The Social Security Fund (CSS) headquarters at Clayton’s Building 219.
It’s bound to be controversial
Tomorrow night — Thursday, September 19 — at 6 p.m. President Mulino will address the nation on all television broadcast networks and streaming online at several places to talk about the Social Security Fund.
Panama has a unique accounting system in any case, but within that there are big disagreements over whether and to what extent there is a financial crisis in the Caja de Seguro Social. (Social Security Fund.) This institution more or less runs the nation’s public pension fund, with a 2005 partial privatization putting much of its savings into private banks in individual account in beneficiaries’ names. The fund also runs a major part — alongside the separate Ministry of Health — of Panama socialized health care system. (Private medical services, clinics and hospitals also exist alongside the dual public system.)
One major issue with any sort of public safety net in Panama is that about half of the working population is in the informal economy, which tends to be low-paid and contributing to neither taxes to the government’s general fund nor contributions to the CSS. Those who make than just over $1000 per month or less, in any case, have not been required to keep records or pay taxes.
Mulino met with business leaders, first of all the National Private Enterprise Council (CoNEP), and later with many but not all of the interested parties. His appointee to head the fund, veteran private insurance executive Dino Mon, was barely ratified by the National Assembly with the large Vamos independent bloc voting against him and many deputies from various parties arranging to be absent during the vote. In years past Mon has advocated “parametric measures,” that is, some combination of raising the retirement age or increasing the number of payments into the system over the years for someone to qualify for a pension.
Various forms of theft have dogged the system for many years. These, most commonly, are employers deducting CSS payments from workers’ paychecks and just pocketing the money. Mon has characterized such accounts as “uncollectable debts,” but they would accrue to some members of the wealthiest families in Panama and companies or their successors with substantial assets. Panamanian corporate and banking secrecy laws make it easier to launder or conceal such assets.
The major labor unions and politicians of various parties have declared their opposition to “parametric measures.” HOWEVER, given the post-invasion history of Panamanian politics, a semantics shell game about what parametric measures include and crude deceptions about “consultations” or “agreements” would not be big surprises.
Organized labor and working Panamanians in general have been less tolerant of the usual games in recent years, which puts José Raúl Mulino in a position to inflame the situation with what he says, or to cool passions about Social Security with the content of his speech.
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A new section is open in downtown Anton’s public market!
At long last! Visible progress on the Anton public market expansion
photos and story by Eric Jackson
Work was underway forever, it seems. For this writer, a believer in buying locally, a micro-business guy who supports other such, but by now a default skeptic about public works in Panama, it was something that I could have just ignored. However, the market has long been there and for years during my residence in one of Anton’s semi-boondocks corregimentos I have been a customer. Fresh fruits and vegetables, spices, herbs, the occasional medicinal plant and — like this time the yield turned out to be — seeds for my tiny farm. No telling how they may hybridize for next year, given things already planted, but there should be a good bean crop this year.
Anyway, it was a mandatory dog food run into town, with some laundry to do and breakfast to eat while reading the day’s hard copy newspapers. The investigative work of others jumping out from the pages of La Prensa in particular fed my skepticism about public works projects here. After breakfast it was time to take the clothes, sheets and pillowcases out of the washer, put them in the dryer, and take a stroll with camera at the ready to see what might be seen.
WHAT’S THIS? The meat and seafood section of an expanded public market is now open, with a few people working the stalls. Yummy gout food on this day. I passed on the langostinos, but had someone been selling the right species of fish I might have bought some for the dogs and cats at least. No such luck, but the promise of better days to come.
Wow! Fondas to come. There is, however, a great deal of competition in town already. Much probably depends on how much rent is to be charged. You’d expect a slow start to this food court.
You look at the picture, however, and there are promises, or at least hints, of grander things to come. Like those stairs to the upper left, leading to a whole new second story of the old market. What’s going to go in there? And the glare on the right — a glass door to the back. It could be just a nondescript alleyway, but with the right fence and vines could be a beautiful little courtyard for outdoor dining and little meetings of many sorts.
Oh yeah! By way of a little passage to the back, the long-open section where they sell fruits, vegetables, root crops, herbs, spices and seeds. It was slow on a Tuesday morning.
Not quite there yet, and I might imagine some political and business games to come here. Well informal vendors elsewhere in Anton be told “You can’t park your truck there” or “You can’t set up a stand there — but you CAN set up in the expanded public market. The price would matter if that tack gets taken, but on the other hand, some established little fondas might find it attractive to get away from oppressive rent by downsizing to the public market food court. And will the area’s artists and craftspeople find profitable places to sell upstairs?
It’s all a bit hard to say right now, but the basic infrastructure of a bigger and better Anton public market is now more or less in place.
To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.
To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.
To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.
Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.
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Jon “Bowzer” Bauman of Sha Na Na notoriety, now rabble-rouser in chief of a mob of raging grannies et al for Social Security Works and the Democratic Party’s Seniors Caucus. Wikimedia photo by Gage Skidmore.
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The father – legislator and member of the PRD national executive committee Raúl Pineda. It’s not the son – businessman and San Miguelito PRD figure Abraham “Rico” Pineda, now in La Joya awaiting trial on drug smuggling and money laundering charges. Not to presume guilt by association but notice that the father has legal immunities that the son doesn’t. From a video at the National Assembly, where the father stepped aside from his official duties while all that the reporters want to ask him is about the scandal.
“Summary Proof”
Rico Pineda is in a whole world of trouble and finds himself in preventive detention not in El Renacer near Gamboa, where politically connected inmates are usually housed, but in the much harsher and rougher La Joya prison complex. Innocent unless and until proven guilty, bu the reports leaking out look at first blush to be pretty damning.
Even more problematic, it has been reported, is that the suspect’s father was caught on a wiretap talking about one of the alleged instances of drug money laundering while it was happening. But the father, Raúl Pineda, is on the national executive committee of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and holds powerful committee posts in the National Assembly. The party positions and history within the PRD do matter, but in this instance the key is that he’s an elected legislator.
AS PRACTICED, the law here says that members of our unicameral legislature, the National Assembly, are immune from criminal investigation unless there is a complaint to which “summary proof” that a crime has been committed and that the person accused did it. Has there been an investigation of some sort to compile such proofs? Unless it fortuitoously came up in another matter aimed at someone else, such an investigation was illegal and bars and further investigation or criminal proceedings against the person protected by the summary proof rule. In addition to the members of the national legislature, top officials from the nation’s executive and judicial branches of government. Perhaps most annoyingly, so are members of the Central American Parliament, a do-nothing booby prize for former presidents and lucky party activists.
It’s a recipe for widespread corruption in government, and by the letter of the current Panamanian constitution it’s improper because that basic document says that there shall be no privileges or immunities based upon social class.
Meanwhile the elder Pineda has not been charged, nor formally investigate, bu the names of people who over the years helped him rise to the top of the PRD – who are not convicted, charged, formally investigated or even reasonably suspected of doing anything wrong keep popping up in stories about the Pinedas.
To protect the innocent from oppression, defamation and suspicion coming from many different angles, and to have criminal justice that sorts out accountability based on facts rather than associations, Panama needs to specifically abolish the summary proof rule in all of its applications. Let’s have equal justice for everybody.
Unforced GOP error: with Donald Trump having experienced a sympathetic bump in the polls after surviving an assassination attempt by a messed-up teenager with an assault rifle, that dynamic changed when Trump’s VIP candidate introduced himself to the American public with this gun worship photo. It might have cememted the NRA endorsement but it reinforced public concerns about gun violence at large in society. NOW, going into the Labor Day weekend, Vance says that people without children “disturb” and “disorient” him.
As US Labor Day approaches
A tumultuous summer approaches its end, by ordinary US reckoning. It’s almost Labor Day weekend, a traditional staring point for the quadrennial sprint to a presidential election. The electoral math, momentum and memes have undergone dramatic changes since Joe Biden decided to step aside as his party’s candidate in favor of Kamala Harris. The Democrats are pulling ahead by many measures.
However, it’s a close race and there’s no guarantee that the Trump ticket will continue is implosion into the fall,.
The US system, with its Electoral College, is an odd relic of an 18th century compromise between Yankee traders and slave-owning Southern planters, so lately getting the most votes across the nation is often not a path to victory in a presidential race
Plus, with the divisions in US society so downright vicious as they have become, do we really want to continue with all the dysfunction, demagoguery, increased vulnerability to corruption ans stalemates about important business that divided government produces?
It’s almost time for Americans to come back from vacation to get serious. Seriously, to VOTE.
Willa Cather circa 1912. Wikimedia photo via Aime Dupont Studio, New York.
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.
Willa Cather
Bear in mind…
That’s the trouble with a politician’s life — somebody is always interrupting it with an election.
Will Rogers
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
Mark Twain
Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge’s chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view.
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The candidates and their spouses at the Democratic National Convention. Photo by Prachatai.
‘Coconut farmers for Harris,’ influencers and vertical signs – Smithsonian encounters at the Democrats’ convention
by Claire Jerry & Lisa Kathleen Graddy — political history curators at the Smithsonian Institution
At the 2024 Democratic National Convention alongside politicians and delegates from across the country are political history curators from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, who are collecting what museum curators call “ephemera” – items that people wear, carry, hand out, display or otherwise use during the convention.
The Conversation US politics editor Jeff Inglis spoke with Claire Jerry and Lisa Kathleen Graddy about what they have seen so far and how attendees are using a wide range of items, including those distributed in an area called “DemPalooza.” They have not yet seen any hot dish-themed items referring to vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, where that type of meal is popular. But they have seen cheese-shaped hats and a couple of very interesting lapel pin-type buttons.
Inglis: What have you seen or collected so far?
Graddy: Some of the buttons we’ve been seeing are referencing the memes that have been coming out. One of the buttons says “Coconut farmers for Harris,” a riff on her mother’s saying, “Do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”
I was sitting on a shuttle on Aug. 20, heading to the convention center. There were a couple of women sitting near me, and one said she didn’t have any buttons yet, so the other – if I were going to hazard a guess at her age, I would say late 60s, early 70s – offered her a button to wear. As she was handing her a button, she said, “Here, you can wear one of mine. I don’t know why it says ‘coconut’ on it. Maybe it’s referencing her heritage.”
And I thought, “Interesting! You’re obviously not on social media. You haven’t seen this as a meme.”
There also was a button that said “Influencers for Harris,” and I thought that was interesting because it’s so tapped into social media influencing, and I’ve never seen that. In 2016 (fellow curator Jon Grinspan) and I were intrigued by the fact that Twitter had a booth. I think we picked up some little buttons with the Twitter and Instagram logos. It was very new as part of the campaign process. Now, there are people with press badges that say specifically “creator.”
Inglis: Press badges used to say “Washington Post” or “Chicago Tribune.”
Jerry: In our collection, we have convention badges for media, going back to the early days of the 20th century. Some of them will say “telegraph operator.” Some of them will say “newspaper.” They’re very specific. We don’t probably have any telegraph operators working media at this convention. Now, it’s “influencer.”
Inglis: Are there other items that connect with the past in some way?
A new type of supporter for political campaigns has emerged. Lisa Kathleen Graddy, National Museum of American History.
Graddy: One thing that we picked up is a classic. I always like to see what people are picking up in the official merchandise shop. I like to chat with people and see what they’re buying, see what’s really resonating with people and what’s popular.
There is a brooch that says “Harris 2024,” and it is bedazzled, rhinestone-esque. I’ve seen people picking it up and saying, “Oh look at the bling.” And I can never resist stopping to explain that’s in a tradition that goes back to “I like Ike” of rhinestone campaign jewelry. It’s nice to see that that is still continuing. A little bling in a campaign never goes out of fashion.
Inglis: On Tuesday night, there were some pretty prominent people who spoke. Were there any Obama or Clinton campaign materials that resurfaced?
Graddy: I’m sure someone, somewhere on their lanyard, is wearing their Obama button or one of their buttons from a past campaign. People tend to do that.
Jerry: I certainly saw that at the Republican National Convention. People would walk by and some people had Reagan buttons on. I actually saw some people wearing Nixon buttons at the RNC. So I would guess that Lisa Kathleen’s right, that individual delegates, who might have been a delegate in 2008, would be wearing buttons.
Graddy: I love people’s lanyards. One day I want to see somebody give us their entire lanyard, when they’re completely done with it, if their kids don’t want it. Because it’s like their history in politics is on their lanyard.
Inglis: Like a resume almost.
Graddy: It’s all their memories. I mean, that’s what material culture is, isn’t it? Your memories, right? The stuff that you save and you have in a bookcase and you save in scrapbooks and you hope your kids will see it.
Jerry: Those are two great metaphors. It’s your memories and it’s your resume. It’s saying, “I really am not just a casual delegate. I’ve been serious about this for a long time, and when I look at the buttons, what I see is my first convention or my first vote.”
Inglis: What has the scene been like on the convention floor?
Graddy: I love when everybody holds up their sign on a pole. There’s just a sea of them. When (President Joe) Biden came out to speak, looking down you couldn’t see the people. What you were seeing was simply a sea of signs. It’s just amazing.
Jerry: There were no signs like that on vertical sticks as a sea of signs at the Republican convention.
Former President Barack Obama speaks at the Democratic National Convention.
Graddy: It’s a very Democratic thing. They’ve been doing this for years. I’ll be honest: We take the stick out before it gets to the museum because it’s easier to store.
You see the convention staff coming out with bags, big green bags filled with these signs. And they start handing them out and passing them down the rows for people to hold up at a certain point. You can’t cue everybody, but you sort of know, because they’re all keyed to the speeches, it’s going to respond to something in a speech.
And you just sort of know about the right timing. I mean, you can wave your “Jill” sign at any point when (first lady) Jill Biden comes out, or when Doug (Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband) comes out, waving your “Doug” sign. But I was watching them bring out the big signs on sticks that said “Vote” and I thought, “What’s the cue for that?”
There’s a point in (former President Barack) Obama’s speech, he says something, and people start to boo, and he says, “No, no, don’t boo – vote.” And all the signs went up.
A former colleague of ours used to refer to it as “sign discipline.” The sign discipline is very tight at the Democratic convention. I’m fascinated with the way both conventions use the sign. It’s done for the cameras and it’s done for participation, so while you are participating, you are making visual statements for the event. There’s a level of call and response to it.
Jerry: Another metaphor would be choreography, a dance back and forth between the speakers and the people with the signs. Sometimes it’s almost like you can see the dance spreading from one side of the room that put their signs up and now the whole room is going to do it.
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Dr. James J. Zogby, founder of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and then a member of the Democratic National Committee, on the Campaign trail in 2016. Wikimedia photo byTony Fischer.
Despite the hurt and pain of seeing the plight of those suffering in Gaza sidelined at the DNC, the entire saga represented a win—one we must recognize and embrace, and on which we must now build.
Supporters of Palestinian rights were victorious at the Democratic Convention
The 2024 Democratic National Convention was an exhausting roller coaster ride for Arab Americans and supporters of Palestinian rights. It was a messy affair, with highs and lows, some small victories and some setbacks. But on balance, the naysayers are wrong, because Palestine and supporters of Palestinian rights were big winners during the four days in Chicago.
We didn’t get language on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict changed in the party platform, nor did we get a Palestinian American speaker in prime time from the convention’s main stage. But the issue of Palestine was front and center from Monday through Thursday, and in the days that followed. They were little wins, to be sure, but they were victories, nonetheless.
On Monday, the convention agreed to host a panel on Palestinian suffering at an official site. It was co-chaired by Minnesota Attorney General (former Congressman) Keith Ellison and myself. It featured the compelling testimonies of: Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan who told harrowing stories of children and medical workers who were victims of the genocidal war on Gaza; Layla Elabed, a Palestinian American leader of the national Uncommitted Movement that garnered 750,000 voters, protesting the administration’s complicity in the war; former Congressman Andy Levin, who lost his reelection due to AIPAC spending millions to defeat him; and Hala Hijazi, a Palestinian American Democratic Party fundraiser who had lost scores of family members in Gaza.
There had been over 30 of these official side panels hosted by the campaign. Most had been sparsely attended by delegates and party members; for example, the one on the war in Ukraine had less than one hundred participants. This session on Palestine had well over 300 attendees, with most deeply moved by what they heard. There were many tears shed as well as a number of standing ovations in support of the speakers and issues raised.
Now isn’t the time to withdraw in defeatist anger. Instead, it’s imperative to recognize the victories won and continue to engage with allies in the political process, because change will come…
It was understood that securing the official sponsorship for the panel wasn’t the victory we sought. Our goal remains a change in US policy. But recognition of Palestinian suffering and Israel and the US responsibility for producing this genocidal war was important and could not be dismissed.
News that an Israeli American family would take the convention’s main stage to tell about their son who was a Hamas-held hostage upped the ante and led us to insist that a Palestinian American also be invited to tell the story of their family in Gaza. Days of negotiations followed. When the decision was made to not extend an invitation, Abbas Alawieh, another of the leaders of the National Uncommitted Movement, led a protest walkout from the arena and a sit-in in front of the convention.
I called this campaign decision a “bone-headed, unforced error.” It was deeply hurtful to Palestinian Americans who felt their humanity wasn’t being recognized. It threatened to erase the positives gained by the campaign’s recognition of our panel, leaving supporters of Palestinian rights with a sour taste in their mouths. But it also meant—and this is important to recognize—that the issue of Palestine and the effort to silence our voices would once again be elevated to the center of discussion. Over the next 24 hours, we held multiple press conferences and spoke one-on-one with dozens of journalists ensuring that the issue of Palestinian rights would continue to be discussed—and it was. Endorsements for having a Palestinian American speaker came from members of Congress, national organizations (including Jewish groups), Black and Hispanic leaders, two prominent Jewish newspapers, and even the Israeli American family that had spoken at the convention.
Reviewing the convention itself, it was moving to see hundreds of delegates, including hundreds of Harris supporters, wearing kaffiyehs or “Democrats for Palestine” buttons, including Vice President Harris’s niece. It was also important to note that when Palestine was mentioned by speakers, it was greeted by rousing applause. And while in her speech Vice President Harris included the usual commitments to Israel’s security, her words about Palestinian suffering were passionate and punctuated by her commitment to their “freedom, security, dignity, and self-determination.” That’s more than any other presidential nominee has ever said. And so, despite the hurt, the entire saga represented a win—one we must recognize and embrace, and on which we must now build.
Today’s movement for justice for Palestinians isn’t riding on the back of a leader. It is a people-powered movement, from the bottom up.
Thirty-six years ago, I was the last Arab American to speak about Palestinian rights at a national party convention when, in 1988, I presented the Jackson campaign’s minority plank on Palestinian rights from the podium in Atlanta. I knew it was a historic moment and in the days that followed I experienced the backlash from pro-Israel forces within the party. They pressured me to resign my post as a member of the Democratic National Committee. It was then that Reverend Jackson taught me two important lessons I’ve not forgotten.
The first was that “When you win a victory, embrace it but never turn your back, because the knives will be out to get you.” The other was, “Never quit, because that’s exactly what your enemies want you to do. What they fear most is that you’ll stick around to fight.”
These lessons apply today, with a difference. In 1988, we were able to raise the issue because it was a powerful Jackson-led movement. Today’s movement for justice for Palestinians isn’t riding on the back of a leader. It is a people-powered movement, from the bottom up. This effort has mobilized to pass ceasefire resolutions in over 350 cities and won the support of major unions, Black, Latino, and Asian organizations. It is responsible for demonstrations mobilizing millions of Americans, encampments on over 100 college campuses, and garnering over 750,000 votes in Democratic primaries across the United States. Polls show that the majority of Democrats want a ceasefire, conditioning arms to Israel, and securing rights for Palestinians.
Now isn’t the time to withdraw in defeatist anger. Instead, it’s imperative to recognize the victories won and continue to engage with allies in the political process, because change will come—but only if this work continues.
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