Category: Social Movements

An Interview with Celia Martinez of the Worker-Controlled Brukman Textile Factory in Buenos Aires

An Interview with Celia Martinez of the Worker-Controlled Brukman Textile Factory in Buenos Aires

Conducted by Benjamin Dangl 8/29/05 printer-friendly version One day before Argentina’s economic crash on December 19, 2001, fifty-two workers from the Brukman Textile Factory, the majority of them women, refused to continue working until their bosses handed over their back-wages. Plagued by debt and gradual bankruptcy, the owners hadn’t paid the workers their weekly pay…

Read More Read More

Argentina: Hope in Hard Times

Argentina: Hope in Hard Times

By Benjamin Dangl 7/25/05 “Imagine you lost your job and the government closed down the banks, so you couldn’t get out your savings. What would you do?” asks the narrator of the new film, Argentina: Hope in Hard Times. In the case of Argentina’s economic crisis in 2002, the situation brought about a renewal in…

Read More Read More

Bolivia on a Tightrope

Bolivia on a Tightrope

by Benjamin Dangl 6/8/05 On June 6th 2005, after months of steady road blockades and protests demanding the nationalization of the country’s natural gas reserves, President Carlos Mesa offered his resignation to congress, explaining he was incapable of presiding over such a tumultuous country. This was one of many climactic points in a series of…

Read More Read More

Feet to the Flames: Tabaré Vázquez Elected in Uruguay

Feet to the Flames: Tabaré Vázquez Elected in Uruguay

by Benjamin Dangl 3/24/05 On March 1, 2005, the night Tabaré Vázquez was inaugurated as President of Uruguay, a sea of people, flags and drum brigades surged through the streets of Montevideo. Fireworks pounded the air and car horns shrieked. The city bubbled with a cathartic happiness. In Uruguay, 30 per cent of the population…

Read More Read More

Occupy, Resist, Produce: Worker Cooperatives in Argentina

Occupy, Resist, Produce: Worker Cooperatives in Argentina

by Benjamin Dangl 3/6/05 During the economic crisis of 2001, when politicians and banks failed, many Argentines took matters into their own hands. Poverty, homelessness and unemployment were countered with barter systems and grassroots, micro-credit lending programs. Community groups were created to provide solidarity, food and support in neighborhoods across the country. Perhaps the most…

Read More Read More

Samba and Revolution: Dispatches from the International Youth Camp at the 2005 World Social Forum

Samba and Revolution: Dispatches from the International Youth Camp at the 2005 World Social Forum

By Benjamin Dangl 2/5/05 Samba, reggae and drum music pounded at the air above a sea of nylon tents. Earnest discussions sizzled in the steaming heat; people mopped sweat off their foreheads as sporadic protests clamored past. In the eclectic, globalized stew of the fifth annual International Youth Camp, 35,000 people from around the planet…

Read More Read More

An Interview with Leslie Cagan

An Interview with Leslie Cagan

Conducted by Benjamin Dangl and Andrew Kennis 9/20/04 Upside Down World Leslie Cagan is the national coordinator of the anti-war coalition United For Peace and Justice, (www.UnitedForPeace.org) which has been one of the main organizers of anti-war rallies since before the Iraq war began. We spoke with her on August 30th, the day after the…

Read More Read More