Salvemos A Mexico

Politicians have the ability to speak positively and confidently about anything, even if the situation is dire. Recently, I watched the Mexican presidential debate on estamosdelachingada.com, which roughly translates to wearefucked.com, and the candidate for the party(PAN) which has turned Mexico into the decapitation capital of the world spoke about creating, security, peace, and economic prosperity. Do such people deserve reelection? 



According to UNESCO statistics, 28% of Mexicans of high school age, actually attend high school. Do the people(PAN and PRI) who have allowed this situation to persist for generations deserve reelection? Is it not farcical for a country to pretend to make strides towards becoming a developed country if 72% of its high school age population does not attend high school? Mexico also has the lowest economic growth in Latin America. 



The leftist candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, aka AMLO, who can make a credible claim to actually having won the election of 2006, told a story-drawing a parallel to how the PRI candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, is backed by television giant Televisa-about how after Mexico lost half of its territory to the U.S., Santa Ana fled to Colombia, yet the Mexican elites brought him back and installed him as President. They told him, "Don't worry. We own all the newspapers in Mexico City. We control public opinion."

Numerous countries in Latin America have elected leftist presidents who have given real hope to their populations, created real change, and asserted their country's sovereignty. It will be sad to see Mexico stay behind this wave of change for another six years with a government subservient to the U.S. , if either the PAN or PRI candidate wins.

Unfortunately, AMLO is a horrible debater in my estimation; half the time he barely answers the question and returns to his overall message about how Mexico is ruled by elites, and that Mexico must opt for real change. Perhaps the core of his success lies with his campaigning and not debating. He is surging in the polls. 

Hopefully, the wave of change that has swept Latin America will reach Mexico in 2012, the year of the Mayan prophecy. Otherwise, to echo the sentiments of the webpage creator, "Estamos de la chingada!" 



The next debate is June 10th, 2012.

May 1st, 2012

I live in dtla and have a good sense of what normal foot and vehicular traffic is like for any given time. On May 1st, foot traffic was very light. It's as if people purposely avoided working or shopping in dtla. The first march down Broadway I would estimate at no more than 4 thousand people. The second march down Broadway I would estimate at no more than 3 thousand people. The people gathered at Pershing Square at no more than 2 thousand people.

Yet there appeared to be just as many street closures and police officers, maybe even more, as there were in 2006 when I saw 500,000 people march down Broadway. It prompts a rational person to ask, what does the power structure fear?

In 2006, undocumented people were not questioning the system, merely asking for a just solution for their situation. Whereas the Occupy movement is asking for more equitable distribution and control of wealth, which may or may not be radical depending on one's perspective.

I spoke to an activist who informed me that the LAPD works with Homeland Security and other federal agencies. I had a vague notion of this, and it prompts an interesting question: How much influence and control does the federal government have over the LAPD versus how much control do local authorities have, and how does this shape how the LAPD responds to Occupy L.A?