Two Countries Competing in the USA
In the United States, two countries are competing
By Manuel Yepe Menéndez
January 1, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Southern map of the Confederate states.
In the middle of the 19th century, the Republican Party, representing the interests of the nascent U.S. industrial capital, won the military battle against the Southern Democratic Party, which represented and defended the slave plantation and slavery itself.
However, the southern institutions-including its religious system that justified slavery and defined whites as superior social beings-did not disappear. The defeat suffered by the South permeated southern society, which since then has seen the North as foreignizing, secularizing, and foreign: an enemy to be fought. The civil war, which for the North ended in 1865, had just begun for the South.
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln by a Southerner in that year meant the first questioning of the power of the North. This situation has continued until today.
The South, since then, has been discriminated against by the power of the North. As the family farm became extinct, replaced by agribusiness, those displaced farmers who opposed the new capitalism – which, by paying low wages to Mexicans, made it impossible for the farmers to prosper – became allies of the South.
A southern nationalism opposed to the north developed in the south. If one thinks of the United States as a single nation, this phenomenon may go unnoticed. But, in reality, they are two nations with different dynamics.
The southerners were free traders because the plantations in the south depended on cotton exports to Europe. Those in the north who industrialized were protectionists, influenced by an ideology of self-employment oriented to depending on the work of farmers in the field, with or without slaves. In the south, which extended along the east coast to Virginia and reached the gates of Washington, it dominated the plantation.
The South’s military defeat in the Civil War did not mean the defeat of the South’s institutions, nor its ideology. The North became industrialized and today depends on finance, banks and mortgages since the industries disappeared when they were sold to the Third World. The South, on the other hand, continued to be agricultural until the 1920s when large-scale oil extraction began in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. Therefore, it was in the South where, little by little, the powerful oil power group developed.
In the south, whites were mostly poor but considered superior to slaves. There the Ku Klux Klan emerged in 1866, which soon became the terrorist organization that channeled white supremacist hate in the United States and whose function was to keep alive those practices that the new anti-slavery laws prohibited. The ban on voting for Blacks was maintained and only after a new intervention by the North with federal troops a century later were the civil rights of Blacks legally recognized.
Nationalist and conservative ideology spread in the South as part of the tradition of identifying with the past. The “founding fathers” recognized slavery and did not question it. Even the text of the Constitution, in its original version, allowed slavery.
One element that cannot be ignored is the religious aspect. The ideology of revanchism is based on the religion of Southern Baptists, for whom the South had been God’s chosen people in their struggle against the North. For them, they lost the civil war because God was testing them. The expansion of the country before and after the civil war was led by Southerners. And the same thing happened in the states bordering Canada, where a northern European Lutheran tradition joined with local racist attitudes. Many Southerners left for Alaska. The state of Utah is populated by Mormons, a racist theology with southern bases from that right-wing Arizona tradition.
Blacks and ethnic groups have been influenced by this ideology through the “prosperity gospel” that this movement has emphasized since the 19th century.
When people in North America talk, especially during election periods, about blue states and red states they are referring to two nations.
That’s why it was said that, according to the Southern view, Barack Obama embodied the interests of the North as a northerner (from Chicago), Black, and an ally of the world of finance – the three elements that the Southern right identified in the struggle against the North. On the other hand, to Donald Trump, who was defeated in 2020, was attributed the status of defender of the interests of the red states, because he had assured majority electoral support in the most industrialized states.
On the incoming Biden administration
Some opinions and many questions regarding the incoming Biden administration
By Fernando M. García Bielsa
JANUARY 17, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
The new President of the United States, Joseph Biden, when he takes office will have to face numerous challenges, and in the immediate future he is obliged to pay attention to severe and serious problems such as the pandemic, the recession, climate change and serious fiscal tensions in order to solve urgent social and economic needs. It will also need to obtain some tangible results in its first months, especially in the economy and in the fight against the coronavirus, and show that once again bipartisan action is possible.
He is called to govern a country whose international credibility has been damaged by the ups and downs of its politics and the unstable management of the outgoing president. Likewise, the United States suffers serious structural problems, and is in a moment of serious political, economic and health crisis, with a very polarized society, the discredit and dysfunctionality of many of its institutions and the prospect of obstruction in Congress, where it has a tiny majority. In addition, given the loss of reputation of the electoral system and Trump’s sustained campaign on alleged fraud, part of the citizenry considers Biden’s presidency illegal.
In addition, President Biden’s powers may be somewhat diminished, as he may not be considered to have a strong “mandate” due to the narrow margin of his electoral victory. During this next four years he will face a strong Republican action to obstruct his administration, despite the fact that he and his government will not move away from the neoliberal political orientation shared by both parties of the system, the Democrat and the Republican.
A short list of the challenges facing U.S. society, along with the urgency and severity of the impact of the pandemic and the worrisome trends that are emerging, includes the endless wars that are bogging down the country, the economic crisis, the huge fiscal and trade deficits, a serious deterioration of infrastructure, persistent racial hatred and tensions, the flawed approach to immigration policy, the dangers of growing inequality, environmental degradation, the loss of citizen privacy and the loss of legitimacy of the institutions of the system.
But also the high degree of financialization of that society, which does not work for the real and productive economy, the big financial bubbles linked to an enormous public debt waiting to unleash a major disaster with dire consequences for society as a whole; a flawed and outmoded electoral political system and a two-party system that is full of divisions, far removed from the real problems of the people and overwhelmed by the fractures in society; the growing ineffectiveness and stagnation of the political and legislative game in Washington.
The situation is equivalent to a crisis of political representation.
Massive inequality has made the struggle for survival a central and daily component for millions of people. The public consciousness of many of them has become twisted by their own situation, by their fears and fanaticism, because they have felt repeatedly deceived and abandoned by both parties in the system, and by the manipulative action of the right wing media and their social networks.
Likewise, there is a widespread desire for change and the rebirth, expansion and ramification of forces and tendencies that feed the divisions in the country, while racial and other forms of violence, white supremacist hate groups and heavily armed militias and paramilitary groups with connections in the police and other security bodies are spreading. According to imprecise figures such groups have some 50,000 members.
This is a reality that the new President will have to deal with. He has no easy task ahead of him and in some areas he would have to confront the oligarchic elite and the entrenched interests in both parties, something that is highly unlikely given his political background.
The shameful episode of the violent takeover of the Capitol by the hordes of Trump sympathizers of a fascist nature has exposed the false illusions and cracks in the country. It is striking how little resistance, bordering on complicity, was encountered by the rioters among many of the security guards as they marched into the hall. Although unusual and logically rejected by the vast majority of citizens, according to some polls, these actions were viewed with sympathy by almost one in five respondents in the nation. Along with these events, hundreds of people demonstrated outside legislative buildings in several states across the country against Biden’s confirmation.
This episode shows the seriousness of the legitimacy crisis that has been eating away at the U.S. political system for decades. Political violence has been an enthroned feature of U.S. affairs since its inception, but in recent years there has been a renewed receptivity to it, along with an erosion of confidence in the institutions and in the supposedly democratic channels.
Such developments may be mere precursors of more serious events; of a violent and turbulent period. Clearly the institutional breakdown that is taking place is not resolved by Trump’s departure. Some analysts go so far as to say that the country has not experienced a crisis of this intensity and magnitude since the years before the Civil War in the second half of the 19th century.
At the same time, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted in conjunction with the Center for Policy at the University of Virginia, one-third of Americans believe that “the United States must preserve the predominance of its white European heritage. There has always been a wide range of resentment in the country, with political expressions that cannot tolerate the growing diversity in that society.
These and other problems are not only projected into the future, but are a present reality, including the great differences between regions of the country, the economic, ethnic, and cultural imbalances, and the sense of abandonment and hopelessness of tens of millions. Such problems are part of the explanation and conditions that made it possible for a demagogue like Donald Trump to become President in 2016.
Many of these problems and tendencies are derived from or related to the process of decline that is manifested in the economy and in the degree of predominance of the United States in the concert of nations, to a great extent derived from the negative impact accumulated by decades of gigantic military expenditures, of endless wars and the disproportionate over-expansion of imperialism in all corners of the planet, as well as the consequent imbalances and growing inequalities generated by neo-liberal globalization within that society.
In the immediate term, some recent events should presumably improve Biden’s possibilities for management and for promoting his legislative program to some extent. Among them, the loss by the Republican Party of its majority in the Senate and the many cracks that exist within it, catalyzed during the catastrophic end of the government of Donald Trump, stand out in the first place.
Despite this, it is to be expected that the magnate will dedicate part of his time to hindering the new President’s administration. Trump has had to leave the government but the latent weight of the 74 million Americans who voted for him is there. They will continue to be a tremendous political base, with tendencies to reject Washington’s elites and the status quo, destabilizing and potentially manipulable for right-wing political projects. What we now call Trumpism will remain even if Trump’s figure is ultimately damaged, to a greater or lesser extent, or discredited by his involvement in the unprecedented revolt at the heart of the Capitol.
Recently some notorious Republican politicians have been abandoning the ship driven by Trump, but mostly they do it measuring consequences with a view to eventually inheriting his mantle. They cannot disengage much from their agenda without alienating the eventual support of the tens of millions who fervently follow the former President.
Aside from the not inconsiderable spread and entrenchment of violent right-wing groups, the xenophobic agenda and rejection of political and financial elites that Trump has exploited remains extremely popular with his broad base of supporters. Many are following him, inside and outside the institutions. An imminent battle over the future direction of the Republican Party and even its eventual division is predicted, which could in the medium term generate consequences and even question the continuity of the two-party oligarchic system.
The electoral victory and the correlation of internal forces do not constitute a clear mandate
Despite all the hype of the US electoral process and the decisive impact of the money spent, there is no doubt that Joseph Biden was elected in 2020 largely because of the massive rejection of Donald Trump, further weakened by the economic and health crisis just before the election. The usual formula of voting for the lesser evil was imposed on millions of people.
The announced and expected blue wave (pro-democracy) did not happen. Biden’s victory was relatively narrow in several states, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives was reduced, and although a functional predominance is assumed in the Senate, this body, which by its nature is eminently conservative, has been divided with its seats distributed equally, with 50 senators from each party. Its advantage is quite small and fragile, especially when both right-wing Democrats and liberal Republicans could occasionally join the opposing party in voting on measures that do not suit their preferences. This makes the projection of the legislative program more complex.
More than half of the states in the Union have Republican-dominated governors and/or legislatures. There is concern about the role that the Supreme Court and the judicial body can play at various levels, all of which are clearly conservative.
Given Trump’s role as a catalyst for many of the nation’s rifts, Biden made his point by emphasizing that he would, on the one hand, reverse Trump’s right-wing policies while, at the same time, promising the very difficult task of restoring unity in the nation and governing for all Americans, regardless of their partisan color.
This now appears to him as a straitjacket. The President will have to move between two opposing waters: between his alleged courtship with Republican sectors that supported him, and on the contrary he will have to avoid alienating himself from the combative progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the followers of Bernie Sanders and the traditional party base among workers, African Americans, environmentalists and others.
In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, it became clear that it is the traditional elite who are in charge. Favored by it are the bulk of those chosen for the cabinet and the most important positions. For the moment, there is a great deal of ignorance and contempt for the progressive sector.
Biden is an accomplished politician of the oligarchic elite who comes into office with the remarkable gravitation of a class of billionaire donors from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. He was the most conservative of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in the recent election. He will have to govern a country in decline, with many tears, and during a long period of economic recession and fiscal stress. He will be governing with a divided Democratic Party and one in which reconciling differences with the progressive wing presents him with the challenge of not alienating other sectors of his coalition and avoiding a collapse in the parliamentary elections of 2022.
Maintaining the continuity of neoliberal capitalism and the corporate profit rate will be a central concern of the economic policy of the Biden Administration, in part due to the influence on it of the financial sector, the giants of advanced technology, the transnationals and the Democratic establishment.
Domestically, despite enormous levels of debt and an untouchable increase in the military budget, there is a marked need for increased federal spending on health care, aid for the unemployed and businesses, and support for troubled state and local governments. It is believed that given the existing level of inequality and the low dynamism of the economy, Biden could attempt to soften the edge of neoliberal policies through monetary manipulation, without abandoning the general neoliberal orientation characteristic of the spheres that control the Democratic Party.
Even after the pandemic is over, he is likely to face persistent economic weakness and a desperate need for more public investment. The massive injection into the economy of fiat money, of large issues of paper money without real backing, will surely continue, which would increase in the medium term the risks for the stability of the dollar and of the economy itself.
Several important analysts consider the orthodox centrist policies that the Biden administration is likely to adopt as anachronistic and unsustainable, given the growing fractures and conflicting trends in the country and the erosion of the credibility of neoliberalism. The next period of Biden’s government could well be a mere interval in the trajectory of continued ascent and empowerment of extreme right-wing positions in the country.
In matters of foreign policy there will surely be more space for multilateralism, diplomacy and some accommodation with allies, while continuing the United States’ claim to recover its global primacy and domination by threat and force. It is above all in this sphere that the new president has nominated some notorious neoconservatives and interventionist liberals. With Biden, the military budget will be increased, troops will be maintained in the Middle East and, in an adverse geopolitical framework, a hard line will be maintained towards China. The United States will continue to be the biggest exporter of arms, and new military and subversive interventions abroad could be expected.
At first sight, Biden is favored to begin his administration when he succeeds a government like that of Trump, which generated so much controversy, so much polarization and a mediocre performance in a period in which the divisions in the country were sharpened. However, the many expectations generated for a new administration could soon work against him.
Joe Biden measures for his first days in office
Joe Biden prepares measures for his first days in office
In a memo circulated among the major U.S. media, Biden’s advisors describe such executive actions as an urgent readiness to address the most serious crises in the nation’s modern history
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
January 17, 2021 10:01:43
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: EFE
Amidst preparations for the inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is today preparing a set of urgent measures for the first 10 days of the administration.
In a memo circulated Saturday to the major U.S. media, Biden’s advisers describe such executive actions as an urgent readiness to address the most serious crises in the nation’s modern history.
Ron Klain, the incoming chief of staff to the next White House chief, wrote in that document that the orders will focus on ‘the Covid-19 health crisis, and its resulting serious impact, climate change and racial equity.
The official said the provisions will be accompanied by a ‘strong’ legislative agenda and are intended to provide relief to the millions of Americans struggling with these serious issues.
He added that the president-elect will take steps not only to reverse the worst damage of Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, “but also to begin to move our country forward.”
The new head of state will begin implementing the measures on Wednesday, the day he takes office, with what Klain said would be about a dozen executive orders on the issues mentioned.
The president-elect also plans to bring the country back into the Paris climate change agreement and undo the ban on travel to the United States by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, a measure implemented by Trump.
Biden will also issue a provision for mandatory use of masks as a requirement for staying on federally owned land or facilities and on interstate travel, and will also extend a pause on evictions and mortgages.
He even plans to take steps to mitigate the spread by expanding Covid-19 testing, protecting workers, and establishing clear health standards.
The White House will spend the remaining eight days instructing its cabinet to push for economic assistance to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and to take executive action on issues such as reunification of children separated from their families after crossing the border, among others.
The effort comes as the Senate prepares for President Trump’s second impeachment, in the early days of the Biden administration.
Although the transition team has not outlined many components of its upcoming legislative agenda, the next White House chief implemented a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the damage from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, a top priority for the new administration.
(Source: Prensa Latina)
Hitler returns from the afterlife
Hitler returns from the afterlife
One of the last crimes of the multimillionaire Donald Trump has triggered worldwide and domestic condemnation, at the same time as it once again proves those who warned that Hitler was back because of the racist, ultra-right-wing, xenophobic, nationalist and isolationist positions of Trump were right
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
An angry crowd caused disorder in the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6. Photo: EFE
Five fatalities, at least a dozen injured police officers, 70 people charged, more than 125 files opened, rewards of up to $50,000 for information about fugitives from justice, damages in the millions for the multiple destructions inside the facilities of the U.S. Congress, a newly-militarized city with more than 25,000 troops and walled up in the face of new threats, are the results of the quantitative analysis of the scandalous assault on the Capitol on January 6.
One of the latest crimes of billionaire Donald Trump has triggered world and internal condemnations, while giving reason, once again, to those who – since his unexpected electoral victory in 2016 – warned that Hitler was back due to his racist positions, ultra-rightists, xenophobes, nationalists and isolationists of the new president, who associated him so much with the fascist, that he also made intentional use of lies to trap the will of millions in Germany and try to bring the world to its knees.
A January 14 Los Angeles Times editorial reflected that, although Trump has never really led the far right, it fell in love with him after finding common ground in his rhetoric, which explains why 74 million supported him in 2020 after seeing his “authoritarian impulses” on display for four years in office.
One week after what many have called “a historic act of domestic terrorism,” media around the world are alternating news of the global pandemic’s resurgence and its current increased threats. These are impacting Americans with record numbers of 4,300 deaths a day, and with the horrors surrounding the acts of violence that shook Washington and U.S. democracy, following the president’s call to prevent, by force, the legislative recognition of Joe Biden’s triumph as president-elect.
While the sessions in Congress for the second impeachment against Trump are taking place in a Capitol that looks like a military camp, with soldiers sleeping in hallways, rooms and staircases, police closures are proliferating throughout the city, in response to indications, detected by the FBI, of new armed rallies before Joe Biden’s inauguration, not only in Washington, but in all 50 states.
The proclivity to allow disorder and let it go has generated suspicions and accusations. It was clear in recent days that the mobilization would attract thousands of people, the security apparatus was surprisingly small. Some wondered whether it was “mere incompetence or a strategy” that was premeditated. Then came the version that when the Capitol Police asked for help from the Department of Defense, led by people with no credentials other than their total loyalty to Trump, it imposed severe restrictions on the mission of the District National Guard, which had no riot gear or ammunition.
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy alleged that Congress did not ask for riot control assistance and was concerned about the image that the presence of uniformed personnel in the building might convey, despite the fact that, until then, President Trump had not shaken his hand in sending in the military when those protesting are Black Lives Matter supporters.
This time the Pentagon took almost three hours to authorize the deployment of riot police and National Guard reinforcements,. While congress members and senators were being evacuated, the building ended up being taken over by the rebels. Among the garbage and the disorder caused, racist insignias and symbols appeared next to Trump’s hats and flags, and a large gallows with the rope prepared: “Let them cut off their heads,” read a banner, according to local correspondents.
OLD SUSPICIONS
Two months before the Trump’s coup against Congress, US columnist and Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Krugman, analyzed in his commentary The United States: A Failed State, the possible impact of Trump’s electoral failure. He predicted “that we are in serious trouble. Trump’s defeat would mean that, for the time being, we would have avoided falling into authoritarianism; and yes, the risks are that great, not only because of who Trump is, but also because the modern Republican Party is that extreme and undemocratic.”
Krugman denounced, during the 2020 election campaign, the Republican strategy based on false conspiracies and trying to scare voters by talking about bad things that are not happening, through “damn lies and Trump rallies.”
The day after the election, another New York Times commentator, Thomas Friedman, wrote an article entitled In the Election, There Was a Loser: America, a view that held that “we have just lived through four years of the most divisive and dishonest presidency in American history, one that attacked the two pillars of our democracy: truth and trust. Donald Trump has not spent a single day of his term trying to be the president of all the people and he has broken the rules and shattered the norms in a way that no president has dared; like last night, when he falsely warned of electoral fraud and called on the Supreme Court to intervene and stop the vote, as if such a thing were even remotely possible.
Using the social network platforms, the stands as President and the freedom of expression as an alibi, Trump and his serial manipulators fomented hatred, attempted against migration, undermined confidence in the democratic processes and fed populism and authoritarianism, taking advantage of the macabre techniques of Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda of Adolph Hitler’s Germany. Goebbels used the media to offer biased information, to multiply invented, unreal things, and to make people believe them as unquestionable truths, to expand, to inflame and to manage the genocidal Nazi ideology. More than seven decades later, Trump’s media terrorism took advantage of the fact that today lies reach further, faster and more people than ever before, with technologies.
The end? A broken country, a questioned democracy, a diminished, isolated international authority; a polarized, nervous, fractured society, which appeals more and more to drugs and medicines in the face of so much stress. It is no less concerned with the violence and terrorism generated by the hatred engendered and fueled by Trump, who lived by the lie. The fascists of yesterday and today confirm that delirium is also a deadly virus.
Related information
Showcases of “democracy” with which the United States has pretended to give lessons to the world are broken.
“Living for the second time”
After nine days in a coma because of COVID-19:
“Living for a second time”
January 16, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
María Lourdes, Antonio and their son Sandir constitute a family and live in the Vedado. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta
María Lourdes, Antonio and his son Sandir are a family and live in Vedado, in Havana. They keep in their memory the memory of a terrible fight against COVID-19. Months ago they received a friend from Malaga, Spain, at a time when no positive cases of SARS-CoV-2 had been reported in that city and through her they were infected.
María Lourdes, 64 years old, is hypertensive, has a slight heart failure and therefore it was feared that the disease in her case would manifest itself in a more aggressive way. However, it was Antonio -without any comorbidity- who experienced more evident symptoms. He stopped eating, had pains all over his body, fever, a lot of dry cough, numerous diarrheas, all of which led him to intensive care and nine days in a coma.
Doctors told his family to prepare for the worst. We share with you his testimony, which is part of the recently completed documentary Parallel Stories, which tells the stories of several people who were sick with COVID-19:
“The anguish, the suffering, the strongest tragedy was for the two of them, who were aware that I was in an extremely critical situation, and my younger children who were in Mexico and were totally desperate, totally unhinged. They made a huge chain of people so that they would have me in their prayers, in their hearts, that also helps.
I did not even know I was in the Naval Hospital, I believed that I was in a therapy room in a totally deserted place that was guarded by soldiers, the things I thought. I in front of me there was a tree that I imagined as a woman with many arms, who danced in front of me as if mocking and I closed my eyes and all those leaves became thousands and thousands of coronaviruses.
María Lourdes, wife of Antonio, convalescent of COVID-19. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta
When I came to my senses in the midst of the gravity, that I came out of the coma, that they took away the intubation, the first thing I thought about is her (his wife) and that was for me the most critical moment, in which I think she had died. Because of her basic disease and heart problems, I thought I had lost her. She is the mother of my children, but she has been my partner for 46 years, the other half of my life. I cried in silence, I am a strong man, I consider myself an enthusiastic, fighting person, but I thought that I would never see again what sustains my life, because that is it, the wife, the children, the grandchildren fighting together for life. We think about everything, even about getting rid of the most intimate relationships that we can still have at our age, which are limited, but they are there.
I remember that once I was pricked in the groin, on this side, what I did see was that they were continuously giving me all kinds of medication, interferon, antibiotics, I don’t know how many, I’m not exaggerating, I think that every day they were 14, 15 times that they came to give me medication. When I came out of gravity, I had no smell, no palate, I still did not speak, it left me with a lung lesion, I was practically unable to walk for a month, I was able to climb the stairs of this house after a month, skin lesions, I could not sleep, sleep was disturbed.
I am a man of dreams, I had dreams before the pandemic and I still have them, in all aspects of life, the day I don’t have dreams is not worth living and there was a moment, I will tell you honestly, after you put it or not in the interview, when I thought that values had been lost, all of them: moral, spiritual, solidarity, to help your neighbor, to cooperate, to share your bread and your soul, and I have seen how the neighbors have come without you calling them, without you asking them anything, knocking on your door and sometimes without asking them anything they said: I brought you this, I threw away the garbage, I found you the food, what do you want? That spirit. The artisans who made 10 beds for a hospital, the cooperative that left with a food truck for an old people’s home, that spirit of solidarity that was there, that I thought was like baby teeth, that were falling out, because they didn’t have any calcium, and yet it was enough for this situation to happen, unfortunately, for that spirit to come out again with more strength than ever.
I felt as if those nurses, those doctors, the intensive care doctors at the Naval hospital were part of my family. That team of nurses, technicians, doctors, gave me the possibility of living for the second time.
Son of Antonio, convalescent of the COVID-19. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta.
The team of nurses, technicians, doctors, gave me the possibility to live for the second time, said Antonio, convalescent of COVID-19. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta.
Journalist Germán Piniella dies
Journalist and cultural critic Germán Piniella dies
By Yoandry Avila Guerra
January 9, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
The Union of Cuban Journalists laments the death, this January 9, of journalist, narrator, literary translator and music critic Germán Piniella. Among other Cuban serial publications, Piniella collaborated with the magazine Casa de las Américas, La Gaceta de Cuba, Bohemia, El Caimán Barbudo and La Jiribilla. He also served as associate editor of the bilingual magazine Progreso Semanal.
Among his works are the book of short stories Otra vez al camino (Editorial Pluma en Ristre, 1971), finalist for the David Award in 1969; Comiendo con Doña Lita (Art and Literature, 2010), a text written with his wife, psychologist Amelia Rodríguez, in which he approaches culinary culture, and the detective novel Un toque de melancolía (Ediciones Unión, 2013). Likewise, with Raúl Rivero, he was the author of Punto de partida (Pluma en Ristre, 1970), an anthology of young narrators and poets from the Island.
With a degree in Journalism from the University of Havana, Piniella also received a Master’s degree in Marketing and Business Management from the Escuela Superior de Estudios de Marketing de Madrid and a Master’s degree in Marketing and Communication from the University of Havana. For his work in the field of advertising, the Cuban Association of Social Communicators awarded him the Premio Espacio for his life’s work.
Upon learning of his death, Rafael Grillo, head of information for the cultural magazine El Caimán Barbudo, wrote in his personal profile on the social network Facebook: “Friend, Germán Piniella Sardiñas, more than goodbye a hasta siempre. To know you, to embrace your affection, even if it is a short term friendship, but very sincere, is unforgettable. Your passion, the enthusiasm to create, the way to face destiny without renouncing the enjoyment of life is a teaching that you leave me.
“And to your dear Amelia Rodriguez, adorable woman, with you and with everyone, I transmit my encouragement and my love. May that novel that you were working on and that I was able to read about, see the light, so that your light may continue. With “a touch of melancholy” we say goodbye to you Juliette Massip I…”
One Story, Multiple Readings
One Story, Multiple Readings
Published: Tuesday 12 January 2021 | 08:41:40 pm
When talking about the Middle Ages and Antiquity in Europe and its nearby territories, it seems that women were always subject to male power
Author: Mileyda Menéndez Dávila
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Viking culture promoted equity between men and women. Author: Taken from www.filo.news Published: 12/01/2021 | 07:57 pm
When talking about the Middle Ages and Antiquity in Europe and its nearby territories, it seems that women were always subject to male power, without the right to participate or manipulated in government debates, relegated to the role of feeding themselves, excluded from war, science or other basic functions for the human group to which they belonged.
This is what those who consider the concept of equity as a recent “invention” say, and how they describe matriarchy as a system of male slavery and humiliation.
Recent archaeological findings and new readings of ancient texts from a feminist perspective agree that, although misogyny and patriarchy were widespread in many regions with similar expressions, there were civilizations in which women lived alongside men and played important social roles.
Supposedly barbaric and backward cultures, such as that of the Vikings and the one that inhabited India before the Aryan invasions, left evidence of a respectful and even venerable treatment of women and people of non-binary gender in their beliefs, traditions and social structure.
Preserved manuscripts from those times and legends that have survived orally indicate that in addition to respecting the right of women to decide about their bodies and to choose partners of any caste, an infinite number of tribes and clans validated non-heterosexual practices (common among warriors and priestesses), and ambivalent gender identities, visible in graphic representations of everyday life and of their gods and goddesses, which also abounded.
Respectable evidence
In the case of the Vikings, the journal Economics and Human Biology published a study that correlates the nutritional health of the Scandinavian population between ten and 15 centuries ago with the social values that intended equity by gender and age.
Biochemical tests confirm, by the quality and development of the bones found in several settlements, that women were free and active, and from birth they ate at the same time as adult men, not at the end.
Many were trained for war, fishing and hunting, led groups and inherited positions and properties. The most revered were the Valkyries: large women who collected dying and dead bodies in battle to help them move, according to their traditions, into the eternal and sacred world they called Valhalla.
Those customs of the Nordic “savages” were a shock for the descendants of the Greco-Latin culture, who built palaces and roads, dominated the arts and agriculture, but in their cultured cities women had no right to study or own property, did not talk to other men and could be given away as servants by their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons.
The legislations of the current Nordic countries, heirs to the Viking culture, guarantee effective and palpable justice without gender discrimination, while many states born of the Judeo-Christian forge cling to a patriarchal hierarchy in homes and social spaces that has unleashed many wars and justified discrimination for hundreds of generations.
Other archaeological findings of the mid-twentieth century in well-preserved ancient cities, but hidden by nature, confirmed the respect for women as a source of life in the Indus civilization, without such deference to represent for men an economic or social disadvantage, as told in the book Tantra, the cult of the feminine, which we can provide to our readers by digital means.
That tradition of honoring the Mother as a social being (not only as a producer of labor) disappeared with the caste system imposed after the northern invasions, when girls and women became, along with the cattle, a resource to be exploited by the conquerors to survive in hostile terrain and to adapt genetically to the climate.
Also in pre-Columbian America and the original African societies there were stages and cultures in which women flourished alongside their male counterparts. As in other processes of conquest throughout the world, were the hosts “civilizing” which established the male hierarchy to control the lines of inheritance in the territories razed.
By (re)knowing these versions of common history, humanity is better able to write its present and place dignity as the essential value promoted by the Magna Carta of almost all nations.
If the Capitol Assailants had been Black?
TODAY IN HISTORY
What if the assailants at the Capitol had been African Americans?
In the 1940s and 1950s, the segregationists adopted the flag as the emblem of their battle to prevent movements that emerged to advance the rights of African Americans. In essence, it represents the racist southern culture
It was not by chance that a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump, all of them white-skinned, razed the Capitol’s fences, pounced on the police guarding the building and, with little resistance, forcibly entered the compound. Nor was it by chance that one of them walked through the corridors waving an enormous “confederate” flag.
This was possible because hours earlier, Trump had incited them in the Save America march, to support him in a desperate and last attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s already recognized victory.
It was, moreover, a racist assault. No African Americans participated in that violent demonstration, and the Confederate flag, a historic symbol of racism and the defense of slavery in the United States, was flown for several hours without being stopped by any police officer.
Photo: Reuters
Some of the leaders of the demonstration, identified as members of extreme right-wing conspiracy theory and white supremacist organizations, are trying to distance themselves from the vandalism, claiming that the destruction was caused by anti-fascists.
But the police have already located and arrested Jacob Anthony Chansley, known as Jake Angeli, who is considered the “shaman” of the QAnon. Members of the QAnon movement, which appears to have begun in October 2017, consider Trump a hero.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Its militants believe an unfounded theory. They say that President Trump is waging a secret war against pedophiles from the elite of the U.S. government, business and media who worship Satan, and that one day there will be a reckoning among political figures like former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In this case, Jake Angeli is the man photographed inside Congress with his face painted and dressed in a bearskin and horns on his head. In addition, he carried a spear with an American flag tied to the blade, and who calls himself “The Wolf of Yellowstone.”
Richard Barnett, a follower of President Trump, is also in custody. He is pictured sitting in the office of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Adam Johnson, who was photographed taking Pelosi’s lectern, also remains in police custody.
WHAT IF THE ASSAILANTS AT THE CAPITOL HAD BEEN AFRICAN-AMERICANS?
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, an international and decentralized movement originating within the African American community, stated:
“When African Americans protest for our lives, we often encounter National Guard troops or police armed with assault rifles, shields, tear gas, and combat helmets.
“When whites attempt a coup, they run into a small number of agents who can’t do anything and who even take selfies with the terrorists,” they said.
A statement on Twitter was written by Michelle Obama, wife of Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States:
“To those who criticize others as unpatriotic for simply kneeling in protest, to those who wonder why we even have to remember that Black lives matter, it has become painfully clear that some Americans are, in fact, allowed to degrade the flag and symbols of our nation. What do they have to say now?”
What do Joe Biden and Donald Trump think about January 6?
NBA legend LeBron James was blunt in his denunciation:
“We live in two Americas. “If people like me – African Americans – had stormed the Capitol, what would have been the result? I think we all know. We know what would have happened to them if they had approached the Capitol, let alone entered the offices and the hallways.”
Photo: Reuters
Florida Senator Marco Rubio released a video on Friday comparing the attack on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald J. Trump with protests by Black Lives Matter, the racial equality and justice movement.
Rubio said the invasion of Congress was similar to the protests the left had been “justifying” last summer in cities across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, an African American who died in Minneapolis police custody.
So far, more than 80 people have been arrested and four died in the assault on the Capitol. Police found 11 Molotov cocktails on an Alabama man.
THE CONFEDERATE FLAG CARRIED BY THE CONGRESSIONAL ASSAILANTS
Between 1861 and 1865 a civil war developed in the United States that confronted the southern states (Confederates) that defended, contrary to the foundations of the northerners whose leader was Abraham Lincoln, the maintenance of slavery in the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
After the defeat of the Confederate states, the banner carried by their troops in the civil war reduced its public presence but reappeared in the mid-twentieth century with racial segregation.
The first Confederate flag was composed of two red bars and a white one in the middle, with a blue box in the upper left that had a circle formed by stars. However, its successor, the red one, which contains a blue cross with white borders and stars, was the one that became popular. It was the symbol of the Battle of Virginia.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
In 1863, the Confederate Congress recognized the Northern Virginia flag as its official symbol.
The descendants of Civil War veterans placed it on the nation’s monuments, so it gradually became an icon of Southern culture
In the 1940s and 1950s, segregationists adopted the flag as the emblem of their battle to prevent movements that emerged to advance the rights of African Americans. In essence, it is the representation of Southern racist culture.
Some time ago, the U.S. Navy decided to ban this flag from all Navy facilities, including ships, planes and submarines.
Sources: (not translated)
El significado sureño y racista de la bandera ondeada durante el asalto al Capitolio en EEUU. Publicado en Yahoo Noticias el 7 de enero de 2021.
La herida racial vuelve a sangrar en el asalto al Capitolio. Publicado en El Periódico el 8 de enero de 2021.
Toma del Capitolio, ejemplo de desigualdad racial. Publicado en Sun Sentinel el 7 de enero de 2021.
¿Qué significa la bandera confederada y por qué causa polémica en EU?. Publicado en Vive USA el 12 de junio de 2020.
Biden and Trump on January 6, 2021
What do Joe Biden and Donald Trump think about the violent demonstrations in Washington? ( + Photos )
U.S. lawmakers were meeting Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election amid protests by Trump supporters both outside and inside the Capitol
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
January 6, 2021 19:01:25
Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump called on his extremist supporters to stop violent demonstrations in Washington, but insisted there was “election fraud.:
“I don’t want anyone to be hurt (…) I love you, you are very special, but go home. I know you are hurt. We have an election that was stolen from us, and you know it, especially from the other side,” said Trump according to Telesur TV.
The outgoing president warned that this is a very difficult time, “there was never a time like this, where something like this happened, that something was stolen, from everyone, from you, from me, from the country. It was a fraudulent election”.
Trump’s call came after a group of extremists stormed Congress to prevent certification of Biden’s election victory. At that time, the congress members left the Capitol in the custody of the authorities.
Photo: Internet
On Wednesday, president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, repudiated the violent invasion by supporters of Donald Trump in the Capitol that caused the cancellation of the certification of the votes.
Photo: Internet
“Attacking the capitol, destroying the US Senate, endangering security. This is not a protest, it is an insurrection … I call them mafiosi, they are not attacking democracy,” Biden said.
The president-elect rejected the position of Trump’s fanatics who attacked the certification of last November’s votes, “we are seeing a small number of extremists who are dedicated to breaking the law. This is chaos and it must end now,” he added.
“The job in the coming years is to restore democracy, honor and respect. Solve the problems by looking at ourselves without stoking hatred,” the new White House tenant said.
Finally, he urged all leaders to work together to recover democracy in the country of the North, “democracy is fragile and to preserve it we need people of good will, courageous leaders, who are not dedicated to power, but to the common interest,” he concluded.
U.S. Congress meets Wednesday to certify Biden’s victory
U.S. lawmakers were meeting Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election amid protests by Trump supporters both outside and inside the Capitol itself.
A session that, every four years, goes unnoticed by most people has as an ingredient this year the announcement of some Republican senators and representatives, who have pledged to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the result through a formal sessional objection, in an attempt that is almost certain to fail.
The two houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, in a joint session this Wednesday will open sealed certificates from all 50 U.S. states containing a record of their electoral votes.
Photo: Internet
Photo: Internet
Under the U.S. system, people cast their votes for “electors,” who in turn formally vote for candidates weeks after the election, which occurred on December 14, when Biden received 306 votes under the electoral college system, compared to 232 under Trump.
Photo: Internet
Protecting Family Caregivers
The Other Side of Dependency:
Protecting Family Caregivers
Demographic aging is a phenomenon that poses multiple challenges at all levels, which are common to all societies
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Coronavirus, Ayestaran Street
Three-quarters of the elderly population in Cuba, who are in care, receive informal support, and it is the family that contributes most to this, and of these three quarters, 85% of the informal care is provided at home Photo: Ariel Cecilio Lemus
Demographic aging is a phenomenon that poses multiple challenges at all levels, which are common to all societies.
According to an article by the Center for Demographic Studies at the University of Havana, Cuba has been ranked, after Uruguay, as the country with the second-highest number of elderly people in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2015.
The statistics also reflect that in much of Europe, North America and in some Latin American countries, there is a considerable increase in the number of older people, even those over 85.
Added to this, is the number of people in a situation of disability, as well as the increase in the chronicity of illnesses, particularly neurodegenerative ones, factors that lead to an increase in the number of people dependent on care.
However, the analyses of the phenomenon of population aging have always weighed, more or less correctly, the approaches from the vantage point of those who receive care, and never, or almost never, “which is not the same, but it is the same”, from that of the caregivers.
The current legislation, according to Dr. Leonardo Pérez Gallardo, president of the Cuban Society of Civil and Family Law, of the National Union of Jurists of Cuba, does not contain any reference to the subject. Hence, this is probably one of the novel aspects to be incorporated in the new Family Code, which could be presented to the National Assembly of the People’s Power this year.
Afterward, there will be the popular consultation, discussion with the deputies and final approval, in a referendum, of the resulting text, as dictated by the Eleventh Transitory Provision of the Constitution.
OF CARE AND CAREGIVERS
Although dependency is not a new phenomenon, says Perez Gallardo, “the convergence of different factors such as demographic aging, increased life expectancy and changes in family structure, have led to it becoming a phenomenon that requires urgent and appropriate responses from political, technological, social, health, psychological, family, economic and, of course, legal.
The dependent person, he explains, requires assistance from others for a prolonged period, that is to say, it is not a question of attention for a passing illness, but it implies the need of assistance for those activities of the daily life. This care, constant and lasting, over a long period of time, has been called long-term care, and it involves the provision of assistance with progressive intensity.
Nor can it be lost sight of, in Pérez Gallardo’s opinion, that chronic illnesses and disabilities can be accompanied by functional and cognitive limitations that end up preventing people from enjoying an independent life.
In situations of this nature, family care generally takes on a more prominent role. The key, warns the professor at the University of Havana Law School, lies in the physical and emotional availability of a person to devote himself or herself regularly to the care of that family member, even to the point of giving up or reducing his or her productive or working capacity in order to satisfy the demands of the recipient of his or her services.
In Cuba, according to Dr. Leonardo Pérez, three-quarters of the elderly population in care receive informal support, and it is the family that contributes most to this. And of those three-quarters, 85% of informal care is provided at home.
INFORMAL CAREGIVERS PROTECTED?
Family caregivers, says the President of the Cuban Society of Civil and Family Law, are also called informal caregivers because, unlike professional caregivers, the former are engaged in care for a circumstantial reason, without specialized knowledge and without compensation.
Professional caregivers, on the other hand, are hired and receive financial compensation for their service. Informal caregivers, on the other hand, do so out of altruism, based on the moral duty they owe to their family members, who in many cases are their own parents.
Moral duty which, by the way, and as a lag in a patriarchal and androcentric society, is usually attributed to women, either as daughters, wives or sisters. It has even been assumed as “logical” that it is the children’s wives who take care of their in-laws, especially when they did not have female descendants.
Without a doubt, summarizes Pérez Gallardo, there are many and varied risks that the caregivers assume, because this activity implies, in the personal order, resignation to an adequate life. In the social order, it implies isolation and, in the professional order, loss of their productive capacity and even abandonment, total or partial, of their life project.
For this reason, he emphasizes, “it is necessary to regulate the rights of family caregivers so that the legal system can make them visible, based on the recognition of their autonomy and dignity, as well as the condemnation of any form of manifestation of family or gender violence against them.
“There is an urgent need for legislation that recognizes the right to their own care, to dedicate time to personal activities, to be treated with respect and to receive the due support of the rest of the family members. It is about protecting, from the Law, the other side of the care”.
The protection of caregivers, acknowledges the professor, “should not only be transversal in the field of public law, but also from the private law, capable of providing useful tools to compensate the asset imbalance associated with the performance of the work of caregiving.”
In the words of Pérez Gallardo, “it is necessary to focus on those people who, as caregivers, have been left socially and economically unprotected after the death of the care recipient. To this end, the rules of both family law and inheritance law can be important instruments.
“It would be worthwhile to think of alternatives that, without diminishing altruism, affection, solidarity, dedication and love, encourage care, compensate for silence, emotional and physical overload and facilitate an equitable and fair redistribution of the inheritance”.
In that sense, he points out, “the freedom to bequeath can be a useful alternative and within everyone’s reach. Nobody better than the one leaving [material resources] to compensate the efforts of the caregiver. And, in the absence of the exercise of the power to bequeath, it will be up to the legislator, as they see fit, to establish the best correlation between participation in the inheritance and care for that person in the twilight of life”.
The Chinese model, he suggests, “could be a mirror for the succession rules, from the establishment of more and more flexible rules in the legal succession, suitable to give an answer to the dissimilar social equations that this 21st century has been establishing, in pursuit of a distributive justice in favor of the caretakers”.
IN CONTEXT
The constitutional text, proclaimed on April 10, 2019, establishes in Chapter III Families, of Title v Rights, Duties and Guarantees that
The State, society and families, as far as each one is concerned, have the obligation to protect, assist and facilitate the conditions to satisfy the needs and raise the quality of life of the elderly. Likewise, to respect their self-determination, guarantee the full exercise of their rights, and promote their social integration and participation.
The State, society and families have the obligation to protect, promote and ensure the full exercise of the rights of persons in a situation of disability. The State creates the conditions required for their rehabilitation or the improvement of their quality of life, their personal autonomy, and their social inclusion and participation.
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