Manuel E. Yepe 239
The First Yankee Blockade Against Cuba
The First Yankee Blockade Against Cuba
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The ruling class of the United States has been advocating possession of Cuba since the end of the eighteenth century, that is to say, since [well] before the island’s first wars of independence. Two precepts conditioned North America’s foreign policy towards the United States. Cuba: the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny and Ripe Fruit Syndrome.
In June 1783, the second president of the United States, John Adams, said that the island of Cuba was a natural extension of the continent and that its annexation was absolutely necessary for the existence of the United States. Adams held that Cuba’s independent, sovereign existence would never be permitted, and much less would Adams support the struggle of its people to obtain it. The best thing was for Cuba to continue in Spain’s possession until it could be assimilated by the US.
“Manifest Destiny” was the idea developed then as a doctrine attributing to the United States the special mission of bringing its system of economic, social and political organization throughout the Americas. all the way down from the North. Subsequently, it would be extended to the entire Western hemisphere.
Expansion to the West was completed at the end of the 19th century. Its population was annihilated and the Mexicans lost almost half of their territory (Texas, New Mexico and California).
In 1823, President James Monroe pronounced the doctrine of “America. for the Americans” [the Monroe Doctrine”], which said that any interference by any European power in the emerging Latin American republics, would be considered an unfriendly act by Washington, against the United States. He, therefore, proclaimed the right to protect the region. The apparent paternalism toward the rest of the hemisphere would soon be turned into obvious expansionism.
A few years earlier, John Quincy Adams, then-Secretary of State in the Monroe administration and subsequently his successor in the Presidency, wrote: “…if an apple, knocked down from its tree by the storm, cannot but fall to the ground, Cuba, separated by the the strength of its abnormal connection with Spain and unable to sustain itself by itself, it can only gravitate, towards North America, which cannot, because of the the same natural law, reject it from its lap.”
This principle – known as that of the “ripe fruit” – did not prevent the United States from trying buy Cuba from Spain. An offer of $100 million to that effect was rejected by the Iberian crown.
In the 1880s, U.S. capital was already solidly involved in Cuba, especially in the sugar industry. as a result of its interest in converting the Caribbean islands into sugar economies.
In US popular memory, the roots were still alive in the United States, and so many ordinary citizens of that country. had sympathy for Cuba. This fact overlapped a tense preparation in the US for a direct military intervention during Cuba’s independence war against Spain.
However, in 1895, shortly before falling in combat, Cuban revolutionary José Martí wrote that, in his fight against Spain, Cuba tried to “prevent, with its independence, the expansion of the United States through the Antilles and fell with that much greater force. on the lands of our America. All that I have done so far has been meant for this,” Martí emphasized.
On December 24, 1897, US Under Secretary of War J.C. Breckenridge wrote in a memorandum:
“This (Cuban) population is made up of whites, blacks, Asians, and people who result from the mixing of these races. The inhabitants are generally indolent and apathetic…. While these people have only a vague notion of good and evil, they tend to seek pleasure, not through work but through violence. It’s obvious that the immediate annexation of these disturbing and numerous elements to our federation would constitute madness, so, before proceeding to it, we must clean up the country. We must destroy everything within reach of our cannon fire. We must impose a strict blockade so that hunger and its perennial companion, diseases undermine the peaceful population and decimate its army. The allied army must be constantly engaged in reconnaissance and vanguard actions so that the Cuban army is irreparably caught between two fronts.
“When that time comes, we must create conflicts so that the independent government will have to face these difficulties. That, in turn, must coincide with the unrest and violence among the aforementioned elements, whom we must support. To sum up, our policy must always be to support the weakest against the strongest, until we have managed to exterminate both of them, in order to annex the Pearl of the Antilles.”
September 30, 2019. This article can be reproduced.
AMLO’s Victory: Parting of the Waters
AMLO’s Victory, a Parting of the Waters in Latin America
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
There is no doubt that we are facing a wave of extreme right-wing movements. In order to understand what is happening, it is important to turn to a historical perspective. For that, we turn to the explnation given by John Bellamy Foster, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon and editor of the US left-wing magazine Monthly Review.
The political map on both sides of the Atlantic seemed to reveal a rise of the extreme right in the world. In most European economies, from the largest and strongest to the smallest and weakest, there was an increase in electoral support for right-wing forces. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, these forces of reaction achieved one success after another with impunity by resorting to various forms of disguised violence.
But the clean and resounding electoral triumph of Andres Manuel López (AMLO) in the race for Mexico’s presidency seems to have been a watershed towards a different reality.
It is known that, against this great victory by the Mexicans, there was put into practice a great clandestine Berlin operation. It’s named after the name of the street in the Mexican capital where the clandestine headquarters of the imperialist operation operated.
They used cyber techniques similar to those used shortly before, under the direction of the CIA. They targeted the electoral processes in Brazil, Ecuador and other points in Latin America and Africa that left distorting fruits of popular will, Operation Berlin was carried out in Mexico. Only this time, in Mexico, they failed. Marxist theorists, along with most historians, have explained that fascism has as its backbone a political alliance between monopoly capital and a certain stratum of the middle class (or petty bourgeoisie).
Historically, the extreme right, too, has gained followers from the countryside, from established religions and from sectors of the armed forces. Fascism is always marginally present in all capitalist societies. It never emerges with all its strength on its own. It is consolidated as a movement only in those cases in which the capitalist class offers its encouragement and support, mobilizing the most reactionary elements of the “middle class”, which acts as the rear of the system.
If, in a period of economic and political crisis, the liberal state becomes an impediment to capitalist government, the existing powers will seek to preserve, consolidate and expand their rule through a regressive change in the capitalist state using the political forms provided by the extreme right.
Neoliberalism de-legitimizes the state. It encourages the development of radical right-wing or neo-fascist movements that oppose neoliberal political elites in the exercise of power and influence impoverished sectors through bribery.
Emerging neo-fascism in the United States is rooted in the “white supremacism” that goes back to slavery and the predominant thinking of the first British settlers, mixed with all sorts of new ideological elements.
Trump’s militant political base is estimated to be between 25 and 30 percent of the electorate and is located in the lower-middle stratum, with family incomes of about $75,000 a year.
It is a very white sector of the population that finds itself in a position of extreme economic insecurity. Its ideology is national-imperialist, with militant racism. A large part of this demographic group is associated with right-wing evangelism. It is something similar to the mass in Brazil that supported Jair Bolsonaro.
Trump’s main value for the ruling class lies in the fact that the radical right has been able to deliver added value to the rich: it has removed obstacles to market dominance over the whole of society.
The notion that coheres its social base is the construction of a wall along the Mexican border and new detention centers. These symbolize a war against poor immigrants. But the economic policies of the Trump administration have little to do with the demands of its social base. Trump has increased the power of financial monopoly capital, given huge tax and subsidy exemptions to big business and the rich. He has promoted economic and environmental deregulation, undermined unions, privatized education, expanded the penal state, destroyed the little progress which had been made in health care, and waged a relentless war for U.S. hegemony. Hence, Mexicans can feel like they are on the cusp of a well-deserved future.
October 31, 2019.
The Right Falls, But Neo-Fascism Grows
The Right Falls, But Neo-Fascism Grows
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
“Decadence and neofascism are two concepts that are difficult to define although essential to understanding current reality. Their overwhelming presences, their blurred frontiers make them sometimes invisible to the eyes. Where does bourgeois authoritarianism end and begins? How can a process of decadence be distinguished from a great persistent turbulence or a phenomenon of widespread social corruption?”
This is what the Argentine thinker, economist and Marxist Jorge Beinstein wrote shortly before his death.
Emerging neo-fascism in the United States today is rooted in “white supremacy”. It dates back to the time when slavery was the predominant thought among British English settlers, of course with influences from several other new ideological elements.
Today, in most European economies, from the largest and strongest to the smallest and weakest, an increase in the electoral strength of the right is noticeable – with very few exceptions.
On the other side of the spectrum, resorting to violence, we are faced with a wave of extreme right-wing movements, for which the term neo-fascism seems to be the most appropriate designation. In order to try to understand what is happening, it is important to turn to a historical perspective. All these reactionary movements share certain similarities in terms of class.
Trump’s militant political base is estimated at about 25-30% of the electorate. It is located in the lower-middle stratum, with family incomes of about $75,000 a year. It is a very white sector of the population that is in a position of extreme economic insecurity. Its ideology is national-imperialist and wit0qw an accentuated racism.
A large part of this demographic group, in addition, is associated with right-wing evangelism which, in many aspects, resembles those Brazilians who support Jair Bolsonaro.
Within the neo-fascist bloc, the economic sphere invariably dominates. Capital is the first and most important nexus. Trump’s main value – for the ruling class – lies in the fact that the radical right has been able to deliver added value to the rich while removing obstacles to market dominance over all aspects of society.
Therefore, if you look at Trump’s program in detail, you will see that many of its ideological characteristics are in line with those of the lower middle white stratum (nationalism, racism, misogyny, anti-socialism, etc.),. Trump’s political ability has been to take advantage of these regressive ideologies as a means of mobilization and political power.
Hence, the slogan that gives cohesion to its social base is the construction of a wall along the Mexican border and the new detention centers – or, rather, concentration camps – symbolize that a war is being waged against poor immigrants.
But the economic policies of the Trump administration have little to do with the demands of its social base. Trump has increased the power of financial monopoly capital, given huge tax and subsidy exemptions to the wealthiest and big business; promoted economic and environmental deregulation; undermined unions; privatized education; expanded the penal state; destroyed the few advances made in health care; and is in a constant war for U.S. hegemony.
The disappearance of the Soviet bloc countries and the collapse of social democracy have disarmed this left. To some extent, the extreme right has filled this political vacuum by pretending to confront the ruling elites.
Despite its populist rhetoric, the radical right directly defends the current order, which includes promoting a neo-liberal policy of austerity that has lost all legitimacy.
Under the slogan of Make America Great Again, they pit the neo-fascist elements against the liberal state, itself in full stagnation.
For the left, the challenges are much more complex. There are two options: social-democratic policies designed to save capitalism in a fatal compromise with neo-liberalism or, on the other hand, a true movement towards socialism that represents a long revolutionary road against capitalism in its superior imperialist stage.
Social democracy, as a strategy, has proved increasingly dysfunctional and has capitulated again and again to the neo-liberal state, when genuine socialist movements have not been able to confront the capitalist regime in a clear and total way.
November 18, 2019.
This article can be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
United States, Ready for Socialism
United States, Ready for Socialism
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann. for CubaNews.
The emergence of more leftist agendas among some Democratic Party politicians and a certain radicalization of awareness in the “ordinary” U.S. citizenry about social and economic equality in the United States led to an interesting interview with Colin S. Cavell, professor of political science at the helm of Finian Cunningham, conducted and disseminated by the Strategic Culture Foundation.
President Trump has frequently condemned “evil socialism” in his speeches, reflecting the U.S. ruling class’s fear of a shift to socialism in the country. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard are calling for increased taxes on wealthy Americans and powerful corporations, reversing decades of neoliberal tax policies.
Voters join in calls for more radical redistribution of wealth and support policies against growing inequality in the United States, where a handful of billionaires now own more wealth than half the total population.
Professor Cavell views the current evolution of U.S. politics from a historical perspective of socialist movements in U.S. society, although he warns that the pro-capitalist political class and media work assiduously to thwart any movement toward a more just and democratic society.
Asked if Bernie Sanders, who seems to receive much support from the working class for his policies of Medicare for All and the progressive taxes on the rich if this augurs an American awakening to a socialist government, Cavell responds that most Americans have little understanding of the perspective they delineate since the media only talks about fear of socialism.
“After a century of anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda by the capitalist state and its supporters, socialism, in the minds of most U.S. citizens, is a totalitarian hell with fire and brimstone in which an evil satanic dictator orders everyone to enslave themselves to the detriment of the body politic, coupled with the erosion of individual liberties and personal happiness,” denotes Cavell.
“After the unceasing repetition of such concepts for ten decades, people have begun to glimpse, since the 1970s, and given the stagnation of their wages and living standards (in most cases and setbacks in others) have come to the conclusion that the benefits of capitalism only reach a small part of that class and not the great majorities.
Therefore, they are open to hear the voices of those who, like Sanders and other more leftist Democrats, are calling for the implementation of universal health care for all. It’s an idea that has been so belittled by former U.S. presidents and politicians as “socialized medicine”, a term that most citizens conceive of as the reduction or elimination of health care costs.
As for other aspects of the socialization of the economy, most are not clear about this, although there is strong support for extending access to free education in higher education institutions, called “colleges” and universities. Student loan arrears in that sector currently exceed $1.5 billion and affect at least one-sixth of the U.S. population, about 43 million adults. And, given that the “best job” is the one that pays the most and has the most benefits, there is a tendency to advance through the acquisition of an education with a formalized degree.
Cavell believes that class consciousness is present in most citizens, but rarely articulated. Instead, the notion remains that the United States is a class-free nation in which merit guarantees the best retribution to those who are able to “get up by their own means. Most citizens believe they are members of the middle class even though the vast majority live “from paycheck to paycheck” and have little or no savings for emergencies.
So, what is present there is a working class conscious of its existence, functionality, strength and power, but which does not recognize its historical role called to overthrow capitalism by force if it wants to enjoy a true sense of freedom.
Cavell believes that if presidential elections were held today in the United States, without interference or obstruction from the Democratic and Republican parties, Bernie Sanders would easily be the winner.
This, however, will never happen, as the capitalist class through all its mechanisms will ensure that Bernie will never make it to the Democratic Party nomination and therefore will not be a candidate in the 2020 Elections.
October 19, 2019
(http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com)
(*) This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO! as the source.
Motives for Emigration to the US
Motives for Emigration to the U.S.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The determining ideology in the “First World” defends the free movement of goods and capital but emphatically excludes the possibility of the labor force enjoying that same freedom. It condemns all governmental action in poor countries to protect their products from the effects of an unequal confrontation in the external market. However, it rejects the possibility of the international displacement of labor according to the same law of supply and demand that they claim for their own goods, capital and other factors of production.
In conditions of absolute freedom of movement of goods in the world market, the winner is the one who produces at the lowest cost.This can only be achieved with higher productivity, which is always the one to which the large corporations of developed countries have access through more efficient technology born of their financial superiority. This leaves the poor countries with cheap labor as their only resource to compete.
A genuinely liberal economic globalization, which upholds the principle of competitiveness and fixes in the market the possibilities of all parties, should include the freedom of movement of all factors of production. This would include the labor force, but this possibility is not even mentioned in neoliberal discourse.
In Latin America, the fundamental receiving pole of commercial exchanges, the United States, closes its borders to spontaneous immigration promoted by the laws of the market. It projects programs aimed at attracting immigrants with specific qualifications or political refugees (real or supposed) that suit its political purposes of domination, ignoring the obvious fact that the economy of the United States objectively needs labor, especially unskilled labor.
Such inconsistency reflects the will to avoid conflicts derived from competition between immigrants and their own workers, without forgetting the manifestations of xenophobia and discrimination against minorities that are manifested in that society, due to multiple historical factors.
From the point of view of the U.S. business which exploits immigrant labor, although their interests in the legal prohibition of immigrant income are affected, the continued income of undocumented workers – with depressed rights – solves their needs. The big losers are the undocumented, persecuted, mistreated and super-exploited immigrants. Emigration to the United States becomes the dominant fact of the regional migratory panorama.
But since the last decades of the 20th century, the Latin American and Caribbean migratory process, which from the time of the conquest until then had left a positive balance, has become negative. That is to say, more emigrants than immigrants.
In the 1980s, with the rise of neoliberalism promoted by Ronald Reagan’s government in the United States, Latin America, like the entire Third World, entered a new period. It is characterized by the effects of an unpayable foreign debt that hindered its development, aggravated by the rise of corruption, embezzlement and the discrediting of traditional politicians.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist system in Eastern Europe deprived the world’s underdeveloped countries of an alternative of economic and technical assistance, as well as relatively safe and advantageous markets.
The rich countries took advantage of the conjuncture to impose a neoliberal orientation on the objective trend towards globalization that technological advances determine for the economy of nations. They then reduced development assistance, forced the weakening of state apparatuses, the de-statification of natural resources and the privatization of state enterprises, preferably through their acquisition by U.S. corporations.
Thus, Latin America, which for centuries was a recipient of migration, became a region of emigrant outflow. Tens of millions of Latin Americans have been forced to emigrate in the last twenty years. All this has led to a sharp increase in inequalities and the concentration of wealth in a small number of people and entities in Third World countries.
England, when its fleet was the largest and most efficient in the world, demanded freedom of the seas without protection measures that would raise the competitiveness of the fleets of other countries. Today, the highly developed countries demand freedom of movement fpr their goods and capital, without barriers that protect the production of countries with less economic development. But they do not include that freedom for the workforce.
September 16, 2019. This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Why in Cuba No One Surrenders
Why in Cuba No One Surrenders
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
A decade ago, Cubans lost one of their most popular and beloved revolutionary heroes. This fact that was remembered with unused patriotic fervor on the West Indian island. On September 11, 2009, Juan Almeida Bosque, a Cuban patriot who had extraordinary merits in the struggle struggle that would have been enough to place him among the most exalted representatives of the Cuban people at any time in the history of the island, ceased to exist physically.
But in Almeida’s case, during his lifetime, the personality and talent of a young man from a very humble family, with black skin and a heart of gold with whom Cubans quickly sympathized. He barely transcended his leading role as part of the contingent that, led by Fidel Castro, led the popular battle against Fulgencio Batista’s tyranny leading to the successful liberation of the homeland from U.S. hegemonism and materializing Cuba’s second and definitive independence.
Some time before, Almeida had been one of the heroes followed by Fidel Castro in the attack on the Moncada Barracks. It was a feat that, despite being a failure in the military sense, ignited the spark that led to the triumph of the Cuban revolution and set the tone for the revolutionary changes that have shaken the continent since that July 26, 1953.
In the middle of 1960, I was working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Ambassador Introducer (Director of Protocol). It was a period in which Cuba, exercising the independence and sovereignty obtained for the people by the victorious revolution, responded as it could to the political and economic siege that the empire intended to impose against it on the continent. Cuba’s task was to develop diplomatic ties and friendship with other nations. I was assigned to accompany the recently-inaugurated Ambassador of the People’s Republic of Poland in his courtesy visit to the thenhead of the Rebel Army, Commander Juan Almeida Bosque.
This was one of the first meetings of the diplomat on the island with authorities of the highest level of the revolutionary government. He was a man who spoke fluent Spanish because he had learned it as a revolutionary fighter in the international brigades that defended the Spanish republic.
During the drive from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the temporary headquarters of the General Staff of the Army, on Avenida del Puerto (a building then occupied by the Revolutionary Navy), the European envoy requested, and obtained from me, information about the military and revolutionary trajectory of the then-Commander Juan Almeida Bosque. I had briefly introduced him as one of those whoh had attacked the Moncada Barracks, an expeditionary of the yacht Granma, and founder and chief of the Third Eastern Front of the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra and other merits for Almeida’s actions in combat that came to mind.
When I spoke of the bravery, discipline and modesty that made him one of the most beloved heroes of the revolution, I also mentioned, because it seemed important to me, to indicate his sensitive personality, Commander Almeida’s capacity as a musical composer
After the rigorous presentations and offering Almeida a welcome to the Ambassador, he used the word to express feelings of solidarity with the Cuban revolution and gratitude for the opportunity to make contact with one of its top figures.
Using the information recently received, the Ambassador galade knowledge about the political-revolutionary history of Almeida, but, to conclude, with the evident intention of emphasizing his expressions of sympathy, he affirmed to feel “great admiration for the hymns and combat marches that you compose”.
Commander Juan Almeida Bosque, without hesitation, responded by demonstrating his recognition for the diplomat’s declaration of solidarity with the Cuban revolution, and then, with a smile that showed understanding drawn on his face, clarified that although he made war… the musical pieces he composed were all love songs.
The diplomat blushed.
Without going back over the matter, there followed an in-depth conversation about the prospects of the ties between the nation represented by the Ambassador and Cuba, which concluded half an hour later with a cordial farewell.
As soon as we got into the car for the return trip, the Polish diplomat said into my ear: “You were too sparing in your praise. He is an extraordinary man. That’s why he composes love songs.
September 13, 2019
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
The CIA and Mossad After Mass Shootings
The CIA and Mossad After Mass Shootings
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
After another bloody mass shooting, new catastrophic solutions seem destined to be imposed on an American public frightened by a litany of crimes and a terrifying history of plans to crush internal dissent in the United States, writes journalist Whitney Webb on the Global Research EcoWatch site , belonging to the Ron Paul Institute.
She has recently won the “Serena Shim 2019 for integrity without compromise in journalism” award, dedicated to honoring unconventional journalists who remain true to the truth by challenging difficult times. After the arrest and death in prison of the alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a technology company of his little known began to receive more publicity, his relationships and finances were widely exposed.
It was revealed that the Israeli company Carbyne 911, or simply Carbyne, had received substantial funds from Jeffrey Epstein, as well as from his close associate and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and prominent Trump supporter, Peter Thiel
Carbyne is a company that offers call handling capabilities for emergency response services in countries around the world, including the United States, where it has already implemented them in several counties, partnering with major American technology companies.
Carbyne promotes its product as a way to mitigate mass shootings in the United States without having to change the laws for possession of existing firearms.
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has not hidden the fact that placing members of this Unit in the highest positions of multinational technology companies is a deliberate policy aimed at guaranteeing Israel’s role as a dominant global “cyber power”, while serving to combat movements that are directed against violations of international law by Israel and reject criticism of the United Nations to the policies of the Israeli government and its military operations abroad.
As Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to intelligence – both in the United States and in Israel – began to be revealed, Carbyne’s funding was scrutinized, in particular by the company’s deep ties with Israeli intelligence centers, as well as with the intelligence of the United States.
Ehud Barak’s own role as financier and president of Carbyne has also added to that concern, for his long history of involvement in covert intelligence operations for Israel and his long-standing ties to Israeli military intelligence.
John Bolton Has Fallen
Bolton Has Fallen, but Not the Mother Who Gave Birth to Him
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Cunning, stubborn and politically dangerous… Thus the foreign policy analyst, columnist of the British news agency Reuters, Daniel R. DePetris, describes the firing of the murky multiple killer in the politics of the United States John Bolton, announced yesterday by his boss, the no less murky Donald Trump, president of the United States of America.
“John Bolton is just the opposite of what a presidential national security adviser should be. He is as stubborn as a rhinoceros, as cunning as a snake, and as dangerous as a scorpion. Bolton’s is an extreme, black and white view of the world: if you’re not an ally of the United States, you’re an adversary who needs a boot on his neck in the form of military force or economic sanctions.
“The second and third order strategic consequences are no obstacle to Bolton. Why go through the humiliating spectacle of negotiating when you can simply bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities or violently end Kim Jong-un’s “regime” by force?
“Diplomacy, after all, is for the weak, the State Department bureaucrats and the appeasers. If the boss insists on diplomacy, then advise him to demand the moon, the stars and everything else rather than offering a bargaining chip in the form of relief from sanctions.
John Bolton made his career by acting as a wrecker of arms control agreements and, indeed, of agreements of any kind. Before joining the Trump administration as national security advisor, Bolton was, for a brief time, ambassador to the United Nations and undersecretary of state for arms control. There, he attempted to remove an intelligence analyst for not agreeing with his position on Cuba’s alleged biological weapons program.
When the president asked Bolton to serve as his national security adviser last year, it generated many concerns and much confusion because Trump and Bolton could not have had more fundamental disagreements on foreign policy. Although both made fun of the United Nations, as well as international organizations in general, and had divergent views on some of the most important issues on the agenda, Bolton would prefer to attack Iran rather than have any dialogue with its leaders. This was an alternative that Trump has said on numerous occasions that he would be more than happy to consider (at the next meeting of the UN General Assembly, for example).
As for Venezuela, Trump seems to have regretted trying to overthrow Nicolás Maduro, when Bolton was attacking Caracas as part of a “troika of tyranny”. Bolton’s obsession with unilaterally denuclearizing North Korea – an approach that weighed on Trump during his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February – is far more likely to lead to the end of diplomacy than to the end of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. (If ever there was one).
Trump got tired of Bolton in the same way he got tired of other members of his closest staff: Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly were all convenient to the president at one point, only to be abruptly fired or convinced to resign.
Bolton, as thorny as a porcupine in dealing with his colleagues, had long been strained in relations with Trump. NBC News reported that the two men had a screaming fight behind closed doors the night before Bolton’s resignation.
Trump said he will announce the name of his new national security adviser next week, and the corridors in Washington are already filled with speculation.
According to DePetris, Trump needs an adviser who is willing to engage in pragmatic negotiations and is prepared for an uncomfortable but necessary negotiations. He needs someone to help him end the wars that have continued aimlessly and purposelessly. You need someone to hold members of the administration accountable when they refuse to implement the policy once it is approved by the agencies.
All this will be easier with Bolton off the team.
But Humanity has no illusions. In the Oval Office of the White House there are many other falcons almost as cruel and ruthless as this one to advise the Falcon-in-Chief. But there has undoubtedly been a respite.
September 11, 2019.
This article can be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
Washington Confirmed as Terrorist
Washington Confirmed as Terrorist
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Shortly after the Venezuelan government denounced the huge blackouts in March that were caused by cyber and electromagnetic attacks, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order paving the way for his country’s critical infrastructure to be investigated and defended against foreign electromagnetic pulse offensives.
The initiative took many by surprise, as electromagnetic pulse weapons (EMPs) look like something from the movies rather than real threats.
Since 2001, the US Congress has been evaluating the possible risks of an EMP attack against the US through a Commission made up of scientists, engineers and corporate operators intimately linked to the structure of the Defense Department and private contractors linked to the military-industrial complex.
The reports produced by the Commission study a high altitude EMP attack (the so-called Rainbow Bomb), capable of producing a blackout with power similar to a lightning discharge (50 thousand volts per meter) and the explosion of an atomic bomb about 700 kilometers above the target.
Also mentioned are small-scale EMP weapons, with the ability to damage specific areas such as the electrical system, telecommunications, banking and finance, the oil and gas industry, transportation, food and water infrastructure, and security and emergency services, as well as those of any country’s government.
The Commission’s first executive report was published in 2004 with fairly general considerations on the possible consequences of the Rainbow Bomb on the US. The in which the EMP attack is described there as a “terrorist activity” that uses a small number of nuclear weapons to produce a catastrophic impact on society.
The electronic and electrical collapse scenarios are neatly described, and related to some natural and man-made disasters that have had similar effects in recent North American history.
With the same vehemence with which the U.S. is concerned about electromagnetic attacks, which it claims is imminent, the Venezuelan government denounces the possibility of an EMP attack against the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant system in Guri.
The report emphasizes the fact that the U.S. electricity grid is deeply connected to all activities of society and the economy, as in many other parts of the world (including Venezuela). In the US, load distribution is divided into three, with the (oil) state of Texas being the backbone of a network with 300 million dependent users.
This means that a modest alteration to the electrical system can cause a functional collapse, with catastrophic consequences.
As it was denounced with respect to the attack against the Guri Hydroelectric Plant, the United States maintains that the electrical network of its country could be attacked “using information of the operations in the control systems”, that is to say, there must be internal hand that assists the terrorist operation.
Such is the capacity of a small EMP weapon that, without the use of the Rainbow Bomb, an attack on a precise target in the U.S. electrical system could take place that would leave 70% of its territory without light in the blink of an eye.
In fact, the Commission admits that a small EMP attack can wreak electrical and electronic havoc similar to those left by Hurricane Katrina (2005), which left some 4 million people without light in some 233,000 km² (989961.8029 square miles) of the US, an area equivalent to that of the UK.
The anti-chavista media have ridiculed the denunciations of cybernetic and electromagnetic attacks in Venezuela, which shows either ignorance about the new tendencies of the military industry with these technologies in the context of a new “cold war”, or that they operate as bleachers of information and scenario before some consumers of news without any critical reading of the facts.
Neither the Commission formed in 2001 nor Trump’s recent Executive Order had been interested in these weapons, either because of their own vulnerabilities or because of their future offensive prospects.
But the arms race and the technological development between powers is currently going through this arms scheme that sounds like science fiction films. And this armament industry is part of a much more current dimension than those shown by Hollywood.
July 29, 2019
This article can be reproduced citing the newspaper POR ESTO! as source.
A Humorous Exception in the US Press
A Humorous Exception in the US Press
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
For those who are not very knowledgeable about the reality of the U.S. press, it is surprising to learn that in the leading country of world capitalism, that there is a publication with a history of more than 65 years of uninterrupted publication, with an apparent freedom of content and, most exceptionally, without advertising. characteristics that are not found in any other media of that great center of capitalism.
Last week, the current owners of the humorous magazine MAD, the company DC comics, announced that the magazine was about to suspend publication. MAD, which had started as a comic book in 1952, becoming a magazine in 1955, it will cease publication and, according to informed, it will only continue to circulate in its next numbers with reprinted material to meet existing subscriptions, but not including new material.
Born in the turbulent era of McCarthyism, MAD is about to die in another squalid political era, Trump’s. MAD was possibly the largest and most influential satirical magazine in the United States, a strange statement from a large circulation publication that was read, throughout its existence, mostly by teenagers and children.
Its content was often rude, tasteless and childish, which made it even more powerful as a tributary of youth culture. The children that read MAD learned to distrust authority, whether it was political, advertising or journalistic. It was a model that successive generations took seriously. Without MAD, it is impossible to imagine the underground comics National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert.
In the history of American culture, MAD is the crucial link between the anarchic humor of the Marx Brothers and the counterculture that emerged in the 1960s. A writing in The New York Times Magazine on the 25th Anniversary of MAD in 1977, said that “month after month and edition after edition, in a relentlessly kind manner, MAD tells us that everything was crooked, that there were lies in advertising, that other comic hooks lied, that television and movies lied and that adults, in general, when faced with the unknown, lied. “
An impressive variety of prominent cultural figures witnessed the molding force of MAD. Gloria Steinem has said:
“There was a spirit of satire and irreverence in MAD that was very important, and it was the only place where that could be found in the 50s. ”Singer Patti Smith made a similar observation more succinct: “After MAD, drugs were nothing.”
Kurtzman, the genius who was the source of MAD, sometimes denied any political intentions. He admitted that he made an exception with McCarthy because he was “so evil that it was like making a satire about Hitler.”
The first years of MAD were extremely dangerous times for Gaines. His business manager was arrested for selling disgusting literature in the form of a comic that parodied Mickey Spillane’s violent police novels. (The story was titled “My Gun is the Jury” and Stuart had to serve a year in jail before the judge dismissed the case.
Besieged by the Senate, the legal system, parent groups, other publishers and distributors, Gaines had to give up the comics. Turn MAD into a magazine that constituted its lifeboat. Initially, Gaines and Kurtzman were friends, although they eventually separated when, in 1956, Kurtzman asked for half the ownership of the magazine.
When they got along, Gaines didn’t even care when Kurtzman’s ad skits bothered advertisers. In fact, after the separation from Kurtzman, Gaines decided to do MAD on his own in 1957, a policy that continued until 2001 (almost a decade after Gaines died in 1992).
MAD’s will to tweak the noses of the powerful won him many enemies. In 1961, retired brigadier general Clyde J. Watts claimed that MAD was “the most insidious communist propaganda that existed in the United States.” In 1979, Bill Wilkinson, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote to the magazine saying: “You and the Jewish-communist magazine MAD are obviously trying to wipe out the colors of our flag and promoting radicalism in the youth of this country. ”
Gaines would cite the progressive tabloid PM, which flourished briefly in the 1940s, as a precedent for MAD’s non-advertising policy. “In those days there was no such thing as stopping publishing an anti-cigarette story out of terror about the possibility of losing your cigarette advertising,” Gaines noted.
July 26, 2019.