divendres, 29 d’abril del 2016

La anomalía de la Barbarie

La civilización no es el punto final de la historia moderna, sino una sucesión de intervalos recurrentes en los espasmos de la barbarie
Civilization is not the endpoint of modern history, but a succession of interludes in recurring spasms of barbarism. The liberal civilization that has prevailed in some Western countries over the past few centuries emerged slowly and with difficulty against the background of a particular mix of traditions and institutions. Precarious wherever it has existed, it is a way of life that has no strong hold on humankind. For an older generation of liberal thinkers such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Isaiah Berlin, these were commonplaces. Today these truisms are forbidden truths, which can no longer be spoken or in many cases comprehended.

Liberal civilization is not the emerging meaning of the modern world but a historical singularity that is inherently fragile. This is why it is worth preserving. Defending this form of life against ISIS requires a clear perception that the jihadist group is not an atavistic force that—with a little assistance from intensified bombing—will fade away with advancing modernization. If the threat is to be removed, ISIS will have to be defeated and destroyed.

The simpleminded reasoning that rejects any Western military action on the grounds that earlier interventions were counterproductive fails to take the measure of the challenge that ISIS now poses. The Paris attacks, which appear to have been a response to defeats in the field, show that the state that ISIS has created cannot simply be contained. Nor would containment be enough in ethical terms, since ISIS has demonstrated a capacity for genocide. But the aim must not be to replace ISIS’s theocratic totalitarianism with a replica of liberal democracy—a delusional project that has unleashed the forces by which we are now besieged. A functioning state that enjoyed a reasonable measure of local support and could keep the peace would be a sufficiently challenging objective for Western policy. JOHN GRAY
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El PIB europeo sube a niveles anteriores a la crisis








El triunfo del bipartidismo

"A los pocos minutos de haber acabado las elecciones todo el mundo en España celebró la muerte del bipartidismo. Pues bien, ahí está el bipartidismo, la venganza cobrada: el 26 de junio unas nuevas elecciones evaluarán la salud del bipartidismo y la de su modelo alternativo. Todos los medios subrayan el fracaso de la política y de los políticos. Y habría que precisar. Porque lo cierto es que la nueva política no ha sabido garantizar lo que la vieja ha dado durante décadas: gobierno y estabilidad. (...) La nueva política ha dado dos partidos incompatibles entre ellos e incompatibles con los demás. No es descartable que los ciudadanos quieran volver a respirar, a partir del 26 de junio, el viejo y conocido olor." / ARCADI ESPADA

Letonia quiere revertir el éxodo de jóvenes hacia la UE para evitar una 'catástrofe demográfica'

TELEGRAPH.- The tins of smoked sprats, pickled herrings and mackerel in tomato sauce were a favourite staple of Soviet kitchens, as familiar as Heinz beans and Marmite in the West. But now the sprawling Brivais Vilnis cannery on the shores of the Gulf of Riga is facing hard times.

First the forklift truck drivers left for building sites in Ireland. Then the computer programmers headed to London, and the women who gut and thread the fish onto long needles for smoking departed for plants in Norway and Sweden.

While Britain weighs up leaving the EU because of a tide of migrant workers, for the little Baltic state of Latvia the long-sought dream of membership has come at a phenomenal price: the loss of hundreds of thousands of its educated young.

Now a grand national effort, likened by diplomats to Israel’s immigration programme, has been launched to lure the diaspora home and avert a demographic catastrophe.

“Last November, we were seeking 20 workers, and it was almost impossible to find them,” complains Arnolds Babris, the chairman.

The town of Salacgriva has shrunk by a quarter to 7,959 people in 15 years.
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La policía belga sabía desde 2014 que los Abdeslam planificaban un 'acto irreversible'

POLITICO.- Belgian police had information as early as mid-2014 that Paris attackers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam intended to carry out “an irreversible act,” according to a classified police watchdog’s report on the country’s response to the Paris attacks.

Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up in Paris last November during the attacks that killed 130 people, while Salah fled and was captured in Brussels last month, four days before the terror attacks in Brussels.

The conclusions of the report, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, says the brothers’ radicalization, links to Paris attacks mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and their intention to commit some sort of act were known to Belgian security forces well before the attacks.

The police’s anti-terror unit argued that it could not file a report on the brothers into the central police database because it could not be established with certainty which brother was involved.

But the watchdog questions that argument, saying the names of both Abdeslam brothers, who lived in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, were already in the database.

The report highlights sloppiness by individuals, limited resources and a lack of procedural guidance for officials dealing with highly sensitive information.
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Más de la mitad de los menores de 30 años de EEUU rechaza el capitalismo

This trend among our young people is very real, and you can see it in their support of Bernie Sanders. For millions upon millions of young adults in America today, Hillary Clinton is not nearly liberal enough for them. So they have flocked to Sanders, and if they had been the only ones voting in this election season, he would have won the Democratic nomination by a landslide.
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Trump tiene menos posibilidades que Cruz de derrotar a Clinton

THE WASHINGTON POST.- Cruz is clearly the stronger of the two candidates in a match-up against Clinton. While he trails her, it's by three points as opposed to the 8.5 point deficit for Trump. And, unlike Trump, Cruz actually has led Clinton in head-to-head polls -- albeit during a relatively brief period earlier this year.

Those polling charts, of course, capture the state of the race today -- a race that hasn't truly engaged in any meaningful way just yet
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Noticias de mi pueblo / La resurrección de Mas



'No soy enemigo de España'

¿Ya es primavera en El corte Inglés?