September 4, 2007
Roberto Lovato

In this spirited call to action published by our friends at ColorLines, Roberto Lovato writes, "While important and good, negotiations, marches, lobbying and other crucial work will continue to be ineffective without an urgent strategic component. The radical political moment requires the further opening of a radical flank of the immigrant rights movement." Lovato suggests this radical flank could look to Latin American social movements for inspiration.

September 4, 2007
Oscar A. Chacón

As I write this article, the U.S. Senate is engaged in a major policy debate about how to reform the obsolete, unjust, and deeply dysfunctional immigration policy currently in effect in the United States. Unfortunately, the proposal being debated, entitled "Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007," falls far short of what the country needs, or what immigrant communities deserve.

September 4, 2007
Eric Biewener

One is hard-pressed to miss the slogan “With Chávez, the people are the government” in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, stamped as it is on government posters that paper the city. The statement claims the achievement of a perfect democracy and implicitly suggests the opposite: Without President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy would not exist.

September 4, 2007
Rune Geertsen

"This is a war of information. And it is the oil company itself that has taught us to fight it," said Heriberto Gualinga, who is a kind of ‘communications boss’ of the indigenous Kichwa community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadoran jungle.

September 4, 2007
Raúl Zibechi

A new and deep discontent has settled over Santiago, the Chilean capital. At bus and subway stops, in blue-collar neighborhoods like La Victoria (a trench for resistance against the dictatorship), in public hospital hallways and school doorways, voices are being raised to express a new consciousness of Chilean problems. The country's leaders are being called to account for the fact that the country's neoliberal model, el modelo—which left and right-wing politicians still brag about—is showing clear signs of exhaustion.

September 4, 2007
Alejandro Reuss

The backlash against neoliberalism in Latin America is now leading to confrontations between several of the region’s governments and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). In the span of just the last few weeks, there has been something of a mass defection from these institutions.

September 4, 2007
Teo Ballvé

“Free trade” and an aggressive military policy are central pillars of U.S. foreign policy. Better than any country in the world, Colombia demonstrates the intimate connection between these two aspects of U.S. power and their devastating results.

September 4, 2007
Benjamin Dangl

Teenage actors parade barefoot onstage, jumping and pounding drums. Others walk in with notebooks and briefcases overflowing with papers. Each actor spouts fragmented political speeches. The play depicts revolts and counter-revolts throughout Bolivian history, ending with a dramatic exchange between a mother and the ghost of her dead son, tortured during a dictatorship. “Don’t cry, Mom!” the ghost says. “I died bravely even though they gouged my eyes out and tore me apart. Don’t cry!”

September 4, 2007
Sarah Garland

Most U.S. labor unions agree on what to do about the some 12 million undocumented immigrants now living in the United States: Legalize their status. But sharp disagreements remain on the question of new immigrants, and the fault line lies mostly between unions in the Change to Win (CTW) coalition and the AFL-CIO.

September 4, 2007
Raúl Zibechi

“The question of power is not resolved by taking the government palace, which is easy and has been done many times, but rather by the building of new social relations,” said João Pedro Stedile, coordinator of Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST), at the 2005 World Social Forum. His comment reflects a new vision of social change, one that until recently was almost exclusively promoted by the Zapatistas of Chiapas, but that has been gaining traction in prominent sectors of Latin America’s new social movements.

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