Mexico Voters Fear Nation on Edge of Chaos

[Judi Lynn]

Mexico Voters Fear Nation on Edge of Chaos
By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press Writer

May 17, 2006, 6:12 AM EDT

MEXICO CITY -- Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge.

Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos -- a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.

Some blame President Vicente Fox for a weak government. Others say rivals are instigating the violence to create that impression, hoping to hurt National Action candidate Felipe Calderon, who has a slight lead in recent polls.

A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. The polling company Parametria conducted face-to-face interviews at 1,000 homes across Mexico. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
(snip/...)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-mexico-vote-of-fear,0,4688010.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[Atman]

1. On the edge of Chaos? Is that Español for "United States?"

I think the correct phraseology is "bordering on Chaos."

[Bridget Burke]

2. "Chaos" might hurt or help certain candidates.

Recent polls show Calderon has overtaken longtime presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whom opponents have portrayed as a leftist demagogue similar to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

But that could change if PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo can convince voters that Mexico was more stable under his party's 71-year reign, which ended with Fox's victory in 2000. Mexican law bars presidents from seeking re-election.

Madrazo has tried to paint himself as the law-and-order candidate -- though so far his poll numbers have remained well behind those of Calderon and Lopez Obrador.

"It's not going to help Lopez Obrador who has been associated with the rabble rousers, but Madrazo can come out and say with his party at least Mexico had continued stability," Grayson said.

www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-mexico-vote-of-fear,0,4688010.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

Lopez Obrador, who actually offers change, is now associated with Chavez & "the rabble rousers." The corrupt PRI offers "stability" but nobody is buying. (The other parties are not free from corruption, but PRI has a 71 year head start. And anyone who can read the news realizes that the USA is not exactly "home of the incorrupt.")

[lovuian]

3. Mexico is owned by the drug cartels

There is no wonder why the mexicans are fleeing... That country needs to be invaded and straightened out...

[rodeodance]

4. yes. no wonder they are fleeing north. this gets so little coverage.

[High Plains]

8. Are you insane? Mexico needs to be invaded?

Mexico is NOT owned by the drug cartels any more than the US is owned by the drug cartels.

Drug prohibition creates huge problems for both countries.

Why don't you try straightening out your own country first?

[Vogon_Glory]

5. US Heading Towards Freeper Fantasy-Land

Causing or accelerating Mexico's slide into chaos seems to be an integral part of right-wing thinking for decades. In the right-wing mindset, the US is beset by foreign enemies--Cold war Commies on the outside, a Mexico in chaos to the south, and somehow "conservatives" are seen by American citizen/voters as the sole defenders of "Americanism" and their idea of the American way.

That this apocalyptic vision could have been avoidable or that the long-term results of such events would have devastating consequences for the USA never seems to enter the right-wing mindset.

I can see some feed-store owner in Meridian, Mississippi falling for such bunkum, or suburban retirees in Boise, Idaho, but I still marvel that most right-wingers are stupid enough to buy into this stuff.

Of course when the effects of this folly manifest to all, we'll hear those manly, G*d-fearing, rugged-individual "Conservatives" warbling "Buuuuuuut Clinton...." :argh:

[nolabels]

16. Hint- hint, remember to live in fear, Corporate media needs fearful.......

unquestioning consumers to adhere the demographics they seek

Let's not be manic, lets first decide or figure out who has what product to sell to who and why and how they are going to sell it at the rate they do.

WHO OWNS WHAT
http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/tribune.asp

[Bandit]

6. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's

Here they send Anthrax to the Democrats and "Liberal Media".

[Acadia Blue]

7. Mexicans, throw your oligarchs out who are stealing the country blind.

[amandabeech]

9. Now there's an idea.

I think that it's a necessary first step to improving conditions in Mexico.

That bunch doesn't even invest much in its own country, and I have been told that they don't even make charitable contributions like some of our robber barons did by starting or making very large donations to such things as hospitals, universities and libraries. They are really, really useless.

[Bridget Burke]

18. Mexicans have been struggling for a long time.

And are continuing this very day. Mexican history & current events can be quite interesting.

Question: What important election happens this July? Who are the candidates & their parties?

[RCinBrooklyn]

10. Mexican Voters in Mexico or Mexican Voters in the US illegally?

[Blackhatjack]

11. At Some Point, Mexican Politicians Have To Really Oppose Corruption

Until corruption is brought under control, nothing else is likely to change.

High hopes for Vinciente Fox have faded ......

[Xenotime]

12. That's why immigrants want to come here...

They need to get away from them but we are just going to force them to live in that awful place.

[bjb]

14. let everyone in

We just can't let everyone come here that wants too. What about the rest of the poor people around the world like Haiti or Darfur? We can't absorb all the poverty.

[treestar]

13. Why don't we just attack Mexico to bring them democracy?

Here we are, doing this for a country 10,000 miles away, one that "hates us" and is full of terrorists, building roads and schools and hospitals. If we did this in Mexico it would keep the Mexicans in Mexico and solve our sudden dismay at how many of them come into the US.

:sarcasm:

[cantstandbush]

15. Isn't Mexico a "failed state?" US largely to blame. Instead of

doing all we can to help the Mexican economy by realing fighting a tough war on drugs, we have allowed the drug lords to practically run the country along with their counterparts, the oligarchical corporate pigs who get filthy rich by keeping the workers and the other common folks is slave labor jobs. Since nothing is being done to really wipe out the drug lords, drugs abuse and drug syndicates are runing the country. The ones who can get out, escape to the US where the burden of illegal immigration is taking its toll. We demand certain human rights and performance in the war against terrorism from other countries but we do not place those demands on Mexico concerning the drug cartels. It's all bullshit designed to keep a supply of cheap labor for the wealthy of both countries to remain in control of the wealth and governments. If we could only spend 1/4 of what we have spent in Iraq to shore up the Mexican economy by helping to ensure a government in Mexico that works toward ridding the country of drug lords, organized crimes, and corportocracy, and help them establish workers rights and living wages, and build some economic infrastructure for them that would be more in our interests than this illegal war in Iraq. But we are too damn busy trying to unseat Chavez who is trying to do exactly the right things for the majority of his people.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Great points. I'd like to add we've flooded their markets with U.S.

taxpayer subsidized corn and sugar cane products, destroying the livelihoods of their own generations old corn and sugar cane producers and employees. Our own products arriving in Mexico at much lower prices have simply knocked the legs out from under these people and sent them out into the streets looking for work for which they have no training, if they could only find it!

Their farms are worthless to them now, while the U.S. taxpayers pay ungodly supports to farmers to grow sugar cane in South Florida, adding 5 cents to every pound of sugar, on land the U.S. taxpayers ALSO financed as it was drained and reclaimed from the wetlands by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, and sold at bargain basement prices to Cuban "exile" Fanjuls, and cohorts, and continue to pay as that same sugar cane industry polutes the water in Florida with run-off chemicals.

We destroyed Mexican sugar cane and corn farmers only means of living. They are ruined, and they join the ranks of the poor who never could find any decent employment at all.

[Bacchus39]

20. why doesn't Mexico subsidize their own sugar cane industry then?

every country in the tropics has sugar cane. no country is going to get rich selling it. too much competition.

[brentspeak]

19. Er, the US is NOT "largely to blame" for Mexico's failings

Mexico is largely to blame for Mexico's failings. Good grief.

[Bacchus39]

21. no kidding my God!!

n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

23. Er, that WOULD b a novelty. A South American, Central

American or Caribbean country largely to blame for its own failings!

It's all about the Monroe Doctrine, and that's not a closely guarded secret. It's actually been in the public domain since its enactment. Apart from being hard-wired into the brains of of Republicans (with a complicit Democratic Establishment) that they possess full, unencumbered legal title to those unfortunate sovereign states, anyway.

[Bacchus39]

24. when were Latin American countries ever prosperous???

in their more than 500 year history?

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. My, my. Your'e a bit slow on the uptake, aren't you?

The same could be said of many Asian countries, not to speak of European ones. But they don't seem to be doing too badly just now, do they? Go back your carousing, there's a good chap.

[Bacchus39]

26. ahhh, so the US is not responsible for their failings then

correct?

[Joe Chi Minh]

28. You place some strange interpretations on on simple facts and

scenarios, don't you? You think the Chinese were worse off under Mao than Chain Kai Chek? Or the Russians under the Comunist regime? Tell that to the nonegarian ladies selling the last of their knick-knacks by the side of the road in the winter. Get back to that carousing.

[Bacchus39]

22. how is the Mexican economy going to improve by

erradicating the underground economy???

the drug war has been an abject failure.

"We demand certain human rights and performance in the war against terrorism from other countries but we do not place those demands on Mexico concerning the drug cartels"

You have got to be kidding me!!! Yeah, we need kinder gentler drug cartels.

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. Who said anything about drugs? It's a red herring, and a problem

massively exacerbated by CIA drug-runners, etc, if not originated by them.

In Colombia, before the US's diabolical ministrations, coca leaves were used to combat the deleterious effects of living at high altitudes. Still are by the locals. It wouldn't have been the poisoned chalice it is now.

I would have everyone involved in the drug trade at a high level, summarily executed, as they do in some countries in South East Asia. Beginning at home! That would obviate the need for waging war in other countries to suppress the importation of drugs, and go some way towards emptying our prisons. Own up straight away, and they are pardoned. Don't own up and get found out, and they're history.

[msongs]

29. legalize all drug use in the USA and .....

that would collapse the price, the smugglers, the cartels, and we could spend the 'war on drugs money" on prevention and rehabilitation
AND put an end to Mexico's problems with the drug lords. Mexico can then take care of its own addicts just like we will take care of ours, with love and understanding and some gentle-as-necessary persuasion.

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art
mugs and shirts

[aasleka]

30. Legalize, it's not like we could have any MORE come in.

Legalize all drugs and give em a 200% tax, still would end up being cheaper and generate enough revenue for addiction counseling and programs to help the poor.
Does anyone here realize your seemingly conservative neighbor is actually a black market entrepenuer in disguise?

1st rule: attract no attention and keep up the facade.