Econo-protests paralyze Mexico City, Juárez-El Paso bridge

Thousands of campesinos from across Mexico blocked central avenues of the capital Jan. 30, many having traveled for days for the protest directed at President Felipe Calderón. Protesters decried that Calderón has instated a freeze on petrol prices, but not diesel—on which tractors and other farm equipment run. They also rejected Calderón’s free trade policies, which they say hurts the farm sector.

Teachers from Oaxaca and other states also marched in force, both in support of the campesinos’ demands and to protest Calderón’s planned reforms of the social security system and education system—which they see as moves towards privatization of both.

For five hours, hundreds of transport operators from the city of Nezahualcóyotl blocked the principal arteries into the capital, immediately to the north, using their combis (microbuses) to seal off street traffic. (BBC World Service, Jan. 31; La Jornada, Mexico City, El Imparcial, Oaxaca, Jan. 30)

Meanwhile, hundreds of farmers, principally from the state of Chihuahua, blocked the Córdova-Las Américas bridge that links the border city of Juárez with El Paso, TX. With banners reading “SIN MAIZ, NO HAY PAIS” (Without corn there is no country), the protesters called upon US President Barack Obama to follow through on his campaign pledge to demand a renegotiation of NAFTA. (El Golfo, Veracruz, Jan. 30)

See our last post on Mexico and the farmers’ struggle, and global econo-protests.

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  1. I enjoyed this
    I enjoyed this and the links.

    Here is something that I stumbled on some time ago about WW4. Maybe I found it through this site.

    The following text is an excerpt from a talk given by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos to the International Civil Commission of Human Rights Observation in La Realidad, Chiapas on November 20, 1999.

    It is thanks to computers that the process of globalization began. Separations, differences, Nation States, all eroded, and the world became what is called, realistically, the global village. The concept on which globalization is based is what we call “neoliberalism,” a new religion which is going to permit this process to be carried out. With this Fourth World War, once again, territories are being conquered, enemies are being destroyed and the conquest of these territories is being administered.

    The problem is, what territories are being conquered and reorganized, and who is the enemy? Given that the previous enemy has disappeared, we are saying that humanity is now the enemy. The Fourth World War is destroying humanity as globalization is universalizing the market, and everything human which opposes the logic of the market is an enemy and must be destroyed. In this sense, we are all the enemy to be vanquished: indigenous, non-indigenous, human rights observers, teachers, intellectuals, artists. Anyone who believes themselves to be free and is not. This Fourth World War uses what we call “destruction.” Territories are destroyed and depopulated. At the point at which war is waged, land must be destroyed, turned into desert. Not out of a zeal for destruction, but in order to rebuild and reorder it. What is the primary problem confronted by this unipolar world in globalizing itself? Nation States, resistances, cultures, each nation’s means of relating, that which makes them different. How is it possible for the village to be global and for everyone to be equal if there are so many differences? When we say that it is necessary to destroy Nation States and to turn them into deserts, it does not mean doing away with the people, but with the peoples’ ways of being. After destroying, one must rebuild. Rebuild the territories and give them another place. The place which the laws of the market determine. This is what is driving globalization. The first obstacle is the Nation States: they must be attacked and destroyed. Everything which makes a State “national” must be destroyed: language, culture, economy, its political life and its social fabric. If national languages are no longer of use, they must be destroyed, and a new language must be promoted. Contrary to what one might think, it is not English, but computers. All languages must be made the same, translated into computer language, even English. All cultural aspects that make a French person French, an Italian Italian, a Dane Danish, a Mexican Mexican, must be destroyed, because they are barriers which prevent them from entering the globalized market. It is no longer a question of making one market for the French, and another for the English or the Italians. There must be one single market, in which the same person can consume the same product in any part of the world, and where the same person acts like a citizen of the world, and no longer as a citizen of a Nation State. That means that cultural history, the history of tradition, clashes with this process and is the enemy of the Fourth World War. This is especially serious in Europe where there are nations with great traditions. The cultural framework of the French, the Italians, the English, the Germans, the Spanish, etcetera – everything which cannot be translated into computer and market terms – are an impediment to this globalization. Goods are now going to circulate through information channels, and everything else must be destroyed or set aside. Nation States have their own economic structures and what is called “national bourgeoisie” – capitalists with national headquarters and with national profits. This can no longer exist: if the economy is decided at a global level, the economic policies of Nation States which try to protect capital are an enemy which must be defeated. The Free Trade Treaty, and the one which led to the European Union, the Euro, are symptoms that the economy is being globalized, although in the beginning it was about regional globalization, like in the case of Europe. Nation States construct their political relationships, but now political relationships are of no use. I am not characterizing them as good or bad. The problem is that these political relationships are an impediment to the realization of the laws of the market. The national political class is old, it is no longer useful, it has to be changed. They try to remember, they try to remember, even if it is the name of one single statesman in Europe. They simply cannot. The most important figures in the Europe of the Euro are people like the president of the Bundesbank, a banker. What he says is going to determine the policies of the different presidents or prime ministers inflicted on the countries of Europe. If the social fabric is broken, the old relationships of solidarity which make coexistence possible in a Nation State also break down.

    A long read but worth it.
    http://onelittleduck.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/fourth-world-war/

    1. You surprise us
      Very astute, Mareika. You figured out the context for our name faster than most folks do. Congratulations. We suggest you stick with the Zapatistas and leave the Bilderburgs alone.

      1. But still I am confused
        Do you also think, “left wing nuttery” sometimes? Do you think that there are people on both sides and people who are libertarian who care about WW4?

        1. Don’t be confused
          Yes, we definitely call out left-wing nuttery, although we are of the left, and generally think the left goes astray when it paradoxically embraces figures of the populist or radical right—like Ron Paul or the Bosnia butchers.

          As for “libertarian”—that’s a tricky one. We are definitely social libertarians. But unfortunately the word has been appropriated by the free-market right ideology of Milton Freidman & co. And needless to say, we utterly oppose this. We are old-school left libertarians—once upon a time, this wasn’t an oxymoron.

          1. Thank-you
            Thanks very much for answering my question and for the ‘left libertarian’ link in particular. I have just started reading what is available and am going to get back to it.