Mexwatch's Blog

Ferriz blames Canada labor union

mexwatch — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:12:18 +0000

At just before 7am Mexico time, Pedro Ferriz de Con accused Canada’s steel workers union of aiding and abetting thiefs. “Behind all of this, is the Union Steel Workers Union, which has tentacles in Canada. They are the ones aiding and abetting…” Ferriz is referring to a Mexican labor leader who has been in Canada for more than a year, away from Mexico where he risks arrest for a labor dispute with mine workers. The word he used specifically in Spanish was “acobijando”, which means something like protecting or covering, but can be used to mean aiding and abetting.

http://www.imagen.com.mx/contenido/40/

Mexican media’s take on U.S. consulate killings in Juarez

mexwatch — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:25:29 +0000

This weekend two employees of the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, along with their family members, were chased in their automobiles and shot dead, presumably by drug dealers. Pedro Ferriz talked with Andrés Oppenheim this morning (Monday, March 15, 2010 around 9:45am), and it’s sad what he said. He said he has been receiving messages from the public asking whether those killed were associated to the drug world. He asked Oppenheim whether it would make any difference if the murdered Did work for organized crime. This kind of comment is fairly usual in Mexico, where someone killed is branded a drug dealer. It’s the way the public here can justify ignoring a problem.

http://www.imagen.com.mx/audio/14602/

Pedro Ferriz asked the question made by his audience members, but he himself suggested that it was not feasible to actually believe that the murdered were drug dealers. Andrés Oppenheim admitted that anything is possible, yet he didn’t seem to believe the consular workers were drug dealers, either. The same thought, that theoretically the murdered were associated with the drug trade, was asked on another show today by Miguel Angel Granados Chapa (around 9am). He too, like Ferriz, didn’t think it was realistic to think there was this drug connection, but “what if they were?” he suggested.

http://www.radiounam.unam.mx/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=33&Itemid=29

What if they were? Does it really make any difference? This attitude of “Let them kill each other and rot”, fairly prevalent in Mexico, has only created an extremely lax enforcement of law which has spilled over to the rest of society, with famously horrible effects. It is a way not to see the huge white elephant which is right there in the living room.

It’s as if Democrats & Republicans agreed on one candidate

mexwatch — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:21:33 +0000

Commentator Pedro Ferriz asked, “Where are the ideologies?” , as if he missed them. “Donde están las ideologías?, he urged on his radio show yesterday in the morning.” An example of his thoughts are on this survey from a previous show. http://www.imagen.com.mx/encuestas/195/ He criticized political parties from the left and the right joining together to run against the everpresent PRI political party, which has controlled much of Mexico for the last 90 years. Ferriz implied that without ideology, political parties are amorphous nothings. He is against the tendency of right and left joining forces to face a common enemy.

It’s as if the Republicans and Democrats agreed to nominate the same candidate for state or national office. Many in Mexico think it’s a ridiculous idea. Some of them are former President Vicente Fox from the right, and former left presidential candidates Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and Manuel Lopez Obrador. Commentator Pedro Ferriz believes it’s a way to water down the political debate just to get votes. But others believe it’s more than that, and that more practical government and less ideology is what the country desperately needs now.

http://eleconomista.com.mx/partidos/2010/02/11/cardenas-rechaza-alianza-prd-pan

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/660469.html

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/01/11/index.php?section=estados&article=028n3est

Pedro Ferriz Running for Public Office?

mexwatch — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:21:50 +0000

When a newscaster decides to run for public office; is there a conflict of interest? In Mexico Pedro Ferriz appears to be doing that. He is the right wing newscaster and commentator who has recently pushed to change the structure of the Mexican Congress, and in fact he recently went to Congress itself to begin pushing for these changes. But, is there a conflict of interest ?

His petition to change the structure of the Congress has gotten him many tens of thousands of signatures, which he got by canvassing the public day after day ON THE AIRWAVES and RADIOWAVES. He wouldn’t have gotten them probably so easily without using these means. So in effect, the airwaves being public, he used them not merely to champion his cause, a noble one certainly, but to do politicking. If a news commentator used the airwaves to sell his mother’s spaghetti sauce, not just to praise the glories of his mother’s spaghetti sauce but to actually write down people’s credit card numbers and send them crates of the delicious stuff, would that be kosher? And if the same commentator used the airwaves to collect ballots and signatures, would it be any different? The answer in both cases might be, No.

Pedro Ferriz appears to be running for public office. Today (Monday, Feb.22), he graciously read a letter, a very angry letter from someone in the public. The letter strongly criticized Ferriz for pushing his ideas in the particular way that Ferriz does. It contained the phrase, “You’re using the airwaves to run for public office.” Ferriz didn’t say he wasn’t planning to run for public office. In fact, he said he didn’t want to discuss the future, only the present. In point of fact, he even said that he was ALREADY in politics, being that what he says on t.v., on the radio and in the press is politics. We may see Mexican right wing commentator running for some form of public office in the horizon, and beginning to do so with his push to change the structure of the Mexican Congress. This is how things are sometimes done in Mexico.

Racist comments made about Haiti all over the press

mexwatch — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:08:53 +0000

The press was outraged at statements made by Congressman Ariel Gómez León http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/655005.html http://www.milenio.com/node/370600 Newspapers, radio and television were astonished at what he said on January 25, 2010, about the situation in Haiti, and reviled those comments. This bit of news filled the week, overtaking the story of Salvador Cabañas, the soccer star who was shot in a bar.

The Congressman, representing the state of Chiapas, said in a radio program that Haitians are abusive. http://www.youjotube.com/watch/Hy80dmbJ2dw He tried to leave the impression that they are hardened “bad” people, and that you can see this in their faces. He made racist comments to the effect that Haitians are so black, speaking about their skin color, that you would have to use a special white ink to mark them, in order to make sure they don’t abuse the food relief they are receiving. The Congressman was particularly annoyed at his political party, the socialist PRD, obligating representatives like him to give a part of their income they receive from the party itself, for aid efforts in Haiti.

The story is dying down. What the public knows is that EXA radio, where he made the comments and where he had his own radio show, has fired him. What the press isn’t writing too much about is what exactly the socialist PRD political party is going to do about the matter, or the irony that the comments came from a representative of that party, of all places.

Ferriz’s idea of the plurinominal system

mexwatch — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:14:56 +0000

Commentator Pedro Ferriz continues his push to eliminate plurinominal senators and representatives. http://www.imagen.com.mx/blog/9055/ Today on his morning radio program, he said that in a couple of weeks he would go to Congress with his growing petition, to request a bill. http://www.imagen.com.mx/programa/pedro_ferriz_de_con/41/ (Monday Feb. 1, around 8:30am) The plurinominal system in Mexico is a counterbalance to gerrymandering, and gives voters whose party lost an election, some representation in Congress. It’s a counterbalance to the idea of “winner take all”, but it only exists in Congress. Ferriz’s beef with that system is that if the people voted against a certain person, they are forced to accept them anyway if the political party decides it, under the plurinominal system.

Currently, government in Mexico is almost paralyzed, because three years ago the current President won the election by less than 1/2 a percent. The winner took all, and half of the country which voted for the other candidate got no voice in the Excutive Branch. This created a situation where for the three years, the country has been stuck. Half of it is going in one direction, and the other half is going in the opposite direction, and neither side is talking to to the other. This is because of the blatant imbalance in representation in the “winner take all” system in the Executive Branch. Urgent changes in tax code, bank laws, the drug war, the fight against poverty and on and on are in an induced coma.

Ferriz’s basic premise is totally right. Why should the voters have to swallow a representative that as a majority they voted against, and Why should some representatives feel they really don’t have to respond to voters, knowing that they got their seat in Congress under the plurinominal system. But winner take all, which is what Ferriz wants, is becoming a path leading to anti-dialogue in Mexico, not more debate. The winner take all attitude that Ferriz has been pushing, has gotten Mexico stuck in quicksand, and it would be nice to find ways for more dialogue to happen in Mexico, not less.

shooting of soccer star, Salvador Cabañas

mexwatch — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:30:48 +0000

Salvador Cabañas, a famous soccer for America soccer club, was shot in the head in an after-hours bar on Monday. This bit of news has spread like wildfire in the media, like few stories have. http://www.exonline.com.mx/diario/cobertura/Salvador By early Monday afternoon, this story was not only all over the news, but also variety shows like Qué Tal Fernanda, where the issue of “how to talk to your children about violence and crime, when it hits sports heroes or other figures they admire” was discussed. http://www.imagen.com.mx/programa/fernanda_familiar/47/

On Tuesday, critics were asking how Mexico City authorities allowed corruption to continue, leading to situations like this. On Wednesday and Thursday, the media were nonplussed, at the police explanation that a bullet involved in the shooting, was Not in the soccer player’s head, but had somehow found its way in the back a public telephone booth at the police station. http://www.abc.com.py/abc/nota/71173-Hallan-casquillo-de-la-bala-que-hiri%C3%B3-a-Caba%C3%B1as/

http://www.exonline.com.mx/diario/noticia/adrenalina/futbolsoccer/fue_bala_calibre_25,_hallan_casquillo_en_cabina_telefonica/848563

The shooting of Salvador Cabañas has even merited a song, a tradional Mexican coorido with accordeon, called, “Corrido para Salbador Cabañas”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u66Lc7tI5Sw This story has almost put the issue of earthquake recovery in Haiti in the back pages of the newspapers.

Mexico’s laws, an easy in for drug traffickers

mexwatch — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:10:48 +0000

Do you know how the door to drug trafficking is quietly being opened to narcotraffickers in Mexico? Underage drug traffickers are let free. The laws make it easy for underage drug traffickers to go back to the street almost immediately. The second thing is that national leaders put the responsability of prosecuting local drug crimes the purview of state and local governments, when it used to be of the federal government. According to Rodolfo Campos, the chief judge in the state of Tabasco, states now have a new responsability and zero money to do the job; and they are facing criminals with the revenue equal to the GDP of some countries. http://impreso.milenio.com/node/8706823 http://www.noticiasmvs.com/ (Friday, Jan. 22 around 9 30am). “It is worrying, annoying, bothersome, highly risky, and a huge problem.” said Campos.

This came out today in Carmen Aristegui’s morning radio show, in a candid interview with Campos. The motive of the interview was to discuss the recent kidnapping of two local prosecuters who had handled issues related to drug trafficking. Campos said that because of situations like this, he spoke with President Calderón about the urgent need to deal with this problem. In a time when reporters are being killed with the intent of intimidating them, candid information like this is especially valuable.

Sexism and racism in Mexican sports news

mexwatch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:01:20 +0000

From MVS Radio sportscast, an unfortunate comment. The sports commentators (all male) said that women’s golf gets its value from the beautiful female golfers on tour. Paula Creamer, is the example they gave. There are a lot of Asian golfers, but as they are not as pretty, the public doesn’t go out to see them, and as golf is a business, golf needs as many pretty faces as it can get. Let’s face it, said the sports commentators, women’s golf doesn’t have the talent to draw crowds, on that alone. http://www.noticiasmvs.com/deportes.html (Tues., Jan. 19, around 3:45pm). I don’t know if I have heard so much cynism, sexism, racism and ignorance all compressed in so few seconds. It’s especially disappointing that this is the same news group that hosts Carmen Aristegui’s incisive newscast.

change the Constitution from a newsperson

mexwatch — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:06:10 +0000

Commentator Pedro Ferriz has a petition drive going to eliminate plurinominal members of Congress in Mexico. http://www.imagen.com.mx/blog/9055/ Plurinominals are senators and representatives who don’t get into Congress by winning elections, but through political bargaining, and the Mexican Constitution has certain provisions allowing for this. But Pedro Ferriz is fed up with the abuses that have occurred, and also with the mere idea that some congresspeople don’t have to work for votes. His campaign drive on his morning radio show asks listeners to send an email with their name, their voter registration number and a brief message. Support is mixed, and there is a lot of suspicion.

Ferris claims many people agree with him, but are suspicious of giving out their voter registration number. Many are in favor of eliminating plurinominals, but they are affraid of abuse, the same kind of fear they might have of giving out their credit card number over the Internet. Mexicans have reasons to be leery, as it was only three years ago that the private information in the voter registration cards of all Mexican citizens was sold to a foreign company. http://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/27966.pgr-pide-apoyo-a-eu-para-rastrear-padron.html

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/394453.html

Ferriz’s petition drive is admirable. It is an example of citizen mobilization in a country where citizens are not accustomed to making their government work. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/Upload/5_ArticleMorenoMendez.pdf

In this sense, what Ferriz is doing is admirable, because whether his petition drive works or not, at least it’s showing citizens one way in which they can make change. Critics might say that Ferriz is using his space as a news person not to report the news, but to Make it. That is an abuse of his power. But whatever the case is, he’s learning just how difficult it is in Mexico to make change, with the kind of suspiciousness in the air.