Monthly Archives: October 2011

Whenever I see or find out about cases of corruption in Mexico, I keep thinking of whether the country has changed or whether everything remains the same. Some things continue being the same for decades if not centuries. Others, contrariwise, change swiftly. What is the real Mexico, the one from before or the one now? […]

For Lenin, “the organizational question is at the center of everything”. The Russian revolutionary leader was referring to the way that the Bolsheviks should organize themselves, but the principle is similarly applicable to our present reality. The country’s tiller has been inoperative for years, a situation that has been exacerbated by the poor quality of […]

When in 1688 the last Jacobite sovereign, King James II, decided to ignore the laws of Parliament, he was promptly deposed, giving birth to modern British democracy and its English Bill of Rights for the citizenry. This revolution also made manifest the essence of the functioning of a political system and its cardinal guarantee of […]

David Lurie, the leading character in the novel Disgraceby CM Coetzee, appears to be devoted body and soul to courting disaster in his life, until he ends up fired from his job as professor and unhinged in his family life. In the face of his fall from grace, he concludes that, “when all else fails, […]

The problem with bad ideas is that they spread as if they were good but, when those who promoted them become aware of their error, there is no alternative other than simulation and lies. This is the inevitable case of the 2007 electoral reforms. Now that the electoral season is formally in place and campaigns […]

The ideal of the Euro constituted an enormous challenge for many countries that have nothing to do with the European Union. After years of economic crises, political ups and downs, and inflation, many nations, above all those of Latin America, regarded with envy the golden opportunity that appeared to present itself to countries such as […]