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.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
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.
Is unrestricted use of NATO weapons inside Russia not a big enough red line for Putin or did his vision get even worse?
Are we talking about the same thing, because there’s definitely not unrestricted use of nato weapons inside all of Russia
True, but I guarantee we will get there eventually if Ukraine doesn’t collapse first.
Big if, but not wrong
The issue with Putin’s red lines is what threats does he actually have to follow through with if NATO crosses then.
Russian missiles have targeted Ukrainian infrastructure for years, and by this point it’s pretty clear that for all the previous talk of “the gloves will come off this time,” they do not have some massive stockpile of munitions waiting for the signal. Rather by now the quantity of Russian strikes are strictly limited by their rate of production. There is also not much more room for Russia to expand their scope of acceptable targets.
Russia could formally declare war, and multiply their forces in Ukraine through conscription. But Putin has always been a cautious and conservative leader. He is seemingly happy with how the SMO is going, and has only resorted to unpopular measures when a real risk of catastrophe exists, such as immediately after the Kharkiv counter-offensive. Until now the Kremlin’s judgment seems to be that the negative consequences of tolerating regular Ukrainian strikes inside the Russian federation do not outweigh those of declaring war.
As for the unthinkable option of escalating through nuclear strikes, will I’m personally very appreciative that Russia has refrained from doing so and pray that continues to be an empty threat.
Not sure this is the correct narrative here.
By “years” you mean exactly 2 of which the first 6 or so months they did in fact limit their strikes to logistics only, specially the first 2-3 months which was about trying to knock out Ukraine via the diplo pressure route, if you recall the fact Russia was not targetting Ukraine like the usual NATO shock doctrine was a talking point in their favor back then. The escalation came when they decided to start systematically targeting Ukrainian energy grid in 2023(18 months maybe) and by all accounts it has been extremely successful at that, massive shortages are common for months.
The other side is there have been repeated occasions where they targeted high level officer buildings, some times even apparently killing/injuring western/NATO officers. I think there was a particular noticeable one in a hotel a few months ago.
The point is, Russia has demonstrated they can go after “high value” targets if they want to and there is definitely a moral/political cost to this. It is incredibly irresponsible to think Russia doesn’t have a WW3 stockpile either, they’re not amateurs, they’ve inhereted the Soviet doctrine for the most part which always included massive preparations for exactly such WW3 scenario against NATO.
For the hypersonic missiles specifically, I’d imagine they treat their reserves as just as important as their nuclear stockpile, it is afterall a massive strategical advantage.
But regarding their limitations right now yeah ultimately you’re right, it is completely logical they wont launch some 200 hypersonic missiles in one wave just because they can doesn’t mean they should or would, if they can only make idk 20 a month that is what they have to work with in the short term.
He made it clear that his red line was the use of long range ATACMS missiles on Russian territory, and last I heard a few days ago, the US refused to allow their use.
deleted by creator
These additional bullshit attacks into Russia are not meaningful. They don’t change the course of the war, they don’t materially damage the Russian strategy. Russia is winning the war by destroying the ukrainian military piecemeal and absorbing the West’s very limited specialty munitions (himars, atacms, stormshadows) and depleting them for any future conflict. They are doing that now without mobilizing the country on a total war footing, without destroying the country’s economy, or sacrificing putin’s popularity. Why fuck with a winning combo? To impress some Internet people? The point of the war clearly isn’t just to destroy ukraine and make it a failed state on Russians border.
All these “omg Putin is letting Biden run over his red lines” posts reveal a poor understanding of what war is actually for and what the west can actually do to escalate. Read clauswitz people, I’m begging you.
After all that has happened, why do people still continue to doubt Putin’s judgment with regards to the war? The actual thing to worry about is what happens to the RF when Putin kicks the bucket. But as for the war itself? He’s doing a fine job. A well deserved gigachad rating.
If you could please provide me with like 30 minutes of reading to get the gist of clauswitz I will read it.
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/natos-phantom-armies
Thanks
It’s clear by now that there are no red lines aside from obvious acts of war by uniformed NATO troops.
Not sure what Putin is thinking, because it’s very bad when your enemies know they can walk all over you with no repercussions.
Putin is color blind
If they cross your red line once and you start to respond you aren’t going to double respond if they keep doing the same thing they were doing.
The offensive in the north is the response to the breach of the red line of shelling and assaults in Belgorod. Putin said “if you dont stop we will have to create a sanitary zone” and they kept shelling so now Russia is going to occupy norther ukraine.