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Headlines : InternationalEvo Morales, Communitarian Socialism and the Regional Power Block
Heinz Dietrich, a German ex-patriate political analyst living in Venezuela, analyzes the regional political situation after Evo Morales’ election in Bolivia. While Evo’s political party MAS (Movement Towards Socialism), sounds old-school communist to the untrained ear, Dietrich explains the true grassroots, communitarian and campesino roots of the Instrument for Sovereignty of the People, which adopted MAS out of expediency.
Working within the bounds of bourgoise liberal democracy, Evo can bring new weight to Chavez’s solidarity-based integration vision in South America, and sow the seeds for true democratic and socialist change in the future.
[Posted By kallawaya]Republished from Rebelion.org
1. Evo Morales and Socialism
“Evo, what do you and the MAS understand by ‘socialism,’” I asked him, when I was invited by the Executive Committee of the Bolivian Labor Central (COB). “To live in community and equality,” he answered. “Fundamentally, in the peasant communities they have socialism. For example, if we speak of land. I come from the ayllu of the Department of Oruro. Clearly, where I live at this moment, in the East in Chapare, there are no ayllus. It is individual parceling, and there arise very serious problems, because it leads to small holdings, which you don’t see in a peasant community where the land is communal.”
“Does the socio-economic model of the MAS resemble more that of Lula, Cuba, or Hugo Chávez?” I insisted. “I believe it is something much deeper,” he answered. “It is an economic model based on solidarity, reciprocity, community, and consensus. Because, for us, democracy is a consensus. In the community there is consensus, in the trade union there are majorities and minorities.
“Inside this official democracy of Bolivia they do not respect the thought, sentiments, and the sufferings of the national majorities. And within this framework we are seeking a communitarian socialism based on…
Posted by kallawaya
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Great find! Thank you.
Here’s a jolly interview of Felipe Quispe , of whom I am quite fond – courtesy of Narco News
AND
Every body needs to have this lovely pic of toledo’s men carting antauro off to the klink …..
So inspiring….
A bourgeois, I’m not sure how many people know this, it’s such a hacked term, is, technically, someone who owns a means of production – whether a commodity (oil) or the means of adding value to it (a refinery)... the guy who just works for the bourgeois is a proletariat.
If you own real estate or mutual funds you are a bourgeois, in case you were getting ready to say “Prol and FN proud of it”.
If Hugo really said, of FARC, “we want the armed movements to pacify themselves” what he really meant was “we want the armed movements to stop having so much reason to be so pissed off…”