Guillermo
Morales, a fugitive from U.S. law enforcement, was convicted of
firearms possession and other charges in New York City in 1978 after a
bomb he was assembling blew up in his hands. Morales lost all his
fingers in that bomb blast. While under guard in a New York hospital, he
escaped in 1979 and has been on the run since. He now lives in Havana.
(Mary Jordan/The Washington Post)
jueves, diciembre 25, 2014
Neocastrismo: El sistema tributario cubano estrangula a los cuentapropistas
La Oficina Nacional de Administración Tributaria (ONAT) controla
celosamente el pago mensual de los impuestos por parte de los ciudadanos
cubanos que ejercen el trabajo por cuenta propia. De igual forma, esa
instancia adscripta al Ministerio de Finanzas y Precios les exige a los
cuentapropistas la presentación de una Declaración Jurada de Ingresos
Personales al final de cada periodo fiscal, con el correspondiente pago
adicional para muchos de ellos. Y si en la referida declaración jurada
la ONAT considera que hubo una subdeclaración de ingresos, sobrevienen
los recargos y las multas para los infractores.
Semejante desvelo oficial hacia el cumplimiento de los deberes
asignados a los trabajadores por cuenta propia, sin embargo, no se
corresponde con la actitud gubernamental hacia el reconocimiento de los
derechos que le asisten a esos trabajadores no estatales.
Específicamente lo relacionado con la aceptación de los gastos de los
cuentapropistas en el desempeño de su labor.
Ningún trabajador por cuenta propia puede reflejar en su declaración
jurada la totalidad de sus gastos, aun si esas erogaciones están
amparadas por facturas provenientes de establecimientos estatales. Se
establece un límite máximo de gastos por tipo de actividad. Por ejemplo,
el 50% de los ingresos brutos para los elaboradores-vendedores de
alimentos, y el 40% para los taxistas. Esas categorías ocupacionales son
las más favorecidas en cuanto al reconocimiento de los gastos, pues a
buena parte de las actividades solo se le admite un 10%. Y la situación
se torna más crítica si el cuentapropista no obtiene dichas facturas, ya
que en esos casos los porcentajes de gastos permitidos pueden reducirse
a la mitad. Lógicamente, si de los ingresos brutos se deducen menos
gastos que los reales, entonces los impuestos a pagar serán mayores.
En los últimos tiempos han trascendido muchas quejas de
cuentapropistas relacionadas con esa controversial disposición de las
autoridades tributarias. La sección "Cartas a la Dirección", del
periódico Granma, ha publicado dos misivas (en sus ediciones
del 7 de noviembre y el 12 de diciembre) de taxistas que demuestran, con
cifras, el perjuicio financiero que sufren al no poder deducir todos
sus gastos de los ingresos brutos que declaran. Uno de los remitentes,
incluso, conduce un taxi arrendado a una agencia de transporte estatal,
por lo que todos sus gastos debe efectuarlos obligatoriamente en
dependencias del Estado, y por tanto se pueden confirmar con evidencias
oficiales.
Y si los taxistas afrontan este calvario con sus gastos, qué
podríamos afirmar de los elaboradores-vendedores de alimentos, quienes
al no contar con un mercado mayorista donde adquirir sus insumos, deben
acudir a los establecimientos minoristas en los que compra la población,
y que pocas veces entregan facturas o comprobantes de venta.
Visitamos una cafetería-paladar en el municipio Plaza de la
Revolución. Su propietario afirma que trata de comprar la mayor parte de
sus insumos en las Tiendas Recaudadoras de Divisas (TRD), y así recibir
las facturas que amparan sus gastos. Pero también se ve forzado a
adquirir el pan, las frutas, las viandas y la carne de cerdo, entre
otros, en comercios que no emiten facturas. Y apunta este cuentapropista
lo que le sucedió el año pasado: "Imagínense, que no llegué a
justificar con facturas o vales de compra ni la mitad de mis gastos, y
entonces la ONAT se negó a rebajarme del ingreso bruto el 50% por
concepto de gastos. Únicamente me dedujeron el 25%. Algo realmente
abusivo".
Hasta el momento no hay indicaciones de que tal estado de cosas vaya a
cambiar para la próxima campaña de presentación de las declaraciones
juradas durante los meses de enero a abril de 2015. Los funcionarios de
la ONAT insisten en que hay muchos trabajadores por cuenta propia que no
pueden demostrar con evidencias el 100% de sus gastos, por lo que se
hace necesario mantener el ya mencionado porcentaje de gastos permitidos
por tipo de actividad. Sería algo así como "pagar los justos por los
pecadores".
Es difícil que un sistema tributario funcione eficientemente si no
existe determinada armonía entre autoridades y contribuyentes. En el
caso cubano se impone que las primeras comprendan que los segundos no
solo tienen deberes, sino también derechos.
Un grupo inspirado en Occupy Wall Street convoca a 'todos los cubanos' a la Plaza de la Revolución
La artista Tania Bruguera ha asumido la portavocía de una
convocatoria pública que invita a los cubanos a exigir públicamente sus
derechos civiles el próximo 30 de diciembre a las 3 pm en la Plaza de la Revolución de La Habana.
Sus promotores, inspirados en referentes como Occupy Wall Street,
emplazan a cualquier cubano a reivindicar sus derechos civiles ante un
micrófono, de forma similar a la performance El susurro de Tatlin, que la artista presentó en la Bienal de La Habana de 2009.
La autora y los promotores de la acción en el extrior tienen previsto viajar a la Isla para estar presentes en la performance, a
medio camino entre el arte y la protesta. El grupo confía en que el
régimen no impida su entrada a la Isla. "Tengo todos los papeles en
regla", comentó Bruguera en declaraciones a DIARIO DE CUBA.
La convocatoria se articuló de forma muy rápida a través de las redes
sociales, donde se creó la plataforma #YoTambienExijo —con página en Facebook y cuenta en Twitter— y en ella están uniendo esfuerzos cubanos dentro y fuera de la Isla. El origen de la iniciativa es una carta abierta
que la propia Bruguera escribió el pasado 17 de diciembre dirigida a
Barack Obama, a Raúl Castro y al Papa Francisco ante el anuncio del
restablecimiento de relaciones diplomáticas entre Washington y La
Habana.
Bruguera, vocera de la plataforma, señaló que la acción se fundamenta
en la necesidad de que los cubanos obtengan respuestas "a una serie de
interrogantes sobre el futuro de Cuba" ante el sorpresivo giro político
entre la Isla y los Estados Unidos. "En esta coyuntura, en la que los
cubanos se verán afectados, tienen derecho a hacer preguntas y recibir
respuestas", justificó la artista.
En cuanto a la plataforma que se ha articulado, manifestó que nació
como "un proyecto inclusivo, sin filiación política o de credo a partir
de las preocupaciones entre amigos, conocidos de conocidos, pero sin
ningún tipo de experiencia en activismo o liderazgo en la sociedad civil
cubana".
Al proyecto se han sumado hasta el momento una docena de personas,
entre "comunicadores sociales, diseñadores, historiadores de arte,
cubanos con talento que andan por todo el mundo y en Cuba que brindan su
experiencia en algunos temas y que han encontrado una plataforma en la
cual se identifican".
La creadora se muestra orgullosa por el hecho que "dentro del grupo
hay diversas opiniones políticas" aunque a todos los une "la certeza de
que tenemos que ejercer nuestro derecho a ser parte de este proceso que
nos afecta". El grupo se organizó en cuatro días a través de las redes
sociales y cada día crece con la participación de más personas.
"Ha sido muy emotivo trabajar con cubanos en todos los continentes,
alineando nuestros horarios y dándolo todo para esta acción”, explicó la
artista, quien añadió que la única vez que sintió algo similar "fue en
los días en que estábamos generando el grupo Occupy Wall Street".
La autora remarcó que en lo que se está organizando "todo es
orgánico, transparente, horizontal" y subrayó, además, que "no hay un
líder y las cosas las hacemos por consenso" por lo que "quizás estemos
poniendo en práctica ya en este grupo las ideas de la sociedad en la que
quisiéramos participar".
El antecedente de YoTambienExijo es la performance El susurro de Tatlin que tuvo lugar en el Centro Wifredo Lam y en la que se dejó un micrófono abierto para que cualquiera se expresara.
En esta ocasión, la plataforma llama a la participación de "todos los
cubanos" y en especial del "cubano de a pie, el que ahora se hace
preguntas sobre la vida cotidiana, acceso a comunicación, políticas
salariales, garantías de servicios públicos", citó Bruguera.
La artista cree que la plataforma "le da cabida a mucha gente que
quizás hasta ahora había visto los cambios y se había adaptado, incluso a
regañadientes o sin entender muy bien su rol, pero que ahora pueden
tener en #YoTambienExijo un espacio para ejercer sus derechos a
entender".
Pensando en las trabas
Bruguera es consciente que un evento de estas características, en
Cuba, donde no están reconocidos los derechos de manifestación o
libertad de expresión fuera de los postulados oficiales, puede encontrar
serios impedimentos.
"Por el inesperado y rápido crecimiento que ha tenido el proyecto,
una de las preocupaciones fundamentales del grupo en este momento es que
podamos entrar a La Habana", señaló a DIARIO DE CUBA.
La artista agregó que la plataforma no tiene una estrategia diseñada
en caso de que el régimen impida la acción. "Yo tengo todos mis papeles
migratorios en regla, no he hecho nada ilegal y no entro con ningún
material subversivo ni prohibido por la ley cubana, por lo tanto
ejerceré mi derecho a entrar”, remarcó la artista, subrayando que tanto
ella como el resto del grupo "vamos a estar el 30 en la Plaza a las 3 pm
con todos los cubanos que quieran venir a compartir pacíficamente qué
idea tienen sobre su nación y su futuro". La creadora advierte que
"todas las opiniones tendrán el mismo espacio y se oirán con el mismo
respeto".
La artista quiso destacar que "las performances e
iniciativas como esta son comunes en otros países, democráticos o no" y
que "los movimientos sociales y artísticos han estado ligados desde
siempre". Uno de los ejemplos más sólidos en América Latina, explica la
autora, fue el de Tucumán Arde, cuyo archivo se conserva en el Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).
"Estos procesos extienden las fronteras y Cuba es parte del mundo, es
parte de esa apertura al mundo que pidió el Papa Juan Pablo II en esa
misma Plaza, así que vemos como un hecho muy positivo para la sociedad
cubana el insertarnos en movimientos globales de derechos humanos",
reivindicó Bruguera.
La plataforma no tiene ni una semana de vida y las redes sociales se
han convertido en el punto de apoyo para la organización de todos los
aspectos logísticos y de comunicación. Aparte de sus perfiles en redes
sociales, cuenta con un espacio para compartir documentos con todo el mundo de forma libre.
"Hemos recibido llamadas y ofrecimientos de apoyo de cubanos en
muchísimos lugares del mundo y también desde Cuba nos han enviado
mensajes ofreciendo ayuda voluntaria porque de alguna manera este
llamado ha tenido una resonancia en mucha gente que hasta ahora no se
había sentido representada", explicó Bruguera.
Celebración pacífica
La artista reivindica la acción porque apuesta por la convivencia de
ideas diversas y por "exigir nuestros derechos civiles como una
celebración pacífica". Bruguera recordó que "la manera en la que estamos
trabajando, como dice nuestro comunicado, es no pedir permiso para
tener nuestros derechos, sino empezar a ejercerlos".
De todos modos, los promotores del evento están trabajando en todos
los aspectos "artísticos-legales" de la acción en estos momentos. "El
Gobierno tiene el poder para impedirlo o no, no puedo ni me corresponde
adivinar sus intenciones, pero si el pueblo quiere estar ahí no podrán
impedirlo", aseguró Bruguera.
La artista añadió que "de nuestra parte, como artistas y ciudadanos,
creemos que estos son momentos en los que cada cubano debe dar un paso
histórico" y remarcó que "nuestra acción será pacífica y la respuesta
ante cualquier inconveniente, si se presenta, será también pacífica".
La performance quedará registrada mediante documentos audiovisuales,
pero su impulsora cree que "lo más importante es que quede registrado en
la memoria personal de los presentes allí el 30 de diciembre a las 3
pm".
Cuba: Pagando favores a la Iglesia Catolica
a plazos le estan pagando a panchito 1ro y a jaimito el ladino, las genuflexiones complices
y conspirativas.
 |
| www.palabranueva.net |
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LA HABANA (AP) — Las gruesas paredes
cubiertas de azulejos bizantinos con dibujos de santos todavía están en
pie. Pero la mitad del techo de madera se cayó y los rayos del sol
tropical invaden el recinto religioso que carece de los coloridos
vitrales que le daban esplendor, pues algunos vándalos los destruyeron o
le escribieron sus nombres.
Aún en este estado, la capilla de la antigua Universidad de Santo
Tomás de Villanueva, en el residencial barrio de Miramar al oeste de
esta capital, es una de las propiedades que la Iglesia católica anhelaba
recuperar y que el Estado cubano le devolvió.
Pero no es la única devuelta. Discreta y paulatinamente, las
autoridades cubanas iniciaron la restitución a sus antiguos propietarios
de templos, casas parroquiales, terrenos y edificaciones que fueron
tomados por el gobierno al triunfo de la revolución.
Ha sido un proceso tan silencioso como el que llevó al papa Francisco
a convertirse en mediador entre Cuba y Estados Unidos para lograr un
deshielo histórico que culminó la semana pasada cuando los mandatarios
de ambos países anunciaron el restablecimiento de sus relaciones
diplomáticas tras más de 50 años de hostilidades.
"Le pedimos al señor que continúe adelante todo este proceso de
reconciliación y de paz que el papa Francisco ha (...) favorecido y
sostenido", señaló el cardenal cubano Jaime Ortega durante la homilía de
la misa de Nochebuena en la catedral colonial de La Habana.
Un recuento de las propiedades devueltas, realizado por The
Associated Press, indica que se trata de más de una docena, en un
proceso de devolución que la iglesia anhelaba y que inició a finales de
2009.
"Es un gesto de parte de las autoridades muy positivo, de alguna
manera restituir lo que pertenece a la iglesia y sobre todo en el ámbito
local donde esto ocurre crea un ambiente de confianza", dijo el padre
José Félix Pérez, secretario adjunto de la Conferencia de obispos
católicos de Cuba. "Está ocurriendo, hay que señalarlo, gradualmente".
Además de la capilla de la universidad, devuelta a finales de 2009,
el proceso incluye algunas propiedades valiosas a lo largo y ancho del
país, dijo un miembro de la iglesia que estuvo al tanto del proceso y
que prefirió no revelar su identidad para poder hablar sobre un tema
sensible.
Según este miembro de la iglesia, la devolución de sus propiedades
salió a relucir de manera franca en las conversaciones que adelantaron
el cardenal cubano Jaime Ortega y el presidente Raúl Castro, cuando la
institución religiosa medió en julio de 2010 para que Cuba liberara a un
grupo de presos disidentes con apoyo del gobierno español.
"Hay dos factores en las devoluciones. Uno económico, pues, el
gobierno cubano no tiene recursos para atender esta infraestructura que
está en proceso de deterioro", dijo Enrique López Oliva, profesor de
historia de las religiones de la Universidad de La Habana. "Otro, un
objetivo de carácter religioso y político, dar una imagen de que la
relación con las iglesias mejora, que es parte de este momento histórico
nuevo en que se trata de reconstruir el país".
Las propiedades que recibieron poco mantenimiento estatal muestra un
fuerte grado de deterioro, pues a lo largo de los años se los usó como
almacenes, panaderías, comedores obreros o escuelas.
Entre las edificaciones restituidas se encuentran dos templos en
Santiago de Cuba, San José Obrero y San Benito, una casa parroquial y
algunas edificaciones que ocupaban algunas tiendas en esa provincia del
oriente del país.
Además varios templos, que estaban al interior de algunos ingenios
azucareros, fueron devueltos junto con otros dos terrenos y una capilla
en la diócesis de Bayamo-Manzanillo. Una de las propiedades más
espectaculares ya restituidas fue la del antiguo Colegio de los Padres
Jesuitas, un edificio de más de una manzana en la ciudad de Cienfuegos, a
250 kilómetros al sureste de la capital.
También, las autoridades cubanas por primera vez autorizaron la
construcción de dos templos católicos, uno al oriente de la isla y otra
en Sandino, al occidente, que se espera que sea construido con dinero
proveniente de católicos de Estados Unidos.
Las relaciones entre Estado cubano y la Iglesia católica
evolucionaron de un enfrentamiento abierto en la década de los 60,
cuando la revolución socialista estatizó muchas de sus propiedades,
algunos sacerdotes fueron enviados a realizar trabajos en el campo y en
los templos se guardaron armas de grupos anticastristas; a una mejora
radical que comenzó en la década de los 90 con un acercamiento del
entonces presidente Fidel Castro y las denominaciones religiosas en
general.
Muchas de las propiedades fueron estatizadas durante la nacionalización de la educación en 1961.
Los tiempos de tensión parecen lejanos y las buenas relaciones
llegaron al punto de que el papa Francisco y El Vaticano fueran actores
principales en la mediación que permitió la semana pasa un
restablecimiento del diálogo entre La Habana y Washington, la liberación
del contratista estadounidense Alan Gross, preso en la isla por
intentar colocar una red de telecomunicaciones ilegal al servicio del
Departamento de Estado, y la liberación de tres agentes cubanos
condenados en el vecino país.
En estos años Cuba incluso recibió la visita de dos pontífices: Juan Pablo II en 1998 y Benedicto XVI en 2012.
"Me parece muy buena esta política de Estado de devolver algunas
propiedades. Muchas de ellas serán para uso religioso pero también otras
para uso social y forma parte de las transformaciones que están
ocurriendo en el país, donde la iglesia cada vez más va a poder
desarrollar su obra y su aporte a la comunidad", dijo el reverendo Joel
Dopico, presidente del Consejo de Iglesias de Cuba, una organización que
nuclea a las entidades evangélicas y otras denominaciones menos la
católica.
El religioso hizo referencia a un conjunto de medidas aperturistas en
el plano económico y social impulsadas por el presidente Raúl Castro,
quien flexibilizó el trabajo independiente del estado, entregó tierras
en usufructo o normalizó el mercado de bienes raíces.
Dopico indicó que algunas iglesias evangélicas y protestantes, en
menor medida que la católica, también habían recibido devoluciones de
propiedades recientemente.
Mientras, la jerarquía católica no dejó de demandar un mayor acceso a
la educación o a los medios de comunicación pese al ambiente más
distendido que existe entre el Estado cubano y la Iglesia apostólica
romana, poderosa en el mundo, pero cuya feligresía en Cuba es
minoritaria pues la mayoría de la población sigue las religiones de
origen afrocaribeño,
"La iglesia está haciendo énfasis en la reconciliación entre todos
los cubanos y también entre Cuba y Estados Unidos", dijo el historiador
López Oliva. "Todo esto va en una misma dirección, un nuevo capítulo en
la historia general y económica de Cuba y también de las relaciones
Iglesia-Estado".
miércoles, diciembre 24, 2014
Five of the most (in)famous U.S. fugitives in Cuba
But what of the other 70 or so American fugitives believed to be living on the island nation? They’re not easy to track, says Teishan Latner, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the United States and the Cold War. “And among those who are known, they are hard to characterize. Some are criminals. Some are mentally ill. Some fled from general political persecution.” The lines between the groups blur.
Take, for example, the hijackers. To live in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Latner says, was to have lived in the heyday of airline hijacking to Cuba. It was so common that one publication carried a photo of a flight attendant with the caption, “Coffee, tea or — Castro?”
Between 1968 and 1973, there were 90 attempts to reach Cuba from the United States by commercial plane or, in a few cases, private aircraft, he writes in a forthcoming article for the journal Diplomatic History. Most of the hijackers were from the United States, “making American citizens or residents the world’s most frequent hijackers.”
Latner traveled to Cuba several times to interview those wanted by U.S. authorities. The life they live depends on whether the Cuban government saw them primarily as victims of political persecution in the United States – or as common criminals.
Those viewed as criminals received a welcome party that led straight to prison and eventually into a kind of halfway house, where they could be watched while they transitioned in or out of Cuban life. For many, the reality of a communist society could not survive the idealized version.
But, Latner says, those whom Cuba welcomed as political refugees were put in apartments, given stipends and ration books and supported as they found work.
I asked Latner whom he would place on the list alongside Shakur as the most-high profile American fugitives – past and present. He said it would be hard to narrow down, but these five are among the most well-known.
Nehanda Abiodun. She’s been living in Cuba since 1990. U.S. law enforcement believes she helped Shakur, who was convicted in the killing of a New Jersey state trooper, to escape from prison in 1979. Abiodun is often called the “godmother” of Cuban hip-hop, Latner says, She became an adviser for Cuban youth who were becoming hip-hop artists. She has served as a bridge between Afro-Cuban and American hip-hop artists.
William Lee Brent. Brent, a Black Panther Party member who had been excommunicated, hijacked TWA flight 154 from Oakland to Havana in 1969. He was imprisoned in Cuba for 22 months as a suspected spy, but upon his release he went on to work at a pig farm and a soap factory before getting a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Havana. He died in Cuba in 2006.
Eldridge Cleaver. Cleaver, author of “Soul on Ice,” was a Black Panther Party leader. He fled to Cuba in 1968 while out on bail on charges of attempted murder of two police officers. He was welcomed as a political refugee but stayed only five months before leaving for Algeria and the Soviet Union. He would later speak of his time in Cuba as one of disillusionment. He died in the United States in 1998.
Guillermo Morales. A member of a militant Puerto Rican separatist movement, Morales escaped from a hospital in New York while under police custody. He has admitted he was planting a bomb at a New York military installation when the bomb blew up, taking nearly all his fingers. He was facing 89 years in prison when he escaped. He is still believed to be living in Cuba.
William Potts. One of the last hijackers and another Black Panther Party militant, Potts became known somewhat mockingly as “the homesick hijacker.” Potts diverted a commercial flight from New York City to Cuba in 1984, hoping to go on to South Africa to join the anti-apartheid movement. He was imprisoned for 13 years and then lived as a political exile. In 2013, he returned to the United States and earlier this year pleaded guilty to kidnapping. He is now in prison and eligible for parole in 2021.
And whom does Cuba most want from the United States?
“Probably Luis Posada Carriles,” Latner says. Cuba and Venezuela hold Carriles responsible for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. He is living openly in Florida and has never faced charges in the United States, Latner says.
Cuban officials in recent days have said they will not return Shakur to the United States, stating the country’s prerogative as a sovereign nation to offer political asylum. Cuba, Latner says, will continue to protect Americans it believes would not receive a fair trial in the United States. As far as the larger relationship goes, Latner says: “Cuba wants what Cuba has always wanted with the U.S.: diplomatic equality and reciprocity.”
Síndrome del Neocastrismo: Cubanos esperan nueva vida para autos americanos
la esperanza que dimana del Síndrome del Neocastrismo, donde la resignacion, como apuntaba balzac, es un suicidio cotidiano.
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AmericaTeVeCanal41Cuando la Base Naval sea una playa de Oriente -U.S. prepares to accelerate detainee transfers from Guantanamo Bay prison
siguiendo las motivaciones politicas e ideologicas de barack obama era posible predecir la aceleracion del traslado de los terroristas detenidos en la base naval de guantanamo, tal y como recientemente subrayabamos aqui >>, no se necesita mucha mollera neuronal para dejar establecido que antes que el actual inquilino de la white house la abandone, la actual instalacion militar arrendada a cuba desde 1903, aunque los castros se nieguen a aceptar el pago, se convertira en una nueva victoria de los que ahora si van a construir el socialismo prospero y sustentable, cuando se convierta en una "playa de oriente" como pedia el trovador erik sanchez ["cuando aparezca el petroleo" >>], o en el exclusivo complejo turistico para pesetuos -aunque algun charquito le dejaran a los guantanameros- con terminal de cruceros y marina incluidos: victoria resort-patria o muerte, venceremos.
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The Washington Post
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The Washington Post
The Obama administration is accelerating its efforts to shut down the
Guantanamo Bay detention center, preparing to move dozens of inmates
out of the prison in coming months in a step forward for President
Obama’s redoubled attempt to achieve a core national security objective
before he leaves office.
U.S. officials, describing
administration plans to significantly reduce the Guantanamo population
over the next six months, said they are in talks with a wide range of
countries that they hope will accept all 64 detainees approved for
transfer.
President Obama has spoken to fellow heads of
government in an effort to arrange transfers, the officials said, one
sign of the increased personal role they expect he will take as he
inches closer to the closure of the prison.
“He does not want to
leave this to his successor,” Paul M. Lewis, the Pentagon’s special
envoy for shutting down Guantanamo, said in an interview.
After a
virtual halt to detainee transfers in 2011-2013, officials hope to
whittle the prison’s population from 132 to the mid-120s by the middle
of next month. That would leave roughly half the number of detainees
housed at the military complex in Cuba when Obama took office in 2009.
Defense
Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved the transfer of five detainees to a
host country by the end of 2014, officials said. Relocating those
prisoners would bring to 28 the total number of detainees transferred
this year. Five or six more prisoners are expected to be moved in the
first weeks of January.
Obama remains a long way from achieving
his goal of closing Guantanamo and could yet be forced to threaten
executive action if he cannot overcome congressional opposition to
moving or releasing detainees. But officials are optimistic that they
can make significant progress in pressing other countries to accept
transfers.
They are betting in particular on leaders in Latin America, who they hope will follow the lead of Uruguay, which welcomed six Guantanamo detainees this month. Officials also are hoping that Obama’s decision to recast U.S. policy on Cuba and recent calls by the Vatican for the prison’s closure will encourage potential host countries.
At
the same time, officials still must resolve the fate of detainees from
Yemen, who make up the largest portion of the remaining prisoners and
are unlikely to be sent home anytime soon because of U.S. concerns about
militant activity in their home country.
“We’ve been able to break the logjam,” said Clifford Sloan, who steps down
this month from his position as Lewis’s counterpart at the State
Department. “There’s a very clear path ahead for significant progress
and ultimate closure of the facility.”
The accelerated effort to
close Guantanamo is at the center of a larger effort to wind down a
war-time detainee system that was created after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks.
Also this month, the U.S. military shut down the Parwan
detention facility in Afghanistan, which held a small number of
prisoners on a military base near Kabul. Parwan was a final vestige of
what was once a massive U.S. military operation to capture, process and
house around 30,000 prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If
officials can find host countries for all 64 detainees who have been
cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo, they will then tackle the even
harder task of dealing with the remaining prisoners. Ten detainees,
including five accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks, are at some stage
of a military trial process. Almost 60 more are slated to undergo
official reviews that may result in some being deemed eligible for
transfer. But officials expect that others — perhaps more than a dozen —
will remain permanently in legal limbo, considered too dangerous for
release but ineligible for trial because of insufficient or problematic
evidence.
Increasingly, Obama is making a financial argument for
closing the prison, which costs $400 million to $500 million a year to
operate. Keeping the lights on at Guantanamo becomes even more costly on
a per-detainee basis as the prisoner population falls.
Keeping Guantanamo open “is contrary to our values, and it is wildly expensive,” Obama told CNN over the weekend.
But
he faces significant obstacles to closing the prison, including deep
congressional opposition and turnover among his top detainee officials.
Sloan and J. Alan Liotta, a senior Pentagon official on detainee policy,
are stepping down around the end of the year.
There also has been friction between the White House and Pentagon over the pace of detainee transfers.
Administration
officials see glimmers of hope in Congress despite lawmakers’
long-standing ban on moving prisoners to the United States for trial or
detention. They hope that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has expressed
some support for closing the prison, will build momentum as he takes
leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee next year.
But
Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), now the committee’s top Republican,
cautioned that political fault lines on Guantanamo may remain unchanged.
“Democrats
and Republicans in the House and the Senate — they’re not real excited
about lining up with him on these things that he’s doing,” Inhofe said.
“I don’t think he’ll get by with it.”
Congressional objections
are driven in part by the reappearance of some released Guantanamo
detainees on the battlefield. U.S. intelligence officials have said that
17 percent of the more than 600 Guantanamo detainees released or
transferred since 2002 have reengaged in militant activity and that
12 percent more are suspected of doing so.
The phenomenon is not limited to Guantanamo detainees. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State, was once a prisoner at a U.S. detention center in Iraq.
Obama
“is definitely putting his agenda way ahead of our national security,”
Inhofe said. “He should not be doing this, but it’s consistent with
other things that he’s done.”
Officials declined to say what
actions Obama would, or could, take if hoped-for congressional support
does not materialize. But any steps to circumvent Congress are sure to
stir the kind of Republican outrage that followed the president’s recent
executive action on immigration policy.
Liotta
said that the risks of transferring or releasing detainees could be
reduced but not eliminated. “The only way to have a zero reengagement
number is to never release anybody, a position the Defense Department
has never supported,” he said.
Julie Tate and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
Cortometraje de Lilo Vilaplana: "La muerte del gato" [Completo]
La Muerte Del Gato,desgarrador testimonio donde la realidad supera la
ficción,escrito y dirigido por Lilo Vilaplana con la colaboración en el
guión de Alberto Pujol,se convierte en una denuncia al mundo de las
carencias, y represión a que es sometido el cubano desde la llegada al
poder de los mafiosos encabezados por fidel y Raul,desde el mismo enero
de 1959.
Como describe la pagina Rincón Felino"Cuando perdemos a nuestro gato, así como sucede en el caso de nuestros seres queridos, el sentimiento de angustia y dolor es inevitable, y no hemos de sentir vergüenza alguna por ello. Cada persona es capaz de superarlo de diferente manera y algunas necesitarán más tiempo que otras para desembarazarse de la sensación de vacío que nos deja el hecho de no ver más a nuestro querido compañero de alegrías y fatigas. Sin embargo, hemos de saber que no todo el mundo comprenderá nuestra pena. Muchas personas se mostrarán extrañados y no faltarán crueles comentarios del estilo "pero si sólo era un gato". No pretendamos que todos compartan nuestro dolor, pero sí intentemos compartirlo con personas sensibles capaces de comprenderlo. Hablar ayuda".
En Cuba es similar este sentimiento,con la diferencia que los gatos no morían por la edad,sino,como consecuencia de la carencia de"Fibra" como le llama el cubano de a pie, a la carne,producto alejado de la mesa del pueblo cubano,el conejo de tejado como también era conocido este famoso felino,que a finales de la década del 80 y comienzo de los 90 corrió el riesgo de extinguirse en Cuba.
Comer gato o mejor conejo de teja'o,se convirtió en una practica común en los hogares humildes y entre las personas reunidas para tomarse un trago de ron,que a falta de cualquier alimento recurrían a el manso y noble animal,que alimentaba el caldero en ese momento,no falto el engañado que creía haber comido conejo y que vomitaba una vez enterado y hasta ofendido por tan grande ofensa,pero también los que encontraban en el felino un manjar que repetían en otras ocasiones repitiendo el dicho popular de que"Todo lo que camine es fibra".
Lilo refleja en este cortometraje la crudeza de la realidad,el servilismo,la pobreza de alma y espíritus,la represión y sobre todo la desesperación y el odio hacia lo que representa la tiranía.
Como describe la pagina Rincón Felino"Cuando perdemos a nuestro gato, así como sucede en el caso de nuestros seres queridos, el sentimiento de angustia y dolor es inevitable, y no hemos de sentir vergüenza alguna por ello. Cada persona es capaz de superarlo de diferente manera y algunas necesitarán más tiempo que otras para desembarazarse de la sensación de vacío que nos deja el hecho de no ver más a nuestro querido compañero de alegrías y fatigas. Sin embargo, hemos de saber que no todo el mundo comprenderá nuestra pena. Muchas personas se mostrarán extrañados y no faltarán crueles comentarios del estilo "pero si sólo era un gato". No pretendamos que todos compartan nuestro dolor, pero sí intentemos compartirlo con personas sensibles capaces de comprenderlo. Hablar ayuda".
En Cuba es similar este sentimiento,con la diferencia que los gatos no morían por la edad,sino,como consecuencia de la carencia de"Fibra" como le llama el cubano de a pie, a la carne,producto alejado de la mesa del pueblo cubano,el conejo de tejado como también era conocido este famoso felino,que a finales de la década del 80 y comienzo de los 90 corrió el riesgo de extinguirse en Cuba.
Comer gato o mejor conejo de teja'o,se convirtió en una practica común en los hogares humildes y entre las personas reunidas para tomarse un trago de ron,que a falta de cualquier alimento recurrían a el manso y noble animal,que alimentaba el caldero en ese momento,no falto el engañado que creía haber comido conejo y que vomitaba una vez enterado y hasta ofendido por tan grande ofensa,pero también los que encontraban en el felino un manjar que repetían en otras ocasiones repitiendo el dicho popular de que"Todo lo que camine es fibra".
Lilo refleja en este cortometraje la crudeza de la realidad,el servilismo,la pobreza de alma y espíritus,la represión y sobre todo la desesperación y el odio hacia lo que representa la tiranía.
U.S. Pays $3.2 Million to American Alan Gross Held Five Years by Cuba
The U.S. government made a $3.2
million payment to Alan Gross, the American citizen freed by Cuba after
five years in prison, a spokesperson for the U.S. Agency for
International Development confirmed.
Gross was working as a
contractor for USAID through a company called Development Alternatives
Inc. (DAI) when he was detained in Cuba in 2009. According to his
family, Gross was working to expand Internet access for Cuba's small
Jewish community. In 2011 he was convicted of undermining Cuba and
sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He was freed last week
simultaneous to a prisoner swap and the announcement by President Obama
that the U.S. would seek to normalize relations with Cuba.
The $3.2-million payment
came as settlement of a larger contractual claim for $7 million filed
by DAI against USAID for incurred expenses related to the arrest and
incarceration of Gross. The settlement was finalized on Monday.
"The settlement avoids
the cost, delay and risks of further proceedings, and does not
constitute an admission of liability by either party," USAID said in a
statement.
martes, diciembre 23, 2014
Restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba: What it means for American [& Cuba] medicine
but just don't forget that the cuban health system is a weapon of castro and the doctors are slaves of the govermment.
------------------------
An embargo imposed nearly 50 years ago has prevented Cuba and the
United States from exchanging medical and technological advances, but
scientists say that may be about to change now that the countries have
restored diplomatic relations— something many experts believe was a long
time coming.
“I testified before the [U.S.] Senate Foreign
relations Committee in 2001, and I was asked by Sen. Dodd (D-CT,
1981-2011) about my opinions on the embargo, and I said, ‘As a
scientist, I could never imagine doing an experiment for 40 years and it
not working.’ And now it’s been over 50,” Mark Rasenick, professor of
physiology and biophysics at the University of Illinois, told
FoxNews.com.
“It doesn’t matter what your politics are: If you
let the embargo go another year, it will have an effect that flies in
the face of logic. I think that working together we will make a lot of
progress,” said Rasenick, who has traveled to Cuba for numerous
international research conferences. The embargo has allowed
international meetings but prohibited one-on-one conferences between
Cuba and the U.S.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has dubbed
Cuba’s health care system as “a model for the world” and praised the
country for its strides in medical research. The island has an infant
mortality rate of 5 per thousand births and an average life expectancy
of about 79 years, according to the World Bank. Those values in the U.S.
are 6 and 79 years, respectively. The leading cause of death in Cuba is
heart disease— a problem primarily seen in developed nations.
Despite
limited medical research funding from the government, Cuban researchers
have developed experimental cancer treatments, as well as numerous
vaccines— including one for meningitis B that is the most widely used
version worldwide.
Researchers in Cuba developed the first
meningitis B vaccine in the 1980s during an outbreak on the island, and
the vaccine was then distributed in other countries facing outbreaks.
Until Novartis developed another meningitis B vaccine, Bexsero— which
was used to treat U.S. students this year during emergency outbreaks at
Princeton University and the University of California, Santa Barbara—
Cuba’s was the only vaccine for this strain available worldwide. In the
wake of those outbreaks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expedited
the approval process for a different vaccine, Trumenba, in October—the
first meningitis B vaccine to be licensed in the U.S., according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While
Cuba’s cancer treatments have gained international attention due to
their sometimes unusual nature— one uses a shark fin— calling any of
them a “miracle cure” would be premature, Rasenick said. Effects may be
limited to a small number of people, and, though promising, the efficacy
of these treatments is unclear thus far.
But other medical
discoveries in Cuba have proven successful. An epidermal growth factor
receptor system to treat wounds, the use of the compound Heberprot-P to
treat pressure ulcers common in diabetics, as well as a host of
veterinary vaccines, are among other treatments developed in Cuba that
have the potential to hit ground in the U.S., Rasenick noted.
The
vaccine and cancer research in Cuba have come out of the Carlos J.
Finlay Vaccine and Serum Institute and the Center of Molecular
Immunology, respectively. Much of the medical research in the country is
concentrated in the west side of Havana, Rasenick said.
According
to Mavis Anderson, senior associate at the Latin American Working Group
(LAWG), the country has been forced to develop a pharmaceutical
industry of its own because of a U.S. rule for strict end-use monitoring
of any antibiotic patented in the U.S. That policy has deterred
pharmaceutical companies from selling their drugs in Cuba, she said.
“There’s
been a lot of development in the medical arena in Cuba in the last 50
years, largely out of need,” Anderson told FoxNews.com. LAWG is a
nonprofit that consists of 65 nongovernmental organizations, and
advocates for changes in U.S. policy toward Latin American countries.
Cuba’s
medical advances are largely attributable to its government, which has
prioritized health care, “even as it has limited freedoms and economic
prospects of its people,” Peter A. Muennig, an associate professor of
health policy and management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of
Public Health, wrote in an email to FoxNews.com.
He said that
while the health care systems in the U.S. and Cuba are not comparable,
both countries’ medical research stands to advance from open relations.
“[Cuba]
will be able to modernize their research equipment and begin to
generate revenue based upon the technologies that they have and will
develop,” Muennig said. “Over the long-term, I see a good deal of
benefit to both nations, as information and technologies are shared, and
human capital flows from Cuba to the U.S. There is a surplus of medical
personnel in Cuba and a shortage in the U.S. This will therefore be
hugely beneficial to both countries.”
Rasenick said Cuba has been
hailed worldwide for its development of brain mapping technology. As
researchers haven’t had access to magnetic resource imaging (MRI)
equipment, they have invented an Electroencephalography (EEG) mechanism,
outfitted with a bathing cap and electrodes, to measure electrical
patterns on the surface of the brain. The device is manufactured in
Spain, and Cuba sells it under the brand Neuronic for about $10,000 USD.
“In
rural America, where you don’t have access to functional MRI (fMRI)
imaging, if you had someone with a stroke or a brain injury of some
kind, and you wanted to find out what was going on with it, with this
inexpensive equipment, you could generate the image and send the info to
a more sophisticated center where they could analyze it,” Rasenick
said.
Edward W. Campion, senior deputy editor and online editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, lauded Cuba’s contributions to global medicine in a January 2013 paper published in the journal.
Campion
told FoxNews.com that Cuba frequently sends medics to developing
nations. The country has provided aid to its neighboring island Haiti—
whose residents live 30 fewer years, on average, than people in Cuba—
and it has sent more medics to West Africa to help in the fight against
Ebola than any other country, the Associated Press has reported.
“That’s got nothing to do with politics,” Campion said.
Campion
added that Cuba has recently focused on genetic technology and studying
the genetics of infectious organisms like tuberculosis, an area that
“requires communication and interaction with the leaders in the world of
science.”
“Medical research and medical teaching depend on
communication and learning,” he said. “Isolation is not good for medical
care and any kind of scientific research.”
El informe psiquiátrico [1961] que la CIA hizo de Fidel Castro
Un líder neurótico, narcisista y cuya única prioridad es «mantenerse en el poder». Así es como definía un equipo de psiquiatras de la CIA hace 53 años a Fidel Castro en un curioso informe que este martes ha sacado a relucir el diario «Clarín». Y es que, a pesar de que fue elaborado en 1961, muestra de forma clara las tensiones que existían entonces entre el bloque capitalista y comunista –unas tiranteces que, según explicó la pasada semana el presidente norteamericano Barack Obama, serán poco a poco sustituidas por un acercamiento de posturas y una eliminación paulatina del embargo.
La Agencia Central de Inteligencia elaboró este informe en octubre de 1961.
Apenas dos veranos después de que finalizara la revolución en la región
y seis meses después de que las tropas exiliadas cubanas trataran (sin
éxito) de invadir con la ayuda de Estados Unidos y de John F. Kennedy la
Bahía de Cochinos. A su vez, está fechado únicamente diez meses antes de que se iniciara la crisis de los misiles de Cuba.
En el documento (que tiene una extensión de aproximadamente tres caras de folio), la CIA explica en primer lugar que Fidel Castro no está en ningún caso loco, aunque cuenta con una personalidad inestable vulnerable a la presión psicológica. Destaca también que adora sentirse adulado por las masas, cuenta con grandes ansias de permanecer en el poder y necesita enfrentarse a un adversario para entender que su existencia es perfecta.
Neurótico
La CIA hace hincapié además en que Castro es inestable y necesita los halagos de sus congéneres para sentirse pleno: «Excepcionales elementos neuróticos de su personalidad son el hambre de poder y su necesidad de reconocimiento y adulación por las masas: es incapaz de obtener completa satisfacción de cualquier otra fuente». Algo así le sucedía con el Che Guevara,
de quien el estudio afirma que era totalmente dependiente: «Su
estabilidad emocional sufriría si el Che no mantuviera una actitud firme
y positiva hacia él», destaca el texto.
En este sentido, el informe también señala que, si el líder
fuese odiado por aquellos a quienes pide aprobación, «el resultado
sería un desorden en su personalidad, su ineficacia política e, incluso,
una enfermedad emocional clínica como la depresión». A su vez, el equipo psicológico afirmaba que cualquier crítica lo vuelve inestable y hace que pierda el contacto con la realidad.
Egoísta y con miedo a la pasividad
Entre los rasgos que más definen la personalidad de Castro, el equipo señala que uno de los más claros es su absoluto egoísmo (característica que llegan a considerar como su «Talón de Aquiles». «Narcisista al
extremo, en la victoria debe controlarlo todo, sin delegar autoridad.
Cuando se enfrenta a la derrota, su primera preocupación es retirarse
para reagrupar sus recursos», completa el texto.
A su vez, los expertos también consideraban por entonces
que Castro contaba un miedo atroz a las desgracias que le pudieran
suceder debido a su pasividad (entre
ellas, perder el poder por no haber sabido reconocer a tiempo los
peligros que le atacaban). Esta característica se relaciona con su
necesidad psicológica de encontrarse siempre en la cima, controlando a
la sociedad y velando por ella como si estuviera formada por menores de
edad.
En este sentido, los psiquiatras de la Agencia Estatal de
Inteligencia también entendían que, «pese a depender de las masas para
su sostén (…) no confía en ellas lo suficiente como para llamar a
elecciones Su prioridad es mantenerse en el poder. Él probablemente destruiría a ambos, a sí mismo y al pueblo cubano, para preservar este estatus».
Con todo, el documento destacaba también la gran capacidad intelectual
de Fidel Castro y sus dotes como «líder revolucionario y agitador»-.
A World Conspiracy
By: Brent Parrish
The Right Planet
The Right Planet
There probably is not a more loaded word these days than
“conspiracy.” So often I hear people who may believe something nefarious
might be going on anxiously qualify their position by insisting they
are not a “conspiracy theorist.” And I completely understand the
sentiment. Let’s face it, there are a lot of crackpot theories going
around on numerous issues these days. So much so, the word conspiracy evokes an almost Pavlovian reaction in many people.
But just what is a conspiracy? It’s simply the act of two or more
people agreeing to commit an illegal or immoral act. Conspiracies happen
all the time—both big and small. The trick is to determine if it really
is a conspiracy or not. And often times, the bigger the conspiracy, the
harder it is to prove.
One of the greatest conspiracies of all time, in my opinion, is
communism itself. Oh, and that’s not just my opinion. Conspiracy is one
of the essential parts of communism, as I hope to point out in this
article. Once again, this is not just my opinion, it comes straight from the communists themselves.
In my own experience, quite a few people I have encountered really
have no idea what communism is all about. They might know the history of
communism, but they often times don’t understand or grasp the ideology
behind it. And let’s face it, the mere mention of the word communism is
enough to make some people look at their watch and say, “Well, I better
get going now.” The reaction is similar to when one uses the word
“conspiracy.”
Another reason I believe a number of people glaze over when the
subject of communism is brought is up is due to the dangerously
misguided belief communism was defeated when the Berlin Wall
came down. But the fact of the matter is one out of every five people
on earth still lives under an oppressive communist regime. The countries
that are still communist are:
- China
- Laos
- Cuba
- Vietnam
- North Korea
Of course, I would still consider the regime in Russia as communist.
Furthermore, the above list only includes regimes openly identifying
themselves as communist. Most of South America and Africa are ruled by leftist regimes who embrace some form of socialism. (Brazil just elected a former communist terrorist for president.) And the ideological foundation of the European Union has been called Eurocommunism. Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky has described the EU as a “pale version of the Soviet Union.”
Communist regimes have killed more than 100 million people worldwide
in the 20th Century alone. And I would venture to say, that is a
conservative estimate. So how can one think communism does not still
pose a grave and ominous threat to all of humanity? It seems one must
suspend all logic and reason to come to such a conclusion. This is why I
feel so strongly that it is of paramount importance freedom-loving
people understand the ideology and political goals behind communism and
its implementation.
Naturally, it is not easy to boil a massive subject like communism
down to a nutshell. But I have been studying the subject matter for
several years know, and I’m going to attempt to do just that—boil some
things down to a nutshell.
Most communist leaders rarely invoke the term communism. Instead,
they talk of socialism. Remember, the USSR stood for the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics. Stalin almost always referred to communism
as socialism, as have many other communist leaders.
Granted, there is a fair amount of debate between scholars and
historians on how socialism and communism differ. But many of these
perceived differences are merely academic. In practice, there is very
little difference between socialism and communism. But there are some
things worth mentioning concerning the differences between socialism and
communism.
One of the more concise definitions on the differences between socialism and communism, that I have heard is “a communist is a socialist in a hurry.” Others have stated, “A communist is someone who is not afraid to pull the trigger.” Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) is quoted as saying, “Socialism is the road to communism.”
Of course, there would be no communism without Marxism. The
economic, social and cultural theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
form the ideological foundation of communism, i.e. socialism.
But Marx was a theoretician, not a practitioner of socialism, per se. It
was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who first put the theories of Marx &
Engels into practice—referred to as Marxism-Leninism.
Interestingly, about ninety-percent of what Karl Marx wrote solely concerned economics, as evidenced by his seminal work Das Kapital—which coined the term “capitalism.” (From the best I can gather, the term capitalism
was not used in the United States until the latter part of the 19th
Century.) But it was Marx’s call for “revolutionary struggle,” as
outlined in the Communist Manifesto (published in 1848), that so captured the imaginations of many radicals at the time—and to the present day.
The entire premise of the Communist Manifesto rests upon the notion of “class struggle.” This is immediately evident when one reads the introductory lines of the Manifesto:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another…
The concept of oppressor-oppressed lies at the heart of Marxian socialism—us versus them. The oppressor-oppressed model is prevalent in today’s political landscape, as is the notion of “class struggle”—rich vs. poor (see 1% vs. 99%), the haves vs. the have nots, the capitalist vs. the worker, the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat, and so on. Most Americans have been subjected to class rhetoric all of their lives—lower-class, middle-class, upper-class … blue collar vs. white collar, etc.
Some modern-day Marxists and their fellow travelers (sympathizers)
have expanded upon the oppressor-oppressed dynamic. A good example would
be the godfather of “community organizing,” Saul Alinsky. Alinsky added
yet another division to the mix: “the have some, want mores.” So now we have the haves (rich) vs. the have some, want mores (middle-class) vs. the have nots (poor), according to Alinsky.
It is important to note, that in the eyes of a Marxian socialist, the middle-class and upper-class represent the “petty bourgeoisie,” as Dr. Carroll Quigly disparagingly refers to the them in his mammoth work Tragedy and Hope.
The middle and upper classes are the economic engine of the United
States. But socialism-communism wishes to control the means of
production and distribution. In order to control production, one must
control the producer–meaning, the individual. Individualism must be
wiped out in order to create a true socialistic system, whereby the
state will provide the individual with all of their emotional, spiritual
and physical needs.
If I were to boil the Communist Manifesto down to its essence, it would be the abolition of private property. And if I were to reduce Marxism down to just one word, it would be sameness.
We all will think alike, earn alike, live alike, work alike, dress
alike … there will be no flavor for our fare, only sameness … a gray,
dreary sameness. And all of this is sold to “the masses“ with lovable
slogans like “unity in diversity” and “equality and fairness” and “progress and change.” Sound familiar? Once again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
(Screencap credit: Yuri Maltsev)
There is another important point to consider regarding Marx’s theory of a “dictatorship of the proletariat” as outlined in the Communist Manifesto.
Communism is a utopia. It does not exist. The theory is the state will
eventually “wither away” to nothing. And this will bring in the long
awaited “workers’ paradise.” But this is all to occur sometime in the
distant future. Soviet defector Yuri Maltsev has explained these
concepts in greater depth in some videos I’ve posted here at the blog
(see here and here).
(Screencap credit: Yuri Maltsev)
But before the long hoped for communist utopia can be realized (where
every whim and need will be realized for all the “workers”), nations
must be wiped out. This is what is referred to as the “transitional
stage.” Many scholars have commented that this part of the Manifesto
is not very well thought out. It is analogous to a person who does not
like their house, so they decide to burn it down with themselves still
in it. It is almost a juvenile belief that from the ashes will arise
some great, new utopia the embodies perfect fairness and equality.
Joseph Stalin said the Communist Party must originally be destructive. –
See more at:
http://www.therightplanet.com/2014/12/a-world-conspiracy/#sthash.ESixsPSO.dpuf
(Screencap credit: Yuri Maltsev)
So, at this point, I would like to start breaking down how communism
is organized and implemented. I am going to refer to the lessons and
experiences of ex-communists. Two of the sources I will be drawing from
are Dr. Bella V. Dodd (19o4 – 1969) and Mike Vanderboegh (who claims he was the one who first broke the Fast and Furious story). Both are ex-communists who turned vocal anti-communists.
Bella Dodd points out there are three terms that are important to
differentiate concerning communism—meaning: the Communist Conspiracy
(world conspiracy), the Communist Party and the Communist Movement.
These are three different concepts, and each one must be dealt with
differently.
The Communist Conspiracy
The communist conspiracy should really not have the word communist
before it, for it is a conspiracy for world control, according to Dr.
Bella Dodd.
What is it that the world conspiracy hopes to accomplish?
The world conspiracy compromises a small group of elites located in
New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, London, Moscow, Hong Kong,
etc. Dodd points out that they are a determined group who wish to
control the resources of the world. They wish to control all of the
world’s natural resources—oil, iron, steel, tin, uranium, timber, and
the land itself. (Dodd mentions the late Freddie Fields
of Vanderbilt Steel, a card-carrying communist.) In order to control
all the natural resources of the world, one must control all the people
of the world—all seven billion of them.
Dodd points out that this leads to a rather strange phenomenon—one
that confuses many Americans, since they believe that those who would be
interested in business and industry would stand staunchly against
communism. But the world conspiracy is compromised of many different and
disparate groups and individuals.
The world conspiracy operates under different labels at different
times: communism, socialism, humanism, goodwill, global governance,
internationalism, globalism, economic democracy, industrial democracy,
social democracy, and so on—whatever it takes to move people to mass
action.
Mike Vanderboegh, a former card-carrying communist, explains it is all just collectivism
at the end of the day. Whether one wishes to call it nazism, communism,
socialism, fascism, progressivism, liberalism, nativism, tribalism,
racism—ism, ism, ism—everything is in service to the collective.
One of the main goals of communism is to divide the people. When
people are busy fighting amongst themselves, they are unable to organize
and form an effective opposition. This is where all the class struggle
and oppressed-oppressor rhetoric comes into play. And, unfortunately,
the tactic has proved wildly successful. So much so, that even
communists themselves have been astonished at how effective the tactic
of pitting one group against the other has proven to be.
The communist conspiracy has a secret and a public face. Communists
are taught to lie; they are masters of the “language of the lie.”
Shrouding their true intentions in lovable labels and slogans (semantic
manipulation, as the KGB/FSB
calls it) is what communists do best. Examples include phrases like
“sustainability,” “economic justice,” “environmental justice,” “global
citizenship,” “assault weapons,” “gun control,” “white privilege,”
“diversity,” “climate change,” “agents of change,” “progress,”
“progressive,” etc.
“If you’ve got the language up front, you’ve already won the debate …
They suck you into their worldview,” says Mike Vanderboegh.
The party teaches to never use an outright lie. Instead, communists employ disinformation (Soviet term) to agitate honest grievances. In a similar vein, Saul Alinsky taught, “Rub raw the resentments of the people.”
Mike Vanderboegh explains, “They [the party] take a kernel of truth
and wrap it in a lie … packaged so credulous people will pass it on to
other credulous people to influence their behavior to go in a certain
way.”
There were less than 20,000 Bolsheviks in Russia during the 1917 October revolution
who managed to wrest hegemony and control over 200 million Russian
citizens, adding credence to the adage that “the organized minority will
beat out the unorganized mob every time.”
The communist conspiracy has many different channels of offerings, but it all works toward the same goal: world control.
The Communist Party
The original Communist Party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks,
the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party—a
group of revolutionaries led by Vladimir I. Lenin. (Bolshevik means
“majority” in Russian.)
In 1919, the Communist International (Comintern for short), also
known as the Third International, was initiated in Moscow. In the same
year, the Communist Party USA was founded in the United States. The
Comintern was an international communist organization
whose goal was to fight “by all available means, including armed force,
for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation
of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the
complete abolition of the State.”
The Communist Party was established as a blueprint and framework for a
future world government. Communist parties (sometimes referred to as
the Labor Party or Socialist Labor Party) were established in every
nation of the world. Communist parties established internationally were,
in effect, skeletons for a future government, not a political party.
The party focuses on politics, economics, social issues—and is
particularly interested in the educational systems, and in the cultural
life of the people. The party concerns itself with the “morality of the
people,” but only for the sake of expediency. The party makes it a point
to be out front on any social ill or injustice. But strictly for the
purpose of gaining control, and for the ear of the people.
Within the party, members are judged on their “ideological purity.”
Mike Vanderboegh describes the levels of “purity” as follows:
“There are radishes, tomatoes and killer tomatoes. A radish (negative term) is a party member who is red on the outside but white on the inside. A tomato is a party member who is red through and through. But a killer tomato is a communist who is willing to pull the trigger.”
There really isn’t a lot of difference between a radical
revolutionary and a religious zealot. (Note: I’m not disparaging
religion, per se, but rather fanaticism.) A true revolutionary
devotes themselves to the struggle much like a religious zealot devotes
themselves to their religion. Marxian socialism is a religion in its own
right—a faith, albeit one marked by fanatical, atheistic fervor.
Nothing comes before the cause, i.e. “the struggle.” Nothing. The
precepts of the Marxian faith are well spelled out in Cleon Skousen’s
book The Naked Communist.
The Communist Movement
The purpose of the communist movement is to establish a social and
ideological attitude that is pro-left. It comes to the people through
very pleasing devices.
Communism in the U.S dates back to before and after the Civil War
when Karl Marx visited the States. Marx lectured in New York City,
Philadelphia and Boston. He even corresponded with the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The First International (First Comintern) was disbanded at the Philadelphia Conference in July 1876.
The Communist Movement on a worldwide basis does different things at
different times. Communists will do everything they can to unleash
confusion, chaos, depravity, perversion, conflict—parent vs. child,
black vs. white, gay vs. straight, one religion vs. the other, man vs.
woman, etc., etc.
Promising members within the Communist Party were often sent to Lenin’s Institute for Higher Learning,
where they were taught such things as racial agitation, trade union
building, every facet of Russian history (apparently the Russian
communists are rather “patriotic,” cf. irony), small arms training and guerrilla tactics.
Inflaming minds on a racial
and ethnic basis has proved to be one of the most effective tactics for
the communists to divide people and create conflict. (Sound familiar?)
Gaining complete dominance over media, entertainment and educational systems (see Common Core)
is of intense importance to the communists, for these institutions and
power centers have proven to be the most effective way to divide the
people and forward the party agenda.
Dr. Bella Dodd believed there weren’t but a dozen universities that
deserved the name “university.” All the others were simply institutions
of indoctrination, moving people in a direction the elites wanted them
to go. The purpose of these indoctrination centers is to demoralize
students, creating within them a feeling of alienation with everything
and everyone around them, particularly with their biological families.
Communists strive to make people ashamed, dissatisfied and unhappy
with their country, for they eschew the very notion of national
sovereignty and patriotism, since communism employs “radical social
change” to move the world toward a “classless, borderless” society. This
is why communists often refer to themselves as “citizens of the world,”
and not proud citizens of their respective countries. (By the way,
Barack Obama considers himself a “citizen of the world.”)
While the press is willing to expose the horrific crimes of Adolf Hitler
(and rightly so), they have steadfastly refused to report on the
monstrous crimes committed by communist regimes, such as the former
Soviet Union and Red China, where mass killings occurred on an
industrial scale. The astonishing brutality and barbarism employed by
communist regimes is unlike anything that has ever been seen in the
history of humanity.
For example, according to Bella Dodd, in North Korea, a million men
were transported to Inner Mongolia because the “Korean type” was not a
“type” the communists wanted to procreate. The communists decided they
were the ones who will decide which nation shall exist, and which
“racial stock” should be promoted.
Dodd claims the same forces that moved Communist development also
moved fascist development. Communism enthrones the proletariat, the
common man. Fascism enthroned the state.
The communist movement is not one monolithic block, but operates under many labels, i.e. organizations. The communist theory of change revolves around creating conflict.
This is born out of the theory of dialectical materialism that states
all progress is brought about by conflict. They will often create an
organization for the sole purpose of creating conflict. If there is no
conflict, they engender conflict in order to move public opinion to the
left, in the direction of communism. They will create a right in order
have people oppose it so they will be pulled toward the left. This is
the notion of “controlled opposition.” Vladimir Lenin once said, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
From my own research into the origins of communist ideology, I have
run up against some rather astonishing and incredibly disturbing claims
and allegations. There is a real “heart of darkness” that lies at the
center of all this. I can’t fully explain it at this point. I just don’t
have enough verifiable and concrete information. But I have been coming
to the rather startling conclusion that is something quite sinister
that seems to be above communism itself.
In Cleon Skousen’s book The Naked Capitalist (1970), which is a critique of Dr. Carroll Quigly’s book Tragedy and Hope,
Chapter One includes a rather sobering quote from Dr. Bella Dodd. When I
first read the quote, I about fell out of my chair, because it
corroborates a lot of related research I have done over the years. But I
just didn’t want to believe it was true. It just seemed too incredible …
like a bunch of crackpot nonsense. But I’m not so sure now. So, I’ll
leave the reader with this excerpt from Chapter One of Skousen’s book,
and the reader can make up their own mind.
“I think the Communist conspiracy is merely a branch of a much bigger conspiracy!”
The above statement was made to this reviewer [Cleon Skousen] several years ago by Dr. Bella Dodd, a former member of the National Committee of the U.S. Communist Party.
Perhaps this is an appropriate introduction to a review of Dr. Carroll Quigley’s book,
Tragedy And Hope.
Dr. Dodd said she first became aware of some mysterious super-leadership right after World War II when the U.S. Communist Party had difficulty getting instructions from Moscow on several vital matters requiring immediate attention. The American Communist hierarchy was told that any time they had an emergency of this kind they should contact any one of three designated persons at the Waldorf Towers. Dr. Dodd noted that whenever the Party obtained instructions from any of these three men, Moscow always ratified them.
What puzzled Dr. Dodd was the fact that not one of these three contacts was a Russian. Nor were any of them Communists. In fact, all three were extremely wealthy American capitalists!
Dr. Dodd said, “I would certainly like to find out who is really running things.”
Two double agents, a prison swap and code from outer space: did these spies save US-Cuba relations?
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| “It’s like a time-lapse photo,” one US intelligence official says of Rolando Sarraff Trujillo’s guidance in helping multiple agencies unravel Cuban cryptography. Ana Montes will live behind bars until 2023. Illustration: Nate Kitch for Guardian US Opinion |
From
a maximum-security prison in Texas, former United States military
analyst Ana Montes has been offering up bumper-sticker justifications
for why she betrayed her country and spied on behalf of the Cuban
government over the course of 17 years. “I believe that the morality of
espionage is relative,” Montes wrote in a private letter to a friend
last year. “The activity always betrays someone, and some observers will
think that it is justified and others not, in every case.”
Montes had no idea how prophetic her words would be. While the
57-year-old American citizen remains locked up as one of the most
damaging spies in US history, the Cuban-born spy who led
American investigators to Montes was set free to worldwide applause last
week, during a landmark thaw in US-Cuban relations. Several news
outlets have since identified the Cuban double-agent as Rolando Sarraff Trujillo,
and multiple US officials I’ve interviewed this past week have
described him as a cryptographer whose code-breaking secrets have been
the gift that keeps on giving to the CIA, NSA and FBI.
I have been following the Montes case for more than a decade, and profiled Montes and her family for the Washington Post Magazine
last year. Despite extensive interviews with the officials who pursued
her – and even access to a secret CIA profile of Montes – I never
learned of the existence of the Cuban code geek who helped bring her
down. On Wednesday, President Obama broke the news, hailing the Cuban
double-agent as “one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba”.
As I retraced the colliding paths of these dueling spies, a senior
Obama administration official revealed to me on Friday that the Cubans
had never requested the release of Ana Montes – not a single time over 18 months of secret prisoner-swap negotiations.
The once-revered Pentagon analyst known as the “Queen of Cuba” had been
left behind, a fitting betrayal for a woman who made a career out of
duplicity and deceit.
By the time Montes attended graduate school at the
Johns Hopkins University in the early 1980s, her anti-authoritarian
worldview was fully baked. It didn’t take long for her to meet a
like-minded student who seemed eager for a friend. The gregarious grad
student was, in fact, a Cuban talent scout who wanted “to facilitate the
recruitment of Montes to serve as an agent of the Cuban Intelligence
Service,” prosecutors divulged last year.
In 1985, Montes would find herself on a clandestine trip to Cuba
for operational training, and before long she had found work with the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s major producer of
foreign military intelligence. The Cubans “tried to appeal to my
conviction that what I was doing was right,” Montes would later admit to
investigators, in the first of many naïve assumptions that would come
back to haunt her.
For the next 16 years, Montes feverishly worked two jobs, her star
rising in Washington and Havana. By day she was a whip-smart analyst for
the DIA. At night, she re-typed every top-secret document she could
remember onto a Toshiba laptop provided by the Cuban intelligence
service. Soon she was briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
National Security Council, and won a certificate of distinction from
then-CIA Director George Tenet.
All the while, Montes was meeting handlers in Washington-area Chinese
restaurants, and artfully slipping in and out of Cuba to debrief the
island’s intelligence officers. As Cuban-American relations stalled, the
Soviet-trained masters of deception taught Montes how to pass packages
to agents innocuously, beat the lie detector and, importantly, retrieve
coded messages in the privacy of her DC apartment.
Montes got her orders the Cold War way: through numeric messages transmitted anonymously over shortwave radio. Tres-cero-uno-cero-siete, dos-cuatro-seis-dos-cuatro,
a haunting female voice would drone on into the night, cutting through
the otherworldly static. Montes would key the digits into her laptop,
and a Cuban-installed decryption program would convert the numbers into
Spanish-language text.
It was a code almost from another universe, practically begging to be broken by an enemy not that far away.
More than 1,000 miles south in Cuba, Rolando Sarraff
Trujillo was making a name for himself, too. After graduating in 1990
from the University of Havana, the handsome father of one – known to
friends as “Roly” – began work for Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence
(DI). According to an online biography
posted by his family, Sarraff Trujillo was employed as a lowly
journalist assisting the intelligence directorate. In reality, he was a
skilled cryptographer helping to encrypt messages to and from Cuba’s
far-flung network of spies, said Chris Simmons, a former chief of a
Cuban counterintelligence unit in the DIA who helped investigate Montes.
“He worked on agent communications,” Simmons told me.
But Roly Sarraff Trujillo did more than that – he was a one-man
intelligence goldmine. As a cryptographer, Sarraff Trujillo understood
precisely how Cuba communicated with agents in the field, chiefly
through the same “numbers station” broadcasts that Montes picked up
night after night on her store-bought Sony radio. “He gave up how the
Cubans transmitted HF [high frequency] broadcasts,” Simmons said. “He
revealed communications shortfalls” that the CIA could take advantage of.
As a backroom comms guy, Sarraff Trujillo likely did not know the
true identities of the Americans working on Havana’s behalf, Montes
included. But the technical data and mastery of Cuban cryptography keys
that Sarraff Trujillo imparted to the CIA would guide and even
supercharge Americans investigators’ efforts for more than a decade –
inextricably linking him with his polar opposite in espionage, even as
he helped to out her.
“It’s like a time-lapse photo ... a gradual process,” said one
current US intelligence official of Sarraff Trujillo’s codebreaking
breakthroughs.
Another US official with knowledge of the case told me that Sarraff
Trujillo and two Cuban defectors working for the CIA provided computer
records straight from Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence. “That data is a
treasure trove of information about Cuban intelligence,” the second
official told me.
From the records, the CIA was able to deduce how many agents the
Cubans were running, their rough geographical locations and the command
structure of the DI. Now American investigators knew where to look, and
how to decipher encrypted messages sent to illegal agents hiding in the
US.
US intelligence officials refuse to confirm or deny if Sarraff Trujillo is, in fact, the mystery Cuban released last week in exchange for three Cuban spies held in the United States along with, in a separate deal announced on the same morning as the expanded diplomatic relations, the imprisoned American contractor Alan Gross.
Sarraff Trujillo’s sister, Vilma, declined comment in an email, as did
spokespeople for the CIA, National Security Council and Director of
National Intelligence (DNI).
But the DNI gave clues to Sarraff Trujillo’s identity by revealing on Wednesday that the man “has spent nearly 20 years in a Cuban prison due to his efforts on behalf of the United States”.
The Cubans arrested Trujillo in November 1995, on espionage charges,
meaning he’s been imprisoned for the last 19 years. US officials have
told the New York Times, the Associated Press and other media outlets
that Sarraff Trujillo was indeed the CIA’s man in Havana. “I know of
all the Cubans on the list of people in jail and he is the only one who
fits the description” of the unnamed asset in question, Simmons told Newsweek on Wednesday. “I am 99.9% sure that Roly is the guy.”
In the years following Sarraff Trujillo’s arrest,
American investigators began to methodically work their way towards
Montes. Ironically, it was Ana’s own sister, Lucy, who would play a key
role in helping the FBI identify and capture the Queen of Cuba.
It began with a Cuban spy ring based in Florida. More than a dozen
members strong, the so-called Wasp Network was infiltrating Cuban exile
organizations and US military
sites in Florida. Armed with Sarraff Trujillo’s intelligence and aided
by other tipsters, American officials were able to pinpoint key Wasp
conspirators. The FBI’s Miami field office began searching their homes
surreptitiously and uncovered secret “crypto keys” on their laptops that
deciphered ongoing communications with Havana, a US official familiar
with the case told me.
The Cubans were supposed to change the crypto codes every six months,
the official said, to minimize security risks. But they got careless.
“The Cubans fucked up. They occasionally used the crypto keys more than
once,” the official said.
By applying the crypto keys to older coded shortwave transmissions that the NSA
routinely recorded, the FBI began to build a profile of a senior US
official who was aiding the Cubans. FBI special agents now knew that
their “UNSUB” – or unidentified subject – had high-level access to US
intelligence on Cuba and had purchased a specific type of Toshiba laptop
to communicate with Havana.
It was 1998, and Lucy Montes was working in Miami as an FBI language
analyst who translated wiretaps and other sensitive communications. The
FBI called on her to translate hours of wiretapped conversations of the
Wasp spies. Although Ana presumably would have been proud to learn that
her sister had helped expose a Cuban spy ring, Lucy knew from years of
frustrating trial and error that Ana refused to discuss her career.
Ever. Lucy never even brought it up.
With the Wasp arrests, Ana’s handlers pulled back and assessed the
fallout. Ana was alone, and she was scared – with good reason.
By September 2000, Chris Simmons learned from a fellow intelligence
officer that the FBI was having difficulty identifying an UNSUB spying
for the Cubans. Simmons shared the tip with Scott Carmichael, a “mole
hunter” whose job it was to ferret our spies and other security risks
within the DIA. Carmichael and a colleague began inputting some of the
FBI’s closely held clues into their employee databases. After scanning
through a hundred possible employee matches, a name popped up. Except
this name came from deep within the bureaucracy: ANA BELEN MONTES.
Following months of investigative scrutiny, the FBI put a tail on
Montes. They videotaped her making suspicious calls on pay phones, even
though she carried a cellphone. They gained access to her banking
accounts, through the use of a national security letter, and learned
that Montes had applied for a line of credit in 1996 at CompUSA. Her
purchase? The same model of Toshiba laptop that had been referenced in
the coded Cuban communications that Sarraff Trujillo knew so much about.
Once FBI black-bag operatives searched Montes’s apartment and
discovered a Sony shortwave radio and Toshiba laptop, it was all over.
The hard drive, which Montes had tried to wipe clean, included
instructions on how to translate Cuban high-frequency broadcasts. One
file mentioned the true last name of a US intelligence officer operating
undercover in Cuba. Montes had revealed the agent’s identity, and her
Cuban intelligence officer thanked her in writing: “We were waiting here
for him with open arms.”
After pleading guilty to espionage, Montes told her
CIA debriefers she felt she had a duty to protect Cuba from its neighbor
up north. “All the world is one country,” she said. “In such a
world-country, the principle of loving one’s neighbor as much as oneself
seems to me to be the essential guide to harmonious relations.”
But despite last week’s détente between the United States and Cuba,
it’s hard to imagine that the events Montes and Sarraff Trujillo set
into motion more than two decades ago will amount to any kind of lasting
harmony. One current US intelligence official predicted last week, as the White House was declaring a man who sounded a lot like Roly Sarraff Trujillo “a legitimate hero”,
that the opening of embassies in Havana and Washington will simply make
spying more convenient – with each nation’s spies more abundant and
easier to follow.
“You still have an intelligence service, and we still have an
intelligence service,” he told me. “It won’t be a sudden change of heart
for either side.”
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¨Saturno jugando con sus hijos¨/ Pedro Pablo Oliva
Liborio
A la puerta de la gloria está San Pedro sentado y ve llegar a su lado a un hombre de cierta historia. No consigue hacer memoria y le pregunta con celo: ¿Quién eras allá en el suelo? Era Liborio mi nombre. Has sufrido mucho, hombre, entra, te has ganado el cielo.
Martha Colmenares
Un sitio donde los hechos y sus huellas nos conmueven o cautivan
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