July 10 , 2000 The End Is Near BY RICK ROCKWELL Can the Mexican opposition topple the PRI? Temp Slave Revolt BY DAVID MOBERG Contingent workers of the world unite. Locked Down BY KRISTIN ELIASBERG Prison cutbacks leave inmates hopeless. News & Views Editorial BY SALIM MUWAKKIL Just say no to the war on drugs. Forgotten America BY JUAN GONZALEZ Enemies of the state. Appall-O-Meter BY DAVID FUTRELLE A Terry Laban Cartoon Bully Culprit BY JAMES B. GOODNO Estrada is leading the Philippines into crisis. Three's Company BY JOHN NICHOLS Third parties strategize for the November elections Don't Drink the Water BY ERIK MARCUS Did a factory farm cause a deadly E. coli outbreak? Eight Is Enough BY DAVE LINDORFF Judge restricts freedom of anti-death penalty activists Pass the Petition BY TED KLEINE In Michigan, a Republican leads a campaign to legalize marijuana Profile BY TRAVIS LOLLER Irina Arellano: on strike and in style. Culture Botched Burbs BY SANDY ZIPP BOOKS: How the suburbs happened. Harrington's Way BY KIM PHILLIPS-FEIN BOOKS: The Other American. Slaughterhouse Live BY JEFF SHARLET BOOKS: Absolute oral history Shakespeare Inc. BY BEN WINTERS FILM: Something is definitely rotten in Denmark. Post-Feminist Smackdown! BY JANE SLAUGHTER

The End Is Near By Rick Rockwell San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico A month before Mexico's presidential election, Father Gonzalo Ituarte is preaching to a church filled with his flock, the indigenous and mestizo residents of San Cristobal de las Casas. In an island of light in the dark church, the priest tells a story about the conquistadors and how the local Indians carried on after the Spanish took their land. It isn't hard to divine that his metaphor is really about the country's current power structure. Bicycle taxis in Mexico City adorned with portraits of PRI presidential candidate Francisco Labastida. Credit: Jorge Silva/AFP. A few blocks away from the church, in the town square, the headline on a copy of Cuarto Poder, a regional newspaper, screams: "Attack!" The lead story is about Subcomandante Marcos, the famous guerrilla leader, and his predictions that Mexico's ruling party will move to crush his forces after they win the July 2 election. But many in San Cristobal don't seem to be worried. They say calm will prevail because they believe Mexico's opposition will finally win an election for the first time since the Mexican Revolution. Could this be the election that finally ends one-party rule in Mexico? For more than 70 years, the country has been run by the Institutional Revolutionary P arty (PRI), the party with the longest stretch of uninterrupted national rule in the world. Mainstream media on both sides of the border are trumpeting the candidacy of Vicente Fox Quesada of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) as the force that will finally topple the PRI's aging, creaky political machine. Rick Rockwell is a contributor to the new book Mexico: Facing the Challenges of Human Rights and Crime. Currently traveling in Mexico, he teaches journalism at American University.   TOP HOME SUBSCRIBE MAIL   In These Times © 2000 Vol. 24, No. 16