Hemispheric snark
Stephen K Amos a black British comedian has alleged on a TV show that aired Tuesday Feb, 10, 2009, that Prince Harry made racist comments last year. The 24-year-old prince apologized last month for using a derogatory term to describe a fellow soldier of Pakistani origin. He also apologized in 2005 for wearing a swastika armband to a party.
Continued British occupation of the Malvinas depends largely on maintaining good will with the Argentines (and their neighbors who only reluctantly tolerate the “Falklands” Island Dependency as a useless appendage of a former Imperial interloper). The announcement that Prince William will be serving in the Falklands has not gone over well. “This circumstance only serves to once again highlight Britain’s ongoing military presence in land and sea areas that are part of the Argentine Republic’s national territories,” an aide to Foreign Minister Jorge Taina said.
In the Americas, inbreeding is usually found in geographically isolated locations, like Appalachia before the mid 20th century,and today, in the Malvina/Falklands.
In Europe, there are cultural factors that also lead to inbreeding, but often with the same unfortunate results. While the isolated Islas Malvinas off the coast of Argentina are a prime candidate for geographically-induced inbreeding, the European country which has been occupying the islands COULD resolve its own vexing problem with inbreeding very simply.
Send them Harry, and don’t take him back.
The tragedy of inbreeding: L, Appalachia, early 20th C; R, Great Britain, early 21st C
They destroyed the country in order to save it… from illegal aliens
Gringos should be estatic about their present economic plight. According to Congressman Dana Rohrbacher, there will be more joy over one undocumented immigrant not getting a home improvement job than over nine and ninety citizens who lose their houses…
“Some people claim the Republicans economic plans have failed. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We needed to crash the real estate and construction industry to end opportunity for the illegal immigrants who were destroying our schools and health care. The Republican plan is working.”
The millions who have lost the equity in their homes, or half their life savings, and the 3.6 million Americans who have lost their jobs in the last year are true patriots who are sacrificing for their country.
The last thing in the world we need is an economic stimulus plan which will put Pedro and his friends back to work.”
Rohrbacher represents the 46th Congressional District in southern California. He is a member of the Taliban wing of the Republican Party.
Better Sombrero tip to Down With Tyranny
And, speaking of crimes against humanity…
Nacha Cattan, in this morning’s The [Mexico City] News (links may only access front page) reports that
A majority of the nation´s Supreme Court justices said Tuesday that authorities seriously violated human rights in a 2006 crackdown on protests in San Salvador Atenco.
Ten of the nation´s 11 high court justices said “grave violations” occurred at Atenco, but whether the high court will single out top officials for their role in the attacks remains to be seen; the justices have yet to make their final vote and have yet to deliberate on the issue of responsibility.
The Supreme Court began reviewing Monday a report submitted by one of the justices that found functionaries who ordered the police action in May 2006 “permitted” and even “encouraged” the abuses.
The report named State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto and Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora – then public security secretary – among thousands of police and government officials who played a role in the violations.
The only “minister-justice” to dissent from the finding was Sergio Salvador Aguirre, “who failed to see evidence of grave violations,” and ” said police had acted on the people´s behalf.”
Aguirre is sort of the odd man person (two of the justices are women) out, having a different background than the others, and one of the few openly partisan justices on the court. Back in August, as the court considered Mexico City’s abortion laws, I wrote about the structure of the court, and it’s ministers. About Aguirre, I said:
Minister Aguirre, who has been on the Court since 1995, unlike the other Ministers who are mostly legal scholars or worked as government lawyers, had a political career in his native Jalisco, is a graduate of the Opus Dei influenced Autonomous University of Guadalajara, and had little experience outside his native state.
Even so, the Mexican Supremes don’t seem to shy away from sorting out human rights violations from “executive privilege” and — despite the Mexican love of circumlocution — don’t seem particularly interested in coming up with some flowery or legalistic jargon to justify beating, killing and raping people. There are some questions of whether or not the higher ups will be held responsible, but given that Gov. Peña has been the early favorite for the PRI’s 2010 presidential candidate, the accusation itself may have significant impact.
Predictably, the PRI is hopping mad about the ruling. David Agren writes:
As the Supreme Court probes the May 2006 Atenco affair, some lawmakers are proposing reforms that would limit the justices’ ability to launch investigations, which sometimes stray into what they say are politically sensitive areas.
Lawmakers from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, have accused the court of “contaminating” the electoral process just five months before the midterm elections by discussing the Atenco case, which involves allegations of police brutality and human rights abuses.
The PRI wants to limit the court’s investigative powers, the PRD wants to expand them, Agren explains. I’d suspect PAN just wants more Sergio Aguirre-type ministers.
… a new edition / of the Spanish Inquisition*
A U.S. “truth commission” should investigate Bush administration policies including the promotion of war in Iraq, detainee treatment and wiretapping without a warrant, an influential senator proposed on Monday.
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, urged a commission as a way to heal what he called sharp political divides under former President George W. Bush and to prevent future abuses.
He compared it to other truth commissions, such as one in South Africa that investigated the apartheid era.
“We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past,” Leahy said in a speech at Georgetown University.
“Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened,” the Vermont senator said. “And we do that to make sure it never happens again.”
Randall Mikkelsen, Reuters
This is fine, but “Truth Commissions” deal with state crimes against its own citizens, not international war crimes and genocide. And, there is no doubt that the Bush administration officials, including George W. Bush himself, are very likely to be indicted for these crimes, somewhere, sometime.
Had the previous Bush Administration limited abuses — and torture — to its own citizenry, then a “truth commission” (though South Africa is mentioned, Argentina, Chile, Panama and Peru have all held such tribunals in this hemisphere) would be possibly appropriate. However, as those other American commissions have found, the truly guilty often go free. Lillie Langtry’s “Memory in Latin America” is continually covering fallout from Argentina’s “dirty war” of the late1970s and early 80s — and the failure of Argentina’s 1983 Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas to do more than simply document some of the most egregious human rights abuses.
And, as Lillie recently wrote, the trials are still going on… via a second route of inquiry. Italy — based on the “extraterritorial jurisdiction” over crimes committed against Italian citizens during the Argentine dictatorship — is seeking the extradition of Emilio Massera, one of the junta leaders. Massera, having been found incompetent to stand trial in Argentina could (but probably won’t) stand trial in Italy.
The United States recognizes “extraterritorial jurisdiction” when crimes are committed against its citizens in other parts of the world (at an extreme, invading the other nation to serve an arrest warrant, as happened in Panama in December 1989, though the act of war specified reasons other than dragging Manuel Noriega before a Florida judge). A few years ago, Fidel Castro was found culpable in a Florida civil court in a wrongful death suit (the plaintiff was the daughter of a C.I.A. agent whose plane had been shot down over Cuba), so it’s not like the concept of trying foreign heads of state is exactly novel in the United States.
Several of the European Union countries have also been proactive in applying “extraterritorial jurisdiction” when their own citizens have been crime victims, especially Spain.
Spain created a diplomatic flap a few years back, when under this same legal theory, it demanded the extradition of Augustin Pinochet from Great Britain. Pinochet was in Britain for medical treatment (and, because he was best buds with Margaret Thatcher). There were several outstanding arrest warrants for Pinochet’s arrest for crimes committed in Chile against Spaniards; and European Union nations (like Spain and Great Britian) are bound by treaty to honor each other’s extradition requests. Just because the Chilean Senate had passed a law preventing Pinochet’s arrest and trial, that didn’t mean Spain couldn’t try him under their own laws. Nor, should there have been any legal question of his extradition from Britain.
Pinochet managed to stay out of the Spanish slammer either because he really was ga-ga (as his doctors claimed), or did a very good imitation of it… or, more likely, because Margaret Thatcher managed to suborn the British judges. Our supposed corrupt judges here in Mexico, however, have allowed internationally wanted human rights abusers (like Argentine naval officer Ricardo Cavallo) to be extradited to Spain.
While Pinochet got away, Spanish judges still seek to bring foreign leaders into their courts. Judges in that country briefly considered issuing a warrant for the arrest of former Salvadorian President Alfredo Christiani in connection with the murder of 14 Jesuit priests and two housekeepers. Some of the priests held Spanish nationality, and Spain’s right to try the case is not in question. What was at question was whether Christiani was the “intellectual author” of the crime — the “brains” behind misdeeds being as guilty as the actual perpetrator in most Hispanic legal codes.
Spain has tried — so far unsuccessfully — to bring three U.S. soldiers into custody for their role in the death of RTV cameraman Jose Couso in Baghdad. Should these soldiers be found outside the United States, however, the warrant is still good, and they can be picked up by police anywhere in the world. That’s why we have Interpol.
Donald Rumsfeld had to flee France to avoid arrest by that country’s courts — which recognize a not as universally recognized concept of “extraterritorial jurisdiction” — under which the courts have the right to try ANY international crime against humanity, whether it involves their own citizens or not. The French magistrate decided not to pursue the charges, and it’s doubtful other nations would honor an extradition request for a not widely recognized legal theory. Belgium also reserves the rights to try anyone they can bring before their courts for certain international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes), and Spanish jurists have started to consider the concept.
The Spanish — having experience with trying foreign human rights criminals — and being able without any stretch of legitimately applying “extraterritorial jurisdiction” — have the best claim of taking the first shot at the Bushistas. Spaniards were killed in Iraq (quite a number of them) and it’s not incoceivable that we we will find a Spaniard, or someone who is covered by Spanish law (say, a refugee in Spain, of which there are many from Iraq) who was abused, tortured, waterboarded… extraordinarily rendered… anything to set off an investigative magistrate.
And, should Bush, or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rice wander out of the United States, there is not reason to expect they would be safeguarded by U.S. laws… or a toothless “truth commission.”
Though Bush and Cheney continued to insist that their actions did not violate anti-torture laws, waterboarding – a technique that makes the victim believe he is drowning – has been regarded as torture at least since the Spanish Inquisition and has been treated as a serious war crime by the U.S. government in the past.
Waterboarding: bad. The “kinder, gentler” Spanish Inquisition: good.
* Yup, that’s from Alan Jay Lehner’s “I’m An Ordinary Man” from his and Fritz Loewe’s 1956 musical, My Fair Lady, which is probably copyrighted somewhere
Not gonna go there…
OK… I bit. Who is Jesus Luz, and what’s his connection with the Mex Files?
Luz is a Latin American, but Brazilian, not Mexican. I don’t read much Portuguese, so can’t tell you much about the well-knit lad of 20, other than he’s an Evangelical Christian and lately keeping company with a 50 year old Michigan woman.
Jesus and Madonna… uh-uhhh. Even I’m not twisted enough to comment on that.
Each mans death diminishes me (not really)
More than 200 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2004 — an average of nearly one killing a week, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation into the deaths.
(Lise Olsen, Houston Chronicle, 8 February 2009 )
It’s a little less than one a week, actually, and I’ll grant that sounds somewhat alarming, but…
Look at the murders Ms. Olsen focuses on… the alarm bells quiet down, and the bullshit detector lights up.
Of course, Olsen isn’t going to look at the unsympathetic victims — gangsters, gunrunners and narcos from north of the border — but she does mix in those who are tangentially victims of the so-called “drug war” (like the El Paso nurse killed during a gangland hit on a gangland funeral) with totally unrelated murders — the Houston man travelling with a 16 year old runaway to the back of the back Guerrero where his family had a long-standing (as in centuries) feud with another local clan. And — the guy she describes as an “ex-marine” (sic… as any Marine will tell you, the only ex-Marine was Lee Harvey Oswald) — who… by the way… was in his 80s, camping out in an isolated spot in the Baja and apparently knew his assailants.
The kid from Kansas, beaten up in a Matamoros disco, sounds like a genuine murder, but after the wild spin on the Toronto kid killed after being ejected from an Acapulco nightclub, color me skeptical. Not that the kid didn’t die, and not that tourists don’t sometimes put themselves into really stupid and dangerous situations, but there may be a lot more to the story than we’re told.
And — buried way down towards the end of the article — is the mention that a few of the murder victims’ killers were from the United States.
And, although nothing in her article mentions any murders in the state of Tlaxcala, for some reason Olsen includes the new to me information that the “mostly rural state described in the Mexican press as a base for some of Mexico’s notorious human trafficking gangs, the clearance rate [for murder investigations] was just 8 percent.” I have to say I haven’t heard of these “notorious” gangs in Tlaxcala, but then I don’t read everything, and some paper may have indeed have referred to some Tlaxcalan riff-raff with such wording (or “notorio”… which just means “notable”). Tlaxcala, like most rural states, it is experiencing a wave of emigration, but that has nothing to do with dead gringos. I’m not sure what the low clearance rate has to do with the story, either.
Olsen DOES, to her credit, quote a Mexican Deputy, Juan Francisco Rivera Bedoya of Nuevo Leon, who says he “believes most American victims get killed after crossing the border to participate in illegal activities or venturing into unsafe areas. ”
However, in talking about the 75 or so “missing” Americans (mostly from Texas and California), there is no indication on how many of these were involved in illegal activities, now many went to Mexico to disappear (I’m surprised the number of officially missing is so low… there are lots of people who come here to drink themselves to death or escape their families… but their families may just not bother reporting those disappearances) or those — who like Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared just before the Battle of Ojinaga in 1911 — went to Mexico to die. Before leaving as a Hearst correspondent to cover Pancho Villa’s northern campaign, Bierce sent a letter to his sister reading, “To die in Mexico — that is euthanasia.” He was in his seventies (elderly for his time), asthmatic, had a heart condition, given to bouts of depression and had written throughout his career on suicide as a ethically positive act. Thrill seekers and danger junkies– crazies, alchoholics and the suicidal — are a reality in any ex-pat community.
I don’t think Lise Olsen had a “hidden agenda” in this article, but I was extremely bothered by her mention of Colombia.
U.S. authorities who monitor border crime argue they are legally limited in helping families of Americans killed or kidnapped in Mexico, where they can investigate by invitation only.
Colombian officials, with decades of experience fighting drug-induced violence, have signed international treaties to tap U.S. crime-fighting databases used to track bullets, guns, fingerprints and DNA of criminals.
Mexico is not Colombia, where there had been a civil war since the 1950s, nor is it a “client state” with an government whose legitimacy depends on U.S. arms and aid for its survival. Nor, thankfully, is Mexico anywhere as bad off as Colombia, where the President labels legitimate dissent and critical news coverage of state-sanctioned violence as “terrorism”.
The Calderon Administration may be of dubious legitimacy, but Mexico has no reason to cooperate, given that fifty homicides a year among the 12 to 15 million U.S. visitors a year somewhat a lower priority than, say, increased efficiency in state run hospitals, or better maternal and infant care, or extending judicial reforms throughout the country, so those rare murder cases can be brought to trial.
Pos Data: At the risk of sounding like a “supercilious mexicophile” – as Catamaco News referred to me — I would never have commented on the Houston Chronicle article with a headline like “24 American drug dealers killed in Mexico.” Twenty-four dead drug dealers sounds like a bad weekend in Houston, and I don’t shed too many tears for dead narcos. More importantly, I would never be so gauche as to refer to the citizens of a single one of our hemispheric neighbors by the generic term “American”… which is viewed by myself (in my supercilious way), and by my many Mexican, Peruvian, Brazilian, Colombian, Canadian, Panamanian and other (including Falklander) readers, as not only imprecise, but “maleducado”.
Tloque nahuaque
Ethno-musicology sounds like a rather dry field… or rather that ethno-musicologists must be the kinds of guys who give aid and comfort to the silly parents who make their kids dress in wacky “ethnic costumes” and perform “authentic” dances that bore the hell out of everyone except the doting parents. And warp the kid for life (I seem to recall being forced into a beret and doing some kind of allegedly French type thing in kindergarten).
But, this is Mexico… where the Gods, Gachupines and Gringos have had their way for centuries, forever (the Gods, anyway). Ethnomusicologist Jorge Reyes, who died last weekend, was serious about preserving Nahuatl musical forms… but wise enough (and Mexican enough) to incorporate the Gachupine instruments, and gringo-imported styles.
When looking for some tloque nahauque music on “youtube,” among the things I ran across were Carlos Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” (covered by Lila Downs with a show featuring Nahuatl costumes) and “traditional” rock-n-rollers, El Bunker. In other words, as with everything else, Mexico incorporates the outside world into itself, on its own terms.
Even punk… as in La Casta’s “La Danza de Union”:
Simple justice
Although the author assumes United States models were used to reform Mexican court procedure (which were based on successful Chilean and Italian reforms), the Los Angeles Times article on how the new court is working in Chihuahua is well worth reading.
The LA Times has better Mexico coverage than most U.S. media, but — like all U.S. media — begins wth the premise that life is “better” when Mexicans become more like us (or U.S.) Don’t get me wrong… I think the legal reforms were extremely overdue… and am glad to see what could be a really wonky subject handled in a readable fashion. But look at the really terrible way the story is indexed by the search engine, and the sub-head on the story.
The murder trial looked at in the article did involve some sort of stimulants (“intentional vehicular manslaughter” and “driving while intoxicated” would have been the U.S. equivalent charges) it has absolutely nothing to do with “drugs” or the U.S. appetite for narcotics. Nor, for that matter, does it have much to do with “Mexico under siege”. The writers did mention that some people worry the new court procedures are too lenient on law breakers (the same complaints you hear about courts everywhere) including narco-hitmen, but a country “under siege” isn’t making deliberate justice system delivery reforms.
It’s disappointing to see that even a “mainstream media” source that generally has very good Mexican coverage (and at least acknowledges the existence of Latin America) is so locked into simplistic, formula thinking.
When I started the Mex Files — or rather re-started them (having started as e-mails to friends and relations) — it was because of my frustration with the lack of information about Mexico in the media, and the unwillingness of people North of the Border to look at Mexico outside of very narrow “categories of misunderstanding” : narcotics, vacations and quaint folk customs.
All are important, but so is the “normal” Mexico… a country that, despite a few pockets of violence on the U.S. border (90% of the narco-murders are in three communities: Tijuana and Juarez, both directly on the U.S. border, and Cuilican, where the gangsters have been fighting for control of their organization) is hardly a “failed state.”
Nor, are the narcotics traders — the U.S. reaction to the gangsters, the U.S. attitude towards narcotics, U.S. gun laws, and U.S. narcotics users’ culpability in the pockets of slaughter — the only thing to write about.
I hope to write on the analogy of the Calderon administration’s “war on drug dealers” and the Bush Administration’s War on Terror (both are expanding, nebulous “wars” that could be argued were launched against the wrong “enemy” and are means of shoring up dubious electoral presidencies… etc.) . But, I will be very busy for the next several weeks, and want to chew this over before I post.
So hard be a saint…
The “hit meter” shot up considerably this week on the news that Fr. Marcial Maciel — the founder of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, both based on fascist models — had, in addition to hiding his drug addiction and prediliction for sexually abusing teenage boys, fathered at least one daughter. I wrote about the Michaocán-native soon after his death a year ago.
There is open speculation that the two groups may be on the verge of collapse, or that the Pope may order their suppression … not on the news that the would be saint buggered boys and shot up dope… but that he had sex with women.
Back in December, another figure from the Mexican religious right — the late Secretario de Gobernacion, Carlos Abascal — was also being pushed as a candidate for canonization. Abascal — whose political roots were in the old Synachist Union (the Mexican Fascist/Falangist party). “Democracy is a farce that has been used by Freemasons in Mexico… to make a confused and disoriented majority believe that its will is being done,” he wrote in his doctoral dissertation opposing the secular state and religious tolerance.
Carlos never wrote another book, instead going into a business career and making a name for himself in … ahem… democratic politics. His most infamous role was during Abascal’s tenure as Secretary of Labor during the Fox Administration when Abascal attacked Carlos Fuentes’ Aura, a novel of teenage angst, and a juvenile classic in Spanish literature — demanding the novel be withdrawn from Mexican schools (and getting his daughter’s private school Spanish teacher fired) because — well — there’s a crucifix on the bedroom wall where two kids have sex (er… actually, in the imagination of a teenage boy. And, being Mexican teenager, he thinks about sex in terms of Mexican bedrooms … where very likely there will be a crucifix).
I guess you might argue that the re-emergence of Aura on best-seller lists throughout Latin America was something of a miracle, but I think sainthood for Carlos Abascal — promoted by the extreme right-wing ProVida in Mexico (and by some Knights of Colombus groups in the United States because of his anti-abortion activities) is about as remote a possibility as that of Fr. Maciel. Besides, Patron Saint of Crazy People is already taken.
And… it’s not as if the Mexican Church hasn’t paid attention to Mexican saints… or at least El Santo — THE Saint.
Rudolfo Guzmán Huerta, the “man in the silver mask”, died twenty-five years ago this week: 5 February 1984. Like that other great “muscular Christian”, Sergio Gutierrez Benitez (aka “Fray Tormenta”), El Santo grew up in the “confused and disoriented” barrio bravo of Tepito. From 1942 until his retirement in 1982… and even after his death… he was a symbol of decency and the fight for truth, justice and the Mexican Way, fighting innumerable villians in the ring, as well as vampires, mad scientists, evil brains and Zacatecas werewolves in his 54 films. And, though his son and grand-son, lending the goodness represented by the silver mask to causes like sea turtle protection and anti-violence campaigns (don’t think about it!).
If anyone deserved a memorial Mass with a Bishop presiding at the altar, it was THE Saint. And, if there are miracles in this world … consider this. A demon went to communion. Ok… the Blue Demon. Still…
EFE, via Noroeste
Another gringo invasion
I thought Migra was supposed to close border tunnels… silly me… that’s only tunnels INTO the U.S.
From “Maggie’s Madness” (Baja California):
AFN is reporting that a plague of worms is migrating from the USA to Mexico at the Zapata Canyon in Tijuana which have invaded the homes in the colonios [sic]. This phenomenon is taking place near to where the newer construction of the Wall and grading have occured. Apparently the little buggars have been displaced from their natural habitat, and are not carrying valid visas, although it has been reported that some of them are wearing sarapes and dark sun glasses. According to AFN, in addition to the grading, San Diego sprayed the area which caused the worms to migrate to Mexico. The problem is, homes have been invaded and this has been going on for at least the past ten days.
A slip on the I.C.E.
Via Bender’s Immigration Daily comes the not-at-all surprising news that “criminal aliens” were never a particular target of the wasteful, stupid and counter-productive when it came to “Homeland Security”.
And, given the ineptitude of the Bush Administration, it’s no real surprise that the Benjamin A. Cardoza School of Law obtained Presidential Memorandums saying exactly that. In other words, the morons knew the immigration raids were a failure, but went ahead anyway.
…the data reveals that while the human costs of ICE’s home raid strategy were painfully high, the law enforcement gains were shockingly low.
“ICE’s home raids have primarily led to the arrests of individuals who posed no risk to society and have come at a significant cost to immigrant families and to ICE’s own enforcement priorities,” explained Professor Peter L. Markowitz, Director of Cardozo’s Immigration Justice Clinic, which represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “ICE has created tremendous bureaucratic incentives for fugitive operation teams to abandon focus on high priority targets in favor of a shotgun approach of undisciplined home raids.”
Three ICE memoranda issued in 2006, which have never before been released, set forth a series of dramatic policy changes that collectively set the stage for the Bush administration’s widely publicized campaign of immigration home raids. Prior to 2006, ICE fugitive operation teams (FOTs), consisting of approximately seven agents each, were expected to arrest 125 so-called “fugitives” – purportedly high priority targets – per year. Moreover, 75% of those arrests were required to be, what ICE termed, “criminal aliens.” In early 2006, facing political pressure to look tough on immigration enforcement, ICE increased each FOT’s annual arrest quota from 125 arrests per year to 1000 arrests per year. Overnight, these same seven person teams were expected to become eight times more productive. These memoranda also reveal that FOTs were encouraged to abandon any purported focus on “high priority targets,” as ICE eliminated the requirement that 75% of the arrests needed to be “criminal aliens,” and, despite ICE’s previous denials, allowed FOTs to count any arrest at all, even arrests of merely undocumented
Heck of a job, Bushistas!
Before anyone sends one of those “what part of illegal didn’t they understand?” comments, and suggests that just arresting undocumented aliens is somehow justifies the waste, fraud and abuse of federal funds, and court time (and detention facilities, etc., etc., etc.), they need to remember that illegal entry is not a criminal matter, but an administrative one under U.S. law.
W. C. Fields and the Frank Zappa-tistas
W.C. Fields, when asked on his deathbed why he was reading the Bible, supposedly said, “I’m looking for a loophole.” Even in real life Fields was always a schemer, looking for a loophole. It’s somewhat fitting that during his last illness, he finally broke down and married his Mexican-American girlfriend. After all, having made a career playing characters who bungled badly when looking for a loophole, and Mexicans find something amusing — or at least endearing — about slightly disreputable schemers. He might even have made a decent Mexican politician.
In light of the protests that followed the 2006 Presidential elections, one price the Calderon Administration has had to pay for it’s grudgingly accepted legitimacy has been a series of electoral reforms. As part of the reform package, political parties are given free and equal television advertising access on the commercial networks and outlawing all paid political ads on the airwaves.
The networks, which had profited handsomely from political advertising — and which tilted towards PAN a little too obviously to be ignored by the other seven national parties — did everything in their power to thwart the reforms. Still, they passed. And — with state elections in Baja California Sur and Quintina Roo this week (yesterday, in fact), and upcoming state and municipal elections this year in Nayarit, Hidalgo, Guerrero and Coahuila, the networks looked for a last minute loophole, as described in an editorial (El escándalo de los spots) published Monday in the Culiacán El Debate (my translation).
“Politics is the entertainment branch of industry”
Frank Zappa
You know the rules of how the electoral game is played in the electronic media have changed, but last Sunday’s constant interruption of the football games, and even the Super Bowl, with political ads infuriated the fans.
By intent or design, the scandal undid any good the political advertising might have done. On the contrary, when people seek someone to blame, they look to the Federal Elections Insititute (IFE, for its initials in Spanish), Congress, and the political parties.
The Senate immediately blamed the television networks, and reminded them of their obligation to companies television transmitters and they remembered to them that they have obligation to transmit political programming during the “Triple A” period (prime time) and not at midnight when no one is watching.
The source of the conflict between the broadcasters and IFE lies with reforms to the Electoral Law, which require television and radio broadcasters, in return for their license, to contribute time to the government for political campaign broadcasts. Print media, as well as the Internet, and media like YouTube or Facebook are not bound by this requirement
Looking for a solution the problem, the Electoral Federal Institute held an emergency meeting yesterday. In Culiacán the leaders of the several political parties agreed yesterday that – as happened with the sports broadcast interruptions – the spots did more harm than good to their candidates.
The extremists among them believe that Televisa and Televisión Azteca purposely set out to avenge themselves against Congress, IFE and the political parties, for the loss of millions in income that they received for political advertising in previous elections.
Whatever one believes, the most important thing at this time is not to assess blame, but to find a solution that provides for equitable distribution of these campaign spots, not in a block, as was done last Sunday, inflaming the viewers.
Above all, the political establishment and the television networks must end the confrontation, which only creates division and rancor among Mexicans, and look for a consensus solution that ends the scandal generated by the spots.
The law is not to be played with, and the mass media, IFE, and the politicians need to look at the ultimate end of the policy: a deeper, more vigorous Mexican democracy.
mexfiles.net 