Cinco de Mayo, Batalla de Puebla

 Somewhat stylised depiction of the
aftermath of the Battle of Puebla

  

   General Charles Ferdinand Latrille, Comte de Lorencez would probably not have liked the above illustration of the aftermath following his attack on the the two citadels outside of the city of Puebla de los Angeles.    He was commanding an expeditionary force representing the Empire of France, and Napoleon III, the nephew of the much loved and hated Napoleon Bonaparte.

Furst Otto von Bismark shown here sitting with the just-captured Emperor of France, following the Battle of Sedan, in 1870.   It was the loss that established Germany as an Empire in its own right, and finished France as anything of importance for the next two centuries.    The Franco - Prussian War's conclusion costed France Alsace and Lorraine, destroyed the Monarchy, and generally left France with an inferiority complex that it has never seemed to be able to outgrow.   Liberte', Fraternite', et Egalite' became Mediocrite', Hypoctrite', et las femmes avec des jambes poilues.    But we diverge.   The issue here is the Battle of Puebla, in Mexico, eight years before these two gentlemen above-depicted had their brotherly, post-carnage conversation (they were 2nd cousins).

      So why is all this fuss raised about the Battle of Puebla?   For one it was a splash of cold water over the reality that Mexico would be a difficult blowfish to swallow.    The French (Napoleon) assumed that if the Americans could beat the Mexicans, then anybody could.   The Americans had managed to dispatch the Mexicans in less than two years, carrying their war into the very center of the City of Mexico.   The Mexicans had avoided every advantage in that war, and even when winning, seemed to withdraw.   Very peculiar.

      The French, who were adamant about being repaid monies invested in Mexico on a loan basis.   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had stolen much of that money and moved to New York City where he set about various swindling schemes.   Antonio stole public money and private money so he would have been very comfortable working for Corzine and Co.

      Banditry was rampant in Mexico, the Wars of the Reform had ground on for years, with grumpy, autocratic Conservatives jostling with a Zapotec Indian President who hated the Roman Catholic Church that taught him how to speak Spanish and read and write, hated white people, hated wealthy people, hated foreigners, and hated most Indians as well.   That is why everybody loved him, according to present day Mexican official history.

       The French decide finally to invade, after failing to convince the Spanish and the Brits to join in the invasion of Mexico to recover all debts.    A huge army is dispatched to Vera Cruz, which is Mexico's principal port and one of its main sources of income to the government by means of the levy of  tariffs and import duties.    Starting with that income, the French would then fund their army's advance to the City of Mexico where the mints, stores of gold and silver coin and bullion, and site maps of the mines of gold, silver, copper, and semi-precious stones were known to exist in abundance.

    

       The esteemed Generale Charles Latrille de Lorencez leaves Vera Cruz with a large army, under good order.   Zouaves, artillery, cavalry, drummer, buglers, bands, munitions and supply trains....and almost 30,000 effective combatants and close support personnel head West and Up....from sea-level to 7,300 feet fasl.    There are several significant skirmishes, and finally one significant battle that dispatches nominal Mexican Resistance.   Gen. Charles is being opposed by a Brigadier from the Guardia Nacional who is commanding about 1,000 regulars and about 4,000 better and lesser prepared troops from various local units of the Mexican Guardia Nacional, such as it was.

      Latrille de Lorencez had dispatch this unit here and that unit there as he moved, correctly,  into the interior of this foreboding and difficult terrain.   He learned about Mexico being hot, wet, dry, cold, windy, jungle, desert, and everything at the same time.   He also knew that each cluster, village, ranch, town, and city would have to be subdued, and  all this he did well, usually with little or no loss.    The significant battle that fairly well convinces all  that the French Army's task would be blessedly simple was fought on the 28th of April, 1862 in and around the community of Alcutzingo, not far from the pass of the same name that is hubbed on the mountain known as La Malinche or Matlalcueitl (goddess of blue and green waters, also perhaps non-salty water in Nahuatl language).

Gazebo in the Main Plaza of Alcutzingo, Vera Cruz

Now, Alcutzingo is a blessed place, to the left is its showy gazebo in the main plaza.  It is said that many French soldiers retired there after all the warring, and other family members joined them when things had settled down.   There are also curmudgeon Gringos tucked in here and there in this and other similar communities here-abouts.

15,000 fasl Peak of La Malinche, aka Matlacihautl

     It was here that the French dispatched the Mexican resistance and relaxed a bit to continue to Puebla de los Angeles.   It was anticipated that the conservative, very Roman Catholic population there would be happy to see the French and that there would be a celebratory reception.  Two days' march, 8,000 crack troops with fine French howitzers, a couple of grand entrances and a ball at the Kasino de Eventos on the Main Plaza beside the Great Cathedral....such anticipation was difficult to contain.   The officers and men knew that Puebla was a place of great refinement and excellent table fare as well.

      It was two days later that the French forces prepared to assume control of the critically important city of Puebla.   But only one little nagging problem remained.   It was that same pesky Brigadier General Ignacio Zaragoza Sequin and his gaggle of rag-tags from the Mexican regular and highly irregular Army.   They were terribly outnumbered, and already fatiqued and defeated, so what is going on here?
    All of this had started downhill when   Le Generale Charles had been confounded by a call from the the French Royal authority who wanted Le Generale to return to Vera Cruz city with his army and assume total and secure possession of that city and everything within 100 leagues along the coast.    This call came shortly after French forces had secured Orizaba, another important, although smaller, city on their way to the west.   He had begun to prepare a compliance, but noticed that Mexican units had begun to demonstrate hostile postures along his flanks.   That is when Monsieur Le Generale determined to seal up the opposition and destroy its ability to resist in the future.   It was a "slight deviation" from his orders that he would regret in short order.

     After a bit of preparation and reconnoitring, the French began an assault on the Fortress of Loreto and its brother on the right looking out, the Fortress of Guadalupe.    The Mexicans repulsed the first charge.   Then came the second and telling attack, during which time the French exhuasted their artillery advantage by running out of powder and munitions for the Brass Napoleon 6 pounders.    The Mexicans on the line of defence between the two citadels broke out of their lines, and were backed up by fresh and competent cavalry.    The third attack failed miserably.
      Flanking Mexican infantry, supported text-book style by cavalry,  followed a fairly disorderly retreat of the French, during which time they suffered a devasting series of counter attacks that could not be prepared for.    Heavy rains commenced and both sides quit the day.    The French forces had lost almost 500 dead, 500 captured and 600 wounded.

     Mexican irregulars continued to arrive and bolster weak spots in their ranks.   They had paid a price, with shy of 100 dead and a similar number wounded, but the French estimated that by dawn there would be 3,000 more irregulars joining the Mexican assault.  Monsieur Le Generale Charles was to be astounded that he had been essentially destroyed by an inferior army in terms of numbers, training, and supplies but when he began his orderly retreat the next morning, NOBODY CAME TO CHALLENGE HIS REAR GUARD!   He was expecting an officer's group to arrive from Zaragoza to request his fine French sword.   None came.

     The battle stops there.   Zaragoza has no munitions.   Food is no problem.  From here to Vera Cruz there are beans, tropical fruit, fish, goats and cows that provide meat, cheese, milk, and there is abundant production of wheat, rice, and corn.   But he has no munitions, and he does not know how much punch the French have left in them. He and his older, trusted subordinate, General Silvestre Aramberri determine to put up a hostile appearing distraction on the French rear-guard, which they do for the next two weeks.   They know that  at least the French are withdrawing.    At that is how the Battle of Puebla would end.   Mexicans 1  -    French 0.

     The 31 year old Mexican Brigadier would be dead within two years.   Always sickly during his early years, and lovelorn at the loss of his betrothed in Monterrey  (cholera?) a few years before, he was a surprise graduate of the Colegio Militar.   Born in Texas, near Goliad, he was the direct nephew of Juan Seguin who gave great and grand service to the Texian cause against Lopez de Santa Anna, both during the early stages of the siege of the Alama, and later at the total destruction of Lopez de Santa Anna's Army at San Jacinto, Texas.

     Monsieur Le Generale Latrille would come down with typhus, fight in other wars, become debilitated during his advancing years, but die among his own aristocracy in Paris in 1892. There is a legend of the Ceremony of Camarone, associated with a fight to death stand by some very valiant (perhaps stupidly so) Legionaires, some times associated with the Battle of Puebla, but while the heroic company was at the Battle of Puebla, their other heroism was accomplished about a year later and towards the northeast in the coffee  country down a bit lower in elevation.   Of 93 officers and men, only two survived.   The captain, who perished, had a wooden forearm and hand....quite a nice piece of art....which was recovered by an Anglo-French (Franglaise) farmer in the area and returned to the French much after the Battle.   There were only two survivors, and they demanded to be given terms or they would not surrender.   As per agreement, they were escorted to French lines and delivered back to their Army.   It is said  the the Mexican Cavalry dismounted and fave the two a sword salute and 21 gun honor salute.

     To this day, the remembrance of the loss at the Hacienda de Camarone -  Tejada is commemorated with the Legion's most somber and moving ceremony.     The officers of the unit terminate the eeremony by service coffee to the enlisted personnel.   The Hacienda concerned was and remains, actually, a source of some of the best coffee grown.   To end, the soldiers did not die at the Battle of Puebla, but they had fought there, a year earlier.

 This is the ceremony paying honours to the Legionaire
company commanded by Captaine Danjou,  His faux
forearm and hand are carried by the centre veteran
behind the officers in this formation. 

The esthetic prosthetic forearm and hand of the Captaine Danjou

Too much for one Gringo to digest.   But...now the OROGs know and understand the rest of the beginning of the story about the Cinco de Mayo.    Very quickly, it becomes a much deeper and wider story.   It is a compelling story, and one of the best places to start would be "The Cactus Throne", which is a definitive, dispassionate, and even-handed treatment of the rise and fall of the Second Mexican Empire.

El Gringo Viejo

A Must Read - More Proof Obama is a Depraved Liar

by Mychal Massie Email | Archive

Mychal Massie is chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives-Project 21 – a conservative black think tank located in Washington,

Speaking at the Carmichael Arena, in Chapel Hill, N.C., last Tuesday, Obama displayed not just his commonality, he purposefully lied to a handpicked audience of students. And as he always does, he was belittling someone else to make himself look good. Said behavior is typical of someone who carries the scars of the type of parents he had, but such behavior isn’t the character trait of an emotionally stable leader.

     In boasting about his plans to keep student interest rates on federal loans from doubling, he said: “One Republican congresswoman said just recently – I am going to quote this because I know you guys will think I’m making this up. She said she had very little tolerance for people who tell [her] they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that.” He mockingly continued: “I am just quoting here, she said students who rack up student loan debt are just sitting on their butts, having opportunity dumped in [their] lap.” He finished with: “Now can you imagine saying something like that?

      Actually, Barry, what we have difficulty with is your dishonesty. The congresswoman he was referencing is Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and her exact words were: “I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt, because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society, and people are forgetting that. I remind folks that the Declaration of Independence says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You don’t sit on your butt and have it dumped in your lap.”

Rep. Foxx, unlike Obama and his wife, didn’t have her education handed to her because she was Kenyan, black, Muslim, or because the school needed another black to make its quota. She worked as a janitor, and it took her seven years to get her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But she graduated debt-free.

The next day, Obama swaggered up to another microphone with the same toothy leer and reprised his role as liar-in-chief. At the University of Iowa, he said: “You’ve got one member of Congress who compared these student loans [and] I’m not kidding here – to a stage-three cancer of socialism.” With a condescending grin, and preening before the handpicked crowd, he continued: “Stage-three cancer? I don’t know where to start. What do you mean? What are you talking about? Come on. Just when you think you’ve heard it all in Washington, somebody comes up with a new way to go off the deep end.”

      I’ll tell you what I’m talking about Barry. I’m talking about you being a depraved liar. You were referring to Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who in response to the student loan issue had harshly criticized the government’s taking over college loans.

Akin’s exact words were: “America has got the equivalent of the stage-three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in. So first, to answer your question precisely, what the Democrats did to get rid of the private student loans and take it all over by the government was wrong. It was a lousy bill. That’s why I voted no. The government needs to get its nose out of the education business.” I’d say that is hugely different than what Obama claimed.

     In an August of 2011 column, “Nero in the White House,” I wrote: “Mr. Nixon and Clinton lied to save their backsides … [but] in the case of Obama, he lies because he is a liar. He doesn’t only lie to cover his misdeeds – he lies to get his way. He lies to belittle others and to make himself look presentable at their expense. … His lying is congenital and compounded by socio-psychological factors of his life.”

     The tragedy is that many of those students believed what he was saying, and others didn’t care one way or the other, as long as he was promising them something. In Chapel Hill, a girl seated behind Obama shook her head in disgust, wrongly believing his lies about Foxx.

      But that student probably wasn’t thinking about finishing school with $25,000-$200,000 in student loan debt alone. Nor was she likely thinking about the credit-card debt and car payments she was going to have on top of that student loan debt.

      In that same column, I wrote: “Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood.”

      Let me remind me you of something else I’ve been saying. Extending the lowered student loan interest rate is setting up another financial bubble because there is no way to pay for it.  But don’t look for Romney to bring relief to this madness – he agrees with Obama that the plan should be extended another year. But hey, like they say, anybody but Obama.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     And so the Gringo Viejo chimes in, first as a racist to get that out of the way, to point out how Black Conservatives arrange their arguments. in all of my experiences, in a steady, blunt, 6 pound sledge-on-an-anvil, ever-advancing manner, always arriving at the end-zone of irrefutability.  The forging and tempering of their words always results in a conclusion that a person does not have to vote for before he reads it.

     El Gringo Viejo especially points out the portion of Mychal's editorial that has been accentuated in red.

     The marxist tactic of drawing a  circle around a group of people who can be determined to be stupid, greedy, mean, self-centred, and/or spoiled enough to listen to lies, believe the lies, and receptive to the idea of receiving something for nothing is alive and well.   The marxist "community organiser" always points out that "those people" have more than you....They are the Millionaires and Billionaires that don't pay their fair share.

     There are the oil companies.    They overcharge you and they receive subsidies while you eat Ramen noodles.    There are the Republicans, they want to take away your social security checks and give the money to their rich friends.   Don't go out into the world without me to protect you because the Republicans will lynch you and take away your stamps, AFDC, Section 8, SSI, and then they'll drown you like rats by directing a hurricane on you and blowing up the levees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl7VnQeu8OQ

 Click here to remember how we deal with Romanovs

      Their solution is always shooting the Romanovs again and breaking out the guillotines so as to make their constituency happy, content, and at peace with the world and starving the Georgians to death.....but only a few million of them.   Life is much easier when a person can stand in line all day to buy a bottle of vodka and some matches to light the 12 or 15 half-smoked cigarettes you found and carry around in a soup can.   Life is even more fun when Fidel tells you that access to the clinic is denied for the next 45 days because of the "blockade" by the Yanqui Imperialists....and, by the way, beans and rice ration allotments are being reduced by 50% for the next 60 days as well.   At least we have Head Start.   FORWARD!!   ADELANTE CON LA REVOLUCION SOCIALISTA! 

Czar Nicholas and his family - c. 1914

      Mr. Massie points out the girl shaking her head in disgust.   It brings to mind the iron-jawed Miss Flukie, speaking through clenched teeth and with a non-blinking, snake-eyed glaze, reminding everyone in the faux "Congressional hearing" that Republicans were not going to give her the free contraceptives to which she is entitled.   We wrote to Miss Flukie to determine if your daughters or my daughter is to be required to pay for her contraceptive devices, medications, or procedures.     And if so, how much?   And if so, where do they send their checks?     She has not responded.

     A benign Providence grants us the company, even if vicariously, of persons such as Mychal Massie.

El Gringo Veijo

The final and best answer to "You're a racist!"

    The pinko huffs and grits his teeth.   He has lost every point on evidential grounds during what had began as a simple, "Hi! How ya doin'" at the saloon in Washington D.C.'s Georgetown area.

   It has been reduced to a bitter, teeth clenching, fist-tightening argument.    The guy on the left happened to see a piece of George Bush propaganda from elections long gone by in the briefcase of the guy on the right.

      After being berated for 20 minutes for supporting a racist like Bush...."all whites from Texas are racist"...who was "selected and not elected" and who "lied" about weapons of mass destruction, the fellow on the left demands "Prove to me you are not a reactionary!  A racist!"

       The guy on the right finally decides to stand his ground, instead of just leaving the maggot on the left to stew alone at the bar.   "Okay.   I would vote for Col. West over Joe Biden.   I would vote for Marco Rubio over Harry Reid.   I would vote for the legal alien, now naturalised-citizen Miriam Martinez and Republican candidate for a seat in the Texas House over Nancy Pelosi for any office.   And instead of being a pansy RINO like Trent Lott, I would have pointed out to the howling mob of black "leaders" and politicians whose only job is to be black, that when Strom Thurmond was being patted on the back for making it to 100 years of age and still in the US Senate, nothing was untoward about wistfully stating, "It was probably a lot better back fifty years ago!"

      "Besides pointing out that Strom was popular with the ladies, there were many other obscure points about Strom that I would have stuffed down Sharpton's fat-mouthed throat.    One was that Thurmond was an "elderly" 44 year old Lt.Colonel who jumped behind the German lines on D-Day.   He was "too old" but made space for himself through rank and privilege to join his boys in front of the Mausers.

      "It would have been pointed out that Strom Thurmond was the first Senator to bring a black man into his office as a senior employee and advisor.

      ''It would have been pointed out that Strom Thurmond, while Attorney General for the State of South Carolina, rammed a bill through the legislature that made it illegal for a person to dress in a costume that would obscure his identity or cover his face, especially at night.   This in 1928 when such a stance could cause severe risk of loss of life.   Also, it was when Robert Byrd was a grand exalted hooplah wizard of the Klan and a recruiter for same.   This was a position that Byrd held until the early 1960s, although it was stated by the Gold Standard of the Truth, William Jefferson Blythe that Byrd had been a Klan leader only briefly and because "....he had to".    Blythe and Byrd...two peas in a septic tanque"

      And then the fellow on the right said, "It's been a pleasure."

      He flipped a 20 onto the bar, motioned the bartender to pay the two accounts and keep the change.   And then he left.

Oh!   And RINOs almost always aspirate.   No guts....they just want to be socialists-lite.  And popular.  And nice.   And not mean.   Or objectionable

El Gringo Viejo

     

What Mitt Should Say. A humble suggestion

     This is a choice to be made by democratic republican process.   It is a clear choice between the American Way and the way that leads to the burial ground of great nations.

     This is a choice between a government that assumes that it has the right and  responsibility to finance "shovel ready" jobs for Americans, and then snickers among friends that ".....there weren't quite as many shovel ready jobs as we thought there were...." , and a government that stands aside and allows the private sector to risk its own money to impulse economic activity and projects that provide high-skill and professional opportunities.

     Why should it be necessary for us to borrow and tax ourselves into financing projects and programs that are hopelessly flawed and destined to fail?   Governments run by socialist-minded social engineers fund their friends to produce solar panels....six different companies....and even after a billion dollars and then some, the companies all go broke.   They lasted long enough after hitting the obvious icebergs that they could get all the President's big donors into the life-boats with monstrous payouts.   All the "little people" who really are not qualified to live in the Hamptons really needed to fend for themselves.   They are used to suffering, anyway.   But, the President and his friends use other peoples' money, via taxation and borrowing, to make their "hard landing" very soft indeed.

      When standard Chapter 11 Bankruptcy was indicated for to-day's Government Motors, the President muscled in and essentially ripped up the risk-takers' stocks and bonds.   He then re-issued politburo script stock to the United Auto Workers, refinanced the companies involved with the taxpayers' money, and pronounced his work a success.   What he had done, of course, is essentially nationalise the two auto manufacturers, along with selling a good portion to a foreign auto manufacturer and pronounced the entire expropriation a success.   The main accomplishment after all was said and done was to turn the two auto manufacturers over to a cabal of Democrat Socialist administrators and ownership dominated by the United Auto Workers Union, it thugs, and its slugs.

     This graph shows the present position of General Motors common stock price.   For the expropriation to have any remote chance of being even half-way presented as a fully paid- back success, the stock would have to be in the area of 60 dollars per share.    As time goes by, the payout level will necessarily rise a bit due to loss of anticipated return.   By the end of this year, for instance, the payout level will be around 63 dollars, due to depreciation of equipment, debt service, and re-tooling for regular model year changes. 

                                            

1-Day | 5-Day | 1-Month | 3-Month | 6-Month | 1-Year

: Prior Day's Close                  

     The coup de grace was to force the previous General Motors company to produce the VOLT,  that failed at market miserably.   Now, we are given to understand that many of the VOLTs that were  waiting for a call from the American market are now being shipped to Red China, where gulag workers will reassemble and mingle the parts with Red Chinese knock-offs and roll out the Red Chinese "Maomobile".

     The way America works is to allow the marketplace to address challenges, such as the Keystone Pipeline, and then require (or allow) the large and small companies, the rich people, the investor class and all such folks to risk their time and capital in the attempt to provide a product and/or a service.    It's their problem to make money for themselves.   The only way they can make money is by employing competent people to perform the intellectual and/or physical work.   Demand for labour increases, and as such demand increases, wages increase.

     The central government in Washington D.C. cannot and should not "invest" in projects to develop new energy sources, light bulbs, or anything really.   It is literally none of their business.   All those activities should and must be left to people to risk their time,  money, and intellectual ability and preparedness to develop the next new things, to fix the last old things.   It is normal and correct since the private sector normally provides goods and services at higher quality and lower cost than any equivalent by the "public sector".

      The choice is clear.

        Food Stamps or a pair of bicycle manufacturers making a flying machine?

       AFDC or some eccentric making a resistor to fit into a vacuum tube to be fed electricity so as to glow brightly and dependably?

      Section 8 or a character who thinks that he can make electric energy duplicate a voice?

      Unemployment Compensation or Microsoft?

      Head Start or a Cotton Gin?

      Cash for clunkers or the Model T?

      And on, and on, and on.    The more the Government "gives", the more it takes, and the less Americans do for themselves....until finally, like Europe, there is nobody left to do....and nobody left to pay for the nothing that is not done.

      Those who would trade their liberty for security, deserve neither.

El Gringo Viejo

     

Venezuela, Guns, Gangs, Mob Trade

This Associated Press article is a stunning revelation and

 admission by a normally leftist news organisation that

demonstrates the fact that  deranged, criminal groups

work hand-in-hand with the Chavez Thug Factory;

The Voice From the Sierra Madre Oriental knows, believes, and thinks that most of the guns and ammunition moving into the criminal sector of Mexico has little or nothing to do with private American gun dealers.   Illegal dealings in firearms in the United States is already dealt with and prosecuted under a mix of local, State, and central government laws that now number in the scores of thousands.   The most compliant with these laws are the non-criminal element.   The least compliant is the criminal element and the United States central government itself.

     The United States government remains committed to surreptitiously usurping firearm rights and to the total disarming of the American population.   That is the objective of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives arm of an increasingly totalitarian, marxist government, as presently composed in Washington, D.C.

      The fact is that most of the guns come from outside Mexico, usually from communist countries, or countries whose governments are intentionally involved in black market arming of drug cartels, Islamic terrorist groups, and "liberation movements" in various parts of the world.

      The central Mexico City zone of "El Tepito" and the anchor outlet of the Buenavista Market is the crowning glory of Mexico's organised crime.   As the saying goes, "if you can't find it in El Tepito, it was never made".   It is a 16 square block area in the very middle of Mexico City that is almost completely dedicated to the receiving and processing for sale of stolen goods.  Pilfering, burglary, prostitution, and all forms imaginable of illegal activity are centered there, just north and adjacent to the very centermost point of Mexico City.

     The area described in Caracas, entire parts of the city are something considerably different.   Assemblies of heavily armed, somewhat uniformed gangs make much of the slumland of Caracas a veritable 666 wonderland.    It is completely operated by hideously violent gangs who are hypnotically tranced out monks in the Satanic religion of Hugo Chavez's Communism.    If the OROG will study the above included picture, he or she will see religious art works modified to show the Jesus with a crown of thorns for some reason, and holding an AK47 rifle.   The other picture shows the the infant Jesus standing and holding a similar automatic weapon.    These gangs, as reported, zone off entire "colonias" of the city and practise "immigration control" by allowing or prohibiting entry or exit by the general population.

          The members of the various gangs, possibly as many as 250 in the city with organised structure and administration procedures,  essentially determine who comes and who goes, who lives and who dies.   They publicly execute people, force family members to eat body parts of executed individuals, and generally set the bar for their counterparts in Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador, and other places in Latin America.    They are the inspiration for the MaraSalvatruchas 13.

         When people and the American press strut around, huffing and puffing about Mexico's "cartel violence" and how superior we are to Mexico because we do not "permit spillover violence" they are fools.   When the American government or even local governments talk about how they are "preventing spillover violence", they are simply trying to justify bigger budgets for a police force that will ultimately be used against the American people.   They can do nothing about the MS13  except arrest a few thousand and deport or detain them.   They call that victory.   Mexico does a bit better because they have militarised the issue.
        But the gangs in Central America and Venezuela and Brazil are so depraved, violent, unpredictable, and drugged-up or drunk almost all the time that the world would be stunned if it were to know of their actions.   It would make Hitler look like an old Roman Catholic nun.    At least we can be comforted that there are only three or four million of them.    But they breed quickly, chiefly by bastardy.  Perhaps it is well that they kill so many of their own babies during their glue sniffing, everclear drinking, marijuana smoking, cocaine snorting, and methamphetamine escapades.    Perhaps it is well that they kill so many of each other during fights over a few feet of "territory".     In the new "socialist workers' paradise" that Hugo Chavez birthed upon the South American Continent, one can estimate that almost one million all but anonymous deaths...murders....killings have occurred among these people during Chavez's rule.

       While all of the gangs are indescribably violent, the ones that become the survivors are the ones that develop interior discipline and a "political philosophy" of a combination of "liberation theology'', some form of socialism, and a willingness to practise militant anarchy and/or nihilism.   The survivor gangs, clans, tribes...whatever...are also, ironically, the one who kill and terrorise and commit atrocities that are truly unthinkable.

       The gangs all support Chavez even as they fight among themselves for even a couple of yards of slum turf.  They also handle sales in bulk from the Venezuelan military of weaponry that is gathered from around the world.  The sales include criminal elements in Mexico.   Deliveries of these sales of Cuban, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Eastern European, Red Chinese, and North Korean arms are delivered onto the Mexican east coast and west coast via everything from tramp steamers, to cruise liners, to jerry-built submarines, and  "tuna fishing boat".

Chavez Seeks Leave: Fly to Cuba for More Cancer Treatment...

(drawn from Drudge Report) 

     It is commonly understood by the opposition in Venezuela that they will have to physically fight these ghastly, ghoulish gangs as well as secret government army squads during any election process that might still be allowed by Chavez or those like-minded totalitarian thugs who survive him.   He is returning to Cuba very quickly after having come back home.   His time may be limited. 

We're going to pick up the boss.   Thanks for your time and attention.

El Gringo Viejo 

A gentle suggestion....

It may be at times difficult to keep up with the eclectic, pin-ball machine activity of El Gringo Viejo's neurons and synapses.   It is recommended to scroll down and even dabble a bit in the "older" offerrings.    We do wish to assure that when we write about specific issues of war and peace in Mexico,with reference to the cartels, we are dealing with information derived from first or second hand, on the scene information.

      We derive information from official sources within government, military and/or police entities,  from the military privately at times, from press reports and from reporters speaking privately and off the record, and from other private citizens speaking privately and off the record.

       We have found that in all cases our information and interpretation has always been at least accurate in the transfer of information.   We also accurately assert that our information and interpretation of events is almost always better than what is being transmitted by the foreign press, especially the American mainstream media, and unfortunately, FOX News as well.

       Talk radio and overnight radio information is dismal, obnoxious, half-truthed, and even deliberately misleading, 90% of the time.   The OROG can imagine that something is dreadfully wrong with the United States if people are leaving to go back to Mexico....not because of deportation....but as El Gringo Viejo predicted four years ago, because Mexico would be entering into a labour-shortage situation and the United States would be entering into a prolonged period of somnambulatory economic activity.   Those things have come to pass.    Mexico stumbles away from socialism, along with Canada, and the United States falls into the same morass the Canutes and the Mexicans are leaving in the dust bin.   Hope and Change.

      We call attention to the fact that the return to normalcy in Mexico has become increasingly evident.    Much remains to be done, and the job will never be done in totality....man is born imperfect.    But while Mexico returns to something that might appear to be closer to normal, the social situation in Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina deteriorates by the hour.    Tomorrow a mainstream media report that exposes Hugo Chavez's and the Castro brother's involvement in weapons trafficking that makes minor leaguers like Obama and Eric Holder look like the the buffoons they are.

More later
Thanks for your time and interest as usual.

El Gringo Viejo