Articles by Prof. James Petras
We found 125 results.
The Two Faces of a Police State: Sheltering Tax Evaders, Financial Swindlers, and Money Launderers while Policing the Citizens
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Aug 2012
Never in the history of the United States have we witnessed crimes committed on the scale and scope of the present day by both private and state elites.
→ read full articleThe Great Transformation: From the Welfare State to the Imperial Police State
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2012
The United States has experienced the biggest political upheaval in its recent history: the transformation of a burgeoning welfare state into a rapidly expanding, highly intrusive and deeply entrenched police state, linked to the most developed technological innovations.
→ read full articleGreece: What Can Be Done?
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jul 2012
Greece faces the unenviable choice between accepting the terms of “the Troika” and facing the continuation and deepening of a socio-economic crises, which includes five years of negative growth, over 23% unemployment, an astronomical rise in poverty (from less than 15% to over 40%) and mounting suicides, or a rejection of the “memorandum”, and a likely cut-off of Eurozone funding and capital markets with virtually few reserves to cover salaries, pensions or public services.
→ read full articleWhen the Respectable Become Extremists the Extremists Become Respectable
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 May 2012
By any historical measure, whether it involves international law, human rights conventions, United Nations protocols, socio economic indicators, the policies and practices of the United States and European Union regimes can be characterized as extremist.
→ read full articleUS-Israel War on Iran: The Myth of Limited Warfare
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Apr 2012
Washington and Tel Aviv claim and appear to believe that their planned assault on Iran will be a “limited war”, targeting limited objectives and lasting a few days or weeks – with no serious consequences.
→ read full articleThe Bloody Road to Damascus: The Triple Alliance’s War on a Sovereign State
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2012
There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the uprising to overthrow President Assad of Syria is a violent, power grab led by foreign-supported fighters who have killed and wounded thousands of Syrian soldiers, police and civilians, partisans of the government and its peaceful opposition.
→ read full articleChina: Rise, Fall and Re-Emergence as a Global Power – Some Lessons from the Past
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
The study of world power has been blighted by Eurocentric historians who have distorted and ignored the dominant role China played in the world economy between 1100 and 1800.
→ read full articleColombia’s Quest for Peace and Justice
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Between April 21 -23 [2012], the National Patriotic Council will convoke thousands of activists from most of the major urban and rural social movements and trade unions, human rights groups and indigenous afro-colombian movements, who will meet to unify forces and launch what promises to be the most significant new political movement in recent history. The democratization of Colombia requires the growth of independent social movements, judicial investigation and prosecution of ex narco-President Álvaro Uribe and his closest collaborators, and needs to extend to the present Santos regime.
→ read full articleSocial Opposition in the Age of Internet: Desktop “Militants” and Public Intellectuals
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The internet is the alternative to the capitalist mass media and its propaganda, a source of news and information that relays manifestos and informs activists of sites for public action. Because of the internet’s progressive role as an instrument of the social opposition it is subject to surveillance by the repressive police-state apparatus. For example, in the USA over 800,000 functionaries are employed by the “Homeland Security” police agency to spy on billions of emails, faxes, telephone calls of millions of US citizens.
→ read full articleColombia: Pillage, Promise and Peace
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2011
Colombia stands at the crossroads: it can follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, narco-President Alvaro Uribe and remain a military dependency, a lone outpost of the US Empire in South America.
→ read full articleImperialism: Bankers, Drug Wars and Genocide
Prof. James Petras – Information Clearing House,
23 May 2011
While the Pentagon arms the Mexican government and the US Drug Enforcement Agency enforces the “military solution”, the biggest US banks receive, launder and transfer hundreds of billions of dollars to the drug lords’ accounts, who then buy modern arms, pay private armies of assassins and corrupt untold numbers of political and law enforcement officials on both sides of the border.
→ read full articleThe Social Basis of America’s Imperial Politics: Rethinking Imperialist Theory
Prof. James Petras – Global Research,
27 Dec 2010
The ‘fluidity’ of US power relations with Latin America is a product of the continuities and changes in Latin America. Past hegemony continues to weigh heavy, but the future augurs a continued decline. The current balance of power will however be determined by shifts in world markets, in which the US is destined to play a lesser role. Hence the greater probability of more divergences in policy, barring major breakdowns within Latin America.
→ read full articleLatin America: Crises, Upheavals, Roads to Twenty-First Century Capitalist Development
Prof. James Petras – Global Research,
1 Nov 2010
A wealth of data based on extensive field interviews, statistical studies published by international development agencies, reports by economic consultancies and business and investment houses, as well as discussions with independent social movement leaders provides ample documentation to argue that Latin America has taken multiple roads to 21st century capitalism, not socialism or anything akin to it.
→ read full articleThe Ecuadorian Coup: Its Larger Meaning
Prof. James Petras – Global Research,
18 Oct 2010
The abortive military-police coup in Ecuador, which took place on September 30, has raised numerous questions about the role of the US and its allies among the traditional oligarchy and the leftist social movements, Indian organizations and their political parties.
→ read full articleImperialism and Imperial Barbarism
Prof. James Petras – Global Research,
4 Oct 2010
Imperialism, its character, means and ends has changed over time and place. Historically, western imperialism, has taken the form of tributary, mercantile, industrial, financial and in the contemporary period, a unique ‘militarist-barbaric’ form of empire building. Within each ‘period’, elements of past and future forms of imperial domination and exploitation ‘co-exist’ with the dominant mode. For example , in the ancient Greek and Roman empires, commercial and trade privileges complemented the extraction of tributary payments. Mercantile imperialism, was preceded and accompanied initially by the plunder of wealth and the extraction of tribute, sometimes referred to as “primitive accumulation”, where political and military power decimated the local population and forcibly removed and transferred wealth to the imperial capitals.
→ read full articleUS – Venezuela: The Empire Strikes Back (and Loses)
Prof. James Petras – ICH,
16 Aug 2010
US policy toward Venezuela has taken many tactical turns, but the objective has been the same: to oust President Chavez, reverse the nationalization of big businesses, abolish the mass community and worker based councils and revert the country into a client-state.
→ read full articleLeader of Death Squads Wins Colombian Election
Prof. James Petras - ICH,
5 Jul 2010
A Great Victory For Democracy? Juan Manuel Santos, notorious Defense Minister in the regime of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe and closely identified with high crimes against humanity “won” the recent Presidential elections in Colombia, June 2010.
→ read full articleIsraeli’s Nuclear Policy: From South Africa to Iran
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jun 2010
On May 24, 2010, the Guardian (U.K.) published a highly confidential document released by the South African government. The 1975 document reveals a secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, Israel’s Foreign Minister at the time (and today Israel’s President) and South Africa’s Defense Minister P. W. Botha. Israel offered to sell the apartheid regime, weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and conventional weaponry to destroy and defeat the million person African resistance movement.
→ read full article(Castellano) Terrorismo de Estado en Nombre de la Paz
Prof. James Petras – TeleSur,
10 May 2010
No cabe duda de que el Presidente Uribe ingresará en el Libro Guinness de los Récords, cuenta con el respaldo de más narco-diputados que cualquier otro Presidente o Primer Ministro del mundo (incluida Afganistán), es responsable del desplazamiento de más personas (4 millones de refugiados) en el plazo más breve (8 años) que cualquier otro Presidente del mundo. (Ha desbancado a Israel en su medio siglo), es responsable de la matanza de más militantes y dirigentes sindicales que cualquier otro líder mundial.
→ read full articleColombia: State Terror in the Name of Peace
Prof. James Petras - ICH,
10 May 2010
The first casualty of state terror is the corruption of language, the invention of euphemisms, where words mean their opposite and slogans cover great crimes: There is no longer a world consensus that condemns crimes against humanity. This is because mass murder and assassinations secure investor ‘confidence’, because Indians are dispossessed so the mines can be exploited; oil workers disappear so the petroleum will flow; and the international financial press praises the success of el Presidente for “pacifying the country”.
→ read full articleLATIN MERICA’S TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SOCIALISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Prof. James Petras,
14 Oct 2009
The electoral victory of center left regimes in at least three Latin American countries, and the search for a new ideological identity to justify their rule, led ideologues and the incumbent presidents to embrace the notion that they represent a new 21st century version of socialism (21cs). Prominent writers, academics and regime spokespeople celebrated a […]
→ read full articleLATIN AMERICA AND THE END OF SOCIAL LIBERALISM
Prof. James Petras,
10 Sep 2009
The current world recession and the potential recovery of some countries reveals all the weaknesses of the traditional “export market” – free trade – comparative advantage doctrines. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recent experience of Latin America. Despite recent popular upheavals and the ascent of center-left regimes in most of the countries […]
→ read full articleBERNARD MADOFF: WALL STREET SWINDLER STRIKES POWERFUL BLOWS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
Prof. James Petras,
23 Dec 2008
“We never thought he would do this to us, he was one of our people”, member of Palm Beach Country Club. In a few days, one individual, Bernard Madoff, has struck a bigger blow against global financial capital, Wall Street and the US Zionist Lobby/Israel-First Agenda than the entire US and European left combined over […]
→ read full articleECOLOGY AND INDIAN MOVEMENTS: ?DIVERSITY WITH INEQUALITY IS NOT SOCIAL JUSTICE?
Prof. James Petras,
17 Oct 2008
A Class Perspective Introduction There are two opposing approaches to the analysis of ecological destruction and the emergence of Indian movements in Latin America: the liberal and the Marxist. The liberal approach emphasizes ‘universal responsibility" for the destruction of the environment – rich and poor, mining companies and miners, factory owners and factory workers, auto […]
→ read full articleHuman Rights Watch in Venezuela
Prof. James Petras,
30 Sep 2008
Lies, Crimes and Cover-ups Human Rights Watch, a US-based group claiming to be a non-governmental organization, but which is in fact funded by government-linked quasi-private foundations and a Congressional funded political propaganda organization, the National Endowment for Democracy, has issued a report “A Decade Under Chavez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights […]
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