domingo, 28 de mayo de 2017
sábado, 27 de mayo de 2017
jueves, 25 de mayo de 2017
Abrir una fuga en 5 partes es iridiscente.
Amo aquella partita donde los límites entre las relaciones habituales de los tonos están abolidas: De ahí, surge, la rabia, la desesperación y los diferentes estados de ánimo.
Es recoger flores en primavera –siendo alérgico-.
Merece ser destino, una huella que recuerda el alba. Lograr, ciego puerto en tu memoria, es abrir, a la mirada breve, la razón y al pecho que respira, un beso, un gesto que necesita.
Es recoger flores en primavera –siendo alérgico-.
Merece ser destino, una huella que recuerda el alba. Lograr, ciego puerto en tu memoria, es abrir, a la mirada breve, la razón y al pecho que respira, un beso, un gesto que necesita.
El 2º movimiento en Sol Mayor es impecable pero no fluye: Entre frágil compás y compás profundo, no se puede desarrollar una emancipación de la disonancia: No siempre, los límites de la tonalidad son necesarios. Deben romperse. Pero ¿renunciar a la estructura de un movimiento lento en La Mayor?
Tiene melodía, forma, belleza pero la fragilidad y la fuerza debe poseer el arpegio.
No acepto –empáticamente- descubrir el incierto rumor de la vida, prefiero explorar al calor de la luz de la vela, quién dice vela, dice copa de vino tinto, unos versos sueltos, que no esperan a mañana y olvidar lentamente la rosa mustia que sangra en la herida dolosa.
¡El 4º movimiento tiene 74 variaciones!. Abrir una fuga en 5 partes es iridiscente.
Sería tan necesario -y fácil- educar en belleza a los niños. Es elegiaco no hacerlo.
Rafael Suárez
sábado, 20 de mayo de 2017
jueves, 18 de mayo de 2017
miércoles, 17 de mayo de 2017
Cristal: Tres violines para las ganas de besar
Primer violín
Vuelvo a mis notas. No comprendo porque de un Re menor a Sol menor hay dos
fugas en adagio.
Me falta aire.
Copa de vino tinto.
No puedo esperar. Lo quiero ahora. Ya. Lo deseo todo. Nunca quise
garantías. Yo nunca he saltado con red.
Hay más espacio y menos aire. La mente avanza en un olvido exaltado. Es un
viejo masaje que murmura inciertas soledades con una dama por venganza y gotas
de agua.
Necesito aire. Esta abrumada pretensión de someter, dócilmente, la voluntad
indiferente de la razón infinita, es una relación de distancias infranqueables:
Puede haber camino sin límites establecidos. ¿Cómo se aceptan?
Es un trayecto disimulado. Significa la noche absoluta y la noche debe ser
un deseo, no una nueva. No un Sol negro. No un interminable túnel. Agonizo y...Agoniza el
castillo.
El alba rompe el cielo. Estrangula la partita. Sorprende la profundidad de
las emociones. Es un mar agitado. Mi tranvía no es el primero. Es a contraluz.
Es verde oscuro. Es impaciente. Aparece descendiendo desnuda en la madrugada. ¿Se
guarda para mí o de mí?
Tiene la sonrisa de un niña. Describe una gran estela con rumbo.
No pide perdón. Encuentra su ruta.
Recuerdo mí nunca llegaré. Fue en una estación alimentada. Su suelo estaba
empedrado. Había espadas. Fortuna y revolución. Corrientes.
Fueron movimientos primerizos y dulces. Precisos. Simplemente sobrevivir
era refrescante. Podía querer vivir. Reconozco, apenas, aquel hombre. Lo
envidio.
No hay medias puertas. No existe el tiempo. Ni el mañana. A veces, ni siquiera el ayer.
No puedo esperar. No quiero esperar.
Segundo violín
Despierto rizo, profundo sencillo; mis hombros se pliegan. Misterioso aire
nocturno que envuelve este velo. Interrumpen, seductoras, las ganas de besar. Ya no recuerdo el torbellino. Es una ventana
abierta y densa.
Se derrama. Herida flor que implacable duerme sin sepulcro. Fuerte
esplendor oscuro, que en rebeldía, marchita mis cielos con manos muertas y
templos de claro de luna.
No deseo más diamantes voluptuosos. Aún marchita, la cuerda del último cuello.
Es un rubor ingrávido que muestra, ungido, su espléndido rencor salvaje.
Pone rostro a la sangre que hierve. Cuelgas cortinas obedientes.
En un muro encerrado entre el invierno y el sabor de la piel.
Me entrego al olvido. Prende viuda, el tiempo en las cuerdas. Es aroma
templado. Tus ojos vivos, atrasan otra copa de vino. Recojo los guijarros que
rompen las cuerdas. Son violetas a lomos de hierro.
En esta relación de las manos, solo hay perfumes.
Sigue dormido el sol. Salgo a pisar la arena y contemplar las raíces del
Universo. Ningún silencio es igual a otro.
Raja una sonrisa. Era cristal. Discreta. Desnuda. Hoy es vértigo y bajo
esta luz, cascada esférica.
Ahora sí. El alba se evapora. El falso cielo, tranquilo, valioso, se agita.
Corta el mástil mis manos. Es burlón.
Tercer violín
Mientras, vuelve el tumulto.
La vela reúne olas oprimidas de alcoba. Es la hoja de la carne que serena,
ocupa el roce de unos recuerdos, ahora difusos.
Soy presa que arde entre las espigas injertadas y las flores leprosas. No
derramo pupilas tornadas. Pero, así sea.
A la dulce mirada, alquimia noche. A la calma, ardiente pasión. A los mares
recientes, altivas soledades.
Rafael Suárez
Cristal
domingo, 14 de mayo de 2017
In Spain, a Debt Crisis Built on Corporate Borrowing
LONDON. In a country with one of the highest levels of company debt in the world, few businesses in Spain shoulder as big a burden as Grupo A.C.S., the global construction giant whose debt woes have become a mirror image of Spain’s own increasingly severe financial struggle.
Saddled with a 9 billion euro ($11.7 billion) debt pile that is twice the size of the company’s shrinking market value, A.C.S. is in the midst of a frantic campaign to sell off assets, pay down debt and further distance itself from a Spanish economy caught in a spiral of austerity and deflation.
The Spanish government’s harsh budget cuts and their depressive effect on the economy have prompted foreign investors to sell Spanish stocks and bonds in droves. On Tuesday, Spanish stocks plunged 2.8 percent and the government’s 10-year bond yields spiked to 6 percent as Spain moved to bail out its ailing banks, and uncertainty over Greece loomed.
But economists now say that one of the greatest threats to Spain could well be the snarl of debt choking off the growth prospects of A.C.S. and other highly indebted Spanish corporations. And they warn that as these companies cut back on investments and shed assets as well as jobs, the result could be a Japan-style lost decade of stagnation.
An important metric in the euro zone debt crisis has been government debt as a percentage of the total economic output, and Spain has a relatively low ratio of 70 percent, compared with 165 percent for Greece and 120 percent for Italy.
Saddled with a 9 billion euro ($11.7 billion) debt pile that is twice the size of the company’s shrinking market value, A.C.S. is in the midst of a frantic campaign to sell off assets, pay down debt and further distance itself from a Spanish economy caught in a spiral of austerity and deflation.
The Spanish government’s harsh budget cuts and their depressive effect on the economy have prompted foreign investors to sell Spanish stocks and bonds in droves. On Tuesday, Spanish stocks plunged 2.8 percent and the government’s 10-year bond yields spiked to 6 percent as Spain moved to bail out its ailing banks, and uncertainty over Greece loomed.
But economists now say that one of the greatest threats to Spain could well be the snarl of debt choking off the growth prospects of A.C.S. and other highly indebted Spanish corporations. And they warn that as these companies cut back on investments and shed assets as well as jobs, the result could be a Japan-style lost decade of stagnation.
An important metric in the euro zone debt crisis has been government debt as a percentage of the total economic output, and Spain has a relatively low ratio of 70 percent, compared with 165 percent for Greece and 120 percent for Italy.
viernes, 12 de mayo de 2017
Donald Trump's ignorance is becoming more evident with each passing day
Let’s connect the dots between Donald Trump’s “tax plan”, his invitation to the murderous leader in Manila and saying he would be “honored” to meet with the dictator of North Korea. And let’s throw in his claim that Trumpcare will be better than Obamacare and that his skeletal tax plan would make him pay more.
While these facts might seem unrelated, each points to a fundamental truth about Trump that I have been trying to get people to understand since he announced his latest presidential campaign in June 2015: Trump doesn’t know anything.
Human beings have thousands of years of experience with taxes and diplomacy and yet Trump lives unaware of the basic principles of government finance and international relations.
Don’t take my word for it, even as someone who knows the man and has studied him closely for 29 years. Just listen to Trump’s own words. They show he acts like a classic con artist, all bluster and vagaries. He lives blissfully unaware of his ignorance of basic facts that anyone who paid attention in high school, much less college, should know.
sábado, 6 de mayo de 2017
All Things Are Current Found
All things are current found,
On earthly ground,
Spirits and elements
Have their descents.
Night and day, year on year,
High and low, far and near,
These are our own aspects,
These are our own regrets.
Ye gods of the shore,
Who abide evermore,
I see you far headland,
Stretching on either hand;
I hear the sweet evening sounds
From your undecaying grounds;
Cheat me no more with time,
Take me to your clime
On earthly ground,
Spirits and elements
Have their descents.
Night and day, year on year,
High and low, far and near,
These are our own aspects,
These are our own regrets.
Ye gods of the shore,
Who abide evermore,
I see you far headland,
Stretching on either hand;
I hear the sweet evening sounds
From your undecaying grounds;
Cheat me no more with time,
Take me to your clime
Henry D. Thoreau
miércoles, 3 de mayo de 2017
The Military Now Runs US Foreign Policy
You would expect, amid all the tiresome comment written and broadcast on Donald Trump’s “first 100 days,” something worth thinking about might have appeared somewhere. I have had no luck looking. Instead of detached, thought-through analysis, it has been either pabulum, echo, or more of the usual and not-very-useful denigration—the unpolished style, the dismissal of Washington decorum, the doings at Mar-a-Lago, and other urgent matters of global import.
As bad or worse on the foreign-policy side. Apart from people who once fretted about Trump and nuclear codes now applauding as he signs off on missiles and bombs, no one has much to say. The event that tipped me into writing this column was H.R. McMaster’s appearance on Fox News Sunday this past weekend. Trump, his national security adviser wants you to know, “has been masterful in his development of a relationship with President Xi,” the “masterful” being a masterful touch. Iran is “committing mass murder of its own people.” Do tell. No, we did not just watch as the Pentagon wrested foreign policy from civilian control. “He has devolved responsibility down to where it belongs…. So he’s doing things that have made our policy execution much more sensible.”
Read the transcript. It is vacuous euphemism, start to finish. I tip my cap to Chris Wallace: His questions were dead on the money, excellent. He got nothing back in response—or nothing he intended—but Wallace did get McMaster to make one thing perfectly plain. Even at the very core of power, this country’s leadership is not capable of a serious conversation about our conduct abroad. Their topic is meta-policy. It consists of sets and subsets of pretense, delusion, and disinformation.
Read the transcript. It is vacuous euphemism, start to finish. I tip my cap to Chris Wallace: His questions were dead on the money, excellent. He got nothing back in response—or nothing he intended—but Wallace did get McMaster to make one thing perfectly plain. Even at the very core of power, this country’s leadership is not capable of a serious conversation about our conduct abroad. Their topic is meta-policy. It consists of sets and subsets of pretense, delusion, and disinformation.
There is a steep price to be paid for this drift further and further from reality. It is far too soon to guess the size of the final bill, but so far the cost of keeping ourselves calm by pretending to talk about things we decline to talk about is an ever more evident alienation from the world we purport to lead. “Americans are alone in the world” is the title Luigi Barzini put on a book he published in 1953. He meant that the unmatched power we assumed in the post-1945 order, along with our illusions, was bound to leave us an isolated people. Now that is what I call one prescient hack.
This is an anti–100 days column. There was a lot more in Trump’s opening act on the foreign side than anyone in our corporate media is going to acknowledge. There have been three key events, and they need to be considered together: (1) Trump inherited Barack Obama’s foreign-policy framework, (2) he arrived in office with certain ideas to rethink it, and (3) control of policy was taken out of his hands. If we think about these things as a sequence we stand a chance of living in the same world as the rest of humanity, and we might feel a little less lonely.
Do you remember how often Trump used the word “mess” during the 2015–16 campaign? That is because his predecessor handed him so many of them. Obama made the Middle East crises worse, oversaw two coups (Ukraine and Libya), blessed a third and fourth (Honduras and Brazil), and had us neck-deep in a fifth (Syria) while a sixth (Venezuela) teeters. He deployed drone technology to establish illegal assassination as official policy, and all the while he befouled relations with China and Russia, the two non-Western nations that will have more to say than any other about peace and a remade order in the 21st century.
Let us go to fundamental errors. I count two.
One, Obama assumed it would suffice to tinker with the means of US foreign policy while leaving its intent—the preservation of global dominance—unexamined and untouched. I have argued this point previously in this space. Until the goals of policy are altered in a manner befitting the 21st century, the United States will remain dependent on one or another kind of coercion for the simple reason that primacy is yesterday’s story, not tomorrow’s, and the world beyond our shores has tired of it.
Two, Obama failed to demolish a false binary within which we are trapped. There is either military engagement or there is “isolation,” as those advancing this thesis have it. In consequence of his first error, Obama left mostly unexplored all alternative modes of engagement, and these are more or less infinite in number. This was a signal opportunity for Obama, for it is in alternative policies that the future lies, but he did not seize it. The Iran nuclear agreement and the opening to Cuba stand as only partial exceptions: Washington has been busily sabotaging the Iran accord since it was signed—never mind the new administration’s plans—and the new relationship with Cuba is predicated, as Obama made clear when he spoke in Havana, on getting done above board what the CIA failed to get done covertly.
Trump did not have a great many things of interest to say on foreign policy, but he had a few. Many people, probably most, were too taken up with contempt for his very numerous faults to understand these few things as serious renovations. This was a mistake. Here is my list: (1) improving relations with Russia; (2) negotiating conflict in Syria, Ukraine, North Korea, and elsewhere; (3) doing better by the Palestinians—a very short-lived thought; (4) a stated commitment to self-determination—“the right of all nations to put their own interests first,” as Trump put it; and (5) a disavowal of liberal interventionism—“we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone,” as he also said.
I will go to my final rest amazed as to why so many people failed to see opportunity in these positions. Trump proposed to shake loose some very big stones in the edifice. But a few people understood perfectly well the opportunity in Trump’s views. It was plain-as-day to destroy them that the Pentagon and the national security apparatus, with assists from AIPAC and various others, tipped Trump out of bed this spring and took policy from his control as he fell to the floor.
What have we had since the center of gravity in the foreign-policy sphere shifted to the Pentagon? There was a one-off cruise-missile strike against Syria, the purpose of which is anyone’s guess. Then the “MOAB” bomb in Afghanistan, ditto. There was chest-out tough talk on the North Korea question, from which—the best way to put it—we have just watched a dramatic climb-down. And there was a failed attempt to tell the Chinese what to do, which, as we just saw on Fox News Sunday, the Mattis-McMaster policy axis is not quite finished denying.
This is an anti–100 days column. There was a lot more in Trump’s opening act on the foreign side than anyone in our corporate media is going to acknowledge. There have been three key events, and they need to be considered together: (1) Trump inherited Barack Obama’s foreign-policy framework, (2) he arrived in office with certain ideas to rethink it, and (3) control of policy was taken out of his hands. If we think about these things as a sequence we stand a chance of living in the same world as the rest of humanity, and we might feel a little less lonely.
Do you remember how often Trump used the word “mess” during the 2015–16 campaign? That is because his predecessor handed him so many of them. Obama made the Middle East crises worse, oversaw two coups (Ukraine and Libya), blessed a third and fourth (Honduras and Brazil), and had us neck-deep in a fifth (Syria) while a sixth (Venezuela) teeters. He deployed drone technology to establish illegal assassination as official policy, and all the while he befouled relations with China and Russia, the two non-Western nations that will have more to say than any other about peace and a remade order in the 21st century.
Let us go to fundamental errors. I count two.
One, Obama assumed it would suffice to tinker with the means of US foreign policy while leaving its intent—the preservation of global dominance—unexamined and untouched. I have argued this point previously in this space. Until the goals of policy are altered in a manner befitting the 21st century, the United States will remain dependent on one or another kind of coercion for the simple reason that primacy is yesterday’s story, not tomorrow’s, and the world beyond our shores has tired of it.
Two, Obama failed to demolish a false binary within which we are trapped. There is either military engagement or there is “isolation,” as those advancing this thesis have it. In consequence of his first error, Obama left mostly unexplored all alternative modes of engagement, and these are more or less infinite in number. This was a signal opportunity for Obama, for it is in alternative policies that the future lies, but he did not seize it. The Iran nuclear agreement and the opening to Cuba stand as only partial exceptions: Washington has been busily sabotaging the Iran accord since it was signed—never mind the new administration’s plans—and the new relationship with Cuba is predicated, as Obama made clear when he spoke in Havana, on getting done above board what the CIA failed to get done covertly.
Trump did not have a great many things of interest to say on foreign policy, but he had a few. Many people, probably most, were too taken up with contempt for his very numerous faults to understand these few things as serious renovations. This was a mistake. Here is my list: (1) improving relations with Russia; (2) negotiating conflict in Syria, Ukraine, North Korea, and elsewhere; (3) doing better by the Palestinians—a very short-lived thought; (4) a stated commitment to self-determination—“the right of all nations to put their own interests first,” as Trump put it; and (5) a disavowal of liberal interventionism—“we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone,” as he also said.
I will go to my final rest amazed as to why so many people failed to see opportunity in these positions. Trump proposed to shake loose some very big stones in the edifice. But a few people understood perfectly well the opportunity in Trump’s views. It was plain-as-day to destroy them that the Pentagon and the national security apparatus, with assists from AIPAC and various others, tipped Trump out of bed this spring and took policy from his control as he fell to the floor.
What have we had since the center of gravity in the foreign-policy sphere shifted to the Pentagon? There was a one-off cruise-missile strike against Syria, the purpose of which is anyone’s guess. Then the “MOAB” bomb in Afghanistan, ditto. There was chest-out tough talk on the North Korea question, from which—the best way to put it—we have just watched a dramatic climb-down. And there was a failed attempt to tell the Chinese what to do, which, as we just saw on Fox News Sunday, the Mattis-McMaster policy axis is not quite finished denying.
Where does Trump land? I was interested to note his silence in the days after the Pentagon usurped him: Everyone was talking except the president. This suggested Trump took his policy positions seriously, even if he lacked depth, and understood that all prospect of them had just been destroyed. He has now assumed the role that all Republican presidents since Nixon have played: He is “the Communicator,” if he is not “the Great,” saying in reassuring mufti what men in uniform have determined the United States will do. (The one possible exception here is George H.W. Bush, the old director of spookery, and we can leave that for another time.)
We come to the final question—for now, anyway. What have we been watching? I do not mean for the past 100 days; I mean for the past eight years plus 100 days.
In my read we are staring at limits. These are to be welcomed.
Obama sought to prolong American hegemony but make it look nicer, at least to those not on the receiving end of the effort. The United States has lost ground with Russia and China that it will eventually have to make up. As to the Islamic State and the inflamed sentiments of radical Islamists, Obama may as well have taken a hammer to a saucer of mercury: The problem is everywhere now. All in, Obama succeeded only in showing us that maintaining US primacy, once so simple, is now complicated on the way to unsustainable.
For a brief interim we had Trump and his ideas. We are counting in weeks, but there is one thing to take home from this period: If nothing else, we now know how hard any new attempt to reinvent some of the basic tenets of American foreign policy will prove.
Now policy flows through the Mattis-McMaster axis. I am told by people worth trusting that there is no one left in Trump’s inner circle to counter their thoroughly military perspectives. Like all people trained in operations, those now running policy have proven better at the do-or-die part than the reasoning why. Especially but not only across the Pacific, behind the bluster turns out to be an improvised vaudeville routine: We will we won’t, you’ll pay we’ll pay, the ship’s here the ship’s there, you’ll do it our way but it’s OK if you don’t. I wonder why they left out “Who’s on first?”
We come to the final question—for now, anyway. What have we been watching? I do not mean for the past 100 days; I mean for the past eight years plus 100 days.
In my read we are staring at limits. These are to be welcomed.
Obama sought to prolong American hegemony but make it look nicer, at least to those not on the receiving end of the effort. The United States has lost ground with Russia and China that it will eventually have to make up. As to the Islamic State and the inflamed sentiments of radical Islamists, Obama may as well have taken a hammer to a saucer of mercury: The problem is everywhere now. All in, Obama succeeded only in showing us that maintaining US primacy, once so simple, is now complicated on the way to unsustainable.
For a brief interim we had Trump and his ideas. We are counting in weeks, but there is one thing to take home from this period: If nothing else, we now know how hard any new attempt to reinvent some of the basic tenets of American foreign policy will prove.
Now policy flows through the Mattis-McMaster axis. I am told by people worth trusting that there is no one left in Trump’s inner circle to counter their thoroughly military perspectives. Like all people trained in operations, those now running policy have proven better at the do-or-die part than the reasoning why. Especially but not only across the Pacific, behind the bluster turns out to be an improvised vaudeville routine: We will we won’t, you’ll pay we’ll pay, the ship’s here the ship’s there, you’ll do it our way but it’s OK if you don’t. I wonder why they left out “Who’s on first?”
Can you imagine what they think of this spectacle in Beijing, with several millennia of diplomacy behind it? First they give us John Wayne and now it’s Abbott and Costello.
Washington is running out of alternatives, in my read. Power without strength always peters out, and we will see this in years to come. This is what lends Trump’s opening months significance. America in its late-imperial phase grows sclerotic. Our policy cliques have not had to make any decisions for seven decades, and now they are incapable of them. Their view of the world is petrified—in both meanings—such that they cannot adjust it. There is no obvious way to preserve US primacy without an almost pornographic exposure of the bankruptcy of the professed ideals. In short, a state of paralysis approaches. Allies grow quietly irritated and adversaries do nothing differently. Even Chris Wallace suggested the United States is marginalizing itself as it goes around the world marginalizing so many others.
Washington is running out of alternatives, in my read. Power without strength always peters out, and we will see this in years to come. This is what lends Trump’s opening months significance. America in its late-imperial phase grows sclerotic. Our policy cliques have not had to make any decisions for seven decades, and now they are incapable of them. Their view of the world is petrified—in both meanings—such that they cannot adjust it. There is no obvious way to preserve US primacy without an almost pornographic exposure of the bankruptcy of the professed ideals. In short, a state of paralysis approaches. Allies grow quietly irritated and adversaries do nothing differently. Even Chris Wallace suggested the United States is marginalizing itself as it goes around the world marginalizing so many others.
I have used the word “opportunity” on a couple of occasions. Our moment as just described presents one, at least in the ideal. But it also presents a problem, and this is of our own making. Rarely in the decades since April 1975, and never effectively, have Americans insisted on exploring alternatives to the foreign-policy orthodoxy—the orthodoxy of exceptionalism, of imperial adventure. More prevalent are apathy on such questions, or acquiescence. At this point there is barely even a conversation. In consequence, there is no one in power, and too few in positions of influence, to exploit moments of opportunity. The first step for all of us, I would think, is to discern such moments.
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