“MANUFACTURING DISSENT”: The Anti-globalization
Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites.
Michel Chossudovsky | Monday, March 10, 2014
[Here only extracts]
INTRODUCTION
By Hugo Adan. 3-10-2014
The main thesis of Prof Chossudovky is that
any dissent (or organized struggle against capitalism and neoliberal agenda) that
receive money from any Foundation, works for the enemy. Since he did not
mention any good foundation, the assumption is that such money corrupts the one
who received. This paranoiac view is dangerous because leads to “distrust” on leaders
and social movements that fights against big corporations.
My point here is that his assumptions is flaw.
1. Any political endeavor requires organization; a party, brigade or a small action squat, it needs to be professionally organized and trained. Any organization requires money to train, and mobilize the sub-team of organizers. These teams need food, shelter and basic health support. Where the money comes from? It cannot come from donations of the enemy, as Prof. Chossudovsky said. But it cannot either come from assaulting banks or enterprises, then where the money will come from?. He did not suggest it, but is implicit on the other side of the “coin” he plays with.
2. In the clear side of this coin called “manufacturing dissent” there are a lot of foundations, NGOs and those who run them (he provides a list), but he didn’t talk about the dark side, the opposite side of the coin. Nothing about how to finance dissent?. Do not trust the founders and those who receive the money, is all that he said. The fact is that there are organizations working with grassroots movements that get money from those foundations and NGOs and there are leaders who not necessarily serve their objectives or the ones from those who provided the money.
3. Let’s take the case of “Democracy Now” of Amy Goodman in the US. She receive money from foundations and nobody can deny that she is using it for a good cause, even if there is a foundation linked to Soros money, involved in it, as one person said it was. www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org
4. In Peru, we didn’t care who provide the money for Theology of Liberation strategy and tactics to recover land sized by oligarchical landowner and for the struggle to get fair trade for peasants. We wanted to create coopertives run by communities and reject the unfair taxation on trade for peasant products. The land recovering didn’t use violent methods as it was used by shining path (SL) also engaged in such activity. SL killed the bureaucrats of the hacienda targeted for recovery and when the army came, peasants could not remain there, they have to go with them, and peasants did not get the land they fight for. We instead called community assembly to demand to bureaucrat to abandon the area. With the support of the Univ (agronomist, accountants and teachers) we manage to run several Cooperativas Campesinas. Who provide the money for the national Convention we called in Puno for 3 days (around 500 delegates came from the region and other Peruvian Federations, and some from Bolivia). Where the money came from? We didn’t care, but we got the food to feed such amount of people. Peasants provided the fish from the lake and potatoes, but the rest, nuns brought it. We got our aim: Create a network of support for our method of land recovery and we got the land recovery without one single death person.
5. Regarding fair price for peasant products and non-paid taxes imposed to them, the tactic was different. This movement required some illegal action (blockage the routs for one entire month to avoid any product from peasants to get out to the market in the cities). We called this “huelga campesina” or “peasant strike” and it was a success because we did it with their consent and support. After two huelgas campesinas, (one month of truce in the interval) the government declared the taxed obsolete. There was not confrontation with the army. They cleaned the roads during the day and peasants loaded with stones during the night. Once the support comes from the cities, the army gave up. Who supported the communities directly involved in these activites? Who paid for the sacs of nudles, arina, powder mild (some labeled “alliance for progress”), sugar and the cooking oil for them? We didn’t care. We suspected there was NGOs involved, the nuns deal with them.
6. Officially the Catholic church was not involved. It was not, they instead criticized us for sabotaging the economy. Theology of Liberation was and it is an underground org inside this Church and their hierarchy did not provided anything to us. Some of our clandestine meetings, however, took place inside the Bishop building, without his knowledge, of course. We didn’t care about their messages against the “paganos” of the Agrarian Federation.
7. I was one member of the advisors committee of the Agrarian Federation, the largest in South Peru and I was also professor of sociology in the Univ. My work was to select and train students coming from peasant’s communities to make a study on their own community. I was wrongly targeted by the army, they accused me of “creating the economic base for SL guerrilla”, while SL placed a dead dog in front of my house = death threat, from both sides. SL accused me of deviating peasants from the path to power by installing them inside capitalism with cooperatives. I was not afraid of either side; I was protected by peasant communities; they provide me a hidden shelter. The tactic “huelga campesina” spreads to other regions and to Bolivia, it was a success. But I had to live Peru, once a nun disappears.
Concluding remark: Of course there were NGOs supporting us, but we did not allow them to get inside the deep layers of the onion. My conclusion is that money is not the main factor in people’s struggle, as Prof. Chossudovky believe, money is only a tool that depends on who used and for what purposes.
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GET Prof Chossudovky article here:
“MANUFACTURING DISSENT”: The Anti-globalization
Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites.
Michel Chossudovsky | Monday, March 10, 2014
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