Sense and sensibility: Sunday readings
Nun-sense
Via Secret History, comes a link to an introduction to the work of Sor Teresa Forcades, a Benedictine nun from Barcelona with a doctorate in Public Health and a Masters in Divinity under her habit. Sor Teresa in the 21st century, like the great Mexican nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in the 17th century, is annoying the official church with her intellectual defense of the rights of woman and of free inquiry.
“God has placed the life of the fetus while it is not viable in the hands of its mother […] Because of this intimate link of the mother and the child while it is not viable outside of her, the decision to abort is inseparable from the mother’s self-determination, from her personal freedom. This intimate link between two lives means that the life of the child cannot be saved against the wishes of the mother without violating her liberty.”
These statements come from Sister Teresa Forcades, who … has already expressed similar opinions in other public appearances and has gone twice to Venezuela to participate in activities related to liberation theology and feminism, where she was well-received by the chavistas.
(“Rebel Girl”, Iglesa Descalza)
Nonsensible solutions
One has to wonder what Sor/Dr. Theresa would say about the stupidity of limiting public health care to “legal” residents:
Rather timidly, President Obama has suggested that the children of illegal immigrants might have to be considered an exception to the rule, since they will inevitably come in contact with the offspring of legal citizens. He didn’t explain how unvaccinated and infected adults would avoid contact with their own children, or how they would avoid passing the virus on to the people they serve in the businesses and industries that employ them by the millions. And of course, the Centers for Disease Control is wisely ignoring such invidious distinctions and is now urging everyone, regardless of status, to get vaccinated as soon as the medication is available.
That everyone tolerates the current emergency exception, regardless of ideology, reveals much about the furious resistance to healthcare for the undocumented. Public health experts and many health economists have always considered that bipartisan opposition to be stupid as well as cruel.
(Joe Conason, “Nativism is dangerous to our health,” Salon.com)
Stop making sense
Extreme right wing racist site, “The Political Cesspool” (at least it’s truth in advertising!) in a backhanded way undercuts the argument against same sex marriage. I don’t link to racist sites, but it’s easy enough to find.
Keith Bardwell is a Justice of the Peace in Louisiana who’s in the national news because he refuses to issue marriage licenses to interracial couples based on his moral beliefs. He’s being denounced everywhere [obligatory fascist anti-Semitic tirade deleted]…
…. What’s shocking is the absolute silence from the “family values” crowd, who should be all over the media demanding that Bardwell be allowed to follow his moral beliefs, because nobody should have to choose between their job and their conscience. After all, isn’t that what they want for people who oppose gay marriage? They keep raising the specter of court clerks being fired if they refuse to issue a marriage license to two men if gay marriage is legal, or a judge being removed from office for refusing to perform a same sex ceremony. They tell us that this would be a terrible tragedy, and a real blow to religious freedom in America.
(some asshole from Memphis)
(Cartoon swiped from News of the Restless)
Since you asked
The justification offered for the new military bases in Colombia is the “war on drugs.” The fact that the justification is even offered is remarkable. Suppose, for example, that Colombia, or China, or many others claimed the right to establish military bases in Mexico to implement their programs to eradicate tobacco in the U.S., by fumigation in North Carolina and Kentucky, interdiction by sea and air forces, and dispatch of inspectors to the U.S. to ensure it was eradicating this poison–which is, in fact, far more lethal even than alcohol, which in turn is far more lethal than cocaine or heroin, incomparably more than cannabis. The toll of tobacco use is truly fearsome, including “passive smokers” who are seriously affected though they do not use tobacco themselves. The death toll overwhelms the lethal effects of other dangerous substances.
The idea that outsiders should interfere with U.S. production and distribution of these murderous poisons is plainly unthinkable. Nevertheless, the U.S. justification for carrying out such policies in South America is accepted as plausible. The fact that it is even regarded as worthy of discussion is yet another illustration of the depth of the imperial mentality, and the abiding truth of the doctrine of Thucydides that the strong do as they wish and the weak suffer as they must–while the intellectual classes spin tales about the nobility of power. Leading themes of history, to the present day.
Despite the outlandish assumptions, let us agree to adopt the imperial mentality that reigns in the West–virtually unchallenged, in fact, not even noticed. Even after this extreme concession, it requires real effort to take the “war on drugs” pretext seriously.
(Noam Chomsky, “Coups, UNASUR and the U.S.” via Little Alex in Wonderland)
A sense of what it’s like…
It’s not just Mexicans and Colombians who find that the U.S. drug culture (and the attempts to change the culture through coercion)negatively impacting justice and legitimate law enforcement.
Unscrupulous real estate lenders, buyers and investment brokers who dot the local landscape might want to send a little thank you note to Mexican drug cartels and smuggling rings. That’s because the latter is distracting prosecutors and police resources.
Lee Stein, a white collar defense attorney with the Phoenix office of the Perkins Coie Brown & Bain law firm, said prosecutors are interested in pursuing all kinds of white collar cases — from Medicare, mortgage scams and Ponzi schemes to fraud related to the stimulus program. The rise in such crimes is a reaction to the economy, said Stein, a former federal prosecutor.
But that interest does not translate to reality for states that border Mexico. Drug trafficking, organized crime, smuggling and immigration cases take up a huge portion of police and prosecutor resources in states such as Arizona.
“It’s sucking up a lot of the resources out of it,” said Stein.
(Mike Sunnucks, “Border crimes distract prosecutors from white collar fraud,” Phoenix Business Journal)
The little devils in the details
Sean Goforth, Foreign Policy Association Mexico Blog has been uncovering interesting material this week. It’s the second time I’ve found something for the MexFiles on his site in as many days.
He has been something of a cheerleader for the Calderón Administration, but the surprise takeover of Luz y Fureza de Cento (LyFC) has him asking WTF…
… Mexico is in the midst of its worst recession since the “lost decade” of the 1980s, and, unlike Brazil, it isn’t clear the end of the recession is at hand. No matter the size of the severance package, such a move is brashly pro-cyclical. The government should mark time, or even hire more workers to help address Mexico’s unemployment. Inefficiency should be targeted once the economy is growing again. Keynesianism is enjoying a revival elsewhere, why not in Mexico?
This blog has been largely supportive of Calderón. Recent news warrants serious circumspection. Laying off state employees in times of recession requires gumption or lunacy. Or maybe this is just a move of sage politics. Having lost Congress to the PRI in July’s election, Calderón’s can now spread the blame if recovery is delayed or tepid. Mr. Calderón is right to pursue economic modernization, but does he have to do so right now?
The same mind set that sacrifices working class jobs rather than look at efficiencies at the top is at work in the renewed attack on “diablitos”.
In an unsigned editorial in the weekend edition of The [Mexico City] News quotes Augustín Carstens (who might take references to bloated management structures personally) as claiming:
…stolen electricity amounts approximately to $25 billion a year.
He said that now, without the Union of Mexican Electricians to protect the vendors, new management company the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will make it an objective to “eliminate irregularities” and bring increased income to the financially-strapped company.
The most common method of stealing electricity is making a direct connection, popularly known in Spanish slang as “diablitos,” a word that literally translates as little devils.
… Just walk down any Mexico City street where street vendors peddle their wares and you’ll notice hundreds of wires connected to the nearest electricity pole and all the sales people listening to blaring radios or televisions, light bulbs lit up all night ..and all of it for free.
Left unsaid, of course, is that diablitos are everywhere, not just in Mexico City, and not so much “protected” by LFyC employees as “protected” by everyone, While a lot of consumers have diablitos (a friend of mine lived in room built on top of a house in an ejido that, surrounded by wealthy colonias, supplemented their income by building irregular “all electric” apartments on the roofs of houses and rented them to a motley crew of slightly irregular foreign teachers, though how much electricity was stolen from the rich to power a couple crock pots and TVs was nowhere near enough for the folks down the hill to even care about), most are powering micro-businesses (taco stands, little puestos in informal markets, and the like) that are marginal businesses at best, but do create employment. They also create those great heroes of conservativism, the ownership class. You know, people that invest in their communities and their families, want their kids to grow up educated, and have a stake in safe streets. People with middle-class values.
It was, ironically enough, the “dangerous populist” Andres Manuel Lopez Obradór who tackled the diablito problem — or at least put a dent in it — during his tenure as Jefe de Gobierno in the Federal District. Responding to complaints both from LyFC and from tourism-related business owners about the aesthetics and safety of those irregular connections, his administration killed two birds with one stone: they replaced the jerry-built newsstands that dotted the Zona Histórica with kiosks that answered the aesthetic demands, and included power connections, lights and, a METER. The kiosks have a bank of all weather outlets, and the news vendors could work out payment arrangement with their neighbors (or through their unions) to tap into the safer source.
“Stolen” electricity is a sort of government subsidy, and that’s not exactly the best way to foster enterprise, which may be what conservatives really want: a free market for those that already have the capital to invest; limited consumer choice; and — perhaps most important of all — workers with no alternative source of income).
And, of course, those small merchants don’t generally vote PAN. Higher priced power to the people.
Friday night video for Doomsday 2012
Doesn’t anyone remember that in Mayan and other Mesoamerican cultures, time has no “end”, but is cyclical?
Sean Goforth (Foreign Policy Association Blogs: Mexico) on our credulous neighbors to the north (and east):
The Maya in fact celebrated the end of cycles, so the transition from the 13th Baktun to the 14th should be greeted, if anything, with revelry. And the Maya noted dates beyond 2012. Guillermo Bernal of Mexico’s National Autonomous University points out inscriptions at various Mayan sites reference future dates as far away as 4772. Part of the misinterpretation emerges from the Mayan practice of pre-recording important dates.
Still, experts are getting rather frustrated with the hubbub surrounding the Mayan calendar. Apolinario Chile Pixtin, a Mayan elder, is annoyed: “I came back from England last year, and man, they had me fed up with this stuff.” Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, calls the doomsday scenario “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.” Academics and Maya elders instead believe Earth in 2012 will be hit by a “meteor shower of new age philosophy” and pop astronomy, no doubt teased by TV specials.
Ruminating on doomsday in three years may be engrossing, but it’s a luxury many Maya don’t have. A drought-stricken 2009 is proving quite harsh. According to one Yucatan archeologist, if you went to Maya Yucatan communities and said the world might end in 2012, “They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain.”
Though, if you’re gonna go, you might as well have a guided tour.
Human rights — slightly better
[P]rove one case, one single case in which the authorities have not acted, in which human rights have been violated, in which the relevant authorities haven’t responded to punish those who have abused their legal powers: whether they are police, soldiers, or any other authority.
Where to start? Amnesty International, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and The Committee To Protect Journalists have all weighed in at various times… but have been dismissed as foreign meddling. Now, the Supreme Court of Justice has responded — taking the unusual step of not only ruling on a “single case in which the authorities have not acted, in which human rights have been violated,” but also informing probable or potential human rights abusers what exactly they are doing wrong.
Last Wednesday (14 October), the ministers issued a finding that specifically named Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz as the authority that violated human rights during the 2006 teachers’ protests that escalated into full scale rebellion. Three ministers (Juan N. Silva Meza, José de Jesús Gudiño Pelayo y José Ramón Cossío) issued what in the U.S. system would be a concurrent opinion, naming Vicente Fox, then Secretary of Public Security Eduardo Molina Mora and then Secretaría de Gobernacíon, the late Carlos Abascal, as equally responsible.
In addition, two police officials were also named in the report as culpable for criminal violations.
The Supreme Court of Justice cannot order prosecutions, and for political reasons it is unlikely that Ruiz will face charges (both the State and Federal legislatures are controlled by the PRI, Ruiz’ own party, which is loathe to open up a can of worms, and Ruiz’ support was crucial in electing [if he was elected] Felipe Calderón to the Presidency). Ruiz’ term expires in December 2010, with elections scheduled for next July. The most likely immediate result is a united front to break the PRI hold on state government. The last attempt, which included only the left failed — depending on who you chose to believe — because of election fraud on the part of PRI, because the PRI was able to take advantage of the large Zapatista constituency within the state (the Zapatistas rejecting electoral politics) and the failure to bring PAN into the equation. The Zapatistas are going to do their own thing, no matter what, and with the National PAN now seeing the PRI as a bigger threat to hanging on to the Presidency than the PRD-led coalition it faced in 2006, a united opposition is a viable, and probable, option.
The unusual step taken by the Supreme Court in sending their findings to all State governors, puts them on notice that “any authority” — at least at the state level — who violates human rights is fair game for ambitious public ministers. A couple obvious candidates for scrutiny — Enrique Peña Nieto (the odds-on favorite for PRI Presidential candidate in 2010) for state action during the Atenco situation and former Jalisco Governor, Francisco Ramírez Acuña (a hard-right PANista, who served as Calderón’s first Sec. de Gobernacion) for having anti-globalization protesters arrested and tortured during a May 2004 summit meeting). Mario Marín Torres, the “gober preciosa” accused of having Lydia Cacho kidnapped, jailed and raped for uncovering his connection to an international kiddy-porn ring, may not be off the hook, although an earlier court ruling said he was not personally liable for the particular incident involving Cacho’s phony arrest.
Undoing all “impunity”, especially that enjoyed by federal officials is going to take a little more time. At least the President can no longer blithely dismiss claims of abuse. Just the admission that attention must be paid to human rights is a huge step forward.
Endeavour to persevere
Do State Department officials have to pass a test in English Incomprehension?
Robert A. Wood, the United States Department of State Deputy Spokesman and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, asked yesterday about progress in Honduras at a daily press briefing:
QUESTION: What’s the status of the talks in Honduras? I mean, there seems to be some movement perhaps. And where does the U.S. stand on President Zelaya’s return?
MR. WOOD: Well, let me just say at the beginning here, this is a moment of great opportunity for Hondurans. My understanding is that the two sides have basically reached agreement on most aspects of the San Jose Accords. And so right now, the bottom line is they need to close the deal. And we encourage them to roll up their sleeves, continue their efforts. They’re certainly making progress. But this is a great moment, and they need to seize it. And so that’s where our efforts will be with our other colleagues in the OAS – to encourage the two sides to, as I said, just get to work and make this happen.
Honduras: no news is not good news
If insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results, then apparently, the entire world has gone mad when it comes to talking to the de facto regime in Honduras.
So far, every “concession” made by the legitimate government has been met with some new demand. The latest is not new, but the same one that the Micheletti “government” uses as it runs out the clock for elections which — while meaningless at this point — are based on dubious legal arguments:
Coup leaders once again balked at the reinstatement of Zelaya in the presidency, which the resistance and many neighboring nations have demanded be “unconditional.” According to declarations from the leader of the de facto regime, Roberto Micheletti, the current reason for refusing reinstatement hinges on whether it will be the Congress or the Supreme Court that decides. The original proposal was for Congress to revoke its destitution decree, but Micheletti stated that restitution is a legal matter, “It would definitely be the Supreme Court that would have to make this decision.”
I don’t pretend to be a legal scholar, but I know how to read a research paper. Having thrown up every excuse they can think of (including some absurdities about Honduras being the “key” to South America — mentioned in the video), most lately have boiled down to cherry picking their way through a Library of Congress white paper and one from the United Nations. Both, like any good piece of legal research, review previous research (or, for the legal minded, every precedent). That the coup-plotters had a legal interpretation based on one constitutional provision, they ignore the rest of the documents which show violations of several other provisions… of a document described by the Library of Congress (Country Studies, Honduras) as “generally held to have little bearing on Honduran political reality because they are considered aspirations or ideals rather than legal instruments of a working government.” Incidentally, that document was written by an assembly formed during a military dictatorship.
Unfortunately, the “negotiations” are not a legal proceeding, and the Micheletti regime has no interest in a negotiated settlement anyway. The hope, according to Ari Lewis (better known as Mr. Naomi Klein), is to hold elections — even if illegitimate — and hope the outside world stops paying attention.
And, if the Hondurans themselves don’t take it seriously, the military is promising they will… even if they have to force people to do so.
Zelaya, whatever he thinks, or the outside world thinks, is not even a player in the calls for change. He was (or is) only a transitional figure, whose suggestion that maybe the country might want to revisit that hastily drawn set of “aspirations” might be revisited is causing people to think maybe it’s time they were.
It’s the Honduran’s aspirations — not Mel Zelaya, not Hugo Chavez — that the coup mongers fear. For good reason:
Zona Rosa: straight ahead?
Photo: El Economista
Mexico City-Guide.com very nicely encapsulates the history of one of the Federal Districts more eclectic neighborhoods:
… Zona Rosa … originated at the end of the 19th Century, and started out as a residential area characterized by large houses and small eclectic mansions that belonged to distinguished personalities of Porfirian society… isolation within the city led Zona Rosa to be declared a neutral area during the coup d’état of 1913, also known as Decena Trágica, and to shelter the ambassadors and diplomatic representatives of Mexico within the walls of its Geneve Hotel.
…[I]n the late 1940’s, a lot of big hotels were built around Paseo de la Reforma…As a result, the avenue and surrounding area became attractive to foreign tourists, a situation that motivated changes in the area’s land use regulations…houses …were rapidly turned into luxurious restaurants and exclusive night clubs. This phenomenon was documented in Carlos Fuentes’ novel “La Región más transparente”.
… The streets of Zona Rosa became a fashionable place and its coffee houses a place to see and be seen, the city’s meeting place.
Calle Genova. Photo: Alex Dantart, Astrored.org
Or not to be seen. I had a three day a week noon class at a business just at the corner of Florencia and Reforma, and discovered a reasonable, full and excellent “comida corrida” on a side street around the corner… a place with tablecloths and china and uniformed waitrons. Of course, I’m not going to give the address… it doubled as the cafeteria slash waiting room for the high-class whorehouse upstairs and tourists would ruin the joint. The Hotel Geneve, where I’m happy to direct those tourists who know enough to be impressed that Augustín Lara‘s piano is in the lobby, is still THE place to go, though the cafe is now a Sandborns. The back restaurant — in a roofed over patio — maintains some of the old elegance, though when those Porfirian era giant chandeliers are swinging over one’s table during a 5.0 Richter scale earthquake, one may be tempted to discretely change one’s seat… or opt for the street scene.
Although Starbucks (along with McDonalds and 7-11) have taken over in recent years, it’s still a place to “see and be seen”… although what and whom one sees or is seen by has changed:
In the 1980’s Zona Rosa began a period of decay… With a low demand in the area, other social groups saw an opportunity to settle themselves there, such as the Korean community and specially the gay community, which has since established a great number of businesses ranging from sex shops and boutiques, to famous night clubs…
Not to mention the high-class discrete “casas de citas”, the chain stores like McDonalds and KFC and 7-11, the students, the European tourists (there’s a couple of youth hostels in the ´hood) all across Reforma from the stock exchange and the United States Embassy.
I don’t see that kind of eclecticism as decline. There is a place in this world for Korean shopkeepers, painted ladies, out of the closet (at least for a few hours) suburban kids, jaded old expat queens, stockbrokers, and C.I.A. agents to co-exist in this world. It’s not the thing that happens by design, but by happy chance. And, with funding to “design” the area, there are concerns that something important will be lost.
Photo: © Viajes Beda S.A. de C.V.
According to El Universal (my translation), the Mexico City Secretariat of Tourism is considering a 400,000 peso investment in “resources for intervention” in the area .
[Alejandro Rojas, Federal District Secretary of Tourism] claims radical and profound decisions need to be made about changes in the Zona Rosa beyond new pavement for its streets. He said the proposal calls for turning more streets into pedestrian walkways, water-canals and bridges. “The Zone as it is now doesn’t work as a tourist destination, nor as an attraction within the city, and we have allowed it to deteriorate.”
“Niniz” at El Defe (also my translation) asks:
“What exactly that means isn’t clear. “Niniz” wants to know if the result will be ” a zillion “giros negros” [“dark rooms,” not in the sense of a photographer’s workshop] or an elegant way to end close the unofficial zone of tolerance that exists on the streets”… We have to wait three months, to know if the budget calls for the project to return the Zona Rosa to return it to the mode in which it was born, or to that in which it has lived for many years.
Mystery quote of the week…
Comprehensive health insurance is an idea whose time has come in America.
There has long been a need to assure every American financial access to high quality health care. As medical costs go up, that need grows more pressing.
Now, for the first time, we have not just the need but the will to get this job done. There is widespread support in the Congress and in the Nation for some form of comprehensive health insurance.
PSA for international criminals
As a public service to those expected … er… refugees … who may be planning an extended stay in Mexico after October 15 (the deadline for reporting off-shore assets to the Internal Revenue Service to avoid “penalties and/or prison sentences”) … be careful who you consider your “friends.” Maxi Sop0 didn’t walk off with THAT much money… a measly 200 grand, but still, he forgot the first lesson of international criminal behavior. Keep a low profile.
Maxi Sopo is not your typical immigrant success story. The young Camaroonian immigrant worked his way up from selling flowers in Seattle bars to scamming banks and credit card companies. He should have returned home to Camaroon, but the bright lights of Cancún were calling. It’s a nice place for a young dude with money to spend. But, he shouldn’t have told his friends about it. Not on Facebook.
Which federal agents like Seth Regg of the Secret Service (which investigates banking fraud) are likely to see… and become a new “friend” — one Sopo is likely to remember for the next thirty years.
Power surges
When the President went on television Sunday night to justify the takeover and forced merger of Luz y Fuerza de Centro, he spoke of it as a necessary cost-cutting measure. True enough, the company was hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate, and some sort of restructuring was inevitable.
However, no one for a second believed that… not even members of the President’s own party. Those who applauded the move — like influential journalist Carlos Loret de Mola — saw both the timing (on a Friday night, at the start of a three-day weekend in the Federal District, after the all important World Cup playoff game between Mexico and El Salvador) and the police-strike method, as meant to be even an unfriendly merger, but a strike against the company union, SME.
Of course, the bloated payroll figures that have been floated around (“on average, the electrical worker receives blah, blah, blah” are — like all averages — highly misleading. The company had a hugely bloated, and ridiculously compensated, management. As it is, liquidating those supposedly overpaid workers will require a buyout of their jobs at somewhere between thirty and thirty-three months salary.
The same day the buyouts of the “bloated” salaries was announced, by the way, the León Guanajuanto city government decided to pay out 19 million pesos to former elected and appointed officials from the previous administration. Managers had a way of taking care of their own.
Of course, with LyFC the company management were often SME members, which makes the “corruption” and “overpayment” stories somewhat valid, as well as boosting the “average” figures. But, having become the center of the rationale (as opposed to Felipe Calderón’s interest in privatizing the company during his time as Secretary of Energy during the Fox Adminstration, in whole or in part) as opposed to SME’s support for opposition parties ) there are questions being raised about other, “corrupt and inefficient” unions less hostile to the present adminstration. Like Esther Elba’s Teachers’ Union, among others.
Not surprisingly, Ana María Salazar, in her Mexico Today news briefs, notes ” PAN said that closing down Luz y Fuerza was not a measure aimed at attacking unionized workers but rather because it was so inoperative… PAN leader ruled out similar measures against the PEMEX or Teachers union, the SNTE.
At least PAN’s former president, Manuel Espino Barrientos, is out of the closet on this… he says “all unions are corrupt”… but then, that’s a article of faith for his wing of the party.
Pablo Trejo Pérez, a PRD Delegate from working class Itzacalco, writing in a (badly translated) editorial in The [Mexico City] sees a “privatization” issue (and a union one) that hasn’t been much discussed. The fiber-optics sytem owned by LyFC:
Behind the government’s onslaught against [LyFC] lies the dispute of what to do with a 1,100-kilometer long fiber optic network that belongs to the liquidated company. We are talking about a system that makes the transmission of voice and data over any domestic power line or low-voltage source possible, which made the company a major competitor with two more economically powerful companies: Televisa and Telmex.
The arguments the government has cited as reasons to liquidate the [LyFC] are meaningless and should be cause for reflection because the federal government has just declared war on electrical workers.
After three years in office, Calderón should understand that the strength of a government lies not in the strength of its police or armed forces’ ability to enforce authoritarian rule, but rather in the government’s moral authority. A strong state is maintained not by the use of force, but with social consensus that comes from legitimacy.
One possible protest suggested by an SME spouse involves getting people to turn on their lights, radios, televisions, space heaters, air conditioners, etc…. and try to cause a surge. Power to the people takes a whole new meaning in this fight.
Mex Files punked!
I posted about this Corona ad back on 28 September… which is funny in a way, though someone found it less so, and complained to Corona’s ad agency, eliciting this e-mail:
Thank you for reaching out to us and bringing this ad and the Citizen Orange discussion to our attention. Prompted by your note, we looked into the origin of this ad as it wasn’t created by the agency and it appears to be a spec piece done without client input or approval by an aspiring art director.
We’re not sure how it made its way onto the blog you forwarded, or others for that matter, but wanted to let you know. We’ll also make sure this is clarified on Citizen Orange and the other blogs that posted the ad.
Again, appreciate you bringing this to our attention.
Kind regards,
Peter Krivkovich
President / CEO
Cramer-Krasselt
NEVER MIND!
They got me!
Another dead narco… although…
Some narco from a backwater mountain town — celebrated for his local charitable contributions and support for community projects; tight with the local law enforcement and legal establishment; the kind of guy for whom the locals make excuses and cover up his whereabouts when he evades the federal authorities — dropped dead here the other day, apparently of “natural causes”… which might be a “man bites dog story”, though there’s a catch.
James Tyler, a disbarred Montezuma, Colorado attorney (following a 1992 conviction for narcotics distribution) skipped bail in November 2006 while facing charges for, among other things, “possession with intent to distribute marijuana, schedule II controlled substances (which can include opiates and cocaine) and schedule IV controlled substances (which can include prescription stimulants and depressants), as well as distribution of a schedule I controlled substance (which can include LSD and heroin).” The people who claimed they didn’t know where he was knew enough to call the United States Consular Agent in Mazatlán for details about Tyler’s death, indicating that quite a few people knew where he was hiding.
In common parlance, the guy was an illegal alien (his brother said he was working here, which suggests he either was working without a Forma Migratoria — his “gringo card” — or obtained one fraudulently), taking a job from Mexicans, as well as a wanted criminal. Since he was in poor health, one can assume he was also taking advantage of our health care system
I never met the guy: Mazatlán is a municipio of about a million people, and I don’t hang with the golf-course crowd anyway. I have nothing for or against his residence here having been an illegal alien in Mexico at one time myself (though not a criminal one), but from Sinaloa, Robert Allen’s wonderful reporting for the Frisco, Colorado Summit Daily News on the local “community leader” as a colorful rogue and living exemplar of the myth of the “one who got away to Mexico” does not go over all that well.
I wonder how sympathetic the media north of the border would be if a small town Mexican former public official turned out to be a narco and went “on the lam” to, say, Colorado.
“Tyler also sponsored a community softball team. He planted aspen trees along his property, took care of his neighbors’ pets and supported young musicians across the county,” Allen writes. North of the border, one would expect the media to respond with incredulity and outrage when some small town Sinaloan narco is seen as a local hero, and would hint at endemic corruption when a local narco gives to a charity, or helps out a children’s fund. Let alone when the local narco was also a former elected official. How are our civic-minded gangsters so different from the late Mr. Tyler?
As far as I know, the late Mr. Tyler did not have anyone tortured to death, or chop off anyone’s head. Of course, he didn’t have to: yet.
The fact is that guys like Tyler — even if they philosophically believe in legalizing drugs in their own country — are financing mass murder here.
The United States being willing, as a society, to either tolerate or not treat (beyond incarceration) the huge percentage of its population that are narcotics users, expects Mexico to “hold the line” by violent means on what’s often the only profitable enterprise in those small communities in rural Sinaloa, where you find entrepreneurial and civic-minded “community leaders” — as attached to their hometown as was Tyler.
And, like those “’Montezuma boys’… a self-sufficient group who took direct action when necessary”, our local entrepreneurs are going to take “direct action” to protect their community and their business. If that means threatening local farmers who don’t wish to grow the crops the local businesses can export, then “community leaders” are going to pressure the farmers. If it means kidnapping (and later murdering) migrant workers, so be it. That’s what people like Tyler supply the money and (indirectly, perhaps) the weapons to do, as well as turning an unfortunate economic situation into a violent confrontation between local businesses and the state, one not to Mexico’s benefit.
Robert Allen quotes Mountain Gazette editor John Fayhee, who says of Tyler, “A lot of people in Montana and Wyoming are real libertarian, but they’re rednecks,” Fayhee said. “He was a liberal libertarian. He loved to party. He believed in liberal causes.” Well, fine: Lorenzo Meyer recently suggested that Mexico stop fighting the “cartels”, but I might go further, suggesting the country simply legalize the distribution and sale of a product not much in demand here, but obviously wanted north of the border.
Forget the nonsense about “drugs cartels infiltrating the government”… they obviously do, even in small town Colorado. How the United States deals with its drug problem is its own business. If we stop fighting THEIR war, those “libertarians” (i.e., anarchists with property) can figure out how to enforce their own business rules. They can go chopping each others’ heads off, shooting each other up and leave us alone. And keep their criminals at home.
mexfiles.net 