ratitor's corner

march, 20, 1998

vernal equinox, 11:55am, pst




HELP STOP THE WAR IN CHIAPAS
send e-mail to keep the pressure on officialdom
March, 1998:   The mexican army is now occupying the indigenous territory of Chiapas in a "low intensity" conflict to terrorize the villagers there. A full scale attack on the Zapatista Army is imminent if we do not act now. Many more innocent people will be killed if we remain silent. These people need your help. All it takes is a letter of support to the governments of the United States, Canada, Mexico and to the European Union.
PLEASE go to:   http://www.newhumans.com/chiapas/automail.html
punch in your ident, and hit the [Send E-Mail!] button.

Of course, doing the above isn't "All it takes" to stop the war in Chiapas, but it does serve the cause of life and it is an effective tool to employ on behalf of people both courageous and desperate in their mortal struggle with the government of Mexico, a government supported by, and militarily and economically dependent upon, the United States. i attended a fund-raiser for Chiapas at Estrellita's Restaurant in January. It was very clear how much pressure & attention from the international community on officialdom has made the difference between life-and-death for the people of Chiapas, and between wholesale suppression of government-sanctioned and implemented murder and the possibility of forcing the Big Seam to stop this war on indigenous people. Leveraging the ability to communicate with people worldwide, and to marshal voices via electronic means, the Zapatista's have been able to resist the all-too-real "living" corpse-borgs in a way not previously manifested.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING
essays by Harry Cleaver :

In the narrow terms of traditional military conflict, the Zapatista uprising has been confined to a limited zone in Chiapas. However, through their ability to extend their political reach via modern computer networks the Zapatistas have woven a new electronic fabric of struggle to carry their revolution throughout Mexico and around the world.
www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/zaps.html
"The Zapatistas and the Electronic Fabric of Struggle"   11/95

At this point in history, policy thinking about human relationships with Nature seems unable to escape either the whirlpool of Neoliberalism or the mist-shrouded dangers of sustainable development. On the one hand free-marketeers tout an overt subordination of every aspect of the world to private property, commodity production and quick profit making; on the other, the critics of such short term calculus search for ways to continue the same processes indefinitely. What a choice!
www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/port.html
"Nature, Neoliberalism and Sustainable Development: Between Charybdis & Scylla?"   4/97

In the last few years concern with the ability of such non-governmental networks to undercut national governments and international agreements has grown. This concern has derived, in part, from the growing strength such networks have derived from the use of international computer communications. The extremely rapid spread of the computer "Net" around the world has suggested that such networks and their influence may grow apace.
        Surprisingly, no catalyst of that growth has been more important than the indigenous Zapatista rebellion in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and the widespread political mobilization to which it has contributed. The computer networks supporting the rebellion have evolved from providing vehicles for the familiar, traditional work of solidarity (e.g., material aid and the defense of human rights against the policies of the Salinas and Zedillo administrations) into a kind of electronic fabric of opposition to much wider policies. Today those networks are providing the nerve system of increasingly global challenges to the dominant economic policies of this period and in the process undermining the distinction between domestic and foreign policy and even the present constitution of the nation-state. Whereas the anti-NAFTA coalition was merely North American in scope, the influence of the pro-Zapatista mobilization has reached across at least five continents and dozens of countries generating a much, much wider activism. This activism has spread so rapidly, to such a degree and in such a way as to call for the most careful scrutiny.
www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/zapeffect.html
"The Zapatista Effect and the Cyberspacial Subversion of Foreign Policy"   11/97

SEE ALSO: Estrellita's Chiapas and Zapatista links

after pressing the [Send E-Mail!] button in the automail.html file, you'll be forwarded to a page starting with the following:
Please help us to get the word out by notifying your friends about the Chiapas Alert Network. With your help we can maximize this campaign.

This system will create a "fission reaction" in the internet community comparable to a nuclear explosion, that is, if you use the system.

The following system will message your friends that you have visited this site and include a message to them encouraging them to participate.

We do not record any of this information.

and then containing 12 text boxes for you to put your own friend's e-mail addresses into.

PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN THIS.



the following is the e-mail i originally got from my friend Wendy Oser, director of the Nuclear Guardianship Project and Coordinator of INOCHI's Safe Energy Handbook Project of Plutonium Free Future:
From newhum@gehenna.netnation.com Mon Mar 16 17:47:43 1998
To: dave
From: ngp@igc.org
Subject: URGENT - From a Friend - Please Help Stop the War in Chiapas

Wendy Oser
ngp@igc.org


Your friend has visited the Chiapas Alert Network and recommends that you should HELP STOP THE WAR IN CHIAPAS.

** This is an automatic letter. Please do NOT reply to it. **

You should visit the Chiapas Alert Network at:

http://www.stewards.net/chiapas/10.htm

to help end the political violence against the indigenous people there. Women and children have been massacred by government supported paramilitary groups. This has been happening in the america's own backyard.


The mexican army is now occupying the indigenous territory of Chiapas in a "low intensity" conflict to terrorize the villagers there. A full scale attack on the Zapatista Army is imminent if we do not act now. Many more innocent people will be killed if we remain silent. These people need your help. All it takes is a letter of support to the governments of the United States, Canada, Mexico and to the European Union.

Send a prepared email message. It takes only a few minutes of your time.

You can go directly to the Automailer System at the Chiapas Alert Network at:

http://www.newhumans.com/chiapas/automail.html

You can make a crucial difference - YOUR SUPPORT COUNTS!