[Peace-discuss] Chavez and the devil…

[Morton K. Brussel]

A commentary of Chavez' speech at the UN by Michael Albert.  --mkb

Here is another ZNet Update, this time assessing the recent Chavez UN  
Speech and its aftermath. We hope you will regularly visit the site -  
www.zmag.org/weluser.htm - and also consider becoming a ZNet supporter.

Here is the essay about the recent events...

--

Chavez, the Devil, Chomsky, and Us
By Michael Albert

What can leftists learn from Chavez’s UN speech and its aftermath?  
That the U.S. is the world’s most egregious rogue state. We already  
knew that and, in fact, so does most everyone else. That Bush and Co.  
engage in repeated acts of amoral, immoral, and antimoral behavior  
such as a devil would enact, if there was such a thing as a devil. We  
already knew that too. That the emperor has no morality, integrity,  
wisdom, or humanity. We knew that as well.

So is there anything in the episode for us? I think there may be.

I suspect many leftists would have been happier had Chavez torn into  
Bush and U.S. institutions by offering more evidence while employing  
a less religious spin. Perhaps Chavez could have called Bush Mr. War,  
or Mr. Danger as he has in the past, and piled on evidence to show  
how U.S. policies in the world, and grotesque domestic imbalances as  
well, obstruct desirable income distribution, democratic decision  
making, and mutual interpersonal and intercommunity respect. Chavez  
might have given evidence how U.S. elites and key institutions impede  
living and loving and even survival, from Latin America to Asia and  
back. He might have said that George W. Bush, as the current master  
purveyor of the most recent violations by the U.S., is, in effect,  
doing the work of a devil – because he is the spawn of a devilish  
system. And I suspect many leftists would have probably been happier  
had Chavez added chapter and verse evidence for his assertions,  
though I suspect time limits precluded that.

But, hey, we can’t always get exactly what we want. And more, the  
dramatic “smelling of sulfur formulation” that Chavez used may have  
been exactly what got the sentiment in any form at all in front of  
millions of readers and viewers. The pundits wanted to use Chavez’s  
words to discredit him – but, in doing so, they put his claim before  
hundreds of millions of people. Perhaps without the dramatic  
formulation, we would have heard nearly nothing.

My guess is that Chavez treated the event as he does pretty much all  
his encounters. He said what he thought. He gave it a passionate,  
aesthetic, and humorous edge. He calculated that forthrightness would  
accomplish more than it cost. Content-wise, the speech was typical  
Chavez, even if most hadn’t heard him saying such things before, due  
to having not heard him say anything before. Here is Chavez  
commenting on Bush last March, for example, in a televised Venezuelan  
address: "You are an ignoramus, you are a burro, Mr. Danger ... or to  
say it to you in my bad English, you are a donkey, Mr. Danger. You  
are a donkey, Mr. George W. Bush. You are a coward, a killer, a  
genocider, an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr.  
Danger. You are the worst, Mr. Danger. The worst of this planet."

The cost of Chavez’s more recent and far more global forthrightness  
about Bush is dismissal of Chavez as a crazy lunatic by many people  
who already felt that way but were restrained in saying so, and by  
some people swayed by media ridicule of him, who had had no prior  
opinion.

The gain of Chavez’s more recent and far more global forthrightness  
about Bush is establishing that one can say the truth about the U.S.  
and less importantly about George Bush, and showing that doing so is  
in accord not only with truth but also with integrity. It is  
providing an example for others to be inspired by and act on. What is  
poison in elite eyes can be vitamins for us, and vice versa.

In that respect, what Chavez did reminds me a little of what Abbie  
Hoffman and some others did in the U.S. to the House UnAmerican  
Activities Committee, known more familiarly as HUAC, decades ago.  
Abbie and some others aggressively and dismissively ridiculed HUAC as  
beneath contempt and unworthy of respect. They laughed at obeying it  
and via their dramatic stance they moved the prevalent attitude  
toward HUAC from being primarily fear and trembling to being  
primarily disdain and dissent. Chavez tried something similar, I  
think. He voiced what others, even others in the room at the UN, also  
knew but kept quiet about. He hoped, I assume, that others would take  
strength and begin to voice their needs and insights too.

Bush is a vengeful, greedy, violent, but even more so, obedient thug.  
Yes, obedient, as in Bush obeys the dictates of the system he has  
climbed and now administers for the rich and powerful. Bush perfectly  
exemplifies the adage that in capitalism “garbage rises.” My guess is  
that Chavez felt that the benefits of standing up to the U.S. and its  
most elite garbage outweighs the costs of seeming to many people to  
be an extremist from Mars. So was Chavez right? Did the benefits  
outweigh the debits?

My country, the United States, exists beneath a blanket of  
disorienting and misleading media madness. It endures a climate of  
paralyzing and pervasive fear. It encompasses a deeply inculcated  
hopelessness born of educational and cultural institutions that snuff  
out communication of dissenting beliefs elevating instead pap and  
pablum. It suffers a life-draining anti-sociality produced by markets  
that reward callousness and punish solidarity. Garbage rises in the  
U.S. because nice guys finish last. And amidst all this, for anyone  
to tell the full truth, and even more so for anyone to display the  
appropriate levels of passionate anger that the full truth warrants,  
makes that person appear to be Martian, appear to be psychotic,  
appear to be irrelevant, and Chavez wants to reverse that context.

Did Chavez fall short of what could be accomplished on that score  
with one speech? I am not at all sure he did. But if he did, if the  
price of Chavez’s speech in delegitimating his own credibility in  
certain circles was greater than the gain in delegitimating greed and  
violence and in freeing people in very different circles from blind  
and uncritical obedience and fear, whose fault would that be?

Should we blame the one messenger who spoke up? Or should we blame  
the millions of messengers who know the same substance as Chavez, but  
hold their tongues?

There is a world class bully, Bush. He represents a class of rich and  
powerful “masters of the universe.” He administers their system of  
gross inequality. He expands the competitive market hostility they  
thrive on. He fosters the mental passivity they rely on. He abets the  
lifelong coercion they utilize. He epitomizes the ubiquitous  
crassness and commercialism they profit off. He lies to shield their  
true purposes. He throws bombs far and wide to defend and enlarge  
their empire. Of course irritating the bully and the system he shills  
for can unleash nasty behavior. Of course, for a time, in the ensuing  
onslaught, verbally assaulting the bully can diminish the dissident’s  
credibility, at least in some circles. It might even boost the bully  
a bit, in some quarters.

Likewise, when there is a climate of subservient obedience to a  
bully, as we now endure in the U.S., when the bully’s climate people  
feel that to tell the truth about him and his system is uncivil, and  
when the bully’s climate overwhelmingly castigates honesty and  
ridicules passion, then of course being passionately honest will be  
castigated and ridiculed and at least in part make the truth teller  
look deviant.

So, if that’s the risk, what is the solution? Should we forego truth  
telling? Or should we tell more truth? Should we coddle our likely  
enemies. Or should we organize and empower our likely friends?

Chavez needs allies, but not ones who say, hey, Chavez is an okay  
guy, even if a little over the top. Chavez needs allies who stand up  
to imperialism and injustice in all its forms be counted like him,  
even right up over the top, but allies who also bring to Chavez  
criticisms and ideas that run contrary to his own thinking and doing.  
Chavez embracing Admadinenjad was bad news. His suggestions, in other  
contexts, that the Venezuelan constitution be amended to allow him to  
rule longer are bad news. Truth to him, too. But at that UN Chavez  
wasn’t talking mainly to the people sitting in front of him in the UN  
with his speech. He was talking to people throughout the U.S. and  
throughout the world, saying, in essence, it is okay to rebel. And it  
is okay. And we ought to do it.

So that was one lesson. When you revile elites your effectiveness  
depends less on your particular words than on how many other people  
are willing to do as much or more than you. Chavez thinks in terms of  
winning massive change. Most people on the left think in terms of  
holding off calamities. The contrast is stark and at the heart of the  
recent incidents. We can learn from his attitude, I think.

Chavez waved around Chomsky’s book, Hegemony or Survival. I think  
there are lessons in that, too, even for us, even though we already  
know Chomsky’s work. First off, a person, even one that has great  
social advantages, can humbly aid others. You can get up and say to  
others, hey, this book, video, set of ideas, or organization is  
worthy of your time. You can use whatever avenues exist for you,  
whether it be access to your family or friends, or to your  
schoolmates or workmates, or to your local media, or even to larger  
mass media, or even to the whole world, to reach out with advice and  
pointers that you think are worthy. And you should do that. We all  
should do that. But we generally don’t. I suspect we are embarrassed  
to do it. Chavez probably wouldn’t even comprehend that. Just as he  
had reviled Bush before, he had celebrated Chomsky before too, over  
and over, with little effect. This guy Chavez tries and tries again.  
He loses, he loses, he loses, he wins.

I would guess that Chavez didn’t think to himself, they will revile  
me in their columns and commentaries, so I better not rip into Bush  
and celebrate Chomsky. The ensuing ridicule might reduce my stature,  
I better avoid it. To rip Bush and celebrate Chomsky will look  
strange, I better avoid it. If I do that I will be giving time to  
elevating someone else, and not myself, and I better avoid it. I will  
be displaying anger and passion, and that will brand me as uncivil  
and improper, it will label me as undignified and even juvenile, and  
I better avoid it. How many of us think like that, how often, is a  
question worth considering.

Instead, I suspect Chavez thought, Chomsky’s work deserves and needs  
to be more widely addressed. It affected me. It needs to affect  
others. I will try to push it into people’s awareness using all the  
means at my disposal to do so, which, indeed, he has been doing,  
though with much less success, for some time now. Of course, we can’t  
all push an author, a book, an organization, or an idea, and have it  
jump into international, domestic, or local prominence, whether on  
our first, fifth, or tenth try. We are not all heads of a dynamic  
country. We don’t all have a giant stage, or often even a large  
stage, or even any stage at all, from which to sing our songs. But we  
can still do our part, wherever we may be. And the fact is, we who  
know so much often don’t do our part. We often don’t point out  
sources of ideas and discuss them with our workmates, schoolmates,  
and families at every opportunity. If we have audiences for our work,  
again we don’t use our writing, talks, and other products to promote  
valuable work by others beyond ourselves. Why is that? Sometimes we  
are afraid of reprisals. Sometimes we are afraid of looking silly.  
Sometimes we just don’t want to do it because it isn’t our thing.  
Cheerleading and recommending, that’s not my thing. I doubt it will  
work. I won’t bother trying. Then our foretelling of failure is  
fulfilled. Well, we need to get over all that.

Again, I think the difference between Chavez and most others even on  
the left is that Chavez is seeking to win, and we are instead  
seeking, as often as not, to avoid alienating pundits or to even  
appeal to them. We are seeking to avoid annoying anyone we like, or  
anyone we might like, or who might like us. We are seeking to avoid  
looking odd to anyone, or to avoid making a mistake, or to avoid  
seeming shrill and angry, or self serving, or passionate. And we need  
to transcend all that.

I think what made Chavez seem so peculiar to so many people is that  
what he did was, in fact, incredibly peculiar. To stand up to the  
classist, racist, sexist, authoritarian leader of the U.S. and to  
mince no words reviling his immorality, was indeed incredibly  
peculiar. So let’s all stand up to power and privilege and take the  
stigma out of doing so. It is part of removing the smell of sulfur  
from the air.

And, at the opposite pole, Chavez celebrated and openly and  
aggressively aided an anti classist, anti racist, anti sexist, and  
anti authoritarian set of ideas and their author. And that too was  
peculiar. And we all ought to be doing that too, for lots of able  
authors and worthy ideas. Indeed, we should do it so much that  
solidaritous movement building behavior comes to be typical, rather  
than seeming Martian. We should do it so much and so openly that we  
move from telling the truth to feeling about the truth the way a  
caring and sentient soul ought to feel about it, and finally to  
acting on the truth and on our passionate feelings in accord with  
wide human interests and in pursuit of compelling and worthy aims. To  
hell with the dictates of markets and pundits alike.
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