Viva la independencia
Marco Rascón


Sorprendente y eficaz ha sido la táctica de la partidocracia para borrar todo aquello que la haga peligrar.

Escondidos en la supuesta defensa de los ingresos populares, ante el aumento a las gasolinas y la aplicación de los nuevos impuestos que ellos mismos aprobaron, la partidocracia en la Comisión Permanente del Congreso agarró como paquete completo el tema de la reforma política y la económica como coartada mediática para borrar toda posibilidad de reformas en favor de la independencia de los derechos ciudadanos.

Dicho anteriormente en este espacio, la propuesta de reforma política de Felipe Calderón fue lanzada desde la lógica de la debilidad y ya a estas alturas se le ve abandonada entre las pugnas electorales y la lucha doméstica de la partidocracia.

Si de impuestos se trata, es fácil decir que se defienden los ingresos de la mayoría, pero se es incapaz de indicar, aunque hay algunos que lo señalan, que el fondo no es un punto del IVA o la tasa del ISR, sino los que no pagan impuestos, como parte de los privilegios de pertenencia a la oligarquía mexicana. Para ellos, es más fácil la cortina de humo de un conflicto entre el Poder Legislativo y el Ejecutivo que establecer los verdaderos vínculos entre la política y la economía.

La entrada en la nueva década no podía ser distinta a la descomposición y los altos niveles demagógicos que hemos vivido en los últimos años. Nada en el país está resuelto y las efemérides por sí solas no podrán salvarnos, salvo el marco de dependencia, crisis, deterioro, decadencia, vacíos, corrupción y antidemocracia que existen en México a 200 años de la Independencia y 100 de la Revolución.

Es impresionante cómo, desde los liderazgos actuales y las entrañas de los partidos, se vincula y desvincula lo político de lo económico, en un momento en que somos un país con leyes laxas y confusas, bajo un régimen de gran discrecionalidad en la aplicación de ellas.

Tanto en lo político como en lo económico esta realidad tiene un gran impacto, y hace que las disputas por el poder económico y el reacomodo de los monopolios influya en el debilitamiento de los derechos de los ciudadanos para elegir y ser elegidos.

Nos dejan pasmados las declaraciones contra el derecho a las candidaturas independientes, cuyo origen lo hizo la misma cerrazón del sistema de partidos y lo presenta como suyo el Poder Ejecutivo. Ante el embate abierto contra una demanda que abriría la lucha democrática y política, respaldada por un amplio cuestionamiento a la práctica de los políticos, es pasmosa también la debilidad de la sociedad para enfrentar el cinismo de los grupos y facciones, que han hecho de la política un patrimonio privado.

Hoy, desde los intereses fraccionales, hasta estar "en contra" es negocio. Se reacciona contra todo acuerdo para abaratar el mercado en otras mercancías que reparte el poder, como las exenciones fiscales, las concesiones, los programas sociales convertidos en base del clientelismo político. Los poderes Legislativo, Ejecutivo y Judicial, los partidos y los grupos económicos unen en sagrada comunión lo político con lo económico. Ahí se van tejiendo no sólo las leyes escritas, sino también las reglas para la discrecionalidad en el cumplimiento.

Es por ello que ante la idea de una necesaria reforma política, llevada al rango de una reforma de Estado, el principal obstáculo son los protagonistas de la mismas reformas, pues en el fondo ninguna de estas fuerzas está dispuesta a perder privilegios frente a una ciudadanía cada vez más crítica, pero al mismo tiempo profundamente debilitada y desorganizada.

Frente a lo que puede ser un renovado grito por la independencia política, los derechos ciudadanos y las libertades democráticas, la partidocracia ya detectó dónde está el peligro y ante ello está reaccionando borrando de la agenda el tema de la reforma política, vinculado a la reforma económica, que demanda apertura y competencia.

En esta necesidad de luchar por la independencia y la libertad ciudadana, ante el incumplimiento de los partidos para crear representaciones legítimas, las redes sociales en expansión por la vía del avance tecnológico, principalmente la Internet, han sabido crear una nueva visión independiente, pero su talón de Aquiles ha sido su incapacidad para organizar fuerzas políticas que compitan con el actual sistema de partidos.

Esto se deriva en parte de la confusión que existe entre el cuestionamiento a la actuación de los políticos y la necesidad de hacer política, pues para ello se requiere de organización no sólo virtual en la web global, sino en la construcción de fuerzas locales y nacionales.

Hasta hoy, los únicos que han hablado a la hora de las reformas son las estructuras y los intereses que se oponen a ellas. Lo hacen en nombre del pueblo agraviado, pero al mismo tiempo buscan enmudecerlo y aplastarlo.

Que empiece la década gritando desde abajo ¡viva la independencia! Haciendo de esa disposición movimiento, organización y un programa desde abajo.

http://marcorascon.org

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Column of the Americas
The Huehuetlahtolli (Ancient Guidances) re Sheriff Arpaio
January 11, 2009
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez


Beware of the new Sheriff in town; he’s actually an old coyote.
He denigrates, dehumanizes and belittles; he’s an eater of flesh.
pink underwear, pinstripes and ball and chains are his trademark.
He’s actually an old sheriff who lives in another century, in the Wild West.
This is Sheriff Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Apartheid Arizona.


Beware of lawmen who hide behind their badges.
Be aware of this man who abuses his badge.
Beware of men who flaunt the law.
Be aware of this man who takes the law into his own hands.
Beware of the most investigated lawman in the country.


Beware of this man who even gives apartheid a bad name.
He chases red/brown men, women and children,
but says he only hunts down the “illegals” amongst them.
He says he knows how to tell them apart…
by the way they dress and talk, and by where they walk.


He’s got a sixth sense for justice and a sixth sense for humanity.
He’s got a sixth sense for determining who is human…
er, he has a sixth sense for determining who is a citizen,
who is an American and who merits human rights, and who does not?
That’s what compels him to use barricades and mass dragnet raids.


It is this sixth sense that guides him: Round them up!
Round them all up wherever red/brown people congregate,
wherever they live, work, shop, eat, play and pray.
His sixth sense tells him that many among them do not belong…
in Arizona, this country or anywhere on this sacred earth.


He does not mind being photographed with racial supremacists,
because he says he will photograph with anyone.
This is America, he says, and it is his job to be everyone’s Sheriff.
It is his job to send them back to where they came from…
the brown hordes – not the supremacists.

This is a man who defies the federal government,
who thinks he is bigger and greater than the law,
who thinks his number one job is to separates families,
and to create fear, hate and panic amongst us,
and to silence the rest of us.


Do not go near this man; he is rabid, rabid like a wild javeli.
He foams at the mouth, whenever he speaks of his duty,
to round up and deport the red/brown people in his midst.
If necessary, the lil Big man himself will drive them to the border,
especially if cameras are right behind in tow.


Do not go near this man; a man beloved by vigilantes,
a vain man who craves attention and aspires to higher office.
He is but a merchant of fear, ignorance and hate.
He is a man with a complex, but he is not complex;
he’s but a man with a big brown chip on his shoulder.


When you see this man and his posse, call 9-11.
When you see this sheriff running amuck and putting up barricades,
when you see and hear him yapping and wildly waving his arms,
when you see him engaging in his antics before the cameras,
Blow the trumpets and blow them loudly!


Blow the trumpets for his time has come.
Just as the time of Apartheid has also come and gone,
and just as CNN’s Lou Dobbs is now living in forced exile,
Arpaio will also surely be forced to flee, tail between his legs,
insisting on his constitutional right to racially profile.


When you see history marching by, know that Apartheid Man,
will be too preoccupied with trampling the Constitution,
to have time to march on by. Let that inspire you.
Like the undocumented who have lost their fear to march,
take the time to make an appointment with history.


Blow the trumpets loudly, for in the count of days,
his days and his nights are numbered.


Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be
reached at: XColumn@gmail.com


* There is a National Call to Action Jan 16, 2010 to protest the
policies of Sheriff Joe Arpaio at Falcon Park in Phoenix, Arizona. For
more info: 602-314-5870 or www.puenteaz.org


Column of the Americas
PO BOX 85476
Tucson, AZ 85754


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Migrante –Alberta
Press Release

Jan. 11, 2010


Filipina caregiver body to arrive in Manila With no help from RP Gov`t
Migrante-Alberta demands assistance to dead OFW, family

A Filipina caregiver`s remains is soon to arrive in Manila on Jan. 14
without the help of the Philippine government.


Migrante-Alberta insists that it is the responsibility of the
Philippine government to assist Filipinos in and out of the
Philippines, dead or alive. Thus, the migrant group believes it should
help in the repatriation of a Filipina caregiver`s remains and provide
assistance to her two children.

``The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) should help repatriate
Merlinda Agos` remains back to her family through the agency`s
repatriation fund, without any alibi,`` said Migrante Alberta
coordinator in Edmonton Gina Martirez Doblado after the Philippine
officials in Canada refused to assist in the repatriation of Agos’
remains. She cited the case of slain caregiver Jocelyn Dulnuan in
Ontario which the DFA, upon pressure from migrant groups, helped
repatriate in October 2007.

Agos, a 49 year-old nanny in Haddow Drive, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
collapsed on Jan. 3 at a retail store where she was sending money to
her family in Cabangcalan, Negros Occidental, a western Philippine
province south of Manila. She was sent to the University of Alberta
Hospital and was diagnosed with brain aneurysm, a condition where
blood vessels going to the brain bulge and rupture.

Maria Cristina Mangulabnan, a fellow nanny, said that Agos was already
in a state of comatose when she and some friends arrived at the
hospital. Agos succumbed to death past 11 p.m. of the same day after
her family in the Philippines, in a phone conversation with the
doctor, decided that the respirator supporting Agos’s life could
already be removed.

Mangulabnan also said that Philippine representatives in Canada
refused to provide assistance for Agos’repatriation. On January 5,
Agos’s case was brought to the attention of Philippine embassy in
Vancouver by her third employer. The employer was referred to the
local consulate based in Edmonton. But Agos’ employer was told that
since her benefit membership with the [Philippine] government was
expired, it is now the employer’s responsibility to send her body to
the Philippines. Mangulabnan and fellow nannies sought the help of
Migrante Alberta, a non-profit group for Filipino migrants, in
exposing the Philippine representatives’neglect of OFWs in need .

Repatriation is one of the services overseas Filipino workers
subscribe to through a membership with the Overseas Workers Welfare
Administration (OWWA). A $25.00 (US) is paid upon processing of
contract and repaid when a new contract is entered into by a Filipino
overseas worker.

“Agos worked as a domestic helper in Taiwan before going to Canada.
Like her, to the surprise of her fellow nannies, none of them is an
OWWA member because they were not informed about this when they moved
working to Canada,” said Doblado. “The OFWs have been kept uninformed,
and now, in the case of Agos, victim of the Philippine officials’
negligence!”

Present and previous employers and the Agbuloy Christian ministry
contributed to cover the cost of repatriation of Agos’ remains that
amounts to CAD $7,800. Agos’ friends also solicited from their
employers and fellow nannies.

“This is an insult to her and to many overseas Filipino workers who
are doing service to our country through our remittances,” Mangulabnan
said, lambasting the inaction by the Edmonton consulate official
Esmeralda Agbulos.

“Our group also demands that assistance to Agos’ family in Negros
should be provided by the government,” Doblado said. “Even if we pay
our OWWA membership, we actually get nothing in return in times we
most needed it. They have refused to help the dead OFW, and now they
will do the same to her children, saying that her OWWA membership
already lapsed for her family to avail such benefits.”

”We have been sacrificing for the Philippine economy and yet we still
get this kind of disservice,” said Doblado. Canada has been among the
top 5 source countries of dollar remittances in the past few years.
Of the more than US$16 B total remittances in 2008, more than US$1B
was from Canada.

“With or without membership or any form of payment, OFWs and families
deserve the assistance they needed, anytime, anywhere and from anyone
in the government,” ended Doblado.