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Villalpando at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Met exhibit
He’s a nice snake — he can show you brain food and only bites people he doesn’t like. Those of you who will be in New York may want to go to this exhibition at the Met.

Envisioning the Divine: Villalpando
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

by Sam Ben-Meir

This month, the Robert Lehman Wing of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting the work of Mexican baroque artist, Cristóbal Villalpando (1649 –1714). The highlight of the show is Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus (1683), a staggering 28-foot tall altarpiece that until now has never left its home in Puebla Cathedral.

Two distinct scenes are unfolding within a landscape that includes at once the wilderness of Exodus, and the Holy Mounts of Calvary and Tabor. It is of such scale and scope that one is swept away by the sheer grandeur of it.

The painter has arranged the scenes vertically and hierarchically — the bottom half concerns an episode from Chapter 21 in the Book of Numbers: when “the people spoke against God and against Moses,” questioning why they were brought out of Egypt “to die in the wilderness.” God immediately answers their impatience and ingratitude by sending “seraph serpents against the people” — deadly vipers that ‘consume man by the poison of their fangs.’ For Villalpando, these are a terrifying brood of winged monsters, suggested perhaps by the flying serpents mentioned in Isaiah (14:29).

Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites: he prays for the people to be forgiven and ‘one from whom forgiveness is asked… should not be so cruel as not to forgive’ (Rashi). God tells Moses to “make a seraph figure and mount it on a standard. If anyone who is bitten looks at it, he shall recover.” Moses fashions a serpent of brass and displays it as an ensign for the people.

Villalpando shows us Moses, luminescent horns beaming from his head, standing beside the pole around which is coiled a mighty winged serpent. The people gather round to gaze up towards it and be healed. Aaron, Moses’ brother, stands to the right of the pole wearing the elaborately embroidered garb of the high priest, ‘vested for beauty and for glory,’ atop his head a horned mitre; at his feet are the wretched victims of God’s wrath, contorted bodies and bulging eyes.

In the upper half we are presented with the Transfiguration of Jesus as described in the Synoptic Gospels: three apostles gaze up at the glorified body of Jesus, overwhelmed by his divine incandescence. Beside Christ are Moses and Elijah, presumably speaking of Jesus’ imminent crucifixion — reinforced by the imposing cross perched on the edge of a gloomy promontory, Calvary.

Villalpando brings together these two episodes, from the Old and New Testaments respectively, with a quote from the Gospel of John: “And as Moses lift up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lift up, that none that believeth in him perish” (3:14). The brazen serpent was not only a remedy for the wounded Israelites; it was later viewed as anticipating the Messiah, a sign of salvation.

Villalpando was not attempting simply to visually depict the brazen serpent — in a sense his aim was a far more ambitious one: to create or recreate as it were a brazen serpent, a work of art that is meant to heal the tortured, forsaken and forgotten. The brazen serpent healed the victims of the venomous snakes by their looking on it. Whatever power it had to heal was transmitted, in a sense, visually. This fact was obviously not lost on a painter as astute as Villalpando. Both the transfiguration and the brazen serpent ‘privilege vision as a means of comprehending the divine.’ His painting is among other things about the power of the artist to communicate the divine through painting.

Ten other works are part of the exhibit — including an extraordinary oil on copper depicting The Deluge (1689): not unlike Moses and the Brazen serpent, Noah’s building of the ark according to God’s instructions is, for Villalpando, a biblical precedent for artistic creation. The sky is streaked with lightening — scenes of mayhem and death crowd the picture’s foreground. The sight of rooftops peaking up above rising floodwaters cannot but resonate with us in the aftermath of storms like Hurricane Harvey that recently battered Texas.

The ark is presented as inaccessibly distant, but centrally fixed; its bronze hue is strikingly visible against the leaden sky and foamy sea. Size and pictorial distance do not seem to be realistically correlated in the Deluge: it is as if the painter has chosen to magnify certain scenes so as to emphasize and individualize the personal catastrophes that are unfolding amidst the general devastation.

The Brazen Serpent and Transfiguration is reason enough to make the pilgrimage to the Metropolitan Museum. Villalpando’s first true masterpiece is a visual feast: a massive tour de force. Indeed, the artist accomplished something extraordinary with this painting: a breathtaking and powerfully dramatic vision of pain and anguish, hope and healing; of redemption and transformation, a depiction of the victory of love and forgiveness over fear and despair, and a most welcome reprieve at this moment in time.

This month, the Robert Lehman Wing of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting the work of Mexican baroque artist, Cristóbal Villalpando (1649 –1714). The highlight of the show is Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus (1683), a staggering 28-foot tall altarpiece that until now has never left its home in Puebla Cathedral.

Two distinct scenes are unfolding within a landscape that includes at once the wilderness of Exodus, and the Holy Mounts of Calvary and Tabor. It is of such scale and scope that one is swept away by the sheer grandeur of it.

The painter has arranged the scenes vertically and hierarchically — the bottom half concerns an episode from Chapter 21 in the Book of Numbers: when “the people spoke against God and against Moses,” questioning why they were brought out of Egypt “to die in the wilderness.” God immediately answers their impatience and ingratitude by sending “seraph serpents against the people” — deadly vipers that ‘consume man by the poison of their fangs.’ For Villalpando, these are a terrifying brood of winged monsters, suggested perhaps by the flying serpents mentioned in Isaiah (14:29).

Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites: he prays for the people to be forgiven and ‘one from whom forgiveness is asked… should not be so cruel as not to forgive’ (Rashi). God tells Moses to “make a seraph figure and mount it on a standard. If anyone who is bitten looks at it, he shall recover.” Moses fashions a serpent of brass and displays it as an ensign for the people.

Villalpando shows us Moses, luminescent horns beaming from his head, standing beside the pole around which is coiled a mighty winged serpent. The people gather round to gaze up towards it and be healed. Aaron, Moses’ brother, stands to the right of the pole wearing the elaborately embroidered garb of the high priest, ‘vested for beauty and for glory’, atop his head a horned mitre; at his feet are the wretched victims of God’s wrath, contorted bodies and bulging eyes.

In the upper half we are presented with the Transfiguration of Jesus as described in the Synoptic Gospels: three apostles gaze up at the glorified body of Jesus, overwhelmed by his divine incandescence. Beside Christ are Moses and Elijah, presumably speaking of Jesus’ imminent crucifixion — reinforced by the imposing cross perched on the edge of a gloomy promontory, Calvary.

Villalpando brings together these two episodes, from the Old and New Testaments respectively, with a quote from the Gospel of John: “And as Moses lift up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lift up, that none that believeth in him perish” (3:14). The brazen serpent was not only a remedy for the wounded Israelites; it was later viewed as anticipating the Messiah, a sign of salvation.

Villalpando was not attempting simply to visually depict the brazen serpent — in a sense his aim was a far more ambitious one: to create or recreate as it were a brazen serpent, a work of art that is meant to heal the tortured, forsaken and forgotten. The brazen serpent healed the victims of the venomous snakes by their looking on it. Whatever curative power it had was transmitted, in a sense, visually. This fact was obviously not lost on a painter as astute as Villalpando. Both the transfiguration and the brazen serpent ‘privilege vision as a means of comprehending the divine.’ His painting is among other things about the power of the artist to communicate the divine through painting.

Ten other works are part of the exhibit — including an extraordinary oil on copper depicting The Deluge (1689): not unlike Moses and the Brazen serpent, Noah’s building of the ark according to God’s instructions is, for Villalpando, a biblical precedent for artistic creation. The sky is streaked with lightening — scenes of mayhem and death crowd the picture’s foreground. The sight of rooftops peaking up above rising floodwaters cannot but resonate with us in the aftermath of storms like Hurricane Harvey that recently battered Texas.

The ark is presented as inaccessibly distant, but centrally fixed; its bronze hue is strikingly visible against the leaden sky and foamy sea. Size and pictorial distance do not seem to be realistically correlated in the Deluge: it is as if the painter has chosen to magnify certain scenes so as to emphasize and individualize the personal catastrophes that are unfolding amidst the general devastation.

The Brazen Serpent and Transfiguration is reason enough to make the pilgrimage to the Metropolitan Museum. Villalpando’s first true masterpiece is a visual feast: a massive tour de force. Indeed, the artist accomplished something extraordinary with this painting: a breathtaking and powerfully dramatic vision of pain and anguish, hope and healing; of redemption and transformation, a depiction of the victory of love and forgiveness over fear and despair, and a most welcome reprieve at this moment in time.

 

Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.

 

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Avnery, Despair of despair

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boycott
“Peace with Israel or peace without Israel?” Avnery would like the BDS movement to clarify this point. Photo by BDS France.

Despair of despair

by Uri Avnery — Gush Shalom

My optimism about the future of Israel irritates a lot of people. How can I be an optimist in view of what’s happening here every day? The practical annexation of occupied territories? The mistreatment of the Arabs? The implantation of poisonous settlements?

But optimism is a state of mind. It does not falter in the face of evil. On the contrary, evil must be fought. And you cannot fight if you do not believe that you can win.

Some of my friends believe that the fight is already lost. That Israel can no longer be changed “from within.” That the only way to change it is by pressure from outside.

Fortunately, they believe, there is an outside force, that is ready and able to do our job for us.

It is called BDS — short for “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.”

One of these friends is Ruchama Marton.

If anyone has the right to criticize and despair, it is she. Ruchama is a psychiatrist, the founder and now the honorary president of the Israeli association “Physicians for Human Rights.” A splendid outfit.

The physicians go every week to an Arab village and dispense medical help (for free) to all who need it. Even the Israeli authorities respect it, and often accede to their demand to allow sick people from the occupied territories into Israel for hospitalization.

When we celebrated Ruchama’s 80 birthday last week, she turned on me and accused me of fostering false hopes about the chance that present-day Israel will ever make peace and withdraw from the Palestinian territories. According to her, that chance has passed. What is left is the duty to support BDS.

BDS is a world-wide movement which propagates the total boycott of everything Israeli. It wants to convince corporations, and especially universities, to divest themselves of Israeli investments, and supports all kinds of sanctions against Israel.

In Israel, BDS is hated like the devil, if not more. You really need a lot of courage to stand up in Israel and support it publicly, as a few people do.

I promised Ruchama to provide an answer to her accusation. So here it is.

First of all, I have a profound moral objection to any argument that says that we can do nothing to save our own state, and that we must put our trust in foreigners to do our job.

Israel is our state. We are responsible for it. I belong to the few thousands who defended it on the battlefield when it was born. Now it is our duty to fight for it to become the state we wanted it to be.

First of all, I do not accept the belief that the battle is lost. No battle is lost as long as there are people who are ready to fight.

I believe in peace. Peace means agreement between two (or more) sides to live in peace. Israeli-Palestinian peace means that the State of Israel and the Palestinian national movement come to terms with each other.

Peace between Israel and Palestine presupposes that the State of Israel does exist, side by side with the State of Palestine. I am not quite sure that this is the aim of the BDS movement. Much of what it does and says could lead to the conclusion that it wants a peace without Israel.

I believe that it is the duty of BDS to make this point absolutely clear. Peace with Israel or peace without Israel?

Some people believe that peace without the State of Israel is possible and desirable. Many of them subscribe to something called the “One-state Solution.” This implies that Israelis and Palestinians will live happily together in one common state, as equal citizens.

That is a nice dream, but, unfortunately, historical experience testifies against it. The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Indochina and others have broken up, Belgium, Canada, the UK, and many others are in dire danger of breaking apart. At this very moment, genocide is being carried out in Burma under the auspices of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Are two fiercely nationalistic peoples, who claim the same homeland and have been at war for almost 150 years, now going to live together peacefully in one joint state? Not likely. Life in such a state would be hell.

(An Israeli joke: “Can the wolf and the sheep live together? No problem! But one has to provide a new sheep every day.”)

People who support BDS generally point to the experience of South Africa as the basis of their strategy.

The story goes like this: the black majority of South Africa were oppressed by the white minority. They turned to the enlightened (white) world, who proclaimed a world-wide boycott on the country. In the end the Whites gave in. Two wonderful men, Nelson Mandela and Frederick Willem de Klerk, fell into each others arms. Curtain.

This is the story seen through white eyes. It reflects typical self-centered white egotism. Black eyes see a slightly different story:

The blacks, who constituted the vast majority in South Africa, started a campaign of strikes and violence. Mandela, too, was a terrorist. The world-wide boycott movement certainly helped, but it was the indigenous struggle that was decisive.

(Israeli leaders told their white South African friends to partition the country, but there were no takers on either side.)

Circumstances here are totally different. Israel does not need Arab workers, it can do well without. It imports laborers from all over the world. The living standard of Israelis is more than 20 times (!) higher than that of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Both sides entertain a fierce nationalism. Because of the holocaust, the Jewish side enjoys the profound sympathy of the world. Anti-Semitism is out, and Israeli propaganda accuses BDS of being anti-Semitic.

In a moment of unusual wisdom, the United Nations decreed the partition of Palestine. In practice, there is no better solution.

In principle, I am not against a boycott. Indeed, already in 1997, the Gush Shalom movement, to which I belong, was the first to proclaim a boycott of the settlements. We distributed many thousands of lists of the businesses operating there. As a result, quite a number of them were re-located to Israel proper. I can easily envision an even wider boycott of all enterprises which support the settlements.

But to my mind, a boycott of Israel proper is a mistake. It would drive all Israelis into the arms of the settlers, while our job is to isolate the settlers and separate them from ordinary Israelis.

Is this ever possible? Is this still possible? I believe it is.

The present situation indicates that we have made mistakes. We must stop and think again, right from the beginning.

The organization founded by Ruchama Marton is not the only group doing its bit for peace and human rights. There are dozens of them, founded by splendid men and women, each active in its chosen niche. We need to find a way to combine their strengths without damaging their independence and special nature. We need to find a way to revitalize the political parties of the Left (the Labor Party, Meretz and the Arab United List) which are in a state of coma. Or form a new party.

I respect BDS and all their activists who are sincerely striving to liberate the Palestinians and make peace between them and us. The effort being made now in the US to enact a law forbidding their activity looks to me both ridiculous and anti-democratic.

Let them do their job over there. Our job here is to regroup, to reorganize and to redouble our efforts to overturn our present government and their allies and bring the forces of peace to power.

I believe that the majority of Jewish Israelis would want peace, if they thought peace possible. They are torn between an energetic right-wing minority, with a fascist edge, that declares peace both impossible and undesirable, and a weak and soft left-wing minority.

This is not a hopeless situation. The fight is far from over. We must do our job inside Israel, and let the outside forces do their job over there.

There is nothing to despair of but despair itself.

 

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Libertad Ciudadana / TI, Voluntad por la Justicia

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eeew GROSS
Necesitamos reemplazar al delincuente Alejandro Moncada Luna por un magistrado principal comprobadamente probo e independiente. Foto por la Presidencia.

Voluntad por la Justicia

Comunicado por Libertad Ciudadana / TI Panamá

En las últimas semanas diversos voceros del Órgano Ejecutivo, incluyendo al propio presidente de la República, han hecho declaraciones a favor del cumplimiento de la Justicia en el país, especialmente frente a los casos de corrupción que está siendo investigados por el Ministerio Público y aquellos que ya se encuentran con llamamiento a juicio en el Órgano Judicial.

Hacemos un llamado al Ejecutivo para que demuestre su voluntad de lograr una justicia independiente, imparcial y expedita en el país con dos acciones puntuales, a corto plazo, que sí están dentro de su esfera de acción constitucional:

  • El nombramiento del reemplazo en la Corte Suprema de Justicia del Magistrado Moncada Luna, quien fuera destituido en el mes de febrero de 2015. A la fecha ha venido ejerciendo el cargo, como suplente, el Magistrado Abel Augusto Zamorano, pero la necesidad de una justicia imparcial requiere del nombramiento de un Magistrado Principal comprobadamente probo e independiente.
  • El otorgar las partidas presupuestarias necesarias para reforzar la Administración de Justicia en todas sus ramas.

Estas actuaciones puntuales demostrarían a la ciudadanía y a todos los estamentos de la administración de justicia un compromiso de hechos y no de palabras.

 

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Birds of Panama / Aves de Panamá: Euphonia luteicapilla

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chirp
Euphonia Coroniamarilla (Euphonia luteicapilla), el macho. / Yellow Crowned Euphonia (Euphonia luteicapilla), the male. Foto por Kermit Nourse.

The Yellow Crowned Euphonia / La Euphonia Coroniamarilla

photo by Kermit Nourse

This is one of the more common birds ranging from Panama up to Nicaragua, a denizen of lowland dry and wet forests and a reasonable bet to thrive despite climate change because it also does well in disrupted forests. It’s not migratory. It is a true finch, a member of the Fringillidae family, and has a stout bill for eating seeds.

~~~

Esta es una de las aves más comunes que vive desde Panamá hasta Nicaragua, un morador de bosques secos y húmedos de tierras bajas y una apuesta razonable para prosperar a pesar del cambio climático porque también lo hace bien en los bosques interrumpidos. No es migratorio. Es un pinzón verdadero, un miembro de la familia de Fringillidae, y tiene un pico robusto para comer las semillas.

 

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¿Wappin? ¿Hispano? ¿Que es eso? / Hispanic? What’s that?

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León Larregui, foto por Rodrigo Gallegos Pinto.

¿Hispano? ¿Que es eso? / Hispanic? What’s that?

Today many in the USA begin to celebrate “Hispanic Heritage Month.” That is, however, a very large and diverse category, whether talking about electoral constituencies in the USA or the vastness of the Spanish-speaking world, which includes an awful lot of people for whom Spanish is a second language. And then the music….

Elijah Emanuel – Yo No Soy Ilegal
https://youtu.be/M9SyYz3yzZw

Shakira y Carlos Vives – La Gota Fría
https://youtu.be/MWlhkUlY0Cg

León Larregui – Locos
https://youtu.be/SXcFYnHSG08

Bebo y Chucho Valdes – Lágrimas Negras
https://youtu.be/A4UJ8a-BWQk

Edmar Castañeda – Jesús de Nazaret
https://youtu.be/ux9sxiYHZhk

Romeo Santos – Imitadora
https://youtu.be/FAq4OIRDo68

El cant de Els Segadors en la Diada del Sí
https://youtu.be/A8HSdPdV8dE

Lila Downs – Yunu Yucu Ninu
https://youtu.be/c5Q-Fgb-TY8

Grupo Tuira – L’u d’Aielo
https://youtu.be/pyEU23IgikI

Cultura Profética – Somos Muchos
https://youtu.be/QJcJeeCvtas

Zahara – Con Las Ganas
https://youtu.be/yTwzhCKMA7k

Carlos Santana – Samba Pa Ti
https://youtu.be/7vr-rSPuO0w

Julieta Venegas – Andar Conmigo
https://youtu.be/DNFeB_6WeIo

Mon Laferte y Bunbury – Mi buen amor
https://youtu.be/13m9v78uNJk

Javiera Mena – Full performance on KEXP
https://youtu.be/Laq5DdZVbu0

 

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FAILURE: Martinelli in rogues’ gallery but doesn’t make Top 10

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RMB
Rant and photo by the Presidencia, way back when. He wears a spiffy US jail uniform these days.

He’s Number 13! He’s Number 13!

excerpt from a letter to the Trump administration asking for sanctions against tyrants and kleptocrats by
Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, Reporters Without Borders, PEN and 19 other organizations

13. Panama – Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal, Former President

Case Type: Corruption

Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal is the former President of Panama and the leader of the Panamanian political party Democratic Change. In his term as president, the perpetrator and his close associates allegedly embezzled up to $100 million from government social projects aimed to help Panama’s citizens. There are currently over 200 investigations open into allegedly corrupt deals that occurred during his tenure, with the former president himself the subject of nine Supreme Court investigations, including bribery, misappropriation of public funds, and abuse of power, amongst others. Among the bribery cases being investigated is one in which the perpetrator and his associates allegedly received a $20 million bribe from an Italian arms producer in exchange for securing a $200 million contract. A March 7th, 2015 ruling in an Italian court found that Martinelli participated and cooperated in an attempt to extort and intimidate the Italian firm Impregilo into financing the construction of a hospital. A US federal judge identified Martinelli as one of several alleged co-conspirators in a bribery scheme that helped a subsidiary of the German software producer SAP sell software to Panama in exchange for bribes. According to press reports, Martinelli was arrested in Miami, Florida on June 13, 2017, pursuant to a provisional warrant issued by the Justice Department in response to an extradition request from Panama related to allegations that he used public funds for purposes of political espionage.

 

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US immigration and race relations: 350 groups oppose HR 3697

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Dressing like the man in blue as proof of a crime? US authorities have asserted the wearing the jersey of El Salvador’s national soccer team indicates membership in a criminal gang. Photo by MLSsoccer.com.

An open letter about a purported gang member deportation bill

September 12, 2017

United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

RE: Vote NO on the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act, H.R. 3697

Dear Representative:

On behalf of the 350 undersigned local, state, and national immigrant, civil rights, human rights, faith-based, and anti-poverty organizations, we urge you to oppose the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act, H.R. 3697. This legislation creates a new sweeping definition of the term “criminal gang”[1] and attaches draconian immigration penalties to this definition. The bill is breathtaking in its scope, targeting those who never committed or supported a single criminal act for deportation and returning those who are seeking protection from gang violence back to harm. This bill will put the United States in violation of its international obligations to protect asylum seekers, breed racial profiling and other unconstitutional police practices, and further undermine local law enforcement efforts to engage in smart gang prevention techniques. Finally, this bill hands Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a vast new set of tools to detain and deport immigrants at a time when all hands should be on deck to legislate protection for DACA recipients.

H.R. 3697 grants the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nearly unfettered authority to designate all types of clubs and groups as a “criminal gang.” It requires mandatory detention and deportation for any current or former member or participant of such designated groups and takes great pains to preclude individuals caught up the bill’s provisions from defending themselves in court. In short, the bill is a legislative mirror of the President and Attorney General’s rhetorical efforts to paint “immigrant” and “gang member” as synonymous terms.[2]

Under this bill any non-citizen, including lawful permanent residents, can be arrested, detained and deported for being a “gang member” without ever having been convicted of a crime. The definition of a “criminal gang” in this bill sweeps far more broadly than the existing federal definition.[3] Any non-citizen falls within the bill’s new grounds of removability if an immigration official knows or has “reason to believe” that person is or has been a member or participant in such a group. Such a low evidentiary standard will impose guilt by association on entire neighborhoods and communities — principally communities of color — not for actual misconduct but because of association with groups that the current or future administrations do not like. Gang databases are notoriously unreliable[4] and DHS is already prone to conflate mere association with gang membership and encourage racial profiling by using gang “criteria” such as living in a neighborhood that suffers gang activity or wearing a national Salvadoran soccer jersey.[5]

The bill’s penalties are retroactive and make no exceptions for those forced into gang membership as youth or under duress. Those subject to the bill’s penalties will face deportation without any opportunity to seek asylum, withholding of removal, Temporary Protected Status or Special Immigrant Juvenile Status even if they were forced into a gang as a child at gunpoint or fled gang violence in the face of duress. Skyrocketing levels of gender, family, and gang violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras leave many people with no choice but to flee or face gang recruitment, sexual and gender-based atrocities, or murder.[6] This bill will prevent bona fide refugees from seeking legal protection in the United States, including children fleeing forced gang recruitment and mothers forced to pay extortion to a gang or watch their children be killed.

In addition to demonizing immigrant communities and undermining policing efforts, this bill is unnecessary. States and the federal government have ample statutory authority to arrest, convict, and deport those individuals who have committed gang-related offenses. Most states and the federal government punish or enhance sentences for individuals suspected of being gang members, recruiting gang members, or committing crimes while in a gang. Similarly, immigration laws already provide the government with the ability to deport hundreds of thousands of individuals engaged in even relatively minor criminal activity.

The presence of gangs in communities is a complex public safety issue requiring evidence-based solutions including gang prevention, not a legislative overreach targeting entire immigrant communities. We urge all Members of Congress to vote against H.R. 3697.

Sincerely,

32BJ SEIU
AB540 Ally Training Project
ACLAMO Family Centers
ACLU People Power (Huntington Group / Suffolk County, NY)
Adelante Mujeres
Adjunct Justice
Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc.
Advocates for Youth
African Services Committee
AIDS Action Baltimore
Alianza
Alianza Americas
America’s Voice Education Fund
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Gateways
Amnesty International USA
Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Racism Collaborative
Apostle Immigrant Services
Arkansas United Community Coalition
Asbury Park Education Justice Collective
Ascentria Care Alliance Immigration Legal Assistance Program
Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC
Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus
Asian Americans Advancing Justice-LA
Asian Americans United
Asian Law Alliance
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA)
Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence
Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council
Asian Services In Action
ASISTA Immigration Assistance
Asylee Women Enterprise
Asylum Seekers Housing Network
Atlas: DIY
Ayuda
Belmont Against Racism
Bend the Arc Jewish Action
Boston Teachers Union
Brighton Park Neighborhood Council
BuxMont UUF Peace and Justice Committee
Cabrini Immigrant Services of NYC
California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA)
California Partnership
Campaign for Youth Justice
CARECEN-LA
Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities
Casa Freehold
Catholic Charities Immigration
Catholic Charities of West Tennessee
Center for Children’s Law and Policy
Center for Community Change
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center for the Human Rights of Children, Loyola University Chicago
Central American Resource Center DC
Centro del Inmigrante, Inc.
Chicago Jobs with Justice
Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America
Child and Family Policy Center
Christian Community Development Association
Church of Our Saviour/La Iglesia de Nuestro Salvador, Episcopal
Church Women United in New York State
Church World Service
Cleveland Jobs with Justice
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)
Colectiva Legal del Pueblo
Columbia Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)
Community Immigration Law Center, Inc.
Community of Friends in Action, Inc.
COMPASSionate Brújula: Advocates for migrants
Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, US Provinces
Connecticut Association for Human Services
Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants (formerly the International Institute of Connecticut)
Connecticut Legal Services
Connecticut Voices for Children
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Courage Campaign
CRLA Foundation
Defending Rights & Dissent
Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee
Disciples Women
Distrito Hispano of The Wesleyan Church
Dolores Street Community Services
Dominican Sisters of San Rafael
Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa
Eastern Iowa Community Bond Project
Empire Justice Center
Encuentro
End Domestic Abuse WI
Enlace
Equal Justice Center
Equal Rights Advocates
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Jimmy Papadimitriu jailed over Odebrecht case

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Jimmy P.
Back in the day: once upon at time, Demetrio “Jimmy” Papadimitriu was an aide to former Speaker of the House John Boehner. Later he was Ricardo Martinelli’s minister of the presidency. Since September 6 he has been held without bail in the DIJ lockup in Ancon. It’s about a bribery accusation arising from $10 million deposited by Odebrecht in an account set up in his parents’ names in the scandal-plagued (now in receivership) Banca Privada D’Andorra. Archive photo by the Presidencia.

Jimmy Papadimitriu, a prominent political operative in both the USA and Panama, jailed here on bribery suspicions

by Eric Jackson

Is he the first American to go to jail over the Odebrecht scandal? The silence from the US media is deafening, but then again the biggest shareholder of The New York Times owns construction company interests, and at least one of those companies, FCC, has sometimes partnered with the tainted Brazilian multinational conglomerate. Perhaps that’s an uncalled-for stretch of economic determinist conspiratorial thinking. The various media of the US corporate mainstream do have many inputs to their different editorial policies and the Times has company in its silence.

For whatever reason that it’s a non-story in the United States, a prominent Republican operative, a dual US and Panamanian citizen and perhaps the holder of yet another country’s passport as well, is being held in Ancon’s DIJ lockup on suspicion of bribery. Demetrio “Jimmy” Papadimitriu, the son of a late businessman of Greek origin with various investments but who mainly made his substantial fortune in seafood exporting, has mostly made his living in politics. Wearing his gringo hat he was a congressional aide to former US Repesentative and Speaker of the House John Boehner. He worked for the Miami Republican political consulting firm of Alex Castellanos and in that role was part of the team of consultants led by Karl Rove that played a major role in George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. Both with the Castellanos firm and later with the US government funded and ostensibly nonpartisan International Republican Institute (IRI) he traveled the world lending GOP sorts of advice to the politics of many countries.

As a Panamanian, Papadimitriu was Ricardo Martinelli’s Minister of the Presidency from mid-2009 to mid-2012. There was a falling out. En route to his departure there were arguments over some land transactions involving Papadimitriu’s parents, allegations and an abruptly aborted criminal case about somebody hacking the minister’s email account, and WikiLeaks cable references that reasonably raise the question of whether as minister he was Martinelli’s back channel to the American Embassy or the embassy’s prized informant in the Panamanian cabinet. Quietly until afterward, Papadimitriu turned on Martinelli in the 2014 campaign when the now jailed former president was attempting a Putin-style proxy re-election. The very smooth political operative is generally careful not to let personal emotions show, but that would-be proxy president José Domingo “Mimito” Arias was the instrument of the legally flawed expropriation from Papadimitriu’s parents of a valuable tract of land along a beach west of the capital may have been part of his reason to work as an unpaid volunteer for the Juan Carlos Varela campaign.

Tales of large Odebrecht payofffs to Papadimitriu when he was a government minister have been shopped around for some time, with a specific reference to and denial of a $4 million payment appearing in La Prensa in early July. At the time Papadimitriu categorically denied any payment.

But then the leading daily newspaper in Spain, El Pais, published the story of how Odebrecht deposited $10 million into an account it created at a notorious bank in Andorra in the name of Papadimitriu’s parents. The first of those deposits was for $4 million. The primary source of that story was on the face of it a lawyer who is in some legal trouble himself but there surely had to be corroborating sources for El Pais to have run the story.

Within a day Jimmy Papadimitriu and former Minister of Public Works Jaime Ford were being questioned by prosecutors, and after about 12 hours of depositions both were ordered held without bail and taken to the DIJ jail in Ancon. Papadimitriu, who said that he had appeared voluntarily and wanted to protect his unjustly impugned mother — his father is now deceased — said that the $10 million was for business that the family company did with Odebrecht, providing sand for the Cinta Costera and other projects. He continues to deny that he personally received anything from Odebrecht. The way that the Panamanian political system works, it would generally be difficult for any cabinet member, particularly a minister of the presidency, to deny a role in the awarding of a large public works contract. With the exception of Panama Canal works, those things have to be approved by the cabinet and in many cases then sent to the legislature. Odebrecht was awarded billions of dollars worth of government contracts during Papadimitriu’s time in the cabinet.

Who might be in a position to leak information linking Papadimitriu to Odebrecht? When one follows the whole Odebrecht saga, and then backtracks from details recently published, that could be an interesting question with lots of suspects. It’s actually a good example of the fallacy of many grand conspiracy theories — if too many people know about something, then it’s hard to keep it a secret.

Odebrecht people, from the former CEO down, are singing to get out of jail or stay out of jail. Former “outside counsel” for Odebrecht, Brazilian-Spaniard attorney Rodrigo Tacla, is the “loose cannon” source of data that it appeared that the company’s “cooperating witnesses” had been holding, and his tales to Spanish prosecutors seem to have corroboration in the records of financial transfers. Prosecutors and other legal system functionaries in several countries would have access to the lyrics to those various songs. The bank involved, Banca Privada D’Andorra, has for years been accused by Washington of being a money laundering mill. It has played a role in many political scandals in a number of countries, including in Panama but most of all in Spain and its semi-autonomous Catalan region. The bank is so notorious that the Andorran government reluctantly intervened in it starting in 2015, while its Panama branch, as with some of its offices in third countries, has been taken over and liquidated by local banking authorities. Thus in addition to people who work in courts and prosecutors’ offices, information about that bank’s transactions would be available to people working for bank regulation agencies in several countries.

So, despite the arrest of a Republican political operative on Odebrecht-related charges, will it continue to be a non-story in the United States? Perhaps. Former company CEO Marcelo Odebrecht, now in prison but hoping to shorten his stay by having turned state’s evidence, has said that the company would either bribe all significant political parties in a country where it operated or wouldn’t bribe any of them.

What about the United States? Odebrecht gave to Jeb Bush’s foundation and then got large Florida highway contracts once he became governor. Odebrecht gave to erstwhile Miami-Dade Democratic boss Xavier Suarez’s PAC, and Suarez helped the company get the contracts to expand Miami’s international airport. Under US law that would not equal bribery — you generally have to prove a specific quid pro quo to convict on that in the USA. Also, statutes of limitations have run since some of those donations even if they were criminal. Odebrecht’s US subsidiary works out of a Miami office and has projects in North Carolina, Texas and California. Is there corruption in any of them? It may not be considered newsworthy, nor worthy of any official investigation, but there are too many people talking in too many places to automatically presume that Jimmy P. will be the only American caught up in the Odebrecht scandal.

 

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Varoufakis, A progressive Brexit

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Theresa May. Photo by the Prime Minister’s Office.

A progressive Brexit transition can be
built — on both sides of the Channel

by Yanis Varoufakis

Insurgencies often end up betraying the ideals that motivated them. Brexit seems no different. In no time, it has shed its intellectually most powerful motive: the full restoration of sovereignty to the House of Commons.

Parliament’s sovereignty over the future of UK-EU arrangements has been dealt three blows since the Brexit referendum. First, Prime Minister Theresa May chose to interpret the referendum’s binary choice — without consulting parliament — as a vote for a hard Brexit.

Second, in triggering Article 50 without seeking the transition period necessary to give parliament at least one full term to deliberate over the long-term links with the EU, May essentially denied parliamentarians any say even on the form of hard Brexit that will follow.

Then came the third blow: the so-called great repeal bill, which caused even pro-Brexit MPs to erupt in anger during its first airing in the House of Commons, proposes to vest the government with inordinate power to amend EU laws as they are converted into UK laws, without even consulting the house.

So, while the EU is exploiting Brexit to practice its authoritarian incompetence (demanding, for example, that London negotiates with bureaucrats lacking a genuine mandate to hammer out issues like a free trade agreement), Brexit is also being used by the British government to push the country on a long slide toward May’s own brand of authoritarian incompetence. None of this augurs well for the people of Britain or, indeed, for Europeans at large.

Averting catastrophe

What should be the progressive response, on both sides of the Channel, to this disaster-in-the-making? Before the referendum, my own organization, the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), advised the UK Labour party to adopt our “radical remain” line of “IN the EU, against this EU.” The Labour party did adopt this position, albeit half-heartedly, but in the end the people of Britain decided to vote Leave. As democrats we must respect that verdict. But as progressives, we have a duty to confront the minority Tory government’s dalliance with a catastrophic Brexit.

Immediately after the referendum, DiEM25 was the first Remain-supporting movement to respond with a positive proposal. Refusing to be downhearted, to vilify those who voted Leave, or to call for a second referendum (or parliamentary vote) by which to annul the will of the majority, we proposed that Article 50 be triggered while, at the same time, London filed for a five-year Norway-style arrangement to come into force after the initial two year period lapses.

May felt her political room for maneuver was limited of course, but had she adopted that option, then freedom of movement, the customs union, the European courts’ jurisdiction, Britain’s contributions to the EU budget and so on, would have remained unchanged until 2024. The EU bureaucracy would not have been empowered to carry out the hatchet job it is currently mandated to do, and the House of Commons would have had the opportunity to debate properly, and in peace, both the future UK-EU relationship and a British constitution is desperate need of revision.

Crucially, it would also have meant that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, could have relaxed — with the happy news that the Brexit hot potato was thrown into the lap of her successor.

Two to tango

In recent weeks, I have noticed with pleasure that Corbyn’s Labour party, alongside some key Tory MPs, have adopted the same proposal. Now that this is becoming mainstream, it is crucial that we take it further by specifying in greater detail what that transition period should aim at and what follows afterwards.

The unambitious, regressive, conservative aim for a transition period is that it would create the time and space necessary for a virtually unchanged UK to find an accommodation with a virtually unchanged EU. However, this would be a betrayal of all those people in Britain who cast their vote for Corbyn’s vision of a radically transformed UK.

It would also be seen as a lost opportunity by those of us in continental Europe who do not believe that this EU can or should stay as is. In this sense, progressives must work toward a transitional period during which the aim is the progressive transformation of both the UK and the EU.

What would such a progressive transformation be like? In the UK the election manifesto that Labour took to the polls back in June is a good start. As for the progressive transformation of continental Europe, the economic and social policy agenda we presented in March, DiEM25’s European New Deal, offers a tangible, realistic but also far-sighted manifesto for every European country, independently of whether it uses the euro or not. The adversarial tone of Brexit talks thus far is of little use to anyone. Instead of arm-wrestling to secure the competitiveness of one European country against another, a transition period would allow Europe, including the UK, to focus on boosting productivity in green sectors across the continent, and sharing in the benefits that flow from that.

The present trends point to a dreadful outcome: a clueless Tory government and a degenerate EU bureaucracy locked in a pointless conflict. But progressives should never respect present trends. We must dare to dream of a Corbyn-led government in the UK, and of progressive, DiEM25-linked parties scoring similar successes in a swathe of EU countries by the 2019 European Parliament elections. That could clear the path towards a second UK referendum in or around 2025 when a transformed Britain enters a European Democratic Union. Dare to dream: and then work damned hard towards realising that dream.

 

Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economics, University of Athens
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

 

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