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In his film South of the Border, Oliver Stone dreamed of the potential for the progressive movements taking hold in Central and South America to visit U.S. shores. This idea may be far fetched, but it is optimistic.

One has to keep in mind that it is a country’s often middle and upper classes, generally the disaffected groups when populist leaders ascend to power, who have the resources to travel Stateside. The poor aren’t rushing to the U.S. for college, work or because family resources provide for such luxuries. Nice idea, though.

While Stone provides a tantalizing if not pragmatic look at leaders like Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Lula da Silva, Cristina Kirchner and Raul Castro, among others, another film worth revisiting discusses how national populism is applied.

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“What do you read for fun” is indubitably one of those questions for which answers are reserved for fiction writing, Garfield and celebrity gossip magazines. Fun. Harmless a word, though loaded with assumptions.

How fiction ended up among cartoons and whispering about pop stars in the kingdom of frolic is largely the purview of large commercial presses, more than happy to serve up enough romance hokum, serial killer mysteries and made-for-wannabe- angsty-indie-film pap to keep lots of people happy while besmirching Eduardo Galeano’s presence in the process. Even political fiction, stories of a particular context and story arc, is a victim to profit demands. Thus North American political fiction is generally occupied by FBI staffers, legislators and spies. Chalk the agent/double agent popularity in U.S. political fiction up to authors who seemingly write for the lucrative world of film rights as well as an audience. Patriotism most certainly plays into this genre as well.

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Visually delectable and politically pointed, Signal: 01 bills itself as “an ongoing book series to documenting and sharing political graphics, creative projects and the cultural production of international resistance and liberation struggles.” Lofty much?

In all seriousness, all you need to know is that Signal: 01 is a beautiful chronicle of political posters, fliers and rebel art, along with incisive interviews with the artists who made them.

Edited by Alex Dunn and Josh MacPhee, Signal: 01 is anchored by a fabulous interview with Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes and Favianna Rodriguez, three artists creating the most important works galvanizing the movements against Arizona’s SB 1070. No doubt those familiar with other upsurges have seen their efforts, though. From Palestine solidarity to urban farming, Barraza, Cervantes and Rodriguez have created the most iconic pieces since Emory Douglas took up the pen for the Black Panther Party. Though the interview was conducted before the Southwest struggle came to full boil, the trio talk about the process of art development, their diverse range of campaigns for which they have created art, and, as Cervantes puts it, the role of the artist as organizer.

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Restaurants serve millions of plates of food each year. Even as food service technology gets more modern and state-of-the-art, many traditions of the food service industry have held sway over the world of wait staff and cooks for years, virtually unchanged. Maybe, as the old adage goes, exposing ancient and troubled eatery practices with the light of transparency can force change. Though Abolish Restaurants: A Worker’s Critique of the Food Service Industry (PM Press, 2010) argues for an end to eating establishments, wide reading of this book could inspire something altogether different: reforms in how things are done.

In this persuasive chapbook, author Prole.Info utilize words and illustrations to tell two intriguing parallel stories: first, what the food service industry entails for those who work in the restaurants themselves, and then, the political and social implications of eating establishments on local economies and working people.

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From 1980 to 1992, the Central American country of El Salvador was embroiled in a civil war between the military-led government and the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional. The United States supported the Salvadoran government under the guise of anti-Communism and, according to many human rights groups, lent aid to paramilitary death squads in the process. Thousands died before officials and guerrillas signed peace accords and the FMLN became a recognized political party. Today, the FMLN has only recently ascended to power.

Maria’s Story: A Documentary Portrait Of Love And Survival In El Salvador’s Civil War, a newly reissued DVD of the documentary released some 20 years ago, tells the story of Maria Serrano, an activist and mother engaged in the armed struggle of the period on the side of the FMLN. Serrano, a onetime campesino organizer pushed into the revolution by government repression of the citizenry, gives a very personal account of El Salvador’s fight for resources for the poor. If you told her years ago she would be carrying a gun and leading military operations for the FMLN, Serrano says, she might have thought you crazy. But as the government became more intolerant and violent, hundreds of Salvadorenas and Salvadorenos linked up with revolutionaries in hopes of a better life and an end of measures that strangled with country’s underclass.

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