A CALL to Convene:

The INTERNACIONAL for Post-Capitalist Participatory Democracy and Revolution

We Propose this convention be held in Caracas mid summer of 2005.

We presume that the documents presented by MER at mer130.tripod.com and real-left.tripod.com are the basis of the radicla tendency in this movement>

We want to hear all voices and look forward to improving ouor program.

Thank you - Read and Rock on!

One day, in the arid region of northeastern Brazil, one of the most famine-stricken parts of the world, I (Clodovis) met a bishop going into his house; he was shaking. "Bishop, what's the matter?" I asked. He replied that he had just seen a terrible sight: in front of the cathedral was a woman with three small children and a baby clinging to her neck. He saw that they were fainting from hunger. The baby seemed to be dead. He said: "Give the baby some milk, woman!" "I can't, my lord," she answered. The bishop went on insisting that she should, and she that she could not. Finally, because of his insistence, she opened her blouse. Her breast was bleeding; the baby sucked violently at it. And sucked blood. The mother who had given it life was feeding it, like the pelican, with her own blood, her own life. The bishop knelt down in front of the woman, placed his hand on the baby's head, and there and then vowed that as long as such hunger existed, he would feed at least one hungry child each day.

-- From Introducing Liberation Theology

http://www.landreform.org/reading0.htm

The 5-Part Series: Lessons Learned:



From The Failure of Politics and Vision in North America

To the Steady Victories of the Social Movements in South America,

by Mundo de Escuelas Revolucionarias (MER)



Part I. :



U.S.A. George W Bush’s Eternal Triumph

or The Andes to the Rescue of the World



By Jason Martin

CONTACT: c o n t a c t Jasonmartin7@lycos.com



“American imperialism has been in the works ever since Franklin Roosevelt encountered Winston Churchill a long time ago. Roosevelt concluded that he didn’t like the British Empire but that the world needed something like it so long as we held the reins... Nothing was more convenient for us than Fidel Castro. Instead of saying we were supporting the United Fruit Company in Guatemala, we could contend that we were protecting these poor Guatemalans from the menace of Soviet influence and the influence of Fidel Castro. The Reagan administration gave Central America its worst decade since the Spanish conquest. It’s a travesty what we did to places like El Salvador and Guatemala. And it worries me today that John Negroponte has been appointed ambassador to Iraq. He was the ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, when Honduras was the largest single CIA station on earth, carrying out counterrevolutionary attacks against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He should be answering charges of war crimes carried out by the Reagan administration.”

-- Chalmers Johnson; http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/cj_int/cj_int2.html



National and global social movements need to embrace a practical and focused goal of accumulating power in order to takeover governments. Conventional politics and left-thinking in the USA are dead.



We can all have our personalized utopian goals - and they are pretty much all the same - but goals are not tactics or strategy and personal desires have to be delayed in the struggle for a general solution to the crises of the planet and of the human spirit. A strategy of resistance and effective tactics for the coming brutal struggles against Killer-Capitalism are what we need - not circular reasoning from shallow anarchists or the non-violence gurus with their Means-Are-the-Ends Tele-Tubbie hype.



A future of Anarchist principles?

Yes, a world of decentralized power and local autonomy is possibly 25-50 years away if people start thinking and create viable strategies now. What we face for the next 15 to 20 years is a bloody and probably futile struggle against a vicious and well-armed (weapons/propaganda) fascist regime: the USA Empire.

The USA movements for change, for Fair Trade and against Killer-Capitalism's wars and ecological destruction have to come together to oppose the USA Empire. To understand why this needs to happen and how it can be accomplished -- one must better understand the world.

It is limiting to think about the USA or national politics. It is better to not believe that the USA exists anymore. It is an empire of corporate, trade and, military alliances. This is what we fight and what must be addressed.

As President Abe Lincoln said:

"Now We are engaged in a great civil (world) war – testing whether this movement (or any movement so conceived and so dedicated) can long endure..."

Chavez and many anti-globalization / Zapatista activists call this the Fourth World War (4WW). Six hundred million capitalists against the rest of the world's 6000 million (6 billion). (1)



Cheer up, it is our great fortune that what we face is a global war – a war with and without borders, fronts or rears ... a war of everything against everything. Because in such a battle it is possible to mobilize within and to win. Whereas, politics and activism are completely dead in the USA and this is a permanent condition (Truth...) The USA has been moving to the right for 30 years. Surely since Reagan's victory in the 80's politics has been dead in the USA. All education since has failed...

The popularity and re-election/coronation of GW Bush should be enough evidence, but the power of the ultra-right and the rightwing in the USA Congress (& most states) makes the debate moot and tired. Authors have witnessed this death of compassion, virtue and political being in the USA: Petras, Cockburn, St.Clair, Rosenbraugh, Jensen... (2) More sign on each week: Hertsgaard, Nordhaus, Shellenberger and Tariq Ali (3)

(See fascist John Kerry(4))

Only through extending our conceptions of politics – which is another word for Power – extending it beyond the imaginary borders of nations can we create a better world. (6)

The efforts of the thousands of foundations and NGOs in the USA and most countries have been extreme failures. If they do not wake up to their impotence and the raging power of GW Bush and the hungry USA consumers, then they are to blame for the genocide and ecocide that follows. (7)

If USA activist groups are honest, then they will quickly admit that they have no meaningful goals and that their strategies of education or mobilization cannot overcome the strong right wing drift of US political culture. To apply outdated techniques of organizing or resisting against such a force is to make yourself and your power meaningless and impotent. To continue these strategies that knowingly waste money (power) and offer false hope, borders on the criminal. There is nothing people in the USA can do to stop USA imperialism and the destruction of the global environment from within the USA – unless you are considering armed struggle or being able to mobilize millions of protesters who want to be beaten and imprisoned.



... Or so logic and frankness would suggest. But we have a new idea that could re-invigorate and make powerful the movement for change in North America:



Everyone should cease working politically at any level in the USA. They should refrain from current forms of activism (ecological, social or cultural). Instead activists must put their energy, skills and finances into groups in South America: groups in the Andes and Venezuela.



Yes.



The only activity of real value to changing the world – to defeating capitalism and militarism – is to form a fundraising group. (8)



USA people give three to five billion dollars a year to environmental and social change groups, in the last year people gave the democratic party over 1 billion dollars. Imagine if 10 percent of this money went to actually building resistance in South America – 300 million dollars !!! (9)

By organizing across artificial borders to build a vibrant and diverse alternative, the left in the USA, EU and in Latin America can change the dynamics and escape the Killer-Capitalists’ traps. Inspiration and new spaces in which to accumulate power can be carved out of the Empire’s weaknesses.



You might think that we are being extreme to say that there is nothing you can do in the USA to aid the Andean Region (or anywhere) through politics or education. Think about it… where are the lasting victories against USA imperialism and injustice? How can groups claim to have had any effect given the state of domestic politics and the foreign aggression of the USA today? (Not to mention the USA’s 50 year record of international lawlessness!) (10)



GW Bush's coronation speech should be enough of a warning that the USA intends to accelerate and expand their wars for oil – their wars of confusion and obfuscation – and the imperial wars of control and domination.



People can get together in cities across the USA and focus on something that produces effects and real signs of progress – like raising millions of dollars in aid for important groups in the Andes. Then they will have created a positive and growing movement in the USA and built up the Andean groups too.



This success would encourage more people to get involved and in the process they would learn about struggle, about the real issues facing those who want change and about the struggle in Latin America. The movement in both regions will grow and people will see what money and cooperation can do.



Videos, articles for publication and visits back and forth can build stronger ties and spread the word and inspire even more organizing, more donations and more tangible results.



Instead of growing frustrated with the defeats that are inevitable in the USA (failure to change anything) and the reality that protests and lobbying can encourage the right wing or the ignorant voters to fight change more, activists can feel good and earn strategic victories. These People to People – or Pueblo a People campaigns can be proud, positive and real. (11)

Move beyond political stalemate and make a real difference. Forget politics as you knew it – Do the politics of building resistance.

Forget lobbying, and all environmental, social justice and other organizing in the USA! It will never work – never change anything soon – and causes more problems than it solves. The Andes have a lot to teach us and a world to win - a dollar a year from every person in the USA could make the difference.



Take the power where you can find it!







_ __ Conclusion __



To build a counter-power to the imperialist USA, activist groups need to reach beyond national boundaries to build strong alliances in Latin America with indigenous people (40 to 80 million people), workers in the Andes (30 to 40 million people), African descendants (100,000,000 to 120,000,000 people), and to finance aid programs with Venezuelan and Andean revolutionary groups.

Solidarity with these groups and the 200 million Latin American people trapped in neoliberal (USA-imposed) poverty can yield huge dividends abroad and within the USA.



Take the power where you can find it!



-- Herstory repeats, History kills...

In 1545, rich silver deposits were found at POTOSI in modern BOLIVIA. Silver mining peaked in 1590. In 1610 the city had 160.000 inhabitants, which made it the world's 5th largest city. It produced 60 % of the world's silver production. The silver was annually shipped to Spain from Maracaibo by the SILVER FLEET (Treasure Fleet). Around two billion ounces of silver were extracted from the city’s Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) during the Spanish colonial era. Cerro Rico silver paved Potosi’s streets, fuelled the European Renaissance and helped fund the “Invincible Armada”, the Spanish fleet that sailed against Elizabethan England in 1588.

But today Potosi is dying. “When a mine closes, all that’s left is a ghost town,” says the city’s mayor, René Joaquino



In 1572, in colonial times, Spanish Viceroy Francisco de Toledo created a system of forced labour called “la mita”. Every seven years, for a period of four months, all males between 18 and 50 were ordered to work in the mines. They were paid a pittance and rarely saw the light of day. Eighty per cent of the male population of the 16 provinces of the viceroyalty of Peru died in these conditions. “Every peso coin minted in Potosi has cost the life of 10 Indians who have died in the depths of the mines,” wrote Fray Antonio de la Calancha in 1638.



Key Points – (Outline)



1. Social movements need to embrace a practical and focused goal of accumulating power in order to takeover governments.



2. Conventional politics and left-thinking in the USA are dead.



3. The only effective means of altering the balance of power in the US or the world are armed struggle; relocating activists and supporters of change to states in the USA where they can seize power; OR massive financial aid to the revolutions in the Andes. Protests, lobbying and voting (in the USA) are stupid. They actually aid the power elite who want the appearance of democracy and opposition – as long as it can accomplish nothing.



4. The leaders of USA environmental and justice groups are barriers to change. Analysts accept this and the debate is whether to try new strategies or else to fall back on style and simply modify the current moderate strategy of weakly merging the various lefty issues together in a grand coalition with the moderate democrats – a strategy where victory becomes as meaningless as defeat!



5. The USA is an empire of corporate, trade and, military alliances.



6. Only through extending our conceptions of politics – which is another word for Power – extending it beyond the imaginary borders of nations can we create a better world. (Note 6)



The continuing series:



Lessons Learned:



by Mundo de Escuelas Revolucionarias (MER)



PART II. )) Tsunamis Inside the Criticisms of the Left: Venezuela versus the Shams of the World

PART 2 Lessons Learnedhttp://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=620562



PART III.))

The Real Left is Defined by Decentralization

See Primer at:

http://zorpia.com/cgi/journal.cgi?journal_id=0001046278



PART IV.))

Why the Andes is the Best Target: Pre-emptive Revolutions



Around two billion ounces of silver were extracted from the city’s Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) during the Spanish colonial era. Cerro Rico silver paved Potosi’s streets, fuelled the European Renaissance and helped fund the “Invincible Armada”, the Spanish fleet that sailed against Elizabethan England in 1588.

But today Potosi is dying. “When a mine closes, all that’s left is a ghost town,” says the city’s mayor, René Joaquino

In 1572, in colonial times, Spanish Viceroy Francisco de Toledo created a system of forced labour called “la mita”. Every seven years, for a period of four months, all males between 18 and 50 were ordered to work in the mines. They were paid a pittance and rarely saw the light of day. Eighty per cent of the male population of the 16 provinces of the viceroyalty of Peru died in these conditions. “Every peso coin minted in Potosi has cost the life of 10 Indians who have died in the depths of the mines,” wrote Fray Antonio de la Calancha in 1638.





NOTES:

Note I.

For Zapatistas see:

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/auto/fourth.html

For Anti-Globalization views see:

http://www.bignoisefilms.com/4ww/index.htm



For Hugo Chavez see: a. Venezuela Bolivariana (Movie) at https://www3.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/08/296319.html

At the above site you can download the whole movie – requires quick time.

b. Or see: http://Chavez Economicshttp://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1437



Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Nobel peace prize winner for his work in raising the issue of human rights violations in Latin America, read the final conclusions of the forum, entitled "The Caracas Declaration." The declaration outlines the need to build a front of global resistance against the project of domination that today is imposed by the current government of the United States of America and global organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."Let's get to work intensely," Chavez said. "Let's put the ideas concluded at this forum to work, let's make it a reality."



Note II. :

James Petras see:

Petras Website and Muy Mas http://www.rebelion.org



Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Claire see:

COUNTERPUNCH.ORG

Or: http://New Left Reviewhttp://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26301.shtml



Derrick Jensen see:

“I don’t think most people care, and I don’t think most people will ever care. We can trot out whatever polls we want to try to prove most Americans actually do care about the Environment, Justice, Sustainability – that they care about anything beyond being left alone to numb themselves with alcohol, cheap consumables, and television.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=336&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Or: http://WHy It Must End http://www.derrickjensen.org



Craig Rosenbraugh see:

The Logic of Political Violence:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/11/274922.shtml

Or: http://www.arissamediagroup.com



Note III. :

Mark Hertsgaard see:

http://www.markhertsgaard.com/Articles/2004/EnviroChallenge/

The Big Lies: __ http://www.markhertsgaard.com/Articles/2005/KyotoCantSaveUs/



Michael Shellenberger see:

http://www.thebreakthrough.org/

"Most of the movement's leading thinkers, funders and advocates do not question their most basic assumptions about who we are, what we stand for, and what it is that we should be doing."



Ted Nordhaus see:

http://www.alternet.org/story/19396/

Or: Death to Enviros Debates: __ http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/little-doe/



Tarij Ali see:

http://Why Activists Are Wronghttp://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1223



Note IV. :

a. See Fascist John Kerry & the psychosis that grows across the USA : http://americas.org/item_15926)

What does it mean that Alabama voters (2004) refused to approve a constitutional amendment to erase segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for "white and colored children" and to eliminate references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks.



b. Kerry against Chavez: http://counterpunch.org/lahey10152004.html

c. The Fascist Democrats of Northern California: http://counterpunch.org/anderson10302004.html

d. A review of how evil the USA Democratic Party can be – but a flawed analysis of progressive hopes - Turning Up the Heat on Bush, by Robert L. Borosage

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050131&s=borosage

e. Bush and Kerry the Same on Palestine: http://counterpunch.org/assad10082004.html

f. Alexander Cockburn – Surrendering : http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26301.shtml

g. The Cult of Clinton: http://counterpunch.org/scaramella11112004.html



Note V. :

See polls on USA citizen ignorance on geography, War in Iraq and pretty much anything you can think of. Examine USA drug abuse (legal and illegal), prisoner abuse, obesity, psychological breakdowns and John Zerzan.

For a look at the delusions and voids in the USA-dominated anti-globalization movement see:

Naomi Klein - Ray Smith (November 25, 2004) (she bashes John Kerry, but doesn’t grasp the problems of CAPITALISM! ,

http://NAomi Klein is Fearfulhttp://www.marxist.com/Globalisation/klein_meeting_london.htm



Note VI. :

Speech by Hugo Chavez:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/docs.php?dno=1011

Today, vis-á-vis the obvious failure of neoliberalism and the great threat that the International Economic Order represents for our countries, it is necessary to retake the Spirit of the South. That is where this Summit in Caracas is heading for. I propose to re-launch the G-15 as a South Integration Movement rather than a group. A movement for the promotion of all possible trends, who walks towards the Non-aligned Movement, the Group of 77, China… The entirely whole South!! I propose that we retake the proposals of the 1990 South Commission:



Note VII. :



See: PART II.

Tsunamis Inside the Criticisms of the Left: Venezuela versus the Shams of the World,



or The Nation, Jan. 3, 2005,

Mark Hertsgaard see:

http://www.markhertsgaard.com/Articles/2004/EnviroChallenge/



Note VIII.:

a. Andes Circle Aid Projects - http://www.andescircle.faces.com

(click on My First Blog)

b. The only exceptions to “All Funding to the Andes” might be legal aid to activists under prosecution (persecution) and prison support to incarcerated activists and other direct victims of Police State terrorism.



Note IX.:

If everyone in the USA gave on average one percent of their income to building a real resistance, the sum would equal 110 billion dollars a year. If 10 percent of the USA gave five percent of their income the sum would be 55 billion dollars or if five percent of the people gave 10 percent of their income it would equal 55 billion dollars. The government budgets of several Latin American governments are: Venezuela ( billion), Bolivia ( billion), Ecuador ( billion) and Peru ( billion) total of these 4 countries is 46 billion.



Note X.:

-- Chalmers Johnson;

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/cj_int/cj_int2.html



Or any article from James Petras

(Espanol Rebelion http://www.rebelion.org)



NOTE XI.

Read about the thousands of volunteers who joined the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua from 1978 to 1990. We were there - it was unbelievable and far surpassed everything that has developed in Chiapas, Mexico, Zapatista land.



M..E..R..

Write:

MER Email: Mescuelas_revolt@yahoo.com









USA is Like a Big Angry Bull - Chavez - El Matador

by Jason martin Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 at 7:56 PM

jasonmartin7@lycos.com

Activism is dead in the USA. So many talented people and yet they do not really care about truth or understanding - Not the average people - But the activists and the leaders - They refuse all attempts by anyone to get them to debate their goals, purpose or strategies.

Activism, my friend, is not dead in the once known USA. It is a renaissance that we are in the middle of, and it is about time. The last real movement that took place was the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s-early '70s. It died down when Reagan came into office as president, but it is now time to rise up again; to revolt against this corrupt system.

Your piece is beautifully written. I will be e-mailing your article to many individuals.

With Blessings.

Thank you for reading and commenting. This is about love and renewing... but we have to say what is on our minds and get a balanced input.

Power is everywhere: in words, actions, ideas, prayers, dollars, bodies, stategies, symbols, slogans (even stupid bimber stickers) - power is in the food, our relations to the land.... everything -- everywhere - but just like love power has to be shaped, held and put to use or like everything else - it is not real - only potential or fantasy.

The question is what power will work or which array of our powers, timming and numbers is the optimum....

carry the torch - design the plan of action, allies and voice/media strategies.

write the songs - let the South lead.

Creativity is the weapon. [ of choice]