Wheeling out the international desk

For some cheap, cheap commentary. We haven't been to Venezuela for a fair while. Let's start with some basics.

Revolutions are moments and/or periods when great masses of ordinary people take the initiative to try to change the course of history. This has been the case in Venezuela at the very least at certain points in the last 10 years. The crucial part of every revolution is how they have been sustained and how they have been institutionalised (in every sense of the word) from great matters of state to petty details in civil society, social habits and norms. This is because movements of ordinary people rise and fall. If permanent revolution meant revolution all the time then it would be impossible. This means for every period of revolution there will be a period of reaction.

I may be wrong, but the last apparent mobilisation from below in Venezuela was the drive to win the recall election in 2004. This appears to have been the spur for Chavez to go over to socialism, at least in terms of rhetoric. The meaning of his socialism has yet to fully unfold. You get things like the missions, which aim to deliver services to the working class and poor, bypassing the deeply corrupt state machine (which has yet to have been dealt with). But have these missions made workers power a reality or created a new type of clientelism?

Here we go with news that the Venezuelan public prosecutor is proposing laws to jail journalists who put out material harmful to the public good:

Under the draft law on media offences, information deemed to be "false" and aimed at "creating a public panic" will also be punishable by prison sentences...

It states that anyone - newspaper editor, reporter or artist - could be sentenced to between six months and four years in prison for information which attacks "the peace, security and independence of the nation and the institutions of the state".

This is in part understandable, given the extent to which the private media collaborates with the oligarchy, who still long to overthrow Bolivarianism. But it is also clear that this is an initiative coming from the top of the state. It could plainly be used in many contexts. There is great potential as well as great difficulties within the PSUV. What hope is there for any socialist (or left-wing radical generally) with a independent point of view?

It's probably easiest to say, "fall in and defend the revolution". Venezuela is still and example that undermines TINA. But whose revolution is it now?