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Reporter's Notebook: Al Giordano

U.S.-Style Post-Electoral Chaos Begins in Mexico

Posted by Al Giordano - July 2, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Polling places have closed nationwide throughout Mexico but both national TV networks - Televisa and TV Azteca - say the presidential election is too close to call.

The Federal Elections Institute (IFE, in its Spanish initials) says it will announce its "preliminary results" at 11 p.m. Mexico City Time (Midnight ET).

TV Azteca did release exit poll results for Congressional and Senate seats nationwide:

Pan: 35%
PRD: 31%
PRI: 28%
Nueva Alianza: 5%
Alternativa: 1%

Mariano Palacios Alcocer, the chairman of the PRI, announced, with presidential hopeful Roberto Madrazo by his side, that his party will push for a recount and mentioned that it could  delay the official results "until Wednesday."

Neither Andrés Manuel López Obrador (PRD) nor Felipe Calderón (PAN) have yet appeared in public.

Rupturing...

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Comments

Calm down.

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 8:26 am by Jules Siegel
You sound as if you want a crisis. Big deal. It's a close vote. Yes, Mexico has a lot of poor people, but even a lot of them are getting less poor. When people get a little property and economic stability they have something to protect and they tend to become more conservative.

I'd rather hear your opinions on the possibilities of voter fraud raised by people like Greg Palast. No details of how the fraud would take place; says the IFE is controlled by the PAN; talks about Mexico's history of voter corruption, ignoring the changes that have taken place.

I don't like Calderón and I don't like the PAN, but I am inclined to believe that if he wins, it will because he ran a good campaign and got more votes. If López-Obrador loses or wins by a small majority, it will because he ran an old-fashioned campaign that turned off a lot of very astute people. He could have won by a huge majority, but the more people saw him, the less it seemed they liked him.

Mexico is really a very conservative place that puts a high value on economic stability and social peace. The PAN wins because it presents a much more modern and cleaner image than either the PRI or the PRD, both of whose advertising was just pathetically amateur and unconvincing. They are stuck back in the era of mítines and acarreados and dispensas. Fiery rhetoric is old hat. People want practical plans, clearly presented. Calderón did that a lot better than his opponents.

Paranoid interpretations of the results serve only the interests of the United States, which favors chaos when it can't get a clear-cut victory for conservatives, because it believes that turmoil will cause people to accept any injustice in the interest of personal comfort and social order.

I'm not an Andrea Dworkin fan nor am I sympathetic to NOW-style feminism, but I heartily endorse this comment in an interview in New Statesman & Society:


Michael Moorcock: What do you think about the current shift to the right in US politics?

Andrea Dworkin: Here, in blaming and shaming the oppressed, the powerless, the left colludes with the right. There's no reason to look to the left for justice, so people look to the right for order.


The Fact Remains: The Crisis Is Here

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 12:22 pm by Al Giordano

Jules,

Your comments, always welcome, don't dispute any facts that I have reported. They simply impute motive ("you want a crisis") and express your own asthetic tastes against "old fashioned" campaigns and in favor of "modern" (US-style) political discourse.

Even by the official results in which you seem to have such uncritical faith, more than 64 percent of Mexicans that voted chose the "old fashioned" paths, and in the coming days you and the rest of the world will see the evidence that the official results are riddled with bad counting, dirty tricks, and an unlevel and unfree process.

I'll leave you to your own sophist gymnastics to reconcile your defense of "conservative" (perhaps you meant to say "neoliberal"?) with your dislike for "old fashioned."  

I'm here to report the facts, first, and there is a huge job ahead in the coming days and weeks to do that. This is, whether you like it or not, an hour of moral crisis; one of those moments when the true character of every voice reveals itself.

The objective fact remains that the Mexican state is in a new and bigger stage of a credibility crisis that did not begin yesterday, but was exacerbated yesterday by its own inability to deliver a convincing result.

The second part of your rant has nothing to do with anything I have reported: it is an argument you are having perhaps with somebody else or maybe with yourself (what Andrea Dworkin says about "blaming and shaming the oppressed" has absolutely no reference nor relevance to anything about the current Mexican electoral and credibility crisis, certainly to nothing I have reported or said, it is a sideshow inserted into your comments, and a sign of the paucity of your argument that you  pull it out of thin air to unfairly imply that I've blamed or shamed the oppressed for anything. Unable to counter the factual bases of my reporting, you've simply invented a fantasy accusation of my beliefs. I expect better from you.)

I'm going to continue collecting, investigating, translating and reporting the facts, regardless of whether you or anyone else finds them inconvenient or bothersome. The facts themselves are doing the roaring here, not me.

That's something you could do, too, without even having to leave your house. A pity that you choose instead to rail against those of us who are doing the heavy lifting here, particularly because you have the ability and talent to do so if you choose to do so.

Your comments - and their tone - reveal that you essentially agree with the major fact of my report: that there is a post-electoral crisis in Mexico. It is that reality - and not my reporting of it - that is bothering you to distraction.

Wishing won't make that reality go away. Nor will blaming the messenger. And this messenger is immune to that style of false debate anyway. Onward to the real work at hand.

That said, I offer you a cordial saludo, and an agreement to disagree, from somewhere in a country called América.

Al

I don't agree that there is any crisis

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 1:25 pm by Jules Siegel
Your comments, always welcome, don't dispute any facts that I have reported. They simply impute motive ("you want a crisis")

Al, please don't play rhetorical games with me. I think that you want a crisis and it shows in the heated, breathless tone of what you write. I don't see any facts in your article that support your idea that a crisis and chaos are happening. AMLO has already pulled in his horns. Your comments about fraud are 100% speculation. If you've got anything concrete, let's see it.

Oaxaca is just one state. Please don't draw inferences from a place that's got its own long history of troubles that have boiled over into an intractable confrontation.

and express your own asthetic tastes against "old fashioned" campaigns and in favor of "modern" (US-style) political discourse.

It's not an asthetic taste. It's just plain practical politics. This kind of incompetence worked when the PRD and the PRI were still one party. If Calderón does win, it's because the PAN's mastery of modern media technique gave him the edge over AMLO.

Even by the official results in which you seem to have such uncritical faith, more than 64 percent of Mexicans that voted chose the "old fashioned" paths,

Good point. Unfortunately it wasn't good enough because it didn't pull in the votes they needed to win.

in the coming days you and the rest of the world will see the evidence that the official results are riddled with bad counting, dirty tricks, and an unlevel and unfree process.

You know that for a fact? Do you have any examples? All counting processes are subject to error. You can't count a number like 73 million and get it the same every time, just as you can't put a bullet through the same hole twice even if you clamp the rifle to a bench.

So now the PRD is going to pull its usual protests and martyristic tantrums and nitpick the results? If they try this and they fail to show effectively and clearly that there was a concrete pattern of fraud that went against their side, they will begin the way down the path that led the PRI to third place.

Is there a crisis?

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 3:49 pm by Ezio Cusi
Dear Jules,
When Al mentions fraud, it does not come out of the blue, there have been many indications that this was coming. You just have to look at "Astillero" by Julio Hernández López in la Jornada in the last few days and find many, 'very strange' things that were happening with IFE's data base. Not to mention Hildebrando's finger in the 'Padron".
Many Mexican observers believe this last election to have been 'elecciones de estado' and most people in Mexico no longer believe either the Government or IFE in almost anything they say. There will be a credibility gap, no matter who wins now. This does not bode well for the peaceful future of Mexico.
Best regards
Ezio

Mathematical anomalies don't prove anything

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 5:02 pm by Jules Siegel
They could be caused by rounding errors or other well-known statistical management problems. A total of 38,481,957 ballots have been counted so far. Very large numbers like that have internal patterns that resemble manipulation but are actually examples of randomness.

I know that this seems improbable, but there is a science of numerical forensics that deals with repetitive patterns in collected numbers. If they don't have these patterns, then suspicion is raised that the figures have been tampered with, because the people who did it will tend to cover their tracks by making the results look random.

It's really a fascinating area of study, but the results are often counter-intutive. Look into Benford's Law for an example of what I'm talking about. Everyone knew the race was going to be tight. It's annoying that it turned out this tight, but I don't think that's much evidence of fraud. Don't you think that anyone trying to mess with the results would have tried for a larger margin?

The election resulted in a statistical tie. That's not all that unusual an outcome. The only way to settle the doubts would be to hold a run-off, I guess. Meanwhile, people are clutching at wisps. Al is correct in one point -- 64% did not vote for Calderón. One has to ask whether the split in what was once the PRI brought Mexico democracy or a new kind of minority rule.

Joshua Holland is all over this today at AlterNet

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 8:40 pm by Jules Siegel
Joshua Holland is all over this today:

[http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/38468/?cID=14 7615#c147615
Greg Palast's conspiracism isn't helpful]

Posted by Joshua Holland at 11:50 AM on July 3, 2006.

The last thing anyone needs in what is shaping up to be a hyper-charged post-balloting environment is a bunch of conspiracy theories about the Mexican electoral institutions themselves.

[Excerpt]

In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), [Palast writes] who opinion polls showed as a certain winner, somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling elite. Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle. In the state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by 359,369. Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling party, only 182,874 for the PDR.

It's simply irresponsible to discuss the blatantly stolen 1988 election without also telling his readers that Mexico's electoral institutions have undergone radical, dramatic reforms since then (which I touched on last week).

Chuck Collins, in his reality-based analysis, also discusses the 1988 vote, but follows it with this:

But the Mexican electoral system has come a long way since 1988 and even 2000. The independent Federal Election Institute is well-resourced, politically independent, and by all accounts ran a fairly clean election.

That last point is crucial to understanding the complete nonsense Palast is peddling in his column in today's The Guardian. In it, he refers, as he did Friday, to "The PAN-controlled official electoral commission."

According to every single observer except Greg Palast, the Federal Election Institute (IFE) is completely independent. The IFE ordered Vicente Fox -- PAN's outgoing president -- to keep his nose out of the campaign. They ordered Felipe Calderon's ads off the air more than once because they were misleading or defamatory. Last week, I noted that José Salafranca, head of the EU's observer mission, told Inter Press Service that Mexico's electoral institutions are now among the most reliable and trustworthy in the world.

But Palast has to put the IFE in PAN's pocket, or else his column today -- read and no doubt believed by many -- falls apart entirely …

As in Florida in 2000, and as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate. The race is "officially" too close to call. But they will call it - after they steal it.

Reuters reports that, as of 8pm eastern time, as voting concluded in Mexico, exit polls showed Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the "leftwing" party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leading in exit polls over Felipe Calderón of the ruling conservative National Action party (PAN).

We've said again and again: exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can't tell pollsters whether their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the vote is an art, not a science - and Calderón's ruling crew is very artful indeed. The PAN-controlled official electoral commission, not surprisingly, has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call.

Let's understand what he's saying. As of 8 PM eastern time, exit polls -- which The Guardian clarified were conducted by television broadcasters -- showed a result that was within their margins of error. Lopez Obrador's own exit polling showed he had a lead, and Calderon claimed that he was in the lead. But the Guardian's own headline was: "Mexico election too close to call -- exit-polls." The official "quick count" -- a sample -- wasn't released to the public because, by law, it can't be if it's within the count's 2-point margin-of-error.

In other words, official sampling shows that the race is too close, the TV station's exit polls show that it's too close to call and -- gasp! -- the IFE says the exact same thing! Only the parties' private exit polling shows a clear winner at this point.

Mexico: Introducing the "PREF" Results

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 10:53 pm by Al Giordano
All the analysis of election numbers in Mexico so far are based on the Federal Election Institute (IFE)'s "PREP" system. PREP stands for "Programa de Resultados Electorales Preliminares" (in English, "Preliminary Electoral Results Program."

By definition it is not the vote tally. It is a preliminary report: a poll, nothing more.

I find this conversation fascinating because in a few days we will begin to see who is bullshiting and stonewalling, and what is the real story.

But the PREP results are not the official results. The official results can only come in an "acta" or act signed by the elections officials in each polling place, who are chosen by lottery from the citizenry, much like, say, a jury pool. It is a crime to tamper with an "acta." No legal punishment exists for sending in a false PREP report.

For example, in "casilla 1019 Contigua 3 del Estado de México" (polling place #1019 of the State of Mexico), the PREP reports 88 votes for López Obrador, 62 for Calderon, 41 for Madrazo, 21 for Mercado, 4 for Campa, 8 for write-in candidates, and 7 ballots annulled ("hanging chad" type scenario on those: Let's see if IFE allows those to be reviewed in the official count).

You are supposed to be able to verify that at the IFE website, district by district. But the Internet access to the IFE system has been crashing constantly ever since last night.

Fortunately, when it has been up, El Universal has been downloading the results and putting them on its own website at this URL:

http://prep.eluniversal.com.mx/. Punch in that polling place, and those are the results.

However, a photograph of the ACTA reveals that Lopez Obrador received 188 votes there - a disappearance of 100 in a single polling place where about 320 votes were cast.

More common proofs are emerging of "shavings" of votes: six here, two there, the majority - coincidentally? - shaved from Lopez Obrador's tallies.

There are also documents surging that show that more votes were counted than voters who cast votes in many districts.

Now, I call this the PREF or "Preliminary Results of Election Fraud" because when I finish reporting this story you will see the evidence, photos and all. Until then it is "preliminary" report I'm sharing here. We have various days still to complete the official report. But I think my preliminary fraud results count as much as IFE's preliminary "election" results and my credibility towers over that of the nine political appointees to the IFE board and their staff member, Luis Carlos Ugalde. That's not saying much, for reasons that I will also shortly be reporting about his and IFE's behavior this week.

By IFE's own numbers, the difference between the two candidates nationwide hovers slightly below or above one percent, a difference of less than 377,000 votes.

Also by IFE's numbers there are more than 827,000 nullified votes. Let's find out why in the coming days.

Out of 130,000 "actas" the difference is an average of less than 3 votes (really, potentially less than two, since if a vote shifts from one to another it changes the margin by two).

Now, what about Jules' presumption that IFE is honest and of good faith?

Here are some facts:

  • Mexico's Congress passed a law allowing 4.1 million eligible Mexican voters living in the United States to vote. The IFE then put the following obstacles in their way: They had to sign up six months prior to the vote. They had to show their  home town electoral ID card. The Fox administration refused to allow these voters to receive a new electoral ID card by mail, through the Embassies and Consulates, by proxy or by any other means except for re-crossing the border and going back to their home towns to get it. Adding injury to insult, the IFE forced each voter to spend nine U.S. dollars to send the ballot by express mail (each ballot had to be sent separately): a poll tax, is what we used to call this during the Civil Rights movement. This ensured that poor Mexicans on the other side could not afford to vote, and that only those willing to spend nine bucks could do so. Hmmm. Wonder whose campaign that tax was aimed to benefit. Of the 4.1 million eligible Mexicans on the Other Side, only a little over 28,000 were able to get their ballots in. To me, this is evidence of malice on the part of IFE.
  • The phenomenon of migrant workers is not just international. As Jules knows, there are tens of thousands of temporary construction workers from Chiapas, Oaxaca, Campeche, Veracruz and elsewhere in Quintana Roo, building the Riviera Maya. This story is repeated all over the country. For them, the IFE promised "special polling places" where with an IFE credential from any town, they could supposedly vote from the road, but only for president (not for local officials). But IFE limited the number of ballots for each of these polling places to only 750. Most of the special polling places ran out by noon, and everyone else was turned away. Which economic class of voter did that deprive of its right to vote? Along the border, busloads of migrant workers did return home hoping to vote, but when they ot their they were turned back. At midday angry voters petitioned IFE to send more ballots. IFE refused. There were 822 such special polling places. Hundreds of thousands of eligible voters were denied their right to vote. Another strike against IFE's supposed "good faith". This maneuver helped Calderon. Again, it is a matter of class prejudice and discrimination.
  • A week before the Elections, IFE "shaved" 900,000 voters from its list of 70 million. In general, this was supposedly to eliminate duplications. But there was no transparency. No public accounting was given as to who was removed nor why in the specific.
  • Days before the elections, CNN journalist Carmen Aristegui, using the username "Hildebrando117," was able to access a secret section of the PAN party internet system. There, she found special access by PAN to not only that list, but cross referencing it with other "confidential" government lists of who receives public assistance, and what kind, from the federal government. Totally illegal. The username was interesting, too. Hildebrando is the name of the computer software company owned by Calderon's brother in law, Diego Hildebrando Zavala, whose company is partners with - lo and behold - companies that provide software for IFE's PREP system among other IFE computer networks. Maybe, Jules, that passes your smell test. It doesn't pass mine.
These are just a few previews from the upcoming PREF report.

We will learn in these days, for example, if Lopez Obrador's accusation today that "3 million" votes were disappeared from IFE's PREP system, is accurate. This is a political figure that doesn't have a history of making factual claims he can't prove. We'll see what he has in the coming days.

But in sum, regarding this difference of less than 400,000 votes, the following are missing...

  • 827,000 nullified votes ("hanging chad" tactics).
  • 4,082,000 eligible Mexican voters in the US.
  • 900,000 names shaved at the 11th hour from the list
  • Those above 750 voters at each of 822 special polling places.
  • A yet to be determined number of misstated returns in the PREP system.
Maybe some people consider this a fair election process. I see it as one intended to exclude the workers and the poor. As to whether a critical mass of said workers and poor come to view this the same way will determine whether Jules or I are correct in our differing analyses about whether this is "crisis."

But my view is, after traveling most of the country the past six months listening to hundreds of hours of testimony with the Zapatista Other Campaign, the crisis - the pain and the rage - was here already. The fraudulent election of 2006 is merely the event that makes that pain, rage and crisis visible.

p.s. I am definitely the wrong person to ask to take anything an Alternet staff member says seriously. (See http://www.narconews.com/hazenstory1.html )

To be continued...

Yes, the situation is tense.

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 6:30 am by Jules Siegel
The items that you mention need to be examined, verified and interpreted.

If 900,000 voters were removed from the polls, did they then show up and demand to vote, for example? How did the lack of ballots at some special voting places disproportionately affect any given candidate? You presume that the majority wanted to vote for López Obrador. How do you know that's true? If the polls showed an almost equal split everywhere else are you arguing that people on the road were going to vote heavily for the PRD? They weren't all migrant workers. A lot of them were also business people and vacationers.

The same goes for the voters on the other side of the border. I remember reading at the time that it was assumed that many would vote for the PAN -- and that's why the law was passed.

In both cases, you need to show some kind before-the-fact evidence that the vote would have skewed one way or the other. Did the PRD take any action to force the IFE to make it easier for Mexicans living abroad to vote when they learned about the restrictions you mention?

My previous comments about the PRI were made in the context of a big win by the PRD, not a squeaker.

You were out there a while back there with the Zapatista caravan discouraging people from voting. Now you're all concerned about the voting process. In 2000, you were all for Fox and dumped on me as a chayote for calling him exactly what he was and what he turned out to be.

The PAN claims that it had a legal right to the lists in its possession, as did all other parties. Whether or not what they did with it is illegal remains to be established.

The claims about vote-shaving can't be sustained on the basis of a single district. They have to be verified across the board. Well, all the paper is there and it can be examined and shown to the public to prove the charges, if true. That's the route López Obrador is taking. It's the correct one and as a result, my confidence in him has gone up.

We all knew by the end of June this was going to be a close election, and we all knew that there would be claims of fraud if that turned out to be true. Now comes the real test. Can the IFE and the election court resolve the doubts to the satisfaction of the Mexican public? If it can't, the crisis begins.

Until then, it's just a close election with the very understandable claims of fraud and irregularities by the loser. Inflammatory statements by foreigners are out of place. You are already calling it a fraudulent election. I think you should let the facts came out in full before doing that.

Electoral biases against the poor

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 10:10 am by Benjamin Melançon
Most elections in most countries appear to be biased against the poor, possibly in the United States more than Mexico.  And I'm willing to believe that Mexico's new-and-improved election commission will be able to run fairer and more honest elections than the United States.

But, Jules Siegal, you seem unwilling to acknowledge specific evidence that it is and has been made harder for poorer people to vote -- people who, as you know and I can tell you even from Massachusetts, are more likely to be PRD supporters than PAN supporters.

Let's be serious about the numbers.  Traveling business people versus internal economic refugees, hmm, what do you think the ratio is?  As for PAN expecting to pick up votes from emigrants to the U.S., they probably did-- once they made the process difficult and expensive enough to cut participation to a relative handful.  I think that tiny number speaks for itself.

Regarding the stations for economic migrants, simply the possibility of anyone voting while away from their home state (or town) is a great improvement over the weak democracy I experience in the US-- but the fact remains that there is a systematic bias against the poor, that there is plenty of evidence that more Mexicans want AMLO than Caldero, and so the question is if the vote reflects that and if not, was there fraud even in addition to these systemic biases?  As in the U.S. in 2000, the moral responsibility should rest with the side benefiting from these anti-democratic biases-- but there will be plenty of comfortable pundits to argue for orderly, law-abiding acceptance of rule by the richest.

All elections are biased against the poor

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 12:35 pm by Jules Siegel
Traveling business people versus internal economic refugees, hmm, what do you think the ratio is?

Nobody knows, but you left out a really important group, people on vacation.  

As for PAN expecting to pick up votes from emigrants to the U.S., they probably did -- once they made the process difficult and expensive enough to cut participation to a relative handful.  I think that tiny number speaks for itself.

The argument that extending voting to people outside the country would result in more votes for the PAN was made before the new policies went into effect. Many commentators here dismissed the whole project as just another trick by Fox to increase his party's vote. As far as I know, the PRD did not raise any objections to the rules that made absentee voting from outside the country so difficult. Maybe Al can enlighten us on that.

Everyone seems to be ignoring the real issue of why López Obrador somehow lost the overwhelming lead he had in all polls last year. It's more convenient to talk about election fraud. Is it possible that once people outside his base got to know what he stood for, they didn't like him?

la la land

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 7:00 pm by Justin Delacour
Nobody knows, but you left out a really important group, people on vacation.  

No, Jules, vacationers aren't an "important" part of any real assessment of systematic electoral exclusion.

At this point, Jules, I think Al is right.  It's as if you just argue for the sake of arguing.  What exactly is your point, Jules?  That the privileged who take vacations are systematically discriminated against by the electoral system because they have to stay in town for election day if they want to vote???  Oh, the injustice.

For God's sake, Jules, you can't compare the systematic electoral exclusion of thousands upon thousands of poor migrants (both inside and outside Mexico) to the minor inconvenience of not being able to vacation on election day.  I'm sorry, Jules, but when the debate devolves to this level of absurdity, it's clear that someone is riding cloud nine.

The argument that extending voting to people outside the country would result in more votes for the PAN was made before the new policies went into effect. Many commentators here dismissed the whole project as just another trick by Fox to increase his party's vote. As far as I know, the PRD did not raise any objections to the rules that made absentee voting from outside the country so difficult.

That's not what I recall, Jules.  Reports in the Stockton Record and the San Antonio Express indicated that the PRD attempted to facilitate the voting process for migrants in the United States but that Mexican consulates did not assist with the process.

From the Stockton Record (October 8, 2005):    

A Mexican state legislator urged leaders of Stockton's migrant community to help educate and register migrants in the United States who are eligible to vote in Mexico's presidential election in July.

...

Jesus Martinez-Saldana, a member of the Michoacan state congress in Mexico, met with farm labor organizers from Stockton this week to make sure Mexicans living in the United States understand the complicated, step-by-step, absentee-voting process. He hopes to help Mexicans living here understand what is required to cast absentee ballots in the July 2 election.

"This is the very first time migrants are allowed to vote," said Martinez-Saldana, a former Fresno State professor and a member of Mexico's Party of the Democratic Revolution. "It's a right that took many years to obtain, and we want to make sure they enjoy that right."

...

As many as 60,000 immigrants from Michoacan live in the county, said Luis Magaña, head of the Stockton group meeting with the legislator. That's more than 25 percent of the more than 200,000 people of Mexican descent that live in San Joaquin County, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.

...

Magaña's group will help eligible voters fill out requests for ballots.

"The consulate officials don't help people fill out the forms," Magaña said. "Someone has to help people do that."

From the San Antonio Express (October 19, 2005):

For three weeks, Laredo produce importer José Carmona has been on a whirlwind tour of Texas, one that could spell a direct challenge to Mexico's election law and change the pace and tone of its upcoming presidential campaign.

Carmona, a Mexican citizen, has logged more than 2,800 miles across the state on a mission for the Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, under the banner of an organization he leads called the Red Paisanos, Spanish for the Countryman Network.

The network is informing Mexicans about the absentee voting process for the July 2006 presidential election — the first to allow them to vote from abroad. But it's also touting the PRD's presumptive candidate, former Mexico City mayor and early frontrunner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

...

In recent weeks, Carmona and Nuevo Laredo city councilman Francisco Chavira, a PRD member, have pulled a black trailer emblazoned with the PRD logo to El Paso, Eagle Pass, Cotulla, Laredo, Carrizo Springs, McAllen and twice to San Antonio.

I guess only the poor have a right to vote

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 8:38 pm by Jules Siegel
No, Jules, vacationers aren't an "important" part of any real assessment of systematic electoral exclusion.

They are when you're talking about the special voting places. Right now, hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of Mexican are on vacation. Perhaps you aren't aware of that because you don't live in Mexico and you don't pay attention to middle class trends. I do.

What exactly is your point, Jules?

It so obvious that I can't understand your question, which I think is a rhetorical trick. I'll answer it anyway. The failure to provide enough ballots for people who had moved or were away from home did not only affect the poor. Have you ever been in Mexican long distance bus station? Are all those people poor? Are even a majority poor?

I think you underestimate the mobility of the middle- and upper-middle classes, especially during the summer. Since I believe that they were most likely to be registered voters, they would be a significant number of those who were deprived of the right to vote. How many poor, itinerant workers are registered, do you think?

That the privileged

Only privileged people take vacations? I guess that would be true if your definition of privilege is anyone who can afford to take a vacation.

who take vacations are systematically discriminated against by the electoral system because they have to stay in town for election day if they want to vote???

No, I am saying that they were affected by the lack of ballots, too. Here in Cancun, they were one of the sectors that were most affected. Not all of them were Hotel Zone tourists (although I see no reason why they should have been deprived of their vote).

We get a lot of visitors from other parts of the Republic who stay in hotels in town or with relatives. About a third of the Cancun market is Mexican. Since we get more than three million visitors a year, we are talking about a million people, most of whom come here during the summer and Semana Santa.

There are also vacation resorts all over Mexico that are mainly frequented by Mexicans, many of them working class, such as teachers, salaried workers, plumbers, independent airconditioning and electrical technicians, painters, carpenters, and so on.

At this time of year, I see a lot of out-of-town vehicles with small business signs on them, obviously being used to take the family on vacation. If these people were all that privileged, wouldn't they have other vehicles for their personal use?

We also have a lot of impoverished construction workers in Quintana Roo, many of whom come here from other areas. I haven't seen any statistics on how many of them tried to vote. There was a great deal of anger from everyone who was turned away. The presumption that only the poor and those most likely to vote for the PRD were affected is highly improbable conjecture.

Oh, the injustice.

If it's unjust for migrant workers to be deprived of their right to vote, it's unjust for middle class people on vacation to be deprived of the right to vote. It's unjust for anyone to be deprived of the right to vote. Are you trying to argue that democracy is only for the poor?

Thanks for the information on the activities by perredistas to help Mexicans on the other side of the border to vote. I still stand on my statement that when the reforms were first announced they were criticized as a trick to favor the PAN, as it was thought that Mexicans living in the United States would be more conservative.

I don't know if that perception was true. I never saw any polls on their voting preferences. If you can find any, please let me know.

Jules, you've really gone off the deep end

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 9:54 pm by Justin Delacour
Jules, this is hardly worth my time.  Ask any social scientist anywhere and he or she will tell you that the poor suffer more from systematic electoral exclusion than the non-poor, for obvious reasons.  They suffer more systematic roadblocks to registration (for reasons of illiteracy, itinerant status, etc. etc.).  In developing countries (yes, Jules, Mexico is a developing country, in case you've lost sight of that), the poor's means of transportation are also more limited. One could go on and on about the systematic roadblocks to voting for the poor.  These are some of the major reasons why the poor vote less frequently than the non-poor in most countries throughout the world.  Mexico is no exception, Jules.  And just in case you've forgotten, the poor still constitute half the country in which you reside.

It is, again, utterly absurd to compare the systematic electoral exclusion of thousands upon thousands of poor migrants (both inside and outside Mexico) to the minor inconvenience of not being able to vacation on election day.  There is nothing "systematic" about vacationing, Jules.  A vacationer has the choice of whether or not to vacation on election day.  The Mexican corn farmer who was SYSTEMATICALLY uprooted from his or her community as a result of subsidized imports of U.S. agribusiness didn't "choose" to become a migrant, Jules.  That choice was foisted upon him or her by necessities of the stomach.

I must say, with all seriousness, Jules, that the absurdity of your comparisons demonstrates an astounding insensitivity to the realities of poverty.  I'm not just saying this for rhetorical purposes.  To be honest, I find your insensitivity to the realities of poverty to be utterly appalling (especially in a venue like Narco News).

I think you underestimate the mobility of the middle- and upper-middle classes, especially during the summer. Since I believe that they were most likely to be registered voters, they would be a significant number of those who were deprived of the right to vote. How many poor, itinerant workers are registered, do you think?

Jules, try developing some serious social analysis.  The fact that the itinerant is less likely to be registered is precisely the point.  It's been the point of this entire discussion.  The poor often can't even exercise the right to vote due to social circumstances largely beyond their control.  Such is not the case for someone who chooses to vacation in Cancún on election day.

Personally, I don't give a shit what your supposed progressive credentials are or whether you see yourself as standing up to Bush's supposedly impending "gunboat diplomacy intervention" in Mexico.  You really should stop and reflect about the deeply retrograde nature of your arguments lately, which reflect a thorough-going internalization of the values of those same reactionary political elements that you claim to despise.  

You're all over the place

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 7:42 am by Jules Siegel
The issue is really simple. How many special voting places were there? How many people were denied the vote because there weren't enough ballots? Are there any concrete figures -- not speculations -- on the sociological composition of the voters who couldn't vote because there were enough ballots?

Get back to me when you have the answers.

All of your comments so far on this are conjecture based on your political inclination. Despite your absurd remarks about who is "inconvenienced" and who is denied the right to vote, the right to vote extends to all classes of society. People work all year for their pitiful vacations. They don't always have much discretion when it comes to the exact date they can take them, nor do business travelers have much discretion about when they travel.

You concentrate on the plight of one sector of the poor to the exclusion of the rights and conditions of all other sectors of society. I don't.

Absentee ballots for vacationers?

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 7:48 am by Benjamin Melançon
Just as a point of information, would absentee ballots be available for people vacationing in Mexico, as they would be for those of us smart enough to get them in advance in the U.S.?  (Not a group that includes me.  I failed to vote my first two attempts, once because I thought I could just walk into my college town polling place -- wrong -- and again because I didn't mail my absentee ballot until election day -- also wrong.)

But just to reiterate, we don't need a census to figure out that there are more people out of their home towns due to economic circumstances than people on vacation.  And of course anyone in any class might vote for any party.  But again, two facts that lend the moral authority to the candidate of the left in a close election:

  1. structural biases, intentional and unintentional, make it more difficult for poorer people to vote
  2. the same people more likely to be excluded are more likely to vote for the left candidate
Sure, the candidate who would appear to have the plurality of support still has to play by the rules of votes that can be counted.  But being the popular choice seems to throw responsibility for proving that this count is honest on the system that excluded people in the first place.

And I'm not particularly impressed by a commmission stocked with balanced political appointees.  They will tend to favor social order over social justice.  The idea that social order favors the left is an interesting one, but in general not true.  To again refer to my home country, I think Al Gore could have called for vigilance in support of democracy, even called for his supporters to go into the streets to ensure the votes were counted, without calling for or risking an all-out revolution, or militias, or anything like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with revolution, but I think history has shown that before we try another revolution anywhere the revolutionary movement has to be more inclusive and democratic than the government it seeks to overthrow, with the highest degree of internal democracy possible, and not just a plan to do that stuff after taking power.

But revolution, chaos, or sitting at home are hardly the only options.

Any move toward real democracy, justice, and liberty can (in general) only be gained by widespread nonviolent civil disobedience at minimum, and ultimately by people taking more and more control of our lives into our own hands.

We don't make any progress waiting for those above to tell us what we want and what to do.

I want real democracy.  I think that includes voting.  But real democracy is not something we have, if only we sit back and request the orderly administration of a vote count every several years.  In Mexico, no matter who takes power, he will have the explicit sanction of what, less than 20 percent of the populace?  In the United States this figure is 25 percent.  All of this, everywhere, in an environment where communication is not free and fair, where money decides what messages go out, and essentially what our choices will be-- and furthermore with richer countries (or just the rich) able to rule over smaller and poorer countries with threats of economic reprisals, or armed invasion, regardless of such countries internal democracy.

Democracy is something we have to fight for, and more importantly organize for, democratically organize for and not allow provocateurs and state violence to stop or redirect our mass movement for self-rule, and the good things that can come from self-rule.  Maybe we're nowhere near ready with this mass movement.  On the other hand, maybe the Other Campaign is that movement in Mexico.  In either case, democracy (or justice or liberty or progress) is not served by a de facto coalition of the ruling elite and the apathetic.  We serve democracy (or liberty or justice or progress) by forming a coalition of all people who give a damn, and by trying to show everyone the possible roads to better lives for all.  One of those roads, indeed, is making sure elections aren't stolen.

~~
These words may or may not be reflective of my official capacity at People Who Give a Damn, but they seem sorta relevant somehow.

o

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 11:19 am by Al Giordano
First, Jules, your false statement that in 2000 I was “all for Fox” is a blood libel. Retract it, please, because I do take it personally. Of the eight stories for which I was sued by Banamex that year, one was my report of Citibank and money laundering by the Fox campaign (June 24, 2000), prior to the election and my report of Fox and the Banamex owner meeting on narco-trafficking lands (July 9, 2000) three days after the vote. See this link to refresh your selective memory.

I criticized you at the time (privately) for defending the PRI’s vote-buying campaigns (which you portrayed as “social programs”, a maneuver repeated this year by the PAN federal government). But for you to imply that my critique represented a pro-Fox position is false and defamatory. I paid a price for reporting the inconvenient details about Fox at an hour when you were – as now – shooting spitballs in your underwear seated in front of your computer. True, my reports were vindicated by the New York Supreme Court, but it cost me a year of my life to defend myself. And if those guys couldn't silence me, what makes you think you can?

Your other false statement of fact – one that reveals you haven’t done your homework before inventing accusations that come from your own fantasies and sloth when it comes to investigating before you accuse – is this one:

You claimed:

"You were out there a while back there with the Zapatista caravan discouraging people from voting. Now you're all concerned about the voting process."

I have been with the Other Campaign since its inception and still am. I challenge you to furnish a single statement by Marcos or the Other Campaign urging anybody not to vote. To the contrary, you will find multiple statements specifically respecting everyone’s personal decision about whether to vote and who to vote for. The main point of the Other Campaign was that the electoral process can’t be trusted, that it is rigged and unfair and doesn’t address the systemic abuse of the people by those above. On this point, Mexican electoral authorities are proving, today, that the Other Campaign is correct (and you will see, if the fraud succeeds, an exodus from political parties to the more radical praxis of the Other Campaign, very soon, if the fraud is sustained; and the Other Campaign, unlike the parties, will know how to channel that rage).

I find this accusation particularly unseemly because in January I contacted you when the Other Campaign came to your town and invited you to have special access to a meeting between Marcos and Other Campaign adherents to which the Commercial Media was not invited, but as a member of our J-School faculty, you were welcome to come. You choose not to attend. Do you remember the reason you gave me? If I quote you here you’ll be really pissed off. So I will just invite you to explain to the readers why you declined that very special invitation in your own city to see the true facts for yourself, in your own words.

Having declined the opportunity to learn for yourself, it is unacceptable for you to now invent my position or that of the Other Campaign and distort it into something it has never been. Having made those accusations, the burden is now on you to either document them with hard facts or retract them. Anything less is irresponsible.

As for more evidence of the fraud, you know - and my previous PREF report reveals - I am preparing to deliver. So keep your powder dry and stop distracting me with invented falsehoods from your fertile imagination. Not you nor anybody has a right to tell me to shut up, to not be “inflammatory” (translation: to not tell inconvenient truths), and especially not because I’m in your eyes a “foreigner.” I am not going to shut up and you ought to know that about me by now.

Should “foreigners” like Mexicans in the US shut up about what goes on there? Even if geezer immigrants with more time there tell them to do so? If you don’t wish to speak against the social order, or see too much personal risk in it, that’s your prerogative. But don’t then try to silence those of us who, at considerable personal risk, refuse to shut up or defend a corrupt system. It is the easiest thing in the world to defend those in power. But to resent and try to foment distrust against those men and women that do have balls to risk all to tell inconvenient (or "inflammatory") truths is simply the worst form of cowardice. You are, or used to be, better than that.

Finally, the fact that I was not an AMLO supporter, I think, makes my arguments more, not less, credible. You seem to think that the burden is on his campaign, as if this is a soccer game. But this is not futbol: the consequences inflict everyone. The moment the polls closed the election returned to being the collective property of all. And the IFE and the rest of the system are demonstrating today that everything we said before about the fundamental unfairness and criminality of the system is coming true. It is that fact - and not anybody saying it - that inflames.

Yes, yes.

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 1:27 pm by Jules Siegel
I'm wrong about your support for Fox. You were just against the PRI. Has anyone ever told you that you tend to become a nasty weasel when opposed? That's how I first encountered you. Once again I submit myself to the famous Al Giordano diarrhea barrage. I looked into all the charges of vote buying at great length and I showed how they were mainly culturally misconstrued. In many cases, the charges against Labastida were absolutely false.

If I quote you here you'll be really pissed off.

Why? Do you think I'm ashamed of what I said?

So I will just invite you to explain to the readers why you declined that very special invitation in your own city to see the true facts for yourself, in your own words.

The reason I didn't want to attend your Marcos event here is that I did not want to photographed by undercover agents. I have had enough problems with surveillance in my life and I really don't need to attract any more.

I was also totally uninterested in what he had to say because I think he is a complete and total fake. Revolutionaries with wooden guns don't impress me at all. Maybe it's because I slept with a machine gun beside my bed for a while in a dope-dealing social action commune where we fed at least ten thousand people in the course of three years.

In the course of this I came to see that our worst enemies were "revolutionary" types with big mouths who seemed to be mainly interested in pissing on us as drug-addled hippies instead of pitching in and washing some dishes. Later, many of the same wild-eyed dissidents turned out to have been undercover government agents. This is when I came up with the concept of the pseudo-dissident that I expounded on at your request at the J-School session. I also saw that any form of "revolutionary" action was doomed to fail because almost all the "revolutionaries" were either completely crazy or government provocateurs.

Even if geezer immigrants with more time there tell them to do so?

Oh, I see. Now we are descending to insults based on age. What kind of asshole tactic is that?

If you don’t wish to speak against the social order, or see too much personal risk in it, that's your prerogative.

Completely over the line and creepy. I've risked more and lost more than you ever had, pipsqueak. It's not because of personal risk. It's because I don't agree with much of your analysis or your methods or your style.

You know, I don't get any grants from celebrity liberal foundations. I earn my living by working as a graphic designer and a typographer and selling my own books online. I don't get published in big media any more because somehow I am no longer talented. Somehow I lost all my skills as a writer and observer when Ronald Reagan was elected. This happened at about the same time that my mail began being intercepted. This is all mere paranoia, of course. Ha ha.

I would add that you offered to help me promote my books, and then when I took you up on it, I got complete silence. Maybe I should go commit suicide like Gary Webb to get your attention.

But don't then try to silence those of us who, at considerable personal risk, refuse to shut up or defend a corrupt system. It is the easiest thing in the world to defend those in power. But to resent and try to foment distrust against those men and women that do have balls to risk all to tell inconvenient (or "inflammatory") truths is simply the worst form of cowardice. You are, or used to be, better than that.

Now the fangs really come out. I'm not fomenting distrust, I'm just telling you that you are having hysterics and running around waving red flags and generally acting like a complete and total jerk. I'm not telling you to shut up. I am telling you and people like you to calm down and present your claims in an orderly and believable manner without resorting to excessive rhetoric and flying spit.

So of course your response is to have more hysterics and get insulting and not just spit at me, but fling shit like an angry chimp. And I am a complete imbecile and am here allowing myself to be kicked around again by Al Giordano in full raving oral asshole mode.

Thin-skinned journalists

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 4:04 pm by Al Giordano
You know, Jules, I remind you that this may be the only place on the Internet where you can insult the host and your freedom of speech is still guaranteed.

I believe that we who live by writing or speaking in public have to be able to take it as well as dish it out. You'll find nothing overly personal in my responses to you. But let me give you a few hints about public discourse.

1. "Pulling rank."

Acting like you know best because you've been around longer is an invitation to be referred to - in this case affectionately - as a geezer. And you are acting the curmudgeonly role to the hilt. Oh, yes, you've seen it all, you know it all, you've slept with a machine gun and dealt drugs to feed hungry children from the log cabin where you were born and built with your own bare hands. Fine. Calling me a pipsqueak - I liked that one, really, because it makes me feel young - simply confirms it for the crowd. Once you pull rank (as you did with your grandfatherly "I've been around for 30 years" script) you should always expect the geezer comment or something like it.

And remind yourself of where you are: In Mexico, if you're fat you are affectionately called "gordo." Thin, "flaco." Dark skinned, "negro." Light-skinned, "guero." Young or small, "chico." And if you are a senior citizen you are "viejito" which is something akin to "geezer." So don't pull that US-style politically-correct "oh, I'm such a victim" stuff with me. Not here. It cuts against your valued role as a voice of, ahem, experience.

2. "Making stuff up."

I think that educated people who can read and write and who have modems and computers have a privilege that brings responsibility to be impeccably honest. When we call ourselves journalists, the responsibility is even greater. You are absolutely right that my fangs come out when I see privileged, educated people making stuff up instead of doing research that takes five minutes with a Google search. I consider it lazy and yes I think you are being lazy in this discussion. My contempt is not for you but for your laziness. If you were one of my students you'd get a firm lecture about it. But you're not (see above under "geezers"), are you? No.

You want to know how to cause Al to purr like a kitten instead of bite like a snake? Don't make stuff up. That's how. You should know better than to invent positions and put them in someone else's mouth, especially when (in my case, or that of the Other Campaign) all the evidence of what people really say is a few clicks of the keypad away (see above reference to "sloth").

3. Say what you mean.

If this is really about your resentments about other things (my not promoting your book, or your funny misconceptions about my standard of living and support among "celebrity liberal foundations" - paging Salma Hayek! - or that I paid more attention to a fallen friend than to you), then don't use a discussion with public consequences about something else as your pretext to vent that resentment.

Actually, I don't think that this is about any of those things. I think it is about your fear of where this country is headed now that the electoral system has revealed itself, 18 years after the historic fraud, as still fraudulent. The IFE may be about to close the door on electoral change in Mexico, just as the Supreme Court in the United States did six years ago. Fine. Express your fears. Yes, it will be far more consequential than getting your photo taken in the presence of Al Giordano by undercover agents (my advice, should that ever happen to you, do what I do: smile for the cameras and make sure they see and hear that you are having a better time than them). Them's the breaks of 500 years of injustice.

You're obviously terrified about what could happen once the public realizes it has been cynically played with another phony "election," and thus the denial ("there is no crisis, dammit!"). But your beef is legitimately with those who fixed the game, not with those of us who expose it. In a paraphrasing of that immortal gringo philosopher Forrest Gump: Geezer is as geezer does.

Say what I mean?

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 7:46 pm by Jules Siegel
I just did and your site filter must have blocked it, presumably because I used a number of vulgar and very insulting terms that were the verbal equivalent of kicking someone hard in groin and  again several times in the face when he/she/it collapsed to the floor, and then urinating on the semi-conscious victim.

So that's how I feel about your comment above. I'm not writing things out of resentment at the creepiness of your weepy invitation to call on you for help at any time when you were mourning Gary Webb combined with the absolute lack of response when I did. I'm just pointing it as an example of your smarmy hypocrisy. Nor am I jealous of your life style (whose details I am not privy to) or the support that you've gotten from foundations. I was merely pointing out that I actually work for a living in what passes for the real world and I do not ask for or get any financial support for my political writing. The only financial grants I've ever received were for a total of $1,000 from a foundation devoted to emergency aid to indigent authors when I was crippled in 1974-75 and my only other income was the California welfare system. I don't use my website to beg for donations (although I did issue an urgent appeal when we were wiped out by Hurricane Wilma). I sell my work and my services. I am not a political operative. I am a totally independent journalist.

If you want to suck on the foundation titty, and troll for handouts from well-wishers, that's your choice, but don't you ever dare to ascribe any kind of motives other than speaking my brand of truth to anything I write or do, or accuse me of cowardice. That's beyond insulting. It is despicable.

I did not pull rank on you. I have no rank. I called you a pipsqueak not because of your age, but because of the limited size of what passes for your brain as demonstrated by your really rotten attacks on my integrity. No one attacks my integrity. I write what I write because I want to write it.

As far as making things up, that's really a matter of interpretation. You weren't sued for what you wrote about Fox, but for what you wrote about Banamex. You can say that you weren't for Fox, but being against the PRI for most of the campaign and then popping up at the end to chime in on the money-laundering charges speaks for itself. I was against Fox from the beginning. You finally conceded that I was right about that. I'm not going to search through all my back-ups and find your positions. I remember very well being attacked and insulted by you for daring to examine what the vote-buying charges really meant. You called me a chayote and you suggested that I had some kind of personal motives for making those statements, just as you have done here.

You can argue all you want about how the Other Campaign supported voting in theory. But your comments disparaging the electoral process are all over the Internet.

As far as my fear of the collapse of social order, well, you've kind of got that right. I do dread the prospect of chaos and violence and militia groups that will accomplish exactly zero because they will ultimately be controlled by power-crazed caciques who will install yet another round of kleptocracy. That's actually the most favorable scenario. The collapse of social order in Mexico will only serve the interests of the ruling class, who will survive the troubles in great comfort, and most likely pick up where they left off when it's over. The poor will remain poor and powerless. The middle class will harden and turn fascist. And the ruling classes will profit, as usual. There will be periods of exhileration, but the end will be just another flavor of tyranny. No structural changes will last other than changing seat assignments in the deck chairs on the Titanic. Excuse the cliché. It fits so well that I can't resist using it.

Democracy is not the perfect solution, because there are no perfect solutions. I think that a partial democracy is better than even benevolent despotism. I welcomed the arrival of democracy in Mexico, even though I admired the accomplishments of the PRI. There was a lot to admire in what Stalin accomplished, too, but in the end he was just another scummy Tsar. With the possible exception of Nicaragua, the Mexican Revolution is the only revolution that I can find in world history to have transferred power to its opposition -- the heirs of the losers, those who still hailed the war cry of the cristeros -- by means of democratic process.

Everything I read about Marcos and the Zapatistas and the Other Campaign turns me off. A lot of it actually disgusts me. I feel that it worked to the favor of the PAN and the detriment of López Obrador. It seemed like performance art revolution to me. I find Mexico's struggle to achieve democracy thrilling, however. I'm with my Mexican friends who want to make this all work. Patricia Mercado -- the presidential candidate I found most intelligent and practical of all -- today called on all candidates to respect the decions of the IFE and to begin dialog to construct agreements.

That's the side I'm on. I think you're on the side of anarchy. You've got a slick way of expressing yourself, and you've got all the political theory of class warfare down pat. But it's clear that you only pay lip service to democracy when it suits your current interest. You're on record as saying that the outcome of the election doesn't matter. So why would you care if one candidate or another won by fraud? It's all a fraud, as far as you're concerned. When it comes to voting and democracy, you're an opportunist. Your only interest seems to be to make sure that everyone knows that the election was a fraud. Well, other people, want to examine the evidence and correct the fraud, if that is possible, and to continue to work for the best version of democracy that Mexico can obtain without resort to violence. If we are bourgeois, so be it.

"Lo mejor de la democracia es que se puede hablar mal de ella." --Note found on the Cancun post office bulletin board about ten years ago.

jump to conclusions much?

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 10:09 pm by Dan Feder
I just did and your site filter must have blocked it, presumably because I used a number of vulgar and very insulting terms that were the verbal equivalent of kicking someone hard in groin and  again several times in the face when he/she/it collapsed to the floor, and then urinating on the semi-conscious victim.

Jules, there is no filter, no moderator, no user blocking, nothing like that going on here, automated or otherwise. As I have explained to you on more than one other occasion in which you have complained that a comment or notebook entry disappeared, co-publishers are free to post anything they want. The closest thing here is a function that stops anyone from posting more than four comments in ten minutes, as anything more than that is probably a mistake of some kind.

If the interface here is confusing or has a bug or something, I apologize… though honestly aside from yours we have had very few complaints of such problems.

"El que se enoja..."

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 10:56 pm by Al Giordano
Jules,

Of course I read all your fabulous insults. They weren't filtered. I just didn't feel offended by them. Was that their intent? You picked the wrong guy for that. Taking offense is always a decision on the part of he who chooses to feel offended. I often repeat the adage, "there can be no taking of offense among revolutionaries."

Of course I see the anger behind your words and I think of the very Mexican adage, "el que se enoja, pierde," or "he who gets mad, loses." Your comments cross over from riteous indignation (always interesting) to spleen-splitting (rarely interesting). But, hey, if I'm not making people angry I'm not doing my job.

Re, the special polling places: The great majority of them were not in vacation areas. Period. End of story. People do not typically vacation in Juarez or Hermosillo or Coatzcoalcos. The presumption that those in Mexico who travel outside their towns are only the comfortable can be disproved by a walk through any city every day: indigenous campesinos who left their farms (largely thanks to NAFTA) and are ambulant sellers on the streets of Mexico City or Puebla or stuck at the border in Tijuana and every other place. And, I repeat, there are tens of thousands of them just up the road from you, in work camps. They have electoral credentials from back home. They were denied their vote. Perhaps some who were denied their vote in Cancun or Veracruz or Acapulco were vacationers. But the great majority of special polling places were not in those kinds of places.

You're a very sensitive guy. It is part of what aids you as a journalist. But, sheesh, you are still smarting over private comments six years ago! That to me is an indication that you do not handle criticism well. And, based on your own words, you find this post-electoral dispute very stressful.

Take a walk. Stop and smell the roses. But shield your virgin eyes from any newsstand today, where the weekly Proceso cover has a photo of IFE chief Ugalde with the headline: "Arbitro Complice" ("Complicit Umpire") and the daily Por Esto headline in your part of the woods is "Inacceptable" ("Unacceptable") about the election fraud of 2006. Tomorrow, Wednesday, lots of very stressful truths will also begin filtering out. Oh, and you might also wish, as part of this stress reduction program, to avoid exposure to the text we just posted of Subcomandante Marcos' statements last night.

salud,

Al

Are you and Justin aware of the straw man?

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 8:50 am by Jules Siegel
Of course I read all your fabulous insults. They weren't filtered. I just didn't feel offended by them.

You didn't read them. They never made it to the list. If you had, you would have been offended, despite your disclaimer. I won't repeat them because I was relieved when I realized they hadn't gone up. When I insult people they feel it. My Mayan horoscope says, "This is one who knows how to hurt with words." It is a vice I struggle to control.

I once saw Bob Dylan ream out Phil Ochs in six or seven choice (and rotten) words raising welts the size of quarters that left Ochs scratching like a dog. I thoughtlessly used the incident in my Saturday Evening Post story, and felt very bad about it when Ochs committed suicide. Why did I have to contribute to this really good guy's misery for the sake of a great anecdote?

The single line "There but for fortune go you or I," was worth all of Dylan's songs together. Maybe that's why he hated Ochs so much.

The presumption that those in Mexico who travel outside their towns are only the comfortable can be disproved by a walk through any city every day:

That's the straw man. Kick him around. I never said anything like that. I said that a portion of the people who were denied the vote were business travelers and vacationers. To be fair, you have to include them in your analysis. You don't want to be fair. You want to prove your point by any means possible.

Perhaps some who were denied their vote in Cancun or Veracruz or Acapulco were vacationers. But the great majority of special polling places were not in those kinds of places.

People also vacation in non-vacation spots because they want to spend time with their families. People vacation in Tijuana. Did you know that? See my comments to Justin. If you have concrete figures, show them. Other than that, the issue is 100% speculation. It's significant only because the election is so close, and that is the fault of no one except Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who started out with an 80% favorability rating, a million people marching for him in Mexico City, and somehow wound up in a nose to nose with a pompous petty bureacrat who is a testimonial to the power of television over reality.

But, sheesh, you are still smarting over private comments six years ago!

I'm not smarting over them. I am pointing out that your style has not changed. You're addicted to the personal insult, especially attributing motives where they don't exist. Accusing me of cowardice or somehow being on the take is downright slimey. Actually, it's worthy of Karl Rove, who is famous for attacking his enemies for their strengths.

One of my greatest strengths as a commentator is that I do not allow any considerations other than my perception of truth to influence my work. I was the first liberal writer to call the Rather memos fake. I didn't want them to be fake, but they were. I knew that because I am a typographer and rather an expert one. I'm a beta tester for the Adobe OpenType font development program.

When Thomas Phinney, one of the world's leading typography experts showed me his findings, I had no choice but to agree, even though I had argued very convincingly earlier that memos could have been genuine. When the Washington Post asked me to explain his analysis to them, I did so. I also helped him put them in a form that was easier to understand at first glance. If I were a political operative rather than a journalist, I might have found a way to avoid that. I'm not saying this to show you how important I am, but to demontsrate my dedication to truth rather than political convenience.

The left and the right coincide in their rejection and suppression of scientific analysis and evidence that they find inconvenient. When it comes to voter fraud, you can't do that. You have to examine the actual votes, not preliminary reports and partisan speculation before you come to any conclusions. Your mind is made up. A major fraud took place. I say, could be.

Fortunately, the ballots and the actas are there and Mexico has a structural method for examining them and determining their validity in which all parties will participate. I'm waiting to see how that unfolds. Some people are already claiming that the process itself will be a fraud because the IFE is just a tool of the Fox administration.

Will they feel the same way if the results show López Obrador to have won? Calderón's margin is now down to 0.6%. There are 2.5 million votes yet to be counted. Meanwhile, I find it amusing that people who reject voting and disdain the democratic process are so concerned about the results. I won't speculate on your motives -- because I don't want you to flip out and hurt yourself.

Have a nice day, Internet viewers. What the hell, let's have a dreaded smiley here. :)

Is this true? AMLO says no rampant fraud.

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 9:08 am by Jules Siegel
Vote-by-Vote Recount Is Demanded in Mexico - New York Times

Mr. López Obrador and members of his Democratic Revolutionary Party say they do not believe that there was rampant fraud. But they added that they believed that there were enough errors and irregularities to throw the election their way.

At a tense news conference on Tuesday, party leaders said the vote for Mr. López Obrador was inaccurately reported at some polling places and that some polling places reported Mr. Calderón's vote twice.

Well, you and Marcos and Greg Palast know the real truth. They got to the candidate, I guess, proving that corruption in Mexico knows no limits. Or what?

Your turn.

Not sure why I'm jumping into this pissing match

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 12:07 pm by Sean Donahue
Jules, I don't really understand why you decided to turn a debate about electoral fraud into a debate about Al's integrity, but now that that shift has happened, I feel compelled to respond to several of the things you said:

"I'm not writing things out of resentment at the creepiness of your weepy invitation to call on you for help at any time when you were mourning Gary Webb combined with the absolute lack of response when I did. I'm just pointing it as an example of your smarmy hypocrisy."

In the aftermath of Gary Webb's death, Al reached out to a lot of other journalists who he knew were overwhelmed with despair.  After reading the comments I had posted in the discussion's of Gary's death Al got in touch with me to make sure I was ok and offer some help and support.

Jules, I don't know you or the details of what went on with you and Al regarding his promise to promote your books or anything about what was going on in your life at the time.  But, frankly, I find it a bit creepy to impugn the sincerity of the words he wrote while mourning the death of a close friend.

I actually work for a living in what passes for the real world and I do not ask for or get any financial support for my political writing. The only financial grants I've ever received were for a total of $1,000 from a foundation devoted to emergency aid to indigent authors when I was crippled in 1974-75 and my only other income was the California welfare system. I don't use my website to beg for donations (although I did issue an urgent appeal when we were wiped out by Hurricane Wilma). I sell my work and my services. I am not a political operative. I am a totally independent journalist.

If you want to suck on the foundation titty, and troll for handouts from well-wishers, that's your choice,

I'm glad you've been able to find people willing to pay for your work and your services.  But I find your suggestion that working to track down and pitch donors and working through the endless red tape involved in writing grant proposals somewhat insulting.  Any one who has ever done serious fundraising knows that its not about just holding out your cup and waiting for it to fill with donations.  I don't see how selling services and products in a commercial market is any more or less respectable than working to find people willing to pay to ensure that those services and products will be available to anyone.

That's the side I'm on. I think you're on the side of anarchy. You've got a slick way of expressing yourself, and you've got all the political theory of class warfare down pat. But it's clear that you only pay lip service to democracy when it suits your current interest. You're on record as saying that the outcome of the election doesn't matter. So why would you care if one candidate or another won by fraud? It's all a fraud, as far as you're concerned. When it comes to voting and democracy, you're an opportunist. Your only interest seems to be to make sure that everyone knows that the election was a fraud.

I have no idea whether Al considers himself an anarchist or not, but as an anarchist let me say this: anarchism isn't about promoting chaos, it's about opposing hierarchy.  It makes complete sense for an anarchist to question the ways in which those who hold power use electoral fraud to hold onto power while simultaneously believing that real justice will never come through the ballot box.  I also think its possible to believe that electoral politics will never be sufficient to bring change, but to believe strongly in the right of people who choose to vote to have their votes counted . .  . and to believe that while the reforms a man of questionale politics like AMLO might bring won't address the roots of the major problems facing Mexico's poor, that the poor will be better off with AMLO than they would be with Calderon.  Taking a complex or nuanced position isn't necessarily opportunistic.

--

He questioned my integrity.

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 5:31 pm by Jules Siegel
Read the whole thing. If you don't understand what happened here I can't help you, because it's quite obvious. The guy insulted me, attributed personal motives to my opinions and generally shit on me. I responded in kind.

Taking a complex or nuanced position isn't necessarily opportunistic.

His position isn't nuanced or complex. It's really simple. His language is nuanced and complex at times. AMLO is a fundamentally decent public servant who deserves a lot of respect and support. He's the best hope Mexico has had in many years.

That's all I'm going to say about it.

IFE--myth vs reality

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 12:26 pm by Gary Hughes
This is one of the more informative sources on the web, and I want to commend Al for the PREF results piece...questions about the null votes are critical, and there do seem to be many inconsistencies between prep numbers and ACTAS.

Yeah, everyone wants to Believe in IFE, like a kind of pie in the sky of democracy.  From being in Mexico through the majority of the campaign it would be hard for me to say that the IFE has acted with total impartiality through the campaign.  Weakkneed and without any capacity for "fiscalización," the IFE has been far from exemplary, though everyone wishes that it was otherwise, to the point that the myth is starting to overwhelm reality.

I think in the long run the actual vote counting by IFE will probably be pretty accurate.  But whos votes get counted (i.e. nullified votes) and Who Actually Got to Cast a Vote are very important issues that have to be addressed to give the election any legitimacy.

The Casillas Especiales have proven to be a disaster and if this is not a grave irregularity, than eveyone is just swimming in their IFE pipe dream.

As an aside, Jules wrote:

"Until then, it's just a close election with the very understandable claims of fraud and irregularities by the loser."

What I don't understand is that if the election is too close to call why are you telling us already that there is a loser? And if the claims of irregularities are understandable why don't you stand up and demand that the voting be reviewed completely?

I think los PANistas wanted AMLO to concede last night because there is a chance that he actually has more votes, once all the votes get counted...and in this instance IFE has done a credible job of waiting to count the votes before making any pronouncements.

So count the votes, and make sure they count them well...

I don't recall saying there was a loser yet

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 2:18 pm by Jules Siegel
And if I gave that impression, I'm sorry. There is no winner. The results are still unofficial. A one per cent margin is statistically insignificant. At least three million disputed ballots remain to be reviewed. López Obrador may yet win on a recount.

why don't you stand up and demand that the voting be reviewed completely/

Because López Obrador is already doing that. I'm not a political operative or propagandist. I am a journalist, a very opinionated journalist, but dedicated to truth in what I write, not political action. I'm also not a Mexican citizen and I am forbidden by law to interfere in the Mexican political process. I take that very seriously.

I just got off the phone with Justo May Correa, a local journalist with a reputation for extreme skepticism when it comes official information, who is the correspondent for El Universal. His webpage is here.

He said that at the moment we have no choice except to trust in the strength of Mexican electoral institutions. He vehemently discarded any speculation about fraud perpetrated at the level of Instituto Federal Electoral. He said that the members of this commission are not political appointees, but were chosen by representatives of all parties, and that he felt that they were above suspicion until proven otherwise.

He did not think that the country was in crisis and he laughed when I mentioned chaos. He said that the vote would be thoroughly reviewed, and that people should pay attention to that process and do their best to make sure it's honest.

I want to reiterate the fact that Justo is not an establishment guy in any way at all. I did not get the feeling that he favored the PAN. So this is a Mexican journalist and he is telling me the same thing that I am telling people here. Calm down and wait for the process to unfold fully.

Let me continue a bit

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 10:46 pm by Jules Siegel
The second part of your rant has nothing to do with anything I have reported: it is an argument you are having perhaps with somebody else or maybe with yourself (what Andrea Dworkin says about "blaming and shaming the oppressed" has absolutely no reference nor relevance to anything about the current Mexican electoral and credibility crisis, certainly to nothing I have reported or said, it is a sideshow inserted into your comments, and a sign of the paucity of your argument that you  pull it out of thin air to unfairly imply that I've blamed or shamed the oppressed for anything. Unable to counter the factual bases of my reporting, you've simply invented a fantasy accusation of my beliefs. I expect better from you.)

Leaving aside the "factual basis" of your reporting, which I keep searching for without much success, the point of the Andrea Dworkin quote is that chaos favors the right. That's why they are always fomenting it when they can't get their way. I'm sure that López Obrador's decision to go to court rather than the streets gives Bush & Co. a bit of a chill. They are so fucking dumb that they probably fantasize about a gunboat diplomacy intervention that will enable them to turn Calderón into an absolute rather than nominal puppet.

Thus, I think you help Bush & Co. by contributing to an atmosphere of crisis that calls into question the basic social stability that most people in Mexico want. Here your very astute observation that "more than 64 percent of Mexicans that voted chose the 'old fashioned' paths" confirms what I'm saying, although the figure is a bit off. Fifty-seven percent voted for the PRI and the PRD (linked only by their old fashioned marketing approach), but 58% voted for the PAN and the PRI, both socially and economically conservative and pro-business and pro-institutional government.

Mexico did not vote for drastic change. A little more than a third of the country voted for López-Obrador's proposals. The PRI and the PAN are more like each other than they are like the PRD. The PRI now holds the balance of power. The country may choose either AMLO or Calderón as president, but the PRI will decide which policies will prevail in the legislature, confirming the shift of power from a country run exclusively by the executive branch to one run by a coalition of executive and legislative power.

In the context of the archived record...

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 11:27 pm by Al Giordano
Jules,

Two quick points...

1. On April 30th of this year, you wrote:

"...if López Obrador runs and wins big, the remmnants of the PRI will probably be absorbed into the PRD, and we will be back where we started in 1987 when Cardenas and his followers were ejected -- only now the rightful heirs of the PRI and the Mexican revolution will be running the show."

Today you tell us that the PRI is really more like the PAN. Last year you told us it was more in tune with the PRD. Two very opposite statements. I sometimes get the sense that you'll just say any old thing in the context of a debate or discussion.

2. On July 6 of last year, in a post titled "About that computer fraud" you seemed to doubt that the 1988 election in Mexico had been stolen. I answered you with hard facts. You chose not to respond to them. So I will ask it aloud: We can see you don't think this year's Mexican presidential election was fraudulent. Do you believe that the one in 1988 was? Or is there a related axe you are grinding regarding your disbelief in election fraud in general?

I can show you other examples of this same script in the past, when you have questioned my claims and I have gone to significant effort to provide you the facts. But I'm wondering now if you're just jerking my chain... taking my time away from the investigation while you malign the factual basis of my investigations.

What is really at stake for you in this argument?

My cards are all on the table. The record here shows that I have not been partial to Lopez Obrador's presidential campaign (or any other), but that I opposed his desafuero and I oppose the fraud that occured this week.

Anyway, I have given you hard facts in my "PREF report" to chew on. As I always have. But if you are just foolin' around, I really would rather be preparing my full report - which are always chock-full with factual bases - than debating for debate's sake.

Al

I think the 1988 "fraud" is debatable

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 8:33 am by Jules Siegel
I've stated my reasons for it. You've stated why you  disagree. I don't see any reason to go over it again.

The present election has not yet fully played out yet. I'm against over-heated reactions by ignorant people like Greg Palast. You, on the other hand, are very well-informed, but I object to your linking inflammatory terms such as chaos and crisis when that's not what happening -- yet.

Keep it in perspective, Al. I've been living here continuously since 1981. I know the meaning of crisis in Mexico, believe me. This, by comparison to what we've been through in those 25 years, is a bit of turbulence.

I'm pulling for an effective legal resolution that settles all reasonable doubts. I'm against anything that would fan the flames and prevent that from happening.

Getting back to the beginning of the thread, calm down. Write your report. Be a journalist, not a rabble-rouser, and let your findings speak for themself. I mention you with great respect and affection on DailyKos today. Don't let me down. I'd given up posting there because the atmosphere is so nasty, but I made an exception to try to make sure that people like you, who know what is going on, receive a full hearing, even if I disagree with you on the details and your tone.

About the PRI

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 2:40 pm by Jules Siegel
I responded to this briefly in a comment up-thread. My original observation was based on a big win by López Obrador. The current situation is completely different.

I never said that the PRI was in tune with the PRD. I just felt that they had no place else to go. They were then in the middle of bruising internal warfare. Policy positions were not yet prominent. Now that the campaign has played out, I see that they look a lot more like the PAN than the PRD. That's called responding to facts and changing opinions.

When I see evidence of widespread fraud sufficient to have changed the results, I'll form an opinion. Meanwhile, I see lots of conjecture, hearsay and speculative interpretation.

Re: Let me continue a bit

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 12:33 am by Justin Delacour
...the point of the Andrea Dworkin quote is that chaos favors the right. That's why they are always fomenting it when they can't get their way.

I don't see the relevance, Jules.  If Calderón "wins," the right will have gotten its way.  The right does seek chaos when it doesn't get its way (as in Venezuela), but that's not what's at issue here.  

The right will always prefer mass docility --as opposed to chaos-- when it's in the position of power.

I'm sure that López Obrador's decision to go to court rather than the streets gives Bush & Co. a bit of a chill. They are so fucking dumb that they probably fantasize about a gunboat diplomacy intervention that will enable them to turn Calderón into an absolute rather than nominal puppet.

No, gunboat intervention is not in the cards here (nor would it be in the cards if Lopez Obrador and his supporters were to take to the streets).  It makes little sense for you to accuse others of "conspiracy theories" and then to proffer outlandish scenarios such as the one above.  

Possible U. S. intervention was widely discussed..

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 2:25 pm by Jules Siegel
...in Mexican media several months ago, including the report that a special commission had been sent here by the United States to explore what to do if López Obrador lost by a small margin and took it to the streets.

I think that any protests tending toward violence would be seized upon by provocateurs and inflamed with the intent of making López Obrador look like a dangerous radical with armed revolutionary tendencies who had to be gotten under control by force.

That's not conspiracy theory. That's just the way they do things.

The landscape is still rolling out

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 2:14 am by Bill Conroy
I've been reading the exchange between Al and Jules.

You both have great writing and debating skills. But I believe  waiting for the toll of democracy through any election is all so much window dressing, ultimately.

The facts (available in the media) can be interpreted many ways at this point, and only those on the ground there really have an edge in making the right prediction.

But I find the debate interesting, if only for the fact that I had the same discussion with a friend of mine in Chicago recently. At the time, I came down on the crisis side, based on everything I've read and seen along the border.

But my friend made a good point, it seems to me. He opined that revolution is a lot of hard work, and most people, not all, but most, will look for the path of least resistance. He also argued that absent a big spark, the system as it is, would likely prevail, and the revolutionary forces would continue to build steam under the lid of that system.

My friend seemed to think the spark would be a victory, a close victory that is perceived to be corrupt, even if it is not, by Calderon. A Lopez victory, by contrast, he seemed to think would have more of a calming effect on any revolutionary impulse now percolating among the masses.

So I would weigh in by saying, based on that analysis (and not pretending that it is particularly profound), that, in the final political analysis, it doesn't matter if the Mexican election results were corrupt (though it does in terms of justice); what will matter in terms of the political reality is what people perceive the results to be, and to what point they have been pushed in their personal lives to engage in the hard work of rebuilding a state (or other structure) through revolution.

Another point made by my friend was that many people who may want radical change face the reality of having to work incrementally, day-to-day, within the existing system to achieve progress, and due to personal issues (family, possessions, short lifespans) are not yet convinced a more radical, revolutionary route can succeed -- and also see the price of a failure on that front as being too high.

So, until the possibility of progress within the system is denied them completely, until they believe it is no longer a possibility, those people are likely not to weigh in on the side of the risk of revolution –- though other forces might well propel them to that experience, such as a mass rising of other people who have been forced to the point of no return.

So, from where I sit (which, admittedly, has a highly obstructed view), if Calderon comes out on top in the election (through fraud or not), a match has been struck. What will matter then is how much gasoline has been spread over the ground.

But for now, the pendulum that might light that match is still swinging over the landscape, and its final position will be determined by the gravity of the next moment, and the next.... And that seems to scare a lot of people even while it excites others.

I, for one, am reading every word NN writes on the subject as soon as I can for that very reason, and I find the honest, if at times heated, debate helpful in illuminating the shadow of the bell that will soon toll over this crossroads in Mexico's history. But then it's easy for me to take it all in as a distant reader in a foreign land; ultimately, the future of Mexico, in the next days and weeks, it seems to me, is being played out on a landscape that is still being rolled out.

My two bits.  I offer them with great humility and the realization that I'm far removed from the ground, where the pendulum now swings.

Crisis? This crisis

Submitted July 4, 2006 - 2:36 pm by Bill Conroy
The following is the lead in to the banner story in this morning's San Antonio Express-News -- from the paper's Mexico Bureau:

MEXICO CITY -- Uncertainty hung thick over the nation Monday as Mexicans pondered the impending showdown between two men who each claim to be the president elect.

"Nation divided," read the front-page headline for one newspaper. "Overtime," said another.

Soldiers guarded the ballots and mass protests, work stoppages or other civil disobediance seemed ever more likely.

A hand-scrawled banner draped from a highway overpass near the Federal Electoral Institute mocked the results. Party militants spoke of organizing and taking to the streets.

A sidebar to the above story begins as follows:

Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador accused the Federal Electoral Insitutute of manipulating the preliminary vote tally.

This is reporting in a mainstream U.S. newspaper, far from the so-called "radical rabble-rousing fringe."

Clearly, what is being described above is a crisis.

Al's headline "Mexican Election Authorities With No Result to Declare Bring on a Crisis" from his July 3 post appears to be precisely on the mark, ahead of the mark, in fact, given today's report in the Express-News.

Again, the public's perception -- whether it turns out to be based in fact -- is the political reality.

From Al's July 3 story:

The whole world will be watching. The system - which for all its harping about how wonderful and clean Mexico's elections would be - couldn't come up with a result tonight. Long-simmering pain, rage and distrust over the unfair game run on the populace by that system is about to boil over.

Read from the perspective of time passed, that passage seems now to be prophetic. But for those who practice authentic journalism, it is simply a sign that someone has done their homework on the ground and has his finger on the pulse of the moment.

What it tells me as a reader is that the match seems close to being struck, and Al's report is ahead of the pack (certainly the Express-News) in informing us of that reality.

This is no time to shoot the messenger.

crisis? - depends on who you are...

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 12:01 pm by Peter Carlin

“Mexico is a time bomb,” said Sergio Ernesto Josue, a 65-year-old former chauffeur. “All these people have made their fortunes off this country. Mexico has the natural resources, but they’ve been very poorly distributed. Those on top have set a bad example for what this country could be.”
 ...

But for many, (such) gains remain elusive. Along the palm-lined streets of Las Lomas, maids clean million-dollar homes, then return in rickety buses to cement hovels on the capital’s outskirts. Their bosses strap on diamonds to shop for clothes at the mall while bodyguards drive their children to private schools in armored cars.

from: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/worl d/14966632.htm

crisis? ....depends....

Submitted July 5, 2006 - 12:06 pm by Peter Carlin
Guadalupe Espina, a soft-spoken homemaker, leaned against a green Cadillac, watching one person after another put up signs.

"This is going to get bad," she said. "There were so many people at his last rally. There were so many people when he campaigned in the little towns. How could he have lost?"

Espina, 46, is a prototypical López Obrador voter, an out-of-work, lifelong resident of Mexico City, where López Obrador was mayor from 2000 until 2005. In a calm voice barely above a whisper, she said, "There could be violence.

"And if there is, I'll be there, I'll get involved."  ...

"This is all a bad joke on the country," said Amsy Legaspi, a 23-year-old college student majoring in communication, as she lingered outside López Obrador's apartment building.

A few steps away, a sign outside the candidate's apartment, written by some unknown, impassioned hand, summed up her feelings: "If it's necessary, we'll revolt."

from:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/07/04/AR2006070400966.html