Source: http://eljustoreclamo.blogspot.com/2008_06_20_archive.html
Timestamp: 2017-03-25 13:25:40+00:00

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El Justo Reclamo: 06/20/08
Sitian fuerzas federales la estación migratoria de Chetumal El operativo, para prevenir eventual rescate del antillano Handy Cardentey Lemus rosa santana* El operativo, para prevenir eventual rescate del antillano Handy Cardentey Lemus, uno de los principales operadores de la mafia cubana en México *Arraigo, a 11 funcionarios del INM y dos choferes que llevaban a los cubanos “rescatados”Chetumal, Q. Roo., 19 de junio (apro).- Alertadas sobre un posible intento de la mafia cubana de rescatar al antillano, Handy Cardentey Lemus, considerado como uno de sus brazos operativos en México, fuerzas federales mantienen prácticamente sitiada la estación migratoria de Chetumal, a donde fue ingresado tras haber sido detenido el lunes pasado en Isla Mujeres.El blindaje de esas instalaciones, en el que participa la Armada de México, se montó anoche, horas después del operativo de revisión que realizó el Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) con los indocumentados que ahí se mantienen recluidos en espera de ser deportados y quienes inexplicablemente tenían en su poder 12 teléfonos celulares. Entre el casi medio centenar de inmigrantes ilegales confinados en este momento en esa estación migratoria, se encuentra el cubano Cardentey Lemus, de 39 años de edad, presunto operador de la mafia cubano-americana en el negocio del tráfico de cubanos. Debido a su aparente peligrosidad, Cardentey Lemus podría ser trasladado a un sitio de mayor seguridad. En esa estación migratoria, vigilada también por agentes de la Agencia Federal de Investigación (AFI) y la Policía Judicial del estado y de Seguridad Pública, se encuentran retenidos otros 41 indocumentados cubanos y siete centroamericanos.De esa estación migratoria salieron, para su deportación, los 37 indocumentados que fueron “rescatados” hace unos días por un comando en Palenque, Chiapas.EU libera a 17 de los 18 cubanos procedentes de México de la redacción* Son 18 de los 33 cubanos “rescatados” en Chiapas* Acusa Aranda a Cuba de negarse a repatriar a sus compatriotas detenidos en MéxicoMéxico D.F., 19 de junio (apro).- La Oficina de Protección de Fronteras y Aduanas de Estados Unidos liberó a 17 de los 18 cubanos que fueron detenidos en Hidalgo, Texas. Los inmigrantes isleños formaban parte del grupo de 33 cubanos que fueron rescatados por un grupo armado en Chiapas, antes de ser recluidos en la estación migratoria de Tapachula."En este momento, todos han sido procesados acorde a las políticas y procedimientos normales. Todos excepto uno han sido puestos en libertad condicional en Estados Unidos. Un individuo permanece en la custodia del ICE", indicó el organismo. Según el ICE, debido a asuntos de privacidad, y dado que existe una investigación en curso, no puede dar mayor información al respecto.Entretanto, La subsecretaria de Población, Migración y Asuntos Religiosos de la Secretaría de Gobernación, Ana Teresa Aranda, acuda hoy al gobierno de Cuba de negarse a repatriar a los mil 296 cubanos que se encuentran detenidos en diversas estaciones migratorias del país por haber ingresado ilegalmente a territorio mexicano.En conferencia de prensa, recordó que existe un acuerdo con el consulado de Cuba en México que obliga al Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) a mandar una nota consular con los nombres de estas personas, incluso con sus documentos, y se espera que el consulado cubano, en un término no mayor de 15 días, diga si esos cubanos son repatriables o no. Sin embargo, aclaró que hasta ahora “en ninguno de los casos de estas mil 296 personas aseguradas ha habido una respuesta de la cónsul. Si la cónsul dijera: ‘Son repatriables’, pues nos veríamos en la necesidad de expulsarlas del país”.Prosiguió la funcionaria: “Como no ha habido una respuesta en el término del acuerdo de los 15 días, lo que se hace es entregarles un oficio de salida” y ellos por su cuenta salen del país.La funcionaria federal se refirió luego a las declaraciones hechas por el embajador cubano en México, Manuel Aguilera, en el sentido de que mafias de Cuba están detrás de la desaparición de 33 cubanos arrebatados a los agentes del INM. Indicó: “La investigación de las mafias no es un asunto que le corresponda al INM, sino a la Procuraduría General de la República y en eso están”.Aranda dio otra dato nada menor: dijo que el año pasado, Migración tuvo en sus manos a 3 mil 294 cubanos indocumentados y en lo que va de este primer semestre la cifra es de mil 296 asegurados. En entrevista por separado, el embajador cubano comentó que la aparición de 18 de los 33 cubanos que fueron detenidos en México el pasado 6 de junio confirma que la mafia de Miami está involucrada en el tráfico de indocumentados y refuerza la urgencia de alcanzar un acuerdo migratorio.Luego de participar en un homenaje póstumo al excanciller Emilio Oscar Rabasa Mishkin, el diplomático indicó que las negociaciones para el acuerdo migratorio entre México y su país siguen adelante.Dijo que se trata de un tema que está sujeto a negociación "y no me parece conveniente ventilarlo a través de la prensa", simplemente, agregó, es un asunto que subraya la urgencia de sacar adelante el acuerdo migratorio cuya segunda ronda de conversaciones se desarrollará en julio en La Habana.Sobre ese punto, la secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE), Patricia Espinosa, confió también en que el acuerdo se firme en septiembre y señaló que se trabaja de manera intensa con las autoridades cubanas, ante el incremento del tráfico de sus nacionales por México.
Se aprueba en la Cámara de Representantes la Iniciativa Mérida Otorga 400 mdd e impone condiciones acotadas a México en materia de derechos humanos j. jesús esquivel* Otorga 400 mdd e impone condiciones acotadas a México en materia de derechos humanos, así como cumplir leyes mexicanas e internacionalesWashington, 19 de junio (apro).- Con condiciones menos injerencistas, la Cámara de Representantes aprobó un presupuesto de 400 millones de dólares, para financiar la instrumentación de la Iniciativa Mérida en el año fiscal 2008, ya en curso, como parte del compromiso bilateral orientado a combatir el narcotráfico y el crimen organizado entre los gobiernos de México y Estados Unidos.Con 416 votos a favor y 12 en contra, la versión de la Iniciativa Mérida aprobada en la Cámara de Representantes impone al gobierno de México condiciones acotadas en materia de derechos humanos, y sobre el cumplimiento de las leyes mexicanas e internacionales.La Cámara de Representantes condiciona el uso del 15% de los 400 millones de dólares a la entrega de un reporte del Departamento de Estado “por escrito”, a los Comités de Apropiaciones del Congreso federal sobre los procedimientos y acciones del gobierno mexicano para garantizar el respeto a los derechos humanos durante el combate al narcotráfico y al crimen organizado, y para “mejorar la transparencia y rendición de cuentas” de las fuerzas policiales federales y de las autoridades estatales y municipales.
Aprueba el Senado “iniciativa preferente” para el Ejecutivo jenaro villamil* El Congreso se obliga a dictaminar hasta dos iniciativas presidenciales* Elimina el “veto de bolsillo” y avala cambios al formato del Informe.México, D.F., 19 de junio (apro).- En la primera sesión del periodo extraordinario de sesiones, el Senado aprobó por unanimidad la llamada “iniciativa preferente” que faculta al Presidente de la República a enviar al hasta dos iniciativas al Congreso de la Unión y obliga al los representantes del Poder Legislativo a dictaminarlas y votarlas en el mismo periodo ordinario de sesiones.Además, los senadores avalaron la eliminación del denominado “veto de bolsillo” con lo que se garantiza que ninguna ley aprobada por el Legislativo “se quede en el cajón” o sea frenada por el Ejecutivo. Gracias a esta reforma, que modifica los artículos 71, 72 y 78 de la Constitución, el Ejecutivo ya no podrá evitar la promulgación o publicación en el Diario Oficial de la Federación de la ley o norma que hayan aprobado los legisladores, requisito indispensable para que entre en vigor cualquier nuevo marco legal. Finalmente, el Senado también aprobó, con 107 votos a favor y sólo tres abstenciones, la reforma constitucional que establece un nuevo formato para el Informe presidencial. Así, se confirma que el titular del Ejecutivo no estará obligado a presentarse el 1 de septiembre en el recinto del Congreso para entregar personalmente su informe, pero sí se creó lo que se denominó “pregunta parlamentaria”. Esta deberá ser respondida por los miembros del gabinete en un plazo de quince días. También se establece la posibilidad de sanción legal si no se contesta con veracidad.La minuta de esta reforma, proveniente de la Cámara de Diputados, deberá ser retornada a San Lázaro, pues los senadores le agregaron el tema de la rendición de cuentas en el artículo 93 constitucional.El senador del PRI, Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, en nombre de las comisiones dictaminadoras, estableció que con estas reformas no sólo se elimina la obligación de la presencia física del Ejecutivo el 1 de septiembre, sino que también “se le dan potestades al Congreso para poder plantearle preguntas parlamentarias por escrito al presidente para solicitarle ampliación de la información, precisión o rectificación de datos”.También, dijo, establece la figura de la “rendición de cuentas permanente”, es decir, la pregunta parlamentaria al Ejecutivo se podrá realizar fuera de los plazos del análisis del Informe y cuando alguna de las Cámaras del Congreso lo requiera para estudio de alguna ley.El senador perredista, Pablo Gómez, apoyó estas reformas subrayando que se trataba de cambiar “el día del presidente, con toda la fastuosidad en la que acudía en su carruaje de rey”, por un modelo más cercano a la rendición de cuentas.Francisco Arroyo Vieyra, senador del PRI, afirmó que con estas reformas se le daba “una nueva arquitectura a la relación entre poderes”. Incluso se declaró orgulloso por cambiar la ceremonia del Informe presidencial.Eliminan el “veto de bolsillo”El segundo paquete de reformas constitucionales, aprobado por unanimidad de 105 votos, elimina la figura del llamado “veto de bolsillo”, mecanismo que le permitía al presidente de la República mandar a la “congeladora” las leyes aprobadas en el Congreso.“Se trata de que se le amplíe el plazo al presidente de 10 a 30 días para formular observaciones. Pero si transcurridos 10 días siguientes, naturales, no promulga ni publica la ley, la promulgación se dará por un hecho, por el propio mandato de la Constitución; y se le dan facultades al presidente de la Cámara de origen del Congreso de la Unión para que le ordene al Diario Oficial de la Federación la publicación de la ley”, sintetizó el priista Pedro Joaquín Coldwell.El senador Arturo Núñez, del PRD, argumentó que el “veto de bolsillo” era una figura extrajurídica que le permitía al presidente de la República obstruir, sin tener facultades para ello, el proceso legislativo en el momento final de la promulgación y la publicación del decreto.El senador panista, Alejandro Zapata Perogordo, reconoció que se debieron hacer las modificaciones a los artículos 71, 72 y 78 de la Constitución porque el “veto de bolsillo” se ejercía y era una práctica “donde lamentablemente se pisoteaba al Poder Legislativo”.Recordó que esta iniciativa surgió de una alianza entre Felipe Calderón y Beatriz Paredes en el 2003, cuando ambos se desempeñaban como coordinadores de las bancadas de PAN y PRI en la Cámara de Diputados.La “iniciativa preferente”Por 105 votos a favor y ninguno en contra se aprobaron finalmente las reformas al artículo 71 constitucional, que le otorgan la calidad de “trámite legislativo preferente” a dos iniciativas enviadas por el Ejecutivo federal para que se aprueben en el mismo periodo ordinario, con excepción de las leyes en materia electoral.Esta iniciativa fue presentada por los senadores Santiago Creel, excoordinador de la bancada del PAN, y Humberto Aguilar Coronado, también de Acción Nacional. En nombre del PRD, el senador Pablo Gómez sostuvo que su partido avalaba esas reformas confiando en que se cumpliera la promesa del nuevo coordinador del PAN, Gustavo Enrique Madero, para eliminar también la práctica de la “congeladora” en el caso de las iniciativas presentadas por los legisladores.“No me opongo a que el Ejecutivo tenga iniciativas preferentes, pero me parece que sería muy lamentable y muy injustificado que los grupos parlamentarios no tuvieran siquiera una preferente. ¿Por qué? Esto para evitar la congeladora”, afirmó Gómez.“Espero que cumplan con su palabra, porque el coordinador Gustavo Madero me ha dicho que sí”, abundó en su intervención en tribuna.Al final de la sesión, Creel Miranda, coautor de la iniciativa, intervino para señalar que esa modificación constitucional se da en el contexto de la reforma del Estado, y su objetivo es “darle una mayor funcionalidad al Estado mexicano” y a las relaciones entre Ejecutivo y Legislativo.“Esto es parte de un proceso y un esfuerzo de ir desmontando la añeja institución de la congeladora. Una institución que ha frenado, que ha desacreditado la vida parlamentaria en este país”, sentenció Creel, aún presidente de la mesa directiva del Senado.Porque sera?......corruptos, haciendo de las suyas para las proximas elecciones.Frenan PRI y PAN reformas a la ley de medios jenaro villamil* Beltrones y Gustavo Madero alegan que necesitan más tiempo para analizar el dictamen México, D.F., 19 de junio (apro).- Sorpresivamente, ante la petición de los coordinadores del PRI y del PAN de tener “más tiempo” para analizar el dictamen previamente consensuado, la Comisión de Radio y Televisión suspendió la reunión prevista para aprobar la iniciativa que modificaba diversos artículos de la Ley Federal de Radio y Televisión, para homologarlos con las reformas en materia electoral.La solicitud de los coordinadores parlamentarios sorprendió e indignó al senador Carlos Sotelo, presidente de la Comisión, quien hasta las 19:00 horas de este jueves esperaba una respuesta clara de los coordinadores del PAN y del PRI para avanzar en el dictamen que se había incluido en el paquete de reformas del periodo extraordinario que comenzó hoy.“Todavía no se acaba el periodo extraordinario. Creo que hay una serie de elementos que están sujetos a votación en comisiones y no han generado el consenso necesario. Así está sucediendo también en otros temas en la Cámara de Diputados”, justificó Manlio Fabio Beltrones, presidente de la Junta de Coordinación Política, ante la suspensión de la reunión en comisiones.Antes de que se suspendiera el dictamen, se generó un ríspido intercambio entre Ricardo García Cervantes, promotor de la iniciativa, y Gustavo Enrique Madero, ambos panistas, ya que el primero denunció la “presión de las televisoras” para evitar que se aprobara el dictamen.En la presión intervinieron también los senadores Federico Döring, del PAN, y cercano a las empresas televisoras, así como Jorge Mendoza, del PRI, expresidente ejecutivo de TV Azteca.Dictamen IncómodoLa iniciativa planteada por el senador García Cervantes planteaba modificaciones a 10 artículos de la Ley Federal de Radio y Televisión. El objetivo era homologarlos a las reformas al artículo 41 constitucional, que le otorga nuevas atribuciones al Instituto Federal Electoral en materia de regulación de medios electrónicos.La principal diferencia se generó por la propuesta de reforma a la fracción VI del artículo 37 de la ley referida, en la que se establece que las concesiones podrán ser revocadas ante el incumplimiento, “en forma grave, reiterada y sistemática”, de las disposiciones establecidas en el artículo 41 de la Constitución y de la ley electoral en materia de acceso de los partidos políticos en sus prerrogativas en dichos medios.Tanto TV Azteca como Televisa han presentado amparos contra la reforma electoral, aprobada el año pasado, y en particular ante esta posibilidad de que se les revoque la concesión si no cumplen con las pautas establecidas por el IFE.sondeo ¿Qué tan de acuerdo estás con la aprobación por parte del Senado de la "iniciativa preferente" para el Ejecutivo?a) Mucho10.58 % 108 votosb) Poco7.84 % 80 votosc) Nada81.59 % 833 votos Para participar en el sondeo AQUI.
Enfermos de ambicion....tambien van por el agua los cabrones!
Anuncia Calderón inversiones por 43 mmdp para tecnificar el uso del agua de la redacción* Exhorta aprovechar bien el líquido en beneficio de la producción de alimentosMéxico, D.F., 19 de junio (apro).- El gobierno federal invertirá 43 mil millones de pesos para tecnificar un millón 200 mil hectáreas en el país y mejorar así el uso del agua para riego, así como para rehabilitar 300 presas que actualmente se encuentran subutilizadas o sobrexplotadas. Durante la presentación del Programa para el Uso Sustentable del Agua en el Campo, en Pabellón de Arteaga, Aguascalientes, el presidente Calderón urgió a su equipo a “no regarla más” y ponerse a trabajar para que el líquido sea aprovechado en beneficio de la producción de alimentos.Acompañado por el gobernador de Aguascalientes, Luis Armando Reynoso Femat, y el secretario de Agricultura federal, Alberto Cárdenas, el presidente aprovechó para hablar sobre la crisis alimentaria mundial. Afirmó que ante el aumento generalizado de precios, el gobierno federal no se ha resignado ni cruzado de brazos.“Estamos actuando fuertemente para enfrentar esa situación”, aclaró Calderón después de señala que México no es la excepción en la coyuntura mundial de alimentos, por lo que su gobierno ha tomado medidas administrativas para el abastecimiento de alimentos.Destacó que a pesar del aumento de precios que se registra en el mundo, México es el país de América Latina que tiene la menor inflación y menor tasa de aumento de precios de alimentos. En el continente, sólo es superado por Canadá, precisó.El mandatario se refirió luego a la gravedad en el uso y manejo del agua en la actualidad, y llamó a los funcionarios a que "ya no la rieguen".Antes, el secretario de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación (Sagarpa), Alberto Cárdenas, dijo "la estamos regando, señor presidente, como si la tuviéramos nosotros para siempre", refiriéndose al agua.Calderón contestó: “Como dijo el secretario… la estamos regando y yo le he dicho al secretario y a todo el equipo: bueno, pues ya no la rieguen, pongámonos a trabajar para que el agua sea verdaderamente empleada en beneficio de producir más alimentos y que no se pierda por ninguna razón."El Programa para el Uso Sustentable del Agua contempla acciones para modernizar canales de riego, instalar tubería de PVC, implementar el riego por aspersión o goteo, y se buscará cultivar productos que usen menos agua y aporten más ganancias; además, se rehabilitarán 300 presas.Calderón dijo que actualmente se pierde aproximadamente 77% del agua de riego por filtraciones o vaporización, mientras que el titular de Comisión Nacional del Agua (Conagua), José Luis Luege, dijo que de 653 acuíferos, 104 están sobre explotados. La falta de agua, señaló el titular del ejecutivo, pone en riesgo la viabilidad de las ciudades.
Familiares de Emeterio Cruz demandarán en la PGR a Ulises Ruiz pedro matías* Lo acusan junto con cinco funcionarios y exfuncionarios estatales de intento de homicidioMéxico, D.F., 19 de junio (apro).- Familiares de Emeterio Marino Cruz, simpatizante de la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), demandarán penalmente ante la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) al gobernador Ulises Ruiz, entre otros funcionarios estatales, por la golpiza que le propinó la policía el 16 de julio de 2007 y que lo dejó en estado de coma.Keherly Cruz Franco, hija de Emeterio, se quejó de que, a casi un año de la agresión y de la violación de los derechos humanos que sufrió su padre, no se ha hecho justicia, por lo que interpondrá una denuncia penal con el mandatario estatal y algunos de sus principales colaboradores por los delitos de homicidio en grado de tentativa y abuso de autoridad. En presencia de su padre –convaleciente aún-- Cruz Franco solicitó a la asamblea estatal de la Sección 22 del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE) que se pronuncie por el “boicot” de la Guelaguetza oficial y organice un encuentro racial alterno, para exigir “justicia para Emeterio y libertad para Adán Mejía”.Al preguntarle por qué presentarán la denuncia penal un año después de la agresión, la hija de Emeterio justificó: “El miedo nos paralizó y la recuperación de mi papá, también. Tal vez sí estuvimos cegados, pero todavía no es tarde y si en este momento va a llegar, adelante.”Recordó que su papá ingresó al hospital casi en estado de coma porque tuvo un derrame interno.Sin embargo, ante el incumplimiento de los acuerdos firmados con el gobierno del estado, han tenido que buscar médicos por su cuenta, aunque han contado con la ayuda del pintor Francisco Toledo, quien le pagó un especialista en la Ciudad de México porque “aquí le quitaron al neurólogo”.Emeterio Marino fue detenido el 16 de julio de 2007 durante los disturbios en el Cerro del Fortín. Al momento de su captura, no presentaba ningún rasguño, sin embargo, ingresó al hospital con la cara desfigurada y un golpe de 10 centímetros de profundidad que le ocasionó un traumatismo craneoencefálico.Su delito fue participar en la marcha que convocaron el magisterio y la APPO el 16 de julio del 2007, la cual culminó con disturbios del Cerro del Fortín.Según la averiguación previa 873/HC/2007, Emeterio Cruz, quien fuera profesor durante 12 años, presentaba traumatismo craneoencefálico, razón por la que fue operado en el Hospital de Especialidades.El caso llegó hasta la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, cuyo presidente Florentín Meléndez, intervino para que se le brindara atención adecuada; y exigió castigo para los culpables.Y el 31 de agosto de 2007 fueron consignados el primer comandante de la Policía Municipal, Alfredo Luis Santos; sus subalternos, Alejandro Franklin Ortiz y Nemesio Vásquez Matus, así como el policía preventivo, Javier Díaz Miguel y el policía auxiliar, Eugenio Silva Santiago.En la denuncia que la joven presentará ante la PGR, aparecen como acusados el gobernador Ulises Ruiz; el exsecretario de Protección Ciudadana, Sergio Segreste Ríos; el procurador Evencio Nicolás Martínez, y los entonces directores de la Policía Municipal, Aristeo López Martínez, de la Ministerial, Daniel Camarena, y de la Bancaria e Industrial, Alejandro Barrita. Este último fue ejecutado el pasado 30 de enero.
De la materia FECAL que integra la SCJN ya sabemos que esperar, no?
La Suprema Corte por resolver sobre Atencohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpiFRsV_JHk Posted by
Insólita protesta dancística en plena función de Bellas Artesjudith amador tello* Los bailarines solicitan el cese del director de la Compañía Nacional de Danza, Dariusz BlazerMéxico, D.F., 19 de junio (apro).- Como resultado del descontento que han venido manifestando los integrantes de la Compañía Nacional de Danza, esta noche la presentación de la obra Carmina Burana, de Carl Orff, en el Palacio de Bellas Artes, se vio precedida de una protesta de los bailarines.Ante el público asistente, los bailarines solicitaron el cese del director de la compañía, Dariusz Blajer. Hace dos semanas, los bailarines denunciaron a la revista Proceso que el director, de origen polaco, no ha presentado un programa de trabajo, y se quejaron de malos tratos y bajos salarios.Los bailarines han solicitado reuniones con la directora general del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), María Teresa Franco, y Sergio Vela, presidente del Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (Conaculta), pero afirmaron que no han recibido atención a sus peticiones.En un comunicado del INBA, se afirma que la función fue suspendida, lo que la institución reprobó “enérgicamente” y acusó a los trabajadores sindicalizados de “actos ilegales”:Dijo: “Esta noche, desafortunadamente trabajadores decidieron unilateralmente impedir la realización de esta puesta en escena, bajo el argumento mentiroso de ‘incumplimientos contractuales que incluso se remontan a seis años atrás y condiciones de trabajo infrahumanas’, afectando así al público asistente que pagó su boleto para este espectáculo dancístico.”Añadió que el instituto está dispuesto al diálogo. Posted by
FAO: mucho ruido y pocos granos Víctor M. Quintana S.*Las crisis son implacables y descarnadas hasta en el aspecto epistemológico. Revelan aspectos desconocidos u ocultos de la realidad. Ahora que en todo el mundo golpea fuerte la crisis alimentaria, se revela el carácter de clase de la globalización que tanto se ha celebrado.Había muchas expectativas antes de la reciente reunión cumbre sobre la alimentación, celebrada en Roma, a convocatoria de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO), con la concurrencia del Banco Mundial (BM) y el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI). La urgencia de evitar que 100 millones más de personas se precipiten en la desnutrición pudo lograr la presencia de 40 jefes de Estado y la representación de 193 países.La cumbre romana podría ser un inicio para desmantelar las estructuras que permiten que, pese a que se producen alimentos como para casi el doble de los 6 mil 300 millones de personas del mundo, haya casi mil millones que no acceden a ellos. Hasta se soñaba que el hambre y la desnutrición crecientes podrían hacer que quienes dominan esta tierra se pusieran de acuerdo y cedieran un poco ante la emergencia.Pero la reunión fue un monte planetario que parió un escuálido ratón neoliberal: del lado de la clase dominante mundial hubo llamados y grandes compromisos verbales; la ONU convocó a duplicar la producción mundial de alimentos para 2030 y se acordó reducir a la mitad los 854 millones de desnutridos que hay en el mundo para el año 2015.Sin embargo, con los instrumentos que se acordaron, las metas bien intencionadas no sólo no se cumplirán, sino que hasta se verán saboteadas: el principal medio que se dan los países para construir su seguridad alimentaria es el hilo negro de abrir sus fronteras y quitar trabas a las importaciones y exportaciones de alimentos. Lo que les vienen recetando los países hegemónicos, el BM y el FMI, desde hace cinco lustros. La receta no sólo se ha mostrado poco eficaz para producir alimentos, sino causante del desmantelamiento de la infraestructura de producción alimentaria de los países pobres.Cuando el mercado mundial de alimentos se libera, no son los pobres ni los campesinos los que ganan. Diez empresas controlan 80 por ciento de ese mercado global. Y tres de ellas han experimentado enormes ganancias mientras se derrumban las de los campesinos y en la mesa de las familias trabajadoras cada vez hay menos que comer: Monsanto, que el último año fiscal tuvo ganancias 108 por ciento superiores al año anterior; Cargill, 86 por ciento más y Continental Grain, 42 por ciento.Para no quedar tan mal, los países ricos y los organismos como el BM destinaron la precaria cifra de 6 mil 500 millones de dólares anuales para reactivar la producción alimentaria global. Tan sólo un poco más que el presupuesto anual de la Sagarpa en México. Nada si se le compara con el presupuesto mundial para la fabricación de armas, que supera 200 mil millones de dólares.Del lado de la otra clase, estuvieron las organizaciones como Vía Campesina, países como Cuba, o personalidades como Jean Ziegler, anterior relator de la ONU para el derecho a la alimentación. Insistieron en que la piedra de toque para resolver la crisis alimentaria es apoyar el desarrollo de las capacidades productivas de los campesinos, de los indígenas, de los agricultores familiares. Defendieron el concepto de soberanía alimentaria por sobre el de seguridad, pues los países pueden sufrir el moderno suplicio de Tántalo: tener sus bodegas llenas de alimentos, pero bajo el control de las trasnacionales especuladoras. Cuestionaron seriamente que se prefiera la producción de granos y semillas para biocombustibles a la de alimentos para las personas.Demostraron que un factor clave en el encarecimiento mundial de los alimentos es la especulación del capital financiero que trasladó a la bolsa de granos sus capitales muy mal librados de la crisis hipotecaria: en 2003 en el mercado de commodities, se habían colocado sólo 13 mil millones de dólares: para marzo de 2008 ascienden ya a 260 mil millones y en esos cinco años el precio promedio de éstas se ha aumentado en un 183 por ciento en promedio. Por ello defienden que la comida, sobre todo granos básicos, oleaginosas, carnes y lácteos dejen de ser considerados una mercancía.Si Felipe Calderón quisiera acceder a un alto puesto de manera legítima, éste podría ser el de secretario general de la FAO. Son tan coincidentes sus visiones sobre la actual crisis alimentaria con las de esta organización y las de los países ricos, que nadie de los de arriba lo cuestionaría. El problema sería para los cientos de millones de agricultores familiares y los desnutridos de este mundo.*Víctor Quintana, Asesor del Frente Democrático Campesino, organización de La Vía Campesina [Victor Quintana tambien fue designado asesor en Mexico de la Asociacion de Granjeros y Ganaderos Latinos de EEUU (National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association) con sede en Washington, DC en agosto de 2005].
Inside Guantanamo: What does the 5-4 Supreme Court decision really mean?Posted by Harry Hanbury, American News Project.AlterNet.A Public Defender representing seven Gitmo detainees shares misgivings about the Supreme Court decision upholding habeas corpus. Despite its recent 5-4 rejection of the legal basis for the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the Supreme Court may flip back to support the Bush administration's views on executive power.Steven Wax, a Federal Public Defender who represents seven Gitmo prisoners, is in the middle of this Constitutional maelstrom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_G-HzSBwiQ&eurl=http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/88781/
Decline and Fall of America's Energy Empire By Sara Robinsoncurrent debate over offshore oil leases has put America's gargantuan energy appetite back on the discussion table this week. I've tried to stay out of it so far for two reasons.The first is that (here comes the full disclosure) I married into a family that's been making its modest fortune in the oil patches of the American West for over a century, so there's some personal interest at stake here. (The upside: I've got a box seat from which to report on at least some of the festivities.) The second is that as a futurist — trained in America's oil center, Houston, no less — I take a much longer and systemic view of the situation. And that view gives my thinking about our energy future a rather different shape and direction.For the bigger context on what's happening, we need to think in centuries, not just decades. There's a lot to this view — this article admittedly oversimplifies a lot, and bypasses a few important issues entirely — but that just means there's plenty more to discuss in future posts. For now, some basics.Energy and EmpireThe bottom line is this: All empires are built on vast amounts of energy. And no great empire in history has ever come to power without controlling and dominating the market in whatever the current preferred energy resource was at the time.University of Toronto futurist Thomas Homer-Dixon lays out the argument in The Upside of Down, which I recommend to anyone seeking to understand the cause-and-effect relationship between energy and economic and political power. He carefully builds the argument that Rome rose on its ability to harness vast amounts of Mediterranean sunshine, turn it into food, and then reliably move that food around the empire to feed vast numbers of soldiers, builders, and horses and thus consolidate its regime. When that system failed, the empire crumbled.Likewise, the Dutch built their short-lived empire on the ability to supply oil for Europe's lanterns. They were supplanted by England, which was able to supply better, cheaper fuel out of its vast coal resources. British dominance lasted until a rising America turned out to have unimaginable amounts of coal, which allowed it to undercut the British pound as the world's most stable currency — and outperform the UK economically.And then came oil, which was soon preferred to coal because it proved to be a far more efficient (hence, cleaner and cheaper) and versatile fuel. You could get far more energy output from a smaller unit (coal's comparative inefficiency made it impractical for small vehicles like cars, for example) and with far less effort; and you could turn it into far more different kinds of products -- not just fuel, but plastics, fertilizers, wonder drugs, and much more.As the world moved toward oil at the beginning of the last century, the UK — eager not to lose out again — made an early bid for the oil fields of Arabia. But North America counted among its original blessings more oil reserves than any other continent on the planet; and that, argues Homer-Dixon, was decisive. Unable to compete, the British Empire faded, and the American Century began.But controlling the energy taps isn't the whole equation. To build the boon into a full-fledged empire, a country needs to create and export a whole infrastructure, a new and more productive way of life, based on the energy resources they control. The English built the first coal-fired railroads, ignited the Industrial Revolution with coal furnaces and steam power, and built a fleet of great ships that ran on coal oil. These, in turn, powered their global trading network and their military. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, Great Britain developed a complex and tightly interrelated technological, political, and economic system that established the pound as the global currency standard, and the Brits as lords of everything they touched.In the 20th century, America repeated the feat. We built oil-fueled cars, power plants, farms and factories; and then exported that technology to client states all over the world. The American dollar, backed by control of both the world's oil and most of the technology that made it useful, became the global currency standard. Powered by oil, we became the richest nation in history — so permeated with the stuff that very few of us can even see the degree to which we're soaking in it, let alone really grasp the fact that almost all of the wealth we have originally flowed out of the ground as crude.Regime Change Begins At HomeHomer-Dixon also points out another, more sober lesson. It's never happened that an empire that built its wealth on one energy resource also succeeded in dominating the next resource that supplanted it. Human nature being what it is, societies that are deeply invested in the current energy regime tend to fall into denial when that regime comes to its natural end — either because it simply runs out, or because it's superceded by something even more efficient and versatile. People can't believe things won't go on as they always have, or imagine that life could be any different. They shut their eyes to looming trouble, ignore the signs of impending doom, and refuse to make any reasonable plans to navigate the coming changes.In the meantime, as old system falls apart, someone hungrier and more nimble finds a way to capitalize on a new, more efficient energy resource. And so old empires die, and new ones rise to take their places.Put it in this perspective, and it becomes obvious that when we talk about running out of oil, we're not just talking about higher prices or low-carbon lifestyles or making an easy transition to something else that America (we like to think) will also dominate. When we fully grasp the foundational role oil played in securing America's wealth and global power, it becomes obvious that when we talk about moving off oil, we're really talking about nothing less than the demise of American power throughout the world, and the end of the American Way of Life as we've known it for generations.That's serious stuff. But it's the truth that provides the backdrop for everything else that's going on right now. Against this larger process, it's easier to see that the dollar is weakening because our control over the whole oil economy that has supported its value for the past century is in serious trouble — and that we won't be out of financial danger until we can base on the dollar's value on something other than oil. Our political stature is tanking because the world doesn't need to kiss up to us anymore to keep the cars running and the lights on — and it won't rise again until we find something else of equally high value to offer. Our standard of living is falling because it always floated on a sea of oil — and that sea is drying up. Oil prices are high not because of market manipulations and oil company profit-taking (though plenty of oil economists are sure that's part of the story, too); they're high because the whole system is destabilizing, heading for a major tipping point.There may be brief reprieves, rallies, and respites over the next few years; but over the long haul, we shouldn't assume that "normal" as we've known it will ever be coming back.Even before 9/11, the Bush Administration has always had a sense of panicked desperation about it — a desperation we've usually attributed to conservative revolutionary zeal, religious fanaticism, or free-market fundamentalism. But it's also plausible to interpret some of this as the desperation of people who were tasked with protecting the American empire by keeping the oil taps open and under control at any cost — and who know, deep in their guts, that time is running out.The Project for a New American Century's stated strategy for maintaining the American superpower in the face of a rising China was to invade and dominate the Middle East, and thus control China's access to oil for the next several decades. That was the intended long-term payoff of the Iraq War: control the oil, and thus control the world. In their minds, if we have to bankrupt the country, tear up the Constitution, and piss off every other country in the world along the way, it's worth it — since they know we're not worth a damn economically or politically without the oil anyway. Sure, the means are ugly; but according to their view of the ends, there's simply no alternative — and no other possible future worth discussing. They don't care if we hate them now, because they're convinced we'll thank them in 20 years for having the statesmanlike foresight to do what had to be done.(Blame it on too much time in the oil patch. That toxic elixer of crude and money so easily goes to one's head....)This perspective also provides some extra context for why locally-based power generation, like on-site or community wind and solar, are political non-starters for energy execs and their government minions. It's obvious that they hate it because they can't take profit from it; but they also know that America's global hegemony depends on keeping the world dependent on energy supplies they control. Since nobody can capture a monopoly on the wind or the sun, there's no way to build the next global empire on them. And therefore, renewables simply aren't very interesting to people whose first priority is geopolitical dominance and stratospheric profit.The Long ViewFrom this 10,000-foot view, it's easy to interpret the political spats and economic machinations and deal-making and climate debates and regional wars — the whole parade that dominates the news now — as simply opening acts in a long transition that could end up taking most of this century. Unless a) we discover vast new reserves on a globe that's been already explored from pole to pole (unlikely) and b) we come up with dramatic new evidence proving conclusively that climate change isn't a problem after all (even less likely), then the hard fact is: We will be spending the next several decades moving off oil.It's going to be the most important work of this century. And Americans can either get out in front of this change and come out of it at the century's end with much of their greatness intact — or continue to fight it, and end up as another of history's has-beens.Meeting this challenge means we're going to have to get very smart, very fast, about a lot of things.• First, we need to accept that this change is happening, and start having serious conversations about how we're going to handle it. The Bush Administration's denial has already cost us eight valuable years. It's an understatement to say that the longer we avoid the issue, the worse the transition will be.• Second, we need to stay mindful of the horrific pitfalls. The unimaginable grimness of the worst-case scenarios alone should be enough motivation to get and keep us talking.Even the most-likely-case scenarios are disturbingly short on sunshine and roses. Historically, energy transitions (involving, as they do, the collapse of vast economic and political systems) have never happened smoothly. Rome fell so hard that it took a thousand years for anything like it to rise again. The stable world order held together by the British coal empire shattered apart in two vast world wars and another dozen colonial revolutions (some of which still aren't resolved decades later). It's not unreasonable to expect similar disruptions as the American oil empire begins to unravel. It's not going to be pretty.When complex economic systems fail, they almost always fail catastrophically, leaving vast numbers of displaced, disoriented and righteously angry people in their wake. Bad economic and environmental decisions get made. Critical issues are ignored, or abandoned due to lack of resources. If folks get desperate enough for security, it's entirely likely that they'll reorganize into feudal kingdoms or even warlord-run clans, as has already happened in too many Middle Eastern countries in the wake of war. Restoring these lost democracies can take generations. Much of that risk can be averted — but only if we're aware of the potential for trouble, and start figuring out how to deal with it now.• Third, an important part of that planning will involve taking stock of the carbon-based resources remaining to us, and figure out how to best invest them to smooth the way to the next era. We can use that remaining margin of oil to rebuild walkable cities, construct next-generation energy infrastructure, and install electric transit. We can leverage it to repave the world with agrichar, restoring millions of acres of arable land, creating a vast new carbon sink, and eliminating the need for petroleum-based fertilizers in the bargain. We will still be able to afford to run oil-fueled bulldozers and trucks and ships for a while yet. Let's use them wisely while we can.• Fourth, "globalization" may take on a whole new meaning, one that's more about global governance than global trade. Executing transition plans necessarily means empowering planet-wide organizations that have the ability to make and enforce the rules. We've already done this on a limited scale in the CFC treaties, international non-proliferation efforts, and so on. But navigating a transition of this magnitude is going to force us to take the whole idea of global government to the next level. (Can't you hear the far right howling about this already?)Creating these new powers will raise all kinds of hard questions about national sovereignty and the rights of the global collective. In the end, we may revisit the meaning and purpose of government, and perhaps create entirely new forms of government that better balance local needs against global goals.What's Next?Over the next decade, some of the most heated political battles of all will be pitched over questions like: Who wins the next round? What new energy regime will rise in place of oil? What countries will take the lead? What price will they exact? What corporations will profit? How do we make sure that the new energy order is more sustainable, just, and humane than the one that's soon to be past?We can discuss possible answers to those questions in other posts. (This one's already long enough.) In general, I'm keeping an open mind. James Kunstler says that we're looking at the inevitable End Of The World As We Know it — but I see that as an absolute worst-case scenario, and far from the most likely one. The people who say we'll invent our way out of it have a somewhat better claim. We're well aware by now that all technologies come with a cost; but there are also a great many promising ideas already floating around out there, and we've barely started looking. Who knows what we'll find when we get serious about the search?But the evidence is now overwhelmingly supporting the idea that the Age of Oil — and an American empire built on oil — is coming to an end, and there is no turning back. The small debates we're having today are the opening strains of a change process that most of us probably won't live to see the end of; but the choices we make now will have long-term reverberations down the century as that process unfolds.And the conservatives who continue to distract us from that reality and commit atrocities in the name of maintaining an unsustainable status quo and "securing our future" are, in fact, setting us up for a decline of historic proportions. The future they want for us is no longer possible — or even desirable. When the century is over, we may not be an empire anymore -- but do have the choice to become a different kind of force for good in the world. The sooner we recognize that the 20th Century is over and that the 21st Century will demand different things of us, the sooner we can get on with remaking ourselves to fit the new era ahead.
Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Bush?By Ray McGovern, Consortium News.AlterNet.It's crazy, but it's coming soon. The armed forces are working out details. Impeachment may be the only way to stop it. Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox -- in the form of air and missile attacks -- begin.This time it will be largely the Air Force's show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind:"We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House."Does that sound like a man concerned that Bush is just bluff and bluster?A member of Olmert's delegation noted that same day that the two countries had agreed to cooperate in case of an attack by Iran, and that "the meetings focused on 'operational matters' pertaining to the Iranian threat." So bring 'em on!A show of hands please. How many believe Iran is about to attack the U.S. or Israel?You say you missed Olmert's account of what Bush has undertaken to do? So did I. We are indebted to intrepid journalist Chris Hedges for including the quote in his article of June 8, "The Iran Trap."We can perhaps be excused for missing Olmert's confident words about "Israel's best friend" that week. Your attention -- like mine -- may have been riveted on the June 5 release of the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding administration misrepresentations of pre-Iraq-war intelligence -- the so-called "Phase II" investigation (also known, irreverently, as the "Waiting-for-Godot Study").Better late than never, I suppose.Oversight?Yet I found myself thinking: It took them five years, and that is what passes for oversight? Yes, the president and vice president and their courtiers lied us into war. And now a bipartisan report could assert that fact formally; and committee chair Jay Rockefeller could sum it up succinctly:"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."But as I listened to Senator Rockefeller, I had this sinking feeling that in five or six years time, those of us still around will be listening to a very similar post mortem looking back on an even more disastrous attack on Iran.My colleagues and I in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) issued repeated warnings, before the invasion of Iraq, about the warping of intelligence. And our memoranda met considerable resonance in foreign media.We could get no ink or airtime, however, in the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) in the U.S. Nor can we now.In a same-day critique of Colin Powell's unfortunate speech to the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003, we warned the president to widen his circle of advisers "beyond those clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."It was a no-brainer for anyone who knew anything about intelligence, the Middle East, and the brown noses leading intelligence analysis at the CIA.Former U.N. senior weapons inspector and former Marine major, Scott Ritter, and many others were saying the same thing. But none of us could get past the president's praetorian guard to drop a memo into his in-box, so to speak. Nor can we now.The "Iranian Threat"However much the same warnings are called for now with respect to Iran, there is even less prospect that any contrarians could puncture and break through what former White House spokesman Scott McClellan calls the president's "bubble."By all indications, Vice President Dick Cheney and his huge staff continue to control the flow of information to the president.But, you say, the president cannot be unaware of the far-reaching disaster an attack on Iran would bring?Well, this is a president who admits he does not read newspapers, but rather depends on his staff to keep him informed. And the memos Cheney does brief to Bush pooh-pooh the dangers.This time no one is saying we will be welcomed as liberators, since the planning does not include -- officially, at least -- any U.S. boots on the ground.In order to read the complete article HERE.
Criminal Penalties for Abortion Rejected Across the GlobeBy Jill Filipovic, AlterNet. All around the world, abortion rights are increasingly seen as an individual choice, not an area for government intervention. When you live in a country where abortion rights remain a contentious issue in every election and anti-choice activists are emboldened enough to demonstrate against the birth control pill, there are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic about the future of reproductive freedom. But internationally, there's a glimmer of good news: Around the globe, individual citizens support abortion rights, even when their own governments criminalize abortion.The Program on International Policy Attitudes surveyed men and women in 18 countries that collectively make up 59 percent of the world's population. In 17 out of the 18 countries, a majority of respondents rejected criminal penalties for abortion. In nine of the 18 countries, majorities said that abortion is an individual decision that governments should butt out of. Of those nine countries which thought the government should intervene in abortion rights, only a majority in one -- Indonesia -- supported criminal sanctions for women who terminate their pregnancies.Have pro-choice values been embraced 'round the world? No. But the effects that anti-choice policies have on public health and family life around the world are difficult to deny. It's also clear that the legal status of abortion has no correlation with the abortion rate in any given country -- that is, outlawing abortion doesn't mean that it's less common. In fact, some of the countries with the highest abortion rates in the world are places where the procedure is totally outlawed. By contrast, the countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world have a few things in common: Safe, legal and accessible (often free, covered by national health care systems) abortion and contraception, plus comprehensive sexual health education and a culture that treats sex as both a pleasure and a responsibility, not a shameful act. Other things that correlate: The fact that lack of access to contraception jacks up the abortion rate, and the fact that illegal abortion often means unsafe abortion, which leads to significantly higher rates of maternal injury or death.It's not hard to see why an increasing number of people would support abortion rights.On average, 52 percent of those surveyed across the 18 countries support making abortion an individual decision. Forty-two percent support government interventions to discourage abortion -- but the majority of those people believe that the discouragement should come in the form of education, counseling and promotion of adoption services, not criminal penalties.Majorities in both Poland and Mexico -- two countries with highly restrictive abortion laws -- believe that the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be left to the pregnant woman, and the government should not interfere (those majorities came in at 66 and 70 percent, respectively). Ninety-five percent of French respondents said abortion should be an individual decision, along with 81 percent in Great Britain, 69 percent in the United States, 70 percent in the Ukraine, 62 percent in Russia, and 67 percent in China.In six other countries, majorities supported government discouragement of abortion, but criminal penalties were less popular. Indonesia is the only country surveyed where a majority (60 percent) believe that abortion should be criminalized. Egypt and Nigeria also had significant support for criminal penalties, though not majorities (45 percent and 42 respectively favoring such penalties).Religious belief was also a factor in support of individual rights versus criminal penalties. When respondents defined themselves as very religious, their support for government intervention in abortion rights hovers around 65 percent -- by contrast, only 25 percent of those who are not very religious believe the government should discourage abortion. Christians are the least likely to support criminal penalties (8 percent) and the most likely to support leaving the decision up to the individual (65 percent). The greatest support for criminal penalties came from Muslims (31 percent).It's nonetheless notable that, around the world, criminalizing abortion is falling out of favor, while individual choice is gaining support. Despite the best efforts of the current U.S. administration to spread their anti-choice message abroad, people around the world are saying that they want to improve public health and promote women's basic human rights. That's good news -- and in a world where 80,000 women die every year from unsafe abortion, it's incredibly necessary.
Billing The Grandkids By Ruth MarcusBy the time Congress finishes the latest "emergency" war spending bill, a mere seven years into the emergency, the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will have exceeded $860 billion. For the first time in American history, every penny of that amount will have been borrowed. For the first time, billions more will have been borrowed to finance tax cuts in the midst of war.Confronting the debt amassed during the Revolutionary War, George Washington was determined to pay it off, warning against "ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear." Confronting the enormous costs about to be piled up in Iraq, George Bush determined to press for new tax cuts -- not just "little bitty tax relief," as he put it, but hundreds of billions more."This contrast -- between an active war effort on one hand and substantial tax cuts on the other -- has no precedent in American history," three tax historians explain in "War and Taxes," a new book from the Urban Institute. Rather, since the War of 1812, "special taxes have supported every major military conflict in our nation's history."As Steven Bank, Kirk Stark and Joseph Thorndike show, presidents and lawmakers have not always been eager to impose taxes to pay war costs. But historically, Republicans and Democrats alike ultimately acknowledged the necessity -- fiscal and moral -- of shared sacrifice. "I think the boys in Korea would appreciate it more if we in this country were to pay our own way instead of leaving it for them to pay when they get back," said House Speaker Sam Rayburn.Until Iraq, that is. "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes," then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay declared in March 2003.The authors suggest several reasons for this turnabout. The end of the draft alleviated pressure on those left at home to do their part. A globalized economy and a more skillful Federal Reserve have reduced the fear of rampant inflation that fueled previous wartime tax hikes. Political polarization has driven away moderates, who tend to be deficit hawks.I'd argue that the biggest factor is the transformation of the Republican Party: This is the first extended war fought under the banner of supply-side economics. Richard Nixon, shortly after taking office, announced that "the path of responsibility" required him to support extending Lyndon Johnson's tax surcharge. That stance seems unimaginable for a Republican president today.Take John McCain, who refused to back additional tax cuts in 2003 because, he explained, "throughout our history, wartime has been a time of sacrifice." Now, as his party's presumptive nominee, McCain offers a costly menu of new tax cuts that makes Bush look like Ross Perot.From the Democrats' perspective then, why take the political risk of pushing tax hikes to finance a Republican war? Last year, when three senior House Democrats floated an income surtax to pay for the war, leadership shot it down with Bush-like speed. "Just as I have opposed the war from the outset," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "I am opposed to a war surtax."As the House prepares to take up the war funding bill for the second time, one small effort to pay for one tiny slice of war-related costs is an almost-certain casualty of such politics. The measure includes expanded education benefits for returning veterans, but conservative Blue Dog Democrats have insisted on finding a way to pay the cost, $52 billion over 10 years.As a result, the original House measure included a surtax of 0.47 percent on income of more than $1 million for married couples, $500,000 for individuals. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, this levy would affect three-tenths of 1 percent of taxpayers, who would pay an average of $8,770 more. Not much to ask from a group that saved an average of $126,690 last year from the Bush tax cuts.Not much, that is, except to the White House, which declared this and any other tax increase "unacceptable." The Senate, for its part, couldn't be bothered to bring the House proposal up for a vote."We believe if we can spend $170 billion on Iraq that we should spend $5 billion a year on the people coming back from Iraq," said Majority Leader Harry Reid. "I don't know why that would have to be offset."Here's the new, bipartisan fiscal policy: Soak the grandchildren. George Washington would have been appalled.marcusr@washpost.com
Blackwater Asks To Be Tried Under Islamic LawPosted by Attaturk, FiredoglakeAlterNetMilitary contractor asks to be judged by Shar'ia in deaths of American troops. Well, just when you think you may have just ONE day in life where your snark can outdo reality, you find out how absurd the world has been made. And not in a good way:The private military company Blackwater has cultivated a patriotic reputation, with its staff of retired military and former police officers, and the requirement that most of its workers swear an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution.Blackwater’s aviation wing recently filed a unique request in federal court, where the widows of three American soldiers are suing the company over a botched flight supporting the U.S. military in Afghanistan.The company, based in Moyock, doesn’t want the case heard in an American courtroom under American law: it wants the case heard under Shari’a, the Islamic law of Afghanistan.Don't let too many Republicans know this, but Shari'a law is apparently great for business and bad for the most evil people on earth, not Al Qaeda silly, AMERICAN TRIAL LAWYERS:The company argued that the lawsuit must be dismissed; legal doctrine holds that soldiers cannot sue the government, and Blackwater’s aviation wing was acting as an agent of the government.Last year, a series of federal judges dismissed that argument.In April, Blackwater asked a federal judge in Florida to apply Islamic law, commonly known as Shari’a, to the case. If the judge agreed, the lawsuit would be dismissed. Shari’a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work.If this becomes well-known, the GOP's corporate base will become fundamentalist Muslims faster than you can say Mecca Oil & Gas. James Taranto is wearing a burka already (he's very confused).
Exxon, Oil Giants Prepared To Sign No-Bid Oil Deals in IraqPosted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress AlterNet.No-bid contracts "unusual" for the industry, experts say.Four Western oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP — are in the final stages of “talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields.” The New York Times writes:The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India […]There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.These current contracts are reportedly a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for more lucrative, longer-term deals. Posted by
Does the E.U. Hate You?By Paul Hockenos, In These Times.AlterNet.There's no need for Americans to take offense or cancel their vacations -- most Europeans are angry at our government, not us.In Europe, as in nearly everywhere else in the world, the image of the United States has taken a severe battering during the Bush years. Survey after survey shows that negative feelings toward America and U.S. policies have soared. Only 36 percent of Europeans, for example, view U.S. leadership in world affairs as desirable, according to a 2007 German Marshall Fund poll. Markedly lower is their approval of the Bush administration: a dismal 17 percent. In Harris polls since 2003, the majority of Europeans have even cited the United States as the greatest threat to international security -- more so than Iran, North Korea or Russia.But distinguishing between an all-encompassing animus toward the country and its people, and legitimate criticism of U.S. government policies, has proven extremely difficult. Only the former is anti-Americanism -- an irrational, deeply embedded cultural aversion to a presumed American “national character.” A standard distinction between America-bashing and rational critique is between disapproval of what America is and what America does. Yet they inevitably blur into one another: After all, what one is informs what one does, and vice versa.The Bush administration attributed the opposition of France and Germany to the Iraq War as a blunt expression of anti-Americanism. Even some left-of-center intellectuals, such as University of Michigan political scientist Andrei Markovits, claim that a virulent anti-Americanism is currently sweeping Europe -- worse even than that during the Vietnam War or during the 1980s, when the United States deployed nuclear missiles in Western Europe.However, the range of European issues with the United States is not wanton America-trashing but conflicting visions of how to organize society and conduct relations in the wider world. In the European Union (E.U.), citizens are voicing a preference for a greater European role in global affairs, with Germans (87 percent) and Spaniards (81 percent) at the top. As Jeremy Rifkin put it in his 2004 book, The European Dream, Europe’s vision for the future has replaced that of the American dream.In the United States, many who backed the Iraq invasion would gladly echo Markovits’ conclusions in his 2007 book, Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America. He writes that underlying Europe’s hostility to “everything American” is a “massive Europe-wide resentment of the United States that reaches well beyond American policies, American politics and American government.”Markovits contends that the Bush administration’s contentious foreign policies have simply shot into overdrive a hatred for America that has long flourished in Europe, and is ultimately linked to anti-Semitism. On the right, European nationalists despise America as the epitome of the modern, a materialistic and hedonistic place run by Jews. The left’s anti-Americanism focuses on the United States being an imperialist power -- and in league with Zionist Israel.Markovits is not entirely wrong: Anti-Americanism is alive and well in Europe, and, among hardcore America haters, there is often an anti-Semitic element. But Markovits and his like are incorrect about how pervasive this sentiment is and the extent to which it dictates European attitudes about the United States. While some anti-Americanism is embedded in European opinion, it is actually quite thin: In France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy, it hovers around 10 percent (it is strongest in Greece), rising at times of transatlantic political friction, like the present.Yet more than a quarter of these populations (40 percent in Italy) are consistently sympathetic to the United States. Even at the height of the Cold War’s greatest crises, most Western Europeans favored maintaining a strong alliance with the United States. During the mass disarmament protests in the early ’80s, only 20 percent of West Germans favored the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Federal Republic.As American political scientists Robert Keohane and Peter Katzenstein demonstrate in their 2007 book, Anti-Americanisms in World Politics, negative European attitudes, even at their peaks, have zero impact on official policies toward the United States -- or on transatlantic tourism, trade or consumer behavior.Likewise, the overwhelming reluctance of both the German political elite and public to attack Iraq was not founded on bias against America. Germany, after all, participated in the 1999 NATO campaign against Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia, as well as far-reaching post-9/11 anti-terrorism measures and the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, all of which enjoyed popular backing.To read more....
$300 Billion Down the Tubes: Shocking Wasteful Spending on Weapons SystemsBy Nick Penniman, American News Project. AlterNet.Video: The Pentagon spends hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems, but troops still aren't getting what they need. The Pentagon spends hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems, but our troops still aren't getting what they need. It's a scandal of enormous proportions that involves deceptive corporations and complacent government officials. But the biggest problem of all is that the people in Washington who could fix it continue to ignore it.http://newsproject.org/node/71 Posted by
The Texas Border Wall Can't Separate Latinos From Their Memories and CultureBy Michelle García, The Washington Post.AlterNet."The land is our birthright in this place now called Texas, and its history contains our Gettysburg, our Trail of Tears, the seeds of our culture."Under a lavender canopy of jacaranda blossoms within sight of the embattled frontier, Luis Pea imagines an unintended and comical use for the future border wall."If anything, it will be a new sport. People will pole-vault," says the biology student with thick black hair. He kicks up a long leg and shouts, "Salto con garacho!" ("a high leap to garacho music"). Cue the Mexican violins!Laughter erupts from his fellow nature lovers from the Gorgas Science Society. They are here, after all, to chant "Don't fence us in" in protest of the 60-foot-high wall that will slice straight past their border-side campus -- which combines the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College -- and right through the Rio Grande Valley borderlands.I laugh weakly. I'm feeling dejected. Jokes about pole-vaulting, about lizards doomed by the wall, aren't what I expected when I trucked down to the very tip of my home state. I'd expected indignation about the border wall. I expected people to take it as personally as I did, like a slap at my identity, my South Texas culture, the Mexicanness in my Americanness.I imagine my ancestors felt the same way oh so long ago, in 1848, after the newly drawn border cut through their lands, marooning them in a netherworld with Mexico on one side, the United States on the other. In the 21st-century version of that alienation, the new border wall may transform once-private lands into a de facto DMZ complete with spotlights and armed patrols.Land, you see, is everything to us. Our culture is tied to the land. It is passed down as our inheritance, as my father did for me and my siblings, fulfilling his long-held pledge. In these borderlands, the fates of families like mine have hinged on the land. And so my instincts insist this wall is not just about illegal border-crossers, not just about Mexicans. It is, in a deeply historic way, about people like me, people whose identity was forged in generations of struggle over land.Pea invites me to see a campus monument marking the old war between Mexican and gringo: an old cannon standing erect along the Rio Grande. Check it out, he says. "This might be your last chance before the wall goes up." The cannon sits on the wrong side of the planned wall.Pea and I stroll through the campus, with its buildings of somber desert browns and reds and its sky-blue tile domes of Spanish-Moorish influence. This once was Fort Texas (later renamed Fort Brown), erected in 1846 when the United States charged the original southern border at the Nueces River and invaded Mexico to push the frontier 123 miles south to the much-coveted Rio Grande. What once was Mexico suddenly became the United States.As we walk toward the river, it's jarring to see the bullet-riddled walls of the campus's buildings -- a reminder of the old border battles. "All of this is battleground," says Pea, his playfulness quieting to philosophical musing. "These are bloody grounds.""They fought for it," he says of the United States. "But it's 'the enemy' that's left," he adds ironically.First, in that original war of conquest, the Mexican was the enemy. Then, it was the newly minted U.S. citizens, the Texas Mexicans, branded as bandits when they rebelled against colonial subjugation after their families were annexed with the territory.The war might have ended, but people like us, like Pea and I, still are regarded as the enemy by some.We are the outsider with a Spanish-infused drawl, with a song of love and valor in our hearts; the pickup-driving, boot-wearing, Stars and Stripes-waving Tejano. But Texans sometimes refer to us as "Mexicans" even now, when you can find a military veteran in nearly every family, and many of our families in these parts are as old as the mesquite tree."We have American flags, we recite the national anthem. But what do we have to do to be plugged in?" Antonio N. Zavaleta, a vice president at the university, asks effusively. He is a great-great-grandson of Juan Cortina, who led an armed rebellion in 1859 against Manifest Destiny and the new Anglo social order that aimed to subjugate the Tejano.To read more HERE.
SCOTUS Upholds the Rule of Law for Gitmo DetaineesPosted by dday, Hullabaloo.AlterNet.The court ruled that detainees have rights under the constitution. I gotta say, I didn't expect this to happen:The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices in the majority.Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."If it weren't for Anthony Kennedy or any of the more liberal justices, of course, that would no longer be true. Which is yet another reason why this election is so vital. Check out this quote from the Chief Justice. It reads like a comment at RedState:In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts criticized his colleagues for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."This action that has now been ruled invalid, the decision that Guantanamo detainees had no legal rights under the Constitution or Geneva, was the original sin that led to all the other abuses. And it won't surprise anyone to learn that it was "the stupidest fucking guy on the planet" Doug Feith's idea. In his book Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values, which is excerpted in this much-discussed Vanity Fair article, Philippe Sands talks to Feith, who's proud of his achievement of getting the Administration to agree that detainees had no rights:He was keen to talk about his role as the architect of President Bush's decision of February 7, 2002. He didn't buy the argument that the decision had the effect of casting the detainees into a great legal black hole. On the contrary, the President's decision was actually a strike for the Geneva Conventions and for international law. "This was something I played a major role in," he said with pride [...]In late January 2002 Feith and (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard) Myers went to meet Rumsfeld to talk about Geneva. Before they got to Rumsfeld's office, Myers turned to him. With fire in his eyes he said: "We have to support the Geneva Conventions... if Rumsfeld doesn't go along with this, I'm going to contradict them in front of the President." Feith was amazed. It was an unusually tough statement, and the reference to the Secretary as "Rumsfeld" was uncharacteristic. As they approached Rumsfeld's office he was at the door, not wanting to let them into the room as he had other matters to attend to. Myers was grilled by Rumsfeld, who asked questions but didn't adopt any position. Rumsfeld was "more of a lawyer than most lawyers when it comes to precision and question," a stickler for the law who constantly invoked the Constitution and statutes, Feith reported.As Rumsfeld fired his bullets at Myers, Feith described how he jumped protectively in front of Myers. He paused and looked me straight in the eye. "I gave a little speech - I remember - I don't often remember what I said in meetings - but this I remembered. This was an interesting moment." This was how he put it."There is no country in the world that has a larger interest in promoting the respect for the Geneva Conventions as law than the United States, and there is no institution in the US government that has a stronger interest than the Prentagon." And then I said something else that was kind of interesting to them. "Obeying the Geneva Conventions is not optional. The U.S. Constitution says there are two things that are the supreme law of the land - statutes and treaties." He said, "Yeah." And I said, "The Geneva Conventions are a treaty in force. It is as much part of the supreme law of the United States as a statute." [...]I was impressed, but how had they gone from that discussion to the decision that none of the detainees had any rights under the rules reflected in Geneva? Feith seemed surprised by my question and went on to explain [...] In his view, Geneva didn't apply to Al Qaeda fighters, because they weren't part of a state and so couldn't claim rights under a treaty that was only binding on states. Geneva did apply to the Taliban, but by Geneva's own terms Taliban fighters weren't entitled to POW status because they hadn't worn uniforms or insignia [...] He referred again to the incentive system that was built into the Geneva Conventions, providing the greatest protection to non-combatants and the least protection to "fighters who don't obey the rules." "If we promiscuously hand out POW status to fighters who don't obey the rules," Feith offered, "you are undermining the incentive system that was wisely built into the Geneva Conventions." This was at least arguable, I thought. But what should have been left was the safety net provided by Common Article 3, including the prohibition on abusive interrogation. But that too went: none of the detainees could rely on Common Article 3 since its provision only applied to "armed conflicts onot of an international charter."This was the legal argument that the SCOTUS rejected today. It's simple to do, since Common Article 3 was backed up by customary law, every judgment of international courts and tribunals, and the official commentary to Geneva. Feith spun this as a protection of Geneva, when it in fact was a destruction. Because Feith's argument rested on defending Geneva, the senior officers were confused with the ruling, and more so the soliders carrying out the dictates. As Sands says in the book, "with confusion comes uncertainty, and with uncertainty comes a greater likelihood of abuse." And this original sin created intentional confusion. If the detainees had no legal rights, there was no restriction on doing whatever necessary in interrogation to extract intelligence. Sands, by the way, appeared on Capitol Hill this week to discuss his findings in the book, but Republicans attempted to use a rare objection to unanimous consent to force the Senate into recess and shut down the hearing. They didn't even want these words to come out. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't shut down the court.
By Ray McGovern, C...
Billing The Grandkids By Ruth Marcus
Blackwater Asks To Be Tried Under Islamic Law
By Elizabeth A....
By Chris Hedges, Tr...

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