pandemonium evening star
No. 874
SPANISH & ENGLISH:
*** The Bolivarian Revolution:
Concerning the Proletariat and Class Struggle
By Franz J. T. Lee.
*** More Iraqis support resistance, CIA
report says.
*** Explosión en
Nasiriya, Irak, mata a 17 "carabinieri" italianos.
Silencio cómplice
ante comunicado golpista el comunicado del "Bloque Democrático"
*** Silencio cómplice
ante comunicado golpista el comunicado del
"Bloque Democrático".
12/11/03.
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The Bolivarian Revolution:
Concerning the Proletariat and Class Struggle
By Franz J. T. Lee
Why should the Bolivarianos in Venezuela know, what exactly concepts such
as "revolution", the "workers", the "proletariat" and the "class struggle"
denote?
From the Father of all Revolutions, the French Revolution, we have learned,
that there is no revolution without class struggle, without social classes
in conflict. In the case of the very French Revolution, four major social
classes were in life-and-death conflict: the clergy and nobility versus
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Essentially, it was not a revolution
of "the poor against the rich"; as a matter of fact and with the only exception
of the proletariat, the clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie were very wealthy
classes. The really poor, the true "vagabonds", peasants and serfs
only indirectly participated in this capitalist, bourgeois,
democratic revolution. Rich and poor have existed since millennia,
they were always in constant conflict. Any truly scientific and philosophic
investigator, Marxist or non-Marxist, can verify very easily, that a modern
national or international revolution in the "Third Millennium", in the current
transitional epoch of Global Fascism, fundamentally concerns the global,
globalized social class struggle. Whether we like it or not, whether we know
it or not, whether we say it or not, subjectively, objectively and transjectively,
there is no real revolution, no true human emancipation whatsoever
without a permanent global class struggle.
Thus, transhistorically, what is the national and international class struggle
of the Bolivarian Revolution all about?
Let us look at some "classical", general views about "class struggle", the
"proletariat", and "social revolution". Here is a Maoist view:
"The proletariat is the group 'with nothing to lose but its chains',
because it is propertyless. The Third World consists of the combined societies
of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The average Third World wage was last
calculated at 48 cents per hour. Third World workers in the export sectors
average slightly more at $1.24 per hour. (1). ...
... what he (Marx) said about capitalism is still true when
the world is taken as a whole -- a world in which the Third World makes up
80 percent of the population. In the world as a whole, inequality is steadily
increasing. 'In 1820, the largest gap between any two countries in per capita
GNP was over 3:1, but by 1992 it had steadily increased to 72:1,' wrote a
MIM author. (2)
(Notes:
1. Adrian Wood, North-South Trade, Employment and Inequality: Changing Fortunes
in a Skill-Driven World (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 400.
2. The MIM author cited Angus Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992;
Paris, OECD, 1995), p. 22." (See: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/twprole.html)
One of the fathers of scientific, philosophic socialism, Frederick
Engels, gave us the following explanations:
"The proletariat is that class in society
which lives entirely from the sale of its labour and does not draw profit
from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose
sole existence depends on the demand for labour -- hence, on the changing
state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat,
or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th
century.
[1]
1. In their works written in later periods, Marx and
Engels substituted the more accurate concepts of "sale of labour power", "value
of labour power" and "price of labour power" (first introduced by Marx) for
"sale of labour", value of labour" and "price of labour", as used here."
(See: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm#02)
Concerning the origin of the proletariat, of the modern "working class"
in Europe, Engels stated:
"The Proletariat originated in the industrial revolution, which took place
in England in the last half of the last (18th) century, and which has since
then been repeated in all the civilized countries of the world.
This industrial revolution was precipitated by the discovery of
the steam engine, various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and a whole
series of other mechanical devices. These machines, which were very expensive
and hence could be bought only by big capitalists, altered the whole mode
of production and displaced the former workers, because the machines turned
out cheaper and better commodities than the workers could produce with their
inefficient spinning wheels and handlooms. The machines delivered industry
wholly into the hands of the big capitalists and rendered entirely worthless
the meagre property of the workers (tools, looms, etc.). The result was that
the capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to
the workers. This marked the introduction of the factory system into the
textile industry.
Once the impulse to the introduction of machinery and the factory
system had been given, this system spread quickly to all other branches of
industry, especially cloth- and book-printing, pottery, and the metal industries.
Labour was more and more divided among the individual workers
so that the worker who previously had done a complete piece of work now did
only a part of that piece. This division of labour made it possible to produce
things faster and cheaper. It reduced the activity of the individual worker
to simple, endlessly repeated mechanical motions which could be performed
not only as well but much better by a machine. In this way, all these industries
fell, one after another, under the dominance of steam, machinery, and the
factory system, just as spinning and weaving had already done.
But at the same time, they also fell into the hands of big capitalists,
and their workers were deprived of whatever independence remained to them.
Gradually, not only genuine manufacture but also handicrafts came within the
province of the factory system as big capitalists increasingly displaced the
small master craftsmen by setting up huge workshops, which saved many expenses
and permitted an elaborate division of labour.
This is how it has come about that in civilized countries at the
present time nearly all kinds of labour are performed in factories -- and,
in nearly all branches of work, handicrafts and manufacture have been superseded.
This process has, to an ever greater degree, ruined the old middle class,
especially the small handicraftsmen; it has entirely transformed the condition
of the workers; and two new classes have been created which are gradually
swallowing up all the others. These are:
(i) The class of big capitalists, who, in all civilized
countries, are already in almost exclusive possession of all the means of
subsistence and of the instruments (machines, factories) and materials necessary
for the production of the means of subsistence. This is the bourgeois class,
or the bourgeoisie.
(ii) The class of the wholly propertyless, who are
obliged to sell their labour to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange,
the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians,
or the proletariat."
(See: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm)
Now, in order to better understand our "buhoneros",
who are being discriminated as "recogelatas" by the fascist, Arian race of
Plaza Francia, where does this concept of the proletariat, shared by Karl
Marx, come from? Are concepts like "proletariat" and "lumpen-proletariat"
really such sacred concepts? What is the "proletarian" revolution, the Negation
within the French Revolution, all about? Who really per definitionem
was the proletariat of the 19th and 20th centuries? In the Third Millennia,
do the Venezuelans and Bolivarianos qualify as modern "proletarians"? Are
they among the billions of obsolete physical, manual labour forces, to be
annihilated by Bush's "New Wars", by the global, fascist, corporate, industrial-military
complex?
In the first place, daily we are utilizing
all sorts of words, terms and concepts, like the "proletariat", "revolution",
"process", "democracy", "liberty", "peace" or "justice", central elements
of the global emancipatory process, of the Bolivarian Revolution, but many
of us do not have the time to investigate what we are really talking about.
Four decades of puntofijista "education" did not prepare our minds
and intellects for scientific thinking, for philosophic thought, did not
enable us to neutralize the current brutal onslaught of the global infowar,
to be victorious in the present fascist "war of ideas". Hundreds of thousands
of Venezuelans, including university students, are innocent victims of permanent
"psychotic disassociation", some even suffer from "cognitive dissonance",
as a result of the eternal lies, propaganda and distortions of the giant
international and national means of mass communication.
Obviously, with shabby tools, with empty words, sir-reverence,
we coin weird notions and bizarre ideas; such uncanny and banausian concepts are
fatal for revolutionary práxis and theory. Of course, across the last
centuries this also happened to "expert" Marxists and "erudite" scholars,
not to mention the "masses", the "working class" and the "proletariat"
itself.
Who coined such
concepts like the "revolution", "proletariat" or the "lumpenproletariat"? Immediately, the layman, the nerd, the ideologue,
would say: the "Communists", Marx and Engels. Well, we humbly genuflect confronted
by such implanted ignorance; really, it's bliss.
From the 16th century
onwards, here and there, in European writings, the concepts
"proletariat" or "proletary" appeared;
at the eve of the French Revolution, especially in "worker's clubs", like
the "League of the Just", the concept gradually acquired a
worker's content. In 1837, the Swiss economist Jean
Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi finally adopted this term. Only in
1842, Lorenz von Stein introduced the
concept into German; then the famous German revolutionary
poet, Ferdinand von Freiligrath passed the concept on to Friedrich
Engels, who used it in the first scientific socialist work, in his book,
The Condition of The Working Class in England in 1844.
As a matter of
scientific-philosophic curiosity, why did the fathers of scientific socialism
use this specific term in their works? After all, concepts like the "working
classes", "working men", "labouring classes" were prevalent in that epoch.
We
know that Marx and Engels were linguists par excellence.
Let's see what the etymological meaning of this concept reveals.
In Ancient Rome,
the proletarius belonged to the under-dogs, to the lowest section
of the population. In Latin, pro-olescere simply means "growing out
of"; in the sense of mushrooms "sprouting out of the ground", "shooting
up". Hence, the proletarius had a derivative, an artificial, a synthetic
nature. Marx and Engels introduced him as follows in the Communist
Manifesto:
"The bourgeoisie
... has ... begotten the men who are to wield those weapons -- the modern
workers -- the proletarians. ... the proletariat is recruited from all classes
of the population."
This means that
the proletariat is not primordial, not "naturwüchsig"; it is
an amorphous social concoction, lacking "cultural" and "civilized" roots.
According to Marx and Engels the new proletarius adopted the capitalist
relations produced by the victorious bourgeoisie, and the nexus between the
members of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie became "naked self-interest,
callous cash payment".
However, on the
other pauperized extreme, we find the "Lumpenproletariat". Why did
Marx and Engels use this concept? Grimm's Wörterbuch described
them as Lumpengesindel: "a slovenly mob, a pack of scoundrels,
a godless pack, vagabonds". Apart from the semantic similarity,
this colluvies vagabundorum, this rotting mass thrown off by the lowest
sectors of "modern society", the Lumpenproletariat, in Marxian terminology,
is exactly the negation of the proletariat. In 1845, this concept appeared
in their work, The German Ideology. The influential contemporary work,
De Cassagnac explained, that the proletariat was composed of
"workers, beggars, thieves and prostitutes". This is what Hegel understood
by his concept, the Pöbel.
For Marx, the Lumpenproletariat
comprised the "beggars, thieves and prostitutes", the non-productive sector
of the lowest classes. In Class Struggle in France, he described
this class as "gens sans feu et sans aveu". However, both had the
following in common: both were "free" and both could be "bought" or "bribed".
However, the differentia especifica is, that the Lumpenproletariat
are déclassés; that they lack a "class interest"; that
they can't develop a "class consciousness"; in other words, they can't be
conscientized for anything whatsoever.
Now, we know what
Marx and Engels, the fathers of scientific socialism, understood by the
proletariat, which/who should unite itself, and would emancipate all mankind.
We should just analyse whether this proletariat, including its "lumpen"
side, ever had authorized us to "free" or to "emancipate" it, whether it
ever had an interest in "emancipation".
One thing is certain,
those millions of Venezuelans who, together with their armed forces, valiantly
prevented that their beloved President Hugo Chávez Frías would
treacherously be assassinated and thrown to the sharks, who defended the
Bolivarian Revolution with their very lives, are made of sterner emancipatory
stuff. In Bolivia, in Argentina, in Cuba, and elsewhere, as emancipatory
torch-bearers they have demonstrated to the world the militant optimism of
billions of peoples, who still have conserved the real, true essence of humanity.
Whether they are proletarians, lumpen-proletarians, or not, currently, as
Latin Americans, they are in the front line of World Emancipation against
Global Fascism. We salute these brave Bolivarianos! Within the next weeks,
the next bloody battle is already at our very door step! "Escualidism", the
CIA, is here to stay, even beyond 2021. They will fade away from the face
of the earth only when Labour and Capital are totally eradicated, not only
in Venezuela, in Latin America, but in the whole Milky Way.
-----oOo-----
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More Iraqis support
resistance, CIA report says
12.11.2003 [06:29]
A new, top-secret CIA report from Iraq warns that
growing numbers of Iraqis are concluding that the U.S.-led coalition can
be defeated and are supporting the resistance.
The report paints a bleak picture of the political and security situation
in Iraq and cautions that the U.S.-led drive to rebuild the country
as a democracy could collapse unless corrective actions are taken
immediately.
L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority
in Iraq, who arrived unexpectedly in Washington for strategy sessions
on Tuesday, essentially endorsed the CIA's findings, said a senior
administration official.
The report's bleak tone and Bremer's private endorsement differ sharply
with the upbeat public assessments that President Bush, his chief
aides and Bremer are giving as part of an aggressive publicity campaign
aimed at countering rising anxieties at home over increasing U.S.
casualties in Iraq.
Two senior administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because the document is classified, described the report's findings
in broad terms, but didn't give excerpts or details of any recommendations.
The report landed on the desks of senior U.S. officials on Monday.
The speed of the leak suggested that senior policymakers want to make
sure the assessment reaches Bush.
Some senior policymakers have complained of being frustrated in their
efforts to provide Bush with analyses of the situation in Iraq that
are more somber than the optimistic views of Vice President Dick Cheney,
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other hardliners.
The CIA analysis suggests U.S. policy in Iraq has reached a turning
point, as the Bush administration moves to escalate the war against
the guerrillas and accelerate the transfer of political power to Iraqis.Both
options are potentially risky.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military announced Tuesday that it will wage
a more aggressive offensive against the loose confederation of former
Saddam Hussein loyalists, foreign and Iraqi Islamic extremists and
Iraqi nationalists.
"The most important message is that we are all going to get pretty
tough, and that's what is needed to defeat the enemy, and we are definitely
not shy of doing that when it is required," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez,
the top U.S. general in Iraq, told journalists.
Such a campaign, however, could cause more civilian casualties and
drive more Iraqis to the side of the insurgents.
At the same time, the CIA assessment warns that none of the postwar
Iraqi political institutions and leaders have shown an ability to
govern the country or even preside over drafting a constitution or holding
an election.
Bill Harlow, a CIA spokesman, declined to confirm or deny the existence
of the new report, saying the agency does not discuss such matters.
The growing toll of dead and wounded has cost Bush a significant loss
of popularity as he begins campaigning in earnest for re-election
next November.
Bremer and top Bush officials, including Secretary of State Colin
Powell and Rumsfeld, met at the White House on Tuesday to examine
ways to speed up the restoration of Iraqi self-government. Bush did
not attend.
U.S. officials have become deeply frustrated by infighting, nepotism
and inaction within the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, the U.S.-appointed
body of Iraqi politicians that has been given limited powers to govern
Iraq. The council also is in charge of overseeing the drafting of
a constitution.
Bremer, Powell, Rumsfeld and other officials also discussed moves
to speed up the recruiting of U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces, including
a new army.
More than 118,000 Iraqis are serving in the new Iraqi army, police
and other forces, and U.S. officials aim to bring the total up to
more than 220,000 sometime in 2004.
Accelerating a restoration of Iraqi self-rule, speeding up the recruiting
of Iraqi security forces and intensifying a U.S. counter-insurgency
campaign form the crux of a new U.S. strategy to crush the resistance,
consolidate the support of ordinary Iraqis for U.S.-led democracy-building
efforts and reduce the U.S. military presence.
"The long-term security of Iraq will be assured by the Iraqis themselves,"
Bush asserted in a Veterans Day speech on Tuesday to the Heritage
Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.
The CIA assessment, said the senior administration officials, was
composed by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, a veteran operations
officer who oversees more than 275 officers in Iraq.
The report is a type known in intelligence parlance as an AARDWOLF,
a special field assessment that is usually requested by senior policymakers
in Washington at important junctures in overseas crises.
The report, one official said, warned that the more aggressive U.S.
counter-insurgency tactics could induce more Iraqis to join the guerrilla
campaign that has killed at least 153 U.S. soldiers - 35 of them so
far this month - since Bush declared an end to major combat operations
in Iraq on May 1.
It also raised concerns about the governing council. The group, which
is dominated by former Iraqi exiles with little popular support, has
failed to persuade ordinary Iraqis that the occupation is temporary
and will lead to a unified, sovereign Iraq, the report said
Bremer has been formulating ways "in which the Governing Council can
evolve into a decision-making body to move the constitutional process
along," said a third senior U.S. official, who also spoke on condition
of anonymity.
He denied recent news reports that the Bush administration is considering
replacing the council with some other group of Iraqis.
According to the second senior administration official, the report
warned that the inability of the U.S.-led coalition to crush the resistance
is convincing growing numbers of Iraqis that the occupation can be
defeated, bolstering support for the insurgents.
It also raised the concern that majority Shiite Muslims could begin
joining minority Sunnis in turning against the occupation.
Such a development would almost certainly doom the Bush administration's
chances of succeeding in Iraq.
The Shiites comprise 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people. They
suffered massive repression under Saddam, whose regime favored the
Sunnis. Most Shiite leaders have been willing to give the U.S.-led
occupation time to restore Iraqi sovereignty, as that would give them
power for the first time since the country was created by Britain
under a mandate of the League of Nations in 1920.
But frictions between the U.S.-led occupation and the Shiites have
been intensifying, fueled by incidents such as the killing this week
by a U.S. soldier of the mayor of Sadr City, a massive Shiite slum
in Baghdad.
In another finding, the CIA report said there is no way to completely
seal Iraq's borders with Syria, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait to infiltration by foreign Islamic extremists bent on killing
Americans.
U.S. officials and military commanders blame the foreigners, Iraqi
Islamic extremists and Saddam loyalists for the bombings and guerrilla-style
ambushes of U.S. forces that have been increasing in frequency and
sophistication.
Most attacks have been concentrated in Baghdad and a 200-square-mile
Sunni-dominated region north of the capital that includes Saddam's
hometown of Tikrit.
In an effort to discourage support for the United States, the insurgents
also have targeted peacekeepers from other countries, international
organizations like the United Nations, and Iraqis who have cooperated
with the U.S.-led occupation.
Bush on Tuesday reiterated his resolve to stay the course and crush
the insurgency, and his belief that the United States will prevail
in helping to build "democracy and peace and justice" in Iraq that
will be a model for the Middle East.
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Explosión
en Nasiriya, Irak, mata a 17 "carabinieri" italianos
Por: Tomado de iraq.war
Publicado el Miércoles, 12/11/03 03:17pm
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Al menos 17 policías italianos “carabinieri”
resultaron muertos luego que una poderosa explosión de un camión
bomba, destrozara parcialmente el edificio del cuartel militar italiano
en la ciudad de Nasiriya al sur de Irak. La explosión ocurrió
a las 10:45 pm. hora de Irak.
http://aporrea.net/dameverbo.php?docid=11503
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Silencio
cómplice ante comunicado golpista el comunicado del "Bloque Democrático"
¡Qué desvergonzados!
Por: José Marcano
Publicado el Miércoles, 12/11/03 10:50am
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En el día de ayer, en nuestra flamante
Asamblea Nacional se dio un debate sobre el comunicado que el "Bloque Democrático"
hizo publico en el diario el Nacional.
El debate era una esplendida oportunidad para que, aquellos partidos o individualidades
de la "oposición democrática" se desmarcara de ese grupo, se
distinguiera como defensores del hilo constitucional, se apegaran definitivamente
al juego de la democracia; es decir, a dejar de ser payasos y exclamar que
están en contra de tales personajes (los de la piedra o bloque) y
que sus principios e ideales están con el respeto a la constitución.
Todos sabemos la estrategia que esta "oposición" ha mantenido en
la Asamblea Nacional, ella consiste en dilatar hasta el extremo las intervenciones
de sus miembros con la finalidad de impedir que se aprueben las leyes que
el país y el pueblo necesitan para su desarrollo en general; esta
política de intervenciones ha llevado inclusive a que los diputados
bolivarianos hayan tenido que modificar el reglamento de debates de dicho
cuerpo, pues había ocasiones en que todos "TODOS" los diputaditos
de la "oposición" intervenían en una discusión hasta
dos veces, haciéndose interminables las secciones de la asamblea.
Pero que sucedió ayer.
Los diputados bolivarianos se cansaron de invitar a los payasos esos de
la "oposición" a que intervinieran y se pronunciaran en contra de
tal remitido.
Los Adecos: se hicieron los locos, ninguno apareció en la tribuna
Los copeyanos: se fueron a tomar un café
Los de Primero Justicia: exclamaron: !!!YOOOOOOOOO!!!!, que va
Los de Convergencia: fueron al baño
Los de Alianza Braco Pueblo: Bueno, ya esos no existen como partido
Y así por el estilo,
Ninguno NINGUNO de los partidos de la "oposición" apareció,
ningún NINGUN diputadito de la "oposición" asomó su
nariz para intervenir y declararse en contra del documento antes nombrado.
Son simplemente TODOS unos desgraciados golpistas
http://aporrea.net/dameletra.php?docid=5609
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