LAPD Attacks Immigration Rally

Posted on by Laughingnomad

On May 1 there was a peaceful immigration reform rally in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles when the LAPD, in a downright military style action, swept in and chased everyone, men, women and children, not only out of the park but down several streets…with teargas, batons and rubber bullets. They even attacked journalists, including those from Mexico, destroying one filmmaker’s camera. The FBI has been called in to investigate. Go to YouTube to see amateur videos of the melee. This generation didn’t experience the violent police action of the 60’s…the worst being the killing of five students at Kent State in 1968. I was happy to see the outrage. The brutality was mild compared to what happens in Mexico, but the slope is slippery.

The new immigration bill has been stalled in Congress by a small band of Republicans. Don’t know if I agree with everything David Brooks says this morning in the New York Times but he makes an interesting, if generalized, point.
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June 14 Symbolic Strike

Posted on by Laughingnomad

On June 14, this thursday, there will be a megamarch at 10:00 am (daylight savings time) from the crucero of the aeropuerto to the zocalo.

There will be a symbolic strike encampment in the zocalo, the teachers say 10% of their number, which mean 7000 people. There is no info on how long they plan to stay.

Barricades, installed from 17:30 to 21:00, will be installed in commemoration of last year’s blocking of several major streets.

The Popular Guelaguetza will take place on Cerro del Fortin on July 16.

Tourists!!!: Come for the Popular Guelaguetza, it’s free!

Below is an excerpt from the historic chronicle of the movement, translated by Nancy Davies from the book by Victor Raul Martinez Vasquez.

The teachers movement in 2006 and the 14th of June, 2006 (book text page 60)
by Victor Raul Martinez Vasquez

As in every year, in 2006 Section 22 on the first of May presented its annual document of demands, this time containing 17 general points and others relative to each specific education level and methods.
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Mexico City

Posted on by Laughingnomad

When Barbara and I were in Mexico City last week it almost felt as if the resistance had moved to that city. We stayed in a Quaker guesthouse about two blocks behind the Monument To The Revolution. A striking planton was layed out for blocks on Juarez Avenue in front of the monument. Many of the groups were from Oaxaca. Someone (who?) decided to knock hundreds of windows out of the ISSSTE (union) glass building nearby whereupon a couple hundred strikers marched in protest down Reforma.

A couple days later the hop on hop off bus I was on pulled over by the side of the road and stopped near the Bellas Artes…the driver conferring on the phone. Turns out that the strikers took over the Zocalo and all roads around it were blocked. So the bus just continued on back to the Monument where I had picked it up. Actually the 3 hour open air bus under the hot sun was tedious…just drove down tree-lined Reforma Avenue to Chapultepec Park and back through Polanco (high end shopping) Condesa (best place for sidewalk cafes) the Zona Rosa (cheesy tourist area with bars) around the Zocalo, Bellas Artes (a must) and on to the Monument To The Revolution.

However, you could spend weeks visiting the historical buildings and museums…the most highly recommended being the Museum of Anthropology that covers acres just off Reforma Avenue.

The Zocalo taken from the rooftop restaurant of the Holiday Inn.
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In the corner of the bare treeless, chairless Zocalo I spent two hours watching some young guys performing an amazing breakdancing/gymnastic routine on bare pavement.
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“Ciudad de México, México, D.F., or simply México is the capital city of Mexico. It is the most important economic, industrial and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city with 8,720,916 inhabitants in 2005. However, Greater Mexico City (Zona Metropolitana del Valle de México) extends beyond the limit and covers 58 municipalities of the State of Mexico and 1 municipality of the state of Hidalgo, according to the most recent definition agreed upon by the federal and state governments. In 2005 Greater Mexico City had a population of 19.2 million, making it the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere and the second largest in the world. In 2005, it ranked as the eighth-largest urban agglomeration GDP in the world.

Mexico City is also the Federal District (Distrito Federal in Spanish, and hence the abbreviation D.F. that officially follows the name of the city). The Federal District is coextensive with Mexico City: both are governed by a single institution and are constitutionally considered to be the same entity.

Mexico City is at an altitude of 2,240 meters (7,349 feet). It was originally built by the Aztecs in 1325 on an island of Lake Texcoco.

It was built on a swamp and is sinking.

The Historical Center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I highly recommend the Casa de los Amigos Guesthouse in Mexico City run by the Quakers on Ignacio Mariscal No. 132
in Colonia Tabacalera Mexico D.F.
Tele: 5705-0521
email: amigos@casadelosamigos.org

The guesthouse is a short metro ride to Bellas Artes and on to the Zocalo.
Minimum stay 2 nights and max 4 nights unless you make a special request.
Full breakfast for $1.50 except Sundays

If you only have a little luggage you can take the Metro from the airport for two pesos and avoid an expensive taxi ride. You will have to make two transfers. Best to get written instructions from the guesthouse staff. Mexico City’s Metro is the cleanest, nicest and least expensive subway I have experienced in the world.

Heading Off Another Year Of Unrest?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

This morning’s news…for the benefit of the English-speaking reader…
El Universal
Lunes 28 de mayo de 2007

High ranking judge calls for inquiry

Federal, state and municipal authorities committed grave violations against fundamental civil rights during the Oaxaca conflict that began in May 2006, Supreme Court Justice minister Juan Silva Meza said Sunday.

Silva Meza recommended that the Court create a committe to investigate the public officials responsible for the violations.

Among the high-ranking public officials who could be investigated are former President Vicente Fox, Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz and Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, who served as Secretary of Public Safety in 2006.
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An Old Friend Visits

Posted on by Laughingnomad

My friend Barbara and I hitch-hiked Europe the summer of 1965. Then I didn’t see her for thirty years. Then I found her on google about ten years ago…living 30 minutes from my house in Oregon. She has been here four days.

Today she, Mica, the kids and I drove to the Tlacalula market to pick up some hippy headbands for Charly to sell in Canada. Barbara had her first chivo (goat) barbecoa con consumme which she loved. The goat is cooked underground under hot rocks overnight.

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Walked by the colorful indigenous vendors from all over the mountains who come down on sundays for the market, bought some more alebrijes, surveyed the live pavo (turkeys) lying on the ground with feet tied together and picked up some fruit and flores (flowers.) It was hot so we dragged ourselves back to the car early in the afternoon to take off for Huayapam where we ate again…delicious caldo de res, (beef bone soup) that Bardo had waiting for us. A man that Bardo sells coffee to was there…owns a coffee finca (farm) in Pluma Hildalgo, south of here. Pluma Hildalgo is considered the primo coffee of Mexico. Bardo’s nephew was there too…from Teotitlan del Camino. Then a mescal vendor from Miahuatlan came by with plastic barrels of pechuga (chicken breast) mescal. We bought five liters to fill Bardo’s mescal barrel.
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The News We Get

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I am still thinking about the information we get and how to think critically about it. After reading the lead stories I love to go to The Daily Show on Comedy Central and get Jon Stewart’s satiric take.

“Stewart and his team often seem to steer closer to the truth than traditional journalists. The Daily Show satirizes spin, punctures pretense and belittles bombast. When a video clip reveals a politician’s backpedaling, verbal contortions or mindless prattle, Stewart can state the obvious — ridiculing such blather as it deserves to be ridiculed — or remain silent but speak volumes merely by arching an eyebrow.” This from an article entitled “What The Mainstream Media Can Learn From Jon Stewart” by Rachel Smolkin in American Journal Review. Read the rest of the article here.

More from the article: “A colleague says that “one thing he [Jon Stewart] does do is fact-checking: If somebody says, ‘I never said that,’ and next thing you know, there’s a clip of the same guy three months ago saying exactly that, that’s great fact-checking,” and a great lesson for journalists.

Phil Rosenthal, the Chicago Tribune’s media columnist, thinks part of the reason “The Daily Show” and its spinoff, “The Colbert Report,” resonate is that they parody not only news but also how journalists get news…He adds that “so much of the news these days involves managing the news, so a show like Stewart’s that takes the larger view of not just what’s going on, but how it’s being manipulated, is really effective. I think there’s a general skepticism about the process that this plays into… The wink isn’t so much we know what’s really going on. The wink is also we know you know what we’re doing here.

A 2004 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 21 percent of people age 18 to 29 cited comedy shows such as “The Daily Show” and “Saturday Night Live” as places where they regularly learned presidential campaign news, nearly equal to the 23 percent who regularly learned something from the nightly network news or from daily newspapers.

Even if they did learn from his show, a more recent study indicates Stewart’s viewers are well-informed. An April 15 Pew survey gauging Americans’ knowledge of national and international affairs found that 54 percent of regular viewers of “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” scored in the high-knowledge category, tying with regular readers of newspaper Web sites and edging regular watchers of “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” Overall, 35 percent of people surveyed scored in the high-knowledge category.”

And what percentage of the U.S. population reads any news at all? And which of these don’t read the news because they have just given up trusting it?

Aung San Suu Kyi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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In August of 2002, next door to a restaurant in the small village of Taunggy, Burma, I struck up a conversation with a young university student who was tending a small bookstore. “Can everyone speak (out) in America,” he asked. “Yes, we can,” I said, thinking I will not tell him about “politically correct” speech. He nodded sadly.

A few people, forbidden to talk about politics with foreigners, tried oblique approaches to the subject. One man with delicious donuts on a platter came up to me at the market and said to me in perfect English that he used to be an English teacher. Then he disappeared and returned a few minutes later with his wife who wanted to meet me. “She wants to go to America-so bad,” he said. I made several attempts to ask him to have tea and then dinner with us but was disappointed when he looked furtively around him and told me he couldn’t do that. The government has forbidden the people to talk to foreigners about politics but they are afraid to be seen talking to you (a foreigner) at all as it could mean trouble for them.

However, in Bagan our hired tour guide for a day to view the pagodas, told me that some Americans once told him that that there was a lot of fighting in Burma but that he reassured them there was no fighting in his country. I bit my tongue thinking of the BBC special the night before on satellite TV (that few in Burma can afford). It described the fighting between the ethnic minorities and the military near the Thai border where camps harbored thousands of refugees. American and European doctors regularly cross the border under cover of fire to care for the Karen and Shan tribal people who are suffering from a government policy of ethnic cleansing by burning their villages and killing the people outright or overworking them to death in forced labor groups. I’ll bet he is a government informer,” I said to Bob. “I think so too,” Bob said.

I have been watching the efforts of the international community to free Aung San Suu Kyi, the freely elected leader who has been under house arrest for 4 years and now for a 5th.

Suu Kyi’s Freedom Struggle
The Boston Globe
Published: May 21, 2007
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Abastos Market

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Yesterday Sharon and I went shopping for furniture for her new digs when we came across this tired fruit vendor who had probably been up before sun-up. Sharon is moving from a third-floor bird’s-nest apartment to a ground-floor house in the centro..for less money.

URO Visits The Zocalo

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Last tuesday the teachers kicked off their usual June strike with a march to the Zocalo. It was pretty low key with teachers entering in small groups and with a few speeches and songs in the kiosk. APPO showed up about noon and promised they would be boycotting the government-sponsored Gueleguetza again this year…but that there would be a “Popular” Gueleguetza sponsored by the people as there was last year.

As I was about to leave the zocalo tuesday the governor showed up. The guy on the right is URO…guy on the left is the mayor of Oaxaca City. Didn’t notice the time but it was about dusk. Even though the zoc was pretty well thinned out he paraded more than once around the zocalo followed by video cameras and security… kissing babies, shaking hands and talking with a few people who came up to him. Interestingly, he never went near the west side. The place was crawling with security. Then for about 20 minutes or so he casually sat with the mayor and 3-4 others and had something to drink at a sidewalk table in front of one of the cafes (the one in front of the sushi restaurant) on the east side. Then he left with cameras in tow.

Pissing on his territory I guess.

“Oaxacans Like To Work Bent Over”

Posted on by Laughingnomad

This is the title of a paper issued this month by Seth Holmes with an M.D. from the University of California at San Francisco, and a Ph.D. in cultural and medical anthropology from UCSF and U.C. Berkeley. His paper, “‘Oaxacans Like to Work Bent Over’: The Naturalization of Social Suffering Among Berry Farm Workers,” captures the grinding details of what it takes to get strawberries out of the fields in Washington State, and in the equally challenging task of figuring out what it all means — and what to do about it.

Find this paper on Salon.com. In the posted review of the paper you will find a link to a PDF file that can be downloaded with Acrobat Reader.

Holmes says: “I began my fieldwork in a one-room shack in a migrant camp on the largest farm in the valley, the Tanaka Farm, during the summer and fall of 2003. I spent my days alternately picking berries with the rest of the adults from the camp, interviewing other farm employees and area residents, and observing interactions at the local migrant clinic.

In order to understand the transnational experience of migrant labor, I migrated for the next year with Triqui indigenous people from the Mexican state of Oaxaca whom I had come to know on the farm. I spent the winter living with nineteen of them in a three-bedroom slum apartment, pruning vineyards, and observing health professionals in the Central Valley of California. During the spring, I lived in the mountains of Oaxaca with the family of one of the men I knew from the Tanaka Farm, planting and harvesting corn and beans, observing the government health center, and interviewing family members of migrant workers back in the U.S.

Later, I accompanied a group of young Triqui men through the night as they hiked through the desert into Arizona and were caught by the Border Patrol. I then migrated north again from California, through Oregon where we picked up false social security cards, and once again to the farm in Washington State in the summer of 2004. Since then, I have returned to visit my Triqui companions in Washington, California, and Oaxaca on several shorter trips.”

Many of the conditions he describes on this Washington farm have been outlawed in Oregon by an omnibus bill I helped introduce, as a lobbyist, to the legislature in the 1990’s. This bill was pulled together by a coalition of farmers and farm labor advocates and one dedicated legislator who actually composed the bill that was passed unanimously that session . I have a sneaking suspicion that he is letting the Tanaka Farms off lightly unless this farmer is unusual. Farmers are usually loath to allow outsiders onto their farms…one of the issues addressed in the omnibus bill. He somehow gained their trust. Very tricky.