Latin American Countries want Cuba free of Sanctions

April 16, 2012

By ANDREW CAWTHORNE | REUTERS | APRIL 16, 2012

Unprecedented Latin American opposition to U.S. sanctions on Cuba left President Barack Obama isolated at a summit on Sunday and illustrated Washington’s declining influence in a region being aggressively courted by China.

Unlike the rock-star status he enjoyed at the 2009 Summit of the Americas after taking office, Obama has had a bruising time at the two-day meeting in Colombia of some 30 heads of state.

Sixteen U.S. security personnel were caught in an embarrassing prostitution scandal before Obama arrived, Brazil and others have bashed Obama over U.S. monetary policy and he has been on the defensive over Cuba and calls to legalize drugs.

Due to the hostile U.S. and Canadian line on communist-run Cuba, the heads of state failed to produce a final declaration as the summit fizzled out on Sunday afternoon.

“There was no declaration because there was no consensus,” said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. He bristled at suggestions the summit had been a failure, however, saying the exchange of different views was a sign of democratic health.

For the first time, conservative-led U.S. allies like Mexico and Colombia are throwing their weight behind the traditional demand of leftist governments that Cuba be invited to the next Summit of the Americas.

Cuba was kicked out of the Organization of American States (OAS) a few years after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution and has been kept out of its summits due mainly to U.S. opposition.

But Latin American leaders are increasingly militant in opposing both Cuba’s exclusion and the 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo on the Caribbean island.

“The isolation, the embargo, the indifference, looking the other way, have been ineffective,” Santos said. “I hope Cuba is at the next summit in three years.”

Santos, a major U.S. ally in the region who has relied on Washington for financial and military help to fight guerrillas and drug traffickers, has become vocal about Cuba’s inclusion even though he also advocates for democratic reform by Havana.

CLINTON PARTIES IN “CAFE HAVANA”

In an ironic twist to the debate, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went dancing in the early hours of Sunday at a Cartagena bar called Cafe Havana, where Cuban music is played.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who has insisted without success that Washington recognize its claim to the Falkland Islands controlled by Britain, was one of several presidents who left the summit well before its official closure.

She missed a verbal gaffe by Obama, who referred to the “Maldives” instead of the “Malvinas” when using the name Latin Americans give to the disputed islands.

The leftist ALBA bloc of nations – including Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and some Caribbean nations – said they will not attend future summits without Cuba’s presence.

“It’s not a favor anyone would be doing to Cuba. It’s a right they’ve had taken away from them,” Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said from Managua.

Although there were widespread hopes for a rapprochement with Cuba under Obama when he took office, Washington has done little beyond ease some travel restrictions. It insists Cuba must first make changes, including the release of political prisoners.

Obama told a news conference after the summit he was “puzzled” that nations that had themselves emerged from authoritarian rule would overlook that in Cuba.

“I and the American people will welcome a time when the Cuban people have the freedom to live their lives, choose their leaders and fully participate in this global economy and international institutions. We haven’t gotten there yet,” he said.

Obama urged Cuba to look at political and economic transformations in Colombia, Brazil and Chile for inspiration.

PROSTITUTION SCANDAL

The prostitution saga was a big embarrassment for Obama and a blow to the prestige of his Secret Service, the agency that provides security for U.S. presidents. It was the talk of the town in the historic Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena.

Eleven Secret Service agents were sent home and five military servicemen grounded after trying to take prostitutes back to their hotel the day before Obama arrived.

Obama said in general his security personnel did an extraordinary job under stressful circumstances but he would be annoyed if the allegations were proven by an investigation.

“We represent the people of the United States and when we travel to another country I expect them to observe the highest standards,” Obama said of the reports. “If it turns out that some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course I will be angry.”

A local policeman told Reuters the affair came to a head when hotel staff tried to register a prostitute at the front desk but agents refused and waved their ID cards.

Locals were unimpressed and upset at the negative headlines.

“Someone who’s charged with looking after the security of the most important president in the world cannot commit the mistake of getting mixed up with a prostitute,” said Cartagena tourist guide Rodolfo Galvis, 60.

“This has damaged the image of the Secret Service, not Colombia.”

The divisive end to the summit added to strain on the U.S.-dominated system of hemispheric diplomacy that was built around the OAS but is struggling to adapt to changes in the region.

“I’m not sure the next summit will even be possible,” said Carlos Gaviria, a Colombian politician and former presidential candidate.

Perceived U.S. neglect of Latin America has allowed China to move strongly into the region and become the leading trade partner of Brazil and various other nations.

Regional economic powerhouse Brazil has led criticism at the summit of U.S. and other rich nations’ expansionist monetary policy that is sending a flood of funds into developing nations, forcing up local currencies and hurting competitiveness.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called it a “monetary tsunami” that Latin American nations had the right to defend themselves from.

Cheering the mood a bit, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that a U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement will come into force in the middle of May.

With a presidential election looming, Obama had portrayed his visit to the summit as a way to generate jobs at home by boosting trade with Latin America.

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What’s Killing Central Americans by the Thousands?

February 12, 2012

All that doctors can do at this point is speculate about the cause of thousands of unexplained deaths from a mystery disease.

Associated Press
February 11, 2012

Jesus Ignacio Flores started working when he was 16, laboring long hours on construction sites and in the fields of his country’s biggest sugar plantation.

Three years ago his kidneys started to fail and flooded his body with toxins. He became too weak to work, wracked by cramps, headaches and vomiting.

On Jan. 19 he died on the porch of his house. He was 51. His withered body was dressed by his weeping wife, embraced a final time, then carried in the bed of a pickup truck to a grave on the edge of Chichigalpa, a town in Nicaragua’s sugar-growing heartland, where studies have found more than one in four men showing symptoms of chronic kidney disease.

A mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else. Scientists say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far north as southern Mexico and as far south as Panama.

Last year it reached the point where El Salvador’s health minister, Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, appealed for international help, saying the epidemic was undermining health systems.

Wilfredo Ordonez, who has harvested corn, sesame and rice for more than 30 years in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador, was hit by the chronic disease when he was 38. Ten years later, he depends on dialysis treatments he administers to himself four times a day.

“This is a disease that comes with no warning, and when they find it, it’s too late,” Ordonez said as he lay on a hammock on his porch.

Many of the victims were manual laborers or worked in sugar cane fields that cover much of the coastal lowlands. Patients, local doctors and activists say they believe the culprit lurks among the agricultural chemicals workers have used for years with virtually none of the protections required in more developed countries. But a growing body of evidence supports a more complicated and counterintuitive hypothesis.

The roots of the epidemic, scientists say, appear to lie in the grueling nature of the work performed by its victims, including construction workers, miners and others who labor hour after hour without enough water in blazing temperatures, pushing their bodies through repeated bouts of extreme dehydration and heat stress for years on end. Many start as young as 10. The punishing routine appears to be a key part of some previously unknown trigger of chronic kidney disease, which is normally caused by diabetes and high-blood pressure, maladies absent in most of the patients in Central America.

“The thing that evidence most strongly points to is this idea of manual labor and not enough hydration,” said Daniel Brooks, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University’s School of Public Health, who has worked on a series of studies of the kidney disease epidemic.

Because hard work and intense heat alone are hardly a phenomenon unique to Central America, some researchers will not rule out manmade factors. But no strong evidence has turned up.

“I think that everything points away from pesticides,” said Dr. Catharina Wesseling, an occupational and environmental epidemiologist who also is regional director of the Program on Work, Health and Environment in Central America. “It is too multinational; it is too spread out.

“I would place my bet on repeated dehydration, acute attacks everyday. That is my bet, my guess, but nothing is proved.”

Dr. Richard J. Johnson, a kidney specialist at the University of Colorado, Denver, is working with other researchers investigating the cause of the disease. They too suspect chronic dehydration.

“This is a new concept, but there’s some evidence supporting it,” Johnson said. “There are other ways to damage the kidney. Heavy metals, chemicals, toxins have all been considered, but to date there have been no leading candidates to explain what’s going on in Nicaragua …

“As these possibilities get exhausted, recurrent dehydration is moving up on the list.”

In Nicaragua, the number of annual deaths from chronic kidney disease more than doubled in a decade, from 466 in 2000 to 1,047 in 2010, according to the Pan American Health Organization, a regional arm of the World Health Organization. In El Salvador, the agency reported a similar jump, from 1,282 in 2000 to 2,181 in 2010.

Farther down the coast, in the cane-growing lowlands of northern Costa Rica, there also have been sharp increases in kidney disease, Wesseling said, and the Pan American body’s statistics show deaths are on the rise in Panama, although at less dramatic rates.

While some of the rising numbers may be due to better record-keeping, scientists have no doubt they are facing something deadly and previously unknown to medicine.

In nations with more developed health systems, the disease that impairs the kidney’s ability to cleanse the blood is diagnosed relatively early and treated with dialysis in medical clinics. In Central America, many of the victims treat themselves at home with a cheaper but less efficient form of dialysis, or go without any dialysis at all.

At a hospital in the Nicaraguan town of Chinandega, Segundo Zapata Palacios sat motionless in his room, bent over with his head on the bed.

“He no longer wants to talk,” said his wife, Enma Vanegas.

His levels of creatinine, a chemical marker of kidney failure, were 25 times the normal amount.

His family told him he was being hospitalized to receive dialysis. In reality, the hope was to ease his pain before his inevitable death, said Carmen Rios, a leader of Nicaragua’s Association of Chronic Kidney Disease Patients, a support and advocacy group.

“There’s already nothing to do,” she said. “He was hospitalized on Jan. 23 just waiting to die.”

Zapata Palacios passed away on Jan. 26. He was 49.

Working with scientists from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Wesseling tested groups on the coast and compared them with groups who had similar work habits and exposure to pesticide but lived and worked more than 500 meters (1,500 feet) above sea level.

Some 30 percent of coastal dwellers had elevated levels of creatinine, strongly suggesting environment rather than agrochemicals was to blame, Brooks, the epidemiologist, said. The study is expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal in coming weeks.

Brooks and Johnson, the kidney specialist, said they have seen echoes of the Central American phenomenon in reports from hot farming areas in Sri Lanka, Egypt and the Indian east coast.

“We don’t really know how widespread this is,” Brooks said. “This may be an under-recognized epidemic.”

Jason Glaser, co-founder of a group working to help victims of the epidemic in Nicaragua, said he and colleagues also have begun receiving reports of mysterious kidney disease among sugar cane workers in Australia.

Despite the growing consensus among international experts, Elsy Brizuela, a doctor who works with an El Salvadoran project to treat workers and research the epidemic, discounts the dehydration theory and insists “the common factor is exposure to herbicides and poisons.”

Nicaragua’s highest rates of chronic kidney disease show up around the Ingenio San Antonio, a plant owned by the Pellas Group conglomerate, whose sugar mill processes nearly half the nation’s sugar. Flores and Zapata Palacios both worked at the plantation.

According to one of Brooks’ studies, about eight years ago the factory started providing electrolyte solution and protein cookies to workers who previously brought their own water to work. But the study also found that some workers were cutting sugar cane for as long as 9 1/2 hours a day with virtually no break and little shade in average temperatures of 30 C (87 F).

In 2006, the plantation, owned by one of the country’s richest families, received $36.5 million in loans from the International Finance Corp., the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, to buy more land, expand its processing plant and produce more sugar for consumers and ethanol production.

In a statement, the IFC said it had examined the social and environmental impacts of its loans as part of a due diligence process and did not identify kidney disease as something related to the sugar plantation’s operations.

Nonetheless, the statement said, “we are concerned about this disease that affects not only Nicaragua but other countries in the region, and will follow closely any new findings.”

Ariel Granera, a spokesman for the Pellas’ business conglomerate, said that starting as early as 1993 the company had begun taking a wide variety of precautions to avoid heat stress in its workers, from starting their shifts very early in the morning to providing them with many gallons of drinking water per day.

Associated Press reporters saw workers bringing water bottles from their homes, which they refilled during the day from large cylinders of water in the buses that bring them to the fields.

Glaser, the co-founder of the activist group in Nicaragua, La Isla Foundation, said that nonetheless many worker protections in the region are badly enforced by the companies and government regulators, particularly measures to stop workers with failing kidneys from working in the cane fields owned by the Pellas Group and other companies.

Many workers disqualified by tests showing high levels of creatinine go back to work in the fields for subcontractors with less stringent standards, he said. Some use false IDs, or give their IDs to their healthy sons, who then pass the tests and go work in the cane fields, damaging their kidneys.

“This is the only job in town,” Glaser said. “It’s all they’re trained to do. It’s all they know.”

The Ingenio San Antonio mill processes cane from more than 24,000 hectares (60,000 acres) of fields, about half directly owned by the mill and most of the rest by independent farmers.

The trade group for Nicaragua’s sugar companies said the Boston University study had confirmed that “the agricultural sugar industry in Nicaragua has no responsibility whatsoever for chronic renal insufficiency in Nicaragua” because the research found that “in the current body of scientific knowledge there is no way to establish a direct link between sugar cane cultivation and renal insufficiency.”

Brooks, the epidemiologist at Boston University, told the AP that the study simply said there was no definitive scientific proof of the cause, but that all possible connections remained open to future research.

In comparison with Nicaragua, where thousands of kidney disease sufferers work for large sugar estates, in El Salvador many of them are independent small farmers. They blame agricultural chemicals and few appear to have significantly changed their work habits in response to the latest research, which has not received significant publicity in El Salvador.

In Nicaragua, the dangers are better known, but still, workers need jobs. Zapata Palacios left eight children. Three of them work in the cane fields.

Two already show signs of disease.

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U.S. Terrorising Through Proxy Governments

March 7, 2011 2 Comments

Obama Asks Saudis to send weapons to Libya to equip rebel groups

The Independent
March 7, 2011

Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi. The Saudi Kingdom, already facing a “day of rage” from its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community on Friday, with a ban on all demonstrations, has so far failed to respond to Washington’s highly classified request, although King Abdullah personally loathes the Libyan leader, who tried to assassinate him just over a year ago.

Washington’s request is in line with other US military co-operation with the Saudis. The royal family in Jeddah, which was deeply involved in the Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, gave immediate support to American efforts to arm guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980 and later – to America’s chagrin – also funded and armed the Taliban.

But the Saudis remain the only US Arab ally strategically placed and capable of furnishing weapons to the guerrillas of Libya. Their assistance would allow Washington to disclaim any military involvement in the supply chain – even though the arms would be American and paid for by the Saudis.

The Saudis have been told that opponents of Gaddafi need anti-tank rockets and mortars as a first priority to hold off attacks by Gaddafi’s armour, and ground-to-air missiles to shoot down his fighter-bombers.

Supplies could reach Benghazi within 48 hours but they would need to be delivered to air bases in Libya or to Benghazi airport. If the guerrillas can then go on to the offensive and assault Gaddafi’s strongholds in western Libya, the political pressure on America and Nato – not least from Republican members of Congress – to establish a no-fly zone would be reduced.

US military planners have already made it clear that a zone of this kind would necessitate US air attacks on Libya’s functioning, if seriously depleted, anti-aircraft missile bases, thus bringing Washington directly into the war on the side of Gaddafi’s opponents.

For several days now, US Awacs surveillance aircraft have been flying around Libya, making constant contact with Malta air traffic control and requesting details of Libyan flight patterns, including journeys made in the past 48 hours by Gaddafi’s private jet which flew to Jordan and back to Libya just before the weekend.

Officially, Nato will only describe the presence of American Awacs planes as part of its post-9/11 Operation Active Endeavour, which has broad reach to undertake aerial counter-terrorism measures in the Middle East region.

The data from the Awacs is streamed to all Nato countries under the mission’s existing mandate. Now that Gaddafi has been reinstated as a super-terrorist in the West’s lexicon, however, the Nato mission can easily be used to search for targets of opportunity in Libya if active military operations are undertaken.

Al Jazeera English television channel last night broadcast recordings made by American aircraft to Maltese air traffic control, requesting information about Libyan flights, especially that of Gaddafi’s jet.

An American Awacs aircraft, tail number LX-N90442 could be heard contacting the Malta control tower on Saturday for information about a Libyan Dassault-Falcon 900 jet 5A-DCN on its way from Amman to Mitiga, Gaddafi’s own VIP airport.

Nato Awacs 07 is heard to say: “Do you have information on an aircraft with the Squawk 2017 position about 85 miles east of our [sic]?”

Malta air traffic control replies: “Seven, that sounds to be Falcon 900- at flight level 340, with a destination Mitiga, according to flight plan.”

But Saudi Arabia is already facing dangers from a co-ordinated day of protest by its own Shia Muslim citizens who, emboldened by the Shia uprising in the neighbouring island of Bahrain, have called for street protests against the ruling family of al-Saud on Friday.

After pouring troops and security police into the province of Qatif last week, the Saudis announced a nationwide ban on all public demonstrations.

Shia organisers claim that up to 20,000 protesters plan to demonstrate with women in the front rows to prevent the Saudi army from opening fire.

If the Saudi government accedes to America’s request to send guns and missiles to Libyan rebels, however, it would be almost impossible for President Barack Obama to condemn the kingdom for any violence against the Shias of the north-east provinces.

Thus has the Arab awakening, the demand for democracy in North Africa, the Shia revolt and the rising against Gaddafi become entangled in the space of just a few hours with US military priorities in the region.

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A Escape Valve Called Illegal Immigration

April 27, 2010 1 Comment

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president of US (1743 – 1826)

By Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
April 27, 2010

As a Latino, I know what is it like to live in a less developed country. I lived in one for the first 18 years of my life. As a child, I understood I was not able to have it all, because my parents, a teacher and a secretary, could not give me what I wanted, but with much sacrifice what I needed. As a Hispanic, I also know what is it like to live in a country identified as developed, although not all illegal immigrationthe time. I lived 10 years in North America where everything is abundant and where opportunities exist. So history shows. However, these opportunities by many mistakenly identified as the American Dream, just do not fall into the hands; one must seek them out. The American dream never existed. It is one of those corporate inventions created to distract the masses.
For this, and deep study of history, the history that is not in the textbooks, I understand how illegal immigration has been used by corporations to promote their interests and destroy the last shining beacon for freedom. This has been happening for a long time, at least 100 years. Governments and economies in the hands of corporations use illegal immigration to destroy entire societies and consolidate resources.

Why is it that those who support compliance with immigration laws are described as racists? Because the groups that support illegal immigration, which are funded by corporations, believe that it is OK to apply the law selectively, as they see appropriate.

In the documentary Food, Inc., the producers show this trend. Illegal immigrants are brought from Mexico to work illegally at a meat processing company. To keep the immigration police at bay, the company agrees to allow weekly raids where 15 to 20 workers who are captured and deported to their countries. The next day, the meat company already has other illegal workers hoping to fill the empty positions left by their compatriots the night before. When these raids are reported in television news, the police’s action is praised as a show of strength against illegal immigration. What is not reported, is the corruption that exists in every one of these raids. The corporate media is also complicit in this exploitation because they use the news as a way to attract their audience while keeping them ignorant of the agreements between the police and the company and more outrageous, agreements between governments that allow this to happen.
It’s easy to advocate for the rights of illegal immigrants from the human point of view, ‘it is not human send them back to their countries of origin away from their families. But from a legal standpoint, cold and simple we can not have two standards. Either there is respect for the laws governing a nation, or the country will turn into complete anarchy, which is what the corporations want. That anarchy is what prevails in Latin America, and that’s why people leave their families behind to seek a better life.
Mass immigration to the United States, Canada and Europe is the result of the failure of politicians and Latin American leaders to provide his countrymen with better quality of life. It is also a consequence of the adoption of policies that corporations support as they are vital for their overall intention . These policies are forced upon those who are banished by multinationals to seek better prospects. Such prospects exist in places where income is ten times better for the same work, and where the money goes a longer way.
Illegal immigration to North America and Europe is a escape valve that relieves the pressure for irresponsible politicians who let the corporations take over their countries in exchange for indecent tips, positions of power and awards such as Nobel Peace Prizes. While politicians receive recognition, the people must give up their family and homelands to find humane living conditions. This lack of conditions is what makes that even countries with more resources than the United States or Canada, have higher rates of poverty. Corporatist bankers managed to keep the third world in poverty, as they consolidate their power and wealth in a few countries which they will demolish through each economic crisis. So it must be said and clarified once and for all: it is not the Gringos, or the Europeans who exploit immigrants, but the elites that control the governments.
Latin America is a clear example of this policy of consolidation. From Argentina to Mexico, from Nicaragua to Brazil, all countries are handled as chess boards in an effort to consolidate power and wealth. The direct effect of this action is extreme poverty and illegal immigration to lands with more opportunities. The immediate consequence of massive illegal immigration for the developed countries is the collapse of their economies by the overuse of its social safety net. Despite this, those who call for an end to illegal immigration, are called racist and inhumane, even though their requests have nothing to do with either race or humanity.

Here are several examples to help us illustrate the above points. Mexico has more natural resources than the United States. However, the gap between rich and poor is huge. The free trade agreement between the two nations, -a global policy of consolidation- exterminated the middle class and now there are only two classes: the feudal lords and the rest. Although the results clearly show what neoliberal policies and trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA are capable of, more countries in Latin America continue to adopt such agreements with Europe, China and the U.S. itself. The giant of the north lost last year more than 500,000 jobs a month due to the economic crisis caused by the same bankers who control the economic cycle. NAFTA made tens if not hundreds of companies molt their operations to Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, India, China and other developing countries. There, with little or no labor regulations, companies pay a fraction of the wages paid in Europe or the United States and legally exploit a workforce that in many cases is as qualified as that of the U.S. or Europe, as they have college education or receive training from the employers. The only difference is the color of their skin and nationality. Is this not the clearest example of racism? Of course, incompetent governments refuse to ask for better conditions for their workers in their own land.
In developing countries, the arrival of companies like Intel, General Motors, Citi, JP Morgan and others is seen as a triumph for their mediocre leaders. What is never revealed however, are the concessions made to the companies for them to arrive and remain in those countries. These concessions include but are not limited to total tax exemption, working long hours at unusual times for the same pay, little or no chance to grow within the company, competition agreements which limit or prohibit the arrival of competitors, zero taxes on exports and imports, zero production tax, zero social guarantees for workers and many others. The weak nations simply fall in the hands of corporate criminals and become the type of democracies where two wolves and one sheep decide what’s for dinner.
Brazil is another example of how globalization is applied to the detriment of society. Recently, President Luiz Inacio da Silva, who clamored for the creation of a New World Order and also pursues the chair of the UN Secretary-General, legalized millions of illegal immigrants from countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador, -all running away from their crumbling countries- without making a thorough study of the possible needs or not of foreign workers in the country. The press and much of society almost knelt before Lula for his decision and qualified it as ‘successful’ and human. But what no one asked was whether the legalization of so many would affect the availability of jobs for Brazilians themselves. The move was applauded even more because the decision to legalize workers was mainly positive to collect more taxes to fund one of the most corrupt, lands in the planet, -it earned a 3.7 on the scale. That is super corrupt.

And what happens when a state or a country decides to establish limits on illegal immigration? Recently, the state of Arizona passed legislation to make authorities arrest and deport those who are illegally in the territory. Long before the adoption of the law, hundreds of people gathered outside the Arizonan Congress to demand the law was not approved as the media coverage provided its usual mediocre coverage, trying to turn illegal immigrants into victims of the new law . Although the law is not perfect, because it allows police to demand identification from those suspected to be in the state illegally, which violates privacy laws, it is an important step towards compliance with existing immigration laws. The Mexican government’s reaction was immediate, calling the law a disgrace and persecution of Latinos. President Felipe Calderon said: “They are entitled to be there, because they are model workers.” Why are they not given work in Mexico then? President Barack Obama also criticized the law saying “it threatened basic notions of justice” and said its implementation would be monitored to ensure it would not violate civil rights. It is clear that respecting the laws of the country is not a priority to Obama. In fact he is now actively working with Congress to pass legislation that would give the green light to legalize 30 million illegal immigrants in his country. It’s no surprise that the number of citizens who support his job is the lowest in the first year of any president. Only 29% in the latest survey strongly supports his actions, while 60% of respondents support legislation such as the one passed by Arizona last week against illegal immigration. See the result here.

The reform of immigration laws known as “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”, or the approval of no real legislation, is what corporations support, because it will allow them to continue their reign of exploitation of the people. This fact is simply ignored by those who want mass legalization. For them this issue is about race, which is a point that originates in the organizations paid by corporations to promote their interests, such as LA RAZA. The corporate media and pro-illegal immigration groups increasingly polarize the population with their anti-Yankee discourse, and pro-invasion of the south western United States, that many people erroneously believe belongs to Mexico.

Now both Democrats and Republicans – both controlled by bankers and corporations-, work in the drafting and adoption of the new law to legalize million and would also give them health care insurance of the type recently approved by the Obama administration. This policy will further weaken the social safety net and end in a total collapse of the democratic system. This is what the elites want to carry out their most precious process of consolidation in the history to control the natural resources and infrastructure the United States. It is a diabolical plan, no doubt about it. Polarizing the masses of people to keep them busy while the bankers steal everything, even their homelands. And what will happen when there is not a escape valve called the United States to absorb the pressure? What will all this anger pressure cooker called the third world go? Judge for yourself!

What to do about it? Educate current and future citizens about the true origin of such issues as illegal immigration, showing them the root of the problem so that it is clear people are able to seek for real solutions, instead of doing what is best for the interests of the powerful. If we have opportunities, a comfortable and dignified place to live, we need not go anywhere, but if we do, we will understand why it is better there than here and how we can improve.

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Una Válvula de Escape Llamada Inmigración Ilegal

April 27, 2010

“Creo que las instituciones bancarias son más peligrosas para nuestras libertades que los ejércitos permanentes. Si el pueblo permite un día que los bancos privados controlen la emisión de su moneda, primero por la inflación, luego por deflación, los bancos y corporaciones que crecerán alrededor de estos, privarán a la gente de toda la propiedad hasta que sus hijos un día despierten sin hogar en el continente que sus padres conquistaron. El poder de emisión debería ser tomado de los bancos y restaurado a la gente, a quien le pertenece.

Thomas Jefferson, tercer presidente de EUA (1743 – 1826)

Por Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
Abril 27, 2010

Como hispano sé lo que es vivir en un país menos desarrollado.  Viví en uno por los primeros 18 años de mi vida.  Desde pequeñoillegal immigration entendí lo que era no poder tenerlo todo, pues los salarios de mis padres, un educador y una secretaria, no alcanzaban para darme aquello que más quería, pero sí con mucho sacrificio aquello que necesitaba.  También como hispano se lo que es vivir en un país identificado como desarrollado; aunque no en todo.  Viví 10 años en Norteamérica donde todo es abundancia y donde las oportunidades existen.  Así lo demuestra la historia.  Sin embargo, esas oportunidades por muchos erroneamente identificadas como el sueño Americano, simplemente no caen en las manos; hay que buscarlas.  El sueño americano nunca existió.  Es una de esas invenciones corporativas.

Por esto, y mucho estudio de la historia que no está en los libros de texto, siento que entiendo como es que la inmigración ilegal ha sido usada por las corporacionespara promover sus interéses y destruir el último faro que brilla por la libertad.  Esto viene aconteciendo desde hace mucho tiempo, por lo menos unos 50 años.  Como parte del plan de retroceso, los gobiernos y las economías en manos de las corporaciones usan la inmigración ilegal para destruir sociedades completas y consolidar los recursos.

Porqué es que quienes apoyan el respeto de las leyes de inmigración son calificados de racistas?  Porque los grupos que apoyan la inmigración ilegal, los cuales son financiados por las corporaciones, creen que esta bien aplicar las leyes de forma selectiva; de la manera que les conviene.

En el documental Food, Inc, se muestra esta tendencia.  Inmigrantes ilegales son traidos de México para trabajar ilegalmente en una empresa procesadora de carne.  Para mantener a la policía de inmigración en raya, la empresa acuerda permitir redadas semanalmente en donde se detienen entre 15 y 20 trabajadores, quienes son deportados a sus países.  El día siguiente, la empresa de carnes ya tiene otros trabajadores ilegales esperando para llenar los puestos vacíos que sus compatriotas dejaron la noche anterior.  Cuando estas redadas son reportadas en los noticieros de televisión, la acción policial es ensalsada como la mano fuerte contra la inmigración ilegal y no se reporta la corrupción que existe en cada una de ellas.  Los medios de comunicación corporativos son entonces cómplices de esta explotación, pues utilizan la noticia como una manera de atraer su morboza audiencia al tiempo que los mantiene ignorantes de los acuerdos entre la policía y la empresa.

Es muy fácil abogar por los derechos de los inmigrantes ilegales desde el punto de vista humano, pues es ‘inhumano’ enviarles de regreso a sus paises de origen ‘separandolos de sus familias.’  Pero desde el punto de vista legal, frío y simple, no se pueden tener dos estándares.  O se respetan las leyes que rigen una nación, o se permite la anarquía que las corporaciones quieren.  Eso es lo que reina en America Latina, y por eso es que la gente deja su familia atrás para buscar una mejor vida.

La inmigración masiva hacia Estados Unidos, Canadá y Europa es el resultado del fracaso de los políticos y gobernantes latinoamericanos de proveer a sus compatriotas de mejores condiciones de vida.  Es también consecuencia de la adopción de políticas que las corporaciones ven como confortables para sus intenciones globalistas.  Estas políticas forzan a quienes son desterrados por multinacionales a buscar mejores perspectivas de vida.  Esas perspectivas son reconocidas en lugares en donde se gana diez veces más dinero por el mismo trabajo, y donde el dinero alcanza para más, mucho más.

La inmigración ilegal a América del Norte y Europa es una válvula de escape para los políticos irresponsables que dejan que las corporaciones se adueñen de sus países a cambio de propinas indecentes, de posiciones y de reconocimientos tales como premios nobel y membresías beneméritas.  Mientras los políticos reciben reconocimientos, su gente debe renunciar a su família y a su patria para buscar condiciones de vida humanas.  Esa falta de condiciónes, es lo que hace que inclusive países con más recursos tengan mayores índices de pobreza.  Los banqueros corporatistas al mando de las grandes multinacionales se las han ingeniado para mantener al tercer mundo en la miseria, mientras consolidan su poder y riqueza en unos pocos países a los que, a través de cada crisis económica, les exprimen de sus recursos. Entonces, debe ser dicho y aclarado de una vez por todas: No son los gringos, o los europeos quienes explotan a los inmigrantes, sino, las élites que controlan esos gobiernos.

América Latina es un ejemplo claro de esta política de consolidación.  Desde Argentina hasta México; desde Nicaragua hasta Brasil, todos los países son manejados como tableros de ajedrez en un esfuerzo para consolidar poder y riqueza.  El efecto directo de esta acción es la pobreza extrema y la inmigración ilegal a tierras con más oportunidades.  La consecuencia inmediata para los países desarrollados que reciben a los inmigrantes ilegales es el desmoronamiento de sus economías por el sobreuso de su red de seguridad social.  A pesar de esto, aquellos que claman por el fín de la inmigración ilegal, son llamados de racistas e inhumanos, aunque sus peticiones no tienen nada que ver con ninguna de las dos.

Veamos varios ejemplos que nos ayuden a ilustrar los puntos anteriores.  México tiene más recursos naturales que Estados Unidos.  Sin embargo, la brecha entre ricos y pobres es abismal.  El tratado de libre comercio entre ambas naciones -una política globalista de consolidación- acabó con la clase media y ahora solo existen dos clases, los señores feudales y el resto.  A pesar de los resultados clarísimos que las políticas neoliberales y los tratados de comercio como NAFTA y CAFTA muestran, más países en America Latina continuan adoptando acuerdos de ese tipo con Europa, China y el mismo Estados Unidos.  El gigante del norte perdía el año pasado más de 500 mil empleos al mes debido a la crisis económica causada por los mismos banqueros que controlan el ciclo económico.  NAFTA hizo que decenas sino cientos de empresas mudaran sus operaciones a Brasil, Costa Rica, México, India, China y otros países en desarrollo.  Allá, con poca o ninguna regulación laboral, las empresas pagan una fracción de los salários que deberían pagar en Europa o Estados Unidos y legalmente explotan una mano de obra que en muchos casos es tan calificada como la estadounidense o europea, pues tienen educación universitaria o son debidamente preparados para el puesto por la mismas empresas. La única diferencia es el color de su piel y su nacionalidad. No es este el ejemplo más claro de racismo? Por supuesto los gobiernos incompetentes se niegan a pedir mejores condiciones para sus trabajadores en su propia tierra.

En los países en desarrollo, la llegada de empresas como Intel, General Motors, Citi, JP Morgan y otras es visto como un triunfo por sus gobernantes mediocres.  Lo que nunca se detalla, son las concesiones hechas a las mismas empresas para que se establezcan en los países.  Estas concensiones incluyen pero no se limitan a exensiones fiscales totales, extensas jornadas de trabajo en horarios inusuales y por la misma paga, pocas o nulas posibilidades de crecimiento dentro de la empresa, acuerdos de competencia que limitan o prohiben la llegada de otras empresas del mismo tipo, zero impuestos a las exportaciones e importaciones, zero impuesto a la producción, zero garantías sociales para los trabajadores y muchas otras.

Brasil es otro ejemplo de como la globalización es aplicada para el perjuicio de la sociedad. Recientemente, el presidente Luiz Inacio Da Silva, quien clamó por la creación de un Nuevo Order Mundial y además persigue la silla de Secretário General de la ONU, dio documentos a millones de ilegales de países como Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia y Ecuador, sin antes hacer un estudio profundo de la necesidad o no de trabajadores extranjeros en el país. La prensa y una gran parte de la sociedad casi se arrodilló ante Lula por su decisión tan ‘acertada’ y humana, pero nadie se preguntó si la legalización de tantos afectaría la disponibilidad de trabajos para los propios ciudadanos brasileños. La medida fue aún más aplaudida porque la decisión de legalizar a los trabajadores se hizo principalmente para poder recolectar más impuestos que continuen financiando uno de los Estados de corrupción más impunes en el mundo; 3.7 en la escala, o sea, super corrupto.

Y qué sucede cuando un estado o un país decide ponerle límites a la inmigración ilegal? Recientemente, el estado de Arizona aprobó legislación que manda a las autoridades arrestar y deportar a aquellos que esten en el territorio ilegalmente. Mucho antes de la aprobación de la misma, cientos de personas se juntaron en las afueras del congreso para demandar que la ley no pasara y los medios de comunicación brindaron su ya conocida cobertura mediocre, queriendo convertir a los inmigrantes ilegales en víctimas de la nueva ley. Aunque la ley no es perfecta, pues permite que los policías demanden identificación a quien sea considerado suspechoso de estar en el estado ilegalmente, lo cual viola leyes de privacidad, la misma es un paso importante para el cumplimiento de las leyes de migración existentes. La reaccción del gobierno mexicano no se hizo esperar. Inmediatamente, se calificó la ley de una desgracia y de persecución contra los latinos. El presidente Felipe Calderón dijo que “Ellos tienen derecho a estar allá, son trabajadores ejemplares.” Porqué entonces no se les da trabajo en México? El presidente Barack Obama, también criticó la ley diciendo que esta amenaza nociones básicas de justicia y dijo que se vigilaría su aplicación para asegurarse que no habrían abusos a los derechos civiles. Claro está que para Obama no es una prioridad respetar las leyes del país. Mas bien, ahora mismo él trabaja con congresistas para pasar legislación que daría luz verde a la legalización de unos 30 millones de inmigrantes ilegales en ese país. No es una sorpresa que el número de ciudadanos que apoya su gestión sea la más baja en el primer año de cualquier otro presidente. Solo 29% en la más reciente encuesta apoya fuertemente su gestión, mientras 60% de los encuestados apoyan leyes como la que Arizona aprobó la semana pasada contra la inmigración ilegal. Vea el resultado aquí.

La reforma a las leyes migratorias conocida como “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”, o la no aprobación de legislación alguna, es lo que las corporaciones apoyan, pues les permitirá continuar su reino de explotación de la mano de obra. Este hecho es simplemente ignorado por quienes quieren la legalización masiva. Para ellos este tema es sobre raza, lo cual es un punto que se origina en las organizaciones pagadas por las corporaciones para promover sus intereses, tales como LA RAZA.  Los medios de comunicación corporativos y los grupos pro inmigración ilegal polarizan cada vez más a la población con sus discursos anti-yanqui, y pro-invasión de la región sur oeste de Estados Unidos que según muchos, pertenece a México.

Ahora, tanto demócratas como republicanos -ambos grupos controlados por banqueros y corporaciones- trabajan en la redacción y aprobación de la nueva ley que además de legalizar millones, también les daría seguro de salud del tipo recientemente aprobado por la administración Obama. Esta política junto con otras perforán aún más la red de seguridad social y terminarán en el colapso total del sistema democrático -que es lo que las élites quieren para llevar a cabo su más preciado proceso de consolidación en la historia y anexarse los recursos naturales e infraestructura en Estados Unidos. Es un plan diabólico, no hay duda. Se polarizan las masas poblacionales para mantenerlas ocupadas mientras los banqueros les roban todo; hasta sus patrias. Y que sucederá cuando no haya más una válvula de escape llamada Estados Unidos para absorber a los despatriados de América Latina y el resto del mundo? Para dónde ira la presión de esta olla llamada Tercer Mundo? Juzgue usted!

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