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Some reactions to the US military attack on Venezuela, detention of Maduro, plans outlined by Trump and other US officials at the subsequent news conference, and US media coverage. Version 1.3, updated 10pm, Jan. 3, in St. Louis, MO Daniel Hellinger is Professor Emeritus of International Relations, Webster University, and author/editor of several books on Venezuela. He is presently researching and writing a book on resource nationalism in Venezuela and Chile, with a focus on oil in the former. Overall take: The US military operation undertaken in Venezuela was a brazen violation of international law and clearly aimed at regime change. The detention of Maduro was a virtual kidnapping. Maduro was widely unpopular, responsible for serious human rights violations, and involved in corruption, but Venezuela was not a “failed state. He was not the “kingpin” of a major drug trafficking operation; never emptied the country’s prisons and sanitariums of flood the US with criminals; and retained the support of a considerable minority of Venezuelans. The US operation has major destabilizing repercussions for the hemisphere and international system; the Trump regime has indicated it is prepared to act similarly against other governments that refuse to accept American regional and global [...]

THANKS TO TRUMPBy Cliff WelchSão Paulo, 25 July 2025Thanks to Trump President Lula’s favorability numbers went up. Thanks to Trump the criminal prosecution of former president Jair Messias Bolsonaro surged on. Thanks to Trump U.S. prices for coffee, sugar, oranges and orange juice, beef, honey and travel are set to increase in August. Thanks to Trump Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, facing a backlash due to his alliance with Trump, abandoned his seat in congress, slightly weakening his father’s support in the Brazilian parliament. Thanks to Trump and his decision to use tariffs to try to force the government of Brazil to undermine its own justice system by undermining its case against Bolsonaro, almost everything Trump did not want to happen, has happened. As many may recall, on January 8, 2023, several thousand angry Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil’s most iconic government symbols and structures in the nation’s capital, Brasília, in a display of outrage over Lula’s inauguration a week earlier. Inspired by the January 6, 2021 insurrection in support of Trump, the copycat action attacked not only parliament, but also the presidential palace and supreme court. It was meant to provoke a military intervention. While some officers were prepared to intervene, [...]

 Author: Clover Hu (Yutong Hu)Clover Hu is a student at New York University studying literature, psychology, economics, and justice in Latin America and post-authoritarian societies.:::Abstract: This article examines how the Honduran government, following the 2009 coup, utilized the country’s qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup as a strategic emotional diversion to suppress political dissent. Through visual analysis of media coverage, theoretical frameworks on deindividuation and emotional governance, and comparative reference to historical models such as “bread and circuses,” the article argues that football was transformed into a state-sponsored spectacle of national unity that effectively muted public outrage. This performance of collective euphoria silenced marginalized voices—particularly Black and Afro-descendant communities—and created an illusion of democratic cohesion. Drawing from thinkers such as Fanon and Seneca, the article frames this phenomenon as a modern iteration of affective authoritarianism. It concludes that the apparent triumph on the football field masked deeper political fractures and social exclusions, and calls for a reexamination of how state rituals manipulate emotion to manage post-crisis legitimacy.Keywords: Emotional governance; Honduras; Football and nationalism; Political diversion; Marginalization and silencePerformative Victory: How Post-Coup Honduras Used Football to Manufacture a “Silent Mass”In June 2009, the democratically elected president of Honduras, José [...]

First posted by NACLA: Report on the AmericasApril 2025 Steve Ellner During his first term, President Donald Trump exerted a “maximum pressure” campaign against perceived U.S. adversaries in Latin America and elsewhere. Among other hardline policies, he levelled crippling sanctions against Venezuela—leading, ironically, to a mass exodus of Venezuelans to the United States—and reversed former President Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba. But just how committed is Trump to fighting communism in Latin America at this particular moment—in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua? Today, it’s anyone’s guess. Trump’s recent threats against Panama, Canada, and Greenland, on top of his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, take the spotlight off the “real enemies,” as usually defined by Washington. In that sense, Trump’s foreign policy actions in the first two months of his second administration are a far cry from his first, when regime change was the unmistakable goal. In sharp contrast to the rhetoric of his first administration, in his March 4 address to the Joint Session of Congress Trump made no reference to Nicolás Maduro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, or Daniel Ortega. It’s even unclear whether Trump will pursue the use of international sanctions, which he ratcheted up against Venezuela and Cuba in [...]

Alcances y limitaciones del sexenio de Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (2018-2024) y los retos de Claudia Sheinbaum en México por Emelio BetancesUn balance de la gestión de Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Amlo) tiene necesariamente que empezar con el contexto histórico que hizo posible su victoria en 2018. El neoliberalismo había caído en una crisis de legitimidad y no se pudo levantar. Los partidos dominantes (Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) y Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) ya no tenían nuevas propuestas. En ese contexto Amlo, un político carismático con un proyecto de nación que venía proponiendo desde los años ochenta, se proyectó presidenciable. Este político fuera de serie en el contexto mexicano había formado parte del proyecto político del ingeniero Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, quien había competido en las elecciones de 1988 y que perdió contra Carlos Salinas de Gortari, gracias a un gigantesco fraude electoral.El surgimiento de un liderazgo nacionalEn las primeras décadas del siglo actual Amlo desarrolló su proyecto, <more>

by LAP Editor, Jeffery R. WebberPosted by SPECTRE Journal Premature obituaries of Chilean neoliberalism abound on the heels of the December 19 run-off presidential election. Gabriel Boric of Apruebo Dignidad (Approve Dignity, AD) – a coalition of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front, FA) and the Partido Comunista de Chile (Communist Party of Chile, PCC) – secured a surprisingly robust victory over his far-right opponent, José Antonio Kast (aka, JAK), of Frente Social Cristiano (Christian Social Front, FSC) – a coalition of Kast’s Partido Republicano (Republican Party, PR) and the Partido Conservador Cristiano (Christian Conservative Party, PCC).1 Boric took 55.9 percent of the popular vote to Kast’s 44.1 percent, with 1.2 million more people voting in the second round than in the first contest in November. That put voter turnout at 56 percent, the highest of any presidential election since 2012, when voting was made voluntary.2 The result represents a serious setback for forces of the far right in Chile, and, indeed, the region more generally – it wasn’t good news for Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, for example, who faces elections in 2022 that he was already likely to lose to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”).Scenes of elation on streets across Chile [...]