula va a estar bien posicionado para cumplir con su
oferta electoral de desempeñar un papel destacado en los asuntos regionales y
mundiales. En su discurso de victoria en Sao Paulo el 30 de octubre, prometió corregir
el estatus internacional de Brasil de ser “un </span><a href="https://g1.globo.com/mundo/blog/sandra-cohen/post/2022/06/17/governo-bolsonaro-cava-com-insistencia-o-papel-de-paria-internacional-para-o-brasil.ghtml"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">estado paria</span></a><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">”, resultado
del desdén de Bolsonaro hacia la diplomacia y sus comentarios insólitos, como
echar la culpa a China por el COVID y a Leonardo DiCaprio por los incendios
amazónicos en 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">Poco después de su
llegada al poder en 2003, el establishment de Washington vio a Lula como un
moderado confiable, al contrario de los “demagogos perturbadores” como </span><span lang="ES">Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales y Néstor
Kirchner.<span style="background: white;"> El exministro de
relaciones exteriores de México, Jorge Castañeda, en su famoso libro </span></span><a href="http://ve.scielo.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1012-25082011000300010"><i><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Lo que queda</span></i></a><i><span lang="ES" style="background: white;"> de la
izquierda:</span></i><i><span lang="ES"> Relatos de
las izquierdas latinoamericanas</span></i><span lang="ES">, alabó a Lula como sensato y pragmático (en el buen sentido de la
palabra), y lo contrastó con la “mala izquierda” de Chávez y compañía, a quien
tildó de “populista” y “antiamericano”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Pero la caracterización positiva del desempeño de
Lula cambió en 2010. Y cambió no como resultado de las políticas domésticas de
Lula, sino su política exterior, específicamente su reconocimiento del estado
palestino en base a las fronteras pre-1967, después del cual media docena de
otros gobiernos latinoamericanos hicieron lo mismo. El mismo año Lula, en las
palabras de Reuters, “</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/cnews-us-brazil-abbas-idCATRE6BU1R820101231"><span lang="ES">enojó</span></a><span lang="ES"> a Washington” debido a sus conversaciones con Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad y su defensa del programa de energía nuclear de Irán. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Después de eso, Lula ya no era un “buen izquierdista” o una respuesta sana al
populismo irresponsable, sino que él mismo había llegado a ser un populista. El
<i>Wall Street Journal</i> tituló un artículo sobre la primera vuelta de las
elecciones presidenciales realizadas el 2 de octubre, que favoreció a Lula
sobre Bolsonaro, “</span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/populism-will-win-brazils-election-bolsonaro-lula-candidates-campaign-voting-system-unemployment-inflation-democracy-11664724955"><span lang="ES">El Populismo</span></a><span lang="ES"> Gana las Elecciones Brasileñas”. La autora del
artículo Mary Anastasia O’Grady, editora del periódico, escribió “Otra vez el
candidato Lula está prometiendo moderación. Su ventaja política es su imagen
como un populista benevolente”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">La retórica es un elemento importante del populismo, pero en el caso de
Lula, lo que preocupa a EE.UU. son las acciones concretas que el presidente
pueda realizar que minarían la hegemonía norteamericana. Esa amenaza proviene
en gran parte del bloque de 5 países económicamente fuertes que forman el BRICS:
Brasil, Rusia, India, China y Sudáfrica. En Washington, los analistas
escépticos llamaban a las cumbres del BRICS “</span><a href="https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674e774d444f31457a6333566d54/share_p.html"><span lang="ES">talleres</span></a><span lang="ES"> de pendejadas” de gobiernos que tienen poco o
nada en común. Ese fue el sentido del Tweet de Mike Pompeo – cuando le faltaba
poco para terminar su periodo como Secretario del Estado. Pompeo escribió “¿</span><a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/india-brazil-understand-russia-china-are-threats-to-their-people-claims-mike-pompeo-2355055"><span lang="ES">Recuerdan</span></a><span lang="ES"> el BRICS?”, y luego insinuó que el miedo por
parte de la India y Brasil hacia Rusia y China hizo a la organización totalmente
inoperante. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">En una entrevista desde la prisión en 2019, Lula declaró que el “</span><a href="https://www.brasil247.com/economia/lula-os-brics-foram-criados-para-ser-um-instrumento-de-ataque"><span lang="ES">BRICS</span></a><span lang="ES"> no fue creado como un instrumento de defensa,
sino para ser un instrumento de ataque”. Sus referencias durante la campaña
presidencial al BRICS, como también a la CELAC (de la cual Bolsonaro se retiró)
y a UNASUR, reforzaron este mensaje. Después de reunirse con Lula el día
después de las elecciones, el presidente argentino Alberto Fernández dijo “</span><a href="https://agenda4p.com.ar/2022/10/31/fernandez-con-lula-tendremos-un-activista-para-que-argentina-entre-al-brics/"><span lang="ES">con Lula</span></a><span lang="ES">, ahora Argentina va a tener un activista en
nuestro esfuerzo” de ingresar al BRICS. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Washington ve la expansión del BRICS como una amenaza, agravada por la
membresía de Rusia y China en la organización. En las semanas finalizando la
campaña presidencial, el National Endowment for Democracy (NED), escribió “</span><a href="https://www.demdigest.org/ukraine-putins-distortions-about-past-feed-delusions-about-future/"><span lang="ES">Con la expansión</span></a><span lang="ES"> del BRICS… para incluir a Argentina, Irán y
posiblemente Egipto, Arabia Saudita y Turquía, Rusia puede adquirir aún más
aliados, lo que representaría un porcentaje significativo del producto interno
bruto de la población mundial”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="ES">¿Hasta qué punto es Lula “neutral”?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Washington no puede estar contento con la posición de Lula sobre el
conflicto ucraniano. Lula ha insistido que el BRICS desempeñe un papel en la
búsqueda de una solución negociada y que él está dispuesto servir como un negociador.
En palabras de Telesur, Lula dijo que “</span><a href="https://noticias.uol.com.br/ultimas-noticias/reuters/2022/03/30/lula-diz-que-no-brasil-motivos-para-guerra-na-ucrania-seriam-resolvidos-numa-mesa-de-bar.htm"><span lang="ES">la paz</span></a><span lang="ES"> puede ser lograda en la mesa de un bar, lo cual
causó inquietud entre los diplomáticos de Ucrania y Brasil”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Pero no es solamente el miedo de que Lula se acerque más a Rusia y a China
que a Washington (cosa que sí es cierta), lo que no deja a los diseñadores de
la política norteamericana dormir en la noche. A diferencia de Washington, Lula
reconoce la legitimidad de la democracia venezolana y, en palabras de Ben
Norton, ha dicho a los medios locales que Juan Guaidó es un “</span><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/30/brazil-lula-maduro-guaido-us-blockade/"><span lang="ES">criminal</span></a><span lang="ES"> de guerra que debe estar en la cárcel”. En los días
antes de las elecciones, Lula dijo a <i>The Economist</i>: “hablan solamente
acerca de Nicaragua, Cuba y Venezuela. Nadie habla de Qatar. Nadie habla de los
EE.UU”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Desde que el Partido de los Trabajadores
de Lula perdió el poder en 2016, Lula ha insistido que la principal falla del
BRICS es el hecho de que no lanzara una nueva moneda para servir como un rival
al dólar. En una entrevista desde la cárcel, Lula dijo que “</span><a href="https://asiatimes.com/2019/08/brics-was-created-as-a-tool-of-attack-lula/"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">cuando</span></a><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> yo abordé
el tema de una nueva moneda, Obama me llamó y me preguntó ‘usted está tratando
de crear una nueva moneda, una especie de nuevo Euro’? Dije ‘No. Solamente
estoy tratando de deshacernos del dólar’”. En 2022, la perspectiva para una
moneda de reserva del BRICS es mucho más prometedora, y además los 5 países
miembros apoyan la idea. Por cierto, este año, la moneda de cada uno de los
miembros del BRICS ha superado el Euro. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El uso político del dólar por parte de
los EE.UU. va más allá de la rivalidad con Rusia y China, ya que las sanciones
internacionales impuestas por Washington han llevado sufrimiento agudo a los
pueblos del Sur, incluyendo Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua e Irán. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La consigna de un “mundo multipolar”
invocada frecuentemente por Lula apunta al surgimiento de bloques diversos
incluyendo el de las naciones no-alineadas. Un artículo en el número del verano
de 2022 de Foreign Policy, escrito por un experto en seguridad nacional,
refleja el pensamiento de muchos en Washington que están inquietos acerca de la
no-alineación: “</span><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/01/nonalignment-international-system-alliance-bloc/"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Cuando</span></a><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> el sistema
internacional está fallando o ausente… no es sorprendente que los líderes abracen
la no-alineación. Mientras más los EE.UU., Rusia, China u otras superpotencias
presionen a países menos poderosos para escoger lados, esos países van a gozar más
de una autonomía estratégica, que pueda crear un mundo más pobre y más cruel,
ya que los países reducen su dependencia externa y consolidan el control de su casa”.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Algunas personas de la izquierda también rechazan
la consigna del “mundo multipolar”. El activista político Greg Godels llama a
la multipolaridad “</span><a href="https://mltoday.com/the-peace-question-and-imperialism/"><span lang="ES">una noción</span></a><span lang="ES"> originalmente planteada por académicos burgueses
buscando herramientas para entender la dinámica de las relaciones globales”, y
agrega “no hay ninguna garantía que los polos que emergen o desafían los polos
de las superpotencias… representen un paso adelante o un paso atrás,
simplemente porque sean alternativos”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">En teoría, Godels tiene razón, pero hasta ahora en
el siglo 21, la multipolaridad ha sido un movimiento y una consigna netamente progresista.
Es verdad, que la presencia del gobierno racista de <span style="background: white; color: #202124;">Narendra</span> Modi o el de Arabia Saudita en el BRICS pone
en duda la naturaleza progresista de ese grupo. La sorprendente decisión
reciente tomada por Arabia Saudita de rechazar el plan de Biden de bombardear
más petróleo con el fin de bajar los precios internacionales, y al mismo tiempo
perjudicar a Putin, no significa que sea menos reaccionaria. Pero esa es
precisamente la razón por la cual el papel de liderazgo de un progresista como
Lula a nivel mundial es tan importante. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Tenemos que recordar que el movimiento no-alineado
se fundó en los años 50 por líderes como Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser y
Kwame Nkrumah<span style="background: white; color: #202124;">, quienes estaban muy
lejos de ser “neutrales” ya que todos eran de la izquierda y </span>comprometidos
con el socialismo. El movimiento desempeñó un papel importante en favor de la
descolonización, el desarmamiento, y la oposición al racismo y al apartheid. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #202124; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Similarmente, Lula
está lejos de ser “neutral”. Por cierto, no ha escondido su sospecha de que los
investigadores norteamericanos colaboraron con los fiscales brasileños para su
encarcelamiento, una acusación que ha sido bien documentada por la agencia
noticiosa </span><a href="https://www.brasilwire.com/us-admits-role-operation-lava-jato/"><span lang="ES">Brasilwire</span></a><span lang="ES" style="color: #1a1d26; mso-ansi-language: ES;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">La mayor demostración de que el pragmatismo de Lula no eclipsa su defensa
de posiciones principistas en política extranjera, es su reconocimiento al
estado palestino y el apoyo contundente resultante que ha recibido de la
comunidad palestina tanto en Brasil como en el extranjero. En la primera vuelta
de las elecciones presidenciales, Lula recibió 592 votos en la Ribera
Occidental contra 52 para Bolsonaro. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">Una vez más,
América Latina es el único punto brillante en el mundo para las políticas y
metas progresistas. Lula está posicionado para ser el líder de la ola
progresista que ha barrido América Latina desde la victoria electoral de Andrés
Manuel López Obrador en 2018. Pero la incógnita principal es si Lula va a poner
su perspicacia a prueba al desempeñar un papel en favor de una multipolaridad
progresista para un movimiento creciente a nivel mundial que está desafiando la
hegemonía norteamericana y que abarca posiciones distintas en el espectro
político. </span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Traducido con la ayuda de Carmen Sánchez de Ellner y
Michelle María Ellner<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk118135103"><span lang="ES">Steve Ellner es profesor de historia
económica jubilado de la Universidad de Oriente en Venezuela, y actualmente un
editor asociado de la revista <i>Latin American Perspectives</i>. Es autor de </span></a><i><span lang="ES">El
fenómeno Chávez: sus orígenes y su impacto</span></i><span lang="ES"> (</span><span lang="ES-VE">Editorial Tropykos y el Centro
Nacional de Historia) y compilador de </span><i><span lang="ES">La izquierda latinoamericana en el poder: Cambios y enfrentamientos en el
siglo XXI</span></i><span lang="ES"> (CELARG).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES"><a href="https://rebelion.org/lo-que-mas-teme-washington-del-presidente-lula-da-silva/?fbclid=IwAR3EnHUxnfDAIWvFITwi2E9aere8xTuMYXJLzrKRVk8LkmYyYBcjvwdDpnY">https://rebelion.org/lo-que-mas-teme-washington-del-presidente-lula-da-silva/?fbclid=IwAR3EnHUxnfDAIWvFITwi2E9aere8xTuMYXJLzrKRVk8LkmYyYBcjvwdDpnY</a><br /></span></p></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-32587074627061589112022-11-14T17:17:00.004-08:002022-11-14T17:21:53.731-08:00Why doesn’t Washington condemn the vision of a “Greater Israel” with the same determination that it opposes a “Greater Russia”?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2j1TpgXri6avZPGNbL4v-tSw_8iBMpJbxuwKBjBjCNypmfs6Tdulh9wzqFE4e2ZkzMEb9wLd79LwGaLsS8IU_JcLUE2tJ4YAXYHQjpH2MAs_uQiEKYODz-m1OfdsXg0AKIHfIhu-yUsc80A28MZCUkTZPeF2gB1_jxe6bFgIpI9ZdGQSGwnZfKwd0/s500/Israel.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="500" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2j1TpgXri6avZPGNbL4v-tSw_8iBMpJbxuwKBjBjCNypmfs6Tdulh9wzqFE4e2ZkzMEb9wLd79LwGaLsS8IU_JcLUE2tJ4YAXYHQjpH2MAs_uQiEKYODz-m1OfdsXg0AKIHfIhu-yUsc80A28MZCUkTZPeF2gB1_jxe6bFgIpI9ZdGQSGwnZfKwd0/w400-h280/Israel.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The Russians are not the
only ones who talk of a “Greater” nation that, in effect, violates the
principle of national sovereignty. The Religious Zionists do the same. The
notion of a “Greater Israel” takes in the land occupied by Palestinians. Ever
since the creation of Israel these Zionists have had their eyes set on
Palestinian land based on a dubious interpretation of the Bible. These are the
people who have occupied settlements that are receiving robust material support
from the state of Israel. The overriding question: Why doesn’t the U.S.
government oppose the efforts to establish a “Greater Israel” with the same
determination that they are opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine? In the
case of the Ukrainian conflict, Moscow is driven by other imperatives that, in
my opinion, carry greater weight than expansionism, namely the threat posed by NATO.
Israel has no equivalent excuse, since their motive for encroaching on Palestinian
land is mainly based on religious fanaticism as well as economic motives, which
are equally unjustifiable. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> </span> </p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2830518135589250595.post-26831832082091193572022-11-10T19:27:00.005-08:002022-11-10T19:32:11.078-08:00Lo que más teme Washington del Presidente Lula da Silva<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5R6YvuU2nqs_4nSjC0NL7lUHPP-yy0WKKrzdlERQc1GBFFk8I2qUCACzWxnBh5opSZZMXcFfj13PH7KeXUQWGajhECH3U49SdlJx7Sk9tOgADDq41DC65Vb5yr0RO5nNv9KCRGiaabAGSwa5_4Jnx3zkdSw_ymdHYn3jedfmWc43eBZP8KRYKlMn/s300/Lula%202.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="300" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5R6YvuU2nqs_4nSjC0NL7lUHPP-yy0WKKrzdlERQc1GBFFk8I2qUCACzWxnBh5opSZZMXcFfj13PH7KeXUQWGajhECH3U49SdlJx7Sk9tOgADDq41DC65Vb5yr0RO5nNv9KCRGiaabAGSwa5_4Jnx3zkdSw_ymdHYn3jedfmWc43eBZP8KRYKlMn/w400-h265/Lula%202.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Steve Ellner<o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="ES">Consortium
News<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">El Presidente Biden mantuvo su palabra al felicitar a Lula da Silva inmediatamente
después de que los resultados presidenciales electorales fueron anunciados el
30 de octubre. Catalogar las elecciones brasileñas “</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/biden-congratulates-lula-winning-free-fair-brazil-election-2022-10-30/"><span lang="ES">libres</span></a><span lang="ES">, justas y creíbles” oportunamente, como hizo
Biden, redujo la posibilidad de que a Jair Bolsonaro se le ocurriera cantar fraude
y negarse a aceptar su derrota. Los analistas han interpretado las palabras del
gobierno de Biden sobre las elecciones brasileñas como una demostración de que Washington
estaba parcializado en favor de Lula y en contra de su contrincante, quien ha
sido llamado el “</span><a href="https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2022/10/31/opinion-brasil-trump-tropico-bolsonaro-trabajo-duro-trax/"><span lang="ES">Trump</span></a><span lang="ES"> del Trópico”. Este razonamiento es engañoso, por
no decir completamente equivocado. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Lo que más preocupa a Washington es la reemergencia de un movimiento fuerte
de los países no-alineados y la posibilidad de que sea dirigido por un progresista
como Lula. Durante sus dos períodos presidenciales previos, Lula se perfiló como
un portavoz del Sur. Desde entonces, el panorama político mundial ha cambiado.
Hay un número creciente de gobiernos ideológicamente heterogéneos que estaban subordinados
a los EE.UU. y que ahora están desafiando los dictámenes de Washington y en el
proceso, creando un terreno fértil para un bloque de países no-alineados. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">La total inhabilidad de las superpotencias, específicamente los EE.UU. y
los países de Europa Occidental, de forjar un acuerdo para terminar el
conflicto en Ucrania, abre un espacio para un líder como Lula quien a través de
su carrera se ha destacado en negociar con políticos de distintas orientaciones
políticas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="ES">La Política Exterior a la Cabeza<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">El triunfo electoral de Lula se produjo
con apenas un 50.9 por ciento del voto. Similar a sus periodos presidenciales anteriores
(2003-2011), el centro y la derecha, incluyendo los partidos aliados de
Bolsonaro, van a controlar el congreso. Esa balanza del poder desfavorable
probablemente va a presionar a Lula a hacer concesiones a nivel interno, como el
posible ablandamiento de su promesa electoral de obligar a los ricos a pagar
más impuestos. Pero indudablemente la presión va a ser menor en el área de
política exterior, así que Lula va a estar bien posicionado para cumplir con su
oferta electoral de desempeñar un papel destacado en los asuntos regionales y
mundiales. En su discurso de victoria en Sao Paulo el 30 de octubre, prometió corregir
el estatus internacional de Brasil de ser “un </span><a href="https://g1.globo.com/mundo/blog/sandra-cohen/post/2022/06/17/governo-bolsonaro-cava-com-insistencia-o-papel-de-paria-internacional-para-o-brasil.ghtml"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">estado paria</span></a><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">”, resultado
del desdén de Bolsonaro hacia la diplomacia y sus comentarios insólitos, como
echar la culpa a China por el COVID y a Leonardo DiCaprio por los incendios
amazónicos en 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 396.45pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">Poco después de su
llegada al poder en 2003, el establishment de Washington vio a Lula como un
moderado confiable, al contrario de los “demagogos perturbadores” como </span><span lang="ES">Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales y Néstor
Kirchner.<span style="background: white;"> El exministro de
relaciones exteriores de México, Jorge Castañeda, en su famoso libro </span></span><a href="http://ve.scielo.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1012-25082011000300010"><i><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Lo que queda</span></i></a><i><span lang="ES" style="background: white;"> de la
izquierda:</span></i><i><span lang="ES"> Relatos de
las izquierdas latinoamericanas</span></i><span lang="ES">, alabó a Lula como sensato y pragmático (en el buen sentido de la
palabra), y lo contrastó con la “mala izquierda” de Chávez y compañía, a quien
tildó de “populista” y “antiamericano”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 396.45pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Pero la caracterización positiva del desempeño de
Lula cambió en 2010. Y cambió no como resultado de las políticas domésticas de
Lula, sino su política exterior, específicamente su reconocimiento del estado
palestino en base a las fronteras pre-1967, después del cual media docena de
otros gobiernos latinoamericanos hicieron lo mismo. El mismo año Lula, en las
palabras de Reuters, “</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/cnews-us-brazil-abbas-idCATRE6BU1R820101231"><span lang="ES">enojó</span></a><span lang="ES"> a Washington” debido a sus conversaciones con Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad y su defensa del programa de energía nuclear de Irán. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Después de eso, Lula ya no era un “buen izquierdista” o una respuesta sana al
populismo irresponsable, sino que él mismo había llegado a ser un populista. El
<i>Wall Street Journal</i> tituló un artículo sobre la primera vuelta de las
elecciones presidenciales realizadas el 2 de octubre, que favoreció a Lula
sobre Bolsonaro, “</span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/populism-will-win-brazils-election-bolsonaro-lula-candidates-campaign-voting-system-unemployment-inflation-democracy-11664724955"><span lang="ES">El Populismo</span></a><span lang="ES"> Gana las Elecciones Brasileñas”. La autora del
artículo Mary Anastasia O’Grady, editora del periódico, escribió “Otra vez el
candidato Lula está prometiendo moderación. Su ventaja política es su imagen
como un populista benevolente”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">La retórica es un elemento importante del populismo, pero en el caso de
Lula, lo que preocupa a EE.UU. son las acciones concretas que el presidente
pueda realizar que minarían la hegemonía norteamericana. Esa amenaza proviene
en gran parte del bloque de 5 países económicamente fuertes que forman el BRICS:
Brasil, Rusia, India, China y Sudáfrica. En Washington, los analistas
escépticos llamaban a las cumbres del BRICS “</span><a href="https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674e774d444f31457a6333566d54/share_p.html"><span lang="ES">talleres</span></a><span lang="ES"> de pendejadas” de gobiernos que tienen poco o
nada en común. Ese fue el sentido del Tweet de Mike Pompeo – cuando le faltaba
poco para terminar su periodo como Secretario del Estado. Pompeo escribió “¿</span><a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/india-brazil-understand-russia-china-are-threats-to-their-people-claims-mike-pompeo-2355055"><span lang="ES">Recuerdan</span></a><span lang="ES"> el BRICS?”, y luego insinuó que el miedo por
parte de la India y Brasil hacia Rusia y China hizo a la organización totalmente
inoperante. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">En una entrevista desde la prisión en 2019, Lula declaró que el “</span><a href="https://www.brasil247.com/economia/lula-os-brics-foram-criados-para-ser-um-instrumento-de-ataque"><span lang="ES">BRICS</span></a><span lang="ES"> no fue creado como un instrumento de defensa,
sino para ser un instrumento de ataque”. Sus referencias durante la campaña
presidencial al BRICS, como también a la CELAC (de la cual Bolsonaro se retiró)
y a UNASUR, reforzaron este mensaje. Después de reunirse con Lula el día
después de las elecciones, el presidente argentino Alberto Fernández dijo “</span><a href="https://agenda4p.com.ar/2022/10/31/fernandez-con-lula-tendremos-un-activista-para-que-argentina-entre-al-brics/"><span lang="ES">con Lula</span></a><span lang="ES">, ahora Argentina va a tener un activista en
nuestro esfuerzo” de ingresar al BRICS. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Washington ve la expansión del BRICS como una amenaza, agravada por la
membresía de Rusia y China en la organización. En las semanas finalizando la
campaña presidencial, el National Endowment for Democracy (NED), escribió “</span><a href="https://www.demdigest.org/ukraine-putins-distortions-about-past-feed-delusions-about-future/"><span lang="ES">Con la expansión</span></a><span lang="ES"> del BRICS… para incluir a Argentina, Irán y
posiblemente Egipto, Arabia Saudita y Turquía, Rusia puede adquirir aún más
aliados, lo que representaría un porcentaje significativo del producto interno
bruto de la población mundial”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="ES">¿Hasta qué punto es Lula “neutral”?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Washington no puede estar contento con la posición de Lula sobre el
conflicto ucraniano. Lula ha insistido que el BRICS desempeñe un papel en la
búsqueda de una solución negociada y que él está dispuesto servir como un negociador.
En palabras de Telesur, Lula dijo que “</span><a href="https://noticias.uol.com.br/ultimas-noticias/reuters/2022/03/30/lula-diz-que-no-brasil-motivos-para-guerra-na-ucrania-seriam-resolvidos-numa-mesa-de-bar.htm"><span lang="ES">la paz</span></a><span lang="ES"> puede ser lograda en la mesa de un bar, lo cual
causó inquietud entre los diplomáticos de Ucrania y Brasil”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Pero no es solamente el miedo de que Lula se acerque más a Rusia y a China
que a Washington (cosa que sí es cierta), lo que no deja a los diseñadores de
la política norteamericana dormir en la noche. A diferencia de Washington, Lula
reconoce la legitimidad de la democracia venezolana y, en palabras de Ben
Norton, ha dicho a los medios locales que Juan Guaidó es un “</span><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/30/brazil-lula-maduro-guaido-us-blockade/"><span lang="ES">criminal</span></a><span lang="ES"> de guerra que debe estar en la cárcel”. En los días
antes de las elecciones, Lula dijo a <i>The Economist</i>: “hablan solamente
acerca de Nicaragua, Cuba y Venezuela. Nadie habla de Qatar. Nadie habla de los
EE.UU”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Desde que el Partido de los Trabajadores
de Lula perdió el poder en 2016, Lula ha insistido que la principal falla del
BRICS es el hecho de que no lanzara una nueva moneda para servir como un rival
al dólar. En una entrevista desde la cárcel, Lula dijo que “</span><a href="https://asiatimes.com/2019/08/brics-was-created-as-a-tool-of-attack-lula/"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">cuando</span></a><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> yo abordé
el tema de una nueva moneda, Obama me llamó y me preguntó ‘usted está tratando
de crear una nueva moneda, una especie de nuevo Euro’? Dije ‘No. Solamente
estoy tratando de deshacernos del dólar’”. En 2022, la perspectiva para una
moneda de reserva del BRICS es mucho más prometedora, y además los 5 países
miembros apoyan la idea. Por cierto, este año, la moneda de cada uno de los
miembros del BRICS ha superado el Euro. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;">El uso político del dólar por parte de
los EE.UU. va más allá de la rivalidad con Rusia y China, ya que las sanciones
internacionales impuestas por Washington han llevado sufrimiento agudo a los
pueblos del Sur, incluyendo Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua e Irán. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;">La consigna de un “mundo multipolar”
invocada frecuentemente por Lula apunta al surgimiento de bloques diversos
incluyendo el de las naciones no-alineadas. Un artículo en el número del verano
de 2022 de Foreign Policy, escrito por un experto en seguridad nacional,
refleja el pensamiento de muchos en Washington que están inquietos acerca de la
no-alineación: “</span><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/01/nonalignment-international-system-alliance-bloc/"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Cuando</span></a><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #2b2b2b; mso-ansi-language: ES;"> el sistema
internacional está fallando o ausente… no es sorprendente que los líderes abracen
la no-alineación. Mientras más los EE.UU., Rusia, China u otras superpotencias
presionen a países menos poderosos para escoger lados, esos países van a gozar más
de una autonomía estratégica, que pueda crear un mundo más pobre y más cruel,
ya que los países reducen su dependencia externa y consolidan el control de su casa”.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Algunas personas de la izquierda también rechazan
la consigna del “mundo multipolar”. El activista político Greg Godels llama a
la multipolaridad “</span><a href="https://mltoday.com/the-peace-question-and-imperialism/"><span lang="ES">una noción</span></a><span lang="ES"> originalmente planteada por académicos burgueses
buscando herramientas para entender la dinámica de las relaciones globales”, y
agrega “no hay ninguna garantía que los polos que emergen o desafían los polos
de las superpotencias… representen un paso adelante o un paso atrás,
simplemente porque sean alternativos”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">En teoría, Godels tiene razón, pero hasta ahora en
el siglo 21, la multipolaridad ha sido un movimiento y una consigna netamente progresista.
Es verdad, que la presencia del gobierno racista de <span style="background: white; color: #202124;">Narendra</span> Modi o el de Arabia Saudita en el BRICS pone
en duda la naturaleza progresista de ese grupo. La sorprendente decisión
reciente tomada por Arabia Saudita de rechazar el plan de Biden de bombardear
más petróleo con el fin de bajar los precios internacionales, y al mismo tiempo
perjudicar a Putin, no significa que sea menos reaccionaria. Pero esa es
precisamente la razón por la cual el papel de liderazgo de un progresista como
Lula a nivel mundial es tan importante. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Tenemos que recordar que el movimiento no-alineado
se fundó en los años 50 por líderes como Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser y
Kwame Nkrumah<span style="background: white; color: #202124;">, quienes estaban muy
lejos de ser “neutrales” ya que todos eran de la izquierda y </span>comprometidos
con el socialismo. El movimiento desempeñó un papel importante en favor de la
descolonización, el desarmamiento, y la oposición al racismo y al apartheid. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white; color: #202124; mso-ansi-language: ES;">Similarmente, Lula
está lejos de ser “neutral”. Por cierto, no ha escondido su sospecha de que los
investigadores norteamericanos colaboraron con los fiscales brasileños para su
encarcelamiento, una acusación que ha sido bien documentada por la agencia
noticiosa </span><a href="https://www.brasilwire.com/us-admits-role-operation-lava-jato/"><span lang="ES">Brasilwire</span></a><span lang="ES" style="color: #1a1d26; mso-ansi-language: ES;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">La mayor demostración de que el pragmatismo de Lula no eclipsa su defensa
de posiciones principistas en política extranjera, es su reconocimiento al
estado palestino y el apoyo contundente resultante que ha recibido de la
comunidad palestina tanto en Brasil como en el extranjero. En la primera vuelta
de las elecciones presidenciales, Lula recibió 592 votos en la Ribera
Occidental contra 52 para Bolsonaro. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES" style="background: white;">Una vez más,
América Latina es el único punto brillante en el mundo para las políticas y
metas progresistas. Lula está posicionado para ser el líder de la ola
progresista que ha barrido América Latina desde la victoria electoral de Andrés
Manuel López Obrador en 2018. Pero la incógnita principal es si Lula va a poner
su perspicacia a prueba al desempeñar un papel en favor de una multipolaridad
progresista para un movimiento creciente a nivel mundial que está desafiando la
hegemonía norteamericana y que abarca posiciones distintas en el espectro
político. </span><span lang="ES" style="background: white; mso-ansi-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES">Traducido con la ayuda de Carmen Sánchez de Ellner y
Michelle María Ellner<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><a name="_Hlk118135103"><span lang="ES">Steve Ellner es profesor de historia
económica jubilado de la Universidad de Oriente en Venezuela, y actualmente un
editor asociado de la revista <i>Latin American Perspectives</i>. Es autor de </span></a><i><span lang="ES">El
fenómeno Chávez: sus orígenes y su impacto</span></i><span lang="ES"> (</span><span lang="ES-VE">Editorial Tropykos y el Centro
Nacional de Historia) y compilador de </span><i><span lang="ES">La izquierda latinoamericana en el poder: Cambios y enfrentamientos en el
siglo XXI</span></i><span lang="ES"> (CELARG).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="ES"><a href="https://rebelion.org/lo-que-mas-teme-washington-del-presidente-lula-da-silva/">https://rebelion.org/lo-que-mas-teme-washington-del-presidente-lula-da-silva/</a><br /></span></p></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p></p>Steve Ellnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15359284026096466648noreply@blogger.com0