The U.S. and Mexican governments are together not only erasing the border for corporations but actually restructuring their entire governments to meet the needs of the new robotic-electronic global economy. Everything is being changed, and even what were thought to be fundamental rights are being eliminated.
In the U.S. immigration reform debate, Republicans and Democrats agree on one thing: Border security and militarization are of great importance to use against the people of both countries. But at the same time the U.S. and Mexican governments are getting together to open the border so U.S. corporations can grab control of Mexico’s industries, especially Mexican oil.
The U.S. and Mexican governments need to erase the valiant history of Mexico’s national heroes to accomplish this disgusting goal. In 1938, Mexican President Lázaro Cardenas seized foreign oil company assets to form Pemex, the Mexican national oil company which has long served as a symbol of national identity and sovereignty. The Mexican Constitution embodies the principle that Mexican resources are to be owned by the Mexican people, not by foreigners.
As the wealthy of the world move to seize control of world resources for ever greater profits, this proud history is under attack. The oligarchy has worked for many years and through successive presidents to gain international control of the Mexican economy.
Over recent decades, corporate power has worked to chip away at laws protecting Mexican national control of resources and investment. In 1972, presidents Luis Echeverría and Richard Nixon worked together to pass a Mexican Constitutional Amendment known as the Foreign Investment Law to allow non-Mexicans to acquire coastal and border property through a trust in conjunction with a Mexican bank.
The biggest step so far was NAFTA which took effect Jan. 1, 1994 through presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Bill Clinton with the goal of eliminating tariffs on goods passing over the border. The destruction of small farms in Mexico which had no possibility of competing with huge U.S. agribusiness is clear to all and forced millions off the farms.
Now the restructuring of both governments to serve the global oligarchy is speeding up.
In February, Mexican President Peña Nieto signed into law a bill to give the state more control over the hiring and firing of teachers. Days later, Elba Esther Gordillo, the all-powerful head of the country’s teachers union and the main obstacle to implementation of the law, was arrested on charges of embezzling some $160 million. Then, in early March, Peña Nieto moved to so-called reform Mexico’s telecoms to open them to greater foreign competition, threatening even the monopoly enjoyed by Carlos Slim. But the biggest prize is Pemex which is Latin America’s second largest company measured by revenues. Not coincidentally, in September 2012, a Mexican district judge ordered the arrest of Carlos Romero Deschamps, the union leader for Pemex, also to face embezzlement charges.
For decades, some of the world’s largest oil companies have been denied access to Mexico’s oil resources because the Mexican Constitution grants the state a monopoly over all “petroleum industry activities.” They don’t intend to wait longer. Peña Nieto is working with the U.S. government to get rid of this obstacle to corporate control of Mexico.
In March 2013, Peña Nieto declared his goal was “to transform the country, not simply to run it.” This transformation is not just an idea of Peña Nieto or the PRI, his party. It is an imperative forced not only on Mexico but also on the U.S. and the rest of the world by the new global economy.
President Obama recently visited Mexico, and the White House’s website features joint remarks by him and by President Peña Nieto. The U.S. president states that “for the first time — and probably this is unprecedented — we will have the Mexican economic cabinet with their counterparts from various government agencies from the United States” meeting with high-ranking U.S. officials to ease cross-border investment. In the same remarks Obama indicated, “We have also agreed to endeavor joint actions to have a safer border.” An open border for corporate investment. A closed, militarized border for the people. The Mexican and U.S. people need to join hands to ensure that their governments work for the people. We must control the corporations, or the corporations will control us.
