testosterone-clotted gun-talk

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about the EZLN and Chiapas misrepresents the EZLN's real achievement. The
Zapatistas' innovation in the art of revolution lies precisely in keeping
armed violence to a minimum. Meanwhile, Mexican television and print media
have been exploited to the hilt, as have the US media and the Internet; just
let the Mexican Army seal a place off, and we are instantly bombarded by
posted news releases from the EZLN about atrocities committed by the soldiers
therein, which my visceral biases induce me to believe. Subcommandante Marcos
is one of the great media geniuses of all history, who has appeared on Mexican
television talk shows while the armed struggle was ostensibly continuing.

The EZLN attacked the Mexican state not where it was strong, ie in the
means of violence and in bureaucratic infrastructure, but where it has
historically been weak, ie, in foreign investment. Sensing that "investor
confidence" rested on the slender basis of officially promoted government
hype and image-mongering, the EZLN promoted itself into such a threat to
"investor confidence" that the ill-fated Riordan Roett deemed it necessary
for that threat to be expunged as a precondition of economic stability. At
which point the facade so assiduously concocted under Salinas de Gortari
blew away under Zedillo. Mexico is now in what smells very much like a
revolutionary situation.

This is a revolution made by sophisticated people using their brains against
an opponent self-consciously dominated by figurative "dinosaurs." The events
in Mexico will shake up the theory of social movements and revolution for a
long time to come. So I urge the unnamed individual to start using his head
for a change, and shut up.

Daniel A. Foss

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