To the People of Michoacan:
We inform you, that as of today, we will be performing the duties previously realized by la Familia Michoacana.
We will be at the service of the people of Michoacan to handle any situation that undermines their integrity.
Our commitment to society is to preserve order, prevent thefts, kidnappings, extortions, and protect the State from possible interventions by rival organizations.
-Knights Templar
Mexico City - A new band of enforcers vying for influence in the power vacuum left by the arrest of a top cartel boss has identified itself with The Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ of the Temple Of Solomon – the Knights Templar.
The ancient and honorable band of militant monks served various popes beginning in the 12th century to shepherd money, arms and pilgrims to the Holy Land during the Church's crusades.
They soon had so much specimen gold and silver – and real property, farm land and vineyards forfeited by royalty and the nobility who defaulted on high interest loans – that they had enthralled the power structure of both the church and state.
Something had to give, and when the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, refused to compromise with Pope Clement's first cousin, Philip the Fair, King of France, he was arrested, tortured and confessed to various ill-defined and murky offenses such as trampling on the cross, kissing the Devil's ass, and wiping his own with pages from the Holy Bible.
When he recanted his “confession,” he was burned alive at the stake in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, a measure which, according to ecclesiastical authorities, was guaranteed to purify his everlasting soul for its entrance into purgatory, heaven or hell.
This historic event is believed to have led to the fabled doctrine of a separation of church and state, a novus ordo seclorem, a new world order in which secular authority and the rule of law, a freedom from torture and the right to know the charges leveled against the accused, to confront witness, and to see and hear the evidence testimony were established through bloody centuries of total revolution and warfare.
DeMolay uttered a curse as the charcoal fire slowly cooked his flesh. He said that the men who had so condemned him would all be dead in short order, less than a year – and they were.
Now, La Mano Con Ojos – the hand with eyes – is fighting with Los Templarios for dominance in the State of Michoacan to see who will control the lucrative drug smuggling routes into Juarez, Tijuana, Nogales, and other points west.
An unfortunate bandito who went out freelancing on his own in Mexico City, D.F., was found decapitated, his head resting on the dashboard of his luxury pickup truck and parked in the Plaza Mayor on the Reforma. His headless body was seated in the driver's seat.
Notes left on the body said he had tried to pass himself off as a member of the cartel, but was actually an impostor from whom the people need the protection of – guess who – the knights of the Temple.
Another such unfortunate was found hanging from a bridge in a city in Laguinilla, Michocan, victim of his own greed, no doubt, and the people avenged by the Poor Fellow Soldiers...
“My name is Ivan Cruz and this happened to me for working with LFM and for extorting business owners by falsely claiming the I am la Mano con Ojos. Let us all be clear about one thing: La Mano con Ojos doesn’t kidnap or use extortion to make his money, and whoever does so in my plaza will get whats coming to them. ATTE La Mano con Ojos (The Hand With Eyes)”
In a predominantly Catholic state such as Mexico, the implications are very important, to say the least, because the original Knights Templar were all banished from the Church following the arrest of Jacques de Molay and the top hierarchy of the order.
They are believed to have escaped in ships they owned and to have resumed their operations at a legendary and mythical trading port in North Africa - and at their fall back staging position on the island of Malta following a final and total defeat at Acre.
Their use of the skull and bones flag signaled el deguello, that no surrender would be possible, no conditions met and no quarter given. Ships and their cargoes were plundered on the high seas by the Knights, the vessels set ablaze and their crews pressed into slavery or set adrift.
The skull and bones symbols are said to have deeply-rooted Masonic significance.
The employment of such symbolism is known to presage revolutionary evolutions such as sweeping economic and land reforms in Mexican political life. President Benito Juarez, a native Michoacano, led just such a successful revolt. He was a Masonic revolutionary who revered President Abraham Lincoln and confiscated much farm land from the Church in favor of giving it to the penniless campesinos.
God bless Texas - y recuerdes el Alamo, amigos. Buenos suerte.
