Mexico

One would think that street protests the likes of which are seen below in the capital city of our next door neighbor would be considered newsworthy by the professionals running America's great news companies.

Meh .... not so much.

What's even more interesting is the relative silence from Mexican media giants of whom one would think it would be impossible to ignore such an outbreak of protest.

The reason?

Protestors aren't protesting what they think to be a stolen election as much as they are protesting what appears to be purchased/biased media coverage by the Mexican media duopoly on behalf of the winner, President Elect Pena Nieto.

Click on the little gear here for a 2009 story from The Guardian concerning leaked memos expressing concern at the United States Embassy in Mexico City about bribes being paid to media companies and reporters/analysts either by or on behalf of Mr. Nieto and his candidacy.

Click on this little gear here for the story of what is presently going on in Mexico City titled, "Mexico's Revolution Will Not Be Televised".

We liked that.

Then ... it seems that the Mexican television market is even more superficial/shallow/vapid/insipid/stupid than the U.S. television market.

Can this even be possible?

The following vid is of what is a fairly routine occurrence, a Mexican television broadcast of a celebrity wedding.  In this case the weekend past wedding of comedian Eugenio Derbez y television actress Alessandra Rosaldo.

The chanting you here in the background is that of protestors outside the church shouting "Fraud".

Finally ... since somebody brought it up.

Before hip hop and whatever rap artist you might want to consider seminal, there was beat and the great Gil Scott Heron.  The following is a very nice treatment of his closest thing to a hit record.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

It is our among our fondest dreams that Americans wake up one day and discover that the same parasitic vermin that own the banks, own the media and our government.

Say what you will about him, but you gotta admit Benjamin Netanyaho tiene cojones muy grandes.

From Andrew Breitbart Presents Big Peace.

Netanyahu Urges U.S. Return to 1845 Borders

Israeli PM calls for “just solution” to end the conflict.

Aboard Air Force Aleph (Reuters) – Speaking to reporters accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his long flight to the United States tonight, Netanyahu spoke of the injustice and hardship Mexicans have endured since American forces annexed Texas in 1845.

“Tens of thousands of ordinary Mexicans were driven out of their homes – the only homes they had known for centuries – and forced to live in poverty and squalor south of the border imposed by American aggression,” Netanyahu said.

“The Israeli and Mexican people agree on this: This festering wound will never heal until America takes bold steps to return to the internationally accepted lines of 1845.

Clearly the settlement activity that’s taken place in occupied Mexico since then is illegal.

When I meet the President tomorrow I will tell him to halt all building activity in Texas immediately.

Two lands for two peoples, yes, but not on land taken by force from Mexico,” the Prime Minister said.

Before you go nuts, he's being facetious.

This is in response to President Obama suggesting that Israel return to it's 1967 borders.

From Stratfor Global Intelligence.

This week's Mexico Security Memo.

·         Teachers from a school in China, Nuevo Leon state, discovered a severed head in a plastic bag near the school building.

·         Unidentified gunmen shot and threw two grenades at a police station in Ebano, San Luis Potosi state, and left a body inside a cardboard box near the station. Two passersby were injured in the attack.

·         Nine people were injured when a grenade exploded outside a shopping center in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state.

Feb. 15

·         Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a man as he drove his car in the Riveras de Linda Vista neighborhood of Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state. A group of gunmen later arrived and drove away with the car and the man’s body.

·         Police found the blindfolded body of an unidentified man bearing signs of torture in Leon, Guanajuato state.

·         Suspected members of Los Zetas opened fire on two U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents at a roadblock in San Luis Potosi state, killing one and injuring another.

Feb. 16

·         The Mexican Prosecutor General’s office announced the arrests of 13 suspected members of Los Zetas and the seizure of bank accounts containing more than 16 million pesos (about $1.3 million). The suspects had participated in the illegal extraction and sale of 175.855 million liters of natural gas condensate from 2007 to 2008.

·         Four unidentified gunmen were killed when their vehicle crashed into a tree as they fled from soldiers in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state. The suspects reportedly opened fire on soldiers investigating reports of firefights in the area.

·         Several firefights between unidentified gunmen against police and soldiers were reported in Zitacuaro, Michoacan state. Two people were killed and a fuel station was set on fire during the incidents. The security forces reportedly intended to arrest a local leader of La Familia Michoacana identified as “El Morsa.”

·         Unidentified attackers in a taxi threw two grenades at a police station in Tamasopo, San Luis Potosi state. No injuries were reported in the attack.

Feb. 17

·         Unidentified gunmen shot and injured a police officer driving in southern Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, who managed to escape into a local restaurant.

·         Two federal police officers and one gunman were injured in a firefight in Cuautla, Morelos state.

·         Six severed heads were abandoned near a police station in Moralillo, Panuco municipality, Veracruz state. A message attributing the crime to the Gulf cartel was found near the heads.

Feb. 18

·         A 16-year-old boy with an AK-47 was among five suspected members of the Artistas Asesinos gang arrested following a shootout with Mexican federal police in Juarez, Chihuahua state.

·         Soldiers killed five unidentified gunmen in a firefight in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state. Three gunmen also died when their vehicle rolled over in Juarez, Nuevo Leon state, after fleeing from a military patrol.

·         Security forces raided a safe-house in Mexicali, Baja California state, and seized approximately 9 tons of marijuana. The drug shipment were found inside several container and tanker trucks. An unspecified number of people were arrested.

·         Unidentified people threw four bodies from a bridge in Chilpancingo, Guerrero state. The victims had been shot to death.

Feb. 19

·         Five gunmen in Ixtapaluca, Mexico state, shot and killed two police officers. One gunman was killed in the incident, which began after the police officers asked a group of people to identify themselves.

·         Soldiers in the Unidad Modelo neighborhood of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, raided a house and arrested three people. Three men were arrested in the raid and were removed from the house covered in blankets, according to unofficial sources.

·         Between Feb. 17 and Feb. 20, 53 people, including a Juarez police officer, a municipal patrolman and a state investigator, were killed in cartel-related violence in Juarez, Chihuahua state. It was reportedly the deadliest 72-hour span in that city in recent memory.

Feb. 20

·         Police in Puente de Ixtla, Morelos state, arrested four suspected members of a La Familia Michoacana cell as they were driving a stolen vehicle.

·         Authorities announced that 12 taxi drivers and passengers were killed in Acapulco, Guerrero state, from Feb. 18 to Feb. 20.

·         Soldiers in the Morelos neighborhood of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, freed a kidnapping victim and arrested eight suspected kidnappers. 

That's your war on drugs, completing it's perfect work.

Fred Reed at Fred On Everything is back with an essay on Mexico and drugs.

Way double highly recommended.

If Mexico were not next to the world’s most ravening drug market, it would be a corrupt, but functioning and reasonably successful upper Third-World country.

If this were not so, Mexico would not have the huge number of American who have come here to retire.

But the country cannot withstand a drug business that, by a common figure, brings the traffickers forty billion dollars a year.

The money means that the cartels can buy heavier armament than can the government, as well as buy heavier officials on either side of the border.

(It is an American conceit that corruption exists only in other countries.)

Stratfor Global Intelligence is in my opinion among the better international news sites.

At about $30 a month, it's probably not worth it to most folks.

They have a one week trial deal.

I like it.

From an article titled,

"Mexico a Struggle for Balance"

“…Mexico was nearing the status of a failed state.

A failed state is one in which the central government has lost control over significant areas of the country and the state is unable to function.

In revisiting this issue, it seems to us that the Mexican government has lost control of the northern tier of Mexico to drug-smuggling organizations, which have significantly greater power in that region than government forces.

Moreover, the ability of the central government to assert its will against these organizations has weakened to the point that decisions made by the state against the cartels are not being implemented or are being implemented in a way that would guarantee failure…

“…The United States consumes vast amounts of narcotics, which, while illegal there, make their way in abundance.

Narcotics derive from low-cost agricultural products that become consumable with minimal processing.

With its long, shared border with the United States, Mexico has become a major grower, processor and exporter of narcotics.

Because the drugs are illegal and thus outside normal market processes, their price is determined by their illegality rather than by the cost of production.

This means extraordinary profits can be made by moving narcotics from the Mexican side of the border to markets on the other side…

“…each smuggling organization has an attached paramilitary organization designed to protect its own supply chain and to seize its competitors' supply chains.

The result is ongoing warfare between competing organizations…

Membership in such paramilitary groups offers impoverished young men extraordinary opportunities for making money, far greater than would be available to them in legitimate activities…

“Indeed, what the wars are being fought over in some ways benefits Mexico.

The amount of money pouring into Mexico annually is stunning. It is estimated to be about $35 billion to $40 billion each year…

From Mexico's point of view, interrupting the flow of drugs to the United States is not clearly in the national interest or in that of the economic elite…