We need to wake up to what's going on in Mexico NOW.

[robertpaulsen]

For about the last month or so, I have been watching with increasing concern dangerous developments in Mexico. Not just regarding the election being stolen from AMLO, increasingly violent escalation between drug cartels and government forces, or even the flight of economic refugees across the US/Mexico border. In my opinion, these are all symptoms of one overriding political and economic problem: oil depletion. In 2004, oil production peaked in Mexico and by almost all accounts, the decline is not going to be gradual:

Mexico: Peak Oil in Action

There is a present-day example of the World Problematique unfolding on the North American continent. It involves Peak Oil, climate change, food scarcity and socioeconomic instability. It brings the nature of the problems the world will face over the next few decades into stark relief.
The Scenario

* Mexico's biggest oil field is Cantarell. Its 2 million barrel per day output was responsible for 60% of Mexico's production, and all its oil exports to the United States.
* Those oil exports account for 40% of Mexico's public funding.
* Cantarell's output is known to be crashing (see graphic above). Production has declined by 25% in the last year and is predicted to be down about 60% from its peak by the end of 2007. The field will probably lose over 75% of its production capacity by the end of 2008.
* When this happens Mexico's economy will probably implode.
* The United States currently exports about 20% of its corn crop.
* Next year, 20% of the United States' corn crop is going to be used for ethanol.
* Mexico imports a substantial amount of corn from the United States.
* As Cantarell's output declines, oil exports to the US will drop in lockstep.
* As oil imports drop in the US, the pressure will mount to produce more ethanol as a substitute.
* As more corn is bought by the American ethanol industry, US corn exports, especially to Mexico, will slide.
* At the same time the probability is high that Global Warming will result in higher temperatures in Mexico, a country already at temperature risk.
* Rising temperatures will bring more drought conditions and a drop in Mexico's own corn production.
* Now you have a country with a decimated economy and declining food. This is a recipe for massive migration.
* The migration moves North as it has in the past, but this time in enormous numbers.
* As the economic refugees cross the border what do they find?
* In January, 2006, KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) was given a $385M contract to build a string of very large detention camps in the United States...

Peak oil, global warming, food, biofuels and authoritarianism — all rolled up into one neat but ugly little package. Coming to a border near you within 3 years.

snip

The Spectre of Revolution

When contemplating Mexico's future you should always remember her past. Mexican history is full of revolutionary episodes: the War of Independence of 1810; the Mexican Civil War or War of Reform of 1857; the Mexican Revolution of 1910; the Zapatista actions in Chiapas in 1994; and the recent violent confrontations in Oaxaca.

The effect of NAFTA on the lives of the Mexican poor has been devastating. In an echo of the enclosure movement in Britain many have been forced off land they traditionally occupied, either by economic circumstances or legislation. A good overview of Mexican agrarian history, including the impact of NAFTA, is available in this FAO document.

The 100+ year-old push-pull effect of the US economy on Mexican migration is a very well documented historical phenomenon. This time, circumstances are somewhat different. Many Mexican campesinos — subsistence farmers that either owned their own land or held it jointly in a collective called an ejido — were forced off their land due to NAFTA rules that allowed the dumping of highly subsidized, below market-priced US corn on the Mexican market. The land is still there, but now sits idle. In the event of a severe economic downturn there would likely be a large movement to return to the land as well as increased northward migration.

Cantarell's crash and PEMEX's impending bankruptcy present a political crisis of the first magnitude for Mexico's elite and threaten the stability of the small middle class. This crisis presents a great opportunity for the long downtrodden majority to gain power as has happened in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Conditions will be ripe for a resurgence of revolutionary sentiment in Mexico, which will probably take the form of an import of the Bolivarian Revolution championed by Hugo Chavez.

Of course, having such an incendiary political movement on their very doorstep will not sit well with the American industrial/political establishment. The probability of direct American political, economic and even military involvement in Mexican affairs as a result should not be lightly dismissed.

more...

http://www.paulchefurka.com/Mexico%20and%20the%20Problematique.html


This is a perfect recipe for recession in America and revolution in Mexico. If those numbers are correct expect that stew to come to a boil before Dumbya leaves office in January 2009. As you can see, the pot is already starting to simmer:


Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves?
Posted by jeffvail on July 12, 2007 - 10:00am

In my annual new years predictions, I said that the most significant, and surprising, development of 2007 would be the collapse of both Mexico’s economy and its very existence as a viable Nation-State. While there hasn’t been a spectacular, single event confirming my prediction, there has been a steady erosion on all fronts—with five months left in the year, I’m not yet willing to push back my prediction of Mexico’s “collapse” to 2008. The decline of the Mexican Nation-State is a bellwether for the massively complex network of geopolitical influences sometimes termed above ground factors. It provides some insight into how symptoms of oil scarcity already being felt in poorer parts of the world will increasingly spill over into our own back yard…

snip

Before I highlight the specific events that are undermining the Mexican Nation-State, let me talk first for a moment about what it means for a Nation-State to collapse, an important topic as it’s an experience that will become increasingly common over the next decade. When a Nation-State collapses, the cities don’t all catch on fire simultaneously whilst roving hoards pillage the countryside and the population starves. Nation-State collapse is not the apocalypse—it is exactly what it suggests to be: the collapse of the notional union of Nation and State under one central, viable government. Nation-State collapse also doesn’t suggest that there will no longer be Nation-States. It is my prediction that there will be a Mexico, an Iraq, etc. for quite a long time. What collapse does mean is that the importance of Nation-States will decline sharply, as they become increasingly ineffectual both domestically and internationally. Nor does the decline of the Nation-State mean the decline of Nationalism and similar identifying sentiments. Quite the opposite: as States increasingly fail to care for their constituent Nations, those Nations will become increasingly susceptible to the black shirts and brown shirts of history, but these movements will be increasingly dissociated from States, more similar in organizational model to al-Qa’ida than to Nazi Germany. (See The New Map, a paper that I presented at the 2006 Yale International Law Conference, for an overview of this notion of the end of the Nation-State)

Mexico’s Oil Production is Collapsing

Production from Mexico’s Cantarell field is collapsing, and production from new fields are not making up the difference. It appears very likely that Mexico has permanently passed its peak oil production. On top of that, domestic consumption is rising, creating the classic Export Land effect: declining production and rising domestic consumption equal accelerated declines in exports. Taxes from these export revenues generate the largest share of revenue for the federal government. Recent reductions in the tax rate that the government applies to PEMEX, the state oil company, shows that this key source of revenue is failing. The collapse of Mexican oil production has been extensively discussed elsewhere—here it is only my aim to highlight this as a component in the collapse of the Mexican Nation-State, and the positive feedback loops between the two events.

snip
Mexico’s Monopoly on Violence is Collapsing

Not that Mexico was ever a poster-child for civic safety and effective policing, but the situation has grown considerably worse in the past year. There are mass desertions among the federal police. Outright infantry battles between crime organizations and the government are becoming a common occurrence. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of police, judges, government officials, and reporters have been assassinated over the past few years. What control the federal government continues to exercise in states such as Sonora, Sinaloa, and Nuevo Leon is mainly due to the fact that crime organizations don’t want to actually take over the territory—they already experience the benefits of acting as a sovereign government without the burdens, and they’re happy to leave those burdens to the “official” government.

more...

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2752

Then there was this in yesterday's LA Times:

Mexican troops to guard energy sites
Guerrilla attacks on pipelines have caused fuel shortages for factories.
By Héctor Tobar, Times Staff Writer
July 13, 2007


MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Felipe Calderon has dispatched a new 5,000-strong elite military unit to guard strategic sites, including oil refineries and hydroelectric dams, in the wake of guerrilla attacks on pipelines operated by the national oil and gas company, Pemex, according to news reports Thursday.

Business leaders said as many as 1,000 factories and other businesses in the Guanajuato-Queretaro region of central Mexico have been forced to shut down or reduce operations this week because of fuel shortages caused by attacks this month.

The leftist Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, claimed responsibility for the attacks Tuesday, saying they were in retaliation for the disappearance of two of their militants last year in the southern state of Oaxaca.

The EPR communique said the rebels had bombed three pipelines and a switching station in Queretaro and Guanajuato states. The explosions severed natural gas pipelines and a crude oil pipeline that links storage facilities in the Gulf of Mexico port of Poza Rica to a refinery in Salamanca, in Guanajuato, reducing fuel supplies in the region.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pemex13jul13,0,5950315.story?coll=la-home-center

You heard it here first, Mexico is going to be THE campaign issue by summer of 2008 and we better be prepared to deal with this humanely to counter the racism and/or xenophobia of the Rethugs. As you can see from the bold section on KBR's detention camps and with the increased use of PMCs by the neo-cons, they already have a plan to deal with this situation.

[williesgirl]

1. Thanks for posting - recommended

[zonmoy]

2. If it is peak oil

then we have to watch it simply to see what will happen eventually to us. I doubt technological civilization will survive the loss of the fossil fuels that allow it to exist.

[snappyturtle]

5. When it happens to Mexico it happens to us...if I read the

article correctly. This is a part I found particularly troubling:

"A business group, the National Chamber of Transformation Industries, estimated that shutdowns caused by the pipeline explosions were costing central Mexico businesses $5 million to $10 million in losses each day.

The region known as the Bajio, centered in Guanajuato and Queretaro, is home to some of Mexico's largest industrial plants. And at least a dozen major companies in the region reported shutdowns or slowdowns this week related to the attacks, including Honda, Hershey, Kellogg and Nissan.

These slowdown and shutdowns will result in more immigration to the north! We'll be effected very quickly. And, Mexico is an oil source. I think * knows this Mexican reality and may be part of the reason to grab hold of Iraq's oil????????
:shrug:

[zonmoy]

11. also sooner or later we are also going to need to lose our addiction to

fossil fuels or not only the new immigrants that this will cause but nearly all of america will either starve to death as the fuel intensive agricultural system collapses worldwide or freeze to death as we lose the ability to heat the badly designed houses we have built.

[defendandprotect]

36. Mexico is heavily invested in USA -- why not in Mexco and Mexican future?

Not either ever having paid sufficient attention to Mexico . . .

while we don't own it, seemingly the US has dictated a lot of Mexican policy --

MEXICO is heavily invested in the USA -- in our debt!!!!!

They own a tremendous amount of it.

Now . . . ask yourselves, why that money isn't invested in creating jobs and opportunities for Mexicans IN MEXICO.

I'd suggest because it doesn't suit America's needs for Mexico to do that!!!


PS: Electric cars would help us all -- Mexico and USA --

[zonmoy]

41. You are right

we need to invest more in creating good paying jobs in every country as well as making lots of investment in new energy technologies to wean us off of fossil fuels and nuclear fission as energy sources. But in order to do that we need to make sure that all the money doesn't go into the pockets of the greedy. Otherwise I figure we will face a fate that will make the dark ages seem like a paradise.

[conspirator]

43. We can still use coal and wood. It worked pretty well in the industrial revoution nt

[ourbluenation]

53. they both were filthy, polluting energy sources. we can do better than that. n/t

[zonmoy]

61. wood has limited renewability and coal is nonrenewable

we either need solar and other renewables on a massive scale probably combined with fusion or other future technologies.

[GliderGuider]

3. Thanks for posting that.

The scenarios appear to be starting to play out exactly as the "Peak Oil Doomers" predicted.

The next thing to watch for is a sharp decline in global net oil exports as predicted by Jeffrey Brown on The Oil Drum. The theory is that declining production and rising domestic consumption in oil producing nations will combine to produce a much steeper decline in their net exports as they choose to satisfy domestic needs ahead of exports: Net Oil Exports and the "Iron Triangle". If that plays out as it seems it will, it spells big, big trouble for oil importing nations like the USA and Great Britain.

Paul Chefurka

[robertpaulsen]

22. Thanks for staying on top of this issue. That's an important link you posted.

Americans need to understand loud and clear that we will NEVER, EVER produce more oil than we did 37 years ago when we peaked our national oil production in 1970. Everyone needs to read the Hirsch Report and implement his findings instead of burying it so that Project Censored has to end up highlighting it:

Where Is the Hirsch Report?
by Richard Heinberg

Yet, half a year after release, discussion of the Hirsch report is conspicuously absent from the press and the halls of Congress. For months it has been archived, in PDF format, on a high school web site (www.hilltoplancers.org, Hilltop High School in Chula Vista, Calif.). It now can be found on a few other sites as well (including www.energybulletin.net and www.projectcensored.org)-but why must citizens search for an important government-sponsored report on private web sites?

If the content of the Hirsch report is to be believed-and there is every reason to think it should be-then this is a document that deserves the close attention of every leader of government and industry in the US. Newspapers and newsmagazines should be running excerpts and summaries. Instead, there is nearly total silence. In late May Robert Hirsch presented the substance of the report at the annual Workshop of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) in Lisbon, Portugal to an audience of about 300 (www.cge.uevora.pt/aspo2005/abscom/Abstract_Lisbon_Hirsch.pdf ). That event received virtually no press coverage in the US.

http://www.energybulletin.net/7524.html

[GliderGuider]

48. IMO the two most important recent papers on Peak Oil are Hirsch and Robelius

Frederick Robelius published his PhD thesis from Uppsala University in Sweden. It is at http://publications.uu.se/abstract.xsql?dbid=7625 (PDF)

From ASPO:

Fredrik Robelius, member of the Uppsala Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group, UHDSG, Uppsala University in Sweden, defended on March 30 his thesis “Giant Oil Fields – Highway to Oil”. The university had appointed Dr. Robert Hirsch to be the official opponent in the oral defense of the thesis. Fredrik Robelius presented in the thesis a forecast model for global oil production based heavily on a field-by-field analysis focusing on giant oil fields. A giant field will ultimately produce more than 500 million barrels (0.5 Gb) of oil. In his worst-case scenario global oil production may peak next year and in the best-case scenario 10 years later, year 2018.

Although giant fields represent only about one percent of all oil fields in the world, they account for more than 60% of total production. The trend is heading downward when it comes to new giant-field discoveries, both in terms of the number of fields and the volume of the fields located.

Fredrik Robelius developed a model based on historical production, the total exploitable reserves of the giant fields, and their rate of decline. The model assumes that oil fields have a constant rate of decline, which Robelius has verified by studying a number of giant oilfields where production has waned. His analysis shows that an annual rate of decline between 6 and 16% is reasonable.

Here are some graphs from his paper:




My summary:

Of the 50,000 oil fields in the world, only 1% (507 fields) are giant fields. Those fields contain 65% of the world's oil and account for 60% of all production. The message is that as those giant fields start to deplete, the world cannot develop enough new small fields fast enough to offset the decline. Analysis conducted by experienced members of The Oil Drum concludes that of the 14 super-giant fields that have at some point produced over 1 million barrels per day (one of which is our old friend Cantarell), all of them are now in decline.

Paul Chefurka

[robertpaulsen]

57. Good Lord! I had not read this before.

Thanks for linking this. Along with that analysis of the decreased amount of oil peaking nations will be able to export, http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2689#more this means America especially has a bumpy ride ahead. We must implement a Manhattan/Apollo type project NOW!

[Maven]

4. K/R

[bbgrunt]

6. thanks for posting--k and r

[rwenos]

7. Border State Implications

God knows I have little use for Texas generally, but the immigration issue has always been an odd area of common ground for us crazies in Cali, and the Texicans.

In both states, we need to sit up and take NOTICE of this pattern of events. I've often wondered how the United States Army would react if the Mexican government went blooey. I always thought it would result from a reactionary closing of the border by us Yanks. It seems I was only looking at the little picture.

Last time Mexico had a political paroxysm like this, in 1916, Black Jack Pershing took a couple of divisions and invaded, occupying Mexico City. With millions of Mexican refugees fleeing a civil war in Mexico . . . you'd have to think the Smart Guys in the Grey Suits in D.C. would be thinking along the same lines again.

All the more reason to get the Eff out of Iraq. Still, a chilling story and one I'll watch more closely now, thanks to your excellent post.

[snappyturtle]

9. I'm curious as to what you think Texans and Californians should

be taking notice of? What do you think is going to happen: mass exodus from Mexico? U.S. military build up on our southern borders?

I don't think we'll be getting out of Iraq until bushco has the oil privatized....I think that is the major reason we are still there. He's just got to convince the Iraqis to let us have our oil!:sarcasm:

[rwenos]

12. Both of your Options

I've always thought that if the Mexican government fell, all hell would break loose. It's entirely predictable that millions of refugees would try to stream over the border into the southwestern states -- Cali and Texas being the most hospitable.

The Smart Guys -- how could they not fortify the southern border? Why would the U.S. Army not intervene, as they did in 1916, to try to stabilize the chaos?

I completely agree with you about Iraq, of course. It just seems like we better get damned good and ready for a major civil war on our southern border.

[robertpaulsen]

23. Exactly. Hence the KBR contracts for concentration camps.

Oh, excuse me, I meant "detention centers". You bet there'll be a mass exodus.

If there's a revolution right across the border, that alone more than any "gut feeling" may cause Chertoff to raise the terror alert to red. If that happens, will Dumbya have to choose between controlling the oil in Iraq or the oil in Mexico?

Or is it feeling a little drafty around these parts?

[AZBlue]

39. Arizona's a lot easier to get into because it's so flat

[leveymg]

47. A generalized war in the Mid-East would have a couple likely

effects in Mexico. One would be to drive the price of oil skyward. Even if less is produced, the revenues would increase. If we do the nasty in Iran, expect a round-up of large numbers of undocumented inside the U.S., 75% of whom are Mexicans. The militarization of the border is a sure bet.

The forced reentry of millions of Mexicans would undoubtedly have a destabilizing effect. The overthrow of the current bogus Administration in Mexico City is almost inevitable, as would be some effort by the Bush-Cheney regime -- ruling by emergency decree from national command center in Colorado after the loss of Washington and several other major American cities -- to replace it with a military junta.

All these scenarios seem so much more credible than they were just a year or two ago. See Children of Men, imagine Mexico as the refugee camp by the sea -- that captured it very well.

[robertpaulsen]

67. Ah, Children of Men. Good analogy.

You're not the only one to see the connection this movie has to what's going on today. You might find this thread interesting:

Children of Men, Peak Oil Movie?

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic27264.html

[truedelphi]

50. Oil privatized

This past week, the MSM has been talking about how the current Iraqi government is trying desperately to set in place an oil policy that would benefit all the Iraqis, Sunnis, Shi'ia, Kurds.

Again the MSM says that what is black is white, what is up is down, what is rain is dry etc.

[ProudDad]

30. Ah, but Pershing never could

catch Pancho Villa.



Viva Villa!!!

Viva la revolucion...

[TahitiNut]

38. Know him? I had lunch with him!

:rofl:

[ProudDad]

62. I've got his picture up on the wall

next to Zapata...

Viva la revolucion...


Too bad the PRI, the DLC of Mexico, fucked it up...

[a la izquierda]

70. That's not the initial reason Pershing went to Mexico City

He was looking for Pancho Villa. Villa had just invaded Columbus, NM. The US watched with interest when the Mexican government imploded in 1910 and couldn't make up their minds who to support. Mexicans are pretty resilient--if their government falls, who knows what will happen really.
Sorry to be anal.

[diamidue]

8. Very interesting.

Thanks for putting all this info together. I've been hearing vague rumors of oil trouble in Mexico, but I didn't realize it was this bad or this urgent.

"The (Cantarell) field will probably lose over 75% of its production capacity by the end of 2008."? And talk of PEMEX's pending bankruptcy? Wow. That is astonishing and it will definitely be devastating to Mexico. With one out of every ten Mexicans already living in the USA, I can't imagine what will happen if many more start pouring in as economic refugees. Especially as there is currently so much anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA.

I guess this would be a logical explanation for the building of the various detention centers around the USA. Still, why do they have to look like Nazi prison camps? Can't we handle economic refugees humanely?

Frightening times are ahead - on a lot of fronts.

[Subdivisions]

10. Very good post and a topic that trumps ALL OTHERS!

But unfortunately, of the peak oil posts I've seen on DU (excluding the actual http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=266">Peak Oil Group), there is usually a moderate response with most responses acknowledging the problem with those denouncing the problem reciting the usual Cornucopian memes, ie: ambiotic oil, new discoveries and technology, which will not suffice in meeting our future energy needs.

To the readers of this post: If you don't know about Peak Oil, FIND OUT! Whether you choose to believe it I'll leave to your discretion. But at least if Peak Oil does come to pass, and I believe it already has, you'll have been given the heads-up.

[GliderGuider]

16. Everyone is worried about Global Warming, but it's Peak Oil that will get us

GW is a medium to long term problem that will manifest fairly gradually over a number decades. Peak Oil is already happening. The decline rates and time frames involved give it the potential to be a disruptor of national economies starting in 5 years, with the potential to disrupt the global economy within 10 to 20 years.

Peak Oil is the single most important crisis the world is facing, outstripping GW in severity and immediacy by an order of magnitude or more. But there is barely a whisper of it in the MSM, and the public awareness of it doesn't extend beyond gasoline pump prices. It's about to blindside the world. It's time to start a massive self-education program, everybody: begin at The Oil Drum.

Paul Chefurka

[Subdivisions]

21. While I have your attention, Paul, I want to take the opportunity

to thank you for all that you do to bring this issue to the forefront. Seems like I bump you quite often when researching and your posts and articles are always insightful and thought-provoking. Keep up the good work in shouting this message to the world as I, and others, follow your lead.

[jwirr]

35. Yes, most of these posts are looking only at the peak oil aspect

and we need to look at the whole picture. I am thinking of the Kunstler book, "The Long Emergency". Both crisis are going to hit Mexico about the same time.

As I have been reading I have wanted to add input so now is as good a time as any. First, we are talking about them going back to the land but if it is too hot to grow crops that is not going to work. Starvation will happen. So for that reason they will have little choice but to migrate.

Pershing went to Mexico City but I doubt if our response will require that. Their nation-state will no longer be an issue nor will their depleted oil. The issue will be keeping them out of the US. I think the most likely response will be to stop them at the borders. It is not surprising that we are building a wall and we already have detention camps. As our own citizens move north to escape the heat/drought in southern states there may be some room to allow partial migration but not much. I like the posters last paragraph regarding this issue because I am torn in two over the influx of a starving hoard of cheap laborers and wanting to do the right thing regarding refugees. We are going to need sane leaders or we are going to look like Hitler's worst day.

The collapse of their industry will no doubt bring some of our wayward American companies back home but they are going to want to bring their slave laborers with them. Once again it will be the corporations vs the workers of the US. I do not see this having an easy solution.

[JDPriestly]

58. Keeping "them" out of the US? Have You seen the movie, "Babel"?

I live in a predominantly Hispanic area of Los Angeles. "They" are us. Generalizations aren't worth much. But to the extent that I can generalize about the many "thems" that I know personally, here is my overall impression (based on my broad experience): "They" are extremely hard-working, conscientious, warm, family-oriented, kind and passionate. "We" also have a strong work ethic, the belief in human rights, but we are less warm, more individualistic and far more restrained (meaning less overtly emotional at least in the presence of others). If I am offending you, please forgive me, but my impression is based on my experience with some of the overwhelmingly friendly, kind, honest and embracing Mexican people I have known. My main complaint living in "their" area is the loud parties which seem to have become far less frequent over the many years I have lived here.

To "them" and to many in Southern California who have relatives or close friends who are "them" or married to "them," the border is an unpleasant, bureaucratic trap that prevents "them" and "us" from freely visiting families and friends who are "there."

I am very concerned about illegal immigration and peak oil. But, in my experience, Southern California is so closely tied to Mexico in every way, economically, culturally, and, obviously, geographically, that disruptions in Mexico will reverberate here. It's a matter of extent. I do not know whether Texas is as closely tied to Mexico as Southern California is. I do not believe Arizonans have the same relationship with Mexico that we do here in Southern California. I will state that in my opinion, the fate of Mexico will eventually be the fate of Southern California. Mexicans are not just our neighbors. They are sort of our cousins -- a part of our family although not of our intimate family. And, remember, Southern California is the home of ports and military bases that are vital to the wellbeing of all of the United States. What happens to us affects the rest of the nation.

Bush has totally neglected not just Mexico, but all of Central/South America. Hard to say whether that is a blessing or a curse. He has messed up the rest of his policy so badly . . . .

Let's hope that nothing too bad happens in Mexico until we get a Democratic president with common sense into the presidency. I would hate to watch the Republicans mess up the Mexico/Central/South American diplomacy the way they have ruined everything else. We still have a chance to implement common sense, pragmatic policy on our own continent. Do everything you can to make sure a sensible Democrat who understands foreign policy is elected as our next president.

[jwirr]

71. I did not say that this is what I would do. I said that I think that this is

what many Americans will want done - ie the big illegal immigration fuss that is going on now. As for myself I said I was torn between the fear of more and more people coming to our country and what we SHOULD be doing about the refugees from these problems. I just do not trust people enough to believe that this is going to have a good ending.

I also do not think a work ethic is going to help when s--t hits the fan. Over population/oil depletion/global warming is going to be changing things in all areas and "jobs" are not going to be any easier to find due to these changes. Basic survival is more like it and at that I think that many of the residents of Mexico probably have a much better understanding of that than those of us in the US.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

73. Yes, Texas is tied to mexico as well.

The Rio Grande valley, the whole southern border, San Antonio and Houston are heavily populated with Latinos. San Antonio has always been majority Hispanic.

The people who wonder why we have an immigration "problem" don't understand the real cause -- the fact that the economy is horrible in Mexico and countries south,and there is no middle class. The same fate we are headed for.

They don't understand that it's a life or death situation. Do you stay there and starve or risk death and prison to get to the U.S. to work hard at starvation wages, which are still better than no job in Mexico???

The Hispanics I know are very warm and nice people too.

Also, the anti-immigrant crowd forget one important fact: The illegal workers get FAKE social security numbers, and pay into the Social Security Fund, and they will NEVER get a dime from it because they are not citizens. They are the reason Social Security has a surplus.

[Altean Wanderer]

65. Well said

peak oil is very close if not already here. I think we're near the crest of the production plateau that started 2 years ago.

[BeHereNow]

74. I love your photography.

And your website.
Sorry to go off topic, but your photos are really
quite good!
BHN

[GliderGuider]

75. Thanks. I keep it around to remind me of simpler and more enjoyable times.

It was my primary outlet for several decades. Now almost all of my intellectual and creative energies go into mapping the pathways of calamity. While that may be more urgent, it's not nearly so much fun.

[AntiFascist]

28. Peak Oil may also be a problem in Saudi Arabia...

and when the elite are affected, major problems can occur such as funds being provided for terrorist groups, resulting in wars being fought over resources in other countries such as Iraq and Iran.

[NoFederales]

44. Nice website.

By the time I am ready for a solar backup system/off-grid system, the coming recession will have crushed me.

NoFederales

[seemslikeadream]

13. Never ending war all right

haves and have nots

[robertpaulsen]

76. Have and have nots is right.

Reich-wingers rail on against class war without realizing they are creating the exploitative conditions that lead to it. In the case of Mexico, they have no idea what they are really in for.

:hi:

[DemReadingDU]

14. afternoon kick

[snappyturtle]

15. Gotta keep this kicked!!!! kick kick n/t

[wuushew]

17. I agree Mexico is doomed but not about it being the center issue of 2008

Economic collapses are slowed by human and institutional inertia and with the "real" political season less than a year away I don't think such a collapse would precipitate as quickly as you would require. I agree with all your other points.

[robertpaulsen]

27. If you're right, then the next President is in for serious whiplash.

A Dem might be able to survive the storm better, though. Can you imagine a Rethuglican saying, "It's not my fault! Bush was President for the last eight years and he didn't do a damn thing to prepare for it!"

Then again, they'll probably still find a way to blame the Clenis.

[Peace Patriot]

18. There are a number of erroneous statements in the Paul Chefurka quotes

that seem to have derived from Bush State Dept./U.S. war profiteering corporate news monopoly propaganda. I don't mean to say that Chefurka is consciously spreading propaganda. I don't know either way. But if it's unconscious it at least means that Chefurka hasn't thought some things through very well. I am completely unfamiliar with his writings--don't know him at all--so it's hard to judge. These two erroneous statements stood out to me:

1. "...the recent violent confrontations in Oaxaca." (--the end of his list of revolutionary events in Mexico).

This phrase completely mischaracterizes the events in Oaxaca. In Oaxaca, a completely out-of-control rightwing governor (think Bush on a smaller scale), who was fraudulently elected in 2004, has been using rightwing paramilitary thugs to kidnap, torture, rape and kill union organizers, teachers, small peasant farmers, community elders and other political leftists, for several years. This violent repression became official when the teachers union called a strike for higher pay. The governor, Ruiz, sent official police forces on a brutal nighttime raid (the teachers were camping out) in June 2006, and the local community finally had had it with Ruiz, and organized a PEACEFUL citywide protest which set up an alternative city and state government in the capitol, Oaxaca, on the basis of indigenous laws that are written into the Constitution. This ENTIRELY PEACEFUL, well-organized and widely supported alternative government continued for six months, all the while with Ruiz's paramilitaries picking people off--a kidnapping here, a shooting there. The alternative government of Oaxaca, by the way, had banned guns--although some small peasant farmers sometimes carried machetes for personal protection in isolated rural areas.

No one was hurt by the protesters. NO ONE! All violence came from the state and its rightwing thugs. These are facts that are undisputed--although largely unreported by our corporate press. Just as Felipe Calderon was fraudulently elected as president of Mexico in late fall/winter 2006, outgoing president Fox, Calderon and their corporate/Bushite puppetmasters decided to crush the peaceful Oaxaca uprising, and sent the federal police (militarized, Darth Vader type police) into Oaxaca on the side of the fascist murderer Ruiz. As this horror unfolded, Ruiz's thugs shot and killed photojournalist Brad Will, who caught his murderers on camera as he died--Ruiz-connected off duty policemen. These murderers went free for a while, were briefly arrested, and are free today--to continue terrorizing Oaxacans. None of the rightwing murders, rapes, tortures and kidnappings have been solved. No one has been arrested or tried. Instead, hundreds of completely peaceful local people were arrested and taken to undisclosed locations--with some still unaccounted for--while Calderon's police cs-gassed neighborhoods, beat people up, hunted peaceful protesters down and arrested them, and occupied the city. During this brutal repression, the university students defended the university from federal troops with molotov cocktails, rocks and other defensive weapons. In Mexico, the police are forbidden to enter university grounds by law. There was a confrontation at the university--where students and other protesters were trying to keep the radio station broadcasting--and the president of the university intervened and asked the police to leave (which I believe they did).

The slander against the Oaxacan community--that it engaged in "violent confrontations"--is very similar to the corporate press slander against the anti-globalization protests in Seattle '99. The corporate press uses a POLICE RIOT to then characterize the protest as GENERALLY VIOLENT. They don't lie, exactly, they just group the fascist forces and their violence and the peaceful people and their non-violence TOGETHER, as if they were ONE "VIOLENT CONFRONTATION"--not cops with guns, billy clubs, shields, cs/tear gas hoses, helicopters and tanks ATTACKING masses of innocent, unprovocative people.

To sum up the events in Oaxaca as "the recent violent confrontations in Oaxaca" is to completely miss the one-sided nature of the violence. The Oaxaca protesters have nothing to do with any group that is blowing up pipelines or committing other violent acts. Their entire philosophy--emphasized and enforced in every way possible--was/is non-violent. It's as if the federalized U.S. national guard and the FBI had gone into Selma, Alabama, in force, in 1965, on the side of the SEGREGATIONISTS and in support of the MURDERERS of civil rights workers.


2. "...an import of the Bolivarian Revolution championed by Hugo Chavez." "...having such an incendiary political movement on their very doorstep...".

These phrases similarly mischaracterize the Bolivarian Revolution along global corporate predator "talking point" lines. The Bolivarian Revolution is NOT "incendiary." It is quite the opposite. It is an entirely lawful, peaceful, democratic--and really rather amazing--political revolution, that has swept the Andes region, with lawful, peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) governments elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, and likely Paraguay (this year--the "bishop of the poor," Fernando Lugo, has announced his candidacy for president and will likely win the Paraguay election). It is the BUSHITES and the violent rightwing coup plotters who are "incendiary"! They want to DENY the people in these countries their rightful, lawful governments. They want to violently overthrow these democracies and install rightwing dictatorships once again.

The Bolivarian Revolution--which is named after the revered revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar, who led the fight that freed Latin America from its colonial overlords, and who dreamt of a "United States of South America"--is based on principles of independence (from U.S. domination), self-determination, democracy and social justice. To say that the Bolivarian Revolution would be an "import" into Mexico is to deny the legitimate, homegrown aspirations of the vast majority of Mexicans for independence, self-determination, democracy and social justice. And to call these aspirations "incendiary" is to deny democracy itself.

The Bushites demonize Hugo Chavez--ONE of the leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution--for financial greed reasons. They lust after the oil, gas, mineral, forest, fresh water and other rich natural resources of the Andes region, and want to reinstall brutal righting dictatorships in order to have a free hand at stealing these resources from the people who live there. Chavez is the most well-known and articulate spokesperson of this POLITICAL movement--although Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador are also brilliant analysts/activists, each in their own way. Chavez is also the spark for regional cooperation initiatives, such as the Bank of the South (which is pushing the fascists/corporatists' loan shark, the World Bank/IMF, out of the region). Chavez was instrumental in bailing out Argentina, which had been turned into a basketcase by World Bank loans and IMF policy. Argentina is now well on its way to recovery. All of these leaders are intent on using their region's natural resources, a) to recover from decades and centuries of brutal exploitation by U.S. financial interests and their own rich elites; b) to improve education, medical care, nutrition, housing, and opportunity and upward mobility for the vast poor population; and c) to build infrastructure and seed enterprises for the prosperity of the region, to be shared by all.

If these progressive goals are "incendiary," then progress itself is "incendiary." That is a Bushite interpretation of progressive policy: incendiary.

------------------------

For these reasons, I would suggest bringing a skeptical mind to the rest of Chefurka's analysis. He too easily uses the corporatists' language, thought patterns and disinformation "talking points." This is NOT to say that he is wrong, overall, in his analysis. I don't question his facts about Mexican oil--and the list of facts at the top--they seem to be a fairly good summary of the economic facts. I do question his understanding of the huge social movement that has swept not just the Andes region but most of South America, and that came within a hairsbreadth (0.05%) of winning the Mexican presidency last year. One of his titles--"The Specter of Revolution"--also makes me suspicious. A "specter" is a bad thing--ominous, fearful. But peaceful revolution should not be described this way. It is the opposite--it's a positive thing, that has the potential to REMOVE the real "specter"--fascist, corporatist, Bushite oppression.

I also don't want to minimize the problems that he describes. They are real enough. But when you think back to conditions in South America only a decade ago--fascist horrors everywhere--you begin to realize that people who are committed to peaceful, democratic, progressive action can solve even very big and seemingly unsolvable problems. We are in a dark period in our own history, when Bushite greed and murderousness and the lunacy of the super-rich are clouding our once-hopeful and progressive minds, making us feel demoralized and disempowered. And we have been systematically disenfranchised, with great deliberation by the installation of rigged voting machines. We are not really in a very good position to assess the triumph of the human spirit that the Bolivarian Revolution represents. It can happen here, too--fairness, equity, human values, collectively solving problems, even very big ones. What is the use of being scared? It is no use at all. Realistic, yes. I agree with Chefurka there. Get all the facts before you. But fearful?--of Al Qaeda? of brown people? of revolution in Mexico? It is a useless and paralyzing state to be in.

[robertpaulsen]

25. Paul Chefurka is a DUer.

In fact, he's posted on this very thread. He goes by GliderGuider. I understand your caution, but I think it's safe to say Paul understands that Bush is fascist, corporatist; the real specter as you put it.

[Peace Patriot]

34. Okay, I didn't know he was a DUer. DU is a big place, getting bigger all the time.

There's a lot I miss. But even the best of us get these corporate "talking points" drilled into our heads. My post was a caution about it. I happen to know a lot about these two related social movements--the one in Mexico and the one in South America. So I'm very alert to the corporate disinformation and how it glides into leftist blogs sometimes, unnoticed. As I said, it doesn't invalidate his analysis, and it could well be that further brutal repression of peaceful and democratic protest and politcal activism, such as occurred in Oaxaca, will lead to violent unrest. Probably the corporatists/Bushites hope it does. But I actually think the peaceful people are going to win this time, despite the grave problems that he describes and warns of.

[GliderGuider]

37. There are a number of reflexive imputations in your analysis of my analysis :-)

Peace Patriot,

You have concerns about two of my statements that I believe are fuelled more by your expectations than my actual words.

The confrontations in Oaxaca were violent. I said nothing whatever about who initiated the violence or the background of it, just that the confrontations involved violence. That simple fact is indisputable, as you yourself confirm. I am firmly on the side of the protesters in that confrontation. I have third-generation socialist, social-democratic and social justice credentials, though I don't often proclaim them, and it would be literally inconceivable for me to side with the authorities in this situation. I was simply making the bald statement that revolutionary confrontation is a feature of the present as well as the past in Mexico. The question of who initiates the violence in any specific event speaks to the underlying dynamic but makes little difference when one is simply considering the revolutionary tenor of the times. In such times violence is to be expected, though we should always hope that it will be initiated by the institutional powers as in this case it was. To reiterate, my analysis said nothing whatsoever about the dynamics of this particular clash, beyond the fact that there was violence involved. I think you may be understandably over-prepared to interpret analysis from unknown sources as representative of establishment views. In my case you should read the words as written.

A similar response applies to your second criticism about my mention of the Bolivarian Revolution. My use of the word "incendiary" was deliberate, as it applies no matter which side of the barricades you examine. On the side of the Mexican peasants it would indeed be incendiary, as it ignites the fires of nationalist passion and solidarity in their communities even if it does not explicitly aim to rouse them to violent resistance. To the American imperialists it is also an incendiary event as it is seen to fire the hearts of the people people to resist the wishes of their would-be corporatist masters. Of course the American corporatists will demonize the revolution - their fear of it and Chavez as its champion are justified from their point of view as it has a real chance of unseating their influence in the region. Again, you appear to be reading your own expectations into my use of the word "incendiary". It may be that I was too terse in my language, allowing room for such misinterpretations to creep in. I assure you I did not mean that the Bolivarian Revolution was an intrinsically violent movement.

I hope this clarifies my position on the matter.

Paul Chefurka

[JDPriestly]

59. You present one point of view on the events in Mexico.

I appreciate that, and I am not criticizing you for holding your viewpoint. But, remember, reasonable people have other points of view. I know two people who are otherwise very liberal who disagree with you. A friend of mine who is married to someone from Oaxaca blames corrupt labor union leaders vying for payoffs for some of what she sees as "the problems." She says that the strikes and sit-downs are orchestrated by union leaders who are most interested in their own wellbeing, in getting their "cut," so to speak. Whether that is truth or false, I cannot judge. The important thing is that many people believe her version to be true. It may be correct to label my friend's point of view as "corporatist," but peoples' questions about the leadership of the labor movement in Mexico need to be answered just as much as their questions about the current leadership.

The genius of our founding fathers was that their political philosophies arose from the enlightenment and from the belief in the fundamental equality of all people. I may be wrong, but I do not have the sense that the leaders of the protest movements in South America are grounded enough in enlightenment thought to understand the careful balancing of power that is needed to make a democracy work. (We are reminded of the need for that balance today where a Republican president and Congress have completely thrown that balance off kelter.) It is the spirit of the enlightenment that prevents democracy from becoming despotism by the majority. That is why I question your view that the Chavez's of Central/South American will bring salvation to their countries. I would suggest you back off just a bit from your advocacy for the current leadership until we see whether they build enduring democratic institutions that permit different points of view to be heard. That will be the real test.

[Virginia Dare]

19. I've been thinking for a while that Mexico is heading toward revolution..

that will be ugly..;(

[progressoid]

20. Great, I was just getting used to being optimistic again.

[Joanne98]

24. Narco News....

http://www.narconews.com/Issue46/article2734.html
The People are Deciding, Every Day!
Oaxaca, the Face of Mexican Fascism: Sunday the 8th to Friday the 13th of July 2007

By George Salzman
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
July 13, 2007

Friends,

Today I escaped from my computer screen for several hours to walk with Nancy to the zócalo at the center of Oaxaca City. Usually I don’t manage to get out during the mid-part of the day, because it’s cooler indoors, which allows me to work (and sleep), and I wait until early evening when the breeze stirs for my daily climb up to the crest of Cerro Fortin (Fortin Hill), where the fresh air is a welcome relief after my huffing and puffing up to the top. But today I felt like taking a respite in late morning, and I joined Nancy on her daily pilgrimage to check out the scene down at the center. What an inspiration! The Oaxacan people are quite literally taking back their zócalo from the tyrannical state government of the illegitimate governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO). It is a miracle of social dynamics to behold. A tonic for the spirits of this aging gringo americano, I returned home feeling the zest of a 65-year-old stud.

Tues the 10th. The post office walls were plastered with dozens of these by the FPR (the Mexican Communist Party-Marxist Leninist) and the UTE (Unión de los Trabajadores Educativos).
Photos D.R. 2007 George Salzman
What we are witnessing with our own eyes is a steadily growing defeat of the government by the people, an incredible success being achieved with absolutely no use of lethal arms. After the crushing violence by the federal and state governments the night of November 25-26, 2006 many people in the popular movement were forced to go into hiding to avoid arrest and worse. In spite of the all too palpable fear, organizing continued to take place, as I reported in the following excerpt from the end of my essay “Oaxaca, the Great Mexican Social Volcano Rumbles”.

“The effort to impose a state of terror had substantial initial, but not lasting success. People we know who were literally afraid to sleep in their homes are no longer hiding out. Despite the wave of arrests on and immediately after 25 November, on 28 and 29 November a forum of indigenous peoples of Oaxaca took place here in the city, attended by about 300 participants. On 10 December another mega-march, the eighth, showed clearly the defiance of the popular movement. The city of Oaxaca remains under an effective state of siege, with state operatives showing their deadly but inadequate muscle, while the federal military is deployed throughout the state. But the people are continuing to organize in their communities, and I think it’s clear that the era of PRI control is coming to an end, though they are pulling out all the stops to try to prevent losing power. They will of course try to steal the election for the state legislature in August. I hope they won’t succeed.

“Although the political struggles are a part of the process of change, they are not the deeper part. If the PRD succeeds in gaining majority control of the state legislature, that will be an important blow to the PRI. But, many of the channels of corruption and coercion will be realigned as individuals immersed in the game of power and privilege shift their allegiances to the newly dominant power structure. By itself, such a shift in power will not ameleorate the suffering and injustice imposed upon the vast majority of impoverished people in Oaxaca. The new PRD bosses will hire the old PRI para-police goons and thugs. In brief, Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas’ condemnation of the political class will be validated once again. What a PRD electoral victory will achieve is an initial opening of space for the popular movement — civil society, indigenous communities, teachers, health workers, the APPO, and so on — to organize much more openly than they can now under the threatening heel of Ulises’ openly-fascist operatives.

Thurs the 12th. Popular Guelaguetza announcement pasted over the city’s guidepost for tourists in the Alameda Park.
“The deeper part of the transformation of Oaxacan society is taking place outside of the dominant political framework, in the popular movement that insists on struggling primarily non-violently with the intention of doing away with governance by the exercise of coercive power, replacing centralized power structures by local communal self-government based on a multitude of local general assemblies that practice direct democracy, as opposed to representative pseudo-democracy. Right now it is a contest in many areas of the state, as one can see daily in Noticias reports of communities ousting the so-called ‘constitutional’ mayors and other officials and replacing them by popularly chosen officials determined in the popular assemby according to their local ‘usos y costumbres’, uses and customs. Nancy Davies mentions, in a recent posting to the OSAG listserv, “the establishment of the new Triqui autonomous community” and “the new asamblea popular of the Costa”.”

In the five or five-and-a-half months since I wrote those three paragraphs, the scene has been one of unremitting efforts by the people to regain their right to freely assemble, to demonstrate in protest against state agencies that violate their rights by providing immunity for state agents who have committed crimes (up to and including murder), to have all political prisoners freed, to force the tyrannical governor to resign or be deposed, and so on. Where I was mistaken above was in my belief that it would take a PRD electoral victory to gain “an initial opening of space for the popular movement.” How I underestimated the Oaxacan peoples! They are prying open that space themselves and forcing the governments to retreat. They are doing this independently of the electoral process in a most remarkable way.

The popular movement has been able to reassert the right of the people to freely assemble and to organize in the context of state and federal goverments afraid to again employ massive armed force against them. In the consciousness of many Mexicans the illegitimacy of the entire political process and the state apparatus was greatly increased by four acts of massive repression in 2006:

1) On 20 April 2006 1,000 federal and state police backed up by Mexican military troops stormed the giant SICARTSA steel mill complex in the Pacific coast port of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, the largest wire rod and steel bar maker in Latin America, intent on breaking a three week strike by the Miners and Metalworkers Union (SMTMMSRM), killing two workers, wounding 73, and arresting 13.

2) On 3 and 4 May 2006 in the town of Atenco in the State of Mexico federal state and local police and military launched an unprecedented savage attack against the civilian population. The International Civil Commission for Human Rights Observation report demonstrates the premeditated and organized character of the rapes, the beatings, the humiliations, the raids without warrants carried out by the federal and state police. It proves the existence of a will to intimidate, demoralize, and tear apart a Mexican town as an example, as vengeance, and as a norm for the future.

3) On 14 June 2006 in Oaxaca City state and municipal police units, as many as 3,000 launched a violent early morning attack on education workers and their supporters sleeping in the zócalo and surrounding area, temporarily driving them from their encampment with heavy use of tear gas, beatings, arrests. The people succeeded in driving the police out; the citizenry reacted with outrage; this gave immediate rise to formation of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (the APPO in its Spanish initials).

4) On the night of 25-26 November 2006 in Oaxaca City the militarized Federal Preventive Police and state police units carried out a savage assault against the civilian population with massive arrests, beatings, torture, and imprisonment in remote prisons far from Oaxaca.

Thurs the 12th. Table in front of the Alameda Park about the call for Oaxaca City’s colonias to organize popular assemblies in each colonia.
Because everyone knows how precarious is the hold of the federal and state governments on the Mexican population, the level of overt repression in Oaxaca City has dwindled to the point that people who were terrified immediately after 25-26 November 2006 are freely moving around and taking part in a multitude of public events. The Oaxaca part of the education workers union, Section 22, astutely modified its tactics, negotiating with the state government to insure there would be no violence against its marches and demonstrations, in return for which they would not carry out permanent blockades or occupations that would seriously interfere with the commercial and ordinary life of the citizens. Along with such actions by the various unions that were part of or aligned with the APPO a surge of conferences and meetings by groups of the civil society occurred, and is continuing, in which issues such as community radio, citizen instead of government control of the state TV and radio stations, citizen input on development projects such as potable water systems, sewage systems, ecological concerns, governmental structure, etc. are all on the table as legitimate issues for the ordinary citizenry to deal with. These meetings are largely but by no means exclusively the domain of intellectuals with middle-class status. They do not directly challenge state authority with the kind of organized muscle the unions deploy when roads are blocked, or marches or occupations of government buildings take place. Nevertheless they keep the spaces for public discourse open, maintain the legitimacy of the struggle, and stimulate the citizens to think about the issues beyond the simple removal of the hated governor, URO.

The basic problems of Oaxacan society have not been addressed, and cannot be within the context of the capitalist-dominated economy. The gulf between the majority of poor or impoverished and the well-to-do or very wealthy is growing, and the people are angry. In this climate, as the state backed away from trying to keep total control of the symbolic central spaces in the city, the citizens gradually realized their growing strength. The last arrest/kidnapping of an APPO activist in the city occurred on 14 April 2007 in Llano Park when David Venegas Reyes was illegally seized by a group of so-called Auxiliary Bank, Industrial and Commercial Police, Policia Auxiliar, Bancaria, Industrial y Comercial (PABIC), who are not government employees, but private operatives. They lied about where and why David was seized. Of course these privately paid armed and uniformed goons work hand-in-glove with the state’s own goon unit, the so-called Preventive Police. That was almost three months ago. David is still imprisoned by a state that I believe is not happy to be holding him, but has so far been unable, according to his sister, to get him to negotiate his release by accepting any conditions the government would like to impose.

On 23 January 2007 a small but spirited group of perhaps 200 or so people chanted its boisterous way south on Tinoco y Palacios street past our corner. A one-way street for southbound vehicles where the traffic normally rockets down, it was temporarily blocked by the parade, escorted by a single transit police vehicle and officer. There seemed to be no end of marches, one day students, another day health workers, and so on, with increasing size and frequency.

On 3 February 2007 the APPO and other popular groups held the Ninth MegaMarch, not Mega in the sense of hundreds of thousands as were the marches before the 25-26 assault by the PFP and state forces, but large enough to show the movement was alive. Nancy Davies estimated about 30,000. The teachers’ assembly of Section 22, meeting the day before, declared its full support for the APPO, repudiating the earlier unauthorized statement of its ‘leader’ that ‘his’ union would no longer take part in the APPO activities. URO, showing who ‘owned’ the territory, had the entire zócalo sealed off with his troops and their attack dogs and fire trucks inside, surrounded with heavy steel barricades and razor-wire coils. In an especially ugly threat of force, police with barbed-wire-wrapped billy clubs were prominent.

Again for the Tenth MegaMarch on 8 March 2007, International Women’s Day, URO guarded ‘his’ zocalo with the same show of readiness to use ruthless force to prevent the popular movement from reoccupying it, if any such idea.was in the participants’ minds. Next day’s Noticias featured a huge front-page photo of the march with the title The Popular Movement Shows its Muscle, and a caption saying thousands and thousands of militants and sympathizers participated. The people were coming back.

On 6 April a tiny group (eight men, seven women, two children) from the remote town of Loxicha, relatives of men imprisoned for years, were blocked by fifty police from entering the zócalo with their small protest signs demanding freedom for their men.

On 14 April David Venegas Reyes was kidnapped in Llano Park by private police (see above).

On 25 April at a meeting of over 2,000 members of the Union of Office Workers and Administrators, enraged over the change in the federal social security law, chairs and fists flew and the furious burócratas headed for the nearby zócalo. Since no APPO action was scheduled, the few surprised police were shoved aside, the usual minor barricades knocked down and the zócalo invaded by citizens. It was the first time in five months that citizens broke through a police barricade since the major aggression of 25 November 2006. And the first time in six months since 29 October 2006, when the PFP occupied the zócalo, that citizens mounted a protest in that symbolic space-turned-state-fortress, and hung their protest banners from the central kiosk.

May was another month of meetings, mobilizations and actions. From the newspaper Noticias, here’s a thin sample, only one item from each of the first few days of the month, reported the day following the event. My remarks are in square brackets <...>:

1st of May, The State Coordinating Committee of Students of the APPO reoccupied the University radio station in order to give coverage of the protests of the educational workers and popular movement.
2nd of May, Thousands march to the Zócalo . 80,000 say organizers, 15,000 say police. I would call that the Eleventh MegaMarch.
3rd of May, Blockades and barricades against the Social Security Law. Professors of Section 22, backed by the APPO, yesterday “took” some 48 public offices of the federal and state governments, as well as blocking highways and installing barricades in the main avenues of the city.
4th of May, The Secretary of Government recognizes that conflicts persist in 188 schools, of which 98 are qualified as “dangerous hot spots” (focos rojos) and therefore, due to the level of conflict, deserve priority attention.

And so it went, day after day. On the 31st of May Noticias reported that the regional commander here in Oaxaca of the Federal Agency of Investigation was shot the night before when he left the state office of the Federal Attorney General at 7:20 pm. He was rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery, about nine and a half miles from Oaxaca City. By the end of May the re-emergence of citizen ‘control’ of the city, i.e. the inability of the state government to prevent use of public spaces by citizens, was already clear. The APPO and the teachers’ union and other groups in the popular movement planned symbolic barricades and occupation of the zócalo on 14 June, the first anniversary of the initial attack by state forces one year earlier. The popular movement was feeling its muscle.


2007-07-12-09 and 10 Thurs the 12th. The authoritarian left shows its presence.
14 June, the big day came. As announced, the popular movement mounted its symbolic barricades around the city and occupied the zócalo with a symbolic plantön (encampment). No uniformed armed police of any of the zillions of varieties of police units to be seen. Vendors again appeared in good numbers. By nightfall the symbolic barricades were gone and the zócalo again ‘normal’ with a few police reappearing ‘to safeguard the security of the people’. But the dam was breached by the movement’s sense of growing force, and during the month following, the Alameda Park in front (west side) of the Cathedral and the plaza and zöcalo on its south side became more and more the people’s place. Teachers, members of the APPO, and of other allied groups came daily, set up their tarpaulins with all their propaganda materials on display, crowds endlessly watched the videos with all the sound and fury of the days of the big battles, and it was a series of field days for the small vendors, selling again, as it was before the PFP captured the zócalo at the end of October 2006. It became both an ongoing festival and an area for serious work as teachers began classes for students studying to be teachers under the portico of the now-locked former government palace. One of the teachers explained to me how important it was to educate the young people so that they can understand the world, while I nodded my total agreement.

Today is Friday, 13 July. I don’t buy into that Friday-the-13th nonsense, but this weekend is one of high drama and danger. The teachers and the APPO have declared their intent to mount, as they did a year ago, a free popular Guelaguetza. This people’s event will be for three days, starting tomorrow afternoon, the first two days with ceremonies at the plaza of the Carmen Alto Church followed each day by marches to the zócalo, and to culminate on Monday with a march of several kilometers from a monument near where the PFP invaded the city last October up to the Guelaguetza stadium on Fortin Hill, where an all-day festival of traditional folk dance and music is planned. Moreover, the popular movement has called for a boycott of the government’s ‘official’ Guelaguetza one week later, and indicated it may try to prevent it from taking place. Yesterday afternoon I counted seventeen of the state’s police on the plaza at the entrance to the stadium, and many, many more on the road that climbs around the stadium and goes up to the summit of the hill where the planetarium and the observatory are situated. They were there, they said, to protect the stadium. Pickups with uniformed police, some with heavy duty automatic weapons, populated the road. And on the other side of the stadium on the stairs (no road on that side) I saw other police surveying the scene below. I am afraid there may be deliberate provocations intended to give the state a pretext to once again try to clamp down on the movement. I’m enough of a conspiracy theorist to question the story about the supposed resurgence of the Popular Revolutionary Army (Ejército Popular Revolucionario, EPR) given much publicity the last few days. The dramatic explosions at national petroleum and gas facilities on 5 and 10 July, and the immediate ‘news’ that the EPR was responsible reminded me of “Remember the Maine” (the trigger for the Spanish American War in 1898) and of Pearl Harbor in 1941, when President Roosevelt, eager to get the U.S. into World War II, withheld information from Admiral Kimmel and General Short, the U.S. naval and military commanding officers at Pearl Harbor, that a major Japanese naval force was approaching. It only ‘cost’ the U.S. 2,403 dead, and served ‘the greater national good’. I would not put it past the fascists in charge of the Oaxaca, Mexico and U.S. governments to arrange for some police to be assassinated in the next few days. So I worry. A potentially dangerous week coming up. Stay tuned to Oaxaca if you can. And don’t lose hope.
http://www.narconews.com/Issue46/article2734.html

[w8liftinglady]

26. my sister-who works out of El Paso says the makeup of people crossing the border

has changed.She has helped many an undocumented family who was hungry and thirsty in her 20 years working for...well..."a State Agency".now,she sees a lot of "backpack boys".Drug runners who drop their backpack off at a designated point,then wait for the border patrol to give them a ride back to the border.

[ProudDad]

31. End the phony "war on drugs"

and there would be no need for the "backpack boys" any more...

There are solutions to these problems.

Decentralized Solar and Conservation NOW then flip the finger at "peak oil"...

These are not technical problems these are political problems. The corporations are in charge...

[roamer65]

32. A good, hard left wing revolution in MX ought to get the Red Dawners all upset.

:evilgrin:

[ProudDad]

64. No sh*t.

To paraphrase the "great" ronny ray-gun, "Mexico is closer to Texas than Texas is to Maine!"

[Holly_Hobby]

29. K & R n/t

[MisterP]

33. wow, I predicted a year ago that Robberón would leave office in 2012

either as a third Mexican Emperor or as a total vegetable: you don't steal a country to HELP it, and Calderón got Rove and Chimpy (and I think Jeb) to "recount" only the central (more conservative) states--never mind the 3,000,000 votes in the dump in AMLO-friendly Veracruz

[madrchsod]

40. they are still finding bodies from 68

[Blackbird_Highway]

42. Modern Oil Production

Now we have advanced oil production techniques, the industry says this allows us to get "more oil". Problem is, there isn't more oil in the ground, so really we're just pumping it out faster, and when it depletes, it is no longer a slow gradual process, but a very sharp, sudden drop off.

Hopefully, the Mexico crisis will cause people to wake up before the much larger problem comes: the sudden depletion of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis use lots of advanced oil production techniques, and they are the largest producer, so when they become depleted, look out.

The Mexico depletion is like a gentle summer shower compared to the Cat 5 Katrina that will be Saudi Arabia. Then again, the MSM probably won't even tell anyone about the Mexico issue, unless maybe Paris or Britney start visiting oil wells there. Even then, we'll just hear about their outfits and hairstyles, not about oil. After all, oil is not important to anyone, is it?

There are alternatives, but governemnt and industry don't want us to have them. Just go watch "Who Killed The Electric Car". I can't really afford it, but I'm buying a Tesla electric car anyway, because dammit, I want to get out of the oil trap! Solar panels on my house, and I'm driving with no oil, no coal, no pollution, Lots of people could do this, if the government was helping, not hurting the process.

The government should be making it easier and cheaper for us to have alternatives, not actively fighting against them. Tell your congress critters, that you want alternatives to oil. Not many will listen. My Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, (ironically, a Repub), is one of the few. Just check out his Peak Oil presentation. One of the worse is Dingell, (ironically, a Demo), he needs to go as soon as possible.

If Al Gore had won, (I mean, been selected), in 2000, electric cars would be everywhere, CAFE standards would be up, and oil consumption would be down 20%, instead of up 20%. Peak oil would still be a problem, but wouldn't look nearly as scary.

[robertpaulsen]

55. Great analysis, Blackbird_Highway!

And welcome to DU! I agree with a lot of things in your post, especially regarding Al Gore. Most people don't know that he is aware of Peak Oil and has spoken out about it publicly on CNN with Larry King. Wish he was running in 2008; currently the only candidate I know of who has spoken out publicly about the threat Peak Oil poses and what he plans to do about it is Dennis Kucinich. Check out the Peak Oil Forum here at DU to read what he has to say.

[hatrack]

72. I think I posted this over on EE - Mexico is the beta test for peak oil

Australia is the beta test for climate breakdown.

[Pooka Fey]

45. Great post. Extremely disturbing, too. K&R

:hi: I've been following this too. :-(

[robertpaulsen]

56. I know. Good to see you again!

:hi:

I'm not sure if this really will be an issue in 2008 or not. It sure NEEDS to be.

[annabanana]

46. Bookmarked. I expect to refer to this in the near future (unfortunately). . . n/t

[Bread and Circus]

49. Mexico's got a shit ton of sun - they should go solar.

[kansasblue]

51. U.S. farmers are on track to grow their biggest corn crop ever, an astonishing 12.8 billion bushels

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1339642

Record corn crop expected on ethanol demand
Amid increased demand for clean-burning ethanol, U.S. farmers are on track to grow a record 12.8 billion bushels of corn this year.
June 29 2007: 3:19 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. farmers are on track to grow their biggest corn crop ever, an astonishing 12.8 billion bushels, a government report said on Friday, enough for livestock feeders and the booming fuel ethanol industry.




"There will be enough corn," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said.

[truedelphi]

52. Now if we can just do as Brazil does and use only

Tractors and other machinery that runs on ethanol to work the crops

[ProudDad]

63. This is a deviant policy

Growing food to use as fuel.

I also heard that a lot of land is going for subsidized corn production instead of other staples which are becoming more rare and expensive.

[Delphinus]

69. Not if Mother Nature doesn't "cooperate"!

"There will be enough corn," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said.

It's like living paycheck to paycheck with no savings ... here in Indiana, farmers are saying if we don't get a good, soaking, soaking rain here within the next week, their crops are, basically, lost.

I'm really not blaming Mother Nature, as this is all part and parcel of Global Climate Change, but just because the crops are in the ground, doesn't mean they're all going to get harvested. Talk about counting your chickens before the eggs are hatched.

[JacquesMolay]

54. Yes, Peak Oil is hitting Mexico...

... it's going to impact the U.S., too - we imported virtually all of the oil they had available.

[OwnedByFerrets]

60. K & R

[BrainGlutton]

66. I wouldn't worry about Mexico dissolving as a nation-state.

I mean, it has been through revolutions before, and managed to hold together; and I'm sure the Mexicans' sense of national identity is as strong now as it ever has been.

[Popol Vuh]

68. Guerrillas bomb Pemex pipelines

MEXICO CITY – A leftist guerrilla group claimed responsibility Tuesday for a series of bombings of pipelines operated by Pemex, Mexico's national oil company, and authorities moved quickly to protect the nation's oil and gas industry from further attacks.

The Popular Revolutionary Army (known by the Spanish initials EPR) said in a communique that it would continue the bombing campaign until the government disclosed the whereabouts of two group members said to have disappeared in Oaxaca last year.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=mexico+pipeline+bombed&btnG=Search+News << Click the link titled: "Leftists say they bombed Pemex lines"