Mercury Rising

Preface. In another thread, a discussion evolved about what to believe: how to see the truth through a fog of conflicting data. The poster said, and I think it's not only true but heartfelt, that the crisis in Oaxaca is occurring before him. How can someone who is not present really understand? The hosts of Mercury Rising saw through the Bush Administration's deceptions of Iraq from the very beginning and have otherwise demonstrated a good track record of news interpretation. So how does one do it? Well, that's a long story. But one of the most important elements of what makes a good analyst is having been wrong once in a spectacular enough fashion to keep it close in memory. Resources on what is going on in Mexico are few. I discovered one that I think may be particularly useful. La Jornada has started a feature called LaOtraTele, segments of about 8-10 minutes in length. What is important is not so much what people say. But it provides much longer segments than one finds on Televisa or TVAzteca, and the filmography is inexpert enough that one actually sees the event, rather than what the cameraman wants to show. In news of today, La Jornada reports that directives of the federal forces reveal that PRI politicians committed crimes and violence in order to blame the APPO. Federal and local judges have issued 200 orders against leaders of the movement. The first attempt to arrest APPO leader Flavio Sosa Villavicencio does not seem to have gone well. Two agents of the ministerial police were stopped in San Bartolo Coyotepec and their weapons "decommissioned." A reporter and another guy from Milenio were beaten, one severely, under the misimpression they were with the police; for this, Sosa apologized. Sosa's wife Beatriz Castañeda Pedro accused the police of saying they were there to do away with the whole family and said she acted out of self-defense. Policeman Joaquín Jiménez Ogarrio said that he was there to sell a car and buy some goats. Oh. No. The Federal Preventive Police took back state channel 9. There was no resistance. At the PRIist march, they spoke against "those dirty people who don't bathe." One of the marchers slugged a counterprotestor, a woman. The police did not arrest or detain the man. Human Rights Director José Luis Cruz says there have only been 50 complaints about the PFP. There were marches in suppoort of APPO in Mexico City, Jalisco, and elsewhere. Ruiz Ortiz plans to stay in power for another 4 years. The EZLN is supposedly blocking the roads in their areas, but this seems to me to be purely symbolic. While browsing around, I found this useful article on two leaders of the demonstrators, Enrique Rueda Pacheco (head of local 22 of the Teacher's Union) and Flavio Sosa Villavicencio, a former federal legislator and PRD adviser. The latter was a member of the Fox campaign in 2000. The former did prison time on suspicion of being associated with one of the IRA-ish groups(EPR) that emerged in Guerrero out of the turmoil from the Chiapas revolt. As far as I can tell, this was not substantiated. He also was a member of Codemo, a radical union which El Universal connects tenuously to the EZLN. He is accused of living beyond his means and having 10 bank accounts, but not a lot of substantiation that he's unusual as union leader. The allegation that El Universal calls most serious is having created an enterprise (Comcro) to sell electronics and autos at a discount to teachers. The financial database was erased, according to former Finance Director Erika Rapp Soto. If the allegations are true, and they might be, one wonders why the state Attorney General didn't act when the allegation was presented to them last year by Rapp Soto. An even more pungent characterization of Rueda is given in NarcoNews by suporters of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. One woman claimes Rueda is not only a transvestite, but "has whores waiting for him in his Juchitec neighborhood mansion of La Septima, which is actually one of the poorest neighborhoods." As the reporter notes, hatreds are being sown that probably cannot be unsown.