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National Agrarian Strike against U.S. Trade Deal in Peru
A two-day national agrarian strike against a pending Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States ended on Wednesday February 20th, leaving four farmers dead after President Alan Garcia declared a state of emergency and ordered a violent crackdown. Farmers are demanding financial support from the government in the face of a predicted increase in […]
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Indianismo and Marxism: The Missed Encounter of Two Revolutionary Principles
This important article by Álvaro García Linera, now Vice President of Bolivia, was first published in 2005. It traces the contradictory evolution of the two most influential revolutionary currents in the country’s 20th century history and argues that Marxism, as originally interpreted by its Bolivian adherents, failed to address the outstanding concerns of the indigenous majority. García Linera suggests, however, that the evolution of indianismo in recent decades opens perspectives for a renewal of Marxist thought and potentially the reconciliation of the two currents in a higher synthesis. Although framed within the Bolivian context, his argument clearly has implications for the national and anti-imperialist struggle in other parts of Abya Yale (the indigenous name for the Western hemisphere).
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The Futility of Sanctioning Tehran
Do facts matter in international relations? One day after the latest US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) established with high confidence that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, President Bush stepped in front of the cameras to declare that the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. […]
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Peace Activists, Criticism, and Nonviolent Imperialism
All peace activists want peace, but do activists want peace at any cost? In Aldous Huxley’s classic book, Brave New World, peace came at a high price, but there was ‘peace’ nonetheless. Arguably, ‘peace’ also exists within most Western citizens’ minds, mainly because their daily lives are neatly partitioned off from the multitude of ultra-violent […]
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Appeal for Solidarity with the People, the Government, the Communist and Progressive Forces of Bolivia [Llamamiento de Solidaridad con el Pueblo, el Gobierno, las Fuerzas Comunistas e Progresistas de Bolivia]
“O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day“Help fund the good fight. By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]
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Marx and the Global Environmental Rift
Ecology is often seen as a recent invention. But the idea that capitalism degrades the environment in a way that disproportionately affects the poor and the colonized was already expressed in the nineteenth century in the work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Writing in Capital in 1867 on England’s ecological imperialism toward Ireland, Marx […]
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Peru Free Trade Agreement Faces Mixed Labor Response
On October 9, the Oregon AFL-CIO passed a resolution opposing the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement and three other pending trade deals with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. A state federation condemning a free trade deal would normally be an unremarkable event, except for the remarkable absence in the Peru case of a typically heavy-weight free […]
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The Repressed History of the United States: Revolution, Egalitarianism, and Anti-imperialism [La historia reprimida de Estados Unidos: revolución, igualitarismo y antiimperialismo]
Recientemente, aprovechando un nuevo aniversario del nacimiento de George Washington, el presidente George W. Bush aprovechó para comparar la Revolución americana del siglo XVIII con la guerra en Irak. De paso recordó que el primero, como el último, había sido “George W.” La técnica de las asociaciones es propia de la publicidad. Según ésta, una […]
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Violence of the Master, Violence of the Slave [Violencia del amo, violencia del esclavo]
Por alguna razón, la frase “la violencia engendra violencia” se popularizó en todo el mundo al mismo tiempo que su significado implícito se mantenía restringido a la violencia del oprimido. Es decir, la violencia del amo sobre el esclavo es invisible en un estado de esclavitud, como en un estado de opresión la fuerza que […]
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Imperial Sunset?
For the first time since its rise as a superpower the United States is facing a serious threat to its hegemony across the globe. In February this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a security conference in Munich that had 250 of the world’s top leaders and officials in attendance, including such luminaries as the […]
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Comrades in Arms
IVAN’S WAR by Catherine MerridaleBUY THIS BOOK As civilians, we can never understand combat, or empathize with those who have seen it. Samuel Fuller, a World War Two infantryman who saw combat in France — and who later, as a Hollywood director, recalled his trauma in The Big Red One — said it was impossible […]
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The South Also Exists [El Sur también existe]
Con su ritual de acero sus grandes chimeneas sus sabios clandestinos su canto de sirena sus cielos de neón sus ventas navideñas su culto de Dios Padre y de las charreteras con sus llaves del reino el Norte es el que ordena pero aquí abajo, abajo el hambre disponible recurre al fruto amargo de lo […]
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Voltaire and Islam [Voltaire y el islam]
En su vehemente proceso al islam y al estatus de inferioridad legal y de sumisión de la mujer que prevalece en la mayoría de países musulmanes, Telima Nesreen, Ayaam Hirsi Ali y otras emancipadas de su credo religioso han evocado y evocan repetidas veces el nombre del autor de Cándido: “Permitidnos un Voltaire . . […]
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Chávez Calls for United Socialist Party of Venezuela: Rank-and-file Committees to Be Building Blocks for New Organization
When supporters of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez rallied in the Teresa Carrena theatre in Caracas to celebrate their presidential election victory on December 15, 2006, “there were cheers in the back half of the theatre,” writes Michael Lebowitz, “but few in the high-priced seats.” This was not because Chávez spoke of going forward to socialism […]
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The Freedom House Files
“Freedom House is an independent non-governmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.” — Freedom House Freedom House is a small but influential organization based in Washington and New York with more than 120 offices around the world and an annual budget of US$19 million.1 Calling itself “America’s oldest human rights group,” […]
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Post-American Geopolitics
I. Three Metropoles, Four Peripheries Many of us on the Left have pondered what would replace the Cold War division of the planet into the First, Second, and Third World. Though the three worlds thesis was arbitrary at best — the social divisions within nation-states are often more significant than the distinctions between nation-states — […]
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Latin America: The Empty Continent
The Spanish and Portuguese colonization of America is still a kind of theoretical no-man’s land and a political taboo. One can easily understand why Spanish and Portuguese intellectuals avoid any discussion of the topic. Remember the magnificent Centennials of both the Spanish discovery of the Caribbean and the Portuguese discovery of Brazil. Any critical […]
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Preface to the Turkish Edition of Naming the System
I am honored to write this preface to the Turkish edition of my book, Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy. I thank Neset Kutlug and everyone else who helped bring this edition to fruition. I wrote the book with an international audience in mind, so it is gratifying to see […]
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On Soccer and Suffering
Like millions of other Italian Americans, I rejoiced in Italy‘s dramatic penalty-kick World Cup victory over France. For a country that has given us little to cheer about recently, it was a welcome and much-needed celebration, a festival combining benign patriotism, wistful nostalgia, and a release for long-suffering fans. In fact, both the country and […]
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Reflections on the June 9-10, 2006 Hong Kong Conference: “The Fortieth Anniversary: Rethinking the Genealogy and Legacy of the Cultural Revolution”
Flying into Hong Kong with my wife, Amy Demarest, early in the morning of June 8, 2006 and jetlagged, I wasn’t sure I’d be up to the next two days of a fully packed conference on the Cultural Revolution. The conference was sponsored by the China Study Group, Monthly Review, and the Contemporary China […]