As the U.S. Looks Back to the 17th Century, Mexico Moves Forward into the 21st - CounterPunch.org
As the U.S. Looks Back to the 17th Century, Mexico Moves Forward into the 21st One Hundred Days of Claudia Sheinbaum Hours after a 6.1 earthquake rippled across western Mexico (I didn’t feel it), I turned on the tube to witness a milestone event unfolding hundreds of miles away in the Zocalo, the central plaza of Mexico City. As thousands filled the historic space on January 12, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, Mexico’s first woman president, was preparing to deliver a speech marking the conclusion of the first 100 days of her administration. In a ritual unimaginable in the United States of America, the President of the United Mexican States, essentially unguarded, strolled up to the front of the crowd and began shaking hands. Beaming her eternally youthful smile, President Sheinbaum took to the podium amid emotional crowd shouts of “President, President!” The 62-year-old Mexican leader, who brims with the energy of someone twenty years younger, ran down her first accomplishments, real or imagined, in social welfare, public health, indigenous rights, education, housing, economic development, mass transportation, public safety environment, and foreign policy. Taking office with a Congressional majority from her Morena party and allies numerically sufficient to pass constitutional reforms, bolstered by similar political balances in state legislatures, is no small plus in favoring Sheinbaum’s agenda. In framing the historical context of her administration, Sheinbaum was crystal clear that her government was the continuation, the second phase, of Mexico’s Fourth Transformation (4T) initiated under the previous administration of Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Likewise, she reiterated her committment to the political philosophy that guides the 4T: AMLO’s concept of Mexican Humanism, a nationally rooted school of political thought with transboundary horizons that does not neatly fall into categories of 20th century socialism or the “free” and savage brand of capitalism, aka neo-liberalism in Mexico and much of the rest of the world, as practiced in the U.S. and many other nations. In the historic scheme of things, the 4T and Mexican Humanism could be considered a belated but updated effort to truly enact the egalitarian social aspects of the 1917 Constitution born from the simmering ashes of the 1910 Revolution, the first great revolution of the 20th century world. Indeed, President Sheinbaum vowed that Mexico would never return to neo-liberalism, the package of privatizations, trickle down economics and shrunken State responsibilities that defined the Aztec Republic’s course between the 1980s and 2018. Echoing AMLO, she pledged her administration would uphold the principle of “Primero los pobres,” or “Put the poor first.” Some critics of AMLO and Sheibaum assert that Mexico’s first woman president is merely a puppet of a male predecessor who continues ruling behind the scenes from his jungle ranch in Chiapas, not unlike the 20th century Sonoran strongman Plutarco Calles who manipulated the presidency after he left office and until he was unceremoniously ejected from the country by reformist President Lázaro Cárdenas. Sheinbaum, though, possesses a stellar resume ranging from student activist to environmental scientist to governor of Mexico City, the teeming center of a great megalopolis where governance is not for the faint-hearted. Hinting at the misogyny that may well drive some of the new Mexican president’s critics, Sheinbaum offered these words: “Just as we run a home, just as we are mothers and grandmothers, we also have the strength, fortitude, courage and ability to be firefighters, engineers, astronauts, doctors, lawyers and Supreme Commanders of the Armed Forces. Discrimination, racism, classism and machismo are vestiges of the past. Mexico is changing for the better. Even those who remained stuck in yesterday know that.” A few highlights from President Sheinbaum January 12, 2024 speech include the following: + passage of a polemical constitutional reform that will allow Mexicans to elect their judges, including members of the Supreme Court, in an election set for June 1, 2025. + codification of social programs and housing as rights, as opposed to political pork meted out by politicians. + in recogntion of the “double shift” at home and in the workplace endured by women workers, added financial support for women aged 60-64. + annual increases in the minimum wage above the rate of inflation. + expansion of daycare for the children of maquiladora workers in Ciudad Juarez, a long-standing demand of labor activists. + recognition of indigenous and Afro-Mexican rights. + a mammoth national water conservation agreement involving government institutions and state governments, large private businesses, irrigation districts and indigenous communities. For the Zocalo knockout speech, Sheinbaum was accompanied by her cabinet, lawmakers and most state governors, including several rising political figures whose attendance “drew attention” because of their status as members of opposition parties, according to the daily El Financiero news outlet. This contingent included the relatively young governors of three of Mexico’s industrial powerhouse states: Pablo Lemus of Jalisco, Samuel Garcia of Nuevo Leon and Tere Jimenez of Aguascalientes. All three could be considered possible future presidential contenders; in Mexico 2025 savvy politicians know where the votes go, the money flows and the political winds blow. Standing before the multitude gathered in the Mexican capital, Sheinbaum touched on the fast approaching crisis of Mexican migrants in the United States, stressing that Mexican workers in the U.S. not only send needed money back home (an estimated $65 billion in 2024 alone), but spend 80 percent of their income in the U.S. economy in a stream of money that nourishes El Norte as well. “Mexican workers work like no other in the United States. They are extraordinary workers in the fields, in construction, in services; they are great scientists in universities. They are heroes and heroines of the homeland,” Sheinbaum declared. She also hailed the Mexican firefighting crew that was dispatched to the Los Angeles area in a gesture of solidarity with the California residents battling the latest climate disaster. With only days remaining before Donald Trump is sworn in for the second time, the Mexican leader expanded her comments to address the broader scope of the Mexico-U.S. relationship. “As we know, we have had painful moments in our history, but I highlight the good moments, the good examples of respect for our sovereignties and of collaboration and support, such as when Benito Juárez received invaluable help from Abraham Lincoln in his fight against the French invaders; and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s respect for General Lázaro Cárdenas. I also highlight the good relationship of respect and collaboration between President Donald Trump’s first term and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in particular, the signing of the Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada, which has benefited our peoples, all three; in particular, by the substitution of imports and the creation of employment in the three nations…. Our proposal has even been not only to North America, but also to seek in the future the economic and commercial integration of the entire American continent, making it the most powerful region in the world, without exclusions, with prosperity and with respect for the freedom, independence and sovereignty of all its peoples and nations.” Bearing both an olive branch and an unmistakable message to Trump, Sheinbaum continued as more affirming roars wafted from an overflow crowd estimated at close to 350,000 people. “For this reason, I am convinced that the relationship between Mexico and the United States will be good and respectful, and that dialogue will prevail. Our vision is Mexican Humanism, fraternity between peoples and nations. Of course, we will always have our heads held high. Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country…. As I have said: We coordinate, we collaborate, but we never subordinate ourselves.” Later, as Donald Trump’s second inauguration loomed, President Sheinbaum revealed at her January 14 morning press conference that she was not on the immediate list of invitees to the Washington gala. But the Mexican President had found another USA showman fan. “A big thank you to Mexico’s new, impressive President Claudia Sheinbaum for sending Mexico’s best firefighters to help LA battle these monstrous fires,” Gene Simmons, frontman for the 70s’ supergroup Kiss, wrote on X. Forging ahead, Sheinbum unveiled January 13 another superambitious plan, Plan Mexico, which she laid out as a mixed private-public investment development strategy carrying an investment portfolio of $277 billion and aimed at countering China’s economic clout with a surge in North American production stamped Made in Mexico. According to the Mexican president’s scheme, which will likely bristle with the social and political contradictions of the multiclass 4T, key features nevertheless include the projected creation of 1.5 million jobs in Mexico, the annual entry of 150,000 professionals and technicians into the workforce, a robust Made-in-Mexico program, a commitment that 50 percent of public purchases will consist of Mexican products, and a development fund for small and medium-sized enterprises. “Making Mexico the best nation in the world is the goal,” Sheinbaum proclaimed at the National Museum of Anthropology. “Our country is a cultural power and our objective is to reduce poverty and inequalities, but every Mexican should know that there is plan, there is development, and that in the face of any uncertainty that might come in the near future, Mexico has a plan and is united in getting ahead.” Several polls in recent weeks have placed President Sheinbaum’s approval rating at between 64 percent and 80 percent of the respondents. If Donald Trump proceeds with this threats to impose tariffs on Mexico and/or deport massive numbers of migrants south, expect Mexicans to rally around their first woman president. Kent Paterson -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34749): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34749 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110728156/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
