By Benjamin Dangl Source: Toward Freedom Published on April 20, 2016 Fidel Castro, in an address to the Cuban Communist Party congress yesterday, spoke of his own mortality, mentioning that soon he will be 90, “but the ideas of Cuban communism will endure.” Earlier this week, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was the victim of right wing parliamentary coup efforts;…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on April 11, 2016 Source: Toward Freedom News pointing to global inequality and a lack of democracy has been dominating newspaper headlines in recent days. From the Panama Papers to controversies swirling in the US presidential primaries, a divided world is in crisis. As recent events illustrate, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on February 25, 2016 Source: Toward Freedom Photo by William Wroblewski Bolivian President Evo Morales lost the referendum last Sunday that could have given him the ability to run for re-election in 2019. The margin was small, but the implications are huge: Bolivia’s longest standing and most popular president finally has…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on January 8, 2016 Source: Toward Freedom Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave a campaign speech at the Flynn Theater in downtown Burlington, VT this evening. The event was greeted outside by boisterous protests which denounced Trump’s hate-filled campaign. Benjamin Dangl is the editor of the Burlington-based progressive news and analysis…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on December 7, 2015 Source: Toward Freedom It’s hard to tell before the dust settles, and the situation in each country is unique, but it’s very likely that 2015 will be viewed as a critical year for leftist governments in South America. Chavismo took a blow yesterday in the country’s Parliamentary…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on November 10, 2015 Source: Toward Freedom This month marks five years since the publication of my bookDancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America, (AK Press). Thanks to everyone who has read, borrowed, pirated, or stolen it. The dance with dynamite between social movements and states in Latin…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on April 22, 2015 Source: TeleSUR English By next year, the richest 1% of the world will own more wealth than the rest of the entire population of the planet, according to Oxfam. This is a staggering figure, almost impossible to comprehend. And yet, this fact alone puts into focus a harsh truth:…
By Benjamin Dangl April 13, 2015 Source: Toward Freedom The world lost one of its great writers today. Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano died at age 74 in Montevideo. He left a magical body of work behind him, and his reach is as wide as his continent. During Argentina’s 2001-2002 economic crisis, Galeano’s words walked down…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on March 31, 2015 Source: Toward Freedom A fist fight broke out in a local campesino union office in La Paz one afternoon last April while I was waiting to interview the union’s leaders. The fight was over how funds for government-supported projects were spent. Last week, at a campaign rally for an…
By Benjamin Dangl Published on March 19, 2015 Source: TeleSUR English In 1870, Bolivian dictator Mariano Melgarejo offered an English diplomat a glass of chicha – a corn-based beer consumed for centuries in the Andes. The diplomat refused the drink, asking for chocolate instead. A short-tempered Melgarejo responded by forcing the Englishman to drink a vast…