Mexico's Future is Ours

Perhaps because Catholic bloggers tend to be conservative politically, the immigration issue has certainly been in the spotlight. Putting aside the moral issues that it brings, the reality is that illegal immigrants have and will continue to enter the country at alarming rates.

What is the solution? A big wall? National Guard troops? Of course, one has to look at the reason why so many of them come over, which is to find prosperity under our capitalist system - which we, unfortunately, undermine by creating a social welfare system, which also attracts immigrants.

However, I don't think enough focus has been placed on Mexico. I have read bloggers castigating Vincente Fox but he is soon to be gone from the show. The Mexican elections are upon us and we should be watching what is going on down there.

The candidate for Fox's PRI party is a loser - there are two frontrunners and one will be the next President: Andres Obrador and Felipe Calderon. The OC Register has a good summary of the two in their newspaper today.

I want Felipe Calderon to win. His politcal slogan is : Para que vivamos mejor (So we can live better). He wants to focus on building Mexico's ecomony to stem migration of its labor force. He wants Mexico to also be a world player and seek trade agreements with other countries. He has also voiced open support for Israel. He stated to the Washington post, "In order to create jobs and get growth, it's necessary to [have] . . . national and foreign investment." This is important - allowing private companies and foreign ownership of Mexican land would help their economy and better the lifestyle, thus encouraging a Mexican to stay in his hometown rather than seek to traverse the Arizona desert.

Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, on the other hand, has as his slogan: Por el bien de todos, primero los pobres (For the well-being of all, poor people first). Likened by his opponent to Hugo Chavez, Obrador is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist, portraying himself as the liberator of the poor - yet, he also wants to have free import of U.S. corn and beans, a move that would bankrupt Mexican farmers. That idea reminded me of life under Mussolini - the trains ran on time, people had a plate of pasta, and so no one noticed the denigration of human rights and democratic values around them, because they were fed and happy. Isolationsim, he says, is the key to Mexico's future.

Watch these elections, my friends - I daresay these will have as much an impact on the United States as our own upcoming elections in 2008 will have. The two men are very different and want to lead Mexico in different paths. It may get ugly - Obrador has already stated that law is relative and he would not uphold a law that he believes is unjust, and people close to him say that if he loses, he already has plans to lead his followers in riots.