WALL AGAINST REASON

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

This is actually a pretty accurate assessment of what Schopenhauer actually said in his essay ON SUICIDE.  Fitting for today.

THE WALL
BY
HON. CZAR DONIC

In the middle of the last century, Max Horkheimer wrote his ECLIPSE OF REASON and what was eventually to be called the FRANKFURT SCHOOL, was firmly established  It was a result of WWII and the treatment of people in Nazi Germany that helped make it popular, but it was followed by another work called THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY which pretty much established Critical Theory and a definitive theoretical discipline.  Adorno, Marcuse, and many others emerged from the school.  Habermas is the last I know of who was head of theat school.  Angela Davis wrote her Ph.D. dissertation with Adorno and, after she returned to the states, it was finished with Habermas.

Today, we are faced with a wall against reason.  Not logic, but reason, and this is not the place for a full discussion of the distinction.  Suffice to say, an accountant is capable of logic, but not reason.  The same goes for the current administration.

Too many absurd, patently absurd, things are going on and the news is replete with it.  A few things, however, are interesting.  Recently it was announced that terrorists obviously were crossing the Mexican border because some woman in one of the states saw a prayer rug out in the desert.  These days, that serves as proof positive for too many people. 

I believe that it was Voltaire who said words to the effect that life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel, but today's leader is capable of neither.  All activity is directly stimulated and processed by the Reptilian Cortex.  The authoritian personality of the "base" simply swallows it all, obeys, and believes.  Donald Trump, by himself, is doing what Charlie Chaplin did for Hitler back in the 30s.   

We could go back as far as the Monroe Doctrine to document our attitude toward the hemisphere, but we can skip the intervening years and get to the great reversals of the Reagan Era.  Of course, before that we had the murder of Alliende in Chile and his replacement by Pinochet, courtesy of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon.  We also had Jimmie Carter calling for the release of the prisoners in Cuba.  When Castro said they were mainly insane criminals, Carter insisted.  So, Castro complied.  Soon, we complained about all the killers and criminals Castro released to our shores.  Well, go figure.

It was during Reagan that the Iran Contra scandal broke out with Ollie North defending it.  See, David Ortega and his Sandinistas liberated Nicaragua and we then established a military counter called the "contras," making a deal with the Ayatollah of Iran to help arm them.  These military mercenaries continued to terrorize the south for years.  North is now spokesman for the NRA.

It is this treatment of the south that led to such a mass migration through Mexico, and it has nothing to do with Islam.  Yet, we hear about prayer rugs.  More to the point, for years, we have been manipulating the elections in Mexico.  One of the last we backed, against Obrador, was Vincente Fox.  When he was recently asked about the wall, he said, "We will not pay for his fucking wall."  Pretty clear as to what he thought.  The last guy had about an 8% approval rating, again we made shure that Obrador did not get elected.  Now, for some reason, he is the President of Mexico.  I don't know what happened there.

Perhaps Trump is as percepting as the legendary Republican Dan Quayle who, upon being down there for awhile, said "I really like the people.  I wish I had studied Latin more in High School."  We will never know, but you can see his role as the one real puppet not attacking Venezuela.

Here is some more:

he United States and allied nations in Latin America are ratcheting up pressure on Venezuela in what appears to be a coordinated effort to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office. Maduro was sworn in last week to a second 6-year term following his victory in last May's election, which was boycotted by the opposition. Days before Maduro was sworn in, opposition figure Juan Guaidó became head of the National Assembly, which soon voted to declare Maduro a "usurper" in an effort to remove him from office. The United States, Brazil and other nations have welcomed the effort. As the political crisis intensifies, Maduro has reached out to the United Nations to help establish a peace dialogue in Venezuela. We speak with Jorge Arreaza, Venezuelan foreign minister. He met with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres this week.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman. The United States and allied nations in Latin America are ratcheting up pressure on Venezuela in what appears to be a coordinated effort to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office. Maduro was sworn in last week to a second 6-year term following his victory in last May's election, which was boycotted by the opposition. Days before Maduro was sworn in, opposition figure Juan Guaidó became head of the National Assembly, which soon voted to declare Maduro a "usurper" in an effort to remove him from office.
The United States, Brazil and other nations have welcomed the effort. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, the U.S. "strongly supports the courageous decision by Juan Guaidó" to "declare the country's presidency vacant." On the day of Maruro's inauguration, January 10th, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Guaidó to congratulate him on his election victory to head the National Assembly. Then, national security adviser John Bolton announced, quote, "The United States does not recognize Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro's illegitimate claim to power," unquote. Brazil, now led by the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, has gone a step further by saying it recognizes Juan Guaidó as the rightful president of Venezuela, even though Guaidó himself hasn't even claimed that title. A group of Latin American countries known as the Lima Group also recently voted to not recognize the legitimacy of Maduro's presidency. Mexico was the sole dissenter.
The U.S.-led effort targeting the oil-rich nation of Venezuela dates back two decades, since the late Hugo Chávez became president in 1999. In November, John Bolton accused Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua of being part of a "troika of tyranny." In September, The New York Timesreported the Trump administration conducted secret meetings with rebellious military officers in Venezuela to discuss overthrowing Maduro. In August, Maduro survived an assassination attempt when he was attacked by a small drone. He accused the U.S. and Colombia of being involved in the plot. In 2017, President Donald Trump said he could not rule out a, quote, "military option" to deal with Venezuela.
All of this comes as Venezuela is facing a staggering economic crisis, caused in part by falling oil prices and broad U.S. sanctions. According to the IMF, inflation is over 1 million percent in the last year, the highest rate in the world. There are widespread reports of food and medicine shortages. The United Nations estimates 3 million Venezuelans have left Venezuela since 2015, resulting in what the U.N. has described as an "unprecedented migration crisis" in Latin America.
As the political turmoil intensifies, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has reached out to the United Nations to help establish a peace dialogue in Venezuela. Venezuela's foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, met this week with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres here in New York.
On Thursday, I had a chance to interview Foreign Minister Arreaza, who has served as foreign minister for the past three years. From 2013 to '16, he served as Venezuela's vice president. I began by asking him if he believes Venezuela is being set up for a coup.
JORGE ARREAZA: Of course. It's evident. And you see this man, who nobody knows in Venezuela—you ask in the streets, "Who is Juan Guaidó?" and nobody knows him—but he's being pushed to say that he is the new president, by the U.S. He hasn't said that, but Pompeo says it, Almagro from the OAS says it, and other presidents say that now he's the president. They are trying to push a political conflict in Venezuela. They are calling the armed forces to make pronunciations against President Maduro. That's what they want, a coup d'état in Venezuela. They want a war in Venezuela. And it's not going to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let's talk more about what you believe is the role of the United States in coalescing opposition to Maduro.
JORGE ARREAZA: They are the bosses of the opposition. They tell them what to do. Nothing that the opposition does is without the permission or authorization of the State Department, at least, here in the United States. And they confess this. They say, "We have to make consultations with the embassy. We have to make consultations with the Department of State." It happens. I mean, they are not free. They are not independent.
But in spite of all of that, the president is trying to sit, again, with the opposition—with the democratic opposition, not the extremist opposition that makes violent demonstrations and burns people alive, no? And that is what he's going to insist, on the dialogue. But this, what is happening now—John Bolton tweeting and doing communiqués, and Pompeo and everyone saying that Maduro is not the president, that he's illegitimate, that he's a usurper—come on, that is a coup d'état, again, against Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain that term, a "usurper." I mean, it looks like, you know, a case is being built for an overthrow, when he, when Guaidó, the opposition, the head of the National Assembly, announces that Maduro is a usurper.
JORGE ARREAZA: I mean, they are manipulating the Venezuela Constitution. They say that the elections, where almost 10 million Venezuelans voted and more than 6 million voted for Maduro, that this didn't happen. No?
AMY GOODMAN: The opposition boycotted?
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes, they boycotted it—not only the opposition, Washington and Bogotá and Lima and Santiago, these governments—no?–neoliberal governments in Latin America. So, they said, when the elections were conveyed, three months before the elections, they said they're going to be a fraud, and they wouldn't recognize the results. And then they pressed the potential candidates of the opposition not to register. And when some of them registered, they pressed them to retire, to withdraw. And they didn't. And now they say that because the elections were a fraud, then there's no president of Venezuela, so the president of the National Assembly has to be the new president. And all these governments and the U.S. government are encouraging this thesis. So, it's very dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to continue on what the U.S. is doing. In November, national security adviser John Bolton claimed Venezuela was part of a "troika of tyranny."
JOHN BOLTON: The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere—Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua—has finally met its match. In Venezuela, the United States is acting against the dictator Maduro, who uses the same oppressive tactics that have been employed in Cuba for decades. He has installed an illegitimate Constituent Assembly, debased the currency for political gain and forced his people to sign up for a corrupt food distribution service or face certain starvation.
AMY GOODMAN: In December, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused U.S. national security adviser John Bolton of leading a plan to invade Venezuela.
PRESIDENT NICOLÁS MADURO: [translated] Today, I come out once again to denounce the plot set forth by the U.S. to destroy Venezuela's democracy, to assassinate me and to impose a dictatorship in Venezuela. Mr. John Bolton has been assigned, once again, as the chief of a plot to fill Venezuela with violence and to seek a foreign military intervention—a coup—assassinate President Maduro and impose what they call a transitory government.
AMY GOODMAN: Foreign Minister, can you elaborate on this and also this term "troika of tyranny," very much reminiscent of George W. Bush's "axis of evil"?
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes, the "axis of evil," no? And it's reminiscent of the language used in the Cold War—Nixon, McCarthy, all that dark history, no? And it has no sense. We're in the 21st century. You have to respect the sovereign nations. We have the right to build our own model, democratic model. And, yes, the United States government, especially the obsession of Bolton, of John Bolton, against President Maduro, they are behind everything that is happening in Venezuela. Yes, they almost killed, assassinated President Maduro August the 4th with drones. And it—
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let's talk about this. This was the first drone attack, attempted assassination, on a head of state in history.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: August 4th, it was a Saturday. It was in front of the Palace of Justice.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Maduro was giving a speech. And explain exactly what happened.
JORGE ARREAZA: What happened is that suddenly a drone appeared, and it exploded.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you there?
JORGE ARREAZA: I wasn't there. But most of the ministers were there, and the military forces were there, and the other branches of power were there. And it was two drones. These people were trained in Colombia. We told—we gave this information to the Colombian government. We gave them the place where they were trained, the people who were involved, the names of the people, of the officials of migration that led them across to Venezuela with the drones. We gave the U.S. government the information about these people in Miami, who met there and also were part of this plot against President Maduro. And nothing happened.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, before it, in April, at the Latin American summit in Lima, Peru, Vice President Mike Pence said more must be done to isolate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: We must all stand with our brothers and sisters suffering in Venezuela. And I can promise you the United States will not rest, we will not relent, until democracy is restored in Venezuela and the Venezuelan people reclaim their birthright of libertad.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that's Vice President Mike Pence. In June, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called U.S. Vice President Mike Pence a "viper" and vowed to defeat what he called Washington's attempts to force him from power.
PRESIDENT NICOLÁS MADURO: [translated] Every time the poisonous viper of Mike Pence opens his mouth, I feel stronger, clearer of what the road is. The road is ours. It is Venezuelan. It is not the one Mike Pence points out to us, not 20 poisonous snakes, not 20 vipers like Mike Pence.
AMY GOODMAN: Foreign Minister Arreaza, explain. Why—what is Mike Pence's particular interest here? You're looking at Pence, Bolton—
JORGE ARREAZA: Bolton.
AMY GOODMAN: —and Pompeo, now secretary of state.
JORGE ARREAZA: Pompeo, as well. You know, Pence, you know, he's a religious guy. He's from the extreme right. You know him. And he's obsessed, as well, with the Venezuelan revolution.
You see they say that you have to restore democracy in Venezuela. We have a democracy. We have had 25 elections in 20 years. We've had elections for president in 1998, in 2000, 2004, 2006, in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2018. I mean, our people are used to—and not only democracy, because the Constitution says you have to elect these presidents and parliament members and mayors and governors; no, because we have—our society is organized in community councils—consejos comunales—and communes, and you take the decisions. Every single day, Venezuelans are exercising democracy. We have democratized the access to education, which was being privatized before the revolution. We have democratized access to housing, which was also exclusive for the rich before the revolution. We have democratized access to health. We have doctors all over—they used to be Cubans, now they're Venezuelans—all over the country. You walk one block, and you have the doctor there. So, we are really trying to build a root democracy, rooted in the people. And that is what they don't like, because that is not what they would like from the countries of Latin America.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about sanctions and the effect they're having on the Venezuelan economy. You have Henry Kissinger, still an elder statesmen, consulted by Democrats and Republicans alike. Let's go back half a century, go back decades. He wanted to make the Chilean economy under Allende scream, he said.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: You have the half-century embargo against Cuba. What does economic pressure—economic sabotage, if you will—look like in Venezuela? In November, the Congressional Research Service published a short overview of current U.S. sanctions in Venezuela and mentions the Trump administration is considering a new wave of sanctions. But the report also states, quote, "Although stronger economic sanctions could influence the Venezuelan government's behavior, they also could have negative effects and unintended consequences. Analysts are concerned that stronger sanctions could exacerbate Venezuela's difficult humanitarian situation, which has been marked by shortages of food and medicines, increased poverty, and mass migration. Many Venezuelan civil society groups oppose sanctions that could worsen humanitarian conditions." Now, again, this is not the Venezuelan president saying this; this is the U.S. Congressional Research Service. Can you talk about the effect of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela?
JORGE ARREAZA: The Venezuelan people are suffering because of these so-called sanctions, which are cohesive, unilateral measures. This is not approved by the United Nations Security Council. It has no legality. These are decisions taken by one government unilaterally to impose a blockade against Venezuela so it's difficult for us to import food, to import medicine. We cannot use the dollar as a currency to exchange. We have to switch. Only this switching from dollars to euros is more than what we need to invest in, in importing the vaccines for our children or the treatment for HIV in Venezuela for two years. And it's probably—the figure that I can give you is more than $20,000 million that we have lost because of the so-called sanctions in more than a year.
AMY GOODMAN: So, these sanctions are overt. Are there covert sanctions against Venezuela?
JORGE ARREAZA: Of course, because it's not only this, that is official. It's pressing the companies not to work with Venezuela. It's threatening to seize a company that we have here in the United States, Citgo. We cannot repatriate the profit from our company in the United States to invest it in food and medicine in Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: And for people to know, Citgo, which is Venezuelan state oil company—
JORGE ARREAZA: Owned, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —has been used for many years in the United States to support poor people—
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —in their programs for—to have oil in the winter.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes. And we intend to keep on using it for this in the United States. But most of the profit annually should be sent to Venezuela, and we cannot do it. It has to be here in the banks of the United States, blocked. We have more than $1,600 million or euros blocked in Europe in this company, intermediary—it's called Euroclear. Why? Because of the sanctions.
AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Russia. On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed concerns over U.S. meddling in Venezuela.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes.
SERGEY LAVROV: [translate] We have heard talk that allows for military involvement in Venezuela, talk that the United States will now recognize as the president of Venezuela not Nicolás Maduro, but the representative of the parliament. All this is very alarming. And all this shows is that the approach of undermining governments the United States doesn't like stays on as a priority of their activity in Latin America and in other regions.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about the significance of Lavrov weighing in, also the latest news, in December, Russia landing two nuclear-capable Blackjack bombers in Venezuela as part of a joint training exercise?
JORGE ARREAZA: You know, Russia has been friends of Venezuela for over 16 years. We believe that the world has to have several poles, several centers, not only the United States. The United States cut all the military cooperation with Venezuela 20 years ago. And we have military cooperation with Russia. And these planes, aircrafts, that came this year, they came in 2013, as well, and nothing happened. But this year it was taken like it was that we were trying to bomb the U.S. And, come on, that's nonsense. We have the right to have cooperation with Russia, with China, with whatever country in the world. And what Lavrov said there is exactly what the United States is doing. And he knows that they are trying to manipulate the people, the media, the Constitution of Venezuela even, to impose a man who has not been elected president.
AMY GOODMAN: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza. We'll be back with him in 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, as we continue with my interview with the Venezuelan foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza.
AMY GOODMAN: You have massive flight from Venezuela. The U.N. high commissioner for refugees has called the ongoing Venezuelan migration crisis "unprecedented" in Latin America. The U.N. estimates about 3 million Venezuelans have left since 2015. Another 2 million are projected to leave this year. About a million of them are living in Colombia; half a million in Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Brazil—all have large numbers. Why, Foreign Minister Arreaza, are so many people, so many Venezuelans, leaving?
JORGE ARREAZA: Well, first, it's not—you know how many Colombians live in Venezuela? Six million Colombians live in Venezuela. Over—Peruvians and Ecuadoreans, over 1 million. Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, Arabs, over 2 million.
So, of course there is migration at the moment, because we are blocked, because it's difficult to find medicine, to find some products of food, and the hyperinflation process, with an exchange rate, Amy, that is not set by the national authorities in Venezuela, by the central bank, it's set by webpages in Miami, you know? The exchange rate the day before Maduro's inauguration was $1, 1,000 bolívares, which is crazy. Well, the day of the inauguration, it duplicated. It was 2,000 bolívares for $1. And that has no economic logic. That is all political. That is warfare. That is using the currency against our own people.
So, we are worried, of course, because there are—it's not 3 million Venezuelans. It's probably 1 million Venezuelans. And most of the people that have gone to Colombia are Colombians that live in Venezuela and that have gone back to their country. And we are willing them to come back to Venezuela. That's what we want, for the Venezuelans and the Colombians that lived in Venezuela to come back to Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: But the economy, inflation over a million percent last year—
JORGE ARREAZA: Yeah, but that—
AMY GOODMAN: —the highest rate in the world?
JORGE ARREAZA: That's the figure of the IMF. That's not the exact—that's not the figure at all. It's probably 10 times less than that. It's a very difficult problem. But this inflation is induced from abroad. It is produced by these webpages and all this warfare, economic warfare, against Venezuela. It is not only because we have not taken some measures in Venezuela. Of course it's not. And it makes things very difficult for the Venezuelan people.
AMY GOODMAN: So, food and medicine shortages. Do you feel that your government, the Maduro government, takes some responsibility for what's taking place?
JORGE ARREAZA: Of course. We are not perfect, as the government here is not perfect at all, and the government in Argentina is not perfect. Of course we have responsibilities. But most of the problem, the vast majority of the problems, in Venezuela are caused by the blockade, are caused by the warfare, economic warfare, against Venezuela.
And in spite of all of that, we are in a better situation today than we were in 2016. There is more food. There is more medicine. There's more—the employment is under 6—unemployment is under 6 percent. And many things. I mean, we have not closed one school, one university, one hospital. We have not expelled the Cuban doctors, because we have to protect our people. We have delivered more than 2,000,500 houses to our people in the last four years. And that is investment that we have made, in spite of the sanctions, in spite of the blockade against Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let me ask you about Human Rights Watch and the Venezuelan NGO Foro Penal recently releasing a reportaccusing Venezuelan intelligence and security forces of detaining and torturing military personnel accused of plotting against the government. The report claims, quote, "Some detainees were subjected to egregious abuses that amount to torture to force them to provide information about alleged conspiracies."
JORGE ARREAZA: That's psychological warfare against Venezuela. Of course there are detainees that were in plots last year to overthrow President Maduro. But no one is torturing them. This happened in the last century in Venezuela. We were used to torture. We were used to students being killed in the streets every week. We were used to repression. That stopped with the Bolivarian Revolution. It doesn't happen anymore. But these NGOs are paid also by the USAID and by the government of the United States, and they say what they have to say because they are paid.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to ask you about other leaders in Latin America. On the one hand, you have Brazil's far-right president now, Jair Bolsonaro, and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri meeting to discuss joint opposition to the Venezuelan government. And then you have the newly elected president of Mexico, AMLO, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is not joining with these other countries who are opposing Venezuela. But first talk about the Macri-Bolsonaro alliance and what that means, joining with the U.S.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes. As I told you, it's—in Latin America, it's like a company, you know, a corporation. Trump is the CEO of a corporation, and these presidents, who are businessmen, are his directors. And they want to be promoted by President Trump, so they have to do—they have to follow the orders. And they have been said that they have to isolate Maduro, that they have to not recognize Maduro's government, and they have to do what the United States says so, in order to overthrow Maduro. And that's what they're doing.
Of course, we are worried about Brazil, because this man is far on the right. It's fascism again. It's what we felt, that what we believed to have disappeared from the Latin American history, it's happening again. This man hates women. This man hates the black population. This man hates the homosexual community. This man hates Venezuelans. He's a racist. We are worried about Brazil. He hates the poor. But—
AMY GOODMAN: And loves the Brazilian—former Brazilian military dictatorship.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes, he loves the dictatorship.
AMY GOODMAN: And what does it mean to you that AMLO, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador—the stance he has taken in support of Venezuela?
JORGE ARREAZA: I believe that the president of Mexico is right. We have to respect each other. We have to respect the principles of international law. I mean, if you join the United Nations, it's because you respect the internal affairs of the other states. It's because you respect the equality of states. It's because you don't have the right to interfere in other nations. That's not what the United States does. They have done wars in Iraq. President Trump said that he regretted—we regretted that the United States invaded Iraq, because now the situation is worse than it was with Saddam Hussein. And the same in Libya.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet you see the same thing happening and, of course, a very serious similarity. You have George W. Bush coining the term, or his people writing the term and him saying it in 2002, "axis of evil," which set up the foundation for the invasion of Iraq. And then you have the U.S. talking about the "troika of tyranny."
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And the similarities between Iraq and Venezuela are three letters: oil. And interestingly, many years ago, the original name of the invasion of Iraq was going to be Operation Iraqi Liberation, but they realized the acronym was OIL, and they had to change it. That was the United States. But what about this similarity, this resource, focusing on countries that are, you know, the world's most important oil providers?
JORGE ARREAZA: I am sure that if in Venezuela we only had bananas, none of this intervention would be happening. But we have oil. We have gas. We have gold. We have silver. We have bauxite. We have iron. We have water. I mean, Venezuela is a very rich, wealthy nation. And that is why we are—they want to rule the country again, as they did until 1998. They want to have control of the Venezuelan resources. And that is why they are so obsessed to overthrow Maduro, because they want to have these resources for the development of capitalism here in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think this coup will look like if it takes place?
JORGE ARREAZA: Well, first of all, it cannot take place, because we have to defend our Constitution, and we have to defend the peace of the Venezuelan people. And the military forces in Venezuela are aligned with the Constitution. They support the Constitution. And as a consequence of that, they support the legitimate president, who is Nicolás Maduro. No doubt about it. So it won't happen.
But what they would like to happen is that some militaries say that Maduro is not the president anymore, and then that they will appoint this young fellow, Guaidó, as president, with no constitutional support. And then they will have control of PDVSA, of the oil of Venezuela—you said it: the oil. They will have control of the companies of Venezuela, of the resources, the gold and everything. And they believe that is possible. That's not possible, not in Venezuela. Maybe in some other country, but not in Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: I'm looking at a tweet that just came over, from Florida Senator Marco Rubio. He says, "We must support those members of military in #Venezuela who have announced they will defend the constitution and recognize Guaidó as legitimate interim President." That's the president of the National Assembly.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes. You know that those are supposed to be military people. They live in Peru. They don't live in Venezuela. That's part—
AMY GOODMAN: You're talking about the picture he tweeted out—
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes. That's a video.
AMY GOODMAN: —of military men.
JORGE ARREAZA: That's a video that last night came, and it's supposed to be Venezuelan militaries, who live in Peru. I mean, that's part of the show. They are probably paid, maybe by the Peruvian government. I don't know. They are in the Peruvian TV. But that's not happening in Venezuela. That's what Marco Rubio wants, that this were to happen in Venezuela, that the military were to announce that they don't recognize President Maduro. That's not going to happen. And if it were to happen, a small group, we are ready for any scenario. But that's—they want a coup d'état in Venezuela. That's a good proof of what Bolton, Pence and Trump and Marco Rubio want for Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask you about the issue of press freedom in Venezuela.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: In December, the 75-year-old newspaper El Nacional published its last issue. It was the largest remaining opposition newspaper publishing in Venezuela. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported the closure was due to restrictions that the government imposed on access to newsprint. According to CPJ, over 20 Venezuelan publications have been forced out of print due to government restrictions on newsprint. Natalie Southwick of CPJsaid, quote, "The disappearance of El Nacional's print edition is the latest casualty of the Venezuelan government's ever-expanding campaign to silence critical reporting and limit the voices of independent media in the country."
JORGE ARREAZA: You know, before all this economical trouble and problems we have, we used to subsidize the import of paper for the newspapers. And now it's the private newspapers that have to import their own newspaper, and it's more expensive. So, that's what happened to El Nacional.
But El Nacional—you can check the social networks. You can check Twitter. You can put in Google—you can google "kill Maduro," "matar a Maduro," "maldito Maduro," and it's all over all the media in Venezuela—the radio stations, newspapers, TV broadcasting channels of the opposition. Probably 70 percent of the media in Venezuela, which is private, is against the government and encouraging all these situations to happen, because they are owned by the wealthy families, traditional wealthy families of Venezuela. But, I mean, that's part of the show, saying that in Venezuela there is no free press and freedom of speech.
AMY GOODMAN: But what about the shutting down of this almost two dozen papers?
JORGE ARREAZA: That's not true.
AMY GOODMAN: El Nacional is not—
JORGE ARREAZA: They're bankrupt. They don't have enough money. They don't sell enough newspaper in order to have money to import their own paper.
AMY GOODMAN: For a non-Venezuelan audience, how would you define the Bolivarian Revolution? I mean, you are the foreign minister under Maduro. You're also the son-in-law of Hugo Chávez. Talk about that history.
JORGE ARREAZA: The history of the Bolivarian Revolution is a process of independence, of giving back the people their rights, of guaranteeing that the people have access to health, to education, to housing, to culture, to their national identity, to their sovereignty. That is the Venezuelan revolution, democratizing our society, really democratizing the human rights in Venezuela. That is what we're trying to do, using the wealth of the oil and the other natural resources to invest it in the people, for the people, as Abraham Lincoln said. That's our mean, that's our goal. That's what happened.
But because those resources are not for the U.S., are not for other interests in the world, they are trying to overthrow President Chávez and then President Maduro. And they will continue. President Maduro would like to have a conversation with President Trump. And it would probably solve some issues, because I am sure that when they—if they were to talk and see each other to the eyes, they would see that they can coexist, and they can fulfill some agreements between them. But there's no way. I haven't been able to have a meeting with—not with Pompeo, who is like a minister of foreign affairs, no? With no one in the State Department. They don't want to have dialogue with the Venezuelan authorities. What's that? That's uncivilized.
AMY GOODMAN: Final question, and this is about the International Criminal Court. In September, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru called on the ICC to investigate Venezuela. Human Rights Watch hailed the move, saying, "In two crackdowns, in 2014 and 2017, Venezuelan security forces committed systematic abuses against critics, including torture, Human Rights Watch research shows. They detained more than 5,400 people between April and July 2017. Members of the security forces have beaten detainees severely and tortured them with electric shocks, asphyxiation, sexual assault, and other brutal techniques."
JORGE ARREAZA: That's part also of the show. Now, you can compare the human rights record of Venezuela with Argentina or Brazil or any of these countries that are doing—manipulating the international institutions and using them to attack Venezuela. We are waiting for Michelle Bachelet, who is the high commissioner of human rights of the United Nations, to visit Venezuela. She's—
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes. She is—
AMY GOODMAN: A torture survivor herself.
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes, she is. And she's been invited by President Maduro, and we're waiting for her to come to Venezuela and to see the situation by herself. Of course, this is part of the warfare against Venezuela. But as I told you, this is going to be part of the past, Amy. These governments, right-wing governments in Latin America, are going to be over—some of them this year, some of them next year. And Venezuela is going to be there, at least the revolution—
AMY GOODMAN: How do explain this right-wing wave throughout Latin America, of course, excluding Mexico?
JORGE ARREAZA: Yes, Mexico, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Caribbean nations. They have popular governments, as well. But it's—Uruguay, of course, has a progressive government, as well. But it's part of the cycle. You know, it's part of the cycles.
But I must say that the United States was focused on the Middle East after 9/11, and they invested all these funds and money. And suddenly, the progressive governments became majority in Latin America. And when they turned their head, they said, "Hey, what's happening here? We have to do something. We have to do a coup d'état in Honduras, because this Zelaya is trying to do a progressive government. We have to fund the candidates of the right. We have to"—so, they have had success until now.
But the peoples of Latin America are seeing, are witnessing this, and they will change the conditions. They will change, because the peoples have the right to be in power in Latin America.
AMY GOODMAN: Jorge Arreaza, Venezuelan foreign minister. He was here in New York to meet with the U.N. secretary-general. He's also the former vice president of Venezuela and the son-in-law of the late President Hugo Chávez.
That does it for our broadcast. Happy birthday to Edith Penty!
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Mexico, Rest of the world

THE ABSURD TIMES

OUR COUNTRY AS FORSEEN, TRUMPNICKS RUN WILD [EDITOR'S MEME]

Trump has kept everyone busy with so many distractions that one can only react with resignation and hate.  Pick one, it's a toss-up.

Probably the most important issue is the SCOTUS nominee as it is certain that the main intention is to repleal or at least castrate Roe v. Wade.   The resignation of Kennedy came as a surprise to many people, but it may hve been in the works for some time.  It is now clear that Kennedy's son, working for Deutsche Welle Bank authorized about a billion dollar loan for Donald Trump.  He was involved with that bank since no United States banks woud lend him any money for the simply reason that he would not pay it back but, rather, delclare bankruptcy.  Should an important issue come up, that would certainly surface immediately.  It is such a bad move, frankly, that no matter how the affiliations work, the Media organization known as Deutsche Welle is now suspect as a possible German speaking Fox news.  Frankly, it is impossible to describe how bad this looks, or, in today's parlance, what "bad optics" it presents.

That, however, in not what we want to talk about but just another example of how he always manages to get us off the real topic at hand.  Obrador has finally been elected President to Mexico.  He has been involved in that pursuit since the 90s, and the United States has always managed to place a more fascistic style candidate in charge.  In fact, one wonders when and if the CIA will be allowed to act as normal in these circumstances and attempt to overthrow his government. 

Still, a few things that have not been covered here:  A woman was elected Mayor of Tunis, a Moslem, Arab, Country which one housed Yassir Arafat.  She was elected as a member of the Islamist Party.  I saw her taking the oath.  She is attractive and does not wear any of the typican hoods and whatever they are nearly always depicted as wearing here.  Completely secular looking and could be mistaken for an American or British actress.  Speaking of actresses, one is nominated, or expected to be nominated, for an Oscar.  She is from Saudi Arabia and, again, speakis fluent English and looks completely secular, including the standard make-up.  Her explanation of why her films are not better known here is that they have primarily distributed in the gulf States area.  (Another reason may be that our networks want to keep Moslems classified as "the others" for local consumption.)  Oh yes, I found this out on a PBS station that was carrying a FRANCE 24 English language newscast.  It was presented as news as usual.  That is to say, there was no fuss made about it one way or the other.

OK, and now on to Obrador:

n Mexico, leftist politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, has claimed victory after winning Sunday's presidential election by a landslide, vowing to transform Mexico by reducing corruption and violence. Preliminary election results show López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, capturing 53 percent of the vote—more than twice that of his closest rival. His three main rival candidates have already conceded. His victory comes after the most violent electoral season in modern Mexican history. At least 136 politicians have been assassinated in Mexico since September. For more, we speak with Christy Thornton, assistant professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University. She was an election observer for the Scholar and Citizen Network for Democracy. She is currently writing a book about Mexican economic history.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today's show in Mexico. In a landslide election, voters have chosen Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be Mexico's next president. Celebrations broke out across Mexico City Sunday night. The former mayor of Mexico City, who's known as AMLO, will become Mexico's first leftist president in decades. During a victory speech on Sunday night, he vowed to transform Mexico by reducing corruption and violence.

PRESIDENT-ELECT ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR:[translated] The new project of the nation will seek to establish an authentic democracy. We don't bet on building an open or closed dictatorship. The changes will be profound but will happen with a strict adherence to the legal established order. There will be corporate freedom, freedom of expression, of association and of beliefs. We will guarantee all the individual and social freedoms, as well as the political rights of citizens, consecrated in our Constitution. There will be no need to increase taxes in real terms, not for the country to fall into debt. There will also be no hikes in petrol. I will lower the general cost of living and the public investment to propel productive activities and to create jobs. The objective is to strengthen the internal market, to try to produce what we consume in the country. We won't act in an arbitrary way, and there will be no confiscation or expropriation of property. The transformation will consist in basically banishing corruption from our country. We won't have a problem in achieving this objective, because the people of Mexico are the heir of great civilizations.

AMY GOODMAN: Preliminary election results show López Obrador captured 53 percent of the vote, more than twice that of his closest rival. This marked AMLO's third time running for president. In Britain, Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn praised López Obrador. Corbyn tweeted, "Today brings a new beginning for México. Congratulations @lopezobrador. His election as President with more than 50% of the vote offers the poor and marginalised a genuine voice for the first time in Mexico's modern history. I'm sure #AMLO will be a president for all Mexicans," Corbyn tweeted.

López Obrador's victory comes after the most violent electoral season in modern Mexican history. At least 136 politicians have been assassinated in Mexico since September.

We go now to Mexico City, where we're joined by Christy Thornton. She's an assistant professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University. She was an election observer for the Scholars and Citizens Network for Democracy, currently writing a book about Mexican economic history.

Professor Thornton, talk about the election. Talk about the celebration in the Zócalo and what AMLO, what this new leftist president, president-elect right now, has promised.

CHRISTY THORNTON: Yeah, good morning, Amy, from Mexico City. It's really been an incredible atmosphere here. The victory of AMLO, and the margin with which he did it, really signals a new day here. I think it's beyond the expectations of even some of AMLO's strongest supporters to have seen him win the presidency with what the initial result says is 53 percent of the vote. We have to think about this was a field of four candidates. So for him to have won an absolute majority is something that we haven't seen in recent Mexican elections. And so, this is really a very strong victory, a very strong message. And it will be the case not just in the presidency, but in the legislature, as well, and in a number of state governorships. AMLO's MORENA party, which he founded in 2014, has really become a vital new political force here in Mexico that's really set to shake things up.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what this represents in terms of Mexico and the United States. Also, President Trump tweeted his congratulations. The corporate media is often now referring to López Obrador as "Mexico's Trump." It's not clear exactly why. Maybe they equate being opposed to NAFTA as being Trump.

CHRISTY THORNTON: Yeah, that's right. So, I think that the—López Obrador's election will have a number of important implications for the United States: on trade, as you said, the renegotiations of NAFTA; on security, with regard to the drug war; and with regard to migration. I think all three of those things are things in which we can expect a serious change from this Mexican administration. And we'll have to see what the relationship is between Trump and López Obrador.

You're right that a number of mainstream media outlets have made this kind of absurd comparison. And I think one of the reasons that has happened is the kind of—the worry from establishment politicians and mainstream media outlets about the idea of populism, and the worry about populism where they completely eviscerate the political content of that. And so, if you compare Trump and López Obrador, you could say that they are both, quote-unquote, "populists," but obviously their political platforms are on completely the opposite sides of the political spectrum. So, those kinds of comparisons, I think, are really bunk. López Obrador is really something more like a Bernie Sanders.

And what we saw here in Mexico City last night and in Tijuana, in major cities all over Mexico, people commented to me over and over that it felt like 2008. It felt like when Obama won the elections, and there was a kind of historic breaking of some precedent, right? And so, we have—that seems much more like an obvious comparison, the kind of breaking open of the political system and the hope for real change. Now, obviously, that comparison leaves those of us in the United States to worry about what might come next—right?—and what can actually be changed. There are real structural impediments. But, for now, the power of this movement indicates that Mexicans desperately want that change and are willing to fight for it.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what AMLO represented, what he promised. Talk about his stand on the wall, on immigration and on NAFTA, exactly what he's saying.

CHRISTY THORNTON: Yeah. So, there are a number of important areas where AMLO has said that he will change policy. With regard to NAFTA, he has kind of moderated his position over the years, but he has said that he wants the negotiations to wait until he assumes the presidency, and that members of his team will now be in the negotiating room. And so, he really hopes to now become an important part of the NAFTAnegotiations as they go forward. The most important thing for López Obrador on that is the protection of Mexican farmers and the Mexican agricultural sector. Obviously the United States really protects its agricultural sector in a way that is against a, quote-unquote, "free trade agenda." And that's been devastating for Mexican agriculture. So that's something we can expect to see López Obrador really push against.

With regard to migration, he has said that he intends to move Mexico's migration focus to the northern border rather than the southern border, where it's been, really at the behest of the U.S. government. So Mexico has really militarized its southern border with Guatemala as part of the larger U.S. policy against immigration, against refugees and SIVs and economic migrants. And so, López Obrador has said that he wants to reverse that policy, to demilitarize that border, to care for migrants here in Mexico and to move the center for migration up here to the north, rather than militarizing in the south and really terrorizing migrants as they cross the national territory. So, those are two areas in which there could be a real change in policies that affect the United States.

With regard to security, he has indicated that he wants to demilitarize the, quote-unquote, "war on drugs and organized crime," that was started by Felipe Calderón in 2007, 2008. The military has been sent into the streets with horrific human rights consequences—more than 100,000 people killed, 30,000 disappeared—and those of the conservative numbers. As you said, it's been an incredibly violent year this past year in Mexico. The statistics may indicate that it's the most violent year since they started keeping statistics here in Mexico. So, he has indicated that he intends to kind of back the military off of these law enforcement functions. And in your opening clip, a woman mentioned scholarships, not assassins, right? And so, that becarios, not sicarios, that was a big part of his platform, that he wants young people to have educational and economic opportunities that won't drive them into the hands of the drug cartels. So, it's really a sweeping change in Mexican policy that we can expect to see. And with the majorities in the House of Deputies and the Senate that he seems to have won, according to the exit polls, we can really expect to see some important changes.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's go back to Andrés Manuel López Obrador speaking at his victory rally last night in the Zócalo, in the main square in Mexico City.

PRESIDENT-ELECT ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR:[translated] We will follow three basic principles: to not lie, to not steal and to not betray the people. Long live Mexico! Long live Mexico!

AMY GOODMAN: So, that is AMLO last night. All the major candidates have conceded. Christy Thornton, give us a thumbnail sketch of his rise to power. I mean, back when the Zapatistas rose up in the mid-'90s, he was already running.

CHRISTY THORNTON: That's right. So, López Obrador was part of a kind of left insurgency from within the PRI. As your listeners and your watchers probably know, Mexico was effectively a one-party state, and the PRI controlled all levels of government, from the federal down to the local, for most of the 20th century. López Obrador was really important in the late 1980s in pushing to democratize from within the PRI. And then, when the 1988 elections were stolen fraudulently by the PRI—the computers were literally unplugged and replugged in, and when they came back, they mysteriously showed the PRI candidate winning—he broke off and was part of the new left party that was formed after that, called the Party for the Democratic Revolution. Over the decades since 1988, the Party for the Democratic Revolution has joined the PRI and the right-wing PAN party, the National Action Party, in a kind of consolidation towards the center. So the PRD was run by kind of centrist affiliates with the PRI, people who were willing to go along with the PRIand the PAN agenda. And so, we saw, after the Ayotzinapa crisis, where those 43 students were disappeared—and we still don't know exactly what happened to them—we saw López Obrador and a number of the founders of the PRI split—or, of the PRD, I'm sorry, split off from that party. And so, after that moment was when López Obrador formed his new party, MORENA.

He had run for the presidency in 2006, and there was massive fraud in that election. He lost by less than half of a percentage point. He ran against the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, in 2012 and lost by a more sizable margin. One of the things that's been really interesting here, as an observer, has been to see the extent to which the machine for sort of election fraud, for the buying and coercion of votes, for the kind of corralling of voters to the voting places, it was definitely in action yesterday in the elections, but it was not enough to overcome this kind of tide of support for López Obrador and for his new party, MORENA. So this is really an incredible victory not just for this left candidate and his party, but really for the practice of Mexican democracy. This is really a new day for Mexican democracy. And you'll see people out in the streets celebrating this for some time to come.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Thornton, as we begin to wrap up, you retweeted, "I am not sure people understand just how big an impact AMLO's election has the potential to have on Central American->US migration patterns. A MEX gov w/no interest in intercepting migrants on US' behalf? I dunno, man." Talk about that, as we wrap up.

CHRISTY THORNTON: Yeah, absolutely. So, the militarization of the southern border has been done as part of a kind of security cooperation agreement between the United States and Mexico, that stems from the beginning of the militarization of the drug war. The Mérida Initiative is an initiative that has sent something like $3 billion in training and equipment and military equipment to Mexico. And they have militarized that southern border in such a way that the Mexican government has really been acting as a proxy for the U.S. government in trying to keep Central American migrants out and really terrorize them as they try to cross that border. If López Obrador demilitarizes that southern border, allows migrants to cross Mexico, provides the protection for migrants that he has indicated, it will really change how migration is being handled. And that's something that the Trump administration will certainly confront, going forward.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Christy Thornton, assistant professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University, speaking to us from Mexico City. She was an election observer there for the Scholars and Citizens Network for Democracy, currently writing a book about Mexican economic history. And, of course, we'll have more on this tomorrow on Democracy Now!

In a landslide, voters have elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be Mexico's next president. The former mayor of Mexico City—who is known as AMLO—will become Mexico's first leftist president in decades. On Monday, López Obrador and President Donald Trump discussed immigration and trade in a phone call. Trump called on Mexico's president-elect to collaborate on border security and NAFTA, telling reporters, "I think he's going to try and help us with the border. We have unbelievably bad border laws, immigration laws, the weakest in the world, laughed at by everybody in the world. And Mexico has very strong immigration laws, so they can help us." We speak with John Ackerman and Irma Sandoval in Mexico City. Irma Sandoval is a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Corruption at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is set to become comptroller general in President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government. John Ackerman is the editor of the Mexican Law Review and a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He is also a columnist for Proceso magazine and La Jornada newspaper.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today's show in Mexico, where voters have elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be Mexico's next president. The former mayor of Mexico City, who is known by his initials AMLO, will become Mexico's first leftist president in decades. López Obrador ran an anti-corruption, anti-violence campaign and has vowed to expand pensions for the elderly, boost spending for social programs and increase grants for students. On Monday, López Obrador and President Donald Trump had about a half-hour phone conversation, according to Trump, discussing immigration and trade. This is President Trump calling on Mexico's president-elect to collaborate on border security and NAFTA.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think he's going to try and help us with the border. We have unbelievably bad border laws, immigration laws, the weakest in the world, laughed at by everybody in the world. And Mexico has very strong immigration laws, so they can help us.

AMY GOODMAN: López Obrador captured 53 percent of the vote, more than twice that of his closest rival. This marked his third time running for president. López Obrador's victory comes after the most violent electoral season in modern Mexican history. At least 136 politicians have been assassinated in Mexico since September.

For more, we go to Mexico City, where we're joined by John Ackerman and Irma Sandoval. Irma Sandoval is a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Corruption at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, set to become comptroller general in President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government. John Ackerman is the editor of the Mexican Law Review and a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He's also a columnist for Procesoand La Jornada newspapers. They happen to be married.

Welcome to Democracy Now! John Ackerman, let's begin with you. Talk about the overall significance of this victory for López Obrador, who has been campaigning for this, it seems, for decades.

JOHN ACKERMAN: Yeah. Thank you, Amy. A real pleasure and a real honor to be on your show. You guys are the best.

Yes, López Obrador has been struggling for this, and the entire Mexican people have struggling for democracy, for decades. We supposedly had democracy in the year 2000, when ex-Coca-Cola executive Vicente Fox came into power, but he, you know, within a few months, basically cut deals with the old authoritarian regime and has really failed the Mexican people—not only him, but also his successor, Calderón, and, of course, Enrique Peña Nieto, over the last five or six years, have really—has really generated a vast crisis in corruption, in violence, in censorship, in repression of social movements.

And finally, this Sunday, July 1st, the Mexican people have really come up in, you know, a peaceful revolution. It's really quite amazing. It was amazing to see the poll stations this Sunday packed with long lines of voters, people who were really just fed up with this failure of the Mexican so-called democratic transition and want to really try again. This is a real historic moment, because throughout Latin America we've been having all this experimentation with left-wing and progressive governments throughout the region, from Brazil to El Salvador to Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, as to Uruguay, and Mexico had been left out of this pink tide. We have been stuck with this single ideology of neoliberal authoritarianism since the 1980s. But now, finally, it looks like we're going to be able to try something new.

AMY GOODMAN: A lot of the corporate media in the United States is referring to AMLO, to López Obrador, as "Mexico's Trump," talking about him as an anti-NAFTA populist. Your response?

JOHN ACKERMAN: No, there's absolutely no comparison between López Obrador and Trump. Trump is a right-wing demagogue who is quite ignorant about both national and international affairs. He's a chauvinist. He's someone who preaches hate. López Obrador is a quite sophisticated, modern, intellectual leader who is looking to, yes, defend the Mexican national economy, Mexican workers. He's actually pro-NAFTA. It's interesting. For many years, the left in Mexico has been anti-NAFTA, but things have changed. He's, you know, more similar to Bernie Sanders, if you want to do a comparison. But if you want to look at Latin America, it would be more like José Mujica or Lula da Silva. Jeremy Corbyn is a great friend of López Obrador. So, that's sort of his school of thought. This is—it's very quite funny to see how people think that anything that questions the status quo have to be similar. Trump and López Obrador have nothing to do with each other, from my point of view.

AMY GOODMAN: Irma Sandoval, you are going to be a part of the government, the comptroller general of Mexico. You're part of the team. Were you surprised by the massive outpouring of support? The significance of how much López Obrador won by?

IRMA SANDOVAL: Yeah. Hi, Amy. This is a historic moment, and we are very, very happy, because this moment really synthesized a lot of decades of struggles in Mexico, struggles for human rights, struggles for social movements, and also a very meaningful struggle that we had last year that is the struggle for justice in Ayotzinapa. And I think that everybody in Mexico is very happy of this moment, of this achievement. And also, personally, I'm very proud, very honored of being part of the team that is going help López Obrador to confront corruption, to combat corruption and to finish with this important—with this problem in Mexico.

Yeah, the meaningful is huge. The meaning is huge, precisely because López Obrador, as you may know, as your audience is aware, has won in the past. And in the past, he proclaimed himself as the legitimate president, with no legal result. But then, this moment is the contrary: He's going to be the legal president, the President López Obrador, with the highest level of legitimacy in modern history. So we are all very, very happy. And I'm sure that we are going to get the goal of finish corruption in our public life.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Irma Sandoval, talk about the role of women in the election of AMLO.

IRMA SANDOVAL: Well, it's very important. The general coordinator of his campaign, of López Obrador's campaign, was a very prominent entrepreneur. Tatiana Clouthier was the coordinator of his campaign. And the 50 percent of the Cabinet that he offered is composed by women. So, I'm very proud of that also. I think that López Obrador has—is the politician that has offered the real feminist legacy for Mexican politics, because when he was mayor of Mexico City, half of his Cabinet was confirmated, was formed by women, as well. And in this occasion, he's going to repeat this experience.

AMY GOODMAN: And Mexico City has elected its first female mayor, is that right? Claudia Sheinbaum.

IRMA SANDOVAL: Claudia Sheinbaum is also a great leader. And she's going to be, I'm sure, the best mayor of Mexico City.

AMY GOODMAN: I'd like to ask about how President-elect Obrador is likely to tackle drug violence in Mexico. He spoke briefly about how he would do this on Sunday.

PRESIDENT-ELECT ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR:[translated] The failed strategy to tackle insecurity and violence will change. More than using force, we will attack the causes that create insecurity and violence. I am convinced that the most efficient and most humane way to confront these evils necessarily demand we combat inequality and poverty.

AMY GOODMAN: John Ackerman, how exactly is López Obrador going to do this? And what role does the United States play in this, as well?

JOHN ACKERMAN: [inaudible] be changing the discourse, the logic on this. We have been going through a drug war for the last 12 years with Calderón, with Peña Nieto, very much politically motivated. You know, so, Calderón started this drug war, put the military out in the streets in the end of 2006, in a very similar way with, you know, Bush invading Iraq, to try to compensate for this lack of legitimacy in the context of the electoral fraud of 2006. And we've with this for the last 12 years, and also from lots of pressure from the United States to continue on that decapitation strategy, which has led to a bloodbath, you know, so 350,000 dead over the last 12 years, 35,000 disappeared, 25,000 displaced. So now López Obrador is talking about peace instead of war. So that's just, you know, changing the discussion.

Now, what he's going to do concretely, he's talked about really going at the base of the support for organized crime, so he's going to offer 3 million scholarships to youth, so that they can either have access to higher education or begin apprenticeships with businesses, or, on the other hand, there's also this generalized idea to support the countryside. So he wants to support the peasants. He wants to go for price supports for basic products from the countryside and, in general, support and move towards a possible food self-sufficiency in Mexico so we're not just importing and buying at Walmart. You know, so, Mexico is now the second-largest Walmart country in the world. We're increasingly dependent on U.S. agro products, and so—you know, Mexico, with this incredibly productive countryside. So, you know, supporting the peasants, supporting the youth, that would undercut the base support for the narcos, and, in general, trying to move towards a new strategy which is not based on the militarization, not fighting fire with fire, is what he says.

We need to investigate crimes. One of the great and the most important problems with this issue is that only 9 percent of crimes are even reported to the authorities. That's because the Mexican people, rightly, in fact, don't trust the criminal investigators. Often when you report a crime, you end up being investigated yourself, because they are often in the pocket of the criminals themselves. So you have to combat corruption, create more confidence and have people report crimes and have those reports actually get to—on the punishments for the criminals. And so, you know, let's go to the institutions, go to the questions of poverty and economic development, instead of just creating increased violence and war scenario. And here, you know, the discussion yesterday with Trump was pretty clear, from what I understand. I don't think the transcript was released, but López Obrador was saying this. He said this before. We want—from the United States, we don't want you guys to be sending us helicopters and arms. We want us—have a real joint strategy for economic development, to stop at the roots, so that we don't have this incredible flow of migrants, and they can make a living in Mexico themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about the level of violence, as you were talking about, during the most violent electoral season in modern Mexican history, at least 136 politicians assassinated in Mexico since September, a number of journalists also killed in the lead-up to Sunday's elections, including the reporter José Guadalupe Chan Dzib, who was killed Friday night in the southern state of Quintana Roo. John Ackerman, the significance of this? I mean, at least seven journalists recently killed in Mexico, not to mention this massive number of people who want to run for elected office.

JOHN ACKERMAN: Yes, this is a very sensitive issue. Over the last 10 years, we've had a hundred journalists assassinated. And, as you said, during the electoral season, these last 10 months, over a hundred politicians have been assassinated. I mean, this is really out of control. Last year, 2017, was the most violent year in Mexico for decades. Even 2007, '08, '09, the high point of the Calderón violence didn't get this high. So, we need an urgent solution. The Mexicans are willing to play their part.

The big problem, the roots of this problem, is the lack of a separation between the criminals and the government. People speak of, you know, a narco state, in which the government itself is in cahoots with and participating directly with organized crime. So, you know, if Irma does her job, which I'm sure she will, and other levels of the state-level governments really combating corruption and separating the criminals from the public function areas, I think we can actually make a major step forward here, you know, to have a real rule of law. You know, it's not easy. It's not going to happen from one day to the next. But the presidential terms of Mexico are 6 years long—no re-election, but 6 years long. And if López Obrador does what he says he's going to do, says he's going to wake up at 5:00 in the morning, as he did as mayor of Mexico City, working from 5:00 in the morning until midnight, make those six years feel as if they were 12, we could actually make progress in this area.

AMY GOODMAN: Irma Sandoval, if you could talk about immigration policy? You have President Trump sitting with the Dutch prime minister in the White House yesterday, saying he had a great half-hour phone call congratulating López Obrador and that they will work together to enforce immigration policy, that the U.S. has the worst immigration laws, making the U.S. the laughingstock of the world, and that AMLO has agreed to enforce Mexican immigration laws, which are much better.

IRMA SANDOVAL: I think that the AMLO is going to take the approach of solving this problem through development. He's going to offer economic, social and cultural development for Mexicans. Mexicans need, aspire—they want to live their lives in their country, within their culture and with their families. And I think that that's going to be the solution for the immigration problem that we have with the U.S. And AMLO, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is very clear with that. In terms of combat corruption, also we are going to try to struggle to combat impunity, because impunity is real—it's really the other side of the coin of corruption. To some extent, people are used to the levels of corruption. But we really—we cannot deal more with that is with impunity. And, of course, if we combat impunity, we are going to solve injustice. We are going to solve poverty. We are going to also confront all the social troubles that generate the highs—the high flows of migration in our country. So, corruption, impunity, poverty and other social challenges, we are going to confront.

AMY GOODMAN: And, John Ackerman, this issue of whether Mexico will start deporting Central Americans, for the United States, before they make it to the United States?

JOHN ACKERMAN: This is already happening. So, Enrique Peña Nieto's policy, along with Luis Videgaray, his foreign minister, has been a real disgrace for Mexico. Mexico has given up on its long tradition of sovereignty, you know, not sort of radical nationalism, but just basic sovereignty, in terms of foreign relations, in terms of control over their own territory. With Peña Nieto and Videgaray, basically, they're taking orders directly from Trump—well, not even from Trump, from Jared Kushner. And they have beefed up the southern border with the Plan Frontera Sur. And at the migration detention centers in Mexico, the biometric data from Central America and even Mexican migrants are going directly to the computers of the U.S. ICE offices. Now, obviously, there needs to be some collaboration—right?—economic, political. We share a continent. We share a region. But Mexico should—you know, I'm speaking from my own personal point of view, but Mexico should recover some sort of basic sovereignty and shouldn't be acting as, you know, the Border Patrol, extended Border Patrol, of the United States.

Now, of course, Mexicans need to, you know, actively encourage migration. And as Irma said, the Mexicans themselves, there are plenty of migrants in the United States who are happy there, but most people in Mexico and many migrants in the United States themselves would like to be in their homeland, would like to be able to have productive jobs and a productive life in Mexico themselves. And with López Obrador, there's going to be a lot of hope at that. And so, if Trump really wants to have a good relationship with Mexico, and really wants to stop migration, from his point of view, what would be in his interest is a wealthy, growing and safe Mexico to the south of the border. So, you know, I really hope that Trump opens up his eyes, sees the opportunity in Mexico today with López Obrador, and instead of grabbing Mexico as his punching bag or, López Obrador says, instead of grabbing Mexico as his piñata, you know, wakes up and tries to have a more respectful relationship with Mexico and with Mexicans. And I think then we can move forward as a more productive and peaceful North America and Latin America.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. John Ackerman is editor of of the Mexican Law Review, columnist for the Mexican papers Proceso and La Jornada. And Irma Sandoval is set to be comptroller general in the new government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.