Maria Santos Gorrostieta - Astonishing HERO of Mexico's Undeclared War

Early in WW1 Alan Seeger wrote the lines to his immortal poem, I Have a Rendezvous With Death. He then faced up to his fears and remained in the trenches with his comrades. It's not widely admitted, but Mexicans were participant in that war, and northern states like Sonora and Chihuahua had already experienced trench fighting, artillery duels and aerial bombing... this before the Canadian Corps had landed in France. Mexico is today torn by in another internecine war, a blood letting of monstrous proportions which is callously ignored by we selfish Gringos to the north. The undeclared war in Mexico has taken 30,000 lives since 2006. One HERO of that war is Maria Santos Gorriesta, mayor of the small city of Tiquicheo in Michoacan. This astonishing woman has survived two ambushes, the first in which she lost her husband. In spite of the fact that she has children, and has already made enormous sacrifices, the Mayor of Tiquichero stands her ground. Like Alan Seeger (an American who volunteered to stand with France, long before his government did) Maria Santos has a rendezvous with Death.
Maria Santos Gorrostieta, Mayor of Tiquicheo, hands out uniforms to very brave men, the volunteers against the heavily armed Narco-guerrillas who seek to eliminate opposition to their deadly drug network in Michoacan. IF SHE QUIT, WOULD THEY STAND? When she meets Death, will the world mourn a Hero?

In spite of being painfully mutilated, the Mayor has kept up with the duties of public office. Her critics have repeatedly claimed that she was exaggerating the extant of her wounds for publicity. A few days ago Maria Santos Gorrostieta did something characteristically brave. She allowed photographers to record her horrible wounds. The Daily Mail has the story here

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If you believe the baloney in the daily press, the "Drug War" in Mexico would blow away if Canadians and Americans would just stop buying Mexican drugs. That is far too simplistic, but more to the point... we have to get our heads around the fact that this is a WAR. The Drug Lords are targeting municipal government and media as well as State Police and national army units. They are seizing control of huge swathes of territory and they intend to hold it. The drug gangs have morphed into heavily armed guerrilla armies and many now openly display banners and uniform insignia such as shoulder badges. You've heard and read the nonsense that they buy all of their weapons in WALMART stores and gunshops in the American border cities. Well you can't purchase cases of fragmentation grenades, finned rifle grenades, landmines and belt-fed machineguns from a WALMART. The bad guys have connections to foreign governments who think that fostering anarchy in our hemisphere is clever politics.

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Finally, and this is a point I hammer into students every day of the week. If we rely on TV News editors to decide what is notable and worthy of current interest, and WIKIPEDIA to decide all of the rest, we are well and truly SCREWED. Below is the search prompt for Wikipedia. Note the cultural trash on display. That alone should be enough to dissuade anyone from proceeding further. BUT I did press search... in fact I did it several times, just to be sure. There is no page for MARIA SANTOS GORROSTIETA. God damn that's a bitter pill to swallow! What in the hell has "Lady Gaga" ever done except make an ass of herself?

WIKIPEDIA REDACTS WHOLE EVENTS FROM OUR HISTORY : An even more blatant example of the callousness of Wikipedia mavens was the the so-called "Winchester Atrocity" - an extraordinarily evil domestic atrocity which was ignored by the U.S. media, lest it detract from the public euphoria of electing a president of colour. Prof. Stix wrote a detailed article on how Wikipedia actively redacts entire events from modern history. Read "Invisible Victims" here.

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An afterthought: In our Orwellian world, the spoken or written word carries no reliable or concrete meaning. The concept of "Declaring War" on a foreign country or people, the need to apply a coat of legal varnish, has fallen out of fashion. Our "Mission" in Afghanistan was initiated by Jean Chretien and inherited by a lesser Liberal, and is now the toy of a Tory prime minister. In our time, war is only "declared" against undesirable social conditions - the illicit drug trade, child poverty, terrorism, etc. The "War on Drugs" in Mexico was declared by President Felipe Calderon. To symbolize the seriousness of his commitment to the metaphor, his Excellency posed in the uniform of a five star general and toured a military base in Michoacan. Allan Wall has some thoughts on that at MEXIDATA.INFO I am convinced that the wounds on the body of Maria Santos Gorrostieta are far more eloquent symbols of the war on drugs in the State of Michoacan.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon photographed at a military base on Jan. 3, 2007. He wears an army jacket and FIVE stars on his cap... one star more than allowed the officer to his left, the senior ranking officer in the Mexican Forces.

2015 UPDATE:  There is finally a wikipedia entry for this incredible woman - a North American heroine totally ignored by the Gringo media.  Maria Santos Gorrostieta Salazar

So far,  one of truly courageous women of our extremely bloody - 21st Century.