Sobre el 'Nuevo Cooperativismo' en Cuba

marino murillo

el propio raul aclaro -con cierta razon- que no se puede estar cambiando la constitucion constantemente, luego en fases transicionales van tanteando cada piedra del rio para no ahogarse antes de alcanzar la otra orilla. esta bien que se indique que no dimana de la constitucion lo cual no necesariamente lo hace inconstitucional. el experimento con 200 cooperativas no agropecuarias es solo para mantener los bueyes delante de la carreta y enyugados, no porque tengan dudas en ese camino. se tomaran su tiempo pero la guardarraya con talanqueras es cierto, pero camino al fin, esta decidido. toda accion por limitada que sea que apunte a una extension del mercado [castrado y castrista tambien es cierto] y por consiguiente a que los tainos se busquen el casabe por si mismos y dependen cada vez menos del estado para mi es positiva. es una transicion que transcurre lenta pero inexorablemente. si me preguntaran, eso estaba en mi paquete de reformas, quizas algo mas amplia, quizas algo mas extendida, quizas algo mas rapida; pero igual de poquito a poquito porque una avalancha de kubiches [y cualquier homo sapiens sapiens perteneciente a sociedades arcaicas] lanzada al laissez faire, laissez passer, conduce a cualquier lugar,  caos  y  anarquia social incluidos. no solo china y vietnam se han tomado su tiempo, sino que una sociedad tan formalmente estructurado con una cultura anglo-sajona como pocas y relativamente aislada como nueva zelandia, le tomo toda una decada en hacer una macro reforma estructural. si tomamos los puntos de partida de cuba y nueva zelandia como referencia temporal, me quedo corto con un horizonte de 20 anos para arribar a una sociedad  del tercer mundo con instituciones y estructuras al menos desarrollistas.
de hecho abre [y estimularia] un espacio formal a la dinamica ya existente.

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Cubanálisis

Lic. Ernesto García Díaz, La Nueva República

El régimen castrista ha dispuesto mediante el Decreto Ley No.305 del 15 de noviembre de 2012 y de un conjunto de normas complementarias la institucionalización de una nueva forma de cooperativas a las que ha denominado “no agropecuarias”. El mencionado decreto ha sido impuesto por el régimen sin respaldo de su propia constitución. 

La Constitución cubana vigente no toca ni ha dado espacio a otras formas de propiedad cooperativas que no sea la constituida por la asociación voluntaria de los agricultores pequeños, tal como lo significa el artículo 20 constitucional.

Los legisladores del régimen no hacen mención alguna a los fundamentos de derecho que les permitan disponer la creación de esta nueva forma de propiedad no agrícola. 

Se han referido a la Ley No.59 de 17 de julio de 1987, Código Civil, para enfocar a su tenor y no de la Constitución, el basamento legal utilizado indebidamente del artículo 145, que signó a las cooperativas de producción agropecuarias conocidas por su siglas como CPA, con personalidad jurídica, en relación con el artículo 148 y 149 todos del código civil. Una vez más han empujado el carro de un gobierno que no se adhiere a la Ley constitucional que lo rige.

Además de burlarse de su propia Ley el régimen deja en un limbo  a los supuestos beneficiarios al sostener que esta nueva apertura es de “carácter experimental”. También los agrede social y económicamente.

El decreto define una serie de derechos y responsabilidades de las nuevas cooperativas que en forma burlesca igualmente contradice.  Por ejemplo señala que:

“La cooperativa tiene personalidad jurídica y patrimonio propio; usa, disfruta y dispone de los bienes de su propiedad; cubre sus gastos con sus ingresos y responde de sus obligaciones con su patrimonio”.

Para luego descargar un conjunto de medidas y prohibiciones administrativas que deposita en los gobiernos municipales. Estas  regulaciones inducirán a que los nuevos propietarios  (socios cooperativistas) se vean obligados a caer en las redes de la corrupción administrativa si es que quieren lograr aprobaciones y permisos.

Así, han dispuesto que la constitución de una cooperativa requiera de trámites de solicitud ante órganos locales del Poder Popular y organismos o entidades nacionales que rigen las actividades en que se prevén enmarcar. Estos a su vez lo presentarán a la Comisión Permanente para la Implementación y Desarrollo, para que dicha Comisión las evalúe y presente al Consejo de Ministros.

Si la solicitud es aprobada por el Consejo de Ministros  y cumplidos los requisitos establecidos en el reglamento del presente Decreto-Ley, se dicta la autorización para la constitución de cada cooperativa, atendiendo a un conjunto de reglas que determinan los órganos u organismos implicados.

El Ministerio de Justicia, por intermediación de las oficinas notariales y del registro mercantil autorizará las escrituras de constitución de cada cooperativa, previo pago de las tasas impositivas.   Para regular las nuevas entidades con mano de hierro, el artículo 15 del decreto 305/2012 aclara que:

 “Las cooperativas no podrán fusionarse, extinguirse, escindirse, ni modificarse sin la previa aprobación del órgano, organismo o entidad nacional que autorizó su constitución”.

En otras palabras parecería una  decisión del  Consejo de Ministros que en realidad se convertirá en una decisión del dictador de turno.

El General presidente en la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular, celebrada el 13 de diciembre de 2012, enfatizó:

“Valoramos que la actualización del modelo económico marcha con paso seguro y se empieza a adentrar en cuestiones de mayor alcance”.

Se refiere al nuevo engaño que le están haciendo a la sociedad cubana al no permitirle la constitución de sociedades mercantiles privadas.

Este Decreto Ley 305/2012, es un engendro maquiavélico de dependencia al sistema jurídico-político administrativista de los hermanos Castro aunque la prensa internacional lo presente como un ejemplo más de cambio en Cuba.

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Ernesto García Díaz es Abogado y periodista independiente, Pequeño Agricultor y Coordinador de Política Agraria del partido Cuba Independiente y Democrática

‘El Hueco’: Havana market offers Cuba a taste of capitalism in the dark

Global Post/ Nick Miroff

adictamente.blogspot.com

HAVANA, Cuba — Cuba has yet to grasp the invisible hand of Adam Smith, but it is giving some space to an invisible market.

Invisible, at least, during the day.

At night, in an empty lot at the edge of Havana’s Mariano district, an extraordinary gathering of freewheeling commerce has been taking place in recent months.

Every evening after sundown, trucks and tractors from all across the island arrive loaded with fresh produce, queuing up for hours just to secure a parking spot. Throwing open their tailgates, farmers and wholesale vendors shout out their wares and cut deals in cash under the faint glow of cellphone screens and lanterns. Young men lugging tomato crates and sacks of yams swarm between the rows of trucks, dodging pushcarts vendors on makeshift tricycle carts piled high with pineapples and cucumbers.

For now, it’s the closest thing Cuba has to the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and a big development in a country where state bureaucrats have tried to set the price for produce for decades.

“What is this place called?” a visiting reporter asked a young vendor.

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “We call it ‘El Hueco’ [The Hole].”

It wasn’t hard to see why. The lot becomes a muddy mess in the rain, and, on Wednesday and Sunday nights, it’s so clogged with pushcarts that traffic jams form, pulling buyers deeper into the scrum. There are no bathrooms, no garbage cans and no signs, adding to the impression that communist authorities haven’t quite decided whether to let the market flourish or shut it down.

“This is great because we can sell wholesale here. We don’t have to go out in the streets and try to find customers,” said Yulian Castillo, 28, who was offering banana bunches and 100-pound sacks of taro root for 260 pesos — about $12.

Castillo had to sell two-thirds of this year’s taro crop to the state, which only allows farmers to sell their harvest at market rates once they’ve met their production quotas. But Castillo said the government gave him a decent price this year, and he was free to sell the rest here.

“I like farming, but I like this better,” he said, looking out at the swarming market. “I like coming here, doing business, buying and selling. I never get bored doing this, I’m always on the move,” he said.

Cuba has millions of acres of fertile farmland, but it imports some 70 percent of its food, costing the government $1.5 billion last year. Communist authorities’ perpetual struggle to get local farmers to produce more has forced them to concede a great role for private incentive in agriculture, a shift that is only beginning to extend to the rest of the economy.

And while in towns and cities across the country the government has long permitted retail produce markets that function largely on supply-and-demand market principles, there hasn’t been a central wholesale market where growers from all over the island can sell in bulk quantities.

The market is a boon to farmers and fruit-and-vegetable middlemen, who said it allows the wheels of commerce to turn more efficiently by giving them a direct relationship to retail vendors.

One group of farmers at the market last Wednesday had hauled their lemons all the way across the island from Santiago de Cuba — 500 miles away. There were onion growers from central Cuba’s Sancti Spiritus province in rumbling 1950s-era Ford farm trucks, and mongers from Matanzas selling squash at half the price of those at the city’s retail markets.

Alejandro Manzo had driven 200 miles from his farm in the Villa Clara province, his family’s 1957 Chevy Bel Air stuffed with garlic. 

In the past, the police would have tried to seize his produce on the highway, he said. “I used to have to sell on the black market,” said Manzo. “But now the state sees us farmers differently. It’s letting us get ahead. There’s nothing illegal about this anymore — it’s just supply and demand.”

Manzo said he makes the trip to the capital every 10 days, selling braided ropes of garlic in 100-head strands for $12 — $3 more than he’d get back home.

Since taking over Cuba’s presidency in 2008, Raul Castro has made agriculture reform one of his signature policy moves, distributing some 3 million acres of underperforming state land to private farmers and cooperatives.

But his government still hasn’t taken basic steps to boost production and eliminate the farming bureaucracy that often ends up making Cuban produce more expensive for consumers. Cuban farmers still can’t buy new tractors or trucks, relying instead upon rusting Soviet machinery and 50-year-old American farm equipment.

While Havana residents say there’s more food than ever in their markets, prices have risen faster than Cubans’ meager pensions and government salaries, leaving many to complain that the state should intervene more, not less.

One reason for the market distortion, economists say, is the growing inequality in Havana between Cubans who work in low-paid government posts and those who have access to hard currency sent by relatives abroad or through jobs in tourism and private business. It’s one of several reasons that liberalization measures like the new wholesale market haven’t yet led to lower prices for Cuban consumers.

“The growth of all the new [private] restaurants and snack bars has also kept demand high,” said University of Havana economist Juan Triana.

As the government has loosened restrictions on private farmers’ ability to hire laborers, rural wages have risen, he said. “Before farmers could pay workers 15 or 20 pesos [80 cents] a day. Now it’s 40 pesos [$1.50].”

With more money to be made in farming, anecdotal evidence also suggests Cuba is slowing the trend of rural-to-urban migration that left farmers complaining of too few young people interested in growing crops.

Abel Ramos, 35, had arrived at the market at dusk, but with the line of trucks stretching down the road, he said he didn’t expect to get a spot in the market until after midnight.

The wait would be worth it, he said. “Three or four years ago, I used to grow tomatoes and they would go bad while I waited for the state to buy them,” said Ramos. “Not anymore. Now I can come here.”

“This is a beautiful thing,” he said.

What exactly is the motivation behind the Islamic Center of Washington, DC?

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en.wikipedia.org

Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack  

In 2007, President George W. Bush spoke at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. and was introduced by the mosque’s director; the latter had a history that included time spent as a representative of an organization that has enabled Al-Qaeda. This was also the same mosque at which Bush spoke six days after 9/11/01 with Nihad Awad – Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – at his side.

Before delving into the history of the Islamic Center of Washington of Washington, D.C., consider the Ground Zero mosque for a moment. It was named ‘Cordoba House’ and the name was changed as opposition to the mosque grew and people began to learn more about the symbolic significance of the initial word choice, which was a city in Spain.

Via Raymond Ibrahim at MEF:

…the Christian city was conquered by Muslims around 711, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved. The original mosque of Cordoba—the namesake of the Ground Zero mosque—was built atop, and partly from the materials of, a Christian church. Modern day Muslims are well aware of all this. Such is the true—and ominous—legacy of Cordoba.
More pointedly, throughout Islam’s history, whenever a region was conquered, one of the first signs of consolidation was/is the erection of a mosque atop the sacred sites of the vanquished: the pagan Ka’ba temple in Arabia was converted into Islam’s holiest site, the mosque of Mecca; the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, was built atop Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem; the Umayyad mosque was built atop the Church of St. John the Baptist; and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque upon the conquest of Constantinople.

With that as a premise, shouldn’t Americans take a second look at the motivation behind the Islamic Center of Washington, DC? If Islamic fundamentalists were to follow the formula of their forefathers and wanted to construct a symbol of future conquest, wouldn’t they seek to do so at the heart of the Capital of the country that won the war?

Check out this excerpt from the history page of the mosque’s website:

The Foundation’s membership quickly grew to include representatives from every Islamic nation in the world and American citizens. They all supported the Foundation’s appeal for funds. They managed to raise enough money that enabled them to purchase the land that the Center sits on now on Washington’s “Embassy Row”. They purchased the land on April 30, 1946, and laid the cornerstone on January 11, 1949.

Take note of those two dates in bold.

Generally, when people think of the defeated axis of enemies in World War II, Japan, Italy, and Nazi Germany come to mind but the Nazis had an ally that was never defeated. In fact, that ally never stopped fighting; that ally was the Muslim Brotherhood.

Again, if one accepts the notion that symbolism in Islam is very important, consider the date the land was purchased. Adolf Hitler’s death occurred one year earlier, on April 30, 1945.

Via History Learning Site:

None of the bunker’s survivors heard the shot that killed Hitler. At 15.15 on April 30th, Bormann, Goebbels, Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, Otto Gunshce and Artur Axmann, Head of the Hitler Youth, entered Hitler’s sitting room. Gunsche and Linge wrapped the body of Hitler in a blanket and carried it to the Reich Chancellery garden.

Coincidence? Possibly.

How about January 11, 1949 – the date the cornerstone was laid. That date could be significant.

Tuesday 11 Raby` al-awal 1368 A.H. Laying the cornerstone on Jan 11, 1949 in the Islamic calendar is a day prior to the 12th day of Rabi-al-Awwal, which marks the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, but keep in mind that Saudi Arabia is 10 hours ahead of the United States. While it was the 11th in the United States, it was very possibly the 12th in Saudi Arabia.

On June 28, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower was on-hand to dedicate the mosque. Click here for the video of a news report at the time.

During his speech, Eisenhower said the following:

The countries which have sponsored and built this Islamic Center have for centuries contributed to the building of civilization. With their traditions of learning and rich culture, the countries of Islam have added much to the advancement of mankind. Inspired by a sense of brotherhood, common to our innermost beliefs, we can here together reaffirm our determination to secure the foundations of a just and lasting peace.

“Brotherhood” is indeed an interesting word choice. Eisenhower ended his speech thusly:

Our country has long enjoyed a strong bond of friendship with the Islamic nations. .  .  . Under the American Constitution, .  .  . this Center, this place of worship, is as welcome as could be any similar edifice of any religion. Indeed, America would fight with her whole strength for your right to have your own church and worship according to your own conscience. Without this, we would be something else than what we are.

Doesn’t the “conscience” of the Muslim “Brotherhood” involve destroying America from within?

Yes, it does.

President George W. Bush returned to the Washington, DC mosque for the RE-dedication ceremony in 2007, fifty years after Eisenhower did it originally. The man who introduced Bush in the clip below is the mosque’s director, Abdullah M. Khouj, who began his tenure there in 1984. According to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Schwartz, Saudi officials took over the mosque in 1983 and Khouj was subsequently appointed. Khouj has been a representative for the Muslim World League (MWL):

Khouj represented the Muslim World League (MWL), founded in Saudi Arabia in 1962 as an international agency for the propagation of Wahhabism. In 2006, relief branches of the MWL in Southeast Asia would be designated by the U.S. Treasury as financing fronts for al Qaeda. In addition, Khouj was admitted to the United States as a diplomat, allegedly serving as an attaché at the Saudi Embassy, but actually dedicated to advancing the most radical interpretation of Islam in history.

The MWL is significant for many reasons but one such reason is its involvement as the umbrella organization for the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). This is the same IMMA where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, worked as an assistant editor for at least twelve years until leaving in 2009, to work for Clinton at the State Department. The man responsible for launching the IMMA was none other than Abdullah Omar Naseef, who was the Secretary General of the MWL when Khouj became the Director of the Washington mosque.

The Saudi Manifesto, reveals the MWL / IMMA connection:

“It [Muslim Minority Affairs] will work under the umbrella of the Muslim World League (MWL) and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and others.”

Remember, Naseef also founded the Rabita Trust, an entity that was headed by Al-Qaeda founder Wael Hamza Julaidan and identified by the U.S. Treasury Department in October of 2001 as a terrorist organization. If Naseef was commissioned by the Saudi Royal family to found the IMMA, it would seem to indicate a willingness on the part of the Brotherhood and the Saudis to work together in some respects, the furthering of Islam in foreign lands, for example.

That’s what the IMMA is all about.

It’s important to remember that Khouj – the man who introduced Bush at the Washington, D.C. mosque re-dedication ceremony – was a representative of the MWL at the time of his being named director, according to Schwartz. The Rabita Trust was founded in 1988 by Naseef, four years after Khouj became the Director of the mosque.

Before watching the video of Bush’s 2007 speech inside the mosque, consider that less than six years earlier, the Rabita Trust had been shut down by the Bush administration as a “Global Terrorist Entity”. As a representative of the MWL, Khouj ultimately worked for an organization whose Secretary General from 1983-1993 was none other than Al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef.

Note at the 1:15 mark in the video below that Bush references Eisenhower’s speech from 1957 and quotes the former president. Said Bush:

“He (Eisenhower) asked that together we commit ourselves ‘to peaceful progress of all men under one God.’”

This had not been the first time that Bush had conflated Islam and Christianity. William Murray, of the Religious Freedom Coalition chronicled his experiences in the days after 9/11 and wrote the following about what he witnessed on 9/14/01 at the National Cathedral, where then head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) – Muzammil Siddiqi – was in attendance:

Our Christian President had bowed his head to prayers offered to other gods, prayers that may have been for those who would destroy our nation and enslave our children to an alien religion. At that moment the hand of protection of the true God was removed from our nation.

Here is Bush at the 2007 re-dedication ceremony inside the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C.

According to Schwartz, the mosque was built at the urging of various Muslim groups, to include the Turks. In 1998, before becoming Prime Minister of Turkey – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – quoted from the following poem during a speech:

“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…”

Go figure. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist government of Turkey seem to be working together.

And World War II may have a new front.

The Freedom Cliff

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teamaltman.com

Joseph Klein

With all attention focused on the so-called fiscal cliff, President Obama is moving America ever closer towards tumbling over the freedom cliff. As a writer for Salon Magazine put it, “liberals let Obama get away with unconstitutional actions.” Here are just a few examples.

Freedom of Speech – With the producer of the video “Innocence of Muslims” locked away in jail for a year on pretextual charges of probation violations, the Obama administration continues to keep the president’s promise to the Muslim world to “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” The First Amendment be damned.

The Obama administration’s trampling of the video producer’s First Amendment right of free expression is part of a larger pattern. In 2011, Obama’s State Department worked behind the scenes with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to pass United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, a tweaked version of the anti-blasphemy UN resolutions that the OIC has been pushing for years.  Terms like “denigration,” “derogatory stereotyping,” “advocacy of religious hatred,” and “discrimination” replaced “defamation of religions” in the resolution signed off by the U.S, but the end result is the same.  It criminalizes speech which incites a violent response from those whose religious beliefs and icons have, in their eyes, been denigrated.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout American Muslim and the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, noted the duplicity behind the change of wording that brought the Obama administration over to the OIC’s side:

Anyone who believes that Resolution 16’18 is some kind of a breakthrough is sadly being duped by the most obvious Islamist double discourse. The shift from “defamation” to “incitement” does nothing at all to change the basic paradigm where Islamist nations remain in the offense, continuing to put Western, free nations on the defense.

By the way, Dr. Jasser himself has been accused of Islamophobia by the Obama administration’s close allies at the Center For American Progress.

Expect the Obama Justice Department to go after individuals whose “hate” speech the prosecutors claim is discriminatorily targeted at Muslims’ religious sensibilities to the point that it incites their violent response.

Freedom of Religion – Back in 2008, Barack Obama mocked those whom he said “cling” to religion (he also included guns in his rant). As president, Obama has elevated the right to free contraceptives over freedom of religion, even though only the latter is protected by the Constitution.

While indulging Muslims’ feelings, the Obama administration is forcing Catholic charities, hospitals, and colleges as well as private employers to violate their core religious beliefs or face massive fines. The Obamacare mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services requires employers, on pain of substantial financial penalties, to provide and pay for an employee health plan that includes no co-pay coverage for contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization. It is a direct affront to the fundamental right to religious liberty of conscientiously objecting employers.

Right To Keep and Bear Arms – Freed from having to worry about re-election, President Obama is preparing for a major fight to cut back on the Second Amendment’s protection of individuals’ right to keep and bear arms. During an appearance on “Meet The Press” this past Sunday, Obama said that he would put his “full weight” behind passing new restrictions on firearms in 2013. “Something fundamental in America has to change,” the president said.

If Obama does not get his way in Congress for more gun control laws to his liking, expect the Obama administration to use an upcoming United Nations conference on the adoption of a global arms trade treaty as a back door means to enact further regulation of small arms and ammunition.

Due Process – Obama made a big issue during his first presidential campaign about President George W. Bush’s alleged unconstitutional use of torture. It turns out that Obama had another idea in mind – his own personal kill lists of American citizens. This goes beyond the president’s exercise of his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief to target specific individuals engaged in armed combat with the United States, whom it is not feasible to capture, even if they are American citizens. For example, we need not lose any sleep over Obama’s decision to take out Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who went to Yemen, joined with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and used his base in Yemen to plan and help organize terrorist attacks against American civilians. However, Obama trampled on the Fifth Amendment’s protection of individuals against being deprived of life without due process of law when he arrogated to himself unlimited, unaccountable power to draw up secret kill lists of American citizens for summary execution.

Separation of Powers – Under the guise of executive orders, President Obama has put into effect his own version of legislation that he could not get passed through Congress. Call it executive legislating, something the Founding Fathers sought to prevent through separation of powers and checks and balances.

When Obama was unable to push through the Dream Act, for example, he decided to simply issue his own directive to give what amounts to amnesty to young illegal immigrants who meet certain qualifications.

We have a president who does not like the Constitution which he is sworn to behold.  In his words, the Constitution is a “document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture.” It reflects, according to Obama, “the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.”

Five days before his election in 2008, Obama proclaimed that “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” On Sunday, he said that “Something fundamental in America has to change.”

Obama appears poised to whittle away as much as possible the Constitution that he considers fundamentally flawed and replace it with his own notion of a fundamentally transformed America. He is approaching the edge of the freedom cliff. Unless we are vigilant, we will find in the deep chasm at the bottom of the cliff the freedoms we have long taken for granted.

A Life of Integrity: Vladimir Bukovsky at 70

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Vladimir Bukovsky, 1977
Photo Paul Babeliowsky iisg.nl

Vladimir Kara-Murza

Yesterday, on Sunday, December 30, Vladimir Bukovsky – writer, scientist, human rights campaigner, and one of the founders of the dissident movement in the USSR – celebrated his 70th birthday. IMR Senior Policy Advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza recalls the milestones in Bukovsky’s life – and urges the present-day Russian opposition to heed his advice.

Vladimir Bukovsky does not like to be called a politician, preferring to be known as a neurophysiologist, writer or, at the very least, civic activist. In truth, he never engaged in politics: he merely realized, at an early age, that he could not reconcile himself to live quietly with a criminal and mendacious regime that sought to make millions of people its silent accomplices. Bukovsky’s protest was a moral one. “We did not play politics, we did not draft programs for the ‘people’s liberation,’” he recalls in his memoirs, To Build a Castle (a must-read for anyone interested in Russian history). “Our only weapon was glasnost (openness). Not propaganda, but glasnost, so that no one could say ‘I did not know.’ The rest is a matter for each person’s conscience.”

“I did not know” was a popular answer among members of the older generation when asked by the youngsters of the 1950s about Stalin’s times. The public condemnation of Stalinist crimes at the 1956 Communist Party congress and (almost immediately) the brutal suppression of the Hungarian revolution, which showed that the nature of the regime has not changed, were formative events for Bukovsky. His protest activity began literally during his school days: he joined a clandestine anti-Soviet group and published an underground satirical journal. In response, he was expelled from school, summoned to a dressing-down by the Moscow City Communist Party Committee, and barred from studying at university (he nevertheless won admission to Moscow State University, only to be discovered and expelled a year later.)

Vladimir Bukovsky is one of the founders of the Soviet dissident movement, which was born in the fall of 1960 on Moscow’s Mayakovsky Square. There, a group of yet-unknown young activists, poets, and actors (including Yuri Galanskov, Eduard Kuznetsov, Vladimir Osipov, Ilya Bokshtein, and Vsevolod Abdulov) held public readings of banned poetry – Akhmatova, Pasternak, Mandelshtam, Tsvetaeva. They also read from their own works and the works of their contemporaries, which would soon be disseminated as samizdat (literally “self-publications,” the clandestine reproduction and distribution of banned literature). Samizdat, too, was born on Mayakovsky Square. The authorities responded in their usual manner: with dispersals of the meetings by bulldozers and snow ploughs; provocations by Komsomol (Young Communist League) operatives; beatings and arrests. Yet the “seditious” meetings continued in the heart of the Soviet capital for almost two years:

“That amazing community, which would later be called a ‘movement’, was being born. It had no leaders or followers…. Each of us, like a nerve cell, participated in this amazing orchestra without a conductor, compelled only by his or her sense of self-respect and personal responsibility for what was happening.” (Vladimir Bukovsky, To Build a Castle)

Vladimir Bukovsky was one of the organizers of the unofficial poetry readings on Moscow’s Mayakovsky Square, the birthplace of the Soviet dissident movement.

The Mayakovsky readings were only the beginning: one can study the history of dissent in the Soviet Union by reading Bukovsky’s biography. He was involved in organizing the December 1965 “Glasnost Rally” on Pushkin Square (Moscow’s first opposition demonstration in four decades); the January 1967 rally against political arrests (also on Pushkin Square;) and, probably his most important endeavor, the public campaign against “punitive psychiatry” used by the KGB against dissenters. After his first arrest in 1963 for “possession of anti-Soviet literature,” Bukovsky (then 20 years old) was brought to the office of Lieutenant-General Mikhail Svetlichny, the head of the Moscow KGB. “Svetlichny said a very simple thing,” Bukovsky recalls in the documentary They Chose Freedom. “‘Here is the arrest warrant. If you honestly tell us everything – where you got this book, who gave it to you, to whom you gave it [to read], I will not sign it, and you will go home. If you refuse, I will sign it, and you will go to jail.’ …  I found such a formulation insulting, and cursed at him. He did not say anything, just shook his head, signed the warrant, and said ‘Take him away.’”

Vladimir Bukovsky paid for his refusal to go along with the regime’s lies with 12 years in prisons, labor camps, and “special psychiatric hospitals.” Not once did he admit his guilt, ask for clemency, disown his words, or betray his friends. “We fought desperately against this regime of scoundrels. We were a handful of unarmed people in the face of a mighty state with the world’s most monstrous machine of repression. And we won. The regime had to retreat. And even in prisons we proved too dangerous for them.” (Vladimir Bukovsky, To Build a Castle) On December 18, 1976, a handcuffed Bukovsky was driven to Chkalovsky military airfield and, accompanied by a convoy from the KGB’s elite Alpha unit (that was its first operation), was flown to Zurich’s international airport. Communist Party Central Committee documents referred to this as “measures relating to the liberation of Comrade L. Corvalan¹.” In the end, the regime was unable to defeat its enemy inside the country.

In the early 1990s, Vladimir Bukovsky and Member of Parliament Galina Starovoitova tried to convince the Russian leadership to conduct a trial of the Communist regime and the KGB in order to help the country comprehend its past and avoid repeating it.

The next time Vladimir Bukovsky came to Russia was at the invitation of Boris Yeltsin in 1991, before the attempted August coup d’état – and again just after the coup, when barricades were still being dismantled near the Moscow White House, and when the empty pedestal from the toppled statue of KGB founder Felix Dzerzhinsky was still hand-painted with a swastika and hammer-and-sickle – with an equal sign between them. “Let us not flatter ourselves – the dragon is not yet dead. He is mortally wounded, his spine is broken, but he still holds human souls in his clinging paws,” Bukovsky said at a rally on Mayakovsky Square in September 1991. “The Lubyanka [KGB] archives, seized by the Russian government, contain secrets of dreadful crimes. Only by making them public, by handing them over to an objective international commission, will we be able to cleanse ourselves from this filth.” Unfortunately, Bukovsky’s call was not heeded. The new Russian authorities, unwilling to “rock the boat,” refrained from fully opening the archives, from officially condemning the Communist Party and the KGB for their crimes, and from introducing lustrations for those who had participated in the crimes. A genuine moral renewal of society never took place. Russia’s young democracy was not protected from a comeback by the ideological successors of Yuri Andropov and Vladimir Kryuchkov. This comeback came just eight years after the democratic victory of August 1991. As Bukovsky had warned, “it is like dealing with a wounded beast – if you do not finish it off, it will attack you.”

Today, Bukovsky is not retiring or leaving public life – and his upcoming 70th birthday will do nothing to change that. His experience in fighting the KGB system is too relevant; his advice too valuable; his standing among the leaders and supporters of the present-day Russian opposition too high. During the frozen (in all senses of the word) winter of 2007, at the height of Putin’s power, Bukovsky was nominated for president by the democratic opposition as a symbol of moral protest. The line of people wishing to sign his nomination papers extended for seven hours; the Sakharov Center could not accommodate everyone, and people had to wait outside in Moscow’s freezing temperatures.

In December 2007, Vladimir Bukovsky (center) was officially nominated for president of Russia by an assembly of voters in Moscow. The Central Electoral Commission headed by Vladimir Churov denied him access to the ballot.

“The opposition needs a candidate for president – strong, uncompromising, decisive, with irreproachable political and, more importantly, moral authority,” read the statement of the Initiative Group that nominated Bukovsky, “Russia needs its own Vaclav Havel, not a new successor from [the KGB].”

¹ Vladimir Bukovsky was exchanged for Chilean Communist Party leader Luis Corvalan, who had been jailed by General Augusto Pinochet.

There are few people like Vladimir Bukovsky in any society – let alone Russian society, which has been wrecked by decades of Soviet dictatorship, and by 13 years of Putin’s cynical authoritarianism. It is likely that the coming years will bring significant changes to Russia. During this critical period, Bukovsky’s words will be very important. This time, they must be heard.

Dramatic crashes: Car jumping competition in Sussex

itnnews

Lawmaker: Tweak Constitution to affirm gun rights

WND/ Taylor Rose

Sen. Dianne Feinstein/ metroactive.com

WASHINGTON – A state lawmaker in Montana is proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution to deal with the suggestion from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would require Americans to register their guns, and critics say, would even lead to their confiscation.

Feinstein’s idea has been labeled “treason” on a White House petition site, and has earned the ire of Rep. Jerry O’Neil, R-Columbia Falls, who told WND he’d like to see some changes made to protect state’s rights and the rights protected by the Second Amendment.

He said he’s starting to push for the state of Montana to press for the adoption of two new constitutional amendments to protect firearm ownership and national sovereignty.

“I am asking for the Montana legislature to request an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to amend the Commerce Clause,” he said.

He said in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution the word “among” would be replaced with “between” so that it reads, “Congress shall have power …to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and interstate commerce between the several states, and with the Indian tribes…”

“States have the right to do what they wish inside their own borders,” he said.

And referring to firearms, he said, “It gives the states the right to make whatever guns they want so long as they [firearms] stay inside the own borders.”

Are you interested in self-defense? Check out all these DVDs and books in WND’s Superstore.

Additionally, O’Neil said, in reference to national sovereignty and more specifically the Small Arms Treaty, he wants Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution to be amended, with the insertion of “subject to this Constitution” to therefore state “The president…shall have the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, subject to this Constitution, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur…”

O’Neil said the insertion is essential thanks to the growing power of international treaties and due to the fact that too often, in his opinion, international treaties are implemented and used to override the U.S. Constitution.

O’Neil said that with these changes, the government “cannot amend the Constitution via fiat.”

Under Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures can submit proposals for amendments to the Constitution and it is O’Neil’s hope that the Montana legislature will take up his ideas.

Feinstein’s move was a reaction to the school shooting in Connecticut in which 20 children and six adults were victims. O’Neil said, “The Connecticut shooting came at an opportune time for her.”

He added, “Sen. Feinstein has been working on an assault weapons ban for at least eight years.”

Keep your gun rights: Sign new petition

“It will not make a significant dent in the murder rate of the United States,” he said.

O’Neil attributes this move to restrict firearm ownership to an ever-increasing control-oriented state, saying, “It appears the people who want more control over their citizens, want to limit their access to weapons.”

In fact, politicians in New York already have started discussing gun restrictions, registration and confiscation.

O’Neil has been in public service in Montana since 2001, where he served as a state senator until 2009, when he switched over and became a representative in the Montana House.

He is widely known for his ardent defense of civil liberties, limited government and constitutionalism. He has become known more recently for his request to be paid in gold and silver coins to guard himself against a potential collapse of the U.S. dollar.

The pushback from the state was just one headwind Feinstein was facing as a result of her precipitous decision to attack the Second Amendment.

Another front was on the White House website forum for citizen petitions.

There, it took only hours for thousands of Americans to sign onto the request to “try Sen. Dianne Feinstein in a federal court for treason to the Constitution.”

It explained, “The Constitution was written to restrain the government. No amendment is more important for this purpose than the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment was written so the power could be kept with the citizenry in the face of a tyrannical government. It was well understood the Constitution acknowledged certain rights that could not be limited by government.”

The petition continued, “Sen. Dianne Feinstein has made it clear she does not believe in the Constitution or the inalienable rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. She is actively working to destroy the 2nd Amendment with her 2013 assault weapons ban. For this reason we the people of the United States petition for her to be tried in federal court for treason to the Constitution.”

Feinstein’s actual proposal would “ban the sale, the transfer, the transportation and the possession” of certain weapons, the California senator said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Not retroactively, but prospectively. And it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets.”

It would ban scores of firearms, including military-style “assault” weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices. It also calls for the creation of a federal register that would require millions of gun owners to be fingerprinted and photographed.

The following is a summary of the legislation posted on Feinstein’s official senatorial website:

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/lawmaker-tweak-constitution-to-affirm-gun-rights/#FJykTw0yjd8DXmXJ.99

Breakingviews: Predictions 2013

ReutersVideo

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El doctor Marquina da detalles sobre salud de Chávez

lapatilla

El Cimeq, donde Chávez ha
sido operado 4 veces
(Foto Afp)

El doctor José Rafael Marquina escribió en su cuenta de Twitter que el presidente de Cuba, Raúl Castro, pasó la noche en el Cimeq.

Anoche fue una noche difícil Raúl Castro pasó gran parte de la noche en el CIMEQ

— Jose Rafael Marquina (@marquina04) diciembre 31, 2012

Minutos más tarde, Marquina se refirió a estado de salud del Presidente. Estos son sus tuits:

  Jose Rafael Marquina @marquina04

Una gran cadena de errores y la familia esta muy molesta con pobre cuidado médico en Cuba

31 dic 12

  Jose Rafael Marquina @marquina04

Una gran cadena de errores y la familia esta muy molesta con pobre cuidado médico en Cuba

31 dic 12

Jose Rafael Marquina @marquina04

Hace meses le advertí a @chavezcandanga q su mejor opción era atenderse en el MD Anderson en Houston, USA

31 dic 12

Jose Rafael Marquina @marquina04

Tratarse un cáncer tan raro y complicado en Cuba fue un grave error

31 dic 12

Jose Rafael Marquina @marquina04

Muy difícil la situación q vive el país por culpa de la ambición personal y aspirar la presidencia con cáncer terminal

31 dic 12

Bocaranda: Preparan al país ante la gravedad de Chavez

lapatilla

Esta es la nota publicada por el periodista Nelson Bocaranda en su portal runrun.es.

Las palabras que a continuación extraigo del mensaje que el Vicepresidente Nicolás Maduro Moros dirigió en cadena a la nación son claves para conocer la realidad que enfrenta la  salud del Presidente Hugo Rafael Chavez Frías en una sala de cuidados intensivos del CIMEQ en La Habana:

“A diecinueve días de la compleja cirugía, el estado de salud del Presidente Chávez continúa siendo delicado, presentando complicaciones que están siendo atendidas, en un proceso no exento de riesgos. Gracias a su fortaleza física y espiritual, el Comandante Chávez está enfrentando esta difícil situación. Igualmente, informamos que hemos decidido permanecer las próximas horas en La Habana, acompañando al Comandante y a su familia, muy atentos al proceso de evolución de su situación actual”.

Con esta alocución el encargado de la presidencia de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela  está preparando al pueblo venezolano para cualquier mala noticia que pueda haber respecto a la vida del mandatario reelecto que padece por mas de dos años -desde que una pesquisa médica en 2010 lo alertó de esa posibilidad- un cáncer que comenzó en la región pélvica y se fue extendiendo a huesos, páncreas y un riñón en el lapso de año y medio desde su primera operación de la enfermedad en junio de 2011.

A costa de su salud y a pesar de las advertencias de los médicos tratantes y de sus familiares en torno a los peligros de hacer una campaña electoral significaban para su deteriorado estado físico, el presidente -que por primera vez fue electo en 1998- decidió lanzarse con éxito a su reelección por un período que habría de comenzar el próximo 10 de Enero de 2013 hasta esa misma fecha en 2019.

La advertencia de Maduro fue la primera de otras que disimuladamente se han venido dando para dejar colar un inminente desenlace en las próximas horas o días en torno a la salud presidencial. Ellas han sido un programa especial del ministro de Información Ernesto Villegas por VTV hablando de la obra realizada por Chávez, la suspensión del concierto navideño de la Alcaldía Libertador en la Plaza Bolívar para recibir el Año Nuevo en Caracas y el despegue de muchos vuelos de aviones oficiales desde el aeropuerto de La Carlota con destino a La Habana. De la misma forma los múltiples mensajes cruzados entre los funcionarios venezolanos en Cuba y sus mas cercanos colaboradores en Caracas.

La madrugada de hoy 31 de diciembre ha sido intensa en esas comunicaciones. Ya los más altos funcionarios han sido informados por el Presidente encargado de la República de la gravedad del mandatario nacido en Sabaneta, estado Barinas en 1954 y quien ha estado en la presidencia venezolana desde Febrero de 1999 tras haber sido electo por primera vez en 1998 y reelecto en dos oportunidades hasta el pasado 7 de Octubre.

La presidenta de Argentina,Cristina Kirchner, quien lo visitó en forma secreta en La Habana este diciembre y pudo hablar con él antes de su avanzado deterioro,ha estado en contacto permanente las últimas horas con los familiares del presidente y con el vicepresidente Maduro. A ella Chávez le confesó la verdadera situación de su salud y lo difícil que veía su recuperación. La señora Kirchner ha estado en vigilia con sus hijos y sus más allegados colaboradores las últimas horas para estar al tanto del desenvolvimiento de la salud de quien ha sido el mejor amigo de ella y de su fallecido esposo Néstor Kirchner.

El día de hoy será clave en La Habana.

El suplicio civil de Rosa María Payá

cubaencuentro

Haroldo Dilla Alfonso

La reciente reforma migratoria promulgada, tras un largo año de pujar, por el Gobierno cubano fue saludada con alborozo por intelectuales, gobiernos extranjeros y organismos internacionales. Unos lo hicieron por pragmatismo diplomático, otros por ignorancia, y otros por esa razón difusa donde la lealtad política se mezcla con la complicidad. El punto fuerte de los saludos fue la eliminación de los permisos de salida, pues, sigo la lógica seguida por los cheerleaders de las reformas de Raúl Castro, ya los cubanos no iban a tener que pedir autorización para viajar al extranjero.

Aunque los decretos no están aún vigentes, invito a los dueños de los vítores que presten atención un instante al caso de Rosa María Payá (RMP).

Se trata de la hija de Oswaldo Payá, el recientemente fallecido dirigente del Movimiento Cristiano de Liberación. Y se trata de una joven que aún no alcanza su primer cuarto de siglo, recién graduada de una licenciatura en física y que fue invitada por la universidad chilena Miguel de Cervantes a cursar un diplomado sobre políticas públicas. Le fue negado el permiso de salida y ni siquiera le fue informada la razón de la negativa.

Observando el articulado del decreto que resume las motivaciones oficiales para decidir quién viaja y quien no, no encuentro como ubicar a RMP. Descontando razones técnicas —aunque es graduada universitaria, la UH rechazó su vinculación laboral alegando cuestiones procedimentales—, no me imagino que esta joven pueda entrar en esas categorías tenebrosas de “interés público”, que atente contra los “fundamentos del Estado Cubano” o que sea un peligro para la “seguridad nacional”. Pues finalmente RMP es una joven y su breve trayectoria de vida no le permite ser una líder siquiera dentro de los espacios acogotados de la oposición. Tampoco es invitada a un país hostil, ni por una organización de militancia opositora, sino por una universidad reconocida y vinculada a una corriente política nada simpática con el régimen cubano, pero opuesta al bloqueo/embargo y a la violencia.

Desde la óptica oficial cubana RMP es punible porque ha asumido una actitud políticamente beligerante frente al régimen, lo cual es todo su derecho, y porque al parecer intenta retomar un liderazgo dramáticamente abandonado por su padre, a lo cual, huelga anotar, que también tiene pleno derecho. Y el Gobierno cubano —duro y frágil como el hielo en que mantiene incrustada a la sociedad cubana— teme patológicamente estos retos cívicos. RMP no es en sentido alguno una amenaza para la seguridad nacional cubana, ni un peligro para el interés público de su sociedad. Pero puede llegar a ser una molesta piedra en el zapato totalitario.

Por eso el Gobierno cubano ha decidido reprimirla visiblemente impidiéndole viajar al extranjero. Ha decidido usar contra RMP la infame pedagogía del suplicio, entendido este último como la imposición de un castigo ejemplarizante a una persona con conducta desviada de las normas consagradas. Es decir que a través de RMP el Gobierno cubano estaría enviando un mensaje a los miles de jóvenes cubanos que pudieran eventualmente opinar libremente, aspirar a elegir directamente a sus gobernantes entre diversas opciones y pretender organizarse de las maneras que consideren oportuno. Incluso si finalmente le permitieran viajar —siempre hay que reconocerle un límite a la estulticia política— el mensaje es claro: viajar no es un derecho sino una concesión.

Creo que sería interesante escuchar los puntos de vista que sobre este caso puedan proveer todos los entusiastas aclamadores de la reforma migratoria y del dudoso cambio sustancial que esta encierra. No importa que hayan vitoreado desde el balcón de la prudencia, del miedo, de la lealtad o de la complicidad. Solo les pregunto, como compatriota, si la decencia política nos permite dejar sola a Rosa María Payá. 

Obama Supports Feinstein's Roll Back of The 2nd Amendment

AlexJones

President Obama went on Meet the Press Sunday and said he will put his "full weight" behind passing new restrictions on the Second Amendment in 2013.

"I'm going to be putting forward a package and I'm going to be putting my full weight behind it," he said. "I'm going to be making an argument to the American people about why this is important and why we have to do everything we can to make sure that something like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary does not happen again."

No fiscal deal Sunday; Senate to return New Year's Eve

By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

After a day of talks that were expected to yield some sort of compromise on the so-called fiscal cliff, Senate leaders called off any further votes until Monday morning, just hours before the deadline that will trigger across-the-board tax increases and dramatic cuts in military and domestic spending. 

The Senate will meet again on New Year's Eve, the last full day before the "cliff" takes effect on Jan. 1. Negotiations were expected to continue in the meanwhile.

A day of wrangling in the Senate came and went without an accord to avoid the fiscal cliff, leaving lawmakers just a matter of hours to sort through thorny issues of taxes and spending that have beguiled Congress for the better part of the past two years. 

Significant distance remains between the two sides and negotiations continue, although the clock continues to tick. Even a simple deal appears far from certain.

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Keep reading >>

Hillary Clinton hospitalized with blood clot

WP/ By Karen DeYoung 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hospitalized in New York on Sunday after doctors monitoring her recovery from a concussion discovered a blood clot, according to a statement from her office.
The statement said that “in the course of a follow-up exam, Secretary Clinton’s doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago. She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at New York-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours.

“Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required.”

Clinton aide Philippe Reines, who issued the statement, declined to provide further details.

Reines said on Thursday that Clinton’s recuperation was continuing and that she was expected to resume her office schedule this week.

Clinton, 65, has not been seen in public since the first week in December, when she reportedly contracted a stomach virus during a trip to Europe. On Dec. 15, the State Department said that she had fainted at her home two days earlier, as a result of dehydration from the virus, and had sustained a concussion. The State Department said that her doctors had advised further rest.

During her absence, Clinton canceled an overseas trip and her scheduled testimony before Congress about the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. She also did not appear at the White House on Dec. 21, when President Obama introduced Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) as his nominee to succeed Clinton.

Republicans have said that they are likely to hold up Kerry’s nomination hearing until Clinton testifies about the Benghazi attack, but the impact of this new disclosure was unclear.

Clinton said this summer that she would not stay in her job in a second Obama term.

Before the announcement about Clinton’s hospitalization, Obama appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and reaffirmed an earlier decision by Clinton to carry out all 29 recommendations made by a State Department review panel that examined the circumstances surrounding the attacks in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11. “My message to the State Department has been very simple, and that is we’re going to solve this,” he said. “We’re not going to be defensive about it; we’re not going to pretend that this was not a problem — this was a huge problem.”

Obama said one major finding — that the State Department relied too heavily on untested local Libyan militias to safeguard the compound in Benghazi — reflected “internal reviews” by the government. “It confirms what we had already seen based on some of our internal reviews; there was just some sloppiness, not intentional, in terms of how we secure embassies in areas where you essentially don’t have governments that have a lot of capacity to protect those embassies,” he said.

Maduro: "La salud de Chavez se complica"

La salud de Hugo Chávez va a peor, lo ha reconocido el Gobierno venezolano. El vicepresidente Nicolás Maduro se ha dirigido al país en una intervención por televisión y radio desde La Habana para hablar sobre el estado del presidente. Y su mensaje no ha sido muy esperanzador. "Su estado de salud sigue siendo delicado" tras haber sufrido varias complicaciones de última hora, ha dicho.

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