JUSTIN PODUR—Latin American social violence has even longer-running academic underpinnings. Today, Colombia’s president, Iván Duque (the protégé of the previous warlord-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez), leads the call for regime change in Venezuela. Duque’s country was reshaped by a multigenerational civil war during which the countryside was depopulated, through paramilitary violence, of millions of peasants (many of them Afro-Colombian or Indigenous). The academic theorist behind this was the Canadian-born, US “new dealer” Lauchlin Currie, whose theory (summarized by academic James Brittain in a 2005 article ), called “accelerated development,” was that “the displacement of rural populations from the countryside and their relocation to the urban industrial centers would generate agricultural growth and technological improvements for Colombia’s economy.”
Default Editor Patrice de Bergeracpas
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Freedom Rider: Russiagate and Democratic Defeat
9 minutes readMARGARET KIMBERLEY—One by one the Russiagate allegations are falling by the wayside. Michael Cohen never went to Prague to meet Russian hackers or to do anything else. He never heard of any collusion plans or Trump vulnerability to blackmail. Of course the proceedings were farcical. The only collusion was between the corporate media and the Democratic Party to spin a phony tale.
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My Love Affair With Books: Self-Education From Greaseball to Street Intellectual Part I – 1968 to 1989
34 minutes readBRUCE LERRO—As my relationship with my father began to improve in my late 20s I “allowed” myself to admit that I really was interested in art. I began taking art classes at City College of San Francisco. This, of course, justified a twist in my reading towards the arts. One day in a figure drawing class the model did not show up. The art teacher started to pull out of the cabinet some materials for us do draw a still life. I went over to her and volunteered my services. “You will pose for the class?” she asked. I said “yes” and she said “of course, you can keep your clothes on”. I was having none of it and insisted that I be nude like all the other models we had had. She reluctantly agreed.
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He drives 2800 miles to rescue a dog in a kill shelter
3 minutes readA man with a kind heart—one of the greatest virtues, a thousand times more important than just an instrumentality like mere intelligence—drives 2800 miles to rescue a pitbull in a shelter whose days are numbered.
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Love Letter to Heroes From the Village of the Dark Spring
10 minutes readJOHN R. HALL—In the depths of despair during the deaths of loved ones, I abandoned my own true hero’s journey, ceased writing, discontinued paying any attention to the crimes of Empire, the deep state, the military/industrial complex, and all the usual suspects, turning my back on the very issues I cared about most deeply. In retrospect this may have been my second inexcusable regret and mistake. The decision didn’t even give me any peace of mind, didn’t stop the anger and rage, didn’t ease the pain of knowing that the crimes against humanity and the assault of Pachamama continued unabated and with growing acceleration.