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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970 time: 05:30
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quote: Well, of course, I was being a bit facetious. However, I do agree with Becker that utility determines your number of kids. Maybe not actively, but unconsciously you decide to have kids whether or not you can afford the change in your lifestyle and change in money. |
Well, rational people do so, anyway.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970 time: 05:30
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I'd say that people who have kids while holding economic factors to be irrelevant are both irresponsible and irrational.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999 time: 21:30
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin
Markos is a Mexican-American who recieved a left leaning education in the US and then returned to MExico in order to start a revolution. Also as usual Markos and his fellow leftists have no solutions. Instead he claims that foreign investors wish to enslave people but he can't come up with one viable way on how to increase the number of jobs or help the enviroment other then to chase the foreigners out. 
Markos and his leftist ilk will only further harm the indegious people by, still more, retarding their economic growth and leaving them in ever worsening poverty. |
Subcommandante Marcos has never been 100% positively identified, however, the most likely identification of him is as a former university professor in Mexico who dropped out of sight shortly before the first appearance of the EZLN in Chiapas.
wrt "solutions", he may not have some from your perspective, but he's not trying to take over the country or compete in the global economy. Most of the EZLN's constituency are indigenous Mayans, many are not Spanish speaking or speak it only as a second language, and they are not particularly interested in being "assimilated" into an alien majority culture. Development to them means the major destruction of their way of life, their independent culture, what degree of self-sufficiency they have, and the character of their ancestral lands. They don't want 500 channels of TV, minivans, and movie theaters.
Marcos' and the EZLN's solutions have been to achieve a virutal stalemate with the national government, and to essentially reach an equilibrium of "if you people will just **** off and leave us and our lands alone, we can ignore each other just fine."
Concentional "western" development in Chiapas will benefit the indigenous peoples there last and least, and at a very high net price to them. There are not enough of them to have much political clout, except in their own territory. Marcos may not be moving his people forward, but they are more or less staying in place, more or less self-sufficiently (they have some organic coffee coops that make great coffee, and some other export industries, plus a bit of drug running to keep them in Kalashnikovs for internal security), and more in control of their own destiny than they would be as a small minority of bottom end working class in a poor southern Mexican state.
It is laughable for Marcos to talk about "liberty" and such, as the EZLN is fairly classical commu-despotism, but it's inaccurate to consider him just another commie revolutionary.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999 time: 21:30
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quote: Originally posted by JCG
He has decent to good PR but no real chance of making any of his words into reality, IMHO.
From what I've gathered from a couple of Mexican friends, he seems to be politically irrelevant in Mexico, as long as he doesn't try anything big (that's when they slap him around some, but just enough to leave him walking/talking, as they don't want to enrage all you lefties more than necessary). |
Of course he's politically "irrelevant" - Mexican politics is dominated from the Federal level, and has seven decades (which Fox has done precious little to change in any meaningful way) of a single-party rule with a peculiar combination of paternalism, socialism (when convenient) and plantation/colonial capitalism. The EZLN really isn't looking to export their system to the rest of the country, they're looking to maintain control over their de facto dominion in parts of Chiapas and Oaxaca.
They do that pretty well, because unless the Army goes there in major force, which pisses off everyone. If the Army goes there in less than major force, they get their asses handed to them, which is even more unpopular, because some working stiff's conscript kid gets shot up for ****ing with some other working stiff. The PFP and other paramilitary police forces have gone down there a bit in the past (relatively rarely under Fox and Zedillo before him) and beat up and shot up some locals to send a message, but the EZLN itself has never been thumped really hard. The terrain suits guerilla fighters and the local populace supports them for the most part.
A more or less permanent stalemate is the situation now, and it'll be that way for a good long time.
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