Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now

Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now is the title of Jim Cockcroft’s new book. It’s described as the perfect introductory text to the subject, providing readers the historic context within which the Mexican revolution occurred, how the process played out in the past ten decades and where it is today among Mexico’s workers. Jim examines the tensions between the rulers and the ruled inside the country while also exploring tensions with the United States. The prospect of Mexico’s disenfranchised rising up is kept alive and we discuss those possibilities with the author today. A historian and activist, Jim has written 45 books on Latin America. He’s a professor at the State University of New York and is a member of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five.

Dr James D Cockcroft:

  • You should understand Michael, that Mexico has had a long history of the US meddling in its internal affairs.
  • Direct military intervention, direct military conquest of half the country.
  • There’s a record of the US sponsoring torture and training torturers that goes all the back to the US torturers that goes all the way back to the US-Mexico War of 1846-48.
  • What’s really involved is oil, water, natural resources, and cheap labor power.
  • What does the US do about it? It first of all gets rid of the old government, the longest ruling single party in the history of human kind, the PRI in 2000 by supporting the more conservative option to that government.
  • the PAN, the Party of National Action which has governed Mexico from 2000 to the present.
  • A government by, of and for big business.  US imperialism has a very direct goal to annex Mexico economically which is partially done already and if need be militarily occupy it.
  • Propaganda: Mexico is a failed state and that there are these narco gangs cutting off people’s heads and killing civilians.
  • It’s a state of failed law. It’s a very successful state as a puppet of US goals.
  • The Narco gangs, some of them are actually integrated in the Mexican government.
  • The vast majority of the 34 thousand killed, civilians mostly, in four years of this current illegitimate government. Feminicide and youthicide, to be female or young in Mexico is to be criminal.
  • It’s a fake war (war on drugs) always has been for about 30 or 40 years.
  • Follow the dollar. Where does the laundered money end up? In the hands of the 6th largest banks in America.
  • The bailout of the banks is chicken feed compared to what’s really saving the banks, drug money.
  • Obama was wrong in his State of the Union speech, the United States is only number one militarily.
  • That’s why you have a return to dirty wars, militarization, military coups in Latin America.
  • Mexican 1917 Constitution establishes that oil and other natural resources belong to the nation, not the private corporations.  We have to take the banks out of the hands of the bankers, and take the factories out of the hands of the industrialists and let the people run them.
  • The Mexico state is a fascist state in the broad sense of the word. The first thing a fascist does is crush labor.
  • But labor is resisting and that’s what is so dynamic about Mexico today. The movement’s alive but it’s being repressed.
  • I’m a member of 2 civil society international tribunals. Trade Union Freedom, the Conscience of the Movement of People.
  • Mexico is the key to the future of Latin America.

Guest – Dr. James D. Cockcroft A bilingual award-winning author of 45 books on Latin America, US hidden history, culture, migration, and human rights, (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Internet professor for the State University of New York. A bilingual poet, three-time Fulbright Scholar, and Honorary Editor of Latin American Perspectives, he serves on the Coordinadora Internacional de Redes en Defensa de la Humanidad, the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five, and civil society’s Benito Juárez Tribunal (vice-president, 2005) that judged U.S. terrorism against Cuba and International Tribunal of Trade Union Freedom (2009-10) that judged Mexico for its violations of labor and human rights. A Canadian immigrant, he is a member of the UNESCO-sponsored World Council of the José Martí World Solidarity Project, la Table de Concertation de Solidarité Québec-Cuba, la Société Bolivarienne du Québec, la Base de Paix Montréal, le Comité Fabio Di Celmo pour les 5, and the Canada-Cuba Literary Alliance.

Gaza In Crisis:  Reflections on Israel’s War Against the  Palestinians, by  Ilan Pappé

We listen to excerpts from a speech plus question and answers from acclaimed Israeli New Historian Ilan Pappe. Ilan Pappé surveys the fallout from Israel’s conduct in Gaza and places it in the context of Israel’s longstanding  occupation of Palestine. Israel’s Operation Cast Lead thrust the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip into the center of the debate about the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Speaker – Ilan Pappé is professor of history at the University of Exeter in the UK, where he is also co-director of the Exeter Center for Ethno-Political studies, and director of the Palestine Studies Centre. He is author of the bestselling The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld), A History of Modern Palestine (Cambridge), The Israel/Palestine Question (Routledge). Ilan is also a long-time political activist.

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