 Okay, here we go. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti, America's team, Code Pink, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas. We broadcast Thursdays at 4.30pm Pacific, 7.30pm Eastern, right here on YouTube Live, including channels for the Convo Count, popular resistance, and Code Pink. Today's broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, Rad Indymedia, and now under podcast at popularresistance.org. Today we have a special broadcast partner, the Mexico Solidarity Project, and we're very pleased that they agreed to support today's episode, the episode today being Mexico's fourth transformation, the United States wants to stop it. Our guest is Kurt Hackbarth, he's a writer, journalist, and activist, and I'm really very pleased he accepted the invitation to join us for this episode. I think all of you are going to really enjoy and find informative his insight on Mexico. So let me give all of you a little bit of introduction as to what we're going to talk about tonight. I want to let Kurt leave the discussion on that, but I want to share with you a quote from his recent article published in Jacobin, the article's title entitled, No, Om Lo is not undermining Mexican democracy. And that was in response to the electoral council overhaul or overhaul is maybe even too strong of a word. Reforms and many things that have happened that the Mexican president has reformed since he became president. So let me share this quote with you I think you'll find it very enlightening. So here we go. Although the 40 has not fulfilled everyone's expectations. It has in four years created a governing movement that is taking control of its energy resources, including the nationalization of lithium, and is adopting a role of regional leadership in Latin America. As Kurt says, two sins the United States has not historically forgiven anywhere, and particularly in the global south and Latin, Latin America, beginning with the imposition of the Monroe doctrine 200 years ago. And I want you all to meet Kurt. And so let's start with, maybe we should give the audience a quick informative spiel about what 40 is 40 stank meaning fourth transformation. And this is Om Lo's project, his vision for Mexico and I would argue that vision carries over for all of Latin America and the Caribbean, or his hope for other countries as well. Sure. And, well, first of all, as the high, high tearing and thanks very much for the time and the space that a podcast and also thanks to code pink and all the partner organizations that are helping to sponsor today's program, particularly in light of the attacks Mexico is receiving in the Anglo American press it's really really important that we have the time to discuss all of this. So thank you at the start for that. So give a little bit of history. Andres was elected in 2018 to a six year term. And it was his third run for the presidency. There have been a fraud 2006 and also very dirty election in 2012, and paid off third time was a charm. So Om Lo one, Om Lo is the, is the abbreviation for Andreos, which is very long right. One, an overwhelming victory in 2018. He won by 30 percentage points over his two other rivals, and his party more than one a majority in both houses of Congress and that majority was returned in the midterm elections of 2021. I think some of those are important when you hear some of the critiques about what almost done an office he has an electoral mandate. He won the landslide, the one both houses of Congress and one again in the midterm elections. When we talk about the fourth transformation. Om Lo is a keen student of Mexican history. And he has identified three other key transformations in Mexican history, what he's laid out, you know, obviously there are many but he is highly focused on three. One of them is the independence. And the next one is independence from Spain between 1810 and 1821. That would have that was in this. And this framework the first major transformation, right the creation of the explosion of the first empire. And then of course that led to the very turbulent 19th century in Mexico. The second transformation would be the reform era the reform laws of the indigenous president Benito Juarez from the state of Oaxaca Zapotec Indian from the state of where I where I live. And the reform laws were key for separating church and states in Mexico and creating a civil service, a civil bureaucracy, laying the groundwork for secular education, and such a very drastic separation of church and state, much more than what's happened in the past in the sense of all church property was nationalist, all of it, right. The monasteries were closed, the churches everything was nationalized. So it was very drastic. And it had to be considering the strength the Catholic Church had over Mexican society at that time. That's the second transformation. The third transformation would be the Mexican Revolution of 19, following the dictatorship of portfolio Diaz. And I think, you know, we all have maybe notions of some of the famous actors who participated in that and he didn't know Zapata Pancho Dia, the most piano or Carranza, Madero, who was the president who was received and and assassinated at the end of the 10 tragic days. And all of that culminated in the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which at the time was the most of constitution in the world, and it called for, you know, a great deal of social rights, labor rights and also the ability to expropriate and redistribute land, right. The Constitution has never not always been progressive in practice but as a document it's very, it's very progressive. That was a redistribution of land. Was it successful in 1917? Well, it didn't happen immediately. The major redistribution was in the creation of the ahedo system. Right with in the government of Lássaro-Cárdenas, where they created large tracts of land for communal use called ahedos. Land use has always been a very, very controversial issue in Mexican history. Many indigenous communities had deeds for communal land that goes back to the colony that even went back to the king of Spain, right, that they jealously served, right. There's a tradition of communal land holding in Mexico that the second transformation, liberal transformation, however well intentioned was kind of attacked some of the communal land holding with this idea of creating individual landholders and individual plots. Anyway, that would be a whole other program. Yeah, for sure. All by way of saying in California, we saw as going back to California being all the California, there's still some of those colonial or those land grants by the Spanish crown that are still being contested. Yeah. That's right and the Mexican Revolution, that was of course his, his, his big driving issue was to return the communal land holding rights that had existed previously. So there was land redistribution in the 1930s, the creation of the ahedo system. And then in 1938. The nationalization of Mexico's oil reserves. And today Mexico is going to be celebrating the 85th anniversary of what's known as the Hista, the nationalization petroleum under last little cardiness which was instrumental for creating the modern Mexican state. So three transformations right independent revolution, then of course came the one party state of the PRI throughout the 20th century. What was supposedly a revolutionary party became institutionalized corrupted, and then throughout the 80s, you know, I'm skipping a bit for questions of time. Massive devaluation the peso in 1982 massive stations right throughout the 80s and 90s. Practically the entire Mexican state was sold off everything. It wasn't it didn't go as far as Chile but pretty close, you know, brains, which was the goal, everything. I'm sorry. Yeah, which was the goal. That was the goal of those parties. The banks, right. So you created a whole new class of nouveau rich millionaires on the backs of this parasitical privatization process, which then fed their money back into politicians the PRI and then the right wing party the pond which took control over after the year 2000. And it created this tremendously corrupt kleptocracy. It was a kleptocratic system from top to bottom. The backs of the privatized state. And this you know this. Mexico is already a very unequal society on the backs of the, the new rich class, which had benefited from these privatizations just for example Carlos slim, who got the Mexican telephone company became for a time the richest person in the world. And on the backs of the privatized telephone system and also the Mexico's largest cell phone company. So, it was a scandalous, extreme obscene division of wealth in Mexico. And, you know, as always happens in neoliberal era. What do you do when wealth is, you know, wealth inequality is out of control you break out the police, you break out the, you know, the armed forces and you keep people down as much as you can. So, when I'm going to talk about the need for the fourth transformation. This is what he was talking about. Right. Only aggravated by two major currency devaluations of 1982 and 1994, plus the so called war on drugs launched by Felipe Calderon in 2006 with us backing, which has led to, you know, at least 200,000 deaths. Oh, I mean, we're talking about a degree of suffering, you know, the private country, two major devaluations, the war on drugs and all the violence that has ensued there. So it sounds like a fairly grandiose term that we're, you know, are going to have a fourth transformation along the lines of independence, the reform and revolution, but you've you consider it in the context of what the Mexican people have suffered particularly over the last generation. It's fitting, actually. So that's perfect. You can see how it would resonate. It would resonate, particularly with young people. Yeah. And you and I both know living here that young people are pretty excited about this president. It's, you know, it had gotten to the point in Mexico where even votes in Congress were bought by a system called Moches, right. In Mexico is, you know, you share something right Mochar, but a modern system of bribes. So when the government of Enrique Peña Nieto privatized the oil system in 2013-2014 the Pemex Energy Counter reforms. The legislators were simply bought off. They were just bought off. Right. And the Nieto campaign had received money, you know, illegal campaign donations from, for example, the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht's cash for favors, then that money was simply used to buy votes. And it had gotten to that point of brazen obscene corruption. Right. And of course, a major media system that made that all possible. Right. And television stations, Televisa and TV sticker, you know, a smattering of major newspapers always on the side of the oligarchy and the elite. What's interesting is that in the trial just concluded in New York of Hanaro Garcia Luna, who was the secretary of public security under Felipe Calderon President Felipe Calderon. He was in the heart of simple cartel. He was found guilty of that. And one of the things that came out in the trial was that Garcia Luna paid media outlets in Mexico for positive media coverage. Right amongst them, the newspaper El Universal, one of the most conservative newspapers that is always constantly attacking Amno, the cool figure of some 25 million pesos a month. Right. They funneled through, you know, in this case, state budgets. So, people knew this people, you know, they knew the media was bought they knew that the system was was corrupted to its core. This was being leached by a system called watching coal, which is theft of oil along and gas oil along these, the ducks that connects the network in the country right with people on the inside and people on the outside. You know what was left of Mexico's public services were being run into the ground. So, it's not an understatement to talk about information and the need for one. No, it's almost we're listening to you it's it's inevitable. It seems how well it should have been embraced by the public. It should have happened in 2006. But, you know, there was an electoral fraud there that allowed Calderon to sneak in by a half a percentage point. And then they, you know, refuse to allow for a full recount and then they went and burn the ballots. New York Times says there's no evidence of fraud in 2006. They destroyed the ballots, you know, maybe if maybe if they hadn't burned the literally they burned literally they destroyed the ballots in 2006. Yeah. Wow. Oh my God. Oh, no wonder. No wonder there's no wonder they're so excited. So, so with this fourth transformation what what is on those what are the principal pillars of it. And then we go to the audience and then and then we can talk about why the United States doesn't want to succeed. Yeah, let's talk, let's talk a little bit about that. The pillars of the fourth transformation are sovereignty sovereignty in terms of energy and sovereignty in terms of food, which are the two things you really need to be able to be sovereign as a nation. Part of the degradation of Mexico in the neoliberal era was Mexico is of course an oil producing country, but they degraded Mexico's capacity to refine its oil into gasoline. And so they became dependent on US refineries. Mostly that's exactly with the Venezuelans. The oil is in the ground in Venezuela refineries across the Caribbean in Texas. And that's basically an extension of the whole colonial project of extracting primary, you know, resources. And then finish no finish products. No, right. And then finishing them off somewhere else and then selling them back. That's exactly what they were doing with with Mexico, they would buy Mexican oil refine it there and then sell it back as gasoline, which I'm low, I think quite rightly, compared to selling oranges and buying orange juice. Okay, so you can't be independent as a country if you're not, you know, don't have a degree of independence in an energy. And at the beginning of almost term, you know, Mexico had about five days worth of gasoline reserves. And then if the United States had decided to turn off the spigots, Mexico would shut down because it didn't have its own, you know, I mean, it could attempt to buy from elsewhere. But that in part explains the absolutely servile foreign policy Mexico had in the neoliberal era. There was a time when Mexico's foreign policy was quite independent back in the 60s, supporting Cuba, selling, you know, cheap oil to Cuba, taking a leadership role in Latin America. And that all went away in the 80s 90s and 2000s in the neoliberal era. And I'm getting a little ahead of myself. So energy sovereignty and food sovereignty and setting the basis for a Mexican welfare state. Over four years, that has included a universal pension for the elderly scholarship program a stay in school shall the scholarship program for young people, an apprenticeship program for young people who aren't studying or working microcredits for small businesses, aid to farmers and the kinds of fertilizer food stuffs price support, what's the idea of, you know, boosting food sovereignty, doubling the minimum wage up to about 200 pesos a day it's still low, it's still very low in Mexico, but it's a lot better than it was it's got up about 20% a year under under AMLO. A public option for banking, what's called the Bancos de Bienestar, because, right, because Mexico's, it's about five or six major banks, all, you know, controlled by foreign multinationals except for one. So the idea is to create a public option for banking. An amnesty law for that's a huge sin in front of the US. Yeah. And it's actually just interesting that what a recent move of AMLO kind of when I slipped under the radar is they told all government departments to close their bank accounts in private banks. Because banks make a killing in Mexico off of if you pay your taxes in Mexico you pay it through a private bank, which takes a time. And, you know, you get a payment from a government program that goes through private banks. So they went on both sides, and they get commissions and interest payments there. So there is a progressive attempts to create a public banking network that doesn't depend on, you know, city ban on X and HSBC and BBBA and, you know, and all these. So that right that's one of the cardinal sins right. He's closing his sins and increased tax collection. He's fighting GMO corn and glyphosate. The US is really pressing on that one because he's trying to try and outlaw genetically modified corn completely, but it doesn't Mexico doesn't yet have enough production on its own to do that. Totally. Union reform. Secret ballot elections for unions. Mexico has a long history of company unions 90% of Mexican unions are called syndicatos charros opaque company unions on the side of the employers. So the idea is to create secret ballot elections so that workers can select their own union leaders. So that's proceeding slowly but there have been some notable victories, especially at car production factories over the last couple of years reform to outsourcing that companies can outsource essential functions recall binding referendum. So the not outsourcing that keeps the jobs in Mexico. Mexico Mexico has been doing what every country in the world's been doing. Instead of hiring people directly they'll contract out the companies. Okay, and if that's not not necessarily international but the message not international but in the sense of whatever the core function of your businesses you can't outsource that function. Got it. Okay. You know outsource secondary functions to the company but because of you know as it's happening in many places. This was the outsourcing was a way of getting around paying people you know health benefits and pension benefits and you know what they're required to do by law. So and then the big ones, doubling vacation days. And then the energy reform and the nationalization of with you. I'm pretty busy for years. So let's start with because that's probably well in the electoral reform to three things. And even the referendum vote to keep, you know, yes thumbs up or thumb to down on whether or not should continue with term. Those are probably the three four things that the audience is most aware of. Unfortunately aware of because of how negatively those, those reforms have been articulated in the United States and you know before we went live you and I were talking about how this negative narrative pretty started on inauguration day or on low he was so clear about ending the failure of neoliberalism and having to build something else and for you you've been here in Mexico for 30 years so you've seen a good timeline of his political career and his vision, but from a lot of us and from the in the states that this was December of 18. So there was negative narrative beginning then and I would argue, really, really took off amplified fall of 2021. In the financial press, particularly in the states at Canada, Western Europe, and in fall of 2021 that was before these big votes spring of 2022 regarding the the reformation of electricity distribution and the nationalization of the lithium fields, the referendum for the president whether he should stay or finishes term or not. And then we've recently seen the, the INE INE Institute National Electoral reforms, which the US media has portrayed as in your article is so good about this is just heinously undemocratic, and they're really not anything particularly strong just kind of a cleanup. Yeah. Of complicated resources and. Yeah, things that good capitalist would want to see happen in their private businesses efficiency. Supposedly. These good capitalists always talk about efficiency with other people when it has to do with top salaries, you know all of a sudden it's like oh no you can't touch top salaries you're going to chase talent away. Right, which is kind of the argument they tried to use with the obscene salaries they're paying the top counselors at the Electoral Institute. You know what I think. First of all the United States has no like to stand on lecturing anybody about democracy right with gerrymandering bought elections. You know, people who sit in Congress for 50 years, you know, it's basically you know you were describing earlier, you know this this one party state between the pre and upon is pretty much that's pretty much exactly what it is. Absolutely. And I think what's really important to understand about Amlo is he created a new party in 2014. Morena. Morena means movement of the regeneration national or the national regeneration movement. But it's a very clever acronym because morena also means a dark skinned woman, morena morena. Right. So the name resonates. And they broke that they broke that system apart. Basically the the elites idea was to have basically passed the ball back and forth between two right wing parties, the P and upon, you know, bounce the ball back and forth. Fortunately, Mexico has public financing for campaigns. And, you know, there was a charismatic leader of, you know, in the person of Amlo, who started morena. And all of this is only happening because morena broke that, you know, broke that up. Right. There was another small part of the prd which was the left wing party before morena but it had been co opted. Basically, so that that's important. That's important to lay out. Right. But Mexican democracy, you know, it's like the New York Times and the Atlantic, you know, they come down here, they talked to two rich white people and then, you know, they write, go and leave. And they don't take the time to study the history of electoral frauds in Mexico. You know, they, they like to paint the the in a as this pristine institution that ushered in democracy from above to this passive Mexican public. That's not what happened at all. Democracy has grown in Mexico, despite the evening, despite what the in a and its predecessor the east they did in the 2006 election. Despite what the in a did in the 2012 election when in Pena Nieto overspent the, the campaign spending limits on 13 times, which should have annulled the election. Now, there was all kinds of dirty elections, the state of Mexico in 2017, all kinds of scandals when governors from the PRI would divert state resources from state budgets into campaigns. Right. This also came out in the Garcia Luna trial, they would divert money from state budgets to buy campaigns and buy favorable media coverage is all these are electoral crimes that in a never did a thing, never did a thing. Right there fat salaries at the top, and let all this go on because the email was part of that whole cleaned, right. But this is this idea that democracy comes from institutions with people in suits from above, rather than it being a long struggle of people from below fighting, fighting, fighting to get fair elections. And then finally, after several tries succeeding so well in 2018 that they won by a fraud proof margin. You know, if they'd only one by two or 3% that's dealable. If you win by 30% will you they just, they flooded the system, the choice but to accept the result. That, you know, just as a side note that play, I've seen that play out throughout the Americas and there's a whole series as the audience as a whole series of presidential and legislative elections in the Americas, beginning in Bolivia fall of 2020 all the way through Brazil. Fall of last year. And for progressive and leftist governments, the campaigns were really really focused on what you just said, winning by a decisive majority, so that the results could not be disputed domestically challenged domestically, nor could they be challenged in the international press, particularly by, by the West, and, or by the way, yes, right with Louisa. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, who was, who was the guy who got the whole Bolivia coup under underway. One of the most big foreign policy goals has been to create some form of Latin American cooperation which would render the OAS, if not eliminated altogether, which they should at least make it obsolete sideline. You know, he was really, and I've shared with you this was one of my most regarding the OAS and, and more democratic regional institutions and America for all Americans I think is what on low said I'm in July of 2021. And I think that fabulous discourse on the 238th anniversary of Simone Bolivar's birth, I would encourage the audience to listen to that speech, and I think, even if you Google it there is an English translation to for me it was the most profound and important speech of 2021 and maybe, you know, of the last 10 years and and I would argue this is one of the things the United States is, you know, pushing back against now, you know, negative narrative, and he really laid out a vision of regional integration regional cooperation, the, how the obsolescence of the OAS. The importance of Simone Bolivar's vision of the Americas to unite and push back against what he saw in his lifetime happening in North America. And, and really, I guess I, I see it this way or try to explain it this way that for him it's not so much the elimination of the United States because it is an important trade partner and and hemispherically, there's military advantages also. But I'm really sees the heads of state of the Americas sitting at a round table versus an oblong table with the US or a rectangular table with the US at its head. Yes. And we saw that play out in the whole Summit of the Americas controversy this past year. Right. Very clearly said that rebellion actually began in the Caribbean and then, you know, began spreading, right. When I'm the said, you know, the United States can't pick and choose who goes to the Summit of the Americas, it's a summit of all the Americas. And just very simple, if they leave countries out, I'm not going to go. Right. And something as simple as that sent the State Department into a tizzy. You know how to handle this, you know, rank disobedience because what you're supposed to do is go to the Summit of the Americas, bend your knee and feel T United States and try to, you know, plead some foreign aid out of them. That's the idea of the United States. You know, are trying to get money out of us. Right. And instead of what I said is respecting regional and national sovereignty. And the State Department didn't know how to handle it. It was all a very messy thing that spilled over. Right. Very clumsily handled until I'm just, you know, didn't go now. Others didn't go as well. I don't think what was right there with their, with their sign with Apollo there. Yeah, no. It was, you know, when he, when he made this, I mean, I think it was that one of his morning press conference May 10. Exactly. I think of last year. And I will say we were so very fortunate. I will just give a shout out to Jesus Ramirez Cuevas, who that afternoon of May 10, did a special edition episode with us to talk about on low not his decision to not go to the summit of the Americas and why that came about and so I don't have that episode of the audience wants to, to share that we're, but the inference and all of that was, to me, differences aside, we are all right, you know, the cooperation is possible. And just because we have differences as individual countries in the Americas does not mean there isn't space to cooperate and work together. It was a teachable moment. Yeah, it really was. Yeah. And that's, and I would say that's for all of us in the activist world too. We all, we have a lot of differences, but the common ground is what needs to be, you know, the goal. And he really articulated that and personified it. Yeah, to this day. And I think that's played out in some of his actions as well. Mexico was kind of seen as kind of a big brother in Latin America because it's, you know, one of the largest countries, one of the largest economies and it's the buffer to the United States Mexico's geographical position of taking all the heat and we see that right now, right with, you know, all this nonsense about invading Mexico and everywhere else, Mexico has to take the brunt of that heat and pressure from the United States directly. But, you know, what do we see I'm on action when more allies is deposed and a coup in 2019. He sends a plane, and they save able more allies got him out of there just in time. Actually, he probably would have he probably would have been killed. Right. He refused to recognize Juan Guaidó in Venezuela. And, you know, Guaidó has progressed to become a laughing stock. So, and he invited Nicholas Maduro the elected president of Venezuela as well to the Salak summit. The Salak summit, yes, the president of Venezuela, the president of Cuba, you know, and there was argument there was debate between the right wing leaders and the left wing leaders of Latin America at that summit but they were all at the same table. They were all the same. Right. And then you say what to say. Right. Most recently in Peru. He was very quick to say this is, you know, this is not right. You know, because the US and the US press all tried to say oh well this is this is played out by constitutional means. I said, no, this is a coup. And the CEO is illegally jailed. The new Dina Baluarte is a spurious leader, an illegitimate leader, and has repeatedly called out Lisa Kenna, the US ambassador in Peru and former CIA operative for helping bolster Dina Baluarte. These are the reasons why the US aren't happy. They don't care about Mexico's elections. They couldn't give a about the DNA. Like they care. They care that Mexico is taking control of its energy resources and that it's adopting a role of leadership in the region of Latin America. And those are two things going back to the Wolfowitz Doctrine and even before our no knows for the US. And just are right with regards to the energy reform. Mexico was being bled dry by foreign energy concerns, like Iberdrola from Spain, not energy energies and interest in the United States, who because of the previous energy reforms, the national grid in Mexico, built over decades by the Federal Electricity Commission, the public Federal Electricity Commission. Mexico is not an easy country to build an energy infrastructure for its very mountainous. The Pueblos are very remote. The distances are very long. So for the Federal Electricity Commission to have electrified the entire country was an incredible feat. We're talking about the Netherlands. We're talking about a very difficult geographic country to connect right, but then huge, a huge country, a very big country geographically large and population wise large. Yes, right 130 million. The energy reform has meant that they had to open that grid to private energy companies, who could then use that grid for their own private gain, because then they could create associations of energy, produce energy, you know, some of it green energy, but that energy wasn't going to the public. That green energy was not going to the public. They were selling that energy to Mitsubishi to Walmart to our companies to the multi nationals right to the oxo convenience store chain. We saw an incredible, incredible scan where multi nationals were using a whole, you know, discourse of greenwashing basically to set up shop in Mexico and make a killing using the public grid. It sounds familiar. Right. cases and the states that have led to terrible blackouts and such. So that's what I'm low reforms, the energy reform law, which, you know, US Ambassador Ken Salazar was all up in arms about, you know, Ken Salazar who spent his life lobbying for fossil fuel interests, only to come to Mexico and try to reinvent himself as this green guru. Right, just study what's done in his life. In Obama's cabinet. What the energy reform law says it's very simple. Public sources of energy go in the public grid first. And then if we need more, we'll get private energy. They couldn't handle that because that means they're guaranteed subsidy was over their joy ride was over. That was that was the big thing there. Right. See that, you know, even though it was even threatening to subsidize the social life. Yeah, for private profit. Yeah, the socialized infrastructure for private profit. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's what it was. And we can see how right on the was because, you know, after Ukraine and the energy crisis in Europe. Now, what are they paying for energy in Great Britain right now with privatized energy companies? Right. What are they paying in Spain with those exact same companies? Iberdrola in Spain you get your bill right from Iberdrola not even from the government. Wow, people were out in the streets in Spain protesting energy bills. I'm always right. He said we're not going to do that. We're not going to turn into them. Well, and, you know, it's a compromise of sovereignty of the sovereignty of the domestic population and without the domestic population being sovereign, there's no opportunity to achieve national sovereignty. That's right. That's right. You know, national sovereignty is abstract, unless you can power your own economy and feed your population. Yeah, very practical matter at that point. Countries simply don't have energy resources and they have to get them from abroad. But Mexico is energy rich. Dating back to the colony, Mexico is mineral rich. It's energy rich. You know, it has oil, it has wind in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. You know, it's got a climate that's very fertile for growing. Mexico is rich in resources. That's why there's so much interest in Mexico. They didn't have things that foreign countries wanted. They wouldn't care. One of those things is lithium, right? I was just going to say that. That's nice, nice trend. My little segue wasn't that good? Yeah, no, perfect. In the state of Sonora, dangerously close to the US border, they have one of the largest reserves of lithium in the world in Mexico, together with the triangle of countries, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and South America. And parts of Peru. And parts of Peru. Peru, folks. Yeah. Peru where there was just a coup in December of last year. Yeah. So, one of the big reforms was to nationalize lithium and they're setting up lithium mix, they're setting up the national public national lithium company like Pemex. And the goal is not simply to sell lithium as a, you know, as a primary mineral resource, but to work together with Argentina, with Bolivia, with Chile, to manufacture the lithium and electric vehicles, batteries, you know. So, to develop finished products. Right. Yes. To break with Latin America traditional role as part of the periphery and quote unquote of just furnishing industrialized nations with right with raw materials. The threat to the United States as well. There's a phenomenon that we're seeing now called near shoring, where post pandemic, a lot of Asian countries are relocating to Mexico, in order to have access to, you know, the US market, right. United States is all you know, once they finish their proxy war in Ukraine I want to pivot and start a war with China. And so they, they use that saber rattling discourse in Latin America you saw the head of the Southern Command, who was saying China is can starting to control America's lithium resources are resources. Excuse me your country is sitting on our lithium. Can you get your country out of the way. So, if you don't we will. Yeah. First of all, it's not true that China controls these lithium resources, right. These are these countries controlling their own energy resources, but they don't want to say. They're trying to frame it that if we don't go in China will. So, it's a recipe for more interventions. Yeah. You know, this I have in our chat in our live chat we've got a great question, a couple really good questions I want to run by you but first, I want just want to share that. Last night there was a really last night here in Mexico City. There was a really, really informative event that the Institute on national political or a national Institute for political formation by by morena, which as the audience knows this as a theme we've talked about throughout the broadcast of this program the importance of political education and and movement building with absolutely the movement building and and so the iron fp is doing this and not just for the domestic popular population but for Mexicans in the diaspora as well who can vote at their respective embassies. Thanks to the electoral form. Thanks to the electoral for yes and that was one of the much maligned electoral reform is going to allow millions of Mexicans to finally be able to exercise their right to vote to participate. In this event lesson, we had the Bolivian Bolivian ambassador to Mexico, that a fabulous PowerPoint presentation on energy sovereignty in our Americas and he talked about just exactly what you said from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, up to Mexico. And, and it was really really clear when you look at his PowerPoint presentation and, and you know how it was just extraction is a neocolonialism the profitability of lithium today is skyrocketed. But if you look, if you transpose a map of where all the recent coups have been I would say since no October of 2019 in Bolivia. All the coups have been in the Americas, in all those countries with lithium fields. Every one of them and most recently Peru in December of 2020, 2022. Yeah, I mean it's really. It's so it's not subtle. It's just fantastically not only obvious. Yeah. Look at the coverage Mexico has been getting like you said, the anti AMLO coverage began as soon as he took office and certainly years before, but it's just been broadly obvious how it's been ramped up recently. Right. Oh yeah, it's a total me it's a, I would argue it's, it's, you know, basically a media coup attempt. It is quite frankly I don't know. So, let me hear, I have a couple questions from from Jean and I have to and Jean is joining us from Central America, and is a really loyal viewer of this program. I love, I love the comments, always, and the interaction so Jean is asking, what actions does it look like the United States is taking, or will take against Mexico to stop all of this and think clearly this media coup but maybe we should talk about the most recent articles coming out of out of the States and maybe the first and foremost is the heinous one last Sunday in Washington Post by Farid Zakaria. Oh my God. I mean, it's a hit, though, they're just hits, they just hits. What happens is I have a piece in Jacobin about this about a year ago. You know, these American think tanks and academic institutions, right, like the Baker Institute of Rice University or the Wilson Center in Washington funded by Congress right and a bunch of others in our American dialogue. Right. They, they, they bring together elites from Latin America with, you know, interests in the United States and they plug them right into media. That's why you keep saying the same people being quoted over and over and over. And these pieces because they're lazy they couldn't be bothered to actually want to talk to actual real, you know, people out in the street right. So what you see is a series of hits one after the other. And what they're basically doing is just repeating the talking points from the right wing in Mexico, and then calling them articles. Now this is a long term thing in Latin America, the function of the American media has always been to provide, you know, a microphone for a cast of elites in Latin America. So being true to form, right, and country through out, you know, country after country in Latin America. That's what the New York Times does. That's what, you know, the post does that's what all the American media does, right. They give a voice to the cast. I want to argue with those think tanks in the media, a lot of ex office holders on the right wing, specifically presidents get jobs. I mean as soon as they're out of office, they're offered jobs at these Washington DC tank tanks. Yep, yep. I mean, most recently one of the owners of on notice and even do key of Columbia, right, they're all just recycled they recycled through these think tanks, and they recycled through these university positions. Right. Or they recycled through a corporate board, but they're all connected, right. Felipe Calderon after office, went to work for a subsidiary of the bedrullo, right the same, and the same industry he was trying to privatize. Ernesto city you the Mexican president after leading office, he went on the board of, you know, of a train company that he helps privatize and then, you know, city bank, which he also helped privatize it. So you privatize something and then you get on the board. Right. Exactly, which we, you know, the prototype for that was the Dallas brothers in Guatemala, the Dallas brothers in Guatemala, of course. So to go back to these, these hits, the hit is that Mexico that I'm low is playing right into the stereotype of any moderately progressive leader in Latin America. You have to dehumanize them. So he's an authoritarian autocrat lover of dirty energy because he wants to take energy. So on one hand he's an authoritarian autocrat. Even though he has a press conference and takes questions from the press for two to three hours a day. And on the other hand, he's like this mystical fool. Right. So during the pandemic. He made a joke of his press conferences that he had a kind of an amulet that protected him. The American press was sure that he was talking seriously. So he's a mystical fool who likes amulets. He was over in Yucatan Peninsula recently he mentioned this mythical animal called the aloo shea. President shared a picture of a mythical being. So the idea is you have to dehumanize, either by painting them out to be an autocrat, an authoritarian dictator, right. You know, just today in France, Macron is passing a pension reform by decree without a vote in Parliament after they just been a lot of people in the street. I don't think they're going to call him an authoritarian Western European allies threat to democracy and the mystical who likes amulets and aloo shades. What you know isn't just a dehumanization of the Mexican president but it's a complete insult to the people and their culture. They're not just attacking one man near attacking the entire culture associated with those traditions. That's a very important point because you know you have people now like Dan Crenshaw and Mike Walts who, you know you have the right trying to gin up a use of force resolution, supposedly against the Mexican cartels. Then you have, you know, the David Frums and the Ann Apple bombs, you know, who are on this kind of establishment liberal side who have their cause now in the Enate, right. But the target is always exactly that. It's an insult to the entire Mexican public. Right. And even if there's an invasion of Mexico, which there's very likely not going to be. It puts the Mexican American population, the Latin American population in general United States at greater risk for hate crimes for illegal search. You know, illegal stop and search, police brutality, entering into houses, illegal detaining illegal deportation, because, you know, the idea now is that Mexicans are now all forcing Americans to take fentanyl that it's all Mexico. Right. I'm actually literally going to talk about fentanyl comes from China. Let's talk about this fentanyl for a moment because that is like the latest attack, the weapon that's being used right now. And that's like, yes, the choice, right. Yeah, that's the, you know, we've had the lithium and the and the electoral reform and it's so now it's so now we have the fentanyl. And the fentanyl comes from China. Not manufactured in Mexico. It comes from China. And the largest market for fentanyl is the population of the United States, just like the cocaine. So that is never addressed, but one of the things and I have to say this has been very impressive watching the president of Mexico, Amla, and his team, including his foreign minister, really vociferously push back against this US narrative. And in fact, the foreign, the Mexican foreign minister is going to be doing a tour of the United States was like 300 stops to talk about what Mexico has achieved in stopping fentanyl and how it is so superior to what the United States has has actually done. Yeah. Turning the lens on it. I mean, it's brilliant. It's it's brilliant and super important. Because the idea is to use Mexico as a very convenient punching bag, again for the 2024 election, like we've seen will be the punching bag before with bad hombres and build the wall. So now fentanyl and the cartels, right. You think that the US would have learned its lessons from the Garcia Luna trial that just that just wrapped up. Right. When you support corrupt governments like that for they pick out their own. When you give free reign to corrupt people like gonna stay got to see a Luna that creates a problem that creates a crisis. Instead, they're trying to undermine the very government that's trying to clean this stuff up. Right. Everything the US does in Latin America always makes things worse. Pretty much everywhere. Everywhere. And we're specifically in Latin America. Your democracy. It's just so short sighted that they want things to continue as they were before when the secretary of public security was in Hawk to the center lower cartel. When that when the country was rotten to the core back in the Calderon years, right when the federal police were unloading cocaine shipments in the Mexico City airport has came out at trial. When members of the center lower cartel were wearing uniforms by the AFI the federal intelligence agency of Mexico when they went out to do their operations. That was the degree of symbiosis between the government in New York and organized crime. And the new liberal era in general but in the Calderon and Fox governments. And in particular, which carried on to pinion yet though. And this is what I was up against. You know he's been criticized for leaning a lot on the on the military, but the federal police were totally compromised. No, the intelligence services were totally compromised. I think it's pretty amazing that he's been that they've been able to create the degree of welfare state they had in the drop that they assumed right when they when they when they took office at the end of 2018. And then you see the US deliberately undermining. You know, the most important reform effort in Mexico in 70 years, and not only undermining it but as you say just absolutely insulting Mexican public in the process right if you read the New York Times coverage, you know, anybody who supports on the silly or bought off by social programs. Right or just prize by his messianic ability to deceive people. There's not, well they use that against Rafael Korea to Korea anybody. You know, I would, I would argue that this negative media campaign against the Mexican president and his policies is, and like we were saying, you know, you're not just attacking man you're attacking the entire nation and it's people regardless of political nation, you're attacking these people, their culture, their language their, their ethnicity, everything when you attack their, the president, you're attacking the entire nation of people. In doing that. I, I believe the US is creating the exact opposite of what the intention is, it's creating a greater sense of what it means to be a Mexican is creating a greater sense of nationality in the country and outside the country as well among Mexicans in the diaspora. Creating the exact opposite. And not just here I think we've seen that play out in a number of countries across the Americas, you know when the US starts attacking, you know what you voted for what the majority of the people voted for it really. It's attacking, attacking against everyone. Yeah, I want to believe that's true. You know there's a minority of people in Mexico who obviously against the quarter of day and against Hamlo and they have every right to do that. But there it's a minority, and it's a minority of you know media interests like in the United States that control the television and print media. Fortunately, Mexico has a very active ecosystem of YouTubers. And it's just gotten really and that goes back to the time when I was in opposition for so many years and he was banned from TV. He was practically couldn't be on TV. So, very early on, the Mexican left took to social media took to YouTube Facebook and so there's there's a real extensive network of social media which has been very very very important. I mean, the current administration is like the example for for the hemisphere at how to communicate and communication and and using all the infrastructure available zoom Twitter, Instagram they do YouTube they do all of it. They do all of it. I mean, and the money needed them his day press conference, where he just set out. He lays it out because direct communication with the public. Right. He calls out correct media interests, right. People like Lorette Mola who's, who's created a career out of falsifying news stories and it's become a multi multi multi millionaire in the process. Now, for instance, I said, Oh, you can't criticize his people because then you're attacking the media. No, he's not attacking the person on the street is going after a corrupt cast of very super wealthy media interests who are on the take. Right. I've been running publicity money for a long time. So that's been very well. What I find so maybe with these morning, these, these daily news conferences that the president, he, I mean, their live streamed on his Twitter feed. I have a million viewers every morning. People wake up to the money and you know, wake up and they really do this public life is that's where these issues are debated every day. It's phenomenal. Yeah, it's an example for everyone throughout the Americas. It's, it's phenomenal and it gives listening to them there's there's there's several things going on. It's not unlike the fireside chats that those of us from the states have learned about with the Roosevelt the Frank FDR administration, the fireside chats, you know, this is kind of what they are. And, but they're an opportunity to inform all of all Mexican citizens, not just those people that voted for him, you know, about what new policies are being implemented and why what what the president's doing today and why. What happened yesterday, if there was a success, if he got, you know, chastised in the press, he can address it right away in the morning. Okay, we made a mistake. Here's what we did. Here's what we're doing to fix it. Or yeah, and it's, but there's also, I think, with all that communication and using the opportunity to educate the public. There is secondarily some enormous political formation going on. Yes, indeed. And it's in its brilliance. It's really a brilliant team that's in place right now. And it's funny that when I'm low began doing his daily press conferences, all kinds of people criticized it saying, you know, this idea is very, this idea from, you know, handlers and high paid consultants that you can't overexpose someone you have to hold them back and engage the parents, right, really curate. Set peace appearances and, you know, not too often and restrict access. This gave the lie to all of that, all of that high paid, you know, consultants and marketing people or whatever else. He goes out there for two hours a day, sometimes three hours a day, take questions from anybody. You know, they'll get into it with someone they'll get into it with him. Right. It's a very free flowing thing back and forth. It's very democratic. Very democratic. Sometimes people bring an issue that he didn't know. And he says, oh, we will figure out what's going on with this. And I'll come back the next day. You know, things happen there and it's a space for people to realize that, you know, politics is not just voting and forgetting about it or going off to brunch. Right. Exactly. Well, there is participatory. It's participating. It's consistent and it's constant. Every day. Yeah. Because, you know, this movement behind Amla was there from when he won the Mayorship of Mexico City in 2000. Then they tried to leave off the ballot in 2006 to go after him with a trumped up charge to strip him as political immunity and keep him off the ballot. People fought against that. The fraud 2006 the campaign of 2012, you know, most people would have given up already. But I'm a card in this couldn't, you know, he was also cheated out of an election in 88, but that was, you know, more or less the end of him. He didn't have this consistency, this persistency, this, you know, this stubborn that we're going to keep going at this. And this movement, this Lorena movement under him to help, which is just is crucial to have have that base under you and a base that's that's politicized. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. One of the attacks against Amla recently was the attack from this ONG in Great Britain index on censorship, which not surprisingly gets money from the National Endowment for Democracy and, you know, the director of the index on censorship as one of the former Labor MP that was one of the anti-corbanites there. Right. And so they tried to go after Amla calling him tyrant of the year over from Great Britain, right. But it's funny too, because these are the same people that destroyed Jeremy Corbyn. They cast around and they cast around. They said first he was a Czech spy, then he was an IRA sympathizer and they tried to find something they tried to find something and they finally found something and hammered him into the ground. Amla is very careful to not let himself be corbed, you know, or even. Yes. Right. And the money and data in the social media outreach and the politicized base, and this constant going back and going back and going back to media corruption, and also a product sector corruption, corruption of previous administrations, it's important and it's educational. You know, you have you can't do things enough. Yeah, no, exactly. You know, people, just to me, and my, you know, observation was the next one have it. People because of these morning talks. And again, regardless of political affiliation more and more people relate to him as a human being. You see, you know, this is our president. This is our president like you have access. Like you said, this isn't a curated public figure. People have access, regardless of differences, which again, I think, I think Amla was really great at embodying discourse among people who have different opinions on pretty much everything you know he's he embraces all of it and learns from it. And uses those things as a teaching moment but more and more people perceive him as this is my president. You know, my present because there's that that so important relationship building and authentic. He's in there slugging it out for me every day. That's the sense. Yeah, yeah. No, it's really, really important and it's, and it's going to be more important every day as this US media campaign against him. This is gets stronger. ratchet it up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So current. What, what points have we not talked about. We've been talking for an hour I hope. I haven't kept you from something, but what, what have we not touched on before I let you go. Well, I think a couple things, a couple things. You know, one thing is that Amla has has managed to maintain a popularity ranking and the high 60s are close to 70%. Despite a pandemic that has toppled, you know, more than one world leader. I like this constant barrage of attacks from both domestic and international media. And that's no small thing. Right. Well, you know, coming out of the pandemic to just I think it was last week that we said that the strength of the peso against the dollar. Well, that was another thing I was going to mention perfect. Okay, sorry. It's phenomenal coming out of the pandemic. Yeah, tourism in Mexico and all the economic fallout. I mean that's profound. Again, something else the US would not be happy. No, it's funny because during the pandemic, I'm the refused to borrow from international, you know, international, you know, like the IMF and such. Well, private companies. And all of a sudden, everybody who's so conservative most of the time saying leftists are spend thrips, then was criticizing Amla for not going into debt. It was very funny. Why isn't he going into debt? Why isn't he out of businesses? Right. Because you get somebody once you get a country in debt, you've got them. Oh, yeah. No, and then there comes a stereotype in the privatization of institutions and infrastructure, the whole thing. Everything that he's trying to break. There were enough devaluations to know that very well that's also a sovereignty issue for him to not going into debt. Now, at him to be particularly cautious with regards to budgets, you know, no, you know, very low deficits and, you know, very keeping very tight reins on spending, which has been criticized for. And that's fine. You know, I think there's room for following governments certainly to do a tax reform raise taxes on the wealthy and expand, you know, beyond some of the budgetary investments that Amla imposed, but that allowed Mexico to get through the pandemic without going into debt and without a devaluation. On the contrary, foreign investment is up. Foreign reserves are up. And the peso has appreciated against the dollar. Under 18, he inherited it 1920. Right. And the biggest attack against Amla was that Oh, it's going to be devaluation. It's going to be devaluation. The devaluation was the previous governments, not this one. Exactly. Not this one. Right. So that list of that list of social programs that I mentioned at the beginning, you know, the pensions and the scholarships and the apprenticeships. You know, all of these things. It's been done without, you know, without indebtedness. Right. It's been done without impending the country, which is always the narrative of the stage was too expensive. We can't afford it's going to. Yeah. And he's done it. Hey, it's almost, you know, listening to you describe what he's done and how he's done it. And super important that it didn't, you know, take any IMF loans, but that's a whole nother. He was not going to go into that trap. He knows what the IMF is all about. He basically is socially liberal and fiscally conservative, balancing the books. I mean, that's, you know, that's where all are. It's very prudent. It's very smart. It's necessary. It's what most family households can relate to, you know, and they sit down and look at how they're going to manage their, their home for for the next week, the next month. It's like, what do we have? What can we do with it? And, you know, Yeah, that's a very human thing. It is. I would have liked him to see him be more progressive in certain in certain respects. But I think we have to understand, you know, global South countries do not have the leeway that global North countries to, you know, the United States can borrow, borrow, borrow, and it has, you know, the petrodollar behind it. And kind of this idea that the United States is always going to pay its debts, although we're getting to the point where we should be seriously questioning that. So, you know, the United States can allow its kind of ridiculousness of the debt limits and, you know, all this ridiculous stuff that they pull in Congress all the time, right, because they have the international financial system stacked in their favor. The global South country does not have that leeway. It does not have that leeway, you know, it can open itself up to, you know, runs on banks people pulling out investment evaluations so you have to be careful when you're in the global south when the financial system is stacked against you that you can always, you know, you have to understand the caution. Well, yeah, I mean, it's a matter of sovereignty again, you know, and avoiding that, that colonial trap, the banking colonial trial. Yeah, it's very, very important. Let's have one more question here in the live, in the live chat. What is Mexico doing about creating renewable energy? I think solar is a big, big push for solar here. Yeah, they just actually opened one of the biggest solar projects in the world in Sonora. There's also some very interesting solar projects, for example, in Mexico City, like on the roof of one of the things the Ibasos market there but it's one of the largest urban solar installations. So this is a place where Mexico has, you know, a lot of room to grow. Mexico has a very sunny climate over 100 days a year of sun. So, you know, and that's definitely a place for for growth there. That said, there's been a lot of unfair discourse against Amal that he loves dirty energy and he loves, you know, he's a throwback to the 70s and such, you know. Yeah, that's another thing we're seeing in the US. Now that Germany is going back to coal, for example, Biden is opening up the Arctic to, you know, that awful drilling project that Biden has been, you know, trying to expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. This kind of lecturing of countries like Mexico, which produces 1% of global emissions, whereas the US and China combined produce like 40%. His extraordinarily hypocritical part of the almost energy reform was to rehabilitate Mexico's hydroelectric resources which they have a lot of in the south and east public hydroelectric systems which has pros and cons. But, you know, it doesn't they're not carbon emitting. So, I think, first, I think the first step was to take more public control over Mexico's energy and stop the bleeding stop the bleeding on these projects in the gaming and the system of private companies. Right. And then it's, you know, where can we go on greener energy, but greener energy that isn't being made by foreign multinationals for, you know, for other foreign multinationals, it has green energy that, you know, helps the local populations. For example, those wind projects in the south of Mexico, you've seen them probably in the news those large. Some of the poorest pueblos in Mexico live right underneath those wind projects and they don't get that wind energy. They don't get them because they're private projects, which, you know, pay very little for the leases on those on those on the lands where the with those windmills are built. So you think you have you have to get that straightened out first, otherwise any project is going to re replicate a lot of the problems of the neoliberal era. Right. There's a ways to go on that. Right. And so that's that's certainly an Arab. The favorites for more than ever 2024 Claudia shine bum is the current mayor and governor of Mexico City, an engineer, and very interested in projects like that. Yeah, there was a really good article, I should put that well I want to share with the audience a number of your articles I'll put them in the program notes. There's a recent article I want to say maybe yesterday on on Claudia and her, and her successes and, and that she's one of three candidates. She's very, very well liked by the young people here in Mexico City, which is really nice I mean it's really wonderful to see a country with candidates that are inspiring and motivating young people to participate in the political process because that is not happening much, you know, in the states and other countries so it's really, really great. And I was really focused on that idea that there has to be a, what he calls that relevo generacional, you know there has to be passing the baton to younger political leaders, or the movement going to continue. Well that's the future of the country. And it's also been a problem of left movements in Latin America not, not doing enough to usher in and create new generations of leaders and that's why that Institute of political formation of morena is very important. Yeah, although I will say, you know I've gone to a number of events right at the Institute of itself, we live in person and most of us, most of the live attendees are my father, which is really wonderful. I mean in talking with a lot of the attendees and many of them will say you know when I was in college I never dreamed in my lifetime we would have a president, such as Lopez overdue. And I mean they're in tears when they share this with you. And most of the young people that participate via zoom and Facebook and Facebook that audience is all younger. But that's important that that technology has been used because that generation has been born and raised with those with that technological infrastructure and so that's all there for them to embrace and participate that way as well. Yeah, it's very exciting as as as someone from outside Mexico seeing the board is exciting. I find it exciting. And I find kind of the, the silence of the American left on Mexico in general to be finally puzzling, you know, especially the critical and like this, you know, when I agree, aggressive internationalist this is kind of an all hands on deck moment when the press again, but this you know, this might be a time to take a look at what's going on, you know, there, there's some kind of people on the left to say I'm low isn't left enough and he isn't, you know, Mexico hasn't had a left wing government 70 years. You know, and it's been through hell. It's been through hell. So, you know, let's let's see things in their historical and geographical context and also look at actually what's being done. What's actually being done and not being and not being reported. And also, what any progressive leader in Latin America has to go through constantly, which is this kind of constant media barrage constant elite barrage, because make no mistake I think this is an important point by questioning the electoral reform like they've been doing in the American press. They're trying to invalidate the 2024 election. Exactly. They're setting the stage for that. They're setting the stage for that because I know exactly what's going on. Yeah. That's the cool aspect. That's the cool aspect. They're trying to kind of a color revolution kind of idea. They're trying to directly and cite the right way in Mexico to not recognize their, you know, what's going to happen in those elections. With LAS, right? Yeah, I would agree 100% that is exactly what this narrative is about. Yeah, in this moment. Yeah, for sure. So there was one other thing I wanted to ask you. Oh, you know, with just with the US left not focused on Mexico. I wonder how much of that is just failure of those of us from the globe or more the United States particular to just almost in a sense in this and I don't almost to not see Mexico, you know, it's a neighbor with a 3000 mile border. And, you know, we tend to look, okay, what's happening, you know, in Guatemala and Honduras and Nicaragua and Venezuela and Cuba and Bolivia, and we kind of just like hop right over. Yeah, that's what happens. It's not that people don't. Well, I would, I would argue a lot of people progressive and leftist and state really do not know what is happening in Mexico, precisely because we those of us from the north tend to look right over it. And go to, yeah. And, and also, and I think that's just an issue of geography and history, unfortunately, which we need to focus on correcting. Also, though, a lot of us from the states tend to yearn for something more revolutionary, and these governments in recent years who have changed constitution via the electoral process, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and as a whole list of them. That, that there's a lot of criticism coming from the states about those governments if they're not leftist enough they're not radical enough well these weren't hot revolutions. These were electoral. These were elections. These are movements that deliberately took the electoral path. Yeah. Right. And in doing that, you have to, you know, you are now president of an entire nation of people, not just those people that voted for you. And we tend to, we tend to overlook that in the north, I think. That's a very important point, Terry. Yeah. And I think that has to do with kind of the American or the US. Correct my correct myself. Yes, that's your US way of looking at Latin America. There's a degree of romanticization romanticization of Latin America. There's a degree of exoticization of Latin America. So, you know, I think the US imagination of Mexico is caught up in this idea of, you know, revolutionaries and poncho vias and and Frida's, you know, and back nearly 100 years ago, because there's this there's this idea because Latin America's, you know, the other in the US point of view, right, that there has to, it has to be, like you say, a romantic revolution, right on trains and, you know, with arms and people on horseback with big hats and such. And that almost kinds of exempts people from looking at the day to day slug of reforming a country that was on the pretty close to failing. Yes, the PRI and the plan was pretty, pretty close to failed state there and bringing it back from the brain. Exactly. And you know the other thing to to consider is that 70 years of neoliberalism of corruption of neocolonialism is not going to be undone and rebuilt by one six year presidential term. And that's, that's what this president has the constitutional house for one six year term. So the movement building in my opinion is so important so that you can, you know, build successive administrations to continue the project and that you are developing political thought and candidates to support to continue the project because if the project cannot be. It can be initiated in one six year term but to completely come to fruition it's going to take much more than one, one administration, and not just in Mexico, other countries as well. And that's why you need to have more than a winning, you know, consecutive terms, you know, Austin Bolivia, you know, you, you, it takes, it takes that long. You know, I think Amla was very careful to pick his battles, certain battles he picked, and he, you know, he's fought them with everything is that something's, you know, you can't do it all. So, you know, mining in Mexico is a terrible issue where American US and Canadian mining companies exploit, you know, yes, you know, it didn't go for that. He didn't, he didn't tackle. For example, you know, as much as he could, the banking system. Although he's doing the public option for banking. But it's a great, but it's a great start. And the business starts it's a good start with his battles, and he knows he's been the first to say it, you know, there's there's a lot to do for the next, you know, the for the next government. The good thing is they know exactly what they need to do. It's clear. Right. And I think for people who would, you know, everybody should be criticized. But I think if you go back to like a universal pension, doubling a minimum wage a public option for banking. There are private prisons fighting GMO porn, you know, union reform outsourcing reform, recall binding referenda housing benefit reform. Small business help, you know, if the Democrats had done just two of those things people would be thrilled. Democrats in the United States. Yes. Yeah, they don't do anything. No, for sure. Yeah, so it's an impressive list that you're reading off I mean I, you know, it's impressive. It's the dedication days, you know, nationalizing lithium, you know, bucking us on foreign policy. You know, there's some stuff there. Yeah. You know, and it's made and it's, and it's, it's made many, many people in Mexico very proud. Particularly with on low pushing back against the US narrative. I mean that is quite, I mean, that's quite something for people to see. And because it's humiliating if the US bullies you and your president just lets it go, which is which was the norm for the last 30 years. Right. Well, yeah, we're basically, you know, an undeclared state of the US subservient to the states and know it's really, yeah, it's really important to see that pushback and not just by the president but his bias communication team. And as we have seen the last few days by his foreign minister as well, which is, and that's important and they're getting the consoles at the consulates involved. Yeah, when he went to the US is he got all the consoles together. Yeah, because one of the control their narrative. Well, they got on the same page, right again the same big pushes in the 2018 campaign was to use consulates to advocate for immigrant rights in the US. And this is a good time to do that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, when you have a US senator threatening military invasion of your country. That's, that's not a light thing. We can ignore a statement like that, even considering where it came from. You just simply can't ignore a statement like that. That has to have a very strong response to it. Absolutely right. Yeah, right. And it's, you know, you have to be measured because sometimes, you know, who's Dan Crenshaw. And who that who's Michael towards these people, they're trying to find their 15 minutes of fame and they've latched on to the Mexican issue. Right. So you don't want to inflate them out of proportion to who they are, but also you don't want to let it go. Right. No, you can't. Graham's in the Senate. You know, he's in the Senate. One day he wants to bomb Mexico and he wants to bomb Russia because of the drones. I mean he's making himself look ridiculous like he wants everybody somebody. Citizen that's just that's that's my heinous thing to hear. It's a heinous I mean I don't want to see any more wars as a US citizen, either. Certainly none led and financed by the United States. But my God, you know, when somebody in your senses threatening you like that, that's not only is it, you know, offensive and you know, and all of that, it emboldens far right movements in Mexico, and that's something that can be true over the long term, because it feeds into rhetoric that I was a dictator that I was and everything they say that nobody believes. No, you know, average Mexican doesn't believe is all of a sudden they find repeated in the American press. You know, Mexico is a failed state mexico's a narcos state Mexico's out of control right. This feeds the far right it's just absolute fuel for the far right in Mexico. And that's damage that lives on far, you know, after you know once Lindsey Graham's moved on to some other stupid idea, or Dan Crenshaw has, you know, faded into oblivion, right, that oldening of far right interests in Mexico and in Latin America that remains. That's the color that's the color revolution setting the narrative, the stage for that. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, listen, what is there anything we've let me just see if there's any more questions. We've had a really terrific interactive chat tonight and I just want to make sure that we've asked it. Yeah, I think lots of questions but your, your, your comments have in our conversation have answered pretty everybody's concerns. So, and a lot of shots out to you in the chat. Oh, that's a lot of fans watching. Thank you everybody. People really really excited that that you agreed to be our guest this evening and I should also say a number of comments. thanking you for for the information and helping them understand the US Mexico relationship much more clearly. Success of the president. I think this would be a great time to take a look at what's happening Mexico take a look what's what's happening with the with the with the quarter of time. And also to take a look at what's happening in the, the Mexican community in the United States, or 40 million people of Mexican descent in the United States, you know, and so get to know your neighbors. I'm curious about Mexico because it's an interesting things going on. And I think what you said before was interesting it's like, it's a this so close so far kind of Mexico so yes, but on the other hand it's so far and attention seems tends to jump to other areas. But people within the United States can do so much to push back against this builds, man, this builds from David from who helped lie us into Iraq, and his editor at the Atlantic Monthly Katzenberg, who helped lie us into Iraq, or freed, who helped lie us into Iraq. Right. These people, Jean change in their blood, and they see Mexico as a caricature that can just be, you know, run over, you know, like a, you know, like a toy train. Right. And between that you do you know America's US pivot from Ukraine over to China and kind of sweet Mexico in the process. Most likely not going to happen, but it's very easy to see how when the United States is so unstable at the one and banks are closing and people are upset, and there's a lot of, you know, unhappiness and social, you know, they aren't going well in the US and US is global role is shrinking in the US is great deal of difficulty accepting that we're entering a multipolar world and it can't call all the shots anymore. It's flailing around it's flailing around exactly control, and it wants to hit here and it wants to hit there and it wants to shoot there and it wants to shoot over here is making it the country where anything could happen. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Do you think they're going to bomb Mexico tomorrow? No. Do I think things would escalate because the conservatives have their enemy in the cartels, and the quote unquote liberals have their cause in the, you know, yeah. Things could, you know, and if not tomorrow they could use it to make things more difficult for a next Moreno government or a next one these people always have a strategy destabilization is a long term strategy. Right. So it doesn't happen tomorrow. You know, they'll try again next year next year and try to build on what they've already done. All of this is by way of saying that anything people can do in the states, comments, and these articles letters to the editor, speaking up speaking out, you know, it's invaluable, because as of now, the right wing has had the run of it with regards to on loan. Everything about on low and English language press has been negative except my articles and a few. Everything, everything is only negative and uninforming. Yeah. Oh, even the smallest pushback against this narrative is more than there has been already. And it's, it's important when media, you know, did what you did at the Summit of the Americas that circulated. Yeah. You know, when people, you know, stand up for Mexico sovereignty and Mexico's right to its own democratic path that resonates. And it puts these, you know, New York Times Atlantic Washington Post, you know, thing after thing puts them in their place because these people come down. Mexico City, they hang out in the wealthy parts of Mexico City, they talk to the same people, right, they have their expense budgets, and they leave. Exactly. That's what they don't go to the north side of Mexico City and ride the new cable car, the public transportation system up the hillside and see the enormous benefits of project. Yeah, the, there are now two cable lines going up into the hills. One in the east and one in the north. And then connect right into the existing subway metro system terminals. It's really, you know, imagine that public public transportation that actually is efficient and easy to use. And cheap. The metro is five pesos. It's the equivalent of 25 cents. Yeah. It's a really easy to use. Yeah. Yeah, no, they don't see those sort of things. Okay, so all of you in the audience current has just shared with you your activist assignment from this episode is to use your, your voice, you know, to counter this anti-amlo and anti-40 narrative in the US media. And again, you know, it can be quite simple as just getting in the comments section of online, of an online post. You know, if you'd even try to get an op-ed piece published, but even those small little things do, do get read and they are influential. So, so that's, that's the activist assignment. They call the action for tonight's episode. We should end there. And, and just, and thank the audience for joining. We had a huge audience tonight. I'm so thankful to all of you and your interest in what is currently happening in Mexico and, and, and sharing your time with our guest. And also I should thank our, all of our broadcast partners. So let me, let me pull up the list so I don't forget anyone. First and foremost, we want to give a shout out to the Mexico Solidarity Project, who was our special broadcast partner this evening and Curt and I are both involved with that project. And, and our weekly partners include Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti, America's team, Codepin, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemisphere Affairs, Friends of Latin America, Interreligious Task Force on Central America, and Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas. And again, we are a popular resistance broadcast. So, in partnership with eight other organizations. So it's a wonderful coalition. And we're really thankful that the broadcast has has grown to such a great activist coalition. And so, so Curt. Thank you so much for your time. Extraordinarily generous of you to have such an expensive conversation and I hope we can do it again. And for the audience, if you've missed some of this you can rewatch it on on YouTube and or listen to the conversation on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcast and also I should say, we will read broadcast this episode next week. On Thursday, what is that the 23rd on Code Pink Radio, Curt and I have been asked to do a guest episode on Code Pink Radio which will broadcast Thursday 11am Eastern on WBAI out of New York City, WPFW out of Washington DC, and a number of other Pacific radio stations throughout the United States which, you know, we're thrilled for that invitation. If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm at Curt Hackbirth, not just, you know, for my own vanity but because, you know I've shared it in the chat multiple times. I'll be in Mexico and Mexico City on Saturday, as you'll be Terry right. There's going to be a mega meeting, mega rally by Morena and Amlo on Saturday to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the expropriation of petroleum, and it should be a very interesting. It's going to be exciting. Morena shows its muscle out on the streets because a lot of people go. I mean, just, you know, any old rally at the last March with Amlo in November they said a million and a half people went. Yeah. People were so excited about that. Oh my gosh, all the social media live streams and so people were just, yeah, was enormous excitement. Yeah. And then of course the US spun that as, you know, as the Mexican government paying people to attend. No, of course, right. Yeah, yeah, so much. Yeah, it's so crazy. So, okay, well I'll see you Saturday and then and hopefully we'll see you back on our program to, to continue this conversation about the fourth transformation here in Mexico. Thank you so much for your time and really just a pleasure to have this opportunity to work with you. That's great. Thanks, Darren. Okay.