Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Maduro Apologizes to the Community Councils

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, October 29, 2018

Maduro Apologizes to the Community Councils – Is This the Real Thing?

Click here to access article by Bruce Lerro from Planning Beyond Capitalism.

Because he asks a very significant question--"is this the real thing?", I am posting this brief article on the above website which is based on a longer report posted on Venezuelanalysis.

I was dismayed following my two week visit to Venezuela in 2005 by what I saw there which has been confirmed by subsequent events. It seems that leaders, how ever radical they are to begin with, cannot get over the allure of power that all leaders since recorded history (the last roughly 2% of the 200,000 years of human existence) are drawn to. Hugo Chavez talked a lot about the community councils as a revolutionary core of the Bolivarian Revolution but he went on to simply use them as his political power base. Having said that, I admit that it's not for me to judge any revolutionary struggle because I don't know all of the powerful forces they confront which are usually backed by the all-powerful US Empire.