Thursday, January 12, 2017

MEXICO'S MARCH TO REVOLUTION

Mexican protests continue as consumer prices rise

Mexican protests continue as consumer prices rise

By Rafael Azul 
12 January 2017
In the face of continuing protests, marches and occupations in Mexico, the ruling class is looking for political and economic alternatives to Peña Nieto as his political partners, the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), distance themselves from the gas subsidy cuts in the face of widespread public opposition.
Wednesday marked the 11th day of protests against what has become known as the gasolinazo, the gasoline price shock decreed by the Peña Nieto administration on December 28.
Protests took place in the Mexican states along the US-Mexico border, including San Luis Potosí, Coahuila, Sinaloa, and Baja California Norte. Mobilizations also took place in the central states of Morelos and Hidalgo and in Mexico City. In Coahuila, truck drivers set up barricades across the Saltillo-Monterrey Highway. To the east, a caravan began in San Luis Potosí for a rally in Mexico City against the next fuel shock scheduled for February.
Roughly 100 protesters rallied at the Sinaloa provincial legislature in the city of Culiacán denouncing the special 15.000 peso (~$US 680) year-end subsidies that legislators had approved for themselves and family members. In the city of Cuernavaca, Morelos State, human rights groups protested against the increases in bus fares related to the gasolinazo.
In Baja California Norte, truckers and community members have blocked the Rosarita Pemex distribution center, which supplies gas stations in Mexicali, along the California border. Some of the people involved report that following the New Year’s Day fuel increase, it is less expensive to purchase gasoline across the border, in Calexico, California than in Mexicali. Except for emergency tanker trucks, the demonstrators are preventing all trucks from entering and leaving the terminal. The protest began on January 3 and is affecting 240 gas stations in Mexicali, the port of San Felipe and the town of San Luis Río Colorado.
Mexico City taxi drivers also attempted to block the Peño Viejo Metro train station in the Iztapalapa industrial suburb. Police intervened and force them to retreat. To the north of Mexico City, In Hidalgo State, small farmers as well as agricultural and urban workers gathered at the Hidalgo legislative building to protest the gasolinazo.
In the vicinity of the small rural town of El Nith, Hidalgo, where demonstrators are blocking the Mexico City to Laredo highway, officials of the Catholic Church attempted to involve themselves in the demonstration. Church officials declared their support for the protests and held a mass at the barricades, which have been up since January 2. This protest was the scene, on January 5, of a violent attack by government forces that resulted in the death of two of young protesters, Fredy Cruz and Alan Giovanni Martínez.
In the midst of these waves of popular protests, the Catholic Church, an institution that in 1988 officially made its peace with the Mexican ruling class and the Mexican state, is intervening on the government’s behalf to detour working class anger. Church leaders are now organizing a protest rally at the national legislature Mexico City “for peace and against the gasolinazo. 
The “left” bourgeois nationalist Morena movement, led by Andrés Manual López Obrador (AMLO), is staking out a position that is similar to that of the Church. On Wednesday Morena legislators and those of its congressional partner Citizen’s Movement (MC) called for a series of palliative measures to relieve some of the effects of the gasolinazo, such as lowering taxes on transit companies and food stores, in return for not raising fares and prices.
In a January 10 speech, AMLO positioned himself as a presidential candidate for 2018 and called on the legislature to assemble in an emergency budget session to reconsider the gasoline increases and the ones to follow in the context of a revised fiscal budget. His message was delivered as a warning, a way to save the Peña Nieto administration out of this crisis.
Taking a nationalist line, Lopéz Obrador called for the building of more refineries to end Mexico’s dependency on foreign fuels and to create jobs.
President Peña Nieto is increasingly isolated. Both parties that signed the Pact for Mexico in 2013 have distanced themselves from the increase in fuel prices, despite the fact that they voted in favor of the hike in the legislature. PRD congressional leader Sánchez Nájera is calling for the cancellation of the fuel price increases, while PAN leader Rafael Delgadillo of Sonora State hypocritically declared his party’s total opposition to changes in gasoline prices. Delgadillo described Peña Nieto’s claim that the gasolinazo would not be inflationary as “demagogic”, and called on the president to listen to the people. At least one PAN governor has declared that he would not use security forces against the demonstrators.
The Mexican Employers Association, Coparmex, a business organization traditionally aligned with the more nationalist-oriented section of the bourgeoisie and whose members account for about 30 percent of Mexico’s GDP, refused on Monday to sign Peña Nieto’s Economic Pact. Instead it issued The Pact that Mexico Needs ( El Acuerdo que México Necesita ), a plan based on even more draconian austerity measures. Like López Obrador and Morena, Coparmex also proposes the building of more refineries and pipelines, as well as the cancellation of the February gasolinazo. Coparmex proposes that its “ Acuerdo ” be signed this February.
Already the effects of the fuel shock are adding to Mexico’s inflation. The increase in the daily minimum wage from 73 to 80.04 pesos (US $3.80), agreed upon last December, that took effect this New Year’s Day, has lost all its buying power. Under the impact of a price explosion in basic items, such as tortillas, beans and now fuel, adjusted for inflation, the new minimum wage represents a regression in living standards, in the space of one month.


Mexican Nationals 

Returning Home and 

Staying There Ahead of 

Trump





by CARTEL CHRONICLES11 Jan 2017

MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — Fearing stiffer immigration enforcement in the coming months, approximately half of the Mexican nationals who had traveled through this city on their way to their hometowns claim they will not be returning to the United States, city officials said. 

In recent weeks, the Matamoros city government has been preparing logistical and security measures to accommodate not only the returning travelers, but also for a possible increase in deportations, said Matamoros Mayor Jesus “Chuchin” De La Garza.
According to De La Garza, at least 50 percent of the Paisanos who have crossed through the three international bridges in Matamoros have reported to authorities that they will not be returning to the U.S. and plan on seeking jobs in Mexico.
Known in Mexico as Paisanos, every year, groups of legal and illegal immigrants travel through this and other border cities during the holidays on their way to their hometowns. The name Paisano comes from a government program aimed at easing the customs and tax process that the Mexicans face when they travel home. In years past, customs officers, local police and other officials were known for demanding bribes and extorting the travelers.
In preparation for the expected increase in the number of returning locals and deportees, De La Garza has been meeting with Mexico’s Regional Security Team and U.S. law enforcement.
“We still do not know the impact that the arrival of the new U.S. administration will have in regards to the number of deportations, but we do have to be prepared in order to handle such events in an orderly fashion,” De La Garza said to Breitbart Texas.
For years, the deportation of Mexican immigrants has caused problems due to the lack of job opportunities in border cities, leading many to join the ranks of the various drug cartels that operate throughout Mexico. According to Mexican authorities, many of the deported immigrants often come from U.S. prisons and jails who are sent back after completing a sentence for crimes in that country. The backgrounds of the deported migrants makes them an attractive recruitment option for Mexican cartels.


Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza” from Matamoros, Tamaulipas.

Mexican government in deep crisis in wake of mass protests
By Don Knowland
21 January 2017
A poll published this week by the newspaper Reforma puts the approval rating of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at a historic low of 12 percent, down from 24 percent in December.
This plunge reflects popular anger over Peña Nieto’s decision to raise gasoline prices on January 1 by 20 percent. The Reforma poll showed that 85 percent disapproved of the increase, the so-called gasolinazo.
The gasoline price rise came in the wake of a plunging peso. The peso was at 12 to the dollar when Peña Nieto took office in December 2012. It recently reached a low of 22.50 to the dollar.
The peso’s drop has had an inflationary impact on the prices of basic goods and foodstuffs, with the price of beans rising by 12 percent in December alone. The increase in gasoline prices will filter throughout the economy to further stoke inflation.
A group of specialists interviewed this week by the newspaper El Universal emphasized that the gasolinazo will particularly impact those already on the brink of poverty.
Héctor Villarreal, director of the Center of Economic and Budgetary Studies, told El Universal that the gas price hike will make the basic basket of goods inaccessible for many families, putting around an additional 10 million at risk of falling into poverty.
While the daily minimum wage of 80.04 pesos (about US$3.70) went up by 9.4 percent on January 1 along with the 20 percent increase in gas prices, that was insufficient, said Ricardo Becerra Laguna, president of the Institute for Democratic Transition Studies, given the fuel price hike and the fact that prices of basic goods were already on the rise. Becerra Laguna agreed with Villareal that the rise in gas prices could create a “nation-wide surge of impoverishment.”
The fall in the peso stemmed in large part from a lack of confidence by investors in the Mexican economy arising from Donald Trump’s election victory. Trump campaigned on promises to lower US corporate taxes, place tariffs on imports from Mexico, forbid or tax remittances from Mexicans living in the US and deport what could be upwards of 5 million Mexicans.
Peña Nieto’s approval rating had already dropped to 30 percent by 2015, due to corruption charges and widespread government violence, including the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa teaching students, who had been protesting against Peña Nieto’s education reform. It sank into the 20 percent range last summer after he invited Trump to Mexico and then fawned over him, despite overwhelming Mexican hostility to the then Republican candidate.
Outrage was so high in Mexico that Peña Nieto made his finance minister and close confidant Luis Videgaray, who had arranged Trump’s visit, a sacrificial lamb, firing him soon thereafter.
Despite Videgaray being widely despised in Mexico as a Trump conciliator, earlier this month, Peña Nieto named him as Mexico’s new Secretary of Foreign Relations, as a sop to Trump. Trump called Videgaray a “wonderful man.”
Earlier this week Trump stressed that he would immediately undertake building his promised border “wall,” to be paid for by Mexico. Although he did not expressly mention this in his inaugural address, Trump promised to protect the US border from the “ravages” of other countries “making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.” This threat was directed most of all at Mexico and China.
In response, Peña Nieto was able only to express his deepening subservience to US imperialism. He tweeted his congratulations to Trump on taking office, calling for a “respectful dialogue” to “strengthen our relation with shared responsibility.”
Peña Nieto even delivered a present to Trump on the eve of his inauguration, the expedited extradition on Thursday of Sinaloa cartel head Joaquín (“El Chapo”) Guzmán Loera to US authorities. This seemed intended to appease Trump, who had cited drug dealing and violence as part of his campaign against Mexican immigrants, by suggesting that that the Mexican government was serious about combating the drug cartels rather than corrupted by them.
Guzmán Loera had filed a constitutional “amparo” petition with the Mexican Supreme Court in an attempt to postpone or defeat extradition. According to the La Jornada newspaper, the Mexican justices put denial of the amparo on a fast track in response to pressure from the federal government. Luis Videgaray had already promised such approval.
Mexico also announced on Thursday that Videgaray and other Mexican dignitaries will visit Washington DC on January 25 to meet, undoubtedly on bended knee, with key Trump administration officials, including chief of staff Reince Priebus, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and senior adviser Stephen Bannon.
While some in the Mexican government have made demagogic calls for countermeasures to Trump’s policies—Mexico’s economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo suggested in the last week an immediate “neutralizing” “fiscal response,” that is, a counter-tax—these are not serious proposals, but rather public relations stunts. The Mexican government will dance to Trump’s tune.
Forthcoming changes in Mexico’s energy industry can only further destabilize the economy and the political situation. Mexico’s energy reform law enacted in 2013 ended the monopoly of Mexico’s national oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) on oil production. After bidding in 2015, private companies began investing in oil exploration and production in Mexico.
But opening oil refining, transportation and sales to private investment was put off to 2018, at which point the Mexican government intended for fuel prices to be brought in line with market prices. Until then, the government would set prices lower than the cost of production in the country.
Federal government revenue dropped sharply when oil prices collapsed in 2014. Despite attempts to hedge oil prices, oil revenue dropped from 852 billion pesos (about $40 billion) in 2012 to only 408 billion pesos in 2015. This fall in revenue was exacerbated by lowered interest in private bidding on Mexican production contracts.
In 2016, the government decided to accelerate the liberalization of refining and distribution of oil due to this revenue shortfall. That resulted in the price hike and two additional tax hikes on fuel sales on January 1.
The gas price increase on January 1 led to demonstrations throughout the country, which included blocking highways and fuel depots. They included teachers’ unions, transportation unions, various social movements as well as ordinary citizens. The protests were largely organized in a spontaneous fashion on social media, rather than by any centralized leadership. At the same time, the movement has lacked any coherent perspective or program.
The Mexican ruling class is too invested in the energy reform to backtrack on it. But it fears that protests will grow even larger, particularly if there is a violent crackdown by federal police or even the army. The already depleted support for Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) could completely evaporate.
The government has resorted to sham “reform” measures as a political palliative. This week it signed with business leaders and labor unions an “Agreement for the Economic Strengthening and Protection of the Family Economy.” The agreement proposes various vague initiatives, such as maintaining stable prices for basic goods, modernizing public transportation, encouraging investment and employment and strengthening the rule of law. No one can take these measures seriously.
Mexico’s so called opposition parties are making every effort to suppress opposition in the Mexican populace. The right-wing National Action Party (PAN) has called for lowering fuel prices. However, the PAN, along with the fake “left” Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), supported the energy reform law, and both still do.
For its part, the PRD has sought to dissipate the protests, advocating that a million people file amparo petitions with the Mexican Supreme Court to invalidate the gas price hikes. This is nothing more than a stunt with no chance of success.
Finally, the National Regeneration Party, or Morena, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has called for all sides and parties to sit down in a show of “unity” to address the price rises. In other words, this bourgeois party once again seeks to contain opposition within bounds acceptable to the capitalist ruling establishment.
Others deeply imbedded in the Mexican ruling class have warned that the country’s institutions are in such a state of collapse that action at a more fundamental level is required.
Constitutional scholar Diego Valadés, formerly a Mexican Supreme Court Justice under PRI president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, told the magazine Proceso this week that the “institutional apparatus” is no longer responsive to the demands of society or able to fulfill the basic functions of the state.
Valadés has concluded, given the unprecedented and deepening distrust of the Mexican population, that the only alternative is the formation of a coalition government, presumably amongst all major political parties, or a return to “authoritarianism.” Such authoritarianism likely would extend to military intervention.

January 27, 2017

Why Mexico will pay for the wall

The debate around Donald Trump's wall has been shaped by liberal and media narratives that focus on illegal immigrants in the U.S.  The left has painted a picture of compassion for these immigrants, making them the entirety of the story.  Sanctuary cities have declared safe havens for illegal immigrants, without really distinguishing between the good and the bad among them.  They have also spun numbers about temporarily declining immigration rates to diminish the significance of the problem.  Liberals have labeled opponents of open borders hard-hearted racists.  Immigration has become one of those narrative stories, filled with human suffering, compassion, and demonized enemies, that liberals love to love.
What liberals have ignored is the severe consequences of slack U.S. borders for Mexico.  Mexican society and the Mexican economy have been severely distorted and held hostage for decades by criminal gangs that make their living smuggling drugs and migrants into the U.S.  Their access to and control over the U.S. border are precisely what has brought them power and wealth, while unleashing a long-term scourge on Mexican society.  These gangs murder, kidnap, 

and extort innocent Mexican citizens.  They 

corrupt the Mexican police and military.  They 

transport illegal migrants to the U.S. – extorting, 

exploiting, raping, and murdering them along the 

way.  They transport drugs to the U.S., 

undermining our civil society and killing our 

citizens.  They instill fear and violence across 

Mexican society, preventing it from achieving the 

stable, middle-class society that NAFTA 

promised.  These truths are well documented in 

news reports, testimony from ranchers who own 

border land, and movies.
Where is liberals' compassion, in their self-absorption and attachment to their own narratives, for the honest citizens of Mexico who are victimized in their own country by the criminal gangs fostered and financed by open U.S. borders?
Liberals have a narrative about the tons of illegal drugs these gangs transport into the U.S., too.  It goes something like this: we did drugs when we were young (Choomer Obama), and it didn't harm us.  Look at us now: we're running things, and isn't the world a better place?  Those deplorables dying of heroin overdoses in flyover country?  The real problem is the War on Drugs.  If only we legalized and taxed drugs, unfortunates could get drugs easily and wouldn't have to go into debt and commit crimes to finance their habits.  With the taxes, we could finance more social programs.  The people who can't control themselves?  We can medicalize their addictions and give them unlimited health care.
Shutting down the U.S. border will reduce or eliminate the power and wealth of these criminal gangs and their stranglehold over Mexican society.  Once they no longer have access to the U.S. border, they will no longer have access to the source of their wealth and power.
Trump's wall will eliminate the reign of terror under which Mexico's honest citizens have lived for a long time.  The benefits that a wall will bring to Mexican civil society and to law and order should be reasons for liberals to support Trump's wall.  These benefits are also why Mexico, once it has overcome the perceived affront to its dignity, will gladly pay.
Shutting down the U.S. border will also 

dramatically reduce the flow of illegal drugs 

into the U.S., with all their negative economic 

and social consequences.
I'm waiting for a liberal to argue against these benefits, but I haven't found one yet.

CAUTION!


HERE IS THE MEXICO POURING OVER OUR OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS AND HAULING BACK BILLIONS FROM HEROIN SALES!

GRAPHIC IMAGES of America coming under Mex Occupation

The NARCOMEX drug cartels now operate in all major American cities and haul back to NARCOMEX between $40 top $60 BILLION from sales of HEROIN!




ILLEGALS & WELFARE
70% OF ILLEGALS GET WELFARE!
“According to the Centers for Immigration Studies, April '11, at least 70% of Mexican illegal alien families receive some type of welfare in the US!!! cis.org”
CIS

 REVOLUTION IN MEXICO: Will It Spread Over America’s Open Borders?
LOS ANGELES: Mexico’s Second Largest City, First Place for Billion Dollar Mexican Welfare, Number 1 for Mexican Murder and Western Gateway For the LA RAZA Mexican Drug Cartels
TEXAS GOV FIGHTS BACK LA RAZA MEX OCCUPATION!
WHY ARE ILLEGALS ABOVE THE LAW?

SANCTUARY CITIES and SANCTUARY STATE of CALIFORNIA: The LA RAZA welfare state on our backs!

"The American Southwest seems to be slowly 

returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico 

without firing a single shot."  --

EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of 

Mexico



REMITTANCES ….. are only part of Mexico’s 

looting… and billions for anchor  baby breeders, 

billions for heroin sales and then do the numbers!




Mexicans abroad sent home nearly $2.4 billion in transfers in November, 24.7 percent higher than a year earlier, marking their fastest pace of expansion since March 2006, according to Mexican central bank data on Monday…

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