Columnistas invitados/Guest columnists

Democrats, liberals, and Trumptrollers have been concentrating their destructive efforts on the President’s handling of the pandemic, confident (or pretending to be) that his alleged failures in this area are the key to defeating him in November. Their less noisy line of attack is to paint the protectionist economic and trade policies that defined his election campaign four years ago as theoretical errors that inevitably failed when given practical application. Thus (they argue) Trump’s meetings with President Xi, and those of his trade negotiators with their Chinese opposites, have produced nothing, or next to nothing. Certainly, Peking’s pledge of a year or so ago to buy more products from the United States, agricultural commodities in particular, are unlikely to be kept; partly as a result of China’s deepening economic crisis, and also because increasing tensions between the two superpowers disincline Xi to bolster Trump and America in any way.

The apparent standoff is encouraging an attitude of “I-told-you-so” among skeptics and the Administrations’ detractors. Earlier this week, Walter Russell Mead wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s instincts are often mutually self-defeating. “Take China policy,” he wrote. “Mr. Trump clearly believes that economic power is the key to national strength and that enhancing America’s economic vitality is necessary to maintain the country’s position in years to come. He also believes that under its current leadership China is a threat to American security and world peace. But Mr. Trump and his aides alike struggle to create a coherent policy around these ideas, in large part because the economic strategy and the China strategy, while they overlap in places, don’t mesh.” 

^{Traducción del francés}

Para mi generación, esta epidemia global es un acontecimiento nunca antes conocido, nunca experimentado. Sin embargo, cuando hablo con mis padres, parece que el mundo ya lo sabía y no sólo en los últimos siglos.

No es necesario retroceder a la peste, el cólera o la gripe española de 1918. Otras epidemias, muy parecidas al Coronavirus, golpearon al mundo en 1957 y en 1969.

En 1957, el mundo experimentó una pandemia llamada "gripe asiática". Mi padre todavía lo recuerda porque toda su familia (padre, madre, 5 hijos) estuvieron en cama, casi sin poder levantarse, durante más de 15 días. Esta "gripe asiática" causó 100,000 muertes solo en Francia y más de 2 millones de muertes en todo el mundo.

En 1969, recién llegada de Asia, la "gripe de Hong Kong" golpeó al mundo. Causó 31,000 muertes en Francia y 1 millón de muertes en todo el mundo.

Encontré un artículo en el diario Liberation que comparó en 2005 las consecuencias de la ola de calor de 2003 con las de la "gripe de Hong Kong". Esto es lo que dice el extracto de ese artículo sobre la situación en 1969:

[Entrevista que me publicaron en notiar.com.ar]

P. Sabemos que Ud. junto a otros intelectuales de distintos países están estudiando las perspectivas de futuro para el mundo post-coronavirus. ¿Qué puede comentarnos?

R. En realidad, el grupo se constituyó para analizar el tema de la educación y su problemática futura, considerando las innovaciones que se producen en el mundo, el adelanto tecnológico, el futuro del trabajo y la dificultad que el tema encuentra en nuestro país y su demora en adaptarse a esas condiciones. Nuestra agenda para el año 2020 incluía presentaciones en las Ferias del Libro de Buenos Aires y de Miami, y especialmente un panel en Miami, con las participaciones de las Universidades de Miami, de la Florida International University, del Interamerican Institute for Democracy y del Lab Test, del MIT.

Trabajamos muy especialmente en ese panel, previsto para mayo de este año, que sería presentado bajo el título general de “Democracia, Educación y Tecnología” y que estaría integrado por diferentes mesas de trabajo. Entre ellas, se incluíría una sobre “El pulso del mundo”, y otras como “Las fronteras de la ciencia y la tecnología ya están acá”, “Del Team Lab al Tec de Monterrey: reinventando la universidad”, “Medellín, la ciudad más innovadora del mundo” y “De las ciudades inteligentes a los ciudadanos inteligentes”.

Entre los conferenciantes se encontraban, entre otros, Alejandro Piscitelli, un filósofo argentino a cargo de una cátedra sobre innovación en la Universidad de Buenos Aires y Daniel Innerarity, un filósofo español especialista en democracia y uno de sus más lúcidos críticos de la forma actual en que se desarrolla. La conferencia magistral iba a pronunciarla Nicolás Negroponte, creador junto con Rodrigo Arboleda, del proyecto “One laptop per child”.

Con la aparición de la pandemia, todo el programa debió ser postergado, pero decidimos mantener la actitividad del grupo, ampliado ahora a temas menos específicos y más institucionales, y muy conectados con los problemas que la pandemia podría ocasionar.

We are experiencing the most critical period in American history since 1945, and perhaps even the War Between the States. The crisis is a triple one: of public health, the economy, and the Constitution. The last of the three is also the greatest. The country has recently learned that the highest levels of state, including the presidency, have been corrupted by criminals and even traitors.

The recently completed Democratic primaries have been exploited by journalists and politicians to represent Barack Obama’s administration as having been a politically moderate one, not only by comparison with what a Democratic successor is likely bring on but in terms of Aristotelian balance and restraint. Republicans and conservatives who feared the worst when Obama was first elected in 2008—and said so—have been condescended to ever since as reactionary alarmists. Just look what he might have done, as the agenda of the new progressive Democratic candidates suggest—but didn’t do! The Republican Party on the other hand, by nominating and electing Donald Trump as President, thus radicalizing members of the opposition party (Obama’s Vice-President included), have only themselves to blame for the present enflamed political situation. The most recent disclosures made last week by the Department of Justice concerning l’affaire Flynn should dispel forever the myth of Barack Obama’s “moderation,” and that of his presidential inner circle. Andrew McCarthy, adding this new evidence to what was already known about the case, has done a brilliant job of piecing the full story into a coherent and convincing narrative that appears to explain the facts as we have them so far. First published as an article in National Review, it has subsequently been posted on the internet.

As McCarthy says, the “what” of the matter has long been known: The FBI trapped General Flynn into making misstatements about his wholly conventional conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak regarding American economic sanctions that it could plausibly present as lies that would support a perjury charge and even perhaps prosecution, accomplishing in this way his removal as the new President’s National Security Advisor. The “why,” however, has never been satisfactorily explained. It is now. 

The Agency’s objective was decided in collaboration with officials of Obama’s administration in its last days in office. These included the President himself, Vice-President Biden—currently preparing to run for president himself against President Trump!—Susan Rice, Flynn’s predecessor in his job, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, and James Comey, then Director of the FBI. The four met at the White House on January 5, 2017 to lay their plans. Later Rice drafted a memo summarizing the meeting. “President Obama said,” she wrote in part, “he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.” She composed the memo, McCarthy notes, on the 20th of the month, as the FBI was preparing to get Flynn ousted from his job. The purpose of this collaborative effort was to ensure that the agency’s investigation of President Trump’s relations with the Russians would continue after the inauguration; fatally impeding the new Administration’s efforts to govern–and to reverse its predecessor’s policies especially–while continuing to ferret out the impeachable offenses it was confident of finding. By ridding the White House of Flynn, the conspirators supposed, they would be depriving it of its sole politically experienced hand, one whom they expected would prove loyal to the Chief Executive, not the FBI and the Deep State. Afterward, nothing would be easier than to arrange for a successor from the Swamp to succeed him.