Healing -- a Crucial Aspect of Any Revolution

Tomi is a 30-year-old reggae singer/poet from Nigeria/Jamaica who has been living and working in Venezuela for a year. His friend Johnny is a tall English-speaking reggae performer from the Caribbean island of Dominica. They both support Hugo Chavez and the Reform, although they were not born or raised in Venezuela. But they have witnessed an amazing revolutionary process, full of pitfalls and problems, yet steadingly moving toward greater power and justice for the country's vast poor and disenfranchised.

Venezuela, we should remember, is an oil-rich country that also has some deep poverty. In Caracas, home to more than 3 million people, the hills are dotted with the makeshift housing of the poor exactly like those of the favelas in Brazil (although in Venezuela they are called "ranchitos").

However, as Tomi points out, the rich for decades used the oil as a kind of ATM--they pulled out profits from this resource for their own enrichment. Now that the Bolivarian Socialist government has taken over the oil industry, the poor people for the first time received electricity (something that caused an uproar among the upper classes); they have free and comprehensive health care right in their neighborhoods; they have free access to technology and computers, including the Internet, again in their neighborhoods; there are now 50,000 cooperatives in existence, most created over the last three years, and the highest number of cooperatives in the world; and people have in Hugo Chavez an African/Native man who is working on placing more power in their hands--a people made up mostly of African, Native and Spanish descent.

I'm not quoting from propaganda pieces--I've seen this with my own eyes.

The majority of the opposition to Chavez and the Reform comes from the richest communities. They are mostly the white Spanish-descended landlords, owners of industries, and financiers who continue to live well in the country. What you see in Venezuela is class struggle. I call things as I see them, and this may surprise many who read this. But history is much at play in Venezuela, which has its own history of how power and wealth got accumulated into the hands of a small grouping of people, and denied from the vast majority.

The US government decries Chavez and calls his government a dictatorship. However, Chavez was freely elected. His government continues to present to the governing assembly and to the people its proposals for their approval. In fact, the Reform is being campaigned for--the election is slated for December 2 and people will have a choice. If they don't want the Reform, they can vote against it. If the majority wins, this will be the law of the land. That's democracy.

In the Opinion section of the LA Times, Saturday, November 24, 2007, William Ratliff, who is supposed to be a learned intellectual, a research fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, claims that the 69 constitutional amendments in the Reform will most likely pass, and that the Venezuelans are fools for doing this.

They are no fools. They are one of the most intelligent, engaged and feisty electorate you'll ever find (I truly don't believe Mr. Ratliff has gone down there to find out). They want change, and for now Chavez represents that change.

Ratliff says, "the vote will be bad not only for Venezuela but for the rest of Latin America." Why? Isn't that what democracy is all about? If there are truly open elections that's good for Latin America where such elections in the past have been fraudulent, violent and un-democratic (especially in countries that the US government has backed). Ratliff also calls this a "populist dictatorship." A contradiction in terms. If the majority of people want it that's their choice. And their right.

Ratliff also misrepresents the Reform. He says the new amendments would allow Hugo Chavez to be "president for life." In fact, it would allow him and any other candidate to run indefinitely, but the people will still have to choose their president. He calls the probable support of the Reform on December 2 "self destructive voting." You mean like the last two presidential elections in which George Bush won. That is definitely self-destructive. In fact, the US democratic process is one of the most cumbership, complicated, money-driven, and wholly undemocratic in the world. Maybe Venezuela can show the world how it's done.

For this Reform is not just an election. It's part of a revolution.

Now, for me, any real revolution is about healing. It has to heal centuries of injustices, including against the indigenous and African peoples, and decades of control of the major industry and resources by a small number of families. It has to heal the exploitation of the poor and the uneducated. It has to open the schools, the factories, the housing, and the land's bounty to ALL the people. This is what the rich opposition is against--they want this control for themselves.

Tomi and Johnny are two of the many people in Venezuela who see the light at the end of the tunnel. In the past, any people who tried to find their own revolutionary path--such as Cuba, Nicaragua or Chile under Salvador Allende--have been targeted, attacked and blockaded by the United States government. The US government ended up overthrowing progressive governments (with no elections) in Guatemala, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and other countries. Is it possibe the US will do the same in Venezuela?

Progressives, revolutionaries, activists, and lovers of justice & peace must organize against any such actions by the US government. But more importantly, we must envision and organize for a world in which real healing, real cultural expression and real dignified work, housing and life can be had by all, including in our own class-burdened society.

That's what is at stake in Venezuela. Let the people decide, the people who will actually be most affected by this process. The US can't even guarantee real democracy and justice within it's own borders, let alone in the world. It can't even tell the truth about what's going on.

Most Americans may be scared, pulled around by inaccurate information, and lied to. But the truth will out--I've seen Venezuela. And there is something truly alive and promising there. I've also seen the poor countries of Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Peru. And I'm here to tell you--Venezuela is better off going its own way, away from US capitalist interests and control, away from the rich and greedy in Venezuela who'd love the US to dictate what happens in that country. These rich and greedy don't want full democracy--they want the phony democracy in which money and power rules.

Healing, however, is a deep and long process. Let it go where it has to go. What's the alternative but civil unrest, massacres, death squads, and increased poverty that the US contributed in places like Central America. No more. Venezuela must go its own way.

The United States--Is Revolution Possible?

For the third time in a year and a half, I've come to Venezuela to take part in important international encounters and festivals: I was part of the World Social Forum in Caracas in the spring of 2006 and the International Poetry Festival in the fall of the same year. Now I'm an invited guest to the 3rd Caracas International Book Festival, slated for November 8 until November 18. Interestingly, I'm part of a several-day forum and dialogue--the central theme of the festival--posing the question: Is Revolution possible in the United States?

Venezuela has been in a revolutionary process for some time, personified in the country's president, Hugo Chavez, who has been duly vilified in the US mass media--in lock step with the US state department. The country is largely behind Mr. Chavez, but there is a strong opposition--even Caracas' five municipalities are split three to two for Chavez. Most of the opposition are made up of the more well-off Venezuelans, many with ties to US corporations. Students protests against Chavez have largely been from the well-off private institutions. They are protesting the election in December to change the Venezuelan constitution called "the Reform." While many Venezuelans I talked to seem to support the Reform and Chavez, there are also legitimate concerns. The opposition, however, is against the Reform in total. Their protests are essentially "No to Reform."

Venezuela, like all of Latin America, is undergoing deep revolutionary changes, something all revolutionaries must welcome in a time when US Empire has sucked the life juices out of most 3rd world economies and has carried out illegal and costly wars--in lives and in dollars--in Iraq and Afghanistan (and many other sovereign states over the past 150 years). The world needs deep and lasting social change--with deep-rooted imagination and encompassing the great capacity of the world's poor to envision and shape their own futures.

Other Americans in the US forums (there have been five distinct panels and discussions) include Ward Churchill, Amiri and Amina Baraka, William Blum, Tufara LaShelle Waller (the Highlander Organization in Tennessee), Antonio Gonzalez (the Southwest Voters Registration Project), Jimmy Massey (the Irag Veterans Against the War), Hector Pesquera (of Puerto Rico), and many others that, unfortunately, I can't name all here. I will say that some of the invited Americans include those currently residing in Venezuela--Charles Hardy, Eva Golinger, Chris Carlson, Dada Maheshvarananda, and others.

The discussions and debates were serious, informative, feisty at times, and important. A few actually said there can never be revolution in the US--it is too dulled by consumerism and privilege. Others claimed revolution is possible, although no one claimed it would be emminent.

My presentation covered the various key aspects that indicate a growing and deepening revolutionary crisis in the US. For example there's the growing gap between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest (today one percent of the population controls a fifth of the country's wealth, which is as bad as it's ever been since the 1920s). In addition there are more than 40 million people living below the poverty line (this is the official numbers; I'm sure it's far worse). There are 45 million people without health care. There are 4 million Americans in jails, prisons, parole or probation (the majority are African Americans or Latinos). And there is a growing credit and housing crisis, with the average American carrying more than $18,000 in debt, which is driving more people, including many whites, into the poverty levels.

In LA alone poverty grew 17 percent between 2002 and 2005; some 500,000 households can't get enough to eat or have limited acccess to nutritious food (Susannah Rosenblatt, LA Times, September 23, 2007).

The present crises, however, are predicated on an important development of world historical significance: the transition from industrial production to electronics/digital production that we've undergone most heatedly within the past 30 year. Globalization is an essential aspect of this development--it's capitalism in the age of electronics.

There is already, then, a revolution in the productive forces of society laying the basis for a political/social revolution. What people need in the US is an orientation of this and the class forces at play, a clarity of the objective realities we face--with a vision of where to go and a strategy of how to get there. That's the job of revolutionaries. Something that is also in the early stages of developing.

Is revolution possible in the US? Yes. Will it happen tomorrow? No. The United States is a large, multi-layered and complicated society. It is also the heart of empire and war in the world. Social revolution is possible, but it will entail serious, long-range and fully engaging efforts on the part of revolutionaries in relation to the maturing objective conditions.

Of course, Latin America will not wait for the US revolution to transpire. Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and other countries are already in various stages of their own revolutionary developments. There are, of course, key links that must be forged between the revolutionary process in the US and that of Latin America.

The fact is we are already linked. Globalization has brought the continent, and most of the world, that much clsoer. Each country's revolutionaries must do the vital and essential work with the very forms of struggle that history has handed us in the diverse regions of this truly revolutionary continent.

This dialogue, therefore, is far from over. We've only scratched at the surface. I'm honored to be part of this important international debate. I know that what happens in the US is vital for the whole world. An imaginative, democratic, worker-rooted, and visionary process in the US would be necessary if we are to success. It must also include all Americans--all races, all sectors--especially the growing number of Americans most effected by the unfolding systematic crises within capitalism. Still, while the discussions are good the reality of what lies ahead is more complex.

I will report more on my trip and the parameters of this discussion in future blogs, including what I perceive to be the root and essence of these complexities.

The Peten Jungle--the Cradle of Mayan Civilization

Guatemala's Peten jungle is a thick rainforest with spider and howler monkeys, jaguars, racoon-type mammals, several-inch long spiders & tarantulas, and multi-colored plumed birds bordered by the countries of Mexico and Belize. Before leaving Guatemala after a number of presentations, community & prison visits and media events on the growing issue of gang violence, Fabian Montes & Pascual Torres, both of Homeboy Industries, and I decided to take a plane from Guatemala City to the Flores Airport in the Peten Jungle at the edge of Lake Peten Itza. We needed a few days to relax and to visit some sacred sites.

Our hotel was a clean and well-landscaped place about a half-hour from Flores in the community of El Remate. We could see the lake from our windows and from the dining hall. The day we walked to the lake, a Mayan woman was washing clothes by hand on rocks at the lake's edge; one morning, we saw horses grazing.

A full moon greeted us the first night, a good sign. The next day, we ventured another half hour to the nearby Tikal Mayan Ruins, considered the largest pre-Columbian ruins ever excavated in the continent. It has various temples, buildings, ball courts, ceremonial centers, and more on several acres of land. There are many other temples and structures, often appearing as hills or mounds, that continue to be buried beneath the jungle--perhaps thousands.

Interestingly, Mayan elders and shaman still do ceremonies and prayers at Tikal. A number of contemporary Mayan altars are clearly marked. The place also has tourists from throughout Guatemala and other Central American countries, but also from the US and Europe. Tikal is located in a national park that is well-taken care of. The ruins were discovered in 1848 and were a major spiritual and commercial center for some 1500 years, several hundred years before the Spanish conquest. The people of Mexico's Teotihuacan--called the Toltecs, or "the artists/people of knowledge"--had taken over Tikal for a while, adding to the cultural vitality of the site.

There are 34 distinct buildings and sites in the park. It's like Disneyland in the way the roads are marked with signs telling you where each site is located. We were told a person would need seven hours or so to see everything. We spent about four hours and saw amazing structures, including the world-famous Grand Jaquar Temple, some 147 feet high in the Grand Plaza overlooking an ancient ball court with a smaller but equally impressive temple (Temple II or Temple of the Masks) directly across the large courtyard at 124 feet.

We also visited Temple V that had one side still in the jungle and the other side excavated to show steps and carvings. Most impressive to me was the tallest temple at Tikal, called Temple IV, which went up through the jungle's canopy some 236 feet. Wooden steep steps were built at the side of the temple so people could climb to the very top (at their own risk). I wasn't sure I'd make it, but I saw old people and young kids climbing up and down. I had to try.

It was quite an ordeal, but all three of us took the steps up to the very top of what is considered the tallest pyramid in the world. At the top a woman told me, "don't worry--it's worth it." Once I got my bearings at the end of the wooden stairs, I could finally see what all the fuss was about. The temple stood above the jungle. You could see the amazing foliage over the land, but also various other temples rising above the canopy. It was quite a sight, and definitely worth the trouble (although not if one fell).

It proved to be one of the highlights of my many trips through this fantastic continent. The Mayan people speak varous dialects across parts of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador (there are also other tribal groupings, including Nahuatl-speaking natives, in those areas as well). They are one of several major indigenous peoples, including the Mexikas (Nahuatl-speaking) and Incas, who have created deeply rooted and complicated societies. They were not only masters of the jungle, nature, and relationships, but also knew about the stars, the earth's cycles, architecture, philosophy, mathmatics (they are credited for inventing the concept of "zero"), plant healing, and so much more.

In fact, the Mayan Calendar (of which the Mexika Sun Calendar is related) is considered the world's most accurate. But it also has another quality: it's a spiritual calendar system that appears to outline the birth, development and expansion of consciousness in the world.

Before we left, Fabian, Pascual and I did a prayer of thanks at a building called the Acropolis South. We made many important friends in Guatemala. It's a country suffering through so much poverty and violence--but I also saw much hope, creativity and energy for positive and lasting encompassing change. We hope to come back, each time helping enhance what is already a vital and important place in this vast continent called America.

Radio Free Los Angeles: KJLH 102.3 FM

I've had an amazing week as guest host of the "Front Page" with Dominique DiPrima on KJLH, 102.3 FM. I'm honored to be invited again (this is my second time as a weeklong guest host this year) on one of LA's most venerable radio stations--based in Inglewood/South Central LA/Compton communities and owned by the incomparable Stevie Wonder.

I thank Dominique DiPrima for being such a gracious person and having me return to one of LA's leading African American talk shows. We had a fantastic array of guests--including ex-prisoner writers Ronald Winston, Donna Ann Smith-Marshall and Nyerere Jase; financial advisor Joseph Meyer of Meyer & Associates; gang intervention specialists Stan Muhammad and George Avalos of Venice 2000 and Julian Mendoza of Amer-I-Can; and Rev. Jesse Jackson (by phone). The callers were engaged, poignant and often challenging. What a great listener base this show has! And I'm talking early in the morning--the show starts at 4:30 AM and goes to around 6 AM.

Dominique says at least 30,000 people are listening at that time--insomniacs, graveyard workers, early risers, you name it. We also had a lively Hot Topic Tuesday in which listeners and the hosts can discuss any and all topics. We dealt with Black/Brown conflicts, Barack Obama, reparations, the housing crisis, schools, police abuse, gangs, economic empowerment, and more.

And today, Day of the Dead 2007, Dominique and I discussed the value of honoring and respecting our ancestors, those who have passed on and can still be accessed to provide protection, guidance and connection. While Western Culture tends to belittle or make this subject one with dread and fear (Halloween, ghosts, goblins, etc.), most indigenous cultures from Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Mideast, or Europe understand this concept and use the remembrance of those who have passed on for positive long-term and short-term assistance.

Please support KJLH and shows like "Front Page." Go to www.kjlhradio.com for more information.