Geography Archives: Americas

When parents turn childhood into a left-wing boot camp, their kids are not likely to remain on the shining path of their own politics for long. In fact, when the personal gets too political, parent-child relationships can be poisoned with resentment, anger, and recriminations.

There was only once, in the final year of my PhD, that my supervisor and I butted heads. I had just submitted my fourth chapter for her review and, because I was living in another city at the time, she sent me an email saying we needed to speak on the phone urgently.

The recent “burqa bans” in Austria and Quebec appear to be troubling legal manifestations of the rising tide of Islamaphobia in Europe and North America.

The resounding Chavista victory in the October 15 gubernatorial elections provides a golden opportunity to take bold measures to overcome shortcomings even while risking clashes with powerful individuals or groups.

In a context as special as the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the murder of Ernesto Che Guevara, the participants of the Second Latin American Encounter of Anti Imperialist Communicators, gathered in Vallegrande, Bolivia, couldn’t help being touched by the thought and practice of journalist and communicator Guevara.

Believing in Che is, above all, permanently fueling the possibility of a revolution. Making the revolution every day.

Last week, CNN’s Jake Tapper interviewed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and asked if he thought President Donald Trump’s punishing response to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico had something to do with “race or ethnicity.” Sanders hesitated a bit but ultimately said, “We have a right to be suspect.”

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela won 54 percent of the total vote, marking a significant recovery since the ruling party’s landslide defeat in 2015 parliamentary elections when it garnered only 43.7 percent of the vote.

The long-awaited The Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick has arrived. It is powerful and moving, disturbing, enlightening, and challenging. But it is not without its omissions and distortions.

It is an understatement to say that relations between the US and North Korea are very tense—the US government continues to threaten to further tighten economic sanctions on North Korea and launch a military attack to destroy the country’s missiles and nuclear weapons infrastructure.  And the North for its part has said it would respond to any attack with its own strikes against US bases in the region and even the US itself.

Last October 8, 50 years after the murder of Che Guevara, thousands of people who vindicate his legacy of struggle arrived in La Higuera, Vallegrande, where the Argentine-Cuban guerrilla was captured and later assassinated.

A New York Times article, following the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the murder of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer, described the growing calls to remove monuments that celebrate the Confederacy. The article went on to cite some who balk, however, when “the symbolism is far murkier, like Christopher Columbus.”

Berta Cáceres, assassinated in her home on March 3, 2016, was just one of hundreds of Latin American environmental activists attacked in recent years. At least 577 environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) were killed in Latin America between 2010 and 2015—more than in any other region—as documented by Global Witness.

Depending on the reader’s perspective, Whitman’s central argument seems either modest or bold, as he claims, “What all this research unmistakably reveals is that the Nazis did find precedents and parallels and inspirations in the United States” (10). The most radical Nazis were often the most enthused about American legal precedents. More moderate, less anti-Semitic members of the Nazi Party tended to be more skeptical of American approaches. For some Nazis, “American race law looked too racist” (5). America “was the leading racist jurisdiction” in the 1930s (138).

Donald Trump’s reluctance to denounce neo-Nazis marching on the streets of the US has shocked many people. But there is a long history of US businessmen flirting with fascism, writes John Newsinger.

On October 9, 1967, in southern Bolivia, near the barren and desolate village of La Higuera, the Bolivian Army, under instructions from the government of the U.S., trapped the isolated guerrilla column led by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.

The Federal Reserve released the 2016 version of the Survey of Consumer Finances today. I will be doing a lot of work with this data in the coming months. But for starters, here is a short post about overall wealth inequality.

In only 39 years, the young man from the city of Rosario accomplished something not achieved by many who lived a century. He became part of the people’s history and remains so today.

This is an updated, re-edited version of my 2007 essay written for a Celebration of Ernesto Che Guevara’s life held in New York City in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of his execution, attended by 300 people. —Ike Nahem Che Lives! Che died defending no other interest, no other cause than the cause of the […]

You are probably aware that you are incompletely informed about what is brewing in Myanmar, and you probably haven’t heard about the military coalition that is preparing to attack that country. Don’t take sides before you read this article and digest the information.