One Man's Opinion

Always more than willing to believe the worst when it has to do with a country it dislikes, the U.S. allowed the Isaías brothers, two Ecuadorean businessmen -- convicted of embezzlement in their homeland -- into the country and refuses to extradite them, in spite of the American Embassy in Ecuador's repeated attempts to have their visas revoked. Now, it turns out that this rather bizarre episode has a darker side: the two men have contributed heavily to the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign itself. Obviously, this is not your typical case of the Americans doing something to spite a foreign leader it regards as an enemy, like Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, or the case of considering suspect any other legal system but their own. The Isaías brothers have bought their "asylum" in the U.S. Money talks and the guilty walk.

The U.S. is always meddling in other countries' affairs; quite often in faraway places. A recent example: Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has just said that the American government "supports an independent ...future " for Moldava. How about supporting an independent future for Puerto Rico, the U.S. colony in the Caribbean, so close to home?

I know. It's too easy. But, it's too good for me to pass it up. We now know that Steve Jobs of Apple and Erick Schmidt of Google conspired to limit technical workers' wages, and to refrain from recruiting from each other's companies, thus making it harder for employees to get raises. This is why one should never speak too well of the dead. When Jobs died, there was a great outpouring of grief over his loss. It sounded like he was going to be canonized. I thought it was too good to be true. It was.

It's become so commonplace that it's hardly news. The U.S. Secret Service agents behaving badly, especially, abroad. This time it was in Amsterdam, where three of them went on a drinking binge which left one of them passed out in a hotel hallway hours before he was to go on duty. To make matters worse, these agents had been warned by a supervisor not to get into trouble. Obviously, there is very little self-discipline in the agency and very little regard for the chain of command. To say the least, the Secret Service has become a public embarrassment for the American government all around the world. The U.S., which loves to boast about its institutions and lecture the rest of the world on how to conduct official business, gets another black eye at the highest and most visible level.

The U.N. has given the U.S a good talking to on its civil rights record, as well it should. The Human Rights Committee has pulled no punches in denouncing the Americans for a series of violations concerning not just the secret electronic surveillance we are now so familiar with, but their treatment of the prison population, racial profiling, gun violence and the excessive use of force by law enforcement, among other things. The U.S., so fond of grading everyone else, has gotten its due with this "report card" by an international panel of experts.

It's a staggering statistic. Pollution killed 7 million people in 2012. For those who doubt that man is destroying the planet and himself along with it, this is a sobering fact. Decades of scientific warnings have done little to raise enough consciousness about the way that we are poisoning our air, soil and water. Progress has been mistakenly defined, and we are paying the price of that error. Maybe this economic crisis we are going through will force us to rethink our priorities, and choose to live in a more modest, healthier and safer world.

A couple of days ago, I said that Michelle Obama must think we're stupid. Ditto for her husband. He wants Congress to "reform" the NSA spying program, by requiring the espionage to be approved by the judiciary, as if that will make it all right. We all know how that is going to work: they will find compliant judges that will rubber-stamp anything that the NSA wants to do. Even if they do not engage in "forum shopping", judges will tend to favor the government's position on matters of "national security." I just do not see judges spending too much time and effort going over the evidence on a case-by-case basis, as Obama would have us believe. It's not gonna happen. This is just a whitewash operation to go on with business as usual, spying to their heart's content.

Say what you will about Vladimir Putin, but he's one crafty guy. He has come up with a simple and inexpensive way of beating the U.S. at the spy game; at least, as far as he personally is concerned. While the rest of top world leaders are helplessly fuming at the Americans for spying on them, Putin has no cell phone to be tapped and no e-mails to be snooped on. He rarely uses the regular telephone, and, when he does, the communication is encrypted. In sum, he has placed himself beyond the grasp of all that sophisticated technology that the West relies on so much. There's a lesson for the rest of us.

Some people never learn. Having made a mess of things by deciding to strip Dominicans of Haitian ancestry of their citizenship retroactively, the DR government has stopped the woman whose case started all this from leaving the country to attend a meeting of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington. In spite of a U.S. document that would allow her into the U.S. for this purpose, Dominican authorities insist that she needs a passport. Issued by whom may I ask? Thanks to the DR, the woman is neither Haitian nor Dominican, so this is a perfect "Catch-22" situation. And a perfectly-stupid thing to do by a government that is already reviled the world over for its treatment of Haitians in its country.

Michelle Obama has gone to China to defend free Internet against that country's restrictions, because she says "that's how we discover the truth." That's right. But, isn't she married to the man who presides over a country that spies on its own citizens and those of other countries -- including their elected officials --  who use the Internet and the telephone, and wants to put in jail or maybe even execute the man who has "discovered that truth"? She must think we're all stupid.

The Pope keeps telling the Gospel truth about many things. He has just said that the current economic system is incapable of creating jobs in a significant way. Furthermore, he has pointed out that chronic and widespread unemployment leads to disillusionment and marginalization, especially of young people. Thus, he calls for the business community to be creative and sensitive to these issues, adopting a more modest lifestyle, in order to be better able to help the jobless. In other words, he's telling employers to not be so greedy and selfish wanting to have profits that allow them to live lavishly, while there are people that they could employ and pay decent wages to. The only way the world is going to come out of this crisis is if enough people have good-paying, permanent full-time jobs that allow them to spend, save and invest confidently. And that is God's truth.

The death of several Portuguese university students by hazing begs the question: Who came up with the idea that  inflicting corporal punishment or exposing someone to dangerous situations has any place in higher education? Anyone who wants to be accepted as part of a fraternity or a similar group so badly, that he allows himself to be beaten up, humiliated or subjected to all sorts of degrading or perilous circumstances is too stupid and has such low esteem, that he should not be allowed to receive a college degree. Even the "milder" version of hazing, consisting of pranks and other foolishness, is utter nonsense that should never be a part of a college atmosphere and education.

I suppose that it's a case of reciprocity of sorts. Benjamin Netanyahu has said: "There is no country on the face of the earth more pro-America than Israel." There is no question that, by the same token, there is no country on the face of the earth more pro-Israel than the United States. Though those are very old and well-known political facts, I find it rather unseemly that a head of state frame a political alliance or relationship in those terms. Putting it that way, it sounds like Israel is a "groupie" of American diplomacy and interests, without a mind of its own. It also smacks of grandstanding before an American audience who always loves to hear how other countries kowtow to their own in all things. In any case, "Bibi" has behaved like a bobo.

The news that the U.S. will not recognize the results of the Crimean referendum is no news. The U.S. picks and chooses what voting it considers valid. As a Puerto Rican, I'm not at all surprised by this announcement. In 2012, we held a referendum which clearly expressed our dissatisfaction with our current status as a territory -- to put it mildly -- of the U.S. The American government has chosen to ignore the result. Regardless of the merits of the Crimean voting per se , the fact of the matter is that the U.S. won't regard as valid any voting process that is not to its liking. Even if an election or other democratic process is fair and square, the Americans will not accept it, and will do anything and everything to reverse it, witness Venezuela as a recent case in point.

If you are one of those credulous souls who believe that meaningful and effective gun control is possible in the U.S., forget it. The National Rifle Association has a stranglehold on this issue; so much so, that it appears that the NRA has "shot down" the nominee for Surgeon General, solely on his public support of gun control. The NRA has gone full blast against him, by threatening senators with campaigning against them in those states in which gun owners see gun control as a fundamental issue. So, goodbye, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Goodbye, gun control.

The Pope has done it again. He has come out in full support of priests who serve impoverished communities, especially in Latin America under the banner of liberation theology, rejecting the easy labels of "communists" and making it clear that they are doing God's work. The man has a clear and consistent vision of what the Church should stand for in the world, in light of the Gospel. That is to serve the needy, not the rich and famous. In the past, too much of the Church's time and effort went to "minister" to the wealthy and those in power. In his first year as Pope, Francis has begun to rectify that mistake.

It's rather obvious that the so-called "Arab Spring" and the rest of the upheaval in North Africa hasn't been the success that the West thought it would be. Egypt is a case in point. So is Libya. Three years after getting rid of Qaddafi, the situation there is worse than the one in Egypt, "no mean feat." The West -- mainly the U.S. -- has conveniently ignored the chaos, embarrassed, I suppose, by having helped to bring about such a disastrous result. People all over the world are finding out the hard way that it's one thing to bring down a government from the street, but quite another to form a functioning one and rebuild a country left in shambles by mob rule and foreign opportunistic intervention.

Dianne Feinstein is either very naive or she's just feigning surprise and outrage to make a point. The senator from California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is beside herself on account of the CIA hacking the Committee's computers. But, what did she expect from the spy agency? She's old enough and has been in politics long enough to realize that the CIA is a power unto itself. Did she really believe that the Agency would respect the U.S. Senate and its oversight authority? If she did, she should retire from public office, due to imbecility or senility.

Joe Biden, who has made a career of embarrassing himself with all sorts of gaffes and inappropriate comments, has done it again. Commenting on the Venezuelan situation, he has accused the Maduro government of "concocting" false stories about what is really going on. Ironically, it's the opposition which has been shown to have engaged in using photos of conflicts in other parts of the world, in order to badmouth the Venezuelan government. Biden should have checked the facts first. But, then again, he plays fast and loose with the truth. In law school and beyond, he has plagiarized the work of others on various occasions, the most famous and damaging being the time in 1987 when he did so with a speech by a British politician. As a consequence, he took himself out of the presidential race for 1988. So, Joe Biden has no moral authority to speak about people "concocting" this or that.

I may have touched on the subject, but it bears repeating, given current events. There are a handful of countries from the northern hemisphere that act as if they own the rest of the world and have a God-given right to tell other countries what to do. In a way, it's understandable; these countries were colonial powers that "owned" and exploited vast parts of Africa, Arabia, Asia and Latin America for centuries. So, they grew accustomed to see the southern hemisphere and other parts of the world with dark-skinned people as inferior and subservient to them. No matter that more than half-a-century has gone by since almost all of those regions gained its independence, the former colonial powers still feel that they can dictate what must be done, and are constantly threatening those countries with sanctions of all sorts, if they have the audacity of disobeying. In the collective psyche of the white man, he is is still "master" and the others are "serfs."

It's one of those things that most people don't question, but go along with. The college entrance examinations like the SAT or ACT have been around for a long time, and their validity is taken for granted. But, now a U.S. university president has come out pointing out that these standardized tests are not that useful in helping to choose who is "college material" and who is not. In a very cogent criticism of the tests, he has called for their rejection, in favor of a different kind of test that will really measure a student's skills for doing good work in college. As someone who has had some contact with college students, including at the graduate level, I couldn't agree more that the system for admitting students on the basis of those test scores is deeply flawed, and needs to be revamped towards one that focuses on analysis, interpretation and writing skills at a high level.

The Afghan "government" doesn't bother to protest anymore. It's just a fact of life that the Americans will kill Afghans of all walks of life, on purpose or by mistake, and there is nothing the Afghans can do about it. Every time it happens, the Americans say that they will investigate; it was an error and they are sorry. Which, of course, they're not. The latest victims are five dead Afghan soldiers and eight wounded. Some say that this was another drone strike; others, that the plane had a crew, which would make it worse. In any case, this is "business as usual" for the Americans and the Afghans.

Just a couple of quick questions about the protesters in Venezuela. Who are these students that spend their time on the streets? Do they go to class? When and where? In other words, are they bona fide students ? As to the rest of the protesters, who can afford to spend so much time protesting? Don't these people have to work for a living? Evidently not, so they must be well off ... Just wondering...

Surprise, surprise! A major study of the American military has found that serious mental health problems are much more prevalent in its ranks than in the general population in the United States. It isn't just that those who go to war come back troubled -- which is understandable -- but the fact that about half of the recruits are emotionally or mentally disturbed, to begin with. This explains why, once they're under the stress of military service, they "go ballistic." Literally. Studies such as this one confirm the popular wisdom about people who volunteer for military service...

"Beauty queens side with the opposition" speaks volumes about the Venezuelan situation, doesn't it?

Obama protesting against Russia's "invasion" of the Ukraine is really laughable, not because it's not an invasion, but because the U.S. is the last country that should criticize another for invading other countries. On that score, the Americans are way ahead of the rest of the competition, at least in the 20th and 21st centuries. As a Puerto Rican, whose country was invaded by the U.S. in 1898 and has remained here, keeping us a its colony, I would laugh my head off at Obama's cynicism ...except for the pain I feel, living in an invaded country.

One should always read carefully, especially when the text deals with important issues. A word or a phrase can be revealing of much more than what the piece seems to be about. In a recent article in The Washington Post about the protests in Venezuela, one reads that they take place " mostly in middle-class neighborhoods " and that there was a " demonstration in a well-off part in east Caracas ." Meanwhile it mentions a proposal in the U.S. Senate " to freeze assets of Venezuelans linked to government repression ." Not too subtle, isn't it? It's crystal-clear who's behind the protests, and who will profit from them in Venezuela and you know where.