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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>
> All comments and criticisms are welcome. <[log in to unmask]>
>
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>
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