The Mexican Elite Propagandizes a Fire Sale
September 09, 2014
The Adoring Fans…
The Mexican Elite Propagandizes a Fire Sale
by ANDREW SMOLSKI
Do you hear it? It is coming! The rattling, earth-shattering end! The end of Mexico’s popular revolution! Institutions die slow; this specific one, the Mexican State, began its decline about the mid-80s and really took off with Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The decline is inexplicably linked to a rather odd 30 years long fire sale. Everything must go, and so it did and does until there is nothing left, slowly bleeding itself dry. When historians look back upon it, it will be described as one of the most fascinating exercises in economic suicide ever to strike a country.
PEMEX will soon be another privatized disaster, just like telephones, banks, trains, and planes. If you want to hear a Mexican complain about something, bring up Telcel and Telmex. Or ask them what the hell happened to all the trains. Or why a large portion of the population doesn’t even have a bank account. Or why Televisa and TV Azteca have monopolized control over the Mexican television market. Just let them explain to you what privatization meant. They will cast doubt on the idea of increasing competition through privatization.
As Mexico completely aligns itself with corporate interests, the cement settling the neoliberal apparatus into place permanently, Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN), Mexico’s President, has been given the media’s propagandistic attention. EPN’s structural reforms, done this time without the World Bank or IMF’s “Washington Consesus”, over-indebted noose, are being advanced by all three main parties through the “Pacto por México”. The clarion calls of the population to be consulted go unanswered. The media continue cheering the same garbage they have cheered for three decades, without improvements for the majority. They are unabashed and blushing. Christmas will be year round for the oligarchy. Hell, of course, will remain de facto for the poor. donate now
My favorite propaganda was broadcast on the program “HOY”, where the interviewers were nodding politely at EPN’s act; a ridiculously staged event. No surprise, as Raúl Araiza and Andrea Legarreta did campaign ads for the Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM), a coalition partner with the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The running joke is the only thing green about PVEM is the color of the 200 pesos lining their pockets. Also, not a surprise because Televisa is notoriously in the pocket of both neoliberal parties, PRI and PAN, normally just referred to as PRIAN (with the PRD starting to tag along).
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/09/the-mexican-elite-propagandizes-a-fire-sale/
