The Lesser Evil is the Enemy of the Greater Good

At the Narco News Bulletin, Nancy Davies delivers a commentary on participatory democracy in Oaxaca, Mexico, highlighting the nexus between lesser-of-two-evils voting, neo-liberal economic policy and the international "war on drugs":

Have you voted for the “lesser of two evils” in the “democracy” where you reside? I always resented that I was supposed to do that, with the same arguments we hear now in Mexico: if one does not vote for the lesser evil, the worse evil will win. Indeed, the worst did win in the last Oaxaca election, where a mere 14% of the electorate came out and voted for the bad guys . . . The political class is frightened. They will have to evaluate what it means when a large portion of the national population — not only Oaxacans — one way or another say, I won’t play your game anymore. . . . Does this upheaval sound like a “failed state,” as the USA line suggests? Or like a righteous surge of national citizen indignation? If one accepts the “failed state” diagnosis, one ought to ask, In whose interest is it to label Mexico a failed state? Let’s start listing: the dismal resemblance between Plan Columbia (also a failed state) and Plan Mexico, bringing the latest incursion of USA money, helicopters and guns to fight the narcotraffickers. Like Columbia, to fully militarize the nation of Mexico, so that social struggles can be repressed under the disguise of narco wars. What social struggles are those? The anti-neoliberal, anti-transnational, anti-privatization of land and resources, all waged by the poor, and almost all by indigenous populations.