Geography Archives: Venezuela

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa‘s idea that we are not “living in an epoch of change” but rather “in a change of epoch” is very much to the point.  There is an obvious worldwide decline of existing imperialisms and historic changes in the correlation of social, class, and nation-state forces.  There have arisen popular movements of […]

Tunis, Tunisia Tens of thousands of people marched through downtown Tunis on Tuesday in a spirited march celebrating the beginning the 13th World Social Forum — the first to be held in an Arab country.  The majority of marchers were from Tunisia and neighboring nations, but there was substantial representation from Europe, as well as […]

In the many homages to Hugo Chávez in recent weeks, there is an important element that suffers almost complete neglect.  For want of a better term we could call it “Leninism.”  By this, of course, I do not mean the tired, formulaic (and basically anti-Leninist) doctrine that generally bears that name.  It is precisely the […]

The following comments were made by White Earth Chairwoman Erma J. Vizenor during her “State of the Nation Address,” March 7, 2013, in Mahnomen, Minnesota.  They are taken from the Nation’s newspaper, Anishinaabeg Today, March 13, 2013, reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. On Tuesday Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez passed away.  President Chavez was a […]

The best friend the Cuban people have had throughout their history died on the afternoon of March 5. A call via satellite communicated the bitter news. The significance of the phrase used was unmistakable. Although we were aware of the critical state of his health, the news hit us hard. I recalled the times he joked with me, saying that when both of us had […]

Hugo Chávez always said that a key book he had read during his prison years was Beyond Capital by his friend István Mészáros.  The book was brought to him by Jorge Giordani, who later became Venezuela’s chief minister in charge of economy under Chávez, the position that Giordani still holds today. The last time I […]

“Check out the latest track from Rebel Diaz, a tribute to the recently-deceased Venezuelan President, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, perhaps the most important political leader of our generation. . . .  The intro sample is from legendary Venezuelan musician and activist, Alí Primera.  The words translate as ‘Those who die for life cannot be called […]

  The President of the World Forum for Alternatives (WFA), Egyptian economist Samir Amin, today paid tribute to the late president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, whose death he called a “great tragedy.” The neo-Marxist intellectual expressed his sadness for the death of the Venezuelan leader and his solidarity with the Venezuelan people in a communiqué […]

With the death of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela and the world have lost a leader whose primary concern was to bring a new system into existence — one he referred to as 21st Century Socialism.  This meant a lot of things to Chávez, including making sure that all people had access to the necessities of life […]

The masses make history, but particular charismatic men and women can play a pivotal role, especially when they believe in the people and mobilize the masses to take action on their own behalf.  Hugo Chávez was one of those rare revolutionary leaders.  He was especially important for Latin America and the Third World for taking […]

Caracas, March 6, 2013 Hugo Chávez, who died yesterday afternoon, was something of an Emersonian hero.  “Speak your latent conviction,” said the sage of Concord, “and it shall be the universal sense.” Chávez said things that other people thought, or at least recognized that they thought after he said them. One could say that he […]

When Hugo Chávez triumphed in the 1998 presidential elections, the neoliberal capitalist model was already foundering.  The choice then was none other than whether to re-establish the neoliberal capitalist model — clearly with some changes including greater concern for social issues, but still motivated by the same logic of profit seeking — or to go […]

On February 3, 120 socialists took part in a Toronto meeting to celebrate publication of Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922, available in paperback from Haymarket Books.  This 1,300-page volume is the seventh book of documents on the world revolutionary movement in Lenin’s time edited by John […]

The most recent victim in Colombia’s conflict, in spite of ongoing conversations between the government and the FARC-EP guerrillas that began last year, seems to be common sense itself.  With the government declining to enter a two-part truce at the conclusion of the insurgency’s unilaterally assumed ceasefire on January 20, the war naturally resumed its […]

  Rebekah Wetmore and Ryan Romard (RW/RR): The crisis of world capitalism starting in 2007 was the most severe crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression and thus far the recovery, both globally and within Canada, has been weak at best.  With this mind, to what extent is the current crisis cyclical and in what […]

Is it true that you are communist? What else can one be, the way things are? Communism left 70 million dead. . . That wasn’t communism. What was it, then? Industrialism.  Lenin proposed electrification plus soviets, that is to say, popular control . . . but popular control evaporated! And what remained? Industrialism.  Stalin imposed […]

Furious though it may be, the current debate over health care in the US is largely irrelevant to charting a path for poor countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.  That is because the US squanders perhaps 10 to 20 times what is needed for a good, affordable medical system.  The waste […]

Nicaragua’s adoption this year of a sweeping law for prevention and punishment of violence against women marks an important gain for women’s rights in this Central American country, says Sandra Ramos, founder and director of the “Maria Elena Cuadra” Movement for Working and Unemployed Women (MEC). Addressing a meeting at Casa Maíz in Toronto on […]

The recent Stanford University report on drone strikes in Pakistan, Living Under Drones, raises the possibility that the US is intentionally using drones, not merely as hi-tech assassination devices, but also as weapons of state terror intended to subdue unruly regions and populations.  The appalling reality of drone warfare along the Afghanistan border closely resembles […]

Travel to Venezuela for the Elections!  October 1-9, 2012 This October, witness one of the most important elections in the history of Venezuela — and of the hemisphere.  On October 7, the people of Venezuela will exercise their right to vote and decide whether to carry forward the Bolivarian Revolution through the reelection of President […]