mexican elections/protests blahblah

[black magick hustla]

there's been a bunch of protests, particularly directed at the pri and its close relationship with the major media outlets. it's been getting a bit nasty, there's been street fighting between protestors (mostly young folks) and militants/shocktroops of the pri.

i don't really see any class content to this. the main focal point is that nobody who is young enough wants the PRI dinosaurs (they had a one party dictatorship for 70+) to come back. it just seems like a gross rallying between different factions of the bosses. the only positive aspect is that there is a sort of nationwide politicization and "taking it to the streets". for example, in my hometown, there isn't really a protest culture but you see streetfights and disgruntled youth just going at it.


another tangental aspect of this is that young folks, particularly university and the middle classes, more or less belong to the left wing, the PRD. for example, if you browse the internet, most of the mexican internet is pro-PRD because as you guessed, it is the domain of the young and the educated. my facebook is going nuts with PRD propaganda. even if the "left wing" rhetoric is supposed to be pro-poor, a lot of the antiPRI sloganeering seems to be class baiting (i.e. the PRI electoral base is "uneducated" and is bought off by "despensas" (i.e. staple goods that pri sometimes gives in its rallies)).

i don't really see anything positive about the "protests". it is pretty obvious that the economic structures of mexico are already set up and that it is pretty impossible for them to be restructured by anyone. honestly, i kinda morbidly desire that the PRI wins cuz' if they win there will be for sure some rioting and protesting going on, which is more desirable than the shitty recuperation that would happen if PRD wins.

[black magick hustla]

i guess it also doesn't help that the pri guy is a fucking idiot. i mean the machinery behind him isn't but he is like mexico's sarah palin. he looks good and has a nice haircut but is, at the very least, terribly bad at bullshitting interview questions

[black magick hustla]

i been trolling ym friends by telling them i dont vote

[Homo Songun]

he looks good and has a nice haircut

Halfway there by bourgeois electoral standards.

I'm skeptical that there is no 'class content' going on though.

[black magick hustla]

*shrugs*, if anything it is the center, "PR", which traditionally has been a "working class" party, i put it in quotations because it never was but at least sociologically speaking, the PRI became what it is by infiltrating labor and peasant organizations. most of the protests seem centered around the media black out and the fact the impending but sure return of the PRI. i don't see how that has any class content at all.

[¿Que?]

I found this know your meme entry quite informative. After all, where there's students, there's memes, right?

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/enrique-pe%C3%B1a-nietoprole

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

i don't really see any class content to this. the main focal point is that nobody who is young enough wants the PRI dinosaurs (they had a one party dictatorship for 70+) to come back. it just seems like a gross rallying between different factions of the bosses. the only positive aspect is that there is a sort of nationwide politicization and "taking it to the streets". for example, in my hometown, there isn't really a protest culture but you see streetfights and disgruntled youth just going at it.


There are some positive aspects of the YoSoy protests from what I have heard (and I have heard a fair bit). It's not a working class insurrection but they have some very reasonable demands, like putting the current leadership on trial, including that crazy dictator-for-life Gordillo who runs the teacher's union, and raising awareness over civil violence towards leftists in Mexico.



another tangental aspect of this is that young folks, particularly university and the middle classes, more or less belong to the left wing, the PRD. for example, if you browse the internet, most of the mexican internet is pro-PRD because as you guessed, it is the domain of the young and the educated. my facebook is going nuts with PRD propaganda. even if the "left wing" rhetoric is supposed to be pro-poor, a lot of the antiPRI sloganeering seems to be class baiting (i.e. the PRI electoral base is "uneducated" and is bought off by "despensas" (i.e. staple goods that pri sometimes gives in its rallies)).
It does sound classist on some level, but it depends a lot on how such an argument is articulated. The PRI is to blame for the poor, or at least unequal education system in the country, which makes it easier to manipulate people for votes, though this bad education is not uniformly something which effects the working class alone. You see similar things here in the states, like when Republicans in Texas decided to strike vast swaths of history which could be critical of the American way of life from the history books. The main reason they do this is precisely because it makes the electorate less socially and politically conscious. It is much more probable for someone to vote for the PRI, for instance, if they are not really aware of what happened in the 60s or during the dirty war.

As for vote-buying, they probably wouldn't hand out gifts at political rallies unless they thought that there was a reasonable chance of those actually increasing their share of the votes. This is something which works more in regards to the level of political consciousness as opposed to the level o education, as giving out gifts for votes is a well-used tactic and actually works on college level students here in the states (UCBerkeley's "progressive" slate for campus government had to face off against campus democrats and republicans handing out free burritos)

I see the issue with the potential classism in it, but a poor education can contribute to a lack of political and social consciousness on a structural level (of course, this is something which can be negated through good organizing).]



i don't really see anything positive about the "protests". it is pretty obvious that the economic structures of mexico are already set up and that it is pretty impossible for them to be restructured by anyone. honestly, i kinda morbidly desire that the PRI wins cuz' if they win there will be for sure some rioting and protesting going on, which is more desirable than the shitty recuperation that would happen if PRD wins.Well, from what I understand, one of their major issues is Nieto's association with the Atenco killings/rapes/abuses against working class and protesters in solidarity with them, among other things. More awareness about civil violence by municipal or state PRI machines can't be a bad thing. Surely if there is any rioting/mass protests/"Mexican Spring" over a Nieto victory it will happen because movements like this raise lots of awareness about the class interests which govern the PRI and the violence they use to protect those interests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_civil_unrest_in_San_Salvador_Atenco

They're not explicitly pro-PRD, although I imagine any of the students who don't spoil/abstain will vote for AMLO.