Brasil-Argentina:limites ao totalitarismo - editorial La Nacion

O editorial abaixo, do secular jornal argentino La Nación, nem fala do Brasil, mas ele tem tudo a ver. Aqui também, aloprados do Congresso, com o discreto beneplácito de alguns membros do Executivo, inclusive com o apoio ativo de criminosos parlamentares já condenados pela Suprema Corte, pretendem controlar e manipular a magistratura. Eles serão derrotados, por enquanto, pelo próprio STF, mas certamente continuarão tentando, conforme seus instintos totalitários.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Límite al totalitarismo

Editorial La Nación, 19/06/2013

Al declarar inconstitucional la ley de reforma del Consejo de la Magistratura, la Corte Suprema brindó una lección de defensa del republicanismo

Hay pasos tan grandes que en un primer momento cuesta adquirir una cabal noción de su magnitud. Es lo que ocurre con el admirable fallo con el que ayer la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación no sólo abortó el desenfrenado intento del Gobierno para subordinar por completo a la Justicia, sino que brindó una valiente lección de constitucionalidad, civismo y republicanismo al declarar inconstitucionales cuatro artículos fundamentales de la ley de reforma del Consejo de la Magistratura, impulsada por el oficialismo.

El máximo tribunal no resolvió sobre la totalidad del paquete de leyes con las que el kirchnerismo procura el sometimiento de los jueces. Lo hizo sólo respecto de la elección popular de los consejeros que iban a representar en el Consejo de la Magistratura a los jueces, abogados y académicos; la rechazó de plano y dejó sin efecto el decreto que convocaba a esas elecciones.

La medida, aclararon los jueces, de ninguna manera afectará el proceso electoral para los cargos de diputados y senadores nacionales. También sostuvieron que las modificaciones respecto del quórum del Consejo y la composición de las comisiones son "inaplicables" y mantuvieron la vigencia del régimen anterior.

Esa disposición que contenía la ley iba a permitirle al órgano seleccionar y disciplinar a los jueces mediante una simple mayoría de sus miembros, lo que hubiera obrado como un factor de amedrentamiento de los magistrados por parte del poder político.

Como sostuvimos en esta columna, de haber prosperado la iniciativa del Gobierno, la elección y remoción de los jueces habría quedado en manos de consejeros seleccionados por los partidos políticos y, cabe deducir, proclives a obedecer los lineamientos de sus respectivas fuerzas políticas. De esa manera, los jueces en ejercicio habrían quedado a merced de un consejo politizado y, obviamente, dominado por el oficialismo de turno.

Al plasmar su rechazo, el máximo tribunal del país ha hecho docencia mediante frases dirigidas al Poder Ejecutivo. Por ejemplo, destacó que el control de constitucionalidad que realizan los jueces "es legítimo". Agregó que la Constitución busca equilibrar el poder para limitarlo y, en una frase que no deja lugar a dudas acerca de sus destinatarios, afirmó que no es posible invocar la defensa de la voluntad popular con la finalidad de desconocer el orden jurídico, "puesto que nada contraría más los intereses del pueblo que la propia transgresión constitucional".

"El Poder Judicial -aclaró la Corte- tiene la legitimidad democrática que le da la Constitución Nacional, que no se deriva de la elección directa."

En esa línea, recordó que los integrantes del Consejo de la Magistratura "lo hacen en nombre y por mandato de cada uno de los estamentos indicados, lo que supone inexorablemente su elección por los integrantes de esos sectores". Añadió que, "en consecuencia, el precepto no contempla la posibilidad de que los consejeros puedan ser elegidos por el voto popular".

Por lo tanto, la Corte fundamentó la inconstitucionalidad de la ley en que ésta "rompe el equilibrio al disponer que la totalidad de los miembros del Consejo resulte directa o indirectamente emergente del sistema político-partidario; desconoce el principio de representación de los estamentos técnicos al establecer la elección directa de jueces, abogados, académicos y científicos; compromete la independencia judicial al obligar a los jueces a intervenir en la lucha partidaria, y vulnera el ejercicio de los derechos de los ciudadanos al distorsionar el proceso", con lo cual "directa o indirectamente, la totalidad de los integrantes del Consejo tendría un origen político-partidario".

Finalmente, el más alto tribunal consideró que la ley tachada de inconstitucional desconoce las garantías "que aseguran la independencia del Poder Judicial frente a los intereses del Poder Ejecutivo, del Congreso o de otros factores de poder, en la medida en que obliga al juez que aspira a ser consejero a optar por un partido político".

La Corte le ha puesto así un oportuno límite a un avance totalitario que, bajo el ropaje de una supuesta "democratización" de la Justicia tan sólo ha tratado de someterla al absoluto arbitrio del Poder Ejecutivo, para convertir al Consejo de la Magistratura en un apéndice del partido gobernante.

El fallo en cuestión ha impedido que el órgano encargado de seleccionar y remover a los magistrados pasara a depender íntegramente de la voluntad política de quien ejerza la presidencia de la Nación.

La salud de un régimen republicano y democrático se pone en evidencia cuando la cabeza del Poder Judicial, pese a los nada velados ataques del Poder Ejecutivo, es capaz de pronunciarse como lo hizo ayer.

Y al mismo tiempo, la enfermedad de un régimen enceguecido en su afán totalitario puede calibrarse en toda su gravedad cuando los ministros de la Corte se ven obligados a impartirle al Ejecutivo una lección elemental sobre la división de poderes.

Burke: o visionario iluminado, contra todos os totalitarismos; a book by Jesse Norman

A caracterização de Burke como "conservador", como habitualmente se faz, é totalmente equivocada. Ele apenas queria defender as liberdades individuais contra todo e qualquer autoritarismo coletivo.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

A Disciplined Sentiment

Jeffrey Collins

The Wall Street Journal, 19/06/2013

Edmund Burke: The First Conservative

By Jesse Norman

(Basic, 325 pages, $27.99)

The great revolutions of history typically produce written works celebrating their achievement. The French Revolution, however, was immortalized by a denunciation. Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" appeared in 1790, when Britons were still welcoming the Revolution as a blow to Bourbon tyranny. Burke's dissent has resounded through the ages. No reactionary diatribe, the "Reflections" promoted a "manly, moral, regulated liberty" and a cautious reform of the decadent French monarchy. But it lividly denounced the "short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy" seeking to remake France as a radical utopia, as if the "constitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic." Armed with a doctrinaire logic of rights, these revolutionaries were indifferent to history and hostile to tradition. "The age of chivalry is gone," wrote Burke. "That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."

The "Reflections" foretold, with a prescience that is freshly incredible on every rereading, the grisly mechanisms of the Terror, the execution of Louis XVI and the despotism of Napoleon. The book was faintly embarrassing when it first appeared. The British prime minister, William Pitt, derided it as "rhapsodies in which there is much to admire, and nothing to agree with." Time would rebuke this judgment. The "Reflections on the Revolution in France" became the most famous statement of conservatism ever written.

The Revolution's devotees have never forgiven Burke. Thomas Paine excoriated him with luminous outrage. Karl Marx considered him a "vulgar bourgeois." Modern academics often snicker at him as an overwrought paternalist. To Jesse Norman, however, Burke is the "most underrated political thinker of the past 300 years." The case can certainly be made.

Burke was born in 1729 in Ireland, the son of a Protestant lawyer and his Catholic wife. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Burke abandoned a legal career and moved to London. He supported himself, barely, as a miscellaneous writer. Slowly his reputation grew. In 1757 he published an influential aesthetic study of the "sublime." David Hume and Samuel Johnson became admirers. But it was politics, rather than literature, that brought him glory. A reforming Whig (Burke was never a Tory), he entered Parliament in 1766. He would serve for nearly three decades, largely in opposition. Burke was the outstanding parliamentarian of his age, a mesmerizing debater and ingenious pamphleteer. His oratory, observed Edward Gibbon, was a "water mill of words and images." Mr. Norman, himself a Tory member of Parliament, brings an insider's appreciation to this dimension of Burke's biography.

Burke was, to be sure, excitable. Johnson described him as a "lion who lashes himself into fury with his own tail." But his moral judgment was fearless and unerring. He supported religious toleration, opposed slavery and inexorably prosecuted the venality of the king's government. During the American Revolution, Burke urged conciliation, unpopular advice that might have saved the empire if heeded. He loved his country but relentlessly berated its imperial conduct, particularly in Ireland and India.

And Burke's criticisms were designed to be remembered. He shamed the imperial officials of India as "birds of prey and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is continually wasting." He savaged Rousseau as the "insane Socrates of the National Assembly" and Jacobinism as a "cannibal philosophy."

The conservative and reforming aspects of Burke were reconciled by a theory of sentiment. Against the triumphalism of Enlightenment science and reason, Burke trusted the inherently conservative impulses of our felt attachments. From Paris, Robespierre would show how an undisciplined Rousseauian sentiment could animate the berserk certitude of a homicidal revolutionary. Burkean sentiment, by contrast, disciplined the ego and encouraged deference to collective wisdom. In the face of the Enlightenment's universalizing laws, it rallied to the particularity of tradition.

Burke accommodated the precepts of modern political life, but he claimed to clothe their nakedness with the "wardrobe of a moral imagination." He believed in individual rights but tempered their atomizing potential with communal duties. He accepted that sovereignty was formed by the social contract of free individuals. But Burke's social contract wasn't "dissolved by fancy." It bound "those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." He prized "civil liberty," but only for citizens capable of putting "moral chains upon their own appetites."

Mr. Norman is a theorist of "compassionate conservatism," an outlook adopted by British Prime Minister David Cameron and anticipated by George W. Bush. Burke's thought certainly has its uses for those who prefer their conservatism "kinder and gentler." Mr. Norman, unfortunately, tries to demonstrate Burke's "relevance" with chapters of trendy social science. There is something small in reading Burke as the forerunner of popular sociologists such as David Brooks and Robert Putnam. Society may be, as Mr. Norman asserts, a "relational and networked" scramble for "social capital" requiring a version of Burkean attachments. But such dreary tropes diminish the power of Burke's thought.

The biographical sections of "Edmund Burke: The First Conservative," though derivative, are well written and informative. In this history one discovers Burke's continuing importance, even if our age of hyper-individualism and headlong social experimentation seems ill-suited to his genius. Burke died in 1797 in defeat, shattered by the death of his last son, aghast at the still-cresting power of revolutionary France. He requested an unmarked grave, lest invading Jacobins defile his corpse. But his ideas survived their revolution.

Mr. Collins is a professor of history at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

A version of this article appeared June 19, 2013, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Disciplined Sentiment.

Aviso aos navegantes (deste blog) - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Apenas um comentário circunstancial, mas essencial e revelador do espírito deste blog, e o de seu modesto animador.

Este é um espaço livre, de liberdade total, no qual vigora a autoridade do argumento, não o argumento da autoridade. Não existe censura ou ameaça que o faça desviar de sua missão: informar, esclarecer, defender a honestidade intelectual e a racionalidade econômica, contribuir para uma solução factível e eficiente dos graves problemas com que se defronta a nação brasileira, atualmente.

Simpatizantes e adversários deste blog, amigos e inimigos deste animador, aliados ou adversários de seus valores, princípios e causas, sempre encontrarão aqui materiais diversos, por vezes inteligentes, algumas vezes até estúpidos, totalmente contrários aos valores que defende seu animador.

Mas todos eles são importantes para um debate livre, se possível inteligente, em torno dos problemas do Brasil, enquanto Nação, não enquanto Estado.

O ponto de vista aqui defendido será sempre o do indivíduo, em total liberdade, jamais o do Estado, de partidos, de movimentos, grupos religiosos, ou quaisquer associações de interesses. Jamais.

Vale a liberdade de expressão e a de consciência, não a subordinação a manifestos ou programas partidários.

O Brasil enfrenta atualmente ameaças graves à continuidade de sua evolução social e societal a patamares mais elevados de institucionalidade e de respeito às liberdades democráticas, derivadas de instintos e vontades totalitárias que se coalizam para tentar implantar esse fascismo corporativo já bem visível em diversas agências públicas e grupos partidários.

As mesmas ameaças, estatizantes, dirigistas, cerceadoras da liberdade de indivíduos e de empresas, também se manifestam, manietando e distorcendo o crescimento econômico e o progresso social do país, no fundo prejudicando a prosperidade individual e as liberdades coletivas dos brasileiros.

No que depender deste blog e do seu animador, essas ameaças sempre serão denunciadas e combatidas.

Este é, se quiserem, um manifesto de princípios e uma declaração de intenções.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Hartford, 19 de junho de 2013

Estados Regulados da America - Niall Ferguson (WSJ)

 The Regulated States of America

Tocqueville saw a nation of individuals who were defiant of 

authority. Today? Welcome to Planet Government.

By NIALL FERGUSON

The Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2013

In "Democracy in America," published in 1833, Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the way Americans preferred voluntary association to government regulation. "The inhabitant of the United States," he wrote, "has only a defiant and restive regard for social authority and he appeals to it . . . only when he cannot do without it."

Unlike Frenchmen, he continued, who instinctively looked to the state to provide economic and social order, Americans relied on their own efforts. "In the United States, they associate for the goals of public security, of commerce and industry, of morality and religion. There is nothing the human will despairs of attaining by the free action of the collective power of individuals."

What especially amazed Tocqueville was the sheer range of nongovernmental organizations Americans formed: "Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations . . . but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fetes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools."

Tocqueville would not recognize America today. Indeed, so completely has associational life collapsed, and so enormously has the state grown, that he would be forced to conclude that, at some point between 1833 and 2013, France must have conquered the United States.

Enlarge Image

Barbara Kelley

The decline of American associational life was memorably documented in Robert Puttnam's seminal 1995 essay "Bowling Alone," which documented the exodus of Americans from bowling leagues, Rotary clubs and the like. Since then, the downward trend in "social capital" has only continued. According to the 2006 World Values Survey, active membership even of religious associations has declined from just over half the population to little more than a third (37%). The proportion of Americans who are active members of cultural associations is down to 14% from 24%; for professional associations the figure is now just 12%, compared with more than a fifth in 1995. And, no, FacebookFB +0.78% is not a substitute.

Instead of joining together to get things done, Americans have increasingly become dependent on Washington. On foreign policy, it may still be true that Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus. But when it comes to domestic policy, we all now come from the same place: Planet Government.

As the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Clyde Wayne Crews shows in his invaluable annual survey of the federal regulatory state, we have become the regulation nation almost imperceptibly. Excluding blank pages, the 2012 Federal Register—the official directory of regulation—today runs to 78,961 pages. Back in 1986 it was 44,812 pages. In 1936 it was just 2,620.

True, our economy today is much larger than it was in 1936—around 12 times larger, allowing for inflation. But the Federal Register has grown by a factor of 30 in the same period.

The last time regulation was cut was under Ronald Reagan, when the number of pages in the Federal Register fell by 31%. Surprise: Real GDP grew by 30% in that same period. But Leviathan's diet lasted just eight years. Since 1993, 81,883 new rules have been issued. In the past 10 years, the "final rules" issued by our 63 federal departments, agencies and commissions have outnumbered laws passed by Congress 223 to 1.

Right now there are 4,062 new regulations at various stages of implementation, of which 224 are deemed "economically significant," i.e., their economic impact will exceed $100 million.

The cost of all this, Mr. Crews estimates, is $1.8 trillion annually—that's on top of the federal government's $3.5 trillion in outlays, so it is equivalent to an invisible 65% surcharge on your federal taxes, or nearly 12% of GDP. Especially invidious is the fact that the costs of regulation for small businesses (those with fewer than 20 employees) are 36% higher per employee than they are for bigger firms.

Next year's big treat will be the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, something every small business in the country must be looking forward to with eager anticipation. Then, as Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) warned readers on this page 10 months ago, there's also the Labor Department's new fiduciary rule, which will increase the cost of retirement planning for middle-class workers; the EPA's new Ozone Rule, which will impose up to $90 billion in yearly costs on American manufacturers; and the Department of Transportation's Rear-View Camera Rule. That's so you never have to turn your head around when backing up.

President Obama occasionally pays lip service to the idea of tax reform. But nothing actually gets done and the Internal Revenue Service code (plus associated regulations) just keeps growing—it passed the nine-million-word mark back in 2005, according to the Tax Foundation, meaning nearly 19% more verbiage than 10 years before. While some taxes may have been cut in the intervening years, the tax code just kept growing.

I wonder if all this could have anything to do with the fact that we still have nearly 12 million people out of work, plus eight million working part-time jobs, five long years after the financial crisis began.

Genius that he was, Tocqueville saw this transformation of America coming. Toward the end of "Democracy in America" he warned against the government becoming "an immense tutelary power . . . absolute, detailed, regular . . . cover[ing] [society's] surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way."

Tocqueville also foresaw exactly how this regulatory state would suffocate the spirit of free enterprise: "It rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces [the] nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd."

If that makes you bleat with frustration, there's still hope.

Mr. Ferguson's new book "The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die" has just been published by Penguin Press.

A version of this article appeared June 19, 2013, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Regulated States of America.

Brasil, Mercosul, Argentina, Mexico, e a Alianca do Pacifico: a sombrado Imperio (e do subimperialismo)

O primeiro artigo, um editorial de jornal argentino, toca em alguns problemas reais do Mercosul.

O segundo é uma opinião pessoal de um mexicano paranoico, anti-imperialista, mas reveladora do que vai pela cabeça de alguns companheiros gramscianos da região.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

La Alianza del Pacífico y el Mercosur
Editorial Los Andes (Argentina), 18/06/2013

En los procesos económicos y políticos que se están desarrollando en el continente americano, nuestro país está quedando cada vez más aislado. O, peor aún, profundizando alianzas con aquellos países con los que justamente no hay que hacerlas, si lo que queremos es apostar al desarrollo en serio.

De un lado se encuentra la Alianza del Pacífico, que agrupa a México, Colombia, Perú y Chile. Esta agrupación, de reciente constitución, se formó por iniciativa del presidente del Perú, Alan García, en abril de 2011.

El año pasado formalizaron la Alianza aprobando el Acuerdo Marco de la misma, que firmaron los cuatro presidentes en el cerro Paranal del desierto chileno de Atacama.

Se incorporaron al grupo en carácter de observadores Panamá y Costa Rica, este último próximo a ingresar como miembro pleno. La Alianza ha entrado en plena vigencia hace pocos días, en una reunión de los presidentes celebrada en Cali. Varios otros países están pidiendo ser admitidos como observadores, con intenciones de incorporarse en forma plena.

La Alianza del Pacífico se asienta sobre propósitos claros y sencillos. Por un lado, en lo interno, un compromiso efectivo de avanzar progresivamente hacia el objetivo de alcanzar la libre circulación de bienes, servicios, capitales y personas.

Por el otro, consolidar un bloque del Arco del Pacífico Latinoamericano como espacio de concertación y convergencia, así como un mecanismo de diálogo político y proyección con la región Asia Pacífico.

En la citada reunión de Cali, los presidentes han efectuado enfáticas declaraciones a favor de la plena vigencia del estado de derecho y de la democracia. Se presentaron como un grupo de países estables, que ofrecen mucho mejores condiciones de inversión que los regímenes populistas de América del Sur.

Pero además, demostrando que la Alianza es de libre comercio en serio, acordaron eliminar la tarifas del 90% de sus productos y llegar a un acuerdo para a fines de junio agregar el 10% restante.

En el otro lado encontramos el ya veterano, y fallido, emprendimiento del Mercosur, con uno de sus miembros, Paraguay, aún suspendido y otro incorporado sin cumplir los pasos del Tratado, Venezuela. En el orden político es de sobras conocida nuestra mala relación con Uruguay y los constantes roces con Brasil.

Desde el punto de vista económico, los integrantes del Mercosur no han tenido, ni tienen, vocación alguna de constituir un mercado común, con libre circulación de bienes, servicios, capitales y personas. Por el contrario, han acentuado las medidas proteccionistas, especialmente la Argentina, y una obsoleta sustitución de importaciones, en lugar del libre comercio.

Pero por otro lado, en los últimos meses ocurrieron hechos que muestran que Brasil pierde interés en la Argentina, aunque sigue siendo un mercado importante para su industria.

La partida de la empresa minera Vale; la desinversión en el sector de la industria de la carne; la decisión, posiblemente política, de truncar la venta de activos de Petrobras al empresario Cristóbal López; el trascendido ríspido dialogo entre ambas presidentas semanas atrás.

El problema para la Argentina es que Brasil es un socio económico demasiado importante para pelearse todos con él.

Es indispensable encontrar una estrategia que estabilice las relaciones económicas con una visión de largo plazo, tarea nada sencilla, como muestra la historia. Hay un hecho ocurrido en marzo muy llamativo: Brasil y Uruguay firmaron un Protocolo Adicional en el marco de Aladi, Asociación Latinoamericana de Integración.

El contenido del Protocolo está destinado a reconstruir el vínculo bilateral entre ambos países y, según un especialista, refleja una clara intención de ambos gobiernos: “Iniciar el proceso de evacuación ordenada del Mercosur”.

Para la Argentina el Mercosur hoy es un chaleco de fuerza que le impide negociar en forma independiente con países o bloques. Por eso hay que repensarlo todo para no perder el tren al que se están subiendo los países vecinos.

=============

El desproporcionado encanto de la Alianza del Pacífico

Opinião por Raúl Zibechi

La Jornada (México), 18/06/2013

Las elites empresariales y mediáticas echaron las campanas al vuelo con la séptima cumbre de la Alianza del Pacífico, realizada en Cali (Colombia) entre el 20 y el 24 de mayo. El encuentro convocó nutridas delegaciones de directores de grandes empresas y a los presidentes de los cuatro países que la integran: Enrique Peña Nieto, Sebastián Piñera, Ollanta Humala y Juan Manuel Santos. Además, asistieron el primer ministro de Canadá y los presidentes de España, Costa Rica, Panamá y Guatemala.

Se dieron cita en Cali también delegaciones de Uruguay, Australia, Japón, Portugal, Nueva Zelanda y República Dominicana, que ya tenían el estatuto de observadores, a los que se sumaron ahora Ecuador, El Salvador, Francia, Honduras, Paraguay, Portugal y República Dominicana.

Se trató de un encuentro para aceitar negocios y potenciar las exportaciones de commodities que el presidente de Colombia se empeña en denominar integración, como hizo un año atrás en Antofagasta al asegurar que estamos ante el proceso de integración más importante que ha hecho América Latina ( El Espectador, 6 de junio de 2012). Sin que nadie se lo hubiera preguntado, destacó que la alianza no es contra nadie, aunque es evidente que está orientada contra el Mercosur y la Unasur y, más en concreto, busca aislar a Brasil.

Los defensores de la alianza destacan que representa 35 por ciento del PIB latinoamericano y 55 por ciento de las exportaciones de la región al resto del mundo, y que durante 2012 los cuatro países tuvieron un crecimiento mayor que el resto de la región. No aportan, sin embargo, algunos datos elementales. Es cierto que exportan más que el Mercosur (573 milmillones de dólares frente a 438 mil millones), pero sus exportaciones se concentran en minerales en bruto e hidrocarburos. Sólo 2 por ciento de las exportaciones se dirigen a los otros países de la alianza, mientras 13 por ciento de lo que exportan los miembros del Mercosur es comercio intrazona, que siempre comporta mayor valor agregado.

Si se mira un poco más atrás, los datos son aún más contundentes. El comercio intrazona de la Alianza del Pacífico creció en 215 por ciento en los últimos 10 años, mientras el intercambio interno del Mercosur se expandió 376 por ciento en el mismo lapso ( La Nación, 9 de junio de 2013). En paralelo, los cuatro presidentes de la alianza hicieron anuncios ridículos que los ponen en evidencia: crearon un fondo de un millón de dólares (250 mil dólares por país) para apoyar proyectos contra el cambio climático, a favor de la ciencia y la tecnología, las pymes y el desarrollo social.

Tiene razón Theotonio dos Santos cuando se le pregunta por la Alianza de Pacífico: ¿Qué es lo que el gobierno de Estados Unidos puede ofrecer a los países del área del Pacífico? Comercio con Estados Unidos. Y aclara: Los países que entran en tal asociación no hacen acuerdos entre ellos, hacen acuerdos de cada uno de ellos con Estados Unidos: eso no es integración. Es más, cada uno de ellos en la relación con Estados Unidos se va a convertir en deficitario (Alai, 11 de junio de 2013).

En efecto, la Alianza del Pacífico tiene tres objetivos. Uno: sujetar a los países del Pacífico como exportadores de bienes naturales, consolidarlos como países sin industria y enormes desigualdades y, por lo tanto, con crecientes dosis de militarización interna. Dos: impedir la consolidación de la integración regional y aislar a Brasil, pero también a Argentina y Venezuela. Tres, y esto nunca lo dicen sus defensores: formar la pata americana de la Alianza Transpacífico (TPP, por sus siglas en inglés), que Estados Unidos pretende convertir en el brazo económico de su megaproyecto militar para contener a China.

Desde la izquierda se ha denunciado con acierto que la Alianza del Pacífico se inscribe en la política estadunidense de consolidar su hegemonía en la región, que pasa por impedir que surjan bloques fuera de su control. No explican, sin embargo, por qué el Mercosur está estancado y en crisis, al punto que el Uruguay de José Mujica se propone ingresar en la Alianza del Pacífico. No se habla, tampoco, de las razones por las cuales el Banco del Sur no avanza o lo hace a pasos sospechosamente lentos. Ni se mencionan las razones de fondo de la crónica crisis comercial entre Argentina y Brasil.

Abordar estos problemas sería tanto como someter a escrutinio las políticas de los gobiernos progresistas de la región. Quizá la limitación mayor del progresismo sea su incapacidad para confrontar, ideológica y políticamente, con las elites empresariales, sobre todo por parte deBrasil y Uruguay, pero también de Bolivia y Ecuador. Allí donde hay cierta confrontación, casos de Venezuela y Argentina, ésta se debe a las ofensivas de las derechas pero no se debaten modelos de país y se sigue apostando a un extractivismo que lleva agua al molino de la Alianza del Pacífico. Para exportar petróleo, soya, carne y lana a China no hace falta integración regional.

Las derechas hablan claro. Roberto Gianetti, de la Federación de las Industrias del Estado de San Pablo, propuso librarse de la camisa de fuerza del Mercosur y rebajarla de unión aduanera a zona de libre comercio. No vamos a concluir ningún acuerdo teniendo a Argentina y Venezuela como socios, dijo en relación con los 14 años que lleva el Mercosur negociando un TLC con la Unión Europea.

Aécio Neves, candidato de la derecha en las elecciones brasileñas del próximo año, dijo que el Mercosur está anquilosado y propuso transformarlo en una área de libre comercio que permita a cada Estado miembro firmar acuerdos comerciales con otros países y pone como ejemplo de dinamismo a la Alianza del Pacífico ( La Nación, 9 de julio de 2013). Lo mismo dice el inefable Domingo Cavallo, uno de los mayores responsables de la crisis argentina. Es evidente que estamos ante una ofensiva de las derechas aliadas de Washington que lanzan un desafío que las izquierdas no saben o no quieren responder. La Alianza del Pacífico no crece por mérito propio sino por las ambigüedades del progresismo.

Brasil: fraudes politicas e comentarios populares

Segue abaixo matéria retirada da coluna do jornalista gaúcho Políbio Braga, contraditória como soem ser esses produtos buzarros de um jornalismo peculiar, como é hoje o do Brasil, seguida de comentários "populares", que também revelam o estado de confusão mental reinante na população.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Atrevido, quinteto alojado dentro do Palácio do Planalto é acusado por Queiroz pelas violências em Brasília

Políbio Braga, 19/06/2013

- Revolução comunista planejada, é como trabalha o quinteto alojado dentro do próprio Palácio do Planalto, com  pleno conhecimento do mentor intelectual de todos eles, o secretário Geral da Presidência, Gilberto Carvalho. Não é por acaso que o ministro tem aparecido como "interlocutor" do governo no caso, já que na verdade é ele o "mentor" dos que operam de modo mercenário e mais violento nas manifestações, conforme conta a seguir seu próprio companheiro de Partido, o governador Agnelo Queiroz, que o desmascarou nesta terça-feira, ao vivo e a cores, via Rede Globo (Jornal Nacional). Os jovens revolucionários são todos ligados ao PSOL, membros da ONG Brasil em Desenvolvimento, que leva dinheiro grosso da secretaria Geral da Presidência. São todos companheiros da gaúcha Luciana Genro, também do PSOL. 

CLIQUE AQUI para examinar em detalhes as denúncias do governador de Brasília. 

A polícia chegou aos nomes do Palácio do Planalto após ouvir quatro manifestantes que foram detidos. Um deles é o motorista do caminhão que levou pneus que foram queimados durante o protesto. No depoimento, o motorista disse que recebeu R$ 250 para fazer o transporte.

O quinteto é atrevido, nega a condição de mercenários e de violentos, mas teoriza como gente bem politizada:

- Todo servidor público tem os direitos civis e políticos garantidos”, disse o estudante Gabriel dos Santos Elias.

. O governador do Distrito Federal disse que a manifestação violenta da semana passada foi paga. “Está comprovado agora que foi uma ação paga para fazer uma manifestação”, afirmou Agnelo Queiroz.

CLIQUE AQUI para saber como opera a ONG Brasil em Desenvolvimento, via site deles mesmos. 

Deu no New York Times: protestos se ampliam no Brasil

Protests Widen as Brazilians Chide Leaders

By SIMON ROMERO

The New York Times, 19/06/2013

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Shaken by the biggest challenge to their authority in years, Brazil’s leaders made conciliatory gestures on Tuesday to try to defuse the protests engulfing the nation’s cities. But the demonstrators remained defiant, pouring into the streets by the thousands and venting their anger over political corruption, the high cost of living and huge public spending for the World Cup and the Olympics.

In a convulsion that has caught many in Brazil and beyond by surprise, waves of protesters denounced their leaders for dedicating so many resources to cultivating Brazil’s global image by building stadiums for international events, when basic services like education and health care remain woefully inadequate.

“I love soccer, but we need schools,” said Evaldir Cardoso, 48, a fireman at a protest here with his 7-month-old son.

The demonstrations initially began with a fury over a hike in bus fares, but as with many other protest movements in recent years — in Tunisia, Egypt or, most recently, Turkey — they quickly evolved into a much broader condemnation of the government.

By the time politicians in several cities backed down on Tuesday and announced that they would cut or consider reducing fares, the demonstrations had already morphed into a more sweeping social protest, with marchers waving banners carrying slogans like “The people have awakened.”

“It all seemed so wonderful in the Brazil oasis, and suddenly we are reliving the demonstrations of Tahrir Square in Cairo, so suddenly, without warning, without a crescendo,” said Eliane Cantanhêde, a columnist for the newspaper Folha de São Paulo. “We were all caught by surprise. From paradise, we have slipped at least into limbo. What is happening in Brazil?”

Thousands gathered at São Paulo’s main cathedral and made their way to the mayor’s office, where a small group smashed windows and tried to break in, forcing guards to withdraw.

In Juazeiro do Norte, demonstrators cornered the mayor inside a bank for hours and called for his impeachment, while thousands of others protested teachers’ salaries. In Rio de Janeiro, thousands protested in a gritty area far from the city’s upscale seaside districts. In other cities, demonstrators blocked roads, barged into City Council meetings or interrupted sessions of local lawmakers, clapping loudly and sometimes taking over the microphone.

The protests rank among the largest outpourings of dissent since the nation’s military dictatorship ended in 1985. After a harsh police crackdown last week fueled anger and swelled protests, President Dilma Rousseff, a former guerrilla who was imprisoned under the dictatorship and has now become the target of pointed criticism herself, tried to appease dissenters by embracing their cause on Tuesday.

“These voices, which go beyond traditional mechanisms, political parties and the media itself, need to be heard,” Ms. Rousseff said. “The greatness of yesterday’s demonstrations were proof of the energy of our democracy.”

Her tone stood in sharp contrast to the approach adopted by Turkey, where similar demonstrations over what might also have seemed an isolated issue — the fate of a city park in Istanbul — quickly escalated into a broad rejection of the government’s legitimacy from a vocal section of the population.

But while Turkey’s prime minister has dismissed the protesters as terrorists, vandals and “bums,” Ms. Rousseff seemed acutely aware of the breadth of frustration in Brazil over the gap between the nation’s global aspirations and the reality for many millions of its people.

The protests in Brazil are unfolding just as its long and heralded economic boom may be coming to an end. The economy has slowed to a pale shadow of its growth in recent years; inflation is high, the currency is declining sharply against the dollar — but the expectations of Brazilians have rarely been higher, feeding broad intolerance with corruption, bad schools and other government failings.

“These protests are in favor of common sense,” said Roberto da Matta, a leading cultural commentator. “We pay an absurd amount of taxes in Brazil, and now more people are questioning what they get in return.”

One of Ms. Rousseff’s senior aides said Tuesday that tax measures already adopted by the authorities would allow São Paulo to lower bus fares considerably, though it was unclear whether the concession was too late and too limited to derail the protest movement.

One of the major complaints among demonstrators is government corruption, as evidenced by the trial involving senior figures in the governing Workers Party in one of Brazil’s largest political scandals in recent memory.

None of the officials sentenced in the trials has yet gone to prison, despite the prosecution’s contention that they should have begun serving their sentences immediately after the high court announced them in November.

“We’re furious about what our political leaders do, their corruption,” said Enderson dos Santos, 35, an office worker protesting in São Paulo. “I’m here to show my children that Brazil has woken up.”

Some of the stadiums being built for the World Cup soccer tournament, scheduled for next year, have also been criticized for delays and cost overruns, and have become subjects of derision as protesters question whether they will become white elephants. One in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon, will have capacity for 43,000, but it is in a city where average attendance at professional soccer games stands at fewer than 600 fans.

Government institutions seem prepared to continue plowing public funds into the projects. A Brazilian newspaper reported Tuesday that the national development bank had approved a new loan of about $200 million for Itaquerão, a new stadium in São Paulo that is expected to host the opening match of the World Cup.

“When you see the investments in health and education and then you compare that to the massive investments to carry out the World Cup, it is clear that this provokes a certain indignation,” said Adão Clóvis Martins dos Santos, a sociologist at Catholic University in Porto Alegre.

But near Avenida Paulista, São Paulo’s most prominent thoroughfare, the scene was festive. Some protesters sipped cans of beer. Marijuana smoke emanated from parts of the crowd. Many painted stripes on their faces with green and yellow paint, the colors of the Brazilian flag.

“People are going hungry and the government builds stadiums,” said Eleuntina Scuilgaro, an 83-year-old pensioner at the protests here in São Paulo. “I’m here for my granddaughters. If you’re tired, go home, take a shower and return. That’s what I’m doing.”

Paula Ramon contributed reporting from São Paulo, and Taylor Barnes from Rio de Janeiro.

The Rising Cost of Living in Brazil

Brazilians have seen the cost of many components of urban life rise at rates that surpass inflation generally. Expenses like private education and health care are common for many who are concerned with the quality of the public services.

INFLATION

’13

’00

’13

’00

’13

’00

200%

150

100

50

0

Groceries

Rents and city taxes

Private health care

Soccer tickets

Urban bus fares

Private education

and materials

’13

’00

’13

’00

’13

’00

250%

200

150

100

50

0

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Source: Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics