US Society 77
MLK: When a Dream Doesn’t Die
MLK, Jr.: When a Dream Doesn’t Die
Fifty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the United States is still convulsed by racial inequality, but hope also remains.
By Marylín Luis Grillo
digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Posted: Wednesday 04 April 2018 | 09:35:06 PM
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
It was a single shot from a Remington-Peters rifle. Martin Luther King Jr. had fallen in Memphis, Tennessee.
Hours earlier, in a sermon, as if in anticipation of the bullet that tried to quell his throat, he had said to the congregation of the city: “We have difficult days ahead of us […] Like everyone else, I would like to have a long life. […] But that doesn’t worry me now. I just want to do God’s will. And he has allowed me to climb to the top of the mountain. And from there I saw the promised land. I may not get to her with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will reach the Promised Land. And I’m happy about it. Nothing worries me.
Luther King, who at the age of 39 had won the Nobel Peace Prize, had led a non-violent struggle for the civil rights of the African-American community, which had become the banner of hope… King did not die, because dreams do not die, they only come true.
The results of their struggle are not yet complete. Fifty years after his murder, the United States is still convulsed by inequality. The latest statistics illustrate that African-Americans suffer three times as many expulsions and school dropouts, their average household income is half that of white families, and with only 13 percent of the population, El País reported, they account for 40 percent of drug arrests.
A study by the Inequality of Opportunity Project also concluded that racial income disparities are one of the most persistent issues in American society, and that the racial identity to which one belongs marks the opportunities for study, work, salary levels, and social advancement from generation to generation.
Black people are also three times more likely than whites to be victims of police in the United States, and in 2015 alone, for example, with Barack Obama in the White House, law enforcement officers killed more unarmed blacks than armed whites. Faced with an Afro-descendant, the trigger is pulled without much attention.
Police repression, increasing inequality, debates in society about the role of identity groups, and Trump’s racist rhetoric are some of the factors that have led to the resurgence of movements like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the birth of others like Black Lives Matter.
“No Justice, No Peace” said one of the posters that flooded the streets of Sacramento a week ago protesting the death of another black man by police, 22-year-old Stephon Clark, who was shot down in the Californian capital on suspicion of breaking car windows and running around with a cell phone in his hand, which officers said they mistook for a gun.
Police opened fire up to 20 times on Clark and eight bullets hit him, seven from behind. The video of the arrest hardly shows whether the young man was approaching the officers or not. They do not order him to freez, or to lie on the ground, after the first order to show his hands, they immediately shout “gun” and shoot. The city has been shaken up again, but it is not enough.
This is a good time to remember Luther King. Less than two weeks ago, her nine-year-old granddaughter, Yolanda Renee, was repeating the mythical words “I have a dream. She called for “a world without weapons”. His father, Martin Luther King III, son of the pastor, announced Friday the launch of a global initiative to encourage young people to focus on non-violence to resolve their conflicts.
The struggle continues, but it must be carried to its end; “from the mountain of despair, a stone of hope,” Dr. King would say. He was the same one who never stopped spreading faith because he had died: no bullet can kill dreams.
Parkland Survivors on TIME magazine cover
Parkland Survivors on TIME magazine cover
In a recent issue of Time magazine, five Parkland high school students look at the reader cry of ENOUGH to demand that their legislators take action to make schools and streets safe across the country.
Posted: Monday 02 April 2018 | 10:34:06 PM
Author: juana@juventudrebelde.cu
By Juana Carrasco Martin
juana@juventudrebelde.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
A recent issue of Time magazine, one of the most important American publications, has a very special cover: five teenagers – students at Parkland High School, where 17 of their classmates were shot dead by another young man who was also a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – look straight ahead with a word that crosses not only that cover, but also the claim of a majority of the concerned population: Enough, a term that can also be translated as Enough is Enough.
Among the young people are Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg and Cameron Kasky, who have become spokespersons and advocates for control over guns in private hands in the United States. They are activists against armed violence, which is almost an epidemic in the northern nation, and they demand measures from their legislators to make the country’s schools and streets safe.
However, their demand does not have many receptive ears in the political class, where many of its members are tied to the National Rifle Association that thrives on this business. But the young people persist. A month after the shooting, many U.S. schools held 17 minutes of silence in honor of the 17 massacred in Parkland. A march went through Washington, the nation’s capital, with sibling marches in cities and towns across the country. They called for a change in the permissive and enabling rules and laws for these irrational crimes. It was the largest demonstration ever held in the United States for this purpose.
A recent AP-NORC survey emphasizes that national support for arms control is currently at its highest level in five years. About seven out of 10 adults favor stronger laws on the issue, representing 69 percent of respondents, The Hill said.
So, what does the president do? He calls for states in the Union to hand over weapons to teachers and school employees to answer Fire! with Fire!, a simple lesson in insanity….
Life, Guns and Votes in the U.S.A.
Life, Guns, and Votes in the USA.
Some one million people, mostly students, took to the streets of 800 U.S. locations last Saturday to demand greater control over access to weapons.
————————————————————
Author: International Editor | internacionales@granma.cu
March 27, 2018 22:03:04
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Young people in the United States raised their voices this weekend against violence, under the theme March for Our Lives. Some one million people, mostly students, took to the streets of 800 towns across the country last Saturday to demand greater control over access to arms.
The mobilization follows one of the most recent school shootings, in Parkland, Florida, when, in the midst of Valentine’s Day celebrations, a 19-year-old boy killed 14 students and three teachers carrying a legally acquired assault rifle.
The fact once again opened up the debate in a country where there are an estimated 200 to 300 million guns, almost one per capita, and where lobbyists such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) are lobbying hard in Washington to avoid any legislation that would diminish the profits from their lucrative business.
NO TO GUNS
Such was the scope of the demonstrations, that some of the older attendees remembered those of the young people decades before against the intervention of the United States in the Vietnam War.
Mary Riley, a 50-year-old filmmaker who traveled from San Francisco to Washington to support young people, said, “What made a difference in Vietnam was when the students went out on the street and now the students are the ones who were shot and they are also future voters.
In that sense, one of the survivors of the February shooting told the crowd: “We can and will change this world!».
Tired of the killings and school insecurity, young people are asking politicians for more action, not so much their “prayers and thoughts”.
17 Minutes of Silence, 7000 Empty Shoes
17 Minutes of Silence, 7000 Empty Shoes
Symbolism in tribute to the fallen in shootings in U. S. schools precedes March 24 March Against Gun Violence in the country.
By Juventud Rebelde digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Published: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 | 09:14:07 PM
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The students are asking their government to protect them and not the weapons. Author: Reuters Published: 14/03/2018 | 07:39 pm
WASHINGTON, March 14. – A month after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students from across the country left their classrooms for 17 minutes to commemorate the 17 victims who lost their lives in the incident.
Thousands of U.S. students on Wednesday honored those fallen in the latest massacre inside a school in the northern nation and joined demands for greater gun control.
“When students protest, our school staff will respond appropriately and allow them to express themselves,” Robert Runcie, superintendent of Broward County, Florida, where Marjory Stoneman High School is located, told Reuters.
In Washington, D. C., Pennsylvania Avenue became a giant silent space for exactly 17 minutes, while hundreds of young people stood on the road with signs demanding urgent action against gun violence, Notimex said.
“Enough, no more deaths “,” Make our schools safe again ” and “Protect the boys, no more guns” were some of the messages written on the posters waved by high school students, who marched to the Capitol to demand, among others, reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons, raising the minimum age for purchasing rifles from 18 to 21 years old, and to apply the background check to the police.
During their tour, the young people chanted slogans against the National Rifle Association, which opposes greater regulations for the purchase of arms.
This day’s protest was a foretaste of the massive mobilization that will take place in Washington on March 24.
A day earlier, activists and volunteers placed 7,000 pairs of empty shoes in front of the capitol, representing the 7,000 children and young people who have died in school shootings since the success of Sandy Hook in 2012.
The shoes, which come from relatives of victims, celebrities and citizens across the country, were placed in front of Congress to demonstrate their protests against legislators’ inaction in the face of frequent school shootings, HispanTV reported.
This is trying to portray, at the legislators’ own door, the cost in human lives of refusing to pass a gun control law,” said Emma Ruby-Sachs, deputy director of Avaaz, the organization that planned the protest in Washington, Reuters reported.
“Los adultos se están comportando como niños.”
HARPER’S BAZAAR
“Los adultos se están comportando como niños.”
Emma González, estudiante de Parkland, se sincera sobre su lucha por el control de armas
By Emma González
26 de febrero 2018
Una traducción de CubaNews. Editado por Walter Lippmann.
Mi nombre es Emma González. Tengo 18 años, soy cubana y bisexual. Me siento tan indecisa que no logro decidir cuál es mi color favorito, y soy alérgica a 12 cosas. Sé dibujar, pintar, hacer croché, coser, bordar—cualquier cosa productiva que pueda hacer con mis manos mientras veo Netflix.
Pero ya nada de esto importa.
Lo que importa es que la mayoría de los estadounidenses se han vuelto autocomplacientes frente a toda la injusticia sin sentido que ocurre a su alrededor. Lo que importa es que la mayoría de los políticos estadounidenses se han dejado dominar más por el dinero que por las personas que votaron por ellos. Lo que importa es que mis amigos están muertos, al igual que cientos y cientos que también han muerto en todo Estados Unidos.
Mi nombre es Emma González. Tengo 18 años, soy cubana y bisexual. Me siento tan indecisa que no logro decidir cuál es mi color favorito, y soy alérgica a 12 cosas. Sé dibujar, pintar, hacer croché, coser, bordar—cualquier cosa productiva que pueda hacer con mis manos mientras veo Netflix.
Pero ya nada de esto importa.
Lo que importa es que la mayoría de los estadounidenses se han vuelto autocomplacientes frente a toda la injusticia sin sentido que ocurre a su alrededor. Lo que importa es que la mayoría de los políticos estadounidenses se han dejado dominar más por el dinero que por las personas que votaron por ellos. Lo que importa es que mis amigos están muertos, al igual que cientos y cientos que también han muerto en todo Estados Unidos.
En resumidas cuentas, no queremos que a las personas les quiten sus armas. Sólo queremos que las personas sean más responsables. Queremos que los civiles tengan que hacer muchos más trámites para obtener lo que quieren, porque si esos trámites pueden impedirle tener un arma a quienes no deberían tenerla, entonces nuestro gobierno habrá hecho algo bien. Todo cuanto queremos es regresar a la escuela. Pero queremos saber que cuando entremos allí no tendremos que preocuparnos por la posibilidad de vernos frente al cañón de un arma. Queremos arreglar este problema para que no vuelva a ocurrir, pero sobre todo queremos que la gente se olvide de nosotros cuando todo esto acabe. Queremos regresar a nuestras vidas y vivirlas al máximo por respeto a los muertos.
Los maestros no necesitan tener armas para proteger a sus alumnos, lo que necesitan es una sólida educación para enseñar a sus alumnos. Eso es lo único que debería aparecer en la descripción de su trabajo. La gente dice que los detectores de metales ayudarían. Que le digan eso a los niños que ya tienen detectores de metales en su escuela y siguen siendo víctimas de la violencia armada. Si quieren ayudar, armen las escuelas con material escolar, libros, terapeutas, cosas que realmente necesitan y pueden utilizar.
Una cosa más. Queremos más atención psicológica para quienes la necesitan—incluyendo a los hombres furiosos y frustrados que casi siempre cometen estos crímenes. Las enfermedades mentales y la violencia armada no guardan relación directa, pero cuando marchan juntas, hay estadounidenses—a menudo niños—que pierden la vida. No necesitamos las excusas de la ANR, necesitamos que la ANR finalmente se ponga de pie y utilice su poder para darle al pueblo de Estados Unidos algo que merezcan. (Y por favor, fíjense que cuando los miembros del movimiento Marcha por Nuestras Vidas hablan de la ANR, nos referimos a la organización como tal, no a sus miembros. Muchos de esos miembros comprenden y apoyan nuestra lucha por una posesión de armas responsable, a pesar de que la organización impide que se aprueben leyes sobre armas que tengan sentido en nombre de la protección de la segunda enmienda—en vez de proteger al pueblo de Estados Unidos.)
Así que marche con nosotros el 24 de marzo. Regístrese para votar. Acuda de verdad a las urnas. Porque necesitamos, de una vez y por todas, despojar a la ANR de sus argumentos.
Emma Gonzalez dice, “¡Mentira!”
CNN
Emma Gonzalez, estudiante de la Florida, le dice a los legisladores y defensores de las armas: “¡Mentira!”
26 de febrero 2018. Traducido por CubaNews. Editado por Walter Lippmann.
(CNN) Emma Gonzalez, estudiante de último año en la Secundaria Marjory Stoneman Douglas, habló en una concentración pro-control de armas el sábado en Fort Lauderdale, Florida, días después de que un hombre armado entró en su escuela en la cercana Parkland y mató a 17 personas.
Lea a continuación la transcripción completa de su discurso:
Ya tuvimos un momento de silencio en la Cámara de Representantes, así que me gustaría que tuviéramos otro. Gracias.
Cada una de las personas reunidas aquí hoy, todas estas personas, deberían estar en casa guardando luto. Pero en vez de eso, estamos juntos aquí, porque si lo único que nuestro gobierno y nuestro Presidente pueden hacer es transmitirnos sus pensamientos y plegarias, entonces es hora de que las víctimas sean el cambio que necesitamos ver. Desde los tiempos de nuestros Próceres y desde que agregaron la 2da Enmienda a la Constitución, nuestras armas se han desarrollado a una velocidad que me da vértigo. Las armas han cambiado, pero nuestras leyes no.
Claro que no entendemos por qué debería ser más difícil planificar un fin de semana con los amigos que comprar un arma automática o semi-automática. Para comprar un arma en la Florida no se requiere un permiso ni una licencia de armas, y una vez que se compra no es necesario registrarla. No se necesita un permiso para portar un rifle o una escopeta ocultos. Usted puede comprar tantas armas como desee de una vez.
Hoy leí algo que me resultó muy impactante. Y lo fue desde el punto de vista de un maestro. Cito: ‘Cuando los adultos me dicen que tengo derecho a poseer un arma, todo lo que escucho es que mi derecho a poseer un arma tiene más peso que el derecho de sus alumnos a vivir. Todo lo que escucho es mi, mi, mi…’.
En vez de preocuparnos por nuestro examen del capítulo 16 de AP Gov, tenemos que estudiar nuestras notas para garantizar que nuestros argumentos basados en política e historia política sean irrebatibles. Los estudiantes de esta escuela sentimos que hemos estados debatiendo sobre armas durante toda nuestra vida. Sobre AP Gov ha habido unos tres debates este año. Incluso algunos análisis sobre este tema tuvieron lugar durante el tiroteo, mientras los estudiantes se escondían en los armarios. Sentimos que los que ahora estamos involucrados, los que estaban allí, los que envían mensajes, los que escriben en Twitter, los que hacen entrevistas y hablan con la gente, están siendo escuchados por primera vez sobre esta tema, que sólo en los últimos cuatro años ha surgido más de 1,000 veces.
Hoy descubrí un sitio web llamado shootingtracker.com. Nada en el título sugiere que está rastreando solamente los tiroteos en Estados Unidos, pero, ¿necesita abordar eso? Porque Australia tuvo un tiroteo masivo en 1999 in Port Arthur (y después de la) masacre introdujo mecanismos de seguridad contra las armas, y desde entonces no ha tenido ni un tiroteo más. Japón nunca ha tenido un tiroteo masivo. Canadá ha tenido tres y el Reino Unido tuvo uno, y ambos países decretaron leyes para el control de armas, y sin embargo aquí estamos, con sitios web dedicados a informar estas tragedias para que se puedan registrar en estadísticas para su conveniencia.
Esta mañana vi una entrevista y noté que una de las preguntas fue, ‘¿Cree usted que sus hijos tendrán que participar en otros ejercicios de preparación contra tiroteos en la escuela?’ Y nuestra respuesta es que nuestros vecinos no tendrán que hacerlo más. Cuando le hayamos dado nuestra opinión al gobierno – y quizás los adultos se han acostumbrado a decir ‘Así son las cosas,’ pero si nosotros los estudiantes hemos aprendido algo, es que, si no estudiamos, suspendemos. Y en este caso, si uno no hace nada activamente, otras personas terminarán muertas, así que es hora de empezar a hacer algo.
Nosotros seremos los niños sobre los que usted leerá en los libros de texto. No porque vayamos a ser otro dato estadístico sobre tiroteos masivos en Estados Unidos, sino porque, como dijo David, vamos a ser el último tiroteo masivo. Al igual que en [el caso] Tinker v. Des Moines, vamos a cambiar las leyes. Eso va a ser Marjory Stoneman Douglas en ese libro de texto, y va a deberse a la acción incansable de los directores, los maestros, los familiares y la mayoría de los estudiantes. Los estudiantes que murieron, los que todavía están en el hospital, los que ahora sufren de TEPT, los que tuvieron ataques de pánico durante la vigilia porque los helicópteros no nos dejaban tranquilos, volando sobre la escuela las 24 horas del día.
Hay un tweet sobre el que quisiera llamar la atención. Tantas señales de que el tirador de la Florida tenía problemas mentales, incluso había sido expulsado por su conducta indebida e imprevisible. Sus vecinos y compañeros de clase sabían que tenía grandes problemas. Siempre hay que informar estos casos a las autoridades una y otra vez. Y lo hicimos, una y otra vez. Nadie que lo conoció desde que empezó la secundaria se sorprendió al escuchar que él fue quien disparó. A quienes dicen que no debimos haberlo aislado, ustedes no conocieron a este niño. Está bien, lo hicimos. Sabemos que ahora están alegando problemas de salud mental, y yo no soy psicóloga, pero tenemos que prestar atención al hecho de que esto no fue sólo una cuestión de salud mental. Él no hubiera dañado a tantos estudiantes con un cuchillo.
¿Y si dejamos de culpar a las víctimas por algo que fue culpa del estudiante, culpa de quienes para empezar lo dejaron comprar las armas, quienes organizan festivales de armas, quienes lo alentaron a comprar accesorios para sus armas para hacerlas totalmente automáticas, quienes no se las quitaron cuando supieron que él manifestó tendencias homicidas? Y no estoy hablando del FBI, sino de las personas que vivían con él. Estoy hablando de los vecinos que lo veían con armas fuera de la casa.
Si el Presidente quiere venir y decirme en mi cara que fue una terrible tragedia que nunca debió haber sucedido y sigue diciéndonos que no se va a hacer nada al respecto, voy a preguntarle alegremente cuánto dinero recibió de la Asociación Nacional del Rifle.
¿Quieren saber una cosa? No importa, porque ya yo lo sé. Treinta millones de dólares. Divididos por el número de víctimas de armas de fuego en Estados Unidos sólo en el primer mes o mes y medio de 2018, la cifra da $5,800. ¿Eso es lo que estas personas valen para ti, Trump? Si no haces algo para que esto no vuelva a ocurrir, aumentará el número de víctimas de armas de fuego y se reducirá la cantidad de lo que valen. Y no tendremos ningún valor para ti.
Le decimos a cada político que acepta donaciones de la ANR, vergüenza debía darte.
A los cánticos de multitudes, vergüenza debía darles.
Si su dinero estaba tan amenazado como nosotros, ¿su primer pensamiento sería ‘cómo esto se va a reflejar en mi campaña?, ¿a cuál debo escoger?’ ¿O nos escogerían a nosotros, y si respondieron que a nosotros, ¿lo demostrarán de una vez? ¿Saben cuál sería una buena manera de demostrarlo? Tengo un ejemplo de cómo no demostrarlo. Hace un año, en febrero de 2017, el Presidente Trump revocó una regulación de la era de Obama que hubiera facilitado impedir la venta de armas de fuego a personas con ciertas enfermedades mentales.
A partir de mis interacciones con el tirador antes del tiroteo y de lo que ahora sé sobre él, realmente no creo que era un enfermo mental. Esto lo escribí antes de saber lo que dijo Delaney. Delaney dijo que se le había diagnosticado [una enfermedad mental]. Yo no necesito a un psicólogo ni necesito ser psicóloga para saber que revocar aquella regulación fue una idea realmente estúpida.
El Senador republicano Chuck Grassley de Iowa fue el único patrocinador del proyecto de ley que le impide al FBI verificar los antecedentes de personas declaradas como enfermos mentales, y ahora está diciendo oficialmente, ‘Bueno, es una pena que el FBI no verifique los antecedentes de estos enfermos mentales.’ ¡No me digas! Esa oportunidad la eliminaste el año pasado.
La gente del gobierno por quienes votamos para estar en el poder nos está mintiendo. Y parece que nosotros los niños somos los únicos que nos damos cuenta, y nuestros padres […unintelligible…]. A las compañías que hoy tratan de caricaturizar a los adolescentes diciendo que todos somos egocéntricos y tenemos obsesión con la moda, que nos someten mandándonos a callar cuando nuestro mensaje no llega a los oídos de la nación, estamos preparados para decirles, ¡mentira! A los políticos del Congreso y el Senado que se sientan en sus butacas doradas financiadas por la ANR y nos dicen que no se pudo haber hecho nada para evitar esto, les decimos ¡mentira! A quienes dicen que tener leyes más rígidas sobre control de armas no reduce la violencia de las armas, le decimos ¡mentira! A quienes dicen que una persona buena con un arma impide detiene a una persona mala con un arma, le decimos ¡mentira! A quienes dicen que las armas son sólo herramientas como cuchillos y tan peligrosas como los automóviles, le decimos ¡mentira! A quienes dicen que ninguna ley pudo haber evitado los centenares de tragedias sin sentido que han ocurrido, le decimos ¡mentira! A quienes dicen que nosotros los niños no sabemos de qué estamos hablando, que somos demasiado jóvenes para entender cómo funciona el gobierno, le decimos ¡mentira!
Si están de acuerdo, regístrense para votar. Contacten a sus congresistas locales. Díganle cuatro verdades.
(Cánticos de multitud) Sáquenlos de aquí.
Video:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/17/us/florida-student-emma-gonzalez-speech/index.html
Monica Lewinsky on Clinton
Monica Lewinsky tells her version of the scandal with Clinton
February 26, 2018
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Monica Lewinsky. Photo taken from TV Guide.
Twenty years ago, Bill Clinton was shaky: the then-president had to go through in impeachment process based solely on his extra-marital relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 27-year-old scholarship recipient. Clinton survived the trial, led by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Lewinsky almost didn’t make it. In 1998, she was used as a weapon by the prosecutor and the media. At the age of 24, an unpaid scholarship holder saw every facet of her life dissected or reinvented. How, Lewinsky recalls in Vanity Fair,”in the Washington Post alone 125 articles appeared on the subject, only in the first 10 days.”
Two decades later, after a fortuitous encounter with Starr, Lewinsky has decided to contribute her vision. She has done so, in the first person, for Vanity Fair, by recalling those days in 1998, when the Internet first became the seed of fake news, a viral propagator and source of harassment. In a steamroller that crushed the line “between facts and opinions, news and gossip, private lives and public moral judgments. The Internet was already such a driving force behind the information flow that, when the House Judiciary Committee decided to publish Ken Starr’s findings online -two days after I had received them- it meant to me that every adult with a modem could read my private conversations, my personal thoughts (taken from my computer) and, worse, my sex life.”
Lewinsky talks about the infamous Starr Report, achieved among other things when “a group of FBI agents – Starr was not present – cornered a 24-year-old girl in a Pentagon room and told her she faced 27 years in prison if she didn’t cooperate. That “they threatened to impute my mother (if I didn’t tell them about the private confidences I had given her), that they let it slip that they would investigate my father’s medical career, and even interrogated my aunt, with whom I was having dinner [the night the FBI went after Lewinsky],”.
The media, fed by “anonymous sources and online rumors that arose daily, all false or irrelevant”, dragged through public opinion the figure of a young woman who, at the age of 22, entered into a “consensual” relationship with a 49-year-old married man. Or all the spoilage that can be the relationship with someone who “was my boss. He was the most powerful man on the planet. He was 27 years older than me, with enough life experience to know that it wasn’t right. That he was at the top of his career while I was in my first position after college. Lewinsky says that even if the relationship was consensual, it is now that she begins to realize the “incredible abuse of authority and power” that Clinton exercised.
But there was something worse, something that has changed for the better. During the whole Lewinsky case, those rumors appeared in the media, either Starr’s point of view, or Clinton’s, or that of hundreds of talk shows, but not Lewinsky’s, who “was not allowed to speak legally. She had no support, no way to tell her story or defend herself “as any woman today can do by sharing her story by tagging it with #MeToo and immediately welcoming her into the tribe. (…) Support networks on the Internet were something that did not exist at the time. Power, in that case, was still in the hands of the president, Congress, prosecutors and the press.
Lewinsky was alone. “Publicly alone. Abandoned. Without support, much less the main figure [Clinton]”. She has even been recognized as “one of the founders of the #MeToo movement”. And that marks the change of an era: Lewinsky was by no means a victim of sexual abuse (something that Lewinsky herself has defended from the beginning). But she did suffer multiple abuses of power, both before and during and after her relationship with Clinton. Responsibility. Of a game between two men, Starr and Clinton, with their media choirs. Subjected to an infinite “gas lighting” by all those who had placed a 24-year-old girl at the center of a public narrative. Lewinsky had no public voice. Lewinsky was what others said she was,”until I couldn’t question my narrative internally or internally.
And that’s what has changed today: “We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the heroines of #MeToo and Time’s Up. Because their movements speak volumes about the pernicious conspiracies of silence that for so long have protected powerful men when it comes to abuse of power, harassment and sexual abuse. Lewinsky concludes by recalling a Mexican proverb she’s been told quite a few times during these months:”They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds. And for Lewinsky, Time’s Up and #MeToo is proof that spring has arrived.
(Taken from Vanity Fair)
Young People to the Rescue
Young People to the Rescue
By David Brooks, Mexican journalist. Correspondent for the Mexican daily La Jornada in the United States.
23 February 2018
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
On Saturday, Emma Gonzalez demanded that political leaders take effective action against arms sales. Photo taken from Semana Magazine.
Emma Gonzalez demanded Saturday that political leaders take effective action against arms sales. Photo was taken from Semana Magazine.
“We’re here together because if all our government and the president can do is send their condolences and prayers, then it’s time for the victims to be the change we need to see,” Emma Gonzalez said during a rally against guns Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, four days after surviving the massacre in her high school in the town of Parkland, Florida, a few miles from where she spoke with a firm voice and in tears.
Gonzalez, 18, said everyone already knows about the statistics on mass shootings and how these tragedies are happening across the country. In fact, she and her classmates have joined the more than 150,000 students in more than 170 elementary, middle and high schools who have witnessed gunfire on her premises since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, according to a Washington Post analysis.
“We are going to be the young people from whom you will then read in your textbooks. Not because we are going to be another statistic about massive shootings in the United States, but because we are going to be the last massive shootings (…) we are going to change the laws,” she promised the more than a thousand students, parents and others who came together to say enough is enough.
If the president wants to stand in front of me and tell me that this was a terrible tragedy and that it should never have happened, and if he wants to keep saying that nothing can be done about it, I will happily ask him how much money he has received from the National Rifle Association. And you want to know something? It doesn’t matter, because I already know: 30 million dollars (…) To every politician who receives donations from the NRA (National Rifle Association): shame, and at that moment hundreds of his colleagues and parents chanted: shame, shame.
“The elected rulers are lying to us. And it looks like we young people are the only ones who realize it, and we’re here to say that’s BS [bullshit]. Companies that make cartoons of young people these days, saying that we only care about what is ours and that we are obsessed with trends… we are prepared to say BS. Politicians who are sitting in their golden seats funded by the NRA saying that nothing could have been done to prevent this, we say BS… They say no law could have prevented hundreds of tragedies that have occurred. We say BS, that we don’t know what we are talking about, that we are too young to understand how government works. We call them BS. And a chorus responded: no more BS.
Gonzalez is not alone. A new group of ferocious leaders has just been born from the violent deaths of 17 of their compañera/os in the most recent massive shooting in this country. Any politician accepting NRA funding is responsible, Cameron Kasky, another high school student in Parkland, told ABC News. And speaking directly to his state’s Senator, Marco Rubio, he added:”It’s not our job to tell you how to protect ourselves. Our task is to attend school, learn and not be shot… Their task is to protect us and our blood is on their hands.
It is worth noting that Rubio is among those most benefited by the generosity of the National Rifle Association, the most powerful entity against control over guns in private hands.
Another surviving student, David Hogg, in an interview with CBS News, addressed Trump directly this Sunday denouncing: we have seen the government close down, we have seen tax reform, but nothing to save children’s lives. You make me sick.
Responding to a Trump’s tweet accusing the FBI of not following alerts about the suspect because they were too busy investigating the collusion that does not exist between the Russians and their election campaign, Aly Sheehy, another survivor, responded: 17 of my compañeros are no longer there. That’s 17 futures, 17 young people and 17 stolen friends. But you’re right, it always has to be about you. How silly of me, I forgot.
The students, some of whom have already carried out local actions, announced that they are organizing mobilizations on a national scale, something that is worrying politicians who, until now, have felt very comfortable, who have managed to stop previous initiatives to impose controls on the more than 300 million weapons that are in private hands in this country.
In the call to the March for our Lives, a student-driven action across the country and set for Washington on March 24, it is stated: Not one more. We can’t let one more child get shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to have to decide whether to stand in front of an assault rifle to save the lives of her students. We cannot allow one more family to be waiting for a call or text that never arrives. Our schools aren’t safe. Our children and teachers are dying. We have to make it our top priority to save these lives.
On March 14, a 17-minute student strike is being called for the 17 victims, and others on April 20, Columbine’s anniversary, calling for everyone to wear orange clothes to demand change, among others.
In another interview with CNN, Kasky summed up: my message to those who are in elected office is: are they with us or against us. We’re losing our lives while the adults are playing games.
Or as Wired’s editor-in-chief Nicholas Thompson summed it up in a tweet: United States: where high school students act as leaders, and leaders act as if they were in high school.
In a country where more people have died from gun violence since 1968 until today than the total number of Americans killed in all their wars since independence, where the world’s most armed people commit massacres and where on average there are five bullets in academic venues each month, it will be the young people who may be able to rescue their country from this barbarity.
(taken from La Jornada)
USA: Emma, short hair and bare feet
USA: Emma, short hair, bare feet
By Nicanor León Cotayo
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Emma González
In the form of a small hydrogen bomb, the student Emma Gonzalez’s speech about the tragedy that occurred on Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Sunrise, Florida was echoed in the United States.
El Nuevo reporter Martin Vassolo said Saturday that González, 18, with her hair short and bare feet, has planted her words in the middle of the national debate on firearms.
She made her plea -already seen by millions of Americans- in a federal court in Fort Lauderdale, where she criticized President Donald Trump, the National Rifle Association and politicians funded by that organization.
This other denunciation implicitly crucified the system of life that prevails in the United States.
Last year’s seniors had a debate Wednesday with Dana Loesch, spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, about the ease with which an 18-year-old can buy a rifle there, even though the law prohibits her from buying a beer.
My phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” said Gonzalez, who grew up in Parkland and whose father is a Cuban immigrant.
She is part of the NeverAgain movement, which emerged after the shooting, and is one of the organizers of the national march against gun violence scheduled for March 24.
During an interview this Friday with the Miami Herald, the young woman rejected what Trump said about teachers carrying guns.
And she expects lawmakers to make the changes they call for, especially in an election year like this.
Se thanked prominent Hollywood artists, on behalf of her organization, for the donations received and announced that she will return to school next Wednesday.
She finally clarified that at the moment she doesn’t have time to share with friends because she can’t lose a minute in this fight.
All of this helps explain, among other things, why Donald Trump is the most unpopular president of recent years in the United States.
In addition, the evident wear that already surrounds his figure, because it is not enough that sectors of the extreme right support his speech and action.
Perhaps the November elections will give interesting signals in this respect.
Comments
#5 Liliana 27-02-2018 10:54
My brave girl, you are not alone, in the United States a people marked by massacres with firearms, and in CUBA a FEU that transmits values to the rest of the world, FORWARD, you cannot deny that your origins are Cuban, PURA CEPA. [pure bred]
#4 Liliana 27-02-2018 10:42
It’s good to see that you’re not in CUBA, my girl, because if you weren’t part of the oldest Federation, the FEU, and then you didn’t have to fight against a wealthy and psychologically unfit president. But force, that the FEU is not there in an active way, but a Cuban woman who carries in her blood the fight for injustice and atrocious crimes.
#3 Fito 27-02-2018 09:59
Pride of pride in her Cuban origin. Let’s fight for a better world, no matter what the trench, although we certainly don’t agree on everything.
#2 vile 26-02-2018 14:29
The daughter of a Cuban there has money, but her life is in danger, and if her life is in danger, she wants the money. Cuba, always fighting for just causes, is that it has it in its blood. What irony can’t buy a beer because you are underage, but if you can buy a rifle, a gun with which this society has already reached chaos.
#1 Zarza 26-02-2018 12:14
Animo, who said that everything is lost in this society when there are young people who express themselves in this way with courage and respect for their fellow men.
We’ll see if they can stop this avalanche that has just begun, the politicians of the trump era..
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
The “American Dream” has Become a Nightmare
The “American Dream” has Become a Nightmare
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The projected wall to separate Mexico from what had been its own territory until the day that it was taken away by United States. US President Donald Trump’s characterization of some nations in Africa as shitholes. The eviction from US soil of Salvadoran, Nicaraguan and Haitian residents. The deportation of undocumented young people who’d arrived in the US in childhood and are known as the “dreamers”. The rejection of refugees. The reduction of green cards by half. These and other anti-immigration actions have characterized Washington’s foreign policy during the Trump administration.
Wide-reaching, all over the world, hegemonic corporate propaganda has always presented the US as a model of democracy and a welfare paradise. It has made the US a dreamland fantasized about by millions of would-be emigrants from poor nations. Now, the US President is doing even the unimaginable. He wants put an end to such an image, by resorting to decisions that may bring about great violence.
The project of an expanding nation has prevailed since English immigrants, through the annexation of lands populated by indigenous peoples or occupied by Dutch immigrants, created the Thirteen English colonies. They later united to fight
against the natives and especially against the French immigrants.
The United States, in a continuous and expansionist process, through the purchase of territories from France and Spain, the dispossession of Mexico from a good part of its territory and several asymmetrical wars, has expanded its territory, possessions, and global hegemony..what today President Donald Trump defends with the motto “America First!” and consists of closing borders as a new phenomenon, opposed to expansionism.
The US of the fantasized American Dream is no longer being built. Having achieved its objective, it has turned to defending its accomplishments. Now, the America First doctrine is the calling card of a nation that Trump, as a white multimillionaire in love with his own genetics, considers the best in the world.
By the way, when we talk about a country called “the United States of America” we refer to an impossible entity or an entelechy. This is because America is geographically a continent made up of several independent nations. None should claim the right to represent the union of all the states that make up the continent.
Originally, the name “United States of America” could have been the expression of a legitimate and plausible aspiration of the precursors of a dream of unity that has never been made possible, but which today embodies a deceptive purpose of domination and hegemony.
Even if this were the historical reason for the imbroglio, the nations of the affected continent can survive the terminological confusion provided there is absolute respect for the sovereignty of all countries involved.
Regrettably, there have been, and still are, many occasions when conflicts arise because one of the parties, always Washington, takes advantage of the semantic confusion for its own benefit.
The United States was born practically accompanied by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. This is the idea that the United States of America will expand because of its obvious (manifest) need and definite destiny. First, it would expand from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. Then, the northeastern states would carry their concept of “civilization” throughout the continent through territorial expansion.
For US commercial interests, expansion offered great and lucrative access to foreign markets. This allowed them to compete under better conditions against the British. Owning ports facing the Pacific would facilitate trade with Asia.
The ideological and philosophical connotation of its name was not embraced by all of US society. Differences within the country about the objectives and consequences of the policy of expansion would determine its acceptance or rejection.
Only when the peoples who inhabit the region today known as the American continent want to proclaim in common the unification of their territorial sovereignties, could the resulting nation be legitimately declared the “United States of America”; or else when humanity reaches its eternal yearning to live in a communist world, without classes or borders.
January 30, 2018
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