Endurance

Criminalizing humanitarian aid to immigrants risking life and limb to escape the economic brutalities of NAFTA south of the border, may seem an absurd position for US politicians to take, but within the overall context of dehumanizing mestizos for power and profit, it makes all the sense in the world. Recent harassment and detention of Latino workers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (like most Department of Homeland Security operations)--while serving no public purpose--does serve a private one.

As explained in this documentary , the emerging prison camp industry for detaining immigrants has already been very lucrative for defense contractors like Vice President Cheney's company Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root. While $30 billion may not be as fat a hog as these corporate felons are carving in Iraq, it's still far from chickenfeed.

[ For more information on how to help end the aggression against indigenous peoples of the Americas, check out Immigrant Solidarity, No More Deaths, or American Friends Service Committee. ]

When one opts for substance over style, popular defiance of the implementers of Mexico's state of oppression has its counterpart in the US beat hands down. Not that Mexican revolutionaries don't also have style, but their ability to cut through the rhetorical fog of political party propaganda--as well as their willingness to take risks in pursuing freedom--simply put Americans to shame.

Speaking of style, Paco Ignacio Taibo's novel about Mexico's long fight against aristocratic and neoliberal fascism Returning as Shadows is one of the most entertaining examples of historical fiction I've ever read.

Viva Zapata!

A different way

Elementary school children traumatized by Mexican federal police arresting their teachers at gunpoint in the classroom.