The judicial coup against President Dilma Rousseff is the culmination of the deepest political crisis in Brazil for 50 years. Every so often, the bourgeois political system runs into crisis. The machinery of the state jams; the veils of consent are torn asunder and the tools of power appear disturbingly naked. Brazil is living through […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Stop Lecturing Cuba and Lift the Blockade
Surrounding President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Cuba on March 20, there is speculation about whether he can pressure Cuba to improve its human rights. But a comparison of Cuba’s human rights record with that of the United States shows that the US should be taking lessons from Cuba. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights […]
Failing to Connect the Dots on Immigration: The Democratic Debate in Miami
The March 9 debate in Miami between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was the first chance the two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination had to discuss immigration and its connections to trade and U.S. policy in Latin America. Unfortunately, neither candidate took advantage of the opportunity. The mainstream “immigration debate” generally avoids mentioning the […]
The Challenge Before the Latin American Left
The Left upsurge in Latin America appears to be abating. In October 2015 Jimmy Morales, the conservative candidate in Guatemala, defeated the Left-leaning Sandra Torres in the presidential elections. On November 22, Mauricio Macri, the conservative presidential candidate in Argentina, defeated Daniel Scioli, his Peronist rival, by a narrow margin, to bring to an […]
Ellen Meiksins Wood: Some Personal Recollections
In my graduate class on Political Economy at the University of Oregon this term we are reading two books by Ellen Meiksins Wood: The Retreat from Class and Democracy Against Capitalism. Tomorrow, when the class meets, I will have to inform the students of Ellen’s death on January 14. I have been thinking about what […]
A New Political Situation in Latin America: What Lies Ahead?
“Venezuela defines the future of the progressive cycle” In your work on South America, you speak of the duality that has characterized the last decade. What exactly is that duality? Claudio Katz: In my opinion, the so-called progressive cycle of the last decade in South America has been a process resulting from partially successful […]
Chavism Loses a Battle — Can It Recover and Rectify?
Chavism received a serious blow in the parliamentary elections this last Sunday, December 6. The strength of the blow is such that the movement is still reeling. The Venezuelan opposition, loosely organized in an electoral bloc called the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), achieved not just a majority of seats in the National Assembly but also […]
Red Is the Primary Color of the Rainbow
This paper was presented at “Color Revolution and Cultural Hegemony,” the 6th World Socialism Forum in Beijing, China, October 16-7, 2015. The term “color revolution” is code. It is a code for regime change, and the term is often treated as synonymous with activities of the CIA and its assorted vehicles such as the National […]
The Trump Phenomenon
Donald Trump is a wild card in the US presidential contest. But his role reflects the loss of legitimacy of established US politicians. It is shocking — and perhaps peculiar to the United States — that a candidate can build up popular support while bragging of his immense personal fortune and his consequent ability to […]
“Why Socialism?” Revisited: Reflections Inspired by Albert Einstein
Why should one seek socialism? It is common to adduce that socialism would be more just and fair than capitalism, but that does not fully resolve the issue, since people are not always motivated by social justice. Moreover motivation — especially for undertakings that are difficult and risky, such as changing a whole society! — […]
Obama, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is on Cuba
Millions of Americans believe that President Obama has normalized relations with Cuba and ended over 50 years of U.S. efforts to strangle its economy. They might have been puzzled when the United States stood up against every other nation save one, in opposing the UN General Assembly resolution which passed, 191-2, on October 27, […]
The Letelier-Moffitt Assassination: New Evidence
The Guardian reports that Chilean President Augusto Pinochet personally ordered the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, in Washington, D.C. in September 1976. So, you may say, what’s new? After all, my partner Sam Buffone and I sued Chile for these murders and won a judgment. At the trial, our expert witness said that […]
Resisting Wholesale Electronic Invasion of the Fourth Amendment
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) Foundation for Criminal Justice dinner, Denver, Colorado, July 24, 2015 A few months ago, I spoke to a group of lawyers in Los Angeles. I talked about legal ethics. I mentioned Henry Drinker, author of ABA ethical rules, author of a book that was the basis for the […]
To Recover Strategic Thought and Political Practice
It is common to understand the diverse “processes” in Latin America — in the period marked initially by Zapatismo in the mid-1990s and later by the emergence of left or popular governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador along with center-left governments in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina — within the theoretical framework of a return or […]
P(h)ew: The “Nonpartisan” Embrace of Narendra Modi by the Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center released a new survey that reveals a very favorable perspective of Narendra Modi among Indians. In fact, the header for the report reads: “The Modi Bounce: Indians Give Their Prime Minister and Economy High Marks, Worry about Crime, Jobs, Prices, Corruption.”1 According to the results 87% of Indians have a “favorable […]
RISE: Scotland’s Left Alliance
One year on from the historic Scottish independence referendum politics here are utterly changed. The long dominant Labour Party, which opted to campaign against independence — alongside the Conservatives, loathed by the big majority of Scots voters, and the now virtually demolished Liberal Democrats in the Better Together alliance — reaped the whirlwind at the […]
On the Current Conjuncture and Agrarian Reform in Brazil
The political crisis that began after the re-election of Dilma Rousseff and the offensive by the opposition and the most conservative sectors of the country has put some warnings on the agenda again. Given the national and international political conjuncture, one of the main warnings is not to equate political struggle with electoral struggle […]
Altruism: Viral & More Dangerous Than ISIS
Early this month in Germany, a few thousand refugees from war-torn Syria and neighboring countries spilled out of a train station and into Munich. Rather than being tripped by the locals, or thrown inside cargo trucks, or sorted out according to skin color (as per quaint Old World custom), the migrants were actually welcomed by […]
Bombs for Peace: A Review
George Szamuely. Bombs for Peace: NATO’s Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013 (Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by the University of Chicago Press). Paper. Pp. 611. In Bombs for Peace, George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University, has produced a revealing and sharply […]
People’s Power & People’s Protagonism: Linking Practice to Visions of Twenty-First Century Socialism
Register Now – Limited Space Available! SF BAY AREA – SEPTEMBER 13TH, 4-6PM * REGISTER HERE (Presentation Theater, University of San Francisco School of Education, 2350 Turk Boulevard, San Francisco) NEW YORK CITY – SEPTEMBER 18TH, 7-9PM * REGISTER HERE (Verso Loft, 20 Jay St [10th Floor], Brooklyn) We are honored to bring Marta […]
