Reflections of Fidel

How I wish I was wrong
(Taken from CubaDebate)

WHEN these lines are published tomorrow, Friday, in Granma newspaper, the 26th of July, a date on which we always recall with pride the honor of having resisted the onslaughts of the empire, will still be in the distance, despite it being only 32 days away.

Those who determine every step of the worst enemy of humanity – United States imperialism, a mixture of ignoble material interests, disdain and underestimation for other people inhabiting the planet – have calculated everything with mathematical precision.

In the Reflection of June 16 I wrote: “Diabolical news is filtering little by little between games and games in the World Cup, in a way that nobody is paying much attention to it.”

The famous sports event has entered its most emotional moments. For 14 days, the teams made up of the best footballers from 32 countries have been competing to advance toward the second round; afterward the phases of quarter finals, semifinals and the final of the event come in successive stages.

Fanaticism for sport is growing incessantly, captivating hundreds or millions and possibly billions of people all over the planet.

On the other hand, one would have to ask how many of them know that, since June 20, U.S. military vessels, including the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, escorted by one or more nuclear submarines and other warships with missiles and cannons that are more powerful that those of the old battleships utilized in the last world war from 1939 to 1945, have been navigating toward Iranian coasts via the Suez Canal.

The yanki naval forces are accompanied by Israeli military boats, with equally sophisticated armaments, to inspect every vessel that leaves to export and import commercial products required for the functioning of the Iranian economy.

At the proposal of the United States, with support from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the UN Security Council approved a harsh resolution that was not vetoed by any of the five countries which hold that right.

Another harsher resolution was approved with the agreement of the United States Senate

Subsequently, a third, even harsher one was passed by the countries of the European Union. All of this took place before June 20, which prompted an urgent trip to Russia by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to the news, to meet with the head of state of that powerful country, Dmitry Medvedev, in the hope of negotiating with Iran and avoiding the worst.

Now it is about calculating when the naval forces of the United States and Israel will be deployed facing the Iranian coasts, and joining up there with aircraft carriers and other U.S. military boats which mount guard in this region.

The worst part is that, just like the United States, Israel, its gendarme in the Middle East, possesses extremely modern bomber aircraft and sophisticated weapons supplied by the United States, which has converted it into the sixth nuclear power on the planet given its firepower, among the eight recognized as such, including India and Pakistan.

The Shah of Iran had been defeated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 without using a single weapon. The United States imposed the Shah after the war on that nation with the use of chemical weapons, whose components it supplied to Iraq together with the information needed by its combat units and which were deployed by them against the Revolutionary Guards. Cuba knows that because, at that time, as we have explained on other occasions, it was president of the Non-Aligned Movement. We know very well the devastation that it caused among the population. Mahmud Ahmadinejad, now head of state in Iran, was chief of the sixth army of the Revolutionary Guards and chief of the Guard Corps in the western provinces of that country, which bore the brunt of that war.

Today, in 2010, after 31 years, both the United States and Israel are underestimating the one million soldiers in the Iranian Armed Forces and their capacity for fighting on land, and the air, sea and land forces of the Revolutionary Guards.

In addition to these, there are the 20 million men and women, aged from 12 to 60, selected and systematically trained by its diverse military institutions, from out of the 70 million people who inhabit the country.

The government of the United States drew up a plan to instigate a political movement that, supporting itself on capitalist consumerism, would divide Iranians and defeat the regime.

That hope has become innocuous. It is laughable to think that with U.S. warships plus those of Israel, that they can arouse the sympathies of one sole Iranian citizen.

Analyzing the current situation, I initially believed that the battle would begin in the Korean peninsula, and that that area would be the detonator of the second Korean war which, in its turn, would immediately lead to the second war that the United States would impose on Iran.

Now, reality is changing things in an inverse sense: that of Iran will immediately unleash that of Korea.

The leadership of North Korea, which was accused of the sinking of the Cheonan, and is all too well aware that it was sunk by a mine that the yanki intelligence services succeeded in placing in the hull of that corvette, will not hesitate for one second to act as soon as the attack is initiated on Iran.

It is quite right that the football fans should enjoy their craving for the World Cup competitions. I am only fulfilling the duty of exhorting our people, thinking above all of our youth, full of life and hope, and especially our marvelous children, in order that events do not catch us completely unawares.

It pains me to think of so many dreams conceived of by human beings and the astounding creations of which they have been capable in just a few thousand years.

At a time when the most revolutionary dreams are being fulfilled and the homeland is firmly recovering, how I wish I was wrong!

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 24, 2010
9:34 p.m.

What does the Communist Party stand for?

The Communist Party stands for the interests of the American working class and the American people. It stands for our interests in both the present and the future. Solidarity with workers of other countries is also part of our work. We work in coalition with the labor movement, the peace movement, the student movement, organizations fighting for equality and social justice, the environmental movement, immigrants rights groups and the health care for all campaign.

But to win a better life for working families, we believe that we must go further. We believe that the American people can replace capitalism with a system that puts people before profit – socialism.

We are rooted in our country’s revolutionary history and its struggles for democracy. We call for “Bill of Rights” socialism, guaranteeing full individual freedoms.

Until we win enough support to change the system, communists call for radical reforms under capitalism. We call for nationalization of the banks, railroads, and industries like steel and auto. Everyone who wants to work should be guaranteed a job or get unemployment payments until she/he can find a job. We say put the unemployed to work at union wages on massive public works programs to rebuild our cities, provide affordable housing for the homeless, build mass transit, and clean up the environment!

Our outlook is based on the social science of Marxism-Leninism. We study history, politics and economics in order to change the world.

Is the Communist Party legal?

Yes. The right to belong to the Communist Party is protected by the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

But vigilance to protect these fundamental democratic rights of the American people has been needed throughout our nation’s history as corporate interests have repeatedly attempted to outlaw the Communist Party (along with other progressive groups such as trade unions, civil rights groups, etc.)

From the Palmer raids of the 1920s through the McCarthy witchhunts of the 40s and 50s, to today’s rabid radio talk show hosts, right wing politicians and corporate interests have never stopped trying to intimidate workers by making it seem that being a communist or favoring socialism and workers rights is illegal. Nevertheless, in recent years many states, counties, unions and other organizations continue to replace outdated anti-Communist clauses with more democratic and inclusive policies.

What is Marxism? How can I learn more?

Marxism is the system of ideas and practice developed by the great German scholar and revolutionary Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels. Working in the late 1800s, a period of revolutionary social and scientific change, Marx and Engels brought together classical German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism to produce an integrated view of society. Marxism has served as a guide for working class and national liberation movements ever since.

Marxist ideas have been elaborated and modernized by other great revolutionaries such as Vladimir Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro. The validity of Marxism has been repeatedly demonstrated by its role in guiding successful social struggles and revolutions in every part of the world. Marxism is not a rigid dogma, but relies on the scientific method to analyze and change society, so it is constantly developing and adapting as society itself changes.

Some of the best introductions to Marxism are the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin themselves. The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, should be on everyone’s must-read list. Lenin’s encyclopedia article “Karl Marx,” written in 1914, is an excellent brief description of Marx’s life and work. An even shorter article is “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism.” Marx’s excellent histories, such as The Civil War in France, combine brilliant historical analysis with a deep sympathy for people’s struggles. Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a very readable explanation of Marxist socialist theory.

How does the Communist Party work?

Members of the Communist Party belong to clubs in their communities or workplaces. Some clubs are citywide or regional. In the club, members work together to support and initiate struggles for workers rights, peace, equality and justice. We give special emphasis to coalition building and working to strengthen our unions.

Most clubs meet monthly. Meetings include study and discussion of both current developments and long term strategy and tactics. Some members participate in discussions and activities through on-line clubs. In states where there are clusters of clubs they work cooperatively as a district.

Every four years, the party holds a national convention. Delegates elected from the clubs assess the current political situation, set policy and elect a national committee.

The Young Communist League, an independent organization, works alongside the Party at the local and national level.

The national headquarters of the party is located in New York City.

What has the Communist Party accomplished?

Founded in 1919, the Communist Party has helped win important changes in our country. Communists helped organize the great industrial unions including steel, meatpacking and auto. Communists were pioneers in the 1930s in the fight for Social Security, unemployment compensation, the 8-hour day and the 40-hour week. They took a lead in the fight against lynching and to save the Scottsboro Nine. Communists were among those who developed militant direct action tactics – such as the sit-down strikes that helped win unionization of the auto industry. At the height of the Great Depression communist neighborhood clubs organized mass unemployed councils that put back the furniture of evicted neighbors. In rural areas, communists organized to block bank auction of foreclosed farms.

Fighting Jim Crow, communists helped lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. During the Spanish Civil War and in World War II, Communists volunteered to fight fascism. Many died in battle. In the Korean War and early days of the war in Vietnam, Communists were among the few who openly opposed the war. Their pioneering work helped build a huge peace movement.

In the labor movement of the 1970s , 80s and 90s communist workers along with other progressive rank and filers helped build caucuses to fight for more democracy, diversity and affirmative action and against “business unionism.”

In the 1970’s Communists led the movement to free Angela Davis continuing the party’s commitment to defend victims of political repression. We worked for peace and nuclear disarmament. Communists always focus on opposing the U.S. government’s role in supporting dictatorial regimes abroad, from apartheid in South Africa to the fascist dictator Pinochet in Chile.

Why does the Communist Party oppose violence?

Communists believe that social change can only be accomplished through the united action of mass movements which express the majority will of the people. Peaceful methods of change are not only the right thing to do, they are the most effective way to unite and mobilize the greatest majorities.

Violence, on the other hand, is a tool of the big corporations and the governments they control. To preserve their power, they use violence against workers’ and people’s movements.

In contrast, Communists seek to change society peacefully. We work to expand every democratic and electoral avenue as part of our fight for working class political and economic power.

Our party believes that it is possible to make fundamental transformations using the electoral process, the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights.

What about the Communist Party and religion?

Communists are not against religion. We are against capitalism. In fact, the Party has its own Religion Commission which seeks to build positive relations with religious people and communities in the struggle to make life better for working people. Most religious people believe in justice, peace, and respectful relations among the peoples of the world, and many are motivated by their faith to work for those goals.

Membership in the Communist Party is open to all who agree with our program, regardless of religious beliefs.

What are the CPUSA views on the environment?

One of our main slogans is “People and Nature Before Profits.” We are for developing policy that provides for a sustainable economy and a sustainable ecology. Where possible, we participate in environmental movements, and recognize and work on the environmental aspects of struggles on the shop floor and in unions.

We oppose drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and we oppose the use of nuclear power until there is a safe way to dispose of waste (and if there is no safe way, don’t use nuclear power at all). We fight against subjecting workers to untested new chemical compounds with unknown health consequences, currently being introduced at the rate of 3,000 or 4,000 new compounds each year. We support the use of sustainable forest practices, which also are more labor intensive, creating new jobs and job retraining for laid-off lumber workers.

We seek to build unity between the environmental movement and other important movements: the labor, civil rights, women’s, youth, peace, and immigrant rights movements, to name a few.

To build a better world, we must have a world to build on. The greatest environmental threat is that of nuclear war. We are for complete disarmament and for the destruction of all nuclear weapons.

There was environmental damage in the former socialist countries. Some of that was due to their efforts at forced industrialization, which put the environmental dangers of such development low on their list of priorities. A related problem was that in adopting machinery and industrial processes from advanced capitalist countries, they unintentionally adopted the capitalist economic realities embedded in the machinery and processes. In other words, capitalist industrial development is based on not having to pay the costs for most of the waste products it generates. When socialist countries used that as a model to develop their own industry, they ended up with the same skewed industrial waste model.

They did this for several good reasons—to short cut the process of technological change, to quickly provide more goods for their citizens, to be able to compete with capitalist countries. However, unintentionally, adopting technological processes designed to function in capitalist reality, they brought in environmental problems that relied on the ability of industries to dump waste without paying the social and environmental costs. To adapt, rather than just adopt, major industrial processes will take more time.

Why does the Communist Party fight to expand democracy?

We believe that the broad participation of working people in every area of life is the gateway to a more just and humane future. Socialism offers the best environment for democracy to fully flourish because it sharply limits the power of corporations to dominate politics and the economy. Socialism’s democratic potential can only be realized, however, if broad sections of the people are wholeheartedly engaged in every aspect of society’s decision-making processes.

Under capitalism, the Communist Party USA fights to expand the limited democratic rights we now have. For example, we fight for the Employee Free Choice Act and the right of workers to join unions.

We are proud of our record against undemocratic laws that upheld racism, sexism, or other forms of discrimination. By standing up to the McCarthy witch hunts, Communists defended democracy. We call for abolition of torture, total reform of the prison system, and an end to the death penalty.

Communists see the struggle for democracy as empowering people, just as we see people empowering democracy.

Why is the working class at the heart of the communist program?

The working class and working people as a whole are the overwhelming majority of society. The working class creates everything that the world’s people need to survive and thrive – from food, housing, health care, energy, education to transportation, music and art. Because working people make the country go, they are also uniquely positioed to change the society. Workers, when united and working together with other oppressed people, have the power to change the world.

The Road to Socialism USA, the program of the Communist Party, is aimed guiding the struggle to eventually win political, economic and social power for working people so they can make sure that everyone fairly and equally enjoys the fruits of their labor. You can find out more in the Party Program.

Why is the fight against racism, sexism and oppression so important to the communists?

We make the fight for equality an important part of every struggle we fight. The Communist Party fights for full equality for people of all races, for women and men, straight people and LGBT, for speakers of all languages, for young people and older people, and for people of all religious beliefs or none. The U.S. working class includes millions of immigrant workers. We stand for full rights for these workers, regardless of their documentation status. We believe in equality because it is just and right. Even more, the fight for equality is key to uniting the working class into a powerful force for the changes we need.

Is the Communist Party USA part of an international movement?

Yes! We are internationalists. Capitalism is a global system of exploitation and oppression. We have relationships of solidarity with communist and workers parties in countries across the globe. We believe that the world working class, and those oppressed by capitalism in any form are natural allies. We work in solidarity with all movements around the world that struggle for independence, peace and economic and social justice.

We believe that the freedom and advancement of the American people is closely tied to the freedom and advancement of all working people and the oppressed around the world.

By Prof. James Galbraith
via MLToday

The following is the text of Professor James K. Galbraith‘s written statement to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee delivered a few days ago. Professor Galbraith teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. Readers may be interested to know that he is the son the famed liberal Democrat economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

Chairman Specter, Ranking Member Graham, Members of the Subcommittee, as a former member of the congressional staff it is a pleasure to submit this statement for your record.

I write to you from a disgraced profession. Economic theory, as widely taught since the 1980s, failed miserably to understand the forces behind the financial crisis. Concepts including “rational expectations,” “market discipline,” and the “efficient markets hypothesis” led economists to argue that speculation would stabilize prices, that sellers would act to protect their reputations, that caveat emptor could be relied on, and that widespread fraud therefore could not occur. Not all economists believed this – but most did.

Thus the study of financial fraud received little attention. Practically no research institutes exist; collaboration between economists and criminologists is rare; in the leading departments there are few specialists and very few students. Economists have soft- pedaled the role of fraud in every crisis they examined, including the Savings & Loan debacle, the Russian transition, the Asian meltdown and the dot.com bubble. They continue to do so now. At a conference sponsored by the Levy Economics Institute in New York on April 17, the closest a former Under Secretary of the Treasury, Peter Fisher, got to this question was to use the word “naughtiness.” This was on the day that the SEC charged Goldman Sachs with fraud.
There are exceptions. A famous 1993 article entitled “Looting: Bankruptcy for Profit,” by George Akerlof and Paul Romer, drew exceptionally on the experience of regulators who understood fraud. The criminologist-economist William K. Black of the University of Missouri-Kansas City is our leading systematic analyst of the relationship between financial crime and financial crisis. Black points out that accounting fraud is a sure thing when you can control the institution engaging in it: “the best way to rob a bank is to own one.” The experience of the Savings and Loan crisis was of businesses taken over for the explicit purpose of stripping them, of bleeding them dry. This was established in court: there were over one thousand felony convictions in the wake of that debacle. Other useful chronicles of modern financial fraud include James Stewart’s Den of Thieves on the Boesky-Milken era and Kurt Eichenwald’s Conspiracy of Fools, on the Enron scandal. Yet a large gap between this history and formal analysis remains.

Formal analysis tells us that control frauds follow certain patterns. They grow rapidly, reporting high profitability, certified by top accounting firms. They pay exceedingly well. At the same time, they radically lower standards, building new businesses in markets previously considered too risky for honest business. In the financial sector, this takes the form of relaxed – no, gutted – underwriting, combined with the capacity to pass the bad penny to the greater fool. In California in the 1980s, Charles Keating realized that an S&L charter was a “license to steal.” In the 2000s, sub-prime mortgage origination was much the same thing. Given a license to steal, thieves get busy. And because their performance seems so good, they quickly come to dominate their markets; the bad players driving out the good.

The complexity of the mortgage finance sector before the crisis highlights another characteristic marker of fraud. In the system that developed, the original mortgage documents lay buried – where they remain – in the records of the loan originators, many of them since defunct or taken over. Those records, if examined, would reveal the extent of missing documentation, of abusive practices, and of fraud. So far, we have only very limited evidence on this, notably a 2007 Fitch Ratings study of a very small sample of highly-rated RMBS, which found “fraud, abuse or missing documentation in virtually every file.” An efforts a year ago by Representative Doggett to persuade Secretary Geithner to examine and report thoroughly on the extent of fraud in the underlying mortgage records received an epic run-around.

When sub-prime mortgages were bundled and securitized, the ratings agencies failed to examine the underlying loan quality. Instead they substituted statistical models, in order to generate ratings that would make the resulting RMBS acceptable to investors. When one assumes that prices will always rise, it follows that a loan secured by the asset can always be refinanced; therefore the actual condition of the borrower does not matter. That projection is, of course, only as good as the underlying assumption, but in this perversely-designed marketplace those who paid for ratings had no reason to care about the quality of assumptions. Meanwhile, mortgage originators now had a formula for extending loans to the worst borrowers they could find, secure that in this reverse Lake Wobegon no child would be deemed below average even though they all were. Credit quality collapsed because the system was designed for it to collapse.

A third element in the toxic brew was a simulacrum of “insurance,” provided by the market in credit default swaps. These are doomsday instruments in a precise sense: they generate cash-flow for the issuer until the credit event occurs. If the event is large enough, the issuer then fails, at which point the government faces blackmail: it must either step in or the system will collapse. CDS spread the consequences of a housing-price downturn through the entire financial sector, across the globe. They also provided the means to short the market in residential mortgage-backed securities, so that the largest players could turn tail and bet against the instruments they had previously been selling, just before the house of cards crashed.

Latter-day financial economics is blind to all of this. It necessarily treats stocks, bonds, options, derivatives and so forth as securities whose properties can be accepted largely at face value, and quantified in terms of return and risk. That quantification permits the calculation of price, using standard formulae. But everything in the formulae depends on the instruments being as they are represented to be. For if they are not, then what formula could possibly apply?

An older strand of institutional economics understood that a security is a contract in law. It can only be as good as the legal system that stands behind it. Some fraud is inevitable, but in a functioning system it must be rare. It must be considered – and rightly – a minor problem. If fraud – or even the perception of fraud – comes to dominate the system, then there is no foundation for a market in the securities. They become trash. And more deeply, so do the institutions responsible for creating, rating and selling them. Including, so long as it fails to respond with appropriate force, the legal system itself.

Control frauds always fail in the end. But the failure of the firm does not mean the fraud fails: the perpetrators often walk away rich. At some point, this requires subverting, suborning or defeating the law. This is where crime and politics intersect. At its heart, therefore, the financial crisis was a breakdown in the rule of law in America.

Ask yourselves: is it possible for mortgage originators, ratings agencies, underwriters, insurers and supervising agencies NOT to have known that the system of housing finance had become infested with fraud? Every statistical indicator of fraudulent practice – growth and profitability – suggests otherwise. Every examination of the record so far suggests otherwise. The very language in use: “liars’ loans,” “ninja loans,” “neutron loans,” and “toxic waste,” tells you that people knew. I have also heard the expression, “IBG,YBG;” the meaning of that bit of code was: “I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone.”

If doubt remains, investigation into the internal communications of the firms and agencies in question can clear it up. Emails are revealing. The government already possesses critical documentary trails — those of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. Those documents should be investigated, in full, by competent authority and also released, as appropriate, to the public. For instance, did AIG knowingly issue CDS against instruments that Goldman had designed on behalf of Mr. John Paulson to fail? If so, why? Or again: Did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac appreciate the poor quality of the RMBS they were acquiring? Did they do so under pressure from Mr. Henry Paulson? If so, did Secretary Paulson know? And if he did, why did he act as he did? In a recent paper, Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson argue that the “Paulson Put” was intended to delay an inevitable crisis past the election. Does the internal record support this view?

Let us suppose that the investigation that you are about to begin confirms the existence of pervasive fraud, involving millions of mortgages, thousands of appraisers, underwriters, analysts, and the executives of the companies in which they worked, as well as public officials who assisted by turning a Nelson’s Eye. What is the appropriate response?

Some appear to believe that “confidence in the banks” can be rebuilt by a new round of good economic news, by rising stock prices, by the reassurances of high officials – and by not looking too closely at the underlying evidence of fraud, abuse, deception and deceit. As you pursue your investigations, you will undermine, and I believe you may destroy, that illusion.

But you have to act. The true alternative is a failure extending over time from the economic to the political system. Just as too few predicted the financial crisis, it may be that too few are today speaking frankly about where a failure to deal with the aftermath may lead.

In this situation, let me suggest, the country faces an existential threat. Either the legal system must do its work. Or the market system cannot be restored. There must be a thorough, transparent, effective, radical cleaning of the financial sector and also of those public officials who failed the public trust. The financiers must be made to feel, in their bones, the power of the law. And the public, which lives by the law, must see very clearly and unambiguously that this is the case.

Thank you.

By Arthur Shaw

After jumping to Number One on the Venezuelan Twitter charts, President Chavez has launched a blog, a web page and totes a blackberry to keep his followers up to date and inform on his daily activities. The Bolivarian Revolution has quickly gain its footing in the Internet battleground.”

The blog, web page, and twitter are only a few of the moves that Venezuelan revolutionaries are making to update their electoral tactics. Golinger is a strong supporter of and participant in these tactical changes.

Lenin, who along with glorious Fidel and the glorious Ho Chin Minh, was one the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th century, said in his book ‘What Is To Be Done’ that the class struggle has three main manifestations … the political, economic, and ideological … and each of the three manifestations are at par with the other two.

[We have not overlooked the fact that Fidel’s presence still blesses us in the 21st century.]

What a section of Venezuelan revolutionaries are doing with their laptops and cell phones has ramifications in both the political and ideological struggles within the wider class struggle.

Let’s look at the genesis of these changes. Howard Dean, the 2004 bourgeois liberal candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in the USA, massively introduced propaganda and organization through laptops and cell phones into the electoral struggle. But Dean and his forces overestimated the role of “high technology” and underestimated the continued importance to person-to-person organization in the 2004 Democratic Party primaries in the USA. So, Dean blew his big chance and let US Senator John Kerry whip Dean for the 2004 presidential nomination.

Then, the reactionary middle class college students in Venezuela appeared on the world stage with their laptops and cell phones in 2007, repeatedly organizing and marching in large numbers around the issue of the non-renewal of the broadcast license of RCTV and later that year for the defeat of the constitutional reform proposed by Venezuelan revolutionaries led by Hugo Chavez.

The reactionary middle class students and their allies won the constitutional reform … that is, the reactionary youth made a big contribution to the defeat of the constitutional reform. But these reactionary middle class college students never understood or cared how politically powerfully the tool … the laptops and cell phones …. they held in their hands were.

Many people wondered whether what the reactionary middle class college students did was just a “Venezuelan thing,” and therefore inapplicable to the rest of the world.

Next, in 2008, appeared Barack Obama, assisted by the evil electoral genius, David Axelrod, and blew everybody’s minds. In 2008, Axelrod, intensified the impact and expanded the applications of laptop and cell phone campaigning like nobody would believe. The standard departments of electoral struggle are planning and budgeting, fundraising, targeting, voter contact, free media, paid media, candidate activity, opposition research, volunteers, get-out-the-vote, and anti-fraud operations.

In 2004, Howard Dean used his laptop and cell phone capabilities mostly for fundraising. In 2007, the reactionary middle class college students in Venezuela used their similar capabilities mostly for mobilizing volunteers to march and to throw Molotov cocktails. But Axelrod, the electoral monster, applied with savage and barbaric intensity those capabilities to ALL eleven departments of the campaign in 2008.

AKP&D Message and the Media is the cutting-edge US electoral and media consulting firm catering to both liberal and reactionary candidates in the USA and abroad. For example, the reactionary Francisco de Narvarez in the Argentine 2009 legislative elections and the reactionary Kamla Persad-Bissessar in May 2010 general election in Trinidad & Tobago are two recent instances of the firm’s handiwork.

Before 2009, the firm known as Axelrod & Associates was the predecessor firm of AKP&D Message and Media with the above-mentioned David Axelrod as the managing partner of the firm. AKP&D is named after its four original partners: David Axelrod, John Kupper, David Plouffe, and John Del Cecato. All four were members of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, with Plouffe serving as campaign manager, Axelrod as senior strategist, and Del Cecato as media advisor. Axelrod left AKP&D to serve as senior advisor to the President and sold his interest in the firm to Kupper, Del Cecato and Larry Grisolano.

AKP&D did very well in Trinidad in May when Obama’s political consulting firm openly helped to stab Patrick Manning, Obama’s top and most servile ally in the Caribbean, in the back and substitute a bourgeois reactionary in Manning’s place. But, in the same month of May, things didn’t turn out so well in Suriname where revolutionary Desi Bourterse, aspires for power, contending against AKP&D which disguised itself as Dutch and no-name US operatives. The results of the Suriname contest in May are still indeterminate. Bourterse, in Suriname, used AKP&D tricks against AKP&D. Bourterse cleverly reached out to young voters who are more familiar with cell phones and laptops and therefore more familiar with electronic voting machines … and vice versa … than their older compatriots. But the effort of Bouterse was somewhat different because it assumed a participatory character. The campaign mostly supplied the scripts which supporters individually and independently reached out to voters. It worked.

The National Endowment For Democracy (NED) … the US government’s front organization in international electoral struggle, which corrupts the political processes of other countries with millions of dollars in bribes … seems to be struck in prolong negotiations with AKP&D over whether AKP&D or NED will boss the so-called “opposition” in the September 26 legislative elections in Venezuela.

AKP&D must be slobbering or foaming at the mouth to get at Venezuela, because Venezuela is a cell phone heaven. The outcome of the inter-imperialist tug of war is a foregone conclusion since since NED answers to US Sen. John McCain and AKP&D to the Oval Office.

A some people, like Eva Golinger, are trying to alert the workers and revolutionaries about the unique challenges that the September 26 electoral contest poses for the revolution. But suddenly some of these people, like Golinger, who side with the workers and revolutionaries, find themselves surrounded by bizarre specie of animals … barking, growling, snarling, screeching, and … last but not least, howling,

Long before the repulsive breakthrough of the reactionary middle class college students in Venezuela in 2007, Eva Golinger saw and spoke about the possibilities of a class struggle waged, in large part, on laptops and in cell phones in both the spheres of political and ideological struggle. Indeed, Golinger pioneered some of the tactics in the ideological struggle now used in cyberspace.

Often, these tactics, which Golinger initially developed, are used by opportunists to disparage Eva Golinger herself.

Now, the mass of the workers’ and revolutionary movement is looking at the recent moves of Hugo Chavez in cyberspace. But this time, the masses are looking at Chavez, not as his audience to be persuaded and entertained. Now, the masses are looking at Chavez as his students to be informed. How can they harness themselves the potentialities of the Internet and IT stuff to advance the workers’ and revolutionary movement without the intervention of the State or the Party?

If the workers and revolutionaries themselves seize the possibilities of Internet and IT stuff, their advance will become unstoppable in the class struggle.

The advance of the workers’ and revolutionary movements doesn’t make everybody happy. Some people are jealous and envious by nature or others by habit or still others by congenital depravity (an aberration of nature). So, these jealous and envious people sneak up behind other people who contribute to the workers’ and revolutionary advance and these sneaky people take a bite out of these contributors. The jealous and envious say they bite because they believe in “the truth” and the people, whom they bite, don’t believe in “the truth.” But this “truth,” about which jealous and envious brag, is only a pretext to bite.

Fortunately, Golinger carries a stick with her and keeps her eyes open for these bizarre people who bite.

Using her stick, Eva Golinger has cracked many of these people, who bite, over their big heads as they neared her.