Is this what the U.S. will eventually become?

[nine_one_4]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1971139&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Mexican Voters Fear Country on Brink of Chaos Before

Presidential Elections
By JULIE WATSON
The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY - Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge.

Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.

Some blame President Vicente Fox for a weak government. Others say rivals are instigating the violence to create that impression, hoping to hurt National Action candidate Felipe Calderon, who has a slight lead in recent polls.

A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. The polling company Parametria conducted face-to-face interviews at 1,000 homes across Mexico. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The conflicts are "a warning sign," said Yamel Nares, Parametria's research director.

Security is the top concern for Mexicans, and Fox has struggled to reform Mexico's notoriously corrupt police. Meanwhile, drug-related bloodshed has accelerated, with some cities seeing killings almost daily.

In April, suspected drug lords posted the heads of two police officers on a wall outside a government building where four drug traffickers died in a Jan. 27 shootout with officers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco.

A sign nearby read: "So that you learn to respect."

Last week, Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos said Mexico was in a "state of rage," and warned that tensions were similar to those that preceded the Zapatistas' brief armed uprising in January 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas.

He said his group is committed to peace, but many fear his increased public profile after years of hiding out in the jungle could foreshadow greater polarization among Mexican voters.

The masked leader said a May 3 clash that left a teenager dead and scores injured in San Salvador Atenco, 15 miles northeast of Mexico City, is an example of the growing tensions.

Marcos has been leading nearly daily demonstrations in the town following the incident, which began when a radical group of townspeople kidnapped and beat six policemen in a dispute over unlicensed flower vendors. Police responded with rage the next day. Television crews captured officers repeatedly beating unarmed protesters, and several detained women alleged officers raped them.

The clash followed another bloody battle between steelworkers and police trying to break up an illegal strike at a plant in Lazaro Cardenas last month. Unions later threatened to shut down the country.

George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary, said the violence reflects Fox's lack of leadership.

"The state has become much weaker under his watch," Grayson said.

Recent polls show Calderon has overtaken longtime presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whom opponents have portrayed as a leftist demagogue similar to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

But that could change if PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo can convince voters that Mexico was more stable under his party's 71-year reign, which ended with Fox's victory in 2000. Mexican law bars presidents from seeking re-election.

Madrazo has tried to paint himself as the law-and-order candidate though so far his poll numbers have remained well behind those of Calderon and Lopez Obrador.

"It's not going to help Lopez Obrador who has been associated with the rabble rousers, but Madrazo can come out and say with his party at least Mexico had continued stability," Grayson said.

Gerardo Aranda, a tourism guide in Mexico City, said he won't go back to the PRI, but he doesn't know who he will vote for.

"No one really knows now what could happen next," he said. "All the candidates are bad. ... There is so much anger toward the government, everyone is against everything."

[gaijindabe]

Read what is going on in Brazil lately?

They are having their own social unrest, the Bolivians are cutting off natural gas exports and Brazilian soybean farmers in Venezuela are having their lands confiscated.

And we thought the world revolved around the USA.

[speeder]

When you have an incredibly over-populated place w/ ~98% living a miserable, horseschit life and throw in some really hot weather, what do you expect?

I'm surprised that Mexicans have not risen up against their govt. a long time ago.

[Hugh R]

Try South Africa, J-Burg for example. Highest murder rate in the world I believe and certainly the carjack capital of the world.

[scottmandue]

Originally posted by speeder
When you have an incredibly over-populated place w/ ~98% living a miserable, horseschit life and throw in some really hot weather, what do you expect?

I'm surprised that Mexicans have not risen up against their govt. a long time ago.

Yeah, if they would spend as much time and energy organizing a revolution in their own country as they do trying to change America they could have a first class country.

They have no shortage of hard working people and natural resources.

[nostatic]

yes, it is our fate. We must close our borders now before all the foreigners destroy our precious way of life.

[on-ramp]

our government has FAILED to stop the INVASION from the south.

after so many years after 9/11 , you kinda wonder what those old white rich crackerheads in Washington are doing....
you'd think the priority is to secure the border from INVASION.

just unbelievable for the President to come on national television and state that the "border is insecure". wtf? what else is "insecure"?

[Hugh R]

Sarcasm Todd?

If 12 million are good, why not 120 million? For all those who say low skilled, low educated people who make $10/hour contribute a net positive cash flow to our economy please tell me how they do it. I make ten times that per hour and I don't have money to spare after paying "my fair share" of state and federal income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, utility taxes, telecommunication taxes, Alternative Minimum taxes, social security taxes, and all the other taxes that are obvious and hidden. BTW, all of those taxes are about 45% of my income. So I'm sure that those cash payment $10/hour workers pay their fair share as well, especially when you add in their state paid medical benefits and K-12 education for their kids.

[on-ramp]

Hugh,

you're right, i calculated that close to 50% of my income goes to taxes and fees too. i dont kid myself. there are a lot of hidden ones.

[FrayAdjacent911]

I think America will be circling the drain if current proposed immigration legislation passes, instead of PROTECTING OUR NATION.

I read an analysis that estimated 217 MILLION immigrants over 20 years. That's more than half the current population of the country right now!! Given the average illegal alien is illiterate, that's going to mean a great portion of that 217 million will be uneducated, and it will also allow immigrants to bring not only their families, but their extended families! More for our social system to support!!

I think anything less than securing our border, and ejecting illegals will be CATASTROPHIC to our nation.

[Hugh R]

On Ramp

Consider this... if you buy a six pack of beer you are paying all the employer side of social security taxes of EVERY step in the manufacturing process from growing grain and hops, to irrigation, fertilizer, bauxite (aluminium smelting to make cans) transportation, water, beer fermenting, transportation, distribution, retail sales, etc. Those costs get passed onto the ultimate end user. Or do you think someone else eats those costs? That's what I mean about hidden taxes.

[dd74]

Some days, in certain parts of L.A., I speak more Spanish than English - thank goodness for taking it in high school and again in college.

I've got a distinct for Mexican food and its regions from faux-Mexican, Tex-Mex, and all the way to the cuisine down south in the Yucatan.

I watch soccer (football) in Spanish.

I can, with effort, write in Spanish.

So, in short, I've made a long-standing adjustment in my lifestyle. And I think for others, that adjustment, in the future, will become increasingly required in our country.

[Hugh R]

I don't speak Spanish, and I'm lucky in my business (Safety) its pretty much required for the job in Los Angeles. Fortunately in my industry English is the norm, for now.

[Hugh R]

Gas tax, road tax, fuel costs (all taxes and SS taxes, royalties), everything upstream of the end user, you pay every tax.

[RallyJon]

For all those who say low skilled, low educated people who make $10/hour contribute a net positive cash flow to our economy please tell me how they do it.

Is this a trick question? Seems obvious: any good or service that you buy that can use cheap(er) labor from illegals. Pay $50 to have your grass cut instead of $100. Pay $1/lb for chicken rather than $2. Pay $2 for a head of lettuce instead of $4.

Contridicting your own point, you go on to complain about the hidden taxes on goods you buy. Without illegal labor, there would be a lot more of those--workers comp, liability, health insurance. It's easy to say that illegals cost us anyway when they use the emergency room, etc., but is it the $1800/mo that health insurance for a family costs these days? Not even close.

Public education is paid for by property taxes in most places. Unless you have illegals owning property and not paying their property taxes, they're no more of a burden on the schools than any other renter. (Of course that's a whole different debate, but for now that's the system we're stuck with).

I know this has been covered in other threads about jobs Americans won't do, but just imagine a lazy ass American 20 year old, in a union, bending over picking vegetables. I can't. "I'll have a $10 orange, please."

[sammyg2]

I'd be glad to pay $10 for an orange if I didn't have to sit in traffic, wait in line behind people who are constantly jabbering in a foreign language, pay for other's social services and medical, look at grafitti, watch the crime rates go up and the neightborhoods go down, etc.

[nostatic]

Originally posted by sammyg2
I'd be glad to pay $10 for an orange if I didn't have to...wait in line behind people who are constantly jabbering in a foreign language...

I actually like hearing different languages.

[Superman]

I've got a good idea. Why don't we have a government, but without taxes. I think the unanimous feeling here is that we'd prefer not to pay all these taxes. I agree with that. Does anyone see any problem with that?