https://znetwork.org/author/waldenbello/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Thu, 08 Jan 2026 14:06:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/author/waldenbello/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/outscooped-by-trump-the-strike-on-nigerias-real-target-was-venezuela/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/outscooped-by-trump-the-strike-on-nigerias-real-target-was-venezuela/#respond Thu, 08 Jan 2026 16:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293260 Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming. Shortly after Trump bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, I wrote a piece [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/outscooped-by-trump-the-strike-on-nigerias-real-target-was-venezuela/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-entered-a-new-feudal-era/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-entered-a-new-feudal-era/#respond Thu, 13 Nov 2025 16:49:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291231 Ever since the Internet was born, along with Big Tech, in the 1990s, the world has had a sense that we have entered a new era in global political economy. Many have tried to place a finger on what this transformation is all about. Perhaps the most famous among these critical thinkers is Shoshana Zuboff, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-entered-a-new-feudal-era/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-deglobalization/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-deglobalization/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:54:17 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290196 Walden Bello is a leading figure in the alter-globalization movement and a frequent contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. This is the second part of his conversation with Ulrich Brand and Christa Wichterich. Christa Wichterich: I would like to get back to your concept of deglobalization which has been very influential 25 years back. What [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-deglobalization/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-the-world-order/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-the-world-order/#respond Mon, 13 Oct 2025 18:04:05 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289888 Walden Bello is a leading figure in the alter-globalization movement. Here he is in conversation with Ulrich Brand and Christa Wichterich. Ulrich Brand: In your new book, you start with a very intense reflection, why it’s not the best idea to write memories or a biography. I quote, “why dispense advice to the young when [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-the-world-order/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/deglobalization-towards-the-right-or-left/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/deglobalization-towards-the-right-or-left/#respond Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289421 On Sept 23, 2025, the Foreign Policy Association and the Committee of 100 hosted a debate on the topic “Is Deglobalization Inevitable?,” with Walden Bello, co-chair of the Board of Focus on the Global South, and Edward Ashbee of the Copenhagen Business School, with Bello defending the affirmative side, after a fireside chat with Nobel [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/deglobalization-towards-the-right-or-left/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-the-age-after-globalization/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-the-age-after-globalization/#respond Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288450 The era of US-led capitalist globalization seems to be coming to an end. For Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello, it’s time to build a new, more equal distribution of power and resources around the globe. These are confusing political times. For decades, “alter-globalists” resisted dictates from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/walden-bello-on-the-age-after-globalization/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ai-techno-determinism-and-techno-pessimism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ai-techno-determinism-and-techno-pessimism/#respond Mon, 18 Aug 2025 18:16:57 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287438 Artificial Intelligence is very much in the news these days, so I decided to do a critical analysis of one of works discussing AI on the bestseller lists, The Coming Wave, by one of the key figures identified with its development, Mustafa Suleyman. Blurbs promoting The Coming Wave contain all the usual hyperbole from experts and notables. For [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ai-techno-determinism-and-techno-pessimism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-a-dying-multilateralism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-a-dying-multilateralism/#respond Tue, 01 Jul 2025 18:28:12 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285674 The recent unilateral strikes by the United States on Iran’s nuclear development sites underline the fact that multilateralism is dead, and has been so for some time. It is not only when it comes to the question of the deployment of military power that multilateralism is shown to be dead or dying. The key institutions [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-a-dying-multilateralism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/affirming-the-spirit-of-bandung-today/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/affirming-the-spirit-of-bandung-today/#respond Wed, 07 May 2025 18:28:55 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283448 The Bandung Conference in April 1955 has achieved the status of a mythical moment in the history of the Global South. There have been many accounts that have highlighted its downsides—among them, the underrepresentation of leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa and the absence of anyone from Latin America, the way Cold War geopolitical rivalries found their [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/affirming-the-spirit-of-bandung-today/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-imf-and-world-bank-await-elon-musk/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-imf-and-world-bank-await-elon-musk/#respond Wed, 26 Feb 2025 18:52:51 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280287 I think that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been misinformed. I don’t disagree with their shutting down USAID, but I think it’s rather small fry.  There are much, much bigger fish to fry if you want to really save U.S. government money that is being wasted in programs that are [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-imf-and-world-bank-await-elon-musk/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/philippines-peoples-tribune-for-2024-senator-risa-hontiveros/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/philippines-peoples-tribune-for-2024-senator-risa-hontiveros/#respond Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1277905 There’s really no one in the Senate that can equal Senator Risa Hontiveros in terms of rendering service to the Filipino people. A socialist feminist in a nest of trapos, she has been truly consistent in pushing progressive legislation since she joined the House of Representatives in the early 2000’s. When I joined the House [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/philippines-peoples-tribune-for-2024-senator-risa-hontiveros/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-isolationist-by-instinct-unpredictable-in-action/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-isolationist-by-instinct-unpredictable-in-action/#respond Wed, 27 Nov 2024 16:49:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1276028 There are a number of certainties about the coming Trump administration. One is that it will be bad for the climate. Another is that it will be bad for American democracy. A third is that it will be largely bad for minorities and for women. But when it comes to many other matters, like foreign [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-isolationist-by-instinct-unpredictable-in-action/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-isolationist-in-instinct-unpredictable-in-action/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-isolationist-in-instinct-unpredictable-in-action/#respond Thu, 21 Nov 2024 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1275700 There are a number of certainties about the coming Trump administration. One is that it will be bad for the climate. Another is that it will be bad for American democracy. A third is that it will be largely bad for minorities and for women. But when it comes to many other matters, like foreign [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-isolationist-in-instinct-unpredictable-in-action/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-did-i-predict-that-trump-despite-his-repulsive-persona-and-politics-would-prevail/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-did-i-predict-that-trump-despite-his-repulsive-persona-and-politics-would-prevail/#respond Sun, 10 Nov 2024 15:24:55 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1275103 Nearly a month before the November 5 elections, I anticipated that Donald Trump would win and wrote about it in a couple of articles. My “prediction” created some controversy, especially since the polls showed Harris and Trump in a dead heat.  Not surprisingly, people have been asking me the last few days how I came [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-did-i-predict-that-trump-despite-his-repulsive-persona-and-politics-would-prevail/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-mess-in-argentina/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-mess-in-argentina/#respond Fri, 20 Sep 2024 15:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1272621 At the heart of Buenos Aires lies the lovely Calle Florida. The experience of walking through this street that is exclusively dedicated to pedestrians was anything but lovely though, since in the one kilometer from one end to the other I was besieged—albeit politely–by some 200 men and women barking, “cambio, cambio,” competing to give [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-mess-in-argentina/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-should-the-global-south-look-at-the-u-s-elections/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-should-the-global-south-look-at-the-u-s-elections/#respond Fri, 13 Sep 2024 15:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1272304 As the U.S. elections come closer, there is growing pressure on many progressives in the Global South to make our voices heard in support of the candidacy of Kamala Harris. No act on your part is insignificant in these elections, we are told. The votes of your relatives in the United States could spell the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-should-the-global-south-look-at-the-u-s-elections/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-at-the-gates/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-at-the-gates/#respond Tue, 30 Jul 2024 16:45:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1270111 Two recent events have shattered complacency about the specter of a fascist takeover globally that a number of us have been warning about for some time now. In Europe, far-right parties scored impressive gains in the elections to the European Parliament in June.  \In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and other like-minded parties got 15.9  percent [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-at-the-gates/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/crisis-in-the-west-opportunity-for-the-rest/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/crisis-in-the-west-opportunity-for-the-rest/#respond Wed, 17 Jul 2024 18:52:04 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1269430 Whether we call it “polycrisis,” like Columbia University Professor Adam Tooze, or “the age of catastrophe,” like the distinguished Marxist Alex Callinicos, there is no doubt that we are living in a period where the very foundations of the contemporary world order are cracking. There is that enigmatic line Gramsci used to describe his era [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/crisis-in-the-west-opportunity-for-the-rest/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-counter-fascism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-counter-fascism/#respond Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:58:51 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1269102 It is not only economic insecurity that helps create a mass base for fascism but also fear or the sense of physical insecurity. Practically alone among Filipino politicians in his quest for the presidency in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte appealed to “rampant criminality” as his main, indeed, only road to power. A blistering five-fold increase in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-counter-fascism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-capitalism-really-works/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-capitalism-really-works/#respond Mon, 17 Jun 2024 16:45:10 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1267938 Vulture Capitalism is, at one level, a really good read, for the scandals that it brings together in one volume—like the Boeing 737 MAX debacle, where the pursuit of profits, lack of regulation, and corporate cost-cutting culture resulted in two crashes that killed hundreds of people, or the ways most of the $800 million allocated by [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-capitalism-really-works/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-memoir-of-murder-in-the-philippines/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-memoir-of-murder-in-the-philippines/#respond Mon, 08 Apr 2024 16:07:28 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1264770 Patricia Evangelista’s Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country is not an easy read. An account of genocide is never an easy read. Now, some may quibble that former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s taking the lives of only (!) 27,000 people does not qualify as genocide. But Duterte himself knew it was genocide he [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-memoir-of-murder-in-the-philippines/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/unjust-wars-and-a-just-peace/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/unjust-wars-and-a-just-peace/#respond Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:32:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1264192 The three major wars or conflicts that are ongoing today demonstrate the volatility of the intersection between the local and the global. In the Hamas-Israeli conflict, we see how the maintenance of the Israeli settler-colonial state is intertwined with the preservation of the global hegemony of the United States. In the war in Ukraine, a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/unjust-wars-and-a-just-peace/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/palestine-lights-the-way-forward/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/palestine-lights-the-way-forward/#respond Thu, 22 Feb 2024 18:00:00 +0000 When the first World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001, it was meant as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Davos was the world of the One Percent. Porto Alegre was the world of the rest of us. Today Kathmandu, the site of the Sixteenth World Social [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/palestine-lights-the-way-forward/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-101-for-geopolitics-today/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-101-for-geopolitics-today/#respond Fri, 08 Dec 2023 13:36:33 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1259021 Donald Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020 and Jair Bolsonaro’s loss to Lula in Brazil in 2022, along with Rodrigo Duterte’s leaving the presidency of the Philippines last year, gave some quarters hope that the far-right or fascist wave had crested globally. Two political earthquakes, taking place just in the last two weeks, have shattered this [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-101-for-geopolitics-today/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/and-heres-to-you-henry-kissinger/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/and-heres-to-you-henry-kissinger/#respond Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:22:10 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1258785 On the occasion of his death at 100, praises and denunciations of Henry Kissinger are being sung and spewed out in record numbers. Let me add to the “praises.” More than anyone else, Henry, along with his boss, Richard Nixon, was responsible for my transformation into an activist. This transition from being a free-floating intellectual [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/and-heres-to-you-henry-kissinger/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/remembering-salvador-allende-and-the-chilean-counterrevolution/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/remembering-salvador-allende-and-the-chilean-counterrevolution/#comments Mon, 11 Sep 2023 17:15:16 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1253878 When I heard that Salvador Allende won the Chilean presidential elections in September 1970 and sought to bring his country to socialism by peaceful means, I decided to do my doctoral dissertation on Chile. In May 1972, I went to take a crash course in Spanish in Cuernavaca in the Mexican state of Morelos, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/remembering-salvador-allende-and-the-chilean-counterrevolution/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/oppenheimer/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/oppenheimer/#respond Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1252566 Oppenheimer is a film about the brilliant, enigmatic physicist who led the Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb. The relationship of Oppenheimer to his devastating creation is the centerpiece around which director Christopher Nolan weaves a fast-paced narrative that brings together the urgent imperative to produce a war-winning weapon before Hitler could come up [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/oppenheimer/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barbie-marxism-for-gen-z/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barbie-marxism-for-gen-z/#respond Thu, 24 Aug 2023 15:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1252549 ‘Barbie stages in Barbieland the equivalent of the Protestant Reformation’ I finally got what director Greta Gerwig was up to in her movie Barbie, which features Margot Robbie as the adult doll Barbie. She’s out to give a lesson in Marxism, the candy-coated kind that she thinks is palatable to Gen Z.  At one level, Barbie [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barbie-marxism-for-gen-z/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-mini-revolution-in-tokyo/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-mini-revolution-in-tokyo/#respond Fri, 28 Jul 2023 13:58:52 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1250081 Satoko Kishimoto returned to her native Japan in April 2022. She was 47, and for 22 of those years she had been in Europe, most of them spent working for the progressive think-tank Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She had no firm plans for the future–maybe doing some writing, maybe engaging in care work. In any case, when she [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-mini-revolution-in-tokyo/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/imagination-and-liberation/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/imagination-and-liberation/#respond Wed, 28 Jun 2023 13:57:07 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1248557 When I was doing interviews for my dissertation in Santiago, Chile, in 1972, I was told that the word “Jakarta” had been spray-painted on walls throughout the city. The message was unmistakable: the Chilean left should expect the same fate that had befallen their comrades in Indonesia in 1965. A year later, the threat in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/imagination-and-liberation/feed/ 0