 Si confiaran la televisión no te pudiera conocer Porque en ella nunca pude ver a mi pueblo por resistir Viz que pa' amenizar y uno rama solo vamos a estimar As cansao de reputir, vamos a construir bien el camino, la albora I am Michelle Elner, I am the Latin America Campaign Coordinator for Code Pink. As a Venezuelan American, this webinar is very, very special for me together with Task Force in the Americas. Code Pink organized a very successful delegation to Venezuela last month For 13 days our group of 15 delegates had the privilege of learning from and collaborating with the Venezuela socialist communes and today we're here to share the reality of what is happening in Venezuela through the eyes and the experience of our delegates and our special guests from Venezuela. We will start exploring the impacts of U.S. policies on Venezuela and how the communes are resisting the hybrid war against their country. Our guests will share their experience of visiting three communes in Venezuela and provide insights of the work being developed in those communes. We will explore the lessons that can be learned from the experience in the communes in Venezuela and how their struggles can inspire us to have concrete actions here for us here in the U.S. We hope to get you excited and share the message and come with us in solidarity with the people of Venezuela who are fighting for their sovereignty and for a better world. Again, welcome to this exciting webinar to celebrate the creative responses, the resilience and resistance of the Venezuelan people. I want to give a special thanks to our co-sponsors, the Claudia Jones School of Political Education, Sanction Skill Polition, the Instituto Simón Bolívar, the Unión Comunera, International Action Center and of course Task Force in the Americas. We are going to have an interpretation from Spanish to English. I just want you to locate this globe that you can see in your Zoom with the English interpretation when our guests start in Spanish. I wanted also to inform you that unfortunately we received news that one of our dear guests, Carlos Ron, will not be able to join us due to an urgent family matter. Our thoughts are with Carlos and with his family in these difficult times, but we are so happy and honored to have Laura Franco from the Instituto Simón Bolívar also. We kindly ask you for understanding and patience if there is any difficulty that may arise due to this unexpected situation. I think we have everything covered for just in case. So now I want to introduce my dear comrade and co-host for tonight David Paul. David was one of the co-coordinators of the delegation along with Adrian Pine. He is a retired nurse practitioner and a member of multiple organizations including the Task Force in the Americas, Venezuelan Embassy Protection Collective, Sanction Skill Campaign and the International Committee of the USA. David. Okay thank you for having me speak and I'm really happy to be here to talk a little bit just some general thoughts about my experience there just for a couple minutes and I was really happy to be there with everybody and it was a great group and they had a good experience for everybody and hopefully we can convey that today. I want to first say I've been to Venezuela a number of times and this time as well and especially this time realize that this Bolivarian revolution is a real ongoing process that under Chavez's leadership really transformed society giving power to the people and is also a reflection of a historic struggle against imperialism and colonialism that's been going on for centuries and you really see that in the people and when we this we could see that the system of communes and the spirit of collective liberation that we saw in these communes really has its roots also in the Afro-Venezuelan and indigenous communities that goes back centuries with all the challenges internal opposition with international backers and the U.S. efforts to continually undermine the economy and any development of this socialist project with theft, sabotage, blocking of trade. It's essential for people to consolidate their efforts and resources to meet the needs of their own community and we saw that on a daily basis there. I always remind reminds me in my this quote by one of the leaders of the El Panal in urban commune we visited he said the Bolivarian process about the Bolivarian process that emancipation is the goal socialism is the model and the commune is the path to achieve it and in these communes that we visited I was so impressed with the level of political consciousness and the internationalist perspective of the people and especially the level of organization on so many in so many situations the the level of debate and political education that they take very seriously they encourage participation and developing leadership and it it made it reminded me it made me think how that one of the biggest fears of the capitalist imperial elites is to see poor people and working class people organize themselves and we saw that on the ground level of that kind of organization which is the biggest threat to those forces and especially when it extends to regional and international integration and cooperation as when Simone Bolivar's independence movement was trying to achieve hundreds of years ago and now in the efforts of many countries to find an alternative to US hegemony and Venezuela it's so clear is so much of a key to that struggle and why they are so determined to make this socialist project fail I'm so grateful to the instituto the Simone Bolivar Institute and the Union Comunera the commune union that made this delegation a reality to give us a give North Americans a chance to have an intimate experience with Venezuelans and bring back a more clear sense of the reality of the harm of US policies in the lives of Venezuelans but also the courage and resilience and resistance of the people there and what's possible when people organize themselves and and others will elaborate later about this and it was very fitting that we named this delegation after Kevin Zeese a public interest lawyer and activist a writer a political strategist political visionary a friend and inspiration to many people and he was a courageous voice in many struggles domestically and he was a true internationalist his leadership along with Margaret Flowers his partner in the defense of the Venezuelan embassy really came from a a real deep sense of love and respect for the people of Venezuela and their struggle for sovereignty and dignity and like the spirit of the communes their passionate desire to empower the people in their communities Kevin Zeese always promoted popular power encouraged people to find hope and value in their actions raise their voices and become active especially with young people so we want to continue the his legacy and organize future brigades hope to enhance the work of solidarity in the United States continue to create you know ongoing bonds between the people of the United States and Venezuela and work toward ending this criminal policy of sanctions and I'll leave it there I'm now it's time I'm going to introduce if we're ready on all the other ends is introduced our guest speaker is Laura Franco who's the coordinator of exchange and cooperation at this Simone Bolivar Institute for peace and solidarity who without it it would have been hard to do the delegation like we did they were so essential and loud specifically in helping us organize this group and organize the visits and the meetings we had in the communities she's a women's human rights activist and member of the Venezuelan popular feminism platform and laura has a lot to share and I'm very glad you're here laura and could take the time to be with us I have taken this initiative to continue to live the experience lived in Venezuela and share it with many more colleagues and companions in the United States which is one of the most important routes that we have drawn to denounce the situation of siege and aggression against the Venezuelan people which is the situation that we live in today we wanted from the Simone Bolivar Institute as I said to the partner Michelle in the first place to apologize for the absence of the partner Carlos Ronald president of the Simone Bolivar Institute who is having a family situation but that is good it has been very pending to know above all the impressions that the brigade has of what it is sharing in each of its spaces is a brigade that is constituted with partners and partners of different very diverse spaces very nourished that has also been a very interesting experience for the Simone Bolivar Institute to receive them and for all the experiences that they were sharing with the popular power in Venezuela one of the fundamental issues of the let's say the characterization of the moment that Venezuela is very important for us to have this space to to share beyond our borders this situation and this reality of Venezuela has been what is located in Venezuela in the center and in the epicenter of the attacks of the United States imperialism in a form of aggression and that has become an instrument of aggression against the peoples that has been what is called the fourth generation war or the unconventional war or hybrid war that in this moment well that we have to say in the first place that the Bolivarian revolution this process that has been carried out in Venezuela this democratic, participative, and main process from the triumph of the commander Chávez in 1999 has been a series revolution pursued by the enemies of the Venezuelan people, by the enemies of sovereignty and the route that we as a people have drawn us this means that thanks to that constant aggression, the Venezuelan people have always lived in a dimension of struggle, of struggle, of struggle for our sovereignty, fundamentally, and of struggle for our self-determination. Now, this form of aggression against the Venezuelan people was recruited to unimaginable percentages with the physical part of our commander Chávez in 2013 and from that moment the enemies of the revolution those who want to appropriate the wealth that is in this country that are not few to be part of the big reserves of oil in the world is one thing that puts us in the epicenter of the attacks and of this aggression and that from that moment that imperialism considered a fundamental moment to already achieve its historical objectives that we are others who retake their hegemony within this within this within this within this part of the continent that they consider their background, their background, their that they really consider owners of these under their Trinamonro and all this theme of the annexationism, this war was recruited in this time and we have lived as a people, well, a series of attacks because one of the fundamental characteristics of the hybrid war has been undoubtedly that it is a multidimensional war, it is a war that from good to first we cannot see or we cannot decipher who is the one who is attacking us but without doubt there has not been no doubt within what he said of what he said about how it has been the awareness and the politicization of the Venezuelan people has always been very present that who is the imperialism of the United States and its satellite governments in the world in this case the European governments and all these that have been lent to the application of this war this war has had some characteristics that have fundamentally advanced from the economic war what is called the economic war what the commander Chavez warned us about many years ago and that in those times many parts of us did not understand very well what the commander Chavez meant when he saw an economic war against the country and that then we understood much better with the application of the unilateral coercive measures that has been a main starting point of this economic war the economic war has come to hit directly the national currency the boliva has come to generate an hyperinflation in the prices because it was also a war orchestrated with what is called the strongest economic sectors in this country what is called the national economy that has always been in addition to the service of the foreign interests of the imperialist interests and that of course caused a great a great crisis within the within the national reality since the bolivarian revolution with friends if there is something that is characterized is to be a process that allowed us to the great majority of the Venezuelan people the great majority of the working class of the most vulnerable sectors of the poorest sectors of the women of the people with some disability of the indigenous people of the descendant people allowed us to advance in matter of rights and access to what is called social justice, that is, we understand how social justice was from the bolivarian revolution when it hit us directly in the first person here one of our families here one of our home this is to be a petroler country as it is that we are a petroler country and as we enjoyed the benefits of being a country with a wealth in the framework of being a petrolier country this these great benefits these great achievements that the revolution managed to obtain in very little time in the first decade of this bolivarian revolution process have been the goals of fundamental attacks in this way of aggression against the Venezuelan people we want to take advantage of this space that you will give us thanks to the solidarity that moves them to internationalism that has been one of the things one of the greatest teachings of the brigade and of the exchange that they have had with the Venezuelan people that has been precisely to be able to advance in knowing more about these these unilateral coercive measures that the government of the United States called sanctions arbitrarily this is called sanctions they have come to cause serious psychological problems in the Venezuelan people because this is a form of war that is very close to what the concept is that it has the own organization of the United Nations that says that that it talks about that where we are positioned to denounce these unilateral coercive measures as a true genocide against the Venezuelan people because the expression of this war or more specific of this war has been to influence the national reality to achieve its objective the objective is that it has a conventional war a direct invasion that has been to dismantle or dismantle the political power to the legitimate constitutional gobbler and to be of course of all these riches and to be of national sovereignty in this sense companions and companions has been a very important response of the Venezuelan people thanks to one of the main legacies we always say that well Hugo Chávez left an impressive legacy for our people and not only for our people but for the people of the world showing that the route to socialism is possible even after the defeats of past decades that they say that socialism could no longer be spoken of but that route that the commander of Chávez showed us has some principles some central values that are associated with the participative and protagonist democracy one of the main tools or one of the main legacies of the commander of Chávez has been this participative and protagonist democracy that was always a was always present throughout the process even from the presidential campaign of the commander of Chávez to the first presidential decrees the first measures the first public policies that the commander of Chávez believed and that they were generating the spaces to be able to build a specific route towards the Bolivarian and feminist socialism that we have been thinking about in Venezuela this specific route has been the participative and protagonist democracy that had expression in a first time of the Bolivarian revolution in the forms of self-government that the organized communities that the organized people that the popular power gave itself to organize and then that was born as we say here in fact, that is, that in fact there were those processes of self-management of self-organization and self-repentance of the popular power in the territory then from 2007 the Bolivarian revolution recognized that form of territorial organization and a recognition of the popular power in a national legislation as is the law of the common advice from that process companions and companions good part of what has been the contention of this imperialist aggression the form of popular organization the form of awareness of this people in Venezuela has been given because there is a revolutionary government that still moves within a state that we inherit as Chávez characterized in a capitalist bourgeois state that we inherit from the colony that we have that its structures sometimes do not tend to have vices of bureaucratism vices of corruption despite the fact that we move within that within that structure the commander chávez and today the president nicolás maduro have been able to orient the organization of a construction of a common state that is the route and it is the objective and it is the strategic horizon that the Bolivarian revolution has planned because it is not only to say let's go to socialism but to know that the construction of socialism has to have a revolutionary construction method it has to have a land of what we are going to build and it has to have the people it has to have the protagonist in the people to be able to advance towards that strategic objective that is that strategic horizon then it has been a a call to build a new state a socialist and communal state in a constant struggle within a sea of contradictions that also leaves us this this form of organization that we inherit then here what the companions and the companions of the brigade had the opportunity to know was part of these central debates that the Venezuelan people have to overcome the capitalist logic the neoliberal logic that is hegemonic in the world and to build a route where the people is the protagonist but also the collective form the exit of collective organization is a reality in Venezuela that is many of the companions and the companions of the brigade when we gave the debates we said well but how how this advance is achieved how they did to be able to contain this imperialist aggression especially in recent years that has been very serious very strong and the answer has always been from a collective look at a look that here it is not about the salvation of who can solve their life from their individual reality and in particular here it is about that the exit will always be in the collective in the communal in the territorial and recognizing us as a people recognizing us also that what we have done to sustain this revolution and this route has really been a historic feat of the Venezuelan people and that it deserves to be recognized beyond all the intentionality that there is to isolate the Venezuelan process of not knowing the world what happens here and our reality here there is a reality that invites us to also fight that also raises a let's say a hope for not only for the Venezuelan people but for the people of the world that it is possible with a lot of struggle with a lot of consciousness and with a lot of organization with a lot of training with a lot of politicization it is possible to overcome and contain and overcome this because as you have also seen it in companions companions this and many of the routines and dynamics of the communes of the communal council are not only associated with resistance they were also associated with the revolutionary offensive in the way of planning specific routes to leave behind the dependence that capitalism led us and overcome it so there is a context of permanent war of threats we have called that we are in the sea with a non-conventional hybrid war but it has never stopped being latent the route and the path of a conventional war of a direct invasion that is a threat that is always latent about the Venezuelan people while imperialism acts as it acts it will always be that threat present here there is a people who responds to that threat and does it with a government that also responds to the interests of the Venezuelan people a government of popular cuts a government that understands that it is not because of the route of surrounding the imperialism of the United States its economic and neoliberal logic that we are going to overcome and we are going to achieve to conquer our our real and definitive independence but it knows that the route has to continue to be what we want in our history of struggle for resistance to continue and continue to resist but also continue to prove that there is a concrete model in Venezuela to build socialism and that we do not forget companions and companions that the invasions of this war have left in our country deep wounds this war that impulses the imperialism of the United States has caused injuries in the life of the Venezuelan people has caused pain suffering we see how even a good part of our concrete advances in human rights have been brutally attacked by this form of war and this has been expressed by companions even more in the economic issue which is the fundamental basis of this hybrid war and this economic war has been expressed in looking for the way to really break the economy and with this break the moral break the will of the Venezuelan people and however those objectives have not been achieved, that is, that there is a people who continue to resist and that this right now in a process that the president nicolás maduro denotes a recovery process a recovery route of this of this great aggression that there was especially in the years 2016 2017 2018 where the access to the goods of consumption of goods of service to the medicines to the foods can really be a constant struggle of the Venezuelan people this time is not the time now however the situation has not been of the whole surpassed then here the issue of solidarity continues and I already to close that I understood a lot we wanted to tell you that this route of solidarity especially this extermination with the people of the United States is a route that for us is very important and fundamental in the Venezuelan people, it is very appreciated here all the actions that from the people of the working people of the United States is done for solidarity and internationalism not only with the Venezuelan people but with all the people who fight and who pay the strikes of the hyperalysis we recognize in you companions and companions the courage and heroism of raising the voice even in those in those hostile spaces for democracy for human rights and for everything that we for us is a reality of the daily life sometimes there is so difficult then we want you to have us and us always to continue with this route of the fortification of the brotherhood of our people we know that it will also come to a day, it will come to a day in which the United States can advance exactly the revolution of the proletarian revolution and the revolution of the workers of the workers and here the greatest contribution that we can make here that is concrete in the United States is to continue resisting and winning from Venezuela thank you very much for the space thank you so much thank you thank you Laura thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and all this inspires us to you know continue in our fight and now I am very thrilled to introduce our next guest because he will we will learn from him exactly what what loud I say in Venezuelans are not on their knees they're resisting the brutal and cruel effects of of sanctions in this hybrid war with creativity and strength and hope of a better future the communes in Venezuela have played a pivotal role in providing not only food but it's the power of organizing that has kept like this moral high moral in venice to Venezuelans right so I'm going to introduce Carlos David Vargas he is a dedicated and passionate common art who is responsible for the international relations of the communar union la unión comunera he's a national which is a national movement of the communes that raises the banners of anti-imperialist struggle communal feminism environmentalists and the communal state we are honored to have Carlos Vargas with us today and we are excited to hear about his experience as a common art in Venezuela Carlos David bienvenido I'm going to ask my my first questions would be like how how would you define communes what is the concept and what are you trying to achieve so que es para ti la el concepto de la unión comunera que es ese concepto y que estás tratando de que están tratando de lograr las comunes en venezuela hola muy buenas noches good evening I want to greet you and thank you thank all of you for this for your solidarity for your commitment with venezuela and its revolution first it's very pleasant to be able to share with the people of the united states and its popular organizations who despite all the difficulties implied by being an activist a militant activist in the united states you came anyway and you strengthened our ties with a sibling people the venezolan people we're part of a national organization which we have called the commune art union we began in 2018 with a perspective of refounding the communal movement years ago when with commander Chavez building a commune was very different well and today with a multifactorial aggression multi-dimensional aggression by the united states with its blockade and its sanctions we're in a totally different situation that implies creating or rethinking the commune from a different way than what we were doing 10 years ago today the commune has positioned itself in the territory as a type of self-government within territories as a possibility for building socialism from the territory from territories themselves from the ground up from below to above building socialism from the top as chavez said is nothing without the the strength of the people and the people that are the only people capable through their organization by raising consciousness and being able to to transform relations within territories whether it's production or commerce or life all the all these relations so for us the commune is the space of self-government of real people of excuse me of real power held by the people that has the capacity to mobilize la comuna pretende para nosotros y el objetivo estratégico y fundamental la comuna pretende en ese concepto bolivariano de construir la felicidad social nos decía so it's a bolivarian concept of building social happiness as minister arriesa said living in a commune the people who live in communes are happier and that's true the people who are organized work that comuna enfrenta los embates de la agresión imperialista the people who live in a commune they face the attacks by us imperialism and they respond to them in a wiser way and they might have positive responses to the crisis so for us it's not the same facing the US aggression from the territories in a disorganized way than doing it rather from a communal space where we have people who engage in solidarity and we find collective ways to overcome and face reality so so going back to this issue of social happiness social well-being which is in our constitution these are fundamental elements for building socialism so how do we put this into practice and how do we use this important concept and put it into a practical or concrete form for our people because in this scenario of warfare where we've been attacked and a great percentage of the population has become depoliticized so for us it's important to win them over again to win their hearts over again to the project communal projects and to do it in practice as well to show that communal life in socialism is a fact is it and is is something that is being successful within our territories so the commune is really a current thing in venezuela and it has force and effectiveness in venezuela communes have positioned themselves again as a concrete possibility for transforming our capitalist system and the state as well so that is we've done a qualitative leap in order to position the communal project and now we have a lot of strength in the national panorama and under this framework under this especially under this framework of aggression what is the union comunera what's that what role does it have in achieving the objectives of the communal project what is what is the union comunera and what is how to achieve the objectives of the communal project look the union the commune our union is a political organization at a national level of the communes that's how we define it in our statutes and in our program of the union it's a political organization national political organization of communes that is aimed at unifying the experiences especially the most six significant experiences of those who have resisted our goal is to join unify all the communes but so right now we are looking for these experiences of resistance that in the face of the blockade have had a heroic and creative response and that have maintained the experience of the communal movement such as the El Maicel commune Che Guevara commune the Cinco Fortalesas or Five Strengths commune different experiences throughout the country that during these many years of crises of lots of difficulties have creatively achieved to be able to sustain and further the communal movement so our concern was that these experiences were isolated they were acting on a local level and it was necessary that communes see themselves as commander Chavez said in a great national system because it's impossible for us to build socialism in a small enclosed space in a commune we have to have a vision and a characteristic that's national so we convened all of these experiences of resistance to build a national organization that proposed a goal of a great confederation of communes articulated by our own experiences of people's power so what we've been unifying experiences of production of training of experiences led by the working class and of people beating the housing struggle so different experiences of what we have called the great leap of the commune the great leap of the commune our union so we have convened these experiences 70 of them in this first phase that we believe have been fundamental extremely important because during these years of crisis so that we wouldn't lose the communal experience during these years of crisis and today we have been able to remoralize the political force the chavista political and popular political forces without these experiences well it would have been extremely hard to be able to rebuild the people's movement these years we are in a process of rebuilding the popular forces that were very tired or worn down and had lost capabilities because of the aggression because of the crisis because of the pandemic everything that we faced so these experiences were weakened and but we have those experiences that resisted and they may have been isolated they may have felt economic difficulties and they have but the people resisted there and today those experiences that we visit that we visited where we debated the construction of the platform with they were significantly important in having a strong communal movement that's able to move and mobilize and organize that is constantly discussing politics that is constantly discussing proposals to overcome our realities and improve them that it is constantly articulating and coming up with new things as part of its struggle and today we are one of the primary forces of organization at a national level do we have things yet outstanding yes we have to incorporate more communes there's lots of other experiences that could join us but today we can say that we are one of the primary examples of popular organization in the country and as a strategy we have built we built a strategy to strengthen the commune and the communal projects so we created a national system of training for example that has built training schools in every commune that has built a national training program and today where we have training teams in every region so that's very important and with them we've designed a plan and that plan is ongoing next week actually we have a course for communal leaders that's very important and we've developed these courses for communal leaders we've got courses in communication we in in in popular feminism and different types of courses in order to politicize our projects another important course is the grassroots working with the grassroots because we've lost a bit of that and some of our leaders in the communities don't work with bases don't work with the grassroots so we're working on a course to give them tools to be able to work with the grassroots and we've also created an economic system with the union which is just starting and we have a lot to do there but today we have unified experiences in the production of coffee sugarcane corn beef different experiences that have been adding on and be able to be able to build economic circuits or economic zones to aggregate the communal movement based on on an economic basis and that way to to be able to add to encourage or foster a national communal economy so we have different strategies in terms of building the community communal community union from a communication strategy to security and in this context it's it's very difficult to engage in politics with others sometimes we have to have big discussions with other to try to do it so for example we have a big debate with the youth within the union because we have to incorporate the youth that maybe don't identify with the communal political project or with the revolutionary project so what we do to have these sectors incorporate into us so we're working on this issue of communications agroecology and we have this discussion for these big sectors that might not really be aligned with us we're working on having them incorporate and creative ways to join us in this struggle for socialism in creative ways thank you so much Carlos uh David I'll let you okay yeah thank you so much Carlos for that it's a better understanding of the commune system and and the work is doing I wanted to introduce uh next speaker is Adrian Pine who's one of the co-organizers of this Kevin Zease Brigade is a medical anthropologist who teaches department of teaches in the department of anthropology and social change at the California Institute of Integral Studies for work centers on US imperialism neoliberal fascism and international solidarity as well as immigration issues um Adrian is going to talk about what we actually did on the in the delegation in a little more detail Adrian the floor is yours thank you David um I'm going to share my screen so everybody can see my little power point because I um get the exciting task of doing the slideshow and and and just uh telling everybody how incredibly exciting this was because this was um sorry Kevin Zease Brigade there I hope that that is um visible to everybody and I just erased my notes by making it full screen so I'm just going to talk off the top of my head I hope that's okay um this was the first time that we did anything like this and it was really an incredible experience we were lucky to have delegates from just an incredible variety of backgrounds with so much experience representing many many organizations um that are that are not pictured here in the logos um that we only have the but um but the the logos here are the are the main sponsoring organizations so the Simon Bolivar Institute which we we just we were so grateful to them for all of the support that they gave us throughout for the um uh for for the atesias for the interpretation for um for everything the obviously the Union Comunera um and then Code Pink and Test Bores on the Americas um on the U.S. side um so uh so I'm just gonna normally I'd be giving analysis I'm just gonna do a slideshow right now I'm gonna try to keep it as quick as possible so that um so that our main speakers can go at it so I'm just gonna talk about what we did um and let's see uh there we go um we stayed at the Escuela the first few days and the last few days we stayed at the Escuela Nacional Rodin Soniana in Caracas which is just this amazing project um it's a it's this large campus right in the urban area of Katia we were able to meet with many different people there this from left to right this is Minister Jorge Ariasa and and Carlos Ron who um who we were hoping to have here today but we're so glad to have Laura because in fact she was the one who accompanied us through um through much of much of this whole experience Jorge Ariasa is the minister the government minister for the communes and popular power and um and it really gave us it was a really interesting lesson to learn how interconnected the government and the unions are to to learn how how they work together even though they're coming from different areas second picture is Carlos David who we just heard from um as well as other members leaders of the Unión Comunera in the third picture um what we're hearing from members of the frente Francisco de Miranda which is an incredible political movement that actually runs the National Robin Sonia school and creates this space for all sorts of educational um projects and workshops we um we stayed in a in a dorm room there as well it was really um an incredible space um and then the final uh photo here is the folks from Venezuela analysis and so it was a really interesting and rounded group or or I think different speakers that we got to hear from and and really informative because some of them didn't agree with each other and I think we it was great to hear all sorts of perspectives um and so that was an incredible space while we were staying there we were visiting the Comuna El Panal which is the beehive commune this is Laura who you just heard from with uh I think that's Anacona right with a um with a coat pink t-shirt on and um and this is us at the very end with lots of members from the commune the El Panal commune is just an incredible space of urban struggle and resistance and hope um we heard first from Robert Longa who's one of the main organizers he runs the radio there and they have all sorts of other productive projects like Carlos David was talking about um this is the pool I just included this here is an anecdote that during COVID they took the pool they filled it with like regular water and just put a bunch of tilapia in there and used it as a way to not go hungry because of the combination of the blockade and the pandemic so just incredibly inventive and creative they were cleaning it out at this point um to turn it back into a pool um these were some of the projects that we were um that we were involved in when we were there one of the exciting things about the brigade um and that was very intentional on part on the part of all the sponsoring organizations was to ensure that this wasn't a volunteerist trip or um or as sort of poverty tourism that rather this was real solidarity work um and we did our best to make that the case um so we actually got um our hands dirty this first picture on the left was the the commune's each designated projects that um that they wanted us to support them with so on the left this is going to be a communal bank that the El Panal was creating to help them with their community finances on the right um it's where they were going to put in a community laundromat for so that people would have be going to be more easier for folks to clean their clothes and so we worked on cleaning these spaces out we also painted the school because the semester was about to start um and really uh got a sense of the kind of work um that people do in the way that they interact it was really inspirational um this year is uh one of the things that we found is that um the program barrio adentro which was the um program started by chava's bringing in cuban doctors to the same kind of marginalized areas that um commune's were really flourishing it's still alive and well but it's staffed with venezuelan doctors and so this is one of the one of the little clinics i think they're hexagonal um but people were you know really dedicated to the chavista model even during the um the the crisis of the sanctions right that there's there there's less supplies but um and so one example of that is the club de abuelas that came and gave us a presentation at um at the closing ceremony of el panal when we were leaving el panal and club de abuelas is something that's brought in from the cuban model that was brought in with barrio adentro and they were so fun they did dances they sang um and uh and so we really got a sense of i think the joy in communal life and the sort of sense of togetherness um we then traveled seven hours and 14 minutes approximately uh from caracas which is the starting point on this little map here um all the way to cumana coa in um in estado de sucre um and that was where we were going to the uh cinco fortalezas commune this was a very different kind of commune because it was in a very rural area agricultural um the main industrial production that they had there was um was in sugar cane this is traditionally what's been grown there but what was really fascinating was that um in the commune they had been in this struggle against a private um sugar mill owner who had stolen a whole year an entire year's crop of the whole town this had been devastating for the economy of the commune and of everybody and else in the town who had contributed and what they managed to do with the government's help was actually set up their own sugar cane mill so we'll see that in a second but that's part of the project that we did was was supporting them with that we ate the best food there it was mostly vegetarian it was so good it was all incredibly it was local and fresh um the the flags here that you see are representing all the different organizations including um the the landless workers movement from brazil that were present while we were there um and let's see so um so uh delegation members worked together with members of the community um one of the mornings on um putting on clearing the land for the mandala which is a sacred space in the community that had gotten blown down um from a windstorm and so they're here working with a group of women who were also part of the community kitchen and part of the feminist movement there one of the things we learned about was called the ruta de las flores which is um is a sort of a project that feminists have and we just learned a tremendous amount I'm sure the other speakers can talk about um the really important protagonist of feminist commune leaders like the leaders of como unos eco fortalezas in facing the very gendered impacts of the sanctions um so here's the sugar cane that they were rebuilding the government donated all of that um roofing that's there so they'd be able to run and you can see this is like what what the sugar looks like when it's um when they've ground it up and it's pouring out it um it's uh and then and then this is the finished product which is uh um what is it called again papelon um it's like a sort of molasses the delicious thing and you can see it says it's in comuna they're made in commune um from there we went to comuna es aquí el samora in the city of barcelona which is the capital of the state of answate maybe it's about halfway back from sucre um this was the first picture here is when we were arriving kind of uh it was already dark and we just got the most generous incredible reception um the two women here are our identical twins in fact if in case you're noticing a similarity um just such generosity um the let's see i don't know i think it was the next day we went to the factory that the comuna es aquí el samora runs collectively with sorry my dog is eating something across the table um runs collectively with uh two other communes like comuna casique guayque puro and comuna luisa caseres de adismendi all of which are you know in poor urban neighborhoods right nearby surrounding this factory which had been abandoned um by its owners and they took it over and with the support of the state and crucially with the support of the ministry of eco socialism and i just love that there's a ministry of eco socialism um they have been able to make the factory productive again and it's just been a boon for the communities the factory is of uh mayas and so it's nets and nails and then they added plastic recycling and so that they're doing all of the plastic they're recycling all the plastic from the three communities and that has been enough to create incredible um to it's it's had them working full time they're creating these products and this was some of the work that we did here you can see we've got this massive bag of plastic bottles and we're separating them out into their component parts so they can be recycled um this picture on the left shows the different kinds of plastic that go into making um plastic wood uh which um goes into this machine here that you see and turns into these beams that make things like this uh playground sculpture so it was really exciting to see um and be part of this incredible work that they're doing we also got to go to amazing cultural experiences everywhere we went this was a dance um performance and um and uh that that we had in at that site back in Caracas um we got a quick visit to the Comuna La Minta which is another urban commune they have a um a pastry store as their sort of profit making activity so that's what you see on the left on the right this is an abandoned property that they took over and turned into a farm there's all kinds of fruit trees and vegetables and medicinal trees and then there's like chickens and and rabbits in the back so it's this is supporting all the community and they also ensured that the the food was the monthly the the government distributed food that was a site for government distributed food um they had creative spaces here you can see there's capoeira and an incredible poetry dance performance that we got to witness and then finally on the last or the second to last day we had the privilege of getting to meet Camila um Fabri de Saab at the Ciudad Caribia which the movement the Free Alex Saab movement has um a strong connection with and has created a community kitchen there um and uh and so yeah I mean it was an incredible experience we hope that some of you who are listening will join us next time around um and uh and I just wanted to use this to give folks a sense of really how inspirational and exciting it was to see all of the work that these communes are doing um despite the the the the horrible and shameful impact of the unilateral coercive measures so that's me I'm done thank you so so much uh Adrienne and I'm going to go a little bit quick quick here because we we have we have extended a little bit um I'm going to now introduce Selena Selena de la Croce is the Publications Director of Tricontinental Institute for Social Research if you don't know please go and check them out they're amazing he's a co-founder and steering committee member of the anti-imperialist action committee in western Massachusetts and a longtime organizer and activist Selena was in the delegation with the other 14 members and yeah my my question is what is the work being developed in the three communes that you visited and what was your experience there like what social programs that you come across that demonstrated the innovation and meeting the needs of the community particularly in the areas of health care education and housing thanks Michelle and thank you so much to the other speakers I feel like so much has been covered and we could we could go on forever but I'll be disciplined in time so that I don't um so I thought that I would maybe focus on one of the communes we visited just in the interest of time and hopefully everyone will be gone be able to go on a future brigade and get to see the rest for themselves um but actually one of the questions that someone asked in the chat was on my mind in terms of just thinking about climate change and how that's kind of a big a big focus in the United States and actually came up quite a bit uh on the trip and in one of the um common communes in particular in Barcelona which as Adrian showed is about four hours outside of Caracas um so they Carlos David and other comrades kind of talked about what communes are in general um but I thought that the example of what they've done there is particularly interesting because they like communes do set out to kind of resolve the most concrete and urgent issues in their community despite the issues of the the challenges presented by the blockade and and and all the other challenges um around that so they what their main there's they have something called an EPS which is a um social production company enterprise uh that kind of is the economic engine of the commune and there's actually three communes that work together around that EPS which takes um recyclable plastics like soda bottles and different things and turns it into plastic wood which is a construction material and so Adrian showed some of the pictures of that of what that actually looks like and so they're kind of responding one of the needs that they explained that they were responding to is that they're uh they kind their community dealt with a lot of trash which ends up being a public health issue and also it's a public issue where I live there's a lot of trash where I live and people I live in western Massachusetts so it's a river and people get E. Coli from it just because it's dirty and you know we don't clean up our our own neighborhoods and so it's kind of interesting to think about that parallel but so they were addressing a concrete issue of having trash and and plastics in their neighborhood and use that to make a to meet another need that they had which is to build construction materials so that they can like Adrian explained build not only build like playgrounds for children in their own communities fix chairs and so on in schools that that for chairs that were broken but also can then sell those to generate funds that can fuel that can finance other projects and so it was interesting somebody in the task about oil but in the United States I don't know we talk about climate change and sustainability and when we recycle actually only 3% of the things that we put in our recycling bins goes to get recycled and 97% goes to landfills and so it was interesting like we have this kind of I don't know expectation about how things happen in the U.S. and versus elsewhere but think it's actually interesting to see people collecting not only like setting up like very well managed just collection systems for the for the cycling but then actually processing and we got to see them like how they processed that material into into building blocks and so yeah that not only generates jobs for people who are working who are working in the factory on the production but also like produces additional funds for that they could that the community can decide to spend another things and I don't know one of the things that really stood out to me was that like in the United States we have cooperatives right and so you have I don't know people like a group of workers in a particular place who maybe decide that they're going to have control over their one workplace but very often it what that ends at meaning is that like those workers have better jobs they have control over their working conditions because they're not you know and maybe they make more because the CEO isn't making off with all the profits but it generally kind of like ends there not in every case but it's a kind of general like context of communes or sorry cooperatives in the United States what was really interesting about the communes is that the workers also have control of the means of production of that particular thing they also get to you know make collective decisions about how things are run but then they have a much more kind of like integral view of what the community needs and so if you have like children who aren't working in the factory unlike in the United States this particular moment or you have elderly people or sick people or women or people working or in other sectors those people are like just as important and not just the workers of that particular factory but they have these assemblies which we actually I got with a couple of other committees of the brigade got to attend one of the assemblies in one of the communes where people are talking about what the most burning issues is in a different commune but what the most burning issues are for them some places it might be that there's you know there aren't enough light bulbs and so it's going to be dangerous at night because people can't see anything or there are no or education is a huge issue because of the blockade like they're not the state isn't able to pay teachers the way that they were before because the result of the blockade is that the economy went down by 99% and so just like math wise if you have a hundred dollars they went from having a hundred dollars to one dollar and obviously the Venezuelan economy has more than a hundred dollars but just like to imagine the scale of that that it knows dive it went to one percent of what it was before and so communes are coming up with these really creative ways and resilient ways of meeting the community's needs but also like in cover it's like the assemblies that decide it's not just like the factory workers making plastics but it's like okay well this is how much money we were able to make because we produced x amount of playground so what are we going to do with that what's the most what's like what are the biggest issues here and the community decides that and so it kind of like not only it like does what the cooperatives that we know do but it also kind of breaks with the capitalist capitalist logic of production and they on the wall speaking of climate change and oil and all of that there there's this big portrait of Chavez and a big portrait of Maloto and something that reads that makes a reference to the fifth I think it's the fifth objective in the plan plan de la patria which was like a homeland plan which was this kind of strategic outline of the Bolivarian revolution which talks about climate change so I don't know I won't do like a premature q&a but I just like was thinking like what are the experiences that really like I don't know what do people ask about the most or what are some of the experience like things that come up the most in conversation in the US and that just felt I don't know like a really I don't know indicative example of people not only being able to like democratically come up with the answers to their own solutions but yeah and it is with you know like this in each of the communes we went to despite all kinds of contradictions that there are like the tractor at commune coa the agent showed a picture of was purchased by the state because I think it costs like $40,000 or something like that so there's always going to be tensions and nothing's ever perfect but it's just like so so different from anything that we know in the US like you know Biden Biden it's not going to come along to my neighborhood and be like oh you guys get E. Coli because your river is dirty because there are no trash cans in your neighborhood like here I got you like it's just not going to happen and so I think it's important to like think about the differences in context for what that means for people in the United States. Some of the other things I don't know that stood out like Adrian already talked about the Barrio dentro program we also saw like there was a dent like a mobile dentist truck so the and like those things work in tandem with each other and so the communes often and not not every neighborhood in Venezuela is organized into a commune I think on the books there about 3,000 communes in Venezuela and not necessarily all of them are active but like like Carlos said before like people who live in communes live better like people are able like communes are able to kind of come up with these systems to to know their neighbors like in the US we generally don't know our neighbors right like people know their neighbors or in some instances kind of have done surveys of what are the needs that people have like we brought prenatal vitamins for instance and that people knew oh well we have this many pregnant women in our community and so this is how we're going to distribute them and then the doctor who's you know a public employee came to the community when we were in in Cinco Portalesas and like looked at those things with us and you know so there's this kind of like way that those that the knowledge that communes have and the organizing structure that they have kind of worked together with missions that were set up by the state despite how hard hit they've been by the blockade um let's see um I think something else that really stood out to me is the sense of like and just let's see going back to Michelle's question which was yeah I think something that really stood out to me was just like the sense of like dignity that people have that I don't think that we have in the United States in the same way like during I remember actually Carlos and I were talking during the brigade and my during the course of the brigade my neighbor got evicted because then someone bought the building and I wanted to flip it and charge more rent and I remember just being like what do you mean like the neighbors didn't just like descend on you know and that was her choice right you and not to get into somebody's business but like just the kind of this like that here especially in the communes but like people have a sense of dignity that they're not just going to be rolled over that they know what's possible that they know that like that people deserve that deserve human rights deserve fair housing and good quality housing and deserve but any number of things that in the US I think sometimes we just accept that we don't have because we're so beaten down and don't always have that organizing structure even though we're I think we are building it and the people in this call are building it I think like being able to be here and see like how far advanced that is was really incredible and I think we have a lot to learn from comrades here and I know Tatjum's going to talk more about solidarity but it's just like when we talk about like what about it talked about having a that there's a hybrid war there's an economic blockade which caused the economy to contract by 99 percent there's media blockade they're all these things but there's also a blockade on hope in the United States like that we was that I'm stealing someone else's quote but we're like more willing to accept the end of the world because it's being like flooded by polarized caps than we are to accept the end of capitalism and I think being able to come to Venezuela and being able to see what people are building despite these difficult conditions despite everything like we had someone that tell us how his mother died in his arms while he was from covid while he was going around to hospitals trying to get her care but he couldn't get her care when the U.S. was blocking covid vaccines I don't know the exact chronology but the U.S. prevented Venezuela from getting covid vaccines during the blockade but people like are just extraordinarily resilient and like that's one of the leaders of the Unión Comunidad it's not you know it's not somebody who then just says okay well this is how it is like okay this is you know people have suffered I would have mentioned Carlos mentioned people have suffered a lot that this isn't just the way that it is like people are organized and people are resilient and people have here have accomplished like really extraordinary things and I'll grab that Michelle I'm at time but I think really extraordinary thing is that we have a lot to learn from and I hope everybody gets a chance to visit I don't know one thing yeah I think you know we have a lot to build in the United States and it's not just solidarity work because because things are hard in Venezuela but it's you know it's if we're gonna live in a world in the United States where we're not all like at risk of getting evicted and living paycheck paycheck or whatever it is it's because we're going to be working with and learning from our comrades and in Venezuela and other places so for the in the interest of time I'll be disciplined and stop talking but I hope I hope that inspires people to come and see for yourselves and kind of deconstruct some of the some of the fake news that we get about what's actually going on here well thanks so much Selena it was very helpful there's always a lot to share more to share and hopefully people can stay in touch and and learn more and participate in the future I wanted to introduce last main speaker is Sachin Pedada who's a PhD student in economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst he's a member of the anti-imperialist action committee workers party of Massachusetts and a collaborator with progressive international he does research on resource sovereignty in the global south with a focus on Venezuela and I was thinking hoping you could talk about from your experiences in Venezuela how does that transmit to making it relevant to the working class people in this country and how we can make that experience of use to promote concrete actions of lifting the sanctions here and in strengthening solidarity with Venezuela that's solidarity and not charity so expand on any of that and whatever you can share Sachin yeah sure hi everyone thanks so much for being on here on a Friday evening um and listening to you as a meeting speakers before me I think everybody has said a lot of really really valuable and incredible things um and I in the interest of time will try to keep to as as short a time as I can uh knowing that I'm long-winded um but yeah I think um so okay so like Selena said the Venezuelan economy shrank by 99 percent over the span of like five years because of the sanctions uh therefore an exchange in earnings and precise um shrank from like 40 billion dollars to around 700 million dollars and I think just hearing that and hearing about like how much damage that that's done in terms of like the statistics I can I can read off a whole bunch of numbers that I won't but um I it's hard not to feel I guess guilty about what the government that I'm paying my taxes to is doing to a sovereign people who are choosing to do to live their lives in a in pursuit of self-determination I guess and what strikes me I guess the most I guess so going into this trip I guess I had a bit of a charity-ish mindset to get at David's question um and I think very quickly I realized that people didn't need my charity like people were already running the communes with or without my input with or without me advising people or like bringing my little suitcase of medicines which were obviously very valuable and I'm not saying that like solidarity kind of contributions are not appreciated in obviously very essential parts of kind of the the resistance to the blockade that we have to participate in but I also think that more than kind of giving it was about participating with the Comuneros and the communes in the process of struggle that they are in it was tilling the land in like 105 degree heat in Guamonacoa with all the other Comuneros to so that they could sow the seeds that they were going to eventually eat it was you know like taking vats with like in a bathroom without running water with a bunch of us sharing a house and it was somebody else's house that they had given to us and you make it work you know and it I think there's just so much to learn from Venezuela's tislinus point that the dignity and the resilience that people have shown um I think it's just incredible uh people have really been creative in finding ways to make life work for their them and their communities and everything is done with the collective mindset I think that's one of the biggest lessons I learned is that like every I think in a when you're truly a part of a collective body when you're truly part of a collective movement I think everything that you do has to be in pursuit of that collective vision and Venezuela as commons really encapsulate that I think there's just an incredible commitment to the collective good and people like young children I literally saw like a 12-year-old kid climb and his two friends climb a guava tree to like get like their shirts full of guavas so that like other people could have fruit because it was hot and it was just like this is just ingrained in people and I guess the the next point that I want to make is that um the the systems that javas put in place are truly incredible and they continue to be incredible to this day and javas sowed the seeds of truly remarkable things that are continuing to flourish well beyond he has passed um just for some statistics so javas from 1999 to 2011 2013 slashed unemployment and poverty by half in Venezuela significantly reduced child and infant mortality um he brought literacy virtually to 100 I think it was like 96 by the time he died so basically everybody every adult could read and he tripled GDP per capita so everybody was taking three times much three times as much home when javas died compared to when he took office it's hard not to like somebody who does all does all that for you right and you see that everywhere in Venezuela like you cannot go a single place in Venezuela whether it's caracas whether it's cubanacoa whether it's uh so I think like you can't go anywhere without seeing a mural of javas and a maduro and a bolivar and just like all the spirit and the the all these like really inspiring slogans next to their faces and it's not just symbolic it's not just about like a brainwashed sort of like reverence for this leader that people are all like I don't know not smart enough to understand that he's really an evil dictator like it's not that at all and I think it's very insulting that the US media thinks that we all think that it could be that simple um but just seeing in person like how much analysis people have behind um kind of all the javas did and all that socialism had done for Venezuela and all that has happened from the grassroots up it's not just about like this dictator coming in and like doing all these things for the people it's about the this this this president who was elected democratically and who uh listened to the years of calls from his people to give them the right to housing give them the right to health care give them the right to a livable wage to a dignity at work and went out and fought for them and fought with them and I think it's incredible to see just how much what a fire he lit in the communes that everybody is now participating in such a radical activity of collective self-governance and I think there's so much to learn from just um um the fact that I guess what's what started the process of the communes really is javas is sort of missions which he instituted at the start of his presidency um and uh there are missions on housing housing health care education nutrition all these things that venezuelans everybody needs um and um there was an explicit focus on getting these things to literally everybody in venezuela that's how you see like 100% literacy that's how you see plummeting child mortality that's how you see all these incredible things that venezuela did it's by going to the communities and doing things with them and giving them the resources that they need to flourish and javas did that the the bolivarian revolution has done that and I think it's all these statistics show that the bolivarian revolution has worked like it has improved the venezuelan people's lives so much and the sanctions have tried to destroy that and I think the other point that I really want to stress so I guess the the question remains like why should we care about this as us citizens I think um it's it's a little bit like a story about another people and it's like how do they relate to me but I guess let's think about this right so venezuela institutes these programs for universal housing universal health care universal education universal nutrition programs these things that the us very blatantly lacks right and the us's response to venezuela doing all this is not to give its people its own people the same things which every human deserves it is to try to coot in 2002 the us backed a coup against javas which failed but it was in attempt to destroy these programs that he had sowed the seeds for which he which he knew and everybody knew we're going to generate great benefits for the venezuelan people and which sure enough did and in the wake of javas's death we've just seen these the sanctions regime there's 930 different sanctions against venezuelan's economy right now which is just unfathomable and that means venezuela can't trade its oil can't access its foreign deposits and banks like literally it's just so hard to even buy things as at the venezuelan state and in spite of that there's so there's just an attitude of abundance among the communes because of just this i don't know this revolutionary spirit and optimism that everybody seems to have but i guess going back to what i was saying um the the it's just so deeply ironic to me that the the us government is sanctioning venezuela which offers all its people these human rights that everybody deserves and the us government does not operate operates people these same things even though it's fully feasible and the us spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined and yet somehow venezuela is the authoritarian dictatorship and the us is the democracy and then it just blows i think just seeing in real life just how much democracy really exists in venezuela at the most grassroots level is truly incredible and it's so inspiring and i think like this the the the the the ability of political education and like public education of everybody i think um to to transform the the public consciousness and to transform the idea of what is possible is more magical honestly like within a few years of javas starting this public education program commune started popping up everywhere in venezuela and it was just like an organic thing that was happening and it's just incredible to see that if you give people the services they need and you give them a real education they will organize themselves very organically and i think the same thing can be said about the us in a country that like i said lacks all these social services from the government that um is depriving or trying to deprive venezuelans of accessing from their own government um i think it's important that as we engage in fights against rather fights for a livable wage fights for housing for all fights for healthcare for all fights for um a livable planet for everybody um food for everybody you know all these things that were engaged on the ground in the united states and i think it's really important to connect that to the fact that venezuela has infrastructure to do all these things and has been doing all these things for its people and they are an example for us honestly they are an example that we should turn to and look at and figure out what like how to how to you know exchange information with um at a more effective level in order to really model the bolivarian process because it is just remarkable and we should basically what i'm trying to say because i'm being long-winded but basically what i'm trying to say is that there's so much we can learn from venezuela and it's i think reducing it to charity and reducing it to like i need to donate things to venezuela so that they can survive instead of looking at it as looking at it as like a solidarity process where we're learning from venezuelans and we're also you know sharing the surplus that we have with people and we can and and just seeing how much is possible when we organize and educate our communities um i think is really crucial and i guess to that point like i was starting to say and i got distracted but um but uh connecting our struggles against social ills in the us has to be connected to an anti-sanctions movement and i think saying anti-sanctions is very nebulous and it's not very clear um but um i think when we talk about the material impacts of not being able to fund those pharmacy trucks that go literally all over venezuela like in answategi there was a pharmacy truck that or i'm sorry a dentist truck there's also pharmacy trucks but this is a dentist truck that we saw and the dentist got out of their truck and literally with their backpacks of all their equipment walked up a mountain for four hours to give everybody dental care and that's just the thing that happens in venezuela but the us is trying to stop that from happening and so from that standpoint we need to fight against what is happening with the u.s government and its sanctions but i think in a larger sense venezuela has that infrastructure already it's not like we need to go and save them and tell them how to do things because they they they know they're organizing themselves better than we ever have and we have so much to learn from them and i guess with that i will stop talking about venezuela but i do have one quick thing to say which is three days from now september 11th is the anniversary of a very gruesome event in the western hemisphere and for those of you who don't know 50 years ago september 11th 1973 was the date of the us backed coup in chile which deposed a democratically elected socialist president salvo de reyende killed him and then replaced him with a neoliberal dictator by the name of the pinochet pinochet at the behest of the u.s proceeded to wreak utter havoc on chile's economy to this day chile has the worst income inequality in all of latin america and it's due specifically to pinochet and his policies um tricontinental which lina works for has a great article on excuse me on um the 9 11 in chile which you can all check out but the reason i bring this up is that chile is one of many examples of countries in in which the us has meddled in the name of promoting democracy or promoting us ideals or whatever the excuses um and chile is one of many countries in which the us was successful in backing up and actually carrying out a coup and chile also demonstrates that a real damage happens when those coups happen it's not just that a government changes it's that the hope of so many people is crushed and it's that livelihoods are changed and i think from that point it's so remarkable to me that venezuela has resisted the ongoing attempts from the us for the past 20 something years to destabilize the government and in in spite of the us government's attempts venezuela's revolution remains as strong as ever people are so committed to to the bolivarian project and to one another and there's so much for us to learn and i think i just want to conclude on that note of hope so thank you so much for your time thank you so much i listen to you and i get so inspired and i i think like okay this person got it um so yeah we are over our time and i um i think what we want to just like give a very quickly some things that you can do how we can show solidarity for venezuela i'm going to put on the tat some petitions that code pink has uh please go sign it uh come with us uh and uh to do advocacy with your congressperson and your and your um senators you know venezuelans don't have the opportunity to do that let's do let's do that let's make our voices heard i'm going to put it on the tat i'm going to let salina also give you some updates and then we'll go and ask uh if for those who wants to stay ask a few uh answer questions and answers that are in the chat yeah i'll just say quickly we uh we do have a fundraiser going at the moment so i'm going to um drop the link in the chat with the caveat that like carlis don't actually uh who's supposed to be with us today and couldn't make it i think said very well that like fundraising isn't something that you should do and like check off a box like look i raised like x amount of money and i did it and i helped people and now i'm all set like no like if we you know what if we're assuming everybody here on this call is here because we want to build a better world like it is part of an ongoing process of being committed to internationalism um and building a revolution at home so i hope that that's the key takeaway um and not just donating and then saying great but you know we do have access to to dollars and i think chipping in um allows you know supports the work of that we're that we're talking about so it's not it's not just that and then you're all set but um but i hope the folks will donate if you're able and also come on a future brigade join an organization if you're not already in one and um we're kind of building our revolution at home and definitely take advantage of our position in the belly of the beast like michelle said to try to um lift the sanctions and then i think we're doing q&a right yeah thank you so much because you know uh the opposition has so many resources to come and do that in congress so yeah please go and sign those petitions and here is lina put the the link to the donation the donation link and um so i'm going i'm going to start with one of the questions that are that is on the chat um this questions go goes to laura it's going to be uh we lost our our translator leo so adrian is going to to do a consecutive interpretation so this is going to take a while we're going to try to do it as fast we can so the question is for laura how do you reconcile the noble goal of socialism with the extraction of your greatest resource oil which will lead to human extension well okay first of all um i'm excited looking at these the q&a and the chat to see all of the really great questions that people have about venezuela and it's inspirational um in particular from the on behalf of the simon balibar institute we're committed to continuing this solidarity project of the kevin c's brigade you know with regard to the question um yes petroleum is continues to be the main source of income for the venezuelan state um so we need to provide a little bit of context did we lose laura of international context um and and what what has happened international and historical context okay so in the context of the global south as capitalism defines it that we should just be producers of prime materials that's what this capitalist system has inherited to us it's what it's given to us um but nonetheless um well in the plan de la patria the plan of the nation which one is one of the most important instruments that commander chavis left us so it establishes that our root toward socialism has to go against what capitalism has defined for us and in part that means that we aspire so here i'm combining it with one of the other questions with which which is more about what are the goals that the revolution the bolivarian revolution has is one of the things is that we have to overcome this dependence on petroleum rents and so the goal then is to develop all a wide variety of industries in in the country um small business um agricultural industry uh to diversify so actually then um the objective number five or the goal number five of the nation national plan is to protect the planet um and to uh reframe our model but nonetheless this goal of developing and diversifying our economy has been violently truncated by the by the unilateral coercive measures so it's um it's something that we need to do um in as part of the bolivarian revolution is to um to move forward away from this dependence on uh oil exploitation um facing while facing these challenges um so it's just a basic issue we have the right to develop and the route that we want to choose that we have chosen to develop is the uh socialism i wanted to uh just ask a a short question one of the other questions and maybe uh carlos margas what can address this is just a question about food sovereignty what percentage of food is being now produced in venezuela um if maybe carlos can answer that carlos the question is this what percentage is about the food sovereignty what what what percentage of food is currently being produced in venezuela uh so we don't have an exact number about how much we're producing um it sovereign lee right now the crisis was very difficult for venezuela um but at the same time it presented us an opportunity to really develop agricultural production um for communes and all across the country in 2017 and 2018 the venezuelan elite um in combination working together with the u.s um with the u.s uh worked to basically hide um prevent people from accessing basic um necessities basic foods that um that poor venezuelans needed for survival so we remember in that time period long long lines where people would have to wait 24 hours to just be able to access one of the products in the basic food basket that people would need for their family to feed their family as a result of this it really created an urgent feeling within venezuela that we needed to stop relying on these people and produce this um these these foods for ourselves we um our population managed to survive these years largely in thanks to small and medium level production um in the venezuelan countryside so the venezuelan people um we managed to uh change even change uh survive this period by changing around our diet so for example we were not able to access a kind of flour that is very basic for making arepas which is the staple in venezuela and people started eating more potatoes and yucca and plantain and changing around their style of their diet so that they could survive this difficult period um with sovereignty so now um as a result of these changes and of the push toward food sovereignty venezuela doesn't import any potatoes and many of the vegetables that we consume like carrots and other vegetables we're producing them ourselves so we're not importing grains anymore in fact we're sending grains to other countries um for example to vietnam so today we're um we're uh 80 percent of our corn consumption is domestic and we're not importing rice anymore so we've really moved to um we've had a tremendous tremendous shift toward domestic agricultural uh production for our domestic consumption so this new these new models of production that really arose out of the crisis are something that in the communes we have adopted um with a specific focus on agroecological production um to again ensure sovereignty so in addition to producing them in a sovereign manner we're making sure that they're healthier than what we had previously been importing and consuming so one of the big challenges that we have the communes have is that we are doing a lot of agricultural production but then the sale of what we produce is going through middleman so it's it's really ends up being just a capitalist product for profit and um and so we need to work to reducing the middleman so we can ensure that what we're producing is um is is going to where it's most needed so um we're gonna ask the last question because we really don't have much time but i promise i'm going to copy all these questions and make a follow-up email with with the answers and i'll follow up with our guests too so we can answer them via email but i'm gonna ask this last question in any last remark that you have because this is the last okay so we i this is a question from marla i read criticism of the government of an on venezuela analysis what is the relationship between the government and the communes are the communes self-supporting do they receive government aid laura te voy a dejar a t responder esa pregunta y carlos te la escribo en español okay bueno en la relación entre del gobierno revolucionario con las comunas es una relación estrecha es decir el gobierno revolucionario en supuesta el socialismo no tiene una ruta fuera de la de la ruta comunal y las comunas the relationship between the revolutionary government of venezuela and that of the communes is very very tight that's to say that um that that the government does not have an agenda that that does not include the communes or that the agenda is one in the same it is to build the communes and so the communes have in the revolutionary bolivarian government a tremendous ally in their construction of independent governance projects are organized in all the territory national actually communes and um communal councils are organized everywhere throughout um all all throughout the entire country no solo una organización de chavistas o de revolucionarios es una estructura de la comunidad y del territorio donde está organizada la comuna y el consejo comunal so um communes are not just organizations they're not just chavista or revolutionary organizations they're organizations of the communities where where they are located so of course um the communes are a socialist project and yet many of the communes themselves are not necessarily voting for the governing party they're not necessarily voting for maduro um they're they they have some of them have different parties so then the question is how does the does the government support the communes so in venezuela there is a federal um council of governments um which is a federal level um uh group and so this structure has a resource um fund that is exists to approve projects in the different territories of the nation so these communes and the communal councils the way that they interact primarily with the state in this sense is that they they will present their development projects um to this entity of the state um to request funding from um from the federal government what is the project that they're going to develop so it's the communal structures and the communal councils themselves that collectively through their own democratic processes determine which projects they want to fund and by and large it's um it's economic productive projects that they request funding for from the federal government so in order to develop and support these projects that that deserve um they deserve land that deserves economic support to be developed so this really requires the firm conviction of a revolutionary government that believes in the people and that is eager and willing to transfer power um to the communes it's it's it's not just a little bit of support that the government gives to the communes they're um they the government has provided projects with millions of dollars um to the different communes to their projects and so that's something that it's not the same when you know 10 years ago when the communes were organizing and seeking out these resources from um from the reality that we're we're seeing today so there's a very close relationship between um the the communal state the route that commander chavez left us to um move forward with communes as the basis of the revolution and now that we are um facing upcoming presidential elections one of the things that we see from the um speeches the discourse of the right wing of the opposition is that they really want their attacking communes um they're attacking uh popular power and communal councils so our our destiny our um continuing as a revolutionary bolivarian government is completely tied with the future of the communes we need to fight together against this threat um to continue creating our bolivarian feminist revolutionary um vision look all um political processes have their contradictions this is normal there's no um there's there's no political project or process in the world that can be carried out with like complete um peace and so these contradictions um mean that sometimes there's criticism and and healthy criticism is fine within a political process but what we want to make very clear in uh speaking to the world is that this government of nicolás maduro is a government that is an ally of the communal project that completely supports communes in venezuela so there may be contradictions there may be certain politicians or individuals with whom we have conflict but overall this government has been tremendously supportive of the communal project so this this government and what laura was talking about was the the federal entity that chava's created so that communal councils and communes can have direct access to request funds and resources from the government but also the government um you know chava has created this and we continue to have it there is an entire ministry that's devoted to popular power and communes to support it so this government has a contradiction and a challenge which is that it operates within the framework that was left by the old bourgeois state and so there are contradictions within that it's a bourgeois state based on capitalist logics so the challenge that um that chava's gave to all of us with the communal project was to actually transform the nature of the bourgeois state transform it into a communal state because the problem you know the problem with being an oil state and this relates to the previous question is is not just that we entirely depend on oil profits it's that this fact has permeated every aspect of venezuelan culture so the the culture that was created in the um in the in the 20th and even in the 20th into the 21st century was a rentiers economy um that continues to be the case that it's a capitalist economy based on oil profits so the the challenge that we have today is what chava's proposed uh and carried out was to use these profits from oil that had been the basis of our society um but not towards capitalism and instead towards improving the lives of people within venezuela of the venezuelan population there's no canyon that's completely self-sufficient just like there's no organization in the country that's a hundred percent self-sufficient so they still require finances they still require money in order to increase their um development potential and their productive capacities so the um the importance i'm not exactly sure how to translate this i'm sorry but the importance of the of the union of the of the communes and of the popular power um has to do with the dispute around around money around financial capital and how to use it rent so what we're saying is that previously petroleum profits had been used by the bourgeoisie to develop themselves for their own ends but what we need to ensure is that any petroleum profits are really going toward the development and the betterment of the lives of the people but so now we're still getting money from the government not in the at the levels that we received previously um in and that's directly in relation to the blockade which has um which has cut off our our oil profits as a country but our goal is to be able to get a whole lot more money because that um that those oil that oil is belongs to the venezuelan people and we need to be able to use it toward the the betterment of our about so uh then again um like you saw me example of the sugar mill in the cinco fortales as commune we want to see projects of the communes develop we want to see them move forward and so those oil profits any oil profit should be going towards these sorts of projects so so uh part of the support that uh the kevin zisberg aid was gay um gave went toward the um uh machinery to to uh create cheese and one of the communes that had a lot of milk but didn't wasn't able to bring it to market and so they've already made their first batch of cheese and so it's these productive projects that um we're really looking forward to developing in collaboration with um kevin zisberg aid in some if you see criticism don't get scared these contradictions always exist and they're productive and what we are sure of is that we are going to resolve these contradictions ourselves internally using the revolutionary mechanisms that we have available to us bafiq i cannot find a better way to end this webinar uh david i don't know if you want to say something no i just really appreciate everyone who participated and the excellent questions and we will be sending out um to the emails of people who signed up um the uh links to the program when it's going to be on youtube and the questions and answers and i did put in the chat that there's going to be another delegation report back with the many of the other delegates in the there are over 10 more and it will be a on the what the f is going on in latin america program where they can talk about their reflections and experiences coming up on september 21st we will send more information about that as well and i just wanted to thank everyone for and uh adrian thanks so much for pitching in on the interpretation and laura and carlos mil gracias for estar aquí con nosotros is um and that's all i want to say and thanks michelle for hanging in there yeah feeling so good these days thank you thank you so much see you soon thank you thank you everybody como una nada lo queremos mucho