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Fox and conservatives keep a constant barrage of attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

June 20, 2019, 5:23 pm
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By SJ Otto
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets constant attention from conservatives at Fox (Faux)News. The station and its many conservative supporters have kept up a steady barrage of accusations and insults. I knew conservatives would be on the attack when a democratic socialist, from Democratic Socialists of America, got elected. Not only does she not embrace Fox’s ultra-conservative views, she dares to support socialism. AOC, as they call her, is like the fly in the conservative ointment. Fox, the Republican Party and conservative pundits have had to watch their perfect conservative government/society/culture that they have owned now for the last 30 years contaminated by progressive ideas. Some of their sacred tenants, such as unconditional support for Israel, have been challenged. Up until Bernie Sanders ran for president, the voters have had the choice between far-far-far right-wing Republicans and timid centrist Democrats. There hasn’t been a liberal politician elected president sinceLyndon Johnson. Democrats since then have run from the labels “left-wing” or “liberal.”
Now they have an actual democratic socialist in office and they are working overtime to try and discredit her. They have also gone after fellow Democratic newcomer Ilhan Omar with the same lines of attack.
One of their main tactics is to attack what she says with indignation. Their latest attack is on her claim that the U.S.government “is running concentration camps on our southern border.”[1]Fox commentators claimed the comparisons is “obscene, shockingly ignorant, and an insult to the memory of the 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazis.”
The one thing this pundit forgot is that her statement is true. Treatment of people, being put in cages, children taken from their parents and children dying from lack of adequate health care is consider concentration camp treatment. Only people on the far right would be so outraged by such a comparison. And AOC is not the only person to accuse President Donald Trump of being Hitleresque. A lot of people, including myself, have made that comparison.
For the most part AOC has not allowed these people to rattle her. She has refused to apologise to these conservatives for her comments.[2]She was right not to do that. To do otherwise would fall into their traps of trying to make her look insensitive and allowing them to seem right in their attacks.
The next form of attack is the constant attempts to make AOC look uneducated and unintelligent. That latest attack comes from Rush Limbaugh:[3]

“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., may be addicted to attention over her latest controversial comments, or she's "stupid," said conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
"I think she’s just having fun watching people blow up," he said Wednesday on his radio show. "If she does believe it, then she’s so stupid that there’s nothing to do about it."

Quite often conservatives have had authors and various pundits claim they know more about a subject than she does, just because they have written a book on a subject that disagrees with her opinion. For example AOC said of President Ronald Reagan’s legacy, printed in an outfit called Townhall:

“he "pitted" whites against browns and blacks.
"And one perfect example – a perfect example – of how special interests and the powerful have pitted white working class Americans against brown and black working Americans in order to just screw over all working class Americans is Reaganism in the '80s when you started talking about 'welfare queens,'" Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview at the conference. "So you think about this image, 'welfare queens,' and what he [Reagan] was really trying to talk about was – he was painting this photo, he's like painting this really resentful vision of essentially black women who were doing nothing that were sucks on our country, right? And it's the whole tragedy of these comments type thinking where it's like because these one specific group of people that you were already kind of subconsciously prime to resent, you give them a different reason, that's not explicit racism, but still rooted in racist caricature, it gives people a logical, a "logical" reason to say, 'Oh, yeah, no. Toss out the whole safety net.”

Then we are supposed to believe this guy is automatically right because he has written all these books on Reagan.

“To counter that New York Times best selling author Craig Shirley has written numerous books on President Ronald Reagan and his presidency. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Reagan Ranch and is considered one of the best Reagan historians out there. Shirley decided to challenge Ocasio-Cortez on her statements about the Gipper by providing facts about Reagan and his presidency:”


This is a real common tactic they use against her. They act as if Reagan is a hero and that only someone uneducated or just plain unknowledgeable about the “facts” would dare say such things. Reagan is supposed to be a working class hero and that is supposed to be a fact. In fact all of AOC’s attacks on Reagan were quite accurate. He did make fools of America’s working class, especially those who supported him—while he lowered the buying power of America’s working people. He did scapegoat poor people and convinced a lot of working class Americans to blame other working poor Americans for problems conservatives actually created.
AOC has weathered these attacks rather well. Many novice politicians would have thrown in the towel by now, of simply collapsed from their various attacks. She is quite intelligent and has handled her new job with a great deal of professionalism.
It is unfortunate that Fox News and conservative pundits have such a large and powerful media conglomeration. News/opinion outlets as mine are quite small and I have only a few readers. They seem to command millions of ditto heads that hang on their every word.
Still AOC is doing well and outlets as mine will continue to challenge Fox and other conglomerates.
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Going to Cuba—most blog activity suspended until after July 5

June 20, 2019, 7:18 pm
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By SJ Otto
I am leaving for Cubathis Saturday. I will be travelling with Pastors for Peace. For that reason my blogs will probably not be in use for the next two weeks. I do not know what the situation for WIFY or computer use is while I will be in Cuba. I will be there for two weeks.
I will have plenty to post when I return. But as to what I will post while I am there, I have no idea.
As a socialist, on this site a democratic socialist, this will be the chance of a lifetime. I will get to see, first hand, what it is like in a real Marxist-Leninist socialist country. There are very few of these left. Vietnam, Laosand Chinacome to mind as Marxist-Leninist. They all have mixed economies. They are not actual full-scale Marxist-Leninist countries. Cuba may not be a fully socialist Marxist-Leninist country, but they are just about the only country that is dedicated to creating such a system.[1]
We do have socialist nations, such as Venezuela, who are busy standing up to US-imperialism. But they are not following the pure Marxist-Leninist ideology. In Nicaragua, where I have actually been, they once had a Marxist revolution. Today a member of the Sandinista Party, Daniel Ortega, holds power, as an elected leader. Today the Sandinistas follow a Democratic Socialist ideology. Despite all of that, our Idiot President Donald Trump has sanctioned the country as if it has the same government as Cuba does.
I may have problems coming back from Cuba, such as losing my souvenirs. That is because the Idiot Trump has turned back the clock to the cold war days to the past and has forbidden US citizens from travelling to Cuba.
This is my chance to see how a truly Marxist-Leninist country actually works. It may be my last time to see that. We never know how long such a revolution will last. While Cubais not democratic socialist, they are worth defending against US imperialism—a system that does not discriminate against any socialism nation. The US opposes ALL forms of socialism—thanks to the Idiot Trump, democracy does not matter to him and his ilk.
I am looking forward to this trip. I will return about July 5. Soon after that, I will be posting my experience on Otto’s War Room (毛派), The Idiot Factor: Corruption Folly,Counter-culture Journals (文革) and possibly my personal blog, Artsy Fartsy (អាភៀន).


Pix by The Marxist-Leninist - WordPress.com.


[1]For example, see by Mage, Wohlforth and Robertson, 17 August 1960,    https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/cuba/cuba-mt.html

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Back from Cuba

July 5, 2019, 12:25 pm
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For this year’s 4th of July celebration—

July 6, 2019, 10:12 pm
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Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“meet the President”—Part 1

July 7, 2019, 3:34 pm
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By SJ Otto
These last two weeks I spent on a caravan with Pastors for Peace (IFCO). The caravans extend solidarity to the Cuban people and provide an opportunity to learn about Cuba through direct experience. The overwhelming issue that is taken up by IFCO is to stop the US blockade of Cuba. That blockade has done some serious damage to the Cuban economy. There are shortages of medicines and other needed basic materials. The caravans bring some materials, such as medical aid, to counter the devastating effects of the blockade.
While I was in Cuba, I could not find a single Cuban who favored the blockade. I also found no Cubans who liked President Donald Trump—that included both people connected to our organizations and government institutions and a few Cubans who I met in informal settings while I was away from our groups.
Everyone had their own interest in going to Cuba. I wanted to see how the socialist government is organized, how it works—or does it work? It does work. The idea that socialism historically never works is total bull shit. Since 1959, Cubahas had what I consider a non-capitalist, socialist system. Not only that, I saw no evidence that the economic and political system was in ANY DANGER of collapse. I later plan to write an analysis of Cuba’s socialist economy.
There was a little over 30 people on this caravan. We spent two days in Mexico City, mostly for orientation. Some of our time was spent touring a left-wing cooperative adventure, called Los Panchos. This included a few small gated communities in Mexico City. They were completely self sufficient. I plan to write about these communities later. I wanted to focus first on Cuba. That was the main point of our trip.
When we got to Cuba, we were treated like VIPs. People who were a part of the government especially treated us well. The government there seemed to really like our efforts. Our first night in Cuba, we arrived at the Airport, which was considerably small for an international airport. It was somewhat simple and yet fully functional. We went to a place called the Martin Luther King Center. When we got their, that first night we were in for a real surprise—the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel wanted to meet with us. We couldn’t take in our cell phones or a notepad. So any quotes I recorded might not be that accurate. Here is what he had to tell us:

President Miguel Díaz-Canel:

While many US news pundits I’ve heard in the US were disappointed to hear that Cuba has no plans to open up their system (that means open up to free markets),[1] I was glad to hear the president say they are determined to keep their socialist system.
“We made mistakes,” he said. “But many of our past programs worked.”
He also made it clear that his country supports the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuelaand its legitimate President Nicolás Maduro.
“We can help other country’s revolutions,” he said. “But we can not impose our system on another country.”
It was no surprise that Díaz-Canel slammed the treatment that Maduro is getting from the US.
He said the UShas worked to undermine revolution and the development of socialism.
“The USuses fake news,” he said.
He added that the USgovernment said that Cubasent 20,000 troops to Venezuela.
“They were doctors not soldiers,” said Díaz-Canel.
He also said that Venezuela was determined to resist US attempts to sabotage them.
Díaz-Canel said he met Maduro at the UN, while the former leader Fidel Castro was alive. He made it clear that he was in support of the Bolivarian Revolutions. There is a similar socialist leader in Boliviatoday, Evo Morales.

I plan several other articles looking at various aspects of Cuban socialism and other institutions, along with culture issues—to be continued=>


Granma,Cuba’s main newspaper, took a picture of the caravan after we listened to president Díaz-Canel speak.


Here Gail Walker, a caravan organizer, talks with President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

[1] See NPR- “Cuba’s New President.”

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Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“Life under M-L socialism”—Part 2

July 11, 2019, 7:51 am
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By SJ Otto
One of my main interests of going to Cuba was to see the operations of an actual Marxist-Leninist socialist country. There are other socialist countries, such as Venezuelaand there are a few other communist countries, China, Vietnam and Laos.[1]The last three are run by communist parties. But they seem more interested in integrating their economies with the world capitalist economy.  Democratic People's Republic of (North) Koreaclaims to be socialist, but has declared Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin obsolete. They have removed their statues of Marx and Lenin.
Cubahas remained a country that supports revolution and has not denounced socialism. The country openly endorses Marxist-Leninism as the country’s guiding philosophy. That is the main reason I wanted to go there.
Right-wing commentators have argued that history shows us that socialism doesn’t work. My two weeks in Cuba convinced me that such a statement is blatantly false. Since 1959 socialism has worked in Cuba and I saw that first hand.
Another statement I’ve heard is that people who live under socialism are miserable. Again I had two weeks to test that theory out and I found it totally wrong. The people I saw and met did not seem to me to be miserable. I saw many people doing all the things I expect people to do in a country, they go to work in the morning, some sit outside their homes after work and I saw people enjoying themselves at their favorite bars in the evening.
I will have further discussions on the merits of socialism later in this piece.
I took notes from several of the meetings I went to. I also went out on my own to see what the people of Cuba were like. I did have some trouble not knowing Spanish very well. But I did the best I could. I will be writing on the experiences I had.
From the right, people will argue that I paid no attention to all the political prisoners in Cuba, or that I ignored people’s lack of human rights. Every capitalist-western style journalist who has covered news on the island has focused, or even obsessed with such issues. There are plenty of articles on that issue and the same old “lack of political rights” that always come from a western journalist. I did not come here for those issues. I came here for my own agenda and not for the political purposes of defending corporate ideology, culture and politics.
Cubais a one party state. There are no opposition parties. There is only one major newspaper here. There are no opposition papers. Everyone here and in the US knows this. There are other issues, such as the fact that poor Cubans can go to a doctor when they are sick and poor people in the US usually can’t. Also, how many western journalists report on the political prisoners in Saudi Arabia or Turkey, when Trump has an official visit to those countries? So now that we have established these facts, I will focus on the structures of socialism, which is what I wanted to learn about in the first place.

Observations:
While in Cuba, in the capital Havana(La Habana in their language) we stayed at the Martin Luther King Center. I took the time out to go to a park right in front of the center. The MLKCenter is in a common working class neighborhood. It is not in a tourist area. I was glad of that since I wanted to see what the common people live like. Here are some things I saw.
I saw a woman in the park with a cell phone. She had pink hair. It seems that people here have the same rights to different hair cuts and styles as we have here in the US. That debunks another image I got from all the anti-communist propaganda= everyone is suppose to dress and look alike. I saw a few people with cell phones. At least some people own them. I had read were almost none of the people here had cell phones. I was also informed that there is an internet café where ANYONE can buy time on a computer and access the internet. There is also a Wi-Fi park where people can access the internet. A few people own their own computers. I was surprised that the government does not seem worried about its people accessing the internet and viewing foreign opinions.
The first night we were in town, I walked the streets and neighborhoods with some of my fellow caravanistas. We saw little stores and homes. Most of the people there live in small homes. They have electricity. They have appliances, such as refrigerators. Some folks have TVs. While we walked around and while we sat in the park, we saw no police. No one looked like they feared they were being spied on. There weren’t cops everywhere or soldiers. This looked nothing like the horror stories I have read about the people who live under communism. We walked past a house, were a young man had locked a fence to protect his 1950s style car. Those cars were everywhere. There were also some foreign made cars. I was told they were Russian. I’m not that knowledgeable about cars. So I had to take people’s word for what they were.

A lot of people sat outside their homes as we walked by. Others went to near by taverns.
On the last night I was there I ventured into a tavern just a few blocks away. It was a regular working class bar, with a few patrons hanging out. This place had no air-conditioning. I found a lot of businesses with air conditioning but this place did not.
While I was in the local tavern, I was able to talk just a little to some local people. I asked the waitress if she was a communist and she said no. The owner of the place spoke some English and he said “your government and mine don’t along.” I said yes, but I don’t represent my government and we seemed to get along just fine. All the people in that bar made fun of our President Donald Trump and they all complained about the blockade.
When the waitress told me she was not a communist, I figured I must be getting some honest opinions from these folks.
A little more than 10 years ago I visited El Salvador and Nicaragua. Those countries were extremely poor. I had figured that Cuba might be like that. I was wrong. In El Salvador and Nicaragua there was no air-conditioning after we left the air port. Most of the people there had no electricity. Bars had only rum and beer. Most stores had only two types of any product, be it camera film, soap or anything else.
In CubaI did not find those kinds of conditions. There was electricity and air conditioning. There were bars with whisky and other types of liquor. I was told that people here in Cubaare poor. They have a hard time stretching their money for food. The blockade, which our group is trying to get rid of, causes a lot of hardship on the people. It causes a lack of medicines and other necessities of life. Ironically, the people hardest hit by the blockade are the common people.
The first place we went on our tour was some of the communities that were hit by a tornado back in January. Tornados are rare here so it was a difficult time for the people here and the damage was extensive. The government had restored the electricity in five days (compared with nearly one year in Puerto Rico). Within a few months the government had rebuild the homes and furnished the people of Villa de la Guanabaco with various appliances they needed. All of us caravanistas were surprised that these homes could be replaced so quickly. And in the USthe government would never replace people’s appliances like that.
One more observation was the advertising that I saw when I first came to the air port. There is very little advertising in Cuba. There were a few advertizing posters, but nothing like the US where it is everywhere and inescapable. Buses had no ads on them. There were political posters and slogans on walls, but few ads. And there is NO ADVERTISING on TV. I studied marketing in while at WichitaStateUniversity, while getting my journalism degree. The whole idea is to convince people to want and buy things they really don’t need. It annoys the crap out of me and I find it one of the most repulsive things about US capitalism.
Political messages like this were more common that ads.
 <=


The point of this part of my report is to establish that I found a kind of normality to life for the average person living in Cuba. It is a poor country, but not destitute. It is hurt by the US economic blockade. We went to a lot of meetings where we met both officials of the government and leaders of non-government organizations. I have more to report on and that includes a look at the various methods of socialism here, government owned enterprises, coops and a few private businesses and farms.

<= We saw this beer advertized everywhere. Ironically the beer was hard to find. Local people told me the tourist drink it all.




To be contined=>


[1] Communism refers to the final stage of Historical materialism, also known as the “materialist conception of history” according To Marx. Communist countries are supposedly practicing Marxist-Leninist socialism. Communism comes when the need for a government is gone and society evolves in which all peoples fulfill what ever their society needs.

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Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“Coop farm, Rock and Roll music, The cult of personality”—Part 3

July 13, 2019, 6:37 pm
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By SJ Otto
This is a continuation of the articles I have been working on since my return to the US.
As it was explained to me, at the top of the Cuban socialist structure, the government owns the large corporate companies. Some of these government companies combine with foreign investment, so technically the foreign parts of these corporations are privately owned. There are farm coops. We visited one of those while I was in Cuba. Coops were found to work better than government owned farms. So the government decided to go with the coops. At the bottom, there are some smaller businesses and some farms that are privately owned.
So we went to a cooperative farm in the province of Cienfuegos. The farm grewCorn, fruit and coconuts. They also had cattle and other farm animals including chickens and other foul. We were allowed to do about 30 minutes of farm work. Some of the group did some planting of coconut trees, some worked with milking cows, I was with some caravanistas who planted corn. For us to do that work was almost a joke. Most of us never worked on a farm before. I have worked for an outfit that planted trees in people’s yards. That was probably as close to what we were doing as actual farm work. When I worked for the tree planting outfit, I had gone through heat exhaustion so I have never been able to work out in the hot sun since. But they made it extra easy for us, so we could all do the work. I’m sure it was all just symbolic work. Many of us are old farts could never handle real farm work. I suppose the young people could have done the work.
We were told that the government tells the cooperative how much they want the coop to plant. The leaders of the coop have a lot of autonomy to decide what they want to plant.
The coop presented us with noon day meal. We had roasted pig, all kinds of fruit that was grown locally. We each got a piece of coconut that had plenty of coconut milk in it that we could drink. It was an overwhelming good feast.

Rock music
As we traveled through Havana, we came across the park that had a statue of John Lennon and right next to it was a place called El Submarino Amarillo (The yellow submarine). We didn’t get around to going to this place. It advertises itself as a restaurant. I was told they focus on rock music, what they all called “oldies.” An ad for the place said they focus on rock music from the 60s and 70s.
I did some research and from Wikipedia, I was able to see that “FidelCastro banned rock music in 1961, for being a corrupt North American influence that didn’t belong in the new communist Cuba; a position that ironically was in contradiction with the own liberal vision of Karl Marx with respect to the arts and culture; not to mention that the international rock groups had embraced in general a leftist ideology by then.”
There are those who claim that revolution without rock music just “aint a good thing.”
Not to worry. That ban was never really enforced and today there is no ban on rock music at all. People can listen to oldies rock music at that restaurant and they can listen to any rock music they want. There are local groups of rock musicians. I was not able to make such connections. If I ever return I will focus on that. There have been smart ass conservative pundits who laughed when the Cuban government honored the band Santana, which was originally headed by Carlos Santana. Some obnoxious right-wing pundit joked that that group was banned from the Cuban public. Of course he was full of shit. Santana’s music was available to the Cuban public. And Santana was a Hispanic group with roots in Mexico and with styles from Cuba.

Last, but not least- The Cult of personality
While Cubais a Marxist-Leninist country, they have focused a lot on the Cuban heroes of the revolution. Besides Fidel Castro, they have made heroes of Ernesto "Ché" Guevara and José Martí. Their pictures and statues appeared throughout our trip. Some of the people I was with on the caravan said they saw some posters with Lenin on them. I didn’t notice them. But there were lots of statues and posters of Fidel, Ché and Marti. Marti is a national hero he was to some extent pre-Marxist-Leninist. Fidel just died a few years ago and he was a genuine cult of personality. There are plenty of reasons why this society has made a hero of Ché. He took a direct part in the revolutionary struggle to bring Cuba’s government to power. He had a long history of taking part in battles in Africa and South America. After his death he became a symbol of revolution through-out Latin America, Europe and the US. He was a very dynamic personality and it is not surprising that Cuba would make a hero of him.
From my own political point of view, I do not favor “the cult of personality.” In the case of Cuba it does not seem like a vary big problem. One interesting note is that Fidel said that he did not want buildings and institutions to be named after him after he died. So he himself was not entirely happy with a cult of personality.
In many ways it can be dismissed in Cuba. The only reason for bringing it up is in revolutionary tradition in other parts of the world, and maybe here, eventually—There will also be a later discussions of my observations of Cuba with those who have criticism on both the left and right.
There is more to come folks!

To be continued=>

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Donald Trump Continues To Show He’s Racist

July 16, 2019, 5:21 am
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From Huff Post:

The president’s tweet targeting congresswomen of color is just the latest in a long list of examples.

By LydiaO’Connor and Daniel Marans
All four are American, and only Omar was born outside the U.S.

Trump then doubled down on his remarks the next day, telling reporters at an event at the White House that he believes the congresswomen “hate our country.”

Throughout Trump’s campaign and beyond, HuffPost has kept a running list of examples of Trump’s racism, dating back to the 1970s. He’s added much fodder to the list since he’s been in the White House. Here are just a few examples:

He said immigrants from Africa and Haiti come from “shithole countries” 

In a meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office in January 2018, Trump argued against restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti and African nations, describing them as “shithole countries,” sources told The Washington Post and NBC News.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” the president reportedly asked. “We should have more people from places like Norway.”

The following day, Trump claimed on Twitter that he hadn’t used those specific words, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) ― who was in the room at the time ― swiftly contradicted him, saying that the president had in fact “said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly.”
Officials told NBC Newsthat in fall 2017, a Korean-American intelligence analyst was briefing Trump on a situation in Pakistan when the president asked her: “Where are you from?”
When she told him she was from New York, Trump was reportedly “unsatisfied and asked again.”
For the rest click here.
ASSOCIATED PRESSTrump, at an event outside of the White House on July 15, said he has no regrets about telling progressive Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to the countries they came from. Of the four he had in mind, only one was born outside the U.S. and she came to the country as a child.


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Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“freedom of speech, racism and homosexual rights”—Part 4

July 16, 2019, 7:22 am
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By SJ Otto

As I continue on with my trip to Cuba—we met with leaders of an Association of Writers and Artists. Fidel Castro founded this organization in 1961. This artists and writers’ organization have taken on the task of fighting against racism. Most of the discussion was lead by Rolando sol Rensol Medina and Pedro de la Hoz. The attitude the leadership took was that all countries have racism and Cuba is no different.
“Racism is a global issue,” one of the speakers said.
As the leaders of this group explained it, racism has to be fought against and the job is never really done.
There are a lot of black persons in Cuba and racism there is not just a black and white issue, since there are people of different shades of black. In the US, traditionally, the classification for a black person is that they are black if they have any black blood in them. In some cases there have been black civil rights workers, in the US, who looked white, but had black blood in there ancestry. Things are a little different in Cuba. In any country there are problems that are specific only to that one place.
We were told that many Cubans have ancestors who came to the Island as slaves.
One way to fight racism is through education. They don’t just teach history from a European point of view. They teach history from the point of indigenous people and minorities also.
One of the speakers pointed out how subtle racism can be.
“A Big black guy works as a guard—a young blond girl works as a waitress,” the speaker said. He added that they try to make people more aware of these kinds of stereo types.
Towards the end of our session with this Association, the leaders talked about culture.
The Association supports freedom of expression for visual artist and writers. We were told that criticism is not only tolerated it is encouraged.
“You can’t really have art without criticism,” one of the leaders said.
Another problem the leaders brought up is that the blockade prevents cultural exchanges with the US. Cuba and US culture exchanges have been disrupted of many years.
This last item is one more example of the damage that blockade has had. Both US and Cuban artists have not been able to exchange ideas and infuences. That has hurt both cultures.
The protection of homosexuals was discussed with Andy Aquino Agüero, Specialist of the Department of Teaching and Research in the National Center of Sexual Education. He told me that discrimination against homosexuals was banned right after the revolutionary war, but government officials had a hard time enforcing that ban for many years, because of the attitude in Latin America call machismo, or “much a man/ manliness.” That cultural attitude has caused problems for women, since men have felt encouraged to marry one woman and then keep a mistress as well. The children of these mistresses have had problems, in many Latin American countries, being treated as full-fledged citizens. They have no inheritance rights for example.
Today in Cuba it was obvious to all of us that homosexuals are clearly protected. We saw the rainbow flag that is popular with the LGBT community in shops and various other places.
Aquino also discussed other aspects of Cuba’s sex education programs. In many ways it is not different from things done in the US. Along with opposing discrimination for homosexuals, the government also protects trans-sexuals. While it is legal for trans people to get sex changes, such procedures are expensive and at times, drugs and medical supplies are limited, once again, by the US blockade of the island.
The government works to stop domestic violence.
“If you love someone, you don’t hurt them,” Aquino said.
His department emphasized that sexuality is a human right. Other rights that are protected are the right to abortion and maternal leave from work, for women who become pregnant.
At one point we met with members of the National Assembly. One of the Carvanistas asked an assembly person their views on freedom of speech for journalists. We were told that they look at journalist more as communicators than the more western view of journalists. They also said that their focus is not so much as freedom of the press, as other countries do. They looked more at the reporter’s responsibility to the needs of the working people.


Here we see the contrast between examples of modern pop art and old traditional art, at the University of la Habana.
The picture above is of the Association of  Writers and Artists.

To be continued=>



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Socialism does not offend me and it should not offend anyone accept the greedy trolls of capitalism' right

July 16, 2019, 2:49 pm
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The Chumps of Trump vs. The Three stooges of socialism!


By SJ Otto
So now that I have been to Cuba, I realize how full of crap, right-wing pundits are. It is still hard for me to understand how such writers can put out such fiction—and they want us to take them seriously.  I found these articles, which are typical of all the right-wing proclamations that socialism is against all human decency. It is as criminal as selling heroin, or having sex with children, if we can believe such articles. Here is an example of an article by DAVID HARSANYI, of Reason, who wrote “Sorry If You're Offended, but Socialism Leads to Misery and Destitution”
He wrote:\

“After all, socialism is the leading man-made cause of death and misery in human existence. Whether implemented by a mob or a single strongman, collectivism is a poverty generator, an attack on human dignity and a destroyer of individual rights.
It's true that not all socialism ends in the tyranny of Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism or Castroism or Ba'athism or Chavezism or the Khmer Rouge—only most of it does.”

He reports this as if it is a fact—an indisputable fact. One rule of propaganda says that if a statement is made over and over and over again, people will believe it. Most people can’t afford to just go to Cuba. Many people who can won’t bother to. So this man and others like him can keep making these statements. His motivation is simple—money. Conservative pundits make a lot of money. The people behind their publications have lots of money. To a wealthy conservative there is nothing—absolutely nothing—more important than having a lot of money. With that money comes political power. That is the backbone of capitalism. People who make a lot of money love capitalism and hate socialism. Many people who live in the US and don’t have much money, simply believe in capitalism because that is all they really know. Most people will not question the system they live under if their basic needs are met. So most people will never know that the article below and others like it are an outright lie.

“And no, New York primary winner Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn't intend to set up gulags in Alaska. Most so-called democratic socialists—the qualifier affixed to denote that they live in a democratic system and have no choice but to ask for votes—aren't consciously or explicitly endorsing violence or tyranny. But when they adopt the term "socialism" and the ideas associated with it, they deserve to be treated with the kind of contempt and derision that all those adopting authoritarian philosophies deserve.”

So this guy want to destroy the word socialism and convince people as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to find a less “offensive word.” That is to say: a word that would appease Harsanyi.
After that he blathers on about Norway and other European versions of Democratic Socialism, which he describes as “generous welfare-state programs propped up by underlying vibrant capitalism and natural resources.” But he keeps going back to the third world countries that have tried Marxist socialism. These are countries he considers total failures. Then, among the countries he considers “dictators” he includes Nicaragua and Venezuela:

“It should also be noted that today's socialists get their yucks by pretending collectivist policies only lead to innocuous outcomes like local libraries. But for many years they were also praising the dictators of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the nation's most successful socialist, isn't merely impressed with the goings-on in Denmark. Not very long ago, he lauded Hugo Chavez's Venezuela as an embodiment of the "American dream," even more so than the United States."

Socialists like to blame every inequity, the actions of every greedy criminal, every downturn and every social ill on the injustice of capitalism. But none of them admit that capitalism has been the most effective way to eliminate poverty in history.”
Eliminate poverty? Seriously? Capitalism is the main cause of poverty. Since the Sandinistas came to power in 1979, they used elections to take power. They followed those bourgeois democracy tactics until they were voted from power and they won elections when they came back into power. Chavez also came to power through bourgeois democracy. He followed all the democratic rules. He never broke any of those rules. He and Daniel Ortega were never dictators at all. Only in Harsanyi’s imagination (affected by his obsession with anti-socialism) are those two leaders “dictators.” This is similar to Ronald Reagan and his pointy headed followers who refuse to believe that a democratically elected politician can be a socialist. But they are all delusional.
We see similar argument from Mark J. Perry, of AEI, “Why socialism always fails:”


“Slightly more than 20 years, I wrote the article “Why Socialism Failed” and it appeared in 1995 in The Freeman, the flagship publication of the Foundation for Economic Education. I think it was the first essay or op-ed I wrote for a general audience following graduation in 1993 from George Mason University with a Ph.D. in economics. Note that the title of the article (“failed”) implied the past tense, as if I perhaps assumed the failures of socialism were so apparent and obvious (I called it the Big Lie of the 20th century) that it would be forever considered only as a discredited system of the past, and never as a viable option going forward into the future! Of course, at the time many parts of the world were moving away from collectivism and central planning and towards free market capitalism – the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, and China was opening up its economy and re-established the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1990, etc.
Here’s are some excerpts of my 1995 essay “Why Socialism Failed”:
1. Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.
In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.”

Of course there would be little reason to challenge this idea, especially if a person has never been to Cuba or a so called “socialist country.” But I have only been to one, Cuba.
From GORDON ADAMS, Foreign Policy, “The Liberal Fallacy of the Cuba Deal”:

President Barack Obama correctly announced (recalling Einstein’s dictum about insanity): “I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.” Non-recognition has not changed Cuba’s government; the embargo has only limited the island’s economic growth potential. So it’s time for a change in policy.
The goal of that new policy, according to the White House, is to “renew our leadership in the Americas, end our outdated approach on Cuba, and promote more effective change that supports the Cuban people and our national security interests.” It’s the “promote more effective change” part that plants a flag in the liberal exceptionalist camp. The justification for this policy is, in part, still rooted in the notion that the United States can effect the change it wants in another country, this one close to our shores.

The motive here is to change Cuba in a more humane way. That is not to actually accept a Marxist-Leninist system in the hemisphere. That would go against everything the US stands for. The US is a country that has always opposed any kind of socialism or Marxism. That is the antithesis of the US. This country has fought a cold war because it can never accept the idea that a political system can negate rich people with money running our lives. It is like a person who suddenly realizes that the parasites he/she has learned to live with—are not really needed. Suddenly they realize that they can actually live without parasites. A working person can live without parasites in their body—and the discovery is uplifting. But it is a death sentence to the capitalist parasites when we suddenly realize we don’t need them.
That is why a writer as myself can’t co-exist with the journalists who are determined to defend the system and defend it at all costs. Most of the successful journalist in the US are either conservative, or they are liberal and pro-capitalist. Yes they can be liberal. But they still oppose any form of Marxism. I remember when I was in Nicaragua. People there told me, as a journalist, I have traveled to places where most US mainstream journalist don’t go. I was told they stay in the motels in the capital and talk to political officials, mostly anti-Sandinistas, and don’t wander very far into the country. As a person who considered himself a real journalist at the time, it was disappointing. I now realized how phony most US journalists were.
It is real hard to look at news in the US and realize how slanted it can be. From the outside it looks so honest and free. It seems inconceivable that these fine journalists would lie to us. But the evidence has built up over the years. Some of what we see as factual news is just propaganda. It lacks truth and the conclusions of the journalists fit with their opinion over these facts:
1. Most people never write or give out official opinions. They would never miss freedom of speech, because they never use it.
2. Conservative writers make good money and the more money they make, the more they love our capitalist system. As with free speech, a lot of people never make enough money to care what kind of economic system they live under.
3. I appreciate political parties and I can see the value they have. There are good ones and bad ones. However, in this country the two parties of our system have been manipulated to wage a class war against poor people. President Donald Trump took away poor people’s health care and shifted the tax system to raise the taxes of the poorer classes—and so did Ronald Reagan.
I have been to Cuba and seen how it works. I can also say I have been to Nicaragua and I can say it is not very Marxist and not as much socialist as Cuba is. Cuba’s socialist system does work and the people there are not miserable. It is hard to convince a lot of people of this fact—that directly contradicts what the conservative writers are telling people.



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Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“Health care and religious beliefs”—Part 5

July 20, 2019, 12:47 pm
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By SJ Otto
In Cuba, health care is a major area of concern and interest by the government. Unlike the US, where poor people are excluded from badly needed health care facilities, medicines and care in general, health care is free for everyone. Everyone, regardless of their income, has access to health care and medicines. In the US some poor people die early in their lives from lack of health care. That is not the case in Cuba. Healthcare there is a right.
Before the revolution began, there was no access to medical facilities for many people. Parasites were a common problem. Also before revolution there was an estimated 6,000 professional and after the revolution about half those people left. Before the revolution there were a lot more private hospitals and clinics. After the revolution the government put hospitals and clinics in the mountains for people who lived a reasonable distance from the hospitals and clinics in the major cities.
We visited General Hospital Gustavo Aldereguia Lima- University General, a modern hospital that also had a university attached so they can train new doctors and medical students.
Today Cuba has medical students from 26 countries. There are several universities throughout the country and Cuba specializes in the education of future doctors.
We met a few times with students from the dorms and from some universities. We met several students at General Hospital Gustavo Aldereguia Lima.
At one institution I met a young student from Suriname, the small country in South America that used to be a Dutch colony. 
It is the only country in the Americas where the Dutch language is spoken. The student was a Moslem. We also met a student from Puerto Rico. She said she considered herself a Puerto Rican and not an American.
There were some other specialized institutions, for example we visited a special school for children with autism. It seemed to be a modern institution with an up-to-date institution on the symptoms and how to deal with them.
Cubahas complete freedom of religion and since 1991 people of religious faith can join the Communist Party. While religion was discouraged from time to time in Cuba’s past, today there is complete freedom of religion and I saw a lot of churches and religious symbols throughout my trip. Today it is hard to believe this country’s religious communities have ever been suppressed.
We spent one of our afternoons listening to Dr. Enrique Alimo of the Hebrew Community at the Beth Shalom Synagogue. He told us that most of the Island’s religions cooperate together and have a dialog with both each other and the government. Among the island’s religions are Jews, Christians and Moslems. We also heard from members of the Santeríafaith. That is what most people associate with Voodoo. But their religion is really more complicated than the images people see on our TV shows. That religion is commonly found in CaribbeanIslands and much of it is mixed with elements of Catholicism.


We were treated to some tradition dances, songs and music. We met with representatives from several different faiths. One contentious presentation was a short film clip that claimed that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Almost all of the caravanistas found that offensive since most of us support Palestinian rights and Israel today violates those people’s rights. One group that left rather sudden and said almost nothing to us were some representatives of the Moslem faith. They may have felt insulted by the pro-Zionist film clip. Some of us wondered if the same disagreements found in the states, by such outspoken Moslems asRep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat from Minnesota, are also found in Cuba. Many Moslem communities favor Palestinian rights.
Most of the caravanistas had some type of religious beliefs. There were two Marxist-Leninists. Traditionally Marxist-Leninists don’t believe in or favor religion. Some can be hostile to it. Today I consider myself an Epicurean, which is not really a religion, as in those who believe in God and the afterlife. It is more of a philosophy of life, as with many Taoists. I used to be a Catholic until my 30s. I favored liberation theology. I dropped Catholicism during the rain of Pope John Paul II. Because of that I can understand people’s attachments to their religious beliefs. Although my beliefs today resemble atheism, I have never believed in chasing religious people away from a political movement. So while the issue of religion was not something I was really that interested, it is important to a lot of other people and for that reason, this article has plenty of significance.    
  

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Yes—I like seeing astronauts landing on the Moon

July 21, 2019, 1:09 pm
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By SJ Otto
All weekend I have been seeing all kinds of reports on the anniversary of the US landing on the moon. So I have decided to post my own account of that event. It was an event I actually lived through. I was a young teen ager when it happened, maybe 14 years old.
I grew up in a Catholic home, where John F. Kennedy seemed like a great hero. In retrospect he does not seem as heroic today. He was not responsible for the civil rights movement getting passed the way Lyndon B. Johnson was. He was mostly a cold warrior trying to pick a fight in East Germany, places like Turkey and Cuba. It was Kennedy who presided over the Cuban Missile Crises. Kennedy was not a traditional liberal. One thing he did preside over was the moon landing, although he died before the event actually took place. According to Wikipedia:

"We choose to go to the Moon" is the well-known tagline from a speech about the effort to reach the Moon delivered by United States President John F. Kennedy to a large crowd gathered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1962. The speech was intended to persuade the American people to support the Apollo program, the national effort to land a man on the Moon.’“On September 12, 1962, a warm and sunny day, President Kennedy delivered his speech before a crowd of about 40,000 people in the Rice University football stadium, many of them students. The middle portion of the speech has been widely quoted, and reads as follows:

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”

It was probably the only Kennedy speech I ever really agreed with and liked. Most of his speeches were a bunch of anti-communist rants, such as him claiming to be a “Berliner,”
 "Ich bin ein Berliner." I lost my interest in anti-communism many decades ago.
 Ironically it was President Richard Nixon who was able actually see and preside over the moonlanding. He was one of my least favortite presidents, I was much less found of him than Kennedy. But I really did like Kennedy’s "We choose to go to the Moon” speech. It may be the only speech of his that I really liked.
If there is another big irony it is that it was the Soviet Union that actually started the so called “space race.” According to Office of the Historian:

“On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the earth’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1.” 

Then there is this:

 Sputnik, 1957
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the earth’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1. The successful launch came as a shock to experts and citizens in the United States, who had hoped that the United States would accomplish this scientific advancement first…..

…In the late 1950s, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (Никита Хрущёв) boasted about Soviet technological superiority and growing stockpiles of ICBMs, so the United States worked simultaneously to develop its own ICBMs to counter what it assumed was a growing stockpile of Soviet missiles directed against the United States. 

So it was the Soviet Union and Khrushchev who touched off the space race. Khrushchev had hoped the Soviet Union could prove its superior technology by putting a device in space that simply went “beep beep.”
Perhaps it ended up that both countries allowed their paranoid dillusions to push them into a space race. The result is that the cold war inspired the US to race to put a man on the moon. It is possible and even likely that the US would have never gone to the moon without the so called “dangers of the Soviet Union.” Again from Office of the Historian:

“Eventually, lawmakers and political campaigners in the United States successfully exploited the fear of a “missile gap” developing between U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals in the 1960 presidential election, which brought John F. Kennedy to power over Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 served to remind both sides of the dangers of the weapons they were developing.”

So paranoid dillusions brought us the “space race” and I’m glad it did. Years later the Soviet Union put Venera 13 on Venus. At some point in time I saw a TV show called Star Trek. That show took us to places many of us wanted to go. For some people in the world Star’ Trek is just a fantacy. But for people as I—we see some possibilities of what human kind could accomplish if we continued the “US space race” and similar types of evolution.
Maybe we will never travel faster than light to planets hundreds of light-years away. But after we put a man on the moon, many of us felt there were no limitations to space travel.
One thing that bothers me is that no one has gone back to the Moon after all these decades. There are no vacation packages on the Moon. There are no temporary space stations on the Moon rather than as there are that circle the Earth, or that sit on the continent of Antartica. A country that could put people on the Moon should be able to put a Moon base on the Moon.
Besides the fantacy, on Star Trek and Star Trek Next Generation, was the fantasy of a world without imperialism or imperialistic relationships. On both Star Teck’s they have the “prime directive” where they don’t interfear in a developing culture that is behind the highly developed Earth culture.
In reality the US and other more highly developed societies, in Europe and Japan, conquered less developed societies and enslaved their people. Just as I want to see people exploring space, I want to see imperialism die out.
Let’s celebrate going to the Moon and let’s go back to the Moon. Let’s promote a Moon base and the end of imperialism.

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The new Constitution and the future of Cuba

July 23, 2019, 9:16 am
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Translated by Google:

Intro-
This article comes from “Red de Blogs Comunistas,”–a communist blog network that just happens to include an individual blog called: La Gaceta de los Miserables or in English; The Miserable Gazette. I plan to write my own version of an article on The new Constitution and the future of Cuba. This article is written by Julio Pernús.
I just came back from Cuba a few weeks ago, so it is a coincidence that this article has been recently released. This is very helpful to me, since while I was in Cuba, the Pastors for Peace Caravan delegation I was with met with members of The National Assembly of People's Power. While we covered a lot about the new constitution, we mostly discussed how it was put together rather than what is actually in it.
So the information in this article will help me with extra information that this other writer got, that I might other-wise not have gotten.
On July 4, we met with the president and several other leading members of The National Assembly of People's Power, which is Cuba’s main legislative body. It was with them that we discussed how the leaders of Cubamet with people across the Island and took ideas from those people and used them to put together a new constitution. After this article I will post my own recollections of what we discussed with members of the assembly. –SJ Otto

Both of these articles should compliment each other.

 By Julio Pernús¹.
An interpretative analysis of Cuba that comes after the constitutional Yes.
It is important that when we try to dust off the history of our new constitution, we look at it with a broader view of 86.72% in favor and 9% against. The data is often frivolous grimaces that do not provide enough lights to view the immediate horizon.
The first thing we should not overlap is that the country's new Magna Carta is superior, quite clearly, to that of 1976; that one possessed an enveloping Soviet nucleus and, in addition, a disguised atheistic philosophy. From my citizen optimism I feel that we now have at our disposal a document that offers a broader amalgam of civil rights than its predecessor and this, if fulfilled, may be something that facilitates its tangible application.
However, from now on I affirm that one thing is the mention of rights and another thing is its implementation. Without believing me a lawyer, it is a bit striking to know that "there are more than 80 occasions in which the constitution refers to the law then define this article with a complementary rule" (1). It is not just a metaphor to say that the Cuban legal system is in limbo and that, with our voted law of laws, we hope to be able to fill that space so little used in the last days of citizen constitutionality.
One of the important points when we try to remember why it was voted Yes on February 24, is that of the popular consultation . This is not something entirely new for our nation, with an inevitable battle of ideas; but in reference to the context in which this query was developed. The left lives one of its worst hemispheric crises, with a collapsed Venezuela; in Cuba we live the consolidation of a new national government, led by the current president Miguel Díaz Canel. All this in the middle of a depressed economy and with national tragedies - of great social impact -, suffered in recent months, such as the fall of the plane rented by Cubana de Aviacion with more than one hundred dead and the tornado that raged with rage last month from January to Havana.
For those who like to deepen the etymology of the concepts, we refer to a popular consultation process “when efficient mechanisms of participation of the people are sought, in the conscious making of important political decisions” (2). In Cuba, any such process is relevant; above all, because of the precedent of a substantial root of historical consciousness, sometimes linked too much, with a subjective battle of ideas, which leads the people to a constant struggle for their social emancipation. So it seems interesting to me to see all the complexus of popular consultation on the project of Cuban constitution, from the glasses of the French professor Guillaume Faburel (3), who describes our work as a process that has sought the restoration of political confidence.
It is appropriate to recognize that, within the constitution, 
nothing is mentioned about poverty and inequality 
which denotes a danger, since it is unlikely that subsequent affirmative action policies will be carried out to correct these social ills.
I only hope that these approaches can summon the decision makers of our nation to introduce the terms within their operative agendas; because one of the best contributions that a Magna Carta must make, is to give voice to people with little or no visibility within the social framework of any nation. We are talking about being able to recreate a public reality with laws that give it an important connotation of political sense.
A matter to think for the following general votes is that, in other countries of the world, propaganda campaigns have an end, while the I Vote Yes was present even during the marking of the ballot. Inside the polling stations there were banners that reaffirmed it. An impressive element is that the 586 deputies present in the National Assembly, when the final draft was put to the vote, said Yes;
That leaves 706,000 people outside the largest representative body of the Cuban people in that space, with some delegate representing their No.
This should serve as a reflection within the organism and, as a nation, we must look for formulas that favor the inclusion of some representative of divergent thinking in the decision-making spheres of the country. And a question arises that should not be overlooked at all:
If those who vote Yes are voting for Cuba, then those who vote No, why are they voting?
What was voted on is an important document, but the process itself did not dispute any national sovereignty, much less our independence as a country.
In the constitution there is no definition of nation or country, or almost nothing, then, why this represents everything.
One of the issues of great impact worldwide is the issue of how to improve democracy; hence, any political process that legitimizes itself as an outbreak of participatory democracy is given great attention. However, and this was reviewed even by our mass media, outside of Tele Sur and some Russian channels, our referendum passed almost silently through the big international chains. This may not say anything to many, but, in a general sense, what I have done, I feel that I did not have much international credibility.
Since 1998 a general vote is being called with a very statocentric sense, giving a non-Cuban vision, for those people who do not vote in favor of what is officially proposed. From the sources of power it would be interesting to assess the possibility of living these processes as something under construction, and not from a vision that everything is already taken for granted; especially for the magnitude and civic relevance of the document in consultation, which runs through our entire civil society, in which, if we listen honestly, we can find divergent opinions.
The divergence does not have to be seen as a malignant tumor 
but as a sector with a different vision to those of the government establishment.
This type of popular consultations would generate a greater degree of trust for the people, if they worked from the media with a greater sense of plurality. It is important to learn to yield historical positions of absolute hegemony all this nuanced by the integrative look of a transparent official discourse, without double intentions. Something unfortunate is that in our Magna Carta there is no mention of civil society, a living force within the people that usually faces, within the first line, at key moments such as natural catastrophes.
Many were struck by the fact that, during the consultative stage, the people did not say anything about an issue and, suddenly, it was removed from the document. Hence the question about the disappearance of the section on human rights; because supposedly what we discussed was not a kind of revaluation.


So who eliminated it and why?
The same-sex marriage seemed like a double-sided letter and now there is talk of taking it to a referendum; however, that same treatment is not given to other questions raised by the sovereign, such as the electoral law.
One of the significant achievements of the new constitution is the empowerment of the municipality, especially because it often survives the policy of waiting for everything to come down from above and this changes the rules of the local government for good. But now the ethnologists of the patio will have to rethink what a municipality is, in order to then be able to provide a solid support to the new laws of municipality since geographical demarcations cannot be a straitjacket.
We are at the door of a new social stage, gradually entering the technological revolution that humanity lives, with one of the oldest populations in Latin Americaand in the midst of a palpable economic depression. The policy of besieged square does not seem to be something close to disappearing. I understand that political plurality is not the same as multi-partyism, but from a Christian spirituality, the existence, as a philosophical center of the political vanguard of the nation, of an ideology that denies God becomes exclusive. It is important that we clarify what is electoral and what is not; Moreover, it is important to suppress the vision of ratification in the official propaganda media, because conceptually, that only speaks of agreeing with something that is already oriented from above.
The control of constitutionality should be in the hands of the courts to expedite as soon as possible a set of laws that have not just come to public light, such as religious or cults law.
In the end, only the people should exercise their role as sovereign and their role as rector of the destinies of the nation. The Cuba of the next few years will be a virtual stage with a constant struggle for citizen influence. One of the elements to follow will be the political development of a civil society with interesting living forces, being born and consolidating in its interior, in addition to the classic ones already known.
In conclusion, I consider that the Magna Carta offers new opportunities for citizen empowerment. All this mediated by obstacles typical of a country like ours, with multiple contrasts. It is important to participate with civic awareness of all the processes that occur within the Cuban democratic scenario.
The first challenge that is noticed, in less than two years, is the change of the family code. I would like to end this article with a text by Pope Francis, which initiates the message of the Catholic bishops of Cuba regarding the new Constitution of the Republic:
“Everyone can contribute their own stone for the construction of the common house. Authentic political life, founded on law and a loyal dialogue between the protagonists, is renewed with the conviction that every woman, every man and every generation holds within themselves a promise that can release new relational, intellectual, cultural and cultural energies. spiritual. ”

Julio Pernús is a Member of La Joven Cuba and Member of the Cuban delegation to the World Youth Day Panama 2019.
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We will all miss Gypsy Claar

July 25, 2019, 11:54 am
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By SJ Otto
I first met Gypsy Claar (Tracy Elizabeth 'Gypsy' Claar/ her official name) some time after I began publishing my so call ‘counter culture newspaper’ called the Public Voice. I had modelled that paper off of a counter-culture newspaper called the Public Notice, in Lawrence, KS.
This was more than just a Marxist-Leninist newspaper. A lot of young Marxist-Leninist or socialist political activists don’t understand how it was to be a member of the 1960s-1970s counter-culture. For a while it was just a given that anyone who grew his hair long, wore “hippie clothes” or what we might call today “freak clothes” belong to a kind of counter-culture. It was mostly a cultural thing based on trendy ‘60s or ‘70s stuff. 

Not everyone who belonged to that counter culture movement was a leftists. In fact as time when on, for me, it was a shock to see how many right-wing “hippies” and “Freaks” there were around me.
But Gypsy worked with me and Tim Pouncey, who was as much a left-wing hippie as I am today. They (Tim and Gypsy) both worked on my newspaper, the Public Voice, with lots of articles and satire that was needed to defend the working class of Wichitaand offend the right-wing ass holes we all fight against today.

I don’t know how many of my readers knew 'Gypsy' Claar. She was a political activist for the homeless. She was not as much a political person as she supported people’s human rights. And she was an old hippy, as some of us actually knew her and some of us actually are today. She died a little over a month ago. She was about 73. I knew her well and at one time she did some work for the old Public Voice Community News paper, of which I was the owner and Editor of.
I knew Gypsy from way back in the 1980s. I went to one of her parties in one of her ranch homes north of Wichita in the rural parts of SedgwickCounty. It was one of the best parties I ever went to and I went there with my old friend Tim Pouncey. I also met up with her and her sister years ago when we lived in Hutchinson, KS.
I remember when she was taking journalist classes at WichitaStateUniversity. She did a lot of photography. Gypsy was a good friend. She got along with just about everyone she knew. She dated a few friends of mine. She will be missed by this community.
As her obit says:
“She is survived by: daughters, Elizabeth ‘Kathy’ Renner, Wichita, Christina ‘Teena’ Effenbeck, Mt.Hope, and Mariah Claar, Wichita; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
It is always difficult to loose an old friend, but we all have to die some time and at least she had a fairly long life, and she lived a life most of us would be proud to have lived.

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Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“The New Constitution, The National Assembly, Cuba’s power for the future”—Part 6

July 28, 2019, 8:27 am
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 By SJ Otto
On July 4, we met with the president and several other members of The National Assembly of People's Power, which is Cuba’s main legislative body. It was with them that we discussed how the leaders of Cuba met with people across the Island and took ideas from those people and used them to put together a new constitution. Much of this information is found in the article we posted: The new Constitution and the future of Cuba by Julio Pernús. There is no point in repeating a lot of things Pemús wrote. So I will focus on what we learned on our trip. 
As Pernús points out, there was a constitutional referendum held in Cuba on February 24, 2019 voted on by the people for a new constitution and it passed 86.72% in favor and 9% against. Among some of the more important parts of the constitution include the new Cuban Family Law of 2019.
This new law covers all aspects of marriage, children and divorce. It lays out, according to iclg.com/ Cuban Family Law 2019, 1Divorse, 2 Finance on Divorce, 3 Marital agreements, 4 Cohabitation and unmarried family, 5 child maintenance, 6 Children- Parental responsibility and custody, 7 Children international aspects, and for 8 they give an overview.
For an in depth look at the New Constitution see: General Overview of Cuban Family Law Legislation.[1]
Some things that I found out from members of the National Assembly of People's Power is that the members only meet about two times a years, unless something special comes up, such as an emergency. Being a member of the national assembly is a part time position. They are only paid for the time and work they put in. They all have other jobs they must go to. It is obvious that these folks are not running the day to day aspects of government.

Esteban Lazo Hernández, the president of the National Assembly, talked of a trip he took to New York, as a member of the Assembly and he was able to visit Harlem and meet with US blacks (a mainly black district of New York). For a member of Cuba’s government to visit Harlem, I’m sure, Lazo, who is black, found there were many cultural and political differences between American black folks and those who live in Cuba.
To become a member of the National Assembly, a candidate has to win an election. Any new law or issue that comes up has to be from a resolution by the people. We were told that National Assembly members said that it was part of their job to talk to judges and prosecutors for various court cases that come up each year.
Another institution we visited, while in Cuba, was the Thermo-electro Plant Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. This is where we talked to government employees and I was surprised that the government is determined to move power plants away from traditional fossel fuels and towards more modern forms of power, which includes biomass, wind and solar power. We passed some solar power panels on our way to the power plant. At present 1.5 percent of the plants power is from those alternative fuel sources. But they are making changes and by 2030 the plant plans to be getting 24 percent of their power from alternative fuels.

Another group of people we met with was the leadership of the Trade Union Council of Cuba (CTC). We were told about trade unions and their role in Cuban society. As with trade unions in the US, they act as advocates for the rights and needs of working people. The do a lot of the same things a US trade union would do, accept, when asked, by a member of our caravanistas,  if there has ever been a strike in Cuba, our lady was told “no.” The lady asking was a member of a teacher’s union in the US and explained that they needed to go on strike to get any respect from the school board she worked under.

So do the trade unions simply lack the power they need to really support their workers, or is such an action as a strike unnecessary? It is hard to say for sure. But my impression is that Cuba is not as anti-poor as in the US. In Kansas, there is no respect for teachers, who in the last few years, have been fired in droves to make up for budget shortfalls from our last far-far-far-far to the right Governor Sam Brownback. We now have a Democrat Governor, Laura Kelly and she has tried to undo a lot of the anti-poor people’s damage done by our last Republican governor. Republican legislature members, still in office, have worked hard to prevent her efforts to expand Medicaid, which would allow working poor people access to health care (which is unlike Cuba, in that they provide medical access to poor workers). They have also threatened to take legal action against her if she eliminates work requirements and other obstacles for working poor people who need food. These actions are purely contempt against poor working people in Kansas. In Cuba, I did not see as much contempt against poor people there. A lot of people there are poor, but they don’t seem to get punished for it, as happens in the US.



The President of the National Assembly Esteban Lazo Hernández,
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Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“Women’s groups- the Federation of Cuban Women”—Part 7

July 30, 2019, 1:43 pm
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By SJ Otto
My wife, Cam Gentry and I have always taken an interest in women’s rights and women’s organizations. My wife and I met at a National Organization for Women’s Halloween party. So I was very interested in the Federation of Cuban Women that Caravanistas visited on July 1.
When we got there we were met by  Hidolidia Cameo Rodriguez and Mireya Moliva Castellano,
leaders of the chapter we met at. The two work out of an office that looks more like a home or apartment.
Almost all leftist parties in the world have a women’s group either within their organization or have connections to a women’s group. So it was no surprise that the Cuban government has a women’s group set up to take on women’s rights. It was formed just after the end of the revolutionary war.
One thing that Women’s groups do is to help women enter the work force. This was emphasized during the presentation we were given. We were told that women gain autonomy when they join the workforce. It gets them out of the home. So job training programs and professional women who can teach them are offered to women in any part of the country. Many women belong to this group which is spread out to furnish each community’s needs from block to block.
The Federation provides assistance for women and families in the district. Each district in Cubahas a chapter.
Before the revolution, women where encouraged to just stay at home or in the kitchen. Now they have their choice as to what kind of work they choose to do.
Other services the group takes care of include programs for parenting, and daycare. The group is involved with domestic issues, such as domestic violence.  
The Federation was deeply involved in the 1961 Cuban Literacy Campaign. 
Some of the stated goals of the Federation are:

  • Bringing Women out of the home and into the economy
  • Reorganizing peasant households that keep women in subservient positions
  • Developing communal services to alleviate domestic work and childcare
  • Providing equal opportunities for women
  • Mobilizing women into political work and government administration
  • Providing adequate working conditions "to satisfy the particular needs of the female organism and the moral and spiritual needs of women as mothers."
The Federation has a group of women who knit toys that are sold to raise funds for the Federation.
As stated earlier, such groups are necessary to fulfill the needs of women in any society. Just as we have such groups as NOW, in the US, Cuba has its women’s needs met by the Federation of Cuban Women.

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Rand Paul's pathetic attempts to belittle Ilhan Omar

July 30, 2019, 7:34 pm
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By SJ Otto
The latest publicity stunt by Rand Paul is condescending to the max. He really let his ignorance show with his latest stunt. He is raising money to offer Rep. Ilhan Omar a trip to her homeland Somalia. This whole episode is ridiculous for so many reasons it defies anyone’s sense of logic.
Omar can probably afford a trip back to Somalia, if she really wants to go. She left the country when she was a child. I will bet she remembers the nation she left and why she and her family left it. She comes from a district with other Somalians and it is highly likely they know why they left that country and came here.
According to Salon:

"I'm not saying we forcibly send her anywhere," Paul told Breitbart News. "I'm willing to contribute to buy her a ticket to go visit Somalia. I think she can look and maybe learn a little bit about the disaster that is Somalia." Paul told Breitbart that Omar is "ungrateful," given that she and her family received US assistance when they moved from Somalia to the US when Omar was a child.
Omar "might come back and appreciate America more" after visiting her native country, which has "no capitalism, has no God-given rights guaranteed in a constitution, and has about seven different tribes that have been fighting each other for the last 40 years," said Paul.

 Paul’s statement is wrong on so many levels it begs the question; “What does Paul actually know about Somalia?”
As for as “God-given rights guaranteed in a constitution,” he sure isn’t talking about the right to an abortion. Under Republican rule, abortion rights don’t exist. As for the right to health care for all people—once again that does not exist under the rule of President Donald Trump. Republicans don’t believe that health care is a right. There are a lot of “God-given rights” that Republicans don’t want to support. Traditionally the social conservatives of the Republican Party opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage. The writer Hunter S. Thompson once said: "I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth."In my opinion, after my 64 years of life, I agree with this. So how many of these so called “God given rights” can we really attribute to political parties of the US political system?
And Paul said of Somalia there is “no capitalism.” Really?! No capitalism?! Just what kind of political system does Paul believe exists in Somalia?
So I looked up the history of Somalia on Wikipediaand found that the country has gone through almost every kind of government that was tried on this planet. For a time Somalia was a fascist country. Then a few decades later it was a Marxist communist country. For some time after that the country made agreements with the Soviet Union and then the US. According to Wikipedia:

“All in all, Somalia's initial friendship with the Soviet Union and later partnership with the United States enabled it to build the largest army in Africa.”

And early in 1990s, the country achieved what Wikipedia called a“failed state,” status.

“In the early 1990s, due to the protracted lack of a permanent central authority, Somalia began to be characterized as a "failed state." Political scientist Ken Menkhaus argues that evidence suggested that the nation had already attained failed state status by the mid-1980s.”

So if the country had no capitalism then why did the USsell it weapons? It seems unlikely that the US, which takes such a hard stand on Cuba for being Marxist and socialist, would sell a different Marxist or socialist government military weapons. And since the nation is classified as a “failed state,” what does he think Omar will learn that she doesn’t already know about her home country?
Maybe it is Paul who needs a lesson. Much of Africa today falls into the category of “failed state.” Part of that is due to years of struggle between the USand USSRover control and influence of all of those countries. Today the cold war is over and no superpower is rushing in to try and develop those nations that are terribly under-developed. The failed state and underdevelopment are probably major reason that Omar and her family fled that country. I doubt seriously if she and other refugees from that part of the world have forgotten why they left Africa.[1]
According to Att.net:

“He (Paul) accused Omar of calling the US a "terrible country," echoing a previous assertion of his that she called the US a "rotten country." However, Snopes did some checking and finds no record of Omar saying that.
She has frequently criticized policies of the Trump administration, but Snopes rates the claim that she has called the USitself "rotten" to be false. Similarly, President Trump has accused Omar of hating the US, though he has not provided evidence of her saying that, per the Washington Post.
This article originally appeared on Newser: Rand Paul Floats Controversial Idea for Ilhan Omar.”

Omar has criticized USsupport of Israel and a variety of other USforeign policy disasters (and such criticism is long overdue). But she has not claimed that the USis a terrible country." Such statements are a fantasy of the Trump administration. Trump and his chumps, including Paul, would love to find evidence that Omar and the other members of the so called "the Squad" would make such statements. The Squad includes the new left-leaning Democrats of congress, including the four newer more politically astute members.
These new members of congress are not the usual stodgy conservative, cautious politicians that have dominated the US political system for the last 30 years.
Up until now, conservatives in both parties felt safe that their system would not have to deal with any real opposition. Such opposition is being dealt with by Trump and his chumps as “anti-American,” “American haters” and other ridiculous labels that only demonstrate how frightened these conservatives are of any opposition to there system.
Omar does have some celebrity supporters, including actor Tom Arnold. He tweeted:

"Imagine being Rand Paul's next door neighbor and having to deal with @RandPaul lying cowardly circular whiney bullcrap about lawn clippings. No wonder he ripped his toupee off,"Arnold wrote Monday. He was referring to an incident in 2017 when a neighbor tackled Paul from behind and broke his ribs over an apparent landscaping dispute.” 

We can only wait and see what kind of non-sense we will see next from Trump’s Chumps, such as Paul. These folks, such as Paul, are out of step with modern youth today. Paul and the other chumps are outdated relics of a time gone by. Their twisted philosophy becomes more and more exposed as the nonsense it really is. These conservatives have wealth and power that comes from that wealth. When people realize that such political figures are just parasites, they will lose their political power and loose the respect they never really had. Their time has come and GONE!  


[1] See Wikipedia—History.

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Sanders and Warren Tout Progressive Vision for 2020 as Second Democratic Debate Kicks Off

August 2, 2019, 6:47 am
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By SJ Otto
This site will probably back one of the Democrat candidates for president. We hope to support Bernie Sanders but we realize it may be a long shot for him to win. So who else can we back? We need someone progressive, preferably someone who will support a medical care for all system. We may consider Elizabeth Warren. We realize that none of these people will support all of our positions. We need to make progress on expanding medical coverage. This country has punished poor people by denying them health care long enough. Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) was better than nothing and even that has been mostly destroyed by our idiot and chief, Donald Trump. Opposing Trump is a no-brainer. We would not be a left-leaning blog if we didn’t oppose trump. However, supporting a conservative Democrat (Republican light) is something we can’t support. Conservative Democrats are as much out enemy as the Republicans. To just stop having Trump destroy our country is not good enough. It is time to fight for progressive politics and this is not a good time to just retreat politically. We have had conservative presidents for the last 30 years, staring with Ronald Reagan. He pushed the country for to the right and it is time to push back. Democrats who complain we can’t have medical care for all are like the cock roaches who race below objects to hide from the light. They run for the safety of a dark hiding place. It is time to stop running and hiding.   


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Medicaid for all a touchy subject for Centrist Democrats

August 4, 2019, 2:07 pm
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Review: Democrats' debate was a left vs. far left brawl, By Marc Theissen.

By SJ Otto
I wake up Sunday morning to this. In fairness, I have been characterizing the Republicans from this state as far-far-far-far to the right. And sometimes even farther. So maybe I can understand why Theissen calls our positions "far left." But as Bernie Sanders has said at times, "it really isn't that far to the left." The entire western industrialized world has a healthcare system that makes sure NO ONE goes without health care. And I should point out that I just came back from a trip to Cubaand NO ONE THERE is denied health care because they are poor.
So as Sanders, the Cuban government and I agree, providing poor people with health care is just NOT that radical.
And still I can't help feeling that Theissen and others like him are not convinced.  

It is not surprising that Theissen and others frame the debate this way:
"But what we really saw in Detroit were debates between the party's left and the far left."
When Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981, he permanently moved the US political scale several bars to the right. Suddenly the left became the middle and the right became the political center. So far many, the political scale became permanently altered.
It is still like that. But many of us, such as those who support Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others are trying to do it move the political middle back to the actual political middle. Theissen is sure to oppose such movement.
The next statement, from Theissen's, is really similar to that which all the centrist Democrats are saying:
"Montana Gov. Steve Bullock accused the senators of "wish list economics." Former Maryland representative John Delaney said they were advocating "bad policies like Medicare-for-all, free everything and impossible promises that will turn off independent voters and get (Donald) Trump reelected."
We have heard this all before. But I happen to know that many people in this country are suffering from an inability to pay for overpriced medicines that many of us just can't pay for. These are not luxury items, they are needed so that people can live. People will die without these medicines and many people have to go without food or other necessities because they just can't afford the medicines they need.
Let's look at one of the arguments may by Theissen:
"The public option is, as Medicare and Medicaid  administrator Seema Verma explained, nothing more than "a Trojan horse with single -payer hiding inside." It would be a disaster:  "Private insurance pays hospitals 75% more than Medicare for the same services. If millions of non-seniors sign up for Medicare and those private subsidies disappear, costs will skyrocket and hospitals will close—necessitating massive tax increases and government intervention."
These are all the horror stories we constantly hear from the right, both Republicans and centrist Democrats.
I for one, have had to declare bankruptcy several years ago to pay off medical depts. So poor people like me just don't count. We are statistics. All across the globe, wealthy countries have found ways to make health care affordable to poor and working poor.
In the US, poor people without health care are just statistics on a campaign poster. We just don't matter. Who really cares if we can afford the medicines it takes to keep us alive. To the middle class who have insurance through their work, we are just statistics.
Our lives just really don't matter. Theissen won't lose any sleep over my death or the death of any of my friends or relatives. He won't miss us and neither will the middle class red-necks who have THEIR own heath insurance.
The only thing people like me can do is withhold our votes. It isn't much. Maybe it doesn't matter at all. But not voting for a centrist Democrat is all we can do. It isn't much but it is all we can do.  

Price gouging.


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US arrogance has failed to bully Maduro out of Venezuela

August 7, 2019, 11:15 am
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By SJ Otto
The USunder President Donald Trump, has worked hard to try and remove President Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, and replace him with a puppet regime under the leadership of  Juan Guaidó. Guaidó has never been elected president. Originally Maduro was elected president several years ago.
Several months ago, Trump tried to foment a coup, hoping he could persuade the military into rebelling against Maduro. So far it has not worked.
To punish Maduro and all of Venezuela, trump put sanctions on the country, trying to choke Maduro's socialist regime. Trump hates socialism and seems to believe he can overthrow the regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, with sanctions being his main weapon.
Now, according to Voxnews:

"President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Monday that freezes and blocks the transfer of all Venezuelan government property and assets in the United States; importantly, the sanctions apply not only to Maduro’s government but also to any US individuals or entities that try to do business with it."


This whole policy is nothing more than pure arrogance on the part of the US. The UShas no right or authority to demand that an elected president of a country resign or step down. Much of this is just prejudice against country for not embracing capitalism. I have just returned from a trip to Cuba where I saw first hand a socialist and Marxist country. That system worked, despite having an embargo against it, which is nothing more than an attempt to economically strangle that nation. The US, under Trump, wants the world to believe that socialism doesn't work and socialism has ruined the economy in both Venezuelaand Cuba. But the truth is the sanctions have prevented both countries from getting badly needed foods and medicines. The results of these sanctions and or an embargo punish the average citizens. They are the ones who can't get the food or medicines they need. These people go without their needs met due to The US' attempt to end these non-capitalist systems.
It should be pointed out that Trump has the backing of all Republicans and most Democrats. So this is not an issue that is being debated in congress, with the exception of just a few Democrats such as Ilhan Omar.
USimperialism is alive and operating in all of Latin America. The CIA, in recent years, has helped right-wing pro-US governments getting elected to replace the governments that were more nationalistic, trying to gain control of their own resources.
This arrogance is mainly to protect greedy $millionaires and $billionaires such as Trump, as well as other well paid journalists, pundits and politicians who profit well off of the capitalist system, at the expense of many working poor people. I have seen socialism at work in Cuba. The main opposition to it is by greedy wealthy people who believe they deserve privileges that socialist countries don't grant them. In other words this is never been about human rights. It is about political leaders who believe they have a right to be rich and greedy.
An irony here is that some government experts don't think these new sanctions will do much good. According to The Guardian:

"The time for dialogue is over. Now is the time for action,” Boltondeclared, spurning Norway-sponsored negotiations that have been taking place between representatives of Maduro and his US-backed challenger, Juan Guaidó.
But experts questioned the impact and wisdom of the measures, which Maduro’s administration and its Russian backers branded “economic terrorism”.
Some fear the latest sanctions will further aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation which has already forced millions to flee Venezuela, while others believe they will alienate Guaidó’s European backers who believe a negotiated solution is possible.
Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House thinktank, said Trump’s latest gambit was designed to achieve nothing but Maduro’s immediate downfall.
“This is intended to bring this government to its knees and to bring in Guaidó. That’s it … But it will not work. It will actually make Maduro’s government what it always wanted to be: a martyr,” Sabatini said.
Farid Kahhat, a professor of international relations at Lima’s Catholic University, said that while Maduro was to blame for Venezuela’s economic meltdown, “what the US is doing is making things worse – at least in the near future”.

Trumps' attempts at regime change may not work after all. Stamping out socialism is turning out to be harder than Trump thought it would be. Trumps efforts deserve to fail. The UShas no business deciding who can and should run the nations in Latin America. A triumph for socialism is a triumph for poor and working people. Such people deserve to win, especially after years, decades and centuries of being servants of the wealthy minorities.  

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