OSCAR HECK ESTA LOCO

 Estimado Amigo de Aporrea:

Soy dominicano, de ideología izquierdista chavista, y leo el periódico digital Aporrea casi todos los días. Tenía comunicación por WhatsApp con el escritor de Aporrea, Oscar Heck, pero tuve que bloquearlo por completo en la aplicación.

Oscar Heck, poco a poco, se ha ido inclinando hacia la derecha, pasando de ser un chavista empedernido a un yankista, imperialista, fascista y trumpista. Afirma que el petróleo de Venezuela pertenece a EE. UU. y a Trump, y no a los venezolanos. Si realmente EE. UU. está controlando y administrando el petróleo de Venezuela, esto se debe a su poderío militar, muy superior al de Venezuela, cuyo ejército es demasiado débil para expulsar a los estadounidenses del país.

No entiendo cómo una persona puede pasar de ser antiimperialista y chavista a convertirse en fascista y trumpista. Ahora, Óscar Heck apoya la invasión de Trump contra Venezuela y respalda todo lo que haga el gobierno estadounidense. Cree ciegamente en la justicia de Estados Unidos.

Ya sé por qué él es tan malo inventando mentiras: tiene un problema de incapacidad para leer llamado “dislexia”. La dislexia impide que las personas puedan leer libros y artículos, y hace que el proceso de la lectura sea muy difícil para quienes la padecen.

Él está vendiendo un libro titulado "Escape de Venezuela" (Escape from Venezuela en inglés) en su página oscarheck.com, pero es un libro dirigido a personas sin conocimientos, no a quienes están instruidos en temas de política y del Estado.

Antes hablaba muy cordialmente con él, pero desde que se destapó como un yankista y un Trumpista empedernido, tuve que bloquearlo de mi WhatsApp. Creo que Oscar Heck está loco; apoya la invasión de Trump contra Venezuela y respalda a Trump en la guerra contra Irán, así que no me quedó otra opción que bloquearlo.

Es una persona muy inestable mentalmente; una vez me dijo que matar a una persona no es malo. Seguramente las autoridades del gobierno de Maduro ya tenían en la mira a Oscar Heck por lo peligrosa que puede ser una persona así para un régimen revolucionario.

PINK HOUSES

 Pink Houses (1983), written and performed by John Mellencamp for his album Uh-Huh, is one of the most representative anthems of heartland rock (the rock focused on the working class of the interior of the United States).

As with Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," the song is often misinterpreted as a joyful and upbeat patriotic anthem. In reality, it is an ironic critique of the "American Dream" and the gap of economic and racial inequality in American society.

The story behind the song

The idea was born when Mellencamp was driving on Interstate 65 near Louisville, Kentucky. Looking out the window, she saw an elderly black man sitting in a plastic chair on the porch of a small pink-painted house, holding a beer and waving to passing cars.

Mellencamp was struck by the image: on the one hand, the dignity and apparent serenity of the man; on the other, the evident poverty and structural limitations faced by the working class and minorities in the era of the 80s.

The content and the socio-political theme

Through a series of urban and rural portraits, the song contrasts the political propaganda of progress with the harsh everyday reality:

1. The Irony of the "American Dream"

The catchy chorus:

"Isn't that America, home of the free / Little pink houses for you and me?"

("Isn't this America, the home of the free? / Pink houses for you and me")

It sounds like a celebration, but it's pure sarcasm. Mellencamp points out how ordinary people are sold the idea that "anyone can get to the top," when in practice the majority of the working class is only able to survive in humble homes and settle for the bare minimum.

2. The social mobility trap

In one of the verses, he describes a young man who works hard and dreams of moving to the city to succeed, but realistically adds: "but he won't get very far." It shows how individual effort often collides with a rigid economic system that benefits a few at the expense of the work of the many.

3. Political cynicism

In the last part of the song, Mellencamp openly criticizes the political class ("there's a guy on TV offering solutions"). It reflects the disenchantment of citizens with electoral speeches that promise prosperity while working communities remain stagnant or in decline.

In summary

Pink Houses is not a song of contempt for their country, but of empathy for ordinary people. It celebrates the resilience and dignity of the working class, but denounces the false promise of a system that promises equal opportunity while keeping much of the population on the margins.

A full and powerful soul not only endures losses, privations, rapine, painful and even terrible contempt, but who emerges from such hells with greater fullness and power and, in order to to say the essential, with a new increase in the happiness of loving. I believe that he who has divined in love some of the deeper conditions of all growth will comprise Dante, when he wrote about the gate of Hell: "Also eternal Love created me for me."

A full and powerful soul not only endures losses, privations, rapine, painful and even terrible contempt, but who emerges from such hells with greater fullness and power and, in order to to say the essential, with a new increase in the happiness of loving. I believe that he who has divined in love some of the deeper conditions of all growth will comprise Dante, when he wrote about the gate of Hell: "Also eternal Love created me for me."

Una alma plena y poderosa no solamente soporta pérdidas, privaciones, rapiñas, desprecios dolorosos y hasta terribles, sino que sale de tales infiernos con plenitud y poder mayores y, para decir lo esencial, con un nuevo aumento de la felicidad de amar. Yo creo que aquel que ha adivinado en el amor algunas de las más profundas condiciones de todo crecimiento comprenderá a Dante, cuando escribió sobre la puerta del Infierno: «También a mí me creó el eterno Amor».

 Una alma plena y poderosa no solamente soporta pérdidas, privaciones, rapiñas, desprecios dolorosos y hasta terribles, sino que sale de tales infiernos con plenitud y poder mayores y, para decir lo esencial, con un nuevo aumento de la felicidad de amar. Yo creo que aquel que ha adivinado en el amor algunas de las más profundas condiciones de todo crecimiento comprenderá a Dante, cuando escribió sobre la puerta del Infierno: «También a mí me creó el eterno Amor».

COMPLETE BOOK-READING GUIDE ON HOW TO EVOLVE TOWARD A WARRIOR SUPERMAN AND A MARXIST WARRIOR SUPERMAN

 PART 1, THE EVOLUTION TOWARD THE WARRIOR SUPERMAN

Here is the complete reading map, thematically structured to trace that route from the deconstruction of social dogmas to the absolute affirmation of individual sovereignty and tragic greatness.

1. The Forge of the Will and the Tragic Affirmation

"Man is something that must be overcome." — Friedrich Nietzsche

This section lays the philosophical foundation: the overcoming of passive nihilism, the acceptance of suffering as a forge and the unconditional affirmation of life.

• Friedrich Nietzsche — Thus Spoke Zarathustra

  • Why it's key: The work where the concept of the Úbermensch (Superman) was born. It teaches how to break with "herd morals", conformism and inherited values to create one's own values.

• Friedrich Nietzsche — The Genealogy of Morality

  • Why it's key: A philosophical scalpel to dismantle the origin of moralism, guilt and paralyzing pity, showing how the psychology of resentment was constructed.

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Faust

  • Why it's key: It embodies the Faustian spirit: the insatiable pursuit of knowledge, experience, and greatness regardless of risks or conventional ties.

• Arthur Schopenhauer — The World as Will and Representation (Selection on the Will) or Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

  • Why it's key: It provides a sober look at the pain of existence. While Schopenhauer proposes resignation, the tragic warrior takes his notion of Will to make the Nietzschean leap: to affirm life despite its tragic condition.

2. Ancient Greatness and Strategic Audacity

To prevent individualism from remaining a mere abstract theory, this section resorts to men of action and political realism.

• Plutarch — Parallel Lives: Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar

  • Why it's key: The classic biography par excellence. It shows the excessive ambition, military daring, audacity and sense of destiny of two of the most decisive figures in Greco-Roman history.

• Niccolò Machiavelli — The Prince and Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy

  • Why it's key: It teaches Virtù (strength, audacity and cunning) in the face of Fortune. He dismantles naïve idealism and moral legalism to understand how real power works in the world.

3. The Individualistic Insurrection and Absolute Sovereignty

Here the State, the law and the homogenizing society are definitively broken through the most radical and vitalist anarchism.

• Renzo Novatore — Towards the creative nothingness

  • Why it's key: The peak of individualist and iconoclastic anarchism. Novatore conceives anarchy not as a future political program, but as a heroic, poetic and insurrectional experience of the individual in the present.

• Raoul Vaneigem — Treatise on Knowing How to Live for the Use of the Younger Generations

  • Why it's key: One of the pillars of the Situationist International. It analyzes how modern capitalism alienates everyday life and proposes the reappropriation of pleasure, creativity, and radical freedom against the social spectacle.

• Laurence Labadie — Essays on Individualist Anarchism (or his anthology of writings)

  • For me it is key: Heir to American individualism (Tucker, Warren), he provides a lucid and direct defense of economic autonomy, the rejection of coercive authority and personal self-sufficiency.

4. Deconstruction of Dominance and Existential Rebellion

Critical tools for understanding the invisible chains of modernity and how to maintain rebellious dignity.

• Michel Foucault — Surveillance and Punishment / The Microphysics of Power

  • Why it's key: It reveals how modern institutions—schools, hospitals, prisons, laws—seek not to "protect," but to discipline bodies and domesticate minds. To be 100% free, you have to understand how this control operates.

• Albert Camus — The Rebel Man and The Myth of Sisyphus

  • Why it's key: Camus defines rebellion as an act of affirmation of human dignity in the face of the absurdity of the universe and political tyranny, rejecting totalitarian fanaticism.

5. The Closing Hymn: The Incorruptible Mind

• Rush — "Tom Sawyer" (Moving Pictures, 1981)

  • The musical said:

    "No his mind is not for rent / To any god or government / Always hopeful, yet discontent / He knows changes aren't permanent / But change is."

  • Why include it: It poetically captures the individual free from dogmatic ties, adaptable, observant and absolute master of his own mind.

Suggested Reading Path

1. Phase 1 (Deconstruction): Foucault (To Monitor and Punish) + Nietzsche (The Genealogy of Morals).

2. Phase 2 (Affirmation of the Hero): Plutarch (Alexander and Caesar) + Nietzsche (Zarathustra).

3. Phase 3 (Sovereignty and Rupture): Novatore (Towards creative nothingness) + Vaneigem (Treatise on knowing how to live).

PART 2 THE EVOLUTION TOWARD THE MARXIST-TROTSKIST SUPERMAN WARRIOR 

Putting together a curated reading list is a classic way to introduce friends to big ideas — much like Thomas Jefferson sharing his recommended libraries.

Here is a organized, step-by-step syllabus starting with the foundational principles of scientific socialism, moving through Lenin’s work on state power and imperialism, and finishing with Trotsky's distinct contributions and modern Trotskyist perspective.

Phase 1: Foundational Marxist Theory (Marxists Internet Archive)

These classic works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels lay out the basic mechanics of capitalism, class struggle, and historical materialism.

1. Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) — Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

   • Why read it: The primary starting point. It outlines the basic premise of class struggle, the historical role of the working class (proletariat), and the core aims of socialism.

2. Wage Labour and Capital (1847) — Karl Marx

   • Why read it: An accessible entry point to Marxist economics. It explains how surplus value is extracted from working-class labor under capitalism.

Phase 2: Imperialism & The State (Marxists Internet Archive)

V.I. Lenin built on Marx's work to explain how modern capitalism operates globally and how state power functions.

3. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) — V.I. Lenin

   • Why read it: Crucial for understanding anti-imperialism. Lenin details how financial monopolies, international banking, and global competition for resources lead directly to imperialist conflict and war.

4. The State and Revolution (1917) — V.I. Lenin

   • Why read it: Examines what the state actually is — a tool of class rule — and why workers must dismantle the capitalist state structure rather than simply trying to reform it.

Phase 3: Trotskyist Theory & Strategy (Marxists Internet Archive)

Leon Trotsky expanded revolutionary strategy in response to global events and the rise of Stalinism in the Soviet Union.

5. The Permanent Revolution & Results and Prospects — Leon Trotsky

   • Why read it: Trotsky’s defining theoretical contribution. It argues that in developing or less-industrialized nations, democratic and anti-imperialist tasks can only be solved through a socialist revolution led by the working class, linking national struggles directly to world revolution.

6. The History of the Russian Revolution (1930) — Leon Trotsky

   • Why read it: A monumental firsthand historical account analyzing how the 1917 revolution unfolded from below.

7. The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International / The Transitional Program (1938) — Leon Trotsky

   • Why read it: The founding document of the Fourth International. It outlines "transitional demands" — bridging the gap between workers' daily immediate needs and the ultimate goal of international socialist revolution.

Phase 4: Modern Trotskyism & Anti-Imperialism (World Socialist Web Site)

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) provides daily analysis from a Trotskyist perspective, focusing on anti-war mobilization and international working-class unity.

8. About the World Socialist Web Site

   • Why read it: Gives a quick orientation on the platform's analysis of current events, global capitalism, and war through an internationalist lens.

9. The Historical and International Foundations of the SEP

   • Why read it: A historical overview tracing more than a century of Marxist political development, from the 1905 and 1917 Russian Revolutions to the fight against Stalinism and modern imperialism.

10. WSWS Perspective & Daily Analysis (Main Site)

• Why read it: To see these theoretical concepts applied in real time to contemporary global politics, labor movements, and anti-war perspectives.

Tip for reading with a group: Start with the Communist Manifesto and Wage Labour and Capital to build a shared vocabulary before diving into the longer theoretical works by Lenin and Trotsky.