These are days of massive civil protests against the onslaught of global capitalism. The first of these giant demonstrations was spawned in Seattle at the end of November and the first couple of days in December 1999. The summit meeting of the World Trade Organization at that occasion was completely disrupted by many tens of thousands of protesters from all over the world. Since that spectacular groundbreaking protest event the tempo hasn't lessened. Again and again enormous mobilizations of ordinary citizens demonstrate widespread growing awareness of the danger of global capitalism, and the urgency of stopping its destruction of our world.

      Just last month in Quebec a summit conference on the proposed Free Trade of the Americas Agreement was opposed by an even larger demonstration than the one in Seattle. And already I see notices of planning for the upcoming meeting in Washington in November. Clearly, a sign of the times. Very encouraging. But there's a question. Isn't there always!

      In the long run, we have to disable capitalism's drive to commodify the whole globe, to exploit every natural 'resource' and every possible pair of working hands. Giant protest demonstrations are enormously effective in waking people up. They show the realities of the social/political structure, the ready use of brutality by nearly every nation-state to prevent free expression of dissident viewpoints by the citizenry. They highlight the use of militarized police forces employing overwhelming physical force. They repeatedly show officials lying, misnaming police terror and rioting as 'justified prevention of violence', the maintenance of law and order. And they show, just as importantly, the spirit and courage of every-day people confronting organized state violence.

      In order to disable capitalism's drive to exploit everything, we have to replace capitalism itself. We have to do away with it. We can't expect sweet logic to change the minds of the heads of the World Bank, the Federal Reserve System or others of the richest and most powerful of the capitalist world system. The only way to stop the destruction they and their system are carrying out is to deprive capitalism itself of the wealth and power at its disposal. And that will take more than sweet logic and more than massive demonstrations. Many have said this before. Of course it's true.

      We need to build a global grassroots infrastructure, made up of millions of autonomous grassroots groups linked through a global grassroots communication network. We need an infrastructure into which we will gradually (but as rapidly as possible) transfer from corporate control as much material and other resources as we can. We need to build our lives as we want them to become. The bases for this infrastructure already exist to far greater extent than many of us are yet aware.

      Every community in the world that is struggling to hold on to or to gain a degree of autonomy over its own internal life is already, whether unknowingly or consciously, one of the bases for the infrastructure. Such a community is the small town of Tanetze de Zaragoza in the northeastern Sierra of Oaxaca State, Mexico. Another element of the infrastructure is the group in Oaxaca City, Ojo de Agua Comunicación. The documents in this folder (a subfolder of the Grassroots folder) stem from an ongoing struggle for communality in Tanetze and from the efforts of Ojo de Agua Comunicación to assist in this struggle. They highlight two critical factors: 1) a local grassroots struggle to defend communality, and 2) the effectiveness of grassroots communication networks.

      The Seattle meetings not only gave birth to the growing global protest movement. The first so-called Indymedia center was set up to provide honest news coverage, coverage completely independent of corporate control. A phenomenal growth of independent media centers (IMC's) followed, leading in less than 1and 1/2 years to a vast network of 55 centers, on all continents except Antarctica. An account of this development is in the short essay, "Building a Global Grassroots Infrastructure-1: Development of the Indymedia Center Network", available at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Grass/Infra/Infra-1.htm, and on several IMC websites. This network, the skeletal backbone of a worldwide grassroots communications network, is based on the internet. It is separate from, and complementary to e-mail.

      In its efforts to support the Tanetze struggle, Ojo de Agua used telephone, fax, mail, e-mail, and a major daily newspaper, and encouraged communications to government officials by fax, e-mail, telephone, and letters. An introduction to Crisanto Manzano, who is a main focal point of the conflict, is in "Building a Global Grassroots Infrastructure-2: The Chiapas Media Project and Crisanto", which is at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Grass/Infra/Infra-2.htm, and on several IMC websites.

      The documents collected here show the importance of gaining support for local struggles from outside of the local community. The eloquent and forceful letters written to Ojo de Agua from Tanetze are clear evidence of the value of not being isolated in struggle. The Zapatistas of course have long known this. We all do.

      In these struggles local people are defending their right to live in their communities the way they want to live. That is a very positive stance. It is different from demonstrating opposition to global powers on their turf. Success for such struggles on local turf is crucial for building the grassroots infrastructure with which, eventually, we will hollow out the institutions of capitalism.

      James, in his essay Getting Free, which is at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/GetFre/index.htm, correctly highlights the distinction between struggling against things we don't want, and defending things we build and want to keep. He writes, "...it is not merely our reacting to things we don't like and want to stop, not merely our resisting what they are doing to us, but rather our defending what we are doing to them through our new social creations. It means that we ... begin to take the initiative to build the life we want, and then fight to defend this life, and defend our social creations from attacks by the ruling class. I think people will be much more willing to fight for something like this, than to fight to stop outrages of the ruling class elsewhere, which often seem remote from their everyday lives. But we should be quite clear that this will involve us in terrible fights. We will never be able to establish free associations ... without directly confronting ruling class power."

      The struggle of the millions of indigenous peoples of Mexico for autonomy, true autonomy to determine their own lives, is such a struggle. The fight has indeed been terrible. Ultimate success will require support through the global grassroots communication network. The network is essential as a part of, and for building, the entire Global Grassroots Infrastructure, and it's well under way!

      A final point. The conflict in Tanetze does not directly involve global capitalism. Those in conflict are all local indigenous people, some of whom have accepted the ideology of capitalism, and are ready to destroy communality in favor of private gains in power and money. The struggle against that ideology is essential for our long-term success. There are many levels on which to struggle, all of them important.

1. Open letter published February 18, 2001 in La Jornada, which explains the conflict.

2. E-mail 1 from Ojo de Agua Comunicación, February 20, 2001, in which they urgently request faxes.

3. E-mail 2 from Ojo de Agua Comunicación, February 24, 2001, in which they report on the serious situation.

4. Letter from Crisanto Manzano to Ojo de Agua Comunicación, dated March 4, 2001, with specific information about what's going on.

5. Letter from Pueblos Unidos to Ojo de Agua Comunicación, dated April 12, 2001, with much hopefulness.

Note: All translation errors are my responsibility. Corrections welcome.