I am a mexican citizen, whose political preference lie at the center left of the political spctrum; so, I am usually critical of the mexican right wing statu quo, that is a brief context of my opinion that I state here. The writer Fred Wilson is stating and absolute truth of the mexican affairs, based on half truths, or strait lies; while it is true that the regular mexican citizens are afraid to be subject of violence of random crime; it is a lie that the government is repressing its citizens systematicly, as an example, consider that ultra leftist candidate on the 2006 presidential elections, an his followers, had called the recognized president Felipe Calderon illegitimate (to say the least), and there had been no repression against the opposers. The SME issue is more complex of what Wilson describes; SME worked for a government owned mexican electric monopoly, as such, all the customers of the monopoly were hostages of the SME; due to the economic crisis, the mexicans could't sustain the privileges of the SME any more, and the electric utility had to go. The government used a dirty trick to take the electric installations, used the security forces, but nobody were expelled with guns pointing to the workers (the videos are available on www.milenio.com). As a client of the electric utility, I see that a burden is gone with SME, and I see that the union is fighting for its priviliges (most of the mexicans can't dream of such amount and costly privileges), even Andres Manuel (ultraleftist, declared enemy of the government) is vaguely sympathetic with SME. So, now that the Canadian visa is on for the ugly, uncivilized, abusers, queue jumpers mexicans; I'd say that mexicans and gringos can stay home and deal with their own problems. PS: The SME remainings are for free, if you want them.