Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

 "To be, or not to be: that is the question." ...

 

You are not free, you are an experiment

 

By Txema García: You, who are reading this. You, who are beginning to feel that something isn't right. That the world has become hostile, that no one listens to you, that everything is designed for you to lose. You, who believe the far right has answers. That it points fingers, that it shouts what you keep quiet, that it promises "order" in the midst of chaos. Let me tell you something: they are using you. They are turning you into cannon fodder. Into a laboratory rat to perfect the most sophisticated regime of exploitation that history has ever known: the savage and rampant capitalism that rules the planet.

 

Every day you receive your share of alienation. In the job that doesn't fulfill you, in the salary that doesn't suffice, in the screen that distracts you. You have been taught to distrust the poor, the migrant, anyone who is different. They have convinced you that the enemy is below, when it has always been above. In the boards of directors, in the investment funds, in the transnational corporations that plunder resources and lives. In the algorithms that shape your thinking without you even noticing.

 

The far right doesn't want to free you. It wants to channel your rage to protect the true masters of the system. It offers you a false identity, a community based on hate, an epic that only serves to divide. While you scream against the "other," they continue to accumulate power. While you share confrontational memes, they design new forms of control. While you think you're waking up, they perfect your cage.

 

Your day begins before dawn. The alarm clock rings like an order. You don't get up: you unfold. You check your phone before opening your eyes. Notifications, headlines, offers, alarms. You're already in. The algorithm bids you good morning. It tells you what to think, what to fear, what to desire. You shower quickly, eat just the right amount of breakfast, and step out onto the street like someone entering an invisible factory.

 

Public transportation is a procession of dull faces. No one speaks. Everyone stares at screens. The real world has become staged. What's important happens elsewhere: in the feed, in the scroll, in the click. You arrive at work. It doesn't matter if it's an office, a warehouse, a classroom, a hospital. The pattern is the same: productivity, obedience, pretense. They ask you to smile, to perform, not to overthink. Not to question. Not to feel.

At lunchtime, you eat quickly, alone or with others who are also alone. You talk about soccer, TV shows, sales. Never about the system. Never about pain. Never about fear. Because that's not talked about. Because that doesn't sell. Because that's uncomfortable. You go back to work. You feel tired, but you don't know why. You haven't run, you haven't fought, you haven't created. You've only obeyed. You've only been useful.

 

When you leave, the algorithm awaits you. It offers you distraction, indignation, consumption. It tells you that the enemy is the migrant, the poor, the feminist, the queer. It pushes you to share hateful memes, to sign petitions that change nothing, to feel like you're participating without leaving your couch. Meanwhile, the true masters of the system—the investment funds, the military-industrial complexes, the extractive transnationals—continue to plunder the world. And you, unwittingly, do their dirty work.

 

You have dinner in a hurry. You watch something on a platform that decides for you. You go to bed with your phone in your hand. The last thing you see isn't the face of someone you love, but a screen that watches you. And when you sleep, your dreams are no longer your own. They are nightmares of success, of competition, of fear. You dream that you're late. That you don't perform. That you don't fit in. That you're not enough. The algorithm also schedules your rest.

 

And so, day after day, you become what they need: a docile body, a distracted mind, a manipulable emotion. You are not free. You are an experiment. A piece of data. A cog. And if you don't see it, you'll continue to be part of the problem.

 

But there is a way out. Not in hatred, not in nostalgia, not in "every man for himself." The way out lies in awareness. In cooperation. In disobedience. In the pedagogy that teaches you to think for yourself. In the left that doesn't sell out, that doesn't manage, that doesn't make deals with the algorithm. In the flotillas of freedom that are built from below, with bodies, with affections, with community.

 

Don't get caught. Don't become what they need. Don't confuse noise with truth. Don't confuse order with justice. Don't confuse belonging with submission.

 

The true revolution doesn't shout: it listens. It doesn't point: it embraces. It doesn't promise: it builds. And it starts with you. With me. For all of us. What are we waiting for to rebel?

 

 Txema García, journalist and writer

 

 This Song Around The World features Keith Richards in collaboration with Roberto Luti, Titi Tsira and a number of worldwide musicians on a rendition of his reggae song, "Words of Wonder," off 1992's Main Offender. This video also leads into a cover of Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up," featuring Keb' Mo', Mermans Mosengo, Aztec Indians, Natalie Pa'apa'a of Blue King Brown, and Jamaican singer Sherita Lewis.

Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

The two enemies of the people are criminals and the government, so let's bind the latter with the chains of the Constitution so they don't become the legalized version of the former. - Neither known.

 

Argentina: From Lawfare to Fascist Neocolony

 

By Claudia Rocca: Jurist Claudia Rocca analyzes the strategy of imperialism in Our America, which undermines the democratic foundations of the affected states by compromising their capacity for self-determination and promoting subordination to external agendas.

 

In recent months, the judiciary has played a leading role in our region: from the lawfare orchestrated against the former president of Argentina to the historic convictions against former presidents of the regional far-right, such as Álvaro Uribe Vélez in Colombia and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. However, it is worth clarifying that, quite contrary to what the mainstream press attempts to portray as similarities between lawfare cases and those brought before justice for proven crimes, the two respond to very different natures. To better understand lawfare as an imperialist strategy in Our America, we asked Claudia Rocca of the American Association of Jurists for her contribution to this debate:

"Lawfare is a political war through the judicial and media channels, responding to economic, political, and geopolitical interests. It involves judges, prosecutors, media corporations, journalists and opinion leaders, police, embassy officials, and intelligence agents, both local and foreign.

 

It is characterized by the abuse of pretrial detention, plea bargains, and verdicts fabricated without respect for due process, through harassment and demoralization through the media. It includes raids on political offices and militant homes, persecution and threats against family members, forcing them into exile and political refuge, and manipulating and spreading fear among those involved in certain political processes.

 

In recent years, these tactics have been used against dozens of political leaders and/or former government officials in Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and El Salvador, linked to governments, programs, or projects that challenge neoliberal orthodoxy to a greater or lesser extent.

 

This war operates "from above," through a judicial apparatus that places itself above the legislative and executive branches, expanding the scope of maneuver and power for judges, who become involved in political operations, triggering a loss of balance between branches, allowing for a growing "juristocracy," and, in many cases, normalizing the double standard of the law. This historical process of repositioning the judiciary above all others is characteristic of neo-constitutionalism, the predominant legal order in much of Europe and Latin America in recent decades.

 

The rise of the judicial apparatus and selectivity in judicial cases are articulated with a leading role of the media, which operates to criminalize political sectors or leaders. Added to this are the voices of "experts," many of them from U.S. "think tanks," who are attributed with a supposed "force of truth" in the mainstream media and social networks.

 

The role played by U.S. government agencies such as USAID and others, as well as U.S. private sector interests, is striking: both are involved in both the judicial processes and the outcomes and events following them, demonstrating the instrumentalization of the judicial-media apparatus in favor of foreign economic, political, and geopolitical objectives, which share interests and business dealings with local privileged minorities.

 

But this mechanism does not end within the domestic sphere. For those nations where the new Western economic power has failed to undermine national and sovereign political processes, the same prescriptions are applied using the international system of currency flows, tariffs and trade routes, money laundering prevention systems, immigration control systems, sanctions and unilateral coercive measures, and charges and accusations based solely on decisions made by administrative bodies and, therefore, merely political decisions of the US administration.

 

Several military publications consider lawfare to be one of the components of new "unconventional" wars, such as hybrid warfare. This war can be waged by state or non-state actors, acting with all forms of the spectrum of this type of warfare, including conventional military capabilities, unconventional combat tactics and units, or other terrorist actions, chaos planning through acts of violence, cyberwarfare, financial warfare, or media warfare.

It will be enough to invoke the "illegal" nature of other states' laws/norms, which do not adhere to the Western canon, for them to be classified as violent ("unusual and extraordinary threat"), thus attempting to legitimize attacks that today take on multiple dimensions.

While, as we have said, lawfare constitutes a tool used by the state, the government, or privileged minorities at the local level, it is also a tool at the transnational level, implemented from the global north.

 

For nations that submit, this is the core of the colonial and dependency relations exacerbated by the expansion of capitalism. Within the framework of this unequal relationship, the US and its allies reorganize the landscape in favor of the interests of a transnational network of power, creating a kind of "legitimate legal order" and defining the scope of their jurisdiction, ignoring the sovereignty of weaker states that lack the capacity to impose their law by force or to resist.

 

Jurisdiction is not simply a rule; it determines which rules will be applied, where, how, and by whom. Therein lies the subjugating power of the Western power center over our Latin American countries, channeled through lawfare.

 

The establishment of this "juristocracy" has resulted in the judicialization of big politics and democracy, since by delegitimizing and neutralizing political leaders who are inconvenient for certain economic and geopolitical interests, it not only affected the individuals directly involved but also undermined the democratic foundations of the affected states, compromising their capacity for self-determination and promoting subordination to external agendas.

 

The Argentine Case

 

The judicial persecution of political and social leaders in Argentina has been developing since the end of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's last term in office. At that time, figures parading in the media began to gain prominence, denouncing the alleged corruption of Kirchnerist officials without supporting evidence, but with great attention and impact provided by the mass media. The attacks were particularly focused on the figure of the president, and even led to the idea that she was the mastermind behind the death of prosecutor Nisman, despite the fact that all the evidence gathered in the investigation indicated that it was a suicide.

 

The federal criminal court, along with other high-ranking officials in the judiciary, became the main opposition party. This process was decisive in the victory of Mauricio Macri, whose administration plunged the country into a process of deindustrialization, concentration of wealth through financial speculation, surrender of strategic resources, and weakening of state capacity, while the criminalization of Kirchnerism in particular, and of grassroots social leaders in general, multiplied. Milagro Sala is the most paradigmatic example. In the latter part of his term, Macri incurred formidable debt in record time. The nearly $50 billion granted by the IMF in a completely irregular manner is part of the amount that subsequently fled the country.

 

As a result of the evident unviability of this government program and the social and economic deterioration it caused, Peronism won the presidential elections in 2019. But it clearly did not gain power. The lawfare regime did not budge one iota.

 

One of the most emblematic cases is undoubtedly the so-called "Vialidad" case, in which Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced to six years in prison for the crime of fraudulent administration. Within the framework of this process, the guarantees of defense in court, as provided for in Article 380 of the National Code of Criminal Procedure, based on Article 18 of the National Constitution and reinforced by the treaties comprising International Human Rights Law, have been violated; the set of rules on judicial conduct known as the Bangalore Principles (adopted by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in its Resolution E/CN.4/2003/65/Annex of November 2002, formally approved on January 10, 2003), have been violated, given the public and notorious lack of impartiality of the sentencing judge and his evident ties to the prosecutor's office. The judicial arbitrariness manifested in the proceedings against the vice president reflects the same patterns of persecution as in the political proscriptions of other Latin American leaders. This is clearly evident in a ruling that bears no relation to the evidence produced in the case file, which has not incorporated any elements that substantiate the conduct attributed to the former president.

 

After confirmation by the Court of Cassation—which failed to address any of the aforementioned arguments—in just two months, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation upheld the conviction—while other cases wait for years or even decades. With the now-customary prior and precise media announcement, the unconstitutional ruling achieved its stated purpose from the outset: Cristina's banishment.

 

We can affirm that lawfare was a central factor in the rise to power of Javier Milei, a figure with sinister characteristics, driven and sustained by three centers of economic power: speculative finance and investment in strategic resources (such as JP Morgan, BlackRock, and others), the groups known as "techno-feudal lords"—masters of the networks—and the media.

 

From the moment he took office, Milei carried out a process of dismantling the State; The hollowing out of public policies for development, human rights, inclusion, gender, and diversity, within the framework of a process of economic devastation; the deployment of repressive measures with the expansion of security forces and agencies, aimed at silencing social protest in the face of the hollowing out of a state system for the effective protection of economic, social, and cultural rights; and the brutal impoverishment of the population.

Massive layoffs occurred, while companies, strategic resources, and other public assets were privatized. The attempt to suppress labor rights, combined with the persecution of unions, social organizations, and the popular economy—criminal charges, the withdrawal of food and other benefits guaranteed by social programs that were abruptly discontinued—reveal a political project of accumulation in favor of concentrated sectors of the economy and financial speculation. Within the framework of an inflationary process, due to the deregulation of essential economic factors such as services, benefits, and prices in general, there was an abrupt loss of wage purchasing power and an increase in unemployment and poverty.

 

In 2024, small and medium-sized businesses recorded a loss of more than 217,000 jobs and the closure of 9,923 companies, according to Industriales Pymes Argentinos (IPA). The most affected sectors were construction and manufacturing, with 69,738 and 25,186 fewer jobs, respectively. In the public sector, more than 180,000 jobs were eliminated between November 2023 and May 2025. There was an increase in informal employment and semi-slavery working conditions.

 

The loss of income purchasing power, a result of the change in economic policy implemented by the current government, represented the largest monthly decline in the last 30 years (8.4 percent year-over-year in purchasing power).

 

There was a larger contraction in consumption, both in supermarket and self-service stores, as well as in retail stores across various sectors. In 2025, inflation is easing, the result of an unprecedented economic recession and deterioration across all factors. The human consequences are now evident and alarming.

 

This accelerated process of devastation was accompanied by fascist rhetoric and practices, reflecting contempt for the human condition, a supremacist, patriarchal outlook, and the most servile and undignified subservience to the interests of the United States and the genocidal Zionist government of Israel, as vociferated by the Argentine president.

 

In conclusion, we could attempt at this point to define fascism in the 21st century as a social practice manifested through political movements, driven by the new economic power prevailing in the West, which use hatred and polarization as strategies to undermine liberal democracy, shatter the social order, and the rule of law. They thus establish authoritarian regimes and nepotism, with economic programs that foster accelerated processes of wealth concentration, benefiting the transnational groups to which they respond and fostering financial speculation. Their consequences are the destruction of social organizations, the exclusion of large majorities, economic devastation, and repression as a method of social control.

 

The Argentine example—like so many others—shows us that submission to the current Western economic power represented by the United States only brings consequences infinitely more tragic than the cost of resisting it. Not only is there no benefit or mercy: it leaves us without a horizon and without a future. Therefore, yielding or submitting is not an option for a sovereign people.

 

Claudia Rocca is president of the Argentine branch and second continental vice president of the American Association of Jurists, lawyer, university professor specializing in Public Law and Economic Law.

Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

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                                      The Big Joke Against Venezuela: 

Geopolitics Disguised as Drug Warfare By Pino Arlacchi: During my tenure as head of UNODC, the UN agency against drugs and crime, I was in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil, but I never visited Venezuela. It simply wasn't necessary. 

 The Venezuelan government's cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking was one of the best in South America, comparable only to Cuba's impeccable record. This fact, in Trump's delusional narrative of "Venezuela as a narco-state," sounds like a geopolitically motivated slander. 

 But the data—the real data—emerging from the 2025 World Drug Report, the organization I had the honor of leading, tells a story opposite to that spread by the Trump administration. A story that dismantles piece by piece the geopolitical fabrication built around the "Cartel of the Suns," an entity as legendary as the Loch Ness Monster, yet apt to justify sanctions, embargoes, and threats of military intervention against a country that, coincidentally, sits on one of the largest oil reserves on the planet. 

 Venezuela according to the UNODC: A marginal country on the drug trafficking map 

The UNODC 2025 report is crystal clear, which should shame those who have constructed the rhetoric that demonizes Venezuela. The report barely mentions Venezuela, stating that a marginal fraction of Colombian drug production passes through the country on its way to the United States and Europe. Venezuela, according to the UN, has established itself as a territory free from the cultivation of coca leaves, marijuana, and similar products, as well as from the presence of international criminal cartels. (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/data-and-analysis/world-drug-report-2025.html) 

The document simply confirms the 30 previous annual reports, which omit Venezuelan drug trafficking because it doesn't exist. Only 5% of Colombian drugs transit through Venezuela. To put this figure in perspective: in 2018, while 210 tons of cocaine transited through Venezuela, Colombia produced or sold 2,370 tons (ten times more) and Guatemala, 1,400 tons (the US has seven military bases in Colombia, surrounded by coca growers...). 

 Yes, you read that right: Guatemala is a drug corridor seven times more important than the supposedly fearsome Bolivarian narco-state. But no one talks about it because Guatemala has historically had shortages—it produces 0.01% of the world's total—of the only non-natural drug that interests Trump: oil. 

 The Fantastic Cartel of the Sun: Hollywood Fiction 

 The "Cartel of the Sun" is a product of Trump's imagination. It is supposedly led by the president of Venezuela, but it is not mentioned in the report of the world's leading anti-drug agency, nor in the documents of any European agency, nor in almost any other anti-crime agency in the world. Not even a footnote. A deafening silence that should make anyone with a modicum of critical thinking reflect. How can a criminal organization so powerful as to merit a $50 million bounty be completely ignored by those working in the anti-drug field?

  Ecuador: The Real Center That No One Wants to See 

While Washington raises the Venezuelan specter, the true centers of drug trafficking thrive almost uninterruptedly. Ecuador, for example, accounts for 57% of the banana containers that leave Guayaquil and arrive in Antwerp loaded with cocaine. European authorities seized 13 tons of cocaine from a single Spanish ship, originating precisely from Ecuadorian ports controlled by companies protected by Ecuadorian government officials. 

 The European Union produced a detailed report on the ports of Guayaquil, documenting how "Colombian, Mexican, and Albanian mafias operate extensively in Ecuador." Ecuador's homicide rate soared from 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to 45.7 in 2023. Yet Ecuador is rarely mentioned. Perhaps because Ecuador produces only 0.5% of the world's oil and because its government has not grown accustomed to challenging US dominance in Latin America? 

The Real Drug Routes: Geography vs. Propaganda

 During my years at UNODC, one of the most important lessons I learned is that geography doesn't lie. Drug routes follow a precise logic: proximity to production centers, ease of transport, corruption of local authorities, presence of established criminal networks. Venezuela meets almost none of these criteria. 

 Colombia produces more than 70% of the world's cocaine. Peru and Bolivia account for most of the remaining 30%. The logical routes to reach the US and European markets are the Pacific to Asia, the Eastern Caribbean to Europe, and, by land, Central America to the United States. 

 Venezuela, bordering the South Atlantic, is at a geographical disadvantage for the three main routes. Criminal logistics make Venezuela a marginal player in the vast international drug trafficking landscape. 

Cuba: The Example That Shames Them 

Geography doesn't lie, but politics can overcome it. Cuba continues to represent the gold standard for anti-drug cooperation in the Caribbean. An island not far from the coast of Florida, a theoretically perfect base for transit to the United States, but in practice, it remains beyond the reach of drug trafficking. I have repeatedly observed the admiration of DEA and FBI agents for the rigorous anti-drug policies of the Cuban communists. 

 Chavista Venezuela has consistently followed the Cuban model in the fight against drugs, inaugurated by Fidel Castro himself: international cooperation, territorial control, and repression of criminal activity. Neither Venezuela nor Cuba has ever had large tracts of land cultivated with cocaine and controlled by major criminals. 

The European Union has no particular oil interests in Venezuela, but it does have a specific interest in combating the drug trafficking that plagues its cities. The Union has prepared its European Drug Report 2025. The document, based on real data and not geopolitical illusions, does not mention Venezuela as a corridor for international drug trafficking. 

 This is the difference between an honest analysis and a false and insulting narrative. Europe needs reliable data to protect its citizens from drugs, so it produces accurate reports. The United States needs justification for its oil policies, so it produces propaganda disguised as intelligence. 

According to the European report, cocaine is the second most consumed drug in the 27 EU countries, but the main sources are clearly identified: Colombia for production, Central America for distribution, and various routes through West Africa for distribution. Venezuela and Cuba simply do not figure in this picture. 

But Venezuela is systematically demonized, contrary to any principle of truth. Former FBI Director James Comey offered the explanation in his post-resignation memoirs, where he analyzed the ulterior motives behind US policies toward Venezuela: Trump had told him that the Maduro government was "a government sitting on a mountain of oil that we have to buy." This isn't about drugs, crime, or national security. This is about oil that would be better off not paying for. 

 It is therefore Donald Trump who deserves an international reward for a very specific crime: "systematic slander against a sovereign state for the purpose of seizing its oil resources." 

 * Pino Arlacchi was Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNODC, the UN's anti-drug and anti-crime program.

Canadá, el infierno viviente que desconoces, “una prisión monstruosa en la que elegimos vivir”

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 no se guarde.                                                               Un paso adelante y otro atrás 

:Por Rafael Poch: Las tropas de países de la OTAN en Ucrania son garantía de que el conflicto continúa. Moscú inició la guerra para evitarlas y no las va a bendecir ahora que ganó en todos los aspectos. 

 La escenificación que Trump organizó en la cumbre de Alaska con Putin el viernes 15 de agosto, quiso mostrar un encuentro entre iguales. Alfombra roja, cordialidad y respeto. Eso es algo que recuerda con nostalgia los tiempos en los que la URSS era temida y respetada, y sus intereses tomados en serio en Washington, lo que no ocurre desde hace más de treinta años. 

 La cumbre fue una debacle para los europeos. "No se habló de sanciones contra quienes comprenden petróleo ruso, desaparecieron los ultimátums y la exigencia de un alto el fuego que Rusia rechaza", resumía el mismo día 15 The New York Times. "Putin no dio a entender ninguna renuncia respecto de sus posiciones anteriores", asombrábase el Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "En las últimas semanas parecía que Trump se había desengañado de Putin y que aumentaba su desagrado, pero el viernes no vimos ninguna señal de todo eso", constataba, desolado, el Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 

Para los europeos, el gran peligro de la cumbre era que "pudiera salir algo de ella", decía uno de los chihuahuas mediáticos de Madrid. Al día siguiente casi todos esos medios respiraban aliviados enfatizando que, afortunadamente, no se había alcanzado acuerdo alguno. Pero sí que hubo algo. 

 El encuentro de Alaska mostró que Trump cambiaba, desde la exigencia de un alto el fuego, a una perspectiva de acuerdo de paz que tenga en cuenta los "motivos profundos" del conflicto alegados por Rusia: Ucrania sin OTAN, sin neonazismo y cediendo territorios que votaron para unirse a Rusia. Ambos aspectos eran considerados "innegociables" por los europeos, así que el lunes siguiente, primer día hábil, la "delegación europea" (el inglés, el francés, el alemán, el ahijadito holandés de la OTAN, la italiana, el finlandés que juega al golf y la impresentable presidenta de la Comisión Europea) más Zelenski, corrieron a Washington. 

 No hubo alfombra roja. Una funcionaria de tercer orden les recibió en la puerta de la Casa Blanca. No fue un "encuentro entre iguales", sino una recepción del vanidoso emperador a sus humildes vasallos que le expresaron, uno tras otro, su agradecimiento de forma tan reiterada como exagerada. La delegación intentaba salvar los muebles. "Garantías de seguridad" para Ucrania, se llamaba su alarmado propósito. 

Como cualquier persona informada sabe, o debería saber, la única garantía de seguridad de Ucrania es su neutralidad. Esa neutralidad, que Ucrania no participe en bloques, ni pueda albergar tropas ni armas que amenacen a Rusia, es también una garantía de seguridad para Rusia. Por haber roto esa neutralidad, animada por la OTAN y sus socios europeos, y por imponer su etnonacionalismo a la mitad del país que no lo compartía, Ucrania deberá pagar ahora un elevado precio territorial. Pero todo eso es algo que los dirigentes europeos, sus medios de comunicación y sus laboratorios de ideas, todavía no han llegado a comprender, pese a que Moscú lo viene repitiendo desde hace muchos años. El ministro ruso de exteriores, Sergei Lavrov, repetía, una vez más, el mensaje el día 19: 

"Para nosotros nunca se trató de hacernos con territorios. Ni Crimea, ni el Donbas, ni Novorrosía fueron nunca nuestro objetivo. Todo el mundo sabe que esos territorios eran parte de la República Socialista soviética de Ucrania y después pasaron a serlo de la Ucrania independiente. Quedaron en la Ucrania independiente en base a la declaración de soberanía que los dirigentes ucranianos adoptaron ya en 1990 en la que se proclamaba con toda claridad que Ucrania sería para siempre un estado desnuclearizado, neutral y no alineado en bloques. Precisamente esa circunstancia era el fundamento del reconocimiento internacional de Ucrania como estado independiente. Si ahora el régimen de Zelenski renuncia a todos esos principios y ya habla de armas nucleares, ingresar en la OTAN y de renunciar a la neutralidad, entonces ese fundamento del reconocimiento de Ucrania como estado independiente, desaparece. 

 Los dirigentes europeos simulan ignoran eso y prefieren apuntarse a las leyendas de la amenaza rusa, la ampliación del imperio ruso hacia el oeste, la recreación de la URSS y la maldad intrínseca de Putin, pero eso cambia poco la realidad del problema: sin entender ni reconocer los "motivos profundos" del conflicto no se saldrá de el. Para los occidentales reconocer eso supone una marcha atrás demoledora, pues tales motivos ya estaban perfectamente expuestos en el documento de diciembre de 2021 que Moscú hizo llegar a la OTAN y a Washington y que ni siquiera fueron considerados. 

Si ahora se reconocen, Trump puede alegar con todo el cinismo, y lo hace, que esa fue la "guerra de Biden", su predecesor, pero, ¿los europeos? Imposible retroceder sin perder la cara ni responder a la pregunta de los tres años de barbarie y sufrimiento bélico entonces perfectamente evitables, al igual que la destrucción de buena parte de la industria europea. Así que lo que ahora toca son las "garantías de seguridad" para Ucrania, entendidas como tropas de países de la OTAN en suelo ucraniano. Sin ayuda e implicación norteamericana eso es imposible. A los europeos les faltan recursos, sobre todo de defensa antiaérea, aviación e inteligencia, así que la delegación le pidió el lunes a Trump que participara en el asunto. 

---- Texto completo en: https://www.lahaine.org/mundo.php/un-paso-adelante-y-otro-atras 

Las tropas de países de la OTAN en Ucrania son garantía de que el conflicto continúa. Moscú inició la guerra para evitarlas y no las va a bendecir ahora que se ha hecho con el 20% del territorio ucraniano pagando un precio en todos los terrenos, pero los europeos no tienen un plan de paz, ni están preparados para ello. 

 "Ha habido demasiados vítores y fanatismo de cambio de régimen en el ámbito político y mediático europeo, con muchos títulos recientes insistiendo en que la agresión rusa no debe ser premiada. Claro que ninguno de esos autores tiene una estrategia militar para la victoria, porque pensamiento estratégico no es precisamente lo que abunda entre los europeos formados", dice el analista Wolfgang Munchau. Trump ha respondido a la petición de sus chihuahuas con una declaración que les ha aliviado: 

 "Ucrania no formará parte de la OTAN, pero están los países europeos que ya están implicados en el proceso. Algunos de ellos, Francia, Alemania e Inglaterra, de momento tres de ellos, quieren tener tropas allá. No creo que eso sea un problema. Estamos dispuestos a ayudar en eso, especialmente en lo que respeta a apoyo aéreo, porque nadie dispone de la capacidad que tenemos", ha dicho. 

 La declaración borrada para Moscú todo lo que se ganó, o se creyó ganar, en Alaska. Pero, ¿hay que tomar esa declaración en serio? 

El analista ruso Dmitri Trenin dice que lo dicho por Trump sobre tropas europeas con apoyo aéreo norteamericano como "garantía de seguridad" es "un caramelo de consuelo para los europeos que no cambiará la posición del Presidente". Trump sabe que los europeos no disponen de las tropas necesarias para brindar a Ucrania lo que ellos consideran que es seguridad y que en realidad no es más que una promesa de mantener el conflicto. Como tantas otras veces, donde dijo "digo", dirá "Diego", sin el menor problema y se concentrará en lo suyo, que el sociólogo filipino Walden Bello enuncia así: 

 "Trump parece imprevisible pero hay una tendencia que se mantiene a través de los zig zags de su acción. Simplemente reconoce lo que sus predecesores no reconocían: que el Imperio está desbordado por sus obligaciones y que ya no tiene recursos para sostener sus múltiples compromisos". 

 Si este extraño acuerdo de paz, en el que su propiciador es parte principal del conflicto pero actúa como si fuera mediador, se demuestra imposible, el Presidente quizás se desentienda de Ucrania transfiriéndole el muerto a los europeos que en su estupidez multiplicarán por cien sus compras de armas a EEUU para realizar la quimera militar que les está convirtiendo en irrelevantes en el mundo a marchas forzadas... EEUU gana en cualquier caso y por partida doble. 

 Todo esto, evidentemente, es de lo más inestable e inseguro y los rusos son conscientes de ello. Como dice el comentarista italiano Thomass Fazi ('En Trump's Ukraine endgame - UnHerd'), "probablemente no se hagan ilusiones sobre los verdaderos objetivos del establishment imperialista estadounidense. Y saben perfectamente que cualquier acuerdo alcanzado con Trump podría ser revocado en cualquier momento. Sin embargo, los objetivos a corto plazo de Putin coinciden con los de Trump. Se podría decir que Rusia y EEUU son adversarios estratégicos cuyos líderes, no obstante, comparten un interés táctico en la cooperación". 

 rafaelpoch.com 

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Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

 

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One step forward, one step back : 

By Rafael Poch: NATO troops in Ukraine are a guarantee that the conflict will continue. Moscow started the war to avoid them and will not bless them now that it has won on all fronts. 

 The staging Trump organized at the Alaska summit with Putin on Friday, August 15, sought to portray a meeting between equals. A red carpet, cordiality, and respect. This is something nostalgic for the days when the USSR was feared and respected, and its interests were taken seriously in Washington, something that hasn't happened for more than thirty years. 

The summit was a debacle for the Europeans. "There was no talk of sanctions against those who buy Russian oil, and the ultimatums and demands for a ceasefire, which Russia rejects, disappeared," summarized The New York Times on the same day, August 15. "Putin did not suggest any renunciation of his previous positions," the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung marveled. "In recent weeks, it seemed that Trump had become disillusioned with Putin and that his dislike for him was growing, but on Friday we saw no signs of any of that," the Neue Zürcher Zeitung noted, dismayed. 

 For Europeans, the great danger of the summit was that "something could come out of it," said one of Madrid's media snobs. The next day, almost all of those media outlets breathed a sigh of relief, emphasizing that, fortunately, no agreement had been reached. But something had been reached. 

 The Alaska meeting showed Trump shifting from demanding a ceasefire to a perspective of a peace agreement that takes into account the "deep reasons" for the conflict cited by Russia: Ukraine without NATO, without neo-Nazism, and ceding territories that voted to join Russia. Both aspects were considered "non-negotiable" by the Europeans, so the following Monday, the first working day, the "European delegation" (the English, the French, the German, the Dutch NATO godson, the Italian, the golf-playing Finn, and the unpresentable president of the European Commission) plus Zelensky rushed to Washington.

  There was no red carpet. A third-level official greeted them at the door of the White House. It was not a "meeting of equals," but a reception by the vain emperor for his humble vassals, who, one after another, expressed their gratitude in a manner as repeated as it was exaggerated. The delegation was trying to save face. "Security guarantees" for Ukraine was their alarmed proposal. 

 As any informed person knows, or should know, the only guarantee of Ukraine's security is its neutrality. That neutrality—that Ukraine does not participate in blocs, nor can it host troops or weapons that threaten Russia—is also a guarantee of Russia's security. For having broken that neutrality, encouraged by NATO and its European partners, and for imposing its ethnonationalism on the half of the country that didn't share it, Ukraine will now have to pay a high territorial price. But all this is something that European leaders, their media, and their think tanks have yet to grasp, despite Moscow having been repeating it for many years. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated the message once again on the 19th: 

 "For us, it was never about seizing territories. Neither Crimea, nor Donbas, nor Novorossiya were ever our goal. Everyone knows that these territories were part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and later became part of independent Ukraine. They remained in independent Ukraine based on the declaration of sovereignty that the Ukrainian leaders adopted back in 1990, which clearly proclaimed that Ukraine would forever be a denuclearized, neutral, and non-aligned state. Precisely this circumstance was the basis for international recognition of Ukraine as an independent state. If the Zelensky regime now renounces all these principles and is already talking about nuclear weapons, joining NATO, and renouncing neutrality, then this basis for recognizing Ukraine as an independent state disappears." 

 European leaders pretend to ignore this and prefer to embrace the myths of the Russian threat, the westward expansion of the Russian empire, the re-creation of the USSR, and Putin's intrinsic evil, but this does little to change the reality of the problem: without understanding and recognizing the "deep reasons" for the conflict, there will be no way out. For Westerners, acknowledging this represents a devastating step backward, since those reasons were already perfectly outlined in the December 2021 document that Moscow sent to NATO and Washington, and which were not even considered.

If they are now recognized, Trump can cynically claim, and he does, that this was his predecessor's "Biden's war." But what about the Europeans? It's impossible to go backwards without losing face or answering the question of the three years of barbarism and war suffering that were perfectly avoidable at the time, as well as the destruction of much of European industry. So what's needed now are "security guarantees" for Ukraine, understood as NATO troops on Ukrainian soil. Without American help and involvement, this is impossible. The Europeans lack resources, especially in air defense, aviation, and intelligence, so the delegation asked Trump on Monday to get involved in the matter. ---- 

Full text at: https://www.lahaine.org/mundo.php/un-paso-adelante-y-otro-atras 

NATO troops in Ukraine are a guarantee that the conflict will continue. Moscow started the war to prevent them and won't bless them now that it has seized 20% of Ukraine's territory, paying a price on all fronts. But the Europeans don't have a peace plan, nor are they prepared for one. 

 "There has been too much cheering and fanaticism for regime change in the European political and media sphere, with many recent headlines insisting that Russian aggression should not be rewarded. Of course, none of these authors have a military strategy for victory, because strategic thinking isn't exactly what educated Europeans are rife with," says analyst Wolfgang Munchau. Trump responded to his chihuahuas' request with a statement that relieved them: 

 "Ukraine will not join NATO, but there are European countries already involved in the process. Some of them—France, Germany, and England, three of them at the moment—want to have troops there. I don't think that will be a problem. We are willing to help with that, especially with regard to air support, because no one has the capabilities we have," he said. 

For Moscow, the statement erases everything it gained, or thought it had gained, in Alaska. But should this statement be taken seriously? 

 Russian analyst Dmitri Trenin says that Trump's remarks about European troops with American air support as a "security guarantee" are "comfort candy for the Europeans that will not change the President's position." Trump knows that the Europeans do not have the necessary troops to provide Ukraine with what they consider security and that in reality, it is nothing more than a promise to continue the conflict. As so often before, where he said "I say," he will say "Diego," without the slightest problem, and will focus on his own business, as Filipino sociologist Walden Bello puts it this way: 

 "Trump seems unpredictable, but there is a tendency that persists through the zigzags of his actions. He simply recognizes what his predecessors failed to recognize: that the Empire is overwhelmed by its obligations and no longer has the resources to sustain its multiple commitments." 

If this strange peace agreement, in which its facilitator is a principal party to the conflict but acts as if it were a mediator, proves impossible, the President may disengage from Ukraine, passing the buck to the Europeans, who, in their stupidity, will multiply their arms purchases from the US by a hundred to realize the military chimera that is rapidly making them irrelevant in the world... The US wins in any case, doubly. 

All of this, evidently, is extremely unstable and insecure, and the Russians are aware of it. As Italian commentator Thomass Fazi ('On Trump's Ukraine Endgame - UnHerd') puts it, "They probably have no illusions about the true objectives of the US imperialist establishment. And they know perfectly well that any agreement reached with Trump could be revoked at any time. However, Putin's short-term objectives coincide with Trump's. One could say that Russia and the US are strategic adversaries whose leaders, however, share a tactical interest in cooperation."

  rafaelpoch.com 

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"To be, or not to be: that is the question." ...

 

 The Obsession: Exploiting Workers 

 By Juan J. Paz-y-Miño Cepeda: The Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is credited with the phrase "corsi e ricorsi," according to which history should be interpreted as a succession of cycles that repeat themselves, although not in the same way, as there are always variations. Latin America is the region that best offers examples of Vico's vision. And Ecuador, precisely, is the exemplary country in this repetitive succession of cycles. 

Since the mid-1980s and rampantly and unstoppably since the 1990s, neoliberal ideology has been established in Latin America. Among its slogans, it has sought to achieve labor "flexibility" or "flexisecurity" as something "modern" and progressive to promote business development and, consequently, the economy. Such a slogan captivated Latin American business elites, who have since waged a systematic campaign, supported by their mainstream media, to review long-standing workers' rights, curtail them, and even eliminate them, in addition to implementing new forms of contracting the workforce. The maximum eight-hour workday has been weakened, even without overtime or supplementary pay; permanent employment stability has been replaced by temporary contracts; facilities for unfair dismissal without severance pay have increased; unionization has also been strangled; the flouting of social security is scandalous; and abuse or arbitrariness in "personnel management" is a reality often experienced by workers themselves, today pompously described as "collaborators" and even "partners" of companies. 

 New contract modalities include hourly work, outsourcing, and even "uberized" work, as well as teleworking or "smart working." But in all countries where the new business ideology was implemented, working conditions have deteriorated and workers' historical rights have been violated, deteriorating the overall quality of life, as can be seen in reports from the International Labor Organization (ILO), ECLAC studies, and numerous academic publications (e.g., https://t.ly/MctC_ ; https://t.ly/jkUrP ; https://t.ly/k5sCo ). 

 The progressive governments of the early 21st century halted these neoliberal flexibilities. The social economies they initiated substantially improved the living conditions of the population, and, undoubtedly, those of workers. However, the conservative cycle that occurred almost everywhere has returned to the past to revive the old slogans of labor flexibility, now qualified by the assumptions that technical progress, the development of the internet and artificial intelligence, as well as the experience of the 2020 global COVID pandemic, have created the demands to definitively move toward new contract modalities devised by owners. And the framework of historical workers' rights is once again in the spotlight. This is a widespread phenomenon, except in countries with progressive governments, such as Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, which have rejected the neoliberal path to return to social economies. 

 In two years, Lula da Silva's government lifted 6 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty (https://t.ly/g-AK9); In Colombia, Gustavo Petro's government achieved something similar: 1.6 million people were lifted out of monetary poverty and 1.1 million out of extreme poverty, in addition to improving social and labor indicators (https://t.ly/qT3zD); and Mexico placed itself at the forefront of progressivism with Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, under whom multiple programs for the people were advanced, including their protection with "bonds" and pensions for different sectors of the population; labor rights were strengthened; public investment in goods and services grew; and, above all, a clear nationalist and sovereign policy was established, which has curbed the United States' interference so common in Latin America. In the region, there is not a single country capable of demonstrating such progress by following the entrepreneurial-neoliberal or libertarian path.

 In Ecuador, this corsi e ricorsi is marked: the final two decades of the 20th century saw neoliberal advances; between 2007 and 2017, during the progressive cycle under President Rafael Correa, the push for a social economy of Buen Vivir (Good Living), in accordance with the 2008 Constitution; but from 2017 onward, the country's second "plutocratic era" was established, comparable to the first, between 1912 and 1925, when there were no labor rights, social security, a Ministry of Labor, income tax, state oversight institutions, or a central bank. In this new era, labor relations have regressed to a greater extent than in the 1990s.

 Naturally, neither in the original neoliberal past nor in the present restoration of the same model has Ecuador moved toward an economy with development and social well-being, although it has moved toward one with a profound concentration of wealth, prosperity, and private accumulation, based on precarious working conditions and thereby increasing the exploitation of the working classes. This now includes state workers (bureaucracy), who are subject to layoffs unprecedented in the country's contemporary history, such as the recent dismissal of 5,000 workers (https://t.ly/eB-Ne), who went from one day to the next to full unemployment. Incidentally, all of this is subject to the IMF (https://shorturl.at/9Oqba). 

 

Since the 1980s, I have addressed these issues in several books and numerous articles, so Vico's corsi e ricorsi fits with Ecuador's image. In particular, I have analyzed, with sufficient historical grounding, hourly work, which was implemented in 2000 by the Gustavo Noboa government (2000-2003) and which became a scandalous form of worker exploitation, to the point that the Constituent Assembly had to suspend it and expressly prohibit it in Article 327 of the 2008 Constitution, which also prohibited "all forms of precarious employment." 

Discarding that Constitution or violating it through "mini-coups" has become the path taken by Ecuador's ruling elites. And the obsession with achieving hourly work is reborn once again, having already demonstrated the dire social consequences of its implementation. Despite the fact that the population rejected it in the April 2024 referendum held by Daniel Noboa's government (https://t.ly/GEY7n), he is now proposing a new popular consultation on the same issue, which will include seven questions that have provoked radical criticism from progressive sectors (https://shorturl.at/WKAQp). 

 In Latin America, the possibility of new progressive governments that will lift the neoliberal business model from the ruins of the past remains open. This is the hopeful "corsi." Meanwhile, several countries in the region remain captivated by the "ricorsi" of the past. Argentina and Ecuador are at the forefront of this return to economic conservatism, lacking social welfare. 

 History and Present