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.
Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (New York: Harper, 2018), with a new Afterword. With good reason, Hillbilly Elegy received widespread attention when it was first published. Put on the market by Harper in 2016, it coincided with the rise of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and his getting elected soon thereafter. His popularity was attributed to his being able to speak on behalf of poor white Americans, especially those from the south who had supposedly been neglected by Democratic administrations. To my knowledge, Mr. Trump did not use the term, “hillbilly” to refer to his loyal supporters but Vance identifies hillbilly people as Trump supporters. Understanding them came to mean also understanding Trump’s inveterate supporters.
In any case, this book offers a penetrating insight into the people who live in Appalachia, mostly under-privileged whites who allegedly claim Scot-Irish descendence, a cultural note discussed far too briefly. The author writes his book in a compelling and disarming manner, boldly revealing personal family information, sometimes in a startling way. This combination helped give Hillbilly Elegy considerable attention.
The author tells us that he grew up, surrounded by his extended family, in one of the many hollows (“hollers”) scoured into the Allegheny Mountains near Jackson, Kentucky, and so his book puts a spot light on his mountain people, a harsh light. Many of them manifest varying levels of paranoia, to tell the truth. His grandfather’s obsession with guns and a willingness to draw one from behind his back at the slightest threat, his grandmother’s use of foul language and his mother’s abuse of drugs and her chronic inability to keep a husband or boyfriend are examples of this neurotic-paranoiac behavior. In addition, many of the author’s relatives and friends are described as “welfare queens,” some who “drive a Cadillac,” allergic to holding a job, and hostile to the world outside, interest in politics being unquestionably peripheral.
I concluded that a large part of the behavior described in Hillbilly is reminiscent of many poor families, working class and non-working, including Mexican American families and other minority families of color in the United States. Hillbilly thus confirmed in my mind that skin color and cultural antecedence are only casual differences among underprivileged people and they all feel put upon by the people who do not live on the edge. Except for a handful of words, here and there, the author does not make these cross-cultural observations.
Another parallel with minority families is that Mamaw, the author’s grandmother, was able to recognize a gem in the rough, despite her educational and social limitations: the gem is the author, himself. She nurtures him, because his parents couldn’t, even when she skewers him with unexpectedly obscene language, and helps him become somebody (a Yale lawyer and author!). This happens in minority communities too where someone discovers a child possessing enough internal fire to escape the ghetto, in this case, to flee the “hollers” of Kentucky. This book is an elegy to the author’s grandmother, most of all.
Mamaw takes young Vance to live in Middletown, Ohio. On page 252 the author writes that he felt like a “cultural emigrant” in Ohio. He came to regard white middle-class people in Middletown as aliens and so the latter half of Hillbilly Elegy offers an account of his painful assimilation into White Middle-Class America.
Blacks, who fled the South in the 1940’s, landing in places like Detroit, felt something similar, just more extreme. Immigrants, Mexican or otherwise, know fully well what it feels to be a “cultural emigrant,” as I show in my own book, Becoming Mexican American: How Our Immigrant Family Survived to Pursue the American Dream.
Hillbilly Elegy helps us understand less privileged white Americans to be sure. But, as I note, it is a study of poor people anywhere. And, for this reason it also contains cross-cultural implications of the kind I identify here that many emigrants from Appalachia might not relish.
Donald Trump’s firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions today, November 8, 2018, is nothing else but the first step to get rid of Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel investigating Trump’s unlawfulness.
Mr. Trump is a mini-dictator desperately trying to rise to the status of big-dictator. His constant battle with the press (Trump’s removing Jim Acosta of CNN from the White House press pool, for example) and his many negative encounters with his own Justice Department (not only Jeff Sessions but many others) are just two examples.
We must stay alert and give strength to our national institutions that can protect us from a Trump dictatorship. We must also press our senators to create a barricade against despotism. Write to them today and tell them: “STAND UP TO TRUMP! PUT UP A BARRIER AGAINST DESPOTISM!
Young Mexican voters will settle for a “blank slate” in their presidential elections, on voting day, July 1st, according to the article linked below.
As I wrote in my recent blog, (https://carlosbgil.wordpress.com/2018/05/26/the-2nd-mexican-presidential-debate-may-20-2018-a-few-impressions/ ), Mexican citizens in general are turning to an independent presidential candidate who has promised to clean up Mexico’s “swamp.”
Maria, a student quoted in the article, reflected this sentiment: “We have gone out to the streets to protest, to demand change and answers about the thousands of disappeared people, the violence, and nothing changes. It feels like we have no control left over our lives.”
Indeed, she and her fellow citizens seem to be fed up with their traditional politicians. Mexico has long been afflicted with government officials, elected or otherwise, who do little or nothing for their constituents and prefer to kick back and collect their fat checks when they’re not involved in corrupt deals of one kind or another.
The independent candidate is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a 65-year-old politician, also known as AMLO (his initials), who relied on a simple, 2-point campaign slogan: 1) I will eliminate corruption along with the political mafia that enabled it, and 2) the corruption money will be used to pay for social programs.
AMLO has offered no details about how he’ll accomplish this.
And, Mexicans, young and old, appear to be so fed up with the status quo that they are reportedly intent on electing him, anyway, like saying, it’s better to start from scratch, from a blank slate. One person in the article below is reported as saying, I prefer to hold my nose for a while to see what happens.
Do you think a senior, independent politician, who has promised the world, will be able to do as he says? I have grave doubts. In any case, we’ll see.
Oddly, we, in the United States, find ourselves in the same situation. We elected an independent candidate who promised the world and we elected him blindly. Now, we are well into his first year running our country, internally and externally, and you can’t dispute the fact that it has been chaotic, puzzling, disheartening and downright frightening.
One major difference between AMLO and Donald Trump is that AMLO maybe an ambiguous populist who may lead Mexico into a series of crises but he is not the bruiser, racist thug that Trump is. God help us!
El Segundo Debate Presidencial Mexicano: impresiones de un méxico-americano
Por Carlos B. Gil
[Esta es una traducción adaptada de mi artículo blog en inglés, “The Second Mexican Presidential Debate, May 20th,2018”]
Más de 6 millones de usuarios de Facebook sintonizaron con el segundo debate presidencial mexicano, el que tuvo lugar en Tijuana, Baja California, la noche del domingo 20 de mayo de 2018.[1] Pude verlo en YouTube desde mi casa en Seattle y, dado mi interés en el país de mis antepasados, ganancia de toda una vida, comparto mis observaciones aquí.
Una advertencia
Aunque los estadounidenses representan mi público lector, en lo general, van a ver algunos mexicanos que se topen con este correo y a ellos ofrezco la siguiente advertencia:
Yo no respiro la atmósfera política de México, ni he sufrido pérdidas personales debido a las relaciones políticas mexicanas, y por lo tanto puedo ver la posibilidad de que para algunos lectores mexicanos mis comentarios aparezcan someros o carezcan de profundidad.
Pero sí estoy seguro de que mis opiniones van a caer lejos del duro sarcasmo que algunos mexicanos disparan contra su sistema político, y yo, por supuesto, no cuestiono eso. Conozco lo suficiente lo que ha sido la política en México, de ayer y de hoy, para decir que estos pesimistas seguramente tendrán sus razones. Hace treinta años, o más, al gobierno no aceptaba las críticas así nomas y algunos de estos cínicos seguramente tendrán un mal recuerdo de ese entonces. Pero yo creo que las cosas han cambiado bastante. De todos modos, yo, un mexicanoamericano que se ha dedicado al estudio de México durante muchos años y ha vivido en el país de sus ancestros en temporadas, ofrezco mis comentarios por lo que puedan valer.
Así es que reconozco que los mexicanos acuden a las urnas para votar por su próximo presidente el 1º de julio. También reconozco que ejercen este derecho, lo que también es una obligación, cada 6 años, y así, como nosotros en EE. UU., el año que corre, 2018, se perfila como un año electoral muy importante.
Acerca del INE
El debate fue organizado por el INE, que tiene la responsabilidad de organizar las elecciones federales en México. Considero que el INE representa un excelente ejemplo del progreso de México en su desarrollo político porque está certificado para funcionar independientemente del presidente, el congreso y los partidos políticos. Es más, el INE está programado a controlar los gastos electorales, todo el negocio electoral, incluyendo la publicidad, y como resultado, los magnates y otros individuos poderosos no deben de influir. He sabido que el INE ha levantado un montón de desafíos, ¡pero como no iba ser así!
¡Vaya si tuviéramos nosotros un INE en los Estados Unidos! Lo que nosotros gastamos en elecciones federales es algo descomunal y, yo diría, inmoral. Es más, el hecho de que hombres poderosos con montones de capital invierten para torcer elecciones a su favor representa la ruina de nuestra democracia y la investidura de una oligarquía.
En todo caso, el INE definió los temas de los debates de la siguiente manera: el primero (22 de abril) trató el papel del gobierno, la política, y los derechos humanos; el segundo (20 de mayo) puso a consideración asuntos exteriores, de comercio y de migración; y el tercero (12 de junio) analizará la pobreza, la desigualdad y la economía. Me perdí el primer debate.
Mis impresiones acerca del debate
Considero que el debate, de 2 horas, en Tijuana, avanzó muy bien. Fue organizado eficientemente y llevado a cabo por dos excelentes moderadores, Yuriria Sierra y León Krause. Estos, en mi opinión, se desempeñaron mejor que cualquiera de nuestros moderadores de debates presidenciales recientes porque lograron formular duras preguntas de seguimiento y se encargaron de todo el procedimiento muy eficazmente. Es más, los candidatos cedieron a ellos, lo que no siempre ha sido en nuestro caso.
Vale la pena anotar que Krauze reconoció, al principio, que el segundo debate representaba una lección aprendida de nosotros, en los Estados Unidos, no solo de colocar a los candidatos frente a cámaras de televisión, sino también de invitar a ciudadanos ordinarios a hacer preguntas a los candidatos. Esto fue muy bueno.
El debate expuso varias inquietudes que me llamaron la atención. Por ejemplo, el TLC (el Tratado de Libre Comercio) surgió como una de las preocupaciones mayores para los ciudadanos invitados al debate. La seguridad personal frente a la violencia del narcotráfico, especialmente en algunas ciudades fronterizas, recibió atención también. En mi opinión, los candidatos no reconocieron estas inquietudes suficientemente, y uno de ellos apenas lo mencionó.
Los cuatro candidatos reconocieron el papel vejatorio que Donald Trump ha desempeñado, y el desafío que representa para México. Tres de los candidatos se refirieron deliberadamente a su postura grosera antimexicana y uno de ellos incluso leyó un pasaje de una biografía de Trump que describe la costumbre de nuestro presidente de aplastar agresivamente a los que difieren con él.
Que el debate tuvo lugar en la ciudad de Tijuana me pareció una idea virtuosa debido a que los flujos migratorios hacia el norte inevitablemente llegan a ciudades fronterizas como Tijuana y por lo tanto se convierten en desafíos para los funcionarios y residentes locales.
Aquí están los cuatro candidatos
[Por favor, mexicanos, acuérdense que este escrito está dirigido a mis compatriotas norteamericanos que saben muy poco acerca de México.]
Aquí están los cuatro candidatos que participaron en el debate, seguidos por una evaluación que hago brevemente de cada uno, y un comentario rápido sobre su desempeño en el debate. Los presento según su ordenamiento en las encuestas nacionales.
Nota: Ninguno de los candidatos representa a una línea política establecida. Tres de ellos están respaldados por una coalición de partidos, y dos de ellos se postulan en contra de agrupaciones políticas en las cuales alguna vez militaron. Uno de los candidatos representa, en su coalición, a dos partidos que en los últimos veinte años estuvieron contrapuestos, enemigos, uno del otro. ¡Imagínense!
¿A qué se debe esta esta mezcolanza política? Se debe a que los partidos tradicionales de México (el PRI, el PAN y el PRD) han perdido una credibilidad considerable entre los votantes, por lo que obviamente los candidatos se sienten obligados a mezclar y combinar para poder seguir adelante con sus campañas Este menoscabo de credibilidad explica mucho el cinismo y el sarcasmo que mencioné anteriormente. Otra razón es la supervivencia de los partidos que les llaman paleros, como el PT, que solo ganan los votos suficientes para mantenerse a flote, por lo que consideran necesario vincularse a otros grupos políticos.
Es fácil concluir que los partidos tradicionales han sufrido una profunda desaprobación por parte de los mexicanos, y Enrique Peña Ñieto, el presidente saliente, no ayudó mucho en sanar esta situación.
AMLO
Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
A los 65 años, AMLO, como se lo menciona en los medios, ha liderado el grupo de candidatos en esta elección. Es de Tabasco, uno de los estados más pobres en la unión, en gran parte agrario, y que nunca ha producido un candidato presidencial hasta ahora. Asistió a la universidad local y luego se trasladó a la UNAM donde lo critican porque tardó 14 años en completar su carrera.[2]
López Obrador cambió de partido varias veces. Recientemente creó su propia agrupación política, que viene siendo una super unión de una confederación de organizaciones conocida como MORENA, más al menos dos grupos políticos adicionales. La mayoría de los observadores lo describen como un izquierdista mexicano a la antigua que se escurre por doquier políticamente para mantenerse a flote. Y lo ha hecho bien. Esta elección de presidente será la tercera a la que se postula. Ha sido un empleado del gobierno o un funcionario electo casi toda su vida. Se desempeñó como gobernador de Tabasco y alcalde de la Ciudad de México y sus logros los reportan de ser ambiguos.
Su auge popular, creo, está relacionado directamente con el rechazo, por parte de los ciudadanos, de los líderes políticos de la nación y de sus partidos. Su mantra, “eliminaré la corrupción”, ha resonado ampliamente. Los mexicanos están hartos de los políticos que hacen promesas al principio y luego simplemente se recuestan, una vez en el cargo, para disfrutar de los altos salarios, los coches finos y otras primacías. La corrupción es su palabra clave, y AMLO la pronuncia cada vez que abre la boca, en un lenguaje impreciso y simple. He hablado con mexicanos que instintivamente confían en él y descartan su ambigüedad.
En el debate de Tijuana se negó a ser específico; confía en la ventaja que tiene a la mano. Todo lo que hizo fue repetir su promesa ambigua de acabar con la corrupción. Culpa a “la mafia política” repetidamente, personificada por sus competidores, Meade y Anaya. Las palabras “mafia política” también forman parte de su mantra. Se reporta que tampoco ha sido amistoso con los hombres de negocios.
Con la excepción de tener una personalidad más relajada, me recuerda demasiado a Donald Trump en su vaguedad y en hacerle promesas “al pueblo.” Muchos lo llaman populista; su alcaldía de la ciudad de México ciertamente fue eso. En mi opinión, los votantes mexicanos deberían retirarlo. No creo que sea bueno para México.
Ricardo Anaya
Ricardo Anaya Cortes.
A mediados de mayo ocupaba el segundo lugar en las encuestas, pero se encontraba bastante atrás de AMLO. Él es el más joven, a los 39 años, y lo veo como una nueva figura política que reclama Querétaro como su estado natal, gigante industrial que se encuentra justo al norte de la ciudad de México.
A diferencia de AMLO, que abandonó el PRI y el PRD hace años, Anaya se identifica con el PAN, el llamado partido “conservador,” más que nada, en el que desempeñó recientemente como su presidente. Reboza de las familias adineradas, orientadas hacia una educación universitaria, y con una mentalidad religiosa que afianzó al movimiento político-religioso que eventualmente se convirtió en el PAN. Anaya se destacó en la escuela, llegó a obtener un doctorado, ingresó al servicio gubernamental queretano y recibió mentoría de líderes influyentes del partido. En términos mexicanos, se podría decir que tiene origines brahmanes, y esto pueda ser una de las razones por las cuales AMLO no lo aguanta (el sentimiento parece mutuo). Sin embargo, Anaya ha sido un aprendiz rápido y muy trabajador, lo que lo ha conducido a la cima donde ahora se encuentra. Sus colegas lo consideran un niño genio.
Decidí que su papel en el debate fue el mejor porque insistió en ser específico en lo que haría con los temas asignados al debate si llegara a ser presidente. En términos relacionados, dijo, entre otras cosas, aumentaría el salario mínimo, otorgaría exenciones impositivas a los pobres, encontraría formas de detener la transferencia de armas a través de la frontera y buscaría maneras de reintegrar a los mexicanos deportados o revertidos a México, y así.
Desafortunadamente, la animadversión que mantiene con AMLO y viceversa, nubló la evaluación práctica que después le dieron los medios de comunicación; muchos reporteros se centraron en la crítica entre los dos, de ida y vuelta. No creo que su pérdida en esta elección disminuya su rol nacional.
Jose Antonio Meade
José Antonio Meade Kuribreña.
Meade, de 49 años, es el candidato que enarbola la bandera del PRI en esta elección, el histórico “partido oficial” de México que gobernó durante más de 60 años. Esta es una nota curiosa porque este no ha sido un miembro bonificado del PRI. El PRI lo seleccionó en 2017 a pesar de su identidad independiente la que protegió por mucho tiempo. Por qué decidió el PRI buscar un candidato fuera de su propia perrera debería servir como un jugoso chismorreo político.
Según los informes, Meade, de origen irlandés y libanés, es lo más parecido a los polémicos “tecnócratas” de los 1980s, es decir, los profesionales tomados de sus empleos no políticos (generalmente un economista o un ingeniero) para hacer gobierno, a diferencia de los políticos de carrera. Nacido en el DF, Meade también podría describirse como un brahmán, como Anaya, por haber disfrutado de una educación destacada, ser hijo de padres profesionales adinerados y, sin duda, acostumbrado a los elegantes clubes de campo de la ciudad. Se le ve nomas al mirarlo.
Esto puede explicar en parte porque AMLO lo tacha a él también, además de Anaya, como perteneciente a la “mafia política”. (Pienso que la enemistad entre el candidato de Tabasco, y Anaya y Meade, me suena más como resentimiento de clase y raza, lo que bien podría ser, algo que no es inusual en México, especialmente cuando se consideran los antecedentes educativos.)
Al igual que Anaya, Meade también obtuvo un doctorado en el extranjero. ¡Pero lo obtuvo de Yale, una de nuestras universidades más elitistas! También ganó dos títulos profesionales de las universidades mexicanas más destacadas, la UNAM y el ITAM. ¡Vaya que tiene títulos de prestigio! Armado con estos diplomas, llegó directamente a la cima (fue Ministro de Presupuestos y Finanzas, por ejemplo). Así logró acceso a los más altos círculos gubernamentales donde trabajó tanto para el PAN como para el PRI. Ha sido presentado como el candidato menos partidista.
Su actuación en el segundo debate me pareció al mismo nivel que el de Ricardo Anaya. Estuvo a la altura de todos los temas discutidos, ofreciendo averiguaciones bien preparadas: combatir el tráfico de drogas y el contrabando de armas a través de la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos con una fuerza fronteriza y aduanera organizada poderosamente, reconoció la existencia de la desigualdad económica en México y ofreció un programa de inversión urgente para los estados más pobres del sur, etc.
El PRI funciona como una ventaja para él y como una desventaja también. Representa un beneficio porque existe como el partido más poderoso en términos de experiencia, de gente capacitada y de recursos financieros. Es una desventaja porque está cargado con el equipaje moral más pesado. La nación puede culpar al PRI por la mayoría de sus males, junto con sus logros, por supuesto, pero la corrupción del gobierno, en general, y los errores increíbles, pasados y presentes, que se le achacan simplemente por estar en el poder, le quitan el poder. El gobierno saliente de Enrique Peña Ñieto ejemplifica esto muy bien: aprobó algunas reformas muy necesarias al comienzo de su mandato, pero comenzó a cojear con la desaparición de los 43 estudiantes en Guerrero. Su incapacidad para frenar a que los cárteles de la droga se asesinen los unos a los otros al aire libre también empeoró las cosas.
El Bronco Rodriguez
Jaime Heliodoro Rodríguez Calderón (“El Bronco”).
El apodo de Rodríguez básicamente lo dice todo. A los 60 años, es de mente independiente, impetuoso y franco, en una especie de vaquero mexicano, un verdadero ranchero. Es un norteño de Nuevo León como nosotros diríamos, del oeste. Hijo de ejidatarios y uno de diez niños, entiendo que un comerciante local lo descubrió y pagó por su universidad. Trabajó duro el muchacho, rompió moldes a izquierda y derecha, lo que llevó a sus compañeros de clase a apoyar becas para estudiantes pobres como él.
Ningún otro candidato presidencial en el siglo 20 se levanta de un fondo tan humilde como lo hace Rodríguez; AMLO puede acercarse. Claro que ninguno se acerca a Benito Juárez a mediados del siglo XIX que se elevó desde sus orígenes indígenas para convertirse en el presidente más famoso de México. He visto que AMLO le gusta compararse con Juárez.
Debido a que se sitúa sobre el camino hacia la frontera con Texas, Nuevo León fue invadido por cárteles de la droga alrededor del año 2012. Y cuando El Bronco se postuló a una alcaldía local, se reporta que fue duro con ellos por ser agresivos y asesinos. Los capos criminales tomaron represalias; lo querían muerto Se enfrentó a ellos y también contra los corrompidos políticos locales cuando compitió de gobernador como independiente. Y ganó; fue una hazaña verdaderamente excepcional; histórica para México. Contra todas las convenciones políticas mexicanas, pide la adopción de la pena capital, especialmente para los narcos, ¡y también cortarles las manos a los políticos corruptos!
Y, ahora, una vez más se postula para presidente como independiente. No cuenta con el apoyo ni el financiamiento de partido porque no tiene partido, fuera de los recursos que proporciona el INE. Acepta con valentía la desaprobación burlona de mucha gente, incluso de reporteros arrogantes en las principales cadenas de televisión, como Televisa.[3] Lo desprecian no solo por sus métodos contra la corrupción y el tráfico de drogas, sino también por su estilo, su discurso y sus modales. Entiendo que algunas de sus soluciones para atacar problemas sociales y económicos suenan ingenuas. Destila ser el hombre de la calle, sin lugar a duda, y él es el último en las encuestas también.
Su actuación en el debate no le ayudó. No aumentaron sus posibilidades de ganar seguidores a pesar de que reveló un conocimiento íntimo y una simpatía verdadera por la gente marginada de México. Pero, aun así, se paró en el debate como el hombre sobrante.
President Trump and Secretary of Education, Betsy De Vos, do not care if you or your children enroll into a fake school or college and waste your money as a result. Think of the enormous feeling of deception for a youngster too. A fake school or college places profit above honest training or education. Their degrees are suspect and sometimes totally fictitious.
You can check-out the list of these fake schools here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_for-profit_universities_and_colleges .
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President Trump’s failed and disgraced Trump University is the best example of what I’m talking about. I discuss Trump University in my book review of Donald Trump in my blog: www.carlosbgil.wordpress.com
The topic of for-profit colleges became newsworthy last week when reporters discovered that Secretary De Vos’s department stopped investigating fraud in these phony schools. President Obama had initially ordered a crack-down on these sham schools and so, obviously, Trump is now rolling it back and De Vos is ok with this. Frontline, a well known investigative television program made the announcement.
If you or your children are considering educational training beyond high school, check out the wikipedia list of schools I identify above before you make a decision.
Our American economic system allows quack schools to flourish just for the sake of making money. This is immoral, but many Americans uphold this practice as a basic American freedom without thinking too much about it, most Republicans included. Other countries do not allow this kind of social forgery. Go figure!
I gave my last lecture today for my “KEYS IN UNDERSTANDING MEXICO” course, at the Lifetime Learning Center in Lake City, Seattle, to retirees, mostly. In evaluation forms they reported to have all loved it. It seems I became a minor sensation. Wow!
After I retired from the University of Washington (14 years ago!) I became heavily involved working with my wife, Barbara Deane, at our GilDeane Group offices, doing training and consulting, some of which I really liked. When all that came to a lull, I began writing my recent book (We Became Mexican American) but also thought of looking for some part-time teaching.
It was then that I discovered that if I did that, I’d be preventing some newly minted Ph.D. person from getting a foot in the door wherever I applied. I knew that it takes gobs of time, energy and money to get that darned degree, so I said to myself, “No. I won’t compete with them.” So I just continued with my writing and several years slipped by.
Having finished my long written pieces (including the translation of We Became Mexican American--and I’m looking for a publisher), I decided I needed to keep my old brain busy. Why? I was forgetting too many words, here and there. So, I started worrying about it, and said to myself, “I need to teach again,” to keep my mind from going dark.
This is how I found the Lifetime Learning Center 15 minutes from my home and where I offered to teach the course mentioned above. The director said, “Yes, we’d be pleased to have you,” and so I committed myself to 8 classes, one per week. I started in April and now, its over! I’m so glad I did it, and I’ll most probably teach the course again, next Spring. They certainly want me to.
My students told me they learned a lot (they too wanted to keep their brains busy). Thank goodness. So I’ll give some more lectures. ¡Qué bueno, pues!
Stay alert because something sinister is a brewing in the White House this week before Christmas.
Rumors are flying that President Trump is going to fire Special Counsel, Robert Mueller. The reason seems to be that Mueller’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s campaign last year may ultimately reveal that Donald Trump did indeed have connections with the Russian government, which helped getting him elected. This is treasonous.
If President Trump finds a way to get rid of Mueller, major repercussions will come to pass.
If you are confused about the Russian investigations, here is an article that summarizes things. It is written to provide you the larger idea more quickly. Look at it.
Today is December 12th, a day in which the entire Spanish language world pays tribute to La Virgen de Guadalupe. Special masses were being said today in Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Mexico City. And, of course, in San Fernando, California, my hometown—and, nowadays, here in Seattle too.
December 12th was hard to overlook, when I was a boy, because we rose early in the morning, before dark, to attend “Las Mañanitas,” sung full throat by hundreds of Mexicans jammed into our Santa Rosa Church. We sang “Las Mañanitas” because it was her birthday. When I was in my 20s, mariachi musicians became accepted as part of the musical tributes, which had been entirely religious up to that point. I remember attending a December 12th mass in Tijuana in the early 1970s, when I was in a very emotional period, and feeling gratified and comforted by it. I’ve witnessed the overwhelmingly exotic December 12th festivities in the famous Basilica in Mexico City many times too.
There is a fascinating story that gave rise to the culto, or the sum total of devotional happenings, around La Virgen de Guadalupe. Legend has it that she appeared about 15 or so years after Hernan Cortes, in the company of his fellow Spaniards, conquered Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. It was a bloody conquest, of course, and a spiritual one too: it was Catholicism over Aztec paganism, which had included human sacrifice. Many people heralded the Spanish victory with mystical significance even though the winners were no more than a bunch of bawdy and rough-hewn Iberians who didn’t know what they were getting into.
The basic point here is that the legendary appearances, which form the core of the culto, served to solidify the conquest psychologically. Historical studies show that the subjugated Indians became more willing to abandon their ancient beliefs and begin to accept Spanish Christian ones, after word spread about the Guadalupe appearances.
There is a mountain of historical information about this, but suffice to say here that December 12th always tugs at my heart and soul even though my religious fervor cooled long ago. Nevertheless, I still remember and pine for those old feelings. They’re so comforting.
President Trump’s pardoning of Joe Arpaio, the former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, represents a slap in the face to the Latinos of the United States, clear and simple. Everything indicates that our president did this with total impunity and without a trace of shame or regret. We, Latinos, mean little to him so he shoved us aside when he cancelled the criminal contempt case against Arpaio, as widely reported. That he did it early in his administration, an exceptional occurrence as many commentators have noted, simply underscores my observation: we mean little or nothing to him. (His ending of the DACA program on September 5, 2017–Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals–illustrates this quite clearly: he didn’t take a lead on it, he passed the fate of these young culturally assimilated Americans on to Congress. No one can call that leadership.
Why is Arpaio an issue?
Everyone in Arizona knows that as sheriff of Arizona’s most important county, Joe Arpaio brazenly went out of his way to tear every shred of dignity from the Latin Americans, mostly Mexican, he accused of entering the country illegally, men, women and children. It seems he enjoyed doing it, according to reports. It is apparent that like his protector in the White House, he considers all migrants, who cross the border without permission, as sub-humans and criminals. According to The New Yorker, up to 2009 only, his department cost the State of Arizona more than forty three million dollars for settling lawsuits that alleged mistreatment of the lowly migrants, and even their wrongful deaths. He mocked them by putting them in gaudy colored uniforms, fed them two meals a day that cost less than fifty cents each, and even marched them publicly in chain gangs, women too. His deliberate scare-‘em Gestapo tactics generated more than twenty two hundred court cases, exceeding the worst raids of undocumented workers in the 1950s, some of which I witnessed.
All this is against the moral standards we Americans have always considered fitting and proper, but Mr. Trump turned a blind eye, insisted Arpaio was a “good man”, and pardoned him.
Clearly, the Trump administration is anti-Mexican, anti-Latino, and anti-immigrant. And, the 30% of Americans who continue to support him are too, apparently.
Should we worry about this?
Should we, Latinos of the United States, who don’t have to worry about getting picked up and deported care about this? Of course, we should, if for no other reason than the fact that the hapless deportees look like our ancestors, they look like us. They speak as our descendants spoke, they eat what they ate, they worship as they did. They are as we were. In addition, you and I know that most of them crossed the border to find work, keep their heads down, and send a few pennies back home.
To call them “criminals” is repulsive and immoral. They may have broken a law to get into the U.S. but that does not give any American official license to diminish their humanity. Arpaio swaggers about it according to reports. His tactics, his demeanor, and his penchant for publicity remind us of the black-booted Nazis persecuting Jews in the 1940s (he would have made a good Sturmmann or Storm Trooper).
What can we do?
We can speak up. We can make known our contempt to our friends personally, and through Facebook, Twitter and other social media. We can ask our pastors to help raise awareness in our communities.
We can ask our community organizations to help spread the word about Trump’s anti-immigration stance. There are groups like CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles), and the NCLR (National Council for La Raza).
Get their address and send them a note with $5 or $10. You surely must know a DACA youngster (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as “The Dreamers”), the ones who were brought to the U.S. from Mexico without documentation; they are being persecuted by Mr. Trump and his ilk (all this sounds so Nazi like). Talk to the young Dreamer; ask how you can support their cause. To have them deported is immeasurably immoral, a stain on America!
Most importantly, YOU CAN REGISTER TO VOTE. NEXT TIME MAKE SURE YOU GO OUT AND VOTE! OUR ONLY LINE OF DEFENSE IS POLITICAL! We can vote. Let us stand up against Mr. Trump and the Joe Arpaio’s who support him.
