I thought the long bliss with my Popoluca, ongoing 7 years, had opened her mind to my political commentary.
But, no, she refuses to participate in a mickey mouse poll that I placed on my Spanish web site. She worries that she may be discovered in who she voted for and would thus affect some of her daughters who are employed by the government.
If she could be traced through this mickey mouse Google Poll widget, (now deleted because you know what) she would probably be correct. Of course she cannot be traced but fear is what drives Mexican politics.
Fear to lose your government job, fear to lose your government allotments, fear, fear, fear.
For people on a subsistence level of survival that fear is predominant in their political decisions. The difference between a few hundred pesos of allotment and none can create drastic life style changes. And usually the candidate who delivers a plastic bag called "despensa" filled with a week's survival food for a family of four, just before the election will be guaranteed a vote.
My Popoluca gives out her own despensas and fears noone on a local level, but she also knows that anything on a state level is subject to influence peddling and corruption. And she does have 2 daughters on that level.
And what really pisses me off is her attidude of "asi es", and her acceptance of the going concern concept of corruption and intimidation..
Mexico will not change in the foreseeable future, and will remain one of the best places in the world with the best polical and judicial system to buy cheap, in relation to what it would cost to corrupt the same institutions in the US.
