Letter to the New York Times
Today an editorial appeared in the NYTimes stating that since the Federal Electoral Tribunal in Mexico had signed off on the fraudulent July 2nd elections, therefore the defrauded candidate, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, ought to be a good boy, pick up his toys and go home. The protest camps ought be dismantled and the gringo tourists and their taxistas ought to be allowed, again, to roam free on the Serengeti of the Centro Historico. After all, the editorialist opined, everything seemed to have been run fairly - and now the Tribunal had said it was so.
I wrote the following letter to the editor:
I am writing from Mexico City regarding the Times' August 29th editorial "Mexico’ s Recount." I must say that I find it extremely distressing, the degree to which citizens and intellectuals (both inside and outside of the “fifth estate”) from the so-called "empire of reason," are increasingly willing to countenance not just minor violations of the democratic rights of a neighboring citizenry, but an actual, outright electoral fraud committed against it. Not that the malleable nature of America’s misty-eyed fervor for “freedom” and “democracy” isn’t well known, particularly when American pecuniary and/or strategic interests are concerned - of course it is. Indeed, throughout the past century, American politicians and policy analysts often looked the other way as petty dictators and tyrants, throughout the world, brutalized and terrorized their own people, and used rigged elections only to lend a veneer of legitimacy to their hateful regimes. The standard used by past administrations as a touchstone for freedom in far-flung “republics,” was not the defense of popular democratic institutions and processes, but rather the degree to which the government concerned would adhere to overall American strategic plans and would protect American interests. When Cordell Hull, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, said of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, “[h]e may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”, little did he know that he was heralding a policy approach which all subsequent American administrations have made use of at one point or another.
All of this is well known, of course, and as such is the approach we non-United Statesians expect from American leaders and the “power-elite” they represent (to use C. Wright Mills’ now dusty term.) But who would have guessed that so venerable a clarion for truth and freedom and democracy as the New York Times, would, in the 21st century, be found scrambling aboard the imperialist project. Wait a minute…I guess lots of people would have guessed – Chomsky for one. Well alrighty, then - just let me point out a few problemotas with the aforementioned editorial on Mexico hoy en dia.
Point one: the editorial correctly states that the credibility of the recount, the way it decided how many casillas to check and by whom, rests upon the legitimacy and unimpeachable character of the judges of the Federal Electoral Tribunal. Therein, unfortunately, lay the problem. “But this vote was apparently well run,” says the New York Times. Moreover, the “electoral tribunal is respected and independent.” Really? And by whom is it respected, apart from the PAN officials responsible for appointing its members? The connections between the PAN and the TRIFE are known by everyone here. Example: One of the Judges is a close friend and former client of PANista senator Diego Fernandez de Cevallos. “El Jefe Diego” helped win this same judge millions of pesos in government contracts in a well-publicized scandal; this not so long ago, but before he embarked on his recent career as a TRIFE judge. Worse, the chief of the IFE (Federal Electoral Institute,) Luis Carlos Ugalde, who presided over the alleged July 2nd fraud, was also the man appointed by the TRIFE to supervise the minimal 9% recount. Felipe Calderón, the supposed President elect, was the best man at Ugalde’s wedding. So you see, the whole judicial inquiry is a mess and stinks to high heaven.
Point two, as journalist John Ross has pointed out, PRD representatives in the counting rooms presented a mountain of evidence of fraud - violated ballot boxes, stolen or stuffed ballots, altered tally sheets etc., in more than 4000 other casillas, at least, besides the casillas included in the TRIFE’s recount. The left-liberal daily La Jornada has been showing filmed evidence of such “irregularities” on its website for days! In some voting areas thousands more ballots were turned in than there were registered voters, in others thousands of ballots were found thrown in the trash, etc.. This seems to me to be a solid argument for a total recount with international monitors present to observe and bear witness.
Ask yourself this question: do you really believe in democracy? Unambiguously? Unconditionally? If so, then you’ll allow that the institutions of freedom must be maintained and nourished through an unambiguously free and fair electoral process. If this was true for the Gore/Bush race of 2000, it is even more true here today in the potentially volatile political environment here in Mexico, where a small, corrupt, privileged, white minority governs a poor, increasingly cynical and awakening brown leviathan. Weigh the price it will cost to recount and legitimize the fledgling Mexican democracy vs the cost in lives that may be at risk come the 16th of September, when the Mexican Army attempts to march down the Paseo de la Reforma, where abuelitas are cooking and children are camped and youths are playing soccer and old men are playing dominoes. For me its an easy call.
I wrote the following letter to the editor:
I am writing from Mexico City regarding the Times' August 29th editorial "Mexico’ s Recount." I must say that I find it extremely distressing, the degree to which citizens and intellectuals (both inside and outside of the “fifth estate”) from the so-called "empire of reason," are increasingly willing to countenance not just minor violations of the democratic rights of a neighboring citizenry, but an actual, outright electoral fraud committed against it. Not that the malleable nature of America’s misty-eyed fervor for “freedom” and “democracy” isn’t well known, particularly when American pecuniary and/or strategic interests are concerned - of course it is. Indeed, throughout the past century, American politicians and policy analysts often looked the other way as petty dictators and tyrants, throughout the world, brutalized and terrorized their own people, and used rigged elections only to lend a veneer of legitimacy to their hateful regimes. The standard used by past administrations as a touchstone for freedom in far-flung “republics,” was not the defense of popular democratic institutions and processes, but rather the degree to which the government concerned would adhere to overall American strategic plans and would protect American interests. When Cordell Hull, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, said of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, “[h]e may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”, little did he know that he was heralding a policy approach which all subsequent American administrations have made use of at one point or another.
All of this is well known, of course, and as such is the approach we non-United Statesians expect from American leaders and the “power-elite” they represent (to use C. Wright Mills’ now dusty term.) But who would have guessed that so venerable a clarion for truth and freedom and democracy as the New York Times, would, in the 21st century, be found scrambling aboard the imperialist project. Wait a minute…I guess lots of people would have guessed – Chomsky for one. Well alrighty, then - just let me point out a few problemotas with the aforementioned editorial on Mexico hoy en dia.
Point one: the editorial correctly states that the credibility of the recount, the way it decided how many casillas to check and by whom, rests upon the legitimacy and unimpeachable character of the judges of the Federal Electoral Tribunal. Therein, unfortunately, lay the problem. “But this vote was apparently well run,” says the New York Times. Moreover, the “electoral tribunal is respected and independent.” Really? And by whom is it respected, apart from the PAN officials responsible for appointing its members? The connections between the PAN and the TRIFE are known by everyone here. Example: One of the Judges is a close friend and former client of PANista senator Diego Fernandez de Cevallos. “El Jefe Diego” helped win this same judge millions of pesos in government contracts in a well-publicized scandal; this not so long ago, but before he embarked on his recent career as a TRIFE judge. Worse, the chief of the IFE (Federal Electoral Institute,) Luis Carlos Ugalde, who presided over the alleged July 2nd fraud, was also the man appointed by the TRIFE to supervise the minimal 9% recount. Felipe Calderón, the supposed President elect, was the best man at Ugalde’s wedding. So you see, the whole judicial inquiry is a mess and stinks to high heaven.
Point two, as journalist John Ross has pointed out, PRD representatives in the counting rooms presented a mountain of evidence of fraud - violated ballot boxes, stolen or stuffed ballots, altered tally sheets etc., in more than 4000 other casillas, at least, besides the casillas included in the TRIFE’s recount. The left-liberal daily La Jornada has been showing filmed evidence of such “irregularities” on its website for days! In some voting areas thousands more ballots were turned in than there were registered voters, in others thousands of ballots were found thrown in the trash, etc.. This seems to me to be a solid argument for a total recount with international monitors present to observe and bear witness.
Ask yourself this question: do you really believe in democracy? Unambiguously? Unconditionally? If so, then you’ll allow that the institutions of freedom must be maintained and nourished through an unambiguously free and fair electoral process. If this was true for the Gore/Bush race of 2000, it is even more true here today in the potentially volatile political environment here in Mexico, where a small, corrupt, privileged, white minority governs a poor, increasingly cynical and awakening brown leviathan. Weigh the price it will cost to recount and legitimize the fledgling Mexican democracy vs the cost in lives that may be at risk come the 16th of September, when the Mexican Army attempts to march down the Paseo de la Reforma, where abuelitas are cooking and children are camped and youths are playing soccer and old men are playing dominoes. For me its an easy call.
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