Thursday, 20 November 2014

#Mexico ....this is religion vs democracy just like spain 1930's



this is religion vs democracy just like spain 1930's just like south Americas in the 70's and just like almost all wars ever
thank you so much religion for making your self so rich and everyone else on the planet so very very poor


Mexico on the brink: thousands to protest over widespread corruption and student massacre

Violence and breakdown of law and order threaten to destabilise country after mass murder of students and scandal over presidential home
Over time the focus of the protests has moved from demands for the return of the students to spasms of disbelief in the government. Photograph: Marco Ugarte/AP
Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
Thursday 20 November 2014 18.48 GMT

Comments

Mexico is facing an escalating political crisis amid growing fury over a mansion built for the presidential family and the disappearance and probable massacre of 43 student teachers.
The two apparently unrelated issues have fed the widespread perception that unbridled political corruption is the underlying cause of the country’s many problems – ranging from stunted economic growth to a breakdown of law and order that has left parts of the country at the mercy of murderous drug cartels.
“The drama of Mexico is about impunity,” said leading political commentator Jesús Silva Herzog. “This is not about the popularity or unpopularity of the president, that is irrelevant. It is about credibility and trust and, at its root, it is about legitimacy.”
Thousands gathered in Mexico City on Thursday ahead of what was expected to be the largest demonstration so far over the students’ forced disappearance by municipal police in collusion with a local drug gang in the southern city of Iguala.
Classmates of the missing students have spent the past week traveling the country in an effort to start unifying the diverse protest movement around clear goals for future change. On Thursday night, three groups of students are due to lead separate marches which will converge at the capital’s main Zócalo plaza around nightfall.
“Beyond the lies of the government, we have the possibility to start moving an entire country towards change,” student Omar Garcia told MVS Radio in the morning.
Protests were also planned in other major Mexican cities and around the world.
Preparations for the march dominated social media in Mexico with Twitter users posting slogans such as “There will not be a mass grave big enough to shut us all up.”
Twitter was also abuzz with warnings that provocateurs could infiltrate the protest, fed by photographs of army vehicles filled with young people in civilian clothing.
A large, peaceful march in Mexico City on 8 November ended in violence with masked youths torching the wooden door of the ceremonial presidential palace. Many protestors claimed the assault was provoked and circulated photographs and videos showing alleged government agents who had participated in it but later slipped behind police lines.
While the focus of the protests is indignation over the government’s handling of the disappearance of the 43 students, there is also significant anger over its clumsy efforts to dismiss serious allegations of a conflict of interests involving President Enrique Peña Nieto himself.
The house is still owned by a subsidiary of a company with a long history of obtaining lucrative contracts from Peña Nieto administrations, dating back to his term as governor of the state of Mexico.
In her address, Rivera, a former telenovela star, said she was going to sell her interests in the house, but vehemently insisted there had never been any strings attached.
“I don’t want this to continue to be a pretext for offending and defaming my family,” she said.
Rivera said she had been paying for the house from the fruits of her labour earned during a 25-year-long career within TV giant Televisa that ended in 2010 with the payment of 88.6 million pesos ($6.5m) and the transference of property of another luxurious residence that backs onto the controversial new mansion.
She said she had already paid about a third of the cost of the new home worth 54 million pesos ($4m), in accordance with a contract signed with the company over eight years.
She said she had met the company’s owner, who also happens to be a personal friend of the president, “like I meet many businessmen, professionals and artists”.
The existence of the house was revealed 10 days ago by the website of leading Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui.
But the first lady’s attempt to turn the page of the scandal was met with widespread skepticism.
“There have always been rumours, but we have never before had documents that suggest that a president in office has participated in illegal operations,” commentator Silva Herzog said, adding that he expected the unanswered key question to further fuel public skepticism and anger.
“This is the worst possible moment for a scandal of this kind.”
On Wednesday night, President Peña Nieto showered praise on his wife’s “bravery” in revealing details of her personal accounts despite not being legally obliged to do so.
He then announced he would be doing the same because “I value the trust of Mexicans more than the right to confidentiality that I could obtain as a public servant,” he said. The assets, uploaded later on the presidential website, include four houses and an apartment.
These attempts to shake off the suggestion of wrongdoing came after the president adopted a new combative stance in the face of intensifying protests triggered by the disappearance of the 43 students in the southern city of Iguala on 26 September.
The students went missing after being arrested by municipal police who also participated in a series of attacks during the night that left six people dead.
The disappearance of the students has sparked numerous demonstrations in many parts of the country. Over time the focus of the protests has moved from demands for the return of the students alive, to disbelief at the government’sfailure to crack down on widespread collusion between law enforcement agencies and drug mafias.
These latest demonstrations have been much more widespread than the protests prompted by allegations of fraud in Peña Nieto’s electoral victory in 2012.
Unlike during the previous wave of dissent, the current protests have expressed anger at perceptions of corruption across the entire political class that is viewed as corrupt, not just Peña Nieto.
The president had previously adopted a conciliatory tone, expressing sympathy for the victims’ families and promising a full and thorough investigation, but on Tuesday he used a speech to denounce violent outbreaks in some of the numerous demonstrations in recent weeks.
The violence, he said, “appears to respond to a general interest to destabilise and, above all, attack the national project that we are pushing forward”.
The harder line echoes some calls in the national press by commentators such as Ricardo Alemán, who has begun regularly urging politicians to discard their “fear of governing” and crack down radical elements in the demonstrations.
Other analysts, however, detect a menacing tone in the president’s words.
Silva Herzog drew parallels with the language used by President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who governed at the time of the watershed 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in which scores – and possibly hundreds – of pro-democracy students were killed by government forces in Mexico City.
“It is dangerous because it polarises the climate,” he said. “The solution has to start by recognising the legitimate foundations of the collective irritation. The country has good reason to be angry.”
With Thursday’s key demonstration approaching on the 104th anniversary of the Mexican revolution, the authorities announced the cancellation of the annual military parade that usually fills the capital’s central streets on that day.

Topics

Most popular

comments(169)

Signed in astom black
Post your comment Preview Cancel
  • B
  • i
  • ”
  • Link
Order by Newest
Show 25
Threads Collapsed
1 2 3
  • 01
  • this is religion vs democracy nothing more nothing less
  • 01
  • Money, drugs, corruption and power versus truth, law and order, justice,
  • Idealism, and freedom. It doesn't sound like a fair fight...
  • 01
  • We must listen what the director of Human Rights Watch says, and also what all the Civil Society of Mexico say too now, is the STATE. The international community must realize who is PRI Government of Mexico: a criminal group, as at the time it was the Nazi party in Germany. and events that we live in Mexico are similar as those in Germany on the Night of the Long Knives, where the equivalent in Mexico is attack the citizens of a state ruled by the opposition, in a move aimed at hurting the ability of judgment of the Mexican society and the electorate, where everything went terribly wrong. And what happened in his time in Germany with the SA, is now happening in Mexico where the criminal cartels act at the time for the government and afterwards exposed by the government as enemies and scapegoats. And like that time where the Nazi acting was never conclusively pointed out by the international community as it was, just now the PRI rule is no pointed out as a criminal state. How long will the international community take notice who is the PRI and bureaucracy within the government that controls ?. How long is going to take Mexico Civil Society to account who are the politicians who act as a full-scale criminal organization ?, ... is a big problem for the world community and the Mexican civil society .. . it must be taken into account how the world solve the Nazi problem, or for example, the problem of apartheid in South Africa, ans it was not through a partisan process, but resolved by civil society and the international community by removing a criminal cancer with concrete and specific actions. In Mexico an action is required such that anyone who is now associated with the PRI, never want to have done, just as no one want to be related to the Nazi party in Germany after his fall or in South Africa with the National Party. Only then it is possible to break this criminal organization that is installed in the bureaucracy of the Mexican government.
  • 23
  • "Ricardo Alemán, who has begun regularly urging politicians to discard their “fear of governing” and crack down radical elements in the demonstrations."
  • Crack down on the students and the common people but they just can't muster the cajones to govern when it comes to the cartels and the corrupt elements of the political class and the bureaucracy.
  • Mexico needs revolution. Wether that revolution is violent or peaceful is up to the government.
  • 01
  • A coup and overthrow of Mexican gov't would be a good thing. If USA took them it would solve the immigration problem.
  • Protest is good, but will not have same effect as one might expect when done in USA. Mexico is corrupt and could care less. They may even kill people. In Mexico it's best to keep a low profile.
    • 12
    • You really don't know anything about Mexico, at all.
    • 01
    • The US doesn't want the country... It has nothing of value, half the land is worthless and the whole country is filled with corrupt thugs or uneducated peasants... What value does it have to anyone?
    • 12
    • Yes, corrupt thugs that are in bed with the corrupt thugs in the US. At least the those you call "uneducated" know what is going on while those in the US can or don't want to understand what is happening to them.
    • 01
    • ....more than 1 million barrels of cheap oil come over the border from Mexico to the USA every single day.
    • You are a bigoted retard it would appear.
  • 23
  • If it weren't so disturbing, it might almost be cute: So many still adhere to the idea that governments and (ostensibly) elected officials are vested with the power to act in the public interest to effect lasting change.
  • The dynamics of what's happening in Mexico may be more blatant than those in the rest of N. America and Europe. But are they essentially different?
  • Organised big money long ago stripped officials and politicians of any actual power, Obama & Cameron & Merkel included. Put yourself in their shoes: If you had made the moral and ethical compromises necessary to funnel several hundred million dollars your way, would you want to submit to the rigours, accountability, and embarrassment of public scrutiny?
  • Or would you deflect public discontent toward impotent, hand-picked and paid-for "elected" officials who have proved themselves handy with platitudes and skilled at deception? Their role is to make empty gestures that finally persuade us that there's nothing anyone can do.
  • Who are we kidding? WE allowed this to happen. We opted to withdraw from active political participation and instead settled for passive involvement via social media, football matches, celebrity worship, and other irrelevancies. We stepped aside when ambitious, avaricious psychopaths assured us we could have security and convenience without sacrifice or contest.
  • We had only to hand them the reins. So we did.
  • Now we're reaping what we've sown. And though we outnumber the abusers by 1000 to 1, we're now too fat, marginalised, fearful, and numbed to put things right.
  • Why would we expect things to be otherwise?
    • 12
    • Are they essentially different (from the USA)
    • Yes absolutely.
    • How many teachers and students have been murdered and the murders covered up in the USA and Europe?
    • You are so ready to lambast the USA and Europe at any opportunity that you fail to see the ridiculousness of your accusation.
    • 01
    • Ah, so Mexicans are essentially different, you say. Murders and cover-ups are theirlot, and that's their fault. Doesn't happen further north. Nothing to do with drug money in the billions flowing south.
    • Really? You might want to shore up your speculation by reading just a chapter or two of Professor Howard Zinn's million-selling classic, A People's History of the United States. There you'll find cover-ups exposed and fully documented, should that pique your interest. Similar books have been written about many other countries and cultures.
    • You may find that far more than 43 students have been murdered in the US, though often with greater finesse. Not to mention the lynched, the enslaved, the wrongfully imprisoned, the isolated, the needlessly impoverished and sickened.
    • These horrors may vary in number and degree by country, but are they not universal? Who performs them? Populations as a whole, or small groups of demagogues and financiers?
    • Unlike Mexico, the wealthy countries have more than once arranged for the deaths of students, teachers, nuns, farmers, labourers, etc., in other countries. Those lives count, too, don't they?
    • But your comments miss the point: In modern times it has rarely been an evil oligarchic Other that wronged Us the Innocent. We, had we acted collectively — in Mexico, the US, Germany, wherever — had the means to prevent atrocities happening. But we, by inaction, indifference, and self-deluding political ideologies, allowed them to happen.
    • 01
    • You make some good points and I will agree with you to some extent. However, Mexico and N.America/Europe are not slightly different shades of the same scale. The difference is much more fundamental.
    • If your first thought at a family member being kidnapped is to phone the police, you are not living in Mexico.
    • If 15 people get massacred in a bar, and there is not a mention of it in the local press/media, you might be living in Mexico.
    • If you speak out on social media and later are found hanging from a bridge with a message warning others of speaking out, you were living in Mexico.
    • You are right in everything you say except, don't say Mexico is the same - just a bit more more blatant, it is a bit of an insult.
    • 01
    • I tend to agree with most of what you say.
  • 12
  • I see that some of the wording of the headline for this article has been changed from the hysterical "Mexico at Breaking Point" to the maybe less alarmist "Mexico at the Brink," but neither is an accurate metaphor for the current unrest. It's not at all clear what either even means, except that the Guardian continues to use misleading and sensational headlines as click-bait. In its post-revolutionary history, Mexico has faced a number of crises more severe and threatening than this one.
  • Anyone familiar with Mexico knows that widespread discontent and serious civil unrest are the rule rather than the exception there—massive demonstrations and disruptions of all sorts are a common occurrence in the capital and throughout the country. The mainstream media in the US and, I would guess the UK, only pay attention when there is something particularly sensational to report, in this case the slaying of the 43 students and the subsequent arrest of the former mayor and his wife, the former future mayor of Iguala.
  • The post-revolutionary government of Mexico has been remarkably resilient in the face of many a social crisis—you cannot overestimate its ability to contain, marginalize, and criminalize dissent or its willingness to violently crush it if nothing else works. The fact that this situation has become an international embarrassment will probably hasten resorting to the latter—President Peña Nieto has intimated as much in a recent speech.
  • 01
  • teespring.com/justice43
  • The tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds.
  • 01
  • With this kinds of scandals of corruptions from the president and inneptitude of the law enforcements, if those things were happening, for example, in the US, UK, or another country of the so-called first world countries, those things will force the president or top national security officers to resign ?
    • 01
    • ... unless an interim government of administrators taken perhaps from Mexican Universities is installed the resignation or removal by congress of the PRI led government will be meaningless as more professional politicians will be empowered....
  • 01
  • Ya me Canse!!
  • 01
  • The facebook page, Guerrilla Communication Mexico, that was showing the Government preparations for today's demonstration in Mexico City has just been taken down. It showed multiple photos of military trucks full of soldiers in civilian clothes arriving in the Zocalo. Apparently the square is being secured and blocked off by the military as I write.
  • This could end really badly...
    • 01
    • Yeap ... its a barrel of dynamite.... even with the slightest spark, an enormous fire will start ... today is a fragile and tense day in Mexico, no one knows what might happed in the next hours... time will tell..
  • 01
  • There seems to be a lot of presidential abuse and lawlessness going around in North America just now.
  • 01
  • Unarmed citizens murdered by the only people in their country allowed to own guns (police); Is there a lesson to be learned by the anti-gunners here in the USA?
    • 01
    • It remains a constitutional right of all Mexican citizens and residents to apply for a firearm license and to own a low caliber handgun to be kept in the home for self defense. 3 million such licenses are held in Mexico.
  • 01
  • Crack down on the demonstrations.. Realy while rolling in bed with Drug cartels .. I cannot believe the Mexican news would take such a stance unless of course they are under the NARCO spell as well .. Money talks and what the demonstrator see is Justice and accountability walk .. To come down on the protesters is in effect taking sides with Corrupt politicians and murderous Drug cartels .. Perhaps Alemen himself is nothing more than a puppet of the Cartels .. and a NARCO political system .. These students want justice they want some accountability , they see neither in Mexico today .. Now they face a hostile government that seems to side with organized crime more than the Law .. Where the students want justice the Government wants quiet and a return to THE SAME OL SAME OLD ..
  • I think the students will not allow that status quo return without a real fight ..and they should not .. They protest State sponsored murder in collusion with Cartels .. They see no justice they see their lot as nothing more than providing wealth for corrupt rulers ..
  • I cannot fathom a news agency that would favor silencing the people ..unless they have common cause with the Corruption and the Cartels .. it's the only explanation...
  • 12
  • This is an enormous problem, fueled by the billions upon billion of dollars paid to violent criminal gangs who supply the US with drugs. The systemic corruption and lost of both live and livelihood will not stop or even abate until the US recognized that WE are Mexico's problem, that demand for illegal drugs is the SOURCE of corruption. And any American who thinks the corruption will remain south of the border is dreaming. It is seeping North every day. Mexico will not be the only country sent into a tailspin of corruption, crime and horror.
    • 01
    • Do not just blame all the USA. The majority of people involved in this drug import business are Latinos.
    • It is about time Mexican citizens take back their country. I look forward to the revolution.
    • 01
    • No really it's Prohibition .. The market is here in the USA The money is here in the USA the Prohibition is here in the USA .. Mexicans cannot take back their county because the money financing the Corruption is ..WHERE ? Thats right tknees ..here in the USA ....Cartels are not rich from selling drugs in Mexico ..no there rich because they sell drugs here in the USA ... wake up and smell the Cannabis .. Juan Valdes might be your importer but the sale is made by Joe normal down the suburban street and the all that cash cash flows back into Mexico ..
    • It's what all prohibition does.. It creates violence and a black market ..without stopping the flow of drugs..at all .. not in the slightest .. but id does jeopardize the lives of people in Mexico because they are powerless against such huge financing .. From thats right ... THE USA
  • 67
  • What is with the headline?
  • Corruption and violence have already destabilized Mexico.
  • No government in the world should accept the mass murder of teachers and students.
  • It is good to see the Mexican people acting.
  • 12
  • Nothing will change. The Mexican government long ago disarmed the general public. Note that in the few instances where the public have obtained (illegal) firearms, such as Guerrero state, that they have promptly and miraculously captured or killed cartel leaders and gangsters that the police and the army said they couldn't find - generally within a matter of days.
  • 01
  • apparently unrelated issues? are journos even thicker than we thought?
  • 78
  • I am a foreigner living in Mexico DF. I have lived here for 4 years. I can tell you that Mexico is controlled by the cartels and the rich business class. It seems the only reason to win a political election here is to make money. You can't do anything without some form of bribe. I watch almost daily as drivers of crumbling buses bribe the Police to let them on their way. Nothing is hidden. Its well know this money is then divided between the oficials all the way up to the Mayors office and beyond.
  • During the last Presidential Election on live national TV one of the candidates held up a copy of Nietos bank account and asked him why the State of Mexico (He was the Governer) had transfered him millions of US Dollars. He didnt even respond. Blank face and looked ahead as if nothing had been asked.
  • The list goes on and on with these people.
  • Botton line is that nothing will change, the President doesnt really hold any power, rather the Cartels and Unions. The thin viel of reform is obvious to almost everyone but its Mexican culture to complain and accept, do nothing. Mexico wont change until the people decide they have had enough, its been like this since the Spanish arrived. Nothing has really changed.
    • 01
    • SO in other word the control is a lot like the AMerican COngress.. Interesting even more so after the midterms .. We all know the GOP is bought and paid for by Big business . GOP do not make a move without the Ok from Big money.. No difference here really just the names have been changed to confuse the general public and media .....is all ya all...same game it's just less obvious in the USA as Mexico .. In Mexico the corruption is in your face . In the USA it's alluded to it's hinted at. Some times even brought to the surface and exposed for a short span before being buried again under the News cycle .. No difference ..
    • 01
    • Eric, this is about Mexico, not the USA
    • @pwarren has just basically laid it out about Mexico.
    • I have lived 15 years in Mexico, and couldn't agree more with the above analysis, I even took a couple of pics of said crumbling buses, because they have to be seen to be believed!
    • When I first arrived here, I was told under no circumstances to phone the police. The local private security firms publicised in their sales blurbs that they would arrive to your house before the police, and stay until after the police had left, so the police wouldn't steal anything.
    • In my town, the local police regularly assaulted foreigners walking around the town centre at night, but as Mr Warren says, the money goes all the way up. You can't complain about it.
    • And, yes, I agree you can't do anything without a bribe. Try and win a contract with a great company, a great bid and a superb presentation, against literally anyone with a brown paper envelope stashed full of pesos.
    • And finally, yes, politics at every level is just a queue of rich businessmen looking to the key for public contracts.
    • Social apathy is what keeps Mexico as it is. Every few years where I live, local political candidates hand out chickens in return for votes. The strategy is so successful, that the local cartels operate a similar one . In fact, if a cartel offered "peace and security" in exchange for votes they would win an election hands down - without having to spend so much financing the politician's campaigns.
  • 01
  • SICK NATION
  • 01
  • governments never change, same as it is in the states, those with the fattest wallets win...
  • 34
  • Good !!! Bueno !!!! I hope the Mexican People have a revolution and take down all of the government officials who have betrayed them and kept them in squallor and poverty for decades and decades. The self-serving Mexican government hasn't done a thing to provide jobs , housing or anything for it's people and it is incapable of even protecting them from criminals. Who needs a government like that? Let's see if Obama will send THESE freedom fighters financial and military aid.
    • 01
    • Well in order for the Mexican people to succeed America would have to END its War On Drugs .. Just a little 55 year war that has culminated in what we now witness in Mexico as open Political lawlessness . Now really for Mexican to take back Mexico AMerica would have to end it's Drug War .. Because you see the problem in Mexico is not JUST the government no ..It's the Cartels that harvest vast wealth from our War On Drugs ..Rob the major problem in Mexico is corruption but that has always been there since Pancho Villa the infusion of Cartel Power into the corruption has made our War On Drugs a Political force in Mexico a real political force and that force is funded by American Prohibition .. Ever since Richard Nixon .. They have grown in power ..
  • 56
  • Note the word AMERICA inserted into the quote and how it fits exactly.
  • "....The drama of AMERICA is about impunity,” ........“This is not about the popularity or unpopularity of the president, that is irrelevant. It is about credibility and trust and, at its root, it is about legitimacy.”
  • The failed system of government in America is very clear.
  • The government pointing loaded military weapons at our citizens (Ferguson)
  • The government granting retirement to its employees 17 years before the rest of us.
  • The government failing to maintain our infrastructure while engaging in wars.
  • The government mentality that they are wiser than voters.
  • The arrogance of "lifer" politicians who are unable to function in the real world.
  • 56
  • At Least Mexicans Are Angry
  • It is to the credit of Mexicans everywhere that their outrage seems to be sincere.
  • Farther north such sentiments over mere mass murder rarely result in political action.
  • And of course U.S.policies have proved ruinous for Mexican democracy. Does that surprise anyone?
  • When have U.S. policies ever supported democratic principles -- other than officially from 1941 to 1945?
  • I'm asking. If you can think of a democratic movement in Latin America or the Caribbean that was supported by the U.S., name it.
    • 34
    • The Contras. Their politicians eventually ousted the corrupt Sandinistas.
    • We also supported anti-Castro fighters. You know...Castro? That unelected dictator for life?
    • We also ousted the unelected communist backed junta that seized power in Grenada and proceeded to stomp out civil rights. Grenada's "Thanksgiving Day" is a national holiday celebrating their liberation.
    • That's three...
    • 56
    • The arrogance of the US Government is beyond belief.
    • While our own society has been crushed by that arrogance, they have the audacity to tell the rest of the world to emulate us. The idea that John Kerry is jetting around the world at our expense and pretending that the rest of the world is less able than he / than Washington... is just plain arrogance.
    • The system of government in America has failed.
    • The Mexican's just might show us how to win over our criminal masters.
    • 78
    • The freaking Contras--right wing death squads and terrorists? The Sandanistas were voted out of office. The US has supported every bloody right wing junta in Latin America in 100 years and has the blood of millions on its hands.
    • 12
    • Out of all the comments here, you are the most accurate
  • 12
  • Mexico is at the breaking point? Hell, Mexico has been broken for hundreds of years and all the super-glue in the world couldn't put it together and make it resemble a workable nation.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)