Mexico vs. Brazil, perceptions and reality

Jorge Castañeda has a quite thoughtful comparison on Mexico and Brazil in Reforma that is well worth the read (Reforma is subscriber only, but the article is also available here.)

Jumping on the bandwagon? Jorge Castañeda, now against Gordillo

To be fair, Jorge Castañeda dedicates a chunk of his new book to criticizing Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the powerful SNTE teachers union, and accused of ultra-corruption. In a recent piece for Enfoque (direct PDF download here), which is well worth a read, he expands on the criticism. As such, I guess one can't accuse him of jumping entirely on the bandwagon, though the piece nonetheless does come across as more than a bit apologetic over his longtime bonds with Gordillo, a connection that seems to have been maintained first and foremost in the hope that Gordillo would do something for him - that is, help him become a presidential candidate. According to Castañeda, for 2012, Gordillo's main choice is now Marcelo Ebrard. I find that hard to believe.

Regardless: Given recent big-shot PRI members' recent criticism of Gordillo, of note is that Jacqueline Peschard, head of IFAI (federal institute of access to information), also speaks out against Gordillo, calling for an investigation.

Who's next? Has the tide really turned against Gordillo?

One can only hope.

Who is next?

Mexican party politics, as summarized by Jorge Castañeda in one paragraph:

Castañeda dixit:

"PRI defenders invent that everything  was great until 2000 and then everything went bad with the PAN; the PAN says that everything was a mess before 2000, and the PRD say that everything has always been shitty, except when general Cárdenas was president."

Carlos Salinas 959-page book not on my reading list

As usually in Mexico I stock up on recent interesting books on current politics. So far I've aquired the most recent book by Carmen Aristegui on the child-raping fascist Marcial Maciel - great for bedtime stories - Soledad Loaza's recent collection of articles on the PAN, and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas' recent memoirs. Yet speaking of memoirs, one book I will shy away from for many reasons is Carlos Salinas' recent desperate 959-page attempt to reinvent himself and defend his presidency. Yet my decision was not made merely to save a few pesos, or for ideological reasons: The book appears an absolute piece of junk, combining petty attacks on many of Mexico's intellectuals with an array of stuff that is simply made up.

A few cases in point:
- Salinas attacks the presidency of Fox and his first foreign minister, Jorge Castañeda for having voted in favor of the Iraq War! Where on earth does he get this from? First, as Castañeda points out, Mexico never voted - there was never a vote in UN, to recall, despite or in spite of Colin Powell's pathetic "presentation" of WMDs - yet more importantly, Fox was the entire time against Bush's war on Iraq.
- He is accusing Castañeda of having presented the thesis of Mexico as a "failed state" - though Castañeda has consistently argued against this view.

Now I admit I am not the world's greatest admirer of Jorge Castañeda, who, despite of many notable insights, in addition to being a bit of a pompous windbag has also opined far too often on topics of which he has very little knowledge. Yet compared with Salinas, he is an intellectual giant.

If Salinas can't even get such basic facts straights, or is as stupid as to knowingly and blatantly distorting them in this manner, his apologia is hardly worth anyone's time, and your 300 pesos should rather be spent elsewhere.