Yearly Archives: 2022

Luis Rubio The agricultural worker at the end of the XVIII century was suddenly displaced by the appearance of the steam engine that substituted for, says Gertrude Himmelfarb,* an average of 50 employees in one fell swoop. It took between twenty and thirty years before the nascent manufacturing industry would absorb that shifted manpower, this […]

Luis Rubio The similarity between debates on the future is surprising in the United States and in Mexico. Very distinct societies, they are confronting situations that are not entirely different, but their circumstances are indeed radically so, which permits contrasts and learnings that have no equal. In the U.S., January 6, 2021, changed the political […]

 Luis Rubio Scarcely two years into the Peña Nieto government the political ambience had been upended and, in retrospect, the electorate had already decided the outcome of the 2018 presidential election. All that today’s president and his retinue had to do was refrain from engaging in any lunacy. However much the diverse Morena-party contingents tried, […]

Luis Rubio The paramount question for the future of Mexico is how to create a foundation for its development in the long term. This concerns the eternal dilemma that is the object of distinct proposals and responses every six years but that never pans out. The most ambitious project for attaining this coveted transformation was […]

Luis Rubio Angela Merkel launched into her speech as would any president or head of state: with aplomb and clarity of message; but what followed was in no manner like typical presidential discourses. It was at an international congress in Berlin ten years ago; the governing party, the Christian Democrats, had loaned their headquarters for […]

Wilson Center   Luis Rubio   March 16, 2022 A referendum is supposed to be about initiatives undertaken by citizens or organizations of society to advance their agendas and garner support from the voters at large. In Mexico, the proposed referendum for next April (a new means of direct democracy that was only approved in 2019 by […]

In the Meanwhile… Luis Rubio Don Quixote and Sancho Panza: the world of fantasy and of common sense, two sides of the same coin. Don Quixote prefers morals to advancing his causes and considers common sense a waste of time and energy.  Sancho Panza warns his master that the giant he desires to attack is […]

Luis Rubio Mexicans longed for -such was the spirit of the moment thirty years ago and again in 2018- a successful country, developed, more equal and without the corruption that corrodes everything. But they were never willing to do what was necessary to achieve those aspirations. The result was to be expected: many promises, great […]

 Luis Rubio In 2014, when Russia invaded and took control of the Crimean Peninsula, President Obama’s reaction was that this is “so 19th century” and no longer done in the 21st. Everything indicates that this memorandum did not reach the Kremlin. The invasion of Ukraine, of which Crimea was then a part, shows that geopolitics […]

Luis Rubio The catastrophe to come was ever more evident. Errors and losses accumulated, the destruction was uncontainable and the end was imminent, yet no one rebelled. The population backed the government to the end, though this would imply total destruction. Thus begins the book of Ian Kershaw entitled The End: Hitler’s Germany, 1944-45. The […]