Mexicans mount huge protest over threat to left-wing mayor

[T_i_B]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=627678

Mexico is heading for political crisis after its Congress voted to impeach the leading candidate in next year's presidential election in what his supporters said was a naked act of obstruction.

Congress voted 360-127 to strip Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of legal immunity, opening the way for his arrest on a technicality and imprisonment. Such a development would probably deny him the right to run in the election as, under Mexican law, people facing charges are prevented from running for office.

Mr Lopez Obrador, the populist Mayor of Mexico City, told several hundred thousand supporters in the capital's central square that if a judge ordered his arrest he would turn himself in and act as his own lawyer. He called on them to launch a peaceful campaign of civil resistance including a "silent march" on 24 April.

The Attorney General's office said it would immediately seek an order for Mr Lopez Obrador's arrest, relating to his breach of a 2001 court order prohibiting the building of a hospital access road on disputed land.

[tkmorris]

1. This isn't getting sufficient attention

Even here, this situation is largely being ignored. That is unfortunate because this has the potential to become a major powder keg. Obrador is extremely popular and of course Mexico is right next door. So far Obrador has done all of the right things, encouraging his supporters to protest peacefully etc, but if he is prevented from running for the Mexican presidency it looks to me that things will almost certainly get violent. I don't think an actual coup is out of the question.

There's an ancient Chinese curse that goes "May you live in interesting times". Well, we do, and it is getting more interesting all the time.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. It's being instigated by the US. IMHO. bush is scared the Mexican

people might democratically elect someone who cares if people live or die.

The down fall of the left in Latin America is being repealed as I write, except this time it's a democratic left instead of an insurgent left.

It's "The Beginning of History" all over again.

[tkmorris]

3. You may be right

insofar as Bush et al want to see Obrador's candidacy squashed but the PAN and the PRI are just as eager to nip him in the bud. Obrador scares the pants off of them.

Your second sentence leaves me a tad dizzy. I assume you mean that you see a resurgance in the Leftists in Latin America. I do as well and I hope this time around the American people can make enough noise to keep our government from sticking it's nose in. I very recently watched a documentary style movie about the last days of Salvador Allende and found it hard to believe how brazenly the United States backed his overthrow. The US can and will repeat their actions of the past in Central and South America unless the American people stop them. I have no doubt at all that if Obrador gains momentum in Mexico the Bush team will send in the black ops guys.

Edited because clarity takes two tries at 5 AM.

[NeoConsSuck]

5. The American people are going to make noise??

has MSM even reported any of this yet to the American people? The link is from a UK source. And with good reason. I'm sure the American MSM is huddled right now, planning on how they going to paint this situation. Let's see: Obrador's supporters are leftist socialists. Obrador is an anti-american commie pinko who hates our freedoms.

I own Latin American stock, ILF. And Thursday, it went up almost 2%. The reason stated was because of Obrador's imminent arrest. And my friend, where does the allegiance of American MSM lie? With the American people or world capitalism? And when you answer that question, the question, "Will the American people make noise" answers with a resounding "NO".

[tkmorris]

8. You are correct of course

American MSM would as soon pluck their own eyeballs out with a spork as report what is REALLY happening, in Mexico and elsewhere. Venezuela for example. But really, do you believe it was different in Reagan's day? Or Nixon's? Knowing what was really going on back then required reading underground papers, or knowing someone on the inside of whatever country. Yes, the link is from the UK. However, we here at DU can click the link and read the article. Have you any idea how hard it was to actually read an article from the UK in 1973?

Things HAVE changed, and for the better. It is much easier than ever before to follow the news from Mexico, Iraq, Venezuela, Argentina, or wherever in the world it happens than it used to be. Furthermore, sitting here at our computers, it is as easy to access foreign reporting on events as it is to read the Washington Post. We need to use the tools at our disposal and encourage others to do the same. Cursing the darkness is for others.

Expose the US MSM as the charlatans they are. People are already doing this and you may notice that Americans trust their media far less than ever before. USE that. The day I start whining about how impossible it all is is the day I hope someone puts a bullet in my head, because I've stopped living.

[shadowknows69]

10. Mexico waking up hopefully

to the fact that they're players in a game designed to make them so desperate to survive that they need to risk all to infiltrate our country just to become the new slaves of our elite. We may have found some new allies in the war against tyranny.

[John Q. Citizen]

17. Old allies, actually. Mexicans have been aware for years what's

up and who their oppressors are. In fact as a whole, their people have a much better grasp of these kinds of issues.

Here in the US we are mostly still under the impression that we are so clever and class-less and free.

In Mexico they know they are all fucking peasents as far as anybody can see.

Or as famous Mexican poet Octavio paz once wrote, "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close the Unitied States."

[chomskyite_naderite]

21. insightful

ILF? An ETF? I expect that it will drop over the next year regardless of what happens.

But you post speaks to 4 of the most powerful dynamics in America and the world today:

1-the corporate media painting a false picture of the world for Americans in order to facilitate corporate dominace of other countries..

2-leftism is bad for the stock market and the economy. But it is good for quality of life as long as it is done right.

3-quality of life and "the economy" are perhaps in many circumstances, indirectly proportional for many people: as the economy gets better, quality of life decreases.

4-Nothing really happens in America unless TV gets involved with scare tactics. Until the creepy music and the dark imagery repeatedly comes out of the TV sets all over America, nothing really changes. And they will not do that for this sort of corporate domination.

[natrat]

22. leftism bad for the stock market???????

[chomskyite_naderite]

23. ???????????? ????????????????? ????????????????????

you seem to have something on your mind. Spit it out?

[w4rma]

25. Leftism sure is NOT bad for the economy.

Regular people do quite well and the powerful do not conglomerate more of their power into fewer and fewer hands.

[chomskyite_naderite]

30. did you even read my entire post?

Can you summarize my post for me, please?

[natrat]

32. historically returns on the dow and s&p are better under dem admins

thats a fact jack----no clue about developping markets though

[mom cat]

28. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[John Q. Citizen]

6. Their was a great book called "The End of History" which details

the Neo-Liberal market driven model (NAFTA style stuff) in Latin America. It documented a few elements. The end of protectionist economic policies, the end of strong man right wing military dictaterships, (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala) and also the end of the left as a political force.

These were replaced by Corporatism in a managed democracy framework starting in the late eighties up until almost the present. This is now changing as we see in Brazil, Argentiana, Bolivia, Venezuela, and now in Mexico.

We are currently fighting what is almost a secret war in Columbia, using chemical warfare to drive peasants off their land. We call it Caca eradication, yet we mainly hit areas that aren't controlled by the right wing paramilitary groups who are working with the Columbian Government, and we spray everywhere and everything killing food crops.

Coca is grown all over, but it is grown in small plots by family farmers as a cash crop. The spray kills everything but coca can be replanted in a few weeks, where as food crops take at least 6 months before they can be replanted because of the poison. This means famlies have to replant everything in coca to raise money for food or starve.

We have already overthrown the democratically elected leader of Haiti and we have Venezuela in our sites.

[Freddie Stubbs]

16. What exactly has the US done to instigate this?

:shrug:

[John Q. Citizen]

18. Nothing I'm sure. After all, we refuse to get involved in other

countries elections or in their politics.....

Right Freddie?

[Freddie Stubbs]

19. So you admit that there is no evidence of US involvement?

:shrug:

[John Q. Citizen]

24. I never claimed there was or there wasn't evidence. However given our

past record, and given our current willingness to subvert democracy in the Western Hemisphere (such as the US involvement in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Haiti, and the heavy involvement of the US in the Venezuelan recall election, I believe my opinion that the US is involved in the current efforts to influence the outcome of the Mexican elections is well founded.

Is it your opinion that the US has absolutely no involvement in the current electoral rigging in Mexico, Stubbs?

[T_i_B]

31. Actually, this bit from the article...

...is very interesting. Is even Washington baulking at these shenanigans?

Larry Birns, the director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington think-tank, said: "The attempt to marginalise Lopez Obrador a local candidate into a national candidate. It is a mistake that the government is allowing this charge to be brought. Everybody knows the case against him is so minor and that this is simply electoral manoeuvring on the part of the ruling party."

[Iterate]

4. Alarming, and not unexpected

We should expect this kind of confrontation to become more frequent and serious as the neocons push their agenda in other countries. They have their ilk in place in every country, in positions of power.

You could make a list of every RR and neocon corporate/political action that has taken place in the US since Nixon left office and see elements of it being reproduced in other countries. It's actually quite a predictable pattern -the same one that succeeded for them from pre-Reagan ideological foundations through Bush II.

[mom cat]

7. Also read Obrador"s speach confrontating the Mexican Congress:

López Obrador Before Congress: The Defendant Turns Prosecutor
By Al Giordano,
Posted on Thu Apr 7th, 2005 at 06:03:51 PM EST

Here are some excerpts from his speech...


And then he lashed into the speech of his political life, decrying “the falsehood of these charges… I have not violated the law… and it has never been my intention to cause damage or harm anyone.” He reviewed the facts of the case against him, the sloppiness of the attorney general’s office and a judge that issued an order on behalf of a supposed landowner who did not even own the 200 square meters to be used for a hospital access road, the fact that he never built the hospital road, and other irregularities in the accusations: “This case is plagued by falsehoods,” said the Mexico City governor and leading presidential aspirant for 2006. “I would ask you, where was the damage or the harm? We are speaking of 200 square meters of land there and an attempt to create a street to a hospital. The damage and the harm is being done by those who accuse me.”
“They don’t judge me for violating a law, but for the way I think and what that represents for the future of Mexico,” he said, launching into the political underpinnings of today’s proceedings. “There are two competing projects at stake: One on behalf of globalization, the other on behalf of the nation. They don’t like that I give support to the most humble and forgotten people and they don’t want that applied at a national level. This is what is at the core of the matter.”

He attacked “those who think they are masters of this country, the leaders of the PRI and the PAN parties, who want to sell our petroleum and electric industries, who have put our financial institutions into bankruptcy, who have created a nation plagued with inequality. They have delivered this country into the hands of the greediest minority. They want to tax food and medicines but they exempt their protectors from paying taxes. They have ruined the productive capacity of this country and obligated millions of Mexicans to go to the United States to earn a living.”

“They are afraid,” said López Obrador, “that the people will choose a true change. Theirs is a cowardly fear.”

Read more of hie impressive speach at:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/4/7/18351/79942

[UpInArms]

12. his speech brought tears to my eyes

I hope that the Mexican people take a stand for this honorable man.

[mom cat]

27. I hope we take a stand for him too!

[Laughing Mirror]

9. The more they try to tear him down, the more they build him up

Sometimes rotten corporate bastard shit really backfires in "nascent democracies." Would that it would happen in the US.

[KlatooBNikto]

11. The end days are nearing for Bush and his puppet, Vicente Fox.

I hope Bush has an extra bedroom available for a guest at his ranch in Crawford.

On Edit: The same fate may also await his other puppets, Mubarak, the Sauds,the Al Sabahs,the Emirs, Musharraf,Gaidar Aliyev.He may want to open up a bed & breakfast place in Crawford for these worthies with Condi and Pickles doing the cooking and Jenna and Barbara providing the, let us say, "entertainment".

[burythehatchet]

13. .

.

[reality based]

14. His last name is López Obrador, not Obrador

Spanish custom is often to combine paternal and maternal last names (the paternal appears first). His full name, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is often shortened to "AMLO" in printed Mexican media and demonstrators' signs. Also he is sometimes referred to by a nickname, el peje. Sorry to be a language police person, but this guy shows promise of being a great international spokesman for popular democracy. We owe him, and the Mexican people, the respect of getting his name right.

[Zorra]

15. This is nothing but an obvious preventive corporate coup de etat.

Kind of cancels out democracy, huh?

[oasis]

20. Viva Mexico. Promoting real democracy in our hemisphere.

Not the "cash and carry " democracy we have come to enjoy in the U.S.S.A.

[bvar22]

26. WOW!

I pray Lopez Obrador has the same success as Chavez at beating back the right wing oligarchs and Global Corporatists.

VIVA Chavez!!
VIVA Mexico!!

[ulysses]

29. thanks, Thankfully.

We need to pay more attention to what's happening with this election.