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Bulletins and News Discussion from July 24th to July 30th, 2023 - Venezuela's 4,600,000th House

The Great Housing Mission of Venezuela, launched in 2011 by Hugo Chavez, is the most ambitious housing project in the country's history. This week, the 4,600,000th house was built, with a goal for 5 million homes by 2024 and beyond. The program has built 1,255 residential complexes on a total of 9,837 hectares, an area equivalent to six times the Swiss city of Geneva.

The program additionally provides social infrastructure like schools, subsidized food markets, and recreational and green spaces. Over 70% of constructions are self-managed by communities, with financial and logistics support from the government. Communities also provide each other with materials - from each according to their supplies, to each according to their needs. Russian, Chinese, and Belarusian companies have helped supply the program over the years.

In Antímano Parish in southwestern Caracas, a group of predominantly women came together in 2015 and trained in construction, cleared land, and then built apartments while under the pressure of food and materials shortages and electricity blackouts due to the United States' sanctions campaign.

Claudia Tisoy, a mother and self-trained plumber, said “This goes beyond building homes for our families, we are also building the future of our country, with women leading the way. This is what the socialist horizon is all about.”VA

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

This week's second update is here in the comments.

This week's third update is here in the comments.

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719 comments

  • I had issues with the statement in the Federation thread so I wrote up a revised one, with notes on the issues I was hoping to address. Could probably use another round of revisions but I think it addresses some stuff. Not sure where to post it or if there's somebody I'd need to talk to or what.

    First and foremost, this site and the news megathread's user base are not a monolith, and there are frequent discussions about who to support and to what degree. Nonetheless, we nearly universally acknowledge that the West's role in the world, through organizations such as NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank - among many others - are deeply harmful to the billions of people living both inside and outside of their imperial core, both militarily through wars of aggression and coups, and economic means, giving them unpayable loans, imposing austerity, and applying sanctions to keep these countries in permanent debt peonage. These organizations constitute the modern imperial order, with the United States at its heart - we are not fooled by the term "rules-based international order." It is in the Left's interest for these organizations to be demolished. When and how this will occur, and what precisely comes after, is the cause of great debate and discussion on this site, but it is necessary for a better world.

    We do not, as a site, have an official line regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and a wide variety of viewpoints are represented in discussions. This includes many users with varying degrees of support for Russia, which some people may find confusing or objectionable. To understand this perspective, it is essential to understand two things: the historical context that led to the invasion, and theoretical concept known as "critical support." Critical support means that we acknowlede and recognize a nation's flaws, and do not uphold it as an example to emulate, yet we believe that the nation's success is in alignment with our goals. While Russia may be a capitalist country, it is still a thorn in the side of the modern imperial order, but on the other hand, whle Russia may be a thorn in the side of the modern imperial order, it is still a capitalist country.

    Ukraine, however, is not innocent. Fascism has considerable influence in the country, including not only far-right paramilitary groups, but also senior government officials who have (through official channels) praised Stepan Bandera, a genocidal Nazi collaborator. The current Ukrainian regime came to power in the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and promptly shifted alignment towards NATO while banning any party that opposed the shift. Many Ukrainians (especially those in eastern Ukraine) opposed the shift, but due to this political repression, they had no option to work within the system to express their opposition, and so they declared independence, which then led to the Ukrainian shelling of Donbas. In response to this crisis, a ceasefire was established and the Minsk II agreement was signed between the separatists and the government (with Russia and Switzerland as observers) - but Ukraine violated the ceasefire and resumed bombardment of civilian targets, which is what prompted Russia to answer the separatists' request for military assistance. While a range of viewpoints are represented here, we agree that having an informed perspective on this (or any) conflict requires an understanding of the historical context, and that context is often absent from the reductionist, one-sided narratives presented in Western media.

    [Removed paragraph 4]

    Hexbear is unwaveringly supportive of LGBTQIA+ rights and we unequivocally denounce the reactionary laws enacted in many countries in the anti-Western bloc, including Russia, Iran, and others. It is worth noting that some countries in this bloc are experiencing positive trends towards social progress, such as Cuba and Venezuela, while some countries in the Western bloc have either never supported LGBTQIA+ rights, or are experiencing a backslide. Tragically, some people have the perception that LGBTQIA+ rights are a Western export, ignoring both the bigotry that exists in Western countries, and the long history of LGBTQIA+ people in non-Western countries. The war in Ukraine, however, is not being fought over LGBTQIA+ rights. Neither side upholds these rights, nor will victory or defeat cause them to change their laws. The battle for LGBTQIA+ rights around the world is, as it has always been, really fucking hard, but if we make the mistake of trusting the imperialists to have our back, we will soon find a knife in it.

    • Ukraine, however, is not innocent. Fascism has considerable influence in the country, including not only far-right paramilitary groups, but also senior government officials who have (through official channels) praised Stepan Bandera, a genocidal Nazi collaborator. The current Ukrainian regime came to power in the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and promptly shifted alignment towards NATO while banning any party that opposed the shift. Many Ukrainians (especially those in eastern Ukraine) opposed the shift, but due to this political repression, they had no option to work within the system to express their opposition, and so they declared independence, which then led to the Ukrainian shelling of Donbas. In response to this crisis, a ceasefire was established and the Minsk II agreement was signed between the separatists and the government (with Russia and Switzerland as observers) - but Ukraine violated the ceasefire and resumed bombardment of civilian targets, which is what prompted Russia to answer the separatists' request for military assistance. While a range of viewpoints are represented here, we agree that having an informed perspective on this (or any) conflict requires an understanding of the historical context, and that context is often absent from the reductionist, one-sided narratives presented in Western media.

      This paragraph needs to be reworked. Saying Ukraine is not innocent is probably a bad start, you should at least say the Ukrainian government or even the western-backed Ukrainian government if you wanted to be spicy. The government did a lot more than praise Bandera. Shifting alignment towards NATO is awful abstract.

      Here's my attempt, which is probably going to be too spicy for the libs.

      Understanding the war in Ukraine requires understanding that neither history nor the war began in February 2022, the Ukrainian government has been at war with its people since 2014. The Maidan protests started with many legitimate grievances but were heavily backed by western funding and support, especially to the right-wing groups that overtook the movement and accomplished the coup of the Ukrainian government. The people whose democratically elected candidate had just been removed by the western-backed coup were unhappy and many did not recognize the new illegally appointed government as legitimate. This group was especially prevalent in the eastern part of Ukraine and formed the basis of the separatist movement (always referred to as "Russia-backed separatists" in western media). The new government in Kyiv attempted to suppress the separatist movement with its army but the army refused to start shooting their own countrymen. This led the Kyiv government to turn to far-right paramilitaries like Azov, Aidar, C14, Right Sector, and Donbas battalion in order to attack the people of Donbas, these paramilitaries were later folded completely into the Ukrainian military. Crimea was spared this fate as it was annexed by Russia and didn't have to deal with 8 years of war. Multiple ceasefires, including Minsk 2, were brokered by Russia and European nations and signed by the Ukrainian government but were then simply ignored and the shelling of Donbas continued for 8 years. While Kyiv was waging war on its own countrymen with far-right paramilitary groups it was also promoting the far-right within itself. Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator and genocidal murderer, was made into a national hero. His birthday was made into a national holiday and the street near the Babi Yar monument, a monument commemorating the largest Nazi massacre in Ukraine, was renamed in his honor. Far-right people were placed in high positions in the military and police. Politicians ran under the slogan "Military, Language, Faith". Official use of the Russian language was suppressed, despite it being the majority language among eastern Ukrainians. The Ukrainian people still desired peace with Donbas and Zelensky ran as a peace candidate, however after he won he refused or was unable to stop the the shelling of Donbas. In 2022 Russia recognized the Donbas Republics as sovereign states, Ukraine responded by further escalating their artillery attacks on the Donbas Republics, Russia responded with the invasion of Ukraine.

      Good heavens that's long. It's probably not usable but I wrote it so I'm going to post it. I didn't even mention the massive post-coup privatizations, Victoria Nuland directly selecting the prime minister, or Ukraine's finance minister becoming a Ukrainian citizen the same day she became the finance minister (she was US-born).

      • honestly if we just flesh things out some and have the material go back just a bit more to like circa 2004 we could probably slap some cover art on it and publish a hexbear book

    • Notes:

      :::spoiler Paragraph 5

      Lastly, we as a community have many people in the LGBTQIA+ community. As such, we unequivocally denounce the reactionary language used and laws enacted by many people and countries in the anti-Western bloc, such as Russia, Iran, certain African countries, etc.

      wtypstanaccount04: this implies that if we didn't have an LGBTQIA+ community that this statement wouldn't be made. I would like to hope that even if Hexbear was 100% straight and cis users (perish the thought!) that we would still denounce this reactionary language.

      Reactionary policy is neither pre-destined nor permanent, and with a combination of economic and social development, the weakening of repressive religious structures, and the ascendancy of left-wing governments, among other factors, the conditions of people in the LGBTQIA+ movement and the wider population can be meaningfully improved inside even the most hopeless countries today.

      Too wordy and abstract. Makes it sound like we're putting LGBTQIA+ rights on hold until some unspecified later date. I tried to replace it with something punchier but it's a tough issue and I'm tired so I may try to revise it later.

    • I appreciate the feedback, and the admins can do what they wish with the proposed revisions (there's nothing there that I particularly object to), but I ultimately realized in the days after I made the comment that trying to form a summary of Hexbear's position is simultaneously a) broad without implying monolithic opinion, b) accurate without being a Ukrainian History 101 course, and c) concise while putting sufficient emphasis on key points, is almost impossible and certainly too difficult for me to do. Most people who have thought about the conflict for a sustained period of time is going to have a bone to pick with each sentence for being too short, being too long, being too explanatory, not being explanatory enough, not being necessary, being necessary but not being expanded upon, etc.

      Like, your comments on paragraph 3 for instance I don't disagree with, but I simply do not possess the writing skills to convey the nuance to those points in the same or less words. I already thought that the current statement is too long and wanted to try and cull it down because that increases the chance that people might actually read it, but others then suggest to make it even longer to include X nuance or Y viewpoint or Z important historical point. And that's without even getting into our analytical disagreements, of which this site has many, like about what the war was about and what it was started over and whether Ukraine "deserved" to be invaded because it had a fascist government that was killing minorities and if it does/doesn't, what that says about other fascist governments, etc.

      Like, as an example, when I say "Ukraine, however, is not innocent, containing fascist paramilitaries with a very significant degree of de facto power over the country," this was a revision down from "Ukraine's government is not innocent, containing fascist paramilitaries with a very significant degree of de factor power over the country" because it's not really accurate to say that this is merely a governmental phenomenon because there is in fact a pretty significant amount of popular support for Ukrainian nationalism that is directly targeted at Russia due to, to wave my hand, everything that's happened since the beginning of WW2 and definitely 2014. As for the point of Ukraine not being "innocent", this was merely meant to convey that the invasion wasn't unprovoked and I personally think that it would be wrong to call Ukraine (again, however you define that) mere puppets on NATO's strings, and that a significant number aren't just people caught in the crossfire between two great powers in a sort of "when elephants battle the ants perish" kinda way - there's clearly a level of mutual approval going on. NATO wants and wanted to kill Russians and separatists (with some level of Russian support) before this happened, and so does and did a significant number of Ukrainians, given that there's been a war in the Donbass and Crimea over it over 8 years. Zelensky was voted in as a peace candidate, absolutely, but his support across the country decreased from East to West IIRC. Ultimately it comes down to the level of justification of the invasion, which I have had trouble with this entire conflict because it depends not only on your ideological viewpoint, but also the values you find to be important (how valid is self-determination? sorting things out diplomatically? is war never the answer or is it sometimes justified? should fascism be stamped out immediately or should we let internal groups try and take it down?) , and then we get into all the various sects of communism and what they each think about the conflict, and then the whole piece is an essay.

      The "Putin is not fundamentally evil" was me trying to get at the whole "Putin = Hitler" thing and how he's dismissed as a fascist (I don't believe he is one, though he is many bad things) without actually saying "Putler" and I couldn't think of how to do it at the time. I guess one could rewrite it to focus more on how people should not be oversimplified as caricatures and how they're a product of their conditions; I just feel like there's been a lot of "X is Hitler reincarnated" going on in the last few years and it's fairly tiresome to me. Like, he bans transitioning; he sends free grain and fertilizer to poor countries. He's a virulent homophobe; he's helping out Cuba, Venezuela, and the DPRK. He's intimately tied with oligarchs; he opposes Western neocolonialism. He started a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and led to millions of refugees; he's taken in like a million of those refugees and tried to sue for peace a month after the war started and is beginning reconstruction efforts and cancelling debts. Putin is a land of contrasts, I don't think he's fundamentally evil.

      As you hint at, perhaps somebody who is more in the LGBTQIA+ community than I am should write the last paragraph as I don't want to be a cis albeit asexual speaking on behalf of the community here on those issues. I do think it's important to not throw every currently reactionary country into the dustbin so perhaps movements within those reactionary countries could be mentioned, idk. I think the recent incident in Malaysia is a good example of how the movement will absolutely not be monolithic in regards to strategy and the question of how we overcome these reactionary countries' policies is highly dependent on the country.

      Honestly I wonder if we should just link to various (ideally but not necessarily non-western) communist org's positions on Ukraine and be done with it. They're essentially what I based the comment on anyway. Like, get some that are critical of Ukraine, some that are critical of NATO, some that are critical of Russia, and so on.

      • Since people are doing suggestions here my take is that trying to write down a "hexbear party line" script with just plain text is just an exercise in persuasion that is unlikely to be as effective as it should be.

        What we realy need as a community is to emulate the various pro-China resouces on the net, the best ones qiaocollective and the r/sino wiki I think strike a good balance between a very serious and extremely well sourced artiles on many articles while still not being too philosophical or theoretical to the point of being about as long as a book therefore making it boring and unappealing. Yes of course the obvious point here is there is no "theory" because those two collections were not written by Marxists at all, but even so I can say for myself at least the marxist theoretical approach here is not the most appealing.

        So in other words, before laying down the "party line" what needs to happen is a Hexbear wiki, or at least, the bare minimum a couple of well sourced articles on the topics, specificaly Russia and China. Lucky for us we can make use of what is already available for China, again the r/sino wiki is extremely well written.

        But there is nothing, literaly nothing on the whole internet with the same level of quality and rigor with regards to the Donbas conflict and the Ukraine war, even as we approach 18 months.

        I've toyed around with the idea of contributing some of this but as I see the main problem is:

        1- Too much reliance on "alternative media". Telegram is great but is also just going to make the average lib go "ewww Russian web? lol lmao". I know its ridiculous since they all unironicaly take Twitter sources at face value when it suits them too but Telegram requires an account and is not as convinient.

        2- Due to the nature of the reporting a lot of it is in video format, a lot of it needs to be translated and/or transcribed to text. Even when dealing with English sources e.g Youtube commentators you're still going to be linking to videos with time stamps. I'm not sure the extent to which this is compelling. Lets be honest here the likes of Mercouris may be informative but are very far from compelling personalities.

        Contrast this when talking about Marxism/Socialism economics etc, we can link to Hakim or find Richard Wolff videos, maybe even find some Michael Hudson interviews etc. But the Ukraine war commentators are just not on that level.

        3- This may be a hot take but I think a lot of people are already so ideologicaly commited to the western narrative that the persuasion needs to start at a basic emotional level.

        It is well known people react very different to different forms of communication, photos and videos have far more of a shock value and here is the point, compare these two:

        A- Ukrainian society is so compromised by extremist fascism and nazism that they lynched and publicaly humilitated random Russian speakers and others

        B- This is about the tamest examples I can find and it is still horrible

        CW: a bit spicy, no blood/corpses or anything but quite triggering A kid and his dad get punished and humiliated publicly in Ukraine

        More pictures from Kharkov and other areas

        If you need a description: Individuals and groups of up to 3 people, sometimes naked, with face painted, tied around trees as they are humiliated. Heck even revisiting this already makes myself angry.

      • The "Putin is not fundamentally evil" was me trying to get at the whole "Putin = Hitler" thing and how he's dismissed as a fascist (I don't believe he is one, though he is many bad things) without actually saying "Putler" and I couldn't think of how to do it at the time.

        My view on this is that we should focus on presenting our view of the conflict, without getting caught up in what other people say (though it's not a clear line to draw). We can't refute every line people use or the statement will be too long and unfocused. My goal is not necessarily to convince people to agree with us (not that there's a consistent "us" to agree with), but rather to tolerate us and not dismiss us out of hand, and perhaps to plant some seeds.

        LGBT

        Honestly writing it is tough because the issue is tough. I'm thinking of trying to merge that section with the second paragraph, on critical support.

        Honestly I wonder if we should just link to various (ideally but not necessarily non-western) communist org's positions on Ukraine and be done with it.

        Idk I'm not sure where the statement is going to be presented or if there needs to be one, but I like to think I'm a half-way decent editor so I'm just trying to punch it up while keeping to the original vision. I don't think it's a bad idea to have it something like this somewhere.

    • I appreciate the effort of everyone contributing to making this statement. You're doing great work.

      My only objection to the text is that it is far too long for modern attention spans. It is important to get all the nuance and background in there but I also feel it would be beneficial to add tldr summary at the top.

      Something like:

      • Hexbear's user base is diverse, and there are discussions about who to support and to what degree.
      • Hexbear users are however in near-universal agreement that the West's role through organizations like NATO, IMF, and World Bank is seen as deeply harmful due to military aggression, economic oppression, and debt peonage.
      • Hexbear users wants these organizations to be demolished for a better world.
      • Views on Russia's invasion of Ukraine vary, with many providing critical support due to Russia's opposition to the modern imperial order.
      • The Ukrainian government is not innocent, with fascism having influence, and its shift towards NATO and hostility towards Russian-speaking Ukrainians led to conflict.
      • Hexbear supports LGBTQIA+ rights and denounces reactionary laws everywhere, including in anti-western countries.
      • The war in Ukraine is not about LGBTQIA+ rights, as neither side upholds these rights. Trusting imperialists who only brings up LGBTQIA+ rights whenever it is politically opportune to protect queer communities is considered a mistake.

      My bullet points are probably still too long and the writing could be improved but I hope the idea of a summary will be well-received.

719 comments