Colonial Realities and Puerto Rico's Path to Independence w/ Alexis Colon de Jesus - Ep 177

this is Fortress On A Hill, with Henri, Danny, Kaygan, Jo

vonni, Shiloh, Monisha , and Mike

welcome everyone to Fortress On A Hill, a podcast about US

foreign policy, anti imperialism, skepticism, and American way of war.

I'm Giovanni here with, Monisha.

Thank you for being with us today.

How you doing Monisha?

I'm doing pretty good.

Thank you for always leading the charge, Giovanni.

I appreciate your labor.

Thank you.

Likewise.

today we have an interesting talk and it's going to be based

around your neck of the wood.

So

Let's talk about a place that defines the word colony.

Puerto Rico the oldest colony in the world for 400 years under Spain, a

brief occupation under the British.

Now over a century and a quarter under American rule.

It's economy and politics are controlled from Washington a Gibraltar of the

Caribbean, America's primary base to project power into what it sees own

backyard and its own Mediterranean sea.

For generations, this has created a torn identity in the

island or near Archipelago.

a proud, distinct nationhood living alongside deep political confusion

shaped by that long coercive relationship with the United States.

But in recent years, a clear shift has been underway.

The generation that came of age under the fiscal board of Austerities and

Hurricane Maria is looking at this colonial reality with new clarity and

this awakening echoes through culture, street protest to the global music

charts where artists give voice to a resurgent nationalism and a rejection

of the island's subjugated status.

We're seeing a new political consciousness, one that draws

sharp internationalist solidarity directly challenges Puerto Rico's

role as a US military asset.

The confusion of the past is hardening into a clear-eyed resistance.

So what is driving this new consciousness?

What does it mean for the future of the island and long century

long struggle against empire?

It this, that's our focus for today, and we have a guest from Puerto

Rico to talk to us about that.

Alexis Colon de Jesus is a Puerto Rican activist and socialist militant.

He studied at the Graduate School of Economics at the University

of Puerto Rico, the Piera campus.

His area of study include geopolitical economy and Marxist theory.

His favorite code from Marx is Ignorance.

Never helped anyone.

For him, having solidarity with and struggling for the W of the

Earth are the most important things we can do and must do.

Alexis, thank you for joining us today.

How are you doing?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I'm doing well.

Thank you for inviting me.

Before I jump in, there's planes

Alexis Colon De Jesus: from the base, right?

I'm so close to it.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Oh, that's our reality here.

Is it loud though?

a little bit.

we can definitely hear them.

Okay.

Awesome.

That's good.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: That way

people see what, you know, those are all those F right?

yeah.

people can see pretty much what we're talking about.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: This is not made up.

This is not ai.

This is the reality we're living

Yeah.

I think that's the last one landing We can continue.

Alright.

You want to start us off?

Alright, Alexis, as Giovanni said, thank you for joining us today.

it's really important, I think all of us that are speaking to our

audience today are Puerto Rican, so this is a very personal and

touching topic for each of us.

just to encourage us all to be real about it, to be human about it.

starting off with how you got to where you are now with your political

formation and who you see yourself to be in the midst of all of this, could you

share with us your political journey?

were you exposed to readings, people, scholars, theorists?

How did you get to be who you are politically?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I grew up in a house where, my family, you

know, they vote for the state party.

I grew up in that environment, believing all the propaganda about how bad we

would have it if we became an independent nation, and how we would be without

the United States My journey towards the idea of independence started in

high school with the campaign of, Elmo.

he ran for the Independence Party in 2008.

that's what, began opening my eyes.

he always spoke about the need for independence so that we

could join the rest of the world.

Because as a colony, we don't have any sovereignty.

We can't decide who we commerce with.

We can't decide what goes on in our own country.

I went to the University of Puerto Rico first at West,

then I did my masters in, RAs.

I had a professor of sociology who was a Marxist, and that's how

I first got exposed to Marxism.

And it's been a long journey.

yesterday Michael Parenty passed away and he was a key figure

in my political formation.

he taught me the importance of actually existing socialism.

that's why I consider him so important because he opened, the eyes of a lot

of people, of the reality of empire, of the reality of actually existing

socialism, and how this acts as a sort of straight jacket, on the

productive forces of this economy.

no wonder that Cuba, for example, faces poverty when they are

facing a genocide embargo by the most powerful, nation on earth.

from then on I got interested in Marist theory and the fundamentals

with political economy and, philosophy, I think Marxism, important,

because, it's scientific socialism.

it's a scientific discipline, which is important to remember.

It's not philosophy, it's not religion.

And it's method dialectical and historical materialism.

a tool that we use to understand our social reality.

the first step to change our social reality is to understand that you can't

change it if you don't understand it.

Marxism is definitely the best tool to understand our social

reality, to understand power.

I actually made a conscious decision that I wanted to understand,

how the world works and that eventually led me to study Marxism.

I eventually came to the conclusion that it's the best tool for that,

And so along your path towards meeting Marx and learning

how to analyze the world around you through his lens how did that

shape you as an independence study?

Like, was there a specific moment for you when you were like, I'm an

independentist, and did that come before your introduction to Marks?

After your introduction to Mark?

Where did that fit into your journey?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Definitely before.

I think it's easier to become independentist than Marxist there's more

propaganda to overcome to reach Marx and to understand actually existing socialism.

so yeah, I started the shift towards, Independ in high school, and then it

wasn't until I got into, the University of Puerto Rico that I became a socialist,

I got interested in anarchy in my read.

I read Godwin, he created as being the first anarchist, I never got to, because

I read some antisemitic quote by him, and should have told me everything

I needed to know about anarchism.

Come to find out after we predo that he also was an antisemetic.

anarchy sort of started the conspiracy that Marxist, you

know, was a Jewish conspiracy.

So the Nazis kinda borrowed from them.

So, yeah.

then, I don't know.

I, discover, Michael Parenti and other people.

Michael Hudson has also been a huge influence on me.

Richard Wolf as well.

I got my political information mostly from the internet.

that's why I think projects like what you're doing here so important.

'cause, this helps to, foster consciousness and class consciousness.

Alexis, can you speak closer to the computer

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm gonna have to speak louder then.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because I'm wearing headphones with a, with a integrated mic.

I apologize.

Thank you.

move on?

Yeah.

what's interesting about, what you just mentioned about Independentist, how

it's easier to become independentist than to have a materialist,

understanding of the world.

And I say that because there's different flavors of independent,

there're independentist that pretty much echo everything that

comes from the empire, you know?

And there's, you know, there's different flavors.

There're independent that, truly believe in the capitalist, market,

Alexis Colon De Jesus: you have right wing independents.

So there's different flavor.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: It's not necessarily left or right wing,

and they're right.

And they're also independents that want a like a Palau you know, like the

territory of Palau, the option of being independent, quote unquote, but at

the same time being tied to the United States, so there's different flavors,

Alexis Colon De Jesus: it's a spectrum.

Yeah.

A lot of class dysphoria and, you know, and, and the whole thing

about the notion of citizenship and access to United States anytime.

Also, it's a powerful tool of subordination as well.

I left Puerto Rico, I'm much older than both of you, I guess, and

I left Puerto Rico in my teens.

the reality when I was living in Puerto Rico is different than what

I'm seeing now with young people.

I was in the eighth grade when I left I left Puerto Rico in

the beginning of the nineties.

senior generation has a shift compared to what?

I remember how it was Puerto Rico.

Like for example, I'm gonna give you an example.

I was listening.

I was seeing this guy on social media saying that, you know, he was

in America, he was Black American.

He was saying, I wish someone loved me.

Puerto Ricans love their flags.

he was talking about how, they put flags everywhere

Alexis Colon De Jesus: and there's a good reason for that.

But when I, when I'm trying to get here is that when I was coming up,

there was, you know, there was a saying is that puertoricans become puertoricans

when they come to United States.

Because in Puerto Rico at the time, didn't, didn't, didn't brandish the,

the Puerto Rican flag like you see now if anything, people who brandished the

Puerto Rican flag in Puerto Rico, right?

They were calling the Panist.

And that was used as a slur.

It was used as being called independentist at the time.

It was used as a slur, you know, as, as a, it was, a frown upon at the time

when I left, when I left Puerto Rico.

But now you see flags everywhere.

Can you, Go over some of the dynamics of why, that shift, you

know, and, a flag is something that seems so mundane, so innocent.

Right.

But it has a powerful connotation to it.

Can you talk about that shift?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Yeah.

being was criminalized here, you know, the flag was made illegal

about the time of the GG law.

I think it was instituted in 1948,

I'm not mistaken.

so it was literally able to display the Puerto Rican flag and to fly the flag.

you could go to jail, you would be rendered on Independentist and you

would be persecuted, you know, we have the famous cartas binders that

those were files that the, police and the FBI compile, on independent

and also communists as well.

Literally they were more than a hundred thousand files created on individuals.

So, yeah, it's part of the legacy of resistance here, that's why the flag is

such a powerful and meaningful symbol, you know, and that's why we fly it everywhere.

And like you said, Puerto Ricans become Puerto Ricans

when they move to the states.

there's a saying here, you don't know what you have until you lose it.

when you go and experience a different culture, puertoricans are white people.

in the states, especially big cities like New York where I lived, people are a bit

colder people don't look you in the eye.

People don't say good morning.

There's not even a phrase for when showing in the English language.

They borrow from the French language, you experience those culture differences

and they definitely make you miss, the warmth that you experience here.

You also spoke about independent, small, being a spectrum.

There are right wing, independent left wing ones.

The independent, the more mother brand, started with,

People, it's more land owners.

In the 19th century, those were the people that had access to, education

and, they read some, thought.

And they were, mostly radical liberals.

They were definitely not, socialists people like, Raman

later he was a nationalist.

He wasn't a socialist.

there's a quote I read, by him on why he didn't take Marxism apply to Puerto

Rico because he thought, you know, people were mostly, campesinos here.

We didn't have an industrial aria, but this is the first thing that Len covers

if you read the very first volume of the collective works of learning, he, does

a class analysis of, Russian society.

he concludes that there is a class differentiation in the rural areas where,

the camp casinos are becoming, agriculture authoritarians, the majority of them and

a small minority are becoming landowners.

So there's this last differentiation, and that's why Lenny thought that

this was a potentially revolutionary class, he was proven correct by the

Russian Revolution and the, the Chinese Revolution, Vietnam, north Korea as well.

This were mostly peasant societies semi feudal societies.

And so, the peasant class demonstrated that it is indeed a revolutionary class.

what makes it, revolutionary is the fact that it's, that class differentiation.

You know, capitalism was better in the whole world, and peasants

were becoming agricultural workers, you know, proletarians.

So albizu kind of miss that as much as I admire him.

And if you can see, I have a poster of Abi behind me.

So, he's a key figure that, everyone admires here, whether you're

independentist or communist because of what he need to sort of foster,

consciousness here and to fight for our freedom, our independence, and

the fact that, he was a revolutionary.

We have a lot of reformist brands of, independent ismo.

But Visi was definitely a revolutionary and he understood the importance of

arms struggle against, a powerful empire that is extremely violent.

Revolutionary self defense at the, class level.

If someone breaks into your house, you have every right to defend yourself.

if necessary, if you're being attacked.

The same thing happens at the class level.

Yeah.

I'll add to, context about, they call him Maestro in Puerto Rico because, he

taught us how to be Puerto Rican again.

And I'll say again because, previous figures that taught us how to become

Puerto Ricans was, you know, you mentioned earlier Ramon Bean and,

people at Maria Oto in the 19th century.

and that was kind of lost and bi us how to be Puerto Rican again.

But just to his credit he was really influenced by the Irish independence

movement Of the 1910s and twenties.

his majority of political activity was, and forties before the Chinese revolution.

And, and yeah, so that's a lot of, you know, so.

It's a lot of, tia's favorite word here on, new one, so

Alexis Colon De Jesus: He was proud of his time for sure.

Antonio Coer, who was, a bit younger than OB and also was somebody internationalist

party, he actually became, socialism.

members of the nationalist body were too harsh against Juan Antonio

because he was a communist, a Marxist.

And so there was this sort of, I guess struggle inside the movement, whether

we should go on his socialist direction.

But, you know, you had a lot of nationalists that were, small owners,

professionals, intellectuals, a more privileged class there's been

a bit of resistance, in that way.

like I said, it's easier to become independent and develop that

consciousness than class consciousness.

there's definitely been an increase in independent sentiment here.

I think there's been increasing class consciousness as well, but it's,

lagging a bit behind what you said about ABI and the, iris struggle.

I have the three of ABIs, collective words.

I've already read two.

when Albi was at Harvard, the Irish struggle for independence was unfolding.

he gave a speech at Harvard University and somewhere there, I don't remember

who it was, said that it was the most powerful speech regarding

the cause of the Irish people.

So there are close ties between the Irish Movement for Independence and the

Puerto Rican Movement for Independence.

there's a lot of solidarity.

I'm thinking it might be good for us to help our audience members who

may not have heard about independent ismo before in the Puerto Rican context.

Can we explain briefly what is pen in the Puerto Rican context so that they can

understand better what we're discussing?

Speaker 3 00:16:20

better.

I'm sorry, Henri, can you delete what I just said?

So for our audience members who are new to hearing about Puerto Rico, things

politically that are happening here, political ideas about Puerto Rico's status

and relationship to the United States.

Could you Alexis, explain what is independent month?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Independent

is the fight for sovereignty, for national freedom.

So that, we can become part of the world instead of being

an isolated colony of the us.

Puerto Rico is the oldest continuous colony in the world.

we've been a formal colony for over 500 years.

Going back to the, Spanish Empire Columbus arrived here in 1493.

ever since we've been occupied, they exterminated the native, people here.

they still live through our DNA.

It's, it's been proven to, mitochondrial, DNA, mostly with the, the DNA that

was passed was that of Taino women.

the Spanish, men usually came by themselves killed the native Taino men

or enslaved them, and raped Taino women.

So that's why we are sort of a product of that, brutal and

violent history and we carry that.

there's always been a struggle for freedom here.

going back to the Spanish occupation in the, 16th century, around 1510 they

struggled by the Taino Qaim, against the Spanish They fought bravely.

We have, you know, the stories of, another and, and many other, ikas that, stood

against the empire, some collaborated.

that's, it's been, tried strategy of empires going back at least to the

Romans, you know, divided a conquer.

So the Spanish were really good at that.

they did that throughout the Americas.

they put the indigenous groups against the Aztec, for instance, and that's

how they managed to subdue, the native people here with, a smaller, force.

independence is that struggle for freedom.

That goes back probably five centuries in Puerto Rico and there were rebellions

throughout the whole period, The slaves were imported here from Africa.

the escape slaves, usually went on to live with the Taino.

There was a lot of solidarity, between the African slaves and the

Taino Tainos were also enslaved.

And they had to retreat to the mountains, just to be able to stay away

from the violence of the colonizers.

they also struggled for freedom, alongside the Tainos.

later on, even, poor white people joined the struggle by the, 19th century.

We had the famous in 18 68, the 23rd of September of 1868.

And that was our uprising, led by and others.

They, Bars and declare independence.

And we had a republic for a few hours before the uprising was, crushed.

it was a watershed moment, from then on the Spanish empire had

to give concessions, reforms.

You know, they use reforms, to sort of, well unrest.

Reform, you know, you have to sort of, the people have to organize and,

you know, fight for their rights and, and get these concessions.

They're ne they're never given, they're earned.

they give concessions.

Like, you go to a Spanish course and were given full Spanish

citizenship and there was greater autonomy granted to the archipelago.

But that all ended in 1998 when the, US empire invaded during

the, Spanish American War.

We were part of the, colonial loop they, took from the Spanish Empire Cuba

became a neo colony back then as well.

And ever since then, there's been a struggle against the US Empire.

they were not welcome here.

They were not received with open arms.

people actually oppose us citizenship here being implemented.

There was a referendum and, US citizenship was, rejected by the people because,

you know, the people understand was in their best interest and they, they

knew they would be used ever since.

So, in the, US citizenship was rejected, but they still, a couple of years later,

force it upon us so that they uses a scam folder for, the First World War.

thousands of Puerto Ricans were, enlisted against their world to, military draft.

And that continued the enlistment against people's, the people's will until the

Vietnam War, when the draft sort of, I don't wanna say it was abolished, but

they could reinstate a draft anytime, but they had to, you know, let go of

it because of the growing resistance, on the growing anti-war movement

in the us during the Vietnam era.

And that's how my dad ended up being a veteran of the US Armed Forces.

He was drafted at the tender age of 17.

He had just finished high school, He didn't want to go to war.

He failed the exam on purpose, but, they were taking pretty

much everybody back then.

And so he was kidnapped, I like to say, from his home,

forced to join the army at 17.

it's basically enslavement.

There's a definition of slavery that some generals, created.

it's forced labor against your will, whether it's rated or not.

they were so aware that the draft perfectly fit this description

that they made an exception to the rule accepting the case of a draft.

So it's pretty much enslavement.

and it's kind of like what the Romans would do.

They would conquer a people, they would steal their land, and they were

enslaved the people and force them to become, soldiers in their armies

to further subjugate more people.

And that's, sort of what the US does, to this day still.

Alexis, thank you for the description about Independent East, to,

give the audience the spectrum of how our political society works, can you

give a brief description of CSO Za what movement he led and the middle path that,

Smarin put us in, and that pretty much ever since, we've been in that triangle.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Monisha, you're a psychologist, right?

He experienced racism in the United States, and somehow he still

developed this, hood ideology.

He sort of created the first person to develop that ideology here in Puerto Rico.

Statehood means, wanting to integrate into the United States as a full-fledged state.

And that movement grew considerably in the 20th century in Puerto Rico.

the new progressive party was founded by him.

It was, Luis Re who was a Puertorican oligarch from a very wealthy family,

controlled, he had a monopoly over, cement production here.

And yeah, they saw us.

The idea of statehood you know, United States is democratic haven and, you

know, there's some material component to it, around the time of the Go Law.

after, the was instituted, which is a commonwealth status, that

it's still, in Puerto Rico.

A lot of, capital from the US entered the island, during what

was collaboration bootstraps.

And this is why Marxism is so important.

There's a concept of, the falling rate of profit once capital accumulates

and the, composition of capital changes, and becomes capital of, what

mark's called a higher composition.

This causes the rare surplus value that capitalists are able to extract from

the working class to drop the mass of surplus value increases, but the rate

of, surplus value extraction decreases.

So this is an impetus for capitals in the imper countries, to seek other markets

to exploit foreign labor, where they can extract, a higher rate of profit.

Puerto Rico was perfect for that.

the US had industrialized, the rate of profit was falling Puerto Rico

being a colony, it goes the reverse process of capital accumulation.

There's capital extraction, and we know that the primitive accumulation

of the imperialist countries has its genesis in colonization, the

extraction of value from the colonies.

the reverse process happened here, that meant there was, a huge rate

of profit to be extracted from the island by, US capitalists.

ever since 1898 when they moved, they started ex Puerto Rican landowners.

Through different means.

They turned the whole basically into a sugar cane plantation.

'cause it was the most profitable crop.

This is a classic example of a cash crop.

It doesn't have any nutritional value.

it's all exchange value that it has.

And, land owners were displaced.

And for the Oregon people worked the sugar can fields for US corporations.

but then there was a period of, industrialization around the

fifties and sixties or what we call, pseudo industrialization,

with operation bootstraps, we moved away from the, plantation economy

into a more industrial economy.

But I say it was a pseudo industrialization because it was,

foreign capital that was carrying out the process and the profits were,

repatriated to the United States.

So they were not reinvested here.

And the people didn't benefit much.

But, that brought a process of, accumulation that provided jobs,

increased wages, and was seen as, progress But eventually the capitals

left the archipelago, as the archipelago became more industrialized,

the rate of profit began to fall.

And then, we reached the neo liberal era where, capital was free to move

wherever he wanted to exploit cheaper labor and start higher profits.

you start to see industries leave the arch, 'cause our industries

didn't have any sovereignty over them, any capital controls.

So, that halfway process of industrialization came to a halt.

And ever since then,

what year was that,

Alexis Colon De Jesus: What year was the beginning or the ending

of the industrialization process

figure at right now?

Like what you're, what you're talking about right now, where the industry

began to leave around what timeframe?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I would say it was, during the rise or after the

rise of the neo liberal era in the eighties, the era begins in Chile after

the, there against the Al government.

Under the Pino, she dictatorship, they turned to a laboratory for

And you had, Milton and the Chicago school down there working hand

glove with Pino and US Capital.

And after that, the new model was exported to the rest of the world.

So I would say probably began around the eighties.

by seventies you a crisis with, the oil crisis of the seventies.

And there was stagnation.

So, there was an impetus for capital to leave the US and by extension, Puerto Rico

to seek, high profits in other markets.

So around the eighties, in the nineties, you had the, section there,

it was called, these tax exemptions that were granted to foreign capital

mainly US capital to attract it to the island operation Bootstraps.

But that wasn't enticing anymore because now you could go to other

markets where they also give you tax exemptions, but labor was cheaper

and you could extract more profits.

So during that era of operation boots when there was this.

Halfway process of industrialization.

The government invested, in infrastructure education, but all of it

was, to satisfy the needs of capital.

They needed roads, they needed trains to transport first, the sugar cane then

highways to transport industrial products.

they wanted to sell cars here as well.

So that's, another incentive And now that, capital HA has left, we

are seeing the reverse process.

We're seeing a process of, financialization of the economy.

what that means is that the economy is divided between, goods and services.

goods is the industrial production services.

It's, whatever is not goods, essentially.

So what has value?

it's the goods services.

That's what creates value as well.

So when the service sectors grows at the expense of, the industrial

Sector, that's a problem.

The service Sector includes what Michael Hudson calls the fire Sector.

It's an acronym for, finance, insurance, and real estate.

These sectors don't produce any value.

There's no industrial production involved in these sectors.

they appropriate value, to rent because these sectors are natural monopolies.

They always tend towards monopoly.

And when you operate a monopoly, you can start a rent, which is the difference

between the, higher monopoly price and what mar, called the price of

production, which includes the average, profit for capital So they start

what is called super profits or rent.

this is, extremely inefficient for the economy because it reduces the disposable

income of consumers, thereby decreasing the effective demand of the economy.

And also it reduces the profits of the capitalist enterprises that are in

sectors where there is competition this, diminishes the ability of capitalists to

reinvest their profits as capital, which, combined with the declining, effective

demand is disastrous when the demand is reduced the supply, goes down as well.

There's not incentive to invest capital, so, there's no job creation.

The financialization of the economy increases the cost of production.

So it's not as profitable to produce.

And these, it's an incentive for capitals to leave the island to seek places,

markets where there are lower wages, but also where, places like China, where

monopolies are nationalized and the cost of production is much more smaller.

Vietnam nowadays as well, it's probably the cheapest country

where, where you can produce because there's no brand extraction.

this is a much more efficient model.

It's, it is the antithesis of neoliberalism basically.

It's interesting you mentioned the IRS code of 9 36,

when I left Puerto Rico, that was what they were talking about.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Yeah.

Yeah.

9 36 was an incentive that was given to American corporations

to operate from Puerto Rico and

They didn't pay US taxes from operating from Puerto Rico.

and what Alexis is talking about here, this had the effect of producing

high paying jobs for a lot of people.

Because I went to school.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Yes.

I went to school.

I went from Guama from the south, and I went to a private school there was a

company nearby called the Philip Phillips.

I wanna say they were a petro company.

I'm not sure what they were, but most of the people worked there.

They were professional.

It was more of a white collar thing.

And also at the time there were a lot of, pharmaceutical companies, operating

out of Puerto Rico's, like, I think good chunk of the, medicines that were

sold here in the United States, were producing Puerto Rico during that time

Alexis Colon De Jesus: to this day,

There's a huge, pharmaceutical industry area.

But what, 9 36 did was, end that code and it was phased

out in oh six, I believe in 2006.

And that had a huge impact to the economy in Puerto Rico.

It lost around 40,000 employment, 40,000 people.

when you lose those 40,000 high paying jobs, these people

moved to the United States.

then there were other things to compound on that, which is the, huge debt.

And then that's when Promesa came, the oversight board that Obama imposed.

then Hurricane Maria came and devastated the economy of Puerto Rico.

More people left.

I think the last 20 years, about a million people have left

Puerto Rico to the United States.

So they have a huge depletion of population.

fertility rate have dropped in Puerto Rico.

And I bring all this up because when you come in age you're seeing that

economic devastation in Puerto Rico.

when I was growing up in Puerto Rico, It was like the highlight, you know,

the high phase, you talked about Independentist in Puerto Rico at the time.

People say Independentist for what?

You know, why you want us to be like Dominican Republic?

that that was the famous phase that you want to be like Dominican Republic.

Now they're saying he wants to be like Venezuela.

You want to be like Cuba, you know, it depends for what,

why do we need independence?

That was a lot of people saying that.

But when all those factors started coming in with hurricane Maria PROEs

and everything, and the collapse of the economy, Puerto Rico and

people leaving austerity and stuff like that, now there's kind of no

economic growth voting for right now.

And you come into that age.

So how does that shape you?

How does that shape Your generation into this new resurgence of consciousness

among people in your age group?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: my generation has only known decline.

it's funny you mentioned the Dominican Republic

They no longer use that because the Republic is growing up five, 6% annually.

And, you're having Dominican immigrants returning

to, to the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico because, it's growing pretty soon

with the stagnation we have here, they might surpass us in nominal GDP terms.

So, they no longer use that scare tactic.

But like I said, my generation has only known decline.

My millennial born in 1992, there was a lot of corruption in the nineties

with the residual administration.

A lot of, wasted money in projects which haven't been completed to this day.

There's this highway from my hometown to pon that began construction, or

was approved in the nineties and still to this day, hasn't been finished.

It may never will.

like you said, the, exemptions were abolished.

Capital left.

there was industrial decline.

You still see empty buildings of, where were industrial factories back in the day.

So with, with the industry, the jobs left as well, and a

lot of people had to migrate.

there's a double component that we must have present to understand why

there was, support for statehood and the opposition to independence.

the sort of, scape ball is one 'cause there is, migration from

Puerto Rico to the United States.

So, there's a death of capital here, which we normally create overwhelming poverty.

And there is a lot of poverty here.

the poverty rate is almost 50%, but it will be much, much higher if people,

couldn't migrate to the United States.

That's one component because people don't wanna lose that scape ball, many people

want the ability to move to the United States in case things get too bad here.

there's also the welfare state the gains of the New deal eventually, were

instituted here, a lot of these federal transfers are earned and we pay for them.

Like social security, you have to contribute to social security.

it's not a gift.

But there are some transfers, the famous, components, sort of the equivalent of

snaps, benefits that are needed, to maintain that reserve army of labor

so that the people don't, don't, don't bel because of crossing poverty.

And, you know, these were reforms that, the working class in the

United States had to fight for.

the eight hour day was a struggle.

People died for it.

then the New Deal, people credit, Roosevelt as this sort of humanitarian

Roosevelt was much more conservative.

Some people think the New Deal that they had to do those

concessions because at the time.

You know, you have to bring mind the context, of the Great Depression of

the 1930s, the crushing poverty of the, America people were experiencing.

You had to socialist party organize, and one communist party

organized, and they were growing quickly and conducting strikes.

And the ruling class was very afraid that they will be a, a

socialist revolution in the us.

The revolution in Russia was still, latent.

And, you know, people have these, aspirations of of a class liberation.

And it was the pressure from the organized people that eventually forced

the, administration to institute the New Deal, which, created the social security,

created a federal jobs program that, gave employment to 50 million people.

If I'm not mistaken.

the, minimum wage, was first instituted under the New Deal.

Those new Deal policies were instituted in Puerto Rico as well.

the welfare state was created and it's sort of, you know, it's sort of, prevented

material conditions from worsening

And they somewhat improved with the combination of the welfare

state and the halfway into the Strat station that I talked about.

So there's no surprise that during this time, support for statehood increased,

because people were seeing some material gains we have to bear this in mind, a

lot of the, more RightWay independent speak in, terms about the welfare

state, about people, who depend on the welfare state to no fault of their own.

You know, you have to understand what are people supposed to do.

There are no jobs here.

So you have to survive some way.

And, you know, you can't, we can't chass size people for

what they need to do to survive.

We have to understand this, and educate ourselves about it.

But a lot of that is changing.

Now, like I said, my generation has only known decline.

capitals have left.

The gains of the welfare state are being undermined.

The cost of public education has, skyrocketed.

The lack of investment infrastructure, we have collapsing infrastructure here,

just like in the United States, but, in the colony, everything is worse.

Conditions are worse here than in, Metropolis.

that's for me a major reason why support for independence is increasing

and why support for COD is decreasing.

And there's some major generation of divide.

like I said, imagination has only known decline.

And so we are the ice group that supports independent the most by far.

And the older generations that, grew up during the dying of, operation

Bootstraps and the rise of the welfare state, you know, they still

have memories of that they still credit the US for that, some of them.

there's going a mindset, change even in older generations.

But, yeah, it's mainly younger people who support independence.

And it's mainly, older generations that still support statehood or

the so-called free association, the Commonwealth with this, colonial status.

And one more thing is that, Statehood is not the end of colonization.

The, statehood party, borrowed the language of

independence and even socialism.

decades ago they had a, March for the end of colonization.

You think it was the Independence Party organized this with that kind of language.

But no, it was the statehood, party.

'cause they want to make people believe that statehood would

be the end of colonization.

It's quite the opposite.

It's the completion of the colonial project.

That's what annexation, implies.

You fully lose your sovereignty.

take a look at Mississippi, take a look at Alabama and these poor

states of the South where you have a higher percentage of black people and

immigrants, still, very poor states.

There.

the people still are exploited.

And there's not a lot of sovereignty freedom or economic freedom.

So, these are the things that we must, bring mind to understand the complexities

of the Puerto Rican, struggle.

It's interesting too because the states.

In the US are also completed colonies, like they are the

completion of colonialism.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Yes.

Puerto Rico is a colonial project in the same way that

the US is a colonial project.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: you're beginning with 13 colonies.

Yeah.

It's so interesting to me as a psychologist who, like, my study is on

the impacts of psychological warfare, specifically from the us So seeing

how things are happening in real time in Puerto Rico historically as well.

Just the way that the mentality of colonialism and imperialism functions in

individuals, in families, in communities, in the day-to-day life of people if

you don't have psychological warfare, you don't have colonialism succeeding.

we hand ourselves over without our consent or awareness.

It's really tragic.

it's one of the great tragedies of colonialism, as I'm listening to you,

I'm thinking of many other examples.

earlier on when you mentioned about the person who started the PPE or who,

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Lisa Re

the way the patriarchy, white supremacy, capital, all of these things

interplay to make people submit to domination because they need to feel

powerful because they feel so powerless under these systems of oppression.

And as much as we can empathize with that and really understand and have compassion

for it, the people that carry it on their humanity's lost in the process

and there's no turning point for them to return to their true self, to be able

to have empathy for others to be able to say, no, I'm not going to replicate these

systems of dominance and oppression and violence on others just because I can.

I think that's probably a whole other show, a whole other episode or

series of unpacking the psychology of colonialism and imperialism

and capitalism and what makes an individual subscribe to that mentality.

even going back to earlier when we were talking about independent thesis We're not

a monolith we have people who want freedom only for themselves and for people who

look like them or have the same economic situation but they're perfectly happy to

continue oppressing and exploiting others.

Speaker 2 00:41:29

Yeah.

Yeah, and I feel like that applies as well to our current

situation where we are today with how the US has re established itself here

militarily, and how now Puerto Rico is just a forward operating base.

let's turn to that conversation.

We've been used to attack a sovereign state, our neighbor, our cousins.

We continue to be used for real war exercises for possible future invasions

of other sovereign nations in our region or other family members in the region.

And what I see on Puerto Rican social media is a scary

amount of support for this.

And at the same time we see a lot of resistance to that I also live

here for people who are listening.

I've stayed muted a lot during this episode because I live directly across

from the flight line of Roosevelt Roads, which has been reactivated,

which has F 16, all kinds of combat aircraft taking off at all hours.

So it's very noisy.

It's putting cracks in the ceiling, it vibrates the house, it disturbs the

environment, it pollutes everything.

We're having breathing problems here now.

And this is our current reality.

I'll stop talking now and switch over to you, Alexis and Giovanni, if you wanna

add to a question or anything like that before Alexis starts, if there's any

specific thing you want him to touch on.

Yeah.

Adam told what you were saying about the whole monolith and everything,

and about what social media was We're talking about the operation in

Venezuela, the attacking sovereign country, the kidnapping of its president

and currently being held for ransom.

But, there is, and it was funny because.

There are a lot of people in Puerto Rico did support it, and they were pretty good.

Oppose Puerto Ricos.

They oppose it.

Guama Arroyo which is the city next to where I grew up.

They used it as an amphibious landing exercise, to rehearse an

amphibious landing in Venezuela.

So you have all these ships coming in, in the middle of the day, landing

all these soldiers just coming outta nowhere, you know, from the ships.

And, you know, there were people there, taking pictures and there were

people there, cameras and everything.

There were people there selling poo to the soldiers and stuff like that, you know?

But yeah.

and one of the things that was disturbing that I saw is that people who call

themselves in Penta or generalists, you know, who are popular, who were

popular, you know, putting the, narrative out there, at the same time repeated

the same, narrative of Venezuela that was used to do his operation.

You know, about Madula regime, MedU dictatorship.

And these people should know better.

They should know better because, they're pretty much echoing the same narratives,

the same construct that the imperial.

Structure that they criticize but they're repeating the same thing.

Go ahead, Alexis.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: a couple of quick points I'd like to make before jumping

on the, Venezuela, discussion Monisha you were talking about some people want

the freedom to exploit others, and that's what they mean by economic freedom.

I want to touch, on the psychological warfare, that's part of what

called, the superstructure.

There two key figures we need to study to understand how hegemony

and ideology reproduce themselves.

there's a famous essay called, state and state apparatus.

the state apparatuses are, you know, there's, the violent arm that is

the state, the violent repression.

But there are also ways of, manufacturing consent.

the main ideological state apparatus that identifies under capitalism is education.

Education system, It was the church.

There's a famous that the, priest and the landlord walk, side by side holding

hands or something along those lines.

So we must understand that the controls state apparatuses here in Puerto Rico.

They control the, department of Education one way or another, and, the

university will receive, federal funding.

So, they are able to check, what's taught and how, beginning with, the invasion,

they forced English to be taught at schools the people, fought against it.

So, the Premier Princip was granted to the Puertorican people as a

whole for the defense of the Spanish language, which is kind of, the

closest thing to, literature prize.

but it was three from us, thanks to the Rosa administration when they

made English a second language.

So yeah, through Controllably education system, the media is very important.

We have three mainstream news channels here.

all three of them are owned by, media arts, most famously Telemundo,

owned by NBC, which is owned by, Brian Roberts, with a fortune of,

over one and a half billion dollars.

And so they're able to control the narrative and feed, propaganda to

the people and, older generations that may not be tech savvy.

All they have is, the mainstream media.

And the newspapers are controlled by, the Red Family.

So I told you about the founder of the Benefit Party.

He also, was the founder of the, most widely circulated newspaper

in Puerto Rico to this day.

that family still owns that newspaper.

they publish opinion columns about how awful socialism is and stuff like that.

So that's how they are able to reproduce, colonial in Puerto Rico.

Oh, so you have the, Alexis, you have the churches that also help

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Oh, yeah.

very important component.

you also have churches.

You also have the weaponized immigrants, like the Cubans, the

Venezuelans that moved there as well.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Yep, yep,

yep.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: To,

to help with that narrative.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Absolutely.

You know, the Guanos are always complaining about how Fidel took

their lands and their slaves away.

that's why communism is so bad.

So, I'm sorry, what was it that you said before?

the influence of Cuban and Venezuelans Just right now?

you were saying how narratives are shaped in Puerto Rico, and you hear

those component about the education and,

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I remember now you brought the subject of the churches.

there was a penetration by, US churches, Protestant churches.

nowadays the evangelical movement is growing and we know how reactionary

that branch of Christianity can be.

we're seeing the mass support they've given to Trump and his policies.

that's also a big factor.

You know, the religion may not be the, principle ideological state apparatus, but

it's still a huge component to this day.

Probably after the education system of the media.

You have the church or religion as an ideological state apparatus of control.

So yeah, that's also an important component.

On the subject of, Venezuela.

you know, people are using the term, Remi militarization of the arch one,

and I think that's the wrong term to use because it implies that at

some point we were demilitarized.

we've always been military occupied since the invasion of 1898.

there's definitely been an increase in militarization, but, it never stopped.

The Marines, occupied the island of BAS for over 60 years.

They forcibly displace a huge percentage of the population,

and they use most of the land for target practice, aerial compartment.

I believe even depleted Ur Urning was used.

They experimented here with Agent Orange, before using it in Vietnam.

it was sprayed in rivers.

So no wonder there's a high incidence of cancer here and in Vieques, it

has a much higher, rate of cancer.

I forget the exact figure, but it's considered higher than the

rest of the archipelago because all of the munitions they use and all

the pollution 60 years of there.

And, There was a prolonged struggle to get the Marines out for a while.

for context, like I said, Puerto Rico You have the main island,

which, why people Puerto Rico island.

They think it's the main island.

But there are two smaller, municipal islands,

And they were occupied by the Marines for several decades.

in the late nineties or early two thousands, a man was killed by a

bomb, dropped by the Marines in

David

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Sans.

He was a security guard, if I'm not mistaken.

he was killed by the bomb, and I believe three other people were injured.

a huge outcry and probably the biggest mass movement that we've ever seen in

our history more than a million people, engaged in the struggle to keep them

around the marine, inside of ques.

that was a huge victory that we mustn't forget because, it's a reminder of our

ability to fight back we can fight for our sovereignty and have success it's very

important to learn from those experiences.

So now with the whole, Venezuela thing, this is part of a, of a

wider strategic position by the us.

They know they're losing markets.

They know they can't compete with the industrial economy of China.

China has the opposite of neoliberalism.

the essence of neoliberalism is the privatization of the natural monopolies.

Which usually are essential services.

Like, you know, energy, power transport infrastructure, highway

strains, internet monopoly, land monopoly banks are inter monopoly.

All of that is nationalized in China.

So you don't have the rent extraction which brings so much

inefficiency to the economy.

So the US can compete with the, economy of China anymore, and they're

losing markets all over the world.

That's why we're seeing this, tariff war against China.

they want to contain China.

we have to keep that in mind, because all of this connect with what they're

doing in Venezuela and all the Americas.

Now they realize they're losing control of the other continents.

You know, they're influencing Africa is diminishing as well.

both, Russia and China, have a very different approach in Africa.

they don't bomb, they don't invade.

They come with, commercial deals which, are mutually beneficial for both peoples.

So, in Europe, they're also, losing a bit of influence.

Although Europe remains a new colony of the United States.

That's even the opinion of, very important French intellectually, Emmanuel thought.

So their ability to extract super profits from the rest of the world is diminishing.

and this is rather in the empire.

So they are strengthening their football in the Americas, you know,

what they call their backyard.

they wanna make sure they can keep their backyard because, China mainly is also

making strikes in Latin America to the point that, an economics professor here,

Marcia Rivera I went to a conference, that she gave, and, she mentioned

four points that are positive and that gives us hope for Latin America.

One of them was the relationship of Latin America with China.

Places like for instance, you're receiving Chinese investment.

they're buying, Solar panels and wind turbines for the transition to renewables.

UY has, almost 100% renewable energy now.

in part it's thanks to cooperation with China.

They've invested in robotics Now they have their own robotics industry.

Marcella Rivera told me the children in fifth grade, nationwide carry

out a science project on robotics.

we are way behind in that regard because we don't have any sovereignty.

We don't have access to cheaper Chinese goods.

We can import Chinese electric cars, for instance, because of the Trump tariffs.

And it's separate priorities I shouldn't say just Trump tar by the

increase, the 25%, tariff on electric, vehicles to a hundred percent.

So it's a bipartisan effort to defend the, interest of capital in the us.

They're going back to protectionism, they, spouse free trade when it's convenient

for them and when they can produce more cheaply and conquer foreign markets.

But when other people can produce more cheap without them and they

lose market influence, then they adopt protectionist measure.

the US was founded, Under protectionist policies.

Going back to Alexander Hamilton, if you go to the page of the US

historian, you can read articles on how Hamilton promote protectionism

until native industries mature enough to compete in the international

markets, in the international economy.

So, all of this is connected Venezuela, 90% of their oil was going to China.

China is a net import of oil.

And since the, factory of the world, so to speak, they consume huge

amounts of energy and we all around the world consume their products.

they have a really good relationship with Venezuela and, the United States

wants that oil among other things.

they don't want Venezuelan oil to go to China to fit this industry.

But it's important to remember that it's not only, oil, that the US is

after the Empire never, institutes policies just with one goal.

It's usually multiple goals.

in Venezuela you have oil, earth minerals.

lithium, you have other minerals.

You have gold diamonds, a lot of, stock and raw materials.

also there's big importance in Venezuela also supplies oil to Cuba.

So if you can crush the Venezuela economy and install public government there,

you can starve Cuba of oil and then, proceed to create, chaos destabilize the

government and eventually overthrow it.

all of this is part of a strategy of the US to certain the football

in the whole of the Americas.

And Puerto Rico has historically been used as a launch spot for invasions.

US officials have referred to Israel as the US aircraft carrier.

in what they term the Middle East, which is a colonial term.

It's West Asia, but you know, they say, yeah, that's our aircraft

carry in the so-called Middle East.

We're in a similar position.

We are the craft carrier of the Empire in the Caribbean, which is why the

struggles of the Palestinian people and the Puerto Rican people mirror each other.

We are both occupied we both being colonized, we both being turned into

an aircraft carrier for Empire, where they can launch invasions and strikes

against our brothers and sisters and our neighbors, in the area.

we share a lot with the Venezuelan people.

The Awa Andinos that migrate to the Caribbean, to Puerto Rico

mainly came from Venezuela.

So we primarily a lot with the Venezuela people and ancestry.

If you take a look at the map of the Caribbean, in Latin America,

Puerto Rico is much closer to Venezuela than the United States.

And that's something a lot of people here don't realize.

You know, we're so close to Venezuela, and Puerto Rico has key strategic

positions being called the key of the Caribbean of the Americas.

Because from here you can launch invasions everywhere.

Simon Bolivar was planning to launch an invasion of Spain from Puerto

Rico to overthrow the monarchy in Spain, liberate the Spanish people.

Obviously those plans never came to compression, but it speaks to the

strategic location that Puerto Rico has because not only can you launch

some patients into the Americas on here, but also into Europe.

So that's why, the ELA was so important for the Empire because

of its, geostrategic location.

The invasion of, Dominican Republic in 20th century, west National

here, that of Panama as well, and some other interventions.

And now we're seeing the same thing with Venezuela.

That's why they are, increasing militarization.

We have like 15,000 troops station here now.

They are carrying a military exercise that you mentioned practicing operations

that they eventually launch in Venezuela.

And they've been doing that for, almost a century now.

So that's why they're not gonna let go so easily of the arch level and

also why it's so important, why Puerto Ric independency is so important that

I think many people here don't even realize Just how important we are and

what a huge key to the puzzle we are.

Because if Puerto Rico becomes an independent country.

The ability of the empire to control the hemisphere will be greatly to managed.

They will also, receive less super profits from exploitation of the al

level, and this combines to reduce their, ability, project power.

So if we become independent, that would be a huge step for deliberation of

the entire hemisphere and the world, honestly, because, I'll finish with this.

wrote, in a letter to, a socialist, That, he thought for great Britain to

become a socialist country to have its socialist revolution, the colonists would

need to get their independence first.

And it makes sense because when you have colonists, you're able

to super profits, which you can invest for conquest, for empire.

if you lose, your colonies, the super profits are gone and

the ability to power is gone.

also the ability to give your, aristocracy, a piece, to, keep them

content so that they don't rebel.

So empires include their colonies for socialist revolution To take hold.

And one important component here is the, digitalization phenomenon.

the US mainly financed their military super profits, in the earlier 20th

century until, they into troubles.

I don't remember if it was after the Korean War and the start of Vietnam

war, when the, dollar was linked to gold, you had the gold standard.

And, the US was losing gold reserves to finance the war.

So, they came up with fiat money.

They turned the dollar into the global reserve currency after

the, world previously the, pan Sterling held that title.

So that means that, international intersections between states are

carry out The reserve currency, of, states around the world is the dollar.

in international markets, you buy using the dollar that's changing Now quickly

with, Russia, China doing commerce now almost exclusively in their own coins.

And this is important because so the US Empire pretty much borrows

money to give its military.

They recycle the dollars back to the states.

So they have to run a trade deficit so that the rest of the

world has access to dollars.

When you run a trade deficit, you give out currency to, buy imports.

So, they, import more from some countries than they export to those countries,

and they have to give them dollars.

That way the rest of the world has dollars to buy in international market.

And so what the rest of the world does, those dollars is that they buy

treasury bonds because you can keep your reserves in cash due to inflation.

The value would be wiped away.

So you buy treasury bonds because it's the so-called safest investment, and,

you are able to hedge inflation that way.

So when you buy the treasury, bonds, the dollars that the US

lost through, the trade deficit, are recycled back to the states.

They come back to the United States and that way they're able to lease, bonds

to finance their huge military budget that Trump wants to raise next year.

So if they lose the global, reserve, currency status,

they're pretty much screwed.

They can't keep financing these overloaded military budget.

Okay.

Take a breath I can't remember the question I had.

So I'm trying to recall it, but we're gonna close up anyways.

I think it was something around the current state of affairs in the US and

what our diaspora are experiencing and how our struggle here ties to the struggle of

the diaspora, and especially right now in this moment that we're in historically.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: sorry it went on for too long.

no, no, no.

It's good.

we all do here.

It's good to learn from you.

But I've been distracted by the Jets,

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I bet.

Yeah.

So

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I'm so sorry you're going through that right now.

Before we close on, do you feel Like in your generation you feel that, the

youth, are becoming more, I'm seeing that you have a Palestinian flag in the back,

and you mentioned the ties between Puerto Rico and Israel as colonial projects.

in the context of the genocide against Palestinians.

I know you've been active in that area in Puerto Rico as well

protesting and stuff like that.

Do you feel that your generation is more in tune with internationalism

have more consciousness towards internationalism than before, because of

the situation that you're in right now?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: Yes, I do.

before I go on, I'd like to make a couple of comments about what

Monisha, was talking about the diaspora in the United States.

We have to keep in mind that there are twice as many Puerto Ricans in

the United States nowadays than there are in the ArcHa level quite clearly.

We have like 3 million people left in Puerto Rico.

That number is diminishing and there are around 6 million or

more Puerto Ricans in the us.

Around nine to 10 million Puerto Ricans around the world.

How many countries do you know that have twice as many people

living abroad than in the homeland?

it's nuts.

that's why it's so important to have a link to the diaspora for

the struggle for independence here.

a lot of people in the diaspora, didn't want to leave.

They were forced to, deteriorate material conditions.

Here they're just trying to survive and make a living.

there's always been a connection between the diaspora and the Puerto Ricans here.

you know, some people, have narrow view about it, and they don't consider

Puerto Ricans in the diaspora, actual Puerto Ricans, especially

if they don't speak Spanish.

that's an option we need to overcome because, we need all the help we can

get and an internationalist perspective.

And I think historically there's been some consciousness about it.

For instance, the Socialist party here, they had a branch

in New York as well as in Cuba.

they understood the importance of working with the diaspora there.

it's an international, class struggle.

So the international working class must work together, not just the diaspora

but with other, social states that are resisting imperialism and even non

social states that are imperialism.

because the primary contraction in the world is US imperialism against

the international working class

So we need to bear that in mind.

We need to make ideological alliances as well as, alliances with

countries that may not necessarily be socialists, but who play a progressive

role in the international arena.

I think there's a growing consciousness about the need for internationalism here.

speaks about how the development of the productive forces brings about

technological changes that allow the working class to organize better.

So you have the printing press and now you can transmit, information that way.

Since Marxist time, you've had the development of radio of

television, more importantly for the, contemporary context, internet.

Everybody nowadays have I don't wanna say everybody, but many people,

if not most people have access to internet, they can see the images

of what's happening in Palestine.

we are all witnessing a genocide unfold, live, from our phones.

it's hard not to get exposed to it even with censorship people are still being

exposed to, these horrific images.

and like you mentioned, it's not just Palestine, but, also, Congo and Sudan.

We're going a genocide right now.

So we have three genocides running parallel to each other right now.

How messed up is that?

And we're seeing the images of these, we're seeing the images coming

out of the operation in Venezuela to keep up President Maduro.

So I think there's a growing consciousness of, how perverse the empire is and

how violent the nature of empire is.

So I think that it's bringing about a more internationalist perspective, and

seeing the change even in, we have a huge problem with, branches of Marxism that,

don't support actually existing socialism or in much less, non socialist states that

Resist empire.

That's why Michael Parenter, is so important.

people like him teach the importance of internationalism and resisting empire

we can't resist empire by ourselves.

We need to have an international perspective.

if you study the history of revolutions in China, in North Korea and

Vietnam, they all receive, material aid, from other social states.

The, in China, they receive material aid from the Soviet Union.

And you have a branch of Marxism that oppose this namely, trust case.

And, I would refer you to, what chi means letters on trust

of the activity of trusties.

In China.

He wrote three letters to the Soviet Union around 1939, reporting of

the activities of the trust guys.

So they oppose the Soviet Union because, you know, they

oppose, staling or whatever.

Actually, Tru came, its opposition to, to learn medicine.

from 1903 to 1917, Tru oppose laying on the svi, and he was with the, Chevi.

I spoke earlier about how Len, understood that.

And the peasant was a potentially revolutionary class trustee had

the complete opposite perspective.

He thought the, peasants were a reactionary class, and his

theory of permanent revolution hinges upon these, position.

So there was a lot of rivalry between them, and you can read, then he's

writing into it this time, calling Tru, a swine saying things like what a swine

these trust is and stuff like that.

trust has developed this, resistance to Marx, Marxist ISTs, and which in turn

developing into a opposition to actually existing social and because actually

existing social union is Marxist ISTs.

So in, in, in China, they didn't want, ate from the Soviet Union and, the communist

movement would've never been able to reach victory without a, from the Soviet Union.

same thing in Vietnam.

That's why Hu Min, both the, the Akile.

And he understood that Vietnam would need, a from both, China and the Soviet

Union primarily to overcome French colonialism, Japanese occupation,

and eventually, the US empire.

without that internationalism, that material aid and that, diplomatic aid,

they would've never become independent, much less, say, socialist country.

So I think we need to overcome those barriers to internationalism like

anarchists because we're never gonna have a successful revolution here

without an international perspective.

internationalism means, bringing critical support to the states.

Resisting imperialism can be just an extraction of, I support the working

class there, but I'm support of the state.

I oppose the state in Venezuela, but I also oppose US empire.

you have to understand the stages of revolution and the limitations

that these countries have.

you can't support an imaginary, revolutionary communist movement in

countries where it doesn't exist.

where the only option is the current government or, or, US back

public government that is gonna be much worse for the people.

So that, I think, it's very, very important to develop

that international's view.

And I see people, who, have been close off to the notion of, supporting

actually existing socialism.

there's starting to be a change in mindset, which I

think is extremely positive.

So yeah, let's do our best to promote the work of Michael Ty.

his work survives him and he's still teaching people a lot.

So let's support people like him and others.

What do we think?

That was a really nice closure right there.

Is there anything else you wanna add, Giovanni?

I think it's a good place to, wrap up.

Alexis, he wrapped it up brilliantly Alexis, any last

comments before, we take off?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I'd like to close with why I included my

favorite quote by Marx in the wire that you asked me to send to you.

Ignorance has yet to help anybody, it is the duty of young people to defend the

homeland with the weapons of knowledge.

And lastly, We must look for the truth in the facts.

So all three of these pretty much say the same thing.

Study.

We have to learn, learn and learn.

that is the best weapon that we have against empire.

Like the Argentinian Marxist, scholar.

Nestor Cohan says the working class is the, inheritors of, of a philosophy.

made us the inheritors of philosophy.

You know, the working class is the one that produces

intellectuals, big capitalist.

they don't have any incentives to study.

They don't have to study to get ahead.

They are already ahead, at the time of birth.

'cause, you know, they're going inherit so we are the ones that need

to study to get ahead and that's our best weapon, education, is the best

weapon that the working class has.

So we must study Marxism in order to use the metal of dialectical and

historical materialism to have a better understanding and grasp of our social

reality in order to be able to change it.

Thank you so much for inviting me over.

It's been a very stimulating conversation.

I didn't get a chance to ask you guys about how you joined the military, but,

perhaps we can discuss that another time.

yeah, we can do a part two.

And this time you knew both of us.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I'm very interested in hearing your stories and I think

people need to hear, your stories as well so that they can understand, how

the material, condition here, forces people to join the armed forces, even

if they don't really believe in them.

'cause you know, you need to survive that way.

And I have, many friends who have been forced to go down that route.

Yeah.

I do think people need to understand that the military is a working class issue.

Military recruitment is a working class issue.

so many people that I've encountered in my experience, and they're

not wrong for how they feel.

It exists to kill and destroy and nothing else.

And there are people in the military who align with that.

Their values are.

To kill and destroy for their own advancement, their own personal

profit and their trash human beings.

yes, hate on them, but the rest of us are just, I consider myself having

been economically drafted because the recruiters that came to my high school

was in a very impoverished area of the US and was all black and brown kids promised

us education, promised us money, promised us, a better life than what we had.

And that's how recruitment works.

So it is a working class issue, and I wish people would

embrace that in their learning.

Like when you talk about studying, yes.

I also hope that people study beyond the theorists because

that's a foundational study.

And then there's everything else that we need to be able to augment our

understandings based on those foundational studies, including patriarchy, including

white supremacy, including all of these systems of oppression that exist

to uphold capitalism and the empire

A singular analysis that's going to give us the lens we need to be able

to understand all of these things in a way to develop coherent strategies,

tactics, et cetera, to get us to the goal of dismantling this crap.

We have to understand how all of it works together in order to build ourselves up

with I'm not trying to say like a proper approach, but you know what I mean.

we're not gonna get our goal unless we know what the lay of the land

is, and we know who all the players are, and we know our own selves, our

own participation in these systems.

We have to change our behavior within these systems as well.

Going back to that, like as a veteran, there was a time where

I was drinking the Kool-Aid.

Not all of us that go in our gung ho, but not all of us are, completely

developed ideological beings either.

So there's just a lot to it.

I'm not trying to go off and take up more time.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I'm in complete agreement with you.

I think it's very important what you're bringing up Giovanni, please go on.

What happened?

Alexis Colon De Jesus: please go on and if there's anything

you'd like to say to close.

Yeah.

whatever work you're doing share with us whatever work you're doing,

whatever people can find you.

what actions do you think people should consider to go forward?

Yeah.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: I think our main task should be to

consider working to class party.

That is, a mass based party, a revolutionary party, Marxist, a Vanguard

party because that's what's been proven to work, and we need to understand

that we Marxist, need to cooperate with nationalists because nationalists in

Puerto Rico is, a progressive ideology and there's a mass of, nationalist

people that we need to work in love with.

So yeah, I think, as, that's our task to be able to revolutionary working class

barrier that we don't have because, that's the instrument, how we fight

for ourselves and the working class.

We just, you know, we are there So, yeah.

I think we need to work towards that goal.

I think that's an important point that you just made there

about nationalism in Puerto Rico.

hearing in the context of the United States nationalism is something

particularly from the liberals perspective and, American leftist perspective

nationalism is something, poo-pooed on.

has a negative connotation and ideas of Nazis and fascist

comes up into people's mind.

But nationalism in the context of the global south is liberation on the context

of global south, and Cuba wouldn't been able to sustain, 60 plus years of

economic warfare against it if it wasn't from nationalism, because nationalism

is the glue in the global south context that keep people together and keep

people able to resist and fight back.

we've seen it in real time in Venezuela where the leadership was kidnapped

and taken, in the middle of the night.

yet the country hasn't broken down into chaos and Chavismo continues to function

and move forward because of nationalism.

'cause it wasn't about just one person.

It's about a whole movement, in Venezuela.

So, yeah.

So that's a pretty Great point that just made there about

nationalism in Puerto Rico.

Alexis Colon De Jesus: just one last thing to close.

the hammer and SQL symbol.

represents the alliance between the, aria and the peasantry.

we need to have an alliance between, Marx and our Biamp here.

we need to make that synthesis here as well.

All right.

Nisha, anything?

Nope.

Thank you.

All right, folks.

thank you for joining us today.

hope you enjoyed our conversation here.

Hope you left here knowing a little bit more about Puerto Rico and the

different dynamics that's occurring in Puerto Rico, political dynamics

and, socially and, economically.

hope to see you guys soon.

Please, uh, share us with your friends like us on social media.

Yeah.

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