The CRA/El Libertario in Venezuela as black propaganda for the US State Department.

They openly sided with the Federation of the Chambers of Commerce against a mass working class movement. Care to defend any of the quotes from their website I've referenced above?

well, put up or shut up, and specifically reference the arguments im making and respond to them, instead of making aloof and vague statmeents that have little to no merit or bearing on the substance of the actual debate.

Also: The CRA is in the IWA. Whatever your problems with anarchosyndicalism and the IWA, if you are claiming that one of their sections "black propaganda" for the US state department, that is a pretty big charge to be levelling...

Rise, apart from your supporting nationalism which other people have commented on, I'm going to take issue with this:

rise wrote:

It's important to support national liberation struggles. An especially good example is Venezuela. There is this group of pqeudo-"anarchists" on the internet with a newspaper called "el L)bertario"

That sounds like an outrageous smear. Firstly, explain how they are "pseudo-%anarchists'" please? Secondly, why are they just apparently "anarchists on the internet"? I met one of them, he seemed real enough. As did their newspaper, and as did their workers library and social centre they set up. So, how are they anarchists on the internet? And for fairness, here you are talking on the net, are you just an an anarchist on the internet?

Quote:

who continually mouth out these nonsensical rants against the Bolivarian revolutionary circles

Firstly, they are not nonsensical. Do you speak Spanish? They have an English section of their site here. The translation's not brilliant but you can understand most of it. And how are they "rants"?

Quote:

and have frequently found themselves supporting the US State Dept's lien adn the right wing elements [for example, they claimed the right-wing lockout against the Venezuelan working class and poor was actually a "General Strike].

The first bit of this sounds very much like some leninist smear. Can you provide evidence for your second bit please?

Quote:

It's lines like this, that are this sidelines cheering with the implicit and, in the case of el-Liberta2io, often explicit support for thie forces of reaction that alienate anarchism and anarchists from what few supports amongst radicalized workers we could get.

That's a lie - El Libertario clearly state they fight on three fronts:

Quote:

a) against pseudo-leftist Chavista groups in power; b) against the anti-Chavez opposition directed by the social democrats and the right; and c) against groups or parties of the traditional left.

Lies about other anarchist groups are a serious matter on libcom, please explain what you've claimed.

It's true, however, that the CRA have lost support though, they used to get on okay with much of the trad, Leninist left and Marxist-run bits of the labour movement, but due to their principled opposition to their left-wing government which is just trying to recuperate grassroots direct actino and self-organisation (which the CRA consistently supports) to channel support for parliamentary democracy and capitalism.

These are the people who sided strongly against the working class in Venezuela during the US-backed coup

the same people who called that US-backed coup a "general strike" against the government, defended it, and then made arguments that the Chavez regime was worse than a US-backed administration taking power.

"On 2nd December 2002, the government of Venezuela, presided over by Hugo Chavez, was facing 3 work stoppages called by sectors like the CTV (main union), Fedecámaras (employers' association) and the Coordinadora Democrática (the coalition of opposition parties andvarious civil organizations). In just one year, the government has suffered a general strike, a coup d'état, 2 work stoppages and the increasing popular mobilization of rejection or support of his mandate."

-- http://www.ainfos.ca/03/jan/ainfos00423.html

They are actually calling the movement led by the employer's association and US-backed opposition parties an "increasing [sic] popular mobilization".

" Nonetheless, Venezuela is one of the most rapidly changing
countries in a rapidly changing continent, and the future of
Venezuelan society is up for grabs. Scenarios abound that include
elements of fascism and anti-fascism. For example, the Chavista
movement is a rough synthesis of several formerly competing left
tendencies, but it projects some strikingly conservative perspectives
on social affairs, and it clearly includes a strong authoritarian streak.
It's not difficult to imagine a version of Venezuela, perhaps ten
years from now, where these aspects of Chavismo have purged the
humanistic and decentralized tendencies. A South American Night
of the Long Knives is hardly impossible, and there's not even a
guarantee that Chavez himself would survive such a shake-up."

- http://www.ainfos.ca/06/jan/ainfos00199.html

And here they are comparing the Bolivarian movement to the Nazi party, which is exactly what Rumsfeld has been doing.

" Chavez is actually worse for Venezuela than the opposition would
have been at this historical juncture. The argument here is two-fold,
both economic and political. First, due to his popular persona as a
radical reformer and anti-imperialist, only Chavez could have forced
through the range of petroleum and other resource concessions to
multi-national corporations that have been approved in the past few
years, because these same maneuvers would have faced massive
opposition had they been proposed by the traditional parties that
make up the opposition. Second, Chavez has been able to use his
social reforms (literacy programs and the like) to cover for a massive
centralization of political power in the hands of the presidency,
where the opposition would have been confronted as authoritarian
extremists had they attempted the same power grab."

- http://www.ainfos.ca/05/sep/ainfos00319.html

And there they state that the opposition would be preferable to Chavez.

First, due to his popular persona as a radical reformer and anti-imperialist, only Chavez could have forced through the range of petroleum and other resource concessions to multi-national corporations that have been approved in the past few years, because these same maneuvers would have faced massive opposition had they been proposed by the traditional parties that make up the opposition.

Would anyone on this list who still thinks a speaking tour with these US-backed cronies

please care to explain how the massive literacy programs in Venezuela constitute a "cover for a massive centralization of political power" ? I mean, it's completely fucking absurd.

Think about it. El Libertario should be condemned by anyone even half-credible.

It's obvious this shit is being written for a north american, middle class audience. Can you imagine any of this resonating with an indegenous south american iiving in poverty? With a working class north american?
Come on.

I challenge whoever on this list thinks it's a good idea to invite these right wing propagandists

However, we were able to distill three fairly distinct sorts of anarchist responses to Chavismo, which could be labeled the lesser evil approach, the makes no difference attitude, and the grand distraction analysis.

A number of anarchists we encountered, in both small towns and larger cities, held the view that Chavez was better for Venezuela than the opposition would have been. These people were clearly still anarchists – they opposed Chavez and his policies, but they believed that an opening had been created that held the possibility of fundamentally radicalizing the population as a whole. Their strategy was to push the populist and socialist tendencies of Chavismo to their furthest extremes, where the Chavista leadership would be likely to repudiate the logical conclusions of their own rhetoric. The intended result seems to be a popular uprising in support of the best aspects of Chavismo, but against Chavez and his core leadership.

(...)

The second anarchist analysis we encountered was best represented by two comrades who were our hosts in Caracas at the beginning and end of our stay. They argued that Chavez was on the whole neither better nor worse than the opposition would be were it in power. In essence, they said, the masses of Venezuelans were wasting their time debating for or against Chavez, when in fact the true class interests of the majority cut across these divisions. From their perspective, a sizeable majority of the Chavista rank and file was potentially open to anarchist analysis and action, while a substantial portion of the anti-Chavista popular base was similarly accessible, despite the apparently stark divisions between the two movements.

In their work around a local anarchist community space (not unlike the infoshop model made popular in the US in the 1990’s), our hosts befriended both rank and file Chavistas and anti-Chavistas, and attempted to build organizing ties with both groups. If successful, such efforts could have the effect of strengthening the popular base of each movement and drawing the two groups closer together, while undermining the relationship between each movement and its own self-designated “leadership.” This approach could have truly radical long-term implications, although it necessitates an uphill battle against the popular understanding that Chavismo and anti-Chavismo have nothing in common.

Our Caracas hosts were active members of the Comision de Relaciones Anarquistas (CRA, or the Anarchist Relations Commission), which publishes a popular bi-monthly newspaper entitled “El Libertario” (“The Libertarian,” in the anarchist sense). It appeared that their view was popular within the CRA, but there did not seem to be any organization-wide “line” on the Chavez question.

The third major anarchist perspective on Chavez was also represented by members of the CRA, although this analysis seemed to be less popular in the group overall. According to this view, Chavez is actually worse for Venezuela than the opposition would have been at this historical juncture. The argument here is two-fold, both economic and political. First, due to his popular persona as a radical reformer and anti-imperialist, only Chavez could have forced through the range of petroleum and other resource concessions to multi-national corporations that have been approved in the past few years, because these same maneuvers would have faced massive opposition had they been proposed by the traditional parties that make up the opposition. Second, Chavez has been able to use his social reforms (literacy programs and the like) to cover for a massive centralization of political power in the hands of the presidency, where the opposition would have been confronted as authoritarian extremists had they attempted the same power grab.

The advocates of this approach seemed to believe that the main task facing anarchists in Venezuela was to confront and oppose Chavismo as a fraudulent ruse aimed at distracting the country from a pro-capitalist and authoritarian shift in ruling class politics. Since we spent the least amount of time with advocates of this analysis, we don’t feel qualified to speculate about the strategic implications drawn by its proponents.

It is important to note here that these three perspectives did not appear to be mutually exclusive: the most vehement anti-Chavez anarchists would acknowledge good aspects to the literacy and medical care programs instituted by the government, while those anarchists most optimistic about the prospects of Chavismo harshly criticized the government for successfully selling off huge chunks of the country’s resources to foreign corporations. The divisions between the perspectives seemed to have much more to do with the strategic approach that each encouraged. At this early date, and given our extremely brief time in the country, we feel unable to assess the relative merits of each strategy beyond our own gut instincts.