Hi George,

I sent off e-mails as suggested in your last e-mail and posted both 
that message (without the first part) and this message to the Green 
Party of San Diego County list.  I will also put them on the SDCPJ--San 
Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice--just wasn't thinking fast enough.

I haven't posted anything on the SftP list in some time but I find most 
of the info interesting. Nor have I written to you for a while.  You 
told me about the list years ago.   I think when you were on the CERJ 
list. I thank you for telling me about it.  I am not a scientist but do 
qualify as a lefty.

Wren Osborn

On Friday, July 20, 2007, at 04:06 PM, George Salzman wrote:

> Oaxaca, la cara del fascismo mexicano, sabado el 20 de julio de 2007
> Oaxaca, the face of Mexican fascism, Saturday the 20th of July 2007
>  
> A Call for International Solidarity
> Oaxaca, Saturday 20 July 2007
>
>      The struggle between the popular movement of rebellion and the 
> governement’s actions to totally crush it is at a critical point. I 
> believe the situation is extremely dangerous for many oaxaqueños. Five 
> days ago the governments (Oaxaca State, Mexican Federal, and I’m sure, 
> fully backed by the United States) planned and executed a successful 
> provocation followed by a savage attack on civilians. The resulting 
> deaths, ferocious beatings, jailings, torture, etc., are by now well 
> documented.
>  
>      Let there be no mistake about it: this is not just a contest 
> between a tyrannical, hated governor and the majority of the 
> population in the state. It is a struggle of the majority of the 
> Oaxacan peoples to gain control of their social lives, to end the 
> exploitation of all the natural resources of the state by the forces 
> of global capitalism and the local and national power elites embedded 
> in and allied to that structure.
>  
>      Yesterday afternoon I saw hundreds of police and military 
> deployed on the large parking area at the side of the periferal 
> highway at Fortin Hill. They were practicing loud screams in unison 
> and manuevers in preparation for the assaults their commanders 
> anticipate on the next two Mondays if elements of the popular movement 
> try to block access to the ‘official’ Guelaguetza by tourists and, no 
> doubt, by Oaxacans forced by the Ulises PRI machine to come in buses 
> to the city to attend these commercial events. URO will pay for the 
> buses, and probably pay the compulsory attendees, as he did a week or 
> so ago when he staged a big PRI election rally at the same stadium, 
> when many indigenous folks from the southern Sierras were bussed in..
>  
>      The popular movement has called for a boycott of the 
> commercialized Guelaguetza. I hope they will not try to blockade the 
> event, and will stay away from all the militarized and heavily armed 
> forces of the governments.
>  
>      Foreigners who are coming to Oaxaca City or are already here can 
> act in solidarity with the popular struggle in various ways.
> 1.Stay away from the Guelaguetza Stadium on both July 23 and July 30, 
> when the government plans to hold its commercialized events.
> 2.Stay at smaller, less expensive places, like hostals and modest 
> hotels instead of putting your vacation money into the hands of the 
> big hotel owners.
> 3.Don’t patronize the elegant tourist-oriented restaurants. You can 
> eat quite safely at small stands in the markets and at street stands 
> if you choose soups or stews, because they are well cooked, or fried 
> foods, which are delicious and are also prepared at high temperatures.
> 4.Try to spend money intended for your travel purchases at small shops 
> and from individual artisans, whose economic difficulties are causing 
> much hardship and who the government helps not at all.
> 5.Tune in as much as you are able to the dynamics of what is going on 
> here so that when you leave Mexico you can help inform the outside 
> world of the reality through which the Oaxacan peoples are living.
> 6.As a foreigner your very presence here is an additional safeguard 
> for the Oaxacans. I have lived here for almost eight years without 
> ever feeling physically endangered.
>  
>      The struggle here is an important part, an inspirational part of 
> the growing worldwide struggle to change the forms of governing our 
> social lives, to replace the value systems developed and enforced by 
> capitalism, and to forge lives of dignity, health and happiness for 
> all the world’s peoples. What makes the Oaxaca struggle notable is the 
> commitment of strong currents within it to militancy, to non-violence, 
> to non-hierarchical forms of social structure, to cooperation in place 
> of competition, to local autonomy and, as much as possible, to local 
> self-sufficiency.
>
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>
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>
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