The key to understanding contemporary "leftist" politicians like the contemptible thug Chavez or his fellow pro-capitalist "progressives," like Lula or Evo Morales, is grasping the truth that those clowns are in power to prevent fundamental social change, not lead it. This is immediately obvious in Venezuela, where Chavez has been in power for over ten years, and the country is *still* a market economy, still a place where impoverished workers are exploited by fat cats, just as they are in Brazil and Bolivia.
The election of charlatans like Chavez, or our own two-faced liar Obama, who campaigned against "Don't ask, don't tell" and against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), but, as President, sends his "Justice" Department lawyers to intervene in defense of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and DOMA, shows that "democratic" elections under capitalist rule are meaningless: working people vote for "progressives" or "leftists" who, once in power, invariably, and usually immediately, betray those that supported them.
A corollary of this truth is that, in the US, at least, all existing "social movememts" are simply extensions of the Democratic Party, and the real purpose of those "movements" is **not** fundamental change, but merely guaranteeing the re-election of Democratic Party hacks. An outfit called MERI, allegedly in favor of marriage equality for gay people in Rhode Island, recently used its blog to praise Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party politician who instituted "Don't ask, don't tell" and signed DOMA into law, and then boasted about that on Christian radio.
If MERI really wanted to win marriage equality, it would have to confront the homophobic Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Obama (all of them opposed to gay marriage) and their fellow bigoted hacks; in the same way, if the "antiwar" movement were really about ending US aggression in the Middle East, that "movement," which disappears every other year, so as not to get in the way of Obama and the other pro-war Democrat multi-millionaires, would have oppose the Congressional Democrats, who go on appropriating tens of billions to ensure that the US military can continue to slaughter vast numbers of Muslims in the Mid-East. Of course, the "anti-war" "movement," being completely invertebrate, and utterly subservient to its masters in the Democratic Party, will never confront anything. It's just there to raise money for Democrat politicians and provide them with a platform for their lies, like Obama's promise to withdraw from Iraq. The bottom line is, the Democrats are an awful big part of the reason why there is never fundamental change in the US.
The only thing that counts is class struggle, independent action by workers in our own interests. Everything else, like elections or the 100% bullshit, Democrat-owned "movements" is just a swindle and a trap for hard-working proles like us. -- Yosef M
