Thread by @DeanDettloff

This is a shallow take that no one should read, but it actually is important for the American left to think about Venezuela, if not for the poorly researched and predictable reasons at the @nypost.

The basic lesson of Venezuela is that democratic socialism will be constantly under siege by reactionary forces and capital both internally and externally. It matters that socialists expect that and not be naive about clawing power away from people who spend a lot to keep it.

Lots of media outlets love to run poverty porn about Venezuela, creating the spectre of an evil dictator fattening himself up while the people suffer food shortages. The narrative is so pervasive even a lot of democratic socialists adopt it and distance themselves.

But Venezuela isn't having a hard time because of its socialism, it's having a hard time because of capitalism. Take food for example. As this @monthly_review article shows, the food crisis is mostly a matter of a brutal capital strike. monthlyreview.org/2018/06/01/the…

This might sound surprising, but put simply, there's enough food and means to produce food in Venezuela. But private companies that produce staples and aren't nationalized are simply refusing to produce, snuggling food into the black market, or sending it to Colombia.

Private capital is trying to literally starve out the socialist project of Venezuela. The challenge of democratic socialism lies with how to discipline unwilling industries. Capitalists don't want to just give you their stuff. They'd rather you not eat certain foods.

In addition, the leftover bourgeoisie has allied with the international bourgeoisie. Not only are politicians like Mike Pence and Marco Rubio constantly promoting known agitators and far right Venezuelan politicians, Trump threatened military support.
theguardian.com/world/2017/aug…

Even without the military, the US has invested literally millions of dollars in the right wing opposition in Venezuela, which is itself driven by old money in the country.

Meanwhile Western media regularly misreports on the political process there. The recent presidential election has been mailed by observers as incredibly transparent, and Mauduro calling for the spooky National Constituent Assembly is literally built into the constitution.

It's true that the government has mismanaged funds and failed to diversify quickly enough. It's also true that this wouldn't matter nearly as much if Venezuela wasn't being sanctioned over and over and purposefully excluded from the world economy.

The fact is, Venezuela has survived, so far, an incredibly multifaceted and multinational campaign to turn the country back into one of deep inequality, before the barrios descended into the polite society and demanded their share.

Which is all to say, yes, if you're a democratic socialist you should look at Venezuela. Capital isn't gonna roll over for us, especially in the United States--and the chavistas have offered lots of resources for how to plan for and resist that counterrevolutionary energy.

Lol this should be *smuggling* food but I text about snuggling the cats a lot

This blew up over night so I thought I'd add a few more resources for folks looking to learn more:

Here's a report from a Canadian delegation that included labor and ecumenical representatives outlining their observations during the recent presidential elections in Venezuela. I heard them speak in Toronto, and they had lots to say!
commonfrontiers.ca/Single_Page_Do…

If you're looking for other reporting in general, @venanalysis provides a lot of clarifying articles interacting with events on the ground and Western reporting on them. They affirm the Bolivarian revolution but have a diversity of opinion within that.

For history, @ciccmaher has written two great books on Venezuela, Building the Commune (Verso 2016) and We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution (Duke 2013). @The_Intermezzo and I interviewed him on our podcast @TheMagnificast.
soundcloud.com/themagnificast…