>No, it can't be! It was all egalitarian, peaceful, and idyllic before
>we were expelled from Eden, I mean before capitalism ruined
>everything. No hierarchy, class, patriarchy, tedium, alienation, or
>disease. People sat around the campfire, trading stories, strumming
>ur-banjos, and contemplating the meaning of life. Please don't
>interrupt this lovely fantasy with historical material.
>
>Doug
Hernando Cortés on Mexico City in 1527:
This noble city contains many fine and magnificent houses; which may be
accounted for from the fact, that all the nobility of the country, who are
the vassals of Muteczuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a
certain part of the year; and besides, there are numerous wealthy citizens
who also possess fine houses. All these persons, in addition to the large
and spacious apartments for ordinary purposes, have others, both upper and
lower, that contain conservatories of flowers. Along one of these causeways
that lead into the city are laid two pipes, constructed of masonry, each of
which is two paces in width, and about five feet in height. An abundant
supply of excellent water, forming a volume equal in bulk to the human
body, is conveyed by one of these pipes, and distributed about the city,
where it is used by the inhabitants for drink and other purposes. The other
pipe, in the meantime, is kept empty until the former requires to be
cleansed, when the water is let into it and continues to be used till the
cleaning is finished. As the water is necessarily carried over bridges on
account of the salt water crossing its route, reservoirs resembling canals
are constructed on the bridges, through which the fresh water is conveyed.
These reservoirs are of the breadth of the body of an ox, and of the same
length as the bridges. The whole city is thus served with water, which they
carry in canoes through all the streets for sale, taking it from the
aqueduct in the following manner: the canoes pass under the bridges on
which the reservoirs are placed, when men stationed above fill them with
water, for which service they are paid. At all the entrances of the city,
and in those parts where the canoes are discharged, that is, where the
greatest quantity of provisions is brought in, huts are erected, and
persons stationed as guards, who receive a certain quid of everything that
enters. I know not whether the sovereign receives this duty or the city, as
I have not yet been informed; but I believe that it appertains to the
sovereign, as in the markets of other provinces a tax is collected for the
benefit of the cacique. In all the markets and public places of this city
are seen daily many laborers waiting for some one to hire them.
The inhabitants of this city pay a greater regard to style in their mode of
dress and politeness of manners than those of the other provinces and
cities; since, as the Cacique Muteczuma has his residence in the capital,
and all the nobility, his vassals, are in constant habit of meeting there,
a general courtesy of demeanor necessarily prevails. But not to be prolix
in describing what relates to the affairs of this great city, although it
is with difficulty I refrain from proceeding, I will say no more than that
the manners of the people, as shown in their intercourse with one another,
are marked by as great an attention to the proprieties of life as in Spain,
and good order is equally well observed; and considering that they are
barbarous people, without the knowledge of God, having no intercourse with
civilized nations, these traits of character are worthy of admiration.
===
Mexico City today:
The New York Times, April 14, 2001, Saturday, Late Edition - Final
Mexico Grows Parched, With Pollution and Politics
By TIM WEINER
In this grim slum 12 miles past Mexico City's eastern edge, the lives of
thousands of families depend on Enrique Garcia and his partners at the
local pump house.
But, as Mr. Garcia said as he watched thousands of gallons flow from a
dwindling underground aquifer, "Who knows if it'll last?"
The Chimalhuacan slum is growing rapidly, and the water may turn toxic
before it runs dry: the pump house lies a quarter mile from an enormous
open sewer and the municipal garbage dump.
Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox, calls water "a national security
issue," and it is not hard to see why. Mexico lies along the same latitudes
as the Sahara, and nearly half its land is bone dry. It has less drinking
water per capita than Egypt, and 60 percent less than it did 50 years ago.
At that rate, the harsh truth is that someday -- not this year, maybe not
this decade, but before too long -- Mexico could start dying of thirst.
Roughly 12 million people, one out of eight Mexicans, the poorest of the
poor, have no easy access to drinking water at all. Those who can afford it
pay dearly to have it trucked to their homes. Those without the money have
to drink what they can find. Bad water kills thousands every year.
"There is no place in this country, with the exception of maybe one or two
cities, like Monterrey, where you can drink the water without worrying
you're going to get sick," said Victor Lichtinger, the environmental
minister. The national water commissioner, Cristobal Jaime Jaquez, says 73
percent of Mexico's water, underground and above, is contaminated and a
danger to public health.
Almost every river and stream in the nation is polluted -- 93 percent of
them, the government says.
Rather than wellsprings of life, President Fox has said, they have become
"a lethal source of sickness" after "decades of having been overexploited,
without planning, without sense."
Louis Proyect
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