Translations 512
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
Death of Two Black Men Hanging from Trees.
Death of Two Black Men Hanging from Trees Sparks Outrage and Raises Questions in the U.S.
By Patricia Sulbarán Lovera
June 16, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch, were found hanging from trees in two southern California cities. Photo: @AAPolicyForum/Twitter.
In the midst of a wave of protests against racism in the United States, two deaths initially labeled as suicides have caused shock and raised questions.
In the last few weeks, the bodies of two black men, Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsch, were found hanging from trees in two Southern California cities.
In the first announcements, the authorities pointed to suicide as a possible cause of death in both cases, but have now opened investigations.
This was after the families demanded investigations after expressing their unconvinced opinion that they had been suicides.
About 50 miles and 10 days separate the deaths of Fuller and Harsch.
The names of Fuller and Harsch resonated widely on social networks over the weekend, and activists in the Black Lives Matter movement joined the demands of their families.
The characteristics of the incidents have also brought to mind the terrible past of lynching of blacks in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Robert Fuller, 24 years old
Robert Fuller was 24 years old. Photo: Via GoFundMe.
At almost 4 a.m. last Wednesday, June 10, the body of 24-year-old Fuller was found near City Hall in Palmdale, a city of 150,000 people, about an hour north of Los Angeles.
“No one was at the scene and paramedics found the body hanging from a tree,” Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Daryl Osby said Monday.
A passerby who saw the body contacted the authorities.
An autopsy was carried out last Friday 12th, the results of which have yet to be announced.
“Initial reports seemed to be consistent with suicide, but we thought it prudent to step back and continue to investigate,” said Jonathan Lucas, head of the county coroner’s office.
Lucas explained that there was initial talk of suicide, due to the “absence of evidence” indicating a possible homicide.
According to authorities, there were no chairs or other artifacts in the vicinity of the site and only “what was in his pocket and backpack” was found, Kent Wegener, in charge of the sheriff’s office homicide unit, said Monday.
Wegener detailed that a forensic analysis of the rope will be done, as well as a study of the type of knot to determine how it was made. They will also investigate whether “there is video footage from surveillance cameras or from homes” that has captured what happened, and they will check the young person’s cell phone.
Authorities said they will also investigate the medical history of Fuller, who was assigned to a state social worker, although the reason is unknown.
According to what county sheriff Alex Villanueva said Monday, the attorney general’s office “is going to monitor and review our investigation.
The official also noted that the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) will be involved in the investigation from the civil rights division.
What was the reaction and what did your family say?
Last Friday, after news of his death was made public, Palmdale residents questioned authorities for first reporting it as a suicide.
Palmdale residents set up an altar in honor of Fuller on the tree where he was hung on June 10. Photo: Getty Images.
“Where are the surveillance videos?”, “We don’t trust you”, “Why did you conclude it’s a suicide?”, some questioned the city sheriff in the middle of a tense press conference.
On Saturday, Fuller’s sister spoke from the square where the incident occurred and where hundreds of protesters gathered.
“We want to know the truth about what really happened. Robert was a good little brother. And it’s like everything we’ve been told isn’t right (…) we hear one thing and then another, and we just want to know the truth,” Diamond Alexander claimed.
Robert Fuller’s sister said her brother wasn’t suicidal. Photo: Reuters.
“It doesn’t make sense, my brother wasn’t suicidal,” he said.
Antelope Valley, the area where Palmdale is located, “is known in Southern California as a bastion of white supremacy and that goes back decades,” Los Angeles KCRW radio reporter Cerise Castle said in a report Monday for National Public Radio (NPR).
“In 2016, there was an incident in which three men were charged with a hate crime after attacking a group of Latinos in a park. This was one day after the Ku Klux Klan [white supremacist extreme group] held an event in the area,” he said.
Malcolm Harsch, 38
A una hora de Palmdale en dirección este, en la ciudad de Victorville, un grupo de bomberos acudió a la escena en la que Malcolm Harsch, de 38 años, había aparecido colgado de un árbol el pasado 31 de mayo.
Malcolm Harsch, the 38 años. Photo: @AAPolicyForum/Twitter.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office report, shortly after 7:00 a.m., a call came in to the 911 emergency number from a woman who reported that her boyfriend had hung himself.
The paramedics arrived at the site, which the authorities describe as a “land” where there is a camp of homeless people.
The woman indicated that “she and her boyfriend, later identified as Malcolm Harsch, had been together during the morning, but she had returned to her tent for a short period of time.
“Others in the camp warned him that Harsch had been found hanging from a tree,” that he had been taken down from there and was being given CPR “to resuscitate him,” the statement said.
The emergency personnel who arrived later continued unsuccessfully with the attempts until he was declared dead.
The cause of death is yet to be known.
The authorities present at the scene, including forensic personnel, stated in the letter, “did not collect any evidence suggesting a possible murder”.
What did the family say?
Harsch’s relatives, who live in the state of Ohio, said in a statement last Saturday that they found it hard to believe the man had killed himself, that he “did not seem depressed” and that he had “recently talked with his children about seeing each other soon.
In the letter, the relatives reported that the autopsy had been carried out “12 days after” his death.
“There are many ways to die, but considering the current racial tensions, for a man to have hung himself from a tree definitely does not make sense at this time. We want justice, not easy excuses,” they said.
The city authorities reported that they would make the results of the investigation public once it is completed.
County Sheriff John McMahon said his office was in contact with the state Department of Justice, which was following up on the inquiry.
United States at the Crossroads
United States at the Crossroads
As the crisis in the U.S. deepens and the protests following George Floyd’s assassination take on a broader tone, old and new wounds of a society in need of profound change come to light
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Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The protests take on a broader tone, bringing out old and new wounds of a society in need of profound change. Photo: La Vanguardia
As the crisis in the U.S. deepens and the protests that have erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s assassination take on a broader tone, old and new wounds of a society in need of profound change come to light.
The makeup that was intended to cover the worn-out face of the US Statue of “Liberty” is slowly fading, and the truth is making its way into the minds and hearts of the people. A protester in New York asks in front of the cameras of a TV network covering the protests: Where is the greatest country in the world, and he answers himself with anger and pain: “It is not here.”
It’s a fact that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boasts of being an accomplished liar and recalls during an interview at the University of Texas A&M, the time when he was director of the company, his image as a supposed strongman is not respected either.
The head of U.S. diplomacy is still the same cynic who said, “I was the director of the company. We lied, cheated and stole. We even had training courses” which drew applause from those present, who must have included some of those who, these days, obeying Trump’s “guidance”, gargle with chlorine to combat COVID-19.
You can’t fool everyone all the time. The current government is responsible for more than 112,000 deaths from the pandemic, rampant unemployment, loss of rights, hunger for many (a hunger they can no longer hide), lack of medical care for the majority of the people and racial discrimination.
The man already considered by many the worst president in the history of the United States is covered by a deluge of criticism, with a shower of lies launched through Twitter, a kind of “counter-water” strategy that seems to make no sense, but it does.
Donald Trump speaks to his base, those who voted for him in the previous election, and hopes they will do so in the next one, on November 3. They are secure bases that have remained faithful to their president, despite the defection of a group of the less firm.
Who will vote for whom?
Those who will vote for Trump are those who see him as a “winner” who will achieve success for America, those who admire his showmanship, his misogynistic poses, his image as a rich, powerful man, with a lot of luck with women.
Those who are alienated by conspiracy theories, including those who believe that health care reform and 5G [Internet] seek to control the population.
The U.S. government, which is opposed to vaccination, believes that the left belongs to an alien invading race that wants to dominate the world, and a thousand and one other absurd theories.
Trump gloats over the unconditional love that many ultra-nationalists, religious fanatics, racists, supremacists, and separatists have for him, to whom he presents himself as a political outsider.
Trump and his team calculate that many of the people who oppose his re-election will not vote for Joe Biden either.
They estimate that the most radicals, who want a profound change in the country, would not vote for the neo-liberal group that the former vice president represents. Many millennials and Z-generation supporters do not see Biden as a viable option for solving the country’s problems.
Therefore, faced with possible massive abstentionism, motivated by the lack of valid alternatives and the security of the vote of their bases, the followers of the current president trust that they can win again.
An uncertain future
However, the situation is getting darker for him. Important figures of the Republican Party, prestigious military and hawks with voice and influence, are closing ranks against Trump’s possible re-election.
Colin Powell, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the last of a series of retired senior officers to publicly criticize Donald Trump.
“We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution. And the president is walking away from it,” Powell said in an interview with CNN, in which he accused him of “lying about a lot of things.
Powell, who served as secretary of state during the George W. Bush administration, and according to the Pew Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, his statements can influence independent voters, who make up 38 percent of the electorate.
Among others, Trump has been criticized by former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Powell has been joined by the voices of several prominent military figures, including former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who said that Trump is not “a mature leader” and accused him of “deliberately trying to divide the country.
Former U.S. Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired general who served in the U.S. government, called on the American people to “look carefully at who you elected.”
Another uniformed man who spoke out against the White House tenant was retired Navy Admiral William McRaven, the commander who led the military operation in which the U.S. killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“It’s time for new leadership in this country, Republican, Democrat or independent,” adding that “the president has shown that he doesn’t have the qualities to be a good commander-in-chief.’
Current Defense Secretary Mark Esper criticized Trump’s actions during the protests: “I do not support the invocation of the Insurrection Act. These measures should only be used as a last resort, and in the most urgent and extreme situations.
Prominent intellectuals, renowned artists and sportsmen, workers, unemployed, Afro-descendants and Latin Americans, businessmen and ex-soldiers, small landowners ruined by the crisis, young people from all walks of life, have joined in the protests across the U.S.
Many are talking about giving their all so that the current administration will not be re-elected. It looks bad for the tycoon-president. Whatever he does, history is bent on sawing the floor to him.
What Trump Would be Capable Of
What Trump Would be Capable Of to Get Re-elected
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Humanity will always remember, with sadness and pain, the tragic way in which the hostilities of the Second World War ended in the theater of operations in Asia and the Pacific.
On August 6, 1945, the United States airlifted and exploded an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 80,000 people in a treacherous manner. This figure increased to 200,000 by 1950 due to the persistent effects of nuclear radiation.
After that horrendous crime against humanity in Hiroshima, instead of showing their repentance by putting an end to such actions against civilians, the political leaders of the United States continued their efforts to dominate the world with the threat of the use of the atomic bomb for their own interests.
On the second occasion, they did so over an even more populous city, Nagasaki, where President Harry Truman became the murderer of some 300,000 additional human beings.
The message was obvious and clear: The United States possesses a terrible weapon and is willing to use it against any nation that opposes its world domination.
The government of Japan at the time was a military dictatorship nominally headed by an Emperor who had crushed all democratic dissent, outlawed the country’s Communist party, and pursued a very aggressive foreign policy against its neighbors.
In December 1941, the Japanese empire-which had occupied a considerable portion of the coasts of China, Korea, and the French colonies of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) by committing atrocities in much of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)-attacked Hawaii, an American possession.
But despite those initial victories, by 1945 Japan was already a defeated empire. It had lost its oil reserves and its naval fleet had been destroyed. Nazi Germany, its greatest ally, had surrendered in May 1945.
In June 1945, the government of Japan had communicated to the neutral governments of Sweden and Switzerland, as well as to its strongest opponent, the Soviet Union, its desire for peace. Their sole condition for surrender was that its emperor remain the nominal head of the Japanese state.
Notwithstanding the above, there are many who even today, 75 years after that monstrous fallacy, accept as true the lie with which the then-American President, Harry Truman, justified the use of the atomic weapon after the genocide. “We have used the atomic bomb to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands of young Americans.
That horrendous lie – that Japan’s willingness to end hostilities with an almost unconditional surrender that would have saved humanity tens of thousands of dead, wounded and material resources – was the lethal weapon used by the U.S. government to needlessly prolong the war for a few days in pursuit of its spurious goals of global domination.
Since then, the U.S. has continued to prepare a huge military potential for that purpose. It has adopted a doctrine of pre-emptive war, and planned the militarization of space. After the events of September 11, 2001, they unleashed on its own territory the “war on terror”, which was used to justify attacks around the world and a permanent state of war. Now, the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons is increasingly lowered and their use always seems only a matter of time.
For some decades now, the world has been living in the shadow of the probable nuclear outcomes of the “conflicts” that Washington unleashes anywhere in the world. Their goals are either to impose or prevent any free trade agreement by violent means, to overthrow the governments that it calls “failed” and the popular movements that resist the global corporate empire; to promote the plundering of oil and other resources in the weakest countries, or other unspeakable ends.
With an idiot as characterized by his lies and tricks as Trump that the American population currently suffers as President, Humanity has no choice. It must resign itself to waiting for a phenomenon of popular intelligence among the citizens of that great nation, one that that will prevent the magnate from being able to manipulate his election once again, with whatever ignominious recourse he has to appeal to violate the popular will.
Things are much more dangerous in the highly-charged environment that racism has created these days, with the vicious murder of Black American citizen George Floyd by a white police officer in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
June 1, 2020
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Capitalist Crisis Worse than Covid-19
The Capitalist Crisis is Worse than Covid-19
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The confinement finally decreed in the United States to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic has crippled the capitalist economy and thus demolished the process of capital accumulation, writes William I. Robinson, a U.S. professor of sociology specializing in political economy, globalization, Latin America, and historical materialism at the University of California, Santa Barbara
“The fact that this economic paralysis is throwing tens of millions of workers into a crisis of survival is entirely fortuitous for the transnational capitalist class’ concern to immediately resume the machinery of profit, since capital cannot remain idle while it remains capital. The impulse to revive accumulation explains the fact that in many American cities there have been public demonstrations by the ultra-right-wing to demand the lifting of the quarantine, just as the most reactionary sectors of capital promoted the Tea Party in the wake of the financial collapse of 2008, a movement that in turn mobilized in support of Trumpism.
Although the protests seem spontaneous, they have in fact been organized by conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, and the American Council on Legislative Exchange (coo ALEC), which brings together the CEOs of large corporations along with local right-wing legislators from across the United States.
Donald Trump inflamed the protesters through a series of tweets, including one calling to “Free (the state of) Virginia, and for protecting its great Second Amendment, which is under siege.” The call to defend this amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms, was almost a call for armed insurrection. In the state of Michigan, armed Trump supporters blocked traffic to prevent the flow of aid. A few days ago, Trump claimed to have “total” power to lift the quarantine.
Despite its populist rhetoric, Trump has served the interests of the transnational capitalist class well by implementing a neoliberal program ranging from regressive tax reform and extensive deregulation and privatization to an expansion of capital subsidies, social spending cuts and union repression.
Trump – himself a member of the transnational capitalist class – picked up where he left off in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse and forged a social base among those sectors of the (mostly white) working class that had previously enjoyed privileges such as stable, well-paid jobs, and that in recent years have suffered acute socio-economic destabilization and downward mobility in capitalist globalization.
Like the Tea Party that preceded him, Trump has been able to arouse increasing social anxiety among these sectors, from a radical critique of the capitalist system to a racist and patriotic mobilization against scapegoats such as immigrants. These Trumpist tactics have turned these sectors into shock forces for the ultra-right-wing capitalist agenda that has brought them to the brink of a truly fascist project.
The growing crisis of global capitalism has led to a rapid political polarization in global society between an insurgent left and ultra-right and neo-fascist forces that have gained adherents in many countries of the world. Both forces draw on the same social base of the millions of people devastated by neo-liberal austerity, impoverishment, precarious employment and their relegation to the ranks of superfluous humanity. The level of global social polarization and inequality is unprecedented at this time.
The richest 1% of humanity controls more than half of the planet’s wealth while the lowest 80% have to make do with just 4.5% of that wealth. As popular discontent against this inequality spreads, the ultra-right and neo-fascist mobilization plays a critical role in the effort by dominant groups to channel such discontent into support for the agenda of the transnational capitalist class, disguised in populist rhetoric.
In this context, the conservative groups are determined to organize a far-right response to the health emergency and the economic crisis, involving a greater dose of ideological subterfuge and a renewed mobilization of their shock forces than to demand the lifting of the lockdown, a resource that could well require the State to provide aid to millions of poor workers and families instead of insisting on the immediate reopening of the economy.
May 25, 2020.
This commentary may be reproduced citing the newspaper Por Esto! of Merida, Mexico as the source.
Other Dimensions with the Virus
By Domingo Amuchastegui Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews. Not a few specialists on the Cuban issue – some with morbid jubilation and others with serious concern – evaluate, from the outside, the current situation on the island in increasingly alarming terms, to the point of using the famous formula of a “perfect storm” to describe what is coming. Without a doubt, the situation may reach profiles of extreme gravity, but – understandably – not in the dimension of public health and healthcare to the population. Here the country’s health system – even in extreme emergency conditions – is still proving to be very effective. Some data (April 15) from official sources indicate that 2,466 people have been hospitalized, of which 814 have been confirmed, 151 have recovered and 24 have died. Compared to the rest of Latin America, Cuba presents a much smaller picture. This is not the case when we examine the economic dimension. But, beware of blaming the virus or the economic warfare unleashed by the Trump administration. It is not by chance that Cuban economist Ricardo Torres (Progreso Semanal, 4/8/2020) makes clear: “The Cuban economy was already showing a gloomy picture before the beginning of the current epidemic. This panorama was clearly noticed when the average annual economic growth was falling unstoppably, with 2.7% in 2010-2015 and by 2016-2019 it was maintaining the same trend, with a growth of only 1.4% (data provided by Torres). This macroeconomic dimension of Torres is complemented by key data provided by another well-known Cuban economist, Juan Triana Cordoví, in an analysis (OnCuba News 4/8/2020): “In the 1985-1986 biennium the total harvested area was 1,328,600 hectares, production reached 68.5 million tons of products and yields were 51.6% tons per hectare”. And he adds the comparison with the results between 2015 and 2016 (Note: the embargo persisted, but Trump had not started its economic war); “The harvested area was 421,600 hectares (Note: Almost one million less), production was 18.1 million tons (Note: 50 million tons less) and yields per hectare were 43 tons per hectare, or 8 tons less. If official policy to date calls for a drastic reduction in food imports, the determining factor is its failed policy for decades in the area of domestic food production. And may I add: this element – food production – is essential for good health. By way of conclusion, Triana connects these numbers with the issue of the virus and emphasizes: “The pandemic emphasizes something that almost everyone has known for many, many years: the strategy of having a food production system that is as solid as possible, something that we have never achieved.” Torres’ conclusion in this area is very similar and precise, in the following terms: “It is time to recognize that the current production and distribution scheme is a complete failure, and needs to be revised from its foundations. In that review, the private and cooperative sector must be empowered. The potential and results of Cuba’s health system are there. They are widely recognized internationally, including by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Not least, the successes of the industry and research in the bio-pharmaceutical sector are there. It is not by chance that at this critical time, some twenty countries, including most of the CARICOM countries, Italy (Lombardy and Turin regions), Andorra, Qatar, South Africa, Angola, Venezuela and others have contracted the medical services available on the Island. However, such a successful component is not combined or complemented by the economic picture previously presented by two well-known Cuban economists. Nevertheless, the health services factor (doctors in the first place) and bio-pharmaceutical products have been significantly affected and reduced by the expulsion of the doctors from Brazil by Bolsonaro – contrary to the favorable opinions of all the municipalities where they were providing their services, the political turnaround of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno and the coup d’état in Bolivia. Figures are not yet available to measure the extent to which the medical services currently contracted and the markets for bio-pharmaceuticals can compensate, and to what extent, for the hemispheric setbacks noted above. In such a context, it should be concluded that Cuba is entering a phase of acute recession and that its GDP could be reduced by any amount, which is very difficult to calculate at this point. Torres summarizes it as follows: “A substantial negative impact is inevitable: open, under strong sanctions, dependent on tourism and no access to any external compensation mechanism in the form of contingent loans from international financial organizations. Other dimensions that aggravate this situation are: 1- The total paralysis of the tourist industry in the short term and the many uncertainties regarding its eventual recovery in the short-and medium- term, as well as a significant reduction in the flow of remittances from Cuban immigrants, due to two factors: a. A reduction in the income of these immigrants and b. The interruption of travel and the total interruption of monetary flows in this way. 2- The pressures arising from Cuba’s financial obligations with respect to its foreign debt and short-term commercial debts. The G-20 has agreed on a moratorium on the debt of 70 poor countries (40 of them African) until December, with French President Emmanuel Macron insisting on the hypothesis of forgiving significant portions of this debt. However, Cuba does not fall into this group of beneficiaries and will have to negotiate a similar treatment on a bilateral basis with the Paris Club, with its European (Spain in the first place) and Asian (China in the first place) creditors. Under these conditions, and their uncertain prolongation, it is impossible to imagine that the Cuban authorities can expect an improvement in their already very low levels of EI. 3- In parallel with the pandemic, the crisis in the oil markets has affected and will affect in the near future the payment capacity of two large Cuban debtors for cooperation projects, Venezuela and Angola. Likewise, it is not to be expected in the immediate future investments from both in any sphere of the Cuban economy, including the important sphere of oil. 4- The multi-million dollar projects agreed upon with Russia at the end of last year will be postponed indefinitely, with a very recent negative precedent. Rosneft, Russia’s major oil company, gave in to extra-territorial pressures and threats from the Trump administration and announced the end of its operations in Venezuela. If so, serious doubts could be raised about its current and future operations in the energy sphere with Cuba. A very similar panorama is presented in the relations and agreements between Havana and Beijing, but with a very significant difference: China is Cuba’s main trading partner and has been pending for years the execution of multiple agreed projects and the granting or not of new soft loans and forgiveness of portions of Cuba’s high debt with China. 5- Projects and measures to reform or redesign Cuba’s inoperative economic system will once again be “frozen”, pending improvements in circumstances. Once again, the Cuban leadership’s ability to survive and recover is being put to the test – this time in the face of unusual dimensions of extreme gravity. Whether or not the willingness to change and the circumstances to come will have the last word.
Por Domingo Amuchastegui No pocos especialistas del tema cubano -unos con júbilo morboso y otros con seria preocupación- valoran desde el exterior la actual situación en la Isla en términos cada vez más alarmantes, al punto de utilizar la famosa fórmula de una “tormenta perfecta” para describir lo que se avecina. Sin lugar a dudas, la situación puede alcanzar perfiles de extrema gravedad, pero -entiéndase bien- no en la dimension de la salud pública y asistencia sanitaria a la población. En esto el sistema de salud del país -incluso en condiciones de emergencia extrema- da todavía sobradas muestras de su eficacia. Algunos datos (abril 15) de fuentes oficiales consignan 2 466 hospitalizados, de estos 814 confirmados, 151 recuperados y 24 fallecidos. En comparación con el resto de los países de América Latina, Cuba presenta un cuadro realmente menor. No ocurre lo mismo cuando examinamos la dimension económica. Pero, mucho cuidado con culpar al virus o a la guerra económica desatada por la administración Trump. No por casualidad aclara el economista cubano Ricardo Torres (Progreso Semanal, 4/8/2020): “La economía cubana ya exhibía un panorama sombrío antes del comienzo de la actual epidemia.” Este panorama se advertía claramente cuando el crecimiento económico promedio annual descendía de forma imparable, con un 2,7% en el 2010-2015 y para el 2016-2019 mantenía la misma tendencia, con un crecimiento de apenas el 1.4% (datos que aporta Torres). Esta dimensión macroeconómica de Torres, se complementa con datos claves que nos ofrece otro bien conocido economista cubano, Juan Triana Cordoví, en un análisis (OnCuba News 4/8/2020).: “En el bienio 1985-1986 la superficie cosechada total fue de 1 328 600 hectáreas, la producción alcanzó los 68,5 millones de toneladas de productos y los rendimientos fueron de 51,6% toneladas por hectárea.” Y agrega la comparación con los resultados entre el 2015 y 2016 (Nota: persistía el embargo, pero Trump no había comenzado su guerra económica); “La superficie cosechada fue de 421 600 hectáreas (Nota: Obsérvese: Casi un millón menos), la producción fue de 18,1 millones de toneladas (Nota: 50 millones de toneladas menos) y los rendimientos por hectáarea fueron de 43 toneladas por hectárea, o sea, 8 toneladas menos. Si la política oficial hasta hoy clama por una drástica reducción de las importación de alimentos, el factor determinante es su fracasada política durante décadas en la esfera de la producción doméstica de alimentos. Y me permito añadir: este elemento -la producción de alimentos- es esencial para una buena salud. A manera de conclusion, Triana conecta estos números con el tema del virus y subraya: “La pandemia enfatiza algo que desde hace muchísimos años casi todos sabemos: lo estratégico de tener un sistema de producción de alimentos lo más sólido possible, algo que no hemos logrado jamás.” La conclusión de Torres en este terreno es muy similar y precisa, en los términos siguientes: “Ya es hora de que se reconozca que el esquema de producción y distribución actual es un fracaso rotundo,y requiere ser revisado desde sus fundamentos. En esa revision, el sector privado y cooperativo debe ser empoderado.” Las potencialidades y resultados del sistema de salud de Cuba están ahí. Tienen amplio reconocimiento internacional, incluyendo la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) y la Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS). En no menor medida se suman los éxitos de la industria e investigaciones del sector biofarmacéutico. No por casualidad en estos momentos críticos, una veintena de países, incluyendo la mayoría de los países integrantes del CARICOM, Italia (regiones de Lombardía y Turín), Andorra, Qatar, Africa del Sur, Angola, Venezuela y otros han contratado los servicios médicos de que dispone la Isla. Pero, semejante componente exitoso no se conjuga ni es complementado por el cuadro económico antes presentado por dos economistas cubanos bien conocidos. No obstante, el factor servicios de salud (médicos en primer lugar) y productos biofarmacéuticos se ha visto sensiblemente afectado y reducido por la expulsion de los médicos de Brasil por Bolsonaro -contrariando el criterio favorable de todas las municipalidades donde los mismos prestaban sus servicios, el viraje politico de presidente ecuatoriano Lenin Moreno y la asonada golpista de Bolivia. No se disponen aún de cifras que permitan medir en qué medida los servicios médicos contratados en la actualidad y los mercados para los biofarmacéuticos puedan compensar, y en qué medida, los reveses hemisféricos antes apuntados. En semejante contexto, concluir que Cuba entra en una fase de aguda recesión y que su PIB podrá reducirse en cualquier magnitud, bien difícil de calcular a esta altura. Torres lo sintetiza de la manera siguiente: “Un impacto negativo sustancial es inevitable: abierta, bajo Fuertes sanciones, dependiente del turismo y nulo acceso a algún mecanismo de compensación externa en la forma de préstamos contingents de organismos financieros internacionales.” Otras dimensiones que agravan esta situación son: 1- La paralización total de la industria turística a corto plazo y las muchas incertidumbres sobre su eventual recuperación a corto y mediano plazo asi como una sensible reducción del flujo de las remesas de los cubanos emigrados atendiendo a dos condicionantes: a. Reducción de los ingresos de estos emigrados y b. La interrupción de los viajes y la interrupción total de los flujos monetarios por esta vía. 2- Las presiones derivadas de las obligaciones financieras de Cuba con respecto a su deuda externa y adeudos comerciales a corto plazo. El G-20 ha acordado una moratoria sobre la deuda de 70 países pobres (40 de ellos africanos) hasta diciembre, insistiendo el presidente francés, Emmanuel Macron, en la hipótesis de perdonar porciones signficativas de dicha deuda. Pero, Cuba no entra en dicho grupo de beneficiados y tendrá que negociar un tratamiento similar sobre bases bilaterales con el Club de París, con sus acreedores europeos (España en primer lugar) y asiáticos (China en primer lugar). En estas condiciones, y su prolongación incierta, es imposible imaginarse que las autoridades cubanas puedan esperar una mejoría en sus ya reducídisimos niveles de IE. 3- Paralelo a la pandenmia, la crisis en los mercados petroleros han afectado y afectarán en el futuro próximo la capacidad de pago de dos grandes deudores de Cuba por concepto de proyectos de cooperación, Venezuela y Angola. Igualmente, no es de esperar en lo inmediato inversiones de parte de ambos en ninguna esfera de la economía cubana, incluyendo la importante esfera del petróleo. 4- Los proyectos multimillonarios acordados con Rusia a finales del pasado año se verán aplazados por tiempo indefinido, con un precedente negativo de muy reciente fecha. Rosneft, la gran empresa petrolera de Rusia, cedió ante las presiones y amenazas extraterritoriales de la administración Trump y anunció el fin de sus operaciones en Venezuela, en cuyo caso cabe plantearse serias dudas sobre sus operaciones, actuales y futuras, en la esfera energética con Cuba. Un panorama muy similar se presenta en las relaciones y acuerdos de La Habana con Beijing, pero con una diferencia muy significativa: China es el principal socio comercial de Cuba y tiene pendiente desde hace años la ejecución de múltiples proyectos acordados y el otorgamiento o no de nuevos préstamos blandos y perdón de porciones de la elevada deuda de Cuba con China. 5- Los proyectos y medidas de reforma o rediseño del inoperante Sistema económico de Cuba quedarán, una vez más, “congelados,” a la espera de mejoras circunstancias. De nuevo se pone a prueba -esta vez frente a dimensiones inusuales de extrema gravedad- la capacidad de sobrevivencia y recuperación de parte de la dirigencia cubana. La disposición o no al cambio y las circunstancias venideras dirán la última palabra.
Other Dimensions in the Time of the Corona Virus
April 2020OTRAS DIMENSIONES EN TIEMPOS DEL CORONAVIRUS
Avril 2020
Challenges and Priorities for Cuba Today
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Challenges and Priorities for Cuba Today
By Domingo Amuchastegui, April 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Cuba faces its most critical and complex situation today. This is the result of the interaction of three factors. The most recent is the multifaceted impact of the arrival of the coronavirus or COVID-19. Its impact ranges from damage to the health system and the general population to the impact on its economy (see Coronovirus and Cuba). Added to this is the Trump administration’s economic warfare against Cuba, and with no less perjured gravitation, the persistence of a proven ineffective model that resists deepening and widening the path of reform.
In such a context, it is essential to examine the challenges and priorities that in the short and immediate term – and with a level of urgency as never before – the Cuban leadership will have to deal with and find the best, and most lasting, solutions that will ensure its recovery and stabilization.
At the level of INTERNAL SECTOR:
- Minimize and reduce to a minimum the complexities and costs of the effects of the pandemic in the shortest possible time.
- Undertake the redesign of the economic model with the necessary depth and comprehensiveness, which has been lacking in the reform measures adopted so far, which appear as isolated and incomplete patches that fail to energize the entire economy at the levels it requires. No one should be shocked by what I am proposing. Let’s remember Fidel Castro’s words to journalist Jefrrey Goldberg for the important US publication The Atlantic (9/8/2010): “The Cuban Model Doesn’t Even Work for Us Anymore.
- Such a redesign in which the State concentrates on what Cuban economists repeat over and over again: the fundamental means of production (key sectors) of the island (sugar industry, not the agricultural part; nickel/cobalt, bio-pharmaceuticals, tourism industry, exportable medical services, energy, citrus, fishing, rum and tobacco), which must be consistently opened to their association with foreign capital (an aspect that President Díaz-Canel and Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, have repeatedly insisted on, but still not translated into actions and projects consistent with such an imperative).
- At the same time, to get rid of the heavy and unproductive burden that has been represented for decades by the very costly and unproductive ownership and management of tens of thousands of small businesses that must be transferred to the cooperative and private sectors, in a broad and sustained project to promote SMEs.
- Recovery and effective revitalization of the key sectors mentioned above in terms of productivity and export capacity. SMEs -private, cooperatives and tenants or farmers- should be exempted from the tax burdens and bureaucratic interference that hinder and assimilate their normal functioning and development, including their more functional and flexible linkage to export/import and financing processes and space in the national banking system. Open these sectors to investment by Cuban emigrants.
- a) To significantly increase productivity levels and reduce production costs, especially in the tourism and bio-pharmaceutical industries; b) To abolish the mechanisms of mandatory hiring by foreign companies through state agencies and the tax burden that this mechanism entails; c) To increase the number of jobs in the tourism and bio-pharmaceutical industries. Guarantee the sale of all supplies and the purchase of miscellaneous equipment to SMEs (otherwise theft, corruption and the so-called underground economy will continue to reign); d. Reduce by no less than 50% the tax on purchases in shops in convertible currency (MLC)
- Last but not least: To make definitive and comprehensive progress in the process of monetary and exchange rate unification in order to stabilize in a real way the income of the population and the exchange and transfer rate of foreign companies operating in Cuba. At the level of the EXTERNAL SECTOR:
- To face and solve with promptness and effectiveness the obligations of the external debt as well as the commercial credits owed.
- In line with the official emphasis on the need to promote foreign investment (FI) as a strategic component, review and update the Investment Law of 2014 in order to make it more attractive and to encourage the arrival of foreign capital, including in particular foreign direct investment (FDI) and other modalities that are more effectively in line with the requirements of the FI. To avoid at all costs, negotiating disasters such as those conducted with GLAXO and the Siemens/Total energy project, among others. Rationalize the Portfolio of Opportunities that is offered every year to foreign business people attending the International Fair of Havana (FIHAV), making it more selective and with greater incentives.
- As a matter of urgency, design a strategy -and an effective practice- to boost the growth of investments in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM) and its Container Terminal, since so far its income barely covers its operation and maintenance costs. This project – the most important in the Cuban economy so far in the new century – businesses may perish due to starvation or the absence of relevant projects. Attracting important projects with the capacity to re-export to the entire region is no less indispensable.
- It is time for the Cuban leadership to reflect on its pariah status with respect to the international financial system, its institutions and mechanisms, and to consider exploring and advancing in this direction, which could well begin through levels of partnership and cooperation with the World Bank. If the World Bank is successful in this effort, and considering that the OAS sanctions were already lifted several years ago, Havana could manage – without a formal return to that organization – an effort that could be sponsored by CELAC members and that would result in some level of partnership and cooperation with the IDB. Such steps would undoubtedly serve to build confidence and encourage the flow of EI and credit to the Cuban economy.
Retos y prioridades para la Cuba de hoy
Por Domingo Amuchastegui
Avril 2020
Cuba enfrenta hoy su más crítica y compleja situación. Ello es resultado de la interacción de tres factores. El más reciente lo constituye el impacto multifacético de la llegada del coronavirus o COVID-19, que va desde los perjuicios al sistema de salud y a la población en general hasta el impacto a su economía (Ver Coronovirus y Cuba). A esto se suma la guerra económica de la administración Trump contra Cuba, y con una gravitación no menos perjuidical, la persistencia de un modelo probadamente inoperante que se resiste a profundizar y ampliar el camino de las reformas.
En semejante contexto, resulta imprescindible un examen de los desafíos y prioridades que a corto e inmediato plazo -y con un nivel de urgencia como nunca antes- la dirigencia cubana tendrá que lidiar con ello y encontrar las mejores, y más duraderas, soluciones que aseguren su recuperación y estabilización.
A nivel de SECTOR INTERNO:
- Aminorar y reducir al mínimo las complejidades y costos de los efectos de la pandemia en el más breve posible plazo.
- Acometer el rediseño del modelo económico con la integralidad y profundidad necesaria, y de lo cual han carecido las medidas de reformas hasta ahora adoptadas, que aparecen como parches aislados e incompletes que no logran dinamizar la totalidad de la economíaa los niveles que la misma require. Nadie se escandalice por lo que planteo. Recordemos las palabras de Fidel Castro al periodista Jefrrey Goldberg para la importante publicación estadounidense The Atlantic (9/8/2010): “The Cuban Model Doesn’t Even Work for Us Anymore.”
- Un rediseño tal en los cuales el Estado se concentre en lo que los economistas cubanos repiten una y otra vez: los medios fundamentales de producción (sectores claves) de la isla (industria azucarera, no su parte agrícola; níquel/cobalto, biofarmacéuitica, industria turística, servicios médicos exportables, energía, cítricos, pesca, ron y tabaco), que deben abrirse consistemente a su asociación con el capital extranjero (aspecto éste en el que viene insistiendo repeidamente el presidente Díaz-Canel y el Ministro de Economía, Alejandro Gil, pero todavía sin traducirse en acciones y proyectos consistentes con semejante imperativo).
- Paralelamente, desembarazarse de la pesada e improductiva carga que ha venido representando durante décadas la propiedad y administración costosísima e improductiva de decenas de miles de pequeños negocios que deben ser transferidos a los sectores cooperativo y privado, en un Amplio y sostenido proyecto de fomento de las PYMES.
- Recuperación y efectiva dinamización de los sectores claves antes apuntados en términos de productividad y capacidad exportadora. Las PYMES -privadas, cooperativas y arrendatarios o finqueros- deben ser eximidas de las cargas fiscales e injerencias burocráticas que frenan y asifixian hoy su normal funcionamiento y desarrollo, incluyendo su articulación más funcional y flexible a los procesos de exportación/importación y de financiamiento y un espacio en el sistema bancario nacional. Abrir estos sectores a las inversiones de la emigración cubana.
- Cuestiones puntuales de suma importancia son: a) Aumentar sensiblemente los niveles de productividad y reducir costos de producción, en especial en la industria turística y en la biofarmacéutica; b) Suprimir los mecanismos de contratación obligatoria por compañías extranjeras por intermedio de agencias estatales y la sobrecarga impositiva que este mecanismo acompaña; c. Garantizar la venta de todos los suministros y alquier de equipos varios, a las PYMES (de lo contrario seguirán reinando el robo, la corrupción y la llamada economía sumergida); d. Reducir en no menos de un 50% el gravamen sobre las compras en los comercios en moneda convertible (MLC).
- Por ultimo y no por ello de menor importancia: Avanzar definitivamente, y de manera integral, en el proceso de unificación monetaria y cambiaria a fin de estabilizar de manera real los ingresos de la población y de cambios y transferencias de las empresas extranjeras que operan en Cuba.
A nivel de SECTOR EXTERNO:
- Afrontar y solventar con prontitud y eficacia las obligaciones de la deuda externa asi como de los créditos comerciales adeudados.
- En consonancia con el énfasis oficial en la necesidad de promocionar como componente estratégico la inversion extranjera (IE), revisar y actualizar la Ley de Inversiones del 2014 en función de hacer más atractivo e incentivar la llegada del capital del capital extranjero, incluída de manera destacada la inversion extranjera directa (FDI) y otras modalidades que se ajusten más aficazmente a los requerimientos de la IE. Evitar a toda costa, desastres negociadores como las conducidos con GLAXO y el proyecto energético Siemens/Total, entre otros. Racionalizar la Cartera de Oportunidades que cada año se oferta a emporesarios extranjeros asistentes a la Feria Internacional de La Habana (FIHAV), haciéndola más selectiva y con mayores incentivos.
- Con máxima urgencia, diseñar una estrategia -y una práctica efectiva- para dinamizar el crecimiento de las inversiones en la Zona especial de Desarrollo de Mariel (ZEDM) y su Terminal de Contenedores pues hasta ahora sus ingresos apenas cubren sus costos de operaciones y mantenimiento. Este proyecto -el más importante en la economía cubana en lo que va del nuevo siglo- puede perecer por inanición o ausencia de proyectos relevantes. Atraer proyectos de peso y con capacidad reexportadora hacia toda la region, es algo no menos indispensable.
- Es hora ya de que la dirigencia cubana reflexione acerca de su status de paria con respecto al sistema financiero internacional, sus institucones y mecanismos, y considere explorar y avanzar en esta dirección que bien pudiera comenzar por medio de niveles de asociación y cooperación con el Banco Mundial. Caso de tener éxito en esta aporoximación al Banco Mundial, y onsiderando que las sanciones de la OEA ya fueron levantadas hace ya varios años, La Habana pudiera gestionar -sin un regreso formal a dicha organziación- gestion que pudiera ser auspiciada por miembros de la CELAC y que se tradujera en algún nivel de asociación y cooperación con el BID. Semejantes pasos, indudablemente, servirían para dar confianza e incentivar los flujos de IE y créditos parfa la economía cubana.
Coronavirus and a Corrupting Pandemic
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Coronavirus: Cutting the Illicit Will Prevent the Advance of a Corrupting Pandemic
By Jorge Rodríguez Hernández
April 28, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
“Now more than ever, we must rescue respect for the law and fight a corrupt socialism that masks the dangerous underground economy.
Graziella Pogolotti (La gangrena, Juventud Rebelde, 1 May 2016, p.3)
Thirty or more years ago, as part of my research – still in progress – on the underground economy and its different features, I wrote that speculation constitutes the visible face of the black market, due to the role played by those who plunder the goods of the public treasury, in collusion with drivers, through crime on wheels, and through a sort of symbiosis with citizens who work in state agencies, without ruling out links with marginal subjects. As you will infer, it is a complex skein.
We are in the presence of an issue similar to a hydra, with different tentacles, whose neutralization requires the use of an integral and multidisciplinary approach. The recent dismantling of a clandestine network of 13 members, who were engaged in stealing different equipment and goods from the warehouses of the National Medical Supplies Company (ENSUME), located in Berroa, east of Havana, demonstrates the need and urgency to cut off these illicit activities, in order to prevent the advance of this corrupting pandemic, in the midst of Cuba’s confrontation with another pandemic that is also lethal: COVID-19.
For the Cuban psychiatrist and criminalist, Dr. Fernando Barral, a student of economic crime on the island, the shortage is a “contributing circumstance”, but this expert believes that “one cannot wait for everything to be in place to resolve this phenomenon to some extent”, and whose existence compromises the survival of the Revolution, as has been said repeatedly.
During the crisis of the 1990s, when the country lived through the Special Period in peacetime, the mismatch between supply and demand reinforced the tentacles and space of the black market, and during that time the amount of transactions on the black market grew more than 20 times, according to economists’ calculations.
When I mention speculation and hoarding, criminal figures in the current Penal Code, I am not talking about small-scale operations, nor about a certain number of people who have found a way of life in this illicit act -which should not be underestimated and much less justified-, but I am also referring to the thinking heads of large smuggling operations, who transfer goods and products from state agencies to the black market.
Cuba must take very much into account the circumstances of the failure of the French Revolution, which was not because of the extremist actions of terrorism, but because it did not find ways to consolidate the masses and direct them against both the big and the small parasites.
In the script applied to the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) by the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), between 1953 and 1961, Allen W. Dulles, was “actively and constantly encouraging (…) the despotism of officials, bribery, corruption, lack of principle”, and his “main bet” was on “the youth”, which “we will corrupt, demoralize, pervert”.
The causes of the failure of socialism in the former USSR always deserve a critical and instructive look from Cuba, both here and now, and towards the future. To corroborate this last point, there is “the precedent of the mythical “Uncle Basia” (the figure of the clandestine speculator on a large scale who emerged in the Brezhnev era), who with the penguins of profits accumulated in 20 years is today devastating the auctions of state property with constant and resounding money,” as the magazine Bohemia reported in July 1992.
Coronavirus: cortar los ilícitos impedirá avance de pandemia corruptora
por Jorge Rodríguez Hernández
Abril 28, 2020
“Ahora más que nunca, hay que rescatar el respeto a la ley y combatir un socialismo corruptor que enmascara la peligrosa economía sumergida”.
Graziella Pogolotti (La gangrena, Juventud Rebelde, 1 de mayo de 2016, p.3)
Hace 30 o más años, como parte de mi investigación- vigente aún- sobre economía sumergida y sus disímiles rasgos, escribí que la especulación constituye la cara visible del mercado negro, por el papel que desempeñan quienes depredan los bienes de la hacienda pública, en contubernio con choferes, mediante el delito sobre ruedas, y a través de una suerte de simbiosis con ciudadanos que laboran en las dependencias estatales, sin descartar vínculos con sujetos marginales. Como inferirán, se trata de una compleja madeja.
Estamos en presencia de un asunto semejante a una hidra, con disímiles tentáculos, cuya neutralización pasa por el empleo de un enfoque integral y multidisciplinario. La reciente desarticulación de una red clandestina de 13 integrantes, quienes se dedicaban a sustraer disímiles equipos y bienes en almacenes de la Empresa Nacional de Suministros Médicos (ENSUME), ubicados en Berroa, al este de La Habana, demuestra la necesidad y urgencia de cortar estos ilícitos, para impedir el avance de esta pandemia corruptora, en medio del enfrentamiento de Cuba contra otra pandemia también letal: la COVID-19.
Para el psiquiatra y criminalista cubano, doctor Fernando Barral, estudioso de la delincuencia económica en la Isla, la escasez resulta una “circunstancia contribuyente”, pero dicho experto considera que “no puede esperarse a que haya de todo para resolver este fenómeno en cierta medida”, y cuya existencia compromete la supervivencia de la Revolución, como se ha dicho, de forma reiterada.
Durante la crisis de los años 90 del pasado siglo XX, cuando el país vivió el Período Especial en tiempo de paz, el desencuentro entre oferta y demanda, reforzó los tentáculos y espacio del mercado negro, y en el transcurso de esa época el monto de las transacciones en el mismo crecieron más de 20 veces, según cálculos de economistas.
Cuando menciono la especulación y el acaparamiento, figuras delictivas en el Código Penal vigente, no hablo de operaciones de poca monta, ni de una determinada cifra de personas que han encontrado un modo de vida en este ilícito -lo cual no debe se subestimado y mucho menos justificado-, sino me refiero también a las cabezas pensantes de grandes operaciones de contrabando, quienes trasvasan mercancías y productos de las dependencias estatales hacia el mercado negro.
Cuba debe tener muy en cuenta las circunstancias del fracaso de la Revolución Francesa, lo cual no fue a causa de las acciones extremistas del terrorismo, sino por no haber encontrado vías para consolidar a las masas y dirigirlas tanto en contra de los parásitos grandes como de los pequeños.
En el guion aplicado a la ex Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas (URSS) por parte del jefe de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia de Estados Unidos (CIA), entre 1953 y 1961, Allen W. Dulles, se propició de una forma “activa y constante (…) el despotismo de los funcionarios, el soborno, la corrupción, la falta de principios”, y su “principal apuesta” fue “la juventud”, la cual “corromperemos, desmoralizaremos, pervertiremos”.
Las causas del fracaso del socialismo en la ex URSS, merece siempre una mirada crítica y aleccionadora por parte de Cuba, tanto aquí y ahora, como hacia el futuro. Para corroborar esto último, ahí está “el precedente del mítico “tío Basia” (la figura del especulador clandestino a gran escala surgido en la era Brezhnev), quien con los pingües beneficios acumulados en 20 años arrasa hoy con dinero constante y sonante en las subastas de la propiedad estatal”, como reseñó la revista Bohemia en julio de 1992.
Refutation of Religious Fundamentalism
Refutation of Religious Fundamentalism
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
According to the German sociologist, philosopher, economist, jurist, historian and political scientist Max Weber, considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration, Protestantism is one of the foundational elements of the origin of capitalism.
Based on this same logic of development, it is evident that the reactionary and traditional neo-Pentecostal church – born in and exported by the United States – is a fundamental part of the current neoliberal phase of capitalism. It promotes the non-intervention of the State in society, is in favor of the cruelest individualism, alien to all social solidarity and which even privileges religious control even over the health of the population.
This is approximately how Jorge Elbaum, doctor of economics, sociologist, researcher, teacher, journalist and poet, sees it in his article “Shepherds of the Virus”.
The model of the charismatic mass pastors was exported by the United States to Latin America in the 1970s to weaken Liberation Theology, a current of the Catholic Church committed to the destiny of the poorest.
Pastor Gerard Glenn, a leader of the New Deliverance Evangelistic congregation in Richmond, challenged recommendations of social isolation by stating that “God is greater than this dreaded virus” and warned that he would not consent to the temporary closure of his church. “I’m essential as a preacher because I talk to God,” he said. Glenn died last March 22 from a coronavirus, but his wife is still fighting the disease.
The same fate befell Landon Spradlin, leader of Virginia’s evangelical community, who became a staunch defender of Donald Trump’s tenets. On March 25, he died at age 65, shortly after claiming that the quarantine was basically aimed at “manipulating the lives of American citizens” and that its communication through the media was producing “unnecessary terror.
In mid-April, Life Way Christian Resources of Tennessee published the results of a survey on pastors’ perceptions of the pandemic: 81 percent of those surveyed said that “the love of many believers is dissipating as a result of social distancing,” which is why their congregations should be kept open.
In South Korea, the Church of Jesus – known as the congregation of Shincheon, which promotes mass assemblies – became the epicentre of the COVID contagion in that country. Its leader, Pastor Lee Man-Hee, urged his followers to oppose the government’s harsh isolation measures. Sixty percent of the total number of infected people in the country belong to this group.
In crisis situations like the present one, religious fundamentalisms (of all denominations) counterpose human regulations to the law of God, demanding obedience to divine mandates that they supposedly interpret and manage. Their open-minded claims are motivated by expectations of losses in the collection of contributions and tithes from parishioners.
Leaders of denominational orthodoxy believe that lack of income can lead to the failure of their business enterprises. The logical fear generated by the pandemic allows fundamentalist leaders to appeal to apocalyptic discourse and to advise sinners of a return to revealed truth.
In Latin America, the neo-Pentecostal tradition was consolidated by spreading the so-called prosperity gospel, which holds that wealth is a divine gift. Billionaires, for that tradition, are subjects who have been rewarded by the deity and lack responsibility for the inequity they create.
According to their references, they cannot be accused of pettiness because by accumulating wealth they subject the rest of humanity to misery. This ideological position defends sexism and patriarchy, and attacks LGBT identities, feminist movements and/or those who promote the voluntary termination of pregnancy.
May 18, 2020.
This article can be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.