From dampening appetite for foreign investment to enlivening environmental struggles in neighboring countries, the recent victory of Panama’s historic anti-mining movement reverberates beyond borders.
One village’s shift from subsistence farming community to link in the global economic chain offers important perspective on Panama’s political, economic, and social transformations.
How unilateral, preemptory “regime change” became an acceptable foreign policy option, “democracy promotion” became a staple of defense strategy, and war became a branded public spectacle.
Over the past two weeks, U.S. media airways have been dominated by the sad spectacle of elected representatives’ refusal to govern, their repudiation of even the pretense of trying to seek agreement on issues of grave importance to people living in the country and many more affected by their actions around the world. However, despite unprecedented levels of acrimony, open hostility, and free-flowing expressions of contempt, one issue seems to continue to galvanize widespread support: the drug war.
