Guerrilla History - American Imperialism's Shadow on Latin America w/ Michael Fox

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we are joined by returning guest Michael Fox (whom you may remember from our episode The Rise of Fascism, Bolsonaro, & the Brazilian Elections) to discuss his excellent new series Under the Shadow, a collaboration between The Real News Network and NACLA which examines the lasting impacts of American imperialism on Latin America.  This is a fantastic conversation, and one which we hope to follow up with Michael on as his project continues for years to come! Michael Fox is a Brazil-based journalist, contributor to The World, former Editor of NACLA, and the host of the podcast series Under the Shadow and  Brazil on Fire, both collaborations between NACLA and The Real News Network. Michael can be followed on Twitter @mfox_us, you can support his project on his patreon and follow his band Monte Perdido (who will be releasing an album soon!). Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory

You remember den, Ben, boo? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to guerrilla history. History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacky,

joined as usual by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing? I'm doing well, Henry. It's great to be with you. Always nice seeing you. And also joined, as usual by Brett O'Shea, who of course is host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are you? I'm doing very good. Excellent. Always happy to see you as well. We've got an excellent topic today on an excellent show with an excellent guest. But before I introduce the show and the guest, I want to remind the listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making more episodes like this by supporting us at patreon.com forward

slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-I-L-A history. And you can follow each of the hosts as well as what we do collectively at the show by following us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-U-E-R-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod. Now, we have a returning guest. We have Michael Fox, not that one, and I'm going to tease him because he did bring up back to the future in the introductory episode of this excellent show that we're going to be talking about, but Michael Fox is an investigative journalist, and you may remember him from the show.

We had him on in our Brazil on fire, the rise of fascism, Brazil episode that we did in the lead up to the last Brazilian presidential election. Hello, Michael. It's nice to have you back on the show again. It's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. So we're going to be talking about your new show, which is a co-production from the Real

News Network and NACLA titled Under the Shadow, which is, it's currently ongoing. So listeners, when you hear this, you should definitely subscribe and you'll see new episodes of the show coming out. But as Michael describes, it's a podcast on U.S. intervention and revolution. resistance in Latin America and the ghosts that still linger. It's really excellent. There's been six episodes, including one of which is an update that have come out at the time of recording, although I think tomorrow there's one that's set to come out. So by the time you hear this listeners, there will be either seven or eight episodes that have come out. And the countries

that have been studied thus far are Honduras. I'm sorry, not Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Honduras is coming up next. But you start, Michael, with the show, with the Monroe Doctrine, which I think is a great place to start this series, but I want to give you the opportunity to explain why the Monroe Doctrine is the logical place to begin the series and how that then feeds into all of the episodes that have come out since and inevitably will be coming out as the series continues. Yeah, well, the Monroe Doctrine, this is, I mean, it doesn't just set the scene for my series. That's what sets the scene for U.S. intervention in Latin America for the last 200 years. And we've just passed the 200 year anniversary of the Monroe

doctrine. December 2nd, I think it was 1823 when James Monroe delivered his State of the Union address. And back in those days, you didn't speak it. He just wrote it up on a document and handed it to Congress because, of course, I think it was Jefferson who had said that to speak it would be too, like, kingly, monarchly. So he said, we got to get rid of that. We're just going to have him deliver the paper. And in which he sets off the sets the stage by basically saying, look, European powers, you have no right to intervene in the Americas anymore. This happens, of course, you know, after the independence of the United States, but particularly after the independence of the former Spanish colonies all up and down the Western Hemisphere. And so this is right on the

tail end of that. And James Monroe, he's seeing kind of overtures from the European countries to say, oh, let's see, you know, Spain is still kind of like, let's see if we could still move back in there. There's a couple of colonies still. Of course, Spain still had, I think it was Cuba and in Puerto Rico. And there's a couple more that were still under kind of colonial rule. But basically, he sets the scene saying, those independent nations that are independent now will not stand for outside interference from Europe and we're going to defend the region as thus. So it's interesting now because today we understand Monroe as what it becomes, particularly later on with kind of U.S. hubris and U.S. imperialism and what Professor Greg Granin talks

about in his fantastic book from the 2000s Empire's Workshop, like using Latin America as this staging ground to learn how to become an empire and invade abroad, right? But in the early years, it was actually embraced by Bolivar, by Latin America's Spanish leaders, independence leaders who said, wow, this is great. The U.S. is going to stand up and defend our entrance as kind of a Western Hemisphere block, right? And that is obviously, that doesn't, you know, it lasts a little bit. And then you have manifest destiny in the United States. invading Mexico and stealing, you know, a third of the country and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then what happens, particularly in 1903, is with Theodore Roosevelt's, what's called the

Roosevelt Corollary. And it's at this point which you get the Monroe Doctrine on steroids. And this is the moment when Roosevelt says, we have the right to essentially police the hemisphere. And if countries aren't doing what we think they should be doing, then we have the right to invade. and you see the rollout of Marines all across Central America. Keep in mind, this is at the moment that United Fruit is moving into Central America. And so this is, you know, building up these banana republics. Marines are invading countries multiple times. You know, Honduras itself, I think it was six times within the first couple of decades.

And, of course, you also have the interest of the United States at this time of, you know, the Panama Canal or the canals. Because the Panama Canal is finally built, I think it's 1913, 1913, 1913. But part of this Roosevelt corollary happens in order to justify the United States kind of separation, which helps Panama separate from Colombia and the occupation of Panama essentially and, you know, creating this enclave within Panama itself. So the United States builds the canal and then takes over a part of the canal for a very long period of time, which I'll get into in the very last episode. But that's all to say that you cannot understand or think about. U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, U.S. intervention without understanding that all of this stems from the Monroe Doctrine, you know, back 200 years ago. Just very quickly, since you mentioned that U.S. Marines were kind of pouring in all over Latin

America with the Roosevelt corollary. Just so the listeners are aware, because I think that this name comes up in progressive circles fairly frequently without actually understanding the history of this person. One of those Marines was Smedley Butte. which I know Smedley Butler comes up in progressive circles quite a bit as you know somebody who warned about the business plot and wrote the the piece War is a racket which is often shared as like look this this general understood that you know war is for profit war is for you know imperialist profit and business profit at home as well but it's important to remember that Smedley Butler really began his career in both the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, as well as in the banana wars, immediately in this Roosevelt corollary era that you're talking about. So that's not really to add anything to what you said, Michael, but just I know this, like I said, is a name that comes up pretty frequently when we're talking about U.S. intervention and how that is related to profit.

And he's usually held up as this, you know, kind of paragon of virtue by people who haven't actually looked at his biography or read anything about him other than he wrote war as a racket. So there's just a brief comment. Brett, I believe you have the next question. Yeah, well, first a whole, a huge shout out to Real News Network. I have friends over there. Very cool that they're working with you to make this happen. You mentioned Banana Republics, and I think we're obviously going to get into that a little bit more in a couple questions here, but I just needed to point out that recently Israel used that phrase, interestingly, on Twitter, talking about the United States, like, you know, they're our friend, but we're not one of their banana

republics and it's fascinating that history continues to live on particularly in that context just worth noting but i'm actually interested in your personal approach and the reasons that you wanted to to uh you know do this project you you mentioned that of course in the opening episode of the of the series sort of talking a little bit about your childhood but i was hoping you could tell us here the reasons uh for doing this your overall approach and um and how you've woven sort of traveling on the ground into this approach yeah so I had, going back over a decade, had this idea of wanting to go to places where things happen. I mean, I've always felt that way, right? Of like, wow, I'm standing in this spot that

this took place. And so it was always in the back of my head as some sort of as a book, and I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to develop. In fact, when I first pitched this piece, it was more going to places where, you know, revolutionary things happened. But I wasn't clear how they were all going to weave together. And of course, that's where the U.S. intervention comes in. And why that becomes so important. And so that's been that, for me, going to spots where things are and trying to find what's left of those today, like what lingers is so powerful. Because it's like, you know, I mentioned it so many times, you know, it's all, it's literally hidden in plain sight, all of it. You know, it's all still there. And

And way more than what I talk about in this series. I mean, you know, I've been traveling in Central America over the last year and we're driving through parts of Costa Rica or parts of where else. And suddenly you see these big fruit companies or a palm tree company and it's built and it's established the exact same way you can tell that the infrastructure was done by United Fruit, whatever it was 50, 60, 70 years later. But people just forget. It's like that's in the background and yet it's been implanted on the landscape. And the U.S. has such a huge footprint. And that kind of comes to my own need and interest in really wanting to shine light on this. I mean, this has been something that I've been involved in for a really long time back in the 2000s I was working on.

I was a producer on this 10-part series for a local Venezuelan production company called Pana Films. All that was called Intervention. It was all on U.S. where it walked from decade by decade. It was put out through Telesur, but it walked decade by decade looking at U.S. intervention in Latin America. And I kind of get, like you said,

I kind of get into this in the very beginning of the podcast series of, like, for me, you know, I grew up in Northern Virginia on kind of the edge of Washington. And it was like, it was just easy. Like we would go to the museums.

I mentioned it the podcast series. my grandmom was a secretary at the CIA, although that was like an aside that I learned some day when I was interviewing her. She's like, oh, yeah, and then I worked at the CIA, and then I married your granddad. Then I was like, whoa, stop, go back, what? You know, I used to play lacrosse against Langley High School.

Of course, that's where, like, the CIA headquarters are, you know? And I didn't understand any of that until way later. But then traveling and learning about the reality of what the United States has done abroad, it's just like you get this huge sense of indignation. like how can that happen and how do I not even realize and how you know the majority of the people I grew up with know nothing nothing nothing today they still know nothing and in fact many expats that are moving abroad you know we like I said my I've been living in Latin America for most the last 20 years but for the last two and a half years largely my family and I have been traveling in Mexico and Central America and so obviously we've we've moved through many different place and we've met many expats and everyone's just clueless. There's no idea about the history, about the history of civil wars, about the history of the U.S. involvement during the 1980s, that I just get so frustrated. And so this is, on the

one sense, it's trying to put my grain of salt, right, to try and to lift up these stories and do this in a way that's compelling and engaging for an audience that might not not want to read a really heavy book about the 1980s. But also, and I mentioned this as well, this idea of historical memory, which in Latin America means a lot. It's, and particularly in Central America, it's this idea of kind of honoring the victims and creating memorials to the past. And for me, that's, that's what this is. This is my own memorial that is out there in the world and hope people raises awareness and does a little honor to those whose lives were literally lost at the hands of the United States government. Yeah. Well, so those expats are

innocents abroad, as Mark Twain would have characterized them. It's amazing. Who gets the privilege of being so innocent, you know? But Michael, I just want to congratulate you on this series. it's really tremendous and very high quality, wonderful interweaving of the contemporary travels that you're doing in observations, in interviews, and connections, and memory with history. And so that interweaving is really powerful and fascinating. And in particular, it seems that you start the whole series showing how you're going to do this in each of the particular episodes by connecting the overall history of U.S. intervention since the Monroe Doctrine and how that transformed into the migration and so-called crisis discourse.

And so I wondered if maybe you could kind of connect it a little bit, how you draw this connection. And in particular, I know it's something that we talk about is that the U.S. intervention is what has produced these displacements of people. but a lot of times those who actually ever even hear that argument want to deny and say, well, look, all these countries have all of their own problems. You can't always blame the United States. Maybe you can elaborate a little bit more in concrete ways. What about the U.S. involvement over the last few decades has produced so much displacement and why people have to. leave their, leave their countries, the myriad of reasons and the ways in which, you know, the U.S. presence, intervention, and policies have produced this so-called crisis. Yeah. Thank you. This is so important. This is like, and if there's any one issue that needs to be kind of hammered, but over there just continually, it's this. And this is why I opened with my first

episode of, you know, Monroe and migration, right? Because those are the two things. things that continue to exist until today and are kind of that shadow that hangs over Latin America. It's the two, it's the double helix that continues. And in fact, that question that the double helix who says that, and I think brings in this idea of migration, is a Latin American journalist, professor named Roberto Lovato in his just fantastic book Unforgetting. He's Salvadoran and he came out with his book, it's a memoir, it's a couple years ago, and he talks about the double helix of violence and continual violence, US, you know, imperialism and intervention and migration, you know, and it's just, it's so important. It's, you know, everything that the United States, we have to understand that the U.S. is not out there for altruistic reasons, right, throughout the Cold War and all the way from, the very end of the of the 19th century, 20th century, its goal is, is colonial, its glow is imperial,

and its goal is, is it backing major U.S. corporations and helping them, whether it's banana fruit, I mean, United Fruit, and it's banana corporations, whatever it is. And by doing that, it's more than willing to back bloody dictators and take out democracies, for instance, like what we saw in 1954 in Guatemala. And that's where I start. in episode two and walk from there because it's such a glaring example of here's a country that finally saw this, what's called the Guatemalan Spring. For 10 years, people are seeing this renewal of democracy. They're seeing social justice and they're seeing just the basic stuff of like, oh, labor rights, oh, wow, these things we've never had before. We're leaving these

dictatorships behind and who has to move in. But the CIA and the U.S. government that single-handedly with the support of like opposition military officials who come in and overthrow the Arben's government and installed a bloody dictatorship that then leads to the Guatemalan civil wars and the Guatemalan genocide. So this, it unrolls, it rolls out roughly 50 years of of massacres and horrendous times. And so you say, well, of course migration is going to happen because you've just destroyed the country. If you don't have the means to survive, if you don't have a social safety. network, if you don't have economy and financial support and the means and trying to decrease inequality, then what's going to happen is destruction of the possibility for people to make

ends meet. And of course, they're going to look north. They're going to look to the United States. That's the irony is people on the migrant trail, refugees are looking to the United States because it's the one place where they can find stability. And many of them have already moved there over the many years. There is an amazing quote from a professor in, I think it's the El Salvador episode number four, where she talks about it's after the El Mosote massacres and the deep and powerful massacres that are happening by the Salvadoran government, backed allheartedly by the United States, and that's when we see this massive exodus of Salvadorans to the United States. That's the beginning of it. And it lasts until today. Salvadorans, I was just in El Salvador the last week. I was

there for the covering the elections, the re-election of Buckele. And people today, they still talk about what is our major export in El Salvador, it's people. And what is, I think it's a quarter of the GDP of the country is from Ramesas. You know, it's from what the money that's sent back home abroad. All of that started with the Civil War and all of that started with the United States. backing authoritarian governments, backing death squads, unleashing a wholesale murderous attack on the population well before the civil war, well before the arrival of the FMLN

and the uniting of guerrilla movements. You just had it wholesale slaughter. And the United States was all on board because they saw this as what they had to do to stop the dominoes from falling across Central America and its fight against communism. And so we have to understand that migration in large part, in most cases across the hemisphere migration begins with the United States

and it is absolutely hypocritical what we've seen from Trump and Biden and Obama and every U.S. leader ever since to say, oh, now you can't come in, you know, you guys got to deal with your own stuff at home. No, no, no, no. The United States has to own up for what it's done abroad. Two quick things. The first is just a recommendation for the listeners. We recently released an episode with Manning Ness on his book, Migration as Economic Imperialism, which speaks to a lot of what Michael is saying here. So, listeners, if you want to hear more of that discussion in terms of the causes of labor migration and how that feeds into the imperialist world system, that is a very important, and it was a very fascinating conversation that we had with Manning. It was released just a few

weeks ago so you can either scroll back in the guerrilla history feed or if I remember I can include it in the show notes when we released this episode. The other thing that I want to mention, though, is that Michael, one of the things that you said is the United States is not operating altruistically when it's abroad and it hasn't been. I would just add an addendum to that and it never has. It was founded on non-altruistic, you know, justification. The whole origin of the United States, was based on settler colonialism, the genocide of the indigenous population in the United States, the continued oppression of the indigenous community, which continues to today. We can also talk about how independence was linked somewhat to slavery, which we've talked about

with Gerald Horn in a previous episode. Again, listeners, Gerald Horn is a friend of the show, and we have an episode with him on his excellent book, The Counter-Revolution of 1776. Again, you can scroll back in the guerrilla history feeder. maybe if my memory works one of these years, I'll remember to include it in the show notes. But those are a couple of episodes that I would highly recommend. But the main point that I wanted to drive towards here is that when we think about how the U.S. operates internationally, it's also important to consider that the United States has never

had an altruistic bone in its body, even from its inception, even before independence. There was never any altruism in the way that it was acting. it was always based on settler colonialism, extraction, oppression, and genocide, frankly. But that's not really a question, Michael. So, Brett, I'll try to... Go ahead. Go ahead. One thing.

Absolutely 100%. I think what's important to remember within that is that it has the myth of democracy. It has the myth of the American dream that's enabled it to... use that discourse, whether we're talking about Iraq, the Middle East, anywhere, in order to, you know, to make it seem as though it is completely altruistic. And in fact, when people are taught, like, you know, in episode one, you know, I go and I spend time with migrants, a refugee, he's on the border between Guatemala and Mexico. And every one of them is excited about the possibilities of going to the United States,

excited about the American dream, excited about what this could mean, trying to get in there and work hard and to make it. And so it carries this dual, ironic, hypocritical message where at the first time, it was never altruistic, absolutely. But because of the fact that it lifts up the,

the Statue of Liberty as it's, it's, as is this vision of give us your tired and your, you're hopeless and you know and then it's able to carry that forward and people still buy into that today yeah and just to quote steely dan uh my favorite band i don't know i think i've mentioned that on the show before but you know there we go uh you know it is the royal scam the american dream is the royal scam which is the point of that song but uh just sorry one more recommendation for the listeners one of the things that you're talking about how there's this myth that is completely

looked at in deep detail both from the side of liberals as well as tearing apart the argument of liberals using the liberal argument itself against itself in Domenico Lassortos, liberalism, a counter history, which is an absolutely fantastic book. I am biased because I've translated other work of Lassurdo and possibly another one coming soon. Hint, hint, listeners, stay tuned in the future. But liberalism, a counter history really does look at that. And the United States is one of many case studies. But it's that. that myth that you're talking about, Michael, that is completely deconstructed within that, both from their perspective as well as showing why it's a myth.

Brett. Yeah, and that myth is exported globally to even these immigrant communities who are desperate, these migrants, these refugees, who also have an over-romanticized view of what life in America is like. I watched a recent in-depth interview with like an 18-year-old coyote who is getting people from all around the world over the Mexican border into Eagles Pass. in Texas. And he says, like, I went over there and I lived in the United States for a while. And all I did was work and sleep. And he's like, yeah, there was some money that was generated that I could send back to my family. But for the most part, like, I had this really romantic view of like I go over there. I'm going to, you know, be wealthy. I'm going to be able to have a house or whatever your ideas are. And those often fail. You are in so many ways a part of now the servant class, which, you know, the parties of reaction in both parties, like you were saying earlier, Biden is now trying to, I'll be tough on. I'll be super brutal and racist too. Watch. But they both serve a donor class who, on one hand, benefit from the low wage labor and wanted to keep coming in. But on the other hand, have these reactionary sort of visions of people from Latin America and these bigoted views and these prejudices and these ideas of, you know, these hordes coming into the country and then how these parties play that up for their constituent basis, especially the Republicans, to scare them into voting for them, et cetera.

We know how the game goes. But it's just fascinating how in all the discourse surrounding migration, the border, et cetera, the basic facts of U.S. intervention throughout Latin America, the destabilization of those countries, the coups, the financial oppression, all of that never comes up. You'll have like six people running for president on a debate stage talking about the immigration issue. Not one person will ever even bring up the real causes for the crisis. Because, of course, if you start bringing up the real causes, you got to start thinking about what the real solution. are and those look something like reparations for Latin American countries that the U.S. has destroyed, overthrown governments, etc. Indigenous communities we're going to talk about here who the U.S. backed and supported genocides of millions and millions of human beings. And that's inseparable from the present reality. So with all of that in mind, let's kind of go in that direction. I would like to kind of keep the question broad. But can you kind of walk us through what happened in Guatemala? And importantly, can you help us understand how the rhetoric of anti-communism, is like sort of the main weapon that they use to to engage in these atrocities around the world. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the big thing to remember that happens in Central America in the 1970s and the 1980s.

And of course, the Guatemalan civil war, or the Guatemalan, which isn't really a civil war, it's a authoritarian government attack on innocent indigenous populations. But the most important thing to understand at that moment is, of course, the Nicaraguan revolution, the Sandinistas, right? Because it's in 1979 that they come to power, and then that just scares everybody else to death. Now, of course, Reagan comes to power maybe a year and a half later, and then he just unleashes everything he can. He basically tells Central American governments, okay, you can have anything you want in order to shut down and make sure that the dominoes don't fall across Central America. Remember at the time you had the Guatemalan Civil War is happening, so you have guerrilla movements in Guatemala.

The Salvadoran Civil War kicks off in 1980. That's after years of authoritarian, you know, death squads are killing dozens of people a day at the time, even before that launches. So it's kind of this response to the authoritarian government attack, right? And then you have Nicaragua's just one, and Honduras is in the middle acting as kind of like the launching point for the U.S. attacks and invasions and, you know, the U.S. Contra War and whatever else. But in Guatemala itself, and this is, this is super important, is you have this unleashing of scorched earth policies, basically in 1979. And the government just says, we are going to roll out and we're going to encung into communities. we're going to invade communities, we're going to march people out, and we are just going to massacre and kill whole communities. I think it's somewhere around 400 villages that were just obliterated and destroyed and wiped off the map during, say, a 10-year period from 1979 until

like, it's particularly like early mid-80s, but also to the late 80s. It's General Rios Mont, who was then brought to trial for genocide and convicted of genocide before. before the court split things around, and it was vacated. But he was the one who comes into power. The scorched earth policies are already happening, but he kind of doubles down on stuff, basically in 1980, 81. And he comes right around the same time as Reagan,

and he's only in power for like a year and a half. But the amount of violence and attack on local indigenous communities in Guatemala is just unbelievable. And, of course, the whole idea with these scorched earth policies is that, You have to, the guerrillas need water. Like, this is the idea the grilla needs water for them to be able to swim. And so we need to just remove any possibility, any possible support. So these communities may or may not be supporting guerrilla movements.

It doesn't matter. We're going to just remove them, destroy any semblance of them, destroy. And that's why they're called scorched earth, you know, which, of course, they learned in Vietnam and everywhere else. And so these are the policies we're talking about. And this is just, this is completely greenlit by the United States government. It's completely green lit by Reagan, whatever you can do to stop the so-called communist threat happening in the region. And it's, and it's, and it's nightmarish. 200,000 people are, are killed in Guatemala under these just abominable policies.

And, um, and tens of thousands are just disappeared. And it's just, uh, it's just terrifying. and it's all done in the name of, you know, fighting so-called communism. Yeah, and really quick, just a quick follow-up point. That phrase, you know, like the guerrillas swim amongst the masses, like a fish swims in the ocean, is like, it comes out of like, yeah, Maoism. I mean, Mao, even Shea talked about it in guerrilla warfare, I believe. But that idea that this is a mass revolt and real, in guerrilla fighters are often sort of indistinguishable from the masses. And so the most brutal approach, of course, to just obliterate the masses.

And that's exactly also what we're seeing in Palestine right now, right? All under the pretense, this colonial language of the savages of Hamas must be destroyed. And then they just indiscriminately carpet bomb Gaza and destroy civilian life as like using Hamas as the justification, even though it's clear, it's just indiscriminate in the first place. So absolutely disgusting. But an approach that has been central to European colonialism, imperialism, and continues on to this very day, which is certainly worth noting. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on that.

pick up on that threat and connect those locations. One inspiration, it seems, for your work interpretively in terms of history here is Empire's Workshop by Greg Grandin. And, of course, the argument of that work is, you know, to say that a lot of the techniques or a global domination that we would see in other parts of the world are worked out, you know, in this long engagement of U.S. intervention in the hemisphere. And similarly, you could say in this, you know, Anthony Lohenstein's book basically about, you know, Israel as the place where the high-tech surveillance, military, you know, complexes at its testing ground, you know, where, and this is in fact how Israel markets its own weapons industry as battle tested, you know. And so it's this kind of connection. And we had a wonderful episode with Alex Savina about, you know, Latin America and Israel's involvement in Latin America when the criticism of the kinds of things that you're talking about, like, you know, the contras and, you know, there was left mobilization to counter this in the United States.

When the U.S. felt it wasn't possible to get involved directly, it, you know, had this partner. that, you know, it could deny that it was the one involved, but Israel would provide the weapons or the military training or the police training on how you torture people and so on. And so there's a lot of connections between the history that you're talking about. And, you know, not only the contemporary events in Latin America, but it has a global value and a global reach. And so maybe that's something you could talk a little bit more about, about why this history is so important. to tell, not only from the perspective of an American growing up in Northern Virginia where you're, you know, at the empire seat, but yet nobody really knows or talks or really thinks about this, but that it's also a kind of global story about how America relates to

the rest of the world that you can study here. Absolutely. Adnan, such a great point. And it's true, you know, one of the things that's been really interesting is in interviewing a lot of of people, obviously, over the last year and particularly in recent months, many people who I'm speaking with are also making that connection to Palestine right now, to what's going on in Gaza, and to the history of Latin America and the U.S. role, obviously. And yeah, this is something that obviously you said, Greg talked about, but in particular, for instance, the episode that's coming out just next week about Honduras, 1980s, you know, we get into John Negroponte, we get into all these Roger Nouriega, all these kind of really key figures who'd become extremely important in the Bush administrations, extremely important for their role in Iraq later on. And they kind of, they cut their teeth in Honduras in the 1980s. This is kind of the starting point. Yeah. And people like Elliot Abrams. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Completely. It's a, it is, it is an interesting moment the 1980s because it's just finished, you know, Vietnam.

obviously the huge, massive defeat the United States and Vietnam. And many, they take many of kind of their top advisors, analysts, whatever else, and they come to Latin America. They come to Honduras and they're in El Salvador and they're Guatemala. So it's this crossover point at that point in the 19, late 1970s, early 80s, where they're sharing what they've learned from Vietnam techniques to local military officials, school the Americas, or training folks on the ground. but it's also kind of the launching point then to everything we will see with the United States in the Middle East, you know, later on in 1990s and the 2000s. So it is kind of this, this intermediate space. That is particularly like, that's more modern history, but like it's the same stuff going back, you know, to the end of the 19th century, the 20th century, like the U.S. is learning its techniques.

In fact, as far as I don't, if I'm not mistaken, I believe some of the first time that it actually started using planes in battles to support Marines in the ground was when they were fighting Sandino in, and this isn't the Sandinistas, this is Sandino back in the 1930s, I think it was, in Nicaragua. And of course, he was considered the outlaw and the Marines were considered by the United States, you know, the freedom fighters, right? Yet it's an invading army. And that was the first time when they were actually using planes to. get in to support ground troops. So, no, this is the United States. This is the workshop. This is Latin America. It's extremely important, not just for the region, but for everything abroad and everything we're seeing today. Yeah, and just quickly to mention the name of the book, since I didn't give the title, Anthony Lowenstein's book, is the Palestine Laboratory, how Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world. And, you know, we can see a lot of symmetries, you know, here. And even also, you could say,

I mean, the topic that we were discussing before, migrations. Why are there so many refugees from the Middle East? I mean, you know, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. I mean, these are the places, you know, on top of, of course, the earlier waves of Palestinian, you know, refugees. But these are refugees that are produced by empire and in particular U.S. empire recently. And so there's a real connection between the refugee migrant crisis that Europe, you know, you know, was hyperventilating about and its right-wing reactionaries were propagandizing over and, you know, the right wing in the United States when it comes to its neighboring

territories of migrants coming, you know, and sometimes they connect when you have the caravan and they're supposedly, you know, central Americans who are providing haven and cover for jihadis to come into the United States. And so you have this, you know, imaginative, migration questions as well as this whole infrastructure of military hegemony and I would even say this whole anti-communism, the militant nationalism, extremist nationalism. I believe there was a quote from some, I don't know if it was Truman or Eisenhower, who was saying, you know, in this anti-communist that you cited in one of your episodes, you know, the need for, you know, being vigilant about communism coming to the region, is that they will use the appearance

of nationalism of an extreme sort as a cover as a tool of communism. So don't be fooled just because they say they're doing it for their own interests. They're doing it for this global conspiracy to undermine us. And that you see exactly the same as U.S. policy in the 1950s in the Middle East, when Los Sadec in 1953, so right before they do it in Arbenz, they're doing it in Iran. And, you know, the whole Eisenhower doctrine is that militant nationalism, what that means is we're going to not join the U.S. enterprise and defense packs and so on, but actually make decisions for ourselves.

That's what counts as militant nationalism, is essentially identified as tantamount to communism. Like, there's no need to make any distinction because if they don't support the U.S. It's the you're with us or you're against us. And essentially, George Bush said that, but that's been the U.S. policy and relates to Latin America or the Middle East, you know, for 60, 70 years. I just want to add something before I ask another question, which is that when we're talking about some of the reasons why the United States intervenes in countries that it does, There's a lot of reasons why it chooses the countries that it does. And frankly, it intervenes in all countries.

But I'm talking about, like, more overt and more explicit intervention. One of the reasons that they do this is not only for the economic side of things directly, but also to send a message to other forces abroad. And one of the things that we've mentioned, I think I've mentioned it in several episodes at this point, We talk about Ayende pretty frequently and the overthrow of Aende in 73, but we don't often talk about one of the reasons why that was done. And one of the reasons why that was done is because the Communist Party of Italy was very, very popular at the time. And you may be thinking to yourself, how are Aende in Chile and Italy related to one another? The reason was is that the Communist Party in Italy was the most popular Communist Party in Western Europe.

up at that point. And it looked like they actually had a fairly decent shot of winning elections that were coming up at that point. And similarly, Aende was very popular at the time in Chile, but also we have to remember Aende was not a communist. He was a social democrat. He was a socialist, but a social Democrat. And he was a Democrat. In that what the United States feared most of all, even more in some cases, depending on, you know, what administration and officials you would listen to, even more than the nationalization of, you know, copper mining and things like that, one of the things that they really feared for was the fact that Iende, who was this popular socialist in office, would leave office after an election.

That was terrifying to them because it would send a message abroad that when socialists or communists are in office, it is not explicitly anti-democratic or it is not mutually exclusive with democracy. You can have a socialist in power that is beholden to the whims of the populace in terms of voting. And the United States was terrified that the Italians would see that. They would see Aende leave office peacefully and would then be willing to vote for the Communist Party in Italy, which was super popular at the time. So the United States had to tarnish the name of Vyende and then kill them and at the same time, you know, frame the communists for many things that they were instigating in Italy at the time to tarnish the name of the communists in Italy. Like these things are related. It's always worth keeping in mind that these things are related. Even when we have a very huge geographic, you know, difference between Chile and Italy, like look at a map.

They're not anywhere near each other, but these things are intimately related. Michael, I don't know if you have anything you want to say on that, but I'll throw another question out there that's unrelated if you don't. Well, yeah, the only thing I do want to say is your point about invasions and intervention to make a message, to say a message. And I think what really, what that triggered, what I just took some notes down here was I was in Panama in recent months for a good long while. and did some reporting on the U.S. invasion of Panama, December 20th, 1989.

It was the last U.S. invasion with, like, troops on the ground. And it was the first U.S. invasion after the end of the Cold War. So it was done to literally send a message. And keep in mind, this was a country that the United States already had 12 U.S. military bases in the country. It's not like it didn't have a presence, you know. But it was done to send a message under the quote-unquote, okay, we've just, quote, unquote, won the Cold War, what's our next thing? Oh, let's do this whole drug war thing. And then let's send a message to the entire region that we are going to stand strong. We're still going to be

invading. We want to, you know, keep people on their toes. And so they obviously invade at the time and kill thousands of people and capture Manuel Noriege and whatever else. But I think that that's still, that invasion still lingers today. It still stings today. In fact, the United States lost a lawsuit brought by victims in Panama, like through the U.S. Commission or the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. And they're still waiting for reparations from the United States. They're still trying to demand this. We're almost at the 35th year anniversary. But that was one of these moments where you have this transition from one moment. We're transitioning away from the Cold War. Excitement. Everyone says, wow, great. It's a new world.

and yet the United States just continues doing what it does, right? Yeah, totally, which I guess that kind of brings me to the next question, which is you mentioned you were in Panama doing reporting. And throughout this series, we've mentioned that you've been in these various countries that you're talking about. I think that it's worth stepping back for a second from the conversation that we're currently having to kind of lay out the structure of the show for the listeners who haven't yet listened to it.

And of course, we highly recommend that everybody does. It really is excellent. But Michael, in this show, like we said, you started with the Monroe Doctrine, and then you start going through kind of these case studies throughout Latin America and how, again, that shadow of the United States lingers over them. And you started in Guatemala, you moved to El Salvador. And again, by the time this episode comes out, you'll have started in Honduras. And in each of these cases, you're visiting historic sites within these countries that have some sort of significance. with regards to U.S. intervention within these countries. So just broadly speaking, can you let the listeners know how you chose the countries that

you're going to, kind of how you're getting from place to place, choosing the sites that you're going to and some of the sites that you have been at over the course of the series and kind of the meaning behind them? You know, why are you choosing these sites and what do they mean within the context of the shadow of the U.S. intervention? You know, this is so fun, Henry, because I don't get to talk about like, the nitty-gritty of like how I'm producing the podcast that often and it's like you know it makes it's really fun so thank you um yeah I mean the idea is I wanted to to to walk south

and the fact the very first episode starts in Tapachula so just a couple miles in in Mexico on the southeastern border just a couple miles from Guatemala and throughout the series I slowly work my way south and I end in in Panama and so I wanted to kind of walk through Kind of on a timeline. So in a couple of episodes, like, for instance, in the case of Guatemala, I give the history, I talk about United Fruit, what that meant. And, of course, the 1954 coup. And so I've kind of walking my way south. And for me, it's almost like peeling the banana back, right?

United Fruit Banana. It's like kind of peeling the different layers here to understand, to see from different perspectives. this same story. And my hope is that by the end of the series, you are now really understand how all these things link together, you know, from the very beginning of Monroe and migration. Of course, in Panama, when I get there, I will be talking also about, you know, my, you know, kind of bringing it back home, talking about migration. You know, that's where the Darien Gap is. And that's where you have, you know, I think it's a half a million people that traveled through the Darien Gap this year. So that's that vision of really trying to

walk us geographically, but also the timeline. So, you know, I start episode one with Monroe and migration. I go to Guatemala and I go to this town called Tikisate, which, you know, is basically just a hardworking urban center that almost is forgettable and forgotten and that no tourists would ever want to even spend any time. But that was built by United Fruit back in the 1930s. And so I go there in search of what's left of those United Fruit. installations and what's still there. And I find homes that were built, but you know, I had food people still live there. The railroad checks used to run under what is now a mall. And so it's about I'm trying to bring to life the past, but doing it in the layer of the present.

And so that's in Tiki Sati then for the next episode, episode three. I want to look at the, you know, the civil war, the genocide. And it's at that time that I go to a memorial for the disappeared in Komalapa. And this is a very profound place. It used to be in military barracks in which hundreds of people were tortured and killed and buried in mass graves. And local family members kind of retook this back. They, with the help from Guatemala Forensic Anthropological Forensics, they kind of went through and they helped to exune the graves. And now they have now built it into a memorial where they've actually buried the same. disappeared in that same location. So it's now a memorial for the disappearer. It's just absolutely profound and beautiful and intense. And then, you know, I go to El Salvador and I visit specific locations in El Salvador and I visit the Museum of Warden Image, which is this, it's its own

connection, you know, I kind of talked a little bit beforehand about historical memory. And so this is, this is making this kind of bridge through all these different places so that people can understand an experience in the present, what still lingers of those ghosts of the past. You know, I just want to hop in quickly to follow up on that last thing that you said, the Museum of Sound and Image. One of the things that is on an already released episode that really was fascinating was that you not only went to that museum and saw the museum itself, but while you were at the museum, you got to see kind of the secret archives. Can you talk a little bit about the radio station that was associated, you know, that you can see at the museum itself? And then what were the archives that you got to see on the side that, as you mentioned, most people probably don't even know are there because they're not shown that part of the, you know, museum.

Yeah. So this is actually a, the full backstory is I was in El Salvador as an election observer back in 2004, so exactly 20 years ago. And I heard about Raye Venseremos. Rayeventeramos was the. rebel radio back by the guerrilla in the region of Mora San in the 1980s. And it was extremely important. This was the means of countering the government propaganda. This was like, this was guerrilla media. This was guerrilla radio at its best. And it was so, well, what's the word for it? It was like, you know, it was, it was, it was, you had international media that would follow it. They would follow its reports. Like, when you compare this radio with, say, government propaganda, that was propaganda. And this is where they were finding the truth. It was so credible, right, on an international scale. And I was so impressed how someone, how a group of folks could

hold down a rebel radio that was broadcasting one hour a day in the middle of a war zone. It's just amazing. And some of their stories, I'll get to your question just a second, Henry, But some of their stories are just insane. Like, at one point, they were being bombed because the United States and the Salvadoran army had located, they were able to triangulate their positions using a U.S. ship off the coast and the Gulf of Fonseca. And so they realized they had to do something differently. So what they did is they used barbed wire. And there's tons of barbed wire in a war zone. And they used these trails of barbed wire to send out the broadcast, you know, the same way you would use as like a telephone line.

So they're sitting in one spot. And then miles away, it's actually being broadcast out to the rest of the world. So the bombs are dropping. And this happens for years. And the Salvadoran Army has no idea where to find these guys. So their story is fascinating. And I had heard about this 20 years ago and then heard that these archives were at the museum board an image. And at that point, 20 years ago, I went, interviewed the director and actually ended up working as a volunteer there, translating stuff into English and helping to sign.

subtitles, some of their videos, because they didn't just have a radio, but they had video. And so it's this fascinating place that to the, even till today, I mean, just not that they, just the simple fact that they were able to conserve and preserve their archives. You go into the back room and they show it and they pull out this old drawer and it's got all these, these old cassette tapes from, you know, the 1980s and it's dated, it's got the date on, it's got the name week by week. They don't have the entire thing because some of the tapes were lost. like on route, you know, of them trying to save them or get out of the country, but they have

the bulk of it. It's all been digitized. And it's just this, it's just fascinating, uh, memory that, that for me, and this is why like it was so important to include in this, in this podcast, because it's like, A, excitement of what's possible, whereas so many of your episodes are really kind of negative. And then B, it's, it's, it's, it's like, it's so tangible in the present. Like, Like the ghosts in this case, they're not ghosts. They're cassette tapes in a file cabinet that are still there. And yet the museum's whole job is to try and preserve these archives, not just the tapes, but all of the old video cassettes and beta cam and VHS and all the rest of the stuff they still have.

That's their job to try and hold on to the past and to those memories and to preserve the past, which is what we're talking about throughout the entire podcast. So yeah, super, super cool. I wanted to ask you, Michael, about, you know, what you thought, you know, you were somebody who was very familiar with the region, having lived there. We've been studying it. In the course of doing this series, what was very new and, I mean, you framed this as, you know, something for Americans, like this whole history is something that most Americans don't really. think about and aren't aware about. But you're somebody who over the last couple of decades has become very familiar with the history and politics and culture of Latin and South America. But what was like really surprising? What kind of new revelations or insights came to you either in the contemporary circumstances or the history that you tell that you think would be

you know, very important for people to know and understand and it was something that you, yourself hadn't really known so much about, if anything. I'll say two things that's important. The first one is this is obviously a series for Americans, for the U.S. We are trying to translate it. The production company, the local community production company that helps me with some of the mixing is based in Brazil.

And they want to get into Portuguese. We want to get into Spanish. It would be hugely important. So it's something I'm working on trying to find funds because if we could, it would be amazing. But yes, that's where the focus comes from trying to raise awareness within the United States. You know, art of the power for me of podcasting is, and the sound is the emotion. You can hear emotion. You can feel it.

you know, with video, you can, it's like you're still, you've got a screen between you and what's happening. But with, with audio, you can put those headphones on and feel like you are there. Like I am going to, it is, it is the only thing that I actually know, which feels like time travel, sorry to loop in back to the future again. Um, it, so for me, that's really powerful. And so when I go to these places, or the reason of, of wanting to go. there is so that it's not just something that's in the past but is to feel that emotion when I talk with people when I'm standing over a former mass grave that's been exhumed when I'm speaking with victims it is for me it's about that the feeling and the the sense of empathy and the sense of

the sensitivity that you can't read in a book and so often time and it's hard to bring I can't bring everybody from the U.S. down there to meet people and understand what this meant, but I can bring this feeling back. And this for me is the root of what my journalism is. It's the root of my major critiques. I would say my biggest critiques against the media industry and the journalistic system because in journalism schools, they by and large teach you to not be empathetic and to not be sensitive and to forget the emotion and to try and be this independent vessel. And for me, that's the exact opposite.

It's doing a disjustice, a disservice for our ability to connect with others elsewhere, for our ability to understand how profound people's feelings are, how profound the realities are abroad and what we have done abroad. And I say abroad, obviously, it's the same thing for, you know, being in the United States and working, you know, or doing work in the inner city and doing work in communities that people might not be used to going into but this is extremely important this is why kind of the audio podcasting format is so important this is why you have to go there you have to spend time with people and understand it and that for me more than anything has just been a privilege and it's been

a gift um of course you know there's there's a ton of things that i've like learned along the way about stuff that I knew, but the more I dig into it in terms of researching, I'm like, wow, I didn't realize that. Oh, my gosh. I, you know, like, I had forgotten about the role of Argentina in training the contras and in training military officials and in training officers across Central America. You know, remember that this was at the time of late 70s, early 80s, brutal um you know what they call the what is it the the the the dirty war and just a just the absolute onslaught by the argentine government against its people 30 thousand have disappeared within a very short period of time and during that period argentine officers many of them and i'm talking about

like dozens are are in honduras and they're and they're training uh the contras and they're training people on torture techniques and on interrogation using CIA torture manuals and things like that. And so those connections between like the planned Condor in South America and Central America and then how the United States fits in. That was something that I had forgotten about these things are all interrelated, right? That's, I think, was really profound. And then also what's been really powerful for me is, is learning the specifics and the details, right? Because it's one thing like knowing stuff and reading about it and maybe doing some work on it.

But it's another thing developing, you know, 45 minute or 45 minute episodes and talking to people and then remembering, oh, wow, really, oh, really that much or standing out in front of, you know, Palmyrara or Sotocano, you know, one of the largest U.S. military bases in Central America and Honduras and feeling that feeling. of what it means to be there and what they have so much that has been done across the region right in the name and from that very spot so i think those are some of the details that have been really fascinating i want to do a season two it's going to take a long period of time which would of course be focused on south america and would of course open up a huge um focus on you know the the condor years obviously but it's um it's been it's been it's been a beautiful journey it's been it's been a fascinating journey. I've learned so much. Costa Rica was really interesting because, um, you know, obviously Costa Rica and Panama, Panama, you know, just going to those former

U.S. military bases, hearing from people about the U.S. invasion of Costa Rica, because Costa Rica is seen as that like, oh, yeah, Costa Rica is like, that's like the good, the good country. Like, oh, there was nothing happening there. It was all good, you know. Oh, it's like, it's without a military and it's so democratic, you know. And so that's a fascinating, my episode on Costa Rica is really cool because I walk from that from the point that you expect me to start from of this was the military base where the president in 1948, I believe it was, you know, declared abolished the armed forces and transformed the military base into a museum and yay. But why did he do that?

Well, he did it so that there wouldn't be a coup against this government, right? He wanted to get rid of the armed forces so they couldn't attack him. And so I get into like some of that stuff and the reality of what really Costa Rica was and also the U.S. role? What was that playing in Costa Rica at the time? And so for me, there's a lot of like subtleties and nuances that we don't usually talk about. We don't talk about Panama and Costa Rica as being linked into Central America. They're just like left aside, you know, and so I really wanted to weave those things together. So anyway, thank you for that question because I usually don't get to answer something like that. Yeah, well, I just, I did just want to say that I thought

that approach was very effective, the way you connect it and also. it is very moving. This isn't a dry history in account of, you know, what the U.S. did. It's something that touches you deeply. It connects to the present, to the people that you talk with. And also, the sound is very rich. It's a beautifully sounding podcast, and it makes it feel very immersive. And so that's another feature that I appreciated so much. So thank you for taking that approach and for applying your expert abilities in this sound medium because it's not just you talking, you get like this really rich,

immersive feel of the places through their sounds. It's wonderful. Just briefly, Michael, if I remember correctly, you said that the music in the show is your own band that plays it. Is that correct? So much of it.

So the outro music and the theme music, there's a lot of stuff I pull from kind of other, you know, the it's like a podcasting format that has general music but the the songs that come back throughout and then there's a couple of of songs that I like to use and I did the same thing with Brazil on fire I had kind of different music for that but that's my band that did it and then and then some of my own stuff that I just kind of compose myself in particular at moments where it's very very dark and intense and we're and it's kind of making this parallel between

like the U.S. intervention in the past and dictatorship and then making that connection to the present, that's usually where I kind of try and really fuel out a lot of the stuff that I've done. I play the violin. And so it absolutely, that's where the, so if you hear, when you hear the violin on there, you'll hear some of it. In fact, a couple of the episodes, the El Salvador episodes, you'll hear myself and Chio, who was kind of the main figure in episode four and then also in episode five. He was with Radio Vinceremos, former guerrilla, and he's this great musician, great guitarist and singer. And so that's actually, there's a couple of songs that we're playing, and there are songs that he actually wrote late last year that I get to use

in the podcast. So it's really cool to be able to, you know, have that out, flow that as well. Yeah, that's awesome. You were mentioning something about the, the sort of intimacy of the audio medium, even compared to video. And it's sort of counterintuitive because with the video, think, oh, that's more intimate. You can see the person. You can see their facial mannerisms, whatever. But my whole theory has always been that with the audio format, not only do you allow people to listen to it when they're on the go, when they're at work, when they're doing chores, but there's this sense in which the voices are in your head. It's not out there. And that that's the intimacy that I think comes with the audio medium. And to play that as well as you

do is really a wonderful thing. So props to you. But one thing that really speaks to me when I listen to you talk and listening to your work. And, you know, I like to kind of infuse a rather dark sort of story with the positivity of love. And I'm always talking about love. But it's clear hearing you talk that you love people, you love these places, and you mentioned the word empathy. And that is love in action. And, you know, I speak for myself when I say that a lot of a lot of what brought me to these politics is precisely my heartbreak and love for other human beings. And I consider myself before an American, before anything, I consider myself a human being. And anywhere a human being is suffering, it impacts me deeply. And I think that's important for all

of us to cultivate in ourselves and not let this hyperalienated, competitive, individualist society crush that out of us, as it so often does. But covering a story with so much pain and hurt, I kind of wanted to give you an opportunity to explore a little bit of the other side. So given how deeply you're connected with Latin America, how much time you've spent in it, what are some of the most beautiful places and peoples that you've encountered in your long sort of experience in Latin America? I would love to hear that side of the things too because I think that's important. Oh man, Brett, you're going to make me cry. This is hard. I mean, I will say the museum of word and image that we know, obviously it comes up in episode

five. And I was just there yesterday with folks there. And I was recording an interview with Jorge Quayyar, who's a professor at Dartmouth of Latin American Studies. And so in my update to the kind of the situation El Salvador, the latest piece that will probably be out by the time this is out. I sat down with him in kind of the courtyard of the museum. And we had a long chat about the elections and what this is all mean, whatever else. But that museum is really, really powerful. Obviously, I had, you know, made a lot of friends over the years. And, you know, it's, I have been very privileged and I have been very blessed to have been able to travel and live in many, you know, at least six countries in the hemisphere and travel to almost all of them. And spend a lot of time

in each one and made a lot of friends, interviewed a lot of people. And so, you know, in each place, it has its beauty and and there's just been so many people who have opened their hearts like you're talking about hearts and have opened their stories to to me and it is a it really is I mean it's it's such a privilege it's such a blessing to be able to do this work because I can't imagine myself doing anything else and you know each day that I'm in the streets or talking with people or being able to rehash stories or understand the past and people are opening up their lives to me is just so, so, so profound. And I, and it is, it's, it's also really powerful to be able to, you know, in a lot of ways, feel at home in so many different places,

whether that's obviously Brazil, which is where I've kind of lived, you know, the, the most of all these different spots, but also in El Salvador or, or in Ecuador, or in Venezuela or in so many other spots. So, um, there's so many, like you say, like, it's, it's, It's hard to even name locations and other people and stuff because there's just so many. It's endless and each place has its beauty. So, but yeah, it's been it's, it's been a journey and it's an ongoing one. Speaking of ongoing journeys, as we've mentioned throughout the conversation, we're recording this about the halfway point through the series with about half the episodes still to come.

And you've mentioned that this series is going to end in Panama. But my question is, what's next for you, Michael? Because the last time we heard you, you were talking about Brazil and the rise of fascism in Brazil. And now you've taken us on this tour of Central America and the specter of the United States floating over Latin America and the shadow that falls down on these countries to this day. What's next? Where do you go from here? You know, like this is obviously such a big project, both in terms of you had to do a lot of travel. and visiting and interviewing and all of that, but also just U.S. intervention across

an entire region is a huge project conceptually as well as geographically. So how do you move on from thinking about this project that you were doing on Central America? What are you doing next? Do you have plans for what's coming after this? Oh, I have big plans. And if you have any funders, we should talk. Believe me, we don't have any funders. but that's my challenge oh my god no i'm working on uh developing out actually a much larger project

if you can get larger because i have roughly five um different podcast series that are that i'm that some of which i've already started to develop and already started to do some uh interviews for and research they all follow the same theme which is why i'm looking at this is as as one large project and then these series kind of fit within it they all follow the themes of kind of david versus goliath it's either extractivist uh policies local communities indigenous communities fighting that uh or u.s united states imperial interests right uh they all follow this same um model of of traveling to different countries and seeing the realities in these different countries and how they how they fit and map into this larger story you know for me it's so

important henry you know so many podcasts um or podcast series they they try and focus on on the the uber local or the uber focus you know it's one story of one person and we're going to follow their lives and that's easy well it's not easy but it's very powerful because it's very personal and then i can walk into one person's life and figure out how this works and it's interesting and it's engaging. For me, what's really important, and this is why this is particular and why this is why special for me is I want to do systemic thinking. I want us to look at really big, broad pictures that most people would go, oh, God, I have no idea how I want to tackle that over many different countries. And I want to do the kind of case study thing piece by piece

and walk us from a beginning to the end in a super engaging way. So by the time that we're done, you're like, oh, you know, I'm hoping that you're looking at that issue in a completely different way. You've actually changed your mind and I've taken you on a journey with me. And that is what I will be doing for at least the next five years, hopefully for the rest of my life. My goal is to be able to do this kind of full time. Of course, up until now, it's been my podcast as I'm doing stories and I'm reporting and I'm trying to make the podcast work and trying to raise funds, whatever I can. but so this is my kind of challenge over the next little bit. Our focus is headed to South America in a couple months and then traveling throughout South

America for the next, hopefully, year or so. And within that context, doing reporting for what would then turn in to be potentially the next four or five podcast series, because I already know what they are. And I already know how one thing fits to another and I already know how to make them work on the local. So it's, it's super, super exciting. A lot of the stuff is stuff I've been thinking about for five, six, seven, eight years. And at this point, Henry, is really exciting in my life as a journalist and in my life as a media maker. Because in a lot of ways, if you would ask me five years ago, oh, how are you going to make all that work?

Or they were like, they were dreams or visions of, okay, I want to make this happen in the future. And now I see a roadmap to actually be able to make this happen and to do really continue to do, really groundbreaking stuff that's at the same time really thoughtful and sentimental and exciting, but also in a way that nobody else is doing because it's rare to find a podcast that are looking at kind of systemic thinking and are looking at across many different countries and looking at kind of continually the role of the United States. States with the role of North versus South. Because, you know, and this is, I'm going to vent a little frustration here. When I tried to like sell and, you know, Brazil on fire back several years ago, every kind of podcasting company I went to said, wow, this really great idea. And wow, you've really got a lot of sound. And it seems like you were really on the ground. And it seems like you could really do this because, you know, you've got all this experience.

But, you know, I mean, for a U.S. audience. we're not really interested in the international you know you kind of got to just go um you know we've got national politics that's the thing and at this point the problem is just over the last year i think we've seen something like 20 to 25 percent maybe 30 percent of the jobs in radio particularly in public media uh have been gutted and cut so everybody's um really taking a hit um and so this isn't these are not podcasts that i could do through the usual outlets, the usual forms. So I need to find funding and the means to make it work through other channels. Of course, Nackland, the Real News, are amazing. What I've done with them so far has been

great. And they are on board for what may come if I can find more funding and financing. And the thing is, like I said, at this point in my career, it's not a question of if this will happen. It's a question of how it will happen because it will. And that's really exciting. For me, it's a game changer, and I can't wait to share the rest of this with you guys for the years to come. Yeah, and of course, we'll be bringing you back on to talk about those subsequent series. I can tell you that, unfortunately, I don't have any funders for you, Michael. Otherwise, you know, we might take them for ourselves, but we do not have them. But we certainly recommend anybody that's listening that is connected to people with money.

Get in touch with Michael, because this is a great. series and, you know, those future projects really sound terrific. So Michael, we're going to wrap the conversation here. And like I said, we'll bring you back as more things come on. Maybe we'll even have a little retrospective like addendum when the series is wrap. We'll see how things are looking on our schedule again, which is kind of crazy right now. But Michael, can you let the listeners know how they can find you and your work and to listen to Under the Shadow? Absolutely. Twitter M-Fox underscore U.S., Instagram, M-Fox.us, although I don't use that that often. And Patreon, patreon.com, forward slash M-F-O-X.

You can find me there, support, become a sustainer, or else. And you can find me at all those locations. Of course, the podcast Under the Shadow is through NACLA and the Real News, who are amazing. So if you haven't listened, you can go to their websites. It's all right there. And thank you guys. Yeah. And, of course, we'll have all of the.

that linked in the show notes, listener. So just scroll down and you will find it all. Brett, how can the listeners find you and your other excellent podcasts? Absolutely, yeah. Thank you so much. Michael, it was a wonderful conversation. Keep up the amazing work. We're always here for you.

As for me, you can find everything I'd do at Revolutionary LeftRadio.com. Excellent. Of course, highly recommend the listeners do that. Adnan, how can the listeners find you and your other excellent podcast? Thanks again, Michael. Looking forward to the rest of these journeys to, to follow them. You can follow me, listeners, on Twitter at Adnan-A-U-S-A-I-N, and you can check out my other podcast, The M-A-J-L-I-S, about Middle East Islamic

World, Muslim diasporic culture. And naturally, I recommend the listeners to do that as well. As for me, listeners, you can pick up Stalin history and critique of a black legend at Iskra Books. We have our Palestine collaboration that we did with Iskra. Books, historic documents of the PLO, which we wrote one of the forwards for, that'll be coming out very soon. I just talked with the publisher, and it sounds like potentially by the end of next month, that could already be being printed. So keep your eyes peeled for that at iskerbooks.org or, again, you can follow us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A underscore pod. Michael, I see you raising your hand. I did. I just wanted to mention. I completely forgot. So my band, And Monte Perdido, and we did the outro and the theme song to this in Brazil on fire, we're coming out with a new album. And it should be out in a couple months. The band is named Monte Perdido. And you can find it on Spotify, wherever you listen to music. And so we do have, we have some music up there already. We have an album that we cut 20 years ago, which is good. But check it out. Send me a link and we'll put it in the show notes, of course. As for me, listeners, you can follow me on Twitter at Huck, 1995. H-U-C-K-1-995, and you can help support the show and allow us to keep making episodes like this.

If you're a big money donor, like I said, we don't have any big money donors, but you can help support us at patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And until next time, listeners, solidarity. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.