Educating public, Congress
All of us in the Latin America Solidarity Movement—-and that’s probably over 4000 groups in the US (INTERCONNECT’s mailing list has been over 2000 separate groups in all 50 states, all working in solidarity with the people of some part of Latin America)…We all know that one of our most important functions is education of the public and of Congress. My question is…How do we do it better? We do pretty well with crises: particularly in the Central America solidarity days we could amass 300,000 marchers in DC over and over…against the war in El Salvador, and to prevent a US invasion of Nicaragua during our Contra War. And one can make the case that we won both of those.
We also do well with other crises: eg, closing the SOA (getting close to victory), getting 5 nations to stop sending troops to the SOA.
A delegation here in Rochester NY changed our Congressperson’s views of ending the US Embargo of Cuba.
But we don’t ever seem to get the public or Representatives in Congress to understand the situation more deeply. We activists don’t need to be reeducated about the deeper thinking about US-Latin American affairs —especially the economics but also about the poverty, indigenous people’s rights, how our colleagues in the South feel about “democracy”, religion, ownership of a country’s natural resources (not US corporations!). But I’m not aware that many of us can more deeply educate others.
What works with you? Taking an official along on a delegation for a week in Latin America? Regular visits with updates for your Congressperson about Latin Amer. affairs? Educating the staffs?
Please share your successes. —-Peter
— Peter Mott
