Welcome back to another episode of the non-profit show. Again, today's guest is Ann McCauley-Lopez, SEO content writer with agency content writer.  So we're gonna dive deep. I love those muscles. Look at you. Working on. Well, we wish Julia the best. She's taking a much deserved time off so far this week. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, your non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And as you can tell from my name, I'm super nerdy and I like to nerd out. So I'm really excited Ann to have you here to talk about this with us.  So thank you so very much to these companies. So thank you to Bloomerang American Non-profit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, Be Generous, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Non-profit Thought Leader and the Non-profit Nerd. These companies are with us day in, day out, but they have one mission. And that mission is your mission because they really wanna help you elevate and celebrate what you do in and around your community. So do yourself a favor, do us a favor and check these companies out because they're here to support you. And we are coming up on our 700 episode. I know I've said that before, but we really are marching close. Right around Christmas Day is going to be our 700th episode. And Ann, you've been with us quite a few times and so grateful. You can find all of Ann's previous episodes as well as all of our other episodes on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo as well as podcasts.  That was a lot to cover, but I'm so glad that we did. Look at that face, look at that position right on queue and Macaulay Lopez again with agency content writer. So glad to have you back. Thank you so much. I love talking to you. I miss Julia. Please send her my regards.  It's just wonderful. There's a lot going on. And for those of you that are joining us, and maybe this is your first time, your first entree into Ann, she comes on as a non-profit thought leader and you're gonna see more of her as well into the new year. So we're really excited for that. But check her out on LinkedIn, very active there. And then as well as her website, agencycontentwriter.com. And again, today's topic, we're gonna talk about blogging like a pro. You've got some great tips for us as we wrap up this year and move into next year. So kick us off. We have blog pro tip number one, and it is don't put good content on a bad website. Now, tell us more about this. First I wanna say your websites are not bad. What I mean is we wanna have it, the best performance it can be. And I come on and I talk about Google and SEO search engine optimization. So what I really mean is make sure you're getting, doing the maintenance on the backend of your website. That really, really helps to have the right speed that Google likes to see. Is it mobile accessible? And are photos and pages tagged the way they could be with key words so that Google can find us and find certain pages. That's what I mean by a bad website. It can look beautiful on the front. It can be built by whoever yourself or somebody else, but if it doesn't have that maintenance program to keep things up in the back, it's kind of like not putting oil in your car. It's just not gonna run the way it can, or that's possible. So that's what that's about. I actually have a website partner and I was working with her for a while and selling the maintenance plan. Like we were building websites together, she builds the website, I provide the content and I kept selling this maintenance program to clients saying, listen, just do the website and do this maintenance plan. Finally, I called her up one day and I was like, I think I should do this maintenance plan. I was wondering when you were gonna call me and buy it yourself and I'll tell you what, having that maintenance plan really speeds up the website because every single month there are eyes on that site making sure that it's working the way it can, that everything is updated. I used to do all of that myself and I'm sure you can relate, Jared.  It's one more thing on that to-do list. If you can just spend a little money and have them do that. The other thing that I absolutely love that which is why it's really an easy sell for me is she includes a couple of hours of content that they can add or change on a website. So I use it myself. All I have to do is write, I send it over to my contact person, my account manager, say, hey, can you make a page for this or a page for that or switch this up? And they do it and it's all included. For nonprofits also, I think sometimes we've got a campaign, right? Like it's giving Tuesday, maybe we want a page for giving Tuesday next year where we want to kick off the new year or we want to say, hey, nonprofit, New Year's in August or July after your fiscal year starts, something like that. That content can also be a page like that as you go along in your marketing plan. It can also, those hours right now do roll over. So you could save it for a bigger project and say, you know what? We really know we want to change up this offering or add a program. And those hours can be used for that. So it's really amazing. It's not just updating the backend and just kind of watching it for you. Just what I found a lot of maintenance programs were. And that's why I never had one. I just did mine myself. But when she said, oh, we can add content and you can talk to your account manager. Well, that kind of changes the game a lot for a lot of us. So it really is a good website. Get more visits, better, you know, the improved traffic and it looks pretty and it has everything you want. You can stop making that wish list on the wall, things you'd love on your website. We can just do it. We can just do it. And I love that you mentioned that because, you know, perhaps a website should not stay stagnant. It needs to have some updating. And I know I've learned that a lot from you and full transparency and has been doing my own articles for me for the Raven Group, the nonprofit nerd. And what you provide is so fantastic and it keeps it fresh. It keeps it alive. And it just, you know, it keeps populating, as you said, like that SEO. So that was tip number one. We're gonna move into tip number two. Blog pro tip two is to identify topics. So dive deep there. What are we looking for when it comes to these topics and the identification? So topics, when it comes to nonprofits, we talk about what do you want people to know about your organization? Right off the top, right? What are the things we're talking to people about or speaking to the media about or your PR team or your content writer or your marketing director? What do we want people to know? What are the campaigns or programs that we're working on that we want to share? And that's really where we start with a strategy for creating content. Each time, and I know I've said this here before, each time we add a page to the blog, it's actually adding a page to your website. So it's great. So whether we're adding a page or adding a blog post, it's a new link. And Google loves when we add pages. So we don't necessarily have to change up like the homepage all the time to get that change on your website. We can blog and add content that way. So it's what like that, when we call it low hanging fruit is what are we always talking to people about? Was that email you're always sending? What's the tag at the bottom of your newsletter? What are, who have the donations help? Let's tell a story about that or which program have they helped? And let's get some content out there so that not only Google notices but really more importantly donors and your board can share it and your teams can all share it out and the community can get to know your organization whether you're local or national is really, it's really about telling stories. So we, I talk a lot, and I was thinking about this this morning, I talk a lot about search engine optimization and keywords which are important and we can roll them in. But what I love is Google's moving more toward relevant content as long as we kind of, I call it staying your lane on your website. You know, back in the day I used to have a website and I blog about different topics, not just business but we've kind of, you and I have grown up online, right? You know, with our businesses and so we know we've got to kind of stay in our lane with the content that it's business related, nonprofit related, minus content related so that Google notices us but it's really at the heart of it we know that in the nonprofit world especially but also in the for-profit world, it really makes sense to tell stories like we want those donors and volunteers but what are, what's the difference we're making in the community and for the lives of the people that we serve? Curveball question, Ann, do you recommend inserting or utilizing video in your blog? So not telling the entire blog narrative but like a snippet or a clip, do you recommend that? That's a great question. Yes, of course. What I like to say is Google doesn't yet and I think it's gonna come in the next couple of years but yet it doesn't watch your video like you couldn't make a video of all your keywords and it makes sense, right? Like it's not there yet but with AI, I have a feeling it will be soon. Gaspers working on that right now, I'm sure. I'm sure of it but for now, we, yes what I've done on my website, agency content writer for example, is I've added the video and then I add content about the video. So especially on these appearances, I offer three tips. I read a little about the tips and say, hey, watch the video for more. If you've got a podcast, we can take that podcast transcript and kind of do an overview a little bit longer than show notes but not, no, not the whole script. Nobody's gonna read that. Like we're just not, we're all on our phones and our tablets, right? Yes, that's a great idea. Especially if you're appearing, you know on the news and the media on podcasts to talk about your nonprofit, it makes, it absolutely makes sense to do that and then combine it with the written content because Google reads the written content not the videos yet. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, not yet, but that probably will happen. Fantastic. I think it lends credibility, right? Like your guests on somebody else's show or in the news, people want. People would want to see that, right? Yeah, yeah, I think so. And it helps to build rapport and trust, right? You get to know the person. So moving from those topics, identification of the topics into creating a content calendar. And that is blog pro tip number three. Again, that's create a content calendar. Tell us about that. I am working on my content calendar as we speak. So I threw this in here and said I really want to talk about this because it makes it a reality for me too. I don't want to talk about it and I do it myself, right? Creating a content calendar. So what we do is we think of some pillars that we want to talk about, some topics that we want. So say we say three topics and we flesh out some ideas that we want to write. When it comes to blogging, I always say write about one topic and say three to five things. I hate using the word things, but three to five things about that one topic and then create another blog post. We don't want to talk about all the things necessarily. There are times when we do, but really for most blogging, that's what we want to do. So that really helps us stick to, okay, the theme this month is this, the theme is this. And we know there are certain times in the nonprofit world giving Tuesday or beginning of the fiscal year or Christmas giving or what is in April, there's one in Phoenix, Phoenix Gives, Arizona Gives. Arizona Gives day and in different states and cities have those events. So put those on your calendar. That's that low hanging fruit. And then we can fill it in. I remember Julia, we had, I was on probably this time last year and she said, but Anne, I don't want to fill up the whole calendar. Can I leave room? And I was like, oh my gosh, yes. I didn't even think to say that. So thank you, Julia. Where we leave some space because maybe we do have that media hit or we have that great event or we add an event or we get a big donation or whatever happens during the year. We want to announce it. We want to tell people about it. Absolutely leave room in that schedule for that. But creating it, I feel like gives us a guide and honestly relieves the stress of what are we going to write about? Oh my gosh, it's this day or we want to promote this. Well, you've got to have it ahead a little bit ahead of time. My goal for me this year is to be like a month ahead on my content. I like that, yeah. Not too far. You could do quarterly if you like 90 days if you've got a marketing team or a couple of folks working on your marketing, you could do 90 day sprints. That's my favorite. Started a month ahead and we do 90 days. And the calendar, maybe it's 90 days. So we work through March and we know in February we're going to sit down and we're going to say, okay, what's coming in the next quarter? We don't necessarily have to do it all at once but it relieves my stress even just to talk about it and think about it for myself. Because there are Jared and I before the show we're talking about how many things are on your to-do list and what can you either do ahead of time or outsource and this is one that you could definitely do ahead of time. Yeah, and what we did together again sharing transparently that I have used Anne in her services and fantastic because I certainly don't do all of this by myself. I have a team of amazing rock star supporters is we mapped out a year in advance and it was very playful. It was very flexible to say, okay, here's some things that we would like to plug in in certain quarters or in certain months. And then if something comes up, it comes up to Julia's point of do we leave any blank space? And the answer, absolutely. I think now is a great time to do your content calendar. Additionally, looking at the year once you create your calendar, you also then guess what? Rinse and repeat it for next year. What worked, what didn't work, what should fall off, where should we really lean in because we had such great success. So this content calendar, I just, I love this and I do this a lot with myself, my own clients. So that is such a great tip for number three, moving into number four and you have here for blog pro tip, number four, make it a team effort. Now, what does that mean? Some of us don't really have a team, right? Yeah, I know.  You've got different folks that help you. Maybe they're contractors in certain cases, but definitely it can be a team effort. When I wrote this one, I was really thinking about an organization that I had worked with and they had a marketing team and they had someone, they had one or two people actually who liked to write, but they were more press release kind of writers. So I would come in and write the stories for them and whichever way, you know, like whichever way that works. But if you've got folks on your team that likes to write, likes to tell stories or can even just kind of put, I call it a brain dump email and send it over to the writer, then at least we've got, as the writers, we have something to work with and we're not like, oh, what are we doing? You know, like, I don't know what we're doing. So as the people you work with, you could go to your board, but really I was thinking if you have somebody on your team, you know, we kind of pigeonhole people or silo them, they like to write, let them write, let them tell the story about the event they went to, we're bullet point in the events and then we create something longer, but utilize those folks, maybe when creating your content calendar too, what are the ideas that they have so that we can create the best story about your organization? It may be, I mean, sometimes I talk to people, you know, we had an initial conversation, right? Before we started this year of content and I was like, oh, I've got so many ideas from the conversation and this always happens to people. And you said it too, you were like, what happened? Like, how do you, how'd you hear all that? And I'm like, because I'm taking, we all say that I'll record myself and listen to you because you have so many ideas. So really utilize your people and ask them, you know, what, ask the receptionists or your admin, what do people call and ask? Let's write about that. And maybe it's something simple. Maybe we need to add directions to our office on the email. Like, I don't know. But when we're looking at website content, maybe did you put the directions in the footer next to the address? We're looking at the building back here because it's a little hard to find or something. But things that other people might know that you working as you and your position may not hear, they might have stories to tell. So really, I always encourage communication. I love that, that lands so solid with me. And because there's so many different viewpoints and perspectives from the nonprofit agency lens. And so, you know, what we see maybe in fundraising development is a little different than the program staff is a little different than accounting is a little different, you know, from a little, from all the different angles. And I think that is such a fantastic, you know, way to engage and create community within your own agency. Fantastic pro tip there. I love that is making a team effort because you're right. So so many times like we can only see what we can see, but when we open that peripheral and we invite others in to share, we learn and we grow so much from that. So I think it's not just blogging, right? I mean, we all wear different hats. You all, if the accounting team can tell you that you've got those monthly donations and they increased in 2022, well, in 2023, we want to promote that. That would be fantastic. I absolutely love that. So we're talking about that. I have so many good ideas already. I'm glad we're recording this because we can always go back and listen to it. Moving to blog pro tip number two, you have outsourced the writing and the editing. Tell us why. Oh, come on, I have to throw a bone in. Because I love telling stories, but we also want to be strategic sometimes and use search, you know, keywords, search engine optimization, SEO. I always say SEO and people say, you can't just say the letters. Because in my world, when I talk to marketing people, oh, yeah, SEO, blah, blah, blah. So search engine optimization. And that's where we use the keywords and we marry them nicely with the topics that we want to talk about. And sometimes it even works in the stories we're telling. We can still optimize those with keywords. We don't always have to optimize all the keywords, which is why I said, utilize your team. Maybe they're writing a story and it's just a really good story. Let's leave it as a story. We can keyword it up somewhere else. But hiring a writer and an editor. So I say editor because sometimes I have clients who will just do a brain dump and it'll be the longest paragraph ever. And they'll say, just make it pretty. I had a client who would say that. She'd say, make it pretty. I'd get these emails in the middle of the night, make it pretty. And I knew exactly what she meant. She meant make it sound good and edit it because this is a hot mess, it's three o'clock in the morning. So that's what I mean. And it's not magic. Yeah, work your magic, work your magic. Here's what I have, work your magic. Because my focus is writing. Yours is fundraising and working with nonprofit leaders or working with your boards and all of that. And so, yes, there's great ideas or somebody on your team reads an article and you're like, oh yeah, we really wanna write on this topic. Well, you don't have time necessarily, but I can help with that or another writer can help with that. If it's strictly editing, I have folks that are strictly editors that I work with and honestly, they edit and I don't even know they've edited my work. I know it's better and it's richer, but I'm like, oh, I'm good, but that's great. Yeah. They just have this amazing talent. I'm like, this must be folks who work with me. It's probably the same kind of thing or when I work with you and I go, oh, that's not that. Oh, oh, that's a great idea, right? Like we all kind of, everybody has their magic that they have. So. So I have a curve ball question in here. So for our viewers and our listeners that are saying, why would we outsource our writing and our editing when the writer or the editor doesn't know our mission? Like doesn't live it, doesn't work it, doesn't breathe it. Like talk to us about that because I can only imagine and I like to bring the elephant in the room. Like let's talk about the elephant in the room. Like how do we overcome that obstacle? Cause I guarantee you right now people are saying no way. There's no way a writer can write for us better than us writing for ourselves. So would you address that? Sure, sure. It's a great question because I think in some cases it probably is better to have somebody on staff or on a contract basis and have them living, breathing in the building or on your team calls in zooms or whatever. It does make sense. In other cases, for example, I tend to work with new or growing non-profits. So the smaller piece where they're developing their boards and learning about their boards, they have a mission and a vision and they're like, I need somebody who can help put the website together and do ongoing content as we grow. So I'm really enmeshed in that beginning piece of their nonprofit and that works really well. For bigger organizations, it probably would make sense to maybe do some consulting with a writer and find out those SEO best practices. I've got a sheet, what every blog post needs and it's just the basics because there's certain things about formatting or how many times you use a keyword and things like that. That's also why in that slide I put editing because it can be that they write it and then I could come in and edit for that SEO formatting and keywords. So that could work as well because then it's literally your words. We can interview folks, but I think, yeah, especially for the larger organizations, it's probably a good idea to have, probably have a staff person, like a dedicated marketing writer, but if not, write it up, send it over and we can figure out where we need to go next. I like that answer a lot. And then again, for me, I feel like I'm talking a lot about how we've worked together, but it's very complimentary to this conversation is you have written so many of the articles for me and I compliment those on an organic basis. When something comes up and I'm like, okay, I'm activated right now and I really wanna address this. I wanna post this article. It doesn't mean that I can't or that I have to wait for you to write it. I can add to my inventory list by adding to that. And so for an agency, the same thing a nonprofit organization could engage with you and have someone create this calendar, execute on that. And then when there's something additional that comes up, your team, your internal staff, your board, your volunteers could add to that.  As you said earlier in pro tip number four, it is a team effort. So utilize that team. It is. And I think too, like we could interview, but to your point about video, why not do the interview on video and then we can write about it later too. I mean, there's just so many ways that we can utilize content and utilize it in different ways. So I'm like, okay, let's kind of figure out what's the best path. And if we have that calendar, then we can go in and say, okay, kind of who's doing this and maybe this is a video opportunity. And then we send the video over the transcript over to a writer to get that added search engine optimization. We want the Google love, but that's really not what it's about and I totally get that. But there's definitely opportunities. You know, there's so much opportunities. Talk to us about the blog that you have, recommended blog. For those of you watching, we have a fantastic, very jovial photo of Anne who's smiling ear to ear and it shows a screenshot of her website. So tell us about your blog, Anne. Well, my blog is, it's SEO content tips. Some of the content is, I've blogged about it and I talk about it here, but other times there's one called the SEO, three steps to SEO for SEO success. And those three steps are actually came out of conversations with you and with Julia. I was like, wait a minute, what am I talking about? I'm like, it's really three easy steps. It's that technical SEO that we talked about. It's finding those keywords and topics that we've talked about here today. We really did a great roundup today, Jared. I have to give us a round of applause. As we should, absolutely. This is great. And then it's also, you know, who are we speaking to and how do we do it ongoing? And how do we make it, maybe we do it a team effort or do we hire it out and those sorts of things? But that's really what it is. And it took me a long time to come to that and really sitting here talking to you and Julia going, oh yeah, this really is not that hard, but it is time and it is focus and that's not necessarily, that's not, that's my focus of my business, not yours. So there are, there's great tips. You'll see I've got some of the videos from appearing on here and one of my things to do in December on my time off from clients is to go in and write those, write those words because Google doesn't read video yet. Unfortunately, they will someday. That is so great. So yeah, so check out agency content writer.com very, very great website that you're gonna wanna check out. And then we have, tell us about this. This is, this is something new, but we don't get to ring the bell. My CML story by Ann Macaulay Lopez. We don't have much time, but I definitely wanna get this in before we wrap out today, wrap up today's episode. So you wrote a book. I did, I wrote a book. We don't get to ring the bell. I have a CML, chronic myeloid leukemia. So at this point it's in remission and I treat it as a chronic illness. Basically I still take a chemo pill every day and there are some side effects that we manage and manage pretty well. There was a lot of fatigue and brain fog until last year, this year, 2022 was really a rebuilding year for me. I hired coaches, the book was released last December, so it's just about a year. And it's the story not only of my personal journey, but also of questions to ask when you go to your doctor, how do you find the right doctor? And we don't get to ring the bell is that we take a chemo pill. We don't go to a traditional radiation or chemotherapy where when you're done with your treatment, your span of treatment, you get to ring a bell to say, okay, I'm done. We don't get to do that because we're just on this. So my patients are like, wow, the other patients who've read the book are like, wow, just the title alone really hits hard because that's us. We're different, we're different. But if it weren't for this magic little pill, I would not be here. And it was just approved by the FDA in like 1999 or 2000, a while ago, 20 years ago. So yeah, so I've been living with this for six years. And I said, you know what, I'm going to write a book. Now I am at some point going to do a little version two because the meds are really expensive and the medication that I'm specifically on is available generically. And it's available through Mark Cuban, you know, the billionaire on Shark Tank. Yes. Mark Cuban's Cosplus Pharmacy. And I just want to give it a little plug because instead of spending $250, $500 or some patients spend $4,000 a month for their life-saving medication, he has the one that I'm on a Matanib is available. And I think I pay $40 a month. No insurance, you just send the prescription, the doctor sends it over there. And I say Mark sends it to me, doesn't sound really him. And they add prescription, they add different meds all the time, it's all generic. So not all of them for CML are available or for all, you know, conditions, but that is one of them and that's huge. So I do want to include that. I literally finished the book, handed it to my editor in October. And I think at the end of that month, they released this pharmacy. And I was like, really Mark, really? So I'd like to include that because that's really important. We've talked about, you know, accessibility and affordability and that's... Yeah, well, thank you for sharing so openly, authentically that, you know, lands solid as well.  I feel so grateful because I've known you for quite some time. We go back to some spring training games together here in Phoenix. And we've had some good times together, but just so inspired by you. So thank you for sharing this book. I know that that will land, you know, for so many others. So again, please do yourself a favor. Do us a favor and Anna favor. Go to her website, agencycontentwriter.com. She's also very active on LinkedIn. I like to give that plug for those of you who are also active on LinkedIn and other social media channels. SEO content writer with agency content writer, just so much fabulous information. We're just so lucky to have you here in our community and our sector supporting so many nonprofits and what you do personally and professionally. So Ann, thank you so very much. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure and I'll see you again next year. Yes, you will. You will see both Julia and myself next year as we move into 2023. But today's topics on blogging like a pro in 2023 will support you in those efforts.  Thank you to our dear friends at Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University. Be generous, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leader, and the nonprofit nerd. Now is a great time to check out these companies because you listen to all the good things that Ann had to share. And again, you can find these recordings on many of our platforms. So make sure that you check that out as well. And just so grateful to have each and every one of you here. We've gone over our time, but it was much deserved and much needed. And as we end every episode, and we mean this for our guests, our viewers, our listeners, and ourself, we invite you to stay well so you can do well. Thanks Ann, and we'll see everyone back here tomorrow.


What's going on everyone Sam here late in sports cards. We are doing 2022 elements Gold standard and certified six box NFL mixer number three random team style Here's a look again at your random results as always you can find these on the website under the results tab as well as the Lincoln chat Bro, someone needs to come get their box honestly. I'm blocking it for me, too Just keep it like if they just keep making new accounts and stuff Well, it is persisting you got to give it back We've got Jalen Hertz to 199 Eagles and neon Tyree kill two out of ten nice one there dolphins That is it's got Miami on the combo Kurt 16 out of 25 Jameson Williams Aidan Hutchinson and TJ Hawkinson on the triple patch Yeah, I remember that Paul my lord that guy was a loser We've got 21 out of 75 Trayvon Walker on kind of the color match there. That's sick, dude So you've been like an Eagles fan big Eagles fan your whole life since like You're gonna love this next one You know who it is That's a thing I can't tell from the We've got going to the Eagles. How about Brent Selick? Oh, yeah, I know legend man 70 out of 79 He was the Dallas Goddard. Yes. He was all reliable for sure. Oh, yeah Nice Brent Selick Congrats Eagles Derek you Yeah, the basketball and football mixer is absolutely crazy. He said the best thing he ever did was never played for noisy true Dude that Jean Simmons guy is so weird That guy that guy's got some some internal issues. I think man that guy's strange There's this guy tapping me like three times now his name is like Jean Simmons like Workout club or something and he'll just like come into chat at like 130 a.m.  Come on. Leave me alone. I hope no shot is Jean Simmons got better things to do Christian McCaffrey a mercy him 29 out of 95 Panthers nice one here for the Jags 28 out of 54 Zenon Trayvon Walker You scared me there Announce yourself 14 out of 25 we've got cordial Patterson Desmond Ritter and Drake London Well, it's next one's gonna be sick. There you go, Atlanta Atlanta is mark see mark see again 14 out of 25 Dude, that's sick rookie neon signs is Drake London nice RPA You can probably make this one right here And then we've got Cedric Wilson 177 out of 199 Who's the worst one Joshua? Going to the Cowboys nice one there. I Remember hearing about that. Yeah, Brad told me about that. I'm pretty sure that that's weird man.  Oh my god Had me on the back.    Yeah, at least as this is gigantic Gigantic Mom get the camera Aiden Hutchinson 105 out of 399 for the Lions Just take a look at the player and you'll see why that is Eric as you con ma 53 out of 199 Dude, I'm about to make this guy's leg week right here. He's in chat right now. Oh my god, dude My god, Paul Paul literally called his shot One of one Bailey Zappi NFL Paul congrats, buddy Paul goes running through the streets Paul Congratulations, that's insane dude. That is Unbelievable dude, you can literally see my hand shaking. I Gotta get that into a mag really quick.  I Saw the shield that I saw it was the Patriots and I'm like this is That I mean outside of the picket and Willis that's probably the biggest car in the product right there Oh, yeah, probably I would say that's like and that's a top three product hit right there Watch just asked if I was okay Well, that's awesome, dude, oh My god That's unbelievable Oh my lord, I Mean nothing else is a beat that right now.  Yeah, right now. He said Zappi's out selling Willis see that's probably the second biggest card in the product right there Right, exactly So we just say what you want and we deliver That is Tyler Goodson 73 out of 99 Packers Shae J. What 29 out of 30 going to the Cardinals Dude, look at like Hunter Renfro 203 out of 399 for the Raiders Dallas Goddard four out of 25 white gold Is Don's boy right there. Yeah more on that too. Nice. Oh cool. There you go, Derek We've got Jameson Williams 199 out of 399 Yeah, Paul go grab insurance for sure on the site Oh my god here I can I can see if I can drop it No, no, no different Paul 34 out of 99 Bobby Bell for the chiefs nice one there. There you go, Paul There's the insurance link for you, buddy That's about to be like why is he insured? And we've got Romeo doves 96 out of 149 for the Packers Need to keep it there for a couple days in a mag just so force can't see it. Oh Man, dude, oh My god, that's it. That's oh my god. That's so insane You missed a very very very big card Blake very big card Isaiah Spiller on a random team two boxer. That was a Jamar Chase Gold team Gold standard Khalil Shakir going to the bills 29 out of 50 The county pick it is on one of one for 14 grand right now Of course, that's our best offer right Such a nasty hit Matt Corral That is 70 out of 299. I feel like that would be almost like a Lifetime goal ahead of one-on-one shield. It's like a personal. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah, like that'd be amazing That's James and Williams 99. Yeah, no nobody's gonna buy it for that much But I mean it's listed you imagine the offers are pretty big right 143 out of 149 That is sky more going to the chiefs 61 out of 99 Traylon Burks Greg dual dual chitch to 199 Deandre Hopkins base that is Cameron Jordan gold team Matt Ryan more like old team Matt Ryan ha Got him every time full of gold team Sameer white that is 59 out of 149. Oh, bro. Come on man. No, they're one and base. Thank you They're like, oh, yeah, like all the people are watching what I just might just have to click on that Jerry Judy Blake's gonna come in. Oh, that was Fadarian Mathis the 399.  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, but knew that Paul had new money for sure absolutely But was all over that one All over that one Terry McLaren nice 11 out of 15 commanders. There you go, William. Congrats, man. Nice TMC scary Terry Red to 99 is Aaron Rogers Garrett Wilson jets to 299 Matt Ryan old team Ha, yeah, I can unband you Cody. I mean I could try. I don't know how to to be honest Trying to think who would have banned you on that one? Justin Jefferson color match 10 out of 10 William over in Twitch chat Paul just said he'll trade his Terry McLaren for your zappy William's got the commanders pace It's like Taekwon Thornton going to the Patriots that there's gravy that is gravy right there Going to Paul. What's up chat? Chad. Are you ready for this recap? I don't know if you saw the big hit Garrett Wilson others should be I believe Joshua. Yes, that press got to 349 I think good job Joshua Texans T Higgins nice gold 8 out of 10 for the bangles nice one there bangles gold team Kirk Cousins Cousin Albert. What's up? Pigley Wigley. Thanks for the sub face Jermaine Johnson to 99 gold team Josh Allen 2 out of 50 and Arnold Ebikiti 178 out of 199 Dark horses tealaw and base. All right guys. Let's do this recap man. This this is White the recap See Higgins bangles Garrett Wilson Jets is a mere white Raiders Matt Corral Panthers Dallas Goddard Eagles Jameson Williams Lyons Hunter Renfro Raiders Gabriel Davis Bills in Hutchinson Lyons That is Josh Jacobs Raiders quad of the Falcon or triple Falcons Triple Lions Taekwon Thornton Patriots Terry McLaren commanders skymore chiefs That is Khalil Shakir Kalishkir Bills That is Romeo Dobbs Packers Bobby Bell for the chiefs Eric Azucan Dolphins Brent Selick for the Eagles. That's cool man. Trayvon Walker Jags. We had Drake London That is 14 out of 25 Falcons nice one there Falcons and dude I mean the hit of the night for sure without question the hit of the night guys one of one Bailey Zappi NFL shield auto Going to Paul in chat with the Patriots man Unbelievable unreal what a card That will do it for the break. Thanks again everyone for the fill that was absolutely Electric we will get all those cards right out to you guys. Thank you again


What is it going to do when they press it? It's going to echolocate what? It's right, it's burning a little bit. You want to see if it happens? So what should they do? Press it. Put the hand on. Yes. Why did that happen?


Maybe you could have, but war is messy. It wasn't until after I got home that things started occurring that raised my anxiousness level to the same degree that I experienced in combat. There were times in my Marine Corps career that people probably didn't see the real Randy Hoffman. They saw a person that was dealing with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, anxiousness, and I almost feel bad. Sometimes I want to go back and say, hey guys, you really didn't see who I am.  I like to laugh. I have a lot of joy in my life, but at that period, that season of my life, I didn't have it. Anybody can have it, and it doesn't mean that you're stronger or weaker, it just means that you're dealing with something that's pretty traumatic. That's why they call it post-trauma, post-traumatic. You would not go into a firefight by yourself, so why would you deal with post-traumatic stress without asking for other Marines and other weapons? It's what we do. If you're struggling with something, know first and foremost somebody else where in this uniform has had to struggle with the same thing. Our motto is always faithful. The Marines that are struggling with stuff need to understand. There are other Marines out there that will faithfully stand by their side, listen to them, and help them get what they need to recover.


Oh, are we here? Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast generally every Wednesday for 30 p.m. Pacific, 730 p.m. Easter on CodePink YouTube Live. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and as of today, you can find us on our own Telegram channel. So today's episode, everyone, is Columbia's presidential elections moved to a second round. And I'm really, really excited and happy for all of you to meet Raul Berbano. He is the Executive Director of Common Frontiers, which is based in Toronto. And he was the trip leader of the delegation to Columbia that I was supposed to join last week. And we all talked about why I was not able to join that delegation last week. So this week, we can get to meet the trip leader and we're gonna talk a little bit about what the delegation saw and experienced and then get into some specifics of the 29th, Sunday, the 29th election day, and then what possibilities lie ahead for the second round elections on June 19th. So before I have you meet Raul, I wanna just give all of you a quick summary of what happened on Sunday. So two anti-establishment candidates, Gustavo Petro, a centrist, I think what a lot of us would call centrist in Columbia, he's referred to as a leftist. I think Raul would agree he's anything, one step to the left of center is leftist in Columbia right now with the current political context. So he being a centrist for most of us and Rodolfo Hernandez, a right-wing populist. The two of them captured the two top spots in Columbia's presidential election on May 29th, delivering a stunning blow to Columbia's dominant conservative political class. The two men will compete in a runoff election on June 19th that is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in the country's history. At stake is the country's future economic vision, the restoration of democratic integrity and the livelihood of millions of people pushed into poverty during the pandemic, particularly women and children. And Raul, that's something I'd really like us to address, that those two, the women and children. With more than 99% of the ballots counted on Sunday evening, Petro received more than 40% of the vote while Mr. Hernandez received just over 28%. Hernandez beat by more than four percentage points the conservative establishment candidate, Federico Gutierrez, who had been polling in second place until the 29th. So Hernandez's unexpected second place victory perhaps shows a nation hungry to elect anyone who was not represented by the country's mainstream conservative leaders. And if Gustavo Petro ultimately wins in the second round on the 19th of June, it would mark a watershed moment for one of the most politically conservative societies in Latin America. So with that, I'd like all of you to meet Raul Berbano, my friend and longtime solidarity partner, Venezuela specifically, now Columbia Honduras as well. So welcome Raul. Raul, by the way, is talking to us from Bogota this evening everyone. So he is just wrapping up things for the delegation. So thank you so much for joining us. No, thank you for having me, Federico. It's a pleasure. As I said, I always watch the show. You always have excellent guests and I learn a lot. Well, you're one of them. Here you are. So Raul, why don't you tell us a little bit, tell us a little bit about common frontiers so that our guests know what you've done for years and I just wanna share your work with everyone because it's very, it's really important and very impressive what your organization does. Sure. So I'm the program director at Common Frontiers which is a national network that brings together labor, ecumenical organizations, human rights organizations that do work specifically in solidarity with Latin America. It was born about 20-some odd years ago against the fight against the NAFTA, version one, built the tri-national groups, Canada, US, Mexico, and tried to do some analysis around the impact of that. And so over the years, we've been focusing on human rights, labor rights, and of course democracy over the last little while in terms of how important that is in the region. So the labor movement plays a strong role within common frontiers and we're very happy to have their support. Can you hear me okay? Hold on a second. Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry. I think my mic came loose. Okay. And so, I mean, maybe I'll just start in terms of, common frontiers has been doing a lot of work around Columbia for probably about a decade along with the labor movement and the civil society in Columbia. And so over during the electoral process, over the last few six months, whether it's the legislative elections or the presidential elections, Colombians live in abroad, especially in Canada have been mobilizing quite strongly to organize, to ensure and to make sure that the electoral process, at least in Canada, where many of us live is fair, transparent. So that kind of inspired some of us and we heated the call of civil society in Latin America to support the democratic process in Columbia. So we organized the delegation and I would be remiss if I didn't just mention, we wouldn't be able to have done the delegation without the sponsorship and financial support of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which is the social justice fund, the steel workers, the humanity fund, the British Columbia Teachers Federation, the British Columbia General Employees Union, the Canadian postal workers and the coalition of black trade unionists in Canada, they all really helped us to get things done in Columbia. So it was a coalition, a beautiful coalition of solidarity and labor. Absolutely, yes, it was wonderful. So let's, so this is one of the reasons why I so wanted to travel with you and join your delegation and did and just couldn't ultimately get into the country. So let's talk about the itinerary, what all of you saw and did, who you met with in the run-up to the election and how that set the stage for election day? Sure, so the main cities that we visited, we were in Bogota, Cali and in Winneventura and Winneventura is where we were observing the vote. Our goal was really to come to Columbia and hear, listen and learn from Colombian civil society around the situation that's taking place from an electoral process. Obviously, when you're going for the electoral process, it's important to have a transparent, efficient electoral process, the day of, but it's also really important to understand the context in which elections are taking place. And that's what we had a lot of concern based on, the work that we've been doing in Columbia and what we've heard from partners in terms of the egregious human rights situation, the economic crisis, corruption and punitive, the criminalization of labor leaders, indigenous communities, environmental organizers. So all that obviously culminated in us coming down to Columbia. So one of the things we did, for example, while we were in Bogota, we organized a forum bringing together indigenous organizations, representatives like Onique, labor organizations from USO, the CUTE, human rights organizations, campesino organizations and other electoral observers from MOI, which was the, I guess, the Colombian Electoral Observer Coalition, members from the European Parliament, folks from other electoral observer missions, just a dialogue to share, to hear what we've all been kind of seen. And again, for us, it was really important to take in a lot of what we heard. And unfortunately, a lot of what we heard was very similar to what we've been hearing for a while, which is, there's a lot of intimidation. There's a lot of fear. The electoral process has made the situation worse. The situation in Columbia has been critical for a long time. It's not unique, but the electoral process obviously sort of has augmented the criminalization of activists, violence, threats. And so people were sharing that with us and saying that anything they could do to guard the vote, to safeguard the democracy, that was gonna be their focus for the next little while. So really that was our goal is really to hear, to listen and get a sense of what the environment was in Columbia around the elections. Well, I can tell the audience that the criminalization of activists is a for real thing in and outside of the country. I would argue there's a pretty targeted program to negate, impede international solidarity with activists inside Columbia. I think, it's inside and outside as, and it's really terrible inside. And so you, I don't know, somebody was telling me, maybe it was last week we were talking how, the number of deaths so far this year, like 26, that's maybe even higher than that of activists, environmental activists, indigenous land rights activation. Yeah, every all of it, yeah. Yeah, according to in the past, which is a very prestigious human rights organization in Columbia, I think, I mean, the last numbers I've seen are 44 massacres in 2002. We're talking about 158 victims. I think there were 79 social leaders that have been assassinated just this year alone. 25 ex-combatants. So this is the situation which is, it's a human rights crisis obviously in Columbia, but if there's also, every time, every chance I get, I mentioned that Columbia is going through many crises, economic, political, social, and you see it just walking down the street, walking down downtown Bogota, you see the level of poverty, the level of inequality, in a sense, the level of desperation of Colombians in terms of the situation in which they're living in Columbia, in my meetings with many folks, many people approach being confident, wanting advice, support, in terms of how they can get out of the country, because really people are concerned for their lives and for everything they're doing here, especially people who are organizing politically and even just social leaders, right? There's a lot of criminalization of community leaders. We met, for example, with Erika Prieto. She's a Congreso de los Pueblos. She's a community organizer with Congreso de los Pueblos and just her organizing within communities made her a target and she was criminalized by the judicial system in Columbia, but what was so concerning about her story was that a lot of the evidence that was placed against her had been doctored, whether it's pictures and finally she was released, but of course it's destroyed her whole life. It's made her life very difficult in terms of fear, her family's life. So that's, we wanted to hear directly from victims because obviously we hear numbers, which are, they're scary in terms of numbers, but when you hear directly from victims and they're telling you the story and how the state in some cases has worked to criminalize them, the judicial system doesn't work correctly. It is really scary and I felt quite, it was very difficult to hear a lot of the testimony and you feel a bit interesting because really there isn't much that you can do while you're there. That's true and for our audience, you're Colombian yourself. So there was not, you weren't exactly traveling last week in a very secure personal. So your personal security was at threat as well. So even more bigger gold star for you taking everyone. So it is very, very hard to listen to the personal testimony to take that, those, that witnessing because it really does put a face on the violence and not just a face, but a person's life and their family and their friends and the whole, like you said, this woman and her whole life was ruined by falsified documents, falsified evidence against her, your whole life is ruined. She's still alive, which a lot of people cannot say, unfortunately, but it is, it's hard. I give all of you a lot of credit for spending time and studying all of it because it's hard for the outside world to really fathom how extensive it is. How extensive, every aspect of society. Every aspect of society. One of the things I'm, this and I'm sure. I don't want to leave folks with such a gloomy picture although it is very difficult in my meetings with everybody and just talking to people and hearing there is a sense of hope though, you know, right? These elections have brought a sense of hope. And there was, for a while I couldn't understand I was a bit confused because, you know, most of the people I talked to expressed, you know, concern with the electoral process, concern that, you know, that could be fraud but at the same time they had hope. And that was like, well, you know, if you feel that they might, you know, steal the elections how can you be hopeful? And then somebody finally explained it to me quite clearly and they said, you know, my heart has hope and I believe we're gonna win.  So there's sort of that economy between the heart and the mind, you know, the intellect but clearly, Colombians at this point are, there's, you know, it's a tipping point, right? There's a crossroads and there is a lot of hope. And I guess the challenge is gonna be is the change will come, irrelevant of which of the candidates is elected, as you mentioned, they're both sort of the, you know, the non-official candidates, they're independents, they have a different trajectory from the status quo, one more from the left and one more from the, you know, center right. And so in the end, there is going to be change. The question is just, what does that change gonna look like and whether it's gonna meet the needs of the majority of Colombians who are so desperately in need. And, you know, the fear is if it doesn't, that's where like, what will happen in Colombia? Well, so now there's, I've got this whole list of things I wanna ask you now, your observations are so wonderful.  People went and voted. And in many communities, it really was a matter of life and death for a lot of people in, particularly in rural communities to go vote. But people voted despite the, you know, the physical and political paradigm they're living in. And that is so wonderful, so wonderful. To just take that power that, you know, one of the few things that constitutionally remains in place for people and went and did something with it, you know? And maybe, you know, the real, what we would argue, you know, as the real change agent for the country didn't win the first round, but most, but decidedly won, you know, didn't win outright the first round, but decidedly did win. I mean, 40% to 28% was, you know, that's a huge statement. So one of the things that is really attractive to people about Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez who make up the Pacto Historico is that they have a different economic vision and this breaking or alleviating this neoliberal paradigm that Colombians have been living in a really harsh neoliberal paradigm, which has dramatically affected the youth in the country. I mean, no access to education, no healthcare, no infrastructure, no jobs, no, I mean, really no nothing, which is in big part what ignited the National Paro last year. And so let's talk a little bit about neoliberalism and what a potential Petro presidency could look like while we're talking about hope and positive, let's stay with it, let's stay with that. You know, many folks in the campaign in the back that we talked to, you know, they made it clear and I think people were quite focused that they consider this would be, if they would win, it would be a transitional government because they're under no illusion that they will be able to transform the country in four years and the hope for many people is that if only, you know, if the Pacto can do a small portion of what it professes that it will do, it would have a humongous impact. For example, you know, the proposed tax increase on the 4,000 wealthiest Colombians, right? The plan to halt new oil exploration in an effort to wean the country away from sort of the extractive industry and move to a more ecological, environmentally, sustainable economy, pension reform, agrarian reform, those things, if you could do, you know, half of those, it would have a significant impact on Colombians, especially Colombians, obviously, in the lower stratus and, you know, women, single mothers, youth, as you mentioned, those are key things that I think, and that's why I've seen a lot of young people at the events, at the rallies, at the polling stations. Although I must admit, I was surprised that there were as many people out as I had expected. So I participated in elections in other countries, for example, in Venezuela, just to compare, and in Venezuela, people are lined up way before the proposal, but there's huge queues in Colombia, I didn't see that, and I really expected a lot more. And when we voted, when we visited different voting sites in Buena Ventura, we would ask, you know, the folks who are in charge of the table, not the tables, but the voting centers, they'd come out and talk to us, and they would tell us, you know, the youth haven't come out yet, it was around, you know, 11 o'clock, the youth haven't come out yet, and they're like, but don't worry though, they usually come out later, right? They sleep in a little bit, they come out a little bit later. Yeah, that last hour. Yeah, but it didn't, you know, that I think is a bit of a challenge, it didn't materialize, and I do think there might have been a complacency that everybody just assumed we're gonna win this, so there's no, you know, we don't need to worry. And so I think that is gonna be a challenge for Petro and Francia Marquez in terms of ensuring that people get out early to vote. I mean, the Colombian electoral process, I mean, in my opinion, isn't the strongest, for example, you know, they open eight to four, and it doesn't get people off at enough time to vote, especially if people are coming out from the rural areas, right? They have to travel a distance. So, you know, one of our recommendations, for example, was that it should, you know, voting centers should be open at least at 8 p.m. And people in the lineup, when the voting center closes, should be allowed to continue to vote if they're in the lineup. In Colombia, only if they have your ID and you're about to vote are the only people they can vote. So there could be a lot of people in the lineup, but they wouldn't be able to vote, which, you know, it's not a good sign for a democracy when it's not, you know, trying to bring in as much of the voting population as possible. Well, this is, you know, this is interesting. And I had asked a number of people, maybe I even asked, you know, you and your delegation on Sunday, that the polls close at four. And in many countries, and you and I have observed elections, you know, multiple countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. If you're in line, whether the poll closes at three or five or nine p.m., whatever, if you're in line before the polling center closes, you can vote. You cannot get in line at the close. But if you are already in line, the poll stays open until everybody in the line has voted. And so in Colombia, that is not the case. And boy, that may very well- That's not good. Yeah, four o'clock on a Sunday is not very- Unless they have your ID. Unless you've submitted your ID, which would be like the next voter, and that's the only person that has the right to vote. So that is a challenge. Wow, that's- You know, although I would have to say, I don't think that was an issue, at least from what I witnessed in Guenaventura, maybe another place that was different, because there weren't huge lineups. As I mentioned, it was definitely flowing and people were going in and out and people were able to access the voting centers that we were at. People came out and of course, always complained about irregularities, lack of castigos at the table, you know, voter identification that wasn't- They're supposed to vote here, but they're supposed to vote somewhere else. So I think those are regular irregularities that you hear in polling stations, but we just heard a lot from other people when we had met around a lot of the issues that people fear. Like for example, we met with some communities that had recently been displaced in Guenaventura and obviously, displaced communities can't go back to their place to vote, right, for fear of violence and repercussions. So those kind of issues where communities where displaced can't really vote, right? You know, I don't think there's enough being done to support that or to, you know, make it easier for them to participate in the electoral process. And I think in some cases, it probably benefits the status quo for them not to vote. No, exactly. Yeah. How? I'm sorry. Did I lose you? No, go ahead. Okay, so let's talk about Guenaventura because the delegation was specifically asked by the local community that you observe there. And why was that? What was the request? Well, I mean, I think, you know, that area of Guenaventura, there's a lot of poverty. This is on the coast, the Caribbean coast. Yeah, absolutely. For our audience. And so, you know, working with Afro-Columbian communities from the communities that organized the Pato, I think it was in 2016, you know, they really wanted support and ensure that international observers were there. So we weren't the only ones there. I think there were US observers who were there. There were folks from Cataluna, Catalonia, they were there as well observing the election. So we kind of divided up amongst ourselves in terms of supporting the electoral vote. So there is a lot of concern in that area of vote buying, of, you know, intimidation. And that's one of the main reasons why we chose to go there on, you know, the request of the Afro-Columbian communities who we've been working with for a while. Wow, so one of the, oh gosh, that I have wanted to ask about the voting proper, but let's go back to that in a minute. One of the things we talked about a few minutes ago should there be a facto historical win in this, it would be a transitional government. So you're looking at a government that would basically spend four years dismantling a system that has failed the majority of society. And then you would need successive administrations to start gradually going forward. I think someone had mentioned it would take conceivably 14 years to undo and then for a full transition. And I think probably, I think that was a full transition to a more socialized economy and state. But you would see, I think, as you mentioned, just beginning a dismantling of the existing would be beneficial. I mean, that would be an immediate benefit. I would think it's... Absolutely, I mean, I know Petro has stated or the campaign has stated that they would declare a state of emergency, like economic emergency to address the widespread hunger that the country is experiencing, lack of access to food. So, as you mentioned from the beginning, the campaign is not a radical left campaign. They're not looking to nationalize or do it. They're not looking to dismantle the capitalist system. However, it's important to note that the reality, it would really be beneficial to Colombian civil society if things, well, not as simple as, but as important as a pension for people, by access to education, right? Those things, we can't discount them, although sometimes in the North, we get sort of, oh, wish it could have been challenging capital much more. It's important that those do have ramifications for poor people in Colombia.  He's not a big supporter of Venezuela, but he would reestablish economic relations with Venezuela because obviously the border economic necessity there has been. So even just simple things like that, in my opinion, would make a big difference internally and probably geopolitically in terms of a progressive policies. It kind of reminds me a little bit of sort of Lula policies, right? In Brazil, like Bolsa de la Familia in Canada, we would see them as more sort of social welfare policies of helping the poor kind of alleviate the immediate needs. And then you can move on to start looking at more of the structural things, which might be in future governments. But it's an evolutionary thing and you don't just... I mean, you don't just change the form of economy overnight in any country.  It is still evolutionary. And so did I lose you? No, not at all. Okay, I thought my screen froze. Sorry, I thought my Wi-Fi... Yeah, you froze a little bit, but that's fine. Okay. So can we talk a little bit specifically about what you saw on election day? Like just for our audience, like what the technical voting process is for people who have observed elections before, how, you know, when someone arrives at a poll or even before, how they register and just the whole technical process. You know, you and I have been in that as well in numerous times and, you know, it's so clean and so efficient and it's almost impossible to believe that the United States doesn't want to revel here. I mean, so what is it like in Columbia since I didn't get to see it? Absolutely. You know, and I should clarify, so we weren't an official electoral observers in a state sanctioned. So we didn't enter any of the voting centers per se. Our work was really outside, talking to people, interviewing people, you know, hearing, you know, documenting, you know, any kind of irregularities that people would share with us.  So it's kind of pretty standard from that perspective. So little fraud unless there's something actually technical manipulation of the voting machines themselves, which I've seen some social media comments about that the voting machines, the tallying, the national tallying when everything goes from the polling center, you know, gets the data gets sent that the national count was capped at 40% for Petro and Francia Marquez. Have you heard that? I mean, I've seen that on social media in quite a few places, interesting places actually left and right places. Yeah, I think the same as you. I mean, I've seen, I've heard it on social media.  Most of our work was really just documented and hearing irregularities from folks.  So there is clearly issues with the electoral process, the software, you know, many, many different political parties that we met with, including both right and right and left, express concerns in terms of the inability to audit the software and make sure that it wasn't being utilized in any nefarious way. So there has been a lot of, you know, comments and issues and people have made this clear. We met with folks in the labor movement. And it's funny because when you hear, when you hear the same thing over and over in different places, you start to wonder, this is true. And they mentioned to us that, you know, companies are forcing employees to work, to vote a certain way. And, you know, members of the CUDE, for example, so they were going to send me a letter that they were, that they had access to from, you know, I guess one of their employees where, you know, it's made pretty clear who they, who employees have to vote or somehow influencing that vote, right?  As you probably aware, there was a, you know, a sort of paramilitary part of not too long ago in the northern part of the country, basically, you know, they could, you know, people are afraid in many places to go and vote. So those are the ways, I think, often that, you know, fraud takes place, people don't have access to it, displace people, and then there is sort of, you know, the more of the detective stuff that happens during the electoral process. Let's talk about the displaced people quickly. Are they, and specifically in, you know, around Buena Ventura, there were communities displaced or they displaced by the government? Are they displaced by illegal drug trafficking? Do they choose to leave because it's too violent? Are they physically pushed off the land by state or illegal? Sure. All of the above. Yeah. I think, you know, most of the above absolutely is correct.  I mean, it's not new, unfortunately.  So people are continuously displaced and, you know, they have nowhere to go, right? So they're moving from city to city. They're trying to survive, living sort of in the margins of society. They don't have any, there's no support, you know, very little support from the government, right? So it is a huge challenge for communities. And I think that would have a significant impact, you know, displaced people don't really have the ability to participate in the electoral process. And I think that is something that should be highly concerning to the Colombian government and to all political sort of entities in Columbia. Well, you basically become like a non-person at that point.  You have no, you're not on any sort of state registry, you know, no permanent address, no place to, you know, to file to vote. You have no. Well, technically, you're supposed to go vote in the city, you're registered in, but you can't go back to that city. You've been displaced, right? So that's, that's, that's a huge issue. And I mean, we met with a community in Guenaventura who talked about the issue. And I mean, it's common. It's not uncommon. It wasn't unique. And I think that's, that definitely, I think has a humongous impact. And it's probably one of the reasons why, you know, Colombian civil, I mean, it's one of the most unequal societies, as I mentioned, and I think this is one of the reasons why people are desperate need for change, right? Because the situation in Columbia just, it just continuously with the pandemic, the inequality, the poverty just continues to get worse. And it seems that unfortunately, you know, Canadian foreign policy and US foreign policy continue to continue to support that type of politics in Columbia.   So I think there needs to be sort of a rethink it in general about Columbia and its place in Latin America and the role instead of it being a destabilizing type of a force in the region. It needs to be a force for good and for, you know, bringing Latin America together, right? Because it really does have that ability to do that. So you, so as you're talking about US and Canadian North American foreign policy needing to change, I mean, we are seeing any of us who have spent any amount of time, you know, on the ground in Latin America I mean, there is a unity and a movement economically, politically, and I would say a unity out of humanitarian crisis with the pandemic that has emerged and is growing. And we see this with the pushback to, you know, Biden's summit of the Americas next week that's supposedly supposed to take all of that, this unity. And so Columbia is a NATO global partner, NATO, it's on the Caribbean. It's not on the North American, North Atlantic, but it's a NATO global partner. And next door to the east is Venezuela who's a very strong, who is very strongly allied with Russia. Did you see here experience anything, even just you personally, because it is your home country, this kind of is a similar, it is the same situation we're seeing play out in Europe.  It's the same thing, same paradigm. Yeah, absolutely.  So I do think that, you know, the cop, the broader geopolitical conflict that's taken place with Russia and Ukraine is definitely going to have an impact in Columbia, because obviously this has kind of been playing out to some extent in Latin America for a while, because Russian investment, Chinese investment has to some extent displaced US and Canadian investment in the region. And that has been sort of some of the reasons why the United States and Canada have worked quite diligently from a government perspective to, you know, marginalized countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, any country that really doesn't toe, you know, the line, you know, all of a sudden becomes an egregious human rights violator or an anti-democratic country. So it's definitely, you know, been happening in Latin America. And the fear is just what it can grow to and hopefully, you know, it doesn't grow to any kind of military conflict. But, you know, the NATO, Columbia's, you know, status in NATO's and observer nation is highly concerning.  Well, it's fascinating to me that I think it was Thursday even when I heard President Fernandez in Argentina. But I forget what event he was at, a state official state event where he flat out said, you know, have to lift the accused six decades of embargo against or block eat against Cuba. And then he did mention, you know, five plus years of economic warfare against Venezuela simply because they have diplomatic differences. I mean, he's never been that overt, particularly Cuba, yes, but Venezuela not always. He's not always that strong about U.S. policy towards Venezuela. He was quite overt on Thursday. And so it's really, it's fascinating to watch how this is all unfolding. And it's fascinating to me that he said that the Thursday before the Colombian presidential elections, because the Argentines kind of stayed quiet, although there were quite a few of them as election observers Sunday, the 29th, but I thought that was for their government. That was a very strong statement just days before the elections. And you can see how the rest of the hemisphere with the exception of North America, Columbia, Honduras has changed or is in the process of changing. You know, everybody's kind of trying to preserve the peace, perhaps and not let things get, you know, exacerbated between Colombia and Venezuela as we're watching that same scenario play out in Europe. It's very, yeah. I don't think we talk about that enough. I don't think enough of us in North America really understand what that border really is between Colombia and Venezuela. Absolutely.  So there, you know, that sort of theme of like, you know, we need to confront obviously Russia and Ukraine and in Europe. And we also need to confront them wherever we can economically, politically. And now we're seeing militarily obviously it's, you know, scary and especially with a country like Colombia where it's, you know, with all the U.S. military bases and all the military equipment that Colombia does have. I mean, it is a country that can, you know, destabilize it, which has for a while the region, right?  I agree with you. Yeah. I think they've shown, they've taken the high road diplomatically for a very long time for many, many years now. Yeah. Because it did feel like Colombia was trying to instigate something, right? More than once. Yeah. For the U.S. Colombia, yeah, for sure. So let me just ask you two things real quick before I let you go. One, you voted, you voted in the consulate in Toronto, yes? No, I couldn't because I was in Colombia, so I couldn't vote. Oh, okay. I missed my vote, but I did hear, you know, so the interesting part is when we were in Bogotá in one meeting, they said that, you know, the voting abroad is very regular and it probably could use, they said to us, international observers. And it's ironic because when we, when I heard the voting taking place in, for example, Quebec, there are some reports of irregularities. Like I know one person specifically who went to vote, but it said, well, you know, you know, we don't have you on the list. And he said, well, I voted in the last presidential elections. They're like, well, you have to prove that you voted in those elections. And there was another person in Montreal who went to vote, who was registered in Montreal or Quebec. And they said, sorry, you're really registered in Ontario, so you can't, you can't vote. So these type of irregularities, which I'm sure is not uncommon in other parts, you know, the exterior is really a problem. And what we met with different political parties, they said, you know, the voting and exterior is, is susceptible to manipulation is susceptible to the influence of, you know, the powers to be in those countries and it needs to be safeguarded. So I think that is one of the reasons why Colombian civil society and the diaspora abroad has been really incredible and mobilizing to observe, to protect, to make sure that they're at the tables. And I think that is really the only way that, you know, we can ensure that the elections as a whole and even in Colombia is with massive participation in terms of safeguarding the vote of being vigilant because, you know, my analysis is that the petrol and his campaign has to win by a large margin in order to have, you know, legitimacy, unfortunately, because if it is very close, you know, I fear that, you know, the opposition or whomever may not accept the results.  And they could just create a lot more tensions. Well, this is what we saw. That was what we saw in Honduras in November. Of 2021. And that was the Partido Libre and their coalition. That was the whole objective was to have massive voter turnout and to win by a large percentage. And unfortunately, I think this is true for center left left throughout the hemisphere right now is that there has to be such a large win that it cannot be contested domestically or internationally. And, and that does, it does force the creation of political coalitions that don't, you know, that can be somewhat internally, you know, contentious going forward to run, you know, to govern a country, but so important to have that big win so that it's uncontested. Yeah. And that's also, I mean, that's also that's why it's very important with, you know, sort of folks like Francia Marcus, the presidential, the vice president who, you know, herself is quite inspirational. She's an African woman and environmental as a single mom. And she sort of represents that, you know, those, nobody's the others who have been marginalized historically in Columbia. And I think she represents that hope for a lot of people. And my, you know, talking to people.  It reminded me a little bit about when I was in Bolivia back around in 2009 and 2008 with sort of the vindication in Bolivia of sort of the Poyedas and the indigenous, you know, culture in Columbia when I was here in Bogota and being at, you know, some of the rallies and some of the events.  And really that is really galvanizing a lot of people in Columbia. And I think that's really important that, you know, we, we, you know, reconnect the one, those of us who have lost those connections with the Afro-Columbian, the indigenous component of our Colombian history. Wow. Well, she is, to me, she's been, I love Gustavo Petro, but for me personally, I agree with you. She really is the voice, the physical embodiment of the people throughout Columbia who have had no one, you know, directly looking like, who looks physically, looks like them and represents them economically and politically. I mean, she's just amazing. And the strength and courage it's taken for her to run for office is profound. Absolutely. Absolutely. And she's been subject to obviously threats. You know, I was here when, when in the park, the park of the, those better of these thus, where she had a closing campaign and there was a laser pointed at her near the end of the rally, you know, those kind of things, which are obviously in forms of intimidation, violence against political candidates.  And there's nothing that's ever done.  Can you hear me? I think we lost Terry. I think that's the end of the podcast. Thank you everyone for participating. And we'll be in touch. Bye.