Sunday, September 10, 2006

Radio Zapatista

The latest program is up on our website, a half-hour in English, which aired live last Friday. We discuss the immigrants' rights rally last Monday in San Francisco and the role of the elite (and often "liberal") politicians and media pundits.

In other news, we will be having an event at La Peña (Berkeley) about our trip through Mexico this summer, with music, pictures, video, and discussion:

Radio Zapatista
Returns from Chiapas
Thursday September 28, 2006
$5-$10 sliding scale - 7:30pm

Report from Mexico on Atenco, the Elections & the Other Campaign, slides & video. Benefit for Health Care in Autonomous Zapatista Communities. Sponsored by the Chiapas Support Committee.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

First live program back in the Bay Area

This Friday we did our first live program back at the Mission district in San Francisco: a 1-hour program about the situation in Mexico, repression, the role of mass media and alternative media, Oaxaca, etc. We interviewed Lucas Alvarez from Radio 620 AM in Mexico City, who was censured by the federal government for broadcasting together with Subcomandante Marcos this July.

Este viernes hicimos nuestro primer programa en vivo de regreso a las entrañas del imperio, en el barrio de la Misión, San Panchito: un programa de 1 hora sobre la situación en México, la represión, los medios de comunicación, Oaxaca, etc. Entrevistamos a Lucas Álvarez de Radio 620 AM en el DF, cuyo programa Política de Banqueta fue censurado en julio por el gobierno federal por la participación del Subcomandante Marcos.

Escucha el programa/Listen to the program.

The Other Side of the Red Alert / Otra mirada a la alerta roja

US journalist John Ross recently unleashed a storm of controversy with an article that criticized the EZLN's Red Alert. As a response to his criticism, I wrote the following article, published by the Center for Economic and Political Research for Community Action (CIEPAC) in Chiapas.
The Other Side of the Red Alert


Un artículo reciente del periodista estadounidense John Ross provocó una sonada controversia por las críticas que hace a la Alerta Roja decretada por el EZLN en mayo pasado. Como respuesta a sus críticas, escribí el siguiente artículo, publicado por el Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria (CIEPAC), Chiapas.
Otra mirada a la Alerta Roja.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Letter to the SF Chronicle (unpublished)

To the Editor:

Re “Angry Days in Mexico” (editorial, Sept. 1): Having spent the last three months traveling through Mexico as an investigative reporter for KPFA, I feel the need to question some of the editorial board’s assertions. Such as the claim that Lopez Obrador “has run out of legal ways” to contest the elections, “so he's starting to seek illegal ones.” It’s not exactly an untrue statement (although I haven’t anything suggesting that the PRD candidate is urging people to break the law), but the underlying assumptions betray the naivety of this political stance: if the law doesn’t work, if elections can be (and historically have been) fraudulent, then staying within the “legal” loses all meaning.

Then there’s the claim that Lopez Obrador is actively seeking violent confrontation because it’s the only way to boost his ratings “just as a violent teachers' strike in Oaxaca has soured the public on that state's governor.” The teachers’ strike, however, was entirely peaceful, until the government sent shock troops to batter, evict, and arrest them. The violence in Oaxaca comes from the state, as it does in Mexico City, where police have attacked and evicted peaceful PRD protesters in front of the government palace. It would be worth keeping this in mind when thinking about the electoral crisis in Mexico.

Sincerely,
Daniel Nemser