Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
With the US election looming, Kenneth Anderson revisits the recent Mexican presidential election for the November/December issue of The Humanist (go directly to PDF).
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Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
With the US election looming, Kenneth Anderson revisits the recent Mexican presidential election for the November/December issue of The Humanist (go directly to PDF).
READER COMMENTS ON
"Mexico's Election Fraud"
(17 Responses so far...)
COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
...
Rose Elvern
said on 10/21/2006 @ 11:06 am PT...
Mexican officials are being assassinated by the corrupt right wing.
http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=34710
http://www.progressivein...m=103&topic_id=23315
The Mexican People: Heroes of Democracy
“The only hope of Democracy, that fragile thing never granted but always promised, is gone by virtue of election fraud... and with it the social contract that holds our society together.”
- Anaxarchos
By Michael Collins
“Scoop” Independent Media
Washington, DC
English: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00269.htm
The Mexican peoples’ democracy movement and their leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador are modern heroes of democracy and to all who demand clean elections. They recall the heroics of the Ukrainians with one important difference. There are no “great powers” supporting them. In fact, the American regime is hostile to a victory by Obrador and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
The increasingly unpopular and isolated White House cadre may have done its best to obstruct such an eventuality in ways which by now are predictably familiar. The Mexican people are alone, on the street, fighting the brave fight for people everywhere who believe in the inherently inalienable and natural right of men and women to determine their own destiny through free, fair, and transparent elections.
COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
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Lisa B
said on 10/21/2006 @ 11:57 am PT...
Thanks for the article. Somehow, some way we the people need to save our democracy and our lives. Why Republicans are so naïve to this danger, it’s beyond any comprehensive understanding. I’m just shocked and amazed at all this. What happened to people? This is not a freaking football game where you’re hoping your team wins the trophy this is our freaking lives. How did these people get so damn stupid and ignorant?
COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
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Floridiot
said on 10/21/2006 @ 1:34 pm PT...
Thats what the "R" stands for in IRI Lisa
The IRI was down in Mexico full tilt on the election sham,
making sure the new port in Mexico and road to Canada gets built without any "people" interference, thus eliminating thousands of union longshoreman jobs in the US and tax income by having "Duty free" borders, Mexico to Texas to Canada, via Red China
Its all in the plan
COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
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Ancient
said on 10/21/2006 @ 7:25 pm PT...
Remember that graph people, that's just what this november's graphs will look like!
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
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Ancient
said on 10/21/2006 @ 7:35 pm PT...
It's about time people start looking at Mexico as a Sovereign nation instead of a third world NEIGHBOR!!!!!!!! FRY Hastert!!!!!!!!!!!!!
COMMENT #6 [Permalink]
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Ancient
said on 10/21/2006 @ 7:52 pm PT...
I say long live ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ-OBRADOR!
TRAILER FOR A STOLEN ELECTION, RIGHT HERE IN YOUR HOME TOWN TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
COMNG SOON.
Are you ready for this America? Will we be "allowed" to take to the streets or will we be rounded up as terrorists, and sent to their brand spanking new AMERICAN detention camps?????????
COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
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Larry Bergan
said on 10/21/2006 @ 8:13 pm PT...
Don't the "minutemen" here realize that Obrador's success would have done more to keep Mexicans in Mexico then any stupid wall, or are these guys, (who say they hate Bush), just a bunch of lying, fake "from my cold dead hands" types, who are always going after the weak, but NEVER GOING AFTER the powerful as Michael Moore has done over and over again.
I'm sorry if I've offended any minutemen with pure motives, but Charlton Heston is probably more to blame then the poor Mexicans looking for work!
I am by no means an expert on this, but there just seems to be a disconnect here! Why aren't the minutemen waving their guns at the people who have dismantled our constitution and bill of rights? Is it just because Clinton isn't in office now? Help me understand!
COMMENT #8 [Permalink]
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Ancient
said on 10/21/2006 @ 8:18 pm PT...
Thank you Rose Elvern.
And I'll bet you dollars to dougnuts Hastert knows them ALL.
COMMENT #9 [Permalink]
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Jeannie King
said on 10/21/2006 @ 8:48 pm PT...
I have felt rather suspicious about this Minutemen concept,from the start.Who knows,maybe Karl Rove is behind that orginization,hoping to use that as a wedge against the Democrats.It seems funny,that the right-wingers are trying to use the immigration problem as a way to divide the country, again.Bush could be fakin'
his stance on immigration,while party members use the opposite direction,whipping the country into a frenzy against immigration.That would seem to explain such a weird circumstance,for the republicans are out of luck on all the other issues.They realize how many people are upset,and want to stop immigration.This sounds like a twisted scenerio,very befitting of the evil Rovian plots!!
COMMENT #10 [Permalink]
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MarkH
said on 10/22/2006 @ 11:58 am PT...
The immigration issue is just another fake wedge issue like gay marriage. It's being used to rile up south-westerners who hate the immigrants, so they'll vote. Naturally, those bigots will vote Republican.
But, what gets me the most is that in 1994 the Repubs took the House with something like 40-60 seat gain and this year the tide is toward Democrats, but Dems are only likely (according to today's estimates) to gain 20-30 seats. Have the journalists already factored in the vote theft?
I suspect they'll just repeat over and over how hard it is to defeat an incumbent because of money and gerrymandering. But, since the media are refusing to cover the electronic voting machines scandal we'll never hear about all the 'glitches'.
COMMENT #11 [Permalink]
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big dan
said on 10/22/2006 @ 3:29 pm PT...
The corporate-controlled mainstream media won't cover the stolen Mexico election, Bush's 2 stolen elections, the rash of GOP stolen senatorial elections since 2002, and the won't cover the Supreme Court stopping the recount in 2000 Floridia, overturning the Florida Supreme Courts decision to have the peoples' votes count.
COMMENT #12 [Permalink]
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Hanspeter
said on 10/23/2006 @ 8:06 am PT...
As someone from Mexico (and who was just there last week), Lopez Obrador would have been absolutely horrible for Mexico if he was elected President. His time as mayor of Mexico City didn't do anything for the city, he was basically giving handouts to win popularity with the poor, his mayor infrastructure work, the 2nd level to the Periferico (beltway around the capital), is not finished yet (after at least 5 years), but has been inagurated twice, and when I drove on it the other day they were adding new support columns for the 2nd level because it was clear that the ones they had at first would not have been enough to withstand an earthquake.
My relatives keep moving to more and more secure gated communities in the outskirts (one cousin twice in the last three years) because crime in Mexico City has been rising and Lopez Obrador really wasn't going after crime (both by people and by businesses). They're good middle class, but definitely not even upper middle class, and moving so much was financially difficult.
About the only good thing I've heard say about him was that during their sit in at the Zocalo, when the army told him they had to clear out for the Sept 16 parades, he agreed, managed to keep several hundred thousand people calm and non-violent, and praised the army as defenders of the country (rather than fighters for the government).
On the plus side, the zoo has an amazing walk-through aviary
COMMENT #13 [Permalink]
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Hanspeter
said on 10/23/2006 @ 8:11 am PT...
The charge against Lopez Obrador before the election that knocked him temporarily off the ballot, however, was totally bogus. The PAN definitely played dirty, and learned some tricks from the PRI.
COMMENT #14 [Permalink]
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Agent 99
said on 10/23/2006 @ 10:14 am PT...
Hanspeter
Just. Shut. Up. Obrador was elected! Comforting yourself that he would have been horrible for Mexico, which is BY NO MEANS established, is JUST a way to blur out the reality of stolen elections, a way to PRETEND Mexico is a democracy. How's that different from the mouth-breathers still supporting *?
COMMENT #15 [Permalink]
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Larry Bergan
said on 10/23/2006 @ 11:40 pm PT...
In a sane world with elections that aren't charades, the guy who wins should be the guy who gets the chance to serve. America is a sad example of what happens when this principal isn't followed.
There will never be unity in this country until Bush is impeached. Period.
COMMENT #16 [Permalink]
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Hanspeter
said on 10/25/2006 @ 3:37 am PT...
Wow Larry. Thank you ever so much for your polite and insightful commentary. And comparing me to a Bush supporter w/out knowing anything about my politics, voting history, etc (hint: B. Lee, L. Clay, C. Rangel, look them up; I will happily provide the ketchup for your foot), that'll really make me want to pay attention to you in the future. And I didn't say anything about being comforted by Calderon's 'win'. All I pointed out was that Lopez Obrador would not have been good for the country, using facts about his previous history and methods to back up my claims, unlike other commenters who were ready to canonize Lopez Obrador.
I don't know who really won the 2006 Mexico election, but having actually been in Mexico (unlike the other armchair commentators), I can tell you that the fraud was not as widespread as, say, Ohio 2004.
Hence this, in part:
The charge against Lopez Obrador before the election that knocked him temporarily off the ballot, however, was totally bogus. The PAN definitely played dirty, and learned some tricks from the PRI.
This was not Salinas de Gortari vs. Cardenas in 1988, and conflating the politics of the candidates with the functioning of the election only turns off supporters of clean elections who might not agree with the politics of the aggrieved party (look at Brad's posts on the Bilbray/Busby election and how he changes his tone from it was stolen from Busby to "it's not known who won because of all the screw ups, we must correct them and possibly even rerun the election". It wasn't about Busby, it was about a clean election and he got it right.)
More later...
COMMENT #17 [Permalink]
...
Larry Bergan
said on 10/26/2006 @ 1:06 am PT...
Hanspeter #16
As I said earlier in this post. I'm not an expert on Mexico or the border problems, and I didn't try to make any assertion that you, personally, are a Bush supporter.
There is a local radio host here who is very funny and I used to listen to his program often, however, one day I heard him say that he thought Bush was a terrible president, but he was glad Bush was president instead of Al Gore. I haven't listened to his program since.
I am sorry, but the idea of a democracy is that the guy who wins gets to try his hand at governing. Your comment that Obrador would have made a horrible president reminded me of this take on stolen elections. If you live in Mexico, there is no doubt that you know much more then I about what goes on there, but I still think Obrador deserves that chance to prove himself. He seemed to want to help the poor there.