Uruguayan journalist Galeano, author of the portentously pastiched Memory of Fire trilogy, collects here almost 30 years of occasional pieces that exhibit a mind set so tightly over its blind convictions that apparently nothing by way of observation or analysis has pierced its essence for three decades. From a pious interview with Che Guevara to a screed decrying the Gulf War (``Who will live to say that their crime was our suicide?''), Galeano most often almost chokes with Marxist rage and gall: The pieces are short and barked, the style strictly loudspeaker: ``For us capitalism is not a dream to be pursued, but a nightmare come true. Our challenge lies not in privatizing the state but in deprivatizing it. Our states have been bought up at bargain prices by the owners of the land, the banks, and everything else.'' Or--especially choice--``The elections in Nicaragua were a very cruel blow. A blow like hatred from God, as the poet said. When I heard the results, I was a child lost in the storm. A lost child I remain, but I'm not alone. We are many. Throughout the world we are many.'' For connoisseurs of propaganda only.
