Category: Media

There’s Nothing Anarchist about Eco-Fascism: A Condemnation of ITS

As ITS says, “We’ve been warning you since the beginning.” And now they are claiming to have killed three humans simply because they were human.

By Scott Campbell
It’s Going Down

“When horror knocks at your door, it’s difficult to hide from. All that can be done is to breathe, gather strength, and face it….I shared news of the woman found in University City. From the first moment, I was angered and protested the criminalization of the victim. The next morning I woke up to the horror and pain that she was my relative.”

– Statement from the family of Lesvy Rivera to Mexican society

“[W]e take responsibility for the homicide of another human in University City on May 3rd….Much has emerged about that damned thing leaning lifeless on a payphone… ‘that she suffered from alcoholism, that she wasn’t a student, this and that.’ But what does it matter? She’s just another mass, just another damned human who deserved death.”

– 29th Statement of Individualists Tending Toward the Wild (ITS)

Some things shouldn’t have to be said, but as is too often the case in this disaster of a world, that which should be most obvious often gets subsumed to the exigencies of politics, ideologies, money, emotion, or internet clicks. The purpose of this piece is to condemn the recent acts of eco-extremists in Mexico and those who cheer them on from abroad.

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Radio Zapote Condemns Government Theft of its Equipment

This new aggression is part of a series of harassment against our informational and journalistic work.

[ Radio Zapote press conference denouncing theft of their equipment. ]

Radio Zapote
September 2, 2016
Translated by Scott Campbell

On Thursday, August 18 of this year, at 11am, Alejo Reyes Ramírez, Ricardo Joaquín Ruiz, Daniel Rodríguez Agonizantes, Mario Antonio Esquivel Medina, Benjamín Quintero Ramos, José Meza Acosta, Adunay Vega Estrada, and Raúl Leonel Muhia Arzaluzlos, who identified themselves as inspectors from the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT); seized the equipment of Radio Zapote, a community, popular, and student radio station.

The officials went to the site where the transmission equipment was located. There they handed the compañero a document, dated August 17, 2016, which indicated that indicated the inspectors were charged with inspecting/checking the broadcast equipment transmitting on the 102.1 MHz frequency. In addition, they intimidated the compañero by threatening to take away his home if he didn’t let them in. Faced with this threat, the compañero let the inspectors in. The equipment removed by the federal inspectors were: a low-power frequency modulation transmitter, a circularly polarized antenna, and a transmission line (RG8 coaxial cable).

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Oaxaca, 10 Years Since 2006

Ten years after the June 14, 2006 popular uprising in Oaxaca, we spoke with our compañero Fernando Lobo, writer and former broadcaster of Radio Plantón.

SUBVERSIONES- Autonomous Communication Agency

Photos: Pauline Rosen Cros, Renata Bessi and Santiago Navarro F.

Interview: Niñx Salvaje

Ten years after the June 14, 2006 date when the popular uprising in Oaxaca began, we spoke with our compañero Fernando Lobo, writer and former broadcaster of Radio Plantón.

What is your perspective of what happened in Oaxaca in 2006?

At that time there was a huge conflict between the teachers’ union and the state government that was directly related to a wage demand. It was a matter of money. On the other hand, one of the strategies the union took was to not acknowledge the immediate authority- the governor, and instead engage in direct dialogue with the federal government. In this sense, this was the first moment that the idea of the removal of the governor was raised.

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Oaxaca, the fight for the air

“For us, air not only represents life, it also carries loved ones who have died. When one dies, their spirit becomes air and returns to the people.”

By Jaime Quintana Guerrero
January 20, 2016
Desinformémonos
Translated by Scott Campbell

Bi, in the Binnizaá or Zapotec language, means “air”, means “spirit.” “For us, air not only represents life, it also carries loved ones who have died. When one dies, their spirit becomes air and returns to the people.”

The struggles against the wind farms that abound throughout the state also, then, contain this element: “They want to change the path of the wind, of the air, of our spirits, of our loved ones.”

Carlos Martínez Fuentes, a member of Radio Totopo in Juchitán, Oaxaca, is the one who explained the above. Radio Totopo, with its nine years transmitting together with the spirits in the air, also belongs to the Popular Assembly of the Juchitecan People.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Eighth Book: Writing on the Wall

A review of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Editor, Johanna Fernandez. Foreword, Cornel West. City Lights Books, 2015.

x carolina

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s eighth book written from prison cells in the state of Pennsylvania, USA, is a selection of 107 essays that date from January 1982 to October 2014. They cover practically the entire period of his incarceration as an internationally recognized political prisoner. Most of the pieces were written while he was on death row after being framed for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981 in the city of Philadelphia. Some were aired on Prison Radio. The most recent writings date from 2011, when his death sentence was finally ruled unconstitutional and commuted to a term of life imprisonment.

The title of the book brings to mind the traditional gospel song, “Handwriting on the Wall,” based on the bible story told in the Book of Daniel about letters written by a mysterious hand on a wall during a great feast given by the King of Babylon. “Somebody read it. Tell me what it says,” goes the song. “Go get Daniel, somebody said.” When the prophet and former prisoner Daniel was brought in to interpret the handwriting, he told King Belshazzar that his days were numbered and that his kingdom had come to an end. The prophecy was fulfilled that very night.

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Cartel Land: A myopic glance at Michoacán reality

Little research has gone into the film, and the narrative lacks depth and analysis. It’s full of holes.

By Romeo LopCam – A number of critics have said that Cartel Land by Matthew Heineman is a good documentary, «basic for understanding what’s gone on in Michoacán in the last few years.» They exaggerate. The film shows only a small part of this reality, a fact the director consistently overlooks. He gives no context or perspective, just a sequence of dramatic scenes that grab the reader’s attention with sensationalistic details. Little research has gone into the film, and the narrative lacks depth and analysis. It’s full of holes.

The story he tells us is limited to what has happened in the Tierra Caliente (Hotlands) area —with no mention of the P’urhépecha Plateau or the Coastal Highlands region. It focuses on the charismatic figure of Doctor José Manuel Mireles Valverde, a man who has certainly played a key role in the uprising in Michoacán, but does not fully exemplify it. And here it must be said that given its complexity, no individual could do so.

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Cherán K’eri: Political parties are dead to us in this town

In April, the Purépecha municipality of Cherán K’eri, Michoacán is celebrating four years of its uprising to end organized crime in its territory.

By Niñx Salvaje

In April of this year, the Purépecha municipality of Cherán K’eri, Michoacán is celebrating four years of its uprising to end the presence of organized crime in its territory. Following the uprising, indigenous women and men not only managed to throw out to the narco cartel, but also expelled all authorities (police, local government and political parties) that supported the illegal activities in the community. They decided to retake their traditional forms of self government to start a long process of building their autonomy. A few months back they inaugurated a new weapon to continue defending their traditions and reaffirm their rejection of the institutional political method: a communal television.

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