Cuba: Who’s Trying to Change the Colors of the Rainbow?
By: PostCuba Newsroom
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
[May 11, 2019. Post un-dated online.]
The current attempt to manipulate and use the LGBTI community to confront the Cuban authorities for not authorizing a march against homophobia and transphobia is not an isolated incident; there are antecedents of similar claims in the recent past that are inserted in the US policy of hostility towards Cuba.
The media construction of alleged harassment and police persecution of the members of this community has been one of the directions of these defamatory campaigns against Cuba in which U.S. citizens linked to internal counterrevolutionaries have been involved.
The visit of the American Michael Petrelis in January of this year to Cuba constitutes a clear example of this type of activities generated by the North American secret services against the Island.
Petrelis, after being warned by the immigration authorities that he had entered the country with a tourist visa to carry out activities that did not correspond to this migratory condition, something he had already done on previous occasions, approached CENESEX. There he presented himself as a person healthily interested in promoting and defending the rights of those who make up the aforementioned community, receiving friendly and cooperative treatment. This made it easier for him to move around the country and contact people freely.
Later it was shown that this was only the façade he used to approach and achieve the collaboration of this institution. [He used] deception of its officials, seeking support that would allow him to develop provocative activities and the harmful influence that he had planned to carry out within the aforementioned sector of society.
In spite of the respectful treatment and the alerts received for his violations of the terms of his stay, the American has tried to cover them with a cloak of innocence, imitating the conduct assumed by his fellow countryman, the “contractor” Alan Gross when he was caught in his illegal activities inside Cuba.
The “activist” Michael Petrelis maintains links with well-known Cuban counterrevolutionaries who receive scholarships and money from the U.S. State Department, such as Isbel Díaz Torres. Also, salaried journalists trained in Centers from which plans and actions of ideological political subversion against Cuba are planned and executed, such as Maikel González Vivero and Juana Mora Cedeño. The latter has been invited to forums of the discredited OAS, where she has launched false and infamous accusations against the Cuban government for alleged violations of human rights.
In this context, it is known that Petrelis coordinated from abroad with these stateless people provocations in front of the National Capitol, headquarters of the National Assembly of People’s Power, as well as providing them with material support for the call made on January 5 in John Lennon Park, in which the well-known counter-revolutionary Tania Bruguera participated.
Cuban immigration authorities, based on all the violations of the terms of stay committed by the American during his last trip to the island, decided to prohibit his entry into the country, and he has insisted on obtaining an answer on the reasons for this decision, which he says he does not understand and ignores in a hypocritical and dishonest manner.
There is evidence that the aforementioned Petrelis links are the organizers of the “independent” march that they intend to carry out against homophobia on May 11, 2019. This shows the enemy’s presence in this activity, which tries to manipulate the feelings of the people who make up the LGBTI community in function of spurious political interests.
Rather than defend them by pretending to use them as instruments against an inclusive and humane social project, they denigrate them, especially if their supposed “benefactors” respond to a xenophobic and homophobic foreign government like that of Donald Trump.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Is President Trump about to invade Venezuela? His advisors continue to say — in increasingly forceful terms that — “all options are on the table”, and that military intervention to restore Venezuela’s constitution” may be necessary.”
For his part, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a news program last Sunday commented that President Trump could launch a military attack against Venezuela without Congressional approval because “he has all the authority conferred upon him by Article II of the Constitution and certainly any action that we take in Venezuela will be legal”. The man who just boasted of his lies, tricks and thefts, is providing new evidence that back up his confession.
The truth is that the US president does not have the constitutional authority to start a war with Venezuela or any other country that hasn’t attacked or credibly threatened the United States, without the approval of Congress. It’s as simple as that,” says Ron Paul, a former Republican congressman for the State of Texas and presidential candidate in 1988 for the now defunct Libertarian Party.
It is ironic that Pompeo and the rest of the neoconservatives of the Trump Administration, who don’t care about the Constitution of their own country, are willing to attack Venezuela “in order to restore its constitution.”
It is striking and hypocritical that while Washington was paralyzed for two years by the disproved claims that the Russians had meddled with the elections to elect Trump, Washington doesn’t even hesitate to support the actual revocation of elections in another country!
But without the authority of Congress, any U.S. military action against Venezuela would be illegal and probably an impeachable crime. Of course, Democrats who talk about impeaching Trump would never dream of getting rid of him for illegally starting a war because U.S. Democrats and Republicans alike love the illegal U.S. wars, says Ron Paul.
Unfortunately, Washington is so addicted to war that President Trump would probably have little difficulty in obtaining congressional authorization to invade Venezuela if he bothered to ask.
Likewise, as with the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the corporate media are nothing more than uninterrupted war propaganda.
According to Ron Paul, some Presidential hopefuls described as progressives , like Rachel Maddow, a radio personality, TV presenter, and progressive American commentator, are attacking the Trump administration, not because of its reckless tendency for the use of weapons in Venezuela, but because it is not aggressive enough.
The real lesson is that even a “constitutional” war against Venezuela would be an unjust action. It would be a war of aggression that Americans should be upset about and ashamed of.
But the mainstream media are spreading the same old lies in favor of war, while independent media are being attacked by many social media campaigns that have partnered with U.S. government agencies to decide what news is fake or illegal and which one is true.
The most recent motive for indignation shown by the dominant media has been over one of the most sensible things that President Trump has done lately: last week he spent one hour on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss, among other things, the dangerous situation in Venezuela.
While President Trump’s neo-con advisors are deliberately trying to put him in a position where war is the only option, we can only hope that President Putin may have been able to explain to him that Venezuela’s problems must be solved by the Venezuelans themselves.
Certainly, the United States, perhaps together with the Russians, could help facilitate discussions between the Venezuelan government and the opposition as an alternative to the neo-conservative path towards war, which would surely end like all other wars in a total disaster.
U.S. mainstream media are furious because Trump dared to talk to Putin when Russia and the United States were increasingly at logger-heads over the situation in Venezuela.
Democrats and neo-cons are pressing for a direct confrontation in which Russia may become involved. Republicans agree with both on this.
Would they really prefer a thermo-nuclear war over Venezuela? asks veteran doctor and ultra-libertarian American politician Ronald Ernest “Ron” Paul.
May 8, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
It wasn’t surprising to hear multi-billionaires Bill Gates, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, interviewed on CNBC-TV on Thursday, May 9, defending capitalism. But it was indeed surprising that Gates made a positive comment about socialism, or at least about what is defined in the United States as socialism.
Gates pointed out that the current increase in pro-socialist rhetoric in the United States does not really refer to socialism according to any conventional definition of the word. The “socialist” policies that we hear from politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Bernie Sanders are, to a greater extent, about capitalist policies with a strong social security contribution. And that is good!
“Socialism used to mean that a State controlled the means of production”, and, according to Gates, “many people here who promote socialism do not define it in that classical way.”
Gates also says that most people who favor socialism in the United States do not speak of true socialism. And they’re right!
“The majority does not argue against capitalism… only believes that there should be changes in taxes, more progressive tax rates, and the reinstatement of estate tax. What they actually want is capitalism with a better level of taxation,” says Gates.
According to him, most left-wing Americans do not advocate the ownership of the means of production to be passed on to the workers, that all industries be nationalized, and that private property be abolished, which are the real principles of socialist ideology.
The majority of left-wing people support politicians who promise capitalism with a solid social security foundation. But there is no indication that what they are proposing is truly socialism.
The federal employment guarantee of AOC, for example, would consist of a reference standard for employment that would include a minimum wage of $15 linked to inflation, full medical care, and paid leave for sickness and children.
This proposal would drastically improve the quality of employment in the United States by giving training and experience to the workers and at the same time providing much needed public services to communities in areas such as, education, health, park maintenance, childcare, and environment conservation.
But that’s not socialism in the classic sense of the word. It is capitalism with a strong social safety net. The majority of rich countries in Europe already have what AOC proposes. That doesn’t make them socialists. In any case, it makes them social democrats.
The United States does not have a Social Democratic party, thus, anything to the left of the Democratic Party is called socialism, because Americans do not have a vocabulary that would allow them to speak of these things with greater subtlety than that of a left against a binary right.
Why people like Bernie Sanders and AOC are labeled as socialists, and even sometimes they call themselves by that term?
Because Fox News spent Obama’s years calling all the Democratic Party’s policies so. As a result, there are two generations (Millennials and Generation Z) who simply use the term socialist without worrying too much about what it exactly means.
For the younger generations, socialism only means making sure that everyone can go to the doctor when they need it, or have a roof over their heads, or have money to buy food, regardless of that person’s circumstances.
And these generations believe that all of these can be achieved within the existing system, without overthrowing the ruling class and the setting of a new political system led by the working class.
As Gates points out, there are some real socialists in the world. And there are even real socialists in governments all over the world. But most American socialists are simply leftists who disregard party labels and talk about policies. Bill Gates knows this and Donald Trump knows it too.
It’s not that Bill Gates is progressive. Guys like Gates know clearly that the guillotines are coming, and if the United States continues along the path of austerity and tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, anything can happen.
According to available information, Gates is worth more than $101 billion dollars, which should literally be considered a crime in a civilized society in which 13 million children do not have enough to eat. But, for now, we will have to accept that at least there are some multi-billionaires who recognize the need for real changes in global society.
May 10, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
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