Guerrilla History - Stories of Resistance + Brazil Update w/ Michael Fox

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we are joined by returning guest Michael Fox (whom you may remember from our episodes The Rise of Fascism, Bolsonaro, & the Brazilian Elections and  American Imperialism's Shadow on Latin America w/ Michael Fox) to discuss his fantastic new series Stories of Resistance, a collaboration with The Real News Network and provides short surveys of resistance throughout history and in the contemporary world.  Be sure to check this one out! 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, and now also Stories of Resistance. Michael can be followed on Twitter @mfox_us, you can support his project on his patreon and follow his band Monte Perdido. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory  We also have a (free!) newsletter you can sign up for, and please note that Guerrilla History now is uploading on YouTube as well, so do us a favor, subscribe to the show and share some links from there so we can get helped out in the algorithms!! *As mentioned, you will be able to find Tsars and Commissars: From Rus to Modern Russia on YouTube.

You don't remember den, Ben, boo? No! 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. Gorilla 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 Huckimacki, joined as usual by my co-host Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, Henry. It's wonderful to be with you. Absolutely. Nice to see you, as always. We are going to be rejoined by a multiple time guest on the show. But before I introduce the guest and the topic that we're going to be talking up with today, another terrific series, by the way, which listeners should definitely be checking out before, during, and after this conversation. I just want to remind you listeners that you can

help support this show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with the show by following us on various social media platforms on Twitter. at Gorilla underscore Pod, Instagram, gorilla underscore history, and we have a substack newsletter, which is very sporadic in terms of getting emails to your inbox, keeping you updated. So you don't have to worry about being bombarded. If anything, you have to worry about remembering that it exists at all, but it's guerrilla history.substack.com.

And again, in all of those cases, guerrilla is spelled with two R's. As I mentioned, we have a multiple time returning guest, a friend of ours. we are joined by a roving journalist, freelance journalist based in Latin America, contributor to many different organizations, podcaster, he has multiple series, which we've talked about on the show before. We are rejoined by Michael Fox. Hello, Michael. It's nice to have you back on the show.

Great to be here. Thank you so much. Absolutely. So listeners, as we, as I just said, Michael has been on the show many times in the past. I know we talked about Under the Shadow, which was his outstanding series about American imperialism and the long shadow over Latin America, particularly Central America. We talked about Brazil on fire. And in particular, we also talked about the rise of fascism, Bolsonaro, and the Brazilian elections with Michael Fox. So we've had a lot of episodes with you, Michael, and you've come out with another terrific series, an incredible.

an incredibly prolific series because it only started in what January and you already have 65 episodes out at the time of recording it'll be probably closer to 70 by the time this episode comes out it's called stories of resistance and it's on the real news network Michael as we've started several of these conversations before with you I'm going to start this one the same way what spawned stories of resistance and for the listeners who haven't looked yet at the catalog on stories of resistance, which I highly recommend you do. You talk about some really interesting and sometimes extremely esoteric and very specific and very disparate topics that mostly are focused in Latin America,

but not exclusively. We're going to talk more about what you actually talk about on the show, but where did the idea for stories of resistance come from and what did you do to kind of get it formalized in terms of an actual idea of what you were going to do with the show?

Well, first off, I mean, it came very much for me in response to Trump's election. You know, I said, okay, here we have. Donald Trump has just been elected again. The situation looks extremely dire, but of course, at this time, I'm traveling all across South America, actually working on the second season

to Under the Shadow about Planned Condor and about the dictatorships of the 1960s and 70s, and many people outside the country are saying, yeah, things are bad, things are bad. We've had bad moments too, and we fought and we've had those times of resistance and we've pushed. And so for me, it was important to have kind of this testament

to remind people, they give a little bit of inspiration, a little bit of hope in just these really dark times that, you know, things are bad in so many places. They've been bad. they're in many ways they're always bad just now they're worse

but people have always struggled and people have found ways of resisting and I wanted to have something that was kind of faster vignetti you know I'm a huge fan of Eduardo Galliano like going back decades

and I love writing those styles of vignettes I've always written kind of vignettes like that a lot of times for text and so it was kind of this coming together of several things where I said, wow, you know, what if I transform some of these little vignettes that I'm writing, you know, and make them into audio format and in a way, you know, using the same motifs

and the same styles that I use in a lot of my podcasts of music and sound and am I to try and take you there, but do it in something that's really fast and easy to kind of devour and consume. like my idea is that you know it's no longer than 10 minutes and usually it's more like four five six seven minutes a day so you can listen to it on your way to work you can listen to or you're out and and it's interesting and exciting and it's bouncing like you said it's bouncing from one topic to another to another i like i try not to have any two topics any close in it's different from a lot of other podcasts they work on where it's a larger narrative you know

like brazil on fire we're going to talk about this thing i'm going to grow to what this is like i want to give you six minutes i'm going to give you completely something different so It's always kind of these exciting little vignettes, which are powerful and can inspire despite the moment. But also, like, remind us that it's not just now that people have to resist. It's, you know, 10 years ago and 20 years ago and 100 years ago and 500 years ago and it continues. The same story continues. So it was, it's been, it's been awesome.

It's been really cool. So I launched it on January 20th, literally Trump's inauguration day. And like you said, I've been, I've done, there's been, there was, a few weeks, maybe the first month or, month or two were roughly one episode a week. And then I did many months of three episodes a week, which was awesome. And, uh, no, it's been, it's been so much fun. It's been, because I don't, you know, a lot of times I have to sit down and develop. And these are so kind of short and they're so quick, um, that, that you can tell something in a nice little packet that's really, that's really empowering, right? And people really get a lot

about it so that's uh really a fascinating um that uh these are these just kind of short things the little bursts um and um it seems like you're got such a range in this series i mean of 65 episodes everything from something very contemporary that might be happening in the united states uh something that might be contemporary happening somewhere in south america that reflects some component of resistance, but a lot of historical things as well. I mean, I noted that you did an episode on Malcolm X for the 100th anniversary of his birth. And, you know, so you're pulling and drawing from like a full, very wide range. And I guess I'm wondering, you know, how do you make these decisions about what kinds, because you're right,

there are so many stories of resistance, but, you know, you're putting them together. there are occasions, January 20th, you start the series, it's inauguration day, somebody's kind of a birthday, especially a centenary, kind of, you know, is a good moment for reflection. And perhaps you might want to talk a little bit about the Malcolm X episode. But in general, just, you know, what kind of guiding principles are you using to try and figure out what you think people really could use to hear? Like, what's useful for people?

And I ask that because I think what your project is sounds very much in sympathy with what we try and do with guerrilla history, especially for these historical vignettes and stories, is to really, you know, kind of inspire and equip people not to give up on resistance, to learn from past occasions, to still have some hope and stave off what is, you know, a lot of despair around these days. So I just thought I would ask you, you know, like, well, how are you kind of figuring? figuring out what you want to choose from the whole sea of possible stories to highlight. This is such a great question. I actually had a friend when I, the first couple of weeks after I'd started, and she said, you know what? These are like, you're making songs, really, in a larger album, you know? Like, and whereas maybe a podcast might be, I don't know, a whole album or a movie within itself,

these are like short little songs, right? and they really are in a lot of ways. You know, a lot of the stories are stories that I've been wanting to tell for a really long time and or there's stories that, for instance, I'm in Chile and I'm reporting on this thing

and I've just experienced this and so I'm gonna write it right now. So sometimes it's been something I think it's just important in the moment. This is the right thing to do at the right moment. A lot of the anniversary stuff and I've been trying to really package as much as possible around anniversary

because I feel like it's like it's this moment that anniversary, come and then they go and and either people want to ignore it or either people are like oh there's that or people don't even realize that an anniversary happened you know like uh whatever march 24th uh argentine dictatorship is you know a moment i can be talking about the madres and the place de maia or whatever else and there's a lot of that there was i did a whole weeks right after march right around march 31st which of course which the coup the the bris in brazil 1964

coup that sank the country into a dictatorship. I did a whole, like, weeks' worth, but I started with, um, and this is probably one of my most favorite ones that I've done so far about resistance music in Brazil. So I, like, I'm trying to bring another thing to a conversation. People might know about, oh, the coup that happened, but like, okay, let's look at like, actually the resistance that's going on that's, that's under the radar, that's under the surface that nobody's talking about is actually really exciting. Like, people have been hearing these songs.

in Brazil or listening to Brazilian songs, nobody has a clue. And yet, like, the more you dig into, there's dozens and dozens in songs that were actively resisting the dictatorship at the time. And so that's like, these types of things are really exciting, really inspiring. And for me, you know, some of this stuff is really big.

Like you said, Malcolm X, just, like, a huge figure, like, so important. And I will say this, the stories that have taken me the longest, or obviously the stories that I didn't necessarily, they're not just short little vignettes. They're like someone's life who I have to like dive into

and try and go back to and try and weave through and trying to figure out how I'm gonna like synthesize and books, you know, into like, you know, five or six or seven minutes which is not easy and do it in a way that's still engaging or whatever. So I don't get lost in like, on this day, this person did this.

And on this day, this person, you know, like that doesn't help at all. So, so no, it like each one. And the other thing for me, like you said, because of the fact that it's been so prolific it's also a matter of like how do i say this or tell this story in a way in which i'm not repeating the way that i've told other stories right there was a couple days ago where i feel like i start i started it off just with the date i think this was the um or maybe it was the last one i just did about the Haitian revolution where

i started off this is the date this is the time and it's all in present tense i don't want to talk about the past i want to give it to you right now as if we're walking through it i'm to describe it you'll hear the sound of what's going on. But then the piece that I'm working on for the following week, I was about to start off the same way. That was my gut feeling. I said, no, I don't want to do that because I don't want to have them back to back.

So, like, each one, you know, you want to be creative. You also want to do things in a different way. And so it's been a little challenging now that I'm at episode number 65. I'm like, okay, did I do that one before? The same thing with the music. My idea is that almost all of the music is unique. It's almost all different.

And some of the time there's overlap, but I'm not going to pull the song that I did. You know, that's, well, oh, that's from episode 30. That's fine because no one's going to be listening to all those back to back, you know? So it is a lot of having to do with, well, what's the timing? What's the anniversary? Or what's the most important thing?

What's happening right now? Like, for instance, when the big protests were happening in Los Angeles against Trump and against ICE, I did a piece, I think it was the very next day or like two days later. I kind of pushed off some of the other ones that I already had prepared. because this is the most pressing thing. This is the most important thing right now.

The same thing in Brazil, there were large protests against Trump and his tariffs and whatever else. And so I said, no, this has to happen right now. So it's cool because of the fact that they're short vignettes, I can very easily, if I need to, I've already done two or three

and they're in the bag. Well, I can push those back and I'm going to do something else right now. You know, so it really has a lot to do with kind of what I'm thinking is the most important in the moment. But also, like, I try, as much as possible not to have two episodes back to back

from the same country. I want it to be, I really want everyone to be diverse. And I'll, and I'll just say this. Some of my most favorite episodes are the ones that are a little bit more poetic. We're talking about resistance in a way that isn't necessarily people in the streets protesting, but is the poetry as a resistance.

You know, or I did one recently in the land of the condor, which was about these ruins, that are still resisting over time. So I try and also give, because I want you to be listening and I want you, okay, that makes sense. But I want you to hear it and go, oh, wow, I didn't think of that.

You know, I really want to like, and thankfully those people who are like signed up to this, you know, hopefully they're, you know, they're listening to all of them. And so they get the new ones. They go, wow, I didn't think of it like that. You know, I want some people to kind of. So it's been, it's been really cool.

And it's been also a challenge to find the right, You know, because I don't want to miss, I don't want to miss anything in terms of, like, the anniversaries and stuff. Paulo Freire, for instance, and his pedagogy of the press that's coming up, his birthday is coming up in September. So I'm going to do one clearly on him. And so I kind of look ahead of time and say, well, what are the big, you know, and some of these stories I wrote months ago, and I'm just waiting for those anniversary dates to come through. Like Tupacomaro II, who was a really important Peruvian freedom fighter, and he basically, like, launched this huge rebellious. against the Spanish in the 18th century. And he had taken the name.

He said he was a descendant of the Incans. He had taken the name of the last Incan ruler. And then he ended up being destroyed and killed. But his was like the spark that then began the independence movements across South America decades later. And his stories are just incredible. So I started to write that one

when we were in Peru in the town where basically he led the rebellion from. So, like, it's, some of this stuff is really cool because I've got this ambient sound from the location of where the things happened as much as possible. So it's, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, it's, we really get a sense of the variety and flavor of these episodes with you talking about some of these decisions and choices. And, um, of course, the anniversaries, there's so many historical anniversaries that one could celebrate. So it's, I just note that the day we're recording is I believe the anniversary of the launch of the non, aligned movement in 1961. And maybe one could think of the tricontinental as being a good one, you know, because of a Latin America kind of focus of including Latin America, South America, into this kind of global South alignment that starts to emerge.

But quite apart from the historical ones you mentioned that you sometimes need to prioritize something that's very important that's happening in the moment. And I noticed that there were a couple of episodes. Well, an episode, for example, about the Freedom Flotilla. And we're also right on the cusp where some of the boats in the Global Samud Flotilla, which is a follow-up to that one that happened earlier this summer and is much broader, with many more participants as taking off, like, you know, boats from Ireland have just left today, and they'll meet up with others all around the Mediterranean

in the coming days. And so I wondered to ask you a little bit about the Freedom Flotilla episode. And, you know, quite apart from trying to promote the fact that this was a civil society, you know, kind of direct action effort to break the siege of Gaza that people should know about and support. What kind of particular story about resistance did you want to tell with this? you know, kind of episode. And how does it fit in

with some of the other kinds of stories you've told? This is like, this is almost like the epitome of resistance right now of, in like in, in the world at this moment. I think, like, when you think of resistance,

the first thing, at least what comes to my mind is, you know, people in the streets standing up and marching and protesting. And the idea that there, we're bringing aid to Gaza to break this blockade that's been in effect for so many years but also raising awareness of it

and the story of everyone that's on board right and the story that like that you know this this idea that keeps coming back in many of my stories is that resistance can be loud it can be major groups of people can be thousands or you know hundreds of thousands in the straits or it can be one person

like we all have the ability to stand up in our own way and do whatever, you know, has to be done in order to make change. And so for me, like, I feel like that, this was a huge important part of, of that one, is the fact that all these people decided to volunteer to, like, to really risk their lives and to be on the open ocean, you know,

for the conviction of standing against genocide, like there is no more important story in the world and um and also and i'll and i'll say this more as a technician here when it has to do with audio is that um some of these stories are challenges to make because you don't always have the sound from whenever you know and so you kind of have to build and pull sound from something else so it so it feels like you're there in the moment that one was so powerful and was so great because there's so much sound everybody's doing videos and everybody and so you can make it extremely immersive and also because it was happening at that moment and because of the threat against the freedom flotilla um because you know most likely as

what happened is they got picked up um that you know but we didn't know it was it going to happen there were drones that were happening stuff was sprayed on board they were picked up they were jailed people tortured like so you know it's it's and and this was all and i was able to release it before they actually got close to the coast. So it wasn't something that was, oh, this happened in the past. It was actually something where I'm doing this and it's happening in the moment,

which does not, I don't always get to do that. And for me, that was really, really important in that moment. And like you said, the next, you know, flotilla's happening, you know, right now. And it's, and the story continues of trying to break the blockade and of trying to stop the genocide and raising awareness of the fact that this is, going on and people it's it's like so many people have talked about it's it's it's a genocide that's

literally live streamed right now and it's happening right now and what can be done to try and you know give our two cents to try and say no this this has to stop so that one was really was really powerful i try i've tried to do several episodes that that talk about palestine and that talk about you know in defense of palestine in and resistance in defense of palestine but in different ways like there's another one uh i did about palestino which is the the chile and soccer team which is which again i you know i i got to go to a game late last year and i interviewed people in the stadium and i never was able a lot of these stories in in stories of resistance were originally stories i either did it radio stories or video stories and then i kind of transformed them and make

them into this that one was one i had done was hoping to do it as a as a radio or video story never worked out. And so I was able to kind of use all the sound. So it was amazing to be there and also talk about resistance in this other way of like literally soccer as as as resistance. I love when you're able to to go people go, oh, wow, I didn't realize that. Or maybe people knew about it. And then they're like, it's cool that you brought me to the stadium. You know, like I want people to see things in a different way. I want to, I hope to open their minds a little bit. And also talk about historical stuff, but stuff that's happening right now, you know. Right. Yeah. I love that episode. just because I have a graduate student who is from Chile,

she and her family, and they've given me a Palestinian shirt because they know what I'm all about. And I got the latest one from a recent trip, and it was a beautiful shirt because it's basically a watermelon kind of pattern in the shirt, and it's just really cool. And so much kind of awareness has come through that football club and the platform that they have and a way of showing

kind of an expressing solidarity I see these shirts now whenever I'm at a big protest I at least see a few of the Chilean club and so that's wonderful and was a great profile so thanks so much for that one for sure

oh thank you and I'll just say you know I mean what I think what was so fascinating for me there was the fact that they recognize it's not just an image of oh we're using in the Palestinian Serp because it happens to be Palestinian, like people in

the seats, the fans, the team, they know what this represents. And in fact, the slogan is more than just a team, we're like a nation, you know, and like that's just so powerful. Absolutely. And

I have a lot of the episodes actually that I hope that we can talk a little bit about over the course of this conversation. But But one of the things that I want to make sure that we really underscore before getting into kind of the more nuance of some of these other episodes that you've done is that the format of this show is very different than the format of your previous shows. And while you have touched on some of these conversations in the past, the way in which they're presented in stories of resistance is completely different than the way that you've done things in the past. So just thinking about a recent episode, and I'm flagging this up specifically because I know that. that we talked about it when we talked about the Under the Shadow series, I think that the

episode that I'm going to mention is I think my favorite of that series, the Radio Venceramos episode. And I know we talked about that episode in when we talked about under the shadow. Now, listeners who are now scrolling through the feed of stories of resistance will see that there was recently an episode on Radio Vencerimos also in stories of resistance. but the format could not be more different in the way that these two stories were presented. So Michael, you know, briefly, I guess, just underscore what stories of resistance is for people who haven't listened to the episodes yet. Like, what is the format like and maybe draw the comparison between the episode from

Under the Shadow, which I really, I loved that episode. And I have told many people not only through the episode that we did, but I've recommended that episode specifically to a lot of people. And so if you're listening to this episode listeners and you heard that previous Under the Shadow episode of Radio Vencerimos, you're going to hear what's different in the presentation of this episode in Stories of Resistance. That's great. I'm so glad you're asking this question. Yeah. No, very, very different. You know, so the format of stories of resistance is there, like I mentioned, there's short vignettes. It's me telling a story. I'm taking you to a story. I'm taking you to a.

a place and a moment. And then usually it starts with, because resistance is always resisting something. So most of the stories start with almost a minute of me taking you to a scene that is, that is bad or negative or repressive or whatever else it is. And then we hear about the resistance. Of course, in this case, it's Raya Venceramos and all the incredible reporting they've done. but it's me telling that and it is not

it's very different it's not interview I don't use a whole like some of the episodes you'll hear kind of interview maybe a short clip from an interview or something but it's mostly me speaking as narrative weaving this story using sound and music

and ambient sound and then kind of tying it together but it's you know like I said it's short five or six minutes the same thing with Ravid Seamus I'm like walking up and then describing why this was important and how this is different. So I use, you know, of course I talk about many of the same things

like in the Radio Vinceremos episode of Under the Shadow. But like you said, two very different. And under the shadow, I am literally talking. I'm like taking you to place. I like begin at the Museum of Word and Image, at the archives, and I'm describing it. And then I walk back and I'm describing this. And so it's really like me kind of taking you

on this journey with me. And then I'm speaking with the people, looking at the archives and then, you know, hearing the history and talking with the director. So it's like, and it's maybe like a, maybe a 35 minute episode, I think, and under the shadow, right? And then the stories of resistance, it's very tight. I think it's probably five or six minutes tops.

And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna take you to this moment. And I'm out of the picture. Like, this is important for me is that in the stories of resistance, I'm not saying, oh, I'm here and, describing this, I'm just, I'm just narrating it, you know, as if it were, um, text, you know, that you would be reading as if it were at Wardle Galliano. And the other thing for me is like, for so many, much of this stuff, I'm also trying to use kind of poetry and trying to, like, I'm trying to tell these stories in a different way that's kind of a little bit more

sentimental, you know, it's not just I'm, um, taking you on a journey, but with stories of resistance. For me, it really is one part poetry, one part storytelling, one part like historical memory, et cetera. But yeah, my whole idea for this, these are two different worlds. And that's part of the reason why I don't feel bad about, you know, bring here stories of resistance or doing something about, I did Radio Resistencia, which was also something I used under the shadow. And when I was talking about the resistance against the 2009 coup, and that was an important radio station i also got into that and and did a short episode about that but um but because of the fact that they're so different in terms of the storytelling and so different in the way they're

being told then you know i weave a lot of this stuff in and it's okay to it's okay to have it in stories of resistance as well but i'm glad you enjoyed it though oh absolutely one of the other things that i want to bring up now this is not a specific episode but it'll give you the opportunity to speak about specific episodes of the show one of the things that i've really been enjoying about stories of resistance is that while you're taking this huge disparate swath of world history, contemporary events, different geographical locations, many of the episodes are very heavily either influenced or focused on indigenous history, indigenous culture, and indigenous resistance. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit, Michael, about the intentionality

of focusing so heavily on these various components of indigenous identity, the resistance against colonialism, various aspects of indigenous culture. I mean, you have an episode about an indigenous rope bridge. You have an episode about, you know, field sports in various indigenous, in a specific indigenous culture, Mapuche culture, if I remember correctly. And so I'm wondering if you can talk about the intentionality of ensuring that, you have this focus on indigenous identity, indigenous resistance, indigenous culture, indigenous history, and then if you have any of those specific episodes, because you have a lot of them

at this point that are, um, you know, indigenous focused. If you have any of them in particular that you'd like to bring up and kind of pitch to the listeners, the importance of learning those, those things that you would otherwise, unless you were living in the area, never come across. this is this is your opportunity yeah absolutely i mean it's so this is something that's been and particularly traveling across latin america where like indigenous resistance is continues to be so so important um and it like like you said the rope bridge that i love that episode i love it because you and this and this is part of what i what i what i really want to do and what I've tried to do with this podcast series

is get us to think about things in a different way where something that you might say, oh, wow, the last Incan Rope Bridge. Maybe you saw that video from National Geographic on YouTube, you know, oh, wow, that's neat. You know, cool, wow, there's one Incan Rope Bridge left. But when my family actually traveled to the Rope Bridge

and it's not easy to get to, and you're there and you're, and you see it first. They're like, here's the water rushing underneath. And it's just, this is just, it's incredible, the fact that this has been around here for centuries. But then when you take a step back and you realize, this, like, these communities every year,

they break the bridge down, they toss it into the river, which washes it away, and then they rebuild it from hand, by hand. And it's their form of continuing what their ancestors have done for 500 years, despite colonialism and the Spanish and then the elites and then the United States and everything else and everybody else in capitalism and everybody else who would say, you know, I'll just get rid of this thing, just, you know, build a concrete bridge across. You don't need this. You don't even need it. The road actually drives around it. They don't, the rope bridge is only there

because it is holding on to their past and holding on to their culture. And, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, right now more than more than any other time and this has come up a lot in this podcast we need to be celebrating indigenous cultures we need to be celebrating diversity and celebrating other cultures around the world like not like what we're seeing in the united states where people are being deported from every other place you know and so i've tried to weave that in in subtle ways obviously in very overt ways, but also subtle ways kind of throughout the podcast

reminding people and reminding listeners that in many places, we should be celebrating in many places are celebrating other cultures and celebrating immigration. In fact,

there was one episode that I did about the Arika Carnival, which was early on in the first couple of months and what's so special about this arica carnival is that it is very much focused on uh andian uh kind of identity in arica arica is a town in northern chile which basically under pinniche they said oh no we have to get rid of umara and any other kind of indigenous cultures and you are now chilean that is our nationality

which is such a parallel to what we see in the united states right now with the attempt to just deport and imprison everyone who is not American, whatever that's supposed to mean. And then, but there, what they've done in recent years after kind of the dictatorship is David, reembraced the carnival and people come out and they say, you know, I'm Bolivian and I'm from, or I'm Peruvian

and I'm celebrating the dance, I'm celebrating the music. And that was really powerful for me because it's a celebration of diversity. It's a celebration of indigenous identity. um which is which is just so important today and so yeah i've definitely like on on on the one hand it's also been in in many ways seamless like the the amount of stories that i've been been doing about in the kind of indigenous resistance in part because this is also the main region over the

last year where i've been traveling is all up and down the andes and all up and down latin america um but it's also been a large focus of my work over the last five, six years in Brazil and elsewhere is focusing on kind of indigenous struggles to defend the Amazon to defend their land and stuff.

You know, so much of Latin America right now when it comes down to it is about land and about land defense and land struggles and land resistance and so much of those struggles are if it's not indigenous resistance to defend their land,

it's black, traditional black communities defending their land. it's, you know, Kilambolas and whatever else. So, so much of this is wrapped up into this moment, which in the United States, we maybe don't think of it. Like, oh, wow, indigenous struggles,

indigenous resistance, but actually in Latin America, like, this is, you know, so much of the Amazon, it's the Wild West. People are trying to take over indigenous territories. And so the indigenous peoples, this is like, they're on the front lines of these fights and these struggles.

and black traditional communities in in Brazil and whatnot. So this is kind of, it's actually very front and center in most of Latin America, in particular Brazil at the moment. Yeah, one thing I really loved about that story about the Incan Bridge is how this infrastructure project, if you want to put it in those kinds of terms, you know, really helps forge a sense of community, binding them together, in cooperation and build solidarity, which itself is really the basis for resistance in so many of

these cases is not being atomized and subject to, you know, capitalist, individualized sort of ways of thinking, but actually creating this cooperation. So that was such a wonderful story. And you were contrasting a little bit between these episodes and vignettes about indigenous struggles with, you know, the United States, you alluded to how different it is and how important these stories are for people. But I noticed that in the series, you do also have quite a few episodes that do talk about the United States, and the rationale was in some ways to kind of frame it around the world during the Trump presidency and resisting it, starting with January 20th. But you have a number of episodes that do relate to the United States. So I wanted to hear

a little bit more about what kinds of choices informed those and what kinds of stories you wanted to tell with this. But one thing I picked up on was that many of these cases are not just situated entirely within the imaginative framework of the U.S. political system or world, but they are maybe about a different way in which America, kind of, on Americans, could resist and feel solidarity with struggles abroad as well, like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting in the Spanish Civil War, somebody like Harry Belafonte,

who's a great American cultural icon, but was an internationalist and himself comes from the Caribbean. And so there was a lot of ways in which it seemed like you were trying to interweave. And I wonder if that's also part of the, you know, combat or resisting kind of America a first type narrative of isolationism, while yet, of course, they still support bombing.

You know, it's a fake narrative. But, I mean, it's like this kind of identity and the story that people tell themselves is like, oh, well, we should just care about America. But it seems like in some ways these were very well designed to interconnect America and Americans more fully with resistance culture globally, which I think is something so important and necessary right now if there is to be a reversal of the kind of imperial hegemony that we're seeing. It has to be a way in which U.S. resistance people resist in the United States is connected with struggles elsewhere. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And helping to like tell those, and this is what's fun, Adnan, is being able to do these, these like,

as my friends said, these songs, right, that are kind of small, but then you see, you start to map them all out and then, you know, you see them as this larger mosaic, right? There's a larger tapestry and how they all kind of link together. But no doubt, absolutely, the idea of being able to connect the United States and U.S. to these other countries and in whatever way possible. And U.S. resistance to struggles elsewhere, I really, really enjoyed doing the Mother's Day episode,

which, you know, it came from a post, I think it was on Code Pink from, I don't know, 20 years ago when I started to dig into this. But, you know, the idea that, oh, Mother's Day was founded on this Day for Peace. It was supposed to be a Mother's Day for Peace. Like, to end war, in fact, with the whole idea, when it was originally, the original idea was,

all the mothers of the world should come together and all of the mothers of the world should stand up against war because if women, you know, if mothers had their way, nobody would be fighting anybody else, right? That's the Mother's Day we need to remember. And then when you sit back and you look at it

and you realize Mother's Day, okay, began in the U.S., but now every country in the world has their Mother's Day. And it all has that root. It all has the roots of a Mother's Day for peace or a Mother's Day in which the mothers are there helping, like, and this is in the wake of the Civil War when the mothers were there helping people,

whether you were in the Confederacy of the Union, I'm here because I'm going to bandage your wounds and I'm going to take care of you. And then afterwards, we're going to hold a Mother's Day event to try and get old, you know, soldiers from both sides to come together and find peace amongst each other. Like, that's so powerful. And nobody remembers that story, you know?

Like, I was digging to find that, you know. So, uh, so that, you know, stuff like that is, is really exciting. And it's exciting for me when I kind of dig up these hidden gems, you know, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is great. I get to lift this up. And, and who knows, in the same way that Code Pink wrote that article, whatever it was, 15 or 20 years ago and some people read it and many people forgot, hopefully, you know, some people listen to that episode, you know, not everybody, but hope it goes out there into

the world and somebody else picks it up again and says, you remember this? Like, this happened, you know, these are, um, they really are these tiny little vignettes, uh, and we hope that, you know, people remember, you know. The other one that I was just thinking about was the, uh, the poor people's campaign in Washington in Resurrection City, which, which is, again, it's such an important moment that people, you know, you sit down and say, really, they built thousands of shacks on the Washington mall and lived in them for more than a month, like, to demand. and a bill of rights for the poor.

Like, that's just, that's just, that's just, that's just incredible. It's radical. And, and that is, I think intentionally, that story is, I think, is intentionally hidden. People don't want that story to be told because it's so, it's so powerful, right? And so there's things like that that have been really cool, but definitely making that connection between the United States and elsewhere and the solidarity, like you said, the Abraham Lincoln's Brigade and elsewhere is, is really, is really is really important it's not just the united states and the rest of the world you know

it's it's everything together yeah yeah you mentioned um that it was uh so a couple of times you've mentioned um these as songs and i love that kind of metaphor and image and you know putting together maybe an album and um you know so from that kind of production side how these fit together what kind of larger patterns they might, you know, create in listening to them over the course of the 65 so far. And, you know, that idea of them as songs also really reminds me of the audio component. It's not just narration. And I think I've asked you about this before, perhaps, just because I love the sound that you put together, um, uh, for you. Uh, for these episodes and for your kind of audio documentary work.

So, but I wanted to come back to that kind of component about, you know, what do you think the audio besides the narration that people can listen and rather than say, read, but like what you try and do with the audio, you've mentioned the immersive kind of characteristics, but it's just such an important feature of the work that you do that I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about what you like about using the audio to accompany these stories, to try and enhance the telling of the story of resistance and what do you think it adds to the listener's appreciation and understanding of resistance that you're trying to get across through the audio. Yeah, I mean, for me, and I've said this many times,

audio is the most powerful medium for me. Video is beautiful because it's right there and you can sit back and watch it, but you're still on the other side of the screen, you're not inside of it. Whereas with radio and audio, you can close your eyes, and if someone gives you

like an interwoven fabric of sound and music and voice, you can actually transport your, or it's the closest thing for me that I have to try and travel. You know, I can, you know, and my goal is to take you there. and and so for me

and you can literally surround yourself in that scene you know so it's that for me is the most powerful thing in the world I you know I love doing video I love texts but what audio is the most kind of transformative

in so many ways and my goal is clearly to bring you to another place in another time and have you have you experience that you know there's there's been these studies about like storytelling where you know people can there's some

really deep listeners who are listening and they can actually feel the same brain waves and get the same their brain going the same place as the person telling the story um and i feel like the more i can do that then it's not just about you hearing but it's about you experiencing that which for me is is the closest that you can or not for me i think that's the most that you can or not for me i think that's the closest thing you can actually get to taking part in that and yourself and feeling a piece of that and becoming inspired by it and helping that to, you know, to inspire and to hopefully lead to other people, you know, taking action and taking, making stand in their own resistance. And so the closest I can get, you know, it's the same thing as reading a book. You're reading a book.

You feel like you're that character. You're super close to it. And you're, you feel like you're having that journeying you're you're crying or you're or you're laughing and and you know i want to do that in four or five minute vignettes you know i want you to experience that it's not just am i showing you or telling you i want you to i want you to feel like you're there and and with audio and and particularly with the sound uh an ambient sound and music and whatever else and i i feel like it's i'm doing the best I can to transport you to 300 years ago or another side of the planet or whatever else. And it's just, it's great. I like listening to them myself, you know, so I hope other people do as well. Now, Michael, I didn't announce at the top of the show, although it'll be in the

episode title, that we're also going to be spending some time talking about Brazil. Listeners who are familiar with Michael's previous appearances will know that Michael spends much of his time in Brazil and has done extensive reportage on Brazil over many years. And there's a lot to talk about in Brazil always. But before we get to that, I have one small question. Just something that I was curious about. And maybe you'll have something that you can share with the listeners. I'm curious with this show, which has been so prolific in the last nine months at this point,

I'm curious if there's any episodes that stood out to you in terms of being difficult. And you can take that in different ways. I mean, difficult in terms of digging up the information that you feel is necessary to be putting it together. Difficult emotionally because of various resonances or various brutalities in the stories. Just difficult. Is there anything that stands out in terms of when you look back, that episode, that was a tough one. to do for whatever reason. Well, I think my, I'll just say my very first episode

about Victor Hara, no doubt, I remember listening to it when I was done and crying and then listening to it again and crying. It's, for me, it was so, because basically in that episode, I go to the stadium, which is now called Victor Hara Stadium, but at that point, I think it was called Estadio Chile.

It's an indoor stadium. You know, now it's used for basketball and a rec center, basically, but also for some concerts, I think. But it's a stadium where, right on, in September 11, 1973, they rounded up people and took them to that stadium,

as well as Estadio Nacional, which is an outdoor stadium, thousands of people, and they were, it just basically made it into this massive concentration camp. And it's a stadium where Victor Hada was taken. Victor Hada, of course, the the the the the the songwriter of the ayende the Chilean revolution of the

1970s um and just wrote just the most iconic songs and it was in this stadium that he was tortured uh and was eventually killed but he found and what the story is about is that he got a piece of paper somehow someone got a piece of paper and a pen and he wrote his last song uh and it's about that moment it's about his experience in that moment and they smuggled it out of the stadium and it's so powerful because i visited the stadium uh and there's literally a the the words of the of the song that are taped to the back of one of the chairs there they now have a memorial for him upstairs and it's just so it's so powerful in so many ways because a it's this place where so much terror happened and it's also a place where they've tried to make it into and transform it into a place of memory

and it's literally the name of the stadium is his name right so it's it's it i just for me that was a really powerful episode itself um and really important to kind of start the whole you know series off with that i will say that most of the episodes um like kind of i mentioned earlier the the episodes that i lived in myself and i experienced it are kind of easier ones to write they kind of just roll out you know how that in that one is in the same way the hardest ones for me are the ones that i know i really want to do but maybe they're about someone's life or about something that happened that i don't really i don't know all the intricacies and then it's like how do i tell everything how do i you know you can't say everything in five or six

minutes and so how do i weave through this pete seger i remember it took me a really long time to do pete seger because i want to get it right and i think that was i think it turned out great but I want to get it right. I have to find the right music. I have to find the right music that I know won't get flagged for, you know, content issues. And then I have to dig through

and decide what I'm going to keep, what I'm not going to talk about, well, I'm going to tell, and do it all within five or six or seven minutes. So those are definitely the hardest when it's a moment of struggle or a story. Also, these older ones, in which I like some of the older ones

are maybe a couple hundred years old or something like that where I have to find sound that kind of fits with that. That's also a hard one because I have to use some sort of a sound to bring you there. And I have ways of kind of getting stuff that's pretty similar to what I think I might need and stuff like that.

But still, so that can also be a challenge depending on what I need. So, you know, each week brings a new challenge. so that was our part of this conversation on stories of resistance which again is that michael's ongoing show through the real news network and i cannot highly recommend that enough for the listeners to check out and of course if you are looking in our show notes you'll find that hyperlinked there or you can just look up stories of resistance wherever you get your podcasts i want to turn us to Brazil for to close out this conversation now because as i was saying

off the record with the two of you before we started, the reportage on Brazil in the global north is abysmal. And I mean that in two ways. Brazil is typically not covered at all, despite the fact that it is a massive country with a huge population, is a very, very important member of the global south and has many connections with other countries throughout the global south, and is making connections with other countries constantly, and including BRICS countries, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But Brazil is rarely talked about, and when it is, there's usually no historical nuance with any of the discussions. There's very little in terms of political economic nuance in the discussions that you might hear in

reporting done in the global north on Brazil. So this is one of the reasons why I really like that we can have you on, Michael, because whenever we have you on, I always make sure to sneak in a few extra questions about Brazil to catch the listeners up. One of the things that I think that listeners probably will have seen if they're following the news, even in the global north, is the fact that Bolsonaro is having some courts-related situations. But again, the reporting on it is terrible, generally. So a lot of the listeners are probably unclear about what all of this is stemming from,

unless they, of course, listen to our previous conversations. Can you tell the listeners why Bolsonaro is constantly having these legal issues these days and what those are all stemming from? Yeah, well, I don't know when this episode will be released, but on September 2nd through the 12th, he's going to be standing trial in the Supreme Court for attempted Kudata in Brazil. So, let's go back to the 2022 elections. In these elections, if you remember, Lula won by a couple of points. Bolsonaro's people hit the streets protesting up and down Brazil, saying it was fraud, very similarly to the United States. And then Bolsonaro backed people then carried out a kind of a January 6th copycat of the capital invasion

in the, in Brasilia capital on January 8th. in which they tried to basically take over, you know, the region and they were calling on the military to rise up. That was the end game. Was the military to rise up against Lula, who had already taken power, and to reinstate Bolsonaro. But, and so to go back a little bit,

Bolsonaro already is banned from holding office until 2030. He can't run for office, and that's because of lies he made about the Brazilian electoral, system and the voting machines. Now, here's one thing that's interesting is the fact that in the United States, Trump is allowed to do that. He made the same lies, and yet nothing happens. In Brazil, he makes the lies, but there's much more of a focus on defending Brazilian democracy above all. So free speech, and in fact, I'm working on a podcast about

the battle of free speech right now in which Brazil will be wrapped up into that and other things. but um so that free speech is important in brazil of course but it's within the rubric of the country's democracy you can't just come out and you can't just say lies you can't just spread misinformation and disinformation or else something might happen like for instance you might be taken to court or you might be banned from running your office until 2020 that's the first thing the other thing is that this current trial is the fact that it wasn't just that Bolsonaro is being accused of attempting this coup d'etat that doesn't just wrapped into the january invasion stuff, but also, according to a 900-page federal police report,

he was conspiring with military officials over attempting to assassinate Lula, President Lula, assassinate the vice president, assassinate Supreme Court Justice Alishandri de Morais, who's kind of the top Supreme Court justice, who's been the thorn in Bolsonaro side for years. So there's a lot of... evidence against him that he was involved in all this and this is going back years people have already kind of known this but that's what this current case is about like imagine if trump

came out and said all right we're going to let me talk to the top military officials about taking out Biden and other top officials in in in Washington after he had lost you know the 2016 election so or the 2020 election so that's what that's what this stems from of course Trump has come out, he levied these 50% tariffs on top of Brazilian goods, saying, oh, it's a witch hunt, you know, just leave Bolsonaro alone. Of course, that's that's Trump's major ally in the region. It makes sense why he doesn't want him to be standing trial. But, I mean, this is a legal, his illegal court case in the Brazilian Supreme Court against a former president for, you know, plotting a coup to assassinate the current president. And this is, this is like insane, right?

This is really huge. And yet in the media, none of this has talked about. Like, they may be mentioned, oh, yeah, there's this case and it's for this coup thing, but they don't ever get into, like, the specifics of the case. And so it's, it, it's, so that's, that's the root of what's going on now. Bolsonaro could potentially be sentenced to jail for years, if not decades. So it's a, it's a crazy moment. You know, I want to, a follow up briefly, just one of the things that I think,

is quite ironic and almost funny if it wasn't so absurd is that, or maybe it's funny in its absurdity and it wouldn't be funny if it wasn't so absurd. I don't know. You tell me, Michael, but I have seen Trump and Trump administration officials describing this as lawfare. Now, this is absolutely hilarious for many reasons, but also I just want to remind the listeners briefly that we had an episode on lawfare very recently on the show. maybe at the time that this comes out, maybe two, two and a half months ago with Nina Farnia, who is a legal scholar,

a legal historian, and committed anti-imperialist and just an all-around excellent person, and I'm saying that because I know she's a listener of the show. Not only, I'm not only saying that because she's a listener of the show, but in particular, I know she'll hear that. It is true, though. But nevertheless, we talk about what lawfare is and how lawfare

is a method for capitalist imperialism of perpetuating itself and has been for, you know, the history of the usage of law for upholding the structures of society. And what we have the Trump administration officials doing is saying that, well, this is just targeting political opponents using the law and therefore it is law fair. But in reality, as you did describe it, as I'm sure that you'll talk more about, Michael, you know, there is a lot of evidence here. And by not prosecuting or not attempting to prosecute based on the evidence that's there, well, okay, I guess it's kind of like the American system where former U.S. presidents are never prosecuted for anything that they have done. So maybe that's why it seems like lawfare to Trump administration officials. I don't know.

Like I said, it's so absurd. I don't know whether it's funny or not, but I have seen these claims of lawfare. Now, I bring this up because it does relate directly also with the question of U.S.-Brazil relations. So can you talk a little bit about these claims of it being lawfare? And then also, you analyzed a bit about how this has been used as justification for the Trump administration doing things like increasing tariffs on Brazil. But can you talk a little bit more broadly about what the shape of Brazil-U.S. relations are at this point? And, I mean, not just within the confines of the Trump administration, but how that has changed also recently and the structures that have changed as a result of things, including these ridiculous claims of lawfare. Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing that we always have where someone can easily say, oh, look, it's lawfare. Oh, look, it's lawfare. Oh, look at these other countries. doing, oh, corruption, oh, whatever else, but it's really just whatever.

It's very clear. What we did have was lawfare against Lula, where he was locked up in jail for a long period of time for nothing. Meanwhile, the prosecutor and the judge at the time we prosecuted him were working literally in cahoots to take him out and to ruin the left from actually being able to return to power. So this is not, clearly not lawfare. But again, this is why lawfare is so complicated.

Because if you're from some other country, you can easily say, well, no, it's lawful or look at these what other people are doing or these people are corrupt. Meanwhile, it's the judges who are corrupt. And this is why, you know, I'm actually working on a podcast about lawfare. It won't be out for another probably year and a half or two. But this is like, this is an important issue that that is really complicated because if you're on one side or the other and I've actually been asking people, well, how can you tell what's lawfare when these people are saying that and these people are saying that?

He said, well, you can tell if you analyze a situation, you know what's happening on the ground, you know who's in cahoots with who and who's getting paid and who is in cahoots with the U.S. embassy and whatnot because usually the lawfare is happening on behest of the United States, right?

And so that is very clear and that is, and they're not getting their way right now, right? There's actually potentially justice being had and the United States doesn't like that, right? And particularly not Trump because this is a Trump ally. So, so, so, so yes. And I've just completely forgotten the second half of the question.

U.S.-Brasil relations. Like, where were they and where are they now? I mean, we did talk about how these claims of lawfare did influence where Brazil-U.S. relations are at this current moment. But that's obviously not the real reason why they are where they are. No, yeah. So, A, in Brazil, you have Lula. And Lula, this is his third term in office over, you know, he was in for two years,

then Dillman was in, then several other people, and he came back. He won back in 2012. He's the, he's like the most important statement, statesmen of the world. Like, he's like the ambassador, the guy who's willing to shake hands with everybody. I've always said it. Like, he would go meet with Chavez, then he would go meet with Bush, and he'd say, okay, but come on, let's play fair. And then he would back Venezuela and all the left countries in the region. So he is more than willing to have relations, to have conversations.

And it's fascinating that Trump is doing this to Lula, of all people. way. It's just like he's also not a revolutionary. You know, he's the country's most important union leader in the history of the, of the country, extremely well known and extremely important for the left and the country and lifted millions of people out of poverty, but he is not revolutionary. And, and no, this is Trump trying to throw his weight around. Now, Trump clearly doesn't like the fact that Brazil is in cahoots with the bricks. And of course, the Brick's Summit was in Rio in July. I was a... there. I was covering the summit. And so this is more of like,

Trump at the time was saying, oh, I'm going to throw 10% tariffs on the top of all the BRICS countries. And now he's like, oh, 50% tariffs on Brazil. Part of this is also the fact that Bolsonaro's son Eduardo, who's a congressman, has been in Washington lobbying people in Washington and say, you've got to stand up strong and stand up firm against everything that we're seeing and against Lula. He's creating a dictatorship. It's crazy how they use these words. And it's actually exact opposite. But so, but this is all happening.

The other thing that, um, that Trump said was happening and his reason for levying this 50% tariff was because he said there was a trade deficit against Brazil, uh, which is not true. And then the other thing that, uh, Trump doesn't like is the fact that, um, the Brazil has been regulating social media. They've been saying, no, I'm sorry. If you were a social media platform, then you need to follow according to our rules. And you can't just be posting whatever it is.

if we say you have to take somebody down because they're posting fake news, then you have to do that, right? So, yeah, the relations being the U.S. and Brazil on a government level aren't great, but it's almost entirely because of Trump and because him trying to push this insane 50% tariff. Brazil has consistently said, look, we're willing to negotiate and have conversations with everybody. And actually, according to what we understand is that many products were not included in that 50% tariff. So they were excluded from the tariff. So in a lot of ways,

most Brazilian products actually don't fall within that 50% tariff that Trump is levied, but Trump still continues to use that framework because it looks good for him because he feels like he, you know,

he's strong. He's showing that he's the, you know, the bully of the neighborhood. So anyway, it's, it's mind-boggling. It's crazy. And, you know, Trump's trying to throw his weight around to help save his ally in the region, even though he's probably guilty. But we'll find that out. That's the further Supreme Court to decide within the beginning of September. Well, you were just mentioning the BRICS summit held in Brazil, and that was really the next question where we wanted to go to.

Of course, what you were discussing was the problems that Trump has with the bricks and the threats. that he sees with possible BRICS currency or some agreement on using alternatives to the dollar as the, you know, standard form, you know, the reserve currency for the world for trade and so on and insisting that, well, we'll put 10% tariffs on them. And of course, also, you know, it just seems that there's a reaction to weakening of U.S. hold over the, you know, the international trading order. But I wanted to ask a little bit, you know, quite apart from kind of Trump's problems with BRICS,

is what is Brazil's sort of policy going forward? How do you see them engaging in BRICS? You know, quite a part even before you had Trump, it didn't seem like it was always a consistent or a very ideological commitment to bricks. There might be some statements, but, and, you know, we hope for more to come from the Development Bank as an alternative, but, you know, really funding it and making it very active, and Dilma Rusef is, of course, the person heading it. But, you know, it was like a curious move to suggest that Argentina, under Millet, you know, be nominated by Brazil for BRICS membership if you're trying to create a kind of coherent ideological alternative to U.S. hegemony.

So I'm just, I'm kind of wondering within Brazil and in your analysis, knowing, being very familiar with Brazil's policies, what direction are they headed, even under Lula? You said he's not a revolutionary, but, I mean, it just seems to make a lot of sense to not be tied so closely to the U.S. kind of system. And Lula had even talked before about having like a Bolivarian kind of currency just for Latin America. So, like, where is Brazil really when it comes to this geopolitical economic turn and alliances and direction that we seem to be able. potentially on the cusp of, but it still hasn't emerged. Well, I would say potentially, I think part of the challenge is that potentially on the cusp is that, you know, the building of a full alternative to what we see in the United States and the EU and whatever, that's like a whole other can of worms.

But I think that, and I've been saying this, being at the bricks was very powerful. And I think a lot of people that I was spoken to were really seeing this as almost like a before and after in a lot of ways. Lula was fully on board. The people were extremely united. There was a lot of talk about not necessarily fully de-dollarizing. Obviously, that's going to take time,

but building alternative forms of currency and trade amongst the different countries. And it was really powerful to have Lula in that room with everybody else in half. that meeting being real i think it was like kind of a a doubling down of brazil's participation in the bricks in a lot of ways also there was this whole i don't know if you saw there was this whole people's forum that was created by kind of social movement representatives that was extremely powerful that happened the two days before the summit itself and that was really involved by people

within bricks from all the different countries who are different social movements involved in that and building this other forum in which they would have relationships and conversations with the BRICS leaders. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, look, I think they're at somewhere around 30% of the trade of the BRICS development bank is right now in local currencies, and they're trying to push that up by 10% over the next year. Like, there, very much, um, Brazil, and particularly with this summit is looking, and particularly with with Trump

you know pushing pushing Brazil and everybody else away he's looking you know in the direction of all the of the south and looking the direction of the other BRICS countries Trump and halfway through the middle of the summit came out and said that's when he said he was going to levy these tariffs

on all the BRICS nations the next day during the press conference with Lula the first three questions people asked were all well what do you think what do you respond to Trump he says I don't have to respond to Trump I don't even, I shouldn't even do this. We didn't talk about the tariffs once. We don't care.

He said, Trump, you know, what do you say? We don't need an emperor. We're sovereign nations. And he was very, very clear. They were very clear in denouncing the genocide in, in Gaza, very clear in denouncing the attack on Iran by both Israel and the United States. And so I think,

I think we're, I think the, like, obviously, South-South relations in building those South-South ties has always been huge for Lula, always, going back to his first administration. And I think we're gonna see that more and more and more. This meeting, this Bricks meeting was really important. It was really important for Bricks. It was really important for Brazil.

Remember, this was the first meeting with the full new 10 countries. Then you had the 10 associate members, and then you had another like four or five Latin American countries who were all largely the left, countries and even Uruguay came this last time because Lulu said we want to invite

other like nations that are trying to develop their economies and trying to find alternatives to the to this global US EU dominated system and they're very numerous times very critical of kind of the UN

you know the UN system of governments and how they can change that and why other countries shouldn't be brought in so I this is a really really really interesting moment for for kind of an alternative global governance and for Brazil's role within that. And I think it was powerful with Lula's first declaration,

the very first day of the summit, he said, we are the legacy of the non-aligned movement. That was like the connection he was making. And I think that that's really, it's a powerful connection to make and it's an important thing to remember. And I think people are feeling that momentum in a way that maybe they hadn't in the process,

past because of the fact that you have so many other countries that are kind of getting involved. And Brazil, there's no doubt that Lulu sees himself as kind of an important piece of that and important leadership within that role. And it's really important within Latin America where you see kind of the far right, whether it's Millet or Buckele or Naboa or aligning with Trump that you have kind of this alternative. And an alternative that is in itself very diverse in terms of peoples, in terms of worldviews, and religions and politics, but also kind of standing up to the hegemony of the U.S. and kind of the EU, the European countries and saying, you know, we can have something that we're not always being left behind. Like, we can also

be included within this. And I think that's really powerful. Absolutely. So again, listeners, our guest was Michael Fox. I know I told Michael before we came on that he's going to be coming on to. talk about Under the Shadow season two, which is going to be focused on Operation Condor. But Michael, I'm hoping that we'll be able to also have you on before that as well, because I really enjoyed these conversations that we have with you. Michael Fox, again, a journalist, very prolific podcaster, a terrific all-around person. I really enjoy having you on the show.

Michael, can you tell the listeners where they can find you and more of your work? Yes, thank you guys so much. seriously what a pleasure it's always a pleasure i can't wait till the next time it'll be great um so i have a website resistance stories dot com but the you can obviously go there and they have links to my podcast but the best place is is is on my patreon forward slash mf o x patreon patreon forward slash mfox you can follow me there you can become a paid subscriber if you like i have a kind of my own personal podcast on my patreon called pan american dispatch it's kind of like a a reporter's notebook where I kind of give the background to a bunch of my reporting and things that are

happening. So it's a lot of fun. And it's only for kind of my paid supporters. So if anybody wants to get on there, I would absolutely, you know, appreciate the support. And, you know, I'm on whatever, Twitter and all the rest of this. But, you know, today, social media is just a, go to Patreon. It's all right there. And again, thank you guys so much for having me on. What a pleasure. Absolutely. And Michael, I promise it'll be not as long between this time and your next time on the show as it was between the last time and this time. We'll make sure that we bring you on again in the not too distant future. So thank you, Michael. Adnan. Thank you. Absolutely. Adnan, how can the listeners find you and your other excellent program? Well, they can find me, of course,

on X. I'm still hanging on to that cesspool that is social media at Adnan A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. And you should give a listen to some of the very compatible episodes that with what we do here on guerrilla history on the Adnan Hussein show. You can get it as an audio podcast or you can watch the videos. So you can go to

YouTube.com slash at Adnan Hussein show or look for that on all of the usual audio platforms. And if you feel like supporting, you can at patreon.com slash adnan hussein or buy me a coffee.com slash adnan hussein. Definitely suggest that the listeners do that. As for me, listeners, you can find my other program, SARS and Commissars from Rustam Modern Russia on YouTube as well as on podcast apps. It's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all of that.

That's Russian history from the Stone Age to the present in 25 episodes. Yeah, some of the episodes are really long, like three to four hours long. But the first couple, which hopefully by the time this comes out, they'll be more than just the introduction on our YouTube channel, are not quite as long as some of the later ones that we've been recording lately. So make sure to subscribe early so you don't miss out and have to try to catch up with 70 hours of material that you, you get behind on in Russian history.

As for me personally, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1-995, and you can keep up to date with Gorilla History by following the show, Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod, Instagram, gorilla underscore history, our email newsletter, gorilahistory.com, all of those, gorilla is spelled with two R's, and you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to Patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Again, 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.