Photo by Steve Morgan/Havana Times.
The Australian comrades at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal have posted Ron Ridenour’s critical analysis of the proposed economic changes in Cuba, with Ridenour’s permission, to reflect as many perspectives of friends of the Cuban Revolution as possible, and to inform the discussion among them. For more analysis, click HERE. This is an excellent article, and TGP’s editors urge our readers to read it and ponder it, for what it teaches about the difficulties of building socialism.
* * *
By Ron Ridenour
November 30, 2010 — Havana Times — With the November 2010 publication of 291 proposals for reforms in 12 areas of economic and social life Cubans are once again faced with a national debate on policies. A key question is if the 800,000 Communist Party (PCC) members’ discussion, plus that of non-members, will affect the policies to be taken at the forthcoming PCC VI congress, in April 2011. There is no proposed mechanism to assure such in the 32-page document.

The essence of these guidelines, which aim to increase efficiency and production, and decrease the budget deficit, balance exports-imports, and pay the foreign debt (US$20 billion), is to reduce the state’s role, delegate more authority to local governments and work sites, increase taxes and other revenues while cutting back on social benefits and subsidies.

In addition, there will be more private enterprise and foreign investment openings, and integrating more with progressive neighbouring governments. Nevertheless, the document maintains that “only socialism is capable of overcoming the difficulties and preserving the conquests of the Revolution”.

The state will continue to be the central economic planner using the budgetary method but it will permit more farm land as usufruct property, greater self-employment (in 178 areas) and small businesses which, for the first time, will be allowed to employ people outside the family.

Several times in the last half-century of revolutionary Cuba have citizens been allowed to discuss national policies (not international ones) but the results have been consultative rather than binding—with the exception of adopting the new constitution in 1976, and modifying it in 1992. Three years ago, shortly after Raul Castro took over the presidency, a widespread national debate was launched about the future of the revolution. Millions contributed ideas, but there was no real mechanism to implement anything debated.

I participated in the PCC’s fourth congress preparatory discussion, in 1991, while working as a volunteer on an oil tanker in Santiago de Cuba. The seafarers passed two motions concerning democratisation of decision making and in the media. Most later said these discussions were a waste of words. They saw no results from their motions, but the party did listen to some of the 1 million complaints and proposals.

In the spring of 1994, the National Assembly called upon a “workers’ parliament” to discuss economic policy. The then national CTC union leader, Pedro Ross, said that these discussions would form the basis for permanent workers’ input with the objective of “finding and implementing solutions” to “increase work efficiency and greater production”. However, greater worker input has not occurred since, and efficiency and production have never reached acceptable levels.

In overall terms
I find positive and worrisome aspects in the guidelines. First, I will sketch the major points, and then go into details in each arena.
Positive goals are those aimed at becoming self-sufficient in foodstuffs; uniting the two currencies into one so that all can buy what is offered; some decentralisation of decision making and use of more finances by local governments and companies. Then there is the admission of too much dependency on foreign capital and imports, the need to cut back on excessive costs and wastes, strengthen the desire to work, eliminate work centres operating at a loss that constantly produce less than their expenditures.

On the down side are several proposals which would continue monoculture dependency, joint ventures-foreign capital investment, a dual economy and class inequalities generally viewed as necessary tactical setbacks in the early days of the Special Period (1990-96+). Many analysts including myself when working in Cuba expressed the fear that these retreats could become permanent [1]. Our fears were warranted as it is clear today that these retreats have deepened and become entrenched.

The greatest lack in these proposals is the failure to propose a transfer to workers’ power (real democracy), in which workers actually manage the state and the economy. Because workers do not have real decision-making power, nor do the majority have sufficient foodstuffs and essential consumer items due to low wages and little supply, there is rampant demoralisation-apathy-cynicism-alienation, which results in epidemic thievery of needed items from workplaces and state warehouses, and an omnipresent black market. Coupled with out-of-control thievery and corruption among some government officials and in the bureaucracy, the now stagnant revolution is on the verge of self-destruction.

There have been some leftist-oriented writings about Cuba’s economic and political discrepancies, mostly published by non-Cubans who support greater socialism. Cuban media will not publish such critiques by non-Cubans or Cubans—other than by Fidel and Raul. (See especially Fidel’s speech at Havana University, November 17, 2005, and Raul’s speech, July 26, 2007.)

Recently, however, Esteban Morales, a prominent Cuban Communist economist and leading researcher on race relations in Cuba, wrote a critical article from a left socialist perspective, “Corruption, the True Counter-Revolution” (published abroad but also allowed, for a time, on the website of Cuba’s writer-artists association (UNEAC), for which the PCC expelled him, as if affirming the widely held view that ordinary Cubans can’t have real influence. It seems some leaders took umbrage at Morales view that: “Corruption turns out to be the true counter-revolution, which can do the most damage because it is within the government and the state apparatus, which really manage the country’s resources.” [2] This does not bode well for the PCC congress discussion.  [Author’s note, December 1: Walter Lippmann at the Green_Left discussion list has pointed out an error I made. Esteban Morales’ article, “Corruption, the True Counter-Revolution” is back on UNEAC’s website (in Spanish, of course). I stand corrected. I read of its being taken off from several sources, including IPS. It had been removed but was reinstated. But I made the error of not checking the site when I wrote my piece. I am sorry.]

Another problem is that many of the state’s leading economists actually propose so-called “market socialism”, believing that the solution to scarcity is more capitalist investment and supply-demand pricing. And in the proposals are aspects oriented in that direction, coupled with so-called “socialist” self-management of individual work centers, which would result in competition between work centres.

This would lead to petty-bourgeois production relations and individualistic mentality—worker-capitalists in the making, such as what the Solidarity union in Poland advocated. If one is to be paid according to what one produces and sells, as proposed, then nickel and sugar-cane workers would be poorer than workers in citrus farming, for instance, when global capitalist pricing fluctuates so that mining nickel is not profitable, as is often the case in inevitable endemic cycling. Thus the basic principle of solidarity and equality is in serious danger once again.

The continued reliance on capitalist foreign trade and tourism limits investments in agriculture and other necessary goods for the population.
Furthermore, the proposals do not call specifically for greater trade with ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of America) countries, although there is a vague statement that ALBA is a priority. With the exception of Venezuela, there is little trade with ALBA. Most trade is with major capitalist countries, including the US, which is Cuba’s number one food supplier (25-30% of all foodstuffs) and overall its fourth leading importer.

Twelve major guidelines

1. Economic management model
Cuba’s Communist Party leaders propose the continuation of the socialist budgetary planning system while being flexible in allowing “new forms of management”: mixed capital, cooperatives, usufruct farmland, renting of establishments, self-employment and other forms that will improve efficiency in social work.

Some elements include wholesale markets that sell to all production units without subsidies; companies can “decide and administer their working capital and investments” according to new rules; firms that consistently fail to balance their budgets can be liquidated; workers’ income based on final results; after paying taxes and costs of production, enterprises can create their own development funds and bonuses to stimulate workers; prices are to be flexible and transparent with possibility of discounts.

Cooperatives will be able to sell directly to the population thereby avoiding the middle-man distributor (acopio), which causes delays, waste and thievery. This must be a major priority!

My concerns about this model are: where will sufficient goods come from for wholesale markets to sell to all productive units? How much say will workers actually have within the companies? Who will be the managers and how will they be selected?

2. Macro-economic policies
The general aims are to balance the budget, export-imports trade, decrease state subsidies, and prepare to unify the two currencies, plus greater taxation based upon incomes.

There seems to be a contradiction between proposal 62, which calls for maintaining the centralisation of prices of production and services, with that of proposal 23, which allows for enterprises to be flexible in establishing prices and discounts.

The unification of the two currencies is hoped for but is dependent upon “increased production”, which is not a given. The discriminatory situation of today could well continue indefinitely.

3. External economic policy
The goal is to export more and import less. In the introduction to the guidelines, it is stated that between 1997 and 2009, Cuba lost $10.1 billion pesos in trade imbalance, about 10 per cent of its current GNP. It is unclear how Cuba judges the value of its pesos when publishing figures of gross national product and state budget, but I believe it is on a one-to-one basis with the US dollar. Cuba’s Office of National Statistics (ONE) does not explain currency values but CIA Factbook calculates Cuba’s economic figures in US dollars. For 2008, it claims (without citing sources) that exports were but $3.68 billion while imports were $14.25 billion—an imbalance of nearly $9 billion, which is almost what Cuba claims is the difference in a 12-year period.

Cuba’s imports come first from Venezuela, 31%, followed by China, 10% and Spain, 9%. Cuba’s exports go mainly to China (25%), Canada (20%), Spain (7%) and the Netherlands (4.5%). Oddly enough 6% of all imports are from the US, which officially continues a blockade but since 2000 sells foodstuffs and medicines on a cash-on-line basis in US dollars. This places Cuba at a security risk by depending upon the whims of its main enemy for food.

Cuba continues its policies of relying on exports for its main growth. It states priorities in nickel, sugar, oil, foodstuffs, coffee, cacao, shellfish (proposal 71)—and tobacco. All this reliance on an export monoculture economy plays into the vulnerable world capitalist market.

Furthermore, it makes no obvious sense to export oil and foodstuffs when it is a major importer of both—as much as 80% of its foods are imported and much of what it grows in fresh vegetables and fruits is sold to tourists. A saner export is Cuba’s excellent bio-technology.

Apparently nothing will change regarding the Free Zones and Industrial Parks Law 77 of 1996, allowing export-import without restrictions and without any taxes on products or labor, just like in many underdeveloped capitalist countries.

Proposals 107-8 emphasise participation with ALBA and integrating the economy with Latin America. But there are no specifics proposed. And most of its trade is in exporting “human capital”—medical personnel, teachers, technicians, sports instructors—while buying petroleum from Venezuela. Cuba also sends medical-teacher aid to many other Latin America countries, and elsewhere in the world. This is positive internationalism. At the same time Cubans’ welfare services are curtailed due to the vast numbers of professionals sent around the world.
ALBA inter trade was $6.5 billion, in 2009, between the four major countries (Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia). Information export support website states that when Cuba and Venezuela initiated ALBA, in 2004, their trade was $1.5 billion.[3] ALBA now has its own currency for transactions, the sucre, which it fixes at $1.25 dollars.

According to a study conducted by Larry Catá Backer and Augusto Molina, “Globalizing Cuba: ALBA and the construction of socialist global trade systems”—presented at Queen’s University, Ontario, May 7-9, 2009—six ALBA countries established a network for Food Trade and Food Security Fund, February 2009, with six countries but Cuba is not listed. Cuba, however, provides the basic ideology for ALBA.[4]

4. Investment policy
There is nothing new or anything to add to my overview. A major failure here is not to emphasise investments and technology to manufacture products nationally from its natural resources. This has long been an essence of colonialist and imperialist economic relations between the “First” and “Third” worlds, and was a feature of USSR-Cuba relations as well. While Fidel Castro has spoken about this in the past, there seems to be no change in conduct. I think Cuba could listen to the beginnings of change in this area from President Evo Morales, who recently stated that lithium reserves would not be exported as raw materials but products will be manufactured in Bolivia.

5. Science, technology and innovation policy
Continue policies in effect, and with a new priority into research aimed at lessening the negative affects of climate change.

6. Social policy
Continue preserving the “conquests of the revolution” in key welfare areas while reducing “excessive costs”. The party also seeks to recover the role that work should play in contributing to societal development and meeting personal needs. That means: eliminating hustling, thievery, over-reliance on remittances.

In education, the guidelines call for strengthening the role of the teacher in the classroom. But there is nothing stated about allowing teachers more room in deciding what students should read and discuss.

Proposal 143 calls for improving the quality of medical services while eliminating some costs. This does not take into account that the medical personnel inside Cuba earn very poor wages, and much less than those who work in international missions. This dichotomy is a major sore.

Proposal 152 calls for generating new sources of income in the culture arenas. But does this mean continuing the “new critics” approach, which deemphasizes revolutionary analysis and values? As James Petras wrote, “The clearest threat to Cuba is from within, evidenced in the decline in revolutionary cultural production.” He outlines how from posters to films and books, Cuba’s cultural leaders are ignoring their values of solidarity from the times during the wars against Vietnam and in Africa. There has not been a “single documentary about the world-historic struggles of the Iraqi, Afghan or Somali resistance to the US directed imperial wars; the Colombia guerrilla struggle against the death-squad `democracy´; and the struggle of the black masses of New Orleans against capitalist eradication of their homes, schools and hospitals.”

“The new literature in Cuba—in its break with social realism—contains racial and sexual stereotypes…” “One gets the impression from watching, listening and reading current Cuban cultural productions that there are no honest revolutionaries left in Cuba”, says Petras.[5]
Proposal 154 calls for diminishing state financing of social security by extending the contribution of workers in both state and private sectors. How can this be? One of the pillars of social welfare brought about by the socialist revolution is now to be conditioned, in part, on taxes paid by underpaid workers. Until now part of one’s “income” has been free access to health care and education and subsidised low prices for much foodstuffs and clothing. And the ration book, guaranteeing some basic foods albeit fewer and fewer, is to be eliminated (Proposal 162). That means that real wages will decrease, in effect. And where will the poorest of workers, including pensioners, get their food? The food sold in farmers’ markets, even the state controlled ones, are too costly to provide enough food for most people for the entire month. Will this not result in greater frustration, thievery and reliance on remittances? Shall more people flee to capitalist countries, in order to send their families some money just to eat?

The state offers a promise of increased wages, first and foremost in the US dollar equivalent (CUC, which is valid only in Cuba) economy, and in agriculture, once production increases. But hungry, frustrated workers will not work harder before they are better paid and treated. He/she is going to be angrier and open to more corruption.

7. Agro-industrial policy
The main stated goal is to end the cycle of food dependency, to balance export-import trade. New methods of management, already mentioned, are to be employed. There should be “greater autonomy of producers”. But is that for managers or for all workers? Plus “supply and demand” market pricing (177) shall be employed generally accompanied by ending subsidies.

Why can’t prices be based on socialist relations of production, taking into account, as well workers’ incomes in relationship to their necessary consumption?

While there is talk about greater national production, over half of the arable land still lays fallow! The guidelines point this out on page 6. Fidel and Raul Castro have talked about this dilemma for many, many years. Socialist Cuba has “traditionally” imported most of its foodstuffs, first from the Soviet Union and Comecon, and since from capitalist countries. Why has this incompatibility continued?

Raul Castro said, July 27, 2009, that the 2008 policy allowing fallow state lands to be used in usufruct terms by private persons and cooperatives had already accomplished the transfer of 690,000 hectares in 82,000 approved applications of the 110,000 total number. This is 39% of idle lands. When Raul spoke, one-third of transferred lands had been planted. So progress is underway.

Nevertheless, Reuters reported, August 4, 2010, that food production fell 7.5% in the first half of 2010 from 2009. And the fall especially affected rice and beans, which had been on the incline. Rice, however, is mostly imported from Vietnam (70% of consumption), often on credit terms. And overall food production is below 2005 levels while imports are decreasing in the past two years due to lack of cash and credits.

Part of this must be due to severe hurricane destruction in 2008 and earlier draughts.

Nevertheless, while there is constant complaining about the US blockade—with the decade-old exception of foods and medicines—and praise for ALBA integration, of the top 10 food importers only one is a Latin American country and that is capitalist Brazil, not an ALBA government.[6]

Furthermore, much of the foodstuffs that Cuba imports from its enemy—everything from cereals, powdered milk, soybeans and oilseeds to poultry and beef—is infested with Genetic Modified Organisms. Cuba is now using GMO corn seeds in its own earth.

Of all the contradictions, internationalist-revolutionary socialist Cuba’s business relationship with the former Mossad chief of European operations and major Zionist Israeli capitalist Rafi Eitan is one of the most incomprehensible.

“In 1992, Eitan was approached by Irving Semmel, a successful Brazilian businessman, to bid on a contract for an agricultural deal in Cuba, which involved the cultivation of the largest citrus grove operation on the island. After winning the bid, Eitan built a partnership with four other international entrepreneurs to run the deal. The company GBM (Grupo BM) was incorporated in Cuba, but Eitan represents the company in Israel under the name ‘Reesimex’. Due to the success of the venture and the connections acquired, GBM also won the contract to build the Miramar Trade Center in Havana, and a Holocaust Memorial at the center of the Old City of Habana. Recently, GBM was awarded the “Medal for Agricultural Work” by the Cuban government”, writes Wikipedia. Eitan also owns, with the Cuban government, the largest citrus juice plant.

Eitan has never renounced his Zionism or his murderous operations since his retirement from those activities.[7]  He was “involved in the secret planning and implementation of the attack on the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981”, wrote Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Relations. Eitan was also Jonathan Polland’s handler. Polland was convicted of spying on the US for Israel, the only country which consistently votes in favour of the US blockade on Cuba. “Between 2006 and 2009, Eitan was a member of parliament and sat on its all-powerful foreign relations and defense committee. As leader of the GIL pensioner party, he was minister for pensioner affairs.”

Proposal 179 calls for “Recuperating national citrus activity and assuring efficient commercialisation of its products in international markets”, and there is no turning back on this imperialist capitalist. What does Cuba tell its Palestinians friends about this, not to mention Iranians, Iraqis and Afghans?

8. Industrial and energy policies
Cuba industrialises very little, something Che Guevara had endeavoured to change without fortune. But with what little industrial development there is, these proposals call for orienting it for exportation while reducing the import component. How can Cuba meet its people’s own industrial product needs by exporting more and importing less? Now it is nearly impossible to find new clothes for sale in national pesos, for instance.

Proposal 199 calls for greater emphasis on small-scale production in local industries, which sounds healthy. Leaders also aim to produce more construction materials, and oil and gas, which provide 90% of energy use. There will be more clean energy too: biogas, hydraulic and wind. Something new will be the production of tires and packaging.

9. Tourism policy
There is no change in direction here; just more of the same. In 2009, 2.4 million tourists visited Cuba, about the same as 2008, but spent 12% less, $2 billion, due to the global economic crisis. Twenty thousand of these were visitors to health facilities for care.

The tourism apartheid has been lessened with new rules allowing all persons as hotel guests as long as they can pay in hard currency. Today, a few of the new national Cuban bourgeoisie party alongside foreigners, including Miami Cuban “escapees”.  While this eliminates the previous discrimination of nationality it heightens the inequality of Cubans, the vast majority of who could not pay for one day in a luxury hotel with an entire year’s wage.

But the worst is that with so much investment attention and personnel in tourism revolutionary ethos has been permanently distorted. And national agriculture products are diverted from the population to tourists. This is, perhaps, impossible to calculate financially, but much of the foreign currency earnings from tourism must go to import food for national consumption.

10. Transport policy
Nothing new is proposed here. Cuba will continue importing buses and trains from China, apparently. Leaders do propose investments in docking infrastructure, loading-unloading operations. As a former voluntary merchant marine, I personally welcome this initiative. Cuban longshoremen are (were, anyway) among the world’s slowest—something that irritated seafarers and captains and caused greater costs to shipping.

The inadequate transportation system, with so many breakdowns and lack of repairs, causes tardiness and absenteeism from work and school. There is an endless vicious circle of inadequate production and services coupled with inadequate transportation.

11. Construction policies, housing and hydraulic resources
Residential housing is to increase, in part, by establishing a system of payment based upon construction results and employing double shifts.
Cuba has never had sufficient housing for the entire population. Pre-revolutionary and revolutionary governments have accepted that too many people live under the same roof—three generations is not unusual. But young people, especially those wishing to marry and have children, are not motivated by this “custom”. Nor will they be enthralled by proposal 270, which calls for more tourism construction, including: golf courses, aquatic parks, spas and other non-necessities, thus diverting labor and materials for necessary national housing.

The traditional lack of housing and dilapidated conditions has been aggravated by unusually strong and frequent hurricanes, in part due to climate change. Between 1998 and 2008, Cuba lost over $20 billion to 16 hurricanes and three of them, in 2008, caused half those economic damages.

The ministry of construction apparently does not foresee being able to meet the population’s needs so the government proposes to allow “new forms of construction organizing” (272), such as cooperatives and self-employed contractors, who will most assuredly demand convertible currency (CUC) payment, which only a minority of Cubans have enough of for residential construction.

Proposal 273 allows for increasing the “commercialization of construction materials”. Does this mean in CUCs as well?

Proposal 278 also needs explanation. It calls upon “flexible formulas” for exchange of housing (permute), buying, selling and renting”. Does this mean Cuba will change its long-held standard of not permitting housing sales, in order to abolish speculation and inequalities in property relations?

New and better water works need to be built and repaired. One of the most frustrating aspects of living in Cuba for me was to see so much water go to waste, either through gushing leaks or permanent drippings due to faulty equipment and a lack of washers, or carelessness of many people, who let water flow out of faucets and tubes without regard to its loss. I was shocked to see the figure 58% “of water distributed is wasted”, and impressed that this was reported in Granma.[8]

So, party leaders propose (282) to promote “a culture conducive to the rational use of water” while reducing waste of all kinds. Just why is there a culture of waste? Is it not because of rampant apathy and alienation?

”The greatest obstacle has been our fear lest any appearance of formality might separate us [revolutionary leaders]  from the masses, from the individual, and might make us lose sight of the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration, which is to see man liberated from his alienation”, wrote Che Guevara.[9]

12. Commercial policy
Party leaders propose a restructuring in commercial production and presentation of services both wholesale and retail. Non-state food services are encouraged. Leaders aim to diversity the types and increase the amount of products and services. Once there is one integrated currency, the differences in products and services available should disappear.

But where will all the wealth come from for these operations? It sounds too inflated, and too consumerism oriented, to me. There is absolutely no need, for instance, to shop in stores that sell ten toilet paper packages with different names.

Conclusion: Workers’ power is the only future for socialism
I am not alone in maintaining that without workers’ power real socialism cannot be built, and even half-real socialism will fail—as we have witnessed in most countries that made attempts.

Workers’ power should include oversight committees staffed on a rotating basis by actual workers across the country. I firmly support what James Petras wrote:

A new income policy in itself can contribute to greater incentives for productivity if it is combined with greater direct participation of all workers in the organization and administration of the work place as well as the opening of multiple spaces to discuss the restructuring of the economy.

What especially requires reform is a new system of public accountability based on independent accounting authorities, consumers’ and workers’ oversight commissions with the power to ‘open the books’. Workers’ and professional control will not eliminate corruption altogether but it will challenge the authorities through independent periodic reviews…Greater accountability within the leadership is necessary but not sufficient.  There must be control and vigilance by authorized commissions from below and by a parallel independent general accounting office…a new system of elected representatives to oversee the allocation of the budget to the various ministries and the power to summon responsible officials to televised hearings for a strict public accounting.[5]

When revolutionary, communist, anarchist organisers are engaged in workers’ struggles under capitalism, one of their best arguments when confronted by management that their demands are not economically possible is the demand: “Open the books.” So when they are told they now have their own economy, their own government, their own Cuban-Marxist state why can they not see the books?

When I first started citing Fidel’s perhaps most important speech ever, that of November 17, 2005—“This country can self-destruct…and it would be our fault”—many non-Cuban leftist solidarity activists considered me to be too critical, even bordering on treachery. Today, it must be quite obvious to nearly all that internal deterioration, physically/emotionally/ideologically, has grown such that it is beyond denial.

Nevertheless, back in 2005, Fidel apparently had not foreseen that it would degenerate more, because of the measures then being taken against that. Later on in this speech he stated: “I can assure you with absolute certainty that this battle against waste, theft, the illegal diverting of resources and other generalised vices has been won in advance…”

I will close with another, sober quotation from Fidel Castro:

Capitalism tends to reproduce itself under any social system because it is based on egotism and on human instincts. Human society has no other alternative but to overcome this contradiction; otherwise, it would not be able to survive.[10]

Notes
See my book Cuba at the Crossroads, Infoservicios, Los Angeles, California, 1994.
http://www.afrocubaweb.com/estebanmorales.htm
http://www.export.by/en/?act=news&mode=view&id=21977
http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/asce/pdfs/volume19/pdfs/backermolina.pdf
“Cuba: Continuing Revolution and Contemporary Contradictions”, August 12, 2007.
http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/cuba/CubaSituation0308.pdf
See Gideon Alon, “Just a Farmer in Cuba”, as cited in [5]. See also my “Cuba: Beyond the Crossroads”, Socialist Resistance, 2007, page 7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafi Eitan. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Personalities/From+A-Z/Rafi+Eitan.htm
“En este proceso quien decide es el pueblo”, November 16, 2010, in a statement by René Mesa Villafaña, president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resource.
“Socialism and Man”, Marcha, Uruguay weekly, March 12, 1965.
“The law of the jungle”, October 13, 2008.

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Posted by Bill Conroy – June 5, 2011
NarcoNews.com

Still meddling in “our” backyard, but cui bono?

Document, Prepared At the Request of a “Tea Party” Congressman, Indicates the 7th Special Forces Group “Has Conducted Operations in Every Latin American Country”
____________________
A PENTAGON DOCUMENT has come to light that confirms the U.S. has put special operations troops on the ground in Mexico as the drug war there continues to escalate, notching some 40,000 murders since late 2006.

The document is a Department of Defense briefing presented in mid-May 2009 in Washington, D.C., to a group of business and political leaders from northwest Florida. The “Unclassified/For Official Use Only” briefing reveals the 18 Latin American nations where 7th Special Forces Group soldiers [Airborne Green Berets] were deployed as of fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, 2009.

Among those nations, according to the briefing document, was Mexico.
The document also indicates a 7th Special Forces unit was deployed in Mexico in 1996 as well, as part of a “counter-narcotics” mission.

The revelations in the briefing material are important because, to date, neither the Pentagon nor the State Department has confirmed that U.S. special forces have been deployed inside Mexico — a politically volatile subject in that Latin American nation given the rising drug-war death toll there and the “Yankee” history of U.S. Gunboat Diplomacy in the region.

From the vantage point of U.S. policymakers, the deployment of covert Pentagon special forces inside Mexico also is fraught with political peril, given the discovery of such operations by the targets, narco-traffickers in this case, could result in blowback against U.S. agents and interests in Mexico. It also could strain relations with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who is already feeling increasingly isolated due to his disastrous drug-war policy.

The 7th Special Forces Group (SFG) has played a key role since the 1980s in the bellicose history of Latin America, according to the briefing document and other sources. The 7th SFG has participated in numerous “counter-insurgency” missions in Central America as well as in the invasion of Panama in late 1989. It also has been quite active over the years in counter-narcotics missions in the South America Andean Ridge Countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Peru Ecuador and Bolivia; and more recently in hostage rescue operations in Colombia.

The latter operation, according information in the briefing document, involved the participation of the 7th SFG in the July 2008 rescue of three DoD contractors and noted Colombian activist and politician Ingrid Betancourt, among others, who were being held as hostages by the leftist FARC guerrillas.

Narco News reported on that rescue at the time, indicating then, against the tide of mainstream reporting, that a U.S. special-forces unit was deeply involved in the rescue — a report now seemingly confirmed by this briefing document.
Narco News also reported in detail last year about the activities of U.S. special forces operating covertly inside Mexico.

From that June 12, 2010, story:
The U.S. unit [operating inside Mexico], dubbed Task Force 7, since early 2009, according to the CIA operative, has helped to uncover a warehouse in Juarez packed with U.S. munitions and under the control of drug traffickers; provide critical intelligence that led to the raid of a Juarez sweatshop that was manufacturing phony Mexican military uniforms; worked with the Mexican military in uncovering a mass grave near Palomas, Mexico, just south of Columbus, New Mexico; and, behind the scenes, cooperated with the Mexican Navy in hunting down a major narco-trafficker, Arturo Beltran Leyva — who was killed by Mexican Navy special forces last December [2009] during a raid on a luxury apartment complex in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

That information was provided to Narco News at the time, according to the source, Tosh Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot who still has deep connections in the covert world, because the members of Task Force 7 believed they had been compromised by leaks.

In fact, Plumlee had relayed some information to Narco News about the task force and its security concerns as early as April of 2009 on the condition we not publish that information then for fear it might jeopardize the lives of the unit’s members.
By June of 2010, however, when Narco News published its story, Plumlee told Narco News the “bad guys” already knew the task-force members were in-country and, as a result, they had become targets. Coming forward in the media, Plumlee says, provided the task force with some cover that made it more difficult for bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., to avoid addressing the security breach — a tendency on the part of some who might wish to avoid the complications that come with accountability.

The stakes of the covert game are quite high, for all those on the ground who are touched by it, including innocent citizens – and are made even steeper when politics and special interests (including careerism) start dictating the shots, literally.

The whistleblower organization WikiLeaks recently released a State Department cable revealing that the Mexican Navy unit that conducted the operation against narco-capo Beltran Leyva “received extensive U.S. training” — which serves as further evidence supporting Narco News’ original reporting on the involvement of U.S. special forces in that operation.

The same cable, however, also points out that the killing of Beltran Leyva will, in the short-term (a period not defined precisely) result in a “spike” in narco-related violence “as inter- and intra-cartel battles are intensified by the sudden leadership gap in one of the country’s most powerful cartels.”

That ramped up violence was still playing out as recently as this past March, when the son of Mexican poet and journalist Javier Sicilia, along with six of his compadres, none of them involved in narco-trafficking, were brutally tortured and murdered near Cuernavaca (just outside Mexico City) – the same region where Beltran Leyva was killed. The senseless murder of those innocents has sparked a mass movement in Mexico, one that is currently marching toward Juarez, the most violent city on earth, where a collective, non-violent action in opposition to the drug war is planned for June 10.

The confirmation that U.S. special forces are now in the mix of the drug-war violence, which Mexican citizens by the millions now see as senseless and resulting in far too much collateral damage (the death and disappearances of thousands of innocent victims), is certain to enhance the public outrage in that land — given the quite visible U.S. role as the major consumer of the drugs and the major exporter of weapons and policies fueling the drug war.

Given this madness, and the inherent duplicity, treachery and buffoonery marking the drug war, it should come as no surprise to anyone, even if their sympathies are not with the U.S. special-forces in Mexico whose lives are jeopardized due to leaks and other security lapses, that the source of those transgressions (intentional or not) is, in part, traceable to the U.S. side of the border.
The briefing document revealing the extent of the 7th SFG operations in Latin America in fiscal 2009 – in 18 countries involving 21 missions and 165 soldiers, including Mexico — was made public by a Florida business group whose membership includes a number of defense contractors. That group, the Economic Development Council for Okaloosa County (EDC), via its Defense Support Initiative, made the May 14, 2009, briefing available on its Web site for all to see and download — including WikiLeaks and some media in Latin America who made it available in Spanish to their audiences (almost assuring that the narco-trafficking organizations being targeted by covert U.S. special forces also were tipped off to their presence in Mexico).

This occurred despite the fact that the briefing document was marked “For Official Use Only,” which, according to Ken McGraw, spokesman for the Pentagon’s U.S. Special Operations Command, means the document was “not to be released publicly.” McGraw adds that he does not “know the specifics” of the 7th SFG operation referred to in the briefing document, explaining that “by the end of the year, we [USSOCOM] will have operations in 120 countries.”

That briefing was prepared by the 7th SFG at the request of U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, a far-right Republican with Tea Party leanings whose Florida district is about to become the new home for the 7th SFG (which is relocating from Ft. Bragg in North Carolina to Elgin Air Force Base in Florida’s panhandle).

Dan McFaul, chief of staff for Congressman Miller, stressed, when contacted by Narco News, that his boss did not attend the May 14, 2009, 7th SFG briefing.

“That was a non-classified briefing,” McFaul said. “The Congressman is on the [House] Intelligence Committee … and he is briefed at the classified level. … We request briefs on different issues affecting District 1 [Miller’s Congressional area] for chambers or economic development groups [and others], and so this [the 7th SFG briefing] could have been for something like that.”

Both the briefing document and a letter drafted by the EDC’s Defense Support Initiative chairman appear to indicate that was the case. McFaul said he had not received any other media inquiries about the restricted briefing document being made public prior to being contacted by Narco News.

Calls to the Okaloosa County EDC were not returned by press time.

However, someone as of Saturday, June 4, had removed the link on the EDC’s Web site that directs readers to the site where the briefing document can be downloaded. [See screen shot here of material removed]. The EDC Web-site download link for the document is still active, though, and can be accessed here — as well here should that EDC download link be deactivated in the future, with a screen shot here of the EDC download link as it exists as of the publish date of this story.

It is important to stress that there is no evidence that the Okaloosa County EDC, Congressman Miller or members of the 7th SFG intentionally included or made public information that might compromise the security of the U.S. special-forces operations in Mexico.

But it seems clear that somewhere along the line, some bad calls were made — beginning with the decision to include country and date-specific specific information about supposedly covert troop deployments in a non-classified briefing and to then put those briefing materials online, even though the document is marked “For Official Use Only.”

In fact, Narco News contacted the press office for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, which oversees the 7th SFG, seeking comment on how the sensitive mission information ended up in a non-classified briefing, but was told no one was available to comment until next week, after Narco News’ deadline for this story.

Narco News also contacted USNORTHCOM, which has command control over DoD missions involving Mexico. Lt. Commander William Lewis, USNORTHCOM spokesman, said he would look into the matter and get back to Narco News after “finding out what can and cannot be released” about the matter.

Narco News will update the story if additional pertinent information is provided by USASOC, USNORTHCOM, or others.
Stay tuned…..

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The Most Dangerous Country in the World?

By MICHAEL McCAUGHAN

The scale and cost of Mexico’s failed war on drugs has become painfully apparent as the death toll reaches 40,000; the four main drug cartels have grown to twelve and extended their reach beyond Mexico’s borders, as evidenced by the recent carnage in Guatemala where 27 headless corpses were discovered on a ranch. The rising violence has increased mobility in the ranks of the cartel with new leaders adopting a less ostentatious lifestyle while spending lavishly to buy the complicity of politicians and police. State institutions have become more corrupt with an estimated one in four police officers on the cartel payroll, an alarming figure given that Mexico has half a million police, the third highest in the world per head of population.
Mexico’s National Migration Institute has been purging its ranks, suspending 550 employees (15% of the workforce) as a perverse practice has come to light- the ‘sale’ of hundreds of migrants, the most vulnerable people of all, to drug gangs who in turn sell women into prostitution or extort money in return for their release. The cost of safe return for kidnapped migrants can be up to $3,000, a golden  business opportunity when an estimated 500,000 people cross the Guatemala-Mexico border each year. In September 2010, rogue migration officials beat and robbed a group of 100 migrants as they got off a train in Oaxaca. The migration officials have an endless supply of cheap, disposable lives, of men, women and children who cease to exist once they enter Mexico in clandestine conditions. Over three hundred corpses have been recovered in ranches close to the US-Mexico border this year, victims of such massacres.

Mexico has also become the most dangerous country in the world in which to be a journalist, with twelve casualties in the past year.

Perhaps the greatest long term damage inflicted by the war has been the destruction of the nation’s social fabric. The statistics don’t tell the full story. The casual nature of the brutality and the impunity enjoyed by its perpetrators have diminished trust and provoked an existential crisis. Citizens live in a state of defenselessness as violence now threatens everyone. Mexicans in affected areas retreat into silence just as the Argentinian and Chilean people did during the dictatorship era. The media has toned down its coverage of the drug gangs with some newspapers taking the drastic step of publicly calling on the cartels to advise them where to draw the line to prevent reprisals. Meanwhile the Mexican army has become deeply involved in the war, increasing the atmosphere of terror. ‘soldiers kick down doors, arrest anyone they feel like, wearing ski masks and carrying powerful weapons, people don’t know who they are’ said Jose Hernandez, director of Independent Human Rights Commission in Morelos state. This picturesque state just outside Mexico City was once a sleepy weekend retreat for Mexico’s wealthy elite. In the past year however 335 bodies have been found scattered along its highways and towns, without a single arrest or even a suspect.

Everyone has an anecdote from the war. In April a family from Mexico City visited Acapulco and went to eat at a restaurant. A bottle of whiskey suddenly appeared at their table. ‘That senor over there sent it’ said a waiter. A few minutes later the whiskey man asked the father for permission to dance with his daughter, aged fifteen. The father refused. ‘Listen carefully’ he said, ‘this young woman is mine.’ The family left the restaurant, returned to their hotel, packed their bags and headed home. An hour later their car was intercepted, their daughter kidnapped at gunpoint. The young woman has not been heard of since. This story was one of 70 testimonies recounted at the Zocalo in downtown Mexico on March 8th during the national March for peace with its unequivocal slogan ‘estamos hasta la madre; no mas sangre’ ‘we’ve had it up to here. No more bloodshed.’

There are an estimated 10,000 ‘disappeared’ in Mexico, men, women and children, taken by persons unkown, for reasons unknown, their whereabouts unknown, their relatives and friends living in perpetual anxiety. Neither dead nor alive. And the Mexican state is incapable of finding any of them. If a tsunami or hurricane had swept 10,000 people into some remote wilderness the government would presumably declare a national emergency and divert every possible resource toward finding the missing people.

In Sinaloa state some 700 people have been killed so far this year as violence spirals out of control and local police are accused of collaborating with the cartels. Rather than face up to this crisis the state government has come up with two initiatives of its own; the first is to ban restaurants and bars from playing ‘narcocorridos’ the popular ballads which extol the exploits of drug traffickers. These ballads, unpleasant as they are, did not inspire the drug trade, nor do they sustain its criminal gangs. I have yet to meet anyone in Mexico who honestly believes, as the official announcement suggested, that this soundtrack to crime ‘promotes antisocial conduct’. They merely reflect it. In Zapatista rebel villages this reporter has often heard such ballads blasting from local homes, the racy tunes and exaggerated exploits regarded as harmless fun.

In the absence of effective policies and honest officials, the banning of the drug ballads is the nearest thing to a ‘victory’ in the drug war. Twenty years ago a previous government banned any song with references to the drug trade from being aired on radio. Soon after Los Tigres del Norte, a band with a bigger support base than the local government, released an album, ‘Corridos Prohibidos’ which broke all sales records and earned the band a platinum sales disc.

Last month (may) the governor of Sinaloa once more waded into the battlefield, this time declaring war on Ralph Lauren polo shirts, the uniform of choice of the drug traffickers. This time the governor said he was ‘enormously worried’ at the manner in which disaffected youth were seduced by the glamour of expensive brands, adding that he wished they would wear clothes with images of national heroes like Emiliano Zapata. The irony of this declaration will not be lost on the Zapatista movement which sparked a renaissance of Zapata’s ideals in 1994, demanding peace, justice and democracy. The government responded with tanks, warplanes and bullets. It was all very well to wear a t-shirt of Zapata but the prospect of indigenous rebels implementing the dream of land and freedom was met with army and paramilitary violence. The Zapatista movement challenged Mexicans to rethink society, mobilizing millions and forcing the ruling party (in power for 70 years) to open up the electoral system. However Mexico’s civil society failed to rise to the challenge of cleaning out public life and the result has been a steady moral disintegration which has shattered faith in the country’s political parties, including the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Citizen confidence in the country’s authorities is so low and fear of reprisal so great that most relatives don’t even bother registering lost loved ones as missing persons. This appalling reality became apparent when Javier Sicilia, a poet whose son was murdered in march, sat down outside the offices of the state government in Cuernavaca, Morelos, for a week. An avalanche of people came forward, registering 1,200 disappeared and 3,500 deaths. Out of this sit in came the national citizen movement for peace and for the rebuilding of the nation.  Sicilia finds himself thrust into the position of spokesperson for indignant Mexico, his citizen movement for peace gathering steam and fresh ideas as it travels around the country. In some way Sicilia has taken up the baton left behind by the Zapatista’s ‘otra campana’, in which rebel leaders attempted to unite Mexico from below, with little success.

Sicilia has urged the government to acknowledge the country is in a state of emergency, devastated by a ‘badly planned and poorly executed’ war which has brought the country to its knees. Sicilia has railed against the incapacity of the government and lamented its perverse attempt to criminalize victims of violence by insinuating that they must have been involved in something. This aberrant logic allowed Argentinians to look the other way when thousands of young people were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by security forces in the 1970s. The government has become, says Sicilia, ‘managers of misfortune’, lacking initiative and imagination, focused only on an endless body count.

In his landmark open letter to politicians and criminals, Sicilia linked the rise in drug trafficking to the dominant economic ideology of self interest, competition and ‘limitless consumerism’. Sicilia has called on the political class to set aside petty differences and the pursuit of power to forge an alliance around an agreed plan of action. With elections looming next year, Sicilia urged parties to agree on a candidate of unity committed to a constitutional conference which would redraw the boundaries of political life, incorporating the recall referendum and other mechanisms of citizen power.

As President Calderon enters the twilight phase of his six year term he has attempted to turn the drug war into a patriotic crusade, calling on citizens, media and politicians to rally round the army and police. In his growing delirium Calderon has taken to comparing himself to Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime leader who led the fight against the Nazis. The comparison is disproportionate. Calderon declared war on an invisible enemy without calculating the consequences or even determining what victory might look like. Nor did he make an adequate survey of the battlefield or measure the moral and military capacity of his troops. President Calderon is fully committed to a war in which the rising body count is taken as evidence of success in what is fast becoming a macabre dance of death.

The key problem however, as Sicilia noted, is that the enemy ‘is inside as well as outside’ of polite society. One of the most immediate obstacles to winning the war or securing the peace is Calderon’s right hand man, Genaro Garcia Luna, the country’s super cop who runs the Ministry of Public Security (SSP). During the Vicente Fox administration (2000-06) Garcia Luna created and ran the Federal Investigative Agency (AFI) which was disbanded in 2006 as it had become thoroughly infiltrated by the drug cartels. Garcia Luna took up his current post in 2006 and has remained in charge despite repeated allegations of links to drug cartels (2008) based on recorded telephone conversations and emails. Discontent grew within the ranks and security officials have accused Garcia Luna of naming corrupt police to top positions while a journalist investigating his sudden acquisition of wealth received death threats.

Javier Sicilia, the moral conscience of a weary nation, is about to embark on a national mobilization. The main objective is to launch a six point Agreement for Peace And The Reconstruction of the Country, beginning symbolically in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s capital city of violence. The Pact calls for an end to corruption and a shift from the military-led fight against organized crime to one where citizen safety comes first. In addition, the document demands official recognition for the victims of violence, promoting ‘active memory’ through public testimony and tributes in public spaces. A revised drug strategy would follow the money trail and clamp down on the arms trade while taking steps to reconstruct the social fabric through policies promoting education and employment for youth and the exercise of active citizenship, through revocation of mandate and other reforms.

Michael McCaughan has reported extensively from Latin America for the Irish Times and the Guardian, among others. He is author of True Crimes: Rodolfo Walsh, the Life and Times of a Radical Intellectual and The Battle of Venezuela.

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June 2nd, 2011 by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

God Bless America. And its Bombs.

When they bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador and Nicaragua I said nothing because I wasn’t a communist.

When they bombed China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, and the Congo I said nothing because I didn’t know about it.
When they bombed Lebanon and Grenada I said nothing because I didn’t understand it.
When they bombed Panama I said nothing because I wasn’t a drug dealer.
When they bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen I said nothing because I wasn’t a terrorist.
When they bombed Yugoslavia and Libya for “humanitarian” reasons I said nothing because it sounded so honorable.
Then they bombed my house and there was no one left to speak out for me. But it didn’t really matter. I was dead. 1

The Targets

It’s become a commonplace to accuse the United States of choosing as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns of modern times — 78 consecutive days — was carried out against the people of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (A) It poses an obstacle — could be anything — to the desires of the American Empire; (B) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.

The survivors

“We never see the smoke and the fire, we never smell the blood, we never see the terror in the eyes of the children, whose nightmares will now feature screaming missiles from unseen terrorists, known only as Americans.” 2

NASA has announced an audacious new mission, launching a spaceship that will travel for four years to land on an asteroid, where it will collect dust from the surface and deliver the precious cargo to Earth, where scientists will then examine the material for clues to how life began. Truly the stuff of science fiction. However, I personally would regard it as a much greater accomplishment of humankind if we could put an end to America’s bombings and all its wars, and teach some humility to The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, the European Union and NATO — who recognizes no higher power and believe they literally can do whatever they want in the world, to whomever they want, for as long as they want, and call it whatever they want, like “humanitarian.”

The fall of the American Empire would offer a new beginning for the long-suffering American people and the long-suffering world.

Why is the United States waging perpetual war against the Cuban people’s health system?

In January the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged. The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to combat the three deadly pandemics in 150 countries. 3

“This mean-spirited policy,” the Cuban government said, “aims to undermine the quality of service provided to the Cuban population and to obstruct the provision of medical assistance in over 100 countries by 40,000 Cuban health workers.” Most of the funds are used to import expensive AIDS medication to Cuba, where antiretroviral treatment is provided free of charge to some 5,000 HIV patients. 4

The United States sees the Cuban health system and Havana’s sharing of such as a means of Cuba winning friends and allies in the Third World, particularly Latin America; a situation sharply in conflict with long-standing US policy to isolate Cuba. The United States in recent years has attempted to counter the Cuban international success by dispatching the US Naval Ship “Comfort” to the region. With 12 operating rooms and a 1,000-bed hospital, the converted oil tanker has performed hundreds of thousands of free surgeries in places such as Belize, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Haiti.

However, the Comfort’s port calls likely will not substantially enhance America’s influence in the hemisphere. “It’s hard for the U.S. to compete with Cuba and Venezuela in this way,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a pro-US policy-research group in Washington. “It makes us look like we’re trying to imitate them. Cuba’s doctors aren’t docked at port for a couple days, but are in the country for years.” 5

The recent disclosure by Wikileaks of US State Department documents included this little item: A cable was sent by Michael Parmly from the US Interests Section in Havana in July 2006, during the runup to the Non-Aligned Movement conference. He notes that he is actively looking for “human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess”.

Michael Moore refers to another Wikileaks State Department cable: “On January 31, 2008, a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made-up story and sent it back to his headquarters in Washington. Here’s what they came up with: [The official] stated that Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore’s documentary, ‘Sicko,’ as being subversive. Although the film’s intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, the official said the regime knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.” Moore points out an Associated Press story of June 16, 2007 (seven months prior to the cable) with the headline: “Cuban health minister says Moore’s ‘Sicko’ shows ‘human values’ of communist system.”

Moore adds that the people of Cuba were shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008. “The Cubans embraced the film so much it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of Sicko were set up in towns all across the country.” 6

The United States also bans the sale to Cuba of vital medical drugs and devices, such as the inhalant agent Sevoflurane which has become the pharmaceutical of excellence for applying general anesthesia to children; and the pharmaceutical Dexmetomidine, of particular usefulness in elderly patients who often must be subjected to extended surgical procedures. Both of these are produced by the US firm Abbot Laboratories.

Cuban children suffering from lymphoblastic leukemia cannot use Erwinia L-asparaginasa, a medicine commercially known as Elspar, since the US pharmaceutical company Merck and Co. refuses to sell this product to Cuba. Washington has also prohibited the US-based Pastors for Peace Caravan from donating three Ford ambulances to Cuba.

Cubans are moreover upset by the denial of visas requested to attend conferences in the field of Anesthesiology and Reanimation that take place in the United States. This creates further barriers for Cuba’s anesthesiologists to update themselves on state of the art anesthesiology, the care of severely ill patients, and the advances achieved in the treatment of pain.

Some of the foregoing are but a small sample of American warfare against the Cuban medical system presented in a Cuban report to the United Nations General Assembly on October 28, 2009.

Finally, we have the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) immigration program, which encourages Cuban doctors who are serving their government overseas to defect and enter the US immediately as refugees. The Wall Street Journal reported in January of this year that through Dec. 16, 2010, CMPP visas had been issued by US consulates in 65 countries to 1,574 Cuban doctors whose education had been paid for by the financially-struggling Cuban government. 7 This program, oddly enough, was initiated by the US Department of Homeland Security. Another victory over terrorism? Or socialism? Or same thing?

Wait until the American conservatives hear that Cuba is the only country in Latin America offering abortion on demand, and free.

Items of interest from a journal I’ve kept for 40 years, part IV

• “Remember the scene in Battle of Algiers in which, after the French have ‘killed off’ the revolution, mist fills the screen and then, gradually, coming out of the mist, the Algerians appear waving their fists, ululating with that sound both thrilling and frightening? That’s how I see 9/11 for those of us who grew up believing that the US stood for something grand, despite eras such as slavery, indigenous genocide, Jim Crow, etc. Many people say ‘Everything changed on 9/11.’ I think it’s more that ‘Everything became clear, finally, on 9/11.’ The mist cleared away.” — Catherine Podojil
• From a reader in Slovakia: I used the word “democracy” and not “capitalism”, because we were told [after the dissolution of the Soviet Union] that democracy was introduced in Slovakia, not capitalism. Everything was done in the name of democracy and not in the name of capitalism.
• “If someone other than Stalin had gained ascendancy in the Soviet Union, it is likely that millions of lives would have been spared — but millions of others still would have been caught up in the maw of the state machine, because the system itself was based on violence, repression and lawlessness — all in the name of ‘preserving the Revolution,’ a phrase which served the same function for the Kremlin as ‘national security’ does for the American elite, or the ‘higher law’ of God does for religious extremists of every stripe.” — Chris Floyd
• Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, re the newly-formed International Criminal Court in 1998: The United States should be exempt [from the court’s prosecution] because it has “special global responsibilities”.
• Russia might be a target of an American invasion some day because it’s the most powerful geopolitical opponent of the United States, with the power to extinguish the US in 30 minutes. The US might want to control the Russian oil and have complete control of Central Asia. That’s what’s behind the many missile sites the US has been building in Europe, not the stated fear of Iran.
• Bolivia has South America’s largest hydrocarbon deposits after Venezuela.
• “The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad and somehow take control of the country strikes me as an extremely serious one, in terms of what we’d have to do when we got there. You’d probably have to put some new government in place. It’s not clear what kind of government that would be, how long you’d have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of the struggle over who’s going to govern in Iraq strikes me as the classic definition of a quagmire.” – Dick Cheney, when he was Secretary of Defense in 1991.
• When the plans for a new office building for the U.S. military were brought before the Senate on Aug. 14, 1941, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan was puzzled. “Unless the war is to be permanent, why must we have permanent accommodations for war facilities of such size?” he asked. “Or is the war to be permanent?” (Steve Vogel, “The Pentagon: A History” (2007) p.84)
• The combination of free trade and heavy US subsidies to American businesses has crippled the Mexican agricultural sector, causing impoverished former subsistence farmers to immigrate to the US by any means necessary. Conservative policies of supporting free trade while restricting immigration are inherently incompatible.
• The head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the first US occupation administration of Iraq in 2003, Paul Bremer, made free enterprise a guiding rule, shutting down 192 state-owned businesses where the World Bank estimated 500,000 people were working. (UPI, July 25, 2007)
• If an individual were behaving as Israel does as a country, that person would be removed to an institution for the criminally insane and subjected to intense drug therapy and a lobotomy. The person might find the guy next door to be named America.
• The United States threatens other states sufficient to cause those states to engage in defensive responses in order to exploit these to justify increasing “defense” expenditures.
• Bush, Obama and Western Europe have used criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism as a way of showing their publics how they allegedly stand up for democracy.
• US right-wingers have a desire to replace our constitutional form of government with an authoritarian theocracy, and to (militarily) spread that theocratic construct around the world. (Ironically, the exact same objective fundamentalist Muslims have!) — Kerry Thomasi, Online Journal
• “Behind the ‘unexamined nostalgia for the “Golden Days” of American intelligence’ lay a much more devastating truth: the same people who read Dante and went to Yale and were educated in civic virtue recruited Nazis, manipulated the outcome of democratic elections, gave LSD to unwitting subjects, opened the mail of thousands of American citizens, overthrew governments, supported dictatorships, plotted assassinations, and engineered the Bay of Pigs disaster. ‘In the name of what?’ asked one critic. ‘Not civic virtue, but empire’.” — Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (1999)
• … a more just world, a deeper democracy and a liveable planet …
• “Colin Powell’s presentation at the UN, February 5, 2003 seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student’s thesis, downloaded from the Web — with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with plagiarism.” — Bill Moyers
• “Venezuela’s well-off complain endlessly that their economic power has been diminished; it hasn’t; economic growth has never been higher, business has never been better. What the rich no longer own is the government.” – John Pilger

Notes

1. Full list of US bombings since World War 2 ↩
2. Martin Kelly, publisher of a nonviolence website ↩
3. Prensa Latina (Cuba), March 12, 2011 ↩
4. The Militant (US, Socialist Workers Party), April 4, 2011↩
5. Bloomberg news agency, September 19, 2007 ↩
6. Huffington Post, December 18, 2010 ↩
7. Wall Street Journal, “Cuban Doctors Come In From the Cold” (video), January 14 2011 ↩

–

Senior Editor William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

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BY DIANE GEE
I’m guilty, I know it.

After all, did I not join a liberal blog once, tired of a message board that had become basically a good old boy network that insulted its female membership until we all left? Only to find that liberal blog ridiculed those of us left enough to see the collapse coming (which has since) and call us doomsayers, until we all left there too?

So, I created my own blog, The Wild Left, first as a blogger account, then a soapblox one as its needs grew. I wanted a place that fit my ideology. I wanted a place of kindreds. I wanted an intellectual and emotional home with beloved friends who shared the commitment to making a REAL difference, and a bond of supporting one another in a world largely set against us.

Sure, I still enjoyed other blogs, despite resenting a ban on I/P there, or an Obamabot here, or perhaps a lack of humor on another… but WWL would be a place to shelter and let blossom the ideas and ideals of we the dreamers and prophets of the Left. The bikers have 1%ers, the left had WWL.

I feel like that 1% has become .001% that still bother, carry the torch, see the importance of sticking together and working toward our shared dreams.

Twitter was a tool that became old. It moves so fast if you don’t use it for a while, you are quickly forgotten by volume. Others were afraid to use it to advertise the blog or the show, because “someone” might see their Leftiness, not in the approved clique or something.

Facebook, I really had no use for at the start. Mine languished untouched for years. Then history repeated. More grasping.

I ended up using facebook more when Mike got sick. A place to let relatives and friends know what was going on en masse without the painful, mind-numbing repetition that kills your soul and makes the horror we were going through nothing but a litany of sad, dry facts. I soon found solace in the morning conversations there, that used to occur HERE. I enjoyed seeing pictures, I LOVE pictures, of my friends lives, their kids and pets, just snippets of their lives in bright colors that made me feel more alive and connected to them.

The next thing I knew? People who knew me friended me to like-minded activists… people they thought had the same radical ideology as me. Next? Those new friends added me to a “group.” “Links for Progressive Activists,” which really has wonderful links. As long as you don’t cross a line of leftiness, that is.

And again? I found the Democrats are the only answer, Obama-bots and petty arguments happening there. People banned. Socialists and Communists marginalized. Flag wavers that hailed Osama Bin Ladens illegal assassination. Not kindreds, and some quite intolerant.

I created a spin off of that too. “Links for the Wildly Left,” a subsidiary of this blog and my show. It has gained me some wonderful comrades, in the show, and in blog-land. I now am a front pager at the prestigious “Greanville Post.” I have nabbed great callers and guests.

Links for the Wildly Left is a group in which anyone who joins can add anyone to the group. I am finding in my own space these purity police who tell people what they can and cannot espouse on my very own group. Its like herding cats, all over again. People spinning off, people nit-picking and dividing… even when I ask them to not. Of course, there have been trolls and right-wing apostles of (ron) Paul trying to infiltrate and get converts. There have been a few die-hard Democratic campaigners trying to push their (s)elected official and sell us on incremental lesser-of-the-evilisms, too. Mostly? Its just good people, though.

The thing is? It has not generated any activity here whatsoever, other than increased readership. Very little added wonderful writings by new faces, with the exception of Al Osorio who rocks. Little in the way of additional comment. This blog has the feeling of another morgue to me. Perhaps blogging itself is dying. It is good to read links to stories I might otherwise miss…. but where is the in-depth analysis, where is the sudden inspiration of linking two different stories that end up telling the whole tale? Where is the original work?

I can’t blame Facebook. Tools are what you make of them, and the comments and discussion there are often very good.

But I am now finding that every third new member has their own political FB page, which they can take the luxury of adding me to at will. The same way I added others to mine. (guilty) I now am members of groups whose ideologies I don’t even espouse. We will get to that later.

It seems, like me, everyone has their own group they are trying to grow.

So at what point do all these collective conduits of thought, all these separate straws if you will, become a hive?

t seems to me at times, I am floating in a river of competing garbage, the noise to signal ratio is so low. I am NOT a Democrat any longer. Read my bio. I despise Libertarians, read my words.

People want change, but they are so afraid of REAL change that they will back someone with whom they do not agree on most things, because they are right about one or two things… if even right for the wrong reason. Like Ron Paul. Sure, he wants out of war, but only to make us a very isolationist – profit for the US – people. He has NO problem with the MIC, and thinks they should be free to sell any kind of armament to anyone they want with NO GOVT REGULATION.

People want change, but are so clinging to their creature comforts that they think incremental change will truly become change. Its always one step forward, two back, they say. Better Dems! More Dems! Vote and things will change. Canvass for my guy and things will be different. Don’t tell me different or you are Unamerican! Garbage. They are looking for a Savior. Grasping at last chance straws, because they cannot accept the fact that the power and the money are consolidated to a point that we are powerless against it short of a bloody revolution. No one in history has ever had the global power the Elite Class now has. But history does indeed prove, time and again, even those with MUCH smaller scale power never relinquish it willingly.

The final grouping I see of people who want change are thus: By claiming the “people” are not ready, that it would fail without numbers, they exactly CREATE that reality by dissuading people from thinking outside the box, and considering reality as it is. When challenged, they inevitably tell you to take to the streets right now with guns, and call you a poseur when you do not. That is not the way it works. Revolutions do not happen as a proving of creds. Revolutions do not happen on a dare. But trying to convince people it is impossible is counter-intuitive to the Left. It is the worst of self-fulfilling prophesy. of thought become inaction.

And certainly, demonstrations are not revolutions, though they may be the seeds of them.

Revolutions take a catalyst.

Ours has not yet happened, and neither my crystal ball nor magic 8 ball are telling me what it will be.

Sometimes it is a charismatic leader, like a Che, a Fidel, a Hugo. Sometimes it is an injustice like a man against a tank in Tienanmen Square. Sometimes it is simply enough hunger. But charismatic messiah be damned, horrific event spared? A revolution is coming nonetheless.

I do know this… the world is beginning to rise up, from Africa to the Middle East. I do know that America, as the world power at the moment should either join in or be left behind, with retribution to follow. I do know our PEOPLE, as individuals, despise what our rich do in our names. But I also know its time for us to lose the “old world” ideology handed us by European colonists, to any illusion of whitey as a master race who knows better and should lead the charge.

It may be time to shut up and listen.

A Wall Street analysis of the “Happiest Countries” summarily left out anything but white European Countries. Color me a skeptic, but I think the power structure is frightened enough to be testing the waters for some Semi-Socialist “Democracy” in which they are still the ruling Plutocrats doling out a few concessions to keep their power.

It counters entirely what Forbes listed last year… with Costa Rica, Brazil and Venezuela soundly on the list.

Even that counters what International (UK in this case, but there are many) sources have been saying for years. Left unmolested the “Pink” countries of Latin America are by far the happiest with Costa Rica almost always first.

We need to look South. We need to follow. We need to LISTEN and LEARN to the greenest, happiest Democracies on Earth.

We need to “have” less and “live” more.

And we need to be willing to fight for one another to all have the same thing Globally.

Everyone is grasping at straws, I guess. Perhaps mine is elusive as the next girl or guy’s. I know my dream here certainly has eluded my grasp. My best allies failed me when I was down, my closest friends have wandered away from activism here. The best writers give up, take their crayon and go home.

Maybe I am just bundling straw that will soon be mowed down for the next crop of useless fodder.

I don’t know.

I write because I have to. My muse is becoming thinner and thinner though, starved out by lack of faith. Life is really short. Maybe I should just move to Costa Rica and live my days out in simple pleasures and let the world burn. Give up on the idea of kindreds, unity, solidarity, trust and nirvana on Earth. I keep losing soul mate after soul mate. To death. To abandonment. To distraction with other things. I look at who is left sometimes, with the thought, “When and what will make me lose you…” like its only a matter of time. Maybe I should just wake up to the fact that I am a needle in a straw-stack.

I don’t know what I will do, except probably keep fighting alone amongst millions.

You will know me when you see me.

I’ll be the one still grasping….

DIANE GEE is a senior contributing editor at The Greanville Post.  Her personal blog is The Wild Wild Left. She also runs a very lively discussion group on Facebook, Links for the Wildly Left.

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