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“Poverty is the worst
form of violence.”
~Mahatma Gandhi
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Showing posts with label wrong politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wrong politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Wrong Politcs
Monday, May 16, 2011
Echoes (March for Peace)
Friday, May 13, 2011
Marcha por la Paz / March for Peace
Photos of poet Javier Sicilia on the march by Alex.
Mexicans March for Peace.
Over a hundred thousand Mexicans came last Sunday to support the call made by the Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, to protest against organised crime in the country and the murder of innocent victims caught up in the violence on drugs.
Javier Sicilia has become one of the most outspoken opponents of Mexico's drug war and widespread drug-related violence since his son's slaying in March. His 24-year-old son was found dead on March 28, crammed into a car with six other bodies in Cuernavaca. Masking tape was wrapped around their heads, faces, wrists and ankles. Sicilia has led several demonstrations and vocally criticized officials' handling of the case.
The March for Peace, which started up last Thursday May 5, in Cuernavaca to Mexico City, the march lasted 4 days where its path were added both organizations and individuals who want accompany the poet Javier Sicilia, walking in silence, some routes people came out to applaud the distressed father.
In the words of Estamos hasta la madre! Thousands came to repudiate the war that President Felipe Calderon launched with organized crime, war with drug cartels and leaving a balance of more than 45 000 dead across the country, where most are innocent Mexicans have died in the army fighting a sustained drug cartels, although echo Felipe Calderon called on national television to work together with citizens, millions of people do not agree on how they are performing strategies fight criminals because they shed much innocent blood.
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Mexicanos Marchan por la Paz.
“Si hemos llegado en silencio es porque nuestro dolor es tan grande y profundo y el horror del que proviene tan inmenso, que ya no tienen palabras con qué decirse. No queremos más muertos, más violencia que asfixie vidas inocentes, como la de mi hijo Juan Francisco o miles de hombres, mujeres, niños y ancianos asesinados con un desprecio y una vileza que pertenecen a mundos que no son ni serán nunca los nuestros.
“Estamos aquí para decirles que este dolor del alma no lo convertiremos en odio ni en más violencia, sino en una palanca que nos ayude a restaurar el amor, la paz, la justcia, la dignidad de la balbuciente democracia que estamos perdiendo”. “¿Cuándo y en dónde perdimos la dignidad?” Si no se reconstruye el tejido social roto, “solamente podremos heredar a nuestros muchachos una casa llena de desamparo, de brutalidad y engaño donde reinan los señores de la muerte, de la ambición del poder, de la complacencia y la complicidad con el crimen”.
Sicilia reprochó a gobernantes y políticos sus omisiones e indolencias frente a la situación de violencia, que “nos ha conducido a esta espantosa desolación”. Los políticos tienen que aprender a escuchar, porque sus actitudes, como la de los gobiernos, las jerarquías económicas, los llamados poderes fácticos y “sus siniestros monopolios”, han favorecido una realidad en la que los criminales, en su demencia, “buscan imponernos aliados con las omisiones de los que detentan alguna forma de poder”.
Llamó a los partidos a una limpieza real de sus filas, porque en todos ellos “hay vínculos con el crimen organizado”, y a asumir un compromiso real de ética política, pues en caso contrario en 2012 “nos tendremos que preguntar por cuál cártel o por qué poder fáctico tendremos que votar”.
Sicilia sostuvo que el narcotráfico se debe enfrentar como un problema de salud pública y sociología urbana, y no como un asunto criminal que se confronta con violencia. Condenó la postura estadunidense de beneficiarse con el lavado de dinero y la venta de armas, mientras se mantiene el mercado de consumo de droga.
El país está ante una encrucijada compleja en la que, si los políticos no responden, “no sólo las instituciones quedarán vacías de contenido y dignidad, sino que las elecciones de 2012 serán las de la ignominia, que hará más profundas las fosas en donde, como en Tamaulipas, están enterrando la vida del país”.
Javier Sicilia – Mayo 8 2011.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Absorbed
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| I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. ~Confucius |
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Manifestation
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| Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.
Herbert Marcuse (1964) One-dimensional man. |
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The informal way of life in Mexico
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| Transport (at Zocalo) |
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| Mexico upside down |
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The informal sector is economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government, and is not included in that government's Gross National Product (GNP), as opposed to a formal economy. Examples are barter and gift economy. Although the informal economy is often associated with developing countries, where up to 60% of the labour force (with as much 40% of GDP) works, all economic systems contain an informal economy in some proportion. The term informal sector was used in many earlier studies, and has been mostly replaced in more recent studies which use the newer term. The English idioms under the table and off the books typically refer to this type of economy. The term black market refers to a specific subset of the informal economy in which contraband is traded; where contraband may be strictly or informally defined. Given the complexity of the phenomenon, the simplest definition of informal economic activity might be: any exchange of goods or services involving economic value in which the act escapes regulation of similar satchel acts. In developing countries, the largest part of informal work, around 70%, is self-employed, in developed countries, wage employment predominates. The majority of informal economy workers are women. Policies and developments affecting the informal economy have thus a distinctly gendered effect. Make your blog carbon neutral! For free! Being part of the initiative “My blog is carbon neutral” is an active contribution to help the environment! Make it happen - make it green! “My blog is Carbon Neutral” is an initiative, originally started in Germany by the “Make it green” programme, that has the goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We plant a tree for your blog and thereby neutralise your blog’s carbon footprint for the next 50 years! Everyone can make a small contribution to the environment. Every tree counts! |
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Invasion
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| Please, don't invade my space, I'm celebrating my independence, see, not collar! |
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Property
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| Parcela |
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Flor de Mayo / Mother's Day
From previous posts
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| Cosmic Mother |
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| Friday Sunbath |
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| Neoliberalism |
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| Rebozo |
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| Hopeless |
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| Atrium |
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| Flor de Agosto |
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| Misty |
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| Flor de Mayo / May Flower |
An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.
Spanish Proverb.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Indignation by Magu
Immigration Advocates Rise Up in Anger Over Arizona Law
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, your column in The New York Daily News today is about the immigration bill in Arizona.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, well obviously there has been a furor throughout the country over this bill and one of the things occurring now is, most people were not aware that May Day was a scheduled day for immigration rights protests around the country and a lot of immigration advocates are now saying in the last week they had a huge surge of interest by people in their communities to turn out at these May Day rallies. So the Arizona, the new “show your papers or you go to jail” bill has already spurred enormous outrage in the Latino community, the immigrant community, the civil-rights community. Obviously Attorney General Holder now is saying he is considering intervening. Even Lindsay Graham, the Republican senator said yesterday he believes the law is unconstitutional. Some lawmakers are now actually calling – because you know, Major League Baseball is scheduled to have its All-Star Game in Phoenix next year. They’re already calling on Major League Baseball, which depends so much on Latino ballplayers and continues to recruit more, to pull the game, to pull the All-Star game out of Phoenix as a demonstration of what Arizona could be facing if it continues to persist in this legislation. (Fragment)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Dialogue With A Deaf Govern
(Under construction)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Near The City
Seventy Thousand Assyrians 1934. William Saroyan.
(Under construction)
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Bird Vendor
Mahatma Gandhi
"La pobreza es la peor forma de violencia"
Aristotle
"La Madre de la revolucion y el crimen es la pobreza"
Aristoteles
(Under construction)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Gente / People (Series) 2
Between 2006 and 2008 the number of poor people increase in 5.9 millions, reaching 50.6 millions, 47.4 % of Mexico population. Ah, but politics are wealthy persons!
Entre 2006 y 2008, los dos primeros años de la actual administración federal, el número de pobres en México aumentó en 5.9 millones de personas, hasta alcanzar 50.6 millones, 47.4 por ciento de la población total del país, según publicó el 18 de julio pasado el Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social (Coneval), organismo oficial encargado de la medición de la pobreza en el país.
(Under construction)
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Winter Scenes
The Dreams of the Bird Seller
Zocalo / Main Square
Waste collector at Historic Center
Main Square
music+image
New York City and Washington series continue in Sketches of Cities.
Gracias por su visita. / Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments and I appreciate them all. Stay tune.
Zocalo / Main Square
Waste collector at Historic Center
Main Square
Friday, December 11, 2009
Democracia en Mexico / Democracy in Mexico
200 años de Independencia
100 años de la Revolucion Mexicana
Resultado: Politicos enriquecidos, pueblo empobrecido.
500 years of Catholicism
200 years of Independence from Spain
100 years of Mexican Revolution
Results: Wealthy politics.
Info:
May 22, 2006 Issue Copyright © 2009 The American Conservative.
While the country’s poor flee, Mexico’s elite take care of themselves.
By George W. Grayson
Mexico City—A watchword of Mexican politics is “Show me a politician who is poor and I will show you a poor politician.” In accord with this adage, many Mexican officials enjoy generous salaries and lavish fringe benefits. Even as they live princely lifestyles, they and their fellow elites pay little in taxes and refuse to spend sufficient money on education and health care to create opportunities in Mexico—a country that abounds in oil, natural gas, gold, beaches, fish, water, historic treasures, museums, industrial centers, and hard-working people. Rather than mobilizing these bountiful resources to uplift the poor, Mexico’s privileged class noisily demands that Uncle Sam open his border wider for the nation’s “have nots.”
Mexico’s establishment also keeps quiet about the salaries and benefits that its members receive. Private-sector executives are especially secretive. Thanks to Forbes magazine, however, we know that Mexico leads Latin America with ten billionaires, including telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú, the world’s third richest person with $30 billion. And an increasing amount of data is available on the earnings of public officials. The numbers show that Mexico’s governing class is enriching itself at the country’s expense, with exorbitant salaries and bountiful perks. Remember, these are “official” figures. Most politicians have ingenious ways of fattening their bank accounts.
The salaries of top Mexican government officials match or exceed those of comparable figures in Europe and much of the rest of the world. President Vicente Fox ($236,693), for example, makes more than the leaders of the U.K. ($211,434), France ($95,658), Canada ($75,582), and most other industrialized countries (POTUS earns $400,000).
The 500 members of Mexico’s notoriously irresponsible Chamber of Deputies, which is in session only a few months a year, each made $148,000 last year in salary and bonuses—roughly on a par with Italian and Canadian legislators and substantially more than their counterparts in Germany ($105,000), France ($78,000), and Spain ($32,311), where living costs are markedly higher. Other legislators in Latin America receive substantially less; for example, those in Bolivia earn $28,000 for a four-month session. Legislators in the Dominican Republic take home $68,500 for six months of service.
Even better work, if you can get it, is to be found in the judicial branch of the Mexican federal government. In 2005, the 11 justices on the National Supreme Court of Justice—equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court—received $311,759, compared to $194,200 for their American counterparts. (The U.S. Chief Justice earns $202,900.)
State-level Mexican officials are amply rewarded as well. Salaries and bonuses place the average compensation of Mexican governors at $125,759, which exceeds by almost $10,000 the mean paychecks of U.S. state executives ($115,778). Narciso Agúndez Montaño runs Baja California Sur. Although his state has only 424,041 residents, he earns $277,777. This is $100,000 more than the salary of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who governs 36,132,147 Californians.
And so on…
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Justice is Dead
Friday, October 30, 2009
Theatre of The Absurd / Teatro del Absurdo
By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer 10.29.09
Los Tigres del Norte sing of censorship, bail on Mexican award.
Los Tigres del Norte, a popular Mexican band, canceled an appearance on the Luna Awards TV show in Mexico Wednesday. The Mexican government denied any censorship of the band.
MEXICO CITY - Politicians say that narcocorridos, the songs which extol the exploits of drug traffickers, must go. But these ballads appeal to a significant audience.
Caught in the middle are the Mexican musicians themselves, who say their art merely chronicles of the political and business interests that fuel the drug trade and wreak havoc on the streets.
In the most recent standoff, the popular “norteño” band Los Tigres del Norte canceled an appearance at an awards show in Mexico for alleged “censorship.” Universal Music, the Tigres’ record label, said that the government-owned National Auditorium in Mexico City asked them not to play their narcocorrido hit “La Granja” during Las Lunas Awards ceremony Wednesday night. In protest, Los Tigres bailed out.
La Granja, which translate as “The Farm,” seems to take aim at the military-led war against drug trafficking, which has unleashed violence between rival drug traffickers (see our briefing on the key cartels and the Mexican government campaign against them) and taken a livelihood away from many would-be marijuana growers and dealers.
The lyrics, translated by the Los Angeles Times, go like this:
Today we have, every day
Much insecurity
Because they let the dog loose
And it all came tumbling down . . . .
El Economista
Vicente Gutiérrez Created 28/10/2009.
"La Granja" dice la verdad: Tigres del Norte
Su tema ha sido censurado.
Con una fábula, Los Tigres del Norte critican a los políticos, los banqueros, al expresidente Vicente Fox, la inseguridad y la pobreza en México.
“Si alguien la prohíbe es porque dice la verdad y llama la atención. Nuestro trabajo es denunciar todo lo que vemos a través de nuestra música”, dijo Jorge Hernández, líder del grupo.
En el tema (y el vídeo animado) aparecen banqueros millonarios y Vicente Fox representados como marranos, un zorro y el pueblo.
“México tiene muchos problemas, uno de ellos es la crisis económica y otro la violencia. Pero lo peor es que en el país los políticos no se ponen de acuerdo en nada. Un día se aprueban los impuestos y al otro no... hay mucha confusión y eso daña al pueblo, que lo soporta todo”, explicó Hernán Hernández.
Los Tigres del Norte han denunciado problemas en sus canciones, pero... ¿ha servido de algo?
“Sí, claro. Nos lo dice la gente y lo vemos cuando usan la música en manifestaciones o cuando las censuran”, comentó Jorge Hernández.
“Fe, esperanza y alegría es lo que hemos llevado al pueblo con nuestra música y mientras siga habiendo problemas e injusticias... Los Tigres del Norte seguiremos cantando”, dijo Jorge Hernández.
El Universal
Ciudad de México Miércoles 28 de octubre de 2009
Jorge Hernández, cantante y líder de Los Tigres del Norte, reconoció que el hecho de censurar un tema no ayuda a mejorar la situación del país: "Si ese fuera el remedio para solucionar todo lo que tratamos en nuestras canciones, que las cancelen todas".
Comentó que la decisión, tomada tras una reunión con representantes de su casa discográfica, de no presentarse en la ceremonia de entrega de las Lunas del Auditorio Nacional, se debe a una recomendación emitida por parte de la Secretaría de Gobernación.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Local News / New Taxes: Internet ...
Enrique Galván Ochoa. La Jornada 21/10/2009.
En agradecimiento a sus votantes de todo el pais, el PRI y su aliado el PAN, les regala mas impuestos, IVA, impuesto sobre sus quincenas, internet y cable, etc. Asi que cada quince dias al recibir tu sueldo, al pagar en el super, al pagar gasolina y practicamente todo, acuerdate y agradece, al fin de cuentas seguiras votando por los mismos una y otra vez. Todo esto, ya lo sabemos, es resultado de la apatia, de tanto futbol y television. Asi que bravo, adelante y no cambies de canal, total unos pesos menos para tu familia. En algo somos buenos los mexicanos, somos los perfectos esclavos!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Shame
May 22, 2006 Issue Copyright © 2009 The American Conservative.
While the country’s poor flee, Mexico’s elite take care of themselves.
By George W. Grayson
Mexico City—A watchword of Mexican politics is “Show me a politician who is poor and I will show you a poor politician.” In accord with this adage, many Mexican officials enjoy generous salaries and lavish fringe benefits. Even as they live princely lifestyles, they and their fellow elites pay little in taxes and refuse to spend sufficient money on education and health care to create opportunities in Mexico—a country that abounds in oil, natural gas, gold, beaches, fish, water, historic treasures, museums, industrial centers, and hard-working people. Rather than mobilizing these bountiful resources to uplift the poor, Mexico’s privileged class noisily demands that Uncle Sam open his border wider for the nation’s “have nots.”
Mexico’s establishment also keeps quiet about the salaries and benefits that its members receive. Private-sector executives are especially secretive. Thanks to Forbes magazine, however, we know that Mexico leads Latin America with ten billionaires, including telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú, the world’s third richest person with $30 billion. And an increasing amount of data is available on the earnings of public officials. The numbers show that Mexico’s governing class is enriching itself at the country’s expense, with exorbitant salaries and bountiful perks. Remember, these are “official” figures. Most politicians have ingenious ways of fattening their bank accounts.
The salaries of top Mexican government officials match or exceed those of comparable figures in Europe and much of the rest of the world. President Vicente Fox ($236,693), for example, makes more than the leaders of the U.K. ($211,434), France ($95,658), Canada ($75,582), and most other industrialized countries (POTUS earns $400,000).
The 500 members of Mexico’s notoriously irresponsible Chamber of Deputies, which is in session only a few months a year, each made $148,000 last year in salary and bonuses—roughly on a par with Italian and Canadian legislators and substantially more than their counterparts in Germany ($105,000), France ($78,000), and Spain ($32,311), where living costs are markedly higher. Other legislators in Latin America receive substantially less; for example, those in Bolivia earn $28,000 for a four-month session. Legislators in the Dominican Republic take home $68,500 for six months of service.
Even better work, if you can get it, is to be found in the judicial branch of the Mexican federal government. In 2005, the 11 justices on the National Supreme Court of Justice—equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court—received $311,759, compared to $194,200 for their American counterparts. (The U.S. Chief Justice earns $202,900.)
State-level Mexican officials are amply rewarded as well. Salaries and bonuses place the average compensation of Mexican governors at $125,759, which exceeds by almost $10,000 the mean paychecks of U.S. state executives ($115,778). Narciso Agúndez Montaño runs Baja California Sur. Although his state has only 424,041 residents, he earns $277,777. This is $100,000 more than the salary of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who governs 36,132,147 Californians.
And so on…
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