Truly Human Rights
Truly Human Rights
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Among the many unique qualities of the Cuban political process, and the organization of politics that has emerged from the revolutionary changes on the island, is the achievement of social peace in Cuba. It’s a phenomenon unthinkable in most other nations of the continent including, of course, the United States.
Surprised by this tranquility and security, many of the visitors from the United States who have been able to travel to Cuba with the exceptional authorization of Washington wonder if there are any organizations in Cuba that oppose the government. The answer, which is surprising to many, is that the only effective organizer and leader of the opposition in Cuba is the United States government. This is because Cuba’s citizens enjoy the daily right to participate in the construction of the new socialist order, but they also have the right to dissent. This is exercised in multiple instances of the vast and intense Cuban participatory system.
But another very important reason, one less spoken about, is that U.S. foreign policy has always been obsessive in maintaining a very direct and rigorous control over this dissidence. Very few Cubans agree to align themselves, to make use of their right to disagree, under the directions of a foreign government that openly proclaims itself to be an enemy of the independence, identity and social justice objectives of Cubans, and even less so with let alone do it in exchange for material benefits.
Washington’s instinctive imperialist voracity has never resigned itself to accepting a neighbor which does not blindly submit to U.S. hegemony. If not, they will learn from their own historical-practical experience, as have Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Haiti!
All these countries have suffered, in addition to Cuba, the extreme violence with which Washington is able to impose its neighbors’ submission to US designs.
The methods used by U.S. foreign policy to keep or return its neighbors to the fold have not always been identical. For example, from the dangers of absorption and subtle threats that have advised Canada to stay within the British Commonwealth. Why? To prevent its absorption by its American neighbors to the south. Then, the extension of borders by force with which Washington took half of its territory from Mexico. And, of course, the longest economic blockade in world history that still persists against Cuba. And we’re not even detailing the multiple invasion operations, coups and interventions sponsored by the OAS (Washington’s ministry of colonies), our America has experienced in recent centuries.
In the specific case of Cuba, a fierce campaign for the demonization of the purposes and actions of the Fidelista revolution began to develop before the triumph and seizure of power by the people in January 1959. It has been a sustained and relentless campaign, initially by the powerful US secret services of subversion and later publicly and notoriously, with multi-million dollar programs and plans aimed without discretion or shame at subverting order on the island.
This policy has been complemented, most of the time, by a ban on US citizens visiting the island in search of their own individual assessments.
With William Clinton in the presidency, the “people-to-people” policy was briefly put into effect. It authorized visiting Cuba by a certain category of individuals from academia and universities in general. It was designed with the purpose that the visitors would influence the Cubans by making them see the advantages of capitalism more, as was logical, the opposite was what happened.
President George W. Bush felt compelled to cancel the program, realizing its boomerang effect. By clashing with the truth of Cuba, the visitors became the best spokespersons for the Cuban reality.
In March 2016, then-President Barack Obama used his presidential powers to enact several measures that allowed certain categories of Americans to travel to Cuba with fewer restrictions. Nevertheless, the unconstitutional ban on tourist travel remained in place.
Donald Trump’s autocratic regime has preferred to apply measures of terror and threats in his speeches to counter the interest of U.S. citizens in approaching Cuba.
Cuba’s socialist revolutionary project does not impose anti-capitalist conditions on other countries. All it demands is respect for its experiments, essays, and studies. Cuba’s project is to create an alternative social and economic order to failed capitalism, one that is more just and better for the Cuban people and its independence.
April 9, 2018.
Between rebellion and brazenness
Between rebellion and brazenness
Posted: Saturday 17th March 2018 | 10:52:43 PM
Author: Alina Perera Robbio
This reflection begins with a true story: in a certain pharmacy in the capital, a patient asks for the medicine that will take him out of the crisis in which his digestive system has fallen and out of an almost unbearable pain that has caused him to go out into the street despite the fact that the doctor has ordered absolute rest.
The needy person, who has to update his or her home address papers, carries a certificate with him or her where the word “transit”, written by the doctor, can be read, but the pharmacy technique explains that the term is only applicable to transfers between provinces.
The dialogue between the needy and those who can help becomes a dead end. At some point the technique says vaguely: “Let’s see if we understand each other, let’s see if we can “solve…”. The patient gets confused and just asks, “Will they give me the medicine or not? Suddenly someone remembers that there is only one box left with the pills that they are urging and that are destined for a very critical case in the community. The patient feels almost guilty, and without having solved his problem he leaves with a bitter and surprising memory of the phrase in which he had hinted at the possibility of a solution.
Among Cubans there are terms that allude to our incessant effort to make our way through multiple difficulties: the “battle” or “struggle”, for example, serves to remind us of the enterprising eagerness, often positive, of the children of this island. But there are words that speak to us of less clean attitudes – such as the “search” – or of invitations to “solve”, to mediate in circumstances that, so humanly delicate, do not allow the inclusion of intentions of sale and purchase.
This last word is often disconcerting to the listener, who does not know the language of “help me, I will help you”: No one who has in his soul an ethical protocol in which cheating and pillaging add to the list of anti-values will be able to comfortably assume that complicity in which “aid” has a price and in the end the feeling remains that, to the right, solutions either arrive late or never arrive, unless there is a commercial option.
To tell the truth, the desire to “seek” (i.e. to find monetary or material advantages where there are resources), or this desire to “solve” – whether from the person who charges or from the one who pays – could find multiple explanations in reality: In three decades of increased economic and social difficulties, we have seen a lot of weeds grow in the shadow of emergencies and needs; life, like water seeking to run its course, has become for many a long-distance race in which almost everything is done against the clock, desperately, in a context marked by a lack of resources, bureaucracy and inefficiency in providing services, in a country that for much more than three decades has suffered the handshake of the empire through a commercial and financial blockade.
To these known and accumulated problems we must add the new challenges arising from the reconfiguration of the country in the economic and social spheres – a stage that, as a friend told me, is reminiscent of the movement of the bowels of the Earth, that rearrangement in which many customs and moral compasses seem to be dislocated while the scenarios, like the flakes of the planet, are being rearranged.
The fact that “resolving” lives among us as a style places us as a society, since it reminds us of the importance of the right-wing paths – that is, the entities that are responsible for the well-being of all – working together and doing so with agility. The other thing is that everything we design in terms of the necessary control must implicitly bring about the natural flexibility of life: rigidity and excessive restrictions are overwhelming and lead many to wonder what to do to “resolve” problems, and how to do it.
There is another inescapable aspect to this: even the ugliest attitudes can find an explanation, which does not mean that they deserve to be justified. Therefore, even if the most diverse distortions fuel the search for shortcuts, it would not be good for the dream country to wait for everything to go well in the target world to start looking inside. To rebel against brazenness and unscrupulousness at this moment seems to me to be an act of responsibility insofar as it limits the denial of virtue; it even seems to me to be an act of faith in the best possibilities for our fellow beings.
How to Protect the Cuban Consumer?
How to Protect the Cuban Consumer?
Although clients in our country can claim and assert their rights against any violation, it is worth asking what mechanisms and norms exist today to protect them.
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Author: yadidelsol@granma.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The consumer has the right to choose, which gives him the possibility to satisfy his needs. Photo: Alberto Borrego
Consumer protection is strongly linked to quality of service. Photo: Miguel Febles Hernández
Of course, these evils are compounded by others that affect trade in our country. These include irregularity in supplies, price-quality balance, insufficient information provided to buyers on the terms of product guarantees, few strategies and promotional initiatives, or the symptoms of apathy and mistreatment sometimes shown by staff working in stores and other establishments.
One thing is clear: to leave it to spontaneity or good faith to solve this problem would be to be naïve. The country is aware that, more than a glance, the most important thing is to take precise action, without delay, to eliminate the culture of abuse. It is not a favor to attend to the people and provide them with the service they request.
SOME OF THE COMPLAINT MECHANISMS AND CHANNELS THAT EXIST IN THE COUNTRY:
The Assemblies of Accountability of the delegate of the People’s Power of the district or private attention by this delegate.
The Attorney General’s Office and the Legal Consultations, which deal with complaints and issue consultations to citizens.
In the Councils of the Municipal and Provincial Administration, and in the companies located in the different territories where the Departments of Attention to the Population operate.
The Offices of Attention to the Population of the Communist Party of Cuba, in all its instances.
The mass media is another way for the population to lodge complaints.
SOME CONSUMER RIGHTS ESTABLISHED IN RETAIL ENTITIES.
To the satisfaction of their basic needs, through access to essential basic goods and services through the different modalities established in the country and according to their income.
The protection of the life, health, and safety of the consumer against risks caused in the supply of products and services considered dangerous, harmful and against poor quality and false or misleading advertising.
To the protection of their economic income, through fair, just and respectful treatment in the purchase and sale and contractual transactions and against coercive commercial methods or methods involving misinformation about products and services.
To the information, that is, to receive all the truthful and timely information on the different goods and services, with correct specification of quantity, characteristics, composition, quality, and price, as well as on the risks they represent.
To education and dissemination on the appropriate consumption of goods or services that ensure freedom of choice, fairness in the conduct of exchange and the preparation of the consumer to engage in responsible consumption.
To choose, which gives the possibility to satisfy the needs of consumers according to their expectations, tastes, preferences, all within a national framework and in accordance with the specific possibilities and conditions of the national economy.
To ensure that the conservation and preservation of the environment is not undermined.
To full, timely and adequate compensation for damages resulting from the purchase of the goods or services offered on the market and to effective compensation, whenever feasible, as regulated in the event of the supplier’s default.
To have access to the corresponding bodies for the protection of their rights with a view to presenting their opinions and complaints in the different instances, creating the conditions for their analysis, through agile and efficient procedures.
The Artist of the Family
El ojo que te ve [The Eye That Sees You]
The Artist of the Family
Juvenal Balan
Hello, I am Juvenal Balán, Cuban photojournalist, who invites you to reflect on photography, photojournalism and the current issues that concern us in our daily lives. I would like this page to become a place of friendship and solidarity between those of us who, camera in hand, walk the world trying to immortalize an image that bears witness to our passage through life.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Ojo de Agua Company with the presentation of all its groups at the Mariana Grajales Theatre on October 10th.
Ojo de Agua Company with the presentation of all its groups at the Mariana Grajales Theatre on October 10th.
Ojo de Agua Company with the presentation of all its groups at the Mariana Grajales Theatre on October 10th.
Ojo de Agua Company with the presentation of all its groups at the Mariana Grajales Theatre on October 10th.
Ojo de Agua Company with the presentation of all its groups at the Mariana Grajales Theatre on October 10th.
Ojo de Agua Company with the presentation of all its groups at the Mariana Grajales Theatre on October 10th.
Daniel Chavarría Obituary in Granma
Daniel Chavarría, Icon of Latin American Crime Fiction, has died
Recognized in his adopted homeland with the National Literature Prize in 2010, the outstanding creator considered himself “a Cuban writer who was born in Uruguay”.
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Author: Pedro de la Hoz | pedro@granma.cu
April 6, 2018 19:04:5
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The writer Daniel Chavarría received Cuba’s National Literature Prize Photo: TELESUR
Daniel Chavarría, author of a book that revolutionized crime fiction in Latin America, died this Friday in Havana at 85.
Recognized in his adopted homeland with the National Literature Prize in 2010, the outstanding creator considered himself “a Cuban writer who was born in Uruguay.”
In doing so, he underlined his essential link with Cuba, where he arrived in 1969 and began a literary career with a firm step in 1978 when he published the novel Joy, winner three years before the Anniversary Contest of the Revolution of Police Literature organized by the Ministry of the Interior.
Since then, he won the fervor of readers and the endorsement of critics in Cuba and other countries through detective intrigue novels such as La sexta isla (The Sixth Island), El ojo de Cibele (The Eye of Cybele), Allá ellos (There They), El rojo en la pluma del loro (The Red in the Parrot’s Feather). Viudas de sangre (Blood Widows), Priapos, Una pica en Flandes (A Pike in Flanders) and El último roomservice (The Last Room Service), although he also published texts with a strong evocative charge such as Aquel año en Madrid.
Several of these books won important literary prizes, including the Casa de las Américas literary prize, the Dashiell Hammet prize for best detective novel in Spanish and the Edgar Allan Poe prize, awarded by the American professional association Mystery Writers of America.
Another notable publishing success was the publication of his memoirs And the World Walks on, which highlighted a personal life of adventure and his revolutionary consciousness.
Among his most recent works, he devoted special attention to one that he owed to his country of origin and to all those who defend the emancipatory ideal of the peoples of the continent: Yo soy el Rufo y no me rindo [I Am Rufo and I Do Not Give Up, a biographical novel on Raúl Sendic the founder of the Tupamaros, .
He was also very excited to publish some unpublished chronicles in the pages of Juventud Rebelde. Journalism burned in his veins.
Far Right Running US Cuba Policy
Ex-diplomat Vicki Huddleston points out that the extreme right has taken over US policy towards Cuba
By: Cubadebate Editorial Staff
April 5, 2018
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Beyond Racism
Graphic Opinion: Beyond Racism
By Adán Iglesias ,
Renowned Cuban cartoonist. Director of the humorous publication DDT.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump was the candidate of several supremacist groups. Since his rise to power he has come to declare that among the supremacists there are “good people”.
From James Monroe to Marilyn Monroe
From James Monroe to Marilyn Monroe: America for the Americans
American cinema is one of the most powerful weapons of the culture and symbol war that threatens us today.
April 4, 2018 20:04:06
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The industry turned the beautiful blonde Marilyn Monroe into a glamorous sex symbol, an object of collective desire. Photo: MOMA
Rene Greendwald, a veteran CIA official, said in a preparatory meeting for the Genesis project, aimed at the cultural war against Cuba, that they had been more successful in Latin America with Marilyn Monroe than with the Monroe Doctrine. The CIA specialist, who also said that the scenario of a conventional war was well interpreted by the Cubans, whom he believed were capable of facing and defeating any attempt at military occupation, was right, but he always raised the question: And when the enemy is in your living room? How do you identify in a series of your choice, in a film, in a sports programme, in a raeality show or a talk show, an action of the enemy?
American cinema has effectively contributed, on our continent in particular and in the world in general, to the efficient “selling” of the American way of life, to instilling in people’s minds the image of the superiority of Americans, the invincibility of their army and the inferiority of the peoples of the southern hemisphere. It has helped to distort history, to sell us its products, to impose its fashions, its national symbols.
THE GREAT DREAM FACTORY
U.S. cinema, in the midst of a process of expansion and development, reached Europe and spread throughout Latin America after the First World War. These were the happy 1920s, which corresponded to the period of economic prosperity in the United States from 1922 to 1929.
Hollywood cinema is becoming an efficient tool for “Americanizing”, or simply transmitting the values of the American way of life, spreading the stereotypes outlined by psychology in its prestigious universities, to the cultures and ways of being of the people of the rest of the countries of the world.
Hollywood cinema is becoming an efficient tool for “Americanizing”, or simply transmitting the values of the American way of life, spreading the stereotypes outlined by psychology in its prestigious universities, to the cultures and ways of being of the people of the rest of the countries of the world.
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King: 50 Years Can’t Kill a Dream
April 4, 2018
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The speech that American activist Martin Luther King is remembered for today was entitled “I have a dream”. The three words became a milestone. Hundreds of politicians and presidents from around the world have used that same phrase at public events. But none has been as powerful as the one Luther King starred in on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. However, last Saturday, March 24th, the story of this phrase began a completely new chapter.
Yolanda Renee King, granddaughter of the leader of the civil rights movement in the United States, repeated her grandfather’s words very close to where he first spoke them 55 years ago. At just nine years of age, Yolanda stepped onto the stage with the confidence of a leader who knows the legacy that precedes her and the power of words.
Yolanda Renee King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., speaks on “The March for Our Lives” in support of gun control. Photo: Andrew Harnik/ AP
VIDEO: https://twitter.com/AMarch4OurLives/status/977625892745658368
Capitalism and Democracy
Capitalism and Democracy are Opposites
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The capitalist socio-economic order is synonymous with freedom only for those who accept that the first freedom must be for capital and that money must be free to buy everything. When the capacity of money to acquire the goods that sustain life in society is restricted or when it is prevented from behaving in the manner of another commodity that can be bought and sold, it is restricted to capitalism.
That is why it is so important for capitalism that popular consciousness has been manipulated by the system and won over to the idea that “capitalism” equals “democracy” and that any attack on the freedom of money to acquire any of the earthly and moral goods of society is an attack on democracy.
Can you imagine what your country, and this planet, would be like if doctors, educators, courts, governments, the means of production and services, information, cultural expressions and even the conditions for making love were equally available to everyone in a society where money cannot determine differences in the quality and urgency of benefits?
But this would distort the precarious asymmetrical balance present in almost every society on the planet, because capitalism needs such ideas to continue on the fringes of citizen aspirations.
Because, for capitalism, it would be terrible if a person with many economic resources were condemned to the same quality of life and the same conditions of treatment and possibilities of cure in cases of illness as those who lack sufficient money.
Because, from a capitalist point of view, it cannot be considered logical that the descendants of the wealthy should have to share the same classrooms and quality of education with children from poor families.
Because it does not seem rational to a good bourgeois that the poor and the rich should be judged, in the case of crime, by the same standards, nor that they should share galleys in prison with corrupt millionaire and hungry common criminals.
Because in the electoral systems of capitalism, it should not happen that elected leaders should dispense with the donations made by the richest, most influential and responsible individuals and entities of society in their campaigns for office. In their future performance as leaders, they may consider themselves obliged to protect the security of corporate capital and that of the nation’s most important and powerful layer.
Because, in the capitalist order, the media is only free if private capital can buy radio and television stations, magazines, newspapers, news agencies or any other means of communication. This is so that they may be in a position to efficiently ensure that what is published serves their own interests, which are the determining factors in bourgeois society as a whole.
Because the capitalist system needs the best of national and international art and culture to be exhibited or imported for the enjoyment of society’s educated elite, which has the resources to pay for the costs involved through advertising.
Because in a capitalist society it is considered healthy that everything is structured in such a way that the main attraction for gender relations is money and economic position. Thus, the most beautiful men and women are attracted to other beautiful men and woman with greater wealth, without peculiar considerations such as understanding, kindness, sensitivity or other sentimental or otherwise subjective arguments.s.
For capitalism, stimulating competitiveness and the struggle for profit as engines of progress, at every level of the economy, brings the greatest dividends and any other consideration – moral, ethical or patriotic, for example – limits the development of the nation.
When any of the above conditions are missing or are threatened by the misunderstanding that they are inherent to capitalism and that this is the same as democracy, we must act with haste and without mercy.
This is how modern capitalism does it systematically, through the government of the United States and the oligarchies that are submissive to it, anywhere in the world.
The erratic hegemonic performance of the United States in recent years has contributed greatly to the discrediting of the capitalist way of life on a global scale. Capitalism has shown that its model is not in line with the aspirations of the dispossessed classes of the rich countries, nor with those of the peoples of the Third World, who are eager to live in a less cruel and more equitable system.
April 5, 2018.
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