¡COMO MEXICO NO HAY DOS! Mexico's hsitory and culture, the Real, and the surreal, Mexico. Politics, economic, news sometimes here, but regularly posted at mexfiles.substack.com. Copy and quote freely, but be respectful, and acknowlege the source. And, of course, monetary donations help keep the site going.
Young Mexicans in the streets with placards and bullhorns might be a tad annoying at times, but there are alternatives they could be using to push for political and social change:
Unfortunately, I don’t see an alternative path, and that’s true in a number of countries.
We think of governments and constitutions as being mechanisms of the exercise of power. More accurately, they are expressions of a social compact on fundamental human rights. When the compact is broken, a society becomes unstable. Either a new compact is formed, or the system gradually breaks down. The corruption in Mexico is as much a symptom of a broken social compact as a cause of decline.
Elites imagine they can militarize and centralize power without consequence. But the vitality of a society declines as a result, and with it the economy. The end result of elites taking advantage of the people is implosion.
I wish that Mexico’s left were stronger, not because I would necessarily support their policies, but because the weakness of the left is a dangerous sign that there is no alternative but complete collapse. In a healthy polity, left and right compete, and the best ideas are implemented. In Mexico, only the ideas of the oligarchs are even heard.
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The background of Mexican anti-clericalism and the "atheist" general who led the Catholic counter-revolution of the 1920s
128 pp., Editorial Mazatlán, 2012.
An oral history of the World War II experiences of Gilberto Bosques (1894 – 1997), Mexico 's Consul General in Marseilles, France, who saved tens of thousands from the Nazis.
36 pp. Editorial Mazatlán, 2007 $35 MXP (click the image)
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Unfortunately, I don’t see an alternative path, and that’s true in a number of countries.
We think of governments and constitutions as being mechanisms of the exercise of power. More accurately, they are expressions of a social compact on fundamental human rights. When the compact is broken, a society becomes unstable. Either a new compact is formed, or the system gradually breaks down. The corruption in Mexico is as much a symptom of a broken social compact as a cause of decline.
Elites imagine they can militarize and centralize power without consequence. But the vitality of a society declines as a result, and with it the economy. The end result of elites taking advantage of the people is implosion.
I wish that Mexico’s left were stronger, not because I would necessarily support their policies, but because the weakness of the left is a dangerous sign that there is no alternative but complete collapse. In a healthy polity, left and right compete, and the best ideas are implemented. In Mexico, only the ideas of the oligarchs are even heard.