Manuel Zelaya clarified that he is not renouncing returning to the presidency. He said that he is renouncing returning to the presidency through a US-backed accord. But what other option to returning to the presidency does he have? The people won’t overthrow the election as he seems to hope, they want the crisis to end. The accord, even though it was very unlikely gamble, had a better chance of reinstating him than his apparent plans for electoral sabotage. Why is he giving up on the accords?

I have begun to suspect that Zelaya has no ulterior motive, but is genuinely confused, and that his chief financier and strategist, Hugo Chávez, has already given up on him. Chávez is currently more interested in fabricating threats nearer to home, claiming to fear US invasion through Colombia. What would motivate Colombia to invade Venezuela? What would motivate the US to start another war?

No one will invade Venezuela, Venezuela simply isn’t a credible threat, its economy is severely dependent on that of the US. Russia has no interest in war with the US; the threat exists only in Hugo Chavez’s rhetoric. Hugo Chavez’s paranoia is enormous, but it might be false; it’s an enormously convenient cover for his failures at home. I think we are witnessing a rhetorical eclipse of the truth. I have a repulsive mental picture of an enormous tongue covering the sun, engulfing Venezuela in darkness. But the rest of the world has light.

Why won’t the left, intellectual as they are, read their history books and realize that unbridled socialism, just like unbridled capitalism, leads to corruption and disaster? The advocates of capitalism grew out of a love of freedom, and efficient use of land, labor and capital. The advocates of socialism grew out of the idea of class struggles and concern for social justice. But guess who have a better grasp of economics?

Social justice and economics need not be enemies; why can’t we have both? How can we have freedom and justice? Through work, democracies free of corruption, and education, the best way to eliminate class boundaries. Without class boundaries, there are no class struggles, and marxism has no reason to exist. We don’t need a government to permanently take care of the poor as a social class, but instead to help individuals realize their potential to escape poverty, taking their families with them.

We don’t need to attack the rich to help the poor, but to involve the rich in rescuing individual poor people, and creating workers who, through more valuable skills, will produce more valuable labor, and thus will be paid more, and will no longer be poor. Scholarships, not hand-outs. Entrepreneurship, not syndicates. The investment in even one person will benefit everyone in the long run. I am a living example.

My parents escaped poverty, in Honduras, through hard work and education. Work is not enough; millions emigrate to the US to escape poverty through hard work, but fail, because of their ignorance. In Honduras or anywhere else, hard work, education and freedom are the recipe for lasting justice and peace. They are the wiser choice over government ownership of land, labor and wealth.

But because this is not happening today, and billions of people are poor, uneducated, and worse, abandoned, third-world democracies are vulnerable. Unscrupulous leaders can rise, promising freedom for the them, but in the end removing freedom from everyone. As long as the poor are a majority this will continue to occur. Let’s lift the third world out of the hands of tyrants, one family at a time.

Beware of Boars

A foreign student from a communist country unexpectedly interrupted a college sociology lesson to ask the teacher:

“Do you know how to capture wild boars?”

The teacher suspected the student was heckling him, but decided to hear the punchline anyway.

“How would you do it?”, he replied.

“You capture wild boars finding good place in forest, and throwing corn on ground every day. Boars come daily to feed on free corn. When boars accustomed to come every day, you build fence on one side of place. They get used to fence and continue to come every day to eat. Then you build fence on other side of place. Boars get used to this and continue to come. You then build third side of fence around place with same result. The last side more difficult. You build only little bit every day, and soon boars will come through narrow opening to eat. When boars inside, you close opening with door and you have whole group.”

“Is very simple, in seconds, boars lose freedom. They run in circles, but once inside fence, they are subdued. Then they eat free corn and forget what freedom was like. Wild boars dangerous, but once captured they forget how to hunt and fight and accept slavery.”

Image by Nathan Duckworth, used with a Creative Commons license

Although I may seem very anti-socialist, I understand and denounce the many evils of capitalism. Actually, my vision of an ideal society could seem socialist.

There are two reasons why I reject socialism. One is history. No organized society has ever survived on pure socialism without becoming more tyrannical than the tyrannies that preceded them. Socialism effaces the individual. The other is greed.

Greed pervades both capitalist and socialist societies. But capitalism doesn’t try to deny greed, but uses egotistical self-interest to promote, if very weakly, some altruism. Socialism on the other hand, is based on altruism, but ignores the problem of greed, making itself blind in the process, and thus fails.

Consider this excerpt from the journal Socialist Alternative:

Is Socialism Against Human Nature?

“Wherever socialism’s been tried, it always results in a dictatorship because humans are greedy by nature.”

This is a common refrain activists hear when they raise the ideas of socialism. Marxists reject the notion that human nature is fixed or set in stone. In reality, human nature is distinguished by its variability and adaptability. For most of human history, we lived in egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies.

Capitalism pits us all against one another and brings out our competitive, selfish sides. Nonetheless, it is precisely because capitalism does not work in the interest of the vast majority of the world’s population that it compels workers to unite and fight for greater equality and ultimately a new system that will work in the interests of the majority.

A socialist society based on justice and equality – where all our basic needs are provided for, with no ruling class dividing us and pitting us against one another – will be much more conducive to cooperation and solidarity.

A socialist democracy would have nothing in common with the dictatorships in Russia and other “communist” countries (which arose for a variety of historical, economic, and political reasons, not because human nature is “inherently greedy”).

Although these Stalinist countries had elements of a planned economy, working-class people did not democratically control society. Instead, the corruption and repression by the ruling bureaucracy ultimately led to economic collapse and mass rebellion by workers and youth.

To avoid corruption, socialists believe all leaders and officials in workplaces and the government need to be elected, subject to immediate recall by their constituents, and receive the same wage and benefits of the average worker they represent. The workweek needs to be shortened so people have time to democratically participate in the running of society, and the vast gap between rich and poor needs to be eliminated.

The arguments here are very weak. The author alludes to anarchical, pre-agricultural societies to show examples of succesful socialism in mankind’s past. Also, it says capitalism brings out our “competitive, selfish sides”. But it is individuality and competitiveness that fuels innovation and motivates excellence. Even socialists compete with capitalists to prove the capitalist wrong…with often dismal results.

What do I suggest? I suggest we stop looking to the government to solve our problems, and to be revolutionaries in our love for everyone, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, religious, irreligious. That would silence our critics and bring the applause of those who really do care for the poor. This will also attract enemies, of course.

My personal hero is Jesus, who fed the poor, but was not swayed by them. He rejected those who would make him king; he came to serve, not govern. (Presidents, take notice). He was much more effective as a teacher than as an emperor. He made disciples, who made disciples, and in an exponential explosion, overwhelmed the Roman Empire. He gave his life to prove his selfless love, and remains very relevant, two thousand years later.

The more we are like him, the less necessary socialist governments become.

Image by Paco Juarez, used with a Creative Commons license.

This is exactly the kind of news that is never published in the US. The president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel D’Escoto, has declared himself as a “Sandinista soldier” when asked about his intentions after he concludes his work at the UN:

“En cuanto yo llegue, me reporto. Soy un soldado sandinista más bajo las órdenes de nuestro Comandante (Ortega)”

“As soon as I get there, I’ll report. I am one more Sandinista soldier under the orders of our Commander. (Ortega)”

His comments appeared in the Cuban communist party journal Juventud Rebelde, and were reported in none other than Telesur, an extremely biased Chavista news source from Venezuela.

The protest shown in this video took place in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez has set up an educational law to control children’s minds from infancy. No parents will have the right to educate their children against the will of the state.

The rock throwers, as usual, are those in favor of 21rst Century Socialism. Surprising? No. Chavez sent Carlos Perez Vivas, the organizer of this protest to jail, for the actions of his enemies. Rich irony, you could smelt it and get steel.

Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro both speak positively of Obama, which simply sends shivers down my spine. Are they using praise as a double sided weapon? Are they trying to legitimize themselves by supporting the US president? I don’t believe Obama is in the same league with them; is this a trick?

Both Chávez and Fidel radically alter their enemies’ images, for an imaginary enemy is easier to attack than a real one. By making their enemies ridiculous or vile, they embarrass any who would defend them. Atheists attack the Flying Spaghetti Monster instead of God, for instance. Therefore, Bush becomes the devil for Chavez, and for Fidel, Obama’s enemies are “the racist right” who “hate Obama for being an African American”.

But why do they defend him at all? Look at the way they seek to be friends with him. Are they are secretly hoping he will reject their friendship, to force the US into a more familiar place as their great enemy? I will reject the idea that Obama really is their friend, and a socialist, until I hear him say it himself. Zelaya did, when he called Capitalism “the most repugnant concept of justice harbored by human beings”. Is it a clear endorsement of socialism they seek from Obama?

Obama remains silent to Fidel and Chávez’s overtures, just as he is now silent about Honduras. Very wise, Obama, remain silent, your words are too powerful. Calladito te ves más bonito. Just look at the scandal your rash words caused with the Cambridge police. Look at the harm you did when you condemned an apparent coup even before knowing the facts. But your silence also astonishes and frightens me. Do you know more than you reveal?

Where is my compass? I hardly know the world, where are we going?

Image by Nancy L. Stockdale, used with a Creative Commons license

The Colombian Senate has passed a resolution to approve a referendum to see whether their constitution should be modified. Their goal: to allow popular president Alvaro Uribe to be reelected. At this, the opposition left the senate and boycotted the vote, which I have always held as an idiotic thing to do in a democracy. This allowed the 102-member body to pass the resolution with 56 votes in favor and two against.

This is terrible news for Latin America; it does not matter whether Uribe’s government is left or right-leaning. The “will of the people” that socialists everywhere use as their mantle, is fickle and easily swayed. The people must be protected from their government, and also from their own foolishness.

Term limits are a very wise thing to have in a constitution. An incumbent president is very hard to defeat. Should he or she be corrupt, and not above fraud to remain in power, they become almost impossible to defeat. Then the opposition is weakened, and democracy becomes a farce, as it was in the Soviet Union, and is in Cuba, and to a lesser degree, in Venezuela. Communist nations always held elections and had an active legislature; the difference was that only the ruling party was allowed to participate.

Now the supporters of Chávez and Zelaya can gleefully pounce on their opponents and call us hypocrites. Some have already begun pointing out the Wall Street Journal and Anastasia O’Grady’s silence on the issue. She has been one of the brave few journalists to publicly approve the decisions of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court in removing Manuel Zelaya.

I hope those who have defended Honduras would join me in speaking out, judiciously defending democracy even against presidents who may be worthy of reelection, to protect us from present and future autocrats unworthy of it. We must silence our critics by speaking more wisely than they do.

Image by Daniel Horacio Agostini, used with a Creative Commons license

Let’s conduct a small test: there are two sides to the reporting of yesterday’s clashes between the police and Zelaya’s supporters. Let’s see which side, if any, the international media report.

Zelaya’s side: as reported by Telesur. They interviewed a leader named Juan Barahona who called yesterday’s actions, “the most brutal repression that we have lived. They fell on us like enemies, like the oppressors of the people that they are. They took us to the police station that is in Barrio Belén. They released us at five in the afternoon because of the efforts of human rights associations and the pressure of the resistance outside.” He denounced the aggression against a teacher who was shot, and hovers between life and death. “We are fighting against the coup presided by the oligarchs, this repressive coup that has suspended the individual rights of citizens.” he said. Telesur also reported that Carlos Reyes, the presidential candidate for the “popular sector was repressed by the military forces”.

The police’s side: as reported by El Heraldo. “Orders were clear, any manifestation that affects free mobilization of people will be dissolved. Police action was motivated by acts of vandalism committed by people infiltrated among the manifestation. The road block … began at 9:00am in the El Durazno sector, with 1,500 people, composed of union members, leaders of teachers unions and members of the Bloque Popular”. When dislodged, the manifestation decided to move toward the center of the city, sacking businesses in the Belén market. “The police, who followed them, stopped them from committing these acts of vandalism, for which they recieved the applause of the neighbors of the place, saying that they were tired of a few people keeping the country in anxiety. A teacher, named Roger Vallejo was wounded in the head … 80 people were arrested and released hours later.

It is now ten years since a constituent assembly rewrote the Venezuelan constitution. Caracas Chronicles presents a fascinating analysis of what it means today, or better said, of what it doesn’t mean. This is very likely what would happened in Honduras had Zelaya been granted his project for a constituent assembly.

For instance, article 23 of the Venezuelan constitution “makes international human rights treaties constitutionally binding within Venezuela, as well as directly applicable by all Venezuelan courts.” This would make Chavez’s shutdown of Globovisión and more recently, of scores of radio stations, unconstitutional, because Venezuela is subscribed to the American Convention for Human Rights. In article 13, this convention promises that:

“the right to free expression may not be restricted via indirect means, such as the abuse of official controls on newsprint, on radio frequencies, or of inputs and goods used to broadcast information, in order to impede the free communication of ideas”

Caracas Chronicles gives other examples in which a constitutional article granting tenure only to teachers that have won public opinion contests has been subverted to mean that no one gets tenure anymore. Teachers are one thoughtcrime away from lifetime unemployment.

By all means read the article in its fullness, but here’s another nugget:

And so the little blue book came to be used as a kind of magic charm, waved around in inverse proportion to how often it was actually read, much less interpreted or – heaven forbid – applied.

In the end, reading the constitution – taking it seriously as text – is a profoundly counterrevolutionary thing to do. It can only lead to the kind of apostasy you keep finding in this blog – hell, earlier in this post, even – where an interpretative discourse is developed to compare the legal standard set out in the text to the reality instantiated day-to-day by those who wield power in Venezuela.

Image by Bernardo Londoy, used with a Creative Commons license.

Babalú Blog, in a post named “Home of the Free” has published this amazing picture, taken from website, The Real Cuba, of yesterday’s march.

The Chicago tribune, in contrast, reported protests IN FAVOR of Zelaya, and with a major understatement, that “There were also large protests in the capital against the return of Zelaya.”.

Infuriatingly deliberate misleading of the public.