Is Choosing an Option?

The trick is to place in public display —media, bookstores, movies, political parties, etc.—a cluster of options that are “different” and essentially identical, among which appears, almost indistinguishable, the one that is not. The idea is that they seem like “options”, so that we believe we have the ability to choose, even if all the explicit or induced signals lead us to the same place. It’s what they call freedom of expression or thought, which is somehow based on the belief that capitalism is the last of the possible systems. Fukuyama's end of the story is rationally unsustainable because it’s too explicit; but yes, capitalism is presented as the sole and ultimate platform on which options must be built. It’s not the end, because the system can be “improved” every four or five years, recycle old formulas as if they were new, replace faces, smiles, even the color of the skin or the gender of leaders who represent the continuity.

Mario Vargas Llosa, who does not know what politics is, believes that he helps his co-religionists by revealing what they hide. In an article written in 2006 to praise Chilean “democracy” he says:

In the debate between Michelle Bachelet and Sebastián Piñera, which took place a few days before the end of the second round, you had to be a clairvoyant or dowser to discover those points on which the candidates from the left and the right disagreed head-on. Despite their respective efforts to distance themselves from each other, the truth is that the differences did not touch on any hairy issue, but rather quantitative (not to say trivial) matters. Piñera, for example, wanted to put more police on the streets than Bachelet.(1)

But if the ducts are blocked, if the system is broken, if bourgeois democracy does not prevent the victory of the candidate who seeks to restrict the unlimited profits of Capital and does not restore its representatives in the next round, the intruder is declared undemocratic, and with reason: there’s no democracy where global Power does not win.

The Venezuelan counterrevolution—due to its area of operations, because in reality every counterrevolution is by definition transnational—does not achieve sufficient support to win the elections. What this is all about is not to listen to the popular will to submit to it, but to regain control of the country at all costs. He has tried everything: coup attempts, assassination attempts, urban terrorism, theft of national assets abroad, sanctions from the metropolis and even transnational recognition of an imaginary president.

For the electoral race next July, the strategy is simple and predictable: first act as if you really respect the rules; then he places a terrorist who has previously been convicted by justice and politically disqualified, and thus, happily, declares her as a “favorite” of the people. The electoral commission, of course, cannot accept her candidacy, but the role of the promoted opposition is different: shouting and shaking her hands as if she were being suffocated, until almost the end of the pre-campaign, with the purpose of spreading the belief that they will not be “free” elections—here imperialism, author of the script, plays its role: it restores sanctions to the “regime” of Caracas—; finally, a front man appears (a person who hides the interests of another), who El Nuevo Herald is quick to declare as a sure winner, although no one knows him and his image and words offer a pitiful spectacle, so he doesn’t appear in public and the disqualified lady speaks on her behalf and shows her photo at campaign events.

The headline of the Miami newspaper, which will be kept on the screen for days, is eloquent: “Maduro against the wall in the face of an opposition advantage that seems unattainable.” It's fake news, but it doesn't matter. If the man were elected, he would hand over command (as in Argentina, during the time of Héctor Cámpora and Perón, personalities very different from these), to the woman who managed it with golden threads (pun intended). Everything is ready then for the main event (here I anticipate): Maduro will win the elections again, but the table will be set to immediately declare that these were fraudulent, condemn his government, and perhaps obtain the submissive support of other countries. Imperialism, I’ve already said, is not a matter of one country: what we call Western is led by the United States (which generates three essential things: the dollar, weapons and the imagination), and is made up of many countries from several continents, of greater or lesser dependence on the hegemonic center.

The excessive attention we pay to the presidential elections of any country—as if democracy resided in that process in which all cheating and manipulations fit—is part of the enemy plan, but Bolivarian Venezuela has preserved, despite this, the vote of its people. I will continue talking about this topic in another article. Look for it next week.

(1) Mario Vargas Llosa: “ Bostezos chilenos”, in El Nacional, Caracas, January 23, 2006, p. A/4.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff