HIMAGSIK KAYUMANGGI

  PROSPECT FOR U.S.-PHILIPPINE RELATIONS:   U.S.- BIDEN VERSUS CHINA-DUTERTE? Featuring an Interview with Bill Fletcher  by E. San Juan, Jr. Amid the horrendous pandemic ravaging of the globalized political-economy of Europe and North America, particularly the imperial U.S. heartland with close to half-a-million deaths, peripheral nations remain negligible. The neoliberal consensus has collapsed, inaugurating a new era of trade wars and ecological disasters. Such “shithole” countries like the Philippines, to use President Trump’s rubric, rarely enter public attention.  For over half a century, the Philippines was the only U.S. colony in Asia—now a neocolony—trumpeted as “a showcase of democracy” during the Cold War years. Since 1946, the U.S. has provided huge amounts of military aid to suppress popular rebellions of peasants and workers. During the Marcos dictatorship, Pentagon counter-insurgency measures buttressed the exploitative minority rule of o...

  A Review of E. San Juan, Peirce/Marx  Speculations on Exchanges between Pragmatism and Marxism   By Prof. Paulino Lim, Emeritus Professor of English, California State University, Long Beach The title Peirce/Marx yokes two philosophers -- not with a dash but a slash -- hinting at the strategy of the monograph by E. San Juan, Jr. The subtitle reinforces this with "Speculations between Pragmatism and Marxism." Also, calling his work a "thought experiment" shows awareness that his findings will be challenged or modified by subsequent critics, as he himself does to some of his sources. San Juan attributes the awakening of his historical sensibility to the war in Indochina as part of the Cold War against China and international communism. The U.S. used its bases in the Philippines to launch its invasion of Vietnam, using counterinsurgency tactics (burning villages, executing civilians) to subjugate and colonize the Philippines. Mark Twain protested against th...