Ring them Bells

More and more the social movements of Latin America are becoming part of the conversation here in the land of political stagnation. (US) An article in the new Smithsonian, one in the Economist, an editorial here, a column in the Times or Globe there. People start asking who is this Morales, this Chavez? What are these factory occupations ? Commandante Marcos is on tour in Mexico, promoting a new vision and a rejection of the old politics of compromise and appeasment. A new socialist movement builds power in Chile andUruguay, there are rumblings in Brazil and Argentina.In Nicaragua, Columbia, El Salvador , workers, farmers, and indigenous peoples are rejecting the status qou and the imposed structures. For the first time in decades Cuban revolutionaries have reason to hope and european leftists can feel a slight breeze at their back.

While we keep pressure on our government to be responsive to the needs of the people, end the war, move away from fossil fuels, help the poor etc..we also must now organize to do away with this unrepresentative system of government altogether and the powerful interests it is designed to preserve. We need to do away with the unjust system of production and allocation which this government enforces.That means agitation at all levels, open resistance and rallies,protests, demonstrations and strikes. That means pamphlets, speeches, plays and art which helps express the depth of our dissatisfaction. Anything that allows people to experience solidarity in opposition to established order forms an opening for radical conciousness and creates new space. Any pressure we can apply here, no matter how marginal it at first appears, diverts energy from the ruling class to suppress the movements of our comrades south of our border and this is how we can best help.

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point ,however, is to change it." Karl Marx