Manuel E. Yepe 239
Maduro Gives Trump a Lesson
Maduro Gives Trump a Lesson in Ethics and Morality
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
In clear violation of the Vienna Convention, the United States police entered by force, after 37 days of resistance, the premises that housed the Venezuelan Embassy and arrested the four activists protecting the diplomatic headquarters from the terrorist vandalism of the so-called “Venezuelan opposition.
“The Venezuelan government will respond to the invasion of its embassy in Washington within the framework of international law,” declared Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza. “Once again, Donald Trump’s administration has shown how much the truth hurts and has reacted with arrogance, in violation of international law.
The Bolivarian Minister of Foreign Affairs reported on Thursday, May 16, that his country is evaluating its response to the illegal invasion of its Embassy in the United States, although he advanced that this will be within the framework of international law and protected by the principles of reciprocity.
From his Twitter account, Arreaza had repudiated the illegal seizure of the diplomatic headquarters by the U.S. police on Thursday. He emphasized then that with this action Washington was not fulfilling its obligations under the Vienna Convention, to which the United States and Caracas are signatories.
The foreign minister said that by forcibly evicting the four activists who were inside the embassy with the authorization of the Venezuelan government, the U.S. security forces additionally violated their human rights. “The morale of these activists proved to be more powerful than the force of repression carried out by the dozens of armed police officers deployed by Washington,” Arreaza said.
Carlos Ron, Bolivarian vice-minister for North America, recalled in an improvised press conference that the only legitimate government of Venezuela did not authorize the entry of U.S. police forces into the building of what was its embassy in Washington, so the police irruption constitutes, according to the Vienna Convention, a flagrant violation of international law.
The Washington Metropolitan Police illegally entered the facilities of the Venezuelan embassy in that U.S. capital city, violating the immunity from jurisdiction of the diplomatic headquarters and the documents and archives that rest there.
This action by the United States sets a dangerous precedent, because it sends a message to the world about possible aggressions of this nature that threaten other diplomatic offices in the future.
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the Code Pink movement for peace, on Thursday had denounced the entry into the facilities of the Venezuelan Embassy of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington (MPD) to forcibly evict the activists stationed there. The activist and public health specialist warned that the police illegally broke into the diplomatic headquarters in an act that she described as a violation of international law.
“By breaking into the Venezuelan Embassy to illegally arrest the Embassy Protection Collective, the police violated the Vienna Convention and international law,” Medea Benjamin said through his Twitter account.
CodePink had assumed the defense of the Venezuelan diplomatic headquarters in the United States in support of democracy in the South American country violated by Donald Trump’s administration.
Last Friday, President Nicolás Maduro publicly acknowledged the group of activists defending the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, “who have faced the aggressions of a “sick right” and imperialist interference.
“I send a solidarity greeting, full of deep gratitude and admiration to the Protection Collective of our Embassy in Washington, who have bravely faced the aggressions of a sick rightist and a criminal empire,” the Bolivarian President declared in a message posted on his Twitter account.
Outside the Venezuelan embassy in Washington D.C., activists were present to support the collective in defense of the building, who were guarding it to demand that food be allowed in. The activists denounced that supporters of the opposition to the Venezuelan government maintained the siege of the building, preventing the entry of food and medicines, cutting off the electricity and water supply, all in collusion with the government of Donald Trump.
About 15 activists remained inside the compound since mid-April to prevent Carlos Vecchio, the “representative” of the self-proclaimed opposition deputy interim president, Juan Guaidó, from taking over the embassy.
May 17, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Two Different Views
Two Different Views on Development
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation edited by Walter Lippmann.
Two distinct, but well-founded and valuable views about international relations, comparing the points of view of the two most important economies in the world, was provided by the Strategic Culture Foundation in a comparative report by expert Federico Pieraccini on two events held respectively in Washington and Beijing, on some of the most transcendental issues of global development.
In Beijing, in the Belt and Road Forum, more than 40 world leaders discussed the Initiative of the Belt and the Road (B&R), a project destined to transform the entire Eurasian continent, improving free trade between dozens of countries through investments in infrastructure, transport, energy and technological cooperation.
B&R is a gigantic project called to expand over the years to the pace that today’s technology allows, without ignoring the needs of the countries involved.
The number of participants in the Beijing B&R event is astounding: more than 5,000 delegates, 37 heads of state and 10 of the most important members of ASEAN.
One hundred and twenty-five countries have declared intentions of cooperating in the big project, and 30 organizations have ratified 170 agreements that add up to an investment project by the People’s Bank of China of more than $1.3 trillion between 2013 and 2027.
It is a revolutionary project that will characterize the upcoming decades, if not centuries. It contrasts with the U.S. trend toward hegemonic domination because it is based on humanitarian considerations to overcome conflicts, as well as avoiding wars by means of cooperation and shared prosperity.
Washington, demanding loyalty in exchange for nothing, and incapable of inflicting damage to Russia and China by itself, resorts to pressure on its European allies through a war of tariffs and technological prohibitions to favor U.S. companies.
Beijing is behaving in a way that is opposed to the moral in Aesop’s fable of of “The North Wind and the Sun”, offering in the B&R project a win-win cooperation and the benefits that derive from it.
The project tends to raise the standard of living of the population through huge loans to improve the basic infrastructure of the countries: railways, schools, roads, aqueducts, bridges, ports, Internet connectivity and hospitals. The objective is to create a sustainable system in which dozens of countries cooperate among each other for the collective benefit of their population.
The Chinese initiative aims to offer all participant countries equal opportunities for development on the basis of their real ability to improve the well-being of all parties involved and not on military or economic power.
The B&R so far has the support of 126 states and territories, as well as a large number of international organizations. It is the new face, truthful and realistic, of a true world community.
This Chinese initiative could only have taken place in a post-unipolar world with multiple power centers.
Washington is aware of the changes that have taken place in the last ten years and of the change of attitude of their political allies. This is reflected in the wording of the two documents that guide every U.S. administration: the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS). These explain how the United States sees the world and what it intends to do to combat the emerging multi-polar world order.
Trump can’t afford a conflict with Venezuela, Iran or North Korea, neither militarily or politically. In the cases of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, they don’t seem very willing to sacrifice themselves for Washington; and there are no jihadists to arm and launch against helpless civilians as happened in the Middle East. So Washignton doesn’t find forces capable of defeating the peoples determined to resist U.S. imperialism for patriotic reasons.
Attacking Iran would result in a devastating Iranian response against the U.S. troops deployed in dozens of bases scattered throughout the Middle East. It would inflict losses that would be too costly for Washington, which would make any breakthroughs pyrrhic.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is untouchable by virtue of its nuclear deterrence policy.
What’s left for Trump and his neoconservatives are just empty war threats. and a great deal of war propaganda that is only good to fill the coffers of the U.S. weapon manufacturers.
May 13, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Activists Evicted from Venezuelan Embassy
Activists Evicted from Venezuelan Embassy in Washington
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
The diplomatic headquarters was occupied by social movements to prevent the entry of staff appointed by Congressman Juan Guaidó, who proclaimed himself as “president in charge.”
U.S. federal agents on Monday ordered the eviction of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, which had been closed to the public and taken by U.S. activists to prevent the entry of personnel appointed by the opposition deputy Juan Guaidó, whom the White House recognizes as “president in charge” of the Caribbean country.
Since his self-proclamation, Guaidó has tried to bring into the diplomatic headquarters, a man whom Guaidó arbitrarily designated as ‘representative’ to that country, Carlos Vecchio, and Guaido’s ‘ambassador’ to the Organization of American States (OAS), Gustavo Tarre Briceño.
In a document that bears no letterhead or signature, alleged U.S. authorities urged activists to “vacate the embassy” because it should only be “used for diplomatic purposes,” while warning that otherwise, the occupants would be violating federal and local law. However, the text recognizes Vecchio and Tarre as ‘legitimate representatives’ of Caracas, even though their appointments are illegal under the Venezuelan Constitution.
The operation comes after pressure from supporters of the opposition congressman, who led the attempted coup d’état in Caracas on April 30, and after several days of protests and incidents outside the building with demonstrators in favor of President Nicolas Maduro, who tried to defend the embassy. During those events, the police arrested three people.
The social movements leading the vigil at the embassy, grouped into Collectives for Peace, made up of Popular Resistance and Code Pink, were invited by the government of Nicolás Maduro, after the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry denounced that Guaidó personnel had taken two buildings: the Venezuelan consulate in New York on April 13; and the Venezuelan office of the Military Attaché in Georgetown on March 19.
The leader of the Code Pink movement, Medea Benjamin, lamented through her Twitter account the eviction from the building. She said the movements were trying “to prevent the Venezuelan embassy from being handed over to an unelected coup leader. However, she warned that “the struggle continues.”
On April 24, it was the third month since the Venezuelan president ordered all his diplomatic personnel accredited in the U.S. to return to Caracas, following the rupture of relations between the two countries.
However, the Vienna Convention establishes the obligation of States to safeguard the facilities and assets of countries that are used for diplomatic purposes even if relations are broken off.
Manuel E. Yepe
May 15, 2019
The original source for this article is Rebelión
Copyright © Manuel E. Yepe, Rebelión, 2019
Trump’s Options
The Options Trump Puts on the Table
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Is President Trump about to invade Venezuela? His advisors continue to say — in increasingly forceful terms that — “all options are on the table”, and that military intervention to restore Venezuela’s constitution” may be necessary.”
For his part, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a news program last Sunday commented that President Trump could launch a military attack against Venezuela without Congressional approval because “he has all the authority conferred upon him by Article II of the Constitution and certainly any action that we take in Venezuela will be legal”. The man who just boasted of his lies, tricks and thefts, is providing new evidence that back up his confession.
The truth is that the US president does not have the constitutional authority to start a war with Venezuela or any other country that hasn’t attacked or credibly threatened the United States, without the approval of Congress. It’s as simple as that,” says Ron Paul, a former Republican congressman for the State of Texas and presidential candidate in 1988 for the now defunct Libertarian Party.
It is ironic that Pompeo and the rest of the neoconservatives of the Trump Administration, who don’t care about the Constitution of their own country, are willing to attack Venezuela “in order to restore its constitution.”
It is striking and hypocritical that while Washington was paralyzed for two years by the disproved claims that the Russians had meddled with the elections to elect Trump, Washington doesn’t even hesitate to support the actual revocation of elections in another country!
But without the authority of Congress, any U.S. military action against Venezuela would be illegal and probably an impeachable crime. Of course, Democrats who talk about impeaching Trump would never dream of getting rid of him for illegally starting a war because U.S. Democrats and Republicans alike love the illegal U.S. wars, says Ron Paul.
Unfortunately, Washington is so addicted to war that President Trump would probably have little difficulty in obtaining congressional authorization to invade Venezuela if he bothered to ask.
Likewise, as with the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the corporate media are nothing more than uninterrupted war propaganda.
According to Ron Paul, some Presidential hopefuls described as progressives , like Rachel Maddow, a radio personality, TV presenter, and progressive American commentator, are attacking the Trump administration, not because of its reckless tendency for the use of weapons in Venezuela, but because it is not aggressive enough.
The real lesson is that even a “constitutional” war against Venezuela would be an unjust action. It would be a war of aggression that Americans should be upset about and ashamed of.
But the mainstream media are spreading the same old lies in favor of war, while independent media are being attacked by many social media campaigns that have partnered with U.S. government agencies to decide what news is fake or illegal and which one is true.
The most recent motive for indignation shown by the dominant media has been over one of the most sensible things that President Trump has done lately: last week he spent one hour on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss, among other things, the dangerous situation in Venezuela.
While President Trump’s neo-con advisors are deliberately trying to put him in a position where war is the only option, we can only hope that President Putin may have been able to explain to him that Venezuela’s problems must be solved by the Venezuelans themselves.
Certainly, the United States, perhaps together with the Russians, could help facilitate discussions between the Venezuelan government and the opposition as an alternative to the neo-conservative path towards war, which would surely end like all other wars in a total disaster.
U.S. mainstream media are furious because Trump dared to talk to Putin when Russia and the United States were increasingly at logger-heads over the situation in Venezuela.
Democrats and neo-cons are pressing for a direct confrontation in which Russia may become involved. Republicans agree with both on this.
Would they really prefer a thermo-nuclear war over Venezuela? asks veteran doctor and ultra-libertarian American politician Ronald Ernest “Ron” Paul.
May 8, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
How Billionaires Define Socialism
How Billionaires Define Socialism
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
It wasn’t surprising to hear multi-billionaires Bill Gates, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, interviewed on CNBC-TV on Thursday, May 9, defending capitalism. But it was indeed surprising that Gates made a positive comment about socialism, or at least about what is defined in the United States as socialism.
Gates pointed out that the current increase in pro-socialist rhetoric in the United States does not really refer to socialism according to any conventional definition of the word. The “socialist” policies that we hear from politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Bernie Sanders are, to a greater extent, about capitalist policies with a strong social security contribution. And that is good!
“Socialism used to mean that a State controlled the means of production”, and, according to Gates, “many people here who promote socialism do not define it in that classical way.”
Gates also says that most people who favor socialism in the United States do not speak of true socialism. And they’re right!
“The majority does not argue against capitalism… only believes that there should be changes in taxes, more progressive tax rates, and the reinstatement of estate tax. What they actually want is capitalism with a better level of taxation,” says Gates.
According to him, most left-wing Americans do not advocate the ownership of the means of production to be passed on to the workers, that all industries be nationalized, and that private property be abolished, which are the real principles of socialist ideology.
The majority of left-wing people support politicians who promise capitalism with a solid social security foundation. But there is no indication that what they are proposing is truly socialism.
The federal employment guarantee of AOC, for example, would consist of a reference standard for employment that would include a minimum wage of $15 linked to inflation, full medical care, and paid leave for sickness and children.
This proposal would drastically improve the quality of employment in the United States by giving training and experience to the workers and at the same time providing much needed public services to communities in areas such as, education, health, park maintenance, childcare, and environment conservation.
But that’s not socialism in the classic sense of the word. It is capitalism with a strong social safety net. The majority of rich countries in Europe already have what AOC proposes. That doesn’t make them socialists. In any case, it makes them social democrats.
The United States does not have a Social Democratic party, thus, anything to the left of the Democratic Party is called socialism, because Americans do not have a vocabulary that would allow them to speak of these things with greater subtlety than that of a left against a binary right.
Why people like Bernie Sanders and AOC are labeled as socialists, and even sometimes they call themselves by that term?
Because Fox News spent Obama’s years calling all the Democratic Party’s policies so. As a result, there are two generations (Millennials and Generation Z) who simply use the term socialist without worrying too much about what it exactly means.
For the younger generations, socialism only means making sure that everyone can go to the doctor when they need it, or have a roof over their heads, or have money to buy food, regardless of that person’s circumstances.
And these generations believe that all of these can be achieved within the existing system, without overthrowing the ruling class and the setting of a new political system led by the working class.
As Gates points out, there are some real socialists in the world. And there are even real socialists in governments all over the world. But most American socialists are simply leftists who disregard party labels and talk about policies. Bill Gates knows this and Donald Trump knows it too.
It’s not that Bill Gates is progressive. Guys like Gates know clearly that the guillotines are coming, and if the United States continues along the path of austerity and tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, anything can happen.
According to available information, Gates is worth more than $101 billion dollars, which should literally be considered a crime in a civilized society in which 13 million children do not have enough to eat. But, for now, we will have to accept that at least there are some multi-billionaires who recognize the need for real changes in global society.
May 10, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
The Empire Has to Adjust its Policies
The Empire Has to Adjust its Policies
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Quoted by Strategic Culture, Zhang Jiadong, researcher and professor at the Center for American Studies at the Chinese University of Fudan, considers that the United States is learning to cope with its new status through a policy change.
After Donald Trump became President, the internal and foreign policy of he United States has experienced a dramatic turn.
Firstly, Washington has begun to look more closely at its internal affairs promoting the motto “America First” countering its previous policy and its own hegemonic agenda with an emphasis on sovereignty, reciprocity and nationalism.
Secondly, its openness and inclusion are gradually changing towards closedness and narrowness. (Regarding its treaties with China, U.S. behavior has become narrower regarding immigration and the treatment of Chinese expatriates).
Thirdly, Washington has gone from being a promoter of its version of justice in the abstract, to the defense of its interests.
There are those who believe that the United States has always been this way and what has marked the difference is the frankness of its new president. Others think that this is a gradual adjustment and Washington will return to the level of openness and inclusion it has always had.
When World War II ended, the United States was an integral leader. Its GDP represented more than 50 % of the world total, and its manufacturing production was between 60 and 70 % of this.
Militarily, it was stronger than all the other countries put together.
As the scientific and academic elites fled to the United States to seek asylum during the war, the country became –and remains being so– the scientific and academic center of the world.
From a financial point of view, the world’s main financial resources were in the in the hands of the United States.
The United States was considered the leader and liberator of the free world, despite the fact that it was the last important country to join the allied forces in the Second World War to defeat fascism.
Because of this, the U.S. was able to establish a huge hegemonic system. Although the Soviet Union had the capacity to challenge the United States in certain fields, such as the military, the U.S. emerged as the most powerful country in the world in terms of comprehensive national strength.
In the post-Cold War world, the political power of The United States reached its peak after winning the first Gulf War.
The United States almost completely dominated the world under the conditions of a uni-polar world order.
However, everything began to decline after the U.S. suffered serious economic and security setbacks.
The September 11, 2001 attacks showed that their security was not absolute. The 2007 mortgage financial crisis revealed its economic vulnerability, and the 2008 global financial crisis demonstrated that the United States needed outside support too.
Due to changes in the world order and its international stature, some U.S. policies that were effective in the past ceased to function. Trade used to be an activity by means of which Washington influenced the domestic and international policies of many countries.
Before China entered the WTO, the US used unilateral most-favored-nation treatment as a lever to influence some of the internal and external policies of China. It can no longer do so.
In the recent trade dispute between China and the U.S., some important steps taken by the U.S. have no longer been allowed by the WTO.
The influence of the United States on the trade of other countries has also shown signs of weakening.
Even in defense, its relative influence has been reduced, and more and more countries are increasingly developing their own sea and air defense capabilities.
During a long period after the Second World War, the United States had held the maritime hegemony. Now, the maritime forces of Asian countries such as China, Japan and India have been strengthened and more coastal States claim rights to their waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Although the United States sea and air forces have not yet been expelled, their freedom to operate out of its territorial waters and airspace has decreased.
With its leadership eroded, the United States has begun to change the nature of its policies and is trying to compensate for its diminished influence through adjustment, harassment and intimidation.
To avoid direct strategic confrontation with Washington some countries make concessions. “But, in the long run, the relations of the US with other countries, including China, will return to the logic of international relations”, according to the prediction of Chinese researcher and professor Zhang Jiadong..
May 6, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting POR ESTO as its source
Ridiculous Yankee Coup Machine
The Ridiculous Yankee Coup Machine
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
It was more than a failed coup attempt against the legitimate government of Venezuela. What happened in that South American country the previous weekend has been a ridiculous spectacle for the American fascist right-wing and, specifically, for some of the most grotesque figures of U.S. imperialism and several of its most discredited parasites.
It has been pitiful to observe the government of the country that has played the role of a single great global power since the end of the Cold War. It could have been a world leader on a path of reciprocal respect and harmony within differences, but it has fallen to the bottom of the scale of universal political values.
It is true that Washington has never shown much respect for truth and honesty at the most critical moments in the history of international relations. Still, it is surprising that political entities so demonstrably lacking in prestige were called upon to lead that nation’s diplomacy to such a backwater in the scale of universal political values.
It is hard to imagine that Donald Trump, who considers himself a “permanent winner” by virtue of his fortune and his business acumen, can win any task with corrupt political advisers of the ilk of Elliott Abrams, Mike Pompeo, Elliott Abrams, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Peter Navarro, Juan Guaidó. Let’s not forget the permanent fugitive from justice, Leopoldo López, who make up, among others, the squad that was assigned to him for this battle to swallow Venezuela by the always-losing Miami mafia.
None of the fallacies that the team of advisors manufactured for him could be sustained. This proves that those who devised them intended to drive Trump to [commit] political suicide.
The media, ready for the farce, began it by sending out a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It assured him that Guaidó had been “duly” elected, to adjust the narrative of U.S. interference in Venezuela to that new lying discourse on the coup. The authorities, and much of the U.S. media began to refer to the phony Juan Guaidó as the “duly elected president of Venezuela.
In reality, Guaido had not been duly elected as president, nor had he participated in any Venezuelan election for that highest office. He was barely elected to a seat in parliament in 2015, and from there promoted to a substantial position of power within parliament by virtue of U.S. support.
Then, in January, Trump’s advisers began to pressure Guaidó into trying to take over the country. The false legal pretext was that the constitution allowed the head of parliament to be named “interim president” if the elected did not show up to take office.
What is true and known to all Venezuelan citizens is that President Maduro took office on January 10, after being elected in fair elections. The inauguration took place before the Supreme Court instead of the Assembly building where the opposition obtained a reduced majority, which was a pretext for those preparing the coup to later assert that this was not legal.
The recognition by the United States of the legitimacy of Guaidó’s seizure of power was a cynical move. To call him “duly elected president” an absolute lie.
“Knowing what I learned when the attempt to oust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002 did not surprise me when the effort was renewed by the Trump administration. The more so when characters like Elliott Abrams, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott – not to mention John Bolton – began to appear on the White House payroll.
That’s what Larry Wilkerson, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, has declared.
“But the bloodshed in Venezuela – military and civilian – and the dead and wounded U.S. soldiers and Marines won’t give this old soldier any comfort,” he said.
“I know the Venezuelan military, I’ve trained some of them. Most of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will enter the very formidable hills with jungle backdrops. They will harass, kill, take prisoners from time to time and, in general, they will endure forever or until the gringos leave. We could remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban did it; so will the Venezuelans.
May 3, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Madero to Maduro
From Madero to Maduro in Latin America
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
A little more than 100 years ago, Mexico had a very popular president who was well-loved and had been democratically-elected, named Francisco Madero.
Determined to reduce foreign influence and the obscene profits that were extracted from the country, Madero wanted to raise the standard of living of his people.
The financial interests of Wall Street rejected such projects by the president of a country that was within its hegemonic sphere. It then orchestrated a military coup against him and made sure that he was brutally murdered.
Journalist and researcher Martin Sieff — in the January 21 edition Strategic Culture Foundation (Fundación de Cultura Estratégica)website– starting from the orthographic similarity of the surnames Madero and Maduro, clarifies that the president of Mexico to whom he refers is not in any way related to the Bolivarian and Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, but the parallels and contrasts between the two men motivate consideration.
Francisco Madero, the idealistic reformist leader who ruled Mexico as President from 1911 to 1913, did not have the political acumen and common sense shown by the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Madero naively relied on the commander in chief of the army, General Victoriano Huerta, whom he had inherited from his predecessor, President Porfirio Diaz,. Throughout the 35 years of Diaz’s government, from 1876 to 1911, Huerta had carried out a series of genocidal campaigns against the Yaqui and Mayan natives.
In 1913, Wall Street interests enthusiastically supported Huerta when he carried out a coup against Francisco Madero. The US president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, was a recalcitrant racist who despised the Mexican people, initially supported Huerta’s coup from the start.
The huge financial and mining interests of New York were anxious to continue plundering Mexico’s resources. Those were times when more than 90% of its population lived in virtual slavery in the frightful poverty that Diaz had represented and defended.
In the last decade of Porfirio Diaz’s government –supported by the financial bandits of Wall Street and by the complacent administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft– at least 600,000 people were worked to the death as rural slaves in the properties of Diaz’s supporters.
In Washington, there was not a whisper of disapproval toward Huerta’s coup d’état, who ruled with his usual thuggish brutality for less than a year and a half until he was expelled after a brief but bloody civil war.
Huerta fled to the United States, of course, but then made the mistake of encouraging American business and military leaders alike to openly embrace imperial Germany in order to plan his militaristic return to Mexico.
Huerta died in U.S. military custody in 1916 after a night of binge drinking. Poisoning by his American captors was widely suspected, but the cause could have been simply excessive intake of alcohol. His autopsy revealed terminal liver cirrhosis.
To this day, Huerta is vilified as the mass murderer and cowardly tool of the cynical foreign interests he was, while the well-intentioned, but the ineffective Madero is loved by the Mexican people.
The days elapsed since the beginning of Huerta’s coup and the execution of the president –along with his own brother and vice-president– by an improvised firing squad are remembered as The Tragic Ten Days.
In the following years, Mexico endured all the horrors of a collapsed State with rival gangs slaughtering each other and whoever stood in their way.
The country’s population plummeted from 15 million, in 1910, to 11.6 million a decade later. More than 25 % of the country’s population died in the years of anarchic violence brought about after the murder of President Madero by the hated Huerta.
The tragic decade continues to resonate in Mexico to this day when the current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador resists enormous pressure from the Trump administration to force Mexico into recognizing their puppet, Juan Guaido, as president of Venezuela.
At the same time, Lopez Obrador reveres the martyred president Madero, and painfully remembers the bloodbaths and chaos that the hated Huerta unleashed after toppling him.
Madero naively trusted the honor of the man who had been his army commander, the murderer Huerta. On the contrary, Nicolas Maduro as President of Venezuela, just like his predecessor and political mentor Hugo Chavez, has always made sure of having a high command of the army loyal to the democratically-elected national civilian leaders.
February 25, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO! as its source
Empire of Evil
The Empire of Evil Seen From Within
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
“It is depressing to observe how the United States of America has become the evil empire. Having served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War and in the Central Intelligence Agency for the second half of the Cold War, I had an insider’s viewpoint of how an essentially pragmatic national security policy was being transformed bit by bit into a bipartisan doctrine that featured as a sine qua non global dominance for Washington.
Unfortunately, when the Soviet Union collapsed the opportunity to end once and for all the bipolar nuclear confrontation that threatened global annihilation was squandered. Instead, President Bill Clinton chose instead to humiliate and use NATO to contain an already demoralized and effectively leaderless Russia.”
This is what American journalist Philip M. Giraldi writes in an article dated April 18, under the title “Rumors of War: Washington Is Looking for a Fight”.
American Exceptionalism became the battle cry for an increasingly clueless federal government as well as for a media-deluded public. When 9/11 arrived, the country was ready to lash out at the rest of the world. President George W. Bush growled that “There’s a new sheriff in town and you are either with us or against us.”
Afghanistan followed, then Iraq, and, in a spirit of bipartisanship, the Democrats came up with Libya and the first serious engagement in Syria.
In its current manifestation, one finds a United States that threatens Iran on a nearly weekly basis and tears up arms control agreements with Russia while also maintaining deployments of US forces in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and places like Mali.
Scattered across the globe are 800 American military bases while Washington’s principal enemies du jour Russia and China have, respectively, only one and none.
Venezuela is being threatened with invasion primarily because it is in the western hemisphere and therefore subject to Washington’s claimed pro-consular authority.
Vice President Mike Pence told the United Nations Security Council that the White House will remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, preferably using diplomacy and sanctions, but “all options are on the table.”
Pence warned that Russia and other friends of Maduro need to leave now or face the consequences. Russia has accepted that war is coming. By some estimates, its army is better-equipped and combat-ready than is that of the United States, which spends nearly ten times as much on “defense.”
Never before in my lifetime has the United States been so belligerent, and that in spite of the fact that there is no single enemy or combination of enemies that actually threaten either the geographical United States or a vital interest of the US.
According to Giraldi, Iran is also upgrading its defensive capabilities, which are formidable. Now that Washington has withdrawn from the nuclear agreement with Iran, has placed a series of increasingly punitive sanctions on the country, and, most recently, has declared a part of the Iranian military to be a “foreign terrorist organization” and therefore subject to attack by US forces at any time, it is clear that war will be the next step.
In three weeks, the United States will seek to enforce a global ban on any purchases of Iranian oil. A number of countries, including US nominal ally Turkey, have said they will ignore the ban and it will be interesting to see what the US Navy intends to do to enforce it. Or what Iran will do to break the blockade.
But even given all of the horrific decisions being made in the White House, there is one organization that is far crazier and possibly even more dangerous. That is the United States Congress, which is, not surprisingly, a legislative body whose decisions are approved and is viewed positively by only 18 per cent of the American people.
April 19, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Good Capitalism
The Tall Tale of Good Capitalism
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Cecilia Zamudio is a Colombian-born painter and writer who has lived in a dozen countries around the world. Her work, very versatile and integral defined within Humanist Colorism, stresses her concern and study of social and historical processes.
One of her most recent works is devoted to demonstrating that capitalism is ruthless by nature, that there is no less-savage form of capitalism since it is a social order based on exploitation.
“Poverty is steadily increasing worldwide at the same time that big fortunes are growing exponentially: capitalists gradually degrade the planet and enslave and objectify more living beings.”
“They exclude millions of people from the possibility of a dignified healthy, life while exterminating species and ecosystems,” says the Colombian intellectual.
Millions of human beings, impoverished by the plunder perpetrated by the multi-nationals –that capitalize on the basis of the destruction of mountains and rivers– end up huddled in the miserable slums of the big enriched cities.
The exodus of people from the most brutally-plundered countries to the metropolis of capitalism is intensifying.
But the countries enriched at the cost of impoverishing others cynically appreciate riches but not people. Walls and fences grow while analysis and empathy diminish.
The sand of the beaches is whitewashed with the skeletal remains of the thousands of the gshipwrecked who perish in their attempts to flee from the capitalist cauldron their countries have been turned into due to looting and imperialist wars.
The bosses of the countries in the capitalist metropolis, who also intensify the exploitation against their own workers and make them live in precarious conditions, need a scapegoat. It’s purpose to take the blame for the actions for which they do not wish to be accountable, and to use their media to alienate the majorities on the grounds that the precariousness of their living conditions is caused by “immigrants”.
The promotion of racism and fascism is intensified by the media of mass alienation in order to increase divisions within the working class, and to multiply the levels of racist fanaticism.
Violence against women is also intensely promoted by the media of mass alienation. Given that machismo is an essential part of the capitalist superstructure, the profits of a few grow resting on the aberration of femicide [woman-killing].
The objectification of the human being is promoted to extremes. The values of solidarity are replaced by consumerist pseudo virtues. The notion of “social justice” is to be erased, and supplanted by the perverse, egocentric, and sad concept of “charity.”
“As the media of capitalist alienation homogenize the people with their promoted “don’t change the world, change yourself” (as if were impossible to do both things at the same time) capitalists continue to depredate.
“They implement with greater intensity the idea of planned obsolescence (premature and planned wearing-out of things), turning the planet into a dumpster.
They poison the earth and food in a carcinogenic way, murder by hunger a child every five seconds in a world where today’s agriculture would be enough to feed 12 billion people.”
“Capitalists take advantage of the increasingly precarious conditions of life that they themselves have caused to expand their quarry of enslaved, and thus modern slavery, prostitution, sexual exploitation, and child trafficking grow.”
It is urgent to get out of this system in which a few capitalize on the blood, sweat and tears of the majority.
Faced with the inevitable increase in exploitation of misery and plundering of nature, the big capitalists attack with their think tanks: they try to colonize our minds and manage our perception of reality.
These think tanks try to pose the problem under distorted lights and, in order to gain time, they invented the false dichotomy of a “savage capitalism” versus a so-called “capitalism with a human face”
Capitalism is savage by nature, since it is based on the exploitation of one part of the human race against another: there is not a “less savage capitalism” because its violence is intrinsic to the acceleration of capitalist accumulation that increases every day
And together with it: exclusion, exploitation, looting, repression, state terrorism, imperialist wars, fascism, racism, machismo, and all forms of violence by the rich against the poor.
April 24, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
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