Seinforma
The Latin-Canadian Organization of Human Rights and Freedom of Expression / Organización Latino-Canadiense de Derechos Humanos y Libertad de Expresión
Specialized Journalistic Sevices (SJS)
Servicios Especializados de Información
Servicios Especializados de Información
English
Español
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Godfather PLAN
This year we will be supporting the caring of hundreds of Bolivian children who live in misery near La Paz.
More...
This year we will be supporting the caring of hundreds of Bolivian children who live in misery near La Paz.
More...
Jorge SILVA:
“After going for the first time, you don't know if it is worth risking your life"
Exclusive Interview
More...
“After going for the first time, you don't know if it is worth risking your life"
Exclusive Interview
More...
All Rights Reserved © Specialized Journalistic Services Copyright 2008 Canada
Todos los Derechos Reservados © Seinforma Canada Copyright 2008
Todos los Derechos Reservados © Seinforma Canada Copyright 2008
Videos
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
Contest
____________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
The history of domination in Latin America. MONROE: Let's reformulate!
Erosión y desabastecimiento,
los beneficios del biodiesel
los beneficios del biodiesel
__________________
. English
. Español
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Special REPORTS
The civilization crisis and the end of the neoliberal model
World Social Forum 2008: "another world is possible".
More...
The civilization crisis and the end of the neoliberal model
World Social Forum 2008: "another world is possible".
More...
______________________________________
__________________
______________
______________
______________
______________
(Photo resisters.ca /Seinforma)
LATIN AMERICA
Following Rehinart Koselleck, approximately five years ago, human beings have enter in a new vision which is not only temporal but also spatial; the future would be the vault of human aspirations and the planet would spread in an exponential way when the Europeans find new territories.
In this way, human beings would start the diligent task of conquering the future; a future where values such as freedom, equality and fraternity would be reached by rationality, the key of disenchantment of the world, leaving behind the tales of a mystified past to which we were condemned to follow because of the original sin.
This is a brief vision of our immediate present called modernity, which politically speaking, it meant the hope for the future; however, it became not the shelter of our hopes, but the shelter for politicians almost always and above all in our country.
It is in the future where the work promises and plans move to, an unreachable time because of the unconquerable barrier of the supposed present and the motionless ship of this prison; they are the concepts full of meanings and many of them are just hot air to extend historical words, loosing the cohesion of their meanings. This happens today in the moving city, in the so-called ciudad de la esperanza (the city of hope) during another six-year term.
Last July 27th a referendum was carried out. The referendum was about the so called electrical energy reform and, in particular, about the future of the state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), a debate on the Mexican situation that was postponed for more than 20 years: we are dependent on between 40% and 60% of the oil incomes.
At last, this was a worry for the political class of this country; therefore the president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has raised the need of the continuing oil extraction, to extract it from deep water deposits, whatever that means.
However, as we all know, in this country the oil resources has been used in a little precise way and the lack of reinvestment in the aforementioned oil company PEMEX has generated its partial abandonment, resulting in the need (they tell us) of foreign capital for its strengthening. This is the essential part of the debate: foreign investment in PEMEX, Yes or no? And if so, How would the country participate? By establishing the debate among the country political forces, no matter if they were political parties, businessmen, workers or scientists organizations in the framework of a forum on the debates about the electrical energy reform.
However, no attendance was as controversial and attracting as the one of the Federal District governor Ebrad Casaubon, who was a magnet for the mass media who, like a strap, wrapped the population, specially the Federal District population.
The technical contributions of outstanding specialists did not matter, even less, the little presuppositions to investigate the PEMEX labor union (popular because of its related-by-blood members as well as because of the corruption of its leaders). The Mexico City governor´s attendance would delineate the debate about a necessary electoral, and almost obligatory, reform for the Mexican system in the following weeks.
The proposal made by licensee Marcelo Ebrad Casaubon was to carry out a referendum on the PEMEX reform, on behalf of democracy; they would ask us, they would ask for our opinion.
To start with, democracy consists in the election of our rulers and even in the asking about government issues; under this tendency, it has been reduced to electoral issues.
The matter here is delicate; a debate like the electrical energy reform and particularly about PEMEX is a basically technical one, where we have no idea where the oil is and even less about where are those resources. On behalf of democracy, the debate is focused on whether we approve or not one or other reform; all this led to a question with a yes-or-no answer, true or false.
Everything comes down to a debate with two or three questions; there are no responsibilities and goals established. Democracy is not only an act of civic poll and voting. We, in a large part, do not have the technical and specialized knowledge that is necessary to define the state and course of the most important state-owned oil company in our country; however, we very well know about our homes welfare, about our population economic and social development. Summing up, all the proposed reforms offer the same thing: our welfare. ¡Very good! Let´s approve a reform to supervise the accomplishment of their short, half and long-term goals, let´s request our elected authorities that things are clear and straightforward.
Democracy should go beyond their cyclic and ephemeral lives like the elections; it should consist in the regulation and the getting of results derived from specific technical plans. However, all those plans are moved to that unreachable future, never glimpsed and forgotten by daily nature. There, the concept of democracy immolates itself in order to cover complicities, plans and responsibilities.
Inside this irrationality, there is a very specific rationality and the holders of power resources, who have covered them up, have used them for a particular benefit, talking in favor of their condition of beneficiaries of the larger part of the country´s wealth.
A poll like this helps more to hide rather than to bring to light a structural matter as important as an electrical energy reform. It leaves aside some technical matters which are essential for a company of this kind and hide responsibilities not only for the past but also for the present.
Even worse, the poll costs are not only high but also suspicious (they could be more); according to the report of the civic poll about the electrical energy reform in the Federal District the total costs were 45,595,841 pesos. This amount would not have solved even one of the problems that the city suffers from, but it could have been the beginning of a useful program for the citizenship.
In the last few years, the concept of democracy in Mexico has become a justification for the squandering and covering of unclear actions on the part of the political class in conspiracy with the masters of money: high costs in elections, generous budgets for political parties and costly salaries for people´s representatives. Everything with the aim of conquering and strengthening democracy, and consolidating its transition.
If democracy were business in Mexico, it would operate in red, due to the excessive spending in democratic machinery and its worthless results: more than the half of primary, secondary and high school teachers has failed the accreditation exams; as a consequence, we are at the bottom in the education list of the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (at least they are only 30). On the other hand, the country is in the middle of a drug traffickers´ war fought in most of the national territory; just to mention a couple of examples.
Democracy in Mexico is only grateful with the ones that make business with it trough advertising (mass media) and public office (top-level officers); for the rest, there is just that tedious and hot air from the democratic balloon which is very expensive.
We cannot make attempts for “strong” governments which, in practice at the end of the day, mean oppression; a true democratic attitude would be to follow the steps of any approved electrical energy reform. If there is a need for foreign capital because of a dismantling of the most important state-owned oil company. Who are responsible for that? How were the resources used? And. Is there punishment for the ones who are guilty? In case the reform is approved, Who would be responsible? Which would be the short, half and long-term goals? Which would be the citizenship role in such plans?
The experts will make equations and abstractions promising welfare; it will be our duty to take the estimates to the concrete world: in our tables, in the youngs´ education, in human beings´ development, in the esthetics and functionality of the city and the countryside. In that moment, we will realize if the future came true and, in consequence, define responsibilities at present.
Only in this way, the heavy and still concept of democracy will speed up; it should not contain the aspirations of a country, it should be a means for achieving them. Let´s get out of the modern paradox, let´s focused on the ends not on the means; let´s make an electrical energy reform to achieve the common welfare, rather than a particular loot for advertisers and politicians, the future as a guide for our actions, rather than as a way out of responsibilities for politicians at present.
In this way, human beings would start the diligent task of conquering the future; a future where values such as freedom, equality and fraternity would be reached by rationality, the key of disenchantment of the world, leaving behind the tales of a mystified past to which we were condemned to follow because of the original sin.
This is a brief vision of our immediate present called modernity, which politically speaking, it meant the hope for the future; however, it became not the shelter of our hopes, but the shelter for politicians almost always and above all in our country.
It is in the future where the work promises and plans move to, an unreachable time because of the unconquerable barrier of the supposed present and the motionless ship of this prison; they are the concepts full of meanings and many of them are just hot air to extend historical words, loosing the cohesion of their meanings. This happens today in the moving city, in the so-called ciudad de la esperanza (the city of hope) during another six-year term.
Last July 27th a referendum was carried out. The referendum was about the so called electrical energy reform and, in particular, about the future of the state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), a debate on the Mexican situation that was postponed for more than 20 years: we are dependent on between 40% and 60% of the oil incomes.
At last, this was a worry for the political class of this country; therefore the president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has raised the need of the continuing oil extraction, to extract it from deep water deposits, whatever that means.
However, as we all know, in this country the oil resources has been used in a little precise way and the lack of reinvestment in the aforementioned oil company PEMEX has generated its partial abandonment, resulting in the need (they tell us) of foreign capital for its strengthening. This is the essential part of the debate: foreign investment in PEMEX, Yes or no? And if so, How would the country participate? By establishing the debate among the country political forces, no matter if they were political parties, businessmen, workers or scientists organizations in the framework of a forum on the debates about the electrical energy reform.
However, no attendance was as controversial and attracting as the one of the Federal District governor Ebrad Casaubon, who was a magnet for the mass media who, like a strap, wrapped the population, specially the Federal District population.
The technical contributions of outstanding specialists did not matter, even less, the little presuppositions to investigate the PEMEX labor union (popular because of its related-by-blood members as well as because of the corruption of its leaders). The Mexico City governor´s attendance would delineate the debate about a necessary electoral, and almost obligatory, reform for the Mexican system in the following weeks.
The proposal made by licensee Marcelo Ebrad Casaubon was to carry out a referendum on the PEMEX reform, on behalf of democracy; they would ask us, they would ask for our opinion.
To start with, democracy consists in the election of our rulers and even in the asking about government issues; under this tendency, it has been reduced to electoral issues.
The matter here is delicate; a debate like the electrical energy reform and particularly about PEMEX is a basically technical one, where we have no idea where the oil is and even less about where are those resources. On behalf of democracy, the debate is focused on whether we approve or not one or other reform; all this led to a question with a yes-or-no answer, true or false.
Everything comes down to a debate with two or three questions; there are no responsibilities and goals established. Democracy is not only an act of civic poll and voting. We, in a large part, do not have the technical and specialized knowledge that is necessary to define the state and course of the most important state-owned oil company in our country; however, we very well know about our homes welfare, about our population economic and social development. Summing up, all the proposed reforms offer the same thing: our welfare. ¡Very good! Let´s approve a reform to supervise the accomplishment of their short, half and long-term goals, let´s request our elected authorities that things are clear and straightforward.
Democracy should go beyond their cyclic and ephemeral lives like the elections; it should consist in the regulation and the getting of results derived from specific technical plans. However, all those plans are moved to that unreachable future, never glimpsed and forgotten by daily nature. There, the concept of democracy immolates itself in order to cover complicities, plans and responsibilities.
Inside this irrationality, there is a very specific rationality and the holders of power resources, who have covered them up, have used them for a particular benefit, talking in favor of their condition of beneficiaries of the larger part of the country´s wealth.
A poll like this helps more to hide rather than to bring to light a structural matter as important as an electrical energy reform. It leaves aside some technical matters which are essential for a company of this kind and hide responsibilities not only for the past but also for the present.
Even worse, the poll costs are not only high but also suspicious (they could be more); according to the report of the civic poll about the electrical energy reform in the Federal District the total costs were 45,595,841 pesos. This amount would not have solved even one of the problems that the city suffers from, but it could have been the beginning of a useful program for the citizenship.
In the last few years, the concept of democracy in Mexico has become a justification for the squandering and covering of unclear actions on the part of the political class in conspiracy with the masters of money: high costs in elections, generous budgets for political parties and costly salaries for people´s representatives. Everything with the aim of conquering and strengthening democracy, and consolidating its transition.
If democracy were business in Mexico, it would operate in red, due to the excessive spending in democratic machinery and its worthless results: more than the half of primary, secondary and high school teachers has failed the accreditation exams; as a consequence, we are at the bottom in the education list of the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (at least they are only 30). On the other hand, the country is in the middle of a drug traffickers´ war fought in most of the national territory; just to mention a couple of examples.
Democracy in Mexico is only grateful with the ones that make business with it trough advertising (mass media) and public office (top-level officers); for the rest, there is just that tedious and hot air from the democratic balloon which is very expensive.
We cannot make attempts for “strong” governments which, in practice at the end of the day, mean oppression; a true democratic attitude would be to follow the steps of any approved electrical energy reform. If there is a need for foreign capital because of a dismantling of the most important state-owned oil company. Who are responsible for that? How were the resources used? And. Is there punishment for the ones who are guilty? In case the reform is approved, Who would be responsible? Which would be the short, half and long-term goals? Which would be the citizenship role in such plans?
The experts will make equations and abstractions promising welfare; it will be our duty to take the estimates to the concrete world: in our tables, in the youngs´ education, in human beings´ development, in the esthetics and functionality of the city and the countryside. In that moment, we will realize if the future came true and, in consequence, define responsibilities at present.
Only in this way, the heavy and still concept of democracy will speed up; it should not contain the aspirations of a country, it should be a means for achieving them. Let´s get out of the modern paradox, let´s focused on the ends not on the means; let´s make an electrical energy reform to achieve the common welfare, rather than a particular loot for advertisers and politicians, the future as a guide for our actions, rather than as a way out of responsibilities for politicians at present.
THE CIVIC POLL ON THE ELECTRICAL ENERGY REFORM ON JULY 27th WAS A GOOD DEMOCRATIC ENTERPRISE, NOT A DEMOCRATIC EXERCISE
Mexico- According to the German historian Rehinart Koselleck, the concepts are words with a historical content, where, trough written language, the present aspirations and explanations are manifested. In the case of the political concepts, these would limit justifications for the supporters of power at present, the only really existing temporality, George Gadamer would mention.
(Photo Webalalza.com /Seinforma)
_________________________________________________________________________
The electoral democracy covers up responsibilities
Jose Osvaldo Torres / Seinforma Canada Correspondent
The current article is focused on the problems of a narrow and manipulative democracy as the one built in Mexico, when it only takes into account the electoral dimension. The civic poll about the electrical energy reform that was carried out in July in Mexico´s city is an example of that.
***