Political Report # 1281 Coca-Cola Sucks Wells Dry in Chiapas, Forcing Residents to Buy Water

Political Report # 1281 Coca-Cola Sucks Wells Dry in Chiapas, Forcing Residents to Buy Water By By Martha Pskowski, Truthout

The water is disappearing in San Felipe Ecatepec, an Indigenous town three miles outside of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, in southern Mexico. "In the past four years, our wells have started drying up," says Juan Urbano, who just finished a three-year term this February as the president of the Communal Territory of San Felipe Ecatepec. "People sometimes walk two hours a day to get water. Others have to buy their water." Where is all the water going? In between San Felipe and San Cristobal lies a Coca-Cola bottling plant, operated by the Mexican company FEMSA. The plant consumed over 1.08 million liters of water per day in 2016. Urbano, 57, explains that the urban growth of San Cristobal has gradually eaten up agricultural lands in San Felipe. He is part of a shrinking number of people in the community that still grow corn, beans and squash on plots of land passed down for generations, and drink pozol, a drink made from fermented corn dough. "Many people don't drink pozol anymore," Urbano laments. "They've replaced it with Coca-Cola." San Felipe Ecatepec is one of thousands of towns across Mexico where corporate water consumption has taken precedence over local need. Advocates are scrambling to rein in a chain of public health consequences.

Political Report #1138 A Force Unto Itself: A Military Leviathan Has Emerged as America's 51st and Most Powerful State

By William J. Astore, TomDispatch

In the decades since the draft ended in 1973, a strange new military has emerged in the United States. Think of it, if you will, as a post-democratic force that prides itself on its warrior ethos rather than the old-fashioned citizen-soldier ideal.   As such, it's a military increasingly divorced from the people, with a way of life ever moreforeign to most Americans (adulatoryas they may feel toward its troops).  Abroad, it's now regularly put to purposes foreign to any traditional idea of national defense.  In Washington, it has become a force unto itself, following its own priorities, pursuing its own agendas,increasingly unaccountable to either the president or Congress.

Three areas highlight the post-democratic transformation of this military with striking clarity: the blending of military professionals with privatized mercenaries in prosecuting unending "limited" wars; the way senior military commanders are cashing in on retirement; and finally the emergence of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as a quasi-missionary imperial force with a presence in at least 135 countries a year (and counting).