Trouble in Mexico ? ? ?

********quote*****
NOCHIXTLÁN, Mexico — At least eight people were killed in clashes in southern Mexico over the weekend when police and members of a teachers’ union faced off in violent confrontations, a senior state official said, piling fresh pressure on the country’s embattled ruling party.
Violence erupted on Sunday when police dislodged protesters blocking a highway in the southern state of Oaxaca, a hotbed of dissent from radical teachers’ groups opposed to education reforms pushed through by the government three years ago.

The violence is the latest in a series of setbacks to [President] Peña Nieto’s government, which has faced widespread criticism for its failures to crack down on graft and impunity, contain drug gang violence or jumpstart the economy.
It also deals a fresh blow to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), still smarting from a drubbing in regional elections earlier this month which put it on the back foot in the run-up to the next presidential election in 2018.
*****endquote*****
Ref: buenosairesherald.com


Headline: 200,000 Doctors to Join Teachers in Mexico National Strike
Ref: telesurtv.net


Poor old DonDiego just came across these stories while visiting some of the more obscure websites he occasionally visits.
Has anyone else heard any of this on US news outlets?

Who would'a thunk it, . . . graft, drug gang violence, and a poor economy, . . . and right on the US southern border !

Some years ago poor not-as-old DonDiego resided in El Paso, TX jes' a few miles from the Mexican border and the City of Juarez. He did some profitable business with the sports book about 3 blocks from the border, especially wagering on the outcome of SuperBowl XXXIV and several correlated propositions. [Apparently the bookies hadn't quite got the hang of recognizing such props. The scary part was walking back those 3 blocks and crossing the bridge with several thousand dollars in his pocket.]

He sure hopes the apparent violence in the US's neighbor to the south doesn't get out of hand. In any case, poor old DonDiego feels more secure above the woods of Appalachia with a clear view of the approaches to his Tomato Ranch Ridge, . . . instead of Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona where he's lived before.

At least the citizenry can rely upon a well-manned, motivated Border Patrol to keep any troubles on the other side of the Rio Grande.

Sounds like they need new teachers.

Their president should just utter the phrase "radical Islamic terror" and peace will prevail.

In this case it sounds more like Radical Union Terrorists.

El Paso is THE safest big city (500,000+ population) in the United States when it comes to violent crime. Most of our major border cities are above average also. But be afraid, be very afraid.

Poor not-so-old DonDiego was never worried about violence in El Paso.

Here's another experience concerning a trip to the sportsbook. When DonDiego went to the sports book, he'd park on the US side in downtown El Paso, and walk across the International bridge to Ciudad Juarez. On one occasion shortly after parking a cloudburst struck downtown. DonDiego edged up next to a downtown building to escape the downpour as best he could and found himself alongside 4 or 5 young Hispanic working men likewise hugging the building. They held pieces of flat cardboard to better shield themselves against the rain, and the little guy next to DonDiego gestured and held out his cardboard to share with DonDiego. No fear, no unpleasantness, . . . just 5 or 6 guys trying to stay dry.
[The above vignette suggests the safety of El paso, even back then. The next paragraph indicates that Juarez was unsafe in more ways than crime.]
After the rain stopped DonDiego proceeded to the sports book. As normal there were some drainage problems along the main street in Juarez after the rain, . . . lots of puddles. And as DonDiego approached the intersection where the sportsbook was located he noticed a bit of a crowd had gathered. It seems about 10 minutes earlier, while DonDiego was trapped against a building in El Paso, a young woman had stepped off the sidewalk and been electrocuted when her feet touched a curbside puddle. Maybe, . . . just maybe, . . . that little guy sharing his cardboard rain shied with poor old DonDiego had, in fact, saved DonDiego's life.

Anyway, the Sportsbook to which DonDiego referred to in the earlier post is in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico on the border with El Paso. And the SuperBowl to which DonDiego referred was played in 2000. At the time DonDiego lived there Juarez was one of the most dangerous places in North America.
And it got worse after DonDiego moved to New Mexico.

The year 2010 was the peak for the criminal mayhem.

********quote*****
For El Paso residents, Mexican violence is never far. Across the border in Ciudad Juárez more than 500 have been killed so far this year. [March 2010]
*****endquote*****
Ref: The Wall Street Journal

And then it got better.

********quote*****
. . . In 2010, Ciudad Juarez suffered 3,057 violent deaths; last year [2015] there were 312 murders. Once, there were eight kidnappings a day; now this city of 1.3 million people has experienced 29 months without a single abduction.

Today [2016], Ciudad Juarez is safer than many American cities, including Baltimore and New Orleans.
*****endquote*****
Ref: The Telegraph

Chicago could use some good teachers. The Teachers here today start Illegal Strikes:

Illegal Strike

They earn (on average) $76K per year for 9 months work and want more money:

Currently, the median annual salary for Chicago teachers is $76,000, or $14,000 more than average city residents with a graduate or professional degree. There are also generous retirement benefits; for example, teachers who retired after 2011 receive $77,000 annual pensions. Meanwhile, they work in a school system with low graduation rates, short school days, declining enrollment, and vast structural debt, including a pension system that’s only 51.9% funded.

Source

And they try to fire any teachers who won't strike:

Chicago Teachers Unio Boots Chess Coach

If they don't speak English, no problemo as the majority of Chicago Public School students are Hispanic:

Student Racial Makeup
African American: 39.3%

Asian: 3.6%

Asian/Pacific Islander (retired): 0.01%

Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.2%

Hispanic: 45.6%

Multi-Racial: 1.1%

Native American/Alaskan: 0.3%

White: 9.4%

Not Available: 0.6%

Source

Problem Solved!

The Chicago Teacher's Union is a "children first" organization. Maybe not.

Poor old DonDiego does not know what this post has to do with Mexico, . . . but he can add something to the discussion about the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund:

The pension payout formula is based on Chicago teachers paying 9 percent of their salaries toward their pensions. In practice, The Chicago Public Schools [CPS] “picks up” 7 of the 9 percent required employee contribution. Teachers contribute [only] an additional 2 percent of their salaries themselves.
[This is what the strike is about; the CPS want the teachers to pay more of the teachers' contribution. - DD]

After years of pension holidays, overly generous pension benefits, a lack of transparency and rampant cronyism, both the CPS system and the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund, or CTPF, are now broke.

Pension holidays, steep increases in teachers' salaries, and lopsided ratios of teacher contributions to pension payouts have caused the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund’s unfunded liabilities to shoot up to $9 billion in 2015. But as long as CPS officials and Chicago politicians meet the demand for more money for CPS and CTPF with a push for increased taxes and a rejection of real reforms, taxpayers will be forced to bail out a broken system that will only become more insolvent over time.

Ref: illinoispolicy.com

So basically the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund is approaching bankruptcy, . . . with no easy out.

I used to vacation in Oaxaca-(wohockah). It's a beautiful unspoiled part of Mexico.
As it is about 800 miles from the U.S. border, I wouldn't worry about the violence spilling over.