Ralph Gonsalves Wins Fifth Term
Ralph Gonsalves Wins Fifth Election in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
By Caribe, Elections, Ralph Gonsalves, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
November 6, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves
The citizens of St. Vincent and the Grenadines elected Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves to a fifth consecutive term in Thursday’s general elections, according to preliminary figures released in Kingstown, the capital.
According to these figures, the United Labor Party (ULP) achieved a major victory by winning nine of the 15 seats in Parliament, compared to the eight it controlled until now.
Godwin Friday’s opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) lost one seat and took the remaining six.
In declaring himself the winner in the elections, Gonsalves affirmed that the population adopted “our progressive agenda for the future” and rejected “the policy of hate, backwardness and colonialism.
He also stressed the need for the unity of the country to address the challenges of development.
For the elections, this regional body sent a group of six observers, led by Anthonyson King, a member of the electoral commission of Antigua and Barbuda.
Voter registration for the election was 89,119 persons over the age of 18 out of a total population of 110,000.
Those subject to quarantine because of COVID-19 were also able to cast their vote. The consultation took place under a pandemic prevention protocol.
The country is one of the few in the world that has not recorded any deaths from the disease and only 75 cases, 70 of them recovered, since the beginning of the health crisis in March, while CARICOM as a whole reports some 45,000 confirmed cases and just over 1,000 deaths.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is among the 10 smallest countries in the world and this month it holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, a position it holds from last January until December 2021.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez today congratulated St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and the United Labor Party (ULP) on their election victory.
In his Twitter account, the Foreign Minister highlighted the relations of friendship and cooperation between both nations, on which he expressed the will to continue advancing in their development.
(With information from Prensa Latina)
Ten Notes on the “Cuban vote” in Florida
Ten Notes on the “Cuban vote” in Florida
By Rosa Miriam Elizalde, Daniel González
Rosa Miriam Elizalde is a Cuban journalist. First Vice President of UPEC and Vice President of FELAP. She is a Doctor in Communication Sciences and author or co-author of the books “Antes de que se me Olvidar”, “Jineteros en La Habana”, “Clic Internet” and “Chávez Nuestro”, among others. She has received the “Juan Gualberto Gómez” National Journalism Award on several occasions. Founder of Cubadebate and its Chief Editor until January 2017. She is a columnist for La Jornada, Mexico.
On twitter: @elizalderosa
November 6, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In Miami, this van circulated this Thursday with a sign asking to turn Cuba into the 51st state of the USA. Photo: Twitter.
Two-thirds of Florida counties voted for Donald Trump, as did a good portion of Latin American Americans, with a record turnout in this election. In the United States, Mexicans represent by far the largest percentage of Latino voters (almost 60% of the electorate), 14% of those who come from Puerto Rico and, in third place, Cubans with 5%. Why then the overvaluation of this last group?
No one doubts that Donald Trump’s disinformation campaign worked in the émigré community from our country, but as far as the final figures on voters go, the “Cuban vote” should be taken with a grain of salt. Here are a few quick notes on the subject.
1.-There are no definitive figures for the “Cuban vote” or for any other community. Counts are underway in the country. According to the American Community Survey 2014-2018, 697,785 Cubans were registered in Florida in 2016. Of these, 367,233 declared themselves in favor of the Republican Party; 180,227 for the Democratic Party, and 150,325 other political affiliations. Finally, four years ago, 564,938 voted. Between 52 and 54% voted for Trump and between 41 and 47% for Clinton. Both NBC News and Fox News estimated a Cuban participation rate in these elections of 58%, a level similar to that of 2016.
2.-The “Cuban vote” in Miami-Dade gave a majority to the Republican candidate, as in the previous election. However, this did not prevent the election of a Democratic mayor – the first woman to hold that office in the county – despite the fact that the other candidate was a Cuban and a Republican, Steve Bovo, and more signs as he was the son of a member of the failed Brigade 2506 that invaded Cuba in 1961.
3 – This Wednesday, The New York Times acknowledged that Florida lived in a climate of unprecedented misinformation, especially in the Spanish-language media and in the local social networks. The McCarthyite hysteria reached such a level of alienation that Joseph Biden was accused of being a com munist, a socialist and even of practicing witchcraft. Nevertheless, the Democratic Party won Miami Dade County with more than a 7-point lead over his opponent.
4.-The “Cuban vote” is not a monolith. One million were born on the island and at least another million are descended from Cubans, but have lived all their lives in Florida. They all identify themselves as such in the national census. In those two groups there are American citizens and others who are not, some speak only English and others only Spanish, have registered to vote or not, are Republicans, Democrats or Independents, and have direct family in Cuba or not.
5 – Michel Bustamante, an academic from Florida International University, maintains that the Cuban community is much more complicated than it has been described in the middle of the electoral contest. He speaks of a “cognitive dissonance”, notable in the Cuban communities of Hialeah and Miami. Many send remittances to their families or travel regularly to the island, but also express support for Trump’s sanctions.
6.-The relationship with Cuba is not the main issue that defines the vote of a Cuban resident in the United States and it has not even been among the main motivations for going to vote. According to data from the Latino Decisions survey, the main concerns of Florida’s Hispanics are the pandemic (52%), employment and the economy (44%) and health care costs (28%). Other analysts have perceived that, even for those most receptive to the administration’s anti-Cuban rhetoric, the fear of the Covid was greater than the hatred for the Havana government.
7. There is no single “Cuban vote,” nor can a similar statement be made about any immigrant community in the United States, whether larger or smaller than the Cuban one. The emergence of the term and its permanence in time has to do with the state policy applied against Cuba for 60 years, which is totally different from any other articulated towards the rest of the nations of the world. Cuban emigration in the United States is a by-product of that policy.
Not for nothing did Bustamante say this Wednesday in a tweet: “The White House has established an alliance of convenience with the local Republican machine that once opposed Trump in the 2016 primaries, but since then has helped him fan the flames of anti-socialist attacks to a despicable and unprecedented level.
8.-There is no “Mexican vote” even though it is geographically concentrated in territories that one day changed sovereignty. There is no “Soviet vote” or “Chinese vote”, despite the fact that the Cold War translated into enormous hostility towards the former USSR and China, which originated the respective migratory flows of those nations.
9.The “Cuban vote” is politically conditioned. Like any significant social group, among Cuban Americans there was a sector that was dedicated to local politics and the rest to survival. Since the 1980 elections, a relationship of convenience was generated between the Republican Party and a Cuban-American elite that negotiated space and access within the US system of government, in exchange for a quota of votes. Both Republicans and Democrats have courted the Cuban community since then, but only in Florida. A not inconsiderable group of Cubans resides in the New Jersey-NY area and yet there is no recurring talk of the “Cuban vote.”
10.- In many US states the results of the vote are decided by a marginal amount of votes. Any group with a similar identity that expresses itself in favor of one or another candidate at the polls can make a difference, as we are seeing right now in the dispute over Georgia or Pennsylvania to decide the next president of that country. Cubans have run again and again as a bloc, to continue to benefit from federal funds, as do Puerto Ricans or Haitians living in Florida, for example.
As many analysts have pointed out these days, rather than reducing the complexity of this scenario to a stereotype, it would be necessary to assess the extent to which one or another campaign team has understood the changes that have taken place among Cuban-Americans and to what extent both Republicans and Democrats are betting on the real possibility of attracting supporters in that community.
The historical truth is that since 1980 the Republicans have invaded, conquered and established themselves in the Cuban-American media, while the Democrats have made furtive attempts in a field they consider alien and in which they have renounced a permanent presence.
Part of the Democrats’ weakness is that their main leaders share or coexist with the state policy of confrontation with Cuba, either through pressure or through a “democratizing” approach. The local South Florida Democrats repeat virtually the same messages of hostility against Cuba as their fellow Republicans, posturing as tough as the Republicans are, and end up ignoring and alienating those new generations of Cubans who are the vast majority and who neither aspire nor need to succeed from the funds of the programs associated with “regime change.”
In the elections that have just concluded, the Democrats saw their initial advantage over the Republicans in Florida gradually disappear. Among the first explanations was the performance of the supposed “Cuban vote.” In reality, the votes Biden lacked were the result of the absence of support from other groups and minorities.
Democrats and Republicans may or may not choose to continue to cultivate the fiction of the “Cuban vote,” they may or may not continue to fund the federal programs that court them, but the truth is that time and again there will be a conflicting relationship between the foreign policy interests of the United States as a country and the electoral games at one point in that country’s geography.
In focusing on that tiny vote, in national terms, both parties are unaware of the position of large sectors of American voters who favor the most normalized relationship possible with Cuba and who have specific interests in business, science, culture, academic relations, health, and other sectors.
Behind Washington’s immobility with its unilateral sanctions on Cuba for more than 60 years, behind the power lent to Florida’s machinery of hate, calculation and despotism, old anti-communist rhetoric and the usual failure are mixed. We will see how the votes look when the final numbers are known – by the way, journalist John Kruzel of The Hill has denounced the fact that a significant number of votes were lost in the south of the state. Before crowing so much about the “Cuban vote,” let’s wait for the end of this stormy election recount that has turned the United States into a banana republic and Donald Trump into the most pathetic autocrat in that country’s history.
MAS Strengthens its Majority
MAS Strengthens its Majority in Bolivian Parliament
The second Bolivian political force will be the Citizens’ Community Alliance, of former President Carlos Mesa.
By Redacción Digital | internet@granma.cu
October 24, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
With 97 percent of the officially counted election records, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) consolidated its majority in the Bolivian Legislative Assembly on Friday, reported Telesur, by securing 21 senators and 78 deputies.
The Plurinational Electoral Body (OEP) of Bolivia reported this Thursday that the MAS, of President-elect Luis Arce, obtained 78 of the 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, while in the Senate it obtained 21 of the 36 seats.
The Citizen Community Alliance (CC), of former president Carlos Mesa, obtained 35 deputies and 11 senators, to become the second political force of the South American country.
Meanwhile, the Creemos movement, led by former presidential candidate Luis Fernando Camacho, will have four legislators in the upper house and 17 deputies.
With this composition, the Movement Towards Socialism will be able to approve laws and make parliamentary decisions, without having to build political alliances with the opposition.
However, it will have to build agreements with CC and Creemos to designate authorities, approve judgments of responsibilities and even propose constitutional changes, since this requires the approval of two thirds of the Legislative Assembly.
Among those who must be appointed with a two-thirds majority are the ombudsman, the attorney general and the comptroller general.
This Friday, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) officially declared Luis Arce, of MAS, to be the president-elect, who obtained 55.10 percent of the valid votes cast in the general elections of 18 October.
In second place was Comunidad Ciudadana, with 28.92 percent; and in third place, Creemos with 13.82 percent of the votes.
The Bolivian Refoundation is Back
The Bolivian Refoundation is Back
The overwhelming absolute majority obtained by the MAS duo spoke loud and clear, and inhibited the possibility of another coup. The Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) also dominated the votes for the House and Senate
Published: Monday 19 October 2020 | 08:22:21 pm.
By Marina Menendez Quintero
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Luis Arce (center) celebrates overwhelming electoral victory Author: AFP Posted: 10/19/2020 | 08:12 pm
Bolivia gave itself the necessary vote to defeat the coup d’état and not leave any gaps that would make another manipulation possible: 52.4 percent of the votes awarded to Luis Arce, compared to 31.5 percent attributed to Carlos Mesa, constitute a forceful absolute majority in favor of MAS that demolishes the calculations of all the polls, according to which the Movement Towards Socialism won “tightly” with a little more than ten percent of the votes, or it was going to a second round definitively.
The Bolivian refoundation is back and that round is now irreversible, although the slow official count by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has not yet produced results.
The results of the exit polls, made known shortly after midnight on Sunday, are of such weight that they were recognized, half an hour after they were made public, by the usurper Jeanine Áñez herself, when she congratulated the winning couple through a brief message on Twitter and ended the tension of a thick calm.
This was a step – it must be recognized – in favor of a guaranteed stability, first, by the masses of patient and firm voters who waited in long lines to vote, without yielding to the provocations of an armed and police corps that guarded the schools with long weapons after a week, accusing the followers of the MAS of fraud in advance, and feeding the false possibility of a popular uprising that would give them the excuse for repression and violence, as a way of overturning an overwhelming victory of the left, like this one.
Áñez’s statement buried the possibility of that other feared blow and against which the declarations of the TSE, that had previously suspended the usual system of quick counting by which tendencies are offered on the same election night, weighed heavily, with which the population was left in suspense.
After the fourth press conference given by the incumbent Salvador Romero early in the night and his repeated testimony that the day had been exemplary, it was impossible to question the polls that the Jubilee center had carried out, and whose results were later published by Ciesmori -she affirms that she has the backing and credit of the authorities- through the official television channel Unitel.
It was in this way that those who remained “inside” the social networks, met at the stroke of midnight of the unofficial but already unobjectionable triumph, celebrated with modesty in a brief meeting of the MAS candidates and some of its leaders while, from his refuge in Buenos Aires, its leader, Evo Morales, commemorated in the same way an event that he considered “historic, unprecedented and unique in the world”.
“One year after the coup, we recovered political power democratically with the consciousness and patience of the people,” he added.
Sober and without fanfare, Arce also thanked the people in La Paz and ratified his commitment to work and govern for all Bolivians.
“We are going to recover the country’s economy. We have the obligation to redirect our process of change without hate, learning and overcoming our mistakes,” added the former Minister of Economy, who analysts consider the architect of the good performance of the national economy during the mandates of the MAS, when that area registered a sustained growth unique in Latin America that averaged an annual GDP of eight percent.
In 12 months, Áñez’s dismantling management now leaves a Gross Domestic Product that must contract more than six percent this year, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in 40 years. Even taking into account the damage caused by the poorly managed Covid-19 pandemic -another ballast of Jeanine- this picture expresses the mismanagement of a spurious mandate that “governed” for big capital.
However, beyond the well-earned prestige of Arce and his unquestionable gift of agglutinating, Sunday’s vote breathes the conviction of an electorate that, for the most part, has given its support not exactly to a figure, but to a project whose achievements were clearer the more aggressive was the work of destroying them led by Áñez.
Such a conviction, expressed so massively and firmly in spite of so many elements against it – let us remember the previous persecution and demonization of MAS to the point of opening judicial cases against its cadres including Evo – leaves with a sticky nose those who, once again, when looking at Latin America revive the denied assertions of Francis Fukuyama in the 1990s, when he announced “the end of history”.
The lesson must have been taken by the OAS headliner himself, an acolyte of Donald Trump who orchestrated the coup last year, and an enemy of the most puerile progressivism. With less capacity for resignation than Áñez, Luis Almagro waited for Monday morning to arrive to take the bitter pill.
“The people of Bolivia have expressed themselves at the polls. We congratulate @LuchoXBolivia and @LaramaDavid wishing them success in their future endeavors,” he wrote on Twitter. “I am sure that from democracy they will know how to forge a bright future for their country.
Contestant Carlos Mesa also had to embrace the inevitable, considering that the difference was too great for there to be any change. “It is an outcome that we accept,” he said.
A pending issue and of no small consequence will be the reaction of the armed forces, which in an artful way supported the revolt against Morales last year?
But the Latin American and Caribbean reversion, thought out and raised from the centers of power, has suffered another defeat. After the return of Peronism to the Argentine government, the return of Masismo indicates that, as much as it still has to perfect itself and learn, the model that takes man as the center as an alternative to that other system that breathes at the rhythm that the market inhales and exhales has not failed.
On the contrary, the neo-liberal execution shows today its shortcomings in the repeated popular mobilizations that are shaking countries like Colombia and Chile.
The Bolivian masses have shown that despite the injustice and the dirty war, the possibility of changing the status quo remains open if there is clarity, consciousness and the ability to resist.
Horizontal Victory
The exit polls carried out by the Jubilee Foundation and the Ciesmori company show a victory for MAS in both chambers of the National Assembly.
According to their counts, the MAS would obtain 19 seats in the Senate out of the 36 it has, while two seats would be in dispute between that political force and the Citizens’ Community (CC) in Potosi and Santa Cruz, reported Telesur.
According to Jubilee information, MAS won five of the country’s nine departments: La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosí, Oruro and Pando, while Carlos Mesa’s Citizen Community won in Chuquisaca, Beni and Tarija. Finally, Creemos’s candidacy, led by Luis Fernando Camacho (who won 14 percent of the votes in the presidential race), would be the winner in Santa Cruz.
Greetings from the left
Politicians from the Latin American and Caribbean left immediately spoke out on the social network Twitter:
Congratulations to #MAS, which has recovered at the polls the power that was usurped by the oligarchy, with the complicity of the #OAS and the imperial guide. #Cuba shares joy for the triumph of #LuisArce. The Bolivarian ideal is reborn. (Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Cuban President)
I congratulate the Bolivian people for having restored democracy. Congratulations to Luis Arce and my friend Evo Morales who after a difficult year can see the popular vote respected. (Luiz Lula da Silva, former Brazilian President)
Congratulations to Lucho Arce and David Choquehuanca who, together with Evo, built a great popular triumph in Bolivia. The happy Patria Grande. (Cristina Fernández, Vice President of Argentina)
Great Victory! The Bolivian people, united and conscious, defeated with votes the coup d’état that they gave to our brother Evo. Congratulations to President-elect Luis Arce, Vice President David Choquehuanca and our Indian Chief of the South @evoespueblo. Jallalla Bolivia! (Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela)
United States declines, China progresses
United States declines, China progresses
By Hedelberto López Blanch
October 14, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
After the economic-social debacle represented by the expansion of the Covid-19 pandemic through almost all the nations of the world, the People’s Republic of China, where the virus was detected for the first time, has managed to raise its economy while that of the United States continues to fall.
The specialists assure that this great difference between the two main economic powers of the world is due to the fact that China, from the first moments, took the pertinent measures to control the disease, in contrast to the United States whose President Donald Trump dismissed the seriousness of the virus.
The North American retreat has been occurring since the last decade and it increased with the appearance of the coronavirus, fundamentally due to the laziness of its officials to face it.
Several data point out the weaknesses of the American giant because despite being a power with very important resources and capabilities for the welfare of most of its inhabitants, their real wage today is lower than 40 years ago.
Under that premise, the average employee must work twice as many years as three decades ago to pay the price of a small apartment.
The level of inequality has progressively worsened among the population with stagnation of real wages compared to the cost of living. Almost 50 million people are below the poverty line and 36% of Americans lack the health insurance that gives them access to specialized health care.
In the last decade, suicides increased 24% and at the same time life expectancy decreased to only 76.10 years. In Cuba, a developing country economically and financially blockaded by Washington, that rate is 78.2 years.
Recently the Department of Commerce reported that the country’s economy contracted in the second quarter of 2020 at the fastest rate in its history and represents the biggest debacle since World War II.
According to the Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined at a rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020 due to the disastrous effects of the pandemic. In the first quarter, it was minus 5 percent.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated a 7.3% drop in US GDP for 2020, a figure that could be altered if the coronavirus wave is sustained or increased.
Meanwhile, China emerges as the powerhouse that will end the year of the pandemic with positive economic growth. If in the first quarter its GDP was at minus 6.8%, in the second quarter it grew by 3.2%, exceeding all analysts’ forecasts.
The National Statistics Office of the Asian giant indicated that “in the second quarter growth went from negative to positive”, in a context of economic recovery after the stagnation caused by the coronavirus and that “the market outlook is generally good”.
In nominal terms, China’s total wealth in the first half of the year stood at 45.66 trillion yuan ($6.53 billion).
For the Beijing government, the health policy adopted throughout the nation has been fundamental, through which it has been able to control covid-19, even in asymptomatic people.
Since August 16, no local infections have been recorded and only imported cases have been detected, people who immediately go into a 14-day quarantine.
Of course, this way of stopping the proliferation of the disease contrasts with those applied in the United States and other Western nations. A free health-care policy has been essential to achieving this.
The IHS Markit agency reported that exports represented 20% of the global total between April and June, seven percentage points more than in the same period in 2019, and also applied the alternative of increasing domestic consumption among its large population.
The Asian giant’s recovery has been influenced by the rapid digital transformation of its economy, which was growing strongly before the pandemic, and which accelerated with it.
In 2018 it already represented 34.8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a percentage that grew year after year above the growth of the Product.
Zhang Jun, dean of Fudan University’s School of Economics and director of China’s Center for Economic Studies, explained that families, unable to leave their homes, adopted applications such as JD.com, Meituan, Eleme and Pinduoduo for daily product purchases.
The companies took advantage of digital tools, from communication platforms such as Enterprise WeChat and DingTalk to electronic contracts, to keep their businesses running.
The end result has been that China is on its way to an economic revival, while in the United States there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.
Robert Mapplethorpe’s Orchids
Robert Mapplethorpe’s “Orchids”
Our sexuality, no matter what, can only be judged in its beauty, by our own way of assuming it respecting the other.
By Ernesto Estévez Rams | internet@granma.cu
September 13, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Robert Mapplethorpe
For all the scandal they caused, in life and in death, Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs, his collection of orchid and lily photos would pass, on a first reading, as almost virgin works. They are not.
Mapplethorpe was a New York photographer who died in 1989 of AIDS. By the time of his death, his photographic work was famous, particularly the black-and-white portraits he took of famous people, including a few Hollywood celebrities, throughout his career.
Robert was a homosexual, a condition which, far from being hidden, he incorporated into his work, to the shock of censorship and to the extent of provoking notoriety. But to say it that way does not do justice to the place the photographer gave to sexuality in his life. Exploring what he considered the individual limits of erotic pleasure, Robert not only exposed his sexuality at its fullest, but also vindicated the dominance that each person should exercise over it to the extent of their own fulfillment.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, when AIDS was already advanced, he summarized the meaning of his most sexually explicit photos, saying that forcing people to do things they don’t want to do is not erotic. Consistency also implied the daring to look beyond the conventional, as long as it was “people looking for a simultaneous orgasm.”
Mapplerthorpe’s work is a continuous cry of an unsuccessful search of the self, in the images that he managed to capture of others. In that sense, through some of his photos, the spectator transforms his condition of observer to that of observed. What happens in all of them is that it is almost impossible not to react to them. In many cases, it makes our subconscious uncomfortable, as it accepts beautifully what the indoctrinated conscious insists on rejecting. A colleague photographer, anonymously, confessed to a chronicler that Robert’s erotic work would not have been acceptable if it had been about heterosexual relationships. He is probably right, such is the prejudice.
The Perfect Moment collection, which displayed explicit photos of high sexual content (of all kinds), was censored as pornography by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. The controversy reached such prominence that even members of the U.S. Congress spoke out about the use of public funds to promote art. In 1990, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati was sued for the exhibition of the collection, which was labeled obscene. The gallery was acquitted, along with its director Dennis Barrie. This was the first time that an art gallery was sued for the contents of an exhibition.
In 1998, a book displaying the Mapplethorpe photos was confiscated by the police in England. A University of Central England student, writing a thesis, took the text to a local store to have copies made of some photographs. The shopkeeper, alarmed by the photos he saw, called the police, who did not believe to was art. The university was required, as a condition for the return of the book, that certain pages of the book be hidden. After six months of back and forth, the book was finally returned without censorship.
The well-known writer, musician and playwright Patti Smith was a Mapplethorpe partner , whom she met in a bookstore in the mid-1960s. The relationship was as deep as it was torrid because, by that time, Robert was still dealing with his sexual identity. Despite their separation as a couple, they remained friends all their lives, and she called him one of the most important people in her life.
In 1969, Patty and Robert moved to the Chelsea Hotel, next door to the El Quijote restaurant. As Craig Brown describesit, when Patti entered the restaurant, “the scene was absurdly typical of the era, with musicians and bottles of tequila scattered in equal proportions. Jimi Hendrix is there with a large sombrero, perched on a table at the end. To his right, Grace Slick and the rest of Jefferson Airplane, sitting around another table. To his left, Janis Joplins in a conspiracy with her musicians”.
It was Bobby Neuwirth, a friend of Bob Dylan’s, who introduced Patti to Janis. He told the singer, “This is the poet Patti Smith. From that moment until Joplins’ death, she called her friend, the poet.
From Porgy and Bess is the famous Summertime aria, whose lyrics are by DuBose Heyward and music by George Gershwin. They were taken out of the original opera, and performed by the most diverse artists over the years. There are said to be more than 25,000 recordings of the song, beginning with its first commercial success in 1936, in the voice of Billie Holiday.
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong have their version of Summertime, with a memorable trumpet introduction, followed by the irruption of Ella’s voice alternating with Louis’. Can it get any better? Perhaps not, but in 1976 Ray Charles performed it with Cleo Laine at a transcendent height, and Miles Davis (ah, Miles) played it in an instrumental version that was true to his Midas status: everything he played he turned into jazz.
In another vein, Peter Gabriel, with a captivating harmonica introduction by Larry Adler, gave us a Summertime with a guttural voice to break us like a pencil, and Sting, in 1991, did his thing with the Dutch orchestra of the 21st century.
But, in spite of all the excellence of those interpretations, I am left, if I have to choose, with the incomparable Janis Joplin, the voice of several generations who came with the flower boy and opposition to the Vietnam War, along with the breaking of the sexual norms of the 1960s.
How beautiful you are Janis. / You sang as if they were confessions. / It doesn’t matter if the songs were of others, / you made them a testimony of your sins.
Janis Joplin was born in Texas in 1943 and was abused by other students at school as a freak. She was obese and had very bad acne, and was yelled at for doing horrible things, including racially-motivated offenses for getting along with Black people. Her shelters were reading, painting and music. While at the University of Texas, the campus newspaper referred to her as a brave woman, unafraid to distinguish herself from others by the way she dressed, contrary to the conventions of the time, her love of music and her habit of going barefoot.
No one managed the discursive capacity of the scream as she did, / no one managed the body language as she did, / hers was the method brought to the song. The James Dean / of that world she assumed until she broke it / like him: at the wheel of different cars. / All that and more happened before the crows descended / and turned the whole landscape into a firework display.
On one occasion, Janis was crying inconsolably, because a flirt of the night had left with another woman. Dressed in magenta and pink, wearing a kind of scarf with purple feathers, depressed by her failure, she said to Pattyi, “This always happens to me, partner. Another lonely night”. Patti accompanies Janis to her room and listens to her tell of her unhappiness over and over again. As a consolation, Patti confesses that she has written a song for her and sings it to her to encourage her. In an explosion of depressed joy, Janis jumps from the song “That’s My Song,” she screams, as she arranges her scarf in front of the mirror. Two months later she was dying of a drug overdose.
I don’t know if Robert Mapplethorpe ever photographed Janis Joplin directly, but I can’t wait to see her in the magenta, pink and purple orchids that I can guess behind her photos, even in the gray ones. The photographer’s orchids transcend innocence to become what is perhaps his most aggressive break.
Far from the shocking direct message against conventionality, those photos where the flowers end up being pure eroticism. They express a transcendent, and in a certain way fulminating, apprehension of something beautifully ungraspable. They shout to us that our sexuality, no matter what, can only be judged in its beauty, by our own way of assuming it respecting the other.
Biden and Cuba
Biden and Cuba
By Jorge Gómez Barata
September 9, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
For stating that: “If I won the elections, I would take up Barack Obama’s policy towards Cuba…”, Joe Biden, candidate for the presidency of the United States, does not need any more to settle the doubts regarding the government and the Cuban people.
Giving continuity to Obama’s Cuban policy expresses the will for détente that would configure a platform to bring positions closer, define agendas and propitiate a climate from which it is possible to advance, not only towards what Cuba wanted, but also towards what Barack Obama preferred. He considered the policy followed by the previous administrations obsolete, including the blockade that, according to his creed, instead of isolating Cuba, isolated the United States”.
Obama was neither a friend nor an ally of Cuba, but rather a president of the United States who, saving the asymmetries and the historical disagreement initiated by the Platt Amendment, as well as the insurmountable ideological differences derived both from the anti-communism in force in US policy and the aggressiveness in the face of the Revolution, worked to replace the hostility between the United States and Cuba with neighborliness.
Nobody discovers anything new when they observe that, as the political head of the empire, Obama would like a change in the orientation of Cuban policy, for which he set up premises, different from the aggressive policies of his predecessors. Obama chose options that were closer to the battle of ideas preferred by Cuba. Obviously, there are also Cubans who would applaud a socialist United States, but that does not mean that they would make such a commitment a political objective.
Whatever may be said, Barack Obama was the only US president who, in the 118 years of Cuba’s republican history, spoke with the national authorities on bilateral issues on an equal footing. He did this without prior conditions, without demands and without meanness, which had been a hope of the Cubans and a brilliant conquest of the Revolution. Besides, he is the only one who visited the Island and fraternally talked to the people and the authorities.
Raúl Castro, who added political sagacity and diplomatic skill to his firmness in the defense of national sovereignty and socialist principles, saw the moment when an opportunity opened up and, with integrity and flexibility, took advantage of it. He took steps towards meeting the political coherence of Barack Obama, reaching a common ground on which it was possible to understand each other and move forward until diplomatic relations were re-established.
The flexibility and political stature allowed both to understand that: differences do not prevent civilized coexistence. From Biden, I expect nothing else… I hope he wins. See you there.
Nasobuco, Relaxation, and the Virus
Nasobuco, Relaxation and a Virus that Hasn’t Gone Away
By Osviel Castro Medel
digital@juventudrebelde.cu
August 25, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
From the nasobuco, that addendum of which we knew little in times of normality, one can write today almost a treatise, the same with Cuban humor as with the most serious things.
There have been those who, accustomed to using it almost all the time, forgot to take it off before performing some acts and thus spilled coffee on their bodies or bit their tongues trying to eat.
It has also been responsible for certain language tangles, such as that of a Bayamese man who spoke to his wife about “fixing the pedals to look for food for the boys” and she understood that when the carnivals were suspended they would have to sell the “males” (as pigs are called in much of the Orient). “Don’t even think about it,” she answered, to the surprise of the first.
Regardless of any joke, the nasobuco helped, along with other measures, to contain the new coronavirus in Cuba. However, for some weeks now we have seen with alarm how hundreds of people have dispensed with its use, not only in the Cuban capital, the epicenter of the disease.
Let us go -even in the provinces that are right now in the third phase- through some main streets, let us go to one of the long daily queues, let us go to the parks, to the bus stops, let us get on public transportation or let us enter centers that serve the population and we will find many citizens without the minimum protection that these times advise.
There have even been images uploaded to social networks of crowds drinking beer from the same tap, or rum from the bottle, as if they were celebrating the end of the pandemic. They have, unfortunately, entered the so-called relaxation stage, unaware of the aforementioned and recited perception of risk.
The bitter spike in numbers these days – which are people, not numbers, of course – is linked precisely to overconfidence or chanting victory ahead of time.
A few days ago a friend, in an educated hypothesis, was walking without her nasobuco in the middle of a crowd. When I made the observation, she answered the incredible: “Ah, we are already in the third phase, stop that, there is no need”.
When the Temporary Working Group of the Government for the confrontation of the new coronavirus announced the entry into the third phase of almost all the provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, it was emphasized: “We reiterate the need to maintain the health measures and physical isolation, which are applicable in the three phases, including the use of nasobuco in public and closed places, where there is a concentration of people”.
Do we need to pressure our hands a little with the fines and other coercive measures? Could it be that the messages in the media calling for a collective conscience do not reach the majority? Will we courageously denounce the irresponsible without creating a witch-hunt? Have we already forgotten the regulations regarding the hygienization of hands and surfaces, the distance between people and the recommendation to keep ourselves informed?
These are questions that can help move thought and generate action. In the end, the most important thing is to know that the battle against the virus is not over; it has probably entered its most critical phase, and we can continue to move backwards if, as we say in the popular jargon, we throw ourselves into the middle street or get infected with “extreme freedom” and throw the nasobuco and all the rules related to the preservation of our health into a corner.
Jack Lieberman Siempre
Jack Lieberman will live forever in the heart of the Cuban people
By Carlos Rafael Dieguez
August 31, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Jack Lieberman has just died physically in Fort Lauderdale and continues to live forever in the heart of the Cuban people and the world. Fervent revolutionary Liberman, one of his close friends Camillo Coco remembers him: “Our brother Jack Lieberman passed away. The South Florida activist community has lost a great organizer, a fighter, and a man full of principles and love for his fellow human beings. Jack Lieberman was simply the best. He was so good to our members, especially in the last 5 months of the pandemic. He was one of the first to see us when the layoffs started. He was a generous and kind soul, but also fiercely committed to the fight for justice. He was always, always there.
He will be deeply missed. I was lucky enough to meet Jack and I am very proud to have worked with him. This is a very sad moment for me and many others who knew and collaborated with him in many struggles. He continues to be an example of dedication to the social causes he fought for.
For our part, from RADIOMIAMITV, we have many things to say about Jack Lieberman among them, and the most important one is that he always stood by the people of Cuba in the struggle for the removal of the US blockade against our country. He participated in dozens of caravans and meetings in La Alianza Martiana, he always supported and advocated for good relations between his country and ours. He was always accompanied by a smile of joy, the same size as the firmness and love with which he confronted injustice.
In one of our last interviews with Jack Lieberman, together with André Gómez, coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, he left us his pro-Cuba opinion for history.
On his Facebook Wall, Mike Martinez writes: “I am proud to have always been at Jack Lieberman’s side. A titan among titans. A servant of the people.” Other writings also appear. Today I lost a best friend, a mentor, a hero and a role model. Jack Lieberman is part of my extended family and was my most trusted friend in politics. We spoke often and above all, he was my rock on every campaign and a North Star. Jack Lieberman (also known as Radical Jack) is a true legend and his memory will live on.
The Coronavirus has taken away a hero from a thousand battles that the American people, the Cuban people and the world will never forget.
Cuba Updates on Violence Against Women
Cuba to Revise More Than 50 Laws to Update Regulations on Violence Against Women and Girls
Cuba will review more than 50 laws, as soon as the commissions are created for each of them, to decide whether to create a comprehensive law to address violence against women or to include it in other laws, said Dr. Mariela Castro Espín, President of the National Center for Sex Education, in an interview with the Cubasí website.
By We Editor
internet@granma.cu
December 2, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Cubasí shot
Cuba will review more than 50 laws, as soon as the commissions are created for each one of them, to decide whether to create a comprehensive law for the attention to violence against women or to include it in other laws, declared in an interview with the Cubasí portal Dr. Mariela Castro Espín, President of the National Center for Sexual Education (Cenesex).
Cenesex, in recent times, joins more institutions and organizations of civil society and the State to advance campaigns and concrete actions that help to take better the policy of protection to the woman to the legislative changes that arise from the constitutional change and that it has contemplated to attend this reality, pointed out the specialist.
Castro Espín pointed out that the Cuban State deals with this issue, as evidenced by the fact that during the 1st International Symposium against Gender-Based Violence, Sexual Tourism, Human Trafficking and Prostitution, it was agreed that within the National Program of Education and Sexual Health, the Program of attention to all forms of violence would be addressed.
“In September we submitted to the Ministry of Public Health the proposal for a comprehensive education policy on sexuality and sexual rights.
However, she denounced the fact that there are attacks to discredit our institutions. Specific people based on the distortion of her words and efforts on the issue “and begin unfair attacks, without foundation, with a deep ignorance and ignorance, which do not help us move forward on the issue,” she said.
She also denounced the fact that “There is a lot of money, especially from the United States government, towards five main evangelical churches, which are trying to sabotage many initiatives. They are using this term gender ideology, which was created by a Catholic bishop in the 60s, precisely to discredit the international advances in the field of women’s rights and the thought of Marxist origin in relation to this issue. And our Revolution, as Fidel said, has the right to defend itself, it has the right to defend its social conquests, the rights that have been achieved in the Constitution and in the whole legislative system that is already being changed since the constitutional change”.
As a message to Cuban women, Mariela Castro sent the request that “we study, that we prepare ourselves well, because there are many people who fall into the traps of campaigns to discredit our efforts”.
She also called for not acting in isolation: “we have to unite, make alliances, because every time we make alliances and unite, we achieve effectiveness, we really achieve changes, so we do not play into the hands of the enemies of the Revolution, we unite among the organizations and institutions that are really working and that are open to all the ideas that are truly sincere and committed to revolutionary work.
In the middle of the National Day Against Violence Against Women and Girls, Mariela Castro Espín, about the origins of this social problem, said that it comes from centuries and has been expressed from a place of power. She also emphasized the role of the Catholic Church and how it has promoted nine centuries of persecution against women.
Today, she said, there are countries where women are totally enslaved and suffer greatly. Already in the 1970s, she explained, more specific terms emerged, such as femicide, which mainly alludes, from the work that Mexican anthropologist Marcela Lagarde has developed, to the irresponsibility and abandonment of the state in the face of the problem. There are studies that differentiate what is a homicide from a femicide and characterize them.
The director of CENESEX reminds us that the struggles for women’s rights around the world, the feminist movements, and women’s organizations linked to scientific study, have been contributing ways of thinking and acting on these issues, and proposals for laws have been emerging.
(With information from Cubasí)
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