“AMLO, I’ll be watching you”
2018 Julio México
July 2, 2018. Mr. President, I’m writing you these lines seated at my desk with my thumb stained with indelible ink and with mixed feelings....

The moral authority of the families of the 43
2017 Diciembre México
After first believing it would be enough to struggle tenaciously and together to make the 43 students from the teacher training school in Ayotzinapa—their...

Questions from the rubble
2017 Octubre México
What happened to the Teotihuacán pyramids during the earthquake that shook Mexico to the core on September 19? What happened to the Panteón Civil...

Media/Impunity/State/ Democracy/Opacity
2017 Mayo México
Restraint, uncertainty, fear, crisis, death, impunity… The death count of murdered journalists in Mexico is growing. The attacks aren’t even being...

An independent indigenous candidate to mobilize the dispossessed
2017 Febrero México
This year began in Mexico with growing waves of discontent among much of the population with the “gasolinazo”: a huge hike in fuel, electricity...

Peña Nieto’s “imbecility” and the teachers’ ability to keep struggling
2016 Octubre México
The Mexican teachers’ constant and determined struggle, underpinned by their unshakable resistance and convictions, continues in a context in which President...

A history of challenging messages
2016 Mayo México
Insurgent Subcomandantes Marcos and Galeano are the same person yet at the same time are two outstanding personalities in the Zapatista National...

Francis: Pastor... and Head of State
2016 Marzo México
The media and political show set up for Pope Francis’ visit to Mexico has ended. Now, his pointed, provocative, vindicating, inspiring and sometimes...

It’s going to be a long struggle
2016 Febrero México
Mexico’s economic, political and social situation has gone from bad to worse. This year opened with aNew York Times editorial criticizing the...

Elections in a country for sale
2015 Septiembre México
In Mexico’s June 7 midterm elections, President Enrique Peña Nieto gambled on maintaining control of the House of Representatives through his own Institutional...

Critical thought versus the capitalist hydra
2015 Agosto México
Despite increased military and paramilitary activities within the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) area, the Zapatistas began organizing an...

Ayotzinapa on the world map of dignity
2015 Marzo México
After the big demonstrations in Mexico and around the world at the end of January demanding the return of the students from Ayotzinapa, the Mexican government...

The Ayotzinapa movement is transforming the country
2015 Febrero México
The tragedy of the still-missing Ayotzinapa teacher training school students who were forcibly disappeared by government security forces in Iguala, Guerrero,...

Ayotzinapa shakes the country
2014 Diciembre México
The Cocos tectonic plate in the Pacific Ocean south of the state of Guerrero continually pushes against the North American plate with repercussions in...

Ayotzinapa in ourheart
2014 Noviembre México
Today, Sunday October 26, exactly a month into the absence of 43 young people who were disappeared from the Teacher Training School in Ayotzinapa by...

“The ‘haves’ destroy but we, the ‘have nots,’ rebuild”
2014 Octubre México
Mexico’s politicians and economic elites have introduced economic reforms that are intensifying the plundering neoliberal model. The major parties are...

Subcomandante Marcos: Never more… or forever?
2014 Junio México
Death will go away, fooled by an indigenous man whose nom de guerre was Galeano, and those rocks that have been placed on his tomb will once again walk...

Mexican democracy: Between what hasnt yet disappeared and what has yet to come
2014 Mayo México
It seems a cruel paradox that after 20 years of democratic transition in Mexico, fewer people today support that democracy than when the process started....

What do you learn at the Zapatista School?
2014 Abril México
In the middle of last year the Zapatistas invited people to participate in what they called “the Zapatista School.” The quota planned for August—1,500...

The energy reform: A great loss and a betrayal
2014 Enero México
On the last day of 2013, a notice of bereavement appeared in a national newspaper signed by writer Elena Poniatowska, among others. Promoted by playwright...

A resounding NO to the PRI's education reform
2013 Agosto México
Most primary and secondary education teachers in Mexico belong to the National Education Workers’ Union (SNTE), which is the largest union not only in...

Zapatismo is back and its messages are hitting a chord
2013 Junio México
The Zapatistas’ first new communiqués were issued at the end of last year in the Third International Seminar called “Planet Earth, anti-systemic movements,”...

The Zapatistas begin another stage and, as usual, make us think
2013 Marzo México
*See the January 2011 issue of envío for Guatemalan anthropologist Ricardo Falla’s analysis of the Mayan steles that refer to the end of a significant...

The revenge against the #IAm132 Movement
2013 Enero México
At the end of 2012 a book came out on the #IAm132 Movement with 97 testimonies, all of which expressed the hope that Mexico can change. As part of the...

#IAm132: A symbol of outrage and resistance
2012 Octubre México
The propaganda coming out of Mexico’s 2012 presidential campaign presented Enrique Peña Nieto, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate,...

Election residues
2012 Agosto México
On July 1, in the general elections held every six years, Mexico decided the country’s new President and the composition of the federal legislature:...

Indigenous communities under government siege and repression
2012 Mayo México
Famine, death, repression and eviction hang over Mexico’s indigenous communities. Climate change made last year’s drought worse, causing famine in many...

Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to violence-torn Mexico
2012 Abril México
Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Mexico at the end of March can be divided into three phases: the preparatory stage, the visit itself and the post-visit...

The peace movement and the government’s warlike responses
2012 Enero México
At the end of the fifth year of Calderon’s six-year term in office, the situation in Mexico is deplorable. The Economic Commission for Latin America...

Concerns about the wind corridor
2011 Octubre México
The use of renewable energy sources, including wind power, is being advocated to respond to the problem of climate change. German, Japanese, Spanish...

The Comfort Caravan’s achievements
2011 Agosto México
The brother of one of thousands of people disappeared in Mexico said the dead, orphans and widows were infinite. He insisted all were good people, killed...

We’re sick to death!
2011 Junio México
Official figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography indicate that 65% of Mexicans perceive insecurity as being worse or much worse...

The Lost War against Drugs And Other Wars
2011 Abril México
According to the 2010 census, Mexico has 112.3 million inhabitants, making it the world’s eleventh most populated country. The population pyramid narrows...

Vatican vs. Maciel: The Legionaries Won
2011 Enero México
After poring through newspapers from March 2010 to early January 2011, consulting the official Vatican and Legion web pages, following up the writings...

200 Years of Independence, 100 Years of Revolution
2010 Agosto México
Thanks to the Mexican government’s deep-rooted conservatism, it seems unable to cope with Independence and the Revolution that marked Mexican history....

Crime and No Punishment
2010 Julio México
Mexico is in a deplorable state. The country is unraveling. Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz calls the current situation an economic...

Pederast Marcel Maciel and His Partners in Crime
2010 Abril México
The Mexican Marcial Maciel was born in the Michoacan town of Cotija, in 1920. Twenty-one years later he founded the Legion of Christ. Its members call...

Acteal Twelve Years On
2010 Marzo México
After a term and a half of National Action Party (PAN) governments, Mexico is a nation in ruins. According to the National Council for the Evaluation...

Fear in the Time of the Virus
2009 Agosto México
In 2009, the world became aware of a new and worrying strain of influenza first dubbed “swine flu” then changed to human influenza A (H1N1). It was...

The Legion of Christ: A Rotten Fruit
2009 Junio México
During the whole of the Catholic Church’s bi-millennial history, organizations have emerged whose intention is to live more profoundly and spread the...

A State Less and Less Willing to Tolerate Social Protest
2009 Abril México
Repression has been on the rise in every corner of Mexico, particularly due to the criminalization of social protest and the surge in violence and insecurity....

Zapatistas Organize the First Global Festival of Dignified Rage
2009 Enero México
Last September, the Zapatistas announced that they were making preparations to hold the First Global Festival of Dignified Rage. Given the intention...

Mezcala: A Mirror and a Heart
2008 Octubre México
The struggles of a great variety of peoples for their autonomy demonstrate a long-term desire that constantly transforms both the group and the reality...

All Powers Against Zapatista Autonomy
2008 Agosto México
Mexico’s oppressing powers want to stop Zapatista autonomy from surviving and propagating. The illegitimate presidential power of the National Action...

The Struggle for a New Media Law: Who Owns the Airwaves?
2008 Junio México
Pablo González Casanova has said that the government is defending its agenda through the “expropriation of reason, rights and words.” He charges that...

A Thousand and One Demonstrations: For Life, Petroleum and Rights...
2008 Abril México
Mexico is polarized, with overlapping conflicts in every aspect of national life. In late 2007, The New York Times noted that a sizeable proportion...

Warning the World that Zapatismo Is in Danger
2008 Enero México
Signs that the Mexican government is gearing up for war have led the Zapatistas to launch a red alert to the world. Increased activity is reported in...

Partiocracy vs. the Media: An Important Battle
2007 Octubre México
Asked what Aristotle would think of most governments in today’s world, Argentine social scientist Atilio Borón replied that he would certainly not describe...

A Government Trapped in Its Dirty War
2007 Agosto México
Mexico’s economic, political, social and cultural situation is marked by serious injustices. In very broad strokes: half the population enjoys over...

On the Decriminalization of Abortion
2007 Mayo México
I’m a Mexican woman who’s not an activist in any political party. I have an education that’s largely humanistic: an undergraduate degree in law, a master’s...

A Polarized, Pissed-Off Country
2007 Mayo México
The various struggles against neoliberalism have been increasing in recent years in Mexico, choosing one of two major paths. The first is inspired by...

Oaxaca: Unwavering Grassroots Resistance
2007 Febrero México
Recent political events in Mexico recall Hannah Arendt’s classic text,The Origins of Totalitarianism. And although one of the leading founders of the...

An Unyielding Movement Challenges the Fraud
2006 Octubre México
Ignacio Ramonet, the editor-in-chief of Le Monde Diplomatique, concluded that massive fraud had undeniably occurred in Mexico. His assessment...

Elections 2006: “This Isn’t Democracy”
2006 Agosto México
The elections held in Mexico on July 2 laid bare a democratic disaster. With the elections six years ago, people thought the country had entered a new...

The “Other Campaign” Is Forging a Path for New Ideas
2006 Mayo México
The political moment in Mexico could not be more troubling. Security forces repress striking workers, leaving several dead and wounded. The avoidable...

What are the Zapatistas Seeking With Their “Other Campaign”?
2006 Enero México
In January 2006, Mexico’s presidential candidates officially kicked off their campaigns, after spending millions of dollars on their primaries and unofficial...

“The Other Campaign” of “Those at the Bottom”
2005 Noviembre México
In late June 2005, the Zapatistas issued the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Forest, in which they laid out where their movement has come, how they...

The Zapatistas’ New Face: Towards a Social Left
2005 Agosto México
The Mexican anti-neoliberalism movements that focused their efforts on trying to prevent privatization of the electricity and oil industries between...

Andrés Manuel López Obrador: The Year Democracy Lived Dangerously
2005 Junio México
To tarnish the solid popularity consistently polled by Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) presidential aspirant Andrés Manuel López Obrador, currently...

Marcela Lagarde: A Feminist Battles Feminicide
2005 Mayo México
It is groups not individuals that carry out social struggles, and their success depends on the group’s power. Nonetheless, figures arise who imprint...

Disappointed with Electoral Democracy
2005 Febrero México
In July 2000, an electoral convergence finally succeeded in curtailing the monopoly of power held by Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)...

The Colors of Chiapas
2004 Noviembre México
I had closely followed the Zapatistas’ statements, proposals and projects ever since they burst onto the world’s political stage in 1994. Now I was...

Marías Island Penal Colony: A Prison with Walls of Water
2004 Noviembre México
Las Marías Archipelago, off Mexico’s Pacific coast, is home to a singular prison. Nearly 29,000 prisoners have passed through it during its hundred...

The President and the EZLN Issue Their Reports
2004 Octubre México
owards the end of the summer, two reports showed Mexicans two different ways to address the country’s basic problems and two radically different projects...

Caracoles: Happy Birthday to You!
2004 Septiembre México
On January 1, 2004, people in Chiapas as well as other parts of the world celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Zapatista uprising and the twentieth...

Feminicide in Ciudad Juárez: A Multidimensional Challenge
2004 Agosto México
The modern state grew out of a sort of pact in which society, to ensure that its members could live together in peace, conferred upon the state the...

The 1996 Presidential Elections Are Already Tearing the Country Apart
2004 Junio México
The thirteen weeks between the beginning of March and the end of May shook Mexico’s political life to its very core, with the contradictions and conflicts...

Repoliticizing the Election Institute: A Severe Setback for Mexican Democracy
2004 Abril México
Democracies in Latin America are extremely fragile, and Mexico’s democracy is not only fragile but also very sick. Political theorists have described...

Working for a Different World Amid Threats of Repression
2004 Enero México
Halfway through his term in office, President Fox’s approval ratings have plummeted. According to polls conducted by the country’s leading papers,...

Good-Government Committees: A New Stage for the Zapatistas
2003 Noviembre México
Just when everyone thought the Zapatista movement had run out of steam, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) reemerged in July to announce...

Voters Abstain as the Old Regime Regains Force
2003 Agosto México
A lack of proposals, the marketing of empty images and a myriad of conflicts defined the parties’ legislative and gubernatorial election campaigns this...

The Birth of a New Alliance
2003 Junio México
The history of Mexico’s grassroots movements has been characterized by a search for common ground, which has been hard to find and is often short-lived....

Zapatista Chiaroscuro: The Risk of Sectarianism
2003 Abril México
The United States has forced a unilateral, illegal, unjust, genocidal invasion on the world, and countless innocent victims will pay the cost. In response,...

The Zapatistas Break their Silence
2003 Enero México
Ever since the Mexican legislative branch passed an Indigenous Law that failed to honor the San Andrés accords, the Zapatista high command and its spokesperson...

A State Denying Its Roots: Ten Million Indigenous People
2002 Octubre México
When President Fox took office, his government appeared to be interested in resolving the conflict in Chiapas. Within months, it sent Congress a bill...

Atenco: Machetes Challenge Neoliberalism
2002 Agosto México
It has been clear for several years now that Mexico City’s airport can no longer handle air traffic for the city, one of the world’s most populous. And...

Open Files in an Aborted Transition
2002 Junio México
Many cases are still open in Mexico that have yet to be resolved on behalf of the majority of the population. Meanwhile, those in power appear more interested...

The Monterrey "Consensus" in a Sea of Speeches
2002 Abril México
President Vicente Fox’s popularity continues to crumble. He began his term with a 70% approval rating, but this figure had fallen to 47% after 14 months...

The Only Thing That’s Changed Is the Party in Power
2002 Enero México
The first year of Fox’s government has been disappointing, to say the least. The course of events has demonstrated that although the presidential office...

How Wide Will the War on Terrorism Cast its Net?
2001 Octubre México
While the world massively repudiated the barbaric terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, a desire for revenge followed shock and pain among the...

The Puebla-Panama Plan and the Indigenous Law: Cut from the Same Cloth
2001 Agosto México
Mexico is bumbling forward without a clear course. As internal divisions and wounds deepen, President Vicente Fox appears less concerned about reality...

Peace in Chiapas: The Curse of Sisyphus?
2001 Junio México
Sisyphus was condemned to push a huge boulder to the top of a hill. When, after enormous effort, he was finally on the verge of completing his task,...

The Indigenous Law: A Mocking Step Backwards
2001 Mayo México
At the end of April, the Mexican Senate and House of Representatives passed a law on indigenous rights and culture. Around the world, people sympathizing...

The Zapatista Triumph: the Strength of Weakness
2001 Abril México
When the leadership of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) left its confinement in the mountains of southeast Mexico, a new political scenario...

Two Sketches of the Zapatista March
2001 Abril México
The Zapatistas reached Milpa Alta in the hills surrounding Mexico City on March 8, under a full moon. They came from Anenecuilco, the land where Emiliano...

Espinosa Villareal: The Tip of an Iceberg
2001 Enero México
The Mexican media have helped us learn something about the career of Oscar Espinosa Villareal, a high- ranking official in the regime of Mexico’s Institutional...

Fox and the Zapatistas: Clearing the Path to Peace
2001 Enero México
Between his victory in Mexico’s July 2000 elections and his inauguration on December 1, President-elect Vicente Fox was wont to define his incoming administration...

Fox’s First Moves in a Tough Transition
2000 Octubre México
Since July 2, a feeling has been growing among the Mexican people that democracy is finally here. In June 1999, according to a survey carried out by...

Beginning of the End for the PRI? Will Fox Deliver?
2000 Agosto México
On July 2, 2000, the first step was taken towards dismantling one the longest-ruling state parties in world history. The Institutional Revolutionary...

On the Eve of the Elections: A Vote of Fear or a Vote for Change?
2000 Junio México
In these last weeks leading up to the July 2 presidential and congressional elections, the situation in Mexico has become very dangerous. The population...

The PRI’s Agenda: Manipulation, Corruption and Violence
2000 Abril México
Speaking in Paris in mid-March, the governor of Mexico City, Rosario Rosales, said that the upcoming elections, the university conflict and the situation...

University Resists Neoliberal Violence
2000 Enero México
The civic rebellion against the World Trade Organization in Seattle at the end of 1999 and the civic uprising of the indigenous people of Ecuador in...

A Natural Disaster Reveals a Social One
1999 Noviembre México
The equivalent of a whole year's worth of rain fell in only three days on some areas during the first week of October. But that was only the beginning....

Alliances, Students And Chiapas: All Talks Aborted
1999 Octubre México
During the summer of 1999, Mexicans bore witness to the similar fates of three proposed talks that never came about, as the country's pressing need for...

Government’s Armor, People’s Awakening
1999 Agosto México
Several important and interconnected processes took place in Mexico in June and July. First, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) continued...

Society and Parties on Diverging Paths
1999 Junio México
May 1999 made it patently clear that Mexico's political parties and a large part of Mexican society have very different agendas. While the parties are...

The Student Struggle Bursts onto the Stage
1999 Mayo México
The vigorous student movement of Spring 1999 is one example among many of the new social movements that are developing in a country trying to adapt to...

Zapatista Consultation of Universal Value
1999 Abril México
March 21, 1999 will be inscribed in Mexican history as the date the Zapatistas consulted Mexican society. It is worth setting the immediate context of...

The Pope, Poverty and Chiapas
1999 Enero México
The main motive of Pope John Paul II's trip to Mexico in January 1999 was to present the conclusions of the Synod of the Americas, held in Rome at the...

The Hurricanes of a Model in Crisis
1998 Diciembre México
Zedillo's solicitousness, people's solidarity Governments around the world sent aid to the disaster victims in Central America. Mexico's President...

FOBAPROA: Another State Party Crime
1998 Octubre México
Paraphrasing President Clinton's confession in the Lewinsky case, US professor George Grayson described the Mexican Bank Fund to Protect Savings (FOBAPROA)...

Fighting Poverty With Democracy
1998 Septiembre México
The new stage of capitalism has increased poverty by geometric proportions. They tell us it is the result of a natural process. We know it is the consequence...

After Our Silence
1998 Agosto México
Brothers and Sisters: We are clear that our rightful and undeniable place in the great Mexican Nation is only one part of the struggle for democracy,...

Masks, Silences and Winds from Below
1998 Agosto México
"It is necessary to demand of the public man, especially the politician, that he possess public virtues, all of which can be summed up in one: loyalty...

A War Between Indigenous Memory and Government Amnesia
1998 Abril México
Ever since the uprising of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) on January 1, 1994, Mexican society has turned its eyes to "deep Mexico." The...

Blood in Chiapas, Economic Recovery And the Asian Crisis
1998 Febrero México
The indigenous massacre by the Red Mask group in the Acteal municipality of Chenalho, Chiapas on December 22, 1997, leaving 45 Tzotziles dead and 25...

Church-State: Reviewing the History
1998 Enero México
It is no coincidence that the most authoritarian Vatican representative in Mexico's history, Girolamo Prigione, collaborated so closely with one of Mexico's...

Baby Steps Towards Democracy
1997 Octubre México
Krauze called it a "foundational performance" some minutes after it concluded. Others termed it "the country's novelty." And though they sound a little...

Elections: One Step Forward and Many Unknowns
1997 Septiembre México
Elections were held on July 6 for the entire federal House of Representatives and 32 of the 126 Senate seats, together with local elections in the Federal...

End of Century, End of a Regime
1997 Julio México
The political system forged after the Mexican revolution by those who assumed power is coming to an end. This system, which we can call the Institutional...

Zedillo Government: Human Rights in Crisis
1997 Febrero México
With the first third of Ernesto Zedillo's administration now over, a balance sheet can be drawn up from a specifically human rights perspective. This...

What's Behind the EPR Guerrillas?
1996 Octubre México
Mexico's social crisis is quickly catching up with its economic and political ones. The rock bottom issues the country is facing today require rigorous...

It's a Frontal War
1996 Agosto México
A new guerrilla group calling itself the Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR) appeared in Guerrero at the beginning of July. Its stereotypical populist...

An Authoritarian Answer
1996 Junio México
On the 110th anniversary of Chicago's heroic labor martyrs, International Workers' Day, hundreds of thousands of workers marched through the streets...

Tabasco: Dignity and Petroleum
1996 Mayo México
"Guitars, cry guitars..." sang all of Mexico at the end of March. The death of singer Lola Beltrán on March 24 saddened everyone. Since 1954, after...

The Zapatatistas' Voice Is Still Being Heard
1996 Abril México
"Today, with the heart of Emiliano Zapata and having heard the voices of all our brothers, we call on the people of Mexico to join in a new stage of...

1995's Successes Are Failures
1996 Enero México
The continuing rumbles of the Mexican economy are having repercussions in a number of spheres. They are sparking both rumors and declarations among...

Dialogue Amid Storms and Tremors
1995 Diciembre México
Land, air and water hit Mexico hard during October. No less important were the tremors and hurricanes of a political nature, while economic insecurity...

New Army Will Make Millions of Enemies
1995 Noviembre México
Indications of a political hardening and authoritarianism in the government appeared increasingly clearly throughout September. Repression and the danger...

Alarming Signs of a Dirty War
1995 Octubre México
Incidents that took place throughout August in Mexico suggest, even in a preliminary analysis, the questionable way authorities operate to contain political...

The Four Flanks Of The Crisis
1995 Junio México
Mexico's overall crisis is bearing down from four flanks: 1) the economic crisis; 2) Chiapas and its national significance; 3) internal divisions within...

The Cycles of Crisis Are Narrowing
1995 Mayo México
Asked who will win in Mexico today, writer Carlos Fuentes implored, "Let us hope it will not be the cruel and mysterious Mother, the unfathomable Goddess...

Mexico: A Crisis in Confidence
1995 Abril México
Nobody can deny that Mexico is in crisis. The question is, what kind of crisis? Some well known PRI government officials hold that the country is in...

The Downfall of the Neoliberal Fantasy
1995 Febrero México
Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's farewell speech to Congress on November 1, 1994, was a marathon of self eulogies, void of self criticism....

Three Chllenges of a Cadaveer
1994 Noviembre México
The shouts of protest and pain that Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos wrote before her death more than 20 years ago could well have been written yesterday: On...

Chiapas: The Interminable War for Peace
1994 Octubre México
What has been happening in Chiapas? What has been happening is...a war. Some call it "the war of the flea." Others, an armed subversion run by professionals...

Vote of Fear or Fear to Vote?
1994 Octubre México
The August 21 elections could have been an important step in Mexico's transition to democracy, but they were not. Given the nation's immensely delicate...

At the Edge of War?
1994 Agosto México
As the end of the century that gave birth to Mexico's revolution approaches, the country is being shaken by a political conflict that threatens to become...

The Goverment Turns on the Church of the Poor
1994 Junio México
On April 8, the Mexico City daily newspaper Summa declared with much fanfare that Subcomandante Marcos, of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation...

Chiapas and the Crisis of Mexican "Democracy"
1994 Mayo México
On the night of July 6, 1988, then candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari, concerned about the unanticpated electoral catastrophe his party was facing...

Insurrection in Chiapas... Revolution in Mexico?
1994 Abril México
On New Year's Day 1994, a virtually forgotten state in Mexico rose up in arms, led by a guerrilla force that at first seemed to be spearheading an irrational...

NAFTA: More than just Free Trade
1994 Enero México
Discussions about NAFTA tend to atomize its complex and multiple variables. If these discussions simply obeyed epistemological vices or academic deficiencies,...