Geography Archives: Peru

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. […]

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 […]

  “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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 . . […]

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 […]

“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,” […]

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 — […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]

No wonder capitalist societies are coming apart at the seams.  Trust is supposed to be the bond that holds a society together, and trust is based on truth.  But so often have government leaders asserted their “right” to lie, to manage the news, and to contrive to deceive the public that large numbers of people […]

What has been left out of reports and analysis in both the mainstream press and among anti-imperialists and leftists about the triumph of Evo Morales’ election as President of Bolivia is the role played by the three-decade international indigenous movement that preceded it.  Few are even aware of that powerful and remarkable historic movement, which […]