Influo 7

2008-07-27T14:33:00.007-03:00

Processed World magazine was founded in 1981 by a small group of dissidents, mostly in their twenties, who were then working in San Francisco's financial district. The magazine's creators found themselves using their only marketable skill after years of university education: "handling information." In spite of being employed in offices as "temps," few really thought of themselves as "office workers." More common was the hopeful assertion that they were photographers, writers, artists, dancers, historians or philosophers.

Beyond these creative ambitions, the choice to work "temp" was also a refusal to join the rush toward business/yuppie professionalism. Instead of 40-70 hour weeks at thankless corporate career climbing, they sought more free time to pursue their creative instincts. Nevertheless, day after day, they found themselves cramming into public transit en route to the ever-expanding Abusement Park of the financial district. Thus, from the start, the project's expressed purpose was twofold: to serve as a contact point and forum for malcontent office workers (and wage-workers in general) and to provide a creative outlet for people whose talents were blocked by what they were doing for money. [link]

-----

What is a bad attitude? I'd say it's a general unwillingness to submit to the conditions of wage-slavery. It's demonstrated most dramatically in a surly, uncooperative manner on the job, but must usually be more subtle. The worker with a bad attitude is always looking for ways to work less (procrastination, losing things), to surrender less time to the job (coming in late, leaving early, long breaks and lunches, lots of sick days), to further private pleasures and human interaction on the job (talking a lot, smoking dope), and by doing one's own creative work on the job.

A bad attitude is a fundamentally normal, human response to the utter absurdity of most modern work. It's a mystery to me why more people don't demonstrate a bad attitude--i suppose it's because they fear unemployment and/or lost income and have learned to smile and hide their true feelings. Of course I've done that too, and all too often. You can't get a job in the first place without smiling and lying through your teeth!

Sometimes people don't demonstrate bad attitudes because they actually enjoy their work. Why people enjoy work is harder to explain, but I postulate three basic reasons: 1) the work is a convergence of avocational interests and paying work (this is extremely rare); 2) the work, though boring and/or frustrating, is preferable to the individual's life with family, or friends, or lack thereof; and 3) going to work saves one from finding and creating meaning, of deciding what's worth doing (this is obviously not an explicit motivation, but I think it is a subterranean spur). In the latter two cases, the job serves as a safe haven from the vacuum of meaninglessness in which this society would otherwise leave the individual. Providing economic security reinforces this feeling. [link]

-----

Los Alamos never lapsed into its pre-war lassitude. Within a few years the thermonuclear bomb had been created, and it was then that my father arrived. An astronomer from Toronto's David Dunlop Observatory, a Ph.D. student with the University of Chicago's Nobel prize-winning astrophysicist Chandrasekhara, my father came to Los Alamos to work in "T (for 'for Theoretical Physics) Division," a group that was responsible for the development of newer and more useful nuclear weapons.

(...)

The hazards were both as hidden and as distant as the sites themselves, but inevitably the military and civilian worlds overlapped. A schoolmate of mine lost a few limbs to a relic of a simpler form of war. Someone had found an old bazooka shell in a remote range and had dropped it off a cliff a few times. It didn't explode, and thinking that it was a dud, he took it home, His kid found it in a closet and took it out to show friends. It was dropped on the sidewalk, and the detonation tore the arms and legs off of several children and killed a little tyke who was riding his brand-new birthday bicycle past the house.

The town's unique product was so common as to become normal. The only way I can remember its sinister aspect bothering me was in a recurring dream I had when I was about six years old. In it I am floating in outer space. Dimly seen against the stars are floating things, which I thought of at the time as resembling "tractor parts." They are drifting together in small clumps, and when two unknown pieces meet everything will end. I'm unable to stop any but a very few. I would awaken in panic, unable even to scream. These dreams faded away harmlessly in a year or so.

(...)

In later years we discovered drugs. My friend DJ overdosed on belladonna when we were about 10 and I never saw him again. The city has long had a notorious drug "problem" among its youth, which mirrors the alcoholism among its adults. The wife of one of the directors was a substitute teacher and a horrible alcoholic, embarrassing us with her simple tests (which she accused us of cheating on) and her incoherent singing in music class. Both of my parents were alcoholics, my father almost losing his clearance before he quit drinking with the aid of the Lab's alcoholism program. It may be that the isolation contributes to it, but it's also a sign of stress—the employees can't talk about their work, can't really question it, and can't escape from it.

(...)

Despite the elaborate security (fences, guards, numbered copies, badges, and so forth) the code words and euphemisms, the inhabitants of this unique village were not ignorant of what they did. The machinists, computer techs, secretaries, and the like may not have "the big picture," but the physicists and mathematicians in the weapons groups, as well as the administration types, saw it well enough. They, probably more than anyone else, know what nuclear weapons can do. The original scientists were very concerned about the role of the bomb, discussing it in political terms, not just technical ones. The questions raised were often profoundly disturbing to them. The later scientists saw themselves as distinct from the military on one hand, and from the policy makers on the other. They rationalized that they were not responsible for the final decisions. My father made an illuminating reference to this view of the lab's position when he said of the Pentagon, "Don't confuse us with those bastards."

There is an inherent schizophrenia in this position. My father pointed out that the various directors of the lab (Oppenheimer, Norris Bradbury and Harold Agnew) would say, in effect, "Nuclear weapons are one of the greatest threats to the planet today. A solution must be found or we will perish." Then, without a perceptible shifting of mental gears, they would add, "It is our mission here at the lab to develop the best and most useful weapons." From one side of the mouth speaks the humanist, and from the other the company man. [link]

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Though CLODO's emphasis on computer technology reflects a specific area of expertise and interest, they are ideologically close to the other saboteurs of the region: they claim to work as an ad hoc grouping, associating around particular actions and interests, and eschew the notion of themselves as a formal organization. They have no rigid rules and principles and tolerate considerable diversity among individual participants; they distinguish themselves from traditional left groups by their rejection of a "vanguard'' role, their explicitly anti- authoritarian playfulness and a sense of humor that they wield as an ideological weapon. [link]

-----

Now consider the bureaucracy of the future, where regulation books have been replaced by an integrated information system, a system that has been given language. Terry Winograd, an AI researcher, quotes from a letter he received:

"From my point of view natural language processing is unethical, for one main reason. It plays on the central position which language holds in human behavior. I suggest that the deep involvement Wiezenbaum found some people have with ELIZA [a program which imitates a Rogerian therapist] is due to the intensity with which most people react to language in any form. When a person receives a linguistic utterance in any form, the person reacts much as a dog reacts to an odor. We are creatures of language. Since this is so, it is my feeling that baiting people with strings of characters, clearly intended by someone to be interpreted as symbols, is as much a misrepresentation as would be your attempt to sell me property for which you had a false deed. In both cases an attempt is being made to encourage someone to believe that something is a thing other than what it is, and only one party in the interaction is aware of the deception. I will put it a lot stronger: from my point of view, encouraging people to regard machine-generated strings of tokens as linguistic utterances, is criminal, and should be treated as criminal activity." [link]

-----

When the new labs opened, a rift developed between the original scientists and the new group. In science these days, molecular and cell biology is "in." Chemistry and biochemistry still play a basic role, but biological disciplines such as physiology, which consider the whole organism, are "out." At the universities all the aspiring biologists want to study genetics. As a result, their overall outlook tends to be limited to the microscopic level at best.

For the first few years of the genetic engineering labs, Rob, the plant physiologist, was down in the dumps. He had been counseled that his specialty -- the study of the overall plant and how it reacted with the surrounding environment -- was no longer where it was at. To be more employable he needed to get into molecules. When the labs developed plant lines that had to move into the greenhouse, and then outdoors into an actual field, it became apparent that the molecular and cell people didn't know the first thing about whole plants. They didn't consider, for example, that if you move a gene that influences a certain stage of growth, it might affect the overall maturation of the plant.

(...)

In an infinite range of possibilities, the industrial sponsors are having a bigger say than ever before in what science is actually developing. The universities are busy organizing academic biotechnology consortia to facilitate the flow of basic research to industry (in return for funding and a piece of the patent action). The ties between academia and industry, always present, have reached unprecedented levels in the case of biotechnology.

(...)

Genetically engineered herbicide tolerance is an interesting case in point, though it's not a project at the labs where I work. The agrichemical companies became the biggest backers of genetic engineering of plants in the early 1980s. They invested early, and financed full scale in-house research labs. Finding a specific gene that carries a specific trait is one of the difficulties of genetic engineering.

(...)

The research stops here--the skills developed toward gene isolation and manipulation are put on hold while the rush to product development takes over. Imagine the implications of spraying all the timber plantations in the semi-wild with herbicides. But there is no research into these ecological consequences -- research dollars are committed to bringing products to market as soon as possible.

(...)

Back in our labs, the push is also on. I've asked a number of scientists how they feel about herbicide tolerance being the pilot product of genetic engineering? How do they feel about the way the technology they develop is actually applied? Stephanie smiles, and though she is the leader of the molecular biology group, she just shakes her head and says she's glad herbicide tolerance isn't one of our projects. Rob also shakes his head, doesn't say anything. He's already had the funding pulled out from under projects he's worked on at two other labs, losing his job both times. He's not too anxious to make any statements. Pete, busy at the chemistry bench, shrugs his shoulders and acknowledges that funding is everything. "You work on what they are willing to fund."

Steven, one of the younger scientists, once confided to me that the herbicide tolerance work is dangerous. He was labeled a liberal by the rest of the group for being against the attack on Iraq. This relatively mild political stance made his lab mate so uncomfortable she stopped speaking to him. He recently left the labs to go back to graduate school and study environmental law. Two years ago, another young cell biologist left for law school. He, however, was going to be a patent attorney. [link]

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For Shorris, totalitarianism is the process of destroying autonomy. Corporate totalitarianism idolizes efficiency in its bureaucracies and takes its ideology from industrial psychology, management textbooks and classes. The result is a microworld where the autonomy of human beings is systematically thwarted.

(...)

A public relations man and his friend, an engineer, have fights through the years about the way different processes or products are described to the public; the engineer wants more technically precise language, the PR man wants to make an impact by keeping things simple. The author notes the use Nazi Germany made of simplifications (and could also have put in some analysis of how Reagan and Co. do the same). What emerges is an insightful glimpse of language: "Simplifications are perfectly opaque. . . simplifications impose "one-track thinking' upon the listener; they cannot be considered. . . In its use as propaganda, language passes from the human sphere to that of technology. Like technology. . . it does not recognize the right to autonomous existence of any person but the speaker. To disagree with the language of the technological will is to disobey." But one can, and Shorris does, disagree with and disobey the language of the technological-propagandistic will. [link]

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There is a pretense of friendliness among all office employees regardless of their rank. This "nice'' atmosphere works conveniently to legitimate the hierarchy. If it seems that everyone is equal and has an equal chance to climb the ladder, the ladder itself appears as the emblem of this "equal opportunity.'' All this makes for an extremely subtle set of power relations.

Rather than through raw confrontation, power is reinforced by imbuing the entire office terrain with its symbols through things like dress, the size of one's desk or workspace, and "perks.'' In such a setting, people may try to reduce their powerlessness by playing the game of privilege or forming alliances with those more powerful than themselves. Indeed, this type of behavior is almost required for survival in a typical office. [link]

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Sometimes, when a station janitor was sick I would have to do two complete floors. We all get sick a lot, probably because we're exposed to everybody's garbage and because they cut off the air conditioning at 6:30 p.m. to save money, meaning we breathe the stale, dust-laden air all night.

(...)

While you're vacuuming you can hardly hear anything; my ears would ring from the noise. Commercial vacuum cleaners are built without any noise reducing insulation. I understand that Hoover once marketed a soundless vacuum cleaner and it crashed because people associate power with noise and thought it was wimpy. Sometimes I used to turn around and find the foreman, watching me vacuum, with his arms crossed. I'd cut it off and ask him if I was doing a satisfactory job of running a damned vacuum and he'd just walk away. [link]

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I decided to try other careers for a while, which resulted in a 16-month stint as a temporary word processor and a near nervous breakdown. No matter what the job situation I would leave at 5 p.m. fuming at my dumb-shit bosses, who bolstered their feeble egos by generating a feverish pace of work; a pace which, I soon realized, masked the work's meaninglessness. This was also about
the time I started reading Processed World, which awoke me to the fact that wage labor was a no-win situation. Whether word processing for the law firm or thought processing for the university, the employee always loses, financially, psychologically, and emotionally.

It also became clear that any kind of career whatever under capitalism was a sham-and especially so in the 1980s. Professionalization, I realized, was nothing more than a tremendous ruse to get a swollen baby-boom generation to compete harder than its parents for fewer jobs while feeling more important. [link]

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Nor can these programs cope with the causes of the stress which drive people to drugs, namely intense work paces, boredom and bosses. The EAP's job is to fit the "maladjusted" workers to the company's norms, not to campaign for lighter workloads or socially useful work. Even Newsweek, in its story on "Drugs in the Workplace," concluded that the real roots of drug abuse lie in the fact that "many jobs are. . . like torture. . . these people bring mind-altering drugs to ease the boredom, the tension and the stress of doing their job." Once an "abuser" agrees to seek help for a substance problem, the usual "treatment" is a new, legal drug, e.g. methadone, darvon, valium. Individuals are then coached in how to go on living with just the right amount of drug use, and are offered prescriptions for new drugs.

(...)

Unfortunately, the existing methods of "rehabilitation" are dubious at best. They are characterized by two basic kinds of "treatment": a new drug to replace the illegal one, or going cold turkey in a halfway house. The regimen in the halfway program usually involves breaking the addict's individual spirit and reimposing respect for outside authority (we can imagine that there might be another type of halfway program in which people genuinely helped each other out and created a new community of affection and support, without the crutch of authority). Following these prerequisites the reformed junkie is trained to work (or look for work) instead of using drugs . . . unfortunately, most jobs lead one right back to a desire for drugs, and a desire for the big money to be made from selling drugs. [link]

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JOB APPLICATION

I'd like to apply for a job.
Yes, the job you have available;
my manner is most saleable
and I hope you'll find me suitable
for $5.15 an hour.

I really have the skills, you see,
I've been to university
and though I studied history
I've found my heart to truly be
in men's ties and socks/glass figurines/the discount shoe industry.

What makes me think I'd be good for this job?

um, I love working with people.
...and I love riding the subway an hour and a half each way;
let's see, add those hours to my day
and I'll be making a whopping $3.75 an hour!

oh, no — sir — I do want the job. Can't you tell by my suit?
No, actually, I don't own a dress;
I don't feel comfortable, I confess.
But hell,
for $5.15 an hour
I'll endeavor to wear some colors other than black—

um, I enjoy working with the public, and I'm good with money...

Oh yes, you're right
all us girls are good with money—
yes, that's charming, yes, how funny.
You know, I like a good work atmosphere
where the boss says whatever he wants
and the rest of us just listen...
I'm a very fast learner
and I promise that if you give me this job
I'll be the perfect subhuman
and never let my contempt shine in my worshipping eyes!

I love working with people,
and let's see — what else was I going to tell you?

No, I don't expect vacation pay
and yes, I'm available every day
and though I don't like the evil way
you're looking at me, I've got rent to pay.
And yes, I can start on Saturday.

— Meryn Cadell

The Reason We Work So Hard

Perhaps the reason we work so hard is
the same reason the beaver
must always keep gnawing down trees,

Otherwise its teeth which never stop growing
curve back into its jaws
so it can't eat
and dies in agony,

Except what grows in us is not
our teeth, but
our knowledge of death—
our own and everyone we love—
which keeps gnawing at us,

And like ants, bees, termites
who can't help themselves
and are forever busy,

So we, too, are caught, caught
in a desperate work routine
from which there is no escape.

We can't help ourselves,
although poets try,

Although composers, dancers, actors,
photographers, potters, painters,
sculptors, singers, musicians try,
although saviors and bodhisattvas try,
although beautiful cocks, tits cunts,
buttocks try…

– Antler

[link]

2008-07-25T23:53:00.002-03:00

Bobby Conn 1 y 2:

2008-07-09T04:24:00.003-03:00

Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History
- Helena Sheehan
[link] ... por ejemplo, [link] ([link])

2008-06-30T23:40:00.002-03:00

"The thing about evolution is that if it hasn't turned your brain inside out, you haven't properly understood it ... Then to my surprise I discovered that it was converging with my growing interest in computers ... The connection lies in the counter-intuitive observation that complex results arise from simple causes, iterated many times over. It's terribly simple to see this happening in the computer ... it all grows out of simple lines of code that start with adding one and one, testing the result, and then doing it again. Being able to watch complexity blossom out of this primitive simplicity is one of the great marvels of our age, greater even than watching man walk on the moon ... It's much more difficult to see it happening in the case of evolution ... our invention of the computer has for the first time let us get a feel for how it works ... It's all part of the same underlying process that we in turn are a part of." -Douglas Adams, Turncoat

2008-06-29T11:29:00.004-03:00

Almacan (Kazuhiko Nakamura)
[link] [link] [link] ... y ya que estamos: [link]

2008-06-23T00:26:00.001-03:00

A young monkey with the word "crap" tattooed on the forehead by "scientists" from the Royal College of Surgeons laboratory in England.

2008-05-24T12:31:00.001-03:00

Superman Ortiba!
extraterrestre del orto!

2008-05-11T00:04:00.005-03:00

Tres alquimicas excentricidades ideológicas, dos muy oscuras pero originales (aunque no realmente substanciales o coherentes), y una tercera que tiene cierto impulso real:

El Stalinismo-no-Leninista de Tomasini Bassols

El stalinismo por todos conocido nació apoyándose en el culto a un Lenin altamente deformado. Claro está que desde los análisis del trotskismo se puede afirmar que el stalinismo está separado del leninismo por el río de la sangre de la vieja guardia bolchevique [link]. O sea, plantear el stalinismo como no leninista forma parte del, digamos, ABC del trotskismo. Pero, ideológicamente y hacía afuera, los stalinistas siempre afirmaron ser la continuación del leninismo y de Octubre. Inclusive, históricamente, el stalinismo no podría haber surgido sin definirse hasta el paroxismo como esa continuación. El culto a Lenin por parte del stalinismo se puede ver como una necesidad historica de la contrarrevolución termidoriana. Es por esto que esta posición es inédita:

Que quede claro de una vez por todas: sus adversarios no fueron nunca inocentes párvulos, abnegadas monjitas o moralistas desinteresados, sino gente capaz, con posibilidades y dispuesta a todo con tal de desplazarlo. El problema es que no pudieron porque, y aquí el parangón con Fidel Castro es inevitable, Stalin simplemente se volvió indispensable, insustituible: quien sabía tanto de producción de trigo como de producción de cañones, de ingeniería civil como de las perfidias de la diplomacia internacional, era Stalin.

Para ello, lo primero que hay que hacer es desligarlo de Lenin, quien a final de cuentas le sirvió como catalizador y canal para su propio desempeño político. Lenin, lo sabemos, dio un audaz golpe de estado y se entronizó en el poder, pero es innegable que hacia el final de su vida ya no tenía un programa político inequívoco y que, con tal de mantenerse en su posición de líder supremo (y de la cual era extraordinariamente celoso), estaba dispuesto a llegar a acuerdos con fuerzas sociales retrógradas y a pactar con quien fuera necesario hacerlo, enemigos incluidos. Su famosa Nueva Economía Política es el mejor testimonio de ello. Pero se topó con Stalin, quien venía con otra trayectoria, esto es, una trayectoria de contacto directo con los obreros reales y no nada más con la figura teórica del explotado, con la policía real pisándole los talones y no cómodamente organizando desde Suiza la sublevación. Y Stalin logró lo inconcebible: desplazó a Lenin y al poco tiempo, y sin mayores trabajos, a Trotsky. Se produjo entonces un corte en la historia de Rusia, y en verdad del mundo, porque lo que con Stalin ya al frente del gobierno como líder indiscutido se inició fue algo completamente nuevo, ni más ni menos que la invención y la construcción de la Unión Soviética. Por ello, dan ganas de decir: «A Lenin lo que es de Lenin, a Stalin el socialismo real». Así, eso que pasó a la historia como `Unión Soviética' es la gran creación de José Stalin. En este sentido, tal vez sólo Alejandro sea comparable a él.

Lo que Stalin forjó, en efecto, y a un costo - es cierto - gigantesco, fue una cultura que no tenía precedentes, un sistema totalmente nuevo de relaciones de propiedad y humanas, una nueva concepción del hombre, un arte nuevo y todo ello, oh! paradoja, en nombre precisamente de Lenin: estadios Lenin, avenidas Lenin, montañas Lenin, metro Lenin, museos Lenin, escuelas Lenin, etc. No es a otro sino a Stalin a quien Lenin debe su transformación en semi-dios. Así, pues, el primer gran logro de magnitudes seculares que se le puede atribuir a Stalin fue la creación de la primera gran sociedad socialista de la historia.

(...)

Sería absurdo negar que bajo Stalin y en su nombre se cometieron multitud de tropelías. Hay que decirlo: Stalin fue implacable. La vieja guardia leninista y el Alto Mando del Ejército Rojo, Katyn y Berlín, los kulaks y la oposición bujarinista, por no citar más que unos cuantos casos, podrían fácilmente testificar al respecto.

[link]

El Leninismo-no-Trotskista-y-no-Stalinista de la "LECO" costarricense

Usualmente las corrientes que se definen continuadoras del leninismo se entroncan en el trotskismo o en el stalinismo. Y aquellas corrientes definidas marxistas que atacan tanto al trotskismo como al stalinismo suelen renegar de Lenin, como es el caso por izquierda de los comunistas consejistas o por derecha de los reformistas kautskistas. Claro que hay una infinidad de otras posiciones marxistas que se han planteado por fuera de estos "troncos" (ej, los "bujarinistas"). Pero tomar hoy una posición definida leninista sin que el discurso gravite en torno al trotskismo o al stalinismo es algo de una rareza extrema (en este caso, un delirio subrepticiamente stalinista):

La crítica implacable de Lenin ha sido oculta. Trotsky en lo que empieza a colaborar hoy, es en ser un ejemplo claro del arribismo de las posiciones liberales burguesas en el seno de la lucha obrera y del partido, que nos sirve como le sirvió a Lenin para confirmar que se debe ser implacable con los arribistas, y que el que hoy un miembro del partido de la clase obrera se entregue a la causa, no es garantía de su permanencia por la mención de simples frases de maquillaje revolucionario.

Con la mentalidad del Trotskismo, no hubiera Lenin atacado a Kautsky cuando renegó del marxismo, ni a Rosa Luxemburgo cuando apoyó al nacionalismo Alemán; tampoco hubiera Marx atacado al anarquismo; pues para la forma de pensar liberal que impulsó Trotsky y que mucho cala en los sectores acomodados, lejos de impulsarse el carácter científico crítico del marxismo, pasó a vulgarizarse como un dogma religioso de fórmulas memorísticas y esquemas absolutos.

El estalinismo que fue otra de las vertientes que se dedicó a tratar de destruir el bolchevismo, con ideas burguesas, también atacó a Trotsky. Pero hay que recordar que Estalin se encargó de asesinar inclusive a sus aliados para no tener ninguna disputa posible con quienes conocían sus mecanismos para controlar el poder y destruir el partido. Los filisteos ayudantes del imperialismo (consecuentemente) nos atacarán de estalinistas por atacar a Trotsky, y podrán decir que si acaso iremos luego a atacar a Lenin y a Marx, cuando lo que dejan ver es que están evitando a toda costa el estudio de las polémicas de Lenin hacia Trotsky, que han abandonado (si es que han tenido) el más mínimo comportamiento científico con la teoría, más nosotros junto a Lenin preferimos "decir la verdad con desacierto que silenciarla si la cuestión es grave"

[link]
---

Desde entonces el referente político organizativo de clase que significó el bolchevismo y la teoría de Lenin, ha sido castrado por un lado por Estalin y el estalinismo y por el otro por Trotsky y el trotskismo.

(...)

El trotskismo ha sido una amalgama de todo género oportunista, que busca crear una maraña de categorías y esquemas formales para confundir los conceptos claros del marxismo y del leninismo. Una amalgama que en todas partes tiene hilos conductores que lo amarran al estalinismo, en su desesperada lucha por defender los intereses capitalistas. Esto es una muestra clara de cómo bajo la disciplina obrera del partido y el control vigilante de los obreros un centrista puede olvidar su egoísmo y servir a la revolución, pero en el momento que no demuestre su abnegación al proletariado, debe ser desechado y tratado como saqueador.

(...)

A estos revolucionarios de palabra y liberales burgueses de hecho, deben cobrar las masas las múltiples traiciones históricas que han sufrido; no hay lugar para estalinistas, ni trotskistas, ni castristas, ni sandinistas, en las filas del partido obrero, el partido real no de palabra, el partido independiente de los liquidadores y contra ellos.

[link]

Estas dos posiciones sin substancia no son mas que excentricidades de individuos sin influencia. Pero quizás sean interesantes en alguna medida como disparadoras de ejercicios mentales (aunque muy, muy en el aire).

Se puede plantear en el primer caso el por qué no hubo, antes de la caída de la URSS, movimientos ideologicos en ese sentido. O sea, stalinistas que renegaban abiertamente de Lenin pero conservando su stalinismo. Claramente la explicación se encuentra en el mismo origen del stalinismo, de su necesidad de apoyarse en la figura de Lenin. O sea, del stalinismo como algo sin substancia en sí. Y aún más importante, que de las múltiples posibilidades de transformación ideólogica las que se difunden son aquellas que empalman con los intereses materiales concretos de grupos sociales. La conversión prototipica de la burocracia rusa y los PC's satélites desde el stalinismo, fue hacía la negación del comunismo en su totalidad y la adopción abierta de posiciones centroizquierdistas que planteaban claramente no sacar nunca los pies fuera del plato del capitalismo. O sea, la transformación ideólogica siguió al movimiento social basado en los intereses materiales de la burocracia que se convertía en burguesía oligarquica.

En el caso de la segunda posición, por más escueta y burda que sea, plantea otra pregunta interesante, al menos como malabarismo mental. Es posible un leninismo por fuera del stalinismo y del trotskismo? Una especie de camino intermedio o de rescate de un supuesto leninismo original? Lo que se ve (apenas esbozado) en esta posición no son más que refritos de las calumnias stalinistas al trotskismo, y una condena al stalinismo muy al pasar. Entonces, queriendo pararse en el leninismo, se ataca a Trotsky con las viejas calumnias stalinistas. Lo que lleva a la siguiente pregunta. Es posible pararse desde el leninismo y atacar al stalinismo sin adoptar la crítica de Trotsky hacia este? Hay una critica al stalinismo alternativa a la de Trotsky que no caiga en el antileninismo? Parece que no.

Los Nacional-Bolcheviques

Las dos anteriores no poseen ninguna presencia concreta. Esta en cambio es jodida, porque tiene cierta tracción en la realidad rusa. Los nacional bolcheviques combinan la iconografía comunista con la nazi. En principio pueden parecer simplemente una ocurrencia bizarra, inclusive mucho más descolgada que las anteriores posiciones. Pero hay dos factores que obligan a analizar un poco más detalladamente, dos factores que están relacionados entre sí. El primero es que ganaron cierta prominencia en la política rusa, el segundo es que su excentricidad replica la de un patrón ya conocido que se encarnó socialmente y fue real, el fascismo.

Los nazbol son emergentes del proceso de restauración capitalista en la URSS, un proceso que necesariamente debe atacar las conquistas sociales de la clase trabajadora. En donde no se ve en el horizonte próximo un desarrollo del capitalismo que redunde en mejoras sustanciales para el conjunto de la población. Claramente se basan en la nostalgia nacionalista por el pasado glorioso de potencia de la URSS (por qué habrían de ir más atrás?). Y lo hacen dentro del contexto de la crisis de la restauración capitalista, y salta a la vista que tienen una ensalada ideológica incoherente en la cabeza. Pero los nazis también se basaban en una ensalada ideológica y apelaban a la idea del "pasado glorioso" nacional, y también empezaron como un movimiento marginal.

NUESTRO PENSAMIENTO: EL OXÍMORON NACIONAL-COMUNISTA.

Nuestras fuentes ideológicas y referentes abarcan desde los clásicos marxistas europeos (Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Gramsci), los marxistas iberoamericanos (Mariátegui, Guevara, Castro, Jorge Abelardo Ramos) y del tercer mundo en general (Mao, Ho Chi Minh), los llamados nacional-bolcheviques (Radek, Liszt, Lenz, Niekisch, Strasser, Thiriart,Dugin, Luc Michel ), los representantes del socialismo no marxista y autogestionario (Sorel, Bakunin, Prouhdon, Durruti, Pestaña), los representantes del nacionalismo revolucionario (peronistas montoneros, bolivarianos, sanmartinianos, artiguistas, martianos), los socialistas panárabes (nasseristas, baasistas), los islamistas revolucionarios (Khomeini, Shariati), etc.

Damos a nuestro pensamiento el nombre de Nacional-Comunismo, oxímoron que debe ser entendido como síntesis revolucionaria, acción sinérgica, transversalidad y convergencia de extremos aparentemente irreconciliables (nacionalismo e internacionalismo, tradición y revolución, valores materiales y espirituales).[link]

Al igual que los nazis en sus comienzos, combinan un nucleo derechista y ultra nacionalista con demagogia socialista. Y al igual que los primeros, se presentan como el partido de la "acción" en el medio de un mar de descontento signado por la aparente falta de alternativas políticas reales. En cierto punto se los puede ver como la consecuencia lógica del stalinismo, en donde el movimiento desde el internacionalismo leninista a la adoración a la "gran madre rusia" stalinista se lleva a su extremo. Emergen en un contexto diferente al de los grupos neonazis del primer mundo, un contexto golpeado por la crisis y marcado por el derrumbe reciente desde el lugar de potencia, mucho más análogo al de Alemania post primera guerra. Por el momento son pequeños, pero podrían ser el embrión de algo mayor. Eventualmente pueden ser impulsadoa por poderes mayores, estructurales (así como la gran burguesía alemana impulsó a los nazis financieramente) y sirven como una reserva y semillero de cuadros de la reacción. No hay que perderlos de vista. [link] [link]

Y hasta se están poniendo "creativos" con la agitación: [link]

2008-05-03T16:06:00.002-03:00

Zdzislaw Beksinski (1929-2005)

[link] [link] [link]

2008-04-04T17:02:00.002-03:00

El Chorinauta

2008-02-19T22:41:00.002-02:00

Propaganda evangelista de un "ex-ateo", la novedad es que está targeteada para el segmento ABC1-IPod'ers-Dotcommers: [parte 1] [parte 2] [info]

2008-01-12T23:39:00.000-02:00

Mayo de 1925, discurso de Gramsci en el parlamento italiano, analizando el Fascismo en las narices del propio Mussolini (con intervenciones de este último): [link]

Y ya que estamos: [link], [link] y [link].

2007-09-14T12:01:00.000-03:00

La cabeza de estos tipos:

Army Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge, who lost both legs in Iraq last year when an improvised explosive device hit his Humvee, runs with President Bush on the South Lawn of the White House, June 27:

Mike McNaughton, a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army who lost his leg in a land mine explosion in Afghanistan:

Q How does it feel to be with the Commander-in-Chief running around the track?

SERGEANT DUNCAN: Fantastic. It's an accomplishment. It's like the pinnacle of recovery, I think. Being a wounded vet, coming of Afghanistan a little over a year-and-a-half ago, being here, running around this track is just amazing. I couldn't ask for anything better.

THE PRESIDENT: Don't ask him why he outran me.

Q Why did he outrun you?

THE PRESIDENT: Because he's a faster runner. Anyway, thank you guys. It's a proud moment for me, a proud moment:

UPDATE:

2007-03-09T22:52:00.000-03:00

Insect
Lab
Studio:
[link]

2007-03-01T16:00:00.000-03:00

Para leerlo todo: [link]

UPDATE: Ahora el link da a un blog de spam, si hay una nueva dirección y alguien la sabe por favor comentelo, es una pena que este offline.

2007-02-28T09:48:00.000-03:00

Posters polacos: [link]

2007-02-27T19:55:00.000-03:00

Animatronic human sculpture: [link]
y otras artesanías: [link]

2006-05-29T23:30:00.000-03:00

Bad Boy Bubby

2006-04-26T11:56:00.000-03:00

Calvin and Hobbes: [link] [link]

2006-03-26T00:32:00.000-03:00

Klaus Barbie, jefe local de la Gestapo en Lyon durante la ocupación nazi de Francia, se ganó el mote de "el carnicero de Lyon" con 14.311 torturados, 4.342 asesinados y 7.500 deportados a campos de exterminio.

In this position he became especially active against French partisans, promoting the torture and execution of thousands of prisoners. He personally tortured prisoners whom he interrogated. Among the more specific charges against him were that he ordered the death of French Resistance leader Jean Moulin and the deportation of 44 Jewish children (aged 3-13) and their five teachers, all of whom later were delivered to the Auschwitz extermination camp. [link] [link] [link] [link]

Para entender por qué Barbie estaba en Bolivia en Julio de 1980 comandando la represión militar y paramilitar de la dictadura narcoburguesa, junto con asesores argentinos de la ESMA, hay que remontarse al menos hasta los fines de la Segunda Guerra.

En 1945, Allen Dulles dirigía la OSS en Berna, la agencia norteamericana antecesora de la CIA. Ante la perspectiva de la influencia de posguerra de la URSS y sobre todo la de los partisanos de izquierda que habían resistido a los fascistas, urgía contar con anticomunistas probados, entrenados y organizados. Dulles se encargó de que Reinhart Gehlen, cabeza de los servicios secretos de Hitler contra la URSS, pusiese a disposición de los yanquis el más importante aparato nazi de espionaje.

Having participated in operations to interrogate Russian POWs in the concentration camps, Gehlen had to be aware of the intentional murder of as many as four million Soviet POWs by shooting, torture and starvation. Gehlen knew that his chances of survival were nonexistent if he were captured by the Russians and he made plans to surrender to the Americans.

Anticipating defeat, Gehlen microfilmed all of the Nazi intelligence files on these territories and buried them in a remote Austrian pasture. If there was one redeeming quality about the Nazis which was appreciated by their U.S. counterparts, it was their hatred of communism and the Soviets. Gehlen created a need for his services by playing on America's worst fears of Soviet hegemony. Insisting that there was to be an imminent war with the Russians and the U.S. after Germany's defeat, the Nazi spy was greeted with open arms by members of the U.S. intelligence community -- who accepted the offer of his extensive files -- and his German spy ring already in place in the Soviet block. They were willing to overlook Gehlen's status as a war criminal. Dulles said of the Nazi spymaster, 'He's on our side and that's all that matters.'

(...)

The Nazis and their collaborators were employed for many reasons, not just as spies and guerilla fighters against the Soviets. Scientists were brought to the U.S. to work on atomic, chemical and biological projects as well. Nazis with any expertise on Soviet affairs were recruited as consultants. However, the most controversial aspect of the program was the utilization of fascists by American intelligence in a program named 'Operation Bloodstone'. These people were incorporated into the programs involving guerilla warfare, sabotage, demolition, assassinations and propaganda. According to Simpson, Nazis were inducted into the U.S. army and Special Forces. After five years of service, they were eligible for citizenship. [link]

La organización de Gehlen se convirtió, en parte, en lo que fueron los servicios secretos de la Alemania Occidental desnazificada, la BND. Gehlen la presidió (oficialmente) hasta 1968. Barbie perteneció a estos nazis que encontraron protección y un nuevo trabajo bajo las órdenes y el financiamiento del gobierno yanqui. Continuó sus actividades en Alemania hasta 1951, año en que se ordena su traslado y llega a Bolivia en 1951 ó 1952, haciendo escala previamente en Argentina.

According to Klaus' CIA file which was declassified on April 27, 2001, his job was to keep track of communists. The CIC protected him from French prosecution. A 1967 American Army document, declassified on April 27, 2001, said, "Exposure of Counterintelligence Command's role in evacuating him from Germany to avoid prosecution would have serious consequences for the U.S. government." [link]

Hay que tener en cuenta que Bolivia, como tantas veces, era un hervidero revolucionario. En 1951 el MNR de Paz Estenssoro, un partido pequeño burgués apoyado por el PCB y el POR (trotskista), ganó las elecciones con un programa radicalizado de nacionalizaciones y reforma agraria. Pero la posibilidad de asumir le fue arrebatada por el golpe del general Ballivián. Sin embargo, en 1952,

On the morning of the 9th April [1952] armed bands from the MNR, together with a section of the police, started an insurrection in La Paz. At the start it seemed to be a conspiracy that involved few people. As in many previous coups, in spite of the initial successes of the rebels the army had the situation pretty well in hand. At the end of the day the rising seemed almost smashed.

But next day the movement took on proportions which went far beyond the MNR. Throughout the country there were very serious clashes between the army and the masses: at Cochabamba, at Oruro, at Potosi and elsewhere, the workers armed themselves and marched on La Paz. The 'fabriles' (workshop workers) from the Viacha industrial zone swept towards the capital, and the miners from Milluni occupied the railway station at La Paz and seized a train carrying munitions, all of which shifted the situation in favour of the insurrection. In addition armed miners from the Catavi region surrounded the town of Oruro, thus removing any possibility of the government sending reinforcements to the capital.

On the 11th April the Ballivián military junta fell. The MNR took power. Armed bodies of workers converged on La Paz.

After the fall of the junta the army evaporated in a few days. Armed groups of civilians took over the barracks and the police stations and occupied local government buildings. In the mining districts and towns the movements became organised and rapidly created workers militias. Five days after the end of the fighting in La Paz a network of workers' militias covered the country. [link]

Como buen ejemplo de gobierno nacionalista burgués en país atrasado, el del MNR estuvo plagado de contradicciones y terminó disgregado a izquierda y derecha,

The system of worker self-management in Bolivia emerged from the popular revolution of 1952, when an alliance of class conscious miners, peasants and nationalist petty bourgeois overthrew the oligarchical pro-imperialist regime. In the first phase of the revolution, the workers and peasant militias were able to destroy the army, expropriate the mines and realize the redistribution of land. The armed militias of the miners, through their assemblies and unions however, were geographically and politically confined to their mountain strongholds and isolated from the mass of the peasantry, which came under the influence of the nationalist petit bourgeoisie (Nationalist Revolutionary Movement) which gained control of the government and reorganized a bourgeois state. This created a system of dual power which led to intensified conflict in the post-revolutionary period. Throughout the 1950s the Bolivian Workers' Movement took militant action, general strikes, armed confrontations, to defend the gains of the Revolution, while the MNR bureaucratized the nationalized mines, establishing a State Mining Company, COMIBAL which effectively took control away from the workers while retaining state ownership. [link]

Por supuesto, la preocupación de los gobiernos del MNR que se sucedieron desde 1952 fue la reconstrucción del Estado capitalista y la liquidación del "doble poder". El eje de esto fue la progresiva reconstitución del Ejército, hasta que estuvo en condiciones de medirse con el movimiento obrero y derrotarlo. Al mismo tiempo, el MNR, sobre todo al principio, hacía toda clase de concesiones y tomaba medidas "progresivas", como la nacionalización de las minas, la reforma agraria, la liberación de los campesinos indígenas de la servidumbre de los latifundistas (que se mantenía casi intacta desde la colonia), etc.

Pero, como sucede en estas circunstancias, las concesiones iban dirigidas a desarmar políticamente a los trabajadores y a preparar las condiciones para derrotarlos. Sin embargo, el MNR, al cumplir esa tarea contrarrevolucionaria, iba entrando en crisis y escindiéndose (Walter Guevara Arze, funda el PRA, Lechín se va con el PRIN, Hernán Siles Zuazo, segunda figura del partido, constituye el MNR de Izquierda). El centro de gravedad del poder de los capitalistas fue pasando del debilitado y dividido MNR a las reconstituidas Fuerzas Armadas. [link]

[link] [link] [link] [link]

En mayo de 1964, en elecciones dudosas, Paz Estenssoro es reelegido presidente luego de su segundo mandato, con el apoyo de las fuerzas armadas. En octubre, en la pampa de Sora Sora, cerca de la ciudad de Oruro, se produjo un enfrentamiento entre el ejército y los mineros de Siglo XX y de Huanuni.

The student demonstrations at Oruro inevitably brought in the miners. Casualties in these demonstrations included dead and wounded and the repression was brutal even during the funerals that were held for the victims.

The army decided to move against “San Jose,” the mine center in the outskirts of Oruro where the miners have a radio station. Thanks to a relation of forces in its favor, the army came out on top. But meanwhile the decisive miners’ centers of Siglo Veinte, Catavi and Huanuni were drawn into the struggle. The miners’ forces from these centers met a contingent of the army close to the small village of Sora-Sora. The encounter ended in the complete rout of the army and the capture of arms and even some prisoners [see interview below]. The miners then decided to draw back to their bases before the army could open a counteroffensive. [link] [link]

Ante el ascenso de masas, en noviembre un golpe militar depone a Paz Estenssoro -que se limita a huir del país sin llamar a la resistencia- y lo reemplaza con una junta encabezada por el general René Barrientos. La CIA instala su cuartel en el Palacio Quemado y Barrientos asigna a Klaus "Altmann" Barbie la dirección de las tareas represivas,

By the early 1960s, the CIA recruited Bolivian General Rene Barrientos Ortuno who, in turn, launched an attack on the presidential palace in 1964. Paz fled the country, and the CIA placed General Rene Barrientos Ortuno in power. The American government sent in troops to assure control as well as bringing 1,600 military officers back to the United States for training. This group included the top 23 Bolivian Army generals. The French continued their hunt for Barbie, but the United States government denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.

Barrientos placed Barbie on his Department 4, his internal security force, and Barbie was put in charge of planning counterinsurgency operations. When Bolivian tin miners walked out and struck again, Barbie quickly responded by using Nazi techniques of interrogation, torture, and murder. Over 100 miners were killed by Department 4 troopers. Barbie extended his terrorist tactics when he launched an attack against Bolivian Indian tribes whom he considered genetically and culturally inferior.

Barbie also continued to prosper by starting the Estrella Company which sold bark, coca paste, and assault weapons to a former SS officer, Frederich Schwend in Lima, Peru. Schwend had been trained by the OSS in the early 1940s after he had informed CIA Director Dulles that the German SS had hidden millions in gold, cash, and loot as the European war was winding down. Both Schwend and Barbie formed Transmaritania [Transmaritima] which was a shipping company that also generated millions of dollars in profits from the cocaine business. They purchased their weapons from another SS colleague, Colonel Otto Skorzeny who had been Hitler's favorite Stormtrooper, and who had started the Merex weapons business in Bonn after the war. [link]

Barbie's specialty was suppressing internal strife; he had been a high-ranking member of the Einsatzgruppen, death squads which purged Jews from lands newly conquered by the Nazis. Newly installed in Bolivia, Klaus Barbie began training paramilitaries in the same death-squad style tactics he had pioneered in Nazi Germany. He went straight from the service of Hitler to the service of corporate greed.

The first victims of Barbie's renewed rampages in South America were striking labour unions representing tin miners in Bolivia in the 1960's. His death squads went on to squash other revolutionary movements in Bolivia throughout the 60's and 70's, ensuring that US-friendly rulers dominated the seats of power.

Suppressing labour interests in South America was the first step in securing corporate power, but it also had the effect of creating paramilitary death squads that would later be used to suppress the peasants and indigenous peoples who would oppose full-scale free trade. Barbie's training methods effectively became the template for both military and paramilitary training all across South and Central America. Barbie's methods also became the template for US death squads in Vietnam, known as the "Phoenix" program. [link]

[link] [link] [link]

Hay que notar que estos métodos de contrainsurgencia no eran exclusivos de Barbie, se enseñaron en la Escuela de las Americas a infinidad de militares que luego los aplicaban con esmero. Interesante acotación de Chomsky:

If you look at the American army's counterinsurgency literature (a lot of which is now declassified), it begins with an analysis of the German experience in Europe, written with the cooperation of Nazi officers. Everything is described from the point of view of the Nazis - which techniques for controlling resistance worked, which ones didn't. With barely a change, that was transmuted into American counterinsurgency literature. (This is discussed at some length by Michael McClintock in Instruments of Statecraft, a very good book that I've never seen reviewed.) [link]

Además, los programas de contrainsurgencia de EE.UU. se basaron de manera bastante explícita en el modelo nazi, que fue tratado con respeto: se consultó a oficiales de la Wehrmacht y, en la posguerra, se utilizaron sus manuales para desarrollar en todo el mundo programas de contrainsurgencia, llamados característicamente "contraterrorismo." [link]

Una de aquellas tácticas era la desaparición "Nacht und Nebel":

"esta orden de Hitler, ratificada de inmediato por el Estado Mayor Alemán, parece ser el primer precedente formal e institucionalizado del sistema de desaparición forzada de personas utilizado como método de detención, a pesar de que éste tuvo otras expresiones anteriores a lo largo de la historia....De esta orden transcurrió un año y en 1941 Hitler puso en práctica otro decreto.

Este, conocido más tarde como 'noche y niebla', expuso las formas mediante las cuales el Estado nazi esperaba llegar a 'la solución final del problema judío': el exterminio sistemático en los campos de concentración.... Bergen, Buchenwald, Treblinka, Auschwitz, Maidanek... esos nombres del horror y la indignidad están en la historia, tanto como los métodos usados para hacer desaparecer a los prisioneros y todo el sistema montado con ese fin: el desvanecimiento en la noche y en la niebla."

(...)

"...en realidad el Führer había pensado que la desaparición de esta francesa sería más impresionante que su ejecución y tendría la ventaja de no hacer de ella una mártir, como Miss Cavell... Y después Hitler concibió la idea de generalizar ese caso aislado. A lo largo de una entrevista con Keitel, en septiembre de 1941, le impartió instrucciones: las actividades comunistas en los países ocupados se extendían, y las sentencias de los tribunales, que exigían largos procedimientos y condenaban en general a penas de prisión, carecían de todo efecto psicológico. Ordenó entonces que sólo se iniciaran procesos en los países ocupados en los casos en que, de acuerdo al derecho vigente, se podía contar con certeza y en el más breve plazo con condenas a muerte.

Por el contrario, todos los demás acusados (y ésta fue la expresión misma utilizada por Hitler) debían ser enviados "en la noche y en la niebla" (Nacht und Nebel) del otro lado de la frontera, a Alemania, donde serían "completamente aislados del mundo exterior". Esto produciría un efecto de intimidación, contrariamente a lo que ocurría con las condenas en los países ocupados." [link]

"En vista de la gran extensión de las áreas ocupadas en el Este, las fuerzas disponibles para propósitos de seguridad solo serán suficientes, si toda resistencia es castigada, no dentro de un proceso legal de los culpables, sino a través de la diseminación de tal terror (Schrecken)..., que toda disposición de resistencia entre el pueblo, será eliminada". [link]

Volviendo a Bolivia,

A mediados de 1965, el gobierno militar desata una ofensiva para liquidar los restos del doble poder. El Ejército ocupa las minas y derrota una huelga general llamada por la COB. Los barrios obreros de La Paz se insurreccionan sin dirección alguna, movimiento al que se sumaron sectores campesinos cercanos a El Alto. El Ejército y la Aviación usaron todas sus armas para despejar las barricadas, donde la resistencia obrera fue desesperada.

La confianza de los trabajadores en el nacionalismo burgués del MNR había resultado fatal. [link]

En junio de 1967 el gobierno realiza un ataque ejemplificador a los mineros de Catavi que recientemente habían votado el apoyo a la guerrilla del Che. Se conoció como "la masacre de San Juan":

Shortly before this, the Catavi mine section had adopted a resolution that the miners of that district would give a day's wages (out of their below-subsistance pay) and some medical supplies (of which they had all too few) to the guerrilla fighters of the south east.

(...)

The workers met inside the mine with their leaders, and the secret assembly, among other things, ratified the Catavi decision. Shortly after this, on 24 June, the army quietly arrived by train, encircled the mining encampments, and at dawn launched an out-and-out attack on what the High Command described as 'enemy territory'. The attack was particularly outrageous because it caught the miners while still asleep after the peaceful feast of St John when, on what is reputedly the coldest night of the altiplano winter, there are bonfires, dancing and drinking everywhere - a national ritual in fact. This attack was described by the government as 'preventive'; to justify themselves afterwards, they quite falsely accused the miners of intending to attack the Challapata garrison near Lake Poopo -a ludicrous suggestion since at that moment there was only one battalion of engineers there, and they had almost no weapons. The miners, at home and asleep in their beds, were in no state to defend themselves. However, the alarm siren sounded, and they fought valiantly with dynamite and a few antique Mauser rifles from the 1914 war. But resistance was useless. The number of deaths was given officially as thirty. In fact, almost seventy miners, and their wives and children, were killed, in their homes or in the streets of Siglo Veinte. This magnificent action by the armed forces now figures in the already plentiful history of Bolivian workers' martyrdom as ' the massacre of San Juan'. [link]

[link] [link] [link]

En octubre de 1967 lo matan al Che en La Higuera. Gustavo Sánchez, viceministro del interior durante el gobierno de Siles Zuazo (1982-1985) confirma la presencia de Barbie en Camiri:

"El nazi Barbie, como Klaus Altman, fue asesor de Barrientos en servicios de inteligencia y contrainteligencia y estuvo en Camiri, en la zona de operaciones durante la etapa de la guerrilla del Che. Según tenemos información, a sugerencia del señor Barbie, se realizaron algunos cambios en los mandos militares que enfrentaban a la guerrilla.

Además, Barbie dio un cursillo rápido a un selecto grupo de militares sobre las formas de interrogatorio. Varios detenidos extranjeros y nacionales fueron victimados con el clásico estilo de Klaus Barbie, un tiro en la nuca y su cuerpo tirado desde helicópteros en la selva boliviana.

La ocupación de las minas en la noche de San Juan - 24 de junio - en 1967, fue un clásico operativo al estilo nazifascista: tomaron las aldeas mineras con ráfagas de ametralladoras y disparos de mortero y luego bombardearon. El ejército boliviano nunca había tenido ese estilo de lucha, jamás había practicado las desapariciones y otras "técnicas de muerte" semejantes."
[link]

Algunas cifras,

Between October 1966-68 Amnesty International reported between 3,000 and 8,000 people killed by death squads. Blum, W. (1986). The CIA A Forgotten History, p. 264 [link]

Sin embargo, la resistencia no cesaba,

El 1° de mayo [1968] un mitin de masas militante, antiimperialista y antimilitar se llevó a cabo con consignas fuertemente radicales y condenó abiertamente la dictadura de Barrientos. En las ciudades principales -Oruro, Cochabamba, Potosí, Santa Cruz- hubo demostraciones similares. En Cochabamba, el prefecto del distrito, general Reque Terán... apareció en la demostración respaldado por la fuerza. Trató de arengar a la multitud pero no se lo permitieron. Hubo una violenta reacción de los obreros que gritaban: ¡Usted asesinó al Che! ¡Lacayo imperialista! ¡Gorila! Tuvo que retirarse frente al clamor general. "Además de las consignas militantes indicadas hubo gritos de aclamación para el Che y las guerrillas en estas demostraciones. El gobierno movilizó todas sus fuerzas: la policía, la guardia nacional, el ejército, la fuerza aérea (los Mustangs sobrevolaban las demostraciones de La Paz para amedrentar a los manifestantes), pero no se atrevió a reprimir. La Junta se acobardó y se retiró. Está claro, que más que expresar el nuevo ascenso y espíritu militante de las masas, las demostraciones de Mayo significaron una victoria sobre el gobierno. [link]

En abril de 1969 Barrientos muere en un accidente de helicóptero y en septiembre es finalmente reemplazado por el general Ovando, que integraba el directorio de Transmaritima, la empresa que Barrientos fundó y de la que Barbie tenía el 49% de las acciones (el 51% restante eran del Estado). El gobierno de Ovando adopta un perfil nacionalista y oscila entre concesiones a las masas (nacionalización de Gulf Oil, semilegalización de la COB, etc) y medidas represivas.

Bajo el gobierno de Ovando, el ejército aplastó a la guerrilla izquierdista dirigida por "Chato" Peredo. En julio de 1970, este grupo lanzó una lucha guerrillera cerca de la comunidad minera de Teoponte, en una batalla condenada al fracaso de una manera aún más clara que la de la debacle de Guevara en Ñancahuazú. A pesar de la garantía personal de Ovando, los que se rindieron fueron ejecutados en el acto. Un mes más tarde, una banda fascistoide de matones pagados y armados por Alfredo Candia [*], jefe local de la Liga Anticomunista Mundial, asaltó brutalmente y ocupó la Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) en La Paz con la tolerancia del ejército, dejando un saldo de decenas de muertos y heridos. [link]

Las divisiones cada vez más profundas se reflejaron en las fuerzas armadas. Un sector, encabezado por el general Rogelio Miranda, propiciaba intentar una escalada represiva y estrechar lazos con el imperialismo. El otra ala, dirigida por el general Juan José Torres, se inclinaba por la utilización de las masas para extorsionar al imperialismo, obteniendo así la posibilidad de apaciguar momentáneamente a las masas y aplazar el enfrentamiento para un momento mas propicio. Hasta cierto grado, las divisiones en el ejército eran hasta geográficas. Miranda apoyado por los círculos dominantes de Santa Cruz y Torres por los del altiplano (región de La Paz). [link]

Barbie festeja la llegada del año nuevo de 1970 en Perú (centro):

En octubre de 1970 el general Miranda, representante del ala más pro-imperialista del ejército, se alza en armas contra el gobierno de Ovando logrando su renuncia. La respuesta popular no se hace esperar,

Mientras tanto, la verdadera lucha de clases boliviana continuaba. Durante agosto y setiembre. Ovando zigzagueaba entre las masas que pedían concesiones y un sector de las clases dominantes que insistía en la línea represiva. En agosto, una batalla por el control de la Universidad de San Marcos precipitó una crisis nacional. El 6 de octubre de 1970 Ovando renunció entregando las riendas del gobierno a Miranda. La consecuencia fue una inmediata explosión masiva en la forma clásica. Estudiantes y obreros se lanzaron a las calles para impedir la asunción del ultraderechista.

El ejército se rompió totalmente. El general Torres declaró su oposición a la nueva Junta nombrada por Miranda y se reunió con Juan Lechin, el jefe de los sindicatos mineros y con Siles Suazo, un ex-presidente del país y con los principales dirigentes del MNR.

"Los estudiantes comenzaron a construir barricadas en las calles de la capital para bloquear cualquier movimiento de las fuerzas favorables al General Miranda", informa Le Monde del 8 de octubre". En Catavi los poderosos sindicatos mineros denunciaron el golpe de estado fascista de los oficiales derechistas y decidieron ofrecer 'apoyo condicionado' al general Torres.

"La federación de mineros exigió armas 'para defender nuestras conquistas sociales' y puso como condición para su apoyo 'el establecimiento de libertades democráticas y libertad de los presos políticos, derogación de los decretos anti-huelga, nacionalización de la banca extranjera y todos los intereses americanos, expulsión de todos los organismos imperialistas y el establecimiento de un gobierno popular. La COB ya ha preparado un llamado para una huelga general en todo el país'."

La COB también ordenó a sus miembros bloquear las calles y evitar los movimientos de tropas dentro de La Paz.

Se unieron a la acción destacamentos armados de campesinos, civiles armados liberaron a los presos políticos, los hogares de militares y civiles ultraderechistas fueron asaltados, se ocuparon los edificios de tres importantes periódicos, jubilosos mineros tomaron estaciones de policía y anunciaron que exigirían rápidos aumentos de salario.

El New York Times informa que el 8 de octubre "estudiantes armados tomaron el cuartel general de la división criminal de la Policía Nacional. Sin aparente oposición arrasaron las oficinas y destruyeron los archivos..." [link]

La resistencia popular provoca que Miranda huya y asuma la presidencia el gral. Juan José Torres, que previamente había integrado el gobierno de Ovando y había sido redactor de su programa nacionalista, "Mandato Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas de la Nación".

El establecimiento del régimen de Torres, un producto directo de una insurrección urbana de las masas, reflejaba una situación en la cual ni el proletariado ni la burguesía tenían por el momento la carta de triunfo. Al proletariado le faltaba la dirección marxista revolucionaria necesaria para conducir la revolución a la victoria. La débil y dividida burguesía no podía reunir a las fuerzas necesarias para imponer una solución contrarrevolucionaria. Torres estaba suspendido entre ambos extremos. Naturalmente ésta era una situación inestable; la revolución debería avanzar hasta el establecimiento de un estado obrero o la contrarrevolución se recobraría, elegiría un momento oportuno para golpear e intentaría establecer una fuerte dictadura policíaco-militar.

Torres estaba entre dos fuegos. Otorgó concesiones al proletariado mientras le impedía movilizarse definitivamente contra las fuerzas de ultraderecha. Ofreció un escudo a los ultraderechistas mientras forcejeaba por mantenerlos quietos.

En última instancia, condujo una operación de sostén para la burguesía en una situación prerrevolucionaria.

Desde el punto de vista proletario las concesiones otorgadas por Torres no eran duraderas ni iban demasiado lejos, pero por el momento eran muy importantes. Incluían la liberación de prisioneros políticos y la nacionalización de algunas empresas imperialistas. La clase trabajadora y el campesinado podían funcionar con legalidad casi total. Era una oportunidad única para que los marxistas revolucionarios salieran de la clandestinidad y trabajaran con toda su energía para construir su partido revolucionario y profundizar y extender sus lazos con las masas.

El 10 de enero de 1971 las fuerzas contrarrevolucionarias intentan otro golpe pero nuevamente son rechazadas por la movilización de masas. Esta vez éstas estaban mejor organizadas, reflejando los avances que se habían hecho desde las movilizaciones que derrotaron al general Miranda tres meses antes. Miles de mineros armados desfilaron por La Paz. El movimiento de masas empezó a proclamar abiertamente su propósito de una transformación socialista de Bolivia.

Bajo esta creciente presión, el régimen de Torres otorgó mayores concesiones. La International Metal Proccessing Corporation fue nacionalizada. En febrero, Torres accedió aumentos de salario a los mineros. [link]

El torrismo buscaba que las masas identificasen rechazo al fascismo con apoyo incondicional al gobierno. "Las masas rápidamente dieron su respuesta: ganar las calles para aplastar a los fascistas y lanzarse a estructurar el gobierno propio de los trabajadores, lo que suponía superar políticamente al débil régimen torrista. Los mineros, armados de dinamitas y de unos pocos fusiles, se lanzaron hacia La Paz, que virtualmente fue ocupada por ellos. La masa ululante se apostó en la histórica Plaza Murillo y entabló un acre diálogo (muchos dijeron descortés) con el Presidente de la República, cuyos slogans nacionalistas fueron rechazados por los manifestantes... Las consignas dominantes eran 'armas al pueblo', 'gobierno obrero', '¡viva el socialismo!', '¡fusilamiento de los gorilas!', 'desarmar al ejército', etc. Torres pronunció un titubeante discurso, lleno de contradicciones y muy difícilmente pudo hacerse entender en medio de las protestas, los silbidos y las risotadas. Cuando en cierto momento, buscando ganar algunos aplausos, ofreció la 'participación popular' en el gobierno, los trabajadores le respondieron que ellos exigían un gobierno obrero y la implantación del socialismo. Al día siguiente otra manifestación de trabajadores fabriles y sectores de la clase media de La Paz subrayó las demandas expresadas de manera tan vehemente por los mineros. Torres sólo atinó a decir que si el pueblo quería el socialismo así se haría." [link]
[link]

En agosto de 1971, con el apoyo del MNR, el gral. Banzer da un golpe. Banzer había estudiado en la Argentina y su golpe en parte fue financiado por la dictadura de Lanusse con 200 millones de pesos en armas. Al instalarse en el poder nombra a Klaus Barbie "Consejero Especial de Seguridad".

There, Banzer plotted a comeback. According to a report in The Washington Post [Aug. 29, 1971], Banzer crossed back into Bolivia frequently during his exile to confer with U.S. Air Force Major Robert Lundin. That August, Banzer led a second coup attempt, which Lundin aided. When Banzer's communications broke down, Lundin made available the U.S. Air Force radio system and the coup-makers won.

Once in power, Banzer reversed policies that had angered Washington. He cut ties to Cuba and denationalized the tin industry. Banzer also launched a reign of terror, as 2,000 dissidents were arrested. The New York Times reported [Dec. 30, 1973] that "all fundamental laws protecting human rights were regularly violated" and that torture was "commonly used on prisoners [who were] beaten, raped and forced to undergo simulated executions." [link]

Sin embargo, algún tiempo antes, el Regimiento Tarapacá, se había declarado a favor de Banzer, avanzando desde El Alto hasta Miraflores, las personas de los barrios populares que trataban de resistir el avance fue ametrallada, los tanques militares llegaron a Miraflores y a Laikakota justamente cuando la gente que había peleado toda la tarde en aquel lugar, festejaba la caída y retirada del Regimiento Castrillo. Ahora, la suerte estaba decidida a favor de Banzer, la represión sañuda contra toda oposición se desató y se comenzaron a contar los muertos por decenas. La Universidad Mayor de San Andrés fue tomada por asalto al día siguiente; el lunes, una asamblea universitaria fue reprimida y hubo 7 muertos; el padre Mauricio Lefevbre, director de la Carrera de Sociología, fue asesinado mientras intentaba socorrer a los heridos. En Santa Cruz, falangistas y algunos oficiales, invadieron la sedes de los trabajadores fabriles y de los estudiantes universitarios, pasando por armas a los que allí habían tratado de oponerse al golpe. Las radioemisoras fueron tomadas y se instauró un régimen de terror, donde todos los dirigentes sindicales, intelectuales, y opositores fueron perseguidos, exiliados, apresados, y torturados. Son célebres los tenebrosos lugares donde la represión torturaba a los detenidos: la isla Coati, Madidi, Chonchocoro, Achocalla y Viacha. [link]

Banzer received (unofficially, of course) both CIA and U.S. Air Force support in the coup -- not surprisingly, since he was trained at Fort Hunt and the notorious U.S. School of the Americas.

Even in Bolivia, the overthrow of the Torres government became known for its extreme violence and the lengths the new regime took to eradicate leftist elements in the country. Universities were shut down as 'hotbeds' of radicalism, tin miners were once again violently suppressed, more than 3,000 leftists and union organizers were hauled in for interrogations and 'disappeared.'"

According to a Bolivian government report, he [Barbie] provided advice on "how to adapt the military effectively for internal repression rather than external aggression. ... The system of concentration camps [developed by Barbie] became standard for important military and political prisoners." The report also recounts Barbie's helpful counsel to the secret police in methods of interrogation, including professionally supervised electrical torture designed to extract the maximum amount of information before the subject expired. [link]

El golpe para sacar del poder a Torres fue encabezado por un oficial norteamericano y beneficiario de Gulf Oil, Hugo Banzer, quien tenía el apoyo directo de Washington. Cuando las comunicaciones radiales de las fuerzas de Banzer colapsaron, el Mayor de la Fuerza Aérea de EE.UU., Robert Lundin, puso a su disposición el equipo de radio de la Fuerza. Una vez en el poder Banzer emprendió un reinado del terror. Las escuelas fueron cerradas porque eran consideradas como puntos de "agitación política subversiva, incitados por los anarquistas opuestos al nuevo orden institucional." La Embajada Soviética fue cerrada y Banzer solicitó un préstamo internacional para compensar a Gulf Oil. En menos de dos años dos mil personas fueron arrestadas y torturadas sin juicio alguno.

Como en Paraguay, Argentina y Brasil (ver cartas 12, 8 y 5), los indios locales fueron expulsados de sus tierras y despojados de su identidad cultural. Decenas de miles de sudafricanos blancos fueron invitados a emigrar con la promesa de obtener las tierras robadas de los indios. El Subsecretario de Migración, Guido Strauss, le dijo a la ONU que su objetivo era crear una "Bolivia blanca". [link] [link]

Colonel Hugo Banzer gave total powers to Klaus Altmann to concentrate on the creation of internment camps for his political opponents...torture and executions were common in those camps. Security police under Barbie's command was witnessed proudly shouting, "We are the Gestapo! We are the Gestapo!" [link]

Así en la noche del 20, reflejando las ilusiones que tenían los dirigentes del Comando, entre ellos varios dirigentes del POR incluyendo el propio Lora, fueron a pedir armas a Torres, que se negó a entregarlas. La confianza en que Torres repartiría armas al pueblo, a pesar de todas las declaraciones de la COB y la Asamblea sobre la independencia de la clase obrera, las convertía en un instrumento de presión sobre Torres por la izquierda. Esta idea fue adoptada incluso por el propio POR, que al reclamarse trotskista debería haber adoptado una postura leninista hacia el Kerensky boliviano. El propio Lora reconoce que "era idea generalizada -compartida hasta por nosotros los marxistas- que las armas serían cedidas por el equipo militar gobernante, por considerar que sólo apoyándose en las masas y dotándolas de una adecuada capacidad de fuego podría, por lo menos, neutralizar a la derecha gorila. La conclusión resultó completamente equivocada, no se tuvo en cuenta que Torres prefería pactar con sus compañeros generales, capitular ante ellos, antes de armar a las masas que dieron pruebas evidentes de que se encaminaban al socialismo y cuya movilización ponía en riesgo serio al ejército como institución" [link]

Las masacres se suceden,

In 1973 [corrección: 1974] under the Banzer dictatorship, popular manifestations protested the country's currency devaluation by 67%. General Adriazola sent planes and troops as response. Banzer declared that "the first agitator that you bring me alive, I know what to do with him". The government blood bath in the Cochabamba valley was met with stones. Peasant leader Vidal Ríos Cedeño reported, "We returned and were met with six tanks and eight troop transport vehicles that shot at us. When we were told that the President was offering to dialogue, they killed us" [link]

En 1974 el 20 de Enero se declara la devaluación de la moneda y el 22 empieza el bloqueo campesino en Cochabamba donde miles de campesinos piden la derogatoria de esta ley, el 28 Banzer declara el Estado de Sitio, luego entran los camiones militares y tanques al sector bloqueado (donde se esperaba el diálogo) produciéndose la masacre de Tolata, Epizana, Mizque y Suticollo, con un saldo de 80 muertos y cientos de heridos [link]

El gral. Torres es asesinado en Buenos Aires. La Bolivia de Banzer integra la Operacion Cóndor.

Apenas unos días más tarde, el 26 de mayo de 1976 el ex-presidente boliviano, general Juan José Torres fue secuestrado por un grupo de civiles fuertemente armados cuando salía de su domicilio. Harguindeguy, Ministro del Interior de la dictadura militar [argentina], calificó el hecho de "autosecuestro" con fines propagandísticos. Sin embargo el cadáver de Torres fue encontrado a unos 90 kilómetros de Buenos Aires con señales de haber sido fusilado a mansalva. [link]

Given the Letelier murder in 1976, Torres in 1971, and the killing of Che Guevara - an Argentine national - by Felix Rodriguez in 1967 [The Death of Che Guevara] It takes little imagination therefore to conclude that the cold war mission of Condor had been conducted for many years, previously to what has originally been thought, on or off the record, most likely under the direct orders of the American paranoia of "reds under the beds" McCarthyism policies of the 1940's and 1950's, and fuelled by acute American embarrassment at the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco. [link]

[link] [link] [link]

Banzer apunta también a los sacerdotes de la Teología de la Liberación, y su "Plan" para los mismos se extiende al resto de Latinoamerica.

But Banzer won a special note in the annals of counter-insurgency for devising a strategy for combatting so-called "liberation theology," a religious doctrine which promotes social justice for the poor. After the Bolivian Catholic Church denounced an army massacre of striking tin workers in 1975, Banzer began his move against leftist priests and nuns. According to Penny Lernoux's Cry of the People, some clergy were targeted, with the CIA providing "personal data, studies, friends, addresses, writings, contacts abroad, etc." Government agents slandered and harassed progressive clergy. Foreign priests and nuns were expelled.

The anti-clergy strategy became known as the Banzer Plan and was adopted by nine other Latin American dictatorships in 1977 at a meeting of the Latin American Anticommunist Confederation. Over the next two years, 30 progressive clergymen were slain across Latin America, with government forces and rightist death squads implicated in the majority of cases. [link]

Por otro lado, el general Hugo Banzer, que impuso su dictadura en Bolivia de 1971 a 1978, presidió la sección latinoamericana de la WACL. Banzer organizó un plan de eliminación física de sus opositores comunistas en 1975. El Plan Banzer fue presentado como un modelo a seguir durante una reunión latinoamericana de la WACL, en Asunción, en 1977, en presencia del dictador paraguayo, el general Alfredo Stroessner. Una moción dirigida a proceder, de la misma forma, a la eliminación en toda América Latina de los sacerdotes y religiosos adeptos de la teología de la liberación fue presentada por la delegación paraguaya y adoptada por la conferencia mundial de la WACL, en 1978. [link]

El gobierno de Banzer fue un paraíso para los narcos, él inclusive,

UNO "Los mayores traficantes de narcoticos siguen operando con impunidad desde Bolivia, principalmente en el area de Santa Cruz. Estos individuos a menudo gozan de lazos familiares, politicos o de negocios con destacados oficiales del gobierno", dice el Departamento de Estado, insospechado de querer perjudicar a Banzer. Su responsabilidad como gobernante en la inauguracion de la veta blanca en Bolivia la certifica el quiebre historico en el aumento de la produccion. La produccion de las hojas de coca aumento de 6800 toneladas en 1971 a 16817 en 1977, lo que significo la elaboracion de 62 toneladas de sulfato de cocaina que produjeron una ganancia de 300 millones de dolares a los traficantes. Hay que añadir los distintos estimulos desde el Estado a sectores de la burguesia cruceña que se dedicaron al narcotrafico de manera encubierta

DOS En enero de 1980 el jefe de la policia antidroga, mayor Carlos Fernandez, recibio un llamado anonimo. Con esa pista y acompañado por un pequeño comando llego hasta la hacienda "El potrero". Encontro 300 kilos de pasta base y uniformes militares que, segun testimonios de vecinos, eran utilizados por los choferes de los camiones que transportaban las hojas de coca hasta la prensa. El dueño de la propiedad era Hugo Banzer. "Estan usando ilicitamente mi hacienda", se defendio dias despues. Publico grandes desplegados en los diarios en los que responsabilizo a "unos narcotraficantes". [link]

El pueblo seguía indomable, hasta para Banzer y toda su troupe carnicera y represora, incluido Barbie,

1976 - En enero explota una oleada de luchas de obreros y estudiantes contra el gobierno. Todo empezó en la fábrica de zapatos Manaco, a 17 km de Cochabamba. Los dueños, canadienses, deciden despedir obreros y sale una huelga. La huelga dura 15 días, la patronal negocia, pero cuando los obreros vuelven al trabajo, despiden a 900. Inmediatamente la Federación Minera y los estudiantes resuelven entrar en lucha solidaria con los obreros. La patronal retrocede. Los mineros continúan en huelga y son violentamente reprimidos por Banzer.

1977 - Faltando solo tres días para terminar el año, cuatro mujeres de mineros, acompañadas por sus 14 hijos, llegaron a La Paz. Eran las compañeras de José Pimentel, preso hacía un año y medio, y de Roberto Paniagua, René Flores y Andrés Lora, activistas despedidos en la huelga de 1976. Después de hablar con el arzobispo, ellas empezaron una huelga de hambre exigiendo del gobierno amnistía general e irrestricta, la reincorporación de los mineros y demás trabajadores despedidos por causas político-sindicales, la vigencia de los sindicatos ilegalizados y la retirada del ejército de los centros mineros. La huelga de hambre se convirtió en un detonante del movimiento de masas y del odio contra Banzer. El 30 de diciembre, 25 personas se juntan a la huelga de hambre. El 6 de enero, ese número ya se había multiplicado por diez: 250 personas hacían huelga de hambre en las iglesias, escuelas y redacciones de periódicos de cuatro ciudades bolivianas, con enorme repercusión en todo el país.

1978 - Todo el país entra en movilizaciones callejeras, huelgas de mineros y trabajadores de las fábricas de La Paz y Cochabamba, reorgani-zación dos sindicatos, asambleas masivas y marchas estudiantiles, campesinos repudiando el gobierno. La unidad en la lucha entre los trabajadores mineros y obreros de las fábricas ponía a Banzer frente a una huelga general de todo el país. Acorralado, decide retroceder y da amnistía a los presos políticos y la reintegración de todos los activistas despedidos, con pago de los salarios perdidos y la libertad de 150 detenidos durante la huelga de hambre. La dirección de la FSTMB (Federación de los Trabajadores Mineros) sale de la clandestinidad y los demás sindicatos readquieren la legalidad. [link]

La presión popular intimida a Banzer y este convoca a elecciones, que se realizan el 9 de julio y en las que muy fraudulentamente gana su candidato, el ex-ministro del Interior gral. Juan Pereda Asbún,

La campaña fue escandalosa por el continuo acoso militar a las fórmulas no oficialistas y el apoyo prebendal a Pereda. Se desataron estratégicas balaceras y gasificaciones. Los jefes castrenses de diversas divisiones anunciaban peligros para la integridad física de los candidatos cuando éstos se preparaban para hacer visitas. También repartían dinero en efectivo, incluso poblaciones como Tupiza y Roboré fueron declaradas "zonas militares". En un extremo, a pocos días de la elección se habilitaron exorbitantes inscripciones de votantes en determinadas regiones y se minimizaron en otras.

Los resultados de la elección del 21 de abril de 1978 hicieron vergonzosa historia. Baste señalar que en Chuquisaca el registro de votantes inscritos llegó al inverosimil 104% y en Santa Cruz al 100.9 %. En algunos distritos Pereda recibió una votación superior al total de los electores habilitados. Antes de que la Corte Electoral anulara los comicios, la UNP sumaba 986.140 votos (50%) y la UDP 484.383 (24,5%). [link]

La Corte Nacional Electoral anula las elecciones y por lo tanto el triunfo de Pereda. En julio este responde con un golpe (en realidad autogolpe), toma la presidencia y nombra a Banzer embajador en Argentina.

Pereda dura tres meses y es derrocado por el gral. Padilla, que convoca a elecciones para junio de 1979. En esas elecciones ningún candidato obtuvo la mayoría necesaria ni en las urnas ni en el congreso, por lo que sube por acuerdo Walter Guevara Arce del MNR (el redactor de las "Tesis de Ayopaya", el programa nacionalista que el MNR opuso a las "Tesis de Pulacayo"). Tres meses después, en noviembre, se produce el golpe del gral. Natusch Busch,

El coronel Alberto Natusch Busch lideró otro cruento golpe en noviembre de 1979, el levantamiento popular encabezado por la Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) en rechazo al golpe, fue sangrientamente aplastado: cerca de un centenar de muertos, 204 heridos y una veintena de desapariciones fueron el saldo dejado en los 16 días que duró el golpe. Tan trágico episodio de la historia boliviana sería recordado como "La Masacre de Todos Santos". [link]

A los 16 días Natusch dimite. El congreso designa como presidente a Lidia Guelier. Se realizan elecciones en julio de 1980 en donde gana Siles Zuazo sin conseguir la mayoría, por lo que el Congreso debía elegir presidente (según la muy particular ley electoral boliviana). Antes de que el Congreso pudiese elegir, el gral Luis Garcia Meza y el gral Luis Garcia Mezada encabezan un nuevo golpe. Hay que hacer notar que 5 meses antes, el 12 de febrero de 1980, Arce Goméz, con autorización del Alto mando, le otorga a Barbie el cargo de "teniente coronel honorífico". Barbie participa muy activamente en la planificación de este golpe,

In nearby coca-producing Bolivia, Nazi fugitive Klaus Barbie was working as a Bolivian intelligence officer and drawing up plans for a putsch that would add that central nation to the region's "stable axis" of right-wing regimes. Barbie contacted Argentine intelligence for help.

One of the first Argentine intelligence officers who arrived was Lt. Alfred Mario Mingolla. "Before our departure, we received a dossier on [Barbie],"Mingolla later told German investigative reporter Kai Hermann. "There it stated that he was of great use to Argentina because he played an important role in all of Latin America in the fight against communism. From the dossier, it was also clear that Altmann worked for the Americans." [For an English translation of Hermann's detailed account, see Covert Action Information Bulletin, Winter 1986]

As the Bolivian coup took shape, Bolivian Col. Luis Arce-Gomez, the cousin of cocaine kingpin Roberto Suarez, recruited neo-fascist terrorists such as Italian Stefano della Chiaie who had been working with the Argentine death squads. [See Cocaine Politics by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall] Dr. Alfredo Candia, the Bolivian leader of the World Anti-Communist League, was coordinating the arrival of these paramilitary operatives from Argentina and Europe, Hermann reported. Meanwhile, Barbie started a secret lodge, called Thule. During meetings, he lectured to his followers underneath swastikas by candlelight. [link]

El ex presidente Guevara escribió más tarde: "Si los militares bolivianos aprendieron o no algunas lecciones del golpe fracasado de Natusch Busch es algo que puede discutirse. Lo que no puede ignorarse es que los asesores argentinos del Estado Mayor sacaron las conclusiones apropiadas y eso fue muy importante, porque ellos dirigieron el golpe del 17 de julio de 1980." [link]

Al día siguiente del aplastamiento del golpe de Natusch, el proceso de preparación del próximo golpe teniendo como brazo ejecutor a una fuerza paramilitar arrancó con fuerza. La influencia argentina fue decisiva. Se trataba de aprovechar al máximo la experiencia de la "represión clandestina" puesta en marcha por el Ejército argentino antes del golpe de 1976 a través de grupos "parapoliciales" tales como la "Triple A" dirigida por el ministro López Rega y oficiales superiores de la Policía Federal. Las ventajas de este método eran múltiples: el ejercicio del terrorismo de Estado desde las sombras es mucho más efectivo que desde una institución expuesta a la luz pública, pues logra bajar la moral del "enemigo" (léase movimiento popular) desatando el pánico en sus filas, al mismo tiempo que mantiene la ilusión de una "neutralidad" de las Fuerzas Armadas o, por lo menos, no las desgasta en las "tareas sucias" de la represión política; por otra parte, logra intimidar a los sectores militares "blandos" (léase institucionalistas o democráticos) que se atrevan a cruzarse en el camino de los sectores "duros".

Los expertos argentinos en las técnicas de provocación, el terrorismo, el secuestro, la tortura y la "desaparición" llegaron en masa a Bolivia. Es verdad que el capitán Miguel Angel Benazzi, oficial de Inteligencia y uno de los primeros torturadores de la Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada argentina, ya se hallaba en Bolivia desde 1978, mimetizado como funcionario de la Agregaduría Naval de la Embajada argentina. En 1980 llegaron los "pesos pesados": el siniestro capitán Antonio Pernía, que antes se había fogueado en operaciones clandestinas en París y Madrid, y el capitán Schelling, ex jefe de Inteligencia del aparato represivo montado en la Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) en Buenos Aires, quien se llevó a todo su equipo de torturadores. En poco tiempo, la Misión Militar argentina en Bolivia infló su personal encubierto, hasta llegar a contar 70 funcionarios. [link]

La participacion directa de militares y paramilitares argentinos en el narcogolpe de Luis Garcia Meza, en julio de 1980, fue gestionada ante Videla por Banzer, quien iba y venia de Santa Cruz a Buenos Aires. En publico, el entonces dictador argentino dijo: "Entonces hemos visto con mas simpatia la existencia de un gobierno militar porque no queremos tener en Sudamerica lo que significa Cuba para Centroamerica".

En 1985 Banzer afirmo que su partido, Accion Democratica Nacionalista (ADN) -fundado en 1979-, habia tomado como modelo a la Union del Centro Democratico (UCeDe, el partido de Alsogaray). [link]

De acuerdo con García Lupo, en los prolegómenos del golpe de García Meza aparecieron en Bolivia "individuos que hablaban como argentinos" y que "actuaban enmascarados, secuestraban personas y las torturaban dentro de vehículos en movimiento", técnicas para combatir la subversión hasta ese momento desconocidas en Bolivia y que tenían un inequívoco acento argentino. Asimismo, afirma que los militares argentinos intentaron "argentinizar" Bolivia entre el golpe de 1980 y 1982, exportando" su modelo de represión interna a través de la directa injerencia de comandos armados en territorio del Altiplano. Por su parte, la carta de Información Política y Economía (IPE), que se edita en La Paz para medios empresarios, sostiene que en el golpe de 1980 "los argentinos intervinieron cruelmente a lo ancho y a lo largo de sus sangrientas y brutales jornadas". Ver sobre este tema R. García Lupo, op. cit., p. 132; pp. 153-154 y p. 174; R. Russell, "Argentina y la política exterior del régimen autoritario...", op. cit., pp. 115-116, y R. Russell, "Las relaciones Argentina-Estados Unidos...", op. cit., pp. 24-25.

Por último, Daniel Santoro sostiene que el licenciado en Administración de Empresas y oficial de nominación primera del batallón de Inteligencia 601 dependiente de la jefatura II de Inteligencia del Ejército, Leandro Sánchez Reisse, entregó al Ejército argentino "el dinero obtenido por la venta de armas argentinas al narcotraficante boliviano Roberto Suárez Levy" para apoyar el golpe de los narcomilitares Luis García Meza y Luis Arce Gómez contra el gobierno democrático de Lidia Gueiler el 17 de julio de 1980. Asimismo, Santoro aclara que el gobierno de Videla no sólo envió armas en apoyo al golpe militar boliviano, sino también decenas de asesores militares y hasta spots publicitarios de TV que habían sido usados en la Argentina después del golpe del 24 de marzo de 1976 que derrocó a Isabel Perón. Ver al respecto D. Santoro, op. cit., pp. 19-20. [link]

Una de las estrategias era cometer atentados para provocar una situación que "justificase" el golpe.

El Comité Impulsor comprobó que altos miembros del ejército boliviano entrenaban y dirigían a grupos paramilitares que cometían diversos atentados terroristas por todo el país, y que asesinaron a opositores políticos, lanzaron bombas contra manifestaciones, atacaron sedes de organismos políticos, religiosos y culturales, y atentaron contra un avión en el que viajaban líderes del movimiento político UDP. Se confirmó que todos estos atentados se hicieron con el propósito de justificar el Golpe de Estado, en vista de una supuesta incapacidad del gobierno para controlar el terrorismo. [link]

Como parte de esa campaña asesinan a Luis Espinal, sacerdote y cineasta, que decía cosas como:

"En Bolivia y a lo largo de Latinoamérica muchos en las Fuerzas Armadas están involucrados en el tráfico de drogas ¿de qué otro modo podrían darse el lujo de vivir en mansiones con sirvientes, de manejar coches caros y de salir de vacaciones a Estados Unidos o a Europa?" - Luis Espinal, sacerdote católico de la orden jesuítica y profesor de la Universidad de la Paz. En 1979, cuando investigaba la participación de la dictadura militar de Bolivia en el tráfico de drogas, fue secuestrado y torturado, y su cuerpo fue arrojado al costado de un camino cerca de La Paz. Doscientas mil personas asistieron a su funeral. [link]

Una de las víctimas luego del golpe fue Marcelo Quiroga:

On July 17, the Cocaine Coup began, spearheaded by Barbie and his neo-fascist goon squad dubbed Fiances of Death. "The masked thugs were not Bolivians; they spoke Spanish with German, French and Italian accents," Levine wrote. "Their uniforms bore neither national identification nor any markings, although many of them wore Nazi swastika armbands and insignias."

The slaughter was fierce. When the putschists stormed the national labor headquarters, they wounded labor leader Marcelo Quiroga, who had led the effort to indict former military dictator Hugo Banzer on drug and corruption charges. Quiroga "was dragged off to police headquarters to be the object of a game played by some of the torture experts imported from Argentina's dreaded Mechanic School of the Navy," Levine wrote.

"These experts applied their 'science' to Quiroga as a lesson to the Bolivians, who were a little backward in such matters. They kept Quiroga alive and suffering for hours. His castrated, tortured body was found days later in a place called 'The valley of the Moon' in southern La Paz." Women captives were gang-raped as part of their torture.[link]

Con García Meza en el poder, la CIA utilizó el dinero del narcotrafico boliviano para financiar a los contrarrevolucionarios que se enfrentaban al sandinismo en El Salvador y Nicaragua.

En todo esto estuvo involucrado el general que se ha llevado sus secretos a la tumba, incluso su relación con el golpe de Estado del general Luis García Meza (1980), que fue clave para ayudar al financiamiento de los paramilitares centroamericanos, hechos ya investigados en diversas causas. Precisamente la asistencia militar argentina a la 'narcodictadura' boliviana, que alcanzó a casi medio millar de asesores, correspondió a un pacto siniestro para colaborar a financiar ese golpe.

En esos momentos los mayores narcotraficantes de Bolivia lograron una enorme expansión a través de los militares y esto estuvo en pleno conocimiento de la DEA, especialmente en su sede de Buenos Aires. El ex agente de la CIA Michael Levine, dijo que este organismo y la propia DEA ocultaron información, porque el proceso desarrollado era en todo favorable a Washington tanto en la región como en Centroamérica.

El enlace con los militares argentinos fue el coronel Luis Arce Gómez, ministro del interior de la dictadura (hoy detenido por narcotráfico). Arce, junto a su pariente Roberto Suárez, estructuraron la fórmula de tráfico de drogas y lavado de dinero que contaría con la cobertura de los asesores argentinos en Centroamérica.

Esto se hizo mediante un pacto por medio del cual los narcotraficantes bolivianos financiarían a las bandas paramilitares de la región y que se firmó en Bolivia con el delegado del general Suárez Mason, el teniente coronel Hugo Miori Pereyra, Stéfano Delle Chiaie de Avanguardia Nazionale y delegados de la CIA.

Miori y Delle Chaie, entre otros grupos mafiosos, conformaron en Bolivia un escuadrón terrorista denominado 'Novios de la Muerte'. Ese escuadrón, al que estuvo vinculado el criminal nazi Klaus Barbie y que coordinaba con el Servicio Especial de Seguridad, enseñaba a soldados bolivianos como torturar a detenidos a la vez que protegían el contrabando de drogas.

Los asesores argentinos tenían una vinculación estrecha con estos escuadrones de la muerte mantenidos por el narcotráfico y por el propio Arce Gómez. [link]

Testimonios recabados en comisiones del Congreso de Estados Unidos revelan que la CIA había delegado en los asesores argentinos presentes en Centroamérica la organización de la contra nicaragüense antes de que el Consejo de Seguridad Nacional instrumentara la orden secreta del presidente Ronald Reagan para superar el escollo de las prohibiciones impuestas por el Congreso. Ribeiro y Hoya tuvieron un protagonismo destacado en las negociaciones que culminaron en la creación de la segunda dirección colectiva de los "contras", tras la transformación de la Legión 15 de septiembre, integrada por ex guardias somocistas, en la Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense (FDN).

El detalle de las actividades argentinas en Centroamérica, su papel de coordinación y la forma en que fueron confluyendo los intereses de las dictaduras argentina y boliviana con los intereses del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, fue complementado recientemente con la investigación del San José Mercury News, de Los Angeles, sobre la participación de la CIA en el ingreso de droga a Estados Unidos para financiar el suministro clandestino de armas a la contra.

Según dicha investigación, uno de los "ahijados" preferidos de los asesores argentinos, el coronel somocista Enrique Bermudez, provocó el salto cualitativo en el flujo de dinero en grandes cantidades para la compra de armamento y pago de los mercenarios, cuando autorizó a dos conciudadanos, Danilo Blandón y José Norwin Meneses, a montar el esquema de tráfico de drogas utilizando la incipiente estructura de la FDN en Los Angeles.

La investigación reveló que la droga distribuida en Los Angeles (y a la que el San José Mercury News atribuye el origen del boom del crack entre la población negra) era depositada en las bases aéreas salvadoreñas y desde allí trasladada en avionetas hasta aeropuertos de Texas, con la protección de la CIA. A fines de 1981, la estructura había logrado contrabandear una tonelada de droga. Blandón, quien actualmente cobra sueldo del gobierno estadounidense como agente especial de la DEA, admitió que entre 1981 y 1988 se llegó a introducir hasta 100 kilos de cocaína semanales.

La coincidencia de fechas, actores y lugares geográficos permite sugerir que parte de la droga manipulada por Blandón, con la autorización de la CIA, era abastecida por los narcotraficantes bolivianos, aún después del derrocamiento de García Meza en Bolivia, y de la restauración democrática en Argentina en 1983. [link]

Levine made headlines two months prior to the coup when his DEA sting netted Bolivian cartel leaders Roberto Gasser and Alfredo Gutierrez outside a Miami bank. He had paid them $8 million for the then-largest ever seizure of cocaine. Just a few weeks later Gasser and Gutierrez were released, thanks to pressure from the CIA and the State Department, and weeks after that both men and their cartels became principal financiers of the coup, and were rewarded by the new regime with squads of neo-Nazis to bully their competition. [link]

"By the evening of July 17, it was clear that the primary goal of the revolution (Bolivia, around 1979) was the protection and control of Bolivia's cocaine industry. All major drug traffickers in prison were released, after which they joined the neo-Nazis in their rampage (exiled Nazis like Klaus Barbie were killing civilians to overthrow the Bolivian government). Government buildings were invaded and trafficker files were either carried off or burned. Government employees were tortured and shot, the women tied and repeatedly raped by the paramilitaries and the freed traffickers.

The revolutionaries next turned to crushing the national strike. Ostensibly to show the United States that the new government was tough on drug dealers, but actually to eliminate competition and streamline and improve cocaine production, Arce-Gomez drew up a list of 140 small and midlevel drug dealers who were to be suppressed (killed or jailed). This campaign, put in the hands of the Fiancés of Death, resulted in massive drug seizures. Cocaine valued in the billions of dollars in the U.S. market was stored in the Bolivian national bank vault

(...)

Levine then talked to an Argentinean known as the "Doctor," someone Levine considered the best source of information about the "overlapping worlds of espionage and international crime," trying to sort out why the CIA supported the Cocaine Coup.

The Doctor smiled politely again. "They (the Gasser family) have been a behind-the-scenes power in Bolivia for many years. Have you heard of the World Anti-Communist League?" I (Levine) felt like a dunce. "No." "This is an organization strongly supported by the CIA. The elder Gasser -- the father of Jose, I think Erwin is his name -- is a key member of this organization. Senor Gasser is also the man who financed the 1971 coup putting General Banzer in power...this coup, by the way, was strongly backed by the CIA. This was the beginning of cocaine's rise to prominence in the Bolivian economy."

"Yes," I said, trying not to look too stunned. "So with the Gassers supporting this last coup, I would say your...assumption...may have a certain amount of validity." "That the CIA is behind it?" I said, my heart beating faster. "Well, of course Argentina backed the coup to the hilt, supported it, took part in it; we were the first to recognize the new government; we are granting them emergency loans. We wouldn't have done anything without at least some words of encouragement from your government. As a matter of fact, we have information that a group of 10 of your private banks headed by Bank of America postponed Bolivia's loan repayments, giving the new government a chance to consolidate its power base and its new cocaine economy."

I felt like crying. The Doctor continued. "And, of course, many of the same players from the Banzer coup are involved in this one, including Herr (Klaus) Barbie and General Banzer himself." "Barbie?" "Oh yes. You know who he is?" I nodded. "Well, in 1971 he used the name Klaus Altmann. He worked for General Banzer as a security advisor -- in fact, he reorganized the secret police. I believe he now has similar duties for Arce-Gomez."

(...)

The last piece of information to get me "pissed off" didn't come from a book but from a web site. This site was run by a former LAPD narcotics detective, Michael Ruppert. In it he detailed his discovery that the LAPD was infested with CIA agents and his growing conviction that the CIA was smuggling drugs into the country in order to finance covert operations. [link]

Coordinado el tráfico por los argentinos, la droga boliviana era depositada en las bases aéreas salvadoreñas y desde allí trasladada en avionetas hasta aeropuertos de Texas, con la protección de la CIA. A fines de 1981, la estructura había logrado contrabandear una tonelada de droga. Blandón, quien actualmente cobra un sueldo del gobierno estadounidense como agente especial de la DEA, admitió que entre 1981 y 1988 se llegó a introducir hasta 100 quilos semanales de cocaína.

Los argentinos fueron también los pioneros de la estructura que después utilizó el gobierno de Reagan para canalizar la ayuda encubierta a los contras. Los agentes del Batallón 601 Raúl Guglielminetti (alias "Mayor Guastavino"), Leandro Sánchez Reisse (alias "Lenny") y Jorge Franco (alias "Fiorito") se especializaron en el lavado de dinero de los fondos provenientes del narcotráfico. [link]

El involucramiento de la CIA con el tráfico de drogas va mucho más lejos y no utilizó únicamente a Bolivia como productor. Es interesantísimo sobre este tema leer a Gary Webb [link], Michael Levine [link] [mp3], Alexander Cockburn [link] y Alfred McCoy [link] [link] [link]

En 1982 la clase obrera voltea a García Meza y sube Siles Suazo como presidente,

1982 - Aquel que quedó conocido como "Septiembre Rojo", fue el punto álgido de la movilización obrera y popular hasta entonces ya vista en Bolivia. El distrito minero de Huanuni empieza una huelga general por tiempo indeterminado que se expande rápidamente por todo el país. Los mineros fueron secundados por los obreros de Cochabamba y marchas callejeras. La COB decreta huelga general y en el día siguiente es convocado el Congreso electo en 1980. Cae la dictadura militar de García Meza. El 3 de octubre, Siles Suazo y Paz Zamora son electos presidente y vicepresidente respectivamente por el Parlamento. El 8 de octubre, Siles regresa al país del exilio, y es recibido calurosamente por 200 mil manifestantes. El 10 de octubre, asume el gobierno. Casi un mes después, el 6 de noviembre, decreta un paquetazo económico que profundiza la miseria y la explotación de los trabajadores bolivianos. [link]

En febrero de 1983, Barbie es finalmente extraditado a Francia y es juzgado por sus crímenes de la Segunda Guerra, ignorando cualquiera de sus actividades posteriores.

In the early 1970s Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld received an anonymous tip that Klaus Barbie was hiding in Bolivia under the name of Klaus Altmann. In 1974, Serge Klarsfeld went to La Paz, Bolivia to try to capture Barbie, but the Bolivian military government protected Barbie, thus preventing his capture. Meanwhile, many rightist French actively worked to prevent Barbie from returning to France and thereby exposing the breadth and depth of French collaboration with the Nazis. The Bolivian dictators protected Barbie until 1983 when a civilian government took over Bolivia. In 1983, France also had a leftist government, that of François Mitterand, which had political reasons for bringing Barbie back to France. Specifically the Mitterand wanted a show trial "that would glorify the heroism of the Resistance and expose the Right (many prominent French Rightists collaborated with the Nazis during the war)." The French agreed to "buy" Barbie from the Bolivians for about $1 billion in cash and weapons. The transaction was completed in February, 1983; Barbie was flown to France in a French military plane at the same time French cargo planes delivered weapons and money to La Paz. [link]

El Departamento de Justicia de USA ya no podía negar la participación del gobierno yanqui en el encubrimiento de Barbie. Se inicia una investigación que culmina en un informe en el que únicamente se admite la ayuda yanqui a Barbie hasta 1951. El gobierno de USA en base a esto emite una disculpa oficial al gobierno de Francia.

"The Justice Department has found evidence to support a report that Klaus Barbie...made several trips to the United States from his Bolivian refuge in 1969 and 1970... [But] Attorney General William French Smith, after being advised of the findings, ruled out further Justice Department action"

A Federal official said the visits appeared to have been related to Mr. Barbie's business as co-owner of Transmaritima Boliviana, the Government-sponsored shipping company. He said there was nothing in the record to indicate that the visits were in any way linked to any American intelligence agency.

"The Miami Herald, quoting diplomatic and arms-dealing sources, reported Sunday that Barbie used a Bolivian diplomatic passport for his gun-buying forays into the United States....In one of his major gunrunning coups, Barbie shipped 100 *light tanks* from Austria in the mid-1970s, a diplomatic source told the Herald."

So according to the Herald, not only was Barbie a top agent of the Bolivian government, entrusted to purchase weapons appropriate for an army, but this was common knowledge among diplomats!

The Bolivian government was of course aware that Barbie was wanted for war crimes in France. Why would they risk international condemnation by shielding this monster - indeed, by making him co-owner of their shipping company and giving him diplomatic credentials to purchase weapons? Unless of course the Bolivians had been assured by US officials that if France made trouble, the US would intervene on their behalf. [link]

Barbie es condenado en 1987 a cadena perpetua por crímenes contra la humanidad (pero no contra los trabajadores bolivianos), y muere de cáncer en prisión en 1991.

Klaus Barbie es un ejemplo mínimo de la conexión entre la CIA y los nazis originales, es un hilo que al seguirlo puede llevar a una gigantesca bola de mierda de fuertísima actualidad. Uno podría pensar inocentemente que Gehlen usó al bienintencionado Allen Dulles para salvarse, sin embargo la conexión de Dulles con los nazis es previa a la guerra.

Averell Harriman, Prescott Bush -el abuelito de George Bush Jr.-, Allen Dulles y su hermano John Foster Dulles, todos pertenecientes a la altísima burguesía norteamericana, financiaron a Hitler a través de Franz Thyssen y armaron un circuito de lavado de dinero nazi que los benefició y permitió que los Thyssen resurgieran en la posguerra.

Dulles entered the diplomatic service after college and served as a State Department delegate to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which brought a formal end to World War I. The Versailles Treaty which came out of this conference included a provision making it illegal to sell arms to Germany. This displeased the powerful DuPont family, and they put pressure on the delegates to allow them to opt out. It was Allen Dulles who finally gave them the assurances they wanted that their transactions with Germany would be "winked at."

Dulles remained a diplomat through the early 1920's, spending part of that time in Berlin. However, he left government service in 1926 for the greener pastures of private business, becoming a Wall Street lawyer with the same firm as his older brother, John Foster Dulles.

By the middle 20's, Germany had started recovering from the effects of the war and its postwar economic collapse, and the great German industrial firms were looking like attractive investment opportunities for wealthy Americans. W.A. Harriman & Co., formed in 1919 by Averell Harriman (son of railroad baron E.H. Hariman) and George Herbert Walker, had led the way in directing American money to German companies and had opened a Berlin branch as early as 1922, when Germany was still in chaos. At that time, Averell Harriman traveled to Europe and made contact with the powerful Thyssen family of steel magnates. It was to be a long-lasting and fateful partnership.

The Thyssens' steel business had suffered greatly from Germany's defeat, and old August Thyssen had decided to guard against future setbacks by creating a system of private banks. He founded one in Berlin and another in the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In the wake of Harriman's trip, a third bank was added to the network, the Union Banking Corporation, founded in New York in 1924 with George Herbert Walker as president. Having their own personal banking system made it easy for the Thyssens to move assets around, launder money, conceal profits, and evade taxes.

By 1926, W.A. Harriman was doing so well that Walker gave his son-in-law, Prescott Bush, the gift of making him a vice president. In 1931, W.A. Harriman merged with a British firm to create Brown Brothers, Harriman, and Prescott Bush became a senior partner. During the 1930's, Brown Brothers, Harriman would increasingly direct its clients' investments to German companies. The Rockefeller family was prominent among these clients, and Standard Oil developed particularly close connections with the chemical giant I.G. Farben.

It was into this heady atmosphere of high-level investments and financial manipulation that Allen Dulles entered when he joined the firm of Sullivan and Cromwell in 1926. He would become the lawyer for the Thyssens' Rotterdam bank and would also represent other German firms, including I.G. Farben.

However, there was a serpent in this businessmen's Eden, and its name was Adolph Hitler. August Thyssen's son and successor, Fritz Thyssen, was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler and had been funding the Nazi Party since 1923. Other German industrialists would do the same. It is hard to say to what extent the American investors shared Thyssen's enthusiasm, though it seems likely that most of them were swayed less by ideology than by the prospect that Hitler would be good for business. Either way, the outcome was that many wealthy and powerful Americans wound up supporting a regime that would ultimately become their own nation's enemy, and investing in the very firms that would provide the core of that regime's military machine.

Early in 1933, both Dulles brother attended a meeting in Germany where German industrialists agreed to back Hitler's bid for power in exchange for his pledge to break the German unions. A few months later, John Foster Dulles negotiated a deal with Hitler's economics minister whereby all German trade with the United States would be coordinated through a syndicate headed by Averell Harriman's cousin. With the Nazis enforcing a favorable climate for business, the profits for Thyssen and other companies soared, and the Union Banking Corporation increasingly became a Nazi money-laundering machine. In 1934, George Herbert Walker placed Prescott Bush on Union Bank's board of directors, and Bush and Harriman also began to use the bank as the basis for a complex and deceptive system of holding companies.

(...)

The American government was not the only object of these deceptions. In the late 1930's, Fritz Thyssen, worried about the economic impact of the oncoming war, started concealing his assets. He placed many of them under the names of distant relatives in Holland and also moved large amounts of cash through his family's Rotterdam bank and from there to the Union Banking Corporation in New York. He was aided in this by Prescott Bush, George Herbert Walker, and Allen Dulles.[link]

In 1945, the former Dutch manager of the Rotterdam bank resumed control only to discover that he was sitting on a huge pile of hidden Nazi assets. In 1947, the manager threatened to inform Dutch authorities, and was immediately fired by the Thyssens. The somewhat naive bank manager then fled to New York City where he intended to talk to Union Bank director Prescott Bush. As Gowen's Dutch source recalled, the manager intended "to reveal [to Prescott Bush] the truth about Baron Heinrich and the Rotterdam Bank, [in order that] some or all of the Thyssen interests in the Thyssen Group might be seized and confiscated as German enemy property. "The manager's body was found in New York two weeks later.

Similarly, in 1996 a Dutch journalist Eddy Roever went to London to interview the Baron, who was neighbors with Margaret Thatcher. Roever's body was discovered two days later. Perhaps, Gowen remarked dryly, it was only a coincidence that both healthy men had died of heart attacks immediately after trying to uncover the truth about the Thyssens.

(...)

The enormous sums of money deposited into the Union Bank prior to 1942 is the best evidence that Prescott Bush knowingly served as a money launderer for the Nazis. Remember that Union Banks' books and accounts were frozen by the U.S. Alien Property Custodian in 1942 and not released back to the Bush family until 1951. At that time, Union Bank shares representing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of industrial stocks and bonds were unblocked for distribution. Did the Bush family really believe that such enormous sums came from Dutch enterprises? One could sell tulip bulbs and wooden shoes for centuries and not achieve those sums. A fortune this size could only have come from the Thyssen profits made from rearming the Third Reich, and then hidden, first from the Nazi tax auditors, and then from the Allies.

The Bushes knew perfectly well that Brown Brothers was the American money channel into Nazi Germany, and that Union Bank was the secret pipeline to bring the Nazi money back to America from Holland. The Bushes had to have known how the secret money circuit worked because they were on the board of directors in both directions: Brown Brothers out, Union Bank in.

Moreover, the size of their compensation is commensurate with their risk as Nazi money launderers. In 1951, Prescott Bush and his father in law each received one share of Union Bank stock, worth $750,000 each. One and a half million dollars was a lot of money in 1951. But then, from the Thyssen point of view, buying the Bushes was the best bargain of the war.

The bottom line is harsh: It is bad enough that the Bush family helped raise the money for Thyssen to give Hitler his start in the 1920's, but giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war is treason. The Bush's bank helped the Thyssens make the Nazi steel that killed allied soldiers. As bad as financing the Nazi war machine may seem, aiding and abetting the Holocaust was worse. Thyssen's coal mines used Jewish slaves as if they were disposable chemicals. There are six million skeletons in the Thyssen family closet, and a myriad of criminal and historical questions to be answered about the Bush family's complicity [link]

La conexión no era solo económica, sino profundamente ideológica. Harriman era uno de los soportes del movimiento de Eugenesia, en ese momento mucho más amplio en USA que en Alemania.

The First International Congress of Eugenics was held in London in 1912 and was attended by a certain Winston Churchill. By 1917, fifteen US states had eugenics laws to sterilise epileptics, the mentally ill and regular criminals. On the agenda of the Third International Congress in 1932 was the 'problem' of African-Americans which, according to the delegates, revealed a need to sterilise to 'cut off bad stock'. At this meeting were several Nazis, including Dr Ernst Rudin, who had been enabled to attend by the Hamburg-Amerika Shipping Line, owned by the Harriman and Bush families. On returning to Germany, Rudin, who was funded by the Rockefellers, supervised the policy of sterilising those who were retarded, deaf, blind or alcoholics.

Between 1941 and 1943, at the same time as the 'master race' mentality in Hitler's Germany was being condemned by the rest of the world, 42,000 people were sterilised in the US. Five years later the Sterilisation League/ Birthright Inc. established a eugenics centre in North Carolina. This was part funded by the Gray family, close friends of the Bush's. [link]

"The most important American political event in those preparations for Hitler was the infamous 'Third International Congress on Eugenics,' held at New York's American Museum of Natural History August 21-23, 1932, supervised by the International Federation of Eugenics Societies. 9 This meeting took up the stubborn persistence of African-Americans and other allegedly 'inferior' and 'socially inadequate' groups in reproducing, expanding their numbers, and amalgamating with others. It was recommended that these 'dangers' to the 'better' ethnic groups and to the 'well-born,' could be dealt with by sterilization or 'cutting off the bad stock' of the 'unfit.'

"Italy's fascist government sent an official representative. Averell Harriman's sister Mary, director of 'Entertainment' for the Congress, lived down in Virginia fox-hunting country; her state supplied the speaker on 'racial purity,' W.A. Plecker, Virginia commissioner of vital statistics. Plecker reportedly held the delegates spellbound with his account of the struggle to stop race-mixing and inter-racial sex in Virginia.

"The Congress proceedings were dedicated to Averell Harriman's mother; she had paid for the founding of the race-science movement in America back in 1910, building the Eugenics Record Office as a branch of the Galton National Laboratory in London. She and other Harrimans were usually escorted to the horse races by old George Herbert Walker--they shared with the Bushes and the Farishes a fascination with 'breeding thoroughbreds' among horses and humans. 10

"Averell Harriman personally arranged with the Walker/Bush Hamburg-Amerika Line to transport Nazi ideologues from Germany to New York for this meeting. 11 The most famous among those transported was Dr. Ernst Rudin, psychiatrist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Genealogy and Demography in Berlin, where the Rockefeller family paid for Dr. Rudin to occupy an entire floor with his eugenics 'research.' Dr. Rudin had addressed the International Federation's 1928 Munich meeting, speaking on 'Mental Aberration and Race Hygiene,' while others (Germans and Americans) spoke on race-mixing and sterilization of the unfit. Rudin had also led the German delegation to the 1930 Mental Hygiene Congress in Washington, D.C. [link]

General Draper was an advocate of eugenics. In 1932, William Draper financed the International Eugenics Congress and helped select Ernst Ruaudin as chief of the world eugenics movement. They promoted what he called Adolf Hitler's "holy, national and international racial hygienic mission." They worked closely with Prescott Bush who shared the same views on eugenics. In Prescott’s first run for office in 1950 he was exposed as an activist in the fascist eugenics movement. Due to the exposure, Prescott lost his first bid for office.

Meanwhile, General Draper founded the Population Crisis Committee, joining with the Rockefeller and Du Pont families to promote eugenics for population control. The administration of President Lyndon Johnson, advised by General Draper on the subject, began financing birth control in the tropical countries through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

General Draper was George Bush's guru on the population question. But there was also Draper's money--from that uniquely horrible source--and Draper's connections on Wall Street and abroad. Draper's son and heir, William H. Draper III, was co-chairman for finance (chief of fundraising) of the Bush-for-President national campaign organization in 1980. With George Bush in the White House, the younger Draper heads up the depopulation activities of the United Nations throughout the world. [link]

Hasta pocos años antes de la entrada de los EE.UU. en la II Guerra Mundial, la actitud de los círculos empresariales norteamericanos hacia la Alemania nazi fue algo más que benevolente. En muchos casos, los magnates norteamericanos llegaron a apoyar económicamente al Partido Nacional-Socialista de Adolf Hitler. Conocidos hombres de la industria, la política y las finanzas norteamericanas manifestaron públicas simpatías por los nazis en las antevísperas de la guerra. Personajes como Henry Ford, dueño de la industria de automóviles Ford y autor del libro antisemita "El judío internacional" (3); la familia Du Pont, propietaria de la legendaria General Motors; el multimillonario Rockefeller; los hermanos John y Allan Dulles (4), secretario del Departamento de Estado y jefe de la CIA respectivamente; William Randolph Hearst, propietario de la mayor cadena de periódicos norteamericana y editor de la conocida revista Selecciones Reader´s Digest; Prescott Bush propietario petrolero y abuelo del actual presidente norteamericano George W. Bush, apoyaron de formas diversas el avance del fascismo alemán durante la década de los treinta. Sus simpatías eran, al fin y al cabo, coherentes con sus intereses. Las clases poderosas norteamericanas, que vivían en su propio país los efectos sociales de las crisis económica de 1929, contemplaban al nazismo como una útil herramienta contra la agitación y el avance del movimiento obrero en Europa. Pero no era esta su única motivación. Muchos de estos prohombres consideraban que a la postre se iba a producir una confrontación entre Alemania y la Unión Soviética, y acariciaban la idea de que Hitler pudiera acabar con la primera experiencia socialista mundial.

Sin embargo, la actitud de empatía hacia el fascismo no era exclusiva de los norteamericanos. Muchos políticos europeos compartían con ellos idénticas afinidades. El mismo Wiston Churchill, considerado por la historiográfica conservadora como un abanderado de la democracia, le decía a Mussolini en 1927:

"Si yo fuera italiano estoy seguro que habría estado incondicionalmente con usted desde el comienzo al fin de su triunfal combate contra los bestiales apetitos y pasiones del leninismo" [link]

Dice Jared Israel:

Was Washington an innocent bystander during World War II? It was most surely not. The OSS, predecessor of the CIA, was engaged all over Europe. OSS operatives knew - and reported - that monstrous crimes were being committed by Nazis, following which Washington recruited these same Nazis into its burgeoning covert apparatus, the most sensitive branch of the U.S. government.

Think about this. The OSS was a small organization. The Nazi apparatus was huge and well organized. Absorbing the Nazis into U.S. intelligence was like a garter snake eating a rat. What does this mean? It means the most powerful forces in the U.S.A. had decided that the CIA was to be, in essence, a Nazi organization. [link]

No es difícil encontrar las "encarnaciones" de esas "fuerzas":

La OSS comenzó a reclutar espías en las clases dirigentes, en las empresas, en la política, en la universidad y en el mundo cultural. Donovan reunió la elite, y los hijos de J. P. Morgan formaban parte de la OSS, igual que los Vanderbirlt, DuPont, Archbold, Weil. [link]

A veces las correas de transmisión entre la clase dominante y el Estado imperialista son absolutamente nítidas y directas:

CIA under the direction of Allen Dulles help span a coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala to aid United Fruit. Schroeder Bank was partnered with United Fruit in the banana business. Allen Dulles was a sitting board member of Schroeder Bank. Both John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles had investments in firms with heavy investments in United Fruit. In addition, the American ambassador at the UN was a stockholder of United Fruit and President Eisenhower's personal secretary was the wife of United Fruit's public relations director. The Dulles brothers convinced Eisenhower that Arbenz was a threat to American national security and got his appoval to develop a plan to get rid of the Guatemalan President.

Algunas reflexiones sobre todo esto:

Usualmente cuando se piensa en nazis que escaparon luego de la guerra, se tiene la imagen de un viejito oculto, atemorizado de que lo encuentren, llevando una vida normal con su nombre cambiado. Así mismo, cuando se habla de los recursos humanos que los yanquis tomaron como botín de guerra, surgen nombres como el de Wernher von Braun o los de otros científicos inocuos. Sin embargo Klaus Barbie personifica la negación de ambos conceptos. Continuó en plena actividad y no fue apreciado por ser un talento en las ciencias de punta -obviando su participación en el régimen para poder explotarlo- sino justamente lo que se requería de él era su escencia nazi, era apreciado por serlo, por su experiencia en contrainsurgencia y represión carnicera de movimientos populares.

Inclusive si se escarba entre los científicos, no todos los que absorbió el gobierno norteamericano eran tan inocuos. Está el caso de Kurt Blome, líder de la investigación nazi en guerra biológica -obviamente experimentaba con prisioneros- que luego pasó a trabajar en las U.S. Army Chemical Corps. O el Dr. Hubertus Strughold, que probaba en prisioneros de forma cruelísima los efectos de la presión y la alta altitud, además del uso de drogas psicodelicas como la mescalina para interrogatorios, convirtiendose luego su trabajo en la base del MK-Ultra.

Un caso similar al de Barbie es el de Walter Rauff, inventor de las camaras de gas portables, que participó de la policía secreta de Pinochet, la DINA.

En este tipo de historias uno duda sobre el grado de autonomía con que el sujeto se movía. No es excluyente que Barbie haya armado su "rancho propio" con que a la vez siguiese prestando servicios a los norteamericanos. También pudo no haber recibido ordenes directas, pero la CIA igualmente protegerlo ya que le era útil. Hay muchísimas formas de colaboración posibles. Se puede dudar si seguía con la CIA, pero el grado de involucramiento de esta agencia en la vida boliviana, la vista gorda al tráfico de armas y drogas de Barbie, la prolongada resistencia de distintos gobiernos bolivianos a extraditarlo, el encubrimiento reconocido hasta 1951, la coincidencia de intereses e ideología, las relaciones nacionales internacionales de Barbie con sujetos avalados claramente por la CIA, los altos niveles de responsabilidad a los que llegó dentro de Bolivia, el curriculum de actividades brutales e ilegales de la agencia y la conexión de está con numerosos narcotraficantes y otros ex-nazis, sin hablar de su mismo origen, a mí me dejan pocas dudas.

En cuanto la relación de la CIA con el narcotráfico, creo que no tendría que sorprender a nadie que gente que voltea gobiernos mínimamente populares, y tortura y asesina de manera profesional y genocida, pueda tener pruitos en traficar drogas ó encubrir a narcos a cambio de una comisión en dinero y/o en represión. Aún dentro de la misma agencia esto se puede justificar estableciendo ideológicamente que la prioridad es la "detención del comunismo" y todo queda subyugado a ese objetivo. Me parece que es algo a tener presente además de los datos fácticos sobre el tema.

Sobre los nazis en la fundación de la CIA, la actitud absolutamente más conservadora que se puede adoptar al analizarlo es que, ante la necesidad de contar con técnicas contrainsurgentes y de terrorismo social efectivas, adoptaron las metodologías que los nazis utilizaron contra la resistencia. Esto está bastante claro, es lo que dice Chomsky. Ahora, en definitiva creo que no importa demasiado que porcentaje de nazis había en los altos cargos de la CIA, porque no me parece que de haber variado esa proporción la agencia hubiese actuado de otra forma. El comportamiento y la matriz ideológica de la CIA surgen de las necesidades e intereses del imperialismo norteamericano, y no al revés. Como Trotsky dijo poco antes de ser asesinado, "el fascismo es la destilación químicamente pura de la cultura del imperialismo". No se armaron en tantos lugares escuadrones de la muerte porque alguien dejó la ventana abierta y se colaron nazis, sino que el imperialismo acudió a técnicas nazis y sus ejecutores porque tenía necesidad de parar en una infinidad de lugares tendencias a la revolución (que no es lo mismo que la expansión de la URSS stalinista) que amenazaban sus negocios directos. Tampoco los nazis surgen porque "los alemanes se volvieron locos", sino por la acción de intereses similares (es muy instructivo al respecto leer el relato del propio Thyssen acerca del terror que sintió durante la insurección espartaquista).

Un detalle que no cutipastee antes es el de la Displaced Persons Act, una campaña de emigración que hizo entrar medio millón de europeos en los Estados Unidos entre 1948 y 1952. Entre estos emigrantes se encontraban 10,000 criminales de guerra.

El caso de la familia de Bushito y su relación con Hitler es bastante claro, pero, remitiéndome a un pensamiento similar al anterior, no creo que sea un factor que tenga que pesar demasiado en el análisis de su comportamiento. En muchos lugares donde se expone esta información sobre Bush se da a entender que su actual gobierno es una especie de asalto nazi a la Casa Blanca. Esto ignora el análisis del imperialismo norteamericano en toda su historia previa. Igualmente no hay que perderlo de vista porque una de las necesidades de estas camarillas de perpetuarse en el poder suele ser mantenerse en una posición donde puedan evitar que "se destape la olla".

Bolivia siempre fue un polvorín, creo que este breve racconto de su historia lo demuestra. Inclusive en 1985 12.000 mineros con dinamita ocupan la sede de gobierno por 16 días, clamando por el fin del capitalismo y la instauración de un gobierno obrero y campesino. Es interesante analizar las veces estuvo a punto de producirse una revolución socialista en Bolivia y como fue abortado el proceso, con la consiguiente reacción sangrienta. Es un patrón que se repite no sólo en ese pais y que demuestra las limitaciones del nacionalismo burgués. Hay un libro al respecto de Liborio Justo sobre la experiencia del '52 del que lamentablemente sólo una parte se encuentra online, vale la pena leerlo: [Bolivia, la revolución derrotada].

La tendencia al Socialismo sigue viva, [link]. El problema más profundo del imperialismo, por el cual no dudaría en utilizar infinitos Barbies, es este.

Algunas cosas que sería interesante investigar:

El papel de los ex-SS Franz Alfred Six y Emil Augsburg y el ruso blanco Michael Achmeteli en la formación de los boinas verdes.
Las actividades de Barbie en otras regiones, ej. Perú.
La operación Gladio en Europa, la bomba en Bologna.
La Internacional Fascista creada por Otto Skorzeny.
La Liga Anticomunista Mundial.
Los vínculos de Lopez Rega con estas dos asociaciones.
La nefastisima secta Moon, financista de Banzer, de Bush, de la contra nicaraguense. [link]
La esterilización de indigenas por los Cuerpos de Paz (hay una pelicula de Jorge Sanjines de 1969 sobre esto).
La "Operation 40" de Otto Skorzeny.
La Colonia Dignidad y su rol en el Plan Cóndor.
Como Gehlen pudo soportar sin problemas la exposición pública al tener a cargo la BND.
El nazi que llegó a Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas, Kurt Waldheim.

Algunos links sueltos:

[link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

[*]No se refiere a Alfredo Ovando Candía, esta es otra persona de nombre similar

2006-03-23T09:55:00.000-03:00

"¿Ha habido alguna vez algún instante de justicia para los pobres? Toda esa mierda sobre la democracia y las oportunidades con las que los alimentaban eran sólo para evitar que quemaran los palacios. Claro, de vez en cuando había un tipo que salía del vertedero y lo conseguía. Pero por cada uno que lo conseguía había cientos de miles enterrados en los barrios bajos o en la cárcel, o en el manicomio o suicidados o drogados o borrachos. Y muchos más trabajando por un sueldo de miseria, desperdiciando sus vidas por la mera subsistencia. La esclavitud no ha sido abolida, solamente se ha expandido para incluir a nueve décimas partes de la población. En todas partes. Santa Mierda".
- Charles Bukowski, "Escritos de un viejo indecente" [link]

2006-03-11T13:30:00.000-03:00

Una pequeña muestra de las raíces contraculturales de la computación personal:

Computer Lib / Dream Machines (1974) is a Janus-like codex that joins two books back to back; in the middle, the texts of the two bound-together books meet. The “Computer Lib” side, its cover featuring a raised fist with a computer in the background, didn’t simply predict that personal computers were coming, but effectively challenged the popular notion of what computers were for, at a fundamental level.

(...)

The volume’s other side, "Dream Machines", had even greater significance for new media’s development. Nelson wrote in the “Dream Machines” introduction, “Feel free to begin here. The other side is just if you want to know more about computers, which are changeable devices for twiddling symbols. Otherwise, skip it.” He wrote this believing his most essential message was not about computers, but about media and design. He believed the importance of computers lay not in their capacity for calculation, but in the fact that they would enable new generations of media.

(...)

Second, Nelson proposed that these new, designed media experiences be placed in a radical, open publishing network. A network that supported the reconfiguration, comparison, and interconnection of his 1965 hypertext proposal, in addition to complex version management and powerful user interface conventions. In pages reprinted here, he envisions the resulting explosion of knowledge radically altering the daily experiences of everyone from students to scientists. This vision and the project to realize it —Xanadu— made Nelson the butt of jokes for 20 years: he was called a crackpot (and worse) for his strong conviction that Xanadu’s fundamentals represented the future of media and culture. The general belief was that there simply was not demand for a public, hypertext-enabled publishing network. This belief was resisted, however, by small groups around the world who created and worked with various types of hypertext-enabled networks. Although we have not yet reached Xanadu, when one of these systems, the World Wide Web, began to explode in popularity during the 1990s.

Extractos del librito:

3. MENTAL ENVIRONMENTS are working places for structured activity. The same principles of showmanship apply to a working environment as to both the contents of media and the design of media. If media are environments into which packaged materials are brought, structured environments are basically environments where you use nonpackaged material, or create things yourself. They might also be called “contentless media.” The principles of wholeness in structured environments are the same as for the others, and many of our examples refer to them.

The branching computer screen, together with the selfsame computer’s ability to turn anything else on and off as selected by the user, and to fetch up information, yields a realm of option in the design of media and environment that has never existed before.

We are approaching a screen apocalypse. The author’s basic view is that RESPONSIVE COMPUTER DISPLAY SYSTEMS CAN, SHOULD AND WILL RESTRUCTURE AND LIGHT UP THE MENTAL LIFE OF MANKIND.

Our greatest problems involve thinking and the visualization of complexity. By “Thinkertoy” I mean, first of all, a system to help people think. (‘Toy’ means it should be easy and fun to use.) This is the same general idea for which Engelbart, for instance, uses the term “augmentation of intellect.” But a Thinkertoy is something quite specific: I define it as a computer display system that helps you envision complex alternatives. [extractos] [escaneadas]

Una influencia:

And to a great extent, that came out of the philosophical resonances that Stewart Brand sort of promulgated through the Whole Earth Catalog. He had the notion that you could take tools that might be used by the establishment and you could turn around and use them for community. And that really caught on and resonated with a large group of people. In particular, Ted Nelson's book on Dream Machines intentionally mimicked the style of Brand's book. Or, for example, Alan Kay, the computer scientist at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) who invented the first truly modern experimental personal computer, walked into the Xerox corporate library one day with a copy of Whole Earth Catalog and told the librarian to buy all the books in it. Brand was that influential. [link] [link] [link] [link]

Fred Moore y el Homebrew Computer Club:

NEOFILES: Fred Moore is like the real hardcore, authentic, radical dude in your book, right from the start. He really struggles with conscience and is very involved with politics and pacifism. Tell people a little bit about is trajectory, because he's there throughout your whole story.

JM: That was definitely my intention. Fred Moore died in a car accident in 1997, and what was so striking is that there was not even an obituary when he died. He did two things I think are really significant. One was that, as a freshman, he staged a sit-in, a one-man protest on the steps of Sproul Plaza in the fall of 1959 against mandatory ROTC. It lasted about two days. People in some sense didn't know that this type of political protests was possible. His dad, a military man, came out from the east coast and dragged him home, but Fred's act had this impact. People who, just 4 years later, would start the free speech movement saw Fred Moore make an individual stand of conscience and they realized one person could make a difference.

The Homebrew club was the stomping ground of Jobs and Wozniak. So as the story goes on, he goes to jail. He's a draft resister. He comes back to the west coast in the early 1970s and he's hanging out around the Whole Earth truck store and he's running this project called "The Information Network" which is all about bringing different alternative community groups together. He's doing it on a 3 x 5 file card box, but he's a computer hobbyist. He discovered computers, and he realizes if he has a database it will be much more efficient. So he has this hunger to have his own computer, but he's too poor to have access to a computer. So he gets this idea, he's hanging out around the "People's Computer Company" in Menlo Park and he gets this idea that we can have a hobbyist group and make our own computers. And the idea gets a little out of hand. Out of the Homebrew Computer Club came more than two dozen companies including Apple computer and a number of others that have transformed into this modern personal computer industry. [link!] [link] [link]

Based on the evidence Markoff presents, there is much to this. The most recent ancestors of modern PCs were the kit-based computers beloved by hobbyists in the mid-1970s (a favorite model was the Altair 8800), and one of the centers of the hobby movement was Menlo Park's own Homebrew Computer Club, founded in 1975 by peace activist Fred Moore. Homebrewers swapped software and components and advised each other on how to build computers from the ground up -- a do-it-yourself ethos with close links both to the Whole Earth Catalog phenomenon and to the ideas of radical educator Ivan Illich, who believed that technology should be limited to the human scale.

(...)

Pot is smoked freely in Engelbart's lab (causing his researchers increasingly to be seen as "stoned goofballs" by the other scientists at SRI), and brilliant programmers and writers drop acid with near abandon. The author even recounts how Apple founder Steve Jobs once told him that "taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life." [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

Volviendo a Ted Nelson:

Nelson is a pale, angular, and energetic man who wears clothes with lots of pockets. In these pockets he carries an extraordinary number of items. What cannot fit in his pockets is attached to his belt. It is not unusual for him to arrive at a meeting with an audio recorder and cassettes, video camera and tapes, red pens, black pens, silver pens, a bulging wallet, a spiral notebook in a leather case, an enormous key ring on a long, retractable chain, an Olfa knife, sticky notes, assorted packages of old receipts, a set of disposable chopsticks, some soy sauce, a Pemmican Bar, and a set of white, specially cut file folders he calls "fangles" that begin their lives as 8 1/2-by-11-inch envelopes, are amputated en masse by a hired printer, and end up as integral components in Nelson's unique filing system. This system is an amusement to his acquaintances until they lend him something, at which point it becomes an irritation. "If you ask Ted for a book you've given him," says Roger Gregory, Nelson's longtime collaborator and traditional victim, "he'll say, 'I filed it, so I'll buy you a new one.'" For a while, Nelson wore a purple belt constructed out of two dog collars, which pleased him immensely, because he enjoys finding innovative uses for things.

(...)

I was already taping our conversation, but Nelson clearly wanted his own record. Not because he was concerned about being quoted correctly, but because his tape recorder and video camera are weapons in an unending battle against amnesia. The inventor suffers from an extreme case of Attention Deficit Disorder, a recently named psychological syndrome whose symptoms include unusual sensitivity to interruption.

If he is stopped in the middle of anything, he forgets it instantly. Only by running his own tape recorder could Nelson be confident that his words would not float off, irrecoverably, into the atmosphere.

(...)

Xanadu, the ultimate hypertext information system, began as Ted Nelson's quest for personal liberation. The inventor's hummingbird mind and his inability to keep track of anything left him relatively helpless. He wanted to be a writer and a filmmaker, but he needed a way to avoid getting lost in the frantic multiplication of associations his brain produced. His great inspiration was to imagine a computer program that could keep track of all the divergent paths of his thinking and writing. To this concept of branching, nonlinear writing, Nelson gave the name hypertext.

(...)

Nelson's hatred of conventional structure made him difficult to educate. Bored and disgusted by school, he once plotted to stab his seventh-grade teacher with a sharpened screwdriver, but lost his nerve at the last minute and instead walked out of the classroom, never to return. On his long walk home, he came up with the four maxims that have guided his life: most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong. Nelson loves these maxims and repeats them often. They lead him to sympathize, in every discussion, with the rejected idea and the discounted option.

By the time Nelson reached college, his method of combating the regularity chauvinists was quite sophisticated; he put his teachers off with the theories of writer Alfred Korzybski, who denounced all categories as misleading. But this hatred of categories did not produce in Nelson a fuzzy, be-here-now mysticism. On the contrary, Nelson loved words, which were tools for memory, but he hated the way that traditional writing and editing imposed a false and limiting order. Nelson had no interest in the smooth, progressive narratives encased in books. He wanted everything to be preserved in all its chaotic flux, so that it could be reconstructed as needed.

Nelson, a lonely child raised in an unconventional family, became a rebel against forgetting, and a denier of all forms of loss and grief. (Some of Nelson's disciples would one day take this war against loss even further, and devote themselves to the development of cryonic technology for the freezing and preservation of corpses.) Tormented by his own faulty memory, Nelson developed the habit of asserting that only a technology for the preservation of all knowledge could prevent the destruction of life on Earth. The thought that some mental connection or relationship might dissolve was unbearable. Not only was the constant churn and dispersal of his own thoughts personally devastating, but the general human failure to remember was, Nelson thought, suicidal on a global scale, for it condemned humanity to an irrational repetition of its mistakes. [link!] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-03-09T12:33:00.000-03:00

"Santa Catalina de Siena (1347-1380) es una de solo tres Doctoras de la Iglesia, a pesar de ser analfabeta, o sea que no sabía leer ni escribir. Dedicada desde temprana edad al masoquismo y a la anorexia llegó a su máxima expresión de santidad, según la Iglesia, tomado una taza de pus entera que emanaba de las heridas de enfermos terminales. Durante su vida fue conocida como beata populana o sea, la santa del pueblo.

Según ella, estaba plagada de visiones demoníacas y tentaciones, para combatirlas agudizó sus actos de penitencia.

Amplió sus prácticas masoquistas flagelándose tres veces al día hasta que brotara sangre, no habló por tres años salvo en confesión y combinó su anorexia con bulimia al insertarse trozos de madera en su garganta para vomitar después de comer. Mas tarde optó por comer nada mas que hostias y agua, lo cual le ocasionó su muerte a los 33 años de edad.

(...)

-En aquella época, mientras más te parecieras a Jesús en su sufrimiento, mas santa y mejor eras- dice la Hermana Suzanne Noffke, quien esta traduciendo y editando las cartas de Catalina.

(...)

Las visitas de Cristo llegaron a su clímax en febrero de 1367. Mientras los vecinos estaban festejando el carnaval, Catalina estaba tomando parte de un ritual solemne.

Durante la visión, la Virgen Maria la presentó a su hijo Jesús, quien se casó con ella. Como señal del matrimonio, Jesús le entrega el anillo de casamiento confeccionado con piel de su prepucio diciéndole:

"recibe este anillo como testimonio que eres mía y serás mía para siempre"

(...)

La Santa afirma que el anillo era hecho del cuerito de Jesús que había sido guardado después de su circuncisión. De esa forma ella se "puso la piel de Cristo". El casamiento fue presenciado por Juan, Pablo y Domingo y la música nupcial la proveía el Rey David con su arpa.

Nadie podía ver su anillo pero siempre estaba ante sus ojos...

(...)

Su cadáver fue desmembrado, el pedazo más grande fue enterrado en Roma, en la iglesia de Minerva, donde hoy día puede visitarse su cuerpo (sin cabeza) que yace bajo el altar tras un panel de cristal. Su cabeza está en la Iglesia de Santo Domingo en Siena. Un dedo y sus instrumentos de tortura se encuentran en el museo de la misma ciudad." [link]

De herenciacristiana.com.

2006-03-06T14:00:00.000-03:00

Chachachescas tapas de discos

[link] y [link]

2006-03-03T11:58:00.000-03:00

Entrevista a Lennon por "El Topo Rojo", publicación trotskista británica, 1971:

JL: Desde luego, hay mucha gente que anda por ahí ahora con pelo largo y algunos chicos a la moda de clase media andan en ropas hermosas. Pero nada cambió con la excepción de que todos nos vestimos un poco mejor y dejamos que los mismos hijos de puta dirijan todo.

(...)

YO: Pero la violencia no es sólo algo conceptual, sabes. Vi un programa sobre ese muchacho que había vuelto de Vietnam - había perdido toda la parte inferior de su cuerpo, de la cintura abajo. No era más que un trozo de carne, y dijo: "Bueno, supongo que fue una buena experiencia."

JL: No quería encarar la verdad, no quería pensar que todo había sido inútil... [original] [traducción]

2006-02-26T13:05:00.000-03:00

Distintas visiones sobre los Hijras de India y Paquistán:

The Hijras -men who dress and act like women- have been a presence in India for generations. Within South Asian society they maintain a third-gender role that has become institutionalized through tradition.

Hijras are often defined as eunuchs (castrated males) and acknowledged both in Hindu and Muslim cultures. Numerous references to eunuchs in the royal courts of India's Muslim rulers are cited as the Hijras' legacy. The fact that many don't consider themselves true Hijras until they have undergone the "emasculation operation" links them to this tradition, as do elements of Islamic practice that they observe, such as burying rather than cremating their dead.

Dual-gender figures in Hinduism provide other sources of identification in a religious context. The deity Shiva sometimes assumes the form of a woman; Arjuna in the Mahabharata epic lived as a eunuch during his exile. Both Hindu and Muslim Hijras are devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata; her temple in the state of Gujarat is one of their cultural centers.

Hijras refer to themselves using feminine pronouns and expect others to do so. They typically live together in the traditional commune arrangement of five or more "chelas" (disciples), supervised by a "guru." When a new chela is accepted into a Hijra household, she assumes not only the guru's surname but also membership in the guru's "house," one of seven fictive lineages that confer a sense of kinship and identity, each house having its own history and rules of behavior. She receives training in singing, dancing, and other activities to enable her to earn a livelihood.

Chelas are expected to turn their earnings over to the guru, who manages the funds for household upkeep. Gurus are expected to meet chelas' needs for food, clothing, and pocket allowance. Sources of livelihood include performing at marriage and birth celebrations, begging for alms, and prostitution.[link]

(Hijras) are for the most part kidnapped and forcibly castrated without their consent. This takes place in crude surgeries that kill a large percentage of those who undergo them. Hijra gangs target good-looking or effeminate teenagers or youth. Once they are castrated and brainwashed, they become part of and help propagate the (quite well-organized) hijra gangs. They have very few options at this point anyway, since not even their own families would want them back.

'Culturally accepted' - hardly. Hijras are treated with revulsion and disgust. They beg for money, but people only pay them to make the embarrassing creatures go away. The only exception to this is at weddings, where their presence is sought as being conducive to good luck. [link]

Another way of stigmatization stemming from colonial times is the ideas that "hijras kidnap children and force them to be castrated and become hijra". This is a parallel to the western legend that "transgenders could have a bad influence on our children". The Indian police has investigated acclaimed cases of "hijras kidnapping children" and has found none of them to be true. In fact, many mukhannathun in India and Pakistan care for children that have been left alone by their families with much love. (...)

Today hijras are very active in local politics. Especially in India, but also in Pakistan.

And, besides having been stigmatized during colonial times, many have an impressive amount of voters. A new slogan arose: "There is one solution to useless politicians, give the mandate to eunuchs." (...)

In hindu-folk-lore there is an old legend according to which "in the end of time there will be an age in which the hijras will rule", because of a blessing from God. Many hijras believe this time has come! [link]

"The people have checked out the gentleman politicians, they have tried out the lady politicians, but all of them have failed them," said Mausi, 28. "Now, they want to try us." [link]

The change is most dramatic in the male domain of politics, where Ms. Nehru and other eunuchs are proving to be a positive influence. In Hissar's city hall, local officials, all men, praise Ms. Nehru; one suggests eunuchs are the perfect antidote to India's political corruption and nepotism. "Shobha doesn't have any self-interests, any children or family," says V.P. Sangwan, city council secretary. [link]

If a child is born with any deformity of the genitals they are destined to join the hijras, whether they want to or not. The hijras will wait until the child is twelve or thirteen and then gather outside the house demanding the child as theirs. Even if the parents do not want to part with the child, they ultimately do so.

It is a risky business being a small boy living on the streets in any part of the world, but especially so in India, as there is the added risk of being transformed into a eunuch. The eunuchs gain the child's trust by providing food, shelter and friendship. [link]

The style of begging is very aggressive. In groups of three or four they confront individuals, clapping and making gestures with their fingers. Give them money and they will bless you and your family and pray for increased libido for you and for male heirs for your family. Refusal is followed by abuse, and obscene gestures, and some of them will lift their "petticoats", exposing their genitals and cursing.
(...)
As we gaind the confidence of the elders in the Hijra community, some broke down and said they were contemplating suicide because they did not want to go on living in this way. We learned that well-organised gangs kidnap children in poor areas of India or buy them from starving parents for as little as 30 rupees. The boys are then brought to the cities, castrated, and set up as beggars, who will be money-making machines for up to 40 years. These Mafia-type kidnap gangs thus exploit the religious sentiments and collective psyche of the Hindu community. They provide protection and living quarters for the Hijras, who in turn pass on a percentage of their earnings to the gang in charge of their area. [link]

"If, in our society, a defective calf is born, such calves are donated to a temple," a kindly and helpful police detective in the city of Hyderabad tells Ms. Jaffrey. "Similarly, if an impotent boy is born, or a disabled type, such boys were donated or given to the eunuch societies." [link]

Credit card companies have started sending eunuchs to recover money from delinquent customers. The recovery rate is high; unlike with musclemen who use the power of fear, which can be dealt with, eunuchs use the power of shame and embarrassment, which is much more difficult to handle. Imaging ten hijras standing outside your house, clapping and singing and drawing attention to you and your problems. Eunuchs have also been used as tools to get back at enemies. If you don't like somebody, send eunuchs across to embarrass them. [link]

[link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-02-23T17:13:00.000-03:00

Reportes de trips con honguitos [link], curiosamente categorizados en niveles que van desde:

Level 1 - This level produces a mild "stoning" effect, with some visual enhancement (i.e. brighter colours, etcetera). Some short term memory anomalies. Left/right brain communication changes causing music to sound "wider".

hasta:

Level 5 - Total loss of visual connection with reality. The senses cease to function in the normal way. Total loss of ego. Merging with space, other objects, or the universe. The loss of reality becomes so severe that it defies explanation. The earlier levels are relatively easy to explain in terms of measureable changes in perception and thought patterns. This level is different in that the actual universe within which things are normally perceived, ceases to exist! Satori enlightenment (and other such labels).

Siendo un trip nivel 5 algo como:

"(...) After I unpluged the phone I went into the bath room, there is 2 large mirrors that face each other so I grabed a seat and looked into one of the mirrors. I turned out the lights, and stared intensly into the mirror man that was a mind fuck, I saw hundreds of different worlds, each one had a consience mind trying to talk to me, (...) i wasnt scared i was happy as hell (...) I could see my soul being sucked into the spirit realm, It was so butiful there are no abjects only energy waves sound and light, by focusing on the energywaves I saw that each one was its own consience, and that I too was only made of energy at that point. (...) I could then see my soul fall into a worepool of light and energy. At this point I had complete control of time, and the universe. This new realm that I had gone too was heven to me I could travle to any point in time past prensnt and future. Not only that but i could recall past lives at will, I had visoins of wars thousands of years ago (...)" [link]

2006-02-20T09:57:00.000-03:00

Tamara Lempicka

[link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-02-18T02:36:00.000-03:00

Miklos Radnoti was born in Budapest in 1909, and orphaned at the age of 12. He published a number of collections of poems before the war and was a fierce anti-fascist. In the 1940's he was interned in various work camps, the last time being in Bor, Yugoslavia at a copper mine, to which he was driven in a forced march with other internees. Along the way, he and 22 other prisoners were murdered near the town of Abda sometime between November 6 and 10, 1944 and tossed into a mass grave. After the war, his body was exhumed and his last poems were found in his field jacket, written in pencil in a small Serbian exercise book.

¿Ves?, anochece. Feroz, erizada de púas,
la valla de roble y la barraca flotan, aspiradas por la noche.
El cuadro de nuestro cautiverio escapa a la lenta mirada,
y sólo la razón -sólo ella- conoce la tensión de la alambrada.
¿Ves, amada? Aquí hasta la fantasía sólo así cobra alas.
Nuestros cuerpos magullados serán disueltos por el sueño hermoso, liberador,
y entonces todo el campo emprenderá la marcha.

Harapientos, rapados, roncando, los prisioneros echan a volar
desde las cimas ciegas de Serbia hasta ocultos parajes de la patria.
¿Existen todavía esos parajes? ¿Y qué ha sido de nuestras casas?
¿Las omitieron las bombas? ¿Están como cuando partimos?
Y ese que gime a mi derecha y el que yace a mi izquierda, ¿regresarán?
Dime, ¿hay todavía una patria donde comprendan este hexámetro?
Sin poner los acentos, tanteando en cada renglón,
escribo en la penumbra, escribo como vivo,
casi sin ver, recorriendo el papel como una oruga:
la lámpara, el cuaderno, todo me lo quitaron los guardianes.

Ningún correo llega, sólo la niebla aplasta la barraca.
Entre falsos rumores y parásitos aquí viven franceses, polacos,
italianos ruidosos, serbios separatistas, judíos melancólicos.
Cuerpos febriles y rotos que, a pesar de todo, viven una vida,
esperan buenas nuevas, palabras femeninas, un libre destino humano,
y, mientras llega el fin, envueltos en la espesa penumbra, milagros.

Estoy tendido en la tabla, entre insectos, animal cautivo. El asedio
de las pulgas se reanuda, pero el enjambre de las moscas se ha calmado.
Ya es de noche. ¿Ves? El cautiverio es un día más corto
y la vida también es un día más corto. El campo duerme. El paisaje
se baña en la luna y los alambres se atezan de nuevo en su luz,
y, a través de la ventana, las sombras de los guardias armados
marchan proyectadas en el muro entre los rumores de la noche.

El campo duerme. ¿Ves, amada? Se escucha el susurrar del sueño,
alguien gime sobresaltado, gira en el camastro, y
cae otra vez, pálido, en el sueño. Sentado, sólo yo velo,
en mi boca una colilla reemplaza el sabor
de tus besos, y no acude el sueño sosegante
pues sin ti ya no puedo morir ni vivir.

Yet, I write, and I live in the midst of this insane world like
that oak there: it knows that it is to be cut down,
and although it is marked with a white cross,
indicating that tomorrow the area will be cleared
by the woodcutter - while expecting him, it puts forth a new leaf.

[es importante leer esta traducción] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-02-13T18:26:00.000-03:00

Pleasant it is, when over the great sea the winds shake the waters,
To gaze down from shore on the trials of others;
Not because seeing other people struggle is sweet to us,
But because the fact that we ourselves are free from such ills strikes us as pleasant.
Pleasant it is also to behold great armies battling on a plain,
When we ourselves have no part in their peril.
But nothing is sweeter than to occupy a lofty sanctuary of the mind,
Well fortified with the teachings of the wise,
Where we may look down on others as they stumble along,
Vainly searching for the true path of life...

Lucrecio, extracto de "De Rerum Natura". [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-02-10T11:38:00.000-03:00

Máquinas de presunto Movimiento Perpetuo

2006-02-06T11:18:00.000-03:00

¿Recuerdas cuando empezaste a leer? Sin duda pensabas que algún día encontrarías la verdad en los libros, las respuestas a los interrogantes sobre la vida que ibas descubriendo a tu alrededor. Pero nunca encontraste lo que esperabas. Si hubieras estado despierto te habrías dado cuenta de que los libros no son más que convenciones, y son tan poco parecidos a la vida como una partida de ajedrez. La palabra escrita es un tamiz. Sólo la parte de realidad que se ajusta a su trama es capaz de pasar por ella y, en la mayoría de los casos, lo que pasa es insuficiente. (...) La verdadera dificultad de la comunicación proviene de las convenciones sociales, de una amplia conspiración que coincide en aceptar el mundo como algo que en absoluto se corresponde con la realidad. (...)

La literatura es un mecanismo de defensa social. Acuérdate otra vez de cuando eras niño. Creías seguramente que al crecer encontrarías un mundo de verdaderos adultos, esa clase de personas que hacen que funcionen las cosas, y también que entenderías cómo y por qué funcionan.

(...) En cambio, a medida que han ido pasando los años, te habrás dado cuenta, por tus experiencias más o menos afortunadas, de que ese tipo de personas ni existen, ni han existido jamás en ningún lugar. La vida no es más que un enredo, los adultos no son sino niños grandes que han perdido viveza y han ganado estupidez y resentimiento, y ninguno sabe qué es lo que hace seguir adelante todo esto. Pero nadie te descubre el pastel.

Henry Miller lo hace. Andersen nos cuenta la historia del niño y el traje nuevo del Emperador. Miller es el mismo niño del cuento. Nos habla del Emperador, de los granos de su culo, de las verrugas de sus partes pudendas y de la porquería que tiene entre los dedos de los pies. Naturalmente, otros escritores del pasado han hecho lo mismo, y son los grandes de la literatura, los verdaderos clásicos. Pero lo han hecho dentro de las convenciones de la literatura. Se han servido de las formas de la Gran Mentira para exponer la verdad.

Cuando arrastro el tronco podrido
desde el fondo del estanque,
lo siento pesado como una piedra.
Lo dejo tendido al sol
durante un mes; y luego lo desmenuzo
en trozos, que voy separando
para hacer astillas, y los extiendo
para que se sequen más...

Lying here quietly beside you,
My cheek against your firm, quiet thighs,
The calm music of Boccherini
Washing over us in the quiet,
As the sun leaves the housetops and goes
Out over the Pacific, quiet --
So quiet the sun moves beyond us,
So quiet as the sun always goes,
So quiet, our bodies, worn with the
Times and the penances of love, our
Brains curled, quiet in their shells, dormant,
Our hearts slow, quiet, reliable
In their interlocked rhythms, the pulse
In your thigh caressing my cheek. Quiet.

La televisión está concebida para despertar los impulsos más sádicos, los más perversos y los más codiciosos. Un programa infantil nos da una visión auténtica de lo que es el infierno, pero estamos tan acostumbrados a ver cosas así que, simplemente, ni nos fijamos. Si algunas personas que han tenido verdaderas visiones del infierno, como Virgilio, Dante u Homero, pudieran ver estos programas se quedarían horrorizadas.

Kenneth Rexroth: [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-02-03T01:58:00.000-03:00

Panteísmo Científico

[link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-02-01T07:11:00.000-03:00

Electric Sheep realizes the collective dream of sleeping computers from all over the internet. It's a distributed screen-saver that harnesses idle computers into a render farm with the purpose of animating and evolving artificial life-forms.

Each sheep is about 4 seconds long. Its shape, motion, and color are specified by a genetic code, a long string of numbers. If a user sees a sheep they like, they may press the up arrow key to vote for it. Sheep that receive more votes live longer and are more likely to reproduce. These votes form a fitness function for the esthetic evolution of the flock. [link]

2006-01-30T19:31:00.000-03:00

En 1972, en una plaza de toros, el Dr. José Delgado hizo el experimento de entrar en el momento en que un toro furioso iniciaba una carga y mediante un dispositivo de control remoto activó unos electrodos implantados en el cerebro del animal logrando calmarlo y detener su carrera. [link]

Este neuropsiquiatra español que investigó, y no solamente con animales, bajo los auspicios de Franco, de la CIA (MKUltra) y de la Universidad de Yale dijo cosas como:

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated. The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Some day armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain."

Y escribió cosas como: "Physical Control of the Mind - Toward a Psychocivilized Society"

Otros: [link] [link] [link]

2006-01-18T10:31:00.000-03:00

Dibujos y textos de
chicos de la calle:

2006-01-15T22:40:00.000-03:00

Cosmología del Plasma, alternativa al Big Bang:

In 1963, Alfvén first predicted the large scale filamentary structure of the universe based on his experience of the filamentary nature of plasma. This discovery perplexed astrophysicists in 1991.

[link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-01-10T20:25:00.000-03:00

El arte de Gilles Tran:

[link] [link] [link] [link]

2006-01-09T00:50:00.000-03:00

(...) Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions beyond the limits of the small world of which I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes. These were at first very blurred and indistinct, and would flit away when I tried to concentrate my attention upon them. They gained in strength and distinctness and finally assumed the concreteness of real things. I soon discovered that my best comfort was attained if I simply went on in my vision further and further, getting new impressions all the time, and so I began to travel; of course, in my mind. Every night, (and sometimes during the day), when alone, I would start on my journeys -- see new places, cities and countries; live there, meet people and make friendships and acquaintances and, however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear to me as those in actual life, and not a bit less intense in their manifestations. This I did constantly until I was about seventeen, when my thoughts turned seriously to invention. Then I observed to my delight that i could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models, drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus I have been led unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and ideas, which is radially opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much more expeditious and efficient.

De la autobiografía de Nikola Tesla: [link] ... otro: [link]

2006-01-04T10:52:00.000-03:00

Sueños ilustrados
Excelente, en particular: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

2005-12-31T12:13:00.000-03:00

Una muestra interesante de arte creado por esquizofrénicos, compilada por una investigadora brasilera: [Galería]

Los links están mal en el site, aquí los corrijo:

[Wain] [Anónimo] [Anónimo] [Anónimo] [Kessel] [Kurelek] [Kurelek] [Kurelek] [Kurelek] [Kurelek [Kurelek] [Kurelek] [Kurelek]

Más sobre Louis Wain: [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

Más sobre William Kurelek (finalmente lo encontré): [link] [link] [link]
[The Maze] [Out of the Maze] [link]

Y ya que estamos,
Cynthia Pell: [link] [link] [link]
Charles Sims Ra: [link] [link]

2005-12-26T00:29:00.000-03:00

Émile Cioran:

* Sólo se suicidan los optimistas, los optimistas que ya no logran serlo. Los demás, no teniendo ninguna razón para vivir, ¿por qué la tendrían para morir?.

* Esos transeúntes idiotizados... -¿Pero cómo hemos podido caer tan bajo? ¿y cómo imaginar un espectáculo así en la Antigüedad, en Atenas por ejemplo? Basta un minuto de lucidez aguda en medio de esos condenados para que todas las ilusiones se derrumben.

* Amar al prójimo es algo inconcebible. ¿Acaso se le pide a un virus que ame a otro virus?

* Si alguna vez has estado triste sin motivo, es que lo has estado toda tu vida sin saberlo.

* La mujer fue importante mientras simuló pudor y reserva. iQué deficiencia demuestra empeñándose en dejar de jugar el juego! Ahora ya no vale nada, pues se asemeja a nosotros. Así desaparece una de las últimas mentiras que hacían tolerable la existencia.

* Sólo se puede vivir como he vivido yo, al margen de todo, como un parásito. La sensación que siempre he tenido ha sido la de inutilidad, de falta de objeto. Podemos decir que es enfermizo, pero lo es sólo en sus efectos, no desde un punto de vista filosófico. Filosóficamente, es de lo más normal que todo nos parezca inútil. ¿Por qué habríamos de hacer algo? ¿Por qué? Creo que toda acción es fundamentalmente inútil y que el hombre ha frustrado su destino, que era el de no hacer nada. Creo que el único momento justo en la historia es el periodo antiguo de la India, en el que se hacía una vida contemplativa, en el que se contentaban con mirar las cosas sin ocuparse nunca de ellas. Entonces la vida contemplativa fue verdaderamente una realidad.

[link] [link] [link] [link] [link]

2005-12-25T00:48:00.000-03:00

PBF

2005-12-23T19:55:00.000-03:00

Computadora hidro-keynesiana:

(...) The MONIAC was approximately two meters high, 1.2 meters wide and almost a meter deep, and consisted of a series of transparent plastic tanks and pipes which were fastened to a wooden board. Each tank represented some aspect of the UK national economy and the flow of money around the economy was illustrated by coloured water. At the top of the board was a large tank called the treasury. Water [i.e. money] flowed from the treasury to other tanks representing the various ways in which a country could spend its money. For example, there were tanks for health, and education. To increase spending on health care a tap could be opened to drain water from the treasury to the tank which represented health spending. Water then ran further down the model to other tanks, representing other interactions in the economy. Water could be pumped back to the treasury from some of the tanks to represent taxation. Changes in tax rates were modeled by increasing or decreasing pumping speeds. (...) [link]

Addendum: Ver también esto

2005-12-21T12:08:00.000-03:00

(...) That would make Helacyton gartleri an example of speciation, which is when a new species is observed developing from another. In this case, the development is from a chordate (homo sapien) to something that's more like an ameoba (a cross-phylum mutation), giving us an animal with a mostly human genotype, but which does not develop into a human-like phenotype. (...) [link] [link]

2005-12-14T11:36:00.000-03:00

So what did you think happened to your
childhood imaginary friend, anyway?

2005-12-09T00:08:00.000-03:00

disparador de pensamientos

2005-12-03T20:00:00.000-03:00

We live in a different world now - we got too much fun, too many distractions. I don't believe in fun. I'm too obsessive-compulsive to have fun. Fun's for normal people. Sometimes I look around at a party and I go, "Look at those jerks over there, actually having fun." That's incredible. They're so fucking well adjusted that they're enjoying this situation with the loud music and too many people. To me, there are so many existential factors that are so deeply disturbing about that scene that I couldn't possibly imagine how people have fun at something like that.

Extraído de una entrevista semireciente a Crumb en The Guardian (está mal organizada, hay que ir siguiendo los links). [link 1] [link 2]

Obviamente no dejar de ver el documental. Se encuentra en el emule (comics escaneados también!). Otros: [link] [link] [link] (No perderse 'City of the Future' aquí).

2005-12-02T13:00:00.000-03:00

Santa Fe Institute

2005-11-30T01:29:00.000-03:00

John Lilly pasó por el MK-Ultra, inventó el tanque de privación sensorial, experimentó con diversos alucinógenos y fue pionero en la investigación del lenguaje de los delfines ... actividades no necesariamente separadas entre sí:

So I took ketamine by the tank at Marine World in Redwood City. I got into the tank, and I had a microphone near my head and an underwater speaker that went down into the dolphin tank. My microphone hit their loudspeaker underwater. So I waited. Then I began to feel that I was in direct contact with them, and when one of them whistled, a long whistle, it went from my feet right up tomy head. I went straight out of my body.They took me to the dolphin group mind. Boy, that was scary! I shouted and carried on. I said, "I can't even handle one dolphin, much less a group mind of dolphins!"

(...)

Have you ever given ketamine to a dolphin?

John Lilly: No. I gave them acid to see if it would knock out their respiration. It didn't. I couldn't understand what was happening to them on LSD except for one thing they did. They turned around along the tank at the same time, and suddenly they turned their beaks down and turned on their sonar straight downwards. I remember on my first acid trip the floor suddenly disappeared, and I saw the stars on the other side of the earth. So I stamped my foot on the floor to find it. That's what they were doing.

Qué llevó a este tipo a estudiar los delfines? simple:

While experimenting with sensory deprivation and LSD and ketamine, Lilly came to believe that he was in psychic contact with the aliens of what he called the Earth Coincidence Control Office (ECCO). The aliens were guiding events in Lilly's life to lead him to work with dolphins, which were psychic conduits between aliens and humans. The aliens are acting for the survival of organic lifeforms against artificial intelligences, called solid state lifeforms.

[link] [link] [link]

El videojuego "Ecco the dolphin" tendrá algo que ver? Si.

2005-11-27T17:04:00.000-03:00

For several minutes Petrov held a phone in one hand and an intercom in the other as alarms continued blaring, red lights blinking, and the computers reporting that U.S. missiles were on their way. In the midst of this horrific chaos and terror, the prospect of the end of civilization itself, Petrov made an historic decision not to alert higher authorities, believing in his gut and hoping with all that is sacred, that contrary to what all the sophisticated equipment was reporting, this alarm was an error.
“I didn’t want to make a mistake,” Petrov said, “I made a decision and that was it.” The Daily Mail wrote, “Had Petrov cracked and triggered a response, Soviet missiles would have rained down on U.S. cities. In turn, that would have brought a devastating response from the Pentagon.”
(...)
Petrov said,“After it was over, I drank half a liter of vodka as if it were only a glass, and slept for 28 hours”. [link] [link]

[link]

MacArthur said he had a plan that would have won the war in 10 days: “I would have dropped 30 or so atomic bombs . . . strung across the neck of Manchuria”. Then he would have introduced half a million Chinese Nationalist troops at the Yalu and then “spread behind us - from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea - a belt of radioactive cobalt . . . it has an active life of between 60 and 120 years. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North.” He was certain that the Russians would have done nothing about this extreme strategy: “My plan was a cinch” [link]

2005-11-25T23:35:00.000-03:00

La primera vez que leí la poesía anterior de Bukowski fue en el segundo número del Culto de la Larva. Una publicación de la época de los BBS's en aquella Argentina menemoide-gibsoniana :)

De ser posible leerlas en modo texto 80x25 (con el amifont!), saboreando lentamente cada pgdown.

2005-11-24T21:57:00.000-03:00

I Met A Genius

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

C. Bukowski

2005-11-24T05:18:00.000-03:00

Hace poco encontré un par de entrevistas a Robin Wood, guionista de D'Artagnan, Nippur, etc. , revistas de historietas altamente populares, en las que firmaba con su nombre real y varios seudonimos (porque "quedaba mal" que siempre firmase el mismo). No sabía nada del tipo y resulto ser un personaje muy interesante.

Y así empecé: escribía, escribía, escribía y me alquile un departamento; estuve un año, y le avise a la editorial que me iba. Y me dicen:"Robin, ud.tiene acá un futuro, una carrera..."; "Disculpenme, pero yo me pase cuatro años en fabricas, entrando a las seis de la mañana y saliendo a las seis de la tarde, o sea, que veia el sol los domingos: laburaba de lunes a sabados. Me voy. Lo que puedo hacer es enviarles guiones por correo." Eso nunca se había hecho. Al final, aceptaron probarlo. Me fui a Europa en un barco carguero, y desde ahí les mandaba los guiones por correo.

[entrevista 1] [entrevista 2]

Mis preferidos eran Gilgamesh, Nippur, Dax, Dago y Savarese.

2005-11-23T12:39:00.002-03:00

Ver algo hecho por David Firth implica necesariamente no parar hasta devorar todo lo que hizo... y luego querer más.

2005-11-23T02:53:00.000-03:00

Gerda Taro.

2005-11-23T00:59:00.000-03:00

Documento desclasificado de la embajada de USA en Moscú, Mayo del 82. Extraigo a partir de la página 7 debajo de "The Soviet Ruling Class" (las negritas son mías):

Brezhnev and his generation of soviet leaders are the beneficiaries of the stalin terror, if only by surviving it. They are the products of a political school beside which the mafia pales in comparison. In many cases these men quite literally built their careers on the bodies of more competent, but less politically agile (or lucky) colleagues. Their principal attributes were obedience, political loyalty, ruthlessness, and the ability to produce results without counting the cost. The men they have selected and trained as subordinates are the second generation inheritors of the stalin legacy. In many cases, they are old enough to remember the terror. In addition, they remember the war; indeed, they tend to apply the experience of the war in situations very different from those of the 1940's
The soviet elite has very shallow roots. It is no exaggeration to say that many of its members are only a generation or two removed from their peasant origins. In the twenties, the soviets purged almost all technically competent people in russia and replaced them with hastility-trained and inexperienced personnel who were suddenly placed into positions of great responsability and power. This upward social mobility was maintained by the massive Stalin Purges. However, mobility has all but disappeared during the brezhnev years and been replaced by a vast army of parvenu officials intent on preserving their newly elevated status.
Members of the soviet elite live in a bizarre world of cinderella privileges. The considerable creature comforts they enjoy (choice apartments, cars, dachas, special stores, etc.) are only the perquisites of their positions and can vanish if political status is lost. Unlike members of elites in the west, they cannot convert their status into real property which can be enjoyed at leisure or passed on to their heirs. The soviet elite must therefore perpetuate itself in positions of power because it cannot perpetuate itself in ownership of property. The result is a fanatic dedication to job tenure and to obtaining advancement for their children through influence peddling

"La Revolucion Traicionada"

"Los privilegios, que no se pueden legar a los hijos pierden la mitad de su valor; y el derecho de testar es inseparable del derecho de la propiedad. No basta ser director de trust, hay que ser accionista. La victoria de la burocracia en ese sector decisivo crearía una nueva clase poseedora."

2005-11-23T00:01:00.000-03:00

Creo este blog para ahorrarme circular por mail entre gente conocida citas, fragmentos, links, etc, con los que me voy topando. Textos mios u opiniones se mantendrán en el mínimo número posible. Esto es un simple tributo ecléctico y experimental al menor esfuerzo.