Políticas antimigratorias, problema mundial

Editorial de La Jornada

31 de Agosto de 2015

Ante los más recientes hechos trágicos que han cobrado la vida de cientos de migrantes que buscaban llegar a diversos países de la Unión Europea (UE), ésta convocó a los ministros de los Estados miembros a una reunión urgente, que habrá de realizarse el próximo 14 de septiembre, para buscar soluciones a lo que considera una crisis de inmigración. Cabe recordar que más de 200 personas murieron el viernes 28 cerca de las costas de Libia al hundirse dos barcos en que los cientos de refugiados intentaban atravesar el Mediterráneo para llegar a Europa; que dos días antes, 71 personas fallecieron asfixiadas dentro de un camión refrigerador en la carretera que une las capitales de Austria y Hungría, y que apenas ayer las autoridades austriacas anunciaron la intercepción de otro vehículo con 26 migrantes, de los cuales tres, menores, tuvieron que ser hospitalizados. En lo que va de este año al menos 2 mil 500 personas han muerto al intentar atravesar el Mediterráneo, el área fronteriza más mortífera en el mundo para los migrantes, ruta seguida por más de 310 mil refugiados que durante los pasados meses huyeron de la violencia o el hambre en sus países de origen.

A pesar de estos hechos, la mayor parte de los gobiernos del mundo, incluidos los de la UE, rehúsan admitir que la crisis de migración no consiste en la llegada de población extranjera a los países receptores de mano de obra, sino en la prohibición de los flujos migratorios, que deriva en la muerte o el encierro en estaciones de seres humanos que huyen de conflictos armados o regímenes totalitarios que amenazan su existencia.

Tal prohibición obstaculiza, criminaliza y convierte en peligroso un tránsito de personas que debiera ser reconocido como un útil y necesario mecanismo de compensación y atenuación de las asimetrías económicas globales. En este sentido, resulta deplorable la respuesta de Luxemburgo, país que ocupa la presidencia rotatoria de la UE: su propuesta se centra en la devolución de los migrantes a sus países de origen y en la búsqueda de mecanismos para impedir que lleguen a Europa.

Hay, ciertamente, una crisis mundial en curso: la de una embestida internacional de políticas antimigratorias que trasciende sistemas políticos, económicos e ideologías, y que mata a miles de seres humanos, pues hechos como los naufragios en el Mediterráneo no ocurren porque la gente emigre, sino porque está prohibido que lo haga. Esta política de criminalización de los migrantes resulta injustificable, de manera particular en este momento histórico caracterizado por la integración de un mercado y una sociedad que se pretenden globales y en los que ha sido impuesto el libre tránsito de mercancías y capitales

Ciertamente, las medidas en contra de los viajeros no se circunscriben a Europa occidental. En Estados Unidos se asiste a un incremento xenofóbico de la persecución en contra de los migrantes, cuyo arco va desde las declaraciones racistas del precandidato presidencial republicano Donald Trump hasta la concentración de mujeres y niños extranjeros en centros de detención irregulares y violatorios de los derechos humanos. En México mismo tienen lugar acciones intolerables de acoso, persecución y atropello a extranjeros, no sólo por parte de grupos de la delincuencia organizada, sino –más grave aún– por funcionarios del Instituto Nacional de Migración, e incluso en naciones que forman parte del esfuerzo integrador sudamericano florecen actitudes de rechazo a los migrantes.

La situación global de los viajeros constituye, en suma, un grave mentís a los propósitos civilizatorios formulados en décadas recientes y resulta imperativo que los organismos internacionales tomen cartas en el asunto para evitar la repetición de tragedias como las que han tenido lugar en días y meses recientes en el Mediterráneo o atrocidades como las perpetradas hace unos años en San Fernando, Tamaulipas. La Secretaría General de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas debiera convocar a una reunión urgente orientada a reducir las trabas al libre tránsito humano y a garantizar la vida y la integridad de quienes, por razones económicas, políticas o de otra índole, se ven forzados a abandonar sus países de origen.

'Anchor Babies' and Other Horror Stories About Immigrants: Be Not Afraid

John Tirman 

Executive Director, MIT Center for International Studies

THE HUFFINGTON POST

August 28, 2015

I was on a call-in radio show late one night this week to discuss immigration and my new book, Dream Chasers: Immigration and the American Backlash. The radio station, WBZ, is a CBS affiliate in Boston that reaches much of the northeast United States, so I expected some conservative blowback to my unapologetically progressive stances, but not much. What I got, though, I wasn't prepared for: unremitting anger at "illegals" for ripping off the system. This, in liberal Massachusetts.

I was taken aback because my strong sense in researching and writing the book was that the economic argument about unauthorized immigrants -- that they are "stealing" jobs native-born Americans would gladly have -- was largely a thing of the past. I argued that it was cultural issues -- use of Spanish, the threat of crime and terrorism, jumping the line of those wanting to immigrate, and racism -- which stirred so much anger.

But the callers and the radio host kept harping on how "illegals" were getting federal and state benefits they didn't deserve, were undercutting American workers, were lowering wages overall, were stressing schools and hospitals, weren't paying taxes, and so on: economic issues, perhaps fueled by the cultural anxiety I explained in Dream Chasers, but economic all the same.

Of course, times remain very difficult for people in the lower 75 percent of income in the United States, and immigrants of all kinds have, historically, been among the principal targets of blame for economic stress. Real income growth in the last twenty years has been only 9 percent, with most of the growth coming during the 1990s. People are rightly frustrated, although blaming low-income workers is scarcely warranted.

The effect of unauthorized immigrants on the U.S. economy has been extensively studied by economists, and the dominant conclusion is that such immigration is a net plus for the economy. There may be some impacts on low-skilled workers who do not have a high-school diploma, especially African-Americans. But the effect is very likely to be negligible, given that undocumented immigrants in the workforce are a small fraction of those native-born workers. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that the lowered wages come to about 0.15 percent, or an average of $56 annually. So the notion that immigrants, by offering labor at cheaper rates, nose out American-born workers, doesn't stand up.

Likewise, a number of callers as well as the host of the WBZ radio show were incredulous when I claimed that these immigrants pay taxes in rather large sums. One independent estimate has it at $11 billion annually. An exhaustive weighing of expenditures and revenues associated with unauthorized immigrants at the federal, state, and local level by the Congressional Budget Office concludes: "Over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants -- both legal and unauthorized -- exceed the cost of the services they use."

The latest in the mythological list of economic impacts are the so-called anchor babies -- children born in the United States to unauthorized immigrant parents. Welfare benefits accrue, so it's claimed, from this intentional trick of Latinas, pregnant in Mexico, Central America, or wherever, to sneak into the United States so their child, born in the U.S., will be granted citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which enabled birthright citizenship. It's true that such children would be eligible for some limited benefits such as food stamps. But no one who is not here legally can get welfare benefits. So the conjecture that families would move across the border, at great personal risk and expense, to acquire food stamps for one family member is, on the face of it, absurd.

Still, the assertion is made, and of course has been taken up with gusto by the GOP White House hopefuls and others in the right-wing blogosphere, who rarely permit empirical evidence to cloud their xenophobia. Yet the percentage of such children born to at least one unauthorized parent who arrived in the country in the last two years is only 9 percent of the total -- a clear refutation of the belief that Latina women rush to America to have their babies. The objection to these babies being born here is that they are a burden on schools, hospitals, taxpayers, and so on -- assertions that the CBO report and many other studies have long debunked.

What to make of these many false impressions about "illegals" and their impact on the U.S. economy? Many of them have been fostered by the well-funded media empire of right-wing purveyors, from Fox News to television and Web entertainers like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Michelle Malkin. But they strike a chord, of course, that is deeply emotional. Since the economic case for deporting massive numbers of undocumented immigrants is weak to nonexistent, something else is at work. And that something else is the cultural anxiety that obsesses Americans who feel they're losing a grip on an American way of life.

As I've argued in Huffington Post previously, this cultural anxiety is powerful. It is stirred by the widespread use of Spanish, the economic doldrums and blame game, and a kind of self-righteousness about legality. (Illegal immigration is a civil infraction, "entry without inspection," and is not, technically, a crime.) Opponents of reform -- legalization and a path to citizenship -- focus on these imagined slights and hurts, but ignore the U.S. role in stirring such migration (economic globalization, drug consumption) and the capricious way visa quotas for Mexicans in particular have been manipulated.

Apparently we're going to hear much more about "illegals" from the GOP campaign, and among their rote talking points will be how harmful such immigrant are for the U.S. economy and workers (as if these candidates have shown any caring for workers before). Standing against such nonsense is not only the humane thing to do, however, but the factual thing to say as well. Immigration is good for America, and everyone benefits.

John Tirman is executive director of the Center for International Studies at MIT, and is author, most recently, of Dream Chasers: Immigration and the American Backlash.

White supremacists differ on Trump

THE DONALD DECEPTION

By Michael Collins Piper

(https://aryanskynet.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/the-donald-deception/]

Donald Trump’s rise to stardom came as a consequence of his having been a flamboyant front man for some unsavory behind-the-scenes sponsors. Here’s the story:

In his memoir, Trump proudly described how in 1987 he bought his first casino interests when he purchased 93 percent of the voting stock in the Resorts International (RI) gambling concern.

What Trump didn’t say was that RI was controlled by a clique of sordid, international big-money elements in alliance with the Jewish crime syndicate which was, in turn, collaborating with the CIA and Israel’s Mossad in an array of inter-connected money-laundering operations.

The casinos laundered money for the CIA and the Mossad. In return, these agencies used their influence to ensure the mob remained protected from interference by law enforcement.

To understand where Trump fits in, we turn to RI’s murky origins. RI evolved from a CIA front—the Mary Carter Paint Company—set up in the 1950s by then-CIA director Allen Dulles and his close associate, New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, a leader of the “Rockefeller wing” of the GOP. While the company did in fact operate a national paint store chain, its real purpose was to function as a covert CIA money-laundering operation.

In 1958 and 1959 Dewey and several associates used CIA funds to buy a controlling interest in the Crosby-Miller Corporation (headed by Dewey friend James Crosby), which was then merged with Mary Carter. The new concern laundered CIA money for the arming of the anti-Castro Cuban exiles and also launched lucrative gambling enterprises in the Caribbean where the CIA was active, having engaged the Meyer Lansky crime syndicate in plots to topple Fidel Castro.

How many law-abiding Americans who bought Mary Carter’s paint would have thought they were funding a joint CIA-mob operation posing behind the smiling face of a “typical American housewife,” the fictional “Mary Carter” whose visage adorned its products?

In 1963 the company spun off its paint division and began focusing on its casino operations, particularly in the Bahamas. In 1967 and 1968 Mary Carter changed its name to Resorts International and expanded. Several principal investors provided the assets:

• Meyer Lansky, the “chairman of the board” of the Jewish crime syndicate;

• David Rockefeller, who provided his family’s clout with the CIA and in global banking to assist;

• The Investors Overseas Service, then the world’s largest “flight-capital” conglomerate, headed by notorious Bernard Cornfeld who was no more than a frontman for two behind-the-scenes principals:

• Tibor Rosenbaum, the Mossad’s Swiss-based arms procurer, who headed the Banque De Credit Internationale of Geneva, the Lansky syndicate’s chief European money launderer;

• Baron Edmond de Rothschild of the infamous banking family and a personal business partner of Rosenbaum in many Mossad-related ventures; and

• William Mellon Hitchcock, an heir to the Mellon dynasty—one of America’s largest family fortunes which has collaborated closely with the CIA for years. In 1970 the mob moved to expand legalized gambling on U.S. soil. Mob chief Lansky called a high-level syndicate conference where the fading resort of Atlantic City was pinpointed as their new target. Prior to this, Lansky-controlled Nevada was the only outpost of legal gambling in the United States. RI’s resources were used to finance the lobbying campaign that brought legalized gambling to Atlantic City and RI quickly moved in.

In 1987 upon the death of RI’s nominal head—CIA frontman James Crosby—up-and-coming New York real estate tycoon Trump stepped in and bought Crosby’s RI holdings. So while the name “Trump” appeared in the headlines, RI’s real movers remained hidden from public view.

Trump shed his RI investments in his much-publicized “bankruptcy” but he remains a major player in the gambling industry—and now he may be running for president of the United States.

  

Donald Trump’s breakthrough statement on immigration

Kevin Macdonald  (www.theoccidentalobserver.net)

August 17, 2015

I certainly counted myself among the skeptics when it comes to Donald Trump’s candidacy. But it’s clear now that he is going full populist on the issues that matter, first with his statements on trade deals, but now—and more importantly—on immigration. Ann Coulter calls his immigration statement “the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.”

I agree—if it can actually end up influencing policy. While other candidates like Scott Walker and Rick Santorum have mumbled things about legal immigration, the immigration issue will now define Trump’s candidacy. White Americans can finally express themselves on what kind of country they want to live in. As Coulter also points out, immigration is the only important issue.

Suddenly the cozy consensus among elites on immigration is exposed. White American voters started this election cycle with the deadening belief that it was going to be Hillary vs. Jeb in the election, with nary a mention that immigration was even an issue. Flip a coin, because it makes no difference to the big money or anyone else—the politics of oligarchy in action. Here’s a cartoon of a person who had hanged himself, his feet dangling down in front of a TV screen showing a presidential debate between Jeb and Hillary.

Exactly. And in that debate there would be zero questions on immigration—just the way the big media wants it.

But now Trump is saying what White Americans have been actually thinking for a very long time. This passage gets at the heart of the issue.

Put American Workers First Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled “America’s incredible shrinking middle class”: “If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.”

The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children – to earn a middle class wage. Nearly half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants. Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.

The populist labor-market critique of immigration policy, pioneered by Senator Jeff Sessions and based on sound academic research, is finally getting into the political mainstream. The incredible reality is that putting American workers first is anathema to elites among both Democrats and Republicans. We talk a lot about implicit Whiteness here, and it has often been said that implicit Whiteness is not enough. But certainly the start of the revolution to restore a White America need not be explicitly White at all. The labor-market argument applies to the vast majority of Americans, Black and White alike. The idea that importing millions of uneducated, impoverished Third Worlders into the US — or any other European-derived country — would actually benefit the country is ridiculous.

It’s never been about the needs of most Americans, but rather the desires of businesses for cheap labor, the desires of the ethnic lobbies to get more of their people here to increase their power, and the desires of predominantlyJewish elites against the idea of a homogeneous White America. If there has been one constant threat of Jewish intellectual and political activity since World War II, it has been to oppose populism. Obviously, they much prefer an oligarchy of the wealthy with control of the media and in control of the donor class of both Republicans and Democrats.

And oligarchy is what they have gotten: The idea that Western societies are democracies is an  illusion. In fact, an oligarchic model fits U.S. politics much better than a democratic model (see Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page inPerspectives on Politics, Sept. 2014, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens“).The Trump candidacy is the most hopeful sign that the present oligarchy could be circumvented at the presidential level.

What the establishment fears most is a highly visible, personally attractive, honest, populist candidate who cannot be shut out of the media and with enough money to run a viable campaign.

This Washington Examiner article is right on the money in showing that Trump’s statement actually fits well with the views of most Americans.

Donald Trump set off yet another wave of anguish and frustration among Republican political elites Sunday with more provocative statements about immigration, along with the release of a Trump immigration plan influenced by the Senate’s leading immigration hawk. But there are indications Trump’s positions on immigration are more in line with the views of the public — not just GOP voters, but the public at large — than those of his critics. “Donald Trump: Undocumented Immigrants ‘Have to Go,'” read the headline at NBC News, where Trump appeared on “Meet the Press.” “They have to go,” Trump told moderator Chuck Todd, referring to immigrants in the U.S. illegally. “We either have a country or we don’t have a country.”

At the same time, Trump unveiled a brief immigration position paper, created in consultation with Republican senator Jeff Sessions, calling for, among other things, an end to the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. Some of Trump’s presidential rivals, and no doubt many in the GOP establishment, were appalled. “Our leading Republican is embracing self-deportation, that all of the 11 million have to walk back where they came from, and maybe we’ll let some of them come back,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said on CBS. “I just hope we don’t go down that road as a party. So our leading contender, Mr. Trump, is going backward on immigration. And I think he’s going to take all of us with him if we don’t watch it.”

Let’s watch Graham run on that and see where it gets him (he is atzero percent in the latest poll). All his sucking up to the Israel Lobby has gotten him nowhere.

The real importance of the Examiner article is in highlighting a study showing just how out of touch elites are on immigration:

But are Trump’s views on immigration as far out of the mainstream as Graham suggests? Are they out of the mainstream at all? A recent academic paper, by Stanford professor David Broockman and Berkeley Ph.D candidate Douglas Ahler, suggests a majority of the public’s views on immigration are closer to Trump’s than to the advocates of comprehensive immigration reform.

 The Broockman/Ahler paper, published in July, is about more than just immigration; it examines the range of public opinion on several issues. On each, the authors gave a scientifically-selected group of respondents a broad range of policy options. On immigration, they listed seven possibilities, ranging from open borders to shutting down all immigration. These are the options Broockman and Ahler presented to respondents:

1.      The United States should have open borders and allow further immigration on an unlimited basis.

2.      Legal immigration to the United States should greatly increase among all immigrant groups, regardless of their skills. Immigrants already in the United States should be put on the path to citizenship.

3.      Immigration of highly skilled individuals should greatly increase. Immigration by those without such skills should continue at its current pace, although this immigration should be legalized.

4.      Immigration of highly skilled individuals should greatly increase, and immigration among those without such skills should be limited in time and/or magnitude, e.g., through a guest worker program.

5.      The United States should admit more highly skilled immigrants and secure the border with increased physical barriers to stem the flow of other immigrants.

6.      Only a small number of highly skilled immigrants should be allowed into the United States until the border is fully secured, and all illegal immigrants currently in the U.S. should be deported.

7.      Further immigration to the United States should be banned until the border is fully secured, and all illegal immigrants currently in the U.S. should be deported immediately.

Here are the results Broockman and Ahler got: 4.7 percent supported Option One; 17.4 percent supported Option Two; 10.8 percent supported Option Three; 12.0 percent supported Option Four; 17.0 percent supported Option Five; 13.8 percent supported Option Six; and 24.4 percent supported Option Seven. The largest single group, 24.4 percent, supported the most draconian option — closed borders and mass deportation — that is dismissed by every candidate in the race, including Trump.

Add in the next group that supported Option Six, which would allow only a “small number” of highly skilled immigrants to enter the U.S. and also involve mass deportations, and the number increased to 38.2 percent. Then add Option Five, which would allow only highly skilled immigrants while physically blocking the border, and the number increased to 55.2 percent. “Many citizens support policies that seem to fall outside of the range of policy options considered in elite discourse,” Broockman and Ahler conclude.

Shocking! We have said all along that the anti-White revolution is a top-down phenomenon initiated and maintained by hostile elites with very little popular support, especially among White people — which is why these elites continue to import millions of non-Whites. Those percentages show that an immigration platform something like Trump’s is a winner.

Trump’s immigration stance appears to fall somewhere between Option Five and Option Six, perhaps a little closer to the latter. It’s probably fair to say that, if Broockman and Ahler are correct, a majority of Americans — not just Republican voters, but all Americans — hold views that are consistent with Trump’s position, or are even more restrictive. Opponents like Graham portray Trump’s immigration position as far out of the mainstream, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Just a couple comments on Trump’s position paper which should be read in its entirety. It may be considered the Jeff Sessions playbook on immigration, including ending birthright citizenship. The only other presidential candidate mentioned is Marco Rubio:

When politicians talk about “immigration reform” they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties. …  Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.

Beautiful. And he could have mentioned Rubio’s ultra-Zionist backers, Norman Braman, Larry Ellison, and Sheldon Adelson. Sounds like a pattern. Obviously, one of the big strengths of the Trump candidacy is that he is not dependent on the donor class. He gets another dig in at the donors:

Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first – not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own.

Unfortunately, all European-derived countries have immigration policies that are absolutely opposed to the interests of their native populations. We can now expect that a raging conflagration of media attacks against Trump and that Republican elites will continue to do all they can to derail Trump’s candidacy. This will be political theater at its best.

Trump/Sessions for president/vice-president in 2016!

Guatemala: no basta con la renuncia de Pérez Molina

Ángel Guerra Cabrera

La Jornada, 27 de Agosto de 2015

La decisión de la Suprema Corte de Guatemala de abrir el proceso de antejuicio al presidente Otto Pérez Molina como cabecilla principal de una gigantesca trama de corrupción, marca un punto de inflexión en la grave crisis política que sacude al país. El gobierno, paralizado hace semanas, ya se desmoronó.

El escándalo estalló en abril de este año y desencadenó un movimiento de indignación que ha llevado a multitudinarias protestas, inicialmente de las clases medias y estudiantes a las que se han sumado crecientes sectores de la población, incluyendo a las combativas comunidades indígenas y campesinas.

La investigación de la fiscalía y de la Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG) ha evidenciado delitos de altos funcionarios del gobierno, entre ellos la vicepresidenta Roxana Baldetti, quien se vio forzada a renunciar y ya está presa y es juzgada por un tribunal.

Pero estos hechos no comienzan con el actual gobierno y no pueden explicarse a fondo si no se ahonda en sus profundas raíces en la historia guatemalteca, en las consecuencias socio-políticas de la grosera injerencia de Estados Unidos en los asuntos internos de este país y directamente relacionado con ello, la aplicación, a partir de los 80, de las criminales, superexplotadoras y depredadoras políticas neoliberales.

Sin ir más atrás, a partir del golpe de Estado orquestado en 1954 por la CIA y las más altas instancias de Washington, que derrocó al presidente constitucional Jacobo Arbenz, el país quedó gobernado por una estrecha alianza formada por la embajada estadunidense, las cámaras empresariales y los militares de ultraderecha, huevo de la serpiente de la genocida actividad contrainsurgente de las fuerzas armadas hasta la firma de los acuerdos de paz con la guerrilla en diciembre de 1996. Según los cálculos de la Comisión de Esclarecimiento Histórico de la ONU el genocidio maya arrojó un saldo de 200 mil muertos y desaparecidos de esa etnia, además de un número considerable de opositores políticos y bases de apoyo de la guerrilla.

Aunque el genocidio terminó, no así la impunidad de sus autores, entre ellos Pérez Molina, ni las masacres eventuales de indígenas, ni la represión. Los acuerdos de paz abrieron relativamente el espacio político con elecciones a la gringa pero apenas tocaron la secular estructura de dominación imperialista-oligárquica. Grandes empresarios, jefes militares y la gran mayoría de los políticos se subordinan a la embajada de Estados Unidos y son cómplices de aquella en el control sobre la sociedad civil. Igualmente, manejan grandes negocios nacidos durante la guerra sucia y desarrollados en los años posteriores, incluyendo una jugosa participación en el tráfico de drogas, en el contrabando y en otras actividades criminales.

De hecho, de los años de guerra nacieron dos grupos criminales en el seno del ejército: El Sindicato y la Cofradía, cuyas actividades han continuado después, casi siempre con la complicidad del Ejecutivo.

Teñidas por las características de cada país, es evidente que las políticas neoliberales han impulsado la corrupción en el paneta entero y no sólo en América Latina y el tercer mundo, al estimular la prevalencia del individualismo, el egoísmo, el consumismo, el edonismo, la pobreza, el desempleo y, en general, la subordinación de lo público a lo privado. Redes de corrupción y compadrazgo entre empresarios, políticos y militares, las hay también y muy tupidas en el mundodesarrollado, comenzando por Estados Unidos. Remember el monumental e impune fraude financiero de 2008.

Causa hilaridad cuando se lee u oye a los loros amaestrados del sistema llenarse la boca para decir: “esto no pasa en las democracias consolidadas. ¿Cuáles? ¿Esas donde se compran las elecciones? Y es inevitable volver a pensar en el vecino del norte.

La calle pide la renuncia y el enjuiciamiento de Pérez Molina y es muy probable que lo consiga pues ya logró asustar a las cámaras empresariales, que de la noche a la mañana, exigen lo mismo. Y a la embajada gringa, que a través de aquellos y de la CCIG tira de los hilos para impedir que el país se le vaya de las manos, que las elecciones neoliberales resuelvan el problema para que todo siga igual. Los horroriza el fermento de indignación popular desatado, que si logra organizarse puede eventualmente pelear por cambios democráticos verdaderos que desemboquen en una Asamblea Constituyente ciudadana, no de los partidos políticos del sistema.

Twitter: @aguerraguerra

HIPOCRESÍA DEL GOBIERNO ISRAELÍ

Benjamín Netanyahu se ha pasado 25 años gritando que los imanes, ayatolas y mullahs de Irán quieren destruir Israel, provocar un nuevo Holocausto, borrar del mapa a dicho país. Y todo por un odio irracional, casi genético contra los judíos y contra el Estado de Israel (no importa que una de las comunidades judías más vibrantes de Medio Oriente viva precisamente en Irán, sin riesgo alguno de “ser destruida”).

A partir de estos argumentos, Netanyahu ha movilizado a todos los grupos y lobbys pro Israel en el mundo, para que eviten que Irán sea readmitido en las relaciones económicas y diplomáticas normales, a partir del acuerdo firmado con el grupo P5+1; pues desde hace más de 10 años se establecieron una serie de sanciones económicas, aprobadas por el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, con objeto de obligar al régimen de Teherán a aceptar más inspecciones de parte de la Agencia Internacional de Energía Atómica (AIEA), a pesar de que los iraníes forman parte del Tratado de No Proliferación de Armas Nucleares (NPT por sus siglas en inglés) y tienen derecho a desarrollar la energía nuclear de forma pacífica.

No obstante que constituye un régimen de inspecciones excepcional para un miembro del NPT, desde el 2013 Irán aceptó entrar en negociaciones con los miembros permanentes del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU (más Alemania), para que se limite el programa de energía nuclear iraní de tal forma que las grandes potencias del mundo y la AIEA puedan estar seguros de que dicho programa no evolucionará de forma súbita, hacia la fabricación de armas nucleares.

Es decir, los infundados temores del señor Netanyahu fueron asumidos por las grandes potencias y obligaron a Teherán a convertirse en el gobierno más vigilado del mundo en materia nuclear, en la historia, con objeto de tranquilizar a Netanyahu y a sus subordinados congresistas de Estados Unidos, que reciben la mayor parte del financiamiento para sus campañas, de los poderosos magnates judíos estadounidenses[1], aliados de Netanyahu y socios del complejo militar industrial y de seguridad de ese país.

Netanyahu y buena parte del establecimiento político estadounidense (así como sus medios de comunicación principales, también controlados en su mayoría por los magnates judíos)[2], se han dado a la tarea de descalificar y acusar al gobierno de Obama y a aquellos congresistas que apoyan el acuerdo con Irán, como si fueran neonazis que están llevando a Israel a las puertas de un nuevo Holocausto (el precandidato republicano Mike Huckabee señaló que Obama llevaba a Israel a las puertas del “horno”), por lo que casi los llama genocidas; además de señalar falsamente que la “seguridad de Estados Unidos” está en peligro con dicho acuerdo.

Los desinformados, xenófobos, racistas y muy manipulables estadounidenses pro republicanos, y en general la derecha más radical de dicho país (que por lo que se ve en los eventos del precandidato Donald Trump, muy bien podría llegar a ser hasta el 50% de la población estadounidense), están siguiendo esta tonada, y ya están rechazando el acuerdo en cuanta encuesta sesgada hacen los medios de comunicación sobre el mismo.

Así, se insiste en que el gobierno de Estados Unidos no debió haber entrado en negociaciones con los iraníes porque no son confiables, porque apoyan “el terrorismo” (cuando Estados Unidos e Israel son los principales promotores del mismo con sus invasiones y bombardeos), porque van a violar el acuerdo, porque lo que quieren realmente es dominar el Medio Oriente, porque odian a los estadounidenses y a Occidente, porque…porque…porque….Ya no saben qué inventar para descarrilar el acuerdo[3].

Como se sabe lo que se pretende es que el Congreso de Estados Unidos lo rechace, y después de que el Presidente Obama vete esa resolución del Congreso, éste realice una nueva votación para superar el veto presidencial, lo que implicaría que se requerirían dos terceras parte de los votos en ambas cámaras para derrotar definitivamente el acuerdo.

Pero aunque Netanyahu y sus lacayos pretenden descalificar al gobierno de Obama por “negociar con terroristas”, el gobierno israelí, encabezado por Netanyahu, ha iniciado negociaciones con el grupo Hamas[4], que gobierna la Franja de Gaza, y a quien Netanyahu y todo el establecimiento político judío han señalado como “terroristas”, obligando a Estados Unidos y a la Unión Europea a denominarlos igual.

Al parecer el objetivo de las pláticas es llegar a una tregua que dure de 8 a 10 años, a cambio de que Israel levante algunas de las muchas restricciones que tiene sobre esa prisión a cielo abierto que es la Franja de Gaza.

Así que Israel sí puede negociar con “terroristas “ (según su propia definición), para lograr mejores condiciones para la seguridad y el bienestar de su país; pero Estados Unidos y el resto del mundo no están “autorizados” para hacerlo, así sea también en beneficio de Israel, pues los israelíes deciden con quién sí puede negociar la comunidad internacional y para qué; y con quién no y por lo mismo a quiénes considera Tel Aviv que deben ser aislados y/o destruidos (Irán, el régimen de Bashar el Assad en Siria, Hezbollah).

Este juego de Israel es ya muy viejo y los gobiernos de Estados Unidos y Europa han sido obligados (por la presión de sus muy poderosos comunidades judías internas y lobbys pro Israel) a aceptarlo en el pasado. Pero en el caso del acuerdo con Irán han decidido que ya es tiempo de iniciar otro tipo de relación con los países de Medio Oriente, que no tenga que pasar por la aprobación o el veto israelí.

¿Por qué Israel decide ahora iniciar conversaciones con Hamas, al que ha llegado a comparar con El Estado Islámico, al que cada dos o tres años ataca inmisericordemente y al que mantiene casi por completo aislado del mundo en la pequeña franja habitada por 1.8 millones de palestinos?

Hay varias razones, de diverso orden:

1 - El gobierno de Netanyahu ha decidido que ya es tiempo de intervenir más decididamente en el derrocamiento del gobierno de Bashar el Assad en Siria, y ha comenzado bombardeos contra las posiciones del ejército sirio en las inmediaciones de las alturas del Golán. Esto provocará futuros enfrentamientos con las milicias de Hezbollah y por lo tanto no se descarta una nueva invasión israelí en el sur de Líbano.

2  - Una operación así en el Norte de Israel va a comprometer a buena parte de su ejército, por lo que no desean tener en su retaguardia a un Hamas dispuesto a reiniciar hostilidades, aunado a los continuos choques que las fuerzas de seguridad israelíes tienen con los palestinos en Cisjordania (el llamado en inglés West Bank), lo que implica una presión importante sobre los recursos del aparato militar israelí.

3  - El gobierno de Netanyahu desea fortalecer su precaria alianza con Arabia y las petromonarquías del Golfo en contra de Irán, por lo que desea que Hamas (que a pesar de ser sunnita, ha recibido en el pasado el respaldo iraní), se aleje de los chiítas iraníes, especialmente de Hezbollah, pues de iniciar Israel hostilidades contra estos últimos, una posible coordinación entre Hamas y Hezbollah, pondría en serias dificultades al ejército israelí, por lo que a través del acuerdo con Hamas, Netanyahu pretende neutralizar a los palestinos de la Franja de Gaza.

4  - Así también, Netanyahu pretende separar (aún más) a Hamas de la Autoridad Nacional Palestina de Cisjordania, pues si Hamas recibe beneficios del acuerdo, los israelíes podrán seguir adelante con la construcción de más viviendas en los territorios ocupados, sin temer una posible “nueva intifada” en Cisjordania, coordinada con ataques de parte de Hamas en el sur de Israel.

5  -   A nivel regional, Israel desea relanzar las relaciones con Turquía, cuyo gobierno ha tratado de apoyar a Hamas, pero Israel se lo ha impedido. De ahí que un acuerdo con Hamas, podría quitar tensión en la relación con Turquía y también ampliar la coalición anti-iraní.

En suma, Netanyahu sí puede negociar con “terroristas” cuando así le conviene, pero descalifica groseramente a su principal aliado, Estados Unidos, si apenas se acerca un poco a Irán, que es la “bestia negra” del gobierno israelí.

Un juego hipócrita, en el que Netanyahu se ha distinguido siempre.

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[1] FROM THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS (opensecrets.org) AS OF 8/03/15:

● Pro-Israel: Money to Congress
• SUMMARY
• All cycles

Dems: $71,700,750
Repubs: $43,054,007
Other: $1,552,596
All Candidates: Total to All Candidates: $116,307,353
Incumbents Only: Total to Members: $93,416,000

House
Party / # of Members / Avg. Contribution / Total
Democrats 1,554 $16,821 $28,077,908
Republicans 1,083 $14,814 $17,055,956
Independents 2 $836 $11,700
TOTAL 2,639 $17,107 $45,145,564
The US House of Representatives has 435 members and 5 non-voting delegates.
Totals may exceed 440 due to mid-term replacements.

Senate
Party / # of Members / Avg. Contribution / Total
Democrats 388 $75,287 $30,202,925
Republicans 310 $51,035 $16,639,371
Independents 5 $93,965 $1,366,890
TOTAL 703 $68,576 $48,209,186
The US Senate has 100 members.
Totals may exceed 100 due to mid-term replacements.

The numbers on this page are based on contributions from PACs and individuals giving $200 or more.

All donations took place during the -1-All election cycle and were released by the Federal Election Commission on Sunday, August 18, 2013.

- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/freshmen-congresspeople-sabotage#sthash.2UZ4ssHr.dpuf

[2] Walt Disney Pictures (Joe Roth), Miramax Films (hermanos Weinstein), ESPN (Steve Bornstein), Time/Warner (Gerlad Levin y familia Graham),Viacom (Sumner Redston –verdadero nombre Murray Rothstein), Sony Coproration of America (Michael Shulhof y Alan Levine, Sony Pictures), Dreamworks (David Geffen y Jeffrey Katzenberg), MCA y Universal Pictures propiedad de Seagrams (Edgar Bronfman), CBS de Westinghouse (Eric Ober), NBC de General Electric ( Andrew Lack), entre las más relevantes. (Seis compañías judías poseen 96% de los medios del mundo/Odomok 197; consignanacional.blogcindario.com).

[3] La última es la mentira de las “auto inspecciones iraníes” en la base militar de Parchin. La AIEA ya señaló que eso fue en el régimen anterior de inspecciones, no en el recientemente firmado.

[4] http://news.yahoo.com/positive-contacts-israel-gaza-truce-hamas-head-185007190.html