Colombia's judicial and executive inconsistency in the case of ex-Senator Piedad Córdoba, who had her senatorial credentials revoked in September, underscores the Colombian government's rejection to accept or pursue any non-military solutions to the ongoing internal conflict. As is illustrated with the Córdoba case, the neglect of peaceful strategies coincides with the increased use of political subversion by the state to spy on, target, and ultimately remove any dissenting voices from the national political discourse.

I have come to a deeply painful decision: I can no longer in good political conscience support the DREAM Act because the essence of a beautiful dream has been detained by a colonial nightmare seeking to fund and fuel the U.S. empire machine.

From November 24 through 28, police and military staged Rio de Janeiro’s largest armed offensive against drug traffickers in decades. The operation has been hailed as a turning point in Rio’s efforts to improve security before it hosts the 2016 Olympic games. However, the perception of greater public safety in Rio is credible only to those willing to look past both the human rights abuses carried out in its midst and the systematic corruption among Rio police that is linked to much of the major crime in the city.

Amidst the flurry of recently published books on the dynamics of contemporary Latin American politics, Ben Dangl’s Dancing with Dynamite stands out for his reporting on social and political change from the vantage point of social movements themselves. In this polemical book, Dangl studies subaltern struggles vis-à-vis states, drawing primarily from targeted interviews with social movement activists and analysts from seven South American countries that are generally seen as part of the region's move to the left. The resulting product is a view from below of countries ranging from Ecuador to Venezuela.