So far from God, so close to the United States

That's an old lament among Mexicans, referring to the endless assault on their country and way of life by the relentless bully to the north. This time, it's subsidies, GM corn, and Wal-Mart. John Ross writes about how US agribusiness is destroying Mexican corn, and perhaps Mexico along with it. Excerpt:

Competing with highly subsidized U.S. farmers is driving their Mexican counterparts into bankruptcy. Whereas south of the border, guaranteed prices for farmers' crops is a thing of the past, corporate corn growers north of the Rio Bravo [what gringos call the Rio Grande] can receive up to $21,000 an acre in subsidies from their government, enabling them to dump their corn over the border at 80% of cost. The impact of this inundation has been to force 6,000,000 farmers and their families here to abandon their plots and leap into the migration stream, according to a 2004 Carnegie Endowment study.

If you aren't sufficiently pissed off yet, that article ought to do it--especially if you love Mexico.