From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject A Tale of Two Countries
Date August 1, 2021 12:00 AM
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[ Cuba and Haiti: A Tale of Two Countries] [[link removed]]


A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES  
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Greg Godels
July 19, 2021
ZZ's blog
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_ Cuba and Haiti: A Tale of Two Countries _

Mitchell School & Family Atlas by Edu-Tourist, This image was marked
with a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

 

A Tale of Two Countries

Two countries have made the front pages and lead stories in our
lemming-like capitalist media: Haiti and Cuba.

One country-- Haiti-- has earned the ire of the self-styled Western
democracies by overthrowing its colonial slave masters and
establishing a free state in 1803, the first country in history to
liberate itself from European-imposed slavery. The Europeans and
elites in the US never forgave the rebellious followers of Toussaint
L’Ouverture and their descendants. Through occupations, threats,
“incentives,” and economic extortion, imperialism has ensured that
Haiti remains among the poorest countries of the Americas, ranking 145
on the UN’s Human Development Index.

The brutal assassination of the Haitian President, an attempted coup
d’état by rightwing mercenaries, only added to the country’s
miseries.

Meanwhile, the US cannot decide who it wants to lead Haiti since the
assassination: The UN special representative for Haiti, Helen La Lime,
a US citizen, designated Claude Joseph. But the self-styled
International Core group-- a collection of ambassadors led by the US--
has designated Ariel Henry. As has become the custom, the Haitian
people will have little say.

The other country-- Cuba-- earned its punishment in 1959 when Cuban
revolutionaries defeated the US puppet government of Fulgencio
Battista, liberating the island’s people from a destiny as the
US’s playground and a source of super-exploited labor. The US has
never forgiven the Fidelistas for their defiance of the empire to the
north. Cuba’s embrace of socialism only enraged the beast even more.

US agencies devote persistent attention to overthrowing the government
of Cuba and many millions of dollars back up those goals. Against the
expressed UN opposition of nearly every country in the world, the US
has imposed an air-tight blockade against the tiny island of eleven
million people, denying its people even the most basic fruits of
economic activity. Moreover, a day has not passed in the last sixty
years that the US was not intervening in Cuban affairs.

Therefore, anyone who has any familiarity with recent Cuban history
and has read reports of “demonstrations” on July 11 directed
against the Cuban government must immediately look for the
barely-hidden hand of US agency, supporting, even directing these
demonstrations. It is impossible for any honest journalist to not at
least entertain the possibility of US involvement.

And yet the first reports from NPR referred to the spontaneity of
these demonstrations, as though there was no organization or planning,
a ridiculous claim for a network that also insists that Cuba is a
police state. Excited reporters inflated the numbers engaged from
hundreds to thousands. Pictures cropped or lifted
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from entirely different, even pro-Cuba events were disseminated by the
blood-lusting media, including AP, Reuters, The Financial Times, and
The Guardian, and others, as evidence of street opposition.

The number of wild, outlandish claims
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geometrically after the events of July 11. The watchdogs of social
media were uncharacteristically docile as every imaginable slander of
Cuba emerged, a commonplace of US destabilization campaigns.

NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and other media sources attributed the
spark for these demonstrations to a dissident rapper who created a
slick video in collaboration with a “superstar” expatriate rapper
with deep pockets. While this made for an attractive cover-- a
feel-good story of individual courage and initiative-- the mainstream
media showed little interest in the US-financed twitter campaign
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waged through automated tweets emanating from outside the island and
backed by US dollars.

They also fail to mention the focused US campaign to fund and
influence
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the island’s youth culture against the Cuban government. 

For an industry fixated on exposing “meddling” in US affairs, the
infotainment corporations chose to ignore the long history of
US-funded regime-change fronts assigned to destabilize Cuba. The World
Peace Council provides a handy guide
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to numerous US-sponsored media organs aligned against the leadership
of the Cuban Communist Party, all of which barely conceal their
interference in Cuban affairs.

Shamefully, those who are today aghast at conditions in Cuba and blame
Cuban problems on the revolutionary leadership that Cuban citizens
have chosen never directly address the cruel blockade, the even more
stringent sanctions, and the intimidation of Cuba’s friends by its
unfriendly neighbor. They do not point to the lost trade, the
forbidden remittances, the denied tourism that would allow Cubans to
live a more prosperous life. 

In a matter-of-fact fashion, Western commentators cite the recent rise
of COVID cases in Cuba, neglecting to mention the lack of syringes to
deliver the vaccines developed by Cuba’s advanced biomedical
programs, a lack that is the direct result of the US-imposed blockade.
A campaign
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to counter the blockade and provide syringes to save Cubans from COVID
death has been in effect for many months, entirely ignored by the
capitalist media.

While conditions are difficult in Cuba, the vast majority of Cubans
have and will continue to support a revolutionary government that
stands between them and the world of grinding poverty and degradation
that their grandparents knew. Even the younger generations that never
experienced the colonial horrors of gangster rule and slave-like
working conditions bear the pride in independence that stretches from
Jose Martí to Fidel Castro. They will not surrender their right to
determine Cuba’s future to foreign interests and democracy haters.

The US’s capitalist allies choose to stand with the bully against a
proud, but poor victim, surrendering their integrity to a vicious
blockade. The values that NATO so sanctimoniously proclaims are mocked
by the organization’s complicity in strangling the tiny Caribbean
Island.

Of course, there is a lesson for those umbilically tied to the
Democratic Party. Despite campaign pledges
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Biden has continued, even exceeded, Trump’s assault on Cuban
independence. Journalists have urged his press secretary to elaborate
his Cuba policy, but received only evasions. That policy is now clear.
The Miami Mafia and New Jersey’s Havana on the Hudson drive
Biden’s team to retreat from Obama’s opening and toward subversion
of Cuba’s right to self-determination. For the ethically challenged
New Jersey Senator Menendez’s vote, the Biden administration is
willing to sell out Cuba.

In the midst of the July 11 excuse for attacking Cuban socialism and
Cuban sovereignty, a group including “leftist” intellectuals
Etienne Balibar, Noam Chomsky, Robert Brenner, and Mike Davis picked
this particular moment to circulate a petition
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intellectuals allegedly arrested by Cuban authorities on July 11.
While propounding their solidarity with Cuba, they show no indication
that they discussed the allegation publicly or privately with Cuban
authorities; they grant no prima facie credibility to the Cuban
criminal justice system; from afar, they assume innocence of charges
despite little or no knowledge of the circumstances. In short, they
presume that the Cuban authorities engage in arbitrary, unwarranted
arrests-- a hallmark of a police state. This is a strange posture for
“friends” of the Cuban revolution-- an irresponsible,
unconscionable act while Cuba is under severe duress from imperialism.

This is not a moment for quarreling over individual rights-- the manic
obsession of the comfortable and the privileged-- when the collective
right of self-determination claimed by eleven million Cubans is under
attack by our leaders. 

At great costs, Cuba has escaped the plight of Haiti, successfully
holding off the domination of the North American behemoth. Should US
imperialism succeed, Cuba will be swarmed by US agencies, corrupt aid
packages, World Bank and IMF carpetbaggers, and the other counterparts
to the sanctimonious missionaries of the Colonial era.

Haiti and Cuba have the same enemies. They are victimized by the same
opportunistic politicians, the same jaded journalists, and the same
spies, who all work to maintain or turn both into neo-colonies.

The same nest of counter revolutionaries, criminals, and vultures
headquartered in Miami that now call for the bombing or invasion of
Cuba and for sending troops to Haiti gave birth to the assassination
of Haiti’s president on July 7.

Cuba and Haiti will win!

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