The Mex Files

I wasn’t going to post this until tomorrow, but George Friedman’s usual bleak analysis for Stratfor (Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?) was sent to me a few minutes ago. Friedman, in what you expect from a report meant to sell security services in the United States, at least does see narotics exports as a problem primarily for the United States:

The amount of money accumulated in Mexico derives from smuggling operations in the United States. Drugs go one way, money another. But all the money doesn’t have to return to Mexico or to third-party countries. If Mexico fails, the leading cartels will compete in the United States, and that competition will extend to the source of the money as well. We have already seen cartel violence in the border areas of the United States, but this risk is not limited to that. The same process that we see under way in Mexico could extend to the United States; logic dictates that it would.

The current issue is control of the source of drugs and of the supply chain that delivers drugs to retail customers in the United States. The struggle for control of the source and the supply chain also will involve a struggle for control of markets. The process of intimidation of government and police officials, as well as bribing them, can take place in market towns such as Los Angeles or Chicago, as well as production centers or transshipment points.

I see no evidence that “loyalties are shifting to the cartels.” A lot of thoughtful people are worried by the administration’s response to drug trafficking, but that just means people believe the policy is a failure, not the state. Incidentally, “failed state” — though coined by that old anarchist Noam Chomsky (who says the United States is a “failed state”) — is normally used to justify intervention in the “failed” nation (Haiti, Bosnia, etc.), or to sell military equipment (Colombia) on the pretext that “we” can’t afford to let “them” fail.

Tiny, dirt-poor Guinea-Bissau, is called a “failed state” basically because it has a thriving narcotics transshipment trade… but then, that’s about all Guinea-Bissau has. Mexico has — and will continue to have — oil, gold, silver, lead, agricultural products, fisheries, manufacturing, film, etc. etc. etc. industries. Even if the narcotics trade is — as Friedman claims — responsible for 40 billion dollars a year the U.S. spends overseas, it doesn’t mean all of that money goes to Mexico… nor that the Mexican economy is solely dependent on that money (or that… given about forty years… the source of funding for other Mexican businesses will matter all that much). However, media attention (corporate media attention??? — see the end of my piece) ignores the economic reality in favor of the “failed state” alarmist reports.

My point (which needs to be clarified, and I may revise this later) is that the top-down approach — and military solution — being pursued by the Calderon administration is creating problems. Throwing more military forces at the problem, like the U.S. “surge” in Iraq, is counter-intuitive. Especially when tried and true techniques (like better police work, and rural development programs) — mixed with shutting off the weapons and money spigot from the United States — are likely to be more effective in the long run.

And, besides… everyone expected “drug violence” to include attacks on police officials over the short term. But, unfortunately, we believe what’s in our interest to believe. And, it’s in the interest of Statfor’s clients to invest in military “solutions” rather than resolve the root cause of a national problem.

With the gangsters bumping each other off all over Cuilcán (and one Sinaloa Ministeral Police — i.e., the investigative police — chief here in Mazatlán) the predictable reaction by the Calderon administration is to throw more soldiers at the problem.

Given that the soldiers and federal police are probably a greater danger to us civilians than the gangsters. The gangsters generally hit their targets, anyway. And, seeing they have had to advertise for openings, and aren’t as well armed as you think, maybe going about this the wrong way.

The big hit last week — Chapo Guzmán’s kid — was with a bazooka. You can’t tell me the gangsters have more than one of ‘em. That’s basic “CSI” type work — trace back the weapon to its source, and follow it back. When Edgar Millán Gomez (who was a high-ranking police official, but not “Mexico’s Police Chief” as simplistic foreign press reports called him) was killed, it was old fashioned police work that caught the presumed killers. Mexico City doesn’t have the best cops on the planet, but the tried and true “be on the lookout for…” caught the presumed hitman. Yeah, maybe some “extraordinary rendition” was used to work out who else was involved, but in police killings, these things happen.

My point is that the fight against the drug dealers — if it’s necessary — is NOT analogous to some “Shi’ite v. Sunni” war (as a witty observer in Mazatlán noted), but just the same kind of fight Al Capone and Dutch Shultz had with Eliot Ness. In 1920s Chicago the police (then, as now, notoriously corrupt) took their casualties, and sometimes got their man. The feds — despite Eliot Ness’ later tall tales — mostly stuck to basic things like investigating tax returns and following the money. There was never any thought of sending in the soldiers. The only thing calling out the Army does is put more firepower into the mix. Which may be the point.

All of which makes me think that Lopez Obrador is on to something.

Vicente Fox, being a business executive, saw the drug export trade as a business — a nasty one — but a business nonetheless. You get the feeling he was content to let “market solutions” resolve the worst problems (i.e. let the gangsters kill each other) and tried to correct some abuses at the consumer level — must to the horror of the U.S. press, which had Fox’s very good idea (defining what constituted “personal use” narcotics, and not wasting police resources on small users) completely ass-backwards … reporting it as “legalized drug use”. Fox, alas, was not the Great Communicator… or even a particularly good communicator.

You’d expect Felipe Calderon, with degrees in economics and administration, to recognize the drug export wars as economic and the police problem as basically an administrative one. Which he has. But, like George W. Bush and others, he turns away from the conservative belief in “grassroots solutions” and opts for federalizing and nationalizing “problems” with a single solution.

Lopez Obrador, as a social worker, is looking at the problem from his perspective. I realize that Lopez Obrador’s natural reaction to anything Felipe Calderon does is to start singing the old Groucho Marx song, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” but AMLO does seem to be the only one focused on the issue as a social problem.

Fox was correct in a lot of ways. Cocaine is not Mexico’s problem (coca doesn’t even grow in Mexico), but because it is transshipped through Mexico, dumping surplus cocaine on the Mexican market is a problem. Other than working with users, there isn’t a lot that could be done here, until the U.S. deals with their consumption problem, or with the financial and material support it provides to Mexican shippers. But, that’s not a Mexican problem. If cocaine doesn’t come through Mexico, it will come through somewhere else until something is done about consumer demand.

Mexico’s domestic drug exports — marijuana, methamphetamines and some heroin, are alll rural products. AMLO was correct in suggesting more legitimate resources need to go to the rural regions. While Calderon’s government has had some success in cutting off supplies for meth production, until rural residents have better incomes, they’re going to continue growing what they can sell — including opium poppies. (I wonder if it wouldn’t be more costThe Mex Files › Edit — WordPress effective for the U.S. to simply offer to buy up the harvest at market prices… and maybe throw in a school or a few medical clinics and supermarkets than to spend money building prisons and trying to force Mexico to buy hardware with U.S. money).

If I’m reading AMLO’s suggestions correctly, he’s blaming capitalism and the corporate media for the violence. Socialists are supposed to blame capitalism, so that’s expected. But unless he’s talking about nationalizing the marijuana industry (now there’s a thought!… or I suppose Mexico could find a domestic market use, like Bolivia did with coca), I think he’s referring to the same platform he always has… more development funds for the rural areas (and, I’d suggest spending more on rural police training and salaries, which would cut down on the need for military intervention) and concentrating on domestic market development is going to do more than any fleet of heliocopters.

Blaming the media… well, of course AMLO does that, but he doesn’t seem to mean that they’re glorifying the “drug war” or glamorizing the combatants. And suggesting that “one size fits all” when it comes to resolving the issue. And assuming there is a “war” to be won or lost.

Some developments on the struggle to keep the Mexican press free… and alive.

In Sinaloa, the Reporters’ unions are demanding federal action in response to last week’s Army standoff (and beatings) at El Debate.

In Coahuila, “perioricidio” has been added to the criminal code. Under the legal theory that an attack on a journalist is an attack on civil society as a whole, killing a journalist has been made a separate crime than just ordinary murder and deserves a stiff sentence — 60 years.

in the Senate, PAN (yes… PAN!!) has proposed a “Ley de la Libertad de Conciencia de los Profesionales de la Información” which would codify both the citizen’s right to receive information, and the journalist’s right to provide it.

in the last year — February 2007 to February 2008 — fifteen reporters were murdered, and there were 219 cases of death threats, extortion attempts or attacks on journalists in Mexico.

¡Viva los capitalistas!

The small shopkeeper is the kind of guy who will fight for his right to vend his wares.  As they did yesterday in Itzapalapa, turning over a police car and requiring 200 coppers to close them down in the process.

This always seems to happen when cities spruce up their downtowns. “Cleaning up the city’s image” forces shoppers to hit the ‘burbs for some essentials and favorites.  Most of the Central Mexico City informal merchants agreed to a relocation deal earlier this year, but there were a few holdouts and dealers in … uh… specialty products … who didn’t take up the city’s offer, but did manage to find new outlets in the suburbs.

I gather these merchants put some thought into their new location.  With San Martha Acatitla prison looming in the background, maybe Acatitla Metro Station brings in a good walk-in trade for these businessmen, specializing in counterfeit jeans and pirate DVDs, and a few specialty goods like narcotics and handguns.

It’s harsh, I know, but a lot of fortunes have been made in the past by those who profited from human misery or dirty businesses. And, with time, those fortunes were laundered into more legitimate enterprises. Think of all the Carnegie Libraries around the United States. Or the fortunes made in the slave trade or opium trade (where do you think Barbara Bush’s family got their money?). For that matter, think of Duke University (founded by tobacco money).

Mexico does not have a particularly serious drug problem… and if the narcotics money is going to roll in, it could be put to a lot better use here in Sinaloa. In Mazatlán, a lot of our 19th century architecture is thanks to earlier smuggler’s civic generosity, and no one — even hard-care Alcoholics’ Anonymous types — are going to complain that our local brewer left his fortune (and his home) to an orphanage. Maybe an “Biblioteca Arellano Felix” wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

However, we say that narcotics is somehow different, that the narcotics trade corrupts the democratic state, and the people. OK, if that is true, why is it that the fight against it takes the form of attacking those of us who ARE the people, and the institutions on which a democratic state depends?

Border Reporter posts this morning on the police attack on El Debate, the Cuilicán daily:

Three reporters for the Culiacán daily, El Debate, were attacked by federal preventive police yesterday. One of the reporters was forced into a police car and held for ten minutes with a gun to his head. The attack tops off a deadly week of murder in Sinaloa, with six cops killed, gunfights exploding outside the state capital and cops running scared.

“They told me, you don’t know who you’re fucking with; we’re not cops from here. Go complain with whomever you want,” says one of the El Debate reporters, a young man I’ve known for several years, Torivio Bueno Leon.

The incident started when the two reporters and a photographer were taking photos of the federal cops’ checkpoint. The cops didn’t want them shooting the checkpoint, a common wish most of them seem to have, and an argument started. The photographer told his own paper they used a knife to slice the camera strap but he still managed to retain the camera.

The federáles chased them into the newspaper building where a guard shut the steel cage door and the photographer snapped them pounding on the bars outside the building.

What’s interesting is that the PFP commander called the newspaper to apologize, saying his officers were nervous because of the number of cop murders in the past two weeks.

El Debate’s coverage adds that the Federal Police were “locked and loaded” and where threatening to shoot into the newspaper’s offices.

The reporters — Torivio Bueno, Leo Espinoza and Geovanny Elizalde — all say they were physically injured for doing their jobs. Espinoza has 28 years experience as a photojournalist, and the others were clearly identified as members of the press. Putting a guy to someone’s head for ten minutes is considered “psychological torture” in Mexican criminal law.

El Debate and Border Reporter have conflicting information on who offered the “official explanation”. El Debate says Eduardo Cano Camacho, who is “Social Communications Chief” for the Federal Secretaría de Seguridad Pública made the statement. Despite his imposing title, Cano is only a press liaison, not the police chief. A minor matter, but it suggests the SSP is taking this as merely a public relations problem, not as an attack on Mexican civil society.

Border Reporter does a good job explaining why the police are nervous and likely to over-react, and why a lot of us here in Sinaloa are less than enthusiastic about the “War on (some) drugs”. But I would go further. For one thing, I’m not working as a reporter here, and am free to speculate.

Thankfully, it was the police, not the Army involved in this incident. While the Army is better disciplined (in theory), there are too many reasons to go into here (I’ve done that before, again and again) on why military forces should not be involved in civilian law enforcement. And, while the Army has traditionally enjoyed high levels of respect as a state institution, soldiers are trained to protect themselves at all costs. The results could have been a disaster, going far beyond the fallout from the apparent federal crackdown on a free press.

Incidentally, the policeman’s remark that “We’re not from here” is an excellent argument AGAINST using hired guns (aka “security contractors”, aka mercenaries) for things like border control or drug interdiction (as the U.S. does under “Plan Colombia,” and suggests doing under “Plan Merida”).

If there need to be confrontations between suspected narcos and the forces of the state, then the Federal Police are the people who should do the job. But, obviously, they need more training. My strongest objection to using the Army has been that soldiers MUST see all civilians in their “war zone” as potential enemies. The police are supposed to be on the same side as the civilians. Always.

And, police paramilitary operations should be the last resort. The problem with this “War on (some) drugs” has always been that we don’t see the kinds of police work that really destroys criminal enterprises — the old “follow the money” investigative technique that’s always worked since the days of Eliot Ness and Al Capone.

The Sinaloa growers and exporters provide a lot of local employment, and there isn’t the money locally to provide the resources they enjoy. I’m not the least concerned when some gangster gets his head chopped off, or a cop on the take gets a bullet in the back of the head… but I can understand how it happens. People do things they wouldn’t otherwise not just when they feel threatened, but when there is money involved as well. And… I don’t see much effort being expended to find the money source.

Other than some vague promises, I don’t see that expanding Mexican anti-narcotics efforts is at all directed at drying up the narco’s resources. The Mexican military budget increases were supposed to be to give the soldiers and sailors a well deserved raise. But “Plan Merida” funding is all about hardware. And intimidating the populace.

There is probably no need to say the photo was taken in Texas.

From Carl Lumholtz, “Unknown Mexico: A Record of Five Years’ Exploration Among the Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and Among the Tarascos of Michoacan (Vol 1). This is from a “Project Gutenburg” transcript and did not include the original publication data – I think the date was about 1894.

Lumholtz, a Norwegian explorer and archaeologist, is writing here about an 1892 expedition to Casas Grandes, Barancas del Cobre and the Tarahumare country in Chihuahua State. At the time, a few Apache bands had not given up their fight against the U.S. and Mexican governments, which was a concern for Lumholtz… and there were some transportation issues as well.

It is the custom with Mexican muleteers to select from among themselves a few, whose business throughout the journey it is to guard the animals at night. These men, immediately after having had their supper, drive the animals to a place where suitable pasture is found, never very far from the camp, and bring them back in the morning. They constitute what is called la sabana. Comparatively few men suffice for this duty, even with a large herd, as long as they have with them a leader of the mules, a mare, preferably a white one. She may be taken along solely for this purpose, as she is often too old for any other work. The mules not infrequently show something like a fanatic attachment for their yegua, and follow blindly where they hear the tinkling of the bell, which is invariably attached to her neck. She leads the pack-train, and where she stops the mules gather around her while waiting for the men to come and relieve them of their burdens. Sometimes a horse may serve as a leader, but a mare is surer of gaining the affection of all the mules in the train. This is an important fact for travellers to bear in mind if they use mules at all. In daytime the train will move smoothly, all the mules, of their own accord, following their leader, and at night keeping close to her. In this way she prevents them from scattering and becomes indispensable to the train.

But in spite of the vigilance of the sabana and the advantage of a good yegua, it may happen, under favourable topographical and weather conditions, that robbers succeed in driving animals away. While giving the pack-train a much-needed rest of a day in a grassy spot, we woke next morning to find five of our animals missing. As three of the lot were the property of my men, they were most eagerly looked for. The track led up a steep ridge, over very rough country, which the Mexicans followed, however, until it suddenly ran up against a mountain wall; and there the mules were found in something like a natural corral.

Not until then did our guide inform me that there lived at Calaveras (skulls), only three miles from where we were stopping, a band of seven robbers and their chief, Pedro Chaparro, who was at that time well-known throughout this part of the Tarahumare country. I had no further experience with him, but later heard much of this man, who was one of a type now rapidly disappearing in Mexico. He did not confine his exploits to the Mexicans, but victimised also the Indians whenever he got an opportunity, and there are many stories in circulation about him.

On one occasion he masqueraded as a padre, a black mackintosh serving as his priestly garb. Thus attired he went to the unsophisticated Tarahumares in the more remote valleys and made them send out messengers to advise the people that he had come to baptise them, and that they were all to gather at a certain place to receive his blessings. For each baptism he charged one goat, and by the time he thought it wise to retire he had quite a respectable herd to drive home. when the Indians found out that they had been swindled, they caught him and put him into jail, intending to kill him; but unfortunately some of his Mexican confreres heard of his plight and came to his rescue. However, a few years later, this notorious highwayman, who had several murders to answer for, was caught by the government authorities and shot.

I never even knew adultery ever was a criminal act. Wouldn’t you know it, the 31 deputies who voted to keep adultery a crime were all PANistas?

I don’t think anyone has ever actually be prosecuted for adultery, but Marisala Contreras, the PRD deputy who Equality and Gender Committee, said the real importance was not in getting rid of a legal “aberration”, but in closing a loophole.

Homicides are sometimes reduced to “justifiable homicide” when a smart lawyer claims his client was trying to prevent his compadre from committing a crime — and just “accidentally” offed his wife in the process.

What is it with the Coahuila PRI?  The PRI is supposed to be making nice with the conservatives at PAN.  Instead, we had Coahuila legalizing gay marriage (pushed by the PRI, but opposed by PAN and PRD), and now the PRI Governor, Humberto Moreira Valdés, defending AMLO!

The last Coahuila Governor to get really pissed at the Feds and go over to the left — like Governor Moreira — was also part of the traditional establishment (Carranza’s big problem with the Portfirian government is it took so damn long for the guys above him to die off, and he was stuck as Monclova’s Presidente Municipal forever, until Madero’s revolution made him interim governor).

And, Moreria, like Carranza, has to deal with the crazies who wanted to “seal the border” (though, in our day, the Texans know the “seal the border” guys are nuts).

So,  maybe it isn’t all that odd that those independent minded Coahulense, like Minnesotans, do the unexpected. I’m not going to push this very far, but Minnesota supposedly solidly supports the establishment parties, but then does it’s own thing.  Coahuila, despite being one of the norteño states (allegedly pro-business and pro-U.S.) has Communist-run cities (Acuña) , lefty preachers (Archbishop Vega) and the State parties don’t follow national trends… after all, in Coahuila, it was the PRI that backed gar marriage, and the PRD and PAN that opposed it.

Or, I suppose, it could just mean that PRI still hasn’t decided if it’s a party of the left, or a junior partner to PAN.  Moreira may just be chomping at the bit, as Carranza was in 1910… and facing a neo-liberal federal government that isn’t seen as meeting popular demand.  Maybe Coahuila isn’t Minnesota…. maybe it’s Coahuila.
but

“Guanabee” is required reading – especially if, like me, you’re on the verge of old farthood, and are rapidly in danger of falling into cluelessness. Otherwise, like other old farts, the only way I could make any sense at all out of the sudden burst of “anti-emoismo” in Mexico was to fall back on some neat little construction of how Mexico and the world works.

Mexico is not a place where anything happens for just one reasons. I didn’t think guanabee’s magisterial decision that the violence was just “macho bullshit” spread by one VJ was the complete story … Blaming the whole thing on a VJ is much neater than John Ross’ attempts to fit the event into a Marxist box, but neither seems to work completely. In Mexico, you usually have to cut through several layers of history to make sense of anything, and – with the anti-emo outburst – political history seemed a good place to start.

I’d intially noticed that outside of the Zona Rosa the anti-emo activities were all in conservative regions. However, in Mexico City, the punks later denied responsibility, and blamed the attacks on un-named outsiders. Videos I saw, and photos from around the country convinced me that the punks were not involved. Outside Mexico City, the attackers looked more like “juniors” and rich kids than the blue collar, anarchist punks I know.

And, the punks never struck me as violent. I also remembered that a few years ago, darkeos and, of all people, skateboarders, were being blamed by then Secretary of Gobernacion Santiago Creel (now PAN’s senate leader) for anti-government actions. But then, the urban tribes – even if its pop culture that defines them – all have political agendas. Or are suspected of having them. The punks are working class anarchists, and the darkeos basically have given up on political change, and damned if I know what the skateboarders think… but pop culture (guanabee’s province) and the byzantine world of Mexican politics (something I have a nodding acquaintance with, but is still confusing as hell) were both at work here.

So, in the comments to guanabee’s post, I laid out a few thoughts on the political issues – which led one poster (with no return email address) to accuse me of pushing some “agenda.” Like… maybe being the Mex Files, I think the truth is out there…. way out there?

Francisco Mejía “Los skinheads y su rabia contra todo y todos” in yesterday’s Milenio (23 April 2008 ) adds a few pieces to the story… and hits a couple of my hot buttons.

I’ve always accepted that there are fascist tendencies in PAN, and that fascists, and that Mexican social conservatives are – like the “religious right” in the U.S. — likely to ally themselves with unsavory characters. And, having just had to revise some work on the Cristeros, I’ve been struck by the resurgence of interest in what had been the last gasp of the Clericialism in Mexico. PAN, while an outgrowth of that 1920s-style terrorist campaign, is a modern political party, and their attempts to spin that history seemed reasonable.

I’ve also been worried by the increasing pressure on Mexico to turn to a military – or at least oppresive – solution to “problems” (in Mexico’s case, the narcotraficantes). The danger is that under the guise of stopping “deviance”, totalitarians – see Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Mugabe – find it much easier to blame the social unrest on social outsiders — gays, religious minorities, foreigners. In a closed society, like Stalin’s Soviet Union, it’s fairly easy. In more open ones – like 1930s Germany, or today’s Mexico – the reaction has to “subcontract” the job. I doubt the skinheads will become Mexico’s Sturmabteilug , but it bears watching.

A skinhead in el Chopo tianguis is a soul in pain, a warrior in red or black boots, a closely shaved head with a tuft of hair at the back of the crown, the red boots or good, a shining bald spot head, a tuft of black hair in the crown, estoperoles [decorative grommets] with which he tries to reflect back a world not of his making; seeking one that goes more with muscle shirts and biceps, shoulders and backs tattoed with swasticas, crosses, death’s heads, the flag, flames, the eagle and other things. He is a National Socialist, back from a meeting at a house in colonia Moctezuma, setting forth to strike, and enraged at everything. By everything.

A sense of rage – anger against everything and everyone – is the skinhead’s currency. There are those who say there are very few skinheads in Mexico, that they are not real. But they exist: are few are “reds” who say at the same time they are democrats, but others who are fascists – rudeboys, made in Mexico.

They walk by the Chopo, they are trained in Moctezuma, run and work out in the early mornings in Bosque de Aragón; the eat and party at a club on the outskirts of Tacube, but they also attend seminars in houses in the most exclusive neighborhood in the city: Polanco.

In these places… and others… many young people between 27 and 25 are preparing themselves to change our country, and save it from the reds and Communism.

Reliable sources say they meet in a house owned by a well-known PANista family of the Seventies, located on the north side of calle Francisco Espejel, “close to calzada Ignacio Zaragoza in colonia Moctezuma.”

“They have already staged public fist-fights by way of practice,” sources say. One remembers what happened in the El Chopo tianguis in 2001. The latest was the attack on the emos. They [the skinheads] accuse their enemies of seeking to rob them of their identity, appropriating their clothing, their style and their motivation.

The skinheads salute el Chopo with a “Sieg heil!!!!” bashing their way in with arms covered with swastikas. Hard looks. Boots to protect them from the hot asphalt at two in the afternoon. One of them is wearing 22 rings on his wrists and fingers. They’ll fight them all. Against them all. Their forebearers are the punks of the Seventies.

With the “punketos” its a fight to the death here in Mexico who the skinheads say, “are supported by Marxists.” The skinheads talk about the punks who meet at el Chopo. “They are already domesticated.”

Among themselves, on their internet pages, they define a true skinhead as “a soldier with the commitment to train themselves physically, morally, ethically, politically and philosophically. To be a true skinhead is not only to wear Doc Martins boots, a bomber jacker, be bady shaved and see some Hollywood movie, or spend Saturdays drinking beer with low-lifes…”. The discourse ends thus: “We are alwyas facists, proud Mexican skinheads.”

The skinheads meet daily for training, mostly on the east side of the city, for directed study of Hitler’s writings, the Cristero struggle in Mexico and other texts on “re-awaked National Socialism.” They hold the ideology of a “pure race.”

In the corridors of the Chopo tianguis you can find all types of clothing, minds, forms of being, affliliations, phobias and more; but these young people walk around as if they are not part of it. Here everyone fits in — punks, rockeros, metaleros, hardcoreros, rudeboys, darketos, góticos anarcos – even hippies and nostalgic Communists.

Juan, a kind-hearted anarchist says, “There aren’t many in Mexico that identify with the skinheads.”. His criticism is that “true punks are anarchists who favor tolerance and fight against fascism. But they [the skinheads] have turned the ideals on their head. They act like Nazis and like to fight.”

They all read something. Juan reads Bakunin, Malatesta and Proudhom. Everyone here has their own parish, their own chuch. He says “anarchism is part of the counterculture… it’s a way of life and relating to it. It’s a different aesthetic and ethic [from the skinheads].”

Juan says he is familiar with all the tribes. To him, the goths are nihilists. Their vision of the world is nihilistic, and “they appear in black because they’re dead to life. Society has killed them. The torn clothes, the black and the buttons affirm that the Mexican left doesn’t exist. The skinheads work underground. They imitiate the look, but they’re true bastards.”

In Tacuba, behind the Metro Station, skinheads drink beer and dance to ska, reggae, oi, punk and hard core. Those are the rhythms. The lyrics celebrate the working class and call for social change. Some accept fascism, others maybe not. The first group says they are against democrats and reds, but they like sex and alcohol. All of them “hate everything” Most say the working class was invented by Hitler. That’s why they are for him.

They do not want to “red punks” and they seem to mean it: “No small group, organization or collective will be able to stop to us in our fight to rescue to our beloved nation from the claws of the Jewish Comunism and the revolting new world order. ¡¡¡Salve victoria!!!

Various young people interviewed at el Chopo, where there were demonstrations in support of tolerance for the persecuted emos, says the fascist skinheads are “supported by someone on the right with a big wallet,” who is responsible for the calls to persecute the emos.

Few of the punketos at Chopo do not remember the brawl ( “la madriza”) of Sepember 2001 provoked by neo-nazi skinheads, 25 of whom showed up at the corner of Aldama and Guerrero [the street corner outside el Chopo tianguis] with knives and hooks. Records at the time spoke of rumors circulating hours before the confrontation that the “fachos” were going up against the punks.

The skinheads wear red boots, black clothes, a hollow look in their eyes. But like other youths who only drink Pepsi, they come by Metro to walk around el Chopo like any other “superstar”. Once in a while.

I expect we’ll be hearing some more about the Bush famil y’s 98,000 acre spread in Paraguay in the coming months. Neil Bush (last month) and First Drunk Daughter Jenna (in October 2006) both made mysterious trips to the otherwise forgotten country in recent months.

Down With Tyranny has been one of the few widely read news blogs to follow the story, and actually went to Paraguay to investigate:

…I was hoping to track down the humongous Bush estate in the most remote part of Latin America’s least known country. I never did manage to get anywhere near the Bush estate– it was meant to be remote for a reason and the only way to get there is by private plane and then you need permission to land on their airstrip– but I did take note of a certain backwardness that might make it very alluring not just to Bush but to many of the potential war crimes defendants from his regime. They were actually selling Nazi memorabilia on the streets of Asuncion.

Well, Paraguay is in the news this morning– and not in a way likely to please the Bushes. The fascistic-oriented ruling party was deposed yesterday. Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic Bishop– the “bishop of the poor”– and the leader of a left-of-center coalition of unions, Indians and poor farmers, beat Blanca Ovelar, who headed the very corrupt far right Colorado Party, widely considered to be in Bush’s pocket.

President-Elect Lugo, and his party, are promising to redistribute land in the last country in Latin America (like the United States, most agricultural land is held by corporate interests. Unlike the U.S., most Paraguayans are farmers). The Bush family lands are said to be investments in soya (Paraguay’s largest legal export) though there are rumors the Bush’s were interested in capturing water drilling rights in expectation that neo-liberal policies in the Southern Cone would lead to privatizing water distribution within those countries. However, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay have all elected social democratic leaders who have rejected neo-liberalism, leaving Paraguay as the last hope for making a fortune from these privatized natural resources.

Then again, maybe some of the more sinister suggestions about the Bush compound are true, and water isn’t their main concern. Paraguay was, of course, best known as the refuge of Nazi war criminals and other nasty types. There are those who believe the Bushs are planning for their eventual exile somewhere beyond the jurisdiction of the United States and international courts. If even slightly true, the Bushs may have to start asking “Is it safe?” before they pack their bags.

Fernando Lugo’s election in Paraguay is also more proof, if any is needed, of my own hare-brained theory that the Bush family are working for Castro... think of it. Since Chinese Commie lovin’ George W. Bush was “elected” — with the help of Cubans in Florida (where his brother was conveniently Governor), Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, ,Panama ,Nicaragua, Suriname, Venezuela and Uruguay, have all moved to the left. the fractured Mexican left united — and Bush’s handler, Fidel Castro, having achieved his goal of a leftist Latin America, could finally retire.