Constitutional reforms: strengthening democratic process in Nicaragua

Discussion with Jorge Capelán and toni solo on the background and content of the proposed Constitutional reforms in Nicaragua currently under consultation.

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Bishop Abelardo's involvement with wanted criminals, US espionage in Nicaragua

Discussion with toni solo of the incident in Honduras involving Bishop Abelardo Mata's support for a gangster sought by the Honduran and Nicaraguan police and also the relevance of Edward Snowden's revelations to Nicaragua

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Snowden revisited

Jorge Capelán, RLP/TcS.

Three months after their publication, the revelations of US National Security Agency functionary Edward Snowden leave a series of unanswered questions. The version that presents Snowden as a solitary hero confronting the imperialist espionage apparatus needs to be reconsidered.

In many ways the positive role of revelations like those of Snowden, Wikileaks and Bradley Manning is undeniable in uncovering imperialist crimes and presenting to the general public the truly totalitarian nature of US global power. However, it is also undeniable that these revelations are filtered through various powerful military, financial ,media and political interests. The revelations not only express a citizens' revolt against imperial violations of basic freedoms but they also, perhaps above all, express contradictions at the very heart of the Western élites.

One example of the romanticizing propaganda of what has been discovered in recent years is an article by Julian Assange published by the Australian web site The Stringer on August 24th this year,ⁱ which shows the role of the Google company executives as global flunkeys of the US State Department and NSA.

Assange concludes, “That Google was taking NSA money in exchange for handing over people’s data comes as no surprise. When Google encountered the big bad world, Google itself got big and bad.”

What Assange fails to mention is that among the sectors supporting Snowden and Wikileaks itself are other powerful interests equally “big and bad”

Snowden and the CIA

According to the official version that can be more or less reconstructed from reports on the matter,ⁱⁱ , Snowden was talented in computer skills and also in his knowledge of Japanese and Chinese. He has no university degree, hardly even a high school qualification. As an adolescent, Snowden ““He was a geek like the rest of us,......We played video games, watched animations. It was before geek was cool.” according to an anonymous acquaintance of Snowden's quoted by the New York Times.ⁱⁱⁱ

In May 2004, Snowden enlisted in the Reserve of the US Army as a Special Forces recruit but never finished his training after breaking both legs. The following year he found work as a security guard^iv in the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language, an institution regarded as having close links to the National Security Agency. In very little time, Snowden then began a contract with the CIA working on information security.

Despite his lack of formal qualifications, Snowden received Top Secret security clearance^v and in 2007 was assigned to the US embassy in Geneva, as a specialist in network security. Over time, Snowden underwent a crisis of conscience as a result of his work with the agency some of which he considered ethically objectionable^vi and in 2009 he quit.....moving to a job in the National Security Agency.

Is that not strange? How can it be that a CIA functionary with high level security clearance just quits their job and in no time at all turns up working as a private contractor for another US espionage agency? After all, over several years, the CIA invested considerable resources in Snowden, as well as paying him extremely well. For example he says he took a 6 month course in information security at that time.^vii If Snowden had a crisis of conscience that motivated him to leave the CIA, how did he manage to conceal that from his superiors during the rigorous debriefing process that takes place whenever someone with high level security clearance ends their assignment.

It hardly seems credible that Snowden simply said one day “I don't want to work for the CIA any more....” and his controllers replied “Ok, kid, we wish you well with your next career move....” More unbelievable still is that he was allowed to continue with his high level security clearance privileges.

In interviews, Snowden has said that he earned around US$200,000 as an NSA contractor. Others have said it was more likely US$120,000. Whatever the exact amount, that is certainly more or less the salary level of an employee with the Top Secret/SCI security clearance which Snowden seems to have had.

When Snowden in 2013 told his boss in the Booz Allen Hamilton agency that he wanted some time off to treat a recently diagnosed epileptic condition, surely that might have caught somone's attention? Epilepsy is not a mental illness, but medical opinion agrees that it does increase the risk of mental illness, which would be grounds for immediately suspending an individual's security clearance.

In any case, after Snowden's initial revelations, a Homeland Security sub-committee^viii undertook to find out how it was that Snowden managed to receive that Top Secret security clearance. The Inspector General of the federal government's Office of Personnel Management, Patrick McFarland, has said he has information on Snowden but could not reveal it, self-evidently, since Snowden had been a CIA employee. However, what did emerge from that meeting was a series of very disturbing data on the level of mismanagement in relation to access to classified information in the US.

It transpires that 87% of investigations into candidates for such access are never finished. The Top Secret classification can mean different things for different agencies. One single contractor, the US Information Service, does 65% of the investigations. Over US$1 billion paid by the federal Office of Personnel Management for those investigations has never been audited. At least eighteen OPM investigators have been found to have falsified their investigation results.

To all this, one can add that the USIS agency that investigated Snowden is itself under federal investigation for not having done that work “in an appropriate and detailed way”.^ix Corruption and mismanagement are no surprise to anyone critical of the United States government. Even so, nor should one forget that the US intelligence agencies are experts at disinformation exercises.

With all that said, even if this kind of institutional mismanagement were the case, that does not explain how an individual like Edward Snowden can move from a highly paid job in the public sector to a highly paid job in the private sector with no questions asked. It simply does not add up that Snowden fooled, first, the CIA, then his private employers, Dell and Booz Allen, and finally the NSA. The chances are nil of the CIA letting Snowden move on with his Top Secret security clearance with no control of any kind either by them or his private sector employers or the NSA.

On June 10th this year in an interview with the Guardian, Snowden said that from his office he was able to intercept any communication, including those of federal judges or even the US President so long as he had the relevant e-mail address. Despite that, the NSA was unable to locate him in his Hong Kong hotel, even when registered under his real name, just as they were unable to check out the investigation awarding him Top Secret security clearance.

Frankly, the only reasonable explanation that Snowden could travel to Hong Kong and then make it to Moscow is that he was able to count on the complicity of the CIA to change his job and subsequently desert. At least, that is the view of journalist Jon Rappoport.^x

According to Rappoport, the CIA is in conflict with the NSA. Currently, the NSA is a giant organization managing immense resources and information while the CIA sees its power and influence in decline. Rappoport cites a report in Wired Magazine^xi of June this year according to which the Pentagon sought US$4.7 billion for the NSA in the 2014 budget while the amounts for the CIA and other US espionage agencies were cut to US$4.4 billion.

Rappoport thinks the CIA fed Snowden the information that he in turn has fed to the Western media. That in itself by no means suggests Snowden was not genuine in his actions and may very well be sincerely convinced of the danger the NSA's global spying capability represents for civil liberties.

George Soros

One thing definitely stands out in the coverage given to Edward Snowden by left wing and progressive media both in the imperialist countries and in our own. Namely, almost no one mentions the role of Wall Street financier George Soros. In general, it is an interesting question why almost no one discusses the role played in the funding of the so-called alternative media by corporate interests represented by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and any other similar institutions.

For decades, private foundations linked to big groups of US capital^xii, usually closely linked to the US government apparatus, to the CIA and to the Council for Foreign Relations, distribute millions of dollars in their effort to control and guide public opinion.

One of the thirty most wealthy people in the world and number fifteen in the Forbes list of US millionaires,^xiii Soros funds the greater part of the progressive and even radical networks in North America that focus on defending rights to privacy and freedom of information. But hardly anyone seems to be interested in drawing the relevant conclusions in relation to that fact, given that Soros' ideology is by no means progressive.

By contrast, the connections of George Soros to the networks of imperial power are well known.^xiv For example, the writer Eva Golinger^xv notes that “parallel to his activities as a financial speculator, George Soros, along with the Bush and Bin Laden families, is part of the Carlyle Group led by Frank Carlucci, He is also a member of the Bilderberg group, the Council for Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch.” In 1993 Soros founded the Open Society Institute which has participated actively in joint operations with the CIA in former Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Georgia and Tibet. Likewise, the misnamed philanthropic organizations funded by Soros were active all through 2011 in their attempts to help the Muslim Brotherhood take power in Egypt.^xvi

Soros funded groups, like Human Rights Watch and Freedom House, take the lead in all the US government psychological warfare campaigns against foreign governments perceived as requiring destabilization so as to advance US interests. Along with Soros, the International Crisis Group (ICS), includes senior US foreign policy figures like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Armitage and Kenneth Aldelman. Armitage y Adelman are both signatories of the Project for a New American Century which laid the doctrinal basis for the “war on terror” of George W. Bush.

Together with Snowden during the first press conference he gave after arriving at Moscow airport on July 12th was Tatyana Lokshina,^xvii representative in Russia of the Soros-funded Human Rights Watch. Coordinating Snowden's legal defence in the US one finds another Soros funded organization, the American Civil Liberties Union ^xviii involved in public disagreements with the lawyers of Snowden's father, Lon, and Lon Snowden's Russian lawyer.^xix

A declaration by the Soros-funded Open Society Foundation ^xx on July 12th this year criticised the administration of President Obama for excessive use of the archaic Espionage Act to punish various whistle blowers who in recent years have revealed information affecting imperial interests, among them Bradley Manning and Snowden himself.

The declaration by OSF legal adviser, Morton Halperin, asserts that President Obama's use of the legislation creates a serious threat to the public right to know and to the process by which Americans are informed about US government activities in matters of National Security.

It is a well established fact that Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald who took the lead in reporting Edward Snowden's revelations is someone closely connected with the Soros networks. In 2008, Greenwald and writer Jane Hamsher founded the political pressure group Accountability Now^xxi aiming to “move the Democrat Party to the Left”. The most importnt members of Accountability now are almost all members of the Soros network.^xxii

Laura Poitras was the first person contacted by Snowden when he sought to publish his information in the New York Times. Laura Poitras also filmed the interview with Snowden conducted in his hotel in Hong Kong. Both Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald are board members of the Freedom of the Press Foundation ^xxiii, funded by the Foundation for National Progress which publishes the investigative journalism magazine Mother Jones.

As a documentary maker, Poitras' career is characterized by critical political and social reporting especially after the September 11th 2001 attacks on the US. Her film “My country, my country” on the effects of the US occupation of Iraq was nominated for an Oscar. Poitras believes that this film got her placed on “the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) watch list" with the highest threat rate the Department of Homeland Security assigns.^xxiv

As it happens, in 2012 Poitras received a prestigious fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation,^xxv of US$500,000 on the basis that her “elegant and illuminating documentaries capture the lives and intimate experiences of families and communities largely inaccessible to the American media.”

The MacArthur Foundation^xxvi helps organizations and individuals committed to “building a more just, verdant and peaceful world”. Among the groups receiving help from the MacArthur Foundation is the Center for Global Development, among the first 150 of the hundreds of groups receiving help from the Open Society Institute of George Soros.^xxvii

Robert L. Gallucci^xxviii, current president of the MacArthur Foundation has a long record of service in the US State Department where he worked among other assignments in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and much later as Special Envoy to deal with the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Gallucci is also currently a member of the US State Department Advisory Board of International Security Advisors and, superfluous to say, a member of the Council for Foreign Relations.

With those antecedents one can well ask how it comes about that an institution whose president is a key imperialist strategic adviser can stand over an award of half a million dollars to a documentary maker who in her own words is considered by the Department of Homeland Security to represent the highest level of threat to the United States of America. And it may be worth remembering a detail of that MacArthur Foundation fellowship. The foundation explains on its web site ^xxix that “Although nominees are reviewed for their achievements, the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential” (italics added)

On its web site, the Freedom of the Press Foundation states it “is dedicated to helping defend and support aggressive, public-interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption, and law-breaking in government.” ^xxx To fund this the organization uses a strategy known as “crowd-sourcing funding” by which the public can donate to one or several alternative media among a group proposed on a bi-monthy basis by the FPF on its web page. The FPF explains, “Our goal is to broaden the financial base of these types of institutions—both start-ups and established non-profit organizations — by crowd-sourcing funding and making it easy for people to support the best journalism from an array of organizations all in one place.”

In a Huffington Post interview of December 16th 2012^xxxi, Trevor Timm, co funder and executive director of the FPF, explains that the original idea for the FPF came out of conversations with both Daniel Ellsberg, the whistle blower who published the Pentagon Papers and John Perry Barlow of the Grateful Dead rock group who co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, promoting free software and Internet privacy.

The next day, December 17th 2012, the EFF announced on its web page it had decided to become a legal adviser to the FPF. As well as Barlow, Rainey Reitman, EFF's head of activism is also a co-founder of the FPF and works as a member of the of the EFF's technology team. ^xxxii A footnote to that December 17th news item states that although one of the EFF directors and some of its employees were active in the FPF, the EFF as such was not a member of the Freedom of the Press Foundation but merely its legal adviser.

In fact, what is certain is that the EFF is a regular recipient of funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros.^xxxiii The links between Soros and another of the EFF directors, Brian Behlendorf, developer of the Apache web server software, go back at least as far as 1998 when both participated in the political lobbying group MoveOn.org, in response to the indignation caused by President Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Back then the group urged congress to censure the President and “move on”.^xxxiv

One example of how this kind of arrangement works is the support the FPF has given WikiLeaks since December 2012. "Since WikiLeaks became a front-page news story, secrecy has gotten worse in the U.S," as Trevor Timm declared to the Huffington Post.^xxxv

Behind the Snowden scandal lies a struggle for power in the heart of the dominant Western élites. There is a possible link between the CIA's interest in making problems for the NSA and the interests of big finance, namely the massive ability of electronic spying to monitor not only the various terrorist threats but also the activities of the big banks.

Writer Jon Rappoport^xxxvi takes up the inference made by novelist Brad Thor in his novel Black List,^xxxvii in which he suggests the existence of a super-espionage agency which imagines a super-espionage agency which “for years ….has used its technological superiority to carry out massive business transactions based on privileged information”. One may well ask whether global mega-banks like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or the Quantum Group of George Soros would take with equanimity the existence of an espionage agency with the ability to know more about them than they know themselves.

The revelations in perspective

Putting things in perspective, one has to ask what the revelations of Edward Snowden really mean.

Without disparaging their value, it is hard to believe that the intelligence services of US target countries like Russia or China would have been ignorant of :

- The existence of the ECHELON global telecommunications spying system and the so called FUKUSA network composed of the USA, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand which has been active since the 1970s. New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager revealed this information in considerable detail in 1996:^xxxviii

- The existence of an army of US analysts controlling all Internet traffic using tools like the HKEYSCORE program. One has only to look at the structure of global fibre optic communications to ee that the majority of these pass through the United States and are easy for the US authorities to intercept. Long before the revelations of Edward Snowden the symbiosis was clear between big companies like Google or Microsoft and the imperial war and espionage apparatus. (Try searching duckduckgo.com using the term In-Q-Tel).^xxxix

Obviously other data in Snowden's power like the instruction manual on the workings of the NSA or the complete list of its analysts are important information. But it would not be the first time this kind of information has ended up in the hands of foreign intelligence services. Many cases of high level infiltration in intelligence services have taken place without causing the kind debacle of which Edwards Snowden's enemies are accusing him of having provoked.

The fundamental importance of Snowden's revelations is political. They show in an irrefutable way in front of worldwide public opinion the complete contempt of the imperial powers for individual rights to privacy. One is no longer dealing with target categories like “terrorists” or “criminals” but absolutely anyone.

On the other hand, the Russian and Chinese intelligence services must have been well aware from the start of the powerful networks supporting Snowden which is why they treated his request for asylum with such circumspection. With hindsight it has been fortunate that Snowden did not end up in Latin America.

Snowden's revelations are playing an important role in the awakening of awareness among large sections of the world population of the totalitarian Western system dominating most of the contemporary world. But people around the globe will be unable to use that information to defeat the designs of the imperial powers unless they understand clearly the true nature of the powerful Western elite interests attempting to manipulate that information for their own ends.

NOTES

i"Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘shit-bag’ now?”, Julian Assange.

http://thestringer.com.au/google-and-the-nsa-whos-holding-the-shit-bag-now/#.Uhn_TvnVDpU

iiThe Guardian, 11 de junio de 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/11/edward-snowden-what-we-know-nsa

The Guardian, 10 de juni de 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-army-special-forces

Entrada sobre Edward Snowden en Wikipedia (inglés)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

iiiNew York Times, 16 de junio de 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/us/for-snowden-a-life-of-ambition-despite-the-drifting.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& En el artículo original se usa la palabra “geek”, que en inglés tiene un significado bastante más amplio que en español, donde solo se usa para designar a alguien con intereses muy estrechos, especialmente tecnológicos. Por eso la tradujimos como “friki”, es decir, “una persona cuyas aficiones, comportamiento o vestuario son inusuales”. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friki

ivSnowden, para conseguir ese trabajo como guardia de seguridad en una instalación de la NSA ya debe haber tenido algún tipo de autorización de seguridad – algo que lleva tiempo conseguir. Según este artículo del Washington Post, desde el 11 de septiembre de 2001, ha habido un gran aumento en la cantidad de puestos de contratistas y empleados del sector público a los que se requiere presenten una autorización de seguridad, desde personal de mantenimiento en agencias de espionaje hasta técnicos y desarrolladores de software. En 2010, el número de estos trabajadores se calculaba en unos 854,000 en todos los EE.UU.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/24/AR201008...

vBásicamente, en los EE.UU. hay tres niveles de acceso a información clasificada: CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET y TOP SECRET. Para lograr una autorización al nivel más bajo, CONFIDENTIAL, se requiere pasar por una investigación de entre unas semanas y unos meses, que cubre los últimos 7 años de la vida del sujeto. Para obtener una autorización en el siguiente nivel, SECRET, el período de la investigación va de algunos meses hasta un año, siendo un pobre historial financiero la causa más común de descalificación del sujeto. Este tipo de autorización es la más común a nivel de contratistas civiles trabajando para el Estado de EE.UU. Para obtener una autorización TOP SECTRET (TS), que da acceso a información sobre seguridad nacional, antiterrorismo y contrainteligencia, los requerimientos del estudio del sujeto son mucho más estrictos. Se debe pasar por una investigación SSBI que debe ser hecha de nuevo cada 5 años. Se investigan los últimos 10 años de vida del sujeto (o, en su defecto, a partir de los 18 años). También se investiga a su familia y al registro del aplicante en otras agencias federales del gobierno de los EE.UU. Esta investigación incluye entrevistas con familiares, antiguos empleadores, conocidos, y con el sujeto mismo. Sujetos que han recibido una autorización de acceso a información clasificada de esta categoría pueden además acceder a una autorización de acceso a Información Sensible Compartimentada (SCI), ya sea para Inteligencia de las Comunicaciones (SIGINT), para información sobre armas nucleares, para blancos de armas nucleares, etcétera. El requisito indispensable para acceder a una autorización SCI es haber pasado por una investigación SSBI. En el caso de Snowden, lo más probable es que tuviera una autorización de acceso a información clasificada TS/SCI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance#Hierarchy_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Scope_Background_Investigation

viCuenta la historia que Snowden se sintió defraudado cuando en Ginebra, la CIA deliberadamente emborrachó a un banquero con el fin de chantajearlo y lograr reclutarlo para la agencia y así tener acceso a información secreta sobre la banca del país helvético, que en ese momento se encontraba una legislación para aumentar la transparencia bancaria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_snowden

viihttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/us/resume-shows-snowden-honed-hacking-skills.html?pagewanted=all

viiihttp://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/06/21/Heres-How-Edward-Snowden-Got-Top-Secret-Clearance.aspx#page1

ixhttp://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/20/senator-firm-that-vetted-snowden-under-criminal-investigation/

x“Matrix: Who is Edward Snowden?”

https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/matrix-who-is-edward-snowden/

xihttp://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/

xiiPara una discusión del papel jugado por la Fundación Ford en apoyo a la Guerra Fría Cultural llevada adelante por la CIA en Europa Occidental en los años 50 y 60 del siglo pasado, ver “La CIA y la Guerra Fría Cultural”, de Stonor Saunders. Sobre el papel de fachada de la CIA que juegan las principales fundaciones filantrópicas en los EE.UU., ver “The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police”, de James Petras http://www.rebelion.org/hemeroteca/petras/english/ford010102.htm y para una discusión algo más actualizada del tema, ver “Ford Foundation, The CIA and U.S. Establishment Conspiracy” (I y II) de Bob Feldman. http://wherechangeobama.blogspot.com/2012/07/ford-foundation-cia-and-us.html http://wherechangeobama.blogspot.com/2012/08/ford-foundation-cia-and-us_1971.html

xiiiSoros según la revista Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/profile/george-soros/

xivHeather Coffin: “George Soros, Imperial Wizard”, Cover Action Quarterly, fall 2002.

http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/finance/sorosempire.htm

xvEva Golinger y Romain Migus: “La Telaraña Imperial, enciclopedia de injerencia y subversión”, Centro Internacional Miranda, 2008, pp 209-210.

http://books.google.com.ni/books/about/La_telara%C3%B1a_imperial.html?id=gW0rAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y

xvihttp://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/02/george-soros-egypts-new-constitution.html

xviihttp://en.rian.ru/russia/20130712/182205722.html

xviiihttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130815/17545424195/aclu-coordinating-ed-snowdens-defense.shtml

xixhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/edward-snowden-media-misled_n_3764560.html

El 15 de agosto, el diario Wall Street Journal informó que una sesión de chat que tuvieron Edward Snowden y su padre, Lon, se realizó contra la voluntad de los abogados que asesoran a éste último. El chat de dos horas entre padre e hijo se llevó a cabo con la ayuda de Ben Wizner, abogado de la ACLU. Wizner pertenece al equipo de abogados defensores de Edward Snowden en los EE.UU. Según el diario estadounidense, el contacto entre padre e hijo se realizó contra la recomendación del abogado de Lon Snowden, Bruce Fein. Al ser informado de la conversación el abogado ruso de Edwad Snowden, Anatoly Kucherena, dijo que le había urgido a su cliente que no hablase con su padre ni por medios electrónicos ni por teléfono, y les pidió a ambos no tener contacto hasta que pudiesen encontrarse en persona.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324823804579014611497378326.html

xxhttp://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/national-security-whistleblowers-us-response-manning-and-snowden-examined

http://www.right2info.org/resources/publications/Halperin_CriminalPenaltiesforDisclosingClassifiedInformationtothePressintheUnitedStates.pdf

xxi http://web.archive.org/web/20080701000000*/http://accountabilitynowpac.com/

xxii http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/02/26/702147/-Accountability-Now-PAC

Una nota de febrero de 2009 señala que los miembros de AccountabilityNow entonces eran los grupos: "Daily Kos, MoveOn, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), ColorofChange.org, Democracy for America, 21st Century Democrats" y "BlogPAC".

http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/anti-nsa-reporter-tied-to-soros-funded-radical-left/

http://www.tides.org/news-and-resources/single-news-item/archive/2008/browse/4/select_category/37/article/strange-bedfellows/?tx_ttnews[backPid]=257&cHash=7de24254b57f0f14b875b32730fcab27

xxiii http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-u-s-support-apparatus-behind-nsa-traitor-snowden/

Greenwald, Poitras y Freedom of the Press Foundation

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/

xxivhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras

xxvhttp://www.macfound.org/fellows/874/

xxvihttp://www.macfound.org/

xxviiEn 2011, esta fundación se encontraba en el puesto 115 entre los receptores de ayuda de Soros, de acuerdo al sitio sorosfiles.com

http://sorosfiles.com/soros/2011/10/open-society-institute-top-150-grantees.html

xxviiihttp://www.macfound.org/media/files/ROBERT_L._GALLUCCI_BIO_-_UPDATED_OCTOBER_2011.PDF

xxixhttp://www.macfound.org/programs/fellows/strategy/

xxxhttps://pressfreedomfoundation.org/about

xxxiThe Huffington Post, 16 de diciembre de 2012.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/freedom-of-the-press-foundation_n_2312520.html

xxxiihttps://pressfreedomfoundation.org/about/staff

xxxiiiVer, por ejemplo los reportes anuales de la organización:

https://www.eff.org/files/eff-2009-2010-annual-report.pdf

https://www.eff.org/files/eff-2008-2009-annual-report.pdf

xxxiv

http://www.nndb.com/org/674/000051521/

xxxvThe Huffington Post, 16 de diciembre de 2012.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/freedom-of-the-press-foundation_n_2312520.html

xxxvihttps://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/matrix-who-is-edward-snowden/

xxxviihttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439192987/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1439192987&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwnomorefake-20

xxxviiiDescargar el libro “Secret Power” en http://www.nickyhager.info/ebook-of-secret-power/

xxxixhttp://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/06/14/in-q-tel-glimpse-inside-cias-venture-capital-arm/

Events in Brazil and the recent debate on Social Security benefits

toni solo and Jorge Capelán discuss events in Brazil and the Nicaraguan right wing's failed efforts to manipulate recent protests by elderly retired people about Social Security benefits.

Click to listen

Vad händer i Brasilien?

Av Jorge Capelán, Riktpunkt.nu

Den västerländska mediebevakningen om vad som händer i Brasilien är förkastlig. Som i fallet Libyen har imperiets maskineri för hjärntvätt och psykologisk krigföring lyckats påverka hela det politiska spektrumet – inklusive tongivande medier inom det som brukar kallas för vänster.

Det som händer i det sydamerikanska landet är allt annat än en ”revolution underifrån”, och det är inte heller något folkligt uppror mot arbetarpartiet PT:s politik utan en rörelse som tillfälligt har kapats av en aggressiv of fascistisk höger med stöd från delar av medelklassen och imperiet.

Om man googlar runt lite och tittar på bilderna från demonstrationerna de senaste dagarna märker man genast att merparten av alla demonstranter som visas är vita i ett land där 52 % av befolkningen är svart – och där de flesta svarta är fattiga.

De senaste 10 åren har de svarta ökat sin medelinkomst med 43.9% medan de vita (varav merparten tillhör medel- och överklassen) har ökat sin medelinkomst med 19.8%. Detta beror på en massiv omfördelning av resurserna som både Lula och Dilma har åstadkommit.

Omkring 20-25% av brasilianerna har lyfts ut ur fattigdomen. Det är inte dessa människor som demonstrerar mot regeringen.

De som romantiserar de senaste dagarnas protester som en ”sann” revolt underifrån mot en till ytan progressiv men i själva verket nyliberal regering har en rad saker att förklara: Vad är revolutionärt och progressivt i att skandera att ”ett enat Brasilien behöver inga politiska partier”?

Hur kan man betrakta en regering som nyliberal vilka ökar de fattigas inkomster och lyfter dessa ut ur fattigdomen, en regering som visar att det är fördelningspolitiken som möjliggör tillväxten, samt att man både kan utvidga den inre marknaden via ökad folklig konsumtion och samtidigt öka exporten?

Inledningsvis hade protesterna en helt annan inriktning, de var små (som mest 3 000 personer) och Sao Paulos militariserade polis mötte dem med övervåld. Polisen gjorde det på order av borgmästaren Geraldo Alckmin som tillhör högerpartiet PSDB (formellt socialdemokratiskt, nyliberalt i praktiken). Medierna (som i Brasilien är fräna motståndare till regeringen) svartmålade protesterna och hyllade polisen.

MPL-rörelsen eller ”Movimiento Passe Livre”, som startade protesterna mot planerna på att höja biljetterna i kollektivtrafiken i Sao Paulo, är ett slags motsvarighet till Planka.nu i Sverige. Den stöds av många vänstermänniskor ur alla schatteringar, inklusive av många PT-anhängare. PT har självt avgiftsfri kollektivtrafik i sitt program! I MPL fanns grupper som var emot all partipolitik överhuvud taget, men de var inte i majoritet och inte heller skulle de slåss med andra vänstermänniskor om en partibanderoll. Programmen mot vänsteraktivisterna i demonstrationerna startade senare.

Det som hände i Sao Paulo, där det hela började, var följande:

- Den 10 juni, MPL samlar jättemycket folk till en demonstration, enligt uppgifter ca 5 000 personer. Den militariserade polisen slår till på ett brutalt sätt. Många människor över hela landet blir jätteupprörda. Tidningarna fortsätter med sin kriminaliserande retorik.

– Till nästa massmöte, den 13 juni, kommer det hela 20 000 personer till demonstrationen. Över 70 demonstranter grips av den militariserade polisen med motiveringen att de hade flaskor med vinäger för att skydda sig mot tårgasen. Många människor skadades och det hela sändes live av de stora privata tevekanalerna.

– Helgen till den 15 och 16 juni ägde flera våldsamma demonstrationer rum, främst i Belo Horizonte, Brasilia och Rio de Janeiro.

– På måndagen den 17 juni, vände samma högertidningar om och började istället uppmana folk att gå ut och demonstrera utan politiska fanor, enbart med den brasilianska flaggan. Dessa som tidigare hade kritiserat demonstranterna och hyllat polisens våldsamma ingripande. ”Ett enat Brasilien behöver inga partier”, löd (den klart fascistiska) parollen.

Ända sedan dess har stämningen ändrats radikalt i demonstrationerna. Alltför mycket viftande med den brasilianska flaggan utanför fotbollssammanhang betraktas allmänt i landet som högervridet – ja, rentav fascistiskt. En rekordsiffra på 65 000 deltog (inte 200-300 000 som det påstås). Trots att de gamla parollerna fortfarande hördes, överröstades dessa av andra, nya paroller såsom: ”sänk skatterna”, ”VM kostar för mycket”, ”ner med korruptionen”, och ”ner med utsugningen av medelklassen”. Protestens sociala sammansättning samt dess innehåll hade ändrats.

Medan MPL krävde fri kollektivtransport, bättre utbildning och bättre hälsovård, pratade den kapade rörelsen enbart om ”korruption – inte om de privata intressenas korruption, naturligtvis, och inte heller om mediemogulernas korruption. Fascistiska grupper av skinheads och andra våldsamma element dök upp på demonstrationerna och hotade med våld mot alla vänsteraktivister son bekände sig som sådana. Många blev misshandlade, inte bara i Sao Paulo, utan på många andra ställen. Inga banker eller andra kapitalistiska symboler attackerades, däremot offentliga byggnader och PT:s partilokaler samt andra vänsterorganisationers lokaler förstördes.

Det finns många vittnesmål om att polisen på många håll lät de våldsamma grupperna agera ostört utan att ingripa. Det finns också vittnesmål om att grupper av oidentifierade individer brände ner saker på öppen gata på platser som inte hade någon anknytning till demonstrationerna, förmodligen med syftet att konstruera ett scenario av kaos.

De flesta som har deltagit i demonstrationerna håller inte med högeragendan, men det är först nu de börjar inse att rörelsen har bojkottats.

Detta destabiliseringsförsök kommer inte att lyckas övergå i en ren statskupp pga. de som kapar dess ledning inte har någon politik alls.

Det handlar om grupper i Brasilien som är alltför beroende av USA och Europa och den enda politik de kan erbjuda är just den politik som det brasilianska folket inte vill ha, nämligen nyliberalismen.

Än så länge har president Dilma Rousseff försvarat demonstranternas rätt att peka på bristerna i den brasilianska demokratin samt att diskutera hur en ny politik kan utformas. PT har klart och tydligt fördömt polisens våld mot demonstranterna samtidigt som de isolerade våldshandlingarna påbörjats av de fascistiska infiltreringsgrupperna.

I fredags samlades 76 vänsterorganisationer, inklusive politiska partier, fackföreningar och sociala rörelser i Sao Paulo, för att utbyta analyser om vad som hade hänt. Grupperna, som samlar praktiskt taget hela spektret av landets vänster, inklusive partier som befinner sig i opposition till PT, beslutade om att bilda en gemensam front mot det fascistiska våldet samt att verka tillsammans för att rörelsens ursprungliga paroller återupptas. Liknande möten har hållits på många andra ställen i Brasilien denna helg.

MPL ställde tillfälligt in demonstrationerna när det stod klart att de hade kapats av fascister. Nu återupptas dessa igen, inte som opposition mot regeringen utan som ett fredligt sätt att fördjupa regeringens sociala målsättningar.

Att västerländska medier har gjort en så stor sak av demonstrationerna i landet beror på att Brasilien har befäst sin ställning som världens sjätte största ekonomi och dess utkom håller i sin hand nyckeln till Latinamerikas rörelse för självständighet gentemot Väst.

USA och dess europeiska allierade har ett klart intresse av att de krafter som utlösts i samband med demonstrationerna används med syftet att hindra Brasilien från att spela en avgörande roll i byggandet av den gryende multipolära världsordningen.

Jag menar inte att CIA ursprungligen ligger bakom protesterna, men det är högst troligt att NATO:s strateger för psykologisk krigföring har på olika sätt bidragit till försöket att bojkotta proteströrelsen.

Som av en ren händelse, förra veckan annonserades Obamas kandidat till ny USA-ambassadör i Brasilien. Hon heter Liliana Ayalde, och var stationerad i Asuncion, Paraguay, under ”expresskuppen” i fjor varpå den paraguayanska oligarkin avsatte president Fernando Lugo.

Protesterna kan bli ett tillfälle att befästa den sydamerikanska jättens befrielse från den nyliberala politiken, men de skulle också kunna leda till nya destabiliserande incidenter som så småningom skulle kunna kompromettera Latinamerikas process av integration och självbestämmande.

Än så länge har president Dilma Rousseff och hennes allierade på vänsterkanten hanterat situationen med visdom, försiktighet och politisk intelligens. Låt oss hoppas att hon, PT och dess allierade lyckas, eftersom Latinamerika behöver ett starkt Brasilien.

Jorge Capelán

NICARAGUA: Right wing politicians and ex-Sandinistas manipulate pensioners legitimate claim

Jorge Capelan and toni solo, June 23rd 2013
Tortilla con Sal.

The reactionary rich country elites are at once  sinister, cynical, predictable and banal.  Their various regional expressions in Asia, Africa or Latin America all apply exactly the same destabilizing tactics in every country. The vogue these days is political mimicry:

• take over a movement with more or less legitimate demands,
• make those demands impossible to meet (make sure to get the help of ultra-leftist and other extremist useful idiots to do that)
• then try to turn that struggle into a plebiscite about the progressive or radical government target of destabilization
• if possible, foment extremely violent  polarization so as to provoke civil unrest or even war.

At its extreme, this pattern lead to NATO's current proxy war against Syria. In Latin America, we have seen all this in recent years in Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina. Over the last few days we have witnessed the same pattern in Brazil and now too we are seeing it in Nicaragua. This week, a movement of retired people demanding pensions decided to occupy the building of the Social Security Institute (INSS) - the entity that administers the pension funds.
The apparent spontaneity of the pensioners' action is belied by the fact that their nationwide mobilization requires tens of thousands of dollars to fund transport, accommodation and food. Very clearly that funding comes not from the self-confessed impoverished pensioners but from the right wing groups that are so blatantly manipulating them. As has happened so often elsewhere, the cynical anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua have abused graphic images from other countries in support of false accusations of violence and repression by the government here.
This tactic has been used  flagrantly by corporate media for as long as anyone can remember to smear target governments everywhere. The latest example here in Nicaragua is of the right wing Chamorro family owned newspaper Hoy. On the Internet, they deceitfully used a photograph of an elderly woman beaten up up the Colombian security forces to suggest non-existent violence by Nicaraguan police against vulnerable elderly citizens.


The background to the pensioners protest action is that some 45.000 people of retirement age in Nicaragua have insufficient contributions to the system to receive the full pension. The government accepts their argument that they are entitled to a reduced pension based proportionately on their lifetime contributions. No one questions their right to a minimum pension - which also is established in the law - the problem is that the pension fund cannot meet their demand without collapsing.

A large part of their contributions have vanished into thin air. People working prior to 1979 have suffered  because the dictator Anastasio Somoza stole their money when he fled Nicaragua during the revolution back in 1979. Between 1990 and 2006, pensioners lost out because their contributions were squandered by the Liberal governments in power during that period. In fact, one of the first actions of the Violeta Chamorro government was to abolish by decree the provision for a reduced pension.

Subsequently, Violeta Chamorro and her parliamentary allies  reformed the Constitution to so as to strip the President of the power to modify the Social Security law. Now, many of the same people responsible for that change falsely accuse President Ortega of failing to act to assist the legitimate demands of retired people who would qualify for a reduced pension. These are the same right wing politicians who argue that the system needs to be reformed, which is code for reducing benefits, because it is under funded.

In fact, since 2007, the Sandinista government led by President Daniel Ortega has practically doubled the number of affiliated workers to 674.000 and dramatically increased the number of registered employers to almost 26.000. The size of the contributions has also increased considerably. But the system still cannot afford to give the pensionless seniors what they have contributed in the past, amounting on some estimates to about 2.3 billion cordobas. The pension fund would go bankrupt!

The only solution to the problem is to increase the base of contributors to the system by expanding the number of people in formal employment contributing to the social security fund. About 70% of Nicaragua's workers are not part of the system because neoliberal policies deliberately promoted an informal free market economy with strong disincentives for creating fully-insured jobs. It is that structural neoliberalism the Sandinista government inherited in 2007 and which it has substantially changed while at the same time constantly emphasizing medium and long term sustainability.

For that reason, the government has been negotiating with the pensioners organizations during all these years. About 8.000 of them receive the Government's solidarity bonus of about 45 dollars each month, and some 200.000 food packages have been delivered. Older people benefit especially from the government's improvements to the health system and initiatives like Misión Milagro which overwhelmingly serve older people who have problems with their vision.

Right-wing politicians, the network of toxic NGOs of the so-called "civil society" plus CIA-trained groups of middle class youths have fooled some of the seniors into believing that the state must pay them regardless of the effect on the other programs that benefit them such as the generously subsidized public transport, water and electricity services or free health care.

Last week, a hundred or so pensioners "occupied" the Social Security building. They promptly were surrounded by the police which already knew what the right-wing instigators had in mind. None of the elderly people were touched, not even with the petal of a rose, and they were offered help to leave the premises. Furthermore, bus transportation already had been ordered, as well as medical check-ups, food and so on.

Faced with the failure of their plan to provoke police violence, hundreds of right-wing activists tried to join the occupation and attempted to break through the the barrier of unarmed policemen who for several hours had to patiently stand facing the right-wingers insults, blows, stones and bottles. Six policemen were seriously injured. The right-wing TV, the newspaper La Prensa and the Corporacion radio station broadcast the "event" live all day.

Now phony progressives, ex-Sandinistas and their right wing allies make absurdly false accusations that the FSLN authorities have attacked peaceful demonstrating senior citizens. On Monday, the Sandinistas will flood the streets of Managua in order to set the record straight and remind the opposition that no "Nicaraguan right-wing Spring" will take place here. Thanks to the Sandinista government, in Nicaragua,  the Spring started years ago when President Daniel Ortega took office in January 2007.

When FB calls the shots, revolutionaries should worry

By Jorge Capelán, Tortilla con Sal.


When Facebook's Chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, say it's revolutionary one should be wary. The past 10 day's protests in Brazil have been hailed by most progressives in the West as well as by activists and politically committed people all over the world as a revolutionary event. Although they might have a positive political effect, they are not revolutionary per se, and they actually could be used by forces interested in preventing Brazil from playing a decisive role in the budding multipolar world order.

During the last 10 days, a movement has grown, apparently out of thin air, demanding "changes" in Latin America's largest country. According to various reports, it all started with small demonstrations of less than 3.000 people protesting against the rise of 20 cents of Real (less than USD 0.10) in the price of the ticket of the collective transportation system in the city of Sao Paulo. Now it's tens of thousands of people demonstrating in tens of cities all over the country. The demonstrators protest not only against the price and lousy quality of collective transportation, but also against the deficiencies in other public services such as education and health care. They protest against the building of expensive stadiums to host the coming soccer World Championship instead of cheap housing projects, as well as against the corruption of a political system designed to render ineffective any attempt to carry out deep changes.

All this sounds wonderful but, it has to be said, this is not a revolutionary situation.

Who can imagine a revolution ousting a government which has shown that economic policy is not about first creating wealth in order to later distribute it, but the other way around? What is revolutionary about destabilizing a government that has proved that one can both expand the internal market through popular consumption and boost exports? Those are two of the basic tenets of neoliberal Capitalism, and both have been crushed to pieces by Lula's and Rousseff's governments.

These protests are taking place in a country where a progressive government has managed to lift 40-50 million people (about 20-25% of the population) out of poverty. The Brazilian middle class is the one with the largest growth in Latin America - from about 20% in the 1990's to 50% or more today. Inflation is under control and real wages are rising; unemployement is at a all-time low and the government is very popular. Even today, after images of police repression against the demonstrators have been broadcasted, with a popularity drop of 8%, 55% of the Brazilians have a positive view of the government and 77% think President Dilma Rousseff is doing a good job.

Initially, the protesters were met with violence by the authorities, but the government's attitude promptly changed to a conciliatory one. In several cities, the local governments have cancelled their plans to raise the bus ticket and are open to dialogue with the demonstrators.

According to president Rousseff "the protests show the value of democracy and reveal that the citizen are demanding their rights". She condemned isolated cases of violence but valued the prevailingly peaceful attitude of the participants in the protests. That, she said, is "proof of the greatness of our democracy and of the civic character of our people, and is a direct message to those in charge at all levels".

The issues raised by the protesters are not baseless - they are acknowledged as problems by the government and by ruling PT's leaders. Even many of their criticisms of PT itself have been acknowledged by Lula and others. The neoliberal political system is one of the forces holding back Brazil's development. But this is not an insurrection. 250.000 demonstrators do not make a revolution in a country of 205 million. 1/1000% does not make a revolution. Political majorities do. The left in Brazil does not have a majority of its own and is dependent on broad alliances in order to govern, which in turn reflects on its ability to deepen the changes.

These demonstrations have been compared to the mass mobilizations that took place in 1984 and 1990. In 1984, millions of Brazilians took to the streets to demand democratic elections. In 1990, it was to force the then president Collor de Mello to renounce. 250.000 Brazilians today is not much considering that the country's population is 30% larger and is more urbanized. Back in the 80's and 90's, it was political parties and social movements, with clear agendas and slogans with a common objective that took to the streets. Those were organic movements, with strong roots among the popular sectors.

It is not clear who is leading today's protests in Brazil. There is a strong anti-establishment sentiment and a mixture of left-wing and right-wing agendas of urbanized middle-class strata.

It's been said that these demonstrations were convoked through the social media. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world's richest men (13 billion dollars) holds a sign in front of the camera: "IT'S NOT 20 CENTS! #CHANGEBRAZIL!" Revolution? Come on... Zuckerberg got the seed capital to start his firm from CIA's front In-Q-Tel. Facebook, one of the capo di tutti capi in the Internet is a regular informant of the National Security Agency, it was revealed a couple of days ago. In fact, the revelations go, FB and companies such as Apple, Google and Yahoo gave the agency "direct" and unrestricted access to their servers.

I'm not saying that Facebook organized the protests, but it's clear that the CIA's department for Cyberwarfare has a stake on what is going on in Brazil.

The protests may be an opportunity to consolidate the South American giant's rupture away from neoliberal policies, but they might also lead to further destabilizing incidents which in the short or medium term could compromise the process of integration and independence of our continent. So far Dilma Rousseff has reacted wisely. Let's hope she and the PT succeed, because we need a strong Brazil.

Audio commentary : some aspects of the significance of Nicaragua's Inter-Oceanic Canal

Jorge Capelan and toni solo discuss various aspects of the planned Inter-Oceanic Canal which was formally launched on Friday June 15th 2013.

Click to listen

Beyond theory - the practice of building socialism in Latin America

toni solo and Jorge Capelán, May 7th 2013
Tortilla con Sal.

"Correction and apology: In an earlier version of this article we incorrectly asserted that James Petras co-signed a letter in 2008 with Noam Chomsky and other leading intellectuals which, in the article, we criticize. This is not the case. We apologize to James Petras for this mistake on our part. We request anyone who has re-posted this article to add this text  to the top of wherever they posted our article."

For the imperial propaganda machine, leftist Latin American governments and political leaders are either too leftist, not really leftist, or blind fanatics, as well as being shrewdly machiavellian, capitalists in red clothing, enemies of the market and scores of other contradictory pairs of things all at once.

This is so because the purpose of propaganda is to render unusable the intellectual capacity of the target population to understand reality.  By promoting mistrust, anxiety and confusion among those sections of the public in the imperialist countries that might oppose the designs of their rulers, the war planners seek to neutralize any effective solidarity efforts.

Sadly, most European and North American progressive and radical movements and intellectuals have problems coming to terms with this, no matter what their experience, reputation or insights into what the Empire routinely does to humanity.

Without direct involvement in them, virtually none of those intellectuals can offer a true and fair view of Latin America's various revolutionary processes. They may offer plausible theories and schemas, but the nitty gritty of achieving power and effecting radical change will always elude them. Examples of this fact abound.

Depending entirely on academics like Noam Chomsky, or James Petras, for example, for a grasp of events in Latin America is a mistake. Those writers theoretical preconceptions tend to fall apart when applied to specific realities. One need not follow the anti-Stalinism of the historian E.P.Thompson into its ultimate social-democrat cul-de-sac to acknowledge the central argument of “The Poverty of Theory” against idealist theory.

The article "Pink Tide in Latin America: An Alliance Between Local Capital and Socialism" by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya published on May 3 by Global Research is an example of this sad truth. In the final paragraphs of his article, a series of reflections on the future developments in the region after Chavez' death, the author writes:

"It can be argued that the political current in Latin America is mostly a question of financial and economic independence, rather than a socialist project challenging the capitalist world-system."

Without developing further this thesis, Nazemroaya's piece actually is an exercise in inconsequential and superficial dissection of the progressive/radical governments in the region, with the purpose of questioning the anti-capitalist character of the process of integration taking part in Latin America. Since Nazemroaya's analysis spreads many biases and mistaken views that are functional to the imperial propaganda efforts against those governments, we will deal with it in this article, but first let us address the core thesis the author put forward in his piece without thoroughly grounding it.

Indeed, there is a (conflictive) synergy between (some) Capitalist and anti-capitalist interests behind the movement for Latin American unity and independence. There is a huge amount of money in the hands of the Latin American oligarchies which, under the right circumstances, might be interested in investing in the regional market rather than, say, in the Swiss banking system or in regional tax havens. The emergence of China as a major lender and investor in the region, the stagnation of the US and European economies and the massive development projects carried out thanks to the initiative of governments which Nazemroaya designates under the derogatory term "Pink Tide", explain some of the central drives behind this process. But does this mean that what is going on in Latin America today is not the emergence of "a socialist project challenging the capitalist world-system"?

Whoever doesn't see the anti-capitalist value of ending the hegemony of Western imperialism once and for all and of building a multi-polar world order should start writing science-fiction novels instead of feigning engagement in actual anti-capitalist struggle. It's really puzzling that an editor of Global Research has problems grasping this point. However, there is much more to the anti-capitalist ambitions of the Latin American integrationist efforts than the multi-polar dimension alone.

In Latin America, it is impossible to engage in the construction of socialist and anti-capitalist alternatives without at the same time struggling to integrate the region politically, economically and even culturally. "I desire to see America fashioned into the greatest nation in the world, greatest not so much by virtue of her area and wealth as by her freedom and glory" (1). That is the legacy of Bolivar, as was the legacy of Martí, of Sandino, Mariátegui, Gaitán, Che, Fidel Castro and many other Latin American revolutionaries since Independence. This is so because the colonial and imperial powers needed to split the region up into small countries in order to exploit its resources and labor. This is not something Chavez made up, it is an old insight down here.

At the core of the Latin American process of independent integration is the Bolivarian Alliance, ALBA, which comprises 8 full members with a total population of 70 or 80 million (some 15% of the region's population) plus an ever-growing list of countries participating as guest members and observers.

ALBA's economic relationships are not based on profit but on solidarity and complementarity among its members. Nor is it an alliance of convenience, but a project aimed at consolidating a higher political unit beyond Capitalism. It is not based on Venezuelan charity either, but on the use of common resources as a lever enabling its member countries to leave Capitalism behind.

Through ALBA and schemes such as PETROCARIBE (18 member countries), the Venezuelan oil imports are re-invested by the non oil-producing countries in social and economic programs financed by almost interest-free long-term loans. Thus, agricultural countries such as Nicaragua widen their list of trade partners, but most importantly, they develop and diversify their economies becoming less dependent on the export of agricultural products.

Exchanges at all levels between Venezuela, Cuba and the rest of the ALBA member countries aim at sharing experiences on all fields. For example, Nicaraguan rural workers travel to Venezuela to share their experiences of cooperative organization in order to help Venezuela increase its food production. Cuban personnel from many different fields, specially health care and education, play a very important role in many social programs, but they also share their experience and know-how while at the same time gathering many experiences from their colleagues in the other member countries. ALBA members have started using their own  national currencies instead of the US dollar to trade with each other through a financial arrangement called SUCRE, the Unified System of Regional Compensation. This scheme helps protect the ALBA's economies from the financial collapse of Capitalism.

From the examples above, it is foolish to deny the anticapitalist dynamics of ALBA. Even more foolish would be to deny ALBA's influence on the rest of Latin America.

ALBA was founded in 2004 after an agreement between Venezuela and Cuba. The following year, in 2005, the US plan to build a "free trade" zone in the Americas, the FTAA, was buried at the Summit of The Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, when most Latin American governments refused to hail Bush's offer of "open up your customs or else..." Without the joint leadership of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Lula da Silva and late Argentinean president Néstor Kirchner, this strategic defeat of imperialism in Latin America would not have been possible.

With the establishment, on February 23rd, 2010, of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, the 33 countries in the region, for the first time in history, created an organization outside the control of the United States and Canada. Without the role played by Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua, CELAC's profile would not be as integral as it is today. Actually, Venezuela's contribution was crucial, not only because of the strategic dimension of the Bolivarian revolution, but also because of its intelligent handling of the most reactionary sectors of the Colombian oligarchy represented by Alvaro Uribe.

It is quite clear that some Capitalist interests see important opportunities in all these developments, but they are not politically organized. The Latin American right is dominated by highly aggressive, reactionary pro-imperialist political parties, right-wing networks and corporate media. On a daily bases, these groups conspire and carry out disinformation campaigns against almost all governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially those with progressive and radical inclinations.

In his article, Nazemroaya questions these government's leftist and anti-capitalist credentials. Although he warns against "oversimplification and romanticization", and although he tries to define what he understands as "left", Nazemroaya confuses the concepts and decontextualizes the facts, ending up with a list of more or less flattering aspects which he then uses to build up a negative portrait of the developments in Latin America.

Let us start with the concepts. Correctly, Nazemroaya defines "left" and "right" as political positions within a given context, but he then almost immediately abandons all interest in understanding the multiplicity of the contexts that compose the reality of the region to focus on the fact that there is "a Plethora of 'Lefts' in Latin America", an "eclectic bunch" as the author's derogatory style defines them.

Nazemroaya goes even further and states that "Latin American left-wing governments do not strictly operate to the 'left'": So, according to his actual view, there is a "real left" (a context-independent Left he feels he is entitled to define as such) and some kind of "fake left" (another context-independent left he thinks is entitled to denounce as false). As "proof" of his assertion, the author refers to an alleged "debate over whether the Cuban socialist project is genuinely reforming or if it will eventually follow the paths of capitalist restoration like China and Vietnam".

A debate where? In some cafe in Toronto? That is not a serious argument, for two reasons. Firstly, the existence of debates about the future course of a revolution are no proof of the actual orientation of that revolution. Secondly, Nazemroaya passes as received truths his opinions on socialism in China and Vietnam without feeling it necessary to go into any further details.

Actually, as true as the fact that there are many "lefts" in Latin America, is the fact that there is a vast experience of collective discussions among those "lefts". An example of this is the Forum of Sao Paulo, which since 1990 has gathered more than 90 political organizations from almost all countries, including Puerto Rico. Most  countries are represented by several political parties, and in cases such as Argentina and Uruguay, by 12 or 13 organizations. For over 20 years, those organizations, ranging from the Chilean Socialist Party to the Cuban Communist Party, from various Peronist parties in Argentina to Peruvian nationalists, just to mention a few examples, have been able to carry out many debates and achieve consensus around key issues such as the struggle to end the US genocidal blockade of Cuba, the support to the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and ALBA as well as the project of continental integration.

The huge continental wave of solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution after Hugo Chavez death, especially in face of the fascist violence unleashed by Capriles Radonski's thugs, is another case in point in relation to the capacity of this variegated array of "leftist" movements to very quickly set aside their differences for a common cause. Without the existence of similar mechanisms and processes, it would have been impossible, in recent months, to mobilize a movement capable of denouncing the Cuban CIA agent Yoani Sanches World Tour. In capital after capital where the CIA blogger attempted to smear Cuba, se was received by large groups of activists that on several occasions managed to force her to desist from her activities.

Another case in point, The existence of the Network of Intellectuals in Defence of Humanity, composed of hundreds, if not thousands, of intellectuals from all over the world and from a broad ideological spectrum, routinely organizing campaigns in defence of Cuba, Venezuela and ALBA, as well as against  imperialist putschist moves in countries such as Honduras, Ecuador or Paraguay. Without denying the differences between various political movements, it is necessary to stress that there exists an ever-growing common understanding of the problems and challenges ahead.

Nazemroaya warns against easy generalizations but goes on to make sweeping generalizations such as the following:

"Latin America’s comprador elites are the local representatives of the foreign corporations, governments, and interests that have exploited Latin America for centuries. These comprador elites can frankly be described as either the 'House Negros' or racist upper class that have historically ruled Latin America and managed its wealth and resources for the changing centres of power in other parts of the world that have controlled the area. Today, the regional comprador elites are mostly aligned with the United States and prefer Miami or New York City to Caracas or Quito".

One first commentary about this description is obvious: If the Latin American "comprador elites are mostly aligned with the US and prefer Miami or New York to Caracas or Quito", how can they actually be a driving force behind a process of regional integration that is not to the liking of the US, NATO and Europe? Are they really a driving force behind this process as Nazemroaya implies?

This is the kind of sweeping, oversimplifying generalization that makes it impossible to understand the contexts and the particular traits of the various countries in the region. This in turn explains why there are so many "lefts" which, incidentally, show a startling capacity to cooperate with each other and to reach a common consensus around key issues. Also, such oversimplifying generalizations make it impossible to understand the complexities of the international relations among the region's countries, for example, in the case of the relations between Colombia and Venezuela and the Peace Process taking place between FARC-EP and Santos.

The 33 nations that compose Latin America and the Caribbean show a common situation of dependence on imperialism, but they also show startling differences. Countries like Chile, Argentina or Uruguay have very strong European cultural influence, while other countries, such as Bolivia or Guatemala have big indigenous majorities. Some oligarchies are richer than others, some of them have had more freedom than others to carry out policies of import substitution.

Some countries, such as Honduras and Paraguay, have been ruthlessly subjected to a state of utmost political underdevelopment for decades by repressive dictatorships, while others, such as Ecuador or Uruguay, have enjoyed relatively long periods of successful reformism. Although Latin America is the world's most unequal region, not all countries and societies are equally poor and not all of them are equally underdeveloped. Different forms of dependent economic insertion in the World Market, different political cultures, different social realities explain the differences among the political subjects.

Are "Latin America’s comprador elites ... the local representatives of the foreign corporations, governments, and interests that have exploited Latin America for centuries" as Nazemroaya puts it? They are many other things besides that. They are mediators between the Western multinational interests and the local markets, but in many cases, they are players on their own right as well. Think about the example of Mexican Carlos Slim, the world's richest man. Think about the financial Colombian capitalists represented by Santos or even sectors of the Brazilian oligarchy. They fear Socialism and most progressive politics, but they also fear the prospects of a sociopolitical meltdown that would make their profits vanish into thin air. In many cases, they have to reluctantly accept many of the progressives' and radicals' policies, even if their newspapers routinely pour bile on those governments.

Lacking a better political reference frame, Nazemroaya lays hand on James Petras' typology on the Latin American left - one the weakest intellectual products of the US-American sociologist. With this typology, an otherwise sharp analyst such as Petras cannot resist the Western temptation of handing out small stars of revolutionary approval to movements he fancies more than others, irrespective of the concrete circumstances of their struggles. Incapable of understanding many of the true challenges of social transformation in the real world and the actual limits of political power, Petras projects his romanticized revolutionary ideals on various movements and subjects. When those movements in real life do not behave according to Petras' wishes, they are either ditched or condescendingly tapped on the back with some scornful comment on having "sold out". Apparently unable to understand the value of nation-building for the materialization of any sort of socialist project, he rejects movements such as Peronismo, irrespective of how stubbornly the working-class masses support them.

Petras' schematic division between “radical left”, “pragmatic left”, “pragmatic neo-liberals” and “doctrinaire neo-liberal regimes” is seriously flawed when confronted with reality. If FARC were in the same situation as PSUV in Venezuela, it would certainly act along much the same lines. In fact, it supports the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and shares its inspirational force, namely, the heritage of Simon Bolivar.

In Brazil, the Landless Workers' Movement gives critical support to the Worker's Party (PT). While it rightly criticizes the agribusiness-oriented development strategy of Lula's and Dilma Roussef's party, the Landless Workers' Movement also understands the various constraints the PT government faces being dependent on alliances with other political forces, in an inmense country where the oligarchy retains considerable power at all levels. They are also well aware of what it would mean were the neo-liberal right to return to political power in Brazil.

In Argentina, to call Cristina Fernández a "pragmatic neo-liberal" is an outright insult, not to mention an irresponsible lack of solidarity with a progressive government subject every day to the most vicious destabilizing campaigns from the oligarchy. No neo-liberal regime increases minimum wages, raises pensions, improves education or fights poverty. Nor does any neo-liberal regime say "Good-bye" to IMF the way Argentina has done.

The same goes for Mauricio Funes' government in El Salvador, where the FMLN is on its way to win the coming elections with a candidate of its own. Incapable of identifying processes and accumulation of forces, dogmatic analysts such as Petras/Nazemroaya see only traitors, sell-outs and capitalists everywhere. The superficiality of Petras' analysis becomes sheer bad faith when it comes to certain countries he simply doesn't mention such as Nicaragua, where cooperatives account for about 40% of the country's GDP and about 70% of the work force.

Back in mid-2008, a group of leading left-wing Western intellectuals, most prominently Noam Chomsky, wrote a letter supporting a hunger strike held by ex-FSLN leader Dora Maria Tellez in Nicaragua. Tellez was protesting the elimination of her MRS political alliance from the municipal elections in November of that year for having failed to comply with the electoral law. So Noam Chomsky and the other well-respected intellectuals concerned demonstrated the loyalty and solidarity of their intellectual-managerial class and spoke out on her behalf.

In fact, as it transpired, the MRS immediately entered into an electoral alliance with the Nicaragua's corrupt extreme right-wing PLC party. They campaigned in particular in support of reactionary banker, Eduardo Montealegre who to this day uses his parliamentary immunity to avoid indictment for multi-million dollar banking fraud. Clearly, the MRS suckered Noam Chomsky and his fellow intellectuals into misguidedly supporting her 2008 charade, because those intellectuals had no idea of the political realities in Nicaragua. Anyone who doubts MRS' allegiance to the US Embassy in Managua, should read some of the diplomatic cables recently released by WikiLeaks on the subject.

That particular case only highlights the pitfalls of depending on the neat schemas of the managerial class who dominate intellectual production in North America and Europe. So when Nazemroaya cites James Petras as his theoretical reference point in his recent  article on Latin America, one needs to apply extreme scepticism to his arguments so as to try and discern the reality. Among the typical omissions of James Petras and his colleagues, Nicaragua understandably looms large by its absence.

They see that a given country still is in the grip of IMF loans, but they are incapable of seeing that the country is becoming less dependent on such loans. They see that a given country is depending on agro-exports, but they don't see how that country is diversifying its economy and becoming less dependent on those exports. They see capitalists and State-Capitalism and cry "Neoliberalism! Extractivism!" without even proposing a workable alternative that might to develop a country's productive forces. Or else when they actually see those alternatives being implemented by those governments, they shout "It is not enough!".

To revolutions applies an old Latin American saying: "It is easy to look at the lady from afar, but quite a different story to go ahead and talk to her".

A superficial and disrespectful treatment of developments in Latin America poses two sets of problems. The first one is that it makes practical solidarity more difficult, especially now, when Washington is engaging in a fascist continental crusade against Latin America. The second set of problems has to do with the crucial importance of the Latin American experience for any new projects beyond Capitalism anywhere else in the world.