Wonkette
It seems that Mexico has turned into a nightmare apocalypse swamp (desert?) just south of our own American borders, overnight. Once upon a time, carefree teens could slip down to Juarez or Tijuana for a good clean evening of wholesome fuckin’, and now they will just get kidnapped or worse. Just look at the news: terrible shootouts between drug cartels, a lethal plague, and now just today a scary earthquake near Mexico City … Jesus, no wonder Rick Perry wants federal troops on the border.
“I’m scared,” said Sarai Luna Pajas, a 22-year-old social services worker standing outside her office building moments after it hit. “We Mexicans are not used to living with so much fear, but all that is happening—the economic crisis, the illnesses and now this—it feels like the Apocalypse.”
The only scary news item we really can’t (yet) associate with Mexico is all that torture memo craziness, and that’s because nobody has figured out yet that Pancho Villa invented waterboarding.
Strong earthquake felt in Mexico City [Breitbart]
Wearing a sombrero will always make you look lazy. Never wear one to a job interview!
I, for one, will continue to blame Canada.
“Poor Mexico, So Far From God, So Close To The United States”
How many times have I told you to stop posting Layne’s vacation photos? DO NOT WANT.
When the sun is out, you should always wear a hat on your heads.
Rick Perry is a socialist. Now he wants federal government troops and anti-viral drugs? Government is the problem, Rickie, not the solution. And shouldn’t you be somewhere fisting someone?
If that dude’s feet were at the other end, I’d be dropping off my phone number.
Just the Lord picking up where Manifest Destiny left off.
Right?
I was under the impression everything was till ACORN’s fault. I shall adjust my blame and outrage calander accordingly.
StephanieInCA: Ken wears the hats in reverse order.
All the more reason to give then back Texas. They both deserve each other.
No, not Mehico…Dick and KKKarl probably started it so we would all turn our tiny minds away from the torture “debate”…
Why is that dude’s left leg about three times fatter than his right leg?
That should make for a difficult to explain tan line.
Who will now contend that the fence between the US and Mexican borders now needs to be higher, stronger, thicker, denser…? Yes, I suppose I’m influenced by that hat dance pic, which should result in a pretty … focused tan line.
I’m not clear on my Mayan Prophecies but are these things listed as signs of the the Mayan End of Days and the Return of Quetzalcoatl? I’d like to know so I can start checking off things that are on my “Things to Do Before the End Times” list
Cape Clod: You and I were thinking about the same outcome. Great (and/or idle) minds…
Come on, we all have seen bad disease movies and mini series. We all know how this will end, with Obama ordering the Air Force to incinerate all of Mexico. What are we waiting for? Why is Obama so weak? Bush would be salivating at the chance!
Mad Farmer Manifest: Yeah, Perry flipped flopped pretty quickly from Secession now to I need the Federal Government Now!
Perry has requested federal assistance three times in just the eight or nine days since claiming TX might be within its rights to secede - first from FEMA, then the CDC and now the - “I don’t care if they are military, National Guard or customs agents.”
He keeps using this word “secede”…I do not think it means what he think it means.
Advocatus_Diaboli: Frankly I wouldn’t have even realized the dude HAD legs if you hadn’t pointed that out.
Hooray For Anything: I’d postpone the Chichen Itza for the moment….
Advocatus_Diaboli: Good Lord, Gigantism!
Cape Clod: I get ‘Sombrero Lines’ all the time.
All the kids are doing it.
It’s not an earthquake — it’s just the LORD shaking down his followers for cash. Although in this tough economy he’ll also take weed, cocaine, or altar boys.
I’m just amazed the rest of the US seems to be figuring this out just now. Mexico is a huge MESS! I have a friend in Canada who was making fun of me for never having been out of the country. Ok, ok, whatever, we struggled financially when I was growing up, which meant our one big trip was to fucking Arkansas, whoooo. And then as an adult, I’ve had to, well, WORK. I’m not in a high paying profession and I’m still paying back my gotdamn student loans. We just haven’t had the money to travel. What a stupid thing to make fun of someone for.
But she was all “why the hell haven’t you at least been to Mexico? It’s RIGHT THERE.” (Like Dallas to Mexico is five minutes. Those Canadians, they have no idea, really.) I explained that actually when I was seven, my grandparents took us to Nuevo Laredo, just over the border, for about five hot minutes. This was in about 1977 or so. It was semi-terrifying, even for the adults, and that was the end of that. She had no clue that Mexico, at least the part I live near, is not the place to go on vacation. Why the hell does everyone think they risk life and limb to get to places like TEXAS for crying out loud? Because even it’s better!
(pant pant) Sorry. I get a little bent out of shape. Mexico, unforunately, is mostly a hell hole. There are some nice ruins on the Yucatan peninsula and there are some nice beaches the foreign gringos have mostly not destroyed yet and that’s about it. The rest is a dusty, depressing, incredibly poverty-riddled, crime-controlled fucked-up land of sadness. I’ve long thought if we really want to find long-term solutions to illegal immigration, we’d try to fix the problems in Mexico, but I think that’s a bit too progressive. And honestly most people around here LOVE the cheap labor, anyway. Speaking of, I hear the lawn mower firing up next door. That guy pays his Mexican landscaping guy only ten freaking bucks to mow front and back, weed wack and clean up everything.
Advocatus_Diaboli: Magical realism.
badmuthagoose: So, what you’re saying is, you live in Dallas, which is a few hours’ drive from Mexico, where you’ve never really been, because whatever. But you’re also an expert on how fucked up Mexico is, which the rest of the people who actually GO to Mexico don’t realize. ‘K.
badmuthagoose: Lemmee see if I got this right. You went to one border town for about five minutes over 3 decades ago, and based on that extensive fact finding mission you are writing the whole country off??? Excellent work. Very thorough. Thanks for this report, you have saved millions of lives.
Lionel Hutz Esq.: Yeah, Perry flipped flopped pretty quickly from Secession now to I need the Federal Government Now!.
Yeah, can’t he just have his Confederate cavalry patrol the border?
Lazy Media: Ok so you beat me to it by minutes, but hey that post did deserve a group rebuttal/attack/ridicule/how many slashes can i put in/use?
mrpuma2u: While he was there he obviously stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
MEMORANDUM
To: Wonkette
From: The Schadenfried PAC
Re: Blog pictures
The Schadenfried PAC would like to ask the Wonkette Staff to refrain posting pictures of John Boehner on his days off.
Thank you in advance for you attention to this matter.
Dear U.S. - You are not supposed to actually kiss those ladies you meet in Tijauna. Hope this helps.
Lazy Media and mrpuma2u: when are you moving there, eh? I hear the area just south of El Paso is faboo.
It doesn’t take a whole heck of a lot of detective work to figure out that any country so bad that its citizens would risk death to leave it, well, isn’t so hot. Is this news to you or something?
I have many students who can tell you about why they left, including that it was probably better to be illegal here than to continue buying off the police to keep them from raping their mom or sisters. But hey, go, have a good time! It’s a fantastic wonderland of happiness, obviously!
And maybe my tone was misconstrued. I think it’s SAD that Mexico is in such a sorry state. And as I said in the original post if the US really cared that much about it, maybe we’d do something to help them. Most people I know from Mexico didn’t leave because they hate their country. They love it. They weren’t safe there, didn’t have access to health care there, weren’t going to get an education there, had no jobs there, etc. They’d love to live there and be safe/happy/healthy/raise their kids with an education. However, that’s not in the cards in Mexico. Hasn’t been for a while.
Lazy Media and mrpuma2u: If you aren’t moving there, badmuthagoose must not be questioned.
qwerty42: They tried that, but then Clint Eastwood blew up the bridge, and there was no one to fight.
In case you thought that the Republican Party had corned the market on the stupids:
****
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/1019930.html
April 27, 2009
(AP) The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.
Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,”
***
Personally, I believe that it should be called, “Dead Wetback Flu” in observance of GOP pro-swine sensitivities.
badmuthagoose: How do you know I don’t live there now, gringo? Mexico has many problems to be sure, but I will pass on taking some keyboard warrior’s off-handed assessment of the whole country based on next to no actual in-country experience as reliable. Thank you very little.
Ever since my accident involving Bimbo brand toast products I have avoided all things Mexican.
mrpuma2u: That would be gringa in my case, thank you. Ah, so what part of Mexico do you live in?
(Sure.)
“Mexico has many problems to be sure…”
That was exactly my point. And it wasn’t an off-hand assessment. They have these things called newspapers and books and some of them are fantastic sources of information, as are people who have fled the country.
Or to use another country as an example do you need to actually live in Somalia to know what it’s like there?
badmuthagoose: Yup. You’ve never been to Mexico. Glad you already know everything about it though.
mrpuma2u: Can she see it from her porch?
badmuthagoose: “Why the hell does everyone think they [the Beaners] risk life and limb to get to places like TEXAS for crying out loud?” It’s because they have no choice. For some reason the Mexkins aren’t able to use their super powers to reach some place that Western Civilization has not by-passed, like maybe Somalia.
The weed is okay right?
Right?
badmuthagoose: Do you need to actually live in Somalia to know what it’s like there?
Good point, I would break it down like this. Mexico=wetbacks, Somalia=niggers (not to be confused with Niger, or Nigerians)
I mean I think this would be obvious even to the lay person.
To amplify on your point I suppose you don’t have to actually fuck Kathryn Jean Lopez to realize that if you did fuck Kathryn Jean Lopez there’s no way you come out of it smelling like roses. Just like Somalia. Also very much like when Rep. Darrell Issa recently Tweeted on his return from Belgium (sex tourism?) that they “make a great waffle.” Gives you the complete cultural picture in a time-saving, concise manner, which is a gift actually.
S.Luggo: Yes, well we know that the Israeli government is ALWAYS thinking first about the feelings and sensitivities of their Arab neighbors. This comes as no surprise, of course.
S.Luggo: I think we should rename it Semite Flu, just to stir things up a bit. This way we can piss off everyone in the Middle East and the Republicans will finally support health care by demanding we all get our anti-semite injections. That, and I’ll bet the reference to pigs in swine FLue will suddenly not seem so offensive.
Lionel Hutz Esq.: oh yeah, i forgot about that.
The funniest part about badmu is that someone who has never ventured South of Texas in 30 years thinks she can provide a travelogue about the beaches and ruins. Right, I’m gonna take travel advice from a morbid shut-in.
badmuthagoose: I’m not saying it’s NOT fucked up. I’m just saying you wasted a LOT of electrons to prove that you were talking out your ass, and that you’re a pussy about scary foreign places. The only evidence you present leads one to conclude that it’s fucked up for poor, unemployed Mexicans. Doesn’t mean the rest of us wouldn’t enjoy it, if only in a Jurassic Park kinda way. I’ve been to Ukraine, which is way more fucked up than Mexico ever THOUGHT about, and it was kinda fun.
My total Mexican experience was a day trip to Ciudad Juarez when I was 8, which is why I don’t write long rants about the place.
Anybody else here read a newspaper like badmothagoose? I’d like to hear more of this “Mexico.”
badmuthagoose: Your neighbor is a douche.
problemwithcaring: I have in fact read these “newspapers” both on and off the intertubes. Did you know that I can use them to learn about things that happen in places I’ve never been? It’s true! Then I can form opinions based on that information. Even though I’ve never been there! Soon you’ll be telling me that I can watch movies at home without a projector.
liquiddaddy: LOL.
Way to characterize me as some sort of a racist. I guess there’s a first time for everything and that’s a first for me. Huh.
Yes, my neighbor IS a douche for paying the illegal immigrant only ten bucks to do all that work on his lawn. That was my point. Right wingers scream about illegal immigration, then turn around and are perfectly happy to exploit it for all they’ve got and don’t give a flying rat shit what conditions are like in the country they ran from.
I went about it TOTALLY clumsily, yep. But Lazy Media, you make my point here: “The only evidence you present leads one to conclude that it’s fucked up for poor, unemployed Mexicans. Doesn’t mean the rest of us wouldn’t enjoy it, if only in a Jurassic Park kinda way.”
Poor uneployed Mexicans make up most of the country, btw. A lack of jobs is a big part of the reason it’s in such trouble. That and drugs, gangs, violence, police corruption, a broken/nonexistent educational system, poor healthcare, etc etc. Hey if you want to enjoy it in a Jurassic Park kinda way, have at it. Plenty of gringos do. Cancun comes to mind. Which makes your point about being a “pussy about scary foreign places” sort of weird, though. So what part of Mexico would you spend your vacation days in? I’m curious. Would you enjoy the poverty of Durango in a Jurassic Park kind of way?
I teach immigrants, legal and otherwise, how to speak English in night classes. I teach their kids during the day. It bothers me that their country is so bad off. It also bothers me that people don’t even realize the whole place isn’t a mecca of beaches and ruins. I was referring to my idiotic Canadian acquaintance when I said that, since that’s what she thinks Mexico is like. She also thinks it’s five minutes down the road. (Twelve hours is closer.)
Not many of the Mexican folks that I worked with at various crappy jobs really wanted to be in the US. They usually were here just to send money to their families back in Mexico, whom they really missed.
As far as safety, anyone remember news about all the rapes and murders in the shantytowns around the maquiadoras?
Lazy Media: Are you saying that watching poor people suffer is an entertaining vacation for you or that it’s horrifying but at least the skeezy lawyer gets killed while on the toliet?
badmuthagoose: Saying you know “what it’s like” in Somalia without ever having gone there, and confining your knowledge to what you read and see on TV may not be racist, but it is remarkably culturally arrogant and pushes you perilously close to bag of dicks territory. BTW, the assumptions underlying the cultural arrogance outlined above, are inherently racist. Look it up.
When I say “what it’s like” I mean surface level, not a deep experiential understanding of the place. That obviously takes personal experience and lots of it. I somewhat doubt anyone here has that sort of understanding of Somalia. You don’t have to go somewhere to know the most basic information about it. I’ve never been to Kansas, but I know most of it is flat. I haven’t been to Minnesota in January, but I know it’s damn cold. In the same way I know Somalia is a place, among other things, struggling with famine and civil wars. Is that untrue?
Mad Farmer Manifest: Exactly what I mean. I’ve talked only to a handful of people who say even if conditions in Mexico were improved, they’d stay here. Nearly all would go back, and why wouldn’t they want to? It’s their home. They still love it, it’s just almost uninhabitable for them if they want to see their children you know, survive to adulthood or something crazy like that.
OT, but who here has seen the movie ‘Powaqqatsi’? If you haven’t, I highly recommend it.
Custerwolf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROezQMVmQp0&feature=related
So I can say with total authority that Texas is an unredeemed shithole, based on the politicians it produces, xenophobe commenters, and my brief horrifying visits.
And yeah, I spent a happy year living in Mexico City and would go back now, even with the goddam plague, before going to Dallas.
responsible commenter: Good for you! You probably had the resources to live there fairly safely and eat every single day. Were you a student living abroad with a host family?
No, what you are doing with your Texas characterization is engaging in stereotypes. Nowhere did I apply broad generalizations to the Mexican people. I said the *country* has MAJOR problems, namely rampant poverty, crime, corruption, a lack of jobs, etc. If you’d like to prove any of that untrue, have at it.
badmuthagoose: Yeah I know what snow is like too. I don’t flatter myself that I have any idea what negotiating one’s day in Somalia must be like, for any of the participants. When you say you “know what it’s like,” even on a surface level, you are equating universal givens (”snow is white and cold”) with broad stereotypes (”Somalis have distended bellies with flies on they faces”). There’s actually a difference between the two.
Mr Blifil: no, actually, I was comparing the conditions of the two places. I wasn’t engaging in stereotypes about the *people* living there.
I said Somalia is currently struggling with civil wars and famines and that you can know those things without actually living there (note I didn’t say know what it’s like to deal with those things, but simply KNOW those things). How in the world is stating those facts engaging in stereotypes?
Host family, my ass. I was working and enjoying myself. Lots to do out there in the world, if you’re the slightest bit curious about it. I took the same subways and buses as every other resident of the DF. It takes a certain inbred Texan thickness to think that mockery of yer thickness is tantamount to claiming that Mexico is a goddam paradise, which it’s evidently not.
responsible commenter: You’re a very angry person. Have you been coughing a lot lately? They say something’s going around.
Powaqqatsi, because reading books is boring! Playing music solves problems! Boo Western Industrialism even though the alternative is semi-feudal dictatorships and tribal law! Non-industrial societies=good, even though they have a tendancy towards theocracies and brutal militariam!
You can abstract out useful data about people’s lives, though not useful emotional data. For example, I may not be able to figure out what their day to day life is like, but it is not a logical leap to say “I bet starving and being tortured is unpleasent.” To the extent that it’s unpleasent, it’s a meaningful statement.
Stereotypes do lead to racism, but hiding from facts as an excuse to avoid stereotypes helps no-one. I mean, a random person selected in Somalia has a higher probability of being desperately poor then a random person selected from an affluent Canadian neighbourhood.
That’s because the GNP of Somalia is fuck nothing.
Of course, that’s because everyone’s all about “feelings” and such bullshit now. Probably because it allows people to feel morally superior without spending any money from their pot and waffles fund. It’s not rocket science to suspect that a nation in which stravation is used to control the population probably is not in the best of ways.
badmuthagoose: You make a lot of generalizations about Mexico and what it’s like to live there (poverty, infant mortality, poor education, working conditions, etc.). I wonder what you think is so different there than here? I was without health insurance for two years after my divorce, and may have, in theory, had access to health care, there was no way I could have ever afforded it. Those in poverty here in this “superior” country have insanely high infant mortality rates (and, if these people manage to survive being born, they don’t live much past adolescence), crumbling school buildings that fester disease (and, not coincidentally, offer a highly inferior education), neighborhoods that are controlled by sociopaths with no regard for human (or other forms of) life, virtually no jobs (and no way to get to jobs outside of their own personal hell-holes) that pay anything like a living wage (except for the drug trade), and homes (if they have such) that provide them virtually no protection from any inclement weather.
The problem, therefore, is not any one country. It is the way wealth is distributed world-wide, and the greed that perpetuates that distribution system. It doesn’t matter where you live. But then, I’m sure I’m not going to change your narcissistic mind on this. Sorry to bother you with trivialities like, oh, I don’t know, the truth.
Oh, and sorry for the bad HTML…this is why I’m not an IT person, like the rest of my family…
Heq: Has no one told you to get fucked today?
Let me be the first, then.
Heq: Oh and reading the Youtube synopsis doesn’t count as actual reading, McDicklick. Nice try.
Mad Farmer Manifest: Exactly.
Heq: What, and starvation is not used to control the people here? Ever tried to eat healthy in this country on a budget of “fuck nothing” (which is what most of my clients at the social service agency where I work have)? People eat at McDonalds, and other fast-food establishments, because it’s all they can afford. And the food they eat gives them high cholesterol, makes them obese AND malnourished. But yes, this country is just the land of fuck-all opportunity. Sure. Whatever.
SmartiePants: I assume from his use of the word “neighbourhood,” Heq ain’t from these here parts. Canadian or Brit perhaps.
SmartiePants: Of course in all fairness - he did say “stravation” which I don’t know much about, but I did come across this bit of propaganda….
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo336/brontie2/st.jpg
This is ridiculous. Ham-handed as it may have been, badmotha was really only pointing out the fact that Mexico is our fucking NEIGHBOR and we don’t give two shits about the problems they have there. Whatever, there are happy people, there are sad people, there are lots of things in-between. But, like her asshole guy next door, we are basically ignoring this beautiful country’s extreme problems until 1. they come up literally shooting at us across the border, 2. we need to score some sweet drugs/cheap labor/cabo vacation etc. and we run into problems or 3. Swine Flu, obvs. And I personally think it’s more fucked up to compare ourselves and our standard of living to theirs and cry, “waa we are the same, see? i can be poors tooo” than to be realistic and realize there are some major problemos dude and we should do some shit about it.
Sterilize everyone. Problem solved.
Oh, and just because someone describes negative aspects of a country with some brown/black people in in doesn’t mean they are RACIST, but maybe when some hippie Dave Matthews Band college guy “finds himself” in a country and thinks it’s an “experience” and is “bad-ass” they think they love the browns more and get a little “douchey”.
lennixlewis: I was with you at the beginning but then you kind of lost me towards the end.
I was mainly referring to smartiepants comparing our standard of living to Mexico’s. Of course anyone can be rich or poor anywhere, but in Mexico they have this thing called Widespread Corruption that halts a lot of the first choice from happening.
I’ll take side-splitting snark for $200, Alex.
lennixlewis: Hmmm…Widespread Corruption…? Nope, we here in Illinois don’t know nuthin’ ’bout that…on a side note, can I sell you a Senate seat? I hear they’re going pretty cheap these days (what with the price of “fuckin’ golden” plummeting along with the economy)
Well, the mexican weed still works for me. I’ll be right back.
lennixlewis: I can’t argue with that.
Mad Farmer Manifest: Rick Perry IS the government, so how could he be the
never mind
badmuthagoose: Why don’t you just put down the mouse and admit you know nothing about “what it’s like” in Somalia. You can claim to “know what’s happening” though you are relying entirely on second and third-hand information. What you are doing is “imagining” what it’s like, and your views are therefore as fuzzy as the pubes I am rubbing on your nose.
SmartiePants: hahahaha…wait, that was a joke, right?
lennixlewis: We treat our southern neighbor terribly. really, we do. We let our corporations go there and rape the resources, spew toxic waste everywhere, put workers in virtual slavery in unsafe factories, and then shake our fist at them if they step one foot into our yard.
Hope Barry was serious about renegotiating NAFTA.
You can never judge Mexico by the border towns. so unfair.
Smartie- Well, in Western societies they have other leverage methods to pull out. They really don’t need to starve us to death as we’re quite an obedient lot for the most part. I mean, when people get really furious they complain on the internets.
I mean, the real issue is the overall goal. The problem is that in Somalia often the goal is not to gain power but to seek revenge or otherwise exterminate. This means that not only is it plagued with the standard corruption problems, but because they don’t care about the welfare of the citizenry because their goals are radically different from the western concept of nation-state power-seeking.
That’s probably the source of all our failures in the region, we assume everyone things like us. That’s not really racism though, just dim huberis.
sati- Renegotiating NAFTA would be terrible for America, as it would deny them stabilizing effects through third party trades. If America goes protectionist and the dollar plunges, it will have no real method for quick stabilization (it will not have a sudden export boom).
i watched a nice lady have sexo with a donkey in that boarder town of nuevo laredo.
pretty awesome stuff going on there, in mexico.
Heq: Have you ever had an original thought in your life?
Just asking.
Oh Noes!
I have used long words and reason, and I apologise. Let’s try to do it your way.
What is needed are more bubbles and some yiffing! Yay!!!!111 Then we can sing happy-songs!
Heq: Actually if you just sat there and jerked off to your avatar, it’d keep me happy.
>N
The room is barren, save for a chair and Kim Jung Il.
Kim Jung Il gives you the sexy eyes.
>Examine Kim Jung Il
Kim Jung Il is naked, his sweat serves only to make him more manly, he is giving you the sexy eyes.
>Put on Fur Glove
You have put on your fur glove which gives you six dicks and 27 tits, you have become clusterwolf
>Yif
You have failed at life.
Heq: See. You’re getting the idea.