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Socialists educate me on community organizing… so I know what to look for and warn the folks?

The progressive Canadian folks at socialistproject.ca send me this almost daily unsolicited emailed commie briefing called “The Bullet” (weird name, huh?  Kinda like that seminar I was telling you they were promoting called “TRIGGER”!).  I’ve often referred to their emails and the politically related socialist/communist People’s Voice newspaper the progressives send to me all the time (which my puppy Sammy once tore to shreds, recognizing junk when she saw it). 

Sammy our puppy shreds The People’s Voice.  Good girl, Samra.
image  image

These progressive think they’ll convert me I guess.  Naturally though, since I’ve spent time in my life thinking things through, it of course has the exact opposite effect.  The more I read from them, the more idiotic they appear to me.  I think it’s entirely possible somebody inside their organization is leaking the advocacy information that is swirling around their loony circles to me, so I can can see the dotty things they’re up to, and issue a public warning.  Or just a daily laugh or two. 

In this latest issue, a couple of socialistproject.ca associates and socialist activists named Susan Spronk and Jefferey R. Webber (more on them later),  who are obviously bent on advocating for a socialist Canada, interview another Hugo Chavez fanatic, whom I guess they hope will help convince Canadians to become socialists/communists and help create a socialist/communist dictatorship here just like they’re doing in Venezuela under Chavez. 

Listen to the socialist expert lament about democracy when asked what the biggest impediments to building socialism are.  While reading this, I thought about Jack Layton’s you’ve got to be kidding party and what they actually call themselves.  To them, “democracy” and “freedom” don’t mean the same things they do to the rest of us:  to them it means the realization of the socialist state.  “Freedom” and “democracy” are only possible, they say, when the state is finally socialist/communist, which is of course preposterous on its face.  But they’re tricky that way.  They know loads of people buy into it.  Especially young minds.  For example, university students at our state-owned colleges and universities.  And on our state-owned media, the CBC.  And so on.

(Susan Spronk and Jefferey R. Webber) —  What are some of the main problems that you face trying to build socialism from the neighborhoods up to higher levels?

(Antenea Jimenez, Venezuelan socialist) — There is one factor that impedes our work which is the electoral dynamic, which is very exhausting. Constantly being in campaigns does not permit us to consolidate the organic process at the neighborhood level. image It is difficult to deal with the problems in the community when we have to focus on issues like the constituent assembly, then the referendum, general elections, then presidential elections, then elections for governor, etc. Currently we are in elections for municipal councilors. This constant electoral dynamic weakens the organic process at the local level because it distracts us from confronting the daily issues that people confront in their neighborhoods.

We also find that at the root of building this socialist/communist dictatorship is community organizing —or “comunas”.  Think of President Barack Obama whose only claim to fame, and whose abiding advocacy revolves around, “community organizing”.

What is the main aim of the comunas?

…For us the comuna is a territorial space, but also a political space where the aim is to build socialism on a permanent basis, where the people take charge of their own education and political formation. …

How do the comunas work?

Historically there were diverse organizations that came together to resolve the problems of the neighborhoods. Our idea was to bring these organizations together to start to participate with concrete issues. We organize workshops.  … We look for a socialist solution to the problem.

And later, as a result of these “community organizing” efforts:

Now there is a lot of political activity, there are important social movements. There is possibility, there is hope. Now people do more than just wait every five years to participate in elections. We have seven million people who are militants in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). There are millions of people participating in the communal councils.

In the end, we find that it will all take a long time.  See, there are nasty capitalist ideas still out there.  Beware of them!

The process of building political consciousness, formation, can not be instantaneous. It is not like you can go to a school for a week and get a certificate. It has to be permanent. If you have a team constituted by the same people from the communal council raising the consciousness of people in their community, this is the way to create facilitators. It is a long process to learn about all of the different categories: anarchism, socialism and its various currents. It takes at least fifteen years. It is not just theory; it is also learned in practice. You learn in practice, but also through reading and reflecting. It takes a long time to figure out that certain social and political practices belong to socialism, while other ones are capitalist. 

… But it is difficult when the companies that provide the services, for example, produce the materials for a house, are still capitalist. Housing is a good example because the problem of housing continues to be serious. Maybe we are making the blocks, but we have to buy the cement from a capitalist company. And then hiring the person to lay the blocks… It is not just solving the problem, but how we solve the problem… to build socialism rather than strengthen capitalism. We have 500 years of colonialism and exploitation, so this is a big challenge, to rebuild all of the socio-economic system. Building a new state is a big challenge.

image …and eventually her inner Rosie O’Donnell starts to ooze out….

…We have to take over the plants, take over the companies. But it is not easy to do. 

… We are doing everything to try to make sure that the comuna becomes the main instrument of social change because we are Marxists… it is the only way to build socialism, from below.

And she said this next thing, at which point I realized I needed to insert an graphical example for my commune of bourgeois, capitalist readers:

image

…The idea is that the comuna also starts to run the community radio stations, the TV stations.

Anyway, are you convinced?  Apparently community organizing is the key to teaching successful socialist enclaves leading to a permanent communist state.  We have to thank the authors of this article and the interviewers, Susan Spronk and Jefferey R. Webber.  Here’s some information supplied at the end of the article.

Jeffery R. Webber:
Jeffery R. Webber teaches politics at the University of Regina. He is the author of Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia (Brill, 2010), and Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous Liberation and the Politics of Evo Morales (Haymarket, 2011). 

His bio at the Canadian university at which he teaches our youth on behalf of taxpayers, lists his interests:

Research Interests
Latin American Political Economy; Development Theory; International Political Economy; Marxism; Imperialism, Hegemony, Empire, and Globalization; Critical Race Theory; Social Movements; Comparative Politics (developing countries); and the Latin American Left.

Another web site lists him as editor of New Socialist.  I found all sorts of rabidly anti-capitalist and other socialist sites which appear to be connected to him. 
·  http://nextyearcountrynews.blogspot.com/2010/03/canadas-long-embrace-o-fthe-honduran.html
·  http://ecosocialismcanada.blogspot.com/2010/06/toronto-days-of-action.html

Susan Spronk is more academic, it seems. 

Susan Spronk teaches in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is a research associate with Municipal Services Project and has published several articles on class formation and water politics in Bolivia.

She has written for such publications as Monthly Review, which describes itself thus: “From the first, Monthly Review spoke for socialism and against U.S. imperialism and is still doing so today.” 

She lists Karl Marx as one of her Facebook “Likes”.  Spronk was Chief Steward of Unit 3 (Graduate Assistants) of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903, York University, Toronto, from 2000-2002. 

So there’s sure to be some good teaching to be had there.  I mean if you want to advance socialist and communist thinking. On the taxpayers’ dime.

UPDATE Tues, June 12:
Email:

image

From: m
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 7:42 AM
To: ProudToBeCanadian.ca
Subject: RE: Socialists educate me on community organizing…

Joel:

Not sure if you’re aware but Jeffrey Webber is one of the 16 “professors” at the University of Regina who protested the establishment of a scholarship program for the dependents of dead soldiers, arguing it promotes militarism. ….. 

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2010/03/25/sk-wall-scholarship-1003.html

“We think this program is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan,” said Jeffrey Webber, one of 16 professors who drafted an open letter to university president Vianne Timmons.

The program, called Project Hero, provides financial aid for children of Canadian Forces personnel who have lost their lives while serving in an active mission. Individual universities establish the terms and conditions for the scholarship including value, duration and application process.  …..

I haven’t seen Webber’s views anywhere regarding scholarship programs for the progeny of university faculty members. 

cheers,
Mike (regular reader)

image

Thanks Mike — I’ll add this to the post. 

And God bless the troops and our noble mission there, and of course the families of the troops.

Joel

Joel Johannesen
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