South of the Border

It seems Mexico's new Presidente Calderon used his time at the Davos Economic Summit to solidify his position as US bootlicker and water boy. He has come out squarely on the ideological right, endorsing neoliberal economic policies (just as they are facing almost universal condemnation among leading mainstream economists) and taking a hard line in opposition to Chavez, Morales and Castro. Just like a Mexican politician, a day late and a dollar short. He is sucking up to the Empire just as it slips into decline and I predict a major upheaval in that society as he relies more and more on State power and brute force to protect his corporate masters.

As a symbol of this reactionary retrenchment, the new headquarters of the Christian Democratic Party opened recently in Mexico City. Allied with the Cuban Christian Democrats in Miami (which includes veterans from the Bay of Pigs invasion) and "regime change " outfits like the International Republican Institute (involved in the attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela), they have offered Cuban-American exiles a political base from which to organize a "peaceful transition" in Cuba. I guarantee you could find some US state department money involved in the effort as well.

This presents an interesting dilemna for the Mexican middle class as well as moderate forces within the Cuban American community. Can they turn their backs an these quasi-fascist elements once and for all and enter the new millenium ready to help those to whom they are linked through language and tradition? Can they lose that destructive relationship they have always had with corruption and machismo and militaristic violence and join a modern movement for regional cohesion and emancipation for the great masses of workers and peasants for whom the twentieth century was such a nightmare? Can they envision the Americas and not just America?