[FSFLA] Building alternatives to neoliberalism in Latin America today

[willi uebelherr]

Dear friends,

the original text from Michael Lebowitz and our discussions you find in 
the Links Journal:
Building alternatives to neoliberalism in Latin America today
Michael Lebowitz, 24.05.2016
http://links.org.au/node/4698
The comment function is open for all.
many greetings, willi


Dear Michael,

your anger i can accept with serenity. And I can also say that I 
appreciate your critical reflection. And I know that we have the same or 
similar goals in us. Some of your texts I have read on the Internet, if 
they are provided freely available.

I want to make clear that authors do not interest me who write only for 
money. And not that other people can read their thoughts. That's why I 
do not buy books or similar market objects.

In the determination of the path we are very different. And this also 
suggests that our differences in the objectives are larger than they appear.

We can go back to Andre Gunder Frank, who wrote already 60 years ago: 
"Latin America, the development of underdevelopment". Systematic 
destruction of self-organization. Systematic destruction of the ability, 
to build all that itself, what is needed. Systematic destruction of the 
ability to determine the way of life locally themselves.

In this critical review, we find 2 elements:
1) Are the positive determined elements necessary?
2) Who organized this destruction and how?

The answer to 2) is easier. The local elites, supported by the external 
elites with their apparatuses.

The answer to 1) is more difficult. It rests on our philosophy. In our 
ideas of a "good life", perhaps resting on the "harmony with nature". It 
rests on our conception of the foundations of our existence as part of 
the animal family as part of the entire nature.

Karl Marx has given us an important sentence: "Being determines 
consciousness" (das Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein). When people live in 
parasitic environments, their thinking is necessary determined 
parasitically. And this we find in all state structures, because they 
are always and everywhere parasitic.

I formulate 3 principles of development, which we can apply in all 
areas. This are the development principles of the nature:
- massively decentralized
- massively parallel
- massively redundant

1) and 2) are strongly correlated. To some extent, dialectically linked. 
The high level of redundancy is the goal. The capacity of our systems 
must be greater by a multiple such as the maximum load. So not the lack 
but the abundance is needed.

We know that all forms of elitist social structures can only exist if 
the lack is organized so that people can be forced to perform work. Also 
the violence apparatuses military and paramilitary rest upon it. And the 
industrial centers were only possible on the basis of the destruction of 
local self-organization. And the wars are only possible based on that.

Now I still want to throw another element in our discussion. A question 
with which Immanuel Kant has employed his whole life.
With our bodies we are strictly subject to the laws of nature. And if we 
do not follow them, then the boxes waits for us. But with our mind? He 
has no reference. We can explain any nonsense to absolute truth. And 
like the christianity slaughter everything that don't take these stories 
serious? We must create the reference itself. Reason, rationality, logic.

And now I come back to the three-pole of Senor Hugo Chavez. He gives us 
a clear orientation. The base is the independence. But never can be 
independent institutions, organizations and regions. The carriers of the 
independence are always the people. And independent people create 
independent communities. And independent communities create independent 
regions.

At the center therefore always stay the people with their ability to 
determine their way of life itself. We do not need representative 
structures, no monstrous bureaucracies, no military and paramilitary 
structures and their infrastructures. We do not need states, nations and 
gods.

We need our minds, our reason, our rationality and our logic. That was 
the theme of the Enlightenment. And how I. Kant told us: "the overcoming 
of self-imposed immaturity" (die Ueberwindung der selbst verschuldeten 
Unmündigkeit).

We need to understand the laws of the nature, so that we can materialize 
it as technology. Based on our responsibility for the whole. The planet. 
The nature is the basis of our existence. And not financial systems, 
government systems and representative theater spectacles.

You ask for action against "soft coup" in Brasil? What do you think, why 
so many Brasilians are against the mafia, against these criminal groups, 
against this outright lies, and only few take the streets? They know 
that the PT, with Daniela Roussief and Lula da Silva, always were part 
of this mafia structures. Since there is no difference between "Left" 
and "Right". And all these groups work to ensure that the people do not 
organize their own affairs.

And the same we find in Argentina, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador and 
Bolivia. You have to go into the villages and small and middle towns and 
talking with the people there. Then you understand the reality. It's all 
a huge theater of lies and silly stories.

with many thanks and greetings, willi
Manaus, Brasil