Latin America

Venezuela Solidarity Symposium

Ethan — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:20:27 -0400

A gathering in Washington DC examines Venezuela's practices of participatory democracy.

ALBA: Regional Alternative to Neoliberalism

Ethan — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:59:39 -0500

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is aimed at striking a major blow against US hegemony, the IMF, the World Bank, "free" trade, and neo-liberalism in general. By Shawn Hattingh.

Nueva Vida Women's Sewing Co-op In Danger!

Ethan — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:42:13 -0500

For those not familiar with Cooperative Maquiladora Mujeres de Nueva Vida (COMAMNUI) please visit www.jhc-cdca.org.

Dear Friends,

We urgently need your voice NOW! Someone is trying to steal our land, and we need you to write in our support!

We normally don't write this kind of emergency letter, but this time it's critical that you know now, pass the word, and respond. The volume of international response will have a strong effect. There is a sample letter below with an email address.

Harmony Agricultural Cooperative Fights Exclusion In Brazil

Ethan — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:37:09 -0500

By Mario Osava, www.ipsnews.net

Free Software & Solidarity Economy In Colombia

Ethan — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:28:13 -0500

By David Jacovkis, www.freesoftwaremagazine.com

Build It Now: Socialism For the 21st Century

Ethan — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:15:06 -0500

Michael A. Lebowitz. Built It Now: Socialism for the 21st Century. Monthly Review Press, 2000.

A book review by Frank Lindenfeld

What would a humanist, participatory "socialism for the 21st century" look like? In this short book, Michael Lebowitz shares his vision and asserts that the Chavez administration has embarked on transforming Venezuela into such a society through its Bolivarian Revolution.

Argentina's Unemployed Workers Movement: A Traveler's Report

Ethan — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:02:31 -0500

By Matt Feinstein

For a total of twelve months between 2003 and 2005, I lived and worked with the Unemployed Workers' Movement of Solano (MTD-Solano) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was an experience that fundamentally changed the way I think about community organizing and activism; I continue to search for ways to put those ideas into practice. This article is an attempt to share these experiences, and to let you know about a new video-workshop tool that aims to deepen the exchange between organizers around the world.

Forward from the book "SIN PATRON: Stories from Argentina's Worker-Run Factories

Ethan — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:55:44 -0500

By Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis

On March 19, 2003, we were on the roof of the Zanon ceramic tile factory, filming an interview with Cepillo. He was showing us how the workers fended off eviction by armed police, defending their democratic workplace with slingshots and the little ceramic balls normally used to pound the Patagonian clay into raw material for tiles. His aim was impressive. It was the day the bombs started falling on Baghdad.

Worker Self-management Threatened at the HOTEL BAUEN in Buenos Aires

Ethan — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:53:31 -0500

By Maria Trigona

Inside the BAUEN Hotel, one of Argentina's worker-run workplaces, janitors, repairmen, receptionists and maids sit in an assembly with worried but determined faces and sheets of paper in hand. Each of the workers, some of whom have been working at the hotel since it was built in 1978, hold a court ordered eviction notice, a judicial document notifying the workers they must abandon the hotel or police will force them to leave.

Cooperativization As Alternative to Globalizing Capitalism

Ethan — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:48:08 -0500

By Betsy Bowman & Bob Stone, GEO Collective

This Occasional Paper by editor/activists at Grassroots Economic Organizing is meant to stimulate dialog on the future of the grassroots economic democracy movement. This is a fully re-written update of an essay available since 1994 to GEO readers. We hope for wide use of this text, with attribution to the authors and GEO. Please email us with ideas/dialogue.

Our goal is more than simple options for individual improvement. It is more. If the co-operative enterprise does not serve for more, the world of work has the right to spit in our faces.
- Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta (Quoted by MacLeod 1997)