Latin American Revolution: New Tactical ApproachThe transition in how revolution occurs in Latin America can be explained by a growing awareness of the inefficiency of modern bureaucracy and/or government. In the past, revolution has occurred primarily through the overthrow of one government and the establishment of another. Today, however, revolution is more cultural—it is rooted more in the living of lives and less in the dynamic of governmental oversight. As Holloway states, “We are flies caught in a spider’s web…We can only try to emancipate ourselves, to move outwards, negatively, critically, from where we are” (Holloway 5). What this means is that it is useless to attempt to act as the spider acts—which is what replacing one government with another essentially signifies in the modern age. The web is what needs to be avoided—and so revolution is now centered on escaping the web—the web of politics, the web of government, the web of bureaucratic hierarchies that are so dysfunctional and corrupt that the only sense in keeping them is so that more “flies” can be caught and killed. A real revolution today in Latin America is one that rejects the web and all that goes with it. This is why communities are mobilizing themselves to resemble the world they wish to see: they are dissatisfied with the options given them. They seek to create their own world, as they wish it to be.

Popular social movements and the establishment of power outside of governmental institutions and political parties is a tactic that represents the popular resentment felt by revolutionary society for the controllers of the Established Order. They see that establishment as nothing more than the oppressors’ way to retain control of society no matter who is in charge. For instance, in Brazil, where corruption has riddled government, there is still the farcical situation...

The entire system is devoid of any real meaning and serves only its own interests. It is not about serving the people who have allegedly elected them to serve. The reality is that the people no longer care for these elections (and this is seen even in the U.S., where only a small percentage of eligible voters actually vote in elections). The prevailing sense is that in order for change to occur, it must occur at a grassroots, cultural level. It must occur at the community level. It is here at the local level that people really come together, interact within one another, and build real environments. They take control of their own lives and destinies instead of submitting to some government whose representatives are miles away, have never known them, and have no real investment in them or care for what happens to them.
Coronil explains that people are motivated by a sense of the “ideal”—by the “ideal future” which drives them to secure for themselves the change in environment and culture that they desperately seek (Coronil 232). They see in their imagined visions of life a better world for tomorrow. While the “global triumph of capitalism” has essentially turned the entire world into a single state, with a few competing emperors vying for control or else seeking a kind of triumvirate at best, local communities are sensing that the moment is at hand to seize control at the local level—which is really the only level that matters. The empire of the world is the new imagined ideal of the capitalist state—of the government as it seeks a broader part in the larger globalized Empire. But the member of the local community has a more realistic sense of life and community: he is not the member of a Parliament or of a governing body—he is the member of a community. He has neighbors and friends and…