The intention, expressed or underlying, in this type of violence is to control the woman, to deprive her of dignity, self-esteem, autonomy and voice; thus, she is modeled as an extension of the man and all her value lies in the union of beauty and utility, her “respect” for the rules that are pointed out to her, her obedience and her disposition to fulfill basic tasks: home order, accompaniment, pleasure and reproduction
Author: Victor Fowler | internet@granma.cu
May 29, 2020 00:05:36
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
This is the name given to the set of attitudes, actions, expressions, speeches and devices of all kinds that aim to control, humiliate, degrade or cause physical, moral, economic, sexual or psychological suffering or harm to a woman just because of her condition. It is a constitutive characteristic of relationships of domination-submission and those who participate in the process occupy the roles of victimizer or victim.
The intention, expressed or underlying, in this type of violence is to control the woman, to deprive her of dignity, self-esteem, autonomy and voice; thus, she is modeled as an extension of man and her entire value lies in the union of beauty and utility, her “respect” for the rules that are set forth, her obedience and her willingness to fulfill basic tasks: home order, companionship, pleasure and reproduction.
The manifestations of violence against women can be either continuous or discontinuous, refined or crude, subtle or evident, charged with anger and the application of physical force (pushing, hitting) or psychological and expressed through silence, disinterest or the devaluation of what the woman thinks or feels. The above-mentioned devices cover all areas and moments in the victim’s life and are presented as a mixture in which there are – acting in conjunction – elements of prevention, “education”, surveillance, control, blackmail, discipline and punishment.
Although the extreme cases (beating, physical attack, rape or femicide) become public – thanks to the intervention of the Law and the mass media – most violence against women is “naturalized” and takes place in the public space, in situations of apparent normality, or “inside” the families, where there are no witnesses. Violence against women denies women the right to decide what kind of intervention they want or accept, what forms of social exchange and even what limits.
Examples of the above are actions with a sexual content such as compliments, unsolicited physical contact, harassment and sexual aggression; discrimination (direct or indirect, at work or otherwise) due to the status of women; threats with respect to child support or power, and the dynamics of patriarchal and androcentric authoritarianism in the family, the workplace or any place in public space and society.
Bibliography consulted (main sources)
El género en el derecho (Gender in Law). Ramiro Ávila Santamaría; Judith Salgado and Lola Valladares (compilation). Quito: Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, 2009.
Gamba, Susana- Diz, Tania. Diccionario de estudios de género y feminismos. Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2007.
Jokin Azpiazu Carballo. Masculinities and feminism. Barcelona: Virus Editorial, 2017.
Straka, Ursula (coordinator). Gender violence. Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Posgrado Área de Derecho; Amnesty International; Reforma Judicial, 2015.
Cuadernos de género: Políticas y acciones de género. Training materials / Marta Aparicio García; Begoña Leyra Fatou and Rosario Ortega Serrano (eds.) Madrid: Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales, 2009.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The confinement finally decreed in the United States to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic has crippled the capitalist economy and thus demolished the process of capital accumulation, writes William I. Robinson, a U.S. professor of sociology specializing in political economy, globalization, Latin America, and historical materialism at the University of California, Santa Barbara
“The fact that this economic paralysis is throwing tens of millions of workers into a crisis of survival is entirely fortuitous for the transnational capitalist class’ concern to immediately resume the machinery of profit, since capital cannot remain idle while it remains capital. The impulse to revive accumulation explains the fact that in many American cities there have been public demonstrations by the ultra-right-wing to demand the lifting of the quarantine, just as the most reactionary sectors of capital promoted the Tea Party in the wake of the financial collapse of 2008, a movement that in turn mobilized in support of Trumpism.
Although the protests seem spontaneous, they have in fact been organized by conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, and the American Council on Legislative Exchange (coo ALEC), which brings together the CEOs of large corporations along with local right-wing legislators from across the United States.
Donald Trump inflamed the protesters through a series of tweets, including one calling to “Free (the state of) Virginia, and for protecting its great Second Amendment, which is under siege.” The call to defend this amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms, was almost a call for armed insurrection. In the state of Michigan, armed Trump supporters blocked traffic to prevent the flow of aid. A few days ago, Trump claimed to have “total” power to lift the quarantine.
Despite its populist rhetoric, Trump has served the interests of the transnational capitalist class well by implementing a neoliberal program ranging from regressive tax reform and extensive deregulation and privatization to an expansion of capital subsidies, social spending cuts and union repression.
Trump – himself a member of the transnational capitalist class – picked up where he left off in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse and forged a social base among those sectors of the (mostly white) working class that had previously enjoyed privileges such as stable, well-paid jobs, and that in recent years have suffered acute socio-economic destabilization and downward mobility in capitalist globalization.
Like the Tea Party that preceded him, Trump has been able to arouse increasing social anxiety among these sectors, from a radical critique of the capitalist system to a racist and patriotic mobilization against scapegoats such as immigrants. These Trumpist tactics have turned these sectors into shock forces for the ultra-right-wing capitalist agenda that has brought them to the brink of a truly fascist project.
The growing crisis of global capitalism has led to a rapid political polarization in global society between an insurgent left and ultra-right and neo-fascist forces that have gained adherents in many countries of the world. Both forces draw on the same social base of the millions of people devastated by neo-liberal austerity, impoverishment, precarious employment and their relegation to the ranks of superfluous humanity. The level of global social polarization and inequality is unprecedented at this time.
The richest 1% of humanity controls more than half of the planet’s wealth while the lowest 80% have to make do with just 4.5% of that wealth. As popular discontent against this inequality spreads, the ultra-right and neo-fascist mobilization plays a critical role in the effort by dominant groups to channel such discontent into support for the agenda of the transnational capitalist class, disguised in populist rhetoric.
In this context, the conservative groups are determined to organize a far-right response to the health emergency and the economic crisis, involving a greater dose of ideological subterfuge and a renewed mobilization of their shock forces than to demand the lifting of the lockdown, a resource that could well require the State to provide aid to millions of poor workers and families instead of insisting on the immediate reopening of the economy.
May 25, 2020.
This commentary may be reproduced citing the newspaper Por Esto! of Merida, Mexico as the source.
By Domingo Amuchastegui Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews. Not a few specialists on the Cuban issue – some with morbid jubilation and others with serious concern – evaluate, from the outside, the current situation on the island in increasingly alarming terms, to the point of using the famous formula of a “perfect storm” to describe what is coming. Without a doubt, the situation may reach profiles of extreme gravity, but – understandably – not in the dimension of public health and healthcare to the population. Here the country’s health system – even in extreme emergency conditions – is still proving to be very effective. Some data (April 15) from official sources indicate that 2,466 people have been hospitalized, of which 814 have been confirmed, 151 have recovered and 24 have died. Compared to the rest of Latin America, Cuba presents a much smaller picture. This is not the case when we examine the economic dimension. But, beware of blaming the virus or the economic warfare unleashed by the Trump administration. It is not by chance that Cuban economist Ricardo Torres (Progreso Semanal, 4/8/2020) makes clear: “The Cuban economy was already showing a gloomy picture before the beginning of the current epidemic. This panorama was clearly noticed when the average annual economic growth was falling unstoppably, with 2.7% in 2010-2015 and by 2016-2019 it was maintaining the same trend, with a growth of only 1.4% (data provided by Torres). This macroeconomic dimension of Torres is complemented by key data provided by another well-known Cuban economist, Juan Triana Cordoví, in an analysis (OnCuba News 4/8/2020): “In the 1985-1986 biennium the total harvested area was 1,328,600 hectares, production reached 68.5 million tons of products and yields were 51.6% tons per hectare”. And he adds the comparison with the results between 2015 and 2016 (Note: the embargo persisted, but Trump had not started its economic war); “The harvested area was 421,600 hectares (Note: Almost one million less), production was 18.1 million tons (Note: 50 million tons less) and yields per hectare were 43 tons per hectare, or 8 tons less. If official policy to date calls for a drastic reduction in food imports, the determining factor is its failed policy for decades in the area of domestic food production. And may I add: this element – food production – is essential for good health. By way of conclusion, Triana connects these numbers with the issue of the virus and emphasizes: “The pandemic emphasizes something that almost everyone has known for many, many years: the strategy of having a food production system that is as solid as possible, something that we have never achieved.” Torres’ conclusion in this area is very similar and precise, in the following terms: “It is time to recognize that the current production and distribution scheme is a complete failure, and needs to be revised from its foundations. In that review, the private and cooperative sector must be empowered. The potential and results of Cuba’s health system are there. They are widely recognized internationally, including by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Not least, the successes of the industry and research in the bio-pharmaceutical sector are there. It is not by chance that at this critical time, some twenty countries, including most of the CARICOM countries, Italy (Lombardy and Turin regions), Andorra, Qatar, South Africa, Angola, Venezuela and others have contracted the medical services available on the Island. However, such a successful component is not combined or complemented by the economic picture previously presented by two well-known Cuban economists. Nevertheless, the health services factor (doctors in the first place) and bio-pharmaceutical products have been significantly affected and reduced by the expulsion of the doctors from Brazil by Bolsonaro – contrary to the favorable opinions of all the municipalities where they were providing their services, the political turnaround of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno and the coup d’état in Bolivia. Figures are not yet available to measure the extent to which the medical services currently contracted and the markets for bio-pharmaceuticals can compensate, and to what extent, for the hemispheric setbacks noted above. In such a context, it should be concluded that Cuba is entering a phase of acute recession and that its GDP could be reduced by any amount, which is very difficult to calculate at this point. Torres summarizes it as follows: “A substantial negative impact is inevitable: open, under strong sanctions, dependent on tourism and no access to any external compensation mechanism in the form of contingent loans from international financial organizations. Other dimensions that aggravate this situation are: 1- The total paralysis of the tourist industry in the short term and the many uncertainties regarding its eventual recovery in the short-and medium- term, as well as a significant reduction in the flow of remittances from Cuban immigrants, due to two factors: a. A reduction in the income of these immigrants and b. The interruption of travel and the total interruption of monetary flows in this way. 2- The pressures arising from Cuba’s financial obligations with respect to its foreign debt and short-term commercial debts. The G-20 has agreed on a moratorium on the debt of 70 poor countries (40 of them African) until December, with French President Emmanuel Macron insisting on the hypothesis of forgiving significant portions of this debt. However, Cuba does not fall into this group of beneficiaries and will have to negotiate a similar treatment on a bilateral basis with the Paris Club, with its European (Spain in the first place) and Asian (China in the first place) creditors. Under these conditions, and their uncertain prolongation, it is impossible to imagine that the Cuban authorities can expect an improvement in their already very low levels of EI. 3- In parallel with the pandemic, the crisis in the oil markets has affected and will affect in the near future the payment capacity of two large Cuban debtors for cooperation projects, Venezuela and Angola. Likewise, it is not to be expected in the immediate future investments from both in any sphere of the Cuban economy, including the important sphere of oil. 4- The multi-million dollar projects agreed upon with Russia at the end of last year will be postponed indefinitely, with a very recent negative precedent. Rosneft, Russia’s major oil company, gave in to extra-territorial pressures and threats from the Trump administration and announced the end of its operations in Venezuela. If so, serious doubts could be raised about its current and future operations in the energy sphere with Cuba. A very similar panorama is presented in the relations and agreements between Havana and Beijing, but with a very significant difference: China is Cuba’s main trading partner and has been pending for years the execution of multiple agreed projects and the granting or not of new soft loans and forgiveness of portions of Cuba’s high debt with China. 5- Projects and measures to reform or redesign Cuba’s inoperative economic system will once again be “frozen”, pending improvements in circumstances. Once again, the Cuban leadership’s ability to survive and recover is being put to the test – this time in the face of unusual dimensions of extreme gravity. Whether or not the willingness to change and the circumstances to come will have the last word.
Por Domingo Amuchastegui No pocos especialistas del tema cubano -unos con júbilo morboso y otros con seria preocupación- valoran desde el exterior la actual situación en la Isla en términos cada vez más alarmantes, al punto de utilizar la famosa fórmula de una “tormenta perfecta” para describir lo que se avecina. Sin lugar a dudas, la situación puede alcanzar perfiles de extrema gravedad, pero -entiéndase bien- no en la dimension de la salud pública y asistencia sanitaria a la población. En esto el sistema de salud del país -incluso en condiciones de emergencia extrema- da todavía sobradas muestras de su eficacia. Algunos datos (abril 15) de fuentes oficiales consignan 2 466 hospitalizados, de estos 814 confirmados, 151 recuperados y 24 fallecidos. En comparación con el resto de los países de América Latina, Cuba presenta un cuadro realmente menor. No ocurre lo mismo cuando examinamos la dimension económica. Pero, mucho cuidado con culpar al virus o a la guerra económica desatada por la administración Trump. No por casualidad aclara el economista cubano Ricardo Torres (Progreso Semanal, 4/8/2020): “La economía cubana ya exhibía un panorama sombrío antes del comienzo de la actual epidemia.” Este panorama se advertía claramente cuando el crecimiento económico promedio annual descendía de forma imparable, con un 2,7% en el 2010-2015 y para el 2016-2019 mantenía la misma tendencia, con un crecimiento de apenas el 1.4% (datos que aporta Torres). Esta dimensión macroeconómica de Torres, se complementa con datos claves que nos ofrece otro bien conocido economista cubano, Juan Triana Cordoví, en un análisis (OnCuba News 4/8/2020).: “En el bienio 1985-1986 la superficie cosechada total fue de 1 328 600 hectáreas, la producción alcanzó los 68,5 millones de toneladas de productos y los rendimientos fueron de 51,6% toneladas por hectárea.” Y agrega la comparación con los resultados entre el 2015 y 2016 (Nota: persistía el embargo, pero Trump no había comenzado su guerra económica); “La superficie cosechada fue de 421 600 hectáreas (Nota: Obsérvese: Casi un millón menos), la producción fue de 18,1 millones de toneladas (Nota: 50 millones de toneladas menos) y los rendimientos por hectáarea fueron de 43 toneladas por hectárea, o sea, 8 toneladas menos. Si la política oficial hasta hoy clama por una drástica reducción de las importación de alimentos, el factor determinante es su fracasada política durante décadas en la esfera de la producción doméstica de alimentos. Y me permito añadir: este elemento -la producción de alimentos- es esencial para una buena salud. A manera de conclusion, Triana conecta estos números con el tema del virus y subraya: “La pandemia enfatiza algo que desde hace muchísimos años casi todos sabemos: lo estratégico de tener un sistema de producción de alimentos lo más sólido possible, algo que no hemos logrado jamás.” La conclusión de Torres en este terreno es muy similar y precisa, en los términos siguientes: “Ya es hora de que se reconozca que el esquema de producción y distribución actual es un fracaso rotundo,y requiere ser revisado desde sus fundamentos. En esa revision, el sector privado y cooperativo debe ser empoderado.” Las potencialidades y resultados del sistema de salud de Cuba están ahí. Tienen amplio reconocimiento internacional, incluyendo la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) y la Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS). En no menor medida se suman los éxitos de la industria e investigaciones del sector biofarmacéutico. No por casualidad en estos momentos críticos, una veintena de países, incluyendo la mayoría de los países integrantes del CARICOM, Italia (regiones de Lombardía y Turín), Andorra, Qatar, Africa del Sur, Angola, Venezuela y otros han contratado los servicios médicos de que dispone la Isla. Pero, semejante componente exitoso no se conjuga ni es complementado por el cuadro económico antes presentado por dos economistas cubanos bien conocidos. No obstante, el factor servicios de salud (médicos en primer lugar) y productos biofarmacéuticos se ha visto sensiblemente afectado y reducido por la expulsion de los médicos de Brasil por Bolsonaro -contrariando el criterio favorable de todas las municipalidades donde los mismos prestaban sus servicios, el viraje politico de presidente ecuatoriano Lenin Moreno y la asonada golpista de Bolivia. No se disponen aún de cifras que permitan medir en qué medida los servicios médicos contratados en la actualidad y los mercados para los biofarmacéuticos puedan compensar, y en qué medida, los reveses hemisféricos antes apuntados. En semejante contexto, concluir que Cuba entra en una fase de aguda recesión y que su PIB podrá reducirse en cualquier magnitud, bien difícil de calcular a esta altura. Torres lo sintetiza de la manera siguiente: “Un impacto negativo sustancial es inevitable: abierta, bajo Fuertes sanciones, dependiente del turismo y nulo acceso a algún mecanismo de compensación externa en la forma de préstamos contingents de organismos financieros internacionales.” Otras dimensiones que agravan esta situación son: 1- La paralización total de la industria turística a corto plazo y las muchas incertidumbres sobre su eventual recuperación a corto y mediano plazo asi como una sensible reducción del flujo de las remesas de los cubanos emigrados atendiendo a dos condicionantes: a. Reducción de los ingresos de estos emigrados y b. La interrupción de los viajes y la interrupción total de los flujos monetarios por esta vía. 2- Las presiones derivadas de las obligaciones financieras de Cuba con respecto a su deuda externa y adeudos comerciales a corto plazo. El G-20 ha acordado una moratoria sobre la deuda de 70 países pobres (40 de ellos africanos) hasta diciembre, insistiendo el presidente francés, Emmanuel Macron, en la hipótesis de perdonar porciones signficativas de dicha deuda. Pero, Cuba no entra en dicho grupo de beneficiados y tendrá que negociar un tratamiento similar sobre bases bilaterales con el Club de París, con sus acreedores europeos (España en primer lugar) y asiáticos (China en primer lugar). En estas condiciones, y su prolongación incierta, es imposible imaginarse que las autoridades cubanas puedan esperar una mejoría en sus ya reducídisimos niveles de IE. 3- Paralelo a la pandenmia, la crisis en los mercados petroleros han afectado y afectarán en el futuro próximo la capacidad de pago de dos grandes deudores de Cuba por concepto de proyectos de cooperación, Venezuela y Angola. Igualmente, no es de esperar en lo inmediato inversiones de parte de ambos en ninguna esfera de la economía cubana, incluyendo la importante esfera del petróleo. 4- Los proyectos multimillonarios acordados con Rusia a finales del pasado año se verán aplazados por tiempo indefinido, con un precedente negativo de muy reciente fecha. Rosneft, la gran empresa petrolera de Rusia, cedió ante las presiones y amenazas extraterritoriales de la administración Trump y anunció el fin de sus operaciones en Venezuela, en cuyo caso cabe plantearse serias dudas sobre sus operaciones, actuales y futuras, en la esfera energética con Cuba. Un panorama muy similar se presenta en las relaciones y acuerdos de La Habana con Beijing, pero con una diferencia muy significativa: China es el principal socio comercial de Cuba y tiene pendiente desde hace años la ejecución de múltiples proyectos acordados y el otorgamiento o no de nuevos préstamos blandos y perdón de porciones de la elevada deuda de Cuba con China. 5- Los proyectos y medidas de reforma o rediseño del inoperante Sistema económico de Cuba quedarán, una vez más, “congelados,” a la espera de mejoras circunstancias. De nuevo se pone a prueba -esta vez frente a dimensiones inusuales de extrema gravedad- la capacidad de sobrevivencia y recuperación de parte de la dirigencia cubana. La disposición o no al cambio y las circunstancias venideras dirán la última palabra.
Other Dimensions in the Time of the Corona Virus
April 2020OTRAS DIMENSIONES EN TIEMPOS DEL CORONAVIRUS
Avril 2020
By Domingo Amuchastegui, April 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Cuba faces its most critical and complex situation today. This is the result of the interaction of three factors. The most recent is the multifaceted impact of the arrival of the coronavirus or COVID-19. Its impact ranges from damage to the health system and the general population to the impact on its economy (see Coronovirus and Cuba). Added to this is the Trump administration’s economic warfare against Cuba, and with no less perjured gravitation, the persistence of a proven ineffective model that resists deepening and widening the path of reform.
In such a context, it is essential to examine the challenges and priorities that in the short and immediate term – and with a level of urgency as never before – the Cuban leadership will have to deal with and find the best, and most lasting, solutions that will ensure its recovery and stabilization.
At the level of INTERNAL SECTOR:
Por Domingo Amuchastegui
Avril 2020
Cuba enfrenta hoy su más crítica y compleja situación. Ello es resultado de la interacción de tres factores. El más reciente lo constituye el impacto multifacético de la llegada del coronavirus o COVID-19, que va desde los perjuicios al sistema de salud y a la población en general hasta el impacto a su economía (Ver Coronovirus y Cuba). A esto se suma la guerra económica de la administración Trump contra Cuba, y con una gravitación no menos perjuidical, la persistencia de un modelo probadamente inoperante que se resiste a profundizar y ampliar el camino de las reformas.
En semejante contexto, resulta imprescindible un examen de los desafíos y prioridades que a corto e inmediato plazo -y con un nivel de urgencia como nunca antes- la dirigencia cubana tendrá que lidiar con ello y encontrar las mejores, y más duraderas, soluciones que aseguren su recuperación y estabilización.
A nivel de SECTOR INTERNO:
A nivel de SECTOR EXTERNO:
By Jorge Rodríguez Hernández
April 28, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
“Now more than ever, we must rescue respect for the law and fight a corrupt socialism that masks the dangerous underground economy.
Graziella Pogolotti (La gangrena, Juventud Rebelde, 1 May 2016, p.3)
Thirty or more years ago, as part of my research – still in progress – on the underground economy and its different features, I wrote that speculation constitutes the visible face of the black market, due to the role played by those who plunder the goods of the public treasury, in collusion with drivers, through crime on wheels, and through a sort of symbiosis with citizens who work in state agencies, without ruling out links with marginal subjects. As you will infer, it is a complex skein.
We are in the presence of an issue similar to a hydra, with different tentacles, whose neutralization requires the use of an integral and multidisciplinary approach. The recent dismantling of a clandestine network of 13 members, who were engaged in stealing different equipment and goods from the warehouses of the National Medical Supplies Company (ENSUME), located in Berroa, east of Havana, demonstrates the need and urgency to cut off these illicit activities, in order to prevent the advance of this corrupting pandemic, in the midst of Cuba’s confrontation with another pandemic that is also lethal: COVID-19.
For the Cuban psychiatrist and criminalist, Dr. Fernando Barral, a student of economic crime on the island, the shortage is a “contributing circumstance”, but this expert believes that “one cannot wait for everything to be in place to resolve this phenomenon to some extent”, and whose existence compromises the survival of the Revolution, as has been said repeatedly.
During the crisis of the 1990s, when the country lived through the Special Period in peacetime, the mismatch between supply and demand reinforced the tentacles and space of the black market, and during that time the amount of transactions on the black market grew more than 20 times, according to economists’ calculations.
When I mention speculation and hoarding, criminal figures in the current Penal Code, I am not talking about small-scale operations, nor about a certain number of people who have found a way of life in this illicit act -which should not be underestimated and much less justified-, but I am also referring to the thinking heads of large smuggling operations, who transfer goods and products from state agencies to the black market.
Cuba must take very much into account the circumstances of the failure of the French Revolution, which was not because of the extremist actions of terrorism, but because it did not find ways to consolidate the masses and direct them against both the big and the small parasites.
In the script applied to the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) by the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), between 1953 and 1961, Allen W. Dulles, was “actively and constantly encouraging (…) the despotism of officials, bribery, corruption, lack of principle”, and his “main bet” was on “the youth”, which “we will corrupt, demoralize, pervert”.
The causes of the failure of socialism in the former USSR always deserve a critical and instructive look from Cuba, both here and now, and towards the future. To corroborate this last point, there is “the precedent of the mythical “Uncle Basia” (the figure of the clandestine speculator on a large scale who emerged in the Brezhnev era), who with the penguins of profits accumulated in 20 years is today devastating the auctions of state property with constant and resounding money,” as the magazine Bohemia reported in July 1992.
por Jorge Rodríguez Hernández
Abril 28, 2020
“Ahora más que nunca, hay que rescatar el respeto a la ley y combatir un socialismo corruptor que enmascara la peligrosa economía sumergida”.
Graziella Pogolotti (La gangrena, Juventud Rebelde, 1 de mayo de 2016, p.3)
Hace 30 o más años, como parte de mi investigación- vigente aún- sobre economía sumergida y sus disímiles rasgos, escribí que la especulación constituye la cara visible del mercado negro, por el papel que desempeñan quienes depredan los bienes de la hacienda pública, en contubernio con choferes, mediante el delito sobre ruedas, y a través de una suerte de simbiosis con ciudadanos que laboran en las dependencias estatales, sin descartar vínculos con sujetos marginales. Como inferirán, se trata de una compleja madeja.
Estamos en presencia de un asunto semejante a una hidra, con disímiles tentáculos, cuya neutralización pasa por el empleo de un enfoque integral y multidisciplinario. La reciente desarticulación de una red clandestina de 13 integrantes, quienes se dedicaban a sustraer disímiles equipos y bienes en almacenes de la Empresa Nacional de Suministros Médicos (ENSUME), ubicados en Berroa, al este de La Habana, demuestra la necesidad y urgencia de cortar estos ilícitos, para impedir el avance de esta pandemia corruptora, en medio del enfrentamiento de Cuba contra otra pandemia también letal: la COVID-19.
Para el psiquiatra y criminalista cubano, doctor Fernando Barral, estudioso de la delincuencia económica en la Isla, la escasez resulta una “circunstancia contribuyente”, pero dicho experto considera que “no puede esperarse a que haya de todo para resolver este fenómeno en cierta medida”, y cuya existencia compromete la supervivencia de la Revolución, como se ha dicho, de forma reiterada.
Durante la crisis de los años 90 del pasado siglo XX, cuando el país vivió el Período Especial en tiempo de paz, el desencuentro entre oferta y demanda, reforzó los tentáculos y espacio del mercado negro, y en el transcurso de esa época el monto de las transacciones en el mismo crecieron más de 20 veces, según cálculos de economistas.
Cuando menciono la especulación y el acaparamiento, figuras delictivas en el Código Penal vigente, no hablo de operaciones de poca monta, ni de una determinada cifra de personas que han encontrado un modo de vida en este ilícito -lo cual no debe se subestimado y mucho menos justificado-, sino me refiero también a las cabezas pensantes de grandes operaciones de contrabando, quienes trasvasan mercancías y productos de las dependencias estatales hacia el mercado negro.
Cuba debe tener muy en cuenta las circunstancias del fracaso de la Revolución Francesa, lo cual no fue a causa de las acciones extremistas del terrorismo, sino por no haber encontrado vías para consolidar a las masas y dirigirlas tanto en contra de los parásitos grandes como de los pequeños.
En el guion aplicado a la ex Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas (URSS) por parte del jefe de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia de Estados Unidos (CIA), entre 1953 y 1961, Allen W. Dulles, se propició de una forma “activa y constante (…) el despotismo de los funcionarios, el soborno, la corrupción, la falta de principios”, y su “principal apuesta” fue “la juventud”, la cual “corromperemos, desmoralizaremos, pervertiremos”.
Las causas del fracaso del socialismo en la ex URSS, merece siempre una mirada crítica y aleccionadora por parte de Cuba, tanto aquí y ahora, como hacia el futuro. Para corroborar esto último, ahí está “el precedente del mítico “tío Basia” (la figura del especulador clandestino a gran escala surgido en la era Brezhnev), quien con los pingües beneficios acumulados en 20 años arrasa hoy con dinero constante y sonante en las subastas de la propiedad estatal”, como reseñó la revista Bohemia en julio de 1992.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
According to the German sociologist, philosopher, economist, jurist, historian and political scientist Max Weber, considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration, Protestantism is one of the foundational elements of the origin of capitalism.
Based on this same logic of development, it is evident that the reactionary and traditional neo-Pentecostal church – born in and exported by the United States – is a fundamental part of the current neoliberal phase of capitalism. It promotes the non-intervention of the State in society, is in favor of the cruelest individualism, alien to all social solidarity and which even privileges religious control even over the health of the population.
This is approximately how Jorge Elbaum, doctor of economics, sociologist, researcher, teacher, journalist and poet, sees it in his article “Shepherds of the Virus”.
The model of the charismatic mass pastors was exported by the United States to Latin America in the 1970s to weaken Liberation Theology, a current of the Catholic Church committed to the destiny of the poorest.
Pastor Gerard Glenn, a leader of the New Deliverance Evangelistic congregation in Richmond, challenged recommendations of social isolation by stating that “God is greater than this dreaded virus” and warned that he would not consent to the temporary closure of his church. “I’m essential as a preacher because I talk to God,” he said. Glenn died last March 22 from a coronavirus, but his wife is still fighting the disease.
The same fate befell Landon Spradlin, leader of Virginia’s evangelical community, who became a staunch defender of Donald Trump’s tenets. On March 25, he died at age 65, shortly after claiming that the quarantine was basically aimed at “manipulating the lives of American citizens” and that its communication through the media was producing “unnecessary terror.
In mid-April, Life Way Christian Resources of Tennessee published the results of a survey on pastors’ perceptions of the pandemic: 81 percent of those surveyed said that “the love of many believers is dissipating as a result of social distancing,” which is why their congregations should be kept open.
In South Korea, the Church of Jesus – known as the congregation of Shincheon, which promotes mass assemblies – became the epicentre of the COVID contagion in that country. Its leader, Pastor Lee Man-Hee, urged his followers to oppose the government’s harsh isolation measures. Sixty percent of the total number of infected people in the country belong to this group.
In crisis situations like the present one, religious fundamentalisms (of all denominations) counterpose human regulations to the law of God, demanding obedience to divine mandates that they supposedly interpret and manage. Their open-minded claims are motivated by expectations of losses in the collection of contributions and tithes from parishioners.
Leaders of denominational orthodoxy believe that lack of income can lead to the failure of their business enterprises. The logical fear generated by the pandemic allows fundamentalist leaders to appeal to apocalyptic discourse and to advise sinners of a return to revealed truth.
In Latin America, the neo-Pentecostal tradition was consolidated by spreading the so-called prosperity gospel, which holds that wealth is a divine gift. Billionaires, for that tradition, are subjects who have been rewarded by the deity and lack responsibility for the inequity they create.
According to their references, they cannot be accused of pettiness because by accumulating wealth they subject the rest of humanity to misery. This ideological position defends sexism and patriarchy, and attacks LGBT identities, feminist movements and/or those who promote the voluntary termination of pregnancy.
May 18, 2020.
This article can be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
An eventual re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States would once again frustrate the expectations of many. These are people who, throughout the world, have believed it possible for the American people, on their own, to be able to condemn the policy contrary to international law and the rules of coexistence practiced by the governments of both parties representing the oligarchic interests that alternate in the presidency of that North American country.
The 2020 presidential election will be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, and will be the fifty-ninth (59th) presidential election in the United States. On November 3, 2020, voters will elect the electors who will in turn choose the new president and vice president through the Electoral College.
Only about half of Americans – because most who are eligible to vote are not interested in or don’t trust the political system that calls itself the most democratic in the world. They will go to the polls to complete the ritual of voting for the man who will govern the most powerful country in the history of our planet for the next four years.
The usual thing is that there is not much difference between the options presented to the voters. They are always two billionaires who identify very little with the interests of the average citizen and much less with the needs of the lower income population, which has never been taken into account in that very rich country.
But what is unusual about these 2020 elections is that the comparison regarding the candidates’ finances has been replaced by ideological approaches, since one of them has broken with the rules that have governed candidates’ speeches.
As Obama’s vice president, Biden was characterized by support for Obama’s policies on international relations and social issues, especially in designing the strategy for troop withdrawals from Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
His negotiating experience was useful during negotiations with the Republican Party in Congress on tax policy, the economy and budgets, and was vital in the passage of the 2011 Budget Control Act and the 2012 Tax Relief Act.
In addition, there was his role in the Obama administration’s efforts to limit gun sales, fight sexual abuse on college campuses, and seek remedies for the lack of health insurance in the low-income population.
But let no one be fooled. There’s an opulent economic oligarchy that no one has ever elected and that has never been put to the test. It’s a plutocratic oligarchy of big corporations, which is the real core of real power. It will continue to rule the destiny of the great American nation and will remain the determining factor in American national and global political life.
It is well-known that at the head of the empire there would still be that US economic hierarchy that would only formally cede its power to a political leadership that -using the government- would make the oligarchic morality and laws prevail, while taking care of internal order and neutralizing the internal conflicts.
Although this supreme power of the enormous transnational corporations also determines domestic policy, it is in the sphere of foreign policy that its control is most clearly expressed.
It was American businessmen and bankers who determined the transformation of the world into a marketplace. They also wanted the replacement of diplomacy by the system of pressure, threats, blockades, aggressions and occupations of entire countries that currently characterizes US foreign policy.
It was they who introduced the practice of relations between countries under their imperial domination through proconsular ambassadors and puppet presidents.
Unlike politicians – who must face up to electoral contests and exercise administrative tasks in which they show their faces – the economic hierarchs exercise their power without individual commitment, without pre-determined limits and without being subject to ethical or moral standards.
Paradoxically, large corporations tend to be appreciated and respected because they theoretically generate jobs that bring well-being, while politicians, who collect taxes and repress with their police, courts and prisons, wear themselves out, degrade and take the blame.
April 29, 2020.
By Hugo Moldiz Mercado.
He is a Bolivian lawyer, communicator, university professor, researcher, Master in International Relations and correspondent for international news agencies. He has advised some commissions of the Bolivian Constituent Assembly.
April 28, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In what way does the left have a chance of triumphing in representative (bourgeois) democratic elections? Is it an efficient and effective electoral strategy, regardless of the relation of forces between the dominant and subordinate classes, the predominant, even the only one, for a leftist candidate to be able to attract aa high percentage of the population and crown himself as the winning formula?
Is it a general political strategy, with its political-electoral correlate, that builds “from below” a favorable relationship of forces in the social struggle, to then translate it into votes greater than those received by the right-wing candidates, leading to a political-electoral victory?
It is evident that much reflection can be made on each of the questions posed. It is even possible to incorporate other questions in the same direction and make the issue even more complex. However, at the risk of appearing too simple, let us try some criteria.
The first is that the ways of doing electoral politics depend on the general political situation of the time. There is an intimate relationship between the political characteristics of a certain general historical period and the characteristics of a specific electoral situation.
A correct electoral strategy that ignores the political features of the period and the situation, however attractive it may be in the eyes and ears of the people, will not mechanically give the expected result: triumph. On the contrary, an electoral strategy based on the people as a social force with an effective territorial presence will be capable of convincing and attracting various fractions of the petty bourgeoisie and other backward sectors of the popular camp to lean towards a leftist candidate.
Second, it is true that the conditions and tools existing in this second decade of the 21st century are different, even radically different, from the conditions and tools that the left developed and used to conquer electoral victories, first, and install governments of its ideological-political court at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, later.
There is no doubt that the role of the media and social networks – as ideological state apparatuses – has an increasingly greater degree of influence in the configuration of electoral results. Whether or not it is predominant depends on the type of social formation, the nature of the class confrontation at the time, and the nature of the political strategies of the actors.
But neither the first nor the second criteria (forms of electoral participation, on the one hand, and conditions and tools, on the other), modify in substance the main aspect of representative democracy. That system, on the basis of the fetish of “one citizen, one vote”, is generally structured to ensure the reproduction of the type of capitalist state in the long term.
Except for a certain relative autonomy of the State from its dominant classes, in moments of general crisis, the left can take over the government, while previously building from “below” a relationship of favorable social and political forces.
Based on these two considerations, it is good to point out that, as a general rule, the left has been the winner of electoral competitions when its electoral strategy has succeeded in establishing or expressing the trend of social availability of the subordinate classes.
In other words, to build and condense through them a present state of mind and subjectivity of a social majority that is unwilling, for various reasons, with the government of the moment, and that is inclined to change through an option would answer the current state of affairs.
It is when the general crisis or even the indisposition with the government of the moment is made to lean to the side of a popular project. In other words, it is not only the candidate’s attributes that win over most voters but, above all, when that candidate or party synthesizes the “common sense” of what the people want and what they are fighting for at that moment.
However, this “common sense” does not arise spontaneously, even more so when the majority of the state system (repressive apparatus and ideological state apparatus) are against a leftist candidacy. It is rather the result of a patient and skillful construction of relations of forces favorable to change. This requires a conscious leadership. It is when, without abandoning modern techniques of inducing people to vote, the fragmented social tissues are gradually being articulated into a single large, strong and vigorous fabric.
The right-wing options have in an otherwise always expensive election marketing campaign the predominant way to win an election. This is because the whole state apparatus (repressive and ideological) works for their benefit. But the left, even if it is reformist, is obliged to find, in the organized strength of the people, the main source of its strategy, its tactics and its tools of triumph.
Moreover, even if the left obtained an electoral victory as a result of a high level of rejection by the population of the parties of the right, due to an unprecedented generalized crisis (ideological crisis of the classes and fractions of the block in power), its degree of stability and the possibilities of deepening its governmental measures will be very limited to face the medium and long-term challenges if it does not count on the organized people as a social force.
Does that mean that the left should abandon the use of modern techniques, such as social networks, to face an electoral competition? No, it doesn’t mean that. The progressive and leftist forces should use it to the fullest, but they should be convinced and not call themselves “self-deception” that their hypothetical victory was due to other, larger causes.
Only the naive or those who are unfamiliar with the laws of political operations are prone to be deceived by certain technical or tawdry electoral advisors who claim victory for a leftist candidate. In fact, a measurement of the level of impact of the battle on social networks will show that right-wing alternatives are the biggest beneficiaries.
The territorial work, the grassroots work, to organize the people and prepare them for a victorious battle that will translate into a vote will never be replaced by the forms of political incidence “from above”. These techniques complement, yes, but do not replace the consciousness and organization made into a material force.
For that, perhaps it is good to differentiate, as René Zavaleta did, between democracy as a mere aggregation of votes and democracy as self-determination. The sum of votes in a representative democracy can give the government, but not lay the foundations for the construction of a power different from the existing one.
This implies that a triumph within representative democracy for the right is in its condition of possibility. This is because it does not alter in any way the existing power relations. But for the left, it is insufficient since it is supposed to want the construction of power different from the capitalist one.
For the left to triumph in elections of representative democracy, it must first constitute itself as the leader of society, and this is only possible when the people become historical subjects who install their “common sense” as predominant over others.
In synthesis, it is not “from above” that the left wins the elections with the sole use of modern techniques of political incidence, but, above all, with the capacity to constitute itself “from below” as a political reference and as a part of the historical subject.
The left wins elections not only because of the charisma of a candidate, which is important but insufficient but also because of the benefit it derives from that space of representative democracy, which is not its own, to build itself as a power (hegemony translated into political practice) before becoming a government. Those are the lessons of history and that is the challenge of the present hour.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The partial or total crushing of Operation Gideon against Venezuela left a significant number of mercenaries captured, including a self-confessed DEA agent supposedly dedicated to the fight against drug smuggling and abuse.
The DEA, which employs more than 10,000 people to implement its objectives as well as to prosecute money laundering linked to these crimes, also often serves the imperialist purposes of the U.S. government in Latin America and other parts of the world.
This new victory of the Bolivarian Armed Forces and the Venezuelan people has been another defeat for Donald Trump’s neo-colonigializing policy. It has created a focus of violence in various Venezuelan states and in the capital, Caracas. It’s done against a backdrop of systematic campaigns of lies in the hegemonic media aimed at spreading disorder in order to make governance impossible.
The idea is to create a matrix of opinion that shows Venezuela as an ungovernable country by forcing its president, Nicolas Maduro, to ask for support from the OAS and Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), first. These would then approve a humanitarian military intervention in his country.
It is not news that President Trump and his officials have denied Washington’s participation in the defeated maritime incursion. They know that it would be contradictory and unacceptable for the U.S. government to appear linked to mercenaries and drug traffickers. Such a scenario is not compatible with the image of representation that they want to project to internal and external public opinion, much less admit this scandalous failure now.
That is why Mr. Mike Pompeo told the press in his defense that “if we had been behind those actions the result would have been different”, omitting any comparison of such a humiliating American defeat what happened in Vietnam.
Something similar was done by the US ambassador to the UN, Adlai Stevenson, on April 15, 1961, when he denied any link of his country with the bombings of mercenary planes against Cuba.
The Cuban Foreign Minister at the time, Raúl Roa, unmasked this when it became known that the mercenaries in the service of Washington had surrendered to the Cuban militia troops barely 64 hours after the invasion landed at Playa Girón (Bahía de Cochinos, aka Bay of Pigs).
Stevenson made an ethical gesture and recognized that this was the greatest humiliation that his government would have received, an ethical gesture that cannot be expected from Trump or Pompeo.
But now the shot has backfired on Trump, who apparently did not know that drug trafficker and DEA agent Jose Alberto Socorro-Hernandez, aka “Pepero,” had been apprehended in Caracas. There, he confessed to the instructions he received to carry out various violent actions in the state of Miranda that were carried out by DEA-oriented drug gangs and common criminals,
According to Pepero, they were intended to divert the attention of Venezuelan security services to entertain them and to guarantee protection for the landing plan, which took place this past May 3 in the town of Macuto, in the state of La Guaira.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the U.S. government has used the DEA to carry out these actions, as well as to play a façade role in Operation Gideon. If this turned out to be successful, there would be applause, if it went wrong, they would disqualify their agent.
Poreso did not use an American, but rather the Venezuelan drug trafficker-agent Socorro Hernández (aka) Pepero, who is linked to the Colombian cartels operating in Zulia. This is on the border with the Upper Guajiracolombian-Venezuelan region, a territory that was under the control of the powerful leader of the Northern Block of the narco-paramilitaries, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, extradited by Álvaro Uribe Vélez in 2008, who claims that Uribe betrayed him.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the U.S. government has used the DEA to carry out these actions, as well as to play a role as a front for Operation Gideon. If it went well, they would applaud it; if it went badly, they would disown their agent, and therefore they did not use an American, but a Venezuelan counter-revolutionary drug trafficker.
The installation of 10 U.S. military bases in Colombia, officially agreed to by the government of Barack Obama, is a humiliation to its people and a regional threat. It will take years for the Colombians to eliminate this Yankee military occupation. Guantánamo is an example, illegally occupied and denounced in all international forums whose agreements are not obeyed and/or blatantly violated.
May 13, 2020
This article can be reproduced quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source
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