No State of the Union address tonight, written copy given out instead

[RB TexLa]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/090206dnintmexico.5961a0dc.html


Opposition parties members stormed the stage and prevented President Fox from giving the speech.

[RB TexLa]

1. kicked for added info, no one was watching this??????

[skids]

2. Thanks for posting and kick.

I was busy tilting at 5 megawatt windmills -- but definitely am keen to know what's going on with the Mexican Revolution.

[Wiley50]

3. RW (Dallas) Spin. Here's a link to the truth

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=59&ItemID=10847

Wandering through the camps, you can see how this protest movement has exposed the deep class divide that exists here in Mexico. Obrador's support base is largely made up of lower class and indigenous Mexicans and they view him as a saviour, the only contemporary figure willing to fight against the corruption of the ruling class. Obrador's supporters feel like he's given them a voice and they're now here to be heard. "If we don't eliminate hunger, we're going to a have fatal unimaginable disaster," a young Indian man from Oaxaca tells me. "There's alot of blood that's going to run if we don't change this country's economic polices."

As former Mayor of Mexico City, Obrador proved his social credentials with pensions and public housing programs. He would have been Mexico's first democratically elected left wing president whilst his rival, Felipe Calderon, is from the same pro business, right wing PAN party as the current President Vicente Fox. Obrador is convinced Mexico's powerful worked together in what he sees as a conspiracy to keep him out of office. "We defend a project that disturbs the powerful," he explained to me inside his tent office in the Zocalo.

"We have the fourth highest number of millionaires in the world, in Mexico. That would be ok, if there wasn't so much poverty. But there are 50 million Mexicans that live in extreme poverty. So our project is in favour of humble people, poor people."

Obrador believes the upper class was scared of losing their privileges if he came into power. " That is why they don't want us to govern the country. They resist a real change and that's the bottom of it all," he explains with a sad little smile. " Because a lot of people who have accumulated wealth in this country have done it with the protection of the government."

[Wiley50]

4. And Here's what's skakin' in Oaxaca

http://www.counterpunch.com/salzman08302006.html

By retired UMASS Physics Professor
and resident of Oaxaca for 7 years

George Salzman

Oaxaca shares, with Chiapas and Guerrero, the distinction of being the one of the three poorest states of Mexico. These three bastions of extreme poverty, albeit among the richest states of Mexico in natural resources, lie along the Pacific coastline in southeastern Mexico. Oaxaca is flanked to its east by Chiapas and to its west by Guerrero. Its population, about 3.5 million (2003 estimate), is unique among Mexican states in containing the largest fraction, 2/3, and the largest absolute number of people with indigenous ancestry.

Which of the 31 states holds top place for corruption would probably be impossible to measure in this intensely contested Mexican arena, as highlighted in the fraudulent July 2, 2006 presidential election, but for sure Oaxaca merits high placement on the corruption scale. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the indigenous population is among the most impoverished. Naturally they are very sympathetic to the struggles of indigenous peoples in other parts of Mexico to better their lives, such as the attempts of the Zapatista base support communities in Chiapas, that have declared themselves "in rebellion" and asserted their autonomy, often at great cost due to state and federal efforts to crush them.

The 70,000 or so teachers in the state educational institutions, state employees, are, by Oaxaca standards, far from poor. They are part of the state's "middle class". So it's not as though the majority of poor people are usually very sympathetic. This quarter-century-long tradition of a Oaxaca teachers' strike each May never before was much more than a nuisance for the city business people, for a week or so, until the union and the state government negotiated a settlement, the teachers ended their occupation of the city center and returned to their homes throughout the state.

Why was this year so different?