Last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderón made his first visit to the United States, and broke a long-standing diplomatic tradition between the two countries that usually includes a presidential dinner and a speech to Congress for the visiting head of state. This time, Calderon didn’t even see President Bush. Why? In part, because of Bush’s political toxicity and the intensity of the ongoing U.S. presidential campaign. And in part for another less obvious reason: despite what people think, the Mexican right harbors a deep, historical mistrust for their northern neighbor.
The commonplace says that Mexican conservatives are enthusiastic supporters of the United States. While the Left rallies against McDonalds, the Right is often caricatured as the typical panista (the member National Action Party, Calderón’s party), a fat guy with a black hat and a Big Mac in his hand.
Yet the Mexican conservative soul has been traditionally distant, if not openly hostile, to the U.S.
If old-school liberals were inspired by the American model, conservatives were disgusted by their ambitions and their customs. The conservatives of the nineteenth century were convinced that their new country's identity faced an existential threat from the culture up North. Mexican national identity depended on faith, and faith alienated Mexico from the United States. The religious divide has not been irrelevant in this story: as conservatives emphasized the Catholic root of Mexican identity, they accentuated their conviction that the Protestants from the North were a national threat.
The United States was not only the country that deprived us of half of our territory, but also the supermarket that transformed everything and everyone into some type of merchandise. The North represented all things suspicious to the Catholic mind: fierce individualism, unbridled trade, science, utilitarianism.
Felipe Calderón grew up in the traditional right. Vicente Fox was a businessman, an outsider farther from panista core principles. Calderón, on the other hand, was the son of one PAN’s founding fathers. He identifies closely with the Right's philosophical doctrine. In international terms that doctrine means the need to reassure an identity that should be drawn against the giant from the North. He studied law in a school that taught French as a second language. And in his nationally televised speech to the nation, he draw the biggest cheers when vowing to protect migrant laborers in the North.
If Calderon’s reason grasps the importance of Mexico’s relationship with the United States, his instinct is to emphasize differences. He is not anti-American in the vein of the Left here, but as a hard-bone conservative he is highly suspicious of his northern neighbor. When assessing Calderon's actions toward the United States, this is worth keeping in the back of our minds.
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The USA government causes most of the hatred the world feels towards the American people.
I hope the families of all those who died on September 11th 2001 remember that, and try to remind the American people that it is OUR government not another country's government that killed their family and friends.
Let's not forget all the innocent people, both American and Middle Eastern, who have died and those who suffer now with disabilities today, and into the future, for decades that will be effected by the USA government's imperialism.
The people of the world see America as a bully, a country pushing Christianity and faux-democracy, where the rich rape the poor and rape the earth of all natural resources available.
Let's also remember, that Texas and other states were once part of Mexico. They deserve their land back, or at least to live on it.
Also, do not forget that, it is USA policies, which are destroying Mexico, creating more people who need to come to the USA to work.
Look up "Blow Back".
We will suffer, because of the USA government, until it is abolished and recreated as suggested in the Declaration of Independence.
Here are the first two paragraphs to remind those who do not remember what it states;
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Read the rest here;
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
Corey Mondello
Boston, Massachusetts
www.CoreyMondello.com
3-15-08
March 15, 2008 9:28 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 15, 2008 09:28
Yes we can deport all illegal aliens!
February 24, 2008 9:21 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on February 24, 2008 21:21
Our foriegn policy is in shambles, our economy is in the fritz, our dependance on oil is not going to chanvge for the next 30 years, and our working class is now retiring. People should open up their eyes, and see that immigration is the best hope for our country. Without immigration we will not grow, and we will be in second, third, and even fourth soon of all world economies. That is the reality. We need to be better friends with our neighbors north and south, to unite (not like a merger) but to work together to rebuild our leadership position in the world together.
February 20, 2008 8:33 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on February 20, 2008 20:33
Adios Calderon! You overstayed your visit! It's time Mexico stopped lobbying the United States to change our immigration policies! This should not be allowed about the people who illegally entered our country and broken our laws! Stop engaging in America's politics!
February 19, 2008 9:06 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on February 19, 2008 21:06