Marcos Loves Modernization

I see from Green Anarchy No.6, page 7, that Jesús Sepúlveda says the Zapatistas are resisting modernization. If that’s true, then they had better get rid of Subcomandante Marcos, ¡muy pronto! The good Subcomandante is no opponent of modernization. Here are some quotes from a speech that he gave during the Zapatistas’ recent march on Mexico City:

If we don’t already have enough money for medicine, now they will be taking another bit out of our wages…

The economic packages…mean nothing to us but more taxes, price increases, salary reductions, more unemployment, fewer work benefits, uses the furniture; the one who enjoys our work; the one who is fed…

The one which has the light, prosperity, progress, joy, hope is theirs, those who, being few, have everything.

The street and the countryside are for us. They call our destitution home.

You will leave school and you will find there are no jobs, and if there are any, they are poorly paid. Graduating from a public school is good for nothing but third-rate employment.

— Subcomandante Marcos National Polytechnic Institute, Zocatenco, Mexico, March 2001 (as quoted in English Translation in Food & Water Journal, Summer 2001, pages 24-27)</quote>

It’s clear what Subcomandante Marcos is driving at, and it isn’t an end to modernity. He just wants the poor people to have their fair share of the technological pie. Undoubtedly, poor people do deserve their share of the pie—if you accept that the pie should exist at all. But if you don’t believe that there should be any electricity, plumbing, modern medicine, schools, or jobs, then it makes no sense to say that poor people ought to have a share of these things.

It’s an old, sad, often-repeated story: True and genuine popular rebellion is taken over by sophisticated leftist intellectuals—in this case Subcomandante Marx, I mean Marcos, and his cronies—who manipulate it, betray it, and pervert it to their own ends. The leftists have done this again and again. When will people ever learn? When will you, green anarchists, ever learn?