Michoacan is on the Pacific coast and ground zero for violence in Mexico today. The latest episode is that Mexicans (known as the militias) are taking up arms against the cartels, as reported recently by Dudley Althaus: "Mocking the state governor's demands that they stop, the militias on Sunday advanced on the town of Nueva Italia, a Templar stronghold near Apatzingan. Federal security forces on Saturday had occupied Apatzingan to prevent the militiamen from trying to take control of that city of 125,000 people.   Furthermore: "Hundreds more militiamen - ranchers, shopkeepers, laborers and lawyers - operate unimpeded across Michoacan." The problem is that many people in Michoacan saw what happened in the north where cartels overran the police and took over towns on the US-Mexico border.  In other words, there weren't enough federal soldiers to protect people in rural areas or small towns because they were all deployed to protect major cities...(Read Full Post)