Party Lines
By Taking Power
Spring 2017
Out now
Issue 25
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Bolívar prophesied shrewdly that the United States seemed fated by Providence to plague America with woes in the name of liberty. General Motors or IBM will not step graciously into our shoes and raise the old banners of unity and emancipation which fell in battle; nor can heroes betrayed yesterday be redeemed by the traitors of today. It is a big load of rottenness that has to be sent to the bottom of the sea on the march to Latin America’s reconstruction. The task lies in the hands of the dispossessed, the humiliated, the accursed. The Latin American cause is about all a social cause: the rebirth of Latin America must start with the overthrow of its masters, country by country. We are entering times of rebellion and change. There are those who believe that destiny rests on the knees of the gods; but the truth is that it confronts the conscience of man with a burning challenge.
Front Matters
A healthy start to a nutritious magazine.
Soapbox
Letters & Internet Speaks (print only)
“Intellectuals tend to focus attention, understandably, on critical analysis of intellectuals. But for me personally it’s been a rather peripheral concern.”
Struggle Session
Debating the Bolivarian Revolution
Friends & Foes
Not Going Back
Lorena Peña and a generation of FMLN militants adjust to the promise and limits of state power.
Ripple
The Long Struggle Against Dependency
The Pink Tide governments’ efforts to break from the tyrannies of world market dependence are not new. Neither are their failures to do so.
The Empire’s Amnesia
When it comes to imperialism, Latin America never forgets, and the United States never remembers.
Down, But Not Out
The Latin American left was on life-support in 1990. A decade later, it was in power.
Means of Deduction
We got more graphs than Ross Perot.
Misery Index
Fairly Arbitrary (print only)
The Vulgar Empiricist
The Spoils of Class War (print only)
Years of Pink Tide governance saw tremendous gains for ordinary Latin Americans.
Uneven and Combined
We Have Been Naught (print only)
Chávez performed best in poor districts, worst in rich ones.
Reading Materiel
We Read Things You Shouldn’t Read, So We Could Tell You What to Read.
Field Notes
Red is the New Red, White, and Blue (print only)
Chinese investments in Latin America have skyrocketed over the past ten years. But not everyone is thrilled about the new superpower in the region.
China’s interest in Latin America remains primarily economic — securing natural resources and diversifying export markets amid the global economic downturn... China’s strategy in Latin America is clear: it wants to “control the supply of commodities,” said the Brazilian Consul General in Shanghai. Chinese investors, encouraged by the Chinese Government, are rushing to invest in Brazil’s natural resources.
With exports to developed countries plummeting, China is looking to Latin America, which China thinks is still in relatively good shape, to pick up some of the slack .... China sees the need to “pay more attention” to large emerging countries like Brazil and Mexico amid the changing global economic balance of power.
Crest
Evo Morales’s presidency made real gains for working people. But could it have charted a more radical course?
Assessing the Brazilian Worker’s Party
Looking back at thirteen years of ambiguous reform and one swift counteroffensive.
The Bolivarian Revolution went too far for capitalism but not far enough for socialism.
Cultural Capital
OUT-OF-CONTEXT GRAMSCI QUOTES GO HERE.
Red Channels
TeleSUR’s trajectory reminds us that the task of criticizing the Left cannot be abandoned to the Right.
Beyond a Boundary
Just as every party in Argentina tries to claim Juan Perón’s legacy, so every government tries to bring Maradona into its fold.
The Tumbrel
Righteous haterade against the great enemies of proletarian progress.
Girondins
Moral Outrage in the Service of Empire
Human rights are worth defending. Human Rights Watch is not.
Thermidor
Gospel Crusade, Inc. and Friends
With help from US churches, the evangelical right has won a foothold in Central America.
Break
Lesson Learned
What have we learned from the Pink Tide's years in power?
Left parties must take measures to stay connected to their bases.
The “patriotic bourgeoisie” is a myth.
Challenging the dominance of foreign capital requires far stronger regional integration.
Left governments need to pursue long-term programs of economic diversification.
Leftovers
Our work here is not yet done.
The Cookshop
Creating institutions where people exercise control over their lives is important in itself as a goal of socialist politics.
Means & Ends
We may not be very good, but we’re better than Vox.
How are you, Comrade Bush?”