Mexico 2006 = Florida 2000?
Both the leftist and conservative candidates in Mexico have claimed victory in the presiedential election that took place yesterday. This despite the fact that conservative Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party as having 38 percent of the vote compared to leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, having nearly 36 percent. However, this was with only 52 percent of the vote counted.
If the leftist were to win this could have seriuos implimations for Mexican/American relations. Obrador is a protege of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Castro’s Cuba. If you think the issue of a wall between Mexico and America is huge now, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet if the pseudo-Commie wins this election.
Update: Ed Torres, Lorie Byrd and Mark in Mexico have much more.
Posted by Falcon
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:55 am
Pollipundit readers know that I have long been rooting for the commie to win.
Lets face it: the “conservative” isn’t really conservative and will never secure the border. He will be another Fox and Bush will colaborate with him too with the alien invasion.
If the Commie wins, on the other hand, bush will have a hard time defending the lack of militirazation of the border. :!:
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:59 am
The problem with wealth in the hands of a few is the socialist revolution is never far behind. Mexico has huge class distinctions.
I think a lefty in Mexican leadership will force more immigration leniency, daniel, at least that’s what I fear. The argument would be pro-democracy seekers fleeing to the US.
July 3rd, 2006 at 11:58 am
If any “revolutionary violence” happens as a result of these elections, it will happen in the south (MX City and south), and by members of Lopez Obrador’s party. Mark my words.
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Mexico has a lot more to solve than crime and kidnappings.
Mexico is run by an oligarchy – a few individuals control the vast majority of the country’s resources. This oligarchy has not encouraged enterpreneurship among those who would rather live by their own means and skills. Obtaining permissions to build up and run anything over there require lots of red tape and a bit of “payment” to corrupt government officials. Many times, those permissions take years to obtain. Not to mention that the major resource there – oil – is nationalized irreversibly and Constitutionally.
Plus, the government and oligarchy have this long-time habit of encouraging the “export” of their poor by allowing this massive illegal emigration to the U.S. If the government can get revenue by robbing Peter to pay Pablo and taking Jose’s remmitance money that he sent to his family back home, with only Jose doing the hard work and the government living large as a result, hey, why let the gravy train end?
Nothing will change over there for the better if Mexicans don’t tackle the oligarchy and corruption in their government, plus encourage the development of small and medium-sized businesses with more capital and less red tape. Only by performing these will their situations improve nation-wide – and prevent the many frustrated individuals from illegally crossing the border with the U.S.
“Solve illegal immigration – fix Mexico first!”
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:43 pm
newton,
The only way we can force Mexico to clean up her own house, is to stop letting her dump into ours. It’s nothing less than thievery that $$ earned here go to support that oligarchy.
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Whereas daniel is rooting for the commie, I’m rooting for a total stalemate, with both sides refusing to concede. I want the two factions to just erupt in violence. It seems like it often takes something shocking like that to knock sense into zombified civilians. Why they haven’t already risen up in arms against their corrupt government is beyond me. More than the danger of terrorism, more than the obvious right of American sovereignity, more than anything else — I’m against illegal immigration because all it does is push disenfranchised Mexicans toward dreams of success in the United States, rather than FORCE THEM to confront the inequalities of Mexico proper. There is absolutely no valid reason why Mexico couldn’t be just as prosperous as America and Canada.
As long as we’re letting them shuffle across the border, we are actually ensuring continued Mexican corruption.
I consider mine a very humanitarian, “liberal” position. I really wonder why more bleeding-heart liberals, who so often claim to care about the oppressed in other nations, don’t agree with me. Must be those potential illegal immigrant votes that are compromising their principles. Yet again.
July 3rd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Newton,
The PAN party will be the only one who can help change this:
“Obtaining permissions to build up and run anything over there requires lots of red tape and a bit of “payment†to corrupt government officials”.
Rory,
Your statement below on violence is TOTALLY INSANE.
“I want the two factions to just erupt in violence. It seems like it often takes something shocking like that to knock sense into zombified civilians”.
That guarantees the deaths of Americans as Muslim killers use the chaos to enter the U.S.A. It would turn Southern American states into Somalia South until we just start shooting those crossing the border. Is that what you want?
I live in San Antonio. We are 70% Hispanic. Those on the barricades with me will also be 70% Hispanic U.S. citizens. The Anglos and the African and Asian Americans will join us there. Americans all!!! We DO NOT want violence in Mexico under any circumstances. You are a TOTAL IDIOT there.
July 3rd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Charles,
First of all, take a chill pill. Seriously. You’re a bit twitchy. We’ll go one by one, yeah?
I doubt it. Any violence in Mexico would force us to ramp up our security on the border, not because of the danger posed by “Muslim killers,” but because of the more realistic and immediate threat of gang violence bleeding across the border when Mexican Reformers, thank God, finally begin to crack down on them. As I’m sure you’re aware, being so terribly near the border (I can’t help but grasp the ‘terribly’ from your evident hysteria), Mexico is already overflowing with violence. Kidnappings, assassinations, rapes — all these things have become common place. The violence I hope for is a violence toward an end, not the insane, pointless chaos that already envelopes Mexico. Rather I hope for the sort of strife that has a purpose and leads to something positive. You know, the sort that won us our Independence from the Crown during the Revolutionary War.
Are you saying that the potential of NECESSARY violence outweighs the chance for a lasting stability in the region? Interesting selfishness, guy.
I don’t think this will happen, for reasons stated above.
I swear, man. I’ve read this five times and I still don’t know what it means. Calm down.
You should try paying more attention to the violence that long ago became the norm in Mexico. You seem to have missed that news flash.
July 3rd, 2006 at 2:36 pm
One more thing. You’re plainly in the anti-illegal immigration camp. And good for you, because that’s correct one. You must realize that if all your wills were followed, and the borders were secured from illegal immigrants, what I advocate would happen anyway. The Mexicans flowing into America would be cut off and forced to turn ’round to face their nation’s troubles. Only a few things can happen. First violence. Second, and finally, change from the hegemony that currently carries the day in Mexico City.
So whether you want it or not, by the logical chain of events, you support a path that is going to get it. There’s a chance that some mighty non-violent Democratic wind might blow through, but it’s extremely unlikely given their history.
July 3rd, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Rory,
I recently finished my second tour in Iraq. I am aware of Mexican gang violence. Most San Antonio citizens of all races are aware of what is going on in Mexico. They do not support it. They also DO NOT support an escalation of violence. Remember, San Antonio is a military town with the 2nd largest concentration of active duty and retired military in the U.S. after San Diego.
However, I believe that what you advocate leads to TOTAL WAR. That is idiotic.
Mexican violence at the moment is criminal in nature. Bad, but like Colombia, it can change. What you advocate is the INSANE next stage, or so it seems?
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:18 pm
I never once used the word “war.” I wasn’t even implying a civil war. But history shows that violence is absolutely necessary and almost universal in times of social revolution. It cannot always be done diplomatically, and Mexico has been failing at that route for decades. Is it so shocking that the alternative, a forced change, might eventually be considered?
What I propose is right there in our Declaration of Independence: But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
You seem to think that I’m calling for violence for violence’s sake. I’m simply of the opinion that it is necessary to jump-start a change. Yes, the chaos of the moment is criminal chaos — and the government is doing nothing about it, which makes it just as deplorable as oppression by the government itself. Mexico, like Columbia, can change. But in half a century, has it?
And I know it goes without saying, but thank you for your service in Iraq.
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Rory,
“I never once used the word “war.†I wasn’t even implying a civil war”.
Perhaps you did not mean “Total War”.
However, that is what I read into your promotion of violence. We DO NOT want that on our border.
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Well, maybe I used a poor choice of words, but you read into them wrong. And frankly, what you or I want doesn’t matter.
July 3rd, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Charles,
I don’t advocate total revolution in Mexico either. You and I are on the same wavelength, I think.
Last time there was a revolution over there (1910)… well, let’s say that the PRI was Mexico’s government for a very long time.
The next Mexican revolution will be an enterpreneurial one.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:33 pm
“The next Mexican revolution will be an enterpreneurial one”.
Yes! It has worked in Ireland, Singapore, Korea, Japan, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, etc. etc. etc.
It works in Israel and will work in Iraq. Why not in Mexico?
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:35 pm
Charles,
It will work if they overcome some of the most negative aspects of its Spanish colonial legacy. And that is the most difficult thing to do.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:52 pm
I’m not familiar with the history of most of those countries, but Japan, Korea, Iraq, Israel, and Poland? What? Japan was revolutionized via the bloodiest war in human history, not through any “entrepreneurial revolution.” Korea was isolationist and commonly known as the “Hermit Kingdom” until the Korean war, which led to the division today, where the Soviets and the US established governments similar to each’s respective ideology. Poland’s change came only after forty years of Communist dictatorship, which is not even close to the hardship faced in Mexico, and was due to many more dynamic things than evolution of the entrepreneurial markets. Iraq is being changed thanks to the ongoing war there, and Israel came to be only after claiming land and fending off hordes of savage Muslims essentially Medieval in their mindsets.
Violence was present at each of these economic and sociopolitical revolutions.
I can only assume you meant that CAPITALISM works in these places, so why not Mexico? In that case, I totally agree with you. It will work in Mexico. Now how do you propose getting the Mexicans to adopt it instead of some backwater socialist plan?
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:59 pm
How are you going to make entrepreneurs out of the largely uneducated and presently docile Mexican populace?
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Rory,
Captalism ONLY WORKS where people can be or are entrepreneurs. Even today in the U.S.A. over 85% of ALL Economic activitiy comes thru individual business owners. That is what Newton and I refer to.
In Mexico, the control by the elite is what you want to change. O.K. we can agree on that.
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Rory,
More people there are becoming educated and entering the middle class – the same middle class that just gave Felipe Calderon the presidency of MX.
It is sad to say this, but it is worth considering: public education there only goes until the sixth grade. Those who can afford it will send their children to middle and high schools. As more people make better money over there, more of their children can attend institutions of higher education. One of the interesting things that I have noticed lately in Mexico is the churning of graduates with degrees in engineering, for example – many of them received their educations through foreign company progams that doubled as job training. One of those companies involved is General Motors, believe it or not.
All of this has been the effect of NAFTA – which, remember, has been around for twelve years.
Unfortunately, the poor will always be there.
The only way to unlock a whole lot more of the hidden potential of Mexico’s economy will be to undo the red tape that has impeded the development of a strong enterpreneurial class. Lots of the red tape and corruption in the government are the legacies of the PRI’s and other socialist policies that have been in the Mexican system since 1910. Those things are going to be the most difficut ones to get rid of, because they have been so embedded into the political life of the country.
If those things had not been there, there would have been more people voting for the PAN yesterday in the Southern states than they actually did. “Yerba mala nunca muere” ["A bad herb never dies"], as we say.
A total revolution, with guns and all, will not do it for them. Capitalism in Mexico will be won one household advancement at a time.