Wednesday, May 14, 2003

TRADING MIGRANTS’ LIVES FOR PEMEX AND A PLAYER TO BE NAMED LATER

Raven is cheery this morning.

“Wow, cinnamon rolls! It’s about time we had something tasty for breakfast.” Raven reaches for a napkin and tucks in.

Gee, Rave, you know we are at the mercy of Puerto Angel, Village Without Services.

“Town Without Pity, too. And speaking of pitiless—or maybe pitiful—George Bush padre visited Fox in Los Pinos yesterday. What do you think that was all about?”

Well, considering that Mexico received a proposal from the Republicans just a few days ago to trade the long-sought migratory agreement for private—aka foreign—aka Bush Gang—investment in PEMEX, and the Congress here in Mexico is not eager to slither back to the old pre-Lázaro Cárdenas days—before Mexico’s petroleum pumping operation was nationalized—I believe we only draw one conclusion: that he was here to follow up the “offer” with arm-twisting, make it an “offer Fox couldn’t resist”, in the words of don Vito Corleone.

“The stuff that movies are made of, in short.” Raven flaps his wings slowly.

Rave, you’re getting cinnamon roll crumbs everywhere. Settle down, will you? Movies are made of celluloid. Well, they were.

“Is that a petroleum product?”

I don’t think so. I think it was made from plants. At least it pre-dated oil wells. Rave, you have the Internet in front of your beady eyes. Why not look it up?

“Naw. It’s a peripheral issue. So, do you think Fox promised Daddy Warbucks Mexico’s petroleum?”

I think even Fox is brighter than to have done that. Not with elections 6 weeks away and Mexicans equating PEMEX with patriotism. Fox has wrapped himself in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Malinche.

“So you think he put off making a decision.” Rave pours crumbs from his napkin into the garbage basket.

God knows what he did. Or what he said. It’s not his decision to make, anyway. And he should realize that if those petrocriminals got their hands on PEMEX production they’d be able to renege on any migratory agreement, leaving all the migrants unprotected—and he wouldn’t be able to do squat about it.

“Sounds like horse-trading, all right. Or baseball player trading. Wonder who the player to be named later is….”




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