Geography Archives: Americas

South America, Central America, United States & Canada

President George H.W. Bush addresses the nation from the Oval Office on Jan. 16, 1991, after U.S. forces began military action against Iraq, code-named Operation Desert Storm. Photo- Charles Tasnadi:AP

The ignored legacy of George H.W. Bush: war crimes, racism, and obstruction of justice

THE TRIBUTES TO former President George H.W. Bush, who died on Friday aged 94, have been pouring in from all sides of the political spectrum.

Gioconda Mota, longtime activist for women’s rights and persons with disabilities’ rights, and co‐coordinator of the “Desde Nosotras” (Amongst Us) report on women’s human rights in Venezuela. (Desafío Constituyente)

Women and the crisis in Venezuela

Cira Pascual Marquina

A new report on women’s human rights in Venezuela reveals the uneven advances of the Bolivarian Process in this area.

Julio Escalona, a longtime left militant and university professor, is now a member of the National Constitutive Assembly. (Globovision)

Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly and the rise of fascism

Cira Pascual Marquina

A former guerrilla and active member of the National Constituent Assembly talks with VA about the class struggle in the countryside and the looming menace of the ultra-right in Brazil.

NATO’s Largesse: “nuclear sharing”

Ann Garrison

The new Cold War is escalating, fueled by Washington’s bid to isolate or strangle Russia.

Who’s working for your vote?

Eds.

In 2018, Cambridge Analytica, the data mining and analytics company, dominated the news about political campaigning and data. But they are not alone in using personal data for political influence. Since we began actively documenting this industry, our global list has expanded to 329 organisations, and it is still growing.

Dating brokers: the dating industry surrounding dating profiles

Eds.

In May 2017 artist Joana Moll, alongside Tactical Tech, purchased 1 million online dating profiles for 136€ from U.S.Date, a supposedly U.S.-based company that trades in dating profiles from all over the globe.

Left behind

David Ruccio

The historically low black unemployment rate is one of Donald Trump’s favorite applause lines. Even Reuters [ht: ja] declares that Trump is right.

Monsters engineered by our media

Jonathan Cook

The guardians of the status quo refused to learn the lesson of Trump’s election, and so it will be with Bolsonaro.

Robert Longa of the Alexis Vive Patriotic Force and El Panal Commune. (Venezuelanalysis)

The commune and 21st century socialism: A conversation with Robert Longa of El Panal Commune

Cira Pascual Marquina

In this interview, VA talks with a key cadre of the Alexis Vive Patriotic Force, an organization based in the 23 Enero barrio that has worked to build Venezuela’s most emblematic urban commune.

Image: Wounded Knee Massacre, Oscar Howe (1960), courtesy of the Oscar Howe Estate.

What white supremacists know

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The violent theft of land and capital is at the core of the U.S. experiment: the U.S. military got its start in the wars against Native Americans.

Radical black feminism and the simultaneity of oppression

Eds.

As the word intersectionality falls from the lips of Hillary Clinton and increasingly is normalized and sanitized, we should be clear about its radical moorings.

Transparency International Corruption in the USA- The difference a year makes

We need to strengthen the public in the U.S. public sector

Martin Hart-Landsberg

Many people have given up on the idea of government as an instrument of progressive social change, especially the federal government.

Fake news on WhatsApp swayed Brazil’s election. India should be worried

Eds.

WhatsApp and fake news go hand-in-hand in both Brazil and India. And judging by the Facebook-owned messaging app’s effect on Brazil’s recent presidential election, India may be slated for some serious trouble next spring.

Malcolm X would say Russiagate is a fool’s game

Glen Ford

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” —Malcolm X

U.S. intel will bring Assange to the U.S. in Chains

Ann Garrison

Julian Assange, a hero in the struggle against imperial wars and the lies that states tell to justify them, is in mortal danger.

The defeat of democracy in Brazil

Frei Betto

Many wonder how it is possible, following the democratic governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula, and Dilma Rousseff, that Brazilians have elected as President a shady federal deputy and die-hard defender of the military dictatorship that ruledthe country 1964-1985.

Results and prospects from the U.S. midterm elections: a discussion with Lance Selfa

Ben Hillier

Red Flag editor Ben Hillier speaks with Lance Selfa, author of The Democrats: A Critical History and editor of the essay collection U.S. Politics in an Age of Uncertainty, about the meaning of the midterm election results and what comes next.

Deforestation on the geotrail of Makhonjwa Mountains near Barberton, Mpumalanga on July 3, 2018. WIKUS DE WET : AFP : GETTY IMAGES

Climate change is the product of how capitalism “values” nature

C. J. Polychroniou

Capitalist industrialization has led us to the edge of the precipice of climate change, and avoiding the end of civilization as we know it may require the development of a view in direct opposition to the way in which capitalism “values” nature, according to John Bellamy Foster.

Daily Star Amazon Echo bot Alexa sat on a table

Amazon’s accent recognition technology could tell the government where you’re from

Eds.

AT THE BEGINNING of October, Amazon was quietly issued a patent that would allow its virtual assistant Alexa to decipher a user’s physical characteristics and emotional state based on their voice. Characteristics, or “voice features,” like language accent, ethnic origin, emotion, gender, age, and background noise would be immediately extracted and tagged to the user’s […]