Viva Mexicoooooo!
So yesterday we went to our neighbors’ house to suffer while Mexico lost their World Cup soccer bid against Argentina. Mexico played better than I expected and the game was a pretty good fight from start to finish. Mexico appeared to my soccer-naive eyes like they made more errors than Argentina, and their passing was weaker and less clean. But they also had more umph than Argentina. I’d love to see how well Mexico would do if they cleaned up their passing and were a little faster.
When it all ended everyone was sort of sad and down. Except for me, since I’m not a big soccer fan and I’m not Mexican it’s easy for me to get over a predictable loss like this one. My neighbor (the husband) is the kind of guy who turns up the music when he’s feeling low. So pretty soon it was cranked way up and everyone was dancing. It was therapeutic and made me remember how much I used to love dancing. I fully plan to drag my husband off dancing as soon as possible.
After everyone else left and after we got tired of dancing the conversation turned to the dreaded Mexican election! My neighbors, it turns out, have very different political ideas from my husband and I. I found myself getting easily frustrated with my neighbor’s (the wife’s) narrow point of view and her shortsighted understanding of economics and of the dynamics of being poor. She believes what a lot of right wingers believe, which is that poor people are to blame for their place in the world. She doesn’t see that capitalism requires, by it’s nature, a lower class to exploit. I spent some good energy trying to share my point of view with her. And she listened pretty well. But I think that fundamentally she believes that the government should not be in the business of helping people in need, regardless of their ability to make positive change in their lives without help. All I know is that the rich people I know don’t need any help to get ahead, but the poor people I know could sure use a leg up.
