Change? S?:
Latin America points the way for progressive politics, and the NACLA Report is on the story
?By Joseph Hart, Utne Reader

When the Democratic Party wrestled a slim majority in Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, the punditry was quick to pronounce it a 'revolution.' But while lefties may have raised a hopeful fist on election night, nobody could legitimately claim that the shift in power stemmed from an energetic, organized, dedicated grassroots movement.

Latin America is a different story. The flourishing progressive political climates of Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Nicaragua represent, to varying degrees, the triumph of decades of political organizing.

'Overall, these changes were a long time coming,' explains Teo Ballv?, editor of the NACLA Report on the Americas, a bimonthly magazine that publishes some of the best reporting on the region. 'Progressive groups have been engaged in movement building and political organizing for decades. During the '70s and '80s, there was a leash on those organizations, because they were under the U.S.-supported right-wing governments. Now that more space is being afforded those groups, there have been dramatic gains.'

The NACLA Report offers its readers a front-row view of these changes. The magazine is the primary work of the North American Congress on Latin America, an organization founded in 1966 to provide an alternative to the mainstream media's coverage of President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic. The NACLA Report's formula is to uphold academic standards of research and sourcing, but to deliver the information in writing that anyone can understand.