Eat, drink, and I’ll be contrary
42 percent of Mexicans live below the poverty line (defined as less than 5 US$ per day). In the State of Yucatan, that percentage is 49%…. which at least it’s less than half. So, what better place to find rich hippies and foodies from around the world flying in to spend 600 US$ (plus tax and gratuities) on a meal concocted and served by a team of Scandinavians? Who then fly home again, feeling they’ve done something incredible.
Danish chef Rene Rezdepi … though Denmark has never been anyone’s idea of a Mecca for fine dining (Babette’s Feast excepted… and the Chef was French)… with a keen eye for the hipsters with too much money came up with the concept of “pop up restaurants”… ie., plonking down somewhere, serving overpriced food for a limited time only, then retreating back to the far north. In this instance, the “somewhere” is Tulum… best known for exploiting the local community and destroying the enviroment in the name of tourism development, and “spiritual development”… you know, “self-esteem” through self-indulgence.
I’m sure the food is lovely… or so the foodie writers tell me. I haven’t a clue. I must admit food isn’t all that interesting a subject to me, and living in a country where food security is always an issue, what strikes me is variety of foods we find to eat… is based on what there is to eat. We don’t eat insects because it’s “exotic”, or because they have an unusual taste… we eat them because we have them, and they’re relatively nutritious. And what’s not part of your daily routine is, I guess, “exotic” and merits shelling out some cash. Though, about as exotic as we get is at Christmas, when we indulge in the exotic… semi-SCANDINAVIAN food… Bacalao: Basque style codfish. Or, other people do… I don’t particularly like it, and, from what I hear, people buy it more because its “tradition” to eat it at Christmas than out of any real enjoyment.
But one doesn’t have to travel very far to find bacaloa at Christmas… just about any fish market will have it, and enterprising neighbors will cook up a batch to sell. Maybe a few hundred pesos a kilo, if that. But Six hundred dollars (about 12,000 pesos, or 144 .5 salarios minimos. Well, OK, it’s a 12 course meal. In my local comida (and I’m in a pricier neighborhood of Mexico City than most), a three course meal runs 50 to 70 pesos. So, for 12 courses, I might have to indulge in a bit of a moveable feast (like walking a block or maybe a block and a half during over the course of the dining experience) and plonking down around 320 pesos, including tax and gratuities). Oh… the Danish guy’s “pop up” includes wine… so maybe another 50 to 100 pesos. Lets get indulgent and call it $500 pesos altogether. 26 US$ … a week’s salario minimo, but within the budget of those of us with some disposable income.
Of course, we’re not going to have to travel for it. Not really. But, it’s worth it, according to the Danish diner director:
Redzepi has heard the criticism: Six hundred dollars is a lot to pay for a meal, especially a dinner that isn’t easy to reach. (My journey from Washington involved two planes, a ferry and a taxi each way.) “There’s a Protestant reaction to spending money on food” that doesn’t extend to indulgences including apartments, cars or clothes, he says, almost with a sigh. (Washington Post, 25 April 2017).
Okie-dokie, but apartments, cars, and clothes (most of which are bought to fit into an overall budget) last a bit longer than the digestive process. Certainly longer than the 144.5 days of labor it would take that 49 percent of Yucatecos to enjoy that single meal. Excluding transportation, taxes, and gratuities, of course.
Oh sure, it provides (temporary) jobs for a few Mexicans. Redzepi’s “Noma pop-up” also features “a view of the kitchen that captures the four local women whose sole job is making tortillas”: something you’ll also see in just about any “mom-n-pop” three (and sometime four) course meals for 50 pesos joint in the Republic. And, part of the proceeds go to “scholarships” for Mexican chefs… to learn, presumably from foreigners, how to make Mexican food.
And, OK… Denmark is a tiny country. Rezdepi’s claim of using “local” products isn’t quite true. Yeah, the coffee is from Mexico — Chiapas; the wine is too — from Baja California; and that “local” extends throughout the 194 million hectares that are Mexico. And beyond: one “signature” dish is “Rosio’s mole with dried scallops”. Rosio is from Chicago.
Yes, the whole thing is absurd (something even a few foodies noted), but it’s an obscenity in a country where malnutrition and the obesity caused by lack of access to decent local food are both major health problems, where wages are low and in an area already exploited and the people forced to give way for the self-indulgent foreigners. One might even entertain thoughts of the local Yucatecos, Mayans that they are, trying out some new variations on forgotten ancestral recipes: Roast hipster with a side of fried trust-fund baby anyone?
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And, speaking of ridiculous alimentary indulgences…
I suppose it’s good news, for investors in Constellation Brands and Heineken (Anheuser-Busch and SAB Miller brands) but Mexico now exports more beer than Germany. Unlike Germany, Mexico has water shortages everywhere, especially in those desert towns close to the US border where most of this beer (made with grains either imported from the US, or grown in lieu of food crops).
“Three times is enemy action!”
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action!” Or so said one of the great all-time super-villains, Aurich Goldfinger. While by no means is Andres Manuel López Obrador a saint, nor does he head a party of saints (they, are, after all, politicians), despite what has been written and said about him over the last several years, about the only thing he has in common with super-villains is having to put up with unimaginative attempts to discredit him and his movement. This latest bribery scandal just goes to show that the third time isn’t a charm, it’s just… well, obvious.
I don’t expect you to talk, Mr. Lopez Obrador. I expect you to die!
Back in 2004, during AMLO’s tenure as head of the Mexico City government, videos surfaced showing René Bejarano, AMLO’s former personal secretary — and at the time, a member of the Federal District administration — receiving bags of cash ($45,000 US). Weirdly enough, the videos were broadcast on a clown show… although, in a bit of honest political theater you don’t find often anywhere, the clown was Victor Trujillo, aka “Brozo the scary clown”, our version of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly, and his morning show a regular part of political discourse at the time. And that particular morning, Bejarano was Brozo’s on-air guest. The videos came from Frederico Dörring, a local conservative politician (PAN), and the bribes were traced back to Carlos Ahumada, a businessman and soccer team owner. Ahumada eventually fled to Cuba, but was extradited when Bejarano was fired, and sent to prison. Ahumada, was also imprisoned, eventually fessing up that the who thing, was … as AMLO had been saying… a “plot”, that traced back to Carlos Salinas, the “godfather” of the PRI.
Then, once again using Ahumada as the money source, Carlos Imaz, a founding member of the PRD (and husband of the Federal District’s Secretary for the Environment, and PRD stalwart, Claudia Sheinbaum) was “coincidentally” videotaped receiving $350,000 pesos. This time, it turned out the money was earmarked not for AMLO, but for his more conservative rival for party leadership, Rosario Robles. Although party founder, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas called upon both Imaz and Robles to resign from the party, Imaz hung tough, and it was Robles (who would go on to be part of the Peña Nieto cabinet as a PRI activist) who left.
As it is, AMLO and Imaz (along with Sheinbaum) eventually left the PRD… or the PRD left them… to form Morena, now the second or third largest party in the country, and seen by many as an alternative to the big money, dirty politics associated with people like Salinas’ PRI and Dörring‘s PAN. And the increasing irrelevance of PRD, which drifted towards the center, and had a series of unrelated scandals of its won.
Ahumada, after his release from prison, of course wrote a book (or, was listed as the author of one) about his time as a video-auteur, but has, it seems, retired from that line of business. Not so Carlos Salinas (at least according to AMLO). Or, at least the PRI, for which AMLO and Morena has become an increasingly real threat, especially with fresh mega-scandals involving former PRI governors appearing weekly. And, with PAN embroiled in both internal disputes and some juicy scandals involving money laundering (and only one of its former governors … so far… ending up in the slammer) and PRD’s leadership running around like headless chickens… the polling that shows AMLO as the probable winner of the presidency in 2018, as well as the surprising possibility of a Morena governor in the State of Mexico… it was time for a new, improved video-scandal to surface.
What better timing then when the PRI really needs to deflect attention from its own woes and when the Morena candidate has been hitting the PRI candidate in the State of Mexico than right now? So, after weeks of announcing the coming attraction of “proof” that AMLO was just as corrupt as his opponents, by Enrique Ochoa Reza (the PRI party chair!), we finally got to see the season III of the “sorta bribing of AMLO”… starring a former local PAN politician running as a Morena candidate for a municipal presidency in Veracruz State named Eva Cadena as the bribee, and …. a mystery woman to be revealed later… as the briber. With much slicker production values (including scary theme music!).
AMLO, in response to the “coming attractions” speeches by Ochoa, had said he’d resign if there was proof he’d taken a bribe. Alas, no one can show Cadena had any intention of passing the money on to AMLO, nor that he had any knowledge of the funds. Cadena has withdrawn from her own race, and claims the video is doctored… and that she was duped by taking a cash donations which she later returned. She also claims her acquaintance with AMLO is slight… that of a local politician appearing at a campaign event with the popular national leader.
Naturally, as soon as the “Enemy Action III” debuted, “shocked, shocked and appalled!” PRI politicans… joined by PAN… began calling for an investigation of Morena’s funding. Which, to the surprise of the two main parties, was enthusiastically applauded by… MORENA.
Although not know as a film critic, AMLO saw the plot line as … well, one he’d seen before. A plot… the only update in the series being a new surprise villain, Veracruz’ former governor, Javier Duarte, and his successor, Miguel Ángel Yunes. That Duarte was legendary for his corruption and has become the star attraction in PRI stable of corrupt governors makes him all too predictable as the surprise baddy. And, AMLO’s probably right.
The few, the proud, the cuddly
Maybe Marine training isn’t so bad in Mexico. The Mexican Navy has set up a breeding and training center for Belgian Malinois in the Valle de Bravo, to develop recruits in the war on smuggling. But, these Marines look more ready for snuggling: 
Number two with only some bullets
Mexico is the second largest military power … in Latin America. Which is rather misleading, given that by its population (122.7 million), it has one of the smaller militaries in the world — 270,000 on active duty, and 76,000 reservists. The 2016 defense budget was 7 thousand million (US 7 billion) dollars.
Although only number two, Mexico’s forces are dwarfed by those of Brazil. One and half million, out of its 200 million citizens, are on military duty. Brazil not only has more active duty forces than Mexico, but a huge number of reservists: 330,000 active duty personnel, and 1,200,000 reservists. And when it comes to the defense budget, Mexico’s is peanuts. 32 thousand million in 2016 for defense.
Of course, both Canada and the United States put the Latin American militaries to shame when it comes to manpower and spending. Canada, despite it’s relatively small population (35.1 million) manages to put almost as many people into uniform as does Brazil. But its military spending is relatively frugal, only double that of Mexico for defense in 2016.
The United States (321.4 million population), with its 2.5 million men and women at arms, outspends the rest of the hemisphere all by itself, it’s 2016 defense budget coming in at 581 thousand million dollars. That we know of.
Publimetro, “Ejército Mexicano, el segundo más poderoso de América Latina”
Global Fire Power
I feel kinda weird translating this into English, given the topic, but its one I have seldom seen openly discussed by Mexicans themselves.
Rodolfo Higareda, in today’s La Razón:
With the dollar going through the roof and Donald Trump infesting our social networks, Mexicans have opted to travel within the country. In fact, it has always been like this: 85% of the tourism we have is Mexican.
That is why it is extremely annoying to stroll through our resorts and see that 8 out of 10 commercials are in English: Restaurant menus and nightclub drink promotions, ads for water parks and coupons for discounts at the shoe stores, as well as the posted rates for auto rental and even the marquee on a Mexico City newstand — “Visit Mexico” — are in the other language.
It is shameful, humiliating, and discriminatory. It is also short-sighted, considering that most tourists only speak Spanish. This is nothing more than the reflection of a trauma, an inferiority complex deeply rooted in our society.
In my father, and grandfather’s time, when the whiff of Porfirismo still could be detected, anything French had status. Publicists and merchants of the time decided tto call clothing store “botiques”; panaderias became “pâtisseries”; and a cocinaro became a “chef”. And, if you were going on vacation, it showed elegance and glamour to call it a “tour”.
With the decline of French influence over our land, and the rise of North American influence, we reached ridiculous levels not seen in any any other corner of the planet, nor even Puerto Rico! To the degree that, if one walks today through Cancún or Los Cabos, it seems like you’re in a foreign protectorate; the prices, even in pharmacies, are in dollars.
The Secretariat of Tourism and Profeco MUST intervene now, without delay or excuses. I have heard absurd explanations from tourist service providers claiming that English-language advertising benefits them financially, that otherwise they would lose customers. That is more false than a 3 peso bill.
In other countries where foreign tourism is important, like Spain, one never sees an advertisment putting another language in place of their own. This is true in any country which receives foreign tourists… not in France, not in the United States.
Being friendly with English speakers is good, and taking care of foreign tourism is good, too. This is not up for discussion. But we are in Mexico and the Mexicans and their language should go first.
Time to shake off the old complexes! Let’s impose severe fines on those who see us as second-rate tourists. Well we can start with a call to the advertising iand tourism industries, explaining to them its in their own best interest to change their approach, the “hook” being that the sector they really want to reach are the clients to explain that they have to change their approach, and appeal to the by far largest sector of their clients. Us.
My town… love it or leave it, but it’s NOT Berlin
To compare this reality to a city like Berlin, where most people have pensions, a good standard of living, quality state-run healthcare, and decent wages is the height of egregiousness. It makes you wonder exactly how tone-deaf the writers of pieces like this can be. Have they ever dared venture outside the Roma-Condesa bubble? How much do they even know about Mexico City? Why have so many of these articles been popping up in recent years? Is it just cluelessness that drives them, or is it part of some local government branding strategy …?
No, Mexico City is not “The New Berlin”: A response to Vice
Tamara Velasquez, “No, Mexico City is not “The New Berlin”: A response to Vice” (Medium.com, 18 April 2017)
Mexico, siempre fiel? Sex and religion.
John Paul II may have thought Mexico was the most Catholic of Catholc countries, though I’ve always said that Mexico is Catholic, the same way France is — we pay no attention to the Bishops, especially when it comes to sex.
So, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise to me that the Encuesta Nacional de Creencias y Prácticas Religiosas found that while our Bishops are opposing inclusion of sex education in the public school curriculum, the support among practicing Catholics is even higher than among those with no religion. 83.5 percent of Catholics approve of sex education compared to only 73.7 percent of those who claim no religion. Among other Christians, the approval rating is still over 60%.
Despite constant preaching on the dangers of “gender ideology” (whatever that is… it still makes no sense to me that there’s something controvesial about that gender expectations are largely cultural rather than biological) you still find Catholics (by at least 10 percent) more approving of teaching such information over the unchurched (76 to 66 percent) and other Christian sects (about 53 percent)*
Only on the question of legal abortion do Catholics come close to following the hierarchy. While only 44.3 percent of non-religious people support for complete legalization of abortion, only one-third (33.2 percent) of Catholics hold a similar position. Other Christians show even less support.
Surprisingly, given that separation of Church and State here in 1859 (about fifty years earlier than France, by the way) is credited with having opened Mexico to Protestanism, about a quarter of non-Catholic Christians would like religious leaders to take an active role in politics. Among Catholics the figure is 20.5 percent, while the non-religious are not that much below Catholics, at 19.5 percent.
* The poll was only meant to cover Christian beliefs, so those of minority faiths (Jews, Budhists, Muslims) would have been recorded as “non-religious”. Non-Catholic Christians were divided between “Bible Groups” and “Evangelicals”… the former including traditional (“mainstream”) Protestants (like Methodists and Presbyterians), Orthodox Christians, and Mormons.
Friday Night (ok, Saturday Morning) Video.
You think music videos were invented by MTV? Think again… Prado Perez was doing them back in 1950: From Del Can-Can de Mambo (1951).
Slouching towards AMLO
Whether for conviction or because they have been rejected by other political parties, more and more politicans are joining Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
While Mexfiles thinks the “anti-American” label is misplaced, with prominent party members of AMLO’s former left-wing party, PRD, and from the conservative, traditionally Catholic and pro-US, PAN parties, at both at the national and local level, openly supporting the National Regeneration Movement, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, may be prescient in warning of “an anti-American leftist” winning the Mexican presidency next year.
Within the Senate, former PRD Senators Miguel Barbosa, Alejandro Encinas and Zoé Robles and nine others have left their party to form a coalition with the small Workers Party caucus to form the third largest force in the upper chamber of the federal legislature.
Recent defections in the State of Nayarit… which is holding elections for both municipal officers and governor in July… include not just PRD deputy (lower house of the federal legistlaure), Eddy Trujillo López, but twenty regents and leaders of the PRD in ten municipalities within the state.
Within Mexico City, former AMLO’s base was always in Mexico City (where Morena now disputes PRD for control of the district… now state… government). Secretary of Tourism Miguel Torruco Marques, and Deputy Mayor for Metropolitan Affairs and Government Liaison, Leticia Quezada, both resigned from office to join the AMLO presidential campaign. Local Assembly leader Lorena Villavicencio Ayala and the leader of the Feminist PRD organization, “Mujeres de Hierro, Verónica Martínez Sentíes — both close to the sitting PRD administration — have also switched their allegiances to Morena.
Coming from the right, the most notable new Morena adherents are Manuel Bartlett Díaz, and Rafael Moreno Valle, the former governor of the state of Puebla. Both head large machines within their former party, and are expected to bring their voters with them into the new movement.
In Queretaro state, the general secretary of the PAN in the municipality of Corregidoras, Jorge Eduardo Patrón, and Jorge Lomeli also have joined Morena.
Unexpectely, Morena is also attracting defectors from both the long-governing PRI, and even the small new “dissident” liberal parties, like the Citizen’s Movement
In Querétaro, which has always ben PRI dominated, the AMLO movement is being supported by Juan Carlos Briz Cabrera, who had been the coordinator of Citizen Networks for the PRI’s State Steering Committee and Juan José Jiménez, former leader of the PRI’s National Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP).
PRI Deputies (members of the lower house of the Federal Legislature) who have defected to Morena include Nuevo Leon’s Eugenio Montiel Amoroso, and Puebla’s Alejandro Armenta.
Also noteworthy is the case of the federal deputy Carlos Lomeli Bolaños, who just a few days ago resigned from the Citizen’s Movement to promote AMLO’s presidential campaign.
Even one Green — Paola Felix Diaz — from the party usually dismissed as “PRI for Yuppies” — whose personal record suggest a real interest in ecological and human rights issues beyond that of the usual Green deputy, defected to the AMLO front.
With growing support from politicians from the traditional parties, as well as business leaders like entrepreneur Javier García Calderón and hedge fund manager and banker Alfonso Romo Garza, Mexfiles not only questions Secretary Kelly’s dismissal of Lopez Obrador’s “Unity Pact for Prosperty” as “anti-American” but as particularly “leftist” as well. While Morena started as an unabashed socialist alternative to the increasingly liberal (or neo-liberal) PRD, with socialism and nationalism being intertwined in Mexico since the Revolution, Morena appears to be living up to its name as a Party of National Renewal… returning to the original Obregonista Revolutionary party.
Obregon defined the “Revolutionary Family” as all those who sought to change the pre-existing situation whether their motives were selfish or altruistic, and — while Mexico was still at a stage where power came from the barrel of a gun — largely succeeded in creating a government capable of creatively managing change, and moving the nation forward. Despite the contraditions of a government of both capitalists and socialists, the old “Mexican system” lasted from the 1920s up until the late 1980s . In an eccentric way, at least at the lower levels, where fights between the contradictory ideologies could be settled, it was democratic — “every day but Election Day” as the old saying went. In it’s early phase, it was violently repressive when it came to dissenters (as in the Cristero War), and … as it morphed into the technocratic PRI… its repression became a bit more subtle (at least in public), but no less prone to violence.
What Mexfiles sees as a hopeful sign is that the original Morenaistas are, for the most part, opposed to state oppression and included people like Bernardo Batiz, who defines himself as a “Christian socialist”. With the defectors being, for the most part, politicians who have been working to democratize their own parties, or fed up with the repression built into the existing political framework, and those understanding a better economic system will require radical change, Morena may very well present a genunine threat to the “American Way of Life” as it stands now, and perhaps General Kelly is right to worry.
(Partially based on . Jésus Lemus, “Crece la ola AMLO“, Reporte Indigo, 11 April 2017)
Is it good for you, too?
In response to the claims by General John Kelly and Senator John McCain (who according to the left is echoing the “party line” of Margarita Zavala — the leading candidate for nomination by PAN) — that “If the election in Mexico were tomorrow, a leftist anti-American would probably be obtained as President of Mexico. That can not be good for the United States […]. It would not be good for the United States or Mexico”, Lorenzo Meyer wants to set the record straight.
Meyer, the distinguished academic (with about 20 books on US-Mexican relations to his credit) and political commentator (unlike a US “pundit”, our “public intellectuals” are expected to actually have some expertise in the things they comment about), sees the implied threat of a U.S. “intervention” in our elections as a hang-over from the “Cold War”. He notes that following the end of the Second World War, the United States would simply “not allow” a leftist government to come to power in Latin America out of fea it might give an opening to the Soviet Union. Noting that there is no Soviet Union, Meyer wonders why the United States even cares what the tint of a particular government is here, especially if it doesn’t affect their own interests. And… as Meyer notes… a “leftist” government, “leftist” in the Mexican sense, is in the best interests of both the United States and Mexico.
The Mexican left is not revolutionary, nor anti-capitalist. It is simply proposing a less brutal distribution of privilige. So what is their interest? How does it affect them? How substanially does this affect Kelly? Not at all.
It is a very radical left. A left that wants to attack corruption. That is good for the United States because the large number of their companies that are here have to operated now to a large extent based on bribes, and the left would clear the field. Who brought out the corruption in Oderbrecht and Pemex? American courts, because they don’t want that kind of corruption. It isn’t in their interest to have Brazilians earning money that way… In fact, [a government of] the left is in the best interest of the United States if it makes the Mexican game less corrupt. It suits us both.
Linaloe R. Flores, “Una Presidencia de izquierda le beneficia a todos, incluso a EU: Meyer; y EPN ‘aún no toca fondo’.” SinEmpargo, 9 April 2017
We must teach them to elect good men
While most of US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly’s testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee dealt with the nuts and bolts of the (unbuildable, as he acknowledged) wall of shame, and with spinning the lower rates of immigration as a result of the Trump Administration’s so-far mostly rhetoricial iniatives there was this statement, not reported in the New York Times or other US media (that I can find). I don’t have the exact testimony, so the wording may not be exact, but translated a report in Sin Embargo (via Prensa Latina) Kelly said:
We have a problem with Mexico. There is a lot of anti-American sentiment in Mexico. If the election in Mexico were tomorrow, a leftist anti-American would probably be obtained as President of Mexico. That can not be good for the United States […]. It would not be good for the United States or Mexico.
While he didn’t mention who the “leftist anti-American” was he had in mind, we can all guess. That said person is would not be good, for either the United States or Mexico, I’m not so sure. Nor even that he is all that “anti-American”… anti-US policy (especially when it comes to agriculture and financial controls) — well, that’s a different story.
One notes that the “establishment” is pushing the same things the left has been promoting for several years… broadening trade outside the NAFTA zone. Given team Trump’s own push to also lessen dependence on Mexican markets, and cut immigration, I’m not sure that “leftist” is all that much a threat to Mexico… unless, that is, one sees the new U.S. president as a threat to his own country’s prosperity and over-wheening dominence in the world.
As it is, with Kelly’s brief being to stop migration from Mexico, you’d think a candidate pushing for better conditions at home, and an end to violence within the country (especially that caused by the US appetite for narcotics) which the drivers of emigration here, he’d see our “leftist anti-American” as an ally in his own cause. Nah… while having been compared to the US President by his opponents in the financial community (with some exceptions), the real threat is not to US security, but to Wall Street interests.
In other words, on the side of ordinary people. Supposedly, so was Trump. Though why people in the US thought the son of a millionaire real estate developer (would be sympathetic to the interests of the working class and poor (unlike, say, the son of a rural grocer who went on to become a social worker and union organizer).
Anyway, I can’t think of a better reason to support the leftist anti-American candidate in the upcoming election than that given by Woodrow Wilson when it came to electing our own post-revolutionary leaders:
We must teach them to elect good men (or women, this being the 21st century).
mexfiles.net 