La maquinaria es grande y poderosa y devora todo a su paso, mientras nosotros peleamos por tendencias e intereses mezquinos que debilitan nuestro brazo de pueblo y el poder que da el sabernos hermanas y hermanos de clase y conciencia.

Source: Real News Network TRNN’s Jesse Freeston, one of the members of media attacked or arrested at G20

Naomi Klein: "My city feels like a crime scene and the criminals are all melting into the night, fleeing the scene. No, I'm not talking about the kids in black who smashed windows and burned cop cars on Saturday. I'm talking about the heads of state who, on Sunday night, smashed social safety nets and burned good jobs in the middle of a recession. Faced with the effects of a crisis created by the world's wealthiest and most privileged strata, they decided to stick the poorest and most vulnerable people in their countries with the bill. How else can we interpret the G20's final communiqué, which includes not even a measly tax on banks or financial transactions, yet instructs governments to slash their deficits in half by 2013."

Cuando días antes de la toma de posesión ya Rodrigo Arias proclamaba su determinación de aspirar a una candidatura presidencial, daba dos cosas por supuestas: la primera, que el PLN es de su exclusiva propiedad, porque ni siquiera se tomó la molestia de hablar de una convención que lo eligiera como candidato. Ni el viejo Figueres, auténtico caudillo liberacionista, se atrevió a tanto. La segunda, que suponía, a la vieja usanza de los gamonales, que sólo habían dejado en la Casa Presidencial a una "ama de llaves" y no a la Presidenta de la República. ¿Qué conclusiones podemos sacar de todo esto? Que los Arias han decidido mantener, a toda costa, su dictadura en democracia. Para eso necesitan un gobierno complaciente, obediente y subordinado. A pesar de sus gestos de resistencia, sería un error pensar que es el gobierno de doña Laura Chinchilla el encargado de hacerles frente.

Not all of us who are fighting in the streets here in Toronto are despondent, but a great many of us are. I am. We are experiencing in our neighborhoods what brown people have experienced for centuries around the world at our hands. It has come home to roost. I woke this morning from a dream of Kanada, and I was weeping uncontrollably. Our children are attacked by troops openly in the streets, openly in so-called “free speech zones.” We chant, “the world is watching,” but as we are beaten back from the neighborhoods in which we have lived for two hundred years by troops who may not even be Canadian, we see football on the TV’s. Is anyone watching us? My ten-year-old was almost fucking killed when he was attacked by police in a free-speech zone. My fourteen-year-old and I were chased for two hours. Does anyone out there care?

Pese a los esfuerzos emprendidos por el presidente Porfirio Lobo para presentar al mundo un país en vía de normalización y reconciliación, los resultados de cinco meses de gobierno muestran un país que sigue hundiéndose en una grave crisis política, económica y social, y que no logra sacudirse de encima los efectos del golpe de Estado de junio 2009. De acuerdo con un análisis realizado en mayo de 2010 por más de cien organizaciones de la sociedad civil hondureña, el presidente Porfirio Lobo tomó posesión de su cargo en medio del aislamiento internacional y de la falta de legitimidad, “producto de un proceso electoral no transparente” y de una ruptura institucional no sanada.

Chomsky: "Though the Iranian threat is not military, that does not mean that it might be tolerable to Washington. Iranian deterrent capacity is an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that interferes with US global designs. Specifically, it threatens US control of Middle East energy resources, a high priority of planners since World War II, which yields “substantial control of the world,” one influential figure advised (A. A. Berle). But Iran’s threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand its influence. As the Institute study formulates the threat, Iran is “destabilizing” the region. US invasion and military occupation of Iran’s neighbors is “stabilization.” Iran’s efforts to extend its influence in neighboring countries is “destabilization,” hence plainly illegitimate. It should be noted that such revealing usage is routine."

Quienes conocen a ambos personajes, destacan, precisamente, el carácter de gamonal que caracterizó el liderazgo de Uribe, distinto al de Santos, más urbano. Y agregan que Santos “no mete la mano en el fuego por nadie”. Entre la herencia de Uribe, que es también la de Santos, está la alianza con la parapolítica, responsable de la desaparición de miles de personas; de los “falsos positivos”, o asesinatos de por lo menos dos mil jóvenes pobres y desempleados que el ejército luego presentaba como guerrilleros abatidos en combate; y los vínculos con los narcotraficantes, que ha significado la expulsión de millones de colombianos de sus tierras. Se estima en cuatro millones de hectáreas las que han sido apropiadas por esos grupos, transformados en la base de apoyo del uribismo en el interior de Colombia.

If Obama's Afghan decision was a cave-in to the brass and a potential generals' revolt, the president also added that kicker of a deadline to the mix, not only placating his political base and minimizing Democratic unhappiness in Congress, but creating a trap of sorts for Petraeus and McChrystal. The message was clear enough: deliver the goods, and fast, or we're heading out, whether the job is finished or not. Afghanistan is the place where theories of warfare go to die, and if the COIN theory isn't dead yet, it's utterly failed so far to prove itself. The vaunted February offensive into the dusty hamlet of Marja in Helmand province has unraveled. The offensive into Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and a seething tangle of tribal and religious factions, once touted as the potential turning point of the entire war, has been postponed indefinitely. After nine years, the Pentagon has little to show for its efforts, except ever-rising casualties and money spent. Perhaps Obama is still counting on U.S. soldiers to reverse the Taliban's momentum and win the war, even though administration officials have repeatedly rejected the notion that Afghanistan can be won militarily. David Petraeus or no, the reality is that the war will end with a political settlement involving President Karzai's government, various Afghan warlords and power brokers, the remnants of the old Northern Alliance, the Taliban, and the Taliban's sponsors in Pakistan.