Political discussions within the United States quickly bog down into meaningless party partisanship, often utilizing labels without clearly elucidating what they mean. Here Dr. Maximilian C. Forte discusses the US Progressive movement — one of the two poles on the great imperial engine of US politics, Populism being positioned as the other. His piece is …
Continue reading Progress, Progressivism, and Progressives: An Anthropologists’ Perspective
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” – Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s Among the many foibles and spectacles which have characterized the presidency of Donald J. Trump, was his threat to …
Continue reading NGO’s and Empire Maintenance: Aid distributors versus popular sovereignty
“They seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty, but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it… the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.” (Oscar Wilde on philanthropists, quoted in …
Continue reading Empires of Aid and Compassion: Foundations as Architects of Neoliberalism
This important and thorough dossier of articles, research, and evidence dismantling the liberal-imperialist myth of "Russiagate" - the idea that Trump is a foreign agent of Russia - was originally compiled by Lary Kummer, editor of Fabius Maximus. We at Peripheral Thought are extremely appreciative of Kummer's work compiling this impressive collection, though we of …
Continue reading A Review of Russiagate, its Propaganda and Hysteria
Photo: Forest fires near Castelo de Sonhos (Jeremy Campbell, 2013). This article originally appeared on the Anthropology and Environment Society blog. This post is part of the series on Settler Colonialism: Life on the Frontier Theresa Miller (Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Institution) spoke with Jeremy Campbell (Associate Professor, Roger Williams University) about his recent book on political economy in formation in …
Continue reading On Conjuring Property: An Interview with Jeremy Campbell
This piece by French theorist and political economist Jacques Sapir, originally posted on his blog in French and republished in Italian by Voci Dal L'estero is now featured in English here on Peripheral Thought. Sapir argues that, in addition to the risks to public health and environmental integrity, The Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) is a serious …
Continue reading Translation: CETA comes into force – a scandal for democracy
[Image: Presencia de América Latina (Presence of Latin America, 1964–65) is a 300 square meters (3,200 sq ft) mural at the hall of the Arts House of the University of Concepción, Chile. It is also known as Latin America's Integration (Wikimedia Commons)] The origins of Latin America and the Caribbean as a place involve layers of designations of …
Continue reading Decolonizing Latin America as Social Geography: Comments on Charles Mann’s 1491.
This piece by Scott Patrick originally appeared on Bakunin Matata. Patrick is a PhD candidate studying comparative politics at the American University in Washington, DC. While some of its observations are dated given the upheavals that have defined the Trump administration, it is nonetheless a worthwhile short read: We are living in an age of capitalist …
Continue reading The Capitalist Peace, Dependency Theory, and Imperialism
[Pictured: Oscar Pérez, a disgruntled Venezuelan police intelligence officer, reads an anti-government manifesto in a video he posted on Instagram. Pérez and his compatriots hijacked a police helicopter and lobbed grenades at the Venezuelan supreme court.] Oppositional Performance Art, Democratic Farce Last weekend, on Saturday the 29th of July, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela officially opened elections …
Continue reading America’s “Good Guys” in Venezuela: Terrorists and racist lynchers
"Reconciliation" has become something of a buzzword in Canada, the country of my birth, underpinning much of the mainstream discourse around the historical mistreatment of indigenous people and the future of relations between settlers and natives. One might be surprised to learn that Reconciliation is also a buzzword in Syria, but for rather different reasons. …
