I find myself here in strong agreement with Tony. I have long been more than a little skeptical of the whole Zapatista "movement." It has been the darling of many infantile leftists here, precisely because it never really fought. And for precisely that reason, they have been effectively and slowly encircled over time, restricted to a tiny cluster of mountains, until this last publicity stunt was the only strategy left them. There's never been the least ideological clarity there, and therefore no real practical strategy. Our coffee house radicals here loved them and hated the FARC, for example, because the FARC had the temerity and bad taste to actually shoot government soldiers... while the Zapatistias exported designer coffees and embroideries. At 10:09 AM 3/12/01 -0600, you wrote: >The title of this article represents exactly the political weakness of >the Zapatistas in the current political situation in Mexico. What >Mexico needs and wants is not a 'masked man', or a Mexican Che, but >rather a pragmatic solution to concrete problems. And this is the >imagery that Vicente Fox has built up with the help of the compliant >Mexican press. > >Romanticism versus Pragmatism. After the ugliness of the PRI era, >Mexican society as a whole will vote for giving Fox a chance. > >I fear that with this march, the Zapatistas marched themselves ahead to >their 'triumph', and also ultimately, into their own blind alley. >They took the carrot offered. > >This is a very dangerous moment for the Zapatista Movement. They >may have been outflanked in the propaganda wars. If so, the stick >will surely follow. > >Tony > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ >CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base > "...all truly great scientific abstractions are both universal and simple. They are simple not because they explain so little but because they explain so much. Generality does not arise because an abstraction represents everything that could possibly happen, but because it remains valid no matter what happens." Alan Freeman _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
