Geography Archives: Latin America

(1) I thought it might be best to begin the conversation by getting a sense of your personal political trajectory, how you were drawn to Venezuela, some of your most memorable experiences from your time in Caracas, and how all of this has translated into your perspective on revolutionary change.  In short, what did Venezuela […]

October 3-6, 2008 San Francisco The Women’s Building, 3543 18th St. Speakers Embattled civil liberties attorney Lynne Stewart Activists and scholars from Central America, China, Australia, and the U.S. Key topics Multi-racial organizing in a society divided by racism The dynamic leadership of youth and queers Women of color and immigrant women spark a labor […]

Join us for a stimulating discussion about the social and political changes currently sweeping through Latin America.  Learn how progressive governments backed by powerful social movements are gaining momentum and joining forces to shift power into the hands of their people and foster alternative models of development based on cooperation and regional integration.  Find out […]

Asunción, 15 August (EFE) — Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano today publicly apologized to Paraguayans for the war that his country, allied with Argentina and Brazil, fought against Paraguay between 1865 and 1870. “Let me take this opportunity to apologize as an Uruguayan, because that [imperialist] punishment [for the crime of protecting the workers and products […]

Summary Paul Collier, in an attempt to bring development economics to a wider audience, has written a book that departs from what he calls the “grim apparatus of professional scholarship.”  The result is a book that is almost entirely unverifiable.  What is verifiable turns out to be an elaborate fiction.  Collier’s thesis is based upon […]

As much as we enjoy puns in titles, Stephen Zunes’ recent defense of Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) in the article “Sharp Attack Unwarranted,” doesn’t have much else going for it.  Zunes spends most of his time diverting attention from the real issues: the AEI’s role in imperial projects, a role which is politically […]

  Over the last year, there has been an escalation in the political battles between the government of President Evo Morales and a conservative opposition, based primarily in the prefectures, or provinces.  The opposition groups have rallied around various issues but have recently begun to focus on “autonomy.”  Some of the details of this autonomy […]

So far, Bush’s plan to maintain a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq has been stymied by resistance from the Iraqi government.  Barack Obama’s timetable for withdrawal of American troops has evidently been joined by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Bush has mentioned a “time horizon,” and John McCain has waffled.  Yet Obama favors leaving […]

The regime that will succeed the nation-state will not be the fruit of preconception or social engineering, but of sociological and political imagination wielded through transformative actions. — Gustavo Esteva Que se vayan todos (‘Let’s get rid of them all’). — message written on the walls of Argentina The No-state Solution Even as the neo-liberal […]

Steve Ellner.  Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chavez Phenomenon.   Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2008. Since the arrival of Hugo Chavez on the Venezuelan scene — and later, for the left and the right, on the world scene — he’s been the source of considerable interest.  Is he a new caudillo in […]

Our overall assessment is that the conference was an overwhelming success. Over 400 people from many parts of the country and Canada attended, including a bus of 44 — mostly youth — from Connecticut (see breakdown by states below*).  The conference met its main objective, which was to urge united and massive mobilizations in the […]

  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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Coming out of the December 2 referendum defeat — the first for the Bolivarian movement since the election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 1998 — and facing discontent amongst popular sectors at the lack of advance in the Bolivarian process, the pro-revolution forces face a big challenge in securing an overwhelming victory in the […]

Prophecies of Downfall The fact that Marx finally began with the composition of his long-planned economic work in the winter of 1857/1858 was directly occasioned by the economic crisis that broke out in the autumn of 1857 and the concomitant expectations of a deep trauma from which capitalism would no longer recover.  “I am working […]