The drums of war are beating again. The Obama administration will reportedly launch a military strike to punish Syria’s Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons. A military attack would invariably kill civilians for the ostensible purpose of showing the Syrian government that killing civilians is wrong. “What we are talking about here […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
The Great Rift: Capitalism and the Metabolism of Nature and Production
John Bellamy Foster: We need a society that is geared, as István Mészáros always tells us, to substantive equality. And no compromise on the issue of equality. Bolívar said equality is the law of laws. So we need substantive equality and we need ecological sustainability. And they have to go together. How do we know […]
Municipal Bankruptcies, Pensions, and New Dimensions of Class Struggle in the United States
The news that Detroit has declared bankruptcy, the largest North American city to do so thus far, foreshadows an extension of the social crisis currently afflicting the centers of capitalism. As some observers have noted, Detroit is just the tip of the iceberg in what is sure to be a procession of indebted municipalities […]
Viva la Huelga! The Agricultural Strike at Sakuma Brothers Farms and the Tradition of Oaxacan Resistance
Strike Heats Up as Over 200 Immigrant Workers Are Threatened with Mass Firing July 24, 2013 As workers walked past fields of strawberries and blueberries into a negotiation meeting this morning with Sakuma Brothers Farms, Inc. management, they were told to accept management’s terms or lose their jobs. This threat comes amidst a heated […]
The Complexities of Putting Ideals into Practice: Interview with Margaret Randall
Introduction Margaret Randall is a feminist poet, writer, photographer, and social activist. Born in New York City in 1936 and currently residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she has also spent a number of years outside the United States. Randall participated in the 1968 student movement while living in Mexico City, from where she was […]
Preface to the Indian Edition of Harry E. Vanden and Marc Becker’s José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology
Upon the release of the Indian edition of Harry E. Vanden and Marc Becker’s José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology (Kharagpur: Cornerstone Publications, 2013; originally New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011), Vanden is in India on a lecture tour to spread the word about the ideas of José Carlos Mariátegui. On this occasion, we are publishing […]
The Zimmerman Verdict: Three Uneasy Pieces
George Zimmerman Proclaimed Honorary White Man SANFORD, FL — The Volunteer Fire Department and the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution have united across class lines to declare George Zimmerman, recently acquitted of murdering African-American youth Trayvon Martin, an “Honorary White Dude.” Mr. Zimmerman, whose driver’s license lists him as Hispanic, was […]
An Interview with John Bellamy Foster (for the Sunday Eleftherotypia)
CJP: What began as a financial crisis in 2007 has become one of the biggest unemployment crises in the advanced capitalist world. Could this perhaps mean that the crisis of 2007-08 was not actually caused by finance itself but had its underlying causes in the real economy? JBF: No one doubts that it was […]
Who Can Best Help End the Colombian Government Repression of Catatumbo Peasants?
“Mr. President [Santos]: I would like to have you tell me to my face that I am a guerrilla. None of us are. We are workers, peasants who try to live as we can. It’s not easy to live here. Our crops produce only losses. We have to sell very cheap and can’t buy things. […]
The Name of Peace Is Justice: Voices of the FARC-EP
The summer of 2012 brought news of dialogues between the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) which would begin in November of the same year. These new conversations are of great importance for the Colombian people and for the continent as a whole. What is at stake is nothing […]
Brazil: The Giant Awoke and . . .
More and more people pouring into the streets: “Free pass!”; “A R$3.20 fare is a robbery!”; “No to 3.20!” But there is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. This movement is totally beautiful. But what matters is: What will change when everything gets back to normal?
Brazil Protests Illustrated
Brazilian Youth (Carrying Vinegar) Beginning to Rise Up! “Enough! Brazil Has Awoken!” Viva Brazilian Democracy! Who Made the Protests Violent? Answer: Protester Against the Fare Hike Holding a Sign Saying “Nonviolence”; Cop Scratching “Non” and Replacing It by “With” — “With Violence” #NaoEPor20Centavos: It’s Not About the 20-Centavo Hike — “Power to the People!” Rio […]
Pork: The New Weapon of Mass Destruction
One of the greatest horrors of the US security and policy establishment is the prospect of terrorists sabotaging critical infrastructure and key resources — the only horror greatest than that is the prospect of turning the infrastructure itself into a weapon of mass destruction. Imagine a vast network of pipelines and storage units containing highly […]
ILWU’s Northwest Grain Conflict: Business Unionism or Fighting Class-Struggle Unionism
When Wisconsin state workers were courageously occupying the state capitol to protest Governor Scott Walker’s attack on their unions’ right to bargain, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka trumpeted a call for solidarity actions throughout the labor movement on April 4, 2011, the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, killed during the Memphis sanitation […]
“The Economy Is Doing Fine, But the People Aren’t”: Some Facts on the Economic Background of the Protests in Turkey
Speaking about the then dictator of Nicaragua, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reportedly said: “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Whether or not Roosevelt actually said it in so many words is disputable, but there is no doubt that it — i.e., dictatorship is licensed in […]
Facing Off: The Integration of Capital v. the Integration of Peoples in the Americas
João Pedro Stédile, second from left, speaks to the Peasant Movement of Papay in Haiti. Photo: Beverly Bell. João Pedro Stédile is an economist, co-founder and co-coordinator of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) of Brazil, and leader among Latin American social movements. He gave the following talk to hundreds of Haitian farmers at the 40th […]
Crises of Capitalism and Social Democracy
John Bellamy Foster is best-known as author of Marx’s Ecology (2000; in which he corrects the popular misapprehension that Marx did not ‘get’ environmental limits), and as editor of Monthly Review (monthlyreview.org), the journal founded by Marxist economist Paul Sweezy in the late 1940s. In his latest book, The Endless Crisis (2012; written with […]
The Revolution Against Homophobia in Cuba
“I think that the freedom that we have . . . is the freedom not to repeat things, it is the freedom to discover what is the path we have to build within our context, our history and culture, our aspirations, our sense of belonging, our ideology, what we love most.” — Mariela Castro Espín […]
Interdom at Eighty: Reflections in Russia, on Dreams Old and Renascent
Russia, as travelers have noted over the centuries, is immense. Most of it is far from large bodies of water. And yet, in a first visit after many years, I came upon some unusual islands right in the heart of the country. But they were not islands in the geographic sense. Some were children’s islands. […]
International Crisis Group Against Venezuela
The International Crisis Group (ICG) sells itself as “working to prevent conflict worldwide” but there is one country where their mission looks more like promoting rather than preventing conflict. Exhibit A is their report on Venezuela, released on Friday. There is a lot wrong with this report — most of it reads like a statement […]
