Greece and the European Union: First as Tragedy, Second as Farce, Thirdly as Vassal State

07.26.2015 :: 

THE JAMES PETRAS WEBSITE

Introduction: The Greek people’s efforts to end the economic depression, recover their sovereignty and reverse the regressive socio-economic policies, which have drastically reduced living standards, have been thrice denied.

First, the denial came as tragedy: When the Greek majority elected Syriza to government and their debts increased, the economy plunged further into depression and unemployment and poverty soared. The Greek people voted for Syriza believing its promises of ‘a new course’. Immediately following their victory, Syriza reneged on their promise to restore sovereignty – and end the subjugation of the Greek people to the economic dictates of overseas bankers, bureaucrats and political oligarchs. Instead Syriza kept Greece in the oligarchical imperialist bloc, portraying the European Union as an association of independent sovereign countries. What began as a great victory of the Greek people turned into a tragic strategic retreat. >From their first day in office, Syriza led the Greek people down the blind alley of total submission to the German empire.

Then the tragedy turned into farce when the Greek people refused to acknowledge the impending betrayal by their elected leaders. They were stunned, but mute, as Syriza emptied the Greek treasury and offered even greater concessions, including acceptance of the illegal and odious debts incurred by private bankers, speculators and political kleptocrats in previous regimes.

True to their own vocation as imperial overlords, the EU bosses saw the gross servility of Syriza as an invitation to demand more concessions – total surrender to perpetual debt peonage and mass impoverishment. Syriza’s demagogic leaders, Yanis Varoufakis and Alexis Tsipras, shifting from fits of hysteria to infantile egotism, denounced ‘the Germans and their blackmail’ and then performed a coy belly-crawl at the feet of the ‘Troika’, peddling their capitulation to the bankers as ‘negotiations’ and referring to their overlords as . . . ‘partners’.

Syriza, in office for only 5 months brought Greece to the edge of total bankruptcy and surrender, then launched the ‘mother of all deceptions’ on the Greek people: Tsipras convoked a ‘referendum’ on whether Greece should reject or accept further dictates and cuts to bare bones destitution. Over 60% of the Greek people voted a resounding NO to further plunder and poverty.

In Orwellian fashion, the megalomaniac Tsipras immediately re-interpreted the ‘NO’vote as a mandate to capitulation to the imperial powers, accepting the EU bankers’ direct supervision of the regime’s implementation of Troika’s policies – including drastic reductions of Greek pensions, doubling the regressive ‘VAT’ consumption tax on vital necessities and a speed-up of evictions of storeowners and householders behind in their mortgage payments. Thus Greece became a vassal state: Nineteenth century colonialism was re-imposed in the 21st century.

Colonialism by Invitation

Greek politicians, whether Conservative or Socialist, have openly sought to join the German-led imperial bloc known as the European Union, even when it was obvious that the Greek economy and financial system was vulnerable to domination by the powerful German ruling class.

From the beginning, the Greek Panhellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) and their Conservative counterparts refused to recognize the class basis of the European Union. Both political factions and the Greek economic elites, that is, the kleptocrats who governed and the oligarchs who ruled, viewed entry into the EU as an opportunity for taking and faking loans, borrowing, defaulting and passing their enormous debts on to the public treasury!

Widely circulating notions among the Left that ‘Germany is responsible’ for the Greek crisis are only half true, while the accusations among rightwing financial scribes that the ‘Greek people are spendthrifts’ who brought on their own crisis is equally one-sided. The reality is more complex:

The crash and collapse of the Greek economy was a product of an entrenched parasitic rentier ruling class –both Socialist and Conservative – which thrived on borrowing at high interest rates and speculating in non-productive economic activities while imposing an astronomical military budget. They engaged in fraudulent overseas financial transactions while grossly manipulating and fabricating financial data to cover-up Greece’s unsustainable trade and budget deficits.

German and other EU exporters had penetrated and dominated the Greek markets. The bankers charged exorbitant interest rates while investors exploited cheap Greek labor. The creditors ignored the obvious risks because Greek rulers were their willing accomplices in the ongoing pillage.

Clearly entry into and continued membership in the EU has largely benefited two groups of elites: the German rulers and the Greek rentiers: The latter received short-term financial grants and transfers while the former gained powerful levers over the banks, markets and, most important, established cultural-ideological hegemony over the Greek political class. The Greek elite and middle class believed ‘they were Europeans’ – that the EU was a beneficent arrangement and a source of prosperity and upward mobility. In reality, Greek leaders were merely accomplices to the German conquest of Greece. And the major part of the middle class aped the views of the Greek elite.

The financial crash of 2008-2009 ended the illusions for some but not most Greeks. After 6 years of pain and suffering a new version of the old political class came to power: Syriza! Syriza brought in new faces and rhetoric but operated with the same blind commitment to the EU. The Syriza leadership believed they were “partners”.

The road to vassalage is rooted deep in the psyche of the political class. Instead of recognizing their subordinate membership in the EU as the root cause of their crisis, they blamed ‘the Germans, the bankers, Angela Merkel, Wolfgang Schnauble , the IMF, the Troika… The Greek rulers and middle class were in fact both victims and accomplices.

The German imperial regime loaned money from the tax revenues of German workers to enable their complicit Greek vassals to pay back the German bankers… German workers complained. The German media deflected criticism by blaming the ‘lazy Greek cheats’. Meanwhile, the Greek oligarch-controlled media deflected criticism of the role of the parasitical political class back to the ‘Germans’. This all served to obscure the class dynamics of empire building — colonialism by invitation. The ideology of blaming peoples, instead of classes, is pitting German workers against Greek employees and pensioners. The German masses support their bankers, while the Greek masses have elected and followed Syriza – their traitors.

From Andreas Papandreou to Alexis Tsipras: Misconceptions about the European Union

After Syriza was elected a small army of instant experts, mostly leftist academics from Canada, the US and Europe, sprang up to write and speak, usually with more heat than light, on current Greek political and economic developments. Most have little knowledge or experience of Greek politics, particularly its history and relations with the EU over the past thirty five years.

The most important policy decisions shaping the current Syriza government’s betrayal of Greek sovereignty go back to the early 1980’s when I was working as an adviser to PASOK Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. At that time, I was party to an internal debate of whether to continue within the EU or leave. Papandreou was elected on an anti EU, anti NATO platform, which, like Tsipras, he promptly reneged on– arguing that ‘there were no alternatives’. Even then, there were international and Greek academic sycophants, as there are today, who argued that membership in the EU was the only realistic alternative- it was the ‘only possibility’. The ‘possibilistas” at that time, operating either from ignorance or deceit, were full of bluster and presumption. They denied the underlying power realities in the structure of the EU and dismissed the class capacity of the working and popular masses to forge an alternative. Then, as now, it was possible to develop independent alternative relations with Europe, Russia, China, the Middle East and North Africa. The advantages of maintaining a protected market, a robust tourist sector and an independent monetary system were evident and did not require EU membership (or vassalage).

Above all, what stood out in both leaders, Andreas Papandreou and Alexis Tsipras, was their profound misconception of the class nature of the dominant forces in the EU. In the 1980’s Germany was just beginning to recover its imperial reach. By the time Syriza-Tsipras rose to power (January 2015), Germany’s imperial power was undeniable. Tsipras’ misunderstanding of this reality can be attributed to his and his ‘comrades’ rejection of class and imperial analyses. Even academic Marxists, who spouted Marxist theory, never applied their abstract critiques of capitalism and imperialism to the concrete realities of German empire building and Greece’s quasi-colonial position within the EU. They viewed their role as that of ‘colonial reformers’ –imagining that they were clever enough to ‘negotiate’ better terms in the German-centered EU. They inevitably failed because Berlin had a built-in majority among its fervently neo-liberal ex-communist satellites plus the IMF, French and English imperial partners. Syriza was no match for this power configuration. Then there was the bizarre delusion among the Syriza intellectuals that European capitalism was more benign than the US version.

EU membership has created scaffolding for German empire-building. The take off point was West Germany’s annexation of East Germany. This was soon followed by the incorporation of the rightwing regimes in the Baltic and Balkans as subordinate members of the EU – their public assets were snapped up by Germany corporations at bargain prices. The third step was the systematic break-up of Yugoslavia and the incorporation of Slovenia into the German orbit. The fourth step was the takeover of key sectors of the Polish and Czech economies and the exploitation of cheap skilled labor from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and other satellite states.

Without firing a shot, German empire-building has revolved around making loans and financial transfers to the new subordinate member states in the EU. These financial transactions were predicated upon the following conditions: 1) Privatization and sale of the new member states’ prized public assets to mainly German as well as other EU investors and 2) Forcing member states to dismantle their social programs, approve massive lay-offs and meet impossible fiscal targets. In other words, expansion of the contemporary German empire required austerity measures, which transformed the ex-communist countries into satellites, vassals and sources of mercenaries – a pattern which is now playing out in Greece.

The reason these new German ‘colonies’ (especially Poland and the Baltic States) insist on the EU imposing harsh austerity measures on Greece, is that they went through the same brutal process convincing their own beleaguered citizens that there was no alternative – resistance was futile. Any successful demonstration by Greek workers, farmers and employees that resistance to empire was possible would expose the corrupt relationship between these client leaders and the German imperial order. In order to preserve the foundations of the new imperial order, Germany has had to take a hardline on Greece. Otherwise the recently incorporated colonial subjects in the Baltic, Balkan and Central Europe states might “re-think” the brutal terms of their own incorporation to the European Union. This explains the openly punitive approach to Greece – turning it into the ‘Haiti of Europe’ analogous to the US’ long standing brutalization of the rebellious Haitians – as an object lesson to its own Caribbean and Latin American clients.

The root cause of German intransigence has nothing to do with the political personalities or quirks of Angela Merkle and Wolfgang Schnauble: Such imperial leaders do not operate out of neurotic vindictiveness. Their demand for total Greek submission is an imperative of German empire-building, a continuation of the step-by-step conquest of Europe.

German empire-building emphasizes economic conquests, which go hand-in-hand with US empire-building based on military conquests. The same economic satellites of Germany also serve as sites for US military bases and exercises encircling Russia; these vassal states provide mercenary soldiers for US imperial wars in South Asia, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.

Syriza’s economic surrender is matched by its spineless sell-out to NATO, its support of sanctions against Russia and its embrace of US policies toward Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

Germany and its imperial partners have launched a savage attack on the working people of Greece, usurping Greek sovereignty and planning to seize 50 billion Euros of vital Greek public enterprises, land and resources. This alone should dispels the myth, promoted especially by the French social democratic demagogue Jacques Delores, that European capitalism is a benign form of ‘social welfarism’ and an ‘alternative’ to the savage Anglo-American version capitalism.

What has been crucial to previous and current versions of empire-building is the role of a political collaborator class facilitating the transition to colonialism. Here is where social democrats, like Alexis Tsipras, who excel in the art of talking left while embracing the right, flatter and deceive the masses into deepening austerity and pillage.

Instead of identifying the class enemies within the EU and organizing an alternative working class program, Tsipras and his fellow collaborators pose as EU ‘partners’ , fostering class collaboration – better to serve imperial Europe: When the German capitalists demanded their interest payments, Tsipras bled the Greek economy. When German capitalists sought to dominate Greek markets, Tsipras and Syriza opened the door by keeping Greece in the EU. When German capital wanted to supervise the take-over of Greek properties, Tsipras and Syriza embraced the sell-off.

There is clear class collaboration within the Greek elite in the destruction of nation’s sovereignty: Greek banker oligarchs and sectors of the commercial and tourist elite have acted as intermediaries of the German empire builders and they personally benefit from the German and EU takeover despite the destitution of the Greek public. Such economic intermediaries, representing 25% of the electorate, have become the main political supporters of the Syriza-Tsipras betrayal. They join with the EU elite applauding Tsipras’ purge of left critics and his authoritarian seizure of legislative and executive power! This collaborator class will never suffer from pension cuts, layoffs and unemployment. They will never have to line up at crippled banks for a humiliating dole of 65 Euros of pension money. These collaborators have hundreds of thousands and millions stashed in overseas bank accounts and invested in overseas real estate. Unlike the Greek masses, they are ‘European’ first and foremost – willing accomplices of German empire builders!

Tragic Beginnings: The Greek People Elect a Trojan Horse

Syriza is deeply rooted in Greek political culture .A leadership of educated mascots serving overseas European empire-builders. Syriza is supported by academic leftists who are remote from the struggles, sacrifices and suffering of the Greek masses. Syriza’s leadership emerged on the scene as ideological mentors and saviors with heady ideas and shaky hands. They joined forces with downwardly mobile middle class radicals who aspired to rise again via the traditional method: radical rhetoric, election to office, negotiations and transactions with the local and foreign elite and betrayal of their voters. Theirs is a familiar political road to power, privilege and prestige. In this regard, Tsipras personifies an entire generation of upwardly mobile opportunists, willing and able to sellout Greece and its people. He perpetuates the worst political traditions: In campaigns he promoted consumerism over class consciousness (discarding any mobilization of the masses upon election!). He is a useful fool, embedded in a culture of clientelism, kleptocracy, tax evasion, predatory lenders and spenders – the very reason his German overlords tolerated him and Syriza, although on a short leash!

Tsipras’ Syriza has absolute contempt for democracy. He embraces the ‘Caudillo Principle’: one man, one leader, one policy! Any dissenters invite dismissal!

Syriza has utterly submitted to imperial institutions, the Troika and their dictates, NATO and above all the EU, the Eurozone. Tsipras/ Syriza reject outright independence and freedom from imperial dictates. In his ‘capitulation to the Germans’ Tsipra engaged in histrionic theatrics, but by his own personal dictate, the massive ‘NO to EU’ vote was transformed into a YES.

The cruelest political crime of all has been Tsipras running down the Greek economy, bleeding the banks, emptying the pension funds and freezing everyday salaries while ‘blaming the bankers’, in order to force the mass of Greeks to accept the savage dictates of his imperial overlords or face utter destitution!

The Ultimate Surrender

Tsipras and his sycophants in Syriza, while constantly decrying Greece’s subordination to the EU empire-builders and claiming victimhood, managed to undermine the Greek people’s national consciousness in less than 6 months. What had been a victorious referendum and expression of rejection by three-fifths of the Greek voters turned into a prelude to a farcical surrender by empire collaborators. The people’s victory in the referendum was twisted to represent popular support for a Caudillo. While pretending to consult the Greek electorate, Tsipras manipulated the popular will into a mandate for his regime to push Greece beyond debt peonage and into colonial vassalage.

Tsipras is a supreme representation of Adorno’s authoritarian personality: On his knees to those above him, while at the throat of those below.

Once he has completed his task of dividing, demoralizing and impoverishing the Greek majority, the local and overseas ruling elites will discard him like a used condom, and he will pass into history as a virtuoso in deceiving and betraying the Greek people.

Epilogue:

Syriza’s embrace of hard-right foreign policies should not be seen as the ‘result of outside pressure’, as its phony left supporters have argued, but rather a deliberate choice. So far, the best example of the Syriza regime’s reactionary policies is its signing of a military agreement with Israel.

According to the Jerusalem Post (July 19, 2015), the Greek Defense Minister signed a mutual defense and training agreement with Israel, which included joint military exercises. Syriza has even backed Israel’s belligerent position against the Islamic Republic of Iran, endorsing Tel Aviv’s ridiculous claim that Teheran represents a terrorist threat in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Syriza and Israel have inked a mutual military support pact that exceeds any other EU member agreement with Israel and is only matched in belligerence by Washington’s special arrangements with the Zionist regime.

Israel’s ultra-militarist ‘Defense’ Minister Moshe Yaalon, (the Butcher of Gaza), hailed the agreement and thanked the Syriza regime for ‘its support’. It is more than likely that Syriza’s support for the Jewish state explains its popularity with Anglo-American and Canadian ‘left’ Zionists…

Syriza’s strategic ties with Israel are not the result of EU ‘pressure’ or the dictates of the ‘Troika’. The agreement is a radical reversal of over a half-century of Greek support for the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people against the Israeli terrorist state. This military pact, like the Syriza regime’s economic capitulation to the German ruling class, is deeply rooted in the ‘colonial ideology’, which permeates Tsipras’ policies. He has taken Greece a significant step ‘forward’ from economic vassal to a mercenary client of the most retrograde regime in the Mediterranean.

Israel's $100 Million Gamble

The Lobby doubles down on its propaganda war

PHILIP GIRALDI

JULY 28, 2015

THE UNZ REVIEW

President Barack Obama’s agreement with Iran to establish a strict inspection regime over its nuclear program is good for everyone. For the U.S. and its friends in the region, it eliminates the likelihood of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, a competition that would inevitably involve Washington and escalate. For Iran, it will end the punishment of the Iranian people through sanctions, it has been welcomedby reformers in that country and it could lead to an easing up and normalizing of the current regime. Even Israel, which is crying wolf, benefits from an Iranian government that has had most of its tools for creating a nuclear weapon taken away or placed under strict control. It allows Israel to remain the only nuclear weapon armed power in the Middle East, which, from Tel Aviv’s perspective, must be regarded as desirable. And Israel also will also be receiving a windfall of new U.S. taxpayer provided weaponry as well as the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, whom many Israelis regard as a hero.

A majority of American Jews supports congressional approval of the agreement, a larger percentage than for Americans overall, even though that view is not shared by many Jewish organizations. So Israel’s desire to upend the arrangement must be based on something else, and that something is almost certainly what Iran represents as a regional power. Iran has more than ten times the Israeli population, is physically nearly seventy-four times larger, has abundant oil resources and a young and highly educated workforce. It is geographically well situated on both the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea with borders on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan Turkmenistan and Turkey. Israel has never been seriously bothered by the potential of an Iranian nuke, which has been little more than a pretext. It has been concerned over Iran becoming an unfriendly regional superpower, similar to Turkey. Its response to that threat has been to align United States policy with its own in an attempt to convert Iran into a perpetual enemy. Now that alignment is broken and Israel (or to be more precise its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) is completely losing it, pulling out all the stops to break the deal.

Israel’s Lobby in the United States has declared war and has mobilized behind the effort, to include its assets in congress and the media. On the day when the agreement was announced, CBS evening news played a short recorded clip of Obama’s announcement but then followed it with a much longer live interview with Netanyahu. Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer has been observed frantically visiting Capitol Hill congressional offices and there are reports that a number of Israeli government officials and politicians are on their way to Washington to personally lobby at all levels of the federal government. It is even rumored that Netanyahu himself might make a visit just before the crucial vote. The main talking point for all the Israeli officials is that the agreement will guarantee Iran’s eventually obtaining a nuclear weapon, which has been Netanyahu’s frequently repeated refrain.

Other arguments being made are predictable, stressing Iran’s destabilization of the region, its human rights record and its support of “terrorists.” An Israeli think tank funded by Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is even citing allegations that Iran tried to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, a claim that has long been discredited.

Many other criticisms of Iran are largely being improvised and expanded as they go along to include the claim that Iranians are liars and cannot be trusted. Many of the arguments are being replayed by friends in the media. The intent of the sustained barrage is to influence Congress directly while creating a groundswell of popular opinion opposed to the agreement that will eventually convince those sitting on the fence and translate into a veto proof vote against Obama in Congress. With the GOP commanding a majority in both houses, the numbers suggest that even if each Republican senator or congressman votes “no” a considerable number of Democrats must do likewise. Many are under intense pressure and are wavering, meaning thatevery single vote will be important.

An unprecedented amount of money is being raised to fund the effort. The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Executive Director Harold Kohr has advised all of its more than 150 employees to cancel their summer vacation plans as everyone has to be on hand to fight against the Iran agreement. Martha’s Vineyard is believed to be in recession as a result.

The Washington Post is reporting that AIPAC alone is going to spend between $20 and $40 million on television, radio and newspaper ads plus direct lobbying. It has prepared phone scripts for its tens of thousands of activist supporters to use in calling the media and congressmen. The war chest will be funneled through a new alphabet soup organization that is being set up for the purpose, the Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, which has former Senator Joe Lieberman on its advisory committee. TV ads are already appearing in the Washington area and there has been a “Stop Iran” rally in New York City. The television ads carefully and deliberately do not mention Israel at all and seek to make a case that Iran is a danger to the United States.

Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran joins other organizations active in the effort, to include United Against Nuclear Iran, the Emergency Committee for Israel, Christians United for Israel, the Zionist Organization of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition with its 40,000 members, the Israel Project, Jewish Federations in Boston and Miami, the Anti-Defamation League, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the American Enterprise Institute, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the Hudson Institute, the McCain Institute and Taglit-Birthright Israel, each of which will have its own budget and targeting. It is not inconceivable that more than $100 million could be spent to derail the agreement, but bear in mind that that is mere chump change to Sheldon Adelson, who is likely funding much of the effort.

The Jewish American media is also speculating regarding an apparent AIPAC plan to up the ante by directly targeting some congressmen who support the president, making clear that it will seek to unseat them in 2016. They are reportedly calling it the “doomsday weapon.” It remains to be seen if voters would be swayed by a campaign based on Israeli interests directed against mostly Democratic congressmen in districts where there might be few Jewish or evangelical voters, but the leak of the plan in the media is most likely a ploy to intimidate some congressmen who have contested seats and who are hesitating regarding how they will vote.

Against all that pressure, the White House will be busy making its case, but beyond that there is little organized opposition to the enormous pro-Israel lobbying effort that will be taking place. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) will no doubt do its best by placing some ads and do its own face-to-face lobbying, but it will be hugely outspent by the pro-Israel billionaires and will be invisible when confronted by the tremendous access the Lobby enjoys to the media and Congress.

Now consider for a moment what is happening here: the de facto and de jure agents of a foreign government are actively and openly lobbying and propagandizing to overturn an agreement entered into by the President of the United States. The Israeli government is over here working the U.S. Congress and media directly on the issue, an unparalleled and almost unimaginable violation of diplomatic norms and a sign, if one was needed, that Netanyahu has no respect whatsoever for the White House. To be sure, the American citizens who are engaged in this effort have a perfect right to campaign to change government policy but they should be asking themselves if they are placing Israel’s perceived interests ahead of those of their own country given the lack of any plausible argument suggesting that Iran is actually threatening the United States or will do so in the future if the agreement is concluded. Indeed, the threat from Iran, if there is one, is minimized by reducing its ability to enrich uranium.

So the debate over Iran is, as usual, really all about Israel. I don’t know how the mostly Republican Congressmen who are taking the lead in opposition to an agreement are able to square what they are doing with their own consciences in light of their once-upon-a-time election to the legislature of the United States of America. They should perhaps recall that they do not represent Israel and they might also consider that they are actually damaging the security of the United States by their actions. Most Americans, who are being ignored by Congress, oppose by an overwhelming majority either giving Israel any more aid or releasing Pollard and most support the agreement with Iran. The American people have been bearing the burden of unnecessary wars since 2001 and it is past time that they be given a break from the apparent imperative to defer to the presumed interests of foreign leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu. If Israel’s friends are calling on Congress it is time that ordinary American citizens begin to do the same to demand that the agreement with Iran be approved. We far outnumber the Israel firsters and we will have to be heard, so let’s do it.

CRISIS EN EL GABINETE DE SEGURIDAD DE PEÑA NIETO

Cada día que pasa empeora la situación de los miembros de las áreas encargadas de la seguridad en el gabinete de Peña Nieto.

Desde el 26 de septiembre del año pasado, cuando miembros de las policías municipales de Iguala y Cocula en Guerrero, se encargaron de entregar a los 43 estudiantes de la Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa al cártel “Guerreros Unidos”, y de asesinar a tres estudiantes y tres civiles más en esa trágica noche, las secretarías y dependencias del gobierno federal encargadas de la seguridad han ido en caída libre.

Primero, tanto el gobierno del estado de Guerrero, como las instancias federales (Policía Federal, Ejército Mexicano y PGR) que se enteraron de ese hecho la misma noche-madrugada en que sucedió, no sólo no hicieron nada por evitarlo, sino que decidieron no investigarlo (y lo minimizaron públicamente). No fue sino hasta que se hizo evidente que los estudiantes habían sido secuestrados y las policías municipales habían participado en el hecho, para que el gobierno federal decidiera intervenir en el asunto (esperando 10 días).

La “investigación” realizada por la PGR y su “verdad histórica” han sido continuamente cuestionadas por los padres de los estudiantes desaparecidos, numerosas organizaciones no gubernamentales (así como por los expertos forenses argentinos que coadyuvaron en la investigación) y organismos internacionales defensores de los derechos humanos, todo lo cual obligó al gobierno mexicano a solicitar, por primera vez, a una instancia internacional (la Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos), su intervención para emitir recomendaciones sobre la investigación realizada sobre los hechos, por las autoridades mexicanas.

La labor de los expertos designados por la mencionada Comisión, ha sido obstaculizada en diversas formas por las autoridades, pero especialmente en su solicitud para entrevistar a los miembros del Ejército Mexicano que al parecer, no sólo tuvieron conocimiento de los hechos esa misma noche, sino que participaron en la retención de algunos de los muchachos, acusándolos de alborotadores.

La misma Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, una vez que se nombró a su nuevo titular Luis Raúl González Pérez, ha manifestado dudas sobre la investigación realizada por la PGR.

De ahí que a pesar de las reticencias de Peña Nieto para remover al procurador Jesús Murillo Karam, el cúmulo de cuestionamientos nacionales e internacionales a su actuación, obligaron al presidente a removerlo de la PGR (27 de febrero del 2015), pero manteniéndolo dentro del manto protector gubernamental, al designarlo secretario de Desarrollo Agrario, Territorial y Urbano.

Por su parte, el Ejército Mexicano ya arrastraba desde mediados del 2014 los cuestionamientos sobre lo ocurrido en Tlatlaya, Estado  de México donde efectivos militares “abatieron” a 22 supuestos secuestradores en un “enfrentamiento”.

Sin embargo, el mismo septiembre trágico de los sucesos de Ayotzinapa se dio a conocer en una revista de Estados Unidos (Esquire), que realmente los miembros del Ejército asesinaron a sangre fría a la mayoría de los 22 supuestos delincuentes.

A partir de entonces el Ejército Mexicano intentó desacreditar esa versión primero, pero ante las evidencias (que después fueron corroboradas por la Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos y por la muy reticente PGR aún encabezada por Murillo Karam), no hubo más remedio que iniciar una investigación y acusar a 7 soldados y oficiales por los hechos (juicio que por cierto aún no ha comenzado).

Ahora el Ejército enfrenta nuevas acusaciones de que participó en un tiroteo en Ostula, Michoacán (19 de julio), en donde murió un niño, cuando se detuvo a uno de los dirigentes de las autodefensas de esa región.

La cereza en el pastel fue por supuesto la nueva fuga de “el Chapo” Guzmán del CEFERESO No.1 del Altiplano (Estado de México), el pasado 11 de julio.

La responsabilidad de mantenerlo bajo custodia era de la Secretaría de Gobernación (Osorio Chong), y en específico del comisionado de Seguridad (sic), Monte Alejandro Rubido, con la colaboración del director del CISEN, Eugenio Imaz.

Evidentemente, después de la captura de “el Chapo” Guzmán en febrero de 2014, que se había constituido en el máximo logro de la administración peñista en materia de seguridad, lo último que se necesitaba es que ese triunfo se convirtiera en un ridículo, al fugarse el conocido narcotraficante, por segunda vez, de una cárcel de “máxima seguridad (sic)”.

Y ahora la cuestionada es la Secretaría de Marina, pues el semanario Proceso ha difundido (18 de julio) que dicha captura ni siquiera fue realizada por la Marina, sino por elementos de la DEA y por “marshals” del gobierno de Estados Unidos, disfrazados de marinos mexicanos.

De hecho, las más altas autoridades mexicanas no estaban enteradas del operativo, sino hasta que “el Chapo” estaba bajo custodia y ya iba en vuelo a la ciudad de México.

Como se puede apreciar en este apretado resumen de fracasos y excesos de las instancias de seguridad del Estado Mexicano, la realidad es que la administración de Peña Nieto no tiene control alguno sobre los cárteles del narcotráfico y sus socios y protectores dentro de la propia estructura del gobierno mexicano (en sus diferentes órdenes de gobierno); o es omisa deliberadamente, ya que es cómplice de esos grupos criminales; ni tampoco tiene control sobre las agencias de seguridad estadounidenses que actúan libremente en nuestro territorio, sin solicitar autorización alguna al gobierno mexicano.

Esto sólo indica que el gobierno mexicano ha perdido casi por completo la supremacía en materia de seguridad, y por lo tanto ni tiene la exclusividad del uso de la fuerza internamente, ni puede ejercer su soberanía, ante la flagrante y descarada intromisión en sus asuntos internos de la potencia hegemónica vecina ¿Será por eso que el gobierno de Peña Nieto se ha negado a nombrar un embajador en Estados Unidos en los últimos 5 meses, como única forma de protesta ante las reiteradas pruebas del poder estadounidense sobre el débil gobierno mexicano?.

Por lo pronto, el grupo “Hidalgo”, dentro del gabinete de seguridad, es decir el secretario de Gobernación Osorio Chong; el director del CISEN, Eugenio Imaz y el ex procurador Jesús Murillo Karam, han resultado ser los más golpeados durante estos meses por las evidentes fallas y complicidades ante el crimen organizado; y por lo tanto los dos primeros son candidatos a dejar sus puestos, a pesar de que Peña Nieto no desea hacerlo, pues está convencido de que proteger a sus subordinados “leales”, es más importante que resolver los graves problemas que enfrenta su gobierno en esta materia.

Eso no quiere decir que otros miembros del gabinete no estén en graves problemas, tales como Rubido, comisionado de seguridad que sólo salta de crisis en crisis, sin resolver ninguna; y como ya le sucedió al comisionado para Michoacán (y ahora encabezando la Comisión Nacional del Deporte), Alfredo Castillo que tuvo que dejar su puesto, después del desmantelamiento del cártel de “Los Caballeros Templarios” en Michoacán, pero substituido por la entrada a la entidad del cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación y por los crecientes enfrentamientos entre los grupos de autodefensas.

¿Y qué hace Peña para desviar la atención de esta evidente crisis de sus áreas de seguridad? Ataca a los maestros de la Sección 22 de la Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) de Oaxaca, acusándolos de todos los males que tiene el sector educativo en México (así se lavan las culpas del gobierno federal y los estatales en materia de rezago educativo a nivel nacional), y se presenta como un “gobierno fuerte” que pone en su lugar a un grupo de disidentes y casi guerrilleros que “tenían tomada la educación en el estado”, es decir, vamos a desquitarnos de nuestros fracasos en todos los ámbitos (crecimiento económico mediocre; devaluación acelerada del peso; aumento de la pobreza; crisis y ridículo en el ámbito de la seguridad; cuestionamientos en materia de derechos humanos; fracaso de la Ronda Uno de la reforma energética; y hasta acusaciones de “amaño” de partidos para favorecer a la selección nacional de futbol), doblando a una sección sindical que se opone abiertamente a la reforma educativa, y a la cual no se le ha podido derrotar a lo largo de 30 años.
Ni siquiera con el (no tan) seguro desmantelamiento de la sección 22 (y de las de Guerrero, Michoacán, Chiapas y el DF), se podrá echar a andar la reforma educativa, que es una reforma administrativa y política, pero no pedagógica y social, como debería haber sido; ni tampoco eso va a evitar el deterioro imparable del gabinete de seguridad de Peña, y de su continuo fracaso en política económica y social, a pesar de que su control político sobre el país se reafirma cada vez más, a través de todo tipo de fraudes y trampas electorales, como las que se vieron impúdicamente en las últimas elecciones en Chiapas.

Morelos nos abandonó

27/07/2015

RICARDO RAPHAEL

EL UNIVERSAL

Al cierre del año pasado, Aurelio Nuño, jefe de la Oficina de la Presidencia, comparó a Enrique Peña Nieto con José María Morelos y Pavón. Durante el último acto oficial que tuvo el gobierno en 2014 dijo que su jefe, al igual que el héroe de la Independencia, asumió la responsabilidad de cambiar una realidad en la que prevalecen los privilegios de unos cuantos.

Lo que entonces sonaba a metáfora apresurada hoy es falsedad. Las políticas de ingreso y gasto del gobierno peñanietista no han servido para combatir los privilegios, y la calidad de vida de los mexicanos desposeídos continúa desbarrancándose.

No dejan espacio para la ambigüedad la evaluación del Coneval sobre la política social, ni el pronunciamiento que a propósito de ella hará hoy la organización Acción Ciudadana Frente a la Pobreza.

En México hay 12 millones de personas que deben sobrevivir con 15.2 pesos diarios; un par de años atrás, en 2012, esos mismos seres humanos contaban con 17 pesos por día. Sus ingresos bajaron. Así es imposible alimentarse, vestirse, contar con un techo, curarse, educarse.

Doce millones de personas es el doble de la población que habita en Dinamarca, cuatro veces el número de residentes que tiene Uruguay, un tercio más de los individuos que viven en Hungría.

En revancha, hay 12 mil mexicanos que tienen ingresos por 22 mil 700 pesos diarios. A pesar de todo lo que se quejaron, a ellos la reforma fiscal apenas si les hizo cosquillas.

De acuerdo con cálculos de Oxfam-México, elaborados por Gerardo Esquivel, el 10% de la población mexicana que vive en el penthouse del edificio nacional se está quedando con 60 de cada 100 pesos de la riqueza producida anualmente por la economía mexicana.

Mientras tanto, 63.8 millones de mexicanos —poco más de la mitad de la población— padece la experiencia de vivir por debajo del umbral de bienestar.

Es falso que la política fiscal del actual gobierno mejore la distribución, es mentira que haya afectado de manera eficaz los privilegios, es equivocado decir que sirve para reducir la desigualdad.

El problema va más allá de la recaudación porque el mayor desastre se encuentra del lado del gasto. Como Acción Ciudadana Frente a la Pobreza advierte, el gobierno federal eroga todos los años 129 mil millones de pesos en 50 programas, supuestamente dirigidos a mejorar el ingreso de los mexicanos más pobres.

Entre los programas estrella están Progresa (antes Oportunidades) y la Cruzada contra el Hambre. Además de la Secretaría de Desarrollo Social, también las de Agricultura, Economía y Medio Ambiente son responsables de administrar buena parte de ese gasto.

Si entre 2012 y 2014 la pobreza creció en México, ¿para qué sirvió la inversión de casi 260 mil millones de pesos? En estos dos años, ¿a dónde fue a parar todo ese dinero?

Probablemente se perdió en una coladera enorme, forjada por la ineficiencia burocrática, la distribución clientelar de los recursos, la corrupción y el mal diseño de los programas. Un hoyo inmenso de impunidad que hoy solo sirve para pronunciar discursos cargados de demagogia.

Uno de cada cinco mexicanos padece hambre, uno de cada dos vive en condiciones de pobreza, la clase media desaparece en México y los que viven en la cúspide del Mirreynato no se dan cuenta de la violenta tragedia que significa la fractura de nuestra sociedad.

Y sin embargo en el Palacio Nacional siguen postrados ante el altar de las reformas estructurales, a pesar de que fuera de esa capilla privilegiada la fe en el futuro del país se nos va de entre las manos.

ZOOM: La comparación no debería ser con Morelos, sino con Carlos Hank González que cuenta con una inmensa e insultante estatua en el Paseo Tollocan de Toluca. Él es el emblema de esos privilegios que un día habrían de ser derrocados.

www.ricardoraphael.com

@ricardomraphae

JULY 24, 2015

Sheldon’s Stooges: Netanyahu and the King of Vegas

by URI AVNERY

www.counterpunch.org

In Japan in the good old days, Binyamin Netanyahu would by now have committed hara-kiri.

In England at that time, the monarch would have appointed him governor of the most remote little island in the Pacific Ocean.

In Israel, his popularity rating is bound to go up.

Because in our country, the old adage is getting a new twist: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure.

And what a failure! Wow!

He has practically declared war on the President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World, the Supreme Protector of the Jewish State.

Not so long ago, one would have thought this impossible. But nothing is impossible for Binyamin Netanyahu.

For anyone just arrived from the planet Mars, here is a brief summary of Israel’s dependence on the US: it gets from it the bulk of its heavy arms and does not have to pay for them, it can depend on it to veto all UN Security Council resolutions that condemn Israel’s deeds and misdeeds, it receives from it billions of dollars every year although the Israeli economy is flourishing.

There is another benefit which is often overlooked. Since the world believes that both houses of the US Congress are totally subservient to Israel, all countries pay Israel for access to Congress. One has to bribe the doorkeeper to get in.

For an Israeli prime minister to start a quarrel with the President of the US looks like sheer lunacy – as indeed it is.

Yet Netanyahu is not insane, though his actions suggest that. He is not even a fool.

So what the hell does he think he is doing?

There are several possible explanations I can think of.

One is pampering the Israeli public. Far from creating a New Jew as Zionism promised, the Old Jew dominates Israel. The Old Jew believes that the entire world is anti-Semitic, and any new evidence fills him with satisfaction. You see? The Goyim haven’t changed at all.

Netanyahu’s popularity ratings are bound to rise with every new manifestation of foreign hostility. If even the Americans, who for so long pretended to be the closest friends of Israel, sell us out to the anti-Semitic Iranians, we need a strong and steadfast leader. In short – a Netanyahu.

Another plausible explanation for Netanyahu’s behavior may be his genuine belief that no US senator or representative would ever dare to buck AIPAC’s orders, knowing that this would be the end of his (or her) political career. Like the worst of the anti-Semites, Netanyahu believes that the Jews rule the world, or at least the US Congress. At the crucial moment, Congress will vote for AIPAC, against the US president.

Another explanation may be, paradoxically, a blind belief in President Obama’s integrity. Netanyahu thinks that he can hit him on the head, spit in his eye, kick his behind, and still Obama will act coolly, rationally, and support Israel all the way, except on the Iranian deal. He will go on sending arms and dollars, vetoing Security Council resolutions, receiving phone calls from Israel in the middle of the night.

You know how these Americans are. Subservient. Especially black ones.

But there may be another explanation, that trumps all others.

Affronting the US president, his administration and his party, Netanyahu is gambling with our future. Which brings us to the emperor of the gambling world, the king of Las Vegas, the prince of Macao: Sheldon Adelson.

Adelson does not hide his support for Netanyahu the man, the family and the party. He spends huge sums of money on a Hebrew daily newspaper that is distributed gratis to Israelis, whether they want it or not. It is now the largest-circulation paper in Israel, and devoted personally to Netanyahu and his wife. It has no other purpose.

Yet Adelson seems to have no real interest in Israel. He does not live here, even part time. So what is he getting in return?

Adelson has bought Netanyahu for one single purpose: to place a stooge of his in the White House. It is an aim that any other multi-billionaire cannot even dream of.

To achieve this aim, Adelson needs to use the Republican Party as a ladder. He has to select its candidate for the presidency, derail Hillary Clinton and win the elections. To succeed in all these tasks, he has to mobilize the immense power of the pro-Israel lobby over the US Congress and destroy President Obama.

The first step in this long march is to defeat the Iranian deal. Netanyahu is just a cog in this grand design. But a very important cog.

Does this look like a caricature of Der Stürmer, the infamous anti-Semitic Nazi rag, or, worse, like a page out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious anti-Semitic forgery? It is the classical anti-Semitic picture: the ugly finance-Jew striving for world mastery.

For an Israeli, there is something revolting in this picture. The Zionist vision was born out of the total rejection of this caricature. Jews would cease dealing in stocks and shares and money-lending. Jews would till the land with the sweat of their brow, do productive manual work, reject all kinds of parasitic speculations. This was considered such a high ideal that it justified even the displacement of the indigenous Arab population.

And here we are, a state following the orders of an international casino mogul whose line of business is perhaps the most unproductive in the cosmos. Sad.

Is there a valiant opposition to this course in Israel? None. Literally none.

In all my long life in Israel I have never seen anything as close to a total absence of opposition as we have now.

A few voices in Haaretz, some solitary pronouncements on the extreme leftist fringe, and that’s that.

Apart from these (including Gush Shalom), nothing except thunderous applause for Netanyahu or the dreadful silence of the graveyard.

The treaty is “bad”. Not just bad, but “catastrophic”. Not just catastrophic, but “one of the most terrible disasters in the entire history of the Jewish people”. Something close to a “second Holocaust”. (I am not making this up.)

Netanyahu’s shallow arguments are accepted as sacred truths, like the utterances of the other great Jewish prophets. Nobody bothers to ask the relevant question: Why?

The sun rises in the morning. The rivers flow into the sea. Iran will build an atomic bomb and drop it on us, even though it will thereby bring upon itself a historic disaster. The mullahs are Nazis. The treaty is another Munich agreement. Obama is the new Neville Chamberlain, only black.

Nobody takes the trouble to argue for these assertions. Things are self-evident. Day is day and night is night.

I have seen many situations of a near unanimous public opinion in my life, especially in times of war. But in all of my life I have never experienced such a situation of total unanimity, of total absence of doubting and questioning, as now.

This situation is not without its absurdities. For example: the Iranian Supreme Leader is obviously faced with his own extremists, who accuse him of selling out to the American Satan. To appease them, he has to claim that the treaty is a tremendous victory for the Islamic Republic, that he has brought the US (and Israel) to their knees. The huge Netanyahu propaganda machine is taking up these quotes and selling them as gospel truths. Everyone knows that Iranians always lie, but this time they tell it as it is.

Yair Lapid, the leader of a shrunken “centrist” party now in opposition (the Orthodox did not allow Netanyahu to bring him into the government) denounces the treaty as a historic disaster for the Jewish people. This being so, he asks loudly, why is Netanyahu not compelled to resign after his failure to prevent it? The more so since there is a much more able leader ready to take his place and lead the fight, a man named Lapid.

There is indeed something of a paradox in Netanyahu’s situation: if the treaty is such a historic disaster, “one of the worst in Jewish history”, why is Netanyahu continuing in his job?

To throw out a prime minister, a country needs an opposition to take his place. Actually, that is the main job of the opposition.

Not here.

The Leader of the Opposition (an official title in Israel) condemns the treaty in as strong terms as Netanyahu himself. He has volunteered to go to the USA to help the fight against it. His competitor, Yair Lapid, the son of a far-out nationalist, is even more extreme than him. The leader of the third opposition party is Avigdor Lieberman, compared to whom Netanyahu is a leftist softy. There is, of course, a fourth opposition party – the joint Arab one – but who listens to them?

One would suppose that, faced with such a historic disaster, Israel would be alive with debates about the treaty. But how can one have a debate, if everybody agrees? I have heard not a single real discussion on TV, nor read one in the printed papers, nor on the internet. Here and there a small whisper of doubt, but a debate? Nowhere!

Indeed, one can live happily in Israel for days and hear no mention of this historic disaster at all. The price of cottage cheese evokes more emotion.

So we are happily moving towards disaster – unless one of Sheldon’s stooges, with the help of Bibi, enters the White House.

URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.