Pro-Morales Rally in La Paz, Bolivia in May, 2008

Total Recall in Bolivia: Divided Nation Faces Historic Vote

Pro-Evo Morales Rally
In early July in Sicaya, Cochabamba, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that if he wins the August 10 recall vote on his presidency, "I'll have two and half years left." But if he loses the vote, "I'll have to go back to the Chapare" to farm coca again. Though the recall vote is likely to favor Morales, it's unclear if it will resolve many of the divided nation's conflicts.

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Nonviolent Action & the Road to Independence

Each year, as fireworks celebrate the Declaration of Independence and people discuss how the United States began, the spotlight normally turns to "revolutionary" leaders and the "armed struggle" waged more than two centuries ago. But as usual, the real story is a bit different. The movement toward independence in the "new world" actually began a decade before the "shot heard round the world" and involved thousands of people. By the time things turned violent, substitute governments and firm alliances were operating in nine colonies.

No Picture

This Brave Nation: Two Generations of Hope

Source: The Nation

In a Lower Manhattan apartment, one of the greatest living musicians and activists sat down with one of the country’s most effective young grassroots leaders. Pete Seeger, with a list of awards and honors longer than the neck on his famed banjo, still works tirelessly at 88 years of age. He spoke with Majora Carter, the young and indefatigable founder of Sustainable South Bronx, an organization that is re-shaping the neighborhood of her youth through pioneering green-collar economic development projects, about the environmental work he has worked at for more than forty years. And while he’s at it, he also finds time to sing a couple songs, demanding the film crew sing along, because it’s not nearly as much fun singing to someone as it is singing with someone. read more

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Interview: Speaking with Hugo! author Bart Jones

Bart Jones is the author of Hugo! The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution (Steerforth, New Hampshire 2007). Jones lived in Venezuela from 1992 to 2000, working initially as a Maryknoll lay missioner and then as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press. He now lives in Long Island, New York with his wife and two children. The book has also just been released in the UK and will soon be published in Brazil in Portuguese.   

The Colombia Three

Book Review: Colombia Jail Journal

The Colombia Three
For nearly three years, Sinn Fein activist James Monaghan was held inside various Colombia jails, along with two other Sinn Fein supporters, and falsely charged by the Colombian army, the U.S. State Department and the British government with having spent his time in Colombia giving military training to FARC guerrillas.  In Colombia Jail Journal Monaghan both tells what life was like for "The Colombia Three" inside Colombia's prisons and exposes how the Colombian government, the U.S. Embassy and the UK government fabricated their case against the three Irish Republicans, who were ultimately found innocent by a Colombia court judge of "training FARC guerrillas in Colombia."

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Citizen Nader: From Prophet to Punch Line

When Ralph Nader announced his fourth bid for the US presidency on NBC in February 2004, shortly after Howard Dean's insurgent Democratic campaign imploded, he described his goal as building a "second front" in the fight to defeat George W. Bush. "Can we tolerate four more years of Bush," he asked rhetorically, answering with a no. In a June letter to contributors, he wrote, "No one wants to defeat George W. Bush more than I do."