Much of the preamble has been sourced from Michael Roberts’ recent analysis of Mexico.
Claudia Sheinbaum, part of the left-wing and populist Morena party to which AMLO also belongs, is now the first woman to ascend to the Mexican presidency. She is also a climate/energy scientist and was previously mayor of Mexico City. Results indicate that she has won with approximately 60% of the vote, which would be the highest vote percentage in Mexican history.
AMLO’s presidency has been generally successful. He campaigned on reducing violence inside Mexico, and while this has technically occurred if measured from 2018, homicides are still considerably higher than in 2010. This is largely due to warring drug cartels, which are more reflective of the United States and its rise in drug addiction and thus imports from Mexico. He also campaigned on reducing corruption, which he also kinda has, and also on reducing income inequality, which he also kinda has. The overall figures don’t show massive budges in income inequality, but the minimum wage has risen by 82% and manufacturing wage have risen 27%, and this plus other social programs has lifted 9 million Mexicans out of extreme poverty - a good achievement - but not much further than that, with poverty rates still above the Latin American average. Unemployment is officially at record lows, but much of this job growth has been in the informal sector.
The Mexican economy suffered greatly during the pandemic, and while growth since then has been pretty decent, the economy is still below where it was in 2018. As Mexican capitalists do not pay much in taxes, AMLO’s programs have required large budget deficits and borrowing. These capitalists are, of course, not doing many productive investments and thus there is not much productivity growth; productivity has been more-or-less stagnant for two decades. The reason why Mexican capitalists are not investing is because of the major decline in profitability since the 1990s - there is no reason to invest if your money is at major risk of not making a profit. Therefore, they have followed the trend of other national capitalists of investing in real estate and speculation, particularly in American companies.
Since NAFTA/USMCA, Mexico has become increasingly dependent on the United States for a location for its exports, while the US has exploited cheap labour in Mexico. Additionally, with the anti-Chinese sanctions increasingly put in place by the US, Mexico has become one of several conduits for China to redirect its goods so that they can still reach American markets. This has allowed Mexico to have an essentially balanced trade account and keep the peso relatively strong against the dollar.
Mexico’s limited fortunes will likely decline from here as the US economy continues to slow. If Trump is elected, he may decree protectionist policies which will hit a US-reliant Mexico quite hard. Additionally, industrial production has recently declined and retail spending is also down. AMLO’s presidency was genuinely beneficial for the poorest 50%, but the policies he created failed to really change the fundamentals of the economy. He relied on the private sector rather than the public sector. This is not entirely his fault - if he had tried to do anything terribly transformative, Mexico would have probably been hit hard with consequences by the US and simultaneously faced a domestic revolt by Mexican capitalists. There were and are already threats of outright invasion in response to the limited things AMLO has already done.
In an increasingly multipolar future in which America becomes weaker and weaker, it’s very possible that Mexico’s reliance on the US will decrease, allowing parties to be more radical without facing the possibility of facing crippling sanctions like Venezuela. However, Mexico’s sheer proximity to the US means that they might be among the last countries to break free of American influence, as the US will continue to bitterly resist any attempt to break down the Monroe Doctrine long after it loses Asia, Europe, and Africa. So, it seems likely that Sheinbaum may soon find herself in a situation where she is forced by capitalists to implement fiscal austerity regardless of her intentions, which is equivalent to a declaration of war on the working class. What happens then is anybody’s guess.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Mexico! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Karagonov has been named the moderator of the SPIEF plenary session with Putin, starting imminently at 1400 MSK.
Sergey Karaganov - the political scientist who called for Russia to use nukes to save humanity from global catastrophe. According to the author, Moscow must climb the steps of nuclear escalation in order to “break the will of the West” and win the war in Ukraine.
Pay attention to what Putin says today! The unfortunate fact is that we are heading towards nuclear annihilation and this could yet be another step in the escalation.
What’s makes the threat of nuclear annihilation more pressing now than say, the back half of the 20th century?
Because Russia is actively engaged in an existential conflict on its border while its nuclear detecting radar is being destroyed and its peer adversary is unwilling to maintain dialogue let alone a peaceful solution to the conflict. Putin’s hand is on the button and they have every right to believe this war will turn nuclear if the United States does not recognize that Russia has legitimate concerns about Ukraine. Just as an example, the back half of the 20th century had anti nuclear forces treaties, which means that at a bare minimum the Soviets and the US were on speaking terms diplomatically. Now all those treaties have lapsed and there is absolutely no talks of bringing them back and depending on who you listen to there is not even any discussions at all between state departments.
I think another horrifying aspect of this is that the fail sons and daughters now running the empire simply do not have respect for nuclear weapons and what they actually are.
Russia and Belarus just did that exercise practicing launching tactical nuclear missiles. That is a massive warning to the west and they barely reacted. Hell they’re pushing even harder now to let Ukraine strike inside Russia.
They’ve become so accustomed to getting literally everything they want since history “ended”. Combine all this with those crazy articles we were seeing last year about how nuclear war isnt that bad actually and it’s clear that the US is on a nuclear death drive.
Capital in crisis.
Nothing realy, just look at all the nuclear close calls we had in history, you could even say the fact we reached this far is the good timeline lol.
https://youtu.be/ens6hTc94is
Interview with Karaganov from a few days ago
MST?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Time
Hexbear veterans should know this!