Americas (South & North)

My friend Kole will, like CP Pandya, occasionally be contributing insightful commentary to this blog. Kole is just what we need more of - an activist with lots of ideas and energy, who already knows a lot and is always learning more. Just back from spending 10 months in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, where Kole ran the blog Into the Middle East. Kole is also a collaborator on the once and future En Camino site.

Hoping to unwind, I went and watched 'Alexander', which turned out to be a mistake. I like historical epics. It is true that they are violent, and full of stereotypes, and not usually progressive in their politics. But I like them anyway, mostly I think because I am interested in history and like to see ancient periods shown on film. I watched 'Troy', for example, and liked it. But Alexander was really bad.

The plan is to be on the road until Tuesday afternoon, but I might be able to blog from the road.

Yesterday I attended an action by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, which is a community antipoverty organization based in Toronto. OCAP does advocacy work, "direct action casework" to help poor people access their rights to welfare, immigration, housing, or workplace compensation. It also does mass mobilizations to try to open housing and, importantly, build political pressure for more systemic solutions to the problem of homelessness and poverty in the city of Toronto.

We interrupt coverage of the Fallujah massacre for some notes on blowing up the world.

But first, a note from the Black Commentator's excellent editorial on the US election. The Black Commentator is less surprised than most about the 'rise' of the Christian fundamentalist right in the US:

It is actually a familiar enemy, drawn from the same “stock” that have cut off their economic noses to spite Black faces since the end of the Civil War. They were once the Dixiecrat base, who then became the southern Republican base, and are now tied together with similar white elements throughout the country by interlocking networks of churches and the Republican Party. The corporate media feign surprise and fascination at the emergence of this huge group of whites – a posture that strikes many Blacks as disingenuous, since those of us with southern roots know that crowd all too well. According to the Washington Post’s David Broder, “the exit poll indicated that about 22 percent of [Tuesday's] voters were white evangelical or born-again Christians, three-quarters of whom went for Bush.” That amounts to about one-third of Bush’s total national vote.

The Bush constituency has deep social, cultural, and political roots in the country. But recognizing that, the Black Commentator goes on to note that the black community remains united against that strand of American political culture as it has always been and has more potential white allies than it ever has. Check it out, since I'm going to move on to "missile defense" now.

The world didn't get to vote in the US elections. And of course, as much as the election was a referendum on Bush-ism, the election was not a referendum on the occupation of Iraq or imperialism or capitalist globalization or support for Israel or paramilitaries in Colombia or destabilization in Venezuela or ecological devastation and climate change... since those are priorities that transcend anything anybody gets to vote for in the US or for the US.

I wrote a piece with some obvious stuff in it a couple of days ago and got some interesting hate mail, some bizarre reactions from outlets ranging from the Socialist Worker to the Globe and Mail. There is a whole lot more to say about the United States, its political culture, and the possibilities (or lack thereof). But this blog is mostly about the world outside of the United States, and there are things going on in that world that need to be reported on.

For example, if you want an analysis of an important election, take a look at Jonah Gindin's article at venezuelanalysis.com that analyzes the very interesting and positive results of local elections in Venezuela. As usual, the world is flipped upside down in Venezuela, where popular movements have surged from one victory to another. The local victories put the Bolivarian movement in a much stronger position to put forward its reforms, particularly land reforms, and gives local activists fewer headaches about repression at the local level.

And in case you needed a reminder that not everything is Venezuela. The remarkale Colombian union activist Alex Lopez and member of Congress, who I interviewed over a year ago, has had a threat against his life advertised by paramilitaries. Paramilitaries have killed a lot of unionists, and they are threatening to kill Lopez. Imagine a sitting member of Congress in the United States getting assassinated by killers working with the American Army. Hard to picture? Maybe because there is no one in the US Congress that is the kind of dissident activist that Lopez is. And maybe because life under US controlled domains is different from life in the US itself. The events, as reported by the UK Colombia Solidarity Campaign:

I mostly wrote that "morning after" piece of yesterday because I was surfing around the morning after, going to all my usual sites and blogs, and nobody had written anything. So I forced myself to write something, because I thought of all the people like me who would be depressed and wondering if radicals had anything to say.

Seems like it's basically over.

The last time I spent a late night biting my nails watching an election, I was in Venezuela observing the referendum. Like the US elections of November 2, the outcome was important not only to the people who voted, but to the whole world. There were, however, some differences.

In Venezuela, the voting machines were the same in every polling station.

One day away from the election. This is definitely the moment when everything else is completely drowned out. Do we blame the media or ourselves, for shutting out things like the fact that the UN is overseeing the massacre of Haitians in residential neighbourhoods (if you want to take advantage of this moment to invest in Haiti, there's a delegation you can go on. I'm sure the Haitians will be thrilled for the opportunity.

I'm on the road until Halloween. May be able to blog from the road but I'm not sure. If not, see you in a few days...