Mexico Voters Fear Nation on Edge of Chaos http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060517...0BvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA-- MEXICO CITY - Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge. Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos — a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly. Some blame President Vicente Fox for a weak government. Others say rivals are instigating the violence to create that impression, hoping to hurt National Action candidate Felipe Calderon, who has a slight lead in recent polls. A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. The polling company Parametria conducted face-to-face interviews at 1,000 homes across Mexico. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. The conflicts are "a warning sign," said Yamel Nares, Parametria's research director. Security is the top concern for Mexicans, and Fox has struggled to reform Mexico's notoriously corrupt police. Meanwhile, drug-related bloodshed has accelerated, with some cities seeing killings almost daily. In April, suspected drug lords posted the heads of two police officers on a wall outside a government building where four drug traffickers died in a Jan. 27 shootout with officers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco. A sign nearby read: "So that you learn to respect." Last week, Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos said Mexico was in a "state of rage," and warned that tensions were similar to those that preceded the Zapatistas' brief armed uprising in January 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas. He said his group is committed to peace, but many fear his increased public profile — after years of hiding out in the jungle — could foreshadow greater polarization among Mexican voters. The masked leader said a May 3 clash that left a teenager dead and scores injured in San Salvador Atenco, 15 miles northeast of Mexico City, is an example of the growing tensions. Marcos has been leading nearly daily demonstrations in the town following the incident, which began when a radical group of townspeople kidnapped and beat six policemen in a dispute over unlicensed flower vendors. Police responded with rage the next day. Television crews captured officers repeatedly beating unarmed protesters, and several detained women alleged officers raped them. The clash followed another bloody battle between steelworkers and police trying to break up an illegal strike at a plant in Lazaro Cardenas last month. Unions later threatened to shut down the country. George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary, said the violence reflects Fox's lack of leadership. "The state has become much weaker under his watch," Grayson said. Recent polls show Calderon has overtaken longtime presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whom opponents have portrayed as a leftist demagogue similar to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But that could change if PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo can convince voters that Mexico was more stable under his party's 71-year reign, which ended with Fox's victory in 2000. Mexican law bars presidents from seeking re-election. Madrazo has tried to paint himself as the law-and-order candidate — though so far his poll numbers have remained well behind those of Calderon and Lopez Obrador. "It's not going to help Lopez Obrador who has been associated with the rabble rousers, but Madrazo can come out and say with his party at least Mexico had continued stability," Grayson said. Gerardo Aranda, a tourism guide in Mexico City, said he won't go back to the PRI, but he doesn't know who he will vote for. "No one really knows now what could happen next," he said. "All the candidates are bad. ... There is so much anger toward the government, everyone is against everything."
Thanks for posting this, tiger. Nostalgia, melancholy, depression, other similar feelings go through me and are bittersweet after realizing moving here was my family's best move. Again, thanks. Again,
Subcommander Marcos. I love that guy. I always thought it was so much more original than 'General' this or 'Col.' that....
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you" Friedrich Nietzche Nice signature. It may not be on topic , but Mexico may be staring into the abyss. Let's hope not. If Mexico truly fell into anarchy (see my signature, lol!), it would be devastating to the United States, as well as to Mexico. Keep D&D Civil.
Methinks Mexico needs a revolution, Maoist style. Capitalism and democracry have run their courses and are shown ineffective.
Interesting you say that, because I have had this running argument over the years as to whether or not democracy or capitalism can work everywhere. I think it's fair to say that democracy isn't the answer for everyone, that in some cases it weakens and corrupts and creates divisions, and other times it's the more ideal form of government for a given nation.
Well I was mostly kidding of course, but in all seriousness a Singapore-style government may work wonder in Mexico, which is in desperate need of tough love.
Thanks. Who said I am not a fan of the Godless? Then stop derailing this thread! Agreed, that's why I was somewhat surprised not to see a thread about this, since ANYTHING that goes on in Mexico has an enormous effect on people living in the States. So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to start this thread
Yeah one party dictatorships have historically worked well in Latin America. See, e.g: the 70 years of PRI rule in Mexico before Fox.
Democracy, or at least a democracy in which everyone is eligible to vote, is in the long run doomed to failure. The average person has no idea what is the best course of action for a country to take on a multitude of issues, has no idea who would lead them to the best course of action, and even if they did, would be more likely to vote to help themselves in the short term. The policies of a nation should be determined by those best qualified to make those decisions, but that would be as hard to accompllish as a communist utopia. Democracy is nothing but the best solution we have come up with to this point. I would suggest that a representative democracy that limits who is allowed to vote probably works the best, but that is certainly not going to be the most popular opinion.
as a frequent traveler to mexico this is not good. especially since im going to chiapas next month i was in mexico when fox got elected and there was an electricity and excitement there. i was staying w/ my friends parents who live in merida and everyone was very hopeful that things would finally turn around politically - but after 6 years its safe to say that its worse there now. fox has been nothing but a huge dissapointment for all. i dont know if this is national law, but i was in oaxaca a couple years ago during their state elections (which were on the weekend, like they should be here) and the law requires that no alcohol be sold the day before. they dont want the voters to be so hung-over the next day that they mis-vote or sleep in. we were having dinner and tried to order a couple drinks and they told us no. at first i thought their was a communication barrier or they were just messing with us, but eventually we figured it out. if americans took their voting half as seriously as they did we would be in good shape. even going thru little tin-shack villages in the jungle, you still see political signs and banners everywhere.
Priceless, it not too often that you see a conservative even an unsophisticated one actually show contempt for democracy. Stupid fortuantely forgot to self censure as I'm sure we can find threads in which he loyally parrots the neocon line about how we needed to kill a hundred thousand Iraqis and thousands of working class US citizens for "democracy" neo-con style in Iraq.
Actually what Mexico needs is more democracy, but Venezuelan style in which the poor can have schooling, health care and share in the wealth. That unfortunately would probably result in Mexico being labeled a dictatorship in the making no matter how many votes the president got and we would have to start planning a neo-con style coup or US invasionin the name of "democracy". A negative for the nativists andpractitoners of wedge issue politics around Bush is that a Venezuelan style democracy would defuse the immigration issue as poorer Mexcians decided to remain in their poor pueblos and barrios.
Its hard to compete against drug money when you are a poor nation. even the gov't can't pay cops what they can get in bribes. I don't know if the fight between the strikers and police should be that large of a concern. stuff like that happens. I don't think the problem with mexico is capitalism doesn't work. I think the problem is lack of development from within. with american companies moving their factories in, americans have no concern about he welfare of mexican workers. they are in there for the cheap labor.
Have you ever read his letters from the mid-90's uprising? They are often hilarious. He has a playful mix of manifesto-style political polemic and manifesto-style performance art. Shadows of Tender Fury is a pretty good compilation of those letters.
The whole immigrant flight thing from Mexico and the growing desperation is another sign that despite the ideologists of the corporate class that NAFTA type policies don't really work to help hardly anyone, but the corporate elite. US workers have their wages depressed by US multiantionals on the Mexcian side of the border that pay $1 per hr, small Mexican farmes and landless peons are driven off the land by US subsidized grains from the US farm belt. Meanwhile the only successfully developing countires such as in Asia practice massive protectionism till they are ready to export, just like the US did till it was ready to be top dog and engage in the unequal competiton of "free" trade that usually benefits the much stronger.
