John Ross > Quotes

“Inhabited by an endless stream of mountebanks, bigots, thieves, embezzlers, and bribe-takers, it would be challenging to violate the dignity of Mexico’s legislatures.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“Major Ana Maria led the celebrated takeover of San Cristobal on January 1, 1994.”
― John Ross, Zapatistas!: Making Another World Possible - Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006

“Salinas proposed an overhaul of Article 27 to pave the way for U.S. agribusiness to buy up the Mexican countryside.”
― John Ross, Zapatistas!: Making Another World Possible - Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006

“When the Imecas hit 240, a Phase 1 emergency kicked in and schools and gas stations and some factories were closed. Phase 2—300 Imecas—closed all factories and forced drivers to leave their cars at home. The trouble was that the monitoring stations were mounted so high up, they misread levels down on the ground. Actual levels were closer to 500 Imecas,”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“As the Yankee Doodle Dandies climbed into the altiplano (highlands), they sang the popular songs of the day, one of which, “Green Grow the Lilacs Oh,” became their signature tune, and forever after they would be known as “greengos.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“The Left has governed the great cities of the world before. Paris, Marseilles, Madrid, London under Red Ken, have all succumbed to the siren song of the Left at odd moments in the not too distant past. Barcelona was in fact once governed by committees of anarchists. Rome, Milan, and Naples have fallen under the Red Thumb. Stalinist proxies ruled Prague and Warsaw and Budapest and the traffic flow kept moving. The Communists took the garbage out in Moscow.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“NAFTA is a death sentence for the Indians,”
― John Ross, Zapatistas!: Making Another World Possible - Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006

“A beleaguered middle class trapped between rampant consumerism and diminished expectations accounts for another 20 percent of El Monstruo’s population. Those considered wealthy, the really ricos, constitute only 3 percent of the total census. The gap is unbridgeable. Less than 10 percent of the population owns 75 percent of the city real estate, eats most of its food, and drinks up most of its water (1,000 liters per household per day, as opposed to 200 in middle-class and more proletarian sectors).”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“Decades of PRI despotism purposefully made sure that the poor stayed poor, so that they would be dependent on the mal gobierno and vote to keep the Perfect Dictatorship in power year after year.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“In truth, the Valley of Mexico is not a valley at all but a self-contained basin hemmed in by 8,000-foot peaks with no natural drainage.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“Once again, the civil society chanting "Todos somos Marcos" ("We are all Marcos") filled the capital's ZOcalo plaza, and support for the Mayan rebels ran so high that the Mexican congress was forced to pass legislation ordering Zedillo to open a dialogue with the Zapatistas.”
― John Ross, Zapatistas!: Making Another World Possible - Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006

“Mexico City’s reputation as Murder City South has endured down the centuries. Between 1860 and 1875, the Mexican capital was billed as the most dangerous metropolis on the planet.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“Ebrard—real unemployment in the capital weighs in around 15 percent, and new jobs are almost exclusively in the “informal” sector,”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“Toral sucked down his last cigarette—a Faro, the slim-jim cheapos that were then the smoke of choice—and faced the firing squad still hollering “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” The term chupando Faros has since become Chilango slang for giving up the ghost.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“Pedro de Gante was charged with building a convent to bring Indian girls to Jesus Christ—a statue of the good padre suggestively patting an Indian girl on the head can be found today on the pedestrian passage that bears his name just a block away. Some sinners insist the statue is a monument to priestly pedophilia.”
― John Ross, El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

“And in these accords, the bad government said it was going to respect the rights of the Indian peoples of Mexico and their cultures and that they would put it into a law in the constitution. But of course after we signed these accords, the bad government forgot all about them. Instead the government attacked the Indians to set back their struggle on December 22, 1997. That was the date the Zedillo ordered 45 men, women, old people, and children murdered in the town in Chiapas called Acteal.”
― John Ross, Zapatistas!: Making Another World Possible - Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006