As I listen to Olivera one phrase rises above the others — a phrase at the centre of that shift: “la gente.” Translated directly, it simply means “the people.” But punctuated with a history of struggle and the taste of an inevitably better future — as it is when Olivera says it — “la gente” carries meaning beyond its English rendering. There seems to be a davidian confidence spreading amongst the people, a modest momentum that is slowly shifting the locus of power away from national electoral politics. Getting the right guy in power is less and less important, as power increasingly lies elsewhere — a view also portrayed in Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein's The Take. This is not electoral reform, but a bottoms-up reclaiming of democracy.