random violence? or collapse in Mexico!

Let me guess...you're hoping for "collapse".

iyraste1313 wrote:  It blows me away how complacent people can be! as things deteriorate...Mexico is one of the commodity economies...like Canada!!  ....  and yet my warnings in my financial and economic threads fall to ridicule and silence?

Maybe its because your anaysis is so misinformed, misguided and generally apocalyptic.

By no one's standards is Mexico today a "commodity' economy -  both the agriculture and oil sectors have diminished massively in economic significance over the past 30 years (think NAFTA). Mexico today is a modern, trade-driven industrial economy,  with a huge domestic service sector and a growing industrial sector (dominated by automotive, electronics and aeronautics) that is export focused, both north and south. 

Not saying the Mexican economy doesn't have big challenges, but if we are going to have this discussion, perhaps we could start with a basic reality check. 

While Mexico may no longer be a commodity economy, its nearby neighbour Venezuela most certainly is.  And if you believe the corrupt MSM, they also suffer from hyperinflation, a collapsing currency, widespread protests, contested elections, and a President with an approval rating in the 20's.

I would think that the current state of affairs is not good for the people and has to change there too, but evidently as long as Maduro recites some revolutionary rhetoric and "means well", it's all good.

In dramatic change you should expect that the people most able to turn it to their personal advantage are those with the greatest power before the change. The idea of a society being turned upside down is mostly fantasy. People with power, connections and wealth will remake themselves to exploit those without when regimes change. There are few exceptions. Certainly the politicians will suffer on the way out or in but the bulk of the others are not likely to change in status.

Sure change is important but it is not easy to have confidence that people who have few advantages now will gain them later.

As well what kind of change leads to greater equality? Rarely is it revolutionary change which while dramatic leave most social structures in place. Rather the growth of more equitable policies in stability afford a greater chance of a more equal result. Nations in peace with strong social movements and pressure for change have a better record of improvement than do revolutions.

We talk of China quite often here and this dynamic is what tends to separate opinions. China has seen revolutions and the people who need to do better never gain that much through revolution.The upperclass may change a bit but the inequality for the majority remains. Their lives have improved through ongoing, rather than revolutionary pressure. It is the period of peace and stability that brought greater hope for those at the bottom than any revolution no matter the colour. Chinese people are often not fond of politics or revolution for this reason -- it did not serve them well whereas stability and gradual change has given them at least something. Revolution has been part of the culture since well before 1949 and has been exposed as a false promise many times. More evolutionary change does not work perfectly nor constantly in the same direction, but the record was better than revolution. I know this is not the China thread but this perspective, explained to me by many Chinese people, is worth considering in threads like this.

Applying it to Mexico would suggest that any momentum towards evolutionary positive change would be upended by revolution and the dust could settle on even less equality than before, even following a revolution ostensibly to further equality.

I don't pretend to have the answers and I absolutely oppose policies of exploitation but wishing instability and revolution as an answer is something we should be careful about as it rarely ends well. Sometimes it works but how do you predict that? Now consdier the foreign interests already lined up to take advatnage if Mexico falters.

I want change, big change in many places but I am reluctant to expect that anarchy, revolution and violence can achieve it.

iyraste1313 wrote:

I don't pretend to have the answers and I absolutely oppose policies of exploitation but wishing instability and revolution as an answer is something we should be careful about as it rarely ends well. Sometimes it works but how do you predict that?

...wishing is not what I suggest......there is no choice...I am sorry to say...globalization is collapsing all around us...Canada and Mexico have put all their eggs in that basket...Mexico especially, sending its drugs, its people its merchandise all to the USA which now will reject the lot...and in so doing Mexico has gutted its social security system, its economics of national self reliance, building a total corrupt narco state...I am sorry but there is no alternative to a vast revolutionary change...which clearly the masses in the streets are now suggesting!

How sadly limiting. I do find it discouraging and unacceptable. However, I do not find the idea that violent revolution offers any relief and see no reason to cheer for it.

As for no choice -- people need to find other options. This one does not work either.

How do you imagine that any armed struggle in Mexico is going to lead to anything good. You think the United States, with a habit of interfereing in that country is going to permit some kind of ideals-driven revolution to work out well? Come on. Yes things are bad. Saying that a violent overthrow is the only option is just saying that there is no option at all. It will only provide further suffering and give the US an excuse to apply military power there.

Are you forgetting the land border with the US and what that means for attitudes of the US to that country?

It will be difficult to find other options but there will be no relief until they are found. Your suggestion that this is the only option would only make it harder for any other to be found or employed. A long period of many deaths would ensure along with a US guarantee that the result would be no better.

Mexico has to find a non-violent means to make change. The violence option delivers all that is needed for the very people you want overthrown to tighten down so that the people never win. It is more difficult for the US (but not impossible) to interfere in a peaceful process. Violence of the kind it sounds like you beleive to be the only option would give them the green light.

Yes the challenge is great but unless you abandon flase solutions, you will never be able to find those that could offer hope. Anarchy and violence in Mexico is a false solution that offers only more misery to the people you are saying you support.

I suggest you rerad some histories about US involvement in Latin America again since I have the impression you are already aware of them. Even peaceful transition is a challenge but only through that do you have any enduring progress at all.

iyraste1313 wrote:

I never have suggested violent revolution...revolution per se means transformation of the forms of organization and government...

too bad there is so little interest in what is occurring in Guatemala, which is a nonviolent intent to transform society and its constitution, the supreme law of course.

This has been based on a total restructuring of the organizations  in the communities, federalized at higher levels, building alliance with the sectors such as working class and teachers...this is absolutely essential to build a revolutionary movement...meanwhile in Canada even the idea is not being discussed, let alone developing the practice...which of course means just one thing for Canada...when the system implodes, there will be nothing but chaos! And I hold the so called intellectuals in the progressive movements responsible for such an absence! Such a lack of interest is clear from my many attempts to suggest developing such alternatives, followed either by silence or ridicule!

Yes, absolutely ridicule. Just read how you titled this thread and what you have said in it. You have been talking about violence no matter how you now wish to pretend otherwise.

Lots of news fromm Guatamala -- and it is not uniformly good. The last election produced a right of centre government. The one good thing is the reduction in violence. However indigenous people are not faring well and are increasingly threatened.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Facing-Violence-Guatemala-Peace-St...

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/20-Years-After-Accords-Guatemal...

http://nacla.org/news/2017/01/04/20-years-%E2%80%9Cpeace%E2%80%9D-guatemala

Now of course the argument can be made that turning away from violence has offered more hope of real change than the war did but you won't want to say that directly because your contradiction would be more obvious.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

How do you imagine that any armed struggle in Mexico is going to lead to anything good. You think the United States, with a habit of interfereing in that country is going to permit some kind of ideals-driven revolution to work out well? Come on. Yes things are bad. Saying that a violent overthrow is the only option is just saying that there is no option at all. It will only provide further suffering and give the US an excuse to apply military power there.

This is a sound argument and equally applicable to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Egypt.  Violence brings the sociopaths in our midst to the forefront. Of course it has been shown in places like Haiti that non-violent change through elections can lead to just as unhealthy circumstances. If you elect the wrong government (ie one that doesn't toady to the NATO alliance) your chances of being left alone to show the world there is an alternative are extremely slim.

Yes absolutely.

I agree that nonviolence is not a guarantee that you will be left alone -- except it is more likely. You certainly will not be left alone if you are left of centre, violent and bordering on the US. No safe left government in the Americas is safe but it certainly is not safe if it comes to power through violence.

Essentially Mexico's left has appealled to the US population and public relations in the US is central to convincing the US government that it cannot intervene without a very heavy price politically at home. The reality is that the only thing to worry the US about interference in the Americas is home politics. You give up any influence there when you resort to violence. This is not a moral judgment here but a practical one. You have to be further from the US to consider that any violent overthrow of a right of centre government is going to have a chance.

iyraste1313 -- I did not miss your point at all. You simply ignored mine. Most of your post has simply nothing to do with what I was saying.

I did not misinterpret your words.

I thin the tone of your post is causing anger here -- why don't you review it? You keep claiming people do not understand when they do not agree with your rather breathless way of saying.

You might want to pause and consider for a moment that many of the people around you here are potential allies but your apporach accusing people of misunderstanding and misinterpreting while you ignore points that are really not contradicting most of yours, is getting in the way of getting people here to support you.

Why on't you ask yourself why you are fighting these battles with people who you could have agreeing with many of your core points?

You are so determined. ity seems to cast people as opposed to you that you do not realize how much your appraoch is what is making that happen. Look at your first post -- Seems odd that you want to criticize people as a means to get them to support you.