Venezuelans to Vote on Continuing the Bolivarian Revolution

 Runup to a High Stakes Election under US Sanctions

by Roger D. Harris / July 13th, 2024

The future of Venezuela’s 25-year-old socialist movement will be decided in the upcoming July 28 election. Venezuelans will go to the polls knowing that a vote for incumbent President Nicolás Maduro means no relief from US unilateral coercive measures.

These so-called “sanctions” have been central to Washington’s regime-change campaign explicitly designed to asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy and turn the people against their government; what Venezuelanalysis calls “a war without bombs.”

Venezuela, with some 930 unilateral coercive measures imposed on it by the US, is the second most sanctioned country in the world after Russia. “Washington singled out Venezuela for special treatment,” observes political economist Steve Ellner.

The Bolivarian Revolution

Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution began with the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998. Having a proud Afro- and indigenous-descendent from a poor background as president, infuriated racist and classist elite sentiment. Chávez’s successor, Maduro, a bus driver and union leader who never went to college, was no more palatable to this elite.

Under Chávez’s leadership, Venezuela became “a beacon of hope for the struggle against neoliberal immiseration and imperialist pillage for the world over,” according to Francisco Dominguez with the UK-based Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.

Approximately three-quarters of Venezuela’s current discretionary budget goes to social expenditures; about the same proportion of the US budget going to the military and related expenses. Some five million houses for the poor have been built, health care is free, and food for the poor is subsidized. Mass popular organizations and communes flourish.

A quarter century of US regime-change efforts

Chávez survived a US-backed coup in April 2002 that lasted only 47 hours, when the people spontaneously arose and demanded his reinstatement. That was followed by a “boss’s lockout” during the Christmas holidays, which failed to create an uprising but did cause a 29% GDP loss.

A referendum, openly backed by the US, to recall Chávez in 2004 was decisively defeated. He won the 2006 presidential election by a large margin, although the opposition continued to foment lethal street violence. A military coup in 2008 by dissident officers was aborted.

Chávez was reelected in October 2012 but died from cancer shortly thereafter in March 2013. His chosen successor, Maduro, won the constitutionally mandated snap election by a margin of less than 2%. Sensing weakness at this moment of national mourning, the US offensive intensified, trying to provoke a civil insurrection.

The main opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, immediately charged fraud and called on his followers to show their rage. Violent street demonstrations by the US-backed far-right opposition followed. The so-called guarimbas continued periodically through 2017 in an attempt to achieve by extra-parliamentary means what they failed to do democratically.

The US was the only country to deny the legitimacy of the Maduro government in 2013. A subsequent audit done in public, which compared the electronic count to the paper ballots, reaffirmed the electoral outcome. Former US President Jimmy Carter, incidentally, commented: “of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” Venezuela was the first country to have both an electronic vote and a paper backup.

After Maduro won the presidency, the international oil market tanked, which severely impacted an economy dependent on petroleum sales. With the deteriorating economic situation, the opposition won a majority of the National Assembly in December 2015. The Maduro government immediately recognized the electoral results. Today, Washington considers the 2015 National Assembly the only legitimate government of Venezuela, even though the legislators’ terms have long ago expired.

Hybrid war intensifies

That same year, 2015, US President Obama incredulously declared Venezuela to be “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security as a pretext to impose illegal unilateral coercive measures. That year, too, marked a regional geopolitical shift to the right with the election of Mauricio Macri in Argentina.

The coercive measures were harshly intensified by Trump and continued with some minor relief with Biden in a bipartisan effort to defeat the Bolivarian Revolution.

The US took no chances in anticipation of the 2018 presidential election in Venezuela. Washington declared the election fraudulent a full half year before the vote and ordered its funded proxies to boycott. When opposition politician Henri Falcón ran, Washington threaten him with sanctions. Maduro easily won reelection. The far-right opposition sat out the election, still banking on a military coup, a popular rebellion, direct US intervention…or a successful assassination.

While at a public ceremony, Maduro survived an exploding drone attack in August 2018. In October of that year, the former US ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, opined, “At this moment perhaps the best solution would be to accelerate the [county’s] collapse, even if it produces a greater period of suffering.”

By January 2019, the Venezuelan economy, plagued with runaway inflation, was teetering on breakdown precipitated by the economic blockade imposed by the US and its allies. Washington then recognized the unknown new head of the national assembly, 35-year-old Juan Guaidó, as “interim president” of Venezuela. Over 50 US allies recognized the US security asset and handed Guaidó’s team billions of dollars of Venezuelan assets held abroad.

Venezuela was also subject to paramilitary attacks launched from Colombia across its western border. A cyber-assault on Venezuela’s electric system triggered a nationwide blackout in March 2019. Among the continuing assassination and coup attempts was the May 2020 so-called “bay of piglets” fiasco involving two former US Green Berets, who Biden subsequently repatriated in a prisoner exchange.

Also in 2020, the US officially designated Maduro as their “new target” and put a $15 million bounty on his head. Washington’s unilateral coercive measures had by then produced a precipitously declining economy plus the collateral damage of tens of thousands of deaths. Venezuela experienced the largest peacetime economic contraction in recent world history.

Of course, corruption, inefficiencies, and plain mistaken policies also plagued the economy. But to be fair to the victims of the sanctions, these were hardly conditions unique to Venezuela and would not have been devastating absent the sanctions. Otherwise, the US would not have needed to have been so inhumanely aggressive. Further, secondary effects of sanctions, such as the need for secrecy to circumvent them by using back channels, became fertile grounds for dishonest officials.

Venezuela resists

 Although the US hybrid war continued, Venezuela began to reverse the economic freefall around 2021-2022. This could not have been done without a combination of an unflinching political will under the leadership of President Maduro coupled with strong grassroots popular support; plus vital help from Russia, China, and Iran.

GDP growth during the first four months of 2024 exceeded forecasts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and are projected to be 4% for this year, compared to IMF figures for the US at 2.7% and China at 4.6%.

After a series of corruption scandals, even the hardline opposition abandoned “interim president” Jaun Guaidó. Today only the US, Israel, and a handful of Washington’s most sycophantic allies fail to recognize the Maduro administration.

A recent internal house cleaning on the government’s side saw former oil minister Tareck El Aissami along with 54 others arrested for corruption; a development much celebrated by the Chavista base (i.e., supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution).

Contrary to the US strategy to isolate Venezuela, Venezuela may soon join BRICS+ and was recently elected to a vice presidency of the UN General Assembly. Another game-changer was that Venezuela’s two immediate neighbors, Brazil and Colombia, went from US client states to friendly allies.

The regional integration organizations initiated by Chávez, such as ALBA and CELAC, remain robust. Meanwhile Biden was humiliated when Mexico led a boycott after he excluded Venezuela along with Cuba and Nicaragua from his planned Organization of American States “democracy summit” in 2022.

Election campaign homestretch

The fact that all opposition factions will compete on the ballot is de facto recognition of the government’s legitimacy. And the fact that there are nine such candidates is proof, despite Washington’s best efforts, that the US could not unite a fractious opposition around Maria Corina Machado’s far-right candidacy.

The aforementioned Ms. Machado had been thoroughly vetted in DC and was Washington’s chosen candidate. Appearing before a US congressional committee, she threatened not to have “a system of impunity” for the Chavistas when she’s president. However, she is not on the ballot.

Back in 2015, Machado had been disqualified from running for office until 2030 for multiple wrongdoings. The US ordered her to contest before the Venezuelan supreme court, but the ban was upheld. Machado’s NGO, Súmate, was funded by the NED, a CIA cutout. Her current campaign activities reportedly received $3.2 million from a US lobbying firm.

Machado personally chose surrogate candidate Edmundo González to run in her place. The elderly González has mainly stayed home, while Machado hit the campaign trail with a paper poster of González. This arrangement gives the US the option to claim victory if González wins and to claim fraud – because of Machado’s disqualification and other concerns– if he doesn’t.

All but González and another far-right presidential candidate pledged to abide by the results of the election.

Meanwhile, the government reported sabotage of a bridge and the electrical grid, while multiple assassination attempts on Maduro have been thwarted. A Colombian paramilitary group, ACSN, reportedly was contacted by opposition elements to attack infrastructure and even the president in the contingency of a Maduro victory.

Election outcome not at all certain

 Although the US still does not formally recognize the Maduro government, Washington and Caracas – this time with the Venezuelan opposition excluded – engaged in direct dialogue as equal sovereigns just a month before the election. This signals that the US strategy for regime change now has to be different from the 2018 election.

The far-right opposition cannot be ordered to boycott the election in anticipation of the government collapsing. Venezuela’s economy is no longer on the ropes, despite Washington’s best efforts.

However, Venezuelan political commentator Clodovaldo Hernández cautions about ongoing issues of inadequate healthcare delivery, salaries and pensions that have not kept pace with inflation, erratic electric power, and dysfunctional police and judicial services. All of these disproportionately impact the Chavista base of poor and working people, who are wearied by so many years of Yankee siege. On the other hand, much of the opposition is discredited and detested precisely because they supported the US hybrid war that contributed to those conditions.

As ever, polling in Venezuela produces highly partisan and unreliable results. Both Chavistas and opposition/Voice of America cite polls showing overwhelming support for their side.The whole world will be watching on July 28. Venezuela has strived to offer an alternative to the imperialist world order and endured decades of attacks as a consequence. Will the majority of Venezuelans vote to continue their independent path despite such heavy costs?Facebook

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Roger D. Harris is with the human rights group Task Force on the Americas , founded in 1985. Read other articles by Roger D..

 

Why George Clooney, Peter Welch, and the New York Times, Are Dangerous

by Eric Zuesse / July 13th, 2024

I opposed the invasion of Iraq by Bush in 2003 — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

I opposed the bombing of Libya by Obama in 2011 — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

I opposed the U.S. arming of Al Qaeda in Syria in order to overthrow Assad in 2012 by Obama — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

I opposed the U.S. coup that was perpetrated in 2014 by Obama, Clinton, and Biden, against Ukraine in order to place U.S. missiles there to blitz-nuke The Kremlin — which destroyed Ukraine — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

The Democratic Party is as flamingly neoconservative, pro-MIC, hawkish and pro-U.S.-imperialism, as is the Republican Party; and, so, only a Second American Revolution that recognizes all Americans’ enemy as being right here at home — the super-rich who control all of the major ‘news’-media and the Government (both of its Parties) — and which Revolution removes them from the power they have to deceive the majority of the public and destroy nation after nation while the MIC-owners grow ever fatter feasting upon the blood and misery of others in other lands and upon the despair of the poor in our own, can be constructive in the present era when the U.S. behemoth is craving feverishly to control the entire world and to increase the annual aggression(‘defense’)-budget so high it will leave nothing left to spend for the public.

George Clooney says of our present neoconservative-in-chief, “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals.” I do not, and I would never sink so low as to say such a thing as that.

Peter Welch says of our present neoconservative-in-chief, “I have great respect for President Biden. He saved our country from a tyrant. He is a man of uncommon decency. He cares deeply about our democracy. He has been one of the best presidents of our time.” (He thinks that Obama was the best.) I do not, and I would never sink so low as to say such a thing as that.

The New York Times says that we must vote for Biden because Trump is supposedly even worse: “HE IS DANGEROUS IN WORD, DEED AND ACTION: DONALD TRUMP IS UNFIT TO LEAD”. Instead, they want us to vote for the most corrupt President in all of U.S. history.

But the candidate who is chosen by representatives of Democratic Party billionaires, is no less evil than and no better than the candidate who is chosen by representatives of Republican Party billionaires; and to allege to the contrary is not only to be ludicrous but to be vile, because it’s by now obvious that both sides of the U.S. aristocracy are equally evil and equally dangerous to the entire world. Only a Second American Revolution can now save us 

U.S. SecDef Lloyd Austin’s NATO Speech Lies

by Eric Zuesse / July 12th, 2024

In an enthusiastically received speech on July 10 to the Washington DC 75th Anniversary NATO Summit, U.S. Secretary of Defense and ‘former’ Raytheon Corporation board member Lloyd Austin strung together lies by the U.S. empire in order to reverse the imperialistic guilt of the U.S. Government for starting the Cold War in order to conquer and take over the entire world, and to pretend that instead the Cold War was and remains an ideological communist-versus-capitalist war in which the Soviet Union was the aggressor, but has now become after 2000 a war between nations that Austin calls “democracies” (which today’s America clearly is not), on the one hand, and nations that he simply assumes are not, on the other.

Appropriately for his lying ‘history’ of this war since 25 July 1945, he twice referred to its creator on 25 July 1945, U.S. President Truman, whose 4 April 1949 “Address on the Occasion of Signing the North Atlantic Treaty” (the NATO Treaty), stated:

Twice in recent years, nations have felt the sickening blow of unprovoked aggression. Our peoples, to whom our governments are responsible, demand that these things shall not happen again.

We are determined that they shall not happen again.

In taking steps to prevent aggression against our own peoples, we have no purpose of aggression against other peoples. To suggest the contrary is to slander our institutions and defame our ideals and our aspirations.

According to the CIA-edited and written Wikipedia (which blacklists (blocks from linking to) sites that aren’t CIA-approved), in its article “List of wars involving the Soviet Union”, during the entire time-span between “1944-1960s”, that list includes only these wars:

Anti-communist insurgencies in Central and Eastern Europe[citation needed]

Guerrilla war in Ukraine (Part of World War II from 1944 to 1945)

Guerrilla war in the Baltic states

Anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–1953)

Listed as the aggressors in them were:

Soviet Union
East Germany
Polish People’s Republic
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
Hungarian People’s Republic
Socialist Republic of Romania
People’s Republic of Bulgaria
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Those were the nations that the Soviet Union had liberated from Hitler.

Listed as the defenders (not the aggressors) in these wars were:

Ukrainian Insurgents
Polish Insurgents
Estonian Insurgents
Latvian Insurgents
Lithuanian Insurgents
Bulgarian Insurgents

Those ‘insurgents’ (or ‘guerillas’) were predominantly — and in some nations almost entirely — the forces that were fighting on Hitler’s side in his Operation Barbarossa to conquer the Soviet Union.

When Truman, in his 4 April 1949 “Address on the Occasion of Signing the North Atlantic Treaty”, asserted that “Twice in recent years, nations have felt the sickening blow of unprovoked aggression,” he never made clear which of those wars by the Soviet Union defending itself against Hitler’s Operation Barbaross invasion constituted those “Twice in recent years, nations have felt the sickening blow of unprovoked aggression.” It wasn’t Hitler who had done the “unprovoked aggression.” That was America’s President right after the passionate opponent of Hitler, FDR, died.

Already at the founding of NATO, this creation by the Nazi Truman was an extension from Operation Barbarossa by Truman’s United States Government, in order to take over the world, starting with taking over the Soviet Union, which had been America’s most important ally during WW2 under President FDR.

Both FDR and Churchill acknowledged that the coming victory against Hitler was more by the Soviet Union than it was by even the entirety of The West. Near the beginning of FDR’s lengthy fireside chat to the nation on 28 April 1942, he said:

On the European front the most important development of the past year has been without question the crushing counteroffensive on the part of the great armies of Russia against the powerful German Army. These Russian forces have destroyed and are destroying more armed power of our enemies — troops, planes, tanks, and guns — than all the other United Nations [by which he at that time was referring only to the U.S. and the UK’s empire, because he hadn’t yet even met Stalin] put together. (NOTE: He was already using the phrase “United Nations” with the objective in mind for all of the world’s nations to view themselves as having been saved by the U.N. that FDR was intending ultimately to replace all empires and to be the sole source of international laws.)

Near the War’s end, on 19 September 1944, Churchill telegrammed to Stalin “that it is the Russian army that tore the guts out of the German military machine and is at the present moment holding by far the larger portion of the enemy on its front.” As the History Channel’s article “Operation Barbarossa” summed-up: “On 22 June 1941, German forces began their invasion of the Soviet Union, … the most powerful invasion force in history, … 80% of the German army … [plus] 30 divisions of Finnish and Romanian troops. … By the time Germany officially surrendered to the Allies on 8 May 1945, 80% of its casualties during WW2 had come on the Eastern Front [the Soviet Union].” Even Wikipedia’s “Operation Barbarossa” said “The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of the Third Reich.[30]” However, on 8 May 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted “On May 8, 1945, America and Great Britain had victory over the Nazis! America’s spirit will always win. In the end, that’s what happens.” So goes the myth (which is cited by both Democratic and Republican politicians), but certainly not  the history.

Furthermore: what was Truman referring to by his “Twice in recent years, nations have felt the sickening blow of unprovoked aggression”? He never said, but why did he call the Soviet Union’s victories against Hitler “unprovoked aggression”? It had been Hitler — and not Stalin — who invaded in Operation Barbarossa, and Stalin — not Hitler — who were defending there. This is how much of an American Nazi Mr. Truman had become so soon after he had made the decision on 25 July 1945 for the U.S. Government to take over the entire world. If anything is “sickening” in that statement by him, it is Truman himself.

On that date, 25 July 1945, Truman told the Soviet Union’s leader Joseph Stalin that the U.S. Government would not recognize the legitimacy of its control over the countries that it had conquered from Hitler unless the U.S. Government is granted veto-power over the Soviet Union’s decisions regarding those Governments (both their internal and external affairs); and, in Truman’s letter that night to his wife, Bess, he even gloated over this, by saying:

Russia and Poland have gobbled up a big hunk of Germany and want Britain and us to agree. I have flatly refused. We have unalterably opposed the recognition of police governments in the Germany Axis countries. I told Stalin that until we had free access to those countries and our nationals had their property rights restored, so far as we were concerned there’d never be recognition. He seems to like it when I hit him with a hammer.

Suddenly, the amicable relationship between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., which had prevailed throughout FDR’s three terms in office, and which had won WW2 for the Allies, and which FDR had been planning to continue afterward under the U.N. that FDR had been carefully planning during August 1941 till his death on 12 April 1945, ended in a crash of mutual hostility, because Stalin couldn’t accept Truman’s demand, any more than Truman would have accepted a similar demand from Stalin about the nations that America and its colonies such as the UK had conquered in Europe. Stalin (like FDR would have done if he had survived) made no such demand upon Truman or anyone else, and from that date forward Stalin recognized that unless he could change Truman’s mind on this (which never happened), the U.S. Government would be at war against the Soviet Government. It turned out to be (on the American side at least) a war not actually between capitalism versus communism (as Truman propagandized it to be) but instead between the U.S. against the entire world — to take all of it — as was made clear when U.S. President GHW Bush started, on 24 February 1990, secretly instructing his stooge leaders, such as Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand, that their war against the soon-no-longer-communist Russia would secretly continue until it too becomes a part of the U.S. empire.

Furthermore: whereas there was lots of friction between FDR and Churchill because FDR was an impassioned anti-imperialist and Churchill was an equally impassioned imperialist, FDR’s relationship with Stalin was superb, because both of them were equally impassioned anti-imperialists — about which fact Truman and his followers have been lying constantly.

The current war inside Ukraine — about which Mr. Austin’s speech largely focuses — started with U.S. President Barack Obama’s coup there in 2014, but had been in preparation ever since the Truman Administration. I detailed that fact here.

Austin’s speech was loaded with lies, but I will stop here, because that’s enough to demonstrate his propagandistic intent.

 Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. Read other articles by Eric.

 

Becoming the Backdrop: Hollywood and the Perils of Colonial Attention  

Review of Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / July 13th, 2024

Killers of the Flower Moon film poster

Killers of the Flower Moon is a recent epic movie set in the 1920s examining a series of murders of members of the Osage Nation who became wealthy when oil was found on their tribal land. The film is set in Oklahoma (Choctaw language phrase: okla, ‘people’, and humma, ‘red’) and depicts the story of a local political boss who was contriving to steal the Osage wealth. The film is long with a running time of 206 minutes and shows an ensemble cast of well-known actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser.

It did well, grossing $157 million worldwide as well as receiving “critical acclaim, with praise for Scorsese’s direction, the screenplay, production values, editing, cinematography, musical score, and cast performances, especially DiCaprio, Gladstone, and De Niro […] It was also nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, seven Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and with Gladstone winning Best Actress, nine British Academy Film Awards, and three SAG Awards, with Gladstone winning Best Actress.”

The story revolves around Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) who comes to live with his brother and uncle William King Hale on Hale’s reservation ranch after World War I. Hale is a reserve deputy sheriff and cattle rancher who poses as a friend of the Osage while at the same time secretly organising the killing of the Osage through multiple different means such as shooting, poisoning, and even blowing up a house. Ernest Burkhart marries Mollie Kyle, an Osage whose family owns oil headrights.

Lily Gladstone’s portrayal of Mollie Burkhart garnered critical acclaim, earning her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress

Mollie decides to go to Washington and asks President Calvin Coolidge for help in solving the murders. Bureau of Investigation (the eventual FBI) Agent Thomas Bruce White Sr. and his assistants are sent to Oklahoma to find out who is behind the murders. White finds out the truth and persuades Ernest to confess his involvement and testify against his uncle Hale.

Hale and Ernest were sentenced to life imprisonment but “both were paroled after years of incarceration, despite Osage protests to the parole board.”

Killers of the Flower Moon has themes which differ from traditional Westerns in that the ‘cowboys’ are focused on oil production and resent the community that owns the rights to oilfields. It is also different in that law and order is controlled not by the local sheriff [who is corrupt in this case] but by the federal state who sends in its Agents to find out what is going on. This twentieth century concept of the developing power of the state taking over from the nineteenth century local power of the sheriff is only the start. The newly developed FBI launches into containing local criminality with all the power and forces of the federal state.

The FBI went on to be involved “in the capture and deaths of numerous infamous mobsters of the day, including John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly.”

The Osage case is also depicted in the 1959 American crime drama film, The FBI Story, showing how the FBI developed from a detective agency to an enforcement agency with the statutory authority to carry guns and make arrests:

The FBI was compelled to investigate after one of the [Osage] murders was committed on federal government land. The FBI forensics laboratory ties the doctored wills and life insurance policies of the murder victims to a local banker, Dwight McCutcheon, with the typewriter that he used.

In Killers of the Flower Moon Martin Scorsese had originally intended that Leonardo DiCaprio would play the FBI agent who solves the crimes.

However, screenwriter Eric Roth “began to fear the story underplayed the experience of the Osage people and repeated tired tropes. “We didn’t want to go much further with this great white hope saving Native Americans,” says Roth.

This fear of stereotyping led to Scorsese meeting with members of the Osage community in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, including Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, the principal chief of the Osage Nation.

Hollywood has had a long history of depicting Native Americans in cinema. The Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond covers a century of the portrayal of North American Natives in his documentary Reel Injun:

Reel Injun explores the various stereotypes about Natives in film, from the noble savage to the drunken Indian. It profiles such figures as Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian American who reinvented himself as a Native American on screen. The film also explores Hollywood’s practice of using Italian Americans and American Jews to portray Indians in the movies and reveals how some Native American actors made jokes in their native tongue on screen when the director thought they were simply speaking gibberish.

Reel Injun film poster

Scorsese was obviously aware that to be taken seriously today he would have to involve the Osage Nation in the making of this film. This story involved an extraordinary situation for Native Americans anywhere in North America as the Osage directly benefited from the natural resources of their territory.

“I was anxious,” Scorsese says. “I knew that if I could not gain their trust, then there’s no sense in making the film. As a European American, a Sicilian American, I may have natural limitations, and I hoped that they would forgive that. But they had to know it was coming from the right place and not a surface revisionism, which is simplistic. I wanted something really, really complex that deals with humanity.” […] “One of the people in the room said, ‘You have to be very careful. You’re putting words in the mouths of people that … These are real people to us. They’re part of our families.’ ”

The depiction of the Native Americans from the early cinematic beginnings emphasised violence, vacillating from violence to be admired to violence to be feared, depending on the ideological needs of each decade in the twentieth century. When America was under internal or external threat then the violence of the ‘Injun’ was to be feared. When America needed a strong identity, a powerful role model of the fearless warrior, then the Native American was to be admired.

In either case the violence provides catharsis for the colonising power. Even though it is the Native Americans that are being depicted, their needs are secondary.

Many white actors played Native American roles and had no concern for Native American opinions about their roles. “White people playing native roles? I love it, cos it’s funny!” says Cheyenne/Arapaho filmmaker, Chris Eyre, in Reel Injun. Native Americans were played by Burt Lancaster, Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds, Elvis Presley, Boris Karloff, Anthony Quinn, Chuck Connors, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sylvester Stallone, Pierce Brosnan, Johnny Depp etc.

In Smoke Signals, a 1998 coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Chris Eyre, there is an awareness of the Romanticist portrayal of the Native American as a hero for white audiences. Similarly, white heroes were seen as belonging to the colonial cultural mindset. In Smoke Signals, Thomas Builds-the-Fire argues: “Nobody can help us. No Superman. No Batman. No Wonder Woman. Not even Charles Bronson, man.” (Reel Injun)

Smoke Signals film poster

Killers of the Flower Moon tells a Native American story and is even populated with Osage actors yet it is still a white man’s story, paid for and dominated by, white actors.

While it is difficult for any group to tell their story, especially in an expensive medium like cinema, it is even more difficult to imagine the dominant group/oppressor telling your story. Can we expect the British to make radical films about Irish uprisings against British rule? Can we expect the Israelis to make films about the Palestinian struggle against settler land grabs?

As Jesse Wente, an Ojibway film critic, remarks about Dances with Wolves (1990), one of the most successful films about the American West:

The natives were fleshed out as characters, allowed to be seen as more complete people. They weren’t just warriors; they weren’t just peaceful. There was a very sensitive and sympathetic approach. It doesn’t erase the fact that at it’s core the film is not a native movie. It is still a movie made from the outside of us and it’s about us and is meant to be sympathetic towards us. But, it isn’t us. It’s a story about a white guy. And, Indians are the T and A, but it gets promoted as being about native people or Indians, but it’s not, really. We’re just backdrop.” (Reel Injun)

Even though in the Native American, Irish, and Palestinian stories, failures were more common than successes, the depiction of struggle is always profound no matter what era the story is set in. The difficulties, the hardships, the bravery, the resistance is always inspiring.Facebook

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. Read other articles by Caoimhghin.

Multipolarity and BRICS Once More

by Greg Godels / July 13th, 2024

The debates over “multipolarity” and the significance of an allegedly multipolar BRICS grouping continue. In an opinion piece in People’s Voice (“Multipolarity, BRICS+ and the struggle for peace, cooperation, and socialism today,” June 16-30, 2024) writer Garrett Halas mounts an earnest defense of multipolarity and the BRICS+ “as a positive step towards socialism.”

Halas joins many others in envisioning all twenty-first-century resistance to US imperialism and the imperialism of its (largely ex-Cold War) partners as the same as resistance to imperialism in general. They divide the world into the US and its friends and those who, to some extent or another, oppose the US. Sometimes they characterize this as a conflict between the global North and the global South. Sometimes they refer to the imperialist antagonists collectively as “the West.”

From the perspective of the multipolarity proponents, if the countries resisting the US should neutralize US domination and that of its allies, then the world will become peaceful and harmonious. In their view, it is not capitalism that obstructs enduring peace, but US imperial aspirations alone. Accordingly, in the idealized future, multiple friendly, cooperative states (poles) will engage in peaceful, equitable economic transactions that all agree will be mutually advantageous — what Chinese leaders call “win-win.” If this isn’t achieved immediately, it will soon follow. Is not socialism down the road?

The reality is that as important as resisting US domination and aggression surely is, its decline or defeat will not put an end to imperialism, as long as monopoly capitalism continues to exist.

In the history of modern-era imperialism, the decline of every dominating great capitalist power has spawned the rise of another. As one power recedes, others step up and contest for global dominance — that is the fundamental logic of imperialism. And, all too often, war ensues.

• CLASS: Glaringly absent from the theory of multipolarity is the concept of class. Advocates of a multipolar world fail to explain how class relations– specifically the interests of the working class– are advanced with the existence of multiple capitalist poles. Halas tells us that the “BRICS+ is a coalition with a concrete class character rooted in the global South” but he doesn’t tell us what that “concrete class character” is. This is a critical question and a significant problem, given that Halas concedes that “most BRICS+ nations are capitalist”! Of the original BRICS members, capitalism is unquestionably the dominant economic system in Russia, India, South Africa, and Brazil. Of the candidate members scheduled for entry in 2024– Argentina (likely a withdrawal), Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates– all are capitalist. The idea that working class interests will be served, and socialism advanced by this group seems far-fetched.

• CLASS CONFLICT: Class struggle — the motor of the struggle for workers’ advances, workers’ power, and socialism — has been stifled by the governments of nearly all the BRICS and BRICS+ countries. In Iran, for example, Communism is illegal and Communists have been executed in large numbers. Communism is likewise illegal in Saudi Arabia. Modi has conducted class war against India’s farmers. South Africa’s working class has seen unemployment and poverty rise under the disappointing government. Egyptian workers labor under a brutal military government. How does their entry into BRICS promise socialism?

• GLOBAL NORTH/GLOBAL SOUTH: Halas and the “multipolaristas” would have it that the “contradiction” informing multipolarity is the clash between the “global north” and the “global south” or, paradoxically, the “West” and the rest of the world. Apart from the fact that the geographical division captures little—other than the imagination of social-media leftists– it gives the impression that Australia and New Zealand have something in common with impoverished Burundi. Or that Serbia and Germany are Western partners in exploiting small African countries. There is, of course, a division between wealthy countries and poor countries, between exploiters and exploited. Historically, the sharpest fault lines have been defined by colonialism and its successor, neo-colonialism. But the imperialist cards are shuffled from time to time due to resource inequities, uneven development, or other gained advantages. For example, the Arabian Peninsula was once a dominated colony of the Ottoman empire. That empire’s dissolution and subsequent developments led to an emergent Saudi Arabia infused with resource wealth and high up on the imperialist hierarchy. Today, India has three of the top 20 corporations in Asia by market value, larger than all Japanese corporations except for Toyota. India’s Tata Group has a market capitalization of over $380 billion, with its tentacles spread to 100 countries. The June 28 UK Morning Star editorial informs us: “Tata Steel’s threat to shut the blast furnaces at Port Talbot three months earlier if Unite goes ahead with strike action is blackmail. The India-based multinational does not believe steelworkers should have a say in the plant’s future… It’s outrageous that the future of British steelmaking should be at the whim of a billionaire on a different continent.”

• DECOUPLING: Halas suggests that BRICS+ offers an opportunity for countries to break out of the capitalist international financial structures imposed after World War II and the dominance of the dollar in global transactions. Such an option may exist in the future, but clearly it is intended as an option and not a substitute for existing structures and exchange instruments. As recently as late June of this year, PRC Premier Li Qiang said that “We should broadly open our minds, work closely together, abandon camp formations, (and) oppose decoupling…” [my emphasis] It is clear that the picture of global country-to-country relations– as envisioned by Peoples’ China’s second most prominent leader, Li, at the “Summer” Davos– offers no challenge to existing financial arrangements or to the dominance of the dollar. The antagonistic conflict between the old order and the new multipolar order is more a fantasy in the minds of some on the left than a real policy goal of the leading country in BRICS.

• ANTI-IMPERIALISM: Halas would like us to believe that twentieth-century anti-imperialism is multipolarity embodied in BRICS. He cites the UN votes on Palestinian status and oppression (predictably vetoed by the US) as an example of “global south” anti-imperialism. While symbolic and not without significance, it is hardly the principled anti-imperialist action we came to know in earlier times. It is worth reminding that Saudi Arabia was on the verge of abandoning Palestine for better relations with Israel before October 7. Egypt has long sold out the cause of Palestine, as has much of the Arab world. According to Al Jazeera, India is currently selling military supplies to Israel. Virtue-signaling at UN forums is not a substitute for concrete, material solidarity.

• CHINA: This is not the place for debating whether the Peoples’ Republic of China is a socialist country, a favorite parlor game of the Euro-US left. However, it is worth stating that — as the only self-acclaimed socialist country currently in BRICS — the PRC does not claim to be advocating, encouraging, or materially aiding the struggle for socialism outside of China. Unlike the former Soviet Union, the PRC does not prioritize or privilege investment or material support for countries embarking on the socialist path. The word “socialism” is largely absent from its foreign policy statements. While the Chinese leadership defends its outlook as “socialism with Chinese characters,” it does not demonstrably support “socialism with anybody else’s national characters.” Yet, some on the left see multipolarity and a largely capitalist BRICS as a road to socialism for the rest of us?

• WE HAVE SEEN THIS BEFORE: In the 1960s, it was common for the left in Europe and the US to lose hope in the revolutionary potential of the working classes. Where working-class movements in Europe aligned with Communist Parties, they fully committed to a gradualist, parliamentary road to socialism. An anti-Communist New Left proposed a different vehicle of revolutionary change: The Third World. In the common parlance of the time, the Third World was the newly emergent, former colonies that were neither in the US camp nor the Soviet camp. Per this view, revolutionary change (and ultimately) socialism would grow from the independent road chosen by the leaders of these emergent nations. But instead, they were overwhelmed by the neo-colonialism of the great capitalist powers and absorbed by the global capitalist market, with few exceptions.

• AND EVEN EARLIER: Karl Kautsky, the major theoretician of the Socialist International, anticipated multipolarity in 1914, introducing a concept that he called “ultra-imperialism.” Kautsky believed that great power imperialism and war had no future. The imperialist system would, of necessity, stabilize and, due to declining capital exports, “Imperialism is thus digging its own grave… [T]he policy of imperialism therefore cannot be continued much longer.” For Kautsky, a stage of “concentration” of capitalist states, comparable to cartelization of corporations, will lead to inter-imperialist harmony. Lenin rejected this theory out of hand. For a discussion, go here.

Imperialism is not a stable system. Capitalist participants are always seeking a competitive advantage against their rivals. Sometimes they find it useful or necessary to form (often temporary) coalitions or alliances with others in order to protect or advance their interests. One such alliance was forged by the US after the Second World War in opposition to the socialist bloc and the national liberation movements.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US sought to keep existing coalitions intact by selecting or devising new enemies– the war on drugs, the war against terrorism, and wars of humanitarian intervention. Beneath these political ties existed a US established and dominated global economic structure privileging the US, but deemed necessary to protect the capitalist system.

This politico-economic framework served capitalism well, until the great economic crash of 2007-2009 and the ensuing cracks and fractures in the framework. The turmoil unleashed by the crisis dampened the pace of growth in international trade and accelerated the competition for markets. Further challenging the US-centered framework was the ability of People’s China to navigate the crisis rather painlessly. Where the US ruling class formerly saw the PRC as an opportunity, it began to see China as a rival in the imperialist system.

The post-Soviet global market — cemented by the so-called “globalization” process — began to unravel in the wake of twentieth-century economic instability, especially the 2007-2009 crash. Rather than defend existing free-trade dogma, capitalist countries were drawn to protectionism and economic nationalism. Beginning in the Trump Administration and accelerating during the Biden Administration, the US waged a tariff-and-sanctions war against economic competitors. US dominance of international financial institutions and the nearly universal dependence upon the US dollar gave US leaders even more weapons in this competition.

The US “pivot” to China in its defense posture and its growing hostility to Russia were reflections of its losing ground to the PRC’s growing economic might and Russia’s dominance of Eurasian energy markets.

Understandably, in this new era of economic nationalism, Russia, China, the leading power on the subcontinent, India, Africa’s top economic power, South Africa, and the largest economy in Latin America, Brazil, would look to counter aggressive US and EU competition. The era of mutual cooperation was ending, and the era of intense rivalry and national self-interest was emerging. It was in this environment that BRICS was born.

It was a capitalist response to a capitalist problem, not a path to socialism.

The main task for Communists and progressives is not to take sides, but to fight to ensure that these fractures and frictions do not explode into war.

Greg Godels writes on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. Read other articles by Greg, or visit Greg's website.

 

Liberals Create Yet another “Support Israel’s Crimes” Position

by Yves Engler / July 13th, 2024

A genocidal Jewish supremacist political culture rewards, well, a genocidal Jewish supremacist. That explains Anthony Housefather’s recent appointment as Special Adviser on Jewish Community Relations and Antisemitism.

On Friday Justin Trudeau rewarded his most openly hostile caucus member with the newly created position. This gives Housefather a bigger platform to promote Israel’s holocaust in Gaza.

A longstanding advocate of apartheid, Housefather has spent the past nine months working assiduously to expand Canadian assistance to Israel’s bloodletting, which has led to 50,000 killed, 100,000 injured and the destruction of most buildings, water sources and agricultural land in Gaza.

Housefather has repeatedly smeared protesters as antisemitic and clamoured for the violent suppression of students protesting Israel’s genocide. In late November, Housefather made a solidarity trip to Israel where he met former Israeli military leaders and other officials. Previously Housefather met a Knesset member from Itamar Ben Gvir’s far right party Simcha Rothman and boasted about the Trudeau government’s voting record at the United Nations being more anti-Palestinian than Stephen Harper’s.

After Canada voted with most of the world for a ceasefire at the United Nations in December, Housefather repeatedly condemned his own government to the media. A month earlier, the Montréal MP also criticized Trudeau for his statement opposing the killing of babies. At the time CBC’s At Issue panel reported that Liberal MPs (presumably Housefather) had privately threatened to quit the party if Trudeau called for a ceasefire.

After a March 18 parliamentary vote that represented a small step towards lessening Canada’s complicity in Israel’s genocide, Housefather’s threat was formalized. In a rare form of public dissent, Housefather said he was considering quitting the Liberal caucus because of the vote and his party’s MPs applauding NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson who introduced the motion. He created a media spectacle for a week, concluding it with a column in the National Post about being a proud “Zionist”.

If another MP attempted a similar move on most any other issue they would have been expelled from the Liberal caucus. Instead, the rogue genocidal Jewish supremacist is rewarded.

At the end of January, Housefather was made Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and then parlayed his threat to leave the party over his “hurt” feelings into the appointment as Special Envoy to Promote Israel’s holocaust in Gaza.

Housefather’s appointment further confirms what I argued in a 2016 article that led to efforts to cancel my ability to speak publicly. I wrote, “‘Anti-Semitism’ may be the most abused term in Canada today. Almost entirely divorced from its dictionary definition — “discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jews” — it is now primarily invoked to uphold Jewish and white privilege… Without an intervention of some sort, the Jewish community risks having future dictionaries defining “antisemitism” as “a movement for justice and equality.”

Since that time the antisemitism apparatus has grown significantly.

As Special Adviser on Jewish Community Relations and Antisemitism, Housefather will work with Trudeau’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism Deborah Lyons (who hosted a pizza party for Canadians fighting in Israeli military while ambassador). They’ll seek to enforce the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s anti Palestinian definition of antisemitism, which the Liberals adopted and have made all Canadian Heritage grantees adhere to. They’ll work with the publicly funded Holocaust museums and monuments, which use Nazi crimes to enable Israel’s holocaust in Gaza today.

They’ll probably also coordinate with the University of Ottawa’s Special Advisor on Antisemitism and a host of other similar new ventures, such as Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, campaigning in support of Israel’s horrors in Gaza.

History will not judge the antisemitism industry kindly. Claiming oppression to justify apartheid and genocide is odious and honest people know it.

Image credit: Al Jazeera.

Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest book is Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People's History of the Canadian Military . Read other articles by Yves.

Trendy Appointments: Australia’s Special Antisemitism Envoy

by Binoy Kampmark / July 9th, 2024

Was there any need for this?  Australia’s Albanese government, harried by the conservative opposition for going soft on pro-Palestinian protests and the war in Gaza while allegedly wobbling on supporting Israel, has decided to bring a touch of bureaucracy to the show.  Australia now has its first antisemitism envoy, a title that sits in that odd constellation of deceptive names that can be misread for darkly comic effect.  We see them often: the professor of homelessness who might be confused for encouraging it, or a researcher in genocide studies who might be misunderstood for being a practitioner.

When a government is in trouble, new committees are born, officials appointed, and fresh positions created.  An essential lesson in governing is to give the impression of governing, however badly, or ineffectually, it might prove to be.  Best to also badge the effort with some lexical trendiness, ever important for the shortsighted and easily distracted.

On this occasion, “social cohesion” is the ephemeral term that saddles the enterprise.  In the words of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, “There is no place for violence, hatred or discrimination of any kind in Australia.”  As part of the government’s efforts “to promote social cohesion, we have appointed Jillian Segal AO as Special Envoy to combat Antisemitism.”

In a press release, the PM turns social worker and community healer – all in the name of social cohesion, a vapid term which, read a different way, can be construed as not rocking the boat, or upsetting any applecarts.  Call it tolerable muzzling, or permissible dissent.  “Australians are deeply concerned about this conflict, and many are hurting.  In times like this, Australians must come together, not be torn apart.” Having “built our nation’s social cohesion together over generations [Australians] must work together to uphold, defend and preserve it.”

Albanese explains that the appointment of a special office with a singular purpose is nonetheless intended to reflect a universal aspiration.  “Every Australian, no matter their race or religion, should be able to feel safe and at home in any community, without prejudice or discrimination.”  A noble sentiment.  Then, the throwaway line, the gentle flick: “We have advocated for a two-state solution on the world stage, at the United Nations.”

Duly stated, Albanese goes on to speak of the specialised role of Segal, who “will listen and engage with Jewish Australians, the wider Australian community, religious discrimination experts and all levels of government on the most effective way to combat Antisemitism.”  She will keep company with “other Special Envoys to combat Antisemitism” in attending the World Jewish Congress to be held in Argentina next week.

The new appointee conveyed the gravity of her appointment.  “Antisemitism is an age-old hatred,” Segal explained.  “It has the capacity to lie dormant through good times and then in times of crisis like pandemic, which we’ve experienced, economic downturn, war, it awakens, it triggers the very worst instincts in an individual to fear, to blame others for life’s misfortunes and to hate.”  Listening to such comments conveys a hermetic impression, one which resists explication on cause and effect.  They serve to cauterise the grotesquery of war and obscure the fury it engenders in those who respond.

In what is becoming a force of habit, Albanese’s announcement had the scouring effect on the very cohesion he was praising.  While also announcing that a Special Envoy for Islamophobia was in the works, with details to “be announced shortly”, the impression was unmistakable:  the concerns and fears of one group had been chronologically privileged and elevated in the pantheon of policy.

The response from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) expressed that very sentiment.  The move of appointing “a taxpayer-funded special envoy on antisemitism” was “particularly concerning as it singles out antisemitism for special government investment and attention, while failing to address the increasingly frequent and severe forms of racism experienced by Palestinians, Muslims, First Nations people and other marginalised communities.”

APAN President Nasser Mashni expanded on the theme: “This seems to be yet another example of the Australian Government pandering to pro-Israel groups, and pitting parts of the Jewish community against the Palestinian Muslim communities – and against each other – rather than working to realise equal right and justice for all.”  Not too socially cohesive, then.

The organisation also worried that the creation of a dedicated office to combat one form of religious and ethnic prejudice was at odds with current work to combat “existing systemic approaches to anti-racism” being undertaken by the Australian Human Rights Commission’s recently appointed Race Discrimination Commissioner.

To show that such concerns were not confined to non-Jewish voices, Sarah Schwartz of the Jewish Council of Australia’s executive office saw the appointment as needlessly provocative.  “We are concerned that an anti-Semitism envoy in Australia … will increase racism and division by pitting Jewish communities against Palestinian, Muslim and other racialised communities.”

While Segal’s appointment has already disturbed the policy waters, the looming question is what tangible effect it will have.  Having now named an official for the specific task of combating a phenomenon time immemorial, the assumption is that it can be drawn out and struck down in isolation.

This raises a host of concerns.  At what point, for instance, does criticism of Israel’s particularly brutal Gaza campaign veer into the fetid swamps of antisemitic indulgence?  Will pro-Palestinian protestors, activists and advocates have reason to fear even greater scrutiny, in public fora or the universities?  The latter question has already interested the opposition for some months, hungry for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into claims of antisemitism on Australian university campuses.

In this case, the government may well have inflated a specific problem by creating an office to combat it.  Well-wishers will say that this is necessary to combat a monstrous blight that, if not addressed, infects the polity.  But those left out in the naming game of social cohesion are already gnashing their teeth and demanding their own representatives.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.