Angry White Kid

General Strike - Nov. 2 - Occupy Oakland

All out for the General Strike on Wednesday, November 2 in Oakland, CA!

More info at http://www.occupyoakland.org/strike/

A Discourse of Divisiveness: Al Giordano and Mexico’s Social Movements

The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity participates in a ceremony
at Monte Albán in Oaxaca. (Photo from SDPNoticias / Lucía Vergara)

A Discourse of Divisiveness: Al Giordano and Mexico’s Social Movements

By Scott Campbell

On September 28, Al Giordano, founder and publisher of NarcoNews.com, published a lengthy article on the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity and its time in Oaxaca. Taking the political landscape of Oaxaca as a jumping off point, the main gist of Giordano’s piece was in pointing out the distinctions between the activities and rhetoric of the left and those of Javier Sicilia and the caravan. In the dichotomy he creates, Giordano comes down firmly on the side of Sicilia – one needs to read no further than the sub-headline where he distinguishes between the “annihilating language of the left” and the “language of humanity of drug war victims” to grasp the argument he is putting forward.

In Giordano’s view, “the left” is stuck in a no-longer relevant posture of confrontational and militant rhetoric and action which does not resonate with the everyday individual surviving in a country wrecked by neoliberalism and the violence of the state and drug cartels. He posits that Sicilia’s movement of Gandhian nonviolence with its post-partisan focus on common humanity – from the victims of the drug war all the way up to Felipe Calderón – creates a bond based not on ideology but shared loss, pain and grief, a bond which does resonate with the Mexican populous, and is something much more preferable to what the left has to offer.

A scorched earth attack on the left

Now, when you set up a contrast like that – between a side with humanity and a side that is annihilating – it makes tearing down one and raising up the other rather simple. In doesn’t hurt to throw in some unsubstantiated take downs, such as that those annihilators “gladly will jump on the caravan buses and accept free food from many of the poorest indigenous communities in the nation…but who seemed to be doing so with a grimace on their faces.” Or to imply that they are so out of touch they care more about politics than their own dead family members, as he does with Omar Esparza, whose wife Bety Cariño was assassinated by paramilitaries in 2010. At a caravan stop in Huajuapan, Giordano states Esparza, “said nothing about his late wife…choosing instead of offer a boilerplate political speech of the sort that gets made at so many other political meetings and protests.” He also inaccurately labels Esparza as a spokesperson for the anarchist-leaning group Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL) when in fact he is a member of the Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement (MAIZ). This error takes on more significance when Giordano notes that after speaking, Esparza invited someone from the Stalinist Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) to speak and implied that the invitation involved “some kind of organizational log-rolling or concessions” on the part of the annihilating left, as VOCAL and the FPR do not get along, to put it mildly. However, since MAIZ and the FPR do frequently work together, the invitation is no surprise at all. When you create your own straw man, it’s easy to knock him down. Problem is, in the end it still is just a straw man of your own creation.

24 arrested at land occupation in Oaxaca

UPDATE: 5:57pm - All 24 of the comrades detained this morning have been released. Thank you for your support and solidarity.

UPDATE: 4:34pm - Seven of the 24 detained have now been released, including the five compañeras from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala. Seventeen remain held without charge. Four of them: David Venegas Reyes, Natalia Venegas Reyes, Daniel Arellano and Abril Ortega are being told by the police that they will not be released because there are supposedly arrest warrants out for them.

UPDATE: 2:43pm - Here is the most recent statement on today's repression. As well, comrades who weren't detained this morning are now blockading the road in front of the municipal police headquarters in Oaxaca, where those detained are being held:

Today October 2 police intimidate and repress comrades building spaces for the people  

To the peoples of Oaxaca
To women and men standing in solidarity in Mexico and the world
To the news media
To human rights organizations

Today on the 2 of October, as we had previously stated, we took over the foundry lot. This brought on the kind of repression commonly used by corrupt, repressive governments to intimidate, threaten, beat and jail people who are peacefully mobilizing. In this case people from the neighborhoods and other free people were generating organizing spaces for the people of Oaxaca in order to be able to come together in places formerly used by those in power seeking to enrich themselves with what now belongs and has always belonged to the people.

Around 8 o’clock this morning, we were there in the space just taken over by different collectives, organizations, and indigenous peoples, such as the Mixes, members of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, and people of VOCAL, Hormiga Libertaria, CASOTA and the APPO. While we were organizing different activities for the space, doing radio broadcasts about what was happening and letting people know what this Okupation is about, three men in street clothes who looked like bodyguards came up to us and told us we’d better get out of there in less than an hour or they were going to call the hired thugs from the UABJO High School # 1. We asked them to explain these threats, but at about 8:30 am three pick-up trucks full of Municipal Police officers pulled up and began to harass and threaten those of us who were occupying the lot. According to them the bodyguards work for Manuel Maza Sanchez.

More Municipal Police agents began to arrive, but these were wearing ski-masks and carrying long arms and pushing everybody around who got in their way. Even though we are sure that the lot does not belong to Mr. Manuel Maza Sanchez, we decided to to try to dialogue about the matter outside. Meanwhile, more Municipal Police reinforcements came up, as well as another white truck carrying police agents wearing ski-masks. The truck bore no insignia, so we had no way of knowing which police force it was from, but the license plate number was RV50197.

At approximately 9:30 am the physical attacks against us began. The only things our comrades had with them were a video camera and a digital camera, and these were taken from them at the time of their arrest.

More than 24 men and women were violently arrested and some were beaten by several Municipal Police agents. They were then loaded onto trucks and taken to the offices of the Municipal Police Department. This much we know, because a few comrades were able to let us know what was happening. But as of now, they haven’t been presented by any police agency. They are being held incommunicado and not even allowed to speak to their lawyers to verify their physical and psychological state.  

We hold Mr. Manuel Maza Sanchez, the state government of Gabino Cué Monteagudo and the municipal government of Luis Ugartechea responsible for the physical well-being of our comrades.  

We urgently call on all honorable people in Oaxaca to show your solidarity by going to the Municipal Police Department to demand the presentation and liberation of our comrades. We also ask you to stay alert for further news and to be ready to engage in solidarity actions.

Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL)

Oaxaca de Magón, October 2, 2011

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UPDATE: 1:18pm

An updated statement has been released with more details of what happened this morning. But the basic situation remains the same. As soon as translations are available, I'll post it here.

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UPDATE: 11:07 am

At 9:24 am, 24 comrades were arrested and are now being held incommunicado in the Oaxaca City holding tank. Please spread the word and show your solidarity.

Please write to these autorities to demand justice and the immediate release of the people arrested:

Lic. Gabino Cué Monteagudo, Gobernador Constitucional del Estado de Oaxaca gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx

Luis Ugartechea, Presidente Municipal de la Ciudad de Oaxaca
luis.ugartechea@municipiodeoaxaca.gob.mx

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Communiqué from VOCAL on intimidations and arrests today, October 2.

Today, October 2, police intimidate comrades building spaces for the people 

To the peoples of Oaxaca
To women and men standing in solidarity in Mexico and the world
To the news media
To human rights groups 

Today, October 2, 2011, we took over the space by the foundry two blocks down the hill from the wall as a form of peaceful mobilization and, above all, a way of generating organizing spaces for the people of Oaxaca. Here, people from the neighborhoods and other free people will be able to come together in spaces formerly used by those in power seeking to enrich themselves with what now belongs and has always belonged to the people. 

The collective takeover and construction of this space is part of an effort to create spaces for gatherings and processes of creation, autonomy and freedom. From here, we will continue the struggle that peoples have always waged for the defense of the land, first against the invaders and then against powerful people who now hold positions of political and economic power.  

The legitimate right to defend our territory and recover spaces that have lain idle as a result of capitalist greed is what moves us to collectively maintain this project in conjunction with other peoples’ organizations, collectives, and individuals who agree on the need to organize ourselves. Reason is on our side; the governments and the interests it defends can only keep us from pursuing this project through the use of force and violence.   

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico (Part 2)

Some of the 800 federal and state police in action during the violent removal of the community's
blockade of the mine in San José del Progreso, Oaxaca in 2009. (Source: La Jornada)

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico (Part 2)

By Andrea Caraballo*
August 15, 2011
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

“…It’s very painful to say it to you, but it’s reached the point to examine and to decide that the earth is worth giving your life for.”

These are the words of Carmen Santiago Alonso, better known as Carmelina in the towns in her area and amongst social organizations. She identifies as a Zapotec from the central valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico, and for fifteen years has been part of the founding team of the Flor y Canto Indigenous Rights Center, an organization that works in resistance to the mine located in the municipality of San José del Progreso, belonging to the district of Ocotlán, in the state of Oaxaca.

This is a mine that has been prospected for many years, from which gold and silver have been extracted. This began more than 40 years ago, but prospecting was started again in 2009 by the Canadian company Continuum Resources, which has thirty concessions in just this region alone.

What risks does mining in the region bring with it?

It fills us with deep concern, because we well know that these mining companies, in order to obtain purified metal, clean and ready for sale, require millions of cubic meters of water, with the result of leaving the poor farmers in the region without water, without being able to obtain water for their harvests.
What happened is that the authorities – civil as well as agricultural – got involved in this matter of mining.

How did the authorities get involved?

Through buying off their consciences, through bribing them with economic resources to gain their trust, through perks, through deception they purchased lands here; this was through bribery, deception and manipulating the authorities.

A little later on they also poured in resources in order to pave the roads, to provide attention to the housewives, to the single mothers, and through the creation of leaflets they made the community believe that what this company brings is progress and it is going to give them work.

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico (Part 1)

Broad Opposition Front to the New Gold-San Xavier Mine (Image: Sala de Prensa UP)

Resistance to the mining industry in Mexico

Part 1
By Andrea Caraballo*
August 2, 2011
América Latina en Movimiento
Translated by Scott Campbell

     “…In Mexico they have been beating us down a lot with these mines. There are several activists who have been murdered, there is a lot of persecution; but life goes on through the communities and countries.”

    These are the words of Rurik Hernández, member of the Broad Opposition Front (F.A.O.) to the San Xavier Mine, in the municipality of Cerro de San Pedro, belonging to the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. This is an open-pit mine extracting gold and silver, where cyanide is used as an extractor in the heap leaching process. After ten years of legal rulings, the F.A.O. has won some victories; the company doesn’t have permits, they were able to cancel the project. However, the company keeps mining.

But the F.A.O. also participates in advising groups, peoples, communities and movements who are facing off against other mining ventures.

Many are aware of the gold extraction process, but what can you tell us about the iron mines?

To understand the matter we have been investigating the iron mines; mainly here in Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca. In Santa María Zaniza, called Zaniza Project. It’s a Mexican company affiliated with the Chinese – half of the company is Chinese. The processing of iron is dangerous, principally because they are huge open-pit mines and the means of obtaining the mineral is by very finely grinding all of the earth. Then they use magnets and the iron has the ability to be attracted to this magnet; so they magnetize and pull. The dust that remains, which doesn’t have the mineral they need, is usually put in the tailings dams or piled on the land around the pit.

What risks are there to the health of those nearby?

The main risk that we’ve detected up to now in what we’ve investigated is that the rock is so finely ground it is like powdered sugar. So the wind carries it very easily and the people inhale it. This dust they remove the iron from is generally in very mineralized areas, it has different minerals, not just the ones they’re looking for: it also has lead, arsenic, heavy metals; and it is those that create health risks. The wind carries this dust, bringing it to rivers, streams, lakes; it contaminates the water sources the people drink from. It also gets in their houses; even their food, without us being aware of it.

To have contact with heavy metals in this way causes cancer and many illnesses. Here in Mexico there is the example of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Michoacán, where there is an iron mine. The dust kicked up contaminated the water. The people from that community have an elevated rate of cancer in the region and basically it is due to mining activity.

As well, the open-pit, as we have seen in many places, removes all the trees and removes everything; it has a very severe impact on the environment. They get rid of mountains and valleys over great expanses, they impact rivers, be they on the surface or underground, and where a mine arrives, that area can’t be planted due to the serious environmental destruction and the huge consumption of water.

Palestine and Israel's tent cities

Playing around on Storify, I put together this, admittedly incomplete, overview of Israel's tent cities movement and its failure to discuss the biggest issue of all: Palestine.

 

Statement from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala regarding the massacre in Agua Fría Copala by MULT-PUP

 

Below is the statement from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala about the killing of three of their members by paramilitaries from the Movement of Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT). One of those killed, Francisco Ramírez Merino, survived a previous assassination attempt by MULT in 2006. During that attempt, the MULT gunmen killed his six year old son. In response to Saturday's murders, today the bodies of the three men were brought to the doors of the government palace in the central plaza in the city of Oaxaca where a wake was held and Governor Gabino Cué was implicated as responsible for the continued climate of impunity in the Triqui region. (See above video)

After the remains left the zócalo to be taken back to Agua Fría Copala and buried, state police attacked those who attended the wake, in particular the displaced women from Copala who have an encampment on one side of the government palace. Women between the ages of 3 and 60 were beaten and police attempted to arrest the encampment's spokespeople. On Monday a protest will take place outside the offices of the High Commissioner of the United Nations in Mexico City.

Statement from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala regarding the massacre in Agua Fría Copala by MULT-PUP
August 6, 2011
[Spanish original]
Translation by Scott Campbell

TO THE HONEST MEDIA
TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
TO THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MEXICO
TO THE OTHER CAMPAIGN

Compañeras, compañeros – again, the blood of our people becomes the spoils of those who in their infinite greed care not about the pain of a son, of a sister, of a mother, of a wife, so long as it achieves their ambitions.

Yesterday, as with anticipation we previously denounced, another massacre was carried out in our lands, which casts a pall over and fills with pain three homes of dignified men and women who as of January 2007 decided to stop being a number in a clientelist organization, with a puppet leadership for the bad governments and the rich of this country, who care only about plundering the natural wealth of our peoples.

Because of that, and only that, MULT never forgave our movement, for having returned the word to our people so that they may decide their own destiny with dignity, which by nature we Triquis have. Many denials may be spoken with mouths full of lies, but the reality is that ever since we split from MULT and UBISORT, many of our brothers have died by their criminal hands because it is they, and only they, who have always been behind the attacks on our Autonomous project, it is they who used the name of UBISORT, together with several criminals, to attack San Juan Copala without mercy and to displace an entire town, it is they who today occupy our community and our homes, and it is they who, with the complicity of some government officials want to make it look like all is calm in San Juan Copala and one can live in peace, it is they who have taken Toño Pajaro and his group of criminals under their protection in order to clothe them with impunity.

U.S. army’s geo-piracy in Oaxacan communities condemned

For more background on the México Indígena project, check out El Enemigo Común.

By Oscar Valdivieso
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Ciudadanía Express
Translated by Scott Campbell

Oaxaca, Mexico.- Several officials from communities in the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca condemned the geo-piracy carried out by experts from the U.S. army under the cover of supposed scientific research.

They explained that at the end of 2008 the mapped results of an investigation called México Indígena, started two years earlier by a team of geographers from the University of Kansas, were handed over to two Zapotec communities in the Sierra Juárez. What appeared to be a beneficial project for the communities has now left many of the participants with the feeling of being the victims of an act of geo-piracy.

In an assembly in the community of San Juan Yagila on July 24, 2011 in the meeting room of the town hall, the victims said that, “After having reflected upon what happened in the communities of San Juan Yagila and San Miguel Tiltepec in 2006 when the México Indígena project was carried out, which formed part of the global project called the Bowman Expeditions, promoted by the American Geographical Society and the Foreign Military Studies Office belonging to the U.S. Army, we state the following:”

Below is the full text of the statement:

Two Years Is Too Long: Take Action July 25 - 29

As you may know, my friend Shane and his friend Josh have their final hearing in Iran on July 31. That date will also mark two years of brutal confinement. People are organizing to build pressure for their release in the lead up to the hearing. Check it out, pass it on and make some calls next week. The situation is extremely serious and this whole ordeal has gone on far too long. Please help out as you’re able.

WEEK OF ACTION: ONE MILLION VOICES FOR SHANE AND JOSH

The week leading up to their trial in Tehran, join an international week of action to free the two American Hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal. In 2009, Bauer and Fattal, along with Bauer’s fiancée Sarah Shourd, were arrested along an unmarked stretch of the Iranian-Iraqi border. While Shourd was released last Fall, the two men are falsely accused of espionage and could face many more years in prison if convicted.

One Million Voices for Shane and Josh is an international call in blitz on the Iranian Interests section in Washington D.C. We will remind the Iranian government that the whole world is watching and wants Bauer and Fattals immediate release to their family. Shane and Josh are expected to face trial on July 31st, 2011 the two year anniversary of their detention.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

CALL EVERYDAY the week of JULY 25th, 2011

Beginning Monday, July 25th, 8AM EST though Friday, July 29th, 5pm EST (the week before their trial in Tehran) call the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Washington D.C. at (202) 965-4990 with the following message:

“I am a supporter of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal. I know that the two are not spies and urge you to release them and allow them to travel home to their families tomorrow.”

Please remember to remain polite and respectful.

URGE YOUR FRIENDS TO DO BECOME A VOICE FOR SHANE AND JOSH

• Email this call to action to your friends, contacts and list-serves you are a part of.


• Ask organizations you know to encourage their membership to participate.


• Change your Facebook and Twitter status to encourage your friends to participate.


• Organize an informal event at your home, workplace, community center making phones available for your community to call from.

LET US KNOW

We’ll only know if we have reached our goal of a million phone calls if you let us know you have done your part! If you take action for Shane and Josh, please email amor.y.libertad@live.com and let us know about it.

From Bay Area Supporters of Shane and Josh

Act Now: Health of Hunger Strikers in California Prisons in Jeopardy

"No one has to die, start negotiations now!"

From the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity website:

The health of at least 200 hunger strikers in the SHU is rapidly worsening. A source with access to the current medical conditions who prefers to be unnamed reported:

“The prisoners are progressing rapidly to the organ damaging consequences of dehydration. They are not drinking water and have decompensated rapidly. A few have tried to sip water but are so sick that they are vomiting it back up. Some are in renal failure and have been unable to make urine for 3 days. Some are having measured blood sugars in the 30 range, which can be fatal if not treated.“

The hunger strikers are well into their 13th day without food. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation refuses to negotiate. The situation has become increasingly dire and there is a real possibility it may get even worse. That the State of California and the CDCR seem content to let these prisoners die rather than even talk to them is inexcusable and demands immediate and increased action. No one should have to risk his or her life just to see a bit of sunlight - yet Governor Brown and CDCR Secretary Cate are forcing these individuals to do just that.

PLEASE CONTACT:

Secretary Matthew Cate
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
1515 S Street
Sacramento  95814
Phone: (916) 323-6001

CDCR Public Affairs Office: (916)445-4950
CDCR on Twitter

Other CDCR emails:

Oscar.Hidalgo@cdcr.ca.gov
Terry.Thornton@cdcr.ca.gov
Brian.Daly@cdcr.ca.gov
Peggy.Bengs@cdcr.ca.gov
Luis.Patino@cdcr.ca.gov
Paul.Verke@cdcr.ca.gov

Governor Jerry Brown
State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841
Email at his website
Governor Brown on Twitter
Governor Brown on Facebook

Public Safety Committee Chair Senator Loni Hancock
State Capitol, Room 2082
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4009
Email at her website

Sample Script for Phone Calls:

“Hi my name is _________ . I’m calling about the statewide prisoner hunger strike that began at Pelican Bay. I support the prisoners & their reasonable “five core demands.” I am alarmed by the rapidly deteriorating medical conditions of the hunger strikers & the inaction of the CDCR. I urge you to make sure the CDCR negotiates with the prisoners and the outside mediation team the prisoners have approved, immediately & in good faith, before prisoners are force-fed or even die. Thank you.”

If you are a California resident, also contact your state senator and legislator. Their contact information can be found by entering your ZIP code here.

And if you haven't yet, sign the online petition in support of the hunger strikers here.

Keep an eye on Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity and California Prison Focus for further updates, action alerts and protests regarding the hunger strike.