I’ve taken up a hobby of recording motion as I move through the world, and I edit this into what most call “videos” or “movies,” and the more pretentious (or formal) would call “films.” I don’t pretend to be a filmmaker, but this is some documentation of my journey through this latter part of my life. The videos are accompanied by notes to orient the viewer.
NEW! In the Shadow of the Revolution 
Our new movie (Venezuelan filmmaker Arturo Albarrán and I teamed up on this one) is now online and available for download and viewing. It’s a look at the crisis in Venezuela from the perspective of left social movements and left political activists of the opposition. It gives lie to the Bolivarian narrative that a left government is under attack by a right wing opposition allied with the “empire.” Those interviewed in the film have a very different take on what’s happening in Venezuela and they coincide in seeing the struggle as a one between a right wing mafia in control of the State at war with the people at the bottom. Forthcoming from PM Press (and also available for free viewing there).
Interview with Javier Corrales (Stanford University, March 4, 2017)
(Note: This first appeared at Caracas Chronicles)
I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Corrales at the Venezuela at the Crossroads event on March 4 of this year. If you haven’t read his excellent book Dragon in the Tropics, co-authored by Michael Penfold, you should. It’s a great exposé on the Bolivarian Revolution.
I started off with the question I had been dying to ask him all morning, just to break the ice. “So, just to clarify, you’re not an ‘ultra-rightist’ are you?” He laughed. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. And that’s where the interview began as we delved into the myths of the “ultra-derechista fascistas” and the “good” Bolivarian socialist left and Javier took it from there.
Javier Corrales is professor of Political Science at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts. He earned his Ph.D. in political Science from Harvard University. He is the author and co-author of many books and he serves on the editorial boards of Latin American Politics and Society and Americas Quarterly.