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The Other Side of Paradise
July 5, 2012
On July 2, Haitian grassroots organizations and their international allies launched a housing rights campaign called ‘Under Tents’ in response to the failure the Haitian government to “address Haiti’s epidemic of homelessness.”
July 4, 2012
They’re still counting, or re-counting, the votes in Mexico. Enrique Peña Nieto of the once-all-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was (probably) elected the country’s next president this past Sunday with about 38% of the vote. The results remain contested because the second-place finisher, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has challenged them, alleging various kinds of fraud and demanding a total recount.
Border Wars
July 3, 2012
On the late afternoon of Saturday, June 30, members of the Mexican community of greater New York City gathered in Manhattan’s Union Square and cast their ballots in a a symbolic vote for the country’s president. The action illustrates the dynamic nature of the U.S.-Mexico border region, while serving as a manifestation of the ongoing struggle to define it.
Rebel Currents
July 2, 2012
The second national indigenous march to protest the Bolivian government's proposed highway through the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS) reached La Paz last week on the heels of a violent police strike. The government linked both the police and the TIPNIS protesters to a possible coup attempt.
Border Wars
June 29, 2012
Though different, there are many important and striking similitarities between the U.S. enforcement of its border with Mexico and the Israeli pacification of the Palestinian people. One such similarity is the companies involved. For example, Israel's Elbit Systems not only supplies the Israeli state with electronic detection systems along the wall of separation with the West Bank, but also won a contract to provide the same equipment on the Mexico-U.S. border.
The Other Side of Paradise
June 28, 2012
It’s one thing to be proud of an accomplishment, such as reducing the amount of homelessness by constructing homes—but it is irresponsible and criminal to attack, forcefully evict, and destroy thousands of shelters consisting of battered tents and tarps, then brag internationally about seeing a reduction in the levels of visible homelessness. Yet this is exactly what is happening right now in Haiti.
Cuadernos Colombianos
June 27, 2012
The Colombian congress recently passed a bill that will lead to impunity if President Juan Manuel Santos approves.
June 26, 2012
Supporters of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), are angry and dismayed as polls show the PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto maintaining a lead over second-place AMLO of six to 18 points. None of this is to say that Peña Nieto deserves to be the front-runner, much less that Mexico would be better off with the authoritarian, corrupt, corporatist PRI back in power, but when I reported the polling consensus in last week’s blog, I received several negative comments from AMLOistas accusing me of betraying the cause of the left—as though recognizing that you are behind is the equivalent of admitting you are wrong.
Manufacturing Contempt
June 25, 2012
A June 20 blog post by Harvey Morris, featured on the website of The New York Times, pointedly asks in its headline, “Asylum for Assange: What’s in It for Ecuador?” Writing for the paper of record, Morris understandably looks at Ecuador's policy considerations through the lens of that government’s own self-interest. But the Times selectively applies this kind of examination.
Border Wars
June 22, 2012
The widespread approval of the Obama administration's recently announced immigration policy initiative—and the profound joy felt by large numbers of unauthorized migrants and their allies and advocates in the United States—is understandable in many ways. But the happiness should not cloud our collective ability to see the serious limits to Obama’s policy change nor, more importantly, dilute energies pushing for more far-ranging transformation of a fundamentally unjust system.