I’m sorry. Did you just call the Bolivarian revolutionary government in Venezuela “red fascist”? I’m not sure I read you right. Could you please clarify?
Well, let’s follow Umberto Eco’s dissertation (Ur-fascism) on the 14 defining characteristics of fascism.
Cult of tradition (with strong syncretism: Chávez and Maduro proclaimed a traditional bolivarian thought. With a cult to independentist era thought. While at the same time participating in all (from Catholicism to Cuban Santeria) forms of religious rituals.
Rejection of modernism: the revolution cites and follows traditional indigenous practices. Going as far as to promote the use of plant fiber as female hygiene products as a replacement for menstruation pads. As well as the rejection of scientific communities and advanced industrial processes in favor of traditional and extractive economies (artisanal mining and others). Defunding universities and outright persecution of teachers.
Cult of action for action’s sake: there are way more examples than what can fit in here. But in 2002 Chavez fired every single worker from the state oil company PDVSA, prompting the quick collapse of oil production that never recovered. When people tried to protect themselves by accumulating US dollars, a ban was quickly established on money exchanges. Billions of dollars of infrastructure was lost and the country started the spiral that lead to 2015 humanitarian crisis and breaking all historical hyperinflation records.
Disagreement is treason: or Maduro’s version “dudar es traicion”.
Fear of difference: Chavez promoted several forms of hatred towards all sorts of groups. Mind you, calling political adversaries gay is state practice. Quite lefty isn’t it?
Appeal to a frustrated middle class: this is the only one that chavismo spun with originality. Instead the middle class was demonized as the source of all evil and the appeal was a populist appeal towards the impoverished. Never mind they are still just as or even poorer than they were before chavismo.
Obsession with a plot: I don’t need to say much here as chavista paranoia was well justified, perhaps, but also ever present in the figure of the north American empire. Even when the plot was all fantasy.
Enemies are simultaneously too strong and too weak: no need to say much, just watch any state communication and figure it out yourself. Also, the oligarchs are in power and impoverished the people, while all the big corporations are in the hands of chavista puppets after two decades of expropriation.
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy: patria, socialismo o muerte. Life is warfare, every civilian is a combatant, perfect military-civilian fusion. Have been motos for two decades.
Comtempt for the weak: chavismo substitutes this with patronizing the weak in order to make the usual Marxists quotes not out of place. But it is comtempt all right.
Everybody is educated to be a hero: back to every civilian is a combatant fighting the imperialist threat. Chavismo also intervened all education to include ideological training and personality cults towards the traditional figures of the revolution.
Machismo: the regime in power organizes feminists rallies, while simultaneously rejecting any law that brings advancement of women’s rights and restraining funding to implement the few that do exist.
Selective populism: el pueblo as a concept that is entirely in the hands of the powerful elite.
Newspeak: just listen to anything granko says when defending chavismo.
This, along with over a 1000 political prisoners, 33 thousand or more dead in political rallies, armed groups of colectivos acting as shock forces against political dissidents, 3 thousand verified victims of torture, and a long list of etceteras. I don’t know man. It awfully sounds like fascism to me.
Let me start off by saying your comment so clearly demonstrates your ingrained Euro white supremacy, regardless of where you’re from, that it’s clear you haven’t done any work on examining where your beliefs come from and how you’re actively propagating the harm of white supremacy and fascism in the world. Now, let’s get into ripping this bullshit to shreds.
Cult of tradition
Obvious white supremacy number 1. The return to tradition by the colonized in a settler colonial context is anti-fascism. The return to tradition in a settler colonial context by the colonizer is fascism. The return to tradition by the European fascists is well documented both on the continent and in their colonies. You are committing the fallacy of false equivalency wherein you are claiming murder is wrong whether the master kills the slave or the slave kills the master. No. Just no.
Rejection of modernism
Obvious white supremacy number 2.
Modernism in the settler colonial context is a fascist collaborator. It destroys all historical significance of the colonized. It eliminates their entire culture, their art, their ways of living, their empiricism, their spirituality, their mental health systems, their family systems. Modernism says that the state can raise children better than colonized indigenous families can. Modernism says we don’t need midwives we have doctors. Modernism says “this icepick allows me to lobotomize your wife so she becomes totally docile and it won’t scar her pretty face”. Modernism says “well, based on evolutionary theory, we should be able to just sterilize the savages and then the gene pool will get better”. Fuck yes the revolutionary decolonial project is going to reject modernism. That’s anti-fascist.
Disagreement is treason
Let’s just take Machado as an example. She was in a meeting with US oil executives pleading with them to convince the US to invade Venezuela and in exchange she offered them hundreds of billions in oil contracts. That. Is. Treason. Working with the US military is treason. There are LOTS of people working with the US military on the ground in Venezuela, which takes me to
Obsession with a plot
You credulous buffoon. Official US State Department documentation shows that the US has been heavily involved in regime change operations in Venezuela since 2002. 24 years. Fantasy my fucking ass.
Fear of difference
Obvious white supremacy number 3. Do you have any idea how much white supremacy shapes the psyche in South America. Are you aware of the paper bag test, the one drop rule, the misogyny, and the other cultural inheritances of the brutal colonization of the continent? When Chavez became the first indigenous president of Venezuela, that was literally the embracing of difference. When he organized the indigenous peoples of Venezuela to participate in governance alongside the descendants of white colonizers and the descendants of kidnapped African slaves, that was literally embracing difference. Fear of difference is when white Venezuelans complain that Chavez diminished their state by elevating “unqualified” black and indigenous people. For fucks sake you already showed how difference was embraced when you racistly said “While at the same time participating in all (from Catholicism to Cuban Santeria) forms of religious rituals.” Yeah, because all those religions are present in Venezuela. It’s called embracing difference. Fuck. I can’t tell if you’re just totally fucking trolling or if you’re really just totally blind to your indoctrination.
Appeal to a frustrated middle class: this is the only one that chavismo spun with originality
I love that your take away here is not the Eco’s list is actually limited in its applicability, but rather that it’s universally applicable and some people just apply spins to it. Open your fucking eyes. This is literally how fascism works in the European/Euro-colony context. The middle class was CREATED by the fascists and fascist colonizers, and as their economies falter, the middle class is going to fall the farthest. Thus, you appeal to them to get them to rally to your fascist cause as the savior of the middle class.
But in a colonized context? Appeal to the people who were colonized is almost definitionally a liberatory movement, an anti-fascist movement. This would be like you calling the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising fascist because it was an Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class with a twist in that it appealed to ghettoized Jews. Like what the fuck are you actually smoking that you think liberating the oppressed in a settler state is somehow fucking fascist. You are upside down.
Enemies are simultaneously too strong and too weak
Jesus christ. Are you serious? You have no idea what this means do you? Venezuela is very clear that the US is too strong. When Eco says “too weak”, what he means is when the enemy’s weakness is used to justify actions. Like how the US justifies sending more Ukranian’s to die because Russia is almost defeated (too weak) but also all of Europe has to spend billions more on defense because Russia is going to take all of Europe (too strong). Venezuela’s behavior and rhetoric demonstrates NOTHING of the sort. Revolutionary optimism (“we will win because no matter how strong they are, we will be victorious”) is not the same thing as this item from Eco’s list. The fact that you think so means you have not seriously examined anything about fascist propaganda in history.
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy … patria, socialismo o muerte. Life is warfare, every civilian is a combatant, perfect military-civilian fusion. Have been motos for two decades.
If you think Venezuela has “perfect military-civilian fusion” then you’re living in fantasy land. Yes, it turns out that fighting fascism, especially colonial fascism, is a whole society project. Yes, it turns out that when the US is willing to arm any civilian group that is willing to take up arms for profit, that revolution is in fact a protracted people’s war. This is, again, false equivalence of the master killing the slave with the slave killing the master. When you tell colonists that life is war and that they need to be armed to fight the savages, that’s fascism. When you tell the masses that the fascists are not going to take kindly to being resisted, and that everyone needs to be ready to fight to defend the revolution, that’s anti-fascism.
Comtempt for the weak
Is this why Chavez significantly expanded public services, public healthcare, building thousands of community clinics? Because of contempt for the weak? Do you even listen to yourself think? Do you ever stop to think that maybe you’re bullshit is so lacking of substance that maybe you should stop before you embarrass yourself? Contempt for the weak is when you demolish public services and say that people should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that people who are poor have morally failed, that people who are sick and old don’t deserve public services because they’re a drain on society. That is literally the opposite of Chavismo.
Everybody is educated to be a hero … Chavismo also intervened all education to include ideological training and personality cults towards the traditional figures of the revolution.
Like Columbus and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. The Bolivarian revolution is very clear. You are not the hero of the story. The people are. There is such a big difference between saying that the people will rise up against their oppressors and saying that you, child, you will be a heroic warrior and your arc will be heroic. When everyone pulls together, collectively, that is heroic. And as for “ideological training and personality cults”, the list of basic American indoctrination I provided should suffice to show that Eco is literally talking about the US and colonial education systems. Intervening to modify the colonial education system is ANTI-FASCISM.
Machismo [bullshit about feminism]
It was literally enshrined in the fucking constitution. Far far better than literally anything any European country has done. Again, you are just so wrong it feels like you’re a deliberate propaganda troll at this point, but I’m going to chalk it up to your white supremacy instead.
Selective populism: el pueblo as a concept that is entirely in the hands of the powerful elite.
LOL - like, what do we even have to say to this. You’re delusional. Cite some sources or get the fuck out.
Newspeak: just listen to anything granko says when defending chavismo.
I’m done with you.
This, along with over a 1000 political prisoners, 33 thousand or more dead in political rallies, armed groups of colectivos acting as shock forces against political dissidents, 3 thousand verified victims of torture, and a long list of etceteras. I don’t know man. It awfully sounds like fascism to me.
Oh wait, I’m not. Go read the UN OHCHR reports. Go read the fact finding missions. Your numbers are made up. The UN reported 6000 deaths before they did fact finding. 5287 they cite with a single footnote “from official report submitted by the government”. Except Venezuela never submitted any such document and I haven’t been able to find the document the UN says they submitted. And the Venezuelan says they didn’t submit such a document. The fact finding missions have found fewer than 1000 deaths total. In the US prison system, 6000 die each year, another 1000 die in police custody.
Like so many of you white supremacist liberals, you can be summed up it one phrase:
I disagree with the great Satan, but I believe all of his lies
Do some self-crit, actually read something other than white supremacist propaganda from the fascist West, and stop being such a fucking fascist that you’re willing to tell everyone fighting fascism to stop because fighting fascism is actually fascist.
I’m sorry. Did you just call the Bolivarian revolutionary government in Venezuela “red fascist”? I’m not sure I read you right. Could you please clarify?
Well, let’s follow Umberto Eco’s dissertation (Ur-fascism) on the 14 defining characteristics of fascism.
This, along with over a 1000 political prisoners, 33 thousand or more dead in political rallies, armed groups of colectivos acting as shock forces against political dissidents, 3 thousand verified victims of torture, and a long list of etceteras. I don’t know man. It awfully sounds like fascism to me.
Jesus fucking christ. You believe this bullshit?
Let me start off by saying your comment so clearly demonstrates your ingrained Euro white supremacy, regardless of where you’re from, that it’s clear you haven’t done any work on examining where your beliefs come from and how you’re actively propagating the harm of white supremacy and fascism in the world. Now, let’s get into ripping this bullshit to shreds.
Obvious white supremacy number 1. The return to tradition by the colonized in a settler colonial context is anti-fascism. The return to tradition in a settler colonial context by the colonizer is fascism. The return to tradition by the European fascists is well documented both on the continent and in their colonies. You are committing the fallacy of false equivalency wherein you are claiming murder is wrong whether the master kills the slave or the slave kills the master. No. Just no.
Obvious white supremacy number 2.
Modernism in the settler colonial context is a fascist collaborator. It destroys all historical significance of the colonized. It eliminates their entire culture, their art, their ways of living, their empiricism, their spirituality, their mental health systems, their family systems. Modernism says that the state can raise children better than colonized indigenous families can. Modernism says we don’t need midwives we have doctors. Modernism says “this icepick allows me to lobotomize your wife so she becomes totally docile and it won’t scar her pretty face”. Modernism says “well, based on evolutionary theory, we should be able to just sterilize the savages and then the gene pool will get better”. Fuck yes the revolutionary decolonial project is going to reject modernism. That’s anti-fascist.
Let’s just take Machado as an example. She was in a meeting with US oil executives pleading with them to convince the US to invade Venezuela and in exchange she offered them hundreds of billions in oil contracts. That. Is. Treason. Working with the US military is treason. There are LOTS of people working with the US military on the ground in Venezuela, which takes me to
You credulous buffoon. Official US State Department documentation shows that the US has been heavily involved in regime change operations in Venezuela since 2002. 24 years. Fantasy my fucking ass.
Obvious white supremacy number 3. Do you have any idea how much white supremacy shapes the psyche in South America. Are you aware of the paper bag test, the one drop rule, the misogyny, and the other cultural inheritances of the brutal colonization of the continent? When Chavez became the first indigenous president of Venezuela, that was literally the embracing of difference. When he organized the indigenous peoples of Venezuela to participate in governance alongside the descendants of white colonizers and the descendants of kidnapped African slaves, that was literally embracing difference. Fear of difference is when white Venezuelans complain that Chavez diminished their state by elevating “unqualified” black and indigenous people. For fucks sake you already showed how difference was embraced when you racistly said “While at the same time participating in all (from Catholicism to Cuban Santeria) forms of religious rituals.” Yeah, because all those religions are present in Venezuela. It’s called embracing difference. Fuck. I can’t tell if you’re just totally fucking trolling or if you’re really just totally blind to your indoctrination.
I love that your take away here is not the Eco’s list is actually limited in its applicability, but rather that it’s universally applicable and some people just apply spins to it. Open your fucking eyes. This is literally how fascism works in the European/Euro-colony context. The middle class was CREATED by the fascists and fascist colonizers, and as their economies falter, the middle class is going to fall the farthest. Thus, you appeal to them to get them to rally to your fascist cause as the savior of the middle class.
But in a colonized context? Appeal to the people who were colonized is almost definitionally a liberatory movement, an anti-fascist movement. This would be like you calling the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising fascist because it was an Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class with a twist in that it appealed to ghettoized Jews. Like what the fuck are you actually smoking that you think liberating the oppressed in a settler state is somehow fucking fascist. You are upside down.
Jesus christ. Are you serious? You have no idea what this means do you? Venezuela is very clear that the US is too strong. When Eco says “too weak”, what he means is when the enemy’s weakness is used to justify actions. Like how the US justifies sending more Ukranian’s to die because Russia is almost defeated (too weak) but also all of Europe has to spend billions more on defense because Russia is going to take all of Europe (too strong). Venezuela’s behavior and rhetoric demonstrates NOTHING of the sort. Revolutionary optimism (“we will win because no matter how strong they are, we will be victorious”) is not the same thing as this item from Eco’s list. The fact that you think so means you have not seriously examined anything about fascist propaganda in history.
If you think Venezuela has “perfect military-civilian fusion” then you’re living in fantasy land. Yes, it turns out that fighting fascism, especially colonial fascism, is a whole society project. Yes, it turns out that when the US is willing to arm any civilian group that is willing to take up arms for profit, that revolution is in fact a protracted people’s war. This is, again, false equivalence of the master killing the slave with the slave killing the master. When you tell colonists that life is war and that they need to be armed to fight the savages, that’s fascism. When you tell the masses that the fascists are not going to take kindly to being resisted, and that everyone needs to be ready to fight to defend the revolution, that’s anti-fascism.
Is this why Chavez significantly expanded public services, public healthcare, building thousands of community clinics? Because of contempt for the weak? Do you even listen to yourself think? Do you ever stop to think that maybe you’re bullshit is so lacking of substance that maybe you should stop before you embarrass yourself? Contempt for the weak is when you demolish public services and say that people should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that people who are poor have morally failed, that people who are sick and old don’t deserve public services because they’re a drain on society. That is literally the opposite of Chavismo.
Like Columbus and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. The Bolivarian revolution is very clear. You are not the hero of the story. The people are. There is such a big difference between saying that the people will rise up against their oppressors and saying that you, child, you will be a heroic warrior and your arc will be heroic. When everyone pulls together, collectively, that is heroic. And as for “ideological training and personality cults”, the list of basic American indoctrination I provided should suffice to show that Eco is literally talking about the US and colonial education systems. Intervening to modify the colonial education system is ANTI-FASCISM.
It was literally enshrined in the fucking constitution. Far far better than literally anything any European country has done. Again, you are just so wrong it feels like you’re a deliberate propaganda troll at this point, but I’m going to chalk it up to your white supremacy instead.
LOL - like, what do we even have to say to this. You’re delusional. Cite some sources or get the fuck out.
I’m done with you.
Oh wait, I’m not. Go read the UN OHCHR reports. Go read the fact finding missions. Your numbers are made up. The UN reported 6000 deaths before they did fact finding. 5287 they cite with a single footnote “from official report submitted by the government”. Except Venezuela never submitted any such document and I haven’t been able to find the document the UN says they submitted. And the Venezuelan says they didn’t submit such a document. The fact finding missions have found fewer than 1000 deaths total. In the US prison system, 6000 die each year, another 1000 die in police custody.
Like so many of you white supremacist liberals, you can be summed up it one phrase:
Do some self-crit, actually read something other than white supremacist propaganda from the fascist West, and stop being such a fucking fascist that you’re willing to tell everyone fighting fascism to stop because fighting fascism is actually fascist.
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