Rabasa Follows Up

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Emilio Rabasa's forthcoming column diagnosing the defects of the Mexican left. That column has now come forth:

The party of the Aztec sun must decide if it is willing to participate in democracy under democratic rules or, looking backwards, sustaining that the democracy is nothing more than the instrument of the bourgeoisie to preserve their power, and an obstacle to redeem the country from its social ills, which are necessary do away with, as is the case with Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

Preserving the dualism of legality-illegality simply damages the image of the PRD before an electorate which it originally seduced with its struggle for democracy and the democracy for which if fought, when its most progressive wings split from a PRI stubbornly worried with preserving its authoritarianism against the current democratic globalization evident in the world since the '70s. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is, without a doubt, one of the architects of the democratization of Mexico.

The deconstruction concluded, the PRD will need to initiate the construction of a new profoundly democratic political edifice that recognizes the market as its economic habitat, but not so as to accept and embrace its savagery, but rather to contain and channel its torrent of calamities, avoiding its overflow that would flood a shamefully unequal society like that which we have.

The points about accepting the market and making full-throated commitment to democracy seem painfully obvious to me, but it remains a very real obstacle. That's why AMLO is on the cover of today's El Universal talking about building a network of 15 million supporters for the 2012 election (which would be darn close to a winning margin) with the full support of the Mexico City government.

Anticipating Obama's Arrival

Francisco Valdés looks ahead to Obama's visit:

[T]he decisive issue will be if presidents Calderón and Obama manage to create an agenda that sets the framework for a new pan-Americanism based on conditions of equity and justice. There's no better option for combating the grave problems that punish all the of the countries on the continent and that range from multinational crime to the lacerating economic and social shortfalls. If this is delivered, we could be attending the birth of a new type of multilateralism for the American continent.

This is a little too unspecific and optimistic. Valdés doesn't mention exactly what the framework for a new pan-Americanism would consist of (aside from Obama being more friendly with leftist leaders in El Salvador, Brazil, Chile, et cetera), and it's easy to imagine a scenario wherein some grand mechanism for pan-Americanism is announced with great fanfare but eventually turns out to be ineffective. I'm not saying that Obama is incapable of fostering a new era of Western Hemisphere relations, but we can't conclude that he is or is not succeeding based only the visit to Mexico. 

I also think that expecting every visit from Obama to usher in a new era is setting the bar impossibly high. He's not going to be able to wipe away all the realities and traditions dictating relations in the Americas in one fell swoop, and thinking that he might is a recipe for disappointment. 

Explanation

There has been no blogging today. The photo to the left is why. I live with a woman who likes to pick at single slices of bread, and then leave them behind in the state pictured. I went downstairs earlier this morning, after having dreamed --and I don't mean that figuratively-- of a ham-and-egg sandwich on rye, with lots of chipotle salsa. I knew from the previous evening that two slices were left in the bag. But when I opened the bag, the very slice that we have here was staring back at me, laughing at me through its hideous hole. There would be no sandwich. Devastated, I lacked the strength to blog, but I will make up for it tomorrow.

Good night. 

Give Them More

Via the Plank, I see that Nancy Pelosi is calling on Obama to restore the money cut from this year's transfer to Mexico under the Mérida Initiative. But since it was the Senate that cut the money over the preference of the White House, I'm not quite sure exactly why Obama is the focus of the calls for more cash, instead of the Senate. 

I sometimes feel petty when I point stuff like this out about the prose of someone whose writing ability I am not paid to grade, but then usually that feeling passes quickly. Examine the oddness of this sentence:

Violence reached new levels last month when the mayor of Juarez, a Mexican city with 1.6 million people that serves as a major transit point for drug smugglers, moved his family to El Paso, Texas, after receiving threats against his and their lives.

If you are aiming to support the hypothesis that "violence reached new levels," shouldn't you follow that with, you know, an actual act of violence? That's like writing, "We've never seen LeBron play a better game, as Anderson Varejao scored 38 points."

Metastasizing

According to the consultancy Risk Evaluation, Mexican drug gangs operate in 42 countries.

Garza Resurfaces

Via Excélsior, I see that Tony Garza is launching a consulting firm. From his new website:

Mr. Garza is well positioned to provide strategic advice, advocacy and direct assistance to U.S. and Mexican businesses looking to expand their presence in the regional marketplace. He is uniquely positioned to assist corporate and other interests navigating the complex economic, cultural, and political environments in both the United States and Mexico.

Bouncing Back

Last weekend was simply devastating, an awful weekend for my fight picks. It was probably a well timed humbling experience, as I was considering resigning from my job and making my living on high-stakes boxing wagers. Now I know better. But even though it's destined to remain only a hobby, I am determined never to incorrectly predict four fights the same night again. The road back begins today.

Vitali Klitschko will stomp all over Juan Carlos Gómez, scoring a knockout before the sixth. Roy Jones will snag a boring decision win over Omar Sheika in a fight that may have been interesting had it happened eight years ago. In lesser fights, Edison Miranda is going to blow right through Joey Vegas in London in a battle of truly great boxing names, and Fernando Beltrán should take the decision over Miguel Román in a good scrap between Mexican featherweights on Friday Night Fights.

Gancho boxing is (a quite middling) 14-8 on the year.

The New Economic Nationalism Clashes with the Old

Some in Mexico are up in arms about the US government's ownership of 36 percent of Citigroup, which is the parent company of Banamex. The problem is that Mexican law prohibits foreign government participation in a Mexican banking institution. The Finance Secretariat released a statement saying that the government's takeover of the Citigroup shares doesn't represent a "deliberate intention to participate in the banking industry and much less to intervene in the Mexican financial system." I expect that despite (or because of) this finding, the complaints will continue for a couple of days, with some of the more extreme and out-of-date commentaries painting Calderón as a lapdog of empire (this was one of the issues that provoked Gamboa to tell Calderón to be a man) before quietly dying away.

The arguments against Citigroup and Calderón are flawed. First of all, it's unclear what the recourse would be were the government to find that the US shares of Citigroup were in violation of Mexican law. Would they force Citigroup to sell off Banamex? That seems extreme, but how else could they enforce it? Second, a strict intepretation of the prohibition is a bad fit for the financial reality of the crisis and post-crisis era. Governments are going to have a much more direct role in financial institutions for the indefinite future. If the worry is that foreign governments will use the banks to harm Mexican interests (which seems like an antiquated worry; it's unclear why the governments would be more likely to do so than the banks operating without government involvement), then Mexico would be much better off keeping an eye on the governments with an ownership stake in the many foreign banks operating on national soil rather than trying to impose a prohibition on them.

More Detail on the History of the Mexican Truck Dispute Than I Am Capable of Offering

Click here for Noel Maurer's rundown. Here's his conclusion:

Now one of three things will happen. (1) the Obama administration will conduct a simultaneous negotiation with Mexico and Congress and the program will eventually be restarted, in all its half-assed lack of glory; (2) the Obama administration will subtly and quietly call the Mexicans bluff, betting that the Calderón administration really doesn't want to risk losing NAFTA; or (3) the U.S. takes Mexico to Chapter 20 arbitration, in order to stall for time. What won't happen is a tit-for-tat unravelling of free trade.

I bet on number (1). Senator Dorgan won't want to hold up the Administration's other goals ... except maybe, you know, agricultural subsidies ... only if the Mexicans are smart, they'll sucker-punch North Dakota. In 2008, the state exported $199 million to Mexico, of which $103 million was agricultural. I can't dig much further, but the Mexican government can, right here. Hint: follow the potatoes.

Still, even if Mexico can't target North Dakota, for its own reasons, I don't think this augurs a trade war. Or even a trade skirmish. The U.S. is being ridiculous and has been since the Bush administration lost its nerve in 2004, but NAFTA safeguards will keep this from escalating ... as long as both countries act in goodwill. Which shows every sign of being the case.

Anger

The PAN and the PRI have had on ongoing set-to the past couple of days. I'm not going to try to go at this chronologically, but here some of the salient episodes: Germán Martínez said that the PRI has connections with the drug violence in Juárez, and asked whose side the PRI was on in the battle with organized crime. Beatriz Paredes responded that under PAN leadership for the last two presidential terms, organized crime has grown precipitously. Previously, Martínez had also said that had Mexico had in place an asset seizure law whose passage is presently being delayed by the PRI in congress, el Chapo Guzmán never would have appeared in Forbes. Martínez added for good measure that the PRI was behaving like a pack of "legislative turtles." Manlio Fabio Beltrones told Felipe Calderón to essentially "be a man" (que se faje los pantalones in Spanish; not a great translation, can anyone think of a better one?) in dealing with a handful of issues. Fernando Gómez-Mont demanded respect for the president in response.

All of this is entertaining enough, but Martínez went over the line in connecting the PRI with Juárez. Mexico's political culture is poisoned by the idea that everyone is a crook, and Martínez contributed to that by tarring the entire party when, even if his accusations are correct, the issue is certainly limited individual members of the party. Failing to back up broad accusations with specifics makes it easier for everyone else to do the same, which creates a far more hostile atmosphere (and ultimately makes passing laws a lot harder). When there actually is a need to point the finger at a dirty politician, with so many unsubstantiated accusations swirling, it's a lot easier to blow off any charge as political mud-slinging. I imagine that the DEA isn't thrilled about him using their information for political purposes as well.

Scot-Free

A state judge dismissed the case against the Arizona gun dealer charged with supplying the Beltrán Leyva gang with several hundred automatic weapons. This suggests that it's not merely a lack of manpower, but a lack of legal restrictions that make policing the gun trade so difficult to restrict. Or put more simply, running an arms bazaar in the US is legal.

Obama on Immigration

I meant to get to this earlier today, but I had neither the time nor anything particularly insightful to say, so allow me just to mark the moment: Obama says immigration will happen this year. 

Call for Debate

Alberto Aziz Nassif had a thought-provoking column two days ago:

The last several months has borne witness to an odd exchange about security and organized crime between Mexico and the United States. The neighbors to the north launched critical or simply catastrophic affirmations against our nation, and here national discussions are unleashed. The source can be an official or a magazine, but the internal effect is completely disproportional.

[Break]

It's a secret to no one that all of the force of the Mexican state isn't sufficient to win the battle against organized crime; maybe because that forced is plagued by holes, complicities, and turncoats. The strategy of confrontation, the punitive path that Calderón's government has followed, hasn't been the most successful and, of course, it's not the only. There are diverse opinions that point toward other paths: the energy and resources must be invested in attending to other portions of the problem, not everything should be about confronting the gunmen and watching how the sum of the dead grows. It is urgent that we recognize that a war was started --for the government to legitimize itself-- with having all the instruments and capacities, because not everything can be resolved with military operations. But it's necessary to debate the topics, not only to settle the most suitable security policy and strategies to carry out.

[Break]

[T]he "war" on drugs with the present punitive focus is lost; that's why we must look for a new paradigm that would have the following ingredients: a wide and informed discussion is necessary; drug consumption must be treated as a public health problem (transforming delinquent purchasing addicts into patients); innovative information campaigns, oriented above all toward the young; channeling the repressive strategies and focusing public security on a system of intelligence; reorienting the strategies of repression of the cultivation of illegal drugs.

Staying as we are, with a failed strategy and a powerful partner who doesn't listen to us, is not a solution. It is urgent that we revise the strategies that aren't giving us results, looking at other forms of confronting the problem, as they have done in Europe. It's necessary to take up the problem once more and open the debate.

There's a lot here I don't agree with: the innovative information campaign sounds a lot like the "this is your brain on drugs"-style silliness everyone who grow up in or after the 1980s had to suffer through; the Europe comparisons are of limited use, because Mexico's biggest problem isn't consumption (although that is becoming more worrying) but organized crime; and the idea of an alternative strategy sounds appealing in the abstract when critiquing Calderón's performance, but as far as dealing with the criminal gangs right now, the only truly alternative strategy would be to call off the dogs and let the gangs operate unmolested in some spaces in exchange for a lessening of the violence. That may be an acceptable tradeoff for lots of Mexicans, but it shouldn't be confused with actually addressing the gangs. And it should also be remembered that exactly that sort of Faustian bargain is just what led to the growth of Mexico's gangs over the course of the past three decades. I don't think anyone would deny Mexico should develop its intelligence apparatus as much as possible, and I certainly agree that treating addiction as a public health issue rather than a crime is more humane and effective (and will reduce future headaches for Mexico as addiction rates rise), but in regard to Chapo Guzmán, the Zetas, et cetera, such moves are not strategic changes, they are tactical adjustments.

Nonetheless, I agree with the general thrust of the column that instead of using the criticisms (which, at least from government officials, have been rather measured and respectful) from the United States to whip itself into a nationalist furor, Mexico should instead take it as an occasion for a bit of introspection.

Progress

The PSD will run a gay candidate named Miguel Antonio Galán in the Guadalajara mayoral race. He has little chance of winning, but bully for the PSD. I wonder if the day when we see a homosexual major party candidate (it would have to be the PRD) is far behind.

I hope you won't think it overly adolescent of me to point out the comedy that is his last name. Galán, which is not a common surname in Mexico, is a mildly sexualized word that could be translated as "hunk" or "hunky."

Arrest

Sinaloa boss Ismael Zambada's son Vicente was arrested in Mexico City yesterday with five bodyguards. Here's the AP report, which wrongly asserts that Ismael was arrested last year in Mexico City. Ismael is still on the loose; it was his brother who was arrested in October 2008. So it's not just Mexican news agencies that mix up facts about US affairs; the lack of accuracy runs both ways. I'll never believe anything else I read in a newspaper.

Revolving Door

Given what I said yesterday, this seemed appropriate: Pemex chief Jesús Reyes Heroles recently awarded a contract for maintainance of oil pipelines to the American company Mexssub, for whom he had lobbied as recently as 2005. In his capacity as a lobbyist, he had unsuccessfully tried to land Mexssub the very same contract that he ended up approving as director of the company/governmental agency.

Indios

The New York Times' sports page finds a new angle with which to cover Juárez: its football team, the Indios. I remember seeing them play a couple of times last summer, right after they made the jump from the second division. At that point, they looked just terrible, like an out of sorts high school team, but they've adjusted nicely.

As long we're on the Mexican league for the first time in a while, I'd like to make a couple of other comments: it'll be kind of a shame if Necaxa finds its way out of the first division, which is the most likely result of the descenso at this point. I'll miss hearing the PA guy at their home games saying "Aguascalientes" in that inimicable, sing-song style. It's as catchy as the "Go Pack Go!" chant from Lambeau, but without the subliminal messages encouraging suicide.

Also, check out the Santos-Atlante highlights from last night's ConcaChampions semis. The last goal, a deep chip from Darwin Quintero at about 3:20, was sweet. Oswaldo was standing on his head, especially with the save at about 2:04 of the video. I've been down on him as the national team goalie, and I still think Ochoa is a better choice, but he had some brilliant moments yesterday. Even if Santos is giving away their spot in the liguilla, the squad looks like a good bet to win this tourney, which is some consolation.

Blaming Corruption

According to a poll on the front page of today's El Universal, 47 percent of Mexicans said that corruption is the principal problem facing Mexico's oil industry. Twelve percent said lack of resources for exploration (which I interpret to mean lack of cash for deep-water wells, rather than lack of exploitable oil fields) is the biggest issue, while 11 percent said that it's bureaucracy, and another 4 percent said it was because of Pemex's excessive tax burden. There are and have always been a wide range of issues limiting Pemex, including all of those mentioned in the poll. But without ignoring the impact of corruption and the rest, isn't the basic issue now more than anything that Mexico has no oil? If you reduced the tax burden to zero and banished corruption at Pemex, would the short-term challenges of Pemex be any different?

That leads me to the following question, which isn't rhetorical: historically, has corruption been more of a problem at Pemex than mismanagement? My understanding of Pemex is pretty superficial, but from what I've read, it seems like the company has basically functioned in the past thirty years as it was set up to function, which is to say, it was sucked dry.

Not True

Winky Wright, in a recent Ring Magazine article:

Wright himself last year noted the belief that African-Americans have “different styles” from the “face-first” opponents most fight fans and journalists tend to embrace.

“Boxing is supposed to be an art,” he said. “Black fighters, we’ve got style. We’ve got pizzazz.”

Boxing's ethnic or racial stereotypes are usually overstated, and this one is no exception. Hopkins, Mayweather, Wright--sure, they all fit the mold of the type of fighter Wright is talking about, but that doesn't mean that all African-Americans fight like that. It's been an accident of chance that the best African-American fighters of this generation were mostly (but certainly not entirely) safety-first movers, but beyond the three I mentioned above, there are plenty of fan-friendly black fighters who've been at the top of the game over the past decade: Jermain Taylor, Jeff Lacy, Zab Judah, and especially Shane Mosley come to mind. A generation ago, all of the best African-American fighters with the exception of Leonard (Hearns, Hagler, and of course Tyson) were bangers. Even Leonard would go to war when need be. And among today's young black fighters, perhaps the one with the greatest upside is James Kirkland, who fights like a southpaw mini-Tyson.

Then again, I got five out seven fights wrong last weekend, so don't listen to me.

Mexico in Congress

In a hearing for the Armed Services committee in the House, Air Force General Victor Renuart said that Mexico isn't a failed state, but rather a "vibrant and active" democracy.

Here, you can see testimony from the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs (click on the real player icon. Thanks Mexico Institute.) Denisse Dresser testified toward the end, but I couldn't sit through the two hours waiting for her. Being a senator must be extremely boring. I'm interested in Mexico, and just 20 minutes of the Mexico hearing tried my patience. Imagine sitting through stuff like this about topics you have no interest in, and where your opportunity to affect policy is really quite limited, day after day after day. Ugh.

Criticizing Obama on Trade

At New Majority, John Gardner runs down the emerging trade dispute between Mexico and the US that I mentioned yesterday:

If the higher tariffs go into effect, first blame should be on the Congressional Democrats who made this happen by killing the pilot program for Mexican trucks. These trucks and the companies that own them have to be certified by American regulators, so they must meet U.S. safety standards. This is not about safety. This is protectionism, pure and simple.

And it’s protectionism of the worst kind. We are over nine years behind on our commitment to open our roads to certified Mexican trucking companies. The Clinton Administration refused to take action. The Bush Administration did what it could in the face of Congressional opposition, starting the pilot program.

I think he's on the right side of this, but it's a bit rich to throw all the blame on the Democrats. After all, this was an issue before the pre-2006 congress, too, and Republican leaders, chastened by the anti-Mexico populist wing of their party, did nothing to get a permanent right of passage for Mexican trucks approved, and he washes that away as Bush Administration doing what it could. I also think it's a bit early to conclude that Obama blew it. I'd be willing to bet that in a year there will be some sort of compromise in place whereby Mexican trucks are rolling through the States and tariffs on American goods are back to their normal levels.

Also, this is trivial, but the finale is kind of bizarre:

Clear leadership, Mr. President. And Vice President Biden and Secretary Clinton have a responsibility to tell him this.

We kind of know what he means, but the two sentences don't link up at all. (The two officials in question have a responsibility to walk up to the president and say nothing more than, "Clear leadership"?) Also, neither Clinton nor Biden appears in the piece at all until the end, and all of a sudden they are the last bastion of hope for the free-traders? I don't think of either one as a free-trader. Why them?

On His Way. Or, My Least Accurate Blog Post Ever.

Note from Gancho: The only correct portion of the post below was the first sentence. My apologies. I'll leave it up in its original form as a reminder to myself to check any detail that Excélsior tosses into its articles before I refer to it here.

Barack Obama will be headed to Mexico in April. Unless he announces another trip in the meantime, this will be Obama's first trip abroad as president.

Part of the Problem

The police in Juárez have been disarmed, which leaves the army and the federal police as the only government agents allowed to carry weapons. Local police will busy themselves with taxi duty; each police truck will now carry four soldiers or federal troops, with a sole Juárez cop driving.