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As information control games fail, PRD entourage lashes out at the press

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Early in the five-year cycle for this

by Eric Jackson

A person who held public office, and who is the subject of multiple criminal proceedings in multiple countries related to that tenure in office? In the banking industry they call such a person a “PEP” — politically exposed person — of the most dangerous sort. Very few banks would open an account for such a person, for fear of the bank itself becoming enmeshed in a money laundering case.

Former president Ricardo Martinelli, the subject of criminal proceedings in Panama, under criminal investigation in Spain and alluded to in indictments and official press releases in criminal matters in the United States, is a classic PEP. He recently sold a house in Mami-area city of Coral Gables, which, like an airplane of his, may have been at risk of seizure by the US government. That sale price was reported in Florida documents as $8.2 million. Some $6.7 million of the apparent proceeds from that sale came to Panama by way of an account opened this past December by Mr. Martinelli in a state-owned bank, the Caja de Ahorros. Once in that Panamanian public institution, the funds were transferred to four foundations created by lawyers or former public officials close to Martinelli, which opened their Caja de Ahorros accounts this past January. Figures listed as officers or attorneys for these four foundations have been mentioned in several countries’ criminal investigations of Odebreacht graft scandals. Some $30,000 in change from the transfer from Miami to the Caja de Ahorros, La Prensa reported, went into a credit or debit card account in Ricardo Martinelli’s name.

Also reporting aspects of this story was the newer online medium, FOCO Panama.

On the face of it, the whole transaction looks like it may have been a transfer of assets aimed at preventing their seizure by US authorities. Or perhaps, by a ragtag online journalist whose electronic communications were intercepted by Ricardo Martinelli and might be interested in suing about it in the United States.

In any case, the opening of accounts and cash transfers raised eyebrows in the banking community here and led to questions about the Caja de Ahorros general manager, Andrés Farrugia. The people who run the Caja de Ahorros are political appointees. Farrugia is one of Nito Cortizo’s guys. It’s hard to imagine that he did not personally authorize the opening of Martinelli’s and his foundations’ accounts, and La Prensa refers to two undisclosed Caja de Ahorros compliance officer sources and reports that this is exactly what happened. The bank itself declined to comment, citing Panama’s banking secrecy laws.

A Panamanian state-owned bank involved in what might be called fraudulent transfers that prejudice the forfeiture claims of the United States government? The Caja de Ahorros could be seriously damaged, even shut down, over such a thing. It could get its corresponding bank privileges in the Unites States cancelled. It could get put on the Clinton List, such that any US institution or individual doing business with it would be subject to US criminal penalties and forfeitures.

It took a couple of weeks, but Ferrugia has tendered his resignation. It’s not immediately clear whether President Cortizo or the Caja de Ahorroas board will accept it. He’s also filing criminal charges and civil lawsuits against La Prensa and FOCO, alleging that their reports and especially their sarcastic references in La Prensa’s Tal Cual gossip column and FOCO’s Twitter postings were malicious. 

So, the usual? A criminal defamation charge that could carry a four-year prison term that may be avoided by payment of a dollar a day fine? Unclear. The specific criminal charge that Ferrugia mentioned in the press conference announcing that he had tendered his resignation and is taking legal action was not about defamation, but about violating banking secrecy. But it would be the banking secrets of one Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal and several of his associates — would Ferrugia have standing to bring a charge about the violation of somebody else’s privacy?

The civil case against La Prensa and Foco? The pleadings in that could make some interesting reading for the sort of nerd — or press freedom defender — who gets into that sort of thing.

MEANWHILE, and perhaps totally unrelated, on the same day as Ferrugia’s press conference La Estrella ran an interview with University of Panama journalism professor Gricelda Melo, a veteran radio and television journalist and government publicist. She’s running in the upcoming elections for officers of the Colegio Nacional de Periodismo (CONAPE, National Journalism Council). She says she wants to “professionalize journalism to define who the journalists are.” She mentions a legal framework, and vows to push for changes, to “make journalism more attractive, but above all respectable. No just anyone can be a journalist here.” 

Oh, no — AGAIN? It’s a very PRD idea to license journalists. Tony Noriega did that. After it fell into disuse with the US invasion, the dictatorship’s licensing law was unsuccessfully invoked by the next PRD administration, that of Ernesto Pérez Balladares, especially for this reporter.* In every legislature some deputy, usually from the PRD caucus, will bring up the idea of a new journalist licensing law. CONAPE’s traditional position is that only graduates of the University of Panama’s school of social communications should be allowed to be journalists here.

 

* Editor’s note: On billboards and public documents of all sorts, former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares would affect the title “Dr.” The thing is, he has no doctoral degree in any subject. So this reporter — a JD both as one with a doctorate in law and a juvenile delinquent record — asked about that. Soon there was a call to come down to the Ministry of Government and Justice to prove that I was qualified to be a journalist under the dictatorship’s dead letter licensing law. The usual qualification was a degree from the University of Panama’s school of social communications. But because all media would have been forced to close in Noriega times had THAT been strictly enforced, the law had a grandfather clause that allowed people who had practiced journalism for 10 years to get a license. I went rummaging through now-lost old archives and retrieved old newspapers clippings with my byline going back several decades to show them. They gave me a piece of paper saying I was licensed as a journalist. I posted it on my toilet.

 

 

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Thunberg: Humanity must not be fooled by ‘bullsh*t’ climate targets

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An Eddie Vedder et al cover of the late Marvin Gaye’s anthem. Its author fell victim to a “family protection” gun. It was a terrible loss to the world but the things for which Marvin Gaye stood did not die.

The biggest elephant there’s
ever been in any room

by the Common Dreams staff

Just before U.S. President Joe Biden’s two-day virtual summit on the climate crisis got underway, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday shared a video message calling out the “bullshit” of world leaders who she says are failing to take the steps necessary to confront the planetary emergency.

Posted online by NowThis News, the video featuring Thunberg comes as a warning from the well-known global climate campaigner that the people of the world should not be fooled by the lofty rhetoric they will hear at the summit.

“At the Leaders’ Climate Summit, countries will present their new climate commitments, like net-zero emissions by 2050,” Thunberg says in the video. “They will call these hypothetical targets ‘ambitious.’ But when you compare our insufficient targets with the overall current best available science, you clearly see that there’s a gap. There are decades missing.”

Watch the video:

‘We cannot fool nature and physics’ — In this NowThis exclusive, @GretaThunberg says commitments presented by countries at the Leaders’ Climate Summit will leave a ‘gap of awareness, action, and time’ pic.twitter.com/y8qYPJKmAE

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 22, 2021

The 18-year-old founder of “Fridays for Future” and inspiration for the global climate strike movement also penned an open letter first published in Vogue on Thursday, making much the same argument.

“You may call us naïve for believing change is possible, and that’s fine,” Thunberg wrote. “But at least we’re not so naïve that we believe that things will be solved by countries and companies making vague, distant, insufficient targets without any real pressure from the media and the general public.”

Thunberg continued:

Of course, we welcome all efforts to safeguard future and present living conditions. And these targets could be a great start if it wasn’t for the tiny fact that they are full of gaps and loopholes. Such as leaving out emissions from imported goods, international aviation and shipping, as well as the burning of biomass, manipulating baseline data, excluding most feedback loops and tipping points, ignoring the crucial global aspect of equity and historic emissions, and making these targets completely reliant on fantasy or barely existing carbon-capturing technologies. But I don’t have time to go into all that now.

The point is that we can keep using creative carbon accounting and cheat in order to pretend that these targets are in line with what is needed. But we must not forget that while we can fool others and even ourselves, we cannot fool nature and physics. The emissions are still there, whether we choose to count them or not.

“The gap between what needs to be done and what we are actually doing is widening by the minute,” she added. “The gap between the urgency needed and the current level of awareness and attention is becoming more and more absurd. And the gap between our so-called climate targets and the overall, current best-available science should no longer be possible to ignore.”

Speaking of world leaders in the Thursday video and the shortcomings of their climate proposals thus far, Thunberg said, “Let’s call out their bullshit,” because the gap between what their rhetoric and what’s actually needed is “the biggest elephant there’s even been in any room.”

Along with other witnesses, Thunberg is testifying before congressional lawmakers on Thursday during a hearing convened by the House Subcommittee on the Environment.

Watch the hearing, titled “The Role of Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Preventing Action on the Climate Crisis.”

 

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Chomsky et al, We stand with the Colombian Peace Community

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Apartado
Members of the Comunidad de Paz de San Jose de Apartado march in memory of victims of the continuing violence in Colombia. Photo by the Comunidad de Paz de San Jose de Apartado, which is about 50 kilometers from the Panamanian border.

Reporting human rights abuses is not a crime

by the Defend the Sacred Alliance, Kumi Naidoo, Nnimmo Bassey and Noam Chomsky

Twenty-four years ago, the search for a way out of the unending violent conflict in Colombia saw a significant moment of hope. On 23 March 1997, 1,350 displaced farmers gathered in the remote village of San Jose de Apartado in the north-western province of Antioquia to join together and form a peace community. After paramilitaries had roamed the region pillaging and massacring, the local community declared itself neutral in the war, rejecting weapons, drugs, alcohol and cooperation with any armed group. With their community, the people of San Jose have shown other communities in the country how to break the victim-perpetrator cycle and to build communal alternatives of nonviolence, solidarity and autonomy outside of the dominant culture.

The armed groups made the peace community of San Jose de Apartado pay a huge price for their radical decision. Since 1997, more than 200 of its members, including most of the community’s leaders, have been killed, largely at the hands of paramilitary and national armed forces. Few of the crimes have ever been prosecuted. The exemplary effect of the community’s model of autonomy and independence has been seen as a grave threat to the powerful multinational interests driving lucrative mining and agricultural projects in the country. As the former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe openly admitted, the peace community is despised because it stands “in the way of development.”

Since the demobilization of the FARC-EP guerrilla in 2017, the pressure and threats against the Peace Community have increased as paramilitaries have expanded their influence in the region and terrorized local populations. Similar trends have been observed throughout the country.

The “peace process” initiated by former President Juan Manuel Santos has not brought relief to Colombia’s most persecuted populations. To the contrary, more activists — especially environmentalists and Indigenous leaders — have been killed since 2017 than in comparable years before, making Colombia the world’s deadliest country for human rights defenders. An internationally proclaimed “peace,” which earned Santos the Nobel Peace Prize, has become a convenient cover to continue the same old war in ever more hidden ways, because its root causes are not being addressed. With one main party of the civil war gone, it’s become undeniable that Colombia’s dilemma isn’t primarily about leftist terrorism or drugs, but rather, modern-day colonialism. The country’s repeating patterns of brutality, land-grabbing and ecocide are the logical result of a global economy based on perpetual resource extraction for maximum private profit; a system that requires the displacement of farmers and Indigenous people from their lands.

In this new context, the peace community of San Jose de Apartado is currently facing a legal attempt to silence them. A regional court and Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the 17th Brigade of the country’s armed forces, which had sued the community to prevent it from publishing further reports about criminal activities and human rights abuses committed by the Colombian army against the community. The Constitutional Court’s ruling prioritizes the military’s right to “honor” and uphold its “good name” over the peace community’s right to free expression, setting a dangerous precedent of criminalizing citizens who report human rights abuses by state organs. As the court will receive appeals until the end of this month, a final verdict in this case will soon be due.

As leaders of First Nations, social movements and systemic alternatives from around the world, we stand with the people of San Jose de Apartado and all farmers and Indigenous communities of Colombia. We urge the Colombian state to respect their basic right to live peacefully and self-sufficiently in their lands. We call on the Constitutional Court to nullify ruling T-342/20 with immediate effect. No one anywhere should ever be criminalized for reporting human rights abuses.

What has allowed the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado to stand their ground despite everything they have suffered is their unswerving commitment to memory, solidarity, reconciliation and communal life. Eduar Lanchero, one of their late leaders, once said, “The community’s power consists of its ability to transform pain into hope… Hope is when we no longer hate the murderer. Hope is when we build collectively; when we make life a reality, today, where we are.”

We believe it is this power which holds the key for genuine peace in Colombia. Communities like San José de Apartadó can serve as living laboratories for reconciliation and peace-building in the country. They can also provide an alternative to traditional Western-led economic development. As an international community, we have the responsibility to share the message and story of San Jose de Apartado and stand with them in solidarity. The possibility of a future without war may depend on it.

The Defend the Sacred Alliance includes the individual support of the following people:

Sami Awad Holy Land Trust, Palestine
Stuart Basden Extinction Rebellion, UK
Nnimmo Bassey Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nigeria
Orland Bishop ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation, USA
Noam Chomsky Professor Emeritus at MIT, USA
Gigi Coyle Beyond Boundaries, USA
Saad Dagher Agro-Ecologist, Palestine
Salim Dara Rural Solidarity, Benin
Tiokasin Ghosthorse First Voices Radio, USA
Joshua Konkankoh Better World, Cameroon
Alnoor Ladha Culture Hack Labs, USA
Sabine Lichtenfels Tamera Peace Research Center, Portugal
Patricia McCabe Diné Sovereign Nation, USA
Claudio Miranda Favela da Paz, Brazil
Philip Munyasia OTEPIC, Kenya
Lynn Murphy Transition Resource Circle, USA
Kumi Naidoo former Executive Director of Amnesty International and Greenpeace International, South Africa
Helena Norberg-Hodge Local Futures, Australia
Miguel Angel Pimentel Paz Peru
Carlin Quinn Education for Racial Equity, USA
Aida Shibli Global Campus, Palestine
Rajendra Singh Tarun Bharat Sangh, India
V (formerly Eve Ensler) One Billion Rising, USA

 

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Jackson, A constituency with real needs

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That to which I can’t relate
about Democrats Abroad

Last year, Democrats Abroad’s global convention voted for a resolution opposing the DNC / Biden campaign platform plank that promised to fight money laundering and the offshoring of multinational corporate profits. I voted against that resolution. I agree with Joe Biden on this point.

Getting deeper: Carmelan Polce, the wife of a PriceWaterhouseCoopers exec (last I knew CEO of their Australia subsidiary), is about the only person who ever shows up in Congress plugging anything in the name of Democrats Abroad. It’s ALWAYS about something that works to the advantage for the very richest of Americans living abroad, but which does not apply to the vast majority of us.

Yet here in Panama, we have to go to Costa Rica for consular services. We are a rather elderly country chapter of Democrats Abroad, many of us living on relatively low fixed incomes. Those of us who work for a living generally don’t make corporate CEO pay and generally find it a pain to find the time and resources to fly off to another country to do business which we used to be able to do here.

But OUR economic concerns, and the general beliefs of a global party organization that voted overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders in both the 2016 and 2020 global presidential primaries, are always shunted aside.

The buzz words upstairs in DA have been about “messaging” to “markets.” I say that we are not selling potato chips, that we should be representing constituencies.

See below, to see the “messaging” that is supposed to inspire us:

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Dems Abroad Responds to Senate Proposal to Overhaul International Taxation

Carmelan Polce (Democrats Abroad)
To: Eric Jackson
Cc: Leadership

Dear Leaders,

Please click here to download the above captioned submission to the Senate Finance Committee.

In the aftermath of the March Senate Finance Committee hearing on international taxation, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee published a framework for overhauling international taxation that is being used by the Senate and House to develop legislation to enact the Biden American Jobs Plan to re-build America’s infrastructure. An increase in the GILTI Tax, which has so seriously harmed American business owners abroad, is expected to be part of the plan to raise revenue for the infrastructure spending from large U.S. multinational corporations not paying their fair share.

Democrats Abroad and the other organisations representing Americans abroad are moving quickly to prevent the increase in the GILTI Tax DEEPENING the pain and the harm that the taxes are causing American business owners abroad. We have filed our submission to the Senate Finance Committee, with copies to leaders in both houses and in both parties, and will follow up with discussions about our reform recommendation: a GILTI tax exemption for Americans abroad who make less than $400,000.

DEMOCRATS ABROAD TAXATION TASK FORCE

As you will know, the Biden Build Back Better program also includes the American Families Plan, a proposal for new investment in social infrastructure. Just as the American Jobs Plan legislation has provided us an opportunity to progress our reforms to right the wrongs in the GOP 2017 tax law, the American Families Plan we believe provides us with a great opportunity to progress some of our other tax reforms. All these proposed reforms would provide filing relief for Americans abroad and they are the subject of this resolution coming before the DPCA voting members at the May 2021 DA Annual Global Meeting. Please contact me with questions or comments or to become a sponsor or supporter.

There is also a resolution in support of building a DA messaging platform for Congressional outreach by issues activists and a resolution in support of Democrats Abroad joining the RBT Coalition being formed by American Citizens Abroad. Please contact me with questions or comments or to become a sponsor or supporter.

Ms Carmelan Polce
Chair, Taxation Task Force
DA Australia DPCA Voting Member
Democrats Abroad

 

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Foro Alternativo, Mayor ofensa y desprecio es imposible

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new front
Llamada para una manifestación por otra agrupación. Pero ahora hay un rechazo generalizado y creciente al “diálogo” del Seguro Social.

Declaración del Foro Alternativo

Aprobada por unanimidad el 14 y publicada el 15 de abril de 2021 la “Metodología de trabajo del Diálogo por la CSS”, el Foro Alternativo aprovecha para hacer constar su posición frente a dicho diálogo.

  1. Poder Ciudadano propone el 2 de diciembre de 2020 la constitución de un Foro Alternativo a los diálogos gubernamentales.
  2. El 8 de enero de 2021 el Foro Alternativo advierte sobre el curso privatizador que se pretende imponer en el Diálogo por la CSS.
  3. El 17 de enero de 2021 el Poder Ciudadano define al Diálogo por la CSS como inconsulto y violatorio de las más elementales normas democráticas y que en este diálogo se busca una mayor privatización del programa de IVM, por lo que recomendó no prestarse a la descarada manipulación de esta farsa.
  4. El 25 de enero de 2021 el Foro Alternativo declara que el Diálogo por la CSS busca hacer negocios con los dineros de los asegurados.
  5. El 16 de marzo de 2021 el Consejo Nacional de Trabajadores (CONATO) declara que se levantó de la Mesa Plenaria del Diálogo por la CSS por no ser este un diálogo democrático, incluyente y equitativo, además por haber rechazado las propuestas previas realizadas por CONATO.
  6. El 16 de marzo de 2021 el Foro Alternativo asume como propias las razones dadas por CONATO para levantarse de la Mesa Plenaria del Diálogo por la CSS.
  7. El 19 de marzo de 2021 Foro Alternativo caracteriza como fraudulento el Diálogo por la CSS y llama a todas las organizaciones a no participar en esta farsa.
  8. De los pronunciamientos públicos del Foro Alternativo, así como de los análisis, reflexiones y debates en las plenarias se desprende que el esfuerzo de las organizaciones debería estar guiado a la desaparición del actual dialogo, a fin de abrir la oportunidad a un verdadero dialogo.

Pese a todos esos llamados y caracterizaciones, varias organizaciones participantes en el Foro Alternativo se mantenían en el Diálogo por la CSS, rebajando sistemáticamente sus condiciones para seguir perteneciendo a él, y otras desde afuera han seguido apoyándolo. Tal situación se hizo insostenible al evidenciarse inequívocamente dos posiciones y estrategias incompatibles, lo que llevó a que en la reunión Plenaria del Foro Alternativo del lunes 12 de abril se consensuara dar un plazo hasta el viernes 16 de abril para que las distintas organizaciones decidieran su pertenencia al Foro Alternativo o, por el contrario, su pertenencia al Diálogo por la CSS. Entendemos que varias organizaciones han decidido continuar siendo parte del Diálogo por la CSS, esa es su decisión y la respetamos, aunque no la compartimos. Nos mantenemos en que el tiempo nos dará la razón.

Una rápida lectura de “La metodología de trabajo del Diálogo por la CSS”, nos permite señalar algunas decisiones unánimes que nos parecen inaceptables:

a. Se afirma que la “Metodología” fue elaborada por la subcomisión de lineamientos y ratificada por la Mesa Plenaria. Eso no se corresponde a la verdad. La Mesa Plenaria modificó varios de los acuerdos logrados en la Subcomisión de Metodología.

b. Los principios de la Seguridad Social, que fueron introducidos por CONATO para su discusión, no fueron discutidos, sino que únicamente se aprobaron los enunciados, de manera que sus contenidos serán analizados y definidos en las Mesas Temáticas de trabajo. No hay que ser adivino para saber lo que ocurrirá con estos principios.

c. Existe una Coordinadora General del Diálogo, formada por la representación del sector empresarial y gubernamental en la Junta Directiva de la CSS, a la que se suma la dirección de la CSS. Según informó el Facilitador, la Coordinadora está recibiendo múltiples solicitudes de organizaciones para ser admitidas en la Mesa Plenaria y esta Coordinadora pudiera incluirlas. Muy democrático todo, sobre todo si las necesitaran para garantizar su control del diálogo.

d. En la Mesa Plenaria, el gobierno, la CSS, los partidos y los empresarios tienen 16 votos, eso sin contar a las organizaciones que pudieran ceder su voto tal como ya ocurrió con la aprobación unánime de la “Metodología de Trabajo del Diálogo por la CSS”.

f. La Coordinadora General del Diálogo incluirá en la Plataforma Ágora la posibilidad de que se realicen propuestas por los “ciudadanos”, lo que permite incluir en los debates propuestas que la mayoría gubernamental y de empresa privada quieran hacer ver que son de la ciudadanía.

g. Finalmente, el Sub director de la CSS afirmó en varias ocasiones, en la Mesa Plenaria del Diálogo y en los medios de comunicación, que de esa Mesa lo que saldrá serán “sugerencias”, puesto que las decisiones las tomará la “honorable” Asamblea de Diputados. Mayor ofensa y desprecio es imposible, excepto para los que saben que los diputados aprobarán sus privatizadoras propuestas. No hay justificación alguna para permanecer en este diálogo.

La Metodología aprobada señala que el diagnóstico de la situación de la CSS la harán mediante exposiciones a la Mesa Plenaria, la Contraloría General de la República, el Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas, el Ministerio de Salud, el Ministerio de Trabajo, y la Dirección de la CSS, que muy probablemente incluirá a la Junta Técnica Actuarial. En otras palabras, ellos se dividirán la ejecución de una única tarea: desacreditar la jubilación solidaria e impulsar su transformación en cuentas individuales, paso previo y último para su privatización. Esto fue aceptado por unanimidad, ignorando el diagnóstico elaborado por CONATO y el Foro Alternativo.

En estas circunstancias la inclusión de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) vendría marcada por una contradicción con su modelo donde los escenarios a ser analizados deberían ser originados por los participantes, más aún los mismos deberían poder acordar y aprobar los supuestos que alimentan el modelo (supuestos económicos, demográficos y del mercado laboral). Estos elementos, a nuestro juicio, demuestran el carácter ilegitimo del diálogo, aún cuando se proceda a la tardía inclución de la OIT.

Como puede verse, las razones no solo para permanecer fuera del Diálogo sino sobre todo para luchar contra las decisiones que de ahí saldrán son amplias y rotundas. Se trata de un diálogo antidemocrático, tramposo y fraudulento, no inclusivo y dirigido a imponer medidas draconianas al conjunto de los asalariados del país. Que cada cual cargue con sus responsabilidades ante el pueblo panameño.

Panamá, 19 de abril de 2021.

 

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Editorials: No rule of law in Panama; and The US gun cult

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Nito and Arquesio, a cropped FRENADESO montage from an old PRD campaign poster.

‘Move along – justice doesn’t concern YOU’

Today was supposed to be the preliminary hearing for 58 people involved in the “smaller” wholesale public construction contract kickback and money laundering scandal, Blue Apple. It was put off until August because several defense lawyers didn’t show up.

Over the weekend, the perfect “winning streak” of legislators charged with crimes continued, with the Supreme Court throwing out the remaining three sexual assault charges against PRD deputy Arquesio Arias.

Also in the past few days, we learned that the Odebrecht construction company kickback and money laundering scandal – in terms of number of contracts fewer than Blue Apple, in terms of money stolen from Panama roughly comparable – had been again delayed when the high court returned some hundreds of pages of a million-page investigative record to prosecutors for correction. The delays in just reading the record pose the high probability that the whole case with be thrown out under a statute of limitations with almost no tolling provisions.

It’s not just the feminists, not just the usual anti-corruption activists, not just a few muckrakers in the press – even the Chamber of Commerce now says that the present constitutional order doesn’t work.

How to go about changing things, and what to change, there the emerging national consensus breaks up. There is no clear alternative person or plan that’s capturing the nation’s imagination.

This, together with a lingering epidemic and a broken economy that will not mend anytime soon, makes for a very unstable Panama.

Does somebody tell you that this evaluation is untrue, that everything is all arranged, that nothing can or will change? The arrangements, and the intention to freeze the dictatorship’s constitution in place forever, do probably exist. However, such things can be quite fragile.

 

 

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Vigil for the Newtown elementary school massacre. When the NRA came to town, blamed the victims and called on teachers and staff to be armed, then the last vestige reason fled from one side of the national debate. Photo by Jeremy Pollack.

A mass shooting trifecta

The “Second Amendment People” had a field day in a 24-hour period of Saturday and Sunday. There were mass shootings in Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas. 

The statisticians usually only count events in which three or more people are shot as “mass shootings,” so the Sunday night coup de grace didn’t qualify. A Chicago drive-by shooting killed a seven-year-old girl with six bullets in her body, and seriously wounded her father.

Just what the founders of the republic wanted?

Actually, the “militia” referred to in the Second Amendment was mostly about white men’s patrols to keep black people off the roads in the South — no runaway slaves, no organizers of slave revolts — and to enforce the dispossession of North America’s original nations at the point of a gun. Not a history to celebrate, unless one is a white supremacist or that history gets distorted beyond all semblance or reality.

Back then, a free white person could have a muzzle-loading musket, rifle or pistol, but not a cannon.

The notions of rogue militias, private individuals who possess arsenals and fancy themselves as one-person sovereigns, unrestricted arms races in all places including houses of worship and so on are modern innovations. they were implanted into gullible minds and US culture in general by those in the business of selling weapons. Then the Republican Party implanted them into the law.

What makes it all worse is the extreme inequality and insecurity in the American way of life these days. Setbacks that in previous generations could be borne if not enjoyed are more likely to mean family dissolution, homelessness, bankruptcy and the loss of dwindling chances for prosperity in life in our times.

Some of the ways to reduce this spiral down the drain of violence are obvious. Take the military-style weapons out of private hands. Do a better job of checking to see that those known to be violent don’t get firearms. Slow down the process of weapons acquisition so that passions can cool before instruments of death get introduced into tense situations.

But society has to become kinder. Not through the intimidation of guns, but through the appearance, reality, expectation and palpable feel of more justice in the world.

 

 

KK

I am gradually approaching the period in my life when work comes first. No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way a cow grazes.

Käthe Kollwitz

 

Bear in mind…

 

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

 

 

Justice can never be done in the midst of injustice.

Simone de Beauvoir

 

 

He who praises you for what you lack wishes to take from you what you have.

Don Juan Manuel

 

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Reporting under police state conditions

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about to die
Police body camera video shows Adam Toledo’s hands were raised just before he was shot.
Chicago Police Department photo.

Being skeptical of sources is a journalist’s job – but it doesn’t always happen when those sources are the police

Danielle K. Kilgo, University of Minnesota

The death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo might well have made international headlines on March 29, 2021 – the day he was shot and killed by a police officer – had the emerging narrative been different.

Instead, early news reports of the incident relied on a police statement which said Toledo died in an “armed confrontation.” An image of a gun recovered at the scene was also released. During a bond hearing for the man who had been with Toledo when the chase began, prosecutors said a gun was in Toledo’s hand when police shot him dead.

Body camera footage released a full two weeks later now casts doubt on the accuracy of that narrative. A short video clip shows a chase which ends with Toledo turning his body toward the officer, arms raised. There is no gun is his hands when the shot is fired.

The Cook County state’s attorney’s office has since said the prosecutor “failed to fully inform himself” before speaking. Others go further, saying the prosecutor lied.

Either way, the body camera footage shifted the narrative.

As a scholar who researches media coverage of police and protests, I believe Toledo’s death exposes a blind spot in journalism: a tendency to go with the “police said” narrative without outwardly questioning if it is right.

Unreliable sources?

Journalists are responsible for creating the first draft of history, quickly. To do this, the profession has routines and norms that help it produce news in a systematic way. Breaking news reporters often rely on the accounts and statements made by official sources. This often includes the narratives and statements put forward by official sources – politicians, police and official spokespeople.

These are people journalists may work with regularly; they are often more accessible under the pressure of a deadline – especially if a victim’s friends and family are hard to reach or less willing to speak to the press. And even if officials are wrong or say something defamatory, a journalist can often report what they say with legal impunity.

All of this gives police an opportunity to shape the initial version of the event – and it gets their version of the story into the public consciousness before victims, families and their supporters are able to.

But often they do so in a way that is incomplete, misleading or presented for strategic reasons. Official statements may, intentionally or not, withhold or omit information. In Toledo’s case, the original statement given to media on the day of the shooting mentioned that “one armed offender,” a “male,” fled from police and a “confrontation” took place. “The officer fired his weapon striking the offender in the chest.”

There is no mention that, as later emerged, it appears that the gun was tossed and Toledo was raising his hands. The incident report listed Toledo as a “John Doe” and between the ages of 18 and 25 – and thus failed to reveal that Toledo was a child.

Similarly, on May 26, 2020, a day after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the city’s police released a statement to media under the subject line “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction.” It noted the “suspect” had “physically resisted” and died after “suffering medical distress.” It does not say that an officer had Floyd pinned to the ground with a knee on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Just months before, in the police incident report documenting the 2020 death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, officers didn’t include crucial details. It listed her injuries as “none” and suggested that there was no forced entry to her building. In fact, a battering ram was used and Taylor was shot multiple times.

And in June 2020, when a 75-year-old man fractured his skull during a protest in Buffalo against police brutality, the initial official response was he “tripped and fell.” Video quickly circulated showing he was shoved to the group by police in riot gear.

In the Buffalo case, the police version of the story was quickly and easily countered. It took place in the presence of witnesses, including journalists, some of whom took video. When, in the case of Toledo, the incident is away from the cell phones of bystanders, it can take longer to establish precisely what happened.

The victim’s story

Police do not typically release body camera footage immediately – if it is released at all. Most footage is classified for weeks for internal investigation before becoming accessible to the public.

By that time, the public may have already been fed a narrative about what happened and the backgrounds of those involved.

Journalists have been criticized for being too quick to rely on police to tell the stories of victims. That is why the public tends to know more about the criminal histories of victims and their families, especially soon after an incident, than it does about the histories of the police officers who shot them.

I recently analyzed media coverage of the protests following the 2018 death of Stephon Clark, who was holding a mobile phone when police shot him in his grandmother’s backyard. The people close to Clark, like his family and friends, weren’t the key sources providing information about Clark’s character in coverage.

Instead, over the six months of news coverage analyzed, news stories most often relied on police accounts and records that profiled Clark in stereotypical and stigmatizing ways. They were helped along by the district attorney, who released personal text messages and internet searches from Clark that detailed relationship difficulties and apparent suicidal thoughts.

‘Failure of journalism’

After presenting incomplete, misleading or downright wrong police reports as fact too often, reporters and editors are now speaking up about the problem. It was notable that journalists were among those most critical of the media response to Toledo’s killing.

“This is why journalists must stop reporting law enforcement accounts as fact,” tweeted The New York Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Chris Geidner, the executive director of The Appeal, a media site on law and criminal justice, went further: “… any narrative reliant on ‘police said’ is a failure of journalism. At best, police should be treated as one source for a story – an unreliable narrator in instances like officer shootings – and thus not sufficient to establish the story.”

This fits within a broader media reassessment of policies and practices that traditionally misrepresent and inaccurately represent people of color. It includes initiatives to diversify newsrooms that have a long history underrepresenting people of color.

And it comes at a time when the wider public’s trust in the police is waning. A Gallup poll in August 2020 found confidence in police had fallen to its lowest levels since the survey began recording the issue in 1993. Just 48% of respondents said they had a great deal of confidence in police. Likewise, trust in the media has hit a new low.

Treating police sources with necessary and appropriate skepticism could provide news audiences with a more complete picture of incidents such as police shootings and disrupt a process that has privileged some voices over others.

And it isn’t a radical idea: Questioning and verifying information has always been a part of the journalist’s job.The Conversation

Danielle K. Kilgo, John and Elizabeth Bates Cowles Professor of Journalism, Diversity, and Equality, University of Minnesota

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

 

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Kermit’s birds / Las aves de Kermit

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the bird is the word
Olivaceous Piculet ~ Piculete Oliváceo ~ Picumnus olivaceus
Encontrado en El Nancito de Chiriquí. ©Kermit Nourse.

Olivaceous Piculet / Piculete Oliváceo

Measuring a scant 3.5 inches, this species is Panama’s smallest woodpecker. The next largest woodpecker is three inches longer. Often seen in pairs they range from Guatemala to southern Ecuador. Generally the bird inhabits forest clearings and edges, or deforested areas that are growing back, in humid forests or on slopes under 5,400 feet in altitude. They’re found on both sides of the canal area, in Chiriqui, from southwestern Veraguas into Herrera and Los Santos, and in Guna Yala and adjacent parts of Darien.

 

Con unas escasas 3,5 pulgadas, esta especie es el pájaro carpintero más pequeño de Panamá. El siguiente pájaro carpintero más grande es tres pulgadas más largo. A menudo se ven en parejas que van desde Guatemala hasta el sur de Ecuador. Generalmente, el ave habita en claros y bordes de bosques, o áreas deforestadas que vuelven a crecer, en bosques húmedos o en pendientes de menos de 5,400 pies de altitud. Se encuentran a ambos lados del área del canal, en Chiriquí, desde el suroeste de Veraguas hasta Herrera y Los Santos, y en Guna Yala y partes adyacentes de Darién.

 

 

 

Contact us by email at / Contáctanos por correo electrónico a fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

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Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.  

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Dinero

Bernal, Renew and reinforce hope

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MAB

From chaos to hope

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

In more than six thousand Panamanian homes the departure of one or more loved ones is mourned. The families pick up the pieces of their pain in the face of public frustration and disappointment. The chaos and annoyance continues to increase.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been more than taken advantage of by the corrupt and the financial operators, who have sought, from their positions of political and economic power, to convince us that we are all corrupt. The vice president’s report on the use of money during the pandemic is proof of such impudent cynicism.

This is how they manage to continue doing things as they have done up to now. They bend us to give the impression that we can do nothing, that nothing will happen. They word to spread those notions among us. These promoters of chaos are also the executioners of hope. The January 28 ruling of the courtiers on the legality of the curfew confirms it

The pandemic is the generator of neither the existing chaos nor the disastrous state of our society in all areas. It spreads, above all, in the absence of a more active and determined repudiation of the multiple abuses of power and grabs for more power, by a criminal element whose government plan has been and is the looting of the state to satisfy their own private interests.

It becomes every day more urgent, then, for conscientious citizens to renew and reinforce hope. Let’s begin, once and for all, to act without hesitation and to demand a constitutional convention that lays the foundations for a real renewal of our society.

We cannot continue with our arms crossed, nor continue as spectators. Let’s reposition and revalue our actions – and our ardent hope and citizen dignity. If we do that we will be able to achieve many of the things that need to be modified, improved, controlled or truly changed.

If we do not firmly and decisively renew our will for citizen political action and thus do not achieve profound changes, corruption will gain even more ground. It would give rise to what some call “re-corruption processes.”

 

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As I contemplate the usual banal but awful news, a gun nut drops in to taunt

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We cry
Pittsburgh in mourning after mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Photo by Governor Tom Wolf’s office.

An email from a death merchants’ publicist and a response

Hi Eric,

Mass shootings are truly tragic events, but if you were a media company, the sad truth is you don’t let a disaster go without running it throughout the 24-hour news cycle we have today. Why is it that everyone remembers the names of the shooters but not the victims?

I noticed you mentioned Dylan Roof on The Panama News specifically right here: https://www.thepanamanews.com/2017/02/the-panama-news-blog-links-february-7-2017/ while I was doing some research on the topic and I thought you might be interested in sharing our article we wrote [If it bleeds it leads].

One of the things I think is most critical for us to understand, is that all media companies are driven by one thing only. Money. The more viewers they have the more ads they can get in front of us. And even though these companies KNOW that mass shootings can be “contagious” they still choose to show the faces and display the names of shooter and publicize the event as much as they are capable of doing.

I understand this is a complicated issue and in the article we definitely try to be partisan on a delicate topic like this. I don’t think there is one easy solution here, but simply doing nothing and letting these companies profit off mass shootings seems morally reprehensible to me. Happy to hear your thoughts and you’re welcome to share our article.

No worries if this isn’t something you are interested in sharing, it was still a pleasure to make your (virtual) acquaintance and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
-Caleb
Ammo.com

~ ~ ~

Caleb,

How you death merchants presume.

Once upon a time the area around my house was turned into something approaching war zone, and we had to be evacuated in the middle of the night. A friend of my father gave him a semi-automatic rifle “to protect the family.”

About a year and a half later, I saw my father for the last time. He was pointing that rifle at me. When I and everyone else had been chased out of the house, he shot himself to death with it. By that time I was running, half-dressed and barefoot and totally panicked, through the jungle. I was 12 years old.

But I am sure that someone in your line of business made money off of his death and my trauma.

Asshole.

Eric
The Panama News
a US-Panamanian dual citizen living in Panama who as an American votes in Ypsilanti, Michigan

 

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