Cyber-disappearing AMLO
John Ross, writing in Counterpunch, claims “Fecal” (FElipe CALderón is the odd man out in Latin America … having to tolerate the left abroad, though not at home:
Although Felipe Calderon presses the flesh of the luminaries of the Latin American left, he is doing his best to ignore the left back home. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who probably beat the right-winger in the much-questioned July 2nd election, has disappeared from the public repertoire of “Fecal” (as his detractors dub him.) Calderon’s backers in the electronic media are also dedicated to making AMLO disappear from the nation’s screens. The Interior Secretary refused to permit the airing of Lopez Obrador’s acceptance speech last November 20th as the “legitimate” president of Mexico. A half hour program, “The Truth Must Be Told”, which features a sort of fireside chat with AMLO and Comedy Central-like news, is being transmitted in a 1 AM Tuesday morning time slot to insure a minimum number of viewers. The show’s debut installment failed to air in 12 states due to what the Secretary of the Interior, which controls radio and TV transmissions, called a “technical problem”, and the sound quality on the second edition was so poor that Lopez Obrador was inaudible.
For the Bush regime, the Mexican election was not one it could afford to lose. The Latin dominos have been falling left in alarming succession and the line had to be drawn when the wave reached the U.S, border. Despite the tainted vote count, Bush crowned Calderon president of Mexico in a phone call from Air force One not 24 hours after the ballots were cast. Outside of Calderon, Colombia’s Uribe is the only head of a leading Latin American economy that still stands up for U.S. interests in the region.
The Mex Files 
How does the fact that AMLO’s people produce the show and pay for it (hence the crappy time slot, they can’t afford something better) fit into that theory?
Also, I thought that the, probably bogus explanation, of the “technical difficulties” was put forth by TV Azteca, not the Secretary.
I don’t doubt that there are efforts to diminish AMLO’s media presence but misrepresenting facts and name-calling the other side (for all intents and purposes calling Calderon “shit-head”) does not do much to lend an air of credibility to Mr. Ross, it would seem.
I read Ross in the Texas Observer. He knows his shit about latinamerica, but he is a true believer and sees everything through a fixed paradigm. Politics is more complex than good versus evil.
Seems to me that if you are going to challenge the veracity of Ross’s statements in the above article then you should at least reference a web site or two. Maybe one from the TVAzteca executive that you speak of or perhaps an article from ElUniversal might be helpful. While Ross failed to do as much with his statement from the Interior secretary it hardly makes it right that you counter with the same mistake.
Perhahp you’re right Todd, but this was all over the place, it’s like asking me to document that the sky is blue. Besides, being in country I read the hard copies, but I’ll try to indulge by digging up some links.
Ok, here we go. It’s even Proceso: http://www.proceso.com.mx/analisis_int.html?an=47322
It’s in Spanish, obviously, but I’ll translate the relevant part for the benefit of those who might not know the language. Starting at the 4th paragaph:
Reports from the “Truth be told” production team confirmed that the program, transmitted at 1 am today, wasn’t broadcasted in border cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, neither was it shown in Monterrey or the state of Tabasco, and it was transmitted only in part in Puebla, even though it was paid for like a national transmition. THE NETWORK attributed this fact to “possible technical problems”, the same justification used by Televisa and its subsidiary Sky to keep out of satellite television for more than two months the radio news broadcasts of W Radio, specially, the one anchored by Carmen Aristegui, without a doubt the journalist with the most credibility in radio.
One part that seems to always be left out of that last bit about Aristegui is that W Radio is also part of Televisa. I don’t know if Aristegui has ever addressed that issue but it seems to me that, althought there might be something to that interpretation, that Televisa could just fire her if they just wanted to shut her up. Besides, some of Televisa’s staples include Carlos Monsivais, Elena Poniatowska, Aristegui and others.
Anyway, back on topic. I just quoted the first source I found but stopped right there since it’s a medium with credibility.
BTW, I had not been exposed to Mr. Ross’ work, I was just comenting on the paragraph posted, not on his body of work. My basic point is that he’s accusing the government of censorship but it seems to me there mght be something more basic at play here: the dissing, merited or not, of the electronic media. Given the chance they’ll happily trip him over. Mr. Ross might be correct for all I know, but 2 out of 2 in facts plus resorting to name-calling gave me a not-to-good first impression.