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I think this whole "panic situation" is a bit overblown.

This is not 1920's Mexico nor 19th century Mexico.

As much as some people, through pure ignorance or willful ignorance, seemed determined to portray Mexico as a piss poor shithole.

It is not.Mexico is not Bolivia,nor worse, some failed African State. The Mexican State is strong and Mexico is a middle income country not a "poor" country.

Looking at Mexican television,reading Mexican newspapers, and talking to Mexican relatives there is not a real sense of national crisis, a sense that chaos/revolution is on the cusp.

This is a transitory political crisis.Yes, more serious than Florida 2000 but not like recent events in Bolivia,Ecuador,or Venezuela.

Despite the PRD's attempts to nationalize the matter it is largely a Mexico City affair. The Oaxaca situation is really limited to a small radicalized group of teachers and will be settled IMO within the first six months of the Calderon administration. Fox has retirement on his Guanajato ranch already in mind and does not care to get involved.

Well I certainly hope you're right about the "panic situation" being overblown, but I will point out that I do see Mexico as a much more modernized nation than most here at FR and I have never bashed the country.

But I also know that many who are in the Mexico City area are genuinely concerned that they are on the verge of a true crisis situation breaking out. We even have one poster here, rovenstinez, who is there now and he is pointing to genuine fears many have. It is all over the newspapers in Mexico City and elsewhere; Reforma, El Universal, La Crónica de Hoy, and many others have both reported and editorialized -- and I think some of the editorials are especially important, Ezra Shabot and Sergio Sarmiento of Reforma have been especially alarmed at AMLO -- on the possibility of the ingobernabilidad del pais. Fox himself has recently been asked questions about what the conditions are under which he will resort to the use of the army -- he refused to answer -- and the fact that he is now calling Federal Police into action is not something that can be ignored.

More than anything else I am looking at the Left under AMLO's leadership. I know the Latin American Left outside of Mexico very well and what has been particularly unusual about this particular presidential campaign is that for the first time in a long time the Left in Mexico has formed and maintained close ties with the Left in larger Latin America. Venezuelan and Bolivian activists working for AMLO were kicked out of the country and Chavez came back at Fox in public statements after that; Cuban "diplomats" were recalled to Havana at the request of the Fox government for their activism in AMLO's campaign, and money came flowing in to the PRD from elsewhere in Latin America, something that has never happened before on this scale. When you add into that the fact that AMLO has been able to turn out crowds 800,000 strong as recently as four weeks ago, you've got something quite real on your hands.

I have not been trying to spread any word that this is happening because I see Mexico as immature. Just earlier today I was explaining how sophisticated they were in fact. But I do see real dangers in AMLO that must be contained and I am not certain that the solution to the problem he represents has yet been found.