Religious Fundamentalism and Imperialism in Latin America

Tricontinental The entrance of the community building serves as a reminder and commemoration of the work and life of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Colonia Dolores, San Salvador, El Salvador. (Alison McKellar / Flickr)  The church is responsible for a litany of injustices — and today Christian rhetoric is used to defend a violent neoliberal capitalism. But…

Right-Wing Authoritarianism and the Crisis of Education

Henry Giroux In the age of nascent fascism, it is irresponsible to insist on a politically neutral world where pedagogy is a banal transmission of noncontroversial facts. Image: Truthout The future of democracy in the United States will not be determined by the malignant decisions made by a reactionary group of Supreme Court Justices. Nor…

Latin America’s Authoritarians Back Israel

Kawsachun News The latest Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza and ruthless killings of Palestinians has Latin America split along ideological lines once again. OAS chief Luis Almagro expressed his vigorous support for the Israeli regime on May 11, a position typical of the region’s United States-allied right-wing. “We stand in solidarity with Israel, this region’s…

Bolivia: Catholic Hierarchy Denies the Existence of the Coup d’Etat

Ollantay Itzamná Episcopal Conference of Bolivia. With astonishment I see, once again, that the Bolivian Catholic hierarchy, before the beginning of the judicial investigation against those responsible for the coup d’état and the subsequent massacres in November 2019, made a strong statement accusing/recriminating the judicial authorities, demanding the freedom of the de facto ex-governor who…

Biden and the Great Delusion

Chris Hedges Joe Biden and the systems managers of the deep state and empire are returning to power. Trump and his coterie of buffoons, racists, con artists and Christian fascists are sullenly preparing to leave office. U.S. pharmaceutical corporations are starting to disseminate vaccines to mitigate the globe’s worst outbreak of COVID-19 that has resulted…

The Collapse of US Empire, Liberal Suicide and the Rise of Fascism

Welcome to MintCast — an interview series featuring dissenting voices the establishment would rather silence — with host Mnar Muhawesh Adley. Joe Biden may have won the presidential election, but his victory masks a deeper rot within the American political system, one where both parties have become servants to increasingly powerful corporations, Wall Street, and…

Bolivia: The Failure of the Catholic and Evangelical Hierarchies at the Polls

Ollantay Itzamná Crucifix used by the perpetrators of the November 2019 coup d’état If we want to walk the path of decoloniality, and equity, the suppression of the Vatican Concordat and other Christian privileges is an ethical imperative to prevent further coups. The peoples of Bolivia, in the last general elections of October 18 defeated…

The Far-Right Oligarchs Working to Topple Mexico’s Progressive President AMLO

José Guadalupe Argüello III A Trump-like Mexican oligarch, Gilberto Lozano, is leading a coalition of corporate leaders and far-right fanatics called FRENA to try to overthrow President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s victory in Mexico’s 2018 presidential election marked a historic feat, promising a respite from a roughly 40-year period of continuous…

Fascism and Hate: The U.S. and Latin America in 2020 (I)

José R. Oro Fascism is a dictatorial form of government intimately bound to hatred in its many manifestations, developed within the context and conditions of imperialism. It appeared in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Pinochet’s Chile, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Romania and other countries. In all of them it failed brutally, inflicting immeasurable suffering on…

Pachamama and the Pope

Ann Garrison The violent coup in Bolivia may have been presaged by events at the Vatican, where right-wing Catholics rebelled against the Pope’s display of respect for the indigenous earth goddess. “A fundamentalist Austrian Catholic entered the Church of Santa Maria Traspontina in the dark of night and stole the five wooden Pachamama statues.” On…

Bolivia, Coup d’Etat, Christian Dictatorship and Genocide in the Making

Ollantay Itzamná Unconstitutional President Añez, Bolivia Faced with the violent interruption of the constitutional government of Bolivia, and the fact that in a week of de facto government it has already massacred more than 30 indigenous people in resistance, wounded hundreds and detained unknown numbers, there are still those who deny that a coup d’état…

Hatred of the Indian

Alvaro García Linera Like a thick night fog, hatred voraciously runs through the traditional urban middle class neighbourhoods of Bolivia. Their eyes are filled with anger. They do not shout, they spit; they do not demand, they impose. Their songs are not about hope or brotherhood, they are about disdain and discrimination against the Indians….

Bolivia, a Second Evangelization by Blood and Fire

Ollantay Itzamná Police with crucifix in hand go out to repress in Bolivia “Bolivia for Christ. Never again will Pachamama return to the Palace”, was the triumphalist sentence of Luis Camacho (one of the main visible local actors of the civic-Christian-military coup d’état) when he imposed the Bible on the Bolivian Creole flag in the…

Evangelical Groups Are the New U.S. Tool for Coups in Latin America

There are not enough intellectual tools to analyze the religious war used by the United States to support its coup d’états in Latin American countries. This is how historian and theologist Enrique Dussel comments about the ousting of Evo Morales in Bolivia and the region’s current political scenario. Interviewed by Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui, Dussel…