​      In my last post, I reviewed a Counterpunch article by Roger Harris, in which we are reminded of the progressive political, economic, and social gains of the Sandinista Revolution as well as its international anti-imperialist projection (see “The Sandinistas: Remembering the basics” 8/16/2018 in the category Nicaragua).
 
      The Harris article also makes observations with respect to “dissident Sandinistas,” which have implications for our understanding of current imperialist strategies.  He writes that, following the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in the 1990, some Sandinistas split and formed the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS for its initials in Spanish).  He maintains, “When the MRS left the Sandinista party, they took with them almost all those who were better educated, came from more privileged backgrounds, and who spoke English.”  They are not, he argues, a progressive alternative.  “They are now comfortably ensconced in US-funded NGOs, regularly making junkets to Washington to pay homage to the likes of Representative Iliana Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Marco Rubio to lobby in favor of the NICA Act.”  In addition, they have little popular support in Nicaragua, having attained only 2% of the vote in national elections. 
 
     Harris believes that the ties of the MRS to activists in the United States may explain the fact that “some North American left intellectuals are preoccupied with Nicaragua’s shortcomings while not clearly recognizing that it is being attacked by a domestic rightwing in league with the US government.”
 
      I have observed a similar phenomenon with respect to Cuba and China.  Dissident English-speaking intellectuals, with supposedly leftist credentials, criticize the socialist projects in their nations, in a form consistent with ethnocentric assumptions in the USA (including the Left).  These “leftists” have relations with intellectuals and think tanks of the English-speaking world.  They play an important role in disseminating misinformation in the societies of the North, in spite of their very limited influence in their own nations.  With respect to Latin America, this phenomenon is part of a larger imperialist strategy: wage economic war (sanctions, hording of goods), finance local gang violence, and distort the international debate through the major news media.  The goal is to facilitate regime change in nations that stand against the neocolonial and neoliberal world order.  Such nations are not only seeking to protect their sovereignty, but also seeking to participate in the construction of an alternative, more just world order. 
 
     All of this has been observed by Cuban journalists and academics with respect to Latin America.  They see it as a new form of imperialism, made necessary by the fact that the old forms of imperialism have become discredited.
 
       I talked recently (in English) with a young Cuban, supposedly leftist intellectual, who uses the phrase, “social movements within the Revolution.”  The concept has a dignified history in Cuba.  In the early 1960s, Fidel called upon women to forge a “revolution within the revolution.”  And environmental issues can be seen in this way, in that in the 1970s and 1980s, some academics and leaders were calling for greater direction of resources toward environmental problems, and they achieved a breakthrough during the “Special Period” of the 1990s, because ecological forms of production and transportation could also be more economical.  To a certain extent, the current gay rights movement in Cuba could be seen in this way, although, if popular debates on the proposal for a new Cuban Constitution are any indication, a proposal that would provide the constitutional foundation for the legalization of gay marriage seems to be generating significant popular opposition.
 
      However, my “leftist intellectual” comrade, even though he seeks to place himself in this noble tradition of social movements within the Revolution, does not seem to me to belong to it.  Rather, he appears to be indulging in a disinformation campaign against the Cuban Revolution, exploiting the ignorance of Cuba in the US Left.  For example, he insisted that the Cuban Constitution of 1976 established the Cuban Communist Party as the highest legal/constitutional authority in the nation, which he found undemocratic and unacceptable.  This claim concerning the authority of the Party was based on Article Five, which defines the Cuban Communist Party as the vanguard of the nation and as the highest directing force of the society and the state.  But the claim ignores a whole bunch of other articles of the Constitution that give specific authority to the National Assembly (elected directly and indirectly by the people), including the authority to elect the executive branch and to enact laws.  The Cuban Constitution sanctions a structure in which the Party leads, teaches, and exhorts; and the delegates of the people decide and govern.  This is very difficult for people in the United States to understand, because in the USA, assumptions have been shaped in an entirely different social and political context, in which the political and ideological necessity of a vanguard party is not imagined.  It seems to me that the young Cuban “dissident,” probably driven by egoism and immaturity, takes advantage of this political/cultural obstacle to understanding, in order to present himself as an important intellectual critic of the Revolution.  With the consequence that, to the extent that he gains influence, confusion in the North is deepened.
 
     The conversation with him prompted me to write a blog post, “The Party and the Parliament in Cuba,” posted on June 19, 2018, in the category Cuba Today.
 
      With respect to Cuba, the issues that seem to germinate in the “critical” US Left are authoritarianism, human rights, income inequality, racial discrimination, and gay rights.  This focus distracts from the central point: Cuba, China, and Vietnam are developing alternative political-economic systems, in which the states play a major role as formulator, regulator, and principle actor in the economy, with space for various forms of property in the economic plan; and in which structures of popular democracy, distinct from representative democracy, have been developed and are continually developing.  These nations are developing in practice an alternative to the prevailing structures and norms of the political economy of the modern world-system.  Moreover, they have registered important economic and social gains, they are politically stable, and they enjoy popular legitimacy.  Meanwhile, other nations (Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and the Ecuador of Correa) have moved in a similar direction, albeit principally with structures of representative democracy, rather than popular democracy.  The socialist and somewhat socialist nations have been joined by progressive governments (the Argentina of the Kirchners and the Brazil of Lula and Wilma) in an effort to transform global neocolonial structures, replacing imperialist interventionism with mutually beneficial relations.  The Left in the North sees these global dynamics only partially and superficially, and therefore it is incapable of grasping their significance with respect to the political projects that they ought to be proposing in their own nations. 
 
      One of the reasons for the Left’s blinders is its tendency to distrust authority in any form, even the charismatic authority of exceptional leaders who are lifted up by popular movements, and the bureaucratic authority of states in which such popular movements have taken power.  It tends to be cynical toward popular movement leaders after they come to state power.  The tendency may be rooted in a subjectivity in which a person enjoys casting himself or herself as always the rebel.  Or it can be based in the demonstrably false intellectual assumption that power always corrupts.  Whatever its source, the distrust of authority in any form makes the U.S. Left vulnerable to the new imperialist strategy of partnering with “leftist” intellectuals in the dissemination of the supposedly authoritarian and/or corrupt characteristics of socialist and progressive governments.
 
     The tonic for the infirmity of distrust for authority in any form is personal encounter with the movements of the neocolonized of the world.  If a person from the North desires to understand; if she or he places that desire above other desires, including those pertaining to successful careers; if she or he, in accordance with this desire, seeks personal encounter with the movements of the Third World; if she or he takes seriously the words of the other and permits her or his understanding to be challenged at its roots; she or he may well find that the peoples in movement of the Third World believe that significant leaders and movements have taken and are taking important steps in construction of a more just, sustainable, and democratic world.  This belief is itself a dimension of a world-view defined by faith in the future of humanity and by belief in the duty of all to participate actively, with courage and with sacrifice, in the building of a better world.  By and large, the Left in the North has not encountered the Third World in movement, and this is the epistemological foundation of its limited capacity to understand.

​August 30, 2018
 
     In my last post, (“The new imperialist strategy” 8/20/2018, found in the category US Imperialism or the category Critique of the Left), I discussed the new imperialist strategy of cultivating relations with supposedly leftist intellectuals in nations with socialist and progressive governments, in order to disseminate false claims that these governments are authoritarian and/or corrupt.  The strategy has been effective in generating confusion among U.S. intellectuals and activists of the Left, taking advantage of the inherent tendency of the U.S. Left to distrust authority in any form.  And taking advantage of the Left’s limited consciousness of the international projection of China, Russia, and the socialist and progressive governments of the Third World, which envisions the construction of an alternative, more just and sustainable world-system, transforming neocolonial structures of domination that are integral to the capitalist world-economy. 
 
     My comments referred specifically to the cases of Nicaragua, Cuba, and China, and they were based, in addition to my own experiences, on a perceptive article by Roger Harris in Counterpunch, “Chomsky on Regime Change in Nicaragua.”
    
      With respect to my August 20 post on “The new imperialist strategy,” Harris has written to me as follows:

    So Harris and I are on the same road of discovering a tendency in the U.S. Left to be quick to accept the claims of “dissidents,” thus falling into the trap set for us by imperialism and its allies.  In my view, in order to prevent being victims of this trap, we need to begin with the premise that we of the U.S. Left have much to learn from socialist and progressive movements that have taken political power, for they have accomplished far more in their nations than we have in our nation. Furthermore, we have to recognize that we have a limited understanding, given the political and social context in which we live, of the alternative project that they are building; so we need to be oriented to doing a lot of listening, including their explanations of why they are doing this rather than that.  And we need to be wary, because the “dissidents” are looking for us, for we are integral to their plan.  In contrast, the revolutionaries, defending the majority, are busy building; they are happy to speak to us, because they are internationalists, but we have to get their attention.  We need to be spending a lot of time listening to those that are active forging the socialist and progressive projects in various Latin American nations, in order to deepen our understanding of socialist and progressive thought and action.  It would also empower us to understand in context any critical commentaries made within those nations by intellectuals who present themselves as leftists.

​     Harris also writes, 

​     Yes, it is a question of anarchistic and libertarian tendencies, with a social base in the middle class.  However, the middle class gives rise to a variety of ideological tendencies.  In the colonies and neocolonies of the world, the middle class has been the social base of accommodation to imperialist interests; but on the other hand, most of the great revolutionaries have been from the middle class.  In our country [the United States], the middle class is the social base not only of ultra-leftism, but also of liberal reformism, consumerist escapism, and the current incipient neofascism.  For the middle class in the core region of the world economy, it is a question of how each of us born into this relatively privileged position responds to the situation of relative privilege.  Do we ignore it?  Do we seek to defend it aggressively?  Do we support reforms, but not to the extent that it causes inconvenience?  Do we find satisfaction in a posture that presents us as critical thinkers or radicals, blaming our political ineffectiveness on the ignorance of others?  Do we dedicate ourselves to the quest for the true and the right, seeking to overcome the limitations on understanding that our social position imposes?  It is a personal decision. 
 
      I believe that it is possible for middle class intellectuals in the United States, if we have commitment and discipline, to learn the true and the right.  And possibly, if we learn well, we could have influence on our nation, explaining fundamental global, historical, and political realities to our people.  We could make clear the global structural sources of the relative privilege of our nation’s middle class, and we can demonstrate the incompatibility of those structures with the values that we proclaim.  And we could convincingly demonstrate the unsustainability of a world-system shaped by each nation pursuing its interests and each corporation pursing its profits, without regard for the consequences for the nation and the world.  Our people are increasingly becoming middle class, albeit a middle class with social insecurity and personal anxiety.  I believe that if we were to explain well the dynamics of our situation, the consensual majority would opt for social justice, for themselves and for all.
 
     I also recommend to the reader another article by Harris, “A Specter of Peace Is Haunting Nicaragua.”  The article criticizes opposition to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, the leader of the Sandinista Revolution since it first took power in 1979.  It specifically criticizes commentaries by The Nation and by academic Latin Americanist William I. Robinson.  Among other issues discussed, Robinson maintains that many on the Left support Ortega because they see him on the good side in an “infantile Manichean view,” which sees a binary world of good or evil.  Against Robinson, Harris maintains that we confront in practice a choice between two morally different projects.
 
      I am in agreement with Harris.  We intellectuals and academics are able to imagine other possibilities, in accordance with various ideas that we have, and impress each other with our virtuosity.  But in political practice, we have a choice between, on the one side, the neoliberalism, incipient neofascism, and aggressive wars of the declining hegemonic power; and on the other side, an effort by the neocolonized peoples of the earth to construct, in theory and in practice, an alternative world-system, more just and sustainable.  In the real world, we have a choice between two very different possibilities, in which the global powers systematically attack those leaders, governments, and movements that are seeking to forge an alternative road for humanity.  In this situation, we have the duty to take sides; we have the responsibility to understand, appreciate, and defend that alternative more just and sustainable possibility for humanity that is emerging from below.  As Fidel said in 1960, when a revolution is under attack, revolutionaries must close ranks.

       Roger Harris has published in Counterpunch an excellent article, “Chomsky on Regime Change in Nicaragua”.  The article is critical of comments by Noam Chomsky, in an interview by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, in which Chomsky refers to the corruption, repression, and autocracy of the Sandinista government.  Harris observes that Chomsky is “indicative of a tendency in the North American left to accept a bit too readily the talking points of imperialist propaganda, regarding the present-day Sandinistas.”
 
     Chomsky aside, the Harris article provides a very useful summary of fundamental social and historical facts with respect to Nicaragua.  It reminds us that, since returning to power in the elections of 2006, the Sandinista government has adopted policies that have created a stable economy, in which the nation produces 90% of the food that it consumes, and with an average economic growth rate of 5.2% in the past five years.  In addition, Sandinista policies have reduced poverty and extreme poverty by 50%; have cut malnutrition by half; have virtually eliminated illiteracy, reducing it from the from 36% in 2006; have created the highest level of gender equality in the Americas; and have established free basic health care and education.  Harris also notes that Nicaragua has kept out drug cartels through a pioneering community-policing program, and that, unlike Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, there has not been a migrant exodus to the USA.  Reflecting this reality, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, who had won the presidency in 2006 with a 38% plurality, won reelection in 2011 and again in 2016, with first-round absolute majorities of 63% and 72.5%, in elections certified as free and fair by nothing less than the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States.
 
      Harris also reminds us that, with respect to international affairs, Nicaragua is one of the clear voices against U.S. imperialism.  Along with Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia, Nicaragua is one of the prominent members the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) [see “The rise of ALBA” 3/11/2014 in the category Latin American Unity]. In addition, Nicaragua regularly votes against backward US policies in international fora, and it is increasingly developing commercial and investment relations with China and Russia.
 
      Harris stresses that the United States government, beginning with Obama and continuing with Trump, has targeted Nicaragua for regime change.  The NICA Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and now before the Senate, would establish economic sanctions, and USAID has announced additional funds “to support freedom and democracy in Nicaragua,” channeling the funds through NGOs.  Violence has erupted in Nicaragua, and there is little reason for us to doubt the claim of the Nicaraguan government that elite and international resources support the violent gangs, given the evidence that the financing of fascist gangs is part of the general Latin American strategy for U.S. imperialism and their allies of the Right in Latin America.
 
      Although Harris does not go so far, I would argue that, all things considered, the Left in the United States cannot be neutral in the unfolding conflict between the U.S. imperialism and the Sandinista Front for National Liberation.  We have the duty to take sides, and to seek utilize the conflict to raise the consciousness of the people of the United States, as some of us did in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration funded the contra war against the Sandinista government, because of its having dethroned the U.S. supported dictator and having undertaken an autonomous and sovereign road.
 
      However, a major obstacle to such an informed and politically important position by the U.S. Left is the confusion of the U.S. Left itself, which perhaps is victimized by the new ideological strategy of U.S. imperialism, which will be the subject of my next post.
 
      For a review of the Sandinista Revolution from 1963 to 2016, see “The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua” 9/20/2016, in the category Third World or in the category Nicaragua

     I would like to reflect on liberals in the USA, and as I do so, I write of white liberals, inasmuch as whites, blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans in the USA live in different cultural worlds.
 
     Liberals insist on full legal and cultural protection of the rights of blacks, Latinos, women, immigrants, gays, and the environment.  In this, they are right.  However, their discourse is superficial and ethnocentric, and it is offensive to the majority of whites.
 
     White liberals support affirmative action for blacks and women, leaving aside the fact that any program benefitting well-qualified persons with solid credentials, if not accompanied by ample programs of support for persons with more limited formal credentials, will foster resentment.
 
     White liberals support the rights of immigrants, ignoring a host of complexities.  They seem to assume that the problem of undocumented immigrants is not a problem, as though a situation in which millions of persons cross international borders without governmental regulation is acceptable.  In addition, they consider persons opposed to their attitude on immigration to be racist; ignoring the fact the exploitation of undocumented workers by employers is central to the failure of the nation to develop a program for the economic and social development of black communities.  Moreover, liberals do not address the global causes of the uncontrolled international migration, which is rooted in neocolonial structures that promote underdevelopment and poverty in vast regions of the world.  Liberals, as a result, cannot see that the most basic right denied to the immigrants is their right to earn a living in their native lands.  Liberals are incapable of formulating a proposal for the social and economic development of poor nations in the world and poor communities in the USA, as dimensions of a comprehensive approach to the serious problem of uncontrollable international migration.
 
     Liberals support the rights of gays and gay pride, calling homophobic those with doubts or concerns.  They imply a lack of respect for those whose values stress the social regulation and channeling of sexuality and the education of children and young adults in this regard.
 
     Liberals support strong environmental regulations, barely addressing concerns with respect to employment, production, and economic development.
 
     Liberals are quick to criticize Trump, using any argument to pounce on the President of the United States.  This shameful spectacle makes fully clear their lack of self-reflection, inasmuch as the political success of Trump as rooted in the effective exploitation of their own weaknesses.
 
     Liberals criticize imperialist interventions of the United States in the world, without seeing that aggressive economic and military policies are necessary for the maintenance of global structures that materially benefit the United States.  Not understanding the fundamental structures of the neocolonial world-system, liberals are incapable of proposing a U.S. foreign policy of cooperation with the governments and social movements that are seeking a more just, democratic, and sustainable world-system.  Indeed, liberals scarcely know such governments and movements.  Most people in the United States do not fully understand this particular liberal limitation, but they do have a sense that liberal anti-imperialism is idealistic, not well connected to global political realities.
 
     Liberals are quick to criticize socialist and progressive governments in the world, on the alleged grounds that they are authoritarian, they deny human rights, and/or they do not adequately protect the natural environment.  Liberals offer these criticisms without the least minimal knowledge of the political, economic, and cultural dynamics in said countries.
 
     Liberals like to take our national heroes from us, pointing to their imperfections.  They criticize such icons as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln for failing to transcend the political realities of their times.
 
     Liberals are ambiguous about patriotism, as though love of country implies tolerance of the nation’s social sins.
 
     The politics of liberalism involves seeking to put together a coalition of some whites plus most blacks and Latinos.  They are more or less able to do this in the blue states, but not the red.  This political strategy means that they are not seeking popular consensus, and therefore, it is not necessary for them to reflect on the limitations of their discourse, which could provide the foundation for a more effective political appeal to white society.  The political strategy has the consequence of condemning the nation to perpetual cultural-political civil war.
 
     I ought to confess that I never liked liberals, even though I was a liberal in the ninth grade, having read JFK’s Strategy of Peace and Profiles in Courage.  But when I encountered the student anti-war movement at the university in the late 1960s, I was put-off by their superficial analysis and their reckless infantile strategies.  However, I came to be convinced of the rightness of their cause, mostly because of my reading of a book on the history of Vietnam, and because of the more mature discourses of some graduate students who were hangers-on in the emerging movement.  Later, when I studied in a graduate school center with a Black Nationalist orientation, which offered a colonial analysis of the modern world, I came to understand the profound ethnocentrism of white liberals.  Still later, when I encountered and involved myself in the Honduran popular movement and the Cuban revolutionary project, I could see that it is possible to forge a popular movement that is historically and scientifically informed, comprehensive, and global.  Such movements are formed by dedicated leaders, perpetual students of the world, who endeavor to organize and educate the people.  These leaders see the nobility of the people while also seeing the limitations of the people, and they see themselves as popular leaders without seeing themselves as better than the people.
 
     What makes white liberals the way they are?  I think there are two factors, elitism and convenience.  Liberalism is a current of thought rooted in the white middle and upper middle classes, in which there is a subtle but deeply pervasive sense of superiority to other racial/ethnic groups and classes.  From that vantage point, they do discern various injustices, and they desire to express their moral opposition to these injustices.  But they are not dedicated to transforming the structural sources of these injustices, because this would cause inconvenience vis-à-vis their relatively privileged social and economic position, and because it would require a discipline and sacrifice for which they are not prepared.
 
     Many persons in white society are influenced by liberal tendencies, but they are not unredeemable.  If you are among them, I invite you to consider the following proposition: You can escape the arrogance and superficiality of liberalism by persistent encounter, through study and experience, of the popular revolutionary movements of the Third World, past and present; and by taking seriously their insights, permitting them to transform your own understanding.  I cannot think of a better remedy for the maladies of the American soul, because while the USA is trapped in superficial and antagonistic cultural/political conflict, the humble peoples of the earth are constructing, in theory and in practice, the foundation for a sustainable future for humanity.
 
     The Unites States of America was founded on the democratic principle that all are endowed with inalienable rights.  This declaration of the sovereignty of the nation and the rights of the people was contradicted by various dimensions of the social, economic, political, and cultural reality of that time.  However, as the nation developed, popular movements were forged by workers, farmers, blacks, women, and students, seeking to more fully develop, in theory and practice, the American promise of democracy.  With this political and moral foundation, it ought to be possible to forge today a progressive movement that envisions and calls the people to a consensual national project that affirms the imperative need to protect the sovereignty of all nations and the social and economic rights of all citizens of the nation and the world.
 
     All of us who share the fundamental convictions of liberals have the duty to work to forge a consensus among our people, in support of alternative political project, one that envisions the nation cooperating with other nations and peoples in the development of a more just, democratic, and sustainable world.