Mexico — #1 for a change!
… it used to be Canada…
The top sources of US crude oil imports for March were Mexico (1.697 million barrels per day), Canada (1.693 million barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1.313 million barrels per day), Venezuela (1.183 million barrels per day), and Nigeria (1.114 million barrels per day).
U.S. Department of Energy: Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports
Oh, really, O’Reilly?
Fox News (the U.S. network, not the spin doctors at Los Pinos), broadcasts what it calls “fair and balanced” news and opinion. It’s viewship is older and more conservative than the other U.S. media, generally considered the least reliable of all the U.S. major media sources (it likes the attack the others as “mainstream media”, implying the News Corporation of America is some little upstart company. It’s much, much larger than their perceived “enemies” like the New York Times Corporation). 
It’s famous for newsreaders who are “spun” as opinion leaders, and for manufacturing grass-roots movements based on … whatever. My favorite example was the call for a boycott of the island of Aruba, based on continual news coverage of a minor story — the disappearance of an American girl while on vacation. Tourists disappear once in a while, but this was a pretty white girl from a wealthy family (and I never have met poor families that vacation in Aruba). SO… News Corporation was running story after story about this disappearance — interviews with the family, smears against the guys she was last seen with, interviews with private eyes they paid to dig around in Aruba, and on and on and on. AND… they pimped for a tourist boycott. For Aruba, which depends on tourism, it’s a real threat. HOWEVER, showing Aruba again and again and again on news programs with an older, wealthier viewership meant the rather obscure Dutch possession was in the minds of those who can afford Caribean vacations. Aruba did well out of it.
Now comes Bill O’Reilly, of the “O’Reilly Factor”. I guess about half his viewers watch his program with the same enthuasm people a hundred years ago when to circus sideshows. It’s a little more sophisticated that gawking at a two-headed calf, but the “O’Reilly Factor” has it’s twisted entertainment values. A recent example — O’Reilly, who protests (too much) that he isn’t a racial bigot — claimed the New York Times believes “believe “the white Christians who hold power must be swept out by a new multicultural tide”. On another famous occasion, he carped that the the reason actor George Clooney, was active in supporting action in Darfur and the Sudan had to do with the “color” of the Sudanese. Clooney, it might be noted, is a “white guy”.
Bill O’Reilly is an absurd, pompous “media elite” (he’s a graduate of Harvard University) from a comfortable New York City suburban background, who is presented as the “voice of the little guy” (the little guy with a hefty salary, a good pension plan and born to advantage, that is). His latest clown act is a call to boycott Mexico —
“If the Mexican government files one lawsuit in the U.S.A., one, pertaining to the National Guard, I will call for a total boycott of Mexican goods and no travel to your country.”
COOL! If they boycott Mexican fruits and vegetables, they hurt the U.S. corporate giants more effectively than anyone else. Incidentally, given that the Mexican family farmer can’t compete against subsidized corporate agribusiness in the U.S. and Canada, it will mean more farmers having to leave the land … and a good number will be going to the United States.
I think Mexican oil should be sold on the open market, especially to Europe and India. And that the U.S. needs to cut its dependence on oil in general, foreign oil in particular. So, maybe boycotting their #2 foreign oil supplier wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Americans are overweight because they drive everywhere. With no auto parts, maybe they’ll walk more.
And Americans consume half the world’s narcotics. I think Mexico should get out of the narcotics manufacturing and transport business (and there isn’t enough domestic market for that industry) and invest more in other agricultural and pharmaceutical enterprises. Alas, I doubt narcotics users are the kinds of folks who check out “country of origin” when making their purchases, nor that they make their purchases based on political considerations.
Watch Bill foam at the mouthhere (Quick Time or Windows Media Player).
————
Suing in U.S. courts, by the way, has been a particularly cost-effective, low-pressure, “conservative” solution to diplomatic wrangles (and to discharging Mexico’s responsibilities to protect its citizens abroad). There’s nothing new in what O’Reilly calls “a threat”. Screw him.
For that matter, try finding almost anything named for some important Mexican. When I lived in Cuernavaca, I once spent 40 minutes in a cab looking for something on “Zapata” — which of the 30 or so “calle Zapata”, “calle Emiliano Zapata”, “calle Gnrl. Emiliano Zapata”, “avenuda Gnrl. Zapata”, etc. was something no one thought to tell me.
The new National Library, “Biblioteca Vasconcelos”, is opening to the public on June first. Is it the “Biblioteca Vasconcelos”, the “Biblioteca Pública de México Vasconcelos” or the “Nueva Biblioteca Pública Central Vasconcelos”? And how is it to be distinguished from the “Biblioteca México” (the old Ciudadela), officially… what else…”Biblioteca Vasconcelos”?
Well, they say Mexicans don’t read enough. At least this way they’ll get to SOME library, even if it’s not the one they had in mind.
The Legionaries of Christ (their English-version website seems to be down), being an “ultramontane” Catholic order in an anti-clerical country has never been without its detractors. The Wikipedia article (only available in Spanish) mentions that the founder of this Mexican order, Marcial Maciel, was expelled from the Jesuits in 1940 — allegedly for homosexuality. He was later accused of being a morphine addict, and of dishonesty.
The Order runs schools, seminaries and youth organizations in Mexico, and throughout the world, especially in the Spanish-speaking countries. These include the Universidad Anáhuac, one of the best (and most expensive) private universities in Latin America. It flourished best in countries with reactionary governments, Spain under Franco and Chile under Pinochet. In Mexico, it’s associated with the extreme right and the extremely wealthy. The Wall Street Journal had a front-page article on the Order’s economic power on 23 January 2006 (reprint available here).
In Mexico, Spain and Chile, there have been legal actions stemming out of allegations of physical and sexual abuse of seminarians and students by Order priests. The bishop of Richmond Virginia, a few years back, specifically ordered the Legionares to stay out of his diocese. He didn’t want the same troubles other U.S. bishops had when the order expanded into the United States. Teenage “gangs” recruited from Legionare groups 
(which tend to be very wealthy kids) have terrorized other youths in several Mexican communities. An entire organization, ReGAIN (Religious Groups Awareness International Network) , exists for former Legionares and those “touched or adversely affected by the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi Movement”.
While accusations have swarmed around Father Maciel — and the Order — for years, it was a favorite of the late Pope John-Paul II. Like other observers, I think the late Pope was “misinformed” about the piety of the Mexicans. The elite and wealthy Mexicans who are connected with the Legion are atypical of Mexican Catholics, but it is was through them that the Pope “knew” Mexico. Ironically, the extremely reactionary Legionares are somewhat responsible to the losening of clerical restrictions in Mexico which has opened the way to political actions by Evangelical pastors on the left and the Mormon elders on the right. While I certainly accept that Vincente Fox and the PAN led coalition victory in 2000 were a step towards a more democratic Mexico, I recognize that PAN has this extremist, anti-democratic clerical backing. Mrs. Fox is certainly from this wing of the party, and I do think she’s dangerous.
The Legion, and Father Maciel, has been under investigation by a Vatican-appointed lawyer (surprisingly, a woman). Pope Benedict’s order that the 86 year old priest retire to do penance for the rest of his life MAY be only a first step. If the group falls out of official church favor, either its extremely wealthy supporters will put their money into some other reactionary group not constrained by the traditional taboo on overt political influence by the clergy, or — one hopes, simply pump more money into education and old-fashioned influence peddling without the clerical middle-man.
And speaking of child-molesters and the slow wheels of justice…
Jean Succar Kuri, wanted in Quintana Roo for child-molesting, trafficing in kiddie porn and a few other things, has FINALLY lost his fight to avoid extradition from Arizona. Maybe.
It only took a couple of years, and his lawyers promise to appeal. This is the basis of another important — and slow to be resolved — case. Kuri’s legitimate business was manufacturing blue jeans. One of his business associates is now Governor of Puebla state. A reporter who wrote about Kuri, and the kiddie porn biz in Cancun (which is in Quintana Roo) ended up in a Puebla jail cell, after she was — shall we say — extralegally extradited? (i.e., kidnapped) from QR to Puebla. The Gov. is still in office.
The Hindenburg Line!
Bush makes his “Wall of Defense” speech on Monday, and already the contractors are rolling out the latest and greatest in…
BLIMPS!
… but, given the success of the Bushistas in — well….everything… what they’ll probably get is…
If you build it, they will come…
Bush looks to defense contractors to solve immigration woes
RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday May 17, 2006
The quick fix may involve sending in the National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: the nation’s defense contractors, the NEW YORK TIMES will report on page ones Thursday, RAW STORY has learned.
“Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the largest defense contractors, are among the companies that said they would submit bids for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build a virtual fence along the nation’s land borders.”
Not Halliburton? And the labor will be done by…??????
Bush the uniter… boy, are they pissed!
If you thought U.S. reaction to Bush’s Immigration Speech was tough, wait’ll you hear what the Mexican politicans are saying. I translated this from the reactions gathered and reported by Víctor Ballinas, Ciro Pérez Silva, Angélica Enciso, Enrique Méndez, Alma Muñoz, and Rubén Villalpando in the 16 May 2006 Jornada.
Politicians agree, Fox’s foreign policy a failure
Sending troops to the border is an insult
The decision by the United States to send six thousand National Guardsmen to reinforce the Mexican border, and to halt undocumented immigrants, has provoked angry reaction in Mexico, where the proposal is called an offense to Mexico, an inadequate response, a grave and terrible failure for Mexican foreign relations and solely a method to increase the salary of human smugglers.
Senators and Representatives of the various political parties who were asked about the matter consider it “offensive” that a nation would work against the dignity of any people.
“Assigning resources and sending a force of this magnitude with the intent of using them to detain migrant transit would be good, if the military were focused instead on detaining organized crime and the drug traffic, which affects both countries,” said Chihuahua Governor, José Reyes Baeza. The Governor further added that “it is an abrupt measure which can only raise the risk of damaging migrant’s human rights and bilateral relations between Mexican and the United States.” The State leader said the U.S. government and its Congress could find some more intellegent solution than militarizing the border, and raising steel walls, fences or a wall of military personnel.
Presidential incompetence, charges Madrazo
In Mexico City, the PRI-PVEM (Institutional Revolution-Green Party) Presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo Pintado, said that the militarization of the northern border is evidence of a major foreign policy failure by President Fox’s administration. Furthermore, the action is against the dignity of the people.
“I’ve been saying this for the last five years. Fox has been incapable of presenting a clear policy to the U.S. government to resolve the serious problems of Mexicans who live in that country, and of those who go there because of work shortages caused by his failure to generate those seven million jobs he promised in his Presidential campaign. The only thing he’s given Mexican have been promises of a ‘complete enchilada’ – something that now ended in a failed, and frankly absurd, decision, one everyone finds undignified.
Meanwhile, the front-runner in the Presidential race, PAN’s Felipe Calderón, had said he would not have any comment on the militarization of the border, but later in the evening distributed a press release stating he considered the U.S. decision “rewards those who believe more agents, fences and sensors are the solution to the migration issue.”
“This focus,” he said, “is demonstrably mistaken, serving only to augment social and human costs for the migrants. It only benefits the criminal groups who profit from the hopes and sufferings of those who seek new opportunities for themselves and their families.”
For his part, Senate President Enrique Jackson, asserted that the migratory question, and the militarization of the border would be discussed by the Permanent Committee in its Wednesday session.
[TRANS. NOTE: In theory, the Mexican House and Senate are always in session.
“Permanent Committees” can still conduct business when the regular members are
in recess].
PRI (Institutional Revolution) Senator Humberto Roque Villanueva, and PRD (Democratic Revolution) Senator Raymundo Cárdenas, both registered their disagreement with the U.S. government’s action. Only PAN (National Action) Senator Cecilia Romero was clearly supportive of Fox: “we can do nothing to advance or incite the militarization of the border.
Roque Villanueva predicted that there would be a signifant loss of human life, directly or indirectly, among those who intend to cross into the neighboring country, underscoring the administration’s lack of the dignity and skill to negotiate with the United States, particularly on migration. The process, he said, has “ended in a terrible failure. The Senate will call on the Mexican adminsitraion, and also communicate to the United States Congress our insistence on a consultation on legal migration and legalization of undocumented Mexican,” he said.
Democratic Revolution Senator, Raymundo Cárdenas, for his part, confirmed his belief that President Vicente Fox has made “unilateral concessions on every issue raised by our northern neighbor without anything in return except promises.”
In the view of PRI and PRD Deputies on the Foreign Relations Committee questioned by the media, the rationales given for sending troops to the border is no only “offensive” to this country, but also increases the conditions that put migrants at risk – of their lives, and of their human rights.
The legislators lament that President Fox accepted “this action, which simply fulfills an old threat” by the U.S. Adminstration to apply security measures. However, National Action (PAN) justifies the decision by the U.S., claiming that they consider it “preferable that there are forces of insititutional order rather than free-lance migrant hunters controlling the passage of Mexican migrants.
[TRANS NOTE: “cazamigrantes” — “immigrant hunters” is the word used for unofficial groups claiming to assist the U.S. Border Patrol]
In the meantime, Manuelo Fabio Beltrones, head of the PRI “People’s Sector” sensed “an old story we’ve lived through before. You can’t tell me there’s been much success in Mexican foreign policy, that there haven’t been too many mistakes. It’s very important that we look to the future, because we can’t continue a foreign policy that only brings failure, confrontation and benefits no one.”
[TRANS NOTE: “Sector Popular” — PRI is organized by sectors… workers,
campesinos, etc. Beltrones heads the general party member sector. Under Mexico’s
complex proportional representation system, his election to the senate as a
“plurinomial” Senator depends on how well his party does in the general
election. He is a powerful, and very important, Mexican politician]
For Secretary General of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, the decision to militarize the border is comparable to the segregationist and racist policies used by the Nazis against the Jews; to the apartheid regime’s policy on blacks in South Africa; and to the actions of other authoritarian governments. She called it “most lamentable” that the Mexican president kept silent after his U.S. counterpart had mentioned in their Sunday telephone conversation that the United States did not intend to militarize the border. She said, for Fox “Bush’s word was enough to guarantee the rights of Mexicans, when in reality, they are seen as a danger to U.S. national security.”
And, she added, Bush “doesn’t care if he creates a climate of xenophobia and violence, of more discrimination agianst everyone, particularly Mexicans. As a rule, right-wingers also believe migrants are a danger to their country, and we’re speaking of the most extreme right-wingers in the world: Nazi Germany, the white South African government, and many rightist governments.”
At the other end of the political spectrum, National Action (PAN) Secretary General, César Nava, considered the matter lamentable, and contrary to the hopes of the adminstration, noting that “this measure will naturally augment the risks to our compatriots who have crossed into the United States and will increase the swag taken by smuggles who get rich at the migrants’ expense”.
… we love dirty laundry!
(though it MAY not work):
Kelly Arthur Garrett, the Herald’s best-damn political reporter, questions whether that “dangerous lefty” really is losing support to the “lackey running dog of the imperialist gringos”:
The latest voter preference poll released by EL UNIVERSAL Sunday confirmed conservative Felipe Calderón’s slight lead in the presidential race, and validated the National Action Party candidate’s decision to unleash a barrage of negative campaigning aimed at branding his chief oppo nent, former front-runner Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as “a danger to Mexico.”
But neither the El Universal survey, nor six others released since the morning of the April 25 televised candidates’ debate, has settled the question on every body’s mind: Who is going to be the next president of Mexico?
… The [El Universal]poll has Calderón with 39 percent of likely voters, López Obrador of the Party of the Demo cratic Revolution (PRD) with 35 percent, and the Institutional Rev olutionary Party’s (PRI’s) Robert Madrazo at 21 percent. Calderón gained five points since the last, pre-debate El Universal poll, while López Obrador, who skipped the debate, fell three.
There has been a 14-point swing since March, when López Obrador held a 10-point advantage over Calderón. Since then, Calderón has pounded hard on the “danger” theme, accusing the PRD candidate of running up debts while mayor of the capital and of accepting help from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
More recently, Calderón has tried to associate López Obrador with the violent tactics of community groups in the troubled State of Mexico town of San Salvador Atenco, and with the newly re-en ergized Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos…. [Lorenzo] Meyer wrote in his weekly Reforma column “…in an act as opportunistic as it was unethical, the PAN candidate decided to connect AMLO with the violent recent events in Atenco to reinforce the idea (that he is a) danger.”
¡Bush — el Uniter no divisor!
As I’ve said many times (many ways), the answer to Steve Coble’s question (on Huffingtonpost.com) Did W Just Push Mexico Left? is a loud ¡SI!
So who is most likely to benefit when current President Vicente Fox’s good buddy George W. Bush puts troops along the border? Which Mexican party is best positioned to jiu-jitsu Bush’s transparent pander to the anti-Latino wing of the GOP, by turning W’s new policy into an insult to the Mexican people?
…
We shall see, but I think W may just have accidentally tossed AMLO a life preserver.
George W. claimed he was a uniter, not a divider, which has proven ironically accurate as country after country in South America has united to choose left-leaning parties. Will W help unite Mexicans against U.S. troops on the border? Does that open the door for AMLO?
And a rather tepid response from the Fox administration (note the timeline)
(my translation from Notimex wirestory in El Universal)
23:10 Even before president George W. Bush announced plans to send the National Guard to the border, the consulates of Mexico in the United States said they would redouble their efforts to protect and to guarantee respect for the rights of Mexican nationals.
When fixing its position before the Bush’s announcement, the Mexican government, through the Secretariat of Foreign Relations (SRE, for its initials in Spanish), stated that “we will not scrimt on resources” when it comes guaranteeing the respect for the rights of Mexican nationals.
The undersecretary for North American Affairs, Gerónimo Gutiérrez, made public an official notice stating that the Mexican actions will be independent of any actions arising “from the capacity with which to the National Guard or the local authorities” of the United States participate.
…
Although Mexico has received securities that the measures do not imply the militarization of the border, Gutiérrez added, “we must state our concern that these actions not yet are accompanied by sufficient advances in the legislative process”.
The undersecretary for North America left in clear that better and more secure legal migration is the only way to guarantee the security of the common border and to fight organized crime, drug trafficing and to deal with common security threats.
“Anti-Immigrants aren’t racists”, part II…
… it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.
Can it happen here? That Mexico, a 97 percent Catholic country, ever became a haven for Jews, is in itself remarkable. By and large, it is a tribute to kindness and tolerance on the part of Mexicans and bears witness to the ability of Jews to adapt to new environments. (Shep Lenchek, The Jews in Mexico, © 2000)
The Latest Flower Wars
In Mexico nothing really ever disappears. You can raze the temples, burn the idols and the people just change the god’s names, maybe a few inessential rituals and carry on. Tzotzin, Virgin of Guadalupe — the same protective mother of us all. The gods themselves may go underground, they never disappear.
Tezacatlapolca, “Lord Smoking Mirror”, the god of reality (or, as I prefer — “he who fucks with your head”) is very much alive. In the official canon of Aztec theology, laid down by Tlacael(ca. 1395 – 1492), Teza was only #3 in the Trinity. Tlacael was the Dick Cheney of Aztecdom: never himself the ruler, he was the mastermind behind doctrines and practices that created the Aztec hegonomy in the 15th century. Cheney, thankfully, will be gone soon — Tlacael was too sinister to die easily. Among other innovations, he created that offical canon, requiring massive human sacrifices to the gods.
The Flower Wars were not at all “inefficient” when it came to weilding power, but a very effective way to maintain that hegonomy. Ritual battles (with real, not ritual blood) were set up not so much to contain warfare, but to drain the client states of their means of resistance. The point was for the Aztecs to win, take prisoners — and rip their hearts out on the altars. Romantics always claim the warriors went willingly. I’m not sure… the information came from surviving Aztec rulers (no one ever thought to ask the campesinos their opinion) and Tlacael was smart enough to change the school curriculum to make his theology official state policy.
The ruling classes in the lesser states were paid off behind the scenes (literally — they feasted behind screens and received their feather cloaks and cocoa beans during the spectacle)as their ability to resist was coopted by the Imperialists.
Once Tlacael was finally gone for good (like Cheney, he’s too mean to die, but he apparently had a strong heart, and lasted into his late 90s), resistance was not completely futile. Nezapilli of Texcoco exposed the whole rotten system for what it was when he took his bribes, but let his warriors win.
That was then… this is now. The ruling classes still manipulate the people. There are those who see PRI as the modern Tlacael. They’re still around, but no longer able to pull all the strings. Not that it matters — PAN, PRI — the elites adjust to the new dispensation as well as the Aztecs adjusted to Christianity (change the name and some rituals, tone down the bloodletting and life goes on). The rituals simply change.
First, the people protest. WHEN it threatens the power elite, the modern warriors (the police) stage a bloody show of taking prisoners. Preferably foreigners — though outsiders of any kind will do — are “sacrificed”. The foreigners, with great fanfare are deported. The outsiders are blamed in the official press. And, just maybe, there are a few Nezapillis out there.
This Houston Chronicle editorial lays out the facts of our latest Flower War. I’ll be back with “the rest of the story.”
THEY were only humble street vendors, selling flowers on the sidewalk near the market. So when the government of Texcoco, Mexico, made them move, the vendors’ ire was perhaps understandable.
Harder to understand is how their subsequent protest became a bloodbath in which first policemen, then peasants were beaten by mobs.
Since last week, when Spanish-language television aired extensive, horrifying footage of the violence, Mexicans have been trying to work out where this event fits in a country in which political violence has faded. The short answer may lie in nearby Mexico City, where 1990s rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos arrived for a May 1 march that may have inspired the vendors and their friends to riot.
The longer answer may lie within Mexico’s still-aborning democracy, where citizen protest and government response sometimes fall outside the rule of law.
San Salvador Atenco, the town where the rioting erupted, has been in the news before. Five years ago, President Vicente Fox tried to build a badly needed airport there. Local land rights activists resisted violently, and Fox’s government retreated. Now Atenco is ruled by members of the same rebel group — which has fueled ridicule of Fox by his political rivals.
Last Wednesday, state police ousted eight of Atenco’s freelance flower sellers from their accustomed spot. The vendors had been notified of the move weeks before, ignored the warning and turned for help to the local land rights activists. Mayhem erupted.
As TV news cameras rolled, peasants blocked the highway and bludgeoned a policeman insensible. Other police were taken hostage. A 14-year-old boy died in gunfire. The next day, thousands of state and federal police flooded the town, seeking the missing lawmen and savagely clubbing locals.
In Mexico City, commentators aim suspicion for the chaos both at rebel leader Marcos and at Fox’s government. Marcos’ Zapatista uprising in 1994 played a key role in Fox’s election, which ended seven decades of one-party rule. Since then, the publicity-craving Marcos has fallen into Mexico’s political margins. Though he has been coy about it, Marcos is thought by many to have encouraged Atenco’s militants to rise up against the state police.
Mexico’s federal and state governments also have reasons for wanting to be seen as tough guys. As Mexico enters the home stretch of a presidential election, both Fox’s National Action Party and Mexico State’s PRI party must play hardball to counter the humiliation from the airport debacle. Certainly, neither level of government inspired any professionalism or restraint from its police forces.
Five hundred years ago, the Aztecs planned and staged Flower Wars (an allusion to the bloody wounds) in which warriors and prisoners fought or were sacrificed. Anthropologists say the bloody posturing was meant to show the Aztecs’ political control. It was an inefficient way of wielding power then. It remains so now.
Thankfully, the mindless political bloodshed in San Salvador Atenco is atypical of today’s gradually democratizing Mexico. It’s an unwelcome remnant of a rejected past.
I’m dubious how much credit, or blame to give “Marcos”. Rafael Gullen certainly is the foreign press’ favorite Zapatista, but then, the Zapatistas — and Marcos — always have had their own agenda. If they aren’t manipulated by PAN, then they certainly are a boon to the conservatives (and, for complicated reasons I’ll post later, I argue that the Zapatistas are a reactionary movement). While thankfully the modernists recognize that they can live with any government, there is a feeling (egged on by the TV networks and conservative press) that the “Alliance for the People” (PRD-PT-Convergencia) administration is the “end of the world as we know it”. Lopez Obrador is hardly a radical, but he is a threat to the same old-same old way of doing business in Mexico. At any rate, the good part of the elites sense danger.
So… take your typical market dispute (and, in the State of Mexico, market disputes can get very nasty indeed — especially as the poorer people get steamrolled by the new wealth and “global forces” rolling in from the Federal District) and the ritual police overreaction. One dead, a few Colombians and others publically deported, and … shift the blame to Lopez Obrador. Or, even better, bring in Marcos. Lopez Obrador has been down in the polls, but why risk it? Even though the Zapatistas have always prefered dealing with the conservative PAN politicans, and even though Marcos is contemptous of the PRD (claiming it’s not left enough) the conservatives have a vested interest in making any violence during the campaign season “leftist violence”.
I don’t know if the traditional highway blockade that follows these ritual sacrifices are simply more of the spectacle or the beginning of a Nezapilli-type reaction to the latest Flower War. Or, if disturbances at a PAN rally by bottle throwing PRD supporters in Tabasco (Reuters, 11 May 2006, “Leftists throw bottles at Mexico frontrunner rally”) is either.
I DO know that behind the scenes, PRI and PAN have brought in foreign “spin doctors” to manipulate the elections. I also know that AMLO has turned these ritual blood-letting spectacles around, and gives the new Aztecs something to really worry about.
Courtesy of Southern Poverty Law Center:
Laine Lawless, who started a group called Border Guardians last year, sent an April 3 e-mail to Mark Martin, “SS commander” of the Western Ohio unit of the National Socialist Movement, which has 59 chapters in 30 states. It was titled, “How to GET RID OF THEM!”
The e-mail from Lawless, who was also an original member of Chris Simcox’s vigilante militia before it morphed into the Minuteman Project in early 2005, detailed 11 suggestions for ways to harass and terrorize undocumented immigrants, including robbery and “beating up illegals” as they leave their workplace.
“Maybe some of your warriors for the race would be the kind of people willing to implement some of these ideas,” Lawless wrote. “I’m not ready to come out on this. … Please don’t use my name. THANKS.”
At the request of Lawless, who declined to respond to questions from the Intelligence Report, Martin posted her suggestions to a number of neo-Nazi bulletin boards. Those suggestions included:
— “Steal the money from any illegal walking into a bank or check cashing place.”
— “Make every illegal alien feel the heat of being a person without status. … I hear the rednecks in the South are beating up illegals as the textile mills have closed. Use your imagination.”
— “Discourage Spanish-speaking children from going to school. Be creative.”
— “Create an anonymous propaganda campaign warning that any further illegal immigrants will be shot, maimed or seriously messed-up upon crossing the border. This should be fairly easy to do, considering the hysteria of the Spanish language press, and how they view the Minutemen as ‘racists & vigilantes.’”
The Report contacted Lawless for comment, sending her copies of her own e-mails that included their original headers, as she requested. But after receiving the copies, Lawless refused to talk.
Lawless, the former high priestess of Sisterhood of the Moon, a lesbian pagan organization, has been heavily involved in anti-immigration extremism since 2004, when she joined Simcox’s Civil Homeland Defense outfit, as it was then called. That same year, she invited militia members to her private ranch in Cochise County, Ariz. “I coordinate with Chris [Simcox], so anyone who wants to come is welcome,” she wrote in a post to an online user group, “Border War” which was reposted on sites such as “A Well Regulated Militia.”
mexfiles.net 
