Geography Archives: Mexico

Growing old in the U.S. is becoming increasingly scary.  Beginning in January, U.S. baby boomers will be turning 60 at a rate of more than 4 million per year, and for most of them the American dream of a comfortable, worry-free retirement after a life of hard work is not going to materialize. With the […]

  In “new imperialism,” it is said, the American economy needs more instability abroad to maintain the health of its capital at home. Long before discourse on “new imperialism” became popular in the West, Palestinian intellectuals in refugee camps arrived at this very conclusion by simply reflecting upon the wretched conditions of their own existence. […]

Preparations for renewed US intervention in Latin America are underway. To protect its hegemony and economic interests, the US government is using the threat of terrorism as an excuse for military operations aimed at destabilizing leftist movements and governments and securing natural resources such as oil and gas. By focusing on land reform and social […]

  Introduction Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, this beautiful island in the Caribbean has aroused passions everywhere in the Americas.  Since its inception, the revolution has had a profound impact on the popular classes throughout Latin America and haunted the political elites and wealthy classes in the United States […]

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at his most radical, the year before he was assassinated, said: “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.” That was four decades ago, yet it is perhaps more true today. The greatest purveyor of violence on this earth is my own government. For those […]

Though in my university days I was no more of a party person than I am now, I had friends with other tastes. Visiting one on a morning many years ago, I found him blearily looking for traces of furniture amid the mess he and some others had generated through a long night. “I feel […]

  The world watched as people of New Orleans were herded into the Superdome, only to find themselves in a wretched and unsanitary place with no food, water, or proper medical care. Those in areas of high flooding fled to their rooftops, begging rescue helicopters to airlift them to safety. Many died trapped in their […]

The United States was a land of farmers, from first settlement to the industrial revolution that took off in the 1830s.   European settlers, mainly from England, Scotland, and Ireland, were overwhelmingly farmers, peasants, from generations of the same.  They came to North America for land to farm.  With the support of the British colonial institutions, […]

  [Author’s note: Let me repeat my invitation at the end of Part Three of this series. Readers are invited to submit short essays, about 1,000 words, about their work. What do you do? In what ways is your work satisfying? In what ways is it not? How could it be made better? Send your […]

The Bush government, itself a coalition of the willing, cobbles together four different streams of conservatives. Like all coalitions, it is vulnerable to events. Patrick Buchanan, the journal National Interest, and the think tank Cato Institute, are conservatives against Bush’s Iraq policy. Similarly, the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation criticize Bush’s fiscal […]

2005 will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Industrial Workers World, the I.W.W., popularly known as the “Wobblies.” The most radical, mass-based labor organization to emerge within U.S. history, they embodied the slogan “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All,” as they organized unskilled as well as skilled workers, immigrants […]

Imports into the U.S. keep rising and the merchandise trade deficit keeps growing. Manufacturing jobs continue to disappear and wages and working conditions continue to worsen.  Increasingly, those who seek to explain these trends point to China.  It is true that China has become an export powerhouse, and the United States its main market.  China […]

Solo, Frente a luces ajenas Oye otras voces calladas, distantes: Este puente te lleva al olvido, Te cambia de nombre. Ya nada será tuyo Escucha el sonido del tren que se aleja, El viento que roza la tarde. Ya nada será tuyo Y cuando vuelvas Traerás en las uñas, en el tacto, en tu aliento, […]

Vigilantism along the U.S.-Mexico border, which dates back to the U.S. conquest of Mexico, refuses to die.  The latest vigilante group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, claims 15,000 volunteers willing to patrol the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.  During April, the group staged a border watch in southern Arizona to stop illegal […]

[Michael D. Yates’ Note: As readers of the June issue of Monthly Review magazine know, a fierce battle is raging inside organized labor in the United States.  Several unions within the AFL-CIO (the national federation of unions) are threatening to secede from the Federation, their leaders arguing that Federation leaders and many member unions are […]

Anyone who wants to understand the machinations of “free market” capitalism in the U.S. today needs only to take a look at Wal-Mart’s new 4 million-square-foot distribution complex near Baytown, Texas, which will become operational this summer. The primary purpose of building this massive facility (big enough to hold 30 downtown city blocks or 70 […]