In previous posts, I have maintained that the forging of a popular revolution in the USA is an objective possibility, a necessity, and, therefore, a moral obligation.  Utilizing existing constitutional rights and electoral procedures, a popular revolution in the USA would seek to take political power, that is, to take control of the political and legislative branches of the federal government, with the intention of implementing fundamental changes in defense of the rights and needs of the people as well as the sovereign dignity of the nation.  The revolution’s central strategy for taking political power would be the formation of an alternative political party that redefines what a political party is and does, in that its primary task would be the patient and long-term education and the organization of the people, projecting important electoral victories in a period of twenty years or more.  (See, for example, “The possible and necessary popular coalition” 10/10/2016 in the category Third World and “An integral and comprehensive narrative” 03/13/2017 in the category Trump).
 
     An important issue that the alternative political party would need to address with insight and political intelligence is that of the military.  The alternative political party would have to envision and formulate the transformation of the militarization of economy and society, which has been unfolding since the late 1940s, when the Truman Administration created the Cold War ideology in order to justify a permanent war economy and what Truman’s successor, Dwight Eisenhower, called the military-industrial complex.
 
      A recent article by Willian J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (United States Air Force), maintains that for decades the Pentagon has been conning politicians and the people in order to maximize public support for military spending.  Astore mentions several distortions of reality in the history of this con game: the “missile gap” of the 1950s and the 1960s; the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that authorized military action in Vietnam; the “consistent exaggeration of Soviet weapons capabilities in the 1970s . . . to justify a new generation of ultra-expensive weaponry;”  the casting of the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire” in order to justify increased military expenses in the 1980s; the identification of “rogue states” in the 1990s, thereby avoiding the expected “peace dividend” following the collapse of the Soviet Union; the invasion of Iraq, justified by arms of mass destruction that never were found; and an endless war on terrorism that ignores the actual sources of terrorism.
 
      Although Astore writes of this phenomenon as a Pentagon con, many of the mentioned distortions were sold to the people by prominent politicians, and not by the military chiefs.  In the case of Trump, Astore reminds us that, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump spoke “against the folly and cost of America’s wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. He said he wanted better relations with Russia. He talked about reinvesting in the United States rather than engaging in new wars. He even attacked costly weapons systems.”  If it is true, as Astore asserts, that Trump is a con man, and that the Pentagon attains support for military spending through the con, then it could be said that the Trump administration’s military defense budget of $716 billion demonstrates that you can indeed con a con man.  But it is our own human weaknesses that enable a con to work; in this case, the weakness might be a lust for power, and the capacity to see an exploitable issue and useful partners in order to maintain, extend, and increase personal power. 
 
       The nation needs military chiefs that place the good of the nation above the expansion of the military branch, and political leaders who are morally and intellectually capable of resisting the seductions of power and the distorted claims of all who represent particular moneyed and powerful sectors.  The task of the alternative political party is to forge a change in the political culture, so it would be possible for principled political and military leaders to rise to prominence, principled leaders who seek not personal power but the authorization of the people to exercise power in their name.  In forging this cultural change, the alternative political party needs to unmask, in the name of patriotism, the conduct of militarist politicians and the Pentagon, who for decades have exaggerated threats to national security in order to justify military expenditures.  It must reformulate the meaning of patriotism, leading the people to the understanding that it is not unpatriotic to oppose imperialist wars; but it is unpatriotic, and profoundly damaging to the nation, to exaggerate threats to national security in order to channel national resources to the military, especially when the exaggeration is driven by the desire to rout economic benefits to companies and individuals who produce and market arms. 
 
      But let us not be naïve concerning the importance of the military.  In the alternative political party, there can be no place for idealism and naivete with respect to questions of peace and war.  The foreign policy proposed by the alternative party must recognize the ancient and modern tendency of empires and nation-states to conquer new territories and to impose its interest on the conquered peoples.  It must recognize that the modern world-system has been forged on a foundation of conquest and colonial domination of the world, and it has been shaped by a system of competing imperialisms, in which global powers compete with one another for control of territories and markets.  In the context of such a world, the government of the USA must be committed to its national security and any threat to its territory and its markets by means of force and violence.  In condemning exaggerations of national security, the alternative political party must propose a genuine concept of national security, and define the necessary role of the military in the defense of national security.
 
     In seeking an alternative to the militarization of economy and society, the alternative party cannot dream of peace in the abstract; it must pursue its vision of demilitarization in the context of existing international relations.  Accordingly, it should support the alternative approach to international diplomacy that currently is emerging in world affairs, one that gives priority to the peaceful resolution of international conflicts.  The peaceful resolution of conflict is the mission of the United Nations and other international organizations; and several governments, including China, Cuba, and Venezuela, have been developing foreign policies in this direction.  Such tendencies are pointing to an alternative world order in which states work cooperatively toward international, multilateral, and bilateral agreements, committing themselves to the reduction of arms, especially nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction; to the peaceful resolution of conflicts; to respect for the sovereignty of all nations; and to refraining from aggression against other nations.  The alternative political party should propose that the nation play a leadership role in this emerging alternative form of international relations, with the understanding that all agreements must necessarily include provisions for the verification of compliance.
 
      Inasmuch as the arms industry is the USA’s strongest and most important industry, the nation has an objective economic interest in war and in the maintenance of global conflicts.  This objective economic condition, forged by both major political parties since the late 1940s, ensures significant political opposition to a peaceful reorientation of U.S. foreign policy.  The alternative political party must manage this situation with political intelligence, and therefore, it must base its proposals for economic and social transformation on recognition of the current dependency of the nation’s economy on military expenditures.  It must propose a gradual transformation of the militarized economy toward an economy dedicated to sustainable forms of production, recognizing that changes that are implemented faster than objective conditions permit would create chaos.  Annual cuts in the nation’s military expenditure must be part of a comprehensive plan that includes new investments in production and education, so that sustainable economic growth is facilitated.  In the transition from a permanent war economy to a peace-based economy, creative strategies could be employed, such as sending the U.S. Army to Central America to work in cooperative projects of infrastructural construction.
 
      The alternative political party needs among its leadership and its advisors persons with knowledge of military affairs and with military experience.  It should be actively recruiting such persons as it develops, so that it can speak with credibility on the military issue in the eyes of the people.  The article by Astore, a retired Air Force officer, is evidence that there are high military officers who would be committed to the development of an armed forces structure that has become liberated from the vicious cycle of imperialist policies feeding the arms industry, and its perverse feedback, the economic interests of the arms industry generating imperialist policies.  With the change in political culture that the alternative political party would seek to generate, there would come to the fore military officers who have endeavored to dedicate their lives to an armed forces that serves the genuine national security of the nation, who could now do so with the full support of a government of, by, and for the people.
 
    Astore’s proposals for “curbing our military mania” are important and worthy of consideration and discussion.  He proposes that the “nation fight wars only as a last resort and when genuinely threatened;” and therefore, “the U.S. should end every conflict it’s currently engaged in, bringing most of its troops home and downsizing its imperial deployments globally.”  He further proposes downsizing nuclear forces; and he advocates responding to the threat of international terrorism through law enforcement and intelligence services.  He believes that with an alternative orientation that is committed to the genuine defense of national security and is not economically and politically driven to exaggeration, it would be possible to significantly reduce the military budget; he cites defense analyst Nicolas Davies in declaring that the Pentagon budget could be reduced by 50%.
 
     Astore’s proposals involve to a considerable extent an ideological shift.  He maintains that the people should understand that current U.S. military actions do not deter aggressive or threatening nations, nor do they defend democracy; in many cases U.S. military interventions are for the purposes of exploitation and dominance.  He further observes that the people should not believe that national strength is measured by military strength.  Above all, he maintains that the people should not be so ready to believe lies generated by the Pentagon and their militaristic political allies in order to justify military actions and imperialist policies.
 
       Such an ideological reorientation with respect to the role of the military in the nation is precisely one of the tasks of an alternative political party.  As I have argued in previous posts, an alternative political party must formulate an alternative narrative of the nation, which redefines the meaning of patriotism, which unmasks the imperialist character of U.S. foreign policy, and which seeks to strengthen the nation by developing sustainable forms of production and by seeking mutually beneficial forms of commerce with other nations.  Astore helps us to understand that such an alternative national narrative would include a genuine concept of national security, leaving behind exaggerations created to justify the militarization of the economy and society.  A politically effective alternative narrative would lead the people to understand that excessive military expenditures undermine the economy of the nation in the long run; and that, when such excessive military expenditures are justified by lies, deceptions, and distortions, they undermine the capacity of the people to understand global affairs as well as the moral fabric of our nation.  An alternative political party must lead the people toward a sounder political, economic, ideological, and moral foundation, thereby fulfilling the historic hope of the nation to constitute a republic that would be an example to the world of human dignity.

Reference
 
Astore, William J.  2019.  “How the Pentagon Took Ownership of Donald Trump: Six Ways to Curb America’s Military Machine.”  Tom Dispatch (April 30).

      I recently had the opportunity to see Spike Lee’s 2018 film, Black Klansman.  The film appeared on Espectador Crítico, a weekly Cuban television program that presents high-quality films.  The moderator of the program, Magda Rezik, precedes the viewings with fifteen-minute interviews with a specialist on the theme.  In this case, the specialist was a professor at the University of Havana, knowledgeable about the history of the Ku Klux Klan.
 
      The film provides an excellent portrayal of the black power discourse of the late 1960s and the early 1970s.  It makes clear the logic and the socio-psychological need of the black power perspective.  Responding to the systemic dehumanizing by white America, in which the most basic of human rights were denied, the black power perspective affirmed black identity and the worth of the black community; and on a political plane, it stressed unity in order to attain power, necessary for defense of black rights and interests. 
 
      In addition, the film’s accurate portrayal of black power discourse makes evident two limitations of the black power perspective.  First, the perspective tends to treat whites in general as an oppressing power.  This is a misreading of American society, past and present.  It is true that the powerful are white, except for a few blacks that adapt to the white power structure; but it is also true that most whites are not powerful. 
 
     Secondly, the black power discourse had a tendency toward violent rhetoric that was inconsistent with the actual political project of black nationalist organizations.  Spike Lee has Stokely Carmichael saying that blacks must prepare themselves for a coming race war, in which the brothers and sisters will be killing white racist cops.  This is a reasonably accurate portrayal of the black leader.  In a Mississippi march in 1966, Carmichael declared, “every courthouse in the state should be burnt down.”  In Cleveland, he asserted, “When you talk about black power, you talk about bringing this country to its knees.”  His successor as president of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, H. Rap Brown, described an incident in Alabama as a “declaration of war” by “racist white America,” and he called for a “full retaliation of the black community across America.”  However, in fact, neither the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee nor the Black Panther Party developed any program of sabotage against government buildings or assassination of white police or other white officials.  These brash and ill-advised statements were in no sense promoting a program, and they functioned only to provide a pretext for repression by the government, which was unleased against black organizations and leaders in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
 
     The film also has an excellent portrayal of the discourse of white supremacists.  The characterization at times appears to be a caricature, but indeed there is a current of thought in white society that believes that blacks are genetically inferior to whites and that race-mixing would destroy the nation.  The facts, of course, are otherwise.  Scientific research shows that differences in skin color are a consequence of individual humans living in different geographical zones with different levels of exposure to the sun, and that differences in skin color has no relation to intelligence or other human capacities.  And the film correctly shows the post-1965 reformulation of the white supremacist views into a more socially acceptable ideology that would attain increasing influence, culminating in the election of Trump.
 
      The film had a balanced portrayal of white cops.  One cop was a racist thug, some cops were racists, some were inclined to lend their support to the black cop in his undercover investigation of the Klan, and one was committed to doing the right thing.  One suspects that this is truly the case.  There was a suggestion at the end that white folks could avoid the racial conflict and stand off to the side, if they were so inclined; whereas blacks could not possibly avoid the American racial conflict, for it continually intruded on their reality.  There is some truth to this, especially at the personal level in the short term.  But in the final analysis, no citizen of the United States can avoid the contradictions that the nation confronts, which have deep historic roots; the nation itself is in peril.
 
     No film can provide a comprehensive view of a nation for a half a century, and Lee’s film is no exception.  The black community is represented in the film by black panthers and a black cop; white society is represented by white racists and white cops.  But there are, of course, whole sectors of the black community and of white society that do not pertain to these categories. 
 
      The sectors not portrayed in the film, especially their failures, have been central to the unfolding racial dynamics of the United States since 1965.  White society in general never listened to or understood the black movement, even as it hesitantly and reluctantly conceded basic civil and political rights in 1964 and 1965.  As a result of not listening, white society never understood that the movement demanded and expected more than political and civil rights.  Since its origin in 1917, the African-American movement had protested the poverty and social and economic underdevelopment of the black community, which it understood as caused by slavery and decades of segregation and the denial of basic civil rights.  The movement thus embraced the principle of the social and economic rights of all citizens, and it called for the economic and social development of the black community.  At the same time, by virtue of its interest in its African historical and cultural connection, the African-American movement from the beginning had a global perspective from below.  It could discern the colonialist and imperialist character of U.S. foreign policy, which promoted the underdevelopment of the peoples of the world, thereby contradicting the proclaimed democratic values of the nation.  Both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were eloquent in proclaiming these principles of community development, the protection of social and economic rights, and a democratic foreign policy, historic demands of the movement.  But white society was deaf to such proclamations for a more just and democratic nation and world, and it believed that the social debt was paid merely by moving to the protection of political and civil rights.  Such deafness with respect to persons of other social positions is ethnocentric, and it is common in human societies; it is different from racism, a belief in the inferiority of other so-called races.
 
      Coinciding with white deafness, the black community since 1965 has failed to promote the unfinished agenda of the African-American movement of 1917 to 1965.  It has remained trapped in a white racist frame of reference, discerning subtle forms in which white racism survives in the post-1965 era.  This is certainly true, and indeed, the common phenomenon of white ethnocentrism could be interpreted as a subtle form of racism.  But it is politically dysfunctional to focus on it.  It would be more politically effective if the focus were on the unfinished agenda of the African-American movement, that is, the issues of economic and social development, the protection of social and economic rights of all, and democratic and cooperative relations with other nations.  Such a progressive national agenda could attain political efficacy only through a popular coalition of blacks, Latinos, and whites.  Such a coalition of folks from different communities with different cultures and histories is not going to be attained by each focusing on the perceived defects of the other, but by focusing on common interests and finding common ground.  Jesse Jackson understood this, and he developed the Rainbow Coalition in the 1980s.  However, the Rainbow Coalition did not have the resources and/or the commitment to develop itself into a nationwide mass organization, capable of offering a politically viable progressive alternative in the public debate. 
 
     Without the development of a progressive coalition that offers a politically viable alternative narrative on the nation to the people, we are left with confusion and polarization.  The images at the end of the film, focusing on recent conflicts in the streets, portray well this sad phenomenon.
 
    In her comments to introduce the film, Ms. Rezik asked, what are the sources of white racism?  It is a good question.  A good answer would focus on the manipulation of whites by white elites.  The phenomenon began in slavery times and continued in the age of segregation in the South.  Southern elites were always afraid of a united action by blacks and working-class whites in the creation of a different kind of social order.  So they disseminated unscientific claims about difference in skin color, confusing and dividing our people, doing so in defense of their particular interests, without concern for the consequences for the development of the society in the long term.  In the 1960s, when the age of segregation came to an end and racism became discredited, and with white society having limited understanding of the racial dynamics of the nation, politicians like Wallace, Nixon, and Reagan exploited white anxieties and confusions by turning to a subtle form of racism, talking about welfare and crime as an indirect and more socially acceptable way of talking about race.  The film alludes to this phenomenon, and correctly portrays that it culminates in Trump.  The film, however, implies that it was David Duke and Trump.  But in fact, the leadership of the Republican Party in general has moved in the direction of exploiting white anxieties since the 1960s.
 
     But Mr. Lee, what is the solution?  Can persons of your influence in U.S. society find the road toward the forging of that popular coalition that we failed to develop in the 1970s and 1980s?  A politically effective popular coalition is the remedy to white racism, even though it attains its political goals by de-emphasizing racism per se.

      On August 11, 2018 in The New York Times, there appeared and insightful article by Ross Douthat on “The White Strategy.”  Drawing upon a new Pew analysis, which relies on voter files rather than exit poles, Douthat notes that Trump was able to attract votes, more so than was previously understood, from white working class voters who had not voted in the 2012 Obama-Romney presidential elections.  Trump successfully used a “double down on white voters” strategy with a “mix of economic populism and deliberate racial polarization.”
 
      However, in spite of the unanticipated 2016 success of Trump, Douthat maintains that the white strategy has limitations, and it cannot be the basis for forging a governing majority.  He notes that Trump’s electoral victories in the Midwestern states were thin, and Trump lost voters among women and the educated that the Republican Party previously had been able to attract.  He maintains that the “white-identitarian rhetoric . . . cost Republicans not only minority votes but white votes as well, repelling anti-racist white suburbanites even as they mobilize some share of racially resentful whites.”
 
      Douthat maintains that, instead of a white strategy, it would be more politically effective for the Republican Party to “pursue a populist strategy shorn of white-identity appeals. . . .  Pursue E-Verify but forgo the child-separating cruelties; be tough on China but stop vilifying black athletes; embrace nationalism but stiff-arm Confederate nostalgia.”  He predicts that if the Republican Party does not do so, it will suffer defeats in future elections.
 
      Here we arrive to the limitations of Douthat’s reflections.  It seems to me that it would not be possible for the Republican Party to attain a governing majority on the basis of a populist economic agenda, whether it be a progressive economic agenda or merely a populist rhetoric.  Its “Southern strategy,” in operation since the 1970s, of appealing to white resentment and to subtle forms of white racism is a legacy that cannot easily be overcome.  A reformulated Republican Party message would continue to be rejected by too many blacks, Latins, and progressively minded whites.  It would at best attain narrow electoral victories in the context of a deeply divided nation, which is not the foundation for a governing consensus.
 
       But neither is the Democratic Party in a position to forge a governing consensus on the basis of a progressive agenda.  In turning since the late 1960s to an identity politics that emphasizes the rights and the agenda of blacks, women, Latinos, and gays, it has alienated a considerable part of white society, including significant numbers of white women as well as greater numbers of white men.  With a greater emphasis on the kind of economic populism that Douthat proposes and less emphasis on identity politics, it probably would be able at attain electoral majorities, capturing some Republican voters.  But the nation would remain deeply divided, and governance would continue to be beset with conflicts and difficulties.
 
      Both political parties are entrenched in their respective grass-roots bases.  In addition, there is the overwhelming problem that both parties are controlled by the national power elite, which has two basic tendencies, sometimes in conflict with each other, namely, global neoliberalism and militarism.  Having to make concessions to its base and at least sectors of the elite, neither party is in a position to forge a national consensus that would make effective government possible.         
 
     At the root of this state of affairs is the failure of the Left to be effectively present to offer a politically viable progressive alternative.  The Left has failed to formulate a historically and scientifically informed narrative and program with a progressive social and economic agenda, identifying the particular issues for blacks, women, Latinos, and gays in this frame, without burying the frame in unreflective slogans and actions with respect to the identity issues.  It has failed to formulate a critique of imperialism and neoliberalism, demonstrating that these policies contradict fundamental democratic values and direct the nation away from the principles upon which the republic is founded.  And it has not articulated a critique of electoral laws, structures, and customs in order to formulate an alternative concept of popular democracy.  Such an alternative narrative and critique would be able to bring on board high percentages of blacks, women, Latinos, and gays, without alienating a majority of whites with conservative social conceptions and values.
 
     Forging a governing consensus on the basis of a progressive social and economic agenda would involve bringing on board a majority of white men, albeit a thin majority, a larger majority of white women, and overwhelming majorities of blacks and Latinos.  In order to do this, we have to free ourselves from the political constraints of both political parties.  When we study the political processes in other nations that have had triumphant popular revolutions, we see that they offered new narratives on the nation and the world, which included a strong identification with the history and destiny of the nation, even when it included a concept of diverse peoples within the nation.  They formulated a comprehensive and integrated list of particular social and economic proposals, addressing the daily concerns of the great majority.  Moreover, they simply bypassed the established political parties and associations, forming their own.
 
      It is often said that third parties do not work in the political context of the United States.  We need to reflect on this claim.  The limitations of third parties during the twentieth century were rooted in their over-identification with one sector of the people and their incapacity to formulate a narrative for the nation that connected to the concerns and aspirations of the majority of the people.
 
     The nation is in the midst of a profound political-cultural crisis, which is occurring in the midst of the sustained structural crisis of the world-system.  We need to ask not how our party, be it the Republican or Democratic, could attain electoral majorities.  We need to ask how a governing consensus among of people could be formed, so that the nation and its peoples can respond constructively to the challenges that it and humanity confront.  This requires moving beyond the framework of debate and political strategies defined by the two major parties; and moving beyond the concepts of third parties to date.  It requires creating a third party that redefines what a third party is, a redefinition forged by creative and committed reflection on the national and global crisis in which we find ourselves.

​      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.

     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.

​     In his recent visit to the United Kingdom, Donald Trump undiplomatically criticized Prime Minister Theresa May’s management of Brexit.  He supported Boris Johnson, who had resigned as Foreign Minister of May’s government.  Johnson favors a “hard Brexit,” involving a complete break with the European Union and a new beginning for trade negotiations with European nations; in opposition to May’s more pragmatic “soft Brexit,” which maintains many of the rules of the European Union, even as the UK exits the Union. 
 
     William Davies writes that the conflict involving “hard Brexit” versus “soft Brexit” concerns the nature of political power.  The hard Brexiteers distrust government in the form that it has evolved.  Davies maintains that governments today are characterized by dependence on technical and bureaucratic means to implement policies, and on data gathering and regulation to enforce them.  In his view, the hard Brexiteers imagine the restauration of popular sovereignty over government, without the mediation of bureaucratic officials, technicians, and professionals.  Davies sees such popular resentment of the contemporary form of government as central to the recent emergence of reactionary populism in the core nations of the world-economy.  He writes:

     What Davies writes is true, but it is not the whole story.  It is true, as Davies implies, that the people do not have sufficient appreciation of the necessary complexities of government, and conservative politicians are able to exploit this to undermine “the very possibility of workable government.” However, popular rejection of government itself (and of all politicians who play by the established political rules) is fueled also by popular awareness of the fact that elite actors always are present in the established political process to defend their particular interests, often with little concern for the people or the nation.  The problem, therefore, is not only the unavoidable complexity of the process, but also the ever-present elite, guiding and manipulating the process in accordance with its interests.  With the bureaucrats, technicians, and professionals, on the one hand, and the elite, on the other, who is present as a delegate of the people?
 
     We also should be aware that the elite has deliberately promoted the false concept of a limited state since 1980.  Prior to that time, the concept of the limited role of government had been present only as a declining secondary ideological tendency, as a result of elite support for Keynesian economic policies.  However, with the first signs of the profound structural crisis of the world-system and the relative decline of the hegemonic neocolonial power in the 1970s, the elite turned to a global neoliberal project.  It sought to reduce the role of the state in the core economies as well as in the neocolonies of the Third World, in order to reverse the recent tendency toward declining rates of profits.  It thus launched an ideological attack on the state, ignoring the necessary role of government in modern complex economies and societies.  This dissemination of the anti-governmental ideology generated confusion among the peoples of North America and Europe.
 
      Furthermore, we should be aware of the failure of the Left in response to the post-1980 ideological attack on the state.  The US and European Left should have been present with an alternative narrative that included, among other elements, a clear explanation to the people of the necessary role of government in modern complex societies.  In the case of the United States, the alternative narrative would have drawn upon the historical popular movements of various sectors of the people, including workers, farmers, blacks, and women, all of which formulated important analyses.  Such an alternative narrative, if historically informed, could have critiqued the turn of the national elite to monopoly capitalism and imperialism in the period 1865 to 1914, which became the basis for elite direction of world affairs during the course of the twentieth century.  And such an alternative narrative, if informed by the popular movements and revolutions of the nation as well as of other lands, could have been able to promote an alternative concept of popular democracy, based on the principles of citizen participation, protection of the social and economic rights of all persons, and respect for the sovereignty of all nations.  Of course, to be politically effective, such an alternative narrative of the Left would have had to be sensitive to the values, sentiments, and concerns of the people, treating with intelligent sensibility any issues that are divisive among the people.
 
       With the failure of the Left in the United States and Europe to offer a comprehensive and politically effective alternative narrative, the ideological terrain has been left open to myopic nationalisms of all stripes to fill the void created by the increasingly delegitimated globalized centrist liberalism.  We have arrived to a point where public “debate” is reduced to superficial conflict between centrist liberalism and the Right.  Having not formulated a politically effective narrative, the Left is confined to organizing protests with respect to particular issues, thus demonstrating to the people its incapacity to lead the peoples and the nations of the North in an alternative direction.
 
       In the context of the sustained and profound structural crisis of the world-system and the absence of a politically effectively and scientifically sound proposal, the Left must reconsider its approach.  The Left should establish an alternative political power that formulates and disseminates manifestos and platforms that are responsible and that garner political support and that expects its members to be continually educating themselves.  The alternative political party should use the established structures of representative democracy to take political power in the name of the people, even as it criticizes representative democracy as a democracy in appearance but not in substance.  It should promise to seek structural reforms in the political process, working toward the development of an alternative process in which power is in the hands of the people’s delegates, who would direct necessarily bureaucratic and complex states in accordance with the interests of the people.  Our message to the people should be that complex, bureaucratic governments are unavoidable, but indifference to the needs of the people is not.

​     The world has been convulsed by the separation of children from their parents as they attempted to cross the U.S. border.  Within the United States, the people are divided.  In the political-cultural battles, the bands of the Right and the Left are both partially right, and both have their excesses. Moreover, neither side has a comprehensive historical and global analysis of the causes of the uncontrollable international migration.  Constructive solutions emerge from sound analysis, so in the present situation of division and political conflict, the problem cannot possibly be resolved.  The impasse can be overcome only by a comprehensive and scientifically grounded proposal from the Left, which would constitute the foundation for the national consensus necessary to constructively address the issue.
 
      Both the Right and the Left are partially right.  Conservatives and the Right are correct when they argue that the nation ought to enforce its immigration laws.  All nations have the right to enact and the duty to enforce immigration laws; it is a dimension of the responsibility of the state with respect to economic development was well as the control of crime.  At the same time, liberals and the Left are right when they insist that the human and civil rights of all immigrants must be respected, when they are attempting to cross the border, and once they have arrived and are living in the country. 
 
     Both the Right and the Left have excesses.  Many on the Right on the issue of immigration are motivated by racism and hate, and many have little regard for established national customs with respect for the due process of law.  On the other hand, many on the Left have a tendency to be opposed to any control by the state structures of law enforcement, even those that are necessary for the common good.
 
     Neither the Right nor the Left has a comprehensive proposal, which ought to include two aspects.  First, an analysis of the problem, globally and nationally, is required.  Secondly, concrete practical steps at the global and national levels must be proposed.
 
       Global analysis of the problem.  The structural foundations of the world-system were established by colonial domination of the vast regions of what came to be known as the Third World, forged by competing European colonial empires and including the American and Japanese empires, during the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries.  The resistance of the colonized led to a process of decolonization, during which the colonial powers conceded political independence.  But the global powers adopted imperialist policies, designed to ensure their continued access to the raw materials, cheap labor, and markets of the formerly colonized peoples, resulting in the consolidation of the neocolonial world-system during the period 1946 to 1979.  The world-system, however, had overextended its geographical and ecological limits, and during the 1970s, it began to show various signs of crisis, including lower levels of profits for the large corporations.  The global elite responded to the crisis with economic and military attacks of the Third World, designed to roll back concessions and reestablish firm control.  The economic attack took the form of neoliberalism, beginning in the 1980s, which especially affected the nations of Latin America and Africa.  Subsequently, a series of wars and military attacks were launched after September 11, 2001, especially affecting the Middle East. 
 
      The structures of the world-system were designed to promote the wealth and economic development of the conquering powers, and they had as a consequence the promotion of underdevelopment and poverty in the colonized and neocolonized regions, except for sectors and nations that could insert themselves in an economically advantageous position.  Accordingly, from the outset, global economic structures generated migration from the peripheral (conquered) regions to the core (colonizing) nations.  This tendency accelerated following the post-1980 economic and military attacks by the core nations and their cooperating institutions and allies, which created a situation of social disintegration, extreme poverty, and desperation in various regions of the earth.  As the global crisis deepens, many other symptoms of crisis emerge in the nations of the North, including economic, social, and physical insecurity, such that uncontrolled international immigration has become a major social and political issue.
 
       Analysis at the level of the nation.  The United States enacted stricter immigration laws in the 1920s, and since then until 2016, the national and local governments of the United States were lax in the implementation of immigration laws.  Various factors drove this.  U.S. employers had an economic interest in employing illegal immigrants, inasmuch as they could be exploited more easily.  In addition, the segmentation of law enforcement institutions, as well as increasing requirements to protect civil rights, complicated law enforcement efforts. 
 
      Proposals at the global level.  In order to ensure global political stability and sustained economic growth, the global powers must abandon imperialism and aggression, and turn to cooperation with political and social movements of the Third World.  We must develop the capacity to listen to and appreciate the insights of Third World leaders who are lifted up the by people in their nations.  During the last eighty years, such charismatic leaders have emerged, only to be demonized by the Western press and political leaders.  They include: Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Nasser of Egypt, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Nyerere of Tanzania, Allende in Chile, Qaddafi of Libya, the Iranian Revolution, Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua.  All were proposing national projects of autonomous economic and cultural development, seeking to break the core-peripheral economic structures that were promoting the underdevelopment and poverty of their nations.  But their basic concepts and proposals of their nationalist project were distorted in Western political discourse, facilitating popular support for economic and military attacks against their nations.  Military interventions, economic sanctions, support for opposition groups (including terrorists), interference in national affairs, and dissemination of ideological distortions through the mass media became the standard fair.  By attacking rather than seeking common ground with the leaders that were lifted up by colonized and neocolonized peoples, the global powers were undermining any possibility for a constructive resolution of a fundamental structural problem in the world-system, namely, that its promotion of material wealth among certain sectors was accomplished by taking material necessities away from other sectors. 
 
     The policies of the governments of the United States toward the Third World since 1980 are a new stage in imperialism, more aggressively pursuing U.S. control of raw materials and markets.  Imperialist and aggressive polices must be cast aside, not only because justice demands it, but also because global political stability and sustainable development require it.  The United States should cooperate with the dynamic and creative leaders that are lifted up by the neocolonized peoples of the world, so that they together can search for mutually beneficial solutions to the problems that humanity confronts.
 
     In the past, the popular movements of the Left have provided historical and global analyses, seeking to educate the people, as a result of their being influenced by Marxist, anti-imperialist, and Third World perspectives.  Today, the Left in the United States has the duty to be faithful to this historic legacy.  It should be providing the necessary analysis at this historic moment of crisis, seeking to educate the people.  In doing so, it should be able to completely discredit and delegitimate the historical and current political leaders of the nations of the North, who with their shortsighted and self-interested policies have brought humanity to the brink of chaos.  Calling for the humanitarian protection of the rights of immigrants is not enough; the irresponsible behavior of the global elite should be brought to light.
 
     National proposals: Concrete practical steps.  In addition to disseminating a comprehensive understanding that exposes the moral and theoretical limitations of the global elite, the Left should be proposing concrete steps, informed by historical and scientific analysis.  (1) Inasmuch as the U.S. government had been complicit in tolerating illegal immigration prior to 2016, illegal immigrants should be pardoned.  A program for the legalization of current immigrants in the United States should be developed, as many organizations dedicated to the protection of the rights of immigrants have proposed.  (2) Recognizing the necessity of controlling illegal immigration, support for law enforcement agencies should be increased, accompanied by a greater integration of their functions.  The goal would be to more effectively enforce immigrations laws, and to reduce illegal immigration from now on.  (3)  A foreign policy of cooperation with the nations of the Third World should be developed, so that the United States would be cooperating with the governments and popular movements of the Third World in overcoming underdevelopment and poverty, thus attacking the problem of immigration at its source.  Special attention should be given to those areas from which a number of immigrants come, such as Mexico and Central America.
 
      Parenthetically, I have observed that Cuba has developed such an approach with respect to internal migration.  Aware of the problem that exists in many underdeveloped nations of mass migrations to the capital city, thus overwhelming the resources of the city, the revolutionary government developed a policy of requiring all persons living in Havana to have a reason for being there, be it work, study, or family.  The police would occasionally check the credentials of persons, seeking to verify that they had a legal address in the city.  Not that they would send “illegal immigrants” to a prison farm: they simply would put them on a bus back to where they were supposed to be.  Meanwhile, they made every effort to promote the economic and social development of the provinces, so that the people would have less economic and educational motive to move to the capital.  High quality schools, universities, centers of science and production were developed everywhere.  Basically, it has worked: the provinces enjoy a high quality of life, and the capital city is not overwhelmed.  Cuba never violated the rights of an “illegal” migrant, but neither did the Cuban revolutionary government act as though it believed that migration should not be regulated and controlled.  On the international plane, Cuba calls for something similar: a safe, orderly, and legal international migration, forged through the cooperation of the nations of the world.
 
      The duty of the Left is to search for that pedagogically and politically effective approach that can make possible a consensus among our people, moving the nation beyond its current division, with respect to immigration as well as all issues that concern our people.  Our task is not to take sides against the Right, but reformulate the terms of the debate, so that the nation can move forward in a constructive, positive, and hopeful form.

       In the socialist movements in the world, there is a tendency for idealist criticisms of socialist governments, formulated from a supposedly socialist perspective.  The criticisms maintain that the governments have failed to fulfill the promise of socialism.  They argue, for example, that the political process is not sufficiently democratic, and the political and economic institutions are directed from above.  In addition, they maintain that there are unacceptable levels of income inequality as well as forms of racial and ethnic and gender discrimination.   In general, I view their claims as exaggerations of existing problems, and in addition, their descriptions of the conditions in nations that are attempting to construct socialism often have many omissions and distortions.
 
     Since the late 1990s, with the renewal of the Third World project of national and social liberation (see various posts in the category Third World), humanity has been in the midst of the Third World War.  It is a war between two competing global civilizational projects.  On the one side, there is the imperialist project, which entered in the 1980s its neoliberal stage.  It is led by the United States, the major nations of Western Europe, and Japan; the transnational corporations; and the international finance agencies.  It places profits over people, and it promotes the concept of limited states, maintaining that the market should rule.  It seeks to preserve the basic structures of the neocolonial world-system, with its material benefits for a small proportion of humanity.  On the other side is the project of popular socialism, led by socialist and progressive governments of the Third World, including Cuba, with the cooperation of China and Russia.  Its leading nations are in the vanguard not of a proletarian revolution, as envisioned in classical Marxism, but of a popular revolution, in which leaders and mass participation emerge from all popular classes and sectors.  The popular socialist project maintains, in opposition to the limited-state thesis of neoliberal imperialism, that the state must play a central role in the economy, by formulating plans for the economic and social development of the nation, by regulating the economy, and as owner of major economic enterprises.  Popular socialism believes that all governments have the obligation, first, to defend the social and economic rights of all of its citizens, regardless of class background, race or ethnicity, or gender; and secondly, to protect the natural environment and to seek a sustainable form of development.  The popular socialist project further maintains that all nations have a sacred right to sovereignty, thus standing against the imperialist project and the basic structures of the neocolonial world-system.  For the last twenty years, the governments that have been leading the socialist/progressive initiative have been trying to construct in practice an alternative world-system based on cooperation and mutually beneficial trade among nations and on solidarity among peoples. 
 
        The Third World War is not a nuclear war, as we often imagined it would be.  It is principally a battle of ideas, and Fidel declared it such a few years ago.  But the conflict also includes the use of economic sanctions, military actions, and violent local gangs.  The future of humanity depends on the outcome of this global conflict.
 
     In the midst of the unfolding Third World War, the above-mentioned critical socialist current is an enemy within socialism, undermining the capacity of the socialist nations to offer their examples as the basis of a viable possible future for humanity.  By distorting the reality of developing socialist projects, the critical current seeds confusion and division among peoples everywhere.  I imagine that in most cases these “critical socialists” are sincere victims of idealist conceptions of socialism, which lead them to imagine that the harmonious world that socialism envisions can be constructed in a generation, even though the socialist governments must pursue the fulfillment of the socialist promise in the context of a capitalist world-economy.  However, in other cases, the advocates of critical socialism may be indulging in egoism, oriented to attracting attention to themselves in the ongoing debates.   In still other cases, they may be deliberately attempting, for whatever motive, to undermine the global socialist project.  But regardless of why it emerges, the critical socialist current is a menacing threat to the socialist project.
 
      The other day, I had a conversation with a young Cuban, who appears to me to pertain to the critical socialist tendency.  Among the various points with which we disagreed, one had to do with the Cuban Constitution of 1976.  I maintained that the Cuban Constitution establishes the National Assembly of Popular Power as the highest authority in the nation.  He, on the other hand, citing Article 5 of the Constitution, maintained that the Constitution establishes the Communist Party of Cuba as the highest authority in the nation.  This is not a minor point, for the resolution of the question is central to an understanding of another question, namely, is Cuba democratic?
 
      I would like to provide the reader with some context for the debate.  The Cuban political process has been developing in a form integral to the evolving praxis of the Cuban Revolution.  Its current political structure is based in the insight and moral commitment of a charismatic leader, who possessed authority because of his exceptional gifts, recognized among the people.  With awareness of the ultimate limitations of rule by one person, there emerged in the 1960s an effort to form and educate a vanguard, a group of informed and committed revolutionaries comprising perhaps 15% to 25% of the people, which would lead the people in the development of the socialist project.  The vanguard was institutionalized in the Communist Party of Cuba, formally named as such in 1965, culminating a process of unifying the various revolutionary organizations that had begun during the revolutionary war of 1957-58.  Even though the Party comes from the people, it is not elected by the people, because it is a vanguard party, and the members are recruited by the Party itself.  So other structures had to be developed to represent the people.
 
      During the 1960s and 1970s, the Cuban Revolution developed two kinds of structures to ensure the representation of the people.  The first was the creation or expansion of mass organizations of workers (in all fields, including professional and agricultural), students, women, farmers, and neighborhoods.  Among other things, these organizations elect at the base delegates to higher levels, who elect in turn delegates to even higher levels, so that through a series of indirect elections the provincial and national leaders of each of the mass organization are chosen.   The second structure is Popular Power, which constitutes the actual structures of the state.  In local elections in voting districts of 1000 to 1500, the voters elect from among two or three competing candidates that have been nominated by neighborhood residents in a series of nomination assemblies.  The elected delegates form 169 municipal assemblies, which in turn elect both the delegates of the fourteen provincial assemblies and the deputies of the national assembly.  The national assembly is the highest legislative organ, and it elects the thirty-one members of the Council of State, which is the executive branch of the government. 
 
       There are links between the mass organizations and Popular Power in important moments.   When the municipal delegates elect delegates and deputies to the higher assemblies, candidacy commissions submit proposals of candidates.  Similarly, when the deputies of the national assembly elect the Council of State, proposals are presented by the candidacy commissions.  Who are the members of the candidacy commissions?  They consist of representatives of the mass organizations, chosen by the mass organizations themselves to fulfill this function.  So in the indirect elections to the higher assemblies, both the elected delegates of the municipal assemblies and the representatives of mass organizations play central roles.  There is another important link between Popular Power and the mass organizations.  Namely, in the debates with respect to any legislation, the committees of the national assemblies are required to invite spokespersons for the mass organizations.
 
     The Cuban Constitution of 1976 establishes the constitutional foundation for this Cuban revolutionary approach to the decision making process, involving the Party, assemblies of Popular Power, and mass organizations.  The Constitution establishes the Party as the leader of the nation and the people and their socialist revolution.  At the same time, it establishes structures for the popular election of delegates and deputies to the assemblies, which have full constitutional authority to elect the executive branches and to enact legislation.  The Constitution establishes a fundamental duality: the Party leads, and the delegates of the people decide. 
 
     Accordingly, Article 5 of the Constitution affirms the Communist Party of Cuba as the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation and as the highest directing force of the society and the state, organizing and orientating the common efforts toward the high ends of the construction of socialism (Lezcano 2003:47).  It may appear at first glance that this article grants to the Party the highest authority.  But let us look further.  It does not give the Party the authority to nominate candidates or to elect delegates, deputies, and members of the Council of state; nor does it give the Party the authority to pass laws or to elect the executive branches.  These functions are given specifically to the people and to the delegates of the people.  Article 5 recognizes the authority of the Party as the nation’s vanguard, which has the duty of organizing, orienting, educating, persuading, and convincing, through the power of the spoken work and of example.
 
      Meanwhile, a host of articles grants specific areas of authority to the National Assembly.  Among them are:

​Reference
 
Lezcano Pérez, Jorge.  2003.  Elecciones, Parlamento y Democracia en Cuba.  Brasilia: Casa Editora de la Embajada de Cuba en Brasil.

     There are anti-revolutionary currents of thought among Leftist intellectuals/activists.  These currents of thought are not “counter-revolutionary,” in that, for the most part, their advocates do not consciously seek to undermine revolutionary movements and projects.  But they could be considered “anti-revolutionary,” inasmuch as they are politically dysfunctional for social and political movements of the Left, creating obstacles to the task to obtaining popular support.  I here identify four anti-revolutionary currents of thought in the social and political movements of the Left: anarchism, utopianism, identity politics, and liberalism.
 
      Anarchism is based on Marx’s concept of the abolition of the state (Marx and Lenin 1988) and on Lenin’s call during the October Revolution for “all power to the Soviets” (see “The Russian Revolution (October)” 1/23/2014 in the category Russian Revolution).  The central idea of anarchy is that during revolutionary processes, workers develop popular councils (soviets), in which all issues of concern are debated, and decisions are made in accordance with the will of the majority.  Moreover, as the popular councils develop, they increasingly are able to assume the technical and administrative functions of the companies.  A parallel process of developing popular councils occurs in neighborhoods, where neighbors attend to issues of concern, including housing conditions, education, health, physical safety, and health.  When revolutions triumph, power is transferred from the state and the companies to the popular councils, thus effecting the abolition of the state and the company bureaucracy.  State and company hierarchies are eliminated, as workers and neighbors themselves make decisions collectively and fulfill technical and administrative duties.  In accordance with this idea, anarchists tend to be critical of socialist governments, stating that they have not eliminated the hierarchies of capitalism, but have reproduced them in a different form.  In general, anarchists consider that socialist governments have replaced rule by the capitalist class with rule by the state bureaucracy.
 
      The problem with anarchism is that revolutionary processes, in reality, do not unfold according to the anarchist plan.  When revolutions triumph, they generally have taken partial political power, so that they control some institutions and structures of the state and the civil society, but not others.  This was true even of the Cuban Revolution, which triumphed with the overwhelming support of the people, and with the traditional political and state institutions totally discredited.  Nonetheless, it had to proceed on the basis of partial control of state structures and the institutions of civil society.  It declared the Cuban Constitution of 1940, a progressive constitution ignored by the Batista dictatorship, as the basis of its authority; and it further declared that the revolutionary government was abrogating the executive and legislative functions, because of the emergency created by the collapse of the Batista government.  However, with these declarations, the revolutionary government was assuming directorship of and responsibility for major structures of the previously existing state, such as education and health.  Moreover, there were major institutions that were beyond the scope of the directorship of the state. Important areas of the economy, in both industry and agriculture, were in private hands, mostly foreign corporations.  The mass media also was privately owned.  In addition, the Cuban revolutionary project had many powerful enemies in the world, who were mobilizing to undermine and overthrow it.  In this situation, there was only one possible road.  The revolutionary government had to use its partial control of the state to take decisive steps, with the support of the people, to accomplish a revolutionary transformation of the economy and society, in defense of the needs of the people and the sovereignty of the nation.  That is to say, it had no option but to forge a national project of state-directed economic and social development. 
 
     Prior to the triumph of the Cuban revolution, popular councils had experienced limited development in Cuba.  There were workers’ organization, which to a limited extent indeed did function, in part, as workers’ councils.  And there were organizations formed by students and women.  But the structures of popular council were not sufficiently developed to enable a transfer of power from the state to the popular councils, as envisioned by anarchist theory.  What occurred instead was that the state encouraged and supported the creation of popular councils, among workers (in all fields, including professionals), peasants, students, women, and neighborhoods; and it forged effective links of the popular councils to the state with respect to elections and governance.  But these popular councils never have been conceived in Cuba as a substitute for the state.  The popular councils were being forged by a revolutionary state, as a dimension of its efforts to create structures of popular democracy and to accomplish a revolutionary transformation of the political-economic system and the society.
 
     Utopianism is the advocacy of a particular kind of society that cannot be constructed from the existing political, economic, social or ideological base.  It is idealistic, in that it advocates measures that are unworkable in the current political-economic-cultural context.  North American intellectuals of the Left, for example, are indulging in utopian idealism when they advocate the further development of cooperatives in Cuba; the reduction of state ownership, which they view as hierarchical; and the reduction of a small-scale private property, which they view as individualistic.  They have an ideal notion of what socialism is and ought to be, and cooperatives are, for them, its essence.  But they do not take into account that any nation seeking to construct socialism must do so from a base of existing economic, political, and ideological conditions.  They have observed that Cuba recently has expanded cooperatives, developing them in non-agricultural production and commerce, and they interpret this as signaling a Cuban commitment to reduce authoritarian top-down state enterprises.  But they misinterpret Cuban dynamics.  The Cuban government and the Cuban Communist Party are oriented above all to improve production, in order to satisfy better the material needs of the people.  With this goal in mind, they indeed are expanding cooperatives, but they also are expanding self-employment and small-scale private property as well as the possibilities for foreign investment.    
 
     When these idealists come to Cuba in order to preach their gospel, they imagine themselves to be helping Cuba find the correct road to socialism.  What they do not see is that the percentage of each of the various forms of property in Cuba is a matter of debate and reflection among Cubans themselves.  To be sure, it would not be inappropriate for a visitor to Cuba to express some opinion on the question, formulated from afar.  But above all, Leftist intellectuals from the North should come to Cuba to learn, for Cuba is a nation in which a popular revolution took power nearly sixty years ago, and since its triumph, it has developed structures to ensure that the decision-making process is in the hands of delegates elected by the people.  We in the North should be asking how they did it.  Focusing on this question, perhaps we might learn things of relevance for the popular movements in our own nations, where the popular movements often are divided and weak.
 
     Identity politics.  It is of course the case that all persons, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or gender orientation, possess full citizenship rights.  Perhaps the forces of the Left in the United States ought to join forces for a constitutional amendment to this effect, completing the historic tasks and unfinished work of the movements with respect to the constitutional rights of blacks and women.  However, calling for the constitutional rights of all persons cannot substituted for a comprehensive and scientifically informed construction of an American narrative that places the struggles of the people for democratic rights in a historic and global context.  One must be careful with identity politics, because it can alienate people who do not pertain to the particular identity, or do not see their identities as central to their political proposals.  Our task is to unite our people through the forging of a popular coalition on the basis of a platform defining our common interests and a manifesto proclaiming the meaning and the destiny of the nation to which we all belong.  We must call all of our people to revolution, that is, to the taking of political power, so that from a position of partial state power, the delegates of the people can struggle, with popular support, for the transformation of political, economic, and social institutions, in defense of the needs and interests of the people, and in defense of the dignity of the nation.  It is good to defend the rights of all persons historically excluded.  But we must avoid getting lost there.  When we are stuck at the level of identity politics, we weaken our capacity to move beyond to a larger and greater national agenda.
 
     Liberalism.  The great error of liberalism is to take as given the assumptions of bourgeois democracy and representative democracy.  It assumes that elections among competing parties are ideal, even though the system of multiple party elections in the nations of the North has been corrupted by campaign contributions of the wealthy, placing political leaders in the debt of contributors; and even though the system of multiple party elections has been falling in legitimacy in the eyes of the people.  And it assumes that the press and civil society have roles in tension or in conflict with the government; it is not able to imagine the cooperation of the state, the press, and the institutions of civil society in a national project of economic and social development.  Liberals could learn from the example of Cuba, where non-governmental organizations are not anti-governmental, and where structures of popular power and mass organizations have replaced the bourgeois structures of representative democracy, creating a situation of national consensus and political stability.  When liberals weigh in on Cuba in the public discourse of the nations of the North, they disseminate confusion and misinformation about an important socialist revolutionary project, undermining the educational work of revolutionaries in the North.
 
      The history of triumphant revolutions in the Third World demonstrates that the key to triumph is the unity of the people, which is forged by a charismatic leader and a revolutionary vanguard on a foundation of scientific knowledge, common-sense wisdom, and political intelligence.  In order to establish the foundation for a possible triumph of a popular revolution in the United States, we must critically engage the four anti-revolutionary currents of thought, explaining their defects to the people and establishing a foundation for a politically intelligent social movement that is able to take partial political power.
 
      For more on the Cuban revolutionary project and the possibilities for popular revolution in the North, see The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

​Reference
 
Marx, Karl and V.I. Lenin.  1988.  Civil War in France: The Paris Commune.  New York: International Publishers.