It’s Not the Economy, It’s the Virus
It’s Not the Economy Anymore, Stupid. It’s the Virus
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The renowned American opinion columnist and distinguished professor at New York University Graduate Center, Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in international trade and economic geography, summarizes in an article entitled “The Deadly Delusions of Mad King Donald”, published yesterday, the precarious situation in which the American nation is being talked about.
A month ago it was still possible to hope that the impulse of Donald Trump and the Trumpist governors of the Sunbelt states to relax the social distancing and reopen businesses such as restaurants and bars, even though they may not have any of the reasons to do so safely, might not have absolutely catastrophic results.
At this point, however, it is clear that everything the experts have warned of as likely to happen, is happening. The new daily cases of Covid-19 are running two and a half times longer than at the beginning of June, and are increasing rapidly. Hospitals in the early reopening states are under terrible pressure. National death totals continue to decline with the drop in deaths in the Northeast, but are increasing in the Sunbelt. And the worst is surely yet to come.
A normal president and a normal political party would be horrified by this turn of events. They would realize that they’ve done something wrong and that it’s time for a course correction. They would begin to take the health experts’ warnings seriously.
But Trump, who began his presidency with a defiant complaint about “American carnage,” doesn’t seem completely disturbed by the number of victims of a pandemic. It presages killing more Americans than have been killed over the past decade and aims to double that number by the week with the full reopening of schools in defiance of existing guidelines.
Without even calling on Americans to protect each other by wearing masks, or setting an example by wearing one himself, how can we make sense of Trump’s pathologically inept response to the coronavirus?
There is an underlying core of absolute cynicism: clearly, Trump and those around him don’t give a damn how many die or suffer lasting damage from Covid-19, as long as it works in the arena of electoral politics. But this cynicism is wrapped in multiple layers of deception.
Regardless of what one thinks of George W. Bush’s response to September 11 and how Bill Clinton faced stubbornly high unemployment, Trump inherited a nation at peace and in the midst of a long economic expansion that continued, without visible change in that trend, after he took office.
Then came Covid-19. Another president might have seen the pandemic as a crisis to be dealt with. But that thought never seems to have crossed Trump’s mind. Instead, he has spent the last five months trying to get back to where we were in February, when he was sitting on top of a moving train and pretending to drive it.
“This helps explain his strange aversion to epidemic masks: they remind people that we are in the middle of a pandemic, which is something he pretends everyone forgets. Unfortunately for him, and for the rest of the population, positive thinking will not make a virus go away.
However, that’s where the second layer of deception comes in. By now it is clear that the cynical decision to sacrifice American lives in pursuit of political advantage is failing even on its own terms. The rush to reopen produced big job gains in May and early June, but voters were not impressed; their poll still showed the worst. But this year, it’s not the economy that determines, stupid, it’s the virus.
And now the rise in infections may be causing the economic recovery to stall. In other words, the strategy of “ignoring and cursing the experts and going full steam ahead” seems silly and immoral. But Trump, far from reconsidering that he is deepening the hole he is increasingly in, just as he continues to spin the dial on racism despite the fact that it is not benefiting him politically.
Incredibly, as hospitalizations are increasing, he continues to insist that the increase in reported cases is just an illusion created by the increase in evidence.
So what can we do? You may ask Trump – who has another six months left in office if he stays on after January 20 (God save us all). And it is already clear that he will not change course, no matter how severe the pandemic. “We are all passengers at the mercy of a mad captain who is determined to destroy his ship,” Krugman concludes.
July 13, 2020
This article can be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source
I Ask You to Move Forward
Gerardo Hernandez:
In Moments Like This I Ask You to Move Forward
July 12, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Vicente Brito/ Escambray.
There is no one like him to know how to assimilate every gesture, every word, every embrace of this or that one from Sancti Spiritus as they pass through the territory, much less to stop to caress a child, admiring a young person or shaking the hand of the one who looks at him as that hero he is. He;s the same one who was condemned to two life sentences, plus 15 years, the same one who confesses not to have words to express his gratitude to those who followed him from a distance and to the Commander in Chief, when 19 years ago, at a crucial moment in the struggle for the liberation of the Five, he said with the certainty of a prophet: ¡Volverán! [They will return!]
“The plan of the empire with me was that I would still be sitting in a maximum-security prison, but if I am here, I owe it to the efforts of so many people who for so many years contributed to the campaign for our freedom, so I thank you, for your contribution to the cause of The Five. This is how Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, the national vice-coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, presented himself to several Sancti Spiritus cederistas during his visit to the province a few days ago.
At present, what new tasks are the CDR facing?
The organization has already issued its bulletin No. 56, dedicated to food production in family yards and plots, because as you know, during the most critical years of the special period in Cuba, progress was made in terms of agro-ecology and ecological practices. We were even recognized by international studies, but after that stage, that popular movement was somewhat lost and today, the idea is to recover it, multiply it and let each one contribute in their own small way.
Photo: Vicente Brito/ Escambray.
We have visited places where until recently there were rubbish dumps and the neighbors have cleaned them up and turned them into furrows planted with food. That is the role we play, given that the international economic situation has become more complicated due to the pandemic, and at the same time Cuba continues to suffer the effects of the US blockade.
They, who claim to be so humanitarian, do not make a parenthesis in our discord, not even at times like these, so that Cuba can buy its food and its medicines. On the contrary, not a day goes by that they do not give us another turn of the screw. This is because, in essence, they want to break us, they want to bring us to our knees because of hunger. That is why we, the CDR, try to do things that can contribute to the country, and one of them is food production.
How do the CDRs expand the scope of their work in the midst of a post-COVID-19 recovery phase?
The damage from the pandemic is not only physical for those who have suffered it. It is also economic, and particularly in the area of food, our country is facing difficulties. Even before the arrival of this disease, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called for import substitution, because too many resources are imported, which we can often obtain domestically.
After the appearance of COVID-19, we insisted on this and we were right, because we need to increase production. It is not a question of competing with Agriculture, which has its plans and we wish it every success, but of contributing from our neighborhoods. The potential is there and we can already see the first fruits of this movement. Any bunch of bananas obtained in the courtyard of a house is a product that should not be bought at the market and, therefore, is there for the people who need it most.
Photo: Vicente Brito/ Escambray.
We are a great human family, as our dear Comandante Fidel said, and particularly a great Cuban family, so we must help each other and who better than we who are in the neighborhood to promote this type of activity?
The 60th anniversary of the creation of the CDR is approaching. How will this celebration unfold?
We are working to commemorate, in the most joyful way possible, the 60th anniversary of the creation of the CDRs. We do not yet know the specifics, nor what the activities will be like, because it depends on the evolution of COVID-19 in the country, but I assure you that we will celebrate it as it deserves to be.
The CDRs have also been present in each of the trenches that have been opened up to combat the pandemic and I think they have done so in the spirit of the celebration of this coming 60th anniversary. Let us remember that this is an organization founded by Fidel, one of his great dreams, and in which he placed all his trust to materialize the fundamental task, which is, without a doubt, the defense of the Revolution.
There are those who say that this is an organization of old men, but I assure you that what has changed is time, because far from being out of fashion, we are up to date. At this time it is important to remember and be faithful to the legacy of our Commander and to the trust he placed in the CDR, since he was always very clear that they constituted a bastion of the Revolution and will continue to be so.
How do you assess the role of the youth in the largest mass organization in the country?
Together with other members of the National Directorate of the CDR, we have visited several provinces of the country and one of the things that calls our attention the most is related to the youth and their presence in the organization, contrary to what many people think, we have a very large youth force.
In the 60th Anniversary detachments we met young people who have been in the front line, in the fight against the pandemic, visiting the most needy people, in the assistance centers, distributing products in quarantine zones; but, above all, showing that they have a great desire to do, to contribute and to demonstrate that there is continuity in this organizationgcguu.
Photo: Vicente Brito/ Escambray.
But there are also the children, who provide the relief of these young people and who are already standing out in the neighborhoods, right now they are the protagonists of the applause of nine o’clock at night, which health workers and all those who in one way or another help in these difficult times quite rightly deserve.
Children, however, are the ones who do most to remind us that it is important to turn off an unnecessary light bulbs at peak times within the home, something that seems insignificant, but if every one of the 138 000 CDRs in the country had a light turned off, that would be the same amount that would stop working to help save energy.
Any message to the people from Sancti Spritus ?
Firstly, to thank you for the solidarity of this people with the struggle of the Five. I share a birthday with Sancti Spíritus and not a single year has passed in which, while in prison, I have not received the congratulations of this people, for which I am very grateful and I do so also in the name of my comrades and our families who have passed through here several times and have always received much affection.
If we are in this province today, we owe it, among other things, to the solidarity of all the people, including that of the people from Sancti Spiritus, therefore, our eternal gratitude, particularly to the CDR members, the FMCers and all those who make up the neighborhood organizations, which we all are.
At times like this I ask you to move forward, or are we going to give in to the pressures of the empire? Of course not, we will continue fighting, saving and producing, fulfilling everything, because better times will come, even if it means working hard.
Ten Tips for Dealing with Confinement
Ten Tips for Dealing with Confinement
By Frei Betto
Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo. Known as Frei Betto. Dominican Friar. Known internationally as a liberation theologian. Author of 60 books in various literary genres – novels, essays, detective stories, memoirs, children’s and young people’s books, and religious books. In two occasions – in 1985 and 2005 – he was awarded the Jabuti, the most important literary prize in the country. In 1986, he was elected Intellectual of the Year by the Brazilian Writers Union. He is an advisor to social movements, to the Basic Ecclesial Communities and to the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement, and has been actively involved in Brazil’s political life for the past 50 years. He is the author of the book “Fidel and Religion”.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
I was detained under the military dictatorship. During my four years in prison, I was locked up in isolation cells in the DOPS[1] in Porto Alegre and the capital of São Paulo, and also in the state of São Paulo, at the headquarters of the PM, at the ROTA Battalion[2], at the State Penitentiary, both in Carandirú and in Presidente Venceslau.
Therefore, I share ten pieces of advice to be able to better endure this period of forced confinement due to the pandemic:
1. Keep body and mind together. Keeping your body confined to your home and your mind focused there, outside can cause depression.
2. Create a routine. Don’t stay in your pajamas all day, as if you were sick. Set a schedule of activities: Physical exercise, especially aerobics (to stimulate the respiratory system), reading, rearranging cupboards, cleaning the house, cooking, researching on the internet, etc.
3. Don’t stay on the TV or computer all day. Diversify your occupations. Don’t ban the passenger who stays all day at the station without having the slightest idea of the train schedule.
4. Use the phone to call relatives and friends, especially the elderly, the vulnerable and those who live alone. Entertain them, it will be good for them and for you.
5. Engage in manual labor: repair appliances, put together puzzles, sew, cook, etc.
6. Play games. If you are in the company of others, set a time of day to play chess, checkers, cards, etc.
7. Keep a quarantine diary. Even if it is without any intention of others reading, do it for yourself. Putting ideas and feelings on paper or on the computer is deeply therapeutic.
8. If there are children or other adults in the house, share household chores with them. Establish a schedule of activities, with common times and free time for each.
9. Meditate. Even if you are not religious, learn to meditate, because it cleanses the mind, retains the imagination, prevents anxiety and relieves tension. Spend at least 30 minutes a day in meditation.
Don’t be convinced that the pandemic will stop quickly or last for months. Act as if the period of confinement will last a long time. In prison, there is nothing worse than the lawyer guaranteeing the client that he will be released in two or three months. That triggers an exhausting expectation. So, prepare yourself for a long journey into your own home.
Frei Betto is a writer, author of “Cartas da prisão” (Letters from the Prison), among other books.
Notes:
1] Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), a police body which, among other functions, had the police intelligence service. It acted during the dictatorship also with illegal arrests, repression, torture and extermination of people.
2] Tobias de Aguiar Ostensive Rounds (ROTA) is an elite and shock troop of the General Command of the Military Police (PM) of the State of São Paulo. During the dictatorship, he formed the Death Squads
www.freibetto.org/> twitter:@freibetto.
The Wasp Network Stings in Miami
The Wasp Network Stings in Miami
By Rosa Miriam Elizalde
Cuban journalist. First Vice President of UPEC and Vice President of FELAP. She has a PhD in Communication Sciences and is the 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 Editor-in-Chief until January 2017. She is a columnist for La Jornada in Mexico.
On twitter: @elizalderosa
July 9, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Since Netflix decided to release The Wasp Network on June 19 and reached the captive audience through Covid, the film has become a media success for unconventional reasons.
In Florida, they have threatened to burn down movie theaters if the film is ever shown, and signatures are being collected to force Netflix to withdraw the film, not understanding that the download site is not a television channel. People have the option of watching it or going on, although the scandal must have boosted the rating of a film that had passed through the Venice Film Festival without any sorrow or glory, despite a celebrity cast headed by Penélope Cruz.
But in Miami right now the theme of the film has become a sort of anti-communist conga with the local media dancing the cool step of attacking the French director, Olivier Assayas. They’re accusing him of making pro-Cuba propaganda. The great detail is that The Wasp Network narrates real events that have been documented by the United States authorities themselves, in a trial that is considered the longest in the history of that country’s jurisprudence and in which three generals, an admiral, a former presidential advisor and self-confessed terrorists, who appear on screen as what they are, testified.
The plot of The Wasp Network began in Havana in the early 1990s. René González (Edgar Ramírez in the film), a flight instructor at a military airbase, steals a plane and flees Cuba. He begins a new life in Miami, away from Olguita, his wife (played by Penelope Cruz) and their young daughter. Other Cuban “deserters” soon follow him and set up a network to infiltrate organizations based in that city, responsible for attacks on the island, including a hotel bombing campaign that killed an Italian tourist. Instead of capturing and prosecuting the terrorists, responsible for atrocious crimes, the U.S. government locks up and subjects Cuban agents to blackmail and punishment.
It’s the story of what happened in its pure state, naked in the opinions or interpretations of the screenwriter and director; an intolerable truth for one of the real characters in the film, José Basulto. He presented himself in those years as a good Samaritan, savior of rafters in the Florida Straits, but he supported his excursions with drug trafficking, cheerfully violated Cuban airspace and financed shootings against bathers on the beaches.
Paradoxically, the evidence of his crimes was not provided by the Cuban Ministry of the Interior, but by the FBI, which was aware of everything that was going on, as the film shows. Now Basulto shouted against Netflix and shook his fist in front of the cameras: “I more than agree with Trump that the relationship and agreements with Cuba should be terminated.
There’s a story that seems merely anecdotal of events that occurred over 20 years ago, but it’s current if you look at it correctly. Genuine people like José Basulto or Luis Posada Carriles, who organized the bombing of hotels in Havana and the sabotage of a civil airplane in which 73 passengers and crew members died, are not marginal in American society today.
The Cuban from the island who saw The Wasp Network at the Havana Film Festival last December knows that the hatred that inspired the Mayan attacks in the 1990s permeates today the speeches of President Donald Trump and conquers other radicals who swarm the Facebook forums and YouTube channels linked to white supremacists. Moreover, George W. Bush unleashed his war on terrorism from others while protecting his terrorist friends at home, and now Trump courts Florida’s arsonists and is evasive in condemning the right-wing extremists who have left a trail of death during his administration from Charlottesville to Minneapolis to El Paso.
A study by the U.S. Extremist Crime Database indicates that 74% of the terrorist attacks that occurred on U.S. soil after September 11, 2001, through 2016, were the work of the extreme right. Since Trump became president in 2017, most attacks against defenseless civilians have been carried out by supremacists. The profile of the aggressor does not vary much: a white man, inspired by other violent acts and speeches, and with easy access to assault weapons. He is the archetype of José Basulto, who benefited as the current right-wing extremists from the American law, which only allows the designation of foreign groups or attackers as terrorists.
Virtues and shortcomings of performance apart, The Wasp Network is unusual and courageous. It focuses on explaining what was hidden for decades and still does not want to be looked at head-on: why Cuban agents were sent to the United States. This is the heart of the story that has set the networks on fire, that tries to censor on Netflix and that has the right-wing making common cause against the Spanish vice president, Pablo Iglesias. He accompanied the film’s Twitter feed with three words of unsurpassed precision: “Seen it. Heroes. Great Movie.”
The Wasp Network
The Wasp Network and the Never-Ending Claque
by Rolando Pérez Betancourt
July 4, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The controversy and the pandemic have meant that The Wasp Network continues to be seen far beyond what the most flattering estimates had predicted.
This is despite the fact that some involved in the film plot have vowed to ignore it and continue to call for a boycott, while demanding legal redress “for damages”.
But they betray themselves and, in the loneliness of their homes, sit in front of the Netflix platform, eager to know. Afterwards, they can’t stop themselves and they explode, even though the shouting is evidence of having broken a pact with the Brothers, as happened to Ramón Saúl Sánchez, an old sidekick of the terrorist Posada Carriles and a counter-revolutionary linked to those first groups determined to return Cuba to what it was before 1959.
Sanchez is offended because the film “is more a political project than a cinematographic story”, a statement that invites one to imagine a science fiction plot, with the French director Olivier Assayas, the producers from different countries, technicians, actors, and Netflix itself, involved in an international conspiracy
interested in advocating Cuba’s right to defend itself against the terrorists in Florida, who are being suckled by the United States Government.
What really bothers the explosives expert of the Omega-7 terrorist group is that the film presents him as one of the many who have made counterrevolution a lucrative business, and it is true that many of his lineage are trying to shake off the image of the “patriot” swimming in ugly money that does not dignify the cause.
That’s why the also member of the Alpha 66 group (with a bloody record of service against the Cuban people) is indignant about the uncomfortable position in which the film places him and he claims, with an air of offense, that the money that came out of his pockets to unite the Cuban family was not a small thing. A statement after which -according to statements published on the Internet- he explains what a lavish money-maker he is: “I even had to pay a bill for 800 dollars in calls to Cuba once”.
A reminder of the “who’s who” of the adventure of moving around social networks by watching the reactions to The Wasp Network. This is how Carlos Alberto Montaner emerged, an old terrorist and agent of the cia (with an evidentiary record) who had become a “political analyst” without ceasing to be an ardent counter-revolutionary. He was another one of those who, “without wanting to”, watched The Wasp Network, because – in keeping with the ideals of the high-ranking intellectual who questions everything – he could not believe the argument that the tape “was pure propaganda paid for by Havana”. In other words, supposedly devoid of prejudices and ideological positions, the analyst saw the film, after which he considers it a mistake, because, in effect, “it is propaganda paid for by Havana,” a risky slander – he should have known – since he too could be sued by the film’s producers and, on this occasion, not without reasons to open a court case.
Once again, cinema and art, in their historical implications, are blinded by extreme positions that prefer bonfires to analysis. Hatreds, swearwords, disqualifications, emptiness, savagery of the verb, unhealthy propaganda against those who simply give a frank opinion, as happened to the Spanish vice-president, Pablo Iglesias. “Sight. Heroes. Movie”, wrote the leader with total frankness, and the furious claque, which is never absent, waved torches and went out to set fire to the nets.
I can explain myself!
I can explain myself!
The habit of speaking up for women and belittling what they do or say is a sometimes unconscious form of male violence
Published: Wednesday 08 July 2020 | 12:10:47 am
By Mileyda Menéndez Dávila
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Let me shut up about your silence.
–Pablo Neruda
Have you noticed how many times a man explains to a woman or a girl something she already knows, often in an affected tone? That attitude is a type of micro-machismo that since 2008 is identified with the term “mansplaining” (its literal translation would be “macho-explanation”), and it is a typical [form of] gender violence, a patriarchal mechanism that takes away from the value of the female experience in order to silence it.
It can be an unconscious act, transmitted for centuries through diverse cultural channels. When it is brought to their attention, some revise their attitude and try to unlearn it.
CHART (Translation)
WHEN DOES IT HAPPEN?
It can happen at home, at work or in any public place, to women of any age or social status:
You tell a story and he interrupts you because he thinks he can tell it better, even if it’s an experience of your own.
In a children’s fight, the boy is first asked to explain what happened and is held responsible for what the girl involved does or says.
Male health care workers downplaying female ailments
You propose to discuss a vital issue and you are stopped with a derogatory ¨no start with your stuff¨
A service provider disregards your opinion about the problem whose solution you are going to entrust to him
When you complain about the way they treat you, they ask you if you are ¨on your days¨
When arranging a payment or service you are asked if there is not a man in the family to represent you
Your colleagues reinterpret your ideas to present them as their own, without giving you credit
You are describing something and a man interrupts you to talk about another source ¨más importante¨, without acknowledging your expertise on the subject
They refer you to deepen your publications on a subject and they don’t even notice that they are yours
In a task of your responsibility, they ask someone of a lower professional level for his judgment because he is a man!
Anatomy of the macho-explicator:
Interrupts with intimidating or arrogant gestures
Explaina in a condescending or professorial tone
Raises his voice to cancel yours
Smile with irony and dismiss your demands for respect
He doesn’t look at you when he talks, he prefers to look at another man
If you criticize him, he establishes a hostile silence
Cut the chain:
To curb male chauvinism, you must first be aware that not because it’s often right
Let him know that you perceive that attitude as violence, and that even if it’s not intentional, it hurts
Stand firm when speaking, change your tone slightly and raise your voice if necessary so that you are not cut off
Defend your position with firm arguments, without apologizing for having your own viewpoint
If they insist on explaining the obvious to you, ask questions that will show how deep your knowledge is
Support other women when you see them being silenced, both at home and in public spaces
Bill Hackwell’s Photography
Bill Hackwell and Anti-Police Brutality Art
Bill Hackwell records what’s happening on Facebook and Flickr in downtown Oakland, where young artists are portraying on the area’s corporate buildings this creative art that has emerged from violence, oppression and the struggle for a new world with equality, justice and without systematic racism
Posted: Saturday 04 July 2020 | 08:55:36 pm.
By Juana Carrasco Martin
juana@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Bill Hackwell Mural Author: Bill Hackwell Posted: 04/07/2020 | 08:30 pm
The camera’s trigger documents, once again, a battle for justice. Bill Hackwell is posting on Facebook and Flickr what is happening in downtown Oakland, which he says is “being transformed by art opposed to police brutality..
“These images are just a fraction of the extraordinary uplifting paintings of various young artists along Broadway to Grand and many side streets. Corporate buildings are now adorned with this creative art, which has emerged from violence, oppression and the struggle for a new world with equality, justice and no systematic racism.
He fears, he tells us through the chat, that they will soon fade away, because they are being painted on the panels that cover windows, doors and windows in the California city as an expression of repudiation of a systemic and structural racism in American society. When they reopen those businesses, the owners will probably make them disappear…
An exceptional friend of Cuba, Bill is known for his photos, for the social documentation not only of his country, the United States, but also of Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Chiapas, Iraq and other countries. A member of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Five, together with his companion in struggle and life, Alicia Jrapko, he has made a fundamental, arduous, tireless and tenacious contribution to solidarity with our country that has earned him the recognition of the Friendship Medal, and above all, the gratitude of our people.
Murals in Oakland, California. Photos: Bill Hackwell
Bullying
MINI-DICTIONARY FOR TODAY’S WORLD
Bullying
Bullying ascribes to its victim negative stereotypes, whether based on gender, sexual identity, religion, family economic capacity, cultural differences, place of birth or residence, among others
Author: Victor Fowler | internet@granma.cu
June 9, 2020 23:06:01
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
It’s a continuous form of violence that takes place at school – although it usually reaches the residence, entertainment and leisure spaces of the participants. It’s in which one or several aggressors are determined to cause damage (physical, psychological or spiritual) to one or several victims. It can include verbal (direct or indirect), physical (more or less disguised), mockery, continuous devaluation and other degrading practices, isolation and ostracism.
It is based on an abuse of power by the aggressor, the passivity, silence or little reaction of the rest of the group and the weakness of the aggressor. Such a scheme subverts any teaching about values of equality, solidarity and justice, generates dysfunctionality among peers and often makes reveals problems of domestic violence or family isolation, both in aggressors and in victims.
Bullying assigns its victim with negative stereotypes, be it on the basis of gender, sexual identity, religion, family economic capacity, cultural differences, place of birth or residence, among others. In addition to breaking bonds of solidarity, bullying can have destructive effects and cause profound (low self-esteem, depression or other disorders) and long-term damage to those who suffer it and in extreme cases lead to self-harm (including suicide) or physical assault on the abuser.
The contemporary development of communications online and the easy access to these in a widespread way, has given rise to the emergence of a new variety of school bullying, in this case through the Internet, cell phones and social networks.
BIBLIOGRAPHY CONSULTED (MAIN SOURCES):
Sánchez-Castañeda, Alfredo. Bullying. A comparative view. – Mexico, Mexico City : Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Defensoría de los Derechos Universitarios, 2018.
Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. Prevention of school bullying : Bullying and cyberbullying San Jose, C.R. SOURCE: IIDH, 2014.
Shane Jimerson, Susan Swearer and Dorothy Espelage. – Handbook of bullying in schools. An international perspective. New York : Routledge, 2009.
The Necessity of Art
The Necessity of Art
By Graziella Pogolotti
digital@juventudrebelde.cu
June 20, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
For work reasons, there was a time when I traveled with some frequency to the Isle of Youth, then known as the Isle of Pines. On one occasion, I took advantage of the stay to get to Punta del Este and see the mark left there by the first settlers of Cuba. The famous caves of Altamira keep the expression of a representative art. The caves of Punta del Este, on the other hand, seem to announce the appearance of geometric abstractionism.
Weakly built, our first inhabitants arrived from South America, after traveling in fragile canoes through the arch of the Antilles. They planted yucca, lived in huts, produced articles necessary for life, along with some that were not of a utilitarian nature. These words were incorporated into the Spanish language, to which the word allusive to the most feared natural phenomenon, the hurricane, was also added. Its testimonial mark in the cave of Punta del Este raises many questions about the meaning of the work. Perhaps it was a way of averting the threat of an event of mysterious origin that regularly struck men and destroyed their meager possessions.
In any case, in the beginning, art, philosophy and literature were closely intertwined. With the passing of the centuries, as the division of labor was imposed, they gradually became independent. But artistic creation has not ceased to be a specific means of access to knowledge, indissolubly linked to a conception of the world, to the cult of the dead in ancient Egypt, to the rescue of the human dimension of motherhood in the Gothic cathedrals.
The rise of capitalism led to the conversion of art into a commodity. Like a condemned man at hard labor, always persecuted by his creditors, Honoré de Balzac had to submit to the rules established by the publisher. Each chapter of his novels had to close with a question that imposed on the reader the need to acquire the next publication in order to find continuity and an answer.
He turned that experience into LOST ILLUSIONS. As an aspiring writer, the main character Lucien de Rubempré goes on a pilgrimage through publishers reduced to the condition of pure manufacturers of goods. In the 19th century, gallery owners appeared who would buy works that would reach millions of dollars in value for pennies. In modern times, when the value of money is subject to economic crises, investing in art means acquiring a good with a lasting and often growing value.
Adventure of knowledge, artistic creation explores the conflicts and twists and turns of the human condition. In the words of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, we are a drunken boat rocked by storms of all kinds. In the course of history, the works that retain a living presence revealed to us the serene harmony of the mother with the child in her lap.
The baroque fracture showed the tensions generated by power, the image of the Pieta, a painful mother with her son collapsed on her knees, the passing of the ages in the beautiful adolescent body of David and the venerable old age of Moses, brought to light the underground universe of begging and picaresque, the tricks of the Tartuffe climber, sharpened Quevedo’s satirical whip, while the renewal of the codes of architecture showed the precarious balance between illusion and reality. The incision in the depths of our individual and social being has a liberating function, based on the recognition of what we are and is therefore an indispensable springboard for our full emancipation.
Since the conversion of art into merchandise, capitalism castrates the emancipatory function of art. Under the guise of neo-liberalism, with its imposed hegemony over the media, it advances even further in the perverse sterilization of the role of art. An ephemeral fair of show business vanities, which has become a disposable consumer good, produces shows designed to subject and seduce, from a one-way transmitter, a recipient modeled on their whim. It thus undermines the essential nature of artistic creation, its dialogical character open to multiple meanings, a guarantee of transcending from the local to the universal, from yesterday to today and tomorrow. For this reason, despite the millennia that have passed, we are still moved by Oedipus Rex’s tragic confrontation with his destiny. He had to tear out his eyes because he did not know how to recognize the reality that comprised his existence, that of his family, that of the citizens of Thebes.
In this month of June, we have evoked the 90 years since the birth of Armando Hart, a protagonist of the historical vanguard of the Revolution and lucid manager of our cultural thought. It is about to be the anniversary of the [speech] Words to the Intellectuals, given by Fidel in the National Library. This is not the time for routine recounts. The perverse use of culture with the purpose of manipulating consciousnesses, calls for a broad and deep discussion on the role of art in the struggle for human emancipation. [This is] a decisive issue in these days, when the death of art, the disappearance of the species in a process of accelerated climate change and increased poverty threatens us. Taking into account the current panorama and the experience acquired, it is urgent to design integral strategies to offer an adequate response to the great challenges of contemporary life. I will return to this subject in the next issue.
Trump takes his politics to Tulsa
Trump went with his politics to Tulsa, scene of the worst massacre of African Americans in recent U.S. history.
By Natalia Plazas
June 20, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In 1921 Tulsa, the city Donald Trump chose to resume his campaign for the presidency, was the scene of one of the most atrocious massacres in U.S. history against the Black community. Nearly a hundred years after the event, the facts remain virtually unknown to society.
Smoke rises from buildings during the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA massacre. Photo: Reuters
Donald Trump hit the nail on the head when he decided to resume his campaign for reelection in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tens of thousands of his supporters await him there, but there is also a growing call for remembrance and justice from activist groups who remember that that city has not healed the wounds of the worst massacre in the country’s recent history against the African-American community.
On the night of May 31 to June 1, 1921, an entire neighborhood was razed to the ground and 300 black citizens were killed. The massacre began when a white crowd came to lynch a black man accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. That, supposedly, was the trigger for the tragedy, but history has revealed a much more perverse situation.
In the 1920s, the Greenwood neighborhood, a black enclave in the city of Tulsa, was noted for its economic prosperity. The distribution of land after the end of the American Civil War had benefited some African-American and Native American communities, and as a result Greenwood had become stronger, despite being segregated, like any black neighborhood at the time.
Archive image. A crowd of mostly African Americans lines up at the Exchange booth in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. © Reuters
From ‘Black Wall Street’ to a neighborhood in the ashes
Such was the commercial and economic success forged in Greenwood that it was commonly called the ‘Black Wall Street’, but soon its good fortune would bring it ruin. Members of the white community began to view their neighbors’ bonanza with suspicion and, interested in occupying their land during the railroad expansion, decided to attack the neighborhood.
On the night of May 31, a crowd of white men, supported by local authorities and even police, arrived in Greenwood and charged at the African-American population and their homes. The mob burned down homes and businesses to the point that when the situation calmed down hours later, at least 35 whole blocks had been left in rubble.
The blow took away the good fortune of the neighborhood forever. In the wake of the event, Greenwood’s recovery has been frustrated by the creation of laws promoting zoning or by building restrictions. Today in Tulsa, the social gap between blacks and whites is notorious. According to a Human Rights Watch report, poverty is almost three times higher among black citizens than among white citizens.
Archive image. A truck carrying soldiers and African Americans near the Litan Hotel during the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma race massacre. © Reuters
A Donald Trump rally ignites misgivings in a remote society
With Trump’s visit, originally scheduled to coincide with the celebration of Black Independence Day on June 19 [Juneteenth] and postponed amidst national protests against racism, the call for historical recognition of the victims and economic reparations for their descendants has intensified more than ever.
Less than a year before the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa incident, justice has yet to be established, despite the fact that the case has even been brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. Both lower courts and the high court have dismissed the claims. Currently, only two survivors of the massacre are still alive.
But Trump’s arrival has not only put the spotlight on a forgotten chapter of American history. His desperate attempt to revive in Oklahoma an image that has deteriorated in recent months due to the economic impact of the pandemic has highlighted the differences between his supporters and those who demand changes in the treatment of the African-American community.
“Any protester, anarchist, agitator, looter, or small-time person who goes to Oklahoma, please understand that they will not be treated as they have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a very different scene,” the president said before embarking on the trip to Tulsa.
The comment, which his critics call conflictive and divisive, comes at a time when the rejection of racial violence in the United States shows its greatest increase in decades, with weeks of massive demonstrations in multiple cities around the country that have also reached the doors of the White House.
Tulsa Councilwoman Vanessa Hall-Harper poses for a portrait in front of a memorial to the 1921 Greenwood massacre. Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, June 18, 2020. Lawrence Bryant / Reuters
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