To what moral depths are Hugo Valdemar and the Mexican high clergy capable of sinking?

"Nothing's Shocking," was the title of Jane's Addiction's debut album, a reflection of its time.
I really thought I'd reached a similar level of resignation with the utterances of the high clergy of the Mexican catholic church, ever more outrageous, bigoted, homophobic, misogynist and hateful. Yet then there is Hugo Valdemar, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Mexico.


"Father" Valdemar now argues that PRD and Marcelo Ebrard - among the forces who have fought the most against discrimination of gays in Mexico - are actually guilty of homophobia. Yes, homophobia. By "irresponsibly promoting and approving the laws that endorse marriages of the same sex," Valdemar opines, PRD and Ebrard are provoking people who feel their marriage is under attack and hence, will take it out on gays. So, by promoting gay rights, PRD and Ebrard are guilty of homophobia. 


To assume for a moment Valdemar's thinking and put this horrendous logic, or the absolute lack of any, in perspective: Civil right defenders in the 1950s United States should not have promoted laws that allowed for civil rights for blacks, because this would only have provoked the white racists who burned crosses and murdered blacks. The real racists, then, were the civil rights campaigners. 


Is it really any wonder that the Mexican church is losing adherents,to alternative churches and the progressive forces of secularism, literally by the day?

Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo: "Either a single man decides or the collegiate organs decide"

Some PRD talkback after AMLO's increasingly aggressive attacks on the PRD: Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo responds to AMLO in an interview with Carlos Marin:

"Either a single man decides or the collegiate bodies decide, and I have always been a support of the idea that many heads, those of institutions, those of horizontal organizations, are better than illuminated men"

This is indeed the crux of the issue: Should the PRD follow a caudillo, or should it follow the institutional path of its own democratically elected organs. 

The interview is well watching in its entirety on youtube. 

Voices on the PRI's likely return to power

Many a personality has been commenting the past days on the likely return of the PRI to the Mexican presidency in 2012.  Fox, notably, seemed resigned to the idea that the PRI will win in 2012, declaring recently, "Right now, that's what dice are saying, the dice and the facts." As might be expected, Fox' predictions were hardly well received by the PAN; big shots such as party leader César Nava and PAN Senate group leader José González Morfín rejected the statements, and instead called on Fox to involve himself more in party politics rather than criticizing it from the outside. (After some heavy twittering, he now backtracked and said he "did not predict PRI's victory," but that it was to function as a warning call.

Be that it as it may, Manuel Bartlett, former PRI interior minister and governor of Puebla, somewhat estranged from his party and on good terms with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, affirmed that PRI would return thanks to the "disenchamtment PAN, but that the PRI lacks a national project and that its triumph would only be due to "mistakes and the disaster in which the PAN has occurred in the exercise of power." It is hardly a ringing endorsement of a PRI presidential candidate. Is Bartlett throwing his weight behind López Obrador?

Finally, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, defeated 2000 PRI presidential candidate, took offense at declarations made by writer Mario Vargas Llosa to the newspaper La Jornada, in connection with being bestowed an honorary degree by UNAM, where he noted that even if the PRI returns it would hardly have the absolute power of the past "perfect dictatorship," the felicitous phrase coined by the Peruvian writer to describe the 1929-2000 priiato. Labastida dixit:

"His [Vargas Lloosa's] political sympathies overtake him, his absolute conservative ideology of the right, and this prevents him from seeing that the party [PRI] has had many different governments. Lázaro Cárdenas belonged to the tricolor, as did Carlos Salinas the Gortari. PRI has not been uniform over the years. This is the first misunderstanding of this writer. The other is to claim that for 70 years one lived through a perfect dictatorship."

Really? If Labastida can come up with a better turn, I wish he'd share it. It is perhaps even more revealing that Labastida reaches all the way back to the 1930s to find a progressive PRI politician to contrast with Salinas. One would have liked to ask the senator, where would he place Peña Nieto - with the former or the latter? AMLO has the answer ready: As part of his "loyalty tour" (loyalty to him as opposed to the PRD), he gleefully exhibits a photo of an embracing Peña Nieto and Salinas. To AMLO, a victory of Peña Nieto and the return of PRI would be akin to "the return of Santa Anna."

Yet if that is the case, why is he so adamantly attacking the PAN-PRD alliances and claiming that PRI and PAN are all the same?

First PRD-PAN alliance confirmed: Nayarit 2011.

The PRD state council in Nayarit voted unanimously to go in an electoral alliance in 2011 when the small coastal state is voting for governor. While the PAN won't decide until October, it is pretty much a done deal; unlike the PRD, the final decision within the PAN will be taken centrally by the PAN's National Council, which clearly supports the PAN-PRD alliances to stop the return of PRI.


PRD national deputy Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo has been preparing his candidacy for quite a while, and appears an exceptionally strong candidate to replace PRI governor Ney González.. While he is a close ally of PRD national president Jesús Ortega and a central member of the Nueva Izquierda, the largest party faction in PRD, he has pretty much buena onda with even the lopezobradoristas, and this should augur well for a unified PRD in the upcoming elections. 


However, given that AMLO has hysterically declared the PRD-PAN alliances to be "treason," regardless of whether the PRD state councils express support for them or not, Acosta Naranjo may still be in for (not so) "friendly fire" from members of is own party. Will AMLO also seek to sabotage this candidacy, as he has proclaimed he will do in Mexico State? Is Acosta Naranjo, then, also a traitor?

AMLO's supporters physically blocks the PRD from reaching 2/3 majority in favor of alliances

Another farce. This is in the simplest terms what happened: Just as the PRD state council was inching toward an overwhelming majority vote in the PRD mexiquense or Mexico State party branch in a vote over whether to join in an alliance with the PAN,  AMLO's supporters decided to take the council directorate by force to stop the vote count when it was inching close to a whopping 2/3 majority in favor of the alliances. Ahain, AMLO's supporters, in Mexico State represented by the corrientes or party factions Izquierda Democrática Nacional (IDN), Grupo de Acción Política (GAP) and Unión de Izquierdas (Unir), demonstrated they have no intention of accepting the result of any vote they do not win. The andresmanuelistas resorted to direct action - physical force - when the vote reached 168-86, or just one vote short of a 2/3 majority.

As the votes were counted and it was clear that a majority of the PRD's state council favored an alliance with PAN in order to beat the PRI, AMLO's supporters protested and demanded the state council should rather vote with a 2/3 majority. While this has been standard practice in the national council, it is not stipulated that the state councils also have to vote with a 2/3 majority. Even so, the pro-alliance forces, above all the factions Nueva Izquierda (NI) and  Alianza Democrática Nacional (ADN), gathered a surprisingly high number of votes: the count had reached 168 in favor to 86 in against, or just one vote right short of a 2/3 majority. AMLO's supporters then proceeded to storm and "take" the speaker dais, effectively blocking the vote, and a fistfight ensued. The state leadership declared a 15 day recess.

(It's rather remarkable to read the same news event covered in La Jornada, which these days has absolutely no shame when it comes to twisting the facts in favor of AMLO; in their coverage, PRD "suspended the council after the corrientes ADN and NI didn't reach the necessary votes to approve the resolution that would permit the PRD to ally with PAN." It's a pity that La Jornada's activism has become of such a degree that it is increasingly useless as a news source to cover PRD and AMLO events.)

So the issue will unfortunately not be settled yet. AMLO continues to hurl accusations that the PRD has fallen under President Felipe Calderón's spell, and threatens to postulate his own candidate should the PRD and PAN run a common gubernatorial candidate. To recall: in 2005, AMLO campaigned incessantly for the PRD-candidate, a non-party businesswoman forced upon the party by AMLO, who moreover rode roughshod over the state PRD organization and instead preferred using his own paid Redes Ciudadanas, or paid canvassers directly loyal to him. Even when the state PRD backed the candidate, Yeidckol Polevnsky, she barely pulled 22% of the votes. Whether he truly believes that an "independent" candidate promoted by him would do better in 2011 is a moot question; he will go to any lengths to sabotage the official PRD as long as they do not blindly follows his will. In AMLO's words, should the state council approve the alliance, they will remain only with "shell":

"If the PRD leaders have not dignity, we are going to show them that those from below, the militants and sympathizers, we don't want a pact with the PAN."

To hell with any democratic votes within the party itself, to hell with respecting PRD's organs and institutional processes: AMLO will take his followers and go. And Enrique Peña Nieto will be smiling ever broader.

On the Mexican church's understanding of democracy: A free lesson to Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez

The Roman Catholic church has had a highly ambiguous attitude toward democracy. Historically, it fought tooth and nail against the expansion of the vote, be it to women or to other classes, and as is well known, largely backed the brutal dictatorships of the 1970s. There are notable exceptions - above all the valiant actions of priests and bishops inspired by liberation theology in Central America and elsewhere - but from the high clergy - from the Vatican down to cardinals and archbishops - the church's record as a defender of democracy is hardly stellar. The case of Mexico, to be sure, is no exception.

One would therefore expect the Roman Catholic church in Mexico to tread a tad warily when it comes to issues of democracy. Not so with Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez of Guadalajara. I remain personally convinced that this extreme reactionary falangist does not really want democracy, based on his many extremist declarations over the years. I'll leave that aside and for the sake of the benefit of doubt argue that the cardinal is frighteningly ignorant of what democracy really entails. The most recent case in point: Sandoval Íñiguez  calls the Mexico City government a "dictatorship." Why? Because of the laws the ALDF, or the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District, democratically elected since 1997, has made. Adamantly against the Mexico City laws that allows abortion up until the 12th week and moreover gay marriage and adoption, the cardinal think this is anti-democratic. Why? According to the Cardinal,
1) they are against "natural" law; 2) they damage or contradict the "holy scripture"; 3) they go against majority opinion.

Let's try to  ignore for a moment the stunning stupidity of the cardinal's first "arguments" and focus on this third point : Because the cardinal has in possession opinion polls that state that there is a majority against the law, the fact that the ALDF passed them make the Mexico City government a "dictatorship."

Cardinal, for your information, I take the liberty to pass on the following information, based on concepts taught in my introductory course on comparative politics. I think you ought to sit in on our classes.

1) The ALDF is Mexico City's legislature and consists of 66 elected deputies. This is called electoral representative democracy: These deputies are elected to represent the citizens of Mexico City. Marcelo Ebrard, Government Chief of Mexico City, did not appoint this legislature. You seem to mix up the two by calling the Mexico City government a dictatorship: ALDF is not appointed or controlled by Mayor Ebrard.
2) Ebrard was democratically elected in 2006 with around 47 percent of the vote, more than 20 percent above his closest opponent. Hence, he is hardly a dictator. Yet since you apparently meant that the ALDF is dictatorial, it is worth reminding you that ALDF, ever since 1997, is democratically elected by Mexico City voters. It is therefore not dictatorial, but democratic.
3) A majority of these 66 legislators voted to pass these laws. While a minority may strongly disagree, and while protection for minority rights is also a key quality of representative democracy, in the final instance democracy is about the rule of the majority. Hence, even if we may disagree with the outcome of the vote, the minority must also accept that it lost and respect the decisions made by majority rule in a legislature. You can, of course, take the cause to the Supreme Court and argue it is unconstituti... - never mind, you already know this, because you did complain to the Supreme Court, which did approve the laws, so you know this part already, and clearly will respect the Supreme Court decision, right? Moving on:
3) That an opinion poll that you have in your possesion shows a majority of Mexicans or Mexico City voters reject these changes, does not make the ALDF or the Mexico City Government a dictatorship. To reiterate, Mexico City is a representative democracy: Citizens elect deputies on their behalf, and sometimes they make laws that may be, at some given points in time, against the majority will of the "people" that you refer to. You seem to suggest that ALDF should rather function based on opinion polls. This is hardly a practical undertaking; for example, the majority will is quite fickle and changes many times, and it would be a little tough to have a vote on every law. Moreover, one can also argue that some basic human rights shouldn't necessarily be put out to vote - should we have asked the majority of voters in Mississippi in the 1960s, for instance, whether they though African Americans should have basic civil rights such as the right to vote? Yet to keep it simpler, for the sake of this argument: If these voters feel strongly about it, they can always elect new deputies down the road that will overturn these laws. This is called democracy: We have the right to hire and fire our legislators.

As I noted earlier, I am not entirely convinced you really do support democracy, given other statements you have made in the past. Yet for the benefit of the doubt, I will try to believe that it is rather the case that you simply don't understand it. I hope the above points can serve as a brief, hastily written introduction to representative democracy; the part of the Mexican church you represent seem sorely in need of such a lesson.

On AMLO's authoritarian side: Opposing him is "treason." PRD votes over alliances.

The state council of PRD mexiquense, or the local branch of PRD in Mexico State, are meeting today in Toluca to vote over the proposal to go in an alliance with the PAN for the upcoming gubernatorial election. 


National party president Jesús Ortega, who is a strong proponent of the alliances, has nonetheless promised to abide by the decision of the PRD state branches: The decision to go in an alliance or not is theirs to decide, and Ortega will democratically respect the decision. 


Not so with AMLO. Ahead of today's vote, he has ramped up his activism in Mexico state, deeming it a "treason" should PRD join the PRD with a common candidate, widely considered the only chance the party has to avoid a new PRI governor and thus Enrique Peña Nieto's presidential vicotry and the PRI's return to Los Pinos in 2012. A day after he forced the PT to openly reject an alliance, yesterday he confirmed he will not respect any decision by the official and elected PRD leadership, and openly threatened to present a third candidate and to call upon his followers within and outside the PRD to reject a common PRD-PAN candidate. And to top this off, AMLO is accusing the PRD of "treason" - for not abiding to his will. 


Over the years, AMLO's authoritarian streaks have emerged ever more clearer. He will respect absolutely no dissenting opinion within the PRD, and it is clear he regards the party principally as a tool whose mission is to pliantly back his 2012 presidential bid. Ortega, for his part, called AMLO's threats "inadmissible," and his further declarations clearly marks the contrast with Ortega's socialdemocratic - and democratic - wing of the PRD, and AMLO's highly personalistic - and ever more authoritarian - populist project: 

"To accuse those who think differently of beign traitors, to me is an excess that can not be admitted... that we have differences does not give the right to anyone to disqualify as a traitor those who simply disagree...the leaders of PRD in Mexico State will decide on the policy of alliances; that is the [party] statute, that is what the statute says and what the rules of the party are."

Yet AMLO has already decided that those who do not agree with him are indeed traitors. He is absolutely in his right to reject the alliances, and, as Ortega notes, so is the PRD state council, which today may well reject the alliances, but it is clear that AMLO will absolutely not abide by any majority will. As such, Ebrard should know by now that AMLO will never accept any poll or vote where he is not declared the winner and the left's candidate for 2012.