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kuramirocket · 11 months

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The air was polluted for three miles in any direction from the Asarco smelter plant, which was near the U.S.–Mexican border in El Paso, Texas.

After a 1970s CDC study showed that the mostly Mexican-American population of this Texas town had dangerously high blood lead levels, its buildings were demolished and its residents were booted.

The American Smelting and Refining Company owned a smelter in El Paso that, starting in 1910, refined hundreds of thousands of tons of lead and copper harvested from its mines in Mexico. It did so with the help of “an army of Mexican contract workers" according to a University of Houston associate professor of history.

Mexican workers who labored in Asarco mines began migrating north, lured by that new operation on the U.S. side of the border. Many settled on company land below the foothills of Mt. Cristo Rey. In the early years of the 20th century, Smeltertown lay outside El Paso city limits, a few miles from the city’s downtown.

By this time, Smeltertown had evolved from a small border town into an industrial hub for ASARCO. In 1900, Smeltertown had a population of 2,721. By 1920, the number grew to 3,119. Of this number, 95% were Mexican.

Smeltertown was designed by ASARCO to revolve all aspects of life around smelting. By creating a monopoly over labor in the town, the company could max their potential output for profit. To do this, managers needed an untainted focus on smelting at all hours of the day. Therefore, ASARCO strategically planned Smeltertown to invite and keep laborers.

The most enticing method in which ASARCO attracted foreign labor was company provided housing. Small tenement style apartments were constructed for all migrant employees. Located a short walk from the factory, it ensured that smelting was always on the minds of their workers. Homes lacked electricity, indoor plumbing, or furnished floors. These conditions were intentional. Not only did a lack of appliances keep costs cheap for ASARCO, it also kept laborers out of the comfort of their homes and therefore smelting more frequently.

A home in Smeltertown, April 27, 1957, University of Texas at El Paso Library Special Collections Department, Cassola Studio Photographs, PH 041

Racial Hierarchy

Smtertown was divided into an upper section, El Alto, where the Anglo managers lived, and a lower section, El Bajo, where the Mexican workers lived.

Migrants were easily exploited by Anglos in positions of power. St. John describes, “The borderlands labor market was segmented by race… working-class ethnic Mexicans who labored as cowboys, miners, and smelter workers earned lower wages and were denied better-paying jobs in favor of Anglo-Americans and European immigrants."

Poverty in Smeltertown could be extreme. Residents built and invested in their homes, but the company owned the land. As in other single-industry towns, Smeltertown’s residents fashioned their own way of life in the world the company made, one marked by inequality, racial segregation, and corporate paternalism.

This discrimination was most noticeable in the physical makeup of Smeltertown itself. Company owners and managers lived atop the hill in the gated Smelter Terrace, coined the "hidden oasis." These Anglos enjoyed paved driveways, green lawns, and swimming pools. A woman who grew up in Smeltertown notes, “I never went to Smelter Terrace, and I assume my mother did not either. There was no interaction between the workers and management children, I am now ashamed to say.”

On the contrary, blue collar immigrants lived at the bottom of the hill in adobe shacks that lacked running water and electricity. These row style living quarters were designed for single men working the smelting factory. Thus, when families followed along across the border, they were forced to squeeze into these tiny spaces. Children often slept on the dirt floors in order to fit everyone comfortably.

According to Daniel Solis, a former resident, “Smeltertown essentially was an eyesore for El Paso” an embarrassment to city officials and the company.

Sewage and water systems were built by the residents.

Daily Pollution Ignored by the City

The residents of Smeltertown also experienced the discomforts of living with ASARCO’s emissions on a daily basis. Sulfur dioxide, a major by-product of smelting, creates foul odors and can cause breathing problems and irritation of the eyes, throat and lungs. Daniel Solis recalls:

"In July and August … our folks would bring us into the house, because the smoke, the pollution, the sulfur, would settle into our community for about 2 or 3 hours every day in the mid-day when there was no breeze to take it away. When we would breathe that, we could not be outside because we were constantly coughing. So nobody can tell me that there was no ill effect on the majority of the folks that lived in Smeltertown."

Mary Romero writes that Smeltertown families tried early on to get the city to respond to problems of pollution.

Residents had organized in the 1950’s in an unsuccessful attempt to get the city to pave Smeltertown streets and thus control the dust problem. Several parents had sought medical attention for children born with brain damage and other illnesses; not one case, however, had been diagnosed as lead poisoning. Past attempts to label health problems as pollution-related illnesses had been unsuccessful.

Given the arduous work and poor living conditions, everyday lives of workers consisted of making the most of their situation.

ASARCO's company reign did not stop at housing. They constructed all resources necessary to function in Smeltertown in order to keep Mexicans from finding work elsewhere. Examine the list below to see all facets of life ASARCO controlled for their laborers.

Company Owned Estbalishments

Hospital

Supermarket

General Store

Jail

Post Office

A Closer Look: Company Store

The company store stocked items adapted to the needs of an isolated industrial community. Citizens could buy groceries, clothing, and even ship mail from the facility. The Smelter Store functioned by extending credit to workers that would eventually deduct from their weekly paycheck. ASARCO kept prices relatively high in comparison to their laborers' respective salaries in order to keep workers hungry for the money necessary to pay. Angel Luján, a former smelter explains, “it was like I owe my soul to the company store." Most laborers lived on a paycheck to paycheck basis due to this loan structure designed by ASARCO. To live a standard lifestyle in Smeltertown, Mexicans had to "sign away their paycheck and their lives" to the company.

“A Silent Poison”

In March 1971, a team of Epidemic Intelligence Service officers from the CDC arrived to investigate lead exposure connected to the Asarco smelter.

The El Paso City–County health commissioner, had called the CDC after his department discovered that Asarco was discharging large quantities of lead and other metallic wastes into the air. Between 1969 and 1971, the smelter’s stacks had spewed more than 1,000 tons of lead, 560 tons of zinc, 12 tons of cadmium, and 1.2 tons of arsenic into the atmosphere. Soil studies showed the highest concentrations of lead and other metals in surface soil closest to the smelter—essentially, in Smeltertown.

Smeltertown children on the way to school in a horse-drawn wagon, El Paso, ca. 1900, El Paso Historical Society

Although the CDC team found no cases of overt lead poisoning, 43 percent of people in all age groups and 62 percent of children 10 and under living within one mile of the smelter had blood lead levels of at least 40 micrograms per deciliter. That’s eight times the level at which the CDC recommends a full-fledged public health response today.

The CDC team quickly followed up with a second study in Smeltertown in 1972, examining the health consequences of lead exposure in children. The CDC team administered IQ tests and a finger-tapping test of physical reflexes to the Smeltertown kids with elevated blood levels; a control group of children with blood lead levels below 40 micrograms per deciliter was also tested. The study found that children with elevated blood lead levels tested as many as seven points lower on the IQ test than the control group; they also showed much slower reaction times on the physical reflexes test.

Initially, the families reacted to the disclosures of lead contamination with great concern and cooperated with the research teams and doctors who came to test and treat the children. Some children were taken out of the community to be tested—the 4 year-old sister of Daniel Solis was taken to Chicago, although, as Daniel recounts, “She had never been to the airport, much less on an airplane.” Most of the children were treated at local hospitals, using chelation therapy, a drug regimen designed to remove heavy metals from the blood. The treatment is painful, and can be prolonged.

Daniel recalls that his young siblings were terrified of the painful injections.

This is what scientists now know: Lead in the air or in dust, paint, or fumes can work its way into the human body. In children, lead can permanently damage the brain and nervous system. It can slow a child’s growth and development. It can cause learning, hearing, speech, and behavior problems. Studies—the Smeltertown study being among the first—have linked early-childhood lead exposure to reduced IQ, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, juvenile delinquency, and criminal behavior, according to the CDC.

The consequences of early-childhood lead exposure can be moderated by educational enrichment, something that may not be readily available in poor communities with fewer opportunities and resources.

The pediatrician who led the CDC team stated, “I’m convinced one of the reasons our society has allowed it to go on is because the effects disproportionately fall on poor and minority children. In Smeltertown, people were almost universally immigrants from Mexico.”

During the trial, Ken Nelson, Director of Environmental Sciences for ASARCO, testified that lead contamination in Smeltertown had been “overlooked” by the company ASARCO officials said it had “never occurred” to them to include Smeltertown in the company’s air pollution monitoring system.

Asarco fought hard against the notion that the elevated blood lead levels in Smeltertown had anything to do with the smelter, or that lead exposure was harming children’s development.

The company claimed that elevated blood lead levels were caused by lead paint and gasoline emissions. It commissioned its own parallel study of the health effects in children and found no evidence of IQ loss. But the findings by the health department and the CDC team contradicted the company’s. The closer to the smelter the sample, the higher the concentrations of lead in the air, dust, and soil; human blood levels mimicked that pattern. And the CDC's team findings on the children’s IQ and physical reflexes were irrefutable.

It is worth noting that despite their groundbreaking nature, the study findings received little national attention at the time; A report by the New York Times in 1972 was the lone article that the newspaper wrote about Smeltertown.

As part of the settlement, the city and Asarco decided Smeltertown would be demolished, its residents forced to relocate. In October 1972, not two years after the lead studies began—eviction notices went out to all Smeltertown residents ordering them to clear out of their homes by January 1.

It should also be noted that the demolition of Smeltertown represented the least expensive solution for the city and ASARCO.

A statement by ASARCO’s physician that if Smeltertown had been allowed to remain, it would have required a greater commitments of funds and services than either the city or company was willing to provide.

The demolition of Smeltertown did not solve the problem of ASARCO’s emissions. Although the problem was first defined as a community health problem; it was later redefined as a problem specific to Smeltertown.

Restricting government action to Smeltertown fulfilled several objectives for various local interest groups. Business and industry were reassured that environmental policies would not threaten future growth. Pollution abatement would be placed second to economic stability, and therefore the chances of plant shutdowns or corporate flight were lessened … city and state officials were able to ignore contamination and possible health threats in other parts of Texas, New Mexico and Mexico.

Daniel Solis argues that the eradication of Smeltertown destroyed a significant part of Mexican-American history in El Paso. Like Romero, he points out that the solution chosen by the city and the company redirected attention away from the wider problems of contamination that was affecting children, workers and communities in the region.

The problems resulting from ASARCO’s emissions resurfaced continually over the years of ASARCO's operations in El Paso. Although the plant closed in 1999, the toxic contamination from ASARCO continued to be the focus of community struggles with the company, as community members pressed for information about the extent of contamination on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Everything that made up Smeltertown—every home and shop—would be bulldozed. Everything but the smelter itself, which would run for another 26 years.

Tight-Knit Comunidad

Mechanical department workers at Asarco, November 16, 1950

Outside of the work itself, laborers grew to establish unique cultural communities through their shared experiences. By mutually bonding over the challenges posed by the comany town, Esmeltianos banded together. Mexican migrants created their own binational "Mexican town" in Smeltertown.

Many Mexicans created their own Mexican establishments such as general stores, restaurants, and push cart vendors. Providing a wide labor market, El Paso inspired many Esmeltianos to extend their communities outside the company lines of Smeltertown. By 1930, various Mexican neighborhoods and establishments sprawled out in the El Bajo area, completely unaffiliated with ASARCO. One such example was the town YMCA, developed as a communal space for Mexican children to socialize and exercise. Efforts like these developed a deeper kinship in Smeltertown, away from the grave reality of smelting for a company. Instead, Mexicans claimed the borderlands as their own by branding cultural ties to the region.

Simple beautfication projects such as gardening gave citizens agency over the lives they lived in Smeltertown. Esmeltianos placed a large focus on simple tasks that emphasized aspects of life away from the company. Across the highway, many of the adobe shacks rented by the families were transformed with household money. They did not earn any home equity or even reimbursement for their efforts, just the pride in making a comfortable home for their families. In doing so, Smeltertown veered further and further away from the corporate grasp of ASARCO. Esmeltianos curated their community by naming streets and organizing sub barrios of El Bajo with Mexican influence. The combination of these efforts manifested into a town with a purpose far deeper than smelting.

What was originally intended to be a regimented camp strategized to produce maximum smelting output morphed into a binational community dense with culture. ASARCO may have owned Smeltertown, but it was its Mexican inhabitants that transformed the border town into a vibrant community.

Rubén Escandon has been collecting oral histories about the town for years from his own relatives and others as a member of the committee that protects Mt. Cristo Rey and the giant white cross Smeltertown residents erected at its peak.

“Everybody knew everybody,” says Escandon, who was born in 1965 in the satellite community of La Calavera, or Skull Canyon, near the Smelter Cemetery.

Gabe Flores, born and raised in Smeltertown in the 1940s and ’50s, remembers that the local señoras would pay him a few coins to walk hot lunches of caldo de res (beef stew), tacos, and fresh corn tortillas up the hill to the smelter men, who would be black with soot. When times were lean, Flores recalls, neighbors would borrow from each other: a little food, money, whatever was needed.

“It was all family,” he says. “Nobody was ashamed. Everybody was the same. Maybe they went through harder times and just realized they had to help each other. The fact that we would help each other, it bonded us together.”

Gloria Peña, an El Paso field nurse independently contracted to help with the lead testing in Smeltertown, recognized “the deep sense of loss” residents felt at the prospect of losing their community. “This is the beauty of our language because when you say ‘community’ it doesn’t have the same impact on us as if you say ‘comunidad.’ That is what Smeltertown had.”

A blood test being prepared for one of 500 children being tested for blood lead poisoning, March 30, 1973

Former resident, Cecilia Flores Marquez stated about her three children, “When they were young, no [they did not have health issues]. But they are having issues now.” Her youngest daughter became allergic to metal in her 30s, she says—something the doctors say could be related to the lead exposure.

There were no long-term studies of the former residents of Smeltertown to measure the health outcomes of their exposure to lead. Today former residents are left guessing whether this or that disability, defect, or illness could have been caused by lead. They have no way of knowing for sure.

Smeltertown after it closed down, January 5, 1973

Asarco would run its smelter for another quarter century after bulldozing Smeltertown. It was not until the decline of world copper prices in 1999 that the smelter halted production and the company mothballed the facility, keeping only a skeleton crew on board. Ten years later, the smelter sat silently on the bluff, atop a century’s worth of hardened black slag.

Asarco’s towering smokestacks finally came down in 2013. Today there is almost nothing left of the company or Smeltertown but the slag-coated hillside and the graves in the Smelter Cemetery.

Sources: (×) (×) (x)

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thats-a-lot-of-cortisol · 3 months

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looks at the items I'm cataloging at work

looks at Abbott's bullshittery at the border

Well history sure fucking repeats itself doesn't it

#'tHerE aRe MoRe MeXicAn soLdierS at tHe BordeR thAn U.S. AgenTs' YEAH i wonder if there's a REASON for that?!?#maybe there's a reason they feel the need to prepare for an invasion??#or a violent clash in their own fucking backyard that puts all of their citizens in the area in active danger???#there was crossfire from the Mexican Revolution that hit people in U.S. border towns in the 1910s #if Texas & the U.S. government come to blows i cant imagine at least one side being careful about gunfire not crossing the border #idk maybe itll be different with a river inbetween #republicans CANNOT win the next election. i hate that we need to focus on damage control #but honestly it feels like we have to in order to. like. keep our rights and try to prevent a fucking civil war #politics #current events

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sharpened--edges · 12 days

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While I was writing this to you, Janet Napolitano, the former U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, assumed her new post as the twentieth president of the University of California system, the first woman to occupy the office. The revolving door between institutions of policing, bordering, surveillance, incarceration, illegalization, militarization, and schooling is not new. Indeed, in San Diego, where I am based, Alan Bersin was superintendent of public schools from 1998 to 2005, after three years of running U.S.–Mexican border law enforcement for Attorney General Janet Reno under President Clinton. After his stint governing schools, Bersin governed the border (again) in 2009, this time for the Obama administration, working as ‘border czar’ under Janet Napolitano, then Homeland Security secretary, now UC president. However, it would be a misguided comparison to describe the bodies of faculty and students as analogous to the bodies of detainees and deportees and migrants and suspectees. It is not analogous power but technologies of power that recirculate in these imperial triangles, for example, debt financing, neoliberal market policies, information systems, managing noncitizen populations, land development. If we consider triangular connections between war abroad and refugee management within, antiblackness and the maintenance of black fungibility and accumulation, and militarization and Indigenous erasure throughout empire, then we can understand why the governors of war and the governors of schools can have similar résumés, without pretending that the governed suffer through identical conditions.

la paperson, A Third University Is Possible (Duke University Press, 2017), pp. 37–38.

#la paperson #k. wayne yang

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limeade-l3sbian · 1 year

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As Women History Month begins, listen to this powerful speech by Yesenia Zamudio, a Mexican mother who's daughter, María del Jesús, was murdered in her own apartment in 2016.

María was a 19 year-old engineering student in Mexico City's National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). After going out to party with classmates and a teacher, they claimed she "went crazy" and "committed suicide". A criminal investigation later reported that she was forcefully brought to her fifth floor apartment by her teacher and a classmate who after unsuccessfully trying to sexually abuse her, and as she struggled and screamed for help, threw her out of the window. María went into a coma and suffered head and leg fractures. She would die eight days later.

María's mother alleges that at least 7 people were involved in her daughter's murder. Despite this, following a 5 year investigation, in 2021 a warrant was put out for the arrests of María's teacher, Julio Iván Ruiz Guerrero, and her classmate, Gabriel Eduardo Galván Figueroa, for femicide. They have been fugitives since then. Mexico suffers one of the highest rates of femicide (the killing of women and girls because of their gender) in the world, with almost 1,000 cases every year. Greatly exacerbating the femicide epidemic in Mexico are the often U.S. owned "maquiladoras" or textile factories that operate along the U.S.-Mexico border. They prevail because of U.S. policies such as free trade agreements which encourage U.S. companies to exploit low labour costs in Mexico and in these factories women are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse, exploitation and forced labor.

It is for this reason that Yesenia's words keep having such a powerful impact: "I am a mother who had my daughter killed. And yes, I am an empowered mother and a feminist! And I'm in deep shit. I have every right to burn and to break. I'm not going to ask anyone's permission, because I'm breaking for my daughter. And whoever wants to break, let them break and whoever wants to burn, let them burn and whoever doesn't, don't get in our way!" (redstreamnet)

#maría del jesús #femicide #feminism

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disasterarea-podcast · 11 months

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So given the writer’s strike, some people are concerned about their shows and movies being postponed or canceled, and aside from the fact networks have already BEEN canceling shows for no reason for years (I still maintain a healthy anger about what Netflix did to Sense8), I thought I would suggest some books on disasters you might want to read if you’re into that sort of history. Which you are if you’re here, I imagine.

Note: I’m suggesting these books because most books on disasters don’t get a huge audience, and so I recommend them because this sort of writing can be hard on the writer and requires a bunch of research. We throw so much money at true crime, we can spare a few bucks for the stories of people who died in disasters.

Also, please check with these with your local small bookstore or library. Amazon can be great, but let’s lend a hand to those who need us more.

Recommended books:

“The Circus Fire,” by Stewart O’Nan - This is one my favorite books on a disaster, because the whole thing creates a very vivid image of the circus prior to the fire in Hartford in July of 1944. There’s one specific line in the book which always makes me pause because it’s so affecting, about how everyone who escaped being able to hear the sounds of the animals screaming as they died - except all of the animals were out of the tent by then.

“The Only Plane in the Sky,” by Garrett Graff - This, I highly recommend you get on audiobook. It’s an oral history of the events of 9/11 with a full cast, and it’s incredibly affecting to listen to.

“Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic,” by Jennifer Niven - Ada Blackjack was a badass: flawed and weak at times, but hardy and steady when necessary. Half of her story is how she survived, but half is how she was exploited following her rescue. Both stories need to be known.

“Alive,” by Piers Paul Read - If you’re watching “Yellowjackets,” this should be required reading. If you’ve seen the movie adaptation from the 90s, there is WAY more you don’t know. The story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 is a tough read, but a worthy one.

“A Night to Remember,” by Walter Lord - This is to disaster nonfiction what “In Cold Blood” is to true crime. It’s not a long read, but it’s a great one. Lord had the advantage of writing the book while many of the Titanic survivors were still alive and could give a very good description of what they went through.

“Dying to Cross,” by Jorge Ramos - I recommend this not just because it is good, but because it is timely. Nineteen people died in an un-air-conditioned truck as they were attempting to make their way into the states from over the Mexican border. It’s a horrific story, and one that humanizes an issue for whom some people need to be faced with the humans involved and what they go through.

“Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing,” by Arnie Bernstein - Harold Schecter also wrote a very good book on the Bath school massacre called “Maniac,” but I have a preference for this version. It’s a good reminder that schools in the U.S. didn’t just become targets in the last twenty years or so.

“Into Thin Air,” by Jon Krakauer - I feel like this is a gimme, but it’s a fantastic book from someone who was actually on Mount Everest during the 1996 disaster and knew those involved very well. I happen to like Krakauer’s work anyway - I even like “Into the Wild” despite my feelings about McCandless and his legacy - but it’s understandably my favorite.

“And the Band Played On,” by Randy Shilts - The one thing I will say is that Shilts’ treatment of Gaetan Dugas is *rough* to say the least and outright wrong on some points, God knows. But it’s still an amazing book, and if you come out of it not wanting to dig up Reagan and punch him a bunch I’m impressed at your restraint.

“Triangle: The Fire That Changed America,” by David von Drehle - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is one of the disasters I am most interested in, and I would argue this is the definitive book on the subject. Also, if this book introduces you to both Clara Lemlich and Frances Perkins … I mean, talk about badass women.

“The Radium Girls,” by Kate Moore - Look, I’ll say this. If you know of the Radium Girls, this is a great book on their story. If you don’t know, go in blind and prepared to be horrified.

“Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine,” by Anne Applebaum - Ukraine has always been a target. During the Holodomor, they were victims of one of the worst genocides in history.

“Midnight in Chernobyl,” by Adam Higginbotham - Like the miniseries? This is a great source for more information for what happened at Chernobyl and all of the ass-covering involved.

"Boston Strong: A City's Triumph Over Tragedy," by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge - If you’re interested in the Boston marathon bombing, I really thought this book did a good job of connecting the stories of the victims, the authorities searching for the killers, and the killers themselves.

“Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Tower,” by Peter Apps - As I understand it, Apps did a lot of covering the Grenfell Tower fire for the British press, and it shows. He provides a mountain of information, and you will come out of reading this book absolutely LIVID about what authorities allowed to happen in Grenfell and so many other council estates in the UK.

“Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919,” by Stephen Puleo - I feel as though the molasses flood gets treated like a joke a lot of the time, but y’all, twenty people died. That area of Boston was *wrecked*. The photos of the devastation are terrifying. Puleo treats all of this with the proper respect it deserves.

“In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,” by Nathaniel Philbrick - Forget the movie. Read the book.

“The Great Influenza,” by John M. Barry - Want to read about the 1918 flu epidemic? Want to be mad that a hundred years later we didn’t learn a damn thing?

Now, that’s just a start. If anyone wants, I can always post photos of my disaster book collection on Kindle and next to my recording desk. Or if there’s a specific disaster you’re interested in, I may know of a good book about it you can read.

But just remember if SAG and the directors’ guild joins the strike too - there is so much out there to occupy your time until they come back. Entertainment work is work, and it deserves to be supported financially and fairly as such. Rock on, WGA. ✊

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apas-95 · 7 months

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WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - About half of Americans support sending U.S. military personnel into Mexico to fight drug cartels, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll [...] The findings show broad public support for calls by most major candidates in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination contest to send special forces into Mexico, the U.S.'s biggest trading partner, or conducting missile or drone strikes there. [...] According to the seven-day Reuters/Ipsos poll, which closed on Thursday, 52% of respondents said they supported "sending U.S. military personnel to Mexico to fight against drug cartels," while 26% were opposed and the remainder were unsure. Republicans were supportive by a 64% to 28% margin; Democrats were narrowly opposed, 47% to 44%. [...] In a policy video released earlier this year, former President Donald Trump said he would direct the Department of Defense "to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damager on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations." Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said he would send troops to Mexico on "day one" of his administration, and he has not ruled out cross-border missile strikes. [...] Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, for his part, has repeatedly made clear that Mexico would not tolerate U.S. military action within its borders and has derided the calls as "irresponsible" and "pure publicity."

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bighermie · 1 month

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Mexican Military Incursions on US Soil Worry Border Agents

Mexican Military Incursions on US Soil Worry Border Agents https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/article/mexican-military-incursions-on-us-soil-worry-border-agents-5605303?utm_source=andshare

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hero-israel · 6 months

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But how can you just tell Palestinians to move south. Israel is committing war crimes by denying water to civilians, it’s collective punishment and they don’t want Gaza to exist. What on earth is Hamas going to do with water other than drink it, how can you defend this position, how is Israel at all heroic. All you can say is for Palestinians to get over the past and fight Hamas, but how? Half of Palestine are children and there are few resources. You can’t just offer some weak critiques of Netanyahu; the right wing Israel political machine is still Israel; you can’t separate some ideals from what is happening now.

"Weak critique", seriously? I have repeatedly said that the Babi Yar, Rwandan Genocide style atrocity inflicted against Israel was made possible by the dysfunctional government Bibi built to legalize his own crimes and that tore society and military readiness apart as a side effect. Hamas would ALWAYS have done it, I've known they are genocidal fascists for quite some time, it is the job of the Israeli govt to watch Gaza and they didn't. How is literally "You made this possible" weak?

Israel re-allowed water as of 2 days ago and is now re-allowing food.

Palestinians are horribly oppressed by Hamas, if they tried to rise up against Hamas they would surely be killed on the spot, and I am not so far out as to say "these are the brutes who they support so bomb them all." But if I don't want the civilians bombed, and you don't even want them moved so they dodge the bombs aimed at facilities, then what is there left for Israel to do at all? How do you imagine a country of Jews, shaped in memory of historic persecutions and genocides - many of them by Arab and Muslim regimes that oppressed and massacred them for 1,000+ years - ought to respond to having the very worst of those events re-staged in their own homes, against their children, their grandparents, the helpless? If any possible action in Gaza is "collective punishment," is Hamas simply to be left unscathed? What would stop them from doing it again, plus a dozen copycats? What do you want, and what country do you imagine would meet your wishes?

There is no government in the world - in the history of the world - that would tolerate a Hamas on their border after what it just did to them. If a Mexican drug cartel seized control of Tijuana and said it was going to "liberate California" in the name of all the Hispanic Catholics who are TRULY indigenous to California instead of White Protestant colonizers, occasionally firing missiles at random into the U.S., then snuck in a death squad and raped and butchered 40,000 people in their homes (and that's the count, adjusted for population), what do you think America would do to Tijuana?

This is why I said previously - as terrible as a full military commitment absolutely would be, "alright, well, don't do that again you meanies!" very well could be worse. People need to deeply and honestly confront whether any retaliation for crimes against humanity is allowable, or whether we are in a perverse mirror image of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" gun law, where the man standing atop a corpse said "he scared me!" and gets away with it. In this case, violence is so forbidden that whoever commits a violent crime first wins.

#israel #palestine #jumblr

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the-eternal-quest-for-balance · 2 months

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BREAKING: OMG Team infiltrates secret NO MAS MUERTES encampment in the middle of the desert in Aravaca, Arizona near the border.

When the illegal immigrant asked where the Mexican men dressed in military attire associated with the No Mas Muertes nonprofit were from, one responded, “From Sonora,” while another was from Tijuana – notorious Mexican cartel hotbeds. “I have a friend coming soon. He will take you to the city,” said one of the cartel-appearing men. “How much does he charge?” asked the illegal immigrant. “$300,” responded one of the cartel-appearing men. Hours later, these cartel-appearing men pointed guns at the illegal immigrant.

In the middle of the Arizona desert over 60 miles southwest of Tucson, O’Keefe Media Group (“OMG”) risked their lives to investigate the shady activity of No Mas Muertes, or No More Deaths, a nonprofit organization claiming to provide humanitarian aid to illegal immigrants but has been raided by US law enforcement and whose members have been arrested by border patrol numerous times. Posing as donors and land surveyors, and with the help of an illegal immigrant working undercover, OMG recordings show this nonprofit repeating “we are a little paranoid,” refusing to state their names, voicing hostility towards law enforcement, interrogating the undercover illegal immigrant “Why don’t you ask for asylum? Why don’t you ask border patrol for asylum?” and offering to transport the undercover illegal immigrant for $300 cash before pointing guns at him – actions related more to a human trafficking operation than a humanitarian nonprofit.

No Mas Muertes workers refusing to provide their names or identifications stating: “You also don’t need the mask. I only put it on when the military shows up or when those white people show up, so they won’t take my picture” flies in the face of No More Deaths’ obligations as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization to follow the law. Instead, it seems to skirt immigration laws and traffic humans. OMG’s exposé of secret illegal immigrant compounds funded by Catholic Community Services of Tucson coupled with this undercover footage of No More Deaths reveals the shocking proliferation of private tax-exempt nonprofit organizations working with the government or potentially dangerous cartels to engage in what amounts to human trafficking into the United States under the guise of humanitarian aid, without any scrutiny or accountability.

Off the outskirts of the tiny town of Arivaca 40 minutes on a dirt road from Interstate 15 at 36455 S Papalote Wash Road, several people wearing construction vests planted flags into the ground as land surveyors would before being approached by someone who told them to leave: “Hey guys, this is private property.” These people were not, in fact, surveyors. They were James O'Keefe and members of his OMG team, equipped with hidden cameras to investigate the rise in suspicious nonprofit organizations operating at the U.S.–Mexico border. The team was outside the secretive location of No Mas Muertes, or No More Deaths.

Couched as a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, whose tag line is “a liberal light in the desert,” No More Deaths appears to use its relationship to Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson to evade filing IRS documents of financial transparency (IRS Form 990) under an IRS exemption for religious organizations. After confirming the location was No More Deaths property, an OMG team member posing as a donor called Mary Weiss, an administrator for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson. On the call, Weiss represented No More Deaths was an “organization we actually partner with,” as “a ministry of the church,” located in Arivaca with a staff of 4-5 employees and budget of $400 Thousand.

As the OMG team continued planting flags around the perimeter of the property, they sent a volunteer illegal immigrant with a hidden camera to observe No More Deaths from the inside. No More Deaths workers welcomed OMG undercover illegal immigrant and explained how they “always have threats” at the camp on account of “bad people” and “the [border] patrols.” They described wearing masks so they could not be identified or photographed “when the military shows up or when those white people show up” and declared the men at the perimeter to be white supremacists “looking to cause trouble.” Apparently, government workers, law enforcement, and white people, made them “paranoid” – a very strange mental state for people working at a “humanitarian” nonprofit organization.

Upon the OMG team leaving the area, No More Deaths workers intercepted their car and questioned them. After O’Keefe mentioned the Unitarian Universalist Church and No More Deaths, the No More Deaths workers denied knowing either organization and never provided their names.

Back at the “humanitarian” camp, the two military-dressed men from Sonora and Tiuana – cities famous for Mexican cartels, interrogated OMG undercover illegal immigrant. “Where are you from?” “Why don’t you ask for asylum?” “Where did you cross through?” “Who are they? Who brought you here?” “How much did they charge you?” “Your watch is expensive right, you got a camera in there?” Ultimately, they offered to find someone to take him to Phoenix…for $300 despite the nonprofit’s budget of $400 Thousand. OMG undercover illegal immigrant eventually reunited with the OMG team, but not before having guns pointed at him at “humanitarian” No More Deaths camp.

That night in the desert raised more questions than it provided answers. Why are people at a nonprofit pointing guns at people? Why is a humanitarian nonprofit adverse to border patrol? Why does a humanitarian nonprofit have armed cartel-like men offering for-profit smuggling services? How does an organization which routinely violates the law keep its tax-exempt status? OMG’s investigation into No More Deaths reveals the growing abuse of nonprofit laws by organizations hiding under the cloak of religious affiliation and potentially profiting off human trafficking. One thing is clear – men are armed, secrecy is rampant, and fear is wielded by nonprofit organizations running unfettered.

WATCH MORE ON YOUTUBE / ON X

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ivan-fyodorovich-k · 4 months

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The United States didn't just collectively wake up under Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson or Franklin D. Roosevelt and decide they needed to take this thing on the road, one of the United States' first national government's first jobs was to create and sustain a military to secure independence from the British. For most of the nineteenth century one of the U.S. military's main occupations was to deal with Indians along the frontier. The United States tried to invade and conquer Canada two times, once in the 1770s and again in the 1810s. The United States annexed huge swaths of foreign territory after the Mexican-American War in the 1840s and there was of course that massive exercise of federal military power in the U.S. Civil War.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it may not be a coincidence that the United States appears first to have set its sights on overseas adventures the moment it got the continent firmly under its control. It's not like militarism only counts once you cross an ocean, the U.S. started projecting military power outside its borders from day one.

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ralfmaximus · 14 days

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Here's the complete list of DHS flagged search terms. Don't use any of these on social media to avoid having the 3-letter agencies express interest in your activities!

DHS & Other Agencies

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Coast Guard (USCG)

Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

Border Patrol

Secret Service (USSS)

National Operations Center (NOC)

Homeland Defense

Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Agent

Task Force

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Fusion Center

Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

Secure Border Initiative (SBI)

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)

Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

Air Marshal

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

National Guard

Red Cross

United Nations (UN)

Domestic Security

Assassination

Attack

Domestic security

Drill

Exercise

Cops

Law enforcement

Authorities

Disaster assistance

Disaster management

DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)

National preparedness

Mitigation

Prevention

Response

Recovery

Dirty Bomb

Domestic nuclear detection

Emergency management

Emergency response

First responder

Homeland security

Maritime domain awareness (MDA)

National preparedness initiative

Militia

Shooting

Shots fired

Evacuation

Deaths

Hostage

Explosion (explosive)

Police

Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)

Organized crime

Gangs

National security

State of emergency

Security

Breach

Threat

Standoff

SWAT

Screening

Lockdown

Bomb (squad or threat)

Crash

Looting

Riot

Emergency Landing

Pipe bomb

Incident

Facility

HAZMAT & Nuclear

Hazmat

Nuclear

Chemical Spill

Suspicious package/device

Toxic

National laboratory

Nuclear facility

Nuclear threat

Cloud

Plume

Radiation

Radioactive

Leak

Biological infection (or event)

Chemical

Chemical burn

Biological

Epidemic

Hazardous

Hazardous material incident

Industrial spill

Infection

Powder (white)

Gas

Spillover

Anthrax

Blister agent

Exposure

Burn

Nerve agent

Ricin

Sarin

North Korea

Health Concern + H1N1

Outbreak

Contamination

Exposure

Virus

Evacuation

Bacteria

Recall

Ebola

Food Poisoning

Foot and Mouth (FMD)

H5N1

Avian

Flu

Salmonella

Small Pox

Plague

Human to human

Human to ANIMAL

Influenza

Center for Disease Control (CDC)

Drug Administration (FDA)

Public Health

Toxic

Agro Terror

Tuberculosis (TB)

Agriculture

Listeria

Symptoms

Mutation

Resistant

Antiviral

Wave

Pandemic

Infection

Water/air borne

Sick

Swine

Pork

Strain

Quarantine

H1N1

Vaccine

Tamiflu

Norvo Virus

Epidemic

World Health Organization (WHO and components)

Viral Hemorrhagic Fever

E. Coli

Infrastructure Security

Infrastructure security

Airport

CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)

AMTRAK

Collapse

Computer infrastructure

Communications infrastructure

Telecommunications

Critical infrastructure

National infrastructure

Metro

WMATA

Airplane (and derivatives)

Chemical fire

Subway

BART

MARTA

Port Authority

NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)

Transportation security

Grid

Power

Smart

Body scanner

Electric

Failure or outage

Black out

Brown out

Port

Dock

Bridge

Canceled

Delays

Service disruption

Power lines

Southwest Border Violence

Drug cartel

Violence

Gang

Drug

Narcotics

Cocaine

Marijuana

Heroin

Border

Mexico

Cartel

Southwest

Juarez

Sinaloa

Tijuana

Torreon

Yuma

Tucson

Decapitated

U.S. Consulate

Consular

El Paso

Fort Hancock

San Diego

Ciudad Juarez

Nogales

Sonora

Colombia

Mara salvatrucha

MS13 or MS-13

Drug war

Mexican army

Methamphetamine

Cartel de Golfo

Gulf Cartel

La Familia

Reynose

Nuevo Leon

Narcos

Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)

Los Zetas

Shootout

Execution

Gunfight

Trafficking

Kidnap

Calderon

Reyosa

Bust

Tamaulipas

Meth Lab

Drug trade

Illegal immigrants

Smuggling (smugglers)

Matamoros

Michoacana

Guzman

Arellano-Felix

Beltran-Leyva

Barrio Azteca

Artistics Assassins

Mexicles

New Federation

Terrorism

Al Queda (all spellings)

Terror

Attack

Iraq

Afghanistan

Iran

Pakistan

Agro

Environmental terrorist

Eco terrorism

Conventional weapon

Target

Weapons grade

Dirty bomb

Enriched

Nuclear

Chemical weapon

Biological weapon

Ammonium nitrate

Improvised explosive device

IED (Improvised Explosive Device)

Abu Sayyaf

Hamas

FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)

IRA (Irish Republican Army)

ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)

Basque Separatists

Hezbollah

Tamil Tiger

PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)

PLO (Palestine Libration Organization)

Car bomb

Jihad

Taliban

Weapons cache

Suicide bomber

Suicide attack

Suspicious substance

AQAP (Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula)

AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)

TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)

Yemen

Pirates

Extremism

Somalia

Nigeria

Radicals

Al-Shabaab

Home grown

Plot

Nationalist

Recruitment

Fundamentalism

Islamist

Weather/Disaster/Emergency

Emergency

Hurricane

Tornado

Twister

Tsunami

Earthquake

Tremor

Flood

Storm

Crest

Temblor

Extreme weather

Forest fire

Brush fire

Ice

Stranded/Stuck

Help

Hail

Wildfire

Tsunami Warning Center

Magnitude

Avalanche

Typhoon

Shelter-in-place

Disaster

Snow

Blizzard

Sleet

Mud slide or Mudslide

Erosion

Power outage

Brown out

Warning

Watch

Lightening

Aid

Relief

Closure

Interstate

Burst

Emergency Broadcast System

Cyber Security

Cyber security

Botnet

DDOS (dedicated denial of service)

Denial of service

Malware

Virus

Trojan

Keylogger

Cyber Command

2600

Spammer

Phishing

Rootkit

Phreaking

Cain and abel

Brute forcing

Mysql injection

Cyber attack

Cyber terror

Hacker

China

Conficker

Worm

Scammers

Social media

SOCIAL MEDIA?!

#dhs #privacy #paranoia #security

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odinsblog · 1 year

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What is the Posse Comitatus Act?

I’ve said it before and I will keep on saying it: If it was wrong when Trump did it, then it’s still wrong when Biden does it.

Title 42 was wrong when Trump enacted it, and Title 42 was wrong when Biden sued to continue using it to target Haitian and Mexican refugees and asylum seekers. And now Biden is sending U.S. troops to the border to “assist” the Border Patrol.

Stop sending troops to the border, and start sending lawyers, asylum judges and pop-up courts. Refugees and asylum seekers have a right to seek legal asylum.

Wrong is wrong. Preferential, race-based asylum and refugee policies that favor European immigrants above all others doesn’t magically stop being racist just because “our team” is doing it. Seeking asylum is legal. For everyone.

“Stop sending troops, start sending lawyers, asylum judges and pop-up courts. Refugees and asylum seekers have a right to seek legal asylum.”

Joe Biden is fundamentally altering how, when, where and who can legally, and more easily, seek refuge on American soil. This is wrong.

I am desperately waiting for all of the, “Oh, don’t worry we’ll pull him left after the election” liberals to start speaking up. Suddenly they’re all on mute.

#politics #joe biden #immigration #asylum seekers #title 42 #refugees

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haggishlyhagging · 3 months

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The use of multiple women in families for reproduction is grounded in many religious patriarchal traditions. Men took an array of wives and concubines, not only for sex but also to reproduce. The reproductive use of multiple women was culturally and religiously legitimated as extended family, otherwise known as polygyny. In ancient Israel, for example, a large family, in particular a large number of sons, was regarded as a blessing from Yahweh. The desire for progeny was partially responsible for the system of multiple wives and concubinage. Surrogacy, especially family surrogacy, replicates this model, with the man inseminating a female family member in order to reproduce "his issue." As one commentator noted, we are really talking not only about surrogate mothers, but about "surrogate wives."

The potential for women's exploitation is not necessarily less when no money is involved and reproductive arrangements take place among family members. In fact, the family is the least safe place for women. More women are sexually abused, battered, and killed in the family context than anyplace else. Yet most of the literature on family surrogacy—sisters bearing children for sisters, for example—romanticizes the family as the foremost place of protection. However, unique affective "inducements" exist in familial contexts that do not exist elsewhere. Although there is no legal "coercion of contract" or perhaps no "inducement" of money, there could be the coercion of family ties, in which having a baby for a sister or another family member may be rationalized as the "greatest gift" one woman can give to another. In these family situations, sisterhood becomes surrogacy; that is, sister love is equated with one sister becoming pregnant for her sibling. Yet, rather than surrogacy enhancing sisterhood, is it not exploiting a sister to put her at risk physically and psychologically? As one woman wrote, "What kind of a society do we live in, that would condone women using other women in this way?"

Gifts often have an operative role and power in shaping family life, as in social life in general. In The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, anthropologist Marcel Mauss contends that gifts fulfill certain obligations. These obligations vary, but in all instances, whether gifts are used to maintain social affection or to promote unity or loyalty within the group, they are experienced in some way as prescriptive and exacting. This is true on a cultural level, as Mauss has pointed out, but it is even more true on a family level, the context most often cited as the desirable site of altruistic reproductive exchanges.

Family opinion may not force a woman, in the sense of being out-rightly coercive, to become pregnant for another family member. Where family integration is strong, however, the nature of family opinion may be so engulfing that, for all practical purposes, it exacts a reproductive donation from a female source. When a surrogate arrangement is represented as generosity to a family member in need, the ideal of altruism binds the woman to the norms of family duty.

Within families, it may be considered selfish, uncaring, and even dishonorable for a woman to deprive a relative of eggs, fetal tissue, or her gestating abilities. The category of altruism itself is broadened in family contexts to include all sorts of nontraditional reproductive duties that would be frowned on if women did these for money. Within families, it may be considered selfish for an infertile woman to deprive her husband of children by not allowing the use of another female family member, especially because the arrangements will be kept within the family.

It is also likely that those with less power in the family will be expected to be more altruistic. Indeed, their altruism may be outrightly coerced, as happened to Alejandra Muñoz. Muñoz, a poor, illiterate Mexican woman, was brought across the U.S. border illegally to bear a child for relatives at the urging of family members. Told by relatives that if she became pregnant the embryo would be flushed out and transferred to the womb of her cousin, Muñoz was deceived about her reproductive role. When this embryo transfer did not happen, Muñoz vowed to end the pregnancy and was thwarted by family members who kept her under house confinement until the delivery. When she fought to keep her child, she was threatened with exposure as an illegal alien. In family surrogate arrangements, relatives do the brokering. Family members are inevitably used as essential intermediaries and gatekeepers between the woman and the would-be recipients of a child.

And women are still negotiated by family agents, whether for money or for free. We should also not assume that, because surrogate arrangements occur within the family context, no money changes hands. Increasingly many relatives accept a "return gift" for their services. In the realm of organ donations, by comparison, Dr. James Light of the Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center, one of the nation's largest transplant centers, estimates that some economic benefit accrues to 15 to 20 percent of living organ donors who give to a relative.

-Janice G. Raymond, Women as Wombs

#janice raymond #surrogacy #altruism #family pressure #reproductive technology #reproductive coercion

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oddbunny · 2 months

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Found this Gael interview from 2006 in the comments section on another interview. Accidental rabbit hole.

2006 New York Post interview:

It's not for nothing that Gael Garcia Bernal was twice cast as revolutionary Che Guavara. The Mexican actor is as charismatic as he is outspoken - especially when it comes to issues concerning his native country.

He's also responsible for some serious box-office magic back home: 2001's "Y Tu Mama Tambien" was the biggest opening weekend ever for a Mexican film, and 2002's "The Crime of Father Amaro" was the most successful Mexican film in history (and possibly the most controversial - he played a secretly non-celibate Catholic priest).

Bernal is currently starring in director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel," alongside Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and was recently seen riding a stop-motion stuffed horse in Michel Gondry's fantastical film "The Science of Sleep."

Q: Mexican directors are hot right now. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu made waves with "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams." Alfonso Cuaron did it with "Y Tu Mama Tambien." Is Mexico becoming a center for film?

A: There's definitely a worldwide sense that Mexican cinema is pretty big, or a bit "in fashion," right now. Latin cinema as a whole, really. There's this rebirth feeling. But this is nothing, for what the country deserves - Mexico is a country of 100 million people. The year "Amores Perros" was made, there were only six films made there! And this year, it's 65. So there's been a big increase.

But unfortunately, in Mexico, it's harder to make a movie, to even contemplate the idea of directing a film - not many people have the opportunity. I'm sure people from the mountains in Oaxaca find it so far away [from their reality] to do a film. And at the same time, it's exactly those kinds of voices that you want to hear.

If I had to stick with one reason why films matter, it's that: getting to know the "other," and finding that the other is not so different than you are. That's what I think of when I feel like I don't want to make movies anymore.

Q: You have moments when you want to get out of movies?

A: Yeah, I mean, sometimes you feel unprepared, you feel untalented, like you're doing something you don't like, or that you're just doing it terribly. Or you don't like the industrial side. But at the end of the day, there is always that thing. I want to do films because I am an audience first, and films have made me know more about the other - and that the other doesn't exist, really.

Q: Which is one of the points of "Babel." But some people, like the busload of U.S. and British tourists, come across worse than others, don't they?

A: Well, there's two points of view about this movie - you can see that, OK, the people from the U.S. are portrayed as scared people, really worried about health and dirt. But you can also see the other side: Why are the ones that die always from poor countries? We are always the ones that die.

Q: Your character in "Babel" makes pretty bad decisions after he's stopped by an aggressive cop at the U.S.-Mexican border. Have you, or someone you know, ever experienced anything like that?

A: My character makes a bad mistake in a drunken state. But yeah, when you're Mexican, it's a bit of a situation. You have to apply three months before, and it costs $80 for the visa. Sometimes you have to show bank statements to show you're earning money, you're not coming to the U.S. to work. It's kind of stupid - as if money was a sign of honesty, or goodwill. It's a rite of humiliation. They act as if you are coming here to steal.

Q: Is it easier for you to avoid this than most, though?

A: No, no - the last time I crossed the border, walking, I was asked, "Where do you come from?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm from Mexico." And they say, "No, where do you come from?" And I say, "I come from Mexico." I mean, what am I supposed to explain? And they say, "What were you doing in Mexico?" And I say, "Well, I live there." And they say, "No, but what were you doing right before you came here?"

I'm not gonna answer that. Because - you know, what do you care? We're radicalizing the process of integration, and that's terrible. Because it's going backward in time. But it's not just the U.S.'s fault - Mexico is shamefully not providing a place for people to work and live properly. It's everyone's fault.

Q: Did that experience make you want to avoid the U.S.?

A: No. I mean, we share the same territory! But Bush just signed off on the law to start building a wall. It's the second biggest wall that's ever going to be built, it's going to rival the Great Wall of China. And it costs so much money, and so much human resources. Maybe I'm stating the obvious here, but it's kind of ridiculous to build a wall. Walls are always destroyed eventually.

Q: Aside from acting, your production company organizes a worldwide traveling documentary film festival, Ambulante. Are you planning the 2007 festival yet?

A: Yeah, it's happening in 18 cities, on commercial screens, with a big chain - for half-price! Very cheap, it's like $2. And we're going to get together some 15-20 films, divided into three sections. One section we're calling "Dictator's Cut," which is about censorship. For one of those, we're showing both the "official" version and the real one; the rest are already restored, but some of them were completely not shown. It's very exciting.

Q: Your role in Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep" was one of your least political roles - was it fun to cut loose and just be weird?

A: It was great, it was a joy to act in. I had a lot of fun doing it. I think not many people have seen it here. Maybe because it was done in France? I mean, it's got good numbers, but still, I wish it would be much more.

There is still this myth - like, for example, I saw the trailer for [Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro's upcoming film] "Pan's Labyrinth," and they don't show you it's in Spanish. You never see a character speaking. I just think that's cheating, you know?

If they actually tell me that there's this weird Iranian love story - I want to see it, because it's in Iran. If it's about a love story in Florida, well, I've seen that before. I'm interested in the further-away, the more surprising.

Q: Do you ever worry that people will take you less seriously because of your looks?

A: [Laughs] No - there are prettier boys than me.

#gael garcia bernal #gael garcía bernal #interviews #2006 #there are few prettier boys gael you are wrong lol

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