July 20, 2011

Wonder Woman Wants Education Reform in Chile Now!

A "protest kiss" during a July education-reform rally in Santiago, Chile.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/horment/5939392774/">Erwin Horment</a>/Flickr

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While Chile’s recent string of student protests has had its fair share of water cannons sprayed and Molotov cocktails hurled, there have been a good deal of bloodless—and downright entertaining—demonstrations as well.

Young Chilean protesters, calling for increased funding for public education and lower university fees, choreographed and staged elaborate song-and-dance routines in the capital, Santiago, this week. The real kicker? The college kids and high schoolers were decked-out in colorful comic book costumes and superhero attire, BBC News reports.

Batman, Superman, Mario, Wonder Woman, Catwoman (who actually looked more like Lady Gaga on a bad morning), Poison Ivy, and a few jolly pirates all made appearances, while C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat” was blasted for good measure.

The protest—the latest in a series of demonstrations that began in June—was organized after news of a cabinet reshuffle by center-right President Sebastián Piñera, whose approval rating has sunk to the low-30s.

Chilean students appear to have a fondness for creative protesting. In early July, students in Concepción orchestrated a mass “kiss-in,” in which 2,000 demonstrators gathered in front of city courts to suck face in support of eliminating for-profit control of their education system. (It was kind of like a larger, less chaotic version of the osculating couple photographed during the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots.)

The only thing that would have made either of these rallies more stimulating was if the Chileans took a cue from Ukrainian protesters and went topless.

Watch footage of the superhero-dance-protest below:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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