Greg Palast - How The Bernie Of Mexico Won The Presidency

This came to me equally an email, hence no link to a site, hence I'm putting it out inwards full, amongst the video. KV

This is Trump’s nightmare.

I'm writing minutes after the victory of the Bernie Sanders of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Everyone calls him, “AMLO.” This is truly AMLO’s re-election: He outset won the presidency inwards 2006. But dorsum as well as then the thieving, scheming, blood-stained criminal gang that rules United Mexican States (and I’m beingness polite), declared AMLO’s dissolute opponent the winner.

In 2006, rather than concede to vote thievery, lick his wounds as well as toddle off on a volume tour, AMLO took his supporters into the streets, raised hell, blocked the capital’s fundamental foursquare for months, held a People’s Inaugural, as well as vowed to never, ever concede.

And tonight, twelve years later, AMLO has won a crushing, too-big-to-steal victory inwards Mexico’s presidential election.

And spell the Good as well as Great told him he’d live finished if he kept protesting the stolen election, he made counting every vote the really outset of his five-point get platform. He understands that fifty-fifty those amongst empty stomachs also hunger for democracy.

And there’s a lesson here. Are you lot listening, Al Gore? Mr. Kerry as well as Mrs. Clinton?

Bernie or Hugo?

And AMLO gave the people something to vote for. The residuum of his platform included expanding complimentary college education, raising the minimum wage, fighting income inequality as well as creating a massive infrastructure-fixing jobs program.

If that sounds similar Bernie Sanders, that’s no accident. AMLO, similar Bernie, said he is taking his plan from that nifty Mexican hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Nevertheless, Mexican media blared apoplectic prophesies that AMLO would live the Second Coming of Hugo Chavez, amongst majority nationalizations to follow. (The hysteria was parroted inwards the New York Times, non coincidentally, owned yesteryear Mexico’s richest man.)

I tin tell you, AMLO is agency to a greater extent than Bernie Sanders than Hugo Chavez (and I’ve known all three).

Both AMLO as well as Sanders were mayors who ran their cities equally what I’d call, “Pothole Populists.” It’s get-the-job-done socialism amongst the emphasis on social not -ism.

AMLO proved he could tamp downward corruption, locomote on a stingy concur on budgets spell increasing pensions as well as providing teaching grants. Mayor AMLO, dissimilar a sure enough Mr. Trump, completed major metropolis infrastructure projects—all out of the savings from cutting waste product as well as corruption.

But dissimilar Bernie, who did his proficient industrial plant inwards the hateful streets of Burlington, Vermont, AMLO worked zilch less than a miracle inwards United Mexican States City, which is bigger than New York as well as 10 times equally ungovernable.

(And similar Bernie, AMLO is a working cast kid who worked inwards the social movement trenches: Sanders equally a SNCC organizer inwards Chicago, spell Lopez Obrador spent vi years living with, sharing the lives of as well as fighting for the poorest Mayan families.)

But they are stealing it correct now

Let’s non acquire carried away amongst our republic high. This election is beingness stolen equally I write.

Not the presidency. AMLO’s poll Pb of 52% to 25% for his nearest competitor, is exactly equally good much to steal. But every topographic point of the Mexican Congress is upwards for grabs, as well as the Powers that Be, the laughably named Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as well as the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) are fighting for their lives – as well as sometimes they struggle amongst bullets.

So, far, 132 officials as well as candidates convey been murdered inwards this election cycle. I spoke amongst voting rights activist (and moving painting star) Yareli Arizmendi inwards United Mexican States City, who told me that the sometime guard politicians were tied upwards amongst the Zetas as well as other drug gangs.

In all fairness, I should annotation that many victims were non exactly AMLO allies but also PRI, Green Party as well as independents who challenged the command of their cities as well as states by narco-traficantes.

Indeed, AMLO’s get gained fuel when, inwards 2014, the populace learned of the disappearance of 43 students (and 3 investigating journalists). Evidence right away indicates they were hacked to pieces as well as dissolved inwards acid yesteryear the Guerreros Unidos gang – on orders from a pol connected to the ruling party.

Arizmendi reports that ballots convey been burnt inwards gang- as well as ruling-party controlled districts. She sent me a video of a adult woman pre-marking a stack of ballots.

I saw this game upwards unopen inwards 2006 when I was sent yesteryear the Guardian and Democracy Now to investigate AMLO’s stupor loss yesteryear exactly one-half a percentage of the vote.

On election night, AMLO was agency ahead when the official count was halted—then resumed amongst a massive reversal inwards the terminal count. Our investigators constitute massive ballot-box stuffing, ballot box dumping as well as intimidation of voters at gunpoint. There were games amongst electoral rolls obviously orchestrated yesteryear the Bush Administration which, I found, had used the same fellowship that helped Katherine Harris rig the 2000 election inwards Florida, ChoicePoint, to pocket Mexico’s entire voter roll! (Watch this Democracy Now! report, "Florida con Salsa," from United Mexican States City.)

And this time, the incumbent PRI hired Cambridge Analytica. Trump’s social-media manipulators as well as information thieves were paid $7.2 meg on their promise—I can’t brand this up—to repeat a Mexican variant of their “Corrupt Hillary” get to smear AMLO.

It was a difficult sell, peculiarly equally the married adult woman of the electrical flow President, PRI human Enrique Peña Nieto, was caught taking a $7 meg condo from a authorities contractor.

As I write, it looks similar AMLO has crushed the second-highest candidate vote two-to-one as well as swept the House of Deputies. However, his coalition of parties is, equally of the moment, showing poorly inwards the Senate race, agency below pre-election polling data.

AMLO: Arrest Trump

Mexicans convey had plenty of the Trump-ito grifters who convey held the Mexican presidency, commonly yesteryear theft, for decades.

President Peña Nieto made his acre cringe amongst his invitation to Trump during the US Presidential campaign, boosting Trump’s candidacy. And he’s non had much to say close the caging of children on the border.

Although Trump’s kid prisoners as well as their families detained at the edge are non Mexican citizens (most come upwards from Central America), AMLO has called for Trump’s arrest for the kidnappings equally violating international law.

That’s exactly 1 indication AMLO’s victory is Trump’s nightmare. AMLO has shown he is non afraid of privileged pricks, fifty-fifty if they endeavour to brand themselves await trigger-happy yesteryear staining themselves orange.

NAFTA

Weirdly, Lopez Obrador has also been called “The Trump of Mexico,” only because they both beak to the desperation of their nation’s working classes. And both convey few proficient words for NAFTA.

But Trump’s act, the billionaire turned cast warrior, was ever a fake. AMLO is for real.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has demanded that United Mexican States heighten the reward of all auto workers hence that the US tin meliorate compete inside NAFTA.

AMLO is calling Trump’s bluff: he said, “yes” – which may come upwards equally a stupor to Secretary Ross… Ross owns 8 of those auto factories.

Hope as well as Danger

The slogan of AMLO’s coalition is, Juntos Haremos Historia. Together, we’ll brand history. But history has a agency of haemorrhage to locomote inwards Mexico.

In March 1994, Luis Donaldo Colosio was on the cusp of winning Mexico’s presidency. But his political plough to the Left infuriated his PRI bosses. At a populace rally where he supposedly had authorities protection, 1 assassin, as well as maybe a second, lay 2 bullets inwards his head.

Greg Palast - How the "Bernie of Mexico" Won the Presidency