The middle class rebellion

On Thursday night, the BBC called me from Broadcasting House in London astonished by scenes of mass demonstrations in Buenos Aires and other cities throughout Argentina.

The presenter was surprised by the magnitude and extent of the crowds. She was also intrigued by what seemed to be “a festive atmosphere” and asked me to explain what was going on.

I had just arrived home after walking down Avenida Callao, returning from a speaking engagement in the Casa de Mendoza. I had not taken part in the protest, but during my 12-block walk I blended in. The atmosphere certainly seemed festive. People were sitting out at sidewalk cafés on Callao and adjacent streets eating, sipping drinks and enjoying the antics of the crowds gathered at street crossings.

I told the BBC that what we were watching streaming live on the Internet was a rebellion of Argentina’s middle class. The protesters gently rattled pots and pans, held up homemade signs and waved Argentine flags. There was no aggression. It was a genteel affair.

I later learned that there were two incidents of violence when reporters for the pro-government C5N, a television channel, and the TV programme Duro de Domar were roughed up. But the aggressors were roundly condemned.

But the mood was not really “festive.” The Argentine middle class is not happy with the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Indeed, there is underlying anger that so much has gone wrong with a government that did so much that was right after the epic economic collapse and the breakdown of democracy in 2001.

My interpretation of both the great marches of the middle class, the first on September 13, which was largely spontaneous, and the second on what is being called 8N, which was at least twice the size, numbering around 250,000, according to some estimates, is that both were about One Big Thing and scores of Littler Things. The Big Thing is Democracy. The littler things are lack of security, inflation, state intervention, corruption, limits on individual rights, threats to press freedom and judicial independence, to name only a few of the grievances that have aroused more people to take to the streets than I can remember in half a century covering Argentina.

The point about both these marches, which have really been gatherings of mostly like-minded people, is that they could prove to be a historic turning point in the civic development of Argentina. As readers of this column must have realized, I have been concerned from the moment that I was able to resume my life in Argentina that our hard-won democracy was in danger of being whittled away by an increasingly authoritarian administration.

I was haunted by a metaphor that I have not mentioned in print before.

This is not meant to be taken too seriously, but I am not the only person who has wondered whether those of us who believe in democracy are like frogs basking in a tank of warm water, unaware that the temperature is imperceptibly rising.

As my wife and I are unable to spend more than five months in Argentina each year we are in an advantageous position. We can hop out of the tank when we leave in November. When we return in June we can test the temperature before we hop back in. We will keep you informed on our reading of the temperature.

For those who do not like this metaphor, let me say that it is far less disturbing than my first thought, which was that we might be lobsters. In that case, once in the pot, you’ve had it.

Among our friends, only a few worried about being democratic frogs in a country where the authoritarian temperature was rising. So I worried that people would not react in time to save Argentine democracy. The two urbane and genteel demonstrations that have now taken place have strengthened my conviction that democracy is here to stay.

That is because the people who gathered throughout Argentina — the Federal Capital, La Plata, Córdoba, Corrientes, General Roca, Mendoza, Río Negro, Rosario, Salta, Tucumán, even Bariloche and other small towns — made an important statement: the people are concerned about individual liberties, human rights in fact.

The protests went global. The Herald reported that there were demonstrations by Argentines living abroad outside embassies and consulates in Australia, Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt, Bonn, Hamburg); Austria; Bolivia, Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte); Canada (Toronto, Montreal); Chile (Santiago, Valparaíso); China; Colombia; Costa Rica; England; France; Israel (Tel Aviv, Hertzlia Pituah, Migdal Haemek); Italy (Rome, Milan, Padova); Japan, Mexico; Norway; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca, Valencia); South Africa; Sweden; Switzerland; Netherlands (Hague, Amsterdam); Uruguay (Montevideo, Punta del Este, Maldonado, Colonia); United States (Washington DC, Miami, New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston); Venezuela. Página/12 added Azerbaijan and the Canary Islands to this list.

The government has been given a multitudinous wake up call. Reality is knocking on the door of the Casa Rosada.

Even Página/12, which has become the Official Gazette, has realized that something is up. Instead of jeering at the marchers, as they did after S13, their writers did some serious analysis.

Horacio González, the most discerning member of the Carta Abierta group of intellectuals, noted: “They weren’t few. They were many. And many of the words that they said were right words.” Horacio Verbitsky, under the heading “Voices from the Street,” wrote that the demonstration was “evidence that democracy is solid.” He concluded by suggesting that Argentina may now be closer to the political system that “(Néstor) Kirchner imagined ‘a centre-left force opposed by the centre-right.’”

Now is the time for the President to polish her democratic credentials by stating that she will not seek re-election and will not support legislation proposing an amendment or reform of the Constitution.

That would allow people from the centre-left and the centre-right to bond in support of democracy, against the extremists that have done so much harm to Argentina over the past eight or nine decades.

The worldwide coverage of the protests on Thursday by the BBC and other media put Argentina on a global alert list. A gesture from Cristina would tell the world that democracy is alive and well.

And it would be an enormous relief to my metaphorical frogs who would no longer have to keep checking the temperature of the water in the tank.

Source  http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/116566/the-middle-class-rebellion

Rajoy faces internal rebellion over austerity

SPAIN’S GOVERNMENT is facing a rebellion from within its own ranks over austerity measures in the 2013 budget.

The Bill, which the conservative administration presented last week, cuts back sharply on spending in an attempt to meet deficit targets agreed with Brussels.

However, the reduction in funds for Spain’s 17 regions has sparked a backlash. Senior figures in the central government’s own Partido Popular (PP) party are among the most vocal critics, such as José Ramón Bauzá, the premier of the Balearic Islands.

“This is a budget that the people of the Balearic Islands in no way deserve and it is absolutely unfair when it comes to the interests of the islands, which are meeting their budgetary and deficit objectives,” he said on Sunday.

The Balearic Islands were among the biggest losers in the 2013 budget. Overall, state spending on the regions is down 16 per cent compared with 2012.

The PP regional premiers of Valencia and Aragón have also spoken out. Valencia’s Alberto Fabra said he would try to improve his region’s share of the budget by pressing for an amendment.

With the PP holding a substantial majority in the national Congress, the budget is expected to be approved, although it can be amended beforehand.

These outbursts, along with similar complaints from opposition politicians, came just ahead of the annual meeting today in Madrid between Spain’s 17 regional leaders and the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. and the issue is certain to dominate the agenda.

In Madrid, Mr Rajoy’s party has tried to dampen down the unrest.

“Of course we all want more money but we need to have a sense of responsibility and statesmanship,” María Dolores de Cospedal, the PP’s deputy leader, said.

Spain’s regional finances have become increasingly problematic in recent months, helping to keep the country mired in the euro-zone debt crisis. Four regions – Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia – have requested rescue loans from the state to help them meet looming obligations, with others mulling the same course of action.

The north-eastern region of Catalonia, which has requested €5 billion from the state, is also likely to be the focus of today’s meeting. The Catalan nationalist government claims an unfair tax system means it loses out on €16 billion each year, despite being Spain’s biggest economic hub.

A wave of civic nationalist feeling recently has prompted the region’s government to announce its intention to hold a referendum on independence from Spain.

Source  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/1002/1224324725245.html

Rebellion in Ramallah?

Thousands of Palestinians take to the streets. In Hebron, demonstrators burn an effigy. In Tul Karm, Ramallah, and other cities, they block streets and set tires ablaze. Teens hurl stones. All of the West Bank's bus, truck, and taxi drivers go on strike for a day. In Bethlehem, truckers park sideways, blocking streets. In Nablus, kindergarten teachers join the strike; elsewhere storekeepers shut their shops. Universities announce they, too, will strike.

These are updates from the West Bank over the past week. They sound as if taken from the start of the first Palestinian uprising against Israel 25 years ago. But the leader burned in effigy in Hebron was Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian government in Ramallah, rather than Israel, is the direct target of protest. Economic frustration sparked the fury. This sounds like a variation on revolts in other Arab states—except the Palestinian Authority isn't an independent state. Set up as to provide short-term, limited autonomy until a peace agreement, it has become the lasting means by which Israel outsources its rule over Palestinians in occupied territory. Donor countries foot the budget; the PA provides local services. Israel's current government acts as if the arrangement can last forever. The protests show how unstable it really is.

The immediate reason for anger was the PA government's decision to increase fuel prices and the value-added tax on goods and services. The cost of filling a gas tank is, of course, a function of world markets. But in the Palestinian Authority, it's also a result of the price that the Israeli government sets, including Israeli taxes. The 1994 Paris Protocol, which governs economic relations between Israel and the supposedly temporary Palestinian Authority, specifies that gasoline can't be more than 15 percent cheaper in PA territory than in Israel. It also links the level of value-added tax in the PA to the Israeli rate—so when Israel hiked its rate this month, so did Fayyad's government.

The protocol did leave a little wiggle room for smaller increases. But the PA is short on cash. Much of its budget comes from state donors—including the United States and European and Arab countries. The Education Ministry building in Ramallah has a sign saying it was donated by the Kingdom of Norway. If the PA's operating budget were a building, it would also have a donation plaque at the door.

But donors sometimes don't pay pledges, or pay late. As of June, the PA suffered a shortfall of $300 million in donor funds, according to one economic source. More recently, Palestinian Finance Ministry officials reportedly placed the shortfall at $1.2 billion, a quarter of the Authority's annual budget. PA employees—nearly a sixth of the West Bank workforce—can't be sure when they'll get their monthly salary, or how much of it they'll receive. Rumors that Gulf states are holding back funds at Washington's request—in order to pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to drop his request for U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood—are rampant. Actually, says political analyst Mouin Rabbani, the Gulf states have always paid late or not at all, as a result of inter-Arab disputes with the PA. The rumors do, however, testify to the level of America's political credit among Palestinians.

The foreign donations are supposed to lay the foundation for Palestinian independence. Fayyad, an American-trained economist and ex-IMF official, promised in 2009 that he would build a state from the bottom up by 2011. He has made PA finances more transparent, earned Western respect—and angered veteran members of Abbas's Fatah movement. What he can't do is build a self-sustaining economy. The Paris Protocol locks the PA into a customs union with Israel. The West Bank's currency is Israel's shekel. Israel controls the borders, imports and exports. Almost 60 percent of West Bank land is still defined as Area C, under Israeli rather than PA administration. Area C is where there's open space that could be used for industry, but it now serves as a reserve for settlement growth. Instead of building a state, the donors are reducing the cost to Israel of governing the West Bank. Yet when the donors hold up funds, they impoverish people in Bethlehem and Tul Karm.

On Tuesday, Fayyad announced a partial rollback of the tax and price increases and promised to pay some overdue salaries. So far, demonstrations and strikes are continuing. Increasingly, demonstrators demand that the PLO renegotiate the Paris Protocol. But without a political change—meaning independence—there's little chance of altering the economic relationship. No one knows whether the protests will grow or sputter out now only to flare up again later. They could force a change of power in the PA or its collapse or turn more directly against Israel. The outsourced occupation depends on the whims of donors; it produces high prices, hunger, unemployment, and unpaid salaries. Economically, it cannot be sustained.

The subtext of the last week's protests is that the donors are essential to the PA on a day-to-day basis. But in the longer run, Europe and the United States are helping Israel maintain the political stalemate. Rather than just write hurried checks, they should set a condition for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas: renew negotiations now on a two-state agreement. Europe is busy with its own problems, though, and Washington certainly can't be bothered until November. What Ramallah will look like in November is anyone's guess.

Source  http://prospect.org/article/rebellion-ramallah

PiL, Buzzcocks, Rancid To Play Rebellion Punk Festival

Public Image Ltd., Rancid and Buzzcocks are amongst the bands set to play the 15th annual Rebellion punk music festival in Blackpool next week. 

Taking place at the city's Winter Gardens venue from August 2-5, the event will also see sets from Bow Wow Wow, Social Distortion, Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, The Only Ones, Agnostic Front, Goldblade, The Fits and Slaughter And The Dogs, with over 150 bands playing the event. 

The biggest punk music festival in the world, the festival will host live onstage interviews and spoken word, as well as punk art and punk fashion rooms and there will also be acoustic sessions from bands on the bill. For more information on the line-up and for details on how to purchase tickets, visit Rebellionfestivals.com.

In addition, Rebellion will be hosting a Christmas event, headed up by Rancid and Cock Sparrer, The Exploited and Uk Subs on December 8 at The Ballroom in Birmingham. 

Source  http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/pil_buzzcocks_rancid_to_play_rebellion_punk_festival.html

Rebellion MMA Radio: Rick Hawn, Dhiego Lima, and Adam Lynn

Rebellion MMA Radio returns this Sunday with another great line up of guests joining hosts Bryan Levick and Mitch Ciccarelli. Joining the show this Sunday will be Bellator’s Rick Hawn, along with the MFC’s Dhiego Lima and Adam Lynn.

Rick Hawn was a member of the 2004 US Olympic Judo team and is currently the number one contender in Bellator’s lightweight division. Hawn is 14-1 in his career with the lone loss coming to Jay Hieron at welterweight. Hawn will challenge for the lightweight title later this year when he faces champion Michael Chandler.

Dhiego Lima is an exciting prospect out of ATT Atlanta. The brother of Bellator’s Douglas Lima, the 22-year old currently fights for the MFC and has amassed a 6-2 record.

Rounding out the group is fellow MFC fighter Adam Lynn. The former Marine is 17-9 in his MMA career and has fought for Strikeforce and the WEC as well.

Be sure to tune in this Sunday at 6:30 for what should be a great show. Click here for a link to the show.

Source  http://mmafrenzy.com/29247/rebellion-mma-radio-rick-hawn-dhiego-lima-and-adam-lynn/

A Better Explanation, Please

We are now nearly 48 hours into the Teresa-Sullivan-resignation news cycle but only a little closer to understanding why the University of Virginia president and Board of Visitors decided to part company. Rector Helen Dragas made some vague comments Sunday about disagreements over the university’s strategic direction, but otherwise the board has not been forthcoming.

Very possibly, the opacity is motivated by a desire to avoid getting into specifics that would embarrass the widely liked Sullivan or drag the university into an  unseemly mud-slinging contest like the one that followed the eviction of Gene Nichol from the presidency of William & Mary. However, the proffered explanations of Sullivan’s ouster seem to satisfy nobody. The University of Virginia faculty is in shock, while many outsiders who knew Sullivan are surprised and dismayed.

With all due respect to Sullivan’s right to depart with quiet dignity, the board owes the public a better explanation. The University of Virginia is the commonwealth’s flagship educational institution and what happens there sets the tone for the rest of the public university system. The stakes are simply too high. Higher education is facing a crisis in the United States as parents and students rebel against runaway tuition hikes and new technologies threaten to disrupt the traditional model of providing education in isolated campus settings.

By all accounts, Sullivan was a popular and effective president — at least by traditional collegial standards. But if she was not displaying sufficient alacrity in adapting to the fiscal, economic and technological challenges to Mr. Jefferson’s University, the board needs to say so.

Source  http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2012/06/a-better-explanation-please.html

Veteran Director Back With Rebellion Film

Veteran director Andrei Smirnov has returned to the screen after nigh on three decades with a look at a dark period in Russia’s history, a peasant rebellion that was brutally crushed by the Bolsheviks after the Revolution.

“Zhila-Byla Odna Baba,” or “Once Upon a Time There Lived a Woman,” follows a simple peasant woman in the Tambov region in 1920, whose life is turned upside down by the Revolution and the subsequent uprising.

Smirnov, 70, said he had long wanted to make a film about the human effects of the Revolution.

“It was natural for me to look at the topic of the village, the death of the Russian village, the revolutionary era and the Civil War,” Smirnov said at a recent news conference about the release of his much-anticipated film.

The revolt in the film is based on a real insurrection in 1920-21 that was sparked by the forced confiscation of grain by Bolshevik forces. It was one of the most well-known rebellions against the Soviets and was cruelly crushed. Thousands died in the conflict, and chemical weapons were used at one point by the Bolsheviks, the first time a state ever used such weapons against its own people.

Smirnov focuses his plot on the story of Varvara, played by the young actress Darya Yеkamasova, who survives rape and the death of loved ones.

“The story is shown through the eyes of a simple woman who doesn’t understand who is Red and who is Green, but who like every woman gives undying support to her family and children,” Smirnov said.

Critics have seen Varvara as a symbol for Russia itself.

“I wanted the viewer not only to cry or to laugh, but to think about the fate of Russia,” Smirnov said.

Rock singer and public activist Yury Shevchuk also stars as member of the peasant army.

Smirnov is most famous for his 1971 film “Belorussky Vokzal,” or “Belorussky Station,” a touching drama about several World War II veterans meeting for a reunion after many years of not seeing one another.

He directed only two more films after that hit, turning to acting and screenwriting for the last three decades. He most recently played one of the leading roles in Andrei Zvyagintsev’s art-house hit “Elena.”

Smirnov said in an interview with Afisha magazine that he gave up directing because of problems with censorship.

The film has had mixed reviews, with some comparing the director’s offering to Nikita Mikhalkov’s much-criticized sequels to the Oscar-winning “Burnt by the Sun.”

Kommersant film critic Mikhail Trofimenkov said the film showed that Smirnov had lost none of his directing skill, but called the film artificial propaganda against communism.

Like Mikhalkov’s films, “Zhila-Byla Odna Baba” received lavish state backing and support by state-friendly businessmen. Billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and the Kremlin’s chief ideologist Vladislav Surkov both backed the film, Smirnov said, and bizarrely, the names of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, Rusnano head Anatoly Chubais and Russian Railways chief Vladimir Yakima are all thanked in the film’s credits.

So far the film, which cost more than $6 million to make, looks unlikely to turn a profit with less than $500,000 worth of tickets sold since it debuted earlier this month.

Source http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/veteran-director-back-with-rebellion-film/448924.html