This was an essay I developed in response to Ed Mueller's comments on land reform before we closed the Colorado address. I do not think it made it onto FW list and I hope this isn't a duplicate posting, but I put a lot of work in it and developed some viewpoints so here goes again. Thomas Lunde This is in response to Mr. Mueller's comments on land reform as a potential solution for a large part of the world's poor. I am not in disagreement with his solution, rather I think it is an admirable solution. I do not think it is practical. To back up my assertion, I am going to give a lengthy quote from the book "The Fight for Canada" by David Orchard. In Chapter 23, called "Prying Open Mexico" he explains, to me, the reason I do not think land reform will work. Summarised, the reason is the vested interests of corporations and land owners and their collusion with governments create such an overwhelming force that makes this solution impractical. Now, I am not naïve enough to believe that you don't know about Mexico and it's attempt at land reforms, but I suspect that your knowledge may have an American bias in that your reading has been from American writers. This quote is from a Canadian Nationalist who is using this piece of history to make a point re Free Trade and American motives. I had not intended to comment, just to present the "quote" but in the process of transcribing, I found myself so upset that I felt I had to comment to make the points that I feel justify my comments re "land reform will not work because collusion with governments." Quote As seen in Chapter 4, the United States seized by force all of Mexico's territory north of the Rio Grande and Gila rivers. By 1910, the United States owned more of Mexico than did all other foreign nations combined, and most of the 15 million Mexicans were reduced to poverty-stricken peonage (A peon had no legal rights; was usually paid in script, which was worthless except at the landowner's store; and lived his life in debt to the owner. At death, under Mexican law, the parents debts transferred to their children.) Some 800 landowners owned more than 90 percent of rural land, while 10 million peasants were landless. And at the very bottom of the ladder were the Indians. Safe for tourists and extremely profitable for foreign businessmen, "Mexico had become a mother to aliens and a step mother to her own citizens." Comment Previous chapters of David's book have dealt with the concept of "Pax America" the continuing desire of a small element of American political and business interests who felt after the American Revolution that it was the "Manifest Destiny" for America to control the northern hemisphere and because of this goal a whole host of actions were justified such as, invading other countries, negotiating boundary lines behind the threat of annexation or refusing to trade fairly. Mexico was one of the casualties of this idea. Think of those astounding figures - 800 landowners - some not even Mexican arrayed against 10 million citizens. The landowners controlled the wealth and the government and through that the legal system and the army were able to impose their will on 10 million individuals! Quote The Great Revolution, which began in late 1910, viewed foreign ownership as a key issue. When Francisco Madero, father of the Mexican Revolution, took power, overthrowing the 30-year dictatorship of Porfiro Diaz, the U. S. government openly intervened. Madero's assassination was planned in the U.S. Embassy and carried out in February 1913. Soon known as the "pact of the embassy," the assassination of Madero and his vice-president shook all of Mexico. Said Mexican Congressman Luis Manuel Rojas: "I accuse Mr. Henry Lane Wilson, the ambassador of the United States in Mexico of the moral responsibility for the death of Francisco I Madero and Jose Maria Pino Suarez." Comment Even against the odds of government and money and the army, the Mexicans revolted and actually won. This led to Madero winning. His win was terminated by his assassination. Who do you think is a credible suspect for his assassination? Quote One year later, U.S. troops invaded the country. U.S. business, including the newspaper Empire of William Randolph Hearst whose Mexican ranch was larger than Rhode Island, heartily approved. Some American sailors had entered a prohibited wharf area in the Mexican seaport of Tampico. Briefly arrested by Mexican authorities, they were released with a fall written apology. The apology was not enough, said American Admiral Henry Mayo, who demanded the Mexican authorities raise the American flag and honour it with a 21-gun salute. When Mexico refused, President Woodrow Wilson, backed by a standing ovation in a joint session of Congress, ordered the entire American Atlantic Fleet to Tampico. The city of Veracruz was bombarded, resulting in hundreds of Mexican casualties, and then occupied for seven months by several thousand American troops. Violent anti-American demonstrations broke out across Mexico. The statute of George Washington in Mexico City was knocked over and smashed, and American flags and businesses were burned and looted by crowds chanting "Death to the gringos." The Mexican government, the revolution still in progress, issued a call for united action to expel "The pigs of Yanquilandia." American citizens were forced to huddle behind locked doors. In 1916, American troops invaded again. Some 12,000 of them crossed from New Mexico, ostensibly to capture Mexican revolutionary leader Francisco "Pancho" Villa, but with the larger goal of thwarting the revolution itself. Ten months later, empty handed and distracted by the First World War, the United States was forced to turn its attention on Germany. Comment Assassination, invasion, humiliation of existing governments, annexation of Texas and California are some of the historical facts. Quote One of the most famous leaders of the Mexican Revolution was Emiliano Zapata, a quiet farmer of native ancestry, under whose slogan, "Land and Liberty," thousands of the humble people of Mexico fought. Zapata's guerrilla army, made up mostly of farmers of Indian origin, fought in bands of 30 to 300, seizing its weapons from the enemy. In its ranks and among its leaders were women soldiers (soldadas). Although Zapata was assassinated in 1919, the influence of the Zapatistas continues to this day. The Constitution of revolutionary Mexico was, in 1917, the first in the world to recognise workers' rights to unions, an 8-hour day and a minimum wage. It established the peasants right to own land and took national control over natural resources. Women were entitled to the same pay as men for the same work; and forced, except in certain controlled situations, were not allowed to own land. Comment When a man rose from the people, with promise for the oppressed people, when his common sense and fairness and vision was put into a Constitution, he was assassinated. Today, in Canada, we have a massive lawsuit going on with the Federal government over women being entitled to the same pay for the same work as men, which is still being opposed by business and government. When your government and mine routinely pass laws that discriminate against workers to organize and negotiate, that ignore current labour laws and allow employers to demand overtime without compensation for example And just recently the conservatives of America were prophetic in predicting economic disaster if the government raised your minimum wage, we can begin to get a grasp of the forces arrayed against any balance between those in government and financial power against the needs of people. If there is one thing that is a total anathema to business, it is the concept of a government acting for it's people and nationalising industries that are robbing the nation and the workers. Just the opposite of privatisation, expropriate is when the government takes private property and determines the value. This of course, is a cardinal sin, from their point of view it is better to let the country exist under almost any condition in which their interests are protected than to allow expropriation of land and redistribution of wealth, even to the point of creating conditions of misery for over 10 million people. In fact, I believe that in most business oriented people, they see taxes not as their share of payment for the use of the facilities of the "public good," but actually believe that the government is expropriating a portion of their assets, for which they feel is services they neither want or need. It is a contradiction of the two dominant philosophies we live under, that the highest goal of one is total self interest and self gratification as the highest "good." While democracy has within it the concept of the "good" for the majority and the concept of nationalism - while we are recently finding out that capitalism has loyalty to more profit, i.e. self interest than it does to the concept of loyalty to the common "good" found under nationalism. Therefore, revolution becomes the option of last resort by the desperate. Quote With the end of the war in Europe, the United States once again turned the full force of its attention onto the Mexican Revolution, with a campaign of intimidation and threats of invasion. The U.S. oil companies maintained their own private armies in Mexico and refused to allow enforcement of the new constitution. New York congressman Fiorello LaGuardia warned Mexicans that intervention could be avoided only if they "put out the present administration." The New York Times directed Mexico to "undue the mischief" of the constitutional provisions dealing with foreign ownership. The rights for labour contained in the new constitution angered the powerful U.S. mining companies, who idled their mines in protest, throwing thousands out of work. Under sustained U.S. interference many of the revolutions gains were not realised until the 1930s when, under General Lazaro Cardenas, the Mexican Federation of Workers and the national peasant federation joined forces to set up the Pardido Revolucionio Institutional (PRI). After winning the presidency, Cardenas and his government expropriated the American and British oil companies and implemented a land redistribution program to peasants, the most widespread such action in Mexico's history. The oil companies responded with a barrage of economic warfare, boycotts, blacklists and anti-government propaganda, but in the end they were forced to settle their claims on Mexico's terms. Cardenas emerged as the most popular president in Mexican history. March 18, the date in 1938 of the expropriation, is celebrated to this day as an official national holiday (Day of the Oil Expropriation). Comment What happened to the "land redistribution program" for the peasants? I don't know, but I suspect it was fought tooth and nail by those with vested interests in maintaining the unequal status quo. The last paragraph is one of the few instances where "revolution" appeared to win a complete victory. Quote During the next three decades, Mexico sharply reduced the level of foreign control of the economy while at the same time maintaining impressive national economic growth rates. Airlines, railroads, phone and electric companies, and the petroleum industry, all were nationalised. This development laid the groundwork for growth that gave Mexico 50 years of stability and made it the only Latin American country other than Costa Rica to escape military dictatorship. At the same time, Mexico pursued a foreign policy independent of the United States and, like Canada, maintained trade and diplomatic links with Cuba despite stiff U.S. opposition. In the 1980's, much of this picture began to change. The PRI, in power 50 years, had grown increasingly corrupt, and the falling world price of oil hit Mexico hard. The government incurred large foreign debts and embarked on a massive sell off of public assets. In 1987, Cardenas, the son of Lazaro., launched a campaign to reform the party, but was unceremoniously rejected by its leadership. The new head of the PRI was a Harvard-trained economist, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Comment "Harvard-trained economist," if that does not raise suspicions of collusion between business and government and a little American revenge then the tooth fairy flies' around the world putting money under children's pillows. It sounds to me as if the neo-conservative mindset created by Maggie and Ronnie and Brian, had it's counterpart in Mr. Salinas. Quote Cardenas left the party and set to work to form a new coalition. In the 1988 election, four opposition parties formed an alliance and, to avoid splitting the vote, withdrew all their presidential candidates and backed Cardenas. Cardenas and his Coalition stood four-square against free trade with the United States and for a resurrection of the principles of the Mexican Revolution. Sabotage, intimidation and murder characterised the Mexican election campaign of 1988. Four days before the July vote, a close adviser of Cardenas was shot to death along with his assistant as they worked on establishing an independent network to count the votes. By 7 p.m. election night, the government's knew Salinas had lost the election. The results were being transmitted by secret code to the government's computers before being released. One of the opposition parties, Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN), cracked the code and learned the outcome. At that point, the government-controlled Federal Commission of Elections shut down the computers and stopped broadcasting the results. It took more than a week for the government to produce doctored figures to justify Salinas's claim to victory. In what Cardenas called the "technical equivalent of a coup d'etat," the election had been stolen from the Mexican voters. Full ballot boxes from areas supporting the opposition were found floating in rivers; 20,000 missing votes were discovered under a pile of ashes outside the city of Chilpancingo, and others were dumped out of helicopters over Coyuca. The official published ballot total was very low, despite an extraordinarily high voter turnout. The newspaper El Norte found error rates of 36 to 49% in voter registration in Monterey. In Juarez, fraudulent voter registration included the registering of 2-year-olds, and the government officials in Mexico City had 72 people registered at his house, where only four people lived. In some rural areas, with the paramilitary organisation Antorcha Campesina keeping polling observers away, over 99 percent of the vote was "won" by Salinas. In Guerrero, when the opposition was able to count 80.5% of the votes from copies of official tally sheets, Cardenas received 359,369 votes, and Salinas 90,796. When the official count was released, however, Cardenas had 182, 874, Salinas 309, 202. Comment Well, Sandinista's and Ollie North, Brain and the Free Trade Agreement, the Head Tax in Britain, the neo-conservative mindset doesn't shy away from underhand dealings and dirty tricks to further their own ends but they sure scream violently when someone questions their right to have it all. Quote Spontaneous demonstrations-the largest in Mexico's history-erupted. Public opinion polls showed that 90 percent of the population believed Salinas had not been elected. Still, his claim to the presidency was recognised and instantly backed by the United States and big business organisations in Mexico. Those who continued to resist this "Electoral coup" were jailed or worse. By early 1990, 60 journalists and opposition figures had been murdered. By 1992, the number was 140 and still rising. Comment Mr. Mueller this is not personal and I hope it is not egotistical to state my opinion and advocate that my view is right to me. But in my evaluation of priorities, land reform would have to follow - population control - let's begin to slow down the birth rate with some realistic commitment. Second, would be income redistribution which would create resource allocation on a more equitable basis. Then, I would like to see a serious environmental ethic emerge, one of frugality and conservation, sustainability and sharing and after these big ones, there is a host of little ones from nuclear power and nuclear waste, soil erosion, genetics and morality, equal rights for all races and sexes and yes, land reform. History has not left us with healthy role models and high morality. We have overindulged in war and fear, we have allowed a very small number of individuals to practise unlimited greed, power has been an aphrodisiac for some and a way to work out personal dysfunctions for others, on others. We need to forget the balance sheet as an evaluation of humanity and aspire to the greatness of high ideals, lofty goals, outrageous creativity, loving relationships, family pleasures and a respect for life of all kinds on our shared planet. Technology holds the promise of the release of the slavery of work and the development of our potentials led by interest and desire rather than necessity. Finally, there is this brief moment in time when we can be free from want long enough to learn the potentials of our humanity. The attractors which draw us into the future can be our net worth or our self worth - they are not synonymous.
