February 22, 2012
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE CUTS AND POLICE VIOLENCE
Today, Wednesday 22 February
at 6 pm demonstration in front of IES Lluis Vives followed by a march at 8pm towards “Delegació de Govern”
No more repression-Freedom for the prosecuted-We are the people, not the enemy-Real democracy now!
If you think the government representative Paula Sánchez de León should resign, sign at:
http://actuable.es/peticiones/15-02-2012-denuncia-contra-abuso-policial-el-ies-luis-vives
If you have suffered or witnessed police violence against children write to send the info and documents denuncia@eupv.org before 20 February.
New York Times editorial 10 February February 18, 2012
EDITORIAL
A Chilling Verdict in Spain
Published: February 10, 2012
The enemies of Judge Baltasar Garzón have finally gotten their way. Spain’s Supreme Court this week found the judge guilty of misapplying the country’s wiretap law and suspended him from the courts for 11 years.
Related News
Judge Garzón has played an important role in Spain’s transition to democracy, as a scourge of corrupt politicians left and right and a powerful champion of international human rights law. His efforts to prosecute the former Chilean dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and investigate the horrors of the Spanish Civil War era, though unsuccessful, advanced the principle that there can be neither amnesty nor impunity for crimes against humanity.
Thursday’s ruling stemmed from prison wiretaps of conversations between lawyers and their clients that the judge ordered in a 2008 case involving bribes allegedly paid to local officials of the now-ruling Popular Party. Judge Garzón was not alone in ordering those wiretaps, but he alone was prosecuted, even while the public prosecutor argued that there were no grounds for a criminal proceeding. Convicting a jurist over a court ruling is an appalling attack on judicial independence. Two other cases against him are pending — one involving his inquiry into mass killings during the civil war and the Franco dictatorship, and another concerning allegations of conflict of interest in a tax fraud case.
Judge Garzón is far from perfect, but the decision by the Spanish Supreme Court to remove him from the bench is enormously damaging to the prospects of fair and impartial justice. What investigating magistrate would not now hesitate before pursuing politically sensitive cases? Will the Franco-era crimes that scarredSpainfor two generations remain forever uninvestigated?
Judge Garzón cannot appeal in the Spanish court system. But he can challenge this decision inSpain’sConstitutional Courtand the European Court of Human Rights inStrasbourg. We hope he does. As this week’s miscarriage of justice plainly demonstrates,Spainstill needs his help in keeping its judiciary fearless and independent.
A version of this editorial appeared in print on February 11, 2012, on page A20 of the New Yorkedition with the headline: A Chilling Verdict inSpain.
anticuts campaign February 18, 2012
Dear students. At present I am in bed because the doctor has prescribed it until my back is better. If, however, I get better by Sunday I will join the demonstration on Sunday. I wonder if you are aware of the police brutality against children at Lluis Vives Secondary School the other day. Education makes people free. In this new society of slaves education is a threat to remove.
FROM NOW ON… January 22, 2012
Dear students. The cuts are affecting our teaching and your learning in an intolerable way, and so the time has come to put an end to the part of this blog aimed at supplementing school work with other materials.
From now on I shall continue the part that deals with this protest, that is, explaining how the cuts started, got spread and are now being implemented. Everything will revolve around the cuts in English and the local languages.
I HOPE YOU READ IT TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN AND ACT ACCORDINGLY.
Some links:
http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/news_details/205
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/10/spanish-politician-accused-megalomania-monument/print
Reading Comprehension Practice January 7, 2012
Here is a Xmas present for Advanced students: read the six sentences and use five of them to fill in the gaps numbered 1 to 5 in the text that follows. The key is at the end.
A. Any honest and thorough application of this philosophy would run counter to its aim: which is to allow the owners of capital to expand their interests without taxation, regulation or recognition of the rights of other people.
B.Briefly stated, this means that if the process by which property was acquired was just, then those who have acquired it should be free to use it as they wish, without social restraints or obligations to other people.
C.The owners of coal-burning power stations in the UK have not obtained the consent of everyone who owns a lake or a forest in Sweden to deposit acid rain there.
D.It is a pitiless, one-sided, mechanical view of the world, which elevates the rights of property over everything else, meaning that those who possess the most property end up with great power over others.
E.No story about freedom and property rights can ever justify the pollution of the air or the burning of fuels because those things affect the freedom and property rights of others.
F.As soon as it encounters environmental issues, the ideology of the new right becomes ensnared in its own contradictions.
Why Libertarians Must Deny Climate Change
Posted: 06 Jan 2012 04:45 AM PST
By George Monbiot, published on the Guardian’s website, 6th January 2012
Over the Christmas break I read what I believe is the most important environmental essay of the past 12 months. Though it begins with a mildly unfair criticism of a column of mine, I won’t hold it against the author. In a simple and very short tract, Matt Bruenig presents a devastating challenge to those who call themselves libertarians, and explains why they have no choice but to deny climate change and other environmental problems.
Bruenig explains what is now the core argument used by conservatives and libertarians: the procedural justice account of property rights ...1… Their property rights are absolute and cannot be intruded upon by the state or by anyone else. Any interference with or damage to the value of their property without their consent – even by taxation – is an unwarranted infringement. This, with local variations, is the basic philosophy of the Republican candidates, the Tea Party movement, the lobby groups which call themselves “free market thinktanks” and much of the new right in the UK.
…2… Dressed up as freedom, it is a formula for oppression and bondage. It does nothing to address inequality, hardship or social exclusion. A transparently self-serving vision, it seeks to justify the greedy and selfish behaviour of those with wealth and power. But for the sake of argument, Bruenig says, let us accept it.
Let us accept the idea that damage to the value of property without the owner’s consent is an unwarranted intrusion upon the owner’s freedoms. What this means is that as soon as libertarians encounter environmental issues, they’re stuffed.
Climate change, industrial pollution, ozone depletion, damage to the physical beauty of the area surrounding people’s homes (and therefore their value), all these, if the libertarians did not possess a shocking set of double standards, would be denounced by them as infringements on other people’s property …3… So their emissions, in the libertarian worldview, should be regarded as a form of trespass on the property of Swedish landowners. Nor have they received the consent of the people of this country to allow mercury and other heavy metals to enter our bloodstreams, which means that they are intruding upon our property in the form of our bodies.
Nor have they – or airports, oil companies or car manufacturers – obtained the consent of all those it will affect to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, altering global temperatures and – through rising sea levels, droughts, storms and other impacts – damaging the property of many people. As Bruenig says,
“Almost all uses of land will entail some infringement on some other piece of land that is owned by someone else. So how can that ever be permitted? …4… Those actions ultimately cause damage to surrounding property and people without getting any consent from those affected. They are the ethical equivalent – for honest libertarians – of punching someone in the face or breaking someone else’s window.”
So here we have a simple and coherent explanation of why libertarianism is so often associated with climate change denial and the playing down or dismissal of other environmental issues. It would be impossible for the owner of a power station, steel plant, quarry, farm or any large enterprise to obtain consent for all the trespasses he commits against other people’s property – including their bodies.
This is the point at which libertarianism smacks into the wall of gritty reality and crumples like a Coke can…5… Libertarianism becomes self-defeating as soon as it recognises the existence of environmental issues. So they must be denied.
Key
1.Briefly stated, this means that if the process by which property was acquired was just, then those who have acquired it should be free to use it as they wish, without social restraints or obligations to other people.
2.It is a pitiless, one-sided, mechanical view of the world, which elevates the rights of property over everything else, meaning that those who possess the most property end up with great power over others.
3.The owners of coal-burning power stations in the UK have not obtained the consent of everyone who owns a lake or a forest in Sweden to deposit acid rain there.
4.No story about freedom and property rights can ever justify the pollution of the air or the burning of fuels because those things affect the freedom and property rights of others.
5.Any honest and thorough application of this philosophy would run counter to its aim: which is to allow the owners of capital to expand their interests without taxation, regulation or recognition of the rights of other people.
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