Geography Archives: Americas

  As you know, there’s a talk of developing the Green Zone.  The Marriott Hotel chain is here, and I too am involved in hospitality.  I’m representing interests that are building a hotel. . . .  Five stars, a casino, gambling, and it’s going to be here in the Green Zone. The sponsors are a […]

In his book entitled Silence of the Poor, French writer Henri Guillemin said that those who were the foundation of the victory of the Revolution of 1789, the urban and rural poor, including women, were excluded from politics by an electoral law giving the right to elect and be elected only to citizens who could […]

  Two members from a rightwing Santa Cruz youth group were arrested outside the Trompillo airport on June 19 with a rifle, telescopic sight, and 300 rounds of ammunition in a purported assassination attempt on President Evo Morales.  In an unprecedented and highly questionable move, the accused were freed the very next day by a […]

Introduction by Richard Fidler The following article, based on a speech given in December 2007 but only recently transcribed and published, is an important statement by a leading member of Evo Morales’ government on the political situation in Bolivia in the wake of the Constituent Assembly’s vote on a draft Political Constitution.  The draft Constitution […]

Tarek personally asked me to review his book, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State (CM).  With a book being favorably reviewed in the Canadian (and US and UK) media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Huffington Post, the UK Guardian, and the Asper-family owned newspapers (Ottawa Citizen and […]

On June 11 the axe of Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) came down on the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS1) and the old historic Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCN), now a tiny shell of its former self.  The CSE unanimously decided to deregister both parties on the grounds that they had failed to fulfill the requirements […]

  It’s a Slippery Slope to War: Ask Your Representative to Oppose H. Con. Res. 362Over the last three weeks 77 House Democrats and 92 Republicans have agreed to cosponsor a new resolution against Iran that demands that President Bush “initiate an international effort” to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to […]

The high level summit of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations held in Rome on Food Security ended on June 5th.  The conclusions of the gathering do not indicate a change in the policy trends which have been in force these last years and which have led to the current situation. […]

“After a dozen town hall meetings, nearly 50 public hearings, and countless one-on-one conversations, it is clear to us that Texans want us to use existing roadways to start building the Texas portion of Interstate 69,” said Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton (Texas Department of Transportation News Release, June 11, 2008). This news release reflects […]

  In a June 9 New York Times column, economist Paul Krugman tells us that “Mr. Obama’s nomination wouldn’t have been possible 20 years ago.  It’s possible today only because racial division, which has driven U.S. politics rightward for more than four decades, has lost much of its sting.”  He attributes this to Bill Clinton, […]

It would seem there’s no topic worthy of addressing that would not bore our patient readers, after the Round Table program of June 12, which dealt with the new edition of a book published in Bolivia 15 years ago, featuring now a prologue I wrote. During this program, an introduction was also read written at a later date by Evo Morales and a message from the prestigious Argentinean writer Stella Calloni, to be included in an upcoming edition. I had carefully chosen the information I used for that prologue.

  There is always something unsettling about people who say one thing and do another.  There is for one thing the hypocrisy.  Then, there is the uncertainty.  It only takes a few disappointments to sow the seeds of doubt about whether you can ever trust their judgement again or whether you can ever expect them […]

The excavation of fossil fuels was a one-time bonanza: it provided cheap energy that temporarily quadrupled the earth’s carrying capacity in terms of human population.  Instead of an ever tightening immiseration of the working class and overthrow of the capitalist system, as expected by Marx, the one-time gift of fossil fuels led to a standoff […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its June 2008 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. When the issue is class struggle, everyone knows that today’s judiciary in India exhibits no qualitative difference from that of the British colonial regime.  When workers try to […]

Over the past decade, a new rise of mass struggles in Latin America has sparked an encounter between revolutionists of that region and many of those based in the imperialist countries.  In many of these struggles, as in Bolivia under the presidency of Evo Morales, Indigenous peoples are in the lead. Latin American revolutionists are […]

The USA and the EU planning to escalate confrontation with Iran.  A military blockade discussed. In the conflict over Iran’s civilian nuclear program, the United States and Europe are intensifying confrontation.  At the top of the measures that are now being discussed is an international naval blockade by a “coalition of the willing.”  As in […]

  Mohssen Massarrat, born in Tehran in 1942, is Professor of Political Economy and International Relations at Universität Osnabrück.  Deutsche Militärzeitung: Professor Massarrat, William Fallon, US Commander responsible for the Middle East, unexpectedly resigned after just one year.  A cause for his resignation is obviously the US policy toward Iran.  Admiral Fallon criticized the US […]

One of the most important developments in Cuban Marxism in recent years has been increased attention to the writings of Ernesto Che Guevara on the economics and politics of the transition to socialism. A milestone in this process was the publication in 2006 by Ocean Press and Cuba’s Centro de Estudios Che Guevara of Apuntes […]

  Buffalo, NY — Dr. Steven Kurtz, a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY at Buffalo and cofounder of the award-winning art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, has been cleared of all charges of mail and wire fraud.  On April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the government’s entire indictment against Dr. Kurtz […]

Washington’s foreign policy establishment — and much of the U.S. media — was taken by surprise this week when President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, stated that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) should lay down their arms and unconditionally release all of their hostages.  The FARC is a guerrilla group that has been fighting […]