jmoiron.net

Tonight I watched The Take, a film made by Naomi Klein who I very much respect for her insights and reporting in Iraq. It follows the struggles of occupied worker-run factories in Argentina and somewhat excitingly affirms that many of my beliefs about the virtues of worker control and cooperative economics. Its not available in the US yet, but if you can find it anywhere (it is up on the dissident torrent site Chomsky torrents) I highly recommend watching it.

It brings up a kind of interesting situation (to us relatively rich aristocratic outsiders) in Latin America at the moment; and it draws upon interesting feelings from my childhood which I'll go into later. Currently though, conservative governments are getting thrown out on their asses and replaced by more left leaning popular regimes. If you look at the history of the last 15 years (Its alarming, but its now 15 years when you're talking about the whole of the 90's), it has been building for a while.

What did we think would happen when our international and unaccountable institutions (IMF, WTO, World Bank; the triad) make policy demands as conditions of loans to desperate and usually unpopular regimes? It would appear that Menem's firesale of Argentina did not fare well, and with Guiterrez now in exhile in Brazil, more riots in Cochabamba over privatized water, populist movements in Mexico (which has been heavily thrashed by NAFTA) with the rise of Obrador, and Chavez apparently in a decent position to challenge the United States as harbouring a terrorist in the recent developments of the Posada Carilles case, the age of Latin America's bending to the whims of its neighbour seems to be waning if not being violently shattered. At least, in the popular view.

Its so encouraging to see democracy actually at work, to see movements of and by "the people", not highjacked and watered down by intellectuals, publicists, and corporate media shills. The United States will of course challenge these movements as toppling their established governments, but this is really all farce: the United States had a vested interest in the former governments; not only in diplomatic contacts but also in favors and control. It seems like communications is at the point where we can only afford to violently overthrow and occupy one or two countries at a time, so that option is probably out. "There is a cancer in our land mass", and that cancer is a public voice gaining power over its masters in an age where violently stamping it out might no longer be an option.

But institutions to keep the positivity of these movements from the people of the United States are still strong; and I have first hand proof. I grew up in a household where "nicaraguan rebels" was used as a general term for "bad people". For the son of an imagrant I was raised in a climate where there was quite a remarkable resentment for new immagrants who did not learn the language like my family did; nurtured by subconcious offhand remarks at home and strengthened at school. It didn't matter that my best friend growing up was Dominican or It continues to this day, largely subconcious I'd imagine, since I can't comprehend the massive ignorance and moral corruption that would really believe this; my brother uses mexican as slang for someone he doesn't like, regardless of abundant proof that there are beautiful, enlightened, talented Mexicans among us. Regardless of the injustice done to the democratically elected Sandanistas.

I must stress that none of this is a racial thing explicitly; race is simply a conduit for easy identification in the bitter class war that exists at every level of our society, and it takes an incredible ammount of effort to fight through it without an intense ammount of education. Growing up, you know who among you are in gangs, you know who is suffering from the epidemic of teen pregnancy, you notice which of your classmates are disappearing as classrooms stop being random and start bearing an organization based on supposed difficulty. Its easier to see whats going on and come to a conclusion subconciously that minorities to a large extent carry with them these problems, because you cannot look at a person and determine their family's economic standing, nor do you at that age. It would be almost irrational to consider otherwise, for a growing child. I can recall with very little variation that classes (AP, Honors, Regents) were in the end separated by the economic situation of the parents; its just as plain as day. Why weren't my best friends growing up my best friends in High School? Its not that they were bad, or minority; they were just poor. I know this, of course... now if only the United States Senate could follow my lead.