Mexico's Talleyrand Is Back

President Vicente Fox's former foreign minister Jorge G. Castañeda (here's my 2001 VDARE.com article about this slippery fellow: Mexico's Talleyrand) tells America in the NYT that we must cave-in on immigration in order to keep the bad leftist Manual Lopez Obrador from winning the Mexican Presidential election this summer:

Good Neighbor Policy - New York Times

THERE are many excellent reasons to salvage the immigration bill that collapsed two months ago in the Senate. But one of the most overlooked lies not in the protests that have filled streets in Los Angeles and Washington, but in the wave of populism that has swept Latin American cities like Caracas, La Paz, Lima and Mexico City.

An ultra-nationalist candidate, Ollanta Humala, seems poised to win a runoff this month in Peru's presidential elections. He wants, among other things, to renationalize Peru's natural resources, promote coca cultivation and align Peru against Washington with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and his Bolivian neighbor, Evo Morales (who on Monday sent soldiers to take control of Bolivia's oil fields and refineries).

Mr. Humala is part of Latin America's new left turn — the wrong part of the left. Progressive leaders in countries with a long leftist history — Brazil, Chile and Uruguay — are economically moderate, ideologically tolerant and internationally open-minded. The other left — Mr. Chávez, Mr. Morales, Mr. Humala and Néstor Kirchner in Argentina — springs from a populist past and seeks a populist future: big-time spending, authoritarian governance and militant anti-Americanism.

The great populist hope of that left is, of course, Mexico City's former mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a strong contender in Mexico's presidential race. By background and policies, he clearly belongs to the wrong left... Nothing could contribute more to the continuity of sensible policies in Latin America than a clear signal from the north that cooperating with Washington, and renouncing America-bashing, pays off, even on an emotional issue like immigration....

Let me see if I've got this straight ... Anti-American, anti-white, corrupt, authoritarian leftism is sweeping the electorates of Latin American, and therefore our country should put ten or twenty million more Latin Americans on the path to voting here?

Castañeda continues:

President Vicente Fox of Mexico staked much of his prestige on President Bush's commitment to fix immigration policy. First Sept. 11 got in the way, then Iraq did; and so Mr. Bush left Mr. Fox empty-handed. But immigration reform along the lines of the Senate compromise would still give Mr. Fox a huge boost.Good Neighbor Policy - New York Times

I predicted exactly this tack in in VDARE.com way back in 2000 that Fox would wind up as Bush's Yeltsin, the Great White Hope who needs to be bailed out at all costs. I wrote six years ago:

Fox is likely to become the next American President's very own Boris Yeltsin: a glamorous symbol of democracy, free markets and pro-Americanism that we will feel compelled to bail out over and over again. The two most likely ways we'll bail out Fox: financial rescues – and more legal and illegal immigration. You heard it here first.

What's remarkable is how little Fox has been willing to offer his good buddy George W. Bush in return for Bush's 5-year-long struggle to implement the Mexican elite's immigration plan for America. In early 2003, Bush desperately wanted Mexico's UN vote on Iraq, a move that that would have cost Mexico nothing in tangible terms, but anti-Americanism is so much the bedrock value of Mexico, that Fox wouldn't make even that symbolic gesture.

As this shows, America is so despised in Mexico that Castañeda's claim that America's backing of Fox's party would ensure PAN's re-election is obviously self-serving hooey.

In 2000, I explained:

Like the rest of Mexico's white power elite, Fox wants to funnel as many hungry mestizos and Indians into the U.S. as possible. By getting us to take Mexico's angriest young brown men, Mexico's white ruling class has been able to forestall the kind of brown vs. white race wars that were a recurrent feature in 19th and early 20th century Mexico.

Further, both Fox and the defeated PRI want Mexican immigrants in the U.S. simultaneously both to retain their Mexican citizenship, including the vote, and also to become voting American citizens. From the white Mexican's perspective, brown emigration to America creates a virtuous cycle. The more peasants who head north and become dual citizens of America and Mexico, the more votes in America for letting in even more Mexicans, thus further easing the threat to white privilege in Mexico.

Indeed, Castañeda himself admitted as much back in 1995:

"For Mexico, emigration has also served several purposes, some of them undeniably perverse … it has provided an 'exit' for those who could have a 'voice,' … thus helping to perpetuate the authoritarian nature of the Mexican political system."

Interestingly, in arguing for giving illegal immigrants the vote in Los Angeles, Castañeda has made the following observations about the effects of illegal immigration on California:

"First, the undocumented or illegal nature of much of the flow [of immigrants from Mexico] runs counter to the legalistic nature of a society [America] that has little else to hold it together beyond the belief in and devotion to the rule of law. … [T]he very idea of countenancing an ongoing, widespread, and flagrant violation of legality contradicts the myths and needs of American ideology...

Second, … broad-scale undocumented immigration in California functions as a progressive income tax. … Because migrant workers' incomes are lower than those of virtually the entire rest of society, Mexicans in California pay less tax in relation to their income than others." ...

"Mexicans in California also use many of the services financed by taxes - such as public schools, and public transportation and housing (when it exists) - more than most other segments of society." ...

"In California today, the upward mobility achieved by previous migrants may no longer be possible. … Mexican immigrants are disproportionately represented in the bottom tier of society; and because their numbers are constantly replenished from abroad, even upward mobility does not reduce the size of the poor, Mexican-born share of California's population." ...

"It is true that Mexicans have been far more reluctant to seek naturalization than previous immigrants to the United States. … Moreover, Mexicans who acquire U.S. citizenship continue to be informed by their own political traditions" ...

"The people who vote and bear the tax burden [in California] are also those who least use or consume the goods and services funded by taxes: public education, public health care, public transportation, government-funded job training and so on." ...

"… Latinos should vote for higher taxes, levied progressively on everyone, to finance public services.

Castañeda, for all his flaws, is a Mexican patriot advocating more Mexican immigration because he believes it is good for Mexicans. His analysis shows it's bad for Americans, so lets follow his example and stand up for our country ... not his.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer