All they will call him will be deportee…
“The second you turn 18, you’re going to be deported…”
Hell, this kid doesn’t even talk like a foreigner.
Swiftboating a la Mexicana
Under the Presidential system that prevailed in Mexico for most of the last two centuries, a “good” deputy was someone like 1960s president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. He made his reputation as a deputy, not for any innovative legislation, or any particular skill in shepherding legislation through the Chamber, but for making sure opposition deputies dutifully applauded the President. During the First of September Informe, Diaz Ordaz would position himself behind whoever was the leader of the few opposition party legislators in the Chamber, and jam a pistol in their ribs when they needed to applaud. After the 1988 Presidential elections, “won” by Carlos Salinas, the trade-off that allowed that dubious election to stand was that the legislative election results were relatively honest… giving Mexico for the first time a strong multi-party legislature. A series of political reforms followed, giving Mexico a more balanced political system.
While Felipe Calderon may have won the 2006 election (which is an interesting historical question, but I’ll assume he did), PAN does not control the legislature. Under the proportional system used to select legislators, PAN has the most seats, but not the majority. Only by working with PRI, the PRI allied Greens and PANAL (Elba Esther’s party), do they have enough votes to push through Don Felipe’s proposals. But … even in PAN, PRI and among the Greens, there are deputies and senators who believe in the separation of powers… and — even if they support the President — are loathe to act as a rubber stamp congress.
With PRI more or less in agreement with PAN on certain issues, it fell to FAP — the PRD, Workers Party and Convergencia alliance — to form a credible opposition. FAP (Frente Amplio Progresist, or “Wide Progressive Front”) is an outgrowth of Lopez Obrador’s “Benefit of All” coalition, nominally, AMLO remains the head of the opposition, though not everyone in the coalition supports his “legitimate presidency”.
Felipe Calderon’s administration has, after making concessions to PRI senators who would not accept the original proposal, finally submitted an “energy reform” (reform in Spanish does not necessarily mean “better”… just new and different) bill to the Legislature. Calderon is demanding that the bill be passed as written — with no discussion — within fifty days. The opposition, and some PRI legislators, are chary of allowing the Presidential demands. While they lack the votes to send the bill back to the President, the opposition is seeking changes.
However, FAP (and Lopez Obrador) sees the presidential timetable ias unrealistic. So, FAP locked the rest of the legislature out of the Chamber and has been holding a sit-in for the last two weeks.
It is not, as USA Today reports, a “Congressional Coup” … nor is it “stalling urgent energy reforms”. It is the way a government with separation of power is supposed to work. In the U.S. Senate, a filibuster would be used to hold up the bill until the minority was satisfied. Not having a fillibuster in either the Chamber or the Senate, the Mexican legislature has taken the creative step of taking over the Chamber, preventing any bill from coming to the floor… and denying a quorum to the bill’s supporters.
As “Burro Hall” said, “These are not long-haired student protesters, remember, but the elected representatives of the people. Real-life consequences of all this aside, how fuckin’ cool is this country?” How cool is it that even 80-year old Senator Rosario Ibarra is living on take-out pizza and making do with a sleeping bag at night (though, I have it on good authority that the Senadora gets to sleep on a couch). Very cool.
The legislative sleep-over is a lot more theatrical than a fillibuster, but then Mexican politics, despite it’s theatrical qualities, isn’t that different from politics anywhere else. Nor is the response.
PAN — and PAN advisors like Rob Alyn and Dick Morris — introduced American-style campaigning to Mexico during Vicente Fox’s 2000 campaign. After the 2006 campaign, complaints from FAP and PRI led to legal changes in election laws, which supposedly did away with the personal smear campaigns that U.S. Republicans had introduced to the Mexican counterparts. It seems that the Mexican reactionaries — like their counterparts in the U.S. — have found a temporary loophole.
In the U.S. we had “astroturf” organizations … supposedly “grass roots” citizen’s organizations that turn out to be fronts for corporate interests. In Mexico, there is “Mejor Sociedad Mejor Gobierno”, trying to create the illusion of a citizens’ group supporting the President in this struggle. However, “Mejor Sociedad Mejor Gobierno” seems to be businessman Guillermo Velasco Arzac, and a few of his friends. Velasco Arzac, as you might suspect, is the hierophant (high mucky-muck) of the secretive, fascist-Catholic “Yunque”.
The hierophant of el Yunque hasn’t just taken up “astroturfing”, but has adopted a second American political technique, swiftboating. According to Source Watch:
The term swiftboating “comes from a 2004 television ad that undermined [John] Kerry‘s status as a decorated Vietnam War hero, making less stark the contrast between him and George Bush, a self-proclaimed ‘wartime leader’ who’d never heard a shot fired in anger,” William Triplet wrote in Variety, February 5, 2006.
“If you can construct believable stories with enough truth in them to smear somebody royally, boy, is there a pot of gold waiting for you in D.C.,” Triplet said. “Spin doctors are nothing new in politics, but a certain type — equal parts scriptwriter, opposition researcher and ruthless street fighter — is increasingly in demand, and for good reason.
What “Mejor Sociedad” has been doing is running commercials on television that compare Lopez Obrador in particular, and the FAP in general, to… Pinochet, Mussolini, Victoriano Huerta and Adolf Hitler. Which is a weird choice for a fascist front organization to do… but then, Velasco Arzac and company are smart enough to realize that their heros aren’t exactly near and dear to the Mexican heart. Nor, for that matter, are the two they don’t mention.
Carlos Montsivias notes that Yunque is rooted in Spanish Falangism… yet no mention is made of Francisco Franco. He isn’t the only one to call the campaign “abject, stupid and shameful”. Even PAN leaders are having a hard time defending this one.
Mexican political practice does have one huge difference from the U.S. These kinds of attack ads are illegal. They are definitely illegal when done by political parties, but whether “swiftboating” by “astroturf organizations” are is still being determined.
Good propaganda? That’s for you to decide:
Who’s who?
Michael Marizco (BorderReporter.com) in the Mexico City News:
… The military and the cartels are now, it appears, fighting for the soul of Mexico.
First, a message appeared in Ciudad Juárez newspapers, radio and television stations last week: “Attention citizens, if you see anybody dressed like the Mexican Army attacking your neighbors or violating your rights, it wasn’t us, it was the narcos.”
The Juárez Cartel, the military claimed, was going to attack the citizens of the city, violate their women, invade their homes, and brutalize the people. They were going to disguise themselves as Mexican Army soldiers, then film these exploits, the military said, and then publish them on YouTube.
Then a second message appeared, this one in the form of colored flyers scattered throughout Reynosa: “We are soliciting ex military to form an armed military group. A good salary. $500.” A phone number at the bottom.
And in Nuevo Laredo, a banner was stretched a busy downtown street offering gigs to former soldiers, with a good salary, meals, and special attention for their families.
Who’s telling the truth anymore? Who’re the bad guys and which are the good?
… Pres. Felipe Calderón started his reign with a clearly focused moral higher ground. He was fighting the good fight against the criminals that threatened the national security of his country. And he was using the cleanest corps at his disposal, the Army.
He’d been warned, as early as last year when he took office, that the heavy hand of the Army was going to give his administration the air of a military regime – a past that nobody cares to revisit in Mexico.
He chose to ignore those warnings and that’s fine; he’s been lucky, there haven’t been many incidences like the one in Sinaloa.
But the problem with high ground is that it doesn’t take much to bring you down in the public’s eye. Particularly when the public is already suspicious of the State. Particularly when someone else comes along with an offer.
¡Yee-ja… Ustedes!
(Sombrero tip to Trailero at Mexican Trucker) My original post had “10,000” where I should have typed “100,000”. Marc, who links to Full Throttle (and, if he’s the guy I think he is, a well-known NASCAR reporter) said he estimated attendance at 65-80K. Hermanos Rodriguez’s seating capacity is difficult to estimate, given that it is part of the Foro Sol complex. An estimated 2 million people were in Hermanos Rodriguez when Pope John-Paul said Mass there in 1999). Still, 65 to 80 thousand isn’t a bad turnout for what’s still seen as a “north of the border” import.
NASCAR racing is coming to the Audodromo Hermanos Rodriguez this weekend. Mexicans have always been auto racing fans, though it’s been Formula One racing that usually draws their attention (and the Rodriguez brothers — Ricardo and Pedro are legends in Formula One circles (Ricardo was killed during a practice run in 1962 on the track that now bears his and Pedro’s name).
But, NASCAR always had some following in Mexico (one of the great early NASCAR races was the 1950-54 La Carrera Panamericana road race from El Paso to the Guatemalan border.
100,000 NASCAR fans are expected to show up for Sunday’s event. It’s been sold out for weeks A few NASCAR purists, complaining about the “political correctness” of running the race in MEXICO have complained, but what the hell. NASCAR ain’t just for rednecks… it’s also for anyone who likes fast cars, mechanical ingenuity, girls flashing their tits, beer… hell, sound like the Mexicans could fit right in, though maybe Mexican NASCAR might be slightly different.
Gentlemen… start your engines…
The ICE man cometh… MAY DAY! MAY DAY!
From Vivar Latina:
Oh the irony of it all. As Pope Benedict declared God Bless America from Washington D.C., immigrants in 8 states: Arkansas, Florida. Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Tennessee and West Virginia, were more likely quoting Rev. Wright.
Federal immigration agents raided Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plants in five states today in a crackdown on an alleged scam to provide fake identification for illegal immigrant workers.Julie Myers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant secretary, told The Associated Press that more than 100 people were expected to be arrested on criminal charges related to identity theft.
There is talk that this recent wave of raids is a scare tactic. Is it coincidence that the raids happened on the same day that the pro-immigrant May Day Marches were announced?
The Cardinal’s Edifice Complex
I can’t afford the Guadalajara Reporter, but I did manage to get this leader off their Sunday (13 April 2008)front page:
Jalisco Governor says US Consulate report was ‘false
Jalisco Governor Emilio Gonzalez has accused diplomats at the U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara of misrepresenting him in a report the mission sent to Washington.
According to the report, Gonzalez told the two U.S. officials that the Roman Catholic Church was backing his bid for governor and urging its 3,000 priests in the state to work on his behalf – an act that would be illegal under state and federal law.
The U.S. Consulate General probably did something underhanded… like read the newspaper. Or attended the Governor’s 24 March press conference. Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, at a press conference WITH Governor Gonzalez, graciously accepted the offer of ninety million pesos of state funds, saying “It is in the interest of the State Government” to cough up the dough for the 2 BILLION PESO (200 thousand million) memorial to the losing side in the last great religious war in Mexico. The government won, by the way, which makes you wonder why the state government is putting up the cash.
It also makes a lot of Jaliscenses ask the same question. The State Commission on Human Rights received a record 2,717 official complaints about the “donation”. Last Friday, 1500 citizens, calling themselves the “Citizens Movement for the Defense of Public Funds” took to the streets to complain. Sunday’s El Informador reports that even the head of the Governor’s own party has suggested he listen to the complaints and back off.
So, let’s ask the two billion peso question… WHY?
Cardinal Sandoval — the model for the corrupt bishop in El Crimen de Padre Amaro — has flouted election laws in the past (as well as being accused of money laundering and having ties to narcotics traffickers — but what the hey… he used to be Bishop of Juarez. This monument to the Cristero War martyrs (when something around 18,000 people — mostly poor Jalisco peasants — died along with the idea that Mexico would be under clerical control) is also a monument to the reactionary wing of the Church that Sandoval has encouraged (and the PAN party wing that supports the reactionaries). He’d like to see it finished before he dies, and he’s 75 years old now.
With State funds probably off the table, His Eminence spoke to the press about his “mega-begathon” , brushing off the legal issues by saying “There’s six million people in this state, and only 3000 lawsuits. What’s the problem?”
What’s Spanish for chutzpah?
¡SUPER ADELITA!
Taking their name from las Adelitas, the women of the Revolution who served as everything from colonels to cooks in the peasant armies of the era, the modern Adelitas are defending the people from the imperalists — or, at any rate, from opening PEMEX to foreign investments.
The PRD-affiliated group appears to be an outgrowth of “las blancas revolucianarios”, a pressure group set up to push for senior citizen pensions and regularly filled the Zocalo with protesting grannies… the AARP on steroids While some of the most active Adalitas have been “ladies of a certain age” the movement is growing and appears to have support from women of all ages within the Party.
The Adelitas have begun a blockade around the Mexican Senate to delay passage of the Calderon administration reform bill. Call it a “People’s Fillibuster” or a last-ditch effort by PRD, it’s in the tradition of Mexican political discourse… as much about theater as policy.
And… being Mexico… you need a super-hero, or super heroine: A rapping super-heroine is even better.
Cactus, it’s what your body needs
The Houston Chronicle bravely comes out in favor of tortillas and beans… and cactus:
In [a] five-year program, community workers taught El Paso residents how to improve nutrition while enjoying their familiar Mexican-American border diet. El Paso’s 72 percent Latino population embraced the program and got strikingly more healthy.
By 2006, partly because of Que Sabrosa Vida, El Paso tied Austin for the Texas city with fewest obese adults. The number was 23 percent, down from 30 percent in 1996. Fifteen percent of the city’s eighth-graders were obese, compared with 19 percent in 2003.
…In El Paso, Que Sabrosa Vida applied the FDA food pyramid to Mexican and Tex-Mex food. [The program] should go further, explaining the medicinal traits of traditional Mexican foods.
In a recent book called The Jungle Effect, physician Daphne Miller studied the Tarahumara Indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico, and found that their diet — tortillas, beans, salsa — contributed to some of the region’s lowest rates of diabetes. The secret, in addition to the Taruhamaras’ athletic lifestyle, was the way those foods were served.
First, the Tarahumara drink very few sodas or other sweet drinks that raise blood sugar and put on pounds.
Beans, though demonized as a high-carb food, actually can be diabetic-friendly because they release sugar into the body very slowly, especially if they are simmered simply in water.
Served alongside them, corn tortillas’ sugar release also slows down. Because the corn is traditionally soaked in an alkali lime solution, corn tortillas are highly nutritious, full of extra calcium and niacin.
The dishes historically served alongside tortillas and beans have medicinal traits, too. Nopales — tasty cactus leaves still a staple food in much of Mexico — control blood sugar, possibly by mimicking insulin.
Even the Tarahumaras’ spices and greens such as cilantro, cumin and cinnamon — flavor and texture agents now overshadowed by lots of processed flour, high fructose corn syrup, oil and meat — are anti-diabetic.
“When we talk about soaring rates of diabetes among Mexican-Americans,” Miller said, “it’s not just because they’re eating a highly processed Western diet. They’ve lost their traditional medicinal foods.”
Bad things come in threes…
Manuel Pérez Rocha and Sarah Anderson:
President George W. Bush will soon host what has become an annual “Three Amigos Summit.” The leaders of Mexico, the United States, and Canada will be gathering in New Orleans on April 21 and 22. What do you suppose is on the agenda? A rational response to immigration, perhaps? A thoughtful renegotiation of the unpopular North American Free Trade Agreement? Lessons from Canada’s affordable medicines program?
No. No. And no. Rather than putting their heads together around pressing issues such as these, the three leaders will be advancing a so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). And while that may sound well and good, this initiative, begun in 2005, is unlikely to produce either security or prosperity. That’s because the partnership is only with big business.
The chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron, and 28 other large corporations are in on the closed-door negotiations, while members of Congress, journalists, and ordinary citizens are excluded. And the secrecy is not just around the presidential summits, but also the meetings of about 20 SPP working groups that carry on negotiations over the course of the year.
What’s on the table? Not much is public, but we do know that the executive powers of the three countries are hammering out regulatory changes that they claim do not require legislative approval. And given who’s in the room, it’s a safe bet that these changes will favor narrow corporate interests over the public good…
Illegal alien raid… no bull!
Plaza de Toros Mexico was raided yesterday morning by twenty bank and industrial police officers yesterday and the joint was temporarily closed. The reason?… illegal alien bulls.
Promotores Taurinos y Asociados had run afoul of District regulations back in December of last year but was operating the bullring under an amparo, a temporary restraining order. Article 47 of the “Reglamento para la Celebración de Espectáculos Públicos del Distrito Federal” states that at least half the bulls in any bullfight have to be Mexican bred.
Somehow I don’t think the illegal alien bulls will be getting on a plane any time soon. They won’t be facing a deportation order, but they may be part of your next order of tacos.
Wanted: Dead or… dead
April 16 is San Toribio day, according to the calander hanging in the very anti-clerical household where I’m living. I usually have a calendar with the saint’s names around, if for no other reason that most Mexicans still follow the custom of just naming their kid after whatever saint’s feast day they happen to be born on. This goes back to the Aztec custom of naming your kid for the day sign — I guess I should change my name to two-monkey. That or whatever the male form of Agnes is… eeewwww! I’ll put up with people assuming April 4 (San Ricardo) is my birthday… not that it matters. I’m not 65 yet, and my birthday isn’t that important to me.
Although the Catholic Church lumps all the “Mexican Martyrs” together and celebrates a passel of saints on May 25, April 16, 1900 was the birthdate of San Toribio Romo Gonzáles… the patron pest of the United States Border Patrol.
Toribio was one of the priests executed during the Cristero War, shot by a firing squad in Tequila on 25 February 1927. Together with 24 other Cristero War casualties, mostly priests, Toribio Romo was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. The Cristero War is an interesting period in Mexican history, and maybe Toribio Romo died in the odor of sanctity (though the odor around Tequila is not one you would normally associate with holiness or a blameless life ), but that’s not what makes him a memorable saint.
Toribio spent his entire life in Jalisco, never going anywhere near the border. Though it seems Santo Toribio spends some time there now:
About 1970, strange things started happening at the border dividing the United States and Mexico. Hundreds of Illegal aliens began reporting that whenever they found themselves in trouble, a strange Mexican priest named Toribio Romo would suddenly appear and help them cross the border, even giving them food, water, money and information on how to get jobs in the United States. Sometimes, he came upon illegals suffer ing from heat exhaustion, snake bite, and other infirmities. He healed them as well. The immigrants thought he was a real life human being; not a guardian angel.
I will quote from a one hundred percent true tale that appeared in the June, 2002 edition of the popular and high-quality Mexican magazine, Contenido:
The Zacatecan Jesús Buendía Gaytán, a 45 years old peasant, states that two decades ago he decided to go to California illegally to seek employment on some farm. In Mexicali, he put himself in contact with a “Pollero” (smuggler of humans) but, upon crossing the border, the border patrol discovered them; in order to escape, Jesús fled to the open desert.
After walking several days over desolate paths and more dead than alive from heat and thirst, he saw a pickup truck coming toward him. A youthful appearing, thin individual, with white skin and blue eyes, got out of the vehicle; in perfect Spanish he offered him water and food. He told him not to worry because he would tell him where farm workers were getting employment. He also gave him a few dollars for any extra expenses he might incur along the way.
Just before this Good Samaritan took leave of him, he said, “When you finally get a job and money, look for me in Jalostitlán, Jalisco; Ask for the whereabouts of Toribio Romo.”
...How does a spirit like Father Toribio get his hands on cars, money, employment information, the movements of border guards, and the like?
Santo Toribio asks the migrants he helps to come visit him back in his hometown of Santa Ana de Guadalupe, Jalisco. Which leads to his OTHER miracle —
A cobblestone ”All Saints Causeway” lined by busts of the Cristero War martyrs runs through the cornfields. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony booms from speakers in the light posts. The Catholic church operates the Pilgrim’s Restaurant and sells T-shirts from a store on the roof.
The road into town is paved. Dilapidated houses were replaced by brick cottages. Still to be completed, Father González said, is the ”center for religious reflection,” a colonial-style dormitory with meeting rooms and a central plaza with a 12-foot waterfall.
Only priests are allowed into a gated recreation area with terraces and gardens as elegant as any country club.
The transformation offers a new twist on the old Mexican story of how immigrant dollars make ghost towns into oases. …
”This is not a business,” Father González insisted. ”We are not trying to make money on people’s faith. We simply want to give the people who visit us the best services we can.”
It wasn’t any Mexican who called death “The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.” Mexicans still celebrate “Day of the Dead” combining the Catholic beliefs with the indigenous sense that the afterlife is pretty much a continuation of the mortal one… with a few small difference (like a pickup truck and a few dollars to spare). Toribio Romo isn’t the first young Mexican guy to go north, do well and send money back home. But he probably is the first dead one to do it.
mexfiles.net 