Niall Ferguson me escreve para recomendar seu novo livro: Kissinger, The Idealist

Na verdade, não foi bem Niall Ferguson, mas o Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, da Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, para anunciar a publicação do seu novo livro, o primeiro volume de uma obra de dois volumes, dedicada ao Mazarino das relações internacionais contemporâneas. Bem, nesse volume ele ainda não era o Mazarino que veio a ser depois...
Bem, agradeço a recomendação, mas vou esperar o livro ficar disponível a 3 dólares na Abebooks padra comprar. Acho que Kissinger merece mais do que isso, mas não estou disposto a pagar um livro que vou ler nas livrarias nas próximas semanas, e depois esperar que caia sobre a minha mesa...
Esse primeiro volume do livro do conhecido historiador britânico, aliás escocês, do meu ponto de vista, deve até ser mais interessante por quem se dedica à história das ideias, terreno no qual Kissinger foi quase um filósofo da diplomacia contemporânea, bem mais, em todo caso, do que o susequente, segundo volume, quando ele já era um velhaco administrador da potência americana em suas projeções imperiais. Tem quem goste: eu prefiro ficar com a história das ideias.
Para isso recomendo também o livro de um filósofo da CIA, Peter Dickson: Kissinger and the Meaning of History.
Kissinger não tinha princípios? Claro que tinha, mas o seu jeito de Mazarino, justamente, não combina com minhas inclinações kantianas...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Dear Friends:

Kissinger: Volume 1: The Idealist, 1923-1968

Few figures provoke as much passionate disagreement as Henry Kissinger. Equally revered and reviled, his work as an academic, national security adviser, diplomat, and strategic thinker indelibly shaped America's role in the 20th century. Kissinger's counsel knew few boundaries: His advice was sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama. Yet the man and his ideas remain the object of profound misunderstanding.


Drawing on 50 archives around the world, including Kissinger's private papers, my new book, "Kissinger: Volume 1: The Idealist, 1923-1968," argues that America's most controversial statesman, and the cold war history he witnessed and shaped, must be seen in a new light. In this first of a two-volume history, you'll learn that:

Kissinger was far from a Machiavellian realist. At least in the first half of his career, he was an idealist, opposed to philosophies that see human actions and events as determined by factors beyond our control, such as laws of history or economic development. Kissinger rejected the idea that such "necessity" was the crucial element in human affairs. He exalted the role of human freedom, choice, and agency in shaping the world.
Kissinger worried that the United States was forfeiting its moral leverage by accepting a Soviet-framed contest over economic productivity. In a remarkable interview with ABC's Mike Wallace in July 1958, he made the startling argument that the U.S. was being insufficiently idealistic in its Cold War strategy. "I think we should go on the spiritual offensive in the world," he said. "We should identify ourselves with the revolution." The aim was not to win a contest between rival models of economic development but above all to "fill…a spiritual void," for "even Communism has made many more converts through the theological quality of Marxism than through the materialistic aspect on which it prides itself."
Kissinger believed deeply in the importance of applied history to good statecraft: "When I entered office, I brought with me a philosophy formed by two decades of the study of history," he wrote in "White House Years." "History is not, of course, a cookbook offering pretested recipes. It teaches by analogy, not by maxims. It can illuminate the consequences of actions in comparable situations, yet each generation much discover for itself what situations are in fact comparable."
A proper understanding of American history – indeed, of America's ebbing and flowing faith in itself – requires a proper understanding of Kissinger. As I note in Volume One, "In researching the life and times of Henry Kissinger, I have come to realize that … I had missed the crucial importance in American foreign policy of the history deficit: the fact that key decision-makers know almost nothing not just of other countries' pasts, but also of their own. Worse, they often do not see what is wrong with their ignorance…. What is most needed, for students of economics and international relations alike, is a stiff dose of applied history."

I am pleased to be partnering with Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to help build a project that does just that.

I invite you to read "Kissinger: Volume One," and welcome your thoughts.

Learn More

Sincerely,
Niall Ferguson
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Imigracao para os EUA: mudanca de padroes desde 1965 e para 2065 - Pew Center

Notícias da frente imigratória nos EUA, todas positivas, prometendo manter a dinâmica econômica e social na maior economia mundial (a desepeito do que possa ocorrer com a economia chinesa).

— By the year 2065, Asians will surpass Hispanics as the largest source of immigrants flowing into the United States. That detail is in a new Pew Research Center immigration survey that posted at midnight. The study coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a quota system favoring Northern European immigrants. Since then, roughly half of all immigrants to the U.S. have hailed from Latin America with Mexicans comprising the largest share of the influx. That wave has dramatically changed the nation’s racial makeup: 84% of Americans were non-Hispanic whites in 1965; today that number is 62%. Asians will ultimately overtake Hispanics for a number of reasons, including a lower birth rate for Mexican women and a big slowdown in illegal immigration.

Five stats jumped out at us while reading the Pew study:

Between 2015 and 2065, immigrants are projected to account for 88% of U.S. population growth.
Since 1965, 59 million immigrants have arrived here, meaning immigrants make up 14% of today’s population — a figure that will rise to 18% by 2065, when the overall total will hit 78 million immigrants.
The U.S. is the country with the biggest immigrant population, roughly one-in-five people. Over the last 50 years, immigrants accounted for 55 percent of U.S. population growth. That number exceeds the large wave of European immigrants to the U.S. in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Since 1965, 51% of new immigrants came from Latin America and 25% are from Asia. But by 2065, foreign-born Hispanics are expected to account for 31 percent of the population while Asians will outstrip them as the dominant immigrant group by 2055, with 38% of the population.
Non-Hispanic whites are expected to account for less than half of the U.S. population by 2055 and decrease to 46% by 2065.

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

Share of Immigrants in U.S. Nears Highs of Early 20th Century, Report Finds

By JULIA PRESTONSEPT. 28, 2015

Photo

Indian immigrants in Jersey City celebrating the Ganesh Festival on Sunday. Foreign-born people make up 14 percent of the nation’s population, just under the historical peak of 15 percent. CreditKirsten Luce for The New York Times

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In the 50 years since Congress broadly reconfigured immigration to open the country to newcomers from around the world, 59 million foreign-born people have come to the United States, more than quadrupling the number of immigrants who were in the country in 1965 and bringing their share of the population close to the peak of another great influx a century ago,according to a report published Monday by the Pew Research Center.

Since the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965, immigration has been the major driver of the country’s growth, with new immigrants, their children and grandchildren accounting for 55 percent of the increase, the report found.

A shift in priorities in the law brought major changes in flows of immigrants and the makeup of the nation, Pew researchers found. Whereas in 1965 most immigrants came from Europe, since then about half of all immigrants have come from Latin America, with one country, Mexico, sending by far the most people. About 16 million immigrants came from Mexico in the last five decades, or about 28 percent of all newcomers.

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Graphic: Immigration’s Impact on U.S. Demographics

Arrivals from Europe, the main source of immigrants for most of the nation’s history, now make up 10 percent of new foreign-born residents.

But according to the report, since 2011 there has been another significant shift, with people from Asia — mainly India and China — now surpassing the numbers from Latin America. The change is striking because Chinese and most other Asian immigrants were barred from coming to live in the United States for many years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Pew Research Center published the report to coincide with the 50th anniversary this week of the immigration act, which put an end to a system that was based on country quotas that overwhelmingly favored immigrants from Northern Europe. The new system opened legal immigration to people from all countries, putting the top priority on bringing in family members of people living in the United States, especially American citizens, while also seeking to draw foreigners with desirable work skills.

“This most recent period really does reflect the notion that the United States is a nation built on immigration and has been able to absorb many immigrants from different parts of the world,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of Hispanic research at the Pew Center. He is an author of the 103-page report, along with Jeffrey Passel, the center’s senior demographer, and Molly Rohal.

Today, in raw numbers, 45 million immigrants live in the country, up from just under 10 million in 1965, by far the largest foreign-born population in United States history. (About 14 million of the foreigners who came since 1965 have died or left.) The foreign-born share is now 14 percent, approaching the high point of 15 percent during the great European immigration in the early 20th century.

Numerical limits on legal visas that Congress imposed in 1965 and in subsequent years ushered in a period of surging illegal immigration. The report’s tally of the current foreign-born population includes 11.3 million immigrants here illegally.

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The Pew report casts light on the uneasiness some Americans have expressed about the shifts in society in the United States. In 1965, the researchers found, whites made up 84 percent of people in the country. By this year, their share had declined sharply, to 62 percent.

“Historically this is perhaps the lowest we have seen the non-Hispanic white share in U.S. history,” Mr. Lopez said.

According to Pew projections based on current trends, by 2055 whites will lose their majority status in the population, and their share will continue to decline. Pew projects that after 2055, no ethnic or racial group will be a majority of the population.

As the share of whites has decreased, Latinos have been the fastest-growing group over the last five decades, and today they are 18 percent of the population, up from 4 percent in 1965. Almost half — 47 percent — of all immigrants are from Latin America, and by 2065 one in four people in the United States will be Latino.

At the same time, in recent years immigration from Latin America has been slowing, mainly because of what the report calls an “abrupt slowdown” of illegal immigration from Mexico. With Mexicans accounting for only 15 percent of all new immigrants in 2013, the Pew report found, the share of newcomers who are Latino is at its lowest level in five decades.

In a poll included in the report, Americans are divided about whether immigration has helped or hurt the country. About 45 percent of adults in the survey said immigrants were “making American society better in the long run,” while 37 percent said they were making it worse. Among whites, opinion was split, with 41 percent saying immigrants help American society and 43 percent saying they make it worse.

Republicans have a starkly negative view of immigration, with 53 percent of adults who identified as Republican saying immigrants make the country worse and only 31 percent saying they make it better. The sentiments are reversed for Democrats, with about 55 percent saying immigrants make the country better and only 24 percent saying they make it worse.

In 2013, the report found, arrivals from Asia made up 41 percent of new immigrants, their highest level in American history. Asians are now 6 percent of the population, with immigration accounting for virtually all of their recent growth. Most Asians are legal immigrants with high levels of education who have come to the United States with visas based on their employment skills rather than their family ties.

In part as a result of the Asians’ arrival, education levels of immigrants over all are rising. Among new immigrants in 2013, 41 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree. About 30 percent of native-born Americans have completed a college degree.

Over the next 50 years, the Pew report predicted, immigrants and their descendants will play an even greater role in the country’s growth. If current trends continue, it says, they will account for almost 90 percent of growth, bringing the total population to 441 million.

The opinion results were from a survey in Spanish and English of 3,147 adults conducted online from March 10 to April 6 by the Pew Research Center, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points.

A version of this article appears in print on September 28, 2015, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Share of Immigrants in U.S. Nears Highs of Early 20th Century, Report Finds .

Tiro pela culatra: juizes se unem contra o esquartejamento da Lava Jato

Leudo Costa 27 de setembro de 2015 Justiça

STF LEVA TIRO PELA CULATRA! JUÍZES FEDERAIS E PROCURADORES DA REPÚBLICA CRIAM “FORÇA TAREFA MORAL” PARA AMPLIAR A LAVA JATO

A decisão do STF em fatiar as investigações sobre o envolvimento de empreiteiros, lobistas, operadores, políticos e até mesmo a banda suja da polícia nos crimes praticados no âmbito da operação Lava Jato,  serviu apenas “acirrar” os ânimos dos “modernos operados do direito e da justiça” que servem ao Estado e não a organização criminosa que se instalou na Petrobrás, Eletrobrás, Nuclebrás, BNDES, Fundos de Pensão e Ministérios.
A comemoração dos advogados dos “bandidos” que roubaram bilhões do País, quebrando sua principal empresa, a Petrobrás,  NÃO VAI DURAR NEM UMA SEMANA.  A Carta de Florianópolis foi um duríssimo recado aos ministros do STF que demonstram “simpatia”  para  com os criminosos envolvidos nesse gigantesco esquema de corrupção. O documento tirado em um congresso que contou, inclusive com a participação do Presidente do STF, Senhor Lewandowski,  reflete o pensamento dos Juízes Federais Criminais de todo o País.
Cometeu um “erro de avaliação gigantesco”  quem imaginou que a “puxada de tapete” praticada contra a atuação do Juiz Sérgio Moro, dos Procuradores da República “entrincheirados” em Curitiba e da Polícia Federal  iria “esvaziar“, “retardar” e “melar” a Lava Jato.  Ao contrário, o voto encaminhador do fatiamento da operação, da “lavra” do ex-advogado do Partido dos Trabalhadores, hoje investido “Ministro do STF“, Senhor Tófolli já causa desconforto entre os Ministros que o acompanharam na decisão. Ao menos 04 já estão inclinados, em sede de EMBARGOS DE DECLARAÇÃO, alterar sua posição, segundo fontes “autorizadas” junto aos mais respeitados jornalistas que atuam em Brasília.
Para quem, inadvertidamente,  imagina que os jovens Juízes Federais e a moderna Procuradoria da República habitam uma redoma, que não conversam e não integarem, seria recomendável um pouco mais de cuidado antes de falar… de comemorar.  Esse novo “staff” da justiça brasileira tem outra “cabeça“. São regidos por um “padrão moral” inviolável. São capazes de tudo na busca da distribuição de um direito justo, menos de se CORROMPER!
Como bem dizem os gaúchos: É bom que os advogados que defendem os bandidos envolvidos na roubalheira bilionária apurada na Lava Jato que falem menos, trabalhem mais e convençam seus “clientes” de que o caminho da delação é o meio mais curto para não “morrerem na cadeia“, pois não terá “supremo algum” capaz de enfrentar as ruas e desconstituir sentenças justas e prolatadas dento da LEI.
Leia a Carta de Florianópolis..
“Os Juízes Federais presentes ao IV FÓRUM NACIONAL DOS JUÍZES FEDERAIS CRIMINAIS buscam a maior efetividade da jurisdição criminal e a adoção de medidas contra a impunidade, sem prejuízo de qualquer garantia ou direito fundamental. Também defendem a necessidade de um Judiciário forte e independente como instituição vital contra todas as práticas criminosas que enfraquecem a democracia, abalam a reputação do País no cenário internacional, inviabilizam a implementação de políticas públicas e prejudicam os menos favorecidos.
Os magistrados federais têm tratado dos casos criminais com isenção e igualmente com firmeza. Neste aspecto, a recuperação de quase R$ 1 bilhão de reais aos cofres públicos no âmbito da operação Lava Jato é fato significativo.
Apesar dos avanços legislativos recentes, há, ainda, outros aspectos que necessitam de reformulação, até mesmo em razão de compromissos assumidos pelo Brasil na órbita internacional. Neste sentido, os juízes federais criminais defendem a reforma do sistema de recursos, a aprovação da PEC 15/11 do Senado e/ou Projeto de Lei do Senado 402/15, além da ação civil de extinção do domínio, bem como a criação de um órgão central para coordenar toda a administração e destinação dos bens apreendidos pela justiça criminal.
Os magistrados federais estão imbuídos do objetivo de acelerar a prestação jurisdicional, evitar processos sem fim e diminuir a impunidade, a morosidade e a prescrição. O PLS 402/2015 aumenta a efetividade da Justiça e reforça a autoridade das decisões das cortes de apelação. Não retira poderes dos tribunais superiores, mas somente os poderes da inércia e da falta de justiça. Confiamos no apoio da sociedade civil ao projeto, que anseia por um processo penal mais justo, no qual o inocente é absolvido, mas o culpado, mesmo poderoso, é condenado e efetivamente punido.”

What IF? A big IF: o que teria sido da China se Nixon nao tivesse ido em 1972? - The Globalist

Uma enorme pergunta dessas que podem entrar nos exercícios de história virtual, desta vez econômica. A história virtual -- que eu cultivo, tendo pelo menos três ou quatro livros da série What If? -- se dedica bem mais a episódios militares ou simplesmente políticos (golpes, revoluções, ações humanas), do que propriamente a processos econômicos, que são bem mais "pesados" para serem influenciados facilmente pelas ações humanas.
Mas no caso da abertura americana para a China -- tomada por Nixo por motivos puramente estratégicos e geopolíticos: abrir uma outra frente para enfraquecer a União Soviética, então sob a liderança já gerontocrática, mas ainda extremamente ativa de Brejnev -- ela possui enormes consequências geoeconômicas.
Muito provavelmente a China não teria empreendido seu grande caminho de volta ao capitalismo tão facilmente quanto foi com a permissão dada a empresas americanas, e estrangeiras em geral, para se instalar nas zonas econômicas especiais criadas por Deng Xia-ping na sequência dessa abertura.
Sem uma China capitalista nos anos 70 e 80, não teríamos o gigante econômico da atualidade, e o mundo seria muito, mas muito diferente do que é...
Enfim, vale a reflexão, ainda que seja só um BIG IF...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Where Would China Be Without Nixon?

What would today’s global economic landscape look like had Nixon not gone to China in 1973?

By Martin Hutchinson 
The Globalist, February 5, 2013

Richard Nixon was the first U.S. president to visit China while in office.

Takeaways

• Almost every inhabitant of China today owes a debt of gratitude to Richard Nixon.
• U.S. relations with China from 1949 to 1972 were very similar to U.S.-Iran relations today.
• The official Mao-era vision of the United States as the Imperialist Wolves would have remained dominant among China's decision-makers and most of its people.

U.S. relations with China in the period 1949 to 1972 were very similar to U.S.-Iran relations today. They were stuck in a rut and nobody seemed capable of finding a constructive way forward.
Had President Richard Nixon not gone to China, in February 1972, we can assume that the isolate-China policy of the United States would have persisted much longer. President Jimmy Carter might well have attempted to thaw relations, but he, as a Democrat, would have met with strong opposition from Republicans.
It was said when Nixon opened to China that only a relatively hawkish Republican could have done it. Domestic opposition to the move would otherwise have been too fierce. It would probably have been left to the Reagan Administration to change the policy, probably in President Reagan’s second term (1985-89), when a general thaw in the Cold War occurred.
In these circumstances, with a U.S trade embargo in force, the Chinese opening to the world would have been very difficult to get going. The availability of the gigantic U.S. market was essential to provide the foreign exchange needed to develop Chinese industry and agriculture.
The first burst of increased Chinese exports happened remarkably quickly after China’s government changed orientation in 1976. Exports more than tripled in five years, from $7.3 billion in 1976 to $24.4 billion in 1981 — modest figures now, but a vital source of foreign exchange then.
The further increase in exports was then rather slow until an explosion after 1987. With the United States embargoing Chinese goods in 1976-81, the initial surge would have been impossible.
Had visits by Nixon and President Gerald Ford, who went to Beijing in 1975, not taken place, the official Mao-era vision of the United States as the Imperialist Wolves would have remained dominant among China’s decision-makers and most of its people.
This might well have been sufficient to tip the scales towards triumph for the Gang of Four, doubtless quickly followed by the liquidation of Deng Xiaoping and probably the moderate Hua Guofeng, Mao’s immediate successor.
Had this happened, there would certainly have been no opening to capitalism before death of Jiang Qing, Mao’s last wife, in 1991, and probably not for long thereafter. China today would well be the impoverished, economically unimportant country it was in the later years of Mao.
Almost every inhabitant of China (and the “almost” is purely there for courtesy) owes a debt of gratitude to Richard Nixon.

Without his action, the country would today be no freer than it is and its people would be immeasurably poorer than they are. It is, however, not clear whether Americans should also raise a glass to him for this development.
Had China remained in its Maoist cave, other countries, notably India and Vietnam (if that country had liberalized without China’s example) would equally have been able to provide cheap labor and skills to multinational corporations.
Indeed, some such countries — notably Indonesia, the Philippines and Pakistan — may also be counted as marginal net losers from Nixon’s opening and China’s subsequent emergence. They lost business they would have otherwise obtained.
The two major gainers from China’s emergence are consumers of Chinese-made products and the multinational corporations doing one-stop sourcing from China.
A third group — multinationals selling to China — has notably failed to make adequate returns. For every one of these companies eking out modest profits in China, there are ten that have found it a bottomless pit of loss.
Textile consumers have benefited spectacularly, with prices no higher today in nominal terms than they were 20 years ago. In electronics, 20 years ago, most gadgetry was assembled in the United States and Japan. Today its cost to consumers (or in Apple’s case, to Apple) is greatly reduced by the magic of Foxconn’s Chinese production system.
Without China, sourcing in East Asia, including Foxconn’s own Taiwan, would be possible, but the cost would be much higher.
We now come to the unquestionable gainers from China’s emergence. Just read the profit statements of multinational corporations. U.S. corporate profits are at a level in terms of GDP not seen since the glory days of 1929.
Thanks to China, Apple and its confrères are able to manufacture at — what used to be called — third-world wages and sell at rarified Western prices. That won’t last forever. Indeed, Apple’s shareholders already seem to see the shadow of a coming return to normal.
However, so far the profit wave, which was caused by China’s emergence and benefited top U.S. management, investment bankers and hedge fund managers, has been greater than in any other of the world’s great booms.

More on this topic

• Is China Playing With American Fire?
• Nixon, China, Clinton and NAFTA
• Relax! China Isn’t Taking Over the World (Yet)

Despacho do Ministro Gilmar Mendes sobre crimes eleitorais do PT e da candidata Dilma Rousseff

Coloquei, na plataforma Academia.edu (https://www.academia.edu/s/de84db9ae1?source=link), a íntegra do despacho do Ministro Gilmar Mendes sobre os crimes eleitorais, partidários e comuns, do PT e de sua candidata em 2015.
Se isso não bastar para impugnar sua candidatura, eu não sei o que bastaria...
O Brasil tem jeito?
Certamente, se começar a cumprir a lei...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

 

(...)

 

https://www.academia.edu/16243844/Despacho_do_Min._Gilmar_Mendes_ao_PGR_DPF_e_TSE_sobre_crimes_eleitorais_do_PT