Montaje ideológico del siglo XXI / José Rafael López Padrino

21st Century Ideological Montage

Since it was first proclaimed by the lieutenant colonel, 21st century socialism (that is, social-militarism) has been nothing more than a slogan, a simple marketing procedure whose praxis has been subject to political settings (polls, public opinion, electoral rearrangements, etc.). It is simply a commercial brand that the Bolivarian revolution has needed since its launch into the ideological market.

This 21st century social-militarism is characterized by a contradictory thought, one that merely demonstrates great intellectual poverty and a pathetic ignorance of the history of 19th and 20th century socialism. The doctrinaire bases of this new ideological imposture are not to be found in those forged by Marx, Engels or Lenin, but instead come from Benito Mussolini, Giovanni Gentile and Alfredo Rocco, who realized an adaptation and superposition of Benedetto Croce’s anti-positivism, with the voluntarist personalism of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche, along with the nationalism of Maurras and d’Annunzio.

Anti-imperialism is reduced to the insults the lieutenant colonel proffers against the resident of the White House, although paradoxically he hands over our oil wealth to the transnational corporations linked to the empire’s interests (semi-public enterprises). We ask ourselves: How can we call this ideological falsification 21st century socialism, when it ignores the most basic contributions of what the experience of socialism in history meant and continues to mean? This endogenous fraud is reduced to the image of the lieutenant colonel and his media blunders. In effect, there is not a single publication that provides a minimal theoretical sustenance to this social-militarism, beyond the propagandists who worship the figure of the single Leader and helmsman of the process. Sadly, this political perversity has been supported by a bureaucratized left that’s tired of fighting and avidly wants to enjoy the pleasures of capitalist consumerism. Who have not only abdicated criticism because they consider it inopportune and inconvenient, but have reached the shameful extreme of contradicting their founding principles (if they ever had any) by vehemently defending a pestilent and despicable militarism.

21st century social-militarism does not represent any form of emancipation for the poor as it pharisaically proclaims: on the contrary, it is an essay destined to provide bourgeois society a political structure meant to amplify the bases of support for a State capitalism dressed in olive green with military boots and a pistol. It is a neo-despotism that criminalizes political dissent and promotes a single thought, has allowed the rise of a new business oligarchy (Empreven, Confagan), impelled the militarization of the country, and worsened the condition of workers by deepening their exploitation.




{ José Rafael López Padrino, Tal Cual, 19 June 2008 }