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BIDEN (U.S.) VERSUS DUTERTE (CHINA): PROSPECT FOR U.S.-PHILIPPINE RELATIONS

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  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 oligarchic comprador

REVIEW OF E.SAN JUAN, PEIRCE/MARX

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  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

METAKOMENTARYO SA GAWAING PANGKULTURA-PAMPOLITIKA, isyu ng Kritika Kultura #26

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  Metakomentaryo sa Pagkakataon ng Kolokyum Ukol sa “The Places of E. San Juan, Jr.”   E. San Juan, Jr. Polytechnic University of the Philippines philcsc@gmail.com Abstract In a provisional synthesis of his lifework, E. San Juan, Jr. surveys the issues and aporias that define his critical oeuvre. He warns at the outset against the narcissism of autobiographical acts, or what he calls the selfie mode. In locating himself, San Juan uses instead the historicizing lens. In this metacommentary, San Juan locates his life project between his birth in 1938, which saw the defeat of the Republican forces in Spain and the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, and the new millennium marked by 9/11 and imperialist terrorism. He begins with the class background of his parents and moves on to discuss his years as an undergraduate at the University of the Philippines-Diliman; his graduate education at Harvard; his collaboration with Tagalog writers; his radicalization as a professor at the Un