George Ciccariello-Maher

George Ciccariello-Maher (born March 12, 1979) is an American political scientist and Marxist activist who was an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University.

Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela (2017)

• Nothing says "enough" like a bus on fire.
  • pp.1
• In Venezuela, the rejection of neoliberalism in the streets during the Caraczao led not only Chavez's election, but also to a long and continuing experiment in radical democracy that continues to this day in new institutions of local self-government, known as communes. At the time of the Carcazo, Chavez and others had been conspiring both within the army and alongside clandestine revolutionary groups, but the spontaneous rebellion by the people in the streets caught them off guard and forced them into action. On February, 1992, the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement attempted to depose Perez in a coup d'etat that failed to seize power.
  • pp. 7
• Our is increasingly an age of riots and rebellions, of radical self-creation in the streets: from London to Paris, the Arab Spring to Occupy, and more recently, the explosive fury of Ferguson and Baltimore. We are justifiably excited by the heat of the crowd; our collective pulse may even rise at the sight of masks, broken glass, and flames, because for so long these have represented the shards of the old world through which shines the glint of the new. Indeed, the global rebelliousness of the present owes much to the revolt - and repression - that marked Venezuela's and Latin America's own awakening.
  • pp. 48