Mercury Rising

For authentic journalists, Mexico’s post-electoral conflict is one of those gigantic news stories that happens few times in the course of a lifetime: Not merely a story about how a state-of-the-art electoral fraud was perpetrated in a major country of 100 million people, but, more historically, the story of how that fraud will be laid to waste. -- Al Giordano, one of the few remaining authentic journalists (Image from Giordano. This image shows that only the percentages for FeCal and Lopez Obrador changed, puncturing the myth that the changeover occurred because Calderon strongholds were counted last. If that were so, the PRI candidate's percentages should also have changed) Mexico matters. The United States imports more oil from Mexico than Saudi Arabia. --Man from Middleton Could the dam be breaking? At last, the redoubtable McJoan frontpaged a story on Daily Kos about the Mexico City demo for Lopez Obrador (AMLO). Thanks to Richard from AllSpinZone for the heads up on that and on the Giordano article. Man from Middleton (see above) did a Kos diary on Pemex privatization and how it will lead to $5 per gallon gas. So, good for McJoan, and MfM and the many commenters! Let's even give the WaPo (linked by McJoan) all due credit: 1. They actually reported a newsworthy story, a demo of up to half a million people out of 41 million voters. 2. They correctly reported that the demo was regarding allegations of election rigging. 3. They provided a plausible estimate of the crowd size, apparently from the Secretary of the Federal District Security. La Jornada says fewer, John Ross said on Laura Flanders that it was half a million That's about all the credit they are due. So, how is the WaPo full of manure? Let me count the ways! Let's start from a little meta analysis, introducing the cast of character puppets the WaPo parades forth for its Punch and Judy show: There is The Mob. They are poor, filled with "frustration and rage." They wave signs, They pump their fists. They suffer "decades of perceived indignities and a sense of persecution," (emphasis added) rather than, say, decades of real indignities and persecution like being forced off their ancestral lands, shot, beaten, and raped, and having elections stolen. They are clearly insane and dangerous. There is Lopez Obrador: He is a "failed populist candidate," i.e., the WaPo is telling us that his allegations of electoral fraud are bogus. He "ignited the smoldering emotions of his followers," making him a dangerous incendiary. There is FeCal: A "champion of free trade," i.e. the White Knight. There is Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, FeCal's charger, "which has a stellar international reputation," assuming you only ask right-wingers. If you're getting the sense that you've seen children's cartoons with more convincingly constructed characters, you're right. Let's now enumerate the outright lies and pickaninny-grade caricatures. 1. "On Saturday, he gave a mega-display of street power...." The point of the demo was not to show "street power." That comes next week. The point was to speak directly to his supporters, many of whom may not get their news from newspapers or from the Murdochized TV. As he "communication is difficult" since the Mexican electronic media is as bad as the US. The streets are their blogs. 2. "The crowd chanted, 'Strong, strong!' when López Obrador stepped to the microphone." This is probably a mistranslation of "Fuerte! Fuerte!" or "Loud! Loud!," a not unreasonable request from a large crowd. Or perhaps the WaPo misheard the cried of "Fraude! Fraude!" (Fraud! Fraud!) that the McClatchy man heard. 3. "He got a moment of mass catharsis, an outrageously loud, communal venting." As Atrios would say, "Oy." Half a million people think they are living under a dictatorship and it's "venting." 4. One of the more amusing gaffes in this article involves residual editor's marks: "x 'They stole this from us,' said Concepción Myen, 68, a lifelong Mexico City resident who is unemployed. 'This is the worst thing that can happen to Mexico.'x" In conventional editing, xes are used for typeface blemishes. Since this is the WaPo, I would imagine those xes are probably editor's thoughtcrime marks. 5. But it gets funnier, in a sick sort of way. Why is Concepcion Myen unemployed? Well, if you noticed, she is 68. Even in Mexico, people are expected to be able to retire at some point. But in Punch and Judy world, they have to be slugabeds to be members of the angry Mob. 6. "Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, lost a presidential race that many international observers have said was stolen" If the election was stolen, it wasn't lost. The WaPo is trying to imply that those international observers are wrong. They weren't 7. Lopez Obrador stated that there is no president-elect, since the election is disputed. But the WaPo calls Calderon's claiming to be president elect and receiving phone calls from Bush and Stephen "Bush North" Harper "formalities." They shoulda listened to the Elections Court. Judge Eloy Fuentes said that no disputed election in non-annulable. "We rule on the validity [of the election]" he said, in a clear slap at the the head of the election institute, Ugalde. Indeed, contrary to the notion that this was an angry rally demonstrating "mega street power,: Lopez Obrador made it clear that this was a peaceful movement. We aren't going to fall for provocations and hand the game to the opponents, he said. We aren't going to bother the citizens, he said. We aren't going to block the highways. And he added some words which would burn the conscience of PAN if its leaders had any: "We are certain that despite all these anti-democratic practices, we won on the 2nd of July, and we did it with a free vote, the choice of the citizenry. We didn't pass out construction materials or other favors, we didn't buy votes, we didn't make shameless deals with the same old political bosses. For this reason, we are going to defend out victory. By the way, just to add to PAN's joy, it has a minority in the House of Representatives So, what does a real journalist make of it? Here are Giordano's major points: 0. Most important, as shown by the image above, the sudden surge by FeCal could not have been due to counting northern Mexico last. If that had been the case, Madrazo's percentage should have risen as well, since he ran ahead in northern Mexico. 1. There hasn't been a re-count. The electoral commission simply entered the precinct tallies. 2. In the preliminary count, the electoral commission held back 2.5 million votes. When those votes were added in, FeCal's margin dropped from 377,000 votes to 257,000. 3. A recount of 1% of precincts reduced FeCal's margin by 13,000 votes. Giordano extrapolates that to slightly over 1 million votes. 4. Lopez Obrador suspects fraud in 43,000 precincts. 5. The primary suspect for major fraud is Guanajuato. This state produced a 700,000 vote margin for FeCal despite having 5% of Mexico's population: "640 of those 6,122 precincts show discrepancies and irregularities which include more votes cast than are voters in the precinct, more votes cast for Calderón than votes cast in the precinct, electoral officials that refused to count the votes in public, discrepancies between the actual result and the reported result, missing or suspect vote tally reports, each of them sufficient to trigger, under law, a vote-by-vote recount" 6. FeCal allowed recounts in only eight precincts in Guanajuato, from which Obrador's vote increased by 253 votes. If thus were extrapolated over the 6,122 precincts, Lopez Obrador would receive 200,000 more votes from Guanajuato alone. 7. Jalisco, Queretaro, and northern Mexico are also suspect. 8. When Vicente Fox confronted PRI corruption, he used civil resistance. 9. The "computer systems [used in vote counting] were partly designed by companies and partners of Calderón’s brother-in-law Diego Hildebrando Zavala"