Category: Cuban Five
Some End-of-the-Year Thoughts
| December 27, 2014 | 11:11 pm | Action, Analysis, Cuba, Cuban Five, Economy, International, National, police terrorism | Comments closed
● Congratulations to the Cuban patriots (the Cuban Five), the remaining three of whom were finally released from US jails for the “crime” of making the world a safer place from US imperialism (How extensive and racially and economically selective must a prison system be before we can refer to the installations as concentration camps?) All fair-minded people should rejoice at the moving reunion of these internationalists with their families and their countrymen and women!
Before we are overwhelmed by adulation for President Obama’s role in the release of the remaining Cuban Five, a fawning process that has begun in earnest, we should remind the adulators that it is bad form to praise someone for doing what he or she should have done long before. Nothing has really happened to precipitate a change in US-Cuban relations at this moment except the passing of Obama’s final national election cycle– a fact that suggests that Obama’s welcome moves are more political expediency than any serious change of heart. Those who sense faux-liberal stroking in anticipation of the forthcoming election season are probably on solid ground. The U-turn regarding policy towards Cuba demonstrated recently on the editorial pages of the New York Times also point to a strategic shift in the thinking of key elements of the US ruling class.
● John Pilger, by way of Michael Munk’s always interesting blog, lastmarx, asks what became of Malaysian flight MH17, which crashed in the Eastern Ukraine. After the July disaster, the Western media proceeded to blame Eastern Ukrainian resistance fighters and Russia without a shred of hard evidence beyond “unnamed” Western intelligence “sources” (How do journalists acquire access to intelligence sources yet remain uncompromised?).
Despite recovering black boxes, debris and bodies, the Western investigators have been strangely silent since August. No evidence has come forth apart from Russian sources. No indictments from the notorious International Court of Justice (from which the US refused to honor its jurisdiction in 1986 despite having a permanent judge and frequently imposing jurisdiction on others). Compare this to the Western-induced hysteria surrounding earlier incidents like Korean Airlines 007, a media frenzy that demonized the Soviets for years. Even the crazed General Breedlove– Pilger calls him NATO’s “Dr. Strangelove”– has remained relatively silent. Could it be that the facts are pointing the wrong way?
● The 2014 Brazen Hypocrisy award goes to President Barack Obama for his two-faced appeal to the right of self defense. Esteemed Cuban blogger Manuel A. Yepe lauds research by Brandon Turbeville that recovers a statement from November 2012 by the self-righteous Peace Prize Winner. President Obama, in defense of Israeli aggression, argued: “… there is no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” Of course this is unabashed hypocrisy for a leader who daily signs off on drone, cruise missile, and bomb attacks on Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, or Yemen, a glaring contradiction that Yepe credits Turbeville for exposing.
Certainly there are plenty of candidates for the Hypocrisy Award, most of whom nest in US seats of power: the recent sanctions imposed by a serial human rights violator (the US) against Venezuela for imaginary “human rights” violations count as first degree hypocrisy. Imagine a government that spies on ALL of its citizens, tortures foreigners, and allows militarized police forces to kill unarmed citizens punishing Venezuela and lecturing the rest of the world about good behavior.
Or consider the hypocrisy of ferreting out other countries deficient in democracy– a favorite activity of US media pundits– while never mentioning Japan, a country ruled by one party, the Liberal Democratic Party, since 1955 with less than four years of respite. Many of those dubbed “dictators” would be jealous.
And then there’s the shameless Henry Blodget, the blue-blood, consummate Wall Street insider, who has been banned for life from the securities industry for fraud. Addicted to the celebrity spotlight, Blodget regarded the claim that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea hacked a US entertainment company as a sufficient basis for declaring the alleged  hack “effectively an act of war….” Blodget’s panic arises from his concerns that the DPRK might “get into the money”: “’It’s not just they get some credit card numbers which we’ve been seeing forever. But they actually get into the money’ at large corporations and banks” (Yahoo Finance, 12-19-14).
Truly, we swim in a sea of hypocrisy.
● But hypocrisy is only tolerated because we refuse to hold public figures and the media accountable for their statements; as Gore Vidal put it, we reside in the “United States of Amnesia.” He drew attention to an adult population narcotized by shallow entertainments and denied any sense of history or continuity. Actually, Martha Gellhorn said it much earlier (1953) when she noted the “consensual amnesia” rampant in the US.
It is wrong, however, to blame the US people for the cowardice and lack of accountability of the media and academia. We cannot blame collective ignorance on the victims when it is the product of the massive, suffocating machinery of capitalist disinformation and vulgar culture.
Imagine if we could hold all of the opinion makers and policy pundits accountable for their slavish promotion of the unprovoked invasion of Iraq and the subsequent destabilization of the entire Middle East. Imagine if we could exile them to write for the Metropolis Daily Planet until they reclaimed their integrity. Soon, we would forget the names Friedman, Krauthammer, and the other cheerleaders of imperialism, maybe even the loudmouth, Cheney. Exactly what journalistic crimes must they commit, what disasters must they endorse before their bosses and colleagues turn them out?
Similarly, the economic collapse of 2007-2008, unpredicted and unsolved by the “wise men” of the economics profession, has spawned no new thinking or rejection of the old.
Sadly, most of our public intellectuals have become courtiers and not truth seekers.
● We must not ignore the amnesia of the US left. Forgotten is the mass euphoria over the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Virtually all of the liberal and soft left was swept away by the overwhelming Democratic Party victory, affording a two-year window to pass a whole laundry list of legislation benefiting labor, minorities, women, the elderly, undocumented and other components of the Democratic Party coalition. Except for a health care initiative that has failed to live up to anyone’s expectations other than insurance companies, none of these promises came to fruition, even to serious consideration. As the Democrats gin up for another Presidential campaign behind Hillary (after she disposes of the Quixote-like campaign of Elizabeth Warren), this miserable performance will be forgotten. With the Obama well running dry, liberal and the moderate left will drill a new Clinton well of hope. Memories are short.
● While the signs of mass militancy are positive, most recently from the anger and activism springing from criminal police behavior, the left seems to find diversions and distractions that create speed bumps, if not detours, from clarity and united action.
The energy of the Occupy movement was welcome, but the embrace of the organizing principles of disorganization proved– once again– a damper on movement building. Seemingly, every generation must champion group therapy as an antidote to “hierarchies” and “leadership,” alleged features of the “old left,” “the establishment,” “elites” or other evils imagined by self-anointed ideological gurus.
The New Left of the sixties pioneered this posture, shattering enormous mass movements against racism and war into a thousand pieces. The shallow and idealistic emotions conjured by the words “participatory democracy” arise again and again with the same result.
● The latest obstacle to ideological clarity and effective action is the amorphous and ideologically confounding “Sharing” Economy movement. The “New” or “Sharing” economy projects occupy two distinct poles.
At one pole are the liberal/left activists who have been shocked by the human carnage of economic crisis, but are afraid of or disillusioned with the socialist option. While many may see capitalism’s flaws, they are cowed by the enormous task of defeating and replacing it. Rather than joining Marxists, who are confident and determined to revive the fight for a world without exploitation and without rule by the rich and powerful, they propose that we simply drop out of the global economy, that we live and work outside of it. In collectively owned cooperatives, they propose an alternative to capitalism. But is it really an alternative?
Certainly there is nothing, in principle, wrong with cooperatives. Indeed, they are sometimes an answer for small-holders to improve their destiny against large capitalist enterprises. That is, they can postpone, but rarely derail the laws of capitalist development, the tendency for the large to devour the small.
But it is silly to believe that cooperatives in any way challenge capitalism as we know it today. State-monopoly capitalism– the merger of the power of the state with the largest, most economically dominant corporations– will not shudder in the face of the cooperative movement. Nor should it. If cooperatives posed any kind of threat, the mega-corporations would swat them like flies.
Instead, the New Economy (cooperative) movement does offer an alternative– an alternative to small businesses. Cooperatives, where they exist, compete against small businesses. They mesh a small-business mentality with an immature social consciousness, a program that only succeeds at the expense of those businesses marginally able to survive while leaving the rich and powerful untouched.
At best, the cooperative movement offers a safe haven for the few to hone their entrepreneurial skills in commercial combat against some of our potential allies in the anti-monopoly movement, the under-capitalized, marginal small business owner.
● The other pole, however, is more insidious. The “sharing” economy, as exemplified by Uber and other creatively named Google-era projects, does not pretend to be anti-capitalist. While “sharing” poses as a kinder, gentler, freer capitalism, it really counts as a way for a new generation of entrepreneurs to pry open markets long dominated by well ensconced services. At the same time, this well-educated, supremely self-confident cabal have seduced many into believing that predation on these service industries is somehow “progressive.”
In fact, Uber and the sharing model are a step back to proto-capitalism, a return to the putting-out”system, where providing the labor and resources is the responsibility of others and not the capitalist. Uber, for example, uses the human capital (drivers) and fixed capital (their cars) of its “employees” to undermine services that are capital intensive (taxis, insurance, benefits, maintenance, fuel, etc) and available to even the most disadvantaged (subsidized public transportation). Like charter schools and package-delivery services, they cherry-pick the most profitable, least risky, or least costly niches of a service and leave the rest for someone else (most often, the public sector). In that way, they most resemble the hyper-exploitative cottage industries of the pre-industrial era. Like those industries, they rely upon sweated labor and forgo all worker protections.
Of course not all those embracing the sharing model begin as predators. Many see the internet as creating new opportunities for matching people and services. But centuries of capitalism teach us that every entrepreneur afforded the opportunity of matching people with services has leaped at the opportunity to commercialize it. Elite universities and business schools have not purged that tendency from their students.
Whether it is cooperatives or the “sharing” model of entrepreneurship, those looking for answers to the rapaciousness and vulgarity of our society must look elsewhere.
We will come no closer to achieving social justice and democracy until we understand the malignancy of capitalism. There are no other diagnoses.
Zoltan Zigedy
Letter to the editor regarding the release of the Cuban 5
| December 19, 2014 | 8:56 pm | Cuban Five | Comments closed
The Cuban 5 have always been in my heart, from the inception when they were put in prison…I contacted a group in Philadelphia , the Answer Coalition and they sent me literature about them and a t-shirt with the 5 images on the front…I attended a conference in Toronto, Canada and a friend N. R. asked me to take part in a radio interview he did with History Professor Gerald Horne from the University of Houston, Texas, this live broadcast took place at ‘A different booklist’ bookstore on Bathurst Street in Toronto…I drove down there from Guelph, Ontario where I was staying and sat in at ‘A different Booklist’ for the Horne interview, while in the bookstore I had on the t-shirt of the Cuban 5 and the owners of the bookstore asked me about them and they said they were going to try to get materials about them…
Why I’m mentioning this I feel like I may have brought some awareness to their plight and lots of people kept asking me who were the Cuban 5 because of that t-shirt…
Sincerely,
E. Wilson
Worker/activist in North Carolina
Video of the return home of the three heros to Cuba
| December 18, 2014 | 8:52 am | Cuban Five | Comments closed

Watch Cuban TV Live!
| December 17, 2014 | 8:50 pm | Cuba, Cuban Five, International | Comments closed

http://www.cubavision.icrt.cu/

Top Canadian Union Leaders Urge Release of Three Remaining Prisoners
| December 16, 2014 | 9:25 pm | Cuban Five | Comments closed

http://mltoday.com/top-canadian-union-leaders-urge-release-of-the-five?utm_source=feedburner&utm


 

Hassan Yussuff President / Président
Barbara Byers Secretary-Treasurer / Secrétaire-trésorière
Marie Clarke Walker Executive Vice-President / Vice-présidente exécutive
Donald Lafleur Executive Vice-President / Vice-président exécutif
December 2014
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

In the last few weeks, the New York Times published a series of editorials and
opinions asking your administration to change its policy toward Cuba. The
centerpiece of this request involves the case of three Cuban men who have
been in U.S. prisons since 1998.

Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero are part of the
internationally known “Cuban Five” who came to the United States to monitor
the activities of certain groups of Cuban exiles who were responsible for acts of
violence, resulting in the immeasurable suffering of many Cuban families.
Unarmed, the altruistic mission of the Five aimed to save lives and prevent
additional criminal acts against their people, and also against U.S. citizens.

General James Clapper, the current National Director of Intelligence, testified
at their trial that the Five did not damage, nor did they endanger U.S. National
Security. Two of them, René González and González Fernando Llort have
returned to Cuba after serving their entire sentences and the three others
remain in prison to this day.

In the 16 years that have passed since the sentencing, many well-known
personalities, including 10 Nobel Laureates, jurists, intellectuals, artists, trade
union and religious leaders, parliamentarians, governments, human rights
organizations and U.S. elected officials have repeated their calls for the freedom
of these prisoners. Major international bodies such as the UN Working Group
on Arbitrary Detention and Amnesty International have also chimed in with
similar appeals.

Former President Jimmy Carter expressed in 2011: “I believe that the detention
of the Cuban Five makes no sense, there have been doubts expressed in U.S.
courts and by human rights organizations around the world. They have now
been in prison 12 years and I hope that in the near future they will be freed to
return to their homes.”

President Obama, 16 years of this unjust imprisonment is unconscionable.
We have added our voice to those throughout the world who are asking you to
resolve this issue without further delay.

In the spirit of the holiday season, we implore you to use your constitutional
powers to free the three remaining Cuban men and to enable them to join their
loved ones by this New Year; a moving gesture that only a caring President of
the United States can deliver.

Whilst improving the relations between the United States and Cuba, such a
gesture would also enrich the lives of the mothers, wives and children who are
waiting for them.

Sincerely,
Hassan Yussuff
President
nm/cope225

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

2841 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1V 8X7 2841, promenade Riverside, Ottawa (Ontario) K1V 8X7
Tel.: 613-521-3400 Fax: 613-521-4655 www.canadianlabour.ca
Tél. : 613-521-3400 Téléc. : 613-521-4655 www.congresdutravail.ca

Christmas Campaign to Free Ramon, Gerardo and Antonio
| December 16, 2014 | 9:21 pm | Cuban Five | Comments closed

http://mltoday.com/christmas-campaign-to-free-ramon-gerardo-and?utm

Our aim is to urge the president to release them so that they can be home with their families for the Holiday season and the New Year.

We are asking each committee in support of the Five, in their respective countries, to contact personalities who have joined the cause of the Five during these 16 years and ask them to add their names to the enclosed letter.

The letter will be sent to Obama before the Holidays so there is some urgency. The purpose of the campaign is to bring the issue of the Five at a particular time when there is awareness and discussion about the case. There are many new voices asking Obama for their freedom and a fundamental change of policy towards Cuba.

The holidays provide us with a perfect opportunity to push Obama towards a turning point of the struggle for their freedom. We asking you to gather the names of the personalities as soon as possible and begin to send them to the following addresses:

For Spanish-speaking countries: <navidadconlos5juntos@gmail.com> ;

For the rest of the world: <christmastogetherthe5@gmail.com> ;

We only need the names of the personalities, with a brief description of who they are, and the country where they are from.

Time is vital and we must act quickly. Please send us the names of the personalities no later than December 20. We only have a little more than one month to achieve our common goal. Together we can do it.

In solidarity,
Katrien Demuynck, Coordinator of the European Campaign of Solidarity with Cuba
Alicia Jrapko and Graciela Ramírez, International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
___________________________________________________________________________
Queridos compañeros,
Estamos anunciando una nueva campaña por nuestros tres hermanos presos: “Juntos en Navidad”*, Juntos con sus amadas familias, Juntos en Cuba con su heroico pueblo.

Se trata de que cada comité en sus respectivos países, contacte a las personalidades que se han sumado a la causa de los Cinco durante estos años y siguen sumándose día a día y les pidan su firma a la carta que les adjuntamos.

Esta es la carta que recibirá el Presidente Obama con las firmas de dichas personalidades y es la que ustedes deben compartir con las personalidades que contacten para que estén de acuerdo en sumar sus nombres.

El objetivo de la campaña es incidir en una fecha de especial sensibilidad y un momento crucial de nuestra causa, donde muchas más voces le están pidiendo a Obama un cambio de política hacia Cuba y la libertad de los tres Patriotas cubanos.

Les pedimos que a la mayor brevedad posible consigan las adhesiones de las personalidades y comiencen a enviarlas a la siguiente dirección:

Para los países de habla hispana: <navidadconlos5juntos@gmail.com> ;

Para el resto del mundo: <christmastogetherthe5@gmail.com> ;

Sólo necesitamos los nombres de las personalidades con una pequeña descripción y el país Ejemplo: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Premio Nobel de la Paz, Argentina *

El tiempo es vital, debemos actuar con rapidez. Por favor envíennos las adhesiones antes del 20 de diciembre. Solo tenemos un poco más de un mes para lograr nuestro objetivo común.*

En solidaridad,

Katrien Demuynck, Coordinadora de la Campaña Europea de Solidaridad con Cuba
Alicia Jrapko y Graciela Ramírez, Comité Internacional por la Libertad de los 5 Cubanos

Union Leader Santos Crespo Sends Letter to Obama in Support of the Five
| December 15, 2014 | 10:07 pm | Cuban Five | Comments closed

Posted on by ICFC5

This page is also available in: Spanish

Santos Crespo Santos Crespo is the President of Local 372 since June 2011. Local 372 represents nearly 25,000 Department of Education employees who provide essential support services to the 1.1 million children – and their families – in New York City public schools.  Local 372 members, who are sometimes referred to as “non-pedagogical” employees because they are non-teaching staff, work in the cafeterias handling food and monitoring children in schoolyards to ensure their safety, in classrooms providing anti-violence/gang and drug prevention counseling, in homeless shelters to ensure that parents send their children to school despite living in a shelter, on trucks bringing supplies to the schools. Local 372 is the largest union within DC 37, which is the largest municipal union in New York City.

May 5, 2013

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

As a worker and life time union leader who has lived by the motto, “An injury to one is an injury to all”, I am asking you to take the moral high road towards justice by releasing the Cuban 5 who are serving shocking long sentences in U.S. prisons. As you know these five Cuban men — Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez came to this country to monitor the activities of anti Cuban terrorists in Miami. They came unarmed with no intention of harming the people or security of the U.S. but rather to protect their own island nation; what could be nobler. As a compassionate person you not only have the power but the responsibility to reunite them with their families in Cuba.

The labor movement around the world has had the opportunity to meet the family members of the Cuban 5 and is taking action to build a movement for their freedom. The labor movement in Canada is making the case of the Cuban 5 a political priority including the Steelworkers, Food and Commercial Workers and Postal Workers. And of course throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the injustice done to these men is well known and an example of the breech between your administration and our neighbors in the Southern hemisphere.

With great enthusiasm our union movement contributed our brains, energy and finances in supporting both of your election campaigns. Latinos and workers in general voted for you in record numbers and here in the U.S. we are beginning to reach them about this case. The loud but shrinking voices from Southern Florida do not speak for us in the labor movement. It is becoming clearer that the majority of people even in Florida want normalization of relations with Cuba and you yourself have said that improving relations with the people of Latin America is important to your presidency. One small thing you could do to get that desire started is to free the Cuban 5 now.

Sincerely,

Santos Crespo

President Local 372