Two deaths with diametrically opposite meanings, evident from the immediate responses they provoked. One was greeted by millions of mourners packing the streets of Caracas, waiting for days to catch a glimpse of their departed leader. The other prompted spontaneous street parties in Brixton and Glasgow and a barrage of comical send-ups about the impending privatization of hell. But while revelers gathered spontaneously to celebrate the physical death of the Iron Lady of neoliberalism, Margaret Thatcher, voters in Venezuela are heading to the polls to drive nails into her coffin and bury her legacy by electing a revolutionary successor to Hugo Chávez.
“Children of 1989”
The Fourth World War started in Venezuela, and it was a war against Thatcher and her ilk. In February of 1989, Ronald Reagan had only recently handed the baton over to George H.W. Bush, and Thatcher was gearing up to impose the Poll Tax, which would see epic riots in Trafalgar Square the following year. Meanwhile in Venezuela, a seemingly different sort of government was taking power with a surprisingly similar outlook. Centrist social democrat Carlos Andrés Pérez had been elected on an anti-neoliberal platform that promised debtor-nation resistance and derided the IMF as a “bomb that only kills people.”
Once in power, however, the bait was switched and Pérez did an abrupt about face, instituting the neoliberal Washington Consensus to the letter: sweeping privatization and deregulation and the certainty that, for the poorest at least, things were about to get much worse. But while the populations of the United States and Britain were busily swallowing the bitter pill of neoliberalism under the illusion that there was no alternative, poor Venezuelans unexpectedly spat it back out and set about burning and looting to make the impossible suddenly possible.
In what was deemed the “Caracazo,” mass popular rebellion in the streets smashed in an instant the deceptive myth of Venezuelan exceptionalism and its illusory stability. It destroyed the prevailing system of corrupt two-party democracy and tossed forth Hugo Chávez himself as a political crystallization of demands unmet and aspirations unrealized. As graffiti in Caracas puts it: “We are children of 1989 in revolution.”
The House hearings on Iran-contra culminated in 1987 with a report that deftly mentioned Richard Secord’s plan to construct an enterprise of his own in the bulk manufacture of “opium alkaloids.”1
Opium?
This curious detail floated by without comment, eventually drowned in a flood of perjury and hot air.
The committee didn’t bother to follow up on that one. Better late than never to ask: “Opium alkaloids … ah, as in the base compound for the production of heroin?” It’s doubtful we’ll ever know the answer. And the explanation could be innocent, to be completely fair – Secord may have invented a cure for peptic ulcers or sexual impotence … but then heroin would appear the likeliest explanation … given the cost of global conquest these days …
Even Adnan Khashoggi has financed wars with drug profits, the gist of a report written in 1991 at the Pentagon – declassified in July 2004 by the National Security Archives in Washington – of 104 “more important Colombian narco-terrorists contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels for security, transportation, distribution, collection and enforcement of narcotics operations in both the U.S. and Colombia.”
Pablo Escobar is on the list. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is also on it.
Uribe, according to the document, is a “Colombian politician and senator dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels.” He was “linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the U.S. His father was murdered in Colombia for his connection with the narcotic traffickers.” He has “worked for the Medellin cartel,” according to the DoD report, and “is a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria…. He has participated in Escobar’s political campaign to win the position of assistant parliamentarian to Jorge [Ortega]…”
As the American civil rights movement emerged in the 1950s, the established American oligarchy, in all its various forms and avenues of influence, set in motion simultaneous attempts to control the evolution of the movement, in order to both divide the movement and its leaders against each other, and also to control its direction. The Civil Rights Movement arose as an independent and people-driven movement in a struggle for black rights in America. In this, the movement presented a great threat to the establishment oligarchy, as historically the subjugation of black people within western society was not merely a result of western policies, but lies at the very foundations and bedrock of western ‘civilization’, politically, socially, and economically. Thus, challenging the segregation of race inevitably challenges the entire political, economic and social system.
The National Security State and its various apparatus, such as the CIA, FBI, police and military structures, saw the Civil Rights Movement as a threat to the status quo (as it was), and treated it as an ‘enemy of the state’. The apparatus of the National Security State were spying, infiltrating and disrupting the civil rights movement, and were ultimately planning for its elimination. Simultaneously, the major philanthropic foundations of America’s richest families and billionaire elites (whose imperial interests are served through the National Security State), moved in to actively fund the Civil Rights Movement, so as to control its progress and make it ‘safe for Capitalism.’ The idea was to prevent the Civil Rights Movement from remaining an organic people-driven movement and taking its natural course, which falls outside the false boundary of the social construct of race, and would seek to unite all oppressed and impoverished people of the world in one struggle against the system, itself. The role of the billionaire philanthropies was to ensure that the ‘Civil Rights Movement’ remained race-based, and that it became about black people being absorbed into and rising within the system, instead of fighting against it. It was about financially co-opting the movement to suit the interests of the ruling oligarchy.
In another stunning rebuke to the United States and its corporate dominated government, the Bolivian Army, which once had stalked and eventually executed Che Guevara, last week announced that it has become a socialist institution in order to protect the country against U.S. economic, environmental and military imperialism.
Standing before Bolivian President Evo Morales during the bicentennial celebration of the establishment of the army, Commanding General Antonio Cueto told the gathering that the military “has declared itself anti-capitalist, because the capitalist system is destroying Mother Earth”. He alluded to Morales’ international conference on global warming in La Paz of nations fed up with the stalling of the developed nations, particularly their deception at the Copenhagen conference which scuttled any hope of a treaty. General Cueto called for a unification of all efforts to defend the environment.
How can such a small, economically insignificant country get it so right? Perhaps, it is because the people control the state, not wealthy corporations. If this is what 21st Century socialism looks like; I, for one, will give it another look. Can you imagine what a saving impact on global warming and the planet’s fragile environment there would be if the United States used its vast armed forces to “defend the environment” rather than bomb, kill and maim Iraqis and Afghanis.
I am the composer and librettist for THIS IS THE LAW OF THE PLAGUE, the work from my mass for PWA’s, performed at ST JOHN THE DIVINE’S in 1991 against the wishes of John Cardinal O'Connor, who tried to prevent its performance.
THIS IS THE LAW OF THE PLAGUE was composed in 1986. I will presume this is the music composition upon which David's film FIRE IN THE BELLY was based, or with which he felt a strong affinity,because I have been asked to defend our work, this collaboration. And I shall do so now.
I must begin,however, by making a behavioral and medical diagnosis of the rather shocking reaction of the Catholic League of Washington DC and particular members of the House of Representatives to this work. Their complaint is that the work "offends Christians," or so I hear. I have heard many stories, but working off of this assumption and the Smithsonian's own decision to either independently censor the work or cave in to these organizations, there are possibility three guilty parties here.
What the Catholic League and certain members of the House presumably wish to remove from their consciousness is thirty years of death sentences handed down to their parishioners and citizenry, who were told not to wear condoms, and the mistreatment of those stigmatized as miscreants and sinners by their viral status and/or homosexuality and/or status as drug addicts.
They wish to remove the UNSEPARATE CHURCH AND STATE conduct throughout the epidemic, which this film articulately reflects.
FIRE IN THE BELLY is a HOLY film. IT MUST be. And why is this?
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin.
Jensen joined the UT faculty in 1992 after completing his Ph.D. in media ethics and law in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a professional journalist for a decade. At UT, Jensen teaches courses in media law, ethics, and politics.
In his research, Jensen draws on a variety of critical approaches to media and power. Much of his work has focused on pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality and men’s violence, and he also has addressed questions of race through a critique of white privilege and institutionalized racism.
In addition to teaching and research, Jensen writes for popular media, both alternative and mainstream. His opinion and analytic pieces on such subjects as foreign policy, politics, and race have appeared in papers around the country. He contributes to local organizing in Austin, TX, through his work with the Third Coast Activist Resource Center, http://thirdcoastactivist.org/, and the progressive community center 5604 Manor, http://5604manor.org/
Prof. Jensen joined me in an exclusive interview to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East, the prospect of Iran-U.S. relations, the ongoing military campaign of the Israeli regime in Palestine, the biased coverage of the Middle East affairs by the mainstream media and the failure of President Obama in repairing the damaged picture of the United States in the global stage.
The Bayview Library, at Third and Revere, the center of San Francisco’s Black heartland, has long served as a second home for the children and all the people of Bayview Hunters Point. Now the City wants to replace it with a new building, but who will build it? Low bidder on the project was Liberty Builders, located a block from the library and owned by Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff, who is trusted to hire from the community. But the City just snatched the contract from Liberty and gave it to KCK Builders, a white contractor with no Black participation. Will the community allow KCK to build the library?The construction industry is infected with the pathology of racism. This infection is chronic. It first occurred in 1867. At that time the practitioners were injecting racism to protect those white people who had less skill than the newly freed slaves who were forced to ply their skills for less money.
Over the years, this infection has evolved under local and national laws. These laws have favored those who bring legacy to the game. Big unions and big contractors have conspired to restrict the number of contractors and workers who may enter the industry. These restrictions do not apply to familial relationships.
There is in law a requirement for something called the joint apprenticeship council. This council is composed of big unions and big contractors. Its effective role is to restrict the membership of unions by limiting training opportunities. These training opportunities are generally limited to relatives and friends of those who control the process.
Unlike Zimbabwe, the U.S. can easily get the currency it needs without being beholden to anyone. But wouldn't that dilute the value of the currency? No.
A month ago, the bond vigilantes were screaming that the Fed’s QE2 would be the first step on the road to Zimbabwe-style hundred trillion dollar notes. Zimbabwe (the former Southern Rhodesia) is the poster example of what can go wrong when a government pays its bills by printing money. Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed in 2008, when its currency hyperinflated to the point that it was trading with the U.S. dollar at an exchange rate of 10 trillion to 1. On November 29, Cullen Roche wrote in the Pragmatic Capitalist:
Back in October the economic buzzwords had become “money printing” and “debt monetization”. . . . [T]he Fed was initiating their policy of QE2 and you’d have been hard pressed to find someone in this country (and around the world for that matter) who wasn’t entirely convinced that the USA was about to send the dollar into some sort of death spiral. QE2 was about to set off a round of inflation that would make Zimbabwe look like a cakewalk. And then something odd happened – the dollar rallied as QE2 set sail and hasn’t looked back since.
What really happened in Zimbabwe? And why does QE2 seem to be making the dollar stronger rather than weaker, as the inflationistas predicted?
On the day that I go to hear the man many hail as San Diego’s preeminent straight-ahead jazz tenor saxist, he is playing piano. Sunday morning at Croce’s is the only gig that Daniel Jackson works anymore. He looks trim and elegant in a tailored charcoal suit and tie. “Do you sit at bars?” he asks, in a gravelly voice. “I’m older,” he adds, laughing. “Let’s sit at a table.” He grabs his iced lemonade and we sit.
Jackson has played professionally since 1958, and his responses are sometimes enigmatic, sometimes feisty. “Maybe this isn’t a good day for an interview,” he says at one point when he doesn’t agree with a question, pushing himself back from the table.
I tell him that when I was young, the late Hollis Gentry and I would watch him through the doors of the Crossroads club at Fourth and Market (now a Starbucks) and study his playing. He cracks a little smile. I prop my digital voice recorder on the table in front of him and explain how it works, that the little red light means it’s live. “Oh,” he says. “That scares me. It’s like a gun.”
The 2008 Barack Obama campaign reminded some hopeful left and liberal observers of the fantastic, feel-good presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK). Like RFK in the turbulent summer of 1968, Obama swept up a considerable number of progressives in the illusion that big democratic transformation, peace and justice could be achieved by electing a different ruling class-sponsored candidate. In both cases, many on “the left”1 drank heavily and wistfully from the corporate-crafted pitcher of liberal, candidate-centered Kool Aid. It was a great and dreamy seduction.2
When it comes to 1968 analogies, however, there is reason to see Obama’s real relationship with progressives and “the left” as closer to that of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley of the year. Think back to August ’68, more than four months after Daley had uttered his infamous “shoot to kill” order against black Chicagoans who rioted in the wake of the assassination/execution of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Democratic Convention was underway at the old International Amphitheater in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. The “anti-[Vietnam] war” candidate RFK – the likely victor in the primary contest (despite his late entry) – had been killed the previous month, leaving the Democrats free to nominate the hawkish Hubert Humphrey for the presidency.
The bailout of Ireland by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund makes clear that society confronts a disaster if the international banks are allowed to continue their plundering of national treasuries and dismantling of social welfare systems built up over decades.
The financial rescue package has exposed the role of every European institution and national government as the servant of a global financial aristocracy. Not a single government, nor a single parliamentary party is either willing or able to check the ever-expanding power of international finance capital.
In May of this year, following a concerted campaign by major banks and rating agencies to downgrade Greek debt and drive up the price of Greek government bonds, the EU and the IMF intervened to arrange a €110 billion bailout of the country. Tax payers were assured by European politicians and the media that Greece was a unique case and there would be no similar bailout of another country.
Now, barely six months later, a comparable sum, ultimately to be repaid by the tax payers, has been allocated by the EU and IMF following another destructive campaign by international bankers and speculators to downgrade Ireland.
The Panama Deception is a 1992 documentary film that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film is critical of the actions of the US military during the 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States, covering the conflicting reasons for the invasion and the depicting of the US media as biased. It was directed by Barbara Trent of the Empowerment Project and was narrated by actress Elizabeth Montgomery.
The distinguished scholar and best-selling author Chalmers Johnson has died. He passed away in California on Saturday afternoon at the age of 79. During the Cold War, he served as a consultant to the Central Intelligence Agency and was a supporter of the Vietnam War, however, later became a leading critic of U.S. militarism and imperialism. He wrote the book, "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire" in 2000, which became a bestseller after the 9/11 attacks. He went on to complete what would become a trilogy about American empire. Today Democracy Now! re-airs part of its last interview with Chalmers Johnson from 2007.
The people's oligarch Warren Buffett just wrote a thank you letter to "Uncle Sam" published in the New York Times. It is the height of cynicism.
Buffett has a carefully crafted public image as a brilliant but people-friendly master of investments. We hear about his regular table at an Omaha diner where he conducts business (just plain Warren) and we see his occasional public stands for reasonable policies like the inheritance tax.
He claims that "Uncle Sam", the government, saved us from a financial catastrophe that would have swallowed up his company. He then endorses the notion that the housing bubble was based on "mass delusion" - meaning it wasourfault. But he forgets to mention that he took advantage of the 2008 crisis to purchase a $5 billion interest in Goldman Sachs. And he forgets whose money "Uncle Sam" stole from the Treasury to save him and the rest of his cronies. What a hypocrite.
"Uncle Sam" isn't the government. The "government" is the perpetually bought and paid for chief executive, Congress, and judiciary that Buffett and his pals manipulate at will. "Uncle Sam" was never going to do anything different than what it did, bail out Wall Street and the ultra rich with our money. Buffett is really thanking himself and the other few who own Uncle Sam. He knows better. Thus, his letter is the ultimate expression of profound contempt for the people.
"If there weren’t so many bureaucratic hands in the State apparatus, stopping resources from reaching the people, we would have overcome extreme poverty." The newly elected MP of the PSUV in Aragua and ex-Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Maria León spoke with Lucha de Clases to draw up a critical balance-sheet of the September 26 elections, the sabotage of the Venezuelan oligarchy and the need for international solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution.
LC: What is your analysis of the September 26 election results?
ML: As a Venezuelan who has dedicated all of her political activity in favour of the social interests of working men and women, and for the struggle for socialism, I look at every political event from a class point of view.
In Venezuela we have the phenomenon that Marx and Engels refer to in The Communist Manifesto, which states: “Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.”
For me what is happening today in Venezuela and much of our America which is in struggle, involves not only the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but also the oligarchy and the working people. I say "working people" because some oligarchs, by the fact that they were born in Venezuela believe that they are part of the people and thus I use the term “working people” to avoid confusion.
What is happening? This country since the popular uprising against the oligarchy at the time of Zamora had not risen again. All the wars that have taken place since then to this day, have been carried out by different groups of the left, of the right, of people ambitious for power and glory, and some seeking justice, but none of these had involved the whole people as we have achieved since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution with comandante Hugo Chavez.
As each day passes the two major camps, that of the oligarchy and that of the people will become more clearly defined. The elections are a demonstration of this confrontation and a huge one at that, because so far, both the working class and the oligarchy were disguised and speaking of National Unity, the interests of the Nation...
It is indeed ironic that Bonnie Dumanis, San Diego’s District Attorney and a member of the Log Cabin Republican Club, in her vicious pursuit of medical marijuana users, is at odds with Abraham Lincoln who refused to approve a proposed prohibition on cannabis use. Every American president until the 1930’s used medical marijuana, and according to Morey Amsterdam and Eddie Gordon, close friends of John F. Kennedy, who used cannabis for his back pain, he was going to legalize it during his second term.
Under the shadow of a venomous San Diego District Attorney and a cliff-hanger Attorney General election between a fanatical D.A. from Los Angeles and a sympathetic D.A. from the Bay Area, medical marijuana patients, providers and activists met near Mission Bay under the banner of “putting patients first.”
The November 14th, all-day gathering, at the Marina Village Conference Center reflected both the radiance of altruism in the medical marijuana movement, its ancient heritage, and the potential to humanize the medical-care-giving industry, as well as the dangers members and patients face from reactionary forces still fighting the obsolete cultural wars of the 1960’s.
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning," Obama's deficit-cutting agenda the latest battle.
On May 4, Hugo Radice, Life Fellow of the University of Leeds School of Politics and International Studies, headlined an article, "Cutting Public Debt: Economic Science or Class War?" asking:
"Is cutting the public debt really an objective economic necessity, or is it actually a deeply political stance, reflecting the interests of the business and financial elites?"
It discussed Indonesia's National Armed Forces (TNI), especially its thuggish Kopassus Special Forces Command, its red beret unit responsible for political killings, torture, rape, and massacres of hundreds of thousands of civilians in East Timor, Aceh, Papua, and elsewhere in the country.
TNI aid was restricted following a November 12, 1991 Santa Cruz cemetery massacre of over 270 demonstrators in Dili, East Timor. In July, it was restored, a July 22 East Timor Action Network (ETAN) press release "condemn(ing) the Obama administration's decision to resume engagement with Indonesia's notorious Kopassus special forces," ETAN's National Coordinator, John Miller, saying:
"Slipping back into bed with Kopassas is a betrayal of the brutal unit's many victims in Timor-Leste (East Timor), West Papua and throughout Indonesia. It will lead to more people (suffering) abuses. Working with Kopassus which remains unrepentant about its long history of terrorizing civilians, will undermine efforts to achieve justice and accountability for human rights in Indonesia and Timor-Leste."
"For years, the US military provided training and other assistance to (TNI and its infamous) Kopassus, and when the US was most involved, Kopassus crimes were at their worst. While this assistance improved (TNI's) deadly skills, it did nothing to improve its behavior."
Yet Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington "will begin a gradual, limited program of security cooperation activities," a veiled assurance of business as usual. It's no surprise as CIA armies, US Special Forces, and other military units replicate the worst of Kopassus manyfold.
(Washington) President Barack Obama has confided his plans to become a registered Republican some time before the end of the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress. Speaking to his inner circle, he lamented failing to bring the two major parties together. One of his confidants reported Obama saying, "It's really just one party anyway and clearly the Republicans have the confidence of the people. I can finish my original mission much easier within the GOP." Sources wouldn't elaborate on what that mission is.
Obama clearly signaled his intentions through two recent tactical moves. He relented on ending the Bush-era tax breaks for the top 1% of income earners. The 3% reduction in the top rate accounts for over $1.0 trillion in lost revenues. Prior to the 2010 midterm elections, Obama hinted that he opposed a renewal of the tax breaks. It looked like the president might win this one with speculation that the tax breaks would likely die due to the post midterm atmosphere.
Obama also tipped his hand by backing away from his mid 2011 date to begin the withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan. His Secretary of Defense and NATO officials indicated that 2014 was a more likely date. On December 1, 2009, the president said, "… these additional American and international troops will …allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011."
From October 12 to 15, 2010, I had extensive and detailed discussions with Fidel Castro in Havana, pertaining to the dangers of nuclear war, the global economic crisis and the nature of the New World Order. These meetings resulted in a wide-ranging and fruitful interview.
The first part of this interview published by Global Research and Cuba Debate focuses on the dangers of nuclear war.
The World is at a dangerous crossroads. We have reached a critical turning point in our history.
This interview with Fidel Castro provides an understanding of the nature of modern warfare: Were a military operation to be launched against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the US and its allies would be unable to win a conventional war, with the possibility that this war could evolve towards a nuclear war.
The details of ongoing war preparations in relation to Iran have been withheld from the public eye.
How to confront the diabolical and absurd proposition put forth by the US administration that using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran will "make the World a safer place"?
A central concept put forth by Fidel Castro in the interview is the 'Battle of Ideas". The leader of the Cuban Revolution believes that only a far-reaching "Battle of Ideas" could change the course of World history. The objective is to prevent the unthinkable, a nuclear war which threatens to destroy life on earth.
The corporate media is involved in acts of camouflage. The devastating impacts of a nuclear war are either trivialized or not mentioned. Against this backdrop, Fidel's message to the World must be heard; people across the land, nationally and internationally, should understand the gravity of the present situation and act forcefully at all levels of society to reverse the tide of war.
The "Battle of Ideas" is part of a revolutionary process. Against a barrage of media disinformation, Fidel Castro's resolve is to spread the word far and wide, to inform world public opinion, to "make the impossible possible", to thwart a military adventure which in the real sense of the word threatens the future of humanity.
When a US sponsored nuclear war becomes an "instrument of peace", condoned and accepted by the World's institutions and the highest authority including the United Nations, there is no turning back: human society has indelibly been precipitated headlong onto the path of self-destruction.
Fidel's "Battle of Ideas" must be translated into a worldwide movement. People must mobilize against this diabolical military agenda.
This war can be prevented if people pressure their governments and elected representatives, organize at the local level in towns, villages and municipalities, spread the word, inform their fellow citizens regarding the implications of a thermonuclear war, initiate debate and discussion within the armed forces.
What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of war, a global people's movement which criminalizes war.
In his October 15 speech, Fidel Castro warned the World on the dangers of nuclear war:
"There would be “collateral damage”, as the American political and military leaders always affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people. In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity. Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!"
The "Battle of Ideas" consists in confronting the war criminals in high office, in breaking the US-led consensus in favor of a global war, in changing the mindset of hundreds of millions of people, in abolishing nuclear weapons. In essence, the "Battle of Ideas" consists in restoring the truth and establishing the foundations of World peace.
De Domingo, 12 de febrero, 2006 El Fondo Raúl Sendic fue pensado por la cúpula del MPP meses antes de que el actual gobierno asumiera, allá por el pasado mes de marzo. Hubo un compromiso común de que todos aquellos dirigentes del MPP que fueran electos para desarrollar cargos rentados volcaran un porcentaje de sus remuneraciones para solventar el emprendimiento.
Transcurrido casi un año desde que la idea se materializó, el Fondo, que lleva el nombre del histórico dirigente tupamaro Raúl Sendic, tiene una bolsa inicial de 500.000 dólares que desde la semana que viene se irán distribuyendo en aquellos pedidos de préstamos que tienen como destino principal proyectos productivos. Los proyectos van desde quien necesita el dinero para comprar una máquina de cortar pasto hasta el que pretende construir un horno de barro para elaborar pan casero.
El Fondo funcionará en una casa donada al MPP y que en estos días está siendo refaccionada. El teléfono para recibir los pedidos es el 402 7131. Neri Muti, integrante del Ejecutivo Nacional del MPP, es integrante de la comisión honoraria de dirigentes que vienen llevando adelante el proyecto que está a punto de inaugurarse.
A fines de diciembre, el ministro Mujica presentó la iniciativa. Está dirigida a la población de escasos recursos.
--¿Cuáles son los pasos que la comisión de técnicos del MPP viene dando con relación a los pedidos de préstamos al Fondo Raúl Sendic?
--Primero se recibe vía telefónica el pedido, luego se evalúa y se incorpora a un determinado rubro productivo con el fin de ver las conexiones que pueda tener con otros proyectos similares. Después se estudia y resuelve si el pedido del préstamo y el proyecto están dentro de nuestras posibilidades, porque si bien para nosotros es mucho el dinero con el que contamos, sabemos que se puede terminar enseguida. Por eso, seguramente mucha gente va a quedar en lista de espera.
This spot is about the adventurous story of rebuilding the old Cinema in Jenin, located in a Palestinian town in Israel's occupied territories, considered to be one of the most dangerous places on earth. The only cinema in town was closed at the outset of the first Intifada. This cinema spot is produced by the kids of the "Cuneo Center for Peace" - a youth center located in the middle of the Jenin Refugee Camp.
The U.S. midterm elections register a level of anger, fear and disillusionment in the country like nothing I can recall in my lifetime. Since the Democrats are in power, they bear the brunt of the revulsion over our current socioeconomic and political situation.
More than half the “mainstream Americans” in a Rasmussen poll last month said they view the Tea Party movement favorably—a reflection of the spirit of disenchantment.
The grievances are legitimate. For more than 30 years, real incomes for the majority of the population have stagnated or declined while work hours and insecurity have increased, along with debt. Wealth has accumulated, but in very few pockets, leading to unprecedented inequality.
These consequences mainly spring from the financialization of the economy since the 1970s and the corresponding hollowing-out of domestic production. Spurring the process is the deregulation mania favored by Wall Street and supported by economists mesmerized by efficient-market myths.
People see that the bankers who were largely responsible for the financial crisis and who were saved from bankruptcy by the public are now reveling in record profits and huge bonuses. Meanwhile official unemployment stays at about 10 percent. Manufacturing is at Depression levels: one in six out of work, with good jobs unlikely to return.
People rightly want answers, and they are not getting them except from voices that tell tales that have some internal coherence—if you suspend disbelief and enter into their world of irrationality and deceit.
In your recent article “Zionism and Peace are Incompatible” you reach a point where you state “if it is the case that American presidents are frightened of provoking Israel, the conclusion would have to be that the Zionist state is a monster beyond control and that all efforts for peace are doomed to failure.” Is it really the case that Israel possesses an uncontrollable, disproportionate power which enables it to violate the international law and enjoy immunity from being held accountable before the international community? What’s the source of this unwarrantable power and influence?
The House hearings on Iran-contra culminated in 1987 with a report that deftly mentioned Richard Secord’s plan to construct an enterprise of his own in the bulk manufacture of “opium alkaloids.”1
As the American civil rights movement emerged in the 1950s, the established American oligarchy, in all its various forms and avenues of influence, set in motion simultaneous attempts to control the evolution of the movement, in order to both divide the movement and its leaders against each other, and also to control its direction. The Civil Rights Movement arose as an independent and people-driven movement in a struggle for black rights in America. In this, the movement presented a great threat to the establishment oligarchy, as historically the subjugation of black people within western society was not merely a result of western policies, but lies at the very foundations and bedrock of western ‘civilization’, politically, socially, and economically. Thus, challenging the segregation of race inevitably challenges the entire political, economic and social system.
Unlike Zimbabwe, the U.S. can easily get the currency it needs without being beholden to anyone. But wouldn't that dilute the value of the currency? No.
On the day that I go to hear the man many hail as San Diego’s preeminent straight-ahead jazz tenor saxist, he is playing piano. Sunday morning at Croce’s is the only gig that Daniel Jackson works anymore. He looks trim and elegant in a tailored charcoal suit and tie. “Do you sit at bars?” he asks, in a gravelly voice. “I’m older,” he adds, laughing. “Let’s sit at a table.” He grabs his iced lemonade and we sit.
The 2008 Barack Obama campaign reminded some hopeful left and liberal observers of the fantastic, feel-good presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK). Like RFK in the turbulent summer of 1968, Obama swept up a considerable number of progressives in the illusion that big democratic transformation, peace and justice could be achieved by electing a different ruling class-sponsored candidate. In both cases, many on “the left”1 drank heavily and wistfully from the corporate-crafted pitcher of liberal, candidate-centered Kool Aid. It was a great and dreamy seduction.2
It is indeed ironic that Bonnie Dumanis, San Diego’s District Attorney and a member of the Log Cabin Republican Club, in her vicious pursuit of medical marijuana users, is at odds with Abraham Lincoln who refused to approve a proposed prohibition on cannabis use. Every American president until the 1930’s used medical marijuana, and according to Morey Amsterdam and Eddie Gordon, close friends of John F. Kennedy, who used cannabis for his back pain, he was going to legalize it during his second term.
From October 12 to 15, 2010, I had extensive and detailed discussions with Fidel Castro in Havana, pertaining to the dangers of nuclear war, the global economic crisis and the nature of the New World Order. These meetings resulted in a wide-ranging and fruitful interview. 