A state-funded deception by the Presidencia.
Uh huh
Well, if the government actually gets paid what is promised, and a future government decides to spend that revenue as the present government is promising – but then, as to this mining concessionaires and its predecessors, the Panamanian people have never been paid what we have been led to believe would be paid.
Failed gold mines with abandoned toxic messes, from which the only really profitable business was swindling investors with dizzying dreams of golden splendor and undisclosed insider trades. Promises of well-paid jobs, from which social security taxes were deducted from paychecks and pocketed by owners, then abrupt layoffs when the schemes collapsed. Forests felled, their wildlife routed, streams muddied, huge gashes in the land – and an accounting system that considers that there is no economic cost to any of that.
Now a proposed contract that gives the company control of that part of the national airspace, so that nobody can fly a helicopter or drone into a position to see what’s going on – what devastation, what pollution, what’s being dug up and carried away. It’s all very convenient for the purpose of cheating us without anyone being the wiser.
Now they promise the least educated among us that their scheme will let the poor eat in their old age. Well, IF….
Also not counted is the politicians’ cut of the action if they manage to approve this noxious contract.
The monstrosity should be rejected, and any elected official who votes for it should be rejected at the polls. It really is a matter of national dignity to be that emphatic about it.
Photo from Megan Rapinoe’s Facebook page.
She missed a shot, and set an example of decency
The lady dyes her hair unnatural colors, has tattoos, is married to another woman and supports causes like voting rights and economic equality for women that are anathema to the far rigiht elements in the USA.
But, now taking her retirement from professional soccer just a few games earlier than she had hoped, Megan Rapinoe bows out having missed a critical penalty kick against a very good and very stubborn Swedish team. She led the US women’s soccer team to two straight World Cup wins, but the unprecedented third straight cup was not to be. She tried to tuck the ball just under the bar, but was a few inches too high.
And she took it in stride, with good humor and perfect sportswomanship. She did not call on her fans to riot. She did not spin conspiracy theories about how she was cheated. She walked off to whatever the rest of her life holds for her with her head held high.
Donald Trump – an actual criminal – and his acolyte commentariat threw a fit, questioning her patriotism, her honesty, her worth as a human being. They will certainly redouble their efforts to keep the book that she has written out of public libraries and especially school libraries. “Get woke, go broke” they pleaded to the billionaires who control most of the US economy, hoping to land Rapinoe on all sorts of blacklists.
But you know what? For every one of those braying asses there are many Americans who are disappointed about that penalty kick but proud of what Megan Rapinoe has done to elevate the status of American women, both as an athlete and as an involved public citizen.
Detail from a 1901 self-portrait.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Pablo Picasso
Bear in mind…
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.
Miss Piggy
And thus I arrive at the foundation of my theory about art as a vehicle for dissent: the fury and purity of the creator’s need to say something motivates the work, but he forms it from logic and craft and honesty and when the propaganda value has faded into last week’s imperative, the art remains behind and stands on its own merits.
Harlan Ellison
We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for.
Marie Ebner von Eschenbach
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