“Harvard contributes to reconstructing Oaxaca” is the grand headline splashed across the Sunday, March 25, 2007 front page of Noticias, the major daily newspaper published in Oaxaca City. When I saw that announcement this morning I thought, “Oh, my God! (Never mind that I’m an atheist.) That’s both good news and bad news.” The good news is . . .

Oaxaca, Tuesday, 2 May 2006

Friends,

      The Oaxaca Study-Action Group OSAG may be able to participate in a useful way in freeing the political prisoners. This small group of activist-oriented oaxaqueños — principally gringos from the U.S. and Canada, but with several indigenous oaxaqueñs, has held three public events since we began early this year, mainly informational, at two of which academics told of their work with communities working for autonomy, one in Zapatista base support communities in Chiapas and the other in communities in Oaxaca. In both events attendees were interested and contributed some money.

      If there is anyone in the area who might speak with more knowledge than Nancy and I have at the moment at tomorrow's OSAG meeting, we might then be able to organize a public event subsequently. The OSAG meetings are usually held at 5:30 Wednesdays. We meet, courtesy of the Oaxaca Lending Library, at Pino Suarez 519, which is in Colonia Centro, close to Llano Park. It is, however, not a Library-sponsored group.

      No advance notice is needed to attend and participate in an OSAG meeting. All Oaxaqueños are welcome. You can of course telephone Nancy and me beforehand, at (951)-514-8242, or send e-mail.

George Salzman <george.salzman@umb.edu>

Nancy's e-mail is <nmsdavies@yahoo.com>

Oaxaca, Thursday, September 22, 2005

Friends,

      As Hurricane Rita makes its way across the Gulf, tracking for the U.S. Gulf Coast, up to category 5, I've just managed to post a note, "We don't need a hurricane; the time for revolution is now!" at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/N

otz/2005-09-22.htm .

      I feel about these hurricanes hitting the U.S. the way ...

"... we are being censored ... it is a threat to everyone's free speech"  --C.E. Carlson

"If you do not like ... embedded news reporting you will not like content censorship of the Internet."  --C.E. Carlson

The election is being strongly
contested. Join in! Don't give up!

      This is not the time to fall into a state of depressed resignation over Bush’s supposed victory. Although the mainstream media has continued for almost two months now to foster a belief in the inevitability of renewed Republican rule for another four years, the chips aren’t all in yet. The corporate media is struggling mightily to hide them.

      Representative John Conyers of Michigan and his Democratic colleagues on the House Committee on the Judiciary have held meetings in Washington DC and in Columbus OH revealing the presence of massive fraud in Ohio. The website http://truthout.com/ has substantial coverage, but in the so-called mainstream these revelations are . . .

      The corporate media is burying the news about the possibly-stolen U.S. election. Some folks wrote me after my last posting, the one titled, “Blessed be the killers, Part III: A strategy for removing the Bush administration”, saying in effect that I was wrong, in either or both judgment and strategy. I think the letters I got are indicative of the success of corporate media in shaping people’s consciousness, even those of us who try to be very critical and independent. In this note I share some of the comments and exchanges.

I'm not ready to accept as true that Bush won the election, despite the fact that even many of those who are strongly opposed to his regime seem to have accepted the seemingly unending proclamations in the corporate media that he even garnered a majority of the votes, and not only the electoral college vote.

In a number of articles, the most recent of which is at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/D

iscus/2004-12-06.htm,  I've argued for challenging continuation of the Bush administration, and proposed a strategy for getting rid of it.