Estar En Babia

Yes, let labels say the whole story

2010-12-30T07:52:00.000-08:00

Sooo....

The government is promising that the new tobacco labels are going to be visually 'shocking'.

Yes, a day doesn't go by when I don't see some reckless smoker, clearly impaired by the nicotine and tar intake and turned into literal killing machines out there. Tsk tsk tsk.

Now, does this mean that beer and liquor makers will be forced to change their labels as well, to more, er, persuasive designs that reflect the actual impact of their product's consumption among the general population? Just wonderin'...

This bloke is dead wrong

2009-04-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

(and the other one is plain creepy)

Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister and a converted Catholic since at least December 2007, is urging the Pope to reconsider his stance on homosexuality.

No, seriously.

Mr. Blair, speaking to the gay magazine Attitude, said that he wanted to “urge religious figures everywhere to reinterpret their religious texts to see them as metaphorical, not literal, and suggested that in time this would make all religious groups accept gay people as equals”.

Well, yes, sonny, there are such religious figures. Many of them can be found in the Anglican Communion, whose presence in England, the Church of England, you walked away from more than a year ago. Psyche!

Blaming generational difference for the Pope’s rigid stance in this regard, Blair continued: “We need an attitude of mind where rethinking and the concept of evolving attitudes becomes part of the discipline with which you approach your religious faith."

I wonder what has this bloke been sniffing lately: Mr. Blair: as a file-and-rank Roman Catholic, you can urge nothing, ask nothing, demand nothing and challenge nothing, particularly not from your parish priest, bishop and, even less, the Pope.

In the interview Mr Blair spoke of a "quiet revolution in thinking" and implied that he believed the Pope to be out of step with the public.

You’ve got to be kidding me. The Pope, out of step with the public? Huh?

"There are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this Pope stands for, but I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic Church, particularly a well attended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you'd be surprised at how liberal-minded people were." The faith of ordinary Catholics is rarely found "in those types of entrenched attitudes", he said.

Even if we choose not to even wonder what is it that the Pope may be doing –or standing for- that may be, in any way, fantastic, still! See, Mr. Blair, what the Pope says has got nothing to do with what the average self-described Catholic may be like in your wealthy, clean-cut, individualism-obsessed and so, seemingly-tolerant neck in the woods. Nor is whatever the faith of ordinary (Roman) Catholics may be of any relevance to the kind of entrenched attitude exemplified by the Pope and pretty much the rest of his Roman con-op, I mean, Curia. Please care to wake up and smell the coffee.

This bloke is dead wrong. Not only that, he’s now affiliated with a church that fits the bill. Godspeed.

Update: If Mr Blair is looking for guidance from religious leaders in matters of acceptance, inclusion and tolerance of people regardless of their sexual orientation, he might not want to necessarily look into the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, he might want to consider what the (Anglican) Bishop of Manchester has just said about this issue in a statement addressing organizations striving to eliminate bullying from schools, including bullying on account of the victim's sexual orientation. The Pope -any Pope- would probably die before writing and, even less, publishing something like this.

But he can say pretty stupid, insensitive, retarded things alright.

This...

2009-04-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

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is why mass media makes me soooo sick. At the end, it all comes down to plain vulgarity, racism and, of course, projections.

It's got the feel of a local KKK chapter newsletter, I'm telling you.
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So a North Korean walks into the launch room…

2009-04-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that North Korea performed some sort of rocket launching over the weekend:

"Unha-2, which was launched at the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in Hwadae County, North Hamgyong Province at 11:20 (0220 GMT) on April 5, accurately put Kwangmyongsong-2 into its orbit at 11:29:02, nine minutes and two seconds after its launch," said the North Korean news agency.

Not so fast, retorted the South Korean and USA agencies.

South Korea's defense minister and the U.S. military disputed that account. North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials said in a statement that the first stage of the rocket fell into the waters between Korea and Japan, while the two other stages, and its payload, landed in the Pacific Ocean.

In any case, the North Koreans have a far better script:

“It is sending to the earth the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans 'Song of General Kim Il-sung' and 'Song of General Kim Jong-il' and measured information at 470 MHz. By the use of the satellite the relay communications is now underway by UHF frequency band” continued the North Korean news agency.

Well now they have a satellite broadcasting musical hits. Great.

Fuck Nuclear Weapons

2009-04-05T06:14:00.000-07:00

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I so want a t-shirt with that printed on...

Anyhoo... POTUS has just given a wonderful speech in Prague, with big, big words towards the elimination of nuclear weapons in the world.
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However humorous so many of the moments of the speech I may have found... truth is, this guy is doing a whole lot of what the President of the USA -his office having the pervasive and diverse connotations it has in global culture's imagination- is supposed to do.

Good for him, and hopefully, good for us all too.

I hereby move ...

2009-04-04T05:39:00.000-07:00

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... that Michelle Obama should be given equal air time to her husband’s.

I mean, this woman kicks ass from a podium and that’s more than I would say about Barack.

Please do yourself a favour and jump to minute 2 of the video, when FLOTUS had some really good, strong words for her audience : sadly, everything before that is about our media and its retarded (yes, RETARDED) perception of reality.

"You too can control your own destiny"
'If you want to know the reason why I am standing here, it is because of education".
"The men in my life taught me some important things as well. They taught me about what a respectful relationship between men and women should look like ".

Gotta love it. If only more public figures (what RETARDED talking heads insist in reducing to 'celebrities') would spend their time doing this, and not what celebrities have otherwise really made themselves a name for -being stupid, spoiled whores... who (#$%^&*) would need Spice, Britney, Paris, Martha -or Donald, Justin and Rush, for that matter- as role models for the children and the youth?

Let smart people rule!
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It's Taliban's April Fools Day, I guess

2009-04-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

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After the horrible shooting spree that took place at an immigrants support center in Binghamton, New York -where 13 people were murdered by Jiverly Wong, a recently unemployed electronic technician, who then shot himself dead- the Pakistani Taliban took haste in claiming the autorship of the massacre.

This Baituallah Meshud doesn't really have a clue, does he?
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UPDATE: You go around running your mouth, and a drone will put a few missiles on your Taliban ass. 13 of your Taliban asses, to be more precise.

This...

2009-04-02T11:52:00.000-07:00

... ain't gonna go down well with the Chinese.

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I mean... Berlusconni is a goof, I knew that, but what where Medvedev and Obama thinking?

Photo AP

All you need to know about the bailouts

2009-03-27T06:15:00.001-07:00

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The Southpark crew hits a home runner, again.

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I encourage you to go watch it all.
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Secularism, Atheism, Religion and State

2009-03-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

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Having lived the first 31 years of my life in a society that was, de facto, secularist –the text of the Constitution defining the Republic of Cuba was changed, not that long ago, from ‘atheist’ to ‘lay’ state- appears to be a reasonably good vantage point from where to look at the claims being made in this regards both in Cuba and in Canada.

During my first 30 years, I lived in a context where religion:

- Was not prosecuted, forbidden, criminalized or proscribed. If anything, engagement in organized religion was discouraged, when not plain disparaged.

- Had no institutional presence, whatsoever, and very little ‘implicit’ presence in the mass media. When alluded to at all, it was usually in past historical tense, making reference to some folklorically funny attachment to certain colourful and otherwise absurdly obsessive beliefs and practices, or describing a particular situation in some other country in the world. Let us say, active religious affiliation in Cuba was dealt with at the same level of expected secrecy, social distrust –what appears to pass here as ‘political correctedness’-, social disapproval and discursive abuse as rampant realities, like homelessness, are dealt with here in Toronto.

- Did not have a voice in matters of either national or foreign policy. No gay-trashing pastor, imam, rabbi, witch, nun or monk will receive much actual attention in Cuba, if any at all, beyond his/her most immediate environment. No condom-smearing argument will receive any more attention, either –actually, the government heavily promotes their use. No anti-abortion-wailing cardinal can speak any louder than the fact that abortion has been legal in Cuba since 1965. At the same time, it is precisely the refusal of the most conservative religious believers to respect, rather than support, what the government does in this regards, what has helped the 'religious voice' to be stiffled even when it comes to arguing against the death penalty -its application has been suspended for more than a year now, Btw.

- Was not at all present in the educational system. No endless rows over Religious Education, no religious diversity talks, no explaining away of what this or that particular religion stand for. Most teachers and TAs were either too ignorant or careless to go any further than deriding religion and laughing at caricatures of what they understood to be religious beliefs and practices.
- Had no direct access to other government run institutions either -factories, hospitals, jails or the Army.

- Did not have as a bad name as it seems to have around in what appear to pass as free, democratic and open societies.

- Displaying a remarkable diversity, religions are actively followed, practised and reflected upon by well beyond half the population in Cuba. Gotta wonder why.

to be continued...

Carissimo Benedicto: me gavte la nata

2009-03-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

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The (current) Pope has just added another gem to his already impressive track of really, really, really stupid claims: Condoms not only do not really protect against VIH-AIDS, but they actually make it more likely for users to be infected with the virus.

I wish this guy would just go away. And soon.
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Update: He had it coming.

Big Dog

2009-03-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

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Introducing the Big Dog Mule. The video speaks for itself, as does the Wikipedia entry.
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Just think of the many, not necessarily military-oriented, uses this kind of technology would have.

The lies, miseries and hypocrisies of a Pope

2009-03-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

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I have a lot of problems with Pope Benedict XVI’s letter.

1. The conflict around Richard Williamson was not that his excommunication, along with those of 3 other Lefrevian bishops, was remitted during the same period of time when the news of his Holocaust (or lack of a Holocaust, for that matter) views were being made public. The problem with the Vatican –Williamson has got his own hell to live with- is its arrogance and refusal to attend to any other factors but those involving its very own, narrow and ideologically-bound interests, when making decisions with consequences that extend well beyond the walls of the Pope’s bedroom.

2. This is not, by far, an isolated incident, not even when it comes to the health (or lack of it) of the relations between the Vatican and the different Jewish groups and organizations around the world, most particularly those in Israel itself, Europe and North America, or with any other religious, even Christian, group beyond those under allegiance to Rome. Since the passing away of Pope John Paul II and the ascension of former Cardinal Ratzinger –of troubled enough memory- the structural words and actions of the Roman Catholic Church have been more and more inclined to return to stuck up ways of thinking and acting towards anything non-Roman Catholic, ways that tended to characterise that Christian church well into the 20th century and until the reforms of the Vatican II started taking hold of its life and witness in the world.

3. The ‘we didn’t check it on the internet’ argument falls well within what I call ‘ridicule’. What I can’t understand is how it actually made it into the letter. Wait, now I can.

4. Ratzinger spends precious space in his letter babbling about some –for anyone but him, completely useless and irrelevant- distinction between ‘individuals and institutions’ and ‘the disciplinary level from the doctrinal level’. Which is basically a way to ditch the question of how could anyone, let alone a bishop and, even less, a Pope, contemplate rapprochement to, even less the lifting of an excommunication over an individual affiliated with groups like the Society of Saint Pius X (itself, an organization accused of anti-semitism)? Hey Pope, someone’s snoring.

5. The Pope says: The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.
Infallibility who?

6. This guy is either brave or naïve enough to let us know of, at least, one of his real motives in bringing Williamson and Co. back into the corporation, I mean, the fold: Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church?

7. Ratzinger then goes on a rant, well into the end of the letter, where he appeals for the generosity of spirit, the catholicity of aims of the Church he leads. I wonder why he simply chose to withdraw that generosity blablabla from every person who participated in enabling the performance of an abortion on a 9 years old, rape victim and rape-impregnated girl.

What a misogynistic clown. And to think that the pope thing is a life job.
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Cry Me A River, Ratzi

2009-03-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

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Pope Benedict XVI has written a letter to the world’s Roman Catholic bishops, which will be released sometime today, and deals with the recent buahaha over some Holocaust denying, women bashing, Islam hating guy, to whom Ratzi gave the ecclesiastical equivalent of a fellatio, ... or something like that.

By looking at what some of the news agencies are saying and, more important, based on an unofficial copy of said letter that I have been able to look at (and translate from the Latin), I can now offer you the following advanced text for such, by all accounts, historic -if not plain amusing- document:

From My Big Marble Desk
At My Big Fat House
In My Own Fake Country,
On Today's Date

Dear bishops,
or, should I say (chuckle),

Guys,

I am soooo sorry there has been such a crisis over this Bishop Williamson thingie.

Pinky swear, I did not know anything about his hateful, dehumanizing, historically and ethically abhorrent views on the Holocaust. And even if I did, it's not like I'm about to acknowledge it, now that the shit has hit the fan... right?

It is true that, had I or any of my chamberlains used the internet for something else besides, I dunno, betting on who the next pope will be, browsing online male, er, fashion catalogues, attacking pro-choice commentators and tracking down the Catholic vote in the USA 2008 Elections and, actually, done a google search on this guy instead, we might not have found ourselves in the deep-in-poo-up-to-the-neck situation we are now in.

Btw I have been very hurt at most of your comments about both my persona and performance. I know I have the charm and mood swings of a wet cloth, and also that too many of the decisions I have made in the recent past have been more than inadequate and otherwise arrogant and misguided. Yeah, right.

But, God damn it, I’m the freakin’ Pope.

Now, go eat your salad, ot whatever that is, and don’t you even think about sending any half-assed responses to this message.

Take care,

Yer Ol’ Pal Benny.

p.s. Catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/popebenedictxvi !!.

Phew. That’s a relief. I guess that now we can all look forward to more wonderful, better and brighter times in the Roman Catholic Church.

h/t Episcopal Cafe

UPDATE: Ratzinger's letter has now been released. Yeah, it's pretty much what the summary above saz.

Jim Cramer is...

2009-03-11T09:19:00.001-07:00

... but the tip of the iceberg of financial delusion and deception so much of our economy has been sucked into.

Cramer is just the tip

Of the turd.

Watch and weep. Or laugh.

I'll keep posting the sequels to this. And I can only pray it all goes well beyond the mere public humilliation of someone who is, basically, a puppet of the system.

.... to be continued... I guess...

UPDATE: Jim Cramer (by now, one would think), shortly before being arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail for financial fraud and conspiracy for committing fraud -that, aside from being fired from that temple of objectivity and good information CNBC claims to be- actually had the grapes to show up at the Daily Show With Jon Stewart. That was, last night.

Can you spell TV ass whoopin’?

Mauricio Funes

2009-03-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

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A former correspondent for CNN En Español, Mauricio Funes is now the candidate of the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberación Nacional for the presidential elections of El Salvador, to be held next March 15th.
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I took a look at the webpage for Mauricio´s campaign, and how have politics changed in Latin America during the last 10 years. For one, notice how his ´Programa de Gobierno´ is promoted on that webpage through a breastfeeding mother themed ad! To think that here in Canada we´re still arguing on how appropiate it is for a mother to breastfeed, however ´normal´ the circumnstances. In any case, I´m glad it´s going this way for Salvadorean mothers and babies.
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But, also, take some time to actually read over the FMLN´s program for governance. If you have any Spanish, it is very much worth reading.

Funes could well be the first Latinoamerican president to be elected with the Obama administration in Washington, and it all may well bring about a whole different world of possibilities for relations across the Rio Grande and down to the Patagonia.
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This is sooo cool

2009-03-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it's a bank advertisement.
But, then again, there's good even there I believe.
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God Bless Them Titties Magazines

2009-03-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

It has fell to Playboy to uncover that sad guy, Rick Santelli, the straw man for the Sweet Tea Revolt that gathered close to, wait for it, 60 thousand angry US citizens throughout the Union -even though some of the protesters still believe to be living in something they call 'a Confederation'.

The article is now only available in the print version, but it is very much worth reading and even passing on. Haven't seen the centerfold though.

t/h Crooks and Liars

update: Please see the Cramer-Stewart saga. Guess who's whooping who's ... rear end investment, so to speak.

Update II: I found ya a link for the Playboy piece. No pics tho. )

Shuffling names around

2009-03-05T04:51:00.000-08:00

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What do the recent changes within the Cuban government may mean?

They are not anything remotely close to a change of guard. Raul Castro is, no doubt about it, taking more and more actual control of the government apparatus, and also the Communist Party’s. What the changes appear to reflect is an efficiency-oriented re-structuring of the government and its different ministries. Together with an obvious attempt to replace aged top functionaries, there is also an apparent break away from ideologically loaded to more skilled, competent bureaucrats.

It all remains, however, an in-house affair. And it comes at a point when it’s only a matter of time before top officials from both Cuba and the USA begin what should come down to an extended, difficult, honest and necessary set of negotiations that should, and very well could, bring peace and cooperation across the Florida Straits.

So They Are Going To Fix Zimbabwe...

2009-03-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

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I am afraid we will be looking forward to a Sudan-like 'success'.
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Don't get me wrong, people who suffer hunger and overall distress could and should be given assistance and succor.
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But, don't get me wrong, what we've done with Sudan is not, precisely, reason for dreaming a better future for Zimbabwe.
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God help us.
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We Were Almost Hit By... A What?!?

2009-03-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

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A 35 meters-wide asteroid barely avoided hitting -i.e. smashing on- planet Earth -thast is... us!- just last Monday, when it made its way through this particular section of our Solar System.

I hope the bloody stone is insured.
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Why hasn't Obama hired Paul Krugman?

2009-03-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

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When the mass media is doing such a poor, poor job in explaining 'the global economic crisis' to its audience, people like Paul Krugman become true beacons of reason. The Economics Noble Prize hit it out of the park, once again, in an article in yesterday's New York Times.
If you want to know where the global crisis came from, then, think of it this way: we’re looking at the revenge of the glut.
Having been raised in a Marxism-oriented society, it becomes very tempting for me to point out the classic assesment of capitalism as, first and foremost, a socio-political system grounded on an economic jungle-like framework, with cyclical economic crisis and attached armed conflicts as expected side-effects of its otherwise predictable affluence, if only of the few.

Of course, the present problem is far more complicated than what Marx could have envisioned in his own time, but not essentially different, really.

The USA needs to refinance its own economy. With a current foreign debt in the tens of trillions of dollars, a trade deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars, it is also desperate in search for refinancers for all that debt. But no other financial instrument but 'throwing money at it' promises any better result in correcting the steady decline of the US economy.

Whether this is a cyclical crisis or not, it is yet to be argued. But it is a crisis alright, and it would appear as if the consequences of de-regulation can only be properly addressed by re-plenishing the financial market with the assets that were savaged by those who rode the bubble and gave us our current global financial break-dance session.
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Political Bets

2009-03-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

With a new administration in the White House, one would find it only logical to assume that there could be a significant switch in Washington’s attitude towards Cuba. After all, the US government has already mended long, strained, even bloody break-ups with both Libya and North Korea, countries previously dropped from Washington’s List of State Sponsors of Terrorism. On the list remain Iran (the same folks whom the US government armed back in the 80s), Sudan (this is the hardest the US government will go down on Bashir, so as not to anger their Chinese creditors, thirsty for Sudanese oil), Syria (as Canadian Maher Arar tragically learned, good to Washington for nothing but outsourcing torture) and Cuba (its geographical area and population make respectively for than 2 and 4% of those of the USA).

For quite a while now, conditions have been ripe for a US administration to take bold steps towards cooling down its 50-year catfight with Havana. Back in June 2000, the return of 6-year old Elian Gonzalez Brottons from his politically pumped relatives in Florida to his - rather calmer - father Juan Miguel signified a moment of clarity for both sides in the conflict: the ‘other’ is not entirely to be distrusted. Apparently, as both regimes came to find out during the Elian episode, even those perceived as your most sworn enemies can actually keep their word, no matter how troublesome the circumstances. However, this positive step in USA-Cuba relations was no part of any foregin policy effort of the Clinton Administration: the truth is, neither US major political party has shown significantly more common sense than the other when dealing with their neighbour 150 km south of Key West.

Nonetheless, the facts on the ground do show that a progressive normalization of the relations would not only benefit both regimes: it would also provide them with much-needed opportunities for addressing long overdue political and economic conundrums in their respective national scenes. And, different from the now almost defunct Bush Jr. regime (as well as all the previous ones, dating from Fidel Castro’s unwillingness to clap and dance to Eisenhower’s tune, during his 1959 trip to the United States) it would seem as if an Obama White House is not sworn to subverting the Cuban state, for ever and ever.

Let us look first at what would be needed for achieving that normality. Or, perhaps, what either regime has demanded for even considering any change of policies with regards to the other.

On the one hand, Cuba wants the USA to terminate the economic embargo it placed around the island’s neck back in the early 60’s. In deference to pro-embargo arguments, let us remember that the US agriculture is already the number one source for Cuban food importers. So much for an embargo that is, at least in designation, economic. Not to mention the undeniable fact that the only ones to suffer the results of the embargo are the same Cuban people for whose well-being the US political circus purportedly works towards improving.

Cuba is an untouched market, with more than 12 million potential customers who are the dream of manufacturers in the United States who, under the current and growing economic meltdown, would rather be trading with Cuba than listening to the few Florida hawks who insist in treating Havana as some sort of viral threat to ‘the American way of life’. Also, Cuban civil infrastructure, housing, transportation, services and communications are, right now, a no man’s land that awaits investment and technological upgrading that, let us be honest, takes far too long to arrive from China. That Cuba has managed to provide most of its population with more than enough academic instruction, overall effective health care and a fair degree of social integration makes it a highly promising pool of human potential that would provide every chance for effectively staffing this, by every account, inevitable upgrading of the Cuban economy.

The Cuban government also demands that Washington will strike down that strange legal creature, the Cuban Adjustment Act, a piece of legal weaponry and good ol’ political pandering, thanks to which hundreds of thousands of Cubans have found a safe, relatively easy road to the United States of America, but which has also promoted a growing, irregular, dangerous and, quite often, deadly migration flow (aka rafters) as well as a flourishing business of human trafficking ($10 thousand US or more a pop) across the Florida strait. The Cuban Adjustment Act, besides a laugh and a spit in the face of Washington’s post- 9/11 paranoia, sets an irrational distinction, not only between Cuban and, say, Haitian rafters (or Mexican wall jumpers, for that matter) but even between ‘dry foot’ and ‘wet foot’ Cuban refugees. It’s a sham.

And, last not but least, the regime in Havana expects that the US administration in turn will dismantle its current factory of horrors at the Guantanamo Naval Base (since the torture scandal hit the fan, more commonly known as Gitmo) and, eventually, move out of what is, by any standard, Cuban territory, and thus return the ownership and use of the area now covered by the Base to the Cuban government. And the USA have everything to gain from closing the Guantanamo Base. There is more than Iraq and Pat Robertson to explain the habit of so many tourists from the United States of America of stiching a Canadian flag to their backpacks when travelling abroad. Gitmo, besides a horror of human evil, today accounts for a great deal of the sense of national shame that translates into such cross-dressing flag tactics. At the present time, it is very hard to fathom why an Obama administration would refuse to, at least, negotiate these demands. Again, not because of any alleged Democratic (or Republican) gift in dealing with regimes who are, to say the least, uneasy about the too visible gap between what Washington says and what it then does, but because it is now well within the interest of the United States of America to rise to these expectations.

On the other hand, successive US administrations have emphasized, however vaguely, on certain demands to be fulfilled by Havana before considering the normalization of relations. A quick list would include the holding of ‘free, democratic elections’, the full opening of national markets to private enterprises (be it national or foreign), the release of political prisoners (estimated at more than 300), freedom for media outlets, workers’ unions and NGOs to thrive, and the dismantling of the ideological framework that determines the current political orientation of the Cuban government. Regardless of the inner contradictions that any of these expectations entail (it´s the US government on the pitching end, after all) let us consider each of them in some detail.

With Havana having just signed the United Nations Charter of Social, Political and Economic Rights and, in line with the Charter, having just made clear its intentions to normalize the place and rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people in Cuba (and considering, for example, the angst and state-by-state fragmentation that the USA has experienced when dealing with this very issue) it is only fair to believe that, also in line with the Charter, more open, accessible means of political participation for Cubans will be put in place. Eventually.

However, it is difficult to see how any significant, enduring political transformation could ever come about without any previous energizing of the economic forces -as Marx painstakingly taught us- ultimately responsible for the achievement of any alternative political self-understanding. And, in regard to the opening of the Cuban economy to private initiatives and capital, it is hard to see how such a thing could be prevented from happening should there be a dismantling of Washington’s embargo against Cuba.

Such a re-formulation of the bases of the Cuban economy would also help to dissipate the climate of political warring that has provided the regime in Havana with the arguments for discouraging, demonizing and prosecuting alternative, non-complying political organizations, particularly those which, one way or another, appear to take either orders or cash –or both- from Washington.

This will be, however, a long process, and any hopes for a general amnesty for political prisoners will require more than economic goodwill from Washington. Cuba’s distrust for the United States’ foreign policy instincts is not, by any means, something new; it was not born with the 1959 revolution, but dates from colonial times, having found its most memorable mention in an unfinished letter that José Martí, (the greatest Cuban ever, whose statue stands in Central Park, New York, a little distance away from that of Simón Bolívar) wrote to a friend, on the eve of his death in the battlefield of the Cuban war of liberation from Spain, May 18, 1895:

“Every day I am in danger of putting down my life for my country and my duty to it, to timely prevent, with the independence of Cuba, that the United States should extend their dominion over the Antilles to fall, with so much more strength, over our lands of the Americas. All I have done so far, and all I will do, is for this purpose.”

Washington needs to understand and respond to this historical reality: what José Martí fought against more than 100 years ago went on to become, between 1898 and 1959, an open policy of manipulation and exploitation of Cuba (by 1958, for example, US interests owned 75% of Cuba´s fertile land and 90% of its public services) and, after Fidel Castro´s revolution, an even more aggressive stance, embodied in political wrangling, economic warfare and terrorist attacks, all of which were tragically epitomized in the October 6, 1976 bombing of a Cuban civil airliner that killed its 73 occupants, perpetrated by members of anti-Castro organizations, supported by Washington, some of whom still walk free in the post-9/11, United States.

And this is but one example out of a long, convoluted history of aggression which has done nothing either to terminate the ‘Castro dictatorship’ or to help easing the relations between the two countries. In that same vein, it has done nothing to deprive the regime in Havana from more or less coherent reasons for its insistence in controlling the media, its obsessive-looking policies of military defence (from attacks that, more often than not, have been created, organized and/or funded from Washington) and its refusal to lighten its grip on workers´ unions and NGOs.

An Obama administration would appear intent in closing the gaps that have prevented any further advancement in the issues that have allegedly landed Cuba (or Syria, or Iran, or Sudan) in the State Department’s List of State Sponsors of Terrorism. President Obama has advocated for a more diplomatic line in dealing with these regimes, and none other than General Dave H. Petraeus, former US military chief commander in Iraq, has endorsed such an approach, advancing the notion that Washington should be willing to negotiate even with those who may have “our blood on their hands”. While that may or may not be applicable to the other countries still on the terrorism sponsors list, one would be pressed to argue it to be the case with Cuba.

Come think of it, the opposite would be true. At whichever point the White House should consider whether or not to negotiate with Havana, it would do well to acknowledge, not only the clear facts on the ground (Cuba is no military threat, political freedom in Cuba will hardly occur without its economic counterpart, and none of this will happen with the current and absurd embargo policy in place) but also, how much innocent Cuban blood has stained its hands throughout the last fifty years. And act accordingly.

A clear path to success in the Middle East

2009-02-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

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Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Israel and the United States

If the United States wants to leave Iraq within the time table Barack Obama has set up, it needs to work with Iran.

If the United States really wants to contribute to solving the Israel-Palestine bloodshed, support the State of Israel and protect Israel’s nationals (Jewish or otherwise), then it needs to work with Iran.

If the United States wants to guarantee Russia’s support for the peace process in the Middle East –something crucial if Syria and other key players are going to be involved at all- then it needs to work with Iran.

Contrary to what we’ve been led to believe, the threats from Teheran calling for the end of Israel are in the same level of political and military pornography as the utterances of Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are.

Contrary to what we’ve been led to believe, it is not only Iran who is calling for the end, not of the State of Israel, but of its ‘national religion’ of Zionism.

In November 1945, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181, setting up the framework for the establishment of the State of Israel.

In 1967, as part of the 6-days war, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and has retained control of the area ever since.

In December 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution (3376) that called for the end of Zionism and equalled it to racism.

In 1991, after Israel –supported by the George HW Bush’s administration- conditioned its participation in the Madrid Conference on the repeal of 3376, the United Nations passed Resolution 4686 –one of the skinniest and most succinct resolutions in the history of the United Nations.

So far, Washington has shown that it is only able and willing to deal with the implications of its disastrous Middle East policies through an exhausting, almost disparate State Department global campaigning and misinformed, misleading reports about Iran’s actual capabilities for producing a nuclear weapon.

Sooner than later, the White House will be faced with making a choice between supporting the State of Israel and supporting Zionism.

Update: These are hopeful signs indeed.

US to support Palestinian state
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/us+to+support+palestinian+state/3009817

Medvedev says US offered no trade-off on Iran
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/europe/view/2009_03_03_Medvedev_says_US_offered_no_trade-off_on_Iran/

U.S. to begin talks with Syria
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/03/mideast/03diplo.php
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