The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

Every issue archived online at mexicosolidarityproject.org

Museo della Cattedrale, Italy/Creative Commons

Just Which Way Is López Obrador Facing?  

Like the god Janus, how AMLO looks depends on the viewer’s vantage point. The Western press sees López Obrador looking to the past — and acting in the same old autocratic and self-dealing vein as every Mexican president since the 1930s. But most Mexicans see the reverse and delight in what they see. They see AMLO facing toward the future — and México’s common people — and facing away from México’s oligarchs.

What sight angle should US progressives take? Many, unfortunately, echo the narrative of the mainstream press. That narrative has been tarring and feathering AMLO ever since his 2018 election, tarring him as anti-democratic and anti-environment and feathering him as a blundering buffoon, a racist stereotype US media outlets have been pinning on Latin American leaders for what seems to be forever.

This media bashing has intensified over recent weeks, and our México Solidarity Project is working to counter that bashing. This week’s issue begins an important new stage in that effort. We’re launching a new column, Media Rewind, that each week will dissect the distortions distributed by a prominent media outlet.

We’re also initiating a México Solidarity Media Network that’s going to rapidly respond to coverages of things Mexican that mislead readers and viewers, either by distorting key facts or just plain omitting them.

The Los Angeles-based researcher Jesus Hermosillo will play a big role in both these efforts. He’ll be helping us understand, as he explains in our interview this week, why the corporate press has been so intent on attacking AMLO — and why those attacks sometimes resonate even with Americans who see themselves on the left.

The political transformation now going on in México is posing a unique challenge to both US hemispheric hegemony and neoliberal global economics. Our corporate media’s condemnation chorus aims to beat that challenge back. But México’s common folk aren’t swallowing any of that. Neither should we. Let’s keep our faces turned forward.

What’s Up with the So-Called ‘News’ on México? 

I’ve dug into articles about México going back centuries. México has never been well covered. But the coverage has gotten worse. In the early 20th century, the US public could widely recognize the name of the current Mexican president. But the frequency of media coverage — and the range of topics covered — began diminishing in the 1970s. By the 1990s, US media coverage of México was essentially only focusing on drug trafficking and violence, and that’s still true today.

“If it bleeds,” goes the old media saying, “it leads.” Does that explain why coverage on México focuses on violence and crime?

That’s part of the reason. Most all media outlets in both México and the US remain privately owned, largely in the hands of oligarchs. The news has become more and more profit-driven, more sensationalistic, less concerned about quality. 

Newspaper staffs have shrunk over recent decades, and foreign bureaus have been particularly decimated. Overseas slots used to be prestigious jobs reserved for seasoned journalists. Now the few foreign bureau assignments left go to younger — less costly — reporters who aren’t expected to do as much. In a lot of US newspaper coverage of México, I mainly see a regurgitation of what US reporters read in the Mexican media. If you want to know what the Mexican media is saying, insiders say, just read the Washington Post! 

What about progressive media sources?

Progressive media, for the most part, aren’t providing alternative analyses. México can be confusing. Progressives have a good idea of who’s who in countries like El Salvador or Honduras, where US interference has been clear, or in countries where right-wing governments are killing dissenters. But México had leftist leaders in the early 20th century, especially in the 1930s. After that, the ruling PRI party became expert in paying lip service to revolutionary ideals. The PRI would make a show of defying US policy by supporting Cuba, for instance. But domestically the oligarchs ruled and the people suffered. 

US progressives can also get confused because leftists in other countries don’t sound like the US left. Former Bolivian President Evo Morales once said, for instance, that “eating chicken can turn you into a homosexual.” Does that mean he’s not left and should not be supported? AMLO doesn’t come off as a feminist champion. Does that mean he’s not left — even though he’s improving the lives of the common people and pursuing the oligarchs to pay back what they’ve stolen?

Cultural and economic issues all rate as important, but many US progressives tend to prioritize the cultural over the economic in their assessment of who qualifies as “left.”

Is the sparse and negative Western media coverage damaging to México?

Yes. This negative coverage gets Americans behind policy proposals that serve US imperial goals, like all the current talk about militarily invading México to “solve” the drug and gun crisis by taking out the cartels. We should always, by the way, say “drug and gun” to counter the mainstream frame and help people understand that most of the guns the cartels use come illegally trafficked from the US.

US media coverage has people believing that an incompetent autocrat is ruling México. This coverage is eroding support for the important changes in México now underway.

Is the mainstream media escalating attacks on AMLO to influence either the Mexican or US elections in 2024?

This coverage at least partly represents an attempt to influence the upcoming 2024 Mexican presidential election. People are reading that the policies of AMLO and Morena’s are bad for the economy, bad for the environment, bad for democracy. 

The headline over one May 2021 Economist article:

Voters should curb Mexico’s power-hungry president: Andrés Manuel López Obrador pursues ruinous policies by improper means

Reuters last week reported that the Environmental Commission of the USMCA — a tripartite US-México-Canada body — has voted to investigate the possible damage that AMLO’s new Tren Maya is doing to the ecosystem. But we saw no similar investigation or coverage when the US decided to allow drilling for oil in Alaska! The real issue here? The corporate media hate the Tren Maya because they see it as a successful public project, something anathema to the privatizing agenda of the neoliberals. They would love to see Morena lose in 2024.

Bashing México has been a go-to electoral strategy for US politicians for decades. Candidates compete on who can be the toughest — and most racist — anti-Latino voice. Right-wing voters love lines like Pat Buchanan’s “No way, José! Adiós, Pancho!” and Trump’s “murderers and rapists” and “shithole countries.” In 1992, I remember, even Jimmy Carter argued to the effect that NAFTA deserved support because it would help civilize Mexico. Blaming México for US problems gets votes.

How can we counter the anti-México media barrage when they’ve got big guns and we’ve got cap pistols!

I’m excited about this México Solidarity Bulletin and the opportunity to do a new column debunking those mainstream narratives. And the México Solidarity Project has also pulled together a pool of progressive researchers, social media influencers, and independent journalists — like Kurt Hackbarth — who are writing for the few publications like the Jacobin that cover México well. 

We’ll unmask journalists like Denise Dresser who pose as progressives. She says she’s pro-Bernie and anti-AMLO. She’s using Bernie as a cover for her oblique shilling for the PRI, a party more similar to US Republicans. I’d call her part of a class of “first-world Mexicans” culturally, philosophically, and politically connected to the global North. They resent AMLO for capturing working people’s hearts in México, just as Bernie has done in the US. 

If we can replace the mainstream narrative with one that supports the Mexican people, how will that impact both sides of the border?

The Real Threat to Fearless Mexican Reporters 

The first installment of a new México Solidarity Bulletin weekly column by researcher Jesus Hermosillo spotlighting the misinformation on México rampant in the US media.

The piece/ Enrique Krauze, In Mexico, López Obrador’s provocations may soon get opponents killed, Washington Post, April 11, 2023.

The claim/ This recent Washington Post op-ed by the right-wing Mexican media personality Enrique Krauze hits on a tired old theme: Andrés Manuel López Obrador as enemy of press freedom. Krauze paints Mexico’s president as “furious with his critics, almost all of them journalists, writers and intellectuals” and depicts AMLO as a potential future “absolute ruler” with a penchant for “denouncing” his detractors and not hesitating “to give the individuals’ full names.”

The back story/ Since taking office in 2018, AMLO’s readiness to push back on the relentless stream of attacks on his government — and even his family — has elicited media complaints that his words endanger the lives of journalists. Mexican news reporters do face real danger, but this scourge predates AMLO’s presidency by over three decades. Violence against journalists runs inextricably linked to the same illegal drug-and-gun trades responsible for México’s high homicide rate. The victims — most all crime reporters — have bravely been exposing corrupt state and local officials and their ties to organized crime.

The bottom line/ Krauze’s piece makes no mention of the real dangers reporters in México face. Nor does he mention his own loss of highly lucrative federal advertising contracts after AMLO’s inauguration. Krauze, as a television producer and publisher favored by the old kleptocratic “neoliberal regime,” has shared in the government subsidies — and outright bribes — showered down for generations upon media outlets and personalities ever ready to generate pro-regime, anti-left propaganda. Krauze’s anti-AMLO vitriol reflects the bitterness of a long coddled and flattered media elite. These journalists and their fellow “writers and intellectuals” now feel like castaways in a new political era. 

Eclectic Interests and Influences: Amalia Mesa-Bains

The work of Amalia Mesa-Bains reflects the length and breadth of an amazing life. First known as a Chicana installation artist associated with the Chicano art movement of the sixties and seventies, AMB has continued to expand her iconic role. The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive is now presenting the first retrospective of her career.  

Listening to her speak at the Berkeley museum left me in awe of the depth of her explorations, as does a tour of her installations now on display. AMB’s “What the River Gave to Me” installation places migrations across the Rio Grande in a “spiritual landscape.” In “An Ofrenda for Dolores del Rio” — Hollywood’s first Mexican crossover actress — Mesa-Bains warmly explains the importance of this icon in her life and the lives of many generations of Mexican women.

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

Felipe De La Hoz and Gaby Del Valle, Processing centers form latest front in border externalization strategy, Border/Lines. The Biden administration has decided to double down on a longtime tried-and-true method to control the arrival of migrants without arousing much outrage on the part of domestic political constituencies: border externalization, or the notion of essentially outsourcing border control functions.

Emir Olivares y Alonso Urrutia, Pide AMLO a Biden alto al apoyo a opositores, La Jornada. López Obrador ha pedido a Biden “su valiosa intervención” para evitar que Washington mantenga el financiamiento a organizaciones “abiertamente opositoras al gobierno legal y legítimo que represento, lo cual es a todas luces un acto intervencionista, contrario al derecho internacional y al respeto que debe prevalecer entre estados libres y soberanos”.

Abigail Scott, Map of border surveillance towers shows growing 'virtual wall' along U.S. southern border, Tucson Sentinel. US Customs and Border Protection officials are aggressively expanding a “virtual wall” of border surveillance towers in the Southwest. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is mapping the locations of each tower along America’s southern border.

La secretaria del Trabajo, Luisa María Alcalde, anunció invalidación de 121 mil contratos colectivos, Proceso. Casi cuatro millones de trabajadores sindicalizados en el país fueron convocados para estas consultas, para decidir si estaban de acuerdo con sus contratos colectivos, y como resultado, aseguró, “miles de contratos blancos desaparecerán”, explicó la funcionaria.

Sarah Morland, México president asks Biden to stop USAID funding opposition groups, Reuters. AMLO wants his American counterpart to cut funding for his opposition from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Alejandro Calvillo, Vienen por nuestro maíz, SinEmbargo. Si el maíz llegara a sembrarse comercialmente en México, las empresas como Bayer Monsanto podrían lanzar a su ejército de abogados a demandar a los campesinos que siembran más de 60 razas de maíz criollo en 2.3 millones de parcelas, por estar usando, seleccionando, almacenando e intercambiando sus semillas.

‘In México a revolution of consciousness is taking place,’ says Mexican president, Peoples Dispatch. The comment came in response to a question asking how AMLO responds to right-wing attacks.

José Réyez, DEA: escándalos, corrupción y complicidad con crimen organizado, ContraLinea. A 50 años de su creación, la DEA fue objeto de una primera evaluación de desempeño en más de 100 países, que descubre irregularidades de agentes en su desempeño.

Mexican president says U.S. policy change will not boost migrant numbers at border, Reuters. The US now says it will accept some 100,000 people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras under an expanded family reunification program and open centers in Guatemala and Colombia for migrants to apply for refugee resettlement and other forms of entry.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice. We see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty.

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati, Courtney Childs, Victoria Hamlin, Agatha Hinman, Steven Hollis, Daniel McCool, Betty Forrester, Jesús Hermosillo. To give feedback or get involved yourself, please email us!

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