Monterrey, Mexico, Touted As Model

yahoo.com ^ | March 15, 2002 | JULIE WATSON, AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I've got a buddy who works for a Monterrey cotton mill and visits there every few weeks. He doesn't like it due to the work schedule.

Maybe another job would give him the 9-5 instead of the 9-12/3-9 schedule.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Mexico: Party leadership election seen as key to PRI's future Feb. 22, 2002--[Excerpt] The other danger is that the two factions will not be able to heal the wounds opened by the elections. Many analysts believe the risk of fissure within the PRI would be highest should Madrazo lose. But they say that festering resentments could obstruct coordination regardless of the winner.

Paredes has more of the PRI's 19 state governors on her side. But Madrazo has enlisted the support of the powerful teacher's union, which has a national presence with lots of activists.

Both candidates have a proven capacity to mobilize the infamous PRI electoral machine, which for decades turned out the vote by busing peasants, factory workers, housewives and residents of poor neighborhoods to the voting booths. That mobilization will prove key Sunday, because only about 10 percent of the normal number of voting precincts will be open for the party election. [End Election]

Madrazo Declared Winner in Mexico Mon Mar 4, 2002 [Excerpt] MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's former ruling party officially declared Roberto Madrazo the winner of disputed internal elections, saying he had won the race for the party's presidency.

Madrazo won with 1.52 million votes compared with 1.47 million votes for congresswoman Beatrice Paredes, Sen. Humberto Roque, who supervised the Feb. 24 elections, said Sunday.

Paredes had disputed the results, charging Madrazo's supporters with widespread fraud.

Madrazo, the former governor of oil-rich Tabasco state, was scheduled to be sworn in Monday as the leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Considered a possible presidential contender in 2006, he has cast himself as a successor to his father, a former PRI leader who tried to open up a party dominated by the nation's president.

Still, the younger Madrazo has been plagued by accusations of fraud. During his 1994 gubernatorial campaign, he was accused of spending $72 million, which he denied.

He was also accused of encouraging fraud and misconduct during elections for his replacement in Tabasco state. PRI candidate Manuel Andrade was declared the winner of elections in 2000, but the federal Supreme Electoral Tribunal later annulled the disputed victory. Madrazo had hoped a win would help him in his then unofficial campaign to lead the PRI. [End Excerpt]

Mexico's new opposition leader a critic of U.S. ties March 5, 2002 [Full Text] MEXICO CITY - Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ran the country for most of the 20th century, installed as its leader Monday a critic of closer ties to the United States.

Roberto Madrazo, 49, a self-proclaimed nationalist wary of increasing U.S. investment in Mexico, becomes the key opposition leader to President Vicente Fox, whose election in 2000 ended more than 70 years of rule by the PRI, as the party is known in its Spanish initials.

Madrazo, the former governor of the Mexican state of Tabasco, is a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the United States, which Fox strongly supports.

He is the first leader of PRI chosen in an open election. For generations, the PRI controlled Mexico through patronage, corruption and backroom deals.

Although Madrazo hopes to change the party's image, his own selection as leader was marred by accusations of fraud. It took a week to confirm his win by a margin of fewer than 50,000 votes out of nearly three million cast, despite a nearly two-year campaign for the post.

Even though it lost the presidency to Fox, the PRI continues to dominate politics in Mexico, where it holds slight majorities in both chambers of Congress and 17 of 31 governorships.

Because of his outspoken opposition to Fox, Madrazo's efforts are likely to bear on Mexico's relations with the United States. Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive and an advocate of closer ties to Washington, has been hamstrung by an unruly Congress since taking office 15 months ago. A divided PRI left Fox with no strong opposition leader with whom to negotiate sweeping economic and social reforms. [End]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I posted an article (I wish I could find it now) around Christmas, I believe, about the competition for the Mexico market
by H.E.B., Walmart, etc. It was a very interesting article but too long and too uplifting for comments.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Monterrey,Mexico is a SEVERLY polluted place.Awful place to live.

I drove through El Paso, TX in December of last year and Juarez, Mexico is pretty bad. It looks like the environmentalists wackos would be in hog heaven down there.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

About to see the Americanization of Mexico--Yet, Fox's new attitude toward Mexican-Americans promises to resurrect old fears that an ascendant Latino population is harboring separatist ambitions. Most recently, Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington predicted that Mexican demographic expansion could "possibly reverse" 19th-century U.S. territorial gains. But what he and other critics fail to understand is that Mexican-Americans are using their newfound assertiveness to insinuate themselves deeper into the American mainstream, not to distance themselves from it.

[Howlin]

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with this thread, but I wanted you to see this great cartoon!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Great cartoon and a reminder that even in the face of the truth, the Left will lie unabashedly. They have no regard for honor, truth, justice.

[McGavin999]

LOL, that's perfect!

[Howlin]

Remember back when we thought we'd NEVER hate anything/anybody as much as we hated the Clintons? *Sigh*

[McGavin999]

Yeah, but then it's kind of hard to notice your hand seriously infected when someone is sawing off your arm. :o)

[antidemocommie]

"Monterrey is playing host to the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, an unprecedented world summit on how to combat poverty and redistribute wealth around the globe. Fifty-two heads of state are expected to attend, including President Bush and Cuban President Fidel Castro. "

Let me see,,.....Can you say NEW WORLD ORDER??? Oh, we better be quiet! We might get labeled like the anti-globalization crowd has been! Shhhh! Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil!

[Righty1]

Yes with oligarch hispanics at the top and Indians at the bottom.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I can't separate the Clintons from the rest of the pack.

[antidemocommie]

Since GW has been in the White House, how many hours has America's attention been refocused on Mexico, illegal aliens staying here, amensty programs, open borders, etc?

It sure seems that our president is highly focused on mexican issues.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall?
I'm glad Otto Reich and President Bush made such strong statements leading up to this gathering,
condeming Castro's regime and putting all corrupt politicans on notice they're not welcome in the U.S.

[antidemocommie]

It seems to me that we are talking more about he mexicanization of the USA, rather than the Americanization of mexico.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It may seem that way but maybe things aren't what they seem.
Sometimes it's hard to let go of an idea you've invested so much time and energy in.

[Nix 2]

Have you paid any attention to Vicente Fox's overtures to the Chiapas Indians after the previous decades of governmentally attempted genocide? He was IN Chiapas when thugs from the government he replaced were attempting to assassinate him thinking he was somewhere else. Surprise, surprise.
His word to the Indigenous peoples of the country of Mexico has thus far been kept and they are not in the kind of danger they were just as little as two years ago.
Sometimes, if you live long enough, you learn that no matter how badly you want things to be perfect, it is never going to happen, so you do the best you can.
At least Fox is TRYING. That is more than any Mexican leader before him ever did.
If his government can bring Mexico into the world arena and make it better for Mexicans, maybe they wouldn't be flooding our borders day and night and night and day.
It's a worthy goal. And we should help him because in the end, it helps us all.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Well said!

Bump!

[backhoe]

At least Fox is TRYING. That is more than any Mexican leader before him ever did. If his government can bring Mexico into the world arena and make it better for Mexicans, maybe they wouldn't be flooding our borders day and night and night and day. It's a worthy goal. And we should help him because in the end, it helps us all.

That's the way I see it, too. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.