Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle Book 6

I read the sixth and final book of Karl Ove Knausgaard's autobiographical My Struggle, which was far longer and less cohesive than its predecessors.

The first part of the book is meta, and not necessarily in a good way. The previous books were about his life, but now he has caught up and his life is centered on the reception of the books. So you end up in a loop as people you've already read about now themselves read the same for the first time and respond to Knausgaard. His uncle is apoplectic, which worries him. That got old for me fairly quickly, though Knausgaard is just so good at capturing emotion that I was still drawn to it.

Since the book came out so long ago in Norwegian, I knew there was a long middle part about Hitler. Knausgaard was trying to figure out whether he, in the midst of his own struggle with life, could have ended up the same way as Hitler if placed in the same context. So he reads Mein Kampf (it's a bit of "I read Mein Kampf so you don't have to"). Hitler as a youth was into art and did not stand out in any particular way, then as he matured figured out how to give a "we" to people that he could manipulate. I actually found this part interesting mostly because of our current political situation than as a connection to Knausgaard. Since it was written so long ago, it is totally unrelated to the fascism (or proto-fascism) that we face today but it's still relevant. People search for meaning and fascism gives it to them, with ready made enemies.

As he tries to explain his feelings about his own place in the world, and how he wants to relate to it, he tends to fall back on what to my untrained eye feels like literary theory jargon, citing novels, poems, and paintings (sometimes densely packed together in a string) and using words like "intertextuality" in sentences that seem never-ending. Here, in the middle, the book slowed to a crawl for me.

"Explanation is anathema in these texts, all meaning must be extracted from the events portrayed, which are not relative, only unfathomable" (p. 682).

That gets old. Hundreds of sometimes overwrought pages bring us to his conclusion that we find "we" in being human. "I am you" (p. 830). It took me weeks to get through it. The "I" vs. "we" permeates his life after the first volume of My Struggle was published, because writing alone about your life is "I" but as soon as it is published, the "I" becomes "we" since so many other real people are portrayed and, more importantly, hurt. That is where all the angst comes in.

After the Hitler digression, Knausgaard returns to his life, but again it is primarily about being the author of a biographical novel. Unlike all the other books, I can't connect to this. The previous books all had universal qualities (at least, I hasten to add, to a cisgender middle aged white male who grew up in the 80s), parts of growing up that I could see in myself. That was not so often the case with this book. But he is still such evocative writer that I enjoyed it, albeit less on a personal level. The same goes with his discussion of his wife Linda, with whom he seems perpetually annoyed and who he seems not to be in love with at all. He describes her manic episodes, both high and low, in detail that must be awful to her. He loves his children but not her so much. It is sad to read and clear that they will not be married much longer (they are divorced now).

I'm glad in a way. With the five previous books, I wanted to read the next one immediately. Now the narrative is done and that feels right.

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Race 13: University City Turkey Trot 5K

In my year of running I did the University City Turkey Trot 5K (here is my first post about running this year). We've done this or some other run for many years, as a way to get some exercise before spending the rest of the day cooking and eating. It is a simple, relatively flat there-and-back course not too far from where I live.

It was a perfect morning for running, clear, sunny and probably high 30s at the start. It was the biggest ever, with over 800 runners. That is quite a thing for a basic suburban race, but there were a lot of kids, a lot of walkers, and just a lot of people interested in getting out early on the big day.

Next up: the Kiawah Island Marathon in just two (gulp) weeks.

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How Mexico's Militarized Drug War Screws Up Everything

Gustavo Flores-Macías, "The Consequences of Militarizing Anti-Drug Efforts for State Capacity in Latin America: Evidence From Mexico," Comparative Politics 51, 1 (October 2018): 1-20.

Abstract (ungated, at least right now).

In response to the threat posed by drug-trafficking organizations, developing countries are increasingly relying on the armed forces for their counter-drug strategies. Drawing on the literature on violence and state capacity, this article studies how the militarization of anti-drug efforts affects state capacity along two dimensions: public safety and fiscal extraction. It advances theoretical expectations for this relationship and evaluates them in the context of Mexico. Based on subnational-level analyses, it shows that the militarization of anti-drug efforts has decreased the state's capacity to provide public order and extract fiscal resources: homicide and kidnapping rates have increased while tax collection has decreased. Given the wide-ranging consequences of diminished state capacity, the findings have implications not only for Latin America but also across the developing world.

Really interesting qualitative analysis. The first point is intuitive--as the state focuses on militarization, it actually ratchets up violence. Homicides increase as Drug Trafficking Organization generate greater firepower in response. Meanwhile, the military itself was also responsible for deaths.

The second point, about tax collection, is something that has not occurred to me before. All the increased violence increases a general sense of dissatisfaction with the government.

In addition to dissatisfaction, the prevalence of extortion in the context of deteriorated public safety has also affected fiscal extraction. As media reports have shown, extortion payments often prevent people from fulfilling their tax obligations, since people’s resources are limited and the threat to their physical integrity is imminent if they do not pay extortionists. For example, mining companies are forced to pay high protection fees to ship minerals through certain parts of Durango. In Michoacan, mining companies pay DTOs 7 USD per ton of iron ore extracted. In Veracruz, media reports point to the choice small businesses face of meeting their tax obligations or paying extortion fees in order to stay afloat.

People are mad, businesses are being shook down like never before, and so tax revenue also goes down. Lose-lose-lose.

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Impact of Making Venezuela A State Sponsor of Terrorism

The Trump administration is considering putting Venezuela on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, which currently only has North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Sudan. There are variety of angles here, such as criteria (which Boz discusses), purpose, and utility. I want to focus on something else, which is human impact. The notion of putting Venezuela on the list has been around a long time, but the difference now is that there is a humanitarian disaster in Venezuela.

If Venezuela is put on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, the administration will have hoops to jump if it wants to provide humanitarian assistance. From Section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act:

PROHIBITION.—The United States shall not provide any assistance under this Act, the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, the Peace Corps Act, or the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 to any country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.

The President can, however, call for a waiver:

(1) the President determines that national security interests or humanitarian reasons justify a waiver of subsection (a), except that humanitarian reasons may not be used to justify assistance under part II of this Act (including chapter 4, chapter 6, and chapter 8), or the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945; and (2) at least 15 days before the waiver takes effect, the President consults with the Committee on Foreign Affairs 951 of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate regarding the proposed waiver and submits a report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate containing— (A) the name of the recipient country; (B) a description of the national security interests or humanitarian reasons which require the waiver; (C) the type and amount of and the justification for the assistance to be provided pursuant to the waiver; and (D) the period of time during which such waiver will be effective.  

The waiver authority granted in this subsection may not be used to provide any assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 which is also prohibited by section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act. 

A legitimate question to ask here is whether the administration would ever bother sending aid to Venezuela in the first place. Aid is aimed at neighboring countries dealing with refugees, since any aid sent to Venezuela would certainly disappear.

But there is also the question of oil. In 2018, the United States has imported anywhere from roughly 13,000 to 20,000 barrels per month from Venezuela. That has been on a decline over the years, given that when Hugo Chávez took office it was more like 50,000. But still, this is not an insignificant amount and cutting it off (i.e. embargo) would have a major negative impact on the Venezuelan economy and by extension on the average Venezuelan.

Section 620J of the Export Administration Act lays out the hoops:

(j) COUNTRIES SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM.—(1) A validated license shall be required for the export of goods or technology to a country if the Secretary of State has made the following determinations: 

(A) The government of such country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism. (B) The export of such goods or technology could make a significant contribution to the military potential of such country, including its military logistics capability, or could enhance
the ability of such country to support acts of international terrorism.
(2) The Secretary and the Secretary of State shall notify the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate at least 30 days before issuing any validated license required by paragraph (1).

In short, potential humanitarian assistance and oil exports would be affected, but there are ways around the restrictions. I might write some other time about why the U.S. should bother doing this to Venezuela.

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Trump and Colombia

Lara Seligman has a curious article in Foreign Policy about U.S. policy toward Latin America. The U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff was in Colombia, which was "part of a broader administration effort to reinforce alliances across Latin America."

All the U.S. did, though, was to complain. Is this what we call "reinforce" now? We're upset you're working with China. We're upset you're not buying our weapons systems. We're upset about the Russians. The article mentions "new alliances" but the U.S. does not appear to be pursuing any.

It boils down to the core idea that the U.S. is desperately holding onto existing military-military relationships so that they don't slip away entirely. The Colombian example is especially illustrative in this regard because it should be the simplest--the two countries and their militaries have been working closely together for many years. And yet even that one is more challenging these days.

Why is it so hard nowadays? Well, you know.

Donald Trump just recently cancelled a scheduled trip to Colombia, which is his second cancellation in a presidency less than two years old. Just a year ago he threatened to decertify Colombia for narcotics, which was a clear insult. Two months ago he mentioned the need for Colombia to combat the scourge of cocoa.

Diplomats, the military, and everyone else is fighting an uphill battle when the President of the United States has made abundantly clear that he does not particularly value the bilateral relationship. Perhaps the main goal for the moment is to maintain those personal relationships developed over years of such visits until someone else occupies the Oval House.

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Maduro's Off Ramp, Or Is it?

Patrick Duddy, a former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela who is now at Duke, wrote a blog post for the Council on Foreign Relations about creating an "off ramp" for Nicolás Maduro. He hopes AMLO will play an important role.

While some ex-presidents from around the region have expressed their alarm over what they see as AMLO breaking ranks with those countries advocating for the restoration of democracy, it is possible AMLO’s independent streak may position him to play a decisive part in bringing this agonizing chapter of Venezuelan history to an end. Because he has played no role in recent regional efforts to force change in Venezuela, he may be the one leader acceptable to both the opposition and the Venezuelan government, and thus able to convince the Maduro administration to leave office.

This makes sense to me, but two points need more attention.

First, there is a huge difference between Maduro and "the Maduro administration." The former is an individual and the latter is a large, tightly bound web of corruption that includes the military. I feel like the two get conflated in the post. It is one thing to ease out Maduro, but doing more requires the military, which is not mentioned. AMLO could be up to the former task, but the latter is so much bigger. Anyhow, simply replacing Maduro with another regime figure does not necessarily entail much substantive change.

Second, Duddy writes something I've seen elsewhere: "This situation is not indefinitely sustainable." Well, define "indefinitely." No, it is not sustainable until the end of time, but it is definitely sustainable for quite a long time. Like Fidel Castro's, the regime's demise has been predicted for many years. This brings us back to the military. Robert Mugabe was ousted when the army finally decided it was time. The whole thing might collapse tomorrow but it is not inevitable.

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Review of When They Call You a Terrorist

Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele's When They Call You A Terrorist is a powerful memoir by the woman who started Black Lives Matter. BLM is so demonized by the right that many people likely know nothing about it but form negative opinions anyway. The book is so eloquent because it just describes a family, whose lives the state has really decided don't matter. Her brother has schozaffective disorder, but is arrested and then tortured (in ways that rival Abu Ghraib) in prison because no one is interested that his episodes can be effectively treated. In general, prisons are there to make money and the lives within them literally do not matter. Black lives in particular simply do not matter--men are automatically guilty and women have to pick up the pieces with inadequate resources. Children suffer all the consequences and too many live without hope.

Patrisse Khan-Cullors dedicated her life to organizing against discrimination and hate, in the face of all kinds of structural obstacles, all the more challenging as a queer woman. She gains and then loses her biological father, gains and loses the other father who had been in her life at times. She deals with the prison system in ways most of us with comfortable (and white) lives simply cannot imagine.

The media generally treats BLM as radical, but the only radical idea here is that people should literally be treated equally. You don't see rancor in this memoir. There's far more worry and longing, with hope sprinkled in. You should read it.

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Evangelicals and Democracy in Brazil

Amy Erica Smith writes in Americas Quarterly about evangelicalism and politics in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro uses it to justify violence, but there are other issues. Evangelicals in Brazil, like the U.S., see their values as threatened, which increases the chances of pushing to pass laws related to things and people they deem immoral. Democracy in the abstract, restriction of democracy in practice.

Evangelicalism has been on the rise for quite a while in Latin America and as its adherents gain the presidency or even perhaps congressional majorities (or at least pluralities) that tension will only become more common.

Across the region, evangelicals are increasingly mobilizing for conservative candidates and causes. In Colombia, for instance, they helped defeat the 2016 peace referendum. And in Costa Rica and Chile in recent years, evangelicals suddenly sprang from quiescence into action when faced with the imminent threat of the legalization of gay marriage and abortion rights. In Brazil, a fear of what has been called “gender ideology” fired up the religious vote that in turn contributed to Bolsonaro’s victory on Oct. 28.

And although the U.S. is not the cause of this development, it can give it inspiration and perhaps even a model.

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Chileans Want Out of Venezuela

The Chilean government is sending an Air Force plane to get hundreds of Chileans in Venezuela who want out. They've already rescued Haitians from there. The idea is to get people who do not have the means to leave themselves, though it's unclear how that is defined or checked. I can't get the iconic image of the last people trying to leave Vietnam on a helicopter off the top of a building out of my mind.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government is retrieving Venezuelans in Chile, who initially fled but then could not find work or for whatever reason do not want to stay in Chile. We do need to put that in context, because around 177,000 Venezuelans arrived in Chile last year alone and only about 200 want to go back. So that's more of a PR thing (the capitalists lied to you!) than reality. The Venezuelan government has been doing this on and off all year.

If you take a step back, it's just madness. Way back in 1979, sociologist Saskia Sassen, who has published a ton on migration, wrote the following about Venezuela in International Migration Review:

Since 1973 there has been a pronounced increase in the numbers of permanent residents, registered entries of foreigners, naturalizations, and legalizations of undocumented workers. By October 1977, the total number of foreigners in Venezuela with residence permits had reached almost 1.2 million in a total population of 13 million. This figure is quite high considering that, in 1961, after a decade of massive immigration, there were only about half a million such foreigners and that by 1971 their number was only slightly higher. Although the 1960s saw the addition of almost 80,000 foreigners, there was also a loss of 57,800 persons with permanent residence permits. With the exception of 1969, each year of the 1960s recorded a loss of permanent residents. The reversal of this trend toward large increases in the number of permanent and temporary residence permits granted occurred over a rather short period of time, doubling the resident population between 1971 and 1977.

Venezuela was always known as a haven for those being persecuted by dictatorships. But it was also a magnet for immigrants because of economic growth and labor scarcity. For a long time, it was the most desirable location for Latin America. Everything now is literally the exact opposite.

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Podcast Episode 59: Using the Venezuelan Crisis in the U.S.

In Episode 59 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I go solo and take a look at an issue that has bugged me, which is the use of the Venezuelan crisis in the United States. That revolves around the argument that Democrats will turn the U.S. into Venezuela. As you might guess, this is an argument without merit but it raises interesting questions about how Venezuela got to where it is today.

If you subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or elsewhere it will be showing up soon.

As a reminder, check out my Open Access textbook Understanding Latin American Politics.

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What US Aid Does in Guatemala

Great story by Sandra Cuffe at The Intercept on U.S. military aid to Guatemala. Ostensibly it's just about jeeps, but that reveals a deeper problem. And not really new. The U.S. pours money into small, less developed countries, and ends up making things worse, in no small part because the aid ends up helping authoritarian forces.

Roughly two hours after the jeeps were first spotted outside the offices of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala — CICIG, by its Spanish acronym — Morales stood inside the National Palace flanked by military and police officials and announced that he would not renew CICIG’s mandate, sparking legal challenges, protests, and an ongoing political crisis. The deployment of the jeeps deepened concerns among many Guatemalans about Morales  — all the more so when the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala revealed that the vehicles had been donated by the United States for use in border regions, not the capital. Morales and his backers have been courting the support of the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers against CICIG, and there are signs that the U.S. government’s longstanding support for the commission is weakening.

Jeeps alone are not the point. It's more about what green lights the U.S. government, meaning the Trump administration, is giving. These days the message is that you can use our aid to fight against democracy. We don't mind. In fact, we do not particularly like fighting corruption anymore.

Jimmy Morales is a sycophant to Trump and so this and other incidences will go unremarked by the administration. Guatemalan democracy--already in tatters--will suffer as a result.

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Moving Away from Anti-Relations in Latin America

Chris Sabatini has a rundown of the possible impact of the midterm elections on U.S. policy toward Latin America. One thing that really strikes me is that there is no agenda at all for engagement. Trump is anti-trade, anti-immigrant, anti-leftist, anti-CICIG etc. whereas some of the more prominent members of the new House majority are anti-trade but also anti-anti immigrant, anti-Bolsonaro, anti-Venezuela, and so on.

What are we for?

Chris mentions accountability for foreign aid, which is fine, but it's oversight more than policy itself. When John Bolton gave his speech, it was all anti. Here is what we really dislike. Is there anything in the hemisphere that we like? Even with Democrats in the House: beyond trying to treat immigrants with humanity, what are their positive priorities in the region beyond platitudes about democracy?

What about the Colombian peace deal? What about CICIG? What about trade? What about climate change?

Update (11/11/18): Pushing for TPS is certainly one good example.

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Bolsonaro's International Priorities Do Not Include Argentina

Jair Bolsonaro announced his first trips as president: he will be going to Chile, Washington, and Israel. Dilma Rousseff's first trip was to Argentina, which makes sense given the historical importance of the bilateral relationship, and it's a common choice for either Brazilian or Argentine presidents. But Bolsonaro is not particularly interested in Argentina or Mercosur.

All three are highly ideological choices. There is an obvious affinity between Bolsonaro and Trump, even though their ideologies sometimes take them in diametrically opposed directions. Both are nationalist, which puts up an automatic barrier to trade discussions even as they agree on many other things. Israel (and where embassies are located) is just part of the same ideological track. Chile is more pragmatic--Sebastián Piñera is not an ideological soulmate, but Bolsonaro's Economic Minister is a fan of the Chicago Boys and in fact Bolsonaro once praised Augusto Pinochet and said he should have killed more people.

For the moment, this leaves Argentina behind. Mauricio Macri is conservative but the economy is not doing well and Bolsonaro does not want to be tied to it. Interestingly, the Argentine and Brazilian militaries show signs of wanting to deepen relations, which can occur regardless of the presidents' priorities, just as U.S. military to military relations continue no matter what's going on at higher political levels.

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Venezuela and MTurk

Economic crisis generates unexpected consequences. A group of political scientists write in The Monkey Cage blog about Mechanical Turk (MTurk), which is an online survey program hosted by Amazon. You can put a survey out there and users who fit your requirements can fill it out. You get data and they get a bit of Amazon credit, like a nickel or a dime at a time (you can go check it out here). It is widely used, both by marketers and researchers. Political scientists use it extensively.

This actually connects to Venezuela. Economic deprivation has led people to use VPN to get into MTurk and take tons of surveys they aren't qualified to take, and in fact the user may not even speak English. They then can build up credits, buy something, and then resell it for cash.

Some researchers suggest that the fraudulent respondents were based in India. We looked at the number of international respondents who apparently forgot to turn on their VPSs, allowing us to see from where they were connecting with the Internet. While a number of connections were from India, making up about 12 percent of the international IPs, even more — almost 18 percent — came from Venezuela. 

We also combed online forums for MTurk users and found several Venezuelan Turkers who bragged about subverting the restrictions on international users. One detailed how he would acquire Amazon.com credit from MTurk, use that credit to purchase cellphones, and then have a friend in Miami ship him the cellphones.

All of this suggests that the MTurk crisis may have a surprising root. Venezuela’s economic crisis, with inflation heading toward 1 million percent. Some desperate Venezuelans are using online games to win virtual goods that they can sell for real money. Something similar seems to be happening on MTurk.

Shoot, if I were in Venezuela I would probably do the same.

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Immigration and the Midterms

Some thoughts on the midterm elections, where Democrats took the House while Republicans strengthened their Senate majority by a bit.

In our book Irresistible Forces, which came out 8 years ago, my dad and I discussed public opinion, which is hard to pin down on on immigration because there are so many different angles. The snapshot we gave was basically 2006-2010, and one point was that despite all the rhetoric, voters deemed undocumented immigration be to be the 4th or 5th most pressing problem. We added:

As the demographic fit concludes over the next several years, however, these numbers may well become more negative (p. 106).

That seems to have played out. Xenophobia was definitely a problem back then, but not on the scale that we see now, so the negativity has not just grown, it has become more virulent and openly racist.

Preliminary exit polls suggested that health care was by far the most pressing issue, while immigration was pretty close to tied with the economy. What has changed most noticeably is the partisan divide. Immigration is big (negatively, of course) with Republicans but not for Democrats, who are focused much more on health care. How much those issues affected any specific race is up for debate and likely will never be known for sure.

And the Latino vote? I have not seen any numbers yet. Instead, we have the same message we've heard for at least a decade, with lots of talk of promise and expectations. Empirically, this has usually translated into incremental increases in vote totals that have yet to become a decisive factor in many races. But let's wait and see once we get some more concrete numbers.

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Foreign Policy Change in Latin America

Merke, Federico, Diego Reynoso, and Luis L.Schenoni (2020) "Foreign Policy Change in Latin America: Exploring a Middle-Range Concept." Latin American Research Review, forthcoming, pp. 1-33.

Abstract (full text here):

In this article, we examine patterns of change and continuity in Latin American foreign  policies. We do so by asking two interrelated questions: How can we conceptually and empirically account for foreign policy change? And why do states change their foreign  policies in Latin America? To answer these questions, we used the results of a new expert survey on foreign policy preferences in the region between 1980 and 2014. The results we obtained using both linear and non-parametric specifications are very clear and consistent: presidential ideology is what matters the most. Simply put, a change in the ideology of the president produces a change in foreign policy that is almost equivalent in magnitude, all other theoretically relevant factors set to their means.

Using a survey of experts, this article confirms what has often been argued, that Latin American presidents drive foreign policy. Therefore it can change dramatically according to ideology.  The authors note that presidents can be limited by state bureaucracies (i.e. the infamous "deep state") but their whims matter. The international system matters but again, presidents have a lot of leeway.

From a theoretical perspective, this raises the structure/agency issue (though it is not their specific goal). On the one hand, presidents can make a lot of changes. On the other, they face structural restraints at the international level. Peripheral realists (a theory developed in Latin America) have made the argument that presidents can and should make decisions for the good of their own citizens, and the international system does not necessarily make that impossible. However, they have to be cognizant of what decisions might generate backlash (i.e. from a hegemon) and be wary of making them.

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The U.S. is Losing to China in Latin America

China imposed a 25% tariff on U.S. soybeans in response to President Trump's launch of a trade war.  China's strategy is to wean itself off U.S. soy. A major part of this effort is to pay closer attention to Latin America, which I mentioned two months ago in a sort of "wait and see" kind of way. Now we are seeing. Here are some results this year:

• U.S. soybean sales to China dropped 94% this year.

• Brazil is in talks with China to boost its soy exports.

• Argentine soy exporters expect a deal with China soon.

• Chinese business has developed a strong soy export sector in Paraguay.

• China wants to import soy from Bolivia but this year announced there was something wrong with it, so was going only with quinoa and coffee. Stay tuned, I guess.

The implications here are obvious. The trade war has deepened and accelerated China's economic relationships with South America, which had already been growing rapidly in the last decade or two. Once those kinds of ties are forged, they do not disappear quickly. If Trump insists on dragging out the trade, U.S. soy farmers will eventually have to fight for re-entrance in a market they lost.

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Cuba's Economy Slows

The Cuban government reduced its 2018 growth projection from 2% to 1% (here is a longer article in Granma about the Council of Ministers meeting, where the low projection is buried among a load of other things). The Minister of the Economy and Planning did not elaborate beyond saying the state was not receiving as much with regard to the harvest (zafra), tourism, and minerals. But hurricanes have hurt the economy, not to mention Hurricane Trump.

I assume many will take this as vindication of rolling back some of the changes made during the Obama administration. This depends on your goals. If you want simply to punish Cubans, this can be seen as successful. If you want regime change, this does not seem like such a good thing, especially when viewed in historical perspective. To put it mildly, there is no evidence that U.S. sanctions encourage state actors in Cuba to do anything you want them to.

I am not saying anything new here but there is no harm in repeating it. Clubbing Cuba over the head has not worked before.

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Lempira Restaurant

The latest in my periodic look at Latin American restaurants in Charlotte, businesses run by the same immigrant community being vilified for the midterm elections. These are U.S. businesses contributing to the economy and to the diversity of the community. I went to Lempira, a Salvadoran-Honduran-Mexican restaurant (this trio is not uncommon here). Lempira, incidentally, is also the name of the Honduran currency. There are actually four locations around Charlotte. We went to the one on South Boulevard. It was clearly a popular place for families on a Sunday afternoon.

Among us, we tried pupusas with beans and rice on the side, the tacos dorados Aztecas (my 10 year old daughter, who was looking for something familiar), and baleada, a Honduran dish, of which there are several options for fillings (in this case it was eggs, cheese, and avocado). Everything was delicious and there was a lot of food. The service was wonderful.

The last place I wrote about was Panadería y Restaurante Salvadoreña.

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Venezuela's Economic Helpers

I imagine Nicolás Maduro first turned to the Cubans to come up with an economic stabilization plan. Since the Cubans are serious debtors who don't know much about economic prosperity beyond finding patrons, they were not the best advisers. They're quite good at dictatorship, though, and have been helpful in that regard.

So now he is asking the Russians for advisers. That is according to the Russians, who also make clear that since Venezuela has also not been so good with debt, they will be receiving only advice, not money. In fact, Vladimir Putin has not even decided yet whether he wants to provide such an adviser. I can't imagine why he wouldn't, as it seems a low-risk way of maintaining and even increasing Russian influence.

The Russians think Maduro may have also asked the Chinese government for an adviser. The Chinese are similarly wary of giving more money but they also like influence.

I wonder, though, whether they can advise much beyond just saying, "You're totally screwed."

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John Bolton's Troika of Tyranny Speech (With Text)

I finally had a chance to read the text of John Bolton's speech yesterday about U.S. policy toward Latin America, though really mostly aimed at Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba. The "troika of tyranny" phrase is just so...Russian.

The timing of the speech is aimed at the midterm election to get out the South Florida vote, and it is a pretty standard "get tough" thing, without much content. And there is also no mention of the dicey problem of how without the 14th amendment, many Cuban-Americans in the audience would now be Cubans (like, for example, Marco Rubio).

It is well known that the first half of the George W. Bush administration was a disaster in Latin America, with lots of insult hurling ("You're Hitler!" "No, YOU'RE Hitler!") that Hugo Chávez used to his advantage. Especially after Tom Shannon took over as a top Latin America advisor, that toned down and more actual work got done. Well, we're back to where we started. Shannon is out and Bolton is back in. How else to explain inane comments like these?

These tyrants fancy themselves strongmen and revolutionaries, icons and luminaries. In reality, they are clownish, pitiful figures more akin to Larry, Curly, and Moe. The three stooges of socialism are true believers, but they worship a false God.

Diplomacy becomes the equivalent of primates throwing poop around and waiting expectantly for some to be thrown back.

The text of the speech, as given to the press, is below.

Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor Ambassador John R. Bolton Delivers
Remarks on the Trump Administration’s Policies in Latin America at Miami Dade College

Miami, FL
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Remarks as prepared for delivery

Thank you, Representative Ros-Lehtinen, for your kind introduction. I also want to thank Dr. Rodicio
for the invitation to speak with all of you today in such a beautiful setting.

It is an honor to be in Miami to address so many friends on a subject of utmost importance to the
President, to me, and to this entire administration: U.S. policy toward Latin America.

Across our administration, we are working hard to strengthen bonds and deepen ties with several
responsible governments throughout the region.

The United States is thrilled to be partnering with nations such as Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and many others to advance the rule of law and increase security and prosperity for our people.

The recent elections of likeminded leaders in key countries, including Ivan Duque in Colombia, and last weekend Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, are positive signs for the future of the region, and demonstrate a growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable
governance.

Yet today, in this Hemisphere, we are also confronted once again with the destructive forces of
oppression, socialism, and totalitarianism.

In Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, we see the perils of poisonous ideologies left unchecked, and the
dangers of domination and suppression.

This afternoon, I am here to deliver a clear message from the President of the United States on our
policy toward these three regimes.

Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this
Hemisphere.

We will not reward firing squads, torturers, and murderers.

We will champion the independence and liberty of our neighbors.

And this President, and his entire administration, will stand with the freedom fighters.

The Troika of Tyranny in this Hemisphere—Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua—has finally met its
match.

There is no better place to deliver this message than right here in Miami, at the Freedom Tower.
Miami is home to countless Americans, who fled the prisons and death squads of the Castro regime in Cuba, the murderous dictatorships of Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, and the horrific violence of the 1980s and the brutal reign of Ortega in Nicaragua.

In every corner of Miami, you will find someone who has endured years in Castro’s infamous
Combinado del Este political prison, or has been tortured in Maduro’s Helicoide prison, or has a loved one still languishing in Ortega’s El Chipote prison.

Others who call Miami home have escaped anti-Semitism and prejudice that has unfortunately existed in the region.

Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States, or anywhere in the world. We all have a responsibility to confront this heinous hatred, whether it occurs in Pittsburgh, Caracas, or in any other city.

Many of you in the audience today have personally suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of the
regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, only to survive, fight back, conquer, and overcome.

You breathe the free air of this beautiful city. Your children have experienced the possibilities of liberty.

And your grandchildren will never know the firsthand heartache of repression.

Your descendants can be anything, and achieve anything. They can attend this great institution, Miami Dade College, or even stand one day alongside the President.

And as they grow and flourish in America, they will carry with them your history, your sacrifice, and the memories of your incredible triumph. Their success will be your enduring legacy.

In the United States, we frequently hear the stories of Americans who came to our country for a better
life, and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, through hard work and sacrifice.

Today, I would ask that when you think of the American Dream, and this iconic imagery, you also
envision something else.

Generations of Americans have been inspired to thrive in liberty and freedom not only because of the
rewards of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice, but also because of the inalienable rights bestowed on every American and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

These fundamental liberties are represented forever by the red, white, and blue of our Old Glory, and
defended from harm by the greatest military on the face of the earth.

The American Dream depends on hard work and self-sufficiency, yes, but even more so on the
knowledge of what freedom makes possible: the awareness that you can chart your own destiny, the
cognizance that you are free to speak, to think, to write, to pray, to live.

Everyone here today understands this fundamental truth. There is no glamor in gulags and labor camps, in death squads and propaganda machines, in mass executions and in the sound of terrorizing screams from the depths of the world’s most notorious prisons.

These are the true consequences of socialism and communism. This is the price of freedom’s
extinguished flame.

As the President has said, the problems we see in Latin America today have not emerged because
socialism has been implemented poorly. On the contrary, the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan
people suffer in misery because socialism has been implemented effectively.

In Cuba, a brutal dictatorship under the façade of a new figurehead continues to undermine democratic institutions, and jail and torture opponents.

In Venezuela and Nicaragua, desperate autocratic leaders, hell-bent on maintaining their grip on power, have joined their Cuban counterparts in the same oppressive behavior of unjust imprisonment, torture, and murder.

This Troika of Tyranny, this triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua, is the
cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a
sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere.

Under President Trump, the United States is taking direct action against all three regimes to defend the rule of law, liberty, and basic human decency in our region.

As the President has repeatedly made clear, America’s security and prosperity benefits when freedom
thrives near our shores.

In Cuba, we continue to stand firmly with the Cuban people, and we share their aspirations for real,
democratic change.

Members of this administration will never take a picture in front of Che Guevara, plastered over the
Cuban ministry that runs the National Revolutionary Police.

As you know, this organization is responsible for oppressing dissidents and suppressing every kind of
freedom known to man.

We will not glamorize Marxist guerillas to promote a delusion of our own glory.

Our concern is with sanctions, not selfies.

Under this administration, there will no longer be secret channels between Cuba and the United States. Our policy is transparent for the American people and the world to see.

It is encapsulated in National Security Presidential Memorandum-5, “Strengthening the Policy of the
United States Toward Cuba.” And, in June of last year, President Trump came right here to Miami to outline this administration’s new policy and to announce the cancellation of the last administration’s one-sided and misguided deal with the Cuban regime.

As he said then, the United States will not prop up a military monopoly that abuses the citizens of Cuba. Under our approach, detailed in NSPM-5, the United States is enforcing U.S. law to maintain sanctions until, among other things, all political prisoners are freed, freedoms of assembly and expression are respected, all political parties are legalized, and free and internationally supervised elections are scheduled.

Importantly, our policy includes concrete actions to prevent American dollars from reaching the Cuban military, security, and intelligence services.

Today, I want to emphasize that NSPM-5 was just the beginning of our efforts to pressure the Cuban
regime. Since NSPM-5’s release, we have been tightening sanctions against the Cuban military and intelligence services, including their holding companies, and closing loopholes in our sanctions regulations.

Further, today, the State Department added over two dozen additional entities owned or controlled by
the Cuban military and intelligence services to the restricted list of entities with which financial
transactions by U.S. persons are prohibited.

The Cuban military and intelligence agencies must not disproportionately profit from the United States, its people, its travelers, or its businesses. In response to the vicious attacks on Embassy Havana, we have also scaled back our embassy personnel in Cuba. This President will not allow our diplomats to be targeted with impunity. And we will not excuse those who harm our highest representatives abroad by falsely invoking videos, or concocting some other absurd pretext for their suffering.

The United States will stand up for our citizens, our allies, and our friends, whether they frequent our
new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, chant for reform in Tehran, or fight for freedom in the streets of
Havana.

We will only engage with a Cuban government that is willing to undertake necessary and tangible
reforms—a government that respects the interests of the Cuban people.

In Venezuela, the United States is acting against the dictator Maduro, who uses the same oppressive
tactics that have been employed in Cuba for decades.

He has installed an illegitimate Constituent Assembly, debased currency for political gain, and forced
his people to sign up for a corrupt food distribution service or face certain starvation.

These actions have created damaging ripple effects throughout the region. The crisis in Venezuela has
led to a massive humanitarian disaster and the largest mass migration in the Hemisphere. More than 2
million desperate Venezuelans have fled Maduro’s oppressive rule since 2015.

Sadly, this human tragedy was entirely preventable. Maduro and his cronies are the singular cause of all of this suffering.

The Venezuelan regime’s repression is of course enabled by the Cuban dictatorship. The United States calls on all nations in the region to face this obvious truth, and let the Cuban regime know that it will be held responsible for continued oppression in Venezuela.

In the United States, our demands are simple and straightforward. We call for the immediate release of all Venezuelan political prisoners; acceptance of international humanitarian assistance; free, fair, and credible elections; and legitimate steps to restore democratic institutions and the rule of law in
Venezuela.

Since taking office, this President has signed four Executive Orders targeting corruption and the looting of the Venezuelan economy. This administration has sanctioned over 70 Venezuelan individuals and entities, including the President and his wife, along with senior members of his regime. And, we have levied a Kingpin drug-trafficking designation on a member of Maduro’s inner circle.

We have also condemned the regime’s involvement in the death earlier this month of a Venezuelan
opposition councilman in the custody of the intelligence services, and we have likewise spoken out
against the apparent-August torture of yet another opposition councilman.

Today, I am also proud to share that President Trump has signed an Executive Order to impose tough,
new sanctions against Venezuela.

The new sanctions will target networks operating within corrupt Venezuelan economic sectors and deny them access to stolen wealth. Most immediately, the new sanctions will prevent U.S. persons from engaging with actors and networks complicit in corrupt or deceptive transactions in the Venezuelan gold sector, which the regime has used as a bastion to finance illicit activities, to fill its coffers, and to support criminal groups.

The United States will not tolerate Maduro’s undermining of democratic institutions and ruthless
violence against innocent civilians.

Finally, in Nicaragua, the United States continues to condemn the Ortega regime’s violence and
repression against its citizens and opposition members. Ortega and his allies have completely eroded
democratic institutions, stifled free speech, and imposed a policy of jail, exile, or death for political
opponents.

The government continues to illegally detain protestors and manipulate laws to target innocent civilians. Earlier this month, a student protestor was detained unlawfully, and to this day, his whereabouts remain unknown to his family.

This behavior is unacceptable anywhere, and especially in the Western Hemisphere. Free, fair, and early elections must be held in Nicaragua, and democracy must be restored to the Nicaraguan people.

Until then, the Nicaraguan regime, like Venezuela and Cuba, will feel the full weight of America’s
robust sanctions regime.

The Troika of Tyranny in this Hemisphere will not endure forever. Like all oppressive regimes and
ideologies, it too will meet its demise. The people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are fearsome
opponents, and if I were Diaz-Canel, Maduro, or Ortega, I would fear their virtuous power.

These tyrants fancy themselves strongmen and revolutionaries, icons and luminaries. In reality, they are clownish, pitiful figures more akin to Larry, Curly, and Moe. The three stooges of socialism are true believers, but they worship a false God.

We know their day of reckoning awaits. We see its origins in the brave Ladies in White, who
courageously take to the streets to defend their families and all of Cuba. We feel its shiver in the crowd around the flag-draped coffin of fifteen-year-old Orlando Cordoba, killed in a peaceful protest in Nicaragua. We hear its echo in the piercing chants outside of a Venezuelan military base: “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”

The United States looks forward to watching each corner of the triangle fall: in Havana, in Caracas, in Managua.

While we await that fateful day, the people of the region can be assured that the United States stand
with them against the forces of oppression, totalitarianism, and domination.

Look to the North; look to our flag; look to your own. The Troika will crumble. The people will
triumph. And, the righteous flame of freedom will burn brightly again in this Hemisphere.
Thank you very much.

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Venezuela's Gas Shortage

Venezuela now has gasoline shortages. The problem starts with oil production, which has been shaky under Nicolás Maduro and then went even more steeply down in the past 2-3 years.


Source: tradingeconomics.com

PDVSA has to export in order pay off debts--it just did so for India--even as production is plummeting, such as from a tanker collision. And its creditors are taking action:

Besides a steady decline in production, Venezuela’s state-run oil company earlier this year ran into problems with its storage capacity and export terminals in the Caribbean as U.S.-based ConocoPhillips took an aggressive approach to enforcing a court ruling that awarded it US$2 billion in compensation for the forced nationalization of two projects in Venezuela. The company this summer seized several of PDVSA’s assets on Caribbean islands, which made it difficult for the Venezuelan state company to meet its export obligations. Having few options, PDVSA eventually caved, settling with Conoco.

All this eventually had to trickle down to Venezuelans themselves, who pay very little for gasoline. The loss of fuel really hammered Cuba during the Special Period and it doesn't take a genius to see it wreaks havoc on the economy (perversely, it is good for the environment).

Oil, oil everywhere and not a drop to put in your vehicle or machine. This becomes the ultimate failure. Venezuela always did one thing, and that was oil. Now it can't even do that.

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Ignoring Latin American Scholars

Victor Ray, a sociologist at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, published a piece in Inside Higher Ed about racial bias in academic citations. It's well worth reading.

Much of the bias in citation patterns may be unintentional, as a path of dependency is built into them that reflects, reproduces and legitimates racial inequality. Inequality is reflected through a veneration of the classics. In the social sciences and humanities, many of these works were written during a period when racial and gender exclusion was simply expected and taken for granted. What counts as canonical is shaped by who had access to existing knowledge and the tools and institutional resources to produce new knowledge.

This immediately made me think of the study of U.S.-Latin American relations. In my book project I am using the Latin American concept of autonomy to understand the evolution of relations in the 21st century. After a bit of digging--and only a bit, it's all out there to be found--I realized that U.S. scholars were ignoring just about everything south of the border. This is from a draft of my intro chapter:

As it turns out, Latin American academics study the issue in ways that their U.S. counterparts seem mostly unaware of, at least if their citations and references are any guide. My goal is to consciously step out of both the U.S.-based academic literature and U.S. policy-centric viewpoints.

I can only speculate why this is the case, but there are several pretty obvious possibilities:

1. No one has heard of the Latin American journals so assume they are inferior.

2. No one has heard of the Latin American scholars because they cannot afford to attend conferences in the United States.

3. U.S. scholars cannot read Spanish or Portuguese. These days Google Translate can get you through, but you have to do initial literature searches in Spanish or Portuguese.

4. It just doesn't occur to them to look.

For years, I'd say I was guilty of a bit of #2 and a good dose of #4, and it's embarrassing to think about. How did I write two editions of a textbook on the topic without digging more deeply into all these sources?

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Bolsonaro Part 3: U.S.-Brazilian Relations

In what in my mind has become a series of posts on Jair Bolsonaro, I write today about U.S.-Brazilian relations (see post 1 on elected extremism and post 2 on his impact on the Venezuelan opposition).

By and large, there is not much high-level engagement between Brazil and the United States. It's not really antagonism, but disinterest on the part of the U.S. In her book on U.S.-Brazilian relations, Britta Crandall offers what she calls a "dual priorities" argument, where the U.S. pays attention to Brazil when both countries are particularly interested in something. Brazilian political scientists Tullo Vigevani and Haroldo Ramanzini Júnior note further that Brazil's foreign policy is focused on South American cooperation and leadership without antagonizing the United States. Lula and George W. Bush got along fine. They just didn't have many common priorities.

Now there are common priorities, or at least agreement on the sorts of issues that should be prioritized. The twist is that these commonalities are not really foreign policy. So for example they both like authoritarian law and order. They both are racist, misogynistic, and anti-LGBTQ. They both have a military fetish. They both enjoy promoting violence or at least winking at it.

Yet when it comes to bilateral relations or partnerships, there isn't all that much. When Donald Trump tweeted to congratulation him, all he could come up with was that they would work together on trade and "military," the latter of which has no meaning beyond just wanting to write "military" because it sounds good and tough. The only thing left, trade, is actually very difficult because both presidents are deeply nationalist, which pits them against each other. When it comes to tariffs on Brazilian steel, you will find little difference between Dilma Rousseff, Michel Temer, or Jair Bolsonaro.

So what will they cooperate on? Venezuela is sort of one. Both presidents seem to like raising the possibility of using military force (remember the military fetish) but neither seems serious about it. But Bolsonaro doesn't care about the Middle East, or Central American migrants, or NATO. He cares about Mercosur, which Trump has likely never heard of.

For now, they mostly serve as a combined model for anti-democratic political change, even though they do not see themselves this way. I am just not sure what areas they would likely care about cooperation.

Update: Maybe they cooperate on China? I am not sure what form that would take and it might require more coordination than they are capable of, but it merits watching.

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Bolsonaro Part 2: Will Bolsonaro Boost Venezuelan Fascism?

With Jair Bolsonaro's victory, there is already plenty of speculation about how he will deal with Venezuela. Will he invade? Close the border? Focus on Mercosur? These are important questions, but there is another that bears asking: how will this affect the Venezuelan opposition?

At the moment, the opposition is fractured and lacks direction. Now the two largest countries in the hemisphere have shown a way. Fascism can generate excitement and purpose, even in a country like Brazil where the left had been strong and well-organized for years. Fascism can provide a message that is broad enough to capture what many people want, from pure racism to tax cuts. Trump and Bolsonaro proved that people will vote for fascism if you can just convince them that it won't be as bad as they think.

And you can win.

This must be powerful lure for the Venezuelan opposition. As Quico Toro writes:

Venezuelans today are looking South with a mixture of curiosity, horror and—no sense denying it—jealousy. The reactionary authoritarian vein that propelled his rise in Brazil is powerfully present among Venezuelans traumatized by our own catastrophe. The Bolsonaro phenomenon serves to sort Venezuelan opposition-supporters between those actually committed to democracy and those willing to trade one kind of dictatorship for another.

It is a choice. In Venezuela the choice is perhaps even more tempting than in the U.S. or Brazil given how extreme the situation is. The obvious irony is that it would be the mirror image of the leftist radical rising to power through the ruins of economic shock therapy of the 1980s.

See post 1 on elected extremism.

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Eli Saslow's Rising Out of Hatred

Eli Saslow's Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist (2018) is the compelling story of a young white supremacist, the son of Stormfront's creator*, who was an up-and-coming star of the racist world until he went to college and gradually renounced all of his former views. It is both inspiring and less than inspiring, the former because getting an education and getting to know people different from you can make a big difference. The latter because his profile, that of a highly intelligent, open-minded, rational white supremacist is, I think it is fair to say, rare, and so the story is not so likely to be repeated elsewhere. Hopefully I am wrong about that or at least that there are young people who just aren't sure and the college experience helps point them in a rational direction.

There are a few important points of the book. The first by far from my perspective is that the general attack on liberal professors misses the mark entirely. For Derek Black, professors were peripheral beyond just encouraging his continued intellectual curiosity. What mattered was getting out of his bubble and meeting people from very different backgrounds: race, religion, national origin, etc. He was at a very liberal school, New College of Florida, where his family assumed he could get mainstream bona fides while reinforcing his racist views. They were wrong. This is why diversity matters--hearing people other than yourself is transformational.

Along those lines, David Duke (who happens to be Black's godfather) responded by saying he was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, whereby he had been a captive of liberal higher education and now identified with his captors. It is a reminder of how dangerous education is to white supremacists. The truth is that when Black started researching his passion--medieval history--he discovered the vast majority of his assumptions of that era, especially in terms of how race was perceived at the time, were wrong.

Further, Black decided to finally accept telling his story because of Donald Trump's election. He knew he had played some role in making it happen through his previous work normalizing racism by changing and mainstreaming the rhetoric. He heard his own previous arguments come from Trump's mouth, saw his own rhetoric in Trump's tweets. White supremacy has not been this strong and public in a long time and by Black's own words he is trying to warn people.

I shouldn't finish before mentioning the excellent accounts of how Black's renunciation affected his family relationships. His family felt betrayed. Their relationships were based almost entirely on political beliefs. They had other interests but they were all minor. If you didn't agree about white genocide then you had nothing in common. No matter what your family members' views are, this Thanksgiving dinner it might just be better not to mention politics at all.

* with a bunch of misfits his father also plotted to invade Dominica. The stupidity inherent in such a venture is amazing. It reminded me of all the 19th century filibusterers, the William Walkers of the world, whose arrogance and racism led them in invade Latin American countries.

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Bolsonaro Part 1: Jair Bolsonaro: Elected Extremist

As news yesterday filtered in that Jair Bolsonaro would win the election, I thought of something that then Scott Mainwaring then articulated in The New York Times:

“This is a really radical shift,” said Scott Mainwaring, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government who specializes in Brazil. “I can’t think of a more extremist leader in the history of democratic elections in Latin America who has been elected.”

Latin America has its fair share of extremists, but they've all taken power undemocratically. You may disagree with a president's policy views but before Bolsonaro I don't think anyone had called for clearly for violence. Patrice McSherry tagged me on Twitter with a recent Bolsonaro speech, where he kept using the word "cleansing" and there are plenty of groups he wants to cleanse.

Elected presidents on the right haven't talked quite like that. Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada is wanted in Bolivia for ordering security forces to attack protesters, but murder and cleansing wasn't his actual goal. Alberto Fujimori was on the right wing fringe (though in fact many of his years in office were not from free elections) but he'd be at least a solid comparison. Otto Pérez Molina was implicated in serious human rights abuses before he was president, though as president his mano dura policies did not seem on the same scale as Bolsonaro's rhetoric. There are more examples, but I think the basic point is that the elected right in Latin America has at times been very violent, and Bolsonaro's own rhetoric is even worse.

In short, the way he talks and the things he advocates seem much more akin to the unelected military dictators that have plagued the region. Those are the dictatorships we discuss in class to highlight concrete examples of genocide, torture, murder, coups, etc. and the people of Brazil decided that's what they prefer.

Now we will have two months of speculation. On January 1, 2019 we will find out what the most extremist elected leader in Latin American history will do.

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Race 12: Runway 5K

In my year of running I did the Runway 5K (here is the first post), which literally goes around runways at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. It's quite a novelty, with planes constantly taking off not far away. It is, as you might guess, a very flat race. Unfortunately, it was a cold (in the 40s) and windy morning, so it was chilly before the race and there was a headwind during it.

We do this race mostly because my son is into planes--they even have walkers start just after runners because so many people walk and take pictures. If you're in Charlotte, it's a fun and very low key race.

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Trying to Change the Lopsided UN Cuba Vote

The Cuban Foreign Minister says that the US delegation to the United Nations was circulating amendments to the annual resolution condemning the embargo, intended to attach something about human rights.

I find it curious that the Trump administration cares about the resolution, which every year is approved by the vast majority of the earth with only Israel, a Pacific country or two, and the U.S. rejecting (except when President Obama famously abstained). It's been going on for almost three decades, is all for show, and has little impact beyond emphasizing how isolated the United States has made itself. Getting pissy about it seems like a waste of time. In any event, the U.S. lacks diplomatic legitimacy now anyway so the effort is in vain to begin with.

Plus, it is a bit of ammunition for Miguel Díaz-Canel to use the U.S. bogeyman. By my count, 16 of his 96 tweets (17%) are about the "bloqueo" and one of the most recent is precisely about the U.S. maneuvers. So, as with much of U.S. Cuba policy over the years, U.S. actions get us nowhere.

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Fake News and the Brazilian Election

Folha de S. Paulo has an article about a study done on fake news and the Brazilian election. They don't mention it, but my colleague Fred Batista here in Political Science is one of the people working on that study.

A primeira parte da pesquisa, feita em maio, com notícias falsas sobre o PT mostrou que, entre aqueles que acreditam nas informações inverídicas, a correção, mesmo vinda de veículo profissional de imprensa, teve pouco impacto.

The really troubling thing here is that fact checking and correcting don't matter. People will continue to believe false--even outrageously false--news stories, I imagine they are simultaneously convincing themselves that they know how to spot fake news when they see it.

In Brazil this is centered in large part on WhatsApp:

Many of the fakes portray Haddad as a communist whose Workers Party would turn Brazil into another Cuba, convert children to homosexuality and plans to rig voting machines.

Again, it's not just fake, it's crazy fake. And people eat it up. It is helping Jair Bolsonaro, just as fake news in the U.S. helps Donald Trump. This doesn't mean that Bolsonaro is only winning because of it, as there are plenty of reasons Brazilians might vote for him. But it undermines the election process and erodes public discourse. Further, the lies don't stop with the election when you have an unhinged president so the campaign simply sets the stage for more waves of falsehoods later.

There is almost no way for Bolsonaro to lose, and so both in the United States and in Brazil you have a large swath of the public believing crazy things while the president says things even crazier. We need to correct it, if only for our own sanity, but people persist in ignorance.

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Boston Group Tries Dialogue in Venezuela

I am quoted in this article by Josh Goodman at the Associated Press on the under-the-radar efforts by the Boston Group to facilitate mediation in Venezuela (for background see this post from June). This time they are bringing in a professional mediator from Harvard (who once negotiated his own release from Recompa guerrillas!). Caleb McCarry, an aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is leading the effort.

Some thoughts:

--this is good news. There is a good chance nothing will happen but it establishes some precedent and there is at least some chance of progress. At this point, there is no progress at all, with all sides hunkered down while Venezuelans suffer.

--will the Trump administration sign on? We need that to give it more weight. Trump is always unpredictable but he has a drum beat of punitive measures from all around him. Marco Rubio will be all over this and I expect a critical tweet at any moment.

--If Trump signs on, this means the U.S. is actually playing a constructive role in Latin America for the first time in his administration. Low bar but still, that's also good news.

--But what happens when Bob Corker is out of the senate in just a few months? McCarry has a long history as a conservative political advisor on Latin America (check out his LinkedIn page) but someone else will be taking over as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Cuba's Sugar Problem

For the first time, Cuba is importing sugar in large quantities. That fact on its own is not automatically problematic if the economy is so diverse that other sectors are picking up the slack. But they're not. Cuba is a net food importer and remains dependent on agricultural goods (and thus weather).

With the new constitution, there is talk of bringing in foreign investors, which for Cuba is akin to Mexico bringing foreigners into the oil industry. These are sectors that are deeply tied to nationalism and sovereignty, both nationalized from U.S. companies. Handing them back is an admission of state-run failure.

Sugar remains Cuba's leading export, at 31% of total exports in 2016, followed by rolled tobacco (22%) and hard liquor (8.8%). There is even "human or animal blood" in there at 2.1%. Cuba imports just about everything so no one product dominates: poultry meat is first at 2.7%. Meanwhile, the country is saddled with debt, faces Venezuela's collapse, is dealing with severe hurricanes, as always has the embargo, and of course a state-run economy that cannot sustain itself. Taken together, the Castros have handed only a shell of an economy to their successors.

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Trump Lies About Immigration Caravan

Donald Trump lied about the so-called immigration "caravan," saying there are "unknown Middle Easters" in there. Where did this lie come from? Daniel Dale, a reporter for the Toronto Star and a must-follow on Twitter for his coverage of Trump rallies, has the answer. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said that in some unspecified time period, his government had arrested close to 100 possible terrorists, including some from ISIS, and they had all been deported. That may or may not be true. Right wing media combined it with the caravan, then Fox News reported it as fact. Then Trump watched Fox News and tweeted it as fact. That's where we are in 2018.

I first blogged about the paranoid rants about Iran's presence in Latin America a full 10 years ago. They are no more true now than they were then. Fear fosters belief in falsehoods. The specific claim varies: you get some Iran, some Hezbollah, some ISIS. You used to get some Al Qaeda but that's out of fashion. The story is eternal: there are bad Muslim foreigners out there trying to hurt you, and I will protect you. Especially in the case of Latin America, there is rarely anything more than a few anecdotes strung together to back up the claims.

What do counterterrorism officials in the U.S. government think?

“We do not see any evidence that ISIS or other Sunni terrorist groups are trying to infiltrate the southern U.S. border,” said an American counterterrorism official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about confidential government threat assessments.

The only people who repeat these claims are those that want to use fear for their personal/political benefit or those who don't understand they are being lied to. Fear is pervading all of this. Fear of foreigners. Fear of non-whites. Fear of different languages. Fear of terrorism. Fear of Muslims. Fear. Fear. Fear.

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Piketty on Brazil

Thomas Piketty has a blog post on Brazil, arguing that the country was just starting to address major inequalities, all of which is now in jeopardy. He looks especially at suffrage as critical for changing Brazil's political dynamics, where people with less formal education and with darker skins gained more influence. However, he argues that bolder reform are needed to really tackle inequality (including in the United States).

When in power the PT put in a credible performance. Thanks to the rise in minimum wage and the new system of family allowances (Bolsa Familia), economic growth was accompanied by an unexpected fall in poverty. The PT also set up schemes for preferential access to the universities for the working classes and the black and mixed populations. But for lack of reform in the electoral system, the PT never succeeded in attacking the structural fiscal backwardness of the country (indirect taxes rise to 30% on electricity bills, whereas top inherited wealth is taxed at 4%). The result is that the reduction in inequality has been made at the expense of the middle classes and not the richest categories (see this research by Marc Morgan on the evolution of inequalities in Brasil, from which the figures reproduced on this post are extracted).

When the progressive forces have succeeded in reducing inequalities in the 20thcentury, it is because they fought for an ambitious, egalitarian agenda based on political reforms while at the same time implementing fiscal and social reforms. In the United States the 1913 constitution had to be amended to create a federal income and inheritance tax, which became the most progressive of its kind in history and enabled the financing of the New Deal. In the United Kingdom, the veto of the House of Lords had to be ended, and in France that of the Senate, failing which the social reforms in 1945 would never have seen the light of day. Today, the progressive forces refuse any sort of ambitious discussion on the democratisation of American, European or Brazilian institutions. However, it is not by leaving the monopoly of breaking with the past to the nativists or the reactionaries that equality and democracy will be saved.

He does not specify what reforms he has in mind, though his book seemed to focus a good amount on taxation. He also does not discuss how to do it politically. A major problem in Brazil is perception of corruption--politicians asking for more money is much less feasible as a result. But his overall point is interesting, in that the lack of structural reforms mean that the middle class, not the rich, are bearing the brunt of the reduction of inequality, and that creates even more political problems.

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Race 11: Rocktoberfest Half Marathon

In my year of running (here is the first post about work/health) I just added the Rocktoberfest Half Marathon. I ran OK but it was brutal. The weather was unseasonably warm and humid. But it was also hilly. Really hilly. My pace varied quite a bit as a result and I did not go as fast as I hoped.

The race starts at Central Piedmont Community College near downtown and then goes all around. There are long straight stretches, generally through residential neighborhoods. The "Rocktoberfest" refers to the speakers set up every few miles playing music.

Next up: Charlotte Runway 5K

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Facts and Myths About Mexican Immigrants

Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova at the Migration Policy Institute have an article on Mexican immigrants that is worth your time.

Is there a surge of Mexican immigrants? No.

After four decades of strong growth, the Mexican immigrant population in the United States hit a turning point in 2010. While the overall number of immigrants in the country increased every year between 2010 and 2017, the number of Mexicans first flattened out and then started a slow decline in 2014. Between 2016 and 2017, the Mexican immigrant population shrunk by about 300,000, from 11.6 million to 11.3 million.

Is there a crisis of Mexican immigrants at the border? No.

More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico than have migrated to the United States, and apprehensions of Mexicans at the U.S.-Mexico border are at a 40-year low. Mexico is also no longer the top origin country among the most recent immigrants to the United States.

Are the immigrants "bad hombres"? No.

In addition, newer immigrants from Mexico are more likely to be college graduates and have stronger English skills than those who arrived in prior decades.

Are Mexican immigrants lazy? No.

Mexicans participate in the labor force at a higher rate than both the native- and overall foreign-born populations.

And yet just yesterday we have this:

All we can do is keep repeating facts to get them as widely spread as possible.

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Chávez, Maduro, Trump: Three Peas in a Pod?

Eva Golinger, a steadfast Hugo Chávez supporter and confidante who broke with Nicolás Maduro, wrote a curious op-ed in The New York Times, the same publication she has attacked for its "shameful history when it comes to Venezuela" while publishing extensively in it. Her argument is that Nicolás Maduro is an authoritarian disaster and Donald Trump is going in the same direction. Further, Hugo Chávez was different because he cared about the poor. But then she admits that Chávez was also becoming more authoritarian.

Did he have authoritarian tendencies? His military background left him with a firm belief in hierarchy. The longer he remained in power, the more entrenched he became, which is why term limits and checks and balances are essential to a healthy democracy.
...
True, he made many mistakes. Mr. Chávez aspired to make his model sustainable, but died without achieving that goal. His habit of choosing loyalty over competence was a fatal mistake. So was entrusting multiple responsibilities to a closed circle of people who were unprepared and unwilling to make hard choices. It nurtures a climate of secrecy and unaccountability, which can be a danger to democracy.

In other words, Chávez was like an ideological mirror image of Trump, with the sole exception of actually caring about people as he increased his control over them. That second paragraph in particular is Trump. In the past, she had said that there was "collective leadership" of the people in Venezuela with "a different kind of democracy."

I got the very strong impression from the op-ed that underlying this is the notion that Chávez died before his worst instincts overwhelmed him, and had he stayed in power he would have ended up quite similar to Maduro and Trump, but perhaps a little more popular and a little more compassionate.

Amazing what a few years will do. The Venezuelan revolution and Chávez's own image are completely in tatters. An op-ed like this shows there are few believers anywhere anymore. It's funny how Trump himself contributes to this phenomenon just from his mere existence. The parallels between him and Chávez, while imperfect, are just numerous enough to highlight Chávez's worst aspects. That hits even the truest of believers.

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NC Candidates With Bad Immigration Ideas

There was a debate between two candidates for North Carolina's 9th congressional district* and the mention of immigration caught my attention.

The border: McCready said he would secure the border with the kind of technological surveillance he saw employed while he served as a Marine in Iraq. Harris said he agreed with President Trump’s position. 

“The only way you’re going to secure the border is ultimately build the wall,” he said.

The problem is that the positions of the candidates of both parties are doomed to miserable failure. The reason is that they dehumanize the issue, reducing it to a technocratic discussion of a particular place--the border--that they consider the core. But the border itself is only a tiny part of the issue.

North Carolina's economy depends heavily on immigrants. Jobs in agriculture, construction, poultry, and many others would suffer without them. Further, in Charlotte the immigrant community now has roots and collectively we all benefit from their entrepreneurship, buying power, etc. It has been fascinating for me to talk to native Charlottean students whose parents were born in Latin America and in some cases are even undocumented. These students are southerners. So you have to start there.

The two responses, then, start from the wrong premise and then get worse. I've written before about the technology fetish with regard to immigration. It defies all common sense and wastes enormous amounts of money. Technology is but one tool of many. And even worse than that, the U.S.-Mexico border is not Iraq. Ugh. I don't have much more to say about the wall, which will cause far more problems than it solves. Both of the candidates answers are quick and meaningless. But if too many members of Congress actually think that way, and we know many already do, then real and lasting policies will never be constructed.

* It used to be my district but no longer is. Lines here have a tendency to move.

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