Today in Writing History June 24, 1842: Ambrose Bierce, American short story writer, essayist, and journalist was born. The American Revolution Bicentennial Administration named his book, “The Devil’s Dictionary,” one of the top 100 masterpieces of American literature. Many consider his horror writing on par with Poe and Lovecraft. As a satirist, he has been compared with Voltaire and Swift. His war stories influenced Hemingway. In 1913, at age 71, he traveled to Mexico to cover the revolution. He joined Pancho Villa’s army and witnessed the Battle of Tierra Blanca. He never returned from Mexico. No one knows what happened to him and his body was never found. However, a priest named James Lienert, claimed that Bierce was executed by firing squad in the town cemetery there.
Today in Labor History June 24, 1943: Otto Rühle (1874-1943), German Left communist of the Spartacist League, died in Mexico. Early in his life, Rühle trained and worked a school teacher. He created a socialist Sunday school and criticized traditional school in "Work and Education" (1904), "The Enlightenment of Children About Sexual Matters", (1907), and, "The Proletarian Child" (1911). In 1912, he was elected to the Reichstag as a Social Democrat.
However, he is much more well known for his role as a leader of the Council Communist movement, along with Anton Pannekoek. They opposed the state communism of the Soviet Union and advocated for Workers Councils and Council Democracy. Lenin attacked them in his pamphlet, “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.” Rühle was also a comrade of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring and very active in the German Revolution. He opposed both World Wars and fascism.
On Wednesday night, members of the Movimiento en Defensa del Agua de la Cuenca Libres–Oriental began a highway blockade in Veracruz in front of the animal feed factory Granjas Carroll, which is contaminating the local aquifer and creating an "environmental hell" in the region.
On Thursday at noon, state police, the National Guard, and deputized civilians arrived to clear the blockade. They killed at least two people and injured hundreds.
"Hundreds of people were beaten in the operation and an unknown number of campesinos are convalescing in their homes with gunshot wounds and some others in hospitals. According to the victims' testimonies, the residents were chased by the state police and plainclothes agents to their homes, where they were brutally attacked."
Today in Labor History June 17, 1911: Federal troops, led by Madero, recaptured Tijuana from the Magonista anarchist rebels. Among those surviving and escaping was the famous Wobbly (IWW) songwriter, Joe Hill. Another Wobbly bard, Haywire Mac (compose of The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Hallelujah, I’m a Bum), also participated in the occupation of Tijuana. The Magonistas had captured the Baja California border town of Mexicali on January 29, and Tijuana on May 8, as well as Ensenada, San Tomas, and many other northern Baja California towns. The rebels encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands. They also supported the creation of cooperatives and opposed the establishment of any new government. Many U.S. members of the IWW participated in the revolution. Lowell Blaisdell writes about it in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962). The IWW had been active in nearby San Diego since 1906, sight of an infamous Free Speech fight in 1912. During that struggle, in which many veterans of the Desert Revolution fought, police killed 2 workers. Vigilantes kidnapped Emma Goldman and her companion Ben Reitman, who had come to show their support. However, before deporting them, they tarred and feathered Reitman and raped him with a cane.
Today in Labor History June 14, 2006: Mexican state police attacked 50,000 striking teachers occupying streets Zocalo of Oaxaca. No one died on this date, but over one hundred teachers were hospitalized. It led to mass protests and the occupation of Oaxaca city, led by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). Overall, the protests lasted seven months and at least 17 people were killed. The Mexican government used death squads and summary executions, and was accused of violating the Geneva Conventions.
Organ grinders have been a fixture on the streets of Mexico City since the 1800s, a result of dictator President Porfirio Díaz's passion for all things European. But nowadays, they're considered a nuisance — an assault against the ears. This, coupled with the high cost of renting and maintaining an instrument, means the tradition is at risk. Whitney Eulich talked to the remaining organilleros for @csmonitor. [story may be paywalled]
Shootings and extortion create ghost town in southern Mexico
Thousands of residents deserted the small Mexican town of #Tila, fleeing an intensive three-day siege by heavily armed men and leaving it a ghost town, and are still too afraid to return despite government troops now patrolling the empty streets.
#Biden also outranked #Trump w/neighbors #Mexico & #Canada, though Mexicans were not particularly confident in either leader: 36% said they had confidence in Biden to do the right thing, & 12% said they trusted Trump to do so.
The gap in opinion was much narrower in #India, where 44% said they were confident in Biden & 42% said they were confident in Trump; & in #Israel, where 57% said they trusted Biden & 54% said they trusted Trump. #Security#ForeignPolicy#USpol#geopolitics#BidenHarris2024
Today in Labor History June 10, 1971: Mexican police, and paramilitary death squads known as Los Halcones, killed 120 student protesters, including a 14-year-old boy, in the Corpus Christi Massacre, also known as El Halconazo. In 1968, the government had massacred up to 500 of students and bystanders in the Tlatelolco massacre. The Halconazo started with protests at the University of Nuevo Leon, for joint leadership that included students and teachers. When the university implemented the new government, the state government slashed their budget and abolished their autonomy. This led to a strike that spread to the National Autonomous University of Mexico and National Polytechnic Institute. To suppress the strike, the authorities used tankettes, police, riot police, and the death squad, known as Los Halcones, who had been trained by the CIA. Los Halcones first attacked with sticks, but the student fended them off. Then they resorted to high caliber rifles. Police had been ordered to do nothing. When the injured were taken to the hospital, Los Halcones followed and shot them dead in the hospital. Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes about these events in her 2021 novel “Velvet Was the Night.” It is also depicted in the 2018 film Roma.”
" When I worked with Trump, he was a P.T. Barnum. Trump is a fraud. He is a cheat. He is a thief. He is a criminal." -- Barbara Res, a former high-level Trump Organization official
National guard soldiers stand in the background as Michel, from #Venezuela, protects her seven-year-old daughter Aranza at the border between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso in Texas.
WHO confirms first fatal human case of bird flu A(H5N2)
"This was the first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with A(H5N2) subtype of bird flu reported globally and the first H5 virus infection in a person reported in Mexico."
"The victim had no history of exposure to poultry or other animals, WHO said."
The measure, which needs a majority to pass, is called the Secure the #Border Act. Along w/the #policing provisions, it’d also increase #prison sentences for anyone who sells #fentanyl* that results in an #overdose death, & would make it a #state#crime for #undocumented workers to provide false info to the #EVerify screening system.
Debris from homes destroyed by rising sea levels and coastal erosion associated with climate change is seen through a hole in a wall. Some homes have already been submerged, but the walls of others still stand out as proof that there used to be a fishing village where some 700 people lived.
Claudia Sheinbaum’s name will go down in Mexican history.
The governing party candidate won Mexico’s presidential election on Sunday, a turning point in a mostly conservative nation that for more than two centuries has been exclusively ruled by men.
Elsewhere in Latin America, women have led countries including Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Guyana, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Haiti and Costa Rica. #AureFreePress#News#press#Mexico
"Mexico is famous for its macho culture. Women here didn’t win the right to vote for president until 1953 — three decades after their U.S. counterparts. As recently as nine years ago, there wasn’t a single female state governor.
Yet Mexico has just elected its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, in what was essentially a race between two women engineers."
#ClaudiaSheinbaum was elected #Mexico’s first female president in a landslide on Sunday, an official quick count of votes showed, cementing the dominance of the left-leaning Morena movement that over the past 6 years has upended the country’s political establishment.
Her victory stunned an opposition that’s accused Morena of weakening the country’s democratic institutions.
Claudia Sheinbaum Makes History as First Woman Elected to Lead #Mexico
A climate scientist and former mayor, Ms. Sheinbaum became the first woman and Jewish person elected as president of the country.
"Mexico’s Constitution stipulates that the country’s transmission and distribution lines must be state-owned.
#Mexico has massive #geothermal energy reserves, which can be accessed with drilling techniques already utilized by Pemex workers and engineers.
“Energy transitions are faster if implemented by the state,” Romero said, and better at meeting goals other than profit, like expanding access to cleaner and more affordable electricity. "
"Searing #heatwaves could be a common theme this summer in parts of the United States and might make it one of the hottest on record, according to an updated outlook released Thursday by The Weather Company and Atmospheric G2.
The West Coast, from California to southwest Washington, might be the exception. "
Deadly heat in #Mexico and #US made 35 times more likely by global heating
"According to the study, without meaningful political action to stop fossil fuels, deadly heatwaves will be “very common in a 2C world”, Otto said.
#ExtremeHeat increases the rates of cardiovascular, respiratory and renal diseases, as well as threatening to overwhelm power supplies, healthcare facilities and other infrastructure."