God is in the details

Today, a two-part special: An interview with Fidel earlier this month by the Argentine sociologist Atilio Boron, which appeared on Boron’s blog and was also published at Pagina 12.

Fidel and Boron discussed the G-20 meeting, and the motives for inviting Argentina, Brazil and Mexico to dine with the adults.  And Fidel talked about the recent cabinet changes: “If I expressed an opinion about the change in the cabinet,” he said, “it was due to the necessity to cut off at the root the talk about a conflict between Fidel’s men and those of Raúl. I couldn’t endorse this stupidity by my silence…Raúl is the one who is governing. In Cuba, many people paid with their lives for the victory and consolidation of the Revolution, not just in the Sierra Maestra and in the struggle against Batista. Afterwards, they also killed our literacy teachers in Cuba, and they are still doing it outside of Cuba. The same thing goes on with our doctors, who risk their lives to make socialist internationalism a reality.”

Finally, they discuss the ominous possibility of a rightward political swing in Latin America as a consequence of the economic crisis.

Fidel and the Battle of Ideas

Following his meeting with the Cuban leader, the Argentine sociologist, Atilio Boron, talks about how “Fidel lives surrounded by books and papers. Daily press summaries keep him informed about what’s happening in the world, and in his ever-present notebooks, he jots comments, ideas or questions which go on to make up his Reflections,” he says.

By Atilio A. Boron – Pagina/12

English Translation: Machetera

Fidel doesn’t rest. He remains steadfast in the gap. He hasn’t abandoned, nor will he abandon the struggle. Warrior of so many battles, he continues his relentless hounding of imperialism. His will is indomitable, and as with the best steel, the passage of time, far from nicking it, has only made it harder. He knows that to build a better world, a decisive battle must be won: the battle of ideas. As the faithful heir of Martí, of whom he has not coincidentally spoken as the intellectual author of the attack on the Moncada, he knows as well that one must be cultured to be free. But this culture which leads to liberty should be nourished in the best traditions of critical and emancipatory thought, of which socialism is an indispensable and irreplaceable component.

His prolonged convalescence, which has allowed him to regain his health in a dramatic way, and his distancing from government functions has made it possible for him to cultivate his insatiable intellectual curiosity. But his is not a solipsistic attitude, as it is always guided by the necessity to change the world, not just contemplate it. Few such as he are as aware of the catastrophic outcome that capitalism is pushing upon us, converting the human race and nature into simple commodities to be traded in the marketplace, with the exclusive purpose of making a profit. An intellectual curiosity, we’d say, in which his solid humanistic formation has been enriched by an exceptional political experience, all of which is then socialized in the periodical articles in which he analyzes the most pressing issues of the contemporary scene.

Where do we go from here?

This paper presented by Atilio Borón in Havana in early March of this year caught Fidel’s attention and he both referenced it in his reflection, “A meeting that was worth it” and invited Borón to meet with him to discuss these ideas further (more on that, later).  Tlaxcala has prepared the first English translation of Borón’s paper in its entirety – this is the updated and expanded version.

From Infinite War to Infinite Crisis

Some thoughts on the current capitalist crisis, its probable “solutions” and the role that a socialist option might play in the present juncture

Author: Atilio Borón*

Translated by Machetera, Scott Campbell, Christine Lewis Carroll and Manuel Talens

After September 11, 2001, George W. Bush declared “Infinite War” against terrorism, a war without end and one that would not be constrained by geography or time limits of any kind.  This policy is not only wrong, but immoral, and failed: upon leaving the White House, his legacy was a world more violent and insecure than before.  His administration also left as an inheritance a true economic and financial tsunami on a global scale: an “infinite crisis” whose reach defies our imagination. In the following pages, we would like to share some ideas about the current capitalist crisis, its probable “solutions” and the role that a renewed socialist option might play in the present juncture. Given time restrictions we’ll avoid unnecessary technical jargon and will try to express things plainly, yet without resorting to oversimplifications.

1. Let’s begin by characterizing this crisis in the negative form by saying what this crisis is not. This matters because the media bombardment to which our societies are subjected presents economists and establishment publicists talking about a “financial crisis” or a “banking crisis.” Shortly before, it was not even that. It was said that we were experiencing a “sub-prime” mortgage crisis. This was a way of minimizing the crisis, of underestimating it, presenting it to the public as a relatively minor incident in the dynamics of the markets, and that in no way did it question the health and viability of capitalism as a supposed “natural way” of organizing economic life. The passing of time has demolished all these fallacies.

Holding Uribe accountable

Tlaxcala also has translations of this article available in Farsi, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, French or German.

Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s Crimes of State

Gilberto Lopez y Rivas - La Jornada

English Translation: Machetera and Manuel Talens

Between February 24^th and March 11^th, 2009, the Ethics Commission Against the Crimes of State in Colombia carried out its sixth visit. This Commission is an initiative by international civil society, meant both to safeguard the victims’ collective memory and attend to their process of denunciation, resistance, and dignification, keeping in mind that “the voices of those silenced will be heard.”

On this occasion, besides accompanying the indigenous Embera people and Afro-descendants from the basin of the Jiguamiandó river in the First Peoples’ Consultation, and paying visits to the departments of Sucre and Putumayo, the Ethics Commission attended the “Meeting with relatives of extrajudicial execution victims in Colombia” that took place on March 5^th and 6^th, listening to multiple testimonies of extrajudicial executions — wrongly called “false positives” [1] — and analysis by organizations from the Movement of Victims of Crimes of State that accompany this process, with the objective of putting facts into context. As numerous relatives arrived from the different regions of the country they presented a highly representative panorama of a national situation.

Hundred of murders have been committed throughout the entire country following the pattern of forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions; both considered crimes against humanity committed by the State, mainly by members of the Colombian armed forces and/or their paramilitaries in a systematic and widespread manner. This serious violation began some time ago and has developed exponentially during President Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s terms of office, through the practice of the so-called “Democratic Security” policy and since the implementation of Plan Colombia, so that victims are presented as “combat losses” in order to receive economic rewards and enjoy both recognition and the promotions repeatedly offered by the very Commander in Chief of the Military Forces.

Machetera will see you now

Comments are back on again.

Try to keep them intelligible.  Violators of this simple rule will be referred back to this post.

Is there an echo in here?

Why yes…or actually, Da!  There does seem to be an echo, and by golly, it’s coming in Russian now.  Wait while Machetera puts on her Russian translating headset…

It seems that some guy named Nikolai Pakhomov, writing for Politikom, the website for the curiously named Russian Center for Political Technology, has the EXACT same theory as Jorge Castañeda about what went down with Felipe Pérez Roque and Carlos Lage.  He even starts the same way, saying that because nobody really knows what’s going on in Cuba, you just have to guess!

CASTAÑEDA: Will Raúl be able to pull off a rapprochement with Washington quickly enough to placate the restiveness his opponents (Carlos Lage, Felipe Pérez Roque and Hugo Chávez) could exploit?

PAKHOMOV: “In this case, the generals [Raúl & the rest] may prove to be not an obstacle to democratization but facilitators of reform. The next test for [the Cuban] regime will most likely be the forthcoming rapprochement with the United States.”

Coincidence?  You be the judge.

Machetera’s Russia correspondent, Anton Dech, says he’s never heard of Politikom and never reads it. “The site is not very interesting and has no distinct position,” he says.  But apparently the Miami Herald doesn’t see it that way.  They actually went to the trouble of digging this piece up and translating it (although Machetera fixed it so you could actually read it).  Anyway, that would put Politikom in a category with a whole bunch of other irrelevant National Endowment for Democracy websites, wouldn’t it?

Inside Jorge Castañeda’s feverish mind…

What in the hell is wrong with Jorge Castañeda?  Wait, you don’t have to answer that.  Machetera will tell you.  Basically, he can’t help himself.  Someone pays him to make shit up, and he complies.  There’s really not much more to it than that.  But just for fun, let’s take a look at his Newsweek article about the recent Cuban replacements of Carlos Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, respectively.  Did you know that it was all Hugo Chávez’s doing? See, according to Castañeda, Chávez doesn’t like Raúl (Castro) and so he and Lage and Pérez Roque were sneaking around to see how they might get rid of him.  Was it Chávez’s idea, or Lage’s?  Or Pérez Roque’s?  Who knows?!  It’s just made up shit!

Machetera will show you how it’s done with this free guided tour of Castañeda’s mind:

As we enter the scene, a dark and stormy night on New York’s Upper West Side, somewhere around 72nd Street, Castañeda is banging away on his keyboard, a half empty bottle of Rioja to his right, an overflowing ashtray to the left, and an empty pharmaceutical packet on the floor.  There’s an evil glitter in his eye. He takes a swig, then a deep breath, and pounds away:

The Conquest of the Body

Atenea Acevedo is a gifted writer and translator, and also Machetera’s friend.  I meant to translate this in time for International Women’s Day, a day for which I’ve never received the slightest acknowledgment in my own country, but a day that I remember fondly from the various times I’ve been lucky enough to spend it in Cuba – showered with heartfelt (and for me, completely unexpected) greetings from dawn to dusk.

The Conquest of the Body

Atenea Acevedo

English Translation: Machetera

The news about the return (or re-affirmation) of the practice of force-feeding 5 and 6 year old rural girls in fattening farms in Mauritania since the coup and imposition of a military junta last August, awakens at the least, a sense of alarm and international urgency.  Furthermore, it calls for reflection on the great pending issue of women’s rights as human beings: ownership of the body.

The main axes of feminine liberation have been organized along the distinction between public and private space.  The participation of women in public spaces is perhaps where the achievements of the feminist movement are most evident, although what tends to be ignored (often deliberately) is the complex and lengthy history that has led to a growing number of paid female workers; most still in precarious jobs, and some in powerful, decision-making positions.  In the history books we handled in school, those with pages full of pictures of uniformed heroes on horseback who brought and carried war throughout the planet, Marie Gouze and her Declaration of the Rights of Woman is missing. 

How about a little congris to go with that whine?

The blocked Cuban blogger is back.  Not Machetera, who for reasons she still can’t explain was confused some time back for a Cuban blogger — Machetera is a Unitedstatesian who is sometimes blocked by her refusal to loiter in Cuban hotels in order to connect to the Internet, and other times blocked for different reasons altogether.  No, as Machetera’s friend Walter Lippmann likes to say, we’re talking about Cuba’s “Whiner-in-Chief,” Yoani Sánchez, who’s made quite a profitable business out of letting the Cuban state take care of her children while she concentrates on writing poisonous articles about at least one of the hands that feeds them.

Today the Huffington Post posted an “exclusive” from Sánchez, with the provocative headline “What will happen to Cuba?  Will we become another Haiti? Another Athens?”

Don’t look for Sánchez to explain what she wants readers to infer from her headline (presumably that Haiti is hopeless and ancient Athens a model of enlightenment – ignoring the inconvenient fact that Athens was a society based on slavery and Haiti an example of the first successful slave revolution in history, for which it has been duly punished for more than 200 years).  Don’t look for an explanation because Sánchez is incapable of offering one.  As usual, she’s long on whine and short on substance.  Such as in her comment about Cuba’s revolutionary leaders: “The former rebels have become powerful old men and have dismantled, one by one, the civic paths that once enabled them to organize their victorious dream.”

As Walter also points out:

Excuse me, what “civic paths” were there? Zip, zilch, zero, nada. Cuba was a MILITARY DICTATORSHIP prior to the Cuban Revolution. There were no “civil paths” to power, which is why an armed revolutionary struggle was the only way to dislodge the dictatorship. Let’s not forget that the dictatorship was recognized by Washington days after it OVERTHREW the parliamentary democratic regime which preceded it. We could go on, but you catch the drift, right?

Yeah, we kinda do.