FRED REED—Mexico today has a large number of universities (the Technológico of Monterrey, a premier engineering school, has some thirty campuses in as many cities: Is that one university or thirty?) Mexico graduates well over 100,000 engineers a year, including 13,000 in software, and has a rapidly growing high-tech industry with centers in Guadalajara and Mexico City. Major American firms, to include IBM, Oracle, and Intel, come here to hire them. And of course the internet, airlines, computerized everything, and teenagers pecking at smartphones.
MEXICO & CHICANO CULTURE
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Whither the ‘Mexican Power’ movement I predicted post-Trump?
18 minutes readRAMIN MAZAHERI—Under Trump the MSM all of a sudden started doing major reporting on governmental abuses of Latino immigrants… not as a way to advance “Mexican Power”, but solely as a way to denigrate Trump. Disgustingly, they said nothing when Obama set records as the “deporter in chief”. The MSM would rather endlessly masticate sour grapes over Trump’s victory than reassess their totally class-devoid worldview. They are thus manipulating Mexicans for their own ends, and the focus on immigration abuses is actually taking potential column inches away from the larger issue of broad Latino empowerment.
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Can President-elect Lopez Obrador pull Mexico out of slumber?
25 minutes readANDRE VLTCHEK—Mexico is the second most visited country in the Western hemisphere, right after the United States. But income from tourism very rarely brings a better life for local people. Crime and drug wars are far from being the only concerns. In the center of the indigenous and historic city of Oaxaca, the armed forces are blocking the entrance to the Governor’s Palace. Why? The graffiti protesting against disappearances and extrajudicial killings of the activists, as well as forced evictions of indigenous people by the multinational companies.
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López Obrador in Mexico: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old?
21 minutes readJOHNNY HAZARD—One of AMLO’s broken promises that has most disappointed supporters, former supporters, independent progressives, and small farmers has been his having reneged on his pledge to cancel construction of this new Mexico City area airport on farm land and a lake bed in Texcoco. His opposition never had deep roots: he didn’t speak of ecocide nor of the rights of campesinos, for example, but many activists hoped that, despite this superficiality, he would make good on his promises for reasons of fiscal integrity.
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Bad omens? Mexico: Activists, Artists Outraged as AMLO Gifts Health, Culture Commissions to Evangelical Party
9 minutes readIn a collective statement issued by the Mexican LGBTTTI+ Coalition, more than 100 human rights organizations said PES’s ‘anti-rights and anti-democratic’ ideology shouldn’t have any influence over legislation, which is “key for the recognition of women, trans and intersex people’s right to make decisions about their own bodies.”