I am inviting you to join me and my fellow LDO Volunteers who support Latino prisoners in the Monroe Correctional Center (MCC) in Monroe WA. We are doing a “Mixer” on Facebook, June 28th at 3 p.m., via Zoom. Please join us.
The Mixer will offer some informational and cultural activities. I will give a brief overview of our organization (LDO) at the start and two or three formerly incarcerated Latino community members will speak of their experiences. We’re hoping for some music too. So sorry we can’t offer you something to eat and drink!
If you are interested in the general topic of U.S. prisons and/or Latinx issues (culture, history, the Latino experience in the U.S., etc.) you may find our LDO Mixer hour interesting if not beneficial (if you’re interested in the subject of prisons, see my book review of American Prison, in this same blog). The purpose of our Facebook event is to help our communities understand prison realities, attract local volunteers to help with our prison work at the MCC, compile a list of followers and invite donor contributions.
The Monroe Correctional Complex, Monroe WA
LDO refers to the Latino Development Organization of Washington Serving Latinos in the Monroe Correctional Complex. This is the name of our nonprofit organization (501c3), and I am the president. LDO includes a Board of Directors, a small corps of community volunteers, and detainee leaders representing about 40 inmates in the MCC who affiliate with LDO. We appreciate both our community volunteers and the guys inside because without their help LDO would not exist. The photo at the top of this article, taken in 2019, shows some of our LDO detainees and some of our volunteers standing in front of artwork created by MCC prisoners.
The word “development” in the title of our organization was chosen by the LDO affiliated detainees a couple of years ago in one of our meetings. They chose it because they insisted and continue to insist on developing and improving themselves to achieve the fullest rehabilitation possible.
Before the pandemic struck, our LDO organization was building, at their request, a curriculum of educational and self-improvement activities, including guest presentations, short-term classes on psychology, history, art and culture (I gave some) and so on. They had already organized themselves into mentoring groups in art, Spanish, math, etc., as testimony of their own inclination toward self-improvement. Does that impress you? Our LDO guys impress me quite a lot. In any case, we’re preparing to resume our work as soon as possible.
Claim: Trump says he is going to shut down the border. Fact: It would be nearly impossible to shut down the entire border. He had backed off this idea already as of 4/13/19.
Claim:Building more wall will prevent drug trafficking. Fact: Most drugs from Mexico come through official ports of entry.
Claim: More immigrants are illegally crossing. Fact: The number of illegal crossings is down—and has been down…[D]ata show apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped sharply since a 2000 peak. In other words, even with the crush of Central Americans, the broader picture is still a downward one.
Claim:Most illegal immigration is coming from the Mexico border. Fact: More illegal immigration occurs through people overstaying their visas…In 2016, an estimated 320,000 visitors to the U.S….who had temporary visas overstayed them. Most of these arrived by airplane.
Claim:Trump has been securing our borders by building more walls. Fact: Not one new linear mile of border wall has been completed under Trump as of April 9, 2019. Questions arise on whether the new constructions represent a fence or a wall, and how to classify them if the new construction replaced an old one.
This information comes from The Los Angeles Times, “Five misconceptions about the U.S.-Mexico border,” reprinted in the Seattle Times, April 9, 2019, as “Close Up.” The words in italics are mine.
Abad Faciolince, Hector. El olvido que seremos (Bogotá: Planeta, 2006). [English below]
El autor escribe un elogio apasionante a su padre en El olvido que seremos y una denuncia enérgica de sus asesinos, al mismo tiempo. También es una memoria de su infancia y su íntima relación con su padre, tierna evocación que además nos ofrece una mirada conmovedora a la “violencia” colombiana, tan larga y tan dolorosa.
Abad pinta a su padre como un educador totalmente entregado a tender una mano a sus prójimos y abrir las puertas a jóvenes estudiosos pero desprovistos. Nos habla de su devoción total por levantar los estándares de vida de la gente pobre. Y también nos cuenta como esta mentalidad se vuelve subversiva en un conservadurismo empedernido y salvajemente criminal, incluyendo al clero católico. Es asesinado. Irónicamente, el autor nos hace ver, además, que sus familiares pertenecen a esta corriente tradicional retrógrada como obispos, monseñores y monjes, y por ende el lector descubre a nivel personal el laberinto enredoso atrás de estas circunstancias.
A pesar de incluir varias páginas verborreadas que parecen ser productos de la emoción causada al recordar ciertos eventos, El olvido me ayudó a entender la tal llamada “violencia” colombiana. Por eso vale este libro. Creo que a los colombianos les faltó una revolución para deshacerse de un conservadurismo de corte colonial.
The author writes an enthralling eulogy to his father in El olvido que seremos (The Forgotten That We’ll Become) and an energetic condemnation of his murderers, at the same time. It is also a memory of his childhood and his intimate relationship with his father, a tender recall that also provides the reader a distressing look at Colombia’s long and painful “violence.”
Abad describes his father as a totally dedicated educator who reaches out to his community by opening doors to young but destitute scholars. He tells us of his father’s total devotion to raising the living standards of poor people, and how this world view became subversive to hardened and criminal conservatives, including the Catholic clergy. He’s assassinated. Ironically, the author’s family members belong to these retrograde institutions as bishops, monsignors and monks, so the reader can catch a glimpse of how intricate and complicated these situations can be up close.
Despite pages in which a verbal diarrhea seizes the author, no doubt triggered by the emotion that comes from remembering certain events, El olvido helped me understand Colombia’s infamous “violence.” That’s why this book is worth reading. I believe that Colombia missed having a revolution that might have shaken away its colonial conservatism.
Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), was inaugurated President of Mexico today. He declared a war against corruption by slashing government spending, including government salaries, ending neo-liberal policies, and fighting drug-trafficking-related violence, all of which he believes he can achieve without new taxes. He will not prosecute corrupt officials of the past. He said little about President Trump, but his few words were positive.
***
* He rode in a conventional, white, 2010 VW sedan to his inauguration with a small police escort, not in a big, black SUV.
* He said:
-“Material things do not interest me”
-“I will cut my salary by 40%”
-“I will not live in Los Pinos” (a luxurious executive mansion)
-“I will end all corruption”
-“I will not allow my wife nor my children to gain through politics”
-“I don’t have the right to fail you”
-“In 2 ½ years you can vote me in or out”
Wow! The statements above, coming from a freshly elected president, rang loud and clear in my mind, and I think you know why, these days: our President Trump is openly benefiting from business ties and his children are too, and all we can do is gape open-jawed.
Mexico recognized AMLO as the new president today, December 1, 2018, and I saw and heard his entire inaugural speech on Televisa and was very encouraged. I regretted not being in Mexico City, even though, had I been a Mexican citizen, I wouldn’t have voted for him back in November.
Having followed the presidential campaign there, I was dubious of his candidacy in part because I’ve studied Mexico nearly all my life and concluded that he was an old 1970’s leftist who was out of touch with 21st century politics. I sympathized with his political leanings but felt that the political winds were moving on and so should he. I wrote as much on my blog.
He won with 53% of the electoral vote (he was one of 4 candidates) and his coalition party captured both houses of Congress. He achieved a clear and overwhelming victory and utterly defeated the PRI, the party that ruled Mexico for nearly a century, building up a selective and muscular apparatus of generously-paid government and party leaders. Clearly, Mexican voters turned their back on the political status quo. AMLO is now all powerful because his people-oriented party (populist?) will most probably endorse his initiatives; there was every indication of that today. No one would have predicted this last year.
AMLO in his VW sedan
I paid attention to things he said and did after he won and before he was officially installed today. An old-line politician, he hails from a modest, traditionally agriculture southern state (Tabasco) and his personal behavior also appears modest and unassuming, hence the 2010 VW white sedan instead of a big, burly, black SUV, and his refusal to live in luxurious Los Pinos on the edge of Mexico City (he’ll live and work in the presidential palace, in front of the zócalo, where most presidents did long ago). He strikes me as an honest ol’ chap; campechano, his friends might say.
Benito Juarez
He is inspired by 19th century liberal leaders, like Benito Juarez, Mexico’s only Indian president, many of whom fought to the death in favor of a secular and fully democratic republic. This is what AMLO pledged today, and this impressed me very much, since I too admire Juarez and his comrades.
As AMLO spoke in front of both chambers of Congress, I paid attention to his predecessor, Ernesto Peña Nieto, who minutes earlier had removed the tri-colored presidential sash from his shoulders, signifying executive authority, and handed it to AMLO. He sat impassively nearby, listening to AMLO’s powerful repudiation of his PRI administration and the other preceding regimes. (Historically, this is hugely important since previous outgoing presidents did not easily walk off the political stage).
No more corruption, AMLO promised throughout his campaign. He emphasized this message today too, in a country whose high-ranking government officials earn U.S. $ 65,000 to $100,000 per year when you include generous end-of-year bonuses, allowances for new autos, gasoline, I-phones, life and medical insurance, private hospital care, paid vacations, and so on. He vowed that no government employee will earn more than he does and swore today to cut his own salary by 40%, averaging about $65,000 annually. He’s also selling the nation’s presidential airplane and already stopped the completion of what would have been one of the world’s biggest airports near Mexico City. Mexico doesn’t need such costly expenditures, he insisted. Trimming these allowances will eliminate the need for new taxes, he contended, and there is no doubt it will affect many well-heeled families in a country where government jobs prevail and enjoy high status but where the average worker earns no more than $5 a day.
My biggest concern is that AMLO linked far too many challenges to corruption in his speech today. This is one of the reasons I would not have voted for him had I been a Mexican citizen—he spoke too vaguely about big issues, even today. For example, he devoted a good part of his speech to condemning Mexico’s neo-liberal economic policies of the 1980’s (i.e., free trade, privatization of government owned enterprises, and the general dominance of the public sector in the economy) suggesting that ending them would help eliminate corruption, somehow, yet he welcomed foreign investment and continued free trade!
He clearly suggested too that wiping out corruption would, by some means, bring down drug-trafficking violence but provided no details except for a reorganization of the nation’s security forces, controversial even now, plus a vague reference to amnesty, although he didn’t use the word. He won’t prosecute past acts of corruption but promised to bring closure to the 43 Guerrero students who disappeared.
Without going on too long here, the bottom line is that AMLO sounded good today, but as many street people interviewed on TV said: “I hope he keeps his promises.” AMLO recalled a young citizen on a bike riding up to him (AMLO doesn’t like too much security) recently and telling him, “you cannot fail us!” In his speech before Congress today he said, “I don’t have the right to fail you.” You can remove me in two and a half years if I do.
This is a portrayal of criminal gangs in Honduras and how the government there responds to them. Alberto Arce, a Spanish reporter, gathered the pertinent information sometime between 2012 and 2014 which he poured into his book (Honduras a ras de suelo, 2016) and which I reviewed on Amazon.com, separately. This is not the review. There is no English version of Arce’s book so far.
Alberto Arce
I decided the paragraphs below helped me understand why Central Americans are seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border in 2018. They might help you understand too. (The Spanish language title is a play on the word “honduras,” which means the hollows or deepest parts, so the title could be translated as: the depths closest to the ground).
The Associated Press assigned Arce to work and live in Honduras during the years mentioned. I am familiar with Honduras because I lived there too, many years ago; one of my children was born in Tegucigalpa, and so I have some affection for and familiarity with the country.
I believe the information below, which I’ve translated, offers a background to the petitions for asylum that Central American migrants are making at present to our federal officers stationed at our southern border. It sheds light on the dilemmas our officials must face in granting or denying asylum. The main question they must answer is, does the asylum seeker really have a “credible fear” of harm or loss of life? A positive answer may lead to asylum. This is a controversial matter today.
Honduras a ras de suelo
The text below (see citation below-my words appear in brackets) I believe is a composite of information which Arce gathered from different Honduran citizens including a taxi driver whom he mentions. It supplements what I know about Honduras (I taught the history of Central America for many years at the University of Washington). Read on.
Gangs have existed in Tegucigalpa since the 1970’s. In the beginning they were no more than groups of youngsters from different schools who differentiated themselves according to the music they listened to, the way the dressed, or the haircuts they used, and they would fight with sticks and fists over the parks they preferred. ‘The tops,’ ‘the bottoms’ or the ‘associated wanderers’ were their names. They didn’t sell drugs nor extort people. The society to which they belonged hadn’t broken down yet.
Everything changed around the mid-1990’s. The United States, which did have a problem with violence and drugs in the suburbs, began to deport Central American immigrants back to their countries of origin. Many of them were teen agers who barely spoke Spanish and didn’t have relatives in Honduras who could help them. They began to congregate in the city parks and take care of each other. There was no interest nor capacity to deal with the new arrivees, and soon arms and drugs began to spread. My taxi cab driver Mairena, remembers it well.
At the beginning they were just deportees who wandered the streets asking for a few pennies to buy a soda while they looked after your parked car. People felt sorry for them. No one gave it much thought. No one looked ahead, and no one tried to find a solution. The police, even less, because they are under paid, ill-trained, and half-literate and, in many cases, are cousins or neighbors of the deportees themselves. They share the food they get on credit from the local stores and live in the same card-board dwellings.
The gangs are generally known as maras, a word used in the local Honduran jargon to refer to a friend. That’s the way they see each other, insecure youngsters from dysfunctional families beaten down by domestic violence.
In 1998 Hurricane Mitch destroyed a portion of the national infrastructure leaving thousands of orphans and displaced families in its wake forced to live in temporary housing. This became a recipe for the recruitment of new mareros, young maras. If you’re nobody, if you feel you don’t have anywhere to go, you have no future, no way to study something, and you’re tired of going hungry, or your step father beats you all the time, then you get into the maras.
Barrio 18 and the Salvatrucha Mara, also known as “13,” named according to the areas they originally controlled in Los Angeles, began to fight over barrios or districts in Tegucigalpa, toward the end of the 1990’s. Later, smaller groups, like the Chirizos or the Combo That Doesn’t Give Up, began taking over parts of inner city.
A large part of violence in Honduras is connected to drug trafficking. The gangs serve as transporters and sicarios [mobile assassins] for the drug cartels. Their services are often paid in kind, merchandise, which must then be monetized on the street, by peddling drugs in small amounts. They also charge a “war tax,” classic “protection” extortion. Most taxi cabs and city buses as well as businesses find themselves obligated to pay. Most of the time they must pay two gangs. If you don’t pay, you die. Recently, some home owners have been charged a tax. In Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula entire neighborhoods stand vacant for this reason because the owners moved away, refusing to pay or be killed.
It’s hard to find a gang member older than 30 because they’re either dead or in jail but also because gangs recruit children. First, they serve as look outs, then as couriers, peddlers, then extortionists. The highest position is a sicario. Gangs order ever younger kids to kill someone because they’re easier to manipulate, and because penal law applies only to someone over 18.
Women, mothers and children have specific but secondary roles within the organization. When a gang controls a neighborhood most everyone feels compelled to submit. The least expected of you is to stay silent. You don’t see, you don’t hear, you don’t speak. When someone [a gang member] has to hide, these organizations require full compliance [from the neighborhood], full support or cover up, voluntarily or out of fear.
There are no official statistics of gang responsibility in the overall violence picture. Experts assign them as the primary perpetrators of violent acts in the country. It’s not possible to know how many gang members there are. Perhaps 10,000. They control practically all the districts in the city. In those they don’t control they can go in and commit a crime anyway. This access gives them impunity.
Honduras approved an anti-gang law at the beginning of the century that penalized gang membership. It has been a total failure. The application of the mano dura [iron fist] has only triggered a war between the maras and the security forces. On the other hand, gangs are becoming more discreet. Identity rules for such things as clothing or tattoos are now only visible in prison or on the bodies of the most important and oldest members, people who got tattooed long ago. Nowadays, they’re sending their smartest kids to the university. They need administrators to move the money they accumulate. They even have doctors on their lists and secret clinics, allowing them to avoid having to go to a hospital when they’re wounded in action.
If during the civil wars and the revolutionary upheavals that afflicted Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras on a smaller scale, there were groups of soldiers and police who summarily executed people just because they were leftists, since the early 2000’s human rights organizations have been denouncing the existence of social cleansing policies against gang members. [Arce’s book is a case by case report of how these policies are applied]. Officials have always attributed the deaths of gang members to their own internal conflicts. [This means that] Every so often the death squads return [meaning Honduran security forces].
This is an excerpt from Alberto Arce, Honduras a ras de suelo: Crónicas desde el país más violento del mundo, Ariel 2016), pages 148-151, translated by Carlos B. Gil. A permission to translate was submitted to Arce by Gil via LinkIn.
Summary: The 2nd presidential debate took place May 20th as a harbinger of Mexico’s coming elections, July 1st. The debate was superbly organized by a national election agency responsible for good and fair elections without the multi-millions of dollars that we spend in the United States. The candidates and their political organizations mirror the deep disenchantment that Mexican voters hold for their politicians and their political parties. The candidates represent an intriguing spectrum of politicians willing to take on a big load.
What does this mean for us, in the United States? The front runner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (“AMLO”) has stayed ahead by saying little. His performance in the debate was dull; all he did was to repeat his two warnings: 1) I’m going to end corruption in Mexico, and 2) I’m going to deal firmly with our long standing “political mafia.” He’s an old leftist, everybody says, and his track record with the business sector has been frosty. He claims to be a nationalist (“Mexico First!” — you’ve heard that before from Mr. Trump) and if our own president up-scales deporting undocumented Mexicans in some dramatic way or another, it’ll be interesting to see how AMLO responds. The two men are similar in many ways.
More than 6 million Facebook users watched the 2nd Mexican presidential debate which took place in Tijuana, Baja California, Sunday evening, May 20, 2018.[1] I was able to see it on YouTube from my home in Seattle and, given my lifelong interest in the country of my ancestors, I share my observations here.
Yes, Mexicans go to the polls to vote for their next president soon, this coming July 1st, to be exact. They exercise this right, which is also an obligation, every 6 years, and so, as with us, 2018 looms as a very important election year
The INE defined the debate themes as follows: for the 1st debate (April 22nd), the role of government, politics, and human rights; for the 2nd debate (May 20th) foreign affairs, commerce and migration; and for the 3rd (June 12th) poverty, inequality and the economy. I missed the 1st debate.
My general impressions about the debate as a whole
My overall impression of the 2-hour debate in Tijuana is that it proceeded remarkably well. It was efficiently organized and carried out by two excellent moderators, Yuriria Sierra and León Krauze, who, in my view, performed better than any of our own recent presidential debate moderators because they really dug in with hard follow up questions and they commanded the proceedings effectively. The candidates yielded to them too
Also, Krauze openly recognized, at the beginning, that the 2nd debate represented a lesson learned from us, in the U.S., not only by placing the top four candidates in front of television cameras but also by inviting ordinary citizens to ask the candidates their own questions. This was a jolly good first.
The debate exposed several issues that caught my attention. For example, NAFTA arose as one of the biggest concerns to the citizens invited to the debate, the free trade agreement that Mexico signed with the U.S. and Canada in 1994. Personal security, in the face of drug trafficking violence, especially in some border cities, received attention as well. In my view, the candidates didn’t do it justice and one of them, hardly mentioned it.
All four candidates recognized the vexatious role that Donald Trump has scripted for himself and the challenge he represents for Mexico. Three of the candidates pointedly referred to his boorish anti-Mexican stance and one of them even read a passage from a Trump biography describing our president’s practice of aggressively squashing disagreement or dissent.
That the debate took place in the City of Tijuana was a virtuous idea because northerly migrant flows inevitably arrive at borders cities like Tijuana and thus become challenges for local officials and residents.
Here are the four candidates
Here are the four candidates who took part in the debate, followed by my own brief assessment of each, and a quick commentary on their performance in the debate. The list almost included a woman: Margarita Zavala, wife of an ex-president, ran as an independent candidate but pulled out a few days ahead of the 2nd debate. I list the four contenders in the order of their rankings by national polls.
A note about their parties: None of the candidates are representing a main line party. Three of them are backed by a coalition of parties, and two of them are running against parties they once belonged to. One of the candidates is representing, in his coalition, two mainline parties that have been opposed historically over the last twenty years. Go figure!
The reason for this political mishmash is that Mexico’s traditional parties (the PRI, the PAN, and the PRD[2]) have lost a significant amount of credibility among voters, and so the candidates obviously felt obligated to mix and match to be able to go on with their campaigns. This loss of credibility explains a lot of the cynicism and sarcasm mentioned above. Another reason is the survival of diminutive parties (like the PT[3]) that only gain barely enough votes to stay afloat, and so they find it necessary to attach themselves to other candidates or political groups.
The bottom line is that the old party system has suffered a good deal of disapproval from the average Mexican voter, and Enrique Peña Ñieto, the outgoing president, didn’t help matters much.
AMLO
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Word to the wise: most Mexicans use compound surnames; in this case, López is the patronymic and Obrador is the matronymic). At 65 years of age, AMLO, as he is referred to in the media, has been leading the pack in this election. He’s from Tabasco, one of the poorer states in the nation, largely agrarian, never having produced a national presidential candidate, until now. He attended the local university and later transferred to the UNAM[4], Mexico’s big national university where it took him 14 years to complete his degree.[5]
López Obrador has switched parties and changed his political identity several times. He recently created his own “party” which is a super amalgam of a previous confederation of organizations known as MORENA[6], plus at least two more political groups. Most observers describe him, as I do: a canny, old fashioned Mexican leftist who nips and tucks politically to stay afloat. This will be the third time he runs for the presidency. He has been a government employee or an elected official nearly all his life. He served as governor of Tabasco and mayor of Mexico City and his accomplishments are reported as ambiguous.
His rise in popularity, I believe, is directly related to the rejection of the nation’s political leaders and their parties by Mexican voters. His one-message mantra, “I will eliminate corruption,” has resonated widely. Mexicans are fed up with the average politician who makes promises at the beginning and then simply sits back, once in office, to enjoy the high salaries, big cars and other perks. Corruption is the key word, and AMLO utters it every time he opens his mouth, in vague and simple language. I’ve talked with Mexicans who instinctively trust him and dismiss his ambiguity.
In the Tijuana debate he refused to be specific about anything, confident that he was on a roll. All he did was to repeat his ambivalent promise to end corruption. He repetitively blames the nation’s ill on the “political mafia,” personified, as far as he is concerned, by his competitors, Meade and Anaya, as mentioned below. His track record with the business sector has not been friendly–after all, he’s an old leftist. That’s going to be a big challenge for everyone.
Except for a more relaxed personality, he reminds me too much of Donald Trump in his vagueness, and in making all-purpose promises. Many call him a populist; his mayorship of Mexico City certainly indicates that. In my view Mexican voters ought to retire him. I do not believe he will be good for Mexico.
Ricardo Anaya
Ricardo Anaya Cortes. In mid-May he occupied second place in the polls, but quite far back in numbers, behind AMLO. He is the youngest, at 39, and he is a new political figure, claiming Querétaro as his home state, an industrial behemoth, just due north of Mexico City.
Different from AMLO who abandoned two main-line parties years ago (the PRI and the PRD), Anaya is most identified with the PAN, Mexico’s so-called “conservative” party, and served as its president recently. He exudes the well-healed, college-oriented, religious-minded families that gave strength to Mexico’s pro-Catholic political movement that eventually became the PAN. He excelled in school, all the way to a Ph.D., entering government service in his home state, and received mentoring from influential party leaders. In Mexican terms, one could say that he comes from a brahmin background, and this may be one of the reasons why AMLO seems repulsed by his presence (the feeling seems mutual). Nevertheless, his hard work and his fast-learning propelled him to the top where he is today. His colleagues consider him a whizz kid.
His role in the debate, I thought, was the best because he was specific in terms of what he would do in the areas covered by the debate. In articulate terms he said, among other things, he would raise the minimum wage, give poor people tax exemptions, find ways to stop the transfer of arms across the border, and search for ways to reintegrate Mexicans who are deported or otherwise reverted to Mexico, and so on.
Unfortunately, the animus he holds with AMLO, and visa-versa, obscured the practical assessment of his debate performance in the media afterwards; many reporters focused on the carping back and forth. I don’t think his loss in this election he will diminish his national role.
Jose Antonio Meade
José Antonio Meade Kuribreña. Meade, 49, is the candidate flying the PRI banner in this election, Mexico’s historic “official party,” the party that ruled for over 60 years This is a curious note because he has not been a bonified PRI member. The PRI drafted him in 2017 despite his nonpartisan identity to which he held on for a long time. Why the PRI decided to look for a candidate beyond its own kennel should serve as a juicy bit of political gossip.
Meade, reportedly of Irish and Lebanese origin, is the closest thing in this election to the controversial “technocrats” of the 1980s, meaning the no-nonsense professionals borrowed from their non-political jobs (usually an economist or an engineer) to do government work, as opposed to career politicians. Born in the nation’s capital-city-megalopolis, Meade too could be described as a brahmin, like Anaya above, having enjoyed a well-heeled upbringing by professional parents and undoubtedly familiar with posh country clubs. You can tell just by looking at the guy.
This may be part of the reason why AMLO refers to him too, in addition to Anaya, as belonging to the “political mafia.” (The enmity between the candidate from Tabasco and Anaya and Meade sounds to me more a like class- and race-based resentment, which it might very well be, especially when you consider educational backgrounds. This is not unusual in Mexico.)
Like Anaya, Meade also earned a Ph.D. abroad. He obtained it from non-other than Yale University! This is one of our elitist universities. He also earned two professional degrees from top Mexican universities, the UNAM, and the ITAM[7], the latter being Mexico’s most influential school of economics and finance. He’s got kudos, no doubt! With these diplomas, he went right to the top (Minister of Budgeting and Finance, for example). Having opened the door to very heady government circles, he worked both for the PAN and for the PRI. He has been presented as the least partisan-minded candidate.
His performance in the 2d debate was equal to Ricardo Anaya’s act. He was up to snuff on every issue discussed and he offered well-informed specifics, like combating drug trafficking and gun-smuggling across the U.S.-Mexican border with a powerfully organized border and customs force, he recognized the existence of economic inequality in Mexico and offered a crash investment program for the poorer states in the south, etc.
The PRI works as an advantage for him and his handicap too. It’s a benefit because it is the most powerful party in terms of experience, manpower and financing. It’s a handicap because it comes with the heaviest moral baggage. The nation can blame it for most of its ills, along with its accomplishments, of course, but government corruption and unbelievable blunders, past and present, dis-empower it. Outgoing Enrique Peña Ñieto’s administration exemplifies this very well: it approved some sorely needed reforms at the beginning of his term but began limping with the hard-to-believe-outright disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero. Its inability to curb the drug cartels from murdering each other out in the open made matters worse.
El Bronco Rodriguez
Jaime Heliodoro Rodríguez Calderón (“El Bronco”). Rodriguez’s nickname basically says it all: wild bronc. At 60, he is independent minded, brash, and straight-talking, in a Mexican cowboy sort of way, a true ranchero. He’s a northerner from Nuevo León; like we would say, a westerner. Dirt poor, one of ten children, a local merchant discovered him and paid for his college. He worked hard, breaking molds left and right, leading his classmates to support scholarships for poor students like himself. No other presidential candidate in the 20th century rises from a humble background like he does; AMLO may come close. None come close to Benito Juarez in the mid-1800s who rose from his Indian origins to become Mexico’s most famous president. AMLO likes to compare himself to Juarez.
Benito Juarez
Because it rides the pathway to the Texas border, Nuevo León was overrun by aggressive and murderous drug cartels circa 2012, so when El Bronco ran for mayor locally he hardened his view on how to quell them. The drug criminals retaliated; they wanted him dead. He stood up to them, and to corrupt local politicians too, when he competed for governor as an independent. He won, a truly exceptional feat; a historical first for Mexico. Against all Mexican political conventions, he has called for the adoption of capital punishment, and the chopping of hands for corrupt politicians too!
He is running for president as an independent in 2018, a first, once again, and he does not enjoy party support nor financing, other than the resources INE provides. He courageously accepts derisive disapproval from many people, even from haughty reporters on main line TV networks, like Televisa.[8] He gets dismissed not only for what he claims he would do about corruption and drug trafficking but also for his style, his speech, and his manner. Some of his solutions for social and economic problems sound ingenuous. He exudes the man-of-the-street, without a doubt, and he is last in the polls too.
His performance in the debate didn’t increase his chances of gaining supporters even though he revealed intimate knowledge of, and sympathy for, Mexico’s marginalized population. He stood as the odd man out.
What’s the bottom line? Answer: the candidate who performed the worst in the 2nd debate is way ahead in the polls. Does that make any sense? Did our own presidential election make any sense?
Go figure! Or, as Mexicans would say, ve tu a saber!
A caveat about me and this article.
While I expect mostly Americans will read this article, there may be some Mexicans who might happen upon it, so I offer the following caveat: I don’t live and breathe in Mexico’s political atmosphere nor have I suffered personal losses of any kind resulting from Mexican political relationships, and so I can see the possibility that my comments may ring shallow to some of these folks. I strive for the fewest possible words here, so this may add to the problem.
I do expect that my views will fall far from the harsh sarcasm that some Mexicans cynically toss at their political system, and I, of course, don’t question that. I know enough about Mexican politics, past and present, to say that the naysayers surely have their reasons to feel as they might. Thirty or so years ago, the government didn’t like critics and some of these cynics may hold a bad memory of those days, but things have changed considerably. In any case, I, a Mexican American who has studied Mexico for many years and lived there in the past, offer my remarks for what they may be worth.
