In November 2019, the Bolivian army – with a nudge from the shadows – told its President Evo Morales Ayma to resign. Morales would eventually go to Mexico and then seek asylum in Argentina. Jeanine Áñez, a far-right politician who was not in the line of succession, seized power; the military, the fascistic civil society groups, and sections of the evangelical church backed her. Áñez said that she would hold elections soon, but that she would herself not stand in them.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the celebrity who moonlights as my Congressional representative, has repeatedly claimed to speak for “ordinary people,” but she refuses listen to them,  even if they are constituents.

In late November, shortly after the US-backed military coup that unseated the legitimate president of Bolivia, I together with my life companion requested a meeting with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, whose local offices are located just a short walk from our Jackson Heights apartment building. Working on behalf of a group of anti-imperialists opposing the fascist junta, we hoped to persuade her of the need to act quickly to thwart the coup and defend the lives and rights of the Bolivian people.

JJ: Maybe we could start with what’s being described as the flashpoint, the Citizenship Amendment Act. CNN International used that quintessential media technique, saying protesters “oppose a new citizenship law that they say discriminates against Muslims.” And the New York Times described the law as “contentious.” What does the CAA seem to do? And what is the context? How does it fit with the project, if you will, of Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

Strange times, strange times. Within days of the leading lights of the American left penning an open letter arguing that the political imperative of removing Donald Trump from office is so great that ‘any blue will do’ Tom Perez, the head of the DNC, was caught stacking Democratic Convention committees with the same centrists and corporatists who rigged the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton. With all due respect, isn’t the unrelenting evidence that the Democrats are constitutionally and institutionally incapable of acting by and for the people the reason that any old blue won’t do?

For the very first time, a state government – in Thuringia – was able to achieve rule with the support of the far, far right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party whose leaders are in a continuous flirt with Nazi phrases, Nazi goals and Nazi methods. Every other party has sworn up and down never ever to have anything to do with AfD! Although there were suspiciously contrary murmurs in some circles of the Christian Democrats (CDU, Merkel’s party), this pledge had been kept.  Until Wednesday, February 5, 2020.