Puebla: on the radar

Puebla: on the radar

Diego Martin Velazquez Caballero

The appointment of the constitutional president of the United Mexican States, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, regarding the collaborators on the issue of security and governance that the substitute governor Salomón Céspedes decided to incorporate, is a sign that Puebla -the entity- no longer goes unnoticed by part of the Fourth Transformation. There is no space to point out a "dark shadow of lopezobradorismo" as was previously thought. There is a closeness between Lopez Obradorism and Puebla that cannot be considered a collusion. I wish that a little more would be done because the topics are endless, although starting already counts for a lot.

The information provided by the federal Ministry of the Interior regarding the members of the state cabinet constitutes antecedents that forced them to present resignations, it is a message not only for the group that directs the state government but for the political class that is now migrating to the ranks from BRUNETTE. The transformation must be authentic because the antecedents are always visible.

The state government has had to reconsider the training and service vocation of its collaborators. Alejandro Armenta has tried to do something similar, but it is not his thing. The aspirants to the state government under the candidacy of Morena, now have to start from scratch, demand an ideological commitment from their supporters and put aside the collaborations full of grotesque, these are no longer the times of Gonzalo N. Santos.

On the one hand, Armenta intends to align with the principles of the Fourth Morenista Transformation; on the other hand, his reaction is perceived as exaggerated and perhaps shows a greater concern for those who are part of his inner circle. Armenta's problem is that he surrounds himself more and more with characters who are confronted with the president of the republic and he will have to say goodbye to them soon if he does not want to be the PRIANRD candidate, which, according to demographic estimates, he would do anyway. make competitive.

The intervention of the federal government in Puebla has been interesting, it confirms –as the maxim of a good local political scientist points out- that the order to regulate regional authoritarianism only comes from the center. The possibilities of alternation are not extinguished in the entity and force governability to gain momentum, coherence, congruence and encouragement. The social movements and the Morenista bases in the region should no longer feel orphaned.

Emptiness and PRI

 Emptiness and PRI

Diego Martin Velazquez Caballero

The resignation of the Institutional Revolutionary Party by a group of distinguished politicians and militants led by Miguel Osorio Chong has demonstrated the insufficiency that distinguishes the former Official Party towards the political process of 2024. The PRI is a party that remains and this constitutes a drag more in the configuration of the Broad Front for Mexico.

The turncoat ended up generating the total migration of PRI cadres and professional politicians to leave the political institute as a barren land, a Castile, full of nostalgia and the dead.

Although the recent electoral process in Coahuila and the State of Mexico made the PRI appear strengthened by the level of competitiveness demonstrated in both electoral processes, the departure of important lineages in the configuration of the historical PRI leaves the political party in the hands of a leadership who behaves like a goat in glassware from the beginning of his hierarchical responsibility.

The corporatism and the operational structure of the PRI had time to be managed at a distance from the institutional decisions of the leadership. The output starring Osorio Chong is an example of the catastrophic scenario that Manuel Camacho Solís envisioned in the face of the lack of regeneration of the regime of the Mexican revolution: Argentinization. That is to say, the anarchy and pragmatic rationality of the fundamental actors in mass politics. It finally happened. The PRI is no longer a party of the masses and the social actors have been left free – some think of the old revolt hypothesis of the headless proletariat. However, this also translates into an increase in electoral vices such as clientelism and vote buying. The destructuring of political parties devalues democracy. The lack of organization of the collective groups can set the tone for the extremism of electoral crime as well as the appearance of strange populisms that, together, put governability in check.

Social movements have concentrated on MORENA and the government of the Fourth Transformation. Probably, the current government regime will incorporate corporatism as a preponderant actor in the new power relations by 2024. The departure of PRI notables, cadres, and militants constitutes yet another blow to the weak convening power of the Broad Opposition Front. The right-wing groups concentrated on it do not understand the meaning of social participation in Latin American regimes, it is one thing to buy the vote and another to gain legitimacy. Hence the importance of observing what will happen to the collective agents and fractions that leave the PRI. The departure of the PRI members should also translate into an abandonment of the Broad Front because, then, it would be interpreted as a universal inconsistency to leave the PRI, but support it in the opposition coalition.

Roads of Michoacan

Roads of Michoacan

Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero

From the perspective of some neoliberal geographers, part of the explanation of poverty in Mexico is related to dispersion. The conclusion of this perspective on development prescribes simple situations, although many times impossible to carry out.

In the south of the country, this strategy developed under technocratic and authoritarian impulses, distinguishes concepts such as Rural-Cities, Smart Cities or Cluster Cities.

At a sufficient distance to interpret the results, the only thing that can be evidenced is the neo-extractivism and gentrification behind these projects, in addition to the accompaniment of organized crime, sometimes foreign mercenary, as well as totalizing government corruption.

Chiapas, one of the starting points of post-neoliberal neo-extractivism, is dangerously close to situations of ungovernability and very serious regional conflicts. The conflict is generated to promote the displacement of human groups to the cities, the central and northern states; or, the United States of North America, where the subjects become cheap labor, cannon fodder for organized crime or a floating consumerist population.

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation has been an example of self-defense, social identity, defense of the territory, and even a postmodern revolution, as Alain Touraine pointed out. Zapatista militants, like the Navi in Avatar, fight to save the world of life, isolate themselves from the contradictions of capitalism, modernity and even progress. And the cost for the EZLN has been a peculiar conflict with the Mexican State and with the mercenary forces of imperialism and internal colonialism.

The EZLN's war has spread to many regions of Mexico, such as Michoacán. US imperialism is not only looking for lemons, avocados or drugs. The Zeigeist of the time marks lithium, gold, copper, water, tin, etc. And it has mercenaries –like Blackwater- in many pivotal areas to sow terror and appropriate territories, landscapes, entire worlds of life.

The American technocrats, like the Nazi technocrats who recruited and ended up training them, do not stop thinking of the world as their East Indies and disposable subjects.

The war against drug trafficking in Mexico covers up the process of neo-extractivism that is advancing relentlessly. People are forced through the mercenary terrorism of organized crime to migrate, to leave their territories and resources to US economic interests.

As in the case of the EZLN, the Latin American governments and the Mexican one in particular, observe the massacre and torture in a stoic, but tragic way; with few possibilities of confronting the terrorist force and trying to resort to resistance measures that work less and less.

Mexico faces a hybrid war by the United States on various sides, the drug war is the most visible channel of this conflict; but, without a doubt, US imperialism intervenes wherever it wants, for example the Broad Opposition Front. It is necessary to avoid denial to understand the perspective of Yankee interests on the Mexican political system.

Even when neoliberalism came to power, neoextractivism does not stop or become human; On the contrary, Michoacán, like the country, is tangible proof of the neo-extractivist war that we are experiencing. Multilateralism, national resistance, the ability to react to US imperialism even if it is in a symbolic way, the denunciation of what is really happening, is the only resource left. The United States is going to destroy the world, but first it will destroy Michoacán and Mexico.