Upside Down Notebook

Benjamin Dangl, an editor at Upside Down World, and author of the book “The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia,” is teaching the following class at Burlington College in Vermont for the fall semester, starting September 2, 2008. It would be great to have some Upside Down World readers in the class if you are in the area.

GLOBALIZATION AND PIRATES
COR/IAS370
Instructor: Benjamin Dangl
3 credits
Wednesdays 3:00 - 6:00 pm
At Burlington College (www.Burlington.edu)

DESCRIPTION: From 18th century pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read to the World Trade Organization, this class will examine the roots and rise of globalization through economic theory and pirate history. By looking at historical parallels between the global economy and piracy, we will address the following questions: How did labor organization on standard Atlantic merchant ships compare to the work environment of pirate ships in the 18th century? How did the globalization of culture and language on Caribbean pirate ships and communities compare to globalization in the world’s major cities throughout the 19th century? While dissecting the inner workings of the 20th century corporation, free trade agreement and international lending institution, we will examine the modern day pirates and social movements that have risen up against these global powerhouses. From indigenous hip-hop in the Andes and International Monetary Fund policies in India to pirated computer software in Paraguayan street markets and sweatshops in Thailand, we will look at the winners and losers of globalization.

Interested in taking this class or auditing it? Contact Sandy Baird Email: sbaird(at)burlington.edu or call Burlington College 800-862-9616

Visit http://burlington.edu/

April 24, ITHACA, NY: At Ithaca College: Earth Week talk by Benjamin Dangl, author of ‘The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia”; 7 p.m., Textor 102. A map of campus can also be found at: http://www.ithaca.edu/map/
(Textor is #4). (call (484) 213-4811 or email akronhe1@gmail.com for more information)

May 4, NEW PALTZ, NY: 7 p.m. at New Paltz Village Hall on Plattekill Ave.
Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has close relations with socialist President Hugo Chavez in neighboring Venezuela, and is considered a friend of Cuba, has been walking on a political high wire since he took office two years ago. While supported by the majority of Bolivians, including virtually all the country’s indigenous people, he has incurred the wrath of a sector of the smaller but powerful bourgeoisie and its supporters. Uncle Sam is also concerned, of course, and the possibility of a future U.S. destabilization effort cannot be ruled out. Journalist and website editor (UpsideDownWorld.org) Ben Dangl — who authored the book “The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia” — will discuss the political situation in Bolivia and future prospects. He will also comment on the results of the impending April 20 elections in Bolivia’s other neighbor, Paraguay. (Dangl received a Project Censored Award for coverage of the U.S. military presence in Paraguay.) The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at New Paltz Village Hall on Plattekill Ave., one block south of Main St. (Rt. 299), a mile or so west of Thruway exit 18. (When you reach Starbucks corner, Plattekill Ave., turn south one block. It’s just past the firehouse on the right.) Park in the Village Hall parking lot. All are invited and it’s free. A potluck dinner begins at 6 p.m. for those who wish to partake. Information and directions, (845) 255-5779 or email jacdon@earthlink.net.

For more information on Ben Dangl’s book, “The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia”, visit www.boliviabook.com

[Photo: Our car in Madison, WI during Spring 2007 Book Tour]
This month marks a year that The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press, 2007) left the presses and headed out into the world to take on a life of its own. Readers of this blog may remember the following thoughts during a book tour right after The Price of Fire was released in March, 2007: “As we head down this road, the book takes on a life of its own. I feel like it is a third passenger in the car, rattling around in its box in the back seat. … this all makes me think I am in the back seat, and maybe the book is in the front, with its hands on the wheel, driving the car.” Last September, the book went into a second printing and will soon be published in Tamil (in India) and Spanish. A number of reviews have been written about the book, all linked to at www.boliviabook.com.

Since The Price of Fire hit the bookstores I’ve received hundreds of notes from readers around the globe. While most offered comments about the contents of the book, others told stories about how the book entered and interacted with their lives. One reader wrote to say that the book was on the back of the toilet seat when her toddler woke up early one morning raising havoc and ended up knocking the book into the toilet. Another stumbled upon it at a friend’s house in Bolivia, while someone else lost a bag of the books in a flight from Vancouver to San Francisco (who knows in whose hands those books are now). Others have spotted it at random used bookstores, while some have passed it on to friends and strangers.

This reminds me of a story I read in Harper’s Magazine a while back, which Times Online also relates: in 1992, 30,000 plastic toy ducks “were released into the Pacific Ocean when a container was washed off a cargo ship … Two thirds of them floated south through the tropics, landing months later on the shores of Indonesia, Australia and South America. But 10,000 headed north and by the end of the year were off Alaska and heading back westwards. It took three years for the ducks to circle east to Japan, past the original drop site and then back to Alaska on a current known as the North Pacific Gyre before continuing north towards the Arctic.”

However, books don’t float as well as rubber ducks. Some have lives that lead them to the bottom of a lake, like the one in this drawing:

The sunlight in La Paz at dawn makes the old city look young. The taxi we’re in has camouflage seat covers. A lone bus roars through an empty intersection with a phrase painted on the back of it: “My blood is a river that carries your name.”

A broken blender is for sale at the market in El Alto. A drunken man stumbles through puddles, half-dancing to the morning’s cumbia music. Vendors unpack used clothes from the US, boxes of candy, arming their day.

Ancient stains are all over the pink blanket on the bed in the Cochabamba hotel. The rain pounds down hard, drowning out all other noise so it’s as though the city doesn’t exist anymore, just the rain: the street outside fills with water and floating garbage.

The mountains are bigger than the soccer stadium we’re sitting in. The white smoke from the sausage stand mixes with the red smoke of smoke bombs that go off each time a goal is scored. Drums from the crowd sound like thunder in the light rain. A bag of peanuts sails through the air, just missing the referee “de mierda carajo.”

The sidewalk on La Paz’s Prado is shiny with heavy use. All the city’s lights are on. The air is heavy with exhaust. A small boy strums a charango, singing for pesos in the cold night.

Tubas belch. Dogs howl. Synthesized music is elastic and snaps against the apartment windows. The sudden shock of fireworks crashes in the street. A child screams, a baby responds with cries. A drunken crowd of party goers sings along to a blasting radio. Not even the car horns can compete with these sounds. We are in an aquarium of noise. The streets are packed with people. All the TV channels are on at once, all the radio stations are turned up at full volume in this neighborhood’s battle of sounds.

We’re sitting on the sidewalk in Cochabamba next to a stand that sells sugary wafers and mangos. We’re waiting for a ride to a town which is inaccessible because of road blockades set up by people protesting the expansion of a nearby landfill. A hat on the street has been ground nearly into dirt by the constant traffic. A car passes with furniture piled five feet high on its roof. A man selling ice cream pushes his cart past, mumbling for buyers as if in prayer. Everything is moving. Everything that’s not moving is covered with dust and dirt. An older woman is in such a hurry to catch her bus that she forgets her big sack of potatoes on the sidewalk. Dogs fight each other in the middle of the road. There is a ham sandwich as big as a truck hovering above the traffic on a billboard. The side of one bus announces its intent: “security, elegance, adventure.”

The street is a reminder of what Italo Calvino said in his book Invisible Cities: “Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes. For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name…”

Early morning in a Sunday market in El Alto, Bolivia.

(Drinking chicha and dancing in Tarata.)

The taxi driver makes out with someone in his cab next to the hamburger stand while teenagers drink warm beer and a street vendor sells “original” pirated versions of E.T. in Spanish. The multi-colored Christmas lights strung around the palm trees play music and blink. On the way to the party, someone is attacked by an angry dog.

To know the countryside is also to know the city because there is a lot of countryside in the city. Cows weave through traffic. Confused roosters respond to car horns. Dogs rule the wilderness of the street at night. In the markets, piles of potatoes, carrots and oranges smell like the earth. The cries of rural campesino movements are spray painted on the sides of city buildings. Everyone is waiting for Pachamama (Mother Earth) to appear. Instead, the billboards, cars and shopping centers grow like weeds through the cement.

(Che sticker holds the window together.)

While getting a haircut in Cochabamba, I am informed that “all politicians and journalists are liars.” At a bar, I am told, “Ah, you’re a journalist! You’ll never run out of stories here in Bolivia. There are more stories in Bolivia than in Iraq!” At an internet café, I am asked “Have you ever heard of Sir Frances Drake? Well, he’s actually buried in Bolivia…” In Heladeria Imperial, the owner stops in his tracks when he sees me eating ice cream at one of his tables: “Why are you serving him?” He yells at a waitress, pointing at me. “The customers that only show up every three months aren’t worth a damn thing!” Elsewhere, a drunken man enters a photo exhibit, kisses an image of Hugo Chavez and yells at characters in the other photos.

Cochabamba’s chicha (alcoholic drink made from fermented corn) is familiar. So are the cheeks stuffed with coca, Marxist theories and the true and friendly “there are no borders” lectures that usually surround buckets of chicha. At one such encounter, there were so many pictures of Che Guevara that one person said, “Che Guevara looks like John Lennon. Maybe they were the same person.” Eventually, even the city starts to look like Pachamama.

These photos are from a recent festival we went to in Tarata, a small town near Cochabamba, Bolivia.

[Chicken in Sorata Graveyard]

If the reggaeton music in the taxi is loud enough, everyone on the sidewalk walks to the beat. Is it raining or is the city sweating? Some people wear plastic bags on their heads.

Layers of graffiti cover La Paz. They tell stories like fossils, geological levels of rock, or pottery from an archeological dig. Here are a few listed in chronological order. The fresh “La Sede No Se Mueve” demands that the capital of Bolivia not be moved from La Paz. “Mesa - hijo de Goni” is from Carlos Mesa’s short lived presidency in 2005, and refers to his similarity to Ex-Prez Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. “Nacionalizacion del Gas Ya,” translates to “Nationalize the Gas Now,” probably from the 2003 Gas War. Another graffiti says, “Corrupto Carajo Fuera Pero Ya,” with the name erased from it. Then there is this one, perhaps older than the wall it was written on: “Jesusteamo” (all one word).

[”Gain culture: steal a book”]

The baby’s crying on the bus is the poverty of the Altiplano vocalized as we ride through it. A white fluffy poodle with a fresh haircut smirks at me from the front seat as a woman eats a juicy mango. We pass Lake Titicaca, passengers snore. The windows fog up and “Hotel California” plays on the bus stereo. Everything begins to look small because the mountains are so big.

[View of mountain from Sorata]

After dark in Sorata (the town where the tragic repression of the 2003 Gas War began) we are greeted by The Cows of the Night, chewing the grass off the soccer field. Across the valley, car headlights move in the mountain forest like submarines in a deep sea. What does it mean when a lone rooster crows hours before dawn?

The red road to the cave is dusty. There are paddle boats in the underground lake. On the way up to another lake (this one way above ground, at over 14,000 feet), we are told that condors do indeed attack cows for food, going first for their eyes. Back in town, most of Sorata is at the Sunday soccer game, which is playing to the beat of the local brass band.

[Game in downtown Sorata]

I will be teaching the following course at Burlington College (in Burlington, Vermont) this coming spring semester. If you are in the area, please sign up for the course and/or spread the word. For information on how you can be in the class, visit the Burlington College website or email me at Bendangl(at)gmail.com It will be an exciting class. I hope some Upside Down World readers participate in it.

The Government Palace and the Street: Convergences in South American History
Instructor: Ben Dangl — Spring Semester, Tuesdays from 11:45-2:45, Undergraduate Level

Course Description: South America has long been a battleground for national governments, foreign corporations, Washington, and protest movements. In this course we will analyze this convergence of political, economic and social power from national independence to recent news headlines. Militarization and state terror will be examined through the lens of dictatorships and the Andean drug wars. We will make connections between the landless farmer movements in Paraguay and Brazil and movements for public control of water in Bolivia and Uruguay. By studying free market policies in Chile and Argentina and socialism in Venezuela we will gain insights into the region’s dominant economic structures. Readings and independent projects will be complemented by documentaries, indigenous hip-hop, feminist graffiti art and South American folk music.

(View in La Paz barrio)
Airports, like bus stations, are a church for those who see travel as a religion. The Manhattan skyline from JFK airport is the jagged edge of a broken bottle. Mojitos are served in the Miami airport, where birds fly indoors and sandwiches are delivered on bicycles. Most travelers look like exhausted robots, up late the night before packing. One guy had a T-shirt that said, “I woke up this morning for this?”

The sweet stink of chicken dinner bounces around the plane. The TV plays static as we cross the equator.

In La Paz, Bolivia, there are child workers everywhere and desperation in many people’s eyes. The street vendors outnumber the buyers, and the wealthy locals and tourists walking through these poor crowds and crumbling buildings.

Old guys down town dress up in suits to sit in the park and talk. Due to the altitude, my brain feels like it is made of cement. I take a seat and chew coca leaves to relieve the pain. The wind picks up, and the strong sun is replaced by clouds. “The weather here changes quickly, like human nature,” someone says with a chuckle. The clouds give way to pouring rain. We find shelter under a nearby roof, where a woman scolds me for chewing coca. “It’s a drug,” she says, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “You’ll get addicted.” After she states she’s of German descent but has always lived in Bolivia, and works as a lawyer, she begins bashing “the horrible Indians in Bolivia that are ruining the country.” A man nearby, still wearing sunglasses in spite of the rain, agrees with her, adding that is doesn’t matter anyway because the apocalypse is coming soon.

The neighborhood we live in is built like a labyrinth, where the dogs eat the garbage at night and the stereo music collides with car horns. The splash of neighbors washing clothes and dogs barking themselves insane disappears into the city traffic.

(City street in Ciudad del Este)
In Ciudad del Este, Paraguay neon Virgin Mary statues reach for the street next to hookahs, sausages, blond wigs, plastic flowers and pirated Rambo movies. We’re offered musical condoms that play salsa, meringue and tango. Heavy blankets with white lions imprinted on them seem ridiculous in the stifling heat. “Do you want something bigger?” one vendor asks, offering up handgun. “I can get bazookas, machine guns, todo.” Spider webs of electric lines weave over the city’s cavernous street markets. Near the Friendship Bridge to Brazil, a chorus of packaging tape fills the air where goods are prepared for transport. Motorcycles gather at the mouth of the bridge like ants overloaded with boxes and bags, zipping off to Brazil.

Left Turn is an excellent resource for grassroots reporting from the trenches of the global justice movement. For years, they have produced a quality magazine that focuses on a variety of hopeful stories as well as a investigative journalism. Now, this magazine is facing the same financial challenges that closed the doors of so many other print publications in the past year, including LiP Magazine, Clamor Magazine, Satya Magazine, Kitchen Sink and Punk Planet, to name a few. As readers and activists, it’s up to us to make sure this media doesn’t disappear. One day we might wake up to find out that our only news outlets are Fox News and USA Today. Don’t let that happen! Visit Left Turn today, check out their updated website and excellent reports, read their fund drive appeal and support this dynamic media project.