Author: admin

Today we will resume in-classroom meetings.

• • Resume watching “The War on Democracy,” John Pilger, 2007.
  • The remaining time will be for discussing the Venezuela case study of the Cuba model.

The remaining meeting schedule is going to be subject to discussion. We have one make-up class we need to schedule [for last week’s holiday]. We will also have no in-person meetings on the 11th and 18th of November. For these, we have the option of online meetings or we could schedule dual meetings [morning + afternoon] on three of the remaining in-person meetings. We could also plan to meet on a day other than Fridays. We should discuss this today.

Proposed dual meetings:

• • Friday, 28th of October
  • Friday, 4th of November
  • Friday, 25th of November

Due dates for the Project Pathumwan essays and outlines:

• • First outline: next week, October 28th
  • First essay: Friday, November 4th
  • Second outline: Friday, November 18th
  • Second essay:  Friday, December 2nd

 

Since we have no class meeting this week due to the holiday, I will provide you with some material to review for the coming few weeks:

Economic Warfare and the Cuba Model: 

• • [Notes] The Cuba Model: Venezuela Case Study
  • An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela: Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur Expose Coup, Empire Files, 22 Feb 2019
  • Steve Ellner on Moderate Rebels, 24 Jan 2019: Part 1 | Part 2
  • Larry Wilkerson “Permanent War State Aims to Plunder Venezuela” with The Real News Network, 26 Feb 2019.
  • Miguel Tinker Salas and Alfred De Zayas, Democracy Now! 24 Jan 2019: Part 1 | Part 2
  • Curcio, Pasqualina C. (2017) The Visible Hand of the Market: Economic Warfare in Venezuela. Digital Edition.
  • Venezuela Analysis (14 January 2022) Unconventional Warfare against Venezuela: A Conversation with Pasqualina Curcio (Part I) + (Part II)
    • “The Bolivarian Revolution, and other revolutionary processes, teach us that every time a pueblo decides to advance toward building a new economic, social and political model, capitalist interests will react: they will heed the imperialist libretto and attempt to weaponize the economy.
    • What is happening in Venezuela also happened in Nicaragua, the Soviet Union, Chile, and in other countries that sought to implement a socialist model. The libretto that imperialism applies is basically the same: an unconventional war the aim of which is to generate internal instability in both the economic and social spheres.
    • This goes hand in hand with a discourse that blames socialism for all the country’s problems. The enemy begins talking about supposed human rights violations and a “humanitarian crisis.” From there they go on to induce street actions and violence. All this is accompanied by diplomatic isolation. These are some of the moves in the playbook of how to carry out an unconventional war.”
  • Documentary, “Zap! The Weapon is Food,” John Pilger, 1976.
  • Documentary, “Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia,” John Pilger, 1979.
  • John Bolton on Fox Business, 30 Jan 2019
  • U.S. Department of State: Briefing with Special Representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, 16 March 2019. (10:35-13:27)
  • Raymond Bonner, “What Did Elliott Abrams Have to Do With the El Mozote Massacre?” The Atlantic, 15 February 2019.
  • Roberto Lovato: “Elliott Abrams Is Bringing Violence of 1980s U.S. Latin America Policy to Venezuela,” Democracy Now! 14 February 2019.
  • Ian Ellis-Jones, “US blockade frustrates Cuba’s vaccine internationalism,” Green Left, 21 January 2022.
  • Sam Meredith, “Why Cuba’s extraordinary Covid vaccine success could provide the best hope for low-income countries,” CNBC, 13 January 2022.

Vietnam War History and Connection to Modified Core Periphery Model:

• • Notes: Vietnam War Historical Timeline
  • Documentary Series: Vietnam: A Television History (1983) 
  • Documentary: Vietnam: American Holocaust (2008)
  • Lecture, “Deciphering Foreign Policy Jargon,” Noam Chomsky. (watch from 0:00 – 1:07:00, but focus on 26:40 onward)
  • Video: “Noam Chomsky on Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers“
  • Documentary: Winter Soldier (1972)
  • Documentary: Sir No Sir (2005)
  • Documentary: “The Quiet Mutiny – World in Action” John Pilger, 1970.
  • [Video] PragerU: The Truth About Vietnam —-see
  • [Video] PragerU: Why Did America Fight the Vietnam War?

Burden of Debt:

• • Full interview: John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman
  • Documentary, “War By Other Means,” John Pilger, 1992.
  • Joseph Stiglitz (2006) “The Burden of Debt,” chapter 8 in Making Globalization Work.
  • John McBeth, “Hidden China debts come to the fore in Indonesia,” Asia Times, 18 October 2021.
    • “Using open-sourcing, the researchers assess that 35% of the BRI infrastructure project portfolio, involving 140 countries, has encountered major implementation problems, such as corruption scandals, labor violations, environmental damage and public protests.
    • The report finds that Chinese debt burdens are substantially higher than previously understood, which conceivably allows Beijing to extract political and economic trade-offs.”
  • Joseph Stiglitz (2006) “Lifting the Resource Curse,” chapter 5 in Making Globalization Work.

Media and Law:

• • Start with chapter 1 of Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky (2002, 1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.Then check out the following articles:
    • • Herman, E.S. (2000) “The Propaganda Model: a retrospective,” Journalism Studies, 1(1), p. 101-112.
      • Chomsky, N. (1997) “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream,” Z Magazine, October.

    Then watch this documentary, “Manufacturing Consent” (1992) by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick, with my accompanying notes. Alternatively, you could start here and then go back and review the readings. Key highlights include (32:50 – 46:05), (2:38:35 – 2:42:53).

  • Must read: an important chapter related to the institutional analysis of the education system, specifically the economics discipline.
    • • Chapter 2 in Chernomas, R., & Hudson, I. (2016). The Profit Doctrine: Economists of the Neoliberal Era. Pluto Press.

    Additional articles that are relevant to this topic, but ones we likely will not have time to discuss:

    • • Herman, E.S. (1993) “The Media’s Role in U.S. Foreign Policy,” Journal of International Affairs, 47(1), p. 23-45.

    Also check out, my Beginner’s Guide to Media. 

  • Ricardo Vaz, “Western Media: Venezuelan Elections Must Be Undemocratic, Because Chavismo Won,” FAIR, 3 December 2021.
  • Joe Emersberger and Justin Podur, “The Media Myth of ‘Once Prosperous’ and Democratic Venezuela Before Chávez,” FAIR, 26 August 2021.
  • Mike Prysner Breaks Down John Oliver’s Venezuela Segment

Today is our last meeting before the midterm exam. Next week we will meet online at our regular time to introduce you to the online writing platform. This should not take more than 1-2 hours. In two weeks there will be no meeting since that is midterms week. You will be given the midterm questions next week and submissions will be due on Friday, October 14th. Our regular meetings will resume in three weeks on the 14th of October.

Additional material for today:

• • Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, Peace, and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3):167-191.
  • Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research, 27(3):291-305.
  • Violence vs. Crime | Cultural, Structural, and Direct Violence
  • Documentary, “The War on Democracy,” John Pilger, 2007.
  • Documentary, “War By Other Means,” John Pilger, 1992.
  • Documentary, “Nicaragua: A Nation’s Right to Survive,” John Pilger, 1983.
  • Documentary, “Zap! The Weapon is Food,” John Pilger, 1976.
  • The Hacking of the American Mind with Dr. Robert Lustig | University of California Television (UCTV), 6 Sep 2017
  • Yanis Varoufakis: Capitalism has become ‘techno-feudalism’ | UpFront, Al Jazeera English, 19 Feb 2021.

Today we will discuss 1.) The Indonesia Model and 2.) The Cuba Model

• • “Constructive Terror,” sections 4.1-4.3  in Chomsky, N. & Herman, E. S. (2015, 1979) The Political Economy of Human Rights Vol I: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism. London: Pluto Press.
  • Baker, Chris and Pasuk Phongpaichit, Eds. (2014) A History of Thailand. Third Edition. Cambridge University Press. | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 |
  • Video: John Pilger (2001) “New Rulers of the World” [Indonesia model] with discussion questions
  • FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1961–1963, AMERICAN REPUBLICS; CUBA 1961–1962; CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS AND AFTERMATH, VOLUMES X/XI/XII, MICROFICHE SUPPLEMENT
    725. Memorandum prepared in the CIA, December 12. Current U.S. policy with respect to Cuba. Secret. 8 pp. Johnson Library, NSF, Country File, Cuba Meetings, 12/63–3/65. December 12, 1963
  • FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1961–1963, VOLUME X, CUBA, JANUARY 1961–SEPTEMBER 1962
    291. Program Review by the Chief of Operations, Operation Mongoose
    Washington, January 18, 1962.
  • FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1958–1960, CUBA, VOLUME VI 481. Paper Prepared by the 5412 Committee
    Washington, March 16, 1960.
  • FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1958–1960, CUBA, VOLUME VI
    499. Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mallory) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
    Washington, April 6, 1960.
  • Simple Sabotage Field Manual

Upcoming:

• • Lecture, “Deciphering Foreign Policy Jargon,” Noam Chomsky. (watch from 0:00 – 1:07:00, but focus on 26:40 onward).
  • Documentary, “The War on Democracy,” John Pilger, 2007.