Interviews, Exchanges, etc.
“Colón and Colonialism,” (John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review, vol. 44, no. 6 (November 1992), pp. 46-48.
A number of readers have pointed out that an egregious error was made in my introduction to the July-August issue on the Quincentennial, where it says (on page 2) that, “The nature of the encounter was a colonial one (a word derived from Colon or Columbus) …. ” This was a mistake since the Latin word “colonia” dates back to Roman times.
“Anti-Semitism and the Legacy of Columbus; A Reply to Prago,” (John Bellamy Foster and Albert Prago) Monthly Review, vol. 44, no. 5 (October 1992), pp. 44-49.
The July/August issue of MR is a superb addition to the articles (and books) which are aimed at the multi-faceted myths surrounding Columbus and his trans-Atlantic voyages. Understandably, major emphasis in the myth-destroying quincentennial literature is on Amerindians and African-Americans. Lamentably few deal with the impact of Columbus’ exploits on Jews; and none of the articles in MR remotely touched on this matter.
“Fascism in Iraq; Imperialism and the Tyranny of Saddam Hussein,” (John Bellamy Foster and Thomas F. Mayer) Monthly Review, vol. 43, no. 6 (November 1991), pp. 33-42.
In his article, “Imperialism and the Gulf War” (MR, April 1991), Tom Mayer makes the following statement: In order to make Saddam Hussein a suitable target for unlimited violence, all positive achievements of his government are ignored. We hear almost nothing about the growth of literacy in Iraq, the increased availability of housing, women’s rights, religious freedom, improved transportation facilities, lack of government corruption, or the fact that Iraq invests far more of its oil revenues internally than other Arab states of the Persian Gulf. We hear very little about several reasonable-sounding Iraqi proposals seeking to avoid war. And the U.S. left, repelled by the tyranny of the Hussein regime and burdened with a guilty conscience from its blindness to the infamies of “actually existing socialism,” remains largely silent on these issues.