Today's Stories

July 28, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Pictures from Summer Camp on the West Bank

July 26 / 27, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
How Bush is Wiping Out McCain

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Alaskan Oil Spills

James G. Abourezk
The Surge Has Worked?

Joseph Nevins
Death as a Way of Life on the Borderlands

Uri Avnery
What's Driving the Jerusalem Attacks

Linn Washington, Jr.
Politics and Injustice in Philadelphia

David Yearsley
Sodomy, Snuff Scenes and the Berlin Opera

Binoy Kampmark
Socializing Losses: Bailing Out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Saul Landau
Truth in Comedy: Stop Whining It's All in Your Head!

Joshua Frank
Big Sky Rebels

Brendan Cooney
Europe's Hypocrisy

Jonathan Cook
Settlers Eye Historic Jerusalem Neighborhood

Robert Fantina
McCain, Iraq and the Campaign

Lee Sustar
Will the US Get Its Way with Iran?

Michael Winship
The Company We Keep

David Macaray
Organized Labor Makes a Convenient Target

Missy Beattie
Pelosi's Panhandling

Robert Weissman
The Scourge of the IMF

Kim Nicolini
Batman and the Old Order

Poets' Basement
Orloski, Ford and McEnteer

Website of the Weekend
Bad Hoosiers

July 25, 2008

Harvey Wasserman
NRC: New Nukes Not Ready for Prime Time

Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for the Facts About Israel?

Alan Farago
Where's the Outrage?

Paul D'Amato
The Arrest of Radovan Karadzic and the Selective Prosecution of War Crimes

Gary Leupp
War With Iran? State Dept. Realists vs. Cheney's Ultras

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Eyes Wide Shut in India

Mike Whitney
Obama Dazzles Old Europe, While McCain Cries, "No Mas!"

Paul Krassner
Inside Camp Mogul

Mike Roselle
All Hail Nero!

Website of the Day
Pressing Starbucks

July 24, 2008

Greg Moses
Who Killed Azem Hajdari?

Andy Worthington
Folly and Injustice: Salim Hamdan's Guantanamo Trial

James Bovard
Daniel Ellsberg's Lessons for Our Time

Joe Bageant
Life in the Post-Political Age

George Wuerthner
Boondoggle in the Fields

DC Larson
Shutting Out Ralph Nader

William Willers
The Forest Products Industry in Public Education

David Macaray
On the Prospects for a SAG Strike

Website of the Day
Pacifica Radio Archive of 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago

July 23, 2008

Winslow T. Wheeler
An Air Force in Free Fall

Paul Craig Roberts
The Mother of All Messes

Ralph Nader
Pavlov's America

Mike Whitney
Visualizing Dow 6,000

Susie Day
Senator Sicko: Jesse Helms and the Theatre of the Depraved

Website of the Day
"A Kinder and Gentler Machine-Gun Hand..."

July 22, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Ten Years On, Bolivarian Revolution at Crossroads

Patrick Cockburn
Boost for Obama Over Iraq Withdrawal

Soldz, Olson, Reisner Arrigo and Welch
Torture After Dark

Moshe Adler
Everyone Must Share, Not Just Charlie Rangel

Martha Rosenberg
Protecting Bones from Drugs that Protect Bones

Dan Bacher
Bechtel and the Big Dig

Harvey Wasserman
Is Gore Inching Toward Solartopia?

Anthony Papa
A Slugger's Drug Redemption

Binoy Kampmark
Mad Over Benedict

Website of the Day
Hiroshima: A-Bombed Objects

July 21, 2008

Ishmael Reed
Remnick's Latest Blunder

Mike Whitney
The Democrats are the Real Problem

Andy Worthington
Dictatorial Powers Upheld: the Meaning of the Al-Marri Decision

Scott Pellegrino
Should "Meet the Press" Desegregate?

John Ross
McCain Crosses the Border, Gets No Satisfaction

Robert Weitzel
Blowback Through the Looking Glass

Mike Stark
I was Spied on by the Maryland Police

Website of the Day
Pinky Solves the Illegal Immigration Crisis

July 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
It's a Dull Race

Jeffrey St. Clair
How to Beat a Mining Company: Why a Gold Goliath Threw in the Towel

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

Saul Landau
Obits for Opposites: Carlin and Helms

Ron Jacobs
Why Afghanistan is Not the Good War

Uri Avnery
Different Planet:the Israel / Hezbollah Prisoner Swap

Neve Gordon
The Untold Story of Ni'lin

Roane Carey
Dr. Benny and Mr. Morris

Robert Fantina
Ashcroft, Torture and the U. S.

Christopher Brauchli
The General Lied

Fred Gardner
Cannabinoid Researchers Won’t Take the High Road

David Macaray
Labor Unions and the Courts

Richard L. Hutto
The Ecology of Severely Burned Forests

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour

Ronnie Cummins
Netroots Nation or Nation of Sheep?

David Yearsley
Opera and Globalization

Alison McKenna
A Close Call for Medicare

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight Ascends

Poets' Basement
Ko Un

Website of the Day
What If Edward Said Had Told This Joke?

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D. C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington"Screwed Up" and"Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U. S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U. S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be"Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U. S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N. D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on"Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

July 28, 2008

Kidnapped by Hunger, Held Prisoner by Poverty

The Spectacle and the Movement in Colombia

By CLIFTON ROSS

Sunday, July 20th was Colombian Independence day, and hundreds of thousands of Colombians in 60 countries went out into the streets to call for the liberation of those kidnapped in Colombia’s fifty-year-long war.  In Pasto, the capital of the border province of Nariño, an elderly woman said she was present at the demonstration to plea for the liberation of all people being held against their will by all parties. One of the singers on the stage in the city’s main plaza where about two thousand people had gathered, took the opportunity to call for the “liberation of those kidnapped by hunger, those held prisoner by poverty, the street children, and those held prisoners by ignorance.” 

But neither the sentiments of the singer, nor those of the elderly woman with whom I talked, were echoed in Colombia’s mainstream media. In the Independence Day event, as broadcast live over most stations, especially the large open air concert in Bogotá featuring the likes of Shakira, Carlos Vives and Dr. Krapula, the media chose to focus only on the kidnapped victims of the FARC. Meanwhile, the paramilitaries, which have theoretically been disbanded, still operate in large areas of the country and continue to be responsible for between 60 and 80 percent of political deaths and disappearances.

Most Colombians recognize multiple players in this war: the Colombian and U.S. governments; the oligarchy, whose greed has made Colombia, along with Brazil, a rival for last place in terms of distribution of wealth (65% of Colombians live in poverty); the paramilitaries, sometimes employed by local oligarchs, and other times soldiers operating out of uniform; and finally, on the other side, the leftist guerrillas who make up two separate armies, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 

Attempts to peacefully resolve the war in recent years have failed for various reasons. The president prior to Uribe, Andres Pastrana, had made what appeared to be serious efforts to negotiate with the FARC, but the guerrilla leader and co-founder of the FARC, “Marulanda,” made a major blunder and didn’t show up for the negotiations. My friend, Martha, a school teacher in Bogotá, told me that “that’s the image most Colombians have burned in their minds: Pastrana sitting at the table with a frustrated expression, waiting beside an empty chair reserved for Marulanda, who never arrived. That convinced most Colombians that the guerrilla weren’t interested in peace. That they only wanted to take power by force of arms.”

As a result of that debacle, which also had the effect of undermining Pastrana’s presidency, most Colombians voted for Alvaro Uribe, who ran on a platform of annihilating the guerrilla, a strategy he has pursued, with the help of the U.S. government, ever since taking office. People like Martha and Leonardo Perafán, of the Bogotá based Institute of Studies for Peace and Development (INDEPAZ),  hate to hear such talk, but they remain in the minority. Most believe that the annihilation of the FARC/ELN will bring peace to Colombia, but Leonardo disagreed. Even if it were true, Leonardo contended, “the FARC is far from defeated on the battle field. Go to the U.N. website and you’ll see that practically every day there’s an armed confrontation going on in the country. They’ve suffered blows to morale, certainly, but that doesn’t mean they’re defeated militarily. And a military defeat is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to pull off. The only solution is through negotiations,” Leonard said.

Nevertheless, negotiations seem to be another improbability, given the recent history of Colombia, in particular, the tale of the Patriotic Union (UP) of the 1980s-1990s. Leftist guerrillas at that time turned in their arms and took up the political struggle as the UP and within a few years between five and six thousand of their members had been murdered. In this context, Uribe’s proposal that in order for peace negotiations with the ELN to begin, the guerrillas must first enter a small area of the country and turn in a list of all their members. Given the collective memory of Colombia’s left and Uribe’s commitment to annihilate the guerrilla in Colombia, the ELN is almost guaranteed to refuse the offer. FARC, for its part, has stated there are no grounds for dialogue and it has petitioned to meet with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to consult on the process of the war.

I went to Popayán specifically to visit the offices of the Regional Indigenous Center of Cauca (CRIC) in hopes that someone there could help unravel some of the complexities of Colombian society and politics. Leonardo Perafán had spoken highly of CRIC, calling it the organization at the core of “Colombia’s most vital social movement.” In his office in Bogota Leonardo had pulled up images of CRIC members and their supporters, armed only symbolically with batons that show their status as guardians of the tribes, confronting a black wall of police in riot gear sporting shields and helicopters which shot live ammunition.

“There were several wounded and one killed in this demonstration,” he told me, clicking through images of the wounded and one picture of a hand holding bullets. “These are some of the bullets that were being shot from the helicopters,” Leonardo explained.

It’s not only the police that members of CRIC have to contend with; they are also caught in the war between the paramilitaries and the FARC. The paramilitaries have thus far confined themselves to the murder of mestizo union and campesino activists but the paramilitary presence, along with the presence of the FARC, still make the state of Arauca one of several zones of conflict.

In the offices of CRIC, in a large building without a sign, I met with Jorge Caballeros, a good-humored, bearded mestizo with a twinkle in his eyes, who looked to be in his early to mid-sixties. Jorge thinks that Sunday’s march, called “The Second Independence” was just a media event backed by the government, in particular, the Ministry of Culture, big businesses and cultural organizations, a spectacle aimed at further weakening the FARC and covering up what he calls the “hundreds of thousands of victims kidnapped by the paramilitaries.”

 “They’re kidnapped, because their cadavers haven’t turned up. So, for instance, we have the hundred murdered in Naya [paramilitary/military massacre in Cauca in April, 2001]. We know they’re dead; forty bodies were recovered, but where are the other hundred-odd people who are missing? They’re technically kidnapped,” Jorge says. These “kidnapped,” and hundreds of thousands more, weren’t favored with a march on Sunday, July 20 and they will likely never receive national attention.

Jorge finds it ironic that Colombia will be celebrating Independence Day this year, given that it has now signed the Free Trade Agreement with the US. “July 20 is the anniversary of Colombia’s independence from Europe in 1810, but today Colombia isn’t independent. It is submitted to neoliberalism; it’s submitted to the United States; it’s submitted to the policy of “democratic security” which really are international policies to favor international capital.”

Jorge points to evidence of this in the recent “rescue” of Ingrid Betancourt, a joint operation between the Colombian military, U.S. intelligence agencies, Israeli advisors, French and Swiss intermediaries whose roles are still unclear and now, it seems, even the International Red Cross.  “It seems that the international community was quite clear about what was going on, and not just the intelligence agencies,” Jorge says. “These deceptions [referring to the illegal use of the symbols of the Red Cross as a cover for the rescue, and numerous lies about the operation] raise all sorts of questions. First of all, what is the role of the international community in the internal issues of the peace [process]?”

Even as Colombians make new appeals for the release of those thousands of kidnapped victims of Colombia’s war, Jorge believes that the way Uribe conducted the “rescue” operation of Betancourt and the others, in particular the use of the Red Cross as cover for a military operation, will virtually condemn the remaining victims of kidnapping to perdition. “The Red Cross accepts the apology [from Uribe] but now they’re compromised. No one will trust them in the context of this war here because they’re infiltrated. And this is an enormous crisis, especially for those who have been kidnapped. They’re in great risk now. It seems intentional, that is, that there is a great deal of interest that those who have been kidnapped not reappear alive. And if the international community doesn’t respond in some way to this breach [misappropriating the symbols of the Red Cross] it’s going to be terrible for international law.”

“And we also know that the FARC is infiltrated; but if the FARC is infiltrated what are the autonomous armed political projects of the FARC if they know they’re infiltrated? Now that we, and they, know that the FARC is infiltrated, we have to wonder about the origins of each action, if it’s their own autonomous political action or the action of the infiltrators.”

 “Colombia is suffering a crisis of institutionality,” Jorge says.  “And so the DAS (Departamento Administrativa de Seguridad, Colombia’s secret police) is also infiltrated, as we all know, by narcotraffickers. Sixty five percent of the Colombian congress is infiltrated by “parapolitica”(paramilitary politics). The national government is infiltrated by special interests with whom they made irregular and illegal agreements so as to stay in power, and it has thus lost its legitimacy.”

“It can’t yet be claimed with certainty that the [Colombian] intelligence service has infiltrated the international community but all this is to say that all these institutions have lost legitimacy. And so there is no institutional legitimacy (institucionalidad) nor political proposals that haven’t been infiltrated and all the government can do is make pay-offs. All that is left, then, is that everyone expects nothing more than a pay-off.”

“Given this, the only coherent position to take, it seems to me, is civil disobedience.”

In a time when all other institutions have lost all legitimacy, the social movements, Jorge believes, are “of supreme importance for autonomy, participation and democracy in the country.” Moreover, he maintains, they’re the only institutions with any legitimacy left in the country despite all attempts of the Colombian government and mainstream society to discredit them.

“As the guerrilla continues to weaken in Colombia, the social movements will gain greater autonomy.” He mentions a series of meetings, events and actions planned for the upcoming week: a Permanent People’s Tribunal organized by many sectors of society in Bogota and dealing with the multinational corporate control of the country, massive mobilizations of indigenous people around a whole set of issues, including the liberation of the earth from the production of “biofuels” which Jorge calls “necrofuels.”

“The problem with such media spectacles [as the July 20th Independence Day mobilization] is that they make the actions of civil society invisible.” He points out that the indigenous movement’s land seizures, sacred rituals undertaken to rename and reclaim ancestral lands, large mobilizations, what Jorge calls “permanent mobilizations” of the social movements throughout the country, like the gathering this past weekend in nearby Silvia, to oppose the privatization of water, will all be eclipsed by the July 20th media event.

“The nationwide actions of Colombia’s vital social movements will also be eclipsed by the “War on Terror” between a military of 500,000 and a guerrilla of 30,000 and those in the social movement who push too hard will be included by the government in the list of the “terrorist.” “Capitalism is in crisis: it’s no longer turning a profit. Where there’s no crisis, there’s no profit. So it always needs a crisis, doesn’t it? And so it has conveniently concocted “terrorism” as the new crisis, and it attempts to link the social movements to this enemy,” Jorge says.

Jorge’s views are consistent with statements by Professor Mario Morales, interviewed in the current issue of the Colombian weekly, “Polo.” He says that, in the absence of a real ideology, those supporting Uribe today can only make the argument that “ ‘now we can go out to our place in the country, and before, we couldn’t,’ as if all the country could travel or had country homes and vehicles… It’s so powerful, this orchestration and simplification,” he says, “that it’s a rule of political propaganda: simplification and the single enemy.”

Nevertheless, the current crisis may be unmanageable, even by such an astute and crafty master of propaganda as President Uribe,  especially given the mobilizations of the social movements in Colombia and throughout Latin America. “Indigenous people everywhere are rising up,” Jorge says. “In Chile, the Mapuches are demanding their land. Look at Bolivia, Mexico, Ecuador. In Venezuela indigenous rights are finally being recognized. All over Latin America, there’s real possibility for change. We don’t always have to be in crisis. People are beginning to wake up. The desperate cry of the original people (originarios) is awakening people to the authoritarian aspirations of the governments of the world. There’s hope. This is what the indigenous movement of Cauca offers: the recomposition of authority, the recomposition of social participation, the recomposition of seeds, the recomposition of markets based on an exchange of values and not of prices,” referring in the last instance to the new markets developed in Cauca based on trade without the use of money.

In particular, the social movements of Colombia have distinct contributions to offer the continent in the wake of the 1991 constitution when a space was opened in Colombian society to the indigenous people, thanks in large part to demobilized guerrillas of the M-19 (April 19th Movement) like Navarro Wolf and others who contributed to the writing of the document. “Unlike other countries in Latin America which are still copying the European model of building party structures, Colombia, starting with the indigenous movement, is building a movement at the base, by means of the power of community, political projects build from the community in which the decision of the community will be the decision of the government. You find this same thing in the Zapatista writings, as well as the Landless Movement (MST) in Brazil.”

“You might not hear much about Cauca because most of what is happening here isn’t visible.” Jorge pauses and smiles. “But our movement is very much alive.”

Clifton Ross, translator and co-editor with Ben Clarke of "Voice of Fire: Communiques and Interviews from the Zapatista National Liberation Army," is the writer and director of "Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out," a feature-length documentary released May 20 of this year and available from PM Press (www.pmpress.org). He can be reached at clifross1@yahoo.com

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