The eagle has flown the coop

I hadn’t noticed, but Blogotitlan did.  They took the eagle off the 20-peso bill and substituted a dove.  Blogotitlan smells a rat…

In the 75 years that followed the first, war-time (and war themed) bank notes of the Revolution – that is, until 1992 — Mexico had only THREE changes to the basic design currency notes.  This was the epoch of a stable economy and a strong peso. 

But of 1992 to date –that is, in the 15 years of neoliberalism – there have been FIVE changes: in design, denomination and bill size. That is nearly one change per sexenio (presidential administration), including the dark years of Salinas de Gortari, when the “New Peso” were put into circulation. 

Today an equally illegitimate government, even more dubious than that of Salinas de Gortari, the epitome of transcendent technocracy, has an aversion to any new incarnation of the devil (whose name is Lopez Obrador) and all his works.  This spurious government rejects everything that might be related to him.  

Preoccupied with erasing all traces of their electoral fraud (which, according to the Catholic Church, “no one saw”), and the symbols and signs of the civil resistance to that fraud, the supposedly independent Banco de México and the Casa de Monada have been pressured to change the20-peso bill, which, along with the 50, was recently redesigned and released as a polymer-based note which was more durable and resistant than conventional paper money. 

They did away with the juarista republican eagle, adopted as a shield by the Legitimate Government of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, Juarez’ thoughts being the basis for the resistance to the ultrareactionary technocrats.  But, .  But they left Juarez’ portrait untouched (though it also gives them the chills), making their phobias less evident. 

However, the wide-spread media campaign that accompanies the new monetary roll-out only emphasizes the overt intentions of the illegitimate government to crudely erase all vestiges of resistance.  Once again, supposedly “national independent institutions” (like Banco de México) are pressed into service for the benefits of particular factions.  

The redesign of the twenty-peso bill, as in the case of the Revolutionary era banknotes, is tailored to regional factions, not to the nation as a whole.  Re-design feeds an image of instability.   It adds momentum to the perception of a cause and effect for the change.

Issuing new currency is constant in this world.  Old bills naturally wear out  through circultation.  But issuing new bills is one thing, changing the design quite another, especially when the changes are done over such a short time frame.  The dollar, for example, with small and imperceptible differences from the original design, projects an image of stability and strength over time.  And, so do most currencies of countries with stable economies. 

 Since 1992, however, Mexico has been changing the bills with each sexenial dictatorship.  It used to be that people complained that the PRI printed currency without anything to back it, but now they print currency (with who knows what backing) just to please whoever is the head of the spurious operation.  The difference is that the same ones who complained before are now the ones in charge of the printing press.