* In 4,368 precincts (41 percent of those recounted), 80,392 ballots of citizens who did vote are missing (an average of 18 votes in each of these precincts).
* Together, these 7,442 precincts contain about 70 percent of the ballots recounted. The total amount of ballots either stolen or forged adds up to 126,282 votes altered. The Narco News Bulletin - Al Giordano 08/14/2006
Mexican citizens advocating for clean elections armed themselves with video cameras and other recording devices. We have yet to see any this evidence. Why? Because the corporate media north and south of the border are either intentionally or reflexively complicit, by taking part in the blatant shilling that goes into those razor thin victories that the right wing pulls off with increased regularity, efficiency, and repeated success..
The millions of Mexican activists, the leaders, and Obrador are all engaged in a very high risk enterprise. The Fox government broke up a peaceful vigil by teachers in Oaxaca a few months before the election. As part of their protest, the teachers slept in the town square. One morning at dawn, the shameless Fox government dispatched helicopters to tear gas the peaceful demonstrators as they lay unguarded, innocently, and defenselessly sleeping.
Given the ruling elite's response to protests in the provinces, what more nefarious means of repression can we expect in the capitol city when civil disobedience is inevitably enacted to assure a fair chance at winning the presidency?
The ghost of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre before that year's Summer Olympics haunts the demonstrations today. In a deliberate act of terror, the Mexican army surrounded Tlatelolco Square in Mexico City where 5000 activists were peacefully assembled. The troops opened fire with deadly effectiveness killing three hundred innocent demonstrators who thought Mexico was a democratic country. Premeditation with the intent to harm was acknowledged much later by the man in charge, then minister of the interior (and later president) Luis EcheverrÃa. In addition, there is direct evidence of keen United States interest in the demonstrations and the student movement. US Government representatives in Mexico City gathered intelligence on the students and their plans, passing that along to the Mexican Government.
This will sound familiar to the many Americans who have lost personal data or who followed the elections closely in 2000. After 911, a detailed list of the names of Mexico's 65 million voters was purchased by Choicepoint, an American data mining company. Was this detailed information provided to the Fox government and his party to target specific voters for special "benefits" in those areas with cash-rich Governors?
More worrisome, Mexico has not changed its laws since1968 when Echeverria ordered the massacre in Tlatelolco. He was charged but never fully prosecuted for his role in ordering the massacre. Will the Fox government adopt the same shock and awe approach against the Obrador protesters and execute another Tlatelolco massacre?
The millions flooding the public squares supporting Obrador's cause are fully conscious as they act in civil disobedience. They know of the recent assault on sleeping teachers in Oaxaca and the history of premeditated violence by the previous government against the protesters who threatened far less than the democracy advocates are threatening today. Their goal is an end to decades of corruption which steals the wealth, lives, and soul of a nation of intelligent, hard working, creative people.
It is both prescient and incumbent upon all of us to support the heroic efforts of the Mexican people in any way we can. We should draw inspiration from their real-world battle against those who would hide ballots as though they were personal property instead of the fundamental statement of the public will. We must honor these sentinels of democracy by redoubling our efforts to make voter suppression, voter disenfranchisement, and nonsensical outcomes a thing of the past in the United States.
In a very real sense, Obrador and the PRD are leading the way to a positive shift in the movement toward freedom and against tyranny.
Citizens of the United States owe the Mexican people a great debt. We must respond with acts of comparable commitment in our own struggle for human dignity and freedom. Failure to act allows the nihilistic forces which serve outmoded, corrupt, and world killing philosophies to continue unopposed. These forces proceed despite all indications that the path and process have set us on a course of undeniable and obvious global catastrophe. There is an alternative available and it is coming to life right now in Mexico.
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