In a new act of military interference and interventionism , US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that his country is about to begin “ground” attacks in Mexican territory under the pretext of fighting drug cartels .
The US president’s announcement came days after the US was set to launch a military attack against Venezuela and kidnap President Nicolás Maduro along with First Lady Cilia Flores.
Hours after the US military operation against Venezuela, Donald Trump stated that Mexico, as well as Cuba and Colombia, could be Washington’s next targets .
Furthermore, he declared his intention to “do something about Mexico ,” asserting, without presenting any evidence, that drug cartels are in power in the country .
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded to Donald Trump’s interventionist statements by arguing that Mexico is a sovereign country and that her administration is committed to a peaceful solution .
In turn, Claudia Sheinbaum urged people to advocate for "collaboration, coordination, but not subordination . "
Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has maintained an interventionist and military agenda in the region under the argument of combating drug trafficking .
Video link -> https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2009464620642390018/vid/avc1/1916x1080/_P5cMAqnva-MwUiT.mp4
Source -> https://www.telesurtv.net/donald-trump-ataques-terrestres-mexico/
These are the words you used. If that isn’t what you meant I’m sorry for taking you at your word but I cant read your mind.
In a different setting I think it is fine to give critical support to Sheinbaum because she is much better than the alternatives. But this is Lemmygrad we don’t need to indulge in false hope that a bourgeoisie party will do anything other than capitulate to international capitalist interests.
Sheinbaum and her party are demsoc. Giving them a chance is giving demsocs a chance. She has been attempting to appease trump and expecting that to change is wishful thinking.
Next time you could just say “unless you have better information.” As historical materialists we need to not fall into the rhetorical trap of using “lived experience.” Its subjective, individualist and anecdotal. A maze is easier to solve from a above than from inside. It’s a bad line when they use it and it is just as bad for us.
That’s just not what I said though. The way you splice it gives it a different meaning than what I said. This is the reason I’m denying the framing that you’re using. Here is the exact phrasing I used:
I generally try to choose my words carefully (sometimes to an absurd degree, to be honest) and I won’t pretend I never mistakes in points of view or wording, but I couched it as I did for a reason.
The other parts of the sentences matter:
“I think you should give Mexican leadership a chance to react” (another way of saying this is, unless you are in a position to do organizational actions that can react to an anticipated full capitulation and try to head them off, what is to be gained from jumping to conclusions while events are in the middle of transpiring? what is lost from having some patience in observing before reacting if you don’t have the means to take advantage of a prediction?)
Then there is another component to it: “before you start flinging “I know better” insults.” (e.g. criticism based on what has occurred rather than what is anticipated to occur - how can you criticize a person or organization only for something they are predicted to do? again, what is to be gained from doing this?)
“Unless you are yourself living in Mexico and believe you have a thorough enough understanding of its context to be weighing in, in this way.” <- Again, this is the full sentence. For example, what if it’s the case that someone has seen Claudia Sheinbaum’s policies affect their life firsthand and part of where it’s coming from is anger from the impact of that? I don’t know this at the offset and as a westerner, I don’t want to be in the habit of jumping to conclusions about where people are from and why they are saying what they’re saying. It is an active effort to unlearn western chauvinist tendencies.
I’ll agree I could have worded it better (though I’m honestly not sure how at the moment), but your framing of it is also misleading in the way it chops it up into a meaning that it doesn’t otherwise represent. “You should give Mexican leadership a chance unless you are yourself living in Mexico” is a brand new sentence. And I don’t agree that saying “unless you have better information” would be an improvement because it doesn’t acknowledge bias to do with geography and lived experience. I was explicitly trying to acknowledge bias.
And no, acknowledging lived experience is not somehow anti-dialectical. It’s a part of material reality and a part of narrative, the same as many other things. Many things in life that we take for granted as true are derived in part from primary sources (people describing one thing or another happening). Science in general tries to get around the bias of this by cross-referencing sources, looking for commonalities and contradictions, where descriptions sync up with other information and where they don’t, etc.
But it is a major component of information gathering. It’s just not something to take for granted uncritically.
I don’t see how waiting to see what happens before jumping to conclusions is false hope. I did not say “she’s going to save Mexico.”
Russia is capitalist and yet is also anti-imperialist due to circumstances. We need to be looking at the contradictions, not single variables in isolation. But again, I did not say I “expect her to change”. What I do expect is that just because capitalists can be capitalists within one country does not always mean they will want to be subservient to capitalists from another country who want to take over and subjugate everybody there.
Maybe you will turn out to be right, but I will still maintain that it’s unwise to treat the future as already determined. There are situations (such as with weather predictions) where individuals and societies react to what is expected to occur, but this is in order to be able handle possible outcomes more effectively. It is not beneficial to go “I’m so mad that it snowed 12 inches” because there is a prediction a week from now for snow. However, being ready for the fact that it may snow is helpful.
I hope this clarifies sufficiently.