Word: fear
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Mexican insurrections often do coincide with important dates. Most recently, Zapatista guerrillas in the poor southern state of Chiapas started a revolt on Jan. 1, 1994, the day the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect. A big fear now is that Mexico's drug cartels, responsible for almost 15,000 killings in the past decade, are lending their resources and firepower to emerging guerrilla groups. If so, their plan may be to sow bicentennial terror and turn Mexicans against President Felipe Calderón's drug-war offensive. This past fall authorities say they seized an arsenal of large...
...same time, political observers like Denise Maerker, a prominent columnist for the Mexico City daily El Universal, fear that provincial governments in places like Chiapas, where the weapons were found, are using 2010 fears as a pretext for cracking down on social activists. "They're drawing questionable links between advocates for the poor and armed groups," says Maerker, who adds there's little evidence that Hernandez is an EPR boss. (See pictures from Ciudad Juarez, the most dangerous city in the Americas...
...while many fear the bicentennial year could galvanize that discontent, especially with the symbolic hype surrounding 1810 and 1910, Calderón insists the country will break the ominous century-cycle next year and make 2010 "a moment of peaceful transformation." Last month, he predicted next year will see "Mexico on a different trajectory toward development and progress." Calderón tried to get the ball rolling this month with a major political reform proposal that would allow re-election for Mexican office holders like mayors and legislators, a change he insists will give voters more power. It would still...
...government to do "everything in its power" to keep us safe. That would make this a terrible place to live. And yet, after eight years of paternalistic bluster from President George W. Bush, we have grown accustomed to the cycle of absurd promises followed by failure and renewed by fear. Bush liked to say that the authorities have to succeed 100% of the time and terrorists only once. The truth is, authorities never succeed 100% of the time at anything. And they never will. {See a report card on Obama's first year...
...Obama's cause was not helped by the comments of his Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, who announced on Sunday, "Once the incident occurred, the system worked." Say what? Napolitano has eschewed the word terrorism for "man-caused disasters," explaining, "We want to move away from the politics of fear." That probably reflects the no-drama Obama team's desire to close the books on the George W. Bush era and its obsession with the war on terrorism. But this episode suggests there are some things no government can afford to soft-pedal...