viernes, 25 de septiembre de 2009

México: Confirma el Senado a Chávez Chávez para titular de la PGR

-- Sin escuchar a las madres de las víctimas de Juárez

Por Lourdes Godínez Leal

México, DF, 24 sep 09 (CIMAC).- Con 75 votos a favor, 27 en contra y una abstención, senadores
de la República ratificaron hoy a Arturo Chávez Chávez como Procurador General de la República,
pese al escrutinio internacional que lo considera "un funcionario negligente y omiso" en la procuración de justicia durante los dos años que estuvo al mando de la Procuraduría de Justicia de Chihuahua, periodo en que se incrementó la impunidad en dicha entidad.
Luego de la votación que se dio en dos partes, la primera para votar el dictamen que establecía que Arturo Chávez "cumplía con los requisitos de elegibilidad" para el cargo --donde obtuvo 78 votos en por y 27 en contra--, seguida de la votación para ratificarlo, donde más del 50 por ciento de los senadores avaló su nombramiento, Chávez Chávez, que aguardaba en una sala contigua al recinto parlamentario, entró a éste para rendir protesta como titular de la PGR.
Durante el debate de ratificación ocho senadores subieron a tribuna para manifestar su postura a favor o en contra del nombramiento. El senador perredista Pablo Gómez Álvarez, quien desde la comparecencia de Chávez, el lunes pasado, se manifestó en contra de su designación por considerarlo "no apto" para el cargo, insistió en que éste "carece de prestigio y de conocimiento".
Recordó, como lo hizo el lunes, los informes de expertos de Naciones Unidas sobre Ciudad Juárez los cuales, dijo, "son suficientes para considerar que Chávez Chávez no goza de buena reputación como lo exige la Constitución para ser nombrado Procurador General de la República".
En su oportunidad, el también perredista José Luis Máximo García Zalvidea, quien se entrevistó la semana pasada organizaciones civiles de Chihuahua, retomó las consignas de éstas que pedían "ni una muerta más"; así, mostrando una hoja con un listón negro en señal de luto, recordó a los panistas "defensores de la dignidad de la persona humana" y de la ratificación del candidato de Felipe Calderón,
que esto que ellos defienden ha sido "pisoteado de forma cruel" con el asesinato de más de 430 mujeres en Ciudad Juárez y Chihuahua, aspecto por el que hoy es cuestionado Chávez Chávez.
Ricardo Monreal, del Partido del Trabajo, se manifestó en contra por "congruencia" argumentando que al no reconocer a Felipe Calderón como presidente no pueden reconocer ningún nombramiento que provenga de éste.
Lamentó que el resto de los senadores y las propias comisiones dictaminadoras hayan hecho caso omiso de la voz de las organizaciones civiles y de las madres de las víctimas.
Para el legislador ahora la preocupación será con Chávez al frente de la PGR, que no se continúe criminalizando la protesta social y que tampoco se continúen inventando expedientes.
Cabe recordar que el informe del Relator Especial sobre la Independencia de Magistrados y abogados
Dato'Param Coomaraswamy, el 24 de enero de 2002, detalla que durante el mandato de Chávez en la
Procuraduría estatal se inculpó a personas por los homicidios de mujeres, muchos de ellos no cometidos por éstos.
En 1995 se detuvo al egipcio Omar Latif Shariff bajo sospecha de haber cometido 90 asesinatos. En
1999 fue declarado culpable de un asesinato solamente y, pese a su captura, los asesinatos continuaron.
Asimismo, en 1996, se detuvo a la banda de "los rebeldes", cuyo jefe supuestamente era Shariff; en 2002, cuando se presentó el informe, aún no eran juzgados.
En tanto, los senadores Arturo Escobar y Vega, del Partido Verde Ecologista de México, Alejandro González Alcocer quien preside la Comisión de Justicia del senado y el panista Alejandro Zapata Perogordo apoyaron la ratificación de Chávez como Procurador.

Organizaciones civiles repudian nombramiento

Mientras esto sucedía al interior del recinto de Xicoténcatl, afuera integrantes del Observatorio Ciudadano Nacional del Feminicidio (OCNF) y de otras organizaciones defensoras de derechos humanos colocaban coronas de flores en señal de luto por las víctimas del feminicidio, pero también por la procuración de justicia en el país.
Con leyendas como "México ¿no tienes memoria? Nosotros sí", o "A dónde va la sangre de las mujeres asesinadas en Ciudad Juárez, a la conciencia de las y los senadores", entre otras, las organizaciones civiles repudiaron su nombramiento, tal y como lo han hecho desde el 7 de septiembre, cuando Calderón lo propuso como Procurador.
El OCNF, conformado por 43 organizaciones civiles de más 17 entidades federativas, la Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, la Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, entre otras, lamentaron que el Senado haya hecho caso omiso de los testimonios y pruebas presentados a los senadores por las madres de las víctimas del feminicidio que viajaron desde Chihuahua para ser escuchadas.
Pese a que éstas fueron recibidas por comitivas de legisladores, finalmente ignoraron sus argumentos y petición, con lo que queda demostrado que el Senado "es un órgano que sigue dependiendo del Ejecutivo y dista mucho de ser un poder que represente los intereses de las entidades federativas, con el objeto de generar un equilibrio entre la unión e igualdad de los estados".
Para las y los activistas, esta ratificación es un claro mensaje de impunidad y de que al gobierno mexicano le importan poco los tratados y convenios internacionales que ha signado, por lo que anunciaron que, previendo la ratificación, solicitaron una audiencia para octubre próximo en la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH), donde retomarán el tema del feminicidio.
Asimismo, acudirán al Parlamento Europeo, que en octubre de 2007 emitió un informe sobre de condena al feminicidio en México y Centroamérica impulsado por el eurodiputado Raül Romeva I Rueda.
El zorro protegiendo a las gallinas
Al respecto, Romeva i Rueda, quien ha impulsado el tema en el Parlamento Europeo, en un artículo
señala: "comparto plenamente la exasperación de un sinnúmero de organizaciones de derechos humanos y de los derechos de mujeres en particular. El nombramiento de Arturo Chávez Chávez como Procurador General de la República de México significa apagar la frágil luz que se ha encendido últimamente en el tema de la lucha contra los feminicidios en México.
"Premiar con el más alto puesto del país en materia de justicia justamente a una persona bajo cuyo mando ha proliferado impunemente el fenómeno de los feminicidios constituye la señal más negativa que se pueda dar a los mexicanos y las mexicanas como a la comunidad internacional sobre la seriedad del combate a la impunidad por parte del gobierno de México. Es como poner el zorro a proteger las gallinas.
"En los últimos años se han elaborado decenas de informes con estadísticas alucinantes, pero también con centenas de recomendaciones sobre cómo atender el fenómenos de los feminicidios.
Desde luego, la esencia de todos ellos es que hay que proteger a las mujeres y no ridiculizarlas, no poner trabas a las investigaciones y castigar los responsables, aun -y tanto más-cuando son agentes del Estado.
"Arturo Chávez Chávez no ha hecho nada de esto. Por esto hago un llamamiento muy sincero a los senadores y las senadoras de México de no ratificar el nombramiento de Arturo Chávez Chávez".
En tanto, Pedro Díaz Romero, ex abogado de la CIDH y quien elaboró un informe sobre el tema presentado este año refiere: "se ha perdido evidencia, tiempo, se ha dificultado la investigación y se ignora quiénes son los responsables de estas investigaciones y montajes, de la manipulación de las evidencias, del daño a la escena del crimen; nadie fue investigado ni sancionado; por el contrario, quedaron en la misma entidad o consiguieron mejores plazas y ubicaciones".

Y acá, en Juàrez...

por Cipriana Delgado
Si las han humillado tanto, torturado psicológicamente, quizá sólo falta que las apresen.... y a mucha gente con ellas. Nos intimidaban tomando fotos, anotando en sus libretitas diligentes, mirándonos con enojo...”

Hoy lunes 14 se realizó el acto de familias de victimas y gente de organismos solidarios con ellas. Fue en la megabandera. Por la manana se elaboró una manta que se montaría en las afueras de la pgr en Juarez, con una celebración de la Palabra con lecturas de Salmos que claman justicia y acto seguido se realizó la instalación de una cruz rosa como memorial y desgravio de las ofenfas a las victimas de feminicidio.
Luego se acudió a la PGR en donde se iba a entregar una carta con el contenido del documento que se entregó a la Presidencia de la Republica en uso del derecho de peticion para requerir que se retire la nominación de Arturo Chávez Chávez como Procurador de la República. Dado que se conoció la información de que no habrá atención del Senado al tema hasta la próxima semana, se omitió esto y se procedió a una pinta de cruces en las murallas de la PGR, como memorial a las víctimas y manifiesta protesta ante la postulación de Arturo Chávez Ch. Y fue una amenaza y un agravio a la dignidad lo que tuvieron que padecer las madres presentes y sus amigas y amigos solidarios. El Delegado de la PGR, Héctor García Rodríguez, salió a decir que era demasiado. Que a las madres "ya les aceptó sus cruces, sus marchas, sus presencias" ... que ya no más. Que había dañado la propiedad privada. Las madres le tuvieron que indicar que las muralles de la PGR no eran de propiedad privada sino propiedad de la nación y que nosotros y nosotras somos también la nación. Esa nación en que la autoridad las minoriza y violenta sus derechos, que no las tolera, como si toleró los crímenes a sus hijas y sus familias, los raptos y cautiverios padecidos por las jóvenes, las violencias y los asesinatos y desapariciones sufridas.

Eso si se tolera, las presencias dignas de las madres no. La amenaza fue frontal, con harto enojo del delegado. Las madres de las víctimas, con sus manos pintadas de rosa por pintar las emblemáticas cruces negras con el fondo rosa, estaban ahi: Josefina e Irma, demandantes ante la Corte Interamericana (Benita como sabemos tiene asilo político en los Estados Unidos), estaban doña Soledad, doña Eva, Ana María, Ana Isabel, entre otras. A todas las amenazó el "señor delegado". Y todas lo confrontaron. Le dijeron que así de bravo debió actuar la autoridad para defender los derechos de sus hijas y actuar contra los criminales. En la manifestación pacífica, no se dañaron las instalaciones, no se faltó al respeto a nadie, y la barda luce dignas cruces negras sobre el fondo rosa. Se ve imponente. Ahora la amenaza de que las madres derechohumanistras sean tomadas presas por una orden de un juez federal es una más a su lista de agravios. Si las han humillado tanto, torturado psicológicamente, quizá sólo falta que las apresen.... y a mucha gente con ellas. Nos intimidaban tomando fotos, anotando en sus libretitas diligentes, mirándonos con enojo...
Les pedimos divulgar esto. Actuar. Solidaridarse. Escribir cartas a los medios. En especial, a los juarense y a la Presidencia de la República. ¿No tienen las madres derecho a actos memoriales y desagravios en nombre de sus víctimas? En su caso, no será la primera vez que en Chihuahua se aprese a activistas de los derechos humanos.

Neomedieval

Por Elsa Lever M.

Directora de www.MujeresNet.Info

El calendario indica que corre el año 2009. Sí, el noveno año de un nuevo siglo y milenio, y sin embargo parece que estamos en el Medioevo. Cuando coexistían en paralelo los poderes de la Iglesia y los poderes políticos, cuanYdo se perseguían las "herejías", cuando la sociedad vivía enmarcada en jerarquías y destinos de los que no podía escapar.

¿O no es eso la oleada "antiaborto" a la que se han unido ya 14 estados del país, modificando sus constituciones excluyendo incluso las causales que había (por violación y peligro de la madre)? En un claro mensaje medieval, ahora se sumarán también a las cifras del aborto clandestino las mujeres embarazadas por violaciones sexuales, dispuestas a ejercer su derecho -que debería estar garantizado- a decidir. Y las mujeres que, aun estando en riesgo su vida, no puedan ni garantizarse su propia existencia so pena de estar violando el derecho del feto.

La Epoca Medieval, cuando las mujeres eran las garantes de la honra de los hombres y éstos podían matarlas si ellas transgredían esas normas; cuando la sociedad podía ejercer una violencia moral, incluso la muerte, por mera sospecha de una "mala conducta". Cuando había una abierta violencia de género, una ideología regida por los preceptos del orden natural, mantenidos por el pensamiento cristiano.

El mes pasado la comunicadora Carmen Santiago Hernández, de 35 años de edad y empleada de la Dirección General de Comunicación Social del Gobierno del Estado de Guerrero, fue golpeada y al parecer secuestrada en su propio domicilio por su ex pareja Rubén Mora Peralta, sin recibir la atención médica adecuada y con el riesgo de sufrir secuelas irreversibles.

El caso trascendió gracias a las amistades que se han ocupado de ella, su padre enfermo de 75 años y su hijo de cinco años de edad. Posteriormente, el 5 de agosto, se le detuvo por los delitos de Privación Ilegal de la Libertad, Lesiones, Omisión de Cuidados y los que resultaran, pero lo que resultó fue su liberación el 7 de agosto, pese a que ella se encuentra hospitalizada en estado grave, en coma inducido esperando ceda la inflamación generada por dos traumatismos craneoencefálicos, y un edema que le provocó infarto cerebral e inflamación del cerebro con desprendimiento de membrana.

Por 80 mil pesos de fianza quedó libre, pues a juicio de la Fiscalía de Delitos de Violencia Intrafamiliar en la entidad, los delitos por los que se le acusa no son graves. Por supuesto, además de todo lo anterior, ahora se suma el temor por la integridad física de la periodista, por la del padre y el hijo de la periodista. Violencia de género, institucional y estructural. El Medioevo, sin duda.

Mtra.Elsa Lever M.

Directora de MujeresNet.Info -Información con perspectiva de género

www.MujeresNet.Info

contacto@mujeresnet.info

De La Asociación Nacional de Escritoras de Honduras

Miembras de LAS FEMINISTAS EN RESISTENCIA
Ante el pueblo hondureño y la comunidad internacional:

Denunciamos que a 88 días de resistencia pacífica y tras la llegada del Presidente Manuel Zelaya Rosales, quien se encuentra asilado en la Embajada de Brasil,
el Estado represivo encabezado por el dictador Roberto Micheletti Baín ha decretado estado de sitio y ha arremetido en contra del pueblo que celebraba los acontecimientos del día 21 de septiembre, día que ya es símbolo, a nivel internacional y nacional, de la resistencia pacífica de todo un pueblo.
El derecho a la libertad de expresión ha sido nuevamente atropellado, se ha sacado del aire canal 36, Cholusatsur, y se interrumpe la energía eléctrica a Radio Globo, que funciona desde la clandestinidad. Se han golpeado y desalojado a la prensa internacional que se encontraban en los alrededores de la Embajada de Brasil.
Denunciamos que se reportan muchos golpeados, heridos y tres personas muertas, miembros de la Resistencia, a manos de las tropas especiales, cobras, combinadas con el ejercito, quienes reprimieron brutalmente la sosegada manifestación en apoyo al Presidente Zelaya, usaron toletes, gases tóxicos, bombas lacrimógenas, agua colorante, aparatos con sonidos estridentes. Los detenidos están siendo retenidos en el Estadio Chochi Sosa, emulando las acciones del golpe Pinochetista en Chile,

El pueblo sigue en lucha en contra de la ruptura del orden institucional, el pueblo ha demostrado que ya no aceptará un sistema social en el que no se respeten los derechos humanos, en el que se violenten las garantías constitucionales. El pueblo ha tomado su decisión y hoy la batalla continua, hoy seguimos construyendo nuestro futuro, seguimos escribiendo nuestra historia.

A todo el mundo damos a conocer nuestra decisión inclaudicable de apoyar contundentemente la lucha de nuestro pueblo decidido a poner fin a la miseria, la explotación, el hambre y las injusticias.
Hoy, más que nunca, hacemos un llamado a las naciones del mundo para que apoyen nuestra lucha por el retorno a la democracia.
¡POR LA LIBERTAD Y LA PAZ! ¡FUERA LOS DICTADORES DE HONDURAS! ¡VIVA LA RESISTENCIA! ¡VIVA HONDURAS! ¡VIVAN LOS PUEBLOS DE AMÉRICA LATINA!

Honduras: Actualización al 25 deseptiembre /Upadate September 25

Sorpresivo retorno de Manuel Zelaya a Honduras - Convoca a dialogar y que se restableza el orden sin violencia - El golpista Micheletti no lo podía creer; decreta el toque de queda

Represión a zelayistas afuera de la embajada de Brasil en Honduras - Micheletti dice que no invadirá la legación; pide al gobierno brasileño asilar o entregar a Zelaya - La resistencia habla de cientos de detenidos - Tegucigalpa, 22 de septiembre. Fuerzas militares y policiales del gobierno de facto hondureño reprimieron esta mañana a miles de manifestantes que rodeaban la embajada de Brasil en Tegucigalpa en respaldo al presidente constitucional, Manuel Zelaya, quien el lunes regresó al país de manera clandestina. El saldo se eleva a cientos de detenidos y una veintena de heridos, denunciaron fuentes de oposición.

MP3 desde Honduras:Anexo audios de la represión de hace unos minutos. Hoy martes a las 5 de la mañana contingentes policiales y del ejercito desalojaron a punta de gas lacrimogeno, golpes y disparos con municion viva, a miles de personas que permanecian frente a la embajada de Brasil en Tegucigalpa desde el dia de ayer, dejando como saldo provisional dos personas muertas con disparos a la cabeza y muchos golpeados y capturados.

represion 22sep ppor.mp3
264K Play Download

represion 22sep 2 detenidos.mp3
2295K Play Download

represion 22sep 2.mp3
3272K Play Download

Líderes de AL exigen en ONU la restitución de Manuel Zelaya en la presidencia de Honduras / Anuncia el secretario general de la OEA que encabezará el fin de semana una nueva misión mediadora

Saqueos obligan al régimen de facto a suspender unas horas el toque de queda / Zelaya insiste en dialogar con Micheletti, quien dice que puede escuchar, mas no negociar / Reconocen golpistas que hubo dos muertos tras los enfrentamientos del martes en Tegu

Ousted Honduran Leader 'Returns'

Laura Carlsen | Zelaya's Return to Tegucigalpa Brings Coup Closer to its End

Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR): Zelaya Reported Back in Honduras: Washington Will Have to Choose Sides, Says CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot

Report from Honduras: Ousted President Manuel Zelaya Returns to Honduras in Defiance of Coup Government - We go live to the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, where Manuel Zelaya has sought refuge. After Zelaya's dramatic return, the coup government ordered a curfew, but thousands of Zelaya supporters defied the ban and rallied outside the Brazilian embassy. Earlier this morning police fired tear gas outside the embassy to disburse the crowd. We hear Zelaya speak from inside the embassy and speak to Andres Conteris and Mark Weisbrot.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/22/report_from_honduras_ousted_president_manuel

President Zelaya and the Audacity of Action - Posted on Sep22,2009 - By Amy Goodman - Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president of Honduras, is back in his country after being deposed in a military coup June 28. Zelaya appeared there unexpectedly Monday morning, announcing his presence in Tegucigalpa, the capital, from within the Brazilian Embassy, where he has taken refuge. Hondurans immediately began flocking to the embassy to show their support. Zelaya’s bold move occurs during a critical week, with world leaders gathering for the annual United Nations General Assembly, followed by the G-20 meeting of leaders and finance ministers in Pittsburgh. The Obama administration may be forced, finally, to join world opinion in decisively opposing the coup.

Honduras Police Break Up Pro-Zelaya Protest

Between preposterous and outrageous: Washington Post published Micheletti. Just check it out!!!
Moving Forward in Honduras - By Roberto Micheletti - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - My country is in an unusual position this week. Former president Manuel Zelaya has surreptitiously returned to Honduras, still claiming to be the country's legitimate leader, despite the fact that a constitutional succession took place on June 28.

Greg Grandin: Zelaya's Midnight Ride

US Appeals for Calm, Repeats Support for Zelaya

Official: US Revokes Visas of Honduran President, 15 Others

Reporters Sans Frontiers: Le retour de Manuel Zelaya déclenche un nouveau coup de force contre la presse

From the National Resistance Front Against the Coup d'Etat in Honduras
(version en español sigue abajo)
September 12, 2009
CONTACT: Ellen Bernstein: 646/319-5902
REPRESSION INCREASING IN HONDURAS: RESISTANCE LEADER CAPTURED AND JAILED
René Chavez, a leader of the resistance movement against the coup d'etat in Honduras, was captured and jailed on Friday, September 11.
Chavez is the former president of the Primer Colegio Magisterial de Honduras (PRICMA), a leading Honduran teachers' union.
He also is currently a candidate for deputy to the National Assembly from the Atlantic Coast region of Honduras.
He has been a coordinator in the Atlantic Coast region of the Frente Nacional, the national front against the coup.
He was captured yesterday and taken to the Central Penitentiary of the Barrio Inglés in La Ceiba.
He was taken to court today for an immediate trial, was charged with organizing illegal demonstrations,and was taken back to prison.
Dr Luther Castillo, communications secretary for the National Resistance Front Against the Coup d'Etat, said, "We are very concerned about this dangerous situation, because once he's in jail,
they can do anything to him, including paying someone to kill him.
We are asking for solidarity from international organizations to demand his immediate freedom."
*****
Del Frente Nacional de Resistencia Contra el Golpe de Estado en Honduras
12 Septiembre 2009 --
Contacto: Ellen Bernstein: 646/319-5902
REPRESION CRECIENDO EN HONDURAS: LIDER DE RESISTENCIA CAPTURADO Y ENCARCELADO
Rene Chavez, un lider del movimiento de resistencia contra el golpe de estado en Honduras,
fue capturado y encarcelado el viernes 11 septiembre.
Chavez es ex-presidente del Primer Colegio Magisterial de Honduras (PRICMA), un sindicato Hondureño de maestros.
Tambien es candidato actual para diputado a la asamblea nacional desde la region de la Costa Atlantica de Honduras.
Ha estado coordinador por la region de la Costa Atlantica para el Frente Nacional de Resistencia Contra el Golpe de Estado.
Fue capturado ayer y llevado a la Penitentiaria Central del Barrio Inglés de La Ceiba.
Fue llevado al corte hoy para un juicio inmediato, cargado con organizar manifestaciones ilegales,
y devuelto al carcel.
Dr Luther Castillo, secretaria de comunicaciones para el Frente Nacional de Resistencia Contra el Golpe de Estado,dijo, "Estamos muy preocupados por esta situacion peligrosa, porque mientras esté encarcelado,
se le pueden hacer cualquier cosa, hasta pagar alguien para matarle.
Estamos pidiendo la solidaridad de las organizaciones internacionales para exigir su liberacion inmediata."

En la Red - In the Net ---4a semana de septiembre

ESPAÑOL

México: Pobres, ignorantes y sin derechos - Gabriela Rodríguez - Tal vez nunca en mi vida había enfrentado circunstancias más sombrías en mi país. El Estado no solamente se distancia del pueblo, sino que habla en nombre de nosotros y, en vez de representarnos, pretende sustituirnos.

República Dominicana: El Parlamento se vistió de vergüenza

Mirta Rodríguez Calderón - Las mujeres que alberguen un embarazo inviable tendrán que morir. Esa ha sido la sentencia que la sociedad civil dominicana recibió la semana pasada por parte del conservadurismo decimonónico de un parlamento susceptible de ser coactado por la Iglesia católica.

Colombia: Poca ayuda oficial al desarrollo para la igualdad de género
Por Ángela Castellanos Aranguren - Pese a los esfuerzos realizados por el gobierno de Colombia, la igualdad de género ha sido escasamente abordada en la agenda de la Ayuda Oficial para el Desarrollo (AOD).

Bolivia: Prostitución sin proxenetas
Por Helen Álvarez Virreira - Grupos de hombres y también solitarios; jóvenes unos, mayores otros. Todos entraban y salían de un céntrico edificio en la ciudad de La Paz que alberga oficinas y tiendas de venta de ropa. En la calle, la febril actividad del comercio informal era constante, mientras el tráfico se abría paso entre la gente que también transitaba por la calzada.

Uruguay: Cuestionamiento a la ley de adopciones
Por Cristina Canoura - Una ley aprobada el pasado 9 de septiembre, que modifica las disposiciones relativas a la adopción contenidas en el Código de la Niñez y la Adolescencia, fue transformada, sin que esa fuera la voluntad de su autora, en la norma que habilita a las parejas homosexuales a adoptar niños.

Guatemala: Más mujeres con cáncer uterino
Por Alba Trejo - Relaciones sexuales prematuras o promiscuas, escaso acceso a métodos anticonceptivos y de protección, pobreza o machismo son las causas por las cuales, a juicio de los expertos, la cantidad de mujeres con cáncer cérvico uterino ha desplazado a las que padecen cáncer de mama en Guatemala.

Comunicación: Imágenes desde otra mirada
Por Sara Más - Todo el espacio de la foto está ocupado por dos hileras de cazuelas vacías, unas dentro de otras. Apenas se aprecian las apuradas manos de mujer que las colocan sobre una mesa, ya limpias, luego de terminar de cocinar y fregar, mientras el título de la instantánea revela otros sentidos: "Escape".

Argentina: Inhumano desalojo de la comunidad nativa quilmes
Por Norma Loto - La historia se repite y, aunque pasaron cinco centurias, los atropellos a los pueblos nativos están a la orden del día. Esta vez es la comunidad originaria Quilmes, que reside en la provincia de Tucumán y que está soportando todos los traspiés de la injusticia: se los conmina a dejar sus tierras.

Perú: Protestas por veto de anuncios sobre diversidad sexual
Por Zoraida Portillo - Representantes de la comunidad de lesbianas, gays, bisexuales, trans y trabajadoras sexuales realizaron un plantón el viernes 18 frente a la sede central del ministerio de salud (MINSA), de esta capital, en protesta por el veto de este portafolio a los anuncios televisivos de la campaña "Perú: un país diverso".

MIGRACION

Que despidan a Dobbs - 2009-09-16 - El Diario NY - Los latinos, inmigrantes y otros han soportado las mentiras odiosas de Lou Dobbs por mucho tiempo. Dobbs se ha pasado de la línea muchísimas veces usando la plataforma que le proporciona CNN cada noche. Ha desencadenado una reacción violenta que ha crecido en los Estados Unidos y en América Latina. Durante años, casi a diario Dobbs ha atacado sin tregua a los inmigrantes. Su desdén por los latinos y los inmigrantes es tan evidente como su desprecio por los hechos.

Medios: Dobbs y su grupo de odio - Karl Frisch | 2009-09-04 | La Opinión - A estas alturas, Lou Dobbs de CNN es muy conocido por su manejo inquietante, engañoso, frecuente e inexacto de noticias; además de su obsesión irracional contra los inmigrantes y su apoyo desmedido al loco movimiento "Birther". Sin embargo, su estrecha asociación con organizaciones que algunos expertos describen como "grupos de odio", es ignorada por muchos.

ENGLISH

The Crusade Against Sex Trafficking - By Noy Thrupkaew, September 16, 2009 -

This article appeared in the October 5, 2009 edition of The Nation. This article is the first part of a two-part series. The next installment will explore alternative approaches to addressing the problem of trafficking for the purposes of forced prostitution. --The Editors- Gary Haugen is cradling the padlocks in his thick hands. A former high school football player--bristly crew cut, broad shoulders squeezed into a dress shirt--Haugen has more the mien of a military man than a lawyer, although his image is in keeping with the muscular work of the organization he founded and heads. The president of the International Justice Mission, an evangelical Christian organization devoted to combating human rights abuses in the developing world, Haugen is musing over the mementos of IJM's work in India and Cambodia.

Naomi Klein Interviews Michael Moore on the Perils of Capitalism - By Naomi Klein, The Nation
Moore discusses his new documentary film, widely praised as a call for a revolt against capitalist madness. more »

Naomi Klein on "Minority Death Match: Jews, Blacks and the 'Post-Racial' Presidency" - We speak with journalist Naomi Klein about her latest article for Harper's Magazine, "Minority Death Match: Jews, Blacks and the 'Post-Racial' Presidency." The piece examines the World Conference Against Racism that was held in Geneva this past April, a follow-up to the first racism conference in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/14/naomi_klein_on_minority_death_match

HEALTH CARE -- HEALTH INSURERS CONSIDER A CAESAREAN-SECTION PREGNANCY A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION: Yesterday, the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing titled "Between You and Your Doctor: the Bureaucracy of Private Health Insurance," where six health insurance executives faced questions about abuses in the private insurance industry, such as rescission. One of the executives who testified at the committee's hearing was Richard A. Collins, who is the Senior Vice President of Underwriting, Pricing, and Healthcare Economics for United Healthcare Group and is also the CEO of Golden Rule Insurance Company. One of the abuses that Golden Rule and other private health insurance companies have been involved in is their policy of considering a Caesarean-section pregnancy a "pre-existing condition" and a cause for denying coverage. In 2008, a Colorado woman who was insured by Golden Rule was shocked when she was denied coverage because of her C-section pregnancy. The New York Times reports, "She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section. Having the operation once increases the odds that it will be performed again, and needed another Caesarean, Golden Rule did not want to pay for it. A letter from the company explained that if she had been sterilized after the Caesarean, or if she were over 40 and had given birth two or more years before applying, she might have qualified." With Caesarean-section births on the rise -- nearly 30 percent of American now women have the procedure -- the practice of health insurers using it as a pre-existing condition and reason to deny care is likely to be more destructive to womens' health than ever.A new study released by researchers at Harvard Medical School has calculated that 45,000 Americans a year die because they lack health insurance -- nearly one every twelve minutes. "We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction...drunk driving and homicide combined," said Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study.

As Baucus Unveils Health Plan Absent of Public Option, New Study Finds 45,000 Uninsured Die Every Year - Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/18/as_baucus_unveils_health_plan_absent

When Getting Beaten By Your Husband Is a Pre-Existing Condition - By Ryan Grim, Huffington Post
It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, being the victim of domestic violence is considered a pre-existing condition by insurance companies. Read more »

Women Need Rights, Not Rescue - By Yifat Susskind, RH Reality Check - We can't just airdrop women's rights programs into embattled communities -- we must team up with all the women already helping themselves. more »

Michelle: Women "crushed" by healthcare

Anti-Choice Floridians Peddling Constitutional Amendment to Criminalize Birth Control Pill
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet - The "Personhood Amendment" would define someone as a "person," regardless of age or health status, "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." more »

When Did Sex Become a Medical Problem? - By JoAnn Wypijewski, The Nation - Female sexual dysfunction was wholly created by drug companies hoping to make even bigger money off women than they have off men. more »

Unbelievable: As a Lesbian Mother, I Have to Pay More For Health Care - By Elizabeth G. Hines, Women's Media Center - Gays and lesbians remain separate and utterly unequal in the eyes of the law when it comes to obtaining health insurance for their families. more »

Racism in America Doesn't Stop with Glenn Beack and His Fans, It's in Our Health Care Debate, Too
By Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant - As much as white Americans hate to admit it, we are always talking about race, even when we're not poking fun at Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck more »

Blue Is the New Black - By Maureen Dowd, September 20, 2009, Washington- Women are getting unhappier, I told my friend Carl.
“How can you tell?” he deadpanned. “It’s always been whine-whine-whine.”
Why are we sadder? I persisted.
“Because you care,” he replied with a mock sneer. “You have feelings.”
Oh, that.

Porn, Glenn Beck and Nudie Pics: Is Our Mass Culture Turning Kids Into Sex Crazed, Right-Wing Automotons? - By Branwyn Lancourt, The Faster Times - Kids today are exposed to vast amounts of sleazy, pornified media at the same time they are hammered with silly puritanism. The future doesn't look good. more »

Our Thinness Obsessed Culture Is Destroying Women - By Johann Hari, Independent UK - One day, we will look back on a time when women aspired to be Belsen-thin with the incomprehension we feel for Chinese foot-binding. But how do we get there? Read more »

Recession Drives Women Back to the Work Force - By Steven Greenhouse - Many highly educated women who had left work to stay at home with their children are rejoining the labor pool.

Evangelicals Divorce More Often Than "Godless" Europeans? Exploring America's Strange Relationship With Marriage - By Amy DePaul, Bookslut - Why do Americans have such contradictory impulses when it comes to wedlock? more »

Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn, Favored Foe - By Scott Shane, September 16, 2009 - Washington — For months during last year’s presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group Acorn, which had done some work for the campaign.

Anti-Choice Zealots' Latest Bizarre Ploy - By Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check - The one good thing about these extremists is that they help reveal the anti-woman, anti-sex agenda of the anti-choice movement. more »

"Indecent acts": African women fight to dress as they choose - This has been a bad summer for women in Africa – particularly for those who demand the right to dress the way they want. Back in July, journalist and UN employee Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein was arrested at a Khartoum cafe along with twelve other women and charged with wearing pants, a crime that the Sudanese penal code labels “public indecency.”

Indian Women Find New Peace in Rail Commute - By Jim Yardley, September 16, 2009 -Palwal, India — As the morning commuter train rattled down the track, Chinu Sharma, an office worker, enjoyed the absence of men. Some of them pinch and grope women on trains, or shout insults and catcalls, she said. Her friend Vandana Rohile agreed and widened her eyes in mock imitation.

Men Kidnapped and Forced Into Marriage - By Deepali Gaur Singh, RH Reality Check - In India, huge dowry demands have led families to use criminal gangs that kidnap men and force them into wedlock. The women in these unions fare even worse. more »

It takes girls to raise a village - It might seem a bad omen for the release of a report on the global importance of educating girls to coincide with reports of a bomb destroying a coed elementary school Tuesday in Afghanistan. But, while the news comes as a reminder of the extreme challenges facing girls' education worldwide, Plan International's report "Because I Am a Girl: The State of the World's Girls 2009" makes a strong case for why it's a fight worth fighting.

Is father-daughter incest always rape? - You've likely read the tabloid reports or watched the explosive footage on TV: On Wednesday, Oprah Winfrey aired an exclusive interview with Mackenzie Phillips in which the "One Day at a Time" star reveals that her father raped her.

Tracking Sex Offenders on Your Phone: Smart or Paranoid? - By Liliana Segura, AlterNet - A hot new iPhone App uses GPS technology to track registered sex offenders everywhere. Are they keeping you safe, or profiting off paranoia? more »

CODEPINK: G20 Plans are a Go! Women's Coalition Announces Tent City Project

Woman Tells Texas School Board She's a 56 Year-Old Virgin, but She's Off by a Day - By Joshua Holland, AlterNet - Uh-oh, that's awkward. more »

Sarah Palin made her Asian debut with a speech in Hong Kong, in which she spoke as "someone from Main Street U.S.A." At the event, which was closed to the press, Palin blamed government for the current financial crisis. "We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place," she said, adding, "We're not interested in government fixes, we're interested in freedom."

TV: The Real Cougar Fans -September 24, 2009 - It was hard for me at first to find words for why I hated — simply hated — “Cougar Town,” the new Courteney Cox vehicle that debuted Wednesday night on ABC.


GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS

Mike Rogers: The Man Who Outs Closeted Right-Wing Politicians - By Greta Christina, The Blowfish Blog - Mike Rogers talks about why it's important to report on the secret sex lives of gay conservatives who are in bed with anti-gay forces. more »

King: Same-sex marriage just a step toward socialism - Normally Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, opposes same-sex marriage simply because of his social conservative stance on things. That alone is enough for the congressman to take a particularly strong stance on the issue -- after his state's Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, he worried that Iowa would become "the gay marriage Mecca.

In New York City, Queer Homeless Youth Survive at the Bottom of the Barrel - By Jimmy Tobias, Indypendent - Across the country, thousands of kids are kicked out of their homes each year for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. I wanted to know who they were and how they survived. more »

How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays - By Afif Sarhan and Jason Burke, The Observer, September 13, 2009 - Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

Unbelievable: As a Lesbian Mother, I Have to Pay More For Health Care - By Elizabeth G. Hines, Women's Media Center - Gays and lesbians remain separate and utterly unequal in the eyes of the law when it comes to obtaining health insurance for their families. more »

People For the American Way (PFAW): Outside Religious Right Groups Targeting Marriage Equality in Maine With a Prop 8-Style Campaign Based on Lies and Big Money

CIVIL RIGHTS AND IMMIGRATION

Limbaugh's Racist Shocker: "We Need Segregated Buses" - Raw Story - In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of his show, Rush Limbaugh said explicitly, Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated busing. more »

Racism in America Doesn't Stop with Glenn Beack and His Fans, It's in Our Health Care Debate, Too
By Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant - As much as white Americans hate to admit it, we are always talking about race, even when we're not poking fun at Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck more »

Carter: Animosity towards Obama based mostly on race

From The Progress Report: Census data released yesterday shows that the percentage of U.S. population "composed of immigrants dropped slightly in 2008, reversing a 40-year trend that helped fuel the nation's explosive growth and diversity." The drop in foreign born residents is more pronounced in areas that have been most effected by the recession.

Yesterday, Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) held a town hall meeting to discuss the need for comprehensive immigration reform. He said he will co-sponsor the legislation that will be introduced this year. "This is not going to be easy. Its going to be very difficult," said Moran.

Latinos to CNN: Dump Lou Dobbs Now! - By Roberto Lovato, AlterNet - As studies document the link between anti-immigrant hate speech and violence against Latinos, Dobbs continues to fan the flames. more »

Dobbs Plays the Victim, as Movement Demanding CNN Dump Him Grows - By Roberto Lovato, AlterNet - Dobbs is waving the First Amendment flag to try and distract from his long history of anti-immigrant views. more »

Three Years Later, So-Called "Secure Border Initiative" Remains a Bad Idea, Poorly Executed - By Maurice Belanger, National Immigration Forum - Congress would rather leave the Border Patrol with the untenable task of enforcing broken laws, and then complain when deadlines aren't met or costs spiral out of control. more »

Discovery Channel's 'Gang Wars: Oakland' Series Spreads All the Wrong Messages About Poverty and Minorities - By Aimee Allison, AlterNet - The Discovery Channel's series spreads dangerous myths, focusing on the worst racial stereotypes and uses sensational police footage to depict crimes of poverty. more »

With Scuffles, French Police Dismantle Migrant Camp - By Nadim audi and Caroline Brothers, September 23, 2009 - Calais, France — French authorities dismantled and bulldozed a camp for undocumented migrants outside this English Channel port on Tuesday, rounding up almost 300 Afghans, Pakistanis and others who gathered there for years in the hope of making clandestine journeys across the 22 miles of water to Britain.


HUMAN RIGHTS

NYT Reports on Justice Dept. Charge That Blackwater Saw Killing Iraqis as "Payback for 9/11"
By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports - When will a major paper report on the allegation that Erik Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe"? more »

David Cole on "The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable" - Legal scholar and attorney David Cole looks at the story behind the infamous Bush administration torture memos. Cole argues the memos show that the United States government's top attorneys were instrumental in rationalizing acts of torture and cruelty, employing chillingly twisted logic and Orwellian reasoning to authorize what the law absolutely forbids.
Listen/Watch/Read: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/15/david_cole_on_the_torture_memos

Is America hooked on war? - By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, September 17, 2009 - “War is peace” was one of the memorable slogans on the facade of the Ministry of Truth, Minitrue in “Newspeak,” the language invented by George Orwell in 1948 for his dystopian novel 1984. Some 60 years later, a quarter-century after Orwell’s imagined future bit the [...]

On Health care and immigration.

IMMIGRATION
From the Progress Report

Joe Wilson's Red Herring - Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) outburst during President Obama'sspeech before a joint session of Congress last week signaled the resurgence of the Republican Party's preferred tactic du jour: the immigration wedge strategy. Since then, members of the GOP have escalated efforts to "drum up a false debate" over health care and immigration, despite the fact that both the House and Senate bills explicitly exclude undocumented immigrants from receiving health benefits. Wilson half-heartedly apologized for screaming "You lie!" when the President said his health care plan would not cover undocumented immigrants, but he's still berating "liberals who want to give health care to illegals" and accusing Obama of "misstating the facts." Meanwhile, his GOP colleagues have focused less on denouncing his actions and more on defending his words. Worse yet, key Democrats have indicatedthat they are willing to bend over backwards to appease the Joe-Wilson argument byadding flawed and costly eligibility verification requirements to the House and Senate bills.

IMMIGRATION WEDGE POLITICS: This is certainly not the first time Republicans have used the immigration issue as a wedge to kill a policy and attack a politician they don't like, all while garnering extra support from the far right-wing of their base. Earlier this year, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) opposed letting more legal immigrant children receive health care benefits under the State Children's Health Insurance Program, arguing that it would somehow "enable illegal aliens to fraudulently enroll in Medicaid and SCHIP." One month later, anti-immigrant groups and right-wing lawmakers claimed that the economic stimulus package could grant undocumented immigrants tax credits. Several Republicans began arguing for the inclusion of an E-Verify mandate that would have forced employers receiving stimulus money to use a controversial and error-ridden web-based system to verify the immigration status of their employees. In July, Republican senators swamped the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill with a series of immigration enforcement-only amendments that re-introduced no-match letters, expanded E-Verify, and expedited the construction of 700 miles of border fencing. Leading up to the confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, anti-immigrant groups and right-wing lawmakers needlessly fretted over her "interventionist approach to immigration" and accused Sotomayor of affiliating herself with a "pro-illegal immigration" "Latino KKK" group and called her "racist" because she's a member of the nation's largest mainstream Latino civil rights group.

GOP ECHO CHAMBER: Wilson's "You lie!" spasm is essentially the GOP's motto. Most right wingers and health care reform haters have conceded that there's language in both health care bills that explicitly excludes undocumented immigrants, but they cling to the absence of an immigration-status verification mechanism as proof that Obama is either a liar or a misinformed fool. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) and Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) have both suggested that President Obama was either lying or talking about "some other bill." This weekend, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) proclaimed that "the fact is, Joe Wilson was telling the truth";Rep. Steve King (R-IA) started circulating a pro-Wilson letter. Former New York governor George Pataki says Obama's comments raise "questions," and former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo has also come out of the woodwork to claim, "Joe is right, Obama is a liar." Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said they were offended by Obama's fact-checking, and Boehner, Cantor, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), and many others have defended Wilson's position by slamming Democrats for voting down stringent, GOP verification amendments that would've given private insurance providers unprecedented access to the sensitive income and identity information and blocked several categories of legal immigrants from receiving benefits. Meanwhile, Democrats have "squander[ed] the chance to set the record straight." Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Max Baucus (D-MT) have expressed willingness to back down and accept enforcement mechanisms, while the White House has indicated that undocumented immigrants should be additionally barred from participating in the exchange and purchasing private insurance at full cost.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: Democrats need to draw a line in the sand between necessary bipartisanship andwasting precious time onnon-issues and "bogus claims." The current debate is dominated by anti-immigrant groups and lawmakers whouse every opportunity to "whip up fear and anger" about immigrants, and hardcore health reform opponents who look for any excuse to slam "Obamacare." The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act prohibited undocumented immigrants from being eligible for most public benefits and codified procedures for verifying eligibility. There's nothing in the health care bills that changes that fact or alters the stringent verification mechanisms already in Medicaid. Tax policy experts have further pointed out that it would be difficult for undocumented immigrants to even apply for subsidies because tax returns are required to determine a person's eligibility and the few undocumented immigrants who do file taxes are almost immediately flagged. Republicans obsessed with health care reform's price tag should take note that enforcement mechanisms are expensive. In the case of Medicaid, six states that spent $16.6 million of federal and state taxpayer funds to implement extra verification procedures caught only eight undocumented immigrants, but blocked thousands of US citizens. Demonizing immigrants also has a high political cost. Latinos, the fastest growing voting bloc, soured on the GOP in 2008 largely in response to right-wing anti-immigrant demagoguery during the 2007 immigration debate. Old habits die hard for the GOP, and ultimately, the debate about covering undocumented immigrants boils down to one thing: Democrats getting pounded for doing something that they're not, despite the fact that it's actually a good idea if you care more about what makes moral, economic, and practical sense, and less about what is politically palatable.

Interview with Grace Lee Booggs and John Bellamy Foster

From Democracy Now! *

Grace Lee Boggs, 94-year-old philosopher and activist based in Detroit. She has been involved with the civil rights, Black Power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements over the past seven decades. Her autobiography Living for Change was published in 1998. Monthly Review Press has just republished two books by her late husband Jimmy Boggs with new introductions written by Grace.

John Bellamy Foster, Editor of the journal Monthly Review and a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the author of several books, including The Great Financial Crisis and The Ecological Evolution: Making Peace with the Planet.

Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs and Sociologist, Monthly Review Editor John Bellamy Foster on the Financial Meltdown, Social Change and Redefining Democracy

JUAN GONZALEZ: A year ago this week, Lehman Brothers collapsed. Wall Street fell into a state of panic as it became evident that the nation was suffering its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.A year later, little seems to have changed on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs is preparing to hand out high bonuses again this year. The 30,000 employees at the investment bank will take home on average $700,000 this year. Just yesterday, the Bloomberg news agency reported credit-default swaps have lost their stigma on Wall Street, even though it was this type of risky bet that led to the financial crisis just a year ago.

While Wall Street appears to be recovering from the crisis, Main Street has not. The official unemployment rate is expected to top ten percent this year. In Michigan, it’s at already above 15 percent. In Philadelphia, the city is threatening to shut down its public library system in early October. In California, hundreds of faculty, students and staff from the University of California’s ten campuses have called for a system-wide walkout next Thursday to protest the university’s handling of its budget crisis. Cities and states across the country are cutting back on essential services.

AMY GOODMAN: For the rest of the hour, we’re joined by two guests who, for decades, have advocated for a radical rethinking of how the nation’s economy is structured.
Grace Lee Boggs was with us—is with us right now, philosopher, activist, just celebrated her ninety-fourth birthday, big parties in Detroit and in Chicago. She was born in 1915 to Chinese immigrant parents. For the past seven decades, she’s been involved with the civil rights, Black Power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements. Her autobiography Living for Change was published in 1998. Monthly Review Press has just republished two books by her late husband Jimmy Boggs with new introductions written by Grace.
We’re also joined by John Bellamy Foster. He is editor of the socialist journal Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He’s the author of several books, including The Great Financial Crisis and The Ecological Evolution: Making Peace with the Planet.

Both Grace Lee Boggs and John Bellamy Foster are speaking tonight at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at an event to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Monthly Review.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now!

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: —in a time of, well, you might say, great crisis and also opportunity. Grace Lee Boggs, how would you describe where we stand now and how we’ve gotten here?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, I think we’re in a time of great hope and great danger. I think that the danger is largely underestimated. I think that at a time when thousands of people descend on Washington saying we want our country back and calling, denouncing Obama as a socialist, that it has become very important for us not to talk about a recovery, but to talk about how do we create a new society of hope.And I think that’s why Monthly Review is so important, because it’s been for six years trying to create an independent approach to socialism that is not bogged down in ideas that come from the nineteenth century or from the 1917 revolution.

And I think that the only answer to the counterrevolution, which Bertha Lewis and others are trying to defend ourselves against, is to begin creating a new concept of hope, not to talk about recovery. We don’t need to go back to a society that is concentrated on economic growth, that dehumanizes us, that makes us consumers only and is threatening all life on this planet. We need to be thinking about something new.

And we need to have a deeper appreciation of the witch hunts that are taking place, and that—Van Jones and Bertha Lewis, and understand that these are taking place at a time of great danger to the powers that be, that the powers that be have lost two wars, that the situation is much more comparable to that of Germany in the ’30s than to anything that the American people have experienced up to now.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And when you say “a new society of hope,” how you distinguish that from, let’s say, the movement that brought President Obama to power, which is talking about change, the difference between change now that it’s being attempted versus your vision of a society of hope?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, I think it’s fortunate that we have Obama in power, not because he’s going to do very much. I think the contradiction between his rhetoric and his practice is very profound. I think it’s very tied into his personality. But what he does is, by virtue of his—actually, in the White House, carrying on the policies, essentially, of the previous administration, especially with regard to war, is that he’s forcing us really to go beyond him to understand his limitations. He’s—in a sense, he’s an opportunity; he’s also a danger, as every crisis is.

AMY GOODMAN: And John Bellamy Foster, your analysis of what’s happening now and where your publication, Monthly Review, fits in?

JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER: Well, in terms of the economic crisis, I think our analysis is that the usual way of looking at things is upside down. And we’re told that the whole problem is the financial crisis, and if that’s fixed, then the problem will be solved, and the bailout will trickle down to the rest of the population.
But our argument is—and it has been for a long time—that the basic economy, the real economy, or production, is slowing down. And there are reasons for this that are complex. But the US economic growth rate has been slowing down. It was slower in the 1970s than the 1960s, slower than in the 1980s and ’90s than in the 1970s, and slower in the 2000s up ’til 2007 than in the 1990s. The rate of growth has been slowing down. And now we’ve actually plummeted. So this is the worst decade in economic growth since the 1930s. But each one since the 1960s has been basically slower than the one before. So the basic economy is slowing down. And they’ve used finance as a way of stimulating it through these bubbles. And yet there’s—this is very destructive.
And the real problems, then, have to do with production, with the ordinary economy, with the way distribution is carried out. Real wages in this country in 2007 were at the same level as 1967, when Lyndon Johnson was president. Profits have gone up, as we know. Wealth has gone up. But real wages were at the level of 1967. You have a situation where one percent of the population, one percent of the wealth holders, own twice as much as the bottom 80 percent of the population. So these—there are problems in terms of distribution, in terms of the structuring of the underlying production. And this is built into the system.
And believe it or not, the growth—the financial bubbles were a kind of solution to keep the system going, but it’s like a drug addiction. You need bigger and bigger doses to keep it going. Now the only real solution to the problem they have now—their solution is to bail out finance. And so far, we’ve committed in the United States, as of early 2009, we committed $12 million of federal government, in one way or another, committed—I mean, not $12 million, I’m sorry, $12 trillion in various forms cash, capital infusions, debt subsidies, loans and so on to the financial institutions, $12 trillion, which is—the stimulus package is only a small part of that.
And this has been used to bail out the banks, while very little is being done for the people at the bottom, where the real problem lies. As Grace says, we don’t really need to have a recovery of this kind of system. What we need to do is address the conditions of the people at the bottom of the society. And, of course, in order for that to happen, people have to rise up and demand it. And it won’t happen from above.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, but precisely this latter point that you raise, no one denies, I think, that the income disparities have grown dramatically over the last few decades—

JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER: Mm-hmm.

JUAN GONZALEZ: —both within the United States and the rest of the world. But at the same time, with the exception perhaps of Latin America, the level of popular resistance, organized resistance demanding change, appears not to have—not to have responded. Why, given this bleak picture in terms of the growing wealth gap, do you see the popular movements being so weak?
JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER: Well, if you look back in history, you look back to 1929, they had great disparity in income and wealth, and the population was not involved in a revolt at that time. There weren’t massive strikes. The Great Depression hit, and it hit in 1929. And what we call the Great Revolt from Below in 1934 basically occurred five years afterwards—the big strike waves, the growth of the CIO. There was an enormous lag. And if you look at it, in terms of unemployment, unemployment peaked in 1933 at 25 percent. And it was only after the recovery, so-called, started, the slow recovery, that people started to organize and struggle. There’s a period of learning. There’s a period of—there’s organizing going on that we’re not even aware of. I think that things will happen, but people have to understand that the recovery is not going to improve their lives that much, that this is a continuing problem.

GRACE LEE BOGGS: I have difficulties with what John is saying, but we’re meeting for the first time today. I think to go back to the ’30s and expect comparable uprisings or demonstrations or protest is a mistake. I think in the ’30s production machinery was still intact. I think that the population was very different. It was recently come from the country; it was not an urbanized population. I think that the—you know, I know the United States was not yet a superpower, let alone a waning superpower. I mean, conditions—the World War II was still ahead of us, was the means by which Roosevelt tried to solve the Depression and bring back full employment. And to think that we’re going to—that we can expect that sort of thing today, I think, is a historical mistake.

JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER: Well, maybe not exactly the same, but the point is that people respond—it takes time before you see the resistance.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, Michael Moore’s film has just come out, Capitalism: A Love Story. He was on Jay Leno’s NBC show on Tuesday promoting the new film. And I wanted to play an excerpt of what he’s saying, Grace Lee Boggs, about capitalism and how you feel about that.

    JAY LENO: You say capitalism is evil. And I say I think greed is evil, but I think capitalism is OK, as long as you—I mean, moderation in all things. I mean—

    MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah, capitalism—

    JAY LENO: Explain.

    MICHAEL MOORE: Well, capitalism—capitalism is actually legalized greed.

    JAY LENO: Mm-hmm.

    MICHAEL MOORE: It’s—there’s nothing wrong with people earning money, doing well, starting a business, selling shoes. That’s not what I’m talking about here. We’re at a point now, Jay, in this country, where the richest one percent, the very top one percent, have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

    JAY LENO: Really? Wow!

    MICHAEL MOORE: That’s insane. We live in a democracy. We’re supposed to have like fairness and equality. And, you know, when you have a pie on the table, you know, something you and I know something about—

    JAY LENO: Right, we’ve both had pie on the table, yeah.

    MICHAEL MOORE: But when you have a pie on the table, there’s ten slices, and one guy at the table says, “Nine of those slices are mine.”

    JAY LENO: Right.

    MICHAEL MOORE: “And the other nine of you, you can fight over the last slice,” I mean, that’s essentially the kind of economy we have now.

    JAY LENO: Now, is reform possible? Is reform possible?

    MICHAEL MOORE: Well, I don’t—you know, a hundred years ago, when there was child labor, they said, you know, “Can we reform child labor? Can we just regulate it?” Like, if the factories were safer and the kids go to school, we can still have twelve-year-olds working in the factory, right?

    JAY LENO: Right.

    MICHAEL MOORE: No, not right.

    JAY LENO: Right, right.

    MICHAEL MOORE: It’s wrong. Some things are just wrong. And this capitalist economic system that we have, it might have been right at one point; it’s not right now. And I don’t think we’re ever going to put the genie back in the bottle. So we need to come up with something new to replace it. And I’m not talking about—this isn’t a debate between capitalism versus socialism.

    JAY LENO: Right.

    MICHAEL MOORE: I’m actually suggesting go back to our roots of this country: democracy. What if we had an economy that you and I had a say in? Right now, we all don’t have much of a say in this economy. What if we applied our democratic principles and said, “We the people have a right to determine how this economy is run”? I think we’d be in much better shape—

    JAY LENO: Mm-hmm.

    MICHAEL MOORE: —than what we’re going through right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Grace Lee Boggs, if you were sitting right there next to Michael Moore on Jay Leno’s show, and he said, “What if we applied democratic principles to the economy to determine how it should be?” what would be your answer?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, I would say that we’ve got to redefine democracy, that we have been stuck in concepts of representative democracy, that we believe that it’s getting other people to do things for us that we progress. And I think that we’ve reached the point now where we’re stuck with a whole lot of concepts, so that when Michael Moore speaks about the number of people who make all this money and other people who don’t, it sounds as if we’re struggling for equality with them. Who wants to be equal to these guys? I think we have to be thinking much more profoundly.

Actually, if you go back to what Marx said in The Communist Manifesto over a hundred years ago, when in talking about the constant revolutions in technology, he ended that paragraph by saying, “All that is sacred is profaned, all that is solid melts into air, and men and women are forced to face with sober senses our conditions of life and our relations with our kind.” We’re at that sort of turning point in human history.

And I think that, talking about recovery, talking about democracy, we too easily get sucked into old notions of what we want. And when I—so we’re expecting protest. I’m not expecting so many protests. I don’t mind protests, and I encourage them at times. But what happened in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, when people gathered to say another world is necessary, another world is possible, and another world is happening, I think that that’s what’s happening.

In Detroit, in particular, we—people are beginning to say the only way to survive is by taking care of one another, by recreating our relationships to one another, that we have created a society, over the last period, in particular, where each of us is pursuing self-interest. We have devolved as human beings.

And that’s why I think the Monthly Review is so important, because in its first issue, it published an article by Albert Einstein on socialism. And Einstein put forward a concept of socialism which was much closer to the advocacy of a radical revolution of values of Martin Luther King in 1967 than to Marx’s ideas of socialism in terms of economic growth in the nineteenth century. And I think to know that we’re in another century—actually two centuries from Marx—

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. Grace Lee Boggs, thanks so much for being with us, and John Bellamy Foster of the Monthly Review.


Grace Lee Boggs on Mass Protest and Race Politics in the Obama Era, Economic Devastation in Detroit, and the Legacy of Socialist Thought in the US

Part two of our conversation with the legendary activist and community organizer Grace Lee Boggs

AMY GOODMAN: We wrap up our show with our guest of yesterday and today. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, we end it with the part two of our conversation with the legendary activist and community organizer Grace Lee Boggs. She is a ninety-four-year-old philosopher and activist based in Detroit. She has been involved with the civil rights, Black Power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements over the past seven decades. She was born to Chinese immigrant parents in 1915. In 1992, she co-founded the Detroit Summer youth program to rebuild and renew her city.

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined right now by Grace Lee Boggs.Welcome to Democracy Now!

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: You were just intently listening to and watching our segment on what happened in Chicago. Your comments on it, as a longtime union organizer, community organizer?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, what I think is that we are counting too much on mass protests and thinking they are going to influence the administration, and not recognizing sufficiently that we have entered into a period of revolution and counterrevolution, and that it began with the ’60s, and that when Jimmy Carter said on July 15th, 1979 that we—when he made his malaise speech, what he was saying, essentially, that we have to begin looking at ourselves. And I think that that created a form of counterrevolution in the form of Ronald Reagan, which was not recognizable because it seemed so sunny, and it only began to happen when, after 9/11, we got the Bush administration.

And I think, too, that the weakness of ourselves and of the administration, that we are not able to look sufficiently at the events of our period in a historical manner, that we do not recognize that we have a nation of empire, actually, entered into an indigenous revolution. And we’re talking too much about things that hit the headlines and not adequately at the turning point in the history of this country and of the human race that we have entered.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But what then characterizes the essence of that revolution that is not being reported in the headlines?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, first of all, we have to understand that a revolutionary period is also a counterrevolutionary period; that there is a deep unrest, a deep destabilization, that has taken place in the structures of the society; and that this began with the civil rights movement. They began saying that human relations matter more than economic growth. And it came from black people, because the economic growth had been taken so much—taken place so much on their backs. And then it began to embrace women, people from the ecology movement, young people, who also were being threatened, of course, by the Vietnam War. And all these things came together.

I mean, to understand that, I think, is our challenge. And to understand that the Obama administration, because it’s so rootless, actually—I mean, because so much talking heads from Harvard University—that it’s not able to grasp this. And how you, folks like yourselves in the media, who have to operate so much within a timeframe of seconds—how you are going to convey that, I think, is a huge challenge.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to a clip of, not Obama, but former President Jimmy Carter. We actually played it on the broadcast yesterday, as well. He’s talking about how racism is tied to the recent right-wing protests against President Obama.

    JIMMY CARTER: An overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American. I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans. That racism inclination still exists. And I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the South, but around the country, that African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance and grieves me and concerns me very deeply.

AMY GOODMAN: Former President Jimmy Carter speaking on NBC News. And this is White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responding to Carter’s comments at a news conference Wednesday.

    ROBERT GIBBS: The President does not believe that—that the criticism comes based on the color of his skin. We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by both this administration and previous administrations to stabilize our financial system, to ensure viability of our domestic auto industry. I don’t think that—as I said, the President does not believe that it’s based on the color of his skin.

AMY GOODMAN: Grace Lee Boggs, your response?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Pitiful. Really pitiful. I mean, to believe that you can establish priorities and decide that “I have put healthcare on the agenda,” and what is happening in the world, that people who—thousands of people who are angry and frustrated and destabilized and who come out saying, “We want our country back,” and denouncing Obama as a socialist—that you can say, “No, I have put healthcare on the agenda, and that’s what I’m going to do,” I mean, it’s just like how he decided that he was going to listen to Congress. You know? And I mean, not to have an awareness of where we are, and the—I mean, it’s so linear.

And the contrast is so great with Jimmy Carter. He’s the greatest ex-president we’ve ever had. I mean, he’s such an example of what leadership is like and how it’s very difficult to give leadership from the White House.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Much better as an ex-president than as a president. But I’d like to ask you about something you’ve written quite a lot about, the attempt you’ve been making in Detroit to change people’s relationships to the land and to their city through the urban gardening and farming movement in the cities. How is this part of the revolution you envision for the future for America?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: It’s critical; it’s not just a part. It’s pivotal, because Detroit, with the devastation of deindustrialization, gave us the space and place to begin anew. And we were forced to think very differently about what it means to be a human being and what it means to create a world that embraces and enlarges and expands us as human beings.

And we didn’t choose to be that. I mean, we were once the miracle, a sign of the international symbol of the miracles of industrialization. And then we became the international symbol of the devastation of deindustrialization. So we had to begin anew. And we looked at our vacant lots, and we saw them as an opportunity to begin growing our own food.

And as The Nation article says on the headline on democracy, I mean, growing your food is the beginning of growing democracy, a new kind of democracy that’s not dependent on lobbyists and on representative democracy, but begins to depend on the people from below, from the ground.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You know, one of things, though, that strikes me about that is that in the ’80s here in New York City, and even into the early ’90s, there was a huge urban gardening movement that developed, as well, not perhaps as much as whole farms, but there were these beautiful urban gardens and vegetable patches all around the inner city. But then that, because the city—parts of the city had been devastated, and there were a lot of empty lots. But as land values increased and developers came back, the government took all the urban gardens away.

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Yeah.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And there are very few of them left. So the issue then is—

GRACE LEE BOGGS: And they built these high-rises that are absolutely unsustainable.

JUAN GONZALEZ: So the issue is that if you don’t have political—if you don’t have political power, how can you institutionalize the changes that are being made in the relationships between people?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: I think our concept of revolution, in terms of getting the power to do things, is too focused on the state. We have a scenario of revolution that first, you know, comes from1917, that first you take the state power, and then you change things. And we don’t realize it’s collapsed. I mean, it collapsed in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union tried to take over Afghanistan. I mean, we’re in a very different period, we have to understand.

And how do—I’m challenging you now—how do you, with the media, begin to provide that kind of understanding of what the twentieth century was like and what it has bequeathed to us as our challenge for the twenty-first century?

AMY GOODMAN: You have just republished, or at least written an introduction to your husband’s book, Jimmy Boggs, called The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook, James Boggs. Talk about the significance of this, as you talk about the twentieth century, for what is happening today, and just who your husband was. You’re an unusual couple. You, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, your dad had a Chinese restaurant here—I mean, we’re in Chinatown, essentially—a thousand-seat restaurant. You then become a philosopher, get a PhD, and you meet this African American community organizer from the Deep South. His name was James Boggs.

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, first of all, I’m going to go back and talk about Monthly Review for a moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Monthly Review Press.

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Monthly Review Press. The sixtieth anniversary was held—celebration was last night, and they showed this article by Albert Einstein on socialism in the first issue. And Einstein presented a radical, humanist, evolutionary view of socialism that was much more like Martin Luther King’s radical revolution of values than Karl Marx’s concepts of socialism arrived at the last half of the nineteenth century. And that’s where we are now. I mean, that’s what—

Jimmy came out of the Deep South. He had a sense of the agricultural epoch. Then he came and worked in the plant and had a sense of the industrial epoch. And then he watched automation, what we called automation takeover, remove the necessity of work from our well-being. And he saw that we’re moving into a jobless world and that we had to redefine ourselves as human beings. And that’s what American revolution is all about: redefining ourselves as human beings, because we have benefited from damning the rest of the world to underdevelopment.

And in nineteen—Jimmy’s written this, by the way, thirty years before 9/11. But on 9/11, the world arose and told us, “We’re not taking this any longer.” And we’re not—we haven’t faced that reality. We haven’t faced the reality that we have to redefine ourselves, that we have to give up things rather than get more material things.

AMY GOODMAN: On that note, I want to thank you very much for coming back to talk to us today, Grace Lee Boggs. We look forward to visiting you in Detroit. Grace Lee Boggs just celebrated her ninety-fourth birthday in Detroit and then in Chicago, big celebrations, as she continues with Detroit Summer and the urban gardens movement in Detroit. Our website is democracynow.org, for all our conversations with her.