Reuters' coverage of the protests in Mexico should anger anyone who hopes to resurrect unbiased journalism. Their most recent piece repeatedly uses the word "leftist" to refer to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, theParty of the Democratic Revolution candidate who almost certainly would have prevailed in a fair vote count. His supporters are also "leftists."
This choice of verbiage conjures up images of Leninist church-burners chanting the Internationale. Meanwhile, the man who probably stole the election, Felipe Calderon, merits the more circumspect label "conservative" when viewed in Reuters-vision. The word "rightist" would imply a Pinochet-style strongman. Can't call him that, now, can we?
López Obrador is not exactly Mao. In fact, he is well to the right of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, even though he has cited FDR as a model. (Has the day come when American journalists will refer to FDR as a "leftist" president? Perhaps not yet. But soon.) As Mexico City Mayor, López Obrador gave large tax breaks to construction firms as part of his program to gentrify run-down sections of the city. Despite his rep as a champion of the poor, much of his energy went toward the building of office space and upscale condos in the more affluent areas. He asked Republican Rudolph Guiliani to help him put together a tough-on-crime initiative. The major political scandal to beset López Obrador stemmed from his decision to allow a hospital in the high-rent district to expand its facilities.
Previous U.S. administrations might have considered López Obrador a man with whom one could do business. The problem isn't that he's a "leftist," but that he cannot be controlled.
3 comments:
Why is it that "left" as in any kind of government that is charged with the responsibilty of assuring the rights of the underdog and the common good, viewed as an insult and a label with conotations of "evil"? The "All holly Capitalistic utopia" (Naomi Klein,Harper's, Sep. 2004) that the Neocons imagined in Iraq, has failed miserbly, and the idea of the free market "will right all wrongs if allowed to florish" has failed in many ways including its virtual denial of global warming.
What would you call most European governments? They are social Democrats and proud of it. Why do we still hang on to the the notion that whatever smacks of "Socialism" is inherently bad?
It's just that the U.S. is anomalous in the world -- the one industrial democracy without a labor-based political party and without the "labor consciousnes" which still informs politics in Europe, regardless of who's in power. Even our "Labor Day" was switched to September, from the traditional May 1, lest anyone associate that dog and barbeque holiday with unions and labor struggles.
Over 35% of American believe that they're either in the top 1% of American earners, or soon will be, which doesn't argue well for the pursuit of social justice, much less socialism in the U.S.
A factual understanding of the world has been replaced in the U.S. by pervasive fictions, whether that myth-making takes the form of corporate advertising or Rush Limbaugh.
This is so obvious as to be embarrassing, but face it: most Americans live in a fantasy world. Query Americans on basic factual questions, and they believe lies, myths and fantasies.
Is it any wonder that 30% love Bush, when those same people are convinced that GWB invaded Iraq because Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and that "we" found the WMD?
All it would take to drop that 30% number to 15% is a few facts and basic literacy. Don't hold your breath....
Well add to it the lie that Muslims hate Jews. Joseph's latest post about anti-semitism is right on. Muslims do not hate Jews as a people and can not hate them for their religion either, since Quran considers them believers of God (Allah). Muslims certainly historically treated Jews better than European Christians until the formation of Israel. Israel and Zionism is hated by Muslims, but that is like Joseph's example of hating Hitler and not all Germans. The same applies to the US. Muslims do not hate Christian America, just American policies of imposing tyranical regimes in order to subjugate the poeple.
On the subject of Socialism, the funny thing is that Muslims, hate communism only because it denies God and not for its social structure. As a matter fact Islam's rules regarding social structure are not unlike Socialism. Muslims are suppose to give one fifth of their earnings away, sort of like a flat tax, on top of many other requirments. For example on the holiday that ends the month of fasting of Ramadan, one is suppose to give one day's earnings to a deserving(lower economically) family. Just look at how popular Hezbollah is with Lebanese, they provide all kinds of social services to the poor and needy, which is very much in line with Muslim rules of social benevolence. Kinda like GW's Utopia of faith based charity, what an irony!
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