terça-feira, 23 de julho de 2013

Ao contrário do "pequeno príncipe", um terço dos bebês britânicos viverá na pobreza


Projeção é que o atual montante de 2,4 milhões de crianças vivendo na pobreza aumente para 3,4 milhões em 2020
de: OPERA MUNDI
Mais um entre cerca de dois mil nascidos no Reino Unido nesta segunda-feira (22/07). O furor em torno do filho do príncipe William, herdeiro do trono britânico, trouxe à tona um dado preocupante sobre a situação das crianças no país. De acordo com uma pesquisa governamental, um em cada três bebês que nascem no Reino Unido – cerca de quatro milhões de pessoas – irá viver na pobreza. Para a sorte do pequeno príncipe, que veio ao mundo já com título de nobreza, ele não faz parte dessa fatia desfavorecida.


O "bebê real" foi alvo de obsessão de curiosos no Reino Unido e ao redor do mundo desde a gravidez da esposa do príncipe William

De acordo com reportagem do The Independent, que cita estudo do Instituto Nacional de Estatística (ONS, na sigla em inglês), a projeção é que o atual montante de 2,4 milhões de crianças vivendo na pobreza aumente para 3,4 milhões em 2020. Além disso, as más condições às quais essas crianças serão expostas faz com que somente uma em cada quatro possa ter chances de viver até os 100. No Reino Unido, pobreza infantil é viver com menos de 60% da renda média nacional, ou o equivalente a 250 libras.

O jornal The Guardian ressalta que o cenário já foi mais crítico, durante o governo de Margaret Thatcher, morta nesse ano. Na época, 3,4 milhões de crianças eram pobres e as administrações trabalhistas conseguiram baixar esse número para 2,8 milhões em 13 anos. Agora o trabalho parece estar regredindo, resenha o Guardian. Já segundo estudo do Unicef (Fundo das Nações Unidas para a Infância), o crescimento da pobreza em países desenvolvidos é preocupante desde o começo da crise. Somente em terras britânicas, 15% das crianças vivem em pobreza extrema.

Alimentação

Dados da Trussell Trust, a maior organização de bancos alimentares no Reino Unido, revelam outra face da pobreza no país. De acordo com a instituição, a situação de carência alimentar se agravou acentuadamente com as medidas de austeridade levadas a cabo com a recessão econômica.

Entre abril de 2012 e março de 2013, pelo menos 346.992 pessoas recorreram pelo menos uma vez ao dia ao centro em busca de produtos não perecíveis. Segundo eles, se trata de um aumento de 170% em comparação com igual período do ano anterior, em que foram socorridas um total de 128 697 pessoas. Esse período “foi muito mais difícil do que muitos esperavam. Ajudamos mais 100 mil pessoas do que tínhamos previsto”, afirmou o presidente da Trussell Trust, Chris Mould. No período 2010-2011, a organização cuidou de 61.468 pessoas, contra 40.898 no anterior (2009-2010).


O número de bolsas de pós-graduação mais que duplicou desde 2004

Uma boa análise da conjuntura eleitoral chilena (em esp)

Do jornal El Pais
Chile es hoy el gran éxito de América Latina a los ojos del mundo entero, aunque no sin un atisbo de jactancia de los propios chilenos. Las cifras macro y micro son mejores que las del Brasil de Lula y Dilma Rousseff, y únicamente su modesta base demográfica comparada con la del gigante lusófono —17 millones de habitantes contra 185— impiden que compita por el primer lugar en la geopolítica latinoamericana.
El 17 de noviembre próximo se celebrarán elecciones presidenciales en el país más largo y estrecho de América del Sur, que podrían verse como una prueba relativamente banal de alternancia en el poder. La Concertación, afortunada convocatoria de partidos de centroizquierda, que gobernó Chile de 1990 a 2010, se enfrenta a una coalición de derecha mal cocinada, que también aspira a que se la crea de centro y dirige el país bajo la presidencia del liberal moderado Sebastián Piñera. La socialista Michelle Bachelet, que ha atraído al partido comunista a lo que para la ocasión llama Nueva Mayoría y ha sido presidenta en el periodo 2006-10, es probable que deba competir con una conocida de infancia, Evelyn Matthei, hija, como la propia Bachelet, de un general de aviación, que sirvió en la segunda junta militar del golpista Augusto Pinochet, pero convincentemente reciclada para la democracia.
Si ganara Matthei, o cualquier otro candidato de la derecha, los cambios podrían ser solo de género, estilo y cosmética general, pese a las desavenencias de la exministra de Piñera con el partido de ambos, la UDI, de filiación fuertemente católico-conservadora. Pero el triunfo de la socialista podría acarrear mayores diferencias de lo que cabe esperar de un relevo dentro del sistema. El diagnóstico de Bachelet consiste en que se ha cerrado un ciclo político, el de la transición de la dictadura pinochetista a una democracia social plena; que ya es tiempo de ponerse al servicio de lo social, y el publicista chileno Héctor Soto añade que con ello aspira a lavar la culpa de los 20 años y cuatro administraciones de centro-izquierda, incluida la suya propia, en que la Concertación gobernó con un modelo de crecimiento económico heredado del régimen del general que derrocó a sangre y fuego al también socialista Salvador Allende en 1973.
Y para hacer el corte con el pasado especialmente quirúrgico, Bachelet habla de aprobar una nueva Constitución o cuando menos de importantes enmiendas sobre la vigente de 1980, también del tiempo del general; una Carta que garantice los derechos económicos y sociales de los más desfavorecidos y las clases medias que forman hoy el centro geométrico electoral del país. Sería una cierta, aunque modesta, refundación simbólica de Chile, como está muy de moda entre las izquierdas latinoamericanas.
Chile, pese al incómodo maridaje entre la Concertación y el legado pinochetista, ha cambiado mucho desde 1990. Las clases medias han crecido un tercio hasta el 43% de la población en 2010. Y aunque Bachelet predica la lucha contra la desigualdad y la pobreza, una parte en aumento del electorado piensa en términos de consumo y mejora del nivel de vida. Esas son las dos almas de la expresidenta: una socialdemócrata, que reeditaría una Concertación muellemente reformista, y otra más radical que constituye un reto implícito a la socialdemocracia brasileña, hoy en el punto más bajo de su ya larga cadena de éxitos con una protesta popular contra las megacelebraciones del mundial de fútbol en 2014 y los Juegos Olímpicos en 2016. Pero, especialmente, una apuesta competitiva con el chavismo posChávez, que implicara una extensa redistribución de la riqueza basada en una reforma tributaria, lo que incluiría la gratuidad de la enseñanza, como piden los estudiantes, sin faltar por ello a ninguno de los grandes preceptos de la democracia occidental.
Las revueltas estudiantiles de 2011 se anticiparon al extendido malestar brasileño, que ha hecho que se despeñaran los índices de popularidad de Rousseff, así como presenta características similares: unas clases medias que sienten la frustración de una recompensa insuficiente. Como dice Rocío Montes en La Tercera, “Chile ha aprendido a convivir con la agitación de los estudiantes”, y estos no tienen ante sí el faraónico gasto en monumentos deportivos, ni la aparente corrupción brasileña, pero no por ello, dice la periodista, será menos “dolor de cabeza para Bachelet —o quien sea— hacer frente a una probable movilización social”.
Una presidenta escuetamente reformista corre el peligro de verse desbordada por su izquierda. La Bachelet de la ruptura con el pasado estaría, quizá, mejor equipada para darle aire al milagro chileno.


Obama’s Escalating War on Freedom of the Press


The part of the First Amendment that prohibits “abridging the freedom … of the press” is now up against the wall, as the Obama administration continues to assault the kind of journalism that can expose government secrets.(Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA)
Last Friday the administration got what it wanted—an ice-cold chilling effect—from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on the case of New York Times reporter James Risen. The court “delivered a blow to investigative journalism in America by ruling that reporters have no First Amendment protection that would safeguard the confidentiality of their sources in the event of a criminal trial,” the Guardian reported.
The Executive Branch fought for that ruling—and is now celebrating. “We agree with the decision,” said a Justice Department spokesman. “We are examining the next steps in the prosecution of this case.” The Risen case, and potentially many others, are now under the ominous shadow of the Appeals Court’s pronouncement: “There is no First Amendment testimonial privilege, absolute or qualified, that protects a reporter from being compelled to testify … in criminal proceedings.”
At the Freedom of the Press Foundation, co-founder Trevor Timm calls the court ruling “the most significant reporter’s privilege decision in decades” and asserts that the court “eviscerated that privilege.” He’s not exaggerating. Press freedom is at stake.
...the cranked-up spin from the administration’s PR machinery does not change the fact that Obama is doubling down on a commitment to routine surveillance of everyone, along with extreme measures specifically aimed at journalists—and whistleblowers.
Journalists who can be compelled to violate the confidentiality of their sources, or otherwise go to prison, are reduced to doing little more than providing stenographic services to pass along the official story. That’s what the White House wants.
The federal Fourth Circuit covers the geographical area where most of the U.S. government’s intelligence, surveillance and top-level military agencies—including the NSA and CIA—are headquartered. The ruling “pretty much guts national security journalism in the states in which it matters,” Marcy Wheeler writes.
That court decision came seven days after the Justice Department released its “News Media Policies” report announcing “significant revisions to the Department’s policies regarding investigations that involve members of the news media.” The report offered assurances that “members of the news media will not be subject to prosecution based solely on newsgathering activities.” (Heythanks!) But the document quickly added that the government will take such action “as a last resort” when seeking information that is “essential to a successful investigation or prosecution.”
Translation: We won’t prosecute journalists for doing their jobs unless we really want to.
Over the weekend, some news accounts described Friday’s court decision as bad timing for Attorney General Eric Holder, who has scrambled in recent weeks to soothe anger at the Justice Department’s surveillance of journalists. “The ruling was awkwardly timed for the Obama administration,” the New York Times reported. But the ruling wasn’t just “awkwardly timed” -- it was revealing, and it underscored just how hostile the Obama White House has become toward freedom of the press.
News broke in May that the Justice Department had seized records of calls on more than 20 phone lines used by Associated Press reporters over a two-month period and had also done intensive surveillance of a Fox News reporter that included obtaining phone records and reading his emails. Since then, the Obama administration tried to defuse the explosive reaction without actually retreating from its offensive against press freedom.
At a news conference two months ago, when President Obama refused to say a critical word about his Justice Department’s targeted surveillance of reporters, he touted plans to reintroduce a bill for a federal shield law so journalists can protect their sources. But Obama didn’t mention that he has insisted on a “national security exception” that would make such a law approximately worthless for reporters doing the kind of reporting that has resulted in government surveillance—and has sometimes landed them in federal court.
Obama’s current notion of a potential shield law would leave his administration fully able to block protection of journalistic sources. In a mid-May article—headlined “White House Shield Bill Could Actually Make It Easier for the Government to Get Journalists’ Sources”—the Freedom of the Press Foundation shed light on the duplicity: As a supposed concession to press freedom, the president was calling for reintroduction of a 2009 Senate bill that “would not have helped the Associated Press in this case, and worse, it would actually make it easier for the Justice Department to subpoena journalists covering national security issues.”
Whether hyping a scenario for a shield law or citing new Justice Department guidelines for news media policies, the cranked-up spin from the administration’s PR machinery does not change the fact that Obama is doubling down on a commitment to routine surveillance of everyone, along with extreme measures specifically aimed at journalists—and whistleblowers.
The administration’s efforts to quash press freedom are in sync with its unrelenting persecution of whistleblowers. The purpose is to further choke off the flow of crucial information to the public, making informed “consent of the governed” impossible while imposing massive surveillance and other violations of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Behind the assault on civil liberties is maintenance of a warfare state with huge corporate military contracts and endless war. The whole agenda is repugnant and completely unacceptable.

American Parents Want Public Schools, Not Private Schools


Sixty-one percent of respondents oppose the school closures which have 'scorched' public education nationwide

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Students protest against Chicago public school closures. (Photo: WBEZ/Bill Healy)Despite the recent rash of school closures and legislation aimed at destabilizing the public school system, a new poll reveals that the majority of American parents support public education and oppose reform mandates that favor the proliferation of corporate-backed charter schools.
Of the 1,000 nationwide parents surveyed by Hart Research Associates, sixty-one percent of respondents said they are opposed to the closure of low-performing schools and more than three out of four said they are against cutting resources for the classroom while increasing spending on charter schools, the Washington Post reported ahead of the poll's release.
School boards across the country—under mounting pressure from the Obama administration's Department of Education—have been shuttering neighborhood institutions in favor of corporate-run charter schools.
In a move dubbed a 'scorched-earth policy' by Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis, the Chicago Board of Education voted in May to close 50 public schools to be replaced with 13 new charter schools and a "handful of alternative programs."
Earlier this spring saw the closure of 23 Philadelphia schools, a move many interpreted as a step towards the "elimination of public education."
Such closures have disproportionately targeted schools in low-income neighborhoods specifically affecting minority students. "It’s about further privatizing the public schools, destroying the union, and destabilizing neighborhoods," wrote Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford following the Chicago School Board announcement.
Other details of the poll—announced during a presentation by American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten on Monday—revealed 56 percent of parents oppose giving tax dollars to families to pay for non-public school tuition.
Despite this opposition, the House of Representatives Friday accepted an amendment to the Student Success Act which allows federal funds to follow children from public to charter schools, diverting resources from districts-in-need to privatized education programs.
According to reporting by the Associated Press, the GOP bill "encourages" the expansion of charter schools and "eliminate[s] more than 70 existing elementary and secondary education programs," replacing them with "block grant money" that states and school districts can distribute to private entities without any federal oversight.
The Washington Post's reporting continues:
On the issue of standardized tests, a majority of parents surveyed said that too much learning in the classroom has been sacrificed in order to accommodate state tests during the school year. A majority of parents reported that their children have been anxious about those tests. Pockets of resistance to standardized testing have been popping up across the country, with students in Seattle, Pittsburgh and elsewhere opting out of tests this spring in protest.
Among respondents, 38 percent identified as Democrats, 33 percent considered themselves independents and 29 percent were Republicans.
_____________________

A Câmara de Comércio dos EUA despendeu US$ bilhão em lobby desde 1998

Billion Dollar Baby: U.S. Chamber is First to Hit Lobbying Milestone



The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made big news with the filing of a simple quarterly report.
When the behemoth business trade group reported its lobbying numbers for the second quarter of 2013 on Monday, it set a new record: The Chamber became the first organization to report uschamber.jpgtotal lobbying expenditures of more than $1 billion, according to OpenSecrets.org. Reporting that it spent $19.11 million from April through June, its grand total now stands at $1,002,845,680 since 1998, when the Center for Responsive Politics began tracking lobbying data.
For perspective, General Electric, the next highest spender, sits just under $294 million over the same period.
In 2012 alone, the Chamber -- which boasts a business membership in the hundreds of thousands -- devoted $136.3 million to influencing government policy, more than triple the total of the second highest spender. In fact, the lobbying expenditures of the next five firms added together still wouldn't equal the Chamber's outlays.
Yet the Chamber, which did not respond to requests for comment on this story, spent even more in previous years. In 2010, it dished out an all-time high $157.2 million on lobbying; 2009 was a close second.

The Chamber's steady growth as a lobbying presence has occurred under the leadership of Tom Donohue, its president and CEO. Donohue, previously the head of the American Trucking Association, took the reins at the Chamber in 1997, at a time when the group was struggling. The next year, Donohue devoted $17 million to lobbying -- a showing not at all shabby for most firms even today. Just six years later, that number had multiplied to $53.4 million, and by 2010, the group's lobbying expenditures exploded to more than eight times the figure a decade earlier.

Although the Chamber employs its own large lobbying force -- in the report filed this week, it lists 88 in-house lobbyists -- it's a major paycheck generator for dozens of outside firms as well. Last year, it was represented by 183 individuals from 33 different lobbying shops.

Like most lobbying clients, the Chamber has trimmed its spending recently. While it paid out $40.6 million for lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2012, the group devoted a relatively paltry $16.7 million to influencing legislation and regulatory policy in the first three months of this year. And its spending for all of 2012 was down 13 percent from the 2010 peak.

Numbers, of course, tell only part of the story of the Chamber's influence. The organizations it speaks for lend the Chamber much of its credibility in Washington.

"Because of who [the Chamber] represents, I can't believe it wouldn't be effective if they only spent $10 on lobbying," said David Plunkett, a lobbyist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit that has often been at odds with what's become the biggest force in the lobbying universe. "They represent the major companies of the businesses in this country. Members of Congress are going to listen to those guys."
But the fact that it spends exponentially more gives it a far bigger megaphone.
The impact the group has had over the years is hard to measure, given the number of issues it has been involved in: worker safety, the environment, consumer protection, free trade, labor law, intellectual property, taxes, defense spending -- the Chamber's agenda includes just about any topic that its member organizations have a stake in, which, as it turns out, is quite along shopping list.
Still, despite its invincible reputation, the Chamber doesn't always come out on top. Despite its initial opposition, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is up and running, for example, with a Senate-confirmed director. A major piece of legislation was passed tightening up regulation of the financial industry in the wake of the Great Recession's worst years. And President Barack Obama's health care overhaul was enacted.
Even when the Chamber loses, though, it rarely loses 100 percent. Countless times its efforts have helped shape legislation or regs to be more palatable to the business sector, or kept provisions it viewed as onerous from being adopted. Opponents never count the Chamber out in a battle: It forces a fight when it brings its deep pockets and formidable army to bear. 
The health care throwdown
The Chamber was one of many organizations to lobby hard against the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010 -- its two biggest lobbying years ever in terms of raw expenditures -- citing, among other sticking points, the employer mandate central to the legislation. The group proved to be a handy foil for individual health care companies that opposed portions of the bill but didn't want to rile Democratic lawmakers who were backing it: In 2009, the Chamber received $86 million from insurance groups to bankroll opposition to the proposed legislation in the form of advertisements, events, and polls.

It was a loss for the Chamber when Obama signed the bill into law in March 2010, but it had achieved some of its aims, including keeping the "government option" -- in which the government would be a health care provider alongside the private sector -- out of the legislation. But the Chamber wasn't done: It made the law an issue in the midterm elections. In the Pennsylvania Senate race, for instance, it spent $1.7 million on ads targeting then-Sen. Joe Sestak's (D-Pa.) support of the health care bill, urging constituents to ask themselves whether he was representing their interests. Sestak was defeated in the election.

And in September 2010, the Chamber launched an ad titled "The Flip Flopper," highlighting how then-Gov. Charlie Crist (I-Fla.) did exactly that to pledge his support for the ACA. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) -- who was endorsed by the Chamber and was the beneficiary of $2 million the organization spent on the race -- went on to win the Senate seat.

Overall, the Chamber spent nearly $34 million on "electioneering communications" -- ads that don't tell viewers outright to vote for or against a candidate, but usually cast doubt on his or her views in the weeks just before voters go to the polls -- in the 2010 election cycle. And when the ACA went before the Supreme Court last year, the Chamber submitted an amicus brief in support of the petitioners.
Shades of green
On another issue, the Chamber's challenges in going to bat for a huge and diverse membership have been a little too exposed.
The group has repeatedly clashed with environmentalists and others pushing for Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency to act on climate change by setting stricter greenhouse gas emissions limits. Though it hasn't denied that the planet is warming, the Chamber warns that new limits would hurt the economy and drive jobless rates up. 
ChamberBuilding.jpgObama's June 25 speech laying out an ambitious climate change agenda for the remainder of his second term brought immediate pushback from the group. "The president’s plan runs a serious risk of punishing Americans with higher energy bills, fewer jobs, and a weaker economy, while delivering negligible benefits to the environment," Donohue said in a statement.
Still, climate change has presented unique complications for the Chamber.

According to Adam Kolton, executive director for advocacy at the National Wildlife Federation, many of the Chamber's member organizations are actually in favor of emissions regulations and climate change legislation. But, said Kolton, a few corporations that heavily bankroll the lobby group's operations -- "pocketed interests" that are able to fund Chamber initiatives -- have dictated the organization's position on this issue.

"The Chamber's really putting at risk its credibility representing the future of American business, if it's going to pass the hat and get money from the Koch brothers and coal interests to defend the status quo.... Some of these positions are representing a small, well-heeled group of their members," Kolton said.

Some very public clashes have resulted. In 2009, a number of companies, including Apple and Nike, moved against the Chamber in the face of its controversial opposition to emissions limits being considered by Congress; Apple terminated its membership, while Nike left the board. And just last year, the Aspen, Colo., Chamber of Commerce elected to leave the national group, citing the Washington-based organization's opposition to changes in energy laws.
The withdrawals continue. Less than two weeks ago, Skanska USA, an affiliate of the Swedish large-scale construction company, announced that it would leave the Chamber due to the group’s lobbying against U.S. Green Building Council environmental standards -- yet another example of internal conflict created by the Chamber’s environmental policy.
According to an experienced lobbyist for businesses at a Washington firm, "The Chamber's greatest effectiveness is when they represent business against labor. But when it comes to dealing with business versus business conflicts, it's sometimes too complex for them to work out those arrangements."
The Chamber’s political contributions have reinforced its positions on environmental issues. In the 2012 cycle, the organization’s PAC funded the campaigns of only five Democrats. Each of them – Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), former Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Reps. John Barrow (D-Ga.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Jim Matheson (D-Utah) – has voiced opposition to legislative and EPA actions to curb climate change. For example, in 2011, Barrow, Cuellar, and Matheson all voted to bar EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. And the coal-friendly Manchin has spoken out against Obama’s recently proposed climate change initiatives.
Finessing immigration
Congress' biggest issue of the summer is the push for an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, and the Chamber has been an active participant in the debate; of the thousands of businesses the lobbying group represents, most have a horse in the race.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in May 2013, the Chamber argued for beefed-up border security, an enhanced employment verification system -- and a path to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants, the biggest stumbling block to congressional agreement. In late June, the Chamber funded an advertisement showing conservatives such as Rubio speaking in favor of passing comprehensive immigration legislation.
Perhaps most importantly for many of its member organizations, the Chamber advocated for expanding the visa system that allows high-skilled foreign workers to take jobs with U.S. businesses. 
The Chamber stuck with its members from the tech industry on this issue. Legislators who voted for the Senate immigration package, which included the provision, received a total of $12.2 million in contributions from the computer industry, while members who said "nay" racked up only $3.2 million.
While tech companies have become an increasingly important part of the Chamber's portfolio, its efforts on their behalf haven't always been successful -- and different cross-sections of the industry have their own demands. Not all of those who want more visas for workers with advanced skills, for instance, were on board when the Chamber threw itself into a national debate about intellectual property on the Internet two years ago.
Supporting intellectual property rights and speaking out against piracy that cuts profits for original content producers, the Chamber heavily lobbied in favor of the PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (PIPA) in the Senate as well as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. In September 2011, the Chamber joined in on a letter signed by hundreds of businesses encouraging Congress to enact legislation that would go after websites pirating licensed content. 
But a number of companies -- notably Google -- vehemently opposed the crackdowns. There was vast public opposition, too, and ultimately both bills failed.
"I know that there's a lot of back-and-forth among the members of the Chamber on policy perspectives, and I think there's some issues where they can coalesce," said another lobbyist from a Washington-based firm that has lobbied for companies represented by the Chamber. "But not every issue suits that."
Campaigns count, elections matter
For all the Chamber's influence in the lobbying sphere, it's hardly likely to leave the election of those it lobbies to chance. Still, its PAC is a relatively small player for such an 800-lb. gorilla, and isn't the tool it uses to make its biggest footprint. 
In the 2012 election cycle, the PAC gave just $222,500 to federal candidates -- 89 percent of it to Republicans. And the rightward lean was no anomaly: In six of the last eight election cycles, the lobbying organization's PAC sent more than 82 percent of its cash to Republicans. The best that Democrats have been able to do was in the 2008 cycle, when they captured 37 percent of the PAC's gifts. But that didn't last long, as the figure dropped right back to 12 percent in 2010.
The Chamber used its treasury to make a far bigger partisan splash, giving $2.25 million to the Republican Governors Association in the most recent cycle and more than $4 million to the Republican State Leadership Committee (both are most active in state, not federal, politics); on the other side, the Democratic Governors Association was given just $100,000. 
DonohueSpeaking.jpgEven those amounts, though, paled next to the tens of millions of dollars in outside spending the Chamber let loose last year. 
The 2012 election cycle marked the first time the Chamber produced ads that explicitly called for the election or defeat of specific candidates: The Chamber anted up more than $32 million for these independent expenditures, and another $3.4 million for electioneering communications. Nearly $28 million of the total was spent to attack Democratic candidates. 
But despite its major investments, the Chamber flopped  at the ballot box: 20 of the top 22 candidates the lobby group worked to defeat actually emerged victorious come Election Day.
For instance, the Chamber spent $4.4 million unsuccessfully advocating for the defeat of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), having financed a TV ad alleging that Kaine's "big government policies" would "derail Virginia's recovery." An additional $4.3 million went to attack Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) as an advocate for big government and the health care overhaul. But Brown also hung onto his seat.
Just 7 percent of the Chamber's outside spending benefited candidates who won in November 2012. That's remarkably close to the disappointing -- for conservatives -- 6.6 percent showing of the largest outside spending group, the pair of organizations known as American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. And that may be no coincidence: Steven Law, former general counsel of the Chamber, was instrumental in coming up with the idea to create the Crossroads groups, and Law became their president. The Chamber and Crossroads have been in regular contact about political strategy. 
"In terms of [the Chamber's] agenda getting through...much of that has been unsuccessful and was rejected by voters in the last cycle," Kolton said.
Undaunted
But despite these defeats for the Chamber, there is no denying the tangible impact it has had on the nation's political scene. Ultimately, the Chamber's influence and resources stem from the powerful interests it represents. Backed by wads of cash and a big reputation, the lobbying group easily weaves relationships with elected officials in Washington who determine the nation's laws.
"We have 310 million people in this country," Plunkett said. "[Those people] are probably a bigger economy than all the businesses put together, but they don't have a voice because they don't have that concentrated power that is represented by the Chamber."

Image: U.S. Chamber building via Flickr by NCinDC; Tom Donohue via Flickr by freeenterprise

Pourquoi l’amour fait mal.

Faisant la sociologie de l’expérience amoureuse, Eva Illouz analyse sa grande transformation : si le marché conjugal et sexuel valorise aujourd’hui le choix et la liberté, il fragilise également la conjugalité hétérosexuelle et génère des souffrances spécifiques, en particulier pour les femmes.


Recensé : Eva Illouz, Pourquoi l’amour fait mal. L’expérience amoureuse dans la modernité, Paris, Seuil, 2012. 400 p., 24 €.
« La souffrance amoureuse dont font l’expérience [Catherine Ernshaw et Emma Bovary] a changé de teneur, de couleur, de texture ». Pour Eva Illouz, l’amour de Catherine Earnshaw pour Heathcliff, le désespoir d’Emma Bovary quand elle reçoit la lettre de Rodolphe Boulanger rompant la promesse de leur fuite après leur longue histoire d’amour clandestin, illustrent l’évocation littéraire de la douleur amoureuse. Pourtant, elles ne correspondent plus à nos amours modernes.
Qu’est-ce qui a changé ? Il ne s’agit pas de dire que le malheur amoureux est inédit, mais que les manières de choisir notre partenaire et les manières de vivre l’expérience du désamour ne sont plus les mêmes. Cela est dû à trois raisons principales. La première et la plus générale est le peu d’ « interdictions normatives ». Dans la modernité (tardive), telle que la définit l’auteur —la période après la Première Guerre mondiale —, les normes peuvent être transgressées avec moins de difficulté qu’au temps d’Emily Brontë ou de Jane Austen. De même, les obstacles économiques que rencontrent les couples hétérogames ont été pour une part levés : même si les rapports de classe contraignent l’idéal amoureux, l’amour peut l’emporter. Celui-ci mélange et intègre les stratégies émotionnelles et économiques.
La deuxième raison est liée à l’existence d’un arsenal d’experts dont le métier est de nous porter secours dans une situation de désamour : conseillers psychologiques, spécialistes de la thérapie du couple, avocats spécialisés dans le divorce, experts en médiation, etc. Sans oublier l’imposante littérature duself-help. Et en effet, le chagrin d’amour amène souvent des hommes et des femmes à s’intéresser à cette littérature qui propose à la fois de comprendre la douleur et de la surmonter.
Enfin, la troisième et dernière raison de cette évolution sociale de l’amour est qu’aujourd’hui les victimes du sentiment de désamour, au lieu de rester silencieuses, partagent bien plus qu’auparavant leurs problèmes avec des amis, et plus récemment sur les forums sur internet.

L’amour comme marchandise

Partant de ces changements, Eva Illouz propose une sociologie du désamour, et décortique cette nouvelle organisation sociale de la souffrance. Elle s’attaque ainsi à ceux qui prétendent que ces expériences de souffrance amoureuse sont le résultat d’une psyché fragile et immature, voire défectueuse : nous avons tous souffert d’amour, personne n’est épargné !
Peut-on alors identifier les acteurs du désamour ? La psychologie clinique et la culture freudienne, auxquelles beaucoup sont fidèles, défendent l’idée selon laquelle c’est l’individu et lui seul qui est responsable de sa vie amoureuse et érotique, et que la famille est à la source de leur configuration. Autrement dit, le partenaire choisi est le reflet direct des expériences d’enfance, de sorte que la psyché devient responsable des malheurs amoureux dès lors inévitables. Eva Illouz essaie à l’inverse de démontrer que les chagrins sont le produit des institutions, ou de la structuration de la vie affective par les institutions.
Elle propose alors une lecture féministe de l’amour, qui l’appréhende comme une marchandise : « l’amour est produit par les rapports sociaux concrets, [...] l’amour circule sur un marché fait d’acteurs en situation de concurrence, et inégaux, [...où] certaines personnes disposent d’une plus grande capacité de définir les conditions dans lesquelles elles sont aimées que d’autres » (p. 30). La sociologie, selon elle, a négligé l’amour et divers types de souffrances qu’il génère, laissant à la psychologie clinique les émotions. Alors que la famine et la pauvreté ont été analysées par les anthropologues comme des souffrances sociales [1], d’autres types de souffrances, comme l’angoisse et la dépression, ont été délaissées malgré leur caractère ordinaire.
La lecture du « changement du moi romantique moderne » qu’entreprend ce livre comprend trois grandes parties : l’analyse des modalités de structuration des désirs amoureux (le choix amoureux, chapitres I et II), celle des manières par lesquelles on demande de la reconnaissance amoureuse (chapitre III) et enfin celle des modes d’activation du désir amoureux (chapitres IV et V). Les matériaux sont très variés. Outre la littérature scientifique (psychologues, philosophes, sociologues), aussi bien qu’une vaste littérature du xviiie et xixe siècles principalement, elle mobilise des e-books, des tribunes des journaux anglo-saxonnes (New York Times et The Independent) consacrés à l’amour ou à la sexualité, mais aussi des films, des séries de télévision, des forums d’entraide, des manuels de self-help, et des entretiens approfondis réalisés auprès de personnes hétérosexuelles de classe moyenne dont la plupart habitent aux États-Unis. On y décèle deux partis-pris : privilégier le point de vue des femmes, particulièrement celles des classes moyennes optant pour une vie familiale, et celui de l’amour hétérosexuel qui illustre le mieux selon elle le déni des bases économiques du choix amoureux parce qu’il mélange les logiques émotionnelles et économiques (pour une lecture féministe de cette question, voir notamment les travaux de Viviana Zelizer, Arlie R. Hochschild et Paola Tabet). Les femmes hétérosexuelles, et notamment celles qui veulent des enfants, sont ainsi au centre de l’analyse, et finalement les interlocutrices privilégiées de l’auteure.

Suis-je aimée ?

Dans les premier et deuxième chapitres, Illouz définit ce qu’elle appelle « la grande transformation de l’amour », à savoir les conditions (l’environnement social et les processus — émotionnels ou pas — d’évaluation du partenaire) dans lesquelles se fait le choix amoureux, conditions qui sont la « marque de fabrique » de l’amour contemporain.
Quelques facteurs définissent ce choix amoureux moderne : la sélection du partenaire se fait dans le cadre d’un marché très compétitif où le désir est façonné par le statut social. L’homme le plus « sexy » serait aussi celui qui est le plus riche et puissant. Le « sex appeal » devient un caractère de sélection du partenaire qui contribue à la stratification sociale. À cela vient s’ajouter une compétition pour la première place dans le marché hétérosexuel : l’homme qui a le plus d’expérience sexuelle est le plus désiré. Enfin, l’entrée du désir dans le marché économique est également régulée par les lois de ce dernier, à savoir l’offre et de la demande, l’aversion du risque, la rareté et la surabondance.
Une des expressions de cette grande transformation est la « phobie de l’engagement » des hommes (chapitre II). Dans ce marché hautement compétitif, hommes et femmes peuvent choisir librement entre plusieurs partenaires. Mais ce sont les hommes qui expriment le plus une difficulté de s’engager, principalement liée à la multiplicité des choix potentiels.
Si la « phobie de l’engagement » est particulièrement masculine, la demande de reconnaissance (chapitre III) vient plutôt, selon Eva Illouz, de la part des femmes. Au xixe siècle, la question de l’engagement ne se posait pas de la même manière qu’aujourd’hui. Dans la modernité, l’engagement constitue l’accomplissement de la relation, c’est ce qui va faire la différence entre des relations « sérieuses » (mariage, pacte civil, etc.) et des relations « légères » : sortir, s’amuser, même si cela peut durer quelques mois voire des années. Au XIXe siècle, ni l’homme ni la femme ne cachaient leur envie de s’engager, alors que dans la modernité une démarche courante dans les relations amoureuses est de mettre à distance cet engagement. Les uns cachent cette envie par peur de se montrer vulnérables, par un besoin de garder une image de soi, ou par phobie de s’engager.
Eva Illouz voit dans cette asymétrie la violence symbolique de l’amour moderne : « les hommes maîtrisent les règles de la reconnaissance et de l’engagement ». La plupart des femmes interviewées ici expriment la peur et l’angoisse de dire à leur compagnon ce qu’elles ressentent, puisqu’elles ne veulent pas « faire pression ». Elles expriment également leur besoin de reconnaissance : « une femme ne s’éloignera pas d’un homme s’il lui dit qu’il l’aime, alors qu’un homme flippera, et pensera qu’elle veut la bague et la robe blanche » (p. 224).

La rationalisation de l’hétérosexualité

Pour Eva Illouz, cette transformation est un processus de rationalisation. Cependant, cette rationalité n’est pas opposée aux émotions, bien au contraire : elle « est une force culturelle institutionnalisée qui en est venue à restructurer la vie émotionnelle de l’intérieur [...], elle a modifié les récits collectifs à travers lesquels les émotions sont comprises et négociées » (p. 254). Elle souligne la place du « freudisme populaire » dans cette évolution, à savoir les cadres interprétatifs de la psychologie et de la psychanalyse, mais aussi de la biologie, de la psychologie évolutionniste et des neurosciences. Ceux-ci ont en commun d’avoir tissé un fil entre la période de l’enfance et les expériences amoureuses adultes : par delà le changement des personnages, l’amour adulte ne serait qu’une autre facette de l’amour enfantin. En ce sens, l’amour doit être expliqué et contrôlé et surtout rester en cohérence avec le « bien-être », chacun maximisant ses intérêts.
Le dernier facteur contribuant à la rationalisation de l’amour hétérosexuel est le féminisme. Ce dernier envisage l’amour romantique comme une pratique culturelle qui produit des inégalités entre les sexes et les classes. Il invite les gens, principalement les femmes, à réviser les schémas qui régulent leur attirance sexuelle, à instaurer une symétrie dans leurs relations affectives, et finalement à introduire de nouveaux « principes d’équivalence ». Sans oublier toutefois l’impact des nouvelles technologies, principalement l’internet, qui agissent dans la sélection du partenaire selon une logique du marché [2].
Dans un article publié dans le quotidien israélien Haaretz, « Don’t be my Valentine : Are couples becoming a thing of the past ? », Eva Illouz s’interroge sur la structure du couple qui est actuellement « de facto, une proclamation contre la culture du choix, la culture de la maximisation du choix et contre l’idée du soi comme un lieu permanent d’excitation, d’auto réalisation et de jouissance. Les couples fonctionnent selon l’économie de la rareté ou du manque. [... Être en couple] exige la capacité de singulariser l’autre, de suspendre le calcul, de tolérer l’ennui, de mettre fin à l’auto-développement, de vivre avec une sexualité médiocre, de préférer l’engagement à l’insécurité contractuelle ».
Finalement, les couples décrits dans Pourquoi l’amour fait mal ne se reconnaissent pas dans l’image du couple monogame, tout comme d’autres types de couple dont Eva Illouz ne parle pas d’ailleurs : les jeunes, les queer, les couples de même sexe et les couples mixtes. Ces derniers seraient-ils influencés par le marché, destinés au désamour ? Seraient-ils régis par le principe d’équivalence et sauvés de l’ennui propre à une conjugalité monogame ? Dans tous les cas, ce livre raconte l’histoire de l’amour hétérosexuel et de la souffrance moderne, une conjugalité non moins violente ni moins asymétrique que l’amour romantique, en particulier pour les femmes.
par Manuela Salcedo , le 22 juillet