While looking forward to a new year, I remembered a poem called Ojalá by the late Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano. The Spanish word “ojalá” means “if only.” I feel lucky to have attended a lecture by Eduardo Galeano in 2013, two years before he passed. His many books included The Open Veins of Latin America, […]
Balance. Inside out, outside in. From science driven diving, environmental warrior in the 1970s — in AZ, in Mexico, in the Sea of Cortez — to small-town daily newspaperman: Tucson, Bisbee, Wilcox, Sierra Vista, and all these small towns in several rural counties south, on the borderline. El Paso, New Mexico, Mexico, Central America. Teacher, […]
The post Sending Love to the Daughter I Always Wanted first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Back in the 1970s, the left and even many liberals were clear that Nixon’s dropping napalm on Vietnamese villages was an abomination. By the 1990s, some thought Bill Clinton’s bombing of Yugoslavia was, perhaps, humanitarian.
For now, Argentina is lost and Venezuela is deeply wounded, divided and frustrated. Virtually everywhere in socialist Latin America, well-orchestrated and angry protests are taking place, accusing our left-wing governments of mismanagement and corruption.
Day and night, for years, an overwhelming force has been battering this quiet nation, one of the cradles of human civilization.
Hundreds of thousands have died, and millions have been forced to flee abroad or have been internally displaced. In many cities and villages, not one house is left intact.
But Syria is, against all odds, still standing.
“Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity,” as the old phrase goes.
Once again our imperial elitists are “making the case” to utilize instruments of death and destruction against a country thousands of miles away that has not attacked us. In order, we are told, to bring about more peace and less death.
We are opinionated, yet we cannot offer our opinions. We have a right to the echo, not to the voice, and those who rule praise our talent to repeat parrot fashion. We refuse to accept this mediocrity as our destiny.
— Eduardo Galeano, opening speech at “Chile Creates,” an international meeting in support of Chilean democracy, July 11, 19881
Silvio Rodriguez OJALA Bolivia Rising | August 5, 2014 The following statement in defense of Palestine and encouraging people to join the BDS campaign has been signed by Bolivian president Evo Morales, former Honduran president Mel Zelaya, Nobel peace prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, Cuban musician Silvio Rodríguez and many more […]
