El crecimiento como instrumento para reducir la pobreza

Tanto el crecimiento como los programas sociales son importantes en el esfuerzo por reducir la pobreza.
Si bien es verdad que la disminución de la pobreza brasileña no se ha debido únicamente a los programas sociales (desde el gobierno del presidente Cardoso Brasil realizó reformas de mercado que hicieron posible que se generase una riqueza para distribuir); también es certo que Brasil despliega un gasto asistencialista considerablemente mayor al peruano: 4% del PBI versus 0,5%, respectivamente. Y, sin embargo, el Perú viene reduciendo la pobreza a una velocidad mucho mayor que Brasil.
Brasil en los últimos diez años logró sacar al 8% de su población de la pobreza extrema.  En el mismo período el Perú sacó al 27% de su población de dicha situación. Es decir: redujo la pobreza extrema en una proporción tres veces mayor que la brasileña, al tiempo gastaba un octavo que Brasil (en términos de porcentaje de su PBI) en programas sociales.

Yes, we scan -won't return your phone calls but always listening

Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

Daniel Ellsberg

In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution.

Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended.

The government claims it has a court warrant under FISA – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: "It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp."

Al Perderte Yo A Ti - Ernesto Cardenal

 Al perderte yo a ti tú y yo hemos perdido:

yo porque tú eras lo que yo más amaba
y tú porque yo era el que te amaba más.
Pero de nosotros dos tú pierdes más que yo:
porque yo podré amar a otras como te amaba a ti
pero a ti no te amarán como te amaba yo.

Wittgenstein and Cavell on initiation into the (philosophical) community

By Chantal Bax 

Teaching or training forms a recurring topic in Wittgenstein’s later work - from his 

comments on Augustine’s account of language learning in the first paragraph of the 

Investigations to the entries about the inheritance of world pictures in his swan song On 

Certainty. It could even be argued that Wittgenstein takes it to belong to the very 

essence of human language that it is taught, or that he more generally takes it to belong 

to the very essence of being human that we come into this world as children rather than 

fully formed adults.1 According to Wittgenstein, selfhood or subjectivity is acquired 

rather than given, and is more precisely acquired in the course of one’s upbringing 

within a particular socio-cultural context. On his view, in other words, we are what the 

senior members of our community have taught us.2 

Ralph Nader Decries How Big Business Has Taken Control of the U.S. Government

Describing the United States as an "advanced Third World country," longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader calls for a new mass movement to challenge the power corporations have in Washington. "It is not too extreme to call our system of government now 'American Fascism.' It’s the control of government by big business, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined in 1938 as fascism," Nader says. "US has the lowest minimum wage in the Western world. US has the greatest amount of consumer debt. US has the highest child poverty, the highest adult poverty, huge underemployment, a crumbling public works — but huge multi-billionaires and hugely profitable corporations. I say to the American people: what’s your breaking point? When are you going to stop making excuses for yourself? When are you going to stop exaggerating these powers when you know you have the power in this country if you organize it?" Nader has just published a new book, "Told You So: The Big Book of Weekly Columns."

Jeremy Scahill on "Dirty Wars"

Jeremy Scahill in conversation with Spencer Ackerman, the current national security reporter and blogger for Wired magazine and the incoming national security editor for the Guardian.