Felipe “Damastes” Calderon, the PAN, and the Constitutional Bed

by Pavel Uranga

Quito- Eleven years ago, since the extreme right took power in Mexico, there exists increasingly a “logic of power” which has little or nothing to do with the legal norms that have arisen since the Mexican Revolution of 1917.

During the decades of bad government by the ancien regime, the old PRI party, which held power for 70 years until 2000, took the luxury of never violating the law. If it was ever necessary to do so, instead of violating the law, they quickly changed it to conform to the will of the president in office.

Now, under the regime of the neo-Falanges of “change,” the tendency is to impose an arbitrary order in the social, political, cultural, economic, sexual, in human rights, and in civic life, with the intention of imposing the regime’s ideal of country, legality, and constitutionality.

In this “logic of legality,” very similar to the concept of “national security” as elaborated by George W Bush and continued by Barack Obama, they have created a double-speak. Today it can be stated in Mexico:

~Where there is dirty war they write “nation of laws”
~Where there is repression they write “the imposition of legality”
~Where there are extrajudicial killings they write “unfortunate events”
~Where there are kidnappings and illegal detentions they write “mistakes” or “collateral damage”
~Where there is torture they write “the establishment of order”
~Where there is pillaging and displacement they write “the return of order”
~Where there is rape they write “protection of the citizenry”
~Where there is ambush and betrayal they write “dialogue”
~Where there is history they don’t say anything because they don’t understand
~Where there is social struggle they say “delinquency”
~Where there are rights they say “sedition” or “terrorism”
~Where there is a violator of the law and of the popular will, they write “Felipe Calderon”

Damastes, which means “slavedriver,” better known as Procrustes, or “the stretcher,” was the son of Poseidon in Greek mythology. According to legend, this outlaw of Attica would offer his hospitality to travelers, and then oblige them to sleep in a bed of iron. But the bed of Damastes was endowed with a mechanism that made it bigger or smaller depending on the size of the victim, such that no one could fit in the bed. Those who were too large for the bed, Damastes would hatchet off the body part that extended, and he would leave them to bleed to death. But if the unlucky one was too short for the bed, he would stretch their legs until they were dislocated.

As such, this modern Felipe “Damastes” Calderon and his armies have prepared a bed of Procrustes for Mexico. They offer their hospitality, and when the societal reality doesn’t meet their necessities and conviction, they use the hatchet of “order” to accommodate their notion of country.

Today, after more than 100,000 murders during the 11 years of PAN governance, (more than 50,000 under Calderon), Mexico lives humiliated by the military boot of the State the and the drug traffickers, in a “war” that is more for market control than against drugs.

This is the “national project of Felipe Calderon and the institutions that walk with him. This is the future he offers to Mexico, a future of death and conformity to his designs: s/he who opposes already knows what to do in this modern day bed of Procrustes.