By John Ross
MEXICO CITY — Monday morning, Oct. 12, broke broodingly over Mexico City. The headlines on a score of newspapers hanging from Vicente Ramirez’s kiosk were universal loas for Calderon’s heroic seizure of Luz y Fuerza del Centro. As usual, La Jornada, the capital’s left daily, was the exception. Political columnist Julio Hernandez noted that on the eve of the centennial of the Revolution of 1910-1919, Mexico stood at a decisive moment: if Calderon was allowed to validate the takeover of the company and destroy the SME, the left’s goose was cooked.
Around the counter at the Café La Blanca, sullen faces were buried in their newspapers. Isidro Zuniga talked about putting 34 years in at a box factory before being shown the door – “I gave them my youth for a handful of pinche lentils. This is how the bosses fuck us. Chinga su Madre Senor President! We will stand with the SME…”
Benito Ruiz, the driver at the hotel where I’ve lived for 25 years, was steaming. Calderon was like the dictator Porfirio Diaz who was dumped by the Revolution, like the president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz who had ordered the massacre of hundreds of students on the eve of the Olympics in 1968. “Watch your back, Senor John,” he warned, “these bastards will stop at nothing…”
Others had less sympathy for the workers. Don Juanito Lopez, a tailor here in the old quarter, was dismissive of Luz y Fuerza which he thought rotten to the core with corruption. When you complained about your light bill or wanted to get something fixed, employees demanded a “stimulus” bribe. Sky-high electric bills have driven a wedge between Luz y Fuerza workers and the general public.
I walked over to the neighborhood Luz y Fuerza office on Carranza Street. It was locked up tight but the Mexican flag was still flapping from the roof. Handwritten signs (“Listen up people! The SME is fighting for you!”) were taped to the dusty windows. A young woman who said she was the daughter of an electricista, handed me a leaflet that explained what Calderon had done “is called fascism just like under Hitler and Mussolini and Pinochet and Diaz Ordaz.”