Saturday, January 21, 2017

NARCOMEX: THE REGIME OF ENRIQUE PENA-NIETO ON VERGE OF COLLAPSE - Mexican government in deep crisis in wake of mass protests

"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."



Mexican government in deep crisis in wake of mass protests

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.

For the LA RAZA MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS all of America is a “Sanctuary” market for HEROIN sales!


CAUTION!


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!








Mexican government, trade unions mobilize against protests to pave the way for Trump

Mexican government, trade unions mobilize against protests to pave the way for Trump

By Rafael Azul and Eric London 
10 January 2017

Mass protests in Mexico and the looming inauguration of Donald Trump as US president are adding to uncertainty in the Mexican ruling class and among foreign investors over fears of growing social unrest and economic crisis. Ongoing demonstrations continued across Mexico this weekend as Mexicans continue to reject the government’s gas subsidy cut.
As protests continued yesterday, Fiat Chrysler announced that it will shift production of two Jeep models currently being assembled in Mexico to the United States. The announcement came after Ford Motor Company said last week it was rescinding plans to build a new plant in Mexico.
The response of the Mexican government has been to violently repress demonstrations and lay out the welcome mat for Trump. Even though Trump has pledged to deport millions and has called Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals,” President Enrique Peña Nieto appointed Luis Videgaray as foreign minister last week in a direct signal to Trump that the Mexican ruling class is willing to overlook his fascistic, xenophobic program in order to make a profit.
Videgaray is seen as an advocate of close collaboration with the US government and is widely hated in Mexico for organizing a visit by Donald Trump to Mexico City last summer. The anger at this fiasco was so fierce that he was forced to resign as finance minister.
The representatives of US imperialism are thrilled with Videgaray’s appointment and see it as an opportunity to intensify the corporate exploitation of Mexico’s workers and resources.
When Videgaray resigned in September as finance minister, then-candidate Trump tweeted: “Mexico has lost a brilliant finance minister and wonderful man who I know is highly respected by President Peña Nieto. With Luis, Mexico and the United States would have made wonderful deals together.”
This spells disaster for the working class, which is demonstrating by the tens of thousands because they cannot afford the rising cost of living.
On Saturday, protest demonstrations took place in scores of Mexican cities. The demonstrations include teachers, oil workers, and other sections of the working class, despite the fact that there has been no endorsement from the trade unions. Demonstrators clashed with heavily armed police in the Northern border city of Rosarito, with the government forced to fly in federal police from elsewhere in the country. Dozens were wounded in fierce fighting that ensued. The US government decided to close some border crossings this weekend as protests flared.
Common to all the protests has been the demand that Peña Nieto resign together with many of the state governors. There is a widespread feeling that the government, the parties that signed the Pact For Mexico in December 2012, and the trade unions are rapidly losing legitimacy.
Combined with violent repression, the Peña Nieto administration cobbled together a new “pact” over the weekend, called the Economic Strengthening and Family Economic Protection Pact (Acuerdo para el Fortalecimiento Económico y la Protección de la Economía Familiar). Economic Minister José Antonio Meade announced on Monday that the pact was reached with Peña Nieto’s partner parties and with the corporate sector, allegedly to strengthen “four economic poles” which include “the household economy, employment, economic stability and the rule of law.”
The plan includes minor social investments for construction and transport plus austerity policies aimed at cutting the federal budget by 190 billion pesos (US$8.9 billion). The new pact includes the corporatist Union-Management National Productivity Committee (Comité Nacional de Productividad). Under the terms of this new agreement, big business agrees to restrain price increases and the trade unions agree to provide the program with cheap labor.
The leaders of several of Mexico’s major trade unions shamelessly signed the deal, which will result in further cuts to Mexico’s social programs and will be used to advance the government’s privatization plans. The leader of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) was joined in signing the document by several other union leaders representing the National Auto Workers union and the misnamed Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Confederation (CROC).
The phony pact is aimed at duping protesters and striking workers to return to their jobs so that the reform plan can be successfully carried through. Mexican workers know the worthless value of promises made by the ruling class when faced with opposition from the working masses.
The protests and strikes are at a turning point. The trade unions are working to suffocate the protests with hollow promises, and the forces of the “left,” including Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, are telling the working class and youth that they must calm down and vote for him in the 2018 presidential elections. In the absence of a revolutionary leadership of the working class, the government and its supporters will succeed in stifling the protest movement and forcing through the diktats of the banks and corporations.
There exists in the Mexican working class a long tradition of militancy, hardened over the years by the deep poverty that pervades Mexican social life. But the whole of Mexican history also shows that spontaneity is insufficient for the overthrow of capitalism, which is the root cause of the poverty, inequality and violence dominating Mexico.
The history of the 20th century shows that the working class requires political leadership and historical perspective. Mexican supporters of the World Socialist Web Site must come forward to help establish sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International and to provide the leadership that will be required to guide the explosive struggles ahead in the direction of world socialist revolution.

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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