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Elections and the embassy

The 1946 elections may serve to examine what role the "American factor" in our political processes

Hypothesis

The normal Mexico is now heavily involved in the crisis made -económica, política, jurídica, moral- y tratando de sobrevivir. En contraste, el México político vive en otra dimensión: la del proceso electoral del 2012. Por tanto, es un buen momento para discutir un asunto viejo: ¿cuál y cuánta es la influencia de la superpotencia del norte en nuestras elecciones? Aquí se sostiene esta hipótesis: por acción u omisión el "factor norteamericano" es una variable que siempre entra en este juego aunque raras veces es la determinante. México es ya un sistema demasiado complejo como para ser manipulado desde fuera con facilidad y, además, casi siempre Estados Unidos ha tenido en su agenda otras intervenciones más urgentes.

A partir de la U.S. intervention in the fall of the governments of Francisco I. Madero, Victoriano Huerta in 1913-1914 has been often said that this or that candidate did or did not come to power by the will of the United States. To check this assumption and replace it with something better mere opinions, it is useful to review some important choices as the 1946 with the support of files in this case, the National Archives in Washington, State Department (ANW).

The starting point

Major powers are also wrong. In 1945 the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, George S. Messersmith, left a fair assessment: the presidential succession to door was to mark a long time future of Mexico (ANW, 812.00/1-1246 and 812.00/2-2645, January 12 and February 26, 1945). Which was not so successful was to insist that the crux of this election was the confrontation between right and left, between the forces seeking to cooperate with the United States and the nationalists who objected to such collaboration. For the diplomat, former President Lazaro Cardenas and Vicente Lombardo Toledano, the union leader, were the heads of those left-wing nationalist forces were bent on ending high-Mexico partnership, established in the heat of World War II.

Although the concept of Cold War had not yet been coined, that would make Bernard Baruch in 1947 - its essence, the global clash between the U.S. and the USSR was already operating and painted the view that the U.S. government to judge its relationship with the Mexican political process. From this perspective, the former President Cardenas became an obstacle to progress in Mexico and that country's relationship with its northern neighbor. And the problem was not only Cardenas but also many other items embedded in the government, the ambassador was referring to people like Eduardo Suarez, secretary of the Treasury or Ramon Beteta, just waiting the right moment to "give a stab in the back" (ANW, 812.002/1-845 and 812.00/1-1246, 8 and 12 January 1945).

Candidate
embassy
For the ambassador, in the present circumstances, the ideal person to take over the destinies of Mexico's Foreign Minister Ezequiel Padilla was "honest and good attitudes" and architect of the relationship harmonious hitherto been the United States and Mexico. However, this is an important point, the ambassador agreed that although he was much in its outcome, the United States was not convenient to jump right in the complex Mexican and could not even give the appearance of having preferences because that would ammunition to the enemies of his candidate and accused him of traitorous (ANW, 812.00/6-1445, June 14, 1945).


system
Washington officially regarded Mexico as a democracy, but always assumed that the elections would be neither free nor fair. In Mexico there was already a democratic spirit but not the institutions to make it happen and why not to tell who would win the vote but the official machinery (ANW, 812.00/1-1246 and 4-2646, 12 January and 26 April 812.00/3-3046 1945, 4-246, 7-146, 7-246 and 7-336, March 30, April 2 and 1, 2 and 3 July 1946). And finally, in Mexico, "the concept of free elections was on."

Those who did not want the embassy

for U.S. diplomats the worst case scenario was that the PRM candidate appointed General Miguel Henriquez Guzman, it was the letter from Cardenas (ANW, 812.00/3-445, March 4, 1945). When Henriquez, after his interviews with Avila Camacho gave up his presidential pretensions, the embassy breathed easier, but not for long, because he is extremely annoyed that Avila Camacho would have been "forced" to accept the Secretary of the Interior, Michael German, as the official candidate. Messersmith was the worst of the views of German, not only was corrupt, with possible sympathies for the Axis during the war but was "weak character" and could be left influenced by his supporters, and among them were Cárdenas, Lombardo, the CTM and the Communist Party (ANW, 812.00/1-1246, January 12, 1945). In contrast, Padilla was the key to continuing the good relationship by being a moderate and have the strength of character to sustain his conviction regarding the need to maintain a good relationship with the USA (ANW, 812.00/9-2745, 4 October, 1945).

Seeking support from Washington

German Michael soon realized that to secure the presidency he should not be taken the American veto, which had to earn at least the neutrality of Washington. In March 1945, German asked directly an American Embassy official to which presidential candidate would support Washington in Mexico. This question forced the embassy to ensure that America is not going to get to anything in this case (ANW, 812.00/3-1645, March 16, 1945). Unsatisfied, in August, German decided to take the bull by the horns and twice requested an interview with Messersmith "in a discreet place." By then, German had already publicly declared their support and commitment to the Good Neighbor policy. Washington finally agreed that while the ambassador was away, will meet with German Guy W. Ray, first secretary at the embassy. The memorandum of that conversation is waste.

The candidate assured the U.S. that, and as President, would maintain the policy of cooperation with the U.S. and, eventually, is going to get rid of Lombardo had to keep some influence in his administration. At year end, Ray had another interview with an "informant" close to German and Ramon Beteta. On that occasion, the envoy sought to assure the U.S. was already under way in the fight against the Germans left, and Ramon Beteta, although he had served in the cabinet de Cardenas, with German defender would policy proximity to Washington (ANW, 812.00/11-345, November 3 1945).

In 1946, on the eve of elections, Padilla decided to also play your letter from the Embassy and, after making anti-communist statements, the U.S. sought to decide to take sides even if indirectly. To this did an interview with the ambassador, but it was not his friend but a newcomer Messersmith: Walter Thurston. That Padilla was defined himself as a Democrat, a pro-American and anti-communist and, in turn, asked the U.S. government to let him know Ávila Camacho not tolerate election fraud presidential succession decided, as an election German fraudulent could impose lead to a popular uprising and if, despite this, the United States insisted on recognizing his rival, then destroy in Mexico pro-American sentiment that was born during the war (and he, Padilla, had encouraged). Thurston heard but would not commit to anything (ANW, 812.00/6-1946, June 19, 1946). Desa-nately for Padilla, by then, and without having worn with open surgery, Washington and was then a German in his pocket. What happened subsequently complied fully shows that German, as president, what once promised to Messersmith. Conclusion



The ideology of the powerful distorted vision of the Mexican reality and Washington that Mexico failed to adopt their point of view. American direct intervention in the electoral process was minimal but its great weight in Mexico had a significant impact. Finally, the process showed that Mexican nationalism itself contained in something the United States and that the best of this nationalism was on the left, not right.

Kodicom Kmc-4400r Problema

Mexico: committed suicide or suicide?

In Mexico, power has rarely been in the hands of those who should. And certainly not the case today

Farewell to Don Genaro Gongora Pimentel. Their presence in the SCJN was an exception that proves the rule. Approach



Emir Sader, secretary general of the Latin American Social Sciences Council (CLACSO), gave an interview in Spain, where he summarized the policy of Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who, despite the global economic crisis, managed to reduce inequality and strengthening social national identity because "[a] ument microcredit, kept wages above inflation, promoted formal employment, diversified international trade and reinforced the interregional." Mexico, Sader said he followed a road and "in my opinion, has committed suicide."

The Mexican route to suicide, according to Sadr, began with a free trade agreement that led to a extreme dependence on U.S. trade in your league over the International Monetary Fund (institution to which Brazil is not only borrows pays), the "serious" corruption and, finally, a climate of extreme violence (International Public, 13 November).

A

assisted suicide are people and countries that, at certain moments, appear to commit suicide. The most dramatic modern example is Germany. At the end of a brutal world war waged by nationalist politics and aggressive in the extreme, the German people obeyed the irrational order of their Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, to resist the enemy, although there was no hope of success. Examination of the causes that led the Germans to pursue this dead end really shows that countries do not commit suicide, but that "suicide" a crazy or irresponsible leaderships or extremely stupid or selfish or corrupt or all of these together . They are the leaders who have a society bound by its institutional structure to a disaster situation, and in the specific case of Mexico, the loss of historical time, opportunities and collective energy.

The disaster in a nutshell

Resistance to change in depth when there was still time, back in 1960-just when the dominant political and economic models began to show its limitations, and the mediocrity of leadership made under Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo authoritarianism stubbornly dysfunctional practices until the balance of payments and external debt amount melted down the country. Miguel de la Madrid and Carlos Salinas substantially changed the economic model but not political. Extreme neoliberalism embraced and made to pay the cost of changing the working classes, to small and medium industries and the middle class. That neoliberalism was introduced without its counterpart: the real competition (and fair) in political or economic. The result was the illusion to suppose that the neoliberal and authoritarian Mexico and had entered the first world.

In 2000, the PRI was forced to drop the presidency, but remained in control of most states and municipalities. Driving the process was taken over by a PAN he shared with the PRI's neoliberal vision of the economy and he had already learned to negotiate since 1989. The PAN took a blink of eyes to get accustomed to power, but neither wanted nor knew how to use its initial legitimacy to advance this fundamental change that was committed as a champion of democracy. He feared that the left could move the enjoyment of power, his honors and income and claiming the existence of "a danger to Mexico" pact with the PRI-negotiated with the past, and reaffirmed the failed course for which he was the country.

faded So assuming historical change nine years ago. Today, and according to surveys like the one just to lift the CIDE (La Jornada, 16 November), the 2000 does not seem to be anything other than the beginning of a simple two six-year interlude in which the PAN lost its innocence and the PRI was recycled to try to return on track with a touch of legitimacy "democratic" she needed to take hold better in their "second time", which, if we do nothing, you can start in 2012.

indicator 'Forbes' magazine U.S.

periodically select the world's richest people has just opened another list: of the 67 most powerful people in the world, based on four indicators: the number of persons for influencing their ability to project power beyond its immediate scope their access to resources and the intensity with which they exercise that power (Reforma, 12 November). Well, on that list are present a couple of Mexicans who were listed among the wealthiest in the world: Carlos Slim (sixth place) and the drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loera, alias "El Chapo" (in the cuarentaiunavo place.)

Forbes The distinction awarded to the Mexican couple says a lot about both but says much more about the nature of society and political system on which Slim and Guzman Loera have assembled an impressive fortune and power. And this is more evident when comparing the other names on the list. The first three are political superpowers: Barack Obama, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin, the fourth, a technocrat, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve power, the United States, only two other figures who share the fifth place are entrepreneurs Sergey Brin and Larry Page, makers of the powerful Google search engine.

Forbes does not consider any powerful Mexican politician and that is absolutely right. Influential Mexicans are really only two businesses: one dominates in the legal economy and the other illegal. The remarkable thing is that in Mexico the political power and not a source of great power in the sense Forbes but an anemic economy, which for 27 years does not raise his head, has served to raise wealth and power as the world Slim concentrating. For Forbes's explanation is that Slim dominates 90 percent of the fixed and mobile telephony in Mexico. This low concentration of competitive telecommunications market in Mexico has its origin in a more political than economic: the terms in which Carlos Salinas privatized Telefonos de Mexico in favor of Slim, and that this base has been able to penetrate successfully in other economic areas and in other countries. Anyway, there are few people today associate the lack of dynamism of the Mexican economy to the presence of monopolistic forces such as Slim. Here we have an explanatory element of "suicide" Sader speaking Mexican.

violence of organized crime and the state is another feature that the secretary of Clacso associated with Mexican failure. And that's where it appears Joaquin Guzman Loera. For El Chapo, Mexico's economy is a secondary factor, as its major market is north of Rio Bravo, fueled by an economy capable of sustaining without any problems prohibited substance in an amount at prices retail, it was estimated earlier this century in 60 billion dollars (The Economist, July 28, 2001). The power base of the Sinaloa drug lord is not a distortion of the Mexican economic system but of the justice system, especially its law enforcement structures and security agencies, but not just there, for the unwillingness of the authorities to attack circuits of drug money is also part of the problem. The root of the power of El Chapo is the enormous corruption of the government of Mexico. Other Indicator



One of the most notorious members of the current political elite, the lawyer and former presidential candidate of PAN, Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, has just destroyed part of a Nogalera with copies of more than 100 years old, owned by a poor family in the town of Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato, to move without permission from the appropriate authority, the trees to hacienda "La Barranca" to make the environment more pleasant in that his farm of 480 acres with a house of 21 bedrooms, El Universal, 13 and 14 November). In contrast, we have Jesus Leon Santos, an indigenous farmer in the Mixteca Alta which for years has organized his countrymen to rescue traditional techniques and through tequio the ecology of the area planted 4 million trees and therefore, won the prestigious Goldman Prize 2008, but no internal recognition ( www.goldmanprize.org ). Conclusion



not turning back: the "suicide" of Mexico is closely related to real power structures, which are not even remotely the interests of the majority, the interests of the nation.

Staff Infection On Face

The Wall, the Cold War and we

The Cold War also had a "Mexican front" and its consequences are still felt


Thesis
The commemoration of the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, among other things, the celebration of the end of a long and dangerous struggle between the two Axis superpowers winning in 1945 and also recognition of the triumph of "real capitalism" over "real socialism." And what of "real" means that none of the two systems was that their theory should have been accounted for, although the distortion of socialism was the most terrible. The end of the Cold War reduced the risk of a nuclear holocaust, but the world seems to have improved much since then.

The memory of what happened 20 years ago in the German capital would seem a relatively alien because our country never became the scene of a collision between the East and West. At the beginning of this conflict was already Mexico firmly planted within the U.S. sphere of influence and has remained there since. However, this conflict concerns us because it was indirect but decisive in our political process and the reverberations from the US-USSR crash still being felt.

For example, the Dirty War and the campaign of fear that characterized the elections of 2006 are explained, among other reasons, because the area where it was then a clash between left and right reactivated and mechanisms prejudices dating from the time in the atmosphere of the Cold War engulfed Mexico since the late 1940 to early 1990. Mexican


Front
Fear mutual destruction in case of direct conflict, did the United States and the USSR only transform its Cold War hot in certain areas of the underdeveloped world and always within limits, they never used their nuclear weapons (although there was a possibility) not directly but their armies clashed with the other allies.

Mexico, but was part of the peripheral world wide, was never important theater of East-West conflict and was saved from terrible experiences as local conflicts turned into tests of strength between Washington and Moscow, as happened in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Afghanistan and Central America, to name a few notable examples.

In Mexico, the rivalry "Bloque Capital" - "Socialist Block" was a matter directly and systematically involving just a handful of foreign actors. The embassies of the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe and Cuba had more staff than was justified to meet the little trade and contacts with Mexico. For its part, the American embassy, \u200b\u200band its network of consulates, always had a large staff and explicable in terms of the neighborhood and the exchange of goods and people between the south and north of Rio Bravo, but Washington also set up in Mexico a huge apparatus to monitor and act not only in relation to Soviet Cuban agents and Eastern Europe, but to keep in touch with the Mexican intelligence apparatus and monitor the activities of the Mexican left, from the General Lazaro Cardenas and Vicente Lombardo Toledano to the Mexican Communist Party members through personalities movements and publications with more or less progressive attitudes and nationalists. Who wants to take a quick look at the Cold War in Mexico, we can help go to books like Michael Scott and Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico. Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (University of Kansas, 2008).

Roots Reading the American archives, especially the Department of State makes it clear that at the start of the Cold War, the U.S. Embassy wanted the successor of Avila Camacho were a people you trust: the foreign secretary, Ezequiel Padilla. The possibility that eventually the Interior Minister, Michael German, whoever came to the presidency was poorly received by U.S. Ambassador George Messersmith because he suspected German relations with the left and the corruption of character, and since then recognized. The suspicion was based on the support of CTM Lombardo Toledano and Cardenas, both as the embassy, \u200b\u200blinked to the Soviet-German's candidacy.

Fully aware of the position of U.S. Ambassador, German, as the official candidate, his emissaries sought to ensure that their anti-diplomat and his sympathy for America was so genuine and background as anyone else. As German took office, Lombardo maneuvered to drive the CTM and leave entirely in the hands of the perfect example of opportunism that was Fidel Velazquez. The Cardenas was removed from the corridors of power, the left was watched and harassed. In return, German was received with unprecedented enthusiasm by Harry S. Truman in Washington. Then again U.S. oil companies using 'contracts risk ". A relative harmony reigned then in Washington-Mexico relationship.

German's successor was not the General Miguel Henriquez Guzman of new suspect in the eyes of the U.S. embassy in sympathy with the left and the Cardenas-but Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (ARC). That did not stop ARC was subjected to American pressure by his inclination to support certain SOEs rather than private investment. It was also made known to ARC that Washington did not like their hesitation against a Guatemala that wanted a greater degree of independence and development of agricultural policies not unlike those that had followed the Mexican Revolution.

the end, Mexico was just helplessly as the last shreds of the Good Neighbor is carried between the legs of horses in the United States intervention in southern Suchiate against the legitimate government of Jacobo Arbenz. Adolfo Lopez Mateos (ALM) had to walk on the razor's edge because in 1960 the Cold War was even more strongly to the Mexican border as a result of the shift to the left of the Cuban Revolution. ALM hit hard at the left-destruction of the valley, imprisonment of muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros and the murder of Ruben Jaramillo and his family, but that did not stop Washington look bad its nationalization electronic and forced him to have to juggle to say "yes, but not" and "no, but" in relation to the principle of nonintervention in the Cuban case.
Gustavo Diaz Ordaz
his anti-earned at the end of October 1968 U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, he congratulated on the successful organization of the Olympics, not said a word in connection with the slaughter of students on 2 October at the Plaza of Three Cultures and the argument given for good Mexican official that 68 had been a Communist conspiracy and provocation despite internal reports that the CIA does not support this version. Luis Echeverría

much irritated the U.S. government, Third World rhetoric, but, as noted in his 1975 book on former CIA agent Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary (Bantam Books) - was also Echeverría LITEMPO 14, an informant of U.S. intelligence since his time as Secretary of the Interior. The Cold War, like many others, was an ideal spot to act on several tracks. The Nicaraguan Revolution led to Jose Lopez Portillo to Mexico to play the role of "middle power" supported by its oil, but the harshness of Ronald Reagan and the 1982 economic crisis made such efforts end in disaster.

In the penultimate year of the Cold War, the PRI and the Mexican right, with the explicit support of U.S. Ambassador Charles Pilliod, staged successfully in 1988 to defend the electoral fraud that had prevented Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, head of a very left moderate rise to power and that, in contrast, is affirmed as President Carlos Salinas and neoliberalism. Salinas became the architect of a free trade agreement with the United States linked as never before, our economy in the U.S..


In conclusion
Cold War concerns us directly because they also fought in the Mexican front, and did much Mexico shape the second half of the twentieth century. At 20 years away still living with its legacy.

The Monster Sign For The Drink Coloring Page

'policy or who gets what, how and when '

rarely can see so clearly what is the essence of politics and in the battle over taxes. Minority won and lost most
Loss


A crisis situation is, of course, one where normality is lost and with very negative consequences. However, this disappearance of normality can also be used to try to create a new situation than the loss. That could happen in Mexico in fiscal matters, but it was not. Coping with the disaster of public finances could lead the government, in an act of desperation to try the "flight forward" or a substantive tax reform, postponed for half a century. Unfortunately neither the federal government, or governors, Congress, the parties or the "powers" fell short. Thus, our economic disaster only served to reinforce what was already wrong. Again, the Mexican political class failed to live up to their circumstances.

The nature of politics in practice

What we just witnessed in the Congress on the development and adoption of the Revenue Act for next year is only an indicator, but very significant, what is the essence of politics here or in any other place and time. And if the show was bizarre from start to finish and highly unsatisfactory result for the average citizen, this was due to the nature of Mexican politics is equally grotesque, unsatisfactory, corrupt and openly biased in favor of privileged minorities.

Once again it became clear that those in control of the structures of power in Mexico, most importantly, the only important thing is the short-term and personal gain, or at most, of the small group which fought the hard struggle for access to public office and the management of government funds. Now, in addition, in the manufacture of fiscal policy are also important rewards or punishments that may give interest groups and pressure to those legislators acting or resist their demands. A definition



In 1935 Harold D. Lasswell, an American political scientist, published "in the Great Depression and reflecting it-a book whose title was also a definition: Policy or who gets what, how and when. A couple of decades later, David Easton, Canadian political scientist at the University of Chicago, developed a different definition very similar policy but within a theoretical framework "Systems analysis" and now comes in handy to explain what is happening with the Mexican fiscal policy. Eastoniana perspective, politics is the set of processes by which those who control the institutions of public authority must decide how to assign or allocate the scarce resources available to society. From this perspective, it is politics, not the economy that decides what is left for the market mechanism-the so-called invisible hand-allocated and what the very visible hand of the state distributes directly.

resources to be distributed by the authority are basically but not exclusively, materials. However, the most bitter political struggle takes place in the process to extract directly a part of the wealth of society-Revenue Act to give to the authority for the use-it-budget for their maintenance and reproduction and the remaining turn it into goods and services for the community to obtain their support. Obviously, in this process there are always those who earn more than they lose and vice versa: this is just the heart of politics, power struggles and the ever-present class struggle.

The starting point

In the current Mexican context, and to understand the stark fiscal policy, it must begin with the fact that part of society, but significant minority still does not recognize the legitimacy of those who are responsible for the initiative to prepare the scheme of tax collection. The origin of this rejection of the authority structure was the way it conducted the 2006 presidential elections, which did not correspond neither the letter nor the spirit of fair electoral competition. Time has passed but the aggrieved party does not accept the outcome of the election, hence the strength of his opposition to the tax package that was presented to Congress.

Another decisive factor to explain what just happened in the legislative chambers is that the Mexican Treasury is particularly weak. If discounted oil resources, taxes only if they represent 10 percent of GDP, low proportion in the global context. That is why since the end of 1970 a strategic natural resource and non-renewable oil, has been using in the worst way possible: to finance current expenditure. However, the low production and oil prices have meant that it no longer input than previously.

the Treasury's inability to meet its obligations, you are missing around 300 billion pesos a year, also due to the disastrous effects on the Mexican economy in the world economic crisis that erupted in 2008. And these effects-a drop in GDP of 7 percent this years, have been so hard for several reasons, including the decision to Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico to join a single international market: the American. When in 2008 the U.S. economy came under, Mexican, and badly damaged, but followed the disaster magnified by their intrinsic weakness and mismanagement of a government that believed "armored" (?). Justice



Deciding who pays or fails to pay what taxes depends on the balance of power within the political system. Today the federal government control by the PAN, the PRI dominated state governments increasingly take up more tax revenue (38 percent) and control of the PAN and the PRI of Congress make those two games, which has long represented the interests of economically powerful groups, have decided to shift the burden of a tax increase in classes and political groups and economically weaker sections: in the vast majority.

Equality for unequal and more

The government proposed and succeeded after some pushing and shoving that the PAN and the PRI to accept an increase in VAT, a tax as unfair because they pay the uneven but relatively easy to collect and manage- an increase in the ISR and few more. But the really important thing was that, surprisingly, in the midst of debate, Felipe Calderón publicly accepted what had long been identified as Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to four hundred large conglomerates pay little or no income tax, using an unjust law, since it can be used by the large employer and not per taxpayer common: to bring together the profits of a business with their other losses to exit "tables" and also differ for years paying taxes to achieve, in some cases cancellation. Calderon AMLO did not name but yes, using data from the BMV: CEMEX, Carso, Televisa, Maseca, Banamex, Bancomer, Banorte, HSBC, Inbursa, Kimberly Clark, Bimbo, Walmart, FEMSA, and so on.

Calderon made the complaint of the lack of solidarity from the very rich, but even there it was, it did not propose any remedy, it can and should do so. On the other hand, emphasizing continued privileges lawmakers proposing that those who will benefit from the new concessions spectrum-an asset that belongs to us all, are not charged anything at first, which they give away more than 5 billion pesos. Conclusion



In theory, taxes should be done first, as a moral duty of the citizen: an act of solidarity with the community, which has the most is the largest contributor. However, in Mexico that argument is impossible to sustain. First, by inefficiency and corruption of the authorities. Second, because the tax structure itself is, as income distribution, a notice of "a monument to" the lack of collective solidarity. An indicator that tells us that 200 years into the independence movement, the essence of the colonial era remains largely intact, and that Mexico is a structure of social, political and economic designed, first, to exploit of the many by the few.

Brown Hair Blond Highlights

Is Mexico a model? Who?

It turns out that all of Mexico is politically interesting past, but morally this is unacceptable

Who can interest our example?

The size of the political failure of Mexico today lies in the fact that no one considers the current Mexican process as a case to follow. However, it is that someone somewhere will find it interesting review of the future, the previous model, that we thought was discredited and passed: the authoritarian PRI! It follows a small but revealing reference appeared in the foreign press.

In his time, the Mexico of the Revolution and his regime were considered inspiring by some nationalist and progressive trends in Latin America. The post-revolution attracted the interest of the other end, on the right, as a result of the emergence of the Cuban Revolution. Then they saw some American circles in Mexico in the 1960 an alternative to Cuba, as their system was presented as a revolutionary but democratic, with an appropriate mix of market economy and state with an independent foreign policy. Today there is no such thing. Neither right nor left, or what is between them seems to be something original and positive impact on a country came late to the democratic transition and that what was done thereafter lacks quality and even viability.

Currently, Mexicans who are interested what happens beyond the borders are fully aware that our country can not be seen as a paradigm for anyone and instead, watch with interest and some envy the Brazilian process. Actually, that envy afflicts from Mexican businessmen to ordinary citizens against the Brazilian success and it shows a lot. For example, The Economist (17-23 October) noted with some irony that today, "In Mexico the envy with Brazil is more intense than ever." And is that while the South American giant has many of the problems we have, it dominates the optimism and a future project, while pessimism abounds here and a sense of drift.

The root of the difference in attitudes in Brazil and Mexico is explained not only because the economy going forward first of our backs, but also because Brazil has a high-quality political leadership and Mexico do not. In the resumption of democratic life Brazilians came across a huge failure called Fernando Collor de Melo and corrupt right-of-but could be overcome by his dismissal in 1992. Then the two presidents since 1994 has lived in the Palacio do Planalto, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been exceptional. The first, a world-renowned academic who became a man of action, the second, a labor leader without formal education but with a formidable personality and sensitivity enabled him to get to a position previously denied to their class. Both figures were up to their historical challenges. In contrast, the last two Mexican chief executives simply amazed at the mediocrity of his personality, his idea of \u200b\u200bpolitics and his collaborators for their lack of social awareness and tolerance of corruption and injustice.

Under current conditions, our country can not be of interest to anyone. And yet, the Financial Times (19 October), when addressing the case of another country that was a model for many but that no longer is, "Russia says it in this enormous country that currently buoyed its oil wealth and the hard fist of Vladimir Putin who is interested in studying the successful Chinese model, a communist party that has total control of politics and a successful economic system, a mixture of unbridled capitalism and statism. But besides the Chinese model, the circle of Putin is interested in two other cases: Japan, where one party-the Liberal Democratic-dominated the political scene from 1955 until just weeks ago, and Mexico's PRI, which also one-party dominated political life since its creation in 1929 until 2000. It is, as noted by the British newspaper, a pair of countries where, under a democratic appearance, ran a one-party system: the ideal of Putin! The

copy of Mexico's authoritarian
start
The question: Who can take the Mexican model?, Has the answer: those interested in the system that prevailed in Mexico to before 2000, the old model still attracts interest between authoritarian. And is that the PRI system was one of the longest running and most undemocratic, in that sense, the more successful of the twentieth century.

The group that would create the PRI in 1929 came to power 13 years earlier, for armed and mounted on the victory of Carranza. Under the previous we can say that monopolized power for 84 uninterrupted years, a feat unmatched in the last century by any other political group in the world. The Russian Bolsheviks, for example, took power in late 1917, ie shortly after the Carranza and lost in 1991, nine years before the heirs of Carranza.

From the above perspective, the longevity of authoritarian PRI is greater than that of Soviet totalitarianism, hence the understandable interest of some in Putin's circle to know the nature of the political system of the last century. And that interest should increase if the Russians take into account that while the Soviet CP ceased to exist when it lost power, the PRI, since more than half the states have survived intact. Finally, unplug-tran interested in the secrets of long stroke authoritarianism were more impressed by the Mexican case if they take into account the recovery of the PRI in the elections of 2009 and, especially, if the old party created by Plutarco Elias Calles recovers power in 2012. And this is where the issue is of great importance and not for the Russians but to the Mexicans.

Does PRI or the past as future?

is understood that in today's Russia can be considered a forward pass from totalitarian stability of Stalin or Brezhnev to a possible authoritarian stability, but in Mexico it would mean a setback. However, the electoral triumph of the PRI in the midterm elections this year, combined with the weakness of a divided left open the possibility that a majority of citizens, so far only relative, PAN decides to react to failure by accepting as true an old adage Conservative: "devil you know is better than good to know."

is possible that in the 13 or 14 elec-tions next year's state PRI progress in his recovery. However, the really dramatic, and traumatic, that circumstance would be the announcement that the majority will vote on who wins the ongoing internal strife PRI. And at this point all of PRI candidates for the 2012-Enrique Peña Nieto, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, Beatriz Paredes, etc.-were forged in the old forge undemocratic. The 2000 defeat of the PRI failed to change its essence. The former State party continues to behave according to their original nature. One proof of this we have to consider how to process the current political crisis PRI governments of Puebla and Oaxaca. Marín and Ulises Ruiz acted in their critical junctures in the same way they did once every PRI governments. In the state of Veracruz or Mexico, another couple of notable strongholds PRI-daily politics does not differ more about what was the national standard by 2000.

is true that if within three years, the PRI were to regain power at the national level, his conduct as a responsible government could no longer be an exact replica of the past because it would act in a different political environment existing at the time PRI's classic. However, we must not become complacent. The great institutions of democracy as the IFE or IFAI are not what they were: they have lost quality. And the Mexican society, with a political culture shaped by history and influenced by undemocratic means electronic information of a similar nature, would not necessarily be in the possibility and the will prevent the return of the PRI's traditional practices, especially if they are presented as a precondition to recover the lost security, employment, stability and long-term project.

Bottemless Wemon Galleries

The spots that changed a vote

The legacy of 2006 is not only a deepening of the major political divisions, but the incentive to win the 2012 via the creation of a "moral panic"



Wounds and scars in themselves and under normal conditions, two TV commercials can not divide a society. However, in terms of confrontation, media distortion and institutional weakness, its effects can be devastating and Mexico is a perfect example.

policy in memory of individuals and communities, past grievances always leave scars, it is inevitable and is part of the learning process. These scars, for example, that caused the Mexican collective memory of war with the United States are part of their history, their personality and, sometimes, even his pride or shame but do not prevent normal development. However, when the grievance is still open wound, then it is an obstacle to normal and constructive coexistence. That is still the case of the 2006 electoral process in Mexico. For the Mexican left, or simply for those who really are considered committed to the principles and objectives political democracy, it will require years more to make this wound, the way they conducted the election campaign and the way they processed the election, a mere scar. In any event, the event and its consequences will be registered in the historical memory of our political process similar to what happened in 1988 in the case of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in Miguel Henriquez in 1952, John Andrew Almazan in 1940 or events of 1961 and 1991 potosinos about democracy movement led by Dr. Salvador Nava.

history as a judge

Sometimes the passage of time becomes traumatic times stories that are reinforced in their view. In other cases, trials are contradictory, making the fight was continuing. I posted about the events of 1968 is an example of the former, and produced as a result of the Zapatista uprising of 1994 it is the latter.

smoke and dust that caused the electoral shock of 2006 still does not sit at all but what happened then and is reflected in the written page. For example, the book by Luis Carlos Ugalde, so I lived, is an attempt to justify what happened in 2006. In contrast, 2006: speak the record: the weaknesses of the Mexican electoral authority is the investigation of Jose Antonio Crespo on the results settled in the electoral records of the day of that year, only documents accessible to the public but that indirectly bring us closer to what could be the actual outcome of the election. In this work, Crespo contradicts Ugalde without support or position of the winner, Felipe Calderón, nor the main loser, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) - only shows that the available data, the record-it is impossible know who won and who lost at the polls. This year

appear just another job, Javier Treviño Rangel, which elaborates on the analysis of 2006 by other means: the consequences of the test and the type of campaign that was conducted time and whose central feature was the creation, through the use of television, an atmosphere of fear at the possibility that, as indicated by the bulk of public opinion polls, left the option triumph led by AMLO. The work is entitled "Moral panic in the election campaigns of 2006: the development of the" danger to Mexico, '"International Forum (No. 197, Vol XLIX, 2009 [3], pp. 638-689).

The starting point is clear: Vicente Fox as a candidate could take the Guanajuato airport, threatening not to concede it was less than 10 percent, require Ernesto Zedillo to intervene in the election campaign, calling his opponent "Squat" or "mandilón" and the whole PRI "tepocatas" or "snakes prietas" and threatening a PAN mobilization if the electoral bodies ascribed to his opponent a victory by a margin less than 3 percent. This position was not a scandal. In contrast, when AMLO called "chachalaca" Fox and demanded not to be active in the electoral struggle, he came and the sky above him as a "danger to Mexico." Why such different standards of the electorate to similar political attitudes?

'moral panic'

The concept of moral panic (PM) is the instrument that Treviño Rangel used to explain the successful construction AMLO as a "danger to Mexico." The concept was proposed by Stanley Cohen and employed to understand why certain types of rock musicians unfounded fear generated in the most conservative sectors of British society in 1960.

The PM, says Treviño, "emerge in societies where one episode, person or group is defined as a threat to certain values \u200b\u200bor interests. Assume an irrational fear out of control [and] its nature is presented through media stereotyped way. Politicians, journalists or other stakeholders (bishops or entrepreneurs) start a moral crusade, a display of social control mechanisms to stop the threat. Experts socially accredited (editors and academics) emit different diagnoses and solutions. Subsequently, the panic disappears, giving way to other issues ... "(pp. 644-645). As you see, today it's PM is associated with the activities of mass media, especially television, source of knowledge political more than 60 percent of the population.

As the indicators show-opinion polls, cited by Treviño, from 2000 until March 2006, AMLO was ahead in the fight to happen to Fox in the presidency. But , between 12 and 18 of that month, and nothing had changed but manipulating goal very well be called "chachalaca" AMLO had used against Fox to demand to cease the illegal use of the presidency for partisan purposes, the calderonistas created a very effective MP who eventually reduce or negate the advantage of AMLO.

The MP 2006 is mounted on preconceived ideas very conservative, especially among the middle class, and reactivated with a couple of TV spots (the bricks falling and that linked AMLO with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president previously demonized) regardless of whether the allegations contained in those messages were not backed up with some kind of empirical support. About

manufactured and presented against AMLO spots three things they knew well studies the matter had already shown: a) the negative information is more salient than the positive, b) the withholding of negative events is greater than the positive c) the effect of negative campaigning is kept longer in the public. These same studies have also shown that "he who hits first hits twice, ie, the available evidence shows that in any election, the first negative commercials are the most influential and, indeed, who first attacked by this approach makes the following agenda. The response of the attack may be similar but no longer has the same effect on the collective imagination. This irreversible effect of the initial negative means that if electoral authority, the IFE in our case, decides to force the attacker to withdraw their spots, that decision has no significance, since the initial effect, which has since operated.

The effects of the campaign of fear around AMLO were magnified by a premeditated use of television news, where the framework for electoral information presented had been established by the premises and effects of negative campaigning. It was problem-de AMLO accused to prove he was innocent, that was not the monster that he had become, and that it was impossible. Effects


future
The PAN campaign made good use of the conservative nature Mexican society and the large sediment left by the Cold War. PAN remained in power "haiga been like haiga been." However, this peculiar way to reverse what seemed a victory for the left hit the fragile Mexican democracy, not strengthened the weak.

is certain that the campaign of 2012 will build on the lessons that we all left six years earlier. No attempt afford to expect to win "for the good." Since there are the incentive to create other "moral panics." Everything suggests that within three years, thanks to inheritance PAN can win again not the best to dry but the best "Apan" of Mexicans.

Blueprints On Making A Swing

The left

Someone suggested that socialism is dying. Exaggerated, but there is no doubt that we need one very different from the past

Data

On Sunday, the left won the elections in Greece and recently also in Portugal, but not so loose. In contrast, the Socialists in Spain are on the defensive, the British Labour lost direction and lost emotion and the geographic heart of Western Europe-Germany, France and Italy, is dominated by the right, and it confirmed the recent German elections. The leadership of Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi even seem to have no competitors viable. In Eastern Europe, and in reaction to the Soviet era, the left is particularly weak.

In Latin America, Brazil is the country that stands out for its dynamic and ambitious national project, there remains a pretty good left-wing government led by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. On the outskirts of Brazil dominate various shades of left but all face serious problems, from Venezuela to Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay, and distance, Chile. It is difficult to classify the Kirchner of Argentina, because as is typical of Peronism, their governments have items across the political spectrum. Anyway, in contrast, the focus clearly on the right region ranges from Colombia to Mexico to Honduras in the midst of the coup.

And the U.S.?

For a while no one was being asked where to put the United States politically. Since the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the beginning of the Cold War, the U.S. government and American political world were, by definition, the homeland of anti-communism and the right. With the U.S. victory over the USSR after a struggle that lasted nearly half a century, and the disappearance of the latter, the situation changed. But with the triumph in 2000 of George W. Bush and his team of neoconservative Republicans, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz, among others, all eager to realize the project called "New American Century, it reaffirmed the United States as the political and intellectual thought and world politics right. However, with the surprising electoral victory of Barack Obama in 2008, and its platform for social issues highlighted by any other (see his autobiography Dreams from my father and that specifically includes its political project, The Audacity hope), and appointments of the Puerto Rican people like Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the United States today can no longer be simply classified as the geographical heart or ideological right. If the above is added to the ferocity with which Republicans and conservative Americans are attacking Obama proposed to reform the health system to the extent of calling it socialist, then we can conclude that, in terms of the history of American policy, Obama is leading a management center. Where we



Seen in the distance, the political landscape on both sides of the Atlantic seem to indicate that there is a kind of a tie: the right dominates in Western Europe and the center-left in America. Then, depending on preferences, the glass may be half full or half empty. However, there are some Observers from the European scene have no hesitation in pointing to the Conservatives as the rising force otherwise, how come today, despite the anti-is no longer the political force that moved half a world-ago 20 years that brought down the Berlin Wall and that capitalism is again going through one of its worst crisis as a result of their abuses and excesses, the right wing parties are firm and even countries as they advance in power as Germany, France or Italy? In an analysis by Steven Erlanger in the International Herald Tribune (29 September), the author hypothesized even the death of socialism.

Erlanger's question is sustained by an argument in European countries of advanced capitalism, large claims were socialist flags after the Second World War and became assimilated to the political mainstream, ie, are now issues already ceased to be disputed that the right policy because the fought, and accepted and assimilated. Such is the case of public health systems, unemployment insurance, pensions, environmental protection and even greater supervision of major financial players.

other hand, the European left today just do not have leaders of weight, and other charismatic figures, however, is full of something very typical of this current from the very beginning of socialism: the internal divisions and personal squabbles that lead to those closest groups or programs, ie, the "fellow travelers," the enemy to be fought with more courage instead of investing time , resources and energy to face an opponent who is on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

What to do?

This subtitle was in 1902 the title of one of the most famous of Vladimir Ilich Lenin (inspired, in turn, in a Russian novel.) At the beginning of last century, when capitalism was not yet fully developed, Lenin, impatient, suggested to his fellow left- do not let the change process to run its natural pace slow and erratic and act on it: form a party of professional revolutionaries who would force the situation, they were the catalyst for a story that Marxism meant default. If it was inevitable that socialism replacing capitalism, then the sooner the better. His proposal was successful and she came out, for better and for worse, the Soviet Union and all that it was derived.

Today, for the left what to do? requires a different response and largely opposed. Lenin must be taken not only the idea of \u200b\u200bletting the inertia dominate and individuals must be willing to act, but nothing more. In contrast to Lenin, is now obliged under the assumption that the course of history is not written in advance or that someone has the key to knowing what will this future and therefore has the right to impose its project to others even by force. On the other hand, the history exists and is full of errors and horrors of both the "real socialism" as the others, and recognize them not to repeat is a moral and a practical necessity. In the past he should understand but do not justify their dark sides.

The struggle for power is always brutal, but there must be limits. History, the Left must accept that the quest for social democracy without democracy policy is to risk a return to incubate the egg of the snake. A left without a real commitment to ethics in political practice-the same within its own organization in competition with opponents at the ballot box, "just not worth the effort and pain anyone.

In Greece, George Papandreou's Socialists won largely by the corruption of the government open its adversaries, Kostas Karamanlis, but the history of these socialists is not free of that sin. And here is a central point: the corruption of the left in many countries, certainly in Mexico, is unacceptable morally and practically, it is an egregious and inexcusable error give in the privileged realm of fair and honest about opponents who have no historical title to claim it as their own.

In conclusion, there is the theoretical challenge. Marxism and its variants provided to the left with a holistic understanding of the world that eventually led to not look directly at reality, to the point that if it did not fit the theory, a theory was really demanding, so much the worse for reality. In contrast, non-Marxist social science, from economics to sociology, he was never quite sure of his premises or conclusions and therefore better able to deal with reality. So capitalism also understood better their faults, and acted for diminish-not to eliminate them, "something that did not Marxist intellectual fathers of the left.

In short, inequality and social injustice are present in all societies, even in the most prosperous, and that fact alone makes it indispensable to the left, but not any left, but with a capacity to learn from the past and above all, to have a real commitment to their own values.

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Our current war and the possible

It would be nice to start discussing the usefulness of continuing or changing the direction of the current drug war. Priorities



Since December 2006 the Mexican government has insisted the military in a war against drug trafficking but it is time to ask: does it make sense to continue it with the same intensity and direction? Only six years so far, and until the middle of last month, casualties related to organized crime accounted for about 14 thousand (El Universal, Sept. 11).

Arguably, it should raise or redefine the "war on drugs" because the dead and many, limited resources and there are more urgent and legitimate alternative to reverse the collective effort that is now used against the drug cartels. First, it is better engage the country in a war against poverty fund or the poor quality of its education system, or back sheet, could do with a battle against unemployment, against environmental destruction and even to transform the growing informal economy into the official. It would be really popular a genuine national crusade against public corruption and insecurity, that is, crime that affects the ordinary citizen, and that there is drug trafficking. In addition, possible war fronts are not lacking, which are scarce resources and the will to carry them out. Therefore we must take care of priorities, because maybe in the battle against drug cartels we're in a conflict that is entirely or even genuinely ours and, worse, one where it is not possible a real victory effective. The essence



successfully fought a real war means that society must be willing to bear to bring in maximum stress all its social and institutional relationships. That kind of war would mean that the country's leadership had developed a plan with a clear idea of \u200b\u200bmeans and goals, determine exactly who is the adversary and why and what are the chances of defeat. For its part, society should accept a high degree of responsibility, personal and collective sacrifice, and commitment to one of the largest companies can impose on a community. In short, put one in a war is a decision that must be capitalized and made with full awareness and responsibility.

The drug group as the great enemy

In principle there is no doubt that Mexico as a country would be better against oneself and the world if the Family, the Gulf Cartel, the Juarez Cartel and the rest of the drug trafficking organizations were already history. However, specialists in the field and own common sense tells us that as long as external sources of demand and, therefore, financing, especially if that source is the most powerful country in the world, the struggle against the Mexican drug trade have the same weakness that occurs, for example, when an army combat armed groups that have their main source of supply and support in another country. United States, with the help of NATO can not defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan just because it can find shelter and resources in Pakistan. For Mexico, the external factor in their efforts to eliminate organized drug trafficking is a major obstacle, as their ability to press and force Washington to act is infinitely more limited than Washington to pressure Islamabad.

The Mérida Initiative is that the Mexican government made a major historical commitment of the U.S. government to really act against demand and against the supply of arms and transfer money to Mexican criminal groups. However, for historical or political reasons the U.S. authorities can not prevent its citizens from acquiring weapons and some of them, transferred to Mexican drug cartels. Reviewing budget items, according to a paper by Eric Olson and Robert Donnelly, that, so far, the two-thirds of the amount the U.S. government invests in the fight against drugs are designed to combat the supply and only third to face the very source of evil: the demand ("Confronting the Challenges of Organized Crime in Mexico and Latin America", 2009, Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC). Logic



Felipe Calderon launched the army to war against drug traffickers as part of a move to several bands. As in many other stratagems, one of its core objectives-perhaps-seems to have been to create a situation which caused the public to stand on the side of the "strong leader" and determined. And in that sense the move seems to have borne fruit, since 83 percent of Mexicans support the use of military against the drug cartels (Pew Center poll, published on September 27.) However, to Olson and Donnelly, as for many other specialists, the fact that "rarely has a victory been possible in this type of war, especially when the demand for illegal products is high. "

The alternative could be, experts say, simply use the army to selectively limit the influence of organized crime, increase the cost of business which operates as in other fields less violent and spectacular but more effective: to prevent money laundering, reform or recreate new institutional framework, police, prosecutors, courts-educate or re-educate potential consumers and, above all, make activity of the Mexican authorities is conditional on U.S. progress in effective control of arms, movements of money and a real low demand for drugs in their society. Possibility



A German researcher, a specialist in economic factors in the negotiation of conflicts within states, Achim Wennmann has suggested exploring the possibility that the government of Mexico enter into negotiations with the cartels using formal intermediaries and targeted clear: limit the areas of activity of the cartels, not to operate in schools, not to extend its activities to other classes such as kidnapping, trafficking, etc., and limit violence. What is needed is to give economic incentives for the cartels to limit their activities and spaces and enable a life of Mexican society closer to civility.

In principle, negotiate with organized crime is a morally repugnant idea. However, it has an ethical side defensible: a war without victory possible is an indefinite extension of the slaughter and brutality. Mexican society, in particular young people with no chance of social mobility just getting used to see violence as normal and extremely effective. The callus of the collective consciousness means a huge cultural cost, a mortgage the future. Mexico does not have to pay a bill that should be entirely in the hands of consumers, who ultimately is what makes possible the mountains of Sinaloa has become not only a producer of marijuana and poppy but totally dehumanized characters being imposed lifestyles, values \u200b\u200band extreme forms of relationships between organized crime and the rest of society. Italy is an example of how difficult it is to uproot the culture of the mafia. Barriers



Negotiate with criminal organizations is not an ideal solution but the alternative is worse. However, the obstacles to achieving a less bad among potential are many. On the one hand, the "war on drugs" has paid dividends to Calderon and he does not have many alternative sources of political capital. On the other hand, Washington would have no objection, and while this government has not been able to reduce the demand for his company has ample resources to pressure Mexico. There is ironic that Washington itself might consider negotiating with bad-for example, negotiating with one of its enemies to isolate Taliban to more intransigent.

However, as a society have the right and obligation to propose alternatives to a state of things simply deteriorate over time. Mexico is better and more urgent things to do with their economic resources, with the lives of young people, their soldiers and policemen, have to fight a war without hope and, finally, is only partly and in any case our product of our proximity to the United States.

How Long For A Hematoma To Dissolve

The lack of opportunities for young people are leaving Mexico with an immobile social structure
Definition


Interpret recent social developments in Mexico as a process that shares features with the European Middle Ages is a proposal that has support both in official figures, for example, income distribution, as in what any attentive observer may realize: the country is heading toward a kind of stiffness or freeze social structure.

To better understand the meaning of the above statement must start with the definition. In what sense is the Mexico of century, immersed in the maelstrom of globalization, it might be medieval? Luis Weckmann long embarked on a great undertaking: to discover the heritage of the Middle Ages to the English conquest brought to Mexico in the sixteenth century (The medieval heritage of Mexico [1984]). But that's not the point here but another very contemporary. In the world of medieval social structure was, at least in principle, immobile. Father born pastor who remained as such the rest of his life and the same fate awaited all his descendants were more able to perform well in other activities. Similarly, who was born noble, noble stayed forever and so their children and children their children, no matter if they were real jerks, his destiny was to own and receive the homage and service of the vassals, to be leaders regardless of their ability to control, hence the frequent "idiot prince" because the latter does not end removed first. In this world only if the Church represented, to a few holders of luck and a remarkable intelligence, the only means by which they could escape a mediocre destination. Certainly the church knew how to do this peculiarity of the world around one of the sources of its undoubted strength in the period. Breaking



New Spain was not exactly a model of social mobility, although had it. And in that colonial capitalism successful a conqueror or a merchant could end up with a title of nobility, but for the vast majority were born and race destination. However, Independence brought significant changes, opened opportunities, and the best example of social promotion we have in Benito Juárez, a character who literally broke all the social and cultural barriers. Without having to go through the path shifted from indigenous church and pastor to student, lawyer, governor, minister and finally to president. Obviously, Juarez was a rare case of social leap, in the mixed world examples were more numerous and General Porfirio Diaz was a good example of this. However, the same Porfiriato, maturing as an oligarchic and authoritarian order, led to significantly reduce social mobility.

The Mexican Revolution was, among other things, that swirl "Alevante" many-especially the small rural middle class, and Obregon, Calles and Cardenas, and sent the dark social and economic policy and even good number of those still in September 1910 had seen the carefully staged "centennial celebrations" from the boxes of the elite. Jose Iturriaga's thesis in his classic (social and cultural structure of Mexico [1951]) was nothing to show grand opening figures meant the Mexican Revolution and the administrator of his legacy, the PRI-to allow people of the soil swelled the middle sector of society.

The post-revolution with no re-election, with its mass party, with its educational programs, with a highly efficient public sector and not very honest but very active (state-owned enterprises, development banks, infrastructure programs, etc.) remained relatively open the door to social mobility, especially when compared with conditions in other Latin American countries. Ernesto Zedillo is a good example of how in 1960 and 1970 was still possible, through public education programs scholarships, moving from a lower middle class to the high official technocrats and even becoming president. Well, all this began to change quickly and dramatically with the advent of neoliberalism and its inability to maintain the dynamism of the economy (the average real GDP growth since 1982 has fluctuated between 0.5 and 1 per cent) and escalated from the PAN took over what was left of political power.

New Age Media

Today social mobility in Mexico has been reduced significantly, as remarkable as it has increased the concentration of income and wealth. The alleged Mexican political democracy has gone hand in hand with inequality and social closure.

The upper echelons of the government structure are dominated less by those who were admitted on merit and competitive basis, the famous civil service, and more for the PAN, which also have been assigned an income outside all proportion to the value of the alleged "services" they provide to society (today, three dozen staff members earn more than 3.5 million dollars annually [El Universal, Sept. 18]). However, since the public sector is the heart of the economic system but now is clearly the private sector, the large corporation, which marks the beat-to the extent that there are time-of the economy. And again, as in the Porfirio Diaz, Mexico is an oligarchy dominated by proprietary, rapacious but completely unable to grow the country, has proved remarkably adept at capturing the government and that way maintain monopolies. This, only by exception, lets an "outsider" to the exclusive circle of iron-on "Artemio Cruz" by Carlos Fuentes thought is no longer possible, "because you agree to marriages within the small and privileged world of names to ensure accumulation of wealth to the point that a Mexico that has barely grown since 1982 is home to some of the largest family fortunes in the world.

The reverse of the medal is a society where the vast majority of its citizens have the right to vote but your choice is mediated by a handful of games that do not represent their interests, they must live with utilities between bad and terrible, in the midst of insecurity and unprotected private. And the worst is the lack of jobs and opportunity for young people from almost all social classes.

Today, Mexico is living that has been called the "demographic dividend", the last time the abundance of young-age before the dominant note is the aging of the bulk of the population, but may not use lack of employment opportunities for those who may already be creating wealth allowing them in the future to retire with dignity. Young people, whether they have school or have just worked to get a college degree or even a graduate, simply have nowhere to put to good use his energy and knowledge. Therefore, they are seeing opportunities disappear, let alone social mobility, but if they come from the middle classes, just to stay in the area from which emerged, as the remuneration of their work, should be found, gives no more than to get by. For most of them, the best option is to leave Mexico, undocumented work-ability has declined due to economic depression United States-or, with preparation and luck, to work in a foreign firm. In any case, the country will lose the investment made in them.

If in the Middle Ages few could be ambitious and intelligent attempt to escape his fate by way of the ecclesiastical profession, now an outlet for young people with similar characteristics is in its entry into the world of organized crime. In the climate of impunity, corruption prevalent in the worst case, which the young man who becomes a hit man can lose is the continuation of a life of poverty, humiliation and no horizons, but at best, to live with intensity that weapons and money plentiful. After throughout El Chapo Guzman has already shared a place with Carlos Slim in international magazines such as Fortune and Time.

Reaching the "celebration" of the bicentennial and the centennial of two movements that broke down social structures with very little social mobility in a similar or worse situation economically Mexico was not stuck in 1810 or 1910 - is no less ironic and dangerous .

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Medieval Mexican Democracy with many adjectives

actually existing democracy in Mexico is untenable. If not try the "flight forward" regression will lead to the worst of all possible worlds


Democracy violated
Prior to 2000, and just to avoid creating unnecessary divisions between right center or left, was politically and morally acceptable among critics of the political system who was then Mexico simply demand "democracy without adjectives" (Enrique Krauze, 1986). However, since then it has flowed under the bridge a lot of water policy, and what it is today is just to know what kind of democracy is that we really have as a step to arrive at which we really need and deserve. Today, a democracy without adjectives would shun the diagnosis, because what is needed are adjectives, as many as be useful to know how we can leave the undeniable political crisis in which we live. In any case, it is clear that all the adjectives today can be used to identify the nature of democracy that actually exists in Mexico are not what we imagine the past nine years.

Just published a book of Alberto Aziz Nassif and Jorge Alonso, researchers at the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology, entitled Mexico, violated democracy (CIESAS-Porrua, 2009). Here we already have a first adjective to our democracy, violated, ie damaged. However, during the reading of the work in question appear other epithets such as, emerging democracy, democracy in trouble, without including democracy, democracy that is not consolidated or collapsed, democracy signs of exhaustion, unsatisfactory democracy, democracy deteriorated and eventually democracy irrelevant. The heartbreaking, and alarming, is that every one of the terms of this list of negative characteristics of the Mexican situation is fully justified by the analysis.

The guards who did not keep

Aziz and Alonso do, among other things, a description of the origins and evolution of the institutional guardians of our democracy-IFE, TEPJF and IFAI, which leads to the conclusion that although in the early these guardians, the IFE in particular, fell short of the circumstances, it has long ceased to be the case, especially regarding the effects of behavior in the 2006 presidential election. Parties, institutions where the interests of its leaders were imposed oligarchies values, according to their platforms, were screened-captured and perverted the guards without being responsible for preserving the independence of these institutions resisted the contrary, cooperated with comfortable in this degradation since the interest overcame institutional staff. However, the central problem of our democracy, if it still qualifies as such-is not only in the low professional and moral quality of the Mexican political class but also in our social structure and the dominant political culture. Include or

not included, that is the question

The fundamental difference between the PRI's authoritarian regime and other authoritarian regimes in Latin America appeared in the same time was that ours was relatively inclusive and other remarkably exclusive. This ability to co-opt the PRI had the same thing to a conservative Catholic Marxist and quasi-fascist, and the whole range of ideologies or attitudes that can be found between these ideological extremes, is what largely explains the flexibility and adaptability of the system created by the Mexican Revolution. In contrast, the supposedly democratic system that has formed after the departure of the PRI's "The Pines" has proved very exclusive.

A central part of the work of Aziz and Alonso is dedicated to exploring a point of great theoretical and practical solution very difficult: to what extent can a democratic society where the majority or a substantial part of its members lack the material and cultural means to live and develop as citizens and that, in practice, are excluded from citizenship in a substantive sense.

According to the latest official figures published by-the-Coneval, poverty in Mexico reached a high point just before the end of the PRI regime in 1996, but thereafter began to decrease a little. However, in 2006 there was a turning point and for 2008 and would rise again. The latest figures show they are living in food poverty and 18.2 percent of the population in poverty of 25.1 percent capacity in poverty and 47.4 percent equity.

Is it really possible and viable democracy without inclusion? The authors endorse the position of Amartya Sen, Bangladeshi economist and Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998, an expert on the subject and defines poverty as "capability deprivation." From this perspective, the poor, which in our case are almost half the population are simply not in a position to fully exercise that citizenship that, in principle, today offered political democracy. So what good are half of Mexico to topics in this book are fully discussed, as are the party system, Congress, electoral reforms, elections, the IFE, TEPJF and other acronyms that are supposed to be the heart of the network institutions of our democracy?

A weak citizenship

The authors dig into a number of indicators to measure the strength, power, citizenship, ie that factor is, at the same time, origin and rationale of democracy . These are the voting rates of participation in associations, the willingness to protest, and so on. The problem is that all these indicators point to the fact that citizenship in Mexico is weak, only a minority behaves fully as citizens. A minority is now not so small as he found the historian Francois-Xavier Guerra in the Porfiriato, but not as big as it should be to prevent Mexico from experience in the foreseeable future a regression in democracy. Obviously, the weakness of civic participation is directly correlated with poverty and exclusion described above and with the absence of the rule of law and a pervasive public corruption.

The 2006 or the key moment

Choice in 2000 led to a peaceful electoral victory, and above all, legitimate, but with a very similar institutional framework, that of 2006 ended with one that, so different was its opposite, conflicting and polarizing and that left the victor, and the system itself, a legitimate question, which ultimately proved an obstacle to governance.

Aziz and Alonso for the election of 2006-an electoral tie between left and right, turned out to be the turning point of contemporary Mexican political process, that instead of leading to democratic consolidation and stability eventually lead to a Deadlock or almost. And the crisis situation which requires that the changes were not made when it was relatively easy to make-in the Fox government will have to try now, with a minority government, questioned and a distressing financial situation.

The current situation is characterized by a tension between tendencies and inertia. "The first can have a democratizing and second profile [only] have a future in a restoration." But is it possible to restore? The work does not address their own assumptions. The Mexico that gave rise to the PRI and its long and for a while semilegítima "soft dictatorship" and vanished. An attempt to restore the old century XXI not lead to the "authoritarian stability" of the past but something highly dysfunctional and terribly unsatisfactory. The Mexico policy Salinas Streets or even just not possible, try to restore what was, the result would be worse than we had then or now. Alonso

Aziz and develop a scholarly discussion about the nature of contemporary democracy. Identified two major paradigms. One is the minimalist style of Joseph Schumpeter, where democracy is basically "a method of institutional arrangement to achieve applicable administrative policy decisions." Another is the maximalist, the Thomas Marshall, for whom the reason for democracy is its commitment to civil rights, political and social. In Mexico today the least we can ask is democracy that aspires to the maximum.

Note: The author of this column are going away for a few weeks and will not appear Citizen Agenda.

Black Men And Triglycerides

The (bad) influence Seen from Washington

In Mexico, the real war on crime should be given in the field of education, but that the enemy is within the government itself

Basically, there was no error

If someone has dyslexia or does not all their attention on the text you are reading, can make the mistake that Professor Elba Esther Gordillo, national president of the National Union Education Workers (SNTE) on Monday August 24 at the ceremonial start of the school and at the time to sue a vaccine against a pandemic that it is wrong, saying instead influence of influenza virus A virus AHLNL H1N1.

But perhaps there was no error and Mexico, indeed, has long had his teachers not to vaccinate against influenza, but against the influence of an old virus, corrupt and authoritarian corporatism, which is largely responsible for Today the teachers be more effective as political structure and interest group as a transmitter of knowledge needed by students of primary and secondary schools to participate urgently success in a highly competitive global market.

few decades ago, South Korea, devastated by war, was in a situation of economic and political underdevelopment similar to Mexico, but today that Korea is a country with a per capita GDP more than double than ours and large extent, its success is due to the excellence of its educational system. In the comparative figures published in 2006 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on the results of the test designed by the Program for Student Assessment, or PISA, for its acronym in English, Korea was in first place among 56 countries as regards the capacity reading of students aged 15 and fourth in regard to the domain of mathematics, however, Mexico was in places 43 and 48 respectively.

The economic importance of education

In its edition of 10 to 17 August this year, Newsweek devotes a section to examine the problem of global education. The central thesis is striking: the negative economic effects of poor education are worse than the recession or economic downturn now plaguing the world. And the outstanding example is the United States. According to estimates published in a report by McKinsey April this year, the annual cost to the U.S. economy that secondary education does not have the quality that is the Korean equivalent to 9 percent and 16 percent of its GDP. And if that is the cost to our northern neighbor, whose average education is better than ours, what is for Mexico? How much is this the value of what was lost by the poor quality of education? Not only would any organization or party interested in Mexican education reform do you charge to McKinsey calculation to see if there is the incentive we need to start changing.



strategic investment that the government now intends to make cuts in public spending as a result of fiscal crisis, the rector of the UNAM has spoken out against any reduction in the budgets of public universities as their long-term economic consequences will be higher than the alleged savings, and rightly so. However, what the study published by Newsweek found is that if investment in education in general is good business for any country, the investment made to correct the quality of elementary education is actually better, but of all social investments optimum will be made in the education of marginalized sectors and areas, those who currently have the worst public education for all those available. Mexico

dedicated to educating more than 5 percent of GDP and international figures taking 2005 is that this is an even greater than that spent on the oft South Korea, then why is get results so different? Part of the answer is that, in dollar terms, spending is double that Korean Mexican but the real answer, in substance, is the quality of teachers.

was signed in 2008 between the federal government and the SNTE Alliance for Quality Education. But where to get the quality? Which teachers? Not long ago we learned that after application National Review of Knowledge and Skills Teachers to 123 000 856 applicants, of whom 35 percent are teachers in the 74.9-percent simply did not approve it and pass it to reach a score did not require excessively high. According to reports, among those tested was 6 000 552 teachers who were already over 20 years of service but wanted to regularize their status. Well, in that classroom full of veterans of the 4000 plane 913 are not redeemable or must "train" to achieve the minimum acceptable level (La Jornada, August 24). This means that those who had made a career of teaching and were evaluated, by coincidence, also 2 / 3 parts were not suitable for the job. Of course you can not extrapolate the numbers of failures to the entire universe from which those over 6 000 teachers who have been two decades educating children and youth have the right skills for it, but the numbers do not cease to be a indicator, and very revealing of what is behind the failure of the assessments made by the PISA.

From 'drug war' a war against ignorance

The Newsweek article quoted one conclusion stands out: a high quality education is not only good business but also one of the best ways to "create citizenship "and to combat crime early.

From the standpoint of immediate political gain, it is understood that just arrived at "Los Pinos" Felipe Calderon's military dress and a spectacular launch "drug war"-the right always has a weakness for the strong hand imposed law and order "to secure legitimacy pinned after unclear how that is supposed to win in 2006. However, a somewhat less spectacular but more effective to deal with crime and social deterioration in general, have been declaring war on poor primary and secondary education have started a real revolution in education to route to Mexico the Korean way. Clear that a "war on poor education" only show visible results in the long term, ie one's own business is a statesman and not a mere politician, but it would have had much legitimacy among parents, keenly aware of children living disaster.

A fight to the poor quality of education in primary and secondary levels would give the government immediate profits but would have a cost: the confrontation with the SNTE, ie, it would challenge the "influence" of one of the political forces made possible the kind of electoral victory that brought Calderón to the presidency. However, we must recall that it once was in Mexico a political movement major who tried, quite successfully, to cement its legitimacy, or at least a part of it, by transforming the formal education system. It was with the government of General Alvaro Obregon (1920-1924) and under the intellectual and political leadership of José Vasconcelos, the Mexican Revolution began truly constructive stage. The battle for education proved to be one of the ways in which those revolutionaries were presented as genuine social transformers.

The obvious solution as impossible

All specialists are aware of the enormous economic and social benefits that can bring a well-directed investment in the field education. However, almost everywhere, not just in Mexico, the vested interests, including unions, make it very difficult to change the inertia that reward and punish bureaucratic spirit innovative.

In theory, the best teachers should provide their services in the elite schools but in areas of human development indices lower. Unfortunately that has been achieved only in extraordinary moments, revolutionary, and for a time not too long, when in the name of a major national sacrifice appeals to young people and the best, and when the leaders set the example. Today, in Mexico, this spirit is simply impossible. The dominant social and political logic is powerful mix of corruption and market. De Vasconcelos only the memory remains in the best.

Green Discharge With Herpes

Mexico, seen from the perspective of Washington, is a growing security problem but about which little can be done

Question

On day 19, after completing the session devoted to discussing the status of Relations between Mexico and the United States at the Hammer Forum in Los Angeles, someone asked: "And what America can do to improve relations with Mexico." A simple question can only answer: not much.

One way to elaborate further on the issue is to see Mexico from Washington. It made from the only interest that matters to any nation is itself, as the international community relations are based on power politics. Properly understood, this policy may sacrifice immediate profit in exchange for a larger or lower cost in another place or time, but that will never be confused with sympathy or altruism.

When the internal disaster in Mexico was a great opportunity for the United States

The origin of the relationship between the United States and New Spain turned into an independent nation, the interest of the former was well served by instability and political turmoil of the second. From Washington, looked at southern neighbor as a viable country, with room to spare, with the wrong religion, the Catholic, with wrong-racial mixing was the indigenous majority and the minority was of poor quality European (English) - and an interesting population density, strong at center and far too weak in the U.S. where it mattered: in the common border.

Americans represented a "Manifest Destiny" encouraged them to expand their civilization across North America by God and therefore had no qualms about taking advantage or promote political crisis Mexico, either encouraged the secession of Texas, demanding that the Texas border was the Rio Grande and the Nueces not, declaring the war to the neighbor when he was mired in internal disputes and, already defeated, take advantage of their disunity to offer assistance to Liberals in exchange for transfer of Tehuantepec (McLane-Ocampo Treaty) or press the weak conservative government headed by Santa Anna to force him to yield, at least, La Mesilla. If Mexico did not lose more territory was thanks to the U.S. internal contradiction: the north would not provide further opportunities for expansion to the south.

When the internal disaster in Mexico became a problem for Washington

With its national unity strengthened by the triumph of the North over the South in 1865, the United States and was not interested in territorial expansion but continue to focus their efforts to material growth and to promote and protect its economic interest in the outside world. Under these conditions, the lack of order in Mexico was no longer benefit to become a problem: smuggling, theft of cattle in Texas or Indian raids. Hence the mixture of threats and support the government of Porfirio Diaz to put an order in the common border. Once stabilized the country Díaz, Washington supported him regardless of its dictatorial nature and will even tolerate some degree of independence.

The Mexican Revolution was a challenge to imperialism which ultimately benefit the U.S.. On the one hand, the more revolutionary nationalism affected European interests, in particular the British, the Americans. And is that the two world wars the United States became a superpower that could be recovered in a few areas that the Mexican Revolution took off in others, oil, agricultural property or the railways, but the Europeans, weakened by these conflicts, had neither the resources nor the opportunities to rebuild its position in Mexico. By the time he started the Cold War, Mexico was, in terms of international politics, an area of \u200b\u200binfluence Washington exclusive. On the other hand, the Mexican Revolution led to an authoritarian regime much stronger and efficient than Porfirio Díaz. Mexican conservative stability. That played into the American interest. So the U.S. never bothered by an obvious contradiction: no problem accepting an undemocratic regime in Mexico even though the battle flag of Washington against the Soviet Union was political democracy. And is that the PRI regime was, without fanfare, a guarantee of stability and anti-cash.

what to do from the north when the foundations of stability in the South are weak?

When in 1989 fell the Berlin Wall, anti lost its reason for being at the center of Washington's foreign policy, but in Mexico worsened the contradictions and dysfunctions of the PRI system and the faults of the neighbor began to affect American interests. When the Mexican economic model failed and the country seemed to get into a crisis without a solution, United States, to avoid instabilities close, accepted to Mexico to further integrate its economy via neo-liberalism and the Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA .) However, against the prevailing economic assumptions, the policy did not produce the expected result to the point that today Mexico's economy is less dynamic in Latin America. The fall of Mexico's GDP is much higher than the U.S., making it impossible to create in Mexico more than a million new jobs needed each year and yes, however, be the largest source of undocumented migrants to the United States, drug trafficking organizations has exceeded all structures and Mexican police have taken root in 230 cities north of the Rio Grande. Finally, the end of the political regime of the PRI was not replaced by a stronger, less corrupt and more efficient than before, which has weakened the foundations of stability across the U.S. southern border.

few days before the attacks of Al Qaeda to the United States in September 2001, the U.S. president said that his country's relationship with Mexico was the most important. However, because of what happened then, Mexico was no longer a priority for Washington. Today, some circles in America are aware that their neighbor to the south is in serious trouble, because although still not exactly a failed state, its state is failing all: its economy, its political, security, justice, education, etcetera. However, despite knowing that without a substantive growth poor neighbor can become a serious problem, the White House can do little about it. And the U.S. government already has a highly charged domestic agenda by their own economic crisis and an outer very complicated, because it is involved in two invasions, to do well for them, has, among other things, to rebuild a state that turned-failed-Iraq and another who is unsuccessful long-Afghanistan. Under these conditions, and unless a catastrophe, it is almost impossible for Congress and U.S. public opinion to accept engage seriously in Mexico.

If, despite everything and depending on the security of its large southern border, Washington is proposing to Mexico to help reverse its involution, there is much that I could really do for your neighbor is the comfortable uncomfortable Canada. Currently the most important part of the scheme of the US-Mexico partnership is the "Merida Initiative" (IM). This program is a real bomberazo, product idea and the impotence of Felipe Calderon to tackle the myriad problems besetting the government. The IM seeks to allow Americans to enter the dark labyrinths of the security apparatuses and justice in Mexico to make them responsible for what happens there, but that is not comparable to NAFTA Carlos Salinas, in turn, and despite last year involved a bilateral trade by almost 400 billion dollars, never was able to get to Mexico's economic precipice that fell since 1982. The

today are difficult times for the relationship between South and North America but may worsen. The current accumulation of failures in Mexico is a threat to the U.S., but as is the country's political agenda is little you can do about it: no support for an expanded NAFTA can not be expected to demand drugs, barely more control over the export of weapons and not to aggravate the situation with walls, crackdowns on illegal or violations of NAFTA. The list is not much, given how much is at stake in both countries, but that's the reality.