Older residents in the north of Mexico City, for example, speak of the 1970's and 80's, when their neighborhoods were plagued by gangs, kidnappings and robberies. They marvel at how the PRI was able to buy-off gang leaders with opulent bribes, perks and taxpayer-funded pay-offs. 

The PRI has always been a master at co-opting its opponents. It's special way of doing things involves dialogue; generous offers; then efforts to bring its opponents "back into the fold" and align the so-called facts to the official creed.

From Pancho Villa, Chucho el Roto, Heraclio Bernal, Santanón, Emiliano Zapata, David Siqueiros, et. al., an entire panthenon of rebellious men and women who once raged against the Mexican state are now enshrined as icons of Mexican-ness.

Despite enormous flags and pageantry about the "glorious" revolution; the "liberation" of peasants; and the so-called heroes that underscore the nation's narrative, the acts (and omissions) of Mexico's political class most resemble banditry on a massive scale.

For this reason, authority-bashers such as Malverde and Pancho Villa represent something all Mexicans can instinctively grasp: the urge to challenge an elite that has always promoted its own interests at the expense of the people.

Perhaps the rebels who fled and were later woven back into the nation's myth were harbingers of some future justice, symbols of ordinary people's deep (and bitter) attachment to the here and now.

In Mexico, justice (at least in this lifetime) is always just around the corner.