“Buscar en el aumento del desempleo entre los jóvenes europeos o en la incomprensión de la clase política hacia estos sectores juveniles la raíz de un vandalismo inaceptable sólo ayuda a legitimar la violencia”. (La Razón)

Dicho de otro modo: encontrar causas coherentes para lo que sucede es peligroso. La imagen del antisistema sediento de sangre, surgido de no se sabe dónde, puede ser terrorífica, pero en el fondo es más tranquilizadora. Evita, después de todo, que los prosistema se pregunten si algo puede estar fallando.

Font: Diagonal

Així informa El País de la reforma monetaria que es durà a terme a Veneçuela.

Los venezolanos comienzan ahora a acostumbrarse a dividir todos los precios entre 1.000.
(…) En suma, para comprar o vender cualquier cosa en Venezuela se hace recomendable llevar una calculadora o, en su defecto, papel y lápiz, a menos que se disponga de una sobresaliente habilidad para las matemáticas.

El País – Hernández, Clodovaldo (2007/10/05). Ejercicio de matemáticas para venezolanos.

Curiosament no recordo que El País publiques que l’adopció de l’Euro per part d’Espanya l’any 2002 seria un desastre perquè els espanyols no sabrien dividir i haurien d’anar amb calculadora a tot arreu. I això que en el cas de l’euro el tipus de conversió era 1 EUR = 166,386 PTES! Deu ser que El País considera que els espanyols són més intel·ligents que els veneçolans i tenen una habilitat especial per a les matemàtiques.

NOTA: Enhcara que el periodista no entengui, o no vulgui entendre, el motiu de la reforma, és ben sabut que l’elevada inflació implica costos administratius. A Veneçuela els preus s’han multiplicat per 1.000 en els últims 25 anys i és evident que haver de fer servir milers i milions de bolivars en el dia a dia no és gens pràctic. Un canvi de moneda soluciona (almenys a curt i mitjà termini) aquest problema.

Sobren les paraules… Un dia després d’anunciar les dades rekatives a la lluita contra el frau fiscal durant l’any 2006, Zapatero anuncia que accepta retirar la classificació de paradís fiscal a Panamà per tal que les empreses constructores espanyoles puguin participar en les obres d’ampliació del canal…

El País (18/07/2007): La Agencia Tributaria recaudó en 2006 un 15% más en su lucha contra el fraude fiscal

El País (19/07/2007): Las empresas españolas podrán trabajar en el canal de Panamá

Com sempre MEL posant el dit a la llaga.

Font: El Chiste de Mel – Refugiados climáticos. El Diario de Cádiz, miercoles 27 de junio de 2007.

En dos dies de diferència llegeixo això:

En 1976 se informó de que los autobuses ya no paraban a recoger a los pasajeros. La noticia salió a la luz cuando uno de estos pasajeros protestó porque los autobuses que hacían la ruta pasaban de largo con frecuencia ante colas de hasta 30 pasajeros. El concejal Arthur Cholerton entró en la historia del transporte al declarar que si los autobuses se paraban a recoger a los pasajeros retrasaban los horarios establecidos”

Stephen Pile – El libro de los fracasos heroicos

Citat a un article de Sergi Pàmies, Parada doble.

I un parell de dies més tard…

Tras varios días de incidencias y retrasos en la red del metro, la consejera de Transportes e Infraestructuras, Elvira Rodríguez, si bien pidió perdón por lo ocurrido, luego lo justificó en “los problemas por la afluencia de personas y su mala colocación” en los andenes y trenes.
(…)
“la gente no se ordena homogéneamente en los trenes”. Esto provoca (…) que tarden mucho más en subir a los coches. (…) cuando el conductor intenta cerrar las puertas tiene que insistir varias veces porque, debido a la masificación de los vagones y la presión de los pasajeros, cualquier elemento que sobresalga impide el cierre automático.
La consecuencia es que se acumulan los retrasos. “Es como una bola de nieve”.

Declaracions de Elvira Rodríguez, consejera de Transportes e Infraaestructuras de la Comunidad de Madrid arran de les repetides incidències a la xarxa ade metro.

Font: El Gobierno regional culpa a los viajeros de los retrasos que sufre el metro

EL PAIS, 29/10/2003
Carta al director, Juan M. Aguayo

Vaya, vaya… Acabo de leer en un periódico nacional que se le ha denegado la entrada en España a una “ciudadana extracomunitaria”, que llevaba en el momento de su llegada a España 360 euros, por no tener una reserva en ningún hotel y por llevar menos de 750 euros para pasar 25 días en la ciudad, ya que parece ser que hay una orden ministerial que “exige la acreditación de los medios de vida suficientes para el tiempo que se pretenda permanecer en España, y lo establece en 30 euros diarios multiplicado por el número de días que pretenda permanecer”.

Por otro lado, y en el mismo diario, leo que el sueldo mínimo interprofesional en España es de 460,20 euros al mes, o sea, 15,30 euros diarios (la mitad de los 30 euros diarios que la orden ministerial establece como “medios de vida suficientes”).

Quizás el Gobierno debería plantearse poner un sueldo mínimo interprofesional de 900 euros al mes (30×30), ya que, según ellos y sus órdenes ministeriales, es lo mínimo exigido para tener “medios de vida suficientes”.

Aquests dies El País publica, en varies entregues, un reportatge sobre la desigualtat a Espanya a partir de les dades que ofereix l’Enquesta de Condicions de Vida (ECV) que recentment ha publicat per a l’any 2005 l’INE.

Pobreza es no poder participar en una sociedad, no poder ir nunca al cine o comprar una vivienda.
(…)
Y es importante resaltar que la pobreza no se está reduciendo desde mediados de los años noventa, a pesar de que la economía y el empleo están creciendo. Mientras en otros indicadores estamos convergiendo con Europa, en éste nos hemos quedado estancados.

Luis Ayala, profesor de Economía Aplicada de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

El 2,5% de les llars no poden permetre’s menjar carn, pollastre o peix cada dos dies. El 9% no poden mantenir la llar a una temperatura adequada i el 40% no poden pagar unes vacances fora de casa (ni una setmana l’any). Aquests són alguns exemples de pobresa relativa que afecta especialment als infants i als més grans ja que un de cada cuatre infants i un 47% de les llars de majors de 65 anys es troben en situació de pobresa.

Més informació

El País: Necesidades básicas y poco más
El País: La pesadilla de los imprevistos
El País: La pobreza relativa de los españoles

Aquesta setmana, el setmanari portaveu del pensament econòmic liberal, el The Economist, publica una article en el qual critica durament l’oposició que està fent el Partit Popular, oposant-se a tot allò que fa el govern de Rodríguez Zapatero per sistema i enrocant-se en les posicions més radicals.

Article original: Popular peevishness

Via newsvine, em trobo amb un dels millors article sobre la situació a Venezuela que he llegit en molt de temps. Paradoxalment està escrit per un periodista nord-americà que després fer una crida en un article a comprar benzina a Citgo (filial de PDVSA als EEUU), no parava de rebre missatges de sectors de dretes (“rightwingers”) dient que perquè no se n’anava a Venezuela si tant li agradava… I això és el que va fer i en aquest article explica les impresions de la seva visita a Venezuela.

Article original: Go to Venezuela, You Idiot! by Jeff Cohen
WWW: www.jeffcohen.org
Copia local:

Go to Venezuela, You Idiot!

July, 2006 by Jeff Cohen

I don’t usually take the advice of rightwingers. But I did this time. After receiving inflamed email messages from dozens of angry rightists that I should get the hell out of the USA and go to Venezuela, I accepted their challenge and flew to Caracas.

“Would you like me to start a fund to ship your ass down there, Comrade Cohen?”

What had provoked the often-abusive emailers was my 2005 Internet column urging U.S. residents to buy their gasoline at Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company. I called for a Citgo BUY-cott, to protest Bush’s interventionist foreign policy while supporting innovative anti-poverty programs in Venezuela. (Last winter, Citgo started a program that provided discounted home-heating oil to low-income families in the U.S.)

“Hey moron, if you hate America so much and love Venezuela, why don’t you go there?”

I’m glad I listened to the conservative chorus. In late June, I headed to Venezuela with a fact-finding delegation sponsored by the respected U.S. human rights group, Witness for Peace. The grueling trip covered much ground and all sides of Venezuela’s social/political landscape. It is a complex country, headed by sometimes volatile President Hugo Chavez, a leftist and harsh Bush critic who was first elected in 1998.

As soon as I returned home, I headed to the nearest Citgo to fill up my tank — more committed than ever to send a few dollars toward Venezuela’s poor.

“You, sir, are as un-American as they come.”

For decades, Venezuela’s vast oil wealth had been squandered and hoarded by its light-skinned elite, while most Venezuelans — largely of indigenous, African and mixed descent — lived in dire poverty. Today, oil revenue from Citgo and elsewhere is funneled into social programs (called “missions”) to benefit the country’s poor majority. They’re reminiscent of FDR’s New Deal programs. . .born of our economic bust. But Venezuela’s missions are fueled by a boom — a boom in oil prices that is likely to persist for years.

“Because of Chavez, communism is thriving in South America.”

From what I could see, capitalism is thriving. Foreign oil interests continue to profit handsomely from Venezuelan petrol, but they now pay a fairer share of taxes and royalties. So do the 80 McDonald’s restaurants in Venezuela, which were briefly shut down last year over alleged tax cheating.

Multinational companies and the old elite are doing fine in today’s Venezuela. So well that some Venezuelan leftists denounce Chavez — despite his talk of building “21st century socialism” — as a tool of corporate imperialism.

Like other oil-exporting countries, Venezuela in the past allowed its domestic productive economy to atrophy. Besides oil, it produced little — with food largely imported. Today, people in poor areas are organizing themselves into productive and agricultural co-ops, supported by low-interest government loans. We visited a federal bank that underwrites women-run businesses nationwide.

My guess is that if Chavez succeeds in Venezuela — a big “if” in a country of endemic corruption, poverty and crime, in the backyard of the U.S. superpower — its economic system will end up looking more like Sweden than Cuba.

What’s not debatable is that the poor have found hope in the Chavez administration — which is why he’s perhaps the most popular president in our hemisphere. So popular that Chavez critics in the U.S. government and Venezuelan opposition concede that they won’t be able to defeat him in December when he seeks reelection.

“The trouble with all you liberals is that you’re anti-American and hate democracy.”

Participation in democracy is booming in Venezuela under Chavez. That’s partly due to polarization, but also because so many poor people feel empowered enough for the first time to get active in politics. A massive 2005 Latinobarometro poll conducted in 18 Latin American countries showed that Venezuelans are among the top in preference for democracy over all other forms of government, in satisfaction with how their democracy is functioning, and in belief that their country is “totally democratic.”

“The oil money never gets to the poor. . . . You must have been paid by Chavez to write what you wrote.”

Across Venezuela, it’s hard to miss the new investment in public education. Schools are being upgraded in urban and rural areas and are required to offer free breakfasts and lunches, arts, music and after-school activities. Unlike the U.S., these are well-funded mandates. Illiteracy has been virtually wiped out, according to UNESCO, thanks to adult education that has penetrated the poorest neighborhoods.

In poor communities, federally-subsidized stores called “mercals” sell food at half the market price. In the capital of Caracas, thousands of government-funded soup kitchens offer free lunches every weekday to the indigent; our delegation was headquartered in a church that served 150 free lunches per day. Across the country, new housing is being built to replace shantytown “ranchos” that so many Venezuelans live in.

Thousands of free (“Barrio Adentro”) medical clinics have been built inside neighborhoods that never had doctors before — so many clinics that you can spot them from the highway. These are staffed largely by doctors from Cuba; in return, Cuba receives Venezuelan oil. When we asked a community leader how local residents reacted to the Cuban doctors, he explained that most Venezuelan doctors won’t serve in poor barrios: “People in our community don’t care whether the doctors are French, German, Canadian, Mexican or Cuban — as long as they’re here to help.”

“Go to Venezuela and kiss up to the anti-American dictator.”

If Venezuela is a dictatorship, it must be the first in world history in which the opposition controls most of the media. And the first in which demonstrations occur regularly outside the presidential palace (organized by various groups, especially low-income activists complaining about broken promises and government inefficiency).

Dissent is alive and well in Venezuela. Any casual viewer can see anti-Chavez criticism all over TV, the country’s dominant medium and largely in the hands of conservative business interests. The opposition used its power on TV to support a short-lived military coup in 2002 (strike 1), an employers’ oil lockout in 2002-3 (strike 2) and a failed recall election in 2004 (strike 3). Chavez won nearly 60% in the recall vote — which was monitored closely by international observers.

Efforts to bring down Chavez — through democratic and undemocratic means — have been supported by the Bush administration. Which makes it ironic that the American Family Association, a U.S. religious ultra-right group, has organized a Citgo boycott on the basis of its Internet hoax: “Venezuela Dictator Vows to Bring Down U.S. Government.” The headline tends to reverse reality; Chavez has made no such vow. But AFA true believers have targeted my email inbox for months with the hoax.

“Try Jesus. If you don’t like Him, the devil will always take you back.. . . .What terrorist group are you affiliated with?”

If you think the U.S. is politically polarized, you haven’t been to Venezuela. Clinton’s impeachment by the religious right over sex is child’s play compared to what’s gone on in Venezuela, where Chavez has survived near-death experiences at the hands of a conservative opposition that has never accepted his presidency.

Columnist Paul Krugman talks of a “New Class War” in our country. In Venezuela, it’s old-fashioned class war. Political and media confrontation between Chavez and the opposition is vicious, personal and bare-knuckled. While independent human rights monitors in Venezuela complain about isolated cases of government intimidation of opposition figures and journalists, they scoff at claims that democracy is in jeopardy or that dictatorship is coming.

Today, Chavez is popular (his approval ratings dwarf Bush’s), rambunctious in whipping up his base against both domestic opponents and Bush, and prone to hyperbole in his hours of extemporaneous speaking each day. He has waged a war of words against U.S. Empire and Bush, whom he calls “Mr. Danger.” But that’s polite in light of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld having compared Chavez to Adolph Hitler. Or Rev. Pat Robertson having called for Chavez to be assassinated.

“You can write your articles about how great he [Chavez] is, but I know, as well as other true Americans, that he is not a good man and he does need to be taken out of power as soon as possible.”

To me, the issue is less about Chavez than about the social initiatives his government has unleashed. When I first wrote about Venezuela 14 months ago, I urged a simple economic action: filling up at Citgo so that our money at the pump helps Venezuela’s poor instead of Middle East oiligarchs. That remains a good idea.

Nowadays, I also urge political action: that we contact Congress to demand that the U.S. stay out of Venezuela’s political contest. That’s up to Venezuelans to decide. Not us. The U.S. should stop its efforts to back the conservative opposition and cease all (“National Endowment for Democracy”) funding of Venezuelan groups.

And finally, I want to join my rightwing critics in one recommendation: Go to Venezuela. If you can arrange it, examine the social transformations for yourself. Study Spanish there. See the decades of poverty, neglect and corruption that led to the election of Hugo Chavez — and whether his government is improving things.

There’s an added bonus for anyone who can get down there: gasoline at 18 cents per gallon. Expect to hear Venezuelans complaining that the price is too high.

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Jeff Cohen is a writer, lecturer and media critic who founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986. His latest book, “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media,” will be released in September, 2006, and can be pre-ordered at www.jeffcohen.org

This is a copyrighted article. © all rights reserved. Republished according to fair-use and non-comercial research and education purpouses

Aquest article està sotmès a drets d’autor. © tots els drets reservats. Reproduït d’acord amb finalitats no-comercials i fent-ne un ús just amb finalitats educatives i de recerca tal com s’especifica en la font original.

Per enèssim cop, El País deixa anar alguns judicis de valor completament gratuits sobre els líders polítics de l’”esquerra” llatinoamericana. Avui, per partida doble…

(…)
Hoy quien manda es Statoil, la empresa pública noruega de hidrocarburos. A Severre Kojedal, su relaciones públicas, le chispean los ojos cuando habla de los proyectos en la zona. Statoil -cuyo nombre resume el lema de Evo Morales, petróleo estatal- recibió permiso del Parlamento para perforar el mar de Barents en 2002.
(…)
Reportaje “El cambio climático abre el Ártico” pot RAFAEL MÉNDEZ en el suplemento DOMINGO de El País del 11-06-2006

Un comentari completament inapropiat i fora de lloc ja que l’article no té cap mena de relació amb Bolivia.

(…)
García, con un partido -Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (Apra)- minoritario en el Congreso y un 47% del electorado que apoyó
en las urnas el programa del ex militar golpista Ollanta Humala -partidario de nacionalizar los recursos naturales, no permitir la llegada del petróleo o gas peruano a Chile y estrechar lazos con Venezuela-, es consciente de que tampoco se puede permitir ampararse bajo la bandera del neoliberalismo y ha optado renegociar al menos parcialmente su alianza con Washington.
(…)
“Perú vota por abrir sus mercados” por JORGE MARIRRODRIGA el en suplemento NEGOCIOS – Economía de El País del 11-06-2006

Es presenta al cadidat derrotat Ollanta Humala com a militar ex-colpista i s’acompanya amb una interprestació maniquea i tergiversada de les seves propostes electorals per tal de desprestigiar-les.

Algun dia explicarà El País el perquè de la seva hostitlitat cap a alguns líders polítics llatinoamericans?