" This 'Year Zero' mindset"

from Jesse Freeston of The Real News Network

Hello from Washington, DC.

Not going to take up much of your time, but here is my video report from El Salvador in response to Barack Obama´s announcement at the past weekend´s "Summit of the Americas(minus Cuba)" that: "I didn´t come here to debate the past, I came here to deal with the future." This 'Year Zero' mindset may charm North Americans, but as I hope the video demonstrates, in El Salvador, the past in many ways IS the present, and any attempt to move forward without attempting to understand it is futile. So many people are still dealing with the same problems (state violence and poverty, mostly) that they were then, with the same root causes. The piece also takes on the idea that the arrival of leftist governments in Latin America is the result of an international movement, or ´Pink Tide´ as the papers call it. This approach often leaves out the historical experience of each one of these countries, which most people I spoke to (many of which were included in the video) believe is the only explanation for why the left has come to power.

Hope that you like it. It´ll be on the front page (www.therealnews.com) for a few days, after that it will be at: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3587&updaterx=2009-04-20+07%3A53%3A24

Jesse.