Greetings From Mexistan
Apparently, there are several kinds of capital city rallies. There are those in Kiev, where multitudes turned out to protest the subversion of a national election and the attempted murder of the opposition leader. There are those in Beirut, where people gathered to protest the murder of an opposition leader and to demand self-determination. These were outpourings that our government encouraged.
And there was the one last Thursday in Mexico City, where 300,000 protesters filled the Zocalo, the great plaza in the middle of the city, to show their outrage over the decision of their Chamber of Deputies to keep that nation's opposition leader from running for president next year.
The government had not murdered the opposition leader, Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador; it merely proposed to imprison him -- and thereby disqualify him for the presidency -- because someone in his city government disregarded a court order to stop construction of a short access road leading to a hospital, over land that was acquired by Lopez Obrador's predecessor but whose ownership was still in dispute.
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Democracy may be all well and good, but Lopez Obrador is just not Bush's kind of guy. As mayor of Mexico City, he's increased public pensions to the elderly and spent heavily on public works and the accompanying job creation. He's criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement as a boon for the corporate sector and a bust for Mexican workers. (As economist Jeff Faux has documented, while productivity in Mexican manufacturing rose 54 percent in the eight years after NAFTA's enactment, real wages actually declined.) He's opposed to Fox's plan to privatize Mexico's state-owned oil and gas industry -- a stance that probably doesn't endear him to the Texas oilmen currently employed as president and vice president of the United States.
Worse yet, Lopez Obrador's populist politics and smarts have made him the most popular political leader in Mexico today. The much touted "free-market" economics of President Fox have done nothing to improve the lives of ordinary Mexicans. Lopez Obrador's victory in next year's election would mark a decisive repudiation of that neo-liberal model. Coming after the elections of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Hugo Chavez (repeatedly) in Venezuela, it would be one more indication, a huge one, that Latin America has rejected an economics of corporate autonomy, public austerity and no worker rights.
So, democracy in Ukraine? We'll be there. Lebanon? Count on us. Kyrgyzstan? With bells on. Mexico? Where's that? Maybe they should move to Central Asia, change their name to Mexistan and promise to privatize the oil. That's the kind of democracy the Bush guys really like.
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like i've said all along, it's all about geopolitics (oil), as well as regional as well as global hegemony.
all these revolutions in and around the Caspian area occured to serve American corporate and strategic interests. the U.S. funded all those (pink, rose, tulip) revolutions.
BUT, when revolutions happen in the backyard of the U.S., they get mad as hell about it. (because they serve the people, not the corporate elite). Should we call this recent revolution in Ecuador the "second Bolivarian revolution"?
Truth is, South America is finally waking up. After years and years and decades of American corporatism which has only served and benefitted the elite, the masses are rising up. Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay have in recent years elected people who are anti-capitalist. Well see what this recent revolution in Ecuador will bring.
Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru still need revolutions. When those happen, the U.S will have (finally) lost ALL influence in South America.
peace, love
And there was the one last Thursday in Mexico City, where 300,000 protesters filled the Zocalo, the great plaza in the middle of the city, to show their outrage over the decision of their Chamber of Deputies to keep that nation's opposition leader from running for president next year.
The government had not murdered the opposition leader, Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador; it merely proposed to imprison him -- and thereby disqualify him for the presidency -- because someone in his city government disregarded a court order to stop construction of a short access road leading to a hospital, over land that was acquired by Lopez Obrador's predecessor but whose ownership was still in dispute.
-------
Democracy may be all well and good, but Lopez Obrador is just not Bush's kind of guy. As mayor of Mexico City, he's increased public pensions to the elderly and spent heavily on public works and the accompanying job creation. He's criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement as a boon for the corporate sector and a bust for Mexican workers. (As economist Jeff Faux has documented, while productivity in Mexican manufacturing rose 54 percent in the eight years after NAFTA's enactment, real wages actually declined.) He's opposed to Fox's plan to privatize Mexico's state-owned oil and gas industry -- a stance that probably doesn't endear him to the Texas oilmen currently employed as president and vice president of the United States.
Worse yet, Lopez Obrador's populist politics and smarts have made him the most popular political leader in Mexico today. The much touted "free-market" economics of President Fox have done nothing to improve the lives of ordinary Mexicans. Lopez Obrador's victory in next year's election would mark a decisive repudiation of that neo-liberal model. Coming after the elections of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Hugo Chavez (repeatedly) in Venezuela, it would be one more indication, a huge one, that Latin America has rejected an economics of corporate autonomy, public austerity and no worker rights.
So, democracy in Ukraine? We'll be there. Lebanon? Count on us. Kyrgyzstan? With bells on. Mexico? Where's that? Maybe they should move to Central Asia, change their name to Mexistan and promise to privatize the oil. That's the kind of democracy the Bush guys really like.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
like i've said all along, it's all about geopolitics (oil), as well as regional as well as global hegemony.
all these revolutions in and around the Caspian area occured to serve American corporate and strategic interests. the U.S. funded all those (pink, rose, tulip) revolutions.
BUT, when revolutions happen in the backyard of the U.S., they get mad as hell about it. (because they serve the people, not the corporate elite). Should we call this recent revolution in Ecuador the "second Bolivarian revolution"?
Truth is, South America is finally waking up. After years and years and decades of American corporatism which has only served and benefitted the elite, the masses are rising up. Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay have in recent years elected people who are anti-capitalist. Well see what this recent revolution in Ecuador will bring.
Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru still need revolutions. When those happen, the U.S will have (finally) lost ALL influence in South America.
peace, love
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