November 26, 2007

Gustavo Torres/CASA de Maryland, SVREP, Ward Churchill at Venezuala "revolution in the U.S." conference

The Venezuela International Book Fair took place earlier this month, and it included a "five-day rolling panel discussion" called "United States: A possible revolution" [1]:

The 22 panelists, four or five of whom spoke each day, included political activists and writers from the United States expressing diverse political views, as well as a number of U.S. citizens living in Venezuela... The issues debated on the character of the working class and prospects for revolution in the United States sparked a political discussion that permeated the book fair...

...In addition to the forum panelists mentioned below, others included Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela's ambassador to the United States; former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill; August Nimtz, a University of Minnesota political science professor; William Blum, an author who has written a number of books opposing U.S. foreign policy; ex-Maryknoll priest Charles Hardy; and Dada Maheshvarananda, yoga instructor and founder of the Prout Institute...

...Several panelists are active in work to expand rights for immigrants in the United States. These included Diogenes Abreu, a Dominican-born community organizer who currently lives in New York; Luis Rodriguez, a Chicano activist in California's San Fernando Valley; and Gustavo Torres, an organizer for the immigrant rights group Casa de Maryland...

Note: Casa of Maryland is a publicly-funded group.

Both Torres and Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Education and Registration Project, said the road to "empowerment" is organizing Latinos to vote. "What does a revolutionary do in the U.S. today?" asked Gonzalez. "Take power wherever you can" by electing Latinos to city, state, and federal offices. His PowerPoint presentation highlighted the growing number of Latino voters.

The SVREP is frequently presented by the MSM as a mainstream group; now we know better.

Others on the panel or in the audience included:
* Lee Sustar from the Socialist Worker newspaper
* "ex-Marine and founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War Jimmy Massey"
* Hector Pesquera, "a leader of the Hostosiano Independence Movement of Puerto Rico"
* Amiri Baraka and Amina Baraka (the former read a poem and provides some choice quotes)

And, there was dessert after the panel ended: a "video interview with Noam Chomsky".

[1] themilitant.com/2007/7145/714503.html

UPDATE: The correct name of the group is Southwest Voter Registration Education Project; it's reversed above.

Posted to Immigration2007b at November 26, 2007 11:42 AM