We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, September 15, 2014

Why the Markets’ Sudden Love for Mexico?

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Wolf Street.

The author very recently returned from a vacation in Mexico where he noticed some rather startling changes--no, not in the reality of Mexican life, but in perception management not only by Mexican media, but coverage by important capitalist media of the Empire.
...it’s not just the government-friendly Mexican media that can’t get enough of Peña Nieto’s reformist agenda. Just about every international media outlet of note is on board, including the FT, El País, The Economist and Time Magazine. At times the coverage is shamelessly, almost embarrassingly gushing. As Daniel Hernandez points out in Vice Magazine, some portions of a piece published in a December 2013 issue of Time sound strikingly similar to a paid advertorial about Mexico.
He offers some reasons for this development, but I think he only hints at the broader strategic reasons: Empire capitalists are interested in countering BRIC capitalists (especially Chinese) from seriously competing with them.