The Business of Counterrevolution in Cuba
Elio Delgado Legon
HAVANA TIMES — “This is my livelihood, kid, this is my livelihood!” This phrase, spoken by renowned “dissident” Ricardo Boffil while being interrogated at Cuba’s State Security Department in Havana expressed the true essence of counterrevolutionary activity in Cuba: a business that allows one to live well without having to work, on the money of US taxpayers.
It is no secret for anyone that the organization of Cubans who fled to the United States because they had been involved or had complicity in Fulgencio Batista’s bloody dictatorship, as declassified documents show, was directed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with a view to destroying the Cuban revolution.
As early as March 17, 1960, at a meeting held to “define Cuba’s future,” President Eisenhower told everyone at the gathering that they ought to be prepared to swear they didn’t hear anything spoken at the meeting and that the “hand of the United States” should not be seen in any actions against Cuba. That is to say, the idea was to use Cuban exiles to carry out actions against the revolution directed by the CIA and, to achieve this, the United States was willing to spend large sums of money.
Since then, many enterprising Cubans have discovered a means of becoming rich in the United States without having to work: with the simple business of counterrevolution.
One of the declassified reports is by General Kirkpatrick. It literally calls for the “formation of an organization of exiles” and the “creation of an opposition within Cuba.” How could these two objectives be reached? Handing out a lot of money, for neither that organization of exiles or opposition existed in Cuba before the CIA started its “work.”
Every year, millions of dollars from the US government budget are destined to fostering subversion in Cuba. Over the last six years, nearly 7 thousand dollars were spent to pay journalists in other countries to write anti-Cuban propaganda aimed at turning public opinion against the island. That is to say, more than a hundred thousand dollars a year were destined to that little “task” alone.
More than once, it has been demonstrated that small dissident groups within Cuba receive salaries in dollars to maintain a fictitious opposition to the government.
The true “ideals” of renowned “dissident” blogger Yoani Sanchez were recently unmasked, when Italian journalist, writer and translator Gordiano Lupi, who translated Sanchez’ blog for the Italian newspaper La Stampa under contract, wrote her an open letter. I will quote only some parts of this letter in the interests of brevity:
“Yoani Sanchez has terminated her contract with La Stampa and has made me a free man, one who, till yesterday, was unable to say what he thought, for I was her translator (…) I have only myself to blame for having believed in Yoani Sanchez’ struggle (…) It has been my lot to find out – through more than one bitter deception – that Yoani Sanchez’ opposition is dead letter (…) I have realized that I have been dealing with a person who makes far from idealistic interests her top priority,” Lupi says in his letter, adding:
“I believed in an ideal struggle that does not exist. In fact, Yoani Sanchez’ aim has always been to become rich and famous. Now, she has reached her goal.”
“All she needs is for someone to finance her, to be read in Miami and a lot in Spain, that the Cuban community continue to set its hopes on an inexistent public figure.”
That is what Gordiano Lupi thinks about Yoani Sanchez, and he’s probably right, because he knows her well. The rest of those who call themselves dissidents aren’t that much different from Sanchez. All they want is to make a living out of counterrevolution.
Elio, what is YOUR livelihood?
I am far from being disingenuous in what I am saying:
– Yoani Sanchez is a journalist
– Yoani Sanchez is publicized in internationally renowned newspapers
– Yoani Sanchez has won a lot of international
awards
– lots of these awards carry a cash prize.
That is what I said. I also said that the link posted by rodrigvm did not show any proof of payments to Yoani Sanchez. That is also a fact.
All I posted are corroborated facts and nothing disingenuous about them.
The “Cuban revolution” was lost when Fidel Castro seized power. The dream of reinstating the 1940 constitution and a democracy fell to a new dictatorship.
The fact that lots of countries, NGO’s, …. support human rights activists in Cuba doesn’t change any of that.
Sell your “bridges” to the blind followers of the Castro regime. They are the gullible ones.
Are you suggesting that the Castros who arrested more than 1100 dissidents in May, the highest monthly total ever, did so because these dissidents were simply blocking traffic or making too much noise? You are out of touch with reality.
http://www.diariodecuba.com/derechos-humanos/1401706547_8851.html
In all of the countries mentioned, there exists a democracy where there was none prior to the US intervention. You may criticize the form or integrity of those democracies, but you can not argue with the fact that they exist because of US efforts. Chomsky complains about everything without offering a workable replacement. Don’t confuse eloquence with brilliance. His criticisms are time-worn and boring. He seems caught in some 1970’s generation protest march. Today’s body politic understands that income inequality and access to capital exists. True brilliance would develop a workable solution to resolving this issue without devolving our economy to a system that makes us end up becoming … well…Cuba. He spouts the same ole, same ole. This is a site about Cuba. Your position against the nuclear family disqualifies you from commenting on posts that embarrass.
Please cite your source for “bottom-up” organization as a requirement for socialism. I admit that I have only scanned the reference you mentioned but I still did not find the definition as you have unceasingly claimed exists. Chapter and page would be nice. You continually assume to know what I and other commenters know or have read. What makes you think we ignore what the wackos are saying or writing? Reading something does not require that you agree with it after you have read it. You claim to have read material with a conservative bias, yet you continue to spout an extremely leftist view. Chomsky, to me, is boring. He attacks capitalists institutions without a workable plan to replace them. No matter how eloquently he represents his position, in the end, all he does is complain. BORING!
There is no totalitarian regime in the US. There is a totalitarian regime in Cuba.
The US has freedom of speech and the fact that people don’t publish or read the things you would like to see in papers doesn’t change that, John.
People in the US and Europe can freely express themselves – as we do now (Circles permitting) – on the web. That web will be the primary carrier of information in the future replacing radio, TV and the written press. US citizens have access to that web. Cubans do not.
It is ludicrous to claim US citizens have the same or even less freedom of speech than Cubans.
The lies, censorship and repression in Cuba are not for the benefit of the “revolution”. The victory over Batista was stolen from the Cuban people long ago by Castro’s coup.
All the repression in Cuba serves to protect the ruling Stalinist elite and goes against the interests of the people.
You don’t end the fight against repression and human rights abuses to “wait and see”. That would be a crime to the Cuban people.
I agree with that definition although that definition , as short as it has to be , omits the democratic bottom-up nature of its organization absent which the definition is really unclear and unfinished.
You can read Peter Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid: A Factor Of Evolution” to understand that prior to the establishment of capitalism and the state , that OED definition of socialism fairly described most communities around the world.
In order to believe as you do that socialism is unworkable, you have to believe that democracy itself is not workable because democracy is what is central to socialism ( and even more so to classic ( and not Soviet-style) communism. )
I’m sorry you haven’t read any of the literature that explains this all in detail but I know that avoiding facts that contradict your thinking is a characteristic you share with most people on the right.
It makes it difficult to communicate with that sort because I’ve read all the far right and know their positions chapter and verse while they can’t factually discuss things like socialism and democracy because they have only a far right view of these things and willfully and QUITE OPENLY ignore the opposing side of things.
“Chomsky is boring” to quote someone on the ignoring side of things. .
You’re being more than a little disingenuous if you are saying that USAID and other U.S. agencies working toward undermining the Cuban revolution will openly state the names of the people who are in their pay and subject them to arrest for treason.
Let me know how that bridge buy works out for you.
Yoanni was not arrested IMO because her work on behalf of U.S. interests are not a huge threat to the revolution in the eyes of the Cuban authorities.
You cannot appeal to Moses about ending the U.S. hostilities against Cuba’s revolution .
He wants to increase the suffering of the entire population in order to get them to overthrow their revolution.
Democracy and free speech appeal to him only as words used in an ideological debate and not as actual practices since his entire belief system is totalitarian: religion, government, economy and ( probably) nuclear family structure .
The U.S. invaded Iraq because of the WMDs or have you forgotten ?
The U.S. established two countries in Korea so one could be capitalist . They may have a form of bourgeois democracy there but it is purely incidental .
The Philippines ?
Its a proto-colony . The U.S. slaughtered the “niggers” there back at the turn of the 20th century and was also the biggest supporter of the Marcos regime.
In none of these there countries was the establishment of democratic practices and forms the aim of the U.S. foreign policy involved.
Chomsky IS banned because he can brilliantly dissect U.S. foreign and domestic policies and destroys in debate any of his many opponents on the right.
The fact that you find the world’s leading intellectual
” boring” perhaps points to your inability to read him because you have absolutely no chance of refuting his always heavily documented arguments.
It’s why he’s considered a leading intellectual and why you are not .
AND you are repeating a stupidity that I will again point out as inane and a cowardly run from legitimate debate.
That stupidity is in saying that Chomsky is “anti-U.S.”
He is opposed to the policies of the GOUSA
That is, he is opposed to actions of that government and not opposed to the entire U.S. as you would make it appear he is.
He frequently mentions the freedoms we enjoy here but knowing what he does about how things work ; a knowledge that far exceeds most of us combined , he is the sharpest critic of what is wrong with the GOVERNMENT of the USA .
Lastly , can you define democracy for me and how that contrasts with the top-down government and economic forms in use in the U.S. ? .
I cannot understand your apparent wish to be intellectually embarrassed by writing posts with so many errors of fact in such a short space but I’m always glad to oblige you by pointing out those errors ( and lies) especially because you fail to learn from these errors.
On the plus side: you’re consistent.
Of course the GOUSA allows all political parties to exist.
It has complete control of the electoral system and no third party has any chance of winning national office or wielding any power if they do.
It goes beyond that.
The very wealthy will only support establishment candidates and without their campaign funding, no person can win .
With the millions they donate to their choice of candidates, no outsider can hope to win except in the rarest of cases.
A multitude of different political parties is never any guarantee of democracy when an oligarchy ( government of, by and for the wealthy) controls the electoral process.
Both countries have totalitarian ( top-down) governments and economies.
Change is impossible in the U.S. where the
wealthy have control and the Supreme Court has declared corporations to be people.
Democratic change in Cuba is certainly not a sure thing but it is also not impossible once the U.S. ends its hostilities toward the society.
IMO.
Cubaqus ,
In both the U.S. and Cuba the totalitarian regimes put drastic limits on what can or will be aired.
Cuban authorities have the legitimate excuse of the existential threat from the imperialist U.S. for their censorship which will disappear ONLY when the U.S. calls off its hostilities.
In the U.S, the 6-7 large mega-corporations which own some 95% of the media outlets are locked into SELLING PRODUCT- they rely upon advertising for their revenues.
They cannot displease a public whom they depend upon to buy their sponsor’s products or even watch the commercials.
Telling a U.S, public the truth when they have been lied to for so long and believe the lies , would make that truth seem like lies and no advertiser would sponsor such a program.
This is a real short version of how near complete censorship has evolved in the U.S. corporate media under Freedom of Speech and reading Chomsky and Herman’s ” Manufacturing Consent ” can fill in every pertinent detail of how this works.
It’s NOT a conspiracy . It’s pure business.
It is most important to always remember that the more controversial a story is, the more it is likely to be non-factual in order to NOT displease the buying public so when it comes to issues of war and foreign policy, you simply cannot rely upon the U.S. corporate media for the truth.
Granma and other government organs in Cuba are just as locked into half-truths and lies of omission but for a far different reason : survival of the revolution.
Let the U.S. war on the people of Cuba end and THEN ,
THEN let the criticisms of Cuba’s society begin.
If there is no dramatic shift towards democratic practices in Cuba AFTER the U.S. calls off its existential war ( after being suckered into believing that Cuba is already switching back to capitalism) , I will be the most vociferous of critics of the Cuban government .
But for now , I do not consider it fair to blame the victim of U.S. imperialism
I watched both videos.
There were no beatings that I could see.
They were arrested and put or carried into the police vehicles .
As in the States there are laws about disturbing the peace , obstructing traffic etc that are always used against demonstrators by governments.
The difference between Cuban and U.S. demonstrations is that the Cuban protestors are working towards goals that coincide with those of the United States which is sworn to destroy Cuba.
Of course, you as a stone capitalist and imperialist agree with those goals and so feel the need to use hyperbole and lies of omission to try to make your point..
And PLEASE, stop trying to say that the United States is , in any way, interested in installing democratic forms in Cuba.
History ( facts) are clear on this point .
The U.S. foreign policy is predicated upon maintaining totalitarian forms centered on the absolute totalitarianism of capitalism. .
On this you are not merely mistaken ,
You are either ignorant of history or are lying.
WHICH IS IT ?
Your exaggerations which amount to lies are noted.
In the source you gave there is no mention of Yoani Sanchez as expected. Get back to us when you have something real to offer.
You are being disingenuous……Fortunately, US disseminates this information…From 1996 to April 2000, the USAID Cuba Program has made grant awards totaling $6,419,275 to 15 U.S. NGOs and three universities.For more information:
http://lobby.la.psu.edu/_107th/095_Cuba_Sanctions/Agency_Activities/USAID/USAID_Profile_of_the_USAID_Cuba_Program.htm
Interesting way of avoiding the issue, you chose writers that were famous BEFORE they became dissidents. Different group, different issue.
I have factual proof: Ortega y Gasset award: 12,000 Euro.
Now post your proof she is paid by USAID bridgeseller.
Mediocre writers? So then if we look at all the Cuba writers who have been banned, imprisoned or exiled, they must all be mediocre writers?
Guillermo Cabrera Infante is mediocre?
Reinaldo Arenas is mediocre?
Heberto Padilla is mediocre?
Virgilio Piniera?
Angel Santestieban?
I could go on. There’s an extensive list of excellent writers the Castros have muzzled.
At least the USA allows other political parties to exist. That is not so in Cuba where the only legally permitted political party is the Communist Party.
As noted by a recent survey on freedom of the press in the world, Cuba has improved slightly over the last couple of years. They used to be the 4th worst country in the world and now, out of 180 countries, Cuba has vaulted up to 6th worst. Way to go Raul!
Rants? Not interested in dialogue?
Obviously, you have never read her blog. Her posts are concise, polite and often whimsical
musimgs on life in Cuba. Sometimes critical, but I have never read anything she wrote which could even rotely be called a rant. As for welcoming dialogue, her blog features extensive and wide ranging debates by commenters. which are never edited or deleted.
Seriously. Tell us you don’t like her. Tell us why. But don’t do so until you have read at least one of her articles and then try to make your criticism based upon Yoani’s actual work. It is clear that the only thing you think you know about Yoani is what you read in the Castro regime propaganda.
According to Oxford Dictionary, “Socialism” is defined as a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Can you cite an independent and valid source that shares your narrow and, heretofore, unachievable definition of this failed system?
Come on dude. You did not try to justify Antonio Castro’s Ferrari, did you?
At least I know they actually have a job and don’t depend on foreign sources for payola and USAID dough.
I have a bridge I want to sell you very cheap if you believe that myth, is called the Brooklyn Bridge. USAID is her main source in addition to those prizes which are like payola from anti Cuban sources….look she does write well, but she is not Isabel Allende….In Cuba, all you need to do if you are a mediocre writer is become a dissident…
Some people hate Yoani; not what she writes about but what she represents. If those people are in control one day, the rest of us will not be able to write here anymore.
The irony is that if they are in power one day, after a couple of years they will start to suffer the limitation that their own “comrades’ are going to impose on their ideas and soon they will feel betrayed and oppressed. They who fight for it will not longer be able to write here. Who wants to bet?
They lost Russia, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, and Albany….. And on top of that China, Vietnam and Cuba are turning
capitalist. (They are going mad!!! ) Membership to communist party affiliation is fast decreasing. History is heading in our favor and they know it.
The communist party understands that their ideology is fast disappearing.
Letting Yoani’s website to be accessible is recognition that we are right and
people should have freedom of expression. Maybe one day they can survive and allow people to talk, unblocking her website is an experiment to check how much, the freedom of speech that is inevitable coming, is going to impact the party ideology.
The fact that has most benefit Cuba in the last 50 years has been the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At this stage, only wackos choose to deny that the Las Damas de Blanco have been abused. I can barely stomach the excuse that the abuse is warranted because the entire group of Ladies in White are all highly-paid CIA agents on a mission to restore democracy to Cuba. But to imply outright that there is no repression at all given the thousands of witnesses is the folly of idiots. Here are links to two YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2yVBfZHyCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg_sbyDBCng
You have pestered me for one ‘one’ country. I gave you one. There are many others. Here are three more…Iraq, South Korea, Philippines. It’s wacko to even ask that question. Chomsky is not banned, he’s boring. His anti-US rhetoric is old news. He, like most of his readers, benefit from capitalism and democracy and criticize it at the same time. Hypocrites!
Are you just as critical of Antonio Castro being photographed driving a Ferrari? Or Raul’s granddaughter seen in NYC with a Gucci handbag and a Rolex watch?
Lots. News not reported by the Cuban newspapers but by independent journalists often with photos of the victims.
But then you reject all news from independent journalists, international papers, …. don’t you.
Rather easy to reject all sources off-hand when asking for confirmation.
See:
“Atacan a opositores – Misceláneas de Cuba” – http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/Article/Index/51b6daa43a682e0384ecc0c2#.Ubbzbpz4K8o
http://www.cubanet.org/noticias/a-machetazos-segun-hablemos-press-se-manifiesto-el-castrismo-el-pasado-mes/
Not unemployed. She is a journalists whose work gets reported in international newspapers.
She has received various international awards and prizes that had cash awards coming with them.
Get your facts right.
Good point Moses! Elio is fortunate to express his views emphatically but someone who actually disagrees with him is labeled a “tool” which is easy and wrong. Keep in mind, Yoani was given the opportunity to travel and speak in the USA and wasn’t arrested upon her return to Cuba and that in itself is a move forward. Might I also add Moses, all US citizens should be able to do the same with regards to traveling to Cuba.
I saw Yoani in front of me in a booth with a wad of Euros buying phone cards, I guess as an unemployed dissident she got that money from…where??????
Señor Delgado gracias por este enjundioso articulo repleto de verdades.
Thanks for this great essay full of truths that are usually missing in the so call “dissidents” paid by USAID, Endowment for Democracy etc. Many fell for the “zunzuneo” without knowing US has information on them that they can use against them, like blackmail….
Would you please extrapolate and provide some details about which specific aspects of communism Yoanni Sanchez opposes .
Would it be the basic bottom -up and democratic nature of communism ?
Or are you talking about Cuba’s State-run economy which anyone with a brain knows is not communism. ?
Or are you talking about the Cuban Communist Party which is also top-down and totalitarian ?
People use the word communism to mean totally opposite things and unless you clarify which communism you mean, your post is made unclear in its meaning
I’ve read just a bit of Sanchez’s writing but assume she wants to go back to capitalism and bourgeois democracy, neither of which are democratic.
The U.S. is the model for how democracy is crushed in an oligarchy and if Sanchez is pushing the U.S. model then she’s looking towards systems that are just as totalitarian as the Cuban systems .
Noam Chomsky is effectively banned from the U.S. corporate media . He occasionally appears in Al-Jazeera but his articles and interviews there have diminished since they opened AJA since he is persona non grata in the U.S. establishment.
How many times has he been printed in the NYT ?
You didn’t say.
On your last sentence: We have discussed the U.S’s alleged democratic ideals and have conclusively decided that Myanmar ( the country you still call Burma ) was the only country you could come up with where the U.S. has worked toward democracy.
All the other 50 or so interventions since WWII have been to defeat democratic movements around the world and I can provide chapter and verse on as many of those 50 as you want..
Would you like to waltz this argument around the floor again or do the intellectually honest thing and retract what you said about the GOUSA having democratic ideals (and that would be either in domestic OR foreign policy)?.
Are you having long-term memory loss or are you just hot to be intellectually embarrassed again ?
What is wrong with you ?
.
Just how many women were beaten up by Cuban security forces ?
Can you supply sources for articles on this that are not far right counter-revolutionary websites, you know……. someone or some organization that provides reliable information instead of counter-revolutionary hyperbole ?
YOU are calling someone an extremist ?
You’re on the far right on a great many subjects and your openly displayed hatred of the Cuban people for choosing to reject your beloved capitalism is a prime example of that extremism. .
I would question that low figure of 7000 dollars being spent by the CIA over the past six years to defame Cuba .
In several books and many articles both Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky over the years have revealed the infiltration and the paying off of foreign reporters by the CIA to write articles praising or condemning nations and the extent of those activities would tend to point to a serious underestimate on that $7000.00 figure.
“Manufacturing Consent” and “Necessary Illusions” are two book s that will tell you all you’d need know about how the CIA plants stories overseas to promote U.S. foreign policies.
This method then has U.S. media , repeat these planted stories as if they were coming from independent sources and therefore appear reliable to the unknowing public .. .
It’s been going on for well over 60 years and is nothing new.
It’s only news to those who, in the end, will choose to ignore or deny that the CIA or the GOUSA would resort to such lies.
In order to qualify for nationally-televised debates, federal election law requires that the candidate be nominated in at least 2/3 of the States that have held nominating conventions at the time of the debate .A few years back, I was an organizer of a statewide debate in California and I remember how we extended an invitation to the Green party candidate who chose not to participate. Remember Ross Perot? Chomsky has been published in the NYT. I can’t speak for the 1%. American exceptionalism, as President Obama stated today in his foreign policy speech at West Point Military Academy, is based on our affirmation of our democratic ideals.
Why is the Green Party candidate never invited to the televised debates ? Why does the NYT not publish Noam Chomsky op-eds ? What do our 1% Rulers have to fear ? Why do you always demand that Cuba do what we do not ?
She’d fit right in with the likes of the talking heads over at FOX
(S)NEWS–though it is hard to doze over those blusteriing boors–in fact, many of the stable at FOX even look like old “Mr. Bluster” of Howdy Doody Daze. At least her addition to their motley line-up of sputtering septuagenarians would add a bit of youth (if someone in their late 30’s can still be considered youth!) to those pre-Baby Boom commentators. Fortunately, most young folk, whether here in the States, or in Cuba, don’t get their (s)news, from the networks, be they CBS, NBC, ABC, or even CNN, MSNBC or FOX, or CubaVision, CMQ, and the commentator who looks like Jose Marti would have looked like had he survived into late middle age. They are more interested in living their lives, rather than in wasting their time watching what they’ve already been told a thousand times over!
“She’s not really interested in dialogue.” Are you kidding me? The last thing the Castros want to do is DIALOGUE with this woman. Why have they refused to extend an invitation to her to appear on the highly-biased TV political program “Mesa Redonda”? Why won’t they allow her to be published in the newspaper, Granma? If the US can make space for the likes of Putin in the New York Times, what do the Castros have to fear from Yoani? The facts are that her Italian interpreter Lupi wanted more money. When she refused to pay his price, he went public with his disgruntled employee remarks. Her internet audience is growing not shrinking as you suggests. Her readership has doubled in the last five years. I do not understand the reason why Castro sycophants like you are so riled up by Yoani. She writes a personal blog about her experiences in Cuba. You can choose to disagree with her politics but her observations are her own. I surmise that it is because her observations resonate with the truth and that truth is painful for you. You may not want to admit that buildings really are falling down in Havana. You struggle to defend why Peugeots costs $300K. It must be hard for you to watch YouTube videos of Castro thugs and political police beating middle-aged women armed with gladiolas. Your problem is not with Yoani. Your problem is how do you continue to justify your support of the tyrannical Castro regime.
It would only be natural that, in keeping with the system she admires, and like highly sought after baseball players, Yoani should auction herself off to the highest bidder. Lupi couldn’t compete with the likes of U.S.A.I.D., the C.I.A., and their cultural fronts, who offer both more cash and more exposure. A look at the peanut gallery of her old blog, Generation Y, tells you who her audience is (for the most part Miami Cubans of the senior set, although perhaps perceiving that this audience is dwindling, I would not be surprised that, like she did with Lupi, she will also jetison this shrinking demographic for a more desirable, and hipper, audience, like the 1% and their cultural appologists). A more sophisticated policy for the Cuban government would be to let her rant away, since she only appeals to the already convinced. She’s not really interested in dialogue. Monologue, even sililoque, is more her style. In the meantime, those who want a more perceptive view of Cuba will intuitively find their way to such venues as the HT!
I am not sure I understand your criticism of “haters”. Is the only logical path the one that leads to supporting the regime? I don’t see the logic that extremists like you use in supporting the Castros and by association supporting the weekly harassment, detentions, arrests and beating of gladiola-armed Ladies in White protestors. How do you logically defend a regime that fears a single woman blogger the way the Castros fear Sra. Sanchez. Where is the logic in this?
The business of being a communist in Cuba.
He hates Yoani because she represents the opposite to the communist ideology, his anger makes the temperature in his brain to rise and he goes blind because she is writing without being obedient. How come, he ask himself !!!
Elio should be honest and answer, how without demonstrating loyalty to the communist party in Cuba you could have a promotion at work, a car, the right to buy a TV, an air conditioning or a fridge; get a new house, a trip overseas, a holiday in Varadero. Be a writer and write about you wanted. Get a job where you have the chance to steal more from the government. Many, many got and still get all the above by pretending to be communist but in reality it is all an opportunistic business.
How weak is the communist ideology that can’t coexist with the right of people to express their ideas.
Dissidence in Cuba is no “business”. It is “anti-business” as people loose their jobs, are denied licenses for independent work, … People are even denied assistance to rebuild houses after the hurricane.
Elio’s article is a good start, but would be good to expand and give citations. Also the math in the paragraph payments to journal I ats is unclear. “Over the last six years, nearly 7 thousand dollars were spent to pay journalists in other countries to write anti-Cuban propaganda aimed at turning public opinion against the island. That is to say, more than a hundred thousand dollars a year were destined to that little “task” alone.” ?
I would recommend ignore the haters since their posts seldom are logical, and focus on expanding your article
I thought that’s what all his articles are.
“The business of being a communist in Cuba”
That’s is the
article Elio should write
Some interesting comments in that article by Lupi,
“I made the mistake of believing in Yoani Sánchez’s cause, believing it to be a David-against-Goliath struggle, a struggle that came from the grassroots to strike at the power, an idealistic struggle for the freedom of Cuba. I realized — through bitter disappointments — that Yoani’s opposition was a dead letter, not to say [an opposition] of convenience, as if to make the world believe that in Cuba there is freedom of speech.
…I began to wonder if Yoani was not so much an agent of the C.I.A. — as her detractors say — as [an agent] of the Castro family, paid to blow smoke in people’s eyes.
…At this point, I do not know if Yoani Sánchez is an agent of the C.I.A. or the Cuban Revolution.”
So if Elio wants to cite Lupi’s letter as proof Yoani Sanchez is a a fraud, then he must accept his letter as proof that there is no press freedom in CUba, that the people are indeed struggling for freedom and that Yoani may well be an agent of Cuban intelligence.
Really, for somebody the regime insists is a nobody, they certainly do spend a great deal of time & effort attacking her.
It sounds like Gordiano Lupi did not get the piece of the pie he wanted! If he has a case, then take it to court! And for the author Elio Delgado Legon, this is a study that was done in the 1960’s in Miami about the Cuban exile community there. It is very detailed and it contains survey results on things like: when and why they decided to leave Cuba, how they first felt about Fidel Castro and the Revolution, and things of that nature. This book is very good for Cuban Americans and for anyone else who is curious about where we (the Cuban Americans that came during the first wave of the exile) come from.
PARTICIPATION IN ANTI-BATISTA ACTIVITY BY OCCUPATIONAL GROUP IN PERCENTAGES- P. 55
SKILLED LABOR = 44% of this group
SEMI-SKILLED AND UNSKILLED= 41% of this group
CLERICAL AND SALES = 30% of this group
PROFESSIONALS AND SEMI-PROFESSIONALS= 30% of this group
MILITARY AND POLICE= 0% of this group
Page 56 : ” The predominantly young and relative well educated refugees who participated in the struggle against Batista would be more likely than other refugees to engage in anti-Castro activity once in exile.”