The following article by Diana Raby appeared in the January 2009 issue of National Review.


In the early 1990s there was near unanimity in the media, in Western political circles, and even among academics that the collapse of the Cuban revolution was imminent. Even today, many observers regard it as only a matter of time for Cuba to undergo a transition to democracy (understood as a narrowly defined polyarchy) and a “market economy.”

But the fact that Cuban socialism has survived the extraordinary rigors of the “Special Period” and is still functioning nearly twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall should give pause for thought. Even the prolonged incapacity of Fidel Castro and his subsequent resignation as president has not led to chaos or upheaval, as many predicted. Why then has Cuba survived, and what does it mean for socialist and progressive politics today?

The simple answer is that, for all its problems and deficiencies, the revolutionary order is still viable. Many Cubans still believe in socialist principles; they naturally grumble about shortages and restrictions, but have few illusions about the alternative on offer across the Florida Straits.

But why is this so? What makes Cuba different from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe? To understand this it is necessary to go back to the origins of the revolution and the remarkable transformation that occurred from 1959 to 1963. Before the revolution, Cuba was a U.S. protectorate, a vast sugar plantation where venal “democratic” governments alternated with brutal dictatorships. The idea of a socialist revolution here—or anywhere else in the U.S. “backyard” of the Caribbean and Central America—was unthinkable. So on January 1, 1959, when the dictator Batista fled and the bearded guerrillas entered Havana and Santiago, almost no one anticipated the scope and depth of the changes that were to follow.

The Cuban transition to socialism was one of the most rapid and thorough anywhere in the world: the first and second Agrarian Reform Laws, the nationalization of virtually all large industries and services, the extraordinary literacy campaign and the establishment of free public education at all levels, free universal health care, and the organization of a popular militia and disciplined mass organizations from neighborhood level upwards, all in the space of four years or so.

Yet in the first six months of 1959 all the rhetoric was about democracy and humanism; socialism was scarcely even mentioned until mid-1960, and was not officially adopted as the goal until April 1961, two years and four months after the initial victory (during the Bay of Pigs invasion). The 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) which had led the armed struggle and seized power was a broad and heterogeneous movement that had serious differences with what was then Cuba’s Communist party, the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP). The revolution was immensely popular, but many observers expected (or feared) that it would eventually suffer the same fate as Guatemala five years earlier, where the popular Arbenz government was overthrown by a CIA-sponsored coup.

The tremendous euphoria generated by the revolution in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America, and its initial ideological flexibility, are fundamental for understanding its significance. Taking place in a region and at a time when U.S. hegemony was undisputed, where the great Mexican revolution had been neutralized and progressive movements like those of Sandino in Nicaragua, Grau San Martín in Cuba in 1933, Gaitán in Colombia, and Arbenz in Guatemala had been crushed by overt or covert U.S. intervention, the Cuban triumph had an immediate symbolic impact. On his first trip abroad after victory, to Venezuela in late January 1959, Fidel Castro was received by delirious crowds. In February the then Chilean Senator Salvador Allende declared that “The Cuban revolution does not belong only to you...we are dealing with the most significant movement ever to have occurred in the Americas,” and shortly afterwards Gloria Gaitán, daughter of the assassinated Colombian popular leader, proclaimed that the Cuban experience was “the beginning of the great liberation of Nuestra América [Our America].” Former president of Mexico, Lázaro Cárdenas, author of the 1938 oil nationalization in that country, also gave enthusiastic support to Cuba.

The most obvious distinctive feature of the Cuban revolution—and the essential reason for its ability to avoid the fate of Guatemala, defeating the counter-revolutionary Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961—was the unprecedented military victory of the guerrillas of the Rebel Army over the forces of the dictator Batista. It was also this which would make it possible for Marxists subsequently to present the process as a textbook case of the Leninist thesis of armed workers’ revolution. But the force that seized power was not a Communist or Marxist party, it was a broad democratic movement with an eclectic ideology derived from Cuban and Latin American popular revolutionary traditions and vague notions of social justice and national liberation. The old Communists of the PSP, which did have some roots in the labor movement and among intellectuals but had been compromised by its earlier support for Batista, had initially condemned Fidel Castro and the guerrillas as “petty-bourgeois adventurers” and only started supporting the movement on the eve of victory, late in 1958.

This made it all the more surprising to many observers when the revolutionary leadership, represented above all by Fidel Castro, pushed ahead regardless of all obstacles in the initial three years from early 1959 to 1962, sweeping aside the wealthy Cuban elite and landlord class and defying Washington to expropriate sugar estates and ranches, nationalize industries, purge the state apparatus of Batista supporters, sign trade agreements with the Soviet bloc, and then declare themselves socialist. Was this premeditated sleight-of-hand by a covert Communist leadership, as alleged by many right-wing commentators in the United States? Or was it the indignant reaction of popular nationalists when faced with clumsy and uncomprehending U.S. hostility, as claimed by liberals?

The truth is more complex and more interesting. Having failed to achieve independence in the early nineteenth century along with most of Spain’s American colonies, Cuba later developed a powerful liberation movement with a pronounced popular and radical character. The mambíses, as the popular guerrillas in the thirty-year insurgency against Spanish rule (1868–98) were known, stressed social and racial equality and acquired a precocious anti-imperialist as well as anticolonial consciousness. This was succinctly expressed by the great man of letters and liberation fighter José Martí when he declared in his last letter in 1895: “Everything I have done unto now and all that I shall do hereafter has as its objective to prevent, through the independence of Cuba, the United States of America from falling with added weight on Our America.”

This anti-imperialist spirit was expressed again in the struggle against the dictator Gerardo Machado (1925–33) and the abortive 1933 revolution, which was in many ways a precursor of 1959. Brutal repression combined with a desperate economic situation caused by the world depression led to a popular upheaval in which workers seized sugar mills and raised the red flag, students occupied the presidential palace, and the lower ranks of the army mutinied and overthrew the officer corps. A provisional government under a popular medical professor, Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín, decreed many progressive measures including an agrarian reform, intervention (government control) of the U.S.-owned Cuban Electric Company, a minimum wage, the eight-hour day, and female suffrage. But this revolutionary government had no organized political backing, and it soon became clear that the leader of the rebellious troops, Sergeant Fulgencio Batista, was an opportunist who was willing to work with the U.S. Embassy.

Under the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Washington had just proclaimed the Good Neighbor Policy and was reluctant to send in the marines. But with U.S. warships just off the coast, pressure was exerted on Havana and it came as little surprise when in January 1934 Grau San Martín was overthrown by Batista who now became the power behind the throne. The next twenty-five years would see a merry-go-round of weak puppet presidents, corrupt elected governments, and open dictatorship by Batista, with growing frustration and dis-enchantment among the majority of Cubans, whether workers, peasants, or middle-class. It was in particular the failure of Grau and his associates in the Partido Auténtico (the Authentic Party of the Cuban Revolution) which paved the way for Batista’s 1952–58 dictatorship and the real revolution which followed.

Although the young revolutionaries who coalesced around the activist lawyer Fidel Castro Ruz in the early 1950s had some familiarity with socialist ideas, their intellectual and political background was quite varied and eclectic. Fidel himself was a member of the Partido Ortodoxo which had broken away from the Auténticosa few years earlier in protest of their corruption and abandonment of the principles of 1933. The Ortodoxoleader Eduardo Chibás was a wealthy maverick who had been a student leader in 1933 and gained a mass following from 1949 to 1951 with passionate rhetoric against corruption in his weekly radio broadcasts. With his slogan “Vergüenza contra dinero” (“Honor against money”), Chibás revived the moral idealism which had been a keynote of Cuban radicalism ever since Martí. Chibás shot himself during his radio program in August 1951. There were mass demonstrations of mourning at his funeral, and his populist appeal was the inspiration of the ortodoxos, many of whom would join the M-26-7 a few years later.

Another key figure in the ideological origins of the new revolutionary movement was Antonio Guiteras, a young man who while still a graduate student at the University of Havana had become minister of the interior in Grau San Martín’s short-lived government. It was Guiteras who had been the driving force behind the radical measures decreed in those heady months of 1933, and when Grau was overthrown Guiteras went underground and formed his own insurgent movement, Jóven Cuba(Young Cuba), with an explicitly socialist program. As a popular figure and a socialist activist independent of the Communist Party, Guiteras was clearly a threat and it is not surprising that he was killed in 1935.

Guiteras was a representative of the autonomous Latin American Marxist tradition associated with the Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui, and this would be an important influence on several prominent members of the M-26-7 such as Armando Hart. It was also the main ideological influence on the young Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara who would meet Fidel Castro and his comrades in Mexico in 1955 and become a central figure in the revolution.

But in many ways the fundamental inspiration of the M-26-7 insurgents was the Cuban popular revolutionary tradition of the mambíses, of José Martí and Antonio Maceo, the mulatto general of the liberation forces in the wars against Spanish rule; an ideology of radical egalitarianism, anti-imperialism, and agrarian self-sufficiency. It had much in common with broader Latin American traditions going back to Simón Bolívar with his ideal of continental unity and his distrust of gringo expansionism.
This is not to say that the Cuban revolutionaries of the 1950s were anticommunist or unaffected by European and international Marxist and socialist theories. But most of them were independent from the international Communist movement and also from other organized international tendencies such as the Trotskyists. This independence, and the ideological and tactical flexibility which went with it, was crucial to their success.

By drawing on national popular traditions combined with the sense of frustration and indignation against corruption, repression, and U.S. domination, the revolutionaries were able to achieve not only military victory but also mass popular support and enthusiasm. In January 1959 there was enormous euphoria combined with a sense that anything was possible, and this was expressed in the declarations of the leadership: “The revolution cannot be made in a day, but rest assured that we will carry out the revolution. Rest assured that for the first time the Republic will be completely free and the people will have what they deserve” (Fidel Castro, January 3);4 “the Revolution is as Cuban as the palm trees” and “many people have not yet realized the scope of the change which has occurred in our country” (Fidel, February 24);5 “On the First of January 1959 we had done no more than conclude the war of independence; the Revolution of Martí begins now” (Raúl Castro, March 13).6

In other words, without any reference to Marx, socialism, or class struggle, there was an unequivocal commitment to radical change and to serving the popular interest. Explicit ideological references were to the national revolutionary heritage: defending the agrarian reform in June 1959, Fidel declared that “what we are doing, you gentlemen who defend powerful interests, what we are doing is to fulfill the declarations and the doctrine of our Apostle [Martí], who said that the fatherland belonged to all and was for the good of all”;7 and in July 1959 he quoted Antonio Maceo: “The Revolution will continue as long as there remains an injustice which has not been remedied.”8

That these declarations were not mere rhetoric swiftly became clear as decisive action was taken in all areas of policy, and these actions served to increase the overwhelming popular support for the revolutionary leadership. With such massive support and with a monopoly of armed force, the new authorities in Havana enjoyed unprecedented freedom of action; internal opposition was virtually paralyzed and no political party or organization was able to contest the prestige of Fidel and the M-26-7 which had become in effect the national liberation movement of the Cuban people.

In these circumstances an a priori socialist program would only have been a hindrance: the strength of the revolution derived from its consensual and inclusive character. When socialism was declared, it was more a reflection of the new reality, an unexpected state of affairs which had come about as a result of a dialectical process. The strength of the popular demand for self-determination and social justice combined with the monopolistic structure of the Cuban plantation economy and the direct and inevitable confrontation with U.S. imperialism made a socialist solution the only viable way forward from early 1960 onwards if the revolution were not to collapse through division and incoherence. In terms of political economy, a good analysis of this dynamic is to be found in James O’Connor’s 1970 study, The Origins of Socialism in Cuba.9

The validity of this analysis was confirmed by interviews I conducted in Cuba in the 1990s. Several former members of the M-26-7, when questioned on the evolution of their ideology during the armed struggle and in the first two to three years after the victory of January 1, 1959, declared that their original outlook was democratic, anti-imperialist, and favorable to social justice, but not socialist and certainly not Communist or Marxist-Leninist. It was only at a certain point in the revolutionary transformation, which most of them identify as around mid- to late 1960 or 1961, that they came to the realization that what they were creating in Cuba was a form of socialism; and Fidel’s famous declaration to this effect during the Bay of Pigs invasion simply confirmed this in their minds: “Pues sí: ¡somos socialistas!” (“Well yes: we are socialist!”)

This is to my mind more than just a peculiarity of the Cuban process: it confirms the implications of Gramsci’s argument that for proletarian ideology—Marxist theory—to triumph, it must win the battle for hegemony and become “common sense.” Or to put it another way, the abstractions of Marxist theory must gel with the popular democratic traditions of a specific country before they can become hegemonic. This is perhaps the crucial error of most Communist (and also Trotskyist) parties: the idea that by preaching abstract Marxist-Leninist doctrine they can build an effective mass revolutionary movement.

The revolutionary euphoria of 1959–61 in Cuba had much in common with the broad-based democratic grassroots ideology of the antiglobalization and anticapitalist movements of recent times. The rejection of established parties and dogmas, the belief in direct action, the quest for new and original solutions: these were the characteristics of the creative ferment which swept Cuba in the early years of the revolution. True, from 1962 onwards this originality began to be compromised by the adoption of Soviet models as a result of the alliance necessitated by the Cold War context of the time, but despite this Cuba maintained important aspects of its autonomy and creativity. The “Cuban heresy” of the quest for the “New Man” and the emphasis on moral incentives was an example of this, as was the continued Cuban support for armed revolution in Latin America and Africa (in contradiction to the Soviet aim of “peaceful coexistence”).

After 1970 the apparent failure of the idealistic development strategy associated with “moral incentives” and the defeat of insurgent movements in many countries obliged Cuba to adopt a more orthodox Soviet-style policy. For some fifteen years this appeared to yield results, with high rates of GDP growth and economic stability. But by the mid-eighties it was clear that Cuba’s indebtedness to both the Soviet Union and the capitalist countries was becoming a problem, as was the combination of rigid bureaucratic centralism and material incentives under the Sistema de Dirección y Planificación de la Economía(Economic Management and Planning System).10

It was this which led to the launching of the “Rectification Campaign” in 1986 and to Fidel’s rejection of the Soviet policies of glasnost and perestroika. Seen by many as “Stalinist” or “conservative,” this rejection of Gorbachev’s policies was in fact anything but: it reflected the Cuban leader’s prescient understanding that this type of top-down liberalization would necessarily lead in a capitalist direction. It also reflected the belief that in Cuba, where—unlike the Soviet Union—grassroots participation and revolutionary idealism had not yet been totally crushed by decades of authoritarianism and sometimes brutal repression, socialism could be reinvigorated by a combination of visionary leadership and popular mobilization.
Cuba’s success in surviving the extraordinary rigors of the worst years of the “Special Period” in the mid-1990s cannot possibly be explained in any other way than by the continued vitality of the revolution. The scarcity and hardship was such that any other government would have collapsed in a matter of months. No one who visited Cuba in those years could fail to be impressed by the stoicism and commitment of the Cuban people when power supplies only functioned for a few hours a day, food rotted in the fields for lack of transportation to market, workers spent six hours a day getting to and from workplaces on foot only to find that nothing could be done for want of fuel, and the shelves of the stores were literally bare. This took place in a country that was deluged with images of U.S. consumer society and counter-revolutionary propaganda, and where everyone knew that the Berlin Wall had fallen and that the socialist countries of Eastern Europe had collapsed like ninepins. Yet in Cuba there was only one serious protest, in August 1994, and although some took to rafts to cross the Florida Straits in desperation, the majority remained faithful to the revolution.

A crucial factor in Cuba’s survival was the commitment and example of the leadership, especially Fidel. But another essential point was that the socialist orientation of policy was never abandoned: unlike Sandinista Nicaragua, which under severe pressure in the late eighties adopted IMF recommendations, liberating prices of basic commodities, and marketizing social services, Cuba maintained free universal health care and education and subsidized rates for housing and utilities. It also intensified—rather than abandoning—democratic consultation with the mass of the population regarding the measures to be taken. Just when former Communist leaders were falling over each other to embrace capitalism and Western governments were telling their populations there was no alternative to neoliberalism, the Cuban leaders embarked on an extensive process of consultation involving some 80,000 “workers’ parliaments” throughout the country in order to discuss the measures needed to resolve the economic crisis.

Despite the conventional notion of Cuba as a dictatorship (albeit, for those on the left, a benevolent one), the Cubans have always maintained that they have their own form of socialist democracy. After what happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, skepticism about this is understandable. But one of the great errors of progressive thought in recent decades has been the unquestioning acceptance of liberal polyarchy as the only valid form of democracy; rejection of Stalinist authoritarianism should not mean abandoning the Marxist critique of bourgeois liberalism.

Democracy in the true sense—rule by the people—necessarily begins in local communities, with people in neighborhoods and workplaces running their own affairs. In this respect Cuba has a vigorous system of local democracy. The direct nomination of candidates in community meetings and their election as municipal delegates of popular power in multi-candidate, secret-ballot elections, plus their obligation to report back in person every six months in not just one but several local meetings (with a real possibility of recall), guarantees a degree of local participation and control which compares favorably with many countries that have impeccable democratic credentials.11

It is true that at a higher level there are limitations, with provincial and national delegates being presented on lists with only one candidate for each post, so that the electorate’s only option is to accept or reject each candidate. Policy debates involve extensive popular input through such instruments as workers’ parliaments and consultations by commissions of the National Assembly, but such debates clearly operate within centrally designed parameters. Ultimately, it is undeniable that so long as the United States is actively committed to the overthrow of the revolution, the full and free expression of socialist democracy will be impossible in Cuba; but given the way in which bourgeois elites manipulate liberal polyarchy to prevent any serious challenge to the capitalist system, it is arguable that electorates in Western countries have less influence than Cubans on policy decisions in crucial areas such as finance, defense, and foreign policy.

But to argue the relevance of Cuba in today’s world it is clearly not sufficient just to defend the country’s socialist system against its critics. In the twenty-first century, does the island have anything to offer which is not just a holdover from the past?

The answer is that there are at least two areas in which Cuba has made vital contributions to the emergence of a new socialist or anticapitalist alternative. One is in environmental issues: initially as a matter of necessity, but now also as a matter of policy, it has undertaken a fundamental switch toward organic agriculture and the adoption of ecologically sustainable practices throughout the economy. For several years now it has pioneered the development of urban agriculture, with small plots on any available land being turned over to organopónicos, projects devoted to the intensive cultivation of a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, mostly by organic methods. As a result of this the city of Havana now produces 60 percent of its fruit and vegetables within city limits,12 and the scheme is now being adopted in Venezuela and other countries. The “Energy Revolution” has decentralized power generation so that electricity is less dependent on big power plants and more on small local generators which are more efficient and less vulnerable in emergencies. Incandescent light bulbs have been replaced throughout the country and there is large-scale investment in solar and wind power.13 Cuban officials now state categorically that both capitalist and traditional socialist models of energy-intensive development are unsustainable.

The second vital contribution to the emergence of a new alternative lies in Cuba’s support for Venezuela, Bolivia, and other Latin American countries now engaged in the struggle to create a new social and economic model. Commentators frequently focus on Venezuela’s aid to Cuba in the form of cheap petroleum, but the importance of Cuban assistance to the Bolivarian revolution should not be underestimated. Without the assistance of thousands of Cubans, Chávez would have found it almost impossible to implement the remarkable Barrio Adentro health mission or the Robinson literacy mission. Similarly, Evo Morales would have been unable to implement such programs in Bolivia, at least in the short run—and given the critical political situation in both countries, the short run was and is crucial.

But also in broader political terms, without Cuba, Chávez (and hence, at one remove, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and Fernando Lugo in Paraguay) would have had much greater difficulty in gaining credibility for projects of popular political empowerment implemented through the appropriation and transformation of the state. The political disorientation of the global left was such that only a totally unexpected movement like that of Chávez could offer a way forward; and without Cuba’s inspiration and support at crucial moments, Chávez might well have failed. Without Cuba, then, no Venezuela; and without Venezuela, no Bolivia, no Ecuador, and no Paraguay, and no revival (however imperfect) of Sandinista Nicaragua.

It is not, of course, that nothing would have occurred in these countries; but it is all too likely that without the Venezuelan example and without Cuba’s inspiration and practical assistance, the powerful popular movements that exist would have been unable to devise an adequate strategy to attain power and to use it effectively to reverse neoliberal policies. This does not mean that Venezuela or the other countries are simply copying Cuba. They are very clear that they are pursuing independent paths, borrowing from and supporting each other and Cuba, but without making the old mistake of trying to impose a uniform “orthodox” template.

Furthermore, the Cubans have been explicit in saying that they do not regard their own socialism as a blueprint to be copied. What Cuba provided was a living example, a demonstration that contrary to the conventional wisdom of the “New World Order,” the state is not powerless and that it is possible to build and maintain a noncapitalist alternative. What was not possible was to reproduce the Cuban strategy of armed revolution, and this was the great contribution of Chávez and the Venezuelans: to devise a new strategy which was neither purely military nor purely electoral, but a combination of popular mobilization, elections, and military support.

As the new project of “twenty-first century socialism” and the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) develops, Cuba also ties in with the cultural and ideological inspiration of the Latin American popular anti-imperialist tradition. As we have seen, the original Cuban ideology derived at least as much from Martí and the mambíses as from international socialist theory, and in this respect it gels perfectly with Chávez’s “Bolivarianism.” It can be argued that, while the Soviet tie was necessary at the time for the revolution’s survival in the Cold War context, it did lead to undesirable distortions in Cuban socialism, and that today Cuba, freed from the Soviet straitjacket and assisted by its Latin neighbors, is rediscovering its originality.
In this context the current Cuban reforms should not be seen as leading in a capitalist direction (at least not necessarily), but as adapting to the more flexible and dynamic project of “twenty-first century socialism” which will eventually find similar (but not identical) expression in Venezuela, Bolivia, and other countries. It will be based on a recognition that socialism can never be perfect, nor completely stable and secure, in an imperialist world, and that its survival and renewal will always depend on popular support and participation.14 The role of the state will still be important but it will allow much greater scope for local and grassroots initiative, and indeed, for what previously might have been condemned as capitalist material incentives. But this is based on a recognition that egalitarianism cannot be imposed by decree, and that the best guarantee against a return to capitalism lies in a vigorous culture of collective participation rather than in bureaucratic controls. Where the central state is and will remain crucial is in providing a coherent overall direction, minimizing the encroachment of global capital, and ensuring diplomatic, political, and military defense against imperialism.

Of course, over the years Cuba has made mistakes, and not all of them are attributable to Soviet influence. The initial economic strategy of crash industrialization soon proved impractical and was replaced by the reliance on large-scale sugar exports as a source of accumulation for more gradual diversification. Then in 1970 voluntarism led to near-disaster in the failed goal of the ten million ton sugar harvest. The 1968 “Great Revolutionary Offensive” led to the precipitous nationalization of small business, with grave consequences for the availability of consumer goods and services. There were also serious errors in cultural policy which have been extensively criticized. But what saved Cuban socialism was a degree of popular participation rarely found elsewhere, and the continued responsiveness of the leadership to popular concerns and needs. Despite serious and often justified grievances, the majority of the Cuban people have continued to feel that this is their revolution and not just a paternalist project of a remote party/state apparatus, and the result is that today the country continues to exhibit both objective and subjective aspects of an anticapitalist alternative.

The Western media have been eager to interpret recent reforms in agriculture, in wage and incentive scales, and in the availability of consumer electronics as evidence that Cuba is embarking on a capitalist transition.15 But there is no indication that large-scale private employment of labor or a private capital market with a stock exchange and similar capitalist institutions are being contemplated. The government has reiterated its commitment to free universal education and health care and other social services. Cuba has recently signed important new agreements with several countries, notably Brazil and the European Union, which improve its capacity to resist the U.S. blockade without abandoning its socialist priorities.

Finally, the extraordinary generosity and commitment of thousands of Cuban internationalists providing medical and other services in conditions few others would accept is living testimony to the reality of the country’s socialist project. The veteran British journalist Hugh O’Shaughnessy recently offered a moving account of the Cuban missions in Bolivia. He quoted María de los Ángeles, a Cuban doctor working as Director of the Ophthalmological Hospital in El Alto, Bolivia, at nearly 4,000 metres altitude and in harsh conditions: “I think there is always an element of love involved,” she said: “Before I left Cuba for Guatemala and Bolivia, I didn’t know what real poverty was like.”16 While Cuba continues to practice solidarity like this, its relevance to the global anticapitalist movement can scarcely be questioned. But also, this presence in the ALBA countries is further evidence that Cuba cannot be separated from the inspiring new developments in Venezuela, Bolivia, and elsewhere: Latin America today demonstrates that another world really is possible, and Cuba is central to the creation of that world.

Diana Raby is senior fellow at the Research Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool (UK) and is also professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto. She has written extensively on Latin America and is also active in solidarity movements such as the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and the Venezuela Information Centre (UK). Her latest book, Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today (London: Pluto Press, 2006), argues for the crucial importance of Venezuela, along with Cuba and the ALBA countries, in the renewal of the international left in this century.

Is USAish the same as English?
It has been long thought that the people of the USA speak the English language, as it understood by the rest of the world. In this I disagree.
I will agree that English words are used in the USA; however words alone do not a language make. The meaning of the words is the language: the message the words deliver, this is the language.
For those who do not understand USAish, I will list a few examples of words and give the meaning.
1. “Peace” in English= the absence of war or violence. In USAish= no one is fighting or causing violence or harm to me. example; The USA is at peace with Mexico, Cuba, Central America, and the African countries.
2. “Love” in English can be used in first person, second person, or third person; in USAish it is only used in third person tense. So actually when one says, “I love you” in USAish, they are actually saying ‘I don’t hate you because you are of benefit to me.
3. The word “War” in English is translated into USAish as “Police action”
Even words like ‘politically correct” has a subtle difference in USAish. Just by a USAer saying he is speaking politically correct, implies superiority over the subject or person he is speaking of, as in” I Will not use the N word because I am to good to do that” They would never consider, that having to think not to say something is the same as saying it.
These are just a few examples, There are many more. Time and space prevents a complete list: However it is enough to draw attention to the difference between the two languages. If one would closely listen then he/she can spot many more.

Call it Democracy
by Bruce Cockburn, written Nov. 1985

Padded with power here they come
international loan sharks backed by the guns
of market hungry military profiteers
whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
with the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
who render rage a necessity
by turning countries into labour camps
modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
who makes the gun into a sacrament --
the only response to the deification
of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
idolatry of ideology

North south east west
kill the best and buy the rest
it's just spend a buck to make a buck
you don't really give a flying fuck
about the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there's one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
passing themselves off as leaders
kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
trying to make the best of it the way kids do
one day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
they call the revolution

There was time when democracy existed.

There once was a land, a people who lived in peace with nature. Even in times of war, they seldom killed the enemy. Instead they would run close to the enemy and tap him on the shoulder, to indicate a win.

They had no rulers, only leaders that were freely chosen, and could just as easy be replaced. The leaders were very seldom held their position for life. It was a not a paid position ,but was preformed out of service to the tribe, for the good of all.

When a new leader was to be chosen it was the women who would chose four or five good men to recommend to the council to be chosen. No one could be chosen by the council that was not first chosen by the women. The reason for this is that they knew men were usually stronger and more dominate then women. A man might use this power to abuse or harm the women . By the women chosen the candidates for leaders and council, this help insure that all men treated the women fairly and equally.

The one a day a new people came to their land. These were strange people. They had rulers, they each farmed or hunted for themselves, thinking nothing of the others in their tribe or group.

They treated their women as if they were inferiors. They said their God told them this is the way it should be.

The people of the land showed these new people how to grow the crops of corn ,squash and beans. They taught them how to hunt the deer and were very surprised when these new people would hunt and kill the deer even in the summer, when there was ample food to be had. They welcomed the new ones and accepted them as friends.

These people of the land are no more. The new soon prayed to their God. He told them these people were not subduing the land the way His holy book said should be done. their God said they had manifest destiny, from him to take this land ,subdue it and remove these people of the land.

These new peoples carried out the orders from their God with much energy and vigor. Soon the people of the land were no more. Oh sure, some of them still are around, but as simple neglected outcasts

This once Golden land ,the last paradise on Earth has since become the wasteland of the world. The many deer are almost gone, the dirt has been all blow away, the pristine rivers are all polluted. The freedom and democracy that once was practiced here is nothing but forgotten history.

There is hope yet for this Land, for the world. Some say that one day the new people and the old people of the land will join together and reclaim the land and return it to it's past glory.

Where are these people, where do they live, what are their names. When will they act? Today, tomorrow? When it is too late for the land, for the people? Yes who are these people? Am I one of them. ARE YOU?

They say, the Americans, that their citizens drug problems are because of Mexico, and they say making a war on Mexico will solve it. But to solve their addiction prone populace, they need to look at their own part in creating and promoting addictions. What these tobacco companies have going for them is the pushing they do is called legal, and they have no limits and pay their government off with bribes. As with everything American, the hypocricy, double dealing and lies are no problem to them, as long as their is profit. And keeping certain drugs their people crave illegal, is a massive money making scheme.

So, before they decide to turn Mexico into another Iraq, as they threaten daily to do so now, they should just give their addicts what they want, all of it, not just part of it. Since they don't care about their people, just their money. And leave what was a peaceful nation alone, Mexico does not need or deserve this.

Evil America, evil to its own, and evil to the world.

animus mundi

--

"I Was Only Following Orders!"

Being serious about torture. Or not.

By William Blum

March 05, 2009"Information Clearing House" -- -In Cambodia they're once again endeavoring to hold trials to bring some former senior Khmer Rouge officials to justice for their 1975-79 war crimes and crimes against humanity. The current defendant in a United Nations-organized trial, Kaing Guek Eav, who was the head of a Khmer Rouge torture center, has confessed to atrocities, but insists he was acting under orders.1 As we all know, this is the defense that the Nuremberg Tribunal rejected for the Nazi defendants. Everyone knows that, right? No one places any weight on such a defense any longer, right? We make jokes about Nazis declaring: "I was only following orders!" ("Ich habe nur den Befehlen gehorcht!") Except that both the Bush and Obama administrations have spoken in favor of it. Here's the new head of the CIA, Leon Panetta: "What I have expressed as a concern, as has the president, is that those who operated under the rules that were provided by the Attorney General in the interpretation of the law [concerning torture] and followed those rules ought not to be penalized. And ... I would not support, obviously, an investigation or a prosecution of those individuals. I think they did their job."2 Operating under the rules ... doing their job ... are of course the same as following orders.

The UN Convention Against Torture (first adopted in 1984), which has been ratified by the United States, says quite clearly, "An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture." The Torture Convention enacts a prohibition against torture that is a cornerstone of international law and a principle on a par with the prohibition against slavery and genocide.

Of course, those giving the orders are no less guilty. On the very day of Obama's inauguration, the United Nation's special torture rapporteur invoked the Convention in calling on the United States to pursue former president George W. Bush and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.3

On several occasions, President Obama has indicated his reluctance to pursue war crimes charges against Bush officials, by expressing a view such as: “I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” This is the same excuse Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has given for not punishing Khmer Rouge leaders. In December 1998 he asserted: "We should dig a hole and bury the past and look ahead to the 21st century with a clean slate."4 Hun Sen has been in power all the years since then, and no Khmer Rouge leader has been convicted for their role in the historic mass murder.

And by not investigating Bush officials, Obama is indeed saying that they're above the law. Like the Khmer Rouge officials have been. Michael Ratner, a professor at Columbia Law School and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said prosecuting Bush officials is necessary to set future anti-torture policy. "The only way to prevent this from happening again is to make sure that those who were responsible for the torture program pay the price for it. I don't see how we regain our moral stature by allowing those who were intimately involved in the torture programs to simply walk off the stage and lead lives where they are not held accountable."5

One reason for the non-prosecution may be that serious trials of the many Bush officials who contributed to the torture policies might reveal the various forms of Democratic Party non-opposition and collaboration.

It should also be noted that the United States supported Pol Pot (who died in April 1998) and the Khmer Rouge for several years after they were ousted from power by the Vietnamese in 1979. This support began under Jimmy Carter and his National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and continued under Ronald Reagan.6 A lingering bitterness by American cold warriors toward Vietnam, the small nation which monumental US power had not been able to defeat, and its perceived closeness to the Soviet Union, appears to be the only explanation for this policy. Humiliation runs deep when you're a superpower.

Neither should it be forgotten in this complex cautionary tale that the Khmer Rouge in all likelihood would never have come to power, nor even made a serious attempt to do so, if not for the massive American "carpet bombing" of Cambodia in 1969-70 and the US-supported overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in 1970 and his replacement by a man closely tied to the United States.7 Thank you Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Well done, lads.

By the way, if you're not already turned off by many of Obama's appointments, listen to how James Jones opened his talk at the Munich Conference on Security Policy on February 8: "Thank you for that wonderful tribute to Henry Kissinger yesterday. Congratulations. As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger."8

Lastly, Spain's High Court recently announced it would launch a war crimes investigation into an Israeli ex-defense minister and six other top security officials for their role in a 2002 attack that killed a Hamas commander and 14 civilians in Gaza.9 Spain has for some time been the world's leading practitioner of "universal jurisdiction" for human-rights violations, such as their indictment of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet a decade ago. The Israeli case involved the dropping of a bomb on the home of the Hamas leader; most of those killed were children. The United States does this very same thing every other day in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Given the refusal of American presidents to invoke even their "national jurisdiction" over American officials-cum-war criminals, we can only hope that someone reminds the Spanish authorities of a few names, names like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Feith, Perle, Yoo, and a few others with a piece missing, a piece that's shaped like a conscience. There isn't even a need to rely on international law alone, for there's an American law against war crimes, passed by a Republican-dominated Congress in 1996.10

The noted Israeli columnist, Uri Avnery, writing about the Israeli case, tried to capture the spirit of Israeli society that produces such war criminals and war crimes. He observed: "This system indoctrinates its pupils with a violent tribal cult, totally ethnocentric, which sees in the whole of world history nothing but an endless story of Jewish victimhood. This is a religion of a Chosen People, indifferent to others, a religion without compassion for anyone who is not Jewish, which glorifies the God-decreed genocide described in the Biblical book of Joshua."11

From The Iraqi Resistance

www.albasrah.net

Rafidan
The Political Committee
Baghdad – The Republic of Iraq
Official English Transcript Release No: 57

Statement in Response to President Obama’s Remarks made on the 27th or February 2009 regarding the proclaimed ending to the occupation of The Republic of Iraq.

Good Evening,

In Respect to the remarks of President Barak Hussain Obama, The president of the United States of America. The Political Committee of a number of factions in the Iraqi Resistance, mainly the factions present in our front, respond with our point of view on the contents of his speech.

Over the last four months, as the battle of our people continues to free Iraq of all foreign occupation. We have been studying the movements on the ground as well as analyzing the intelligence in order to assess the next strategy that the US administration will take under the leadership of the new presidency.

We had formulated our own plan of action based on the above mentioned, but have chosen to give the new president enough time to gather his thoughts and have a suitable amount of reports & briefings that would give him also a good picture of the daily developments on the ground.

President Obama, After listening to your speech on the 27th of February 2009, in which you declared your general and public understanding of the ongoing war against our people, and gave your military and the honorable people of the United States brief points on your intentions in our country, we felt the spirit of the speech that your predecessor President JFK gave on the 20th of January 1961, on his inaugural address. In this speech, he offered a turbulent world, a way out of tensions and paid with his own blood for challenging the interests of those in your consecutive governments who hold the true keys to power. Those who would do anything to preserve their interests, wealth, & power to create wars & conflict.

We mention this with great honesty in hope to spread awareness and remembrance that a new Caesar may be betrayed, by his own, if he chooses to follow a different path. We do believe, on the other hand, that the spirit of the speech was well chosen.

We have listened well to your economic plans for your country released before this speech as well, and as ambitious as it may seem, we believe that if intentions are genuine within your congress, a considerable number of what you seek will eventually be fulfilled, but in case of failure, the republicans will be looking for a scapegoat to relate all their failures to. In this case it would be your administration. This will guarantee them a fast comeback.

You have inherited a nation at war, a failed economy, and a desperate people who are bearing the full brunt of an economic crisis that was not of their making. As well as thousands of young men dead and handicapped.

We have inherited a foreign occupation, endless counts of innocent dead, injured, and handicapped, millions of refugees, in essence, Mr. President, the complete and planned disintegration of our nation and people.

We believe that the funds wasted in this war would have been more useful if it were spent on research to develop alternative energy, which no doubt would have reduced energy conflicts, cures for cancer, agricultural solutions to prevent worldwide poverty, advancements to develop Africa, where people still die of starvation and intentional neglect. Endless causes, all in need of immediate attention.

By the will of God almighty, the resilience of our men, and the patience of our humble people, we have so far managed to halt and render useless all imperialist agendas set for Iraq and the region in whole. Simply by choosing to resist occupation, a right guaranteed by God first and then by international conventions to all men. A right your country’s policies continue to disrespect and dishonor, in clear example to state sponsored Terrorism.

You have spoken to our people in part of your speech, and we thank you for these words, you have displayed a far better understanding our nation, than your predecessor, who preferred to dive deep into the oceans of illiteracy and ignorance. Despite the fact that you did not mention the Iraqi resistance in your speech, and chose to label us as terrorists along with those who arrived with your troops, we will set that aside for now, and mention a few facts for the record.

1- The people of Iraq whom you addressed, in all their sects colors and religions, refuse your occupation, and those who accept it, are those who benefit from it.

2- The Iraqis you addressed, as we truly hope, are not the ones who bathe in the riches of treason, behind your walls of the green zone, nor are they the likes of Ahmed Al Chalabi, whom your previous government conspired with and his likes from the dark alleys of 5 star hotels in the US and Europe prior to your occupation.

3- The Iraqi people you talked to, are those who never invited your occupation, and were trying their best to survive on what was possible, under the criminal sanctions that went on for 13 years only to be crowned with a foreign occupation, unmatched in criminal acts, in today’s modern world.

President Obama, The suffering, that our people had to go through is beyond comprehension. And the endless crimes of your troops as well as that of neighboring countries, cannot simply be undone or dismissed, nor can they be brushed under the carpet. Your troops still occupy the land and kill the innocent, that is why we can only address you as the president of an occupying nation.

The Iraqi People are disappointed in your plan. They expect your troops to leave our country in full and not in part. Our people, seek a complete end of occupation and not the fulfillment of a strategic treaty that was rushed against the will of our people, in the last few days of your predecessor.

Our people, as well as the majority of people around the world, and in your country, want to see the last president be presented to an international war crime tribunal for all the crimes he has committed in the name of your country, only to benefit those who brought him to power in the first place.

We have never invited your occupation, nor have we asked your country to steal our country’s resources to benefit your corporations and to those neighboring states which historically fall under your influence. We have never asked you for your precious blood or ours, to us, all blood is precious even that of the your soldiers sent by your government to die not knowing what they were truly fighting for. This has to be addressed to the man who started this war, and is hiding now in Texas, while you try to undo his damage.

We the Iraqi People and their resistance demand the following:

1- The fulfillment of all the conditions presented to your government through the mediators you sent in 2006.

2- The hand over of all the traitors & Collaborators in the green zone to the Iraqi people where they will be dealt with as any nation would do with in cases of high treason.

3- The full & just compensation for our people for the losses they have suffered.

4- The halting of all compensations paid to those who fall under your umbrella in the region from the resources of our people.

5- The return of all land stolen from our country.

6- The departure of all foreign corporations mainly in the sectors of energy, communication, & infrastructure rebuilding, specifically those linked to Neocon interests. Our people are more than qualified to rebuild and operate our institutions.

7- The hand over of all mercenaries accused of killing innocent civilians mainly security contractors in Black Water and their CEO to be tried for murder.

8- All foreign advisors are to leave Iraq with your troops.

9- The dismantling of all militias equipped by your country and Iran together to shift the nature of battle towards the sectarian nature in order to allow your troops to concentrate on the major resistance activities in the central region of Iraq.

10- The halting of all support to the sectarian government elected in the orchestrated elections in the green zone.

11- The reduction of the influence of your Persian allies in Iraq which your previous government worked with in close conjunction and who continue to fund Al Qaeda on behalf of your intelligence agency’s behalf.

12- The return to the old constitution of a unified Iraq. And the Upholding of new elections within 6 months of the resistance taking power of the nation, this will be supervised, by must be conducted in the presence of a number of credible international monitors. Not the ones sponsored by the CIA.

13- Cities and provinces are to be handed over one by one starting with the four main cities and airports of Baghdad, Basra, then Mosul and Kirkuk in the same order. The rest will fall immediately in our hands. The borders will have other arrangements.

The list goes on, but the intention is to give you an idea of what we pledged our people to achieve. In return for our people’s demands, we will cease to attack all occupation forces withdrawing to the south and beyond the border post of Safwan.

Without these straightforward moves on your part, we regret to inform you that the resistance of the people of Iraq will continue until that last boot of US/British/Persian occupation is thrown across the borders of our country.

If you choose change as you claim, then you must have reached the conclusion that to continue dealing with the same people your predecessor appointed to fulfill his dirty work, will fail to deliver positive results for both our people. It is not the thieves of the green zone who brought the defeat of your military.

You must search further for the honest Iraqis and from the ranks of our people and not those of your collaborators to achieve a just solution. You can also recognize the right for the Iraqi people to resist and publicly ask for our advice and representation. The Iraqi people intend to be masters of their own house as they always have, and by following the plan you have declared, you have not yet fully understood Iraq well.

There are those who will claim, that a quick withdrawal from Iraq will cause civil war, and that is a possibility, but we would also like to clarify that the forces of the puppet government which has been equipped to defeat the resistance will not stand ground, nor will they block our efforts to liberate our cities one by one if we had to, and all the efforts of your collaborators to move to the north and south of the country and create their own federal states have been studied well for their weaknesses and will be crushed within a short period. This is a more realistic scenario. True there will be still the Persian occupation which will offer it’s militias support, but we know that the US cannot leave the oil rich south to be occupied by Iran, and they would rather see it fall in our hands instead. As it would be giving too much to a close yet not so trust worthy ally, and would deprive your military necessary funds that would support long-term military presence necessary in Iraq and throughout the region. Funds that some in your government think they can still rely on. Funds that your economy can no longer bear in the midst of the turmoil in the globalized economy of your nation, to control the world.

The Iraqi resistance understands well that the US could not continue to sell oil at a high price of 120 USD/Barrel to cover the costs of it’s war, as this strengthens old adversaries. And it would be only a matter of time before this tactic backfires on the US foreign policy. But it also understands that the US cannot fund foreign occupation any more without depending on local resources and revenues to cover the expenses. This is the true cause of the change of “Strategy” as you named it President Obama.

With oil prices falling to their true realistic market values, & the winter ending in the consuming economies, the oil prices should fall to 30 USD plus mark, which is also effecting the local economies of your allies in the region, as anything below 55 USD per barrel, is already becoming a burden on these economies, which in turn can no longer assist to their full potential in funding and supporting the costs of US aggression in the Region.

The Declining of oil revenues, which we truly thank you for mentioning in your speech, will make it more difficult to fund your military’s operations in Iraq, and that is why the numbers of your troops is to be reduced. To match the income predicted from the oil projects sponsored by your corporations in the south and the oil theft operations run by your agent, Hamid Jaffar in the north of Iraq in collaboration with NGO oil of Norway, is what your strategists think is possible.

Yes President Obama, we do agree with you, that the US needs a smarter, more sustainable & comprehensive approach, but rest assured, that what your predecessor has failed to achieve with all the military might at his disposal, we will make sure that you will fail to achieve the same goals through the soft hand of the Democratic party.

In fact, it is more logical and practical to follow the alternative energy programs that you have set wisely, to ensure the non reliance of your economy on oil as well as the utilization of advancements and added fruits of R&D to employ the unemployed, and support a new and young market for the shift in energy dependence, and in turn end the monopolization of energy, practiced by the corporations that control it and control world political and social stability, than to merely dream of expecting the Iraqi People to hand you over their resources.

We on the other hand intend to nationalize and use our resources to build an alternative energy base our selves and offer our people a life of prosperity, & stability, as well as supporting the energy transition of other nations that are oil dependant, a task we truly believe is noble and worthwhile.

The Iraqi Resistance will not accept any short term or long term energy contracts with the US until we ensure that the rights of our people are properly addressed. And within the parameters of relations based on mutual respect first and mutual interests second.

President Obama, It is time that people in Washington understand that there are no shared interest between an occupying tyrant and an oppressed victim of occupation.

Your government would have stayed forever in Iraq if the traitors who conspired with your consecutive administrations had their way in starving the Iraqi people into submission and force them to welcome your occupying troops with flowers as Chalabi promised you. But after three wars and over a decade of sanctions, there were enough honest men to defeat the world’s most powerful army & play a major role in destroying the most imperialistic Globalized economy ever developed by expansionary capitalism.

These are the type of people you are speaking to Mr. Obama. And if you were not presented with this reality throughout the briefings that occurred, and understood the true scale of the economic disaster with all the social and geopolitical implications of your military defeat in Iraq, then please allow us to mention a few of the major achievements that the Iraqi Resistance have promised it’s people and the free people of the world and has delivered:

1- We promised to pin down your troops in Iraq and drain your economy until you admit defeat and withdraw your troops. And this we fulfilled.

2- We promised to halt the US plan for Middle East in full, and prevent the loss of other innocent lives in other neighboring countries, and that we fulfilled.

3- We embraced the war and continue the fight on behalf of all the oppressed world, which not only stood still and watched the massacre of our people and the illegal occupation of our nation, but many of it’s leaders participated and continue in harming our people inside and outside Iraq and assist in the theft of our resources. This, apart from the support of honest people all around the world,

4- Including citizens of your country, who marched day and night to support the cause of Iraq’s right to resist, marches that defied the weather, and weathered criminal defiance and ignorance of world politicians. Marches that we will ever be indebt to, and in gratitude & in appreciation for. May god bless those people wherever they are. And this we fulfilled and continue to do so.

5- We have understood the nature of international balances of power and most importantly predicted the primitive mind of the occupation and played a major role in forcing the US to increase oil prices in clear desperation for cash. And use that to allow other powers to recover. And the numbers never lied, this we also fulfilled.

6- The Iraqi People wrote a new chapter in Urban warfare, and invented the art of remote combat, and in turn gave the world lessons and set a new standard in how to defeat the world’s most powerful army. In this, the most dangerous achievement that threatens US global influence is that all the oppressed people who suffer from negative US influence, can use this experience to free themselves as well. This also has been delivered.

7- The Resistance has already drafted its 2, 5 and 10 year plan to engage Iraq in rebuilding programs that will set a new standard for development in the Region and restore Iraq to it’s rightfully earned place in world politics and positive human development. This while maintaining Iraq’s isolation from harmful neighboring countries at the same time, these plans was prepared and drafted in the early months of 2007 and are ready to implement once we see the end of your occupation.

8- The resistance created a new battle field and utilized every tool available to break free of the corporate media and tell, inform, and educate the world of the true nature of the struggle, and present every curious man and woman daily reports and videos of your military’s defeat and in every language possible. People from all over the world, chose out of their own free will and time, people of different religions and backgrounds chose to be soldiers of the cyber wars and translated all what we had to tell, asking nothing in return but the truth. The true casualties of your war are yet to be declared. (We refer to the green card soldiers)

9- The resistance has sparked not only the collapse of the US economy, but also caused the domino effect and the destruction of your fine tuned and delicate Globalized economy, and forced the return to national economic protection, and the rights of local and regional economies to grow and ensure a decent life and practice their right to develop as well. All your efforts to restore the globalized economy will deliver nothing of value, and puppet governments that maintain your oversight of world resources will eventually fall, one after the other, as their faults will be more evident to their average citizens, and that is why you are now receiving daily reports, from the CIA about the world economy.

ALL THE ABOVE, AND YOU STILL CHOOSE TO IGNORE THE RESISTANCE OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE AND THE RESISTANCE OF THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE OF THE FREE, WHICH WE INTENT TO PROPOSE TO THE WORLD AS THE NEXT STAGE OF FREEING THE PLANET FROM YOUR DOMINENCE WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT.

ALL THIS SAID, AND THE GLOBAL MEDIA WHICH YOU STILL MAINTAIN CONTROL OVER STILL LABELS FREE PEOPLE AS TERRORISTS AND EQUALS THE RESISTANCE OF OCCUPATION WITH CRIMINAL ACTS OF STRIKING CIVILIANS IN BUILDING AND TERRORISING THE LIVES OF THE INNOCENT.

TRULY IRONIC !! Nevertheless represents the true state of shock you policy makers have reached. But all can be reversed if you truly believe in Change Mr. President.

The resistance along with the votes of the peace loving people in your country and choice of the world

Who brought you to power, are more than capable to pull you down and defeat your new strategy, if you choose to lie to them and follow the plans of your predecessor.

You must understand that the time when your foreign policy bullied and bribed people into submission is over and for a considerable time. And your politicians and strategists have to understand that to be accepted as a superpower you must first learn to speak to the world with modesty and respect that others in this planet, also have the right to provide for their families a decent life, the right to food and water, the right to education and knowledge, the right to industry and employment, and free from your corporate despotism.

We in the Iraqi resistance, renew our pledge to our people and to our brothers and sisters in the global family, to continue the fight and struggle to free Iraq and give our allies the chance to follow suite.

While you were preparing your new strategy in leaving the streets and highways of Iraq to your collaborators, and hiding your troops behind the walls of the castles and green zones you have prepared for your minimized long term presence, we have been preparing to address your new tactics and will deal with them in the proper manner.

Remember, that hiding behind and holding castles is no longer sustainable in modern warfare!

Your finest fighting force as you name it, is up against the most witty, resilient & innovative self-propelled resistance honorable humanity has ever presented. Rest assured that we are not impressed with your plan and will follow your movements on the ground and cross examine them to your declared intentions and daily economic reports. There is no such thing as friendly occupation, and we advise you to revise your plans to vacate Iraq at a time suitable for our people and not suitable for your agents in the green zone.

And if you need to talk to honest Iraqis, then you know very well, where to find them. John F Kennedy also said “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate”

You choose to negotiate with all the parties that worked for your predecessor and have caused all this harm, yet you choose to ignore the only true party that can offer you a decent outcome.

Good Luck President Obama!

Radfidan
The Political Committee
Baghdad – The Republic of Iraq
The 3rd of Rabi' Awwal 1430 H
The 28th of February 2009 M

How the media criticize the publishing event of the world's most popular
Book fair

José Manzaneda José Manzaneda
Cubainformación Cubainformación


Por la XVIII Feria Internacional del Libro de La Habana pasó cerca de un millón de visitantes, se vendieron 1.200.000 libros, y se presentaron unos mil nuevos títulos con una tirada de más de siete millones de ejemplares. For the XVIII International Book Fair of Havana, spent nearly a million visitors, 1,200,000 books were sold, and there were a thousand new titles with a circulation of over seven million copies. Tras 10 días de presentaciones de libros, conciertos, debates y otras actividades culturales en la capital, la feria recorre otras 16 ciudades de Cuba (1). After 10 days of book presentations, concerts, debates and other cultural activities in the capital, the show toured 16 other cities in Cuba (1).

Las grandes editoriales del mundo, con inversiones millonarias en publicidad y marketing, no son capaces de conseguir semejante movilización popular en ningún país del mundo. The major publishers in the world, with investments worth millions in advertising and marketing, are not able to achieve similar popular in any country in the world. Por su relevancia informativa, la Feria del Libro de Cuba debería convertirse en noticia en los grandes medios de comunicación internacionales. For its relevance information, the Book Fair of Cuba should become big news in international media.

Pero los medios no actúan con esta lógica. But the media do not act with that logic. El éxito de este evento popular alejado de criterios de mercado, negocio y consumo, que cuenta con un gran apoyo del Estado cubano, ha sido silenciado, de nuevo, por las empresas que controlan la información en el mundo. The success of this popular event away from market-oriented, business and consumption, which has a great support of the Cuban state has been muted, again, by the companies that control the information in the world. Pero la Feria del Libro de La Habana no ha desaparecido completamente de la agenda informativa de los grandes medios. But the Book Fair of Havana has not completely vanished from the agenda of the media briefing. Los días previos al 16 de febrero, numerosos diarios dedicaron parte de sus secciones culturales a la rueda de prensa del escritor cubano Orlando Luis Pardo, que protestaba en las cercanías de dicha feria porque, según su versión, las editoriales cubanas habían decidido no publicar su última novela (2). The days prior to February 16, many newspapers devoted part of their cultural sections of the press conference of the Cuban writer Orlando Luis Pardo, who was protesting in the vicinity of that show because, according to his version, publishers Cuban decided not to publish his novel (2).

El diario español El País tituló la noticia “Dificultades para la literatura "no oficial" en Cuba” (3), transmitiendo la idea de que toda la literatura presente en dicha feria es literatura “oficial”. The Spanish newspaper El Pais called the news "Difficulties in the literature" unofficial "in Cuba" (3), conveying the idea that all literature in this literature is that fair "official." Algo curioso si tenemos en cuenta que tuvieron presencia 50 editoriales de 43 países, y que participaron 650 intelectuales de Cuba y otras naciones. Something strange when you consider that 50 publishers have presence in 43 countries and involving 650 intellectuals in Cuba and other nations. Solo de Chile, país invitado de honor, participaron 200 artistas e intelectuales. Only in Chile, guest of honor, attended by 200 artists and intellectuals.

En la rueda de prensa de Orlando Luis Pardo, el escritor estuvo acompañado por Yoani Sánchez y Gorki Águila, conocidos personajes contrarios a la Revolución cubana que son impulsados por grandes grupos mediáticos internacionales. At the press conference in Orlando Luis Pardo, the writer was accompanied by Yoani Sanchez and Gorki Águila known characters against the Cuban revolution that are driven by major international media groups. Yoani Sánchez ha creado el blog “Generación Y”, que el grupo Prisa dotó en 2008 con los 15.000 euros de su premio Ortega y Gasset (4). Yoani Sanchez has created the blog "Generación Y", the group Prisa acquired in 2008 with 15,000 euros of prize Ortega y Gasset (4). Gorki Águila es vocalista del grupo de rock “Porno para Ricardo”, cuyo arresto por molestias a su vecindario fue convertido en “show mediático” internacional en agosto de 2008 (5). Gorki Aguila is the vocalist of the rock band "Porno for Ricardo" whose arrest for nuisance to the neighborhood became a "media show" international in August 2008 (5). Por las letras de sus canciones, referidas a la muerte del Jefe del Estado, en otro países Gorki Águila habría sido procesado penalmente. For the lyrics of his songs, referring to the death of the Head of State, in other countries Gorki Aguila would have been prosecuted criminally.

La convocatoria a los medios extranjeros fue realizada a través de correo electrónico por Ernesto Hernández Busto, cubano residente en Barcelona que, en su blog “Penúltimos Días”, aboga por una intervención militar de EEUU en Cuba (6). The call to the foreign media was conducted through email by Ernesto Hernandez Busto, a Cuban resident in Barcelona, in his blog "Penúltimos Days", calls for a U.S. military intervention in Cuba (6). Para crear una atmósfera de represión y terror que atrajera a la prensa, en su nota advertía de un posible apaleamiento público de las personas convocantes del acto y de un operativo especial de la Seguridad del Estado cubano (7). To create an atmosphere of repression and terror that would attract the press, in his note warned of a possible public beatings of people and the act of convening a special operative of the Cuban State Security (7). Por supuesto, nada de esto se produjo, no ocurrió absolutamente nada, y decenas de miles de personas siguieron tomando parte en la Feria del Libro de La Habana ignorando este acto. Of course, none of this was not anything happened, and tens of thousands of people continued to take part in the Book Fair of Havana to ignore this event. Pero televisiones, radios y diarios de gran tirada de todo el mundo, especialmente las pertenecientes al grupo multinacional Prisa, ya habían dedicado espacios relevantes a crear una noticia inexistente ya dar promoción a un escritor irrelevante. But televisions, radios and newspapers of wide circulation throughout the world, especially those belonging to multinational Prisa group, had already devoted significant space to create a press release and no promotion to give a writer irrelevant.

En Cuba existen 128 editoriales, todas de propiedad pública, que comercializan libros a precios altamente subvencionados. In Cuba there are 128 publishing houses, all public property, they sell books at highly subsidized prices. Solo una parte de la producción es comercializada en divisa, cuyos beneficios sirven para financiar las tiradas en moneda nacional. Only a part of the production is sold in a currency whose profits serve to finance the runs in domestic currency. La selección de obras a publicar es realizada por los consejos editoriales, compuestos por destacados escritores y escritoras del país. The selection of works is published by the editorial board, composed of prominent writers and writers in the country. No todas las obras presentadas son publicadas, unas veces por limitaciones materiales, otras por criterios de calidad establecidos por dichos consejos editoriales. Not all titles are published, sometimes by constraints, others by quality criteria established by the Editorial Board.

En los países capitalistas, las editoriales pertenecen a dueños privados, que deciden qué publicar, sin dar explicación alguna a nadie. In capitalist countries, publishers belong to private owners, who decide what to publish, without giving any explanation to anyone. Editoriales como Alfaguara o Santillana, pertenecientes al grupo Prisa, o las del grupo Planeta-Telefónica, emplean sus grandes medios de comunicación para promocionar sus obras y autores, y organizan concursos literarios ajenos a cualquier criterio de transparencia. Or as editorial Alfaguara Santillana, belonging to the Prisa group, or group-Planeta Telefónica, using their mass media to promote their works and authors, literary contests and beyond any standards of transparency. Escritoras y escritores de gran talento siguen sin ser publicados porque no se adaptan a los criterios mercantiles de dichas editoriales, o bien porque sus obras sostienen posiciones políticas de izquierda inaceptables por la élite propietaria de dichas editoriales. Writers of great talent still not published because they do not fit the criteria of the commercial publishers, or because their works argue unacceptable political positions left by the owner of the publishing elite.

Entre ambos modelos de selección de obras publicables, el vigente en Cuba es, con sus complejidades y contradicciones, claramente más democrático. Between both models of selection of public works, the force is in Cuba, with its complexities and contradictions, clearly more democratic.

Durante la XVIII Feria Internacional del Libro de La Habana, los grandes medios de comunicación negaron espacio informativo a un acontecimiento cultural masivo sin parangón en el mundo, para ofrecer sus cámaras y micrófonos a un solo escritor deseoso de promocionar su obra en el extranjero. During the XVIII International Book Fair of Havana, the major media refused information space to a massive cultural event unparalleled in the world to offer their cameras and microphones to a single writer eager to promote their work abroad. Los objetivos son evidentes: imponer la censura informativa sobre un exitoso modelo de feria del libro que es incompatible con el negocio de las editoriales ligadas a los medios; tapar la voz de la intelectualidad cubana, que es crítica pero mayoritariamente alineada con la Revolución; y crear un nuevo personaje mediático que sirva para generar noticias “oficiales” sobre Cuba acordes a la ideología de los grandes medios. The objectives are clear: to impose censorship on information model of a successful book fair which is incompatible with the business of publishing houses linked to the media cover the voice of Cuban intellectuals, which is critical but largely aligned with the Revolution and create a new character to serve as media to generate news "official" line on Cuba to the ideology of the mainstream media.

1.

http://www.cubaliteraria.com/feria_2009/cobertura.html http://www.cubaliteraria.com/feria_2009/cobertura.html

(2) http://www.lajiribilla.cu/2009/n406_02/406_95.html (2) http://www.lajiribilla.cu/2009/n406_02/406_95.html

(3) http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/Dificultades/literatura/oficial/Cuba/elpepucul/20090216elpepucul_3/Tes (3) http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/Dificultades/literatura/oficial/Cuba/elpepucul/20090216elpepucul_3/Tes

(4) http://www.cubainformacion.tv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8016&Itemid=65 (4) http://www.cubainformacion.tv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8016&Itemid=65

(5) http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/banda-versus-bandas (5) http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/banda-versus-bandas

(6) http://www.penultimosdias.com/2008/08/30/%C2%BFvictoria/ (6) http://www.penultimosdias.com/2008/08/30/% C2% BFvictoria /

(7) http://www.lajiribilla.cu/2009/n406_02/406_156.html (7) http://www.lajiribilla.cu/2009/n406_02/406_156.html

José Manzaneda. José Manzaneda. Coordinador de www.cubainformacion.tv Coordinator www.cubainformacion.tv

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Cómo los medios censuran el evento editorial más popular del mundo: la Feria del Libro de La Habana . Duración: 7:01. How the media censored the most popular publishing event in the world: the Book Fair of Havana. Length: 7:01. Para tapar el éxito de un modelo de feria alejado del negocio de las editoriales ligadas a los medios, éstos crearon una noticia inexistente sobre la "censura" a un escritor irrelevante. To seal the success of a model of fair business away from publishers linked to the media, they created a no news on the "censorship" a writer irrelevant.

http://www.cubainformacion.tv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8837&Itemid=86 http://www.cubainformacion.tv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8837&Itemid=86



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