Review of "Venezuela Speaks! Voices of the Grass Roots"

[Peace Patriot]

Voices of Participatory Democracy in Venezuela: A Review of Venezuela Speaks!

Book Review: "Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots," by Carlos Martinez, Michael Fox, and JoJo Farrell (PM Press, 2010)

January 21st 2010, review by Hans Bennett - Upsidedownworld.org

"There are many different ways that the corporate media continues to misrepresent the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Many critics of this biased media coverage have directly challenged the demonization of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but very few critics, if any, have exposed the media’s virtual erasure of the vibrant and growing participatory democracy in Venezuela. (At last), the new book entitled 'Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots' (PM Press, 2010) offers a powerful correction to this misrepresentation by spotlighting a wide range of people and movements that are actively governing themselves with official governmental structures created since the 1998 election of President Chavez, and the growing non-governmental social movements that have existed for several decades." (MORE)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5088

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I have often remarked about how the corpo-fascist media grossly insults the Venezuelan people with their utterly false, bogeyman portrait of Hugo Chavez as a "dictator." Hugo Chavez is the product of a grass roots democracy revolution, as much as he is a leader of it. The Venezuelan people saved Chavez from the US-supported rightwing military coup in 2002, by pouring out of their hovels in the tens of thousands, surrounding Miraflores Palace and demanding restoration of their Constitution and return of their kidnapped president. They have voted for him repeatedly, by big margins in transparent elections. Venezuelan grass roots political activists are responsible for his victories. Part of what this book points out, according to the review, is that the grass roots organization came first and the electoral victories second. The Bolivarian Revolution is a peoples' revolution. It is coming from the bottom up, not the top down.

Our corpo-fascist media never consults the people who made this revolution--"the people themselves," as the review describes them: the people from every sector of society, "including community organizers, educators, journalists, cultural workers, farmers, women, students, and Indigenous & Afro-Venezuelans." I have long hoped that someone would write this book. Well, Carlos Martinez, Michael Fox, and JoJo Farrell, the authors of "Venezuela Speaks! Voices From the Grass Roots," apparently have done so.

According to the review, the authors specifically address this blackhole-sized emptiness in the corpo-fascist 'news' coverage of Venezuela.

"Co-authors Carlos Martinez, Michael Fox, and JoJo Farrell argue persuasively that this untold story of democracy from the bottom-up is key to understanding the complexity of the present-day political situation in Venezuela. They write that 'by failing to see beyond Chavez and the government’s anti-neoliberal policies, one of the most significant political dynamics in Venezuela has gone ignored and underappreciated—the dynamic between a government that has committed itself to a discourse of grassroots political participation, and the response of ordinary Venezuelans to this call, often in ways that go beyond the expectations of the government, occasionally even challenging it.'”

This book WAS available at Amazon.com--ONE copy for $15.60. I just bought it. It is temporarily sold out--except for Global Exchange (selling a copy for $22.95) and someone else selling a copy for $75.88! Why it's sold out, I don't know. But the $75.88 price may mean that the first edition was sold out, so 1st edition copies are at a premium. The one I bought is still posted, so maybe that seller (A1books) has more copies--or maybe there hasn't been time yet to remove it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1604861088/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1264282194&sr=1-1&condition=new

Anyway, if you want to read this book, good luck finding a copy! (I'll loan it to anyone who wants to read it, after I get it and read it. Just PM me.)