Remembering Ramsey Clark

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada

Translated by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
https://walterlippmann.com/remembering-ramsey-clark/

The news of his death did not come as a surprise since it was known that his health was declining and he was also affected by irreparable family losses. But the death of Ramsey Clark is a source of pain and suffering for many in many parts of the world.

His trajectory since the 1960s was one of admirable personal integrity and fidelity to the principles that made him one of the most respected personalities of the American progressive movement.

Attorney General of the United States during the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, he played a key role in the approval and application of the Civil Rights Act, a decisive step in eliminating discrimination against African-Americans in electoral matters. He also accompanied Johnson in his efforts to ensure affordable health care for all. Both issues were flags that “liberals” raised but with increasingly hesitant hands while their elimination has become a priority for Trump and his supporters.

Ramsey for his part became a point of reference for those who did not abandon the ideals of freedom and true democracy.

He opposed the war against the Vietnamese people to the point that the President excluded him from the National Security Council despite the fact that his participation in that body derived from the high office he held.

Outside the government, Ramsey waged a tireless battle to stop this aggression, which generated a growing mobilization not only in his country but throughout the world, and to which he contributed as few others did. Not only with speeches and declarations. Of special significance was his physical, personal presence on Vietnamese soil in open violation of Washington’s official prohibition.

He had an exceptional capacity for work and delivering solidarity was for him a mission to which he gave his all. No cause was alien to him.

We Cubans owe him a great debt. Our cause was also his. His voice was raised time and again to denounce the blockade and the war that the Empire is waging against us in all fields.

His participation in the campaign to free Elián González and in the hard, complex and prolonged struggle for the liberation of our Five Heroes was decisive. Personally, as long as I live I will thank him for his help and from the bottom of my heart I say Thank you for everything dear friend, brother, compañero.

La Vice Presidencia negra

Senadora Kamala Harris

Margarita A. Alarcón Perea

La noticia inundó las redes ayer como moscas van hacia los mangos.

Finalmente el presunto candidato a la presidencia de los Estados Unidos por el partido que no es el de Trump, Joe Biden, anunciaba su pareja de contienda. La Senadora Kamala Harris. Todos los medios se pasaron el día entero hablando de eso, como era lógico lo hicieran. La Senadora Harris goza de mucho prestigio dentro del Senado de ese país, y viene de una larga historia progresista tanto familiar como personal. Es una mujer más que preparada para liderar a la nación aún sólo como Vice Presidenta. Es un paso hacia la muy necesitada normalidad, y un giro interesante en la política interna dentro de los EEUU. Biden pudo haberse ido un poco más hacia la derecha con Susan Rice, con quien trabajara durante los años de Obama pero no, se fue más hacia la izquierda. Evidentemente algo está pasando entre los jovenes, milenials, que le advierten al antiguo Vice Presidente que si quieren ganar, más vale complacerlos.

Pero esto es para otro escrito. Hoy quiero ser más directa y aclarar algo que me parece necesario. Ayer en medio de la algarabia por el nombramiento, los grandes medios en ese pais, enunciaban de una manera u otra, que por “primera vez en la historia de los EEUU” había una mujer negra nominada a la vicepresidencia del país.

Error, y garrafal.

La primera mujer negra nominada a la Vice Presidencia de los Estados Unidos de Norte America fue Angela Davis, y fue en dos ocasiones de contiendas presidenciales. La primera en 1980 y la segunda en 1984. La primera mujer afro descendiente nominada a la contienda presidencial había sido Charlene Mitchell en 1968.

Ya entrada la tarde los grandes medios habían enmendado el error y el anuncio era “La primera afroamericana nominada a la Vice Presidencia por uno de los principales partidos de la nación.¨ Eso estuvo bien y era necesario que se hiciera y se hizo.

Ahora bien, en los años 1960 se imprimió un afiche realizado por Alfredo Rostgaard conocido por muchos o todos como La Rosa y la Espina donde el aritista gráfico nos dibuja la canción de Luis Eduardo Aute en honor a la Revolución cubana. Esa rosa crece bella siempre o al menos eso intenta, y la espina siempre la vemos como el enemigo del Norte feroz y brutal que nos amenaza. ¿Por qué entonces, no he visto nada en los medios nacionales sobre esto? ¿Por qué la prensa nacional, no ha hecho “el estudio individual” y simplemente le siguen la rima a “la espina”? Yo se que no es tan sencillo como entrar en Google y teclear “Vice Presidenta Negra en EEUU”, lo se porque lo hice y lo que me sale es Kamala Harris y la infamia de que es la primera. Ahí vemos a “la espina”. Lo que es imperdonable es que “la rosa” la acepte sin más ni más.

La Senadora Kamala Harris, se merece que le reconozcan el mérito sin lugar a dudas. La historia de esa nación, la de la izquierda en esa nación y las otras mujeres negras se lo merecen; la historia de esta nación, “la rosa”, también se lo merece. Angela se lo merece.

what goes around, comes around… hopefully

Margarita Alarcón Perea

 

I guess I really must be old for my age as someone very dear to me once accused me of being. Must be, since I can still remember a time when going to school in New York City was a simpler thing. Back then, the only perils we had were young people taking to the streets in protest of the Viet Nam war, an active peace movement, loud music, long hair, black power, sex, drugs and rock´n´roll.

I went to U.N.I.S., a private international school born from  the concept of a United Nations organization striving for peace and good will all over.

It was by all accounts a very, very long time ago.

Back in UNIS in my day, you´d get suspended for numerous activities. Namely chewing gum, cutting class, running in the halls, or the infamous and ever present smoking in the stair well (Marlboros not weed). People would get into arguments, take them outside the school boundaries and if they were caught in ear shot or eye shot of any member of the UNIS faculty, you´d better believe those kids would have their parents marching up Waterside Plaza the following day.

We had hoodlums, we had bullies, we had loons. We even had kids who got themselves expelled for all sorts of inappropriate behavior. We had other schools and stories from other schools that would make ours look saintly, which in part it was. But those stories were about smoking pot, sneaking in a beer or two, playing hooky, maybe just maybe a switch blade once in a while.

Some of the public schools in the city were considered dangerous, with an overwhelming amount of reckless behavior among the students, but going through a metal detector was something NO ONE would have even dreamed of back then.   And there were guns. Heck, the country was fighting a war in southeast Asia and to no lesser extent in the streets of the US.

But when those guns came back home to haunt the status quo, in flagrant acts of protest against, forms of oppression, racial discrimination, misogyny, xenophobia, economic subjugation and were in the hands of black America, then a solution was found.

“In October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party for Self Defense as a small community organization based in Oakland, California. Its members — including the 30 people who would travel to Sacramento the following May — believed that black Americans should exercise their constitutional right to defend themselves against an oppressive U.S. government. At the time, California lawmakers were trying to strip them of that right, and the Black Panthers wanted to tell the U.S., and the world, that they found this unacceptable.”

Hence the Mulford Act was born. It not only took away guns from the streets but stipulates quite clearly that there is “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons”. It goes on to include that carrying guns is a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” Governor Ronald Reagan, later President of the United States, stated the following before signing the bill into law back in 1967: [the Mulford Act] “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.” And back then, the NRA, agreed.

Today, we saw Mr. Trump, proposing to arm teachers as a solution to a problem that has nothing to do with insanity, because as he has himself said just an hour ago, these perpetrators “are cowards”. Yes, Mr. Trump, for the first time I must agree with you. They are cowards.  But cowards aren’t necessarily mentally ill, the mentally ill don’t care about right or wrong, they don’t care about heroism or weaklings; they don’t regularly take other lives, they take their own. People who open fire on school children, teenagers, young adults and teachers or against peaceful protest marches in the South aren’t crazy or deranged, they are evil.

So, turning schools in the country into de facto combat zones is NOT the solution and cannot be the solution.

In 1967, in the midst of what could have been the closest thing to another civil war in the US, the solution in one State was an Act that took guns away from the “honest citizen” because there was no reason to be carrying a loaded weapon. What could possibly be the reason today, unless we accept the cruel reality that back in ´67 in California, guns were taken away from the Black Panthers and today, they would be taken away from white supremacists that far from being mentally ill are clinically unstable because the country they live in has vestiges of trying to be multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic, multigender, multi anything and everything under the sun.

We need more of those young kids protesting down the streets and keeping politicians in Town Hall meetings and on Pennsylvania Avenue in check, this is the new tomorrow that just might pick up from where those Panthers left off and armed, or unarmed if we’re lucky, make the change that matters.

An Island Adrift

 

By Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada

 

In 1944, under this title, Juan Bosch published an article in solidarity with the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico. It was one of the countless journalistic, political and literary works that the great Dominican writer produced during his prolonged Havana exile, several of which he dedicated to the cause of the sister island.

Despite the time elapsed, almost three-quarters of a century ago, a similar text, with the same title, could be written today: “Adrift by the seas of history, without direction, without destination, goes Puerto Rico: for four and a half centuries “

Now it should be added that the situation is worse and the island, hit by fierce hurricanes, especially the most recent and brutal named Donald Trump, faces a decisive moment in its history.

In those days, when Bosch wrote his beautiful prophecy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who promised the American people a new deal that benefited the workers and the poor and the peoples of the Continent, governed in Washington and offered a policy of good neighborliness. But his promises did not outlive him.

For a long time now, both projects have been reduced to ashes, swept away by the savage capitalism and unbridled warmongering that has been practiced, in one way or another, with secondary nuances, by all the US administrations since the Second World War.

In the 1940s, Luis Muñoz Marín and his Popular Democratic Party (PPD) still advocated the independence of the island. Later, they would relegate to a secondary level the fundamental question of national sovereignty and would accept, under Washington’s patronage, the so-called “Associated Free State” (ELA), a clumsy disguise that changed nothing in the harsh colonial reality.

Thanks to tax exemptions and other privileges, the territory was flooded by North American capital displacing local producers and promoting a massive emigration to the north. Quantum investments in the infrastructure gave it an air of modernity. Imperial propaganda spared no effort to sell the beautiful island as a paradigm, a model for the rest of the continent. At the same time, they filled the small territory with bases and military installations, turning it into a real fortress that was a key piece in its aggressive and interventionist policy throughout the continent.

That propaganda managed to hide, at the same time, two decisive aspects for understanding the Puerto Rican reality. On the one hand, there is the systematic persecution and repression against the patriotic movement, often violent and open, at other times, covert and more or less subtle, but always overwhelming. And on the other, Washington´s rejection of each and every one of the requests by the Puerto Rican people, including the PPD, to modify the colonial relationship and make it less harmful to their legitimate interests.

In fact, the ELA was a lie from its birth. There was never an “association” between Puerto Rico and the United States and to call “free” the creature thus created was, in addition to an affront to its victim, the Puerto Rican people, a gross insult to language itself. All the efforts promoted from the island to reach spaces of autonomy failed in the face of imperial insolence.

With the passage of time, the colonial metropolis was also changing. The United States continues to be the main economic and military power of the planet but its domain is no longer absolute, undisputed, as it was at the end of the Second World War. It has had to eliminate several important provisions that had favored its investments on the island and these were made in search of other more lucrative markets.

The economic model imposed on the colony ended in a resounding failure. The local authorities had to acknowledge their inability to pay the public debt of more than 70 billion dollars. They struggled uselessly in search of an impossible solution for a country totally subjected to a foreign power.

Denied of its own sovereignty, all negotiation possibilities were closed to Puerto Rico in order to confront a problem that independent countries face every day. In Washington, Congress and the Administration agreed to establish a so-called Fiscal Control Board, which today is the true authority that administers the territory and whose task is to force Puerto Ricans to pay what they supposedly have to by means of imposing draconian measures of austerity that increased unemployment, eliminated basic social services and boosted emigration.

To make matters worse, the island was hit by two hurricanes of great intensity, Irma and Maria, especially the latter which ruined it almost completely. The losses caused by these meteorological phenomena are calculated at more than 90 billion dollars. Thousands of families lost their homes and four months later a large part of the population has no electricity or potable water, many schools have not resumed their activities and nobody knows when or how the collapsed infrastructure will recover.

The precise figure of how many people lost their lives as a result of Maria’s passage is not even known. Independent journalistic investigations calculate that they go upwards of a thousand.

More than 200,000 have sought refuge in the United States in a migratory wave that does not seem to stop.

To top it all, along cameTrump. The unusual character, who has done nothing to alleviate the Puerto Rican tragedy, not only recalled that the supposed debt must be reimbursed, but also promotes a tax reform that, among other things, taxes the products coming from the island with 20% that will make economic recovery an unrealizable chimera.

In the midst of the disaster, the people’s determination to rebuild their country, without federal aid and against the corruption and clumsiness of those who claim to represent it, is moving.

It seems that what Juan Bosch anticipated so long ago may come true. At the time of the wreck it would be the workers, the dispossessed, the downtrodden, finally united in pain and hope, the only ones capable of saving the Homeland.

 

 

http://walterlippmann.com/an-island-adrift/
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

 

Una isla a la deriva

Especial para Punto Final

 Por Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada

 

Con este título publicó Juan Bosch en 1944 un artículo en solidaridad con la lucha por la independencia de Puerto Rico. Fue uno de los incontables trabajos periodísticos, políticos y literarios que el gran escritor dominicano produjo durante su prolongado exilio habanero, varios de los cuales dedicó a la causa de la isla hermana.

Pese al tiempo transcurrido, casi ya tres cuartos de siglo, texto semejante, con idéntico título, podría escribirse hoy: “A la deriva por los mares de la historia, sin rumbo, sin destino, va Puerto Rico: desde hace cuatro siglos y medio”.

Ahora habría que agregar que la situación es peor y la isla, azotada por feroces huracanes, sobre todo el más reciente y brutal llamado Donald Trump, encara un momento decisivo de su historia.

Entonces, cuando Bosch redactó su hermosa profecía,  gobernaba en Washington Franklin Delano Roosevelt quien prometía al pueblo norteamericano un nuevo trato que beneficiase a los trabajadores y a los pobres y a los pueblos del Continente ofrecía una política de buena vecindad. Pero sus promesas no le sobrevivieron.

Hace ya mucho tiempo que ambos proyectos fueron reducidos a cenizas, barridos por el capitalismo salvaje y el belicismo desenfrenado que han practicado, de un modo u otro, con matices secundarios, todas las Administraciones estadounidenses después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

En los años cuarenta Luis Muñoz Marín y su Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) todavía abogaban por la independencia de la Isla. Más tarde relegarían a un plano secundario la cuestión fundamental de la soberanía nacional y darían paso, con el patrocinio de Washington, al llamado “estado libre asociado” (ELA), torpe disfraz que en nada cambió la cruda realidad colonial.

Gracias a exenciones tributarias y otros privilegios el territorio fue inundado por capitales norteamericanos desplazando a los productores locales e impulsando una emigración masiva hacia el norte. Cuantiosas inversiones en la infraestructura le dieron un aire de modernidad y la propaganda imperial no escatimó esfuerzos para vender a la hermosa isla como un paradigma, un modelo para el resto del Continente.  Paralelamente llenaron el pequeño territorio de bases e instalaciones militares convirtiéndolo en un verdadero fortín que fue pieza clave para su política agresiva e intervencionista en todo el Continente.

Esa propaganda logró ocultar, al mismo tiempo, dos aspectos decisivos para entender la realidad puertorriqueña. Por un lado la persecución y represión sistemática contra el movimiento patriótico, muchas veces violenta y abierta, otras, encubierta y más o menos sutil, pero siempre avasalladora. Y por el otro el rechazo de Washington a todas y cada una de la peticiones del pueblo puertorriqueño, incluyendo el PPD, para modificar la relación colonial y hacerla menos lesiva a sus legítimos intereses.

En rigor el ELA fue un embuste desde su nacimiento.  Jamás hubo una “asociación” entre Puerto Rico y Estados Unidos y llamar “libre” al engendro así creado era, además de una afrenta a su víctima, el pueblo boricua, un grosero insulto al lenguaje.  Todos los esfuerzos promovidos desde la isla para alcanzar espacios de autonomía fracasaron ante la insolencia imperial.

Con el paso del tiempo la metrópoli colonial también fue cambiando.  Estados Unidos sigue siendo la principal potencia económica y militar del planeta pero su dominio ya no es absoluto, indiscutido, como lo fue al concluir la Segunda Guerra Mundial.  Tuvo que eliminar varias disposiciones importantes que había favorecido a sus inversiones en la isla y estas fueron en busca de otros mercados más lucrativos.

El modelo económico impuesto a la colonia terminó en un fracaso estrepitoso y las autoridades locales debieron reconocer su incapacidad para pagar la deuda pública de más de 70 mil millones de dólares y se afanaron inútilmente en busca de una solución imposible para un país sometido totalmente a un poder extranjero.

Carente de soberanía propia a Puerto Rico se le cerraron todas las posibilidades de negociación para enfrentar un problema que encaran todos los días los países independientes.  En Washington  el Congreso y la Administración se pusieron de acuerdo para establecer una llamada Junta de Control Fiscal la cual es hoy la verdadera autoridad que administra el territorio y cuya tarea es obligar a los puertorriqueños a pagar lo que supuestamente deben imponiendo para ello draconianas medidas de austeridad que aumentaron el desempleo, eliminaron servicios sociales básicos e incrementaron la emigración.

Por si fuera poco la isla fue azotada por dos huracanes de gran intensidad, Irma y María, sobre todo este último que la arruinó casi por completo.  Se calculan en más de 90 mil millones de dólares las pérdidas ocasionadas por estos fenómenos meteorológicos.  Miles de familias perdieron sus viviendas y cuatro meses después una gran parte de la población no tiene electricidad ni agua potable, muchas escuelas no han reiniciado sus actividades y nadie sabe cuándo ni cómo se recuperará la infraestructura derrumbada.

Ni siquiera se sabe con precisión cuántas personas perdieron la vida como consecuencia del paso de María.  Investigaciones periodísticas independientes calculan que pasan de mil.

Más de 200 mil han buscado refugio en Estados Unidos en una ola migratoria que no parece detenerse.

Para colmo llegó Trump. El insólito personaje, que nada ha hecho siquiera para aliviar la tragedia boricua, no sólo recordó que hay que reembolsar la supuesta deuda sino que impulsa una reforma tributaria que, entre otras cosas, grava con un 20% los productos procedentes de la isla con lo que hará de la recuperación económica una quimera irrealizable.

En medio del desastre resulta conmovedor el empeño del pueblo por reconstruir su país, sin ayuda federal y frente a la corrupción  y la torpeza de quienes dicen representarlo.

Parece cumplirse lo que Juan Bosch anticipó hace tanto tiempo.  A la hora del naufragio serían  los trabajadores, los desposeídos, los de abajo, finalmente unidos en el dolor y la esperanza, los únicos capaces de salvar la Patria.

Trump: Thunder and Traps

By Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada

Much has been said and will be said about the grotesque show that took place in Miami on June 16 and the lies and threats against Cuba there pronounced. Trump’s speech, incoherent and clumsy like all of his, made at least two things clear: he will do all he can to harden US policy toward Cuba, canceling the timid steps that his predecessor had taken and [the fact that] the current President is an irremediable liar.

It is customary there in the North to mix politics with spectacle, information with entertainment, even if, as in this case, in terrible taste. For those who look at it from the outside, a good dose of Cartesian doubt is advisable and prudence is necessary to avoid being confused. Especially if it’s about what someone says like the quirky occupant of the White House.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, a tireless fighter for justice and civil rights, was right to reject Trump’s speech. She stressed the importance of fighting to prevent specific regulations which would translate the presidential directive into mandatory rules that are even more damaging to peoples of the two countries. There, on that very day, there was evident proof of the correctness of her concern.

In his speech, Trump announced that he would issue a new executive order to replace the one already repealed that had guided Obama’s policy in its last two years. There in front of everyone, he added his signature to the document that appears on the official site of the White House, but which nobody read.

What he said does not correspond exactly with what he signed and the latter is what counts, because it has legal force and will guide the conduct of his administration. The contrast is evident, for example, in the case of remittances many Cubans on the island receive from their relatives residing in the United States. According to the speaker in Miami, such remittances would continue and would not be affected.

But right there, in the same act, without hiding, he signed an order that says exactly the opposite. On this issue of remittances, the document entitled “Presidential Memorandum for the Strengthening of The United States Policy towards Cuba,” which Trump signed and which was publicized by the White House. The fine print states that there would be millions of Cubans living on the island who would not be allowed to receive remittances.

In Section III, subsection (D), the definition of “prohibited officials of the Government of Cuba” is now extended to cover not only the leaders of the Cuban State and Government, but its officers and employees, the military and civilian workers of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the cadres of the CTC, of the trade unions, and the Defense Committees of the Revolution. Professor William M. Leogrande estimates that this would be more than one million families.

Trump boasted that he would drop all Obama’s moves and he probably intends to do so.
But he knows that this contradicts the interests and opinions of some business sectors linked to the Republican Party and that is why he hides behind aggressive rhetoric and often undecipherable jargon. With regard to the issue of Cubans and remittances he had no choice but to use his favorite weapon: the lie.

We must now see how they write and apply this new order that seeks to punish the Cuban population as a whole.

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
http://walterlippmann.com/trump-thunders-and-traps/

Aaron Sorkin to his Girls

Sorkin Girls,

Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from. That’s a terrible feeling for a father. I won’t sugarcoat it—this is truly horrible. It’s hardly the first time my candidate didn’t win (in fact it’s the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.

And it wasn’t just Donald Trump who won last night—it was his supporters too. The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate. Men who have no right to call themselves that and who think that women who aspire to more than looking hot are shrill, ugly, and otherwise worthy of our scorn rather than our admiration struck a blow for misogynistic shitheads everywhere. Hate was given hope. Abject dumbness was glamorized as being “the fresh voice of an outsider” who’s going to “shake things up.” (Did anyone bother to ask how? Is he going to re-arrange the chairs in the Roosevelt Room?) For the next four years, the President of the United States, the same office held by Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, F.D.R., J.F.K. and Barack Obama, will be held by a man-boy who’ll spend his hours exacting Twitter vengeance against all who criticize him (and those numbers will be legion). We’ve embarrassed ourselves in front of our children and the world.

And the world took no time to react. The Dow futures dropped 7,000 points overnight. Economists are predicting a deep and prolonged recession. Our NATO allies are in a state of legitimate fear. And speaking of fear, Muslim-Americans, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans are shaking in their shoes. And we’d be right to note that many of Donald Trump’s fans are not fans of Jews. On the other hand, there is a party going on at ISIS headquarters. What wouldn’t we give to trade this small fraction of a man for Richard Nixon right now?

So what do we do?

First of all, we remember that we’re not alone. A hundred million people in America and a billion more around the world feel exactly the same way we do.

Second, we get out of bed. The Trumpsters want to see people like us (Jewish, “coastal elites,” educated, socially progressive, Hollywood…) sobbing and wailing and talking about moving to Canada. I won’t give them that and neither will you. Here’s what we’ll do…

…we’ll fucking fight. (Roxy, there’s a time for this kind of language and it’s now.) We’re not powerless and we’re not voiceless. We don’t have majorities in the House or Senate but we do have representatives there. It’s also good to remember that most members of Trump’s own party feel exactly the same way about him that we do. We make sure that the people we sent to Washington—including Kamala Harris—take our strength with them and never take a day off.

We get involved. We do what we can to fight injustice anywhere we see it—whether it’s writing a check or rolling up our sleeves. Our family is fairly insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency so we fight for the families that aren’t. We fight for a woman to keep her right to choose. We fight for the First Amendment and we fight mostly for equality—not for a guarantee of equal outcomes but for equal opportunities. We stand up.

America didn’t stop being America last night and we didn’t stop being Americans and here’s the thing about Americans: Our darkest days have always—always—been followed by our finest hours.

Roxy, I know my predictions have let you down in the past, but personally, I don’t think this guy can make it a year without committing an impeachable crime. If he does manage to be a douche nozzle without breaking the law for four years, we’ll make it through those four years. And three years from now we’ll fight like hell for our candidate and we’ll win and they’ll lose and this time they’ll lose for good. Honey, it’ll be your first vote.

The battle isn’t over, it’s just begun. Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I’ll never go to sleep on you again.

Love,

Dad

Originally posted in Vanity Fair, November 9th, 2016

Not quite Kansas yet Toto…

Margarita Alarcón Perea

For a little over two years now, everyone who comes to Cuba from where ever, will ask the same question: “So, how are things now with all the changes?!” The intention is both naïve and endearing; most people actually think and believe that after December 17^th of 2014, like magic a la Wizard of Oz, Dorothy (the Cuban Revolution) would magically receive the wand fluttering hand of the Good Witch of the North (in this case POTUS) and all things would be grand back in the land of Oz.

In order for things to “change” it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than paying visits, watching baseball games and holding talks. We need common sense, and a whole lot of chutzpah form the White House and/or a vote on The Hill.

Only then, will that much awaited change actually come to fruition. Mind you, I am not just referring to sales of goods from the US or the freedom to travel; I am talking about real change, for the better or worse, but change.

Sorry to say, no, that has not been the case.

In Cuba we have a saying “El pollo del arroz con pollo” which roughly translates as “the gist of it” but in a much more picturesque manner basically speaks to the nucleus of any given event, act or action.

In 1962 President John F. Kennedy signed the below mentioned Trading With the Enemy Act which pretty much set the blockade/embargo in motion. To this day and ever since President William J. Clinton signed Helms Burton into law in 1992 all you basically need to do is what President Barack H. Obama did today, once again extending what JFK began over half a century ago. A pattern if ever there has been one.

So, has anything changed in Kansas? Are we back yet?

No, Toto, it hasnt and no we´re not…

 

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
                                    THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

SUBJECT:         Continuation of the Exercise of Certain
                          Authorities Under the Trading With the Enemy Act

Under section 101(b) of Public Law 95-223 (91 Stat. 1625; 50 U.S.C. 4305 note), and a previous determination on September 11, 2015 (80 FR 55503, September 16, 2015), the exercise of certain authorities under the Trading With the Enemy Act is scheduled to terminate on September 14, 2016.

I hereby determine that the continuation for 1 year of the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba is in the national interest of the United States.

Therefore, consistent with the authority vested in me by section 101(b) of Public Law 95-223, I continue for 1 year, until September 14, 2017, the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba, as implemented by the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 515.

The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed to publish this determination in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

El surrealismo electoral

Por Lety Bonnin Gutstadt

En estas últimas semanas la candidata demócrata, Hillary Clinton, vio esfumarse su ventaja ante su rival republicano, el magnate inmobiliario Donald Trump, quien de casi 9 puntos porcentuales pasó a perder por un punto de diferencia.

Estas elecciones en Estados Unidos se vislumbran como las más  largas, costosas, mediáticas y peligrosas en la historia, el resultado será determinado entre los dos candidatos menos apreciados por los estadounidenses. Todo parece indicar que estas elecciones nos dejarán un nuevo mapa electoral, con cambios demográficos que favorecen mucho a los demócratas, para algunos analistas Texas, que es históricamente un feudo republicano, podría tener este año un voto demócrata. Hace unos días un importante periódico conservador del estado petrolero dio públicamente su apoyo a la ex secretaria de Estado, siendo la primera vez en 75 años que apoyan a un candidato demócrata.

Donald Trump ha llegado a las puertas de la Casa Blanca, desafiando todas las tradiciones políticas en Estados Unidos; él mismo se presenta como un “No  político” que dice lo que piensa y que tiene el valor desafiar todas las reglas del juego. No es menos cierto, que esa manera desenfrenada durante las primarias republicanas lo ayudó entre los insípidos candidatos de su partido, pero luego de lograr ser el candidato ha tenido que recular en varias ocasiones por ofensas a mujeres, latinos y musulmanes.

Muchos aseguran que Trump no cuenta con la preparación necesaria para convertirse en comandante en jefe, muchos están alarmados por su temperamento y su conocida falta de conocimiento y, de este modo, Clinton sigue siendo la única “adulta” en esta campaña.

Pero dejemos volar nuestra imaginación por un momento y pensemos en un Estados Unidos con Trump en la oficina oval; ¿se pondrá a pedir disculpas cada vez que hable sin pensar y ofenda?, ¿se terminará la eterna rivalidad entre Estados Unidos y Rusia? ¿Qué país se convertirá entonces en su rival?, ¿construirá el tan mencionado muro?, preguntas de difícil respuesta.

Una tarea un tanto complicada, imaginarse al magante en la Casa Blanca. Estados Unidos puede pasar a ser centro de grandes burlas a nivel mundial, pues no se puede gobernar diciendo “Donde dije digo, digo Diego”.

¡Qué Dios nos coja confesados si esto llegará a pasar!

EL FINAL DE UNA FARSA

 

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada

La leyenda parecía eterna pero, sin embargo, se disolvió en la nada, en apenas poco más de una semana.

A mediados del pasado siglo Estados Unidos había anunciado a bombo y platillo que Puerto Rico dejaba de ser una colonia y se transformaba en un socio con el que habría suscrito un Pacto, supuestamente entre iguales, bautizado como “estado libre asociado”.

Como mago que saca un conejo del sombrero, Washington mostró orgulloso la nueva criatura ante la Asamblea General de la ONU y advirtió que en lo adelante no le rendiría cuentas sobre la situación de un territorio que ya no estaría bajo su dominio. La Asamblea, que en 1953 era ampliamente controlada por Estados Unidos, endosó esa posición en una votación de 26 a favor, 16 en contra y 18 abstenciones. En otras palabras a pesar de la Guerra Fría y del poderío entonces indiscutido que ejercía sobre un Foro en el que aun no participaban la mayoría de sus doscientos miembros actuales, el mago no pudo convencer siquiera a la mitad de la Asamblea.

Al interior de la isla los nacionalistas e independentistas sufrieron la más brutal represión. Muchos cayeron combatiendo o asesinados, no pocos perdieron sus trabajos y sufrieron persecución y discriminación. Otros fueron condenados a largas sentencias en prisiones federales, entre ellos, Pedro Albizu Campos, quien sólo fue liberado cuando estaba al borde de la muerte.

Año tras año los patriotas denunciaron la farsa y reclamaron la solidaridad internacional pero su reclamo parecía encarar la sordera universal.

Entretanto la ONU fue cambiando. A ella entraron decenas de países, de África, Asia, el Caribe y Oceanía, provenientes de un proceso que desmanteló a los viejos imperios coloniales. A casi todos. Washington se las arregló para seguir practicando el colonialismo como si nada hubiese ocurrido en el mundo.

La ONU adoptó en 1960 la Declaración 1514 (XV) proclamando el derecho inalienable a la independencia de todos los pueblos aun sometidos al dominio foráneo y estableciendo la obligación de las potencias coloniales a transferirles el poder para que pudiesen disfrutar de “una independencia y libertad absoluta”.

Desde la creación del Comité Especial de la ONU encargado de aplicar esa Declaración los boricuas trataron de ser escuchados. No lo lograron hasta 1973. A partir de ahí cada año el Comité aprobó resoluciones que, siempre adoptadas también por la Asamblea, le reconocieron a Puerto Rico ese derecho y exhortaron a Estados Unidos a actuar en consecuencia. Washington tercamente insistió en que el asunto había sido resuelto con la creación del “estado libre asociado”. Este año, en la discusión del Comité, participaron los representantes de todos los sectores puertorriqueños absolutamente, sin excepción, incluyendo al actual Gobernador de la isla y a quienes abogan por su anexión a los Estados Unidos y todos, sin excluir a alguno, admitieron que es una situación colonial que debe ser resuelta con urgencia y de acuerdo con el mandato de la ONU.

Una cuestión gravitaba sobre este debate. La crisis económica de la isla, consecuencia del fracaso del modelo económico que se le impuso, había conducido a una deuda colosal y la insolvencia. Las autoridades locales quisieron encontrar remedios por sí mismas imaginando que tenían capacidad para hacerlo pues así lo sugería el viejo mito. Ensayaron también, inútilmente, que se les permitiese acogerse a los procedimientos de bancarrota como hizo, por ejemplo, Detroit. Pero en pocos días fueron obligadas a despertar. La Corte Suprema, el Congreso y la Administración norteamericana solemnemente y en términos inequívocos dijeron lo que los patriotas nunca se cansaron de denunciar: Puerto Rico carece de soberanía propia y está sujeta completamente a los poderes de Washington, o sea, es una posesión norteamericana, un territorio colonial. Para colmo el Presidente Obama sancionó una ley que crea una Junta de Control Fiscal que se ocupará de cobrar la deuda y dirigirá las finanzas y la economía puertorriqueñas. Los siete miembros de la Junta serán designados por Washington. Sin contar para nada con el imaginario “socio” le despojaron de sus escasos atributos.

Como era de suponer la situación ha generado un rechazo unánime.

El telón finalmente ha caído sobre la farsa del “estado libre asociado”.

Dando muestras de altura y generosidad las fuerzas independentistas han propuesto una salida posible. Por su iniciativa, además de la Resolución anual, el Comité aprobó por unanimidad un Acuerdo especial encargando a su Presidente emprender sus buenos oficios para promover un diálogo entre Washington y quienes buscan la descolonización con el fin de resolver este caso conforme a lo que la ONU ha demandado por muchos años ya. Obama tiene la palabra.

Publicado originalmente en Por Esto!