Guatemala!

who has plane tickets to Guatemala... Cassie does! spanish immersion, as well as first independent project on unions. exciting and scary all at once. my new internship is with the International Labor Rights Forum, and I have been accepted into grad school (yay!) so I actually have a title, per se, rather than 'concerned citizen'. I already contacted some people saying i was interested in writing an article on their work and would like to set up an interview. Easy as pie! I want to do justice to the project though rather than just an experiment, so I have been frantically trying to research the latest news with labor unions, etc. I will be there May 1st... workers of the world unite! So my labor rights focus happens to be timely with my cheap tickets, and long held desire to visit Guatemala. I am torn between devoting my efforts to the historical memory project, or the effects of CAFTA and rise in union member violence. Obviously, as beginner I cannot be expected to report new news, but rather to amplify the voices.
And, I can always fall back on reality - conduct an interview simply as a concerned citizen, and ask questions such as 'what significance does May 1st hold... what do you see for the future...?
I am reading on what Cato has to say about CAFTA to get a sense of measurement. The higher Cato rates it - the more bullshit it is.

Of other importance, but no less significant: I am taking two online courses 1. worker factory takeovers in Argentina, and the other on the economic crisis, its roots, and how it is affecting the global south. The latter is beyond my comprehension to contribute to the discussions, but interesting nonetheless. Thoughts of 'fictitious capital' keeps me awake at night. They answer my questions such as...can someone explain the housing bubble in baby babble please! and lovingly and gently, the radical leftist intellectual community has taken me under its wing. initial responses...

"You have put your finger on a fundamental difference between a materialist/Marxist analysis and a mainstream one. Marx argued that value was objective – the value of something was determined by the amount of labour time that it took to produce it. Mainstream economists say its all subjective – the value is what someone says its worth. It makes the interpretation of the current crisis quite different."

This reminded me instantly of Dostoyevsky - the man underground, and the ice castle. That no matter how silly our desires our, we still may want it. I believe that worth is extremely subjective. Whether its a house, a candy bar, or a jar of nutella that sells quite expensively in Colombia to an exclusively foreign crowd. A house for some is worth more than a house for others, regardless of the actual labor time it took to complete it. A better example might be coin collectors - why pay $20 for an old nickle? its only worth that much if someone is willing to pay that much. So the problem is not with the houses alone, per se, but with the idea behind them. That the mortages are what are not worth what they are then being packaged off and sold for. hmmm. i do not hold myself responsible for any statements made, as they will be changed probably within the week...