On this day, 10 April 1919, Emiliano Zapata, peasant leader during the Mexican revolution of Nahua and Spanish mestizo descent, was assassinated in Chinameca, Ayala, by forces of the “revolutionary” Carranza government.
Early in life, he began to advocate for the rights of Indigenous people in Morelos when he saw wealthy landowners continually stealing their land, with no response from the government. So he began taking part in armed land occupations.
With the outbreak of revolution in 1910, Zapata became the leader of the Liberation Army of the South. The force was a revolutionary peasant militia fighting for “tierra y libertad” (land and freedom), a slogan they adopted from Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón.
After Francisco Madero took power in 1911, Zapata denounced him for betraying the revolution, and drafted the Ayala Plan: a radical programme of land reform. Madero himself was then overthrown by counter-revolutionary Victoriana Huerta.
Zapata’s southern army allied with the revolutionary armies in the north, led by Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza. They soon overthrew Huerta, and called a convention to form the new government, which Zapata declined to participate in as none of the organisers had been elected.
With Carranza in power, he only implemented minor reforms, which fell well short of the Ayala plan, so the Zapatistas fought on.
Carranza put a bounty on Zapata’s head, hoping that one of his own fighters would betray him, but none of them did. In the end he was lured to a meeting with one of Carranza’s men who pretended to be interested in defecting.
When Zapata arrived for the meeting he was murdered, and his body photographed for propaganda purposes.
He is today a national hero, and Indigenous rebels in Chiapas who rose up in 1994 and created an autonomous territory named themselves after him.
We have reproduced this iconic photograph of Zapata to help fund our work: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/emiliano-zapatahttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1397104473808032/?type=3
“In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter what you crazy people in California do, because I got smart guys who can always figure out how to make money.” - Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron, 2000
I want to talk to you about a chapter of California history that tends to get overlooked. And it’s important for people to remember this because it’s an example of the worst excesses of capitalism, specifically the California Electricity Crisis that happened in 2000 and 2001.
Basically what happened was that in 2000 and 2001, California was facing severe electricity shortages and blackouts. And it wasn’t because they didn’t build enough power plants either.
It traces back to the Republican Governor Pete Wilson, who ran the state from 1990 to 1998. In 1996, Pete Wilson, in collaboration with his Enron (yes, that Enron) buddies in Texas decided that the California electrical grid was too regulated and that it needed to be fisted by the invisible hand of the free market. So they deregulated the electricity supply and made all the power suppliers buy what they think they’re going to need the next day.
This scheme didn’t kick in until 2000, when Pete Wilson had been termed out and Gray Davis (D) had been elected Governor, the people selling electricity discovered that they could make a lot more money by turning off power plants for a little but and then selling it back once the price went up. And since people have no real choice about electricity providers, they just had to sit back and take it.
And that’s literally what they did. Enron was literally shutting down power plants during times of peak demand to raise prices, and the power utilities weren’t able to meet that demand, so they’d have to have rolling blackouts just to prevent the entire grid from going down.
And Enron, they were literally laughing about it.
At no point in 2000 and 2001 did the electrical demand in Calfornia exceed the supply of power available. These deregulated vulture companies that had come in because of Pete fucking Wilson had set up entirely artificial shortages because it made them money.
So next time somebody talks about privatization or deregulation as the end-all be all solution, run. Vital utilities like power, and water should never be in the hands of unaccountable private companies, but need to be accountable to the public and should be focused first on providing service before being focused on making money.
I REMEMBER THIS AND I AM STILL FUCKING PISSED AND BITTER
Scream Factory has revealed the specs for its Escape from L.A. Collector’s Edition Blu-ray. Originally scheduled for release on April 28, the disc will now street on May 26. Hugh Fleming designed
the new cover art; the original poster will be on the reverse side.
The
1996 sequel to Escape from New York is once again directed by John
Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing), who co-wrote the script with frequent
collaborator Debra Hill (Halloween) and star Kurt Russell.
Russell
reprises his role as Snake Plissken. Stacy Keach, Steve Buscemi, Peter
Fonda, Georges Corraface, Cliff Robertson, Pam Grier, and Bruce Campbell
round out the cast.
Escape from L.A. was received a new 4K scan from the original camera negative. Special features are listed below.
Juvenile punks are brightly colored as a form of protective visibility, allowing their parents to find them easily and preventing injuries such as traffic mishaps and accidental mosh pit squishing. As they mature, punks develop their darker, studded adult plumage.
That was…not the description I was expecting, but it’s perfect.
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