In the struggle to stop the I-69 highway, I have heard men and women of all ages emphatically proclaim that they would lie down in front of bulldozers before allowing the highway through our town. Well, this summer they may have those opportunities.

Activists from across the country are converging on Bloomington to stop construction of this NAFTA superhighway. In fact, direct action is already underway. On Thursday, a group of 10 activists biked out to the I-69 section planning office, amid the west-side sprawl, in the middle of an office park that includes a store called "Affordable Dentures."

The scene was rather surreal, activists chanting slogans and beating makeshift drums surrounded by maps of the new highway emblazoned with the words "Corridor 4." As they left, biking across the bridge, a police officer stopped them, delivering a trespassing advisory. When asked why they had done what they did, one activist said, "INDOT has shut down comment on this highway. We were exercising our constitutional right to dissent on property owned by us as citizens of a democratic government." They were let go with a warning.

Roadless summer activists are seeking to create an "atmosphere of un-plan-ability" for these office workers and surveyors of the route. During later summer months, over a hundred activists are expected to come from all across the U.S. to join in the struggle.

Bloomington has become a flashpoint for the highway. Diligent organizing on the parts of farmers and landowners has built a strong political force in opposition to the highway. But they have literally been told by INDOT that they do not count.

The goal of the Roadless Summer campaign is to empower and unite the Bloomington activist community in nonviolent direct action.

After the action at the section planning office, I talked with Pilar, a local Roadless Summer activist whose grandmother lost her farm to the construction of the I-64 interstate. She is motivated by concern for the 400 homes and farms that will be razed by the highway, as well as the forests.

All of the Roadless Summer activists also share a view of the I-69 highway as part of a big picture. Monica, a shy young woman from Minneapolis, spent time touring the trouble spots of Latin America with her activist parents as a child. She sees this issue in terms of global politics.

The I-69 highway is actually a part of a larger highway plan that will run from Canada through the U.S. to connect with highways that continue all the way through Mexico to the southern tip of Central America: Panama City. I-69 is a part of Plan Pueblo Panama (PPP), a free trade agreement encompassing all the countries through which the highway runs. PPP is modeled after NAFTA.

Much of the discussion in the action's wake revolved around the effects of free trade. Pilar cited a Jobs With Justice report that documents the impacts NAFTA has had on Indiana workers: the state has lost 31,000 jobs to factories which have moved to Mexico. The average Mexican worker has seen a cut of roughly 70 percent in combined paycheck power and amount since NAFTA began.

NAFTA is bad for both American and Mexican workers.

Sitting on the couch, Eryk and Monica explained how the highway will take jobs south to Mesoamerica and move products north to the U.S. The jobs will move to fenced-in factories called "Free Trade Zones," where unionization is illegal and environmental regulations do not apply. Many of these "Free Trade Zones" already exist in Central America.

An activist nicknamed "Tickle" told me that to build these "Free Trade Zones," as well as the highways and power grids that support them, indigenous people are being forced off their traditional land holdings in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras.

In El Salvador and Guatemala, death squads have killed activists for resisting PPP highway projects. So to them, this highway truly is a matter of life or death.

In Mexico, because of a NAFTA clause, indigenous people have had their traditional holdings dissolved, even though those holdings are guaranteed to them by their constitution.

And, as always, I marvel at the discrepancy between the world of words and the world of realities, the ideas that words like "free trade" conjure up and what those words actually mean for those people affected by the policies.

To "Tickle," the I-69 highway is a tangible symbol of all these things, something in our everyday lives that we can access and effect. This summer will be the Roadless Summer for Bloomington, a summer which will prove that the Indiana Department of Transportation cannot ignore public comment and bury the facts in mountains of paperwork, nor can they hide their corruption within an opaque institution.

We live in a democracy, and that means that our comment period does not expire when a deceitful organization says it does. And justice is never silent until injustice is gone.

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