Leftist Outsider's Campaign Surges in Mexico

[Judi Lynn]

Leftist Outsider's Campaign Surges in Mexico
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: March 19, 2006

JUCHITÁN, Mexico, March 16 — By the time Andrés Manuel López Obrador took the stage here on Thursday afternoon, the plaza was jammed with thousands of working-class people, a colorful crowd festooned with yellow partisan flags and bandannas bearing his picture.

His supporters had hung so many wreaths around his neck that he looked like he wore a yoke of flowers, an apt image for a man who claims to carry the aspirations of Mexico's millions of poor on his shoulders.

In the crowd stood one of those people, Jorge Luis García, a fisherman from a Pacific coast village who makes about $3 a day hauling red snapper and other fish from the sea. Mr. García, 68, voted for President Vicente Fox and his conservative National Action Party when he promised to change decades of corrupt rule in 2000. Now, Mr. García said, he is supporting Mr. López Obrador, an unvarnished leftist, for the same reason.

"Fox promised this and that but delivered nothing," Mr. García said, echoing the remarks of other people at the rally. "We want change."
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/international/19mexico.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mexico's Lopez Obrador Widens Lead to 41% in Presidential Poll
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the frontrunner in presidential opinion polls for more than two years, widened his lead over rivals in a newspaper presidential poll released today.

Lopez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, led a nationwide poll taken by Reforma newspaper with 41 percent of likely voters saying they would choose him if elections were ``held today,'' up from 38 percent in February, Reforma said. The presidential election is this July.

Former Energy Minister Felipe Calderon, of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, placed second with 31 percent in the March poll, unchanged from February. Former Tabasco state Governor Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, remained third in the poll, dropping to 25 percent from 29 percent February.
(snip)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aF1CS6AJKP3U&refer=latin_america

[rman]

1. Oh boy, the bad apples of Latin America are spoiling the whole bunch

The "threat of the good example" is creeping North as we speak.

(just interjecting some State Department rhetoric here)

[ixion]

2. What's with this word 'Leftist'

It has very bad connotations, and yet oddly enough you NEVER hear the word "rightist", probably for one because it sounds funny, but more importantly, it's always the extreme 'left' that catches the heat, while the extreme 'right', apparently, never does anything bad. Yeah. Right. Whatever.

Two words:

Timoty McVeigh.

'nuff said.

[Judi Lynn]

3. You bet bad connotations. It's from the propaganda, in order to control

public perception of suspected "leftists" enough there will be support whenever right-wingers have slaughtered them throughout this hemisphere in countless ways, and astounding degrees of wild, deliberate brutality, as in genocide.

That's the way the right-wing gained control of everything south of the border, with a temporary exception in Chile, briefly, and in Cuba.

It should be very interesting seeing the rest of the hemisphere start pulling itself together after being exploited and dominated so long by outsiders.



He bought the lies.

[bemildred]

5. "firebrand", "radical", "extreme", "leftist" are all pejorative.

It seems to border on being a reflex, like the real old lefties use of "running dogs" and similar hackneyed terms.

The primary goal is to get you to NOT LISTEN to what people so labelled have to say, and it is applied (almost always) to people that the state propaganda organs do not want you to pay any attention to, your perception of those persons is being managed so that the forbidden ideas they have do not enter the political discussion.

So, the first thing to do is to go find out what such people have to say, in their own words preferably, and see why it scares the bejeezus out of the state propaganda organs.

They used "radical" a lot back in the VietNam period too, but it backfired eventually, and being "radical" becames chic. Go back and look at the pictures of Rumsfeld's sideburns. That shift seems to be occurring gradually here now, but its hard to be sure.

[salin]

4. PRI guy running third... wow...

didn't the PRI have essentially a one-party rule for decades? Wow.

Perhaps the "all-powerful" folks like Rove, whose wish for creating a PRI long-term one-party rule GOP govt here, should take note.

[Lisa0825]

14. Yes, I believe it was over 70 years.

It amazed me how many people were ready to vote them back in to office after finally breaking that streak.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. Leftist isn't necessarily a pejorative

Any more than "liberal" is. Both words are used that way by the right wing, but that doesn't make them inherently pejorative.

There are other examples of twisted groups trying to twist perfectly ordinary words. "Jew", for example.

[1932]

8. Word association: "Leftist"..."Guerrilla"

"Liberal"..."democrat"?

You definitely would never think, "liberal guerrilla."

Leftist, I have no doubt, is meant to connote a small group of outcasts in society who are willing to use violence to usurp authority, even though the reality in Mexico and the rest of Latin America today is that they're the majority, and they're not using violence to implement their broadly-appealing programs.

[bemildred]

10. It is the usage that is pejorative.

The word itself is just a word, and not a particularly meaningful one.

[1932]

7. I listened to an English language debate between three main parties

recently (it was aimed at expat Mexican voters in US).

It was remarkable. One party wanted to run on their record, the other ran on being busines-friendly, and Obrador's party was running on IDEAS about TAKING CARE OF PEOPLE. The first two were just repeating boring, meaningless platitudes we've heard a million times from right-wing parties who spend most of their time trying to cloak the interests they really represent. Obrador's party was celarly running on a set of ideas they weren't afraid to state clearly and which meant something and which they seemed to honestly believe were going to make people's lives better.

It was like listening to two completely different discussion when they went between Obrador's party and the other two parties -- one discussion for smart people who cared about issues, and the other for the stimulus-response brain-dead crowd.

[donsu]

9. more power to Obrador and the people - wishing them good luck

nt

[High Plains]

11. !Viva la izquierda!

You can call me a leftist all day long. Just don't call me a liberal.

[Peace Patriot]

12. The ro-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oar of the Latin American revolution is now

reaching Mexico! Beautiful, unstoppable, historic. It is an elegant panther.

Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia aren't afraid of the word LEFTIST. And take a look at this about Peru--a second indigenous is going to be elected president of a So. American country (like Evo Morales in Bolivia)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2176142

The left is sweeping South America. Be proud of that word. Left = government of, by and for the people--as the South Americans are overwhelmingly demonstrating.

Gee, I think somebody here wrote those words (of, by, for...). Maybe we'll get rid of Bushite-controlled electronic voting machines, and start having that kind of government here, too. Representative government. Imagine!

--------------------------

My favorite is the NYT/AP's description of Hugo Chavez as a "self-styled leftist." They fail to note that this "self-styled leftist" was elected by millions of other "self-styled leftists" who are the great majority in Venezuela, and that, in fact, Chavez's views are shared by billions of people in South America--the vast majority of the continent's population. They might as well say (it is in their hearts) that Chavez is a "self-styled, gun-toting leftist revolutionary." That's what they MEAN. That's what they are trying to imply--that he is some sort of dangerous and illegitimate maverick. Twice-elected president of the country, in the most highly monitored elections in the world. Product of a deeply rooted, profound democratic revolution throughout the continent--not the creator of it; the product of it. That's what the NYT/AP doesn't want you to know. The Latin Americans have had it with the U.S., are aware that we are the ones now suffering a fascist junta, and are heading fast toward self-determination and regional economic, political and security alliances--and cross-ocean alliances--that ignore and defy the wishes and the blugeon power of the Bushites and their global corporate bully friends. Chavez is not alone--not by any means. His government is not some sort of localized phenomenon. His "self-styled" leftism in the major trend of the entire continent. Maybe "self-styled" means that the NYT can't figure it out: peaceful, democratic, leftist revolution. Hm-m-m. How did THAT happen--when we've poured so much "anti-drug" money, and arms, and death squads, and assassination teams, and military "advisers," and torture schools, and military spy technology, and napalm, and payoffs to dictators, into South America? How could democracy survive our every effort to stamp it out? It must be bogus and "self-styled"!

[reprobate]

13. So how long before we invade Mexico and return them to the right and

proper path. After all, that's been our responce to anti-corporate leadership in latin america since the late 19th century. Fifty two times.

[killbotfactory]

15. Hope he stays out of small airplanes.

[Peace Patriot]

16. Didn't you read my post? The leftist revolution in Latin America is huge

and unstoppable. Leftist governments have been elected in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia, with Peru likely next--and soon Mexico. This movement for self-determination, democracy, peace and justice is too big--they cannot assassinate it.

[stickdog]

17. If there is hope, it is in the prolitos ...