The planton, the teachers sit-in, continues. Yesterday, they blockaded banks and commercial shopping centers and one of the local newspapers. They also generated thirty tons of trash in the first three days. I don't have a dog in this hunt, I was a teacher for Pete's sake, but these protests don't seem to be doing much of anything except upsetting people and costing money with businesses not operating and city services being stretched to the limit.
Uh, guys, those kids that you are not teaching are Oaxaca's future. They are being done a great disservice, but what do I know?
The big story of the day was the arrest of someone for the murder of journalist Brad Will in 2006. Well, color me skeptical. For one, Will was videotaping those shooting at him when he was hit. There are so many threads to this story and maybe I have watched too many movies, but I remain unconvinced that this is closure. It has been six years. For the article to say that the newly arrested person has no political ties just does not ring true. Everyone has political ties here. Not to be repetitive, but it all about money, power and corruption. Hmmm.... that sounds like it could apply to most anywhere. Nothing can change the fact that Ulises and 2006 changed Oaxaca for the worse. The lost lives, the millions of dollars lost, the hundreds of thousands of lives affected, it will take years to outlive the damage. Oaxaca seems to be recovering, but there are aftershocks and we seem to be in the throes of some.
Well, maybe people are waking up. It seems the students are not buying into the networks handling of the upcoming presidential election. It is only five weeks away. There is talk of a "Mexican Spring."
From McClatchy's Tim Johnson
A spontaneous student movement is bringing attention to allegations that Mexico’s media conglomerates offer biased and superficial election coverage, drawing a whiff of “Mexican spring” to a lackluster presidential campaign.
The movement has gathered steam through Twitter and Facebook, leading to student marches in the capital and half a dozen other cities across Mexico.
“Down with Televisa!” and “This is not a soap opera,” a throng of students chanted Wednesday night as they marched along Mexico City’s central boulevard.On the bright side looks at these.
3 comments:
I too am sceptical about the arrest of a suspect in the murder of Brad Will. Wasn't it less than a week ago that Amnesty International slammed Mexico for its lack of action on the protection of journalists? And suddenly a politically-unconnected suspect is taken into custody!
I do not understand the teacher strikes. The way I see it, the teachers continue with this method because the public 1)doesn't show enough resistance and 2)doesn't use their legal system to limit or ban the teachers' actions. All the articles in the newspapers are just empty words, like the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons, wah-wah-wah. I doubt this would happen in the northern states of Mexico.
Joan
The teacher's union is not constrained legally in the way that the other unions are, so they act as an umbrella organization that can actually bring injustices and public discontent into the wider global view. Also, Mexico has a system of # of votes per state similar to our electoral college votes, and Oaxaca has a lot of votes because it is a big state. During UROs reign of terror, it was important that those votes be aligned with the US's petroleum interests in the south of Mexico (father Bush was on board of directors for Pemex at the time) , and only a conservative party in place could guarantee that. Unfortunately, Brad Will's presence and death played into all the political repression that he was trying to help expose. Here is some reading, and go back to the relevant dates in Narco News Bulletins, which did a pretty good job of covering events then.
http://www.mediamouse.org/book-reviews/2007/08/the-people-deci.php
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